History Main / EggMacGuffin

* Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}'', when Princess Fiona accidentally causes a mama bird to expire, leaving a nest of orphan eggs. Her solution? Fry them for breakfast.

* An episode of the ''WesternAnimation/{{Super Mario World|1991}}}'' episode "The Koopa Shuffle" uses this. The twist: it was Luigi, transformed into an egg by a Magikoopa.

* An episode of the ''WesternAnimation/SuperMarioWorld'' episode "The Koopa Shuffle" uses this. The twist: it was Luigi, transformed into an egg by a Magikoopa.

* ''WebVideo/DreamSMP'': A villainous example; characters corrupted by [[AlienKudzu the Crimson]] are brainwashed into the Eggpire in order to spread its parasitic influence across the server, and continuously make plans to sacrifice anti-Eggpire server members' life forces to the Egg so that it hatches. This results in the Red Banquet, which is one such plan in Season 3 which is foiled by the Eggpire being OutGambitted by a [[BigDamnHeroes third]] [[SpannerInTheWorks party]] (who are admittedly also anti-Eggpire, but they weren't invited to the Banquet in the first place), and ultimately renders the Crimson dormant. [[spoiler:This lasts until Season 4, when Crimson vines start spreading across the server again, and one final massacre [[TheBadGuyWins at the end of the season]] allows the Egg to hatch.]]

* A subversion from ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender.'' When the episode "The Fire Bending Masters" had a large golden egg feature, many fans speculated that it would hatch into a dragon and be crucial to the plot. It didn't.

* ''WebVideo/DreamSMP'': A villainous example; characters corrupted by [[AlienKudzu the Crimson]] are brainwashed to spread its parasitic influence across the server, and continuously make plans to sacrifice non-Eggpire members' life forces to the Egg so that it hatches. This results in the Red Banquet, which is one such plan in Season 3 which is foiled by the Eggpire being OutGambitted by a [[BigDamnHeroes third]] [[SpannerInTheWorks party]], and ultimately renders the Crimson dormant. [[spoiler:This lasts until Season 4, when Crimson vines start spreading across the server again, and one final massacre [[TheBadGuyWins at the end of the season]] allows the Egg to hatch.]]

Usually the baby is a SidekickCreatureNuisance (though it may actually be a gargantuan creature with the mind of a small annoying one) [[ObliviousAdoption that thinks the first person (usually the discoverer) it sees is its "mama".]] Usually the baby may be far too much for the character to handle and they have to somehow find its real parents. A common variant has the egg hatching into something evil.

[[folder:Web Originals]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitansGo'' - ''Art of the Ninja'', Robin keeps telling the Titans that they are looking for a well sought object called the "McGuffin" and never specifies what it is until the end when they discover [[spoiler: It's just an egg muffin]] which then [[spoiler: is revealed to be Beast Boy in disguise]]
---> '''Cyborg:'''All this for an [[TitleDrop egg McGuffin]].
* The Dofus in ''{{WesternAnimation/Wakfu}}''. These dragon eggs are extremely valuable due to the incredible amount of Wakfu contained in them.

[[folder: Real Life]]
* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brood_parasite Brood Parasites]]: Some species of birds, such as cowbirds and a few cuckoo species, will lay eggs in other bird species' nests in order to "trick" the host mother into raising their offspring. (Or the parasitic birds [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge may go so far as destroying the host nest]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brood_parasite#Mafia_hypothesis if the host ejects their egg]], which often looks conspicuously different from the host's eggs).

* In ''Film/SuperMarioBros'', Princess Daisy is born from an egg that her mother left at a convent. In earlier drafts of the film, the egg ws necessary alongside her pendant for Koopa to merge the dimensions.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTimeIIITheTimeOfTheGreatGiving'' has an egg stolen from Ducky's family by egg-eating dinosaurs. Littlefoot and the group go after it and get it back only to find that the Swimmer egg is already back in the nest. They make a nest for the mystery egg and it hatched into Chomper, a baby Sharptooth. After initially being afraid of him, he later goes on to become a regular group member in the TV series.

