Birthday Party Goes Wrong

Caterer: I'm sorry, but there's, um, been a problem, uh...
Peggy: Spit it out!
Caterer: The refrigeration went out and the chicken and prime rib were spoiled, and your ice cream birthday cake melted.
Dale: [yelling] And there's no food! [everyone groans]
Peggy: Happy freakin' birthday to me.

— King of the Hill, "Strangeness on a Train"

The birthday party is usually fun for all the guests, and it's supposed to be a great day especially for the birthday person. They are supposed to be the center of everyone's attention, to receive most sincere birthday wishes for the next year of their life, get nice presents and a huge cake. However, not always. In this case, the cake ends up burnt, the candles melted and all the presents are clothes. Whatever went wrong, a day that's supposed to be sweet has turned sour.

In fiction, especially if the celebrating character is a Butt-Monkey, their birthday party will go wrong in every direction. It should have been their day, but they end up Crying at Your Birthday Party, dissatisfied or disillusioned, or apathetic if this happens all the time. It may result in them becoming the Birthday Hater who doesn't want a birthday party ever again. Some characters might take it on the chin and at least pretend they don't care.

This trope sometimes ends with Throw the Dog a Bone. Especially if the birthday person's lucky enough to have a loving and caring family or loyal friends, they'll try their best to cheer them up or make it up to them somehow.

A Birthday, Not a Break is a trope when something terrible or downright tragic happens on a character's birthday, and it's unrelated to the celebration. Ironic Birthday is a sister trope, which is when the person who should be celebrating their birthday experiences something nasty, but they have to pretend they're fine for their guests' sake.

This trope is about ruined parties and the disappointed birthday person. See also a Shoddy Shindig for boring parties and Nasty Party for murderous ones. One-Person Birthday Party is a very lonely subtrope. Not-So-Forgotten Birthday is a variant when it all ends happily after all. Surprise Party may be a reason why it goes badly because it's harder to coordinate everything. This can also occur during a Shock Party or Scary Surprise Party... or even a Birthday Suit Surprise Party. Dreaded Kids' Party Entertainer Job is when the party goes wrong for the entertainer. See also Worst Wedding Ever, which is the wedding equivalent of this trope, and Horrible Honeymoon, for when it occurs on the honeymoon.

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Examples:

Asian Animation

• In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Joys of Seasons episode 93, it ironically ends up being Wolffy, the one having the birthday, who ruins his own party when he thinks the other wolves are having fun without him after having his special day seemingly ignored all day and trashes the event they've set up for him.

Comic Books

• Be Prepared: Russian immigrant Vera plans for her ninth birthday party in August (after everyone gets back from camp), and wants it to be like her friend Sarah's slumber party, complete with the things she thinks make a successful party: stuffed crust pizza from Pizza Hut, good gift bags, and a Carvel ice cream cake. But her single divorced mother can't afford those kinds of things. She substitutes with regular pizza and a medovik torte (a Russian layered honey cake), and both of them are discounted gifts from members of their church. (Vera does try to put together nice gift bags). Vera is unhappy at things being so Russian and tries to make the best of it—including offering to serve kvass (a Russian rye bread carbonated beverage)—but her very American friends are visibly uncomfortable with the cultural differences and staying overnight in her small apartment, where they all have to stay in the room she shares with her younger brother (who is sleeping in the bedroom with their mother and younger sister Masha). The other girls call their parents in the middle of the night to go home, not even taking their gift bags—and while Sarah is made to apologize by her mother, the others don't interact with her further. Vera is very hurt and blames herself for the disaster, deciding she can't fit in with the American kids because she's too Russian.

Fan Works

• In Chosen One's Adventure with Legendaries's "A Birthday Blast", Team Rocket crashes Ash's birthday party disguised as the entertainment in order to make yet another bid at stealing his Pikachu.
• Scarlet Lady:
  • In "La Befana", Marinette's birthday party gets waylaid when her grandmother Gina (whom Marinette had forgot to tell to come to the party) gets Akumatized into the titular Akuma.
  • In "Crocoduel", Juleka and Luka's birthday party is screwed when their parents get Akumatized in the middle of an acrid argument after meeting for the first time in years.
  • In "Zombizou", Mme. Bustier's birthday starts well enough, as all of her students have brought various thoughtful gifts... save for Chloé, who instead sabotages Marinette's gift. Bustier's refusal to punish Chloé, coupled with her expecting Marinette to Turn the Other Cheek and forgive her bully despite Chloé being smugly unapologetic, causes Marinette to snap and call their teacher out on her blatant favoritism and double standards. Bustier then gets akumatized into Zombizou, and by the time the dust settles, she's lost the respect of most of her "beloved students".
• Somos Familia: Miguel was born on Dia de los Muertos; unfortunately, his father Hector tends to use his emotional baggage and trauma as an excuse to focus upon making himself happy rather than celebrating his son's life. Then comes his twelfth birthday, when Hector discovers his son's talent for music and angrily smashes his guitar, driving Miguel away in tears.

Films — Animated

• KikoRiki. Deja Vu starts with the Riki gang preparing for Barry's birthday party, which they want to be peaceful. Unfortunately for them, Krash wants to make this party less boring and calls the Deja Vu Agency, who specialize in Time Travel adventures, to send them across various time periods. It gets worse when Krash can't pay up and Agent Mole threatens to leave his friends stuck in the past for eternity. The rest of the movie has him and Shark (his Alternate Self, who spent around ten years in prehistoric times and became much more competent as a result) trying to save the crew and go back home. Barry, for his own part, spent a week (two months in the English dub) with Dokko in the Middle Ages.
• The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea: While Melody is getting ready for her birthday ball at the castle, Sebastian, while trying to avoid being noticed, gets unknowingly tied to Melody's belt, and isn't seen by anyone until the moment Melody is dancing with one of the guests. Sebastian chomps on her partner's finger, causing him to be tossed into her birthday cake, and when Melody tries to reason with him, the guests all laugh at her as Sebastian is chased by Chef Louis, leaving Melody embarrassed at her own birthday.
• In Trolls, there is a flashback montage of Branch ruining several celebrations, where he shouts about the Bergens coming and tips something over a clown Troll who's present in all of them: a birthday party where he tips over a pile of presents, a wedding where he tips over a cake, and a funeral where he tips over the casket, letting the now-dead clown Troll roll out with a squeak noise.
• In Turning Red, during his party, Tyler is assaulted with his shirt ripped up, his face scratched up, and likely suffering bruising all because he pushed Mei too far after she was clearly already worked up.

