Dark Reprise / Western Animation

• In the final episode of 6teen, the peppy and happy main theme gets a dark, melancholy remake, courtesy of Brian Melo, which serves to drive home the point that yes, the series is ending.
• Adventure Time: The episode "Simon and Marcy" has Simon sing the Cheers theme song to entertain a young Marceline. When the two are beset by Ooze Zombies, Simon is forced to wear the crown to protect themselves and he sings the song in a desperate attempt to hang onto his sanity.
• The final episode of The Amazing World of Gumball begins and ends with a somber version of the show's ending theme.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Tale of Iroh once has Iroh singing a fairly happy song to cheer up a crying child. He later sings it while breaking into tears as he sets up a memorial for his dead son.
  • Only made worse in that the song is about a soldier coming home. Iroh's son was a soldier who died in battle.
    • Not to mention that the whole mini-episode doubles as a memorial for the actor voicing Iroh up to that point.
  • Even more interesting since the first time the song sends the message that War Is Glorious. The Dark Reprise instead sends the opposite message that War Is Hell.
  • Done to comic effect in another episode, where the leitmotif of the imitation Avatars is the normally awe-inspiring Avatar music played on an off-key tuba.
• The soundtrack to the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Joker's Favor" has the cheery "Sub Main Title's" melody as Charlie Collins Leitmotif. The Second song, "Cussing Out the Joker" is a happy variation of the Leitmotif that plays while Charlie Collins is Mugging the Joker. The third melody, I had a bad day, is a very Dark Reprise of the Leitmotif that plays while Charlie Collins makes a Deal with the Joker.
• A Batman Beyond episode does this to the Superman: The Animated Series theme when mind-controlled Superman is chasing Terry. Its most notable changes are altering the tempo and reversing the recurring three-note riff. It's very effective at conveying the message that Terry is well and truly boned if he doesn't do something.
• Beavis and Butt-Head - on a field trip, Hippie Teacher Mr. Van Driessen stands at the front of the bus strumming his guitar and singing his gentle song "Touch a Mountain" - then the driver slams on the brakes missing a turn, and he plummets out the windshield and down a canyon. The song is replayed in a dark minor key as an emergency medical team airlifts him out.
• Big City Greens: In the Christmas Episode, "If I Can't Have Christmas" serves as a dark parallel to "Good Deeds are Good Indeed" played earlier. While the former song is light, bouncy and upbeat and shows how Cricket is willing to prove to Santa that he should be on the nice list, the latter is a more sinister and malevolent melody as Cricket decides to resort to naughty pranks after believing Santa thinks he's just that. Cricket's Melancholy Musical Number, "No Christmas At All", also includes a brief somber reprise of the opening song "The Best Part of Christmas", and seems to combine elements of both "Good Deeds" and "If I Can't Have Christmas", making it an extreme mash-up of his thoughts as he begins to realize it was indeed all his fault for almost ruining the holiday for everyone.
• Bojack Horseman: In "The Old Sugarman Place", one of the flashbacks shows Honey and Crackerjack singing a song together. Later on, Honey duets a somber and melancholic version of the same song with Eddie, as they both mourn their loved ones, Honey's son and Eddie's wife.
• CatDog:
  • In the three-part episode "The Great Parent Mystery", the titular Conjoined Twins CatDog at one point find themselves at Yokelburg, a town inhabited by a dog family named McDog and a family of cats called the Catfields who manage to live in harmony. When CatDog first encounters the two families, the McDog patriarch and the Catfield matriarch are singing a song called "Ain't No More", where they list the violent and hurtful things they used to do to each other before they started setting aside their differences. Later, Cat angers the yokels by refusing to marry a girl he burped in front of, which causes the McDogs and the Catfields to resume their feud and sing a reprise of "Ain't No More" that's now about how the McDogs and the Catfields living in harmony is no longer the case.
  • Played for laughs in the episode "CatDog Doesn't Live Here Anymore": after CatDog leave home, Winslow and the greasers realize they miss them and set up a bonfire in CatDog's backyard, where they sing a sad reprise of the theme song. CatDog, of course, return right as they start singing.
  Winslow: One fine day with a whimper and a tear, a beloved CatDog ran away from here. Our eyes are moist, they're downright soggy, without our precious little cat-doggy!
• Central Park:
  • In "Episode One":
    • "Shampagne Was My Best Friend" is one for "Poops I'll Pick It Up", in which Cole mourns no longer being with Shampagne and is consoled by his father.
    • "Central To My Plot" is Bitsy singing about their plot for Central Park, to the tune of "Central In My Heart".
