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Cerebus Syndrome: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:cerebussyndrome350px 1436.jpg|link=Fanboys (webcomic)|right]]
{{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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{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Fairy Tail]]'' underwent a gradual escalation, with each [[Story Arc]] becoming more personal, with higher stakes than the last. [[Character Development]] in series format, as it were.
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* 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.
== Comics ==▼
* This trope takes its name from ''[[Cerebus|Cerebus The Aardvark]]'', a(n) (in)famous indie print comic that began as a parody of [[Heroic Fantasy]], but [[Indecisive Parody|drifted into the genre itself.]] (And subsequently into [[Creator Breakdown|far stranger waters]].)
* ''[[Bone]]'' does this intentionally. Over its ten-year run, it went from a cute, kid-friendly comic about sudden snowfalls, greedy relatives and stupid, stupid rat creatures to an epic fantasy saga about a rather horrific [[Sealed Evil in a Can]] with graphic violence and death, the threat of genocide, a [[Religion of Evil]], and the aforementioned rat creatures going from harmless comic relief to a deadly threat. However, it still managed to kick in humor every now and then, with at least one funny moment every issue. Jeff Smith apparently did this so that audiences wouldn't be "committed to an epic tale right from the start."
* The ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' comic started out as a gag series on par with ''[[Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog]]'', but gradually grew more serious over its run. At least some of this may be due to the game series going down the same path.
** Likewise its UK counterpart ''[[Sonic the Comic]]'' began as a rather comical series, though not nearly as goofy, until it began to [[Grow the Beard]]. The last arc was by far the darkest, being fairly [[Darker and Edgier]].
* ''[[Scud the Disposable Assassin]]''{{'}}s first story arcs included a cult that
* It could be argued that the entire [[Superhero]] ''genre'' has gone through Cerebus Syndrome. The days of jet-powered apes from Mars have more or less vanished in favour of dramatic, [[Darker and Edgier]] storylines.
** Arguably, this is a [[Cyclic Trope]]. [[The Golden Age of Comic Books]] was darker and more dramatic than [[The Silver Age of Comic Books]], and since the end of [[The Dark Age of Comic Books]], Fun Comics have been on the upswing.
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* ''[[Johnny the Homicidal Maniac]]'' went through intentional Cerebus Syndrome, from the [[Black Comedy]] and Johnny's lewd justifications for killing sprees of the first three issues to an exploration of Johnny's depressing outlook on life in the fourth issue, {{spoiler|[[The Reveal]] of the history of the Doughboys}} in the fifth, as well is an investigation of the characters of Tess and Krik, then back to [[Black Comedy]] in the sixth and seventh (though {{spoiler|Reverend Meat and the death of Jimmy}} were far from funny... except when they were). Even Happy Noodle Boy went through (sort of) Cerebus Syndrome, becoming [[Creator Breakdown|more and more incomprehensible as Johnny slipped further into insanity]]. Jhonen Vasquez mentioned in his commentary in the Director's Cut that all this was planned.
** This may have been planned from the beginning of the serial, but the earlier stand alone comics that predated it had no ambition beyond dark humor.
* ''Wash Tubbs'' went from "bigfoot" humor to high adventure with the addition of soldier-of-fortune Captain Easy to the cast. Since this happened in 1929, this qualifies as [[Older Than Television]].▼
* Another early example is ''Skippy'', a comic strip from the 1920's through 1940's. It was originally a wildly popular comic about a mischievous kid, but it started getting more and more serious and political when creator Percy L. Crosby became convinced that President Franklin Roosevelt was a Communist. Eventually, a company with connections to the IRS used several "random" audits to successfully take over the rights to the name Skippy. The company was, of course, the maker of Skippy peanut butter. Crosby ended up suicidally depressed in a mental hospital. You can read the whole story [http://www.toonopedia.com/skippy.htm here].▼
* The strip which eventually became ''Steve Roper & Mike Nomad'' began life in 1936 as a wacky comedy starring a stereotyped American Indian named Big Chief Wahoo. Roper was introduced in 1940 and took over the strip, until by 1947 Big Chief Wahoo had been written out and the wacky humour entirely dropped in favour of action adventure. Mike Nomad appeared in 1956, by which time the original nature of the strip had totally vanished.▼
** Ironically, Big Chief Wahoo had not been planned to be the strip leader; he was supposed to be a supporting character to the Great Gusto, a traveling salesman/conman. Wahoo was [[Ensemble Darkhorse|instantly much more popular]] and Gusto, reduced to second banana status from the beginning, was gone by 1939.▼
* ''[[Funky Winkerbean]]'' literally jumped (in the form of a 10-year timeskip) from a high-school based gag strip (with occasional dramatic ''[[Very Special Episode]]''s) to a frequently depressing drama strip where [[Anyone Can Die]]. A second ten-year timeskip seems to have abandoned all pretense of zany (or should that be funky?) comedy, preferring a more down-to-earth kind (when, that is, there's any at all).▼
** Also, ghost voyeurs.▼
* ''[[9 Chickweed Lane]]'' started life in 1993 as a gag-a-day strip about 3 generations of females and their daily experiences. It has since become a piercing look at personal relationships and the human condition, with its recent "mega-arc" - encompassing the lives of many people - lasting several years.▼
