History Main / CacophonyCoverUp

* ''Literature/BootCamp'': In the cafeteria at Lake Harmony, loudspeakers play taped lectures at ear-aching volumes. The intention is to make it hard for residents to communicate, but it also means that if kids are careful, they can whisper to each other without being overheard.

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': Olenna Tyrell is trying to coax some treasonable details about [[TheCaligula King Joffrey]] from Sansa Stark. Given the ever-present threat of spies in the DecadentCourt, she has CourtJester Butterbumps sing loudly to prevent anyone overhearing.

* ''The Book of Human Insects'' by Creator/OsamuTezuka begins the second chapter, "Leafhopper," by having the anarchist assassin Heihachi Arikawa convince [[IntrepidReporter Kametaro Aokusa]] to join him for a drink to learn some things about the latter's scoop, [[FemmeFatale Toshiko Tomura]]. Arikawa notes that the dingy bar he brings Aokusa to is nearly empty because the noise from a nearby industrial pile driver drives people away. Aokusa has slowly realized what Arikawa plans to do, but by then it's too late to escape, and Arikawa shoots Aokusa right as the pile driver hits the ground. For added measure, Arikawa then disposes of the body by putting it under the pile driver's piston.

* ''[[Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex GITS: 2nd Gig]]''. In a flashback showing how Saito met the Major, the ColdSniper times his shot to coincide with the clock chime of a bell tower. In that case the idea is to confuse where the shot came from, rather than the fact that it was fired.
* In the anime of ''Manga/{{Golgo 13}}'', a Mafia boss sends an army of mooks up to the roof when he sees the roof guards missing on the security camera. Meanwhile Duke is FastRoping down the side of the building; as the mooks empty their guns into the air conditioning room (the only cover on the roof) Duke is using the gunfire to cover his own shots as he guns down the Mafia boss.
* A fake construction crew is used in the first episode of ''Manga/GunslingerGirl'' to cover an assault on a terrorist safehouse.
* In ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'', [[spoiler: the Yamainu]] use the cover of festival fireworks to conceal the noise of exploding [[spoiler: their way into the Sonozaki bunker]].
* ''Franchise/LupinIII'' used a fake construction crew to cover the sound of his other goons breaking into a vault.

* ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'': In "The Malay Penguin", the Penguin rents the theatre next to a museum and hires a lot of tap dancers to stage a rehearsal so the sound and vibration will [[FalseFalseAlarm constantly trip the alarms]] in the museum.

* ''[[ComicBook/{{Tintin}} Tintin and The Picaros]]''. Tintin turns up at Captain Haddock's hotel room and switches on the radio to high volume. It's playing one of Bianca Castafiore's operettas and as a RunningGag in the series is how much they both loathe her music, Haddock immediately asks Tintin if he's gone mad. Tintin then proceeds to point out the various [[SinisterSurveillance hidden microphones in the room]].

* The ''Manga/GunslingerGirl'' Jethro and Monty fanfics have the fratello using Monty's cyborg superhearing to advantage by holding a whispered conversation covered by whatever background noise is provided. While in Hong Kong they find several bugs have been planted in their hotel room, so Monty takes a bath and Jethro turns on the spa to cover their conversation [[FakeOutMakeOut while making it look like they're doing]] [[TwoPersonPoolParty something else]].
* ''Fanfic/Plan7Of9FromOuterSpace''. A ScreamingWoman being [[MarsNeedsWomen carried off]] by a robot monster is drowned out by the noise of all the {{Jet Pack}}s, {{Retro Rocket}}s and {{Flying Car}}s in her AtomPunk future.

[[folder:Film -- Live Action]]
* ''Film/AllThePresidentsMen''. Woodward comes to Bernstein's apartment, insists on turning on some [[PokeInTheThirdEye loud]] classical music, and communicates with Bernstein by typing notes on his typewriter after being warned that their apartments are bugged. The piece we hear is Vivaldi's Concerto in C for Two Trumpets.

* ''Film/TheArtOfWar'' (2000). A triad gangster turns up the stereo before torturing a female agent for information.

