Quotes • Headscratchers • Playing With • Useful Notes • Analysis • Image Links • Haiku • Laconic |
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Rose: They're rats! Dozens of rats, vacuum-packed rats. —Doctor Who, "School Reunion"
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As a tough masculine fighter, you never cry, never wince at a hit, and talk in a manly baritone. But it's amazing how a Groin Attack, little needle, or garter snake can make your voice rise four octaves into a three-year-old's scream. It seems inherently funny to see this grown man emit a girly scream. This trope is usually played for laughs, as it is hard to take the image of a man who Screams Like a Little Girl seriously. This is sometimes associated with a Camp Gay or the Non-Action Guy character.
Comedy-based logic dictates that the more butch the guy is, or the more he runs his mouth about being tough, or the lesser the actual danger is, the funnier it is when he screams like a girl.
See Also: The Scream, Screaming Woman, Screaming At Squick. May overlap with Eek, a Mouse!! and
Cower. Power
Anime & Manga[]
- Kyon's theme song from Haruhi Suzumiya includes one of these for no apparent reason (he NEVER does this in the manga or anime).
- Gintoki of Gintama fame occasionally lets out a comical scream of this nature when he's subjected to something he finds particularly horrifying.
- Code Geass: Even anti-heroes scream in high-pitched voices
- Nozomu's "IIIIIIYYYYYYAAAAAAA!!!!!!" from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. One of the funniest instances is when he does this after the girls see him naked during the Hot Springs Episode, and the Deadpan Snarker Abiru lampshades that "that should be our reaction".
- North Italy in Axis Powers Hetalia at one point screams "Kyaaaa!"
- America as well.
- Zoicite screams like a girl when confronted by rats in the original Japanese version of Sailor Moon. And people wonder why he was rewritten as a female in the English dub. Later in that same scene, Zoicite screams "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHH! IT'S A WALL OF RAAAAAAAAAAAATS...!"
- Early in Azumanga Daioh, a war against a cockroach begins after a very high-pitched scream erupts from one of the students. Afterward, it's revealed the source of that scream was Sakaki who, while being an actual girl, is also Tall, Dark and Bishoujo and normally has a deep voice.
- Ramiel, the octohedral angel from Rebuild of Evangelion.
- In the Pokémon anime, Cilan lets out a very girly scream in one episode.
- From episode 18 of Yu-Gi-Oh GX:
Jaden: (Crowler screams offscreen) Someone's in trouble! |
- In any Ecchi anime, whenever the guy walks in on a girl taking a bath, you'd expect the girl screaming at the guy. This is not the case in High School DxD when Issei walks in on the bathroom while Asia was still inside. He's the one screaming and trying to cover himself instead of the other way around.
Comic Books[]
- Used in Deadpool's series to humorous effect (what did you expect?)
Sabretooth: Scream for me. |
- Sue Storm calls herself on this in the first arc of Ultimate Fantastic Four, to the confusion of her teammates. "I screamed like a girl! That's so disappointing."
- Empire State gives us this bit of dialogue:
Jimmy: Sara, I was so scared I wanted to scream like a girl. |
Comic Strips[]
- In one Zits strip, a half-asleep Jeremy accidentally walks in on his mom taking a shower, scaring the hell out of both of them, a moment punctuated with the sound effect "SHRIEK!" Turns out the shriek was Jeremy's.
Films — Animation[]
- Beauty and the Beast: Nobody screams like a girl while falling to their death like Gaston!
- Lampshaded in Disney's version of Mulan, with adviser Shi Fu's line, "I do not scream like a girl." This is, of course, immediately followed by the girliest scream imaginable.
- Made even better in the commentary when the directors and writers discuss how the screenwriter voiced the girly scream, and he was a man. They tried getting a real woman to scream, a child to scream, but decided to keep the screenwriter's scream, because "no-one can scream like a little girl like he can."
