Not this time: The 25 best fictional stories from Beyond Belief
To mark the 25th anniversary of Beyond Belief: Fact Or Fiction, we count down the show's wildest made-up tales meant to fool the audience
TV Features Creative works
Optical illusions. Tricks of the light. Those Magic Eye pictures. A drawing that looks like an old woman from one angle and a young woman from another. This is how nearly every episode of Beyond Belief: Fact Or Fiction begins, the cult classic anthology show that ran for four seasons from 1997 to 2002, with host Jonathan Frakes (replacing original host James Brolin) showing off some silly gag as if it were a holy artifact. The point of it, beyond highlighting some funky imagery, is to underline the explicit point of the show: It’s all about pulling off the big reveal, complete with Frakes making a meal out of the big moment (or, on a rare occasion, telling you how smart you are). It’s the destination and not the journey, the explanation of why the drawing looks like two different things, not the things themselves.
Unlike other anthology shows, where you enjoy a story for the sake of the story, the meme-friendly Beyond Belief was a game with right and wrong answers. You were asked to solve a puzzle that just happened to look like prose, all so you could answer the show’s central question at the end of each episode: Was the story you just saw based on true events, or was it … beyond belief?
But what if you don’t play the game? What if you approach the stories on their own terms, as works of fiction and not pieces of a puzzle? What if you ignore the fact that this is a gimmicky anthology series about deciding whether or not bizarre stories about ghosts, premonitions, and bad people who karmically die of “fright” were loosely based on a real events or if they were—as Frakes puts it in so many episodes—dreamed up by the show’s team of writers?
As it turns out, some of the stories are really good. Others are absolute shit. So, in honor of this year being the anniversary of the premiere of Beyond Belief, we’ve compiled the definitive list of the 25 best fiction stories from the entire four-season run of the show. These aren’t necessarily the ones most likely to fool you into thinking they were true, as is the expressed purpose on the show. These are simply the best ones. They’re the most creatively interesting, the most satisfyingly spooky, and, in at least one case, the most audaciously and hilariously unhinged.
25 Comments
That carousel looks a lot like the one at Knoebels Grove in PA, though I don’t think it is because the location looks different.
This show was goofy fun to watch. For a while it was appointment TV for me and my group of friends on Friday nights. We’d meet up, watch it, then go off an do what ever it is uncool 20 year olds do(Aka play video games, a board game or D&D). I think it’s not secret that a large number of the “fact” stories were not really true either. The difference between Fact and fiction on this show was really more “Did our writers write this or do we get this story out from that pulp sci-fi writer/paranormal investigator we got on the pay roll who claims these are researched”. Still wacky stuff to watch and Frakes was great
It was a fun show to get stoned to.
Its funny is I saw this response show up in my feed and was wondering if you were responding to this show or my comments on Squid Games. I totally agree that Beyond Belief is great to get stoned to. Squid Games, on the other hand, not so much
Exactly. The “true” stories were often bullshit that somebody claimed to have occurred. I remember one where an English-speaking American child supposedly spontaneously developed the ability to speak in fluent Mandarin because of a past life or something.
A Youtuber I enjoy watching(mostly for her coverage of old Sierra adventure games and her Murder She Wrote content) did a good video on the show and goes into detail about why the “true” stories were mostly just BS too. Still a fun show to watch.
As we all should know by now, based on a true account is REALLY flexible. Also Frakes’ “a similar account took place . . .” bit, which could mean a LOT of things. You could still usually tell which ones were just completely made up, though. If the story had any kind of narrative arc or dramatic reveal rather than just “some weird shit happened” it was fiction. It’s like their writers couldn’t help themselves and had to make it a STORY rather than just a weird thing.
The Hindenburg reveal is ABSOLUTELY the best reveal the show ever did. My sister and I were binging this show a few years ago and the episodes had settled into a pretty predictable rhythm, most of them ending with some variation of “we were saved by the mysterious stranger.” It looked as though “Bon Voyage” was going to end in the same way, so when we found out they were on the freaking Hindenburg I leapt up and yelled “THEY GOT ME!”
