Scream Discretion Shots in Western Animation.
- Lemongrab gets one in the Adventure Time episode "Too Young", after Princess Bubblegum fires him and calls him a butt.
- Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers: Scarecrow attacks a local sheriff and deputy. After the entity grabs both of them, the scene cuts to their patrol car, and all you hear is the Scarecrow laughing and the poor bastards screaming. They're never seen again onscreen, and Goose states they were "found" on the side of the highway the next morning.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: In addition to an inverted Shadow Discretion Shot, the audience also gets to hear an agonized scream of pain from Zuko at the tragic ending of the Agni Kai against his father in "The Storm".
- Done in the Alvin and the Chipmunks 2015 series episode "Alvittny" when Dave screams his Catchphrase when he realuzed that Alvin traded his tennis racket for the munk's bike.
- In the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Harley and Ivy," the Joker is furious because his hideout is a filthy mess, his pet hyenas have not been fed, and he can't find his socks. One of his goons nervously informs him that Harley Quinn used to do all of the housekeeping, but now that the Clown Prince of Crime fired her, things are going to pot. Joker angrily states that Harley has always come back before, and demands to know where she is, prompting the goon to reluctantly hand over a newspaper declaring Harley and Poison Ivy the new "Queens of Crime." The camera cuts to the outside of the Joker's hideout as he lets out a horrified screech—Harley is outdoing him as a criminal.
- Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker was edited for television and, rather than have Joker get shot by a brainwashed Tim Drake, he's instead electrocuted offscreen and howls in agony while the camera evacuates the room. This was supposed to be less violent than the original scene but it just turned the whole thing into Nightmare Fuel.
- Batman Beyond has one of its own when Mr. Freeze murders his doctor in revenge for her betrayal. He aims, shoots, the camera cuts away to the facility main room while her death scream gets broadcasted all over the place, and when it cuts back there's nothing left but an enormous ice crystal.
- Ben 10: Alien Force: A prisoner gets forced into the ranks of the bad guys. We get a shot of the toothy squirmy thing about to be applied to him; then the shot changes to the closed door of the room he's in, and we hear him screaming.
- Ben 10: Ultimate Alien has a rare hero to villain example. When Zombozo dares to attempt Revenge by Proxy on Ben by attacking his mother, Gwen decides to Make an Example of Them. The last thing we see is his scream of horror.
- Blinky Bill: In the Season 3 episode "Poisoned Penelope", Penelope Poodle does a loud, ear-piercing shriek when she sees herself covered in spots, due to being poisoned by a flower. All we see is a view over the Amazon jungle, with the birds flying in shock from the screaming.
- Courage the Cowardly Dog: In "The Magic Tree of Nowhere", Courage climbs into a hornets' nest. The camera pans left, showing a picturesque sunset and a remarkable specimen of butterfly flying past, as the sounds of chirping birds and a loud, agony-filled scream are heard.
- The Cuphead Show!: In the episode “Baby Bottle,” Baby Bottle rips Elder Kettle’s mustache clean off. It then cuts to the outside of their house, where he’s heard screaming in pain. Of course, it’s Played for Laughs.
- Happens in Daria in the episode "Through a Lens Darkly" where Daria went to the Lawndale Medical Arts Partners building for new contacts. To show the doctor how to adjust the contacts to her eye, Daria tries it and the next scene cuts to the front of the building as Daria is heard screaming loud.
- FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman: In the episode "Ruff's Big Break" right when a zealous Ruff goes outside to do some karate chip dance moves on a fence. The scene cuts away to Blossom witnessing Ruff hurting himself.Ruff: (Off-screen) Check it out! Wo-Wah! (Gasps) AGH! (A crash is heard) AAAOOWWWW!!!.... (in pain) Oh, okay not good!... Ugh... call my vet!... Now...
- Futurama: In "A Clone of My Own", the Planet Express crew want to recover the Professor from the Near-Death Star, but Cubert points out they'll never bluff the guards without a DNA sample. Bender glares at Cubert as he removes a syringe from his chest cabinet and says he knows where they can get some, while Fry and Leela realize what's about to happen and grin maliciously. Cut to outside the ship as Cubert screams in terror.
