History Main / RaceAgainstTheClock

In many cases, for whatever reason -- be it the alignment of planets, a scheduled public event to sabotage, a "you have one hour to comply or..." threat, or just a plain old TimeBomb -- the villain's plot is time sensitive: It will succeed at a given moment and not one second sooner. The hero has until that moment to stop the villain.

* In ''Anime/SonicTheHedgehogTheMovie'', the first half of the movie deals with Sonic and Tails racing to Eggman Land/Robotropolis to stop its core from exploding, which is on an ExactTimeToFailure timer. [[spoiler:Unbeknown to them, it's actually a trap for Hyper Metal Sonic to copy Sonic's life force data]].

* ''Manga/WorldTrigger'': A variation in the Large-Scale Invasion, where the enemy isn't aware of the importance of the time. There's a specific moment--which the chapters count down to--where the crossroads of the future meet, as foreseen by Jin, and determine whether Osamu lives or dies. Once that second has ticked by, he's officially safe, but until then, anything goes.

%%* The Disney version of ''WesternAnimation/{{Cinderella}}'' adds an actual chase for good measure.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Coco}}'': Miguel has until the next sunrise to receive a blessing from a former family member of his in the Land of the Dead so he can return home, otherwise he'll be trapped there forever. [[spoiler: Héctor is also working against a time limit: he has until his daughter (the last person alive who remembers him) forgets him entirely, and is pretty sure that he won't last the night]].
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Frozen|2013}}'': The second half of the movie becomes this after [[spoiler:Elsa strikes Anna's heart with ice magic]]. The countdown timer isn't a clock; it's [[PowerDyesYourHair Anna's hair]].

* ''WesternAnimation/{{The Little Mermaid|1989}}'': The spell that turns Ariel into a human only lasts for three days; to make it permanent, she needs to get Eric to kiss her (specifically, "the kiss of true love," per Ursula) before the third sunset.

* Rather, RogerRabbitEffect film, but mostly animated, Thrax in ''Film/OsmosisJones'' has a SelfImposedChallenge to be the deadliest disease ever recorded in medical history. He's killed dozens of people in the past, each one faster than the previous, and by the time he gets to Frank, the protagonist of the live-action segment and whose body [[FantasticVoyagePlot it takes place in]], he plans on taking him down in less than 48 hours. He gloats to Jones near the end that his next target, Frank's daughter, Shane, will die even faster. [[spoiler:His plans are cut short after Jones lures him onto Shane's fake eyelash and gets his claw stuck in it, which then falls into a bottle of rubbing alcohol, killing him.]]

* ''[[Film/EightyEightMinutes 88 Minutes]]'' takes this a few steps further.

* In ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' the "Big Computer That Controls Everything" announces that the coolant system has shut down and the reactors will overheat and explode. Bishop estimates that they have approximately four hours before that, and later on the computer inside the reactor starts giving them a precise countdown.

* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] thoroughly in the 1978 science film ''Film/CapricornOne''. Elliot Gould's heroic journalist is on the verge of being pulled away from the scoop of the century by his editor. Bargaining for time, he argues that "''the assignment editor is supposed to say "you've got 48 hours, kids, and you'd better come up with something good or it's going to be your neck!" That's what he's supposed to say, I saw it in a movie.''" The editor then gives him 24 hours, "Not forty-eight. I saw the movie too; it was twenty-four."

** ''Film/ManOfSteel'': In the climax, Superman must stop the World Engine's HostileTerraforming before it causes the extinction of the human race.

** ''Film/{{Wonder Woman|2017}}'': In the climax, Steve Trevor and the other humans of his team must stop Ludendorff's secret weapon (a plane filled with DeadlyGas with London as target) before it takes off while Diana deals with Ares.

-->'''Frank''': 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, 12 seconds. That is when the world will end.

* ''Film/{{Flash Gordon|1980}}''. Flash only has a limited amount to time to stop Emperor Ming before the Moon crashes into the Earth. This is mentioned periodically throughout the movie and has a timed countdown at the end.

* In ''Film/TheHotChick'', Jessica stole a pair of earrings, misplaced one of them and ended up switching bodies with a man named Clive. Jessica was informed that if she doesn't find the missing earring before the full moon ended, then she would be permanently stuck in Clive's body.

