History Main / PulledFromYourDayOff

* In the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E09Defiant Defiant]]", Gul Dukat laments to Ben Sisko that, rather than spending the day trying to stop the hijacked USS ''Defiant'' from attacking Cardassian space, he was ''supposed'' to be [[WhenYouComingHomeDad taking his son to an amusement park for his eleventh birthday]].

* In ''Series/{{Castle}}'', the episode "In the Belly of the Beast" opens with Detective Beckett giddily about to enjoy a rare and much-earned day off, when Captain Gates calls her in to help out with an undercover operation. Things go FromBadToWorse.

* Episode 4 of ''VideoGame/DukeNukem3D'', "The Birth", opens with the PlayerCharacter grousing as he loads and cocks a pistol vengefully.
--> '''Duke:''' Someone's gonna friggin' pay for screwing up my vacation.
* In the backstory of the original ''VideoGame/CarmenSandiego'' game, you are just about to leave on a well-deserved trip to a tropical beach when you get a phone call from the Chief. All vacations are canceled because Carmen has escaped from prison.
* In ''VideoGame/Persona4'', the protagonist's uncle Ryotaro Dojima, a police detective, plans on a family outing for Golden Week. Unfortunately, he's called in to work at the last minute, an apparently common occurrence for him. Instead, the Investigation Team invites his daughter (the protagonist's cousin) Nanako to go to [[TheMall Junes]] with them.
* Waffle Ryebread gets hit with this at the beginning of ''VideoGame/TailConcerto'', when he receives a dispatch call from Police HQ regarding [[SkyPirate The Black Cats Gang]], and then taken to an absurd degree when his chief revokes ''all'' of his vacation days until The Black Cats Case is resolved. [[spoiler:He gets his well-deserved day off at the end of the game, after stopping a mechanical giant from destroying Prairie.]]

* In the ''WesternAnimation/TimonAndPumbaa'' episode, "Zazu's Off Day Off", Zazu tries to enjoy his day off, but Gopher continually interrupts it to tell him that the river has dried up and the animals are dying of thirst. Jumbo Jumbo, a stubborn elephant, is sitting in the middle of the river and refuses to move. [[spoiler: At the end of the episode, it is revealed that Jumbo Jumbo was only sitting in the river because he thought it was ''his'' day off, and promptly moves when he realizes his mistake. Then Gopher tells Zazu that [[HereWeGoAgain tomorrow is Jumbo Jumbo's]] ''[[HereWeGoAgain real]]'' [[HereWeGoAgain day off.]]]]
* In the "Labor Day" episode of ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitansGo'', Robin forces the other Titans to appreciate Labor Day by teaching them about manual labor, as they undergo the excruciating experience of manufacturing their own beach umbrellas, refining crude petroleum into fuel, and making their own tortilla chips, which none of them can eat yet until their work is all done before they can have any chance of celebrating the holiday. By the time they finally get to the beach, they have already spent about three months of agonizing, back-breaking labor when they discover that winter has already arrived and the other Titans are not the least bit pleased.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'' episode, "[[Recap/ThomasAndFriendsS9E18ThomasDayOff Thomas' Day Off]]", Sir Topham Hatt gives Thomas a day off and sends a diesel engine named Dennis to do his work for him. However, Dennis is a lazy diesel and [[CryingWolf lies about having something wrong with him]] to get out of doing his work. Thomas is still happy to help Dennis despite wanting to enjoy his day off, even when Dennis actually does have something wrong with him.
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'':
** An {{inver|tedTrope}}sion occurs in the episode, "Bubble Buddy". Squidward tries to enjoy ''[=SpongeBob's=]'' day off, but [=SpongeBob=] comes into work anyway to show Squidward his new friend, Bubble Buddy. He also makes Squidward make Bubble Buddy one of everything on the menu, with various alterations to suit Bubble Buddy's needs, only for Mr. Krabs and the other customers to be outraged when his bubble buddy pays for the meal with bubble currency, which promptly vanishes as the soap bubbles dissolve into nothingness.
** A self-inflicted version occurs in "Squid's Day Off", where after being given the reigns to the Krusty Krab for the day, Squidward hands it to [=SpongeBob=] and goes home on some "errands". Squidward then spends the entire day bursting into the restaurant out of fear that [=SpongeBob=] has burnt it to the ground, only to find him just standing there not doing anything and perfectly fine. In the end, [=SpongeBob=] then notices that the sign was set to Closed the entire time, meaning [[ShaggyDogStory he really]] ''[[{{Irony}} could ]]''[[AllForNothing have taken the day off]]!
** A non-employment version occurs in "Good Neighbors", where Squidward is forced to do community service every Sunday (the one day he doesn't have to go to work) for the rest of his life to pay for the destruction wrought upon Bikini Bottom by his house.
* ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' had a ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' parody set at a fast food joint. Sephiroth the manager arrives, complete with OminousLatinChanting, and tells Cloud that he needs to come in on Saturday, but Cloud has Lakers tickets! In the ensuing battle, Sephiroth hits Cloud with the Unpaid Overtime attack and Cloud [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill levels the restaurant with a meteor]].