Films — Live-Action

• Cheaper by the Dozen (2003): Despite being grounded, the Baker children sneak into Dylan Shenk's expensive birthday party to which they were invited, causing their angered father Tom to go after them. Pure chaos breaks out, ending with Dylan getting hospitalized but still considering it "my best birthday party ever".
• In Demons 2, Sally is having a birthday party. First, she hates her hair style and dress. Then, her despised ex-boyfriend announces by phone he's showing up at the party, which leads her into a nervous breakdown. And finally, a demon erupts from her TV, attacks her and turns her into a demon who in turn spreads the infection to all the guests, and then to most of the inhabitants of the building. What a party.
• Happy Birthday to Me: In the shower, Ginny has a flashback of her mother's death: Her mother, a newly-inducted socialite, invited the Top Ten to Ginny's birthday celebration four years earlier. Instead, the group opted to attend Ann's party. Drunk, her mother drove to the Thomasons' house with Ginny, where she was humiliated by Ann's parents. Enraged, she attempted to drive across the raising drawbridge, resulting in a violent crash which ended in her drowning. Ginny, however, managed to swim to safety.
• In The Omen (1976), Damien's nanny kills herself at his birthday party.
• No Time to Die: James Bond finds out the Spectre meeting in Cuba is a birthday party for Blofeld, who runs the organization from his high security prison cell in Belmarsh via his electronic eye. What Blofeld didn't expect though is that Bond wouldn't die at the party but instead the whole board of Spectre would, due to Dr. Obruchev reprogramming the Heracles bio-technological weapon to kill them all instead of Bond on Safin's orders.
• The climax of Parasite takes place at a rich child's birthday party, where simmering tensions between the various family members and staff lead to bloodshed, traumatizing everyone present.
• In Problem Child, Junior goes to Lucy Henderson's birthday party. Lucy mistreats him and excludes him from many activities, so Junior takes his revenge on her by doing the following: Filling the pinata with the contents of several pickle jars, throwing her presents in the pool, putting a sprinkler in her room and turning it on, cutting one of a girl's pigtails off, redirecting a kid doing the "pin the tail on the donkey" game into an older lady's ass, putting a live frog in the punch bowl, and replacing the cake's candles with firecrackers (the one step too far that alerts everyone to the fact that Junior was behind the whole thing).
• In The Room (2003), Johnny and Mark have a falling out at Johnny's birthday party when Mark and Lisa flaunt their relationship. It ends with Johnny kicking everyone out, trashing his apartment, and finally being Driven to Suicide and ending his own life on his birthday.
• In The Sixth Sense, the birthday boy bemoans the fact that his parents forced him to invite the weird kid Cole to his party. When Cole hears a deceased person's voice from upstairs, the boys lock him in the attic. It ruins the party for everyone else and Cole has to go to the doctor.
• Smile (2022) has Rose going to her nephew's birthday party which quickly derails as the entity that's been stalking her shows up there: the gift turns out to be Rose's dead cat, and as she sees a manifestation of the entity and yells to leave her alone, Rose ultimately falls back and through a coffee table, injuring herself profusely.
• Stitches (2012): Almost verges in being "The Movie" of this trope given how the Inciting Incident that kicks off the plot is Stitches the clown dying in a freak accident caused by the protagonist and his friends when he turned 10, and then when he turns 16 and decides to have a big house party, Stitches returns from the dead because no clown can rest in peace without finishing a party, and goes on a killing spree.

Jokes

• There's an urban legend (sometimes told as a joke) known as "The Nude Surprise Party". In one version, a pastor brings all of his wife's friends and family together to his home to throw a surprise birthday party for her. He hears her in the shower of their master bedroom/bath and knocks on the shower door. "I'll be out in a few minutes," she tells him, and he leaves the bedroom. With the lights out, he and the guests wait outside the bedroom door. Suddenly the door opens and there stands the wife in silhouette, naked and dripping wet. "Come and get it while it's clean," she croons. The rest of the story can only be imagined. Other variations can be found here.

Literature

• In The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Birthday, Sister Bear has a bad sixth birthday because she was the first one out on Musical Chairs, picked first for Spin the Bottle, didn't win anything for Pin the Tail on the Donkey because it "wasn't polite", Freddy squirted her new new birthday blouse with his trick flower, the pony she rides on gave her a bumpy ride, she got sick from the merry-go-round ride and taking her six tries to blow out her candles, which made her friends claim she was going to have six cubs and she only wanted three. Thankfully, it comes around when she's told she hasn't opened any of her presents yet, and it was cake and ice cream time.
• In Candyfloss by Jacqueline Wilson, Floss' birthday starts out great but turns out bad when she finds out her mother's family is moving to Australia for six months because of her stepfather's promotion.
• The Case Files of Jeweler Richard: During Richard's ninth birthday party, part of his mother's jewelry goes missing. The celebration is completely derailed as the whole family searches in vain for it; she blames his favorite tutor for the loss.
• Classic Singapore Horror Stories have this happening in the short story, "Stepchild", during Katherine's 13th birthday party. A budding pianist, she plays a couple of songs for her guests only for the titular stepchild to show off by hijacking the piano after she left to play - improvised - songs for the guests, creating a ridiculous scene while ruining Katherine's birthday party along the way. Katherine's brother Argoose eventually steps in by slamming the keyboard cover shut and telling the stepchild to cut it out, but the party atmosphere is a mess at that point.
• In Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days, exaggerated for Greg's birthday. His presents are lame, his birthday money is confiscated, his uncle's dog eats the cake, and his 'make-up' present of a fish is eaten by Rodrick's fish.
• In the Goosebumps book The Cuckoo Clock of Doom, the main character's birthday is ruined by his Annoying Younger Sibling, even falling face first into his own birthday cake. When he starts to travel back through time due to the titular Artifact of Doom, he's forced to relive the same day. While he doesn't make the same mistakes as the day before, his sister just messes it up some other way. He relives the day one more time at the end of the book and nothing ends up going wrong, aside from him realizing that his sister ended up erased from existence — but given how horrible she was to him, he's not exactly sad to see her go.
• In The Hound of the D'Urbervilles, Moriarty's attempt to throw a birthday party for Moran is a subtle version of this. It ends up making Moran aware of his own advancing age, and Moriarty's poor choice of a birthday present for Moran and Moran's inability to come up with anything to say that could heal the resulting rift sums up how neither of them are really capable of a Holmes-and-Watson genuine friendship. It is implied that this helps lead to Moran killing Moriarty during the real events of the Holmes-Moriarty confrontation in "The Final Problem".
• In Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Peter's mother insists on throwing his toddler brother, Fudge, a birthday party and inviting Fudge's preschool playmates - Ralph, Jenny, and Sam. Things go south pretty quickly - Fudge refuses to wear the suit his mother picked out for him and throws a screaming tantrum, only agreeing to wear the suit if he can wear his bedroom slippers. Ralph and Fudge eat all the frosting roses off Fudge's cake, so none of the slices have any for the other kids. Jenny is so upset by this she bites Peter and his grandmother. Ralph demands a second slice of cake, promptly throws it up, then demands the toy car he got for Fudge's present back. The coup de grace is when Peter shows the children his turtle, Dribble. Jenny asks if Dribble can "make" (read: pee) and proudly declares that she can too. She then pees on the carpet. By the time it's finally over, Peter, his mother, and his grandmother are exhausted.

