Darker And Edgier / Web Original

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• Parodied in Angry Birds: The Movie, which is a fake trailer for a Hollywood blockbuster based off of Angry Birds. It's an actiony Human-Focused Adaptation war film.
• Before its first, and original cancellation, Ben's Rants were very tame. The worst that Benthelooney would put in was alternatives for curse words. However, when he uncancelled his rants in 2012, Ben Tannehill started writing in more personality for the character, and made him more cartoony, causing for the newly produced rants to include references to violence, and occasionally, sex. Whilst these aren't as bad as some, it is still raunchier than anything that Ben did, before the rants were resurrected.
  • Not only that, but in the credits of Ben Rants: Sanjay and Craig, the song has an uncensored swear word. Ben stated that the reason for not censoring it was because he refused to censor such an awesome song.
• Spoofed in "A Bibilography of Mr Misnomer", an online supplement to the Bernice Summerfield novel Down providing more detail about the 26th century pulpzine character. In the main series, Mr Misnomer gains mystical powers from New Tibetian lamas which he uses to fight the Nameless Evil that threatens them, and subsequently against his archenemy Dr Harbinger. The final volume, produced by an indie publisher after the collapse of the pulpzine market, but officially licenced, reveals that the Nameless Evil was actually the manifestation of Misnomer's own angst, that his plucky sidekick was a gay manic-drepressive, and that Dr Harbinger's Depending on the Autolit-Engine characterisation was the result of a multiple personality disorder self-medicated with psychotropic drugs. The same publisher's interpretation of Mary Poppins is even worse.
• Board James started off as a Lighter and Fluffier spin-off of the Angry Video Game Nerd, at least until the "Dream Phone" episode. After the series went into hiatus for a couple of years while James Rolfe worked on the Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie, Board James returned to the eponymous character alone, with Motherfucker Mike and Bad Luck Bootsy nowhere to be found and an overarching story arc about James's Sanity Slippage and whether he killed his friends if they even existed to begin with...
• The Tech Adventures storyline in the Brave New World Universe is notorious for being Darker and Edgier than any other story in the series by a long shot. Where the original Brave New World storyline occasionally had characters seriously injured, Sasha was at the brink of death so many times that the other writers on the project lost count. It culminated in a Bittersweet Ending when Shasha sacrificed himself to save the rest of the Chosen in Joanna's secret base.
• The Brothers Mario is a GTA Machinima with Mario and Luigi being mobsters involved in a gang war.
• CollegeHumor / Dropout has touched on it possibly as much as Cracked has:
  • "I'm going to ask you one more time! Where the fuck is Carmen Sandiego?!"
  • Coming soon to a theater near you: a dark and gritty live-action adaptation of... Dora the Explorer.
  • To top it off, they even have a video illustrating the gritty reboot process.
• Cracked has commented on the "gritty reboot" trend several times.
  • They made this the subject of a couple of Photoplastys: If Hollywood Started To Give Everything a Gritty Reboot, If History Got a Gritty Reboot.
  • Soren Bowie muses about in 4 Gritty Reboots of 80s Cartoons for Girls.
  • "3 Movies They Don't Make Anymore (But Really Should)" decries the trend of "taking popular, existing properties and bringing out the darkest and grittiest aspects they can find" seen in Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, among other movies.
  • "4 Bizarrely Specific Rules Fairy Tale Adaptations All Follow", David Christopher Bell claims that all film adaptations of fairy tales invoke this to invert Disneyfication.
• The blog Chocolate Hammer mocked this trend with the game Darker and Edgier, in which familiar franchises were warped beyond recognition and readers had to guess what they originally were. The posts in question can be found here and here.
• Pretty much all of the Dark Web. If you think the regular internet has bad things, the Dark Web is even more messed up. It is, to put it simply, the darker and edgier part of the internet. Expect child porn, drugs, and red rooms (code name for torture chambers). It is not advised to actually look it up. There is "barely-legal" porn and other websites that are not so fun to look at.
• The fifth episode of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, where there is no indication the trauma will be reversed, a lot more violence and gore, less jokes, and a song that isn't quite as catchy.
• Dragon Ball Z Abridged, while still being mostly comedic, seems to be diving into this with the Cell Saga, specifically around the time when the Big Bad himself is introduced. The fact that Cell's presence is, unlike all the other villains who appeared in the series prior, actually treated with complete seriousness by the cast should be a sign of things to come.
• In Funny or Die's The Rugrats ''Live Action'' Movie apparently Angelica is not just a selfish, spoiled child, but a murderous, manipulative sociopath.
