Creepy Jazz Music

The dangerous band of mobsters threaten you with their sinister shadow-based magic. One of them tries to intimidate you with the ace of spades.

For added atmosphere, play the music from this video while reading on.

In modern times, Jazz is typically known for being fun and catchy or artsy and highbrow. In fiction, jazz soundtracks, often slowed down or played in a minor key, can add an air of creepiness that often comes through association with a villain.

Like Rotten Rock & Roll and Freaky Electronic Music, Jazz music is (or at least, used to be) rebellious in nature. One of the many genres that adopted the title of "Devil's Music", Jazz was considered counter-culture at its height. Paranoid parents and the critical establishment disparaged it as "evil" and "vulgar", perhaps due to its initial popularity among African-Americans and its association with gangsters and drug use. Those Wacky Nazis considered Jazz to be "Negermusik" (negro music) tainted by Jewish influence and labelled it as "degenerate" and prohibited it. Non-traditional musical elements such as syncopation, dissonance, and unusual time signatures and chord progressions can make Jazz seem chaotic (many detractors described as "just noise") and thus menacing.

In fiction, jazz can be used to characterize the Deep South in its more ethnic areas, be it in the swinging streets of New Orleans or other hot spots. When played for creepiness, it may be heard in Southern Gothic and City Noir settings.

Some possible Trope Codifiers are old black-and-white cartoons from the early days of The Golden Age of Animation. Cartoons like these often paired catchy jazz music with Disney Acid Sequences, Rotoscoping (which, to some people, falls into the Unintentional Uncanny Valley), and other types of Deranged Animation.

It's often associated with The Gambler types and other Wicked Cultured villains.

May overlap with Sexophone for intimate effect. Compare Creepy Circus Music, which may have a similar, "broken down" mood. Contrast Sinister Tango Music.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Baccano!'s anime adaptation gets in on the action whenever the Rail Tracer makes an appearance by using dissonant, frenetic solo jazz piano parts. This is by no means its only use of it, however.
• Cowboy Bebop has a few moments, courtesy of a jazz-infused Genre Roulette soundtrack.
  • "Pierrot le Fou" is a notable inversion: in a radical departure for series practically dominated by the aforementioned jazz-infused Genre Roulette, the first few minutes are accompanied only by discordant, tuneless banging sounds, rattling noises, and sharp metallic screeches, while the music for the flashback to Mad Pierrot's origin is a minimalist, borderline Progressive Rock song (specifically, a cover of Pink Floyd's "On the Run").
• The Intersection's Pretty Boy's theme song from the Junji Ito Collection anime, specifically the adaptation of Lovesickness. It's a mix of creepy, eerie, mysterious, and even a little bit sexy, highlighting his supernatural characteristics and otherworldly beauty.

Fan Works

• "deCIPHER", a fanmade Villain Song for Bill Cipher, the Big Bad of Gravity Falls, is set to a smooth jazz tune as Bill tempts the subject (presumably Dipper) into a Faustian deal.

Films — Animation

• In The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Brom Bones sings a jazzy song about the Headless Horseman to scare Ichabod. Brom is voiced by Bing Crosby, who also narrates the segment.
• Aladdin: The Return of Jafar: Jafar gets a swingy Villain Song called "You're Only Second Rate", where he beats Genie in a Curb-Stomp Battle, all while gloating about his power.
• Cats Don't Dance: The Dark Reprise of "Big and Loud" mainly consists of Ominous Pipe Organ and choir, but there are a few parts where the brass parts from the first part of the song returns, only in a minor key.
• Corpse Bride's "Remains of the Day" is a jazz song performed by Skeletal Musicians, and naturally contains creepy xylophone parts. While the skeletons are not villainous, the song provides the backstory for the titular Corpse Bride and tells of how she was murdered by The Bluebeard.
• Heidi's Song: "Ode to a Rat" is the big-band-style Villain Song sung by the leader of the evil rats, played by Sammy Davis Jr..
• Oogie Boogie from The Nightmare Before Christmas has loud, swingy music for both his Leitmotif and his Villain Song! This signifies quite a few things about him, such as his love of gambling and his Boisterous Bruiser Scary Black Man personality. But most importantly, the contrast between his jazz music and the rather somber orchestral music associated with the other citizens of Halloween Town highlights how different he is from them — namely, how much more violent he is.
• 101 Dalmatians: Roger sings a jazzy "The Villain Sucks" Song about Cruella de Vil, which describes how wicked and heartless she is.
• The Princess and the Frog: Dr. Facilier's Villain Song "Friends on the Other Side". While it being jazz isn't notable in itself (the film has a jazz-influenced soundtrack), the tempo, minor key, use of the Deathly Dies Irae, and call-and-response elements make the song much creepier than other songs from the film. What's more, the song seems to be bit of a tribute to Minnie the Moocher, another case of this trope. Facilier looks a bit like Cab Calloway, and the weird dancing and Disney Acid Sequence aspects are reminiscent of some of the old cartoons.

