History Main / DeliveryStork

* When Angelica asks the big question on ''{{Rugrats}}'', her parents first start to tell her the truth (babies start out as tiny eggs), then chicken out and give the "stork" response. When she calls them on their inconsistency, Drew claims that babies in fact come from "stork eggs."

* On ''TheFailyOddparents'' Timmy accuses his parents of always lying to him. In order to test this, they put on some home movies to see how long it takes for them to catch themselves lying to him. The first thing that comes up is them shouting "The stork!" at a younger Timmy.

-->'''Timmy's Dad:''' Wow, that was fast!

* A '40s ''ComicStrip/{{Blondie}}'' strip has Dagwood telling Cookie about this, but [[http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/blondie/images/uc03237u.jpg her questions aren't finished]].

* In ''{{Asterix}} and Son'', Obelix still thinks storks deliver babies. In the final panel, Asterix tries to give him TheTalk.

** In the {{Novelization}} of ''The Twin Dilemma'', the Sixth Doctor, temporarily under the delusion he's SherlockHolmes, claims that as a child his parents told him the stork delivered babies, but he found this hard to believe as babies were common in London, but storks were rare. Upon hearing that a neighbour was about to have a baby, he observed the house closely, and didn't see a single stork. He did see a doctor entering with a black bag; obviously ''he'' had brought the baby.

* Parodied in ''[[Film/TheAddamsFamily Addams Family Values]]''. When Morticia is having a baby, one of the other kids in the waiting room with Wednesday and Pugsley explains her belief in the delivery stork (and also every other euphemism in existence). Pugsley tells her, "Our parents are having a baby too." Wednesday then deadpans, complete with dramatic zoom-in, "They had ''sex''."

* Parodied in "The Parenting Storks," a short story from David Sedaris' ''Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk'', with a stork who believes that baby storks are put into eggs by mice with magic pockets.

For those wondering exactly how storks became associated with pregnancy: The tradition apparently started in Victorian England. The White Stork was considered a symbol of happiness, fertility, and prosperity. Storks were known to nest on chimney tops in England, so the mythology of storks dropping baby humans down the chimney was made quite quickly. (It must also be mentioned that the surgical masks worn by early gynocologists gave them a vaguely storklike face. Best [[{{Squick}} not to think about that too hard]]...)

* A cartoon stork with a [[MarxBrothers Groucho Marx]] voice is a long-time pitchman for Vlasic brand pickles (working off the theme of pregnant women's craving for pickles).

* The 1940 Disney film ''Disney/{{Dumbo}}'' starts out with storks delivering baby animals to their mothers while their circus is headquartered in Florida for the winter. The babies have no fathers except for the tiger cubs.

* Parodied in ''[[Film/TheAddamsFamily Addams Family Values]]''. When Morticia is having a baby, one of the other kids in the waiting room with Wednesday and Pugsley explains her belief in the delivery stork. Pugsley tells her, "Our parents are having a baby too." Wednesday then deadpans, "They had ''sex''."

* In the Disney cartoon, ''Disney/LambertTheSheepishLion'', the titular lion was supposed to go to Africa on a stork delivery (the stork for some reason, is actually the same stork that appeared in ''Disney/{{Dumbo}}''), but is taken in by a ewe after none of the lambs delivered to flock choose her to be their mother.

* Disney's ''{{Dinosaur}}'' actually did this with a Pterodactyl. Who apparantly found Aladar's egg floating in a river after an Oviraptor accidentally dropped it while stealing it from Aladar's ''real'' mother.

* Used as the basis of an in-universe joke in the film ''ChildrenOfMen'':

* ''Fanfic/EmpathTheLuckiestSmurf'' purposely subverts this trope by stating that the Smurfs in the series reproduce physically. A stork does appear in the series to deliver Baby Smurf, but it is revealed that Baby Smurf came from Smurfling Island.

* One ''CalvinAndHobbes'' strip features Calvin hearing about and asking his father specifically about the stork. His father's response was that, yes, most babies were delivered by a stork, but Calvin was "unceremoniously dumped down the chimney by a big, hairy pterodactyl." Calvin is, needless to say, [[InsultBackfire thrilled]] (to his father's [[GenreSavvy lack of surprise]]).

* Parodied in ''CyanideAndHappiness'' [[http://www.explosm.net/comics/1742/ here]], and [[http://www.explosm.net/comics/1035/ here]]

* Parodied in ''[[Film/TheAddamsFamily Addams Family Values]]''. When Morticia is having a baby, one of the other kids in the waiting room with Wednesday and Pugsley explains her belief in the delivery stork. Wednesday deadpans, "Our parents are having a baby too. They had ''sex''."

* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures novel ''The Crooked World'' takes place on a planet that's like [[WesternAnimation a children's cartoon]]. They have [[WhatIsThisThingYouCallLove no concept of sex]], and Fitz (who's a little bit of a LovableSexManiac) takes it upon himself to try explaining to the GirlOfTheWeek. She only understands it in terms of making babies, which is done on this planet by writing a letter to the stork, and gets confused by his explanation and even more confused when Anji tries to explain his explanation, and decides Fitz would probably appreciate it if she wrote to the stork. He gets kidnapped and the stork has a devil of a time trying to find him, and by the time it finds him, it has [[WildChild dropped the baby into the jungle to be raised by friendly wolves]] and ends up delivering him a [[CartoonBomb bomb]] instead, which he seems about as (un)happy about as he would have been about a baby. One of the villains who has kidnapped him comments, when the "baby" is dropped into his lap, that if he'd [[StealthPun written to the stork in French]], the stork wouldn't have known what he meant and wouldn't have delivered it.[[hottip:*:In case you're not up on your outdated euphemisms, a "French letter" means a condom.]]

* In ''SpringAwakening'' (which takes place in 19th century Germany) Frau Bergmann is still trying to use this story with fourteen-year-old Wendla[[hottip:*: sixteen in TheMusical]], who becomes frustrated and insists her mother finally explain to her what ''really'' happens. She doesn't, and [[TearJerker this ends very, VERY badly.]]

* Invoked by Angelica's parents on ''{{Rugrats}}'' when she asks them the question:
-->'''Charlotte''': You see, to make a baby, mommies and daddies need to...well, they...they need to...
-->'''Drew''': Call the stork!
-->'''Angelica''': The stork?
-->'''Charlotte''': The ''stork''?
-->'''Drew''': Yeah, you know that...big, ugly bird with...feathers?

->''Well '''you''' were dropped down the chimney by a big hairy pterodactyl.''

* Animated adaptations of ''TheCabbagePatchKids'' gave them a stork caretaker named Colonel Casey.

The rival story that new babies were found under a gooseberry bush seems to have died out, though some guy named Xavier ([[Franchise/{{X-Men}} not that one]]) did make a small fortune with the mythology of [[CabbagePatchKids babies being grown from cabbages...]]

-->-- '''[[CalvinAndHobbes Calvin's dad]]''' puts a new spin on the trope.

* CrusaderKings, a game about family lines and whole dynasties, uses these as a symbol to indicate that a character is, well, expecting.

* In ''ToKillAMockingbird'', Dill tells Scout that you get babies from an island where they are gathered like flowers. Scout, who had previously been told that babies are dropped down the chimney by God, is skeptical.

* Parodied in ''Addams Family Values''. When Morticia is having a baby, one of the other kids in the waiting room with Wednesday and Pugsley explains her belief in the delivery stork. Wednesday deadpans, "Our parents are having a baby too. They had ''sex''."