History Main / DoorstopBaby

This title is a [[JustForPun pun]] on Doorstep Baby, and is ''not'' to be confused using a baby as a doorstop. For that, you're looking for HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood or HumanDoorstop.

* Murdoc Niccals of ''Music/{{Gorillaz}}'' was abandoned on his father's doorstep, presumably by his MissingMom. Noodle, aged eight, was left on the doorstep of Kong Studios in a FedEx crate, [[InstantHomeDelivery seconds after Murdoc finished placing the ad for a guitarist]].

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': In the season 6 opener, [[spoiler: The Lich]] gets turned into a giant baby. Finn and Jake leave him outside the home of the recently married Mr. Pig and Tree Trunks. Crosses over with BabiesMakeEverythingBetter since Tree Trunks may have been in the process of asking for a divorce when the baby showed up, but immediately changed her tune when the baby showed up.

* Franchise/{{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 [[MosesInTheBulrushes Moses]] thing, with Kal-El being shot "to wherever", but, in most versions, Kal-El was deliberately and specifically sent to Earth, 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 ''[[Franchise/TheFlash 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.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Violine}}'', Violine's father leaves her with his governess, Marushka, when she is three, so he can go back to Zongo and [[spoiler: search for her mother]]. Unbeknownst to him, though, Marushka [[spoiler: claims Violine as her own child]].

* A version of this is the beginning of Quasimodo's life in [[Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon Disney's]] ''WesternAnimation/{{The Hunchback of Notre Dame|Disney}}''. Frollo kills Quasi's mother on the steps of Notre-Dame cathedral before finding the baby...and is so disgusted by the child's appearance that he is about to drop him down a well until the Archdeacon angrily informs him that killing an innocent child, even a deformed one, will certainly lead to damnation (especially after the whole "killing the child's mother" thing). In the face of that, Frollo has no choice. Interestingly, in the book Frollo ''was'' the archdeacon of Notre Dame, as well as being not quite such a bastard. So it's kind of like he got split apart and his better three-eighths popped out of the cathedral to restrain him from infanticide.

* At the very beginning of ''WesternAnimation/{{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 apparently stole the egg while his mother was trying to protect her nest from the film's BigBad, Carnotaurus.
* Something like this happens in Disney's version of ''WesternAnimation/{{Hercules}}'', one of the ways in which it departs from the myth. Traditionally Heracles is raised by Alcmene because she's his ''mother'', Zeus being one of the Greek gods who really got around. But this wasn't family-friendly enough for Disney so they made him the son of Zeus and Hera, and had Alcmene and her husband find him and adopt him after [[AdaptationalVillainy Hades]] has him kidnapped and magically turned mortal.
* The theme song given for the titular character of ''WesternAnimation/TheHauntedWorldOfElSuperbeasto'' establishes that he was taken in by his adoptive sister Suzi X's family when he was a baby in a basket left at their doorstep.

* The live-action movie ''Film/LittleMan'' has a gangster who is supposed to be able to pass for a baby leave himself at someone's doorstep. Basically, it's a live-action ripoff of the Bugs Bunny cartoon below.
* Happened in the ''Film/SuperMarioBros1993'' movie, in the opening scene. Daisy's mother leaves her egg at a chapel in Brooklyn, along with a [[OrphansPlotTrinket meteorite shard]], which Daisy later wears as a necklace.

%%* Swee-Pea in ''Film/{{Popeye}}''.
* In ''Film/BreakfastOnPluto'', [[Creator/CillianMurphy Patrick/Kitten]] is left by his mother on the doorstep of his father -- the priest. (He's placed with a foster family.)
* John from Creator/CharlieChaplin's ''[[Film/TheKid1921 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.
* Junior in ''Film/ProblemChild'' was left repeatedly at different doorstops by each of the adoptive parents, even as he outgrew the basket.

* ''Film/ThreeMenAndABaby'' (both the original French movie and American remake) starts with the baby being left on their doorstep (one of the three is the baby's father, but they all end up raising her).