** Or, as a commenter on the [http://joshreads.com/?p=6827 Comics Curmudgeon blog puts it...]▼
* ''[[For Better or For Worse]]'', although that has turned around somewhat as Lynn Johnston has essentially done a [[Continuity Reboot]] back to the strip's original chronology, and the more gag-oriented formula therein. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120207061041/http://www.fborfw.com/behind_the_scenes/hybrid/ New material, new art and new enthusiasm!] (With an occasional classic strip thrown in.)▼
* While the initial issues of Archie's ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures]]'' remained somewhat close to its cartoon source in tone, the series eventually got progressively more serious, with multiple deaths, more introspective stories, and even a scene showing [[Adolf Hitler]]'s suicide.▼
* ''[[Doonesbury]]'' always had a political element, but in its first couple of years in national syndication it was mostly a light-hearted strip about college life (continuing where Garry Trudeau's work at Yale left off). Once [[Richard Nixon|Watergate]] happened it focused more and more on politics. On top of that it became more of a serial strip, and even introduced [[Anyone Can Die]] to the comics page.▼
* ''[[Bloom County]]'' started out as a rural humor strip, but as time went on they started adding more and more political and pop culture satire, which would dominate the strip for the rest of the run. Strangely, its Cerebus syndrome coincided with it sliding down the [[Sliding Scale of Fourth Wall Hardness]] all the way to having [[No Fourth Wall]].▼
* ''[[Empowered]]'' started as a superhero parody with a lot of [[Fan Service]]. The first three volumes are mostly comedy, with occasional hints at more dramatic plot developments and backstories. Volume four goes all out, opening with Ninjette apparently dealing with PTSD. Five sees {{spoiler|Emp's [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] from the previous book being not only papered over by her [[Jerkass]] teammates but outright turned against her and the death of one (maybe two) main characters plus a horde of C-listers. Volume Six is 60-80% GRIMDARK.}}
* ''[[Candorville]]'' ran into this by way of [[Genre Shift]]. Initially, it made a lot of jokes that [[Non Sequitur Scene|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 . . .
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* The first two [[Tintin]] adventures (''Tintin in the Land of the Soviets'' and ''Tintin in the Congo'') are outright comedies where the action is often surreal and played for laughs (for instance Tintin [[Values Dissonance|killing a rhino]] by drilling into its hide and dropping in a stick of ''dynamite''.) The third adventure (''Titin in America'') was transitional with a lot of off the wall comedy still mixing with the plot before the series finally found it's familiar mood of exciting and suspenseful action with character driven comic relief with ''Cigars of the Pharaoh''.
== Fan Works ==
▲== Fan Fic ==
* The ''[[Tamers Forever Series]]'': the author says it best:
{{quote|''"When 'Tamers Forever' was originally conceived, it was supposed to be a ten-story series mainly concerning a Takato/Rika relationship. It was supposed to be more of a romantic comedy, however, I realized my strong point wasn't comedy, as I unconsciously deepened and filled the plot with questions and secrets."''}}
* ''[[Nine Knackered Souls]]'' started as the [[Red vs. Blue|''RvB'' cast]] thrown into the wonderful [[Sugar Bowl]] [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|world of ponies]], and trying and failing to fit in. {{spoiler|Then Maine appears....}}
** In ''[[Ace Combat: The Equestrian War]]'', despite things going well for the ponies for majority of the war, the griffins always find a way to get them on the edge. Then [[Tear Jerker|chapter 15]] comes.
== Film ==
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* This is visible in ''[[Septimus Heap]]'' where the first mbooks start out with a rather cheery atmosphere but progressively darken until the very existence of the Castle is threatened in ''Darke''.
* Famously, ''[[Harry Potter]]'' started out as a light-hearted novel for kids with some darker themes in the climax and matured as its audience did, so that the books had on-screen deaths starting in Goblet of Fire and getting [[Darker and Edgier]] from there.
== Live Action TV ==
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* ''[[Super Sentai]]'' seems to be more lighthearted for the first 10 episodes while we get to know the characters before getting more arc based and dramatic after the story kicks in. Since new series start without so much as a week's break after the last one, this run of lighthearted episodes may count as a [[Breather Episode]] after how serious the last ten episodes of a series seem to get.
** In another way, looking at the series as a whole, it seems to waffle back and forth between each season. The serious [[Chouriki Sentai Ohranger|Ohranger]] was followed by the lighthearted [[Gekisou Sentai Carranger|Carranger]]. Similarly we went from silly Go-onger to serious [[Samurai Sentai Shinkenger|Shinkenger]] to silly [[Tensou Sentai Goseiger|Goseiger]]. It seems like the creative team just like going back and forth with it.
* ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|
** Parodied by ''[[Futurama]]''.
{{quote|'''Zoidberg:''' This is how it starts: first with the jokes, then comes the heavy stuff.}}
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** The weird thing is that the dark subject matter isn't handled as dark subject matter. Hearing the overactive laugh track and the actors' tones, you wouldn't know you were watching a show that included genocide, abduction of a (for most intents and purposes) teenage girl and manslaughter. But it's a sitcom, of course. It deals humourously with everyday occurrences such as finding out that your younger brother was responsible for your vampire girlfriend's abduction by a mummy and the death of every monster-hunting wizard except you.