Films — Live-Action

• Cult film Forbidden Zone, best known for being Danny Elfman's first composing role, has two big moments, both Shout Outs to the Fleischer examples (see Western Animation folder).
  • The first is "Behind Them Doors (Some of These Days) an aggressive number when Frenchy and Hercules' apparently Norwegian father warns them not to go through the doors that lead to the titular Zone (for bonus points, he lip-syncs to a Calloway song partway through), that also establishes how bonkers the Zone is by way of a brief stop-motion transition.
  • The second is later in the film after Frenchy gets kidnapped by the Sixth Dimension's rulers, Squeezit goes down to rescue them, and is greeted (well, kidnapped) by Satan performing a lyrically modified and key-changed version of Minnie the Moocher named "Squeezit the Moocher".
• In The Jungle Book (2016), King Louie's jazzy song "I Wanna Be Like You" from the original movie makes a return. However, as Louie goes through Adaptational Villainy, the song has new lyrics that are more villainous in nature. Despite this, the music itself is still very upbeat.
• Manos: The Hands of Fate goes in a Soundtrack Dissonance direction with this, with a jazzy soundtrack underscoring a movie about a family road trip running afoul of a murderous cult. While "Manos" is a famously bad movie, most people would agree that the jazz on the soundtrack is actually pretty good.
• The "Club Silencio" scene in Mulholland Dr. has the protagonists attending a strange, avant-garde piece of performance art, scored by distant, echoey trumpets and trombones.
• Harlan Maguire's introduction in Road to Perdition shows him photographing a bloody crime scene and quietly finishing off one victim who was still barely alive. The scene is scored with this very creepy little Dixieland-flavored number.
• Howard Shore and Ornette Coleman's soundtrack to Naked Lunch is full of this, with a bit of North African traditional influence at times too.
• As with the TV series, most of the soundtrack to Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is eerie, unsettling jazz.

Live-Action TV

• Interview with the Vampire (2022): In a Season 2 promo with close-ups of Claudia, Louis de Pointe du Lac and Lestat de Lioncourt, "Ballet in the Attic" by Mel Wesson & NineOneOne sounds like a distorted version of the type of jazz/ragtime music that Jelly Roll Morton played at the Azalea. It's a reminder to viewers that although Louis and Claudia have freed themselves from Lestat's Gilded Cage to travel across Europe, they're nonetheless haunted (whether literally or figuratively) by what occurred in New Orleans during Season 1, plus it's a nod to the show's Southern Gothic roots.
• One episode of Star Trek: Enterprise features a Mental Fusion flashback to T'Pol's experience in a human jazz club. As the scene takes a hard turn into full-on Mind Rape, the background jazz music grows wilder and more chaotic.
• Twin Peaks:
  • Jazz music (of the cool, down-tempo variety, main leitmotif here) is always the soundtrack for scenes in the Black Lodge, a place in Another Dimension inhabited by creatures who eat pain and suffering (including the Big Bad of the series). Jazz singer Jimmy Scott also seems to live there. The final episode of the original series features an extended scene that is just him singing a jazzy ballad, but is absolutely unnerving.
  • Zig-zagged with "Audrey's Dance", another jazz motif that is used just as often when characters are doing underhanded, secretive things as in comedic scenarios, or often both. However, the reversed version from The Return plays it straight, sounding far more unnerving and coming right after The Reveal that Audrey is trapped in a Lotus-Eater Machine.

