Door Step Baby: Difference between revisions

{{examples}}

== Played Straight ==

* The eponymous Candy from ''[[Candy Candy]]'' and her best friend Annie were left on the doorstep of the orphanage "Pony Home" when they were babies.

* Kaito Doumoto in ''[[Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch]]'' has his first [[Heroic BSOD]] upon discovering a note from his parents explaining that they found him like this and took him in.

* Flute, from ''[[Violinist of Hameln]]'', was left in some villager's doorstep on a snowy day {{spoiler|by, supposedly, a dying soldier of her country, Sforzando}}. Subverted in that the house's owner refused to open the door, and the villagers who passed by the screaming baby in a basket purposefully averted their eyes; it was the Elder of Staccato who finally picked her up and took her home.

 

* [[Superman]] is arguably an instance of this trope. Of course, in this case, the doorstep is Kansas, and the note's either missing or undecipherable. In some versions it's more the [[Moses in the Bulrushes|Moses]] thing, with Kal-El being shot "to wherever", but, in most versions, Kal-El was deliberately sent to Earth specifically, which makes it a deliberate placing, just with an added multi-million light year shot-put effect in between (rather than laid on the doorstep, he was chucked there). There is even at least one incarnation where Jor-El sends Kal-El specifically to Kansas.

* The Silver Age ''[[The Flash|Flash]]'' was published for more than a decade before the Flash and his wife Iris discovered that Iris had actually been born in the far future to time-traveling parents who abandoned her as an infant on the doorstep of a 20th-century couple. Iris's 20th-century parents had never told her that she was a foundling, and they never suspected that she was from the future. Eventually, Iris was reunited with her next-millennium parents. This plot development was followed for a while, then dropped, and most readers either forgot about it or assumed that it had been retconned out of existence. When Iris was murdered in the 1980s, no mention was made of her far-future origins. A couple of years later, when the Flash comic book was due to be cancelled, Flash was apparently killed ... but a twist ending revealed that he and Iris were both still alive in the distant future with Iris's parents.

* [[Asterix]] finds a baby on his doorstep at the beginning of ''Asterix and Son''. {{spoiler|It turns out he's Caesarion (full name Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar), son of Cleopatra and Caesar.}}

* Swee' Pea wasn't left on a doorstop- he was delivered to [[Popeye]] in the mail. In fact, due to being in a box when delivered, Popeye thought the sound of his rattle meant there was a snake in the package, and was prepared to shoot the thing until he heard crying.

 

=== Films -- Animation ===

* This happens to Kris in ''[[Santa Claus Is Coming To Town]]''. The Burgermeister's guard is taking him to an orphanage, but he blows away in a snowstorm. He is then left with the Kringle Elves to avert the Winter Warlock.

* At the very beginning of ''[[Dinosaur]]'', Aladar's egg is delivered to Lemur Island by a Pterodactyl who apparently found said egg floating in a river just right after an Oviraptor dropped it, who apparantly stole the egg while his mother was trying to protect her nest from the film's [[Big Bad]], Carnotaurus.

 

=== Films -- Live Action ===

* In ''[[Breakfast On Pluto]]'', [[Cillian Murphy|Patrick/Kitten]] is left by his mother on the doorstep of his father—the priest. (He's placed with a foster family.)

* John from [[Charlie Chaplin]]'s ''[[The Kid]]'' is an interesting example. His mother left him in the car of a wealthy family, complete with a letter. When the criminals who ''stole the car'' discovered the baby, they dropped it off in an alley next to a trash can, where Charlie finds him.

* In ''[[Spaceballs]]'', Lone Starr told Princess Vespa he was placed on a doorstep of a monastery and raised by monks. The only knowledge of his parents is a [[Orphan's Plot Trinket|medallion]] with an unknown message carried with him.

* Kicks off the plot of ''[[Willow]]''.

