Childish Pillow Fight

Pillow fights are often used to display and highlight innocence, immaturity, and child mischief. Pillow fights usually happen at a kid's Slumber Party, and other such events where kids have to stay the night with each other.

They almost always start where one character chucks a pillow at a more serious character out of boredom or just to provoke them, the second chucks it back and like a Food Fight, and it snowballs from there. When adults get into pillow fights, it's usually either to show that they are immature, or still kids at heart. In works that don't take themselves too seriously, pillow fights play out like fight scenes, cause exaggerated amounts of damage, and might even cause injuries.

Pillow fight also tend to cause a big mess with feathers littering the room. Parents will often have to come up to the room to see what all the noise is about.

Childish pillow fights are a staple in Kid Coms and in shows aimed primarily at girls.

Compare Snowball Fight and Food Fight. For pillow fights featuring more mature female characters, meant for Fanservice, see Fanservice Faux Fight.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In the forty-first chapter of Asteroid in Love, Mira, Ao, Moe, Chikage and Yuu are trying to finish their summer homework at Mira's house. Moe suggests doing this, since that is the first time she has a sleepover, but the others rejected the idea, since none of them finished their homework. The Yes/No pillows Moe takes out don't help matters.^note It is usually used by couples to show whether they want to have sex.
• Cyber Team in Akihabara: One episode has the three female villains staying at a hotspring hotel, and they end up engaging into one. At one point Hatoko gets hit so hard that she's left in a daze and grabs a huge jar to strike back instead of a pillow, knocking the other two out of the room with it.
• Doki Doki! PreCure: One promotional wallpaper for Episode 43 depicts the Cures having one of these, with Mana's grandfather yelling at them in the background.
• Eyeshield 21: A "uselessly bad-ass" pillow fight between members of the Japanese team during the World Youth Cup arc involves players using their special techniques with the pillows against each other.
• In Fairy Tail, there is a pillow fight between Natsu, Gray, and Erza after the Phantom Lord arc, just before Loki is revealed to be Leo, stellar spirit of the Lion. It starts out pretty normal, then Natsu hits Lucy so hard with a pillow she ends up flat on her back in the yard. She decides to leave before she gets killed.
• In K-On!, Mugi can hardly wait to start a pillow fight during the class trip. She has scarily good aim, too.
• In episode 12 of Kotoura-san, after Haruka rightfully calls her mother Kumiko out on her cold treatment of her for the past ten years, the two engage in this.
• Love Live!: In episode 9 of the first season, Nozomi throws a pillow at Nico to start a pillow fight to help Maki open up to the rest of the group. The rest of the girls (sans Maki and a sleeping Umi) get involved until some pillows land on Umi's head. Umi wakes up and immediately knocks the others out with her throws until she gets knocked out by Nozomi and Maki.
  • Love Live! Sunshine!!: When everyone is feeling stressed, You helps lift the mood by a starting a pillow fight among the girls. The second and third years get into it (Dia especially when she intercepts a pillow flying towards her sister Ruby) while the first years tried to hide.
• One Piece: When the Straw Hats spend the night in Yuba, a pillow fight is started when Usopp tries to sleep, claiming he'd worked hard that day. Zoro angrily throws a pillow at him saying he'd rested the most of any of them. Usopp throws one at Zoro as payback, one at Chopper for having to be carried the whole way, and one at Sanji for trying to sleep in Vivi's bed. Eventually the four of them start beating each other up.
• In Sailor Moon S, Usagi and the rest of the inner senshi have a pillow fight while staying at a shrine while Makoto was training.
• In one episode of Smile PreCure!, the Cures have a pillow fight on a school trip, which ends up with a kettle going flying and pouring coffee all over an unsuspecting teacher.
• Akira and Fumi from Sweet Blue Flowers love to show their friendship by pummeling each other with pillows from time to time.
• In Tokyo Mew Mew, the girls have a sleepover on Minto's house and ended up having a pillow fight. One of the pillows rip and stuffing (feather?) rain ensues.

Comic Books

• Loop: The blue twin tries to attack her sister with a pillow.

Comic Strips

• Calvin and Hobbes: Calvin periodically initiates pillow fights with Hobbes over who gets the most space on the bed. In one case, his dad came in demanding to know why there's so much noise and feathers floating all over his room. Calvin says a herd of ducks flew in through the window, all simultaneously moulted, and left right before he came in.
  Hobbes: Nice alibi, frizzletop! No dessert for a week!
  Calvin: You want another pillow across the kisser? I didn't hear you offer any brainstorms!
• The Far Side. Played for Laughs in one comic. A group of cowboys is having a pillow fight inside a Western bar and someone outside says "Somone better run fetch the sheriff" as if it were a real Bar Brawl.
• In a Garfield strip, Jon challenges Garfield to a pillow fight. Garfield easily defeats him with a pillow stuffed with a giant chicken's feathers.

