Carrying a Cake

Okay, Goofy. You’re just asking for trouble.

Sometimes, a plot involves or is centered on a character needing to carry a cake, pie, or some other food item toward a destination, often under time pressure and with obstacles.

This never ends well.

This item never arrives as scheduled. Usually it's dropped just before the destination is reached, or else it's stolen, or eaten by the character carrying it. If the food item does arrive at its destination, it is rarely in the correct state, or it is unwanted in some capacity once there. If it is a cake, expect it to be a big wedding cake or of similar size for extra mess.

Possibly the second most frequent kind of Funny Home Video, after testicular calamity.

See also Endangered Soufflé and Prop. Related tropes are 30 Minutes, or It's Free! and Dish Dash. Pie in the Face may result. Possibly a subtrope to Chekhov's Gun. Or perhaps Tempting Fate. Sub-Trope of Product Delivery Ordeal.

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Examples:

Advertising

• A more serious example occurs in an Operation Lifesaver PSA, where a mother arrives back home in a state of shock as, after having bought the cake, she was in a rush to get home and nearly collided with a train at a railroad crossing.
• There is a radio PSA where another woman describes waiting for her father to bring the cake to her fifth birthday party. He never arrived, having been killed by a drunk driver.
• One Comcast Business Class commercial narrated by Titus Welliver plays with this in several ways, starting with him drawing attention to the recently-waxed floor that two people are carrying a cake over. Subverted when the cake arrives safely—and then Double Subverted when the table collapses. Titus Didn't See That Coming.

Anime & Manga

• In an episode of Bleach, Yumichika, Hanatarou and Rin make a cake on behalf of the ghost of a dead baker who's unable to pass on until his mother has tried his cake recipe. After various mishaps during the making of it, it's finally presented to the grieving mother, who promptly rejects it. And then the distressed ghost accidentally knocks the cake onto the floor and a Menos Grande almost fries it with a cero.
• In an episode of Haruhi-chan, Mikuru has to carry a large pot of soup to aid Haruhi's cooking show. Needless to say, she doesn't make it. What makes this even better is that she tries again a few minutes later... and trips over the first pot.
• One episode of Kekkaishi had the Yoshimori help a ghost of a former pastry chef complete his Ghostly Goals of comforting his brother, who was mourning his untimely death, by recreating a cake he once made when he was little to cheer up his brother after their parents died. After many exhaustive attempts trying to create the perfect cake (doubling in difficulty since the ghost's incorporeal nature makes it so he has to direct Yoshimori to making the cake himself), they hurry with Ogata and her butler's help in their car. However the butler's reckless driving damages the cake, which the brother surprisingly accepts as the cake his late sibling baked because he did a shoddy job baking the cake when they were little (regardless it was the act himself that he cherished). His acceptance of the cake is enough to allow the ghost to pass on.
• The title character of Ramen Fighter Miki is a bicycle ramen delivery girl ... who gets into fights during every delivery, with predictable results.
• The greatest risk of Ranma ½'s Martial Arts Takeout Delivery isn't being late, but having your opponents destroy your delivery. Shampoo in particular has a food-exploding technique that blows up the contents of a takeout box by jabbing at it with a finger.
• In an episode of School Rumble, Tenma makes two cakes, one for Karasuma for his birthday, and one for Harima's recent promotion. When Tenma leaves them unattended, Harima knocks Karasuma's cake over and ruins most of the inscription with only "ma" left. Harima assumes that he's destroyed his own cake and attempts to fix it before Tenma finds out. Cue some serious confusion when Tenma presents Karasuma's cake to him to find that she now has two cakes inscribed with "Harima".

