History Main / CatScare

* ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddysSecurityBreach'' parodies its own infamous {{Jump Scare}}s with the Map Bot, a simplistic Staff Bot that will grab you with the appropriate sound effect... only to calmly offer you one of its free maps as the screeching dies down. This happens several times, and even if you're in hiding the Bot will ''rip you out of hiding just to make its offer''.

* Played straight and then averted in the Season 2 Halloween episode of ''Series/{{Wishbone}}''. Several years back, Joe was scared away from the Old Murphy House as a kid by a mysterious creature shrouded in darkness [[TheDarknessGazesBack save for its eyes]]. In the present day, a scavenger hunt leads him and his friends back to that house, with a cat driving them inside due to Wishbone constantly chasing it on sight. In the end, when Joe finds the hunt's grand prize, this strange creature is revealed to be that cat...or so he believes, as TheStinger brings it back without the cat.

* In''Webcomic/ILoveYoo''Shin-Ae hears a noise in her apartment, but only finds her cat, however, the trope is played with when [[spoiler:it is revealed that there is an actual stalker in her house.]]

A Cat Scare is a strong buildup of high tension, followed by a fright that turns out to be [[BaitAndSwith something harmless]] (say, a [[TropeNamers startled cat]]) to release that tension.

A Cat Scare is a strong buildup of high tension, followed by a fright from [[DefangedHorrors something harmless]] (say, a [[TropeNamers startled cat]]) to release that tension.

* ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'', "Return of the Headmaster": After a Decepticon sighting is called in, Sentinel Prime and Optimus Prime split to look for the Decepticon. Sentinel gets spooked by a noise, whirls, and slashes some pavement into bits with his lance -- and a cat appears, then runs off. He grumbles about organics a moment -- and then the Headmaster zaps him.

* {{Parodied}} and DoubleSubverted in the ''WesternAnimation/{{Thundercats 2011}}'' episode "The Forest of Magi Oar" when cat-creature Snarf nervously reacts to noises in a supposedly [[EnchantedForest haunted forest]], but its only his tricksy {{Catfolk}} friends the Thunderkittens who jump out and yell "Boo!" Later on, the menacing spirits show up for real.
* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/TheLooneyTunesShow'' when Daffy is pretending to be a cop and chasing Bugs through an office building. After following Bugs into the copy room and walking through quietly, a cat randomly jumps down and yowls, distracting Daffy just before Bugs appears behind him.

* ''WesternAnimation/DragonsRidersOfBerk'': In "What Flies Beneath", Hiccup and Fishlegs experience a ''sheep'' scare while creeping through the Whispering Death's tunnels.

[[caption-width-right:241: ...this time, anyway.]]-

[-[[caption-width-right:241: ...this time, anyway.]]-]

* ''LetsPlay/{{Markiplier}}'' cat-scared his audience in his video "Are Jumpscares Really Scary?" after building tension by staring into his cam for almost a minute, then cutting to him in his regular studio and going "Ha, ha, you expected a juuump-scaaare!!"

** Ravens tend to fly in out of nowhere in ''VideoGame/SilentHillDownpour''. Also, [[Film/TheRoom hai doggie]], didn't expect you to still be in that police cruiser.

* ''Film/AVPAlienVsPredator'', combining the two, naturally goes one better, featuring a ''penguin'' scare early on (before the characters even know "there's something out there").

* Appears in Robert Southey's 1799 poem "[[https://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/gods-judgment-wicked-bishop God's Judgment on a Wicked Bishop]]."

* Taken literally in the first episode of ''Manga/InuYasha'', when Kagome goes down to the well to search for her cat. She hears noises coming from the well and is frightened when her cat brushes up against her leg. After realizing her error, she faces away from the well with the cat as the Centipede Woman shows up to drag her back in time. Her brother, of course, sees it all and tries to warn her. No luck.

* OlderThanRadio: Appears in Robert Southey's 1799 poem "[[https://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/gods-judgment-wicked-bishop God's Judgment on a Wicked Bishop]]."

** OlderThanRadio: Unexpectedly found in "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton". While breaking into the title blackmailer's house under the cover of night, Watson and Holmes are indeed startled by a cat walking past them in a dark hallway.
** In ''The Speckled Band'', they approach a house they're planning to stake out in at night. As they walk the darkened grounds, something Watson describes as a horrible, misshapen child runs into them, bowls them over, and then runs off, considerably freaking Watson out. He forgot that the owner of said house liked to keep weird, foreign animals on the extensive grounds, and when he asks what it was, Holmes laughs it off, explaining that the creature was merely the man's baboon. Not that a baboon ''couldn't'' have done a heck of a lot of damage to them if it had wanted to, but the fact that it didn't cause any harm and wasn't the incomprehensible monster Watson first envisioned, makes it an example of this trope.