Ken: How old are you?
Barbie: Today, I'm officially —(gets drowned out by the vacuum)
Barbie: Today, I'm officially —(gets drowned out by the vacuum)
A staple in most children's cartoons and kid-friendly sitcoms is the Ageless Birthday Episode. This is an episode that centers on a specific character's birthday but never mentions the character's new age. If this character's actual age is part of the show's status quo, then you can expect their age to remain the same even after the "birthday episode." The inevitable numerous guests and fancy decorations at their birthday party raise even more curiosity as to what this character's age is, as such a party would only seem to make sense during a monumental birthday like their 16th, 18th, or 21st, the lattermost only being important in the United States.
This trope occurs most often in children's cartoons and more kid-friendly sitcoms, and goes hand-in-hand with Not Allowed to Grow Up. This is most likely because, well, kids love birthday parties, and they associate it more with parties, fun, and presents than turning a year older. This allows them to use it even though characters can't show actual signs of aging. However, it also frequently appears in more adult works, where it is decidedly less justified. If the only evidence of the character's age is what he says in casual conversation, it could be due to the character lying about his or her age, simply because an older age (the character's true age) is seen as less desirable than a younger one; it could, also, simply be a result of the character's exact age being unimportant to the story.
An example of Negative Continuity and, sometimes, Status Quo Is God. Subtrope of Birthday Episode.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- Doraemon: Sue's age is never mentioned in "Worst Birthday Ever."
- None shown on screen, but when One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda was asked about the possibility of the characters aging, he said that they do have birthdays, they just turn the same age every year. ("Lucky bastards.") They all do end up aging after a two year time skip.
- Pecola: Mayor Papazoni has a birthday in "Operation: Papazoni", but his age is never mentioned.
- Pokémon: The Series:
- The anniversary of Ash and Pikachu's meeting is celebrated at least twice, but Ash is still 10. Heck, according to how many episodes there are, if Ash had a new adventure every single day (and certain episodes take place over multiple days already), there is no possible way he could still be 10 years old. Yet he is still canonically 10 years old.
- Meowth pokes fun at this in the second episode of Diamond & Pearl when, at least in the dub, he claims that Team Rocket have been chasing after Ash's Pikachu longer than Dawn's been alive - which really was the case, the episode first airing about nine and a half years since their introduction - despite her canonically being 10 years old, just like Ash is supposed to be.
- An episode of XY reveals Jessie recently had a birthday, however we still never learn her age (though early material heavily implied she's around 25). Considering Ash, it's probable Jessie hasn't aged either.
- In Sailor Moon S, Usagi turns 15 in her birthday episode, but the dub has this trope in place for Serena.
- There are 6 of these in Tamagotchi, all but one set during Mametchi's birthday.
- Episode 6, both the first and second halves are set during Mametchi's birthday.
- Episode 54a, which is literally titled "Happy Birthday, Mametchi!"
- Episode 105, which aired during the franchise's 15th anniversary (November 23rd, which is also Mametchi's birthday).
- Tamagotchi! Yume Kira Dream episode 10, where Mametchi, Memetchi, and Kuchipatchi temporarily return to Tamagotchi Town to celebrate the former's birthday.
- Tamagotchi! Yume Kira Dream episode 25 for Cafe Mama.
- Toward the end Tamagotchi! Miracle Friends episode 12, the Kira★Kira Girls sing a birthday song for Mametchi.
- The Movie for Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GO!GO! focuses on Nozomi's birthday, but she's never explicitly given an age (she started off Yes! Pretty Cure 5 as 14, but Comic-Book Time was invoked soon after).
Asian Animation
- Episode 16 of Happy Heroes has Doctor H. deliver a birthday card to his Celeb Crush Miss Peach by going into Cyberspace with the Supermen. The episode does not mention Miss Peach's age.
- Motu Patlu: The episode "Motu Ka Birthday," where Motu celebrates his birthday, does not give his age.
- Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: As no one's age has been confirmed, any Birthday Episode doesn't give the character's age.
- Simple Samosa has Jalebi go through a birthday episode appropriately titled "Jalebi's Birthday." Not once in this episode is Jalebi's age ever mentioned.
