Maintain the Lie

One of the show's characters brags about his opulent lifestyle to a faraway friend, a relative or just someone he wants to impress. Impressed indeed, the other character wants to come over and see! The only problem was, the braggart was lying, and now, all of his friends must roleplay out the lies in a desperate attempt not to reveal the truth.

Common in the Sitcom, and often happens as the result of a "Fawlty Towers" Plot or Snowball Lie. Other times, the person the character wants to impress starts it off by bragging about his life. In still others, the visitor reveals that he knew all along, and was playing along to deliver An Aesop.

Usually, one way or another, the lie collapses. Traditionally, the associate reveals that regardless of the lie, they are (for some truly different reason) far more impressed with the life the character actually leads.

May involve an Emergency Impersonation. Compare Celebrity Lie. Also see Mock Millionaire, Princess for a Day.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• Best Student Council had an episode with the same title as the trope name, wherein Cyndi Manabe has been writng letters to her mother, telling lies so that she won't be worried about Cyndi's welfare. This would be fine, except the lies are ridiculously extravagant.
• In the Love Hina manga, Motoko tried to do this to avoid disappointing or standing up to her older sister twice. After her attempt to feign marriage to Keitaro propmted Tsuruko to break her sword and briefly throw her out of the Kenjitsu school/order you would think she would learn...
• One Piece: Usopp decieves an army of ridiculously naïve dwarves into thinking he's Usoland, descendant of the hero Norland. The strawhats (strawLANDERS) haven't been let in on the lie or asked to maintain it, but they immediately deduce what's going on, and then proceed to ignore it, because they've got more important things going on and just don't really care.
• Happens in Pokémon the Series: Ruby and Sapphire when James visits the home of his grandparents. Jessie, Meowth and the twerps allow his grandparents to believe he is a successful businessman, not a criminal and a runaway.
• Rent-A-Girlfriend's whole premise is based on the fact that Kazuya desperately tries to keep up appearances of his relationship with Chizuru to avoid disappointing his family. Things get complicated even more when they start falling each other for real and more people get entangled on the whole mess.
• Sgt. Frog: Episode 27 has the Keroro Platoon and the Hinata family preparing to Maintain the Lie to Keroro's father that the frogs have succeeded in their invasion of Earth... but they never get the chance, as he leaves right after he gets there.
• Yuuutsu-kun to Succubus-san: Sakuma the succubus wants to look good in front of her demon kouhai, Metasuke. The problem is, where Metasuke is regularly draining men a la the demon and succubi way, Sakuma hasn't really done anything except care for Yuu, whose lack of urges make using him impossible. She asks Yuu to play along if Metasuke visits, which she does almost immediately. When Metasuke notices the lack of sexual desire in Yuu, he says he needs "10 more until the daily quota is met", which Metasuke interprets as Sakuma drying him up the moment he gets any desire, properly impressing her.

Comic Books

• Asterix and the Chariot Race starts like this: The roman official in charge of maintaining Italy's roads is accused of not doing his job properly, to which he counters that, of course, the roads are in perfect condition! In fact, they're in good enough condition to have a chariot race on all around Italy! Except that he has then to actually organize the race, despite knowing the accusations were right.

Films — Animated

• Kronk's New Groove: Kronk wrote to his father about getting a big house on a hill and a girlfriend that he will marry and have lots of kids with, but never told him that he lost all of those things. So when his father comes for a visit, he must try to convince him that he has all those things. He asks Pacha to "loan" him his home and family. Eventually, all of Kronk's friends decide to help Kronk out by pretending to be his family, leading to Pacha and Rudy dressing up as women, a bunch of geezers dressing up as babies, and several other characters including Kuzco showing up claiming to be Mrs. Kronk.

