Mood Whiplash / Animated Films

Mood Whiplash in Animated Films.

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• One scene in All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 features David, a runaway boy with a knack for magic tricks, with Charlie, Itchy and Sasha (Charlie's love interest) singing a bright cheerful song about life on "Easy Street" at a center filled with other performers. However, when David screws up at one point and falls into the fountain, the other folks leave, and then song almost instantly changes to a Tear Jerker. (That scene starts out bright and sunny and next thing you know it's pouring with rain).
• Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, when the Joker confronts Arthur Reeves about the said Phantasm, he goes from intimidating, to nonchalant, to full-on psychopathic in about 2 and a half-minutes.
• Blue Mountain Mystery:
  • Luke's backstory — in which he blames himself for killing another engine — is noticeably dark compared to the rest of the movie. Not to mention it's juxtaposed with Thomas' optimistic, almost oblivious reaction to the story.
  • Thomas' triumph at solving the mystery is cut short when he reaches the Blue Mountain Quarry. The engines think he blabbed about Luke, and the mood quickly turns tense and dramatic.
  • Luke saves Thomas from falling off a ridge, which is a tense and triumphant moment. And then the two accidentally slide down Owen's incline. The other engines even laugh when this happens.
• Coraline is famous for transitioning from fantasy to horror at the halfway point, when the true intentions of the Other Mother are revealed.
• Disney movies, especially of the Disney Animated Canon or Pixar variety, tend to have a considerable amount of this.
  • In the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" segment of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Ichabod and his horse are enjoying a good laugh when they realize the hoofbeats they had been hearing were cattails hitting on a log. Then, all of a sudden their laughing is joined by one of the most sinister, insane, and terrifying laughs committed to any film, which makes them turn around in fear to see the Headless Horseman. The audience's mood goes from having a chuckle with Ichabod and his horse to wetting of underwear and comforting of the more sensitive children and adults.
    • The entire chase perfectly zig-zags the line between comedy and horror. The Horseman is always terrifying, but every move by Ichabod to escape is a riot. It's basically Wile E. Coyote trying to escape from Hannibal Lecter.
  • Aladdin: The titular character goes from sharing a long kiss with Jasmine to being tied up and dropped into the ocean by Jafar in seconds.
  • Just when Alice decides she's had enough of Wonderland, she spots a path that might take her home. She happily runs down it, the music brightens up, and it looks like she'll make it home in time for tea...but then a dog sweeps away the rest of the path before her eyes. Alice then sits on a rock and sings a song about how often she fails to heed "very good advice", which climaxes into her and the surrounding animals breaking into tears.
  • Bambi. The movie goes from Bambi finding out his mom is dead in the winter to singing birds and happy music in spring. Fortunately, the midquel takes place in-between this gap.
    • In-story, Bambi encounters Faline as a stag and is twitterpated, leading into a scene where he lovingly follows her... which is shattered by the sudden entrance of a rival buck.
  • Beauty and the Beast has several.
    • The Beast drags Maurice off. Gaston’s ridiculous marriage proposal follows.
    • The scene where the Beast asks Belle for dinner and the servants dealing with the aftermath is mostly Played for Laughs. The scene after it is the Beast furiously ranting before looking in his magic mirror just in time to see Belle staying she doesn’t want anything to do with him. The Beast then loses even more hope that the curse will be broken and basically calls himself a monster. Before the scene ends, a petal falls off the Rose.
    • The Beast’s heartbreaking release of Belle happens after the amazingly romantic and uplifting ballroom scene.
    • Gaston looking for the Beast so he can kill him is shown between the funny and happy fight of the servants and the villagers.
    • More of an in-universe example, but after the heartbreaking interaction where the Beast lets Belle go, Cogsworth comes in cheerfully declaring how great everything is going and how he always knew the curse could be broken.
  • Brave starts off with a Mood Whiplash scene. Small Merida is having a happy and relaxing family picnic with her father and mother before the gigantic bear Mor'du makes his first appearance. What makes it worse is that a few minutes earlier the audience knows that Mor'du was watching Merida when she had walked into the forest alone. What could have happened had Merida not followed the wisps back to safety?
