Line #21 SoundtrackDissonance/WhatAWonderfulWorld


1	Music/LouisArmstrong's version of "What a Wonderful World" is musical choice most often used to prove a cruel, mocking, and bitterly ironic counterpoint to the CrapsackWorld setting and the horrific action on screen. An effect helped by the fact that the song itself is haunting enough to be a TearJerker despite [[LyricalDissonance its upbeat lyrics]], allowing its optimism to be contrasted with [[DespairEventHorizon moments of utter despair]]. Furthermore, as a song from TheGreatDepression, it was written to try to distract people from what a crappy world was portrayed on the news at the time. That it's been used in the purpose of this trope is significant {{Irony}}.
2	----
3	!Advertising
4	* A long-running Irish road safety ad had this as its theme. Apparently, no-one told Renault, who a few years later put an upbeat version as the theme of one of their ads...
5	* An [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q43scioRNiU Ad Council PSA]] uses Willie Nelson's version of this song to promote recycling.
6	!Anime and Manga
7	* Even {{anime}} gets in on the act here. The WholeEpisodeFlashback exploring Meia's tragic {{backstory}} in the first season of ''Anime/{{Vandread}}'' featured this song extensively. Then they subvert Soundtrack Dissonance by playing it completely straight at the end of the episode. Turns out, it really ''is'' A Wonderful World.
8	* The manhwa ''Hotel: Since 2079'' and its one-shot manga spinoff used this song multiple times. While the world ended. [[TearJerker And an A.I sat around for millions of years, trying to preserve against nigh-impossible odds the stores of non-human DNA that it was tasked with protecting, as it waited for the humans to come back]].
9	** Subverted at the very end of said manhwa [[BittersweetEnding when machines who were made by humans came from space and despite the loss of the DNA from them, they saw that the A.I. saved all the DNA of all the species of the world, including mankind, sadly, the A.I. didn't manage to see the revival of life since he died on that moment]]. The world also revived after all those millions of years later.
10	* Even when the song isn't directly used, it can still be used to highlight what a CrapsackWorld we're living in. The final chapter of ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStoneOcean [=JoJo's=] Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean]]'' is called "What a Wonderful World", one of the select few instances where the many, ''many'' [[ReferenceOverdosed music references]] is used exclusively as a chapter title, and features [[spoiler:the main antagonist, Enrico Pucci, using his fully-evolved Stand of Made in Heaven to [[ApocalypseHow speed up time until the universe collapses and resets]], until he ends up getting killed and having the universe stabilize into a new reality. The caveat is that he [[TotalPartyKill killed all of the main protagonists]] (with the exception of Emporio), resulting in either them being [[CosmicRetcon reincarnated into new people without their former memories]], or because Pucci created them, [[RetGone they straight-up no longer exist]]. Because Emporio is the only one who lived and still has memories of the old universe, he's absolutely '''''[[BreakTheCutie heartbroken]]''''' when nobody remembers him anymore.]] What a Wonderful World, indeed, but at what cost? Of course, [[ScrewedByTheLawyers with copyright being an issue]] , it was changed to [[BarelyChangedDubName Its a Wonderful World]].
11
12	!Fan-Works
13	* Parodied in Creator/TeamFourStar's [[WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged abridged version of Lord Slug]], wherein the titular villain, upon regaining his youth, strength and "impeccable singing voice", proceeds to sing his own dark parody of the song as he has a dark cloud engulfing the earth.
14	-->''I see trees of brown, and skies of black, and I think to myself, what a wonderful world...''
15	* The FanVid "[[http://www.mojvideo.com/video-amv-louis-armstrong-what-a-wonderful-world/2430f74a7423ee32b347 Satchmo's Lie]]" combined "What a Wonderful World" and ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion''.
16	** At Otakon 1995, someone combined this song with ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar'' for comic effect. It was the definite CMOA of the music video contest.
17
18	!Film - Animated
19	* Subverted in the climax of ''WesternAnimation/FindingDory'' where, while the initial situation it appears in ([[spoiler:a truck flying off of a freeway and landing into the ocean]]) is certainly calamitous, the progression of events ([[spoiler:all the Cleveland-bound marine life being freed and Dory reuniting with her family]]) complement the meaning of the song.