Films — Live-Action

• Black Panther (2018): Said word-for-word by Zuri when explaining to T'Challa about the truth of what happened that night years ago between him, T'Chaka and N'Jobu: "We had to maintain the lie."
• Christmas in Connecticut features Barbara Stanwyck as a magazine columnist who writes regular features about her completely fictional life as a Martha Stewart-style wife, mother, and homemaker. When her publisher invites himself and a war veteran over for Christmas, Stanwyck's character has to borrow someone else's farm and a different someone else's baby and fake a domestic paradise.
• In Goodbye Lenin, Alex is told that if his ill, formerly comatose mother, recieves a severe shock (like oh, the revelation that East Germany is no more) she could go into cardiac arrest. In order to prevent this, Alex drags all their friends and family into an elaborate ruse to convince her that the GDR is still standing and even gets his budding film-maker colleague to create fake TV news reports. (This perhaps being a metaphor for this trope in Real Life as regards regime propaganda).
• Hibernatus: A man is found frozen in Greenland near the remains of a ship that wrecked in 1905. The man is revived and turns out to be the grandfather of the wife of a wealthy industrialist. At the behest of his wife (who threatens to disinherit him) he kidnaps the "Hibernatus" and brings him to his mansion. They are caught, but are forced to let the "grandfather" live with his granddaughter under one condition. In order to avoid giving him a heart attack, the government re-creates the early 20th century in the industrialist's neighborhood in order to convince the frozen man that no time has passed. Then he finds a TV.
• Just Go with It is about a successful plastic surgeon who tricks women into bed by pretending to be an abused husband. Then he meets a women (who is 10 years his junior) with whom he actually wants to start a relationship. The problem is, she finds his fake wedding ring. And she just happens to forbid any romantic relationship with anybody married, since her parents had a particularly nasty divorce triggered by her father having an affair when she was younger. Now he has to pretend to be in the middle of a divorce with his cheating wife and has to convince his assistant and her kids to play their parts... and they are all completely aware they have all the leverage in this negotiation, and milk it for everything it's worth. The lies quickly spiral out of control.
• Lady for a Day and its remake Pocketful of Miracles uses this trope: a mother sends her young daughter to a convent in Spain and regularly writes her letters in which she pretends to be a part of New York high society, when she's actually a beggar. Years later, the daughter decides to come back to New York City and meet her mother with her husband-to-be, a count who in all certainty will cancel the wedding if he learns the truth. Cue shenanigans.

• Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. revolves around this plot. Munna Bai is a gangster lord with a heart of gold in Bombay. He has told his family however that he is a doctor, and has even created a fake hospital. But, his parents find out, and thus he decides to actually go to medical school. Various hijinks happen, and some serious, heartfelt touching moments as well. Surprisingly well done.
• Not Okay has writer Danni trying to boost her social media status by faking a trip to Paris, photoshopping herself into spots around the city and figuring out a way to be picked up at the airport as if she just flew back. As fate would have it, a terrorist attack occurs right around the area she claimed to have been staying at. Rather than admit the lie, Danni goes through with the "return" and is hailed as heroically surviving this event. Going along with the fame and attention, Danni continues to be pulled into acting like a "survivor" even with real victims. Eventually, she confesses before she's to be exposed, leading to her losing her job and getting turned on by the media with the film ending with her realizing how many people were hurt by her selfish grab for attention.
• Safety Last!: In Harold Lloyd's best-known film, he has to climb a building as a publicity stunt because his friend (the real human fly) is being chased by a cop. Harold pretends he's the daredevil to start the climb, intending to switch at a window on the next floor. His friend is never able to ditch the cop, so Harold ends up climbing the entire building. The reason he wound up in this situation in the first place was because he told his girlfriend that he was an executive with the department store, and was afraid that she'd find out he was a lowly sales clerk.
• Waking Ned Devine: The title character is a man in a small Irish village who wins the lottery, and promptly dies from shock. One of the protagonists has a dream that convinces him that Ned would have wanted the other villagers to enjoy his winnings, and so he and his buddy convince (almost) the entire village to pretend that Ned is still alive and attempt to con the claim inspector. Hilarity, naturally, ensues.

Literature

• The Dirk Pitt Adventures novel Sahara subverts this. In the book's climax, Pitt, Al and aide St. Julian Perlmutter explore the wreck of a Confederate Ironclad that somehow got stuck in the Sahara desert. They're jarred to find a corpse that's none other than Abraham Lincoln. Perlmutter shares what he had discovered in secret government archives: The Confederates had kidnapped Lincoln in the closing days of the war, hoping they could use him to negotiate a decent peace agreement. But Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (wanting power for himself) faked the entire assassination with a double and the few Confederates who knew the truth kept quiet as they knew no one would believe their tale. The real Lincoln ended up on this ship which met its end in a long-dried up river. Perlmutter is stunned Pitt wants to go public about this, insisting that it will ruin Lincoln's image as a martyr if the truth gets out and "it's better the world never know". Pitt goes ahead to reveal the truth and as it happens, Lincoln becomes more revered than ever before.
• Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn has a dramatic version. Prester John rose to fame and became king of Erkynland after slaying the great red dragon, Shurakai, which had claimed the life of the two previous kings. It is only after his death of old age and the ensuing disasters that it is revealed that the previous king, Ealhstan Fiskerne, slew it, dying in the process. John took his sword Minneyar, renaming it Bright-Nail, and claimed credit for the deed. John's Blood Knight tendencies, his persecution of the Sithi (whom he suspected of knowing the secret), and even his treatment of his sons (favoring the martial Elias against the introspective Josua), all derive from his attempts to maintain this lie throughout his life and result in the conflict against the Storm King being far worse than it could have been. It also sets up The Hero Simon's reveal as King Eahlstan's heir.
• In "What's It Like Out There?" by Edmond Hamilton, a spaceman who's returned from the second expedition to Mars whitewashes the truth about what it was like to avoid upsetting the families of those who died on the expedition. At one point he wonders why the first expedition didn't warn them about how tough the conditions were, then realises that they had found themselves in the same situation.