    • And then we have a funny/heartwarming scene where Bear!Elinor and Merida fish together before Elinor suddenly lapses into acting like a real bear and almost attacks her own daughter.
  • The Brave Little Toaster inflicts this on viewers when Blanky cries after the appliances’ beloved “master” appears to come back, but doesn’t. At first he gently sobs and the viewer empathizes with him, but then he takes it over the top and they do a Spit Take and burst out giggling.
    • Also, In-Universe, Blanky again bursts into tears when he and the others see a “For Sale” sign going up outside their cabin, accompanied by Radio’s humming of “Taps” and Lampy wailing in despair. Said sign convinces them that their beloved master is never coming back. Toaster then puts his/her foot down, yelling “STOP IT!”, jumping on a soapbox and announcing that the appliances are leaving to find their master, prompting a Big "WHAT?!" from the others.
  • The Courtship ceremony from Dinosaur (which involves lemurs participating in a merrymaking ritual so they can find mates) ends with a meteorite hitting Earth.
  • The opening sequence of Finding Nemo has Marlin and Coral engaging in excited new-parent banter before Coral comes face to face with a barracuda, leading to one of Pixar's nastiest Tear Jerkers.
    • In-universe is the scene in which Dory and Marlin are blissfully happy in the presence of a strange glowing light, which Marlin even lampshades as being odd for him. They then realize that the light is attached to a really, incredibly terrifying angler fish. Again lampshaded: "Good feeling's gone.”
  • Frozen (2013): Just after the jovial "Fixer Upper", Anna suddenly faints and nearly collapses in Kristoff's arms, a sign that her heart has been frozen by Elsa and the fatal side effects are starting to take effect.
  • In Frozen II, Elsa reaches Ahtohollan and gets to sing with a memory of her mother, and is overjoyed. A few minutes later, she learns about her grandfather's treachery and is turned to ice, effectively dying.
  • Three instances in A Goofy Movie:
    • Comedy to pathos in the principal's office, where this occurs:
      Bobby (holding large blob of cheese): Hey, look, Max! It's the leaning tower of cheesa! (eats the blob)
      PJ (walking hesitantly, face petrified, monotone voice): My dad is going to smash me like a bug.
    • Flipping between comedy and peril when Bigfoot is around, alternately threatening them and randomly messing with their stuff.
    • A heartwarming bonding moment to peril when Max and Goofy are finally talking to each other while about to fall off the waterfall.
  • The Great Mouse Detective has a big one at the very beginning. Olivia is celebrating her birthday with her father, complete with a beautiful dancing wind-up doll as a present. Then Fidget comes by and violently kidnaps her dad, and Olivia is left on a dark, foggy street, calling sadly out for her father, and then comes the distressingly jaunty title card music.
  • The Disney version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. A dramatic sequence is immediately followed by the comic musical number "A Guy Like You", which undermines the effect of both scenes.
    • And then it's promptly followed by another fairly serious scene (though far lower-key than the previous dramatic sequence).
    • Heaven's Light/Hellfire. Quasimodo is singing calmly and sweetly about how wonderful it feels to have someone actually care about him, and then Frollo has a bombastic Villain Song about his inner turmoil and sexual frustration driving him to sin. The worst part is that both these songs are about the same person.
    • The Festival of Fools scene is probably Disney's biggest example of this, if not the biggest example of all time. It goes from comical and whimsical ("Topsy Turvy") to potentially sad (everyone realizes Quasimodo's face is Not a Mask) to comical (the rest of "Topsy Turvy") to horrific and tearjerking (everyone present tortures Quasimodo) to heartwarming and pure (Esmeralda's rescue of Quasimodo) to action-filled and comical (Esmeralda's escape) and then finally to relentlessly depressing (Frollo confronts Quasimodo, who retreats to the cathedral). All in one scene.
  • The Incredibles: After the Parrs have succeeded in taking down the giant Omnidroid that was threatening the city, they are basking in a job well done while being shuttled home in a limo provided by Agent Dicker. The festive mood is shattered as Helen encounters Kari's voice messages growing in panic, but in her last message she returns to her normal chipper and friendly tone and says thanks for sending a replacement (who turns out to be Syndrome).