Live-Action TV

• All in the Family: The episode "Edith's Fiftieth Birthday"... although the surprise party ends in a way nobody would expect. Edith comes running into Mike and Gloria's house (after fighting off an attempted sexual assault in her own living room) out of breath and everyone starts singing "Happy Birthday," thinking she's just arrived – albeit early – for her party. ^note (Off camera, it is presumed the party ended early once the party-goers were informed something was wrong and were sent home, as by the time the second half hour begins, Edith is in Mike and Gloria's bedroom, trying to explain what happened.)
• The Big Bang Theory:
  • Discussed. Sheldon mentions what his birthday parties were like when he was a kid and says it was anguish. It's connected to his general hatred of socializing and his status of genius science-oriented kid. Instead of a titanium centrifuge he wanted to separate radioactive isotopes, his parents got him a motorized dirt bike for his 12th birthday which ruined his party.
    Sheldon: Year after year, I had to endure wearing conical hats while being forced into the crowded sweaty hell of bouncy castles, not to mention being blindfolded and spun towards a grotesque tailless donkey as the other children mocked my disorientation.
  • Leonard mentions he never has a birthday party as a kid and that's why he doesn't celebrate birthdays. Penny, his friendly neighbor (whom he's fallen in love) thinks it's one of the saddest things she's ever heard, so she organizes a kick-ass surprise party for him. However, Howard is tasked to keep him from the apartment for two hours, but he ends up in hospital (eating peanuts to induce an allergic reaction) so Leonard misses the party.
• In Boston Public, a teacher gains temporary custody of his young niece, while his sister does a stint at rehab for her drug addiction. He knows that the situation is temporary, but his wife is thrilled with the prospect of having a little girl in the house, and throws her a birthday party in a later episode. At the party, a loud argument breaks out between her aunt and her mother about the girl's future.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In keeping with the grand tradition of Buffy's birthday going apocalyptically wrong, "Older and Far Away" has the guests at her birthday party trapped in the house by Dawn's earlier wish to a vengeance demon that she could stop people leaving her. Various characters' issues are brought to a head, such as Dawn's shoplifting secret being exposed and Willow's magic addiction (as Anya demands she come off the wagon to release them) and her breakup with Tara. They're only released when the vengeance demon Dawn made the wish to is summoned to the party, and gets trapped herself.
• Community, "Mixology Certification": Troy's celebration starts off happy when the study group have a cake for Troy in the study room, but when they learn that Troy is actually of drinking age and they decide to celebrate "properly" and hit the bar. Everyone just ends up getting drunk, miserable, and/or disillusioned with their lives and ruining the celebration. Troy decides not to have a drink, and instead drives his drunken friends home.
• On Criminal Minds, agent Rossi's coworkers throw a surprise party for him only to find he is a Birthday Hater who doesn't celebrate his birthday. The day has been spoiled for him by a Serial Killer he captured, Tommy Yates, who made a deal with the FBI to reveal one of his victims' locations each year on a specific day—purposely picking Rossi's birthday. Naturally, that leaves him in no mood to celebrate.
• Dexter, "Return to Sender": Dexter's girlfriend Rita plans a birthday party for her daughter Astor. Astor gets really worried about her party getting ruined when their violent abusive father of a criminal gets released from prison and wants to come to the party. Her brother Cody tells everyone about it and Astor's friends are no longer allowed to come. However, vulnerable Rita actually manages to tell Paul he can't come because of the restraining order. The party turns out fine.
• A variation is Played for Laughs on an episode of The Drew Carey Show. When Drew and Kate, who are currently dating, are having an argument in front of their friends, Oswald cover his ears and screams "Mom, Dad! You're ruining my birthday party!"
• The Dick Van Dyke Show: In "Happy Birthday and Too Many More", Rob cancels Ritchie's birthday celebration at an amusement park, wanting to fight the trend of kids becoming jaded. He sits down with Ritchie to work on the guest list, only for Ritchie to tell him he already invited 63 kids. Then the gardener picks the day of the party to spread manure on the lawn, confining the guests to the house. The kids run rampant, leading Rob to scold them and declare the party over. However, after a little bit, he manages to turn the party around by appearing as Robo the Clown.
• In the "Giant Asian Mantises" episode of Everything's Gonna Be Okay, Genevieve tries to throw herself a "low-key" birthday party, but then Nicholas gets involved and overdoes the decorations, while Tellulah raids Genevieve's dad's medicine cabinet and goads Genevieve and Barb into taking prescription drugs with her... which turns out to be high blood pressure medication. Meanwhile, Genevieve banishes Nicholas, Alex, and Matilda to the guest house, where they decide to get trashed on peach schnapps so that Matilda can experience being "white-girl wasted" before going to college.
• Friends:
  • "The One with Two Parties": Rachel's recently divorced parents both show up at her surprise birthday party, so the friends have to keep them separated otherwise they'll start fighting. Quickly things begin to go wrong. Monica rules over her formal party with an iron fist and wants to play boring games. Most of the guests want to sneak out to Chandler and Joey's second party, started as a distraction, because it is more fun and relaxed. Rachel's boyfriend Ross tries to bond with her parents only to make a fool of himself. Rachel tries to spend time with both her mother and her father who say only nasty things about each other, which is driving Rachel the birthday girl crazy.
  • In "The One with Two Parts, Part 2", Phoebe's Surprise Party doesn't go very well. Ross brings the cake which he drops because others scare him, shouting "Surprise!" prematurely. They try to save the cake somehow and completely miss Phoebe is coming. What's worse, Joey, one of her closest friend whom she really wanted to see, doesn't even show up at the party because he's dating Ursula, Phoebe's Evil Twin.
  • "The One Where They All Turn Thirty":
    • Rachel gets really depressed when her friends throw her a party for her 30th birthday. She feels old and it gets worse when Chandler's birthday card says "grandma" and she realizes she's "behind" regarding her career and mostly her life plan to get married and have a family. Eventually, she breaks up with her 'boy-like' boyfriend Tag, whom she really likes but realizes he's too young and immature.
    • Monica comes home completely wasted because she felt nervous about turning thirty. Turns out Chandler is throwing her a formal party with her parents who have a camcorder. Monica overreacts and makes a huge scene.
    • Joey's party goes wrong because he gets whiny and complaining about getting too old, talking to God that they had a deal about others getting old, not him and his friends.
    • Chandler's party for his 30th birthday gets ruined when Joey once again cries about it not being fair that their gang is getting old.
