History Main / TerrifyingPetStoreRat

* ''Film/{{Cujo}}'' tried to avert this by having the BigFriendlyDog's tail restrained to stop it wagging, which would have made it rather difficult to take it seriously as a savage, rabid monster.

* PlayedForLaughs in ''Series/HomeMovieThePrincessBride'' where the Rodent of Unusual Size is portrayed by Creator/SophieTurner's corgi licking her and Music/JoeJonas as they mock-wrestle with the cute mutt while hamming up their mortal peril.

* PlayedForLaughs in ''Series/HomeMovieThePrincessBride'' where the Rodent of Unusual Size is portrayed by Creator/SophieTurner's corgi licking her and Music/JoeJonas to death.

* PlayedForLaughs in ''Series/HomeMovieThePrincessBride'' where the Rodent of Unusual Size is portrayed by Creator/SophieTurner's [[{{Slurpasaur} corgi wearing a neck pillow]], licking her and Music/JoeJonas to death.

See also {{Slurpasaur}}, a.k.a. [[AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever Attack of the Fifty-Foot]] Terrifying Pet Store Rat. For actual Terrifying Pet Store Rats, see YouDirtyRat

* Disney's ''Film/TheHauntedMansion'' movie at one point has the son need to get past spiders to get into the mausoleum. The spiders are harmless tarantulas (orange-kneed) and they're tame enough that he can move them with his hands. However, he ''is'' arachnophobic, so no matter what spider they used, he would still be frightened by it.
* Hilariously done in the exploitation film ''The Gestapo's Last Orgy'', where a woman is threatened by being hung over a pit of flesh-eating rats... played by gerbils.

* Played effectively in ''[[Literature/RatmansNotebooks Willard]]'', since the rats are ''supposed'' to be tame, well-groomed, and friendly because Willard takes care of them. It's just that they'll kill if they're told to.
* The ''Franchise/IndianaJones'' franchise does this extensively.
** Especially in ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheTempleOfDoom''. Indy and Short Round nearly die while Willie refuses to reach into a crevasse filled with harmless stick insects and millipedes to shut off the death trap they're in. Though Willie freaks out because she's a [[DamselScrappy fussy, high-maintenance]] [[TheLoad load]], not necessarily because the bugs are supposed to be dangerous. Indy isn't fazed by them at all.
** ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheKingdomOfTheCrystalSkull'' lampshades the use of non-venomous (or at least less-venomous) scorpions in movies. Mutt gets attacked by a large but harmless emperor scorpion, and Indy says, "The bigger, the better... If a small one bites you, don't keep it a secret."
** Some of the snakes in ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'' are recognizable harmless snakes of types people keep as pets, though there is at least one actual cobra ([[FreezeFrameBonus behind glass]]). There's also several "snakes" being played by European Glass Lizards (''Pseudopus apodus''), which aren't even snakes at all. And of course, some of them are clearly just sections of rubber hose. The snake in Jock's plane right at the beginning might count as a subversion as it really ''is'' a pet... [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes not that this reassures Indy in the least]].
** Another example from ''Raiders'' happens when Creator/AlfredMolina's character is covered with tarantulas. This particular variety is the Mexican Redknee, which make popular pets because they are extremely docile and have venom that is harmless to humans. Of course, the spiders aren't meant to be dangerous so much as just kinda gross, since Indy, again, seems largely unfazed by them.
** The petroleum-filled Venice tomb in ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade'' is full of rats; Indy even notes that [[Creator/SeanConnery his father]] never would have made it past the rats, as [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes "he's scared to death of them"]]. All the rats are pet store rats; Harrison Ford is seen in behind-the-scenes footage playing with some of them. They are replaced with [[SpecialEffectFailure unmoving]] dolls when the bad guys torch the petroleum.
* The English-speaking production of 1931's ''Film/{{Dracula|1931}}'' had a scene where Count Dracula introduces his "children of the night", which are implied to be supernatural monsters. The animals on screen sure look suspiciously like oppossums and armadillos however. Of note is that oppossums have lower body temperatures compared to most mammals, and many human transmissible diseases won't survived inside them. [[AccidentallyCorrectWriting Likely a lucky coincidence]], though, armadillos are known to be disease vectors for leprosy but aren't exactly intimidating.
** This is homaged in ''Film/TheMonsterSquad'', where armadillos are seen wandering around Dracula's tomb in the opening scene.
* ''Film/NightOfTheLepus''. The infamous '''Giant Killer Bunny Rabbits''' movie. The rabbits look like a menagerie straight from a pet store, picture above, which are mostly shown running through miniature sets in slow motion or in extreme close-up, smeared with red paint and backed by dubbed growling. It's made even more obvious due to the fact that the film earlier shows stock footage of ''actual'' feral rabbits, making the non-wild nature of the giant ones a lot more blatant.

