I have seen conspiracy theorists claim that yes, those live broadcasts were indeed faked. They claim that the Apollo CMs were simply dropped from aircraft. After all, boilerplate CMs and even real CMs had been tested in this way.

Others claim that the Apollo spacecraft did make it into low Earth orbit -- but no further. So the splashdown would still happen legitimately, even if the missions were faked. (Never mind visual observations by amateurs proving that this was not the case.)

Never underestimate the creativity of a conspiracy theorist....