20	* ''WesternAnimation/Madagascar1'' uses it when Alex runs away after realizing that he might eat his friends. To hammer the point home, the others see a progression of cute little animals get eaten while the song plays. It seems that it is a wonderful world...just for the predators.
21
22	!Film - Live Action
23	* Creator/MichaelMoore's ''Film/BowlingForColumbine'' plays the original recording in a sequence that portrays the dictatorships the US government installed or backed during the Cold War and ends with perfectly synchronized ''video of the attacks on the World Trade Center''. In addition, the film also uses [[Music/TheRamones Joey Ramone]]'s version, from his solo album ''Music/DontWorryAboutMe'', over the credits.
24	* The TropeCodifier (though not the first use of the song in this context) is played by Adrian Cronauer, as portrayed by Creator/RobinWilliams, on his radio show in ''Film/GoodMorningVietnam''; the song runs over a montage of troops fighting in the field, officers at base looking reflective (and for once content with his music choice), a village being carpet bombed, a group of suspected Viet Cong arrested and summarily executed in an alley, and antiwar protesters clashing with police forces in the streets of Saigon.
25	* The trailer for the film version of ''Film/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy2005''. "What a wonderful..." '''''[[EarthShatteringKaboom Kablam!!!]]'''''
26	** ''Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' has a long history of abusing "What a Wonderful World." It replaced "[[Music/{{Eagles}} Journey of the Sorcerer]]" as the music over the credits at the end of [[Radio/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1978 the first radio series]], where Ford and Arthur, displaced in time, wonder at how beautiful the prehistoric Earth is, conscious that it'll be gone in two million years. The same scene appears in [[Series/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1981 the TV adaptation]], shifting into a readout on the Guide, floating through space, to explicitly remind us that in the show's "present", the Earth is destroyed.
27	* In ''Film/{{Nobody}}'', Hutch plays the song on vinyl to start a fire which [[FieryCoverup burns down his house (and the bodies of the mooks in its basement)]].
28	* The trailer for the Russian movie ''Film/{{Stalingrad 2013}}'' utilizes an altered and grim version of this song. Dark irony as it is.
29	* The jazz-themed Japanese film ''Film/SwingGirls'' uses the song over a montage of the girls being [[BearsAreBadNews chased by bears]] in the forest.
30	* Parodied in the Creator/ReducedShakespeareCompany's play, ''Completely Hollywood'', where they end their major mash up of all movies with the BigBad and hero confronting each other in slow motion. This very song is played as the hero dodges all of the villain's shots before killing him with one lucky one (as per cliched Hollywood action movie ending).
31	* ''Film/TwelveMonkeys'' used the song extensively in what is ''almost'' a subversion of the trope, to highlight the beauty of the soon-to-be-ruined world.
32	* The Mexican film ''Un Mundo Maravilloso'' (which appropriately translates as "A Wonderful World"), at the beginning, when we see the protagonist (a homeless, jobless hobo) wandering the streets at night seeking shelter from the rain and looking at the rich and middle class people in their homes from the outside. And the final shot in which [[spoiler:after invading and taking over a middle class house with his buddies and family, the camera shows them celebrating while panning to the house owner's bodies in the yard.]]
33	* Creator/OliverStone 's ''Film/{{W}}.'' plays this song during a montage of the start of the Iraq War of 2003.
34
35	!Live-Action TV
36	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ELQ6u_5YYM The Season 4 trailer]] for ''Series/BlackMirror'' uses the song in its last two-thirds, but the trope is more [[ZigZaggingTrope zigzagged]] as it plays over as much scary or ominous moments [[CrapsackWorld the series is infamous for]] as it does funny, heartwarming, and emotional moments.
37	* ''Series/TheBoys2019'' features the song as a man is influenced by negative news to the point his paranoia leads him to shoot the local store clerk, fearing he is a Super-Terrorist.
38	* A cover version plays during the climax of the final episode of ''Series/Dark2017'' as [[spoiler:a montage shows everyone in the fractured timelines disintegrating into specks of light after the cycle is broken]].
