Breakfast Princess: Whatever, freeloader. If you were invited to Princess Day, it must have been a mistake or as a joke. Am I right, girls?
Strudel Princess: Ohh!
Lumpy Space Princess: The joke's on you because I wasn't invited. I'm crashing! And I already ate a bunch of your food! What you gonna do about it, Princess Egg Breath?
Strudel Princess: Ohh!
Lumpy Space Princess: The joke's on you because I wasn't invited. I'm crashing! And I already ate a bunch of your food! What you gonna do about it, Princess Egg Breath?
Parties are fun. Whether it's a gathering of friends, a Wild Teen Party thrown by the Big Man on Campus, a birthday party, or a formal dance, people enjoy getting to cut loose and have fun. There's also an aspect of social-status; being invited means you're well-liked enough to be wanted. And if you're not invited, well...
Unfortunately for many characters, they're stuck on the sidelines, uninvited while everyone else gets to enjoy themselves. There are a few reasons why they may be left out, the most common ones being:
- They're generally considered unpopular, and thus not wanted at a popular person's party. This is most common for school scenarios.
- Something happened that made them hated by people if they weren't hated already. This means that people they used to be close with now despise them, underscored by them being left out of events they would've gone to before.
- They were meant to be invited, but were left out by mistake or neglect. This makes the party's host less of an asshole, but still guilty of forgetting about people, even if those people are their own friends.
Oh, and they're never going to just brush off their lack of an invite due to being uninterested in the party because if they did, there'd be no drama. No, they'll care deeply about this, more so than would often be expected, especially if a so-called "friend" is the host. This is where the real meat of the trope comes in. This character is left feeling hurt or angry over their lack of an invite, and may even try to crash – but crashing often ends in tragedy, as they're often humiliated into leaving. Of course, that's assuming they didn't crash the party to get revenge, in which case it's the other party-goers being made miserable.
Compare It's a Costume Party, I Swear!, where a character does get invited to a party, but as a way to humiliate them; Party Scheduling Gambit, where someone deliberately schedules another shindig to conflict with a disliked character's party; and Forgotten Birthday, where other people don't care about someone's big day. See also Not on the List, in which a not-invited person is informed by a bouncer or doorman that they just simply aren't on the guest list and can't come in. Can overlap with Invited as a Joke if someone is given a fake invitation as a prank.
Supertrope of RevengeSVP, where the uninvited party crashes to cause trouble. Contrast Forced Party Attendance, for when someone is forced to come to a party they don't want to.
Examples:
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Comic Books
- Batman: Arkham Asylum - Tales of Madness: The Joker makes a selection from the inmates in his corner of Arkham Asylum for who he wants to attend the party he's working on. Killer Croc is the one who freed Joker, so there's no deciding there, and to the two of them Joker adds Scarecrow, Riddler, Witch, and Vox. He pointedly does not release Maxie Zeus, Charaxes, and Zsasz. Maxie Zeus is too pompous for his liking and Charaxes and Zsasz are prone to attack the rest of the party-goers.
- The Mask: Toys in the Attic: Gina Mazarin sends her bullying victim Aldo Krasker disinvites to non-existent highschool drama club reunions every year for literal decades after they graduated. Unfortunately the latest one arrives on the same day he gets bodyjacked by a homicidal Artifact of Doom that acts on the lingering resentment he has toward his old classmates that the disinvite brought to the surface.
Comic Strips
- Peanuts: A Running Gag in early comics is for one or more characters (usually Violet, Patty, and/or Lucy) to rudely inform Charlie Brown that they're having a party and he isn't invited. In the Januaary 29, 1954 strip, this was subverted by Charlie Brown actually being okay with it (or at least pretending to be), to Violet and Patty's confusion.