- President Buffoon in Monsters vs. Aliens shrieks like a frightened girl the first time he sees Ginormica. Especially amusing since the previous four identical girly screams were from an actual girl. The scene is even funnier when you consider that Ginormica was the only one of the monsters that scared him. Shows that a powerful, unstoppable woman is what all men fear most — even the President!
- In one of the trailers for the CGI film Chicken Little, the title character's father warns him that in a few seconds he's going to scream like a little girl as they try to avoid the meteorites being hurled upon them. Sadly, this never happens in the actual film.
- From Flushed Away:
Spike: Any last requests? |
- In The Road to El Dorado, upon both Miguel and Tulio (pictured above) seeing the giant stone Jaguar activated by Tzekel-Kan, they perform a seldom seen double girly scream.
- Roxanne points out that Megamind does a pretty good example.
- Lampshaded in Resident Evil: Degeneration when Claire and the other survivors are holed up in the small office they hear a high pitched scream and Claire decides to investigate. A few scenes later she comes back with an unknown man and people ask where the "girl" is.
- In Open Season, Ian the Stag, manliest of Mule Deer, is galloping gracefully with his herd across the river when the floodwater comes down. Mid-leap he turns to look at the rushing water and gives a girly scream just as it hits.
Films — Live-Action[]
- A scene from the classic 1980's comedy Silent Night Deadly Night demonstrates how a man screaming like this can turn horror into Narm.
- Home Alone
- Marv (Daniel Stern's character) screams like a woman when he gets a tarantula put on his face by Kevin in the first movie and when he's attacked by birds in the second.
- In the third movie, the only one that didn't feature Kevin as the protagonist and Marv as the antagonist, we have this Groin Attack scene; it's more like singing than screaming, really.
- Maybe that's just the way Daniel Stern screams, as it also shows up in City Slickers II
- In an ironic exception, Ichabod Crane from Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow does practically everything like a little girl except scream.
- And, conversely, the heroine of Raiders of the Lost Ark lets loose a series of decidedly tomboyish screams when she's trapped in the Well of Souls — and, ironically, while wearing a lacy white gown.
- When trapped in a laboratory with Count Dracula and Frankenstein's monster in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Lou Costello screams like a girl... twice.
- Accepted has Jonah Hill screaming like a little girl upon finding a corpse: "It would be really cool if you guys didn't tell anyone I scream like that..."
- Mystery Science Theater 3000 movies:
- Arguably the best moment in the excellent episode Space Mutiny was the big finale where the hero, Dave Ryder, emits an enraged one of these just before calmly hopping out of the "space buggy" he's about to ram into the bad guy.
- Earlier...
Ryder: (surprisingly high-pitched scream) |
- Reb Brown again, in Yor, the Hunter from the Future.
- And, heck, Reb Brown in any testosterone-fueled action film. He makes it work.
- Transformers
- When attacked by Alice in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the first thing Sam does when he gets his breath back is to scream. Then scream some more. Then scramble out of the room, screaming. Understandable though, under the circumstances.
- Sam has another absolutely hilarious one during the highway chase of the next sequel, Dark of the Moon. During the chase, one of the Decepticons deliberately topples over a truck carrying construction pipes, right in front of Bumblebee (who has Sam inside him). In order to avoid getting hit, Bumblebee transforms, jumps over the truck whilst throwing Sam over it as well, then grabs him in mid-air before they hit the ground, and transforms back into vehicle form whilst putting Sam back into a perfectly seated position. Sam, having gone through the entire transformation process whilst inside Bumblebee, freaks out as soon as he's back in his seat.
- When running from a series of explosions and gunplay in The Fifth Element, radio host Ruby Rhod screams incessantly like a little girl through several minutes of scenes.
- In What's New Pussycat, Woody Allen is getting cozy with Romy Schneider at his grubby little artist's garret — he produces a cigarette and suavely lights it — and burns his finger. He excuses himself, gets up and rushes to the bathroom, pulls shut a flimsy curtain to close it off, and lets out a shrill girly scream (causing her to jump) — he emerges a moment later with an insouciant swagger.
