Killer Rabbit / Western Animation

"These creatures can be very unstable, especially around other pets!"

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• Ickis from Aaahh!!! Real Monsters is a monster resembling a rabbit who invokes this trope. His transformations include fangs and claws that certainly look quite nasty, even before he starts growing larger. Even when he doesn't have them, he's got a nasty bite, and he's actually pretty good at making scary sound effects (screeching, scraping claws, gnashing fangs). It's usually when he appears and people see how much like a rabbit he looks that they tend to stop being scared.
• "Attack of the Twonkies" says it all in The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius. The Twonkies are essentially dewy-eyed jellybean aliens that turn into evil, spiky, razor-toothed gremlins when they hear music. They can also fuse together into massive red ogre-beasts. However, if they hear horrible music (ie. Sheen's bad singing), they will fall asleep instead.
  • The mushroom guardian in "Win, Lose, and Kaboom" looks like a hopping little shi tzu. Sheen attempts to challenge it openly, and it reveals than it can breathe fire. And has piranha teeth. And a prehensile tongue that can supercharge itself with electricity.
• All Hail King Julien: Hoping to motivate his kingdom with a fake war, Julien picks the weakest enemy he can think of, and gets more than he bargained for when the Butterflies hear the Lemurs are at war with them. The war is completely one-sided in favor of the Butterflies.
• The Amazing World of Gumball: The Forest of Doom is such a dangerous place that even the squirrels are savage predators.
• Amphibia:
  • Domino 2 from "The Domino Effect", an adorable cat-like larva that turns into a giant, frog-eating, but still somewhat adorable, moth.
  • The "Screen Fiend", a cute, furry, red panda-like animal that appeared in a viral video Anne watched (at least, according to her) before coming to Amphibia. It proceeded to escape from her phone, turn into a huge monster form, and pull her and her friends into a pocket dimension.
• The Warners in Animaniacs, three cute "puppy children" who are basically avatars of chaos. And you really don't want to piss off Wakko.
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force uses this trope a lot, whether it's a little yellow dog that assrapes guys, a murderous, cokehead duck made out of used condoms and drug needles, little midgets who look like white rice and carry fishhooks to rip your dick off with...
• Being the element of stubbornness and brute force, you wouldn't expect the most powerful Earthbender to be Toph, a tiny blind girl.
• Beast Wars had a flower that looked harmless, but got its point across to Dinobot, by nailing him with a spiky seed right where he couldn't reach.
  Dinobot: From now on I shoot my dinner salad before I eat it!
• Catscratch had an episode which had a duckling in it — and Gordon was extremely terrified of said duckling because of an incident that happened when he was a kitten (the duckling beat the snot out of him with tremendous superhuman strength and horrific fighting skills), but later on Gordon musters up the courage to finally defeat the duckling — after it's beaten the snot out of him AGAIN.
• The Chubb Chubbs, from The ChubbChubbs!, are the terror of the galaxy. They look like a combination of the cutest features of piglets and ducklings... except when they're baring their several rows of shark-like teeth and eating barbarian invaders alive. They also enjoy cuddling and karaoke.
• Geshie the mascot from Genetically Engineered Superhuman High in Clone High.
• Cosmic Cowboys has Cereal Bob, a pink bunny that also happens to be the main villain and #1 most wanted criminal in the galaxy. Don't call him cute, it makes him snap and do psychotic-looking expressions.
• When Count Duckula asks a spaceman to take him to the most dangerous planet in the galaxy he gets to meet the Fluffy Bunnies of Planet Cute, who want everything to be sweet and pretty and cuddly, and get very mean when Duckula and co. persist in being grouchy and sour.
• Courage the Cowardly Dog has The Precious, Wonderful, Adorable, Loveable Duckling, who was cute enough, but absolutely yandere for his "mama" Eustace, devising several ways to get Muriel out of the picture.
• Danger Mouse: In "There's a Penfold In My Suit," a mysterious stone has caused DM and Penfold to switch bodies. When DM!Penfold tries to make friends with a rabbit, the rabbit beats him to kingdom come. That's because the stone caused the rabbit to switch bodies with an angry wolf.