Fan Works
- How the Light Gets In: Narrowly averted. While heading to a BBQ party Team Arrow is having, Laurel admits to Dean that she's fairly certain she wasn't going to be invited, but once she walked in on them talking about the party, Felicity felt they had to invite her. She's absolutely correct. Dean reflects that there were several parties, dinners, or gatherings that the team held that Laurel wasn't invited to, simply because the others didn't like her and didn't treat her as a real member of the team. While she's never shown complaining or being resentful over it, it does appear to have affected her psyche and self-esteem.
- The Karma of Lies: Ms. Bustier convinces Marinette that she needs to earn back her friends by throwing a party for Lila and the rest of the class. After an entire week coordinating everything, nobody shows up... because the class decided to throw their own picnic in Lila's honor in the park right in front of the Dupain-Cheng Bakery, and nobody bothered to invite her. To rub more salt into the wound, the majority expect her to keep holding the party while they show up 'later', with Kim asking if she'll have the banana cinnamon buns he likes so much. Even after she'd discovered that they were donating all of the clothes she'd made for them to a Fake Charity. Marinette cancels the party outright instead, not wanting to have to deal with her Fair-Weather Friends anymore.
- Marinette's Week Off: In the sequel, Alya makes a point of excluding Marinette, Chloé and Nathaniel from a "watch party" for the red-carpet premiere of Disney's The Embers of Pirates and Mermaids, stressing that she only wants her friends there. The trio is completely unbothered, since they know Marinette is starring in said movie and all three will be attending the premiere. Marinette even makes a point of telling Alya that she hopes her ex-bestie will show just as much grace and understanding once the shoe's on the other foot. Naturally, Alya bitterly complains about being left out and tries to rekindle their friendship so she can start taking advantage of her "bestie's" newfound celebrity connections.
- In this one-shot
for Miraculous Ladybug, Alya uninvites Marinette from her birthday party after a misunderstanding: her parents had secretly commissioned a dress for their daughter from her that year, and asked Marinette to turn her away if she tried ordering one herself. (Though Alya demanded it on short notice.) Marinette still makes the dress, dropping it off the day of the event and confusing Marlene and Otis when she doesn't stick around.
- Miraculous Ladybug Salt-Shots: In My Compensation, Lila throws a picnic for all of her classmates aside from Marinette. This doesn't bother Marinette half as much as the fact that Alya not only attended the picnic, but roped her into babysitting Ella and Etta at the same time, with no intention of paying her supposed bestie for her services.
- The Peace Not Promised: Petunia doesn't go as far as excluding Lily from her wedding entirely, but she does pass her over as a bridesmaid — and doesn't even mention it, just leaves it to Lily to discover on the day that her assigned dress is red, rather than the yellow of the bridal party.
- Plus Five to Charisma: Mirabel didn't get a quinceañera because her adventuring party had been called away on another adventure. When Julieta finds out, it leads to the entire second generation of Madrigals confronting Alma about her refusal to do anything to mark the occasion, not even a belated party. She only relents after Felix proposes throwing their own celebration, with Alma as the only one not invited.
- Shadows Over Hell has Stella refusing to let Loona attend Via's eighteenth birthday party. Octavia attempts to soften the blow by telling Loona that the party would be too dull for her tastes; Loona sees right through the deception and is frustrated.
- Taylor Is DOOMed: Four factions fail to show up to Piggot's truce: the Merchants, the ABB, Coil's mercs, and the E88. While she would have liked each of the first three to show up, there were complications in each case; with the E88, Piggot was simply too pissed off at Kaiser for how he tried to recruit Overkill, so she deliberately excluded him.
- Titania and Oberon: Despite being effectively banned from all of Z-Man's parties, Lance still shows up to one and tries picking a fight with Harris. This only gets Lance's backside handed to him by Roxanne and the Carrie Nations.
- Wolves don't Party with Sheep:
- One of the ways that the majority of Miss Bustier's class has been systematically isolating Marinette, Chloé and Nathaniel is by organizing lots of meet-ups, picnics and parties while not inviting any of them. They also convinced their teacher to exclude the trio from class field trips.