* Something similar happens in ''Film/TheKillingRoom'' (2009). The protagonists are locked in a room and told that only one of them will get out alive. They're given a test question that requires a numerical answer, and the person whose answer is furthest from the correct one will be killed. A digital clock counts down the time until they have to give the answer. There's actually plenty of time to think up the answer (several hours), as the point is to put as much psychological pressure on the occupants as possible and seeing the clock adds to this.
* In a twist, it is the heroes' unfortunate actions in ''Film/LChangeTheWorld'' that are time sensitive. Maki is the one who injected herself with a lethal virus to begin with, and it has to be cured before it becomes active or she could kill innocent bystanders. L likewise has 23 more days to live after writing his own name in the ''Manga/DeathNote'' to catch Kira and has to get the ''new'' problem solved before he dies.

* ''Film/ManOfSteel'': General Zod delivers an ominous message when his spaceship arrives in Earth's orbit. Then he addresses the lone Kryptonian on the planet.
-->'''Zod:''' To Kal-El I say this: Surrender within 24 hours, or watch this world suffer the consequences.
* A common plot element in the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse:

* ''Film/{{Outland}}''. In the space-mining colony on Io, a large digital clock is in the bar showing the exact time-till-arrival of the weekly supply shuttle. When word gets out that two hitmen are arriving on the [[WhenTheClockStrikesTwelve 12:00 shuttle]] to kill the protagonist, the clock takes on the role of the Ticking Countdown of Doom. The protagonist has actually completed his preparations hours before; the deadline only serves to rack up his (and the audience's) tension.

* ''Film/RunLolaRun''. Lola's boyfriend Manny has a meeting with some mobsters, and he just lost the money he was supposed to hand off to them. The meeting's in twenty minutes, so Lola and Manny have that long to get the money back.

* In ''Film/{{Stardust}}'', Tristan has a week to travel into a neighboring magical universe and bring back a fallen star to Victoria before her birthday, or she'll marry Humphrey instead of him. Ironically, he eventually [[NotStayingForBreakfast leaves the heroine, his actual true love, after making love to her]] so he can let Victoria down within that time frame--leading to the heroine's instant near-suicidal depression, as [[PoorCommunicationKills she doesn't realize]] he's going to (literally) dump his former crush and come back to her the same day.

* One ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' says the Theocracy of Muntab uses a calendar that counts down instead of up. What happens after isn't specified, that it's probably not a good idea to hang around to see what all the fuss is about is.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In the ''Literature/PastDoctorAdventures'' novel ''City at World's End'', when the TARDIS arrives on Sarath, the Doctor soon establishes that he has just over a month to replace the TARDIS key and help the natives get their escape ship in working order before the decaying moon crashes into Sarath; [[spoiler:the situation escalates when the moon fractures in advance of the predicted schedule, leaving them with eight hours to get everything together and off the planet]].

* The CBS newsmagazine ''48 Hours'' was titled in that manner as the stories covered by the show literally took place over a two day period. The show kept the title even though it now covers long-term TrueCrime stories.

* A similar plot happened in ''Series/TheBill'' because Reg Hollis was dumb enough to ask a prisoner a question pertinent to their inquires while he was being detained, so everyone suddenly has a lot less time than expected to get the required evidence or release him.

* In the ''Series/BrooklynNineNine'' episode "48 Hours", after making an arrest with too little proof, Detective Jake Peralta has 48 hours to get the evidence or the perp goes free, forcing the Nine-nine to work over the weekend.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E742 "42"]]: The Doctor and Martha land on a spaceship which is going to crash into a sun in 42 minutes unless they can manage to repair it.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E13LastOfTheTimeLords "Last of the Time Lords"]]: The Master activates a countdown clock to when his fleet of spaceships intended for universal conquest launches. Unfortunately for him, the Doctor knows all too well of his inability to resist ticking clocks, and he and Martha have timed their plan to use said clock against him.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E1TheEleventhHour "The Eleventh Hour"]]: At the climax, the Doctor has 20 minutes to locate Prisoner Zero or the Atraxi will destroy the Earth. And to make things more difficult, he doesn't have access to either the TARDIS or the sonic screwdriver.

** In "No Conscience", an innocent bystander is [[MistakenForSpies Mistaken For A Spy]] and tortured for the MacGuffin. Realising he's going to be killed if he doesn't think of something, he comes up with the 48 hour trope himself. The villains give him 24 hours, but eventually agree to 36. Then he has to hire [=McCall=] (who points out that 12 hours have already passed by the time they interview their first witness) to find out what they wanted in the first place.

* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' plays with the trope in season two - Matt Parkman is given this limit, but only because he mind-commanded DaChief into doing so.

** ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'': In "Countdown", a girl is kidnapped by a pedophile who always kills his victims after three days. The detectives have to figure out who he is and find him before the girl runs out of time.
*** A later episode involves the abduction of a woman with a high-risk pregnancy, and a doctor tells them they only have about 36 hours to find her before she and the baby could both die. [[spoiler:They ultimately find her in time to save the baby, but the mother ends up suffering DeathByChildbirth shortly thereafter.]]

* ''Series/{{MacGyver|1985}}'': In "Nightmares", an interrogator gives [=MacGyver=] a slow-acting poison, and tells him that if he doesn't get the antidote within six hours, his death will be inevitable. There is a prominently-displayed countdown timer. [=MacGyver=] gets the antidote with two and a half minutes to spare, and makes a full recovery. It's never explained how they were able to state the time limit so exactly -- the interrogator says that the poison was calibrated specially for [=MacGyver=], but that just changes the question to how they got the medical information about [=MacGyver=] they'd need for the calibration.

* The RealTime episode of ''Series/{{MASH}}'', "Life Time": the surgeons have to perform a critical operation in the time frame of the episode. This is further dramatized by a ticking clock counter superposed on the lower right corner of the screen.

* ''Series/MissionImpossible'' used this quite a bit, though one writer took it a bit too far by writing no fewer than ''three'' different episodes where the team had to prevent something that was going to happen "in two days at 4:00."
** Happens in the third movie as well: Ethan Hunt gets 48 hours to complete a HostageForMcGuffin scheme.
* In the ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' episode "Defiance", the daughter of a foreign diplomat is kidnapped from NCIS custody, and Vance gives Gibbs' team 48 hours to find her before demanding [=DiNozzo=]'s and [=McGee=]'s badges.
** Lampshaded once, a group of marines in a training exercise find an armed bomb with about 3 minutes left on the clock. 10 seconds later the bomb goes off and the Gunnery Sgt. reminds them of Evil Overlord Rule #15: Never assume a bomb's timer is accurate.

* Parodied on ''Series/{{The Office|US}}'', kind of, when [[TooDumbToLive Michael]] apparently misunderstands the threat:
-->'''Michael:''' ''(being blamed for an obscene watermark on a paper order; making a video)'' If I could leave you with one thought, remember... it wasn't me. They're trying to make me an [[{{Malaproper}} escape goat]]. If I am fired, I swear to God, that every single piece of copier paper in this town is going to have the F-word on it. The F-word. You have one day.\\

'''Michael:''' [[ComicallyMissingThePoint That's...they always give an ultimatum.]]\\
'''Pam:''' ...OK.
%%* On ''Series/PrisonBreak'', they're usually racing against a season-long clock and a tinier clock in a number of episodes.
* During ''Series/QuantumLeap'''s third season, there was the episode "Last Dance Before an Execution". In it, Sam leaps into a death row inmate [[DownerBeginning right in the middle of being strapped into the electric chair]], only to be immedately granted a 48 hour stay of execution. Sam and Al quickly determine they are there to prove the innocence of the leapee and his partner in regards to the murder of a priest (which landed them on death row). [[spoiler:Except it turns out that the leapee was guilty all along. The ''accomplice'' is innocent, and Sam only manages to prove this when he's back in the chair, and only leaps out ''the literal second'' the switch is flipped.]]
* ''Series/QueenSugar'': The main problem facing the farm in the first season is that the siblings need to get a harvest ready before its too late for anything to grow and the farm loses too much money.
* On ''Series/QuincyME'', Quincy once promised to get back to a committee within 36 hours. Queried by an assistant, he declared himself tired of the usual 48.

* Most episodes of ''{{Series/Scorpion}}'' involve a Ticking Clock for the mostly-genius cast to race against. Examples include an incoming tsunami, a plane flying during a blackout, and a [[MakesSenseInContext particle collider warming up to make a black hole]].
* On ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'', Laverne is annoyed when Colin Farrell's character is ousted from the hospital:

'''[[HandsomeLech The Todd]]:''' ''One day.'' ''(off JD's and Turk's looks)'' What? [[ExtremeOmnisexual The Todd appreciates hot, regardless of gender.]]
%%* In ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'', almost the entirety of ''The Great Game'' is one big Race Against The Clock.