  • In "Dog Spray Afternoon", while "If There's A Will" already dealt with Helen's grievances and desire to kill Shampagne for the will, the reprise has Helen even angrier and more focused on killing Shampagne.
  • In "Squirrel, Interrupted", Paige sings a reprise of "Can We Do Today Again?", after she feels horrible for allowing Molly to play against a chess master and losing to him. She thinks that Molly's loss will turn her off the game of chess for good.
• DC Super Hero Girls (2019): "#HappyBirthdayZee" begins with Zee Zatara singing about how much she looks forward to her birthday. After overhearing her friends complain about how demanding she is with what presents she'd like them to get her, she then sings a dark reprise where she complains about her friends not appearing to care (and unintentionally casts a spell that makes her friends blindly obedient zombies obsessed with giving her a good birthday celebration).
• Gravity Falls: The credits music at the end of "Dreamscapers" is a haunting, slow version of the normally upbeat theme song reflecting the jarring mood change brought about by the season finale.
  • The final scene of the following episode and season finale, "Gideon Rises", features a slow, mysterious version of the main theme, slowly building up a crescendo to an epic flourish for the final moment.
  • The theme song for all parts of the 3-part finale is a distorted and warped version of the regular one that features different characters than usual.
  • The music for the ending of "Weirdmageddon Part 3: Take Back The Falls" transitions from a piano tune to a slow and acoustic version of the theme. Unlike the other examples, it’s a more bittersweet moment, as while it is the end of the series, it also shows several members of the cast going in new directions of their lives and Dipper and Mabel hopeful for the future.
  • On a lighter note (by comparison), in "Boss Mabel", as Mabel's running herself ragged from dealing with Wendy’s slacking off, Soos’s antics and the Monster of the Week, a grim/frantic instrumental version of "Mabel's the Boss" plays in the background.
• Infinity Train: In Book 3, Tuba sings Hazel a cheerful and upbeat lullaby. It gets a gut wrenching full version at Tuba’s funeral.
• Jem has an example where the song is exactly the same, but played in a different context. "Take It or Leave It" by The Stingers was originally an egotistical song of disrespect towards the Starlight Girls, who were not happy with The Stingers' attitude. In the later episode "Riot's Hope", however, the song is played as he thinks about his troubled relationship with his father, which may even be what the song is actually about.
• Justice League gives us one in "Divided We Fall" when Luthor/Brainiac modifies the Brainiac droids into Justice Lord versions to fight the Justice League, playing a dark version of the series opening theme.
• In Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, Yumyan Hammerpaw's Bragging Theme Tune gets a sad piano reprise during his final moments before he undergoes a permanent Death of Personality.
• Scar gives the song "Sisi Na Sawa" one of these in The Lion Guard. It’s sung by Jaziri in the first regular episode as an upbeat happy song, and in the season 3 opener, Scar sings it to convince a now scarred Kion that he’s going to turn evil. "Sisi na sawa means we’re the same... though you’re made of flesh and I'm made of flame!" Kion denies it, but the venom in his system starts him questioning for a while. When Scar substitutes the "water and rain" part as "fire and flame", this causes Kion to remember Mufasa's advice to not fight fire with fire, and with that, Kion forgives Scar and uses a calmer version of the Roar to destroy his essence for good.
• In Metalocalypse: The Doomstar Requiem, "Magnus and The Assassin" has parts of Dethklok's "Go into the Water" and possibly "The Hammer" incorporated into it.
• In the TV Special of Dr. Seuss' The Lorax all the creatures have a reprise of their introduction song in a minor key as they each in turn leave the land, the last one being a reprise of "For He's a Jolly Good Once-ler" after the Thneed factory shuts down since there are no more Truffula trees.
• One episode of My Little Pony Tales has Starlight sing about her crush on Ace while picturing the two of them as a "Perfect Pair". She then joins the soccer team, only to discover Ace is a Jerk Jock who goes out of his way to humiliate her just because he can. Cue a weepy reprise where she admits "We're... not a perfect pair."
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic had an absolute bombshell of one of these. The Season 2 Finale, A Canterlot Wedding, introduces Twilight Sparkle's brother Shining Armor as the groom. However, his bride who is actually a fake and the real Princess Cadence engage in a Distant Duet entitled "This Day Aria." A few scenes later, the villain, who reveals herself as the fake Cadence, reprises the song, and the scenes of carnage and war play while she sings. All in all, it encompasses both types of Dark Reprise.
  • The episode also features this with the song "My Big Brother Best Friend". The original upbeat version is about Twilight singing about how she and her brother were so close; the mournful reprise is about how she's managed to ruin their relationship.
  Twilight: He was my big brother best friend, forever/ And now we'll never do anything together.