** The "competition" that drives the premise is mean-spirited to begin with, which is lampshaded by the fact that it tore apart Jerry's family - yet Jerry insists on putting his own children through it despite the fact that they have clearly inherited the same spirit of rivalry in magic and every other aspect of their lives. One child in each family gets to keep their powers if they win a protracted contest that makes no allowances for age gaps. That child spends the rest of their life with magic powers at the likely cost of being bitterly envied by their siblings, who have an extraordinary gift taken away from them. Furthermore, wizards have a segregation policy when it comes to marriage between wizards and non-wizards - it comes at the cost of relinquishing one's powers.
* ''[[Glee]]'' started off with really lighthearted humor and was almost a parody of the Musical genre. About half way through the first season however the storylines have become more and more serious (and [[Anvilicious]].)
* ''[[Scrubs]]'' was never supposed to be a blatant humor show, and had always shown signs of seriousness, but the last 3 seasons with the main cast really took the darkness up to 11. With JD's romantic story lines getting more and more tragic, his son, Turk and Carla's marital problems, Dr. Cox's ever growing problems leading up to several break downs, and plenty of death to go around, Scrubs ended as way more of a drama than a comedy.
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' has started going down this route. Season 5 of the revived series started with The Doctor regenerating into a [[Cloudcuckoolander]] and running away with Amy Pond. Then, halfway through the season {{spoiler|Rory gets erased from time}}. At the end of the season, {{spoiler|the universe explodes}}. While this is restored at the end of the finale, season 6 is even darker. It ''starts'' with {{spoiler|the Doctor being killed by River Song}}.
* While the first season of ''[[Community]]'' had it's darker moments, it was generally episodic and consequence free. The second season noticeably changed tone, especially with Pierce becoming a downright villain in several episodes ("and then I rape the Ducane family" anyone?). Even [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] by Abed ([[Genre Savvy|of course]]) and several others dropping various comments like "this has been a dark year". And the third season? Can anyone say "[[Beard of Evil|darkest timeline]]"?
== Music ==
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* Although [[Bruce Springsteen]]'s early songs have occasional moments of melancholy, the overall impression of his first three albums is a manic world of street racing, fairgrounds and lots and lots of sex. After a long court case, he came back with Darkness on the Edge of Town, which was [[Darker and Edgier|just what you'd expect from the title]]. A few years later, he put out [[It Got Worse|Nebraska]]
▲== Newspaper Comics ==
▲* ''Wash Tubbs'' went from "bigfoot" humor to high adventure with the addition of soldier-of-fortune Captain Easy to the cast. Since this happened in 1929, this qualifies as [[Older Than Television]].
▲* Another early example is ''Skippy'', a comic strip from the 1920's through 1940's. It was originally a wildly popular comic about a mischievous kid, but it started getting more and more serious and political when creator Percy L. Crosby became convinced that President Franklin Roosevelt was a Communist. Eventually, a company with connections to the IRS used several "random" audits to successfully take over the rights to the name Skippy. The company was, of course, the maker of Skippy peanut butter. Crosby ended up suicidally depressed in a mental hospital. You can read the whole story [http://www.toonopedia.com/skippy.htm here].
▲* The strip which eventually became ''Steve Roper & Mike Nomad'' began life in 1936 as a wacky comedy starring a stereotyped American Indian named Big Chief Wahoo. Roper was introduced in 1940 and took over the strip, until by 1947 Big Chief Wahoo had been written out and the wacky humour entirely dropped in favour of action adventure. Mike Nomad appeared in 1956, by which time the original nature of the strip had totally vanished.
▲** Ironically, Big Chief Wahoo had not been planned to be the strip leader; he was supposed to be a supporting character to the Great Gusto, a traveling salesman/conman. Wahoo was [[Ensemble Darkhorse|instantly much more popular]] and Gusto, reduced to second banana status from the beginning, was gone by 1939.
▲* ''[[Funky Winkerbean]]'' literally jumped (in the form of a 10-year timeskip) from a high-school based gag strip (with occasional dramatic ''[[Very Special Episode]]''s) to a frequently depressing drama strip where [[Anyone Can Die]]. A second ten-year timeskip seems to have abandoned all pretense of zany (or should that be funky?) comedy, preferring a more down-to-earth kind (when, that is, there's any at all).
▲** Also, ghost voyeurs.
▲* ''[[9 Chickweed Lane]]'' started life in 1993 as a gag-a-day strip about 3 generations of females and their daily experiences. It has since become a piercing look at personal relationships and the human condition, with its recent "mega-arc" - encompassing the lives of many people - lasting several years.
▲** Or, as a commenter on the [http://joshreads.com/?p=6827 Comics Curmudgeon blog puts it...]
▲* ''[[For Better or For Worse]]'', although that has turned around somewhat as Lynn Johnston has essentially done a [[Continuity Reboot]] back to the strip's original chronology, and the more gag-oriented formula therein. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120207061041/http://www.fborfw.com/behind_the_scenes/hybrid/ New material, new art and new enthusiasm!] (With an occasional classic strip thrown in.)
