History Main / OneCrazyNight

* The ''Film/NightAtTheMuseum'' series. Both movies feature a security guard trying to keep control of a museum where all the exhibits come alive at night.

** In ''Literature/ANightInLonesomeOctober'', the main character roams the night streets of his home town and encounters several bizarre characters, including a psychopath chasing after the protagonist's sort-of-LoveInterest, a mysterious girl who penetrates other people's houses at night, a crazy old lady on a bicycle, [[MonsterClown a creepy clown]] [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane who may or may not be a ghost]], and a bunch of cannibals living under the bridge.

* In the Creator/CartoonNetwork Shockwave game ''The Envelopes, Please'', WesternAnimation/JohnnyBravo sends [[WesternAnimation/IAmWeasel I.R. Baboon]] on a mission to recover the envelopes with the awards for the nightly show.

* In the [[{Vaporware}} unreleased]] PointAndClick AdventureGame ''[[https://web.archive.org/web/20220000000000*/https://justadventure.com/Interviews/GameX/GameX.shtm Game X]]'', a young man called Arpy is going home from a bar one night, and gets into a number of surreal adventures, which may or may not be his drunken hallucinations. On his way, he encounters a creepy faceless man in a black coat, an eccentric old park keeper, and a number of other weirdos.

[[folder:Film]]

* In ''Film/Creep2004'', a young woman returns home from a party and ends up trapped in the underground after missing the last train. It soon turns out that the underground is inhabited by a hideously deformed serial killer...

* In the 2008 movie ''Film/StagNight'', four guys from a New York party ride the subway and end up lost on an abandoned station...

* In ''Downtown'' by George Right, the main character, a New Yorker called Tony Logan, gets on a wrong subway train late at night, and ends up in [[DarkWorld a nightmarish alternate version of New York]]. After a series of misadventures and bizarre encounters, he realizes that [[spoiler:[[DeadAllAlong he died when he boarded the wrong train]], and the place is actually afterlife.]]

* In ''[[https://archive.org/details/al-gurbish-in-nick-it-and-run Al Gurbish in... Nick It & Run!]]'', the secret agent Al Gurbish, is tasked with a mission to steal The Silver Stan, the most presigious award in the world of advenure gaming, [[StealItToProtectIt in order to prevent it from being stolen by a bunch of crooks]]. During the award night, he roams through the night city streets and encounters a number of bizarre characters.

* In ''Downtown'' by George Right, the main character, a New Yorker called Tony Logan, gets on a wrong subway train late at night, and ends up in [[DarkWorld a nightmarish alternate version of New York]]. After a series of misadventures and bizarre encounters, he understands that [[spoiler:[[DeadAllAlong he died when he boarded the wrong train]], and the place is actually afterlife.]]

** Likewise, in ''Literature/TheTravelingVampireShow'', a trio of young protagonists decide to visit a nightly show of the titular circus. On their way to the show, they encounter a man dressed in a white sheet looking like a ghost, [[CreepyTwins two sinister twin brothers on a Cadillac]], some unseen sinister creature that lives under a car and devours a poodle before their eyes, and a host of other weird stuff.

* In ''ANightInLonesomeOctober'' by Creator/RichardLaymon, the main character roams the night streets of his home town and encounters a bunch of bizarre characters, including a psychopath chasing after the protagonist's sort-of-LoveInterest, a mysterious girl who penetrates other people's houses at night, a crazy old lady on a bicycle, [[MonsterClown a creepy clown]] [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane who may or may not be a ghost]], and a bunch of cannibals living under the bridge.

* In ''ANightInLonesomeOctober'' by Creator/RichardLaymon, the main character roams the night streets of his home town and encounters a bunch of bizarre characters, including a psychopath chasing after his sort-of-LoveInterest, a mysterious girl who penetrates other people's houses at night, a crazy old lady on a bicycle, [[MonsterClown a creepy clown]] [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane who may or may not be a ghost]], and a bunch of cannibals living under the bridge.

