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T-Rex: Wow! The plants are nice and the birds are singing and the sun is almost down from the top of the sky. What a beautiful day!
Dromiceiomimus: But T-Rex, what if beauty is nothing but an illusion? What if we're all nothing but dreams within dreams that, for an instant, imagine themselves to be real?
Sometimes serious, but often a comedy trope. When faced with something, most or all cast members in the scene panic. Related to Crowd Panic, except it's not about the Living Prop characters. Expect The Stoic or Only Sane Man to get everyone to shut up for long enough to deal with the problem.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- In Code Geass, Lelouch gives an Oh Crap moment to the whole world (that includes some 90% of the cast, too) in the end.
- Of all people, Nina gives one to dozens of people when she shows up with the Ganymede, packing what is essentially a home-built nuke. The nuke is not actually operational but no one knows that at the time, resulting in Lloyd Asplund's shrill "IKENAI!!" when he sees the Ganymede and remembers just what Nina was working on. The second part of this particular Mass Oh Crap comes in the second season when a fully working version goes off... and vaporizes a spherical chunk of real estate into thin air. Then to hammer it in even further, the next one has a blast radius measured in the tens of kilometers. And what allows Lelouch to pull his aforementioned global Oh Crap moment is getting control over an entire arsenal of these things. So yes, when it comes to Mass Oh Craps, Code Geass delivers.
- Dragonball does this a lot. When Goku or his opponent powers up, Krillin and anyone watching will get really scared. Just like with the Big Eater thing, they never, ever get used to seeing this done, and stand gape-mouthed throughout the entire scene. Jeez, Krillin, at least make yourself useful and bring the guy some Gatorade!
- Dead serious one in End of Evangelion when Instrumentality starts. Repeated in Rebuild of Evangelion under slightly different circumstances.
- Bleach likes this trope:
- Chapter 364 ends up like this for all the Shinigami. Chapter 376, too. Kubo loves this one.
- Again, in Chapter 392
 where it turned out that the person Hitsugaya stabbed was not Aizen, but Hinamori.
- A Running Gag in One Piece is the normal folks' responses to the Straw Hats' overpowered antics.
(After Zoro has just cut a train car in two)
Lulu: Y'know, if you guys are gonna keep doing stuff like that, you should tell us first!
Luffy: You heard me say "cut this," right?
Lulu: I didn't think he COULD!!
- That, along with the faces the Straw Hats themselves make when ever they're surprised by something.
- The fact that Robin never has such expressions is a running gag within a running gag, no matter how insane the situation is. Even if the utterly fearless Luffy and Zoro have Oh Crap expressions, Robin will always be completely unfazed.
- Of course, these are a few exceptions. Most notably, when the Straw-Hat Crew see these towering sillouettes standing in the fog. Of course, it's just an weather effect from being up in Skypeia, but the crew doesn't know that. There's a chilling silence where everyone looks like they're about ready to wet themselves, including Robin. Even a massive gorilla man they were fighting a minute ago looked like he was about ready to tweak the hell out.
- At Marineford when Luffy unconsciously uses his Haoushoku Haki, knocking many Mooks in the process, this is the reaction of every marine who has even an inkling of what he just did.
- Even earlier, when Whitebeard realized who Luffy is and why he's here, he says the younger captain won't live through this battle. Luffy promptly tells "Whitebeard" Edward Negwate to shut up, because that's not for him to decide. the entire planet's military force proceeds to Oh Crap en masse.
- The grand finale of Death Note, where team leader Light is outed as the mass murderer Kira that the team have been hunting. Their reaction is mostly this strong because Light's reaction to Near's accusations is to take an Evil Laugh and make it quite thoroughly his own.
- A huge one in the Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid finale. As Sousuke unleashes the full power of the Lambda Driver and blows away Gates, his teammates are like holy crap.
- A smaller one is also in the first season finale. After defeating Gauron one last time, The Stoic Sousuke uses the opportunity of parting words to pull off a Precision F-Strike. Cue to everyone gasping loudly. Justified in that he never, ever swears — not even by accident — so him calling someone an S.O.B. is quite a shock for others.
