Girl of the Week

"Elliot: Don't go too quickly, or like I said, you'll just end up with another beautiful girl! JD: "Dating my laptop." Elliot: Dating your laptop. Thank you."

- Scrubs, "My Half-Acre"

Like the Temporary Love Interest, this is a way to give the hero some romance for the episode while still allowing the focus of the show to be on the plot or the arc, but the Girl of the Week does not have to die at the end. The girl will be gone by the next episode, possibly because of a wacky misunderstanding a la the Three Is Company plotline, or a very minor flaw, but sometimes just not showing up again, with no explanation offered. This relationship will generally be rockier or less passionate than that with the Temporary Love Interest, allowing its end to be less dramatic. If someone is noted for getting extremely passionate about every Girl of the Week, sincerely believing each one in turn to be the love of their life but then forgetting all about them a week later, they're a Serial Romeo. Sometimes, particularly in a Walking the Earth series, there's no relationship, but the girl is shown having an obvious interest in the hero (which may be mutual) before he inevitably moves on.

If she survives longer than her initial appearance, Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome is likely.

Related to Disposable Love Interest.

If you were looking for Monster of the Week, Well, This Is Not That Trope.

Anime & Manga

 * In City Hunter, Ryo Saeba accepts assignments almost exclusively from beautiful young women, most of whom are never seen again in further episodes. During the rare instances when Ryo accepts a job from a man, it would usually involve protecting a young woman.
 * Subverted and gender-swapped in Dirty Pair - the guy of the week rarely sticks around once he learns who Kei and Yuri are.
 * In Dragon Ball, there are quite a few Girls of the Week during the Walking the Earth segments. Even more are added during the filler episodes. Strangely enough, Goku's wife Chi-Chi is originally introduced as a Girl of the Week and when she makes her second appearance in the manga over a hundred chapters later, there's a Lampshade Hanging where no one can remember her.
 * The manga Eat Man also featured many of these, most of them kinda underaged.
 * Galaxy Angel parodies this; in each of Ranpha's episodes, she falls over a new hot guy, but they all look and sound the same.
 * This theme is basically the premise of Golden Boy.
 * The anime series King of Bandit Jing offered this as a feature, with a different pretty girl in each of the Adventure Towns the titular hero journeyed to.
 * More of a Girl Of The Year than a Girl of the Week: In any of the Lupin III TV specials, at least one of the newly-introduced characters (whether good, evil or neutral) is female, starts building a relationship with one of the main characters and won't be mentioned in another special ever again.
 * Not so much Girl of the Week as Girl of the Movie but the Naruto movies seem to love this trope. Naruto's had at least one older woman giving him a kiss, a Damsel in Distress literally offering to have his babies (which, due to the way she phrased it, Naruto unwittingly accepts), and in the second Shipuuden movie he ends up with the current Girl of the Week clutching him to her chest (it would be Marshmallow Hell if she had bigger... tracts of land) while tearfully claiming that she'd never leave him... Being non-canonical of course, not one of them ever shows up again.
 * Some of the more cohesive filler arcs during the gap between the end of Part 1 and beginning of Shippuden also brought this into play. This adds two female daimyos, a handful of kunoichi, and one girl with a bad skin condition to Naruto's roster. Of these, exactly one has appeared as a background character since then and she was rooting for Gaara.
 * Pokémon, subverted (Brock never has even a slim chance of actually getting the girl).
 * Well, almost never. There have been some very rare instances of girls actually being interested in Brock, but they always go their separate ways by the end of the episode anyway.
 * Also subverted in that half the girls are either Nurse Joy or Officer Jenny, who all look/sound/act the same.
 * Girls of the Season of this series range from Misty, May, Dawn, etc. and some are never shown again.
 * Makoto of Sailor Moon usually fell for each minor male character shortly after their introduction.
 * And they all remind her of an ex-friend, even
 * In Princess Tutu's second season, this trope is combined with Victim of the Week to give a new conquest in many episodes.
 * Cobra from Space Adventure Cobra often gets a new female sidekick/LoveInterest in each of the one-shot stories.
 * Amelia in the Trigun movie Badlands Rumble.
 * The ACTUAL PLOT of The World God Only Knows, where the main character's job is to make the Girl of the Week fall in love with him, so he may extract the spirit possessing them from their soul. With his gaming skills.
 * Increasingly subverted as the story progresses, as he finds himself involved with some of the girls again.

