This is when, for any reason, one or more characters are chased by a large handful of other characters. In animated shows this can often have a freeze frame shot. Sometimes a show even ends an episode on this.
Has a high probability of being scored to Yakety Sax, and may very well include visual elements associated with that very show.
A Super-Trope to Thundering Herd.
A Sister Trope to Escalating Chase (this trope doesn't require escalation, while that trope doesn't require the bulk of the cast).
Compare Chased by Angry Natives, Chased Off into the Sunset, Torches and Pitchforks (which may very well overlap with this).
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Happens a lot in Doraemon especially at the end of an episode. Most of the times it's Nobita who gets chased due to misusing a gadget.
- In GTO 14 Days In Shonan, a huge crowd of thugs surrounds Onizuka after Miki puts out a hit on him on the internet. He realizes there are too many and makes a run for it, with all of them in hot pursuit.
- Happens in Ladies versus Butlers! when Akiharu is accidentally branded as both a pervert and a delinquent.
- As per the page image, Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok had Yamino and Loki being chased by a Brainwashed and Crazy Thor, and then successively by Heimdal, Frey, and Freya.
- Happens in Negima! Magister Negi Magi on occasion.
- One notable example occurs during Ako's Day in the Limelight micro-arc: Negi, thanks to the use of a time machine, ends up being chased by Madoka, two versions of Kotaro, Chachamaru and Chisame, and himself.
- Later events have taken this to the next (il)logical step, with the entire school after him.
- This happened a lot at the end of the first series of Pokémon the Series, usually Team Rocket being chased by an angry mob of either humans they scammed or Pokémon that they tried to steal.
- The opening scene of the first Ranma ½ movie is a constantly escalating version of this.
- In the Turning Red spinoff 4★Town 4★Real, Aaron T. and his bodyguard are chased by a crowd of fans through a mall.
Asian Animation
- Simple Samosa:
- In "Chutney Dam", Samosa and his friends are chased down by the other townspeople, who believe them to be the ones who stole the town's chutney supply after they hung out at Chutney Dam the previous day.
- In "Makkhi Makkhi!", Samosa, his friends, and Doctor Goti Sodawala arrange it so that Samosa can get Makkhi Makkhija the fly safely away from an angry mob, who believe the fly to be a bad thing. Samosa fakes fighting off the fly with a flashlight, then Dhokla, Jalebi, Vada, and Sodawala drive away on a motorcycle and let themselves be chased by the mob so that Samosa and the fly can travel elsewhere unnoticed.
Comic Books
- Donald Duck has found himself on the receiving end of this more than once.
- A frequent ending — almost Once an Episode — in Groo the Wanderer: after the title character has attempted to help some poor unfortunates and only succeeded in making them more unfortunate, he's run out of town.
- A lot of Léonard le Génie stories end like this, usually because half the town is destroyed thanks to his inventions.
- The Powerpuff Girls: In "Powerful Pretty," everyone has succumbed to Sedusa's cosmetics which hypnotizes the wearer (including Blossom and Bubbles) into doing her bidding. Everyone except Buttercup, who in one panel is being chased by the entranced masses.
Fan Works
- Happens a number of times in With Strings Attached for obvious reasons. The first few are in the notorious New Zork chapter, which parallels A Hard Day's Night. The four are chased by screaming fans a number of times (including once when Paul sics a mob of them onto a bad guy wearing a “Beagle” wig in order to make good his escape), and the chapter culminates in a huge mix of screaming fans and giant rabbits. It Makes Sense in Context.
Films — Animation
- Disney's adaptation of Alice in Wonderland ends with everyone in Wonderland chasing Alice through a swirling abyss right before she awakens in the real world.
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: Miles is chased through the Nueva York HQ by hundreds of Spider-People after Miguel sends a directive to capture him.
Films — Live-Action
- Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery opens with the title character being chased through the streets of London by his adoring fans. Set to the Theme Tune.
- By the end of The Blues Brothers, Jake and Elwood are not only pursued by the Chicago Police Department, but also the Illinois Nazis, the Good Old Boys, and the entire National Guard.
