Mood Whiplash / Other Media

• There are two things that Ken Matsudaira is well-known for. One of them is starring as a tough samurai in the Japanese TV series The Violent Shogun, in which he saves village after village from different menaces like corrupt officials. He occasionally did stage shows where the first act involved samurai dramas along a similar line. The second act of his show quickly became the other thing Matsudaira is famous for.
• This happens all the time with television commercials, either between the content of the program and the commercials that ensue, or the commercials themselves. One minute, you're nearly bawling at sad, dying animals, and then "HAVE YOU GOT DIARRHEA?!?!?!" Cue upbeat music. Yes, you can go crawl in a hole and die now.
  • This happened during every single commercial break for Kate Gosselin's interview before the final episode of Jon & Kate Plus Eight. One minute you're seeing the Tear Jerker account of a woman whose marriage has come undone in a very public manner, then light-hearted music and previews for the two giant-family shows that'll be replacing hers.
  • Hallmark Channel is especially guilty of this, particularly during their 2 AM - 3 AM block of sitcoms. They used to have a commercial for St Jude's Children's Hospital, featuring images of children dying of cancer while a very sad (and somewhat creepy) Pink Martini song plays, during every commercial break. Usually in the break's final slot, making it somewhat hard to laugh at Frasier and Cheers when we just watched kids going through chemotherapy.
  • There's a similar commercial for the Humane Society with sad, abused animals in cages, staring at the viewer with Sorrowful Eyes, over captions like "Why do they beat me?" "When will someone come get me?" while Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" plays. Makes it hard to get back to the inanity of Cheers and the like.
  • This also happens during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which is one of the most dopey-happy annual TV events this side of the Eurovision Song Contest. Sometimes the last slot(s) in the commercial break will be filled with an ad for a more dramatic NBC fare like Believe, The Blacklist and Chicago Fire, a PSA for something like the aforementioned St. Jude's, and/or something just melancholic. Back from commercial, though, and they hit us with a high-energy dance group/cheerleaders, an upbeat and poppy song from whoever's popular at the time, a troupe of tap-dancing Christmas trees, or the Power Rangers. However, this varies depending on which NBC affiliate you're watching it from, as they sometimes overwrite ads to air local promos/promos for other networks. Subverted during earlier parades in which everything was more laid-back, making it easier for more downbeat ads to ease into the parade's typical Narm Charm.
  • Hulu has this in spades. So you're watching a dramatic show where the main character just died/killed someone important/reunited with a lost family member when- Bam! A chipper commercial about makeup or iPods with bright colors and upbeat music. The fact that most of the commercials aren't lined up to places where there originally should have been a break on the initial TV run just makes it all worse.
  • The ACC of New Zealand ran a series of safety ads in the early-mid 2000s before being banned. The most notorious ad features a mother advertising a product called "Fruit-E-Bars" before tripping over her son's Tonka truck and falling headfirst into a coffee table.
  • By their very nature, newscasts can often result in this type of scenario, as advertisers don't know what stories will unfold when they buy their ad time on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite months in advance. During the May 15, 1972 edition, the lead story was the attempted assassination of Alabama Governor and 1972 Democratic presidential candidate George Wallace, who was shot and left paralyzed during a Maryland campaign stop). The very first commmercial? A Savings and Loan ad, complete with a cheesy jingle.
    • Amid the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, CNN was running B-roll of air raid sirens over Kyiv as a tease, only for the first commercial in the ensuing commercial break to be a peppy ad for Applebee's with Zac Brown Band music. Even worse, it was also being aired in a split-screen with a live shot of Kyiv in a window next to it. Needless to say, Applebee's temporarily pulled their advertising from CNN after they found out.
    • On the morning of September 11, 2001, NBC aired a relatively upbeat McDonalds commercial, with their slogan of the era "We love to see you smile." When Today returned moments later, the anchors were discussing news of a plane that had crashed into the World Trade Center. Needless to say, people were not going to be smiling much that day.
  • The 2015 Superbowl featured a Nationwide commercial featuring a boy telling viewers of all the rites of passage he will never get to experience... because he was killed in an accident.
  • Not even Tubi is safe from this. So, you’re watching Cop Dog, and Marlowe is being run over by a car and it looks like you’re about to freak out... but then the ad break shows up and now you’re frustrated!
