Wild Teen Parties in Live-Action TV series.
- A fairly mild example happens in Blue Water High. Possibly unique in that the kids decide to come clean about it themselves rather than trying to cover it up.
- In The Brothers GarcÃa when the parents go out to dinner, Larry and George decide to throw a party, but nobody wants to come. Lorena happens to have a popular guy over that night however, so they tell all the girls in school and the wild party ensues. Things get pretty crazy with toilet paper being thrown around the house and the father's antique crystal plate getting smashed. They clean up before the parents get home, but end up confessing. Larry's narration says that they keep on confessing to other things they'd been hiding, and the parents are so stunned by all this that they just ground the kids for three weeks and call it even.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: "Dead Man's Party", in which Buffy's out-of-control welcome back party gets crashed by zombies. It's played with; the party was originally, as Giles planned it, just going to be a quiet affair to welcome Buffy home, but her friends overrule him and turn it in to one of these; ostensibly because they think it's going to be more fun, but actually because there's all sorts of tensions surround why Buffy left which, now she's back, they're all avoiding dealing with — having the huge party is just an excuse to avoid her as much as possible while 'welcoming' her back. Needless to say, it gets ugly even before the zombies show up.
- Adam and Russell Parkinson, the two teenaged sons of Ria and Ben Parkinson of Britcom Butterflies fame, throw one of these when their parents are away for the weekend. They manage to get all their friends out of the house and clean up virtually all the mess that was made by the time their parents arrive home, but upset their easily angered neighbor with all the commotion outside the house when the party disperses, and Ria ends up finding a hidden stash of the marijuana that was apparently enjoyed by all at the party. As a subversion, she ends up using the marijuana to forget her own troubles (after starting out angry at her sons for possessing and using the drug).
- In an episode of Castle, Alexis's plan to have a few friends over while her dad's out of town turns into a huge party when one guy invites the entire football team and another sends out a mass Facebook invite. When Alexis and her friend comment that the boy in question is kind of a loser and can't have many friends, Alexis says that there can't possibly be many people just waiting for an invite on a party, a bunch of people show up. In a variation on the trope, Alexis acknowledges that her dad wouldn't care in the slightest about the party, and she successfully clears up by the time he gets back: Castle notices the absence of an ornament that got broken, but he's too hungover from his own wild party to ask too many questions.
- Martha (Rick's mother and Alexis's grandmother) throws even a wilder party, which is consistent with how Alexis is always a responsible one, and Martha is almost incompatible with the concept of "responsibility".
- Cobra Kai:
- In the second episode of season 1, Sam throws a pool party at home with the popular girls from school while her parents are away at the country club. When her parents come home early and end the party, Daniel is mostly upset by the fact that the male guests stole and wore his bathing suits.
- In the ninth episode of season 1, Aisha finds out that Yasmine is throwing her birthday party at the beach via looking on her Instagram. Wanting revenge on Yasmine for her cyberbullying, Aisha and the Cobra Kais decide to beat her there and set up their own party, with copious booze, drama, and drunken fistfights. Yasmine is pissed, and tries to order them out via Kyler, so Aisha gives her a front wedgie. Sam has to be snuck over to the party by Robby to talk to Miguel since she's been grounded and her mother has confiscated her electronics, but a drunken Miguel misinterprets the situation and in trying to attack Robby, accidentally hits Sam.
- In the ninth episode of season 2, Moon throws a party at her house to mark the end of the summer break and try to get members of the Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do dojos to reconcile. Instead, the booze only serves to escalate the tensions, and it's only the arrival of the police to break up the party that prevents an all-out brawl from breaking out. During the party, Sam gets pressured into a drinking contest with Tory, which she wins, then drunkenly kisses Miguel after learning from Aisha that he returned Mr. Miyagi's Medal of Honor (which Hawk had stolen when he vandalized Miyagi-Do earlier in the season). The kiss is seen by Tory, who retaliates by challenging Sam to a fight at school.
- Subverted in the ninth episode of season 3. Sam gathers all the Miyagi-Dos at her house with the promise of a keg party while her parents are having dinner with Ali Mills and Johnny at the country club. Suspiciously, there are no other guests there and Sam appears to be stalling for time. Then Miguel turns up with Mitch and Bert, and Sam reveals she had them all gathered here because she thinks the reasonable solution to give Miyagi-Do's side of the karate rivalry the upper hand over the Cobra Kais is to ally with Eagle Fang (Johnny's new dojo, made from Miguel and other Cobra Kai students who Kreese rejected for not conforming to his ideals or being loyalists to Johnny).
