And There Was Much Rejoicing



"Narrator: In the frozen land of Nador, they were forced to eat Sir Robin's minstrels. And there was much rejoicing. All: Yaaaay.*flags come up and wave*"

- Monty Python and the Holy Grail

When a character's death (or at least general misfortune) is seen as a joyous occasion, even by characters of the same alignment.

Popular in horror, thriller, and disaster movies as it allows the threat to dispatch a character or two without hurting anyone that either the other protagonists or the audience really cares about ... and may in fact be better without. The character can be (but need not be) Too Dumb to Live or The Millstone.

The polar opposite of Antagonist in Mourning and Alas, Poor Scrappy. Compare AND contrast Lonely Funeral. A staple of Black Comedy. See also Asshole Victim, a Sister Trope. See also Break the Haughty and Humiliation Conga.

Not quite the same as And the Fandom Rejoiced.

Anime And Manga

 * In one episode of Kodocha, Sana-chan briefly thinks her (then) nemesis Hayama might be dead. She launches into a traditional Japanese mourning ritual, with gusto and extreme cheer.
 * Code Geass has an example of this in season 2 when Luciano Bradley is killed in battle with Kallen. Within a moment two of his fellow Knights of Rounds arrive at the scene, and not only do neither of them even say anything about his death, one of them yells at Kallen to get out of the way before firing at someone standing behind her, and the other exchanges some semi-friendly banter with her. Well, the deceased was a Complete Monster, and the Knight who speaks friendly to Kallen saved her from being tortured or raped by him not long ago.
 * Also in R2, with Lelouch. As Nunnally cries over his dead body, the crowd in the background is chanting Zero's name in celebration. Then again, that was exactly what he wanted.
 * Nisshi's death in Gantz Abridged in a parody of the treatment of his death in the original. He was a complete Jerkass, and while the characters try to mourn him, it doesn't really work since he had no redeeming qualities. The most successful attempt is to the effect that since Nisshi forgot to insult his eulogist when insulting everyone else, that makes him ok.
 * In Axis Powers Hetalia, America actually brings England back to life by loudly declaring to Death himself that they should drink and celebrate when England was finally offed.

Fan Works

 * In Light and Dark - The Adventures of Dark Yagami, this, surprisingly enough, happens to Dark the first time he dies; the girl who killed him is hailed as a hero and the only people sad are Dark's family and Misa. L is so widely hated that no one mourns his death.
 * Invoked in the Naruto fanfic Roku Naruto, when Naruto makes Sakura trip on a rock.
 * Discord's original defeat several thousand years ago in the Pony POV Series got this reaction from Equestria in the "Origins" Arc, including a song celebrating Celestia and Luna's victory. Considering it was a prequel and Discord was a Complete Monster who's entire reign can be summed up as For the Evulz, wiped out two of the five pony races, and generally put the entire country of Equestria through a living hell for 1000 years, this was to be expected.

Film
""They were forced to eat Robin's minstrels, and there was much rejoicing." "Yaaaaaay.""
 * The Trope Namer is Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

