Forged Message

Seems legit.

This is what happens when a character tricks another character by writing a letter and signing it under a different name. Sometimes, the real writer's own handwriting was recognized, making the letter a big lie to the reader.

In more recent media, it may take the form of an e-mail or text message. A specific subtrope is Never Sent Any Letters, when someone realizes that their communications have been forged, generally over a long period of time.

These can be used in a Batman Gambit, as they are usually written with the expectation that the recipient will react in a certain way. Quite often they can be used to lure someone into a trap. Other times they may be used to arrange meetings between people by a third party. They may also be used by well-meaning people in a Feud Episode to end a fight between others by sending a letter of apology on their behalf. How successful this can be varies.

Alternatively, this can be Played for Laughs with a message faked so ineptly that only a complete idiot would fall for it (though it may succeed if the recipient is indeed a complete idiot).

This can overlap with Impeded Communication.

WARNING: Unmarked spoilers ahead.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Boruto and his friends once tried getting out of school by having Mitsuki forge an absence excuse note to their teachers. Being somewhat Literal-Minded, Mistuki failed to make the notes convincing in any way, the cincher being that he added a fake cough to them.
• Candy♡Candy has Eliza writing a fake letter from Candy to Terry, and another from Terry to Candy, telling them to meet outside their Boarding School's dorms at night. They both fall for it and go there, despite knowing that the very strict school punishes such things with expulsion...
• In El Hazard's first episode, Makoto walks blindly into a trap, after receiving a love letter from his childhood crush, Nanami, asking him to meet her alone, after school. In truth, the letter was from her brother, Jinnai, who reveals it was one of several, from her ample collection of 'practice notes'. At which point, Makoto correctly guesses she had written them as part of a 'creative writting' assignment.
• An episode of Maple Town dealt with the town mayor, Dandy Lion, making himself sick over not getting an answer from a letter he sent to his estranged daughter. Patty Rabbit and her big sister, Rachel, write their own letter (writing it as if the mayor's daughter sent it) and send it to Mayor Lion in order to make him feel better.
• Pokémon: The Original Series: In "Wherefore Art Thou, Pokemon?", two young Trainers, Emily and Ralph, hate each other even though the Nidorans they own are in love with each other. Misty schemes to write Emily and Ralph each a letter supposedly from each other so that they will fall in love too.
  Ash: But, couldn't you get arrested for mail fraud?
• Ranma ½: In anime episode "Genma Takes a Walk", one of the pushes to end the petty fight between his and Akane's fathers is Ranma having written a pair of insulting letters of challenge on behalf of both parties to each other, off-screen. Akane realizes this on-screen, while enraged fathers fall for it not without throwing in some remarks about their opponent's bad handwriting etc.
• In Snow White with the Red Hair, Lord Haruka drafts a royal order to prevent Shirayuki from entering the castle grounds. Too bad for him she'd already entered by then and overheard the guards at the gate being told the new order which she knows immediately is a fake.

CCGs

• In the CCG spinnoff of BattleTech, there was a card called Forged Mission Orders that could be used to remove an opponent's mech from a battle.

Comic Books

• Star Trek: Early Voyages: In "The Flat, Gold Forever", using pirated Starfleet codes and a computer simulacrum, Commander Kaaj sends a message to the Enterprise supposedly from Captain Pike's godfather Admiral Mahirn telling him that he had to return to Earth immediately as his father Admiral Josh Pike was gravely ill. When Pike left the Enterprise in the shuttle Icarus, Kaaj opened fire and it crashed on the Federation colony Prairie. The Enterprise learned of the deception when the real Admiral Mahirn contacted them several hours later and told them that he had sent no message and that Josh Pike was perfectly healthy.
• The Trigan Empire. Our hero has an Idiot Ball when he falls for a message urging him to Come Alone to a secret rendezvous where he can be kidnapped. Turns out the Villain of the Week has just hired a master forger as apparently the leader of the Trigan Empire doesn't use secret codes or a Trust Password.
• W.I.T.C.H.: When Matt gets sucked into a magic book, leaving the girls to try and cover up his disappearance, which includes writing an e-mail to a friend using his e-mail account, which they gained access to by guessing that his password was Will's name. Peter, the one they send it to, realizes something is off, since usually Matt's e-mails are full of typos, and this one, written by Cornelia, was not.
• Wonder Woman Vol 1: A pair of forged letters (and a few shipping containers packed full of kidnapped humans) form the core of Eviless' plan to frame Ambassador Dendum as a slaver and start a war between the US and Saturn by making it look as though the accords they'd come to that outlawed human slavery were not being followed.

