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* ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'' has the climax of the Todoroki family's breaking be this trope. [[spoiler:The eldest son, Toya, had a strong fire Quirk but an increasingly more unfit body for it (his body can withstand ''cold'' temperatures, not ''hot''), yet still pushed his body to acclimate to his powers. The rest of the family doesn't like that he does this (as he burns himself doing so), especially his father Enji (whose approval Toya craves but never gets), but he keeps practicing to the point where his flames got even hotter and more powerful. He asks Enji to visit him at their old training grounds to watch him, but out of fear of encouraging Toya's self-destructive training and a general inability to truly connect with his son, Enji doesn't. As a result, the myriad of emotions powering Toya's flames goes out of control while he's crying and he accidentally self-immolates, taking the training grounds and the forest it's in with him.]]

* ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'' has the climax of the Todoroki family's breaking be this trope. [[spoiler:The eldest son, Toya, had a strong fire Quirk but an increasingly more unfit body for it (his body can withstand ''cold'' temperatures, not ''hot''), yet still pushed his body to acclimate to his powers. The rest of the family doesn't like that he does this (as he burns himself doing so), especially his father Enji, but he keeps practicing to the point where his flames got even hotter and more powerful. He asks Enji to visit him at their old training grounds to watch him, but out of fear of encouraging Toya's self-destructive training and a general inability to truly connect with his son, Enji doesn't. As a result, the myriad of emotions powering Toya's flames goes out of control while he's crying and he accidentally self-immolates, taking the training grounds and the forest it's in with him.]]

* Hiroshi Morenos in ''Anime/MichikoToHatchin'' could be accused of this. [[spoiler: When they finally find him near the end of the anime, he agrees to live with Hatchin and take care of her. (Since he's her father, her mother is dead, and her only other parental figure is about to be sent to prison for ten years, this is the least that could be expected of him.) Then the DistantFinale reveals that he left her to her own devices not much later, when he found a new girlfriend.]]

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Buffy spends the first half of "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E12Helpless Helpless]]" looking forward to spending her birthday at the Ice Capades with her father. Partway through the episode she comes home to find a bouquet of flowers in the kitchen with the tickets clipped to them. Buffy's mother explains that her dad had to cancel due to some work problem. This incident marks the beginning of Hank Summers' transformation in a full-on DisappearedDad.

* ''Film/WhaleRider'': Paikea is heartbroken when her grandfather doesn't show up to hear her speech. That she wrote for him. It turns out he had a good excuse (he had been on his way to the presentation, but found a whale beached and stopped to help it), but she doesn't know that; given his recent behavior, she (reasonably enough) concludes that he just didn't care enough to show up.

* In ''Literature/FireAndHemlock'' the protagonist's parents don't show up for a play at school. The father is absent, and the mother considers the play in question too boring. [[spoiler:The grandmother is there. She is... a bit ashamed of her son.]]

In both cases, the key difference is that the parent genuinely cares for their child, is usually conscious of what they're doing, and portrayed with much more sympathy than with this trope. When Daddy Didnt Show, it's usually because it was either a specific, deliberate decision on Daddy's part (maybe [[ParentNeverCameBackFromTheStore he was]] "GoingToTheStore") or because Daddy simply flat-out forgot he was supposed to be there.

* A recurring plot point in ''What Maisie Knew'' (2012), where both the biological father and the mother are continuously missing their pick up days for Maisie because they were tied up with work.

* This formed the center of the DramaBomb that dropped about halfway through ''LightNovel/{{Toradora}}.'' [[spoiler:Taiga]] was encouraged by [[spoiler:Ryuji]] to try and go along with a father's attempts to patch things up, despite ''everyone'', even Ryuji's ditzy mother, not trusting the man. Ultimately, they proved correct when said father fails to arrive at the culture festival where [[spoiler:Taiga]] eagerly awaited him and held out hope that he'd show; going so far as to write words to dad in an award acceptance speech (and making the presenter perform the speech even after it was made clear that he wasn't showing up).