"And here lies old King Frederick He stole for forty years The day he died the people cried. They cried? They cried "Three cheers!""
 * Double entendre there considering that in the UK, Minstrels are chocolate buttons.
 * The most famous example is the song Ding dong the witch is dead from The Wizard of Oz, after the Wicked Witch of the East is killed.
 * At the end of Return of the Jedi, universe-wide celebrations begin as soon as the Death Star explodes
 * The gleeful choruses of "Thank you very much, thank you very much,/It's the nicest thing that anyone's ever done for me!" as they danced on Ebenezer Scrooge's coffin in Scrooge!, the musical version of A Christmas Carol starring Albert Finney.
 * Likewise for the grave-digging number in the 2004 musical.
 * There's an equivalent scene in the book, only without the singing.
 * In fact, nearly every Christmas Carol special has this as the response to The Scrooge dying, no matter who it might be. The point, of course, being to show said person how terrible a person they were that not only does no one mourn their demise, but they are actively celebrating/happy about it.
 * In Borat, hotel staff reluctantly break the news to the title character that his wife has just died, only to suddenly get hugged by him and watch him joyfully dance around the room.
 * There may not have been literal rejoicing when the obnoxious Lucky Larry got squashed by the machinery in Poseidon, but none of the band of survivors was particularly broken up about it. Was one of the better SFX shots of the film, too.
 * Revenge of The Pink Panther involves Inspector Clouseau surviving an assassination attempt and then pretending to be dead in order to track down the mob boss who ordered the hit. At Clouseau's "funeral", his former boss, Chief Inspector Dreyfus, is assigned to give the eulogy...during which he keeps bursting helplessly into hysterical, gleeful laughter. He then tries to cover it by pretending to shed Manly Tears, causing everyone else to weep in sympathy.
 * In the movie The Slipper and The Rose, a live-action musical based on Cinderella, Prince Charming at one point visits the royal crypt and sings "What a Comforting Thing To Know", describing his less-than-illustrious ancestors.

""And, by the way, it pleases me that I am called 'Larry the Liquidator', because at my funeral, you'll leave with a smile on your face and a few bucks in your pocket. Now, that's a funeral worth having!""
 * Drowning Mona
 * Scaramouche (1952) - Upon joining the National Assembly, Andre Moreau is set upon by the aristocratic side of the assembly, to a series of duels. With each victory, the next day, he declares that his most recent opponent will be "Absent from the assembly", which proceeds to induce cheers from the commoner's half of the assembly.
 * In Natural Born Killers, when the warden (Tommy Lee Jones) learns Jack Scafferty (Tom Sizemore) is dead, his reaction is basically "Meh."
 * Invoked in Other People's Money, when Larry insists that he doesn't care about being despised.


 * In Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, everyone thinks the Were-Rabbit has been killed, and the Vicar turns to Lady Tottington and reassures her that they feel her pain. The minute he turns his back, he and the rest of the villagers start rejoicing.
 * At the climax of Shrek, the antagonist Lord Farquaad is swallowed by a dragon ... and the entire town bursts into cheers.
 * Then again, on the "Karaoke Party" DVD bonus feature, he's heard singing "Stayin' Alive" from inside the dragon, so it's seems he's Not Quite Dead.
 * So that would mean he was slowly digested to death.
 * In Shrek the Third, the crowd witnesses the on-stage death of Prince Charming and proceed to treat it like the happy ending to a play (complete with an "Awww!" when Shrek and Fiona kiss). Of course, while Charming was the hero in the play, most of the audience still didn't really like him.
 * In The Black Cauldron, after the Horned King is absorbed by the Cauldron, his put-upon toadie Creeper, after a moment of mourning, starts laughing maniacally.

Literature
"The neighbors heard his mournful squeal; They searched for him, but not with zeal. No trace was found of Jabez Dawes, Which led to thunderous applause, And people drank a loving cup And went and hung their stockings up."
 * The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: When Dorothy Gale arrives in the Munchkin village, she is appalled and apologetic to discover that her house has landed on and killed an inhabitant of Oz. The Munchkins respond by breaking into a song and dance about how happy they are that the witch, is in fact, dead, and make Dorothy a national hero.
 * In the film version, Judy Garland's shocked expression throughout most of this is priceless.
 * The same thing happens later when she accidentally kills the other witch, and the guards respond by thanking her.
 * Hopefully the poor girl didn't end up convinced that murdering friendless old women was the way to public acclaim.
 * The musical Wicked begins by celebration over the death of Wicked Witch of the West. The rest of said musical is a long explanation about why this is wrong: one, she's not that evil, and two, she's not dead.
 * A room full of telemarketers are reduced to skeletons by a demon in Good Omens. This means that all the people they were due to call didn't get a little angrier, didn't curse them or spread this annoyance onwards. So in balance, these hideous deaths made the world a little better.
 * Although not so much better that Terry didn't insist it be undone by the end of the book.
 * Ultramarines- Done with a building. The Tau blow up an Administratum tax bureau and the guardsmen cheer. Keep in mind these are people taught from birth that aliens are evil and want to sacrifice their babies to the Dark Gods.
 * Odgen Nash's poem "The Boy Who Laughed at Santa Claus" relates the morality tale of Jabez Dawes, an unrepentant brat who denied the existence of Santa Claus, until Kris Kringle turned him into a jack-in-the-box in retaliation. Which leads to the following stanza:


 * In the Night Watch series, in the novel Twilight Watch, Witezslav, an unpleasant vampire on the Inquisition is killed, and besides the obvious lack of sympathy from those on the side of Light, his Dark colleagues were also indifferent, and for both sides, the greater concern was how someone was powerful enough to destroy him. This makes sense, since besides being a cold, unlikable person, he gained that level of power by killing children.
 * In Moliere's Don Juan, after the title character is dragged off to hell, his servant Sgnarelle's only regret is that his master's death will mean that he won't receive his wages.
 * Referenced by Granny Weatherwax in Carpe Jugulum, when she's in a self-doubting mood: "It was a terrible thing to think that the only reason people would go to your funeral was to make sure you were really dead."

Live-Action TV
"B.J. Hunnicutt: This reduces the enemy to just North Korea!"
 * Lost provides an example of this with the introduction of Arzt in the finale of the first season. He was blown up while he condescendingly lectured the main characters on how to handle dynamite safely. Actually, right after it happens Hurley does get quite and even goes so far as to say, "that was messed up" but he seems to have been more concerned with his own streak of bad luck. No one else cared.
 * Dr Romano of ER died quite horribly, but he was such a Jerkass only one character really gave a damn. Another even twisted the knife posthumously by naming a wing for LGBT patients after the notorious homophobe.
 * In one of the final episodes of Oz Beecher unknowingly kills Vern Schillinger, in a staged performance of Macbeth. When the audience of prison inmates finds out, everyone immediately starts cheering to high heavens and pumping their fists. Granted Schillinger was a malicious Nazi rapist, who performed a good deal of horrible actions throughout his lifetime.
 * This appears to be the response to any act of violence witnessed by the inmates. A notable exception is when Simon Adebisi, a feared Nigerian gangster who's been ruling Em City as a trustee, is killed—the initial reaction is a shocked gasp of disbelief from both inmates and guards, as Adebisi seemed so Badass he couldn't be killed by anyone.
 * In an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch where Sabrina uses these products to make Harvey more ambitious, to the point where he's alienated from Sabrina and only cares about his ambitions of being a money-making businessman, she shows him what could happen if he continues (a la A Christmas Carol). At the end of the montage they see a party which is Harvey's funeral. They're happy because he was a jerk who didn't spend time with his family and cut down all of the trees (except one) in Westbridge.
 * An episode of The Commish had two police officers agonizing endlessly over the best way to break a death notice to a man's family, only to find they're overjoyed about his death.
 * One episode of Scrubs sees Dr Kelso's portrait, hung on a hallway just before he goes on vacation, turned into a memorial to the deceased as a prank by Dr. Cox. Almost everyone in the hospital walks past it and celebrates, but Ted the Lawyer later comes back to it to dance in front of it.
 * Not a death, but the news of Frank Burns' arrest and subsequent transfer from the 4077th inspires whoops of joy on M*A*S*H.

