Bedmate Reveal



"Wade: Must have been some party, though, right?

Sam: You wake up in a strange bed with a strange man, and your first guess is "party"?

Wade: Strange people in a strange bed sounds like a party to me, man!"

- Strangerhood

Someone (usually a guy) wakes up in bed, and the audience assumes he's alone. But then either he moves or the camera pans, and we see there's someone else. Usually, it's implied that hanky-panky has just taken place, and if it hasn't, the guy will either anxiously ask for confirmation, or just assume the worst with hilarious consequences. A common variation is to have the guy wake up to find a another guy in his bed. In that case, either he's really anxious to ask for confirmation about why he's there, or he's too afraid to ask. Harem Anime loves this to death.

If the character is usually The Casanova, and wouldn't be too put out to find any old stranger in his bed, the partner may be an Abhorrent Admirer.

With a little bit of tweaking this can also be a Horror Trope - say if the hapless victim rolls over in bed to find the monstrous villain in bed with them. Of course, the sexual connotations to this aren't an accident.

See also What Did I Do Last Night?. Contrast with Not Staying for Breakfast.

Advertising

 * The King.
 * The Burger King.
 * "Oh dear lord, please tell me we didn't..."
 * A Pepsi Twist commercial has Ozzy Osbourne having a nightmare that his kids are really the Osmonds. He wakes up, only to find his wife is Florence Henderson.

Anime and Manga

 * Tenchi Muyo: Back when Ryoko was still the Sealed Evil in A Can from Granpa's Shrine, Tenchi barely escapes her with his life, only to find her in his bed when he gets back home.
 * Steel Angel Kurumi does this the first night Kurumi's at Nakahito's house.
 * Medabots, the old TV show, has the main character's mother crawl into bed with him. Freaks him right off the futon. Turns out she read it in a magazine article about how to get kids awake in time for school. There's also advice about how to get kids to do chores/help out around the house.
 * Used for opposite the usual reason in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Striker S. The scene opens with Nanoha and Fate apparently alone on their big, fluffy bed with nothing but their nightclothes on. Then, as Nanoha wakes up and sleepily watches Fate, their bed cover twitches, and she opens it to reveal that Vivio was also asleep between them.
 * Occurs in Paprika immediately after the first dream sequence, where it is revealed that Konakawa was sharing the bed with Paprika, who had also been in the dream.
 * Happens to Asuna in Mahou Sensei Negima whenever Negi sleepwalks into her bed thinking she's his big sister Nekane.
 * Then in one chapter, several girls in the class actually compete for this privilege. Hilarity Ensues.
 * Hideki wakes up, complaining about the sun. He rolls over and sees Chii face to face. Hilarity Ensues.
 * In Fruits Basket Kyo wakes up and sees that Ayame, who Yuki has kicked out, has snuck into bed with him. Cue The Scream.
 * Happens to Kaoru on several occasions in Ai Yori Aoshi.
 * Happened later on in Revolutionary Girl Utena, only the reveal was really more for the audience, and it was very much not played for laughs.
 * In Love Hina, Naru discovers Keitaro in bed with Mutsumi. Cue Unstoppable Rage. Later on, after Naru sends him flying, it is revealed that
 * The explanation for her words, "Keitaro, you were really rough last night. It hurt." and "I did it" are explained by.
 * In Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny, Meer sneaks into Athrun's bed mistakenly believing that his ex-fianc?Lacus used to do that. (She didn't, and in fact they're not engaged anymore, but no one bothered to tell her). Athrun wakes up and finds her sleeping next to him in a see-through teddy. Hilarity Ensues.
 * In Kashimashi, Hazumu wakes up to find Jan-puu curled up against her.
 * Full Metal Panic: Fumoffu has one episode where the sick Sousuke has a nightmare and wakes up. He's relieved... then his right hand wanders onto Tessa's breast who snuck into his bed while he slept. Still asleep, she reacts with "No, mr. Sagara... we shouldn't. Please..." Cue to Sousuke freaking out so loud Kaname wakes up too and comes to see what's going on.
 * The ensuing Not What It Looks Like is averted, however, because Kaname is Genre Savvy enough to know that Sousuke is a Chaste Hero and Tessa has a Subordinate Excuse; she subsequently hauls Tessa off without any grief towards Sousuke.
 * In Fairy Tail this has happened at least once when Lucy has gone to bed, or woken up, only to find Natsu and Happy sleeping peacefully. They never seem to understand her shock.
 * In Shugo Chara, Amu once went to her bed to see Ikuto already in it.
 * The epilogue of Girls Bravo starts with a shot of Yukinari The Hero who is allergic to women in bed with the Big Bad Yukina who is allergic to men turns out she is not allergic to him and likes being able to fell a man without breaking out in a rash.
 * Germany of Axis Powers Hetalia often wakes up to find Italy in his bed. Naked.
 * There's also a variation with Russia and Lithuania.
 * Happens to Rito in To Love Ru with multiple characters, most notably Lala.
 * Happens at the end of volume 2 of Moyashimon, where Hazuki wakes up next to Aoi after a night of drunken revelry.
 * Used dramatically rather than comically in Gun X Sword. Celibate Hero Van is shown waking up after a battle, apparently alone. Then it's revealed that he is sleeping beside his main traveling companion, Wendy. It's a subversion of the trope, in that the two are actually in separate twin beds, but since the beds have been pushed together, it looks as if they are sharing a bed.
 * In episode 9 of Infinite Stratos, Ichika wakes up to see someone in bed with him...turns out to be . Hilarity Ensues.
 * In Fate Stay Night, Shirou awakens after the battle with Berserker to a lecture from Saber. However, they are both interrupted by a muffled, "Keep it down!" Shiro lifts his futon's covers to discover Illya not only sharing his bed, but clinging to him very tightly. Rin is not amused when she hears about it.
 * Early on in Bleach, Ichigo wakes up after getting knocked out by Byakuya in Urahara's shop....with Tessai laying directly on top of him with his face a couple inches away.
 * In Papa no Iukoto o Kikinasai, Sora has a habit of moving close to Yuuta even when she's fallen asleep, so it's a case of both of them getting a surprise when they wake up. The way she moves while clinging to Yuuta makes you wonder what kind of dreams the girl is having...

