Cerebus Syndrome: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{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.
* ''[[
** The Buu saga drifted somewhere to the middle and the more recent 2008 Jump Tour special had a heavy emphasis on comedy over action, which many fans seemed to find rather refreshing.
** Toriyama was aware of this effect to some degree. He introduced the [[Quirky Miniboss Squad|Ginyu Force]] just to relieve some of the tension from the escalating villains (Raditz -> Nappa/Vegeta -> Zarbon/Dodoria -> Frieza). Of course, just because the Ginyu Force are silly to the point of being buffoonish [[Bunny Ears Lawyer|doesn't mean they aren't extremely dangerous]].
* In the series ''[[Katekyo Hitman Reborn]]'', which is mostly a pure comedy in the beginning, but after several chapters (though fewer episodes) it [[Genre Shift|becomes an action series]].
* ''[[
** And don't forget the fact that the series, while still light and soft for the most part, has started to focus on themes such as slavery, racism, political corruption, anarchy, segregation, and moral absolutism. And the most recent story arc has drawn historical parallels to violent black supremacy groups, the KKK, xenophobic practices of ancient Japan, and Al Qaeda (all at once, mind you).
* ''[[Ultimate Muscle|Kinnikuman]]'' started off as a comedy series parodying ''[[Ultraman]]'', but then became a wrestling series with loads of drama, although with very silly characters.
* The anime adaptation of ''[[Trigun]]'' has a variation; all the filler is in the beginning, so it begins as a silly series with occasional bouts of action as the "insurance ladies" track down the identity of Vash the Stampede, then slowly come to accept that the goofball they found is a legendary gunman and walking disaster. About halfway through the series, actual plot from the manga starts appearing in consecutive episodes, with [[Big Bad|Knives]] sending the Gung-ho Guns, a team of ruthless super-powered fighters after him. Ostensibly they're hired to kill him, but really they're meant to make Vash suffer, which they all succeed in, each in their own way. This changeover is also evident in whether or not Vash manages to successfully keep people from getting killed; he manages it easily for the first half the series, but in the episode where the change hits you get streets littered with the corpses of men, women, and children.
** [[It Got Worse|It gets worse]] in the manga. To illustrate: '''there is an entire demographic change''' (
* [[
** Only adding to the angst is that {{spoiler|Syaoran's decision to turn back time so he could save Sakura's life caused the entire multiverse to start decaying. Space-time was altered so much that Acid Tokyo and Clow Country are actually in the same world; the mysterious ruins that Syaoran enjoyed investigating so much were the ruins of Acid Tokyo, after all. But the heroes never did have the ability to time travel. Oh my.}}
* ''[[Da Capo]]'' literally tells the viewer in a next episode preview halfway through the series that it's about to get serious. And it does.
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* ''[[Witch Hunter Robin]]'' started with the "monster of the week" style then shifted gears into plot and drama halfway through.
* ''[[Bleach]]'', while still incorporating darker elements, started out as something of a [[Slice of Life]] story with a [[Fish Out of Water]] situation and a bit of a [[Monster of the Week]] feel, with more focus on characters and their stories rather than action, but then they finished defining the starting characters and the Soul Society arc kicked the series into high gear. They STILL try to squeeze in elements from the first season whenever possible... apparently, to remind the viewer what they are watching!
* ''[[
* ''[[Fruits Basket]]'' started as a manga with a balance between humor and drama with some physical comedy and some sadder stories about the character's lives. Near the end, story arcs about the true nature of the curse, and Kyo's eventual being locked away predominated.
* ''[[Toradora
* [[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]] is a lot more dreary {{spoiler|after the death of Kamina}}. Everyone from the protagonist to his [[True Companions]] to the ''enviroment itself'' is depressed.
** This was especially shocking because most of the characters had already survived energy beams to the face.
** And it's not like the humor isn't ''there''; it's just after that point most of it stays separate from the action [[Mood Whiplash|after it headed towards drama]], when before that most fights were equal parts [[Rule of Cool]] and [[Rule of Funny]].
** The show started off as an [[Affectionate Parody]] of the [[Super Robot]] genre and gradually [[Indecisive Parody|became what it was parodying,]] [[Reconstruction|and the genre is better off for it.]]
* ''[[
** 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]].
* ''[[
* ''[[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
* ''[[
* 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]]''.
** Not only that, but during the first half, most of the angels - save for #5 Ramiel - were more human or animal-like and laughably weak, compared to the second half - starting with #11 Iruel and #12 Leliel - [[Sorting Algorithm of Evil|which started taking new forms and started posing a greater threat physically as well as a new threat psychologically]], with three of the remaining five angels actually capable of defeating the Evas and/or killing their pilots.
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*** Second half: boy's giant robot turns out to contain {{spoiler|the soul of his mother}}, boy undergoes psychological and existential breakdown, boy {{spoiler|ends the world by ending human individuality}}, and boy tries to {{spoiler|strangle his friend when they are the last two humans seen alive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland}}.
** You could argue that the first half of the show is a bit of an inverse Cerebus; the first few episodes are quite dark and moody, certainly not comedy material, although there are a few funny moments. It's not until after the Fifth Angel fight that Shinji begins to open up a little, and the tone of the show lightens correspondingly - basically peaking at the infamous "thermal expansion" jokes. And then you hit the second half of the recap episode and [[It Got Worse|things start going south again]].
* Self-published manga ''[[Onani Master Kurosawa]]'' (given the [[Fan Nickname]] "Fap Note") starts out like a goofy parody of works like ''[[
* ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro
** For the first season at least, the series seems to contract
* ''[[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
** 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
** 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 ''[[
* While it never permanently slipped into this, ''[[Keroro Gunsou]]'' got some more serious moments as the series progressed. You're watching (or reading) this hilariously cute story with these frogs who never get any invading done. You expect [[Status Quo Is God]] to remain in affect forever and nothing bad to ever really happen to the planet, then suddenly {{spoiler|the entire planet is put into paralysis by a much more dangerous platoon who has come not only to take over the planet but also to discharge the Keroro Platoon. To add to it, Keroro is in the middle of being de-aged and losing his memory, Giroro gets shot out of the sky by his brother and we don't know if he's alive for a while, and we learn that when a platoon is discharged, the members of it are supposed to separate forever. OUCH.}}
* ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'' started out as a wacky comedy about a tough high schooler who dies but gains a chance at returning to life by doing good deeds as a ghost, mining comedy from the fact that Yusuke can't really figure out how to do a "good deed" without being violent, rude, or abrasive. This led to a mostly episodic series of adventures as Yusuke and his guide Botan wandered the city finding people in need of help and playing Clarence to their George Baily. Then after about 30 chapters of this, Yusuke gets brought back to life, discovers he has superpowers now, and is given a job as a "spirit detective," which basically involves beating up bad guys connected to the afterlife. YYH becomes an action fighting series and the comedic formula is dropped permanently.