* ''Film/TheBourneIdentity''. When Bourne is being tracked through tall grass by Clive Owen's ColdSniper, Bourne lets off a shotgun, disturbing some very noisy birds, and runs for cover while the ensuing cacophony covers his footsteps.

* ''Film/{{Colombiana}}''. A SWAT team is raiding Cataleya's apartment and makes an explosive entry. At the same time Cataleya uses an explosive charge to blow a hole through a wall to make her escape into the lift shaft.

* ''Film/EnemyAtTheGates''. Vasily Zaytzev's EstablishingCharacterMoment where he dispatches five Germans with five shots, purposefully timed to coincide with artillery explosions.
* ''Film/{{Entrapment}}''. A clock's chimes are used to mask the sounds of a break-in.

* ''Franchise/TheGodfather'':
** In [[Film/TheGodfather the first movie]] when Michael goes to shoot Sollozzo and [=McCluskey=] in the restaurant, he waits for a stopping subway to be at its loudest before he shoots.
** ''Film/TheGodfatherPartII'' - young Vito waits for Don Fanucci in his apartment hallway and shoots him as fireworks go off in the festival outside.
* ''Film/TheGoodTheBadAndTheUgly''.

* ''Film/TheGrayMan2022''

** Sierra Six is assigned to guard the young niece of his handler. Someone breaks in and tries to assassinate her while she's playing ''Silver Bird'' on her record player, though she still hears the ruckus of Sierra Six fighting him. At the end of the movie she's being held prisoner, but finds a note from Sierra Six tucked into her ''Silver Bird'' record, telling her to play it loud. She does so as he runs about shooting all her guards.
* In ''Film/TheGreatEscape'', they do this at least twice. Once, with ''singing'' "Twelve Days Of Christmas". When starting the tunnel and needing to break a thick piece of slate, some of the prisoners pound some stakes into the ground with mallets (for their vegetable gardens that are part of the distraction as well).
* The war movie ''Film/HongKong1941'' have Creator/ChowYunFat's character, Yip Kim-Fay, assasinating one of the LesCollaborateurs with the traitor's own concealed pistol, just as the traitor is torturing Yip's friend via [[EarAche firecrackers going off in the ears]]. Yip then helps his injured and near-unconscious friend out of the area, moments before the commotion starts when the traitor's guards finds him slumped dead in his chair.
* ''[[Film/IndianaJonesAndTheTempleOfDoom The Temple of Doom]]'' Wu Han tries to assist Indiana during a standoff, but one of Lao Che's goons shoots him when champagne bottles are being popped open.
* ''Film/IngloriousBasterds'': as the besieged sniper scene of "Stoltz der Nation" (Pride of a Nation) begins, Zoller, a Nazi war hero and the subject/star of the propaganda film, goes to the projection booth to flirt with Shoshana (a Jewish woman posing as a gentile theater owner), she rudely tells him to go away. He angrily storms in and tells he's had enough of her rejections. She tells him they can sit and talk, but he has to lock the door behind him, and as he turns around, she pulls out a pistol and shoots him, with Hitler's entourage and the other Nazi guests being none the wiser due to the film's massive gunfight scene. When she ducks down to check on him, he pulls out his side arm and shoots her back, his shots also drowned out by the film's sound effects.

* ''Film/TheJackal''. As federal agents search the house he's hiding in, the Jackal sets the timer on a stereo to play loud music, which covers his shooting them with a silenced submachine gun as they rush to investigate the noise.

* ''Film/JurassicWorldDominion''. To cover him telling Ellie Sattler how to sneak into Biosyn's restricted lab, Ian Malcolm orders two cappuccinos, using the noise and steam caused by the barista to prevent being overheard. Meanwhile, Alan Grant is standing there complaining to the barista about how he doesn't like cappuccinos and misses the entire conversation.
* ''Film/LawAbidingCitizen''. Clyde shows his cellmate how to use the remote to turn up the volume [[LuxuryPrisonSuite on the stereo he's been given]], then bloodily stabs him to death with a steak bone under cover of loud rock music and the other prisoners shouting in outrage.
* In ''Film/TheManWhoKnewTooMuch'' there is an attempted assassination during a concert, using a cymbal crash to cover the sound of the gunshot.

