Stereo Fibbing
Two characters are conspiring to deceive a third, but they haven't worked out their story in advance. When questioned, they blurt out answers in unison, which naturally are different answers, requiring further lies to explain how both blurted answers can be true.
For added comedy, the characters may then swap answers, each one trying to change his own answer to match his co-conspirator's, or their excuses may start blending together.
Compare Cover Identity Anomaly. Contrast Seamless Spontaneous Lie.
Comic Books
- From a comic with the Beagle Boys, where they try to rob a Lost and found:
 |
Beagle Boy #1: I have lost my umbrella. |
 |
- In the third issue of a Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy comic series, there is a scene where Harley and Ivy show up at a movie studio meeting.
|
Studio Exec: Who are you? |
|
Film
- In The Secret of My Success, Mr. Prescott walks in on Michael J. Fox and Mrs. Prescott in a compromising position. They claim Fox hit his head. On what? "The ceiling!/The floor!" Which is it? "Both!/Neither!"
- In 9 to 5, when the leading ladies are pulled over, Violet explains that one of them is sick.
|
Cop: Which one of you is sick? |
|
- Happens at the start of Serendipity. The two romantic leads have just met when they both try to grab a pair of gloves off a display stand in a store at christmas. While they're trying to decide who should get them another man comes in and picks them up. They tell him to stop, saying that the gloves were a very important gift for someone.
|
Man: Who? |
|
- From Raising Arizona: "What's the baby's name?" "Hi Junior"/"Ed Junior" "...We've just been calling him Junior."
Literature
- In the Discworld novel Wyrd Sisters, the titular coven of witches leaves a baby (who is secretly the heir to the throne of Lancre, smuggled out of the palace after the king is murdered by his brother) in the care of a band of travelling actors. When asked the boy's name, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg provide separate answers, "Tom" and "John", but settle on "Tomjon".
- This trope is central to the plot of the Book of Daniel and Susannah (biblical apocrypha), making it Older Than Feudalism.
- In his book They Shoot Canoes, Don't They?, humorist Patrick McManus gives a fictionalized account of his youthful encounter with the local game warden:
|
"What you boys doin' here?" he demanded finally. We answered simultaneously: "Lookin" for a cow." "Pullin' up thistles." Sneed didn't smile at these contradictory explanations. He was not a fun-loving man. |
|
- In Redwall, Sela and Fangburn tell a phony story to Cluny, but didn't work out all the details:
|
Cluny: Where was the noise coming from? |
|
Live-Action TV
- In the Small Wonder episode "Vicki's Adoption", Mrs. Fernwald asks Ted and Joan how Vicki's natural parents died. "A train crash!/A plane crash! A plane crashed on top of a train."
- Subverted in an episode of Friends: Rachel and Phoebe conspire to leave Joey alone with a girl they want him to date. Joey sees through the ruse and tries to catch them in the lie by asking several follow-up questions. However, Rachel and Phoebe have worked out their story, and answer several successive questions in perfect unison.
- Mystery Science Theater 3000: In one of the host segments for The Giant Spider Invasion - which had an Invasion of the Body Snatchers plot throughout the segments, Pearl and Observer identify the pods as:
|
Pearl/Observer: Zucchini/Throw pillows. |
|
- In the final episode of Fawlty Towers, Basil tries to justify to two customers why another customer had just been given veal when Basil has just said that the veal is off. He claims that the veal is "veal substitute".
|
Basil: We had it flown in from... |
|
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
- In "Killed by Death", Xander, Willow, and Cordy take an unconscious Buffy into the Hospital Emergency room:
|
Intern: What happened? |
|
- In the episode "Becoming, Part II", Buffy lies to her mother and tells her that "she's in a band" with Spike.
|
Mom: What instrument do you play? |
|
- Subverted in Spaced where the two main characters, in order to rent a flat, pretend to be in a relationship. When first asked how long they've been together, they answer to the day, having memorised it beforehand. However, when asked again two days later, they give the exact same answer. Oops.
- Even more hilarious when they try to weasel out of the mistake by claiming that one of them goes by when they first had sex, and the other goes by when they first kissed, causing an unusually sharp Brian to ask:
|
Brian: You had sex before you kissed? |
|
- An episode of Porridge, in which the cellmates have to explain a bottle of pills found in their cell.
|
Godber: They're Fletch's. They're for his... |
|
- The title character of House discovers that the elderly couple he's been giving relationship advice are actually having an affair when he asks them how long they've been married and they give different answers—the lengths, one assumes, of their respective marriages.
- Not quite fibbing, but one episode of Full House found Joey and Jesse fighting over a girl, with Danny attempting to defuse the situation by pointing out that they don't even know this girl very well.
|
Danny: What color are her eyes? |
|
- Averted on That '70s Show, when Eric and Kelso gave the same answer in unison through luck, despite not having planned it.
- They almost blow it anyway by turning to each other with surprised delight when they realize what just happened.
- A favorite with the kids of The Brady Bunch.
- I Love Lucy.
- A variant appears in the season five finale of NCIS when Vance asks Tony and Ziva about the events of the episode thus far. Tony lies but Ziva doesn't, creating the usual effect of the trope:
|
Director Vance: Did you know Mike Franks was involved in this? |
|
- They answer the final question, about whose side they are on, in perfect unison. "Gibbs." Awww.
