With Catlike Tread



""I will have to use stealth instead" said L and jumped in the broken window screaming."

- Light and Dark The Adventures of Dark Yagami

When a potentially deadly and effective strategy is ruined (or intentionally should be but comically isn't) by the conspicuous way it is acted upon. Usually by a Battle Cry, an Attack Call, a Pre Ass Kicking One Liner or something similar. Needless to say, characters who carry out this trope frequently cross into Too Dumb to Live territory, or at the very least aren't the brightest bulbs in the chandelier.

The calling card of Highly Visible Ninja. Compare So Much for Stealth, when some small indication blows one's cover, and Leeroy Jenkins, when one idiot ruins the careful plans of the rest of the party. Particularly spectacular versions of this trope may involve bursting through a nearby window or wall.

Trope Namer is a song from The Pirates of Penzance, which is all about Lampshading this trope.

Anime and Manga

 * Countless times in Slayers, when someone wastes a perfectly good spell by shouting something to the effect of "You forgot about me!".
 * In Dragonball, this trope preserves Son Goku's status as The Hero. His much weaker best friend Krillin has a signature attack, the Kienzan, that can cut through absolutely anything, including the most powerful enemies...so long as it actually hits them. This should mean that Krillin can take out anybody in the series (well, almost anybody), with Goku needing to do no more than provide a distraction. The problem is, Krillin feels compelled, even when trying to launch an ambush (the only way he has much chance of hitting the bad guys who are invariably much stronger and faster than him), to scream "KIENZAN!" at the top of his lungs. Thus, he never accomplishes more than slicing off an alien's tail, allowing Goku to be The Hero.
 * One Piece hero Monkey D Luffy is the epitome of this trope. Subtle is not in his vocabulary so when his crew suggests something like sneaking around, Luffy's go-to action is "Scream at the top of your lungs and punch the shit out of anyone standing in your way".
 * During Ace's cover story in One Piece, when trying to infiltrate The Marine G2 base, he winds up blowing his cover by punching out a Marine who talked smack about Whitebeard.
 * And then there's.
 * Perhaps the earliest example is Luffy and Usopp eavesdropping on Kuro and Django plotting to kill Kaya. Luffy's first reaction is to jump up into plain sight and yell "HEY YOU JERKS, DON'T KILL KAYA!"
 * Fate's pretty little skull in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha would have been sporting a nice, big fracture had Nanoha not screamed "Take this!" when attempting to bash Fate's head in from above during their final battle in the first season. More silent attempts by others have been more successful, and Nanoha herself gets better at it once she's not nine years old anymore.
 * Gundam Seed has a sneak attack from behind by a suit that can turn invisible. And then the pilot not only yells, but more importantly turns off its stealth and (accidentally) jumps onto its target's sword. Poor not only dies, but crosses into Too Dumb to Live territory with this stunt.
 * During the finale of Kirby of the Stars, the main characters are discussing how they're going to attack the Big Bad's fortress before deciding on a sneak attack. King Dedede, who had not minutes before pulled a Heel Face Turn, calls up said Big Bad on his cell phone and smugly announces that they're about to pull a sneak attack and there's nothing he can do about it. Cue the baddies.
 * Black Star, of Soul Eater, would be the greatest ninja ever known if he could prevent himself from screaming at his potential targets as he approaches and/or proclaiming his awesomeness mid-fight.
 * Demonstrated beautifully in his debut which opens with Black Star calmly stating some assassination strategies, immediately followed by him leaping right in front of his targets and shouting "I am here to assassinate you!".
 * The protagonists of Psyren at one time need to stealthily infiltrate a top secret installation. What course of action do they take? Blast through the ceiling.

Comic Book

 * In Flight 714, Spalding has all the passengers of the hijacked flight at gunpoint except Tintin, who is sneaking up behind him. Carreidas takes notice of this, and calls on Tintin to surprise Spalding and take his gun, causing Spalding to turn around just in time to prevent this from happening.
 * In one issue of The Punisher a bad guy loudly announced his intention to attack Frank from behind. Frank, of course, lampshaded it and blew his brains out. At once.