Comic Books
- Averted in The Beano, and often lampshaded. Dennis has had various birthdays (usually when the character hits a major anniversary) but he's always ten. When he turned 70 in reality, he complained that he thought he was ten last year, but his mum told him not to be silly. (Most characters with their own strip are also ten, but the Bash Street Kids are always nine.)
- As late as the early 2000s, however, Dennis had a Vague Age and was drawn looking any age from six to thirteen by different artists, so birthdays then were ageless.
- The Duck Who Never Was plays with this. It was first published in 1994 (the sixtieth anniversary of Donald's debut), and should logically be the celebration of Donald's birthday. However, Don Rosa, the creator the editors hired for the job, has a rather narrow view of continuity, where he doesn't want to write anything taking place after 1967. One character does state Donald is sixty, but this character is near-sighted and has been reading Donald's filled-in form upside down. note Therefore, it is possible that Donald is 60 as was intended, but in Don Rosa's personal continuity, he can pretend it was just a mistake of the near-sighted character.
- Later, when the employer arrives at Donald's birthday party to give him his job back, mentioning that Donald is (allegedly) 60, Gladstone Gander then exclaims, "Better stick some extra candles on the cake!" Of course, we've never seen the cake beforehand, and by the time we see it, the extra candles are already there.
- "Good Evening, Midnight", a story in the Batman: Black and White anthology series, is implied to be set on Bruce Wayne's birthday; Alfred sets out a cake with a candle, and reminisces about the day Bruce turned three. The cake only has one candle, so it doesn't show Bruce's age, and there are no other indications either.
- The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy story "Time Waits For No Mandy" has Mandy's birthday at hand, and she's ageist. She coerces Father Time into taking a permanent vacation so time will stand still and she won't have to deal with anymore birthdays. But Mandy pumps the brakes on the plan when things constantly repeat themselves.
- Averted in an issue of Immortal Iron Fist, where Danny Rand explicitly turns 33. The issue becomes, no Iron Fist has ever seen 34...
- Played With in Monica's Gang. The birthday of the main characters is always said to be their seventh one, but that event is always ignored by their next birthday story, in which they are making seven years again. This is even spoofed in one of the Mister B stories (a parody of programs explaining how magic tricks work, but with the titular character solving Monica's Gang "mysteries" instead), in which he suggests that all of the birthday stories of the main characters happened on the same day.
- Averted in Scott Pilgrim where Scott turns 24 at the beginning of Volume 5. Other characters' ages are noted, especially Knives Chau (17 Years Old), who turns 18 in the gap between Volumes 5 and 6.
- Initially averted in Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) when one issue has him celebrating his 16th birthday. When another issue has him celebrating a birthday, Rotor questions how old Sonic actually is by now (thanks to adventures in space, Mobius went through a year of changes while Sonic didn't age at all). Sonic replies they should just think of him as a "teen" forever and ever, thus invoking Vague Age had another birthday issue come up.
- Wonder Woman Vol 1: Etta Candy has a birthday issue but it turns out that while it's a party for her 17th birthday, that's the same age she celebrates turning every year and she refuses to discuss her true age.
Fan Works
- In Another Day in Misterland, it's not mentioned how old Miss Fun was turning in "A Party for Little Miss Fun".
- Harvey Girls Forever Fanon: The episode "Gerald" takes place in the Fireworks Week celebration that Lotta goes for her birthday. She is about to reveal her age, but the fireworks begin right away.
Film
- Scooby Doo! Pirates Ahoy! takes place during Fred's birthday. The closest we get to his age getting mentioned is a gag where the Gang thinks he's saying he's turning 37, but it turns out he didn't hear the question and was naming off the dock numbers while looking for the one their cruise ship is at. The number is also a meta reference to the fact that the movie was released 37 years after the original show first premiered, so technically speaking, the character of Fred was 37 years old at the time.
- Spider-Man 2 has Peter's family throwing him a birthday party with no mention of his age. But since Aunt May referred to Uncle Ben's murder, which happened shortly before Peter graduated from high school, being two years ago we can infer that Peter turned 19 or 20.
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan starts with Kirk's birthday. However, at William Shatner's insistence, Kirk's specific age was left unmentioned. Later biographical information from various sources would suggest he's 52, incidentally.