Music

• The song "Strange Fruit", first performed by Billie Holiday. It's a song about a lynching, set to a minor-key, dirge-like arrangement.
• Some of Cab Calloway's songs are somewhat haunting, such as "Minnie the Moocher". Especially notable when paired with the Deranged Animation of the Betty Boop cartoons he appeared in.
• Part of Can's Genre-Busting reputation came from Jaki Liebezeit, who prior to Can, used to play in a forerunning European free jazz band. He brought his influence to the band and provided a frenetic, primal sound for the rest of the band to improvise (and, by extension, create nightmares) on top of.
• The Cherry Poppin' Daddies (of Zoot Suit Riot fame) have "Drunk Daddy" and "Master and Slave," both of which are swingin', upbeat song about a drunken, abusive stepfather.
• Kevin Macleod has written a few songs in this style, such as The Show Must Be Go and Deadly Roulette.
• Marc Jungermann occasionally does music in this style, though his style is eclectic and often blends in elements of other genres:
  • "Ghost Ball" has elements of this trope, most notably in the ominous upright bass sound heard throughout most of the song.
  • "The Joker," Jungermann's fanmade theme song for The Joker, fits this style, although it segues into Creepy Circus Music at one point.
  • "The Riddler", his theme for The Riddler, is a sinister jazz/rock fusion.
• Radiohead's "Life in a Glasshouse" is a minor-key, New Orleans-style dirge about the suffocating nature of celebrity, with Thom Yorke singing about constant prying eyes and restrictive expectations against a backdrop of wailing trumpets and clarinets.
• The Squirrel Nut Zippers are a swing revival band in the vein of Cab Calloway, among others. Two songs they released that fit this trope are "Hell," and "The Ghost of Stephen Foster." The latter's music video is even a Fleischer Brothers tribute!
• Tom Waits is an interesting case: he started off as a straight-up jazz crooner/pianist who just happened to have a husky voice. Then, in the early eighties, he married Kathleen Brennan, who introduced him to Beefheart. Once he heard that, he decided to adapt those musical ideas to his existing sound, leading to such classics as "Dave the Butcher," "The Earth Died Screaming," and "Misery's the River of the World," among others. However, some of his creepiest songs, like "What's He Building in There?," "Hell Broke Luce," and "Underground" eschew the jazz elements entirely.
• Genre-Busting iconoclast Frank Zappa gives us King Kong, the six-part B-Side from Uncle Meat. The first half or so is relatively normal as far as jazz songs go, but once Part III kicks in, it starts becoming much more chaotic and dissonant, culminating with the second half of Part VI.
• John Zorn, being one to jump from style to style at a breakneck pace, is no stranger to this one. His work with Naked City is probably the best example of this.
• The entire genre of Free Jazz, which eschews key signatures, meters, and chord progressions, can come off as this to some due to how cacophonous it sounds.
• Voltaire has some jazz pieces, often with disturbing or creepy themes, like "BRAINS!" and "Don't Go By the River."
• Most of the music produced by The Caretaker consists of samples of pre-WWII-era jazz recordings that are distorted as if they were being played through a defective record player.
• "Piano" by Blur, a previously unreleased Think Tank-era instrumental featuring a sleazy, jazz-like sound alongside heavily distorted drums, eerie ticking, and other strange electronic noises.
• Done to great effect across the vaporwave genre, which frequently distorts samples of Muzak and smooth jazz to an effect that's reminiscent of watching an old VHS tape, listening to an old cassette tape, or listening to music on a tinny department store speaker. Except it's really, really eerie at times.
  • Played to great effect on the album News at 11 by vaporwave artist 猫 シ Corp., which intersperses distorted smooth jazz with soundbites from news shows right before the attacks on the morning of 9/11, and distorted soundbites from The Weather Channel's old "local forecast" segment.
• The subgenre Dark jazz, including bands such as Bohren & der Club of Gore.
• Miles Davis was known as the king of laidback "cool jazz" (as opposed to the more upbeat "hot jazz" of the big bands), and a few of his pieces end up in a subtly eerie place. "Generique" is a good example, a haunting and moody track with an air of vague menace. It would go great in a Film Noir.
• MILGRAM: Kazui Mukuhara's second song, "Cat", is a jazz song in a minor key about how he lied to his wife about loving her for their whole marriage. The music video ends with him gaining cat-like features and eating a live bird in front of his wife before she falls backward and disintegrates, and that's when the music is most frantic.