Film
"Austin: I can't believe Vanessa, my bride, my one true love, the woman who taught me the beauty of monogamy, Wait a tick, that means I'm single again! Oh behave!"
 * The James Bond film franchise is famous for its Bond Girls, the disposable companions that Bond acquires in each of his various adventures. Bond Girls have a very high mortality rate, and, with some exceptions, never appear in more than one movie. The only exception is "Trench, Sylvia Trench" from the first two movies, who perhaps was spared for giving Bond his catchphrase (though she never "made it" with Bond, either). Unless of course we count Ms. Moneypenny (and Judi Dench's M, since the actress considers herself a "bond Girl"). Despite the mortality rate, almost every film will feature at least one Bond girl surviving, and given how many girls Bond tends to get- even in a single film- versus the amount who actually die, maybe the ratio isn't so bad after all.
 * Vesper Lynd, in the 2006 version of Casino Royale, is the only character to have a direct effect on the plot of a second film (Quantum of Solace, in which she casts a long shadow but appears onscreen for all of two seconds).
 * Bond's murdered wife Teresa di Vicenzo also gets brought up every now and then, but always indirectly (possibly to hide the Continuity Snarl of Pierce Brosnan being called upon to mourn a woman George Lazenby married almost thirty years earlier), though this was the unspoken reason Bond was so pissed at Blofeld in the immediate sequel, Diamonds Are Forever.
 * Teresa would have appeared in the film after On Her Majesty's Secret Service and be killed early in the film. Before filming of Lazenby's first film ended he had already decided not to do another, so she was killed at the end of the film.
 * Maud Adams, meanwhile, has appeared as two different Bond girls: Andrea Anders in The Man with the Golden Gun, and the title character in Octopussy. The former doesn't make it.
 * Austin Powers. As a Bond spoof, it, too, has its own Bond Girls.
 * In the first film, Vanessa Kensington was a Love Interest with a full back story that made her complex and sympathetic. Because Mike Myers only intended the film to do modestly, Austin learned An Aesop about how life as a Casanova was far less satisfying in The Nineties, and underwent significant Character Development to be with her. After the character became a phenomenon and sequels were planned, the franchise underwent Flanderization from a quirky, sentimental comedy into Denser and Wackier Farce. Vanessa was Retconed out of the picture, and this trope was played straight with Felicity Shagwell, Ivana Humpalot, Dixie Normus and Foxy Cleopatra.


 * The Pink Panther had several:
 * Original: Mme. Clouseau -- she divorced her inspector husband for Sir Charles Litton;
 * Shot: Maria Gambrelli
 * Inspector Clouseau: Lisa Morrell
 * Strikes Again: Olga
 * Revenge: Simone
 * Subverted in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, where the original love interest returns as a major character.
 * It's even revealed  and.
 * There's also a line that justifies why it was played straight in the first three films. Indiana tells the love interest that it didn't last with any of the other girls because they all had the same problem: "They weren't you."
 * Not to mention the fact that when they meet in the first movie, they've already had a past relationship,
 * The original Batman films. Batman had Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger), Batman Returns had Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Batman Forever had Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman).
 * Batman and Robin had Julie Madison (Elle Macpherson). And that just proves how pivotal she is to the plot.
 * Although, both Vicki and Catwoman are given an explanation as to where they went. Bruce told Selina that Vicki couldn't handle his double life, and.
 * A earlier draft of the script for Batman and Robin had