- Subverted with Marinette's birthday party. Her mother insisted that she should extend invitations to all of her classmates, as it would be rude not to invite any of them... so Marinette made sure to include instructions that anyone who actually wanted to attend would need to RSVP by a certain date, banking on the idea that none of them would bother doing so. This also means that once they learn just how big a bash her birthday is going to be, she can remind them all that they chose not to make their reservations and have nobody to blame but themselves for how they're missing out.
- What Goes Around Comes Around (Miraculous Ladybug) opens with Marinette learning that everyone aside from her and Chloé has been invited to attend a gala in Versailles... which not-so-coincidentally coincides with a party she was throwing for her classmates. This is entirely intentional not just on Lila's part, but on Gabriel Agreste's, as he's learned that she's Ladybug and is plotting to attack her home that evening.
Films — Animation
- The LEGO Batman Movie: Batman pops in at Superman's place only to discover that Superman is hosting a party for all the superheroes... except Batman wasn't invited.
- Sleeping Beauty (1959): Maleficent winds up cursing Aurora out of anger over not being invited to the princess's christening.
- Wreck-It Ralph: Ralph's journey to become a hero is brought on by the fact that the citizens of Niceland are throwing an anniversary party for their game, which he, despite being one of the game's two major characters, wasn't invited to. He sees the party happening from his home in the dump and goes to confront the Nicelanders. Felix lets him in, but unwillingly, and it ends in disaster as Ralph is humiliated and challenged to go and bring back a medal, after which he'd be treated respectfully by the others.
Films — Live-Action
- Batman Returns: The Penguin crashes the Max-squerade Ball late in the film in spectacular fashion, not having been invited due to being exposed for the villain that he was. He proceeds to try to take Chip Shreck, Max Shreck's son, only for Max to volunteer in Chip's place.
- Bridesmaids: When Lillian announces that Helen will be the maid of honor, Annie throws a tantrum in the middle of the rehearsal dinner because Lilian chose the newcomer of their group of friends instead of her despite being friends for years. Having had enough of Annie's recent clinginess and the damage she caused during her tantrum, Lilian says she's forbidden from attending the wedding, and Annie storms out of the house.
- The Cat in the Hat (2003): Halfway through a chase scene in the film, Control Freak Sally and her brother Conrad, with the titular Cat, passes through a classmate's house where a birthday party is being held. Sally briefly looks into the living room and is surprised to see that her whole class is invited... except her.
- Fred: The Movie: Fred spends half the movie on a quest to find Judy's new house, thinking she's either miserable or in danger. By the time he gets there, he finds her having a party he wasn't invited to, meaning he accidentally crashes. After being humiliated by his bully Kevin at said party with the footage posted online to boot, Fred seeks revenge by throwing his own party and making it clear to everyone that they are not invited to his party. However, when it comes to his friend Bertha, he decided to invite her as she was the only person who didn't think the video was funny, and the two of them throw such a great fake party that it makes the rest of the school feel jealous and desperate to get back on Fred's good side.
- Mean Girls: This was what ended Regina and Janis's friendship in the backstory. Regina was hosting a pool party, and because there were rumors Janis was a lesbian, Regina didn't feel she could invite her since there were going to be girls in bathing suits and she didn't want the other guests to be uncomfortable. Janis took the snub personally and swore vengeance against Regina. At least, that's the story Regina tells Cady.
- Minutemen: As a result of rebuilding his friendship with Derek and Stephanie, Virgil ends up back in the popular crowd and a party is thrown at his house. He neglects to invite his best friend Charlie, who unfortunately lives next door. Charlie spent the whole night listening to the party in anger and calls Virgil out on this the next morning.
- Sky High (2005): Gwen throws a party at Will's house under the guise of needing to talk to the Homecoming Committee; his less popular childhood friend Layla (whom Will has been neglecting since transferring to the Hero course) becomes suspicious and goes to investigate it. When she enters, Gwen drives a wedge in their relationship by convincing her that Will deliberately pulled this trope on her, causing her to leave in tears and rebuff him when he tries to talk to her.