Theatre

• In Me and My Dick, the somewhat criminal Lost Dicks perform the jazzy "Land of the Dicks" number, helping convey the Land of the Dicks' status as a bizarre Acid-Trip Dimension City Noir.
• Aaron Burr's Villain Song "The Room Where It Happens" in Hamilton is an upbeat yet creepy song in which he finally decides to take control of his life instead of waiting to see what happens. It's rather jazzy and heavily features a southern banjo.
  • Averted by "What'd I Miss?", the Act II opening sung by Act II villain Thomas Jefferson. It's actually quite upbeat and happy (and yes, jazzy), and is just about Thomas Jefferson returning to America after the revolution to see what's changed. Like most examples of the trope, jazz is used to cement that Jefferson is from the South and old-fashioned (most of the musical is rapped, so Jefferson, who's been gone for 5 years, hasn't realized that the "music of the people" (especially the people of color) has changed from jazz to rap). It's not until Madison appears at the end of the song that less-historically-inclined viewers would even realize that Jefferson is meant to oppose Hamilton, not help him.
• The action of A Streetcar Named Desire is set around the corner from a jazz club, so throughout the play, distant jazz can be heard. What brings it into this trope is that the stage directions specify the jazz is at its loudest during scenes when Stanley, the play's villain, is at his most threatening, making it a kind of diegetic leitmotif for his rages.

Theme Parks

• Disney Theme Parks:
  • The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror has 1930s jazz music playing in the lobby as you're waiting to enter the library. To give it a creepy vibe, all the music has an echo effect added to it.
  • Phantom Manor's version of Grim Grinning Ghosts is done in a 1930s jazzy big band style.

