History Main / MakeAWish

** In the special ''Film/WhenYouWishUponAPickle'', a mysterious (and [[AnthropomorphicFood sentient) Wish Pickle]] is delivered to Sesame Street, able to grant any wish. Ernie's wish causes Bert to become temporarily TrappedInTVLand and be shuffled from show to show.

** In the special ''Film/WhenYouWishUponAPickle'', a mysterious Wish Pickle is delivered to Sesame Street, able to grant any wish. Ernie's wish causes Bert to become temporarily TrappedInTVLand and be shuffled from show to show.

* In the ''Manga/GunslingerGirl'' fanfic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8459711/1/Porcupine-Love Porcupine Love]]'', Triela is visiting the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, where traditionally [[TruthInTelevision you can make a wish while spinning your heel on the testicles of the bull mosaic on the floor]]. Triela does this on a whim and finds herself facing child assassin Pinocchio, who's standing in line with everyone else to do the same. After chasing him down [[DatingCatwoman they end up in bed together]], so it's left ambiguous whether Triela's wish involved finding the teenage assassin she's sworn to kill, or [[MustNotDieAVirgin experiencing love before she dies.]]

* In the ''Manga/GunslingerGirl'' fanfic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8459711/1/Porcupine-Love Porcupine Love]]'', Triela is visiting the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, where traditionally [[TruthInTelevision you can make a wish while spinning your heel on the testicles of the bull mosaic on the floor]]. Triela does this on a whim and finds herself facing child assassin Pinocchio, who's standing in line with everyone else to do the same. After chasing him down [[DatingCatwoman they end up in bed together]], so it's left ambiguous whether Triela's wish involved finding the teenage assassin she's sworn to kill, or [[DontWantToDieAVirgin experiencing love before she dies.]]

* In "Sweet Porridge" wishing to never go hungry results in a family getting a pot that cooks porridge with commands to stop and go the wishers can't remember, which results in a massive flood of hot porridge (or sweet soup, depending on the story) before somebody remembers the command.

When you wish upon a star- Oh, right.

* ''Literature/HouseholdGods'' begins when Nicole annoyedly tells what she believes to be normal statues of the Roman gods Liber and Libera - but which were actually avatars of the real gods - that she "wished she'd lived then" (ancient Rome), and the gods, ecstatic to have a wish they can grant, are more than happy to grant that wish. She wakes up the next morning extremely confused.

* ''Series/KaizokuSentaiGokaiger'' - [[spoiler:The "Greatest Treasure in the Universe" the team have been looking for is revealed to have this power. Not only could it stop the Zangyack Empire, it could make it so Zangyack never existed in the first place. Unfortunately, doing so would take the power of all Super Sentai, erasing ''them'' from the new universe as well. After some agonizing, they decide it's not worth it and they'll stop Zangyack their own way - something they underline by ''blowing up'' the Treasure.]]

* The opening words of Stephen Sondheim's ''Theatre/IntoTheWoods'' are "I wish..." Magic, however, comes in only indirectly - Cinderella going to her mother's grave to request silver and gold (a dress appears); the Baker and his Wife agree to [[FetchQuest fulfill the demands of the Witch,]] who would then allow them to conceive a child. However, all of their wishes come back to haunt them in Act II, which opens with the same words.

* ''WesternAnimation/AladdinTheSeries'' has the creature in "Scare Necessities", which grants wishes as a ''defense mechanism'' - when it's frightened, it grants the wish of whatever frightened it in order to distract them from harming it. [[spoiler:At the end, Iago shows it a mirror and screams. The creature thus scares ''itself'', and grants its own wish - to go to a paradiscal garden where the rest of its kind lives.]]

* ''Series/{{Goosebumps}}'' tended to be quite fond of this trope as a device for lesson learning. "Be careful what you wish for" is probably the best example. Typically wishes don't go exactly as planned and the protagonist finishes the story by wishing nothing had ever happened.
* ''Series/HouseholdGods'' begins when Nicole annoyedly tells what she believes to be normal statues of the Roman gods Liber and Libera - but which were actually avatars of the real gods - that she "wished she'd lived then" (ancient Rome), and the gods, ecstatic to have a wish they can grant, are more than happy to grant that wish. She wakes up the next morning extremely confused.

