History Main / SomeNuttyPublicityStunt

* One MartianManhunter story involved a gigantic bear menacing the city. Someone in a crowd is not impressed, and says [[http://bullyscomics.blogspot.com/2013/06/bear-attack-month-day-12-manhunters.html "Relax... It's probably a publicity stunt for the circus!"]][[note]]''Detective Comics'' #306 (August 1962)[[/note]]

* ''The Beagles,'' a CBS cartoon from 1966 (made by Leonardo-TTV, the folks who gave us ''Underdog'') dealt with two impoverished musical canines, Stringer and Tubby, and the outrageous publicity stunt their agent Scotty puts them in.

* Franchise/WonderWoman provoked what may have been the first comic book appearance of this trope, in one of her earliest adventures. Stealing a car from some Axis agents, they start shooting at her. As Wonder Woman deflects the bullets of one bad guy's tommy gun (with one hand) while driving off, the other says "I saw her on the stage! Let her go, she's probably doing some publicity stunt!" Which shows you how they lost the war. (To be fair to the bad guys, Wonder Woman's first public appearance, in the previous story, ''was'' on the stage, showing off her "Bullets and Bracelets" trick.[[note]]''Sensation Comics'' #2 (1942)[[/note]]

* WonderWoman provoked what may have been the first comic book appearance of this trope, in one of her earliest adventures. Stealing a car from some Axis agents, they start shooting at her. As Wonder Woman deflects the bullets of one bad guy's tommy gun (with one hand) while driving off, the other says "I saw her on the stage! Let her go, she's probably doing some publicity stunt!" Which shows you how they lost the war. (To be fair to the bad guys, Wonder Woman's first public appearance, in the previous story, ''was'' on the stage, showing off her "Bullets and Bracelets" trick.[[note]]''Sensation Comics'' #2 (1942)[[/note]]
* Invoked ''extremely'' often in MarvelComics, particularly those written by StanLee. Bystanders who see fantastical superhero action inevitably exclaim "Ah, must be some publicity stunt!" or "They must be filming some nutty new sci-fi movie!" Curiously, this means the populace seems to think New York City is positively ''infested'' with publicists and filmmakers (TruthInTelevision?). Based on the sheer number of appearances, this might be Stan Lee's favorite trope.

* StanLee was using this trope as early as 1952, in the story "Skull-Face" (excerpted [[http://bullyscomics.blogspot.com/search/label/Skull-Face here]] by Bully the Little Stuffed Bull). It's the story of an inventive publicist for a horror movie called ''Skull-Face''. His plan is to "make the ''whole world'' 'Skull-Face' conscious!" And it works! [[GoneHorriblyRight A little too well]], actually, as the publicity campaign somehow revives or creates the "real" Skull-Face (perhaps in a variant of GodsNeedPrayerBadly?) Skull-Face attacks the publicist, who calls the police... who, knowing him, dismiss the call: "That guy'll do ''anything'' to get in the papers! Forget it!"[[note]]''Mystery Tales'' #6 (1952)[[/note]]

* Common in the DisneyDucksComicUniverse.

The inverse of YouJustRuinedTheShot, in which actors are mistaken for the real thing. See also AllPartOfTheShow, in which the strange events are thought to be part of some specific public performance as well as YourCostumeNeedsWork, which is when a person thinks a particular character is wearing a costume but isn't (includes everything from monsters to celebrities).

** After the first appearance (and then disappearance) of {{Galactus}}, this is J. Jonah Jameson's theory of the event. A bystander remarks, however, "''I've'' learned that the best thing to do is read Jameson's editorials and then believe exactly the ''opposite''!"[[note]]''Fantastic Four'' #50 (1966)[[/note]]
** One bystander reacts to the first appearance of Comicbook/MsMarvel by saying "It's an act! A publicity stunt! Like that gag at the World Trade Center with the styrofoam KingKong!" Ms. Marvel's thought balloon lampshades the trope a bit: "Can she believe that? Are people really so cynical -- or is such an attitude peculiar to New York?"[[note]]''Ms. Marvel'' #1 (1977)[[/note]]

[[folder:LiveActionTV]]

* Considered the go-to standard rationalization for normal humans in ''TabletopGame/TheWorldOfDarkness'' setting.

[[folder:WesternAnimation]]
* In one ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales'' cartoon, the police refuse to help Uncle Scrooge get KingKong off his money bin. Instead they give him "one hour to remove that unauthorized balloon ad or whatever it is."

* A first season episode of ''Anime/{{Digimon}}'' uses this, when one of the kids falls into the river and his digimon has to save him and the crowd from an evil squid-digimon.

