History Main / Bathos

** Seeing Peter B. recount what led to his marriage to MJ breaking down is sad, but after him [[UnreliableVoiceover saying that he "took it like a champ"]], the SmashCut to him [[ShowerOfAngst sitting in the shower]] and crying, ''still in his Spider-Man costume'', is simply hilarious.

** The last seconds of ''Film/AntManAndTheWasp'' make use of this, as the [[spoiler:EmergencyBroadcast on TV]], with all the HellIsThatNoise it's usually accompanied by, is contrasted with an image of [[spoiler:a giant ant playing on the drum kit]].

* ''Anime/CodeGeass'' has a surprising amount of this, as a work of entertainment where the creators knowingly [[MoodWhiplash combined tragedy and comedy]]. In fact, audience reactions range between realizing this and not (see {{Narm}} plus NarmCharm). Lelouch is very serious towards life and his quest, but sometimes his own misfortune was an intentional source of amusement for creators and viewers alike. His utter lack of physical skills was highlighted for comedic effect, not only while chasing a cat at school but also when he failed to land a punch on Mao during a dramatic moment. The staff came up with the term "Lulu quality" to describe how much they enjoyed teasing and bullying him. Another example would be Emperor Charles, as director Goro Taniguchi approved his larger than life character design because of its potential for hilarity, leading to the scene where [[spoiler: he flies off like a rocket just before dying in a climactic confrontation, whose comedy value even the staff points out.]] The mad scientist Lloyd, whose voice actor was given total freedom to play the part, makes amusing remarks even during serious battle sequences, while Jeremiah "Orange" Gottwald [[spoiler:goes from villain to audience-pleaser.]] Last but not least, the staff played around with [[ProductPlacement Pizza Hut]] appearances more often than what the sponsor was asking for, even having the delivery bike show up.

* Creator/SpikeMilligan's parody poem ''Casabazonka'' does this deliberately; it starts with the dramatic first two lines of ''{{Literature/Casabianca}}'', only to completely flip the mood with the final word.

** The [[Characters/DoctorWhoFourthDoctor Fourth Doctor]] pretty much functions entirely on this. He's a dramatic, imposing, {{Byronic|Hero}}, swashbuckling alien with a [[GothicHorror gothic Victoriana]] motif, who wanders up to whatever unspeakable squirming OmnicidalManiac horror he's pitted against this week, gives it a big grin and offers it a jelly baby.

* "America Decides" is one of the most tense and harrowing episodes of ''Series/{{Succession}}'', meant to recall the massive stress and trauma felt among the American populace during the election nights of 2016 and 2020...and it also features a scene where a hapless polling analyst accidentally gets wasabi in his eyes, with attempts to fix it making it even worse since Greg pours lemon-flavored La Croix in his eyes and then tries to insist it "wasn't that lemony".

* The ''VideoGame/{{Yakuza}}'' series is steeped in bathos. Every game has a deadly serious HeroicBloodshed main story, full of murder, passion, betrayal, intrigue, strong themes of father- and brotherhood, and muscle-bound {{hunk}}s getting into fights to the death that are as much expressions of conviction, loyalty and commitment to ideals as they are brutal, bloody, knock-down, drag-out slugfests. In between story beats, your character goes off and does silly mundane things like sing karaoke, bowl, race slot cars, go fishing, play mahjong and help every weirdo in Tokyo with their dumb problems.
** In ''VideoGame/{{Judgment}}'', Yagami discovers [[spoiler: the corpse of his horrifically murdered [[VitriolicBestBuds friend]], Shintani, in a wardrobe in his office.]] But at the same time, a voicemail message is playing on Yagami's phone where Shinanti introduces himself using a blatant, laughable ''VideoGame/AceAttorney'' reference.

* TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers

* This trope drives a lot of the biting satire in the ''Film/{{Robocop}}'' series, where this darkly horrid and brutally violent take on America TwentyMinutesIntoThefuture is intersected with silliness and humor. You'll laugh every time ''and'' feel like you're going straight to Hell for it. By and far the best example is the failed Robocops in ''Film/Robocop2'': a tortured machine that WasOnceAMan staggering out, screaming in agony and anguish, and killing the scientists responsible and [[DrivenToSuicide then himself]]? A terrifying example of {{Body|Horror}} and PsychologicalHorror. The low-fi recording of stock police quotes like "YOU ARE UNDER ARREST" followed by his red and blues lighting up after he's died? ''Hilarious.''

* "Break" by Music/AphroditesChild includes {{Scatting}} by Music/Vangelis at the end, which was intended to make fun of the dramatic feel of the song.

* The ''player'' can intentionally create bathos in ''VideoGame/ResonanceOfFate''. Thanks to its VirtualPaperDoll-like clothing and accessories, you can have your characters wearing almost clown-like attire during the most serious of scenes. The weapon customization can also lead to some [[CoolGun interesting]] [[ImprobableWeaponUser results]].

* In ''Film/TheVillage'', Kitty wants to marry Lucius and gives him an AnguishedDeclarationOfLove. A cut to her crying her eyes out in her sister's arms tells us how well ''that'' went. You're both inclined to laugh at what a spectacle she made of herself, but the sequence of Ivy singing softly to comfort her still makes you feel sorry for the poor girl who just got her heart broken.

* ''WebAnimation/HelluvaBoss'': Maybe the most obvious example -- though hardly the only one given the show's tone -- is in "Exes and Oohs", when Crimson sends Moxxie away with a dire threat give more weight by the incredibly dark flashback of what had happened between them before... and then the view shows all the colourful dildos in the walls that Crimson had installed as a mocking welcome for Moxxie, since Moxxie is "gay" (actually bisexual).
* In TheMovie for ''WebAnimation/TheThwomps'', the two characters from the titular ''[[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Mario]]'' species are able to defeat Bowser. Just before finishing him off...the movie parodies ''VideoGame/{{Tetris}}'', using the Thwomps as Tetris blocks.

* This is one of the entertaining aspects of ''WebVideo/InternetHistorian'', who talks about the utterly bizarre and hilariously goofy things that have happened on the internet with a calm, soothing, and utterly delicious sophisticated accent and calmly go from speaking in an erudite way to using trashy slang and swearing without so much as skipping a beat.

** Even the games ''on their own merits'' have plenty of this. ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'', just to name one (1) entry in the series, goes from you finding Meryl by staring at her ass, to her being MindRaped into PsychicAssistedSuicide which you have to stop, to her teasing Snake about "not being good with dogs", to her ''graphically being shot and laying on the ground bleeding to death'' over the span of about... 20 minutes. Then there's having to resist being tortured or else [[IWillPunishYourFriendForYourFailure Meryl will die]] juxtaposed with [[MinionWithAnFInEvil Johnny]] running to the bathroom with his hands over his butt which ''happens several times'' if you don't manage to escape the cell. ''[[UpdatedRerelease Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes]]'' has even more, like zooming in on figurines of [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Mario and Yoshi]] during Otacon's depressing HeelRealization and Snake's solid 3 second delay between being clubbed in the head and losing consciousness after gunning down the woman who shot Meryl. That's not even mentioning all the [[BathroomHumor pee]] and [[QueerPeopleAreFunny homoerotic humor]] intertwined with often depressingly serious plotlines... and the series only dials up the Bathos from here.

*** This is even better in the novel, in which Watney's response is to wonder why ComicBook/{{Aquaman}} can control whales. [[FridgeLogic They're mammals]].

** ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade'' has a scene where Indy has been captured but has already given the all-important grail Diary to Marcus Brody, who has yet to fall into the hands of the Nazis:

** Creator/ToddField in general seems to be rather fond of this trope, with the very bleak and depressing ''Film/InTheBedroom'' containing a scene where Matt is puzzled by the VanityLicensePlate of the car in front of him while at a traffic stop and another where Matt and Ruth's climactic, tense argument about [[spoiler:their grief over their son's death]] being interrupted by a Girl Scout on their porch who wants to sell them cookies. ''Film/LittleChildren'', which is the most overtly comedic of his three movies, mixes a satirical look on suburban life (usually through the narrator's wry observations about everything) with genuine empathy towards its main characters' many dysfunctions, which are treated seriously.