    • Ross's party is ruined because he has bought himself a red sports car, claiming he's a sports car enthusiast and he shows off his car to his friends. The car gets locked in by two cars in the street. He spends his birthday trying to get out. Finally, his joy is completely spoilt in The Tag when an unattractive and much older man in the very same red car waves at him and greets him with a lame, "How hot are we?"
    • Phoebe looks pretty ok with turning thirty, with her party and crossing off wacky adventures of her bucket list. That is until her twin sister Ursula tells her they are in fact thirty-one. Suddenly Phoebe's plan for things she wanted to accomplish falls apart and she feels depressed.
  • "The One with Phoebe's Birthday Dinner": Phoebe wants to celebrate her birthday with her closest friends in an expensive restaurant. Her boyfriend Mike can't come because he works. Only Joey comes on time and the waiter tries to move them to a table for two. Both Phoebe and Joey are hungry and cranky. When the others finally show up, Monica and Chandler are still visibly angry because of their argument and Rachel is anxious to get back to her baby girl. Then Phoebe announces she's going to see her boyfriend instead who is unexpectedly available. Joey ends up sitting there alone, but completely satisfied because he got to eat six dinners and a cake.
  • "The One with the Cake": Emma's first birthday does not get off to a good start. Emma's asleep when the guests start arriving who then become cranky waiting for her to wake up. Rachel ordered a custom birthday cake in the shape of a rabbit but a screw-up at the bakery leaves her with a cake shaped like male genitalia instead. Rachel and Ross rush to the bakery to try and get it replaced but it's closed by the time they get there. While they're gone everyone but Chandler and Monica bails on the party for other plans. Things start to turn around when Ross works out he can reshape the obscene cake into a bunny shape. Eventually everyone makes it back to the party to celebrate with the finally awake Emma.
• Subverted in Full House with the two-parter "Happy Birthday Babies". While Michelle is initially unhappy on her fifth birthday upon becoming aware that she's no longer a baby, her family cheers her up by the end of Part One. The actual ''Flintstones''-inspired party delights her and her friends (though it's rough on Danny, playing Dino), and when it turns out that Becky's going into labor, Michelle's thrilled by the news: "This is better than Chuck E. Cheese!" The adults make the frantic mistake of leaving the little kids alone to get Becky to the hospital, but after their initial shock that they're actually home alone they just soldier on with the cake ceremony — only mildly compromised by no one being allowed to play with matches (she has to blow out imaginary candles) or knives (Teddy "cuts" the cake with a karate chop and everybody literally digs in) — before D.J. and Stephanie return to find them messy, but happy.
• One episode of The Golden Girls, aptly titled "A Piece of Cake", explored this trope, with the girls reminiscing about four particular birthday parties that went badly.
  • Dorothy remembers when Rose threw her a surprise bash at a cheap children's restaurant called "Mr. Ha Ha's Hot Dog Hacienda." Things only got worse when it turns out that all of the birthday boys and girls—Dorothy included—had to do things like participate in the "birthday parade" and eat overly sugary desserts. It didn't help that Mr. Ha Ha himself was a Jerkass who enjoyed taunting Dorothy for the situation. Dorothy's mood perked up when a child whose birthday was on the same day hits Mr. Ha Ha with his fudge cake.
  • Rose talks about the last birthday she ever celebrated in St. Olaf, her hometown. She sets everything up and pretends that her husband Charlie planned a surprise for her but it was actually the year after Charlie had already died, so she spends the whole time talking to him as if he's there and telling him that she's decided to sell their home and move to Florida.
  • Blanche, a Birthday Hater, recalls when Rose threw her a surprise birthday party at the house. She despised the idea at first—until it turned out that Rose invited all of the guys in her address book, which was the perfect present for her.
  • Sophia shares the story of when she turned fifty and felt old and unaccomplished (she thought she was turning 48, but her birth certificate had been messed up at Ellis Island). Dorothy encouraged her by pointing out how she's managed to raise three healthy, happy children to successful adulthood while always keeping a positive attitude and food on the table during the Great Depression, which makes her an incredible person.
• Growing Pains: Ben's birthday celebration gets interrupted by mom Maggie going into labor. The whole family proceeds to basically forget that it's Ben's birthday (not without reason) until after the delivery is finished. Ben is relieved to find that his new baby sister managed to delay entering the world long enough for it to be past midnight, meaning that they don't have to share a birthday. It's never clarified if his party gets a do-over, though.
• Haven: In season one, Audrey's friends in Haven throw her a surprise birthday party, at a mansion on an island outside of town. The owner of the mansion is revealed to be a shapeshifter, who takes over the entire identity of the person he transforms into. Since the body he had been using is aging, he needs a new one, and decides he'd like to be Audrey. Unbeknownst to him, Audrey is immune to the Troubles, which not only helps her survive, but is what makes Nathan realize that the shapeshifter is not Audrey.
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • Ted says he broke up with his girlfriend Natalie over an answering machine right before her birthday. It's revealed it was on her actual birthday and she was having a surprise party. All her friends heard Ted's embarrassing voicemail.
  • Marshall organizes a surprise party on the roof for Ted and tries to lure him there, but Ted keeps not coming. He claims he needs to work. He also ends up beaten by a goat. (The goat has been brought to their apartment by Lily who tries to save Missy from being slaughtered for meat. She's a kindergarten teacher and the goat was shown to kids by a farmer.)
• House of Anubis: Downplayed with Amber's birthday. Though the mood was ruined by Fabian screaming at and trying to attack Eddie just minutes into the party, Amber still managed to have a decent party thanks to the amount of gifts...most of which she'd bought for herself. She did, however, get frustrated when everyone seemed more concerned with what Fabian was doing, rather than focusing on the celebration.
• On Intimate, when twins Emil and Oskar want to celebrate their birthday, Oskar convinces their landlord to let them throw a party by promising to invite his teenage son Keno, a geeky shut-in. They then spend the whole day trying in vain to get anyone else to attend, so in the end the "party" just consists of the main five plus Keno silently sitting on the couch until midnight.
