In media, mostly animated or slapstick cartoons, a character may not be in danger yet, or they may not realize that they are in danger from an animal until they look back and see the animal's open mouth waiting to eat them, or roaring in their face. If they are cornered or somewhat behind cover, then the animal may approach and open its mouth at them in preparation to eat them. They may also induce a Double Take or even a Wild Take. For a bit of a scare factor, the media may include a view of the inside of the open mouth.
Compare to Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress, the force of gravity doesn't take over until a character looks down. See also: Delayed Reaction.
Examples:
Anime & Manga- In a serious subversion from the comedic version of the trope, Digimon Tamers has a Wham Episode where Beelzemon, drunk with power from being digivolved as a gift from the antagonistic Digimon Sovereign Zhuqiaomon, kills Leomon, enraging Takato and Growlmon. Growlmon in-turn digivolves (without the flash and flair, no less!) to Wargrowlmon, and then with his rage, Takato forces Wargrowlmon into a corrupted digivolution, Megidramon. Takato, seeing what he has done, realizes the error of his ways almost immediately, but Megidramon firmly has his sights set on Beelzemon, as he seizes Beelzemon in his tail, seemingly fully intending to devour him. Beelzemon seems finished, as he restrains Megidramon's mouth open, with a POV down his throat. That is, until Makuramon butts in, and gets crushed and loaded by Beelzemon for his trouble, who also takes Renamon and Terriermon's Ultimate-form powers. Only then does he manage to defeat and keep down Megidramon.
Beelzemon (thinking): I must admit, this is not a very attractive side of you, pineapple-head![saliva from Megidramon's mouth drips on him.]Beelzemon: UGH! NOW YOU'RE DROOLIN' ON ME! [The drops of saliva sizzle and smoke as they land on his face as if they were Hollywood Acid]
Film - Animated
- Played with in Finding Nemo: Marlin meets up with Bruce the Great White Shark this way. When he first sees him, Bruce gives a big wide smile showcasing his multiple rows of teeth. Subverted in that Bruce and his friends are actually trying to kick the predatory habit.
Bruce: [smiling with an evilly-mischievous grin] Hello.
- Cinderella: The mice have to gather corn quickly before Lucifer goes after them. But Gus gets too greedy and gathers more kernels than he can carry, which not only delays him, but attracts Lucifer's attention. By the time he has found a way to carry his haul safely, he walks right into Lucifer's face; the cat growls, his throat completely filling up the screen.
- The Adventures of Brer Rabbit: Brer Rabbit asks an alligator, Brer Gator, for passage across a river. However, due to his nature, Brer Gator reneges on his deal, claiming "my momma didn't raise me to be no taxicab", flipping Brer Rabbit up into the air with his tail, causing him to bounce on the alligator's belly and onto his snout, where Rabbit gets a good look at the inside of Brer Gator's mouth and his real intentions.
- A Bug's Life: After failing to chase off the Grasshopper gang with their giant false bird puppet, Flik and the rest of the ant colony stand up to Hopper and his gang, chasing the majority of them off. When a freak rainstorm (which is akin to a meteor shower strike due to the insects' sizes) prevents them from humiliating Hopper and driving him off for good, Hopper chases Flik and Atta through a grass forest until he finally corners Flik, intending to kill him. He just happens to come across the same bird that Flik and the Circus Bugs encounter earlier in the film. Thinking it's another false bird puppet:
Hopper: Well, what's this? Another one of your little bird tricks?
Flik: Yep!
Hopper: Are there a bunch of little girls in this one, too? Helloooo, Girrrrls! (The bird loudly chirps (or rather, 'roars') in his face) AAAAAHHHHHH!!! [attempts to run away, only for the bird to pick him up and feed him to her chicks]
- Jaws: The famous scene where a bored, mildly annoyed Chief Brody is tossing chum into the ocean, only for the shark to leap up from the water, mouth open.
