Twenty-Four-Hour Party People/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Basic Trope: A party or dance scene has nameless extras as partygoers.
  • Played Straight: Alice and Bob throw a party. They invite their 5 closest friends...and, apparently, 35 casual acquaintances.
  • Exaggerated: The guest list includes 5 close friends, and 100 random people Alice and Bob have never met.
  • Downplayed: Alice and Bob invite 5 close friends. Only 1 or 2 random people come.
  • Inverted: Alice and Bob invite only close friends and/or relatives.
  • Justified: Alice and Bob have lots of friends, but only 5 that make regular appearances in-series.
    • The five close friends they invited told their friends about it.
  • Subverted: Alice and Bob invite lots of people to the party -- all of whom they know.
  • Double Subverted: But at least half of them are casual acquaintances, not "friends" in the conventional sense.
  • Parodied: Alice and Bob randomly hand out invitations, and all are rejected with people saying, "Alice and Bob who?"
  • Deconstructed: A few of their more casual acquaintances invite a couple of friends, and they invite a couple of friends, and before Alice and Bob know it, the neighborhood is in their house, trashing the joint, stealing stuff, setting stuff on fire, making out everywhere, and forcing the cops to come and shut down the party.
  • Reconstructed: Alice and Bob kick out the rowdier gatecrashers, while the rest of the guests have a fantastic time getting to know completely new people.
  • Zig Zagged: Some of the party guests are close friends or relatives, others are random strangers who came because they had nothing better to do on Friday nights.
  • Lampshaded: "Alice, who are all these people?"
  • Averted: Alice and Bob only invite their closest friends and/or relatives.
  • Enforced: The writers want to make sure people know it's a party, by emphasizing the large number of guests.
    • The party episode of the long-running sitcom Alice and Bob is a series finale and the party scene is a Continuity Nod to all the characters whom they've met over the years.
  • Invoked: Alice and Bob just moved to the town, and are hoping to meet people in the town, so they put up flyers advertising an open-house party and take out an ad in the church bulletin for said party.
  • Defied: Alice and Bob only hang out with their Limited Social Circle and refuse to invite anyone else to their party.
  • Discussed: "Alice and Bob are having a party? Excellent, they always have such an eclectic mix of people! God knows where they find them all..."
  • Conversed: "I wish you could hire an army of Living Props to mill around in the background in real life"
  • Played For Laughs: Alice and Bob don't know any of these people, but behave as if they're best friends.
    • Every last person in town comes to the party, as well as five birds, three dogs, and one bear.
  • Played For Drama: See "Deconstructed."
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