  • The episode "Suited for Success" has Rarity singing a song while she makes dresses for her friends. After the other ponies pile on the demands for modifications, she sings a reprise to the same music, but sounds stressed out, and the lyrics have a distinctly embittered tone.
  • Rarity gets another one in "Rarity Takes Manehattan". After arriving in Manehattan she sings about the joys of being generous, but after she thinks she has destroyed her chances at the fashion show and driven her friends away she performs a sad reprise in the rain.
  • Pinkie Pie has one of these in "The Best Night Ever":
    I'm at the Grand Galloping Gala, and it's not what I dreamed.
  • The beginning of "Pinkie's Lament" from Pinkie Pride sounds like a sad reprise of the roll call section from the MLP G3 opening theme, whose first verse started with "We'll plan a party with Pinkie Pie...".
  • Canterlot Boutique zigzags this trope with "The Rules of Rarity". First, Rarity sings a dark reprise after Sassy forces her to make and sell only the Princess Dress at Canterlot Carousel, at the cost of her creativity. Then at the end, it has a Triumphant Reprise after Rarity's own designs featured in the "going out of business sale" prove to be a success and they are able to keep the boutique running.
• In Over the Garden Wall has "Potatus et Molassus," an eerie, Latin version of "Potatoes and Molasses" that plays while Greg is dying.
• The Patrick Star Show: In "Best Served Cold", when the ice cream man chases down Patrick, an ominous, minor-key rendition of the ice cream truck jingle heard earlier plays.
• Popeye: On his birthday, Popeye befriends a lonely little schnook who slowly but surely drives him nuts with his manic accident-prone cheer, singing "Happy Birthday to my pal" right up to the last straw when Popeye shoots him, and the cartoon ends the song on a somber chord.
• The Pound Puppies (1980s) Musical Episode "Garbage Night: The Musical" featured this in a scene where Howler used an invention to show what happened inside Bright Eyes' body after she ate a piece of meat and Scrounger's body after he ate a piece of cake. Bright Eyes' body is shown to fill up with muscular personifications of vitamins called Vita-Men, and they are given an upbeat song about how vitamins make your body healthy and fight off germs to prevent you from getting sick. Scrounger's body instead fills up with lethargic Blobs, who are given a reprise of the song at a slower tempo that explains how a lack of vitamins makes your body unhealthy and leaves nothing to stop germs from infecting you and making you sick.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998) had this occur on a few occasions, typically when the end shot comes up.
  • "The Powerpuff Girls' Best Rainy Day Adventure Ever" had the end shot theme playing in a very slow tone when the girls are called to stop a giant alligator Mojo Jojo released on Townsville after the rain stopped. Having already play-acted this adventure during the storm, needless to say, the girls are not looking forward to having to tackle this job. Even the narrator is annoyed by this.
  • "Twisted Sister" ends with the girls' fourth sister, Bunny, dying in an explosion due to her being unstable and being broken down into her original ingredients. As the girls, and even the narrator, are mourning Bunny's death, a very melancholy version of the background music for the end shot plays.
• The last song in the Rocko's Modern Life Musical Episode "Zanzibar" is Ed Bighead's mocking rendition of "RECYCLE".
• The Seven Little Monsters episode "It's a Wonder-Four Life" has Four get so annoyed by his siblings' antics that he sings a song of how great it would be if he were an only child and four was the only number that mattered. After he ends up wishing the other six monsters weren't his siblings, he finds the new world to not be as exciting and pleasant as he thought it would be and sings a more somber reprise of the song before wishing things back to normal.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: The fifth season trailer uses a sad reprise of the usually triumphant opening theme, since this is the Darkest Hour.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Black Widower", there's a scene where Selma and the seemingly-reformed Sideshow Bob sing "Somethin' Stupid" together as a duet. At the climax of the episode, after Selma's hotel room blows up and Bob believes his plan is successful, he sings a rather morbid version:
    Sideshow Bob: ...and then I went and spoiled it all by doing something stupid like explode you!
  • In "Homer and Apu", after Apu loses his job, he sings the upbeat song "Who needs the Kwik-E-Mart?", later with the dark reprise: "Who needs the Kwik-E-Mart?...I dooooooooo!"
    Homer: He lied to us through song! I hate when people do that!
  • In "Elementary School Musical", the Art Camp counselors (who are actually Flight of the Conchords) sing Lisa and the other kids a song about how exciting being an artist is. When Lisa travels to Sprooklyn to become an artist, however, they decide to "sing her the truth"; a dark reprise about how being an artist means taking demeaning jobs and living off sandwiches that dropped on the floor.
