History MoodWhiplash / LiveActionTV

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'':

%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** Almost all of the Doctor's regenerations use this, as we're basically witnessing a death and a birth at the exact same time. For this reason, they usually take place at the end of an episode, serial or season. Quite often, the whiplash is from "sad" to "funny", with some of the more recent regenerations adding "OhCrap" after the funny.
*** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E6TheCavesOfAndrozani "The Caves of Androzani"]]: Five's regeneration into Six, going from his hallucinatory death scene right to Six snarking at Peri.
*** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E13ThePartingOfTheWays "The Parting of the Ways"]] has Nine to Ten: His tearful goodbye to Rose right into a joke about having "new teeth".
*** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime "The End of Time"]]: Ten himself had one of the saddest regenerations with that look of his horror on his face when he says "I don't want to go." Then Eleven kisses his knees out of joy that he still has legs and then checks if he's ginger this time.
*** [[Recap/DoctorWho2013CSTheTimeOfTheDoctor "The Time of the Doctor"]]: Eleven has a vision of Amy before he regenerates, and gives a speech about how he will always remember his time as the Doctor, very sad... then he instantly turns into Twelve, who ''complains about the colour of his kidneys''... then he [[OhCrap forgets how to fly the TARDIS]].
*** [[Recap/DoctorWho2017CSTwiceUponATime "Twice Upon a Time"]]: Twelve gives a magnificent speech, it's all very sad, then the regeneration, then Thirteen cheerfully checks out her reflection... before hitting ''one button'' on the console and getting ''thrown out of the TARDIS into freefall as it explodes and dematerializes''. ToBeContinued.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E8TheChase "The Chase"]] is mostly a ridiculous comedy with {{Slapstick}} and a ComicTrio of Daleks who don't seem all that threatening. The atmosphere is very loopy and comfortable. Then Ian and Barbara, two very, very loved companions who'd been there since the beginning of the series, realize they can use the Daleks' timeship to return to their home time and inform the Doctor they're leaving, and he snaps at them both out of selfish grief.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E3TheMythMakers "The Myth Makers"]] is a genteel and funny social comedy about the Greeks and Trojans until the Greeks invade Troy, everyone gets slaughtered horribly and Vicki leaves the TARDIS to start a new life.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E5TheMassacre "The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve"]] ends with the darkest sequence of events in the entire series thus far. The Doctor forcibly transports his companion Steven to 1960s London to escape an impending 17th Century genocide he'd been powerless to prevent, abandoning Steven's TemporaryLoveInterest Anne (a member of the group being massacred). He [[WhatTheHellHero rages at the Doctor about how amoral he is]] and [[ScrewThisImOutOfHere storms out of the TARDIS]], leaving the Doctor behind to perform some ThinkingOutLoud about how everyone leaves him and [[DespairEventHorizon he has no control and nowhere to go]]. This is suddenly interrupted by a {{Cloudcuckoolander}} ManicPixieDreamGirl named Dodo accidentally walking in on him, deciding to travel with him in about two minutes of conversation, and then Steven returning with no explanation to suggest that Dodo might be one of Anne's descendants.
** Part Six of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E4TheDaleksMasterPlan "The Dalek's Master Plan"]] closes with the Daleks pursing the Tardis Crew for a component for their doomsday weapon, Part Seven...features a man reporting that his Green House has gone missing, before the Tardis crew go to Hollywood where Steven is mistaken for a Keystone Kop, get chased about the studio, and then talks to Bing Crosby, before the Doctor looks directly at the audience and says "Merry Christmas"! Episode Eight; back to the Daleks!
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS16E2ThePiratePlanet "The Pirate Planet"]] is a goofy, playful, high-{{Camp}} Creator/DouglasAdams romp with [[EvilIsHammy enormously over-the-top]] SpacePirates as villains, all PlayedForLaughs. Until the moment when the Doctor finds out how pointlessly, selfishly evil the pirates actually are, and [[UnstoppableRage absolutely blows his top]] in a scene that is played perfectly straight. There is also a scene where Romana is forced to shoot and kill a pursuer, which passes quickly but also doesn't fit the mood of the overall story.