Literature
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days: Greg celebrates his birthday, although his age is never stated.
- While the fourth Jennings book, Jennings and Darbishire, features a birthday with no age mentioned, it is clearly Jennings' eleventh, because he was mentioned as "nearly eleven" in the previous book.
- There is a Just William story entitled William's Birthday. As William is always eleven and a half years old, it is not made clear whether this is his eleventh or twelfth birthday. He is eleven and a half in all the stories before and after this one.
- The Land of Oz books The Road to Oz and The Magic of Oz both concern Princess Ozma’s birthday, and in both books her age is never revealed. She has a Vague Age that is never directly mentioned in the series, but this is partly justified by the fact that everyone in Oz is immortal and The Ageless.
- In Nintendo Adventure Books #5, Pipe Down, Princess Peach (who was named Princess Toadstool at the time) was celebrating her 99th birthday (in fungus years).
- In the Rainbow Magic series, books with birthdays in them never reveal how old the birthday person is.
Live-Action TV
- CSI: NY: Mac Taylor celebrates his birthday at the opera with then-girlfriend Peyton Driscoll in "Murder Sings the Blues". They share a cupcake from a vending machine later after he gets called back in to work during the ovation. Peyton puts a single, lighted candle on it, but his age is never revealed.
- Family Matters had several episodes devoted to Carl's birthday with no mention of his age.
- Frasier: All the main characters, bar Niles, celebrate at least one on-screen birthday, but the only time a character's age is mentioned during these episodes is when Martin turns 65 in Season 5.
- Friends had several ageless birthday episodes for Rachel. Averted, though, in the episode where Rachel has her 30th.
- Hey Dude!:
- The series did this in the "Guys vs. Girls" episode for Danny. Once again, inexcusable, since he was a "teenager" at the time.
- There was another episode that had an ageless birthday episode for Mr. Ernst.
- House had a birthday in the first season of the show and his age was not mentioned (of course, he doesn't want a party.)
- Several episodes of The Office have centered on birthdays for various cast members, including Meredith, Michael, and one where multiple birthdays are mashed together. Specific ages are never an issue, although this can be justified as the characters simply avoiding the subject on purpose.
- Oobi has an episode where Uma celebrates her birthday. Her new age is never mentioned, but according to official show descriptions from both before and after the episode aired, she's three.
- Our Miss Brooks has the episode The Birthday Bag. Mr. Conklin asks Miss Brooks how old she is. Miss Brooks quickly dodges the question by starting a chorus of Happy Birthday.
- In Power Rangers whenever a Ranger celebrates a birthday, no age will be mentioned. The most notable being the first time it happened in the first season in "Happy Birthday Zack". It was perhaps for the best since the characters, originally meant to be high school juniors or seniors at the time, were retconned into being freshman due to staying in high school for four seasons. Giving out an actual age would have ended in a continuity error.
- Radio Enfer: Averted during a Season 1 episode centered on Carl's birthday, which is specifically his 16th one.
- Which makes the whole timeline of the series extremely weird, as five years total are shown to pass between Seasons 1 and 5, but if the character turns 16 in Season 1, he would only have one more year of high school left (in the French Canadian system).
- Red Dwarf: "M-Corp" opens with Lister celebrating his birthday. However, the only clue we get of his age is that it's probably somewhere over 40.
- Saved by the Bell inexcusably did this with Screech's and Zack's birthdays. Since they're both in high school, there was no reason for them to not at least provide their new ages (which would've been anywhere from 15 to 18).
- In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Parallels," the Enterprise crew throws Worf a surprise party for his birthday. Captain Picard asks Worf how old he is, to which Worf answers "Old enough."
Newspaper Comics
- Baldo celebrates his birthday every year, but remains a just-old-enough-to-drive teenager. Some strips
lampshade this fact.
- Calvin and Hobbes had an arc were Susie invites Calvin to her birthday party. Her age isn't mentioned, but they all appear to be perpetually 6.
- Dennis the Menace (US) celebrates his birthday every year on March 14th (creator, Hank Ketcham's actual birthday), but he still remains five years old.