->''"The evening star is shining bright,''
->''So make a wish, and hold on tight,''
->''There's magic in the air tonight,''
->''And anything could happen..."''
-->-- '''''WesternAnimation/ThePrincessAndTheFrog'''''

* In ''VideoGame/{{ADOM}}'' wishes may be gained from using a blessed ring of djinni summoning, using a wand of wishing, casting the Wish spell, or randomly and unlikely from drinking from a magical pool. Wishes can be used to create items (other than artifacts), raise your stats or skills, summon a specific type of monster, or a few other arcane things. It's possible to gain infinite wishes by either becoming an archmage (defined as a character capable of casting the Wish spell indefinitely) or building a wish engine that can create endless rings of djinni summoning.
* Strangely enough, this trope is ''corrupted'' in ''VideoGame/BlazBlueCentralfiction''. When [[spoiler:Izanami]] is bested in combat, the Entitled responsible ([[spoiler:sorry, Litchi]]) is granted an Azure fragment to grant their deepest desire... only said wish is usually corrupted in the worst way possible soon after. [[spoiler:As an example, Bang's wish to serve Imperator Tenjo again sees Tenjo and Homura dead and Izanami upon the throne.]] The corruption even goes on a deeper level than that: [[spoiler:it is very possible that Izanami herself is tainting these wishes explicitly to point the Entitled towards killing the "absolute Entitled", the inhabitant of the Master Unit, with killing Noel the first step.]] However, sometimes the Azure fragment crumbles when the wish cannot be granted: while the expected "wish for more wishes" loophole is closed ([[spoiler:Terumi is not content with a mere fragment]]), there's also [[spoiler:Rachel and Valkenheyn's wish to abolish Drives (since Izanami is the "Drive-existence" of the Master Unit, granting this wish means Izanami ceases to be) and Makoto's wish for a happy life with her friends (which includes the aforementioned Noel, making the wish divide-by-zero by default), both of which are detrimental to Izanami]].

* In ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'', Jirachi is a cute FunSize Mythical Pokémon that has the power to grant wishes. A Jirachi features prominently as the featured Mon of the sixth movie, ''Anime/PokemonJirachiWishmaker''. On top of that, the ending theme for the said movie is called "Make A Wish".

* ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonRescueTeam'': Jirachi can be found in Wish Cave, and actually ''can'' grant wishes to the player if you bring it a Wish Stone and don't recruit it into your party. It can give you money, items, stat-boosters, or even new Friend Areas or Pokemon.

* The holy grail in ''[[VisualNovel/FateStayNight Fate/Stay Night]]'' grants any wishes to the victorious master/servant pair of the Holy Grail War. [[spoiler:Though it is later explained that it's a JackassGenie due to a bad case of DemonicPossession, and will interpret any wish in a way that will cause maximum pain and suffering.]]
* In ''VisualNovel/TokimekiMemorial 2 Substories: Leaping School Festival'', Akane, while talking with the protagonist under the starry sky, makes a wish upon seeing a shooting star, in an Event of her storyline. [[note]]Image of the scene is available for view in the trope's [[ImageLinks/MakeAWish Image Links]][[/note]]

* ''{{VideoGame/Plantasia}}'': To become a full fairy, Holly has to successfully grant a wish. Unfortunately, that turns out to be a lot harder than it sounds when the wisher asks for all of the gardens around his estate to be fixed (and it's a ''massive'' estate), setting up the game's plot.

* Strangely enough, this trope is ''corrupted'' in ''VideoGame/BlazBlueCentralfiction''. When [[spoiler:Izanami]] is bested in combat, the Entitled responsible ([[spoiler:sorry, Litchi]]) is granted an Azure fragment to grant their deepest desire... only said wish is usually corrupted in the worst way possible soon after. [[spoiler:As an example, Bang's wish to serve Imperator Tenjo again sees Tenjo and Homura dead and Izanami upon the throne.]] The corruption even goes on a deeper level than that: [[spoiler:it is very possible that Izanami herself is tainting these wishes explicitly to point the Entitled towards killing the "absolute Entitled", the inhabitant of the Master Unit, with killing Noel the first step.]] However, sometimes the Azure fragment crumbles when the wish cannot be granted: while the expected "wish for more wishes" loophole is closed ([[spoiler:Terumi is not content with a mere fragment]]), there's also [[spoiler:Rachel and Valkenheyn's wish to abolish Drives (since Izanami is the "Drive-existence" of the Master Unit, granting this wish means Izanami ceases to be) and Makoto's wish for a happy life with her friends (which includes the aforementioned Noel, making the wish divide-by-zero by default), both of which are detrimental to Izanami]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Elona}}'' grants you wishes under very rare circumstances (the easiest way for new players is to drink from all fountains you find). You can type in almost any item's name to receive it, but [[YouCantGetYeFlask be sure to have a guide handy because the text parser might read part of your wish, ignore the rest, and grant you something completely different from what you wanted]].

* ''VideoGame/KyleAndLucyWonderworld'': This is the main goal of the main characters, in order to get back home.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Miitopia}}'' when Miis decide to camp out for the night, there's a chance they'll do some stargazing, then one of them spots a shooting star in the sky. The Miis then decide to make wishes, which triggers a minigame where you have to tap whatever wish you want to come true three times before the star reaches the other side of the screen.