Comics

 * Doonesbury: During a Gulf War-era R&R cruise, B.D. is awakened by an enthusiastic buddy who says he won big during the night. He asks B.D. (quoting from memory), "How about you, how did you do?" And a voice in the bed next to B.D. answers "Pretty good".
 * Happens to Spider Jerusalem in Transmetropolitan, complete with the common plan to chew off his own arm to escape without waking his surprise bedmate. She rolls over, flings an arm over him, and he adds chewing her arm off to the escape plan. Then the cat walks in...
 * In a later issue he scares the hell out of Channon by lying down next to her and waiting for her to wake up.
 * There was an old Little Nemo strip where Nemo wakes up, thinking his dream has ended, and to his suprise sees Flip in bed next to him, meaning he's still dreaming.
 * Little Ego has a similar scene where Ego wakes up, only to discover that the woman from the harem she had be dreaming about is in bed with her. Her partner sleepily tells Ego to come back to bed, cuing her real wake up.
 * Happens in Scott Pilgrim Volume 4, when Scott wakes up on a couch in Lisa's sister's apartment with no recollection of the previous night. He's relieved when she reveals they just talked and ate pizza, despite Lisa's love for Scott, Scott's problems with Ramona, and their Unresolved Sexual Tension.
 * In a Smurfs one-page comic gag, a Smurf takes a walk outside when he can't get any sleep, only for the clouds to obscure the light of the moon so that he couldn't see his way, so he ended up going back to what he thinks is his own house and goes to sleep. In the morning, he wakes up and finds out.

Fan Fiction

 * Happens to Kyon in Kyon Big Damn Hero when he wakes up one day to find Kanae sleeping at his side. Turns out that after she learned to teleport, she teleported herself to his bed in her sleep.
 * Later, he finds both Kanae and Yuki. And now they decided to cycle through all of the girls...
 * In the NCIS fanfic Backfired, Gibbs and McGee wake up hung over and naked in a bed in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with no memory of the previous night. On the nightstand is a grainy photograph of them having sex. Turns out,
 * In the The Best Night Ever, Prince Blueblood waking up next to Rarity signals that the Groundhog Day Loop he was going through is finally over.

