History NothingIsScarier / WesternAnimation

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* The ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' short "WesternAnimation/ScaredyCat" features Porky Pig and Sylvester moving into a creepy old mansion that's inhabited by homicidal mice who try to kill them in typical cartoon fashion ({{Death Trap}}s that always miss the mark, anvils, etc). But at one point, the comical elements stop when Sylvester sleeps in a hamper, which is silently lowered into the floor. Three hours later, [[spoiler:Sylvester is sent back up, white as a ghost, and so traumatized that he can barely walk]]. We never find out what the mice did to him.
* ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooMysteryIncorporated'': In episode 26, Professor Pericles confronts Ed Machine, telling him he wants him to deliver a message to Mr. E... before Pericles admits that he doesn't actually intend to ''say'' anything, resulting in a ScreamDiscretionShot with the sound of wings flapping. It's never revealed exactly what happened, but WordOfGod confirms that Pericles did indeed kill Ed Machine.
* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998'' has an example in the one-shot villain, the Robbing Leech, who uses his LampreyMouth to [[VampiricDraining drain a person's memories]], allowing him to use that information to steal their valuables. What makes him so creepy is how little we know about him. While most of the villains in the show have at least some semblance of a backstory, he doesn't. There's little to no information on who he is, how he got his powers, or for that matter [[AmbiguouslyHuman if he's even human]]. He's more or less just ''there''.
* Used to a truly ''terrifying'' degree in the animated film ''WesternAnimation/SupermanDoomsday''. [[spoiler:The cloned]] Superman, who is in full KnightTemplar mode, has just rescued an elderly woman's Persian cat from a tree, then goes on to give an eerily calm speech on how it annoys him that people don't take responsibility for the small things as it keeps him from focusing on real emergencies. [[Creator/AdamBaldwin Adam Baldwin's]] chilling voice acting truly sells the scene. Throughout his speech, you're on the edge of your seat wondering if he's gonna kill the cat, kill the old lady, or ''kill them both''.
-->'''Superman:''' Now you know, Persian longhairs really shouldn't be outdoors. ...It really irks me when folks don't take responsibility for the little things. Don't get me wrong--I'm here to help. But every time I have to stop and sweat the small stuff, it potentially keeps me from attending to more urgent matters. ''Life-threatening'' matters. You may wanna think about that next time you leave the screen door open.
* Done to chillingly spectacular effect in ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsCloneWars'' with the introduction of [[KnightOfCerebus General Grievous]]. Ki-Adi Mundi and a team of heavily wounded Jedi are trapped in a crashed Star Destroyer with a massive army of super battle droids closing in...when suddenly the ''entire'' army stops in midstride as a skeletal white figure holds up its hand to halt, before a disembodied voice tells the trapped Jedi that he's going to kill them all. For the next minute and a half, we get nothing but the [[HellIsThatNoise ominous whirring of Grievous' mechanical footsteps]] stalking them through the building as the increasingly panicked Jedi (''[[OOCIsSeriousBusiness Jedi!]]'') try and fail to maintain their composure. Not only is the buildup incredible, the payoff more than justifies it when Grievous drops from the ceiling and proceeds to [[TheWorfEffect slaughter half a dozen Jedi without breaking a sweat]].
* Used in-universe in the ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}'' episode "Doug's Nightmare on Jumbo Street". Doug watches "The Abnormal", [[ShowWithinAShow a horror movie]] about a shape-shifting monster [[MonsterDelay whose true form is just off-screen for most of the movie]]. It works so well Doug can't bring himself to look during TheReveal, and he ends up having nightmares about it. Doug eventually works up the nerve to see the movie one last time and get a good look at the monster, and [[SpecialEffectFailure it turns out to be a guy in an ugly costume with a zipper on the back]].
* In the early parts of ''WesternAnimation/RudolphTheRedNosedReindeer'', we see a peaceful scene with Rudolph's father teaching him the ways of the reindeer. Then suddenly, the father looks up in horror at a horrific roar, and quickly hides himself and his son under a snow bank. The music gets very dark, and we see two giant, furry legs walk by accompanied by more ferocious roaring. The narrator explains that it's the Abominable Snow Monster of the North, a gigantic monster who eats reindeer, threatens the entire North Pole, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and hates Christmas]]. We don't see the thing until halfway through the special, but the ominous specter of the beast looms over the special until his first appearance. Even then, it's led up by Rudolph and Hermie struggling through a dark, stormy night and then hearing the distant roars of the beast. Once we see the whole thing, though, it's not as scary. Though there is a scary moment where Rudolph is journeying back towards the North Pole, and we hear the beast roar again as he approaches where it's inevitably waiting.
* Used to ''brilliant'' effect in ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddysBigPictureShow''. [[WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy The series proper]] is famous for its unique, zany sound effects and bombastic music... [[ItsQuietTooQuiet and so the movie begins with nearly two minutes of]] ''[[ItsQuietTooQuiet dead silence]]'', with not a soul in sight. Even before the sudden WhamShot of the aftermath of a scam GoneHorriblyWrong, it's crystal clear that something seriously ''bad'' has happened. The worst part is that the audience never learns exactly what happened, just that the end result was catastrophic even by the Eds' usual standards, and the cul-de-sac kids are enraged far beyond just wanting to hurt the Eds - they legitimately want them ''dead''. It's essentially OOCIsSeriousBusiness, except ''the very world itself'' is what's OOC in this case, with the effect being that the viewer is left wondering throughout the film, "What the ''hell'' happened?".
* A classic example can be found in ''WesternAnimation/JonnyQuest'''s ''The Invisible Monster'': during the first half of the ep. all you see is the thing leaving a trail of destruction through the forest, and the effect is absolutely horrifying. But once the protagonists manage to douse it in paint to make it visible, it looks more pathetic than scary.
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* There's a ''very'' creepy episode of ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'', called "Jack And The Zombies". No prizes for guessing his opponents in this one. However, it begins with him walking into a graveyard, and it is [[{{Pun}} dead silent]]. Except for children's laughter... and a man's evil cackling... and scraping, rattling noises. It's very, very effective.
** Throw in B.J. Ward in a brief taunting scene doing her best [[{{Anime/Voltron}} Witch Hagar]] voice. Jack never actually gets to fight her--she just states their boasting goal and leaves.
** The ending of "The Princess and the Bounty Hunters" uses this in an unusual VillainProtagonist variation. Two-thirds of the episode is the titular bounty hunters setting up their plan to capture Jack. The climax of the episode features a full agonizingly suspenseful minute of nothing but silence, birdsong, and cuts between the wind blowing through the trees, birds sitting in the branches, and a drop of water falling from an icicle as the bounty hunters wait for Jack to appear.
* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' Treehouse of Horror. Lisa reads Creator/EdgarAllanPoe's ''Literature/TheRaven'', causing Bart to comment, "You know what would be scarier than nothing? ANYTHING!" Lisa defends it by saying people must have just been easier to scare back then, even though finding nobody outside your room when ''something'' just knocked on the door would be pretty spooky. Homer, however, is terrified.

