Embarrassing Pyjamas

There's nothing more embarrassing than coming to school in your pyjamas.

Stanley: This is... impossible!
Kellaway: Those pajamas are impossible. This actually happened!

— The Mask

We all know how embarrassing it is to be seen in one's underwear or worse, wearing nothing, but being seen in one's pyjamas can be embarrassing, too. After all, you wouldn't wear your pyjamas out of the house or in front of visitors. This is the trope for when a character is either embarrassed by or ridiculed for their pyjamas, or both.

Maybe it's something about the pyjamas themselves: they might be pink or some other bright color, and/or have something cutesy printed on them like animals, flowers, fairies, etc., which is especially embarrassing if the character wants to be tough, believes the prints on his pyjamas are too childish for his age, is usually too dignified to wear goofy clothes, or is a man/boy and believes the colours/patterns are too "effeminate". It could also be a man wearing a nightie, which he (or the people teasing him) thinks is too similar to a dress or maybe the pyjamas are worn, the wrong size, and/or stained. Maybe the pyjamas have feet attached (called "footie pyjamas") which are almost universally seen as babyish. Maybe the pyjamas are perfectly fine, but just seeing someone in their pyjamas is embarrassing enough.

Similar to Fully-Clothed Nudity if the wearer feels "naked" in his pyjamas despite them covering up all the important bits. Compare Bad Job, Worse Uniform; Embarrassingly Dresslike Outfit; Embarrassing Hospital Gown; The Glasses Gotta Go; Homemade Sweater from Hell; Of Corsets Funny; Red Sock Ruins the Laundry (with the implication that pink = ruined); and Uncool Undies for other gawky clothes. See also Pyjama-Clad Hero. If the embarrassing pyjamas were a gift, they're probably an example of My New Gift Is Lame.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In HeartCatch Pretty Cure! Tsubomi ends up staying home from school one episode as she fell ill after an Unsettling Gender-Reveal concerning her school’s student president, Itsuki. When Itsuki is turned into a Desertarian and Erika needs help, Tsubomi races for the school in her pajamas. Once Itsuki is reverted and back to normal, one of her first questions is why Tsubomi is at school in her pajamas, which sends the poor girl running home in a panic.
• In one episode of Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl, Kenny recounts an embarrassing experience to Dawn's friends that she had once shown up to kindergarten in her pyjamas.
• In the third segment from episode 4 of Yo Kai Watch, Mr. Johnson gets angry at his pupils because Katie forgot her pencil case, Eddie came to school with an empty schoolbag, and Nate forgot his schoolbag. Mr. Johnson is then reminded that he came to school in his pyjamas. When he realizes, he's utterly embarrassed. All of this happened because of a youkai that made them forget things.
• In the Mu Mu (Dream Dream) Hakusho: Nightmare Hakusho OVA from YuYu Hakusho, Yusuke wakes up realizing he's wearing pajamas with teddy bears on them.

Comic Books

• Fantastic Four: In the first Issue of Mark Waid's Run, the team respond to a late-night emergency at the think-tank of geniuses, "Cause Cerebral", The Thing has his beauty sleep interrupted while wearing a pair of baby blue pajamas with ducks on them.

Comic Strips

• Blondie (1930): Blondie's husband Dagwood Bumstead often ventures out of the house in pyjamas and bathrobe to fetch the morning mail or morning newspaper. Some outings have Dagwood locked out of his house with a dilemma: Wait quietly however long for Blondie to venture out the door, or make a racket that's sure to call the neighbors' attention to himself. Adding just that much more misery is that Dagwood's usual jammies are white with large red donuts, which he's had for years.
• Garfield: In this comic, Jon gets locked outside in his bunny pyjamas. And Garfield refuses to let him back in before everybody can see it.