** The revival series embraces this trope wholeheartedly whenever it would cause the Doctor the most angst.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E4AliensOfLondon "Aliens of London"]] has a rather outrageous example halfway through the episode. There is an entire minute of the Slitheen (disguised as humans) farting and joking around in front of the General inside 10 Downing Street. This moment is then immediately succeeded by the 3 aliens revealing themselves to the General before murdering him in a rather gory and sinister fashion. All of this happens in the same scene.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E8FathersDay "Father's Day"]] goes from a lonely girl wanting to meet her dead parent to a Class 3A ApocalypseHow ending on a HeroicSacrifice, with some AwfulWeddedLife thrown in between.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E12BadWolf "Bad Wolf"]]: The scenes where the Doctor and Rose discover that the future reality and game shows they've wound up on are, in fact, {{Deadly Game}}s/{{Immoral Reality Show}}s use this.
*** When the Doctor sees a ''Big Brother'' contestant get [[DeadlyEuphemism "evicted"]], he's talking about how she'll profit on the outside before she's disintegrated on the TV.
*** Rose spends the first round of ''The Weakest Link'' cracking up about being insulted by a robot Anne Robinson... and then comes the first elimination.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E5RiseOfTheCybermen "Rise of the Cybermen"]]: The TARDIS has crashed, completely dead and gone. The Doctor says they could have crashed anywhere, completely outside time and space... and then Mickey sticks his head out the door. "Otherwise known as London!"
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E12ArmyOfGhosts "Army of Ghosts"]]:
*** Rose is caught by a Torchwood scientist while sneaking around. Dr. Singh tells his assistant to call security... and Mickey Smith replies that he'll get on it, before giving Rose a smile and thumbs-up behind Singh's back.
*** The amusing moment when Yvonne finds out that the Doctor has dragged along his companion's mother on this adventure ends when several mind-controlled employees start up another ghost shift.
*** The Doctor being told by the Cybermen that "The Sphere is not ours." [[spoiler:It was made by the Daleks, so the whiplash is from "This is bad" to "We're all gonna die."]]
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E13Doomsday "Doomsday"]] goes from a tearful farewell between Rose and the Doctor to the Doctor and a bridal gown-clad Donna shouting "What?!" at each other at increasing volume when she suddenly appears in the TARDIS.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E11Utopia "Utopia"]]: There's a bittersweet scene where poor old Professor Yana tearfully ruminates on his past and the stories about time travel he used to hear... and then he pulls out his [[WhamShot pocket watch]]… hey, why'd the BackgroundMusic suddenly turn scary?
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E12TheSoundOfDrums "The Sound of Drums"]]: We cut from the Doctor, Martha, and Jack running down an alleyway to televised news reports about the first contact with the Toclafane to... the Master watching the ''Series/{{Teletubbies}}'', which he marvels at the concept of television "in their stomachs". Even better, right before the Teletubbies, we had "This is Gallifrey: Our Childhood, Our Home" playing in the background. And then, bluegrass-type music.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E1PartnersInCrime "Partners in Crime"]]: Donna and the Doctor are both spying on the head of Adipose and her hostage. Donna is watching through the door window, and the Doctor is watching through the window in the wall across from the door. There's a very serious questioning going on. Then the Doctor and Donna catch sight of each other. HilarityEnsues. Then, mid-word, Donna realizes that they've been noticed. Cue chase scene.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E9ForestOfTheDead "Forest of the Dead"]] has a four-fold one: First, River decides to get the Doctor to trust her by whispering something to him that leaves him ''[[StunnedSilence absolutely dumbstruck]]'' for a moment (later revealed to be [[spoiler:his ''[[IKnowYourTrueName real name]]'']]). After a {{beat}}, he suddenly starts talking about the interference messing with his sonic screwdriver. Then, a bit later, Anita realizes [[OhCrap she has two shadows]]. ''Then'' the Doctor points out that [[MassOhCrap Proper Dave has caught up with them]].
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E11TurnLeft "Turn Left"]]: Donna and Sylvia are having a depressing conversation about their current situation, then Donna hears singing from the next room and goes over to yell at them, only to find out her grandfather Wilf is participating. SmashCut to the entire family singing along with their housemates, the first time they've been happy in a long time — then they hear gunfire from outside.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E12TheStolenEarth "The Stolen Earth"]]: There's a beautiful reunion scene where the Doctor and Rose notice each other and start running into each other's arms when suddenly, out of the blue, a Dalek rolls up and shoots the Doctor.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd "Journey's End"]] has triumph, reunion, and celebration, followed by [[spoiler:the Doctor being forced to erase the memory of one of his companions to prevent her from dying and being all alone again as a result]]. The whiplash occurs in mid-scene, as [[spoiler:Donna is babbling her newfound Time Lord knowledge in a rapid-fire manner and just generally being hilarious as the Doctor starts to look sadder and sadder, and then, in mid-babble, Donna starts to repeat the same word over and over in a stuck-record fashion and you start to realize that something is very, very ''not right''.]]