• Played with in the B-plot of an episode of Malcolm in the Middle where younger brother Dewey manages to make friends with a new boy in the neighborhood. The boy's parents pull Dewey aside to get his help in planning their son's birthday, wanting to make his first one in a new home special. Dewey instead shanghais the party by changing it to be more to his tastes, replacing the space theme with a cowboy one, getting a bounce house, and even making the cake different. During the party, the birthday boy angrily confronts Dewey about ruining his day, though Dewey is too enamored with his success to care. Unfortunately for him, Malcolm undergoes a minor freakout in the A-plot and attempts to escape back into childhood, accidentally causing the bounce house bust and setting off a domino effect which leads to the party collapsing into panic and chaos. The last scene of the birthday boy has him smiling in satisfaction as everything goes to hell.
  • Dewey's Freudian Excuse for hijacking the boy's birthday is explained in a series of flashbacks: Hal arriving late from golf to a previous birthday and not knowing who's birthday it is; Malcolm and Reese giving him a birthday beating (one punch from each, for every year that Dewey has reached); before he was shipped off to Military School, Francis and Lois spent the whole day having (another) loud argument during Dewey's birthday party.
• A mild example in the Our Miss Brooks episode "The Birthday Bag" (a Sound-to-Screen Adaptation of the radio episode "The Surprise Party"). The Conklins are throwing Miss Brooks a surprise birthday party at six o'clock, however, she visits the Conklins to try and buy a purse from Harriet at five o'clock. As a result, when Miss Brooks' friends arrive at the house to help setup the party, they each exclaim "MISS BROOKS!"
  Miss Brooks: If anyone says Miss Brooks once more, I'm going to change my name to Elsie Pumpernickel!
• Parks and Recreation:
  • "Eagleton": Leslie thankfully takes care that Ron's actual birthday party is to his liking (a quiet evening alone eating a nice steak dinner, drinking his favorite whiskey, and watching his favorite movies), he does mention an instance we don't get to see of an attempted surprise birthday party his ex-wife Tammy set up for him. It went so wrong it didn't even get started, because Ron saw people hiding in his house and called the cops on everyone.
  • "Sweet Sixteen": Leslie tries to set up a birthday party for Jerry (whose birthday falls on the Leap Day) but as she's been overworking herself, multiple things fall through the cracks. She manages to bring Jerry to the party she's set up at Donna's family's lakeside house, but by then, everyone's either passed out asleep or looking for Andy and April's dog that ran off into the forest, with Leslie herself passing out asleep on Jerry's shoulder. Jerry was nonetheless touched by her effort.
• Probe's "Quit-It": Karen Strawn has just been released from a mental institution, in time for her birthday, so her parents plan a big neighborhood block party, but she runs off when she thinks her parents have all been replaced. She convinces Austin and Mickey to chaperone her, to make sure she's safe, but they lose sight of her during the party and when they find her again, she doesn't know why they're here. ^note They lose sight because they're investigating her claims, and have to prevent a suicide attampt.
• Raising Dion: In "Days Of Marks Future Past", Dion and Andre, Dion's best friend before he was forced to move, collectively celebrate their birthdays at Andre's house so Dion can see his old friends again. However; first the cool kids Dion hoped to invite all fail to show up, leaving him with only Esperanza as a guest (whom he still considers annoying). Then he finds out Andre and his other old friends outgrew the game Reptile Repo, which Dion himself still loves; he even had his birthday cake modeled after it. Then he is mocked for said birthday cake, and he storms off in frustration. The final nail in the coffin is when, in his anger, Dion suffers an asthma attack, and when he telepathically summons his inhaler, it perforates the bouncy castle Andre's mother rented for the party, causing it to deflate. There is some silver lining at the end of the episode, when Dion finally warms up to Esperanza and they eat his birthday cake together.
• The Really Loud House has a variant where it's Mother's Day rather than Rita's birthday, but the day is still ruined by the antics of everyone else. Lynn Sr.'s breakfast in bed idea goes awry when he accidentally dumps said breakfast on his wife; his second present of a spa getaway sees him enjoying said spa with Clyde's dads while Rita is left behind with all the kids. Lisa and Lily try to bake a cake, but Rita ends up doing all the work herself; Luan and Lucy tapdancing in the attic leaves her with no peace; Lori, Leni, and Luna try auditioning for Lincoln and Clyde's documentary of Rita's life but end up recreating several arguments they had with her from their point of view; Lynn Jr.'s present is an obstacle course that only ends up injuring Rita; Lola wrecks Rita's closet in an attempt to rearrange it, and that's on top of Lana injuring Rita further by trying to kill a fly. Luckily, Lincoln and Clyde turn things around at the last minute with their completed documentary.
• A Saturday Night Live sketch revolved around a surprise birthday party being thrown for Sherlock Holmes (played by host, Jeremy Irons), but he manages to ruin everything by first, revealing that he knows it’s a surprise party before everyone can jump out, deducing that the candles on his birthday cake are gag candles that can’t be blown out, and guessing everyone’s gifts before opening them. Eventually, everyone is left frustrated and tell him off, saying he could have at least pretended to be surprised instead of putting a damper on everyone’s fun.
• Skins: Pandora's only Pandora-centric episode of the series revolves around her birthday party, which goes horribly wrong when Effy derails it with her usual destructive ways. She ends up having sex with Cook to Effy's disapproval, which in turn causes Pandora to give Effy a "Reason You Suck" Speech.
• The Suite Life of Zack & Cody has this with Maddie and London's Sweet 16 parties. London holds her Sweet 16 party six months after her sixteenth birthday on the same day as Maddie's, and steals away all of Maddie's guests by promising gift bags filled with expensive gifts like flatscreen TVs. Maddie's attempted party at a fancy restaurant is ruined because her parents shanghai her party money to get braces for her Annoying Younger Sibling, causing it to be held at a bingo hall. At the actual parties, because of London no one comes to Maddie's except her grandmother, parents (who argue, loudly, the entire time), and Zack, while her brother mocks her, and then the party is hijacked by the bingo game for the night. On London's end she's constantly running back and forth from one side of the party to the other to spend time with her parents without any time for herself, party crashers are constantly attempting to show up, her ice sculpture makes her look fat, and she eventually gets locked out of her own party because she doesn't have an ID and there are multiple impersonators of her trying to get in, leaving her at the "venue" for Maddie's party. Thankfully both parties work out when they start to mix together, allowing everyone to have fun (and also punishing Maddie's brother when one of Maddie's friends stomps on his foot).
• The first episode of Victoria has Queen Victoria's 19th Birthday party crashed by some rats, one of which crawls on top of her birthday cake. Victoria's ensuing Freak Out over the rats, unfortunately, gives some members of her household an excuse to claim she's having a Sanity Slippage.