** In a way, ''Yu Yu Hakusho'' actually went through
** After the Chapter Black Arc, in which it is revealed (as hinted at by Hiei and Kurama becoming good guys) that [[Grey and Grey Morality|not everything is as cut-and-dried]] as the previous theme of "Yusuke and Friends vs. Demons" action stories led us believe, the story suddenly becomes extremely character-driven, exploring Yusuke's disconnection with his formerly "normal" existence, Kuwabara's resolve to become something productive, Hiei's finding a new purpose in life, and Kurama resolving his demonic past. This is especially notable in the anime, where the first third of the Three Kings Arc has nearly NO fights, instead being low-key character pieces about Yusuke, Hiei, and Kurama, effectively going through Cerebus Syndrome ''twice'' as it evolves from an offbeat comedy to action show, then suddenly to a more character-driven series rather then the less serious and more action-oriented shonen [[Fighting Series]].
* This does ''not'' happen in ''[[Ranma
** In addition, during the manga, Kuno is implied to make two attempts at raping an unconscious Ranma.
** Nabiki sells Ranma as a slave to some yakuza to cover a restaurant debt and is surprised he escaped.
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** Kodachi out right states she knows Ranma doesn't love her, but pretends that he does.
*** Making Kodachi top on the list of most likely Ranma characters to commit suicide.
* ''[[
* The best way to describe the Cerebus Syndrome of ''[[
** Of course, once the Athena situation is dealt with, the next mini-arc involves the cast trying to move into an apartment building that's haunted by ''ghost cats'', who possess Izumi and turn her into a catgirl. [[Mood Whiplash|My neck hurts for some reason]]...
* ''[[Gakuen Alice]]'' started as an upbeat, sparkly shojo tale about a girl discovering she has superpowers (basically) and going to a school with lots of other kids with superpowers. Predictably, wacky hijinks and love triangles ensue. To be fair, there have always been hints of dark things going on in the background, but the focus was on the humor and warm fuzzies. Then around chapter 90 the series took a nosedive into severe angst.
* ''[[Excel Saga (
* ''[[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 ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[Soul Eater]]'' picks up this trope and takes it home. It started off as a comedic couple of one-shots about a few kids who were Death's apprentices, screwing up while trying to graduate. Cue 70 chapters later and we have (*cough cough* ahem): [[Mind Rape]]; actual rape; horrors [[Up to Eleven]] (including taking someone, draining them of their blood and then ''wrapping them up in their own skin to rot for eternity''); arguing and trying to resist against the nature of insanity with each of the characters getting closer and closer to their breaking point; deals with the [[Deal
** As the series manages to maintain its warped sense of humour and fanservice in many of its darker moments, the Knight of Cerebus in this is undoubtedly Medusa. Asura brings the Nightmare Fuel, but he is largely inactive. The meddling of Arachne and Noah pale in comparison to the Complete Monster that is the Gorgon lady.
* ''[[Genshiken]]'' starts out as an introspective manga on otaku parody and college life but somewhere along the way it transforms into romance... more romance... and occasional forays into yaoi parody. Cue magazines being ripped to shreds and posted on the internet.
* Even ''[[Kanamemo]]'' wasn't immune to this, but not as serious as some examples, as the show goes from complete comedy with minor drama moments to more of a dramedy (the 13th episode does bring back the comedy full force, though).
* ''[[Super Dimension Fortress Macross]]'' has some of
* ''[[The Breaker]]'' started out as a fairly lighthearted action [[Manhwa]] with plenty of comedy thrown in, but gradually got more serious as a major character's [[Dark and Troubled Past]] (and its present consequences) comes to light. By Volume 10 the humor is entirely gone and another major character has been killed off.
* ''[[
** 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
* The ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (
** The ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (
* The ''[[Golden Boy]]'' manga. It starts in a somewhat formulaic way following the happy-go-lucky [[Walking the Earth|wanderer]] Oe Kintaro and his misadventures with attractive women. Then at some point a weird techno-sex cult run by [[Knight of Cerebus|a former childhood friend]] comes up, Kintaro gets relegated to a side character and the manga gets increasingly wordy with confusing and lengthy arguments about the ills of society, mind control, etc. None of this appears in the anime version, which is far better known.
* ''[[Digimon Adventure]]''. While at first it seems like a light hearted comedy/adventure, it becomes increasingly serious after the introduction of Myotismon.
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*** ''[[Digimon Frontier]]'' starts off rather light-hearted, but then starts to become a lot more serious with the occasional "Fun break" once Grumblemon appears. Heck; the first [[Big Bad]] Cheribumon is mentioned briefly during the first couple episodes.
*** ''[[Digimon Savers]]'' also follows this formula; becoming a bit of a comedy/adventure following DATS acting as a benevolent form of "Digimon police". Then Mercurimon shows up...and the trope really begins to kick in.
* ''[[Love
* ''[[
* ''[[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 [[
* ''[[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.}}
* The ''[[Kyou Kara Maou]]'' anime has self-definition, personal responsibility, and war being ''bad'' as themes from the start, but it's generally a very lighthearted and wacky show, with Yuuri showing a certain amount of [[Medium Awareness]], Gunter and Wolfram's lovesick antics being [[Played for Laughs]] when they're honestly pretty creepy, slapstick moments, and many humorous resolutions to dramatic situations. [[Wham! Episode|Then]] Yuuri gets summoned by someone other than Ulrike, and the last thing he sees as Conrad sends him home is his godfather's left arm arcing through the air as the church burns and the faceless knights close in...