Comic Books

• Archie has had this problem. Any time the cake isn't eaten by his chowhound friend Jughead, Archie ends up walking into someone and spilling it — like Mr. Lodge, for example.
• In Hex Wives #2, one of Nadiya's cakes is destroyed by Danali's cat charging through her kitchen.
• The main story of the 2007 Marvel Holiday Special ("A Piece Of Cake") features Spider-Man trying to get a cake to Aunt May's Christmas party. Apparently he does this every year, and has never managed to bring the cake intact. The cake is destroyed when he and Wolverine fight a Bad Santa with control of a Sentinel, but Wolvie bakes him a new one.
• Monica's Gang: Smudge once tried to deliver a cake. Meeting Maggy on the way, he hid it behind him so she wouldn't eat it, which allowed someone else to take a bite. Later on, a fat person sat on the cake. When he finally reached his destination, the woman expecting the cake threw what left of it on his face.
• A Smurfs one-page gag has Jokey stumbling to keep a pie intact as he carries it over to his recipient so that he could splatter his face with it.
• In Sophie Campbell's graphic novel series Wet Moon, Malady serves people pie from her bag, which she was presumably carrying around with her all day. This happened on two separate occasions.
• One early Judge Dredd story used this as a throwaway gag. During an outlaw biker race across Mega-City one, one biker decides to shove a guy's face into the wedding cake he's carrying just for the hell of it. The guy gets a noseful of icing, but doesn't actually drop the cake... until this happens:
  "Dirty stinkin' thugs! You wouldn't get away with this if there was a Judge around!"
  Dredd comes zooming in pursuit and upends the whole thing onto him
  "Excuse me, citizen. Official business!"
• DC Pride 2022: In "Special Delivery" Tim gets in a fight with Mico & Macro while trying to bring a small cake to his boyfriend for their Pride celebrations. The frosting ends up a bit smeared but it's otherwise mostly fine.

Comic Strips

• One Garfield comic had Jon carrying an object similar in size and shape to a cake, which Garfield ran past and swallowed. As he continued running, he thought to himself, "I hope that was food."
• Mary Worth: Mary helps out some poor schlub in his big ambition to enter a cake-baking competition — somehow their carrying the cake is shown as high drama.

Fan Works

• One Stargate SG-1 fanfic features the team attempting to transport a cake secretly through the 'gate. (They were going offworld on Daniel's birthday.) Although it made it all around the base, through the 'gate, to another planet, and around that planet for quite a while, eventually, it explodes. Which explains Daniel's haircut at the beginning of the third season.

Film — Animated

• There's a scene in Ice Age where the gang steals melons from some dodos. The scene quickly becomes a parody of a football game. When Sid returns with the last melon, he does a victory dance and spikes it. Oops.
• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Legend of Everfree: During the montage for the preparation of the Crystal Gala, Snips slips while carrying a big cake, but it's saved by Sunset's reflexes.
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: While trying to make it to his dad's party for being promoted to police chief, Miles brings two cakes (as the long message he asked for at the bakery couldn't fit on just one cake) and runs into numerous mishaps while heading home, such as forgetting he left the cakes on the roof of a taxi and having to run after it to get them back. By the time he finally gets to the party and reveals the cakes to his parents, one of the cakes is broken down the middle and the icing for both of them is ruined, with his long and heartfelt message being reduced to the words "I'm not proud".

Film — Live-Action

• Subverted in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Big Mama brings in Big Daddy's majestic birthday cake and keeps carrying it throughout the scene that follows. The cake is perhaps the only thing in the scene that survives unscathed.
• Dennis The Menace Strikes Again begins on Mr. Wilson's birthday. Dennis and his many pets visit Mr. Wilson, causing Mr. Wilson to roll down the stairs in Dennis' wagon. When Mrs. Wilson comes to see her husband, carrying his birthday cake, she gets spooked by Dennis' pet lizard and tosses the cake in the air, where it lands on Mr. Wilson's face.
• An early sequence in Easy Money has Rodney Dangerfield and Joe Pesci having to transport a gigantic wedding cake in their van. After laboriously loading it up, they do some other errands before having to brake suddenly, sending the cake smashing into the windshield. Something of a Lampshade Hanging, as the sequence seems to play on the audience's expectations that the cake will be destroyed, and it takes so long to happen that they may start to doubt the film is going to do it.
• One skit in The Kentucky Fried Movie features a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo by Donald Sutherland, who is playing "The Clumsy Waiter" and is carrying a cake. He trips and face-plants in it.
• My Favorite Year: At the Stork Club, Alan asks Benjy to create a diversion so he can steal someone's girl, so Benjy plays an inept waiter, stumbling out of the kitchen with a tray piled high with desserts, chaotically weaving and dodging through the anxious crowd.
• In Nancy Drew, Ned brings out the cake at Nancy's birthday party (which has gotten a little out of hand)... only to have one of the wilder partygoers crash into it accidentally.
• The Party settles into a sit-down dinner — with Bakshi (Peter Sellers) seated on a tiny footstool just in front of the kitchen's swinging door, and an inebriated waiter staggering around the table, it's only inevitable that the cake ends up all over the chef when he brings it out.
• In The Sandlot, during the chase scene with The Beast, two chefs carrying a gigantic layer cake for a Founder's Day Picnic are in the path of the runners. Benny jumps over the cake, the Beast runs under it, and the other kids jostle the chefs as they run around it (while Ham runs back and grabs some of the frosting before continuing the chase). It seems like a subversion as the chefs are able to place the cake on a table without anything happening...but then, a clown on stilts loses his balance when the kids run by him and falls onto the table, launching the cake into the air and landing square on the poor chefs, covering them with frosting and pastry.
• Too many times on The Three Stooges to count. One egregious (but hilarious!) example was in An Ache in Every Stake, when a passerby got his cake destroyed three times.
• Happens twice in That Darn Cat! when the FBI Agent is following the cat through a drive-in theater. The first time, an employee carrying a tray of deserts in each hand trips over the Agent (who is crawling to avoid blocking the view for the patrons) and spills the food all over his boss. The second time, the same employee manages to deftly avoid both the cat and the agent, smiles in satisfaction, and then turns around and crashes right into his boss who was trying to chase the agent out of the theater, getting the food all over the boss yet again.