* Kicks off the plot of ''Film/{{Willow}}''.

* In ''Film/{{Samantha}}'', the titular character is left on a doorstep by her parents, a pair of musically talented but emotionally cold people who just didn't want to deal with the hassle of parenthood. The residents of the house are also jerks who don't want to deal with a baby and leave her on the doorstep of another couple. Thankfully, this couple actually wanted to be parents and adopt the baby as their own daughter.
* The protagonist in ''Film/{{Annie|1982}}'' (as well as in the [[Film/Annie1999 1999 adaptation]]) was left at the orphanage as a one-year-old with only a note and a locket to tie her to her birth parents (see {{Theatre}} below). Played with in the Film/Annie2014 version, in which Annie was actually 4 years old when she was left at an Italian restaurant with her locket and a note written on the receipt by her real parents.
** The novelization of the 1982 film indicates that at least one of the other orphans, July, was also left at the orphanage in similar fashion (with her unusual name being a product of a likely misspelling in the note left with her; her original name was probably Julie, but the note -- clearly written by someone who was barely literate -- spelled it as "July", and that's what stuck).
* Jane in ''Film/{{Predestination}}''. After the Barkeeper snatches her as a newborn from the nursery, he travels back in time and delivers her to the doorsteps of the City of Cleveland Orphanage and subsequently calls in to make sure the box is noticed.
* ''Film/{{Kolya}}'': Louka enters into a CitizenshipMarriage to get paid in order for allowing his Russian bride to emigrate to Czechoslovakia. But then the Russian bride lights out for West Germany...and then her aunt is killed in a car wreck. This chain of events leads to Louka the swinging bachelor very unexpectedly in charge of a five-year-old boy.
* Carina from ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanDeadMenTellNoTales'' was left at an orphanage's door with just her name and a diary left by her father.
* In ''Film/TheWizardOfOz1925'', Aunt Em tells Dorothy that she was left on Aunt Em and Uncle Henry's doorstep 18 years ago, with only a note.

* ''Film/{{Border}}:'' Tina is a Swedish woman who discovers that she is a troll, and that there is a secretive group of trolls in Finland. The film ends with her finding a large box on her doorstep. In the box is a baby troll, and a postcard of Finland.

* ''Film/SilentHill'': Sharon was left on the doorstep of the orphanage where she was soon adopted by Rose and Chris. [[spoiler: It was all part of Alessa's plan to use Sharon as a motivator to get someone to come to Silent Hill and help her get revenge on the cult that ruined her life.]]

* The title character of the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' books follows this trope, left by Albus Dumbledore (with some help from Rubeus Hagrid, and the reluctant approval of Minerva [=McGonagall=]) on his aunt's doorstep, with a letter. The book makes it clear they knew the Dursleys were home when they left him, but unlike many versions of this trope, the Dursleys didn't exactly welcome Baby Harry into their homes with open arms.
** In one of the many parallels between [[spoiler: the mortal enemies]] [[spoiler: Voldemort]] ended up an orphan as well except in his case he was still in his mother's womb when she ended up asking for help in an orphanage.
* This trope applies to the novel ''Literature/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'', in which Quasimodo is abandoned outside Notre Dame due to his genetic deformities and Frollo takes him in out of kindness and pity since no one else would.

* ''Literature/TalesFromTheShadowhunterAcademy'': In the short story "Born to Endless Night", a warlock baby is left on the steps of the academy and found by Simon and his friends. Warlock babies being abandoned isn't uncommon. Warlocks are the result of a demon and human breeding and sometimes the human parent is not willing to raise a magical, visibly non-human child (that they may not have even wanted in the fist place). Coincidentally, warlock Magnus Bane is visiting the academy with his boyfriend Alec as a guest lecturer. [[spoiler:Magnus and Alec end up adopting the baby warlock.]]
* Creator/KeithLaumer's "Doorstep" 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."
* ''Literature/DaughterOfFortune'': A baby is left at the door of the Sommers home in 19th century Chile. She is found wrapped inside a man's sweater and tucked inside a box. Rose Sommers [[spoiler: recognizes the sweater as one she knitted for her brother, a sea captain. She realizes it is likely to be her niece and]] insists in adopting her, despite her oldest brother's misgivings.