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E15PlanetOfTheDead "Planet of the Dead"]]: At the end, everyone's gotten back to Earth, everyone's happy, Christina has successfully avoided jail... and then the Doctor is told that his song is ending. The jubilant music stops dead, replaced by something more serious.
** Both [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime "The End of Time"]] and [[Recap/DoctorWho2013CSTheTimeOfTheDoctor "The Time of the Doctor"]] are fairly grim stories which see the end of their respective Doctors and the conclusion of many long-running story arcs. They're immediately followed by [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E1TheEleventhHour "The Eleventh Hour"]] and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E1DeepBreath "Deep Breath"]], which, while not without some scary moments, are generally very light-hearted romps.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E4TheTimeOfAngels "The Time of Angels"]]: One ''particularly'' memorable scene goes from BizarreAlienBiology jokes about the extinct two-headed Aplans to [[spoiler:the Doctor [[OhCrap realizing]] that the statues in the maze ''don't'' have two heads, meaning '''none of them''' are really [[NobodyHereButUsStatues statues]]…]]
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E6TheVampiresOfVenice "The Vampires of Venice"]] ends on Amy, Rory and the Doctor joking about and then... silence. Utter silence. Not even the water is making any noise, and everyone in the area has vanished. The Doctor wisely gets inside the TARDIS as the episode ends.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E7AmysChoice "Amy's Choice"]]: A conversation between Amy and Rory about how Amy thinks Upper Leadworth's amateur dramatic society is very bad takes a turn for the worse when the Doctor reveals the schoolchildren exploring the ruins have been turned into piles of dust.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E9ColdBlood "Cold Blood"]]: Amy Pond goes through one by herself. [[spoiler:Her fiancé Rory is killed, causing her to become inconsolable from grief. But then he is [[RetGone absorbed]] by a crack in time and is made to have never existed, so she doesn't remember him or his death, leading to her cheerfully continuing despite the huge loss which just happened (or not).]] It's disconcerting, to say the least.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E11TheLodger "The Lodger"]] is a very lighthearted and comedic episode, but at the end, as the day is saved and Craig and Sophie have a RelationshipUpgrade, it cuts to the Doctor and Amy getting ready to set up elements of the episode's StableTimeLoop, and as Amy compliments the Doctor on his matchmaking skills, she [[spoiler:asks "Why can't you find me a man?" ...unaware of her {{retgone}}d fiancé Rory. ''Then'' Amy finds her engagement ring in the pocket of the Doctor's jacket. '''Then''' it cuts back to Craig's flat, where there's a ''[[NegativeSpaceWedgie crack in time]]'' behind the fridge... and it's '''growing'''.]]
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E13TheBigBang The Big Bang]]" does this so much, it'll leave your head spinning [[spoiler: that is if your head isn't already spinning from all the timey-wimey bits. Seriously, the episode starts with the universe in shambles and Rory holding Amy's body, [[TearJerker begging her to laugh]] when the Doctor pops out of midair holding a mop and wearing a fez. He pops in and out three times while explaining that Amy is actually not entirely dead, it's the end of the universe, and Rory needs to go down to the Pandorica to let the Doctor out. The rest of the episode consists of the Doctor getting killed in the future, the TARDIS exploding with River in it, River getting rescued, more fez jokes, the Doctor getting killed, the Doctor actually not being dead, but he's going to be erased from time instead, the actual process of being erased from time, and then the Doctor gets unerased from time and gets to come to Amy's wedding and dance really extremely badly.]] It's hard work, this show is.
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E4TheDoctorsWife The Doctor's Wife]]" cuts from [[spoiler:the Doctor in tears (and Amy and Rory nearly so) as the TARDIS loses her human form, to the Doctor working on the TARDIS's machinery, chatting with Amy and Rory about bunk beds, and asking the ship, "What do you think, dear? Where should we take the kids this time?"]]