Literature

• In Anne of Ingleside by Lucy Maud Montgomery, five-year-old Rilla (youngest daughter of Anne of Green Gables) is told to take a cake to a church fundraiser. Rilla is very reluctant to do so because she's under the impression that it's disgraceful to be seen carrying a cake in public, so she dumps the cake into a nearby river the first chance she gets. She then feels very foolish when she runs into her much-admired Sunday School teacher, who's bringing her own cake to the church.
• In the Goosebumps book The Cuckoo Clock of Doom, the main character Michael is carrying his own birthday cake, when his bratty sister Tara trips him, causing him to land face first in it. When he starts going backwards in time, he tries to prevent the tripping, but it still happens anyway. When Michael relives his birthday a third time at the end of the story he manages to carry the cake to the table without incident.
• Done with a twist in Practical Magic (the book that inspired the film). Younger sister Kylie makes a cake as a peace offering for older sister Antonia, with whom she had a fight. While she's carrying the cake to where she knows she can find her sister, she gets assaulted by a strange man. Though she escapes to safety, she's covered in the cake, which she sort of used as a defensive weapon. It still achieves the desired objective, though; she reaches Antonia, who helps her clean up, and the incident heals the breach between them.
• In the Redwall book The Pearls of Lutra, Tansy is carrying a cake that is decorated with seven marchpane orbs wrapped in rose petals on top. Clecky the hare sneaks one, and after being scolded, four gulls attack the cake. They were working for the book's Big Bad, Ublaz, and had been sent to find the titular pearls, which the cake decorations resembled.
• Snow Crash opens with Hiro Protagonist attempting to deliver a pizza. For the Mafia. Across several international borders. In Ten Minutes. Or else... He winds up in an unfilled swimming pool, but a passing skateboarder decides to do him a favor...
• Winnie the Pooh has Pooh carry a jar of honey to Eeyore's birthday a long way through the forest. By the time he arrives it's become a "useful pot to put things in".