• Any news broadcast period will have instances of Mood Whiplash, roughly one per broadcast. For example, one news reporter will be closing up on a live broadcast from the scene of a horrific home invasion-turned-slaying and then, after a brief acknowledgment from the in-studio anchors about the news story, those same anchors will start cheerily reporting on a family fun event at a local park, or about the surprising benefits of some commonly-consumed food item.
• When networks interrupt programming for breaking news or other special reports, they often return to regularly-scheduled programs "already in progress". One minute you could be watching a daytime presidential press conference. The next minute, the reporter signs off, and you're unceremoniously dumped into the upbeat cavalcade of cash and prizes that is The Price Is Right.
  • One such example occurred when John McCain died on August 25, 2018; NBC interrupted a Saturday-night rerun of America's Got Talent for its special report, and returned in the middle of a performance by Yumbo Dump—a duo which performs sound effects using their body parts. More specifically, they rejoined in the middle of a segment they dubbed "Dolphin Love Story".
  • On November 22, 1963, CBS's early news bulletins regarding the Kennedy assassination were followed by commercials for dog food.
  • On March 11, 2020, those who were watching Fox on the east coast were treated with former governor of Alaska (and John McCain's 2008 running mate) Sarah Palin being eliminated from The Masked Singer and performing a reprise of "Baby Got Back" over the credits, followed immediately by Donald Trump giving an oval office speech at 9:00 p.m. ET to address COVID-19 being declared a pandemic, and announcing a restriction on travel from Europe. This was then followed over the ensuing hour by preliminary reports of Tom Hanks and his wife having contracted the disease, and the NBA suspending its season indefinitely after a player tested positive. Needless to say, Sarah Palin singing a rap song about butts in a pink and purple bear costume was considered by many to be a weird coda for the events that would transpire.
  • A particularly jarring example happened during an airing of Here's Humphrey on Galavisión during 9/11. At around 10:19 am, during a segment where Humphrey was choosing which cake to display in a store (including a plane shaped cake), the station, without warning, abruptly switched to parent station Univision's coverage of the attacks.
• British broadcasters have agreed to very strict and coordinated procedures on how they publicize the deaths of high-profile members of the royal family. One such requirement is for radio stations to go to a special report from their news service announcing the death, play the national anthem, and then move onto a programme of appropriate mourning music. Affiliates of Independent Radio News (a network that syndicates national news bulletins for commercial radio stations in the United Kingdom) have "OBIT lights" in their studio, which are meant to avert mood whiplash by giving stations enough forewarning to change their programming accordingly.
  • However, when the Queen Mother died in 2000, IRN made the mistake of not properly activating the system (one report says it requires two buttons, but only one was pressed), so many stations were caught off-guard. A British radio DJ documented his own experience with the death in a blog post: the station's producer phoned him while he was doing a post-show for a football match, and told him that they would go to the bulletin at the top of the hour. When that time came, the DJ accidentally announced that the Saturday-night "party mix" was coming up next.
  • The majority of the aforementioned blog post discusses how he handled the death of Princess Diana (which happened during a late-night shift at his station, with the only other person present being the late-night DJ on its sister station), having to go right from Sheryl Crow to the news bulletin. Chaos ensued when they were only able to find a copy of "God Save the Queen" on a tape cartridge they couldn't play anymore because they had switched to a computerized system. Although they could still play vinyl records, they decided against playing Queen's cover from A Night at the Opera instead, which would have really been Mood Whiplash. They skipped directly to playing a tape reel of mourning music, only to find that the tape contained jingles from before the station was rebranded, necessitating them to do their own mourning playlist instead until the morning hosts arrived.
  • An ITV late-night lineup produced by London News Network (a joint venture between Carlton and LWT that handled local news and master control for their ITV franchises) had its own case of whiplash earlier that same night. A commercial break between programmes had an ITN news update that featured an early report on Diana's car crash, sandwiched between an ad for a sex feature in tomorrow's News of the World, and a Station Ident cheerfully introducing Carnal Knowledge — a game show about sex. This can be blamed on the lineup (and especially the continuity) being pre-recorded, with the schedule only allowing for quick, 90-second long news updates every so often (evidently they hadn't thought about contingency plans for things like this happening overnight).
