Horrifying The Horror / Western Animation

Horrifying the Horror in Western Animation.

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• Aaahh!!! Real Monsters:
  • Ickis has a record of scaring other monsters. And one grizzly bear. Being able to grow to tremendous size certainly helps.
  • The Gromble was terrified of a human he called the Sewer Eater (a plumber) when the man was cleaning toilets.
• In The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 episode "Misadventures in Babysitting", Luigi scares away two Boo Diddleys who attempted to scare him first.
• The Amazing World of Gumball:
  • In "The Fight", a Tyrannosaurus rex tells Gumball that his mom is pretty scary.
  • In "The Sale", Gumball and his brother Darwin attack their mom with demonic faces and voices because she said their neighbor could be replaced by anyone else.
• In the season 2 finale of Amphibia a pair of notorious villains Sasha and Grime has just successfully betrayed the heroes, took over a kingdom, and arguably reached their lowest point, at least morally. Then they discover a hidden mural that makes them realize the king Andrias was not a good person at all and his plans are uncomfortable even for them.
  Sasha: Woah... Is that the king? With the music box?
  Grime: If it is, it’s a really good thing we stopped him.
• The Angry Beavers: Evidently, sapient evil rivers are just as scared of heights as normal people are, as Norbert and Daggett exploit in "A Dam Too Far".
• One episode of Archie's Weird Mysteries is a parody of The Blob (1958) where a sentient mass of tapioca pudding is devouring the entire town. When they get pinned down by it in the Chok'lit Shoppe Jughead, being Jughead, decides he's just going to eat the thing. He actually puts in a good effort, enough that the thing is recoiling in horror and actually backing off, but unfortunately it's just too much even for Jughead — realizing he can't eat anymore, the blob swiftly devours him instead.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: In the final part of Sozin's Comet, subtitled "Avatar Aang", we get to see the most terrifying tyrant in a world with Elemental Powers get thrown about like a ragdoll and desperately try to flee from a 12-year-old child.
  • In The Legend of Korra, Zaheer is generally established as a massive threat, even before getting his airbending. The third season finale shows him flying away for his life from an enraged Avatar Korra.
• Batman: The Animated Series:
  • In "Joker's Favor", the Joker screams for Batman when Charlie Collins, whom he spent most of the episode terrorizing, threatens to blow them both up with a bomb and calls the man crazy. Granted, that's because Charlie guessed (correctly) that the Joker would hate dying "next to some miserable little nobody".
  • At the beginning of "Lock-Up", the Scarecrow escapes from Arkham, not for any particular plot but because he's that terrified of the title character.
  • The Joker is not afraid of the Dark Knight, but "Joker's Millions" shows that he would never ever dare cross the IRS.
  • When the Joker (who seems awfully prone to this trope) crosses paths with the Creeper in "Beware the Creeper", he infamously exclaims "He's a lunatic!" to Batman himself.
  • In Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, the Joker flips out when Terry mockingly calls him a pathetic comedian whose lame jokes failed to make Batman laugh.
• In the Beast Wars episode "Bad Spark", Rampage manages to get a scream of terror out of Tarantulas.
• Monster Clown Zombozo from Ben 10's first series. Ben shows him what's underneath Ghostfreak's cowl, and he explodes.
  Ghostfreak: You want to see something really scary?
  • Zombozo (again) when he kidnaps Ben and Gwen's family as part of a Revenge by Proxy gets more than he asked for when a righteously pissed-off Gwen confronts him instead of Ben. His threats to her family piss Gwen off so badly she breaks her promise to herself and turns into her Anodite form. We don't see what she does or says to Zombozo, but whatever it is terrified him enough he disappeared until the next series.
  • Zombozo, yet again, in Omniverse where he had the displeasure of looking at Toepick's face. Humorously enough, they both scare the hell out of each other (yeah, Omniverse retconned a bit where Ben regained his fear of clowns).
    Toepick: Stay away from me!
    Zombozo: You stay away from me!
  • In the reboot, Vilgax panics when Ben unlocks Shock Rock, since the alien is a Batman Gambit from the Fulmini Empire to invade Earth through the Omnitrix.
  • In Omniverse, Vilgax comes to earth to challenge Ben only to turn tail and leave at the sight of Ma Vreedle.
• Bugs Bunny:
  • In the short "Hair-Raising Hare", Bugs tells the monster Gossamer who's been pursuing him that he's being watched by the audience. The monster says "People!", screams, and turns and runs through a series of walls.
  • Bugs pulls this again in "Herr Meets Hare" when he surrenders himself to "Fatso" Goering and is presented to Adolf Hitler. Both of them are freaked out by Bugs dressed up as Josef Stalin.
  • One short has a shivering great white shark jump out of the water and cling to a pole for dear life at the sight of Taz the Tasmanian Devil.
  • Speaking of Taz, his appearances in the shorts usually have him causing an Animal Stampede with his arrival. Among the animals fleeing are other apex predators like a lion, a wolf, a bear, and a crocodile.
