History Main / SnowballLie

An InventedIndividual is a Snowball Lie based around a fictional person.

* In the 1980s TV Show ''Series/ItsYourMove'', Matt, a junior-high school student, is supposed to arrange for a band for his school, only his not-too-bright friend Ely not only loses the ATM card with the money, he posts the pin number on a bulletin board asking for anyone to return the card. Since the money they would have had to pay the band is gone, and the kids at school would tear the two of them apart if no band was present, him and his friend set up a fake punk-rock band called ''The Dregs of Humanity'' consisting of a bunch of skeletons on wires on a darkened stage and a recording he created. This works, a reporter gets an interview with the group (not knowing that he's actually talking to a kid doing the voices of skeletons manipulated by wires) that he sells to a magazine, and it ends up that other groups want to book the now famous band into multiple locations, and pay them huge booking fees. This sounds great until various groups threaten suit, claiming that ''The Dregs of Humanity'' had committed various acts of mopery and dopery including plagiarizing songs, trashing hotel rooms around the country, and getting a girl pregnant.

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* Series/SchittsCreek: Although all the Roses do it now and again, Alexis often lies to spare herself or others embarrassment. She usually means well, but it often escalates into far worse embarrassment. She lies about a “client” at the vets office having lice and about having kept mementos from her relationship with Ted, among many other times.

* In ''Comic/{{Noob}}'', [[spoiler:Master Zen]] framing Gaea for having done something that greatly hurt the Empire (her own faction) and gave an advantage to the Coalition became this. The event in question caused the foundation of the Guild of Gaea Admirers, who are convinced Gaea is a DoubleAgent, in the Coalition. While not a DoubleAgent, Gaea ''is'' a ManipulativeBitch and went SureLetsGoWithThat on the story because it gave her nice set of minions. The minions in question end up protecting Gaea from being hurt by the character who framed her in the first place. [[spoiler:Master Zen]], having figured out what happened, tried to tell the minions that Gaea had lied to them and he was the one who actually committed the act for which they praise her, only to get a CassandraTruth moment.

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* Fanfic/PrincessCelestiaHatesTea: Celestia lied to Luna that she enjoyed the Tea Brewer she gifted her with, in order to spare her feelings. The problem? That was a few thousand years ago, and as an immortal PhysicalGod, Celestia has had millenia to continue drinking all the tea her loving subjects have been giving her, even though she still can't stand the stuff. It's safe to say it causes an avalanche instead of a snowball when she reveals she does not, in fact, enjoy tea.
* In ''FanFic/TheDarknessSeries'' Harry's lies are not always consistent but [[ManipulativeBastard he always has another lie for why he lied in the first place.]]
* ''Fanfic/BlackSky'': Because of Sirius using ExactWords under Veritaserum, the Wizarding Britain is left under the impression the Potters never had a child, meaning that Dumbledore's declaration of Rose Potter as the Girl-Who-Lived and future Light icon [[HoistByHisOwnPetard comes to bite him in the buttocks.]]

** "Lying Around The House" has the girls causing an entity to keep growing each time they tell a lie (doing their chores, eating their dinner, etc.) until it grows to an uncontrollable monster size. They are only able to defeat it by telling the truth, thus causing the monster to shrink until it disappears. (Similarly done an an earlier comic book story, issue #21's "Big Fish Story.")

* The entire premise behind the Creator/RobertAHeinlein book ''Literature/DoubleStar''. An actor is hired to impersonate a very well-known political figure who has been kidnapped. The reason for this is that the man is about to partake in a very important Martian adoption ritual. Due to OrangeAndBlueMorality, the Martians wouldn't accept ''anything'' short of the man's death as being a valid excuse for not appearing on time, and the repercussions for non-attendance could escalate into outright war. In each chapter, the lies pile up, forcing the actor, the politician's staff, and eventually even the politician himself to help maintain the lie. [[spoiler: Unlike other examples, in this case the lie is never revealed, despite the actor almost getting caught out once in public, and actually being caught out by the Emperor himself. The book ends with the actor talking about how he's been playing the part for twenty years now, and has now essentially [[BecomingTheMask become the politician.]] He even remembers the politician's youth more vividly than his own.]]

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* In ''AudioPlay/ThirtySixQuestions'', Judith only intended that have a fake identity for the span of "one cup of coffee"... only to end up continuing as it was "Too late to backpedal, too good not to keep going".
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--->'''Ralph Wiggum:''' I saw Principal Skinner and Mrs. Krabappel in the closet and they were making babies and I saw one of the babies and the baby looked at me.

* In Disney's "Disney/BraveLittleTailor", Mickey's misadventures start when he brags about killing seven flies with one swipe, but the time the King hears about it, it has become "killing seven ''giants'' in one stroke". Played with in that Mickey himself didn't lie, but the way he phrased it ("I killed seven in one blow!") eventually led to everyone assuming he was referring to giants.

* ''The Emperor's New Clothes'' by Creator/HansChristianAndersen.

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* In ''Film/EasyA'', Creator/EmmaStone's character lies to her best friend that she has a date to get out of spending the weekend with the latter's nudist parents. The friend immediately assumes sex was involved, and the conversation is overheard by an uber-Christian girl who makes it her mission to turn everyone in school righteous. Instead of stopping the rumors, the protagonist chooses to perpetuate them, as it makes her insanely popular in school... at first.

