Basic Trope: A serious work grows lighter as it goes on.
- Straight: Tropetown starts off a serious look at the lives of a family in disarray, but develops into Denser and Wackier Dom Com as it goes on.
- Exaggerated: Tropetown starts off as a depressing war drama where Anyone Can Die and several main characters do. The horrors of war are shown in explicit, bloody detail. Then the war ends and the survivors go home to a pink and frilly unicorn land where all the fighting is done through pillow fights. Even the characters who died come back and join the pillow fight.
- Downplayed:
- Tropetown starts as a light Slice of Life drama, then adds more comedy while still never shying from drama.
- Tropetown goes from utterly hopeless to Earn Your Happy Ending.
- Tropetown starts off as a Dramedy, but turns more purely comedic as time goes on.
- Justified: Fans have complained about Tropetown's dark themes and lack of comedy, so themes became lighter in later seasons.
- Subverted: Tropetown looks like it's heading for a Lighter and Softer tone with its fourth season opener where Badass Bob adopts a baby lamb, but it turns out that was just a Bottle Episode, said lamb is Put on a Bus, and it returns to its normal drama with the next episode.
- Double Subverted: That was the Bottle Episode. The lamb's bus comes back and becomes a running feature, signifying a Lighter and Softer turn.
- Inverted: Cerebus Syndrome
- Zig-Zagged: Cerebus Rollercoaster
- Parodied: Col. Bob: Men, the enemy is approaching with a thousand men armed to the teeth with guns and bombs. But we have the greatest weapon of all - the pillow!
- - Sgt. Charles: Um, pillow, sir?
- - Col. Bob: Yes, the pillow! We will pillow fight them into submission.
- - Lt. Albert: Sir, I believe if we try to fight them with pillows, they will shoot us, and then we'll all die.
- - Col. Bob: Nonsense! Pillows for everyone!
- Averted: No change in tone occurs - Tropetown starts a drama and ends a drama.
- Enforced:
- The network is trying to reach a younger age demographic that wouldn't be that interested in the deep musings of the original show, so they are stripped away.
- The original drama didn't test very well with audiences, so the producers added more comedic elements and lightened the tone.
- Lampshaded: Sgt. Charles: We used to fight with guns. Now, we only fight with pillows.
- Invoked: ?
- Exploited: ?
- Defied: The show is always light and fluffy from day one, meaning there's no Lighter and Softer from here.
- Discussed: Col. Bob: Remember that comic strip Cerebus, and how it got Darker and Edgier as it went on? Well, we're doing the opposite. Now take your pillow and fight with it!
- Conversed: ?
- Deconstructed: The Lighter and Softer move proves unpopular, viewership plummets, and Tropetown is cancelled after its fourth season.
- Reconstructed: It gains enough of a fanbase for the Lighter and Softer version that they pressure the network into making Tropetown Uncanceled.
Back to Reverse Cerebus Syndrome