• The Classic Disney Short "Lonesome Ghosts": Ghosts call Mickey, Donald, and Goofy (who are ghost exterminators) and spend the rest of the cartoon scaring them. Then the three fall in the basement and end up covered in molasses and flour. The ghosts take one look at them, scream "Ghosts!" and run away.
  Donald: So you can't take it, you big sissies!
• Todd from Code Monkeys has been known to drive a serial killer to hang himself and creep out John Hinckley (the guy who shot President Reagan), because he's not only a windbag who loves to talk about himself, but also a creepy nerd with heavy Parental Incest issues and a tendency to date Lettuce Patch dolls.
• Dexter's Laboratory: One short has Dexter taking lessons from Dee Dee to "loosen up" after Dee Dee gave him a well-deserved speech about how much he's wasting his life, locked in his lab. The "final test" of her lessons is him cutting loose on the lab (to "remove his earthly connections" in the Zen sense)... and he becomes such a demented savage during this "cutting loose" that Dee Dee (who had so repeatedly trashed the lab herself For the Lulz that she had become Dexter's idea of what a Person of Mass Destruction was like) becomes seriously scared of Dexter and slaps him back to his senses, and then tearfully tells him that she regrets trying to change him.
• Dragons: The Nine Realms: Big Bad Jörmungandr, Apex Predator of all dragons, invading its territory resulted in the Glass Caster, a usually extremely territorial and dangerous dragon, to become so frightened, it cowers before the riders when they enter his territory.
• Played for Laughs in a bumper for Disney home videos: even Chernabog quakes in terror before his boss, (then) CEO Michael Eisner.
• DuckTales (2017): During the Halloween Episode, the triplets and Webby end up in a haunted house run by actual monsters in order to steal children's candy. Then Launchpad shows up, wearing a hockey mask and wielding an ACTUAL buzzsaw, and is honestly on the warpath due to not knowing what Halloween is. The monsters end up running through their own haunted house terrified out of their wits, more so when they run into Della, Donald, and Scrooge (the former two they mistake for Creepy Twins, and the latter breaking through a door in a "Here's Johnny!" Homage). Once the misunderstanding is cleared up at the end, they thank Launchpad for the good scare, saying they hadn't had that kind of a rush in years.
  Witch: Bravo! You black-hearted devil!
  Vampire: I haven't felt so undead in centuries!
  Frankenstein's Monster: We learn from you.
  Werewolf: Evil Mechanic is the true master of Halloween.
• Eek! The Cat: The only thing the Evil Cat Sisters' army of lawyers fear is Sharky the Sharkdog.
• The whole premise of Ernest Le Vampire is that the titular character (who is quite a disturbing-looking hybrid of a vampire and an elephant) is tormented and terrorized by all kinds of nightmarish things. All the time they are literally nightmarish as they are bad dreams that ruin his sleep and make him close his coffin.
• Implied in the Gravity Falls episode "Sock Opera", when Bill Cipher addresses Mabel's rather large and muscular female friend "Grendo", saying out of her earshot:
  "Oh, I'll hold my horses... I'll hold them... you monster."
• Mandy from The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy frequently scares off demons and the like with her terrifying aura. One even asks Grim, "is she one of ours?"
  • Mandy herself is on the receiving end of this trope in Billy & Mandy's Big Boogey Adventure when she comes face-to-face with her worst fear—a future where she becomes a perky, kindhearted housewife...to Irwin.
    Mandy: (very shaken) You're not me! Y-You can't be me! I'm supposed to do something important!
    "Future Mandy": Nothing is more important than friendship! Except maybe LOVE! (jumps into "future Irwin's" arms and kisses him)
    Mandy: (screams)
• Hazbin Hotel:
  • Charlie is the princess of Hell but is generally a very kind-hearted person. However at one point during her otherwise upbeat "I Want" Song "Inside Every Demon is a Rainbow," she briefly flashes to a scarier and more demonic-looking form that visibly startles several observing demons.
  • Charlie herself is frightened by the sudden appearance of Alastor (also known as "The Radio Demon") at her doorstep as he's one of the most powerful beings in Hell despite only being a mortal soul.
  • All of Hell are terrified of the Exorcists, who enact Hell's annual culling as they possess weapons that can inflict Cessation of Existence/Death of Personality on the otherwise immortal demons. We even see the powerful overlords Vox and Valentino hiding out from them during the latest purge.
• Heloise from Jimmy Two-Shoes has terrified Lucius on a few occasions.
• In the Mixels episode "Mixel Moon Madness", The Infernites and the Orbitons scaring off the Glowkies by using their cubits to mix which causing them to flee and goes back inside the cave.
• Kamp Koral: Played for Laughs in "Scaredy Squirrel". The Trawler cabin residents are outright horrified when they see Squidward's ugly, sleep-deprived face, and run away screaming.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In the episode "Frenemies", Chrysalis is climbing a mountain, when she finds herself stalked by eyes gazing from the darkness. She turns around and screeches at them, causing the monsters and the darkness to whimper and flee.