** Because he doesn't know quite what went down, he stays relatively lighthearted himself until {{spoiler|Conrad reappears as an enemy.}} He is capable of being distracted and has hilarious hijinks like his sled race with T-chan, and even his angst [[Heroic BSOD]] when he sees the Shimaron Knights again involes a tidal wave of ''tea.''
*** Wolfram, on the other hand, enters a hugely intensified phase of his [[Character Development]] arc beginning with his [[Skyward Scream]] at the burned church, and everybody makes some character progress, even Yozak who didn't really need it. The 'Conrad Arc' does its Cerberus thing. And ''then'' the nuclear-bomb allegory plotline begins.
*** The show never actually stops being
** While all media of this series start in the same place, with the hero being flushed down a toilet into a fantasy world where he's king, the novels get much [[Darker and Edgier]] than the anime ever does, ditto the manga, which is adapted independently from the original novels and makes everyone longer and prettier. A few books back, for example, Yuuri mistakenly attacked Wolfram in a dark room and nearly ''killed him.''
*** The manga also makes Wolfram, a lead role in his own right, a more prominent character from the
* ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'' started off like a fairly regular magical girl anime that promised sugar, hugs and happiness all around until {{spoiler|Mami gets her head bitten off suddenly and very gruesomely at the end of EP 3, gut punching any unaware viewer like so many tons of bricks.}} The rest of the show only [[It Got Worse|gets worse too]].
** To be fair, the very first scene was a pretty intense, the [[Deranged Animation]] by [[Studio Shaft]] prevented things from getting too lighthearted, and there was a fair amount of [[Foreshadowing]] as to what kind of show this would become. "Sugar, hugs and happiness" is pretty far off the mark. It doesn't help though that the happy-go-lucky opening titles stayed the same even as the show got more injections of nightmare fuel, effectively creating a pretty jarring smash-cut from titles to show in the last few episodes.
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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.
* ''[[
* ''[[Naruto]]'' receives a shot of
* ''[[
** To be fair, even early episodes had their share of vague foreshadowing, so more [[Genre Savvy]] people could've seen what was coming. It might even be intentional, considering how much tribute the series pays to Western [[Superhero]] comics - all of which suffer pretty badly from
* Believe it or not, ''[[Ah!
* ''[[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]].
* ''[[
* Very mild case in ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]
* [[
* ''[[
* ''[[Slayers]]'' loves this trope, at least in the anime, to the point that you can almost track where you are in the season by it- in the first quarter it's a hilarious episodic comedy about the party's adventures on the road fighting bandit troupes, various amusing monsters, and other random events, with hints of fore-shadowing and plot dropped in, usually for more laughs. At the half-way point, things go darker, with the introduction of the first major enemy, who's usually somewhere on the way to destroying the world. At three-quarters, it's back to comedy, though slightly darker and with a bit more plot than the first quarter. In the last quarter, it's back to the dark stuff, and time to take care of the Big Bad for good.
* The ''[[Wandering Son]]'' manga started out pretty typical - it had lighthearted moments and mature moments but it wasn't so bad. Once puberty started kicking in more viciously and the characters entered middle school it slowly became less comedic and more angsty. It's a [[Justified]] example though, and probably intentional.
* ''[[
** As was the author's next series, [[Bokurano]]. It starts off looking like a retreat to '70s and '80s style [[Super Robot Genre]] about middle-schoolers saving the world with a giant robot (in terms of overall story - more [[Genre Savvy]] viewers quickly noticed the odd lack of comedic antics from the main characters and strangely apathetic and cynical behavior of the scientist that chose them to pilot the robot.) things quickly [[It Got Worse|get worse.]] In fact, the author is ''famous'' for using this trope to deconstruct typical kids' genres of anime. When he announced that his latest work would be about a boy who rides his bike ad loves fishing, many people started to [[Wild Mass Guessing|produce]] [[Epileptic Trees|ridiculous theories]] about how the boy's bike would destroy the world.
* ''[[
* 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.
* This trope takes its name from ''[[Cerebus
== Comics ==▼
* ''[[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
▲* This trope takes its name from ''[[Cerebus (Comic Book)|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]].)
* The ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (
▲* ''[[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 (Comic Book)|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
** 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.
** It could best be said that comics today are a mix of Dark and Light. We have titles like [[Deadpool]] appearing alongside the [[Dark Avengers]].
* ''[[Johnny the Homicidal Maniac]]'' went through intentional
** 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]].▼
* ''[[Candorville]]'' ran into this by way of [[Genre Shift]]. Initially, it made a lot of jokes that [[
* 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.▼
* ''[[Nine Chickweed Lane|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 (Comic Book)|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 (Comic Book)|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 [[Big Lipped Alligator Moment|came out of nowhere and made no sense in the context of the setting]]--for instance, one minor recurring character was the animated corpse of a slain al-Qaeda member. Then the strip started to comment on how unusual those things were, and how odd it was that only the main character ever saw them. And then other people started to see them too . . .
* ''[[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.
* The Italian demential/slapstick comic book series ''[[Rat-Man]]'' by Leonardo Ortolani: it started as a [[Affectionate Parody]] of Marvel and DC superheroes, but after the first 10 issues, it started to develop darker and edgier stories.
* The first two [[Tintin
▲== Fan Fic ==
* The ''[[Tamers Forever Series (Fanfic)|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 (Fanfic)|Nine Knackered Souls]] started as the [[Red vs. Blue (Machinima)|RvB cast]] thrown into the wonderful [[Sugar Bowl]] [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (Animation)|world of ponies]], and trying and failing to fit in. {{spoiler|Then Maine appears....}}▼
** In ''[[Ace Combat the Equestrian War (Fanfic)|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.▼
== Fan Works ==
▲{{quote|
▲* ''[[
▲** In ''[[
== 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.