- Originally averted in Garfield, where Garfield's age would be mentioned every year. As he got older, and started to live far longer than the average house cat would, references to his actual age were quietly dropped.
- Usually played straight in Phoebe and Her Unicorn, where the comic has seasonal events every year but the characters don't age. Averted on the strip's tenth anniversary, where Phoebe was finally allowed to turn ten. (Marigold, being an ageless unicorn who loves attention, declared it was her tenth too, saying she must be ten of something).
Video Games
- Lampshaded in Animal Crossing. When the villagers have their birthdays, they don't mention how old they're turning. But if you chat up a Snooty or Sisterly villager enough, your character will actually ask them that (well, at least the way Heroic Mimes do), and they'll respond by saying it's rude to ask a lady her age. It's also lampshaded when a party guest mentions they don't actually know what birthday they're celebrating.
- One of the Additional Cases in Criminal Case: City of Romance has the High Commissioner ask his old friend, who owns a circus, throw a private performance to celebrate his son's birthday. Despite this being one of the very few birthday celebration to be shown on-screen, Gauthier is pretty much the only character (other than the Player Character) to not have his age revealed.
- Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze starts with one for DK, before the bad guys crash the party.
- The prologue of The Last of Us takes place on Joel's birthday. His age is never given, but his I.D. in the Part I remake says he was born in 1981, making him 32 at the time of the Cordyceps Brain Infection outbreak in 2013.
- New Super Mario Bros. Wii begins with the Opening Narration, "Today is Princess Peach's birthday!" After the opening cutscene, birthdays become irrelevant for the rest of the game.
- In Pac-Man World, Pac-Man was stated to be having his 20th birthday, as the game was released to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the original Pac-Man. Pac-Man World: Re-PAC, which was released 23 years later, omits any mention of his age, likely because him celebrating his 43rd birthday didn't have the same impact.
- Sonic the Hedgehog
- Sonic celebrates his birthday in his Milestone Celebration-game Sonic Generations. However, there are no candles/banners to indicate his age, and Word of God has indicated that Sonic is still fifteen.
- The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog is centered on Amy's birthday party, but her age isn't mentioned either.
- The Story of Seasons series (formerly Harvest Moon) lets the player pick a birthday, and every named character will have a birthday. (Most of the time you can gift them then for a significant boost in your Relationship Values with them on that day.) Birthdays will pass annually but no one ever ages, except occasionally for child characters—and even then only on certain events, until they reach the age in which they don't go any further. However, it's inverted in Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life and its remake Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life, where the very short ten-day seasons means no one has a birth date—but everyone ages over the games' six chapters, including your child.
Web Animation
- Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse:
- The short "Gifts, Goofs, Galore" features Barbie and her friends celebrating her birthday. However, the friends realize that since Barbie never ages, as dolls never do, they don't know how old she is. Ken eventually asks her, but the vacuum drowns out her answer.
- "Little Bad Dress" takes place at Raquelle's half-birthday party, but the cartoon never specifies which half-birthday it is. (The cake only has four candles, but Raquelle is obviously way older than four.)
- The same series averts this in "Happy Birthday Chelsea", in which Barbie's youngest sister, Chelsea, explicitly turns six years old.
- In one Barbie Vlog video, Barbie's birthday is celebrated. No age is actually clarified and she and her sisters don't age.
- Issue 10 of Teen Girl Squad features The Ugly One's sweet someteen party.
Webcomics
- Achewood has celebrated Philippe's fifth birthday a few times, with the characters explicitly mentioning his age. Of course, what you have to understand is that when they say Philippe is five, they really do mean that Philippe is five.
- Precocious has a weird variant. Most characters have a canonically established age, but Not Allowed to Grow Up is in effect, so every time one of them has a birthday, they somehow go from 10 years old to 10 years old (or whatever age applies to the specific character). Naturally, they don't mention the actual numbers during the story.
Western Animation
- Adventures from the Book of Virtues has one for Zach called "Gratitude". He's still 11 in this episode.
- Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog:
- An episode had Sonic celebrate his birthday. Tails spends the entire episode trying to find a birthday present for him, but Sonic's age is unmentioned.
- Sonic had ANOTHER birthday episode later on, as well, whereas Tails somehow remains 4 1/2 throughout the entire show, with no mention of his birthday at any point.