- The Lost World: Jurassic Park: Eddie has a side view of the open, roaring jaws of a Tyrannosaurus rex as he desperately tries use his jeep to pull up the mobile base that the rexes had knocked over a cliff.
Literature
- In The Rabbit, the Bear, and the Zinniga-Zanniga (a short story in The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Tales) by Dr. Seuss, the bear prepares to eat the rabbit. The rabbit looks up, realises he's in trouble, but luckily he quickly observes that the bear has nine eyelashes on one eye and ten on the other. He exploits that fact by pretending that having one eyelash too few is a serious, potentially fatal, situation to be in. The trope in general is subverted in that the bear is simply looking for something to eat, without viciousness.
Western Animation
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: When the (at the time) Mane Six are traveling through the Everfree Forest in Princess Twilight Sparkle, Part 2, they awaken a Cragadile. (a reptile with skin made of rocks) Twilight Sparkle, with Spike, is then thrown and cornered towards a giant tree. The Cragadile approaches them and opens its mouth, seemingly ready to eat the two.
- Classic Disney Shorts:
- Little Hiawatha (one of Disney's Silly Symphonies): When trying to find an animal to hunt, Hiawatha comes across a bear cub. After a bit of confusion, he chases after the cub, and pursues it over what seems to be a rock, but is actually the bear cub's parent. When he rolls off the back of the large bear, he hangs off of its muzzle, looks it straight in the eye. In surprise, Hiawatha loses his grip a bit and stares into the open mouth of the bear. The bear throws him off, and approaches him, smacking its lips and opening its mouth wide in preparation to eat him. (Although in the next shot, as Hiawatha is backing away, the bear just resorts to attempting to slam him with his paws.)
- Donald's Vacation: After Donald Duck has to deal with chipmunks stealing his food, a bear (with the exact same design from Little Hiawatha) smells Donald's food and gets into the pile that the chipmunks have set up. Thinking there's a lot more chipmunks in the pile of food, he runs toward it, knocking the food everywhere, and revealing the bear was actually inside. Donald, looking away, pulls on the bear's muzzle, not realizing it's not a small animal. Feeling around, and still looking away, Donald notes that the bear has such big features for a "small" animal. He finally realizes his predicament when he looks back and just happens to peer into the bear's open mouth.
- Donald and the Gorilla: After Huey, Dewey and Louie scare Donald Duck by disguising themselves in a Pantomime Animal gorilla suit, Donald encounters the real Killer Gorilla. Believing it's the triplets, he grabs the ape's face, trying to remove the suit, only to see the triplets run by. Donald reacts to this by looking down the gorilla's throat to check whether the triplets are in there. Only then does he realize it's the real deal, and runs off by shoving an umbrella in the gorilla's mouth.
- Grand Canyonscope: The Grand Canyon park ranger that antagonizes Donald's innocent shenanigans also antagonizes a mountain lion, which have not been seen in the Grand Canyon, according to him, since the Civil War. Cue the mountain lion angrily plunking a Confederate soldier's hat on his head, which the ranger promptly tries to pacify by saluting and whistling Dixie. Cue the mountain lion promptly roaring in his face, and from the ranger's POV, the viewers.
- The Pointer: Mickey Mouse is hunting with Pluto, who wanders off while a bear follows Mickey. Whenever the bear gets too close, Mickey, thinking it's Pluto, slaps it and calls it stupid. It's only when he sees Pluto in front of him that he realizes that something else has been following him, so he slowly turns around to face the bear, who's already got his mouth open behind him.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: In the climax of "SpongeBob, Sandy, and the Worm," Sandy fights what she believes is the Alaskan Bull Worm while SpongeBob keeps trying to tell her something. She finishes tying up the "worm," only for SpongeBob to inform her that what she tied up was the worm's tongue. Sandy looks up and realizes she's inside the worm's giant open mouth, and she and SpongeBob start running away in terror as the worm chases them menacingly.