* In ''VisualNovel/SteinsGate'', Mayuri relates a story of wishing on a shooting star for Okabe to get better from his fever when they were kids. Okabe happened to recover the following day. What prompts this discussion is her seeing "the first star of the night sky", which Okabe points out is actually the planet Venus.
* The protagonist of ''VisualNovel/StarCrossedMyth'' makes the vaguest possible Tanabata wish for "something wonderful to happen." This becomes more significant than she expected when she's approached by six gods of the zodiac during the Tanabata festival.
* Wishes have a lot of power in the world of ''VisualNovel/{{Kanon}}'', but they also come with a high price. [[spoiler: Ayu and Makoto, at least the versions of them that we get to know, were brought into existence solely by the powers of their respective wishes to see Yuichi again. Ayu is an AstralProjection whose real body is lying in a coma, and she disappears when she realizes what's going on. Makoto was originally a fox that Yuichi took care of as a child, and her wish to meet him again transformed her into a human at the cost of erasing her memories and gradually draining her life until she dies. The former gets better in the GoldenEnding; the latter doesn't.]]

** Also in the backstory. [[spoiler: As children, Hiyoko and Ryouta wished for a world where humans and birds would stop fighting. [[AxeCrazy Dr. Shuu]] overheard them and decided to grant it...by eliminating the remainder of humankind, so that there would be no humans left for birds to fight with.]]

* In ''Webcomic/CucumberQuest'', [[http://cucumber.gigidigi.com/cq/page-203/ on a shooting star.]] [[http://cucumber.gigidigi.com/cq/page-204/ Accidentally.]] If he'd known it would work, he would have made a better wish.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{DuckTales|1987}}'': "[[Recap/DuckTalesS1E51MasterOfTheDjinni Master of the Djinni]]", featuring a magic lamp and wish-granting genie.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode where Flanders starts the left-handed store; he and Homer share a wishbone, and Homer wishes for the store to fail. He briefly considers wishing for Flanders to ''die'', but then decides it's overkill and goes back to wishing for the store to fail.
* ''WesternAnimation/DragonTales'' did this with a dragon scale in the introduction sequence
* ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'' had a recurring villain named [[LiteralGenie Desiree]], who would grant you any wish.
* This was the whole premise of ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddparents''. Complete with the kid's inability to make a wish that didn't go horribly, horribly wrong.
** It's literally revealed a few times fairy godparents have to grant wishes for their godchild often; if they don't grant a wish long enough, they suffer magical buildup and literally explode into confetti.
** Norm the Genie on the same show lives in a lava lamp and the third wish sucks him back into the lamp. The third wish is always the ResetButton, too, because Norm is a huge JackassGenie, and tweaks the wishes to screw over the wishers. Norm parodies this trope too, expressing frustration that the first wish is always something mundane like a sandwich, the second wish is grander but goes wrong, and the third wish is putting everything back the way it was. On an additional note, Norm reveals that you CAN wish for extra wishes, the genies just tell people that you can't.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'' has Elmyra wish on a star for her doll to become real, which it does. After being terrorised for a day she wishes on the star again to make the doll like all her other dolls...[[LiteralGenie so they all become real]]!
* ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'':
** In "Henry and the Wishing Tree", Henry visits the old Sodor Wishing Tree and makes a wish on it that he could pull coaches instead of Gordon. His wish comes true, but it isn't as good as he thought.
** In "Merry Winter Wish", Thomas is to transport a special holiday light -- the Star of Knapford -- to Knapford Station for a party. It is a special light that engines can make wishes on when passing by. Thomas decides to delay his trip to visit his friends so they can make wishes on it, but when it all goes wrong and he accidentally breaks it, he makes his own wish that his friends can help him. His wish comes true, and eventually his friends get their wishes as well: to all be under the star together.
* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'' movie, ''WesternAnimation/WakkosWish'', had the entire cast racing to be the first to the Wishing Star. Wakko wishes for [[spoiler:another ha'penny]].
* ''WesternAnimation/SuperRobotMonkeyTeamHyperForceGo'' has an episode with the Wigglenog, which is a JackassGenie. Otto, the green monkey, outwits him with [[spoiler:"I wish we'd never even found you in the first place!"]]
* ''Series/IDreamOfJeannie'' also had a [[RecycledInSPACE teenage version]] AnimatedSeries -- her wishes, like Jeannie's, were unlimited.
* In the first of TheEighties' ''WesternAnimation/StrawberryShortcake'' specials, ''The World of...'', TheFaceOfTheSun reveals that his birthday present for Strawberry is a "magic wish", and she winds up wishing for an army of trees (which, in Strawberryland, are sentient) to defeat the Purple Pieman who had been causing trouble for the kids the whole story. The wish is granted with trees that can also ''march'', and the result is the destruction of his Pie Tin Palace.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'' when Barney and Betty wished for a baby after seeing a falling star. They later found Bamm Bamm in a basket on their doorstep.
* In ''WesternAnimation/PJSparkles'', PJ's wish on the wishing star for someone to love turns her into a MagicalGirl and brings her to Twinkle Town, which is made from children's wishes. Its inhabitants similarly wished on the star for someone to love them.