- Theo had one on The Cosby Show. It was just supposed to be only eight people: Theo, his three friends, and their girlfriends. The word gets out on campus and everyone shows up and trashes the house. Cliff and Clair come home and sees the destruction, and as punishment, Cliff has Theo serve the homeless every weekend for six months as well as pay to repair the damages to the house.
- Daredevil (2015): During her teenage years, Karen Page hooks up with a drug dealer named Todd Neiman and they sell drugs at colleges near Fagan Corners. The flashback, in the appropriately named season 3 episode "Karen", opens with Karen dancing half-naked at a frat party.
- Decisiones Extremas: The episode "Mala jugada" starts with the aftermath of one in which a hungover Horacio has his face slathered in makeup, wearing a bra stuffed with toilet paper, and his jeans unbuttoned.
- Degrassi has had several. The third season episode "Our House" has a crisis which completes Sean's Heel–Face Turn. The sixth season episode "Rock This Town," in a reversal, has the wild party at Emma's house, at Manny's urging — but when the wild party starts, Manny is the one trying to keep order while Emma gets drunk and lets things rot. And it ends with the king of disasters: One of the party-crashers murders a teen on impulse.
- The original Degrassi Junior High had several of these as well and almost all of them were at Lucy's house. Emma Nelson (of Degrassi: The Next Generation) was actually conceived at one of these parties.
- In the Drake & Josh episode "Drake and Josh Inn", Drake and Josh turn their house into an inn while their parents are away during spring break. It eventually spirals into a wild party that gets onto MTV. Their parents decide to come home early, but the partiers are scared off before they arrive. However, minutes later the parents get in trouble with the police for hosting a TV event without a license.
- Although technically not a Wild Teen Party, Even Stevens does have a similar issue where, while the parents had to leave the house for a bit, Louis actually uses the opportunity to use the house as a hotel as a fund-raiser for a ski trip. Louis (and eventually Ren, as soon as she finds out and ends up allowing it to happen due to a boy at the house) eventually ended up having to get the guests to leave early due to the parents coming home early (When the parents called to check up on Louis, one of the guests answered and, mistaking "Louis" for her husband rather than the guy actually running the hotel, responded that Louis broke his back [Beans had injured the other Louis earlier due to using boots to massage his back], and the woman mistook her for a woman that Louis may have actually been seeing while still married to her.). They would have gotten away with it, had one of the guests also not also happen to be one of San Francisco's news anchors and more importantly reported on the "hotel" on the news the next morning with the parents watching.
- In Family Matters, after Eddie invites a friend over while Carl and Harriet are away, a party erupts. Two rival football teams show up and argue. When they attempt to redo a disputed play from a past game a gravyboat goes through the window. There is mention of Jello in the bathtub, and Carl finds Urkel stuffed in the couch.
- In Family Ties, Alex's and Mallory's party attracts gate crashers that include a kangaroo mascot kidnapped from a rival high school. The next morning, Steven explains to his kids just why he's so angry with them:Steven: Parents are conditioned to expect a few minor mishaps when they go on vacation: a chipped dish, some spilled milk on the rug — (long pause) There was a kangaroo in my living room.
- It should be noted that this went a bit beyond an unsupervised party: Mallory had crashed their parents' car, so to pay for the repairs they turned the house into a bed and breakfast. Though they managed to make their money back almost immediately, Alex didn't want to stop...Alex: I can explain everything!
Steven: Oh can you? Can you explain the valet parking in the driveway?... The flashing "vacancy" sign in front of the house? The billboard on Route 41?
- It should be noted that this went a bit beyond an unsupervised party: Mallory had crashed their parents' car, so to pay for the repairs they turned the house into a bed and breakfast. Though they managed to make their money back almost immediately, Alex didn't want to stop...