** The novella ''Riding the Bullet'', which was adapted into the eponymous movie (see above).

* In the 2008 German movie ''Film/{{80Minutes}}'', the main character has been injected with poison, and goes on a wild goose chase through the night to get the antidote.

* In ''Film/EyesWideShut'', a young doctor goes on [[QuestForSex looking for sexual adventures]] on the night streets of New York after an argument with his wife, and ends up attending a sex party hosted by a secret society. {{Downplayed}}, since the movie shows some events that happen ''after'' that - but the crux of the story happens for the duration of a single night.

Note: This trope is nearly always a comedy trope; it lends itself well to comedy. However, there are serious examples, such as ''Literature/AChristmasCarol''.

** An even better example comes from "Boom, Boom, Out Goes The Ed". Ed blames a blackout on mutant man-eating moles. Everyone except for Edd and Eddy (and Rolf and Kevin, the former of whom ropes the latter into helping him restore power) fall for it, and chaos inevitably ensues.

* ''Series/{{Cheers}}'': In "Look Before You Sleep", Sam winds up without a place to sleep after his apartment is being fumigated, his date has to cancel on him, and he locks himself out of the bar. Having already been up all night the previous night, he goes on a merry adventure all over town, trying to find a somewhere to sleep. Unfortunately, a Shriners convention has filled every hotel in Boston, Carla is in the middle of a tryst with John Allen Hill, Norm has no bed to spare (he'd rather sleep on the couch than with Vera), Frasier's son Frederick is having a very noisy tantrum, Cliff drives Sam away with incessant chattering, and when Sam finally shows up on Rebecca's doorstep, she accidentally locks herself out, leading to both of them spending the night with Cliff.

* ''Film/FunSize''. A SpiritualSuccessor to the above, four friends go on the hunt for a missing boy on Halloween en route to the biggest party of the year. The boy is having adventures of his own.
* The ''Film/NightAtTheMuseum'' series. Both movies feature a security guard trying to keep control of a museum where all the exhibits come alive at night.

* ''Film/AllThroughTheNight'': Creator/HumphreyBogart is a gambler and semi-hoodlum who has an evening of gambling and poker planned. But his mom lives above a baker who was murdered, and she's suspicious about TheChanteuse who popped up at the bakery while the cops were milling around. Bogart has to go fetch his mom from the chanteuse's nightclub, and winds up going on an all-night adventure that includes shootouts, kidnapping, a Nazi spy ring, and a plot to sink a battleship in New York harbor.,
* ''Film/TrojanWar''. Brad wants to have sex with the school's alpha girl and needs to buy a condom. Good luck...
* ''Film/NickAndNorahsInfinitePlaylist'' involves the titular protagonists having a MeetCute and then trying to find a concert by an obscure indie band called "Where's Fluffy?". It turns into an epic all-night quest in which they fall in love.
* In ''Film/{{Superbad}}'', Seth and Evan want nothing more than to use a fake ID to get some alcohol that they can take to a party. An incredibly complicated all-night adventure ensues.

* The Coreys (Feldman and Haim) film ''Film/LicenseToDrive'' revolves around ASimplePlan for a date: take Les' grandfather's Cadillac and drive it around with his girlfriend for a while. Les doesn't have a license to drive, but he keeps it a secret for the moment. A drunken hobo stealing the Cadillac is the ''least'' chaotic thing that happens [[ThePreciousPreciousCar to that car]] during the night.
-->'''Les:''' ''(to Mercedes)'' Yesterday was like, [[{{Understatement}} a nonstop action]].
* ''Film/NightOnEarth'', a 1991 film featuring five vignettes, each of taxi drivers in different cities taking passengers to their destinations, all happening on the same night. The Rome bit has Roberto Benigni as the driver, who picks up a priest and proceeds to make an ever-more outrageous and hilarious confession.