- Buster Keaton:
- In the short film "Cops", he ends up getting chased by what looks like hundreds of cops.
- His feature film Seven Chances ends with him being chased by hundreds of women wanting to marry him.
- A classic example would be Frankenstein's monster.
- The famous opening of A Hard Day's Night where The Beatles get chased by their fans (except for Paul, who hides using a fake goatee). Notable in that it wasn't just footage shot for the film, but actual footage of the Beatles getting chased by their fans that happened to be caught on film.
- The entire movie It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is a snowballing cascade of mob chases, as more and more of Hollywood's top actors join in the fun.
- Happens twice to pre-frosh character Tom in PCU, and later in the film they exploit it. By the end, it happens to one of the antagonists.
- In Brazilian film "O Homen Nu" (1997), a university teacher finds himself naked and with the door of his room locked, then a series of misunderstandings follow and, you will find the teacher being chased by everyone who thinks he is a pervert, to the point that is reported on TV. Even the final scene shows a last shot of the trope when the teacher finally goes home and finds his wife has been cheating him with a colleague who was naked, the teacher throws him out of his house to be chased by the same people that was over our main character.
- A scene in School of Rock, after the parents take Dewey's remark about touching something in their kids literally.
- In Love Potion No. 9 the female antagonist, figuring more is better, overdoses on the titular love potion, which causes every man who hears her voice to fall in love with her, and every woman who hears her voice to hate her. And then she goes out in public...
- During the climactic chase scene in Moving Violations, one of the characters runs through a convention of police chiefs and ends up with all of the attendees (in full uniform) chasing after them.
- Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls ends with the villain chased by the entire Wachootoo tribe because he stole their sacred bat, shortly followed by Ace himself chased by the entire Wachati tribe after they find out he deflowered their high priestess.
Literature
- In the climax of the Captain Underpants installment Captain Underpants and the Big, Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy Part 2, everyone who was wronged by Melvin (who was actually Captain Underpants in his body due to some sort of "Freaky Friday" Flip) angrily chases him down.
- At the end of Jingo, Commander Vimes is leading a procession and spots an unlicensed thief stealing a lady's bag. He immediately gives chase while still leading the procession, which causes the people behind him to follow his lead since they don't really know if this is how things were supposed to go. This causes the people behind them to run after them since they don't know what's happening at the front and they're getting left behind, and everyone watching runs after them, because, well, everyone else is doing it. While all of this is happening, the poor thief continues to run as fast as he can, because he looked over his shoulder and found the whole of Ankh-Morpork society bearing down on him.
- Throughout its killing spree in The Fatal Dream, the Pteranodon is hunted by the male hero, two FBI agents, a terrorist organisation, the police force of Western Australia, and the Australian Federal Police.
Live-Action TV
- The Benny Hill Show would most likely be the Trope Codifier, as many, many of the episodes ended up with someone being chased by an ever growing line of irate bystanders, usually accompanied by "Yakkity Sax" in the background.
- The Australian TV show The Farmer Wants a Wife.
- Exploited by Ned, Cookie and Moze in the Grand Finale of Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide— they intentionally get the groups after them (Crubbs, the art gallery guard, and a bunch of samurai warriors) to chase them and they all converge in the gallery, where a bunch of crooks planning to steal a priceless painting are caught in the act.
- ChuckleVision did this a lot.
- The final episode of Pennyworth opens with Alfie and his pop-star ex-girlfriend Sondra being chased by her fans, except they're high on Lullaby and wielding blunt objects. We then cut back to How We Got Here.
Music Videos
- In the Semisonic video, Secret Smile
, a couple (one of them being the lead singer) accidentally elicits this while escaping the invasive cameramen working with a pesky reporter, fans, and various movie studio patrons, to whom, the pair unwittingly barges in on in different studios, give chase.
- In the Michael Jackson video, "Speed Demon", the overzealous Groupie Brigade chases after him despite his being dressed in just a jackrabbit's mask.