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E6TheAlmostPeople "The Almost People"]], despite being somewhat dark, wraps things up on a fairly hopeful note... [[spoiler:and then the Doctor unexpectedly melts Amy into a pile of goo, and she wakes up in prison about to give birth...]]
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E7AGoodManGoesToWar A Good Man Goes to War]]", the Series 6 midseason finale, ends with (among other things) everyone finally learning just who River is. Cut to a card telling us the Doctor will return in Autumn with "[[RefugeInAudacity LET'S KILL HITLER]]".
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E11TheGodComplex "The God Complex"]]: Not only do the viewers experience it at every turn, but so do the characters when they are possessed.
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E5TheAngelsTakeManhattan The Angels Take Manhattan]]" ... hoo BOY! [[spoiler:Rory has decided to jump off the hotel to kill himself and create a paradox that will ruin the Weeping Angels' food supply, and Amy decides to go with him, not being able to bear to live without him. The paradox [[ResetButton resets]] the events of the story, taking them all back to present day New York, ready to embark with the Doctor and River on a family voyage. Rory, however, gets distracted by his own gravestone and is transported back to 1938 by a surviving Angel. Despondent, Amy allows herself to be sent back with him, leaving the Doctor and River helpless to save them.]]
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E7KillTheMoon Kill the Moon]]" proceeds as a "base under siege" tale until it pivots twice: first when [[spoiler:the Doctor unexpectedly abandons Clara, forcing her to make a difficult decision on behalf of Earth]] and again [[spoiler:at the end when Clara becomes the first companion to have a full-scale blow-up at the Doctor since the mid-1960s.]]
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E5TheGirlWhoDied The Girl Who Died]]" is a comedic episode up until its final 10 minutes when [[spoiler:the title comes into play and the Doctor bares his soul to Clara about it before coming up with a fix that he almost instantly regrets.]]
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E10FaceTheRaven Face the Raven]]" is very much an uber-example. The episode begins on a lighthearted note and (despite the jeopardy involved) continues as a relatively standard light-hearted story based on a cool premise until [[spoiler: without warning it pivots to full out tragedy as longstanding character Clara Oswald learns that she only has minutes to live and spends the remainder of her time giving an emotional goodbye to the Doctor before dying, screaming in agony leaving the Doctor struck monotone with anger.]]
*** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E11HeavenSent Heaven Sent]]": Near the end, the Doctor is faced with a wall twenty feet thick made of material four hundred times stronger than diamond, with a monster bearing down on him. He futilely punches it until his hands are bloody and the monster catches him and [[TouchOfDeath kills him]]. But it takes Time Lords a while to die, so he spends a day and a half dragging himself back up to the teleporter room, where he burns his own body as fuel to recreate the last teleport stored in the hard drive: Himself. Since the castle resets when he leaves a room for long enough, the new Doctor does the exact same things as the previous one, all the way up to punching the wall and dying and creating a new Doctor. This happens countless times, and the audience thinks he's trapped in a never-ending hell... [[spoiler:and then we see that he's actually ''making progress through the wall''. Suddenly one of the most horrifying moments of the series becomes the most awesome]].
---->'''The Doctor:''' There's this emperor, and he asks this shepherd's boy... "How many seconds in eternity?" And the shepherd's boy says... "There's this mountain of pure diamond. It takes an hour to climb it, and an hour to go around it. Every hundred years, a little bird comes and sharpens its beak on the diamond mountain. And when the entire mountain is chiseled away, the first second of eternity will have passed." You must think that's a hell of a long time. [[{{Determinator}} Personally, I think that's a hell of a bird]].
*** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent Hell Bent]]" begins with the Doctor seemingly seeking revenge for the death of [[spoiler: Clara]] and the events of "Heaven Sent", but soon it becomes clear that everything in "Heaven Sent" and the opening of "Hell Bent" [[spoiler:was simply a gambit by the Doctor to get Clara pulled out of time just before her death.]] The moment this occurs, the episode changes tone completely and focuses exclusively on [[spoiler:the relationship between the Doctor and Clara, effectively becoming a two-hander for its second half.]]
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E3Rosa "Rosa"]]: After Graham recalls how he learned about James Blake from Grace the day they met, he wishes she were there. There's a moment of somber recollection, and then Ryan says he's glad she isn't because she'd probably start a riot, which causes everyone to have a good laugh.

