Basic Trope: A previously comical act is retconned to being something completely serious.
Straight: Bob trips up on an banana for a gag. Later it's revealed to have caused brain damage that ended in a coma
Exaggerated: Bob trips up on a banana, falls on to a spiked ball also on the floor, causing him to jump up and hit his head on the fan. At first it's just a gag, but later it's revealed bob died from it, and was a zombie this whole time, living in constant pain from the wounds he received but he could not say anything about it because he was under magic control.
Downplayed: Bob slips on a banana peal for a gag. Later Alice gets chewed out over it.
Justified: Some supposedly wacky stunts really are dangerous.