Fan Works

• The Loud House fanfiction Lincoln Betrays Lucy:
  • Lucy is embarrassed when people tease her for wearing pyjamas that take the form of a pony onesie.
  • In the Peeking Through the Fourth Wall episode where the Louds riff the fanfic, they agree that a pony onesie is more embarrassing than pyjamas that simply have ponies on them.
• Briefly pops up in the Invader Zim fic Gaz and the Ghost. Being haunted by Iggins' ghost first thing in the morning, Gaz eventually flees the house, only to belatedly realize that she didn't get dressed first, leaving her in public in her Vampire Piggy Hunter-themed pajamas, with gaudy pictures of vampire pigs on them. Nothing really comes of this, but it is mentioned at several points that people keep staring at her because of it.
• In this fan comic, it's Pajama Day at school but Adrien is embarrassed to show off his own sleepwear. Nino tries to pull it off and argue how silly it is that Adrien is feeling embarrassed when he wore a Sailor Moon cosplay at Halloween. Turns out it was a Ladybug onsie, much to his friends' amusement.

Films — Live-Action

• In A Christmas Story, Ralphie Parker is reluctantly cajoled into posing for a picture in his new pink bunny onesie pajamas.
• The very first film that Charlie Chaplin put on the Tramp costume for, Mabel's Strange Predicament, has Mabel Normand get locked out of her room at a hotel. She is wearing baggy pajamas that cover her from neck to ankle, but she acts like she's walking naked down Main Street, eventually diving for cover into the room across the hall.
• The Mask: Stanley Ipkiss has these kind of pajamas. Lampshaded by Lt. Kellaway when he interrogates Ipkiss about an incident just outside his door last night. It becomes a Chekhov's Gun when Kellaway finds a piece of the pajamas at a crime scene, and thus deduces Stanley is The Mask (the piece ended up there because is was blown off The Mask's zoot suit and reverted to Stan's clothes).
• The Descent: While the girls are hanging out in the cabin the night before the caving expedition, Beth comes in wearing an embarrassingly girly flowery pajama set as all her friends burst into laughter, while she tries to explain it away as a Christmas present.

Literature

• In Adrian Mole, Adrian averts this by insisting on having new nightwear before going to hospital, to replace his Peter Pan dressing gown and Winnie the Pooh pyjamas.
  Adrian: Apart from the yukky design, they are too small and covered in patches. My father said when he was a lad, he slept in a nightshirt made of two coal sacks stitched together. I phoned my grandma to check this suspicious statement: she said they were not coal sacks but flour sacks.
• In Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Rodrick Heffley pranks his brother Greg by telling him that the next day is "Pyjama Day" at school. Greg later redoes this prank to his friend Rowley.
• Keeper of the Lost Cities: In Neverseen, the Black Swan give Sophie and her friends colorful furry onesies to use as pajamas while they're staying at Alluveterre, in the hopes that they would be embarrassing enough to discourage them from meeting after curfew.
• In Knights of the Borrowed Dark Denizen and Simon buy pyjamas for Grey, who's convalescing after a nasty case of impalement, and purposely choose the most ridiculous set they can find. Grey doesn't seem to mind.
• In The Midnight Gang, Tom is embarrassed by having to wear a pink nightie at the hospital.
• In Tag Dag, The Bully is embarrassed by having his classmate see him buying pyjamas with bunnies on them.
• In The Worst Thing About My Sister, when Marty (short for Martina) accidentally knocks out her sister Melissa and they take her to the hospital, Marty is embarrassed when she realises she's still in her pyjamas.

Live-Action TV

• Victorious: In an episode where the gang must participate in a parade, it's up to Cat to come up with the theme for their float. She chooses a cupcake theme for the float and makes everyone wear brightly colored pajamas with a candy patterns on them. Jade is amused when she sees the boys wearing their pajamas. She's less amused when she learns she'll have to wear one, too.
• In an episode of the new Worzel Gummidge series, Soggy "Harley Davidson" Bogart is teased for wearing pyjamas of his ex-favourite book character Teddy Bodkin despite being a pseudo-tough wannabe biker.
• In The Suite Life of Zack & Cody episode 'Election', Zack, running against Cody for school president, shows a picture of Cody in footie pajamas to the student body.
• On the first morning after Alice moves into her grandmother's house in The Way Home, Del sends her outside with the dog - knowing full well there's a cute teenage boy working outside who will see her in her jammies.