Live-Action TV

• On 2 Broke Girls, Caroline's grandmother wakes up from a coma unaware that the family has lost all its money. Caroline talks Max and the rest of the diner gang to pretend to be her servants to maintain the ruse until she can break the news gently so her grandmother won't have a heart attack. In a dark (but hilarious) subversion of the usual sitcom trope, when the grandmother finds out the truth (from a nosy neighbor), she really does drop dead.
• The Addams Family: An episode is based on Lurch's aged mother coming to visit him, and his having never told her he was a butler; most of the story involved his posing as the master of the house, with Gomez acting as butler, Morticia as maid, and Grandmamma as cook.
• The Angel episode "The Girl in Question" features a dramatic example, as the heroes had to Maintain the Lie to Mr. and Mrs. Burkle that their daughter is still alive, when in reality she'd been killed and her body taken over by an ancient demon-god. Among the many complaints that viewers had about Season 5, this is often cited as the most execrable thing the writers/characters ever did.
• Babylon 5 episode "The War Prayer" subverts this. It has the usual setup: two Centauri lovebirds, including one of Vir Cotto's relatives, come aboard the station believing that Vir is the Centauri ambassador. Rather than maintain the lie, however, he quickly admits that he's only the attache to the Centauri ambassador. The rest of that plotline involves the problem the two lovebirds came to Vir for.
• The Big Bang Theory:
  • Leonard lies to Penny about coming to see her perform in a production of RENT. Sheldon is disturbed by the logical holes in the lie and begins plugging them by elaborating on the original lie to the extreme degree of hiring an actor to play the relative they were supposed to be helping.
  • Penny tells her father that she and Leonard are dating again and manages to convince Leonard to go along with the lie. They spend most of the time trying to fool Sheldon since they can't bring him in on the scheme due to his tendency of overthinking and ruining any plan of this nature.
• Black Books:
  • Manny claims to his parents that he runs the titular bookshop, although this lie quite swiftly collapses.
  • In the episode "The Entertainer," Manny turns out to be a excellent pianist. Bernard and Fran convince him to crawl inside the piano and operate the hammers so that they can pretend to be able to play in order to impress different people. He's even able to convincingly simulate a duet between the two. That last task takes too much out of him and he crawls out of the piano to lie down. The lie falls apart when Bernard and Fran decide to ramp it up a notch, thinking Manny is still there.
• On The Blacklist, Red discovers that his old criminal contact Glen has died. Red is rocked when he discovers that, to cover how a civil servant could live an extravagant lifestyle of traveling around the world and spending large amounts of money, he has been....the muse of Huey Lewis. He leaves a note on how he's worried if Lewis doesn't attend his memorial service, his mother will be heartbroken at the "insult." Thus, the world's most notorious and wanted criminal must ask this long-time pop star to show up at the funeral to claim the friendship of a guy he's never met before.
• Bosom Buddies was about two men who dressed up as women to get a cheap apartment in a women's only building. The first season focused on Maintaining The Lie, including obligatory episodes with visits from a parent of each character. The second season more or less dispensed with it, by having the supporting cast learn the truth and going along with it, but the scenes in drag became few and far between.
• The Brittas Empire: Colin tells his daughter he is the manager of the leisure centre. When she comes to visit, the other staff attempt to maintain the deception and eventually a sympathetic Brittas even joins in.
• Cheers episode "Diane's Nightmare." Andy-Andy Schroeder wants Sam to pretend that he owns the bar and Sam is his employee so Andy can impress his girlfriend.
• DAG: The short-lived comedy has Secret Service agent John Daggett becoming an international joke after he leaps the wrong way from the President during an assassination attempt. He's thus busted down to the team protecting the First Lady. When his long-judgemental father visits, Daggett tries to make it look as if he's still on the Presidential detail. Subverted as, after his first pitiful attempts at acting like he's "a liaison" between teams, Dag's father dryly asks if his son honestly thinks his dad is stupid enough to believe he'd still be on the President's detail after his mistake was plastered over the front page of every newspaper in the country.
• Designing Women: One episode has Mary Jo telling an out-of-town friend that the mansion the firm is decorating is hers. It falls apart rather spectacularly.
• In the Desmond's episode "Porkpies", the gang rally round to convince perpetual student Matthew's sister and brother-in-law that he's graduated and is a successful businessman.
• On Dynasty (2017), rich Fallon has been having an on/off affair with Michael, the family's limo driver. On Thanksgiving, she tracks down Michael to a soup kitchen where he's helping his parents serve dinner to homeless people. Fallon soon realizes Michael's family believes that he's a Vice-President at the Carrington's company. Michaels confesses to Fallon that his parents sacrificed so much to get him through college and he doesn't have the heart to tell them he's just a chauffeur. In a rare show of selflessness, Fallon talks of how great a worker for the company Michael is to keep his family proud.
• Ellen: Played with when Ellen's co-worker, Joe, talks about how bad it is for Ellen to be lying to her mother.
  Joe: By the way, if my mother ever drops by for a surprise visit, you and I are married with three kids.
  Ellen: Anything else?
  Joe: Yeah, I'm the mayor of Los Angeles.
  Ellen: What are you doing here?
  Joe: Campaigning.
• Frasier: Happens a few times thanks to the antics of the group getting themselves into hot water with a little lie.
  • The Emmy-winning "Merry Christmas, Mrs. Moskowitz" has Fraiser learning his new girlfriend's mother thinks he's Jewish. She thus sees nothing wrong with dropping in on the Cranes, at which point everything from Eddie in a Santa suit to a tree shows up.
• The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: In a season 1 episode, Will pretends to be upper-class in order to impress a girl whose father is notoriously picky about her boyfriends. Will impresses her father, but then the girl admits that she actually likes street-smart boys.