* ''[[
== Literature ==
* The novel ''[[Nuklear Age]]'' by ''[[
* 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 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 [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] is very much guilty of this. In general, the Thrawn books and early EU are about on the same level of darkness as the original movies. There's darkness, but in a clean and epic way, and most of the mains survive the experience. The [[New Jedi Order]] uses the same ''kind'' of darkness (heroes struggling against a seemingly invincible evil) upped to eleven, [[Darker and Edgier|featuring casual genocides, an entire species of sadomasochists, graphic torture, and relatively high gore, as opposed to "just" Space Nazis, offscreen torture, and mostly "clean" violence.]] [[Legacy of the Force]] backs off a bit on that but took a dive towards the cynical end of the [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]].
* The ''[[
* The ''[[
* ''The Book of Fred'' began as a sitcom-esque story when a girl, Mary Fred, having raised in a wacky cult (that, among other things, valued the color brown, fish, and the holy name of Fred) was put into a foster-care program and [[Hilarity Ensues|tried to adjust to normal life]]. By the end, the book had tackled rape, drugs, comas, and other crises--''completely seriously.''
* Pierre Beaumarchais' ''Figaro'' trilogy. ''[[The Barber of Seville]]'' is a farce. ''[[
* ''[[The Dresden Files]]'', sort of. The first book, ''Storm Front'', certainly had its dark elements; murder, drug addiction, etc. were all involved in the story, but there was a lighter background and Harry seemed to actually enjoy his life, [[Perpetual Poverty]] aside. The books have trended steadily darker since, particularly when the [[Wham! Episode|Wham Episodes]] of ''Grave Peril'' ({{spoiler|Susan is half-turned by vampires, Harry flips out and starts a war}}), ''Dead Beat'' ({{spoiler|Most of the White Council is annihilated within two days}}), and ''Changes'' (Which can basically be summed up as "[[It Got Worse]]") hit.
** In book one, Harry fends off a vampire with a handkerchief full of sunlight. By book six, he can't do that any more, because it turns out you need to be happy to fold sunlight into a hankie.
* P.N. Elrod's ''[[The Vampire Files|Vampire Files]]'' series started out as a subversion of vampire wangst, in which Jack Fleming's undead state was treated more like a superhero's abilities and weaknesses than like an occult curse. Basically, he was a detective who could turn invisible and walk through walls, the sort who'd literally use his powers to play pranks on gangsters. But things changed as the villains got nastier: Jack was tortured, his [[Horror Hunger]] intensified, his mortal best friend's horrific past was revealed, and the erstwhile subversion of Wangst was nearly [[Driven to Suicide]]. While the latest book suggests Elrod has reversed course, pulling Fleming back from the brink, for a while there things had gotten so grim that ''Lifeblood'', the second book in which Jack argues in defense of his [[Vegetarian Vampire]] nature, had almost become an in-universe [[Funny Aneurysm Moment]].
* ''[[
* From Book Three onwards, ''[[Percy Jackson and The Olympians]]'' gets steadily darker, with the deaths of major good-guy characters and more mature themes
* Books 7-9 of the ''[[Betsy the Vampire Queen|Undead and ...]]'' series have taken a turn for the dark, with unexpected deaths of supporting characters, increasing evil behavior of {{spoiler|Laura, who is the Antichrist and the main character's half-sister}}, and various depressing tidbits of info {{spoiler|gleaned from time traveling 1000 years into the future, where}} [[It Got Worse]]. [[Word of God]] is that this change is deliberate, and even the cover art for the three books changed from it's original "chicks who love shoes & pink" theme to more of a "noir thriller" look.
* T. H. White's ''[[The Once and Future King]]'' starts off very light and playful with Arthur as a child going on magical adventures under Merlin's tutelage. Then he pulls the sword from the stone and it goes downhill from there.
** He actually went back and rewrote the first novel to be more serious, so they could be read in order without experiencing [[Mood Whiplash]].
* The ''[[Dragons (
* ''Flinx in Flux'' marks the transition of the ''[[Humanx Commonwealth]]'' series from a light-hearted and mainly episodic [[Space Opera]] to a battle for the fate of the entire galaxy when it introduces the [[Ultimate Evil|Great Evil]]. It also marks Flinx's transition to full maturity by introducing his ongoing [[Love Interest]], Clarity Held.
* To a certain extent, ''[[The
* This is visible in ''[[
* 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 (
** Parodied by ''[[Futurama]]''.
{{quote|
** Also mentioned in an episode of ''[[Family Guy]]'' where Peter states that he enjoyed ''M*A*S*H'' up until the final few seasons, when Alan Alda took control of the show and it got "depressing and preachy."
* The first couple seasons of ''[[Smallville]]'' were mostly lighthearted freak-of-the-week affairs. Around the middle of season three, they began to delve more into the [[Superman]] mythos, and the show reflected this.
* ''[[
** ''[[
* While nominally a sitcom, ''[[All in The Family]]'' often very intentionally veered over the lines into addressing several serious issues like women's roles, racism, and politics. All pretense of comedy was dropped when, in episode 159, Edith, the show's frazzled-but-lovable housewife and mother...was raped. Many fans of the series remember how very serious and shocking that episode was, especially since it was one of the first times the subject of rape had been covered on ANY show, let alone a supposed comedy. While the show did return to many future funny episodes, this ep left a definite and unforgettable mark.
** Technically it was an attempted rape, since she got away, but that didn't make it any less poignant.
** Watch that episode again, and note the live audience reaction. When it first became apparent that the "detective" in the Bunker residence is actually a rapist, most of the studio viewers, after an initial shocked "Ohhh!", started giggling again. According to creator Norman Lear, they had apparently convinced themselves (or were ''trying'' to convince themselves) that the man was a "funny" rapist, not a "serious" one. (Remember, this was about the time when [[Black Comedy Rape]] was quickly becoming not only an accepted but also a commonplace trope.) It was only when the rapist ''threatened to kill Archie'' if Edith said anything while Archie was in the house that it finally sank in that this was no laughing matter. When Edith shoved the burnt cake into the creep's face and fled, the sustained cheering and clapping was a definite catharsis and a truly unforgettable [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]].
* The second season of the Argentine soap ''Rebelde Way'' took a turn toward darker storylines.
* ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' underwent this process when it hit the halfway point of Season One. And it got even worse from there. [[Break the Cutie|Much]], [[It Got Worse|much]] [[Deus Angst Machina|worse]].