Live-Action TV

• An episode of 2 Broke Girls has Max and Caroline deliver a wedding cake, with them being forced to carry it on the subway.
• The Brady Bunch has this in both the pilot of the original series, and the pilot movie of The Brady Brides. It ends badly both times.
• Cake Boss:
  • A four-tiered birthday cake with handmade decorations had to be carried down the stairs, but first it had to be lifted over the banister. One of the guys wasn't ready, and in an instant the top three tiers tip right off. About 30 pounds of cake ended up on the floor. Miraculously, Buddy & Co. were able to recreate the entire cake in one and a half hours.
  • Another example, this time in the "wrong destination" area: Buddy's young delivery boy delivered the wrong cakes twice in one day, prompting Buddy and his cousin to punish him by dousing him with flour and water.
• Played with in UK soap Coronation Street, where a family are carrying a homemade wedding cake to the reception, while a scooter weaves its way around them. The cake actually does make it to its intended destination, only to then be destroyed by the drugs squad in search of evidence.
• In Drake & Josh, they are supposed to drive the wedding cake to their relative's wedding. Hilarity ensues to the point that, when the car the cake is in finally bursts into flame, the two main characters just walk away from it.
• ER, the Thanksgiving episode where Carol goes into labor, she is carrying two pumpkin pies, one which is dropped before she gets there.
• Fawlty Towers: "Gourmet Night": Basil spends a good part of the episode trying to get food from a restaurant to his hotel, only to have it destroyed at the last minute. The main problem is that the cake isn't even what he ordered (duck). When he goes to pick up the replacement, one of the waiters accidentally switches it with a Bombe Surprise, which he digs through once he finds out in an attempt to somehow find the missing duck.
• Food Network has turned this trope into a series premise, with Food Network Challenge often featuring precarious cake, chocolate, or sugar creations which must be carried from the kitchen to the judging table to prove the construction skill of the chef that made them. This requirement comes from the more established national and international pastry competitions that FN also airs.
  • Also, Ace of Cakes, being a reality show about a bakery, can get into this sort of trouble. Truly serious disasters are thankfully rare (it helps if the cake isn't shaped like a tall building).
• Friends: In one episode the gang are throwing a surprise party for Phoebe's birthday. Ross walks in carrying the birthday cake and drops it when the guests, who thought it was Phoebe walking in, all yell "Surprise!". Everyone crowds around the table trying to fix it and don't notice that Phoebe's arrived until she asks what the cake was supposed to say.
• In Gene Simmons Family Jewels Nick and Sophie were driving home from the cake shop with Gene's birthday cake and Sophie braked suddenly, causing Nick to squish the cake onto his T-shirt.
• The Great British Bake Off: More usually involves the cake mix or other ingredients—although it's not uncommon for finished products to collapse as well, notably Rob's Genoese sponge disaster in series 2. Luckily, when things end up on the floor, it's usually early enough in the round to start over—or in Rob's case, miraculously rescue two of the three delicate cake layers and end up being highly praised for their quality.
• Hannah Montana has this with Jackson trying to get the cake for Miley's birthday and failing in numerous comic ways, once when a door was opened in his face, and most notably, when a pelican came down and ate it.
• Subverted in the How I Met Your Mother episode "The Best Man", when Marshall gets drunk and stumbles towards the wedding cake.
  Future!Ted: Remember how I told you Marshall ruined Punchy's wedding?
  (Two caterers move the cake out of the way)
  Future!Ted: That wasn't it.
• Kenan & Kel once went to a bakery to pick the cake Kenan's father ordered. To their surprise, they managed to take it home without any accidents (to the cake, at least — the bakery was another story). After Tempting Fate by commenting on how unusual it was for them to actually succeed, they tripped and dropped the cake. They even tried to bake a new one but lost Kenan's Dad gift to Kenan's Mom in the dough.
• In the last season of Never Have I Ever Len just wanted to treat his fiance Nirmala to a apple-shaped cake he customized for her after dinner with her granddaughters, mother-in-law, and a couple of guests where he makes the pun about the eye in the middle of the cake, he didn't count on Ben Gross (who has dated both Len's future granddaughter and the main character Devi and one of the guests Margot) to appear with a bouquet high as a kite and get freaked out about the cake to the point he destroys it.
• New Tricks: The end of "The Curate's Egg" sees Steve arriving at the office with a fancy gateau (as part of an Escalating War between the team members involving pastries). Dan deliberately shuts the door in Steve's face, so Steve winds up wearing the gateau all over his chest.
• In the The Office (US) season 5-episode 26 cold open, Kevin comes to the office carrying a gigantic pot of his Famous Chili. He proceeds to spill it all on the floor and try to scoop it back in the pot using office documents, while explaining that it is the thing he does the best.
• Our Miss Brooks: Several episodes see Miss Brooks accidentally collide with Mr. Conklin, lunch in hand.
• Power Rangers:
  • Almost any shot that included Bulk and Skull from Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and a cake generally resulted in this. Probably the most memorable was the episode "Peace, Love and Woe," when after destroying a cake, Ernie, the owner of the juice bar, banned them until they paid him for it. At the end of the episode, Ernie caught them wearing disguises to violate the ban and Bulk decided to get the money from the "bank," which happened to be his foot. The money was so smelly, Ernie fell on the replacement cake.
  • In the Power Rangers Time Force episode "Beware the Knight", Trip was sent to pickup a pizza the Rangers ordered, and on the way back home, he stopped to have a bite out of it (mainly because he was hungry), when he was attacked by the Monster of the Week and the pizza got ruined. When he finally got home, nobody believed that he was attacked and they all though that he just messed up. At the end of the episode they send him again for another one and returns with a destroyed pizza again, but this time he says that he just tripped up.
  • Power Rangers RPM had this at a wedding. Flynn, who supported the wedding on the grounds of "party!", spent the whole fight against the Wedding Smashers protecting the cake — only for the Rich Bitch in attendance to land in it trying to catch a bouquet.
• One episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch ended with Sabrina throwing away an anti-embarrassment banana peel, reckoning it no longer has any magic. Moments later Libby walks past carrying a large cake for the football team. Cue her slipping on the banana peel, falling over and face planting into said cake.
• In Saved by the Bell: The College Years the gang had Screech pick up a cake. When Slater asked what images were invoked with the words "Screech" and "cake", they decided to order another one.
• Subverted in Supergirl (2015), when Brainy is dispatched to pick up a welcome-home cake from a nearby bakery after Supergirl is rescued from the Phantom Zone. Brainy is seen barely avoiding a number of obstacles on the sidewalk and in the street before arriving back at the heroes' HQ with the undamaged cake.
• Top Gear: One event in the Lorry Challenge was for each presenter to carry a fragile or dangerous object in the back of their truck to be delivered safely at the end of an alpine handling course. James May got a massive wedding cake that fared about as well as you would expect.
• Will & Grace, the episode with Will's Father's party, where Karen and Jack bring a large cake and have to walk up many flights of stairs with the cake which arrives after Jack has eaten some of it, but the party has gone to hell in the meantime.
• The final episode of WKRP in Cincinnati ends with Herb tripping and smushing the station's ratings-climb celebration cake in Andy's face. Everyone silently leaves in embarrassment, although Johnny swipes a bite as he goes.
• The doomed pavlova in the Christmas episode of The Worst Year of My Life, Again. Due to the loop year, it ends up being doomed twice.