Music

• "Happy Birthday" by The Birthday Massacre — the very song the band (previously called Imagica) would later rename themselves after. If the lyrics are to be taken literally, it's about the protagonist recalling how she and her friend showed up to a birthday party (implied to be the friend's) and filmed themselves killing everybody present.
• The song "It's My Party" by Lesley Gore. The birthday girl discovers her boyfriend Johnny snogging another girl, Judy. She's not happy about it.
  • It has a sequel, called "It's Judy's Turn to Cry." Said birthday girl attends someone else's party and sees Johnny and Judy kissing. the singer proceeds to kiss another guy, whom the cheating boyfriend decides to punch out of jealousy. He then dumps Judy and goes back to the birthday girl, who welcomes him with open arms. Two parties turned upside down by this awkward Love Triangle.
• In "Threw It On The Ground" by The Lonely Island, a kid who's having a birthday party offers a slice of cake to the protagonist. Said protagonist not only makes a mockery of his generosity by throwing it on the ground, he throws the rest of the cake too.
  Happy birthday TO THE GROUND!!
  I THREW THE REST OF THE CAKE TOO!
• "Pity Party" by Melanie Martinez is based on Lesley Gore's "It's My Party."
  Melanie Martinez: She fell in love with someone, she threw a birthday party, invited him, and nobody showed up so she's just like absolutely insane.
• "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Your Horoscope for Today" informs Geminis that "Your birthday party will be ruined once again by your explosive flatulence."

Radio

• The Penny Dreadfuls Present: The Brothers Faversham: Subverted. Augustus Faversham (Victorian Britain's greatest Stage Magician) has become a children's entertainer in the twilight of his life. At the 5th birthday of one Sammy Sharpe, he has a fatal heart attack while hiding in a cake. Rather than ruining the party, it is held up by the boy's friends for years as the ultimate 5th birthday, as it involved a real-life dead clown.

Video Games

• Battlefield 1 has a Downplayed example in the Framing Device of "Avanti Savoia". Luca slips away from his own birthday party, explaining to his daughter that it's a painful time as it reminds him of his twin brother Matteo, whom he outlived. The main campaign is a Flashback as he recounts what happened to his daughter; after getting that off his chest, however, he is able to rejoin the celebration and enjoy it with his family.
• Buddy Simulator 1984: One of the data entries reveals that the original developer ruined his son's birthday party through his alcoholism, which led to him losing custody.
• Conker's Pocket Tales revolves around Conker's party being crashed by the Evil Acorn, who kidnaps Berri and steals all of his presents.
• Pity Party starts out as a One-Person Birthday Party, but things don't get better when two guests do show up: a Hair-Raising Hare and a Monster Clown.

Visual Novels

• A downplayed version is possible in Melody at Amy’s birthday dinner. Amy has the protagonist drive her back to her hotel room after the dinner, hoping to have him stay the night. If Arnold is disinvited (due to the protagonist telling Amy that Arnold knowingly left a sick Melody home alone), Melody will come along, and Amy won't get her goodnight kiss. Also, the player can choose to kiss Amy on the cheek instead of the lips with the same result.

