Sneeze of Doom

""Mom, I sneezed and blew my head off!""

- Calvin, Calvin and Hobbes

The sneeze is one of the most disastrous and powerful forces in the universe, up there with gravitation, electro-magnetism, the strong and the weak nuclear forces, the color force, Love, Friendship, Music, and Hot-Blooded. It always happens at the most unfortunate moments, usually when everything is going so well. Have you managed to sneak into the Big Bad's fortress and you're now listening as he explains his evil plan? Atchoo! All the guards are after you now. Have you created a very convincing Totem Pole Trench and fooled everyone? Atchoo! You're in a world of trouble now, matey.

The Sneeze of Doom rarely comes without warning - usually the unlucky sneezer will be shown inhaling air a few seconds before it happens. A Dead Horse Trope would be Anti-Sneeze Finger, which is holding one's finger under one's nose to "stop it." ...it might, for a few seconds. Still, it's not much help—once this starts, a Sneeze of Doom cannot be stopped by any means known to man.

And that's not counting the rare cases where a character, for whatever reason, has the kind of sneezes that should come with their own hurricane warnings.

Often caused by an allergy to the rarest substance known to man to which you will be exposed only at such a time, or something completely uncanny tickling your nostrils. Much like any sneeze, this is typically followed by another character saying "Bless you!" or "Gesundheit!"

See Pepper Sneeze. Sometimes the reason the sneeze is dangerous is because of Involuntary Transformation or Malfunction Malady. Not related to Incurable Cough of Death.

May be connected to Plot Allergy.

Anime and Manga

 * The evening that Akane and Ranma are watching the house together alone is the evening when Ranma is cursed to hug anyone who sneezes, and Akane comes down with a cold. And wouldn't you know it, it's also the day she is given her first Hyperspace Mallet.
 * When Ranma himself comes down with a fever, he catches it so badly he can instantly boil any water that comes in contact with his skin. Later on, the fever mutates into a head cold, and his sneezes freeze the humidity in the air into solid ice chunks.
 * In the Dragon Ball manga, one sneeze is enough to transform sweet, innocent and black-haired Lunch into her blonde, violent and gun-wielding alter-ego, dubbed "Kushami" by fans. Fortunately, this is reversed with another sneeze. This one is played for laughs, as Master Roshi and his students are scared as hell of "Kushami" and take cover when Lunch looks like she's about to sneeze. This is subverted at one point when what looks to be a coming sneeze turns out to be a yawn.
 * Invoked deliberately on occasion by other characters, whenever they require help against terrorists or need someone to clear a path to the tournament front seats.
 * Being a specialist in wind-magic, Negi Springfield's sneezes have a lot of punch... and exquisite taste. Anytime he sneezes, it will, at the very least, blow up several skirts - and at most, shred clothes, underwear or both.
 * Word of God says that if he were to sneeze after going through all of the training he's been through so far and learning Dark Magic, he'd "destroy half of the world's women's clothing".
 * Turns out, he doesn't... but he goes Raiten Taisou. Yes, with a sneeze.
 * Played with in Kamichu!. When the Mikos attempt a ritual to figure out Yurie's power, she sneezes strongly enough to knock them over.
 * To LOVE-Ru has Ren/Run, who changes into a girl whenever he sneezes.
 * Iris's Axew in Pokémon does this a lot while trying to use Dragon Rage, knocking out everyone within 10 feet.
 * In My Neighbor Totoro, Mei climbs on the eponymous troll's stomach while he's sleeping. When she rubs his nose affectionately, it triggers a sneeze powerful enough to throw her to the wall near his feet.
 * In an episode of Keroro Gunsou, the Keronians play golf on a miniaturised golf course set up on Natsumi's body, leaving her temporarily paralysed from the neck down but receiving a great massage in the process. Hilarity Ensues when one of them hits a golf ball up her nose.

Attractions

 * In Captain EO, a show that played at the Disney theme parks (and currently plays in some of them), while the crew is searching for the Supreme Leader, Hooter sneezes, which puts them at risk of getting caught, but luckily, they didn't.

