Shock Party - Television Tropes & Idioms

When the Scary Surprise Party turns really scary.

In TV-Land, parties are an occasion for teenagers to go wild and Spin the Bottle, families to play Parlor Games, and psychotic hosts to massacre their guests. Then there is the Surprise Party; and 90% of the time, surprise parties in fiction will end in disaster. This might vary from something as small as someone getting humiliated or showing up naked, to something as threatening as your city getting invaded by a giant monster. Can be Played for Laughs or for Drama.

A rare but not unknown variation is where the character trying to organize the party runs into some heavily abnormal trouble. In these cases the party itself will take place at the end of the episode/movie/chapter, and will be uneventful.

Examples:

Comic Books

One of Phil Foglio's What\'s New? with Phil and Dixie strips in Dragon magazine was about espionage Tabletop RPGs. Part of it explained why it was a really bad idea to throw a surprise birthday party for an undercover spy. It starts in the last panel here and concludes at the top of this one.

Film

Get Shorty pushes this to the funniest extreme. Mafia Boss Momo walks into one of these, the lights go on, everyone yells "SURPRISE!", and, oh my, Momo really is surprised. So surprised, in fact, that he grabs his chest, keels over and hits the floor, dead. Apparently everyone forgot about his heart condition.
- It didn't help that Momo had just had to climb several flights of stairs, and was wheezing audibly when he knocked on the door. The "SURPRISE!" was just the straw that broke the camel's back.
District 9: Wikus gets home: "I need to get to the toilet, quickly! Baby, listen I might've crapped in my pants - " "SURPRISE!"
Cloverfield: The protagonist gets a nice little going-away surprise party - and New York is promptly attacked by a massive creature bigger than the statue of liberty.
The Room. Johnny's fiancee decides to come out with her affair with his best friend during the surprise birthday party she's throwing for him.

Live Action TV

Friends did this three times over the years:
- In "The One Where They All Turn Thirty", Monica arrives for the surprise party stone drunk. Hilarity Ensues.
- Rachel's divorced mom and dad (who can't stand each other) arrive at her surprise birthday party; the gang are forced to split it up into two parties to make sure they don't run into each other. Again, Hilarity Ensues.
- Monica was thrown a party by Rachel and Phoebe, who regretfully inform her that none of her other friends where able to make it. Monica goes into a speech about how she'd rather spend the occasion with the two of them rather than a bunch of outsiders she doesn't care about. Cue everyone else coming out from their hiding places, murmuring "Surprise..."
How I Met Your Mother: In a flashback, Ted breaks up with an old girlfriend on her birthday. He does it over the phone, to her answering machine. The kicker? The girl's friends and family were at the house waiting to surprise her with a party, and they all heard the whole thing. Just after the line goes dead, she walks in.
NBC's Las Vegas: Danny gets Ed a surprise birthday cake, but as they're about to confront him with it, Ed happens to be quitting his job and punching a co-worker in the face. He then turns around and runs into the cake, sending it splat on the floor.
According to Jim has the organizing variation. Jim goes through hell and a series of hijinks trying to make sure Cheryl is surprised.
Firefly: The crew throw an impromptu shindig for Simon, celebrating with edible protein instead of cake. What happens next? As River puts it: "Fire..."
Buffy was once lured to one of these by Miss Calendar. She almost makes it but ends up crashing her own party with a vampire that she's fighting. Oz, who at the time was a complete Muggle, is surprised.
Oz: Hey, did everybody see that guy just turn to dust?
- Later in season 5, we get the organizing variation; The Scoobies are trying to throw Tara one; and her Mysterious Past chooses that exact moment to catch up with her.
Picket Fences had a scene based on the urban legend about the guy who walks into his living room and takes a huge fart before turning the lights on... and seeing all the party guests turning green.
Canadian sketch show Bizarre had a sketch showing why it was a really bad idea to throw a surprise birthday party for a security guard. Same outcome as the Phil Foglio example above.
The Tales from the Crypt episode "Three's a Crowd" has the protagonist walk into one of these after killing his wife and best friend because he'd mistaken their party planning for having an affair.

Web Comics

In Shadowgirls, the Alpha Bitch sets up Becca to get gang-raped at the party. And the Deep Ones starts killing people
Zii from Ménage à 3 relates in flash-back how she once set up a "surpise 6-some" for Yuki. It did not turn out as expected, and Zii found out that Yuki's Berserk Button is male genitalia.
In Kevin & Kell, a surprise birthday party is how the gang find out Bruno (a wolf who's had some surgical modifications) has become a herbivore. The arc starts here.

Western Animation

Bob's Birthday is an animated short centered entirely around this with Bob's wife Margaret trying to throw a surprise party for him. She keeps trying to steer Bob into the living room where all the guests are hiding, but Bob's so preoccupied with other things that Margaret never gets a chance. It won the Best Animated Short Academy Award in 1994.
- And was even made into a TV series, later.

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