Happy Birthday... in Comedy!

The other day, I received an invitation to a friend's sweet sixteen. It was a grand invite, giving its recipients the tiniest tentative peek at the larger than life festivities to come. When I then remembered I had a blog post to write, I spent a long time attempting to think of material, but my thoughts were preoccupied on parties with grandeur beyond my imagination.

It then occurred to me to write about birthdays in comedy -- or, more accurately, the lack thereof. Stories that are comedic in nature rarely address birthdays, and even if they do, you never "see" a character age. For example, Garfield is a few decades old, but he literally doesn't appear or behave any differently (even if Jim Davis' art style has evolved since the beginning). Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes literally goes through ten summers and school years while never growing an inch and always ending up back in first grade with Susie Derkins. Does that make their universe inhabited by midgets who never improve past first grade to the point where re-taking it indefinitely is their only option? Of course not. What it means is that the writer is sticking to the concept that status quo is God and that nothing about the setup must ever be changed. Ever. Forever.

While I understand their motives for this, I don't understand why there's practically never a scenario in long-running comedic series that involves a birthday party. In find that depressing because there is so much comedic fodder to be found. Funny stuff happens at birthday parties all the time -- things the host expects, things no one expects, but things that are most assuredly hilarious when played right. It doesn't even have to be a main character's birthday -- it could be any.

Here are a few ideas, all stemming from the key concept that something must go wrong!

1. Chaos with the cake!
2. Swinging from streamers!
3. Bombarding balloons!
4. Dancing disaster!
5. Gift-giving goof-ups!

Seriously, though, you could go nuts.