Comic Strips

• Calvin and Hobbes:
  • Calvin attempts to leave school using a forged note signed by the President ("P.S.: Really."). Naturally, this fails.
  • In a wintertime Sunday Strip, Hobbes delivers Calvin a letter apparently written by Santa Claus. It begins by calling Calvin a "rotten little kid" and tells him he has seven days to put himself back on the "good boy" list. Calvin, terrified, reads through the suggestion that he start by being kind to animals, giving them snacks and letting them read his comic books. However, his trust in the letter turns to incredulity and then rage when he sees that it's signed "Santa Claws", and he suddenly recognizes the handwriting as that of the tiger standing next to him all too smugly.
    Hobbes (sticking out his tongue): Well, it's what Santa would've written if he wasn't so busy now.
• FoxTrot: Paige once attempted to get out of gym class by faking a note from her dad. The plan failed when the P.E. teacher questioned why a middle-aged man would dot the "i"s of his note with little hearts.
• In one Knights of the Dinner Table story, Nitro Ferguson gets revenge on Bob by sending him a fake invitation to a LARP event at Hawg Wallers. Just as Nitro expected, Bob's big mouth quickly gets him beaten up by the bar's rough-and-tumble clientele.

Fan Works

• Fractured Fates: The culprit of Chapter 2 does this twice, with the second time being completely unplanned:
  • The first (planned) note the killer wrote was to their target, Asuna, under the name of her closest friend, Kaneki, to lure her into the South Wing's storage room at nighttime. However, the killer didn't plan on Asuna asking Kaneki about the note directly, causing Kaneki to find out about the murder plan and decide to head up to storage room that night in Asuna's place.
  • This leads to the culprit killing her instead of their planned target, which is what forces the killer to write the second (unplanned) note to cover up their crime. It has the exact same content as the first note, except the names have switched places, making it look like Asuna was the one who told Kaneki to head to the storage room the night of the murder.
• Past Sins: Glimpses 2: "Day": Helia can forge Twilight's signature, and she used it to fake a name change, to something else, possibly Dyx.
• In The Peace Not Promised, Susan is so desperate for the attention of Sebastian Urquart that when she receives a Valentine purporting to be from Urquart and inviting her to a rendezvous after lunch, she ignores her friends' warnings about the handwriting on the Valentine being wrong, as well as ignoring the string of prior rejections. Fortunately for her, it was nothing more nefarious than a rival who is actually interested in her, but who couldn't get her attention when she was fixated on Urquart.

Film — Animated

• Mulan: Mushu gets Mulan's force into the war by having Cri-Kee write a fake letter from the general urgently ordering the new recruits into action. However, that message turns out to be desperately true: the village to which they arrive at has been sacked by the Huns, leaving no one alive — not even the General — among the civilians or the Army.