Films
"Jim: "Oh my god, she used me... I was used! Cool!""
 * In So Bad It's Good John Carpenter film They Live, the last shot in the movie has a rare awake (and during sex) version. The twist?  This scene is both gross and hilarious.
 * It's the slick voice coming out of the lifeless prop head that makes it funny. Every time.
 * In The Grudge 2, Miyuki starts berating her boyfriend for tickling her feet under the blankets. It was not the boyfriend.
 * Ray: Ray Charles (played by Jamie Foxx) is sitting in bed, preparing a heroin fix. Someone knocks at the door, saying his wife is on the phone. A woman sits up from behind him and asks, "Is this the wife?"
 * At the end of Groundhog Day, Bill Murray wakes up to the same godawful Sonny and Cher song as always, then Andie MacDowell reaches over him to shut off the clock radio, demonstrating that tomorrow has finally come.
 * Kitty in Chicago comes home and is in her vanity. Her boyfriend is asleep alone in bed amongst rumpled sheets. Then in the mirror she sees not one, but two women stretching to snuggle up with him. Violence ensues.
 * Done in Airplane! with the wife of one of the characters receiving a phone call about her husband. She turns to her lover to tell him that she needs to go, there's juice in the fridge and he can let himself out the back door. He is a horse.
 * The basic outline of this gag was actually stolen from Duck Soup, a movie made 47 years earlier.
 * Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow (2004). After an Outrun the Fireball moment, Hot Scoop Polly Perkins wakes up naked in a bed next to the equally naked hero (Joe Sullivan). An embarrassed Polly tells him to turn around, which a grinning Joe does, only to find he's also in bed with their naked male guide.
 * Who Framed Roger Rabbit: Eddie unfolds his bed and lies down to take a nap, only to find that Roger is already sleeping in it. They both jump out screaming.
 * The Four Musketeers has D'Artagnan (Michael York) waking up in bed with Milady. And then he spots something she doesn't want him to see and she comes after him with a glass dagger filled with acid.
 * In Shanghai Noon Chon Wang wakes up in a tent with a splitting headache after partying with the indians all night until he passed out. As he pulls the blanket off him he finds an arm draped across his body and gives a resigned sigh. As he leaves the tent, the Indians waiting outside give him a mighty cheer.
 * The male/male trope was used seriously in the film Mongol, when after the drunken party, they show the sleeping Jamukha, and Temujin rises from the covers of the blanket on the other side, and joins his wife a short distance away. The reason they were sleeping under one blanket was to symbolize their blood brother status to their troops, as real brothers would share a blanket for warmth (especially since Mongolia's freezing). Still a bit odd to seen used in that context in a modern movie though.
 * In The Godfather, Jack Woltz has just refused an offer by Tom Hagen on behalf of Don Vito Corleone to cast Johnny Fontane, who Woltz wants run out of the business, in his new movie. When Woltz wakes up the following morning,
 * A different use of this trope is seen in Star Trek (2009). A young Jim Kirk is in bed with a woman whom we naturally assume to be Uhura. The lights come on, and it turns out to be Uhura's roommate, a Green-Skinned Space Babe.
 * Prince of Darkness (1987) uses this to grisly effect.
 * Though not grisly enough to keep the internet from picking it up, replacing the bedmate with anything from Lex Luthor to Arnold Schwarzenegger, King Leonidas, the Burger King and even a copy of L Ron Hubbard's Dianetics.
 * A variant in Sixteen Candles had characters waking up in a convertible rather than a bed, but asking the usual questions about what happened.
 * American Pie: Jim wakes up next to an inflatable dinosaur, showing that Michelle didn't stay for breakfast.

"Bronski: You need jewels. You need furs. You need boots. And"
 * In My Little Chickadee, W.C. Fields thinks he's getting into bed with Mae West, who has snuck off and left a goat in her place. His reaction: "Godfrey Daniel! BEELZEBUB!!!"
 * In the 1983 To Be or Not To Be, Bronski returns exhausted from dealing with the Nazi censors, gets in bed and curls up with whom he assumes is his wife:


