Hell Is That Noise / Western Animation

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• The Amazing World of Gumball: The Void's static and everything related to it. Including Rob's appearance in "The Nobody".
• Amphibia: In "All In", in addition to sending a robot army to attack Earth, King Andrias sends a pair of giant Herons, the very same pair that killed Sprig and Polly's parents. The Plantar family is traumatized to see them and even though Sprig and Polly were very young when they last attacked, they still remember their horrifying roar.
  Sprig: I only have one memory of that day; it's the horrible sound the Herons made.
• Angel Wars: A demon appropriately named "Discord" has a tendency to make a loud nose that's described in-universe as "every wrong note being hit at once", making this a much more literal example than most.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender
  • "There's no war in Ba Sing Se" and "The Earth King has invited you to Lake Laogai." Not to mention the Dai Li's sinister Leitmotif.
  • That bird that freaks out the Gaang in "The Swamp". Appropriately, it's called the Screeching Dodo. It's pretty harmless, though.
  • When Azula experiences her mental breakdown when she's trying to fix her hair for her coronation, we hear some creepy "Psycho" Strings play. Come to think of it, as with the Dai Li, her usual Leitmotif is pretty creepy in general.
• Batman: The Animated Series:
  • The Joker's laugh can be this to characters from time to time. Hearing it from the man himself isn't the only thing that makes it qualify for this trope. On multiple occasions, you have him using his trademark smile toxin on unsuspecting individuals, causing them to uncontrollably break out into that same laughing madness.^note Perhaps the cruelest example — partnered with Hope Spot — occurs in "Harlequinade" when the Joker tosses a Cartoon Bomb into the hands of a slick, smug gangster. The dude, having lost his Cool Shades, cowers abjectly, practically scrunched into a ball, as the fuse burns to its end. Then the bomb explodes in... confetti, and a tiny jack-in-the-box clown pops up from the bomb's housing. The gangster is only just starting to relax... when the toy clown sprays a greenish gas in his face that poisons him instantly and sends him into a nearly fatal laughing fit.
  • Also, in the uncut version of Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, after getting shot in the chest by a "Bang!" Flag Gun and muttering out his last words, the Joker emits a dying gurgle as he gets choked up in blood before falling down lifelessly onto the floor.
  • As if his laugh weren't enough, Joker invokes a variant in "Be a Clown" when he stalks Jordan through the amusement park, by running the end of his cane along the bars of a metal fence. The closer he gets to the boy's hiding place, the louder the oncoming tap-tap-tap becomes.
  • The sound of "Big Bad Harv" slooowly flipping his coin. Before he became Two-Face, Harvey Dent himself was terrified of that sound.
• Beavis and Butt-Head's incessant indifferent laugher is this for Principal McVicker. In the episode "Breakdown" hearing it over the school intercom was enough to push him over the edge and get him sent to a psych ward. When the boys visit him, McVicker starts breaking down again… their laughter causing him to go into a rage and actually try to kill them. When Mr. Van Driessen asks them what they did to make him do such a thing, they just laugh, and it causes Van Driessen to go insane as well.
  Van Driessen: What did you do to him? Beavis? Butthead? *Van Driessen begins to panic* What is wrong with you two? Don’t you care about ANYONE? Look what you’ve done! Stop laughing! Stop! Stop… *Van Driessen begins to spiral into insanity*
• Ben 10: The Omnitrix's time out noise, signaling that Ben is about to change back into a very fragile human. It alarmingly tends to sound while he's still mid-peril, like being miles underwater as Ripjaws or hiding from Zs'Skayr as Grey Matter.
• Ben 10: Omniverse: Malware destroying Ben's favorite alien Feedback in "Showdown, Part 1" is accompanied by a horrific screeching noise that sounds like a dying fax machine mixed with AOL as Feedback's body is overtaken by red cracks before crumbling into dust.
• In Code Lyoko, the Scyphozoa's gutteral growl is this to Aelita, often filling her with dread.
• Courage the Cowardly Dog loves this trope.
  • The repeating "It's Doc Gerbil's World!" song that sounds like the demented cosmetics themed version of "It's A Small World After All" during the boat road in "Human Habitrail".
  • The "Freaky Fred" episode. The most disturbing scene is when Fred and Courage are locked in the bathroom together and Fred shaves Courage with a manic grin on his face while a haunting chorus of "la-las" starts to accompany the already eerie music.
    "Naaaaaaaaaaaaughtyyyyyyyyyy..."
  • "RETUUURN THE SLAAAB!"
  • "You're not perfect"
  • Katz's Leitmotif, a smooth but unnerving jazzy beat that always plays whenever he's onscreen and overrides any other background music.
• In Ed, Edd n Eddy: Jonny 2X4 cracking his knuckles in "Shoo Ed".
• Futurama's hypno-toad issues an absolutely abominable grinding blare of a sound. (An ascended in-joke — the sound designers used it as a placeholder when a desired effect was yet to be added... to remind them to put it in.)
• Gravity Falls: Bill leaving in "Dreamscaperers".
• Invader Zim: "Dark Harvest" gives us the sound of a pigeon cooing — warning the characters that Zim is nearby and is going to try and steal their organs, replacing them with something else...