Puppet Shows

• Sesame Street:
  • In the first season, there was a series of "Song of _____ " skits, each devoted to a different number from 1-10 and showing various items in groupings of that number. The "Song of Eight", for instance, would show eight blocks, then eight clocks, eight puppets, etc. Each of these vignettes would climax with stuntman Alex Stevens (often erroneously credited as Jim Henson, who simply dubbed his voice) as a white-hatted baker attempting to descend a staircase with a given number of cakes, pies, puddings, etc., then tripping and falling to the bottom in a messy heap.
    Chorus of Children: And that's/The fall/Of eight!
  • Sally Cruikshank animated two segments about creatures called zerkels. One of them, Jake, accidentally dropped a cake he made into the water while trying to carry it across a lake on stepping stones.
    There once was a zerkel named Jake,
    Who decided that he'd bake a cake.
    But the cake that he baked
    Slipped and fell in the lake,
    A mistake Jake was quite sad to make.

Radio

• Our Miss Brooks: Several episodes see Miss Brooks accidentally collide with Mr. Conklin, lunch in hand.

Roleplay

• Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues features a moment where Mirielle has to carry a large box of cookies into the school. Mirielle being Mirielle, she trips over the steps and sends cookies scattering, which Emmanuel comes across and starts to scoff down by the dozen.

Theatre

• The stage show of High School Musical has Status Quo end with Zeke trying to give Sharpay a cake, but having Gabriella dance into him, making him trip and spill the cake onto the girl of his dreams instead. Troy even lampshades this, pointing out that this impromptu school singalong is probably not "the time to be giving Sharpay a cake."
• A key act in Cirque du Soleil's Nouvelle Experience, which later reappeared in La Nouba, is based on averting this trope — the acrobat successfully carries a cake (with lit candles) up with him as he scales a growing tower of chairs.

Video Games

• In Akiba's Trip: Undead and Undressed, one side mission for your little sister requires you to buy a limited cake from three maid cafes around Akiba. Once you do, a maid Otaku will try and mug you for it, and taking a single hit will ruin the cake.
• Taking over the delivery of a cake is a cover in Hitman: Blood Money. On the way to its destination, the cake can be dropped, used to smuggle guns, poisoned, and rigged to explode — depending on how the player wishes to carry out Agent 47's mission.
• The MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online has a group of quests that involve carrying a pie through the Shire while avoiding hungry Hobbits.
• PaRappa the Rapper:
  • The Title character has only the best of intentions when he buys Sunny Funny's birthday cake, so his self-important rival loses no time in tripping him while he carries it home. To add insult to injury, Parappa somehow manages to drop the cake safely face-up...and then land face-down in it.
  • Later, Joe Chin's enormous layer cake meets the same fate in the background of another scene.
• One minigame in Rayman: Raving Rabbids involves trying to carry large towers of food to a patron. Chances are it'll all topple over when the player is steps away from success.
• We Love Katamari has a level (the one scored by the price of the items you pick up) where people are carrying a cake to a destination. Ideally, your katamari will steal it before the end of the level.
• One of the bonus games in Yoshi's Story had you carrying/balancing melon crates against the clock.