- The second episode of Freaks and Geeks features a Wild Teen Party. In an odd twist of the "getting increasingly drunk" requirement, the booze at the party has been secretly switched with "near beer" by the worried younger brother of the girl throwing the party — but everyone still acts drunk. As it's also a parody of the over-the-top Anvilicious "if you drink you'll die!!!" messages that kids are generally bombarded with in these episodes, the episode also subverts most of the traditional Wild Teen Party elements — nothing gets broken, the parents don't come home (and, so far as we know, never even find out about it), the house doesn't look that blitzed afterwards (at least, no more than you'd expect after a fairly reasonable party), many of the kids are clearly either bored (Ken) or overly self-conscious (Harris), a wild fight looks like it's going to break out but cooler heads manage to prevail, nothing particularly bad happens to the 'drunk' kids and the cops are only called because the hostess secretly wants the party to end but doesn't want to look like a party pooper in front of her friends, so one of her brother's friends agrees to do it for her. All up, it might be more accurate to describe this example more of a Moderately Engaging Teen Party rather than a Wild one.
- On one episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, this is Played With. Phil and Vivian go out of town and specifically warn Will not to do anything stupid while they're gone. Carlton then rents out the house so that the band Bell Biv Devoe can shoot their music video about a wild party. The house ends up being trashed (as if it was a real party), and Phil and Vivian decide to come back early. They end up spending all of the money from the rental on fixing up the house. In another episode, Will lies to his girlfriend Lisa so that he can go to one in college, and ends up catching Ashley making out with a college football player.
- George in The George Lopez Show finds out Carmen is at one of these when she leaves her IM up on the computer. He goes over, ends the party and takes Carmen home.
- Gilmore Girls: Attending the Wild Teen Party is played as a rite of passage of sorts, with the free-spirited Lorelai proud rather than outraged when she finds out Rory's boyfriend and ex got in a fight over her, causing the cops to show up.Rory: Jess and Dean got into the fight.
Lorelai: Over you?
Rory: I was a contributing factor.
Lorelai: Was anyone hurt?
Rory: No.
Lorelai: And that's why the cops came and broke up the party?
Rory: Yes.
Lorelai: So not only did you go to a cop raided party, but you started the raid?
Rory: Yes.
Lorelai: This fence is broken because of you? This crap is on the ground because of you?
Rory: What's your point?
(Beat.)
Lorelai: (singing) Did you ever know, that you're my hero?
Rory: (exasperated) Oh my God. - Glee: Rachel Berry attempts to have one. Needless to say, it fails miserably— until they break out the alcohol, that is.
- Glue, penned by one of the writers on Skins, has two — a small affair at a grain silo and a massive teen rave in the woods.
- Jenny's birthday party-turned-rager in Gossip Girl. Pictures are tilted, Lily van der Woodsen's clothes are worn by complete strangers, people try to have sex in the van der Woodsens' bedrooms. Not to mention Vanya (the van der Woodsens' doorman) has to fight back complete strangers from coming into the van der Woodsens' building and the police have to bring Rufus and Lily back to said building to stop the rager. The party initially started out as a quiet affair, but Jenny wanted to get revenge on Serena, and told the eponymous Gossip Girl about the party — knowing it would turn into this.
- Happens in season 2 of H₂O: Just Add Water when Emma's parents are away and her mother's dolphin ornament gets broken. Also in "Bad Moon Rising" when Rikki trashes the house with her powers, Emma lies to her parents saying she had a party.
- Harrow: In "Malum In Se" ("Evil in Itself"), the death turns out to be the result of a wild university party being held by a student while his parents are out of the country.
- One episode of Hardcastle and McCormick does essentially this, even though the characters aren't teenagers; while Judge Hardcastle is out of town, his live-in parolee/sidekick Mark McCormick hosts a poker game that gets severely out of hand. When Mark has to leave to pick the Judge up from the airport (he got back unexpectedly early, natch), they come back to find that nearly everything in the house has been stolen. Even the furniture. Can't Get Away with Nuthin' with a vengeance.
- On a Halloween episode of Home Improvement, Brad's crazy friend Jason convinces him to throw one of these parties when Tim and Jill go out to an awards ceremony for local TV shows. In the middle of things, Brad goes out to the backyard fence to get advice from Wilson, and that's when Tim and Jill walk in on the whole thing.
- Hope & Faith had Sydney throwing a party while her parents were out. She and Hailey manage to clear everyone away and clean up before Charlie and Hope get home. They never find out.