Literature

 * Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser series employed this trope. At least one of the women left her people to join Fafhrd, but where is she in the next book?...
 * She's there just long enough to suffer Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome, as I recall.
 * Then, there is a story where they set out, full of vim, certain that they would bump into someone from their old adventures -- and owing to the wrath of certain gods, meet up with girl of the week after girl of the week, and everyone of them had made her own life and rejects them both. (Until the very end, where abject humiliation succeeds in winning the two they least wanted to meet.)
 * Though The Twain both end up more or less as faithful (more or less) married husbands in the last stories, set on Rime Isle.
 * The Gor novels (when Tarl isn't pining for Talena or Vella) tend to have a Slave Girl Of The Book, who Tarl teaches to love her slavery. By the next book she's either in his slave harem and (almost) never mentioned again or sold off to someone who is her "ideal master."
 * Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian does not always get a girl. But when he does, she vanishes without a trace before the next story.
 * Justified in that there are huge gaps in time between many stories, and that they weren't written in chronological order. Conan had several lengthy relationships, and eventually married. Also before his marriage Conan is specified to run out of money a lot.
 * Thomas Lewellyn, of Will Thomas's Barker and Lewellyn Victorian-era mysteries, will fall in love at least once a book, but it never works out. (Then again, it never gets far- twice he's warned off by the young lady's father or guardian and immediately gives up on the matte and twice it turns out she's seeing someone else and lied about it. The one time he manages to entertain serious thoughts of a relationship until the end of the book? Turns out . Oops.)
 * The Jennifer Morgue discusses, lampshades, and generally plays hell with this trope: the opposition is using a Hero-trap geas, meaning that all efforts to oppose him will be funneled into the Theory of Narrative Causality; since he cast himself as the villain, he can only be successfully resisted by a James Bond archetype, which is played by Bob. He is quickly paired up with a female Black Chamber agent, making her a Bond girl.
 * Bernie Rhodenbarr, Lawrence Block's Gentleman Thief protagonist, sleeps with at least one female love interest per novel, and none of them reappear or are mentioned again after that. The closest person in Bernie's life is Carolyn Kaiser, a lesbian pet-groomer who describes herself as his "minion", and is Platonic Life Partners with him.
 * Bertie Wooster runs through love interests quickly and frequently ends up engaged (often against his will), but never actually gets married because Status Quo Is God.

Live Action TV
"Josh: Lucy might end up being the girl you date for more than three weeks"
 * Virtually every Dom Com with teen-aged characters has or has had stories where one of the male or female teen-aged characters would become involved in a (almost always, temporary) relationship. The catalyst to the relationship's failure -- usually by episode's end -- provided that episode's Aesop.
 * Other times, the date would be successful, but -- since most of the family sitcoms didn't have story arcs -- the relationship would end without explanation and never be referred to again.
 * The Girl of the Week was frequently used on Magnum, P.I.. In fact, when they weren't Girl of the Week episodes, they were probably Temporary Love Interest episodes.
 * Pretty much a staple of PI series from the 50's to the 80's (e.g. Vegas)
 * Knight Rider.
 * The guys in The Professionals never have the same girl for more than one episode. Generally, if Girl of the Week is blonde, she will be dumb and annoying. If she's brunette, she will be mildly intelligent, but still in need of looking after. Most notable Girls of the Week are Ann in Involvement (Doyle's girlfriend) and Marikka in Fall Girl (Bodie's girlfriend).
 * Hogan's Heroes did this a lot. The women could be German civilians, members of the underground, foreigners, or even German officers, and the Heroes would still go for them. However, the only recurring women were Tiger and Marya. Even Klink got a few women, although the one non-spy lady wound up leaving with Burkhalter by the end of the episode.
 * Billy from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers had enough of these to give almost any other character on this list a run for their money. He got more romantic subplots than any other Ranger and probably still holds the record as the franchise's biggest in-canon stud.