  • Incredibles 2 also does this, flip-flopping between superhero fighting scenes and mundane civilian life from start to finish.
  • In Inside Out, one of the main perpetrators of this is the gum commercial, which has a habit of appearing at very inappropriate moments. For example, when Anger is about to implant the idea of running away, he shows some happy memories of Minnesota, only to get the gum commercial instead.
    • A bit later, when questioned by Disgust on how to get money for a bus ticket, Anger immediately responds "Mom's purse", and as he's about to show where they last saw it...
  Commercial: TripleDent Gum—
  Anger: 'NO!!’
  • Lady and the Tramp has the sad scene of old Trusty apparently dying in the climax. And then it's suddently Christmas, with him being alive after all and all is fine and well.
  • To name one example from Lilo & Stitch, one scene features a hilarious slapstick fight between Jumba and Stitch involving use of a Volkswagen Beetle as a blunt instrument, the immortal line "Oh, good! My dog found the chainsaw!", and hot-potato with an overloaded plasma gun. The very next scene has Nani and Lilo's house blown to kingdom come, Cobra Bubbles chewing Nani out for her failures as a parent figure and trying to take Lilo away, and Lilo angrily blaming Stitch for ruining everything.
    Lilo: (to Stitch, bitterly) You ruined everything.
    (Stitch exposes his antennae, spikes, and extra arms)
    Lilo: You're one of them? (shoves Stitch into the ground) Get outta here, Stitch.
    • Another example occurs earlier on when a short struggle between Stitch, Jumba and Pleakely ends with Pleakely and Jumba bouncing away on the ocean like a skipping stone. A few seconds beforehand, Stitch had almost dragged Lilo to the bottom of the ocean with him, and when we cut back to Lilo, Nani, David and Bubbles, they're all as happy as you'd expect.
  • In The Lion King (1994), just after the horrific Tear Jerker of Mufasa's death, Simba flees for his life with the hyenas in hot pursuit. The harrowing chase sequence ends with Banzai falling into a thorn patch, then cartoonishly jumping 15 feet into the air clutching his soon-to-be titled "cactus butt". Shortly after, Scar proceeds to tell the pride that both Mufasa and Simba have died and assumes the throne, which is immediately followed by Timon and Pumbaa "bowling for buzzards."
    • Lion King is basically Mood Whiplash: The Movie. Every time something epic, dramatic, or emotional happens, it's immediately followed by something comedic and lighthearted (except for the ending). Another example would be that after Simba and Nala have a dramatic fight and Simba cries about how much he misses Mufasa and how guilty he feels over his death, it's immediately followed by Rafiki acting crazy, which is then followed by Simba realizing his father's spirit is within him and that he needs to face his past, which is THEN followed by him getting hit by a stick. A making-of documentary ([1]) describes this constant alternation between tragedy and comedy as being one of the film's "Shakespearean" qualities, as well as reinforcing the story's underlying theme that adversity can be overcome and the circle of life goes on.
  • The Lion King II: Simba's Pride features a hopeful, uplifting musical number about how the animal world is one big family supporting each other. Then it switches to a vicious Villain Song where the Big Bad sings about how she Loves the Sound of Screaming.
  • The Little Mermaid: One scene shows Ariel in her grotto, admiring her Prince Eric statue. But then Triton shows up, starts confronting her, and when she unintentionally explains she loves Eric, destroys all her human artifacts in a rage.
    • When Vanessa's wedding with a hypnotized Eric is crashed by Scuttle and his friends, Scuttle breaks the magic shell containing Ariel's voice, giving it back to her... and the sun sets just as she and Eric are about to kiss, turning Ariel's legs back into a tail as Vanessa bellows "You're too late!" and turns back into Ursula.
  • Moana features a scene with the namesake character retreating to an overlook after being scolded by her father Tui for thinking about leaving the island and her tribe. Trying to comfort her, her mother Sina tries to help Moana understand Tui's point of view by telling her how Tui watched his best friend drown after he tried to explore beyond the island. When Sina heads back to the village leaving Moana sitting by the coast, the film begins its "I Am Becoming" song.