- In an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, after Data's head has been found in an abandoned 19th century mine on Earth, Data notices that the rest of the crew seems awkward around him. He says to Riker and Troi:
|
Data: I am perceiving an apparent change in the way that others act toward me. For example, people abruptly end their conversations when I appear... as you did when the turbolift doors opened. Is this an accurate observation? |
|
- Double Subverted on Scrubs, during the "Spontaneous Mass Guy-Lie" incident.
- In Eureka, Carter and Allison do this when they enter a room right after having spent the night together.
|
Fargo: Where have you two been? |
|
- Distilled to its purest essence in the Doctor Who episode "Vincent and the Doctor":
|
Vincent van Gogh (To Amy): I take it from your accent that you're from Holland, like me? |
|
- Done in Last of the Summer Wine:
|
Pearl: So what were you talking about? |
|
- An episode of Spin City has Carter and Stuart trying to convince Paul the apartment for sale across the hall from them has already been taken so he won't buy it.
|
Paul: Who took it? |
|
- In an episode of Zoey 101, Trisha is dating Chase against his will. To get out of it, he puts on an act for her that depicts Zoey as his girlfriend. When questioned about it, they usually agree on everything. Until...
|
Trisha: How long have you two been going out? |
|
- In The Class, Yonk finds out that Nicole and Duncan dated in high school.
|
Yonk: So, how long did you guys go out? |
|
- Beautifully averted in Frasier's fourth-season premiere. Everyone has been telling a bunch of outrageous lies to Daphne's ex-BF Clive (It Makes Sense in Context. well, a little). When he asks the dog's name, everyone looks tensely at one another for a moment, and then in unison they say the dog's actual name, Eddie.
Radio
- In one episode of Absolute Power, Charles has supplied Prentiss McCabe's newest client with an entirely fictional tragic background, including being raised by an abusive single mother in a tower block. (She was actually raised by two loving parents in a bungalow.)
|
Interviewer: What happened to your father? |
|
Theatre
- The Neil Simon farce Rumors, when the characters try to explain a gunshot.
- In "A Healthy, Normal American Boy" from the musical Bye, Bye, Birdie, Albert and Rose simultaneously explain how Conrad Birdie started singing. They don't agree on the biographical details, but they do rhyme, and a very nice Counterpoint Duet ensues.
- A certain Norwegian theater piece featured the main character (a man who was swindling money by faking to host a whole bunch of crippled people) and his friend (the only real apartment renter) trying to cover up the scheme from several sudden guests. They often ended up having to answer for the other's lies.
|
Tax inspector: I find it weird that a deaf piano maker can understand me so well. |
|
Video Games
- In The Secret of Monkey Island, if Guybrush asks the three Men of Low Moral Fibre "What's in the keg?", the one on the keg and the tall one reply:
|
Keg/Tall: Rum./Jam. |
|
- Subverted in the third chapter of Tales of Monkey Island, where Coronado De Cava tries this on Guybrush and Morgan (who are pretending to be a honeymooning couple). Their answers turn out similar enough that he believes them.
Web Comics
- This Xkcd strip.
- In Eight Bit Theater, Thief and Red Mage start out out of sync on this lie, but pull it together:
|
Thief: Ghosts. |
|
Web Original
- Done by Linkara and Benzaie when The Nostalgia Critic has Dr. Insano at gunpoint.
|
NC: You're a part of this, aren't you? |
|
Web Animation
- In Teen Girl Squad issue 5 on Homestar Runner, Cheerleader and So and So are trying to impress a pair of "olda boys":
|
Cheerleader: We're in college! |
|
- Similiar to the Discworld example above, in Season 9 Church and Tucker break the news to Tex about the poor, deceased Andersmith.
Western Animation
- In the Jackie Chan Adventures episode "The Warrior Incarnate", the Dark Hand busts into Uncle's shop looking for a terra-cotta statue on loan there. However, the statue was previously broken and is now totally disappeared from the shop, as Jade hauled the pieces away without Jackie or Uncle's knowledge. In this case, both Jackie and Uncle are telling the truth yet don't know the full story, making their explanations sound inconsistent:
|
Ratso: We know you got the statue. Where is it? |
|
- Used in the Danny Phantom episode "Secret Weapons", when Skulker presents a captured Danny to Vlad and Jazz.
|
Danny and Jazz: What are you doing here? |
|
- Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash do this in the My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic episode "Party of One", while claiming to be house-sitting for a bear named Harry who's vacationing at the beach:
|
Rainbow Dash: Yep, he loves to... |
|
- Rocket Power: The kids find a motorized skateboard and decide to keep it, in secret. When Ray finds out, they say they are just fixing it up for a friend, called...
|
Otto: Larry. |
|
- In one of the Adult Swim Wonder Twins shorts, Zan and Jayna run into old acquaintance Marvin after accidentally walking into the "adult" section of their local video store. He remarks that them being into this stuff is "pretty, uh, progressive, for a brother and sister." They scramble to explain themselves:
|
Zan: We're on a case! |
|
Real Life
- An anecdote about a teacher trying to catch students Stereo Fibbing goes like this: Three students miss a test and claim it was because they had intended to come in in the same car, but it had a flat tire. The teacher says he'll make up a special version of the test for them. When it comes time for them to take the new test, they see that it has only one question: "Which tire was it?"