Web Animation

• Refreshing Stories: In "I hid in the bedroom closet to surprise my wife for her birthday but..." Ayano's affair with Hikaru ends up ruining her birthday when Hiroshi catches them right when he is about to throw a surprise birthday party for Ayano. As a result, Hiroshi chews her out afterward before divorcing and suing her for damages the next day.
• RWBY Chibi:
  • Ruby seems to have a chronic case of throwing these for other people, as demonstrated in one skit that has a montage of her throwing surprise parties that keep going wrong (Jaune gets Blown Across the Room when Ruby uses a bullhorn, Yang uses her gauntlets to explode the cake all over everyone because Ruby baked it into the shape of a Beowulf Grimm, Professor Port ends up with a heart attack).
  • Downplayed for Ruby's birthday, which falls on Halloween so she uses it as an excuse to get extra candy and even take candy from her friends. When she requests her friends get her a costume to wear to the Halloween party that night, the friends get their revenge by dressing her up as a trash can, leaving her frustrated and upset at the party.

Web Comics

• Ménage à 3 has a highly NSFW instance in a flashback, when Zii attempts to organize a surprise birthday orgy for Yuki. Zii did not previously know that Yuki’s weird psychological issues would mean that the sight of naked men would turn her into a violent raging maniac.

Western Animation

• The main plot of the Arthur special "D.W. and the Beastly Birthday" is started by D.W. having a lousy birthday party. It's raining outside, the cake isn't the flavor she wanted, the party guests are annoying her (although they don't know it), she didn't get the gift she really wanted, and her brother Arthur isn't attending. She goes to hide in an area beneath the stairs, where her Imaginary Friend takes her to an island called Ukubonga, which she enjoys. She soon gets tired of Ukubonga and realizes that her own friends are lame and that she should hang out with Arthur because he's more interesting; Arthur soon arrives with the present she was expecting, and she teaches him a song she learned on Ukubonga.
• The Berenstain Bears: In addition to the original book (see the Literature section), the 1985 series adaptation of "Too Much Birthday" has Sister Bear have a bad sixth birthday because she loses at musical chairs, her friends tease her for her shyness during Spin the Bottle, she doesn't get the prize for winning pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey because it's her party because it "wasn't polite", the pony she rides on gave her a bumpy ride, the merry-go-round gives her motion sickness, and it takes her six tries to blow out her candles, which makes her friends claim she's going to have six cubs when she grows up and she only wants three.
• In the Bob and Margaret pilot, "Bob's Birthday", Margaret attempts to throw a surprise party for Bob when he comes home from work, only to find he's not only not in the party mood, he manages to badmouth every single one of the party guests, unaware that they're hiding in the living room and can hear everything. Things get even worse when he reenters in the living room pantsless in an attempt to get frisky with Margaret, and then the two of them leave to go out to dinner together, leaving the guests behind.
• Bob's Burgers: Holden hates his The Great Gatsby themed birthday party because it was forced upon him by his parents when he just wanted a simple pizza party. The party is less about him than about his parents having lots of photos for social media because they felt pressure from other parents and the elaborate birthday parties they threw for their kids. The kids feel that Holden is a smug, greedy kid who just wants to get to his presents, and plan to replace their gift with Gene's smelly socks. Then Louise talks to Holden and learns that the elaborate party was his parents' idea and only wants to open his presents sooner so he could get the party done and over with. Louise decides to help Holden by sabotaging the group photo.
• Diane of Bojack Horseman celebrates her birthday with her husband Mr Peanutbutter. She comes home at the end of the day saying what a perfect day it's been, that anything more would be "too much". and all she wants to do now is crawl into bed and go to sleep. Unfortunately, Mr Peanutbutter has arranged a ridiculously over-the-top surprise party for her, which starts a fight while the would-be guests try to come up with excuses and sneak out. It's precisely as awkward as it sounds.
• DuckTales (2017):
  • Scrooge hates his birthday by default, regardless if it's a failure or a success, because he hates it when people celebrate he's older. This being Clan McDuck, the party his great-nephews make to show him that it's going to be great ends up in failure when the shady party goers (really, his enemies) end up disappearing one by one. Except he himself is sabotaging it from the shadows with the help of his long-departed butler Duckworth, who possesses otherworldly powers as a living ghost.
  • Zigzagged with Webby's party in the Grand Finale. At first it seems like a normal party, but it turns out to actually be an act so they could infiltrate F.O.W.L. Webby being an adrenaline junkie and adventure lover though, she's absolutely stoked that her party was put aside for this. (It goes downhill after that, but that's another trope.)
  "I HAVE THE BEST FAMILY!"
• On The Flintstones episode "Pebbles' Birthday Party", Fred arranges both his daughter's b-day party and the Water Buffalo lodge's stag party with the same caterer. The apathetic "only caterer in town" carelessly mixes them up, sending a clown to the lodge, and a troupe of dancing girls to the kiddie party.
• Harvey Street Kids: In the season 3 finale, the Harvey Girls throw Richie Rich a birthday party (which he never celebrated before since he didn't feel the need to). While the party goes exactly as they planned, it still ends on a sour note when all the emotions prove too much for Richie to handle (since he never experienced the joy of a birthday before), and he runs away from Harvey Street, forsaking the concept of childhood. This ends the season on a cliffhanger, with the girls having to convince Richie to come back at the start of season 4.
• The Hey Arnold! episode "Eugene's Birthday" has Eugene go through several failed birthday parties. Nobody except for Arnold went to his first one because the invitations were lost, Arnold then throws a makeup party at the aquarium with Gerald but the other kids don't attend because Sid and Stinky (who were responsible for inviting the other kids) got the venue wrong and had a party at the roller rink. Finally, Arnold sets up a third party at his backyard with all the other kids, except for Eugene who refuses to attend because he worries the third party will just be a screw up like the last two. He eventually comes around and shows up only for the party to be rained out, but Eugene expresses his gratitude towards Arnold making such an effort to make him happy.
• One episode of Kaeloo had the main four and the bunny twins working together on putting a recital for Olga's birthday party, which ended horribly because everyone played their part wrong and it ended with the stage being destroyed and the performers being injured.
