History Main / WorldGoneMad

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' can be this, [[DependingOnTheWriter depending on what the GM wants to do with their setting.]] With all of the [[OurMonstersAreWeird weird monsters]] at their disposal, a [[HouseRule change]] or [[GameMod two]] that makes magic closer to the soft side of SandersonsFirstLaw can turn the world from your typical HighFantasy into the [[NightmareFuel freakiest]] SurrealHorror they can possibly come up with!

* The Wiki/SCPFoundation has many examples, particularly regarding things with extradimensional origins\powers. Whoever the Foundation assigns to study them [[ScienceCannotComprehendPhlebotinum often struggle to explain what the hell is happening]]. [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1193 SCP-1193]] and [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1877 SCP-1877]] stand out because the writer intended them to be intersections of World Gone Mad with reality leading to "mudane is horrible, MindScrew is normal":

* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' shorts drop into this occasionally; the word ''looney'' is in the title. (Creator/GrantMorrison's "The Coyote Gospels" deconstructed this in an issue of his run on ''ComicBook/AnimalMan'', described above in the comics folder.)

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* ''Machinima/HalfLifeButTheAIIsSelfAware'', where everyone except for [[OnlySaneMan Gordon]] is either an [[TheDitz idiot]], a [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} total nutcase]], or some combination of the two, the laws of physics are broken regularly, passports are SeriousBusiness, science consists of [[MadScientist the most deranged and ridiculous things imaginable]], and everyone except Gordon seems to think this is all perfectly rational.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
* This is what happens to Tokyo in ''Literature/{{Paprika}}'' after the mad parade (a conglomeration of surreal and maddening dreams) gets enough power to intrude into the real world.
[[/folder]]

* ''VideoGame/MarioPlusRabbidsKingdomBattle'' turns the Mushroom Kingdom into this -- while things can be weird, the Rabbids' [[OutsideGenreFoe sudden invasion]] crank the insanity UpToEleven, and things quickly escalate; it soon emerges that an EldritchAbomination is behind the chaos...and [[DemonicPossession then decides to possess]] [[HijackedByGanon Bowser]] ([[LockedOutOfTheLoop who had been on vacation for most of the game]]).

* ''Film/{{Weekend}}'' by Creator/JeanLucGodard. Everything is SeriousBusiness, half the population are {{Cloudcuckoolander}}s, and everyone is constantly hyped up to his maximum.

* ''Film/ItsAMadMadMadMadWorld'' is, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin unsurprisingly]], this UpToEleven: you can see a bunch of perfectly normal people degrading into this in the matter of minutes -- and you'll be hard pressed to find a single unaffected character in the whole film. Bonus points for actually ''not'' breaking any laws of human psyche.

* ''Literature/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'' by Daniel Handler. Once things were united behind VFD. Then the schism happened and everything went straight to hell.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* The world of ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' when some people get a hold of [[GreatGazoo Larry the Titan]]'s powers.

* ''TabletopGame/JAGSWonderland'' is a great one: Other realities are invading our world, and if you're not careful, you'll get infected by them and dragged away in the night. [[http://www.jagsrpg.org/ And it's all available for free download from the publishers.]]

* Absolutely every play written by Christopher Durang. Summed up in the famous [[http://www.whysanity.net/monos/crisis.html Peter Pan Monologue,]] which would be the opening quote for this page if it weren't so long. His play '''Dentity Crisis,'' where the Peter Pan Monologue comes from, may be the best example of this trope. Jane lives with her mother, her brother, her father, her grandfather, and a visiting French count. However, Jane is the [[OnlySaneMan only person]] who realizes that the brother, father, grandfather, and count are actually a single person with multiple personalities. Everyone else thinks they're separate people, even though they see him switch personalities in front of them all the time. When Jane points this out, they think she's crazy. If you can't guess how the play ends from this description, [[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife TV Tropes has not sufficiently ruined your life yet]].

* ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'' doesn't initially come off as this, but [[http://www.sinfest.net/view.php?date=2009-08-16 this strip]] makes the case pretty well.