* Inverted in a short story in ''Literature/{{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 the YA novel ''Literature/{{Unwind}}'', set in a future where birth control is banned, babies may legally be abandoned on a doorstep -- a practice known as "[[DeliveryStork storking]]". As you may imagine, this is a {{Deconstruction}} of sorts of the trope - what if the family doesn't want the baby? [[{{TearJerker}} The question is answered disturbingly]]: One of the main characters relates a past experince in which his family recived a "storked" baby, only to drop it off on the neighbour's doorstep at night (the rule is, if no one sees you doing it, it's not your baby). Then the neighbours do the same thing. And their neighbours. And their neighbours. [[spoiler: The baby died.]]

* In Creator/PoulAnderson's ''Literature/ThreeHeartsAndThreeLions'', the protagonist, Holger Carlsen, was found abandoned in a courtyard as a baby. It turns out that he's not really from around here, though he doesn't know it.
-->"Believe it or not," he grinned, "I really vas the baby in the cartoons, you know, the vun left on the doorstep. I must have been only a few days old ven I vas found in a courtyard in Helsingør. That's the very pretty place you call Elsinore, Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'s home town. I never learned vere I came from. Such happenings is very rare in Denmark, and the police tried hard to find out, but they never did."
** Alianora was also found abandoned and raised by dwarves.
* In the book ''Literature/TheChildrenOnTheTopFloor,'' 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.

* Astronomer Creator/CarlSagan's book ''Shadows of our Forgotten Ancestors'', sets this up as BookEnds, the idea of ''humanity'' as a doorstop baby, an orphan raised by the laws of the universe and growing up to [[OntologicalMystery wonder about its origins and how it got there]]. Only fragments of a note remain - the fossil record.

* This is Otto's backstory in the ''Literature/HIVESeries'', being left outside an orphanage. The narrative mentions the staff are used to dealing with this kind of situation.
* Twig in ''Literature/TheEdgeChronicles'' was abandoned in a woodtroll village. His parents [[spoiler: had no choice; if they hadn't left him they would have had to walk back home through the Deepwoods, where all three would likely have perished]].
* The title character of the ''Literature/CatRoyal'' 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 ''Literature/TheDestinyOfMiltonGomrath'' was left on the steps of an orphanage as a baby.

* ''Literature/TwentyYearsAfter'', the sequel to ''Literature/TheThreeMusketeers'', establishes that Aramis' ex-girlfriend slept with Athos while thinking he was a priest (it makes more sense in context), and left the resulting child on the priest's doorstep. Athos heard about it and adopted his own son, Raoul.
* In ''Literature/TheGodsend'', this is how the Marlowe family end up with [[EnfantTerrible Bonnie]], sort of: The Marlowes met Bonnie's mum and took her into their home, she gave birth during the night and left her daughter at the doorstep.
* The only thing anybody knows about Ambrosio's origins in ''Literature/TheMonk''.
* In Creator/DevonMonk's ''Literature/DeadIron'', Rose's origin.