• The Owl House: The Season 2 finale reveals that Belos, a religious extremist who seeks the genocide of witches and demons in the Boiling Isles, a Serial Killer who has indirectly murdered denizens over the years as well as killed countless Golden Guards under the delusion that they've "betrayed him", and someone who turned himself into a Humanoid Abomination from consuming so many Palisman Souls to the point he turns into a horrifying monster made of Ominous Obsidian Ooze whenever he loses control of his power, is utterly terrified of the Collector because he is the only being more powerful than him. When he sees the Collector freed after he had double-crossed him, he is utterly horrified as he tries to save himself with a weak lie that he freed him. The Collector quickly reduces him to a smear on the wall in retaliation for his betrayal.
• On the Reboot episode "Wizards, Warriors and a Word From Our Sponsor", Mike The TV defeats the evil Bob clone by showing him The Commercial Channel—"All Commercials, All The Time—An Eternity of Useless Products To Rot Your Skeevy Little Mind Forever!" The Evil Bob screams in terror and runs away frantically.
• Parodied in a Season 1 Rick and Morty episode. The two are basically attempting to pull off the plot of Inception when they encounter "Scary Terry", a dream monster obviously based on Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street. The two manage to evade Terry, then follow him home where he's having a bad dream. They wonder what could scare a guy like Terry... and it turns out to be a "Not Wearing Pants" Dream combined with Terry failing in school.
• While the main objective of the gang in the Scooby-Doo franchise is to capture the horrifying villain, sometimes they do so by horrifying them, like for example with a witch doctor seeing his reflection in a mirror.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) has their version of Dr. Robotnik — who is a far cry from his usual portrayals. He's a seriously depraved mastermind who managed to conquer Mobius and turn it into a polluted wasteland, while robotcizing the majority of the populace. But when he learns his old boss Naugus might return from the Void, Robotnik becomes seriously worried, to the point of actually agreeing with what Snively suggests. When Naugus does confront him, Robotnik's quivering in fear, outright groveling for mercy. (Naugus would've become the main villain of the show's third season had ABC renewed them, with Robotnik becoming the main target of his abuse.)
• South Park has the Woodland Critters — a bunch of chipper Ridiculously Cute Critters... who worship Satan and hold blood orgies. When they make their second appearance in the "Imagination Land" arc alongside iconic villains and they begin talking about how cool it would be to rip out the eyes of their victims and piss on the empty socket to infect the wound, we get this line.
  Jason: Man, I do not want to meet the kid that dreamt those things up.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: The Flying Dutchman runs away terrified at the end of the first Halloween special when SpongeBob reveals his enhanced Halloween costume. He has a similar reaction in the second when he enters SpongeBob's mind and sees a overly saccharine world that looks like a drug trip on sugar.
• In Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Darth Maul has already proven himself to be quite the badass. But when he senses Darth Sidious arriving, he looks terrified and almost grovels. After he and Savage Opress lose a two-on-one fight, he does grovel... not that it helps him much.
• In Steven Universe White Diamond is scary enough to frighten even Blue and Yellow Diamond.
  • Downplayed since they're only startled and not really scared, but there is a brief moment where Padparadscha manages to freak out all the Diamonds.
• One Halloween Three Shorts episode of Tiny Toon Adventures had Elmyra wishing for her dead pets to come back to life, which they do as vengeance-seeking zombies because she's responsible for every single one of their deaths. Unfortunately, Elmyra is so destructive when trying to "take care" of them that they decide to run back to their graves while they are still intact and (un)alive to do so.
• Transformers: Cyberverse: Megatron is still the planet-conquering tyrant and undisputed overlord of the Decepticons, and is feared for his brutality and ruthlessness. And yet, Macadam's transformation still shocks him into stunned silence—and seeing it is enough to make him back down. We don't even get to see what Macadam's alt-mode is, only that it utterly dwarfs every other Cybertronian and bristles with firepower.
• In the episode "Ultimate Deadpool" of Ultimate Spider-Man there is only one person that the dreaded Taskmaster is afraid of: the merc with a mouth himself, Deadpool. This is likely due to a Logical Weakness carried over from the comics; Taskmaster relies heavily on the ability to instantly memorize an opponent's fighting style, but Deadpool is so unpredictable that he never fights the same way twice.
• In the Wacky Races episode "Creepy Trip to Lemon Twist", Dastardly lures the other racers into a Ghost Town, where he plans to scare them by dressing as a Bedsheet Ghost. It turns out that the town really is haunted, and its resident ghosts send several of the racers running away screaming. It might have gone on working if they hadn't tried to scare the Gruesome Twosome and their dragon.
• Wakfu:
  • Rubilax in full rampage mode stops dead in his tracks at the mere sight of Goultard (and tries to inconspicuously slither away while in the body of a giant worm — hilarious).
  • Episode 21 of season 2 pretty much has a Benny Hill Show sketch of this trope where the girls are being chased by some monster, only for that monster and the girls to be fleeing from another bigger monster, and so on for about five different monsters.
• Wander over Yonder: In "The Heebie Jeebies", Wander is afraid to enter a dark and spooky forest, warning Sylvia there might be "a Frankenstein" in there. Just as Sylvia tries to assure Wander, a Frankenstein's Monster comes running out of the forest, screaming in terror, and yells "Forest bad!" as he runs over the horizon.

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