* The second ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'' film has an egg stolen from Ducky's family by egg-eating dinosaurs. Littlefoot and the group go after it and get it back only to find that the Swimmer egg is already back in the nest. They make a nest for the mystery egg and it hatched into Chomper, a baby Sharptooth. After initially being afraid of him, he later goes on to become a regular group member in the TV series.

* In ''Film/SuperMarioBros'', Princess Daisy is born from an egg that her mother left at a convent. In earlier drafts of the film, the egg ws necessary longside her pendant for Koopa to merge the dimensions.

->'''Number 9 Man:''' But -- and this is the great secret of our age -- we believe [[[SpaceWhale the Encyclopod]]] left an egg behind.\\

->'''Number 9 Man:''' But-- and this is the great secret of our age-- we believe [[[SpaceWhale The Encyclopod]]] left an egg behind.
->'''Fry:''' Is it edible?
->'''Number 9 Man:''' We're not gonna eat it! Not unless we find a second one.
-->-- '''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}},''' [[Recap/FuturamaM4IntoTheWildGreenYonder "Into The Wild Green Yonder"]]

* ''{{Anime/Pokemon}}''
** In the anime, Ash and his friends found and looked after an egg for a while which eventually hatched into a Togepi (that became the TeamPet for a while). This Togepi saw Misty as its mother. Perhaps slightly spoofed in that Ash was the one who found the egg, and is pissed that the Togepi didn't therefore attach to him.

** In the ''Manga/PokemonAdventures'' manga, Gold receives the Togepi egg, which at one point nearly gets eaten by a wild Gligar. Thankfully, it hatched into a KillerRabbit with a gambling problem and took the Gligar down itself.
* ''Anime/RevolutionaryGirlUtena'' has an aptly-titled episode -- "Nanami's Egg" -- in which Nanami believes she's laid an egg in her sleep and no-one (except Utena) has the heart to tell her that it doesn't make sense. Nanami was already considered a character that straddled the CerebusSyndrome, with both serious duel episodes and comic relief episodes based around her haughtiness and animals abusing her, but the 27th episode manages to marry both comedy of the absurd and very touching character development. Its InsertSong is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSDSFaIvJwM "Hello, Baby."]].

[[quoteright:300:[[WesternAnimation/TheDragonPrince https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mag_egg5.png]]]]

[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/TheDragonPrince https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mag_egg5.png]]]]

[[quoteright:291:[[{{Literature/Leviathan}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Big_egg_8072.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:291:The egg to end all wars.]]

* ''Manga/ShugoChara'': The Embryo, and heck, the Heart's Eggs themselves, are there within order towards creating Dreams.

* In the opening arc of ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'', Yusuke is given an egg that will feed off his spirit energy and hatch when he can come back to life. It is [[ChekhovsGun ignored completely]] when Yusuke is brought back to life for a different reason, and seems to be forgotten for another few arcs -- until the Dark Tournament, when Koenma reveals that it's ''finally'' ready to hatch. Instead of the huge, horrible beast the characters feared, it hatches into a little blue penguin-y thing. Keiko dubs it "Puu" and it becomes her pet. Then in the next arc, [[spoiler:Yusuke dies and reincarnates as a demon. Cue Puu growing into a huge demonic version of itself.]]
** It is much different in the anime form - partway through, Yusuke finds out that his apartment has caught on fire due to his mom passing out with a lit cigarette. Keiko rushes in to save Yusuke's body, but is threatened with the flames. Yusuke is put in a FriendOrIdolDecision and decides to use the egg save her. This turns out to be a SecretTestOfCharacter and Koenma reveals that, oh yeah, the creature that hatched would have eaten your soul if hatched normally. Yusuke's selfless act, though, allows him to return to life.
* ''Manga/NatsumesBookOfFriends'': Natsume takes care of a small egg found in a nest -- which hatches into a "dragon". At first, however, it appears to take the form of an extremely ''tiny'' version of whatever creature it sees first -- namely Natsume.