Fanfic

 * Light and Dark The Adventures of Dark Yagami has one of the most amusing examples, quoted above, when L goes in to capture Mikami.
 * A Yu Yu Hakusho fic mentioned how mice are loud, and thus Hiei's stealth was more comparable to a fish.

Film
"Block Overlord: Let me guess: Life. [draws gun] Yaaaaahh!!
 * Lampshaded by Night At the Museum 2. General Custer's quite the Leeroy Jenkins and doesn't understand why charging into battle while shouting "ATTACK!" might be counterproductive.
 * Inverted in Star Trek 3--the Enterprise is audibly counting down the time to self-destruct, but the Klingon mooks don't know what it means (they may not even understand English).
 * In Star Wars Episode III, Obi-Wan Kenobi has to kill General Grievous. He manages to sneak up behind him unnoticed, and of course he cuts his head off, right? Wrong, he says "Hello there", drawing the attention of an army of droids and Grievous himself. Might tie into the Jedi concept of a fair fight where such an act would be seen as dishonorable, and might also account for why they have been (repeatedly) exterminated by various Sith controlled organizations and empires, etc..
 * In Repo the Genetic Opera, Graverobber is trying to silently rob graves - which would've gone really well if he hadn't belted "And it's my job... to steal and rob... GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVES!" halfway through his song. Hilarity Ensues, possibly Crowning Moment of Funny, at least because of Shilo's face.
 * In Judge Dredd, during the sentencing, the Block Overlord attempts to shoot Dredd when his back is turned only to give away his ambush with his battle cry.

Judge Dredd: [turns around and shoots] Death. Court's adjourned."


 * In Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, the thieves manage to get past the various anti-theft devices protecting a priceless jewel...until one of them lets out a gut-busting fart and triggers a noise-alarm.
 * In the sequel to Fantastic Four, they decide that the only way to get the Silver Surfer's board back from Dr. Doom is to use The Human Torch's new "powers" to combine all their abilities to allow him to fly, but also be as strong as The Thing, and be invisible so he can sneak up on Doom. It works perfectly and he gets to within 2 feet of Doom. But rather than just knock him out, he has to say "To quote a friend, It's clobbering time." thus blowing the cover and starting a drawn out battle... all while the Earth is about to be destroyed. Great priorities there.
 * In Back to The Future, the Libyans decide they need to turn their lights on just as they are approaching the mall parking lot, allowing Doc to see them coming, but subverted in that even with this it doesn't give Doc enough time to escape. Even stranger, they had their lights on when they passed Marty and Red so they chose to turn their lights off some time in between, but then turned them on at pretty much the exact time when they would have wanted to have them off.
 * In Hot Shots! Part Deux, there is a scene where Topper Harley is trying to stealthily recover a set of keys from a sleeping guard, and reaches through the window of the shack with a broom handle. He ends up knocking over a pepper shaker, smacking several other objects, jamming the broom in the guard's ear, nose, and eye, then activates a radio loudly playing the Star Spangled banner (and hastily switches it off) and then shoves the handle into a table fan that proceeds to chew up the handle like a circular saw. The guard sleeps through the whole thing, until a mouse comes along and sneezes quietly.

Literature
"...he began to skulk from tree to tree in what he imagined was a stealthy manner. It was toward the key that he skulked."
 * In Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman's The Death Gate Cycle, Hugh the Hand does this deliberately so that his assassination attempt fails. (It works anyway: taking advantage of the distraction, the person who hired him gets a Back Stab in on the mark.)
 * During a massive battle in the Wheel of Time series, Osan'gar/Aginor gets the idea to sneak up on Rand and Nynaeve and grab the power-amplifying Choedan Kal access keys away from them. Unfortunately, while Osan'gar can hold his own in a one-on-one fight, he is a Mad Scientist who has never been anywhere near a real battlefield. Predictability (and death by friendly fire) ensues.