* ''[[Friends]]'' has a subtle process in this vein. It starts out with story arcs entirely for comedy, actual jokes with punchlines, and a set of characters that seem to fulfill every comedic need you could have. Then heavy character development sets in, started with Rachel Green, and eventually the series becomes Drama with lots of Comedy, instead of Comedy with bits of Drama.
** The same thing arguably happened with ''[[Will and Grace]]''.
* ''[[Sex and
* The French comedy show ''[[
* ''[[Weeds]]'' began as a comedy (or dramedy) about a housewife dealing marijuana in the suburbs; from the second season on, though still possessing a lot of bizarre and quirky humour, it became a lot more serious. The show began dealing with increasingly dark themes till it started [[Crossing the Line Twice]]. By season 6, it inverted Cerebus Syndrome and turned into a farce.
* ''[[She Spies]]'' is a syndicated show (it aired on [[PAX]] for a while) that was originally a spoof of [[
* The first two seasons of ''[[Xena: Warrior Princess]]'' were heavy on camp and occasionally had a serious episode. Then {{spoiler|Gabrielle killed for the first time}} in Season Three, setting off a season-long storyline meant to put Xena and Gabrielle through emotional hell. Subsequent seasons had even less comedy.
* ''[[The Fresh Prince of Bel
* Since its fourth season, ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' has become more and more focused on character drama and less on the weekly patient. Whereas subplots involving relationships usually only occupied a few minutes of an episode, which was instead focused on Greg's hilarious antics or the central plot of the patient, that is now almost entirely reversed. Patients are usually only treated for a brief portion of the episodes, and even those scenes are flooded by character drama.
* ''[[The Thick of It]]'' went through this, partly because of changes in the [[Real Life]] political climate it reflects, and partly because of its own fractured production history. As the UK went into recession, news of the [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8039108.stm MPs' expenses scandal] broke, and [[British Political System|New Labour]] began losing their grip on power, the storylines in the show's third series became less comedic and more dramatic. The third series was also the first complete series commissioned by the BBC (the other episodes had been pilot episodes, short runs or hour-long specials) and gave the writers their first chance to toy with story arcs, resulting in the the third series being much less episodic than the first.
* A season 3 episode of ''[[Warehouse 13]]'' had supernatural twists on torture by burning and waterboarding; pretty dark for that show.
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* After pressing the [[Reset Button]] so hard it broke at the beginning of Season 3, ''[[Chuck]]'' seems to be slowly heading down this path as the separate worlds the titular character has maintained over the course of the show (Spy world and Buy More world) seem to be slowing collapsing into one another, with potentially unpretty results.
** It seems that [[Status Quo Is God|Status Quo is still God]]. (Except for what happened to Emmett, but the first episode of a new season can sometimes change the status quo.) Spy world and Buy More world are still separate so far - there's just a lot more angst and trauma about it. For ''every''one.
* ''[[Power Rangers]]'' got this in ''[[Power Rangers in Space]]''. Where previous seasons had the Rangers defend the city from goofy [[Monsters of the Week]], ''In Space'' had their mentor kidnapped and they were desperately searching alien planets to find him before time ran out. The bad guys were also more complex characters than the [[Card-Carrying Villain|Card Carrying Villains]] that were present up to that point. The result is that ''In Space'' is considered one of the best seasons by the fans, and it got enough ratings to [[
** ''[[Power Rangers RPM]]'' is a partial example. On the one hand, it was set [[After the End]], where the bad guy had already reduced nearly the entire planet to a wasteland. On the other hand, the show was self-aware and often poked fun at series tropes like the [[Five-Man Band]] and [[Stuff Blowing Up]], so you couldn't take it all ''too'' seriously.
* ''[[
** On the other hand, series VIII (the last full series) descended into puerile humour that made even the previous series look sophisticated.
** Even more marked in the novels, which gradually turned more and more into gag-free sci-fi.
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* This definitely happened to ''[[Boy Meets World]]'' in the later seasons. Around the kids' senior year of high school, it went from being a light-hearted comedy about puberty to a constant [[Wangst]]-fest and endless stream of [[Very Special Episode|very special episodes]].
** The tone shifted on ''[[Boy Meets World]]'' as early as Season 2, when they brought in Mr. Turner and Topanga went from 'weird kid' to 'viable romantic option'.
* Inversion: Like ''Lost in Space'' above, ''[[Voyage to
* ''[[Life On Mars]]'' was fairly consistent in its [[Mind Screw
* ''[[
** 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.
* ''[[
* ''[[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.
* ''[[
* 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]]''.
* ''[[
* ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'' has began limping down this path to some degree, with {{spoiler|the death of Marshall's father}} and as a means to extend the popular series.
** Has been hiked ''way'' up since mid-season 7 with episodes like "Tick Tick Tick", "Symphony of Illumination", and "The Drunk Train", which are as rife with drama and [[Tear Jerker
* ''[[Green Wing]]'' started out as a light-hearted, surreal comedy, and partway through season two turned depressing with {{spoiler|Mac's terminal illness}} and {{spoiler|the suicides of Statham and Joanna}}.
* Arguably, [[Wizards of Waverly Place]]. It began as a [[Fantastic Comedy|fantasy-laced]] [[Kid Com]] with [[Zany Scheme
** 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.
* ''[[
* While the first season of ''[[
== Music ==
* [[The Prodigy]]'s sound and videos show a clear move away form their [[
* W.A.S.P. were a 80s heavy metal band with a slight pop/glam bend once infamous for their [[Intercourse
* [[Green Day]] started out doing pretty straightforward punk with lyrics about getting high, masturbating and being a deadbeat. By [[American Idiot]] they instead started focusing on politics and [[Growing the Beard|becoming more serious]]. [[Broken Base|The fans are now very split up around this]]. 21st Century Breakdown continued from [[American Idiot]].
** Note that during the time period of [[Lighter and Softer]] punk with [[Green Day]], Billie Joe Armstrong was doing political punk with [[Pinhead Gunpowder]].