** Referenced in ''Film/MissionImpossibleII'': "The generators will cover the sound of Hunt's break in."
*** Nyah's theft of the necklace early in the movie involves a similar trick. To cover the sound of her high heels as she runs to the room where the necklace is kept, she only runs while dancers downstairs are dancing, making their own heels-on-floor noise.

* In one of the most famous heists of the ''Film/OlsenBanden'' (Olsen's Gang) film series, Olsen and his gang performs a daring break-in of the Royal Opera during a performance of the danish classic, Elverhøj. They have to break through several sealed doors to get where they're going, and carefully time every action to coincide with appropriate musical cover. (Setting off dynamite charges during cymbal clashes, running concrete-drills during woodwind sections, etc.)

* ''Film/RoadToPerdition''. Michael Sullivan enters a hotel to confront a mob accountant, leaving his son in the car as a lookout. His son then sees ProfessionalKiller Harlen Maguire crossing the road, and honks the car horn in warning. Sullivan doesn't hear it as the accountant's teletype machine is chattering -- it's not clear if this is deliberate, though everything else the accountant does is clearly meant to delay Sullivan until Maguire arrives.

* Averted in ''Film/TheRussiaHouse''. Creator/SeanConnery's character is given some basic spycraft instruction, and is told that running showers or playing music loudly won't work against modern listening devices.
* In ''Film/{{Scarface 1983}}'', the infamous chainsaw scene is preceded by the Toad's female associate turning up the volume on the hotel room's TV.
* ''Film/ShanghaiGrand'': The assassination of Ding-Lik, the film's deuteragonist, took place precisely at the stroke of midnight during New Year's Eve 1934, where Lik and his entourage gets wiped out in a GanglandDriveBy via machine-guns, which is perfectly masked by the fireworks going off and the cheering crowd outside.
* ''Film/TheShawshankRedemption'': [[spoiler:Andy Dufresne]] uses thunder to drown out his banging on the pipes with a rock, [[spoiler:to break through them in order to escape.]]
* ''Film/ShootEmUp''. A BabyFactory is located on top of a heavy metal rock club, to cover the babies crying. The protagonists discover the location of the nursery after noticing that the baby who's the LivingMacGuffin of the movie stops crying whenever rock music is played, because it's familiar.
* In the movie ''Film/AShotInTheDark'', an attempt at murder is made at a nightclub during a flamenco dance, with the gunshot being timed to coincide with the dancer's boot tap.
* ''[[Film/TheSilence2019 The Silence]]'' (2019). While trapped in the pharmacy with the vesps who swarm and attack anything that makes noise, Hugh and his daughter set off the fire sprinkler system and flee as the vesps flap about screeching. This serves as a ChekhovsGun [[spoiler:for the BattleInTheRain when the cultists kidnap his daughter; Hugh and the others are able to chase after them and get her back because the thunder and rain only confuse the vesps.]]
* In ''Film/SinnersAndSaints'' (2010) the villains are playing a record loudly to cover up their torture session. However this also means [[OhCrap they don't hear two detectives entering the house]] until they interrupt events.
* ''Film/{{Sleepers}}'' (1996). Gangbangers execute a man on the approach area of an airport, waiting till an airliner comes in to land before opening fire.

* ''Film/ThreeDaysOfTheCondor''. The chattering of 1970's era teletypes and printers cover the sound of the hit squad with their silenced submachine guns attacking a CIA research station.

* In a Dutch movie a member of LaResistance disassembles his bunk and uses the parts as improvised tools to break out of a Nazi cell block. Unfortunately the prisoner in the neigbouring cell starts asking about the noise he's making. So the resistance guy calls for a biblical quotation from a deeply religious prisoner, knowing the other prisoners will start shouting at him to shut up and he can proceed under cover of their argument.

