Note: As a Death Trope, all Spoilers will be unmarked ahead. Beware.
Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated in Western Animation.
- In All Hail King Julien, several characters assumed to have been eaten by fossa have turned up in the kingdom, including Julien's own parents. Presumably death by fossa is so common, anyone who suddenly vanishes is assumed to have been eaten.
- Arcane: Everyone assumed Vi had died with the rest of her family, not secretly locked up in jail. When she returns to the Undercity, people are appropriately shocked to see someone back from the dead.
- This was Aang's status for half of the third season of Avatar: The Last Airbender following the second season finale, where Azula killed Aang only for Katara to bring him back. While Sokka was excited to have such a stealthy advantage, Aang was initially upset that the world thought their only hope to end the war was gone forever, but eventually decided it was best that the world not know the Avatar was alive for now. Unfortunately, Azula, being The Chessmaster she is, had a feeling that Aang was alive and not only had a plan to defend against the Gaang's invasion, but also make them waste their stealthy advantage.
- In the revival of Beavis And Butthead, Beavis is convinced that Daria Morgendorffer committed suicide. Butthead corrects him that she just moved away.
- Dilbert had all of his benefits cut at work after spending a short period of time dead.
- On Family Guy this happened three times. The first time with Peter, who got out of a hospital bill by writing that he was dead. The rest of the episode involved him making a deal with the Grim Reaper. The second time was when they got Quagmire out of a marriage with a psycho woman. Since her last name was also Quagmire by marriage, and she grabbed the Grim Reaper's hand (killing herself in the process), it all worked out nicely.
- The third time also involved the Grim Reaper, but he was just there, he didn't harvest. Peter, Cleveland, Joe, and Quagmire all get stranded on a deserted island for quite some time and are declared dead. Peter has to save his marriage since Brian married Lois during that time.
- In Futurama, Cubert was able to take over Planet Express because the Professor had been declared dead as a tax dodge.Farnsworth: Tax dodge nothing! You take one nap in a ditch in the park and they start declaring you this and that!
- In Gravity Falls, for half the second season, Dipper was under the assumption that Agents Powers and Trigger were eaten by the zombie hoard in "Scary-Oke". In "Not What He Seems", he learns otherwise.
- In one episode of Hey Arnold!, Dino Spumoni faked his death, counting on it boosting his popularity. Then he realized he couldn't get paid if he was dead.
- In Iron Man: The Animated Series, Tony fakes Iron Man's death (this was back when he still had a secret identity in the comics) after he goes off the rails in "Armor Wars". When he gets back in the saddle, he drops the line, attributing it to Mark Twain. "Iron Man lives."
- Occurs almost verbatim early in the second season of Jackie Chan Adventures, upon discovering that Shendu has returned (as a ghost) and is in possession of the Dark Hand's boss, Valmont:Shendu: Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated, Chan.
- Korgoth of Barbaria: The dark wizard Specules is annoyed when he finds a bunch of thieves in his castle looting the place on the assumption that he was dead. Turns out, he was just taking a cruise holiday.
- Mickey's April Fools has Mickey Mouse pretending to die in front of Mortimer as an April Fools prank. Mickey then gets a letter declaring he's inherited a million dollars, but he can't get it because he's supposed to be dead.
- In the first episode of Ruby Gloom, a rumor gets around that Ruby is dying. By the end, everyone thinks she's dead and is mourning her, while she tries to correct them. All Played for Laughs.
- The Patrick Star Show: In "Uncredible Journey", GrandPat breaks the downstairs toilet, so the family calls a plumber. When he arrives, he hears noise from upstairs (sentient toilet Tinkle, Ouchie, and Pinkeye playing together) and captures the three of them, then replaces Tinkle with a regular toilet. The Star family see that Tinkle isn't eating or playing, and mistakenly believe he's dead, holding a funeral in the front yard. After finding their way home, the three pets reveal themselves, and Tinkle is welcomed back into the family.
- In Peter Pan & the Pirates, episode "Demise of Hook", Captain Hook says these exact words after he fakes his death and poses as a ghost.Peter Pan: (after being captured) Why, you're no ghost!
Tinkerbell: You're not even dead!
Captain Hook: What can I say, except that the reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. - In the Pixie, Dixie and Mr. Jinks cartoon "Ghost With the Most," Dixie fakes his death after Jinks clobbers with with a fireplace shovel and dresses up as his ghost to haunt Jinks into subservience to Pixie. When Jinks gets wise, he fakes his own death and turns the tables.
- In the DVD movie Scooby-Doo in Where’s My Mummy?, Velma is an helping an archaeology team restore the great Sphinx. There seems to be a legend that Cleopatra's ghost guards the treasures within, so when Scooby and the rest of the gang join her, Velma gets separated and is turned to stone. It turns out after the perps (a treasure plunderer and her crew) are pinched that it is revealed that Velma not only faked her own demise but was the ghost of Cleopatra all along to ward off plunderers.
- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power has this as the reason why Entrapta pulls a (downplayed) Face–Heel Turn. During a rescue mission to save some of the other Rebellion members from the Horde, the rest of the group see her get trapped in an incinerator that turns on just seconds later. However, Entrapta manages to use a Robot Buddy to shield herself from the flames, before proceeding to hide within the vents of the enemy base for the next two days awaiting rescue. She's found by two of the villains, Catra and Scorpia, who manipulate her into believing that she was purposefully left behind due to being seen as a nuisance. (Well, Catra does because she's a Manipulative Bitch; Scorpia believes this narrative because she's a Minion with an F in Evil and thinks Catra's her friend and wouldn't lie to her.) This plus the Horde's willingness to support her more dangerous research leads to her joining, while her former friends are completely convinced she's dead.
- The Simpsons:
- Homer Simpson fakes his death in "Mother Simpson" to escape a day of work. It eventually leads to him discovering his long-lost mother, whose own death had been greatly exaggerated decades previously by Homer's father. She then fakes her death AGAIN at the end of the episode.
- Lisa was presumed dead in "Lisa the Tree Hugger", owing to the fact that she was supposed to be camping an ancient redwood when it got hit by lightning (which, as it turns out, was caused by the bucket she had in the tree). She refused to come clean because her "death" was inspiring the people, but finally did when it was twisted by the rich Texan guy into publicity for his new amusement park.
- And Bart also once had Milhouse help him fake his death on some cliff.
- In 'Simpsons Tall Tales' episode where Bart and Nelson take the roles of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, the two boys can be seen lying on a rafter grinning down at the townspeople who are attending the boys' funeral. Subverted that it turns out that they really are dead; their bodies, which ended up with those looks on them, are lowered to their caskets.
- Lampshaded in the soap "Reach for the Sun" that Marge and Lisa are watching:Marguarita: Father McGrath! I thought you were dead!
Father McGrath: I was! - During "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday", Marge and Lisa work on an egg painting kit endorsed by Vincent Price. After discovering they're missing a set of decorative feet that's supposed to come with the kit, Marge calls the company and is shocked when Price himself answers even though he'd died several years before the episode aired. Price declares "You should know the grave could never claim me" before giving Marge instructions on how to get the feet from his next-of-kin. He then caps off by saying "I must now return to the sweet embrace of the crypt." Lisa's not sure if Price is supposed to be alive or dead by that point. Things get even more complicated when he appears at the end of the episode, driving a bus.
- An episode of South Park featured a guy being frozen for almost three years. He comes back to his wife who says that she assumed he was dead and married someone else and now had two kids, aged 8 and 13. After a while, the guy says, "8 and 13!?"
- In one episode of The Spectacular Spider-Man, after the titular hero was seemingly crushed to death in a battle with Shocker, Marko and O'hirn take advantage of it by robbing a store. When Spidey shows up to foil them, he tries to quote the trope name but fails and just tells them to tell Shocker he wants a rematch.
- In the Spider-Man: The Animated Series episode, "The Spot," Spider-man convinces Spot to help him take down Kingpin. So, Spot brings an apparently unconscious Spider-man to Kingpin. Upon revealing the ploy, Spider-man delivers this line.
- Spider-Man Unlimited: The Green Goblin quotes this almost word for word when he shows up in the final episode to assist Spidey and the other heroes against the High Evolutionary and his forces.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003):
- After "The Shredder Strikes Back Part 2", the Foot believed that the Turtles and their allies were killed in the fire at April's antique store. This was due to Baxter Stockman faking proof in order to steal an Utrom exoskeleton from Shredder. The Turtles would take advantage of this by launching their own sneak attack in "Return to New York".
- This has happened to the Shredder multiple times. First, the Turtles thought he was killed by the collapsing water tower at the end of "The Shredder Strikes Part 2". Then, when Leonardo seemingly decapitated him in "Return to New York Part 3". Finally, he appeared to have been killed by the destruction of TCRI in "Secret Origins Part 3", only to show up alive at the end of the "City At War" arc.
- Shockwave paraphrases this trope in his first appearance in the third season of Transformers: Prime."Reports of my demise were greatly... premature."
- Wakfu: Both Sadlygrove and Rubilax were under the impression Goultard was dead for some time before the start of the first season, tomb and everything. Goultard dissuades that notion by literally walking out of said tomb, telling Sadlygrove "Well, I'm not dead anymore!" and Rubilax "Death's terribly overrated, you know." It doesn't hurt that Goultard is The Ageless due to fulfilling the duties of the god Iop while the latter is off reincarnating in mortal form (of which Sadlygrove is unknowingly the current incarnation of). Other material suggests even if he was killed, he's still Barred from the Afterlife because he kept beating up all the dead and demons.
- Wander over Yonder: In "The Pet", Wander befriends a man-eating alien and begins training it to be a pet; when attempting to give it a teddy bear as a gift, it spits at it and rips it to shreds before wrapping it in a cocoon. When Sylvia opens the cocoon minutes later, she mistakes the teddy bear's remains for Wander's fur, thinking he had been eaten by the alien.