Literature
- Animorphs: In the first Megamorphs special, Marco decides to infiltrate a pool party that he specifically wasn't invited to, because at the last pool party he threw Baby Ruth bars into the pool and claimed they were poop. He wants to go in rat morph (roping a very confused Ax in with him as backup, with Tobias on lookout), reasoning that the girl throwing the party likes him, but she doesn't ''like'' him and wants to hear everything she and her friends would no doubt be saying about him behind his back. When they don't talk about him at all, he uses thought-speak to prompt a change in conversation to the subject of him, and they bring up the Baby Ruth incident. They call him immature, which Marco doesn't mind, but when they say that he isn't funny, he goes on the attack.
- Discworld:
- Carpe Jugulum: Granny Weatherwax isn't invited to the christening of Verence and Magrat's daughter, which hurts her far more than she cares to let on. In fact, she had been invited, but the gold-framed invitation was stolen by a magpie belonging to a vampire. The fact that the baby is named after her helps soften the blow once things are settled and the vampires banished.
- Thief of Time: Used as a metaphor. The narrator refers to the standard analogy about socially awkward people that if life's a party, they're hiding in the kitchen, and then says Jeremy Clockson isn't even in the kitchen, he was never invited in the first place.
He envied the people who made it as far as the kitchen. There would probably be the remains of the dip to eat, and a bottle or two of cheap wine that someone had brought along that'd probably be okay if you took out the drowned cigarette stubs.
- According to The Discworld Companion, the Guild of Beggars are routinely sent anti-invitations (with suitable renumeration) to important events. If they don't recieve one, they will turn up.
- Dolphin Song: Alpha Bitch Priscilla hosts a poolside barbecue party at her house. Melody isn't invited, but everyone else is, including her best friend Kim and her crush Wayne.
- In The Dr. Seuss book Hooper Humperdink? Not Him!, a boy invites heaps of people to his party except for Hooper Humperdink, except later he changes his mind and invites Hooper anyway.
- In the opening pages of My Best Friend's Exorcism, Margaret does a particularly extreme example when she invites everyone except Abby to a party she's having the same day as Abby's birthday...so that Abby will not only be left out of Margaret's party (it's implied) but also so that Abby will be left out of her own birthday celebration. (However, Gretchen still shows up on the grounds that Abby invited her first, which results in them being Fire-Forged Friends and Platonic Life-Partners from that moment on.)
- The Player of Games: The main character, tries to describe The Culture's definition of justice to an alien. He explains that a murderer is given a slap drone that follows them around to make sure they don't kill anybody else. When the alien doesn't think this is much of a punishment, he explains it's social death and you won't be invited to many parties. (Sure you could gatecrash but nobody would talk to you).
- This is what kicks off the plot in Sleeping Beauty. One of the fairies did not get the invite to the titular character's party, much to her ire. She tries to get that character killed with a cursed spinning wheel.
- The Sneetches and Other Stories: The star-bellied Sneetches are prejudiced against the plain-bellied ones, so they never invite them to their parties.
Live-Action TV
- Subverted in A.N.T. Farm. Lexi spends an entire episode trying to find out why she wasn't invited to a fellow cheerleader's birthday party, but never confronts her since she doesn't want to sound desperate. In the end, it's revealed that she actually was invited but her stupid friend Paisely was in charge of the invitations and read hers upside down, thinking it's for a robot called "IX37".
- There's a Castle where Alexis has to deal with an ex-friend who invites their whole class to her birthday party except for Alexis, including Alexis' boyfriend. The girl plans to break up Alexis and her boyfriend by kissing him at the party and putting the photos up on social media, but fortunately, Alexis doesn't fall for it. Unfortunately, Castle escalates the situation by getting Ryan to take the photos down, resulting in a Bathroom Brawl. Turns out the girl felt abandoned by Alexis and chose the stupidest way of dealing with it possible.