- Jesse, the main character of A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 2 Freddys Revenge.
- The Lord of the Rings: Merry and Pippin stole Gandalf's best firework and light it prematurely — while inside a tent. When it actually goes off, Pip lets out the girliest scream you can imagine. Billy Boyd didn't know that the thing was actually going to explode, so the scream is real. Also, according to the commentary, during said scene, Boyd wet himself, earning the amusing nickname "Pissylegs".
- Fans love Stargate Atlantis actor David Hewlett's scream, and it makes for great comedy several times in his movie A Dog's Breakfast.
- Averted and then Invoked in the film version of Spawn. After Al realizes that he's been dead for five years, he lets out a primal scream. The Violator then says "Aww, c'mon! You scream like a little girl! Scream like a man! Here, like this!" and then lets out a very shrill, high-pitched, feminine shriek.
- Near the end of Rear Window, when Mr. Thorwald throws Jeff out the window a woman's scream is dubbed over his as he falls.
- Eli Sunday in There Will Be Blood, particularly when he's getting slapped around by Daniel.
- In Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, when Harry gets electro-tortured his screams are remarkably high-pitched (although it's somewhat justified considering the part of his body that is being shocked). This comes off as either hilariously funny or disturbing, depending on how screwed up you are.
- In a particular The Three Stooges short set during the Civil War, in order to get rid of a couple of Confederate soldiers, Curly sneaks up on them and puts ants in their clothes, and the two soldiers fled scooting their butts on the ground and screaming like little girls. It's much more hilarious when you actually see it.
- Ben Stiller in the zipper incident in Theres Something About Mary. The policeman arrives saying that someone "... heard a girl's scream."
- Jason in Mystery Team.
- Wesley Gibson (played by James McAvoy) spends about 20 minutes in the beginning of Wanted doing just this after Fox (Angelina Jolie) takes him on a wild car chase.
- A Scary Black Man Giant Mook gives one of these right before he dies in Transporter 2.
- Van Pelt, the villain of Jumanji, is pretty much prone to this trope. He's launched on a boat at high speed into a wall, literally!
Literature[]
- Played rather seriously in one Doctor Who Eighth Doctor Adventures novel. A Mind Control device is injected into the Doctor's brain by a guy called Svadhisthana. Quite understandably, the Doctor screams, which Svadhisthana's crony finds funny. The reader probably won't, because, come on, you'd scream like a little girl too if there was a needle in your brain.
Svadhisthana and a needle. Pain in the base of his skull, a hot lance into the centre of his mind. |
- And deployed strategically in another book when yet another mad scientist tries to vivisect him:
The Doctor let out a piercingly shrill scream. He’d had a number of travelling companions who used to do much the same thing, and he was pleased with the effect it had now. For added effect, he fluttered his hands at the extremes of their restraints. |
- The Dresden Files: If Harry Dresden and someone else are in a car and the appearance of something scary causes someone to scream in a high-pitched manner, it was the other person and most certainly not Harry.
- Bernard Cornwell likes this trope. One French Giant Mook gives a "weirdly high-pitched scream" when Sharpe stabs him in the balls with a broken telescope. Sharpe's sergeant, Pat Harper likes to do this, although this is because he is imitating ancient Irish heroes like Cu Chulainn. Plenty of redshirts do this, and one Big Bad plans to do this to another Cornwell hero, Uhtred of Bebbanburg:
Kjartan the Cruel: Now is not the time to make you scream like a woman. |
Live-Action TV[]
- In the Soap Opera Passions, Ethan was attacked by a demon from the Bennett's closet to Hell. The shriek he let out was very girlish. So girlish in fact, many people commented on it on the internet and one of this Troper's co-workers said, "Not even my three-year-old girl screams like that!"
- In Castle, the title character gives one when a dead body tumbles out of the fridge he opens. Naturally, he attempts to protect his dignity by covering it up as a cough. Surprisingly, no one comments on it.