"Agrus Kos: Oops.
 * In The Silent Blade of the Drizzt novels the legendarily skilled assassin Entreri arranges an even duel between him and Drizzt in an attempt to finally see which one of them is a better fighter. After he loses he charges Drizzt from behind, shouting, and only survives because one of his allies protected him. Drizzt later concluded that he was trying to die.
 * A large number of characters in James Fenimore Cooper's novels announce their presence by stepping on dry twigs. Mark Twain roundly mocked this, and other features of Cooper's work, in his critical essay Fenimore Coopers Literary Offences.
 * A variation appears in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes; when their investigation of Dr. Jekyll takes Holmes and Watson to an Edinburgh brothel to interview the madam, Dr. Watson -- as a respectable gentleman -- is a bit self-conscious and tries to approach the location in as stealthy and unnoticed a fashion as possible. However, his attempt at stealth is so laughably ostentatious that Holmes, amused, tells him he might as well just walk in there normally, since anyone who might recognize Watson would also have to explain his own presence at the brothel, and Holmes and Watson at least have a legitimate reason to be there.
 * In the Magic the Gathering novel Ravnica, Agrus Kos tries to throw a spear into a half-demon's back while it is distracted. Unfortunately, he shouts as he throws it, causing the half-demon to turn around in time to block it.

Bell Borca: Yeah, next time don't yell first."


 * Extremely played straight in The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. Wrong Genre Savvy Malicia lives her life trying to apply storybook logic to real life. So in one scene when she's trying to be stealthy, the book describes her thought process of how if you are going to be stealthy, you ought to make it very obvious how stealthy you're being so anyone who sees you knows you're being stealthy and shouldn't notice you. So she "sneaks" around in cartoonishly exaggerated and highly obvious fashion, completely oblivious to the bemused stares she's attracting.
 * In the Warrior Cats series, there's a scene in Eclipse where RiverClan cats attempt to sneak through ThunderClan's territory. Unused to thick undergrowth, they make a lot of noise just walking through, and then they have a whispered argument about how noisy they're being.

Live Action TV
"Rob Lee (US Narrator): Here's some key phrases from the surreptitious entry heist manual: Be the breeze [clang]. As light as a feather [clang]. The foot fall of a kitten [clang]."
 * In the Doctor Who serial "Time and the Rani", a monster spends an episode and a half stalking the heroes, then finally gets the drop on them, pops up from behind a rock a foot away, and roars triumphantly for ten seconds.
 * The "silent countdown" mode for the Self Destruct Mechanism in the various Star Trek series seems to apply here. While the application seems obvious enough (by having a self-destruct that won't alert the enemies as it counts down), this is ruined by the fact that it has a ship-wide alert declaring that it's been activated. Strangely, in at least one episode of Star Trek Voyager, the silent countdown of the auto-destruct apparently worked perfectly, including no announcement over the ship's comm system to alert the bad guys--or the rest of the crew.
 * In Star Trek Enterprise the Xindi are constructing a massive super-weapon capable of destroying Earth, all this before Humans even knew they existed. Instead of building the thing and then launching it wiping humanity out before they knew what hit them, they send a prototype which informs humanity of their existence and opens them to attack.
 * From the obscure '90s Puppet sitcom Greg the Bunny, Tardy the Turtle: "I am singing the quiet song, the quiet song, the quiet song..."
 * Rose in Power Rangers Operation Overdrive, while invisible, decides to yell out while she's attacking. Invisibility attacks do not work like that.
 * Subverted in Monty Python's Flying Circus in one sketch where a married couple is in bed and the wife is being courted by a succession of paramours who sneak into the bedroom (including a Mexican rhythm combo, who actually ask the husband where his wife is). Several times the husband wakes up, asking if his wife just heard something, and the wife assures him it was just the plumbing or a tree branch outside, excuses he always happily accepts. He eventually gets up to use the bathroom, somehow missing the roomful of people as he does so. (The "punchline", in typical Python fashion, is deliberately anticlimactic: in a cut to the bathroom, we see the husband is having an illicit tryst of his own, but is worried his wife is starting to suspect something.)
 * The Myth Busters narrator invokes it when Jamie tries to move silently through an airduct using magnets. Magnets that were clanging with the air ducts:

"Adam: (while pounding on something with a hammer) [bang bang bang] "Wait, was that a guard?" beat "No?" [bang bang bang]"
 * Then Adam: "Why, Thor, the god of thunder, is trying to enter my building!"
 * Invoked by Adam in the Escape From Alcatraz myth:


 * One of the many reasons the Babylon 5 episode "Grey 17 Is Missing" is considered one of the worst episodes of the show is that the "ultimate predator" is about as subtle as a sledgehammer in a bell factory.
 * Pixelface: After Alexia destroys Clairparker's favourite shirt, Kiki loans Clairparker one of her outfits. After Claireparker wears it in her game, she discovers it very hard to hide from zombies when your outfit literally lights up and glows in the dark.
 * Let the Blood Run Free had Matron Dorothy Conniving-Bitch, who snuck around while saying "Sneak sneak sneak sneak sneak". Subverted only by virtue of it being the least OTT thing about the show.

Newspaper Comics

 * Toward the end of the Snow Goons arc, Calvin and Hobbes sneak out of bed and go downstairs, shushing each other to keep quiet, then once they're out in the open, Calvin starts laughing loudly and yelling for the Snow Goons to die, waking his parents.

Tabletop Games

 * Warhammer 40000: The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer on how to take out an enemy scout: "Recite the Litany of Stealth to decrease your chances of being heard. However, if one looks in the back of the book, where the litanies, blessings, and prayers are, one will note the absence of a "Litany of Stealth". In other words, to kill an enemy scout without being heard, shut the warp up!
 * There is, however, the Prayer of Invisibility (which in a bit of Genre Savvy, is to be whispered), used when hiding in ambush.
 * Warhammer Fantasy gives us an Orc army that was briefly famous for their stealthy night raids until the boyz started bellowing the new battlecry "Youz can't see us!".
 * Ninja Burger gives players a bonus to attacks if they're willing to shout a sufficiently impressive Battle Cry during combat... the instruction manual notes that this is entirely antithetic to Ninjutsu, and even the game itself (where just being seen at all requires the player character to cut off a finger in dishonor), but it's what the Ninja do in movies, so that's what the game runs with.

Theater
"With cat-like tread (KER-THUMP!)
 * The Trope Namer is the eponymous parodic song from Gilbert and Sullivan 's The Pirates of Penzance. In it, the titular pirates are sneaking up on Major-General Stanley's house, while singing at the top of their lungs (It's marked fortissimo in the score and has trumpets and crashing cymbals) about how quiet and sneaky they are being, with the occasional "shush! quiet!" for good measure.

Upon our prey we steal (KER-THUMP!)

In silence dread (KER-THUMP!)

Our cautious way we feel (KER-THUMP!)

NO SOUND AT ALL (KER-THUMP!)

We never speak a word (KER-THUMP!)

A fly's foot-fall would be DISTIIINCTLY heard.... (TRUMPETS)"

"Policemen and Pirates: "He thought he heard a noise...HA HA!""
 * On top of all this, it's even a subversion -- the sleeping Major-General "thought he heard a noise," goes out to check, completely fails to notice the pirates and policemen hiding about the house, and is about to go back to bed when his daughters wake up and... well, just go see the show.

"Took the silver, took my FLLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHT!"
 * It Gets Better; for the chorus, they form a... chorus line. And in at least one production, they pull hats with brightly glittering sequins from out of nowhere. In fact, considering the music, it takes a choreographer with superhuman self-control to not turn it into a kickline. There's a particularly good example here. The fun really starts around the two minute mark.
 * And the lines quoted above are followed by the policemen accompanying them ("Tarantara, tarantara") without the pirates realizing the policemen are there. Definitely Oper(ett)a Logic there. And shortly after the end of the song, the Pirates move to hide, singing the line "Yes yes, the Major General comes". It's then repeated by the Policemen. Then it's repeated by the Major General himself, as he leaves his house. And in one YouTube video of the song, one can see a pirate actually discussing the plot with a policeman, without realizing that it was a policeman!
 * In the Broadway production, the Pirate King "accidentally" struck a cymbal in the Orchestra pit with his sword, even before the song started.
 * The King's Singers, an acapella group, once covered the Trope Namer on a G&S tribute album. They missed the point and sang very quietly. It was terribly disappointing.
 * The Aria most likely to be listed as the intended target of G&S's parodic attack is "Écoute, écoute, compagnons" from Carmen. A very loud song about how sneaky you have to be to smuggle cigarettes.
 * In Les Misérables, Jean Valjean sneaks out of the Bishop's house after stealing the silver.