Castle: Did you at least kick her ass?
Alexis: Kinda.
Castle: That's my girl. - In the "Eye of the Tiger" episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation after Spinner's role in Jimmy's shooting is revealed, he ends up hated by the students and univited to an intimate homecoming party that the latter was throwing. Upon getting together with Jay (whose fault it was that Jimmy ended up getting shot in the first place as they bullied Rick, then blamed Jimmy for the prank they did of having paint and feather dumped on him, leading to his shooting), he crashes the party at Jimmy's drunk and begging for forgiveness. He refuses and after eventually admitting to the principal his and Jay's role in the shooting, she expels them both.
- Drake & Josh:
- In one episode, their friend Thorton is having a massive birthday party, complete with gift bags that have cellphones in them, and Drake and Josh are invited...until Thorton catches Drake making out with his girlfriend unknowingly. Drake and Josh are officially uninvited, and in desperation, they give him Drake's autographed Abbey Road record as a present...and he still doesn't let them into the party. So they pull off an elaborate scheme to crash it...just to get the record back and ditch.
- One episode sees Josh becoming a teacher for Megan's 5th-grade class. He's so tough on the kids that they all turn on Megan as a result. She attempts to go to a friend's birthday party at The Premier but is rudely told she's no longer invited, and uses this as her motivation to sabotage Josh's class the next day.
- Friends:
- Monica learns she wasn't invited to a cousin's wedding when Ross asks if she wants to carpool to the reception. She forces Ross to ditch his date and bring her instead. When she confronts the bride at the reception she discovers she wasn't invited because the groom is one of her ex-boyfriends.
- Monica is on the other side of this when she throws a baby shower for Rachel but forgets to invite Rachel's mother. She tries to claim the party was a last minute idea but Mrs. Green had already heard about it from Rachel's sisters (who aren't going). Despite Monica's repeated attempts to apologize Mrs. Green remains cold towards her throughout the party.
- In the Gilmore Girls episode "Forgiveness and Stuff", Emily uninvites Lorelai from the Gilmores' Christmas party over, among other things, what happened with Rory and Dean in "Rory's Dance".
- Inverted in Kaamelott, where Merlin is repeatedly invited to druidic conclaves but doesn't want to go for multiple reasons: there's no booze, he can't turn into an animal like most other druids, and most important of all he Cannot Tell a Joke to save his life. Arthur tries to coach him through telling a joke but in the end, agrees Merlin shouldn't go.
- In one episode of Lizzie McGuire, Miranda is throwing a party at her house and wants it to be perfect. This means she invites everyone...except for the geeky Larry, who she fears will ruin her party. Larry is heartbroken to not get an invite while everyone else is excitedly preparing for the party, and Lizzie decides to sneak him inside. He's disguised as a cool and mysterious student named "Lawrence", who Miranda starts flirting with, claiming she'd have invited him if she saw him at school. Hurt, Larry breaks the disguise, and Miranda feels guilty enough to let him stay at the party.
- Veronica Mars:
- In the backstory, Veronica crashing a party she wasn't invited to ends in tragedy. She was uninvited in the first place because her popularity spiraled downward due to the circumstances surrounding the Lilly Kane murder investigation. Everyone hated her so much that, when she crashed the party to try and make a point, she ended up being drugged and raped, traumatizing her for the rest of the series and emphasizing just how unpopular she is, as well as how much she wants to have her normal life back.
- In Season 2, in a parallel to Veronica's own situation pre-series, Jackie Cooke is unofficially "uninvited" to the winter carnival by Alpha Bitch Madison Sinclair, over the mistaken belief that Jackie's father, Terence, had something to do with the school bus crash. Jackie shows up anyway, which results in her being so hated and reviled by the rest of the school that she's forced to sit in the dump tank and being forced into freezing water, while wearing a bikini, in the middle of December.
