Basic Trope: A comedic work suddenly opts for more dramatic storylines.
- Straight: As the plot of the show Alice! progresses, there are fewer and fewer jokes, while odds and tension escalate after Emperor Evulz enters the show and destroys Alice's hometown.
- Exaggerated: Alice!, which was originally a lighthearted, comedic, and Lighter and Softer show for kids, becomes a depressing and creepy drama where Anyone Can Die and several important characters, including Alice, do.
- Downplayed: Though the story arcs get slightly more serious, the show never loses the humor and it alternates between more serious arcs and more comedic ones. No effort is made to push the edginess and the more comedic characters can still have their hijinks.
- Justified:
- Alice and the other characters didn't see this coming.
- Alice! is a Disguised Horror Story.
- The show is Growing with the Audience, going from a Sitcom to a more dramatic storyline as the audience is approaching their 20s now.
- Inverted: Alice! was originally a dramatic show focused on the deteriorating marriage of Alice and Bob, and many miscarriages and abortions happen. As the plot progresses, though, both Alice and Bob hilariously slap fight each other a lot, making the show more a Black Comedy.
- Subverted: The show looks like it's going to become more serious. but then it becomes crazy and awesome instead.
- Double Subverted: ...but then, it gets so much worse, and the crazy and awesome methods lose their efficiency.
- Parodied:
- The more dramatic episode starts off with the creator of the show firing the personification of comedy and hiring the personification of drama.
- The show started as a comedy and still is, in a subtle way...
- Zig-Zagged: Cerebus Roller Coaster
- Averted: The show never gets more dramatic, opting for Surreal Humor instead.
- Enforced:
- The creator is running out of good jokes, yet they have accumulated some good dramatic plotlines.
- Being a serial work starting out as made for children, the series doesn't want to lose its fans due to being made for kids.
- The fandom wants the show to be Darker and Edgier. Now.
- Comedy Ghetto/True Art Is Angsty
- Lampshaded: "Is it me, or did our whole universe become much more serious overnight?"
- Invoked:
- "Joking around is all well and good, but I like it more the way it is now. Adventure! Conflict! High drama!"
- Evulz, who is a Knight of Cerebus, comes in at the start of the second half and makes things darker.
- Alice! was always meant to be a more dramatic show, but the channel it airs on focuses on the casual, younger demographic. Thus, the show was initially pitched and started out as a light-hearted Trojan Horse before the tension rose later.
- Exploited: A villain is aware of the fourth wall and notices that the enemies the heroes have defeated so far were silly and easily beaten, so he waits until later to carry out his evil plans, when the tone is more serious and the heroes have a greater chance of tragically failing.
- Defied: "Oh no. No. Even if it's war, I'm not gonna stop joking, no sir."
- Discussed: "Remember when our lives were fun? When we had nothing but frivolity to worry about?" "Yeah. I miss those days, I really do."
- Conversed:
- "Didn't this show used to be silly?"
- "Well, that got dark fast."
- Deconstructed:
- The creator understands that comedic characters won't instantly turn into heroes or warriors. They have a hard time adapting to new conditions.
- Alice, who is medium-aware, doesn't like the dark, angsty changes to her world and her friends, so she fights to return her world to the bright and happy place it was.
- The characters, fully aware of the direction their world is going, and feel like they would die if they stay any longer, quietly get themselves as far away from the conflict as they can putting themselves on a bus, so to speak.
- The audience eventually becomes alienated from the overly bleak monstrosity the work has become.
- Reconstructed:
- The creator adapts to the new conditions more quickly after they hire more writers.
- Alice, who has a hard time trying to return her world to the bright and happy place it was, decides to give up and embrace her new dramatic life.
- Some of the characters, however, waited for this moment their entire lives and jump straight into the action.
- The old audience leaves, but Alice! attracts different viewers to replace them.
- Plotted a Good Waste: The show was intended to be dark and edgy from the beginning, but opted for a Genre Shift, beginning with a Lighter and Softer atmosphere to make the horror all the more shocking while sowing the seeds in places no one had thought to look, (though this one requires a lot of skill to cultivate the Intended Audience Reaction).
- Played for Laughs: The characters themselves indulge in Self-Deprecation about the direction the show has taken.
- Played for Drama: Alice can't deal with the changes in her life, much to her disappointment.
- Played for Horror: Disguised Horror Story
Back to Cerebus Syndrome to save the entire world from Emperor Evulz! Y’know things used to be a lot more comedic. What happened to that?