* In ''They Came To Kill'', Literature/AbleTeam capture a KGB spymaster and have him BoundAndGagged with earphones on to prevent him overhearing their conversation.
-->"And don't worry about Illovich hearing you all. The Wizard's got head-phones on Illovich, blasting him with Mexican radio. Old man's rocking 'n' rolling, shaking his bones."

* Marie Brennan's ''Literature/{{Doppelganger}}'' duology has [[ActionGirl Mirei]], [[spoiler:newly restored to her original body by the FusionDance of Miryo and Mirage]], using the cover of applause to knock out a pair of guards and confront [[WellIntentionedExtremist the Primes]].
* ''Literature/TheFourthProtocol'' by Creator/FrederickForsyth. A safecracker breaks into an apartment while the owner is away in the country for New Year's Day, and waits till the stroke of midnight before setting off the charge that blows open his safe, covered by the fireworks and general outburst of revelry.
* In one of the Creator/SvenHassel novels, a senior SA officer has been arrested in the Night of the Long Knives purge. As he waits in his cell, he isn't alarmed because he thinks he's too important to harm -- until he realises that the sound of a revving lorry and motorcycle are masking regular bursts of gunfire, like you'd hear from a firing squad.

* Frank Garcia's ''Literature/MarkedCardsAndLoadedDice'' had a story attributed to John Philip Quinn, a 19th century crooked gambler. One day a man approached Quinn and asked to become a "bottom dealer" for him. As the man dealt out the cards Quinn listened for the distinctive sound of a poorly executed bottom deal. He then told the man that if he would give Quinn a signal when he was about to begin, Quinn would fire off a pistol and distract everyone else in the room from the horrible noise the man made.

* ''Literature/TheMurderbotDiaries''. Murderbot has to take out a couple of CorporateSamurai in the public atrium of a space station. There's a holographic display overhead of a storm on a gas giant, so he hacks the computer system and has it suddenly dropped down to ground level.

* A gang of prisoners attempt to time their shooting and killing of Johnny Powers with the roar of a Concorde flying overhead in ''[[Literature/DiamondBrothers Public Enemy Number Two]]''. They're only stopped with Nick Diamond's intervention.

* Donna Andrews uses this in ''[[Literature/MegLangslowMysteries Some Like it Hawk]]''. The protagonists have scheduled a lot of very noisy events at the town festival so they can open a squeaky trapdoor without being noticed.
* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''. Olenna Tyrell is trying to coax some treasonable details about [[TheCaligula King Joffrey]] from Sansa Stark. Given the ever-present threat of spies in the DecadentCourt, she has CourtJester Butterbumps sing loudly to prevent anyone overhearing.
* In ''[[Literature/TheStainlessSteelRat A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born]]'', the main character bases his plan for a concert hall burglary around the musical composition to be played, so that the noisiest parts of the job take place during the noisiest part of the concert.
* ''Literature/TicketsForDeath'': Protagonist Michael Shayne has discovered John Hardeman, the manager of a dogracing track, murdered. Shayne wishes to make it look like a suicide but has to fire off a second shot from Hardeman's gun--and the crowd just outside will surely hear this. So he waits until the roar from the track at the start of the race and pulls the trigger then.
* In the ''Literature/DrWatsonAtWar'' series by Robert Ryan, a fake air raid is used to get everyone into the shelters so a robbery can occur. The criminals build an acoustic device to simulate the "Gotha hum" of the German bombers and set off explosive charges as fake bomb blasts--the latter destroy a truckload of soldiers rushing to stop them and cover for the sound of them blasting their way into the building.

* A minor RunningGag in ''Series/TheATeam'' is that whenever Face and Hannibal were captured, their friends would naturally come to rescue them. When they realized their teammates were close by, they would cover up their noises by singing "You Are My Sunshine."