* In ''Franchise/{{Digimon}},'' digi-eggs are the beginning ''and'' end of a Digimon's life cycle, with a Digimon reverting to egg form after "[[DeathIsCheap death]]." (There are exceptions to this, such as [[Anime/DigimonTamers season three]], which began the trend of new seasons being AU and thus had different rules, and [[spoiler:[[Anime/DigimonDataSquad season five]], in which rebirth was automatic again... making it all the more horrible when the villainous Kurata creates a means of corrupting a Digimon's data so it can't ever be reborn.]] Once, Seraphimon, a ''god/king'' to the [[Anime/DigimonFrontier season four]] version of the Digital World, had to be toted around by Bokomon, who had it strapped to his stomach and ''acted pregnant for well over ten episodes'' until Seraphimon hatched as Patamon. And then proceeds to refer to Bokomon as his "[[{{Pun}} papa-mon]]". No reference or mention is made of the fact that Bokomon could, if he wanted to, become TheManBehindTheMan ruling 1/3 of the digital world.

* Subverted in ''Anime/MaisonIkkoku'', where Yotsuya gives an egg to Godai with no explanation before leaving on a trip. The entire episode revolves around the rest of the cast dealing with the fallout resulting, some helpful, others not so much. In the end, [[spoiler:it is revealed Yotsuya had just found the egg that morning.]]

* ''Anime/RevolutionaryGirlUtena'' has an aptly-titled episode -- "Nanami's Egg" -- in which Nanami believes she's laid an egg in her sleep and no-one (except Utena) has the heart to tell her that it doesn't make sense. Nanami was already considered a character that straddled the CerebusSyndrome, with both serious duel episodes and comic relief episodes based around her haughtiness and animals abusing her, but the 27th episode manages to marry both comedy of the absurd and very touching character development. Its InsertSong is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSDSFaIvJwM "Hello, Baby."]].
* Episode 20 of ''Manga/FairyTail'' is a flashback centered around Natsu and Lisanna taking care of a mysterious egg that dropped out of the sky. It hatches into a certain flying blue kitty.
* In the short film ''Anime/EigaTamagotchiHimitsuNoOtodokeDaiSakusen'', the item that Mametchi and friends have to deliver to the Gotchi King is a giant egg that's getting ready to hatch.
* ''Anime/AngelsEgg'': The titular egg which is carried around by the Girl and the Man wants to open.

* ''Anime/AngelsEgg'': The plot centers on a girl who's determined to protect the egg she carries around. The movie's a MindScrew, so it's not clear what her motives are or what would hatch from the egg. [[spoiler:She fails in the end because the man accompanying her breaks it; not even his motives for doing so are explained.]]
* The second ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'' film has an egg stolen from Ducky's family by egg-eating dinosaurs. Littlefoot and the group go after it and get it back only to find that the Swimmer egg is already back in the nest. They make a nest for the mystery egg and it hatched into Chomper, a baby Sharptooth. After initially being afraid of him, he later goes on to become a regular group member in the TV series.

* John Hurt's character is this to the crew of the ''Nostromo'' in ''{{Film/Alien}}''.

* In ''Literature/ReadyPlayerOne'', 'gunters (egg hunters), including the protagonist, devote their lives to finding a virtual Easter egg (an actual in-game egg) to inherit his fortune.
* Baby Boomers will remember Oliver Butterworth's 1956 book ''The Enormous Egg'', in which a chicken lays an anomalously large egg from which hatches a triceratops. (If you don't remember the book, perhaps you remember the 1968 [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0311075/ TV special]] based on it.)

* Technically speaking, the same thing happens in ''[[Literature/{{Temeraire}} His Majesty's Dragon]]''. In an alternate version of Earth where dragons exist, a French ship is captured by the British transporting a ship...forcing the captain to harness and bond with the dragon that comes out. Laurence and Temeraire have another one to deal with two books later in ''The Black Powder War''.