* Creator/StanislawLem's recurring hero Ijon Tichy was found as a baby at the doorstop of his father (?) Auror Tichy's spaceship cabin, according to the 28th Voyage of ''Literature/TheStarDiaries''. [[MindScrew Curiously, Auror seems to have no clue who the baby's mother was.]]
* A baby is found in a capsule in ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear: Army of Terror''. No one knows where he's from and the best clue anyone has is that the BigBad had him there for experiments. The kids who find him immediately want to adopt him, [[spoiler: though he turns out to be a Tykebomb, and the BigBad arranged for them to find him]].
* ''Literature/SeptimusHeap'': Jenna arrives to the Heaps this way.
* In Creator/JaneAusten's ''Literature/NorthangerAbbey'', no family in Catherine's neighborhood raised a boy found on their doorstep. No wonder she had to leave home to have adventures.
* In Rex Stout's Literature/NeroWolfe novel ''The Mother Hunt'', Wolfe's client is the widow of a famous author who answered the doorbell one night to find a baby wrapped in a blanket in her foyer, with a note pinned to the blanket that said "This is Richard's son. A boy should grow up in his father's house." She has no difficulty believing that her late husband was the father, but she wants Wolfe to find out who the ''mother'' is.
* Megan Whalen Turner's short story "The Baby in the Night Deposit Box" has the namesake infant deposited at a bank. Since the child ''was'' legally deposited there for safekeeping, and therefore entrusted specifically to the bank, the bank staff raise and educate her in-house, despite the efforts of a shifty CPS worker [[spoiler: who turns out to be working for the BigBad]].
* The title character of Josephine Tey's novel ''Literature/BratFarrar'' was abandoned on the doorstep of an orphanage; as an adult, he is passed off as a child who had vanished at age 10, leaving an ambiguous note.
* In ''Literature/ThePinballs'', Thomas J was abandoned as a two-year old in front of a farmhouse belonging to two octogenerian twin sisters named [[GenderBlenderName Thomas and Jefferson]] (their father named them after his favorite president). The sisters took him in without reporting him to the authorities, and it isn't until they both break their hips and end up in the hospital that Thomas J is discovered and sent to a foster home. He doesn't even know his birth name; the sisters had no way of finding out his name, so they began calling him "Thomas J" as a derivative of their own names.
* ''Literature/BruceCovillesBookOf Monsters'': Dum Pling, AKA "Little Dumpling" (or L.D. for short), the titular "little brother" from ''My Little Brother is a Monster'', whom Jason and his mother discover on their doorstep with a (badly written) note which asks them to take care of him. Jason's mother cheerfully takes in the baby, though Jason isn't exactly thrilled about it. Things become more complicated on the night of the full moon, when Dumpling turns back into his true monster form. Turns out Dumpling is actually the prince of a kingdom of monsters who was taken to the human world to protect him from the usurpers of the kingdom. Dumpling's real name is actually "Dum Pling" which is "Prince" in the monster language. By the end of the story, Jason has accepted Dumpling as his brother and is prepared to protect him.
* In ''Literature/TheBridgeOfSanLuisRey'', the twin babies later named Esteban and Manuel are found in a basket at the door of the convent. They become the favorites of the Abbess Maria.