- Frasier. Both Frasier and Niles scream like a girl.
- In the episode "Boo!":
Frasier: That is not funny! You don't sneak up on someone and startle them! |
- In the episode "Don't Go Breaking My Heart", after a womanly high-pitched scream was heard.
Daphne: Are you all right? |
- Friends. Ross screams like a little girl when Rachel and Phoebe come out of his apartment's curtains and shout danger to scare him.
- Will and Grace, where Grace's apartment got burgled.
Will: Did I just scream like a woman? |
- The X-Files
- In the episode "War of the Coprophages", Mulder has a discussion with Scully regarding a childhood encounter with a praying mantis...
Mulder: I had a praying mantis epiphany, and as a result I screamed. No, not... not a girly scream, but the scream of someone being confronted by some before unknown monster that had no right existing on the same planet I inhabited. |
- In a later episode with the same writer ("Jose Chung's From Outer Space"), we get to hear Mulder's girly scream upon spotting "a real live dead alien body" — at least according to one version of the story.
- Adrian Monk of Monk.
- In "Mr. Monk Goes Camping", when the eponymous obsessive detective encounters a bear, the previews feature actor Tony Shaloub's own scream, whereas the scream in the episode is overdubbed with a little girl's.
- Supernatural
- Dean does this hilariously in the episode "Yellow Fever", when he's infected with a paranormal curse that makes him scared of quite literally everything. Including cute little lap dogs with pink bows.
- And in the meta episode "The French Mistake", when the character of Misha Collins is kidnapped and then murdered by an angel, he does quite a lot of high-pitched squealing.
- In the Heroes episode "Into Asylum", Zachary Quinto's high-pitched squeak of terror as Fake!Sylar is about to meet his end made the Internet laugh its collective ass off. Unfortunately... it doesn't appear to have been played for laughs!
- How I Met Your Mother
- When Ted gets his tattoo removed.
- Barney has a couple of instances of this as well.
- Used numerous times on Psych. Someone even made a montage of it.
- After Shawn and Gus are at a seance. A ghost appears, and then the lights cut back on. Shawn's love interest wonders where he and Gus went. Cut to the outside of the building, where Shawn and Gus are running for their car while screaming incomprehensibly, thus. What makes it funnier is that they're running out of a sorority, but none of the girls inside screamed.
- Another hilarious example.
- Nev from CBBC's Bear Behaving Badly.
- Bottom: Eddie does this after Richie sticks an umbrella into his groin. And opens it.
- In The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Carlton screams like a little girl.
- Howard Borden, the "wacky neighbor" on The Bob Newhart Show, does this.
- Probably the second reason to watch Americas Funniest Home Videos, after the groin shots.
- Used in the season finale for Season 4 of Bones:
Zack: I yelped! I didn't scream. |
- From the DVD commentary on the Criminal Minds episode, "Revelations":
Matthew Gray Gubler: So, we were filming the scene in which my character was being tortured. And in between takes, everyone was laughing, and I couldn't figure out why. And finally, at the end of one take, the director came up to me and said, "Okay, but can you try screaming in a way that does NOT sound like a little girl?" |
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- Season 6 episode "Tabula Rasa". Spike, who has fallen asleep lying on top of a shop counter as the result of a spell, rolls/falls off said shop counter with a girly scream.
- A Running Gag with Wesley in Season 3. Buffy even lampshades it.
- Star Trek
- Chekov was famous for doing this on Star Trek the Original Series (and also in Star Trek the Motion Picture, Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home).
- Harry Kim did too on Star Trek Voyager.
- So did Geordi La Forge on Star Trek the Next Generation.
- The Ferengi as a species made an art form of it. Played for laughs 99% of the time, but when Nog was badly injured in "The Siege of AR-558" it suddenly stopped being funny.