* In the Creator/DrSeuss book (and ''Creator/BobClampett'' cartoon adaptation) ''Literature/HortonHatchesTheEgg'', an elephant takes on the task of hatching the egg of a irresponsible bird. The offspring ends up being a bird with the head of an elephant.
* The Daenerys subplot in ''[[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire A Game of Thrones]]'' features three ''fossilized'' dragon eggs. [[spoiler: Once Dany figures out the meaning of her family's motto and its origins in Valyrian sorcery, it turns out her eggs are not so much dead as dormant -- which is why in the subsequent books she's called Daenerys the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons.]]
* In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone'', Hagrid gets ahold of a dragon egg, which hatches into Norwegian Ridgeback which Hagrid dubs Norbert. Little Norbert, with his vicious, fire-breathing ways, quickly becomes a liability (especially as keeping dragons is illegal), and he is dispatched to Romania, much to Hagrid's distress.
* In the ''Literature/{{Leviathan}}'' trilogy, there is a very mysterious Egg Macguffin in the first book. [[spoiler:In Behemoth, the sequel, the egg hatches, and a SidekickCreatureNuisance is introduced in the form of Bovril. Bovril latches onto Alek and they become [[{{ABoyAndHisX}} A Boy and His Rapidly Learning Skunk Thing.]]]]
* In ''[[{{Literature/Dragaera}} Taltos]]'', young Vlad takes care of the jhereg egg that he'd obtained from its mother in ''Literature/{{Jhereg}}''. When Loiosh hatches, he calls Vlad "Mama", although he switches to "Boss" once he's grown some.
* Not an egg, but in ''Literature/PerdidoStreetStation'', Isaac rears a caterpillar-like larva to adulthood in a similar manner to this trope, mostly to see what it'll grow up to be. [[spoiler:This backfires spectacularly when the larva grows into a monstrous, mind-devouring slake moth.]]
* In ''Nomads of {{Literature/Gor}}'' Tarl is tasked by the Priest-Kings to retrive the last egg of the Priest-Kings, the only female, to start their cycle anew.

* Most of the plot of ''Literature/TheGoodTheBadAndTheMediochre'' revolves around Mediochre and his various acquaintances trying to keep a dragon's egg (which he names 'Glint') out of the hands of a smuggling syndicate. It is therefore a literal Egg {{MacGuffin}}.
* Bruce Coville's ''Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher'' is {{Exactly What It Says On The Tin}}, with some life lessons thrown in.

* The ''[[Literature/DeptfordMice Deptford Histories]]'' book ''Thomas'' focuses on the heroes [[MacGuffinDeliveryService trying to prevent]] fragments of a jade egg from ending up in the hands of the enemy. If all the pieces are put together, the [[GodOfEvil evil serpent god Sarpedon]] will be reborn within it.
* ''Literature/HortonAndTheKwuggerbugAndMoreLostStories'': In "Marco Comes Late", Marco's story starts out with a mother bird laying an egg on his book while he's walking to school. He ends up standing still pondering what to do while an increasing number of creatures weigh in on whether he should continue to school or make sure the egg is safe at all costs. Eventually the egg hatches and the bird inside tells Marco to tell his teacher he was the reason for Marco being late.
* The entire plot of ''Literature/MoribitoGuardianOfTheSpirit'' occurs because Prince Chagum is carrying the egg of a water spirit within his body, at first leading many people to believe that he's [[DemonicPossession possessed by a demon]]. The entire cast becomes very concerned both with making sure the egg hatches successfully (since there will be a horrific drought if it doesn't) and with making sure that Chagum isn't killed in the process, with much of the drama of the latter half of the series coming from the fact that the two goals may be mutually exclusive.

* In the ''Radio/OurMissBrooks'': episode [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "The Egg"]], Mrs. Davis gets a chicken egg from her brother's farm. Mistakenly, he had given her an egg soon to hatch. Miss Brooks and friends try to safely hatch the egg, and keep Mr. Conklin from frightening the chick by flashing a photo as it emerges from its shell.
* In the ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode "Parturition" Neelix and Paris find a nest of repto-humanoids, one of which hatches, leading them to care for it until the mother returns.