* ''Literature/CaptainCorellisMandolin'': Pelagia finds a baby girl one day left on the doorstep of her house. She speculates that the mother was a wartime rape victim, and chose that house because a doctor and his daughter lived there and would take care of her baby.
* Early on in the old classic ''Literature/NobodysBoy'', both the reader and the title character discover that he was this, and was kept by his "mother" in defiance of the wishes of his "father" after the latter left home to work in a city. When his "father" returns home, he almost immediately sells the young boy to a travelling entertainer who, fortunately for the boy, is a kind and gentle man.
* ''Literature/HettyFeather'', The main thing driving the plot is the fact that Hetty is a foundling, and her struggle to shed that image.
* ''Literature/TheLockedTomb: Literature/GideonTheNinth'': Gideon was a day old when she arrived in Drearburh, safely enclosed in the bio-container of a dead woman's hazard suit. The acolytes tried to summon the woman's soul back to ask her what the hell was going on, but all she did was yell "Gideon! Gideon! Gideon!" and then disperse, so that's what they named the baby.
* Freckles in Creator/GeneStrattonPorter's ''Literature/{{Freckles}}''.
-->''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 Creator/SarahAHoyt's ''Literature/DrawOneInTheDark'', Kyrie's BackStory. She grew up in foster homes.
* ''Literature/TheThirteenthTale'':
** [[spoiler:Vida left Emmeline's son, later known as Ambrose Proctor, at the door of a house in the village because Adeline would have murdered him before long; in fact in the 2013 adaptation Vida takes him from Angelfield as Adeline prepares to set him on fire.]]
** [[spoiler:Vida herself was left abandoned by her unknown mother at Angelfield.]]
* In the original version of ''Literature/TheBobbseyTwins'' "The Bobbsey Twins and Baby May" was about the Bobbsey family finding a doorstop baby.
* In the ''Literature/{{Mermaids}}'' trilogy, Rani was found as a baby in a clam-shell at the edge of Tingle Reef. She was adopted by a local family of merfolk and brought up in the reef. [[spoiler:Her biological parents put her and her twin brother Peri in different shells to protect them during a sea-quake. Her parents were both killed in the quake, and Peri was found by servants of the Mer-King and brought back to his birthplace, but Rani is presumed dead by her surviving family until she grows old enough to go GeneHunting.]]
* ''Literature/GoblinsInTheCastle'': William, who was brought to Toad-in-a-Cage Castle in a basket as an infant. ''Goblins on the Prowl'' explains how he came to be brought there -- as he'd recently been orphaned, the sorceress Sophronia took him there so he'd grow up safely until the time was right for him to break the spell keeping her husband trapped, which only he could do.
* ''Literature/TheMermaidsSister'':
** One October night, Auntie Verity heard a knock at the door. When she opened it, there was nothing there but a giant conch shell on the path. Auntie took it in and set it on the table. When she tipped it, baby Maren fell out.
** Auntie has told her other adopted daughter, Clara, that she was brought by a DeliveryStork three days after Maren arrived. [[spoiler:In fact, she was brought by Scarff, [[ExactWords whose middle name means Stork]]. He found her on the steps of an abandoned orphanage.]]
** The sisters' friend O'Neill was found by a priest in a basket under an apple tree in a churchyard. The priest was too old to raise a child and didn't want to send him to the OrphanageOfFear, so he gave him to the traveling merchant Scarff. Scarff took O'Neill to Auntie's cottage, wanting to give the girls a brother, but O'Neill cried whenever he was out of Scarff's sight, so Scarff took him on his travels and raised him as his son.

* In ''Series/{{Bottom}}'':

%%* After Charlotte gets knocked up withoa in.

* This is Link's backstory in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime''.
* Leaving a baby on the doorstep of an orphanage lets you sneak inside the opened door to [[KleptomaniacHero loot the place]] in ''VideoGame/LeatherGoddessesOfPhobos''.
* ''VideoGame/Persona5'': Ten years prior to the game's events, a woman came up to the Yakuza office and went on about selling a baby she was carrying. Thinking her to be a drug junkie needing money for a fix, Munehisa Iwai denied her request, but then she left the baby there and ran off. That baby was Iwai's adopted son, Kaoru, and his decision to raise the child was part of why he left the mob.

* In ''Webcomic/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.
* ''Webcomic/TheCyantianChronicles'': Silver and other black, white and silver fox cubs. It helps that the parents are protecting them from a killer ruler who ordered the death of all of the black, silver and white foxes to eliminate the previous ruling caste.
** Thankfully, the fox ruling cast gets better.
* In the Webcomic called [=BlindSpot=] (now regrettably defunct), Dr. Dorian Mitchell is instructed to destroy the clone [=EUM061=] he'd been raising at the laboratory. Harboring somewhat fatherly feelings toward the [[DesignerBabies Designer Baby]], he elects to drug him and smuggle him out of the lab instead; however, while driving down the highway, he panics and ends up leaving the child by the road unconscious.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'', [[http://www.sinfest.net/view.php?date=2010-01-11 it's the new year, on Slick's doorsteps]].
* Probably the only time the DoorstopBaby is in on it, in ''Webcomic/KevinAndKell'', after the clone Dolly found herself regressed to a baby via an accident with a time machine, she conspired with her DNA parent Corrie and Corrie's boyfriend to leave herself (now going by Mary) on the doorstep of Candace Canid. The funny thing? That made the ''second'' time she was adopted by Candace.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Irrelevator}}'' this happens. Except the baby is [[http://i.imgur.com/fFdYEv4.gif not left on a doorstop]], and we don't know where or why it's there.