{{quote|''Does it seem to you that anyone would take a newborn baby and row over it, until it was bruised black, cut off its hand, and leave it out in a bitter night on the steps of a charity home, to the care of strangers? That's what somebody did to me''}}

 

* In the ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|M*A*S*H]]'' episode "Yessir, That's Our Baby", a baby girl fathered by an American G.I. is abandoned by her Korean mother at the 4077th M*A*S*H. After the doctors try, unsuccessfully, to send the infant to the United States, they follow Father Mulcahy's advice and deposit her at a nearby monastery via a foundling wheel.

* In an episode of ''[[7th Heaven]]'', Simon helps a friend turn her newborn she can't take care of over to a hospital in a [[Very Special Episode|didactic script intended to publicize the existence]] of "safe haven" laws.

* In the episode "Safe Haven" of ''[[Criminal Minds]]'', a woman left her ''thirteen-year-old'' son at a hospital (see the [[Real Life]] section for how this was possible) because he was severely unhinged and she was afraid of him.

** In the episode "Soul Mates", the cop of the week asked where they found [[Insufferable Genius|Reid]]. [[Cool Old Guy|Rossi]] joked that he was left in a basket of the steps of the FBI.

 

=== Literature ===

** In one of the many parallels between {{spoiler|the mortal enemies}} the same happened to {{spoiler|Voldemort}} except he was left with an orphanage.

* This trope applies to the novel ''[[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (novel)|The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]'', in which Quasimodo is abandoned outside Notre Dame and Frollo takes him in out of kindness.

* [[Keith Laumer]] did this, although in his version the baby was a huge insect- or crustacean-looking thing and it took the army with lots of artillery to kill it—and ''then'' they decoded the message which read, "Please take good care of my little girl." Somewhere between [[Tear Jerker]] and [[Squick]] there.

* The [[Jacqueline Wilson]] novel ''[[Dustbin Baby]]'', about a Doorstop Baby (actually found abandoned in a bin, as the title suggests) who sets out to trace her past on the day of her 14th birthday.

* Inverted in a short story in ''[[Highlights]]''. A man who has recently come into a large amount of money discovers that it has been cursed, and the only way to lift the curse is to give the money away. He leaves the money, wrapped in a cloth, on the doorstep of an orphanage. The orphanage matron, upon seeing the bundle, assumes it to be a baby before she gets a closer look at the contents.

* In [[Christopher Moore]]'s ''[[Fool]]'', Pocket is left on the doorstep of an abbey as a baby.

* In [[Poul Anderson]]'s ''[[Three Hearts and Three Lions]]'', Holger Carlsen.

* In the book ''[[The Children On The Top Floor]],'' a television personality makes a Christmas Eve speech in which he says he envies all the families out there with children... and in the morning he finds ''four'' babies left on his doorstep.

* In [[Poppy Z. Brite]]'s ''Lost Souls'', Nothing is left on the doorstep of a human couple.

* Astronomer Carl Sagan's book "Shadows of our Forgotten Ancestors", sets this up as [[Book Ends]], the idea of ''humanity'' as a doorstop baby, an orphan raised by the laws of the universe and growing up to [[Ontological Mystery|wonder about its origins and how it got there]]. Only fragments of a note remain - the fossil record.

* Annabeth Chase from [[Percy Jackson]] is one.

* This is Otto's backstory in the [[H.I.V.E. Series]], being left outside an orphanage. The narrative mentions the staff are used to dealing with this kind of situation.

* The title character of the [[Cat Royal]] series was left on the steps of the Theatre Royal as a toddler. She mentions that the theatre owner, Mr Sheridan, probably only took her in because he was a bit drunk at the time.

* Milton from ''[[The Destiny Of Milton Gomrath]]'' was left on the steps of an orphanage as a baby.

* The only thing anybody knows about Ambrosio's origins in ''[[The Monk]]''.

* In [[Devon Monk]]'s ''[[Age of Steam|Dead Iron]]'', Rose's origin.

 

=== Music ===

* The protagonist of the [[David Bowie]] song "Day-In Day-Out": "She was born in a handbag/Love left on a doorstep..." Unfortunately, life never really gets any better as she grows to adulthood.

 

 

=== Tabletop Games ===

* ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' sourcebook ''Champions of Valor'' supports four such options as special backgrounds - generic "Monastery Orphan" and more specific "Orphan of the Yellow Rose", "Selûnite Foundling" and "Ward of the Triad", plus "[[Raised by Wolves|Child of the Unicorn]]".