Comic Books

 * Variation from the Silver Age of comics: Superboy's sneezes were so powerful that he had to travel to a dead universe to actually let them loose, or they'd demolish galaxies. Keep in mind, the current Superboy in The DCU is an insane version of this one who isn't affected by kryptonite.
 * Tintin in Land of Black Gold on two occasions sneezes loudly while trying to hide from baddies. The first sneeze comes when he is hiding behind the storage tanks, but Snowy acts as a Convenient Decoy Dog. The second sneeze is after Dr. Müller accidentally knocks over a box of sneezing powder, which leads to a sneeze-filled Fight Scene.
 * Haddock does this in Tintin in Tibet, which ends up destroying Tharkey's overcrowded tent.

Fan Works

 * In Magneto's Cold an X-Men fanfic, Magneto has a cold -- and goes to a corner store. The results call the X-Men in... and a sneeze promptly wrecks their jet, too.

Films -- Animated

 * In Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, during the Silly Song segment, Dopey and Sneezy did a Totem Pole Trench to dance with Snow White, but at one point, Sneezy starts at it (the dwarves duck and cover), and when everyone thought it was over. ACHOOO! And Dopey goes flying.
 * Actually, Sneezy is this trope (and so is his voice actor, Billy Gilbert, who was known in comedy movies for his exaggerated sneezes).
 * In Yellow Submarine, while the Beatles and Jeremy are in the Sea of Giant Heads, John lets out a big sneeze. This causes all the Heads in response to sneeze, which blows everyone into the Sea of Holes.
 * In The Sword in the Stone, Merlin turns himself into a virus and enters the dragon body of Mad Madame Mim, making her sick with the made-up disease malignalitaloptereosis. When Merlin mentions the final symptom, sneezing, she emits fire from a monstrous sneeze that forces Arthur and Archimedes to duck and cover.
 * In Fun and Fancy Free, during the "Bongo" segment, Bongo sneezes while on his unicycle. The sneeze causes him to fly backwards to the edge of a cliff, and he almost falls to his doom.
 * Also, in the "Mickey and the Beanstalk" segment, Mickey sneezes twice. The first time is when he gets peppered by Willie while he's in the sandwich; the second time is while he's in Willie's pocket trying to get the key (this sneeze was caused by a box of "snuff" that was in the pocket as well.
 * In Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, Rabbit tries to cover up Pooh's rear end while he's stuck in his front door by first trying to make it into a hunting trophy, but he messed up the smile due to Pooh's giggling since the paintbrush was tickling him. Rabbit then tried to cover up the sloppy smile by placing a shelf on Pooh's legs and putting a lot of decorative items on it. However, just as he finished, Pooh was smelling some flowers that Roo gave him, which caused him to sneeze causing all of Rabbit's hard work to get destroyed.
 * Pooh Bear also gets one in Springtime With Roo. But first he sings about it.
 * In Disney's version of Alice in Wonderland, while Alice is a giant and stuck in the White Rabbit's house, Dodo sends Bill down the chimeny to get her out. Of course, this causes a ton of ashes to come out of the fireplace resulting in Alice sneezing, which ejects Bill out of the house.
 * Peter Pan: Return To Neverland has a scene where Tinkerbell covers Jane in fairy dust. The resulting sneeze is enough to propel Tink several meters, with her ricocheting off everything.