* ''Franchise/{{Stargate|Verse}}'':

*** "48 Hours", wherein a member of SG-1 [[TeleporterAccident gets trapped in the Stargate's data buffer]] and Stargate Command shuts down operations to avoid overwriting that buffer. The rest of the team is given 48 hours to investigate the matter before normal Stargate operations resume.

*** Lampshaded in the troperiffic 200th episode when the {{Cloudcuckoolander}} movie producer takes a sarcastic comment about having a ticking clock on the screen seriously.
*** "[[Recap/StargateSG1S10E14TheShroud The Shroud]]" has Daniel Jackson claim that he's set up a plan that could allow SG-1 to destroy current adversaries the Ori with the Sangraal, a weapon devised by Merlin and constructed while his consciousness had been transferred into Daniel's body. However, Daniel claims that he only has a day or so to put his plan into action before he will lose the enhancements that would allow him to operate the weapon, and the rest of the team are uncertain if they can trust Daniel or if he has been converted to their enemies' side after spending weeks in captivity. [[spoiler:He is ultimately revealed to be on their side and the weapon deployed as intended]].
** ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' has "38 Minutes", in which a puddle jumper gets stuck in a Stargate, and 38 minutes is the normal amount of time before the gate shuts down of its own accord, destroying anything that hasn't made it all the way through.

* Inverted in ''[[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Star Trek: TOS]]'' where the good guys essentially gave the bad guys an ultimatum; "Back off or we blow ourselves -- and you -- to smithereens" and then start the clock ticking.
** This returns in every Star Trek series. Threatening to self-destruct seems to be a fairly common tactic among Starfleet captains.
* The ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS07E23ExtremeMeasures Extreme Measures]]" plays on the same premise: only in this case, the subject of this mind trip is ''dying'', and Bashir and O'Brien have to extract vital information on an antidote before he dies -- with the added pressure that if they don't break the mind link before the onset of brain death, they'll die too. (The subject actually tries to use this against them in the final minutes, trying to tempt them to stay so this will happen, but O'Brien is savvy enough to spot the trap.)

* ''Series/WithoutATrace''. As a veteran agent tells a rookie in the first episode, "Usually, after 48 hours, they're (the victim's) gone." From the moment the victim disappears and throughout the episode, the viewer is given a time stamp of how long they've been missing--ranging from 27 minutes to 4 days--to heighten the sense of urgency and the need to find them. This is explicitly cited in an episode where the VictimOfTheWeek is found dead and an agent blasts his supervisor for pulling him off the case to focus on another one--"Twenty minutes. [[MissedHimByThatMuch I missed her]] by ''twenty minutes''. I wanted you to know that." Several other episodes make things even more urgent, with one victim needing to be found in time to stop an execution and others needing to be found because of medical issues.

** "[[Recap/TheXFilesS01E13BeyondTheSea Beyond the Sea]]": The FBI and police have five days to find a pair of kidnapped teenagers who are tortured and will be found dead if the offender is not caught.

** "[[Recap/TheXFilesS03E10SevenThreeOne 731]]": Mulder doesn't have much time to separate a boxcar with an alien-human hybrid (or was it?) and a time bomb from the rest of the train. He also needs to find out the code to open the sealed door of the aforementioned boxcar.

* In the ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' DLC mission "The Arrival", you have only 2 days, and later 2 hours, to destroy a gateway that will let the EldritchAbomination / StarfishAliens known as the Reapers reach the galaxy. Unlike a lot of time sensitive video game plots, you have a live timer for this, and you get a special game over if it reaches zero. Given how it should only take the player roughly 20 minutes to complete the whole section meaning there'll be over an hour left, the only real way to let this happen is if they're specifically trying to let the timer run out, so it's also an example of EarnYourBadEnding.
* ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'': Almost every game. [[VideoGame/MetroidPrime Prime]] starts out with a seven minute evacuation deadline after the first boss is killed (and falls into the power generator, which goes KABOOM!). Zero Mission has two, after killing Mother Brain and Mecha Ridley. Fusion has 3 (a lot for a game that can be completed in 4 hours or less), when the Core-X holding the Wide Beam appears (you only have to get there and kill it PLUS stop an overheat in the boiler room... in 6 minutes. Later, when you send a section of the station plummeting to the planet, you have a minute or so to escape... through a rather long path and finally, when you throw the station to the ground, you have approximately 3 minutes to get to the hangar, kill the final boss, wait for your ship, board it and fly away... which can easily take more time than given (killing the final boss can take a long time...)