"All (as crowd): Hooray! Crow: Are you sure he's dead? Mike (as paramedic): Oyah. All: Hooray!"
 * At least until they discover he's been cleared, promoted, and stationed back in the States.
 * In The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Will blamed himself for his uncle's political opponent having a fatal heart attack (He told him he could Drop Dead right before it happened). After spending the episode feeling guilty he showed up at the funeral to discover that everyone else was just there to make sure he was really dead, and was moved to give a defense of the man's life. When indignantly asked who he thought he was he said "I'm the dude that killed him" and was given a standing ovation.
 * Mike and the 'Bots have this reaction to the death of Russell Johnson's character, a drunken, abusive parent, in The Space Children. After the man gets his mind fried by The Blob That Came From Heaven and the paramedics are wheeling his corpse out of his trailer in front of the rest of the cast:

"Mourner (viewing his dead wife): You did a real good job on her. David Fisher: Well, we do our best. Mourner: If there's any justice in the universe, she's shoveling shit in hell right now."
 * In an earlier episode, "Hercules and the Captive Women"(billed at the time as the last Hercules movie, although they ended up with one more later), Joel and the 'Bots held a funeral for Hercules, which quickly became a party. Crow at one point declared, "He's dead as a doornail and I'm gonna party like it's 1999!"
 * Subverted in Fawlty Towers. The episode "The Kipper and the Corpse" has the doctor walking into the dead man's room and seeing Basil Fawlty jumping up and down and crying, "Oh, joy! Oh, I'm so happy!" Of course, the real reason Fawlty was so happy was because the kippers the man had been served with his breakfast were out of date, and he had just learned that the kippers were untouched, making it not his fault.
 * In Yes Prime Minister, Prime Minister Hacker's predecessor in that office is writing his memoirs, which will be very embarrassing for Hacker, when he suddenly drops dead from a heart attack. When Hacker learns the news, and just before he remembers that he's supposed to act with dignified shock and grief, for a moment he has the biggest, happiest grin we've ever seen on his face.
 * This episode ("A Diplomatic Incident," Series 2, Episode 3 of Yes, Prime Minister) is widely considered to be the best of the entire series (i.e. including Yes Minister), partly because incidents like this, where Paul Eddington expresses several lines' worth of dialogue with a single facial expression, occur rather frequently. Watch it!
 * From the pilot episode of Six Feet Under:

"Dick: (cheerfully) Dr. Albright! You got your wish! Harry: (begins clapping, stops when nobody else joins in)"
 * A Numberwang episode on That Mitchell and Webb Look contained an instance of no Numberwang being scored for over three days! So they went to Sudden Death: The first person who dies from the poisonous Number Gas, wins!
 * Played with on Golden Girls. When the group's hated next door neighbor died, possibly from Rose's harsh words, they throw a cheap funeral for her since the woman had no friends or relatives. Then an old friend shows up and gives a heartfelt eulogy about how the deceased spent all her life doing charitable work. However the "friend" turned out to simply be in the wrong room. When she realized who was actually in the coffin, she expressed joy, then kicked the coffin for good measure.
 * Northern Exposure has Holling Vincouer, who is decidedly not proud of his ancestry. He once told his girlfriend Shelly that the death of his grandfather is still celebrated as a national holiday in France
 * This has happened at least once on Bones. In "The Crank in the Shaft", the victim, an office manager, is seemingly mourned by everyone, until Booth and Bones find out that the victim who was so hated by everyone that not only was there celebration of her death, but nearly everyone she had ever met had a motive.
 * Similarly, in an episode of CSI New York, a crowd gathered around the scene and, upon confirming who the victim was, applauded. Then Stella gives a Quip to Black about finding someone without a motive being the hard part.
 * Played with in Frasier, when Frasier's hated and mean-spirited aunt passes away; while Frasier, Niles and Martin express no grief at her death, it's not exactly an opportunity for celebration either as Frasier's been burdened with writing the eulogy for the memorial service (which gives him no end of grief as he tries to find some genuine virtue he can extol about her, having stubbornly refused to lie and invent virtues the woman didn't have) and Niles has been burdened with finding a place to dispose of her ashes.
 * An episode of Murphy Brown plays with this trope when Murphy's hated nemesis dies and leaves her in charge of the eulogy. First she plans to give an awful speech, then a heartwarming one, then an awful one when she finds out his own mother didn't like him, when finally the guy makes himself look like the Jerk with a Heart of Gold from the GRAVE with the sole purpose of humiliating her.
 * An episode of Law and Order had the (first) victim of the week get chased into oncoming traffic by a particularly amoral paparazzo who wanted her opinion on her husband's affair. Once he was found to not be complicit in her death, he got shot; when his death is announced at a restaurant frequented by the rich and powerful, everyone applauds.
 * In Wizards of Waverly Place Alex freezes Stevie and Max shatters her. No one really seems to care and eventually Alex and Harper go to celebrate their friendship while Justin takes pictures of a unconscience man's body with Stevie's "pieces" all over him while Max draws a moustache on him.
 * Buffy the Vampire Slayer: When Buffy announces that she killed Caleb, Willow's reaction is "Well, all right!". Then again, he was a Sinister Minister in the service of the First Evil.
 * A 3rd Rock from the Sun episode has a loathsome, universally despised professor (played by John Mahoney of Frasier fame) suddenly dropping dead at a party being given in his honor.