• Friends: Jack and Judy Geller tell the guests at their wedding anniversary that Ross and Rachel, who are expecting a baby but not currently romantically involved, got married in secret. Ross and Rachel aren't happy but agree to lie to avoid making a scene. When people start asking about their wedding Rachel decides to have fun with it and makes up details like Stevie Wonder performing as she walked down the aisle. She gets away with it by claiming that the photographer forgot to put film in the camera.
• F Troop:
  • Occurs several times, usually when the peace-loving (and money-making) Hekawi Indians have to pretend to be fierce savages to impress a visitor to Fort Courage.
  • Another episode had the town drunk's daughter visiting, and he had told her he was in charge of Fort Courage, leading them to make it look like he was, including getting Capt. Parmeter drunk to get him out of the way.
• Galavant: Sid had told his parents that he was a knight and Galavant was his squire (rather than the other way around). While Isabella is enthusiastic about helping her friend maintain the ruse for the duration of their stay in his hometown (now renamed Sidneyland), Galavant is decidedly less so. She ups the ante by not just introducing herself as princess, but as Sid's princess fianceé.
• On the The Good Wife, Alicia and Peter Florick have been separated for most of the series due to Peter's infidelity. However, Peter has to maintain the public image of a man with a supportive wife who will stand by him through his various legal and political troubles. Alicia is willing to play along in order to protect their children from the scandal.
• Happy Family: The short-lived NBC sitcom opens with two parents (John Larroquette and Christine Baranski) ready to enjoy their wayward son's graduation from community college. He has to break it to them that he dropped out over a year earlier. It's clear he was ready to keep up the act but is forced to tell the truth upon realizing the graduation gown he rented is the wrong color from the real class.
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • When his mom getsot really sick and expresses regret that she never got to see Barney settle down, he hired actors to play his wife and son (started with just a wife, but the actress liked to go "off-script" and announced her "pregnancy") so his mother would think he was a happily married family man. He actually kept this up for seven years. When his mom finally finds out the truth, she is relieved. Turns out, she'd never been able to stand her fake daughter-in-law and grandson (with his annoying attempts at catchphrases) all these years.
  • Barney's gay brother has the opposite problem. He used to be just as big a Casanova as Barney but he fell in love and got married. Since Barney hates the concept of marriage, he did not tell Barney about it. When he visits New York, he pretends to still be single and trying to pick up men in a night club.
  • Ted's parents pretend to be happily married while they have actually been separated and dating other people for months.
  • It is also hinted at that Ted's grandmother died and his parents decided not to tell him. Which his dad immediately deflects with a discussion about baseball, which was the one thing that he would regularly discuss with Ted as a way avoiding a real conversation.
• Kim's Convenience: Mr. and Mrs. Kim pretend to be residents of an affluent neighborhood to use the fancy tennis courts there, but then make friends with a couple who actually live there, and who ask to see their house. They end up leading them to a Big Fancy House and desperately hoping they go away before they have to try to open the door. Later they go back to the same house to get some old golf clubs the couple was giving away. Both times the Kims are confronted by the very unamused homeowners just after the other couple leaves, and get out by pretending to be Knocking on Heathens' Door.
• Law & Order: Criminal Intent: Gerry Rankin was pressed by his family to excel as an economist but never graduated as he couldn't handle the pressure. However, he not only tells his parents he graduated but works at the United Nations. For twenty years, Rankin spins an expert web of lies while using the power of attorney over his father and father-in-law's money to help finance various scams and Ponzi schemes to keep his family well-off. His lies soon catch up with him as he tries to kill the "girlfriend" who was getting too close to him. The detectives soon realize that when Rankin's father-in-law wanted to take money out of the account, Rankin killed him, making it look like an accident so he could use the life insurance and his wife's inheritance to help his finances out. As the detectives close in, Rankin soon sees only one way to get out of his debts: Kill his own children.
• On Liv and Maddie, Liv invites the cast of her TV show over for Christmas, bragging on how Karen always prepares a lavish meal for the family. When a deli calls on a big order on Christmas Eve, Liv cancels it, sending Karen into a panic. It turns out all these years, Karen has been using the deli for her "home-cooked meals" and faking cooking and cleaning up. Liv gets her Abhorrent Admirer Artie to help cook it up and keep the truth quiet from the rest of the family.
• The Love Boat:
  • One episode has Isaac's teacher as a guest and Isaac talks the gang into making her think he's a high ranking member of the crew rather than just a bartender.
  • Another episode has the crew complaining over seeing Isaac's aunt in a horrible play. When she joins on a trip, Isaac gets them to talk about how great she was so as not to hurt her feelings. It takes his aunt declaring she's quitting her job to find fame in Hollywood for Isaac to break the truth to her.
  • A college student had been living off money sent from an aunt in Greece who he assumed was a rich woman with a shipping line. When he finally visits, he finds she's a hard-working fisherwoman but continues to spin the "I come from money" line to his friends to avoid the truth.
  • One episode has Julie confused at a bride being nervous about being with her husband on their honeymoon. When they're alone and the husband calling about her, Julie is stunned to watch the woman remove not only a wig but fake nails and eyelashes, "boosts" for her chest and rear end and makeup. She'd dressed up like this for their first date, hitting it off and he's never seen her without it all and thus worried if she does, he'll leave her. Her worries aren't helped by how, the first time he does see the "real" her, he honestly has no idea who she is. Thankfully, he comes around to note it was always her he loved, not what she looked like.
