Basic Trope: When their parents are away, teenage characters arrange a secret party which gets out of hand.
- Straight: While their parents are away, Alice and Bob invite their friends over for a party. Lots of alcohol is consumed, more people come by and the party gets out of hand resulting in a fight and a valuable possession getting broken. Alice and Bob are thus faced with the dilemma of getting the party ended, the house cleaned up and the possession fixed before their parents return.
- Exaggerated:
- The word of the party spreads like wildfire, resulting in hundreds of people showing up. The party turns ugly, violence breaks out, the house is completely trashed, and the police are called out to restore order.
- The party demolishes entire city blocks, and that's just the crazy drunken and horny teenagers going wild. The response to try to put order to it ends up having to involve the police, the National Guard, the Coast Guard, the Marines, the combined fire departments of half the state, and enough pissed-off parents to man a militia. The resulting clash increases the party's collateral damage thrice-fold, and gets the same amount of media coverage as a war.
- Downplayed: The party turns to be not that wild after all, but Alice and Bob still have to clean up and take out all the trash after it's finished.
- Justified: Teens enjoy taking advantage of having the freedom of the house while their parents are away, but things can easily get out of hand.
- Inverted:
- Alice and Bob's parents are constantly having wild parties, which drive Alice and Bob crazy. When their parents leave them alone in the house for a while, Alice and Bob take advantage of their absence to have some much-needed peace, quiet and solitude for a change.
- When Alice and Bob spend the weekend at a church retreat in the mountains, their parents, who used to be party animals in their teen years, decide to try to relive them by inviting all the adults in town who don't have to worry about their kids and having the same kind of wild party as they would. Eventually it gets too out of hand, and Alice and Bob's parents must clean it up and remove all evidence of its occurence before their kids get back to avoid a significant souring of their relationship.
- Subverted:
- Alice and Bob invite their friends over for a party while their parents are away. It's built up to a Wild Teen Party ... but the teens are mature and responsible, the party is limited to a few people, and it's fairly calm and sedate.
- Most of the party goers get drunk, then proceed to lie around on the couches too drunk and confused to do anything.
- Double Subverted: Then a knock on the door reveals that their friends secretly invited some more people around ... and more ... and more ... and things quickly get out of hand.
- Parodied:
- The party gets so out of control that it turns into a riot. Martial law is declared, the entire city shuts down and the military is called in to restore order. By the end, things are so friggin' messed up beyond repair, that they decide to...
- The party turns so ugly the entire world explodes into a trillion pieces.
- The party is just a bunch of teenagers sitting around a table, playing board games, and drinking sodas. Alice and Bob's parents are horrified at their children's behavior.
- After a Time Skip to the next morning, somehow, the demented teen party ended with a UFO crashing in the middle of the living room and confirmed First Contact. The teens have no damned clue of how that happened, either.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice and Bob's parents often throw parties that Alice and Bob don't like. When they leave, Alice and Bob take the time for peace and quiet. They then decide to throw a party of their own, but their friends turn out to be mature and responsible when it comes to parties. But it turns out that the friends invited some irresponsible people and the party quickly gets out of hand. Alice and Bob get the party under control quickly, and their parents never find out.
- Averted:
- Alice and Bob do not throw a party while their parents are away.
- Alice and Bob actually go with their parents, leaving the house unattended.
- Alice's invitation is unheeded by everybody, so no party ever happens.
- Enforced: The writers are writing a teen drama and recall memories of the parties they used to throw as kids (or alternatively, the parties their kids have thrown that have spiralled out of control).
- Lampshaded: "Let's get this party completely out of control!!!!"
- Invoked: Bob, resenting the fact that Alice has been left in charge of him while their parents are away, deliberately organizes a party that is guaranteed to spiral completely out of control to get Alice in trouble.
- Exploited: Alice's Sitcom Arch-Nemesis spreads the news of a small party where he shouldn't so that it becomes huge and he can call the cops or her parents.
