So Much for Stealth in Western Animation.
- Action League NOW!: In "A Flesh of Brilliance", The Action League (minus Flesh) try to put a stop to Smarty Pants's efforts to steal all of the world's knowledge in a surprise ambush. The ambush fails however when the Chief openly chews out Flesh for correcting his grammar in their middle of their attempt.note Smarty Pants notices them and promptly crushes them with a pile of books.
- Adventure Time: In "Normal Man", Finn, Jake and Normal Man try to sneak past the many obstacles of Wild Trap Mountain. They only make it up to the Man-Eating Plants before their cover is blown when one of them tries to eat Jake, forcing them to run for it.
- Harley and Ivy from Batman: The Animated Series meet at the Gotham Museum, each stealing some from it at the same time. Harley sneaked into the museum in a way that would impress Catwoman, and was part way through cutting open the display case of a large diamond when the alarms went off anyway. She turns around to see Ivy running past, so Harley says "to heck with it", smashes the case, grabs the diamond, and runs.
- Big City Greens:
- In "Photo Op" as Cricket and Gramma are hiding from Bill in a clothing store, they urge the cashier to keep their prescience a secret. Bill is convinced and starts to leave... but then Cricket and Gramma celebrate rather loudly, causing Bill to hear them and catch them off-guard.
- In the climax of "Quiet Please", Cricket finally finds a book his genre but simultaneously forgets the restriction against noise, causing him to be obliviously tracked by the Scary Librarian. Bill notices and tries to stop him, but to no avail, leaving him to pull a Heroic Sacrifice and save him from being banned, leaving him to be banned instead. Note that the entire episode parodies A Quiet Place, and Bill did the exact same thing Lee did.
- In "Rat Tail", Nancy has had enough of Cricket's rat tail and unable to tell Cricket she hates it in fear of becoming like her father, so she opts to cut it herself that night. She sneaks into the boys' room, scissors in hand, and prepares to snip... but then suddenly, the bell on the end of the tail falls and jingles loudly, which wakes up Cricket and catches Nancy in the act, forcing her to tell the truth.
- Blaze and the Monster Machines:
- In "Runaway Rocket", Blaze comes across a sleeping grizzly bear and tries to sneak past it, but Crusher and Pickle fly past on the rocket screaming, waking the bear, and it chases him through the forest.
- In "The Wishing Wheel", the last obstacle before the Wishing Wheel is a sleeping stone snake; Blaze and Stripes have to drive nice and gentle across the snake's back, so they don't wake it up. But then Crusher and Pickle come flying by screaming and land on the snake hard enough to wake it up, and it traps the quartet in its long body.
- Blue Eye Samurai has protagonist Mizu's infiltration of Fowler's castle. It starts off okay - besides Mizu nearly getting drowned after triggering a flood trap within an underground tunnel - but then a guard notices she's dripped a trail of water and comes over to investigate. Mizu manages to dispatch the guard with a garrotte, seemingly remaining hidden, but then the guard's naginata clatters to the floor before she can catch it, the noise alerting another guard patrolling nearby. Mizu takes him out by throwing her own naginata and impailing him, but his blood runs underneath a nearby door, whereupon a third guard notices it and sounds the alarm.
- In The Fairly OddParents! episode "Vicky Loses Her Icky", when Timmy is locked in his classroom and needs to escape, he wishes he could leave the room inconspicuously. Unfortunately, Cosmo accomplishes this by poofing rockets onto the legs of Timmy's desk, resulting in him blasting through the ceiling while screaming.Wanda: (To Cosmo) It means "without being noticed"!
Cosmo: Well, if he hadn't been screaming, he wouldn't have been noticed. - Family Guy parodies the above-mentioned Return of the Jedi example with Peter/Han stepping on a twig, a sheet of bubble wrap, a bike horn, a dog's tail and finally a radio. And the guard only notices because "Hey, I love this song!"
- In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Power Ponies", Twilight Sparkle starts telling her friends a plan for how they can sneak into the supervillain the Mane-iac's hideout. Rainbow Dash, who wasn't paying attention, suddenly charges up to the front entrance and starts yelling for the Mane-iac to come out and fight. Annoyed, Twilight says, "So much for the element of surprise."