- In Digimon, split screens of the whole cast staring in horror is pretty much standard procedure whenever last week's Finishing Move proves to be this week's Worf Barrage. Typically, one character after another is added to the split screen with a rapidfire choom-choom-choom sound effect until all are shown.
- The manga Little House with an Orange Roof has one of these after Shoutaro and Natchi realize they both got conned into buying the same house.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX when Judai's eyes turn gold after Mad King Brron 'killed' his friends in front of him and he begins to be as brutal as you can be in a card game, everyone watching the duel but Judai.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds: Everyone in Neo Domino City when Aporia is formed, summons his Machine Emperor and starts pelting them with lightning. Then when they think it's all over, the sky cracks, and the Ark Cradle appears, on a collision course with the city.
- Fullmetal Alchemist had a couple of these, but the most memorable would be when the Briggs troops subdue and capture 90% of Central Headquarters, and everyone starts celebrating. All of a sudden:
- A more humorous one in the 2003 anime version where Edward hides in a crowd while duking it out with Mustang, not that it stops Mustang from unleashing a huge fireball at Ed and everyone else in range.
- Pokémon gives us one through Facing Fear With Eyes Wide Open. note The entire premise of the episode is that Ash is trying to get his Oshawott to stop freaking out and closing his eyes whenever he goes underwater - the point of all this is that it will give Aqua Jet a non-zero accuracy rating. As a result of Scraggy agitating a bunch of Foongus, Ash and Oshawott are forced to go underwater and grab some seaweed to cure the resulting poison; needless to say, the local Tympole and their Palpitoad boss aren't willing to share. Oshawott is getting bombarded by Bubble attacks from every direction and attacking aimlessly in the process... up until he finally decides to give opening his eyes a shot. Once he realizes that there's no problem with his vision underwater, Oshawott effortlessly thwarts the latest barrage with one swing of Razor Shell. While a Tympole's eyebrows never really move, their facial expressions and the sound of their voices at this development literally scream "WE'RE FUCKED!!!"
- Toriko tops them all with a global Oh Crap. Zebra getting released from jail made... the entire human world crap itself. A fortune teller told his Crystal Ball the word 'Zebra' and the ball wisely broke itself. The global economy nearly crashed. Predicted damages would be in the quadrillions of yen. A few small countries disappeared. This is just from the rumor that he would be released. To put it into perspective, Zebra was sent to jail for eating over two dozen species into extinction. An appetite like that would make any food-themed world panic.
- The news of the Four Beasts' awakening causes a panic that dwarfs the upheaval caused by Zebra's release. The entire population of the Human World retreats to the center of the Human World, leaving the borders completely deserted. Wholly justified, since the Four Beasts are horrifically powerful denizens of the Gourmet World that prey exclusively on humans.
- Fairy Tail: Played for Laughs with Erza's first appearance.
- Then later, everyone after Acnologia's arrival on Tenrou Island.
- And, once more, when Ezra steps forward in the Pandemonium game. In a dungeon of 100 monsters, where each person is expected to challenge five or so, she challenges all 100, including an unbeatable monster.
- Only Natsu and Grey are not doing this. They're LAUGHING!
- Oh Crap doesn't begin to describe the looks of shock on everyones' faces when the Eclipse Gate finally opens and a Dragon emerges. Followed by more Dragons.
- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED is very fond of the spit-screen version of this trope. Especially noticeable when ZAFT fires the GENESIS for the first time; pretty much the whole cast goes slack-jawed at the massacre.
- Happens in Naruto, when the real Uchiha Madara shows up and starts dropping asteroids on people.
- In the Axis Powers Hetalia movie, the characters do this when they find out that England had put his home-made scones into the gift bags they gave the invading aliens.
- Hellsing gives this treatment to various characters but the most telling instances are when Warren SS vampires tremble in fear of Seras and when two entire armies attack Alucard "lest something dreadful happen."