* ''[[https://tapas.io/series/BrokenintheLight Broken in the Light]]'' begins with the protagonist, Kane, being left on the doorstep of an OrphanageOfLove[[note]]though the writer calls it a "foster home" for some reason[[/note]], along with [[OrphansPlotTrinket some dog tags]] with his name. It [[DangerousSixteenthBirthday turns out]] that he's a [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent werewolf]] and his mother was apparently captured by the villain shortly after leaving him.

* ''Webcomic/TheMonsterUnderTheBed'': Shadow apparently, as she admitted herself.

* In ''WebVideo/CommodoreHustle'', a baby is found in their trash filled basement, with no one sure where she came from. They decide to keep her as a prop. The baby in question is Kathleen and Graham's real life daughter, and is later seen as a toddler, standing in a [[BrickJoke box labelled "Prop Baby".]]
* ''WebAnimation/{{Chadam}}'': Viceroy was left on the doorstep of an orphanage, in the rain, by his mother.

* Bamm-Bamm in ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'', who is found on the Rubbles' doorstep the morning after Barney and Betty wish for a baby on a falling star.
* Leela in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' was one of these and, as an adult, she still has the basket. However, she was left with Cookieville, a minimum security "orphanarium", instead of adoptive parents. (The caretaker casually throws her basket onto a pile of others.) She eventually meets her [[spoiler:mutant]] parents and finds out [[PassFail why they left her there]].

* This trope shows up in a lot of WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes - the attached note often says things like "Please take care of my Little Schnookums. Signed, Big Schnookums".
* This happened to all three protagonists of ''WesternAnimation/SonicUnderground''; one was raised by two commoners and his uncle, one by an aristocratic family, and the last by a skilled thief.
** The aforementioned third hedgehog baby, Manic, is a minor subversion of the "there's always someone there to answer the door" part of this trope, he was actually (and sadly) stolen at the doorstep of where he was ''intended'' to be left, but was raised by the very thief who stole him.
* On one episode of ''WesternAnimation/CampLazlo'', Chip and Skip did this to themselves to get Jane, the scoutmistress of the girls' camp, to adopt them. Jane assumed Lumpus did it to get out of taking care of them, and was less than pleased with him.

* In ''WesternAnimation/GrowingUpCreepie'', Creepie is an orphan left on doorstep of the Dweezwold Mansion, which is home to a family of various insects.
* Nibbles, Jerry's adopted nephew on ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'', is introduced as this, complete with the letter.

** In "Gone Maggie Gone", Homer leaves Maggie at a church doorstep for a second, only for her to get taken in and Homer can't get her back, setting off the plot for the rest of the episode.