Film — Live-Action

• In Amélie, one of Amelie's neighbor is bitter that her husband left her for another woman, then died in a plane crash. So Amelie creates a fake letter to convince the neighbor that the husband wanted to reconcile with her, had left his mistress, and was on his way home when the plane crashed.
• This is the basis of the plot in Dear Evan Hansen. Connor stole a printed-out email from Evan, and ultimately commited suicide. Evan then forges new emails to make it seem like he and Conor were friends.
• The Four Musketeers (1974). Milady send d'Artagnan a case of poisoned wine along with a letter supposedly from Athos, Porthos and Aramis. Luckily d'Artagnan decides to find them first before drinking the wine.
• In Neighbors (2014), the protagonists live next to a frat house which is one strike away from being expelled from their college. The protagonists wait for the fraternity to cause more trouble so they can report them, but they refuse to have any additional parties. The protagonists forge a letter from their college convincing them they are off probation, causing the fraternity to receive a third strike.
• In Red Riding Hood, Valerie's sister is tricked outside at night by the wolf when he forges a letter from the boy she's in love with.
• Screamers. A message is sent from the enemy requesting peace negotiations, so the Alliance soldiers call headquarters back on Earth for instructions. A holographic image of their leader tells them not to accept the offer as negotiations back on Earth are at a crucial stage. Then a troop transport crashlands on the planet, and the Sole Survivor reveals that not only is the war being expanded to yet another planet, but the man they spoke to was executed by the Alliance two years ago.
• In Silver Lode, Rose and Dolly pressure telegraph operator Paul Herbert into writing a fake telegram response from the legal authorities declaring Ballard's innocence and McCarty's guilt, deeming that they don't have time to wait for a genuine reply to resolve the situation (which is getting out of hand). A genuine telegram which indeed confirms this is later received.
• In Sunset Boulevard, the fan letters that Norma had been getting over the years were actually written by her butler Max to spare her from the fact that the public had forgotten her.
• Out of everything else that Tony, the monstrous pimp from Thriller: A Cruel Picture, did to Madeline (including putting out one of her eyes for refusing a client), by far his most despicable act was to forge a letter to her parents in her name, telling them that she hated them and not to bother trying to find her. When Madeline seeks out her parents after escaping him, she learns that the letter had the effect of driving them to suicide. This is the final straw that sets the stage for one hell of a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
• Umrika: Ramakant's dad, in conjunction with the postman, had been faking letters from his eldest son Udai (supposedly an American immigrant now) to keep his wife happy.

Literature

• Animorphs: In book 16, Jake receives a forged e-mail from Cassie, ostensibly a love letter. He knows full well that it's actually Marco under a false ID, who apparently has a habit of doing this to Jake.
• In And Then There Were None, the culprit sent a letters to all his victims under different names, to trick them into comming to Soldier Island. And going by the first scene of the book, the culprit also sent a fake letter to himself... for some reason...
• Bulldog Drummond: At one point, the villains get hold of Drummond by forging a message from the love interest. One of his sidekicks shows enough Genre Savvy to be suspicious, but Drummond insists, incorrectly, that he knows his girl's handwriting too well to be fooled by a forgery.
• In The Count of Monte Cristo, the plot is kickstarted when Edmund Dantes is betrayed by a forged letter and convicted of a crime he didn't commit. The rest of the story is a Roaring Rampage of Revenge for this.
• In The Dawn of Yangchen it is revealed that Avatar Yangchen often uses a 'defensive' version of this by being a bit "careless" with certain corrospondance and tracing leaks via the included misinformation. She is also not above using the usual sort if, for instance, it will get succor for refugee groups she is sheparding to safety.
• In the book of Ella Enchanted, Ella realises that if she were to marry Char, her curse would make his life difficult and even dangerous. So she writes a letter in her own handwriting, claiming she's run away with a rich lord, then writes an accompanying letter in her stepsister's handwriting, terrible spelling and all, to back it up. It doesn't work. He just thinks the letter from her is fake, instead.
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Wrecking Ball: Rodrick once wrote a bunch of notes signed by Greg, supposedly saying that he "owes" a bunch of stuff to Rodrick.
• In Terry Pratchett's Going Postal, con-man Moist von Lipwig secures an immediate reservation for himself and his girlfriend at the poshest and most expensive restaurant in Ankh-Morpork by forging a letter from financier Reacher Gilt. Gilt, a master con-man himself, recognises a worthy opponent by graciously offering to pay their bill...
• Heralds of Valdemar series. In Brightly Burning, a forged letter is used to lure Lavan out where the assassins can get a shot at him.
• Mr. Standfast: Mary is lured out of safety into the villain's clutches by a forged message purporting to be from Hannay; when he sees it afterward, Hannay admits it to be a convincing imitation of his handwriting and prose style.