* In the beginning of ''Film/TheMummyReturns'', Evy and Rick are in an ancient ruin and encounter some snakes. They're Terrifying Pet Store Snakes; in an overlap with MisplacedWildlife, some are tricolor milk snakes, which are known for having warning coloration similar to that of venomous snakes but are ''not'' known for living in Egypt. The venomous snakes they mimic aren't exactly from Egypt either. During a fight in the O'Connells' house, Meela throws a snake at Rick, claiming it's a very poisonous Egyptian asp. What actually gets thrown isn't a live snake at all due to [[NoAnimalsWereHarmed another trope]], but any shots that did use a live snake use a black kingsnake, another harmless snake and common pet.
* A whole Terrifying Pet Store Rat ''swarm'' confronts Daniels in ''Film/ShutterIsland'' when he begins climbing the cliff face to the cave. Not only are they obviously well-groomed and curious about his presence, but the first one to appear is clearly ''dropped'' into view of the camera rather than climbing or jumping down to the rock.

* In possibly the UrExample, some of the rats in the 1922 silent film ''Film/{{Nosferatu}}'' were obviously ''hooded'' rats, a pet store variety.

* In ''Film/SilverBullet'', a girl is startled into falling over when a rodent emerges from beneath a garage shelf. Said Terrifying Pet Store Rodent is a ''gerbil''.
* ''Film/ThreeBigMen'' (also known as ''Turkish Spider-Man'') contains what might well be one of the most ridiculous cases ever: man-eating ''guinea pigs''.
* ''Strays'' is about killer housecats. Aside from the cats' "leader", who actually hisses for the camera, the cats just sort of run around the house or sit on their marks. In a few cases they're obviously batting at string just out of view of the camera.
* In TheFilmOfTheBook of ''Film/{{Holes}}'', the deadly "yellow-spotted lizards" are played by bearded dragons, which are harmless and popular as pets. At moments when the lizards have to act particularly menacing, the film averts this trope using CGI; however, in most of their appearances they are clearly Terrifying Pet Store Lizards. Likely a NecessaryWeasel in that of the three species that inspired the yellow spotted lizard, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gila_monster gila monster]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaded_lizard Beaded Lizard]], and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horned_toad Horned Toad]], the first two are in fact quite irritable and dangerously venomous, and the horned toad is endangered -- putting all three of the "realistic" options solidly out of play. The bearded dragon, however, is neither, and rather closely resembles the descriptions in the book when given a dye job.

* Whenever we see inside the crazy killer's truck in ''Film/IceCreamMan'', there are white mice and Madagascar hissing cockroaches wandering placidly around the ice cream and bloody eyes.
* For ''Film/DeadlyEyes'' to have rats the size of small dogs in some scenes, they were literally played by small dogs; the filmmakers dressed some dachshunds in specially made ratsuits.

* In ''Film/{{Adventures in Babysitting}}'' Brenda, having lost her glasses, accidentally picks up an adorable white "huge sewer rat" thinking it's a cat, and freaks out once it's pointed out.

