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Koosh Bomb

Ooooh, Ahhhhh!

This is your standard Limited Animation method of drawing an explosion: as a spikey ball. Usually several such, concentric and multi-colored. Expect some smoke too.

This effect can also be used to accentuate any heavy or significant impact, such as a blow to the head. See also Hit Flash.

In Real Life, of course, it's possible to achieve an explosion which simulates this effect.

Only, usually, not as colorful as in the cartoons.

If you don't know what a Koosh Ball is, basically it's a ball of rubber spaghetti used as a safer alternative to rubber balls when soft impacts are desired and bouncing is not. "Koosh" represents the sound effect the thing makes when it hits a surface.

Examples:

Film

Used in The Empire Strikes Back (only a couple of frames each time).
Such an effect is animated on top of live action footage, in order to show the Penguin's submarine is hit in Batman: The Movie.

Video Games

The Kirby series almost always draws explosions like this.
Shows up in Mech Commander, surprisingly enough.
Super Smash Brothers does this.
The cel-shaded The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker draws its explosions something like this, although the aftereffect of stylized curly smoke is more prominent.
Used as an impact effect in the Donkey Kong Country series whenever any character gets hit.
Super Mario Bros. 2 has this for its explosions, with BOMB written in the center of it.
The game it's based on, Doki Doki Panic, has this too, but with BOM written in the center.
The NES puzzle game Kickle Cubicle did this too when the bomb enemy "Sparky" explodes.