History Main / FakeOutOpening

* The opening for ''Film/{{Ghost}}'' is a lot spookier than the rest of the film.

* ''A Space Shooter Two Bucks!'' has a lengthy intro cutscene about a weak student who has trouble with a bully. He trains to be strong enough to fight against the bully. When he's ready to fight, the bully knocks him out, the bully joins the space corps, and you play the game as the bully.

* Played with in Music/{{Pendulum}}'s song "Blood Sugar", which starts with a spoken-word intro from Jon Briggs (yes, the voice of Siri) proclaiming that what you're about to hear isn't a drum-and-bass song as promised, but "the sonic recreation of [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the end of the world]]". The song then segues into a typical Pendulum intro, forcing Briggs to admit, "Okay, [[PrecisionFStrike fuck it]]. ILied. It's drum-and-bass. Whatcha gonna do?" right before the drop.

See also BaitAndSwitchCredits, TrailerSpoof, FakeActionPrologue, ActionHoggingOpening and NonIndicativeFirstEpisode.

** Tex doesn't waste time in "Batty Baseball". It opens with the title card, then a good 20 seconds of cartoon mayhem on the baseball diamond, before one of the characters stops everything and demands to know what happened to the MGM lion opening. The narrator apologizes and the MGM lion titles are shown.

* The trailer for ''[[http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/disney/greenwithenvy/ Green with Envy]]'', aka ''Film/TheMuppets'', is played like this.

* ''Film/{{Witness}}'' starts out at a funeral with a group of people in Puritanesque clothing going to a very historical-looking farmhouse, making it seem like a period piece drama. Unfortunately, [[ExecutiveMeddling the effect was ruined]] by the studio slapping a big fat "[[ViewersAreMorons Pennsylvania, 1984]]" title card onto the screen so audiences wouldn't get confused. It's still somewhat easy to tell when you notice that all the horsedrawn carriages [[FreezeFrameBonus have bicycle reflectors.]]

* The Ruby-Spears ''WesternAnimation/MegaMan'' show had one in the episode "Electric Nightmare". Megaman is battling Wily's robots and winning...until electrical cables get wrapped around him and fry him. Megaman dead. Or not; in an interesting variation of the trope, it was Wily doing a run-through of his latest scheme with action figures.

* ''ComicBook/{{Shakara}}'': The comic opens with the last survivor of the human race, an astronaut from the International Space Station named {{Major|lyAwesome}} [[AwesomeMcCoolname Thorn]], narrating how the Earth was swallowed up by a HordeOfAlienLocusts that came out of nowhere. This clearly sets up a human-centered AfterTheEnd scenario where the plucky wisecracking hero possibly becomes a wandering warrior or freedom figher against the evil Empire and ultimately proves that HumansAreSpecial. He's [[DecoyProtagonist unceremoniously killed off]] not two pages later, as the plot shifts to its ''real'' story: the war between the KillerRobot Shakara and the AlwaysChaoticEvil Hierarchy.

** In his early years at MGM, Creator/TexAvery set up cartoons like "WesternAnimation/ScrewballSquirrel" and "WesternAnimation/RedHotRidingHood" by opening them in the overly saccharine storybook style that had been the studio's stock in trade -- before going utterly crazy.

* The first 10 minutes of ''Anime/RingingBell'' starts off as a cheerful movie about the adventures of a [[SweetSheep cute little lamb.]]

* The all-marionette film ''Film/TeamAmericaWorldPolice'' opens with a poorly-controlled marionette against a crudely painted flat backdrop. After a few moments, the camera pulls back, revealing that this puppet show is just a ShowWithinAShow for the real setting, which is much more elaborate. Trey Parker and Matt Stone did this as [[BitingTheHandHumor a joke to freak out investors]] who had sunk a lot of money into the film.

* ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'': The WebAnimation/StrongBadEmail "[[Recap/StrongBadEmailE151SeniorProm senior prom]]" starts with an intro for "The King of Town's Very Own Quite Popular Cartoon Show", which is quickly interrupted by an announcement that it's being pre-empted for the Strong Bad Email, "already in progress".

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Frankenweenie}}'' is a non-drawn animated film (stop-motion specifically) that jokingly start with a badly-animated scene of a home-made sci-fi short made by the main character, and the actual film has much higher production values.

-->'''Randall (the zombie):''' [[http://www.cc.com/video-clips/a9dcet/ugly-americans-the-demon-chick "Oh my god, you still banging that demon chick? I thought somebody was getting murdered in here last night."]]''

* The movie ''Film/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' begins with a catchy number sung by dolphins, [[LyricalDissonance although about Earth's impending destruction]].

* ''Film/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'' (2004) opens with a TastesLikeDiabetes musical stop-motion animation about a happy little elf, which is fortunately stopped cold by Jude Law's first voice-over.

** Episode 12 from Series 2 ("Spam") opens with authentic-looking full titles and OpeningScroll for an 18th-century pirate movie called ''The Black Eagle''. The movie plays for a few moments before its characters walk by John Cleese at his announcer's desk. "And Now for SomethingCompletelyDifferent."

* FantasticVermin: "Street mutants” are colorful geckos with cat fur and ears. They coexist alongside rats with glowing eyes.

* ''Film/XMenFirstClass'' begins at a Nazi Concentration camp in the 1940s, showing Magneto's childhood.

* ''Film/{{Help}}'': The ColdOpen in which the cult is about to sacrifice the woman to ''Kalili''. It's this cool, solemn, proto-''Franchise/IndianaJones''-like bit with elaborate CostumePorn... [[MoodWhiplash but then the ring's discovered to be missing... cue the Beatles singing '"Help!"....]]

* The first episode of the Creator/TeamFourStar version of ''WebVideo/HellsingUltimateAbridged'' starts with a bit that seems to show it as an abridgement of ''Anime/OnePiece''. Adding onto the joke, the group had repeatedly teased that ''One Piece'' was going to be the special project... and then 20 seconds in it cuts to a blood covered room full of corpses, Alucard shooting Edward from ''Twilight'' 37 times, and the psychopathic fun begins.

** The anime follows suit, dating all the way back to its AprilFoolsDay announcement using ''Girldrop'' instead of ''Pop Team'' to clue the viewers in and having Popuko tear through ''the announcement site'' the day after. The first episode even starts off with ''Hoshiiro Girldrop''. After the intro and title card, however, Popuko rips through it [[RuleOfThree once again]], shouts "Not!" and the real, [[WidgetSeries considerably weirder]], show starts. Strangely, the "Next Episode" segments at the very end of each episode are still for fictional episodes of ''Hoshiiro Girldrop''.

** ''WebAnimation/BattleForBFDI'' has another "Battle For Nothing"episode with all dead and eliminated contestants missing., when the contestants realize the that Four has the prize, The BFDI.

%%* Something similar occurs in ''WesternAnimation/HappyFeet''.

* Issue 34 of the first volume of ''ComicBook/WhatIf'' opens with the Watcher preparing to tell another story -- only for a DensierAndWackier Uatu to interrupt and reveal the issue will likewise by silly.

NestedStoryReveal See also BaitAndSwitchCredits, TrailerSpoof, FakeActionPrologue, ActionHoggingOpening and NonIndicativeFirstEpisode.