- The short-lived Canadian comedy House Party centers entirely on this trope; a kid's parents go out of town for the weekend, he throws a party, and the resulting chaos is stretched out over six episodes from multiple perspectives.
- Averted, or rather realistically depicted, in The Inbetweeners. The boys wind up at two house parties in total. The first one is rather lifeless and nothing really happens (probably due in part to the host's parents being present, and waiting till 11pm when they can kick everyone out), bar Will hooking up with Charlotte. The second is a birthday party that the boys gatecrash and it's hardly wild, especially as the boys simply stand around not talking to anyone (quite possibly because they don't actually know some of the people there; the host points out that she didn't invite them because she doesn't really know them note ). Again, the most interesting thing that happens involves Charlotte — Will catches her in bed with Patrice, and subsequently tells Donovan where he can find her, clearly hoping that he'll beat Patrice up.
- Actually this is very much Truth in Television (for the UK at least), as most British teen/student house parties never devolve into the over-the-top, pseudo-raves that are usually shown in the media. In general, it really is mostly sitting around drinking, listening to music and hoping you'll get lucky.
- Will narrates the pitfalls of this trope in "Home Alone", when he's worried that if he holds one of these, 4000 people will turn up and the roof of the house will end up being stolen.
- El internado: Las Cumbres: A Boarding School variation. After lights out, Amaia and Paz notice that there are no teachers or staff around and go off and wake up everyone at the dorms. They end up in the school underground tunnels, drinking and dancing, and in Paz's case, making out with Eric and Julio. Of course, they all get caught and punished harshly.
- The Jessie episode "Badfellas" sees Emma's Boy of the Week Vincent throw one at the Ross' penthouse without her permission. The usual mess happens, Luke is used as someone's seat cushion, Ravi and Bertram end up trapped in a piano and a dumbwaiter, respectively, someone uses an antique vase as a football, and the whole thing serves to help Emma finally realize that Vincent is no good for her. The party is ultimately broken up when Jessie comes home and pins Vincent's arm behind his back (letting Emma take over for some catharsis).
- Joan of Arcadia has God Himself request the party (but veto alcohol). The parents never find out, but the cops came by to shut everything down, much to Joan's relief. This ended up saving the lives of the police officers by preventing them from being at a meth lab when it exploded.
- A variation happens in Lizzie McGuire where Kate wants to throw a birthday party, but her cousin only invites her friends who proceed to 'deliberately' destroy things, orders a cake she wanted because she doesn't like chocolate like Kate, and actually forgot that day was Kate's birthday. Only Lizzie, Miranda and Gordo show up. Lizzie calls her mother to get rid of the out of control partyers.
- Malcolm in the Middle:
- "Reese's Party" has Reese mentioning this trope, and giving a foolproof plan to avoid the usual outcome of such parties: host the party on a Friday night, not Saturday, thus giving himself 1 day extra time to get rid of all the mess the party will cause. Unfortunately, the party is crashed by a bunch of guys who turn the garage into a meth lab.
- Subverted on "Home Alone 4", where Francis tells his three hoodlum friends not to have a party at his house. They keep their promise, but still trash the house because the trio is so violent and destructive that they have the energy to trash the house in the same manner as a Wild Teen Party.
- Married... with Children:
- In one episode, the party got so out of control that a TV reporter announces that authorities have resorted to starting "back parties" to try to contain it.
- "My Dinner With Anthrax": Only eight people attended (the band, Bud/Kelly/Marcy), supposedly only lasted one song, but utterly trashed the downstairs.
- Averted in Modern Family 's third season "The Last Walt". Haley sets the party up by Playing Both Sides, getting permission from Gloria for a pool party at the Pritchett-Delgado house by telling her "her uncle" had agreed to chaperone. But instead of Cam or Mitchell, she tells Manny he 's the chaperone when the party starts. Unfortunately (for her), Manny takes that role seriously and keeps the party from getting out of hand.
- Monk:
- The former header image for this page was from "Mr. Monk Goes to a Rock Concert", which due to its natural setting, has lots of lewd and out of control behavior going on when Monk accompanies Natalie and Captain Stottlemeyer to locate Stottlemeyer's son Jared, who has ditched school. Monk is horrified upon realizing what exactly he decided to tag along to, having thought when Stottlemeyer said the phrase "rock show" that he meant "geology exhibit". While waiting for Stottlemeyer and Natalie, Monk ends up making a very unsuccessful attempt to stop a couple from passionately making out on the hood of Stottlemeyer's car, yelling at them, "How old are you? There's no way you're 25!"