''[they close their eyes, harp music plays]''\\

''[no, it isn't]''
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'': In the AnimatedAdaptation of "The Astro Smurf", Dreamy makes a birthday wish that he could travel to the stars, and eventually goes out of his way to build a spaceship so he could make that wish come true. Although it initially fails, the Smurfs end up fulfilling that wish by making Dreamy believe that he actually had traveled to the stars through an elaborate scheme that had Dreamy be put to sleep, his ship dismantled and reassembled within an extinct volcano, and the Smurfs disguising themselves as primitive aliens called Swoofs.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfPussInBoots'', Dulcinea gets a wishing star named Esteban and becomes an Official Secret Star Wisher. Although the two of them have only the best of intentions, Dulcinea makes her wishes too vague (Dulcinea wishes for a person's stubborn horse to move) and Esteban interprets them too loosely (Esteban makes the horse never stop moving) causing chaos to erupt.
* In ''WesternAnimation/AnnabellesWish'', the titular character intends to make a wish to Santa Claus so that she can achieve her dream of flying. Instead, however, she gives up her wish and her voice so that her friend Billy can talk again. Years later, Santa repays her for her selflessness by granting her original wish to fly. She gets turned into a reindeer and even gets her voice back.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'':
** In Episode 93, when Stumpy and Quack Quack realize that they don't know when Quack Quack's birthday is, they can call any day his birthday and blow out a candle to make a wish on that day. They decide to use it on the current day. While Quack Quack blows on the candles, Stumpy makes the wish for him and wishes for [[spoiler: [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext himself and their other friends to become pole dancers.]]]]
** In Episode 129, Kaeloo, Stumpy, Quack Quack, and Mr. Cat try to stay up late so they can see a shooting star and make a wish on it. [[spoiler: Kaeloo and Quack Quack fall asleep, Stumpy stays up but is so tired that he wastes his wish on asking for a bed, and Mr. Cat asks for his own bar and several clones of Kaeloo.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'': The reason the BigBad wants Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous is because, if someone combines them and uses the proper invocation, they can make any one wish come true. The reason the heroes haven't used this to their advantage is that it works on EquivalentExchange rules. If, for instance, a machine wished to become human, someone else would lose their humanity.
* Two instances from ''WesternAnimation/DangerMouse'':
** "Where There's A Well, There's A Way" has DM and Penfold trekking to find the mystic inkwell of Merlin the Magician. Casting a copper coin into the well and making a wish grants the finder his wish.
** In "I Spy With My Little Eye," Penfold sees what he thinks is a star and makes a wish:
--->'''Penfold:''' Oh, little star that shines so bright,\\
I'd like a wish if that's all right.\\
Oh, little star in the ink-black heaven...\\
'''DM:''' Forget it, Penfold, It's a 747.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/PJMasks'' episode "The Dragon Gong", Night Ninja steals the titular gong and the mallet that activates it, summoning An Yu, who's trapped inside as a dragon (hence the object's name of "dragon gong") and using her power of granting wishes to get rid of the PJ Masks. However, she fails to mention to him that she only grants one single wish to whoever uses her power, until after he makes his first wish.
* ''WesternAnimation/ReadyJetGo'': In "Bortron Leprechaun", Sydney tells Jet that leprechauns will grant you a wish. Jet wishes that Sunspot was there with him to help him decide on his wish, and his wish gets granted when the leprechaun is revealed to be Sunspot.
* ''WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle'': One of the "Fractured Fairy Tales" segment does a "magic mermaid" variation on the Russian version of the magic fish story (see under "Fairy Tales") with a surprisingly heartwarming ending: rather than taking away all of her previous wishes out of wrath, the fisherman tells the mermaid that all he wants is to make his wife happy, and she grants this as his final wish. When he returns home, he finds that all of the trappings of her previous exorbitant wishes are gone, but his wife is now happy and satisfied with her modest life, and he's happy because she's happy, and as such they live HappilyEverAfter.

%% Image replaced per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1302918665000280100
%% Please do not change or remove without starting a new thread.

* ''Manga/MermaidSaga'': [[{{Squick}} eating the flesh]] of a mermaid is said to grant one wish: immortality. Actually ''getting'' immortality is extremely rare. More common is becoming horribly mutated and insane, and much, much more common is the usual result of trying this: dropping dead.