Films -- Live-Action

 * In the Thunderbirds film, Fermat gives them away by sneezing, but the children escape to the Thunderbird launch bays.
 * Seemingly subverted at first, as Brains, one of The Hood's prisoners, manages to cover for him. Then Fermat mentions his allergies, so you know another one's coming...
 * This trope is extremely old, appearing in the silent 1927 film The General.
 * In the first Mission: Impossible remake movie, everything is going smoothly, too smoothly. Right on cue, the character acting as support has his allergies messed with by nature.
 * In The Matrix, the Gang is given away by Cypher while descending the wetwall to escape the agents. (May be a lampshade though as he intended to give them away.)
 * Well, technically, this was a cough of doom, not a sneeze of doom.
 * Done with a fly landing on Bob Hope's face in Road to Morocco.
 * In the Hancock, the super heroine explains the big hole in the wall of her house as one sneeze from Hancock.
 * In Annie Hall, Alvy and Annie are offered cocaine by friends of theirs. Alvy is reluctant to do so, and as the guy is explaining that the stuff is $2000 an ounce, Alvy lets out a big sneeze that sends the stuff flying everywhere. Reportedly a Throw It In that is one of the film's Crowning Moments of Funny
 * Averted in Face Off. Archer is told early on to be careful with the voice modification chip in his larynx as even a sneeze could dislodge it, but it never happens.
 * Amusingly averted in Winter's Bone, thanks to a possible Throw It In: During the hunting trip, Sonny sneezes at the exact moment Ree is telling them to keep quiet. This proves to have no detrimental effect on the trip whatsoever.

Literature

 * In The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer the sheriff sneezes while sneaking up on Injun Joe, alerting him, showing this trope to be Older Than Radio.
 * In The Emerald City of Oz the Shaggy Man sneezes in the land of Miss Cuttenclip and her paper dolls, causing mass havoc.
 * In Jurassic Park (the novel), Lex's coughing causes a second T-Rex chase at the river.
 * In Ken Follet's World Without End a sneeze is the first sign of the plague. To some degree Truth in Television, just turned up to 11 - it's used completely ruthlessly; every character mentioned as sneezing develops the plague and they nearly all die of it.
 * The children's book Because a Little Bug Went Ka-Choo!. Chaos theory for kids.
 * The Goosebumps 2000 book Be Afraid: Be Very Afraid! features this. When Connor and his friends are hiding in a haystack from monsters, the three are quickly swarmed by bugs, seemingly intent on forcing them out of their hiding place. When one crawls up Connor's nose, he sneezes and gives them away.
 * This is the whole premise of A Malady Of Magicks. The wizard Ebenezum becomes violently allergic to magic in all its forms, and being a great wizard produces great wizardly sneezes.
 * The book Magic by the Lake actually acknowledges this trope when the children are hiding from pirates. "Katharine, like so many heroines in other stories, chose this time to sneeze".
 * One of Andy Griffiths' short stories has Andy and Danny competing to see who can fit the most marshmallows in their mouth. They are tied at 20 when Andy's crush Lisa declares (based on a palm reading book Andy had given her for her birthday) that Andy is her soul mate. Andy is suddenly showered with glitter and called on to kiss Lisa. Unfortunately, the glitter gets up his nose, and he sneezes, spraying marshmallows all over the floor, and seemingly ruining his chances with Lisa (until she challenges him to the same competition).
 * Used once in Morris Gleitzman's Teacher's Pet, (surprising, as the main character is allergic to cats). Ginger climbs a tree to escape from what she thinks is a savage dog (it isn't) but ends up with her nose too close to a fig flower. The resulting sneeze causes her to fall off the branch landing flat on her back.
 * Inverted in Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets. Harry and Ron are sneaking out of bed, and Ron stubs his toe near Professor Snape. Snape happens to sneeze as Ron swears in pain, so they avoid detection.
 * A literal instance, for the archaic meaning of "doom" (i.e. fate), comes from Xenophon's Anabasis. After winning the Battle of Cunaxa but ultimately losing because Cyrus the Younger up and got himself killed, and then losing their leadership to a Persian trap, the army of 10,000 Greek mercenaries decides to hold a meeting about what to do. Everyone's sure that they're screwed, but during a quiet moment, somebody sneezes. Loudly. Everyone drops to the ground in supplication (the Greeks considered a sneeze to be a sign from the gods). Then they get up, elect ten new officers, and decide to start marching their way back to Greece. (They make it, in case you were wondering.)