▲* While the initial issues of Archie's ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures]]'' remained somewhat close to its cartoon source in tone, the series eventually got progressively more serious, with multiple deaths, more introspective stories, and even a scene showing [[Adolf Hitler]]'s suicide.
▲* ''[[Doonesbury]]'' always had a political element, but in its first couple of years in national syndication it was mostly a light-hearted strip about college life (continuing where Garry Trudeau's work at Yale left off). Once [[Richard Nixon|Watergate]] happened it focused more and more on politics. On top of that it became more of a serial strip, and even introduced [[Anyone Can Die]] to the comics page.
▲* ''[[Bloom County]]'' started out as a rural humor strip, but as time went on they started adding more and more political and pop culture satire, which would dominate the strip for the rest of the run. Strangely, its Cerebus syndrome coincided with it sliding down the [[Sliding Scale of Fourth Wall Hardness]] all the way to having [[No Fourth Wall]].
==
* Computer magazine ''MacAddict'', one of the two magazines split off from the defunct ''CD-ROM Today'' in 1996 (''boot'', now ''Maximum PC'', was the other). When it started out, ''MacAddict'' was unafraid to have fun: they often included little cartoons in the letters section and back page (even a stick-figure mascot, Max, who was also used in their reviewing scale); the pages were bright, colorful and rife with [[Running Gag]]s (for several issues, they joked that each magazine was soaked in Downy before it was shipped out); the CD that shipped with every issue would include something funny like a video of the staff destroying a Windows computer; and so on. In the early 2000s, the magazine got a white, sterile makeover (replacing the Max scale with a normal five-star scale), and the tone gradually shifted to a far more serious and straight-laced approach. This shift culminated in 2007, when the magazine was renamed ''Mac|Life''.
== Radio ==
* ''[[Let George Do It]]'' initially started out as a comedy about a soldier back from the [[World War II|war]] going into business as a professional odd-jobs man, doing things too silly or embarrassing for others to do, including occasional work as a private detective. He had a lovely young woman to assist him, with a gee-whiz little brother to get into light-hearted trouble. Over the course of several episodes, however, changes like the [[Put on a Bus|sudden disappearance]] of the [[Brother Chuck|kid brother]] and the music going from full orchestra to organ-only darkened the tone of the show to the hard boiled detective series that the show is known for being now.
== Theater ==
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* Most of the first act of ''[[Wicked (theatre)|Wicked]]'' is a light-hearted story about a green girl trying to fit into school and becoming friends with her popular, ditzy roommate while also falling in love with the class clown. By the end of the Act, culminating in "Defying Gravity", Elphaba discovers the truth behind the Wizard and vows to right his wrongs, getting her labeled as public enemy number one and having her best friend choose fame and power over the side of good and truth. That's just Act 1; it gets much worse in the second act.
* ''[[Next to Normal]]'' is all fun and jokes for most of the first act, until {{spoiler|Gabe is revealed to be dead}}. It only deteriorates more in the second act.
== [[Toys]] ==
* ''[[Bionicle]]'' took itself seriously (for [[LEGO]] brand, at least) since the start, but also had a lighthearted, welcoming feel to it. Then, in 2005, the writers drifted into much darker wartes, and seemingly enjoyed it there. Every story from that point on was dead serious and increasingly darker in tone. When originally, it was just taking mind-control masks off animals and letting them go, by the last couple of years, characters continuously slaughtered and mercilessly murdered each other, and the only humor came from the sarcastically dry remarks and occasional pop-references the characters made. No more cute little animal sidekicks,<ref>well, one ''did'' appear at one point, but the writer quickly got rid of it</ref> no cheerful village people... just utter bleakness. In this sense, it's a relief that the final movie that came out was so canon-defyingly zany and inappropriately [[Slapstick]]y.
== Video Games ==
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* ''[[Advance Wars]]'' had this; the first game was sort of up beat, with you fighting it out with the clear-cut bad guys. Second game, still upbeat, but the villain is somewhat more... unnerving. Third game, the villains are sucking the life out of the planet, there's few signs you can do anything to change this, and you {{spoiler|choose at the end whether the [[Big Bad]] lives or dies}}. The latest one is set in a post apocalyptic wasteland where the NPCs in the campaign tell you to leave the civilians behind and the first fight you have is with piratical raiders.
** And the big bad? Strum wanted to take over the world. Von Bolt wanted to live forever. Caulder, on the other hand, [[Complete Monster|conducts experiments on what's left of humanity.]]
* The flash game [http://www.kongregate.com/games/2DArray/viricide ''Viricide''] goes, over the course of the paragraphs that pop up between the 17 waves, from jokes about an AI's malfunctioning doble entandra system, to said AI explaining that her programmer was taking depression meds while working on her, and one day told her he was going to solve all his problems by taking all the pills in the bottle at once instead of taking them two at a time. She never saw him again, but hopes what he did made him feel better.
** {{spoiler|She also goes from referring to her programer as "my programmer" to calling him "my father" and "Dad" and she ask you to [[I Cannot Self-Terminate|disable her "emotional core"]] which gives her a personality}}
* The main [[Super Mario Bros.|Mario]] usually makes no attempt to do this, but the ''[[Paper Mario (franchise)|Paper Mario]]'' and ''[[Mario & Luigi]]'' series do.