 * Every romantic interest on Silver Spoons for anyone besides Kate and Ricky's father Edward.
 * Seinfeld also often used Girl of the Week. Though the increasingly petty reasons those relationships ended (liking a certain commercial, eating peas one at a time, having "man hands," etc.) could be considered Lampshade Hanging.
 * They actually did hang a lampshade in one episode where Elaine asked Jerry, who is worrying about his new girlfriend, "What are you worried about? You're dating a new girl, like, every week."
 * In the first season of Beverly Hills, 90210, many episodes focused on Brandon's Girl of the Week. Late in the season, Brenda actually commented on it. (See: Lampshade Hanging)
 * Sometimes this would flirt with "Very Special Episode" territory, since most of the girls Brandon hooked up with had some kind of "issue" connected to them, eg., the girl with the baby, the black girl, the racist girl--never let it be said Brandon wasn't an equal opportunity dater.
 * The Six Million Dollar Man - Steve Austin made out with a lot more women than just Jamie Sommers and Farrah Fawcett....
 * The repeated use of Girls of the Week in later seasons of Sliders was criticized by fans, although they were usually temporary love interests since most of the time they died tragically at the end of the episode.
 * The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. featured several Girls of the Week. Brisco got kissed by many beautiful women, but his heart always belonged to Dixie Cousins.
 * Most early seasons of Frasier rarely had Frasier Crane with a girlfriend who stayed around longer than an episode; sometimes they didn't even break up, she simply wasn't there any more an episode later. In later seasons, the girlfriend might stay for a mini-arc but would likely be gone after. Often a focus of Lampshade Hanging as Frasier obsessed about his inability to commit. In one memorable episode, most of the former love interests made a cameo in a Dream Sequence on the subject.
 * All of the main male characters of the Star Trek spinoffs (even including that main male character) got at least one Girl of the Week (and occasionally Crusher and Troi would get a Guy Of The Week). As for the original? They were all hogged by Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. Mostly Kirk.
 * Lies! Chekov once got a girl. She didn't even die.
 * Scotty once got a girl too. Really, the only regular male character on TOS who never got a Girl of the Week was Sulu.
 * Oh my!
 * This was such a common event that characters who keep getting the Girl of the Week in a TV series are sometimes referred to as 'Kirk' or 'a Kirk', either as criticism or compliment, often by geeky characters. See various episodes of Stargate Atlantis as an example, with Rodney McKay calling John Shepherd 'Kirk' after he has met and conquered the Girl of the Week - but then he's jealous! The epitome of this was when Shephard tried to hit on Rodney's married sister in the episode 'McKay and Mrs Miller' (S3 E08).
 * This specific example was hilariously lampshaded in the In Living Color skit The Wrath of Farrakhan. The line that had me crying with laughter?  'You even take the ugly ones, Captain!' 
 * The Saint, especially during Ian Ogilvy's time as the hero.
 * Bergerac (the detective from the island of Jersey, not Cyrano) was a more constant type of chap. He went through a girlfriend per season.
 * Quantum Leap loved this trope - justifying it in that Sam's scrambled brain would pick up on the feelings of the person he replaced and that his pursuit would set the GOTW and the person Sam leapt into "on the right path".
 * Besides which, unless it was a two-parter Sam would be forcibly "leaped" out of the situation, therefore he couldn't have an ongoing relationship with any of them.
 * A common trope on The Wild Wild West.
 * The Monkees often had a token female love interest for one of the guys (but mostly for the cute heartthrob and Chick Magnet, Davy Jones.)
 * Sometimes, it was one of the Monkees themselves who acted as the Girl of the Week, whenever they so hilariously Disguised in Drag.
 * Most of the episodes of Flight of the Conchords, mainly because most of the duo's songs are love songs. Mel is the only regular female character, and she's a stalker that they cannot stand. The only recurring girlfriends are Sally (3 episodes) and Coco (2).
 * Possibly Lampshaded with the song "Carol Brown", in which Jemaine imagines being sung at by a choir of his ex-girlfriends...all of whom we've never seen before.
 * Drake from Drake and Josh. There eventually came an episode where Drake does wish and attempts to have a committed relationship, but we never see this girl again either. The guy's pick-ups change so much that Josh has even commented and/or mixed up some names to remember.
 * This was even lampshaded at one point...