- Marion Moseby of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and The Suite Life On Deck does this when startled, which is ridiculously easy to do. Cody Martin too. And even Zack, that one time.
- From Leverage:
Eliot: Hey. What smells like crank and screams like a girl? |
- ICarly: Nevel, when he gets locked in a fighting octagon with Sam, Shelby and Carly.
- An actor in The Bill had a scene where he fell off a platform while chasing a criminal in an Abandoned Warehouse. He mentioned that his scream as he did this stunt had been too high pitched, so they had to dub a more 'manly' scream on afterwards.
- In Community, when the going gets tough Troy has a tendency to regress into the personality of a six-year-old girl, completely with girly screams and panicky dancing.
- Farscape. Season 3, Episode 13. Scratch N' Sniff. Crichton and D'Argo get slipped mickeys and rolled. Crichton wakes up in a window without clothes. (Well, he had fishnets, at least.)
- In the Eureka episode "Up in the Air" Sheriff Jack Carter's reaction upon seeing how high in the air he is while trying to get inside a floating bank.
- As the page quote indicates, Mickey Smith of Doctor Who fulfills the traditional role of the terrified companion.
- An episode of Mighty Ships set on the largest carrier in the world, the USS Nimitz, showed a rookie pilot getting his callsign, which is usually done by consensus of other pilots in the rookie's flight group. This particular pilot had made no mistakes even when landing on a carrier at night, but when catapulted off for the exercise had, in his own words, screamed like a little girl. Another pilot noted that "screams like a girl" could be acronymed into "slag", which is also a British slang term meaning, roughly, slut, and (though this wasn't mentioned on the show) is originally an industrial term for waste product from smelting. Congratulations, Lieutenant Slag....
Music[]
- Vocaloid
- Twice during Len Kagamine's version of "World is Mine". Just listen to those screams...
- Kaito gets one as well in Kidnapping Elder Brother. It's even funnier considering the circumstances.
Pro Wrestling[]
- Carlito screamed like a girl when Teddy Long forced him to find The Undertaker or lose his job. He was searching the backstage area when the lights flickered out and all we hear is a hilarious high-pitched scream.
- Norman Smiley of WCW — so much so, in fact, that it became part of his gimmick.
- Santino Marella. See for yourself.
Tabletop Games[]
- Parodied (of course) in The Order of the Stick tabletop game. The battle card "Scream like a little girl!" is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
Puppet Shows[]
- In one early episode of Sesame Street, one sketch with Bert and Ernie shows Ernie unable to sleep, so Bert tells him to count sheep, but Ernie finds it dull and tries to count something else, finally deciding on balloons. An imaginary balloon appears and grows to a huge size before finally exploding and rocking the room, startling Bert awake, screaming.
Video Games[]
- Little Big Planet:
- The Colloctor from the first game does one in at the end of the final boss all thanks to Cute but Cacophonic.
- In "Patients are Virtue" from Little Big Planet 2 has the second shrub reveals Clive.
- Newton from the cutscene "What Happened to Newton after LBP3?" in Little Big Planet 3 lets out one of these as he's gonna get attacked by his dad.
- Deadpool occasionally screams like this when hit in Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
- Baba from F-Zero X; a male character who used the female scream sound-byte when falling off the track. Stopped in F-Zero GX, but got no less effeminate.
- Francis from Left 4 Dead will scream like this as well whenever he's pounced by a Hunter or attacked when downed. Kind of funny coming from a guy who exclaims a constant macho, "I hate _________"
- X's death scream in Mega Man X 4, thanks to abysmal voice acting.
- Team Fortress 2
- In "Meet the Sandvich", the Scout screams like a little girl in the ending, thanks to the Heavy having having punched out all his blood. Played for laughs, of course.
- An in the Halloween event maps, getting spooked by either the Horseless Headless Horsemann or Zepheniah Mann's ghost will result in very unmanly screaming regardless of class.