* In ''Series/BlackSails'', the pirates of the ''Walrus'' start hammering on the deck of a slave ship whose crew has barricaded themselves into a lower compartment. The slaver crew assumes that the pirates are futilely trying to burrow into the compartment, but in reality they're masking the sounds of the ship's slaves striking off their irons in preparation for a revolt.
* ''Series/BoardwalkEmpire''. Al Capone is trying to schmooze some important Hollywood guests, only to be called to a back room to deal with a case of embezzlement. He orders his henchman to turn up the music on the radio, so they won't hear a gunshot.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''. In "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS4E7TheInitiative The Initiative]]", vampire Spike attacks Willow in her dorm room, turning up her CD player so the students outside can't hear her screaming.
* Played with in [[Recap/ColumboS06E03 one episode]] of ''Series/{{Columbo}}'', where the murderer used a RubeGoldbergDevice to create a loud bang - not to cover the sound of the fatal gunshot, but to make it sound like there were two gunshots instead of one. When Colombo demonstrates an incorrect replica of the Rube Goldberg device, the murderer corrects it at the last second, [[NiceJobFixingItVillain incriminating himself]] and leading to his arrest.

* ''Series/DoctorWho''. In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E3ThinIce Thin Ice"]], the Doctor and Bill are tied up next to a bomb in a fairground. However, despite Bill saying she'll [[ScreamingWoman scream her head off]], the villains don't bother to gag her as no one hears her over the sounds of the fair.

* This is used in ''{{Series/Farscape}}'' when John is hiding in the walls from the bad guys who can hear his heartbeat and breathing. His shipmates start speaking loudly in various alien languages to give him time to escape.

* ''Series/GetSmart''

** In the TV movie ''Get Smart, Again!'' the useless Cone of Silence has finally been ditched and replaced with Hover Cover, which involves standing on a rooftop between three hovering helicopters. Naturally this also proves more trouble than it's worth, as the participants get blown off their feet and still can't hear each other.
* ''Series/IronFist2017''. In the Season 2 premiere, Danny Rand is shown training to use his Iron Fist near a subway tunnel, waiting till a train goes past before throwing a punch.
* In the pilot episode of ''{{Series/Kojak}}'', the police attempt to break in through the ceiling of a store where bank robbers have taken customers hostage. Kojak hopes driving around an armored car will cover the noise of the tools. [[spoiler:It doesn't work.]]

** In "The First David Job", Hardison covers up Parker lifting the statue from a vibration sensor by triggering every car alarm in the parking lot. The guards see the sensor has been triggered, but hearing every alarm in the parking lot go off, they assume that it was an earth tremor and reset the sensor.
** In "The Scheherazade Job" they use the climax of the masterpiece "Scheherazade" to cover-up blowing up a hole in the ceiling of a vault and as an excuse to get the people to turn off the seismic sensors. Notably, [[spoiler: they immediately wreck their own plan because they are too enraptured by the violin solo which follows to actually finish the heist (so the alarm ends up going off anyway)]].
* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'':
** In "Murder by Magic", the killer uses the sound of gunshot being used in a magic trick to mask the sound of the gunshot they used to kill one of their victims.
** In "Blood on the Saddle", the killer uses the noise of a mock gunfight being conducted in the main arena to cover the rifle shot he uses to murder the first VictimOfTheWeek.
* The pilot episode of the ''Series/MissionImpossible'' TV series uses fireworks to cover the sounds of the team's escape.
* ''Series/MurderSheWrote'': In "Murder: According to Maggie", the killer uses the gunshots on screen during the screening of TV show to drown out the sound of their actual gunshots.
* ''Series/OneLifeToLive''. Marty Saybrooke's gang rape took place during a raucous frat house party, with no one able to hear her screams because of the loud music. When the chief assailant attacked her ''again'', this time in the alley behind a local bar, he taunted her about the fact that just like the previous assault, no one would be able to hear her for the very same reason. Indeed, when a friend of hers showed up, despite them ''both'' screaming and pounding on the door, the bar patrons were completely oblivious to what was going on.
* ''Series/PersonOfInterest''
** An accidental version in "4C" when John Reese is fighting a hitman in the airplane cabin while the passengers are watching an action scene in ''Film/NorthByNorthwest''. At one point a gunshot is fired at the exact same time it is in the movie.
** Lampshaded in "A Perfect Union" when Reese spots some villains just after Harold Finch has to sing at a wedding. "Finch better sing louder, 'cause we've got some serious ass to kick."