- Gravity Falls:
- Played for Laughs in "Dipper vs. Manliness". The first test of manliness the Manotaurs offer Dipper is to put his fist in "the Pain Hole". Dipper works up the nerve to do so... cue Smash Cut to another part of the forest as Dipper screams in pain.
- Also done less comedically in "The Stanchurian Candidate" as Bud Gleeful is possessed by his son Gideon, with the camera focusing on his smiling face on a campaign poster.
- Invader Zim pulls this a few times, such as when Zim decides to test which one of the schoolchildren is most suited to be his friend. To do so, he measures their absorbency, electrical conductivity, and then holds up a beaver and a toy taxi while smirking ominously. Cue the camera shifting over to the clock and the horrified screaming.
- Played for Laughs on Jimmy Two-Shoes, where Beezy and Heloise have one thanks to an Accidental Kiss.
- Justice League Unlimited: At the end of the episode "For the Man Who Has Everything," Mongul's mind gets trapped in the Black Mercy plant, which lets him dream of his heart's desire. As Wonder Woman wonders what he's dreaming about, the camera zooms in on his smiling face — to the sounds of horrific screaming.
- Another one from JLU was when Lex Luthor tried to resurrect Brainiac. He did this by hooking Tala up to a machine that sucked the life out of her, which given the timbre and volume of her scream, was exceedingly painful. Bruce Timm has stated in several interviews that Juliet Landau (Tala's voice actress) literally scared him with her performance.
- In Superman's nightmare during "Only a Dream", Lois' death takes place this way. The audience hears her scream, but the focus is on Superman's face, Eye Beams shooting out. It's subverted when he accidentally crushes Jimmy Olsen in the next portion of the nightmare.
- Also from the DCAU, Lois Lane has quite the reaction to find that that something (a giant chimpanzee) had totalled her apartment. Done for laughs.
- Kaeloo: In the Halloween Episode, Quack Quack does a really scary thing with his head offscreen while Kaeloo and Stumpy watch. The scene then cuts to Mr. Cat hearing Kaeloo and Stumpy scream in horror.
- Shows up in Lin's flashback in The Legend of Korra; when Lin captures her sister Su, Su angrily cuts a cable restraining her, the cable snapping back and striking Lin across the face. The scene cuts to Su's horrified expression while Lin screams in pain.
- Played for Laughs in Lilo & Stitch. Pleakly gets attacked by a giant swarm of mosquitoes. When he finally figures out what is going on, the camera cuts away just in time to hear a yell loud enough to be heard across the island. When shown again, everything except his eyeball is covered in bandages.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic plays this for laughs in "Pinkie Apple Pie". The Apple family's raft is about to go though a cave which Granny Smith thinks is not the scariest cave in Equestria. Turns out it was, but as the raft goes though the cave, we only see the outside of the cave, and hear the Apple family's screams of terror. We never get to see what made the cave so scary, outside of a brief glimpse at a picture Pinkie took of some of the monsters in the cave.
- The Ollie & Moon Show:
- In "Finding the Rhythm in Cuba", when Ollie suddenly goes missing in the Cuban jungle, Stanley calls out for Ollie, to the point of screaming out his name while a wide shot of the jungle is shown.
- In "The Russian Doll Disaster", when Ollie and Moon are lost in the forest:Ollie: Without the map, we'll never find a way back to Sasha's!
Moon: Those cookies made me really thirsty.
Ollie: I don't have any water, do you?
Moon: (shakes her head, while chuckling nervously)
(Beat, as we cut to Ollie's shocked expression. We then cut to a wide shot of the forest shaking.)
Ollie: WE'RE DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!!!
- The Pink Panther: In "G.I. Pink", Drill Sergeant Nasty has set up an obstacle course. We get the overview of what is more a Death Trap (including a crocodile pond and whatnot), then the camera stays at the starting point while he gets, as expected, Hoist by His Own Petard. Cue screaming plus noises of various traps going off.
