Cerebus Syndrome: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:cerebussyndrome350px 1436.jpg|link=Fanboys (webcomic)|
{{quote|''"This is how it starts: first with the jokes, then comes the heavy stuff."''
|'''Dr. Zoidberg''', ''[[Futurama]]''}}
A [[Tone Shift]] towards [[Dramedy]] over the course of a comedy series' run, named for the process undergone by the print comic ''[[Cerebus|Cerebus the Aardvark]]''. (It should not be confused with [[Issue Drift|the slide from drama to]] [[Author Tract]] which happened much later in the same comic's run, due to [[Creator Breakdown]].) It's any story/series which starts out light, episodic, and comedic, and then assumes dramatic elements and a more coherent [[Continuity Creep|continuity]]. It chiefly occurs in works where parts have been broadcast/published before other parts have been written, as that means the older parts can't be revised into conformity.
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This condition also has a temporary version. After a while, many shows will begin to get enough respect to be considered for awards, and will create a specific episode for this. Since there's a [[Comedy Ghetto]] in effect, an episode of a show made as Emmy Bait will have fewer laughs and will usually tackle a more intense theme. When watching a show on DVD or in syndication, these episodes can stand out.
If the series has previously been fueled by [[Planet Eris|high weirdness]], then the transition can be rocky. Some comics tie themselves in painful knots trying to [[Retcon]] an accumulated pile of weirdness with invented physics. Others [[Doing
Expect an exodus of fans [[Ruined FOREVER|bemoaning]] the [[Darker and Edgier|slide into "angst"]] as previously happy go lucky stories lose their [[Karma Houdini Warranty]]. When Cerebus Syndrome radically [[Jumping the Shark|changes a series for the worse]], it gets called ''First and Ten Syndrome'', after a television series which notably skydived after the injection of drama. Despite this, it's [[Tropes Are Not Bad|not always a bad thing]] - in and of itself, adding drama to a comedic work can and often does work. It's just that [[Sturgeon's Law|frequently]], the creators don't quite have the talent to pull it off.
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May be a case of [[Growing the Beard]] if it actually works. Either way, fans may not wait to declare it [[Ruined FOREVER]]. See also [[Cerebus Retcon]], [[Sudden Downer Ending]], and [[Knight of Cerebus]]. Inverse of [[Reverse Cerebus Syndrome]]; if both of them happens, it's [[Cerebus Rollercoaster]]. An instance of [[Mood Whiplash]]. When this entire process happens in a single moment, it's a [[Gut Punch]].
This trope sometimes overlaps with [[Continuity Creep]].
Compare to [[Shoo Out the Clowns]], where the [[Plucky Comic Relief]] are written out of the show (or possibly killed off) to show that things have become serious. When this happens to actors in [[Real Life]], it's known as [[Tom Hanks Syndrome]].▼
▲Compare to [[Shoo Out the Clowns]], where the [[Plucky Comic Relief]] are written out of the show (or possibly killed off) to show that things have become serious. When this happens to actors in [[Real Life]], it's known as [[Tom Hanks Syndrome]]. See also [[Early Installment Weirdness]]
{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Fairy Tail]]'' underwent a gradual escalation, with each [[Story Arc]] becoming more personal, with higher stakes than the last. [[Character Development]] in series format, as it were.
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** Not to mention all the drama during both [[Unlucky Childhood Friend|Kaede]] and [[Victorious Childhood Friend|Asa's]] arcs. And the drama [[The Rival|between them]].
* ''[[GaoGaiGar]]'' to ''[[GaoGaiGar]] Final'': The light-hearted original series did dip its toe into seriousness every so often, but it was primarily a fun super-robot show. With the release of the OVA Final it goes into darker and edgier territory. By the second episode...{{spoiler|One character's lover is killed by what appears to be the cute kid lead of the series, who is himself killed by the main character. Then, said main character is captured by the villains and brainwashed into fighting the good guys.}} And in the final episode, {{spoiler|despite having defeated the [[Big Bad]], all but two members of the main cast are trapped at the other end of the galaxy, dying, and with no foreseeable way to get back to Earth.}} Nevertheless, the OVA remained true to the series' central theme of courage overcoming opposition throughout - it merely explored some of the more dramatic aspects of fighting a seemingly hopeless battle against a seemingly invincible foe.
* ''[[Detective Conan]]'' started as a mystery-themed comedy just like how Gosho Aoyama did with kendo in ''[[Yaiba]]''. With time it has developed into a more serious story—which made the animators who guessed too much making a few [[
* ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ]]'' initially starts out with the old monster of the week routine with plenty of campy slapstick comedy despite the fact that [[This Is Reality|it's not anime]]. Then episode 18 rolls around and the story starts picking up momentum, and the comic mischief is eventually displaced by more serious content. By the time [[This Is Reality|it becomes anime]], the tone of the series becomes something more along the same vein as ''[[Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam|Zeta Gundam]]''.
* The first half of ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'', while still dramatic, is actually somewhat light-hearted at times. Then the series slowly shifts to being disturbing and insane. Though it was always rather introspective to begin with, it doesn't quite compare to later half. Then ''[[It Got Worse|It]]'' ''[[Gainax Ending|Got]]'' ''[[Mind Screw|Worse]]''.
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* ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]'' pulls one of these on purpose. It's part of [[Mind Rape|what makes it great]].
** For the first season at least, the series seems to contract Cerebus Syndrome exactly once an arc, beginning as a typical [[Unwanted Harem]] before regularly bringing out the terrors, with progressively less time in between the two, until approximately the second arc of Kai.
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]''. Third season, just about one third through. Suddenly there are people actually ''dying.'' And then they go back to the alternate world thing and it just gets worse. See also: [[Stalker with a Crush|Yu]][[
** Well, Judai's friends come back. No word on Amon, Ekou, or all the people Judai killed for Super Fusion.
** It is good to note that this is ''hilariously'' parodied in DarkSideIncorporated's Yu-gi-oh Gx abridged series.
* ''[[Rosario + Vampire]]'' started its slide towards [[Shounen]] action series once the [[Absurdly Powerful Student Council|Student Police]] were introduced, and when [[Broken Bird|Ruby]] was introduced in the Witch's Hill arc it was clear what direction the story was taking. Multi-issue story arcs replaced the [[Monster of the Week]]. Then [[The Woobie|Mizore]] joined the cast. Once Tsukune [[Took a Level
** The second season continues this as it gradually becomes [[Darker and Edgier]] as the series goes on. Though this should be noted as only happening in the manga, in the anime the second season continues to be a Romance Comedy.
* The infamous ''[[School Days]]'' starts off as a rather typical bishoujo comedy with a love triangle, but soon plummets into [[Murder the Hypotenuse|drama]], [[Squick|violence]], and downright [[It Got Worse|insanity]]. It has long been notorious for such same elements in its original video game and for its [[Downer Ending|brutal ending paths]] of which the anime adaptation decided to stay true to. Many unlucky saps fell for the anime who weren't aware of this fact.
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* ''[[Excel Saga (anime)|Excel Saga]]'' parodies the bejesus out of this in its penultimate episode, {{spoiler|in which Excel finally notices that Il Palazzo keeps killing her}}. Of course this is just serves to throw the last episode ( "Going Way Too Far") into sharper relief.
* ''[[Ouran High School Host Club]]'' begins as an [[Affectionate Parody]] of shoujo manga, and while it doesn't leave its comedy behind, its storyline has gotten gradually more dramatic as it has gone on - particularly once it lapses out of [[Comic Book Time]] and two of the main characters actually graduate from high school and start attending university. (Early volumes, in contrast, state ''in the narration'' that no one will be moving up in grades and the seasonal changes are purely aesthetic.)
* This starts to happen at the end of ''[[Gash Bell|Konjiki no Gash!!]]'', mostly in part due to the seriousness of the King Festival (the winner {{spoiler|has the power to kill any and all demons he wishes, and Clear Note wants to kill every single one. Not to mention that he has shown [[Incredibly Lame Pun|clear]] intention of wanting to destroy the Earth as well.)}} Near the start of the arc, though, the author gets out his last hurrah of comedy in one of the most bizarre manga chapters ever written: a dream sequence which involves Sunbeam dressed up as a butterfly, him giving Kiyomaro wings and making them both fly into the sky by madly flapping their arms about, Brago wearing a lion's head for underwear (and nothing else), Sherry tossing tennis balls at Brago (who proceeds to laugh as he swats them around), the teacher's wife's head becoming that of a dog, Victoreem carrying Kid around in a cart (after which Kid pummels Victoreem), both of them slipping on banana peels, Dartagnan dressing up as Professor Riddle and tricking Kid, Dartagnan knocking Kid out with a tranquilizer dart, Dartagnan falling into a pile of crap (only for Reira to give him a rope to grab onto and swing out, only to fall into another pile of crap), Gash, Umagon, Tio, and Kiyomaro dancing dressed up as otters, [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|and not to mention everyone wanting to slap him silly]]. [[
* ''[[
* Later volumes of the romantic comedy ''[[Ai Kora]]'' are less comedic and more dramatic. [[Grand Finale|The twelfth volume]] is probably the peak of this.
* ''[[Gunbuster]]'' and its sequel ''Diebuster'' were masters of this. They both had a fairly cheerful if a bit dramatic character drama going up until the magic episode, when everything started going to hell.
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* ''[[Future GPX Cyber Formula]]'' was originally a typical shonen adventurous/hopeful sport anime with a few good drama parts in it. The show however, gets more dramatic and less comedic as the OVAs were released. The ''Double-One'' arc deals with [[Big Brother Mentor|Knight Schumacher/Osamu Sugo's]] dramatic problems (namely, his eye problems stemming from an incident with Smith in the TV series which nearly rendered him blind), ''ZERO'' builds the angst out of [[Genki Girl|Asuka Sugo]] and [[Genki Boy|Bleed Kaga]], ''SAGA'' has more dramatic villains ([[Corrupt Corporate Executive|Nagumo]] in particular) and ''SIN'' caps off the series with very little comedy left to it and Kaga's full-blown angst because of his jealousy towards his ex-pupil, [[The Hero|Hayato]].
** However, this is somewhat justified since the director probably intended to do the shift. Also, the director's wife became the head writer for ''SAGA'' and ''SIN'' and he has consulted her since the TV series.
* ''[[Now and Then, Here and There]]'' arguably does this, though it happens very early on. From the majority of the first episode, one could be forgiven for thinking it was some kind of lighthearted adventure in a fantasy future. One would also most definitely be scarred for life from the shock of how wrong that assumption turns out to be.
* The ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' manga somehow managed to be lighthearted and funny for its first few volumes, despite Edward and Alphonse's relatively dark backstory. The story suddenly caught Cerberus Syndrome when {{spoiler|Hughes was killed}}.
** The ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (anime)|2003 anime adaptation]]'' intentionally follows this general trajectory; despite the brothers' tragic backstory, the early episodes are generally lighthearted, with only occasional hints of darkness around the periphery. About a quarter of the way through, the show begins to get progressively darker, leading up to a halfway point where {{spoiler|Hughes is murdered, much like his manga counterpart above}}. Oddly enough, from there it somewhat resets itself; the following episodes go back to being somewhat lighthearted, then get gradually darker until, by the end of the series, the story has evolved into outright tragedy.