Fan Works

• 221B: One ficlet, a missing scene from another fic, has Mycroft overhear Holmes and Watson getting into some kind of scuffle, and he goes in to prevent them from straining their recent injuries. After taking a pillow to the face, he rhetorically asks how old they both are.
• Comically exaggerated by Fluffle Puff, who appears to be misunderstanding why pillow fights exist the whole way through. It says a lot that she starts by bludgeoning Dan unconscious with a pillow and goes on from there.
• If Wishes Were Ponies: In Book 1 the first-year Gryffindor boys have one after Dean makes fun of Ron.
• Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail: Chloe, Atticus and Lexi engage in one in their room at the Hotel Crayola.
• Throw Away Your Mask: Akechi chucks a pillow at Shijiro for teasing him about being physically thirteen, which devolves into a full pillow fight between them and Akihiko after Mitsuru leaves.
• In A Voice Among the Strangers, Jessica and Ebony start one with Aurora Blossom, which quickly draws in Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, Spike and Luna. It resumes several times over the course of the fic.

Films — Animation

• Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted: The penguins are seen having a pillow fight as they trash a Monte Carlo hotel room.
  Skipper: Chimichanga! These pillows are filled with baby birds!
• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Legend of Everfree: One of the snapshots shown during the song "Legend You Were Meant to Be" features Applejack, Sunset Shimmer and Rainbow Dash indulging in a pillow fight.

Films — Live-Action

• In Almost Angels, the choirboys get involved in a pillow fight after hours, during a time when they are supposed to sleep. The choir director hears them, but waits outside the door for a few minutes before knocking on it, at which point all the boys scramble back into their beds before they go to sleep. The implication is that the director is tolerant of a certain degree of childish mischief, and was willing to let them have a bit of fun before getting them to stop so that they could get enough sleep. The pillow fight also fits in with one of the themes of the movie, which is that the choirboys may sing like angels but they still act much like ordinary children.
• Played straight in Fanny and Alexander, when Fanny, Alexander, some other kids, and the maid have a pillow fight on Christmas, complete with a pillow exploding into a cloud of feathers.
• Napoléon: After two bullies at Brienne College set Napoléon Bonaparte's eagle free, he demands to know who's responsible. When nobody will tell him, he declares all of them guilty, and a pillow fight breaks out.
• Room in Rome: Alba and Natasha jump on the bed briefly pelting each other with pillows as they laugh in a moment of childish glee.
• Roy, Chon, and a bunch of girls have one in Shanghai Knights.

Literature

• In the two-part story "Remote Island Syndrome" from Haruhi Suzumiya, the title character is extremely good at it during the club trip. Just before the murder mystery starts, Haruhi throws one into Arakawa's face unerringly.

Live-Action TV

• El Chavo del ocho: In the episode "Quico enfermo", La Chilindrina grabs a pillow to hit El Chavo with it, but misses and hits Quico instead. El Chavo grabs another and they start fighting until the house becomes a mess of feathers and they knock Quico out the window by accident.
• Taken to Serious Business levels in the Community episode "Pillows and Blankets", in which an attempt to build a school-wide pillow fort turns into a schism about whether the fort should be a pillow fort or a blanket fort, which in turn becomes a massive school-wide pillow fight that is treated by the combatants (and a documentary crew filming a record of an attempt to break a Guinness World Record) as if it were an unseen chapter of the American Civil War.
• How to Be Indie: According to "How To Keep Your Cool in a Heat Wave", Evil Cousin Rubi takes these very seriously. She even has a hand-tooled fighting pillow.
• The Jeffersons: George and Louise are given a pair of foam bats as a part of couples therapy. At the end of the episode they, the Willises, and Florence all go after each other (in a playful way) with the bats and some throw pillows for those without bats.
  • This is referenced in an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, where Lisa and Will are given foam bats as part of their pre-marital counseling. George and Louise are there for counseling themselves. Sure enough, the two couples eventually engage in an all-out brawl when each person gets offended by another's snide comment about their partner. Bizarrely enough, the counselor's tactics work—whatever bickering both couples were engaging in, they put it aside to join forces against a common enemy.
• There was a big, fluffy one in one early episode of One Tree Hill that became a permanent feature of the opening credits in later seasons.
• The Partridge Family: Danny and Chris get in one in "This Is My Song". Shirley goes into their room to tell them to quit fighting and go to sleep, but as soon as she's gone, they start hitting each other again.
• Short Ribbs: The opening theme song montage includes a brief one at the "sports galore" lyric.
• One Cold Open to The Jenny McCarthy Show had a horrifying (albeit Played for Laughs) subversion. Jenny and her friends get into an argument at a slumber party and Jenny then engages in this, only for the pillow to somehow kill her friend by being thrown too hard. The end result has all of the women die from the pillow fight, only for Jenny's unsuspecting Mom to believe they're only sleeping and to wish them a good night.

Puppet Shows

• In the Under the Umbrella Tree episode "Pyjama Party'', Gloria and Mitzi attack Iggy and Jacob with pillows after the latter two dress up as ghosts and scare them during their Slumber Party.