• A Giant Sucking Sound, the election of Ross Perot results in a more chaotic 1990s. The constant violence and the murder of prominent people in entertainment like Steven Spielberg and Harvey Weinstein causes this effect in popular culture In-universe.
• This is the point of Gritty Reboots. They make Darker and Edgier Live-Action Adaptation trailers for anything from Harvest Moon: Back to Nature to Goodnight Moon.
• When compared to the movies, The Gungan Council is definitely more mature across the board. However, whether or not it beats out Legacy depends on the writer and character.
• Hatchetfield: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals was a major shift for a Team Starkid show, being the first show that took character's deaths seriously and that left the audience with a Downer Ending that was as disturbing as it was funny. It's only gotten Darker and Edgier since.
• The Homestuck Epilogues are darker in tone than Homestuck, their webcomic predecessor. Both paths generally deal with more realistic and relatable issues, such as dealing with adulthood, abusive relationships, and friendships drifting away or being torn apart due to political differences. The switch to a prose format means that there are no visual gags or possible Art-Style Dissonance, and many of the comical side characters are either Demoted to Extra or outright Killed Offscreen. All of this on top of being a Happy Ending Override to the comic's unambiguously positive outcome. On top of that, two of the heroes go off the deep end of their own volition (so no brainwashing or Unwitting Pawn excuses now), are directly responsible for overriding their respective timelines even further, and one of those timelines devolves into outright war. And if you take Homestuck: Beyond Canon into account, these changes stick. No wonder Hussie declared Schrödinger's Canon for the epilogues.
• In Marvel/DC: After Hours Season 2, The Joker's plan is to make all comic book characters into Darker and Edgier characters. The Green Goblin however ends up pointing out that all that will lead to is Too Bleak, Stopped Caring without Lighter and Softer heroes.
• Lost Episode Creepypastas are about Lost Episodes of (most often) kid's TV Shows that turn the darkness factor up a notch.
• Mario Kart: Fury Road is a fake trailer made of scenes from Mad Max: Fury Road, edited to look like an exagerratedly grittier adaptation of the Mario Kart series.
• Just Google "Misery Machine", possibly adding "Scooby Doo". D&E, textbook case.
• Mortal Kombat: Rebirth by Kevin Tancharoen gives a noir look to Mortal Kombat, eliminating the campy aspects from most depictions.
• Season 2 of The Music Video Show. While the first season was lighthearted, the second season sees the host of the show slowly delving into Sanity Slippage. Throw in attempted suicides, a mental breakdown, a book with a creepy hand coming out of the front cover that is possibly a spell book and harsh jokes to boot. There's also the fact that Fluttershy is not real, Dylan says that he's the Devil and takes Pinkie Pie with him in Episode 50 after revealing that the host killed his parents. Holy shit.
  • Hello, Season 4 just called. It's jarring considering Season Three ended mere months before. Where season three had jabs at several subjects, whether it was necessary or not, Season 4 makes jokes about Domestic Abuse, Child Abuse and death/murder,the latter doesn't only happen to adults.. Watching Episode 87 and Episode 89 is proof of how black the humor has become, especially with the latter's "top 10 countdown" which starts with honorable mentions before going from black hole jokes to pitch black.
  • Seasonz 5 through 7 all this due to this trope and Creator Breakdown. The jokes were much harsher and very very angry at times. Season six also marked the first time the host swore and wished several people harm, to the point of wishing them dead. According to this video, he had going through suicidal thoughts throughout a lot of this period and it bled into his work. Season eight seems to put an end to this trope, although the first episode was a Paul Brother episode with tons of swearing so the eighth season isn't 100 percent lighter.
• Parodied by The Onion, with this (fake) story about a cereal mascot getting a dark backstory.
• Petscop: Petscop goes from a fun (albeit unfinished) game about collecting pets and finding their homes to a dark and twisted story (possibly) inspired by the real-life child killings that happened as a result of rebirthing therapy.
• Joseph Kahn's Power/Rangers does this for the Power Rangers Zordon Era. It's actually a Stealth Parody of this trope, with the ultimate message being that no matter how much fanbases may like the idea of giving lighthearted kids' shows grim-n-gritty reboots, ramping up the violence, sex, and dirty language (even if it doesn't come across as forced) will not make the comical elements go away — if anything, it just throws them into sharper relief.
• Raymond Sipe has a song about Cthulhu that pretty much does justice to its source. However, when you compare it to songs about forum places like /v/, /mu/, and even /mlp/, as well as many of his other songs he's done, and it makes its darker and edgier motif all the more surprising to see.
