History Main / CreepyCircusMusic

* ''Franchise/TheSimpsons'' - their house is getting gassed for bugs with a big striped tent covering it. Nelson and his bully pals think it's a circus and sneak in - then stagger out slurring the standard circus theme music.

-->-- '''Literature/{{Inkheart}}'''

* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvrY1mTbslM&ab_channel=firefeure Creepy Docks music]] in ''VideoGame/{{BioShock|1}}''.
* ''VideoGame/BioshockInfinite'' also features an apparently-cheerful [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZTNqIIHi3I&ab_channel=Cz%C5%82owiekDrzewo calliope tune]] that plays while Booker and Elizabeth are at Battleship Bay. The problem? Listening closely reveals it's an instrumental version of [[Music/CyndiLauper Cyndi Lauper's]] "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," originally released in 1979 and made famous with Lauper's 1983 version...and the game takes place in ''1912''. It's one of the clues that [[spoiler: the "tears" in time-space caused by the quantum particles which suspend the city of Columbia in the air are actually windows into years ahead, and that there are forces working to rewrite the past by stealing from the future.]]

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'':

* ''Warcraft'':

** Then comes the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQjG-ffwTek trailer song]] for the ''Hearthstone'' extension about the same place...
* [[MonsterClown Little Clown]]'s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LASVTJHFyE battle music]] in ''VideoGame/MrNutz''

* Project Pitchfork have a BreadAndCircuses-themed song
with a CircusSynths main riff appropriately titled "[[https://youtu.be/J6IQVK3KffY The Circus]]".

* Invoked in the animated film version of ''Literature/AnimalFarm''. When the animals are exploring Mr. Jones' house, Benjamin accidentally starts up a record player that plays a loud, orchestral version of "Entry of the Gladiators." Benjamin is so frightened by the music that he kicks the record player with his donkey hooves, destroying it. Being a farm animal, Benjamin probably doesn't understand the concept of "circus music," but the music itself still sounded [[SensoryAbuse loud and hyperactive]] enough to scare him.

[[HappyCircusMusic Done straight]], it lets everyone within earshot know that they are in a world of fun for children of all ages! However, unless you're in an [[RealLife actual circus]], then you are more likely to hear this kind of music slowed ''way'' down and played in a minor key. The effect is haunting, scary and maybe even sad and nostalgic. Often it will sound as if it's being played on an old, rusty calliope. To make it even scarier, it's often SourceMusic in an AbandonedArea to indicate that the area is not so abandoned as the characters thoughts – and if a circus, which is well accustomed to packing up and moving, had to leave everything behind...well, whatever's inhabiting this place ''now'' is something to run away from ''very'' quickly.

* The album ''Free to Be… You and Me'' uses this in the song "Girl Land," about the closing of the titular amusement park where "good little girls" pick up after the boys and are forbidden to climb trees, a [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything thinly-veiled metaphor for tradition gender roles.]]

* The "[[https://youtu.be/zbXu5RPdlyM Nenia Suspence]]" (meaning "suspenseful dirge") track, used as the leitmotif of the [[MonsterClown creepy clown]] [[PerversePuppet doll]] from ''Film/LaCasa3'', a dim carnival music with an eerie voice (presumably the clown's) that keeps repeating "burial" played in reverse.

* The theme music from ''Film/TheElephantMan'' and the unused [[https://youtu.be/Zdm5rQaNGUw Belgian Circus track]].

* The theme music from ''Film/TheElephantMan''.

* Brian Wilson/the Beach Boy's ''{{SMiLE}}'' has a linking piece between "Wind Chimes" and the ominous "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" with a creepy circus-y calliope.

* "You're Only Second Rate", the VillainSong from ''WesternAnimation/{{The Return of Jafar}}'' is a swingy Broadway-style song that contains some elements of this. For example, circus-themed imagery is used throughout the song, and when Jafar sings the line "You think your cat's a meanie, but your tiger's tame", you can hear the melody of "Entry of the Gladiators" in the background.