 * ...and is immediately captured.

Video Games
"None shall see me, though my battlecry may give me away."
 * The Templar Stalkers in Assassin's Creed Revelations come with a Scare Chord and yell "Die Assassin!" before they try to kill you. They're really easy to counter, and that usually involves jamming their own daggers into their own mouths.
 * Los Illuminados in Resident Evil 4 would often laugh or say "I got you!" in Gratuitous Spanish when trying to sneak up behind you. Some of them actually shout "Behind you, you idiot!" in Spanish. Then again, maybe they were just too crazy to understand the benefits of a stealthy approach.
 * Somehow, The Legend of Zelda's Link can always stay unnoticed as long as he's out of sight no matter how loudly he grunts and screams.
 * Happens occasionally in online multiplayer games where the characters speak. Sneaking up on people in Gears of War gets hard when one of your teammates (here's looking at you Cole) suddenly yells "Oh YEAH baby!" A similar effect happened in Star Wars Battlefront 2, where Jedi/Sith characters would randomly say phrases, which, in Jedi to Jedi matches, could really screw up a surprise attack.
 * While in Splinter Cell multiplayer mode, enemies can hear your real-world teamspeak if you don't keep it down.
 * Performed masterfully in Metal Gear Solid, where four invisible mooks that are on the elevator with Snake, literally close enough to reach out and touch him from the moment he steps on, must sit and wait for our hero to riddle out what's going on in an absurd fashion over the radio despite the fact that all four of them have machine guns. Conforming to the mook code even further, one of the mooks announces their presence after the hero has already figured out what's going on with a hearty, "Too late, Snake. Now you die!" Of course no, no he doesn't. Even stranger in that they can't hear what he is saying over the radio, since codec communications directly stimulate the receivers they are tuned into. He's talking but they can't hear it. This is actually a moderate plot point in Metal Gear Solid 2.
 * Fallout 3 companions can complicate the stealth approach by hollering to the enemy, "Come on out and let's fight face to face!"
 * Let's not forget the Prototype Medic Armor. It's a lovely set of Power Armor that protects you from radiation and gives you morphine when you need it... and if it notices an enemy anywhere in the vicinity, roars out, "TIME TO KICK SOME ASS!" at the top of its lungs.
 * You can also sneak around (with enemies perfectly oblivious, with a perfect Sneak score and the right items) with your Pip-Boy radio blaring music, news, propaganda, or the nearest distress signal.
 * Fallout New Vegas continues this; whenever you crouch (start "sneaking"), your companions will say something to mark the occurrence. Depending on the companion and which of their lines happens to play, this can range from a whispered word of agreement, to a full sentence at normal volume, to shouting. None of it affects your stealthiness.
 * In Bio Shock, it's not always easy to see splicers slinking around the darkened corridors. They make life considerably simpler by constantly mumbling gibberish to themselves. This includes spider splicers, whose stealth is supposed to be their strong point. This is, however, probably justified by them all being quite insane.
 * Which makes the Plastered Splicers (stronger Spider Splicers looking like statues) in Fort Frolic the possibly scariest enemies in the game. Not only can they disguise themselves as statues (or just spawn right behind you), they are the only enemies attacking in absolute silence.
 * In the first two Brothers in Arms games, when ordering the placement of your squads in an ambush, the player character would bellow loudly, even if the enemy was quite close and not alerted of your presence. The third game, Hell's Highway, averts this tendency by introducing a situational mechanic that makes the player character whisper to his squadmates if the enemy is unaware.
 * When pirates raid a town in Romancing Sa Ga: Minstrel Song, their Leitmotif is blaring the entire time. Loudly. Good luck taking out That One Boss with pirates chanting ORE TACHI KAIZOKU at the top of their lungs in the background...
 * In the first Disgaea game, Flonne sneaks into Laharl's castle while she loudly provides the sound effects ("Nin nin nin!") for her own sneaking. Strangely enough, it works for the most part.
 * Mostly because the Prinny guards were out partying.
 * Turns out this trait runs in the bureau from time to time. Vulcanus does this at some point in the exact same manner.
 * Brought up by Minsc in Baldurs Gate when using stealth:

"QUIET! I'M TRYING TO SNEAK UP ON THEM!"
 * In Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, Carl and Ryder are ready to break into a war veteran's house and steal as much as possible; Carl suggests sneaking in rather than taking the place by storm. Ryder follows this up by howling "COME OUT YOU OLD BASTARD!" at the house.
 * The Thor in Starcraft II brings up this trope in one of its Stop Poking Me quotes.

""They'll never hear me coming!" *aircraft engine splutters*"
 * The Flying Machine in Warcraft III has a similar quote:

""I think a certain... finesse is called for here" *violent sounds of killing and screaming*"
 * Don't forget the Pit Lord from the expansion pack:

""It's probably because I played that stupid organ and gave away my position; it's like, 'LAAAA, I'M BEING STEALTHY!!'""
 * Can happen via Gameplay and Story Segregation in Mass Effect 2, given the existence of a stealth mode and Commander Shepard's habit of loudly exclaiming whenever he/she finds some variety of weapon or loot. The volume of these exclamations seems to be unintentional, though, as they are considerably louder than most other examples of in-game dialogue.
 * In the final portion of King's Quest V, you're sneaking through the evil wizard's castle and one of the things you can interact with is a gigantic pipe organ, which will of course end up alerting the wizard to your presence and get you force choked to death.
 * Lampshaded by Paw Dugan in his Let's Play:

"Espio: Hey, they're asleep so stay quiet and move slowly...
 * Of course, being properly stealthy doesn't necessarily stop him from finding you, anyway.
 * In the climax of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Emperor Palpatine is trying to tempt Starkiller to turn to the Dark Side when Rahm Kota breaks his bonds, screams "No!", steals Palpatine's lightsaber with the Force, and lunges at the Emperor. Palpatine looks up, momentary bewildered, before blasting Kota mid-lunge with Force Lightning, indicating that his attack could have worked if he hadn't yelled. On the plus side this does distract Palpatine long enough for Starkiller to break his bonds, so it wasn't completely pointless.
 * In League of Legends, Teemo has the ability to stealth when standing still. This is very helpful if the enemy doesn't see you turn invisible in a blatantly obvious manner. Otherwise he will stand right next to you, call in his team and you will be subjected to a large number of area effect spells and die.
 * Sonic Heroes brings us this gem:

Charmy: OK!!

Vector: Whaddya doing! Be quiet!"


 * In Team Fortress 2, inexperienced spies frequently end up dying because they talk while disguised, putting a speech balloon above their character that's their real team's color, ruining the disguise. The decloaking noise for the default invisi-watch is also pretty loud, though later upgrades to the watch either reduce or eliminate the sound. In a subversion, when disguised the only keyboard voice commands spies can use are to call for medic, and those are in the correct voice.

Web Original

 * Lampshaded in Demyx Time, with Demyx proposing that the entire Organization sneaks up on Sora and ambushes him, screaming "ATTACK!". He's laughed at, until Marluxia proposes that they all take it in turns to monologue in front of him before attacking. Xemnas commends this approach. Demyx tries to get some credibility back by suggesting that they all sidle up, before suddenly screaming "We are NOT going to attack you!" Needless to say, not a lot of progress is made.