- Defied:
- Alice and Bob's parents are more than aware that it's just asking for trouble to leave Alice and Bob all alone where they can throw a destructive party, and so arrange for their Uncle Charlie and Aunt Debbie to stay over to keep an eye on them.
- Alice and Bob want their parents to know they can be trusted, so they don't have a party, or they only invite a few friends over for movies and pizza, and make sure everything's cleaned up afterwards.
- The police has an anti-wild-party protocol and it's well-known amongst teenagers. There's not really a lot of teens willing to risk tear gas bombardment, macing, gunshot wounds and being beaten three-quarters of the way into a coma by pissed-off riot officers for the sake of saying that their sweet sixteen was "cool".
- The morning of their planned party day, Alice and Bob get a visit from their Cranky Neighbor Mr. Wilson, with his brand-new semi-automatic shotgun, who tells them in no uncertain terms that he will not tolerate losing his sleep. Alice and Bob decide not to test him.
- Alice and Bob's parents decide not to leave house after all. Whatever they were going to do, they can do as a family, nice and quiet ... or use Skype.
- Discussed: "Alice and Bob's parents are away for the weekend. Sounds like they're going to be throwing a pretty wild party on Saturday night..."
- Conversed: "Hmmm, so the main character's parents are going away. Yeah, there's going to be a really destructive party in this story before long."
- Implied: Several teenagers wake up from positions on the floor at various points in a house. As groggy as they are, it isn't confirmed that they had been partying too hard the night before.
- Deconstructed: During the chaos, Alice and Bob's friend Chris gets into the liquor cabinet and drinks himself to near unconsciousness.
- Reconstructed: Once he's revived, the rest berate him for not sharing.
- Played for Laughs:
- At the climax of the party, Alice and Bob's strict, conservative parents return, only to join in, later commending the pair for their initiative and organisation in hosting such a wonderful party.
- A Contrived Coincidence cascade makes it so Alice and Bob's demented party is the magical solution to all of their problems, from their Jerk Jock bully problem (they befriend the other 937 Lovable Jocks in the local football teams and they graciously put the jerk in the hospital when he tries to interrupt their fun) to having difficulty entering Harvard (the hard-ass dean meets the Hooker with a Heart of Gold and happily signs the acceptance forms before leaving to marry in Las Vegas) to the family's finances (the families of all nine hundred attendants mistake little Jimmy posting photos of the party on Instagram to blackmail Alice and Bob for a threat to blackmail them and "gift" the family a million dollars) to Cousin Andrea's terminal case of Soap Opera Disease (turns out shotgunning a six-pack of Coors did the job).
- Played for Drama:
- Alice and Bob Can't Get Away with Nuthin': their parents find out about the party, Alice and Bob get in lots of trouble, and An Aesop is learned about taking the trust your parents place in you seriously.
- The kind of house demolition that is standard to this trope is funny until the repair bill comes in and completely drains the family's funds. Alice and Bob can only lament the consequences of a moment of teenage stupidity.
- Played for Horror:
- Horny, drunk and stoned teens that are home alone is a perfect recipe for a Slasher Movie with a high body count ... And guess what, Alice and Bob? You're in one now!
- The party gets so wild that their friend Caleb ends up killing Diane and now they have to hide a body.
- Alice ends up being gang-raped in her own bedroom on her birthday by people she trusted just enough to allow them to enter her home.
- A Nosy Neighbor calls the police which arrives to the party, and much to Alice's horror the cop who arrives is the trigger-happy Rabid Cop of the district who sees horny and rowdy teenagers bunched together in a tiny house and thinks "target-rich environment". When Alice's parents see the party on the news, it's not the typical "parents horrified at their children assembling Woodstock 3" scene but a special bulletin on "The Troper Home Massacre".
Oh, Crap! Mom and Dad are coming home! Hurry, back to Wild Teen Party!