** One bystander reacts to the first appearance of Comicbook/MsMarvel saying "It's an act! A publicity stunt! Like that gag at the World Trade Center with the styrofoam KingKong!" Ms. Marvel's thought balloon lampshades the trope a bit: "Can she believe that? Are people really so cynical -- or is such an attitude peculiar to New York?"[[note]]''Ms. Marvel'' #1 (1977)[[/note]]

** After the first appearance (and then disappearance) of {{Galactus}}, this is J. Jonah Jameson's theory of the event. A bystander remarks, however, "''I've'' learned that the best thing to do is read Jameson's editorials and then believe exactly the ''opposite''!"
** One bystander reacts to the first appearance of Comicbook/MsMarvel saying "It's an act! A publicity stunt! Like that gag at the World Trade Center with the styrofoam KingKong!" Ms. Marvel's thought balloon lampshades the trope a bit: "Can she believe that? Are people really so cynical -- or is such an attitude peculiar to New York?"

** Used and inverted in the first appearance of {{Galactus}}. This is J. Jonah Jameson's theory on the weird goings-on, but a bystander remarks that to know what's really happening, you read JJJ's theory and believe the exact opposite.

[[folder:RealLife]]
* During the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Aurora_shootings Century 16 massacre]] in Aurora, Colorado, where a man shot up a movie theater during the midnight premiere of ''[[Film/TheDarkKnightSaga The Dark Knight Rises]]'', many moviegoers initially thought it was a stunt pulled by the theater to promote the film. It didn't help that the shooting took place in the middle of a battle scene.
[[/folder]]

* Invoked ''extremely'' often in MarvelComics, particularly those written by StanLee. Bystanders who see fantastical superhero action inevitably exclaim "Ah, must be some publicity stunt!" or "They must be filming some nutty new sci-fi movie!" Curiously, this means the populace seems to think New York City is positively ''infested'' with publicists and filmmakers (TruthInTelevision?). Based on the sheer number of appearances, this might be Stan Lee's favorite trope.

The inverse of YouJustRuinedTheShot, in which actors are mistaken for the real thing. See also AllPartOfTheShow, in which the strange events are thought to be part of some specific public performance.

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/NuttyPublicityStunt_8946.jpg]]

* Used more than once in ''MahouSenseiNegima'', both in the Magical World and during the Mahora Festival.
* In ''DragonballZ'' the characters once were GenreSavvy enough about this trope, so they summoned Porunga in the middle of a city, knowing that most people would just assume it was some experimental hologram from Bulma's MadScientist dad.
* Used briefly in ''TurnAGundam''. When Queen Dianna unseals The Dark History, huge holograms showing the wars of past eras pop up in cities across the Moon, causing confusion and panic in the citizens. Except for the FatBastard leader of the GoldfishPoopGang, who just glances at the holograms and goes "Eh, most be some sort of movie-promotion." His team eventually manages to convince him otherwise...
* A first season episode of ''{{Digimon}}'' uses this, when one of the kids falls into the river and his digimon has to save him and the crowd from an evil squid-digimon.

* Considered the go-to standard rationalization for normal humans in the WorldOfDarkness setting.

* In one ''DuckTales'' cartoon, the police refuse to help Uncle Scrooge get KingKong off his money bin. Instead they give him "one hour to remove that unauthorized balloon ad or whatever it is."

* In ''DragonballZ'' the characters once were GenreSavvy enough about this trope, so they summoned Shen Long in the middle of a city, knowing that most people would just assume it was some experimental hologram from Bulma's MadScientist dad.

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* Considered the go-to standard rationalization for normal humans in the WorldOfDarkness setting.

Frequently observed as an aspect of living in a CityOfWeirdos. Occasionally may be intentionally invoked by characters as a way of maintaining TheMasquerade, but in most cases, people don't need any "help" to dismiss the weird stuff.

* Common in DonaldDuck comics.

Sister trope to IsThisAJoke, but in that trope, the character believes the strange events to be a joke ''directed specifically at her'', or perhaps at a smallish group of people. The events in Some Nutty Publicity Stunt are usually too widespread, elaborate, or large to be written off as mere pranks.

UpForGrabs

If aliens are marching into Times Square, or a garishly-costumed superhero is fighting a bad guy atop the Empire State Building, most onlookers will take the event at face value. But others, even if they live in a world where strange things are known to happen on a regular basis, will dismiss it as "some nutty publicity stunt," an advertising campaign, or perhaps location filming for a science-fiction movie.

Frequently observed as an aspect of living in a CityOfWeirdos. Often seen in comic books, particularly the work of StanLee.