* In the ''Series/ShakeItUp'' episode "Heat it Up", Tinka (the comedic relief) enters an egg into a science fair that she genetically engineered. It hatches and proceeds to attack her.
* In ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}'', Merlin and company go looking for a dragon egg in "Aithusa".
* In the ''Series/TheAquabatsSuperShow'' episode "Mysterious Egg!", Jimmy the Robot finds a giant egg and the team eagerly awaits its hatching with contrived [[ImagineSpot imagine spots]]. The egg hatches and the resulting chicken-thing wreaks havoc and runs off. Jimmy is torn between his attachment for the hatchling and protecting the rest of the band from it.
* In season one of ''Series/UnderTheDome'', a glowing egg found inside a mini-dome is one of the plot drivers until it's dumped into the lake at the end of the season. At the start of season two, [[spoiler:that action wound up resurrecting a teen girl who'd been killed near the egg twenty years earlier]].

* In ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'', one of the first key items Serge can obtain in Another World is a Draconian Egg. Near the endgame, he can take it to an incubator in Fort Dragonia, where it will hatch into Draggy, a [[LethalJokeCharacter rainbow-colored infant dragon]].

* Kinda subverted in ''VideoGame/AnUntitledStory'', as ''your character'' is an egg that runs around and does stuff (until [[spoiler:you hatch it]]).
* The whole plot of ''VideoGame/BillyHatcherAndTheGiantEgg'' revolves around hatching an egg by feeding it fruit. And then there's the eponymous Giant Egg, [[spoiler:which ''does'' get hatched by [[BigBad Dark Raven]]]].

* The [[spoiler:Sphere of Light]] in ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIII'' is actually the [[spoiler:Dragon Queen's final]] egg.
* ''VideoGame/DragonFable'' starts out with the hero recovering the Black Dragon Box, which contained a dragon egg. After several quests involving the egg and its fate, it eventually hatches into the dragon that you use for titan battles.
* The entire point of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening'' is to collect the eight instruments and play them ''in front of a giant egg'' (belonging to the Wind Fish).

* The plot of ''VideoGame/SpyroYearOfTheDragon'' revolves around the fact that the 150 dragon eggs have been stolen, and [[GottaCatchEmAll it's up to Spyro to recover them.]] Each of them hatches upon discovery, with many of the babies having their own unique animation.
* Two of them in ''{{VideoGame/Bastion}}''; they're minor and barely relevant to the plot, aside from spawning a couple of purely cosmetic pets in the Bastion, which will prompt some remarks from your companions.
* In ''Videogame/ShiningForceIII'' there is a hidden character that requires you to go through a lot of work to get, probably falls under GuideDamnIt territory. You first have buy some chicken food and lure a chicken to follow you. Later in the game you have to find a couple boiling an egg, buy the egg for 1000 gold, find the chicken your lured sitting in your HQ and then place the egg under the chicken and it'll instantly hatch. The creature will run off and then right near the end of the game you'll find the character "Penn" who turns out to be a JokeCharacter as he starts at level 1, unpromoted, when all your other characters are promoted at level ~15.
* In the adventure game ''[=AmerZone=]'', your mission is to return a giant egg to its jungle of origin, conduct a tribal rite to prepare it for hatching, and then deliver it to its warm hatchling-ground near a volcano.
* In ''VideoGame/NetHack'' if an egg hatches while in your inventory, the resulting monster may become your pet. Not all eggs you find hatch though.
* The plot of ''VideoGame/AngryBirds'' revolves around three eggs, which are repeatedly stolen by the Bad Piggies. The birds highly value these eggs and fight hard to protect them. This is because they believe these eggs to be the only offspring of their species, as the birds themselves are quite rare.[[labelnote:*]]Indeed, only twelve are known throughout Piggy Island -- Red, the Blues (Jim, Jake, and Jay), Chuck, Bomb, Matilda, Hal, Terence, Bubbles, Stella, and Mighty Eagle[[/labelnote]] Meanwhile, ancient pig law decrees that only the King Pig is allowed to eat eggs. However, the latest pig to take the throne, Smooth Cheeks, has never eaten, much less tasted, any eggs in his life. He only inherited the throne from his father, King Mudbeard. His loyal subjects never suspected this, assuming he eats eggs because he's so fat. If Smooth Cheeks is ever found out, he would be dethroned. This secret drives him into an obsession in stealing the Angry Birds' eggs, usually through his minions. In the meantime, he has fake eggs prepared for egg-eating ceremonies.
* In ''VideoGame/TheLastExpress'', Tyler Whitney got mixed up in a deal where he planned to sell a golden, jeweled egg for money and then using that money to give weapons to terrorists. Unfortunately, that egg was stolen around the time he was murdered. Since you are impersonating Tyler, you need to find the egg and make the two deals go through in order to prevent Tyler's creditors from dishing out consequences. And as it turns out [[spoiler: the egg, which can turn into a mechanical bird, is what killed Tyler, answering the big question of the game]].
* Much of ''VideoGame/GuildWars2's'' second Living World Season as well as the ''Heart of Thorns'' expansion revolves around a McGuffin initially held by the Master of Peace, leader of the Zephyrites which turns out to be a crystal egg. In Season 3, the egg finally hatches into [[spoiler:the baby dragon Aurene, last child of [[BigGood Glint]]]].