* ''Manga/DragonBall'': Anyone who gathers all seven Dragon Balls will be able to summon Shenron and have a wish granted. The first arc revolved around a quest to find them, facilitated by the Dragon Radar built by [[GadgeteerGenius Bulma]]. They would rarely feature at the center of the series afterwards but were an ever-present background element, and once the heroes were able to fly around the world at incredible speeds the Dragon Radar made finding them a minor chore that took a few hours at most, so they were often used as a ResetButton to undo the villain's damage.
* In ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'', Jirachi is a cute FunSize Mythical Pokémon that has the power to grant wishes. A Jirachi features prominently as the featured Mon of the sixth movie, ''Anime/PokemonJirachiWishmaker''. On top of that, the ending theme for the said movie is called "Make A Wish".

* ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'' has WeaselMascot Kyubey offering a wish in exchange to turn girls into {{Magical Girl}}s to fight Witches. [[spoiler:He's a LiteralGenie and the wishes have a [[DealWithTheDevil price]] that he [[YouDidntAsk doesn't elaborate on]] but the miracles are genuine.]] As a little bonus, [[spoiler:Madoka's Grief Seed has a shooting star on it]].

* ''Manga/AhMyGoddess'' has this as the central device that begins the story.
* In ''Manga/FushigiYuugi'', the Priestess gets ThreeWishes from whichever Beast God she summons. There ''are'' some catches, however: although ''technically'', she ''can'' wish for anything she wants, she's ''supposed'' to use her wishes for [[GreaterNeedThanMine the greater good]], not for her own gain. Also, she is to remain [[VirginPower a virgin]] until she summons the Beast God. And lastly, if she is deemed to be not strong enough, or not pure enough, she will be [[VirginSacrifice completely devoured by the Beast God in question]]. [[ImHavingSoulPains (This process begins as soon as she summons the god and makes her first wish.)]]
* In ''Anime/EigaTamagotchiHimitsuNoOtodokeDaiSakusen'', this is why [[spoiler:Spacytchi]] wants the package the Tama-Friends are delivering to the Gotchi King; he thinks the [[EggMacGuffin egg]] contained within will hatch into a being that can grant any wish of his choosing [[spoiler:and he wants to use that wish to conquer Tamagotchi Planet; the egg doesn't contain any such creature, though]].

** ''WesternAnimation/{{Snow White|AndTheSevenDwarfs}}'', in a wishing well
** ''WesternAnimation/{{Pinocchio}},'' on a star
** ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}'', with a genie in a lamp

** ''WesternAnimation/DuckTalesTheMovieTreasureOfTheLostLamp'', with another genie in a lamp.
** ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitch'', with Lilo wishing on a shooting star for a friend. That star turns out to be a crashing spaceship carrying Experiment 626.
** ''WesternAnimation/ChickenLittle'' has the star fall on Little, revealed to be the panel of a spaceship.
* In ''WesternAnimation/ShrekForeverAfter'', the movie starts with Fiona wishing on a star for "every day to be like this one." Cue a GroundhogDayLoop and Shrek's midlife crisis.
** Shrek himself makes a wish 'to be an ogre for one day' (i.e., to be able to behave just like he used to before he met Fiona, without remorse, ruining his new reputation, or having her scold him). Just one day, for old times' sake. He even gets it. Unfortunately, it was granted by means of [[spoiler:a MagicallyBindingContract, with [[Literature/{{Rumpelstiltskin}} the antagonist]] pushing it almost into DealWithTheDevil territory, given his LoopholeAbuse of the One-day-for-one-day EquivalentExchange meant to [[RetGone erase Shrek from existence]].]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Turbo}}'', the title character, a snail, wishes on a star to be fast. The star turns out to be an airplane, yet another reminder of his lack of speed. He nevertheless gets his wish.

'''Sid:''' Quick, make a wish! You gotta make a-- ''[gets hit]'' ''WIIIIIIIISH!''\\

'''Sid:''' I'm okay! ''[spontaneously combusts]''\\

* The 1986 movie ''Milly/Willy'' (aka ''I Was a Teenage Boy'', ''Something Special''), where [[GenderBender a girl wishes to be a boy]] during the solar eclipse.
* In ''Film/JamesAndTheGiantPeach'', James sends out a balloon wishing for help to take him to New York. Help appears in the form of a strange man with a bag full of magic glowing alligator tongues. (This is only in the movie; in the book, the strange man just appears.)
* ''18 Again'' has a grandfather and grandson who share the same birthday [[FreakyFridayFlip switch bodies]] after they wish on the same birthday cake.
* The film ''Film/ThirteenGoingOnThirty'': Wishing powder transports the protagonist into the future
* Lifetime's ''How I Married My High School Crush'' has the teenage heroine transported to the future after making a wish during a solar eclipse.
* ''Film/LiarLiar'' had a boy use his birthday wish to wish his lying father couldn't tell a lie for one day.