• King of the Hill: In "Strangeness on a Train", it's revealed that Peggy's birthday parties have always been colossal disasters. This year she arranges a murder mystery Themed Party on a train, but that gets ruined by Luanne accidentally revealing the ending and a broken refrigerator spoiling the food (plus no alcohol). Distraught, Peggy goes into the bathroom crying, Hank follows her, and they wind up having sex while everyone else is dealing with the Shoddy Shindig. At first this uncharacteristic act leaves them both cheered up, but then the other guests discover evidence that someone had sex in there and decide that this is the new mystery to be solved. Hank and Peggy spend the rest of the train ride trying to destroy the evidence before people can tie it to them.
  Peggy: Ugh, I have had nothing but lousy birthdays. But getting robbed last year at Captain Bear's was the worst.
  Bobby: Worse than the flash flood or the food poisoning or the year you got hit in the neck by a foul ball?
• Let's Go Luna!: The reason why Señor Fabuloso doesn't like children's birthday parties is because he ruined his own birthday party as a child by accidentally ruining his cake.
• The Loud House:
  • Defied in "No Spoilers": the Loud kids (except Leni, because they think she'll spoil the surprise, and Lily) are making a surprise birthday party for their mother Rita. However, things don't work out: Lana uses toilet paper, gum, and brown balloons (which Lynn thinks look like poop) as decorations, Lynn's subs she provides are covered in Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce, Lola's cake is too sweet, Luan's jokes are all about Rita being old, Luna can't think of a song Rita would like, and Lisa has invited three men Rita doesn't like. However, this all happens before Rita gets home and when they realize things are going south, they get Leni over, who throws a successful party for Rita.
  • Mentioned in "Job Insecurity" by Lynn, who laments that, because of their reckless behavior, she and her siblings are responsible for ruining their father Lynn Sr.'s 40th birthday party.
• Mickey Mouse: Mickey explains to his friends that he does not want a surprise birthday party, because the surprise frequently just ends up scaring him. In an attempt to make up for this, Minnie decides to make the birthday party as big as she can, and the friends spend the whole day making a massive birthday cake. Mickey, not being able to find anyone, is left in a constant state of fear all day, just waiting for the surprise. When he finds out what they are up to, the cake-making has gotten so out of hand that the cake is growing so big that it endangers Mickey and friends' lives.
• Subverted in the Phineas and Ferb episode "Dude, We're Getting the Band Back Together", where Dr. Doofenshmirtz arranges a birthday party for his daughter Vanessa and invites all her friends. She hates it because she feels she has outgrown all the hearts and ponies. However, the place gets trashed when Perry the Platypus escapes, and Vanessa's friends are impressed by the result.
• The Pingu episode "Pingu's Birthday" has a mild case. At Pingu's birthday party, the kids play "Blind Man's Bluff", with Pingu being the blindfolded one trying to find the other guests. But as he keeps playing, the others keep getting out of his way or redirecting him to something else, and after a while Pingu feels unhappy that he's not winning the game. Fortunately, when his mother comes out with the birthday cake, Pingu instantly cheers up and enjoys the rest of his birthday.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In the season 2 episode "Birthday Bash", the titular girls celebrate their birthday with all of Townsville. Mojo Jojo, Princess and HIM all seize this opportunity to attack and hopefully kill the girls with their "gifts" (Mojo sends a giant robot, Princess a missile, and HIM a giant, living pinata). The Amoeba Boys also make an attempt to harm the girls with voodoo dolls, but screw up as usual.
• The Recess episode "Bonky Fever" involves Mikey's tenth birthday, with Mikey reverting to kindergartener-like behavior and becoming obsessed with Bonky. His friends are horrified among arriving at Mikey's birthday party (thinking he's snapped out of his phase) to see a bunch of kindergartners attending and the whole party having a Bonky theme. And then Bonky comes out to dance with Mikey and the kindergarteners. In a desperate attempt to bring Mikey back to normal, the rest of the gang pounces on Bonky and unmasks him to reveal Mikey's mother Mrs. Blumberg in a Bonky Goofy Suit. Mikey claims his head hurts and he runs out into the backyard to be alone, and then one of the kindergarteners says to T.J. "Now we play Pin Tail on Big Kid!" and chase him.
• A ruined birthday celebration is discussed briefly in Rugrats when Stu mentions Dil spitting up on his birthday cake.
• The Simpsons:
  • In the episode "Radio Bart", Bart's birthday party ends up being underwhelming when his presents are really lame (such as a label maker, a cactus, and a matching suit) and he doesn't like some of the guests who attend.
  • In the episode "Grade School Confidential", Martin's birthday party didn't get off to a good start, being seen as boring by those he invited. Then everyone was getting food poisoning from the oysters his mother insisted on serving.
• Sofia the First:
  • Lucinda's coming-of-age birthday in "Cauldronation Day" has her two polar-opposite best friends competing for the place of Witch of Honor, resulting in them ruining the party games, accidently distracting her so that she ends up with a mangled broom, and ultimately turning all the guests but Sofia into owls. They do manage to set aside their differences to turn things around for Lucinda.
  • Sofia's own party in "The Birthday Wish" is plagued by inconveniences. Clover stains her new dress, Crackle burns all her balloons, James's toy knocks over the cake which spoils the dance floor for the father-daughter dance she was anticipating. By the end of the day, she's just glad it's over and ready to move on. Unfortunately, Tizzy the fairy godmother's attempt to give her a do-over locks her in a "Groundhog Day" Loop until she has a genuinely happy birthday party. Even in the loop where she managed to prevent every single calamity, she was so focused on doing so that she didn't have any fun, causing the day to reset again. It isn't until she embraces the chaos (styling her dress to incorporate the stain, genuinely appreciating the balloons and cake before they're ruined, etc.) that she's able to move on.
• The SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Whale of a Birthday" is about Mr. Krabs throwing a very cheap birthday party for Pearl. This includes a banner reading "IT'S A BOY!" with the "boy" crossed out and "girl" written above it, a statue of Pearl made of raw meat, dishwater served as drinks, a cake made of cardboard, and Squidward singing as entertainment. Needless to say, Pearl is very unhappy. Fortunately, SpongeBob gets all the presents she wants, using Mr. Krabs's credit card. Since SpongeBob maxed it out, it's basically Mr. Krabs' comeuppance for being nothing but a remorseless jerk towards his own daughter.
• In the Tangled: The Series special "Cassandra's Revenge", it is Eugene's birthday, but the party goes wrong when Cassandra crashes the scene.

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