• The ghost dog in Danny Phantom. A small, playful, super adorable ghost puppy... that can turn into a twenty-foot monster whose aggressive meter is off the charts. "Beware of Dog" signs would be an understatement.
• The Dark Lord Chuckles the Silly Piggy in Dave the Barbarian, who is a cute little piggy and a dark lord of evil.
• Dragon Hunters (Chasseurs de dragons), a French/Chinese cartoon series (plus one CGI movie) produced by Futurikon, has Hector, a blue-furred, dog-sized tame pet dragon with rabbit ears who accompanies the two protagonists Lian-Chu and Gwizdo on their quests and carries their weapons and equipment. (In the world of Dragon Hunters, "dragon" is merely a catch-all term for all monsters of various sizes that are not normal animals.) Hector is often mistaken for a dog by bystanders, although normal dogs do exist too and Hector can walk on his hind legs, has small fingers, is at least semi-intelligent, often sarcastic, and talks in pidgin language. In somewhat of an inversion, while he looks the part of killer rabbit, fluffy but with very sharp teeth and the ability to create small fires and explosions by piddling on things, he is a bit of a coward and serves as comic relief. In one episode Hector meets a fully grown member of his species, Big Blue, who is the size of a house and, while not very aggressive, slowly wanders around the countryside gobbling down everything he comes across in one gulp: whole cows, horses, trees, dung heaps, other dragons, people... Hector on the other hand is thoroughly domesticated; he prefers his food cooked and has shown no inclination to devour actual people.
• Ling Ling from Drawn Together, like the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends example, is an adorable Pikachu-esque rodent... who is also a murderous Sociopathic Hero who kills at the drop of a hat (in the beginning of the show anyway). In just the first episode, he brutally kills and devours another house mate because his name is uttered 3 times. This applies to any of the Pokemon spoofing characters on the show though, as it takes the battling aspect of the series and cranks it up to Grotesque Cute levels.
• Droopy the dog looks like he is an innocent helpless little dog, but when he gets angry he will slam the villain to the floor many many times, before tossing them away into something that hurts, such as a cactus.
• Duck Dodgers: In "Pet Peeved", Duck Dodger's selfish demand for a pet results in him adopting "Koo-koo", an energy mutator that happens to look like a cross between a puppy, rabbit, and kitten. It becomes larger, stronger, and uglier as it absorbs electrical energy.
• Peter the Puppy from Earthworm Jim fits in here nicely. Usually an affable, even borderline-cute sidekick, but get him pissed and he immediately transforms into a super-strong, slavering, werewolf-like critter...
• Ed, Edd n Eddy, quoting Johnny: "I told you bunnies would take over the world, Plank!"
  • In that instance, the bunnies weren't so much attacking as they had reproduced so much that they flooded the cul-de-sac. A better example would be the rooster Rolf sics on Eddy in the episode when Eddy loses his voice.
• An episode of Eek! The Cat features a cute, seemingly-harmless bunny arriving at Eek's family door, as it turns out the bunny is a deranged psychopath who plots to kill Eek's family after they've thrown Eek out.
• The Fairly Oddparents played with this trope as well. The Gigglepies are a race of cute little bunny-like creatures that are a cross between Care Bears in terms of looks and cuteness and Pokémon in terms that they are apparently collectible. They roam the galaxy, coming in cereal boxes and use their cuteness and mind-controlling rhymes to subjugate the population, force them to buy them in excess and eventually cost the planet its freedom. Of course with the Yugopotamians, who fear anything cute, making the populace afraid of them works just as well. Once they're done looting the planet they destroy it and move on to the next one.
  "ISN'T THAT CUTE!?"
  "No! It's horrible! And didn't rhyme!"
  • A later example is Chuckles the Fairy-Eating Cockatiel, which looks perfectly adorable until the camera zooms out to reveal his full size and razor-sharp fangs. He also shoots lasers.
• The Fangbone! episode "The Sword of Destiny" has an Eldritch Abomination Planet Eater called The Ravenous Darkness that appears as a hamster but with a Vacuum Mouth and a Black-Hole Belly that allows it to consume anything it encounters.
• Mooncake from the ill-fated Final Space fell into this. Cute and squishy at day, and laser-beam, ship-atomising firer at night.