** In the episode "The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim",[[spoiler: Davenheim]] breaks open a safe by timing the blows of a hammer with the cannon shots in a record of Music/PyotrIlyichTchaikovsky's ''[[StandardSnippet 1812 Overture]]''.
** The trope is also discussed and [[spoiler:believed to be]] used in "Murder in the Mews", which opens on Guy Fawkes Day. [[spoiler:Subverted in that it was a suicide made to look like murder.]]

* ''Series/TheProfessionals''. Before Doyle hauls a criminal into the storeroom of a pub for some PerpSweating, he throws the manager a coin and tells him to play something loud on the jutebox. Subverted when the criminal turns out to be an undercover policeman, and the noise is actually meant to cover their friendly conversation (now and again they knock over a few cans to make it sound like [[PoliceBrutality Doyle is roughing him up]]).
* ''Rubbery Figures'' (the Australian version of ''Series/SpittingImage'') had UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan holding a press conference, and every time a journalist asked an awkward question a helicopter would fly over or a squad of marines would march past or a brass band would pay their trumpets loudly, drowning out his NonAnswer.
* ''Series/SesameStreet''
** In an old skit Bert & Ernie find themselves unable to get to sleep because of the sound of a dripping faucet. Ernie decides the best solution is just to drown out the sound by turning on the radio at full blast. When Bert complains that the radio is too loud, Ernie turns on the vacuum cleaner to drown that out. Bert is left to handle all of the sounds himself only to be kept awake by Ernie's snoring.
** There is an even older sketch where Bert gets annoyed by the sound of Ernie's TV show, so he decides to drown it out with a record. When Ernie complains that the record is too loud, he drowns it out with the radio. Bert one-ups even that by turning on a blender to drown out the radio, promptly blowing a fuse.
* ''Series/ShadowAndBone''. Inej and Jesper are stealing the plans for the Little Palace but end up locked inside the Kribirsk Archives, so Jesper proceeds to ShootOutTheLock by waiting until the clock strikes on the hour.

* In the MadeForTVMovie "[[https://youtu.be/t9_FXlIg2ns Without Her Consent]]", a man rapes a woman who he invited to his house to look at some furniture he wants to sell. Her screams are unfortunately drowned out by the sound of his neighbor's lawnmower and it's implied that he specifically timed his attack to coincide with his neighbor's yardwork.

* After [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Zeus]] was born and his father tricked into eating a rock thinking it was his son, the nymphs who raised him often made a racket to cover up Zeus's crying so his father wouldn't hear him and realize he was still alive.

* One of the main story assassinations in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII'' could be accomplished using Ezio's pistol, if you timed your shot with the fireworks going off in the area.
* ''VideoGame/BattlefieldBadCompany 2'': Similar to the ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII'' example, a storyline mission sees you providing sniper fire support at night with a huge thunderstorm right overhead as the rest of your fireteam sneaks into an enemy camp. In order to avoid alerting the guards to your shots, you time them to coincide with the sounds of the storm.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Desperados}}'' gunshots can be masked by other loud noises such as a nearby roaring waterfall or thunder.
* You can use this to your advantage in ''VideoGame/{{Hitman}}''. If someone's firing guns for another reason (like to celebrate a wedding), you can kill someone and use their gunfire to mask the sound of yours.
* ''VideoGame/MetalGear''

* In the ''VideoGame/SniperElite'' [[VideoGame/SniperEliteV2 se]][[VideoGame/SniperElite3 ri]][[VideoGame/SniperElite4 es]], you're encouraged to make use of this to take out enemies without giving yourself away. Being that your missions mostly take place in active [=WW2=] warzones, this means that in addition to using regular loud noises like thunder and planes flying overhead, you can fire while dropped bombs explode nearby or while flak erupts across the sky.
* In the various ''VideoGame/SplinterCell'' games you can get away with making noise if the ambient sounds of the environment are loud enough. ''Double Agent'' for the Nintendo Gamecube has a stage where, because of a civil war, intermittent shellings will temporarily knock out the power allowing you to loudly run to the next hiding place in the ensuing noise and darkness before the lights come back on.