  • The entire freaking ITV lineup after the death of the Queen Mother in 2002 also qualifies. Half the schedule of Saturday-night light entertainment was torn to shreds, half of it still aired, and this was the end result. That episode of Denis Norden's Laughter File aired against BBC News coverage, and turned out to be the most-watched show of the night.
  • The death of Elizabeth II on September 8, 2022 was on the same day as the opening game of the 2022 National Football League season in the United States. NBC's pre-game show was mocked by viewers for several awkward moments where Hoda Kotb read a promo for continuing coverage on Today, only to go right back to being excited about football (complete with a large, cheering audience around her).
• This PSA starts out as a cute and funny ad about a young girl who wants to adopt a baby. It provides an important message about how adopting a child is a huge responsibility, and also informs viewers about the dangers of teen pregnancy. Then, at the end, it turns out to be an abortion ad showing a miserable pregnant teenage girl who can't get an abortion, and has to live with the consequences.
• Radio stations and music television channels will also run into this. More often than not, their programming is almost completely random, and even if they stick to a specific genre, the songs will run the gamut from fun and silly to poignant and sad. Country radio and CMT can be especially prone to this since country music can be especially gut-wrenching. You can jump from a very sad, dramatic song about substance abuse or domestic violence like "Blown Away" from Carrie Underwood straight into a more light-hearted song from Taylor Swift or even a comedy party song like "Red Solo Cup" from Toby Keith.
  • Radiothons where people can request songs in exchange for charity donations, especially if listeners can request any song, regardless of the station's format (which in this case is almost always top 40 radio). Common genres that are requested include - but are not limited to - country, oldies, movie and TV music, hard rock, Christmas music, novelty songs/jingles and overall anything that no other stations in their right mind would play in their free time. One minute you're getting absorbed in something like Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide", Imagine Dragons' "On Top Of The World", or Bette Midler's "Wind Beneath My Wings" when all of a sudden... Rubber duckie, you're the one... For an inverse of this, you can go from stuff like Rebecca Black's "Friday" to stuff like Sarah McLachlan's "I Will Remember You". (This one actually happened during one such event.)
  • One very infamous outtake from the American Top 40 involves Casey Kasem going on a profane-laden rant after having to do a death dedication to a dog after just coming out of an uptempo song.
• In the world of political ads, few are as reeking of mood whiplash as this actual ad for the (now defunct) Israeli political party "Holocaust Survivors and Grown-Up Green Leaf Party," advocating a dual platform of supporting the rights of Holocaust survivors and marijuana legalization. If the video doesn't play, imagine a scene of a poor Holocaust survivor scored like Schindler's List, suddenly followed by a peppy jingle about marijuana legalization.
• A PSA that raises awareness of mass shootings starts off as a love story between two high-school students, then as they meet at the gym, another student comes in with a rifle in his hand.
• One Sentence splashes itself all over the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism, with one entry providing definitive proof that Humans Are Bastards, and the next stating unequivocally that Rousseau Was Right. Read down the front page, and you will find yourself punching your fist in the air, weeping uncontrollably, awwwwwing and laughing. Often at the same time.
• The Post Secret books. One page will be a hysterically funny postcard, and the next will be about someone purposefully miscarrying their baby.
• This short comic◊ is, in fact, a perfect example of the trope.
• This Spider-Man comic strip.◊
• ABC viewers experienced this while awaiting the start of Game 3 of the 1989 World Series. One moment, the music leading up to the intro is a smooth, James Taylor song...a a couple of moments later, the Loma Prieta earthquake hits.
• HBO's Comic Relief specials would often alternate between hilarious stand-up comedy performances and solemn "please help the homeless" speeches. Granted, the help the homeless message was the point of the specials, but it was still jarring. This also happened on NBC's Comic Relief telethon.
• Any sort of music player that allows you to randomly shuffle your music qualifies, as you can go from Ominous Latin Chanting to peppy upbeat pop music or pretty much anything else.
• At Disney Theme Parks, the normally wholesome "Celebrate a Dream Come True" parade used to have a float dedicated to the Disney Villains, singing about their dreams coming true.
• Done in a good way in the short film LOVEFIELD, available here.