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** In the series' defense, the original ''[[Fallout]]'' was rather serious in tone, and Bethesda stated that they planned to emulate that style over the wackier one that emerged in the sequel.
* ''[[Hatoful Boyfriend]]'' is an [[Affectionate Parody]] of [[Dating Sim]]s where you date wacky pigeons as a wacky human female. It also has the grim Bad Boys Love route unlocked after obtaining every other ending that ''starts'' with {{spoiler|the female protagonist being [[Killed Off for Real]]}} and [[It Got Worse|gets worse]] from there on with a series of genuinely shocking and heartbreaking [[The Reveal|Reveals]] that transform even the silliest and most light-hearted birds into massive [[The Woobie|Woobies]] or [[Big Damn Heroes]].
* ''[[Kid Icarus: Uprising]]'' goes through this once you hit Chapter 18. For something that starts out as a [[Denser and Wackier]] [[Affectionate Parody]] of both [[Greek Mythology]] and videogames in general with [[No Fourth Wall]], the shift to one of the bleakest tones in ''any'' Nintendo game comes as quite a shock to say the least.
* ''[[Custom Robo]]'' doesn't even try to take itself seriously. Villains are mostly comical, the story lighthearted, and not too much hint of the events to come. Then comes the [[Info Dump]] with two seperate save points...and it all goes downhill from there (granted, you can invoke some humour by picking the funny dialogue options. It's just not played up automatically).
== Web Animation ==
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**** Lampshaded in the teaser for Season3 - Zero Hour.
** Season 2 is explicitly a [[Deconstruction]] of [[Darker and Edgier]]
* Chris Ushko's ''[[Ducktalez]]'' series got a massive dose of this. The original short was a crudely animated piece revolving around fart jokes, with the main story boiling down to Scrooge trying to kill Glomgold with a tank. While darker moments surfaced with Residuck Evil's horror imagery, Ducktalez 3 and The Duck Knight really saw this trope set in with Huey dying, Scrooge having and emotional breakdown and Quackerjack blowing up a gondola full of civilians. Vegeta acted very much as a typical [[Knight Of Cereberus]] (though pretty much all his dialogue with Scrooge constitutes as a [[Crowning Moment of Funny]].) Let's not even get started with the rather morbid scene where Huey finds all the costumes of the sidekicks Darkwing got killed over the years, or Quackerjacks' gruesome death.
== Web Comics ==
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* Parodied in [https://web.archive.org/web/20100813084131/http://www.checkerboardnightmare.com/retro/20051010.shtml this] ''[[Checkerboard Nightmare]]'' strip.
* The webcomic ''[[Exploitation Now]]'' started as comedic, but changed into a drama (with the comic's focus shifting from two characters to two ''other'' characters), ending up with a main character [[Killed Off for Real]].
* Done fairly successfully with ''[[The
** ''Yamara'', also a ''D&D''-based comic, did a similar shift fairly early in its run, with a rather more elaborate [[Lampshade Hanging]] in [http://yamara.com/yamaraclassic/index.php?date=2005-08-22 this strip].
* ''[[El Goonish Shive]]''. After the heavily plot-based, action-packed "Painted Black" arc, the author admitted that he didn't really feel comfortable with that sort of thing. His next arc was about the interpersonal relations of the cast; it was still dramatic, but in a different way. The series continues to shift between drama, humor, and outright weirdness. There are definitely more serious storylines, and [[Cerebus Retcon|previous weirdness is often explained away]] but the author refuses to go all the way and sacrifice humor entirely
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** ... which (almost) entirely lacked a fourth wall. Very unusual in this.
** Its also worth noting that despite all of this it still stayed pretty damn funny.
* ''[[Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures
** That said, the aforementioned side-story has more than enough darkness, angst and bad things to make up for any hesitance shown by ''DMFA'' proper. On the subject of Abel's Story, the author had this to say:
{{quote|'''Amber''': ''[[Warhammer 40,000|TEARS! TEARS FOR THE TEAR-THRONE!!]]''}}
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* ''[[Bunny]]'' went through something that... is closer to this than anything else. It has always been a gag-a-day strip with no storylines, but as it progressed, hints of continuity started to creep in, as the comic started to slowly paint a portrait of the surreal world The Bunny and his friends inhabit rather than just making isolated jokes.
* While it still is largely a comedic strip, ''[[PvP]]'' is sometimes accused of this. Mainly, this is due to its decreasing reliance on game-related humor, the increasing importance of the character relationships within the strip, and the development of long-term dramatic storylines. This has been going on so gradually and for so long though that, combined with the tendency for the strip to still use one-off gags from time to time, it sort of underwent this process so subtly that it's actually debatable if it happened or not.
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20110319075624/http://z11.invisionfree.com/WOAM/index.php?showtopic=603 Oak Fable]'' [[Take That|parodies]] Ceberus Syndrome by setting a new record in how quickly comedy circums to drama: It takes effect in ''the second issue.''
* ''[[User Friendly]]'' started out as a comic about life behind the scenes at a small Internet Service Provider. The latest stories have dealt with Sid getting cancer, and A.J joining the army, being sent to Afghanistan as a combat medic, and getting shot in action.