  • Mulan: You'd never have guessed that such a happy, cheerful Disney Acid Sequence could end in such a way. The last line is even cut short in order to emphasize this; the soldiers immediately stop singing, mid-sentence, when they reach the charred ruins of a village. And there's a more subtle change too. From this point on, there are no further songs until the end credits (outside of a brief, non-diagetic reprise of "I'll Make a Man Out of You"). At that moment, the entire film ceases to be a Disney musical.
  • Oliver & Company has a wide variety of Mood Whiplash moments, but even in the first few minutes of the movie, it goes from a pleasant scene involving a bunch of cats being adopted from a box during daytime, to Oliver being all alone in said box at night, while the rain is washing it away and he is left out in the rain, trying to make his way around and being chased by vicious dogs. What's interesting about this transition is that the same song, "Once Upon A Time In New York City" is playing throughout said intro sequence, and sounds pleasant in the former part and unpleasant in the latter part, without a significant change in melody.
  • The Princess and the Frog is a thoroughly lighthearted return to the classic Disney form, albeit with a more humorous tone almost akin to Aladdin. That is, until Ray's death. It just comes out of nowhere, and besides, he's a comic relief. Normally it's a serious character that dies in a Disney film. Incidentally, another Mood Whiplash comes when we see Ray coming back as a star right next to Evangeline- and then it's back to lightheartedness again.
  • In Ratatouille, Collette and Linguini have a sweet Falling-in-Love Montage, during which Remy falls in the middle of the street and is nearly killed some half a dozen times.
  • In Strange Magic, the Bog King is hesitantly but sincerely starting a slow love confession using the song 'Can't Help Falling in Love With You' only to be interrupted by Marianne taking over the love confession with the high energy rock version of 'Wild Thing’.
  • After the lovely duet between Flynn and Rapunzel in Tangled where they had their Almost Kiss, Flynn sees the Stabbington brothers and the atmosphere visibly darkens.
    • In-story, after Rapunzel has left the tower for the first time, she continually switches from being happy to depressed. "I'm free!"/"Mother is going to kill me..."/"This is the best day of my life!"/"I'm the worst daughter ever! I am going back!"/"I'm never going back!"
    • In the scene where Rapunzel first asks Mother Gothel to take her to see the lanterns, the conversation goes abruptly between relatively playful banter and deeply disturbing emotional manipulation on Mother Gothel's part.
    • In the scene where Rapunzel has Flynn tied to the chair, Flynn starts using Antiquated Linguistics to cheesy pickup lines in the span of one sentence. It's like the scene shifted from something out of William Shakespeare to Joey from Friends.
  • Examples from Toy Story 3 include Lotso going from friendly to vicious when Buzz calls himself and his friends a family, or Lotso throwing all the toys in their cells.
  • Up has a cutesy musical montage showing Carl and Ellie after their marriage, with the two doing heartwarming activities together, like building their house out of the abandoned one they met in and saving up to travel to Paradise Falls, but during this montage, we also see Ellie crying at the doctor's because she cannot have children, followed by some happy re-bonding, but then her growing ill and Carl standing alone at her funeral.
    • Then, for further whiplash, right after this tragic image fades away, we see another, purely comedic musical montage set to "Habanera" from Carmen of Carl getting up in the morning, complete with an Overly Long Gag involving a stairlift.
    • Also, there's another scene that begins with Carl and Russel having dinner with Charles Muntz, Carl's childhood hero, that was prepared by his dogs, who also eat the food they prepared off of Russel's plate when his back is turned. It ends with Carl and Russel running for their lives from said dogs after Muntz showed them the helmets of his last visitors. Also, all of this is in a kids' movie.
  • At the end of WALL•E, try immediately restarting the movie. What were Amusing Injuries two hours ago are not funny now.
  • In Turning Red, Mei and her friends celebrate being able to go to the 4*Town concert only to hear on the radio that it's not on the date they thought it was but instead coincides with the date and time of the red moon ritual which for Mei is the worst possible time it could turn out to be.
