I have to use <code>$('html, body').animate()</code> to make the snippet fully cross-browser compatible, but this is inconvenient when chaining animations as they will sometimes act on both <code><html></code> and <code><body></code>. IE8 depends on having 'html' while Chrome or Safari depend on having 'body', so therefore i must include both. Why the discrepancy?

How come $('html').animate() only works in IE and $('body').animate() is needed for Chrome/Safari?

I have to use $('html, body').animate() to make the snippet fully cross-browser compatible, but this is inconvenient when chaining animations as they will sometimes act on both <html> and <body>.

IE8 depends on having 'html' while Chrome or Safari depend on having 'body', so therefore i must include both.

Why the discrepancy?

I think it's because the scroll bars (that I presume you're animating) are built into the browser at different locations. I've had this problem before and had to use the same method you incorporate. Bit annoying, but then so are most things when you want them to work across all browsers :-)