- The Powerpuff Girls The girls and Bellum turn the tables on Sedusa in "Something's A Ms.". We get a shot of Sedusa begging for forgiveness as Bellum brandishes the scissors. Then we get a silhouette of them all, and the shot pulls away to the night sky, with Sedusa's screaming ringing out.
- Rugrats:
- Played for Laughs in "Angelica Breaks a Leg". Stu Pickles makes chocolate pudding for Angelica (who's faking a broken leg) at 4:00 in the morning at her request, only for her to say she's not hungry anymore. The scene cuts to outside the house as Drew screams in frustration.
- Played for Laughs in "Chuckie Gets Skunked". Stu and Chaz Pickles encounter a skunk in their garden, and the camera cuts away as they scream in terror.
- Used in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated when Professor Pericles kills Ed Machine to "deliver a message" to his former companion Mr. E. Yes, Scooby-Doo played it straight.
- Happens on The Simpsons from time to time.
- In "Marge Gets A Job", when Bart receives an ice-cold thermometer from Grandpa after faking sick.
- In "Treehouse Of Horror III"'s "Dial 'Z' For Zombie", as Flanders gets attacked by zombies after letting them in thinking they were people in need of assistance.
- "Treehouse Of Horror IV"'s "Bart Simpson's Dracula" when the camera cuts away as Burns shadow looms over Bart and closes in on his neck while Bart screams.
- In "Who Shot Mr. Burns?: Part 1", Homer's Atomic F-Bomb after he realizes Mr. Burns still doesn't know his name, even after sending some chocolates for him.
- In "Treehouse Of Horror IX"'s "Hell Toupee", Snake's transplanted hair starts possessing Homer, leading him to hunt down and murder those who witnessed Snake getting arrested and eventually executed, starting with Apu, who starts to scream "NOOOOOO!!!" when we cut away.
- In The Smurfs (1981) cartoon adaptation of "The Purple Smurfs", the tail-biting that the purple fly and the Purple Smurfs engage in is never shown onscreen, mostly just the reactions of the Smurfs whose tails are getting bitten.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- In the episode "Clams", SpongeBob accidentally rips off Squidward's nose with his fishing hook. It cuts to a far shot of the ocean with the boat in the middle of it while we hear Squid's scream. It's obviously Played for Laughs.
- In "Band Geeks", Patrick ticks off Sandy after accidentally kicking her, and she chases him outside. We hear Patrick screaming in pain, and when he comes back in he's somehow been stuffed inside a trombone.Patrick: Whoever's the owner of the white sedan, you left your lights on.
- In "Krusty Love," after Mr. Krabs receives a Shockingly Expensive Bill from the Fancy restaurant, he does a Wild Take, and then it cuts to the outside of the restaurant, where his scream is so loud, that it makes a Glass-Shattering Sound that destroys the bottle that encapsulates the restaurant.
- The 1990s Spider-Man: The Animated Series had a big moment in the "Mutagenic Nightmare" storyline as a Scream Discretion Shot done one second too late. We actually see Peter Parker abruptly (but bloodlessly) sprout four additional arms. Then the shot pulls back to the house and we hear not one, but two Big Nos.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars:
- Played straight during the Citadel arc. A clone is literally cut in half by a security door. Another door slams shut in front of him right before his gruesome death.
- In "Lair of Grievous" the scene of Grievous getting patched up cuts away right as Grievous' medical droid starts removing his damaged faceplate and he starts screaming in pain.
- Star Wars Rebels, "Stealth Strike": Played with as the bridge's doors close and cut off the view just as Rex's torture starts and he screams, but this never actually happens. It was a premonition and Kanan was able to get on the bridge in time to prevent the Empire from torturing Rex.
- Happened a couple of times in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, usually to Baxter Stockman or Hun, after they failed the Shredder again.
- Subverted in Transformers: Prime, when Starscream offs the last of his clones. There is a scream, but since Starscream feels the pain of his clones, it's almost immediately followed by him complaining "that hurt!"
- Used more straightforwardly with the death of Breakdown. Airachnid moves in for the kill and we cut to a shot of some Disturbed Doves as Breakdown screams.