Comic Books
- In Cerebus: Church & State, Cerebus has become (a very cranky) pope. His every word is therefore divinely true. At one point, a bunch of his followers are cheering him as he walks into his HQ. Cerebus interrupts them with, "ANYONE WHO MOVES BEFORE MOST HOLY COMES BACK OUT WILL SPEND ETERNITY SIPPING LAVA THROUGH AN IRON STRAW!" The next panel is a hundred frozen followers, and a hundred separate "Oh crap" thought bubbles.
- Issue 224 of Archie Comics Sonic The Hedgehog: the last few panels are everyone in New Mobotropolis staring in fear up at the rebuilt Death Egg.
- In Death Of The Family, this reaction is shared by pretty much every one in Gotham when The Joker comes back, including the villains: Penguin, Poison Ivy and even Harley aren't exactly overjoyed to see him back.
Fanfic
Film
Literature
- In The Wheel of Time, the tenth book, Crossroads of Twilight could be essentially summed up as 800+ pages of every channeler on the planet going through an epic freak out. Granted, it's because they're sensing enough of the One Power to "crack the world like an egg," and they don't know whether it's being used by the good guys or the bad guys. Though, eventually, several characters get tired of freaking out, and basically state that if the beacon of power was going to destroy the world, it would have done so already.
- The good guys in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when they think Harry died.
- In the Left Behind book Glorious Appearing, during the 'sheep and goats' judgement, this is the reactions of the unsaved and those who had taken the Mark of the Beast when Jesus condemns them to the Lake of Fire for not caring for "the least of My brethren", referring to Israel. Basically saying that if you're not a friend to Israel and the Jews during the Tribulation, you're going to Hell.
Jesus Christ: Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty, and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger, and you did not take Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick and in prison, and you did not visit Me. Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me. You will go away into everlasting punishment.
- Prince Caspian, Aslan's roar:
"Aslan, who seemed larger than before, lifted his head, shook his mane, and roared. The sound, deep and throbbing at first like an organ beginning on a low note, rose and became louder, and then far louder again, till the earth and air were shaking with it. It rose up from that hill and floated across all Narnia. Down in Miraz’s camp men woke, stared palely in one another’s faces, and grasped their weapons. Down below that in the Great River, now at its coldest hour, the heads and shoulders of the nymphs, and the great weedy-bearded head of the river-god, rose from the water. Beyond it, in every field and wood, the alert ears of rabbits rose from their holes, the sleepy heads of birds came out from under wings, owls hooted, vixens barked, hedgehogs grunted, the trees stirred. In towns and villages mothers pressed babies close to their breasts, staring with wild eyes, dogs whimpered, and men leaped up groping for lights. Far away on the northern frontier the mountain giants peered from the dark gateways of their castles."
- Another in The Last Battle, when every thinking being in the world sees Aslan standing in a doorway. This is one of the most heavy-handed of the Christian images in the whole series, as Aslan is literally separating good from evil, with good going past him through the door to Heaven, and evil...not going through the door. Most approaching the door are completely terrified of him. When some looked, their expressions changed to fear and hatred (p.144, Macmillan edition, 1988) and they passed away into the shadow. Some of the others (the ones who did not pass into the shadow) were very frightened, but not all.
- In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the sailors react this way when they realize the implications of landing on the island where dreams come true. (It sounds like an absolutely fantastic place... until you remember that Nightmares are also dreams.)
There was about half a minute’s silence and then, with a great clatter of armor, the whole crew were tumbling down the main hatch as quick as they could and flinging themselves on the oars to row as they had never rowed before...
Live Action TV
Theater
- The famous "silent scene" in The Government Inspector (or The Inspector General) by Nikolai Gogol is an epic, several minute long Mass Oh Crap moment, described in great detail.
Video Games
- This trope was the result of the original Leeroy Jenkins' charge into the Upper Blackrock Spire Rookery in World of Warcraft.
- Also the reaction of the entire raid when a main tank dies unexpectedly or the boss hits his enrage timer.
- Wild Arms 1 had the Quarter Knights pull this off when Mother tells them about her true objectives. It was even worse in the remake.