 * Used extensively in the Spiritual Sequel iCarly. Many of these can't imply anything other than that Spencer basically has sex with the girl and she slinks off the next day never to be seen again.
 * The rest of the gang have had: Valerie, Melanie, Griffin, Jake, Jonah, Shane, Pete and even Carly/Freddie (to each other) show up like this. Spencer has more than the Power Trio combined. One notable example was Pete, whom Sam could be argued to have succeeded in getting him, only for it to Snap Back next week.
 * A few episodes of the Lee Van Cleef/Timothy Van Patten series The Master that appeared on Mystery Science Theater 3000 followed this trope to a tee, the first featuring a young Demi Moore. They weren't all pining for Tim, but there was always a young woman or two, of variable relevance to the plot.
 * MacGyver, especially in the early seasons.
 * Time Trax had very few episodes without one of these.
 * A very commonly used trope in The Sixties spy series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (befitting the series's status as a James Bond knockoff). Usually the GotW wound up in the arms of suave operator Napoleon Solo, but the occasional episode would give her to distaff fan favorite Illya Kuryakin.
 * In the early seasons of Monk, the title character's assistant, Sharona, would often have a Guy of the Week. He was usually revealed to be either the murderer or some other criminal.
 * Stargate Atlantis is filled with this. Ascended Ancients, non-ascended Ancients, Princesses, Female Starship Captains, etc etc.
 * Likewise, Stargate SG-1 had its fair share, including one episode where O'Neill  a woman who is never seen again.
 * How I Met Your Mother. How many candidates have we had for the mother, now? A few dozen? And let's not even get into Barney's numerous conquests.
 * Thirty Rock has girls/boys of the season for both Liz and Jack. They also tend to break up with people around the same time. It's eerie.
 * Fans of Forever Knight referred to this phenomenon as "Neck of the Week."
 * In The Adventures of Pete and Pete, Big Pete had several Girls Of The Week, especially in the last season.
 * Milked for all it was worth in an episode of Wizards of Waverly Place where everyone is thrilled that Hollywood Nerd Justin is dating someone, and he rattles off a list of Girl of the Week's that's been with, only for his brother to say"Nope, don't rememember them."
 * Frequently used in Disney Channel shows.
 * Any of Zack's love interests on Saved by the Bell that wasn't Kelly, Tori, or Stacy. Including Lisa, even though she was a main character for the entire run of the series, Slater's sister (never seen before or after), and the homeless girl that moved into his house with her father.
 * Little Joe on Bonanza was an early example of this.
 * Supernatural being a Walking the Earth series has quite a lot of this
 * The cast of Buffy has a handful of these for both genders: Buffy's one date with Owen, who she has to dump because living in her world would get him killed; Cordelia has several of these in seasons 1 and 2. Not to mention Xander's tendency to have possible love interests turn out to be demons trying to kill him - one of the few instances where Girl of the Week and Monster of the Week are actually one and the same.
 * The A-Team had tons of these, and they almost always ended up with Face, except for a handful of times when they ended up with Murdock.
 * In the last couple of series of the original run of Doctor Who, Ace seemed to find a new young female best friend to hang out with almost everywhere (and everywhen) they went. The level of subtext varied, but was later confirmed to be deliberate with at least some of them.
 * Really? Two and A Half Men anyone? Girl of the week is probably an understatement, seeing how Charlie has even had more than 1 per day.
 * A few characters on Babylon 5 had partners-of-the-week, generally justified by a mix of the characters being career military or politicians, or by the space station being a major travel junction.
 * Jeffrey Sinclair, the first commander, had Carolyn Sykes in The Pilot, with Catharine Sakai being another on-again-off-again girlfriend in the series proper Sakai notably had the ability to recite Tennyson and make it sound incredibly sexy.
 * Catherine Sakai doesn't meet the strict definition of a Girl of the Week, as she appeared in 3 episodes and their story was continued in a novel.
 * Dr. Stephen Franklin had several one-off romantic interests, though it is implied that at least a few of these relationships continued Out of Focus after they were no longer important to the plot.
 * Centauri ambassador Londo Mollari not only had a Girl of the Week, but he also had three wives (all at once, perfectly legal on his homeworld). He ends up divorcing two of the wives and then the girlfriend
 * Carmen on The George Lopez Show averted this in that most of her boyfriends lasted for two episodes or more, and the break-up was usually explained.
 * For the first few seasons, Shawn from Boy Meets World had this. Even in episodes where they tried to establish a back story of a serious relationship, you only saw the girl for one episode. Eventually they lampshaded it in the episode where he finally takes a permanent girlfriend who sticks around for most of the rest of the series.
 * Averted hard with Peter Gunn. Pete had a steady girlfriend in Edie, the local nightclub singer.