- The Amazing World of Gumball: Despite Masami, Sussie, Tobias, Nicole and Granny Jojo all having episodes dedicated to their birthdays, they never seem to get any older. In addition, Gumball's, Banana Joe's, Idaho's and Penny's birthdays have been mentioned in passing as happening a few months earlier (and definitely after the series started, as the latter was shown without her shell), but all are still twelve.
- A recurring gag in Arthur is that Prunella celebrates her half-birthday in addition to her birthday, allowing the show to have three separate episodes centered around a "birthday celebration" for her, prompting one character to ask if she had a birthday six months ago, only to be corrected that this celebration is either her half-birthday or her real birthday and this one was the other birthday celebration. That said, Prunella is a grade ahead of the core cast, who are all in the third grade and mostly are said to be 8 years old, making Prunella 9 years old, 9 1/2 years old, or 8 1/2 years old, depending on the episodes timeline, justifying this trope.
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force: in Spirit Journey Formation Anniversary, it Meatwad’s birthday and Shake tries to use his new birthday song Spirit Journey Formation Anniversary for the occasion. When it gets to the part where the recipient states their age, Meatwad doesn’t know how old he is. Shake just randomly guesses fifty five and Meawad just agrees so the song could continue.
- Batman Beyond: The episode "Out of the Past" takes place on Bruce Wayne's birthday, but his age is never stated outright. Conflicting sources claim he was either in his seventies or eighties during the show's run.
- Blue's Clues:
- One episode is about Blue's birthday. It's presumably her first birthday but it's never referred to as such and she is still called a "puppy" in future episodes.
- Averted in an episode about Mailbox's birthday, in which Steve says he's turning ten.
- Played with in Camp Lazlo. The second half of the episode "Movie Night" is a birthday episode for Edward. Edward's age is never directly stated, but he cannot see the horror movie until his birthday rolls around because he is too young.
- Subtly subverted in Codename: Kids Next Door: The Delightful Children from Down the Lane have a birthday party Once a Season, ultimately holding six, without anyone visibly aging. However, it's briefly mentioned that, despite the five of them acting in complete unison and celebrating collectively, there's a separate party for each's birthday every year. So only one year passes between the first and last. That said, no one is mentioned to have even aged a year in that time frame.
- Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood:
- Since the characters are Not Allowed to Grow Up, there were two birthday episodes for Prince Wednesday, without his age being given.
- It's Margaret's birthday with no specific age given in "Margaret's Birthday Buddy / Margaret's Birthday Party," since Margaret was allowed to grow up just enough to make her a sibling for Daniel who could actually play and talk a bit.note
- Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines has two. One involves Muttley's birthday, and in the other, Dick Dastardly thinks it's the general who is having a birthday.
- Played straight in the Nickelodeon Doug episode "Doug's Birthday Present." To the extent that the Disney series opened with an episode about him turning 12. Since he was 11½ when he moved to Bluffington and lived there during the Nickelodeon birthday episode, the only logical conclusion one could draw is that he had two 12th birthdays! It's even stranger. The aforementioned "Doug's Birthday Present" is a Season 4 episode — the Season 2 episode "Doug vs. the Klotzoid Zombies" ends with Doug and his friends celebrating the 1st anniversary of him moving to Bluffington, and yet Season 3's "Doug's New Teacher" still says he's 11½!
- On The Fairly OddParents!, Timmy celebrates three birthdays throughout the series, yet never ages beyond ten years old. Of course, we find out he literally wished for a Floating Timeline and fifty years pass in series.
- Averted and played straight in Family Guy:
- Meg turned 17 in "Peter's Two Dads" and 18 in "Quagmire and Meg", but has also had a couple of other birthdays without her age being mentioned.
- Chris had a birthday in "Follow the Money" but his age was not mentioned. He has however aged from 13 to 14 during the course of the series.
- Stewie turned 1 in "Chitty Chitty Death Bang".
- Peter has had two ageless birthday episodes, but his age has been said in other episodes to be 42 and 43, suggesting those birthdays could be his 42nd, 43rd or 44th.