- Sam and Max Freelance Police:
Max: Mind if I drive? |
- In Infinite Space, Ian apparently did this offscreen when he and Torlo evacuated Rhea (whom they thought dead until she suddenly moved). He is not pleased when Yuri and Torlo mock him about it.
- Blaz Blue. If you use the English voice, in Ragna's Gag Reel, after being informed that he's a ghost, the very thing he feared, he screams like a little girl. There's no girly scream in the Japanese voice, though.
- Grim Fandango:
Glottis: There was this one high-pitched whine it was making — really grating noise, you know? And I searched and searched, but I couldn't find the source of the noise, until we pulled in here. |
- Blood. Caleb screams like a little girl when he dies. Or is set on fire.
Caleb: AH! IT BURNS! AH AH AH AH AAAAAH! |
- Dragons Lair. Dirk the Daring does this a number of times, but most noticeably in one "miss" sequence during the "Crypt Creeps" scene with what looks like black goo.
- The concierge from Ghostbusters the Video Game screams like this, which the Ghostbusters at first mistake for a ghost.
- Assassin's Creed Brotherhood: Cesare Borgia of all people does this when Ezio hurls him off a rampart in Viana.
- Alistair of Dragon Age confesses that he used to do this while dreaming of darkspawn and the Archdemon: "I screamed like a little girl. Duncan thought I had someone in my room." He also demonstrates girly screaming in a banter with Shale, attempting to give Shale an idea of what pain feels like.
- Elh of Solatorobo hates bugs and screams when they get too close. Of course, given that she is a girl, it's more understandable, but Red didn't know that at the time.
- Murphy from Silent Hill Downpour tends to do this. Not that we blame him.
Web Animation[]
- A Running Gag in Red vs. Blue is that Donut screams like a woman. Ironically, the actual girls don't. Done to the point that at least one of the Red Team's plans includes the following:
Sarge: Donut! |
- A short animated piece, Oktapodi: the delivery man screams like this at one point. Or it might have been the octopi. It's hard to tell. It Makes Sense in Context. Really.
Web Comics[]
- Art in Sequential Art made a "girly shriek" just because of a thump upstairs. Of course, he was watching a horror movie at the time, but still...
- Freefall
- Florence is puzzled by a scream she hears, and Helix explains: Sam screams like a girl squid.
- In this strip Florence thinks she's startled Sam, but he explains: "No, you did not surprise me. My plans to scream like a little girl when I reached the kitchen were made hours ago. It's pure coincidence you happened to be here at the time."
- Nodded to in Something Positive where Aubrey tactlessly reminds Davan of the time when he was a kid, was attacked by a dog, and wet himself in public, then she reassures him that his screams didn't sound girly. "A little like a boiling lobster, but not girlish at all."
- Girl Genius
- Professor Tiktoffen often screams like this, and the castle thinks it's funny.
- Also Tarvek, at least according to DuPree.
DuPree: Oh my Gosh! I'd know that girlish scream anywhere! |
- Referenced in Ozy and Millie. Millie finds herself holding something she'd rather not. She asks Ozy how she can let go without screaming like a little girl. Ozy's answer? "You ARE a little girl." Millie takes the hint.
- Sam in Sluggy Freelance does this.
- While he is admittedly female at the time, Elliot in El Goonish Shive would have liked his scream to be a little more manly.
Web Original[]
- The Nostalgia Critic sounds incredibly girly when he screams. Which is often. In a commentary, he said he does this intentionally because it's funnier than if he screams normally which just makes him sound angry.
- There were occasions where the normal screaming voice was justifiable. In the TGWTG First Anniversary Brawl, he uses it when he's forcibly sliding towards The Angry Video Game Nerd's fist.
- And during the Flubber review, he uses it again when he sees Weebo using a holographic projection of her human self to kiss a sleeping Professor Brainard.
- The Spoony One does this repeatedly when he sees the cover of the Wing Commander movie. He also does an excellent one when he finds out that the Critic is reviewing The Room.