* The entire plot of the Danish movie ''Film/TheHunt'' revolves around this. A preschool teacher inadvertently hurts the feelings of one of the kids, and in a moment of rage the child unwittingly implies to one of his colleagues [[FalseRapeAccusation that he sexually abused her]]. As the rumor spreads, the child is quick to deny it, but is ironically not believed by the adults. The lie takes on a life of its own, and [[PaedoHunt shit goes down]]. [[spoiler: Even after the lie is proven wrong both in court and by the girl's parents, the preschool teacher is still being harassed years later and can never truly be safe.]]

* Commissar Literature/CiaphasCain [[UnreliableNarrator claims]] that his entire career as a '''Hero of the Imperium!''' is based on one of these. On one early assignment he figured out the world he was stationed on was being attacked by [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Tyranids]], tried to ditch his unit and flee, ran into the swarm's vanguard, and in the process of running away from that, happened to save his adjutant and inadvertently lead the Tyranids into a spot they could be blown apart by the soldiers he'd been willing to abandon. Since that encounter, Cain has been given assignment after assignment where his attempts to find credible excuses to stay out of the worst of the fighting have led him to accidentally save the day and increase his heroic reputation even further. An {{alternative|character interpretation}} reading is that Cain has such HeroicSelfDeprecation that he is incapable of giving himself credit for his genuinely heroic deeds, even if he was terrified while committing them.

* ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'' had Al forced into this when his initial lie about going ice fishing is disproven by his friends showing up in [[SerialEscalation increasingly outlandish attire]] to cover their true goal of going to the TV station to protest the cancellation of "Psycho Dad". Jefferson is kitted as a hunter, Griff as a skier, Ike as a camper, Bob Rooney as a ''Scuba Diver'', and Officer Dan '''as a Native American'''.

* In the obscure 2005 Creator/RobinWilliams film ''The Big White'', he plays a man in Alaska with a mentally ill wife and they're on the brink of bankruptcy. He finds a corpse in a dumpster and passes it off as his long-lost brother to get an insurance claim. But he's hounded by an investigator who knows something's up, and he has to pile on lie upon lie. And just when he thinks he's gotten away with it, the two men who dumped the corpse want it back, and the real long-lost brother shows up.

* The entire plot of the Danish movie ''Film/TheHunt'' revolves around this. A preschool teacher inadvertently hurts the feelings of one of the kids, and in a moment of rage the child unwittingly implies to one of his colleagues [[FalseRapeAccusation that he sexually abused her]]. As the rumor spreads, the child is quick to deny it, but is ironically not believed by the adults. The lie takes on a life of its own, and [[PaedoHunt shit goes down]].

* ''Film/TrueConfession's main plot revolves around Helen's copious lies, and the big one that gets her into trouble.

* ''Anime/{{Sarazanmai}}'': Kazuki pretends to be the idol Sara Azuma via texts with his brother Haruka in order to connect with him, and takes selfies where he crossdresses as her. His friends find out, and it becomes harder and harder to keep the secret from Haruka. When Sara comes to his neighborhood to do a fan visit, Kazuki enlists his friends in an elaborate scheme to maintain the lie that involves kidnapping the real Sara and impersonating her in front of a large crowd. [[spoiler: It fails, and his secret is revealedin front of everyone.]]

* In the ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' 4th season episode "The Two Mrs. Cranes", Daphne lies to an old boyfriend who wants to get back with her by pretending to be married to Niles. Things spiral from there, so Frasier ends up being divorced from 'Maris', whom Roz takes the role of when she happens to stop by the apartment. And then Daphne decides that the old boyfriend isn't so bad after all, but Niles isn't keen to give up playing the doting husband, and Roz has also taken a shine to him, which means that the two women spend most of the evening making up ever more ludicrously horrible stories about each other to put the boyfriend off, until Roz ends up being an alcoholic anorexic and Daphne is pregnant. And then to really complicate things, Martin gets involved and to really piss everyone off starts spinning yarns about how he used to be an astronaut. And the boyfriend ''believes every single word they tell him'', no matter how ludicrous, and ends up shooting down Roz and Daphne because he believes them to be utterly horrible women who are stupid enough to shamelessly flirt with him in front of their 'husbands'. And then it's capped with the perfect line from Frasier:
-->'''Daphne''': Really, we're not the awful people you think we are!
-->'''Frasier:''' No, the truth is ''we've been lying to you all night''!

* In Creator/AlfredHitchcock's ''Creator/NorthByNorthwest'', the main character runs into trouble when [[spoiler:enemies of the US mistake him for the fake person created by the CIA to throw their attention off the trail of the real CIA agents]].

* ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'' had Al forced into this when his initial lie about going ice fishing is disproven by his friends showing up in [[SerialEscalation increasingly outlandish attire]] to cover their true goal of going to the TV station to protest the cancellation of "Psycho Dad". Jefferson is kitted as a hunter, Griff as a skier, Ike as a camper, Bob Rooney as a ''Scuba Diver'', and Officer Dan '''as a Native American'''.

* ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'' had Al forced into this when his initial lie about going ice fishing is disproven by his friends showing up in [[SerialEscalation increasingly outlandish attire]] to cover their true goal of going to the TV station to protest the cancellation of "Psycho Dad".