* In ''{{Film/Ted}}'', it's a childhood wish by John brings Ted to life and it's an adult one by Lori that saves Ted in the end.

* The made for TV movie ''A Dog's Tale'': a boy makes a wish on a star to get a dog, but as he makes the wish a bee flies by making it sound like he says "I want to be a dog", so he turns into a dog and he must find a way to reverse the process.

* ''Film/GrumpyCatsWorstChristmasEver'' has Crystal using a magic Christmas coin on a Wishing Well to make a wish for a friend. She ended up gaining the ability to understand Grumpy Cat.
* ''Film/SixteenWishes'' is a Disney Channel Movie about a girl named Abby who has a list of sixteen things she wants to happen on her 16th birthday; once the day starts off on the wrong foot, a mysterious woman named Celeste gives her sixteen candles that can each grant one of those wishes. Interestingly, the moral wasn't so much BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor as helping Abby realize [[HeelRealization that she was kind of self-centered]], as the wishes help her realize that the people around her have HiddenDepths and her actions have been negatively affecting them.
* In ''Film/WhenEvilCalls'', a JerkassGenie unleashes a chain text around a school that grants a wish to anyone who forwards the text on to two other people. The wishes always come true... [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor in the worst possible way]].
* In ''Film/ASafePlace1971'', Noah shows Fred a magic box she received from the Magician. The wisher must put something special and important to her into the box while making a wish; when she removes the item, her wish will come true, but the box can only be used in times of genuine need. Noah won't tell Fred what she put in the box because then it won't work.

* In a rather grimmer way, ''Literature/ThePictureOfDorianGray''. Here, the wish (that Dorian's portrait would age rather than he) is definitely magic, but the question is, ''who'' granted it?
* Towards the end of ''Literature/TheMagicians'' the protagonist captures a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Questing_Beast Questing Beast]] which then grants him three wishes. His first wish is impossible, as is the next one and the one after that. The Beast still counts them as his first wish.
* In one of the dialogues in ''Literature/GodelEscherBachAnEternalGoldenBraid'', the main protagonist Achilles finds[[note]] technically, this only happens within (ItMakesSenseInContext) an Escher etching inside a dialogue within the dialogue[[/note]] a magical lamp whose BenevolentGenie grants him three wishes. Achilles tries to wish for more wishes, only to find out the genie can't do that for him; a wish about wishes is technically classified as a metawish, and in order to grant such wishes one would need a metagenie in a metalamp, whereas Achilles's genie merely is of the base variety… [[spoiler:Luckily the genie happens to have a metalamp with a metagenie in, and even petitions GOD to grant Achilles a typeless wish (that could be about wishes, or metawishes, or metametawishes…), but Achilles still manages to mess it up.]]
* Joan Aiken's short story ''The Third Wish'' has our hero Mr. Peters freeing a swan from some thorn bushes, who turns out to be the King of the Forest, who grants him three wishes. Mr. Peters wishes for a pretty wife, which is exactly what he gets (her name is Leita), only it turns out [[spoiler:Leita's actually a swan that [[JackassGenie the King]] turned into a human girl. She loves Mr. Peters but misses her swan sister very badly. Mr. Peters [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy uses his second wish to turn her back into a swan,]] and Leita and her sister stay with him as swans for the rest of his life.]].
* The ''Series/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'' novelisation "All That Glitters" featured a substance called Wish Dust that would indeed grant any wish and there didn't seem to be a limit. Unfortunately, the dust has a life of its own and finds its way into other people's hands. The kicker has got to be Neve Campbell, Brad Pitt, Leonardo Di Caprio, and Winona Ryder ending up at school because one kid heard they were shooting a new movie.
* ''Series/{{Goosebumps}}'' tended to be quite fond of this trope as a device for lesson learning. "Be careful what you wish for" is probably the best example. Typically wishes don't go exactly as planned and the protagonist finishes the story by wishing nothing had ever happened

* In Creator/RuthFrancesLong's ''Literature/TheTreacheryOfBeautifulThings'', the Leczi gives Jenny one. She tries to use it twice and is warned that it comes in its own time. At the end, Puck shoved her out into the mortal world with the instruction that it works more slowly but more surely there.
* In Creator/ErinMorgenstern's ''Literature/TheNightCircus'', the circus acquires the Wishing Tree where you light a candle from the ones already lit. Only some patrons can find it.