• In the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends episode "Eddie Monster", "the Champ" of the imaginary friends fighting league is a harmless looking Pikachu-esque rabbit thing... that sprouts huge electrified tentacles when provoked.
• Karen from Frosty the Snowman may seem cute but this is what happens if you ever...EVER mess with her.
• Futurama:
  • Nibbler. It's not his fault he's an unstoppable killing machine... who can devour several hundred times his own body weight in a matter of minutes. His entire species are superintelligent warriors working to save the universe, but it's a Running Gag in any episode they appear in that they're also adorable and cuddly. His very droppings are dark matter more dense than the material in a neutron star.
  • "The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz" has the group of very cute little penguins that Bender taught aggression ("If it ain't black-and-white, peck, scratch, and bite!"). At the very end of the episode, they figure out how to use guns.
• U.S. Acres has an episode where a little creature named Al wanders onto the farm from underground. He's small, well-mannered, and speaks with a timid voice, but when Orson's evil brothers show up to steal the farm's precious water supply, he drives them off by shooting laser beams from his eyestalks.
• In Generator Rex, Rex arrives to defeat yet another monster only to somehow only see a small rabbit; as somehow he lacks a sense of perception and is color-blind because after he insults rabbits, the rabbit hops up to him where it is clearly seen as over 3 metres tall, six-legged, razor-toothed, and blue furred. It then menaces him randomly for the continuing week (i.e. while he's watching a movie, playing basketball, walking down the street).
• Bill Cipher from Gravity Falls looks like a floating Eye of Providence with a top hat and cane with a jovial and playful demeanor. Bill Cipher is also an Eldritch Abomination with Reality Warper powers within the dreamscape, a manipulative streak a mile wide, the ability to possess people... and absolutely no empathy for humans. In the series finale, he enters the physical world. And still keeps his reality warping powers. Cue Darkest Hour.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy
  • Played rather straight when Pud'n wishes for a cute bunny that will love him forever... and it immediately reveals itself to be a psychotic, murderous nightmare.
    Bunny: Some say "love hurts", Pud'n — and I love you a lot.
  • Also, the Happy Huggy Stuffy Bears, adorable stuffed bears that were created by Eris to sow chaos in the world by hypnotizing their owners to do their bidding. Eris' scheme is undone when one angers Mandy by saying that she'll be only the second most powerful in the world, at which point Mandy orders Grim to decapitate all of them.
  • Inverted with Billy's "son" Jeffy, a huge, hideous spider who's extremely friendly and wants only to be loved.
  • In the episode "Dumb Luck", Billy gets attacked by prairie dogs twice. The first time it happens Mandy mentions that prairie dogs take down more people each year than great white sharks.
• The deadpan little Mynah Bird in Chuck Jones' Inki series. He can demolish anything up to and including a brontosaurus, but always offscreen.
• Invader Zim has Ultra Peepi, a classroom hamster that Zim affects to grow to the size of Godzilla. Why it grows spikes, has cybernetic parts, and breathes fire is probably Rule of Cool. However, even at his enormous size, with him rampaging the city, everyone stops to say how incredibly adorable is. In one case, as he's using a skyscraper as a toothpick after he just ate a school bus.
  • There's also Gaz, a creepy little girl you don't want to anger, who owns a myriad of Creepy Cute stuffed animals and dolls...that she converted into security drones programmed to feed on human flesh. Yikes.
• On Jimmy Two-Shoes, in an animal prison, a fox tries to pick a fight with a chicken. The chicken responds by eating him whole. It was also seen in the form of an army of paintball gun-wielding rabbits and a giant unicorn that sought to destroy all of Miseryville.
• Johnny Test has a cute kitty cat as one of its villains; said kitty cat possesses a cannon that turns people into cats.
• In Krypto The Super Dog, Mechanikat's minion Snookey Wookums, though cute-looking, is a cunning and vicious little thing.
• In the The Life and Times of Juniper Lee episode "Welcome Bat Otter", the eponymous bat otter looks like an adorable little otter with bat wings. Its threat level is hyped by the antagonist of the episode, the corrupt businessman mummy Skeeter Khommen-Gettit. It turns out its threat isn't just hype when it eats Skeeter. The expression on the bat otter's face at the end of the episode hints that its diet isn't limited to evil magical creatures...