** ''VideoGame/BioshockInfinite'' also features an apparently-cheerful [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZTNqIIHi3I&ab_channel=Cz%C5%82owiekDrzewo calliope tune]] that plays while Booker and Elizabeth are at Battleship Bay. The problem? Listening closely reveals it's an instrumental version of [[Music/CyndiLauper Cyndi Lauper's]] "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," originally released in 1979 and made famous with Lauper's 1983 version...and the game takes place in ''1912''. It's one of the clues that [[spoiler: the "tears" in time-space caused by the quantum particles which suspend the city of Columbia in the air are actually windows into years ahead, and that there are forces working to rewrite the past by stealing from the future.]]

** ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'': "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FH99_W3qn4 Merry Go Round]]" would sound happy under normal circumstances, but it's downright ''[[SoundtrackDissonance disturbing]]'' when heard in the lower levels of the BigBoosHaunt level.

[[folder:Literature]]
* Featured intermittently in Ray Bradbury's ''Literature/SomethingWickedThisWayComes''.
* An early hint that something really ''weird'' is going on in ''Literature/FullTilt'' is "the sound of calliope music and screams."
* In Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/{{IT}}'', during his encounter with Pennywise at Derry's Standpipe, Stan Uris hears "Camptown Races" coming up from the dark staircase of the building. [[https://youtu.be/SRY5let69Bs This]] is how it probably sounded like...
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* One of the case-files on the Wiki/SCPFoundation website is [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-823 SCP-823,]] an abandoned AmusementParkOfDoom. One of the key indicators that bad things are about to go down is when creepy carnival music starts playing out of nowhere.

* A creepy little number called "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKvN2EdM5Po&ab_channel=CowboyBebopHD Yuuenchi]]" plays in ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' when Spike Spiegel battles Mad Pierrot at his abandoned amusement park.
* In ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2okaf_qOqgE&ab_channel=BruceFaulconer-Topic several]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyR0AviIdK4&ab_channel=Otskreig of Majin Buu's themes]] in the Funimation score have circus motifs, which totally fits the childishly deranged and pretty unsettlingly nature of the ManChild HumanoidAbomination.

* ''LetsPlay/CallMeKevin'': Invoked and PlayedForLaughs in "How EVIL can you be in Bitlife?" Shortly after Kevin's character Eve Hill gets a job as a clown, he adopts a child and then promptly abandons them. Kevin hums "Entry of the Gladiators," the standard circus tune, while preparing to click the option to abandon the child.

* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIPc8RSCaP0 opening credits theme]] for ''Film/EyesWithoutAFace'' sounds like a demented circus tune.

* Gargamel's Ghoulliope, which shows up at Laconia and Woody's wedding in ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'' cartoon special "Smurfily Ever After".

* OlderThanTelevision: "Alabama Song" [[RefrainFromAssuming (commonly but mistakenly thought of as "Whiskey Bar")]] from ''Theatre/TheRiseAndFallOfTheCityOfMahagonny'', first performed in 1930. A wasted flapper and a derelict-looking man in a rumpled suit joylessly chant the nihilistic lyrics as they ride in the back of a clunky old pickup truck - and the discordant musical accompaniment is effectively sinister and disreputable in sound, describable only as "circus music being played in a junkyard." When they covered it on their debut album in 1967, Music/TheDoors played up the creepy angle in the arrangement, featuring Ray Manzarek playing both staccato organ notes and a Marxophone, an old zither connected to bouncing hammers that produces a jittery, chimey sound.

* The Green Goblin's theme from ''Film/SpiderMan'', [[https://youtu.be/PhVlJq2DsgY?t=174 especially]] during his first appearance at the parade has a very unsettlingly and menacing jaunty carnival tune to it. Given the theme is done by the aforementioned Music/DannyElfman and the Goblin is often considered [[PracticallyJoker Marvel's answer to the Joker]], it's very fitting. For Goblin's return in ''Film/SpiderManNoWayHome'', the creepy circus allusions in his theme music is even more [[https://youtu.be/6wsw7yQSVAo?t=179 overt]] and when played [[SoundtrackDissonance during Norman's attack on young Spidey and Aunt May]] -- all complete with EvilLaugh, it's scary as hell.

* The AmusementParkOfDoom level in ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'' has some segments featuring circus music played as if it is was on a broken record.

* ''Anime/ChargemanKen'': The waltz music in the CircusEpisode is played in a minor key, and has a very melancholic tone. This turns out to be fitting, because [[spoiler:the circus is a trap to kill Ken.]]