- In fact, in every crowd scene, there are shirtless male extras or female extras who are literally only wearing their underwear or bikinis (for instance, the tan girl that Monk deflects a blue beachball at while he's trying to find the payphones). Strangely, at no point in the episode does anyone think Monk looks unusual by wearing a blazer, slacks, and a dress shirt. The only three women who are fully clothed and are never engaged in any lewd behavior for the length of the episode are Natalie and Stork's girlfriend Kendra Frank.
- Inverted, for laughs, in "Mr. Monk is the Best Man". Monk organizes Stottlemeyer's bachelor party. Unfortunately, Stottlemeyer discovers the hard way that allowing Monk to plan a party, period, is not the way to go. Where do we start?
- He somehow manages to stick a port-a-potty in the bathroom ("Monk, there's a bathroom in the bathroom!" "Where do you want me to put it, Mike? In the kitchen?" always is tickling).
- He orders pizza with literally nothing on it — not even sauce or cheese!
- He has them drink sippy cups of juice before breaking out the booze.
- When he does hand out the beer, he promises one for each. And when he says "one for each member", he means it, because he gives one 12 ounce bottle for each attendee (12 total), meaning that, in an inversion of another trope, Randy must be assigned the role of "designated drunk".
- Monk tells a joke about Stottlemeyer's failed relationships that turns cold before he even reaches the punchline.
- Finally, Monk ends up choosing for their bachelor party movie Bachelor Party, a film that is implied to be unpopular with the other guys.
- The only time the party comes close to playing this trope straight is when Randy staggers in, drunk, asking who owns the Ford Crown Victoria parked out front that is painted a charcoal gray with flames on the side, and on the roof and windshield. This leads everyone to rush outside and find that someone has firebombed Stottlemeyer's car.
- The former header image for this page was from "Mr. Monk Goes to a Rock Concert", which due to its natural setting, has lots of lewd and out of control behavior going on when Monk accompanies Natalie and Captain Stottlemeyer to locate Stottlemeyer's son Jared, who has ditched school. Monk is horrified upon realizing what exactly he decided to tag along to, having thought when Stottlemeyer said the phrase "rock show" that he meant "geology exhibit". While waiting for Stottlemeyer and Natalie, Monk ends up making a very unsuccessful attempt to stop a couple from passionately making out on the hood of Stottlemeyer's car, yelling at them, "How old are you? There's no way you're 25!"
- Rayanne had one of these in My So-Called Life. Word of mouth spread so far that someone invited her to her own party, not knowing she was the host. The party ended when Rayanne's mom came home, then went out again without noticing that Rayanne had overdosed. Angela's mother stepped in and saved her life.
- Never Have I Ever: In the second episode of season 2, Davi throws a party while her mother is in India. She initially tries to invite just one of the boyfriends in her ongoing love triangle, but eventually decides to invite everyone and have a 'rager'. At the party, Fabiola and Eleanor assist in keeping Davi's boyfriends (Ben and Paxton) separate from each other (see Two-Timer Date). After realising they're both dating Davi, she fesses up to them, resulting in Paxton storming out of the house. While arguing, he steps onto the road and is hit by a car. Ben remains inside, coping with Davi's confession. In the same episode, Eleanor first meets ex-Disney Channel child star Malcolm, and Eric's poor attempts to flirt with girls finally come into fruition.
- The O.C.:
- Ryan and Seth are subjected to Haley Nichol's New Year's Eve party, complete with skinnydipping and BYOB.
- The Cohen house is also overrun with male strippers (also Haley's fault) at Julie Cooper's bachelorette party. This time there's a catfight!
- Then there was the girl who OD'd on ecstasy at Marissa's house. There was a really weak remix of "Daft Punk is Playing at my House" (itself a song about a Wild Teen Party).
- That girl became a recurring character that season, who only existed to be a Wild Teen.
- And there seemed to be a permanent Wild Teen Party going on in Holly's beach house during season 1.