[[folder:Web Original]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' episode "The Countdown" starts off as this: Gumball and Darwin race against time to arrive at school or they will be expelled; but then Gumball accidentally [[NinjaProp breaks the clock on-screen]], causing [[TimeStandsStill time to stand still]]. The rest goes downhill from there.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'', we see an example of one of the longer races against time. There's a comet coming at the end of the summer- that will give the Fire Benders incredible powers, enough to completely burn down the Earth Kingdom. So, yeah, Aang, you got till then to defeat the Fire Nation. Good luck! [[spoiler:He loses the race, though he and his friends end up defeating the Fire Nation at the zenith of their power anyway. Fortunately, firebenders getting comet enhanced power means Aang will benefit from the comet too, and all the more reason he needed to master firebending before then]].

** In [[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE25TheClockKing "The Clock King"]], the TimeBomb that will suck all the air from the vault Batman is trapped has a countdown of 15:00:00. Batman escapes with 00:03:00 left.

** In "Cricket Versus", Cricket has until the sun sets to complete his RiteOfPassage by wrestling a wild animal and pinning it for three seconds, or he won't be a Green anymore.
** In "Parade Day", Cricket has to return to Big Coffee before his 15 minute break ends, or Gloria will fire him.
** In "Elevator Action", Gloria can only afford ten minutes on her parking meter; she has until the meter expires to return her apartment key otherwise her car will be towed.
** In "Green Greens", Tilly and Bill have to get to the e-waste center to recycle the florescent lightbulb they found before it closes at 3:00.
** In "Long Goodbye", both Remy and Alice have to be home before 6:00; the former for his welcome home dinner, the latter to sign a permit for the café with Gloria before the man issuing it retires.

* ''WesternAnimation/CatDog'''s HalloweenEpisode, "[[Recap/CatDogS2E19CatDogula CatDogula]]" has Dog, later the citizens of Nearburg, being bitten by [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Peruvian Vampire Ticks]], and Cat has eight minutes to find the cure [[WhenTheClockStrikesTwelve before the clock strikes the twelfth chime at midnight]] or those cursed will be vampires forever.
* In ''WesternAnimation/CentralPark'', Season 1 "[[Recap/CentralParkS1E9LiveItUpTonight Live It Up Tonight]]", when Elwood reveals he threw away a receipt that's need for an surprise audit, the auditor, Anita, plans on reporting this to Mayor Whitebottom immediately so she doesn't miss her salsa class. Owen tells her that he and Paige will go to Brooklyn to get a copy of the receipt and return in one hour so she doesn't miss her class. They're unable to make it in time but Birdie and Elwood managed to stall her long enough for Owen and Paige to return in time with the receipt.
* [[MonsterClown Freakshow]] in ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'' gives the main trio three days to get [[GottaCatchEmAll all the gems]] for his Infinity Gauntlet or their family dies. Why three days? Because it's ''dramatic''.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'' episode "Will Work For Ed," Rolf (as Ed's MeanBoss) demanded that Ed peel a shed full of potatoes in an hour while promising termination should Ed not peel the potatoes on time.
* In ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddysBigPictureShow'', for Kevin, his pursuit against the Eds becomes this when he realizes they're going to see Eddy's brother. If the Eds make it, it's game over; if Kevin finds himself there, he can expect to be mercilessly pummeled.

** At the end of the episode "The Halls of Time", Billy and Irwin accidentally put theirs, Mandy's, and Grim's [[DeathsHourglass hourglasses]] back upside down, causing them to age backwards, so they have to hurry back to the titular Halls of Time to turn them right side up before the sand runs out and they disappear completely. [[spoiler:[[DeathByDeAging They all fail.]]]]
** In the episode "Jeffy's Web", Jeff lays eggs, and as a result has only 36 hours to live. [[spoiler:The episode ends with Grim prolonging Jeff's life by [[DeathsHourglass adding more sand to his hourglass]].]]

* In an unfinished episode of ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'', appropriately named "Ten Minutes 'Till Doom", Dib manages to knock Zim's PAK off of him. This triggers a ten minute countdown which would have appeared in the top left corner of the screen for the rest of the episode. What's it for? Well, apparently [[CyberneticsEatYourSoul Zim can't live for longer than ten minutes without his PAK]].