* ''Film/TheAbominableDrPhibes'' has its first onscreen victim "torn apart" by bats - portrayed by flying foxes, which are a) fruit bats and b) look like adorable flying puppies. They seem more interested in snuggling up to their human co-star for warmth than doing anything aggressive. Later in the movie, actual Terrifying Pet Store Rats make an appearance, and a woman is killed by locusts (aka ''grasshoppers'') after being covered by a concoction brewed from Brussels sprouts.

* Averted in ''Film/TheThing1982'', where the mysterious [[AnimalisticAbomination sled dog]] that the main characters take in -- although a beautiful, well-groomed animal - is nonetheless an extremely unsettling presence due to the performance of the animal actor, a wolf/dog hybrid named [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jed_(wolfdog) Jed]].
** Even in HeroicDog / NobleWolf roles - as in ''Film/TheJourneyOfNattyGann'' and the two ''Literature/WhiteFang'' movies -- Jed was quite capable of averting this trope, and could be extremely threatening when the scene called for it.
* ''Film/TheGiantGilaMonster'''s title character - portrayed not by an actual gila monster, but by a Mexican banded lizard on a miniature set - is oddly cute.

* On ''Series/CSIMiami'', a man falls from a balcony into a tank full of jellyfish. Wolf identifies the jellies as ''box'' jellyfish and potentially lethal, but they're obviously moon jellies - one of the least-dangerous types -- in all the shots where they're not CGI.

* During the buildup to his Summerslam match with Jake 'The Snake' Roberts, Wrestling/JunkyardDog introduced his secret weapon to defeat the Snake Man: GIANT MUTATED SEWER RATS! The first time these were mentioned, [[Wrestling/AllenCoage Bad News]] was seen holding a black box that was obviously being made to move by somebody off-camera shaking it about. Once the 'rats' were actually introduced - or rather, one of them - we learned mutated rats end up looking a lot like plain old opossums - and sounding a lot like pigs. Earlier in the feud, Brown was also seen fleeing in terror from very obvious rubber snakes - including one Mean Gene Okerlund shakes around in the air for ages, which only makes its fakeness that much more noticeable.
** Actually, wrestler's pets had a way of mutating into something completely different when brought in to fight Jake's snake. Case in point - Wrestling/RickySteamboat's Komodo dragon looking very much like an alligator in its one and only appearance.

* Jess Franco's 1970 film ''Count Dracula'' has a pack of howling wolves portrayed by well groomed and docile German Shepherds, with said howling painfully dubbed in.

* Averted in ''Film/TheThing1982'', where the mysterious [[AnimalisticAbomination sled dog]] that the main characters take in - although a beautiful, well-groomed animal - is nonetheless an extremely unsettling presence due to the performance of the animal actor, a wolf/dog hybrid named [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jed_(wolfdog) Jed]].
** Even in HeroicDog / NobleWolf roles - as in ''Film/TheJourneyOfNattyGann'' and the two ''Literature/WhiteFang'' movies - Jed was quite capable of averting this trope, and could be extremely threatening when the scene called for it.

* ''Film/TheBeastMustDie'' features a werewolf played by a [[BigFriendlyDog very happy, very friendly looking German Shepard]].

** ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheKingdomOfTheCrystalSkull'' lampshades the use of non-poisonous (or at least less-poisonous) scorpions in movies. Mutt gets attacked by a large but harmless emperor scorpion, and Indy says, "The bigger, the better... If a small one bites you, don't keep it a secret."

** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E6TheTalonsOfWengChiang "The Talons of Weng-Chiang"]], literal pet store rats were used as one of the ways of portraying Magnus Greel's giant sewer rats, together with a series of large puppets. Creator/TomBaker riffed on how unconvincing the results were in the years since the serial's airing.