Live-Action TV

• In Bottom, Richie receives birthday cards from himself every year - only he claims they are from grateful Soviet citizens, Sue Carpenter and the crew of the Ark Royal. Eddie barely manages to play along with the joke with his usual dripping sarcasm:
  Eddie: ...and this one's from "The people of the Soviet Union, in grateful thanks to Comrade Richie."
  Richie: It's in Russian.
  Eddie: You just put the Rs the wrong way round.
  Richie: That's what Russian is!
• Cheers:
  • Carla is upset because her husband Eddie is out of town and didn't remember Valentine's Day, so the guys all pitch in to buy her a flower delivery. She catches on when she sees that the card is signed "Eddie," which isn't her husband's real name.
  • In the Ballet Episode Sam forges a letter from the Boston Ballet saying that Diane would've be a perfect fit for their company 10 years ago (which in context should be perfectly acceptable to Diane, since she knows she's "over the hill" to become a ballet dancer). But then she decides to try out anyway and is terrible.
• On the CSI/CSI: NY crossover episode, "In Vino Vertias," the kidnappers use Mac Taylor's girlfriend's phone to send fake flirty text messages between her and another man as part of a robbery scheme. Before they realized the sham, the Vegas investigators strongly hinted to Mac that Christine might be cheating on him.
• Happened in two other CSI: NY episodes:
  • "Life Sentence": A perp Mac & his former partner, Bill Hunt, had put away 17 years earlier somehow sent Hunt a text from Mac, luring him to Mac's office so he could shoot them both from the building across the street.
  • "The Lady in the Lake": A killer sent texts to the victim's boyfriend so he would think she had left town after a fight they'd had.
• On Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23, James gets a letter each year from his Dawson's Creek castmates inviting him for a reunion show, which he always rejects. Turns out the letters were actually from Chloe, which she uses as an excuse to get James to do whatever she wanted to cheer him up.
• A text message example in the Elementary episode "The Rat Race". The Killer of the Week kidnaps Sherlock and sends Watson a text from his phone so she won't worry. It has the exact opposite result, given that the text didn't read "like a teenager on a sugar high." (This is in reference to an incident in The Teaser where Watson complains she can't read his texts because he uses too much texting slang.)
• In a Homicide Hunter episode where Joe Kenda is investigating the disappearance of a high school student, her principal mentions that someone called in sick on the girl's behalf, but he suspected the message was fake—the guy claimed to be her father, but sounded like a teenager. He indicated that this was hardly the first time that students had tried to pull a stunt like this (and it probably frequently happens elsewhere).
• Happens on House of Anubis- Eddie, with KT's help, forged a break-up letter for Fabian claiming it was written by Nina. Fabian didn't fall for it, however, because he knew that the letter was written in a way Nina didn't write. Eddie didn't do it to be malicious; He DID have a letter from Nina for Fabian, but lost it, so tried to make his own instead.
• Leverage: After the team foils an attempt on the life of a client in "The Homecoming Job", they find a suicide note on the hitmen intended to make it looks like he'd been Driven to Suicide.
• M*A*S*H. Klinger occasionally would forge letters, particularly in mail call episodes, in further attempts to get a discharge, usually claiming that a family member of his had died and/or suddenly become pregnant; Henry kept many of Klinger's letters on record and uses them against him to point out how ridiculous the claims in the letters are, culminating in one letter that reads, "Half of the family dying, other half pregnant." Potter, on the other hand, dug a little deeper when Klinger tried to pull a similar stunt on him. Incidentally, Klinger has no brothers.
  Potter: Klinger, this letter is in your handwriting.
  Klinger: I translated my mother's letter, it was in Lebanese.
  Potter: Let me see it.
  Klinger: I burned it.
  Potter: Uh-huh.
  Klinger: It's part of a religious ceremony.
  Potter: Held when two brothers die in a harmonica factory?
• On The Mindy Project, Morgan and Peter find Mindy's phone and use it to send naughty text messages to her boyfriend.
• Nirvana in Fire: Xia Jiang and Marquis Xie had someone forge a letter from Nie Feng accusing Prince Qi of treason and asking for rescue.
• Star Trek: Voyager: The episode "Hope and Fear" has the crew trying to decode a message they'd gotten from Starfleet which had been corrupted during transmission with the help of an alien they'd picked up who had an instinctive knack for solving such problems. In the end, the message they found was one he created for the purpose of luring the Voyager crew into a trap. Fortunately, Janeway found the real message before it was sprung.
• One of the recurring bits on Welcome Back, Kotter was for Epstein to produce a note allegedly from his mother over some issue. Kotter was never fooled as they all ended, "Signed, Epstein's Mother".
• Young Sheldon: In "Spock, Kirk, and Testicular Hernia", Sheldon writes one claiming that he recently had a testicular hernia, in order to get himself excused from P.E. class.