• A National Geographic article about women in Afghanistan had photos that went like this: A thirteen year old girl who tried to commit suicide by setting herself on fire; an Afghan wedding where the ladies are wearing fancy Western-style dresses and what appears to be the entire country's supply of makeup; then another teenager who tried to escape an abusive marriage and had her ears and nose cut off (this is apparently a common thing; another photo on NGS's site echoes the famous "Afghan Girl" photo, only the subject has no nose); then some young girls from the wedding getting prepped at a beauty salon.
• This entry for the Wacom Bring Your Vision To Life: Dreams Contest. On the top left corner, we have a boy's parents mourning in front of a doctor at a hospital; and on the right, we have three little animals greeting that boy at a stairway to a potentially pain-free world.
• Suivre la parade, the second major touring show by comedian Louis-José Houde, takes a pretty dark turn in the second act: it goes from rapid-fire observational humor and crazy anecdotes to Houde recounting the story of his girlfriend's abortion. The jokes in this section are, understandably, fewer and much less "zany."
• Used to great effect in Christopher Titus's comedy. Considering that much of his comedy is as black as a panther in a coal mine, it's to be expected.
• There's this British driving PSA called "Crash". It starts off looking like a car commercial from the point-of-view of the driver - happy, bright, and peppy. Around halfway the driver begins to nearly hit several people but it looks like it'll be played the laughs... Until the end where he hits a guy and the music stops.
• Turnabout Storm has constant minor examples of these, par the course of one of the series involved in the crossover, swinging constantly between comedic, serious, and suspenseful mood. Part 4 has the most extreme example, which at one point goes from a really sad and heartwarming scene to a hysterical fit of rage.
  Phoenix: That certainly killed the sad atmosphere...
• A PSA about buzzed driving shows paramedics working on a guy in the back of an ambulance. His friend is riding along and crying while saying "This isn't happening! I just had a couple of drinks! I wasn't drunk! I was just buzzed!" One paramedic stops and says "Oh. Why didn't you say so?" Another says. "Yeah, that changes everything. This isn't happening." The guy sits up, tubes still attached, and says "I feel much better now!" The friend says "Really?" They all say "Nope!" The guy falls back on the gurney and the paramedics go back to work.
• In NASCAR, Michael Waltrip took the checkered flag in first at the 2001 Daytona 500, then learned a half hour later that Dale Earnhardt had crashed in turn 4 and had been killed instantly.
  • Similarly, at the 1994 San Marino Formula One Grand Prix, Ferrari's test driver Nicola Larini (substituting for the regular driver Jean Alesi) finished second - his career best result at his team's home circuit. He drove the slow-down lap waving to the crowd and flying a Ferrari flag, only to learn that Ayrton Senna had died after a crash earlier in the race.
• On August 31st, 2013, Toonami aired Evangelion 2.22, a very serious, dark, and depressing movie. They followed this up with a special "treat" that would air right after the movie and again after Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Big O. What was this "treat"? Kick-Heart, a comedic and surreal animated short produced by Production I.G.
• From raocow's Copy Kitty Let's Play, after the absolute insanity he goes through during the battle with Exgal...
  Raocow: TIME TO TAKE A CAT NAP!
• Happens in this commercial. A group of students decides to blow off school and hang out at a beach. They're having a good time, and we have upbeat music playing... and then the music stops, and the students start blowing up. The "beach" was an explosives testing site. The message is "This is what happens when you slack off".
• The Showyou, Frequency, and Watchup streaming video apps tend to do this at times when showing random videos from various sources selected by the user.
• Language learning platform Duolingo features sentences ranging from mundane to hilarious or depressing. Getting them in certain orders will cause odd mood swings in the lesson. Some concrete examples:
  • The Spirituality skill from Danish for English Speakers. One lesson is all about zombies, aliens, and vampires, with such delightful sentences such as "It’s not my fault the alien steals my homework every day", and the next lesson can hit you right after with "I bought a nice tombstone for my son’s grave".
  • The Date and Time skill from Italian for English speakers. It's full of mundane stuff like "Today is Monday", and then it suddenly throws "He dies in December" at you.
• In 2015, Mexico wins the Gold Cup, and everyone celebrates! A few days later, their head coach, Miguel Herrera, gets sacked after attacking a reporter.