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS10E3BartTheMother Bart the Mother]]", Bart Simpson has to look after a nest of bird eggs, after accidentally killing the mommy bird. Except that when they hatched they turned out to be Bolivian tree lizards. Apparently the female lizard eats the bird eggs and lays its own eggs in their place. The baby lizards then eat the bird.
* ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'' has a relationship with a Cat and a Turtle which resulted in an egg that contained four children: One of them looking like Heffer (a steer).

* An episode of the ''WesternAnimation/SuperMarioWorld'' episode "The Koopa Shuffle" uses this. The twist: it was Luigi, transformed into an egg by a Magikoopa.
* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDragonJakeLong'', "The Egg": Jake has to take care of a griffin egg ready to hatch -- and loses it in a factory full of candied eggs.

* A ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode had Peter growing a beard, which a bird nested in. Due to the bird's endangered status, Peter has to put up with it until it leaves of its own accord (to get away from the music he was blaring to annoy it). He's elated until he discovers that it left behind three eggs, which he then has to care for until they hatch, becoming emotionally attached to them in the process. In the end, he has a hard time letting go when it's time for them to leave the nest/his beard.
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/EarthwormJim'' has Psycrow using a magic orb which turns out, after Jim ends up sitting on it, to be an egg that promptly hatches. The entity inside the egg makes all sorts of vague promises about how it will help usher in a wonderful new age for the universe, [[RunningGag at which point a cow lands on its head for no reason]].
* The Dofus in ''{{WesternAnimation/Wakfu}}''. These dragon eggs are extremely valuable due to the incredible amount of Wakfu contained in them.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/TheBackyardigans'' episode "Tale of the Mighty Knights", Tyrone and Uniqua are tasked with guarding the king's egg, which promptly rolls away.
* The ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' episode "The Eggbaby" involves Terry keeping track of an egg-shaped simulation of a baby that he needs to take care of for a grade.
* A subversion from ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender.'' When the episode "The Fire Bending Masters" had a large golden egg feature, many fans speculated that it would hatch into a dragon and be crucial to the plot. It didn't.
* In ''WesternAnimation/MikeTheKnight'' - ''Journey to Dragon Mountain'', an egg that everyone believes to a be a jewel [[spoiler:hatches into the dragon Squirt's baby sister after he finds his DisappearedDad and MissingMom.]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitansGo'' - ''Art of the Ninja'', Robin keeps telling the Titans that they are looking for a well sought object called the "McGuffin" and never specifies what it is until the end when they discover [[spoiler: It's just an egg muffin]] which then [[spoiler: is revealed to be Beast Boy in disguise]]
---> '''Cyborg:'''All this for an [[TitleDrop egg McGuffin]].
* ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'': Season 3's episode ''The Invisible Mom'' has the cast trying to find the noble snake that inherited the power of the Snake talisman. It turns out that "The Talisman power of invisibility lies within the snake... ''within'' the egg."

* ''WesternAnimation/TheDragonPrince'''s first three seasons revolves around a quest to return the titular prince's egg to the magical land of Xadia, in hopes that it will stop the oncoming war. [[spoiler: At the end of the first season, the egg hatches.]] He's actually not that annoying, being more like an puppy that gives [[ "zappy kisses" after Callum accidentally electrocutes him.]]
-->'''Rayla''': The sooner we return this egg, the sooner, maybe, this war can end.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'': The final series episode has the gang needing to work with the older dino kids who tend to bully them in order to move a nest of Sharptooth eggs farther from the Great Valley so the predators will be less of a threat. Some of the adults want the eggs destroyed.