Video Games

• In Ace Attorney, Shelly De Killer's theme, "Whim of a Murderous Gentleman", is a very smooth and slow tune befitting his classy, sinister nature.
• Alone in the Dark (2024): The soundtrack of the game, as shown off in the previews and prologue, is a jazzy score that is all at once relaxed, nostalgic, and mysterious. It also takes an intense feel in the announcement teaser as the characters are shown fighting monsters.
• Ape Out plays with this trope: 99% of the soundtrack consists of a frenetic drum solo, amplifying the chaotic atmosphere of the game. However, the final song, once the ape has escaped the zoo, is Pharoah Sanders' "You've Got to Have Freedom," a free jazz piece that somehow encapsulates both joy and unrest, but is not creepy by most standards.
• Bendy and the Ink Machine takes place in an old animation studio that worked with black-and-white cartoons. While the game's main soundtrack is not based on era music, the cartoons' soundtracks were.
• In Brutal Orchestra, jazz plays while fighting the Music Men, which are humanoids with giant red tumors on their heads that can use an ability called Feel the Rhythm to transform into flesh monsters in the shape of musical instruments. In an extremely twisted example of Variable Mix, the instrument their new form resembles is then incorporated into the music.
• Considering that Cuphead is styled after old cartoons like the ones that may have been this trope's Trope Codifier, it's only natural for the soundtrack to contain 3 hours of original jazz music. Nearly all of the battles are accompanied by frenetic jazz music, while other segments use more smooth jazz to create a more ominous effect. Special mention goes to "Die House", King Dice's Villain Song — the call-and-response segments in particular bring to mind some of the haunting tunes by Cab Calloway, who was a big influence on the game's soundtrack. The Delicious Last Course DLC plays around with its jazz influences, but emphasizes it in "Bootlegger Boogie" and combines it with influences from Nobuo Uematsu for its the Final Boss theme, "Baking the Wondertart".
• Deadly Premonition: One of the many factors contributing to this game's status as a Cult Classic, and holder of the Guinness World Record◊ for "Most Critically Polarizing Survival Horror Game" is the soundtrack, including a certain improv-heavy jazz tune.
• Some of the soundtrack to Don't Starve is this, especially the theme that plays when you chop down trees or mine in the spring. Also, the ragtime music that torments Maxwell.
• Played once in Double Homework when it is revealed that Dr. Mosely is spying on the protagonist and his classmates.
• Final Fantasy VII: Cait Sith's leitmotif is a catchy, yet somewhat sinister tune played on a jazz organ and flute. Fittingly, not only is he The Gambler, but a bit of a Jerkass.
• Germination: A jazz tune and some sci-fi effects play as you fight a seemingly endless horde of plants.
• Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards: While not quite as creepy as the Ripple Star Catacombs, Ripple Star's main theme makes up for that with its fast tempo, abrupt rapid-fire stings, and frantic tone.
• Lumines has the skin Dark Side Beside The River, a slow but still unnerving track with distorted voices serving as sound effects, along with a ghostly wailing saxophone in the background.
• The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes: Lady Maud's theme, which plays whenever Link encounters the Big Bad, is a downplayed example. It's in swing rhythm and features some dissonant, jazzy chords, but the instrumentation is all accordions and violins, making it a weird Out-of-Genre Experience for the rest of the game's orchestral soundtrack.
• In Mad Rat Dead, the songs that play in stages 3-3 ("Yellow invitation") and 3-4 ("plash, plop, gurgle") are Electroswing pieces derived from Ragtime and Big Band, respectively, which begin frantic and panicked but become increasingly distorted and discordant as they play out. Appropriately, these are the moments in the story when Mad Rat is most rapidly losing his grip on reality. "Ghost of Culvert" could qualify too, a fitting song to play when Mad Rat is up against the monstrous Ghost Rat.
• In the Monkey Island games, the Big Bad LeChuck and the ambiguously evil Voodoo Lady have creepy jazz leitmotifs. Similar music also accompanies stealth missions in The Secret of Monkey Island.
• In Nefarious, Crow has a swingy tune for his theme music.
• In Octopath Traveler, Sunshade's musical theme is a slowed-down jazz version of the desert town music. It contributes to the town's creepy atmosphere.
• In Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent, Oscar's theme opens with an eerie jazz piece that features the flute and saxophone as the main instruments. What makes it even creepier is where he is, what he just did, and what he proceeds to do when you first encounter him.
• OFF's default battle theme is "Pepper Steak", a jazzy piece with unsettling repetitions. Even the most lighthearted battles in this game are against mini-Eldritch Abominations, and the Batter himself is no less disturbing.
• Persona 5: "Last Surprise", the game's default combat music, is an upbeat jazz tune about how the singer's already got you beat before the fight even started.
• The Pyrite Town theme in Pokémon Colosseum and its sequel Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, emphasizing that it's a seedy and dangerous town (though it's cleaned up somewhat in the sequel).
• Sonic Rush Adventure has a loud, jazzy tune play during the battle with Captain Whisker and his Dragon, Johnny.
• Spirits of Anglerwood Forest: When you reach the nightmare world in Chapter 10, all you can hear is eerie distorted out-of-time jazz music that sounds like it's on a looping broken record player.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story: "It's Fawful!" is the jazzy leitmotif of the Mad Scientist Fawful. It's never a good sign when you hear the upright bass intro!
  • Two games later, Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam has a jazzy theme which is used for scenes involving Kamek, Bowser Jr. and The Koopalings.
  • Paper Mario: Sticker Star: The evil wizard Kamek has a jazz theme called "The Blue Wizard". Its Boss Remix has a similar style.
    • Due to Sticker Star's soundtrack being jazzy by nature, this also applies to themes involving Bowser, such as the World 6 theme, "The Giant Arises" (which returns in Paper Mario: Color Splash) and both of his boss themes.
  • In Super Mario 3D World: Bowser has a special jazzy leitmotif, that is remixed again for his world theme.
  • Super Mario Odyssey features a track that mixes minor chord jazz music with ominous electronic instruments for the Mechawiggler battle.
  • Bowser's themes in Mario Party 1, 2, 5, and 6.
• Triangle Strategy: The theme that plays when Travis, his daughter Trish, and their goons are on-screen is a rather slow and chill jazz band tune which carries a vaguely menacing undercurrent to it, being the kind of music you'd hear in the seedy parts of Norzelia.
• Undertale:
  • Downplayed with "Ghost Fight". The music itself fits this trope, being a swingy, but somewhat haunting tune, and could be an homage to OFF's example. But what prevents it from being a straight example is the context in which it plays. It's the boss music for Napstablook, a Shrinking Violet ghost who is reluctant to fight — certainly not the type of character usually associated with this type of music.
  • "Dummy!" is a Boss Remix that plays while fighting Mad Dummy.
  • The Game Mod Undertale: Bits and Pieces adds a new boss who mirrors the Human Child in their looks and powers: this unsettling battle is covered by the alien-sounding "One Step Ahead of Yourself".
• Wario Land: Shake It!: The Evil Chef boss Large Fry has a jazzy battle theme.