Webcomics

• In Charby the Vampirate Zeno spends a morning making a cake for his girlfriend Mye only for her to unknowingly knock it out of his hands when one of their friends gives her something she's been looking for, she then magically vanishes the dropped cake to clean up without seeing what it was.
• Toivo in Ingress Adventuring Company purposefully drops a cake to incapacitate a demon. Unfortunately, it wasn't his cake.
• Widdershins: A Smug Snake in a baking competition carries his cake straight into a stray rolling pin. Alexa tries to warn him, but when he interrupts her to keep gloating, she lets him slip and drop the cake instead. At the end of the story arc, time-travel shenanigans let her relive that scene, so she saves his cake and still wins the gold prize herself.

Web Original

• Mocked by The Onion: "Jackie Chan attacked while holding World's Most Expensive Wedding Cake."
• In Cake Dance, the second episode of the Korean web animation There she is!!, the feline main character endures subway crowds, rabbit street gangs, and stampedes of jungle animals in his attempt to bring a birthday cake to his rabbit ladyfriend's birthday party. In the end he falls through the door and the cake gets smashed, but she enjoys it anyway (and tackleglomps him for his thoughtfulness).
• Harry Partridge's "Chuck's New Tux" presents a variant: Chuck rents a brand new tuxedo for the big dance, and needs to get home without ruining it. He dodges puddle splashes, people carrying loads of pizzas, and falling cans of paint, all while luckily keeping his tux clean. Eventually he accidentally steps on a skateboard and soars through the air, right towards two men carrying a large wedding cake. The scene goes black as we hear a loud SPLAT. We then see the cake is just fine, but Chuck is bleeding to death after landing on a wrought-iron fence and impaling himself through the throat and chest.
• This happens in the Piemations video "My Worst Birthday". The protagonist Zach's birthday party is going incredibly well, with dancing, presents, and laughing with friends. When Zach's friend Bob brings out the cake, he trips over a soda can and drops the whole thing on him.
  Zach: God damn it, Bob!