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* ''[[The World God Only Knows]]'' begins as a comedic manga about a [[Dating Sim]] otaku being forced to live through what amounts to a real-world Dating Sim (admittedly, it's on pain of death) in order to exorcise "Runaway Spirits". After the Goddess Diana appears, things start to get darker, with it being revealed that the "Runaway Spirits" are in fact the escaped Demons of Old Hell (called "Weiss") and that Diana and her sisters are necessary to seal them away again. This culminates with {{spoiler|perky idol Kanon (who happens to be the host of a Goddess) being stabbed by a member of a terrorist group seeking to revive Old Hell (equivalent to the normal idea of Hell, whereas New Hell is more of a neutral "Underworld")}}. It still has comedy, but things are certainly getting darker...
* The first 12 episodes of [[Revolutionary Girl Utena]] are pretty lighthearted, despite being weird. It´s from episode 13 where things start to turn darker. And weirder.
* ''[[
** Sadly, the anime then tacks a bunch of comedy [[filler]]s afterwards for some [[Mood Whiplash|painful]] [[Reverse Cerebus Syndrome]]. The last few episodes, while still filler, are notably more serious and thus Cerebus Syndrome again. Also, the manga took a lot less time to get serious.
* ''[[Fushigi Yuugi]]'' started out as a fairly typical shojo romance where a girl gets sucked into another dimension that has a mix of comedic and dramatic parts. But then the second half of the series took a darker turn when {{spoiler|Tamahome comes home to find his family brutally murdered}}, and things got [[From Bad to Worse|even more worse]] when {{spoiler|more characters started to die.}}
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** The [[Spin-Off]], ''[[Puella Magi Kazumi Magica]]'', is going the same way. The first few chapters were practically a [[Magical Girl]] series played straight - the monsters turn back into humans, the power of teamwork saves the day, and the tone was generally lighthearted and comedic. {{spoiler|Then the [[Mysterious Watcher]] reveals herself as the [[Knight of Cerebus]].}} Things got serious in a hurry.
*** Chapter 8 of ''Kazumi'' [[Cerebus Rollercoaster|brings back the comedy from earlier chapters.]] [[Mood Whiplash|It doesn't last]].
** The same applies to [[The Movie]] ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie: Rebellion]]''. The first 30 minutes are pretty slow paced and revolve around simple magical girls who [[Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World|wake up, go to school, and save the world]]. Then, the revelation that their "Mitakihara" city isn't what it seems sends the movie promptly back to the territory of the original show.
* ''[[Sakigake Otokojuku]]'' started as an [[Affectionate Parody]] of the shounen genre, with lots of slapstick humor, telling the misadventures of the Otokojuku's 1st Years, and their relationships. Then from the 4th volume onwards, all the story arcs are [[Tournament Arc]]s, that enters a [[Stealth Parody]] territory of the genre.
* ''[[Naruto]]'' receives a shot of Cerebus Syndrome every now and then. At first this show was about the lovable Naruto and his comedic antics with a dark backstory lightly touched upon. Then Team 7 went on their first C-ranked mission a few episodes in and suddenly the stakes are raised to potential death. Then Orochimaru decides to invade the Leaf Village near the end of the Chunin Exams which only had one plotline death ([[It Was His Sled|the Third Hokage]]) but more lives were at stake then before. After the timeskip, Akatsuki takes the role of main antagonists (Orochimaru is put on the side) and they have plans of world domination. They even go so far as to kill Asuma, Shikamaru's sensei, which greatly affects him. The latest dose happens in the Pain arc, where Pain invades the Leaf just like Orochimaru, but actually causes several plotline deaths and devastates the Leaf village even more. {{spoiler|Though the characters killed get an [[Author's Saving Throw]] via Nagato's sacrifice.}}
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* ''[[Ghost Sweeper Mikami]]'' gets into the syndrome once Ashtaroth starts getting prominent (although you could arguably trace it back to Medusa's introduction). However, Shiina ''never'' lets this obstruct the original comedic qualities, leading to a pretty fair amount of [[Mood Whiplash]].
* ''[[Haibane Renmei]]'' is initially quite cheery and light-hearted, but roughly half-way through shifts into something darker and much more dramatic.
* Very mild case in ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]
* [[Mawaru Penguindrum]] starts as a wacky series about the Takakura brothers's tragicomic attempts to keep their sister alive. By episode 8, we learn that the people involved in this are quite more [[Humans Are Flawed|complex and flawed]] than they look, but there's still quite a [[Mood Whiplash]]. By episode 18, not only more secrets and complexities are revealed (alongside many [[Freudian Excuse]]s), but {{spoiler|one character straight up tries to ''kill'' another and almost manages to kill said chara and maim another.}} And by episode 21, after MANY other [[The Reveal|reveals]], shit has hit the fan like whoa. [[It Got Worse]], indeed.
* ''[[Gosick]]'' has a case of this, with the tension and scale of the story underlying each mystery building greater and greater towards the climax, eventually dropping the romantic comedy scenes altogether.
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* ''[[Popotan]]'' is in no way only comedic to begin with, but even so its first couple of episodes at least has more laughs than tears. The later ones do not. The biggest example is without a doubt {{spoiler|Konami's death}} in episode 9, which marks the transition from dramedy to regular drama.
* Happens once in a while in ''[[Gintama]]''. The Benizakura, Itou, Yoshiwara, Jiraia, Kabukichou (and other) storylines are way more serious and dramatic than the usual lazy-ass, nose-picking, potty humored regular episodes. Also, any time [[Knight of Cerebus|Takasugi]] shows up, shit gets serious. And then he goes away, and the series goes back to the normal idiocy. It's also notable that even in the serious stories, the series still maintains a certain level of dorkiness.
* ''[[Made in Abyss]]'' starts out like something [[Studio Ghibli]] would make in one of their whimsical family friendly movies. After a while, it quickly descends into a flat-out, body horror filled series with strong emotional moments. This manga (and anime adaptation) isn't for the faint of heart.
== Comics ==▼
* This trope takes its name from ''[[Cerebus|Cerebus The Aardvark]]'', a(n) (in)famous indie print comic that began as a parody of [[Heroic Fantasy]], but [[Indecisive Parody|drifted into the genre itself.]] (And subsequently into [[Creator Breakdown|far stranger waters]].)
* ''[[Bone]]'' does this intentionally. Over its ten-year run, it went from a cute, kid-friendly comic about sudden snowfalls, greedy relatives and stupid, stupid rat creatures to an epic fantasy saga about a rather horrific [[Sealed Evil in a Can]] with graphic violence and death, the threat of genocide, a [[Religion of Evil]], and the aforementioned rat creatures going from harmless comic relief to a deadly threat. However, it still managed to kick in humor every now and then, with at least one funny moment every issue. Jeff Smith apparently did this so that audiences wouldn't be "committed to an epic tale right from the start."
* The ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' comic started out as a gag series on par with ''[[Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog]]'', but gradually grew more serious over its run. At least some of this may be due to the game series going down the same path.
** Likewise its UK counterpart ''[[Sonic the Comic]]'' began as a rather comical series, though not nearly as goofy, until it began to [[Grow the Beard]]. The last arc was by far the darkest, being fairly [[Darker and Edgier]].
* ''[[Scud the Disposable Assassin]]''{{'}}s first story arcs included a cult that
* It could be argued that the entire [[Superhero]] ''genre'' has gone through Cerebus Syndrome. The days of jet-powered apes from Mars have more or less vanished in favour of dramatic, [[Darker and Edgier]] storylines.
** Arguably, this is a [[Cyclic Trope]]. [[The Golden Age of Comic Books]] was darker and more dramatic than [[The Silver Age of Comic Books]], and since the end of [[The Dark Age of Comic Books]], Fun Comics have been on the upswing.
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* ''[[Johnny the Homicidal Maniac]]'' went through intentional Cerebus Syndrome, from the [[Black Comedy]] and Johnny's lewd justifications for killing sprees of the first three issues to an exploration of Johnny's depressing outlook on life in the fourth issue, {{spoiler|[[The Reveal]] of the history of the Doughboys}} in the fifth, as well is an investigation of the characters of Tess and Krik, then back to [[Black Comedy]] in the sixth and seventh (though {{spoiler|Reverend Meat and the death of Jimmy}} were far from funny... except when they were). Even Happy Noodle Boy went through (sort of) Cerebus Syndrome, becoming [[Creator Breakdown|more and more incomprehensible as Johnny slipped further into insanity]]. Jhonen Vasquez mentioned in his commentary in the Director's Cut that all this was planned.
** This may have been planned from the beginning of the serial, but the earlier stand alone comics that predated it had no ambition beyond dark humor.
* ''Wash Tubbs'' went from "bigfoot" humor to high adventure with the addition of soldier-of-fortune Captain Easy to the cast. Since this happened in 1929, this qualifies as [[Older Than Television]].▼
* Another early example is ''Skippy'', a comic strip from the 1920's through 1940's. It was originally a wildly popular comic about a mischievous kid, but it started getting more and more serious and political when creator Percy L. Crosby became convinced that President Franklin Roosevelt was a Communist. Eventually, a company with connections to the IRS used several "random" audits to successfully take over the rights to the name Skippy. The company was, of course, the maker of Skippy peanut butter. Crosby ended up suicidally depressed in a mental hospital. You can read the whole story [http://www.toonopedia.com/skippy.htm here].▼
* The strip which eventually became ''Steve Roper & Mike Nomad'' began life in 1936 as a wacky comedy starring a stereotyped American Indian named Big Chief Wahoo. Roper was introduced in 1940 and took over the strip, until by 1947 Big Chief Wahoo had been written out and the wacky humour entirely dropped in favour of action adventure. Mike Nomad appeared in 1956, by which time the original nature of the strip had totally vanished.▼
** Ironically, Big Chief Wahoo had not been planned to be the strip leader; he was supposed to be a supporting character to the Great Gusto, a traveling salesman/conman. Wahoo was [[Ensemble Darkhorse|instantly much more popular]] and Gusto, reduced to second banana status from the beginning, was gone by 1939.▼
* ''[[Funky Winkerbean]]'' literally jumped (in the form of a 10-year timeskip) from a high-school based gag strip (with occasional dramatic ''[[Very Special Episode]]''s) to a frequently depressing drama strip where [[Anyone Can Die]]. A second ten-year timeskip seems to have abandoned all pretense of zany (or should that be funky?) comedy, preferring a more down-to-earth kind (when, that is, there's any at all).▼
** Also, ghost voyeurs.▼
* ''[[9 Chickweed Lane]]'' started life in 1993 as a gag-a-day strip about 3 generations of females and their daily experiences. It has since become a piercing look at personal relationships and the human condition, with its recent "mega-arc" - encompassing the lives of many people - lasting several years.▼
** Or, as a commenter on the [http://joshreads.com/?p=6827 Comics Curmudgeon blog puts it...]▼
* ''[[For Better or For Worse]]'', although that has turned around somewhat as Lynn Johnston has essentially done a [[Re Boot]] back to the strip's original chronology, and the more gag-oriented formula therein. [http://www.fborfw.com/behind_the_scenes/hybrid/ New material, new art and new enthusiasm!] (With an occasional classic strip thrown in.)▼
* While the initial issues of Archie's ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures]]'' remained somewhat close to its cartoon source in tone, the series eventually got progressively more serious, with multiple deaths, more introspective stories, and even a scene showing [[Adolf Hitler]]'s suicide.▼
* ''[[Doonesbury]]'' always had a political element, but in its first couple of years in national syndication it was mostly a light-hearted strip about college life (continuing where Garry Trudeau's work at Yale left off). Once [[Richard Nixon|Watergate]] happened it focused more and more on politics. On top of that it became more of a serial strip, and even introduced [[Anyone Can Die]] to the comics page.▼
* ''[[Bloom County]]'' started out as a rural humor strip, but as time went on they started adding more and more political and pop culture satire, which would dominate the strip for the rest of the run. Strangely, its Cerebus syndrome coincided with it sliding down the [[Sliding Scale of Fourth Wall Hardness]] all the way to having [[No Fourth Wall]].▼
* ''[[Empowered]]'' started as a superhero parody with a lot of [[Fan Service]]. The first three volumes are mostly comedy, with occasional hints at more dramatic plot developments and backstories. Volume four goes all out, opening with Ninjette apparently dealing with PTSD. Five sees {{spoiler|Emp's [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] from the previous book being not only papered over by her [[Jerkass]] teammates but outright turned against her and the death of one (maybe two) main characters plus a horde of C-listers. Volume Six is 60-80% GRIMDARK.}}
* ''[[Candorville]]'' ran into this by way of [[Genre Shift]]. Initially, it made a lot of jokes that [[
* ''[[Supergirl]]: Cosmic adventures in the 8th grade'', of all things. The first four issues are mostly light-hearted, but the last two reveal that {{spoiler|Mister Myxyzptlk}} has been behind everything, and may even have {{spoiler|gone back in time and ''destroyed Krypton in the first place''}} just to make sure he got everyone where he wanted them.