  • Julie books a big "celebrity cruise" with two promoter friends assuring her they've got some fun stars lined up. It's only when the ship sails that the pair realized they accidentally booked all those celebrities on a completely different ship heading to Alaska. Worried about Julie getting in trouble, the duo breaks out their old nightclub act to impersonate some of these stars at various parts of the ship. Julie is able to see through it and is outraged while they assure her they can keep it up. The jig is up when Stubbing gets a telegram about the real stars on the other ship (with a few complaining about not being warned to pack for colder weather). Julie is set to confess to the passengers only for the pair to put on a more blatant version of the act with the passengers loving it and saving Julie's job.
  • Several episodes would have the plot of two pen pals meeting in person with one wrestling with revealing the truth behind their bragging.
  • A variation in one episode has Isaac upset when his uncle, who he knows as a long-time con man, is on board. Isaac warns the crew the guy may be charming but not to believe for a minute he's rich, it's all a scam and the fact a federal agent is keeping an eye on him seems to prove it. However, that "agent" turns out to be a crook as Isaac's uncle reveals he's actually a deep-cover Treasury agent. When Isaac talks of how happy the family will be, his uncle says he needs to keep the cover for future missions. At the end of the episode as Isaac's uncle is "led off" in cuffs, the crew apologizes to Isaac for not believing him on his uncle being a crook while Isaac has to hide how proud he is of his uncle sacrificing his reputation for his job.
• In the Maid Marian and Her Merry Men episode "Keeping Mum", Marian's mother comes to visit, which means the gang's hideout needs to be turned into a dental surgery, because Marian told her mother she was a dental receptionist. In the end it turns out that Marion's mother is also a freedom fighter, and is a bit disappointed her daughter is living such a boring life.
• Major Crimes: An interesting double version. Medical Examiner Morales, who usually hangs out at the morgue, surprises the team by showing up at a crime scene. He's with his father, a retired detective from Uruguay who speaks little English and Morales confesses he's been telling his dad he has an authority position with the team. So they pretend that Morales running things is a regular bit during a murder investigation. At the end of the episode, Mr. Morales meets with Sharon and Provenza and (speaking perfect English) relates he figured the whole thing out fast. However, he's happy his son has friends who love him enough to do this. He asks them not to tell Morales he figured it out as he doesn't want to embarrass him but is proud of his son. Provenza lampshades how "your English has amazingly improved" as the elder Morales just smiles. He then returns to his son, once more acting like he barely understands the language as Sharon and Provenza laugh.
• Mako Mermaids: An H₂O Adventure: The plot of "Stowaway" begins when Ondina reposts back to the Mermaid Council about the going-ons at Mako Island, claiming she's leading a valiant fight against "the merman" with only Sirena and Mimmi as backup. A younger mermaid named Neptina overhears, and follows her to land to help bring down said merman. In reality, there are two mermen, Ondina is dating one of them, the "fight" is non-existent as the mermaids and mermen are friends, Ondina is not the leader (if anyone is, it's Sirena), and Ondina was also partially responsible for giving Evie mermaid powers. Upon hearing Neppy recount Ondina's version of their mission, Mimmi and Sirena are coldly amused, make no attempt to correct any of that information, and leave Ondina to squirm while looking after Neppy for the foreseeable future.
• M*A*S*H did this twice. In a Season 1 episode, Hawkeye claims a Captain Tuttle made a large donation to a local orphanage, and everyone wants to meet him. Hawkeye has to eventually make it seem like Tuttle met a "heroic end" to get out of it. Later in the series, a rumor that Marilyn Monroe is going to visit the camp snowballs.
• In Season 5 of McLeod's Daughters Kate is thrown when her grandmother suddenly visits Drover's Run, where Kate has told her not only does she run the place but engaged to Dave. She talks Dave into posing as her fiancee for the visit. As it happens, her grandmother actually thinks Kate is making a mistake getting married so young so, while not openly confessing the latter lie, Kate makes her think she and Dave are "holding off until we're ready."
• The Monkees did an episode where Davy's grandfather from England paid a visit. Davy had told him how rich and successful he was, so the rest of the guys pretended to be his servants (Micky was his chauffeur, Mike was his cook and Peter was his houseboy).
• The Nanny: In "The Butler, The Husband, The Wife And Her Mother," Fran has to pretend that she is the wife of millionaire Broadway producer Maxwell Sheffield, and not his nanny, in order to impress relatives to whom her mother has been bragging. During the same episode, the butler Niles has to pretend that he is Maxwell, that Fran is his wife, and that the actual Maxwell is Niles in order to fool both the in-laws and the inspectors from the butlers' association evaluating Niles' performance.
• New Girl will have one of the gang reveal they lied about something major in their life and gone to frankly insane lengths to cover it up.
  • Knowing his mom won't like the idea of him becoming a cop, Winston tells her that he works as a radio host. Winston then goes so far as spend two hours a day recording a radio show in his room, complete with "listener calls" and then arranges to have the broadcast sent to his mom's radio on the station frequency so she can hear it.
• Orphan Black: Happens early and often, particularly when one of the clones is impersonating another clone, i.e. Sarah pretending to be Beth for days or weeks at the start.
• Perfect Strangers: Pretty much the go-to plot once the fish-out-of-water plots wore thin. Cousin Larry makes crazy boast, cons or wheedles Balki to help him maintain the deception, hilarity ensues.
• Pretty Little Liars lives on this trope. From parents putting on the appearance of a happy marriage to the variety of wild stories the girls use and the insane ways they have to keep things going. Emily managed to keep hidden from her mother for years the fact she had dropped out of college. She even went so far as to claim a storm kept her mom from attending graduation and sent a photo of herself in a rented cap and gown.
• Psych: In the pilot episode, Shawn, who is really just hyper-observant, tells the cops he's psychic to avoid being thought of as a suspect in all the crimes he's phoned in correct tips for. His best friend Gus and his retired cop father are immediately roped into maintaining the ruse, much to their chagrin.