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Buffy spends the first half of "Helpless" looking forward to spending her birthday at the Ice Capades with her father. Partway through the episode she comes home to find a bouquet of flowers in the kitchen with the tickets clipped to them. Buffy's mother explains that her dad had to cancel due to some work problem. This incident marks the beginning of Hank Summers' transformation in a full-on DisappearedDad.

** Nelson's dad, especially in later seasons; his family situation sort of [[DependingOnTheWriter depends on the writer]]. In earlier episodes it was his ''[[MissingMom mother]]'' who was never around. In one episode, Bart finds and reunites Nelson with his Dad
* The ''WesternAnimation/AsToldByGinger'' episode "Hello Stranger".

* The John Hughes film ''Film/{{Dutch}}'' is Daddy Didn't Show: TheMovie. Doyle is an alienated kid at a fancy prep school who idolizes his rich father despite the fact that he does this trope ''all the time''. When daddy opts to spend Christmas in Paris with a supermodel, Doyle's mom sends her working-class fiancee to get Doyle. HilarityEnsues. When they get to mom's house, daddy's already there -- not because he realized he's a schmuck, but because the model dumped him. Luckily Doyle's learned a lot of [[AnAesop valuable life lessons]] and tells his dad to get lost.

* In the Chinese drama ''IntoThinAir'', after the whole issue of finding his long lost son and his son having to return to his birth parents leads to both sides being estranged again. The son was anticipating his parents is coming back... then cue the [[BusCrash plane crash]]

* In the Chinese drama ''IntoThinAir'', after the whole issue of finding his long lost son and his son having to return to his birth parents leads to both sides being estranged again. The son was anticipating his parents is coming back...then cue the [[BusCrash plane crash]]

* ''Series/VeronicaMars'' mom does this twice. First she skips out on rehab, which Veronica had spent her entire savings on. But that's not low enough, so after Veronica confronts her about it, she absconds with a $50,000 check that Keith got for finding Duncan Kane. Oh, and she does this while Keith is in the hospital after saving Veronica from a murderer.

* In ''Literature/FireAndHemlock'' the protagonist's parents don't show up for a play at school. The father is absent, and the mother considers the play in question too boring. [[spoiler: The grandmother is there. She is ... a bit ashamed of her son.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe'' Gru is late for his adopted daughters' dance recital.

* In the ''[[Literature/TheBabysittersClub The Babysitters Club Movie]]'' Kristy's father (who had previously abandoned his family when she was a child) promises to take her to an amusement park for her birthday. Unsurprisingly he doesn't show, leaving Kristy in the rain.

* Russell's dad in ''WesternAnimation/{{Up}}''. Russell talks the whole movie about getting his final patch so his Dad will be proud when he sees him get his award. Dad doesn't show. [[spoiler: Carl does, though, taking the seat reserved for Russell's dad.]].

* The film adaptation of ''Literature/TheSpiderwickChronicles'' has Jared continually think that his divorced father is going to come and see them in their new house, while in every phone call the father makes up an excuse as to why he has to quickly hang up while saying he'll tell Jared something important later. Later, during a lull in the final battle, his mother and older sister reveal that he ''won't'' be coming because he found another woman and has completely cut his old family out of his life. Turns into a SecretTestOfCharacter later on when his dad ''does'' show up...[[spoiler:but is actually the BigBad in disguise.]] Jared uses what his mom and sister told him to see if it's ''really'' his dad by asking what he wanted to tell him on the phone.

Compare WhenYouComingHomeDad for examples where the parent tries to be a part of their child's life but other affairs, such as work, simply interfere. Also compare DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou, in which the disappeared parent disappeared for a legitimate reason.

* Early in ''Film/JingleAllTheWay'', to really cement Howard's status as a workaholic. In his defense, he tried to make it, only to run into a traffic jam, followed by a Cop From Hell.

* ''Film/WhaleRider'': Paikea is heartbroken when her grandfather doesn't show up to hear her speech (because he was trying to save a beached whale). That she wrote for him.