  • Who Framed Roger Rabbit contains what must be a pitch-perfect parody; all throughout the movie, Eddie Valiant has been haunted by what happened to him and his brother in Toontown, and towards the end he has to return there for the first time in years. He has to work up his courage and engage in a long, tense drive through a seemingly never-ending tunnel, with the music and moment increasingly tense, as if there was something very, very sinister waiting at the other end... only for a curtain to lift at the end of the tunnel with a brightly coloured cartoon paradise on the other side with hundreds of happy cartoon animals cheerfully singing "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!" and cartoon hummingbirds chirping "Hiya Eddie!”
  • In Wreck-It Ralph, we watch Vanellope's Training Montage, in which Ralph gets several Amusing Injuries. She and Ralph are about to head off to the race, and both are quite excited. The entire scene is lighthearted and comedic - right up until the point at which King Candy shows up, explaining to Ralph how Vanellope's participation in the races would doom the entire Sugar Rush game - and therefore condemn Vanellope to a painful death.
    • Also earlier in the film, during The Cameo of Street Fighter II, Ryu just delivered a fierce Shoryuken to Ken right after hearing that the arcade's closed... and immediately goes on a more laid-back "Oh boy, what a day." and invites Ken for a drink at Tapper's.
• In Epic (2013), MK and Nod come back from a romantic ride on a deer - only to realize that while they were gone, Mandrake kidnapped Mub, Grub, and the pod.
• Golden Films does this with their films.
  • In their take of Anastasia, the movie goes completely off-track from Anastasia's family being killed and Russia being taken over by Rasputin and instead, focuses on Anastasia with Alexander.
    • Uncle Boris's introduction is one after Anastasia awakens with amnesia.
  • In The Legend of Su-Ling, when the nightingale is sulking in its cage, the Emperor tries to get his right-hand man Wang to make it sing. The silly hijinks music plays as he vainly tries to get it to sing.
  • Little Angels: The Brightest Christmas: Daniel's dog is hit by a truck, and Daniel winds up mourning over his body, grieving over the loss of his companion. The dog goes to Heaven... where the angels sing an upbeat song about the dog's death, and then bring him back to life, playing the scene almost for comedy.
  • Pocahontas (Golden Films) has a dark example. Pocahontas's husband dies at sea and, for a few shots, it focuses on Pocahontas mourning his death. The next scene rolls around and John Smith returns. There's no time indicated on how long Pocahontas was in mourning and it makes it look like her husband is completely forgotten about.
  • In their second version of Beauty and the Beast, Beauty is in her room, crying about being held captive and being taken away from her family. The next scene, after the ghosts try cheering her up by showing off dresses, cuts to Beauty wandering the halls and seeming a little less sad than before.
    • In that same movie, there's a scene where Beauty is knocked out after falling down a flight of stairs. She wakes up and sees the Beast who apologizes for scaring her and offers her a rose. The next scene is literally showing her in a different gown and talking to a magic mirror. Nothing else establishes what happened between those scenes and how the magic mirror was worked into the movie.
• Horton Hears a Who! (2008):
  • The feeling of relief from having escaped Vlad in a previous scene vanishes when he shows up again, this time even more determined to destroy the clover. The following chase scene is pretty tense, but it still manages to fit in a couple of gags, such as Horton plowing through a snowcapped mountain and expelling the snow like a steam train, and complaining about "brain freeze" afterwards. About a minute after this happens, Vlad drops the clover off an enormous cliff. Things get more than a little sad after that, a mood that persists for several minutes before another joke-heavy scene.
  • Near the climax when the Kangaroo is about to have Horton caged and the clover boiled, he gives a rather heartfelt speech to her and the crowd. She finds it touching... then demands Horton caged.
• The Iron Giant has several.
  • After a brief peaceful moment of the Giant interacting with a deer, the deer takes off into the woods and is later shot by a group of hunters.
  • After a somber explanation of death regarding said deer, Hogarth goes home and puts away his bike in the barn, where Kent Mansley is waiting to interrogate him for the location of the Giant.
  • After the townsfolk of Rockwell witness an act of heroism, then the US Army begins to attack it.
• Joseph: King of Dreams goes from Joseph singing on top of a hill about his general awesomeness, to being locked in a cell with a tree for company.