• Several of Stitch's "cousins" from Lilo & Stitch: The Series. Let's not forget Stitch himself, a synthetically-crafted living war machine... in a cute, fluffy body. According to Jumba, this was an accident.
  Jumba Jookiba: I tried to give you my good looks, but let's face it, something... went wrong.
  • A Disney Adventures comic showed that this is because somehow the genes of one of the creatures he was created from came from... a puppy.
  • One experiment was in fact designed to be irresistibly cute as a way of getting into people's homes. He's actually a stink bomb strong enough to cause mass evacuations.
  • The black hole cousin may look cute, but don't let it open its mouth.
• Looney Tunes
  • The character Slowpoke Rodriguez is Speedy Gonzalez's cousin, and "the slowest mouse een all Mexico," but he knows hypnosis and carries a .45 revolver.
  • Bugs Bunny. Once something means war, there's no stopping him. To make that point all the clearer, at the end of this clip there's even an ominous drum boom as he says it.
    • Played with in Rebel Rabbit, where Bugs is incensed that hunting bounties for foxes and bears are so much higher than rabbits, so he performs many highly destructive acts, including cutting off Florida from the rest of the continental United States. This earns him a $1,000,000.00 bounty, after which he is attacked by the military and put in jail.
• The Loud House has 6-year-old Lola, child beauty pageant champion...who watches mob movies and is unafraid to use what she knows. Technically her twin sister Lana counts as well but Lola is the most in-your-face example.
  • Lynn is also example, she also has a Napoleon Complex and can be very quick to resort to violence. She isn't known as the jock of the family for nothing.
  • In the episode "Training Day", Stella had a pet rabbit named Jazzy who was cute but vicious, at least until the end of the episode.
• Mega Babies is about three "cute" babies with horrific gross-out powers and bodily mutations.
• One episode of Men in Black: The Series, in an obvious jab at ET, has a cute and cuddly alien... which could transform into a hideous behemoth on a second's notice when hungry, and was preparing to devour the young boy who had "bonded" with him.
• Metalocalypse: The band buys an island full of nuclear mutants and converts it into a home for "wayward kitties." The kitties kill everyone on the island.
• My Goldfish is Evil has Admiral Bubbles, the eponymous pet. You wouldn't expect a goldfish to be a sadistic evil genius bent on enslaving mankind, would you?
• My Life as a Teenage Robot: In "Mist Opportunities", there's said to be a fire-breathing monster downtown, and Jenny goes there and finds a little bunny. Said bunny turns out to be the monster, with not only fire-breath, but super-strength and Eye Beams. Jenny struggles against it (thanks to being out of practice from letting Misty do all the crime-fighting), but eventually defeats it. Unfortunately, the episode ends with a whole SWARM of rabbit monsters wandering into downtown Tremorton.
• My Little Pony:
  • All of the ponies across the franchise count as this, really. They're small technicolor horses with pictures on their rumps that live in magical worlds that include plenty of entries from the Monster Manual. While they often try to talk their enemies down, if that doesn't work, they defeat them.
  • My Little Pony 'n Friends has a benevolent example with the Flutterponies. Despite being... well, little ponies with butterfly wings, they're the ones the heroes seem to turn to when they're completely outmatched, and for good reason, as the Smooze and Erebus, two of the pony's strongest enemies, found out the hard way.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • Fluttershy is considered cute and harmless even compared to the other main characters. It's next to impossible to provoke her into a fight, but woe be to whoever tries to harm her friends or her animals.
    • The Cutie Mark Crusaders are a trio of fillies who haven't even earned their cutie marks yet and tend to spend their days on wacky adventures trying to earn them. Cute, yes. Harmless, no. When Babs Seed pushed them just a little bit too far, they cranked the A-Team music and built a trapped parade float rigged to go careening off a cliff (using an egg timer), then tricked Babs into stealing it with a Batman Gambit. Also, of the three Sweetie Belle has also shown to be a serious manipulative bastard in training.
    • Spike is still a baby dragon, generally harmless unless defending a friend. However, when his greed takes control and induces Rapid Aging things can get dangerous fast. Even as his normal self (despite being a baby), he's still a fire-breathing dragon who's brave enough to put himself between a timber wolf (a massive monster made of wood) and one of his friends and take it down.