* [[Pink Floyd]] may not have been quite the lightest of bands in the first place, but the departure and mental breakdown of Syd Barrett lead to severe
** Could be considered a double
* [[The Beatles (
** And they widened their themes. Following their first not-love-based-singles ("Nowhere Man" and "Paperback Writer"), they recorded with an album that included a [[Tear Jerker]] story ("Eleanor Rigby"), a criticism on taxes ("Taxman"), a song about drugs disguised as a love song ("Got to Get You Into My Life"), a song praising sleep ("I'm Only Sleeping") and a childish song ("Yellow Submarine"). And then came a [[Concept Album]], some mindblowing singles (which were shoehorned into an "album," not entirely without filler), followed by a [[Genre Roulette]] album.
* Reversed with Gwen Stefani: Her earlier songs with No Doubt feature relationship drama (she had just broken up with her boyfriend, who is also the band's bassist) while her more recent solo albums are about how much fun she's having as a rich and famous celebrity.
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** Their earlier works were actually a [[Stealth Parody]] of fratboy cuture, which were [[Misaimed Fandom|taken seriously]] by their audience and is now considered an [[Old Shame]]. They partially changed their style to seperate themselves from that era, and seem to be disowning or downplaying everything from the "License To Ill" period.
* The 69 Eyes started out as a typical Glam Rock band, but ever since "Angels" have developed a more Gothic sound.
* [[The Monkees (
* In the early '90s, [[
** She seems to have [[Lampshade Hanging|acknowledged]] this recently with her [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRmYfVCH2UA hilariously angsty cover] of "My Humps".
* Oh, [[ABBA]]. In ten short years they went from shiny and upbeat to angsty and vaguely political. You can say what you want about early sad songs like "S.O.S." and "Knowing Me, Knowing You", but when both couples divorced we got really heartbreaking songs like "The Winner Takes It All" and "Happy New Year". There are only two songs on their final album that are remotely upbeat: "Head Over Heels", about a childish woman and her long-suffering boyfriend, and "Two For The Price Of One", about a man who feels so lonely and worthless that he religiously scours the personal ads (and was suicidal in the demo lyrics).
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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.
▲* ''[[
▲** 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 ''[[
▲* ''[[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
== 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
== Theater ==
* [[Shakespeare]] wrote ''[[
** Along that line, ''[[The Winter's Tale
* Most of the first act of ''[[Wicked (
* ''[[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>
== Video Games ==
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda (
* Same thing goes for fellow [[Nintendo]] [[Action Adventure]] series ''[[Metroid]]''.
* ''[[Ace Combat]]'' started off as a very early entry into the realm of 3D arcade style flying shoot-em-ups for the original [[
* ''[[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
* ''[[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.
** It's worth noting that in gaming communities this trope is more often called "Jak 2 syndrome".
* The sequel to ''[[Beyond Good
* Many RPGs do this willingly. For instance:
** In ''[[
** [[Final Fantasy I
** ''[[Suikoden]] Tierkreis'' starts with the main character living a mostly carefree life in his little village, cue a militaristic cult appearing. The main character decides then to stand against it, while remaining mostly optimistic; cue the multiverse collapsing.
** ''[[Dragon Quest]] VII'' starts also with the main character living a carefree life in a fishermen village, and the "DQ humor" still drives most of the storyline. Then the first chapters of the game proper start, but, while more dark, they remain mostly into the "dungeon of the week" routine and the story keeps many humorous moments. Then, little by little, each small chapter gets more and more tragic until the conclusion.
** [[Dragon Quest V]] begins with the main character as a child, journeying with his dad, occasionally going off on his own or with a friend on adventures straight out of Tom Sawyer, [[The Chronicles of Narnia]], or George Mac Donald's fairy tales. Then, while trying to rescue a bratty prince, {{spoiler|he watches his father get killed, and is sold into slavery, setting up the main plot of the game.}}
** ''[[
*** This is the ''entire'' series. Nearly every game can be summed up as "naive swordsman goes out on minor errand and stumbles on a plot to end the world". Ruca of ''[[
*** Performed rather well in ''[[
** ''[[Fire Emblem]]: Path of Radiance'', while not really "comedic", is fairly light at the beginning, with a teenage mercenary learning the ropes of his job against small bandit bands and under the careful watch of older fighters. By the end of its sequel, the plot looks like an adaptation of ''[[Berserk]]'' with slightly more colors.
** ''[[Grandia (
** ''[[
** Believe it or not, ''[[
*** The sequel, ''[[
** Zig-Zagged in ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]''. While the first games ''released'' chronologically were pretty light-hearted, ''Days'' and ''Birth By Sleep'' are actually a lot darker in general, what with finding new characters who were [[Doomed
*** And in the first game? It begins with Sora playing on the beach...then he watches as his world is consumed by shadows and destroyed in front of his eyes, with his friends either being lost or [[And I Must Scream|turned into monsters]]. But don't worry - he's with Donald and Goofy now, so he quickly gets over it...and then comes Hollow Bastion. [[It Gets Worse]], but the game still ends on a rather light-hearted note. ''[[
* ''[[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 (
** ''[[Paper Mario (
*** They make a point in-game Mario and the others didn't die. Yes, that's right, [[To Hell and Back|Mario and his partners entered Hell alive and came back to tell the tale]]. (They probably [[Saint Seiya|awoke their 8th sense]]). ''Awesome''.
** ''[[
** 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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*** On the other hand, the [[Sociopathic Soldier|characters]] [[Crazy Awesome|are much more]] <s>[[Crazy Awesome|amusing]]</s> [[Crazy Awesome|hilarious]].
* ''[[Tales of Monkey Island]]'', which started out light in tone and around Episode 4 suddenly got very dark indeed...
* ''[[
** It gets better. The first game in the series was an [
* Arguable in [[
*** Team Galactic does all of that stuff too, but they also try to ''suicide bomb'' Celestic Town.
** 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
** The [[Pokémon (
* 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
* The first ''[[Portal (
* 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]].
** [[Fallout: New Vegas]] lightens things up a little, mostly in the form of the [[Weirdness Magnet|Wild Wasteland Trait.]]
** 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.
* ''[[
* ''[[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
** N.B.: they still do intermittent comedic side-series as well, which have thus far retained the comedic element completely.
*** It seems to be the method RandomGuy is adopting. Start off a new series with comedy and delve into darker elements by the finale, rise and repeat.