• Anytime a character screams on Johnny Test.
• The Legend of Korra
  • The Reaper-like bass roar made by Vaatu's Wave Motion Beam. It makes an unexpected re-appearance in Book Four, when the energy of the spirit vines - which Vaatu himself created — is unleashed.
  • Book 3 of gives us that "snap-snap" sound a second before P'Li starts blowing shit up.
• "WESSST!" from The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack.
  • As well as the Skymaid's usage of the word "Yes" from the episode "Gone Wishin".
  • "CLOOOOOOOOOSED." Don't tell me you didn't wet your pants.
  • She's heeeeeeeeere.
  • The growl-like cat sound that accompanies that cat.
• The Maxx: The animated series featured a flashback story from Mr. Gone's past and Julie's childhood, involving a dying bunny in a box and the scratching noises it made with its good leg.
  • The lovely noises start at around 4:20.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "Twilights Kingdom Part 1", Tirek's magic drain is accompanied by a rather chilling screeching sound. In Part 2, his theft of Discord's chaos magic is accompanied by a distorted, possibly reversed version of his normal drain sound effect.
• The Beast's haunting Villain Song "Come Wayward Souls" in Over the Garden Wall. Fabulous singing voice, though.
  • The horrible sound of the mutated wolf's spine cracking in the first episode as it gets crushed between the rock and the water wheel.
  • Lorna's demonic voice after she reveals her true form.
  • "I'm the highwayman."
• A more comedic example from our friends at Robot Chicken
• Played for laughs in a Rocko's Modern Life episode, where the gang is shown walking in a forest and they suddenly heard a noise, freak out, and shout "What was that?!" Filbert calmly walks past them saying, "Oh, just a twig snapping", which turns out to be true.
• Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles does this in one episode, in which Rico hears a mysterious and creepy grinding sound while in a recovery vat after sustaining heavy injuries in battle, a sound no one else can hear. His crew and the medical team working on him all worry about his mental health, until bugs emerge in the base and they realize he could hear them tunneling in.
• Rugrats:
  • The voice of the monster under Chuckie's bed in the episode "Under Chuckie's Bed".
    "Hi, Chuckie."
  • The horrible creaking noise of Angelica's chair in the episode "What The Big People Do".
  • The voices of Not!Tommy and Not!Stu creep Chuckie out, and while they're talking, the background music that plays lets ''you'' know something's wrong.
  • "YOU CAN CALL ME MR. FRIEND! YOU'LL NEVER EVER BE BORED AGAIN! LA LA LA LA LA LA LA..."
• From The Simpsons:
  • The gunshot noise Maggie's pacifier makes at the end of "Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part Two)".
  • There's a whole room full of scary pacifiers about three-quarters of the way through "A Streetcar Named Marge", when Homer comes to pick Maggie up from the daycare center. Why are they scary? Well, they're literally the only thing on the soundtrack. They're echoing ominously. And all the babies are staring glassy-eyed at Homer. (It's a take-off on The Birds, complete with a Hitchcock cameo.)
  • Sideshow Bob, on occasion. "Hello, Bart..." -> Cue terrified scream....
  • Whatever the Simpson family was screaming at, at the end of "Homer Loves Flanders".
  • The Creepy Circus Music music heard as baby Bart looks upon the very inappropriate clown crib Homer made for him in "Lisa's First Word".
  • "Now how 'bout a hug?"
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • The loud buzzing sound that comes with the live-action horsefly close-ups in the episode "Wormy".
  • In "SB-129", Squidward travels through time and ends up in a blank white void. He remarks to himself that he can finally be alone... which is when the word manifests itself as a colorful caption. Then a series of disembodied voices start saying the word "alone", accompanied by more colorful representations of the word, until Squidward finally snaps and tries to get out. Just those calm, echoing voices that repeat the word "alone".
  • The squeaky boots and Mr. Krabs.
  • The grinding noises that accompany SpongeBob's transformation into SpongeSnail.
• Steven Universe:
  • The sound made by the fusion experiments in the episodes "Keeping it Together" and "Nightmare Hospital". Sounds a lot like "Lavo's Cry".
  • The Wailing Stone, an ancient gem-tech communication device, makes a deafening howl when activated. Later, it produces an even more ear-splitting din despite being deactivated, when Lapis uses it to send a warning about an impending invasion.
  • Pink Steven, the reincarnated form of Pink Diamond, tells White Diamond that his mother, and by extension her version of Pink Diamond, is gone in one of the most visceral screams ever animated, a scream which wouldn't seem out of place in an episode of Dragon Ball Z. To put it simply, it manages to stagger the previously impervious White, and creates a crater under him in addition to wrecking White's command room! Even after it, Connie and Steven’s human half are covering their ears in pain.
• Teen Titans (2003) uses this in form of a heart beating with the villain Kardiak, a giant heart with metal tentacles that eats children.
• The Transformers: Prime versions of the Insecticons are flying juggernauts that let out a bloodcurdling wail whenever they go on the attack.
• Wakfu: Grougal lets out an unholy shriek at one point that sounds far too much like a human's wailing to come out of a dragon's mouth.
• Yellow Submarine has the evil clown alarm, as well as the creepy noises in the sea of monsters.

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