 * While the character doesn't actually die because the poisoning was discovered right before it killed him, the attempted murder of the Commodore in Boardwalk Empire is treated this way by the other characters on account of his being a lecherous racist and total jerkass. When Jimmy thinks his mother (who was impregnated by the Commodore at 14) is the poisoner, he makes a comment to the effect that he doesn't really have a problem with the Commodore being murdered, but if she's doing it for financial reasons, he doesn't want the Commodore's money. When the poisoner is discovered to be the Commodore's put-upon maid, Nucky tells her that she did wrong in actually attempting what others would only think about and gives her money to leave town and start a new life.
 * Even Full House wasn't immune to this. Jesse inherited a local club from its previous owner, who died of heart failure. The funeral was (by character narration alone) done this way, but justified because that was what the deceased owner wanted.
 * Married... with Children: When Al Bundy's neighbors thought that he'd died, they all began singing "Ding Dong The Shoe Man's Dead" and dancing in the streets. Later, when Al moved out of the neighborhood, they held a parade to celebrate.
 * Jaimie Lannister offed The Mad King seventeen years before the beginning of Game of Thrones. As The Mad King's idea of fun included burning people to death, no-one much minded. (Although Lannister was stuck with the reputation of being an oathbreaker, as he had once promised to guard the king with his life.)
 * Seinfeld: When George's fiancee Susan dies, he is more relieved than anything else. This is later used as evidence against him at the trial in the series finale.
 * This has happened several times on The Amazing Race, with the remaining teams all celebrating the elimination of a hated/feared team:
 * Rob and Amber's elimination on Season 11.
 * Brandy and Carol's elimination on Season 16 was initially played as this, until Dan & Jordan pointed out that the U-Turn could have just as easily been used to eliminate the more dangerous Jet & Cord.
 * On Season 19's penultimate leg, the Final 3 teams celebrated on the mat when they realized that, due to their cab drivers being in contact the entire leg and giving each other directions, they had finished ahead of Andy & Tommy, and wouldn't have to face them and their insane luck in the finale.