• The Ray Bradbury Theater episode "The Tonybee Convector" has reporter Roger Shumway coming to talk to the revered 130 year old Craig Bennett Stiles. A century earlier, Stiles had traveled into the future and returned with videos of a utopian world. This would inspire the entire world to match his view and in 2100, the world is a peaceful planet with little crime or disease and a well-kept environment. After decades of silence, Stiles is about to grant an interview on the day his past self appears in the skies. The time comes...and nothing happens. Stiles reveals to Shumway that the entire thing was a massive hoax. The "time machine" was literally smoke and mirrors. The video he showed was actually the best parts of the world of 2000. The entire "journey" was Stiles' desperate attempt to correct humanity's self-destruction by making the world believe in a future that they would end up creating for real. Stiles says he had prepared to fake the "time ship" arriving in the future but has decided to simply tell the world the truth. Shumway is upset the "golden age" was built on a lie with Stiles saying it was needed. He ends up passing away and Shumway sharing Stiles' message of hoping for the future. Shumway then sets off Stiles' secondary hoax which is passed off as an "orbital shift." He then destroys the evidence Stiles gave him, agreeing it's better the world believe in Stiles' lie.
• In the Red Dwarf episode "Better Than Life," Rimmer admits that he tells his mother that he passed every exam he ever took, and had therefore reached the rank of "Rear Admiral Lieutenant General". As opposed to the man who cleaned the chicken soup machine. This lie needed maintainence in the Series X episode "Trojan", when they recieve an S.O.S. from Rimmer's more successful brother Howard. It turned out Howard had been lying about his acomplishments as well, and is also a vending machine technician.
• Seinfeld: This happened regularly since the Jerry, Kramer and Elaine put a lot of emphasis on how others perceive them and will lie to make themselves look better.
  • George lied to Susan's parents about having a house in the Hamptons. It's subverted in that they knew he was lying from the beginning and only went along to see how far he would take it. And, of course, because they don't like him and enjoyed watching him squirm.
  • When George's unemployment benefits are about to be cut off he asks for an extension and pretends that he is about to land a job as a salesman. The company does not exists and he gives his case worker Jerry's phone number instead. To maintain the ruse Jerry now has to answer his phone as "Vandalay Industries"
  • A sports equipment salesman claims to have been a tennis pro but is actually terrible at tennis. In order to maintain the ruse Jerry has to throw a tennis match against the guy. Not only does this make Jerry look like a horrible tennis player but the salesman keeps insulting him.
  • George picks Jerry up from the airport and they see a limo driver with a sign saying "O'Brien." Jerry remembers someone named O'Brien complaining about his flight being cancelled in the airport he just came from, so they pretend to be O'Brien and his friend "Dylan Murphy" to get a free ride in a limo. Turns out that O'Brien, whom George is impersonating, is a notorious neo-Nazi and the driver is supposed to take them directly to a big rally where he is the main speaker. The fact that Jerry is Jewish and George is half-Jewish makes it even more uncomfortable and dangerous for them to maintain the ruse.
• Small Wonder:
  • In one episode, Brandon talks Joan into impersonating Bonnie so he can impress a business visitor from Japan.
  • Throughout the series, the family often pretended Vicki (the robot) was a little girl they adopted. When the case worker who handled the adoption showed up on the day they had given as Vicki's birthday, they had to scramble to put together a birthday party for her.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had a dramatic example in which Li Nalas, the most legendary Bajoran resistance fighter, admits to Sisko that he's just an ordinary man who had the mantle of hero thrust upon him after he killed a Cardassian war criminal through sheer luck. Sisko convinces Li that the Bajorans need their hero, real or not, and convinces O'Brien of the same when he catches on. Li dies saving Sisko's life, thereby both performing an act worthy of his legend and, in his words, getting him "off the hook".
• Star Trek: Voyager: Due to convoluted reasons, the crew has to pretend the Doctor is the Captain of Voyager during a standoff with a hostile race. Cue Robert Picardo unleashing his inner Large Ham. In later episodes, it's no longer a lie, as the Emergency Command Hologram subroutine is added to the Doctor's programming. After most of the crew is taken and mind-wiped to be factory workers, ECH not only repairs the ship but also manages to defeat two alien ships with a single photon torpedo by accessing his enormous tactical database and recalling an old Romulan Shoot the Bullet trick.
• Suits:
  • The entire premise is that Mike isn't a lawyer and never even attended law school. His genius at the law makes up for it so Harvey hires him on as his associate. Thus, the entire series is Mike, Harvey (and later Donna, Jessica and Rachel) all keeping up the act with Mike trying to hide he's not a real lawyer. Eventually he is exposed and briefly going to jail but manages to be freed and become a real lawyer after all.
  • In season 8, Louis is afraid to tell girlfriend Sheila he's not managing partner. He talks to his shrink about it.
    Shrink: How long are you planning to hide the fact you're not really managing partner?
    Louis: I don't know, two to three years. My father convinced my mother he was a vice president for a decade, it can be done!
• Three's Company: This was the whole premise. Jack tells the landlord he's gay so he can live with two girls, and has to keep up the act every time he visits.
  • There are several times where this happens in the course of the show. One episode had Jack's uncle visiting. His uncle had always wanted Jack to become a doctor and when he was very sick, Jack told him he was a doctor, as he believed his uncle was dying and this would allow him to be happy in his last days - only he got better. With help from Terri, Jack tries to pretend he really is one.
  • Another episode had Jack claim he was married. Over the course of the episode, Jack uses Terri, Janet and a CPR dummy (long story) as his "other half."
• WKRP in Cincinnati:
  • In one episode, the staff all conspire to give a visiting auditor a horribly inaccurate impression of the station.
  • The later syndicated revival also did a "straight" version of this trope where they all tried to help the station secretary pretend to be the manager and put through an important business deal.