 * The acerbic Ellie (Janeane Garofalo) wakes up hungover next to a bedmade in 1999's 100 Cigarettes who turns out to be, of all people,.
 * There's a bit in a later John Wayne movie, Rio Lobo, where he wakes, after sleeping under the stars, to find the attractive young woman of their party snuggled up to him, and his arm draped over her. His startled, "Hey! What's she doing here?" is quite funny. So is his irritation that she cuddled up to him because she thought it'd be safer than with either of the young studs in their group. Occasionally during the rest of the film he sarcastically describes himself as "comfortable," because that's how she had put it.
 * The second Harold and Kumar film has Harold waking up from a nightmare, then lying back down in bed, only to see a hideous Cyclops creature next to him.
 * Forty Eight Hours: During the beginning of the film after the opening credits end, we see a close up of a sleepy Jack Cates lying on his pillow. Then the camera pans back revealing Elane Marshall who is wearing Jack's blue shirt.
 * The Rebound subverts this- when Aram wakes up a hungover Sandy, she immediately assumes they slept together. They hadn't.
 * The first story in the Japanese horror film Kwaidan, "Black Hair." The samurai returns home to the innocent wife he abandoned, and they spend the night together. The next morning,
 * Ernest Scared Stupid uses the horror variation, when a little girl checking for monsters under her bad finds a hideous troll in bed next to her when she finishes.
 * In Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Harry is catching up with his childhood crush at a party. Immediately cut to the next morning when he finds himself in bed with her initially antagonistic friend.
 * A rather creepy version is done in Glass House.

Literature

 * One of the few tropes Neil Gaiman has ever played straight. In Anansi Boys, Fat Charlie wakes up after his father's wake with a serious hangover and a nude woman he has no memory of meeting. Turns out she just helped him home.
 * Robert Heinlein's To Sail Beyond the Sunset opens with protagonist Maureen waking up in bed with a cat she knows (Pixel, familiar to readers of The Cat Who Walks Through Walls) and a dead man she doesn't know.
 * On the subject of The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, Richard goes to sleep with Gretchen on one side and Xia on the other, then wakes up to find himself in bed with Pixel (licking him enthusiastically), Minerva (whom he kisses enthusiastically), and Galahad (whom, after a pause, he also kisses enthusiastically).
 * The first book of the Helmsman Saga has the protagonist wake up in the morning and find his lover next to him. As a variation, she woke him up when climbing in and they had quite a night together - it's just that, upon waking up, he believes it was All Just a Dream until he actually finds her there.
 * In the Novel Within A Novel Peter Flowerbuck, this occurs between a man and a young prostitute he had intended to set free.