Music

 * The American folk song "Jimmy Crack Corn" is this, probably. On the surface, it seems to be about a slave mourning his master who perished in an accident, but it is often interpreted as a celebration of the death, the slave having contributed to it via deliberate negligence.
 * "The Night Patty Murphy Died" is a traditional Newfoundland folk song, recently recorded by Canadian-based celtic-rock band Great Big Sea. In the song, a funeral becomes a rowdy party. Subverted in that the mourners genuinely grieved for Patty Murphy, but showed their love for the departed by boisterous celebration.
 * It's doubtful the the mourners genuinely grieved for Murphy. To start, the chorus has the line, "They said it was a sin and shame and they winked at one another." Then there was the very irreverent things they did with Pat Murphy's corpse. The kept him in the ice box during the party with the addition of bottles of whiskey to "keep that whiskey cold." Next, on the day of the funeral, they stopped the hearse at a bar for three hours or so. Finally they leave and when they get to the cemetery, they realize they left Pat's body at the bar.
 * The point of the song is that they were treating him as if he was still alive and part of the party. Stopping at that bar was their way of taking their friend on one last pub crawl - no doubt Patty was propped up inside that bar with a drink in his hand when they came back for him. As for the ice box, the song doesn't mention them putting him in there, just putting the whiskey in there with him (something an old drinking buddy would appreciate). If this is an old enough song, it's possible that ice was the only method they had on hand to preserve him. They can't have been TOO far out of line; Mrs. Murphy was present, and didn't seem to object to their antics.
 * "They stopped the clock so Mrs. Murphy couldn't tell the time."
 * The Dixie Chicks' "Goodbye Earl", about a woman who, with the help of a high-school friend, kills her abusive husband Earl. In the video, the whole town celebrates Earl's death.
 * In French, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" was translated as "Le lion est mort ce soir", which means "The lion died tonight". So the lyrics' tone changed to somewhat fit this trope...
 * Dos Gringos, a band comprised of United States Air Force fighter pilots, has a song called "The Predator Eulogy" — celebrating the fact that a Predator (an unmanned airborne vehicle) was shot down. Fighter pilots hate UAVs because they might wind up getting completely replaced by them if UAV enthusiasts have their way.
 * Steam's "(Kiss Him) Goodbye (Na Na Na Na/Hey Hey/Goodbye)" is often used as such. On occasion, Ray Charles' "Hit the Road, Jack" as well.
 * Elvis Costello's "Tramp The Dirt Down" is about how he'll celebrate when Margaret Thatcher dies.
 * As is Hefner's "The Day That Thatcher Dies", complete with a children's choir singing "Ding dong, the wicked witch is dead!"
 * "Ringo" by Lorne Greene (of Bonanza fame). The spoken-word narrative, which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1964, is a first-person account of an ex-outlaw-turned-Western lawman, and his encounters and relationship with the title character and antagonist, a notorious gunfighter who spread terror as he engages in a crime spree in the Old West. Toward the end of the song, the two meet (for the first time in several years) and engage in a gunfight. Ringo—remembering a time the main protagonist saved is life—shows a rare ounce of mercy to his old friend, but when he turns to walk away, he is met by a spray of gunfire and killed. As the trope-fitting lyrics point out after Ringo is declared dead, "The town began to shout and cheer/Nowhere was there shed a tear for Ringo."
 * They Might Be Giants anticipate this kind of end—up to and including bank holidays—for the unnamed "you" of "When Will You Die?"

Recorded and Stand Up Comedy

 * Mark Steel's routine about flicking around the channels and seeing a newsreader appearing with the "Special Serious Face" with a picture of Margaret Thatcher behind them and how he must have been one of millions of people in Britain who punched the air and shouted "DEAD!", only to be disappointed; "Aw, just a stroke!"

Tabletop Games

 * An entry in the Warhammer Fantasy Battle: Warriors of Chaos book speaks of a Chaos Knight (hulking, armored man who serves the forces of evil) who challenged the governor of a town to a battle and claimed the man's skull for a trophy. Partway through the battle, the women of the town began to cheer the Chaos Knight on. "Obscurely pleased, he left the town intact."
 * Actual rule from the wargame Fear God & Dread Nought: "Shore Battery Critical Hit results: Admin Building: A support building associated with the battery, but not vital to it's function, has been destroyed. If enough paperwork is destroyed, the battery's efficiency may actually improve."

Video Games
""Urist McTraumatized doesn't care about anything, anymore.""
 * The Sharp Claws look rather happy about General Scales' death at the end of Star Fox Adventures, with one triumphantly holding up its former leader's belt for Fox to see.
 * A halfway example from Dwarf Fortress: Although dwarves will never be happy that another one has died, they can still maintain ecstatic moods by having a decent dining room and nice walls to look at. Seriously.
 * Although too many deaths in a while will result in them being extremely happy yet basically phoning it in with their entire life.