- Pibby: While hiding from corrupted versions of Finn and Jake, Pibby whispers to Melira and Alloy Boy to keep quiet, but the word "Quiet" pops up above them and a narrator loudly says "QUIET!". Cue Pibby, Melira and Alloy Boy screaming and running away.
- In the third part of Sonic Boom's "Robots from the Sky" Story Arc, Sonic suggests he and Tails take a stealthy approach to get further into the robot-populated sky city of Morristown and find out what's going on... and then trips an invisible laser. With his first step. This forces the two to run from the ensuing guards, who they can't destroy because they're infected Morristown civilians.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: In "The Secret Box", SpongeBob is sneaking through Patrick's house, but every step he makes a very loud (and unrelated) noise. Fortunately even after he causes a ruckus Patrick is still asleep... until SpongeBob comments barely audibly on what a heavy sleeper he must be, causing Patrick to wake up for real.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars:
- "The Gungan General": During the second escape attempt the trio is seen carefully sneaking through the halls avoiding being seen or making too much noise then, after a cutaway to Jar Jar's group, they're next seen sprinting down the hall knocking everything they can over behind them and kicking doors open so something evidently blew their stealthy approach.
- "A Distant Echo": Anakin reminds the strike team that their incursion into Purkoll is supposed to be a stealth mission, so no blasting. Rex reacts with the trope name word-for-word when the turbolift door opens on to a room full of battle droids and the Bad Batch immediately moves to engage them.
- Star Wars Rebels:
- "Stealth Strike": Captain Rex's word-for-word reaction when Kanan starts shooting onboard the Interdictor, blowing their cover.
- "Steps Into Shadow": Once the rebels (who intended to sneakily steal Y-Wings scheduled for destruction from Reklam Station) are discovered, their plan immediately morphs into shooting everything in sight and destroying Reklam Station in order to steal the ships.
- In the Superman: The Animated Series episode "New Kids in Town", young Clark Kent is attempting to sneak around Brainiac, who's travelled back in time to kill him, however he knocks a rake over, attracting Brainiac's attention.
- Totally Spies!: In "Wild Style", the girls sneak into the lair of an evil fashion designer who is turning people into animals so she can make them into coats. However, they're looking in while Clover is turning into a lioness, and Alex happens to be allergic to cats.
- Dr. Venture of The Venture Brothers has a moment like this when he accidentally drops a lightbulb that his bodyguard Brock Sampson asked him to unscrew for total darkness, thus alerting the nearby guards. After saying the trope name, Brock replies with an alternative plan: Throwing the Doctor into the group of incoming guards. Surprisingly, it works.
- X-Men: Evolution: The X-Men and Mystique in an Enemy Mine situation sneak into where X-Men and Brotherhood captives are being held. Iceman ice-bridges over the Laser Hallway's sensors, uses the key they'd stolen to open something... and then, as he's confidently spinning the key on his finger as he quips to Kitty, the key flies off, and to the floor, triggering the alarms.
- Young Justice (2010): A recurring theme in this series is The Team being given strict orders to perform recon only on missions, but things don't always go as planned.Beast Boy: Psh, they always say "recon only". It never works out that way.
- In "Bloodlines", Red Arrow and Cheshire are infiltrating a mountain temple, and for some reason Cheshire has insisted on bringing their baby daughter with them in a backpack. Lian Nguyen-Harper seems to enjoy the sight of her parents taking out a couple of guards and starts giggling. It first shows the giggling echoing across the temple. Next scene? At least twenty to thirty guards with spears pointing at them, and both Cheshire and Red Arrow with their hands in the air.Red Arrow: Told you we should've left her with your sister.
- In "Bloodlines", Red Arrow and Cheshire are infiltrating a mountain temple, and for some reason Cheshire has insisted on bringing their baby daughter with them in a backpack. Lian Nguyen-Harper seems to enjoy the sight of her parents taking out a couple of guards and starts giggling. It first shows the giggling echoing across the temple. Next scene? At least twenty to thirty guards with spears pointing at them, and both Cheshire and Red Arrow with their hands in the air.
