Basic Trope: A pet's death is played for dark laughs.
- Straight: Charlie's pet dog dies, and everyone treats it as nothing much more than just a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment.
- Exaggerated:
- Everyone's pets die, and it's all Played for Laughs.
- After the death of Charlie's dog, he's known for the rest of the show as "the guy whose dog died".
- Downplayed:
- In a Black Comedy Burst, it's revealed that Charlie's current pet dog is a replacement for the one that died.
- Black Comedy Animal Cruelty
- Justified:
- Everyone celebrates the death of Charlie's dog because it treated everyone horribly.
- Charlie's friends are cruel to him to begin with.
- Charlie's pet was something such as a worm. Everyone around him finds it funny due to believing in What Measure Is a Non-Cute?
- The way Charlie's dog died actually did have some humorous elements to it.
- Inverted: The death of Charlie's dog is a major Tear Jerker.
- Subverted: It seems like the death is going to be Played for Laughs, but it ends up being taken seriously.
- Double Subverted: And then Alice's cat dies, and it gets treated as a funny event.
- Parodied:
- Charlie's deceased dog gets up and does the "Thriller" dance with multiple other dead animals.
- The death is very horribly shown onscreen, but a Laugh Track plays anyway.
- The dog was already dead when Charlie took it from the pet store, and when he returns to complain, the store owner claims that the dog is just resting, prompting Charlie to emphatically explain that it's a stiff, bereft of life, it rests in peace...
- Zig-Zagged: Some pet deaths are Played for Laughs while some aren’t.
- Averted:
- Nobody's pet dies.
- A pet's death is played seriously.
- Enforced:
- To add Black Comedy.
- To pay homage to John Cleese's dead parrot sketch.
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Charlie decides "Dude, Not Funny!" and actually seeks counselling for advice on getting over the loss of his pet.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: “Are they playing the death of somebody’s pet for laughs?! These writers are assholes!”
Back to Black Comedy Pet Death. Haha, Tropey the Wonder Dog just died!