"Three Dog: Ding dong! The sanctimonious, self-righteous, self-proclaimed Presidential asshole is DEAD!"
 * Played straight with fell moods. Sometimes, when an unhappy dwarf gets the urge to make an artifact, the raw materials for said artifact will be the nearest dwarf to the workshop. Making the artifact makes the dwarf happy, and nobody cares about the guy it's made out of.
 * Also, a dwarf will be happy if a dwarf he has a grudge with dies. And of course there is much rejoicing from the player if an annoying noble dies.
 * The players themselves are a straight example of the trope. The more bizarre and massively destructive an event gets in their game, the more cheerful and congratulatory the forum responses will be for achieving it. There's a reason the game motto is Losing is Fun.
 * In The Sims 2, mean Sims roll death-related wants for their enemies... such as drinking their life essence after they get eaten by a Man-Eating Plant. It really ups the ante on Video Game Cruelty Potential when you get aspiration points for it.
 * If your house is robbed, even a child Sim can roll the want "See Burglar's Ghost". So much for the innocence of the young.
 * Likewise, in The Sims 3, Sims with the "evil" trait will laugh at the suffering of others, up to and including their deaths.
 * At least one webcomic author has gone on-record to say that seeing Jar-Jar Binks frozen in a slab of carbonite in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is well worth the price of admission alone.
 * That one?
 * In Grand Theft Auto IV, when Manny is shot in the face, Niko was rather amused.
 * In Fallout 3, Three Dog will react positively to the death of President Eden should the player kill him


 * In Fallout: New Vegas, many characters will congratulate you if you kill Cook-Cook.
 * Many will also rejoice if the player kills Caesar.
 * A less positive example: When Carla Boone was kidnapped by the Legion, she was hardly missed by the citizens of Novac (though they still believe this a horrifying fate for anyone) Manny Vargas was pretty much overjoyed. This however led to her husband Craig to bear a grudge against the citizens of Novac and pretty much destroyed his friendship with Manny (who is heavily hinted to be in love with him).
 * The first Dark Brotherhood quest in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim involves killing a nasty old lady who runs an orphanage. You can kill her right in front of the kids, and not only will they not report you to the guards, they'll cheer her demise. The only person who actually gets scared is her assistant, who while not particularly liking Grelod herself is still freaked out that she just got killed in cold blood.

Web Comics

 * Arisdel in Dumnestor's Heroes. She wasn't killed, but nobody was broken up when she left the game.
 * Pretty much anyone in Eight Bit Theater is ambivalent, at best, about seeing allies (apparently) die. They usually don't stay dead, though.
 * Subverted in this strip of Order of the Stick.
 * The only subversion is that Miko's still alive. Maybe Elan wouldn't have specifically celebrated, but no one would've been sorry to see her go (she's routinely sent off on missions that keep her out of the country for years at a time, because not even her fellow paladins like her).
 * Ironically, when she did die, no one celebrated.
 * The cast threw a party to celebrate Kairi's death in Ansem Retort. They even had yummy 'Hooray Kairi's Dead' cake.
 * Sequential Art had this when Kat accidentally gives her old Sadist Teacher a fatal heart attack. Kids leaving the classroom were singing Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead.
 * In Schlock Mercenary, Tagon's Toughs had this reaction to Xinchub's death. He had spent several arcs as the personally nastiest of the Tough's rogues gallery (or, in his own words, "the biggest ace-hole in the game"), and his death caused happy-dances throughout the major cast.

