History Main / ItWasHereISwear

* BigStore: Special case of this trope; a facade of a business set up specifically to trick someone.

* In the movie ''Film/TheGame'', Nicholas Van Orton is sick of being toyed with by CRS. He calls the cops into their offices, but there's [[BigStore nothing there]]. [[spoiler: CRS own the whole building and move their offices about for exactly this reason.]]

** Parodied in an episode of "Grift of the Magi", where Homer displays an unusual level of [[GenreSavvy trope awareness]]:

** Used in the episode "Hungry, Hungry Homer", where the Springfield Isotopes' owner removes the evidence from his office closet. [[LosingHorns Just a trombone player giving him an appropriate flat note.]]
** Subverted in another episode, along with TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday. When the family asks Homer where he got a cursed monkey paw, he says "I got it from that stall that was right over... there..?", realizing he's pointing to a empty alleyway on the last syllable. Then, the camera pans, showing the stall, and Homer continues "Oh wait, ''there'' it is."
--->''"You'll be sorry!"''

* There is a Warner Bros cartoon whose name I don't remember where the trope is inverted. A woman is going out to do errands. She pulls up to a meter, puts money in, and goes into the bank, where there are long lines. She tries the shorter loine, but the customers are disappearing from nthe other line, so she jumps to it, whereupon she's the next customer in line. An old lady in front of her is making a deposit. "I'd like to deposit fifty dollars in pennies, please. One, two, three..." Meanwhile the other line starts moving, and it's empty, so she tries to jump to it but another customer gets in first. "I'd like to deposit a hundred dollars in pennies. One, two, three..." Menwhile, outside, the Public Works Department decides to remove the parking meter and replace it with a fire hydrant. By the time the woman comes out, a cop is standing in front of her car, a foot balanced on the hydrant as he's writing her a ticket. She comes up to him, and says, "But officer, honestly, that wasn't here when I parked!"

* There is a Warner Bros cartoon whose name I don't remember where the trope is inverted. A woman is going out to do errands. She pulls up to a meter, puts money in, and goes into the bank, where there are long lines. She tries the shorter loine, but the customers are disappearing from nthe other line, so she jumps to it, whereupon she's the next customer in line. An old lady in front of her is making a deposit. "I'd like to deposit fifty dollars in pennies, please. One, two, three..." Meanwhile the other line starts moving, and it's empty, so she tries to jump to it but another customer gets in first. "I'd like to deposit a hundred dollars in pennies. One, two, three..." Menwhile, outside, the Public Works Department decides to remove the parking meter and replace it with a fire hydrant. By the time the woman comes out, a cop is standing in front of her car, a foot balanced on the hydrant as he's writing her a ticket. She comes up to him, and says, "But officer, tht wasn't here when I parked!"

* Inverted in a cartoon where a woman is having a really bad day, and has to drive to the bank to get money (this was back before Automatic Teller Machines). She parks on the street out front, goes in and is standing in line, when the customer in front of her says, "I'd like to deposit $200 in pennies. One, Two..." as the line next to her moves forward. So she switches to that line when the person in front of her wants to deposit ''$300'' in pennies, one at a time. Meanwhile, outside, the Department of Public Works decides to install a fire hydrant at the space right in front of her car. So she comes out to find a police officer writing her a ticket for parking in front of a fire hydrant. She pleads with the officer, by saying, "But officer, it wasn't here when I parked!"

* Averted in [[Creator/{{Netflix}} Netflix's]] ''Diablero''. Keta, a santera, is [[spoiler: kidnapped by a mysterious man]]. When she brings her brother Elvis (the titular demon-hunter) to the house where it happened, there's nothing there, and Keta, upset, says she's not crazy. Elvis says he doesn't think she's crazy and completely believes her--in fact, he's ''more'' worried by the total lack of evidence, because it means whoever they're up against has the resources to make everything vanish overnight, which is not good for them.

If the witness hadn't told the other person anything except [[NeverGiveTheCaptainAStraightAnswer "You've got to see this"]], then -- after some moments of wide-eyed bewilderment -- he may be reluctant to inform them of what he had really seen, for fear of appearing crazy or dishonest; he'll just say "trick of the light, I guess; sorry". The cleaned-up room may contain some mildly interesting thing that wasn't there before, leading the authority character to say "You rushed me here to see a ''butterfly''?", or "Um, that's not a vampire, it's a picture of one."

* ''Disney/{{Zootopia}}'': Happens when Judy tries to bring the police to the [[spoiler:feral Manchas after she'd cuffed him to a post.]]

* Happens in ''Series/DayBreak'', when Hopper wants to show the police the dead body in the bath tub above his apartment. It's gone by the time they get there.

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]

* In the ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' episode "Something Blue", Spike returns to the secret door in the college lawn where he escaped from the Initiative, but there's no sign of any door. His desperate attempts to tear apart the grass yields no results.

* ''Disney/{{Zootopia}}'': Happens when Judy tries to bring the police to the [[spoiler: feral Manchas after she'd cuffed him to a post.]]

* ''Film/TheThing2011''. The female protagonist realises that the alien shapeshifter can assimilate human beings when she finds blood and metal tooth fillings in the shower. She runs to warn the crew of a helicopter that's returning to civilization. The alien is forced to quickly assimilate them, causing the helicopter to crash. When she returns to the shower stall however, it's been cleaned up. While this removes the evidence, it [[RevealingCoverUp also tells her that the Thing is still among them, and wasn't just on the helicopter]].

* Used in ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' when attempting to locate the headquarters of the Dai Li. The Dai Li destroy the main tunnel to their base, an easy job seeing as they're all [[DishingOutDirt earthbenders.]] It appears they also flooded their whole base at some point, since in ''WesterAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' it's completely full of water.

* ''Series/{{Merlin}}''

* In the movie ''Film/TheGame'', Nicolas Van Orton is sick of being toyed with by CRS. He calls the cops into their offices, but there's nothing there. [[spoiler: CRS own the whole building and move their offices about for exactly this reason.]]

* Repeatedly subverted in ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' episode "In Your Footsteps". Each time the bear does something strange, Finn acts like this trope is in effect, only for it to turn out everyone already believes him.