• The Kung Fu Panda movies have made an art form out of this. At any point in any movie, you could be laughing, crying, cheering, or any combination of the three.
• The Land Before Time goes from Littefoot's Mother Kicking Sharptooth's ass, leading to her death, and then to a scene in which a bunch of baby flying pterosaurs (including Petrie) fight over a cherry, complete with catchy music in the background. It goes back to Littlefoot and his sorrow soon enough, but still.
  • Most Don Bluth movies are like this. Take An American Tail for example. The "No Cats in America" song actually switches moods within the verses—repeatedly. Said musical number does finish on an upbeat note...but is immediately followed by the heartbreaking sequence where Fievel gets washed overboard in a storm.
• Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted: Amidst all the colorful wackiness there's a quiet drama scene with Alex the lion and Vitaly the tiger. In the middle of it, for no apparent reason, the two cats have a brief slap fight over a ball of yarn.
• A lot in Megamind. Probably the funniest is Megamind's sincere & heartfelt speech towards the dead Metro Man at his museum, followed by a comical scene where he runs around after realizing how strong the explosion he set at the museum was.
• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls has Twilight Sparkle ecstatic over winning the crown in Canterlot High School's Fall Formal. Seconds later, Spike screams for help, having been dog-napped by Snips and Snails.
• My Little Pony: The Movie (2017):
  • The opening festival scene is very cheery and upbeat, but things immediately take a much darker turn when Tempest Shadow arrives with the Storm King's army.
  • The Parrots are threatening to mistreat the pony stowaways, and then to have them Walk the Plank... except for a clock to blow a whistle indicating lunchtime. Cue the ponies welcomed at the former pirates' table.
  • The whimsical "One Small Thing" musical number, which convinces Queen Novo to help the Mane Six, is immediately followed by Twilight being caught trying to steal the Pearl of Transformation and Novo kicking them out for it, and right after that, the movie's Darkest Hour.
• 9 example: the Fabrication Machine's factory has just exploded violently, the dolls are rejoicing, the twins are playing a recording of Over the Rainbow—and then the Machine rises up from the wreckage and kills a screaming 5 while Over the Rainbow continues to play.
• In Penguins of Madagascar, A young girl sees Dave in the snow globe, and says he's cool. Skipper wishes Dave to find happiness, but then the girl starts to shake the snowglobe rapidly.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie: Robert is plotting to assassinate his brother the King, and at one point he forces his nephew to watch a demonstration of how he intends to carry out said assassination. This scene is followed up by Elliot singing a goofy song and annoying George with it.
• The film of The Secret of Kells qualifies as this, such as going from scenes of happy forest antics to a scene filled with horror in a matter of minutes - and sometimes even ''seconds’’.
• Done very well in The Spongebob Squarepants Movie; SpongeBob is told he's not getting promoted to manager of the Krusty Krab 2, and the scene moves on to Plankton carrying out his evil scheme to steal King Neptune's crown. Then after the funny scene of Neptune realising his crown is gone, the scene goes to the bar where we're introduced to the Goofy Goober mascot and the audience joining in and singing along to his theme song. The camera pans over to a different part of the bar, where poor SpongeBob is in tears over not getting the promotion and not joining in on the fun at all. The scene goes back to being funny when Patrick arrives, but still.
• During their initial theatrical releases in Japan, the Studio Ghibli films Grave of the Fireflies and My Neighbor Totoro were shown together as a double feature. With the former being a devastating look at the horrors of war. and the latter being a warm-hearted, whimsical tale, this naturally caused some discord within audiences. Not surprising when you consider, the double feature was marketed at parents and their children.
• In the 2007 film TMNT, there's a rather amusing fight in a diner between Raphael (in his Nightwatcher gear) and a tiny monster. This is promptly followed by Leonardo confronting Raphael and learning that his brother is the Nightwatcher, the two falling out and fighting, Raph almost killing Leo, and topping it all off, Leo getting captured by the Stone Generals.
• In Wolfwalkers, a heartwarming moment when Mebh finally reunites with her mother Moll and forgives Robyn immediately takes a turn for the dramatic when Bill shoots Moll with his crossbow out of nowhere, mistaking her for a threat to Robyn.

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