- Lois turns 43 in "Lois Comes Out of Her Shell" but has also had a couple of other birthdays without an age being mentioned in "Stewie Kills Lois" and "Regarding Carter".
- Averted in "Cootie and the Blowhard" where Brian has a birthday and at the end, he reveals that he is now 10 years old, which is 70 in dog years.
- The Flintstones had several such episodes for Fred (such as "The Swimming Pool"). Averted in the episode where Pebbles has her first birthday.
- A "U.S. Acres" segment on Garfield and Friends had this for Roy.
- Harvey Street Kids: In the season 3 finale "Days of Future Presents", Richie Rich invokes this trope when he allows the Harvey Girls to throw him a birthday party. He claims nobody likes an old child millionaire, so if anyone asks about his age they have to say that Richie is "over 8".
- Somehow, in that episode, the girls had their best birthdays mentioned, with Dot's having Happy Birthday to You! playing instrumentally.
- The episode "I Wanna Crush Your Hand" had this too, as with a flashback to Lucretia's, but it is unknown how old she is as well.
- Hey Arnold!:
- In "Eugene's Birthday", Arnold tries to throw Eugene a surprise birthday party (with unsuccessful results), but never mentions Eugene's new age.
- Same thing with Helga. In "April Fool's Day", Arnold gives her a gag present claiming it's a week-late birthday present, but never mentions how old she is now. Since she was nine beforehand, this was likely her tenth birthday.
- Zig-Zagged during "Grandpa's Birthday". Phil turns 81, and it's a major part of the episode's plot, but after that episode his age is never brought up again.
- Jackie Chan Adventures: Jade and Uncle both have these. Uncle's is in "The Dog and Piggy Show" while Jade's isn't until a much later episode called "Black and White and Chi All Over", although in Uncle's case, it is stated he was born in the year of the dog. Since Uncle appears to be in his 60s or 70s at the time the show started (2000), this would mean he was most likely born in either 1922 or 1934.
- The Valentines Day special of Johnny Bravo doubles as a Birthday Episode, and Johnny claims he's officially "20-something-else, which is a whole lot different than being 20-something."
- The climax of the Little Dogs on the Prairie short "Lying" takes place at Sport's birthday party but the exact age he is turning is not revealed (though the short "For the Love of Sport" has him state that he is almost 5 years old).
- The Llama Llama episode "Happy Birthday Llama Llama" has the characters celebrating the titular character's birthday without ever stating his age.
- In Madeline, neither Pepito's birthday celebration in Madeline in London nor Madeline's in Madeline's Birthday at the Zoo mention their ages. A close look reveals that Pepito's birthday cake has six candles, though, while Madeline's cake in the later episode has seven.
- Played With in Magic Adventures of Mumfie: Scarecrow celebrates his first birthday in "Scarecrow's Birthday Surprise" (Mumfie states this in a later episode), and The Queen of Night has an ageless one in "It Won't Be Alright On The Night".
- Lampshaded in an episode of The Magic School Bus. It's Ms. Frizzle's birthday and the class goes to a bakery. During the And Knowing Is Half the Battle segment at the end, a kid goes there and tells the baker shown in the episode that one critical piece of information was missing from the show: They never said how old Ms. Frizzle is.
- Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: The episode "Happy Birthday Toodles" centers around Toodles' birthday without his age being mentioned, even though Prof. Ludwig von Drake states that he created Toodles and gave him an upgrade. Of course, not only does Toodles gain a face, but near the end, he also receives a voice as a special present. Guess who is the voice actor for Toodles?
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- The episode "Sweet and Elite" centers on Twilight Sparkle's birthday among other things, though her age is never revealed.
- Likewise, Pinkie Pie's age on her birthday is never revealed in "Party of One" and Spike's age is never revealed in "Secret of My Excess".
- Rainbow Dash's new age is also not revealed on her birthday in "Pinkie Pride".
- Sweetie Belle's fifth birthday was an important plot point in "For Whom The Sweetie Belle Toils", but it took place in the past.
- My Little Pony Tales averts this in "Happy Birthday, Sweetheart", where Sweetheart’s birthday cake has candles shaped as a 10, and the song number explicitly mentions "your tenth year".