- Final Fantasy VI has this when a message is brought to the Elder of Narshe about the Empire attack. Everyone present (the Elder, his men and all the player characters so far) take on their shocked face.
- Final Fantasy XIII has an excellent instance of this, with looks of abject horror from the entire party when Primarch Galenth Dysley reveals his true form as the fal'Cie Barthandelus.
- In the final mission of Mass Effect 3, Hammer Task Force is preparing to storm the Conduit, when Harbinger lands on the far side. The entire force panics, and makes a desperate charge. It almost works.
- Earlier on Mars, all of the Cerberus troops had this reaction upon realising who the Alliance had sent.
Cerberus Trooper: Holy shit! It's SHEPARD!
- The Reapers actually appear to do a double-take upon noticing the utterly enormous fleet pouring through the Mass Relay, hellbent on retaking Earth and the Citadel from their control.
- How big is the fleet? Potentially, it's All of Them. All the turians, all the krogans, all the quarians, all the geth, etc.
- From the tie-in Twitter feeds, the Reapers are implied to be having a collective Mass Oh Crap upon realising that none of their forces during the invasion of Earth have managed to confirm the whereabouts of "Hostile Target Shepard". Because that means Shepard is still out there!
- From Mass Effect 2, the entire team at Project Arrival when Shepard breaks through the sedatives and wakes up, and s/he is PISSED! Cue Curb-Stomp Battle.
- In I Miss The Sunrise, this is the crew's reaction to encountering a jamming pulse for the first time. Which is a pretty justified response, considering that it disables the safeguards that make Nonlethal Warfare nonlethal.
Web Animation
Web Comics
Web Original
- Whateley Universe story Ayla and the Great Shoulder Angel Conspiracy, when Elite League finds out just how horrific their simulation battle is going to be, and just how badly boned they all are.
Gunnery Sergeant Bardue: Okay Elite League, welcome to a little simulation that I like to call DARK TENNYO! entire team: Oh fuck.
- In Worm, this is the reaction to the realization that the Slaughterhouse Nine have arrived in the city by any teams that have found out before they announce their presence. Aftewards, it is the reaction of the rest of the city.
- In Rooster Teeth's "Let's Play Minecraft" episode one, we get this. Gavin, who had been playing the PC version of Minecraft before they went to the 360 version, disappeared to make a bucket and get some lava. He returns to find the house the others built... and dumps the lava on top of it. At that point, we have this reaction:
Others: [FREAK OUT].
Western Animation
Real Life
- A Real Life version literally resulted in NORAD having its Emergency Broadcast System privileges revoked. The EBS, originally designed to warn of nuclear attack, would have NORAD or the White House send out a weekly test. On 20 February 1971, a NORAD staffer accidentally loaded the tape instead for an Emergency Action Notification. An Emergency Action Notification was the EBS's own Mass Oh Crap It's The End of the World as We Know It warning (thus being an example of this trope in and of itself). The only expected reason that an EAN would be issued would involve either nuclear weapons, alien attack, or something else that would count as Apocalypse How.
- In one hilarious case, a bunch of Somali pirates were sailing in the night then they spotted a big ship, they thought a big ship would mean big ransom, so they opened fire hoping to intimidate them to surrender. But they soon realized what they fired on was the USS Nicholas, a U.S. Navy guided-missile frigate. You can guess how they reacted when they soon realized, via a burst from the Nicholas' .50-caliber deck gun, what they were really up against.
- Pop Quizzes
- Usually subverted if you can talk with a friend in an earlier class. Not to mention a lot of teachers give very obvious hints on days there will be quizzes.
- But if you have a troll teacher in your first hour, well... May God have mercy on your soul.
- In 2006, Australia had finally qualified for the soccer World Cup after years of just failing to make it. Then, when the draw was made, most of the nation did this when we were drawn in the same group as Brazil. (On the other hand, the coach and team themselves said they were looking forward to the challenge. In the end, the score in Brazil vs Australia was only 1-0, which is a damn good result to have, even for a loss against the five-time world champion, and Australia made it into the second round.)
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