Live Action TV
"Wayne: Colin?! (runs away)
 * In the Red Dwarf episode "Parallel Universe", Lister gets massively drunk and wakes up to find that he has had sex with his alternate universe counterpart, who is female. This results in a male-female inversion of the typical waking response. Thanks to the physical laws of this universe, he ends up pregnant.
 * This happens to Felix on The Odd Couple. It's a long scene with no dialogue that begins with Felix coming home late from work, gargling, putting his PJ's and a sleep mask on and climbing into bed. While on his back a sleeping woman suddenly rolls over and throws her arm around him, while still asleep. He picks up her arm, takes off his mask, sits up, gets out of bed, looks down at her (still asleep) and delivers the only line in the scene: "It's not my birthday...".
 * Creepily done in Carnivale with Sophie waking up and the camera panning behind her to reveal her catatonic mother lying in the bed with her... after she had burned to death in a fire.
 * In the final season of Slings and Arrows, Richard wakes up, turns to one side, and sees that he's in bed with an actress from the musical he's producing. Next episode the same thing happens with the same actress ... but then Richard turns the other way and discovers the musical's (male) writer.
 * Happened in the season 4 finale of Friends. It's early morning, Chandler's in bed, Ross runs in, ecstatic about his wedding, and he runs back out. Then Monica pokes her head out from under the covers and says "Do you think he knew I was here?" Thus began Chandler/Monica.
 * Also from Friends, Chandler ended up on a blind date with Janice, who he's dumped twice in the last three months. The next morning, we see him wake up, with two hands on his chest. A third hand comes into shot, rubbing his eyes. He looks down at the two hands on his chest, then -- with mounting horror -- over at Janice in bed next to him..
 * Additionally Ross and Joey wake up together on a sofa after having a nap. It's played off in the manner of the two drunken guys version.
 * How the episode "Last Night Gus" began in Psych with Lassie waking up on the couch in the Psych office on top of Woody the Coroner. The rest of it however fits perfectly
 * During the 2008 Oscars Ceremony, Jon Stewart wakes up next to a series of actors, finishing with George Clooney, who gently reassures him that it's not a dream and that he needs to go do the awards ceremony. Stewart doesn't seem that upset about the bedmate.
 * Star Trek the Next Generation features this. Picard wakes up with Q next to him, who goes on to talk about how "now, everything has changed". It Makes Sense in Context, but...
 * In Star Trek Voyager, the scene is given a bit of a Continuity Nod when Q does it to Janeway (except this time the indecent proposal is more serious). Janeway is not amused.
 * A Three's Company episode has Jack waking up from a party to find himself sharing a bed with Mr. Roper.
 * Happened in Firefly, with Simon and Kaylee on a couch in the mudder's tavern in Jaynestown. Kaylee actually teases Simon about "when [they] made love last night", but she's just messing with him because he always falls for it.
 * In the first episode of the comedy series Filthy Rich and Catflap, Richie wakes up in the morning, assumes he is alone and addresses a lengthy monologue to the camera. Then a huge fart is heard and his bedmate is revealed to be his drunken minder, Eddie.
 * Same actors as above: on The Young Ones, Rik once woke up to discover a woman in his bed, jumped to the obvious conclusion, and slipped downstairs to boast about his conquest. Subverted in that, once she woke up, the woman revealed that no sex was involved: she'd snuck into the house and fallen asleep on Rik's empty bed, into which he'd subsequently passed out from a night of drinking, oblivious to her presence.
 * Subversion: A hilarious Man/Woman sketch had Nick Frost wake up to find a woman in his bed, gasp in horror, get dressed and sneak downstairs. On the way down he sees a wedding photo of the two of them, and is even more horrified at his presumed drunken antics. Then, at the bottom of the stairs, he runs into his 8-year-old son and it all comes flooding back...
 * The much-loved episode of How I Met Your Mother, the "Pineapple Incident", has this as a premise. The comedy is stretched out as the girl Ted wakes up with isn't revealed until much later in the episode.
 * Not to mention in World's Greatest Couple, Barney wakes up next to, hilarity ensues.
 * In one episode of Ashes to Ashes, Alex Drake dreams she's in bed with an unseen man, whom she can't quite remember, but assumes to be Evan White because of the attraction she feels toward him. The dream is revisited in flashbacks throughout the episode, and at the end, the man is actually revealed to be, much to Alex's surprise.
 * In Season 5 of Las Vegas, this happens to Mike and Piper. Mike wakes up, looks over and sees Piper staring back at him. They scream. Then they look under the covers and see that they're naked. They scream again. Then they see the matching wedding rings on their hands. They scream once more.
 * Star Trek Voyager: "Non Sequitur"; Harry discovers he's not alone in bed. He's with a woman, with like... boobs and everything!
 * Allo Allo had LeClerc popping his head out from the covers of Fanny's bed.
 * In Gossip Girl Blair has a whole conversation with Serena while still in bed, mostly consisting of criticism and outright requests to leave. As soon as Serena finally takes the hint and leaves, the blanket is flipped off to reveal that Chuck had been down there the whole time - "telling" Blair good morning.
 * In Waterloo Road, after a scene where Steph Haydock and the lesbian French head dance in a Gay Bar, Steph wakes up in bed... and realises that the French head is in it too...
 * This is how the first series of The IT Crowd finishes: with three seperate Bedmate revelations.
 * Played for laughs so many times in Whose Line Is It Anyway. The "Slept with an Ugly Woman" Irish Drinking Song, twice on Scenes From a Hat alone (one was "Times When It Would Be Useful To Beam Up", the other was just "People You Don't Want to Wake Up Next To":
 * Played for laughs so many times in Whose Line Is It Anyway. The "Slept with an Ugly Woman" Irish Drinking Song, twice on Scenes From a Hat alone (one was "Times When It Would Be Useful To Beam Up", the other was just "People You Don't Want to Wake Up Next To":

Colin: TEACH ME TO SING LIKE YOU!!

Ryan: (popping up next to Colin) What's his problem?"


