This is when, for any reason, one or more characters are chased by a large handful of other characters. In animated shows this can often have a freeze frame shot. Sometimes a show even ends an episode on this.
Has a high probability of being scored to Yakety Sax, and may very well include visual elements associated with that very show.
A Super-Trope to Thundering Herd.
A Sister Trope to Escalating Chase (this trope doesn't require escalation, while that trope doesn't require the bulk of the cast).
Compare Chased by Angry Natives, Torches and Pitchforks (which may very well overlap with this).
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Happens a lot in Doraemon especially at the end of an episode. Most of the times it's Nobita who gets chased due to misusing a gadget.
- It's happened to Sousuke in Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu.
- In GTO 14 Days In Shonan, a huge crowd of thugs surrounds Onizuka after Miki puts out a hit on him on the internet. He realizes there are too many and makes a run for it, with all of them in hot pursuit.
- Happens in Ladies versus Butlers! when Akiharu is accidentally branded as both a pervert and a delinquent.
- One end of an episode in Megaman NT Warrior had this.
- As per the page image, Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok had Yamino and Loki being chased by a Brainwashed and Crazy Thor, and then successively by Heimdal, Frey, and Freya.
- Happens in Negima! Magister Negi Magi on occasion.
- One notable example occurs during Ako's Day in the Limelight micro-arc: Negi, thanks to the use of a time machine, ends up being chased by Madoka, two versions of Kotaro, Chachamaru and Chisame, and himself.
- Later events have taken this to the next (il)logical step, with the entire school after him.
- This happened a lot at the end of the first series of Pokémon: The Series, usually Team Rocket being chased by an angry mob of either humans they scammed or Pokémon that they tried to steal.
- The opening scene of the first Ranma ½ movie is a constantly escalating version of this.
- In the Turning Red spinoff 4★Town 4★Real, Aaron T. and his bodyguard are chased by a crowd of fans through a mall.
Comic Books
- Donald Duck has found himself on the receiving end of this more than once.
- A frequent ending — almost Once an Episode — in Groo the Wanderer: after the title character has attempted to help some poor unfortunates and only succeeded in making them more unfortunate, he's run out of town.
- A lot of Léonard le Génie stories end like this, usually because half the town is destroyed thanks to his inventions.
Films — Animation
- Disney's adaptation of Alice in Wonderland ends with everyone in Wonderland chasing Alice through a swirling abyss right before she awakens in the real world.
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: Miles is chased through the Nueva York HQ by hundreds of Spider-People after Miguel sends a directive to capture him.
Films — Live-Action
- Austin Powers starts with a sequence of people chasing him through town. Set to the Theme Tune.
- Buster Keaton:
- In the short film "Cops", he ends up getting chased by what looks like hundreds of cops.
- His feature film Seven Chances ends with him being chased by hundreds of women wanting to marry him.
- A classic example would be Frankenstein's monster.
- The famous opening of A Hard Day's Night where The Beatles get chased by their fans. Notable in that it wasn't just footage shot for the film, but actual footage of the Beatles getting chased by their fans that happened to be caught on film.
- The entire movie It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is a snowballing cascade of mob chases, as more and more of Hollywood's top actors join in the fun.
- Happens twice to pre-frosh character Tom in PCU, and later in the film they exploit it. By the end, it happens to one of the antagonists.
- A scene in School of Rock, after the parents take Dewey's remark about touching something in their kids literally.
- In Love Potion Number Nine the female antagonist, figuring more is better, overdoses on the titular love potion, which causes every man who hears her voice to fall in love with her, and every woman who hears her voice to hate her. And then she goes out in public...
- During the climactic chase scene in Moving Violations, one of the characters runs through a convention of police chiefs and ends up with all of the attendees (in full uniform) chasing after them.
- Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls ends with the villain chased by the entire Wachootoo tribe because he stole their sacred bat, shortly followed by Ace himself chased by the entire Wachati tribe after they find out he deflowered their high priestess.