Web Comics

 * In Order of the Stick you can shout "Sneak Attack" as you do a sneak attack because their universe is ruled by role-playing-game physics and Talking Is a Free Action.
 * Key word here is can. Dangerously Genre Savvy villain Nale proves it here (and hangs a lampshade on it in the next strip).
 * It's debatable if declaring or not makes any difference. Once a NPC delivers damage by a (declared) Stealth Attack. The damage is cancelled (between panels) when the attack is ruled off.
 * Haley has to remind Elan that singing "Move, move, move, move silently across the battlefield!" won't work.
 * "I GOT A 4!"
 * "BESIDES, I GOT A 9 THIS TIME! YOU KNOW, BECAUSE THE BOOTS ADD FIVE!"
 * Exterminatus Now brings us the Beam Sword Hurl Attack.
 * Lampshaded in this Dominic Deegan strip.
 * Not to mention Spark's "Death from above!" This gets repeatedly played with.
 * This Weregeek strip.
 * Eight Bit Theater subversions: here and here.
 * Fans; a character makes a suicide attack against a totalitarian dictator while yelling "sic semper tyrannis", which gives her enough warning to raise her shields and survive.
 * In Freefall, the security AI at Ecosystems Unlimited has No Indoor Voice and is in desperate need of a software upgrade. "Security guard: RECOGNIZED! Room 101 door: OPENED! Element of surprise: RETAINED!"
 * Also apparently Sam's race are such heavy sleepers that singing during a burglary is traditional on his home planet.
 * Turns up in Skin Deep. See second quote at the top of this page.
 * In Girl Genius, Gilgamesh Wolfenbach manages to blow his surprise attack on a guy with a machine gun assault robot by shouting at him. Turns out that the guy also had a pistol.
 * El Goonish Shive subverts this by making the angry sneak attack a distraction.
 * FALCON SNEAK! FALCON SNEAK! FAL-

Western Animation
""The Dover Boys! THEN DORA MUST BE ALONE AND UNPROTECTED!" (finds a old-style motorcar) "A runabout! I'LL STEAL IT! NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW!""
 * Variation: In The Simpsons, the Kwik-E-Mart's silent alarm says "SILENT ALARM ACTIVATED!!" when put into use.
 * There's a The Venture Brothers episode where one of The Monarch's Mooks attacks the new guy taking over, and yells "Semper Fidelis Tyrannosaurus" for those who don't know Latin.
 * He was going for the aforementioned "sic semper tyranis", and came up with the closest Latin words he could remember, "semper fidelis" (the US Marines motto) and a dinosaur.
 * Avatar: The Last Airbender had Hahn's attempt to attack Zhao. He was disguised as a soldier and could has easily snuck up and attacked him, but instead opted to take off the helmet and declare his intentions to "Admiral Chow" before charging and was immediately thrown off the ship to his death.
 * Also, during one of Aang's training sessions, Sokka yelled "SNEAK ATTACK!". This didn't work.
 * Lampshaded by Aang: "Sokka, sneak attacks don't work if you yell it out loud."
 * Sokka has a problem with this. In the second episode, he charges dramatically at Zuko, club raised and screaming at the top of his lungs... and gets kicked into a pile of snow. He keeps trying, though, but the results are the same every time.
 * The bad guys in WITCH frequently ambush the Magical Girls -- and every time, they lose surprise by pausing to cackle, show their claws, shout "It's Guardians! Get them!", etc. In a rare breach of Mook Chivalry, their archers do attack all at once; fortunately for the heroines, the archers all studied at the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy.
 * There was an episode of Mucha Lucha where Rikochet won a mariachi band for some reason, and they followed him everywhere, playing and singing. At one point he was late to school and had to sneak past an office - in an almost-subversion of the trope, he shushed them and got past. Immediately after that they burst into celebratory music, and he got caught.
 * Futurama had Bender shout, "prepare for a surprise attack!"
 * At least once in Family Guy, Peter sings a typical movie sneaking song as he sneaks into an office. There's noone around to hear, but still.
 * Freakazoid did a Shout Out to the Trope Namer while using the trope in "The Isle of Dr. Mystico."
 * A vintage Chuck Jones Looney Tunes cartoon The Dover Boys plays with this trope, as the Coward, Bully, Cad and Thief Dan Backslide sees the Dover Boys hiding under his pool table, and begins shouting his dastardly plans at the top of his lungs.