 * In Married With Children, Kelly drags the drunken Bud and Marcy together to trick them into thinking that they did it.
 * Used in season two of Dexter when it's revealed that Maria is sleeping with
 * In Leverage,
 * The Big Bang Theory 4th season finale has Penny waking up naked in bed with.
 * Turned Up to Eleven in The Secret Life of the American Teenager's season 4 episode "And Circumstance". The last ten minutes is completely saturated with it.
 * Played with in the season one finale of Eureka when Carter wakes up next to.
 * Also played with when Allison and Carter fall asleep together in Carter's bed, and wake up the next morning, no sex involved.
 * In the cold open of one Boston Legal episode, we see Denny Crane wake up in bed... next to Alan Shore. They both immediately freak out although they have slept together in the past, most notably when Denny helped Alan deal with his night terrors.
 * Happens in one episode of Living Single with Kyle and Max.
 * Happens in the Series 2 finale of Drop the Dead Donkey between Alex and Dave, much to both their horror, after a drunken Christmas party.

Music Videos

 * OK Go's remake of the Muppet Show theme song has three nested bedmate reveals. Each one has a different person/Muppet waking up convinced they shouldn't do that music video with the Muppets/OK Go/those dogs.

Theater

 * Lucky Stiff has the protagonists ending up in bed after a night of champagne.

Video Games

 * Played straight in the very beginning of Crimson Skies: High Road To Revenge, when protagonist Nathan Zachary wakes up next to an unnamed woman who doesn't appear for the rest of the game.
 * He doesn't seem surprised to be waking up next to her. Presumably, it was just a one-night stand.
 * The famous Jaw Drop scene on the "2nd - Day" in Catherine.
 * Also.

Web Comics

 * Boxer Hockey: Chuck gets one of these Much to his delight.
 * Least I Could Do: Rayne wakes up on January 1 hungover from a wild New Year party, and a voice behind him asks "Are you going to turn around?" Luckily for him, that voice is that of Cyndi Wang.
 * Happens to him again in this strip: "Not the sandwich I wanted to be the meat of"...
 * A variation in Shortpacked:
 * Done to Torg from Sluggy Freelance in a particularly sanity pulverizing fashion.
 * This User Friendly strip. A slight variation, in that it's later revealed that . Not that this prevents him from demanding "dinner and a movie" next time...
 * The very beginning of Freakangels embodies this trope, although it's about a woman, KK. Including improbable bed partner ("Please, God, don't let me have fucked a guy from the Lambeth Road")
 * Concession has roughly the Squickiest version conceivable.
 * Later happens to the same guy, who wakes up with three other people (two of them he's happy about, the third not so much).
 * Captain SNES uses the above-mentioned variation of this trope after Dr. Wily is elected Vice-President Evil to Haggar's President Buffoon. Wily wakes up one morning to discover Haggar in his bed...and complaining about Wily hogging all the covers.
 * Misfile: After a night of drowning their respective sorrows, Ash and Vashiel wake up in the same bed.
 * Scandinavia and The World: In this strip, Sweden wakes up next to Norway, Denmark... and Sister Finland.
 * Girls Next Door had this with Sarah and Jareth, after Sarah went out drinking with Christine. Hilarity Ensues.
 * Several times in Ménage à 3. For example with Gary and Sandra.
 * Done in Wapsi Square with Bud and Kevin.
 * Done twice in Coach Random. In one, it's just as hanky-panky is getting started when things take a strange turn.
 * Involked and subverted in Sinfest.
 * Subverted again? Played straight? Something.
 * The former trope image comes from part of a Badly Drawn Kitties story arc based around Lydia's birthday, where she gets drunk and wakes up naked next to Fisk.

Western Animation
"Chef: They'll wake up soon, and it's gonna be one ugly sight.
 * South Park has a variation with Eric Cartman and Ben Affleck. Well, Ben Afflek and Hennifer Hlopez (no, not that Jennifer Lopez), who happened to be possessing Cartman's hand at the time. Except not. It Makes Sense in Context. ...Well, not really.
 * Then there's "An Elephant Makes Love To A Pig";

Stan: I thought you said the wonder of mother nature was a beautiful thing.

Kyle: Yeah, when does mother nature go from beautiful, to ugly?

Chef: Usually about 9:30 in the morning, children."