-->--'''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}},''' [[Recap/FuturamaM4IntoTheWildGreenYonder "Into The Wild Green Yonder"]]

** One could also consider the GS Ball to qualify in a way, but that’s a case of AbortedArc.

* The second ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'' film has an egg stolen from Ducky’s family by egg-eating dinosaurs. Littlefoot and the group go after it and get it back only to find that the Swimmer egg is already back in the nest. They make a nest for the mystery egg and it hatched into Chomper, a baby Sharptooth. After initially being afraid of him, he later goes on to become a regular group member in the TV series.

* In the Creator/DrSeuss book (and ''Creator/BobClampett'' cartoon adaptation) ''Horton Hatches the Egg'', an elephant takes on the task of hatching the egg of a irresponsible bird. The offspring ends up being a bird with the head of an elephant.

* ''Literature/HortonHatchesTheEgg'' : A lazy bird named Mayzie tricks Horton the elephant into watching her egg. While Mayzie enjoys a long vacation, Horton faithfully sits on the egg, suffering hostile weather, mockery from his friends, and captivity from hunters who find him a curiosity.

** Most of the cast members have received a Pokémon through this fashion. Ash received an egg with hatched into a Phanpy, and another one much later that hatched into a Scraggy, and then another one that hatched into a Noibat, May received one that hatched into an Eevee, Brock received one that hatched into a Happiny, Dawn received one that hatched into a Cyndaquil, and Lillie received one that hatched into an Alolan Vulpix. This happens in the games quite a lot as well.

* ''WesternAnimation/IceAge3DawnOfTheDinosaurs'' has Sid's scuffle over the egg of a baby T-Rex with the rest of the herd.

* In ''Franchise/{{Digimon}},'' digi-eggs are the beginning ''and'' end of a Digimon's life cycle, with a Digimon reverting to egg form after "[[DeathIsCheap death]]." (There are exceptions to this, such as [[Anime/DigimonTamers season three]], which began the trend of new seasons being AU and thus had different rules, and [[spoiler:[[Anime/DigimonSavers season five]], in which rebirth was automatic again... making it all the more horrible when the villainous Kurata creates a means of corrupting a Digimon's data so it can't ever be reborn.]] Once, Seraphimon, a ''god/king'' to the [[Anime/DigimonFrontier season four]] version of the Digital World, had to be toted around by Bokomon, who had it strapped to his stomach and ''acted pregnant for well over ten episodes'' until Seraphimon hatched as Patamon. And then proceeds to refer to Bokomon as his "[[{{Pun}} papa-mon]]". No reference or mention is made of the fact that Bokomon could, if he wanted to, become TheManBehindTheMan ruling 1/3 of the digital world.

* When ''Series/TheMandalorian'' has to buy back his own ship from the Jawas, he has to go find "the egg" to trade. [[spoiler:This is ultimately subverted when you find out that they just like how the egg tastes; though evidently they like it enough to sell a ship in exchange.]]

* The first season of ''WesternAnimation/TheDragonPrince'' centers on the protagonists finding and then carrying the dragon egg. This is an actual example of the egg being a McGuffin. The egg, naturally, doesn't stay an egg for very long. Though Zym doesn't count as an AnnoyingAnimal, as he's actually quite observant and intelligent. Besides that role in the party is already filled by Prince Ezran's pet toad.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheDragonPrince'''s first season revolves around a quest to return the titular prince's egg to the magical land of Xadia, in hopes that it will stop the oncoming war. At the end of the first season, the egg hatches.

* ''WesternAnimation/IceAge III: Dawn of the Dinosaurs'' has Sid's scuffle over the egg of a baby T-Rex with the rest of the herd.
* Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}},'' when Princess Fiona accidentally causes a mama bird to expire, leaving a nest of orphan eggs. Her solution? Fry them for breakfast.