• One infamous Canadian Public Service Announcement takes place at a baby shower (which they had just found out was going to be a girl). The mom-to-be opens up one gift to find that it's a whistle tied to a string. When she asks what it is, the aunt or grandmother replies in a deadly serious tone, "It's a rape whistle." You can actually see the life getting sucked out of the party as the announcer goes over the statistics of how many women in Canada end up getting sexually assaulted.
• The "It's A Snap!" ad for the Australian Central Institute of Technology starts off pretty comedic, with a guy with teleporting powers teleporting his friend to various places around the campus. Then he teleports into a clothing rack, getting part of it right through him, and then when he tries to "snap" to the hospital, he doesn't quite make it, teleporting right into a staircase with horrific results. And then, after all that, you get an ending card saying "You learn more in the City."
• The viewer goes back and forth watching an ad for Nolan's cheddar cheese in which a mouse discovers a baited trap and starts nibbling away as "Top of the World" plays. The screen goes black and the trap snaps shut, and the Doors' "The End" begins playing as we see the mouse pinned beneath the bar, taking shuddering slow breaths...just before "Eye of the Tiger" cues up and the mouse starts bench-pressing the bar.
• The nonfiction book 2052 is a collection of predictions by experts of what the future will be like, but the tone is not remotely consistent between them. For every prediction that society will become sustainable and the world will improve, there is another that says this certainly won’t happen and we’ll be living in an ecologically devastated global dictatorship.
• In Episode 1 of OneyPlays playing Oblivion, it starts like normal series do, with the little cheery theme playing the logo, as Chris presses a button on the keyboard, and the computer shuts off. It fades to black, and the whole episode is Chris playing the game alone. If you're a consistent fan of the series, it doesn't help that there's no listed editor and that the video ends on a few seconds of a black screen instead of a joke like usual. It just feels... dead, unlike most every other current series.
• Magic: The Gathering tries for a different feel for each block in order to prevent fatigue, which can lead to some weird emotional beats. For example: "Battle for Zendikar" and "Oath of the Gatewatch" were about a new heroic group forming and saving Zendikar. "Shadows over Innistrad" and "Eldritch Moon" were about that group managing a difficult triumph in the face of a much more powerful Eldritch Abomination on a Gothic Horror world. "Kaladesh" and "Aether Revolt" shifted to optimistic, with an overthrow of the fascist government of a brightly colored magical steampunk India plane and an intended mood of feeling like a revolutionary and inventor. "Amonkhet" keeps the bright sun, but goes for all-out apocalypse and the Gatewatch's defeat in "Hour of Devastation". Then over to pirates-and-dinosaurs-in-magic-Mesoamerica Ixalan, with an amnesiac Jace befriending a former adversary and a villainous character who responded to regaining the ability to planeswalk by yelling childish insults as he left. It's not as pronounced as other examples due to the six months a given block takes, but those are some pretty impressive swings in tone!
• The Chinese cartoon 3000 Whys of Blue Cat has an episode called "Will Earth Be Destroyed?", which begins with a slow Establishing Shot and peaceful music before it suddenly turns into a fast-paced, silly battle between Blue Cat and Feifei.
• There is a goofy video about people failing to walk and text, complete with funny Background Music. It finishes off by showing someone texting while driving, and the music cuts out just as the vehicle is T-boned. It's a South African PSA against texting and driving.
• There was a radio PSA with a group of former drug users who get together and talk about the dumbest thing they did while high. The first few are amusing (one talks about how he acted like a duck), but the last one is a woman who hooked up with a guy and was too stoned to remember to use protection...and became infected with HIV.
• This TNN (now Spike TV) Motorsports Update from August 11, 1991. The update open rolls with cheerful music^note Specifically, a piece called "Go for Gold" by Ralf Weigand playing, followed by anchor Pat Patterson kicking off the report by talking about the tragic death of NASCAR veteran JD McDuffie at Watkins Glen earlier that day. And then, it jumps into a highlight package from the rest of the race following the tragic accident, where the Background Music is again upbeat. Patterson is at least solemn, practically hanging his head at the end of the first segment before the ad break.