Theatre
- In Thirteen, Evan wants to make his Bar Mitzvah the best party ever, and in the process, wants to invite the kids who will help him be popular. This means inviting everyone but the unpopular Patrice, who happened to be the only person who tried to befriend him in the first place. To add insult to injury, he outright pretends Patrice isn't standing next to him and destroys her invitation to make a good impression for the popular kids. Then, when he does end up inviting her to a movie party, he still ends up ignoring her and she leaves without being noticed.
- In Twisted, Maleficent "only wished to feel included" by being invited to the party, among other Disney villains shown to be Not Evil, Just Misunderstood.
Video Games
- In Melody, if Amy finds out exactly how Arnold didn't adequately care for the title character while she was sick, she will disinvite him from her birthday dinner.
- Twisted-Wonderland: To illustrate his lack of common sense, Malleus constantly doesn't show up at school gatherings because he thinks he's not invited to them. Note that he is a deliberate Expy of Maleficent.
- Yume Nikki: The Toriningen Party. One easily-overlooked path through the wilderness leads to a spot where your Player Character can observe three Toriningen. Elsewhere in the Dream Land these strange beaked figures will aggressively chase you, but here they are just having fun. They have a picnic, a stereo, and are dancing to perky music. And because your path is blocked, there is no way to join them.
Web Original
- Used in the SuperMarioLogan episode "Bowser Junior's House Party". Roy hosts a party at his house while his parents are out of town. Cody and Jeffy were invited to the party, but Roy does not invite Bowser Junior and Joseph because they are lame. After their failed attempt by disguising themselves as wealthy people from England in order to get Roy to invite them, they decided to throw their own party.
Web Video
- Half-Life but the AI is Self-Aware's Dance Party Ending briefly shows a scene of Benrey (or at least, one of the skeletons he controls) standing forlornly outside of the Chuck E. Cheese's the rest of the cast is partying in. Considering he's the reason why everything went to hell, it's understandable.
- On 7-Second Riddles, two Alpha Bitchs don't get invited to a girl's party while everyone else does, so they decide to swipe invitations and crash it in the chances of ruining it.
Western Animation
- Adventure Time:
- "Princess Day" has the titular event being celebrated at the Breakfast Kingdom with Lumpy Space Princess interrupting saying she is bored from the whole thing. Breakfast Princess tells her to be quiet and asks why she was even invited, only for LSP to reply that she actually wasn't and ate a ton of the food being served. LSP then later teams up with Marceline to prank BP out of revenge for being humiliated by her.
- "Princess Potluck" has the Ice King trying (poorly) to sabotage the titular event because he wasn't invited. Then it turns out he was invited, he just didn't get the invitation, so he happily joins the festivities.
- In the American Dad! episode "Bar Mitzvah Hustle", Snot's cousin, Etan, gives the whole school a classy invite to his Bar Mitzvah, except Steve, primarily because he wants to hit on his girlfriend, Debbie. A vengeful Steve enters the party as a "plus one" anyway, and gaslights Etan into thinking he'll crash it, throwing a paranoid tantrum in front of everyone.
- In the Arthur episode "D.W.'s Very Bad Mood", the reason behind D.W.'s bad mood is that she wasn't invited to a classmate's party while her friend Emily was. When D.W. is forced to admit that she's not really friends with the girl who threw the party, this leads to the lesson that you can't expect to be invited to every event.
- Captain Flamingo: In "Monster Headache", Lizbeth throws a "flamingo party" fundraiser in order raise enough cash for a new costume for the Captain and every other kid is invited... except for Wendell. As a result, he decided to crash the party by disguising himself as a monster to scare off the children.
- Codename: Kids Next Door: The Toiletnator is so disliked by his villainous peers that he is given fake invites to their gatherings that send him to places like Antarctica. Somehow, he always manages to figure out the real location but never the fact that the villains don't want him around.