* In Chapter Five of ''VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair'', everyone enters the warehouse to hear blaring loud, depressing hymn music before [[spoiler:discovering Nagito's corpse]]. It turns out, [[spoiler:Nagito lined up some Monokuma cutouts so when the other students opened the door, they would create a domino effect to knock over an oil lighter and cause a fire. The reason for the music was to cover up the noise of the cutouts falling]].

[[folder:Web Original]]
* The ''Website/SCPFoundation'' has [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-539 SCP-539 - The Perfect Distraction,]] which [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin performs this trope to a T.]] Every test of 539 (shaped like a gray Frisbee) happens as such: 539 is thrown, [[OutsideContextProblem something weird happens,]] and everyone looks away from 539. Repeated testing has shown that the “something weird” part usually involves [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere predatory animals appearing out of thin air.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': In "One Last Job", the Flying Lettuce Brothers [[VoiceChangeling imitate the Banana Guard Captain]] and order the Banana Guards to go out into the courtyard and practice their battle cries, which both distracts them from their posts and covers up the sound of the vault to [[MacGuffin the Baker's Shard]] being blown open.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': In "The New Normal", Anne plays loud rock music over the speakers of the store to cover up any noise they make and to avoid drawing any attention while they fight the Cloak-Bot.
* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'': Defied in the episode "Shriek". Terry tries to sneak around Shriek by switching on the machinery in the factory they're fighting in. [[NoSell Shriek uses his acoustic suit to silence all the sounds]] ''[[QuieterThanSilence except]]'' [[QuieterThanSilence Terry's footsteps]].
* ''WesternAnimation/BigCityGreens'': Similar to the ''A Quiet Place'' example, in "Quiet Please", Bill turns on the water fountain to drown out his and Cricket's voices so they can talk without the ScaryLibrarian hearing them.

** Another episode had Peter timing his farts to thunderclaps.
* In a ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' episode, Strickland and the other local propane shops start an illegal price-fixing racket and Hank is forced by the Feds to wear a wire during one of their meetings so that the team assigned to catch them could get proof. So how does Hank keep from getting Strickland shut down? He gets the freaking Orange County Choppers to rev their engines outside the store in order to cover up his explanation of the situation to Buck.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels''. In "Rebel Resolve", Chopper 'accidentally' overloads the internal comm on the ''Ghost''. The noise and the fact that Hera is busy shouting at the droid distracts her from the flashing light and buzzer indicating that the others have stolen the ''Phantom'' for a rescue mission that Hera hasn't authorized.

* ''Film/DrPhibesRisesAgain'': When he's out to crush Baker to death with a special contraption, Phibes brings a studio fan to blow an artificial wind on the archaeologists' camp, the sound of which covers Baker's screams (and the archaeologists, Trout included, believe it's a natural wind).

* The ''Manga/GunslingerGirl'' Jethro and Monty fanfics have the fratello using Monty's cyborg superhearing to advantage by holding a whispered conversation covered by whatever background noise is provided.

* ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'': Ron and Harry sneak out of the castle to visit Hagrid under Harry's invisibility cloak, but the teachers are patrolling the castle because of the attacks on students and the cloak doesn't muffle sound. They have a hair-raising moment when Ron stubs his toe nearby Professor Snape, but fortunately Snape sneezes at that exact moment and doesn't hear Ron swearing.

** In the final segment of "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS7E15ThreeKings Three Kings]]", a parody of ''Film/TheShawshankRedemption'', Andy (Peter) is tries to bust open a sewer pipe with a rock to escape the prison, but he is within hearing range of Norton/Carter, who is watching an episode of ''Series/{{Friends}}'' in his office.. To cover his noise, Andy times his banging of the rock to the clapping of the show's theme song.

[[folder:Fan Works]]

* ''Fanfic/Plan7Of9FromOuterSpace''. A ScreamingWoman being [[MarsNeedsWomen carried off]] by a robot monster is drowned out by the noise of all the {{Jet Pack}}s, {{Retro Rocket}}s and {{Flying Car}}s in her AtomPunk future.