* Marvel's New X-Men Vol 2 starts out as a low-angst (especially by mutant standards) romp of high school cliques and teen age personal interactions until M-Day, when most of the mutants lost their powers. Series then does a nose dive as the mutant hating Purifiers start picking off regular cast members one by one and the students fight for survival including scenes where kids not even old enough to drive are wondering which of them is going to die next when they aren't literally being dragged to hell.
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* The first two [[Tintin]] adventures (''Tintin in the Land of the Soviets'' and ''Tintin in the Congo'') are outright comedies where the action is often surreal and played for laughs (for instance Tintin [[Values Dissonance|killing a rhino]] by drilling into its hide and dropping in a stick of ''dynamite''.) The third adventure (''Titin in America'') was transitional with a lot of off the wall comedy still mixing with the plot before the series finally found it's familiar mood of exciting and suspenseful action with character driven comic relief with ''Cigars of the Pharaoh''.
== Fan Works ==
▲== Fan Fic ==
* The ''[[Tamers Forever Series]]'': the author says it best:
{{quote|''"When 'Tamers Forever' was originally conceived, it was supposed to be a ten-story series mainly concerning a Takato/Rika relationship. It was supposed to be more of a romantic comedy, however, I realized my strong point wasn't comedy, as I unconsciously deepened and filled the plot with questions and secrets."''}}
* ''[[Nine Knackered Souls]]'' started as the [[Red vs. Blue|''RvB'' cast]] thrown into the wonderful [[Sugar Bowl]] [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|world of ponies]], and trying and failing to fit in. {{spoiler|Then Maine appears....}}
** In ''[[Ace Combat: The Equestrian War]]'', despite things going well for the ponies for majority of the war, the griffins always find a way to get them on the edge. Then [[Tear Jerker|chapter 15]] comes.
== Film ==
* Inverted by the ''[[Evil Dead]]'' films, which started out as genuinely terrifying and ended up becoming [[Bloody Hilarious]].
* The Adam Sandler film ''[[Click]]'' starts off as a wacky comedy about a man who can pause and fast forward his life with a magical remote control. It eventually shifts from him making a hot blonde jogging go in slow motion to him {{spoiler|fast forwarding through his life until he grows old and dies}}.
* ''[[Harry Potter and
* ''[[Three Kings]]'' starts out as a madcap comedy/heist film until about a third of the way through, when we see a Republican Guardsmen execute a begging Iraqi civilian woman (in slow motion, no less).
* Many of [[Pixar]]'s films are starting to become much darker than the last.
* ''[[Pleasantville]]'' starts out on a pretty light-hearted note, until the darker aspects of the 1950s start showing up.
== Literature ==
* The novel ''[[Nuklear Age]]'' by ''[[8-Bit Theater]]'' author [[Brian Clevinger]] plays with this trope, mirroring the development of comics as a medium. It starts out over-the-top and cheesy, quickly becomes over-the-top and genuinely entertaining, but, near the ending, it becomes over-the-top yet heart-wrenching.
* Joseph Heller's ''[[Catch-22]]'' uses this trope brilliantly. From the beginning it depicts a hopeless and bleak world that the central character wants nothing more than to escape from, but as the book progresses it starts using the same things it [[Black Comedy|played for laughs early on]] to a much more devastating and serious effect, such as the absurd and tongue-in-cheek importance of the mess hall officer {{spoiler|leading to a few riots, multiple missing parachutes and a tragic bombing, all for the sake of manipulating cotton markets}}.
* The ''[[Discworld]]'' series starts with ''[[
{{quote|The rumor spread through Ankh-Morpork like wildfire -- which had spread through Ankh-Morpork quite often since its inhabitants had learned the phrase "fire insurance".}}
** The transition here is rather similar to the Trope Namer in that the first book, and at least most of the second, were clearly intended to be a wacky parody of standard fantasy to the extent it's often possible to tell specifically which ''author'' is being parodied (for example, the bizarre punctuation in the names of the dragon riders). The parody aspect gradually faded to the point that most of the newer novels are more or less standard fantasy with comedic elements rather than comedy with fantasy elements. (Although "standard" might not be the right term for [[
* ''[[The Hobbit]]'' was written for children and adults. It starts off pretty fun and silly, but becomes more solemn by the end. ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', which was [[Canon Welding|welded]] into the same world after the fact, was written for a more adult audience and is much darker than ''The Hobbit''. Although Tolkien strenuously denied that the story was an allegory for World War II, Tolkien was a World War I veteran, and the horrors of both World Wars almost certainly influenced the major themes, such as corrupting power, just and unjust war, and the necessity of change in the meantime.
* ''[[The Inkworld Trilogy|Inkheart]]'' gets pretty damn depressing and extremely violent. In the second two books of the trilogy, which take place in the Inkworld, it turns out the place isn't the wondrous fantasy world it appears to be. The villains in these novels make Capricorn seem like a harmless bully by comparison, and even the heroes all seem to have prominent dark sides.
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* To a certain extent, ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'' series by [[Douglas Adams]] invokes this trope with ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy/Mostly Harmless|Mostly Harmless]]'', written around the time Adams suffered some [[Creator Breakdown|private personal difficulties]] that led to him writing an incredibly depressing ending to the series. He wanted to write a sixth book to counter the Cerebus Syndrome but his infamous [[Author Existence Failure]] stopped him. [[Eoin Colfer]] wrote ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy/And Another Thing|And Another Thing]]'', but everyone is certain it will never match Adams' own unwritten sixth ''Hitchhiker's'' book.
* This is visible in ''[[Septimus Heap]]'' where the first mbooks start out with a rather cheery atmosphere but progressively darken until the very existence of the Castle is threatened in ''Darke''.
* Famously, the ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' series started out
▲== Live Action TV ==
* ''Otasuke Girl'' was a short DTV Japanese series about a superpowered high school detective girl. While most of the episodes were very lighthearted, featuring humorous recurring characters, bad guys who were more silly than threatening, and the title character using hilarious fighting techniques like hiting her oponent's face with her butt while shooting 'hip punch!', the series finale featured little to no humor, with a story about children's disappearance and Otasuke Girl being put in a coma. Even if all went back to normal at the end, ending this lighthearted series on such a dark episode gave a really weird feeling.
* ''[[Super Sentai]]'' seems to be more lighthearted for the first 10 episodes while we get to know the characters before getting more arc based and dramatic after the story kicks in. Since new series start without so much as a week's break after the last one, this run of lighthearted episodes may count as a [[Breather Episode]] after how serious the last ten episodes of a series seem to get.
** In another way, looking at the series as a whole, it seems to waffle back and forth between each season. The serious [[Chouriki Sentai Ohranger|Ohranger]] was followed by the lighthearted [[Gekisou Sentai Carranger|Carranger]]. Similarly we went from silly Go-onger to serious [[Samurai Sentai Shinkenger|Shinkenger]] to silly [[Tensou Sentai Goseiger|Goseiger]]. It seems like the creative team just like going back and forth with it.
* ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|
** Parodied by ''[[Futurama]]''.
{{quote|'''Zoidberg:''' This is how it starts: first with the jokes, then comes the heavy stuff.}}
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* ''[[Blackadder]]'' did this [[Mood Whiplash|very suddenly]] with the [[Tear Jerker|tragic finale]] of the fourth series.
** Interesting, because the first and second series ended with everyone dying. In those occasions, it was inevitably played for laughs, making the end of ''Blackadder Goes Forth'' particularly striking.
* ''[[Farscape]]'' started off as a [[Fish Out of Water]] human-stuck-in-space series with a lot of comedy and some rather astute drama subplots. And then [[Darker and Edgier|it got darker]], and [[It Got Worse|darker]], and those dramatic subplots became featured with [[Mind Screw]]... and finally by the [[Peace Keeper]] Wars you have... er... well... [https://web.archive.org/web/20140404052441/http://www.d2o2.com/pics/galaxy/index.html this. See entry number 3]. However the entire slide from: comedy -> drama emphasis was [[Conspiracy Theorist|too well written to be a accident]], and the show kept [[Growing the Beard]].
* ''[[Poirot]]'' series, after season IX, saw the deletion of regular comic relief characters like [[The Watson|Captain Hastings]], and inclusion of more serious, "dark" themes.
* ''[[iCarly]]'': The episode ''iOMG'' is the first of a five episode 'arc' involving the Sam/Freddie [[
* Notably averted by [[Seinfeld]]. Despite being on the air for almost a decade, it never slid into drama. Not even a [[Very Special Episode]]. Even the series finale was all comedy.
* ''[[The Job]]'' started out as somewhat black comedy, but over the course of the series morphed into something very much like its [[Spiritual Successor]] ''[[Rescue Me]]''.
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** The weird thing is that the dark subject matter isn't handled as dark subject matter. Hearing the overactive laugh track and the actors' tones, you wouldn't know you were watching a show that included genocide, abduction of a (for most intents and purposes) teenage girl and manslaughter. But it's a sitcom, of course. It deals humourously with everyday occurrences such as finding out that your younger brother was responsible for your vampire girlfriend's abduction by a mummy and the death of every monster-hunting wizard except you.
** The "competition" that drives the premise is mean-spirited to begin with, which is lampshaded by the fact that it tore apart Jerry's family - yet Jerry insists on putting his own children through it despite the fact that they have clearly inherited the same spirit of rivalry in magic and every other aspect of their lives. One child in each family gets to keep their powers if they win a protracted contest that makes no allowances for age gaps. That child spends the rest of their life with magic powers at the likely cost of being bitterly envied by their siblings, who have an extraordinary gift taken away from them. Furthermore, wizards have a segregation policy when it comes to marriage between wizards and non-wizards - it comes at the cost of relinquishing one's powers.
* ''[[Glee]]'' started off with really lighthearted humor and was almost a parody of the Musical genre. About half way through the first season however the storylines have become more and more serious (and [[Anvilicious]].)