* Used to great dramatic effect in ''Eyes on the Prize'', the landmark ''Creator/{{PBS}}'' documentary series about the [[UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement African-American civil rights movement]] of the 1950s and '60s. At the end of episode four, "No Easy Walk," the series cuts directly from Rev. Ralph Abernathy happily reflecting on the afterglow of the 1963 March on Washington to the sound of loud police sirens in the aftermath of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, in which four young girls were killed. In addition, about 25 seconds of dead silence accompanies footage of mourners comforting each other and of workers removing the bodies of the deceased from the scene. The takeaway is that for as much progress as the movement had made by the summer and fall of 1963, it had a long way to go.

* The ''Series/QuincyME'' episode "Guns Don't Die" seems to have a standard EverybodyLaughsEnding with Quincy and pals celebrating the happy wrap-up of the episode's case at Danny's. Then cut to [[spoiler: a little boy playing at home who finds a gun in his parents' bedroom; he approaches his sister while holding it pretending to be a science fiction bad guy, counts to three... and fires, a big grin on his face. Freeze-frame on the kid as the gunshot echoes, roll credits, the end.]]

* ''Series/InterviewWithTheVampire2022'': In "[[Recap/InterviewWithTheVampire2022S1E1InThroesOfIncreasingWonder In Throes of Increasing Wonder...]]", the touching heart-to-heart talk between the two de Pointe du Lac brothers abruptly switches to horror for Louis when Paul throws himself off the roof without warning and kills himself.

* An In-Universe example from Series/ICarly:

*** And then at the end of that arc, Angel returns to Earth with the whole gang having surprisingly survived a quest in another dimension and gets the news that ''Buffy died'' while he was away.

*** And then at the end of that arc, Angel returns to earth and gets the news that ''Buffy died'' while he was away.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E8TheChase "The Chase"]] is mostly a ridiculous comedy with {{Slapstick}} and a ComicTrio of Daleks who don't seem all that threatening. The atmosphere is very loopy and comfortable. Then Ian and Barbara, two very, very loved companions who'd been there since the beginning of the series, realize they can use the Daleks' timeship to return to their home time and inform the Doctor they're leaving, and [[HurtingHero he snaps at them both out of selfish grief]].

* The last 10 minutes of the Season 1 finale of ''Series/QueerAsFolk'' (US). Commitment-phobic Brian shows up at Justin's prom, where the two share an epic DanceOfRomance and even TheBigDamnKiss in front of everyone. Then they're leaving to continue their romantic evening when [[spoiler: Justin gets gay-bashed with a baseball bat to the head and the season ends with Michael coming to Brian in the hospital waiting room, Brian looking utterly broken with Justin's blood staining his scarf.]] Wow.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In "The Best Of Both Worlds: Part II", now-Captain Riker receives [[WhoopiEpiphanySpeech a much-needed motivational speech from Guinan]], [[DareToBeBadass urging him to rise above his personal doubts as captain]]. Afterwards, the ''Enterprise'' arrives at Wolf 359 and sees the horrifying aftermath of [[CurbStompBattle the Borg having annihilated an entire Starfleet armada]].

* The ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode "Infinite Regress", where Seven of Nine starts manifesting the personalities of people she assimilated. So in the middle of her descent into madness, we get a comedy scene where she's a Ferengi trader. And then we immediately switch to pathos as she becomes the confused mother of a Starfleet officer, who was supposed to meet him at Wolf 359 (site of the big battle in "Best of Both Worlds"). And ''then'' the FridgeHorror creeps in on a sweet early scene of her as a little girl playing with Naomi Wildman, when we're reminded that this little girl was assimilated.
** Another one involving Seven of Nine manifesting other characters was when the Doctor's program is downloaded into her nanoprobes. Initially, this is played for comedy, with Jeri Ryan doing a hilarious pastiche of the Doctor's pompous mannerisms. And then it suddenly turns dark when Seven learns what's happening, and she feels ''[[MindRape violated]]''.

* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''
** The episode "Business as Usual" was mainly about Quark swallowing his conscience and going into the weapons trade with his cousin, suddenly confronted with ruthless employers and even more ruthless customers who casually laid out their requirements for death tolls (up into the millions, ''to start with''). The B-Plot was that O'Brien's new baby, Kirayoshi, won't stop crying.
** "The Magnificent Ferengi" bounced back and forth between ridiculous and awesome repeatedly. Especially evident in the end, when Quark's team has just beaten the remaining Jem'hadar in a shoot-out and captured their Vorta leader, the triumphant mood is suddenly turned hilarious by showing the dead Vorta (reanimated with carefully-controlled electrical impulses) trying to walk into a wall, with Nog saying "I can't turn him off!"

*** When Spike attacks willow in "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS4E7TheInitiative The Initiative]]", the scene is played out like a rape scene, and it genuinely seems like Willow is about to die before it [[CommercialBreakCliffhanger cuts to a commercial]]... and then it gets revealed that ''something'' is preventing Spike from biting Willow, and Willow begins to feel like she [[ArentYouGoingToRavishMe isn't good enough to bite]].

*** Oh, where to start... could it be with the part in "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS2E14Innocence Innocence]]" where it goes from [[spoiler: passionate love story to "zomg, Angel is EVIL!"?]] Or how about season six, where it went from a musical episode [[spoiler:to a magical addiction fueled angst-fest?]]

*** Or "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS6E8TabulaRasa Tabula Rasa]]", with its 37 minutes of madcap memory-loss hilarity (including a kiss between Anya and Giles) followed by [[spoiler: Giles going back to England and Tara leaving Willow.]]

*** In "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS1E12ProphecyGirl Prophecy Girl]]", the Master is [[LargeHam hamming it up]] during an earthquake. After the shaking stops, he turns to the Anointed One and asks:
---->'''The Master:''' What do you think? 5.1?
*** Or (told you Joss loved these), the whole ending scene of "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E14BadGirls Bad Girls]]", where the Mayor goes through the ritual to become invulnerable.

* The 1990 Creator/DisneyChannel special ''Mother Goose Rock 'N' Rhyme'', a "hip" take on children's stories with Jean Stapleton in the title role and [[TheCameo various celebrities guest-starring as nursery-rhyme characters]] ([[Creator/CheechAndChong Cheech Marin]] as the Cat With the Fiddle, Music/ZZTop as the Three Blind Mice, etc.) includes what is in context a very strange scene that would be a BigLippedAlligatorMoment if it wasn't pointedly referred to later on in the movie. TheHero is captured and imprisoned in a dungeon (TheChick eventually rescues him) where he is forced to view an angry, wild rock video in which the headbanging musicians tell him he's been a "bad boy", he is to be punished, and [[BlatantLies "It's gonna hurt me more than it hurts you."]] Then, after all of that, what is the hero's punishment? Two jokers in lemon-yellow fright wigs (think that guy from ''Monty Python'' with the ax through his hat, but even crazier) show up with some feathers, giggle and [[BreakingTheFourthWall tell the audience "Kids, don't try this at home!"]], and proceed to subject their victim to TickleTorture. The grotesque juxtaposition of something that is (for kids) terrifyingly scary with something that is absurd just becomes all the more unnerving for that very reason. (It's even worse when you consider that, during wartime, militaries - [[WhatTheHellHero even the militaries of democratic countries]] - perform "enhanced interrogation techniques" that are based on precisely this "serious/silly" dichotomy.)