Live-Action TV

 * In the Charmed episode "Ms. Hellfire", Phoebe's sneeze gives them away.
 * And in a later episode, Paige begins to orb every time she sneezes after catching a cold.
 * Subverted on Even Stevens. After Ren ruins one school picture, she nearly sneezes during her retake photo, but this time the finger under the nose works.
 * Subverted in Doctor Who, when Vicki does indeed sneeze at the wrong moment—but it turns out not to matter, as nobody can see or hear them anyway.
 * Played straight in "Delta and the Bannerman" at the end of the first episode.
 * In Smallville, Clark catches a cold and discovers his super-breath power, when he sneezes the barn door down the road.
 * In the old TV series Rentaghost, one of the ghosts for hire had the power to teleport when she wrinkled her nose. Consequently, there was a Running Gag was that she vanished elsewhere any time she sneezed...
 * Used on Mystery Science Theater 3000: when Frank was having difficulty sneezing into his "Nothing to sneeze at" tissue, Dr. F gives him fresh pepper. The resulting sneezing fit is "in Sen Surround," causing the screen to shake and debris to fall from the ceiling.
 * Surprisingly averted in Stargate SG-1 for several seasons while Daniel's allergies were a major reoccurring theme.
 * Mr. Conklin's sneezes in Our Miss Brooks, also from the radio comedy series.
 * The Benny Hill Show: Benny takes one pinch of snuff and spends the rest of the sketch sneezing women's clothes off, sneezing down fences, etc. Oh, and it was a end sketch, and we know what that means...
 * In one episode of Under the Umbrella Tree, Holly and her friends were working on a project, which was making a totem pole based on themselves. During the process, Gloria held Iggy on her shoulders while Holly sketched them. Unfortunately, Gloria sneezed causing the two of them to fall.
 * This happened in a couple episodes of I Love Lucy. In one episode, Lucy sneezed while she and the other main three were in a cabin. They think that the sneeze will cause an avalanche, but it doesn't. Lucy goes outside to check: when she comes back inside she slams the door, which does cause an avalanche.
 * In another episode, Ricky almost sneezed, which would have ended up disorganizing papers that Lucy was putting together; his sneezed was stopped, but then Lucy ended up sneezing.
 * In Lois and Clark Lois and Dr. Hamilton are hiding in a closet from the cloned gangsters he created. Bonnie Parker's perfume sets off Hamilton's allergies and he gives them away.
 * One episode of The Little Rascals has a mule that chases you if you sneeze and will stop once it hears a sound of an alarm clock.
 * When the lads were all ill on The Young Ones, Neil's gale-force sneezes knocked over furniture and other characters, accompanied by disgusting sticky blasts of green snot.

Newspaper Comics

 * A recurring gag in Garfield.
 * This U.S. Acres strip has what Peter Paldrige called "the biggest sneeze to ever take place in comic history".

Theatre

 * At the very end of Guys and Dolls, Nathan, all set to marry Adelaide, loudly demonstrates that there's more than one way a person can develop a cold.
 * In The Matchmaker (and Hello, Dolly!), Mrs. Levi is able to reassure Vandergelder that there isn't a man hiding in the closet of the hat shop, despite Minnie seeing one there. But when a tremendous sneeze comes from inside the closet, she has to bow to the inevitable and admit that there is one.