- This is combined with Vague Age in the OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes episode "Plaza Alone", in which K.O. has his 6-11th birthday party. This is the same age range he was at the start of the series and would have celebrated for any future birthdays if the series went on long enough (not counting the Distant Finale).
- Subverted with Peppa Pig, where with Mummy Pig's birthday, Daddy Pig whispers her age to Peppa, who comments that it's old. Daddy Pig just puts a couple of candles on the cake.
- Phineas and Ferb: the episode "Phineas' Birthday Clip-O-Rama" centers around Phineas' birthday, but his age remains a mystery (all we know is that despite aging a year he is still "younger than 15").
- PJ Masks: The episode "Catboy and the Great Birthday Cake Rescue" focusses on Greg's birthday, but his age is never mentioned. According to the character's bio, they are 6 years old, but it's unknown if Greg was 5 before and turned 6 now, or if he was 6 before and thus should be 7 now (and by extend, the others as well since he's stated to be the youngest).
- In one episode of The Powerpuff Girls (1998) the girls have a birthday, but they're still referred to as five year olds in future episodes.
- In the Ready Jet Go! episode "Mindy's Moon Bounce House", Mindy has her birthday, but it was never specified what age she became. Averted in "Mindy Turns Five" when she celebrates her fifth birthday and can finally go into space with Jet, Sean and Sydney.
- Rugrats (1991):
- Played completely straight with the episode "Angelica's Birthday." In an earlier episode ("The Seven Voyages of Cynthia"), Angelica mentions having gotten her doll Cynthia as a present for her 3rd birthday, so logically the birthday we see her celebrate should be her 4th, but in a later episode ("Pickles vs. Pickles"), her parents say that she's still 3 years old.
- Averted, though, in the aptly titled "Tommy's First Birthday." This was the series' first episode, so there wasn't any status quo to disrupt yet.
- The Simpsons:
- Lisa has had a number of these but remains 8. Averted in "Stark Raving Dad", when she officially turns 8, and in "Treehouse of Horror XXXII" where she turns 9 (although this episode is non-canon). The non-canon episode "Mr. Lisa's Opus," which depicts several important birthdays throughout Lisa's growing up, settles on the events of "Stark Raving Dad" as her actual eighth birthday for the purposes of the story.
- In "Radio Bart" Bart has a birthday, and almost states his age, but is cut off by an animatronic band beginning to play "Happy Birthday". Non-canon "Treehouse of Horror III" has him celebrate a birthday, but no age is given.
- Maggie turns 1 in "Lady Bouvier's Lover", yet has another (ageless) birthday in "Moe Baby Blues" and is still 1.
- South Park:
- The episode "Damien" does this with Cartman's birthday (although we can probably assume that he turned 9 in this episode, as the show subtly suggests that he's a little older than the three other SP boys).
- Averted in "You're Getting Old", which opened with Stan celebrating his 10th birthday.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- In the episode "SpongeBob Meets the Strangler", SpongeBob celebrates his birthday among several other parties he planned on the same day. Even though he has a revealed birthday, his age isn't revealed.
- Another episode ("Pet Sitter Pat") when SpongeBob was invited to his grandmother's birthday. All was said about her age was "turning...even older".
- Yet another episode, "SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout," created for the 20th anniversary of the series, takes place on SpongeBob's Birthday yet again. The episode ends with Patrick asking him how old he really is, to which SpongeBob responds, "Well, as of today, I am—" only for the episode to end right as he's about to say it. However, according to SpongeBob's driver's license, he was born on July 14, 1986, putting his age at 33 by the time of the episode.
- In Teen Titans, the main arc of season 4 sets off with Raven's birthday. We're never actually told how old Raven is, but most of fandom assumes it was her 16th birthday because of the Dangerous 16th Birthday trope.
- Time Squad:
- Otto has a birthday early on in the second season, but it's never established that he's eight years old until he mentions his age in a much later episode.
- Played totally forward with Larry 3000 when he wanted Tuddrussel to notice that it was his birthday, but it's kept pretty vague to how exactly old the robot is.
- Yogi Bear had two such episodes: one for Ranger Smith and one for Yogi.
- The New Yogi Bear Show had another one for Yogi.