Radio

• In The Train at Platform 4 episode "Gilbert", Gilbert the First Class steward is horrified to see his stepsister, a successful businesswoman is on the train (and, naturally, in First Class) because he was treated as such as an embarrassment that he lied and told her he had a more impressive job. Initially, the lie is maintained by Sam the train manager swapping him with Dev in the buffet car, but when she sees him just as Sam learns that the "more impressive job" is chairman of the rail company, Sam makes a heroic effort to claim that this is part of an "undercover boss" exercise before Gilbert decides to come clean.

Video Games

• In Genshin Impact, Childe/Tartaglia's Story Quest concerns him having previously told his younger brother Teucer that he was a toy engineer to hide the details of his real job as a Fatui Harbinger, then having to cover when Teucer comes to visit him in Liyue.
• Wild ARMs XF has the main heroine as the doppelganger for the kingdom's princess. When she's mistaken for said princes after she disappears, the heroine takes the princess's place to give hope to the people. The series Arc Words reflect this. "Some lies are worth living."
• World in Conflict: Played with on a national level. After invading Washington State, USSR forces are advancing to capture Fort Teller, headquarters of the Strategic Defense Initiative. The Soviets don't know that the SDI was a sham, while the US forces do. If the Soviets find out that the SDI is fake, it is feared that they will be able to have the upper hand if World War 3 goes nuclear. To prevent this, the US goes as far as nuking USSR forces in order to prevent Fort Teller from falling and its paper tiger from being divulged.