- Youtube duo Crazy Commentaries has one of the members, Jay Zilla 2830 doing this on occasion. See here at about 30 seconds in.
- What has to be the highest example ever is in this video, where Spike fell off a rotating platform, and Jay's reaction? This.
- YouTube member mpn1990 does this in Part 8 of his review of Action 52 when the game crashes. "GAAAAAAAAA! DAMN YOU ACTION 52! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!"
- PyschadelicSnake is the KING of this trope when it comes to horror Let's Plays. Go ahead, pick any video from a horror game he's played and I guarantee he'll scream at least once. His latest vids has the tail end of him finishing Ju-On The Grudge on the Wii, and he screams every minute.
- YouTube user HamsterAlliance has given many examples of this, shrieking and yelling in surprise when he gets close to dying in a game or something scary happens unexpectedly.
- Like Psychadelic Snake and Hamster Alliance, Pew Die Pie is also very notable for his incredibly girlish screams. Especially in his earlier playthroughs. He even points out how girly his screams are. A lot of the time, he ends up in tears after a huge scare. Either that or he's in Kitten Therapy.
- Tobuscus does this frequently in his gaming commentaries. As a Running Gag, it often occurs immediately after he has declared himself to be unafraid and in control of the situation.
- Chuggaaconroy has quite a few of these moments, most recently this one to the point that even he admits he lost man points for doing it.
Western Animation[]
- Often used as a gag in Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, Tex Avery shorts, et al.
- The episode where Spike the bulldog screams like a woman, after seeing Tom's fake dog-mask walk away on its own with Jerry underneath (because he thinks it's a real head), deserves special mention.
- Parodied in the Tex Avery short Who Killed Who; the detective does a girly scream upon meeting the killer face-to-face... but first he uses a small pitch-pipe to find the correct octave.
- The Simpsons
- The Human Torch does this constantly in the new Fantastic Four series.
- As does H.E.R.B.I.E.
- Mr. Turner from The Fairly Odd Parents is pretty prone to this trope.
- When SpongeBob SquarePants and Pearl get stuck in the Tunnel of Glove, the police officers comfort the screaming “little girl“ on the boat, telling “her” that help is on the way. Pearl tells them that it wasn’t her and that it was Spongebob.
- Johnny Bravo does this a lot in seasons two and three. In the Spanish dub, he does even more often.
- Occasionally a character in The Ren and Stimpy Show would scream like this. Depending on the situation, they would either have Billy West or John Kricfalusi do it themselves, or dub in an inappropriate female Stock Scream. Lampshaded once, where Stimpy actually says "Girlish Scream!" while doing so.
- On The Venture Brothers, Dean Venture screams like a girl in the episode "Love Bheits", prompting a eunuch to quip "I'm fixed, what's your excuse?"
- Duckman's scream has, on occasion, sounded exactly like a little girl.
- The earl of Lemongrab of Adventure Time doesn't scream like a little girl, so much as he screams like a schizophrenic woman on her menstrual cycle. Okay... He screams like that pretty often, due to his high, uber-puberty voice.
- When Disney took over Doug, it became rather obvious that Roger Klotz now had someone else providing his voice whenever he screamed in terror. While (in the Nick series) the title character didn't scream like a little girl, he sure did have a high-pitched scream!
- Transformers Animated
- When a massive stack of metal falls on him in the episode "Autoboot Camp", Sentinel Prime screams like a little girl.
- So does Grandus, when he encounters the "scary organic" Captain Fanzone in "This is Why I Hate Machines". For some perspective on that last bit, Grandus transforms into what looks like one of those vehicles they use to carry the space shuttle around, and is the Autobot equivalent of a sumo wrestler.
- Soundwave in the original cartoon. Given that he's supposed to be a cold, heartless Decepticon, it's surprisingly hilarious.
- In the Transformers Prime episode "Scrapheap", Bulkhead lets one out when the lights go out. Miko then lets one out when she freaks out over a spider.
- Neil, of Class of the Titans. Very bad for his image.