Web Animation

• Hazbin Hotel: Alastor's Villain Song in the pilot, "Inside of Every Demon is a Lost Cause," is done in this style because Alastor is a demon from the 1930s with a permanent case of Radio Voice.
• The Homestar Runner toon "DNA Evidence" features a slow, jazzy baseline during "suspenseful" moments. The toon is overall a pastiche of Film Noir/detective shows, and even features an homage to Twin Peaks.
• Ollie & Scoops: "Old Crumplecranks" mostly uses jazz music in the background, because it was inspired by certain Fleischer Studios cartoons which used similar music. Crumplecranks himself even sings a Villain Song in this style.
• Rat Movie: Mystery of the Mayan Treasure: The evil rats' leitmotif, Hangin Out, is a sinister, jazzy tune.

Web Comics

• Homestuck:
  • Snowman's leitmotif Three in the Morning is a cool jazz motif that enhances her sophistication and ominousness as a villain.
  • Snowman's rivals, The Midnight Crew, have an entire album of this dedicated to them.

Web Original

• Vinny of Vinesauce came across an unintentional example during his stream of OpenAI Jukebox, a neural net program that generates new music after being trained on samples of famous musicians (around 24:12 of that video, and here for the original Jukebox file). It was a "new song" from Louis Armstrong that featured incredibly wild and chaotic instrumentation along with a loudly babbling and screaming crowd (which one comment on Vinny's video compared to a "demented mosh pit"), all while Satchmo himself is talking frantically and unintelligibly.

Western Animation

• ChalkZone: The recurring villain Skrawl has a short jazz tune as his Villain Song. The song also doubles as a leitmotif for him, as he sings the tune in all of his appearances, but with different lyrics each time.
• Face Like a Frog's soundtrack was done by Oingo Boingo, and it adds to the surreal imagery throughout the short. The music is especially jazzy in the number "Don't Go in the Basement", which is sung by a creepy lizard-like creature who seems to be wearing a suit.
• Some shorts in The Golden Age of Animation, particularly those by Fleischer Studios, may have been Trope Codifiers:
  • The three Betty Boop shorts that famed jazz singer Cab Calloway performed in all feature some creepy jazz songs:
    • In Minnie the Moocher, Betty and Bimbo run away from home and eventually meet a ghost Wily Walrus who sings the old jazz song that the short is titled after, in order to scare them into going home.
    • The Old Man of the Mountain opens with everyone in town panicking and running as jazz music plays. One townsperson, an owl, stops when Betty asks him what's wrong, and he explains through song that everyone is running from the titular Old Man. Betty goes up to the mountain to try and stop the Old Man, and when she finally meets him, he starts flirting with her through song, and eventually starts chasing her (and apparently trying to rape her!)
    • Snow White (1933): When Snow White (Betty Boop) is killed by the witch, Calloway (as Koko the Clown) sings a haunting rendition of "Saint James Infirmary", while the witch transforms Koko into a weird ghost-like monster.
  • Swing, You Sinners! features a big jazz number where a bunch of ghosts torment Bimbo the dog after he tries to steal a chicken.
• Over the Garden Wall:
  • "Tales of the Dark Lantern" has The highwayman's song and "The Beast Song", ominous yet jazzy songs that homage the use of this trope in the Betty Boop cartoons. For bonus points, the highwayman even dances like Cab Calloway and the tavern keeper is modelled after Betty Boop!
  • "Babes in the Woods" has the Villain Song about "The Old North Wind" that plays when Greg accidentally sets him free.
• Silly Symphonies: In The Goddess of Spring, Pluto (god of the underworld, not Mickey's dog) celebrates kidnapping Persephone by singing a jazzy Villain Song about how he'll make her "Queen of Hades". The song includes imagery such as a bunch of imps dancing around a pit of hellfire, and an imp gleefully playing an Ominous Pipe Organ.
• A milder example than most appears in the instrumental version of Darkwing Duck which fits with the detective mystery theme and the Darker and Edgier angle of this cartoon.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy contains two spooky jazz songs composed and sung by Voltaire, "BRAINS!" and "Land of the Dead."

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