Videogames
"A warm, gentle breeze causes a tickle on your face, but as you go to brush it off, you find you cannot move your arms. Looking at your skin, you realize that it has turned to a brittle, green glass. Standing perfectly still, you breathe in shallow gulps of air, knowing that moving would cause your skin to shatter into thousands of pieces. The tickle on your face worsens, and you know that you are about to sneeze. As your skin shatters, you wake up sweating."
 * In the first level of Metal Gear Solid 2, if you stay out in the rain too long before finding your way inside (or, once inside, you hang around in a cloud of fire extinguisher dust or flour), you'll catch a cold and will sneeze at the worst possible times. Right near the end, when you're naked inside a specially cooled room, you can also catch a cold - but, to add some variation, it's a hacking cough.
 * This was actually parodied in a trailer for the game, where Snake has the misfortune of sneezing while sneaking behind several dozen soldiers. "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" ...
 * Hell, in the first game, Snake gets a cold from the guard after his time in the Maximum Fun Chamber, and any sneezes will instantly alert the guards (good thing we have the box). For funny bonus points, even his voice changes to a very miserable-sounding, stuffed up sniffly tone until you get the cold medicine.
 * Dante's sneeze in the Mission 2 cinematic of Devil May Cry 3 brings down the entire front of his shop. Whether it was a gale force sneeze or a normal one that was just too much for the fragilized structure to take is anyone's guess.
 * In the second Ratchet and Clank game, Angela sneezes while sneaking around the Thugs-4-Less ship, getting herself captured and necessitating a rescue mission (she also attempts to pass her sneeze off as a cat, but this doesn't work, even if she does bear a resemblance to one).
 * In Final Fantasy VI, the hideous pink puff Chupon (Typhon in the new translations,) Brachosaurs, and the Great Malboros have a skill named "Snort," an unblockable sneeze attack which will instantly eject a character from the battlefield regardless of HP or defenses. Although it can be useful at times (a character that has been Snorted away is still, technically, alive, so you'll only be returned to the world map if the other characters are killed) the enemies tend to use it on your most powerful character.
 * Viki from Suikoden is a powerful teleportess (a very rare skill in the Suikoden world) but an extremely clumsy one. She has successfully teleported herself across time and space by the simple act of sneezing. On one memorable occasion she managed to teleport in another version of herself from the past (or future, weâ€™re not really sure). People who know her tend to run the moment her nose twitches.
 * In The Last Blade 2, Juzoh has a special attack in which he sneezes. Not only does it knock his opponent over, it deals damage. Yes, you could be defeated by getting sneezed on.
 * Psychonauts: NPCs sneeze their brains out.
 * While Jak and Daxter are eavesdropping on a conversation between Erol and Baron Praxis in the second game, Daxter sneezes.
 * Although it is incredibly rare, happening once every few games, it is possible for either Toe Jam or Earl from the game of the same name to sneeze. It may be harmless in some cases, but if there is a sleeping enemy on screen, or if the player is sneaking up on Santa Claus, all of your sneaking goes to waste.
 * On a Tiny Toon Adventures game on the Sega Genesis called Buster's Hidden Treasure, one of Buster's three helpers is Sneezer. In some levels in the game, Buster uses him to blow away all the enemies on the screen using his extreme sneeze.
 * At one point in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Maya sneezes and sets off Lotta's camera, wasting another roll of film.
 * In Justice For All, Bat was injured by a lion sneezing while his head was in its mouth.
 * At one point in the Tsuta Ruins in Okami, Issun sneezes, causing the walkway you're currently on to start crumbling away.
 * In American McGee's Alice the Dutchess sneezes till her head explodes.
 * The ending of Cave Story shows Sue and Itoh returned to their human form. Unfortunately, their ill-timed sneezes turn them back into Mimiga shapes.
 * In The Elder Scrolls Four, if the player contracts Porphyric Hemophilia and begins to turn into a vampire, one of the horrifying dreams they experience is as follows:


 * In Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, Phoenix Wright uses this as a normal attack.

Webcomics

 * While it isn't quite the sneeze itself, the one Ellen lets loose in this El Goonish Shive strip ends up having hilarious repercussions.
 * The previous night, Nanase tries to wake up Ellen by rubbing her nose with her fairy tail. The resulting sneeze is off-panel, but was apparently messy enough for Nanase to need a bath in the sink.
 * In this Wapsi Square, Monica sneezes her bra off (without destroying her shirt, no less).
 * Chloe in Eerie Cuties unleashes one that covers the whole school in succubus pheromones.
 * In Slightly Damned, Kieri (AKA "Snowy" to those who can't pronounce her name) turns into a snow bunny whenever she sneezes.

Western Animation
"Sokka: You just sneezed... and flew ten feet in the air. Aang: Really? It felt higher that that."
 * In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Aang has been shown (involuntarily?) airbending when he sneezes.

