Basic Trope: Bad news followed by irrelevant or unimportant good news.
- Straight: "Bob, I have bad news and good news. The bad news is: you just lost your job. The good news is: I won free tickets to the latest must-see Summer Blockbuster!"
- Exaggerated: "Bob, I have bad news and good news. The bad news is: our town had just been attacked by a horde of disfigured monsters, your family is nowhere to be seen, and you lost your puppy. The good news is, I found the penny you lost yesterday!"
- Downplayed: "Bob, I have bad news and good news. The bad news is: we won't be able to go to the latest must-see Summer Blockbuster. The good news is: I found a nickel!"
- Justified:
- For some reason, Alice puts a higher value on free tickets to a movie than losing one's job. Bob may or may not agree.
- Alice is a newscaster, the fact that TropeCo is shutting down Bob's division is badnote , but the report isn't tailored for Bob, but people in general.
- Inverted: "Bob, I have bad news and good news. The bad news is: I just lost a nickel. The good news is: you just got promoted!"
- Subverted: "Bob, I have bad news and good news. The bad news is: I lost all our life savings gambling. The good news is, I found a penny. The penny is a misprinted coin and is actually worth four million dollars if sold to collectors."
- Double Subverted: "...but then I lost that penny down a storm drain."
- Parodied: ???
- Zig-Zagged:
- "...But don't worry! I found another one."
- "Bob, I have bad news and good news. The bad news is, you just lost your job. The good news is, the vending machine's working again. Another bad news is, your son is in jail. Another good news is, the paper cut I had just healed!"
- Averted:
- The bad news and good news are balanced.
- Good news and bad news are never given together.
- Enforced:
- Rule of Funny
- The bad news article needs to be padded with some irrelevant to the cast articles to make it feel more like a real news casting program.
- Lampshaded: "Why does fate always have to put irrelevant good luck alongside seriously bad luck?"
- Invoked: Alice tells Bob irrelevant good news after telling him important bad news because it's funny when they do it on TV.
- Exploited: Alice knows that her boss, Bob, is going to be mad about her bad news, but she also knows that he is easily distracted by office birthdays, so she tells him the bad news and very quickly adds the news that one of her coworkers birthdays is coming up, asking him if she should be getting a cake for the office. Bob forgets to be mad, while picking out a cake.
- Defied:
- Alice tells Bob the good (irrelevant) news first.
- Alice only tells Bob the bad news.
- Discussed: "Wait, wait. If the bad news is much worse that the good news, why not put the good news first? At least that'll reduce my shock!"
- Conversed: "In this show, the bad news is always worse than the irrelevant good news!"
- Implied: The audience doesn't hear exactly what Alice is saying to Bob, but he reacts very unhappily to her first piece of information and only vaguely happily to her second one.
- Deconstructed: Alice is telling Bob that she got free tickets because she's such a narcissist that she thinks everyone is always happy to hear what's good news to her. It makes other people distant and cold toward her.
- Reconstructed: Bob is cheered up by Alice having tickets, because he's genuinely happy that she's happy, and because it means he has a chance at going on a date with her to see the movie.
- Played For Laughs: Alice says, "The bad news is: you just lost your job. The good news is that I just got promoted to fill your job!"
The bad news is, this is the end of the page. The good news is you can now go back to Bad News, Irrelevant News.