* In Creator/RobertArthur's "Literature/TheWonderfulDay", Danny wishes on a unicorn horn for all of the expressions adults use to become literally true for just one day. This results in everything from a woman [[InflatingBodyGag puffing up like a balloon]] with pride to a man who keeps saying "I wish..." ending up with an entire herd of horses.

* Creator/IsaacAsimov's "Literature/GimmicksThree": Welby's contract provided him with ten years of supernaturally guided life, every wish he had could be fulfilled by [[InMysteriousWays seemingly coincidental events that happened to bring him good fortune]].
* ''Literature/BigfootAndLittlefoot'': In the first book, when Boone first appears, one of the first things that he does is pick up a dandelion and blow all the seeds off it. Gigi tells Hugo that Humans do that as a way to make a wish. We later find out in the book that Boone wished to see a Sasquatch, and it had apparently came true because he and Hugo made eye contact not long after.
* ''Literature/BruceCovillesBookOf Spine Tinglers'': Miranda Alice gets three wishes from a snail (and promptly wishes for a thousand more) in ''Those Three Wishes''. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, she wasn't [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor careful what she said]] and, after realizing she'd forgotten to study for a test, unwittingly wished to be dead.]]
* ''Literature/MermaidsOfErianaKwai'': Early in ''Ice Massacre'', Meela wishes on a four-leaf clover that Eriana Kwai could be free from the mermaids that have killed so many people.

* The premise of ''Series/IDreamOfJeannie''.
* ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' thoroughly explores this in the episode The Betrayal, which involves the wishing, counter-wishing, and re-wishing of Kramer to "drop dead" using most of the methods in the description. There's also Jerry wishing Man Hands would acquire normal feminine hands. [[spoiler:Neither comes true.]]
* The sisters in ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'' went up against a genie who delighted in giving you exactly what you wished for. ''[[ExactWords Exactly]]'' what you wished for. Complete with [[JackassGenie every loophole]] you didn't close.
* ''Franchise/SuperSentai'' / ''Franchise/PowerRangers'':
** ''Series/PowerRangersMysticForce'' had a genie cat named Jenji who granted each person a wish. However, if you wish for more wishes (as Xander did) you render the "contract" null and void.
** In the Franchise/SuperSentai version, the [[Series/MahouSentaiMagiranger Magirangers']] first wish was to defeat the bad guys. He makes excuses about them having to pay them, but it quickly becomes apparent that unlike most genies, he has no special [[RealityWarper wish-granting abilities]] and has to make his come true [[AnAesop the old fashioned way]].

* ''Series/KaizokuSentaiGokaiger'' - [[spoiler:The "Greatest Treasure in the Universe" the team have been looking for is revealed to have this power. Not only could it stop the Zangyack Empire, it could make it so Zangyack never existed in the first place. Unfortunately, doing so would take the power of all Super Sentai, erasing ''them'' from the new universe as well. After some agonizing, they decide it's not worth it and they'll stop Zangyack their own way - something they underline by ''blowing up'' the Treasure.]]

* In ''Series/FreeSpirit1989'', CuteWitch Winnie Goodwin first meets Gene Harper after Gene wishes for someone to spend time with him while his father and older siblings have become busy with other things.
* ''Franchise/KamenRider'' has several instances of this trope.
** ''Series/KamenRiderRyuki'' involves a thirteen-man fight to the death over a wish. However, [[spoiler:it's all a ruse by the instigator of the fight to build up enough energy to revive his sister]].
** ''Series/KamenRiderDenO'' involves a race of monsters who grant wishes to people. However, they aren't actual wish-granting beings, so they instead grant them in a way that'd qualify, such as cutting up neck''ties'' to fulfill a man's wish of cutting ties. However, the consequence of making such a wish allows them to be corporeal and even hijack the person's body to travel back in time and wreck up as much of the past as they can.
** ''Series/KamenRiderGhost'' involves fifteen {{soul jar}}s containing the spirits of historical figures. In exchange, one can get a wish.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' often centered on characters getting what they wished for, through many of the means listed above. This being the Zone, of course, BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor is in full effect.
* This serves as the plot in the ''Series/ColdCase'' episode "Wishing", the developmentally disabled VictimOfTheWeek wished for his classmate to like him, for his caregiver to release him from the psychiatric hospital and [[{{Tearjerker}} for his terminally ill mother to get strong "like a train"]].
* ''Series/Batwoman2019''. On Kate Kane's birthday, she blows out the candle on a wedding cupcake Luke Fox has made for her and makes a wish, but we don't hear what she wished for. Immediately after that a Beth shows up from an alternate universe where Kate's twin sister didn't become the psychotic supervillain Alice. Beth has no idea how she got here (she's an anomaly left over when the TheMultiverse combined in ''Series/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths2019'') and when asked Kate just replies, "I made a wish". Then in a flashback scene, young Beth (the future Alice) is being held captive by [[MadDoctor Mr. Cartwright]], and makes a wish to see her family again, only for Mr. Cartwright to [[KickTheDog tell her the wish won't come true]] now that she's spoken it aloud. At the end of the episode, Kate is enjoying another birthday cake with Alt-Beth, blows out the candle and mentions out loud what her first wish had been. Right then Alt-Beth (and Alice elsewhere) simultaneously [[NeverTheSelvesShallMeet collapse to the ground in pain]].
* ''Series/DoctorWho''. At the end of "Legend of the Sea Devils", Yaz encourages the Doctor to make a wish while skipping a stone off the ocean. The Doctor says hers out loud, as that's what you do on her planet. It's a wish that her time with Yaz will last forever. From Yaz's expression, she knows full well it's TemptingFate. Right after this comes the OnTheNext episode trailer which starts with the Doctor saying, "Nothing is forever..."
* ''Series/{{Friends}}'': Monica insisted on making a flan instead of a cake for Rachel's birthday. During the end credits Rachel blows out the candles on the flan, only for it to be immediately smashed by a volleyball thrown by one of the guests.
-->'''Rachel:''' Wow, those things almost never come true!