* ''Film/TheIronyOfFate'' is a Russian film from 1976 about a doctor who goes out on New Year's Eve to celebrate his engagement with friends. A series of unlikely events rooted in [[VodkaDrunkenski the Russian fondness for vodka]] and the Soviet fondness for cookie-cutter architecture leads to the doctor going home to the wrong apartment in the wrong city. Hilarity and romance ensue as he tries to explain his situation and figure out how to get home to Moscow from Leningrad.
* The movie ''Film/{{Clue}}'', like the game it's based on, features a a cast of [[{{Pun}} colorful]] characters trying solve a murder before they're all killed. Hi-jinks ensue as everyone from a singing telegram to an FBI agent show up to interrupt them.

* ''Film/TheWorldsEnd'' is about Gary, a middle-aged man child (Creator/SimonPegg), who gets all his school buddies back together to recreate the pub crawl that they couldn't finish when they were teenagers. The pub crawl is complicated when they find out that most of the townspeople have been replaced by robots, but Gary insists on pushing on with the pub crawl as they brawl with the robot hordes.
* Creator/WillFriedle's character in ''Film/MyDateWithThePresidentsDaughter'' asked a random girl at the mall to go to the dance with him. [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin She turned out to be]] the President's daughter. She talks him into ditching the Secret Service agents and they spend the rest of the night en route to the dance while dodging the agents and other people looking for trouble.

* One of the most famous examples is ''Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow''. Brad and Janet's car breaks down on their way to see the professor who introduced them. They go to a nearby castle to use the phone ([[AudienceParticipation Castles don't have phones, asshole!]]) and...[[MindScrew things]]...happen.
* ''Film/{{Sleepover}}'' (2004) is an example of this trope. In the movie, the characters are tasked (during the titular sleepover) with completing a scavenger hunt to win a bet and the whole thing is resolved at the big dance.
* ''Film/RoughNight'': The women try to have a bachelorette weekend (albeit a crazy one in its own way). Then they kill the stripper...

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* The Coreys (Feldman and Haim) film ''License to Drive'' revolves around ASimplePlan for a date: take Les' grandfather's Cadillac and drive it around with his girlfriend for a while. Les doesn't have a license to drive, but he keeps it a secret for the moment. A drunken hobo stealing the Cadillac is the ''least'' chaotic thing that happens [[ThePreciousPreciousCar to that car]] during the night.

* ''Series/{{Cheers}}'': In "Look Before You Sleep" Sam winds up without a place to sleep after his apartment is being fumigated and he locks himself out of the bar. Having already been up all night the previous night, he goes on a merry adventure all over town, trying to find a friend that will let him get some sleep.

** The episode "Deal Me Out", centers around a poker game. In between, the characters have to deal with a con man, a violent soldier and a paranoid CID officer.
** "It Happened One Night" deals with the entire camp observing black-out conditions due to enemy shelling - which happens to turn out being their own artillery; during this time, Hawkeye deals with a spastic shell-shocked soldier in Post-Op, Klinger trains a new corpsman pulling guard duty, Frank literally tears Margaret's tent apart to look for his love notes she kept, B.J. worries about his patient whose had an excessive amount of blood IVs, and Potter and Radar work to try to get the shelling stopped.

* The Coreys (Feldman and Haim) film ''License to Drive'' revolves around ASimplePlan for a date: take Les' grandfather's Cadillac and drive it around with his girlfriend for a while. Les doesn't has a license to drive, but he keeps it a secret for the moment. A drunken hobo stealing the Cadillac is the ''less'' chaotic thing that happens [[ThePreciousPreciousCar to that car]] during the night.
* ''Film/{{Night On Earth}}'', a 1991 film featuring five vignettes, each of taxi drivers in different cities taking passengers to their destinations, all happening on the same night. The Rome bit has Roberto Benigni as the driver, who picks up a priest and proceeds to make an ever-more outrageous and hilarious confession.

* The movie ''Film/{{Clue}}'', like the game it's based on, features a a cast of [[IncrediblyLamePun colorful]] characters trying solve a murder before they're all killed. Hi-jinks ensue as everyone from a singing telegram to [[spoiler: J. Edgar Hoover]] show up to interrupt them.