To answer your question, I have to address a certain misconception regarding the tonal shift in Batman comics in the 70's/80's.
A lot of people assume that Batman suddenly became dark because of the Killing Joke, The Dark Knight Returns, or even Year One, when in reality, Batman going dark was a work in progress that was starting in the early 70's. Before that, even though Batman stories were slowly starting to get darker mostly due to Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams, Batman himself in his portrayal went through several stages. For a while, Batman was seen as a celebrity who just so happens to fight crime, later on he would become a deputized citizen. It's really not until the 80's when he is portrayed as a vigilante, and finally Frank Miller introduced the concept of him being an urban myth, which stuck for many years. And now, mostly due to the Nolan movies, Batman is regarded as a symbol and a legend, the whole "more than a man" thing.
With all that said, what does that have to do with Joker. Well, you have to take into consideration that, for many years, Joker actually disappeared from Batman comics, and his big re-introduction came in 1973 in "The Joker's Five Way Revenge". He was cruel, sadistic, murderous and also had a certain complexity about him, when he refused to kill Batman when he had the chance because it was by chance, yet he still retained a certain cartoonish quality to him. Yet not long after that, stories like "Joker's Rumpus Room Revenge", in which Joker lures Batman into his playland where he intends to kill him with one of his carnival themed deathtraps, one of which includes A Joker looking Samurai popping out of a giant Jack-in-a-box...it is the sort of stories you would expect in the Silver Age Camp Era, yet that took place in 1981. So, Joker's portrayal was quite inconsistent during this era, he was either a ruthless psychotic killer with a sick sense of humor, or an over the top murdering clown. However, one story in particular that blurred the line between those two is the infamous "Laughing Fish", which I don't really consider a dark story, but it still had some dark moments here and there, and on paper, it's actually quite a ridiculous story, yet Joker was still quite ruthless in it.
So finally to answer your question, did the Killing Joke suddenly change Joker? Yes and No. No, because Joker was already dark and ruthless over a decade before TKJ. However, I can say Yes because it was in TKJ where Joker "went too far", and it was the darkest he has ever been in years. I would also add in A Death in the Family, as it was another story of Joker taking it too far. It just so happens that these two storylines took place not too far in between each other, so people started associating these extreme acts with how Joker's "norm" is now. But like Batman, Joker himself has gone through several phases, though less consistent and has flipped through those phases over the years, it's only in the more recent years, notably after The Dark Knight, where Joker has consistently been dark,
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