History Main / ScreamerPrank

'''Jim:''' Now why would I do that? Dwight, of all people I know you're unscarable.

** [[UsefulNotes/McDonalds Dark Donald]], a cheap character, is capable of doing this before a round starts, in which he randomly gets replaced with another character for a moment, before a scary picture pops up with a loud scream, and after this, Dark Donald appears normally.

* In ''Anime/{{Toradora}}'', Minori actually pulls one of these on Ryuji ''personally'' to answer his question. It's funnier than it is scary and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwDJHvD_rdA really must be seen to be believed]].

->''"Each new technology is usually followed by the invention of a new practical joke. For example, soon after the match was invented, some joker came up with the ''hot foot''. After the invention of the door, someone invented the bucket of water ''over'' the door. So, of course, it makes sense that after the invention of e-mail, someone came up with ''this''."''
-->-- '''Creator/TomBergeron''', ''Series/AmericasFunniestHomeVideos''

[[caption-width-right:300:Some schmuck just "won" ''The Maze Game''.]]

All screamers are supposed to startle the viewer, though some take it further with the NightmareFuel and others are so comical or ineptly done that they end up being NightmareRetardant.

All screamers are supposed to startle the viewer, though some go UpToEleven with the NightmareFuel and others are so comical or ineptly done that they end up being NightmareRetardant.

* A 18-rated British PSA from 1987 called [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoCuAo1TUPg Scavengers]] (watch at your own risk) takes this [[UpToEleven to the next level]] with [[spoiler:animal flesh infested with maggots and flies coming out of a fur coat at 1:13 with multiple loud synth chords]]. The only time this advertisement was publicly shown was during the previews before horror movies in British movie theaters.

** The [[VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy fifth game]] also has a special comment for Screamer's use from all five playable characters:

* The Halloween prop known as "Peek A Boo Penny" is essentially a real-life execution of a screamer prank. It appears to be a static life-sized figure of a girl holding her hands in front of her face, but suddenly, her skull-like head pops up from behind her hands with a loud scream. Most of the people who watched the official video of the prop commented about how it startled them.

* ''VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy 3'' has Matt's [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin aptly-titled]] Screamer spell, which flashes this on the screen. It also does Dark-elemental damage to the enemies.

* A fairly popular web browser game nowadays is [[http://agar.io Agar.io]], and considering the tens of thousands of people that can be on a server at one time, it's pretty brilliantly cruel that someone would make a screamer based about it. If you try to type in "ag'''o'''r.io" instead of "agar.io", you'll be greeted by none other than Jeff the Killer, whose face will be flashing repeatedly between regular and negative (epilepsy warning, of course) while an ''extremely loud'' droning scream is heard in the background.

[[quoteright:300:[[Website/YouTube https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jumpscare_7766.jpg]]]]

* An ad for horror film ''Film/TheNun'' drew ire for not only utilizing this trope in an ad played before Website/YouTube videos, but also for imitating an [=iOS=] volume bar being lowered on the screen before showing the movie's monster appearing suddenly with a loud scream. This resulted in some people getting panic attacks and dropping their phones, even breaking them. The backlash resulted in the ad getting taken down after attention was brought to it, and the site took action against the ad for violating its shocking content policy for ads. This ad would often play when someone was trying to watch completely innocuous videos unrelated to horror or the film.

** A straighter example of this occurs in some of the games after a game over. Rarely, instead of being taken to the front menu, the player gets to enjoy a few seconds inside an 8-bit minigame where they can wander around. While they are kind of interesting in that some of them portray a little bit of background of the game's setting, they have a tendency to suddenly end with one of the animatronics from the actual game lunging out of the screen.

* The ''WesternAnimation/CourageTheCowardlyDog'' episode "Courage in the Big Stinkin' City" fits this trope. He walks into an old abandoned building and starts opening doors, seeing things like King Ghidorah (from Franchise/{{Godzilla}}) and Film/{{Jaws}}. He finally opens up the third door and sees a realistic girl playing a violin from behind which Courage likes at first, but the girl turns around and scares him with a giant red CGI face and a scream. It is the page image for [[NightmareFuel/WesternAnimation Nightmare Fuel Western Animation]].

'''[[Administrivia/NoVideoExamplesPlease Please refrain from adding Video Examples to this trope!]]'''

''[[Administrivia/NoVideoExamplesPlease Please refrain from adding Video Examples to this trope!]]''

* "[[http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/notscary Not Scary]]" shows a picture of a room, then it shows a picture of a face drawn on MS Paint with a guy going "Boogity boogity boogity boo". Then it switches between the room and the MS Paint face for a while until [[spoiler:the guy's face says "Alright, I'm done. You can go away now". Then he says one last "Boogity boogity boogity!" with the face]].

!!Examples

[[folder:Anime]]

* InUniverse example in [[http://www.gocomics.com/theargylesweater/2012/06/01 this]] ''The Argyle Sweater'' comic.

[[folder:Parodies of this Trope]]

* "K-Fee" is a coffee beverage sold by a German company with a similar name. They have made nine different television commercials that imitate the screamers found online (they were actually shown on TV in Germany). The most popular one is the one featuring a car driving through a scenic country road, but after the car disappeared, a green zombie jumps up with a loud monstrous scream, following with their slogan; [[FridgeBrilliance You'll never feel more awake.]] The reason why it is more popular than the other commercials is because it was passed around the internet and was said to be a commercial that was never aired on TV because a ghostly mist would appear next to the car about halfway through the commercial. In all, there wound up being nine K-Fee screamer commercials:

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'', Grunkle Stan tries in vain to scare a couple of trick-or-treaters. When he asks what scares kids nowadays, they show him a clip of a cute kitten on one of their cell phones. Suddenly a scary face appears on the screen, scaring the bejeesus out of Stan and the kids.

-->'''Calvin:''' Had this been a real emergency, the scream you just heard would have been followed by lots more like it...([[GoToYourRoom Cut to Calvin having been sent to his room]]) Some day when the house caves in, she'll thank me.

* ''Eternal Damnation'', a fan-made re-imagining of the second ''Videogame/{{Postal}}'' game (and included with ''Postal 2'' in the ''Fudge Pack'' box set) has a few scare faces thrown at the player during the first mission.