* The ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' episode "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueS2E21And22WildCards Wild Cards]]" takes place in RealTime as the League attempts to defuse several bombs that the Joker has placed throughout Las Vegas. The whole thing is [[DoNotAdjustYourSet being televised by the Joker]], and there is even a countdown clock in the corner of the screen, set to [[NonNaturalNumberGag 22 minutes, fifty-one seconds]].
-->'''Joker:''' And since every good suspense show needs a ticking clock, here's mine! ''[timer appears on screen]'' Oh what where you expecting from me? A round number?

* ''Franchise/LooneyTunes'':
** ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'':
*** In "Senserely Yours, Babs", the third and final segment of "[[Recap/TinyToonAdventuresS1E14TheACMEAcresZone The ACME Acres Zone]]" Babs loses her sense of humor following a backfired experiment by Calamity Coyote to make her twice as funny, and if he and Hamton don't return it to Babs's body by sundown, she will be a nerd forever.

** In "Mind Share", after alien criminals swap minds with the kids in order to escape from jail, Phineas and friends have one hour to swap minds back before the device used to do so self-destructs. The aliens lampshade this trope when setting up the timer, pointing out that it increases the drama.
** The GrandFinale is a race against a ''breaking'' clock, as the kids, Candace, Perry, Doofenshmirtz and Vanessa try to put an end to [[GroundhogDayLoop the effects of the Do-Overinator]] before [[TimeCrash the time loops shorten into nothing.]]

** The girls had to solve a series of riddles set by [[HeWhoMustNotBeNamed "Him"]] within the time limit set for each riddle. They had to succeed or, otherwise, the Professor would have to pay... [[spoiler:[[ExactWords for the pancakes]] he ate at "Him"'s restaurant "Otto Time". It was all a bet between "Him" and the Professor]].
** The 2016 series has the min-short "Run, Blossom, Run", in which Blossom trying to make it to school on time to protect her perfect attendance when she oversleeps, but is hindered by [[DudleyDoRightStopsToHelp her need to help the citizens of Townsville]]. She makes it at the last second, [[spoiler: but it turns out to be Sunday]].
* In the ''WesternAnimation/ReBoot'' episode "Painted Windows", Hexadecimal steals a paint program and goes on a [[RealityIsOutToLunch reality warping tear]] around Mainframe, turning the city into a [[MadArtist deranged art project.]] Phong informs Bob that they need to undo all of the changes until the next system backup, or Hex's work will be permanent.

---> '''Mr. Burns''' [after having a conversation about something totally different]: Oh, and Simpson? ''You must find the Jade Monkey before the next full moon.''
---> '''Smithers''': Uh, sir, we found the Jade Monkey. It was in your glove compartment.
** During ''Homer at the Bat'', Mr Burns tells Smithers he as 24 hours to find him major league baseball players for his team.
** In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsonsMovie'', a bomb is lowered into the [[spoiler:giant glass dome]], which will blow up in exactly 15 minutes. Then Homer kicks the bomb on the ground, making it fall over and causing the remaining time to ''halve''.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/SonicBoom'' episode "Late Fees", Sonic has 7 minutes to return Amy's book to the library, or she'll have to pay late fees. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem for Sonic, but it seems on this day, [[MurphysLaw everything that could go wrong did go wrong]]. He still manages to make it just in time.

** Identified explicitly as "the ticking clock" by the candy store owner, who notes that it "works great in the movies". Another Trey Parker / Matt Stone production, ''Film/TeamAmericaWorldPolice'' uses and calls attention to it (by Kim Jong Il, the GenreSavvy BigBad of the film).
** In "The Snuke", which also parodies ''Series/TwentyFour'', Cartman's suspicions of a new Muslim student leads him to a terrorist plot against Hillary Clinton with a countdown.
** Lampshaded in [[WesternAnimation/SouthParkBiggerLongerAndUncut the South Park movie]] when the Mole looks at his watch when they arrive at the USO show. Under the time is the label "Act Three: The Ticking Clock".
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Velma}}'', the titular character is the prime suspect of the murder of her popular classmate Brenda. Velma is told that if she doesn't find the real perpetrator in 24 hours, she will ended up getting arrested and put in jail.