- The Other Kingdom has one of these occurring in "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" where Morgan wants to have a girls' night at Devon's house and invites a few friends over for a nice relaxing time. But thanks to some meddling from Astral and Brendoni, most of the teenagers of the neighborhood wind up getting an invite to Devon's house and the night out quickly gets out of hand turning into a house party which Devon can't keep under control, eventually giving in and becoming the party "Devo".
- Out of This World (1987): Evie use her powers to clean it up. Then, when her mom is back, the effects stop and home is messy again in front of the mother.
- Riverdale has a fairly mild example. Betty decides to throw Jughead a surprise party for his birthday with just friends. Cheryl and Chuck however want revenge on Betty and crash with armies of friends — turning it into a wilder party. There's no property damage and the worst thing that happens is Archie getting drunk and Jughead getting into a fist fight with Chuck. They manage to clean everything up before Archie's dad arrives back home.
- Season 3's Musical Episode (featuring the High School version of "Heathers: The Musical") has Evelyn Evernever throw a party at The Farm's home base that's closer to this trope. While it's still downplayed, there's clearly alcohol and everyone sings "Big Fun".
- S Club 7 managed to pull this off when they were house sitting. Unfortunately for them the house is a mansion in LA and they can't even begin to clean up before the owner gets home. However, the owner turns out to be a party man himself and continues the party through the day.
- Sabrina the Teenage Witch:
- The straightest example is her college Halloween party, thrown behind her aunts' back. In trying to get her friends into the spirit of Halloween, she uses real ghouls from the Other Realm. Other ghouls hear about this and crash the party, turning it into one of these. Roxie ends up making a love connection with Frankenstein.
- In high school, Sabrina throws another Halloween party — but this one with her aunts home. It's initially dull because Sabrina is trying to cover up all the Other Realm things going nuts. The party then kicks into gear when the others merely think the Other Realm stuff is All Part of the Show.
- The Saturday Night Live skit "Crucible Cast Party"
is a parody of this. It depicts a group of teenagers having a "cast party" after the final performance of their School Play (The Crucible). It's a wild and sexy night, but one where everyone is a theater kid. For example, one girl tries to seduce her crush with the choreography from Chicago, and another girl dragging her boyfriend up to an unoccupied room, locking the door... and watching a DVD of their play with him. - A variation in Saved by the Bell. When Screech's parents are away for the weekend, the boys have a small party with just themselves in his house. The girls crash and Violet accidentally breaks Screech's mother's statue of Elvis. Replacing the statue becomes the episode's main plot.
- Sex Education:
- In the sixth episode of season 2, Otis wishes to have a small gathering for a few friends while his mother is out. After details spread, the event gets out of control and becomes a full blown party. Otis drinks heavily and drunkenly confesses his feelings for Maeve, leaving Ola feeling upset and rejected. Otis sleeps with Ruby, and his mother returns home to see the house covered in mess.
- Skins is particularly known for these, to the point where "Skins party" has entered the slang lexicon. There is one in just about every episode — either that, or the characters will wake up to the aftermath of one (as happens at the beginning of Cassie's S1 episode).
- Smallville:
- In the season one episode "Jitters", Clark Kent accidentally hosted, and managed to clean the entire trashed house in a few seconds with his Super-Speed — only to find his parents are back early and are standing in the door Sarcastic Clapping before explaining they called six times last night, and none of the six people who answered even knew a Clark Kent. However, they're soon distracted when Clark tells them about finding Jonathan's friend Earl Jenkins (who's since been taken in the hospital and is wanted for murder) in the loft.
- The season four episode "Spell" has another wild party (though this one was Lois's fault — it was a surprise party for Chloe's birthday), and again Clark's parents find evidence of it happening. Again, they're somewhat distracted from it by more serious matters: namely, when Clark tells them about the witches he was dealing with the night before, and that magic can hurt him.
- In The Sopranos episode "Toodle Fucking Oo", Meadow has one of these in her grandmother's empty house after her grandmother dies. Tony has to break it up and square the cops.
- In Space Force (2020) it ends up averted, but not for lack of trying. When General Mark Naird is away from home for several days because he's helping with a Moon habitat experiment created by his division's head scientist, his rebellious daughter Erin posts an invitation on social media for everybody at school to party at her home (immediately after reading Mark's note). Nobody ever arrives (because previous episodes showcased her as the FNG at school that nobody cares to know she even exists) and Erin has to spend the rest of the week alone and eating the 20 pizzas she purchased for the party.