Literature
- At the end of Jingo, Commander Vimes was leading a procession and spotted an unlicensed thief stealing a lady's bag. He immediately gave chase while still leading the procession, which caused the people behind him to follow his lead since they didn't really know if this was how things were supposed to go, which caused the people behind them to run after them since they don't know what's happening at the front and they're getting left behind, which caused everyone watching to run after them too because, well, everyone else was doing it. While all of this was happening, the poor thief continued to run as fast as he could because he had taken one look over his shoulder and found the whole of Ankh-Morpork society bearing down on him.
- Throughout its killing spree in The Fatal Dream, the Pteranodon is hunted by the male hero, two FBI agents, a terrorist organisation, the police force of Western Australia, and the Australian Federal Police.
Live-Action TV
- The Benny Hill Show would most likely be the Trope Codifier, as many, many of the episodes ended up with someone being chased by an ever growing line of irate bystanders, usually accompanied by "Yakkity Sax" in the background.
- The Australian TV show The Farmer Wants a Wife.
- Exploited by Ned, Cookie and Moze in the Grand Finale of Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide— they intentionally get the groups after them (Crubbs, the art gallery guard, and a bunch of samurai warriors) to chase them and they all converge in the gallery, where a bunch of crooks planning to steal a priceless painting are caught in the act.
- ChuckleVision did this a lot.
Music Videos
- In the Semisonic video, Secret Smile
, a couple (one of them being the lead singer) accidentally elicits this while escaping the invasive cameramen working with a pesky reporter, fans, and various movie studio patrons, to whom the pair unwittingly barges in on in different studios, give chase.
Video Games
- This happens in Left 4 Dead if a Boomer vomits on you. Assuming, of course, you've got enough room to run and don't get immediately surrounded by the horde.
Web Comics
- In Freefall, Sam Starfall seems to seek out such episodes.
- In Greg, Ted streaks across a college campus naked, as everyone chases him for disguising himself as a phony professor.
- Frequently the story arcs of Invincea and the Warriors from Hell culminate in some form of this as Invincea or her friends wind up drawing the attention of several groups of enemies.
Western Animation
- The Family Guy episode "I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar"note had Cleveland take Peter to The Million Man March, as Cleveland believes that being a man means learning respect and love for his own gender. Peter (who has been warped by feminism) believes that if men were more caring to women, society would be a better place and decides to get on the mike and let it be known. However, because Peter is a white guy angrily accusing all the men in the audience for causing society's ills and the fact that the audience consists of militant black men, this leads to this trope and Mistaken for Racist in the form of an overhead shot of Peter getting chased by everyone at the Million Man March.
- Happens in the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "The Ticket Master". When everyone realizes that Twilight Sparkle has tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala, they all chase her trying to ask her to take them with her, complete with a Suspiciously Similar Song version of "Yakety Sax".
- Similarly, many chase scenes in Sonic Boom use a variation on Yakety Sax for the background music.
- Happens on The Simpsons a couple times, most of which involve Homer and/or Bart.
- "Bart vs. Australia," when everyone in the family is being chased by an array of living Australian stereotypes and characters — including a character from the movie Mad Max — because Bart refuses to get kicked in the butt as part of his punishment for prank-calling an Australian boy.
- "Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner," when all the restaurateurs and chefs of Springfield chase after Homer after Lisa saves him from eating a dangerous eclair.
- "Saddlesore Galactica," where jockey-sized trolls chase after Homer after Homer breaks his promise to throw the horse race so they can win.
- "Missionary Impossible," where PBS characters chase after Homer after he tricks them into thinking he's pledging $10,000 to the network. Highlights include threats from Fred Rogers and some of the Sesame Street Muppets, and the Teletubbies joining in by firing lasers from their antenna.
- Happens to the titular heroes in Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo, from three sources. Crazed Japanese schoolgirls were pursuing Beast Boy, Cyborg was hounded by sushi chefs, and Robin was chased by...the local authorities. Eventually, there was a mass convergence.
- The Rocko's Modern Life episode "Closet Clown" ends with Rocko stating he likes rainbows, followed by all his friends and neighbors getting irrationally angry and chasing him out of town.
- We Bare Bears: In "Vacation", after Nom Nom blows his cover at the airport while trying to catch a flight to a spa resort, he and Grizz end up chased by a horde of Nom Nom's crazy fans.