Web Original

 * The cast of Kickassia cheer when they've beaten The Nostalgia Critic to death (he's really just unconscious), and then they fight over who gets his hat and therefore, get to be the ruler of the nation. Big on Gray and Gray Morality that special.
 * A bit of a subjective case, but the fact that Encyclopedia Dramatica was shut down made some users rejoice. Or, to put it better, the Troll Hatedom rejoiced.
 * During his review of A Troll in Central Park, The Nostalgia Critic cheered when Stanley was Taken for Granite near the end of the movie.

Western Animation
"Homer: Ding dong, the witch is dead! Kids: Which old witch? Homer: The wicked witch!"
 * Done a few times in South Park, when the usual "They killed Kenny!!"-"Bastards!!" routine was subverted and Kenny's death was met with amusement.
 * In Danny Phantom's Bad Future, most of the memorial statues say "Gone but not forgotten". Mr. Lancer's just says "Gone".
 * On Family Guy, Lois and Brian celebrate when Peter's dad dies. Then the episode explains that wasn't his real father.
 * On The Simpsons, the family is driving to the funeral of one of Marge's relatives. Naturally, the family treats the situation with great dignity and tact.

"Farewell to Gargamel, Gargamel is gone! Oh what a happy day to sing our smurfy song!"
 * Also, Patty and Selma's reaction whenever Homer is believed to be dead - to the point where they've already ordered a tombstone for him and use it as their tea table. It reads "We are richer for having lost him."
 * When everyone believed Mr. Burns had been killed by some falling rocks, Kent Brockman publicly thanked them for it. Homer, Lenny and Carl even planned to dance on his grave.
 * Again with Mr. Burns, when he disappeared and was believed dead, so many people decided to spit on his grave it became a pool of spit.
 * During the funeral for Homer's mother, Abe commented that he'd imagined himself dancing on it but no longer had the mood. (He was wearing tap shoes during the funeral)
 * In the Season 8 episode "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show", the introduction of the character Poochie (a dog "with an attitude") as an attempt to regain falling viewershp is universally panned, save for Homer (who coincidentally is Poochie's voice). The Poochie character is such a spectacular failure that the production company is forced to immediately abandon the character and hastily write him out before his second cartoon. When that cartoon airs—another voiceover artist inserts the line "I have to go, my planet needs me" into a poorly edited cartoon—Krusty the Clown (on whose show the "Itchy & Scratchy" cartoons air) gleefully announces that Poochie died on his way home, to which the audience wildly cheers. (Incidentally, the edits are made after Homer deliberately goes against the script, instead improvising a plea for the character's reprieve.)
 * In The Smurfs episode "For The Love Of Gargamel", Gargamel and Azrael get turned to stone by the very potion the evil wizard intended to use on the Smurfs. The Smurfs take advantage of Gargamel's demise by having a celebration. Of course, Papa Smurf, realizing that they would be no better than Gargamel for leaving him and his cat in such a frozen state, does not join in the celebration, but rather has the Smurfs gather ingredients for a potion to unfreeze Gargamel and Azrael. Of course, Gargamel still rants and raves about getting even with the Smurfs after he and his cat are de-petrified.
 * In the Season 2 intro, the Smurfs do a merry circle dance around a staked-down Gargamel and Azrael.
 * Non-lethal example in the season 7 episode "Gargamel's New Job"; the wizard decided to move away, seemingly for good. The Smurfs were, naturally, overjoyed when they found his empty house, and were able to make up a new song on the spot:


 * SpongeBob SquarePants: On more than one occasion, Squidward starts party preparations whenever it looks like SpongeBob is going to move away for good.

Other Media

 * There is a Russian joke with a punchline of "We were burying my mother-in-law, got two accordions torn"
 * The punchline is so worn out that at this point that overused gags, links and humorous stories are called "bayans" (accordions) in certain sections of ru-net.
 * "He was eager to hop around and sing and dance...if it wasn't for a heavy coffin with his mother-in-law on his shoulder." There seems to be pattern somewhere here, amirite?
 * The trope is the base for the old joke, "Q: What do you call 10,000 lawyers on the bottom of the ocean? A: A good start."