**** Lampshaded in the teaser for Season3 - Zero Hour.
** Season 2 is explicitly a [[Deconstruction]] of [[Darker and Edgier]]
* Chris Ushko's ''[[
== Web Comics ==
* The webcomic ''[[Striptease (
* ''[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 ''[[
** It's also a [[Call Back]] to the author's previous [[Web Comic]], ''[[
** ''[[
*** [[Lampshaded]] heavily with the [[Shout
* 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 ''[[
** ''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].
* ''[[
* ''[[Dominic Deegan
* ''[[Sam and Fuzzy]]'' started out as a episodic comedy [[Web Comic]] about a taxi driver and his psychotic bear friend, but once the Ninja Mafia is introduced it ends up as a long but still hilarious tale of deception, murder, demons and ninjas.
* ''[[RPG World]]'' went from gaily romping through [[RPG]] [[
* ''[[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.
* ''[[
** ... 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
** 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|
*** 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.
* ''[[Nip and Tuck]]'' started out as a gag-a-strip comic about two young brothers, but became more serious as the two brothers grew up.
* ''[[Venus Envy]]'', probably due to either a particularly blatant case of [[Writer
* ''[[Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic]]'' made the jump, complete with a previously humorous villain gaining sudden competence.
* ''[[Adventurers
* ''[[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
** 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.
* ''[[
* ''[[
** 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.
Line 469 ⟶ 457:
** Which is ironic, considering that the story has had several dramatic plotlines.
** In a recent interview, East elaborated on his plan to murder his co-authors in this case:
{{quote|
'''Eastwood''': No, I said I was going to murder the rest of you, change my name and spend the rest of my days as a painter in Brazil. }}
** One can attribute this to the nature of the comic itself: EN's setting is, for all effects and purposes, already dark and edgy enough. This means the authors can stretch the drama a bit without it being detrimental to the comedy (as seen in the Morth Arc).
* ''[[Twisted Kaiju Theater]]'', although (a) the sophomoric humor refuses to stay completely out of the more serious arcs, and (b) the series continues to have strictly-for-laughs one-shots between arcs. Despite this the comic does stray into dark territory at various points and ends up dealing with mature themes like death, betrayal, morality, sacrifice, and political ethics.
* ''[[Zebra Girl]]'' has undergone this transition.
* ''[[
** Actually lampshaded a bit: When Millennium asked when they would make their comic appearance, Erin had said that she couldn't go on to the main (canon) storyline until the identity of The She was revealed. {{spoiler|Indeed, with her identity as the remains of Mina Harker revealed, Erin proceeded to head for the main plot.}}
* ''[[Wapsi Square]]'' undergoes a transition from a light-hearted slice-of-life comedy, to a dark, supernatural drama where the main character has to save the world from a quasi-apocalypse; dropping nearly all of it's supporting cast in the process (although a few do pop in for cameos from time to time), and leaving a large number of unresolved subplots. Aspects of this were hinted at early in the series; but were mostly off-hand comments prior to the appearance of the "Golem Girls"; whose addition to the cast denote the transition point (although it takes a bit longer for the change to really manifest).
* ''[[Apple Geeks]]'' started
* ''[[
** Though another possible example could be the [[Designated Hero|Light Warriors]] themselves. They change from being relatively harmless characters who are comedic as result of extreme character flaws, to THE worst people their world has ever seen. Fighter goes from merely being stupid to an enabler. Red Mage, originally so deluded regarding the power of D&D rules that he was too incompetent to implement his terrible plans, has become more powerful, but not smarter, resulting in brilliant train-wrecks. Thief has remained relatively the same throughout the strip, but was always a greedy sociopath; the only difference later on is that he manages to convince Red Mage, Black Mage and sometimes even Fighter to assist him. Then there's Black Mage, who was always hell bent on destroying everything in existence, but was previously too weak to harm anything, as exemplified by his only powerful spell which he only has the strength to cast once a day, and even then with horrible aim.
** The final arc of the comic manages the remarkable feat of completely undoing any and all acts of Cerebus that had previously occurred, first by having Sarda {{spoiler|de-level the Light Warriors, effectively pressing the [[Reset Button]] on their capability to commit atrocities}}, then having Sarda {{spoiler|turn into Chaos, the original [[Big Bad]] of the game and comic}}, and finally by {{spoiler|having Chaos defeated in an [[Anticlimax]] of epic proportions.}} But this is [[Brian Clevinger]] we're talking about here, who firmly believes that the best joke is the one played on the reader.
* ''[[Sequential Art (
* ''[[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.
* ''[[
** And for several Octobers afterward.
*** It recently took a turn for even more darkness. A light-hearted storyline about getting paid eight times for the corpse of an archenemy and wearing party hats to his funeral ends with {{spoiler|the Toughs mind-wiped and made to think Petey abandoned them, as an upbeat ending - the UNS and Admiral Emm were perfectly willing to murder all of them and hand Schlock over to a Mengle-esque Fleet doctor for ongoing torture to hide the existence of Project Laz'R'Us from the public. The only ray of hope in the ending is that Schlock remembers everything due to his bizarre alien biology.}} It gets no better in the next story arc, where {{spoiler|the Toughs are sent on an obvious suicide mission to deliver food to an anarchic space colony. Brad dies in a hovertank accident, Tag murders hundreds of thousands in an antimatter explosion to save the lives of millions, and then formally resigns and later commits AI suicide over the matter, the Touch and Go is wrecked beyond repair bouncing around ''inside'' the space colony without power, and the Toughs wind up accidentally installing an untested rogue AI as supreme overlord, who later turns the colony into a hyperspace cannon superweapon.}} It's a statement of how dark this arc is, when Schlocktoberfest is a relatively light-hearted breather from the action.
* When ''[[
* Happens in ''[[Material Girl]]'' around half-way through the comic.