* ''[[Scrubs]]'' was never supposed to be a blatant humor show, and had always shown signs of seriousness, but the last 3 seasons with the main cast really took the darkness up to 11. With JD's romantic story lines getting more and more tragic, his son, Turk and Carla's marital problems, Dr. Cox's ever growing problems leading up to several break downs, and plenty of death to go around, Scrubs ended as way more of a drama than a comedy.
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' has started going down this route. Season 5 of the revived series started with The Doctor regenerating into a [[Cloudcuckoolander]] and running away with Amy Pond. Then, halfway through the season {{spoiler|Rory gets erased from time}}. At the end of the season, {{spoiler|the universe explodes}}. While this is restored at the end of the finale, season 6 is even darker. It ''starts'' with {{spoiler|the Doctor being killed by River Song}}.
* While the first season of ''[[Community]]'' had it's darker moments, it was generally episodic and consequence free. The second season noticeably changed tone, especially with Pierce becoming a downright villain in several episodes ("and then I rape the Ducane family" anyone?). Even [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] by Abed ([[Genre Savvy|of course]]) and several others dropping various comments like "this has been a dark year". And the third season? Can anyone say "[[Beard of Evil|darkest timeline]]"?
== Music ==
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* Can be seen throughout the album ''[[Danger Days]]: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys'' by [[My Chemical Romance]]. Starts out on the light-hearted, you-suck-we-win themed track [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egG7fiE89IU "Na Na Na"], before the tracks get more and more angsty and tragic. However, their last track, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3L6T0dfHa0 "Vampire Money"], revamps the entire feel and ends the album with the same feeling it started out with, contradicting this trope in the first place.
* Joy Division, who started off playing upbeat punk music with vaguely war related lyrics. By their last year, Ian was writing songs that came across as suicide notes. Their last recorded song "In A Lonely Place" mentions the process of a man hanging himself. And Ian did just that several days later. The band's evolution, New Order are an inversion, starting off a dark continuation of Joy Division and moving into poppier territory as they went on.
* [[Miley Cyrus]]' first album outside of the ''[[Hannah Montana]]'' franchise, ''Meet Miley Cyrus'' was in the teen pop vein, with love songs devoted to her then-boyfriend [[The Jonas Brothers|Nick Jonas]]. After they broke up, her second album naturally reflected the breakup. Her EP ''The Time Of Our Lives'', despite being more lighthearted, contained some angrier/punkier material like "Talk Is Cheap" and her cover of Ashlee Simpson's "Kicking And Screaming", while some songs show the beginnings of her
* Although [[Bruce Springsteen]]'s early songs have occasional moments of melancholy, the overall impression of his first three albums is a manic world of street racing, fairgrounds and lots and lots of sex. After a long court case, he came back with Darkness on the Edge of Town, which was [[Darker and Edgier|just what you'd expect from the title]]. A few years later, he put out [[It Got Worse|Nebraska]]
▲== Newspaper Comics ==
▲* ''Wash Tubbs'' went from "bigfoot" humor to high adventure with the addition of soldier-of-fortune Captain Easy to the cast. Since this happened in 1929, this qualifies as [[Older Than Television]].
▲* Another early example is ''Skippy'', a comic strip from the 1920's through 1940's. It was originally a wildly popular comic about a mischievous kid, but it started getting more and more serious and political when creator Percy L. Crosby became convinced that President Franklin Roosevelt was a Communist. Eventually, a company with connections to the IRS used several "random" audits to successfully take over the rights to the name Skippy. The company was, of course, the maker of Skippy peanut butter. Crosby ended up suicidally depressed in a mental hospital. You can read the whole story [http://www.toonopedia.com/skippy.htm here].
▲* The strip which eventually became ''Steve Roper & Mike Nomad'' began life in 1936 as a wacky comedy starring a stereotyped American Indian named Big Chief Wahoo. Roper was introduced in 1940 and took over the strip, until by 1947 Big Chief Wahoo had been written out and the wacky humour entirely dropped in favour of action adventure. Mike Nomad appeared in 1956, by which time the original nature of the strip had totally vanished.
▲** Ironically, Big Chief Wahoo had not been planned to be the strip leader; he was supposed to be a supporting character to the Great Gusto, a traveling salesman/conman. Wahoo was [[Ensemble Darkhorse|instantly much more popular]] and Gusto, reduced to second banana status from the beginning, was gone by 1939.
▲* ''[[Funky Winkerbean]]'' literally jumped (in the form of a 10-year timeskip) from a high-school based gag strip (with occasional dramatic ''[[Very Special Episode]]''s) to a frequently depressing drama strip where [[Anyone Can Die]]. A second ten-year timeskip seems to have abandoned all pretense of zany (or should that be funky?) comedy, preferring a more down-to-earth kind (when, that is, there's any at all).
▲** Also, ghost voyeurs.
▲* ''[[9 Chickweed Lane]]'' started life in 1993 as a gag-a-day strip about 3 generations of females and their daily experiences. It has since become a piercing look at personal relationships and the human condition, with its recent "mega-arc" - encompassing the lives of many people - lasting several years.
▲** Or, as a commenter on the [http://joshreads.com/?p=6827 Comics Curmudgeon blog puts it...]
▲* ''[[For Better or For Worse]]'', although that has turned around somewhat as Lynn Johnston has essentially done a [[
▲* While the initial issues of Archie's ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures]]'' remained somewhat close to its cartoon source in tone, the series eventually got progressively more serious, with multiple deaths, more introspective stories, and even a scene showing [[Adolf Hitler]]'s suicide.
▲* ''[[Doonesbury]]'' always had a political element, but in its first couple of years in national syndication it was mostly a light-hearted strip about college life (continuing where Garry Trudeau's work at Yale left off). Once [[Richard Nixon|Watergate]] happened it focused more and more on politics. On top of that it became more of a serial strip, and even introduced [[Anyone Can Die]] to the comics page.
▲* ''[[Bloom County]]'' started out as a rural humor strip, but as time went on they started adding more and more political and pop culture satire, which would dominate the strip for the rest of the run. Strangely, its Cerebus syndrome coincided with it sliding down the [[Sliding Scale of Fourth Wall Hardness]] all the way to having [[No Fourth Wall]].
==
* Computer magazine ''MacAddict'', one of the two magazines split off from the defunct ''CD-ROM Today'' in 1996 (''boot'', now ''Maximum PC'', was the other). When it started out, ''MacAddict'' was unafraid to have fun: they often included little cartoons in the letters section and back page (even a stick-figure mascot, Max, who was also used in their reviewing scale); the pages were bright, colorful and rife with [[Running Gag]]s (for several issues, they joked that each magazine was soaked in Downy before it was shipped out); the CD that shipped with every issue would include something funny like a video of the staff destroying a Windows computer; and so on. In the early 2000s, the magazine got a white, sterile makeover (replacing the Max scale with a normal five-star scale), and the tone gradually shifted to a far more serious and straight-laced approach. This shift culminated in 2007, when the magazine was renamed ''Mac|Life''.
== Radio ==
* ''[[Let George Do It]]'' initially started out as a comedy about a soldier back from the [[World War II|war]] going into business as a professional odd-jobs man, doing things too silly or embarrassing for others to do, including occasional work as a private detective. He had a lovely young woman to assist him, with a gee-whiz little brother to get into light-hearted trouble. Over the course of several episodes, however, changes like the [[Put on a Bus|sudden disappearance]] of the [[Brother Chuck|kid brother]] and the music going from full orchestra to organ-only darkened the tone of the show to the hard boiled detective series that the show is known for being now.
== Theater ==
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* Most of the first act of ''[[Wicked (theatre)|Wicked]]'' is a light-hearted story about a green girl trying to fit into school and becoming friends with her popular, ditzy roommate while also falling in love with the class clown. By the end of the Act, culminating in "Defying Gravity", Elphaba discovers the truth behind the Wizard and vows to right his wrongs, getting her labeled as public enemy number one and having her best friend choose fame and power over the side of good and truth. That's just Act 1; it gets much worse in the second act.
* ''[[Next to Normal]]'' is all fun and jokes for most of the first act, until {{spoiler|Gabe is revealed to be dead}}. It only deteriorates more in the second act.
== [[Toys]] ==
* ''[[Bionicle]]'' took itself seriously (for [[LEGO]] brand, at least) since the start, but also had a lighthearted, welcoming feel to it. Then, in 2005, the writers drifted into much darker wartes, and seemingly enjoyed it there. Every story from that point on was dead serious and increasingly darker in tone. When originally, it was just taking mind-control masks off animals and letting them go, by the last couple of years, characters continuously slaughtered and mercilessly murdered each other, and the only humor came from the sarcastically dry remarks and occasional pop-references the characters made. No more cute little animal sidekicks,<ref>well, one ''did'' appear at one point, but the writer quickly got rid of it</ref> no cheerful village people... just utter bleakness. In this sense, it's a relief that the final movie that came out was so canon-defyingly zany and inappropriately [[Slapstick]]y.
== Video Games ==
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* ''[[Ace Combat]]'' started off as a very early entry into the realm of 3D arcade style flying shoot-em-ups for the original [[PlayStation]]; though it was still at least somewhat more complicated than other competing titles and most of the gameplay elements that would define the series were already there, it didn't have much in the way of plot and was more or less a fairly straightforward game. By the time of Ace Combat 3, however, the flying and fighting aspects were framed by a deep and very well-developed story, which by the next title were often at best tangential in their impact on the player's actual missions and prone to focusing on the enemy just as much or more as on the player's side, as well as an increasing frequency in anti-war messages ([[Anvilicious|odd in a game entirely about war, needless to say]]). The gameplay became more complex as well, introducing additional subtle realism tweaks such as more realistic aircraft momentum, and by the most recent title has had [[Nintendo Hard|a corresponding effect on gameplay]]. The intro of the latest game, which probably tries a bit too hard when it comes to conveying the impact of war, embodies this trope and was duly featured on ''[[Unskippable]]''.
* ''[[Live a Live]]'' (pronounced Life Alive) as a result of the theme. When it happens depends entirely on your mileage and the order you play the chapters. Some are [[Lighter and Softer]] then others, at least two are [[Nightmare Fuel]], and if it's your first time you play in the chronological order without spoilers.
* ''[[
** While ''Mother 3'' is certainly more of a [[Tear Jerker]] than ''Earthbound'', they both have Cerebus Syndrome within their games. ''Earthbound'' starts with you dealing with cops who take pride in their ability to block roads and ends with you fighting a being of pure evil that is considered [[Nightmare Fuel]] by many players. ''Mother 3'' starts with you in a peaceful, utopian village and ends with the main villain essentially owning the entire world.
* ''[[Jak and Daxter]]'' is a silly, shiny, nice game with colors all around. Its two sequels are very clearly influenced by ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' in both gameplay and themes, but still remain good games, and it's arguable that the more serious shift allowed for better, more grown up jokes.
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* ''[[Advance Wars]]'' had this; the first game was sort of up beat, with you fighting it out with the clear-cut bad guys. Second game, still upbeat, but the villain is somewhat more... unnerving. Third game, the villains are sucking the life out of the planet, there's few signs you can do anything to change this, and you {{spoiler|choose at the end whether the [[Big Bad]] lives or dies}}. The latest one is set in a post apocalyptic wasteland where the NPCs in the campaign tell you to leave the civilians behind and the first fight you have is with piratical raiders.