• Steven Universe:
  • In "Steven and the Stevens", Steven uses a timeshifting device and starts a band with three alternate-timeline Stevens. They compose and perform a very upbeat song but the band falls apart immediately afterwards due to Creative Differences. A massive melee involving dozens of alternate Stevens ensues, and in the end they paradox themselves out of existence. Only one of the Stevens survives, and he performs a Dark Reprise of the original song. The reprise keeps the upbeat mood of the original but has new verses about learning to be true to yourself by watching yourself die.
  • Also in Steven and the same episode, the other Stevens end up writing Big Fat Zuccini about how the original Steven is being a jerk. Later in the episode when all the Stevens converge on the point in time where Steven first got his hands on the time thingie and start a huge brawl, the background music is an instrumental reprise of Big Fat Zuccini that takes a more desperate and downbeat tone compared to the loud angry tone of the original to help convey that the Stevens have completely lost the plot and are seriously trying to hurt and kill one another.
  • The song "Night Drive 2" contains a Dark Reprise of "Rose's Theme", playing as Greg explains the Gems' dark past to Steven in "The Return".
  • In the lead-up to "Who We Are" from Steven Universe: The Movie, Steven laments the Gems' wiped memories by singing "Happily Ever After", but about how the future is wrong.
  • In the first episode of Steven Universe: Future we're given the theme Pink Steven, a fast paced, soaring tune that plays over the top of Steven tapping into the true depths of his Diamond powers for the first time and giving Jasper a taste of humble pie in the process. Much later into the series, we get Steven VS Jasper Rematch during a second sparring match between Jasper and a VERY unwell Steven with the Pink Steven theme taking on a progressively more chaotic and sinister tone to match Steven's unhinged mental state before reaching a panicked, fearful climax as Steven prepares his coup de grace attack and shatters Jasper.
  • Played for dark laughs in the Grand Finale; the Crystal Gems sing a reprise of the Cookie Cat Jingle from the very first episode... and find the lyrics are a lot darker than they remember, not to mention creepily applicable to all the horrible stuff they've learned and experienced over the course of the show:
    He's a frozen treat with a whole new taste
    'Cause he came to this planet from outer space
    A refugee from an interstellar war
    But now he's at your local grocery store!
    Cookie Cat! He's a pet for your tummy;
    Cookie Cat! He's super duper yummy!
    Cookie Cat! He left his family behind!
    Cookie Caaaat!
• Tangled: The Series:
  • At the end of the Pilot Movie Before Ever After, Rapunzel sings a brief melancholic reprise of "Life After Happily Ever After" as she is forced to be confined within the kingdom walls by her father, feeling locked inside all over again. It then transitions to a Triumphant Reprise of "Wind in My Hair" as she vows to face whatever lays ahead of her.
  • The special "Queen For a Day" features Arc Villain Varian singing "Let Me Make You Proud" while journeying to Corona to get help from Rapunzel to save his father from the black rocks he was experimenting with. After Rapunzel denied him help because she's swamped with an even worse disaster at hand (Corona is being destroyed by a deadly blizzard curse based on the legend of Zhan Tiri and her own parents are missing), and he was forcefully ejected from the palace, he returns home to find it's too late to help his father. He sings a reprise of this song, which signals his Descent into Darkness Song.
    Varian: Anybody who stands or has stood in my path, they are going to pay! They. Will. Pay.
  • The Moonstone's Decaying Incantation as learned in "Rapunzel and the Great Tree" is the complete opposite of the Sundrop's Healing Incantation. Unlike the latter which heals anything making contact, the former is dangerous and destructive, and can harm and kill anything in its path. It even burnt Cassandra's hand. And once Rapunzel starts chanting, she cannot stop unless someone brings her to her senses.
    Wither and decay,
    End this destiny.
    Break these earthy chains,
    And set the spirit free.''
• Underdog: In "Riffraffville", when he's running out of energy, a sad Spaghetti Western style version of the title theme plays.
  "Once he was lightning, once he was thunder, now this could end him, if he should blunder, Underdog. Without his super energy pill, he gets weaker and weaker and weaker still ".
  • Then subverted when he gets his powers back, and the heroic lyrics return, but still sung in the same Spaghetti Western style.
• A non-musical example would be Waspinator's catchphrase, "Waspinator has plans..." In the show Beast Wars, it's said in a comical tone of voice, but in Transformers: Animated, it more creepy-sounding.
• Shrek: The Lyrical Dissonance singing info booth from the first film returns in the Halloween special Scared Shrekless with a nightmarish rendition of "Duloc is a Creepy Place", with ominous lyrics and the aftermath of a Sugar Apocalypse. Some might find it less creepy than the Stepford-style Crapsaccharine World version, but the way the dolls' eyes pop out...