** In "Souab's Deadline", Mr. Souab's business (he's a grocer) were slow and his supplier gave him one week to pay his debt. Meanwhile, Enzo, the manager of World Mart, was given one week to bring 100% of its potential customers like he promised his plan would.
** "Close Call": Mr. Rotter, the owner of World Mart, gave the beauty parlor's owner three days to do the needed repairs or he'd not renew the rental contract. Being friends with the owner's daughter, his stepdaughter persuaded him to extend the deadline.

** In the Season One episode [[Recap/YoungJusticeS1E20Coldhearted "Coldhearted"]], the young Queen Perdita of [[{{Ruritania}} Vlatava]] desperately needed a [[BillyNeedsAnOrgan heart transplant]]. The problem is that the only viable donator heart is in Boston while she is on the other side of the country in Seattle. To make matters worse, her evil uncle Count Vertigo, with the help of the Light, attempts to indirectly kill her by unleashing four flying ice fortresses that cover the entire North American Continent in a huge blizzard, thus preventing the hospitals from being able to transport the donator heart by air. Kid Flash has to use his SuperSpeed to transport the heart 3000 miles (4800km) across the country before the heart is no longer viable in four hours. He manages to successfully transport the heart and save Perdita's life while also exposing Count Vertigo's attempted murder scheme, allowing Perdita to revoke his [[DiplomaticImpunity Diplomatic Immunity]] and place him under arrest.
** [[spoiler: The finale of Season Four revolves around the heroes attempting to stop [[Characters/SupermanGeneralZod General Zod]], his wife Ursa, their son from the future Lor-Zod, and Ma'alefa'ak from freeing the other Kryptonian criminals from the PhantomZone. Making things difficult is that they need to stop the Zods before they gain [[FlyingBrick full Kryptonian powers]]. Their only salvation is the fact that it's nighttime, so the Zods are gaining powers at a slow rate, but in a few hours the sun will rise, which will greatly expedite the process and make it that much more difficult if not impossible to defeat them, especially the more Kryptonians they manage to bring out of the zone. The heroes successfully send all the criminals back into the zone with the exception of Ursa who escapes via the Eye of Ekron and Lor who manages to escape in a [[TimeMachine Time Sphere]]. Although it turns out the Time Sphere was pre-programmed by the [[ComicBook/NewGods New God Metron]] to travel back in time to the Kryptonite bomb that Lor used to try and kill [[Characters/SupermanConnerKent Superboy]] several months ago on Mars. Lor ends up being killed by his own bomb while Superboy survives by being accidentally transported into the phantom zone by Phantom Girl.]]

* ''Literature/RedThreadSisters'': In Chapter 19, Wen finds that [[spoiler:her best friend Shu Ling's legal age is actually a year older than her assumed age]], and that she only has until Shu Ling's birthday about six weeks later to find her an adoptive family before she [[UnadoptableOrphan ages out of being adoptable]] under national policy.

* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': During ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear: The Doomsday Ship'' the computer announces that the engines will overload in fifteen minutes. While our heroes reach an EscapePod, they leave it to help a KidAmidTheChaos, and then a {{Jerkass}} locks them in a closet for [[DisproportionateRetribution trying to get in front of him]] - when they get out there are seconds left and the escape pods have all left. [[spoiler:Fortunately, the ship's engines don't overload.]]

* ''Literature/SevenDaysInMay''. The US President believes the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is plotting a military coup under cover of a mobilisation exercise to be held in seven days. Because the general is highly popular, the President can't dismiss him without proof, so his staff have that long to find evidence of the conspiracy.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[VideoGame/ZeroWing You have no chance to survive make your time.]]]]

*** ''The Battle of the Labyrinth'': Variant - they must find Daedalus before Luke's army can find Ariadne's String and use it to attack camp via the Labyrinth. [[spoiler:They ''fail'', and the camp ''is'' attacked. However, Grover uses the power of Pan to help win the battle]].

* The title of the ''Literature/JamesBond'' novel ''Literature/ZeroMinusTen'' comes from tha fact that Bond has only ten days to investigate the truth behind the assasinations in Hong Kong before it handed back to China after decades of British rule.

--> '''Michael:''' It could take me weeks to find the problem.\\

* ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'' has an enchanted rose that serves as a countdown to how long the titular beast and his servants have until being trapped as a beast and an AnimateInanimateObject forever.

* ''Series/FatherBrown'': In "The Shadow of the Scaffold", Father Brown has three days (as authorities wait for the results of her pregnancy test to come back) to solve a murder before the woman convicted of the crime hangs.