Video Games
- This happens in Left 4 Dead if a Boomer vomits on you. Assuming, of course, you've got enough room to run and don't get immediately surrounded by the horde.
Web Comics
- In Freefall, Sam Starfall seems to seek out such episodes.
- In Greg, Ted streaks across a college campus naked, as everyone chases him for disguising himself as a phony professor.
- Frequently the story arcs of Invincea and the Warriors from Hell culminate in some form of this as Invincea or her friends wind up drawing the attention of several groups of enemies.
Western Animation
- The Family Guy episode "I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar"note had Cleveland take Peter to The Million Man March, as Cleveland believes that being a man means learning respect and love for his own gender. Peter (who has been warped by feminism) believes that if men were more caring to women, society would be a better place and decides to get on the mike and let it be known. However, because Peter is a white guy angrily accusing all the men in the audience for causing society's ills and the fact that the audience consists of militant black men, this leads to this trope and Mistaken for Racist in the form of an overhead shot of Peter getting chased by everyone at the Million Man March.
- House of Mouse: In "House of Turkey" Mr. Turkey arrives at the club as a special guest for Thanksgiving, however, many guests (especially hunters and carnivores) want to eat him and chase him throughout the club, Mickey and his friends try to calm the situation by claiming that Mr. Turkey is a guest and not food, but everything goes wrong when the guests (as I said before, carnivores and hunters) try to eat their respective victims, so Mr. Turkey decides to roll the dice to avoid that they continue chasing him: dressing Mickey Mouse as a turkey and letting them chase him, mistaking him for a turkey, while Mr. Turkey dresses up as Mickey Mouse to get rid of his pursuers.
- Happens in the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "The Ticket Master". When everyone realizes that Twilight Sparkle has tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala, they all chase her trying to ask her to take them with her, complete with a Suspiciously Similar Song version of "Yakety Sax".
- Similarly, many chase scenes in Sonic Boom use a variation on Yakety Sax for the background music.
- Happens on The Simpsons a couple times, most of which involve Homer and/or Bart.
- "Bart vs. Australia," when everyone in the family is being chased by an array of living Australian stereotypes and characters — including a character from the movie Mad Max — because Bart refuses to get kicked in the butt as part of his punishment for prank-calling an Australian boy.
- "Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner," when all the restaurateurs and chefs of Springfield chase after Homer after Lisa saves him from eating a dangerous eclair.
- "Saddlesore Galactica," where jockey-sized trolls chase after Homer after Homer breaks his promise to throw the horse race so they can win.
- "Missionary Impossible," where PBS characters chase after Homer after he tricks them into thinking he's pledging $10,000 to the network. Highlights include threats from Fred Rogers and some of the Sesame Street Muppets, and the Teletubbies joining in by firing lasers from their antenna.
- Happens to the titular heroes in Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo, from three sources. Crazed Japanese schoolgirls were pursuing Beast Boy, Cyborg was hounded by sushi chefs, and Robin was chased by...the local authorities. Eventually, there was a mass convergence.
- The Rocko's Modern Life episode "Closet Clown" ends with Rocko stating he likes rainbows, followed by all his friends and neighbors getting irrationally angry and chasing him out of town.
- We Bare Bears: In "Vacation", after Nom Nom blows his cover at the airport while trying to catch a flight to a spa resort, he and Grizz end up chased by a horde of Nom Nom's crazy fans.
- Heckle and Jeckle are chased by the entire city at the end of "Sappy New Year" after the firecrackers and assorted explosives they threw out (as their New Year resolution) accidentally get lit and rolls down the street.
- What If?: In "What If… Howard the Duck Gets Hitched?", Howard and Darcy have a baby (in the form of an egg) and find themselves getting pursued by SHIELD, the Frost Giants, Zeus and his Olympian soldiers, Malekith and his Dark Elves, Kaecillius and his zealots, the Black Order, the Grandmaster and even Thanos himself over the egg who want to steal or use it for various reasons. The whole climax of the episode itself hilariously sums this up.