* ''[[Freefall]]'' was a hard sci-fi comedy. It gradually got more dramatic. Then [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2000/fc01981.htm this] happened. Then it's [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2100/fc02042.htm back to wacky comedy] and [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2100/fc02045.htm wild waffle irons].
* ''[[Darths and Droids]]'' has been shifting this way during the Episode III story arc, as the players' personal lives (Jim and Annie's in particular) start impacting the way they play the game and causing fractures within the role-playing group. There's also a nasty air of [[Foregone Conclusion]] hanging over the whole thing, since ''[[Darths and Droids]]'' loosely follows the plot of the ''[[Star Wars]]'' movies and Episode III... didn't end well.
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{{quote|'''Tip''': This is ... different than I remember.
'''Leo''': Yeah, but wait'll you get to all the miscarriages. }}
* ''[http://www.200-20.com 200:20]'' is a great example of this, the series itself seems to want to keep a comedic tone but keeps getting drawn into a more serious subject matter as the story goes along. The creator didn't agree with this, and wanted to keep the story light hearted so it was rewritten. [http://www.200-20.com/pilot.html Three] [http://www.200-20.com/soc.html times]. Although it is up to debate whether or not that the series won't take another turn for more serious subject matter, it would appear that for now the comic itself is keeping the drama within the story to a minimum successfully.
* The ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' comic ''Equinox: Defender of the Horde'' was rather silly and light
* They're getting faster. ''[[Modest Medusa]]'' began in January 2011, began its first serious arc by June, and lampshaded the drama influx by the arc's end in August.
** Lampshaded [http://www.drunkduck.com/Modest_Medusa/5348020/ here] : "Hey. Do you remember when we used to do fun stuff?"
* ''[[The Lounge]]'': Originally a gag-a-day strip, inclusion of longer story arcs led to some more serious plots being incorporated, culminating {{spoiler|in serious family conflict between Italy Ishida and her father, and the introduction of the children of her father's former business partner, hellbent on destroying the family business}}
* ''[[Sinfest]]'' resisted for a long time, but has been creeping into territory for the last few years.{{when}} It started with the story of Fuschia the Devil-Girl falling for Criminy and wanting to be human, and since has involved characters falling into various realms (Hell, The Reality Zone, The River Lethe) to to angst over character flaws that had previously been played for laughs. The recent addition of a young
* ''[[Princess Pi]]'' fell victim to this in the appropiately-titled "Princess Pi vs. Cerebus Syndrome". In it, Pi marries [[Cerebus]], catches his syndrome, and subsequently speaks only in overly grim or sad stories. One of them details how she avenged her mother's death by {{spoiler|killing her palace's invaders, the US Army, and America's dictator, all in one day, with her bare hands}}.
== Web Original ==
* The ''[http://qntm.org/?ed Ed Stories]'' start out in blog format, then continue as a more formal type of prose fiction with a fairly whimsical tone (cf. "[http://qntm.org/?admin An Admin Password for the Universe]"), then suddenly takes a turn for "the dreaded continuity", turns a hinted-at running gag into a major plot point for a longer story arc, and culminates in a [[Downer Ending]].
* ''[[Bonus Stage]]'' started as a funny, video game
* Oh, ''[[Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog|Doctor Horrible]]''. The first act introduces the light-hearted tale of an incompetent supervillain, the girl of his dreams, and his cheezy superhero rival. Act Two starts with "My Eyes," Doctor Horrible's half of which at least is pretty dark, but really, it's just him bitching because Penny is going out with Captain Hammer instead of with him. The act then ends with "Brand New Day," which announces that Dr. Horrible intends to go through with Bad Horse's command: "There will be blood / It might be yours / So go kill someone! / (Signed, Bad Horse)" And then there's [[Downer Ending|Act Three]]. Of course, considering the short length, it was obviously planned from the beginning
* ''[[The Church of Blow]]'' does this deliberately and with great effect; it starts off as a light satire of youtube vlogging, religion and cults, with episodes about deciding on the Church's logo (smiley face or weird mouse creature?). Then Cornelius Blow, the protagonist, dips further into insanity, the comedy gets darker and darker, someone shows up at Cornelius' house wearing his face, Cornelius kills at least two people before finally having a breakdown and discovering he's a fictional character and going off to find the real world. The whole series turns into an intelligent and elaborate parody and ''[[Take That]]'' of Youtube and everyone who uses it, raising questions about whether anyone's Youtube persona is actually the real them at all and if the very presence of a camera fictionalizes everything it records. Also it has lizard monsters, which may or may not be figments of Cornelius' imagination.
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* ''[[Awkward]]'' starts off as pure grossout humour but turns quite dramatic and serious as the series progresses.
* Not even porn is immune to this. ''Summer Camp'' by Nick Scipio started out as an episodic, sex-laden [[Coming of Age Story]] about a boy being initiated into sex by his mother's best friend; but now, 4 volumes and a million words later, most readers are onboard primarily to find out who he marries and who died. (The interesting bit is that Nick planned it this way: the very first words of the story are a [[Framing Device]] in which both the wife and "[[Fan Nickname|Aunt D]]" are introduced by not named.)
* ''[[Atop the Fourth Wall]]'' started out as an average geek reviewing bad comics on his futon and eventually made its way to said geek grappling with self-doubt, dethroning a multiversal conqueror, and commanding a massive starship. He still reviews bad comics on his futon, though.