* In ''WesternAnimation/CodeLyoko'' the main antagonist is XANA, an A.I. without a body. While there have been plenty of crazy computers in fiction, XANA stands out because he not only lacks an avatar, he rarely communicates with the heroes ''at all''. The only real representation of him is the symbol he spams everywhere. The whole effect is surprisingly creepy, especially since its clear XANA's strategies and motives are constantly evolving.
* In ''[[WesternAnimation/TheMagicRoundabout Dougal and the Blue Cat]]'', as Dougal tells Zebedee about the events of the night before, we are treated to a flashback in which Dougal wakes up and wanders around in the middle of the night and we hear the piercing sound of a cat shrieking, then we hear a sinister female voice singing "Blue is beautiful, blue is best." Nothing happens to Dougal and for now we don't see the source of either of them, but the atmosphere is chilling.
* The ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' episode "No One Can Hear You". Most of the episode is Finn and Jake ''alone'' in the Candy Kingdom. It's particularly scary because ''Adventure Time'' has a huge cast, so not seeing anybody else for almost 10 minutes ''never happens''.
* [[SilentAntagonist Soundwave]] from ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'' makes heavy use of this trope. Even in situations where you think he'll do something, he's usually content to just stand there and ''stare'' directly at the object of his ire (or [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou the camera]]), boring into their sparks with his blank void of a faceplate, punctuating it with an occasional menacing gesture or two. Otherwise, he mostly just lurks in the background, ever watching, ever waiting...
* The Season 5 finale of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', "The Cutie Re-Mark" uses this. [[spoiler:Starlight Glimmer tries to take her revenge on Twilight by traveling back to Rainbow Dash's first Sonic Rainboom in order to prevent the Mane Six from meeting, causing a BadFuture since the Mane Six weren't around to save Equestria. Each time Twilight fails to stop Starlight, the future gets worse and worse. Eventually, when Twilight takes Starlight to see the BadFuture for herself, the only thing there is a barren wasteland, devoid of anything but rocks and dead trees. They never elaborate on ''how'' this could have happened, and it's implied that if Starlight continued to change the past, then there would be something ''even worse''.]]