- DuckTales (2017): Penumbra decides to finally give "Earth fun" a try when she learns that she was the only Moonlander not invited to Pallas's party. She wasn't supposed to know the party had happened at all.
- Several episodes of Ed, Edd n Eddy involve the title characters not being invited to a party the other kids are having, largely because their antics keep ruining them. The one time they did get invited was to Jonny's Labor Day party, but to Eddy's frustration, none of the other kids show because they never intended on going in the first place.
- El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera: The plot of "Enter the Cuervo" is kicked off by Frida inviting everyone in school except Zoe Aves to her birthday party. Zoe wouldn't have gone if she was invited, but since she wasn't, she decides to crash the party as Black Cuervo.
- The Fairly OddParents!: Trixie deliberately passes out birthday-party tickets to her entire class... except Timmy, Chester, and AJ. She actually had three tickets reserved for them, solely for her bodyguard to dramatically tear up.
- Family Guy: In "Stew-Roids", Connie became Chris' girlfriend and made him popular. They even plan a house party at the Griffin residence for all popular students, and Meg was rudely informed by Chris that she wasn't invited. Meg was upset that Chris had uninvited her to the party at their own house.
- Fillmore!: Ingrid doesn't get invited to a popular girl's party on the grounds of being "too new." Ingrid probably wouldn't have minded so much if the girl didn't make such a big deal of inviting the entire rest of the class, with the previous new student practically thanking god that he was finally able to go.
- An episode of Hercules: The Animated Series had Hades invite the Gods to an pool party in the underworld in hopes of using his "Pool of Forgetfulness" to make the Gods have amnesia so he can rule Olympus. However, the one God he does not invite is Trivia, God of Where Three Roads Meet, due to seeing him as harmless on account of being a bore. Too bad Trivia, with the help of Hercules, manages to stop his plan.
- Hey Arnold!: Rhonda holds a party for all the cool kids including her best friend, Nadine, and Arnold. She didn't invite her classmates particularly Gerald due to a grudge she had against him. Later on, Arnold dislikes how Rhonda labels Gerald and their friends as "geeks" which causes him to leave her party and hold his own party with the "geeks" on the roof of his boarding house.
- In It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown is invited to Violet's annual Halloween party, much to his surprise. Lucy promptly tells him that there were two lists for the party - one of the people to invite, and one of the people not to invite and that he must have been put on the wrong list.
- Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness: In the episode "Invitation Only", Po is uninvited to a banquet because of his bad table manners. Po says this is no surprise; when he was a kid, he was uninvited to banquets all the time after he threw up a bowl of sweet n' sour chowder one time. The only way he would get into the banquets was by hiding in a pot. At the end of the episode, it's revealed the banquet's host's manners are as bad as Po's and invites him after stopping a villain from crashing the banquet.
- League of Super Evil: The episode "Party Pooper" has all the members of L. O. S. E. being invited to their neighbor's birthday party except Voltar, whose attempts to get in fail each time. He then decides to ruin the party instead, only for all his plans to make the party even more fun for all the guests.
- The Loud House: has a couple of examples.
- "The Waiting Game" focuses on Lincoln and Clyde being uninvited to their classmate Chandler's birthday party and trying to butter him up so he'll invite them.
- In the episode "Diss the Cook" it turns out this is why Chef Pat has been tormenting the Loud kids with terrible lunches for years. Pat and Rita were friends in high school, but Pat was enraged when she didn't get invited to Rita's big graduation party. She held a grudge for years, taking out her anger on Rita's children. When she learns that she was invited but the invitation got lost, she apologizes and starts serving Lincoln better food. (And presumably likewise for the younger girls when they reach middle school.)