Radio

 * At least the radio show of Have Gun Will Travel has the main character Paladin returning from his adventures to a new Girl of the Week. Subverted in that he wasn't always successful in the attempt.
 * Harry Lime almost always had one of these (generally some girl he was attempting to scam) in The Many Lives Of Harry Lime.

Video Games

 * Ratchet from the Ratchet and Clank series, seems to be quite the ladies man for a short furry dude. It started mainly in the second game, first with Angela Cross, Sasha Phyronix in the third game (she made a cameo in the fourth), a character named Hydrogirl offered Ratchet to 'come hook her up' if he was ever near her home planet at the end of the fourth game, the most recent games seem to have Talwyn Apogee in this role.
 * Clank himself is probably more successful. Hell, the dude literally was a robot James Bond in his big-screen movie role.
 * Dante from the Devil May Cry series had one for almost each game. The first had Trish, the second had Lucia and the third (a prequel) had Lady. The fourth game subverts this by bringing back Trish and Lady at the same time. Lucky bastard. Hey like Dante says "In the end, we are all satisfied".
 * The Uncharted series both fits and subverts this trope. In the first game Elena Fisher is the main love interest for Nathan Drake. The second has Elena absent at first and instead has an even older flame, Chloe Frazer supposedly rekindling her relationship with Drake. Halfway through the game, Drake runs into Elena which starts a love triangle of sorts. At the end
 * Lampshaded in Elena's first encounter with Drake and Chloe in Among Thieves. "Elena Fisher, last year's model."
 * Sonic the Hedgehog has this played straight and averted, depending on the continuity.
 * In the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog series, Sonic had a new love interest every other episode. Averted on the rare occasion when his job was to set the Girl of the Week up with her true love and to save her from Robotnik's advances. He "married" Robotnik himself disguised as said love interest.
 * He also hooked up a former Girl of the Week with Robotnik's son, which worked because they were both robots.
 * Completely averted in SEGA's Sonic for obvious reasons, where he has best-friend of the week instead.
 * Solid Snake had a different potential love interest in the earlier Metal Gear games which culminated with Meryl in MGS1 (the previous ones being Diane in MG1 and Holly in MG2). This was subverted in subsequent installments, with Snake having no real love interest in MGS2 (going as far as to dismiss Olga as a potential love interest by claiming that he's "tired of tomboys") and in MGS4 he loses Meryl to Akiba of all people (which upset quite a few Snake/Meryl fans). He still got quite a few ladies after him in the non-canon games, if you count Chris Jenner, Teliko Friedman, and Venus. Out of all these girls, the only ones whose affections are truly reciprocated are Meryl, Chris and (depending on how you interpret their relationship) Teliko - Diane won't admit she admires Snake, Venus flirts with Snake but Snake turns her down, and while Snake agrees to go out with Holly he loses interest in her pretty much immediately afterwards and dumps her.
 * Ys's heroine changes each game. Some are seen again in the sequels, but none of them ever get the guy.
 * Ys's heroine changes each game. Some are seen again in the sequels, but none of them ever get the guy.

Web Original

 * In the TV Tropes original series Echo Chamber, Tom starts dating Porn Girl, but for some reason, doesn't realize the relationship is doomed. Dana is not fooled.

Web Serial Novel

 * Sapphire: Ivanka, Michiru, and Élodie.
 * Averted in Episode II. would fit this trope, but

Western Animation

 * In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Zuko, or better yet Sokka, has multiple love interests.
 * The abridged series has Sokka proudly declare "I got hos in different area codes" when this is brought up.
 * Interestingly enough, was originally intended to be this, but was brought back and made a permanent love interest due to fandom demand.
 * Suki is an example of First Girl Wins while Mai is an example of Victorious Childhood Friend.
 * Tammy the squirrel and Foxglove the bat in Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers. There were others too, including Sparky, a rare example of a "Boy of the week", for Gadget. It was a fairly regular trope in the show.
 * Irene, for Terry in Batman Beyond. Melanie comes off as this in her initial appearance, but came back a few times.
 * On Daria, Quinn could basically have a new boyfriend every week, along with her usual harem, the Three J's. Daria herself had one Boy of the Week in Ted Dewitt-Clinton, though it was more of just an Odd Friendship with rather obvious Ship Tease. Jane had one in Nathan the retrophile.
 * On The Simpsons, Bart and Lisa have occasional love interests, or at least someone romantically interested in them. In Lisa's case, for example, there's Nelson Muntz, Colin from The Simpsons Movie, Thelonious from "Trilogy of Error" ("The esoteric appeal is worth the beatings"), and even The Ditz.
 * The same is true for Brian, Stewie, Chris, and even Meg of Family Guy, and Fry and Leela of Futurama, although Fry and Leela have been in an on-again/off-again relationship since the post-movie seasons started (the on-again/off-again part was lampshaded at one point).
 * The episode "That Sinking Feeling" from Phineas and Ferb features Baljeet and his childhood friend Mishti. The titular brothers attempt to create romance for the two during the episode (even though Isabella mistakenly thinks it's for her), and it looks like it worked at the end (kinda). Too bad she's never seen again.
 * Candace got one in "A Hard Day's Knight." Interestingly, he looked almost identical to her usual Love Interest, Jeremy; since that episode takes place while the family is on vacation the writers presumably just realized they needed a replacement.
 * Subverted with Vanessa's boyfriend Johnny, who seemed like this at first but was revealed to be officially dating Vanessa a season and a half later. Stacy has also had Chad and Coltrane, though the latter is implied to be her on-and-off boyfriend.
 * Jimmy Two-Shoes gives us Schmeloise and Areanna, both to Jimmy. Justified in that Areanna ran off as soon as she escaped her tower while Schmeloise ended up exploding after Heloise reprogrammed her.
 * James Bond Jr. is said to have "learned the game from his uncle James".