* The 1990 Creator/DisneyChannel special ''Mother Goose Rock 'N' Rhyme'', a "hip" take on children's stories with Jean Stapleton in the title role and [[TheCameo various celebrities guest-starring as nursery-rhyme characters]] ([[Creator/CheechAndChong Cheech Marin]] as the Cat With the Fiddle, Music/ZZTop as the Three Blind Mice, etc.) includes what is in context a very strange scene that would be a BigLippedAlligatorMoment if it wasn't pointedly referred to later on in the movie. TheHero is captured and imprisoned in a dungeon (TheChick eventually rescues him) where he is forced to view an angry, wild rock video in which the headbanging musicians tell him he's been a "bad boy", he is to be punished, and [[BlatantLies "It's gonna hurt me more than it hurts you."]] Then, after all of that, what is the hero's punishment? Two jokers in lemon-yellow fright wigs (think that guy from ''Monty Python'' with the ax through his hat, but even crazier) show up with some feathers, giggle and [[BreakingTheFourthWall tell the audience "Kids, don't try this at home!"]], and proceed to subject their victim to TickleTorture. The grotesque juxtaposition of something that is (for kids) terrifyingly scary with something that is absurd just becomes all the more unnerving for that very reason. (It's even worse when you consider that, during wartime, militaries - [[WhatTheHellHero even the militaries of democratic countries]] - [[AluminumChristmasTrees perform "enhanced interrogation techniques" that are based on precisely this "serious/silly" dichotomy]].)

[[folder:General Examples]]
* Talk shows, especially those of a comedy bent, often run into this when real-world events that aren't very funny take precedent. For example, Creator/CraigFerguson has been acclaimed for his serious monologues following the deaths of his parents; the day the space shuttle ''Challenger'' exploded, Creator/JoanRivers was hosting Series/TheTonightShow and in lieu of a monologue came out and spoke about the disaster; in the weeks following 9/11, virtually every US talk show returned to the air with a solemn episode in which the host tried to make sense of not only the events of Sept. 11 but the purpose of shows such as theirs. Most recently, Creator/ConanOBrien learned of the death of Creator/RobinWilliams midway through the taping of his ''Series/{{Conan}}'' series on TBS and announced Williams' death to a stunned audience.
* This has occasionally happened when a show of one genre spins off a series that ends up falling into a different genre or style. Examples:
** ''Series/TheMaryTylerMooreShow'', a sitcom, spinning off ''Series/LouGrant'', a hard-hitting newspaper drama.
** ''Series/TheBradyBunch'', a sitcom, being revived as ''Series/TheBradys'', a family drama series.
** ''Series/DoctorWho'', a family-friendly sci-fi romp, spinning off ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' and ''Series/{{Class|2016}}'', two dark, violent, sexual adults-only series.
** ''Series/NYPDBlue'', a serious, adults-only cop drama, spinning off ''Public Morals'' -- a ''sitcom''.
* Filipino ''teleseryes'' LOVE this trope.
** For example, a man arrives home in a chipper mood, kisses his wife in the lips and gives her something nice. The wife admits tearfully that she feels guilt over a recent affair she's had with her husband's best friend. The husband loses his shit and screams at and/or physically abuses his wife.
** Another example would be a father or a mother gently coaxing their teenage daughter to tell her what's been bugging her. The daughter says she's pregnant, and her boyfriend, whom they've never liked, is the dad. The parent, likewise, loses their shit, verbally and/or physically abusing their kid for getting pregnant to a guy they don't like.
** On both examples, expect the husband/father to go berserk and go after the husband's best friend/guy the father dislikes on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge, or similar.
* Local newscasts on weekends, particularly in medium-sized and smaller cities, are often starving for material, especially if they're an hour long. IfItBleedsItLeads gets invoked hard, with any crime that happens in the area treated like a major event. Similarly, any sort of inclement weather gets turned into a major threat. After that, though, it's a stretch to find anything to cover, and newsworthiness standards go down. So in the opening block of newscast it's not uncommon to go from a story about a shooting, to, say, a story about schoolkids volunteering to clean up an elderly man's front yard or a church holding a fundraising carnival.
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** A less dramatic, but still very jarring one occurs in the finale of ''Blackadder II'', [[Recap/BlackadderS2E6Chains Chains]]. The episode ends with Lord Edmund Blackadder defeating Prince Ludwig and joining the other characters in a party. Then the end credits sequence shows Blackadder finally catching the annoying minstrel and drowning him. It seems like all's well for Lord Blackadder... then cut immediately to the post credits scene showing all the season's major characters [[KillEmAll laying dead in a pile, apparently with all their throats slit]], and then the reveal that Ludwig came back to kill them and disguise himself as Queen Elizabeth I.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E3TheMythMakers "The Myth Makers"]] is a genteel and funny social comedy about the Greeks and Trojans until the Greeks invade Troy, [[KillEmAll everyone gets slaughtered horribly]] and Vicki leaves the TARDIS to start a new life.

