Drop-In Character: Difference between revisions
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A neighbour who drops in on a regular basis and mooches around. He or she is often a friend of one of the household kids who is either very annoying or very cute. Because he or she is the neighbours' kid and we never meet his or her parents, he can exhibit all sorts of zany behaviour without the need for too much explanation.
In most cases, the main characters have given up on trying to get the drop-in characters to knock, a la Kramer from ''[[Seinfeld]]'', or Lenny and Squiggy on ''[[Laverne and Shirley]].'' Considering how much of a pain in the ass this sort of drop-in tends to be, [[Fridge Logic|the viewer is sure to wonder]] whether the host [[Your Door Was Open|has ever thought to ''just lock the door'']], but don't expect that to be addressed in the show. It's exceptionally rare to even see a [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshade hung]] here.
Sometimes the drop-in character's arrival is presaged by an ironic foreshadowing—see [[Inadvertent Entrance Cue]].
Compare [[Your Door Was Open]] (when the neighbor can come and go as he pleases because nothing is there to stop him) and [[Stealth Hi Bye]] (when the neighbor suddenly just appears or disappears without explanation).
For a different sort of [[A Worldwide Punomenon|"drop in character"]], see [[Face Heel Turn]] or [[Moral Event Horizon]]. For yet another different sort, see [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute]].
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== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
* Elmo, the neighborhood kid who often drops in on ''[[Blondie (comic strip)|Blondie]]'''s Dagwood, usually while he's trying to nap. On at least one occasion this was lampshaded by Dagwood saying, "I've got to put a lock on that front door."
* An inversion of this, of course, would be ''[[Dennis the Menace US|Dennis the Menace (US)]]'', whose title character frquently dropped in unannounced (and unwelcomed) on crotchety neighbor Mr. Wilson.
* ''[[Sally Forth (syndicated strip)||Sally Forth]]'' has one of these in Faye, the best friend of the Forths' daughter Hillary. She often pops up at odd times, and the strip will lampshade this by having Sally or Ted sarcastically ask whether she's moved in with them.
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