• Stampy's Lovely World:
  • While by no means dark, the HitTheTarget episodes are far more intense and action-packed than the usual relaxing episodes of Lovely World. In addition, some of HitTheTarget's plans, such as attacking Stampy's dogs, are darker than the usual tone of the series.
  • Even among the HTT attack episodes, Episode 541, "I Lost" is one of the darkest, as it is the only episode where the attack ends with a bad ending.
  • In post-hiatus episodes, the plans get even more climactic when HTT sends a dog army of his own via the cloning machine, leading to two of Stampy's dogs dying, and blows up Stampy's first bedroom so he can replace it with his own design. This is compared to pre-hiatus episodes, where the worst HTT reasonably gets is killing Stampy's oldest dog, Barnaby in "Memories" and siccing a Rotten Robotic Replacement of Polly on Stampy, which were more easily rectified, caused less collateral damage, and weren't completely direct attacks on Stampy himself.
• Season 2 of StewdioMACK is noticeably darker than the first, dealing with the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Suburban Knights compared to Kickassia. While both are hilarious and Kickassia indeed showed off Critic's lack of sanity well, SK had a really dark villain that made the mood drop in whatever scene he was in, innocents getting blown up, a Bittersweet Ending where Critic hopes to find the Necronomicon in order to revive Ma-Ti, death not being at all cheap and actual, honest-to-God Tear Jerkers.
  • In a more meta sense, The Nostalgia Critic both in-character and out-of-character openly hates this trope when done poorly and, as he puts it, is "dark for the sake of being dark" instead of being dark to convey some message or have some purpose. It comes up in a good amount of reviews. Ironically, his show has got darker too, with Critic having... issues, Santa Christ Took a Level in Jerkass, a lot more Nightmare Fuel and Doug confirming that he's turned Critic's endearing Christmas love into psychosis.
  • To Boldly Flee manages to be even darker than Suburban Knights. The story revolves a literal Plot Hole that warps and distorts reality. Highlights include The Nostalgia Chick and Todd in the Shadows facing Unwilling Roboticization and brainwashing at the hands of Mechakara, The Cinema Snob being manipulated into joining the villains, which, while a parody of Star Wars, is still pretty messed up, the appearance of Doug Walker (as in the actual person) revealing to the Critic he's a fictional character and that in the real world there's free will and finally the Critic, after a long Heroic BSoD that was completely Played for Drama, sacrificing himself by merging with the Plot Hole. Possibly justified, as according to Word of God To Boldly Flee was written be a send-off to The Nostalgia Critic as a show.
• The Super Carlin Brothers have a series called "Rated R Pixar," where the plot of a normally G or PG rated Pixar movie is retold in a very dark manner.
• There Will Be Brawl makes the Nintendo universe so grimdark and Film Noir-esque that it practically becomes a parody of this trope.
• Trollge is a dark revival of Rage Comics in which Trollface is portrayed as an Ax-Crazy Eldritch Abomination.
• TRULY OUTRAGEOUS: A Jem Fan Film! is a Take That! at the official Jem and the Holograms (2015) film meant to show that it's possible to darken Jem while keeping the tone. Kimber ends up kidnapped by Cobra and the stakes are slightly up from the usual Jem fare, but the real difference comes from Kimber's angst after finding out she's really a Ridiculously Human Robot.
• TV Tropes: Darth Wiki is where all the negative opinions go to. And a couple of other dark stuff.
• The Waldo Ultimatum by the Imponderables: Where's Waldo? meets The Bourne Ultimatum.
• For Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series, compare Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Movie and Yu-Gi-Oh: Tenth Anniversary Abridged Movie. While both are still quite funny, the latter has a greater amount of violence and more blue jokes (courtesy of Jaden).
• "Zest Online Riddle" is a game similar to NotPron, and it's... weird. It also has dark, oppressive music and, overall, it's... creepy. Thing is, unlike most online riddles, this actually has some kind of a story to it, and from what this troper knows, it appears to be darkening "The Wizard of OZ", among other things.
• /r/bertstrips does this to the sesame street crowd. The concept to this subreddit is to add dark and spooky captions to "normal" sesame street images. For example, Ert and Bernie are turned into war criminals, Elmo into a pervert, and cookie monster into a... monster.
• Mystery Incorporated (2022): Daphne has a Stage Mom and she's implied to be struggling with depression, Shaggy is a small time drug dealer who is being blackmailed and has a rocky relationship with his father, Velma's dad was murdered and her mother has turned to studying demonology and becoming an alcoholic to cope, and Fred's parents were both murdered (seemingly by the same monster that killed Velma's dad).

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