* On ''Series/CSIMiami'', a man falls from a balcony into a tank full of jellyfish. Wolf identifies the jellies as ''box'' jellyfish and potentially lethal, but they're obviously moon jellies - one of the least-dangerous types - in all the shots where they're not CGI.
* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' 50th anniversary [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor "The Day of the Doctor"]], the 10th Doctor delivers a BadassBoast to what he thinks is a shapeshifted Zygon... but is in fact an ordinary rabbit. He's probably fooled by the fact the supposedly wild rabbit calmly lets him get close enough to touch without fleeing. Or perhaps because it's played by a lop-eared domestic rabbit.
** Earlier, in the final story of the classic series, vicious alien creatures called Kitlings were played by black cats with hair gel in their fur. A behind-the-scenes featurette includes cast and crew complaining about how unprofessional their feline co-stars were.

** PlayedForLaughs when the town is overrun by giant guinea pigs and other "guinea" animals such as rabbits and dogs. The animals in question are simple shots of pet animals shuffling about benignly in cute outfits, which have been digitally inserted into the animation.
** Also spoofed with the Mexican Staring Frog of Southern Sri Lanka, which isn't even a real frog, just a stuffed toy on a string.

* ''Film/NightOfTheLepus''. The infamous '''Giant Killer Bunny Rabbits''' movie. The rabbits look like a menagerie straight from a pet store, picture above, which are mostly shown running through miniature sets in slow motion or in extreme close-up, smeared with red paint and backed by dubbed growling.

* For ''Film/DeadlyEyes'' to have rats the size of small dogs on some scenes, they were literally played by small dogs; the filmmakers dressed some dachshunds with specially made ratsuits.

* In ''Film/MaryShelleysFrankenstein'', Victor Frankenstein uses electric eels as his energy source for bringing the creature back to life. The eels shown in the ffilm are common American or European freshwater eels, which are unrelated to South American electric eels (which aren't true eels), don't look very much like them, and don't produce electric currents.

** In the sixth-season Episode "The Killer in the Crosshairs", the VictimOfTheWeek is found crawling with sewer rats that are not only very healthy and well-groomed, put patiently hold still to be picked up and then voluntarily enter transport containers.

* Creator/NeilGaiman wanted The Beast Of London from ''Literature/{{Neverwhere}}'' to be a wild boar but the people who were sent to to the boar farms said they were too friendly and they ended up using a Highland cow.

* In-Universe example in ''Series/HouseOfAnubis'' where Victor stages a mice infestation in Anubis House to get the students out so he can search for the elixer Sibuna. It gets lampshaded when Fabian asks a teacher why all the mice look like they came from a pet store, which she refuses to answer.

See also {{Slurpasaur}}, a.k.a. [[AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever Attack of the Fifty-Foot]] Terrifying Pet Store Rat. For actual Terrifying Pet Store Rats, see YouDirtyRat.

[[folder:Film -- Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Ratatouille}}'' features an animated version. Remy is supposed to be a common street rat, but his looks (and temperament at that) are of a pet rat. It's almost impossible for a wild born rat to be Remy's Russian Blue-looking color.

* Hilariously done in the exploitation film ''The Gestapo's Last Orgy'', where a woman is threatened by being hung over a pit of flesh eating rats... played by gerbils.

* ''Film/TheStuff'' uses a Great Dane which is apparently threatening its owner if it doesn't get more of the title substance. It wags its tail throughout the scene while dubbed in growling plays.[[note]]Granted, dogs do wag their tails when angry, or when upset. The higher a dog holds their tail, the more threatened you should feel. Mid-height is relaxed, and lowering it is fear, or potentially submission. These should all be considered in relation to the breed, such as Huskies having a curly tail, and Whippets a very droopy one. Slow wagging indicates insecurity.[[/note]]
** Even worse, the shot where the dog goes for his throat, it's clearly just trying to happily lick the actors face. Made more ridiculous because it's preceeded by a shot of a model dog head unhinging it's jaws with the Stuff pouring out of it, while the actual dog looks nothing like it.

