High School Dance: Difference between revisions

** Other episodes involving dances -- both school and community event types -- include "Getting Davy Jones" (Marcia hastily promises that she can get the ex-Monkee to come to their junior high dance); "Jan, the Only Child" (a country hoedown, where the family practices a square dance); "The Subject Was Noses" (where a certain "Ooh, my nose" event results in Marcia's would-be boyfriend cancelling their dance date); and "Never Too Young" (the family plans to go to a Roaring 20's Party and do the Charleston, but only if Bobby hasn't contracted the mumps from 12-year-old babe Millicent).

* ''[[Family Matters]]'': With several episodes themed around high school dances, the most famous was arguably the one that introduced Steve Urkel to the world. The episode "Laura's First Date" aired December 15, 1989, and was similar to the ''Brady'' episode "Brace Yourself," in this case Laura unable to get her crush, Mark, to ask her to the dance; when he doesn't ask her and Laura frets about her predicament, the rest of the family pitches in to find Laura a dance date. It is her father, Carl, who makes the call that will forever change his life (and the course of the series): He calls up Urkel's dad to set up the date.

** In "A Gordo Story", the "boy has to ask a girl as his date" theme is used. Gordo asks a girl he likes to go to the school dance with him, but she turns him down because he is too short.

** It's a plot point in "Just Friends", too, where Lizzie is nervous about asking Ethan to the Sadie Hawkins dance.

* In ''[[Naturally Sadie]]'', when Sadie was planning the school dance for komodo dragons. The end product was a room festooned in blue-and-white streamers, a refreshments table complete with punch bowl, and dancing so G-rated the teens barely touched hands.

* All of the ''[[Degrassi]]'' series have had at least one or two of these per season. There might be drugs or alcohol, but never any sexual subtext. Mostly just relationship drama.

** And ''other'' kinds of drama; the school burned down at one, the police were called to one for a knife incident, a gangbanger shot up the most recent prom. It's been said in the fandom that Degrassi dances are cursed.

* ''[[My So-Called Life]]'' has the "World Happiness Dance" in "Life of Brian". The only two characters who actually dance there are Rickie and Delia.

** That was a much more realistic example than the others on this list, since at most real High School Dances, there are just as many kids sitting/standing around on the sidelines and talking as there are kids actually dancing.

 

 

* The Sylvers had a disco song that shares the title of this trope -- if you can't figure that out, the song was "High School Dance" (about just that). The song was a Top 20 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in the spring of 1977.

* The Statler Brothers' 1972 country hit "Do You Remember These," a nostalgic look back at the 1950s, includes a lyric about "the Sadie Hawkins dance" (a common high school-dance type, this being a girl-ask-boy event).

* "Teenage Dirtbag" by Wheatus:

{{quote| Man I feel like mould<br />

* An episode of ''[[The Simpsons]]'' involves Lisa being pressured into planning a school dance at the request of some of her classmates. After a brief "oh no, I need a date!" period, she got her courage up, entered the gym -- only to be met with boys on one side of the gym and girls on the other. Of course -- it's only elementary school, not high school!

* ''[[Family Guy]]'': A running gag in the series involves homely Meg frequently asking a popular jock to a high school dance, only for the boy to come up with some crazy excuse (or in at least one situation, fake his shooting of a 2-year-old brother) so he doesn't have to go with her. One episode -- "Barely Legal" -- actually saw Meg make it to the prom, bringing a dog (literally ... Brian) as her date.

** That and Nightcrawler accidentally brings a bunch of monsters from another dimension to crash the dance. Hey, it's X-Men.

* ''[[The Spectacular Spider-Man]]'', where, after agonizing over who to bring Peter has to go leave Mary Jane in the lurch to fight Green Goblin. ''What a twist!''

** The 'techno party' of "Final Mix" -- Aelita is upset that Jérémie refuses to attend; Yumi and Sissi fight for Ulrich's attention.

** The 'End of Year Dance' in "The Key" -- Sissi asks Ulrich, Ulrich accepts to make Yumi (who he thinks is going with William) jealous, Yumi turns down William at the same moment; Odd can't get a date because of his reputation as a [[Kidanova]]... and then none of them actually end up going anyway.

* The series finale of ''[[Clone High]]'' was a giant two part episode that lampshaded every prom-related trope there is. [[Word of God]] said that had the series gone on, it would have revealed that there are dozens of different dances and proms throughout the year, and that the finale just took place during 'winter prom'.

* ''[[Daria]]'' used the school dance as the "uncool" component in a [[Party Scheduling Gambit]].

* ''[[The Venture Bros]]'' wrapped up their season with one, though it played with it alot:The Prom was homeschool so the only guests were The Boys themeslves, Hank's friend Dermott, Triana as Dean's date(though just as friends) with the rest being Dr.Ventures freinds and paid escorts. The only small bit of teen drama is Dean being jealous of Triana's boyfriend and getting tipsy on punch, causing her to leave. The three boys head out after her and go with Dermott's crazy plan to burn her name on giant straw letters in the lawn while Dean dresses up as a ghost and ends up getting mistaken for a KKK member.