* ''[[
** ''[[
*** 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 (
*** 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.)
** To put it all into perspective, the beginning's problems were fake arms, cake, the creepiness of Lil' Cal, stone wizards, and elusive pets. After they all started up Sburb? {{spoiler|We've seen more onscreen deaths than we can count, seen the slaughter of an planetary army, seen the assassination of royalty, seen the [[Big Bad]] given god-like powers, watched nearly all the main characters die AT LEAST ONCE (if you count watching their dreamselves die), see WV be scarred for life and him slowly go crazy because of it, and met the creators of the universe. Of course, we also watched them die.}} But yes, the silliness doesn't go away. We have references to SBaHJ every three pages, watched Jack be [[Weaksauce Weakness|tempted by Snausages]], [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005590 been given John's derpiest face ever,] and a fundamental chunk of the plot comes from [[Con Air]].
* [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
{{quote|
'''Reginald:''' So why do you need jokes all the time? Turn your comic into a '''serious drama'''! }}
* ''[[Fanboys (
* ''[[Concession]]'' started out as a furry comic about the workers of a movie theater, but eventually {{spoiler|half of the characters become gay, quite a few die, and Joel and Artie have supernatural powers}}. Chaos ensues
* ''[[Housepets]]'' follows this trope slightly. While there are still funny talking pets, there is a lot more drama, especially involving {{spoiler|Peanut's crush on Grape, Pete turning Joel into a [[Squee|corgi named King]], Tarot's psychic powers, and Sasha and her owner}}.
* ''[[Castlevania RPG]]'' started as an extremely light hearted action-comedy that managed to stay lighthearted even during the more serious arcs (Blacula's rise to power, the alternate world, etc). Then, towards the end of the second major arc, {{spoiler|they party accidentally unleashes an Elder God. Long story short, [[Total Party Kill|Alec, Princess and Darkmoon die horrible, painful deaths, Katrina's CatGirl curse mutates and turns her fully cat with absolutely no hope of reverting back, and Angel is possessed by the Elder God, who then states his plan to subjugate the world]].}} [[Mood Whiplash|Damn]].
* ''[[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, ''[[
* ''[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.
* ''[[
* ''[[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.
* ''AsLAN'', Leo the lion's [[Show Within a Show|comic-within-a-comic]] in ''[[Skin Horse]]''. [http://www.webcomicsnation.com/shaenongarrity/skinhorse/series.php?view=archive&chapter=26144 Originally] a poorly-drawn gag strip about lions telling a [[Straw Man]] antelope his opinions on technology are wrong, and then devouring him, it's [http://www.webcomicsnation.com/shaenongarrity/skinhorse/series.php?view=archive&chapter=48680 now] about a lion with a drink problem, another with father issues, and an antelope whose imminent death is a matter for serious concern.
{{quote|
'''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
* ''[[
== 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, ''[[
* ''[[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.
* ''[[The Saga of Tuck]]'' has been accused of this, though the dark points of the plot have been implicit since day one. This didn't stop some fans from jumping ship.
* ''[[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.)
* ''[[
* 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 ==
* ''[[
** 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.
** It did, mostly due to [[Darker and Edgier]] kicking in, but even from the second episode of the first season it was fairly clear the show wasn't going to be totally fluffy.
** The original series did this starting with The Movie, which [[Dropped a Bridge
* ''[[
** Also, less filler and more plot. I wonder if those are related...
* ''[[
** The series ''started out'' defying description and went off from there.
** Well, the first couple of episodes are just Fitz wandering around getting hit by cars and stuff like that. Afterward the show started taking on [[Mind Screw]] elements, [[Continuity]], Characterization and became the [[Cult Classic]] its fans loved. If I had to pin-point the exact moment this happened, it would be in the end of episode 3, when Fitz asks where Skillet is.
* MTV's ''[[Daria]]'' was originally mostly about the title character and her friend facing the stupidity of High School with a half-smile and a snarky comment, always beating the system. But by the fourth season, the two were insecure, fighting over the same boy, and not always coming out on top. While some liked the development of the characters, and were impressed by the writer's ability to keep the show funny, others in the fandom were appalled. Much [[Fan Wank]] ensued.
** A lot of the disgruntled fans apparently weren't paying
** 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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** Actually almost everything was played for some kind of laughs. The Revengencers and Charles were played dead serious and Edgar Jomfru's story was a little sad. However Dethklok themselves were played for laughs. Murderface goes into fire safety mode and utterly fails except for one girl, Toki is saved by Nathan while being utterly drunk off his ass and pukes all over him, and Pickles and Skwisgaar defend the master record and beat a man to death with a guitar but are more impressed by the fact it didn't bend the neck. All in all the finale was played for Awesome!i'm sorry when did any of what you just said happen and why hasn't a contributor edited it out yet.
*** Subtle character development even there. The band had spent the finale verbally abusing Toki, concluding that helping him out would be interfering with his life, and arriving to the fact that they had to be jerks by [[Insane Troll Logic|some insane logic that only makes sense to them]]. As usual. As Nathan is saving Toki, he says that he doesn't want to interfere, but Toki has been "way too drunk" lately. At the end, they {{spoiler|rescue Offdensen from torture at the psychotic mass murderer's hands stating, "That's our bread and butter you're fucking with." They had previously barely noticed Offdensen, besides the fact that he made them do work. They even thought he was their butler.}}
** Season 03 has delved into this in subtle ways too. While it is still pretty much Played For Laughs and sprinkled with the show's typical sadistic humor, {{spoiler|many of the band members get some pretty heavy Character Development. Skwisgaar [[Ten
*** Not to mention everything that happened with {{spoiler|Offdensen. His "death" hit them all very hard, even though they wouldn't talk about it because [[Men Don't Cry|"admitting sadness makes you gay."]] Even when [[Faking the Dead|he came back]], by the season finale, it's obvious that the band was screwed up without him and they definitely consider him [[True Companions|a part of the group in some way.]]}}
* Season 1 of ''[[
** 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 [[
** 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.
* ''[[
* ''[[Codename
** [[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
** "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 (
** Within the arcs themselves, both the season one and two arcs start out very light and end up very serious; the precise turning point in each is about when [[Knight of Cerebus|Slade]] decides to step out of the shadows. Also inverted with the season five arc, which isn't nearly as dark, ominous, or serious as the season 4 arc which preceded it.
* ''[[
** "[[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:
** 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}}
[[Category:
[[Category:Index Syndrome]]
[[Category:Series Tropes]]
[[Category:Tone Shift]]
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