** The season 8 episode "Band or DJ?" has Ted feeling guilty that he's not really happy about [[spoiler: Barney and Robin's engagement]]. Lily privately confronts him about this. Future Ted says, "By this point in my life, I'd been hurt quite a few times already." Cue a montage of clips we'd seen before of Ted getting hurt in funny ways: Young Ted as a camp counselor getting hit in the nuts by one of the kids, Ted getting attacked on a bad date, getting a tattoo (butterfly tramp stamp) removed and screaming in a high-pitched voice, getting beaten up by [[spoiler: a female goat]], a couple more nutshots, etc. and then [[MoodWhiplash Wham]]! [[spoiler: Ted asking Robin if she loves him and getting rejected]]. Then a couple of seconds later, [[ItMakesSenseInContext all the clips are replayed faster]] with just the hits (and Ted's pained reactions) even funnier when chained together...[[spoiler: Then Robin says, "No," again]]. And if that wasn't extreme enough, Lily's [[TearJerker confession]] [[spoiler: that sometimes she wishes she weren't a mother]] seconds later takes it UpToEleven. Ted and Lily have a heart-warming moment. This is immediately followed by Marshall opening (the previously constipated) baby Marvin's diaper only to get covered in a massive spray of confetti.

* ''Series/TheAddamsFamily'' has "Cousin Itt and the Vocational Counselor", an episode in which [[BlindingBangs Cousin]] [[TheUnintelligible Itt]] wants a job, so [[PerkyGoth Gomez]] and [[DarkIsNotEvil Morticia]], who are a HappilyMarried couple, try to train him to be a marriage counselor by pretending to be a bickering couple. HilarityEnsues when Gomez keeps forgetting he's meant to be mad...but then it goes away when Morticia worries he might be serious. He reassures her he's not, but, and this is somewhat out of character for Morticia, she isn't convinced. She even makes him sleep in the living room.

* ''Series/TheMagicians'': When Penny and Katy cast a luck spell to help infiltrate the Library of Magic, Quentin and Julia stay home and Quentin has to hold the "bad luck bear," a teddy bear that balances out the luck magic by giving its wielder extremely ''bad'' luck (Julia couldn't because she was pregnant at the time). As Penny and Katy move along with their mission, we see Quentin fall victim to various comedic misfortunes, ranging from dropping his spoon in lukewarm tomato soup (the safest thing Julia could make for him) to a ''python'' coming out of the toilet while he was on it. But the lighthearted tone comes to a halt when Q's phone rings and it's his mother. Julia pleads with him not to answer, because they both suspect his mom is calling to inform him that his cancer-stricken father has passed away. Q doesn't answer, but when he calls her back later, his father had died all the same.

* ''Series/TheAdventuresOfSherlockHolmesAndDoctorWatson'' (a.k.a. Russian Holmes) contains a rare inverse example of MoodWhiplash, sad to hilarious. In "Hunt for the Tiger" (based on "The Empty House") Watson and Mrs. Hudson enter Holmes' room, for the first time since his death, to the soft strains of a violin. Watson finds Holmes' violin, looks at it with a heartbroken expression and begins to play. Badly. After a few seconds the background music rockets to a crescendo and drowns him out.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E11Utopia "Utopia"]]: There's a bittersweet scene where poor old Professor Yana tearfully ruminates on his past and the stories about time travel he used to hear... and then he pulls out his [[WhamShot pocket watch]]… hey, why'd the background music suddenly turn scary?

* ''Film/LiveForeverAsYouAreNowWithAlanResnick'': Downplayed; Every time Teddy speaks, the bouncy background music is replaced with a jarring ambiance, making the scene go from upbeat, to unsettling, back to upbeat when the scene changes again.

* ''Series/TomicaHeroRescueFire'' had an extreme example of this in one of the final episodes. Joukaen, an AxeCrazy fire-demon learns that humans are not the corrupt lifeform he thought them to be. Therefore he confronts his lord, Donkaen, only to learn that Donkaen turned him against the humans in the first place. So in a last-ditch effort to make up for this, he fights Donkaen and [[RedemptionEqualsDeath gets killed]]. One second after his death, the credits roll, with a very upbeat song as background music.