Music

• Evillious Chronicles: In "The Letter She Kept Waiting For", the orphans forge a reply to the nun's letter to make her happy in her dying moments.

Mythology & Religion

• In The Bible, Paul the apostle writes to the Thessalonians a second letter to clear up any false information they may have received regarding the Lord's coming (even the manner of how it's supposed to happen), even if that information came in a letter that supposedly came from Paul and the apostles that said that the Lord's coming had already happened.

Tabletop Games

• Call of Cthulhu campaign Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, adventure "The Coven of Cannich". After the witches (Cthulhu Mythos cultists) in Scotland kill Henry Hancock, they send a fake letter supposedly written by him to his nephew Jacob to cover up his death.

Theatre

• This is the basis of the plot in Dear Evan Hansen. Connor stole a printed-out email from Evan, and ultimately commited suicide. Evan then forges new emails to make it seem like he and Conor were friends.
• Hamlet, escorted to England accompanied (i.e. guarded) by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, replaces the letter from Claudius instructing Hamlet's execution with one condemning Rosencrantz and Guildenstern instead.
• In Henry VII's Gender Reveal Party by Clinton Festa, Anne Boleyn discovers that the "letter from God" which convinced Henry that their unborn child would be a boy (and suggested the Party that is the setting for the one act play) was actually penned as a revenge prank by his former wife.
• Julius Caesar has Cassius sending multiple letters "from the citizens of Rome" to Brutus in order to win him over to their conspiracy.
• In Lucia Di Lammermoor, the title character's brother Enrico tricks her into marrying his friend Arturo by forging a letter from her lover Edgardo claiming that he's cheated on her.
• A children's play of Sherlock Holmes has Watson realizing he's in the same room as the killer. The man snorts that Holmes already left as he'd sent a letter claiming his brother, Mycroft, got into a boating accident in Scotland. Cue Holmes showing up with gun in hand.
  Killer: Mr. Holmes, I'm surprised. Have you no love for your brother?
  Holmes: My brother hates Scotland and has a morbid fear of water.
• Twelfth Night: Maria writes a letter ambiguously making it seem that Olivia is in love with Malvolio, to trick him. Older Than Steam.