39	* This is played at the end of the ''Series/HawaiiFive0'' episode "Ka Pa'ani Nui" as the Five-0 task force raid the apartment and arrest the villains.
40	--> ''"At least we'll be entertained while the world's going to hell." - Adam Chitwood : Collider''
41	* The final episode of ''Series/TheJob'' used the Ramones version, over the discovery of a murdered old woman's body, among other things.
42	* ''Series/TheNakedDirector'': The song plays during the final episode as [[spoiler:Toshi is brutally stabbed to death by Ogiwara]].
43	* In the Season 4 premiere of ''Series/SonsOfAnarchy'', the Alison Mosshart cover of the song is played by the band at Opie and Lyla's wedding, then it [[DiegeticSwitch goes non-diegetic]] as the scene switches over to the rest of SAMCRO slaughtering TheMafiya.
44	* ''Series/SpittingImage'' used a parody version called "We've Ruined the World", sung by a weeping puppet caricature of Armstrong. The lyrics would fit the original tune, but for [[ScrewedByTheLawyers legal reasons]] [[SuspiciouslySimilarSong the show was forced to use a different one]].
45
46	!Music
47	* British experimental black metal group The Meads of Asphodel play a modified cover on their Damascus Steel album, throwing in some dissonant chords to the string section and putting a viciously cynical spin on Armstrong's lyrics:
48	--> "I see ethnic cleansing / Pain beyond belief / Whole nations murdered / Sorrow and grief / And I think to myself what a wonderful world..."
49	* Similarly, Israel Kamakawiwoʻole's "Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World", likely the second most popular recording of either, is almost exclusively used for a TearJerker. To be fair, the song itself is one for many people since the musician's early death.
50	!Video Games
51	* Played during the introduction of ''The Burning Grail'', which slowly pans across a post-apocalyptic wasteland containing wrecked cars, vicious beasts and mutants being killed by humans in several different ways, among other things.
52	* Seems to [[ZigZaggingTrope zigzag]] in the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qSmKKUnlT4 old commercial for]] ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankFutureToolsOfDestruction''. On one hand, we've got "What a Wonderful World" playing to mass destruction. On the other hand, that destruction is [[RuleOfCool awesome]]. Then you start thinking that this ''is'' a commercial with a RepurposedPopSong, so maybe the new version keeps it from qualifying for this trope... and ''then'' the commercial ends with the promise of even ''worse'' damage, conflicting with this upbeat version of [=WaWW=]. This is when you realize that [[RecurringLocation Kerwan]] [[OhCrap is pretty screwed]], so it probably doesn't qualify as a "wonderful world" at all, anymore.
53	-->''It's a wonderful world.''
54	-->''Save it.''
55
56	!Web Animation
57	* A ReferenceOverdosed story-driven YouTubePoop by user 64marj064 entitled ''[[https://youtu.be/zu3htN7DQUM Final Hours]]'' [[ZigZaggingTrope zigzags]] this. When [[MayanDoomsday the end of the world]] ends up not happening, [[AntiClimax everybody heads home disappointedly]], and [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaCDiGames King Harkinian]] debates what to do in the very moment, before deciding to also head back home. As he walks back, [[ClosingCredits the credits roll]] with this song in the background and the sun rising. It's a touching way to end off the video and show that the world is still a place to be loved and cherished... until one realizes that [[VideoGame/TeamFortress2 Scout]] is still [[MoodDissonance laying on the ground]] after he was [[ItMakesSenseInContext kicked by]] [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Rainbow Dash]], only to wake up declaring, "What the hell was ''that'' crap?!"
58
59	!Web Original
60	* Mild example in the WebVideo/JonTron episode "Film/HomeAlone Games", where Jon loudly sings part of it while cooking nuts so badly they explode. The explosions cut him off both times.
61
62	!Real Life
63	* The song is sometimes played at funerals in Asia. Though this will probably fade from prominence in time as the pool of boomers departing gets smaller.

Context SoundtrackDissonance / WhatAWonderfulWorld