* Ah, the ''[[Anti Cliche and Mary Sue Elimination Society]]''. Started up by three British girls with way too much time on their hands, with enough [[Crack Fic|crack]] to make [[Scarface]] jealous. Now? It recently hit the two hundred story mark, with maybe two dozen writers, has an actual, slightly epic, plot, and (depending on the author) angst. Puh-lenty of angst. There's still a ''copious'' amount of crack, though.
* Both ''New Prime'' and ''The Last Scene'' by [[Olan Rogers]] undergo this. ''The Last Scene'' started as just a nonsensical dialogue parodying action movie cliche`s in against a white background. Soon this white background became a plot point, and eventually it ([[Indecisive Parody|almost]]) starts to take itself somewhat seriously. More so with ''New Prime'', as it has now included plot twists, a ([[Indecisive Parody|kind of]]) serious plot, with characters being [[Killed Off for Real]]. However, this trope is not entirely played straight as the series never lose their humor. ''New Prime'' takes itself more seriously than ''The Last Scene'', as the latter moves more towards an [[Indecisive Parody]] than the original straight [[Affectionate Parody]].
** ''New Prime 5'' pretty much goes all the way.
* ''[[There She Is]]''. A story about a girl bunny who falls in love with a boy cat. The first three episodes are extremely cute and hilarious, but by god does it [[Fantastic Racism|get]] [[Interspecies Romance|sad]] by episode 4.
* The ''[[Ask a Pony]]'' blog ''Ask Jappleack'' started off with [[Surreal Humour]], [[Dead Baby Comedy]], [[Black Comedy]], [[Crosses the Line Twice]], and the likes. But after {{spoiler|Applebloom dies}}, and Jappleack is asked "What's the point of growing apples?", Jappleack goes through a bit of an existential crisis. Much drama follows.
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Moral Orel]]'' started as a goofy and over-the-top parody of shows like ''[[Davey and Goliath]]''. They
** The third season episodes are frequently just downright depressing (with only a couple jokes made), with episodes dedicated to fleshing out secondary characters and showing how messed-up everyone's life (especially Clay's) is. The commentary bits before the episodes even have one exec saying they cancelled the show because they didn't want Dino to do anything worse to Orel. On the other hand, some episodes can be [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|quite uplifting]], like "Dumb" which ends with {{spoiler|Nurse Bendy getting rid of her weird teddy bear family and spending time with her real son Joe (specifically making weird face [[Overly Long Gag|all throughout the credits]])}} and "Closeface" which ended with {{spoiler|Orel and Christina enjoying a dance while Reverend Putty helps Stephanie (his daughter, who reveals he knew was gay) get over a girl that didn't really like her and they decide to go look for dates together}}.
* Certain events in the third season premiere of ''[[Transformers Animated]]'', most notably the whole {{spoiler|Blurr crushed into a cube and the Autobot High Command thinking that ethical guidelines are optional}} thing, indicate they're going that way.
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** This is another case of [[Tropes Are Not Bad]], however, in that for many, season 2 of Beast Wars is the high point not only of the show in specific, but of Transformers media in general.
*** Especially the episode "''Code of Hero''", which ends with the {{spoiler|[[Heroic Sacrifice]] of Dinobot}} and is generally regarded as the best episode of the show, and can sit with the best stories across the whole 30-year franchise.
* Inverted with the [[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003|second ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'' animated series]], which begins by almost perfectly mirroring the original comic's dark, serialized story arcs (though with more overt humor), but then goes through an entire tonal shift in season 6, becoming more like the older cartoon series.
** By contrast, the first series got slightly darker starting with the eighth season, painting all of Manhattan under a dark red sky, having the entire city unite against the Turtles thanks to Burne's propaganda blitz, adding a story arc of the Turtles still mutating and replacing Shredder with a more sinister alien [[Big Bad]] named Dregg.
* Interestingly averted by ''[[The Venture Brothers]]''. The plot does get deeper and darker, but the comedy just gets blacker. Even utterly serious scenes don't stop with the jokes, the subject matter just shifts.
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* The ''[[KaBlam!]]!'' episode "Won't Stick to Most Dental Work!". The episode starts out as comedic as ever with Henry quitting the show. As it goes on, it's still hilarious, but one may sense June becoming a [[Stepford Smiler]]. Toward the end, it becomes a major [[Tear Jerker]], and then a [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]].
* ''[[The Raccoons]]'' is on the "done right" side of this syndrome. Over time, it shifted from by-the-numbers and cartoonish before evolving the characters into more distinct, realistic (by cartoon standards) personalities and more story-driven episodes.
* ''[[Wakfu]]'' is a goofy and lighthearted French children's cartoon that takes a screaming left turn into darker territory during the last couple of episodes, {{spoiler|in which a major protagonist is killed, [[The Bad Guy Wins]], and the bad guy loses ''again'' and commits suicide}}. There's also the special episode depicting the villain's [[Start of Darkness]], which was directed by maestro of [[Deranged Animation]] [[Kaiba|Masaaki]] [[Mind Game|Yuasa]].