• This Progressive ad starts off with a vibrant scene of a store owner in a cartoony fairy tale dress happily talking to her anthropomorphic plants and mops while cheery music plays in the background. Then, a puddle of water says, "I'm gonna put Lisa on crutches!", causing the store owner to do a double take. Cut to a paramedic carrying a customer out on a stretcher saying the customer fell hard and will need crutches. As the store owner watches the paramedic carry the customer away, the vibrant colors and cartoons surrounding the store owner are nowhere to be seen.
• In every episode of The Haunted House: The Secret of the Ghost Ball, after the main characters have finished capturing the ghosts, we are usually presented with the ghosts' heartbreaking past, right before that one comedic relief character cracks a joke.
• It happens on Steam Train when playing Skyrim and Ross nonchalantly mentions he has some mods installed, ensuring the viewers that it's all asthetics and nothing affecting gameplay. Sure enough, during the near execution of the Player Character which is interrupted when a dragon attacks it immediately wrenches from epic to Big-Lipped Alligator Moment when a weirdly-proportioned man in a cowboy hat shows up instead...
  Danny: What the fuck Ross?!
  Dragon: YEAH!!!
  Ross: Oh, I forgot. I have the Macho Man mod on...
• One Baldo strip has the title character use this to prove that people don't read posts in social media carefully. He starts off with "I'm proud to announce", then talks about getting seriously injured in a biking accident. The comments are all happy and congratulating.
• Many of you feel bad for this lamp...
• The International Fund for Animal Welfare's "commercial" Suzy Puppy. It starts out as an innocent toy commercial, with a little girl taking Suzy out of the box and cuddling her, but quickly delves into Dissonant Serenity as the narrator cheerfully shows off the various illnesses Suzy has (which include parvovirus and conjunctivitis). The ad then takes a dark turn as the narrator reveals that Suzy's mother spent her life confined to a dark cage, and that Suzy is so sick that she only has a few more weeks left to live. As the ad shows the poor little girl burying Suzy, the video reveals its true nature as a Public Service Announcement about puppy farming and how to purchase a puppy safely.
  Don't unwittingly support cruel puppy farming. When you're buying a puppy, always remembers P.U.P.S: meet the pup's parent; is it underage^note Puppies must be eight weeks old before they can be sold; the real-life Suzy toy says Suzy is only six weeks old; check its' papers; check the pup for sickness.
• This PSA from the American Cancer Society, made to encourage people to get annual screenings for cancer. The majority of the ad is soft and sweet, showing a cartoon man sleeping under a tree in a Sugar Bowl, as a friendly narrator (voiced by Gene Wilder) talks about how in the world of make-believe, everything is always peaceful and serene, and how in the real world, real people need to fight against real cancer. The last line of the ad takes on a chilling tone as the cutesy music twists into a more eerie tune and the narrator says "Do you know why we talk to you like this? Simple; when we talk to you like adults...you don't listen."
• Atmosfear: The ending of Nightmare IV segues from the fully-transformed Elizabeth telling viewers she hopes they wake up with her staring them in the face... to a Totally Radical music video where Baron Samedi and skeleton dancers are gyrating wildly.
• Many ads for BetterHelp involve this. For example, one ad involves a man who's asked what he wants, at which point he lists everything he wishes he could change about his life. His friend then clarifies that he's asking what the man wants to eat, and he says, "Pad thai," without missing a beat.
• Pepsi's "This is Diet?" ad featuring a cinema showing a tragic film about a woman dying in hospital, begging to come home. The first two women show clear signs of Inelegant Blubbering with mascara running down their faces with their internal monologues being "This is so so sad." and "This is so so moving." The third woman, with a perfectly calm look simply turns to her can of Pepsi and asks "This is diet?"
• Tommy McAnairey: Tommy often changes the tone of his songs from upbeat to dour on the last line in order to sell the seriousness of carbon monoxide poisoning.
• A trend on TikTok involving the McDonald’s limited edition Grimace Shake involved videos of people trying the shake, only before a sudden cut to them dead usually beside a puddle of shake or suffering another unfortunate fate.
• Motorsports-themed YouTuber Brock Beard's "Until Lap 11" video (covering the death of 2011 Indianapolis 500 winner Dan Wheldon in that year's season finale in Las Vegas) includes remarks from a chatroom he was part of in real time with the race, allowing the viewers to watch the comments range from general silliness to horror as the gravity of the crash began to dawn on them.

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