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* A fourth-season episode of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' ends with this. The entire episode has five of the Mane Six dealing with the notion that there is a Pony of Shadows haunting the Castle of the Two Sisters, but when they find a dark figure playing an organ, it turns out to be a cloaked [[CloudCuckoolander Pinkie Pie]]. At the very end, Spike [[TemptingFate dismisses the idea of a pony of shadows as silly]], but we see a long shadow stretch across the library next door. Upon push-in, [[UhOhEyes yellow glowing eyes open]]. [[RealAfterAll And they don't look too inviting...]]
* In the animated ''Series/SesameStreet'' special ''[[Literature/TheMonsterAtTheEndOfThisBook The Monster At the End of This Story]]'', Grover admits that the real reason he's scared is because he doesn't know anything about the monster at the end of the story and not knowing is very scary to him. His friends all agree to meet him at the end and that way he'll have friends around to be there when he meets the monster. Of course, as readers of the original book already know, ''Grover'' is the monster at the end.
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* There's a ''very'' creepy episode of ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'', called "Jack And The Zombies". No prizes for guessing his opponents in this one. However, it begins with him walking into a graveyard, and it is [[IncrediblyLamePun dead silent]]. Except for children's laughter... and a man's evil cackling... and scraping, rattling noises. It's very, very effective.

* Season 4 of ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'' gives us Mike, who has [[SplitPersonality Dissociative Identity Disorder]]. We never get to see what caused him to develop his disorder (which is often the result of severe mental trauma). In a case of MaybeMagicMaybeMundane, an episode of ''All-Stars'' makes it ambiguous as to whether Mal was the original personality or not. While [[spoiler:getting rid of your disorder with a very literal ResetButton]] sounds pretty silly, the lead-up to it is very unsettling.

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'': None of the villains in the series have pasts or backstories that are explored in any meaningful depth, but minor villain Kardiak is out and away the only one who qualifies for this trope. Kardiak is a giant floating ''thing'' that resembles a human heart, complete with metallic tentacles for cardiovascular tubes, and that is ''all'' anybody knows about it. We don't know who made it, we don't know if it's fully robotic or some kind of cyborg (and if it's the latter, then ''why in God's name is it just a giant heart?''), we don't even know if Kardiak is fully sapient. And to hammer the creepiness home, it's first appearance had it try to '''kidnap children'''.

* The ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' short "Scaredy Cat" features Porky Pig and Sylvester moving into a creepy old mansion that's inhabited by homicidal mice who try to kill them in typical cartoon fashion ({{Death Trap}}s that always miss the mark, anvils, etc). But at one point, the comical elements stop when Sylvester sleeps in a hamper, which is silently lowered into the floor. Three hours later, [[spoiler:Sylvester is sent back up, white as a ghost, and so traumatized that he can barely walk]]. We never find out what the mice did to him.