** And the big bad? Strum wanted to take over the world. Von Bolt wanted to live forever. Caulder, on the other hand, [[Complete Monster|conducts experiments on what's left of humanity.]]
* The flash game [http://www.kongregate.com/games/2DArray/viricide ''Viricide''] goes, over the course of the paragraphs that pop up between the 17 waves, from jokes about an AI's malfunctioning doble entandra system, to said AI explaining that her programmer was taking depression meds while working on her, and one day told her he was going to solve all his problems by taking all the pills in the bottle at once instead of taking them two at a time. She never saw him again, but hopes what he did made him feel better.
** {{spoiler|She also goes from referring to her programer as "my programmer" to calling him "my father" and "Dad" and she ask you to [[I Cannot Self-Terminate|disable her "emotional core"]] which gives her a personality}}
* The main [[Super Mario Bros.|Mario]] usually makes no attempt to do this, but the ''[[Paper Mario (franchise)|Paper Mario]]'' and ''[[Mario & Luigi]]'' series do.
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** ''[[Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga]]'' was a fairly lighthearted game. ''[[Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time|Partners In Time]]'' had ''aliens attacking the past'' for a plot, with depressing moments (Toad Town, anyone?). ''[[Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story|Bowser's Inside Story]]'' apparently shifts the pendulum back to a lighthearted tone.
** The non-RPG games have an undead Bowser and Bowser's risky plot to expand his empire into outer space.
** ''Paper Mario: The Origami King'' is a good example of a single game going this route: at first just as wacky and funny as could be expected from a Mario game, with quirky and over-the-top villains that go into [[Villainous Breakdown|hilarious meltdowns]] when defeated, until you approach the end of the game, {{spoiler|fight your way in dark and bleak areas through abominations that wouldn't be out of place in a horror game and bosses that traded quirkiness for stoic psychopathy or mindless violence, are forced to abandon several allies to be overwhelmed by enemy forces, and discover how [[Complete Monster|truly monstrous]] [[Big Bad|Olly]] actually is.}}
* ''[[Call of Duty]]: World at War'''s [[Nazi Zombies]] mode appears to be suffering from the syndrome.
** The first map, Nacht der Untoten, was really just four [[
** The second map, Verruckt, was more of the same, with Perk-a-cola machines and electro-shock defenses. And the EVIL teddy bear.
** But the third map, Shi no Numa, not only features four well-defined characters, but has lots and lots of easter eggs hinting to the origins of the zombies, and most of all, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyM3lTBjmvQ&feature=related This.]
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** It goes from apparently incompetent [[Yakuza]] with a badass leader, to [[Darker and Edgier]] Yakuza without said leader, to two [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] cults who {{spoiler|almost kill everyone in their region and change the world for the worst}}, to an even more extreme cult with a [[Manipulative Bastard]] leader that wants to ''destroy the world''. ''[[Pokémon Black and White]]'' scaled back with a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] [[Animal Wrongs Group]] but they still aim higher than the Yakuza (and the main villain of that game is [[Complete Monster|nastier]] than any before him). NPCs and the storyline in the games tend to get worse too, such as Maylene's dad having an addiction to gambling that has driven him to not leave the facility and the periodic [[Parental Abandonment]].
** Some of the later spin-offs are even nastier. [[Pokémon Colosseum]] takes place in a [[Crapsack World]] where the enemy is an organization that [[Mind Rape]]s Pokémon into heartless killing-machines for a pastime, [[Pokémon Ranger]] has the third [[Big Bad]] plotting to [[Kill All Humans]] just because his plan to [[Take Over the World]] failed, and there's the second [[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon]] which is home to [[Bad Future|a horrific and nightmarish alternate future]] that gives [[Terminator]]'s future a run for its money, [[Tear Jerker|one of the most gut-wrenching endings in gaming]] (things got better during [[The Stinger]] thankfully), and the heroes considering ''killing themselves to save the world.''
** The [[Pokémon (anime)|anime]] had a different form of this than most. While it usually doesn't get really dark outside of the [[Big Damn Movies|movies]], the series goes in the opposite direction of its [[Denser and Wackier]] first season. Then by the Diamond and Pearl seasons, Team Galactic and [[Knight of Cerebus|Pokemon Hunter J]] made some episodes a lot darker. And now they're in Unova, where the [[Terrible Trio]] suddenly [[Took a Level
* Brutally done in ''[[Eversion]]''. In fact, it's the entire point.
* Not just with the comics, the [[Sonic the Hedgehog]] games are particularly infamous for this, starting with ''Sonic Adventure'', but it really took hold in ''Shadow the Hedgehog''. This also corresponded with a decline in quality (reaching its low with the notorious ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' from 2006) that essentially caused the [[Fan Dumb]] to tear itself apart. Only when [[Reverse Cerebus Syndrome]] kicked in did the blue speedster begin to win back the approval of the critics and his jaded fan base by not only lightening the tone, but discarding almost all of the [[Loads and Loads of Characters]].
* Telltale's ''[[The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police|Sam and Max]]'' games have always been darkly humorous adventures without a bit of seriousness. Then ''The Devil's Playhouse'' began. The comedy remained, but a lot more emphasis was placed on the narrative. The series' [[Crapsack World]] stopped being played totally for jokes, episode continuity became much tighter, and the tone became darker and darker, leading all the way to the finale {{spoiler|and Max's death.}}
* The first ''[[Portal (series)|Portal]]'' game touches on this. In the beginning [[
* Parodied and subverted in ''[[Recettear]]''. At the end of Obsidian Tower, {{spoiler|Griff reveals his plot to restore power to the demon race, which would wreak havoc all over the place}}...then Recette mocks his plan for being really cliche.
* The Broodwar addon did this to [[
** Heck, the first one had a bittersweet ending, with {{spoiler|the Overmind being destroyed and Tassadar dying.}} Broodwar had the UED, Dominion, Protoss and Raiders combining for an epic battle against {{spoiler|Kerrigan}} that we knew they would win. {{spoiler|Then Kerrigan slaughters them all.}}
* Happened to a certain extent in the ''Fallout'' universe. ''[[Fallout 2]]'' was full of wacky gags and fourth-wall-breaking humor (an item that only be gained by having one of your stats permanently reduced includes "If you're reading this, you're probably going to reload," as part of its description). In comparison, ''[[Fallout 3]]'' is a very serious game that focuses on easing the brutality of a [[Crapsack World]].
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** In the series' defense, the original ''[[Fallout]]'' was rather serious in tone, and Bethesda stated that they planned to emulate that style over the wackier one that emerged in the sequel.
* ''[[Hatoful Boyfriend]]'' is an [[Affectionate Parody]] of [[Dating Sim]]s where you date wacky pigeons as a wacky human female. It also has the grim Bad Boys Love route unlocked after obtaining every other ending that ''starts'' with {{spoiler|the female protagonist being [[Killed Off for Real]]}} and [[It Got Worse|gets worse]] from there on with a series of genuinely shocking and heartbreaking [[The Reveal|Reveals]] that transform even the silliest and most light-hearted birds into massive [[The Woobie|Woobies]] or [[Big Damn Heroes]].
* ''[[Kid Icarus: Uprising]]'' goes through this once you hit Chapter 18. For something that starts out as a [[Denser and Wackier]] [[Affectionate Parody]] of both [[Greek Mythology]] and videogames in general with [[No Fourth Wall]], the shift to one of the bleakest tones in ''any'' Nintendo game comes as quite a shock to say the least.
* ''[[Custom Robo]]'' doesn't even try to take itself seriously. Villains are mostly comical, the story lighthearted, and not too much hint of the events to come. Then comes the [[Info Dump]] with two seperate save points...and it all goes downhill from there (granted, you can invoke some humour by picking the funny dialogue options. It's just not played up automatically).
== Web Animation ==
* ''[[Red vs. Blue]]'' begins with a comedic and zany plot for the majority of ''The Blood Gulch Chronicles''. It then becomes almost completely serious during ''Out Of Mind'' and ''Recovery One''. Finally, in ''Reconstruction'', the drama meets the comedy in a batshit insane mash-up of genres.
** This is one rare instance of the drama complementing the comedy. Wash's dead seriousness was entertaining in and of itself, and it also made Caboose's stupidity even more hilarious than it already was. The side stories similarly complement the main series; it is implied that the main characters are a source of comedy because they completely suck as soldiers.
*** Now imagine RvB without the main cast. That is [http://redvsblue.com/archive/?id=3016&v=more&s=9 Season 9,]{{Dead link}} apparently. All drama, no comedy (or not much, at least.) It's understandable actually, since it's about Project Freelancer, and Project Freelancer was kind of messed up.
*** Actually, according to [[Word of God]], the Freelancer prequel is going to be only half the story- the other half will be following the main cast. Thus, half the season will be almost completely cerebus, and the other half will be almost completely humor.
* ''[[There She Is]]'' by [https://web.archive.org/web/20150314231535/http://www.sambakza.net/amalloc/amalloc_frameset.htm SamBakZa] started out as a silly romantic comedy about a rabbit-girl pursuing a cat-boy who finds himself falling in love despite his own prejudices and those of society. Then a rock crashes through his window at the end of the third installment, and the fourth sees the world go into all-out [[Fantastic Racism]], with bad things happening to both the cat boy and the rabbit girl, and with things rather firmly in the [[Darkest Hour]] by the end. {{spoiler|[[Happy Ending|It all gets better at the end, though]]}}.
* ''[[I'm a Marvel And I'm a DC|Marvel/DC: After Hours]]'' had this in a big way. What started off as an uber-topical superhero satire slowly started to become a kind of uber-fanfic, placing the gamut of comic book characters in a world with very flexible rules. The first series only even begins to have a plot at episode three, the second series consists of five 20-minute episodes, and is so plot-centric that the jokes start to become slightly forced (most of them come from the Green Goblin being on tranquilizers, and then ''pretending'' to be on tranquilizers) it remains to be seen how long the creators can keep up the game before they run out of plot.
** N.B.: they still do intermittent comedic side-series as well, which have thus far retained the comedic element completely.
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**** Lampshaded in the teaser for Season3 - Zero Hour.
** Season 2 is explicitly a [[Deconstruction]] of [[Darker and Edgier]]
* Chris Ushko's ''[[Ducktalez]]'' series got a massive dose of this. The original short was a crudely animated piece revolving around fart jokes, with the main story boiling down to Scrooge trying to kill Glomgold with a tank. While darker moments surfaced with Residuck Evil's horror imagery, Ducktalez 3 and The Duck Knight really saw this trope set in with Huey dying, Scrooge having and emotional breakdown and Quackerjack blowing up a gondola full of civilians. Vegeta acted very much as a typical [[Knight Of Cereberus]] (though pretty much all his dialogue with Scrooge constitutes as a [[Crowning Moment of Funny]].) Let's not even get started with the rather morbid scene where Huey finds all the costumes of the sidekicks Darkwing got killed over the years, or Quackerjacks' gruesome death.
== Web Comics ==
* The webcomic ''[[Striptease (webcomic)|Striptease]]'' started out with a cartoony art style, and lighthearted jokes about a comic artist and writer working together and the hijinks they and their friends engage in along the way. After a few chapters, we get not only a major [[Art Shift]] to a more semi-realistic style (still quite cartoony, but not compared to earlier strips) but the plot changes to something that would be a hilarious parody of soap operas if it wasn't taken so seriously-complete with evil twins, brain tumors, "I am your father" moments, character makeovers and a lot of other things that make it completely different from the story the readers had initially enjoyed.