* The aptly-titled episode of ''WesternAnimation/SofiaTheFirst'', "Baileywick's Day Off". Baileywick is the butler that ensures everything in the castle runs smoothly. To show how much they appreciate him, the royal family asks that he take his birthday off with his brother Nigel to go fishing. However, problems arise that Baileywick is called to help solve and he insists on helping, so the royal family gives him a do-over day off afterward.
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/SaltysLighthouse'', the edited translation of ''WesternAnimation/{{TUGS}}'', Bluenose makes Grampus work at the Naval Yard on his day off. When Grampus tells him that it's his day off, Bluenose reminds him that all days off can be cancelled without notice.
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', Groundskeeper Willie, who is cleaning a large puddle of vomit, asks himself why he chose to work on his day off.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* ''Film/EventHorizon'': The crew of the ''Lewis and Clark'' finds itself suddenly pulled from shore leave to undergo a top-secret rescue mission. Once they are finally told on-site that they are looking for the ''Event Horizon'', a ship that was famously ''destroyed'' (which was actually a cover-up), they get quite understandably angry (imagine if someone pulled you off your vacation and ordered you to go rescue the ''Titanic'').
* The opening of ''Film/StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier'' has the main characters called back from their vacation in order to deal with a hostage situation on another planet.
* ''Film/SWAT2003'': The day after the team passes the SWAT test, Hondo's SWATTeam get the day ostensibly off work. However, they're still on call and end up getting paged to come in and deal with a "[[StopOrIShootMyself Polish hostage]]" who's randomly firing shotgun blasts out his front door. (This is RuleOfDrama: SWAT in the LAPD is part of the Metro D-Platoon. It has 60 full-time officers who work on rotating shifts, thus removing the need to call in an off-duty team thus have to give them overtime pay and recall to duty penalty pay. If Hondo's team was off duty, whatever teams were on duty would be sent in instead.)

* Happens to the squad in ''Film/NavySeals1990''. The squad is attending the Chief's wedding when ''all of them including the bridegroom chief'' get paged to go on a rescue mission. Leads to quips about the chief having a "close call" and "he was born lucky or unlucky, I don't know which".
* The final act of ''Film/TopGun'' begins when several Fighter Weapons School graduates (Iceman, Slider, Hollywood, Wolfman, and Maverick) are recalled to the field for an emergency mission in the middle of their graduation party.
* In ''Film/IndependenceDay'', Hiller is given leave for the titular holiday weekend, but is recalled when the aliens show up. Lampshaded a couple times in his monologue after being shot down:
-->'''Capt. Hiller:''' This was supposed to be my weekend off, but nooooo...
-->''later...''
-->'''Hiller:''' I could've been at a barbecue!!!

* ''Film/CosmicSin''. The general in charge of the FirstContactTeam starts griping that he's been phoned up on his "one f**king night off all year" only to [[OhCrap shut up and stop his car]] when the communications officer tells him why. Later he orders that a technician be assigned to the team, who gets detained as she's climbing onto her motorbike to go on leave. Her sergeant informs her that as she hasn't left the carpark she's technically still on base.

* ''Literature/SpocksWorld'' has the ''Enterprise'' yanked from shore leave when Vulcan decides to discuss secession.