Video Games

• Anaksha: Female Assassin. In the Mini-Adventure "Quick Stop," Anaksha does this to save the job of a convenience store clerk who did her a good turn by allowing her to use the store's restroom, which is normally reserved for employees only, but was ratted out by her rather crankish co-worker. The document in question is a letter of apology, which some unscrupulous employers use as a trick to get a signed confession out of someone so they can have a legal excuse to fire the person anyway, denying them any grounds for a lawsuit. Anaksha does this to allow the clerk an "out" in this should they indeed decide to fire her, and offers her a job at the Zaranna Corporation in case all else fails.
• Attempted by Makoto in Blazblue Continuum Shift in order to prevent Tsubaki from completing her mission of assassinating Noel, their friend. It didn't work because the forged letter was an order from the Imperator, the supreme ruler of the NOL and Makoto's instantly branded a traitor and has to fight Tsubaki. Both because the letter was written instantly, but also because Tsubaki's order were given by the Imperator.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • Oblivion: In the Thieves Guild questline the player character must hire a Master Forger to fake a letter of recommendation, in order to get a troublesome Watch Captain reassigned elsewhere.
  • Skyrim: An early quest involves giving a fake letter from Faendal (actually written by Sven) and giving it to a girl they both like. The player can then choose to tell Faendal about the letter, and can choose to deliver a similar letter from Sven (actually written by Faendal).
• In Plants vs. Zombies, the Zombies at one point send you (the home owner) a forged letter claiming to be your mother inviting you over for meatloaf, asking you to leave your front door open and your lawn unguarded. It is signed as "mom (not the zombies)".
• An unintentional variation happened in Final Fantasy IX. The local Genki Girl wrote a love letter to the protagonist, but forgot to sign her name. After a series of wacky hijinks when the letter got to unintended addressees and was thought as originating from various people, it brought the Beta Couple together. Accidentally.
• A major plot point in chapter 3 of The Witcher, where Thaler suspects that someone is forging the absent King Foltest's letters. He is right.
• In Grand Theft Auto V, Trevor has been keeping contact with Brad via email while the latter is in prison for their botched heist. It's later revealed that Brad died in the shootout following the heist and the guy he's actually been emailing is FIB agent Dave Norton, Michael's handler, using "Brad's" emails to keep tabs on him.
• In Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, your helper Beep-O is getting emails from an unknown source as you progress through the game. These then get hacked in world 3, leading to suspicious messages filled with evil laughter, threats and promises that said threats were actually harmless. Naturally, he and the rest of the party fall for the messages without a second thought.
• Persona 5: The conspiracy forged a suicide note to cover up the murder of Wakaba, claiming that she regretted giving birth to Futaba. They also forge a calling card for Principal Kobayakawa, framing the Phantom Thieves for his murder.
• In Professor Layton and the Unwound Future, the professor receives a letter dated ten years into the future requesting his help signed by his apprentice, Luke, including an address which contains a lift to below the tube, where the 'future' has been built and Clive, the guy who really sent the letter, attempts to get revenge on Professor Layton by pretending to be the boy closest to him. There is an actual time machine though.
• In Suikoden, the Liberation Army needs to forge papers to gain access to a prison within Milich Oppenheimer's jurisdiction, leading you to recruit two people in a nearby town — Tesla to write up the actual documents, and Kimberly to craft the Imperial seal marking them as "legit".
• In Team Fortress 2, sending a "tear stained letter" each to both his brothers is how Grey Mann convinced his two brothers to meet and reconcile, so he could reveal himself to them and recruit them to retake Mann Co. Spending a few minutes with them quickly convinces him to kill them both.

Visual Novels

• Ace Attorney:
  • Vera Misham, a character from the final case of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, is very gifted in her ability to copy an illustration. Unfortunately, due to her young age and her sheltered upbringing, this gets used by various people to give her a job as a forger. In the case of this trope, Big Bad Kristoph Gavin has her forge a diary page to assure him of a means to acquit the man who would have been his client, Zak Gramarye. However, Zak used a card game to determine what sort of man Gavin was, and finding him to be petty and ruthless, he hired Phoenix Wright instead; Kristoph retaliated by informing his brother Klavier, the prosecutor of the case, of the forgery.
  • A plot point of Gyakuten Kenji 2 involves a hidden mastermind manipulating individuals by typing letters signed as other people, predicting that a few key words would push them to act as the mastermind wanted.
• Danganronpa:
  • Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc:
    • In case 4, Hagakure is convinced he killed Sakura after he smashed a bottle her over the head (he didn't). He then tried to write a Dying Clue in Sakura's blood implicating Toko, like what happened in case 1. During the trial, one character pointed out that it was written with a person's finger, while Sakura's hands were clean.
    • It turns out that the reason Aoi is trying to get everyone killed by implicating herself as Sakura's killer is because of a forged suicide note left by Monokuma, making Aoi think Sakura was Driven to Suicide instead of committing a Heroic Sacrifice for everyone else. After the truth comes out, Monokuma even has the gall to claim it wasn't his fault Aoi was fooled, since he didn't forge Sakura's signature on the suicide note as well. Naturally, the other students all call him out on it and declare that they are not faulting Aoi.
  • In Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, the culprit for the second murder learned that Mahiru was planning on meeting with Hiyoko at the beach house, and sent forged messages to each of them to make it seem that the other wanted to change the meeting time. The note Hiyoko got told her to arrive at 2:00, at which point the culprit knocked her out and put her in the closet, planning to have her take the fall for the murder. The note Mahiru got told her to come at 2:30, and when she arrived, the culprit killed her. The fact that the notes mentioned different times helped prove a cover-up.