* ''[http://www.polymercitychronicles.com/archive/20000104.html The Polymer City Chronicles]'' are a good example of this. They [http://www.polymercitychronicles.com/archive/20000104.html start out] as a simple four-panel gag comic about games with a wacky cast with minimal backstory. They sometimes feature story arcs, but they only last for a couple of strips and are done mostly for the humor. It then develops into an elaborate adventure story with space travel and demons, which comes to a screeching halt since the author himself seems to have lost track of the plot. He [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] this himself by revealing the plot to be a [[Show Within a Show]] and letting the actors complain about the sudden interruption. The rest of the story is [http://www.polymercitychronicles.com/archive/20020114.html summarized] in-universe before returning to the gag format for some time - only to start another serious storyline half a year later, which is still in progress.
* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' was probably the first webcomic to grapple with the tendency towards drama. Different readers locate the turning point at different places, but the early "Vampire Arc" was probably the first arc with ongoing continuity, characterization and character death. The [http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=981017 final strip of the arc] hung a little bit of a lampshade on the shift.
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* ''[[Megatokyo]]'' started out as a light humor strip. This led to [[Creative Differences]] between writer Rodney Caston, who liked it that way, and artist Fred Gallagher, who preferred a more serious, ongoing plot. Rodney eventually quit, at which point ''Megatokyo'' became more of a [[Seinen]] romance manga about the characters Piro and Kimiko, combined with a zombie-horror action story about Largo, and with comedic elements from the early strips.
** It has arguably completed its journey; these days, the artist doesn't even try to make jokes (though he does include ridiculous situations), Largo has become completely [[Flanderization|Flanderized]], and the main romance plot between Piro and Kimiko has become some kind of [[Contemplate Our Navels|metaphysical examination about the reality of fictional characters and how people project their fantasies and expectations onto other people]].
* ''[[
* Parodied and played straight while being [[Lampshaded]] in ''[[Shortpacked]]'': after Ethan explains to a toy store customer how "Try Me" products come to the store with a tag on the battery which, once pulled, means the battery's unstoppable decay, Robin accidentally pulls the comic's "drama" tag.
** It's also a [[Call Back]] to the author's previous [[Web Comic]], ''[[
** ''[[
*** [[Lampshaded]] heavily with the [[Shout-Out|title of the second]] ''[[Shout-Out|Roomies]]'' [[Shout-Out|collection]]: [[X-Men|Giant-Sized]] Cerebus Syndrome.
* When ''[[Bob and George]]'' started, it was simply a stand-in for another comic the author, Dave, was planning on doing and, as such, was mostly just one-off jokes from comic to comic. After the comic that Dave was working on never managed to lift off the ground, ''Bob and George'' began to get storylines and continuity, although it stayed humorous; the story is mostly told one punch line per comic, with an ending that borders on making a [[Shaggy Dog Story]] of a two-year storyline.
* Parodied in [https://web.archive.org/web/20100813084131/http://www.checkerboardnightmare.com/retro/20051010.shtml this] ''[[Checkerboard Nightmare]]'' strip.
* The webcomic ''[[Exploitation Now]]'' started as comedic, but changed into a drama (with the comic's focus shifting from two characters to two ''other'' characters), ending up with a main character [[Killed Off for Real]].
* Done fairly successfully with ''[[The
** ''Yamara'', also a ''D&D''-based comic, did a similar shift fairly early in its run, with a rather more elaborate [[Lampshade Hanging]] in [http://yamara.com/yamaraclassic/index.php?date=2005-08-22 this strip].
* ''[[El Goonish Shive]]''. After the heavily plot-based, action-packed "Painted Black" arc, the author admitted that he didn't really feel comfortable with that sort of thing. His next arc was about the interpersonal relations of the cast; it was still dramatic, but in a different way. The series continues to shift between drama, humor, and outright weirdness. There are definitely more serious storylines, and [[Cerebus Retcon|previous weirdness is often explained away]] but the author refuses to go all the way and sacrifice humor entirely
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* ''[[RPG World]]'' went from gaily romping through [[RPG]] [[trope]]s to blank-eyed villains killing people and fetishistically licking the blood off their swords. It slid back into the middle for a while, before it was [[Orphaned Series|dropped entirely]].
* ''[[Questionable Content]]'' provides an unusual example, as a general plot has been running since the first strip along with the usual gag-a-day format of jokes; however, a deeper storyline was hinted about main character Faye's life prior to the start of the comic. [http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=500 Comic # 500] started an arc entitled "The Talk" which, in Faye's own words, was "like interrupting an intricate waltz with a sledgehammer to the knee." Despite handling the arc and its fallout with realistic seriousness, the comedic element was retained in nearly every strip in the arc and since then.
* Parodied a few times in the [[Stick Figure Comic]] ''[[Stickman and Cube]]''. [https://web.archive.org/web/20100217055928/http://www.drunkduck.com/Stickman_and_Cube/index.php?p=243766 The first comic] has Stickman assure the audience that there will be no Cerebus or First And Ten Syndrome, because "adding drama would probably involve more drawing". Then, [https://web.archive.org/web/20110402011948/http://www.drunkduck.com/Stickman_and_Cube/index.php?p=255831 this comic] has Stickman ''guarantee'' that there will be no Cerebus or First and Ten, only to have Cube then announce he's pregnant. Stickman is not amused.
* The now-defunct ''[[Life of Riley]]'' suffered from this, starting out with the requisite author-and-his-friends characters in offbeat gaming-related hijinks and ending with an imminent final battle between the arch-demon Lilith and the reincarnation of Christ (in the person of the main character) over an artifact which could literally ''kill God''. Sadly, a series of personal issues and server crashes left the comic [[Orphaned Series|drifting in the ether]] before the insanity could come to a head.
* ''[[Dresden Codak]]'' started out with a series of gag strips with intricate art, until the author decided to introduce continuing characters and then do an ongoing story arc about them. There have been a few more gag strips since then, but the continuity has not gone away.
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** ... which (almost) entirely lacked a fourth wall. Very unusual in this.
** Its also worth noting that despite all of this it still stayed pretty damn funny.
* ''[[Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures
** That said, the aforementioned side-story has more than enough darkness, angst and bad things to make up for any hesitance shown by ''DMFA'' proper. On the subject of Abel's Story, the author had this to say:
{{quote|'''Amber''': ''[[Warhammer
*** With [http://missmab.com/Comics/Vol_1035.php this] comic, it's safe to say that the syndrome has come on full.
* ''[[Newshounds]]'' began as a comedy strip comic, but as years progressed it started to contain a growing number of more serious plotlines. However, the comedy was still kept as the main point of the comic while the same author explored more serious content in the spin-off comic ''Manifestations''. ''Newshounds'' ended temporarily in 2006 and was revived in 2007 as "Newshounds II". This time, the format changed from a 3-panel strip to a larger comic while also turning the series more serious (though not devoid of comedy, now just lacking the obvious punchlines). Fittingly, another new comic by the same author, ''Something Happens'', was launched during the same year; it's the author's main comedy output now.
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* ''[[General Protection Fault]]'' started as a light-hearted comic with weirdness and humour, but eventually transformed into a complex story arc with angst, character death, and betrayal. Sometime after the first story arc, the comic designer declared an upcoming arc "even better than the last one".
* ''[[A Modest Destiny]]'' had continuity and all that goes along with it from the start, but as time went on the story got progressively [[Darker and Edgier]]. The first turning point would probably be the dinner party, where the silliness was interrupted by the murdering of a bunch of innocents, a whole lotta backstabbing and the near-death of the main character. It just kept going from there.
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20110923090324/http://www.martianwarmachine.ca/ Equinox, Defender of the Horde]'' started out as a light-hearted romp, but progressively became darker and more drama-prone; at the same time, the female lead turned into a [[Mary Sue]] while the (deliberately silly) titular character faded into the background.
* Josh Lesnick's ''[[Wendy]]'' took a straight nosedive into unexpected drama territory after its first "part" was finished, and according to the post-series epilogue was going to get even worse had it finished the way the author originally intended. Thankfully, this change was not without a bit of [https://web.archive.org/web/20120509111304/http://joshlesnick.com/wendy/?comic=78 lampshade hanging].
* ''Dub This!'' Seriously, check it out. Quirky anime in-jokes and satire quickly falls to melodrama by the buckets.
* ''[[Ctrl+Alt+Del]]'' has been accused of this, leading to [[Internet Backdraft]]. While the comic has always been more character-based than gag-based (except for the actual gag strips), everything post-[[Drama Bomb|miscarriage]] has swung a lot more to the dramatic than pre-miscarriage.
** It's possible that the author started the entirely gag-based "Sillies" sub-comic shortly after that to satisfy people that feel it's getting too serious.
* ''[http://godmodeonline.com/ God Mode]'' did this ''twice''. Plot slowly took over the comic, and after a while the creator just said "Screw it". The comic then continued on as if the plotline never happened. It got serious again, and another reboot was needed. The comic got a new artist/writer after each reboot.
* ''[[Goblins]]'' transitioned from a deconstruction of fantasy RPGs in general and ''[[
** Also potential [[Fridge Brilliance]] when you realize this is an accurate representation of the progress of many roleplaying groups as the players get gradually more invested in the story.
* ''[[Elf Only Inn]]'' started out as an online chat room and, after a year-long hiatus, came back a complex RPG story.
* ''[[Nana's Everyday Life]]''. ''So'' hard. It starts out as a random collection of off-color jokes using the cast of some anime, predominantly ''[[Elfen Lied]]''. Then, around strip twenty-something, it suddenly drops the jokes almost entirely, to become one of the most tragic webcomics in existence.
** Strip 27, where she drops off of a bridge. Her continued living after this event just serves to highlight her [[The Woobie|misfortune]].
* ''[[Goats]]'' went from basically being ''Dilbert'' with beer, to a sprawling,
* ''[[Fuzzy Knights]]''. As with Cerebus itself, it went on to become seriously weird.
* ''[[The Last Days of Foxhound]]'' begun as a ridiculously over-the-top parody of hilariously [[Character Exaggeration|exaggarated]] (and violent) versions of the bosses of [[Metal Gear Solid]]. As the strip went on, it slowly turned into a story-driven, over-the-top parody of the hilariously [[Character Exaggeration|exaggarated]], violent and [[Cluster F-Bomb|filthy-mouthed]] versions of the bosses of [[Metal Gear Solid]], with an overarching, compelling and deep plot.
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* ''[[Sequential Art (webcomic)|Sequential Art]]'' Twice the artist has taken a few months to due long arc stories involving our plucky characters combating dangerously powerful adversaries like the Denizens or Oz, only to have that conflict resolved and go right back to the "Gag-A-Day" Format.
* ''[[Slightly Damned]]'' started out as a lighthearted, comedic story about Rhea and Buwaro's adventures in hell. {{spoiler|And then Sakido died}}.
** This was the author's intention all along. The first arc of the comic was meant to get the reader attached to the characters, and {{spoiler|Sakido's death}} was planned from the very beginning. While certainly more dramatic than it had been up to that point (and getting [https://web.archive.org/web/20100123013208/http://raizap.com/sdamned/pages.php?comicID=363 even more dramatic] recently), the comic is still very humorous and lighthearted in tone for the most part.
** To put things in perspective, {{spoiler|the hooded archer}} shot the comedy with an arrow, but {{spoiler|Devenol}} shot it with an arrow, electrocuted it, and then stomped on it for good measure.
* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' appears to have done this ''on purpose'': the author started light and fluffy (with a side of ''BLAM'', a little ''OMINOUS HUMMMMMMM'', and a bit of ''THOOM''), and quickly got dramatic once the characters were introduced. It got really serious in October.
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* When ''[[Lint]]'' began it wasn't the least bit serious. Now it is chock full of drama, romance, and lots and lots of angst. Humour is still incorporated into the story, albeit at a more infrequent rate.
* Happens in ''[[Material Girl]]'' around half-way through the comic.
* ''[[Problem Sleuth]]'' started out as a silly romp starring a particularly hard boiled detective and his quest to rescue hysterical dames. By page 1000 or so, it became so complex that it literally needed several entire "recap" pages just to clue readers in on what was going on. Oh, and it's got its own [https://web.archive.org/web/20120508043059/http://mspaintadventures.wikia.com/wiki/Problem_Sleuth_
** ''[[Homestuck]]'', on the other hand, quickly develops several intricate story arcs during the second and third acts, and by the time the [[Big Bad]] is revealed in Act 4, the series has gotten much, ''much'' darker and more dramatic than when it first started. Though, like ''[[Problem Sleuth]]'', it hasn't lost its sense of humor ''entirely'' - the [[Big Bad]] [http://www.formspring.me/andrewhussie/q/1888161636 is a dog wearing sunglasses.]{{Dead link}}
*** Indeed, Hussie maintains that every "serious" dramatic event in the story is profoundly silly upon examination: recent events include {{spoiler|an ersatz [[Harry Potter]] murdering a girl that comes back to life as an ersatz ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]'' vampire who murders him in turn and a [[Juggalo]] murdering a [[Catgirl]].}}
*** THE MAIN VILLAIN IS A DOG WEARING SUNGLASSES (who happens to both be an expy of Anubis and Yatagarasu at the same time, what with the crow wings and with only having three limbs.)
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* [http://www.the-avatar.com The Avatar] went from being so random it [[Mind Screw|screwed with your head]] to insanely serious while still messing with your head. The turn happens around comic 200 (or when you have "Avatar Psychiatrist").
* ''[[Untitled]]'' follows the initial description exactly. It began as a low-continuity slice-of-life comic featuring thinly-veiled representations of the author and her friends, and over some years morphed into a dramatic redemption saga. One particularly illustrative example was an attempt to rationally explain an earlier pure-gag, fourth-wall-breaking character who was invisible, and had been initially introduced as "living in the gaps between the panels." Turns out he's really some kind of inter-dimensional alien plainswalker.
* ''[[Triangle and Robert]]'', a webcomic about a triangle and a rhombus went from jokes about how a geometrical shape can eat to an epic fight to stop the universe from turning into pudding. Or something like that. And became all the more hilarious for it.[http://home.comcast.net/~pshaughn/tandr.html
** Triangle and Robert's wackiness was amplified by the seriousness it ended up taking on. For example, declaring a new and weird food group is moderately wacky. Declaring it in order to gain tactical advantage and thus secure a crucial victory is VERY wacky.
* ''[[Looking for Group]]'' broke a record in this category - it started as a random parody of ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', but right after the first few pages the writer to go for a fantasy action-comedy. This has not stopped the constant parody elements and reference jokes thrown in, though.
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* ''[[Bittersweet Candy Bowl]]'' started out as generally plotless fun, and now has developed into an epic tale of lovecrossed kitties with a [http://www.bittersweetcandybowl.com/introduction.html recommended minimum introduction of 191 pages]. The humour's still there in abundance, though.
** [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in a Project Wonderful ad featuring the characters with the word "ANGST" flashing in the background.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20181126201349/http://www.theappleofdiscord.com/ The Apple of Discord] has also gone this way, in spite of the fact that the comic started as (and often is) mostly a "gag-a-day" comic with no continuity.
** Which is even funnier when you realize that Ralph and Bimbo (from the aforementioned [http://www.exploitationnow.com Exploitation Now]) joined Apple of Discord's cast right after the shift started to happen.
* ''[[Nedroid]]'' parodies the tendency for gag-a-day comics to develop Cerebus Syndrome [http://nedroid.com/2010/05/webcomics-am-i-right/ here].
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* ''[[Bunny]]'' went through something that... is closer to this than anything else. It has always been a gag-a-day strip with no storylines, but as it progressed, hints of continuity started to creep in, as the comic started to slowly paint a portrait of the surreal world The Bunny and his friends inhabit rather than just making isolated jokes.
* While it still is largely a comedic strip, ''[[PvP]]'' is sometimes accused of this. Mainly, this is due to its decreasing reliance on game-related humor, the increasing importance of the character relationships within the strip, and the development of long-term dramatic storylines. This has been going on so gradually and for so long though that, combined with the tendency for the strip to still use one-off gags from time to time, it sort of underwent this process so subtly that it's actually debatable if it happened or not.
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20110319075624/http://z11.invisionfree.com/WOAM/index.php?showtopic=603 Oak Fable]'' [[Take That|parodies]] Ceberus Syndrome by setting a new record in how quickly comedy circums to drama: It takes effect in ''the second issue.''
* ''[[User Friendly]]'' started out as a comic about life behind the scenes at a small Internet Service Provider. The latest stories have dealt with Sid getting cancer, and A.J joining the army, being sent to Afghanistan as a combat medic, and getting shot in action.
* ''[[Freefall]]'' was a hard sci-fi comedy. It gradually got more dramatic. Then [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2000/fc01981.htm this] happened. Then it's [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2100/fc02042.htm back to wacky comedy] and [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2100/fc02045.htm wild waffle irons].
* ''[[Darths and Droids]]'' has been shifting this way during the Episode III story arc, as the players' personal lives (Jim and Annie's in particular) start impacting the way they play the game and causing fractures within the role-playing group. There's also a nasty air of [[Foregone Conclusion]] hanging over the whole thing, since ''[[Darths and Droids]]'' loosely follows the plot of the ''[[Star Wars]]'' movies and Episode III... didn't end well.
* Zig-zagged in the defunct comic ''Alice!''. While it did feature gag-a-day like random newspapers, it started to get some dramatic storylines in place such as Alice's conflict with her dad's girlfriend, Joan, and Dot having an out of body experience. The story would resolve, but then go ''right'' back to gag-a-day strips and the title character's ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'' like imagination.
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{{quote|'''Tip''': This is ... different than I remember.
'''Leo''': Yeah, but wait'll you get to all the miscarriages. }}
* ''[http://www.200-20.com 200:20]'' is a great example of this, the series itself seems to want to keep a comedic tone but keeps getting drawn into a more serious subject matter as the story goes along. The creator didn't agree with this, and wanted to keep the story light hearted so it was rewritten. [http://www.200-20.com/pilot.html Three] [http://www.200-20.com/soc.html times]. Although it is up to debate whether or not that the series won't take another turn for more serious subject matter, it would appear that for now the comic itself is keeping the drama within the story to a minimum successfully.
* The ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' comic ''Equinox: Defender of the Horde'' was rather silly and light
* They're getting faster. ''[[Modest Medusa]]'' began in January 2011, began its first serious arc by June, and lampshaded the drama influx by the arc's end in August.
** Lampshaded [https://web.archive.org/web/20120511195412/http://www.drunkduck.com/Modest_Medusa/5348020/ here] : "Hey. Do you remember when we used to do fun stuff?"
* ''[[The Lounge]]'': Originally a gag-a-day strip, inclusion of longer story arcs led to some more serious plots being incorporated, culminating {{spoiler|in serious family conflict between Italy Ishida and her father, and the introduction of the children of her father's former business partner, hellbent on destroying the family business}}
* ''[[Sinfest]]'' resisted for a long time, but has been creeping into territory for the last few years.{{when}} It started with the story of Fuschia the Devil-Girl falling for Criminy and wanting to be human, and since has involved characters falling into various realms (Hell, The Reality Zone, The River Lethe) to to angst over character flaws that had previously been played for laughs. The recent addition of a young
* ''[[Princess Pi]]'' fell victim to this in the appropiately-titled "Princess Pi vs. Cerebus Syndrome". In it, Pi marries [[Cerebus]], catches his syndrome, and subsequently speaks only in overly grim or sad stories. One of them details how she avenged her mother's death by {{spoiler|killing her palace's invaders, the US Army, and America's dictator, all in one day, with her bare hands}}.
== Web Original ==
* The ''[http://qntm.org/?ed Ed Stories]'' start out in blog format, then continue as a more formal type of prose fiction with a fairly whimsical tone (cf. "[http://qntm.org/?admin An Admin Password for the Universe]"), then suddenly takes a turn for "the dreaded continuity", turns a hinted-at running gag into a major plot point for a longer story arc, and culminates in a [[Downer Ending]].
* ''[[Bonus Stage]]'' started as a funny, video game
* Oh, ''[[Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog|Doctor Horrible]]''. The first act introduces the light-hearted tale of an incompetent supervillain, the girl of his dreams, and his cheezy superhero rival. Act Two starts with "My Eyes," Doctor Horrible's half of which at least is pretty dark, but really, it's just him bitching because Penny is going out with Captain Hammer instead of with him. The act then ends with "Brand New Day," which announces that Dr. Horrible intends to go through with Bad Horse's command: "There will be blood / It might be yours / So go kill someone! / (Signed, Bad Horse)" And then there's [[Downer Ending|Act Three]]. Of course, considering the short length, it was obviously planned from the beginning
* ''[[The Church of Blow]]'' does this deliberately and with great effect; it starts off as a light satire of youtube vlogging, religion and cults, with episodes about deciding on the Church's logo (smiley face or weird mouse creature?). Then Cornelius Blow, the protagonist, dips further into insanity, the comedy gets darker and darker, someone shows up at Cornelius' house wearing his face, Cornelius kills at least two people before finally having a breakdown and discovering he's a fictional character and going off to find the real world. The whole series turns into an intelligent and elaborate parody and ''[[Take That]]'' of Youtube and everyone who uses it, raising questions about whether anyone's Youtube persona is actually the real them at all and if the very presence of a camera fictionalizes everything it records. Also it has lizard monsters, which may or may not be figments of Cornelius' imagination.
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* ''[[Awkward]]'' starts off as pure grossout humour but turns quite dramatic and serious as the series progresses.
* Not even porn is immune to this. ''Summer Camp'' by Nick Scipio started out as an episodic, sex-laden [[Coming of Age Story]] about a boy being initiated into sex by his mother's best friend; but now, 4 volumes and a million words later, most readers are onboard primarily to find out who he marries and who died. (The interesting bit is that Nick planned it this way: the very first words of the story are a [[Framing Device]] in which both the wife and "[[Fan Nickname|Aunt D]]" are introduced by not named.)
* ''[[Atop the Fourth Wall]]'' started out as an average geek reviewing bad comics on his futon and eventually made its way to said geek grappling with self-doubt, dethroning a multiversal conqueror, and commanding a massive starship. He still reviews bad comics on his futon, though.
* Ah, the ''[[Anti Cliche and Mary Sue Elimination Society]]''. Started up by three British girls with way too much time on their hands, with enough [[Crack Fic|crack]] to make [[Scarface]] jealous. Now? It recently hit the two hundred story mark, with maybe two dozen writers, has an actual, slightly epic, plot, and (depending on the author) angst. Puh-lenty of angst. There's still a ''copious'' amount of crack, though.