- In an episode of My Friends Tigger & Pooh, Tigger is in a funk because he wasn't invited to a birthday party, but then it turns out that his friends just forgot to invite him.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Subverted in one episode. Discord is less offended that Celestia didn't invite him to the Grand Galloping Gala in the first place than he is that Fluttershy didn't ask him to be her plus one (she assumed he had his own invitation). Then it turns out that he was invited, but because his home is in a dimension of pure chaos, the mailpony couldn't find it. He does wind up receiving the invitation in plenty of time to get to the party, but he already feels snubbed and decides to pull a platonic Operation: Jealousy to get back at Fluttershy.
- Noddy's Toyland Adventures: One episode of Make Way for Noddy titled "Forgive Me Not" has Noddy throwing a party for all of his friends. Until then, Martha Monkey angrily confronts Noddy that she didn't receive an invitation from him. Noddy then realizes that he forgot to invite her. As a result, Martha then vows to never forgive him.
- In one episode of OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes, Lord Boxman crashes a yacht party held by a bunch of his fellow supervillains, most of whom consider him an obnoxious idiot. He doesn't go because he actually wants to; he hates his fellow villains as much as they hate him, and he goes purely to ruin their fun by making an ass of himself.
- The Powerpuff Girls (2016): Princess Morbucks throws a party for her sixth birthday and everyone in Townsville is invited... everyone except Blossom. This turns out to be a Batman Gambit where the trap she set up for all three girls counted on her crashing the party.
- One episode of Regular Show titled "See You There" has Mordecai and Rigby being uninvited to Hi-Five Ghost's birthday party by Muscle Man. In order to get into the party, Hi-Five Ghost's brother turns them into ghosts. Later on in the episode, it turns out that Muscle Man was using a reverse psychology trick on Mordecai and Rigby to get them to come because it was part of a prank to get back at them for spilling soda in his face.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- In "Party Pooper Pants", SpongeBob holds a house party until he gets locked out and tries to force his way in until the police mistakes him for a burglar. After he explains the situation, the cops agree to help him back inside, until they ask him why he didn't invite them to the party, which prompts the officers to arrest him instead.
- In "Gone", SpongeBob wakes up one day to find everyone in Bikini Bottom has disappeared. Only at the end of the episode does he find out why: the whole town was off throwing a huge festival on a a holiday —National No SpongeBob Day— and being the guest of dishonor, SpongeBob was neither invited nor informed of its existence.
- South Park:
- "Casa Bonita" revolves around Kyle having his birthday at the titular restaurant and refuses to invite Cartman. Cartman then tries to become nicer so Kyle will invite him, and when that fails he manipulates Butters into going missing so he can take his place.
- "Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset" has the girls invite several boys over for a party. Wendy isn't invited on grounds of not being slutty enough. Cartman, who also wasn't invited, later tries to get in only to be turned away each time.
- In "Damien", both Pip and Damien are rudely refused invitations for Cartman's party. Realising The Chain of Harm, Damien bullies Pip in front of the boys, impressing Cartman enough to get an invite. Granted, Cartman only invited every other kid on the grounds they buy him the exact birthday present he asked for. When Kyle buys him a cheap board game instead, Cartman throws an epic tantrum and kicks everyone out.
- Strawberry Shortcake (Classic):
- Ginger Snap tries to fake this condition just to get out of a camping trip in "Ginger Snap's No-light Night of Fright" due to her nyctophobia.
- "Sleeping Beauty" has a moment where the Brambleberry Fairynote crashes a party due to her lack of an invite... except she committed two errors: firstly, those brambleberry bushes not just defend the house from robbers, but also end up being an effective "No solicitors" sign, and she Failed a Spot Check and lied to herself about not getting one at all. Prince Huckleberry mentions those points in his lecture to her near the end.
- Played for Laughs in an episode of T.U.F.F. Puppy where the villain, the Caped Cod, plans to ruin an aristocrat's wedding due to not being invited as he went to middle school with said aristocrat. During his plan, he looks through his mail and sees that he did get invited and out of mortification, considers halting his plan before changing his mind when he sees that fish will be served at the wedding.