Webcomics

• In General Protection Fault, the night before Nick and Ki's wedding, Ki's counterpart from a parallel universe tricks Nick into using the MuTEX and kidnaps him, leaving behind a forged "Dear John" Letter for Ki. It doesn't work, and the rest of the cast follows him into the other universe to rescue him.
• Played for Laughs in this Questionable Content guest strip, which parodies Hostess Fruit Pies advertisements.
  Hostess — It's the big taste your pet robot will forge your loved ones' suicide notes for!

Web Original

• Looming Gaia: In "A Mage in the Making", Itchy writes a rude and lewd letter to his wife Ginger addressed from "Mistur Oshun" in an attempt to make her hate him. She isn't fooled for a second.

Western Animation

• The Arthur episode "The Big Blow-Up" concerned Francine and the Brain getting into an argument with each other, which puts a damper on a soccer game that they, along with Arthur and Buster, were partaking in. On the day of the big game, Arthur and Buster both forge fake apology letters to Francine and the Brain, with Buster writing the Brain's apology letter to Francine, and Arthur writing Francine's apology letter to the Brain. ^note Arthur and Buster did this specifically because they tried asking The Brain and Francine to write each other apology letters beforehand, but their letters made it sound like they were right and each other was wrong. Because of this, while they do end up accepting each other's apologies, Francine thinks The Brain spelled "Soccer" with two Ks and a Q, and The Brain thinks Francine sent him a list of demands. ^note The latter was revealed to have been written on the back of D.W.'s Christmas list, which she wanted Arthur to write seven months early.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Sokka attempts to pull this in "The Runaway" episode, in order to patch things up between his sister Katara, and their friend, Toph. So he writes a fake apology letter and sends it to Katara, via messenger hawk. It fails hilariously, after she reads it and points out a rather obvious oversight in her brother's plan:
  Katara: (shouts, while pointing at fake apology letter) I know this is from YOU, Sokka! TOPH CAN'T WRITE!! (tears up the letter) Ugh, you're all driving me CRAZY!
• Beavis And Butthead: In "Pierced", the titular duo forge parental permission letters in order to get skull earrings at a store. The crumpled notes simply read "DO IT NOW BUTTHEADS MOM" and "YEAH".
  Woman at the counter: Uhh, looks to me like you guys did these yourselves.
• In the Dexter's Laboratory episode, "Dexter and Computress Get Mandark!", Dexter and Computress both hate Mandark, so they team up to lure Mandark into Dexter's lab so they can shrink his head with Dexter's Shrink Ray. To lure him there, Dexter writes a love letter with Dee Dee's signature and sends it to Mandark, while Computress writes one with Mandark's signature and sends it to Dee Dee. Since Mandark and Dee Dee's relationship is one-sided, Mandark falls for Dexter's letter while Dee Dee rejects Computress'.
• In the Disney's Doug episode "Doug Directs", while Roger is forcing his goons to exercise, Willy attempts to get out of it by handing him a note saying, "D-uh, I need to be be ex^cused - WILLY'S mom". Roger isn't fooled, but Willy quits anyway.
• Family Guy:
  • The ending to the Very Special Episode has Quagmire kill his sister's abusive boyfriend and he and the guys go to her with a fake letter telling her that "he" is leaving her, that he will kill her and her unborn child if she tells that he was with the guys, and that he really, really likes Grape Ape.
  • Discussed in "Jerome is the New Black" during Quagmire's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Brian.
    Quagmire: I should have known that Cheryl Tiegs didn't write me that letter. She would have known there's no "a" in the word "definite".
• Kim Possible: In "Stop Team Go", old enemy Electronique lures the Go siblings into a trap with a set of fake invitations tailored to appeal to each of them (a "Manager of the Year" award for Hego, a "Most Awesome Hero" award for Mego, an invitation to a "Teen Twins Mixer" for the Wegos, and a coupon for a free spa treatment for Shego).