* Both ''New Prime'' and ''The Last Scene'' by [[Olan Rogers]] undergo this. ''The Last Scene'' started as just a nonsensical dialogue parodying action movie cliche`s in against a white background. Soon this white background became a plot point, and eventually it ([[Indecisive Parody|almost]]) starts to take itself somewhat seriously. More so with ''New Prime'', as it has now included plot twists, a ([[Indecisive Parody|kind of]]) serious plot, with characters being [[Killed Off for Real]]. However, this trope is not entirely played straight as the series never lose their humor. ''New Prime'' takes itself more seriously than ''The Last Scene'', as the latter moves more towards an [[Indecisive Parody]] than the original straight [[Affectionate Parody]].
** ''New Prime 5'' pretty much goes all the way.
* ''[[There She Is]]''. A story about a girl bunny who falls in love with a boy cat. The first three episodes are extremely cute and hilarious, but by god does it [[Fantastic Racism|get]] [[Interspecies Romance|sad]] by episode 4.
* The ''[[Ask a Pony]]'' blog ''Ask Jappleack'' started off with [[Surreal Humour]], [[Dead Baby Comedy]], [[Black Comedy]], [[Crosses the Line Twice]], and the likes. But after {{spoiler|Applebloom dies}}, and Jappleack is asked "What's the point of growing apples?", Jappleack goes through a bit of an existential crisis. Much drama follows.
* ''[[SMG4]]'' has a few [[Darker and Edgier]] sequels and story arcs with this trope. Even within one video or even [[Cerebus Rollercoaster|zig-zagged]] sometimes.
** In ''The Mario Mafia'', the use of [[Trigger Happy|guns]] follows this trope, with initially machine guns causing [[Amusing Injuries]], until [[Minecraft|Steve]] [[Killed Off for Real|kills]] most of the Koopalings with [[Improbable Aiming Skills|a single shot each]]. (Maybe partially [[Justified Trope|justified]] in the way that all other characters, except [[Splatoon|Meggy]], have a [[A-Team Firing|really crappy aim]].) Falling from a height is also deadly only if you are a [[Designated Villain|"bad"]] guy/girl at the end of the movie.
*** Then again, this is [[Black Comedy|generally]] [[Played for Laughs]].
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Moral Orel]]'' started as a goofy and over-the-top parody of shows like ''[[Davey and Goliath]]''. They
** The third season episodes are frequently just downright depressing (with only a couple jokes made), with episodes dedicated to fleshing out secondary characters and showing how messed-up everyone's life (especially Clay's) is. The commentary bits before the episodes even have one exec saying they cancelled the show because they didn't want Dino to do anything worse to Orel. On the other hand, some episodes can be [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|quite uplifting]], like "Dumb" which ends with {{spoiler|Nurse Bendy getting rid of her weird teddy bear family and spending time with her real son Joe (specifically making weird face [[Overly Long Gag|all throughout the credits]])}} and "Closeface" which ended with {{spoiler|Orel and Christina enjoying a dance while Reverend Putty helps Stephanie (his daughter, who reveals he knew was gay) get over a girl that didn't really like her and they decide to go look for dates together}}.
* Certain events in the third season premiere of ''[[Transformers Animated]]'', most notably the whole {{spoiler|Blurr crushed into a cube and the Autobot High Command thinking that ethical guidelines are optional}} thing, indicate they're going that way.
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** A lot of the disgruntled fans apparently weren't paying attention—Glenn Eichler stated during an interview that they started pushing the show in this direction during Season 3.
** It could also be counted as a meta example when you consider that ''Daria'' was a [[Spin-Off]] of ''[[Beavis and Butthead]]''. Watching later seasons, it can be hard to tell that the show spun off from something containing the line [[Toilet Humour|"I am the Great Cornholio! I need TP for my bunghole!"]]
* ''[[
* The fourth (and for about four years, final) season of ''[[Futurama]]'' dipped in this territory. While still overall episodic and comedic, "The Why of Fry" revealed that there had been a subtly done "arc" all along, and episodes like "Jurassic Bark" and "Leela's Homeworld" were outright tear jerkers.
** A common belief is that a lot of the emotional episodes were produced because the writers weren't sure which episode would end up being aired by FOX as the finale.
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** This is another case of [[Tropes Are Not Bad]], however, in that for many, season 2 of Beast Wars is the high point not only of the show in specific, but of Transformers media in general.
*** Especially the episode "''Code of Hero''", which ends with the {{spoiler|[[Heroic Sacrifice]] of Dinobot}} and is generally regarded as the best episode of the show, and can sit with the best stories across the whole 30-year franchise.
* Inverted with the [[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003|second ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'' animated series]], which begins by almost perfectly mirroring the original comic's dark, serialized story arcs (though with more overt humor), but then goes through an entire tonal shift in season 6, becoming more like the older cartoon series.
** By contrast, the first series got slightly darker starting with the eighth season, painting all of Manhattan under a dark red sky, having the entire city unite against the Turtles thanks to Burne's propaganda blitz, adding a story arc of the Turtles still mutating and replacing Shredder with a more sinister alien [[Big Bad]] named Dregg.
* Interestingly averted by ''[[The Venture Brothers]]''. The plot does get deeper and darker, but the comedy just gets blacker. Even utterly serious scenes don't stop with the jokes, the subject matter just shifts.
** Really, there is much more hope for the characters now than at the beginning.
* The ''[[
* ''[[The Raccoons]]'' is on the "done right" side of this syndrome. Over time, it shifted from by-the-numbers and cartoonish before evolving the characters into more distinct, realistic (by cartoon standards) personalities and more story-driven episodes.
* ''[[Wakfu]]'' is a goofy and lighthearted French children's cartoon that takes a screaming left turn into darker territory during the last couple of episodes, {{spoiler|in which a major protagonist is killed, [[The Bad Guy Wins]], and the bad guy loses ''again'' and commits suicide}}. There's also the special episode depicting the villain's [[Start of Darkness]], which was directed by maestro of [[Deranged Animation]] [[Kaiba|Masaaki]] [[Mind Game|Yuasa]].
* ''[[Codename: Kids Next Door]]'' began as a show that took mundane kid issues (such as going to school) and blew them up into devices in an ongoing "kids vs. adults" war. The show was fairly comical with no serious plots emerging until the conclusion of the first season (during Operation G.R.O.W.U.P.). However, as the larger KND organization began to be revealed (initially the show only showed the five members of Sector V), the stories took a turn into deeper and darker territory with backstabs and some much more serious villains (early episodes featured gimmick villains like Count Spankulot but later on you get the very driven KND defector Cree Lincoln who has a vicious vendetta against the organization). The story still dealt with kids' problems blown up one-
** [[Sudden Downer Ending|
* Starting with "Dr. Blowhole's Revenge", ''[[The Penguins of Madagascar]]'' has become a little less cartoonish, playing up the sci-fi elements (mostly from Kowalski) and the technology a bit more. It's started to [[Reverse Cerebus Syndrome|reverse]] a little bit in the latter half of season 2, though.
* While ''[[South Park]]'' is still very much a comedy, its tone has changed significantly over its run. Early seasons were silly and sitcom-like, with a sense of humor reminiscent of ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' and ''[[The Simpsons]]''; later seasons became increasingly topical, with most episodes featuring recent political or social issues, while the [[Black Comedy]] became even blacker with numerous [[Downer Ending]]s and increasingly common and [[Squick|graphic]] [[Family-Unfriendly Violence|violence]]. Needless to say, fan opinions are [[Broken Base|divided]] regarding when the show was (or is) at its peak.
** "You're Getting Old" definitely avoids the [[Status Quo Is God]] rule by ending with {{spoiler|Stan ending up a "cynical asshole" and his parents separating}}. The episode's lighthearted beginning did not last.
** The sequel episode to "You're Getting Old" has Stan learning a lesson at the end along the lines of "Change might be unpleasant or scary but accepting it is the only way to move forward and enjoy new experiences". [[Ass Pull|Cue his parents driving up in a moving truck to reveal they patched things up and everything can go back to normal]]. So while "You're Getting Old" averts [[Status Quo Is God]], [[Zig Zagged Trope|the follow-up episode subverted the aversion]].
* ''[[Invader Zim]]'', of all things, went through some of this right towards the end of the show. Being an episodic comedy with a fair bit of negative continuity for its first two seasons, the third season began to have running continuity, most notably involving Tak's ship. While it still didn't take itself too seriously, the greater focus on sci fi elements, the war against the Irken Empire, and other facets of the Universe promised something beyond the original scope.
** On the commentary, they mention that they had been planning more stuff with epic space battles, and it was just as well the show ended because kids weren't interested in that, they wanted comedies in school.
* This is the formula for most ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'' seasons; they start out light hearted and comedy driven, then become really dark near the end. The most extreme example compared to the rest of the show (the arc itself starts dark and stays there) is season 4, when Raven is used as a portal for her demonic father Trigon and he takes over the world in a hellish apocalypse where all humans except the four remaining Titans turned to stone. (This lasts for three episodes.) It's worth noting that the silliest stories usually came after a particularly dark or scary episode.
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* ''[[Adventure Time]]''. Compare the first season's pure comedy to the third's heavy focus on romance, friendship, and other relationships between the characters.
** "[[Christmas Episode|Holly Jolly Secrets]]" has perhaps the most egregious example: {{spoiler|The Ice King's origins are revealed in his video diary, revealing he was once a antiquarian named Simon Petricov, who was perfectly sane and had a fiancee, but when he jokingly put the Ice Crown he bought from a Scandanavian merchant, he did something that caused her to leave him, and he never saw her again, the rest of the video diary is a borderline [[Tear Jerker|depressing]] [[Apocalyptic Log]]}}.
* The ''[[Family Guy]]'' episode [[Very Special Episode|"Screams Of Silence:]] [[Darker and Edgier|The Story of Brenda Q."]], where [[Domestic Abuse]], once used for cheap gags, is played straight and serious for once. ''Much scarier than it sounds.''
* ''[[Star Wars: The Clone Wars]]''
** Season 4 had a few lighthearted episodes where C-3PO and Artoo had fun adventures. The rest of the season was filled with violent deaths (one character breaks a mook's neck for pete's sake), scenes of war, racism towards clones, zombies, and graphic witchcraft. This trooper believes that the censors were victims of a Jedi Mind Trick.
* ''[[Transformers Prime]]'' has now{{when}} been hit by this, starting with Unicron's debut appearance and never looking back, particularly in "Crossfire" when {{spoiler|Breakdown (one of the most sympathetic Cons) gets violently murdered by Airachnid}}. It's difficult to say if there's an actual [[Knight of Cerebus]], but the prime candidates might be Unicron or Airachnid, as neither have many funny traits or any redeeming ones.
** Agent Fowler, oddly enough, might be a non-villainous [[Knight of Cerebus]]. Fowler's position as a government agent and former soldier allows the show to highlight just how destructive the fight with the Decepticons is, and many of his appearances signify a situation getting worse. The [[Plucky Comic Relief|human kids]] have been getting [[Shoo Out the Clowns|much less screen time]] in the second season, while Agent Fowler has been getting much more, at least partly because they can do things to him that would jack the rating way up if they happened to children. Even when the kids do appear, they are purposefully being put into much more dangerous situations than in the first season, and crack far less jokes.
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Index Syndrome]]
[[Category:Series Tropes]]
[[Category:Tone Shift]]
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