Western Animation

• Adventure Time has an entire episode devoted to this in "The Other Tarts". Finn and Jake are tasked with carrying a shipment of Royal Tarts to a big ceremony. Thanks to Finn's careless and ill-conceived plan, all the tarts get stolen. Fortunately, Finn accidentally brought along a shipment of tarts laced with paralyzing potion and gave the real tarts to Cinnamon Bun, who took a safer route, so it all works out.
• In the Classic Disney Short Mickey's Birthday Party, Goofy is in charge of baking the cake, but it keeps getting ruined. He finally has to buy one, but as he exits the kitchen, he trips and the cake ends up all over the birthday boy.
• Curious George TV show episode "Special Delivery Monkey." Chef Pisgetti forgets to bring a pie to a meeting with prospective clients. George delivers it in perfect condition, narrowly avoiding disasters along the way. Then the chef promptly shoves the pie in another man's face. "When you order from Pisgetti's, we guarantee that your pie in the face gag will never fall flat!" He's cheered by the prospective clients, who are clowns.
• Used during a Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere sequence in the Dennis the Menace (UK) animated series. Dennis is under strict instructions not to get dirty before his school photo is taken. On his way to school, he encounters the Colonel staggering across the road carrying two cakes. The implausibility of the situation is lampshaded by the Colonel.
• The Flintstone Comedy Show had a skit where Fred and Barney offered to transport a cake that Wilma made for some contest. Hilarity ensues, cake gets destroyed, and they reassemble it with their golf clubs.
• The Futurama episode "The Mutants are Revolting" began with the crew needing to deliver a nitroglycerin-laced souffle to Mrs. Astor. Surprisingly, they managed it, and it didn't even explode when eaten... until Mrs. Astor gave the leftovers to her dogs, at which point it promptly exploded.
• The Great North: In “Judy Presents: The Staircake”, Ham is competing in a baking competition in New Fork and needs to transport his large, elaborate cake there. The family rents a double-decker tour bus to deliver the cake and all tag along for the trip, though most have their own reasons for tagging along: Wolf and Honeybee plan to attend a Shrek-themed party, Aunt Dirt is out for revenge on an old rival, Moon wants to visit a fireworks shop along the way, and Judy is more interested in making a drama-filled documentary. Complicating matters further, Beef stays up all night watching a reality show and is too tired to drive, while Wolf and Honeybee are dressed in bulky, elaborate Shrek costumes, making them useless to stabilize the cake or do much of anything (forcing Ham to drive the bus himself), Moon diverts the bus down a dangerous road to get to the fireworks shop, and the bus turns out to be infested with muskrats, which get loose and cause chaos, leading to the bus crashing into the fireworks shop and both the bus and the cake getting wrecked. After Ham loses his temper and let’s his family have it, they sacrifice their prized possessions to buy a sled to transport the cake, which they repair by packing it with dirt (reasoning that the judges never taste the outside of the cake), and pull the sled to New Fork themselves.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • "The Best Night Ever": When Applejack fails to sell her wares to the fancy upper-class ponies at the Grand Galloping Gala, she tries to impress them with a huge layer cake. Unfortunately, Pinkie Pie has been trying to liven up the festivities, and chooses that moment to do a stage dive onto Applejack's dessert cart. The cake goes flying, and it kinda goes downhill from there.
  • "MMMystery on the Friendship Express": Pinkie Pie is tasked with delivering a massive cake by train to a dessert-contest, but it gets (partially) eaten en route. Hilarity ensues when she and Twilight Sparkle play Holmes and Watson to catch the culprit.
  • "Slice of Life": Carrot Cake is crossing the street with Matilda's wedding cake on his back, just as Vynil Scratch's mobile DJ booth comes rushing down. Naturally, it results in a collision, although the cake miraculously ends up whole and undamaged.
• Popeye in "Happy Birthdaze", Popeye uses a rug to cover a big hole in the floor of Olive's apartment that his annoying pal Shorty just fell down. Moments later she runs out with a big birthday cake and falls through too, the cake hanging in midair a few seconds. Popeye and Shorty both end up in the cellar furnace, and Olive angrily kicks the cake down to them.
• In the Regular Show episode "The Lunch Club", Mr. Maellard is hosting a fancy millionaires party at the park and he brings out the world's most expensive cake. Moments later, Rigby, asleep at the wheel of a lawnmower, plows right through it.
• Die Sendung mit der Maus, in a Maus spot: Not exactly this trope because the cake that the elephant baked for her birthday never moves. The results are exactly the same, though, because the mouse walks around distractedly reading a newspaper. Cue angry elephant and a foodfight with the leftovers.
• The Simpsons:
  • Invoked as part of a scam played by Homer and Bart. Bart portrayed a blind kid with a cake for his deaf sister (really just a frosted throw pillow) and stood next to someone so they would knock it over. Then Homer stepped in and threatened the mark to pay them for the "cake".
  • In "500 Keys", Homer buys a cake at a store specializing in wedding cakes from cancelled weddings. He is determined to get it home safely, leading to some reckless driving.
  • In "Chief of Hearts", Homer accidentally puts himself on Red Alert, so he and Chief Wiggum change the warning from a picture of Homer to Moe. Cut to Moe surrounded by angry townspeople while carrying a cake.
    Moe: Not a good time to be carrying this cake.
• In the South Park episode "Hell on Earth 2006", Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy have to deliver a cake shaped like a life-sized Ferrari to Satan for his Halloween Party. They end up accidentally destroying the cake and killing each other whilst they try to bake a new one.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • In "Pizza Delivery", SpongeBob and Squidward have to deliver a Pizza to a customer for the new Krusty Krab pizza delivery service. After a long, grueling journey through nowhere, SpongeBob reveals he can ride a rock as if it was an animal, and rides it to the customer, who was right next to the Krusty Krab. The customer rejects the pizza because it didn't come with a drink. Not amused at all, Squidward gives it to him by force.
  • In "Big Pink Loser" when Patrick is working at the Krusty Krab, he tries to take a job bringing customers' orders to their tables, but eats the food. When SpongeBob tells him to make sure the food gets to the table, he brings the order to the table, only to immediately eat it in front of the customer.
  • In "Waiting", Patrick successfully delivers a piece of cake to SpongeBob but ends up eating it whilst looking for the fork he brought.

Real Life

• Averting this trope is why the serving cart was invented.

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