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Spoony: Can't we come up with something new and original for an evil computer to do than launch nukes and crash the stock market? Something legitimately scary? Guys, please, I'm begging ya'. Professor Roswell: He could make... Gary Coleman president. Spoony: AHHHHHH! OH MY GOD! RUN! PANIC! EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF! GOOOOOO!
A comedy trope where something is played up to be terrifying, and it clearly is not. It's not even something that sets off a common phobia. Sometimes the scene is shot like a horror film. Bonus points if the Psycho Strings are playing.
Advertisements can do this, to show how either not using the product or using a rival product can be horrific.
Often a Caustic Critic will do this with finding out he has to review some works he really hates, as a way to show that Suckiness Is Painful. Sometimes, even just holding the work in hand is enough to cause emotional scars.
Compare What Do You Mean, It\'s Not Heinous?, Lightmare Fuel, Screaming at Squick, Nightmare Retardant, Mundane Ghost Story.
Contrast Nightmare Fuel, Fridge Horror (both are portrayed as not scary, but end up being so).
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In episode 2 of Season 2 of K-On!!, after cleaning out the closet of the music room, Mio and Asuza find out that Yui left a lot of things still and get mad at her. Yui pouts and claims that Ui would get mad and make a scary face if the latter brought more stuff home. Cue cutscene showing a "scary" Ui giving a thumbs up to Yui, after the latter had dropped other stuff she took home earlier and apologized profusely. Both Mio and Asuza wonder if Ui isn't the older, more responsible sister after all.
- In Ouran High School Host Club, Tamaki has a nightmare about the squalor Haruhi might be living in.
- An episode of Sailor Moon does this with going to the dentist.
- Angel Densetsu does this all the time, since its premise is that its good-hearted, gentle main character is Nightmare Fuel to everyone around him.
Film
- The squirrel scene from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, where everyone reacts to the tiny rodent as if it were a knife-wielding lunatic.
- The story of getting a perm in Troop Beverly Hills.
- High Anxiety, naturally, being a spoof of Alfred Hitchcock films, especially the shower scene.
- The Doctor Who Made-for-TV Movie has two examples within about five minutes. First, the newly-regenerated Doctor is set up to be kind of scary, with the whole Finger Twitching Revival, Barrier-Busting Blow thing when he wakes up at the morgue, and then he's shown wide-eyed, shivering, and clutching a shroud around himself. Also, he's rather short, skinny, and cute. Nonetheless, the morgue attendant does a Girly Man Faint when he sees him. Then, when the Doctor goes to remedy his no-clothing situation, he finds a Nixon Mask in someone's locker. He flinches and there's a Scare Chord.
- Monsters, Inc.: A subversion, "There is nothing more toxic or deadly than a human child!" Seeing as monsters uses children's screams as a power source, their fear is somewhat understandable. How would you feel if a rod of active plutonium started following you around and calling you "Kitty"?
Fan Works
- Harveste
 reacts this way when his boggart turns into a scene involving fresh air, happy music, flowers, and kittens. It takes one and a half bottles of Vodka to calm him down.
"Harveste-"
He stepped forward, curious to see what it would change into. What was an Addams afraid of, after all?
The Boggart flickered, and disappeared into a pool of sunshine. Peppy music seemed to bloom through the air on the wings of a pine-scented breeze, lightening the shadows, inducing a spate of foot-tapping with its catchy riffs. There was a yellow, sunflower-patterned boot. It had three wriggly kittens, one green eyed, one blue and one silver. They mewled ingratiatingly and one tumbled out in a furry little heap.
There was a pot of flowers in full bloom.
Harry took a step back with speed. "Loki's womb…" He breathed with horrified despair. "It's awful."
Draco and Blaise watched Harry stumble into the common room, closely followed by an anxious Hermione.
"What on earth happened?" She asked them, her eyes on their friend. He was in the closet, throwing out skirt after skirt, blouse after blouse. "He's shaking."
"Boggart." They both said together.
"Oh no. What did it turn into? Some huge, slavering, scaly, blood-soaked beast?"
"Don't tease me so, darling." Harry moaned, desperately burying his hands into black lace and chiffon to try and forget. "It was the most horribly disgusting thing I've ever seen. The fresh air…the music…the flowers…"
It took a bottle and a half of strongest vodka before Harry could control himself, but he twitched every time someone even mentioned cats.
Literature
- In My Godawful Life, a parody of Misery Lit, all characters react with extreme horror at the mention of Northumberland (a county in the north of England.) Being forced to live there is described as far and away the most horrific event in the main character's life, even though he has suffered every misfortune and indignity imaginable. The author has said in interviews that this is a Take That at the "Wife in the North" blog, written by a woman who had moved from London to Northumberland with her family.
- In the Discworld books, the males of the Nac Mac Feegle (who outnumber the females about 100 to 1) live in fear of such feminine wiles as "the foldin' o' the arms", "the pursin' o' the lips", and "the tappin' o' the feet". Tiffany uses these tricks in Wintersmith when confronting them about stealing food from an elderly witch's "going-away party", and can't help but burst out laughing at the frenzy of guilt the Feelges work themselves into.
Live Action TV
- In Married... with Children, Peg redecorates the bathroom, and Al finds all the pink terrifying. He looks at some photos, and instead sees the Grim Reaper.
- Basically anything that ever happened in Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, like in the episode "Scotch Mist".
- An episode of My Family has Ben react this way when Susan plays the cello after Janey moves out. The music causes him to back into a corner, making the cross sign with his fingers.
- In an episode of How I Met Your Mother, the gang visit a hippie-run resort, and when they find out there's no meat or alcohol available, their reactions come complete with a Scare Chord.
- The Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode It Lives by Night begins with Mike showing the bots paint samples as they prepare to redecorate the satellite a bit. The bots have humorously weird reactions to the first colors, including one supposedly the color of dried blood that is said to make the viewer mad. (Tom: "I think it would be perfect for the can!") Both are frightened to the point of hiding, however, by the eggshell sample.
- One episode has the bots pestering Joel to tell them a really scary story - Joel perhaps goes too far, reading excerpts from "Life's Little Instruction Book", leaving the two whimpering in terror.
- The "Avocado Bathroom Suite" sketch from That Mitchell and Webb Look
Newspaper Comics
- Back when Apple released the first iMac, Jason of FoxTrot dressed up as one for Halloween. Peter didn't understand how it was supposed to be scary, to which Jason replied "I have no floppy drive!" which quickly reduces Peter to a quivering wreck.
- From one Garfield comic:
Jon: {reading a book labeled "Scary Stories"} Then the zombie crept closer and closer!
Garfield: Lame.
Jon: Then he broke down the door and walked into the house!
Garfield: Ooohh, I'm so scared.
Jon: And he ate the last of the roast turkey.
Garfield: OH NO!
Video Games
Webcomics
Web Original
Western Animation
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