Video Games

• Midnight Fight Express: One segment has you getting involved in a pillow fight thrown by a game dev studio to celebrate the release of their game. You can also later pick up some Nerf guns for more non-lethal carnage. There's even a guy who's strapped pillows around him like armor.
• In The Sims, Sims can have pillow fights.
  • In The Sims 2, their likelihood of doing so is influenced by their level of playfulness. If you have a couple playful Sims in the same place, a pillow fight is bound to break out eventually, to the annoyance of some players. It's a bit silly when a Senior Manager brings home one of her coworkers and they start beating each other with pillows.
• In Undertale, make the right phone calls and you'll receive a conversation where Papyrus and Undyne loudly discuss party games. Papyrus suggests a six-legged race (which implies some truly bizarre arrangements of players) while Undyne prefers pillow fights. To absolutely no one's surprise, a one-sided pillow fight ensues, where Undyne hits Papyrus with pillows, pillows from the couch, and the entire couch.

Visual Novels

• Hisao and Emi have a few during Emi's route in Katawa Shoujo.

Web Animation

• In RWBY Chibi, Team RWBY decides to throw a pillow fight, so Neptune drags Ren and Sun along to watch, expecting it to be a typical, girly affair. To their surprise, it turns into a violent and insanely hammy battle. Disappointed, Neptune throws a pillow fight with his friends, which turns into a rather tame event. Meanwhile, Ruby looks on, unimpressed.

Webcomics

• In El Goonish Shive, as part of a visual to demonstrate how door-less restrooms work, Ellen and Nanase are portrayed having a pillow fight.

Web Videos

• During The Nostalgia Critic's and The Nostalgia Chick's review of FernGully: The Last Rainforest, the two get into a brutal fistfight... intercut randomly with them cheerfully pillow fighting.
• μ's Pillow Fight with Aqours: Exactly What It Says on the Tin, with both pillow fight scenes from Love Live! and Love Live! Sunshine!! edited together and having the subtitles to fit, the setting implying that the two idol groups are sleeping together and that the events of μ's pillow fight happened in the past. This time, when Umi goes on a warpath after her sleep is interrupted, she's knocked out by a rather sleepy Setsuna Yuki

Western Animation

• In The Angry Beavers, a drowsy Norbert and Daggett have the least energetic pillow fight ever.
• Towards the end of the Arthur episode, "Jenna's Bedtime Blues", after successfully making it through the night at Muffy's slumber party without wetting the bed, Jenna has a pillow fight with her friends. Since she had a pull-up hidden in her pillowcase, she ends up exposing it during the pillow fight.
• Among the other shenanigans, one of these happens during the slumber party in "The Slumber Party" from the PBS version of The Berenstain Bears, resulting in feathers all over the floor.
• One episode of Caillou had the title character and Leo have a pillow fight while they are searching for Caillou's toy airplane.
• The end credits for Code Lyoko Season 1 (taken from the short pilot Garage Kids) show Ulrich and Yumi having a pillow fight.
• Dennis the Menace and his cousin, Chauncey have one in the episode, "My Fair Dennis". When Chauncey's butler, Parker, comes in to check on them, some of the feathers from the pillows fly onto him, and since he is allergic to feathers, he goes into a sneezing fit.
• On Dragon Tales, there's one in "The Big Sleepover," though it doesn't last long at first because Cassie is missing her family too much to get into it. After the solution is devised of her staying for a "half sleepover," she initiates a new one, surprising everyone.
• In "The House That Ants Built" from Elinor Wonders Why, Elinor, Olive and Ari all struggle over a bunch of pillows that they want for their various projects. Ari tells them they shouldn't fight over pillows, then ends up getting buried in a bunch of them. Then, instead of fighting over the pillows, they have a pillow fight with them.
• Played straight in Family Guy when the guys start out as playful until it turns into an all out brawl.
• In the Goof Troop episode "Midnight Movie Madness", Max and PJ have a pillow fight to settle a dispute about whether Pete was telling the truth about the Mutilator being real. Apparently, they have decided this is the only proper way to settle any best friends' dispute.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: The pilot "Meet The Reaper" ends with Billy having a pillow fight with Grim's body. Grim's head is with Mandy.
• In Madeline, the twelve little girls love to do this at night before they sleep. Madeline is usually the one who starts it. In Madeline and the Old Violin, they have a daytime pillow fight too: one that gets too wild and leads to Chloe falling and breaking her arm.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • "Look Before You Sleep" features Twilight Sparkle throwing her first slumber party, and she's eager to take part in all the trappings. She's a little slow realizing that a pillow fight is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, even as one breaks out between Rarity and Applejack, who get a teensy bit too competitive.
    Twilight Sparkle: Ohhh, I get it. Pillow fight. Fun!
  • A less hostile version occurs in "School Daze" between students.
• In the Phineas and Ferb episode "Night of the Living Pharmacists", Perry and Doofenshmirtz have to resort to a pillow fight since they don't want to disturb Vanessa and her friends in the other room who are having a foreign film watching party.
• In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Secret Box", SpongeBob sneaks into Patrick's house at night in order to get his secret box. When Patrick wakes up, he thinks SpongeBob is the Clam Burglar and tells him to 'prepare for the most unpleasant pillow fight of [his] life!' before cocking his pillow like a gun.
• In the We Bare Bears episode "Slumber Party", Chloe and the Bears have a pillow fight during their impromptu sleepover.

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