    • A literal (if downplayed) example would be Fluttershy's pet rabbit Angel. Cute yes. Nice perhaps. Forgets anything? No. He once threw Fluttershy out of the house over missing one ingredient on an elaborate salad.
    • The Parasprites are a fitting, if less deadly, example of this trope, given that their sole purpose seems to be to ravenously eat all food in sight and then produce clones of themselves, and repeat this process ad nauseam. Things only get worse when Twilight Sparkle attempts to cast a spell that makes them stop eating food... at which point they start eating everything but the food, devouring the infrastructure of the town.
    • The Season 8 premiere "School Daze" introduces the pukwudgies, colorful and adorable little hedgehog-like creatures... that prove to be viciously territorial, and able to fire their quills like darts.
  • The Winterchilla in "Best Gift Ever" seems cute and harmless, but when the sun sets, it transforms into a rampaging Winterzilla.
• Rick and Morty: "Solaricks" introduces Mr. Frundles, a Ridiculously Cute Critter resembling a triangular pile of slime with big, shiny eyes and Cute Little Fangs. What's dangerous about that? Well, Mr. Frundles is actually an extremely dangerous parasite that can turn other creatures (and inanimate objects) into copies of himself by biting them. When one of the Jerrys releases Mr. Frundles, thinking he's as harmless as he looks, he manages to contaminate the entire planet in seconds.
• The "psycho duck" that Penny Proud adopts in one episode of The Proud Family. It even beat up the Gross Sisters, the neighborhood bullies!
• One of the "Aesop and Son" segments from Rocky and Bullwinkle has a wolf attempting to steal the dentures from a sheepdog in order to render him harmless. After actually managing to succeed, he proceeds to attack one of the sheep, immediately getting fought off by one of the sheep since it also has dentures.
• Sabrina's Secret Life. Sabrina conjures up an adorable pet, but Salem discovers that she has actually summoned an evil warlock who is trying to drain her of her powers. Unfortunately, Sabrina does not believe Salem which leads to further complications.
• In the Samurai Jack episode Jack and the Creature, an annoying but seemingly harmless creature hulks out when Jack is wounded by a robot gang. The resultant mutant monster decimates the gang in seconds.
  • Arguably the Monkey Tribe from Jack Learns to Jump Good, once Jack teaches them how to defend themselves.
• The Simpsons: The episode "Eight Misbehavin'" had a group of koalas at the zoo that killed and ate an antelope.
• The Snork-Eater-Eater from The Snorks. Said creature was a tiny fish that could open its mouth to a massive size in order to devour the enormous Snork-Eater.
• South Park
  • The Pandemic episodes feature giant guinea pigs (which were actual guinea pigs filmed and placed into the cartoon), which are repelled by Peruvian pan flute bands. Several of the guinea pigs wear costumes, such as bee, dinosaur, mouse, and pirate costumes.
  • Also the Woodland Critters, who seem cute but are actually insane satan-worshipping rapists with demonic powers.
  • And the cute, little goldfish who wrote murderous messages on its bowl and then followed through with them.
• The Wunny Sharbit from Spliced is a cute little rabbit, WITH THE TEETH OF A SHARK AND A CHAINSAW!
• SpongeBob SquarePants: "Puffy Fluffy," a cute and docile little critter...unless you piss him off, which is when he turns into a horrific abomination with multiple Sarlacc-like tongues. Whatever you do, DO NOT put him in a house with another pet.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks: The episode "I Have No Bones, Yet I must Flee" features a cute critter called the Moopsy; a marshmallow-like life form which resembles a cross between Pikachu, Pusheen, and Kirby. The Moopsy has a cute-sounding name that it says in a squeaky child's voice, it waddles...and it uses huge fangs to puncture your body and violently (and very quickly) sucks out your bones! The Moopsy is so ravenous for ossified skeletons, that it's even drawn to consuming dislodged teeth (which the main characters use to lure it back to it's holding cell.)
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil: In "Hungry Larry", Star and Janna summon the eponymous Hungry Larry in order to make Mr. Diaz's haunted house scarier. Larry at first appears to be a harmless-looking Bedsheet Ghost, but he soon proves to be a truly terrifying monster who swallows Star, Marco, Janna, Mrs Diaz, and a pack of trick-or-treaters whole, forcing Mr. Diaz to save them.
