To be fair to Diane, looking at Gracemander, I would have dropped the act pretty quickly myself.

This honestly feels like canon to me in some of the actual games this is parodying.

In others, less so, or potentially canon with a side of "there's always one person who takes it too far" who unleashes a legendary monster upon the world.

My favorite bad guy team in a Pokemon game is Team Skull in the Sun and Moon games, and for as much as those guys try too hard and might seem to be putting on an act, they feel the most genuine to me.

They're a bunch of young people who failed the Island Challenges, and were rallied together as a sort of family under the leadership of a charismatic man who could never quite come in first. I was invested in that team, and never once suspected they were putting on a show as a part of the journey for young trainers.

Granted, this bit of "putting on a show" head canon gets a bit dark when you consider that Team Rocket were cutting off Slowpoke tails in the first game. EDIT: I'm told it was actually the second game. NERD CRED: LOST!