""Be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting wabbits! Hu-hu-hu-hu-hu-hu-uh!"]]|undefined"
 * Looney Tunes

"Jack Spicer: When hunting the elusive Wu, you have to be as quiet as a cat. (trips over a potted plant) OW! OW! OW! OOH THAT HURT!"
 * In the earliest Elmer Fudd cartoon, though, he is actually making an effort to speak quietly.
 * When the elephants search for the lost man-cub in The Jungle Book.
 * An episode of Batman the Animated Series had him teaming up with Harley Quinn against the Joker. As they were sneaking into his hideout, Harley is behind the Batman saying "Sneak - Sneak - Sneak". She stops when Batman turns around and glares at her.
 * Similar to the The Pirates of Penzance example above, one episode of Donkey Kong Country features Bluster Kong singing about how's going to steal the Crystal Coconut and use it to win Candy Kong's heart...while actually sneaking into Cranky's Cabin, where it's kept. He even shushes Cranky for making a noise while the old ape's dozing!
 * In Gnomeo and Juliet, Benny's idea of a costume for an 'ultimate stealth' mission involves dressing as a daisy and strapping a spray can that rattles as he moves to his back.
 * Chowder: "Mung will never hear us sneaking about over the noise of all these smashing plates!"
 * In the My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic episode "Over a Barrel", Pinkie Pie utterly ruins Rainbow Dash's attempt at stealth by getting her so irritated that she yells at Pinkie to stay quiet. This, of course, gets them found out.
 * In "The Stare Master", Sweetie Belle sings rather loudly. Normally it would be fine, except the song she's singing is supposed to be a lullaby.
 * In The Emperors New Groove, Kronk sneaks out the palace with the unconscious Kuzco in a sack, humming his own dramatic theme music as he goes. At one point he hides against a wall, holding the current note while a couple of peasants wander past. Of course, the fact that the wall is covered with enormous stone figures all pointing at him doesn't help his cause. Surprisingly, not long after recording this, Patrick Warburton was swarmed by Disney lawyers, ordering him to sign over the rights to this "improvised song".
 * In Xiaolin Showdown while Jack Spicer sneaks though the Xiaolin Temple.

"Zim: Now, fight an enemy you cannot see!
 * "O-U (The Hound Song)" from The Electric Company was an animated segment where a hound (voiced by Tom Lehrer) sung loudly about how he dare not make a sound.
 * The Big Knights: The Big Knights are not exactly stealthy. This is especially apparent when they don the hats of invisibility.
 * Invader Zim gives us the Megadoomer, a giant, heavily-armed assault vehicle equipped with its own cloaking device. Unfortunately, the stealth mode is offset by three factors; 1) It doesn't have a battery, so you need to plug it into something using a highly visible cord. 2) Each step it takes causes the Earth to shake. 3) the designers were obviously fans of Wonder Woman...

Dib: You're right there.

Zim: What?

Dib: There! Your mighty Irken cloaking device cloaks the robot, but not you.

Zim: LIES! Now, behold the Doom Cannon!

Dib: I can't. It's invisible.

Zim: But you can see me?

Dib: That's what I said.

Zim: Oh, that's STUPID!"

"Ben: SO WHAT'S THE PLAN?"
 * Kung Fu Panda Legends of Awesomeness: When told to follow Mantis back to his village in "Hometown Hero", Po does so enthusiastically. And loudly. Narrating every step of the way.
 * Almost happens in Treasure Planet when Jim and Ben are sneaking by the pirates to steal their dinghy. Surprisingly, no one wakes up.


 * The Dover Boys at Pimento University. "A runabout! I'll steal it! NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW!"
 * A sketch in Robot Chicken had Cobra Commander ask some new recruits how they would assassinate a Joe in the field. After some practical plans, the last recruit says that he would use a cobra to kill the Joe and loudly scream COBRA!. Cobra Commander agrees with this plan.