Visual Novels

• Ace Attorney: Ron DeLite is firmly possessed of the belief that his wife will leave him if she realizes he's not loaded, and his wife is firmly possessed of the belief that security guards make quite a lot of money. To maintain the illusion he steals from his company, gets fired, lies to her about being fired, and then resorts to grand and overdramatic theft just to keep her thinking she can go on shopping sprees.

Webcomics

• In What Birds Know, Elia's father left her mother long ago, and to deal with the shame, the latter turns to prostitution while keeping up the facade that he's simply working a long way away.

Western Animation

• Adventure Time: In "Her Parents", Jake pretends to be a rainicorn so his girlfriend's parents will accept him.
• Babar: In "A Pair of Queens", has Flora befriending a hippo girl as pen pal and exaggerating her role in palace, because her pen pal is an actual Queen, so Flora says she is as well. When Christine arrives, Flora's helped in maintaining the lie by her brothers without the adults finding out. It turns out Christine also lied and is "just" a princess as well.
• Doug:
  • An episode had Doug's family putting on a play to impress his sister's new boyfriend, as Judy thought they were too boring. Doug took offense to being written out of the family and cast as a butler, so he struck back by improvising his part as a secret agent trying to stop a bomb threat.
  • Another one had Judy pretending to be Doug's sick cousin Melvin to cover a lie he told Patty. It was eventually reversed, though, when Judy took "method acting" to the next level and Doug became the one maintaining the lie.
• Hey Arnold! once has Sid trying to pass off Arnold's room as his own to impress a wealthy exchange student.
• The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: One episode has Carl pretending to be the residential boy genius, not Jimmy, to impress his pen-pal, a Swedish model... Turns out she was lying as well.
• Kappa Mikey: One episode has Mikey doing this twice — first convincing his cast-mates to pretend to be the versions of themselves he'd told his parents they were, then hiring two strangers to pretend to be his parents when they cancelled at the last minute.
• In Peter Pan & the Pirates, Gentlemen Starkey lies to his mother about his role in the ship, presenting himself as the actual captain and speaking ill of Hook himself. Weird thing is, he sends the letter inside a bottle just assuming they'll arrive to his mother. One of them actually end in a fishing net and is discovered by Captain Hook who is naturally furious, but as the Lost Boys decide to play a prank to the pirates by responding one of the letters announcing that his mother would visit the Jolly Roger. Hook, as the mamma's boy he is, decides to pretend to be all Starkey said in the letters in order to not break Starkey's mother's heart.
• Rainbow Brite: Murky Dismal, the villain, whose mother disapproved of this whole gloom and evil business, has to convince her that he was perfectly well-adjusted. By stealing the protagonists' castle, among other things.
• The Simpsons:
  • Homer uses Mr. Burns' mansion to impress a researcher who kept track of everyone in Springfield from childhood on.
  • To get out of an arranged marriage, Apu tells his mother he was already married. When she arrives from India to meet the wife, Homer got the idea to have Marge and the kids pose as Apu's family.
    Apu: Is it just me, or do all your plans involve a horrible web of lies?
    Homer: It's you.
• Spongebob Squarepants:
  • Two separate episodes use this plot, both involving Squidward and his annoyingly successful high school acquaintance Squilliam. Oddly enough for Squidward, it is actually successful one of those times.
  • Inversion: When Patrick's parents (not really) visited, Spongebob faked being an idiot to make Patrick seem smarter. However, it goes downhill when Patrick starts thinking he is smarter and Spongebob is actually stupid.
• The Steven Universe episode "Fusion Cuisine" has Connie's parents insisting on meeting Steven's family or else they won't let Connie keep seeing him anymore. Unfortunately, Connie lied to them by claiming that Steven has a typical nuclear family. Even more unfortunately, each of the Crystal Gems has traits that would make them unsuitable to play the role of Mom. Fortunately(?) Steven has a solution: have them all fuse together! Amazingly enough, the lie is maintained throughout the dinner even though the Gems' fused form Alexandrite is a multi-armed giantess with green hair. The truth is only revealed after Pearl's disgust with eating clashes with Amethyst's desire to keep eating, causing the fusion to fall apart.
• In one Toonsylvania episode, Phil accidentally gives wolfsbane to Dr. Vic's visiting grandmother, whereupon she starts turning into a werewolf and back; he and Igor spend the episode trying to keep Vic from finding out. Afterwards, Vic remarks to them that his grandma wasn't her usual self — she's been a werewolf all her life, but for this whole weekend she never transformed.
• The Top Cat episode "A Visit from Mother", Benny the Ball has told his mother that he's the mayor, so when she visits, T.C. and the gang arrange a mayoral reception.

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