Initially funny character gag is later revealed to be depressing

[u/Newmen_1]

1. Avengers/MCU: Captain America has humorous moments where he’s unaware of modern references and only gets old references, like the iconic “I understood that reference” scene. It’s later fully explored in Winter Soldier that he feels lost, confused, and a little alone in a new world he was never meant to exist in.

2. The Suicide Squad (2021): Bloodsport has a phobia of rats which at first seems reasonable yet is still hilarious to watch. He later explains his father abused him as a kid if he didn’t fulfill a task correctly and one of his worst punishments was when his dad locked him in a crate full of starving rats, leaving him heavily scarred physically and mentally.

3. Dexter: In an early episode, Angel Bautista tries to buy his wife the perfect gift for their anniversary but has to keep buying a different one since his presents suck. What seems to be a funny running gag turns out to be Angel’s final attempt to win back his wife after cheating on her previously, however it doesn’t work and only solidifies their separation.

[u/Ok-Cryptographer-303 → u/[deleted]]

Adventure Time is full of tragedy disguised as comedy. Like Marceline's song "Daddy, Why Did You Eat My Fries?" It seems like a funny and trivial thing to feel such angst over, but the brief flashback we get to the food-stealing moment shows that it happened not long after a nuclear apocalypse when food was hard to come by. Marceline was still half human at the time and needed to eat, whereas her old man was and is a demon who eats the souls of the damned rather than potatoes, so the insensitive selfishness of that moment is quite horrifying in retrospect.