* Classic ''Series/DoctorWho'' did this well, especially in the Hartnell era.

** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E3TheMythMakers The Myth Makers]]", one of [[Creator/WilliamHartnell Hartnell]]'s wittiest, derives a lot of its humor from how mundane the semi-mythical Trojan figures are in personality, especially Paris -- his attempts to talk Steven down from attacking him are almost [[Creator/MontyPython Pythonesque]] in how anticlimactic they are.

** The final words of the Seventh Doctor to Ace in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E4Survival Survival]]", the final story of the Classic series before the show was cancelled:

** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E4MarcoPolo Marco Polo]]", for example, Kublai Khan is built up as this mysterious, terrible, almost godlike being... and then, he and the First Doctor become friends as they commiserate over the aches and pains of advanced age.
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E3TheMythMakers The Myth Makers]]", one of Hartnell's wittiest, derives a lot of its humor from how mundane the semi-mythical Trojan figures are in personality, especially Paris -- his attempts to talk Steven down from attacking him are almost [[Creator/MontyPython Pythonesque]] in how anticlimactic they are.

** The Fourth Doctor pretty much functions entirely on this. He's a dramatic, imposing, {{Byronic|Hero}}, swashbuckling alien with a [[GothicHorror gothic Victoriana]] motif, who wanders up to whatever unspeakable squirming OmnicidalManiac horror he's pitted against this week, gives it a big grin and offers it a jelly baby.

* An big part of the hero's personality in ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'' is that he responds this way to almost everything. A robot lion chases Bob around his yard, and his only complaint is it kicked over the pile of leaves he'd just raked. Spaceships keep crashing into his roof, and he wonders if other people put up screens to avoid this. He calms paranormal beings by sitting them down to eat some cheesecake or microwave pizza. He shows an alien conqueror that his whole motivation is flawed, and suggests he find a new hobby, like sudoku. And many other examples.

* ''Film/SavingPrivateRyan'', despite its absolutely horrific subject matter, has this at least twice during the famously intense Omaha beach landing. One time is when you see a soldier with [[AnArmAndALeg with his arm blown off]] walking across the battlefield, locating his severed arm, then ''picking it up and walking back with it'' like he's shopping at the supermarket. It should be horrific, but the way he's so utterly '''[[MajorInjuryUnderreaction calm]]''' about the whole thing makes it oddly comical and Pythonesque. In another moment from the same battle, a soldier gets shot in the head...and survives, thanks to his helmet protecting him. He takes it off to stare at the huge dent, like he can't believe that it actually stopped the bullet, and immediately gets shot in the unprotected head. [[CrossesTheLineTwice It shouldn't be nearly as funny as it is.]]

* ''Susume! Bakabons'', a FallingBlocks LicensedGame with ''Manga/TensaiBakabon'' characters, has a creepy cutscene to introduce the first opponent, with pen-and-ink images of a creepy-looking woodland cottage and ominous music gradually quickening and building to a scream as the camera brings into focus... the street-sweeping screwball Lelele no Ojisan. The GratuitousEnglish intertitles, despite spoiling the twist early by including the character's CatchPhrase, capture the sequence's spirit:

* This was the entire original joke of ''ComicBook/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles''. The artstyle, tone, and narration is a near-perfect replication of Creator/FrankMiller's ''ComicBook/{{Daredevil}}''--a dark, noirish, gritty tale about brutal urban vigilantes, carrying out plots of revenge and rivalry--only all the main characters are anthropomorphic turtles with big noses and three-fingered hands, and it's all carried out in a comic with the stupidest name imaginable. Later on, the stories drifted more towards straightforward action--paradoxically becoming both lighter in tone and also more serious.