History Main / DoorstopBaby

* AdventureTime: In the season 6 opener, [[spoiler: The Lich]] gets turned into a giant baby. Finn and Jake leave him outside the home of the recently married Mr. Pig and Tree Trunks. Crosses over with BabiesMakeEverythingBetter since Tree Trunks was in the process of asking for a divorce when the baby showed up, but immediately changed her tune when the baby showed up.

* On ''TheGoldenGirls'', Rose tells of having been left in a basket at an orphanage... along with some beefsticks, cheeses, and "some kind of cracker that didn't go with anything." She's Minnesotan, for those who find this scenario confusing.
** A [[Tropers/ManCalledTrue Minnesotan]] explains the joke: It's called a "cracker barrel", generally used for those occasions where full-blown catering would be too much but food is still expected. The crackers never seem to be right for the cheese.

* Bamm-Bamm in ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones''.

* John from Creator/CharlieChaplin's ''TheKid'' is an interesting example. His mother left him in the car of a wealthy family, complete with a letter. When the criminals who ''stole the car'' discovered the baby, they dropped it off in an alley next to a trash can, where Charlie finds him.

* Kazuki Kinukawa from DetectiveConan was this, after his mother left him in the doorstep of a Catholic church in Tokyo. In a subversion, she sent him unsigned postcards from Atami, the place where she lived... until few ago. Then Kazuki hired Kogoro to go [[CallingTheOldManOut calling the old woman out]]...

* In ChristopherMoore's ''{{Fool}}'', Pocket is left on the doorstep of an abbey as a baby.

* This was already an established film trope in 1921, when D.W. Griffith subverts it in ''OrphansOfTheStorm''. Just before the French Revolution, a starving peasant couple in Paris decide to leave their baby at the church, since they can't feed her. The father takes the baby, but when he arrives at the church, there is already a baby there. Seeing the other baby not only makes him rethink abandoning his own, but he ends up going home with both of them. They grow up to be played by Lillian and Dorothy Gish.

* {{Asterix}} finds a baby on his doorstep at the beginning of ''Asterix and Son''. [[spoiler:It turns out he's Caesarion (full name Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar), son of Cleopatra and Caesar.]]

* In JaneAusten's ''NorthangerAbbey'', no family in Catherine's neighborhood raised a boy found on their doorstep. No wonder she had to leave home to have adventures.

** This is also part of Master Tigress's backstory, being left at an orphanage until she was eventually adopted by Shifu. KungFuPanda apparently loves this trope.

* This happens in ''TheCuriousCaseOfBenjaminButton'', where a baby is born old and ages backwards. The baby's mother died in childbirth, making the father swear that he'll have a place in the world. When the father gets a glimpse of his child, he's horrified and repulsed, and runs out the door with it. He seems to be about to throw the baby into a river when a policeman scares him away, so he leaves him on the doorstep of an old people's home. Unusually for this trope, not only do the people running the place -- a black couple -- not notice until they nearly step on him, but later [[LukeIAmYourFather the father meets and recognizes his son.]]

* An episode of the BlackJack TV series has a [[JapaneseDelinquents gangster schoolgirl]] and her friends stealing a locker key from a woman... and finding a baby boy inside of it. The girl takes the baby to Black Jack's house, who treats him but says he's very malnourished and sick already. The rest of the episode has the girl trying to deal with her growing affection towards the boy...

* Horribly subverted in [[http://www.explosm.net/comics/2381/ this]] CyanideAndHappiness strip.

* Skeezix Wallet, in Frank King's ''GasolineAlley'', was left on Walt Wallet's doorstep as an infant. More than a decade later, Walt Wallet acquired a girl named Judy in the same manner.

* In Creator/PoppyZBrite's ''Lost Souls'', Nothing is left on the doorstep of a human couple.

* Megan Whalen Turner's short story "The Baby in the Night Deposit Box" starts with the namesake infant deposited at a bank. Since the child ''was'' legally deposited there for safekeeping, the bank staff raise and educate her in-house, despite a shifty social service worker's attempts to remove her. Then a strange woman shows up looking to make a withdrawal on her niece...

* Megan Whalen Turner's short story ''The Baby in the Night Deposit Box'' starts with the namesake infant deposited at a bank, with the appropriate paperwork neatly filled out and the note "please keep our precious treasure safe". Since the child was legally deposited there for safekeeping, the bank staff raise and educate her in-house, despite a shifty social services worker's attempts to remove her. Then a strange woman shows up looking to make a withdrawal on her niece...

* The title character of ''LittleElvisJonesAndTheTruckstoppers'' was left on the doorstop of a truckstop in a guitar case, by a mysterious Cadillac that vanished into the night. His parents, Elvis fanatics, are convinced that he's really the son of the King. The kid himself does not believe this, and at times grows quite irritated with their obsession... which, among other things, include venerating a snotty handkerchief used by Elvis at a concert his adoptive mother attended, and forcing him to grow his (red) hair into an Elvis-like coif.

* The title character of the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' books follows this trope, left by Albus Dumbledore (with some help from Rubeus Hagrid, and the reluctant approval of Minerva [=McGonagall=]) on his aunt's doorstep, with a letter. The book makes it clear they knew the Dursleys were home when they left him, but unlike many versions of this trope, the Dursleys didn't exactly welcome Baby Harry into their homes with open arms.
** In one of the many parallels between [[spoiler: the mortal enemies]] the same happened to [[spoiler: Voldemort]] except he was left with an orphanage.

* The title character of the ''Literature/CatRoyal'' series was left on the steps of the Theatre Royal as a toddler. She mentions that the theatre owner, Mr Sheridan, probably only took her in because he was a bit drunk at the time. In the sixth book [[spoiler: she finds her family, and her aunt claims that her mother (long dead) watched to make sure she was taken inside before leaving completely]].