* ''VideoGame/TheNewOrderLastDaysOfEurope'': Played for all the drama a Nazi victory in World War II is worth. It leads to a CrapsackWorld where fascist ideology is validated even beyond the borders of Germany, and the NonStandardGameOver where the world is destroyed in a thermonuclear conflict is actually presented as a ''BittersweetEnding'' because humanity survives and eventually develops a new, advanced civilization based on peace and understanding, after only the end of the world was able to wash away all the toxic hatred in place. Nowhere is this more apparent than the defeated remnants of Soviet Russia, which is split into multiple warlord states including fascists, ultranationalists and all sorts of other bizarre ideologues (including a mad colonel who [[NapoleonDelusion believes he is the reincarnation of an ancient Varangian prince]]) trying to reunite the shattered nation. [[spoiler:And the [[AfterTheEnd After Midnight]] scenario takes this even further: [[TheCaligula Sergey Taboritsky's]] insanity has left Russia back at square one, but the anarchy is even more violent, radical and desperate. The remaining democrats, socialists and despots must compete with Burgundian System proponents still calling for Taboritsky's last murderous orders to be fulfilled, {{General Ripper}}s who believe Russians outside their bunkers must be violently subjugated under their jackboots just like the Germans they plan on destroying, to ''[[HollywoodSatanist genuine mass-enslaving, human-sacrificing Satanists]]''.]]

* ''VideoGame/TheNewOrderLastDaysOfEurope'': Played for all the drama a Nazi victory in World War II is worth. It leads to a CrapsackWorld where fascist ideology is validated even beyond the borders of Germany, and the NonStandardGameOver where the world is destroyed in a thermonuclear conflict is actually presented as a ''BittersweetEnding'' because humanity survives and eventually develops a new, advanced civilization based on peace and understanding, after only the end of the world was able to wash away all the toxic hatred in place. Nowhere is this more apparent than the defeated remnants of Soviet Russia, which is split into multiple warlord states including fascists, ultranationalists and all sorts of other bizarre ideologues (including a mad colonel who [[NapoleonDelusion believes he is the reincarnation of an ancient Varangian prince]]) trying to reunite the shattered nation. [[spoiler:And the [[AfterTheEnd After Midnight]] scenario takes this even further: [[TheCaligula Sergey Taboritsky's]] insanity has left Russia back at square one, but the anarchy is even more violent, radical and desperate. The remaining democrats, socialists and despots must compete with Burgundian System proponents still calling for Taboritsky's last murderous orders to be fulfilled, {{General Ripper}}s who believe Russians outside their bunkers must be violently subjugated under their jackboots just like the Germans they plan on destroying, to ''[[HollywoodSatanists genuine mass-enslaving, human-sacrificing Satanists]]''.]]

* ''VideoGame/TheNewOrderLastDaysOfEurope'': Played for all the drama a Nazi victory in World War II is worth. It leads to a CrapsackWorld where fascist ideology is validated even beyond the borders of Germany, and the NonStandardGameOver where the world is destroyed in a thermonuclear conflict is actually presented as a ''BittersweetEnding'' because humanity survives and eventually develops a new, advanced civilization based on peace and understanding, after only the end of the world was able to wash away all the toxic hatred in place. Nowhere is this more apparent than the defeated remnants of Soviet Russia, which is split into multiple warlord states including fascists, ultranationalists and all sorts of other bizarre ideologues (including a mad colonel who [[NapoleonDelusion believes he is the reincarnation of an ancient Varangian prince]]) trying to reunite the shattered nation. [[spoiler:And the [[AfterTheEnd After Midnight]] scenario takes this even further: [[TheCaligula Sergey Taboritsky's]] insanity has left Russia back at square one, but the anarchy is even more violent, radical and desperate. The remaining democrats, socialists and despots must compete with Burgundian System proponents still calling for Taboritsky's last murderous orders to be fulfilled, {{General Ripper}}s who believe Russians outside their bunkers must be violently subjugated under their jackboots just like the Germans they plan on destroying, to ''genuine mass-enslaving, human-sacrificing Satanists''.]]

* ''Theatre/TheCrucible'' definitely has this vibe, as is frequently pointed out by the [[OnlySaneMan few sane people]], who also have to contend with people who have not fallen victim to the hysteria, but are just exploiting it for their own goals. The play is made all the more disturbing because a) it's based on real events, and b) one of Miller's motivations in writing it was to criticize Senator [=McCarthy=], whose out-of-control hunts for communists were proving that modern people could be just as gullible and subject to hysteria as they had been at the Witch Trials.