* ''[[Codename: Kids Next Door]]'' began as a show that took mundane kid issues (such as going to school) and blew them up into devices in an ongoing "kids vs. adults" war. The show was fairly comical with no serious plots emerging until the conclusion of the first season (during Operation G.R.O.W.U.P.). However, as the larger KND organization began to be revealed (initially the show only showed the five members of Sector V), the stories took a turn into deeper and darker territory with backstabs and some much more serious villains (early episodes featured gimmick villains like Count Spankulot but later on you get the very driven KND defector Cree Lincoln who has a vicious vendetta against the organization). The story still dealt with kids' problems blown up one-
** [[Sudden Downer Ending|
* Starting with "Dr. Blowhole's Revenge", ''[[The Penguins of Madagascar]]'' has become a little less cartoonish, playing up the sci-fi elements (mostly from Kowalski) and the technology a bit more. It's started to [[Reverse Cerebus Syndrome|reverse]] a little bit in the latter half of season 2, though.
* While ''[[South Park]]'' is still very much a comedy, its tone has changed significantly over its run. Early seasons were silly and sitcom-like, with a sense of humor reminiscent of ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' and ''[[The Simpsons]]''; later seasons became increasingly topical, with most episodes featuring recent political or social issues, while the [[Black Comedy]] became even blacker with numerous [[Downer Ending]]s and increasingly common and [[Squick|graphic]] [[Family-Unfriendly Violence|violence]]. Needless to say, fan opinions are [[Broken Base|divided]] regarding when the show was (or is) at its peak.
** "You're Getting Old" definitely avoids the [[Status Quo Is God]] rule by ending with {{spoiler|Stan ending up a "cynical asshole" and his parents separating}}. The episode's lighthearted beginning did not last.
** The sequel episode to "You're Getting Old" has Stan learning a lesson at the end along the lines of "Change might be unpleasant or scary but accepting it is the only way to move forward and enjoy new experiences". [[Ass Pull|Cue his parents driving up in a moving truck to reveal they patched things up and everything can go back to normal]]. So while "You're Getting Old" averts [[Status Quo Is God]], [[Zig Zagged Trope|the follow-up episode subverted the aversion]].
* ''[[Invader Zim]]'', of all things, went through some of this right towards the end of the show. Being an episodic comedy with a fair bit of negative continuity for its first two seasons, the third season began to have running continuity, most notably involving Tak's ship. While it still didn't take itself too seriously, the greater focus on sci fi elements, the war against the Irken Empire, and other facets of the Universe promised something beyond the original scope.
** On the commentary, they mention that they had been planning more stuff with epic space battles, and it was just as well the show ended because kids weren't interested in that, they wanted comedies in school.
* This is the formula for most ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'' seasons; they start out light hearted and comedy driven, then become really dark near the end. The most extreme example compared to the rest of the show (the arc itself starts dark and stays there) is season 4, when Raven is used as a portal for her demonic father Trigon and he takes over the world in a hellish apocalypse where all humans except the four remaining Titans turned to stone. (This lasts for three episodes.) It's worth noting that the silliest stories usually came after a particularly dark or scary episode.
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* ''[[Adventure Time]]''. Compare the first season's pure comedy to the third's heavy focus on romance, friendship, and other relationships between the characters.
** "[[Christmas Episode|Holly Jolly Secrets]]" has perhaps the most egregious example: {{spoiler|The Ice King's origins are revealed in his video diary, revealing he was once a antiquarian named Simon Petricov, who was perfectly sane and had a fiancee, but when he jokingly put the Ice Crown he bought from a Scandanavian merchant, he did something that caused her to leave him, and he never saw her again, the rest of the video diary is a borderline [[Tear Jerker|depressing]] [[Apocalyptic Log]]}}.
* The ''[[Family Guy]]'' episode [[Very Special Episode|"Screams Of Silence:]] [[Darker and Edgier|The Story of Brenda Q."]], where [[Domestic Abuse]], once used for cheap gags, is played straight and serious for once. ''Much scarier than it sounds.''
* ''[[Star Wars: The Clone Wars]]''
** Season 4 had a few lighthearted episodes where C-3PO and Artoo had fun adventures. The rest of the season was filled with violent deaths (one character breaks a mook's neck for pete's sake), scenes of war, racism towards clones, zombies, and graphic witchcraft. This trooper believes that the censors were victims of a Jedi Mind Trick.
* ''[[Transformers Prime]]'' has now{{when}} been hit by this, starting with Unicron's debut appearance and never looking back, particularly in "Crossfire" when {{spoiler|Breakdown (one of the most sympathetic Cons) gets violently murdered by Airachnid}}. It's difficult to say if there's an actual [[Knight of Cerebus]], but the prime candidates might be Unicron or Airachnid, as neither have many funny traits or any redeeming ones.
** Agent Fowler, oddly enough, might be a non-villainous [[Knight of Cerebus]]. Fowler's position as a government agent and former soldier allows the show to highlight just how destructive the fight with the Decepticons is, and many of his appearances signify a situation getting worse. The [[Plucky Comic Relief|human kids]] have been getting [[Shoo Out the Clowns|much less screen time]] in the second season, while Agent Fowler has been getting much more, at least partly because they can do things to him that would jack the rating way up if they happened to children. Even when the kids do appear, they are purposefully being put into much more dangerous situations than in the first season, and crack far less jokes.
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