Visual Novels

• Parodied in Double Homework. The ever-so-stupid Henry wears his school uniform as pajamas.
• The title character in Melody has an embarrassing nightgown, at least when the context is considered. Melody wears a white nightgown when she first sleeps over the protagonist's place, and he asks if she knows what the color white symbolizes. She does know, and she suddenly becomes afraid that the protagonist has figured out that she’s still a virgin.

Web Animation

• RWBY: Downplayed. On the first night at Beacon Academy, the day before initiation, all the students sleep in a common room. As Yang Xiao Long is admiring all of the shirtless boys getting ready to sleep, she suddenly notices Jaune Arc proudly strutting around in footed pajamas with a cereal mascot on them. Yang winces in embarrassment, but Jaune is left none the wiser.

Web Comics

• Brian from Furry Experience arrives at his morning class at Furry Valley U wearing pyjama bottoms; other students also have very casual attire. Then in walks Dawn, groomed and dressed as if for a board meeting. She sits next to Brian, who then realizes his rocket-ship pyjamas are Dawn's antithesis. He flees in panic in the Friday 4 November 2011 installment.

Web Video

• In the first campaign of Critical Role, the group are surprised while sleeping by a band of roving ogres. Player Taliesin Jaffe notes that not only is Percy wearing old-fashioned pyjamas with a buttoned trapdoor, but the trapdoor has come loose. Percy doesn't care, being far too gleeful over his own combat prowess (having rolled multiple Nat 20s in one round).
  Taliesin: I'm wearing the pyjamas with the butt-flap, and the butt-flap is down. The butt-flap is DOWN!
• Sanders Sides: Thomas summons Logic and Morality to talk to them. They're caught unaware and appear wearing pyjama onesies, Morality a cat onesie and Logic a unicorn onesie with his necktie over it. While Morality, although a little confused at first, doesn't care at all, Logic is embarrassed and stutters an I Can Explain before Thomas just asks them both to change.

Western Animation

• Hey Arnold!'s infamous "Arnold Betrays Iggy" episode has Arnold discover that Iggy, who has a reputation as the coolest kid at P.S. 118, wears bunny pajamas. Iggy makes Arnold promise not to tell, and although Arnold keeps his promise, his friends find out through extremely accurate guessing. When Iggy finds out, Arnold does everything he can to earn back Iggy's trust, but the only thing that will work is if Arnold walks out in public dressed in Iggy's pajamas. Arnold is teased by almost everyone in the neighborhood, and only then does Iggy realize that he went too far. Now Iggy tries to earn back Arnold's trust, but Arnold doesn't want to see or speak to him ever again.
  • In "Arnold Visits Arnie" after having a vivid nightmare, Arnold hysterically runs out to his friends playing baseball without changing out of his teddy bear print pajamas.
  Rhonda: The kid's running around in his pajamas.
  Harold: And look, they have little bears on them! Hahaha!
  Sid: Boy howdy, talk about embarrassing.
• In The Loud House episode "Missed Connection", Carl is embarrassed by his mother entering a video chat with his train pyjamas.
• Continuing from the example on Film, The Mask features Stanley in pyjamas stamped with fish resembling animal crackers.
• Subverted in one episode of The Simpsons, Bart charges out of the house in his cowboy footie pyjamas, expecting a snow day. However, there's actually been "a bout of unseasonable warmth." Jimbo mocks him with "Nice PJs, Simpson. Did your mommy buy them for ya?" To which Bart replies, "Of course she did. who else?" much to Jimbo's chagrin.
• A Teacher's Pet episode begins with Leonard answering the door to his neighbor and crush Leslie while he's wearing cowboy pajamas. Leslie compliments them but Leonard is embarrassed all the same. The ending has him saying he learned not to answer the door in his cowboy pajamas, which is true as the next morning he answers the door to Leslie again while wearing his normal shirt, only for Leslie to laughingly point out Leonard is still wearing firetruck pajama bottoms embarrassing him again.
• Teen Titans: In the episode Mother Mae Eye, Beast Boy is forced to wear a pink bunny pajama onesie by Mae Eye after she places him and the other Titans under mind control. This is no ordinary pajama suit; Mae Eye made it so he "didn't have to turn into all those ugly animals" since he would already look like an animal. When he tries to change anyway, he finds that the suit is so tight that it keeps him from transforming. Not even his T Rex form could break the suit.

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