- Space Ghost Coast to Coast: Space Ghost took this one step further. The body snatcher pods arrived, and he screamed once. Trying to leave the building, he finds it's been covered by The Blob; another scream. Then, he flies back into the studio and babbles incoherently in a little girl's voice before clearing his throat.
- Futurama
- The Robot Devil.
- Bender does this when Roberto tries to stab him in "Insane in the Mainframe".
- Xiaolin Showdown; Jack Spicer does this frequently.
- Michelangelo in the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003 cartoon does a pretty good girly scream when he's freaked. Donatello sometimes panics too. Example of Mikey's manly screaming.
- In the South Park episode "Preschool", Cartman screams like this after being threatened by a bully that had just been released from juvie and had a score to settle with the boys.
- Drawn Together does this a few times. Captain Hero: "I said I'm on the phone!" Also the driver of the Satanmobile: "You just killed the one-legged man!" ... "Stop this truck right now!"
- Nick Dean in The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius does this when he encounters Poultra.
- Blitz from Road Rovers is known for this.
- Courage the Cowardly Dog is known to indulge in this from time to time, for example in the episode "Son of the Chicken From Outer Space" (5:45 in this clip).
- Dexter of Dexters Laboratory screams like a little girl when also dressed like one.
- Toad of X-Men Evolution has a high-pitched girly scream.
- Cyborg of Teen Titans. Come to think of it, pretty much all the guys on that show do this, but his is definitely the most girly.
- Subverted in Megas XLR.
Coop: Jamie, quit screaming like a little girl! |
- Odd Della Robbia, a few times in Code Lyoko. Notably at the end of episode "Guided Missile". Ironic since he's dubbed by a male voice actor, unlike other young boys in the series who have Cross-Dressing Voices.
- The Powerpuff Girls
- The Mayor does this for several seconds in an early episode.
- Mojo Jojo also does this in "Meet the Beat-Alls" when he discovers Moko Jono's true identity.
- ReBoot: Bob, Dot, Enzo and Mike the TV get trapped in a Dungeons & Dragons type game and come across a giant spider. Cue high-pitched scream. Bob looks at Enzo. Enzo looks at Dot. Dot shrugs and points at Mike (the source of the scream).
- Ben 10 Alien Force After Ben sees a television advertisement for Sumo Slammers the motion picture, he does this in a very fan-girly way.
- King of the Hill
- Bobby Hill. Including the time when Hank told him not to scream like a girl when he got him in a rose contest. Bobby still does it.
- Inverted for Hank, who has an impressively masculine scream ("BWAAAAHHHH!") that's plenty funny on its own.
- In The Weekenders, Tino making these was something of a running gag (a trait he inherited from his father). One episode even has him worried he's too effeminate (becoming Tina in an Imagine Spot).
- Often done by Sid on Hey Arnold, usually to something no one else considers frightening.
- Jackie Chan Adventures: Wesley Rank lets one out when he sees a giant snake.
Rank's Camera Man: Rank may not know how to treat little girls, but he sure knows how to scream like one! |
- General Skarr from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as part of being the world's Butt Monkey, most notably in one episode where he is caught on fire by Grim's scythe in his vain attempts to prevent Billy from destroying his beloved garden, where he continues to screech until Grim puts the fire out by stomping on him... poor guy never catches a break.
Real Life[]
- One of the unfortunate realities of having an adrenaline rush is that it tightens all of your muscles — including your vocal cords. This means that even people who are perfectly brave can wind up screaming like a girl — so long as they are flooded with adrenaline.
- Could count as a Hell Is That Noise for the recipient if the rush of adrenaline is accompanied by the Fight option of Fight or Flight being selected. So if someone screams like a girl as they run away from you, go ahead and laugh, but if someone screams like a girl and runs toward you, try to run away even faster.
- This 19-year-old guy while running away from an unexpected attack by a rabid otter (hilarity starts at 1:12).