* In the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E09Defiant Defiant]]", Gul Dukat laments to Ben Sisko that, rather than spending the day trying to stop the hijacked USS ''Defiant'' from attacking Cardassian space, he was ''supposed'' to be [[WhenYouComingHomeDad taking his son to an amusement park for his eleventh birthday]].
-->'''Dukat:''' He always wanted to go, but I never had the time. I told him, "This year will be different, Mekor. This year I will ''make'' the time."\\
'''Sisko:''' I had the same experience with Jake. At that age, they never understand, do they? You just hope that, one day later, they'll look back and say, "Now I understand. Now I know why he did that."\\
'''Dukat:''' When my son looks back on this day, the only thing he'll remember is that a Federation officer, on a Federation ship, invaded his home and kept his father away from him on his eleventh birthday, and he won't look back with understanding. He'll look back with hatred, and that's sad.
* ''Series/BarneyMiller'':
** The detectives walk off the job as a part of a citywide police protest, but a call comes in and Barney is suddenly overworked because it's just him, Inspector Luger and Officer Levitt holding down the fort. So Wojo goes out on the call, telling the other guys he'd just do this one. After getting back now Wojo has to process the perp.
** [[Recap/BarneyMillerS2E03 Another call comes in]] about a grocery store holdup in progress. They all decide they all need some groceries right now, and if they "happen" across any crime they can make a citizen's arrest.
* In the ''Series/DennisTheMenace'' Season 4 episode "Wilson's Little White Lie", when John Wilson is about to have a day off, his wife wants him to spend the day doing home repairs, and when Dennis comes over, Mr. Wilson tells Dennis that he can't see him because he's feeling under the weather. This is further complicated when Mrs. Wilson insists that he goes to the doctor for an overdue check-up, which Mr. Wilson unsuccessfully tries to avoid, only for Mr. Wilson to end up staying in the hospital next to Dennis.
* One episode of ''Series/BlueBloods'' has Danny's BodyOfTheWeek drop right when he's about to go out to Long Island for the weekend with his wife Linda. He ends up trying and failing to juggle both, with her letting him out of a play they had nonrefundable tickets to by calling a friend.
* On ''Series/{{Justified}}'' US Marshal Raylan Givens is taking the day off to go house hunting with his pregnant ex-wife/girlfriend Winnona when he gets a call about a problem in Harlan County. Raylan is the only one who can properly resolve it so he apologizes to Winnona and leaves. Winnona seems to be fine with this but it is actually the final confirmation for her that Raylan has not changed and will not prioritize her and their child over his job. Soon after she breaks off the relationship and leaves.

* On ''Series/BrooklynNineNine'' Peralta causes everyone at the precinct to have to abandon the rest of their day off and work a case all night long and the next morning, all because he screwed up. Everyone hates him for it.
* The ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' episode "My Way Home" has two examples as JD is paged by an intern on his day off of work. What follows is a WholePlotReference to ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' where JD gets constantly assigned tasks that prevent him from returning home. This in turn is revenge by [[DoctorJerk Doctor Cox]] who has [[ManipulativeBastard orchestrated]] this for all the times that JD called ''him'' in on his days off.
* In the ''Series/StargateSG1'' episode "[[Recap/StargateSG1S3E22Nemesis Nemesis]]", the team gets some leave courtesy of Daniel ([[RealLifeWritesThePlot and his actor]]) coming down with appendicitis. Teal'c goes off-world to visit his family, Carter is fiddling with a naquadah reactor, and Jack is about to leave to go fishing when out of nowhere Thor arrives in orbit and beams him up to his ship to fight [[GrayGoo Replicators]].
* In ''Series/{{Castle}}'', the episode "In the Belly of the Beast" opens with Detective Beckett giddily about to enjoy a rare and much-earned day off, when Captain Gates calls her in to help out with an undercover operation. Things go FromBadToWorse.
* One episode of ''Series/WKRPInCincinnati'' has the staff called into the station for an emergency weekend meeting, revealing outfits such as Jennifer's formal horse-riding togs and Venus's Scoutmaster.

* In the ''Series/DrakeAndJosh'' episode "Dance Contest", Helen makes Josh work at the movie theater on his day off. When Josh tries to tell her she can't make him work on his day off, she counts down threateningly, convincing him to get back to work.
* The ''Series/MadamSecretary'' episode "Standoff" has the State Department call Liz to Dallas from an anniversary trip with her husband. It worked out, though: the attempt to recreate their first anniversary had already been blown (the Secret Service wouldn't let them have their old hotel room and the restaurant had remodeled), and the trip had turned into a BusmansHoliday for Henry.
* Inverted on ''Series/{{ER}}'' when Mark Greene comes into work willingly on his day off, looking to alleviate his loneliness (his wife has recently left him, taking their daughter). As it turns out, he should have stayed home -- a patient under his care dies, and even though he did everything right, he spent the entire episode blaming himself.
** Carter got into serious trouble because he ignored the fact that "on-call" does not mean that you have the day off to do as you please. He goes out with friends and drinks alcohol which an on-call doctor is not supposed to do in case they are called into work for an emergency. When he is called into work, he makes the situation worse by actually showing up rather than explaining what happened on the phone. What would have been a bad administrative problem turns into a serious ethical and legal transgression (an intoxicated doctor trying to treat a patient) and Carter barely saves his medical career.
* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' does this with Mac quite often. He once gets called away from attending the opera with Peyton and has to examine the scene in his nicest suit. Another episode had their phones go off while they were in bed, obviously having just made love. In season 9, he's on a date with Christine in Central Park when he's called in yet again.
** Happened with Stella once as well, when she was in bed with Frankie.
** As well as with Flack, when he was in bed with Angell.
** Lindsay came in on her day off to help find the type of radiation Sid was exposed to in season 5's "Page Turner."