 

 

=== Video Games ===

* This is Link's backstory in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time|The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time]]''.

* Leaving a baby on the doorstep of an orphanage lets you sneak inside the opened door to [[Kleptomaniac Hero|loot the place]] in ''[[Leather Goddesses of Phobos]]''.

 

=== Web Comics ===

* ''[[Dragon Mango]]'': Spoofed; the alchemist Cupcake [http://www.dragon-mango.com/comic/chapter02/dm02-22.htm explains] that she doesn't know exactly what race she is, because her adoptive mother and mentor, Chocolate Explosion, found her lying in a box on the doorstep. Her immediate reaction upon seeing the box: "I didn't order this!"

* In ''[[PvP]]'', Skull the Troll's diminutive cousin Sheky passes himself off as an abandoned infant (with a note to Skull to take care of him) so he can pickpocket the entire crew. He is found out and admits his real story.

 

=== Western Animation ===

* ''[[Wildfire (animation)|Wildfire]]'' left Princess Sara at the doorstep of her [[Muggle Foster Parents|foster father]], who {{spoiler|actually was her real father}}.

* ''[[The Looney Tunes Show]]'': Bugs does this to a de-aged Daffy at the end of "Casa de Calma".

 

=== Real Life ===

** Now we have 'em in Malaysia too, in the form of baby hatches, which are rather like the modern version of foundling wheels.

* A more nightmarish version happened in an episode of ''[[Rescue 911]]'', which ''actually happened''. A couple loggers discovered something by the side of the road and wondered what it was. One of then looked and found it was a bunch of blankets - and inside was a ''baby''. [[Fridge Horror|One could only imagine what would have happened if they didn't find them when they did]].

 

== Subversions ==

* This was already an established film trope in 1921, when D.W. Griffith subverts it in ''[[Orphans of the Storm]]''. Just before the French Revolution, a starving peasant couple in Paris decide to leave their baby at the church, since they can't feed her. The father takes the baby, but when he arrives at the church, there is already a baby there. Seeing the other baby not only makes him rethink abandoning his own, but he ends up going home with both of them. They grow up to be played by Lillian and Dorothy Gish.

* ''[[The Three Stooges]]'' took a baby off someone else's doorstep when they thought nobody was home to find it... The mom was only gone for five minutes, and [[Hilarity Ensues]].

* In "[[Kung Pow! Enter the Fist]]" the infant protagonist after being flung out a window durring a fight scene, rolls down a hill before coming to rest in front of an old woman. The elderly woman picks up the softly crying infant, rocks him in her arms, says "oh, so cute" and gently rolls him off the other side of the road down the hill again.

* The titular ''[[Norbit]]'' was a ''drive-by'' doorstop baby.

 

=== Literature ===

* Parodied in the children's book ''[[Bunnicula]]'', about a vampire rabbit that sucks the juice out of vegetables. The family finds him in a shoebox under a seat in a movie theater where they're watching a Dracula film, along with a note in an obscure [[Überwald]] dialect which the family cat translates as, "Take good care of my baby."

 

* The ''[[Father Ted]]'' [[Christmas Special]] begins with the priests finding a baby on their doorstep. As they prepare to take it in, the mother appears to announce she's made a mistake and takes the baby back. Ted muses about how [[Lampshade Hanging|they would have gotten into all kinds of hilarious situations]] while trying to take care of the baby. Dougal points out that it actually wouldn't have been all that funny, and Ted concurs.

* In one sketch from the Australian comedy series ''The D Generation'', a woman leaves her baby in a blanket on a suburban doorstep with a note. The homeowner peers out of the window and calls the bomb squad, who evacuate the area and [[Crosses the Line Twice|safely detonate]] [[Dead Baby Comedy|the 'suspicious package']].

 

 

=== Web Comics ===

* Horribly subverted in [http://www.explosm.net/comics/2381/ this] [[Cyanide & Happiness]] strip.

 

=== Real Life ===

 

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