  • The Laser Puppies also qualify to a degree, having the ability to fire Eye Beams, hence the name.
• Steven Universe: As it turns out, Pearl is this. Gems have a Fantastic Caste System and Pearls are meant to be a harmless, weak Servant Race with no free will and only meant to be glorified toys, not meant for fighting at all. The main character Pearl, however, is a Master Swordsman and Badass Bookworm who can curbstomp two Quartz Gems at once.
• Wasabi from Sushi Pack may be small and cute, but he can take down his enemies with his fire-based abilites.
• Sym-Bionic Titan gives up Mushy/Terax/497, an adorable little alien blob like thing. Did I also mention that when he dies, and no matter how that happens, he explodes with enough force to destroy an entire planet? Yeah.
• Foo Foo the Destroyer from 3Below is a robotic rabbit bounty hunter that insists that he is a tough and unstoppable killing machine. It does not help that his hops — his hops — are accented with a cute bouncing noise.
• Snarf of the ThunderCats (1985). He may be small and his "cute" factor may be up for opinion, but on three separate occasions he's pretty much the last one standing of the Cats — and rises to the challenge, tilting the balance enough to win the day: "Snarf Takes Up the Challenge", "The Wolfrat", and "Psych Out". And just try to threaten Lion-O, even after he's all grown up.
• Tom and Jerry are a cat and mouse who always have something to argue about, including sometimes trying to kill one another over the simplest things; however, in certain cartoons, if there is a bigger problem, they are usually working together.
  • Two episodes have Jerry buy a dog that is smaller than he is, but this dog is so fast and violent that Tom is overwhelmed. The dog is actually stronger than Tom despite being 20 times smaller.
  • Nibbles' debut episode has Tom attempt to smash Jerry with a flyswatter, but he accidentally hits Nibbles. When Jerry sees the red sore, he loses his shit and proceeds to destroy Tom for it. This specific line of plot wound up becoming the norm when Nibbles is in an episode, with Tom hitting or otherwise wounding the baby mouse, and Jerry beating Tom into submission for it.
  • The short Jerry's Cousin introduces Jerry's cousin Muscles, whom he writes to in order to take care of Tom. Muscles is no bigger than Jerry, yet he's a Pintsized Powerhouse capable of beating the shit out of multiple cats at once. Even Tom's hired thugs have their asses handed to them.
  • The Tom and Jerry Show (2014) has an episode where an adorable puppy turns into a werewolf whenever the full moon appears.
• Total Drama
  • In "Search and Do Not Destroy", Bridgette's key is placed next to a seemingly-harmless little bunny. However, it roars loudly and ferociously at her and reveals a row of large, razor-sharp teeth, scaring her away, making her unable to complete her challenge.
  • The panda pair. Played straight with the panda that clobbered DJ, subverted with the panda that was given to Alejandro.
  • Any small and cute animal in general, for example, the baby seal. It bites Izzy in the intro.
  • Plus in "Walk like an Egyptian Part 2", Chef sent scarab beetles after the contestants. Sounds harmless, right? Wrong, a few crawled onto an intern and they ate him alive into just a skeleton in less then ten seconds.
  • In Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race, the Goths adopt a literal killer rabbit and name him Loki.
• Transformers: Prime has Scraplets. Tiny, cute robots with big, adorable eyes that just make you want to hug them. This lasts until they detect the presence of a Cybertronian, at which point they reveal that they have More Teeth than the Osmond Family and turn into voracious flying buzz-saws. At one point, an Insecticon is Eaten Alive by a swarm of them. It's not pretty.
• Snarf from Trollz is an example of this. He normally appears as a red cute-looking puppy/wombat creature, but get him mad and he turns into a vicious, hulking ogre.
• In The Twisted Whiskers Show, a kitten named Cutie Snoot, although cute and sweet, she causes trouble for a dog named Goosers to earn the affection of her master.
• We Bare Bears: "The Demon" revolves around Chloe and Ice Bear trying to get Chloe's hoodie back from her neighbor's vicious dog... who turns out to be a small, but extremely bad-tempered, French bulldog.

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