* This is the entire premise of ''Series/{{Obliterated}}''. A black ops squad of CIA and US military save Las Vegas from being blown up by a suitcase nuke, so throw a post-mission party to celebrate. Unfortunately the nuke is a fake with the real bomb is still out there, so they get called back on duty with every member of the team either drunk and/or high (with the [[RaceAgainstTheClock obligatory deadline]] so they don't have time to sober up).

* This is the entire premise of ''Series/{{Obliterated}}''. A black ops squad of CIA and US military save Las Vegas from being blown up by a suitcase nuke, so throw a post-mission party to celebrate. Unfortunately the nuke is a fake with the real bomb is still out there, so they get called back on duty with every member of the team either drunk and/or high (with the [[RaceAgainstTheClock obligatory ticking clock]] so they don't have time to sober up]]).

* This is the entire premise of ''Series/{{Obliterated}}''. A black ops squad of CIA and US military save Las Vegas from being blown up by a suitcase nuke, so throw a post-mission party to celebrate. Unfortunately the nuke turns out to be a dud and the real thing is still out there, so they get called back on duty with every member of the team either drunk and/or high.

* Lampshaded in "Yanks In The UK": "We should go, before someone else gets murdered."

* ''Film/{{Clerks}}'': The entire film is the story of a day in the life of Dante, a convenience store clerk. It opens with him being called into work on his day off, and the rest of the film is a chronicle of Dante's misadventures during the day. His CatchPhrase could easily be this page's quote:

* ''Cosmic Sin''. The general in charge of the FirstContactTeam starts griping that he's been phoned up on his "one f**king night off all year" only to [[OhCrap shut up and stop his car]] when the communications officer tells him why. Later he orders that a technician be assigned to the team, who gets detained as she's climbing onto her motorbike to go on leave. Her sergeant informs her that as she hasn't left the carpark she's technically still on base.

* Happens to the squad in the movie ''Film/NavySeals.'' The squad is attending the Chief's wedding when ''all of them including the bridegroom chief'' get paged to go on a rescue mission. Leads to quips about the chief having a "close call" and "he was born lucky or unlucky, I don't know which".

** A self-inflicted version occurs in "Squid's Day Off", where after being given the reigns to the Krusty Krab for the day, Squidward hands it to [=SpongeBob=] and goes home on some "errands". Squidward then spends the entire day bursting into the restaurant out of fear that [=SpongeBob=] has burnt it to the ground. [=SpongeBob=] then notices that the sign was set to Closed the entire time, meaning [[ShaggyDogStory he really]] ''[[{{Irony}} could ]]''[[AllForNothing have taken the day off]]!

-->-- '''Sgt. Dan "Hondo" Harrelson''', ''Film/{{SWAT}}''

* ''Film/{{SWAT}}'': The day after the team passes the SWAT test, Hondo's SWATTeam get the day ostensibly off work. However, they're still on call and end up getting paged to come in and deal with a "[[StopOrIShootMyself Polish hostage]]" who's randomly firing shotgun blasts out his front door. (This is RuleOfDrama: SWAT in the LAPD is part of the Metro D-Platoon. It has 60 full-time officers who work on rotating shifts, thus removing the need to call in an off-duty team thus have to give them overtime pay and recall to duty penalty pay. If Hondo's team was off duty, whatever teams were on duty would be sent in instead.)

* [[Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger Ray Owens]] is the only sheriff of the small Arizona town of Sommerton Junction in ''Film/TheLastStand''. Naturally, the one day he has a vacation, a drug lord steals a [[CoolCar Corvette C6 ZR1]] and [[RunForTheBorder makes a break for Mexico]], his path taking him right through Sommerton. Lampshaded by Owens in their final confrontation: "You fucked up my day off."