Mood Whiplash/Other

• There are two things that Ken Matsudaira is well-known for. One of them is starring as a tough samurai in the Japanese TV series The Violent Shogun, in which he saves village after village from different menaces like corrupt officials. He occasionally did stage shows where the first act involved samurai dramas along a similar line. The second act of his show quickly became the other thing Matsudaira is famous for.
• This happens all the time with television commercials. One minute, you're nearly bawling at the sad, dying animals, and then "HAVE YOU GOT DIARRHEA?!?!?!" Cue upbeat music. Yes, you can go crawl in a hole and die now.
  • Comedy Central airing the aforementioned animal abuse commercials.
  • Many of you feel bad for this lamp...
  • Not perhaps the best example, but similar and frustrating.
  • Happened during every single commercial break for Kate Gosselin's interview before the final episode of Jon and Kate Plus Eight. One minute you're seeing the Tear Jerker account of a woman whose marriage has come undone in a very public manner, then light-hearted music and previews for the two giant-family shows that'll be replacing hers.
  • This has been happening quite a bit on the Hallmark channel in recent weeks, particularly during their 2 am-3 am block of sitcoms. The network has been running the new commercial for St Jude's Children's Hospital, featuring images of children dying of cancer while a very sad (and somewhat creepy) Pink Martini song plays, during every. single. commercial. break. Usually in the break's final slot, making it somewhat hard to laugh at "Frasier" and "Cheers" when we just watched kids going through chemotherapy.
  • There's a similar commercial for the Humane Society with sad, abused animals in cages, staring at the viewer with Sorrowful Eyes, over captions like "Why do they beat me?" "When will someone come get me?" while Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" plays. Makes it hard to get back to the inanity of Cheers and the like.
  • Hulu, which is basically TV online(complete with commercials) has this in spades. So you're watching a dramatic show where the main character just died/killed someone important/reunited with a lost family member when- Bam! A chipper commercial about makeup or iPods whith bright colors and upbeat music. The fact that most of the commercials aren't lined up to places where there originally should have been a break on the initial TV run just makes it all worse.
• One Sentence splashes itself all over the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism, with one entry providing definitive proof that Humans Are Bastards, and the next stating unequivocally that Rousseau Was Right. Read down the front page, and you will find yourself punching your fist in the air, weeping uncontrollably, awwwwwing and laughing hysterically. Often at the same time.
• The Post Secret books. One page will be a hysterically funny postcard, and the next will be about someone purposefully miscarrying their baby.
• This short comic is, in fact, a perfect example of the trope.
• This Spider-Man comic strip.
• ABC viewers experienced this while awaiting the start of Game 3 of the 1989 World Series. One moment, the music leading up to the intro is a smooth, James Taylor song...a couple of moments later, the Loma Prieta earthquake hits.
• HBO's Comic Relief specials would often alternate between hilarious stand-up comedy performances and solemn "please help the homeless" speeches. Granted, the help the homeless message was the point of the specials, but it was still jarring.
• Any sort of music player that allows you to randomly shuffle your music qualifies, as you can go from Ominous Latin Chanting to peppy upbeat pop music or pretty much anything else.
• At Disney Theme Parks, the normally Tastes Like Diabetes "Celebrate a Dream Come True" parade used to have a float dedicated to the Disney Villains, singing about their dreams coming true.
• Done in a good way in the short film LOVEFIELD, available here.
• In Luminosity, vampires or werewolves apart from their mates grow steadily more depressed, and their mates dying can be cause for a Despair Event Horizon. Meeting up with a mate creates instant euphoria. Combining the two once took Jasper from half-mindless killer to incredibly happy, intelligent and devoted husband.
• A National Geographic article about women in Afghanistan had photos that went like this: A thirteen year old girl who tried to commit suicide by setting herself on fire; an Afghan wedding where the ladies are wearing fancy Western-style dresses and what appears to be the entire country's supply of makeup; then another teenager who tried to escape an abusive marriage and had her ears and nose cut off (this is apparently a common thing; another photo on NGS's site echoes the famous "Afghan Girl" photo, only the subject has no nose); then some young girls from the wedding getting prepped at a beauty salon.
• This entry for the Wacom Bring Your Vision To Life: Dreams Contest. On the top left corner, we have a boy's parents mourning in front of a doctor at a hospital; and on the right, we have three little animals greeting that boy at a stairway to a potentially pain-free world.
• Past Sins uses it to mark the point where things start to go downhill....
• Suivre la parade, the second major touring show by comedian Louis-José Houde, takes a pretty dark turn in the second act: it goes from rapid-fire observational humour and crazy anecdotes to Houde recounting the story of his girlfriend's abortion. The jokes in this section are, understandably, fewer and much less "zany."
• Used to great effect in Christopher Titus's comedy. Considering that much of his comedy is as black as a panther in a coal mine, it's to be expected.
• There's this British driving PSA called "Crash". It starts off looking like a car commercial from the point-of-view of the driver - happy, bright, and peppy. Around half way the driver begins to nearly hit several people but it looks like it'll be played the laughs.. Until the end where he hits a guy and the music stops.
• Turnabout Storm has constant minor examples of these, par the course of one of the series involved in the crossover, swinging constantly between comedic and serious and suspenseful mood. Part 2 in particular has the constant whiplashes culminate into near Tear Jerker territory when Phoenix sees himself forced to cast suspicion on Fluttershy in order to save Rainbow Dash from the gilty veridict by extending the trial one more day, complete with What the Hell, Hero? and My God, What Have I Done? moments.
• Debt spends twelve and a half chapters as a rather nasty mixure of High Octane Nightmare Fuel, Nausea Fuel, and Tear Jerker. About halfway through the last chapter, it becomes kind of hard for the reader to believe that they're still reading a Dark Fic.