And there were so many other great segments, I think you could easily do a top fifty list of the best ones… the one where the man sitting on his balcony is murdered by three acrobats standing on top of each other… the one where the woman on a retreat sees a group of creepy children dancing in a circle and then learns from the morning paper that she died several days ago… the one with the sweaty coffin salesman standing in the elevator… the one where the woman leaves a hotel to get medicine for her ailing mum, and when she returns an hour later the hotel room is gone… the one with the celebrity weatherman who’s told that viewers are sick of his weather reports because he always reports the same things (??), so he starts telling insane lies about hurricanes, floods and volcanoes…
Yeah, every Saturday after I got home from college was a game of wits, me vs. Frakes. Such a ridiculous show. I met Frakes at a con and told him I’m sure everybody asks him about Star Trek, but to me, he’ll always be telling me I’m WRONG, not this time.
“It’s a curse.”GREAT delivery of a great line in a TERRIBLE show.CLASSIC.
I have no idea how I missed this show when it was on. This was like the exact window I was super into X-Files as a kid, and therefore 1) was watching Fox a lot, and 2) was really into supernatural, paranormal, conspiracy stuff at the time. This would’ve been so up my alley. I remember all the other similar shows on Fox at the time: the masked magician revealing magic tricks, the fake moon landing special, all the alien abduction shit. Didn’t learn about Beyond Belief until I saw a meme about it a few years ago.
You would have loved Psy Factor, if you ever came across it.
I am also wondering how I missed this, since I checked out a ton of ghost stories and mysteries from the library, and LOVED “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” Also loved “Unsolved Mysteries” and the weird clips they showed on USA Up All Night.
Two segments have always stayed with me. The first: Where the kid keeps seeing glowing eyes at night that turns out to be his grandmother made me wary about being around my own grandma for awhile. The second: A boy thinks there is a monster in his closet so some bullies lock him in there. After a few moments of pounding on the door and yelling for help it goes silent. The mom comes in and when she opens the closet she finds only the clothes he was wearing. Edit: it was one of the bullies who goes in the closet as a joke. Freaky stuff to a 7-8 year old. 😂
The bully in the closet stayed with me the most as well. Along with the one where the dog died and turned up the next day completely fine. I needed some joy to balance out the terror.
The bullies are his older siblings and their friends. It’s one of his older brothers who get in the closet and – while it’s declared true – apparently it turned out to be an elaborate prank by the brothers and one of their friends. The brother in the closet snuck into the attack through a panel entrance they’d discovered above in the closet’s ceiling, weighted the panel down, then snuck out that night with the help of the other brother and was hiding with his friend for weeks before the friend’s mother found him.
The show just completely omitted the part where it was all a cruel prank.
Ah, that’s right about it being the older brother. And I shouldn’t be surprised that the show only told half-truths when it came to their fact stories.
This actually aired on Fox. I thought it was syndicated. It definitely has the look of a syndicated show from that era.
Someone might have already said this, but just in case: it’s on Tubi for free. I just had a Fact or Fiction marathon this weekend, it was great.
OMG thank you! This article made me want to go in for a rewatch but thought I was going to have to do snippets on youtube.
Was there an episode about two teens in a car & they hear on the radio that a hook-handed murderer has escaped from a local asylum & they get nervous & leave & when they get home there is a hook attached to the car’s door handle??If so that one was probably real
I always wondered about the “true” stories. I looked up the author they keep referencing, and I could never find anything about him or any books. I would love to read his stuff.
Fact or fiction, America: Hillary Clinton’s mouth AIDS is the only thing slowing down her rampant appetite for destruction. Yes? Of course. That’s right, you’re too smart for us. There are, of course, many many other things she also perceives as obstacles across her path to domination.
Have you ever wanted to visit a Turkish Prison?
See, this piece is fun! It feels a little like old AV Club. Well done, Sam.