- Stranger Things:
- Season 1 sees Steve throw a party at his house since his parents are out of town, which culminates in Nancy having sex with him. It also ends up being where Barb is abducted by the Demogorgon and killed.
- Season 2 sees Nancy, Steve, Jonathan, and Billy attend a Halloween party. The party has your expected hits, with a bunch of people dancing around, some snogging, Billy breaking Steve's drinking record, and a beer-bellied guy who exclaims "PURE FUEL. PURE FUEL! WHOOOO!" to Nancy by the punch bowl. Jonathan, who is pretty introverted and is going as "a guy who hates parties", is clearly uncomfortable being there, only attending in hopes of getting some alone time with Nancy. Things deteriorate when Nancy, consumed by lingering guilt over the one-year anniversary of Barb's death, gets drunk, and ruins her shirt when Steve tries to cut her off. He takes her to the bathroom and she vents about Barb and their relationship, offending Steve to the point that he breaks up with her on the spot, and Jonathan has to drive her home and tuck her into bed.
- The Steve Harvey Show: Steve tells Romeo not to have one of these when he goes out of town with Regina for a conference. Ced and Lovita decide to have a party to celebrate Ced's having paid off his Hyundai, and override Romeo's pleas not to have it at Steve's. Of course the word gets out and practically everyone in Chicago shows up. Romeo frantically tries to keep the house clean during the party but the house gets trashed anyway. The next morning, Ced and Lovita come over to Steve's house to help Romeo clean up, but Steve comes home unexpectedly. Ced and Lovita quickly leave, leaving Romeo holding the bag.
- Another episode has Romeo tricking Lydia into having a party while she is housesitting for Steve who is on a cruise. The party is in full swing when Coretta, angry that no one attended her Sweet 16 party, crashes it. After the Record Needle Scratch, everyone flees, save Romeo and Bullethead whom she forces to stay so that they can dance and have cake with her and Lydia. She also makes them clean up and forces Romeo to buy flowers for Lydia to apologize for tricking her. Finally, she takes Romeo's wallet and all of the money in it in exchange for not telling Steve about the party.
- Sweet/Vicious frequently features the darker variant, like the Bacchanal in season one and the party that kick-started the plot where Nate raped Jules. In-Universe, Jules notes that she used to love partying with the Zetas, but after she was raped, she couldn't see anything but the dangers.
- That '70s Show had a few of these, particularly in the earlier seasons, including a kegger in the pool of an empty house and a "the parents are out of town" party at Donna's.
- Two and a Half Men: Bertha attempted to hold a party at Charlie's house while Charlie, Jake, and Alan were away for a week at Las Vegas without Charlie's knowledge. However, it ended up being cut very short when it not only became apparent that they weren't going to Las Vegas after all (they had to cancel the trip after Jake caught an illness, implied to be the flu), but they also walked in on it after hearing the music from the party. Bertha immediately covered herself by saying "Surprise" in order to make it seem as though the party was intended for either Charlie or Alan Harper.
- In Two of a Kind, Mary-Kate tries to throw a wild party while Kevin is out. Initially only three nerds show up. But after another party gets cancelled, the rest of the kids show up. They manage to get everyone home and avoid getting in trouble with a Sarcastic Confession to Kevin.
- Without a Trace had one in season two that was so wild they were fined $3.6 million by the FCC.
- Kevin in The Wonder Years throws a party that gets crashed (apparently by just about every partier in town and then some) and he can't even clean up a fraction of the mess by the time his parents return home. In a twist, he tries to fess up to them, but neither parent believes that straitlaced Kevin would do such a thing. Instead, they punish Kevin's older slacker brother Wayne whom they assume has bullied Kevin into taking the heat. And Wayne accepts it.
- Alex's sister Sam holds one when they their parents go away in an episode of The Worst Year of My Life, Again. Alex's attempts to take advantage of the 'loop year' to avoid disaster the second time, but just ends up making things worse. As usual.
- Young Sheldon: Missy holds one in at the Sparks' house in "A Frankenstein's Monster and a Crazy Church Guy".