"(Dragon starts to sneeze) Sam: (trying dragon from sneezing) No, no! Don't sneeze, ya stupid dragon! Or you'll blow us to the moon!! (Dragon sneezes anyway and the tower, with Sam and the dragon in it, shoots into the sky like a rocket) Sam: Dragons is so stupid..."
 * Subverted in the Teen Titans episode "Apprentice: Part 1". Cyborg is trying to delicately defuse a bomb when Starfire starts to sneeze, then Raven makes a force field around Starfire's head, making the sneeze harmless.
 * Sort of harmless anyway...since Starfire's sneezes in this case tend to be explosive.
 * Doubly subverted when Starfire happens to be allergic to a rare mineral the bomb is made out of and is used to find its location.
 * Yeah.. Completely harmless.. Just leaving Starfire herself to have frizzled hair as a result of her sneeze being entrapped and forced back at her...
 * Played straight in episode "Revved Up": Raven sneezes while she and Starfire are on a bus full of two bit villains, and Starfire's alien version of "Bless you" gets them found out.
 * Avoided in that the two have no trouble taking over the bus thereafter.
 * Sneezer in Tiny Toon Adventures; a cute little toddler mouse who's sneezes produce hurricane-force winds. "Ah-TOOOO!"
 * In the Bugs Bunny cartoon Frigid Hare, Bugs and an Eskimo are stuck in an ice ledge that breaks with every noise they make. At one point the Eskimo starts to sneeze, and Bugs stifles it just in time... but then sneezes himself, sending the ledge completely vertical and on the brink of plummeting.
 * In another Bugs Bunny cartoon Knighty Knight Bugs, the Black Knight—played by Yosemite Sam—has a dragon that has a habit of sneezing fire (it caught cold for letting its fire get low), often inadvertently scorching Sam in the process. Near the end, Bugs traps them inside a tower full of explosives:


 * This is how a cold bug got around the cast in the aptly named Kim Possible episode "Sick Day".
 * A subversion occurs in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. A character hiding rather transparently in a villainess' fortress sneezes on purpose to create a diversion.
 * In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids, the sneezes of Mr Socrates, a computer who was allergic to dogs, were powerful enough to blow the team out of the lair.
 * Junko from Storm Hawks is allergic to Murk Raiders. Who just so happen to use incredibly sensitive sound detecting equipment to hunt their prey.
 * In the animated TV version of Dilbert, Loud Howard's sneezes are capable of stripping all the flesh from a person's body. The rest of the team use this to get rid of people in marketing.
 * In Monster By Mistake, Warren Patterson is accidentally cursed to transform into a monster and back whenever he sneezes. Naturally, he has really bad allergies.
 * Mid-1970s Hanna-Barbera character Great Grape Ape had such a disastrous allergy to grapes. It used to be a major plot point in early episodes, but may have been forgotten later on.
 * In the season 1 Re Boot episode The Great brain Robbery Mouse, Hack and Slash get miniturized by Megabyte ala Innerspace. But instead of ending up in Bob's body they wind up in Enzo. After a mad rush to Enzo's nose he lets out a massive sneeze, ejecting a rapidly expanding modified ABC.
 * Anne Chan falls victim to this in The Amazing Chan and The Chan Clan episode "The Greek Caper" when she, Alan, Tom and Suzie are being chased by a masked stranger in a museum and disguise themselves as statues. Alan tries to stifle it with his finger and it works...for about half a second.
 * Happens to Gina in Dennis the Menace when she and Dennis follow a pair of art thieves to their hideout.
 * In the first episode of What's New Scooby Doo, the gang solve a mystery of an ice monster terrorizing a ski resort, where Velma gets a nasty cold. Near the end of the episode, as the villain controlling the monster robot is getting away, Scooby redirects Velma to sneeze towards the mountains, causing an avalanche and catching the bad guy.
 * This was a Running Gag in the original Scooby Doo Where Are You shows, while hiding from the Monster of the Week, Shaggy/Scooby would start readying themselves to sneeze, only to be stiffled by the other, who immediately proceeds to sneeze themselves, blowing their cover.
 * There's an animated segment on Sesame Street called "One, Two, Three Dogs", which shows three dogs trying to do impressive stunts on unicycles. In one of the stunts, the three dogs are shown piled up on each other's shoulders while on one unicycle. They end up collapsing when the female dog in the middle sneezes.
 * In The Mr. Men Show, Mr. Stubborn has very powerful sneezing when he gets sick (even though he denies being sick).
 * In an episode of Futurama, Amy's allergy gives her and Nibbler's position away when they spy on the evil cats' sinister plan.
 * In an early episode, Leela is exposed as a human (while impersonating a robot on Chapek IX) when she sneezes in response to a kicked up cloud of dust.
 * In the 101 Dalmatians: The Series episode, "Home Is Where the Bark Is", Lucky, Cadpig and Rolly make many attempts to escape from their old house (which they are trapped inside). In one of these attempts, they form a Human Ladder to get out through the chimeny. However, the second after their totem was formed, Lucky (at the top) loosened some soot, which got into Rolly's nose, and his sneeze caused the totem to collapse.
 * In another episode, "Goose Pimples", while Pug and Spot are hiding from Lock Jaw, Pug mentions this trope to Spot and tells her not to do it, but he ends up doing it.
 * Goofy's Classic Disney Short episode "The Big Wash" shows the Dolores the elephant sneezes from soap proves to be the problem for Goofy trying to wash her.
 * Odie does this in Garfield's Halloween Adventure while he and Garfield are hiding in a cabinet from some pirate ghosts. The sneeze is not only loud enough to attract the ghosts' attention, but it's powerful enough to blow the cabinet doors right open. With sheepish grins, Garfield and Odie close the doors again, and Garfield says, "Maybe they didn't see us..." Cue the Scare Chord as the pirate ghosts come through the cabinet!
 * On an episode of Cow and Chicken, the Red Guy sprinkles pepper in Cow's nostril so that she would sneeze out a fly that she's holding captive in her mouth. Cow tried as hard as she could to hold in her sneeze, but she failed.
 * In the Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi episode, "The Ride Stuff", Ami and Yumi try to sneak Kaz onto a ride that he's too short to ride with Yumi standing on top of Kaz disguised as a tall British lady. Just as they were walking onto the ride, Kaz sneezed because he was allergic to the fabric of the disguise, but fortunately, the guy working at the ride didn't act at all suspicious about it; he just said, "Bless you, tall British lady's knees!"
 * On an episode of Muppet Babies, while the gang is using their imagination, Gonzo magically makes a rainbow bridge across two mountains and claims it to be "his nose". Unfortunately, as the other babies were walking across it, Gonzo let out a sneeze, and the sneeze caused the whole bridge to disappear causing everyone to fall to their doom.
 * The Dastardly & Muttley episode "Stop That Pigeon" (which was the show's original working name) climaxed with a missile Klunk makes that tracks down and explodes upon anyone who sneezes. The Squadron fires a pepper shell at Yankee Doodle Pigeon who sneezes but outwits the missile by hiding in his satchel. Muttley fires another pepper shell but it hits Dastardly. Klunk holds Dastardly's nose, Zilly holds Klunk's nose, and Muttley holds Zilly's nose, but there's nobody to hold Muttley's nose. He sneezes and the Squadron is on the receiving end of the exploding missile.
 * My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic: At the beginning of the episode, "Owl's Well That Ends Well," Spike dusts off a book Twilight sent for him to get. The dust caused him to sneeze out fire, which ended up burning and desintegrating the pages.
 * In "It's About Time", Spike subjects Twilight to Tickle Torture with her quill while she's trying to stand still for the next several days in the hopes that she won't cause the disaster her future self tried to warn her about. After he tickles her nose, she sneezes, with the result that her horn lights up and her telekinesis activates and slams him into a wall. Spike in turn accidentally blows fire in her direction, giving her a mane-cut that resembles Future Twilight.
 * There's an episode of the G1 My Little Pony series where Megan and some ponies are sneaking through a castle. Gusty sneezed a few times, which caused numerous problems for the group such as their torch blowing out and of course, getting caught.
 * Both Inspector Gadget and his kid Expy Gadget Boy's gadgets have a tendency to pop out and cause mischief when they sneeze. Not that their gadgets don't normally act up anyway.