* In the beginning of ''Film/TheMummyReturns'', Evy and Rick are in an ancient ruin and encounter some snakes. They're Terrifying Pet Store Snakes; in an overlap with MisplacedWildlife, some are tricolor milk snakes, which are known for having warning coloration similar to that of venomous snakes but are ''not'' known for living in Egypt. The venomous snakes they mimic aren't exactly from Egypt either.
** During a fight in the O'Connells' house, Meela throws a snake at Rick, claiming it's a very poisonous Egyptian asp. What actually gets thrown isn't a live snake at all due to [[NoAnimalsWereHarmed another trope]], but any shots that did use a live snake use a black kingsnake, another harmless snake and common pet.

* PlayedForLaughs in ''Film/TeamAmericaWorldPolice'', which uses puppets that are about a third human-sized. When the villains sic their deadly "panthers" on the heroes, they're played by house cats with some snarling sounds dubbed in. Likewise, [[BigBad Kim Jong-Il]] feeds Hans Blix to nurse sharks, which sometimes bite people in RealLife but are not very threatening. Also, at the end, [[spoiler:Kim Jong-Il's alien form is played by a normal cockroach]].

* This is the truth behind Ferret-Legging, the (largely tongue-in-cheek) sport of putting ferrets down your trousers as an endurance test. It is far less dangerous than hucksters claim, and far less cruel than ill-informed animal welfare campaigners sometimes believe - pet ferrets naturally enjoy both confined spaces and close contact with their humans, and in fact often otherwise have to be prevented from wriggling their way into people's clothing.

[[folder: Webcomic]]
Referenced in TheRant to the ''Webcomic/MonsterOfTheWeek'' [[http://www.shaenon.com/monsteroftheweek/2021/01/17/mow-16/ strip]] based on the werewolf episode "Alpha":

[[folder: Web Video]]
* The 2016 Webby Award-winning video [[https://youtu.be/AQte2nz80Is Tiny Hamster is a Giant Monster]] parodies this, along with the {{slurpasaur}} technique, by putting a cute hamster in an [[AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever elaborate miniature city set]].
** The same creator has made quite a few other elaborate videos parodying this trope, including the 2017 Webby Award winner, [[https://youtu.be/Y69sThwgzpg Tiny Hamster is a Zombie]].

* ''WesternAnimation/ThunderbirdsAreGo'' has the characters menaced by giant lizards. They're actually just bearded dragons shot to look huge, and they spend their time sitting around pretty calmly - the show uses CGI for its humans, so they didn't even have live actors to react to.

* The English-speaking production of 1931's ''Film/{{Dracula|1931}}'' had a scene where Count Dracula introduces his "children of the night", which are implied to be supernatural monsters. The animals on screen sure look suspiciously like oppossums and armadillos however. Of note is that oppossums have lower body temperatures compared to most mammals, and many human transmissible diseases won't survived inside them. [[AccidentallyAccurate Likely a lucky coincidence]], though, armadillos are known to be disease vectors for leprosy but aren't exactly intimidating.

* Apart from the foreground shot of a cobra, all of the snakes in Patient X's hospital cell in ''Film/ExorcistIII'' are harmless corn snakes, rat snakes, and king snakes, species commonly sold in pet shops.

** Some of the snakes in ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'' are recognizable harmless snakes of types people keep as pets, though there is at least one actual cobra ([[FreezeFrameBonus behind glass]]). There's also one "snake" being played by a Glass Lizard, which while legless isn't a true snake at all. And of course, some of them are clearly just sections of rubber hose. The snake in Jock's plane right at the beginning might count as a subversion as it really ''is'' a pet... [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes not that this reassures Indy in the least]].

* ''Film/ManosTheHandsOfFate'' has the Master's "devil dog", a big Doberman who seems like the friendliest dog in the world. Its affection for the Master (played by the dog's real-life master, aptly enough) is palpable.

* ''Shamelessly'' invoked on various Creator/AnimalPlanet shows these days such as ''Series/FatalAttractions'' and ''Series/SwampWars'', the latter of which goes on endlessly about the evil scaly monsters infesting the Everglades while treating us to ostensibly terrifying stock footage of a [[RidiculouslyCuteCritter Corn Snake!]]