* ''TabletopGame/ChuubosMarvelousWishGrantingEngine'': It's right there in the title - although being a setting focused on the wishing power of the heart, there are other ways to make wishes as well. No matter what the wish is, no matter how impossible it is, no matter how world-changing, it will happen. The fun is dealing with them.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' has Green Sun Princes and the Akuma of Cecelyne. They have a charm chain named Verdant Emptiness Endowment, which allows them to grant wishes they overhear. Recipients owe the Infernal a favor but can gain virtually anything from greater skill with the sword to Sorcery. Fan upgrades include true love and helper demons. The original creators referred to the charm concept as 'Evil Desert Genie'.
* One of the tricks kitsune can play on fools in ''TabletopGame/KitsuneOfFoxesAndFools'' is Grant a Wish, which nets the casting fox a new tail if they pay foxfire equal to the fool's level. The explanation is "Sometimes the best way to purify a desire is to fulfill it." And given that the normal way of purifying fools is through karmic pranks, that probably means the fox acts like a JerkassGenie.

* In the 2013 West End musical ''Theatre/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'', after the fourth Golden Ticket is found Charlie (who's already seen his one chance to find a ticket -- his annual birthday bar of chocolate -- come and go) falls into a blue funk. To try and cheer him up, his father suggests they look through a hole in the roof to see if they can't find a shooting star for the boy to make a wish on, but Charlie sadly says "Don't waste a wish on me." A little later, as Mr. Bucket heads out to look for work once more, he says "Well Charlie, if you won't make a wish, then I will..." Is it a coincidence that soon after, Charlie ''does'' find the last Golden Ticket when he uses some dropped money to buy a Wonka Bar? [[spoiler:Yes. ''It was being saved for him.'']]

After the wish has been granted, the wisher may discover they [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor don't like the way things are going]] and will use another wish to hit a ResetButton. If after all the wishes have been used up, the wisher ends up no better off, they've been WastefulWishing. Big wishes may end in a {{Wishplosion}}.

** There is a similar Russian tale. In that one, the fish offers a poor fisherman unlimited wishes. The man himself is perfectly satisfied with his life as is, but his greedy wife keeps asking him to make grander and grander wishes (on her behalf), which eventually ends up with her becoming queen. However, still not satisfied with this, she demands to be made Mistress of the Seas and command the fish itself, which is not only refusing to grant but also revokes all the previous wishes, leaving the wife with nothing.

* This is the whole point of the original ''Manga/DragonBall'': Goku (and everyone else in the series) is looking for the seven Dragon Balls, so they can make a wish.

* In ''VideoGame/{{ADOM}}'' wishes may be gained from using a blessed ring of Djinni summoning, using a wand of wishing, or randomly and unlikely from drinking from a magical pool. The main use for this is to get certain items, although you can't wish for artifacts.

* Series/{{Smallville}}:

** In [[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E9TheWish "The Wish"]], [[AlphaBitch Cordelia]] decides that Buffy is the cause of her recent troubles and wishes she had never to Sunnydale. Unfortunately she's speaking to vengeance demon Anyanka at the time, who instantly grants her wish by turning Sunnydale into a CrapsackWorld overrun by vampires.

** The "Wishverse", where Sunnydale is a CrapsackWorld because [[AlphaBitch Cordelia]] made an angry wish to someone who was really the vengeance demon Anyanka. Although Willow and Xander were together [[spoiler:as bisexual S&M vampires working for The Master.]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]

* In ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'', Sarge has been wishing on shooting stars every night for the past decade. The wish is, of course, for Grif's violent and untimely death.