* ''VideoGame/TheNewOrderLastDaysOfEurope'': Played for all the drama a Nazi victory in World War II is worth. It leads to a CrapsackWorld where fascist ideology is validated even beyond the borders of Germany, and the NonStandardGameOver where the world is destroyed in a thermonuclear conflict is actually presented as a ''BittersweetEnding'' because humanity survives and eventually develops a new, advanced civilization based on peace and understanding. Nowhere is this more apparent than the defeated remnants of Soviet Russia, which is split into multiple warlord states including fascists, ultranationalists and all sorts of other bizarre ideologues (including a mad colonel who [[NapoleonDelusion believes he is the reincarnation of an ancient Varangian prince]]) trying to reunite the shattered nation. [[spoiler:And the [[AfterTheEnd After Midnight]] scenario takes this even further: [[TheCaligula Sergey Taboritsky's]] insanity has left Russia back at square one, but the anarchy is even more violent, radical and desperate. The remaining democrats, socialists and despots must compete with Burgundian System proponents still calling for Taboritsky's last murderous orders to be fulfilled, {{General Ripper}}s who believe Russians outside their bunkers must be violently subjugated under their jackboots just like the Germans they plan on destroying, to ''genuine mass-enslaving, human-sacrificing Satanists''.]]

* ''VideoGame/TheNewOrderLastDaysOfEurope'': Played for all the drama a Nazi victory in World War II is worth. It leads to a CrapsackWorld where fascist ideology is validated even beyond the borders of Germany, and the NonStandardGameOver where the world is destroyed in a thermonuclear conflict is actually presented as a ''BittersweetEnding'' because humanity survives and eventually develops a new, advanced civilization based on peace and understanding. Nowhere is this more apparent than the defeated remnants of Soviet Russia, which is split into multiple warlord states including fascists, ultranationalists and all sorts of other bizarre ideologues (including a mad colonel who [[NapoleonDelusion believes he is the reincarnation of an ancient Varangian prince]]) trying to reunite the shattered nation. [[spoiler:And the [[AfterTheEnd After Midnight]] scenario takes this even further: [[TheCaligula Sergey Taboritsky's]] insanity has left Russia back at square one, but the anarchy is even more violent, radical and desperate. The remaining democrats, socialists and despots must compete with Burgundian System proponents still calling for Taboritsky's last murderous orders to be fulfilled, genuine Satanists, and a ''former NKVD agent claiming to be Alexei Romanov himself''.]]

* This is what happens to Tokyo in ''Literature/{{Paprika}}'' after the mad parade (a conglomeration of surreal and maddening dreams) gets enough power to intrude into the real world.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBJePxdPX3Y Mad World]], by Music/TearsForFears, famously covered by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N3N1MlvVc4 Gary Jules]] -- it is also a WorldHalfEmpty.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': In "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E2TheReturnOfHarmonyPart2 The Return of Harmony]]", Equestria gets turned into this by [[MadGod Discord.]] Everything gets crazier and more chaotic as the episode goes along and almost everyone is driven insane in some way, with the main cast being turned into mockeries of their previous selves. The landscape is likewise warped -- roads turned into soap, houses are turned into flat props, trees uprooted and floating, rapid cycling of day and night, etc. Twilight is one of the few characters left completely sane by the second half of the episode, forced to deal with one-dimensional parodies her friends and Discord’s constant mocking.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': In "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E2TheReturnOfHarmonyPart2 The Return of Harmony]]", Equestria gets turned into this by Discord. Everything gets crazier and more chaotic as the episode goes along and almost everyone is driven insane in some way, with the main cast being turned into mockeries of their previous selves. The landscape is likewise warped -- roads turned into soap, houses are turned into flat props, trees uprooted and floating, rapid cycling of day and night, etc. Twilight is one of the few characters left completely sane by the second half of the episode, forced to deal with one-dimensional parodies her friends and Discord’s constant mocking.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': In "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E2TheReturnOfHarmonyPart2 The Return of Harmony]]", Equestria gets turned into this under a [[MadGod chaos god named Discord]]. Everything gets crazier and more chaotic as the episode goes along and almost everyone is driven insane in some way, with the main cast being turned into mockeries of their previous selves. The landscape is likewise warped -- roads turned into soap, houses are turned into flat props, trees uprooted and floating, rapid cycling of day and night, etc. Twilight is one of the few characters left completely sane by the second half of the episode, forced to deal with one-dimensional parodies her friends and Discord’s constant mocking.