• In an episode of The Looney Tunes Show, Daffy and Porky get into a feud over who ordered the french fries at Pizzaribba. Bugs wants them to make up with each other so he can go to a football game that Porky has the tickets for, so he sends each of them a gift basket and an apology card with each other's names. At first, this seems to work, but then they get back to arguing with each other. When Bugs flat-out admits he wrote the cards and that he doesn't care about their feud and just wants to see the game, Porky snaps and rips up the tickets so none of them can go.
• The Owl House: The ending of "Enchanting Grom Fright" reveals that someone has been clearly sending letters to Luz's mom under the impression that Luz was writing them from summer camp. "Yesterday's Lie" would later reveal that the letters were being sent by a shapeshifting basilisk that was mistaken for Luz by her mother during the events of the first episode and been attending camp in her stead.
• Recess. In "Omega Kids," T.J. and the gang are the only ones attending school for a number of days after the rest of the students fall ill from eating tuna fish tacos, which slowly starts to drive them crazy, to the point that Gus tries to pull a stunt by handing Miss Grotke a note, which T.J. snatches from him and reads for himself.
  T.J.: (Reading the note) "Dear Miss Grotke, please our son Gus from school, he is so sick he should probably stay home until all the other kids are better. Signed, 'My Mom' "?
  Vince: That's pathetic.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Bart the Lover", Bart creates a boyfriend for his teacher Mrs Krabappel and writes her letters based on his parents' old loveletters, pretending to be a guy called "Woodrow".
  • In "The Boy Who Knew Too Much", he writes a fake note from his mother excusing him from school, with an attempted Handwave that her handwriting is off because she busted "whichever hand it is I write with".
  • In "Trash of the Titans", when the Sanitation Company cuts off their service at the Simpsons' house, Marge gets tired of the garbage pile in her front yard, so she sends the Sanitation Company a letter of apology with Homer's name. Homer is outraged when Marge tells him this. Marge points out that Homer has signed her name numerous times, but Homer claims that his dignity isn't like a loan application or a will.
• A variant of this happens in Spongebob Squarepants episode "Naughty Nautical Neighbors", in which Spongebob and Patrick, at their homes, communicates via speeches in soap bubbles. The noises disturb Squidward (whose house are between the two's) who's eating a cake at the moment. Frustrated, Squidward shakes his fork on the plate, at which point it creates foams (presumably from the cake). Squidward then gets an idea of stopping them: "sap" the communication line by stopping their bubbles mid-flight, and then using his own foam to create speech soap bubbles that are filled with unsavory messages for Spongebob and Patrick (who are unaware that Squidward did it). This drives the two to hate each other for the remainder of the episode. Fridge Logic comes when Squidward's soap bubbles looked different from the normal one, and it's also filled with Squidward's voice and yet they don't recognize the voice.
• In one episode of TaleSpin one of Shere Khan's executives, Benson, tried to force Louie out of his club by writing a letter that said, "Do whatever Mr. Benson says." and forging Khan's signature, thus making the Khan pilot force think they were on a sanctioned assignment.
• The 1931 Talkartoons short Teacher's Pest has Bimbo forging an excuse note for being late to his teacher.
  "Please excuse Bimbo for being late. My father."
• In one of The Three Little Pigs shorts, the Wolf captures two of the pigs and writes a letter to Practical Pig pretending to be from his brothers in an attempt to lure him out. Practical doesn't fall for it: along with the bad penmanship, he recognizes the Wolf's breath when he blows it under the door.

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