* Quagmire found a baby girl on his doorstep on ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy.'' In this case it was actually his own daughter from a one-night stand. He ultimately [[spoiler:gives her up for adoption]].
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Wildfire}}'' left Princess Sara at the doorstep of her [[MuggleFosterParents foster father]], who [[spoiler:actually was her real father]].
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLooneyTunesShow'': Bugs does this to a de-aged Daffy at the end of "Casa de Calma".
* In the 1980s series ''WesternAnimation/AlvinAndTheChipmunks'', it's established that Alvin, Simon, and Theodore were left at the door of David Seville's cabin near the woods, where he was a struggling songwriter. All he saw was a cloaked figure running back into the woods. In ''A Chipmunk Reunion'', their mother explains that it had been a particularly brutal winter, and she hadn't had the resources to feed them. Although she'd always intended to go back and get them in the spring, their immediate success as musical artists under Dave's tutelage made her think they'd be better off without her.
* ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'': A bandaged cat does this to Li'l Sneezer at the beginning of the cartoon, ''Awful Orphan.'' The place where he drops him off? [[AndCallHimGeorge Elmyra Duff's]] house.
* Jonathan Kent lampshades this trope in ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' when trying to explain to Clark where he came from. Clark (initially) thinks it's a joke.
-->"Do you know how some babies are found in baskets? (Reveals a rocket) This is how we found you."
* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': In the season 6 opener, [[spoiler: The Lich]] gets turned into a giant baby. Finn and Jake leave him outside the home of the recently married Mr. Pig and Tree Trunks. Crosses over with BabiesMakeEverythingBetter since Tree Trunks may have been in the process of asking for a divorce when the baby showed up, but immediately changed her tune when the baby showed up.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheMagicalAdventuresOfQuasimodo'' pretty much follows the book's version of Quasimodo's abandonment, except that Frollo didn't raise him.
* ''WesternAnimation/EveryChild'' features a baby who keeps getting passed from doorstop to doorstop, as the middle-class residents of the neighborhood the baby was dumped in each find reasons not to keep it.
* In ''WesternAnimation/AllHailKingJulien'', it's revealed Maurice was found by Julien's family when the two were babies. However, Maurice was left by his kind to die as a sacrifice to their gods, and not meant to be found and adopted.
* The ''WesternAnimation/MightyMouse'' short "A Cat's Tale" reveals in a flashback that Mighty Mouse was found in a basket on an old couple's doorstep and adopted by said old couple when he was a baby.
* ''WesternAnimation/BountyHamster''. Marion was left to be RaisedByWolves, though their initial reaction to a hamster being left at their doorstep is to ask if someone ordered takeout.
* The ''WesternAnimation/JohnnyBravo'' episode 'Damien's Day Out" has a woman leave her demonic baby in a basket at Johnny's doorstep, resulting in Johnny having to look after Damien before his mom eventually comes back to reclaim him.
* The first episode of ''WesternAnimation/SonicUnderground'', "Beginnings", has this occur, but sadly Manic is stolen from his intended foster family's doorstep and he is subsequently cared for by thieves.

* In ''Film/ProblemChild'', the baby gets left on approximately eleven successive doorsteps, even as he grows into a toddler, before he's dropped off an an orphanage and a family finally keeps him, much to their future detriment.
* {{Parodied}} in ''Film/KungPowEnterTheFist'': The infant protagonist after being flung out a window during 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.
* ''Film/{{Norbit}}'' was a ''drive-by'' doorstop baby.

* One of the stories in Natalie Babbitt's ''TheDevilsStorybook'' features a priest finds a baby thus on the doorstep of the church. Only it turns out to be an imp, a baby demon -- there's a sulfurous smell and red skin and horns and everything. And a sooty spot that won't rub off the spot where the kid was left on the steps. The priest is all for caring for the kid, thinking it's God's will, but the townsfolk get so upset that a mob ends up setting fire to the church, telling the priest to leave the imp there and come out. Only the priest refuses to abandon a baby, and stands there ready to burn. The church burns down around him, and he remains utterly unharmed -- the imp now gone. Afterwards, he wonders which power it was that saved him.
* Parodied in the children's book ''Literature/{{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 {{Uberwald}} dialect which the family dog translates as "Take good care of my baby."

* 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 [[CrossesTheLineTwice safely detonate]] [[BlackComedy the 'suspicious package']].

* In ''Series/HotInCleveland'' the women find a baby left on their doorstep. It is revealed that Joy's son Owen had come to visit and the baby is her new grandson, who had been left in fromt of the house while Owen went back to his car to get some things.

* Early on in the old classic ''[[http://gutenberg.org/ebooks/25102 Nobody's Boy]]'', both the reader and the title character discover that he was this, and was kept by his "mother" in defiance of the wishes of his "father" after the latter left home to work in a city. When his "father" returns home, he almost immediately sells the young boy to a travelling entertainer who, fortunately for the boy, is a kind and gentle man.

* Florida and Dallas from ''Ruby Holler'' were abandoned on the steps of an orphanage in a crate containing travel brochures and nothing else, not even anything to tell the orphanage owners their names. They were named after the brochures in the crate.

* In ''The Godsend'', this is how the Marlowe family end up with [[EnfantTerrible Bonnie]], sort of: The Marlowes met Bonnie's mum and took her into their home, she gave birth during the night and left her daughter at the doorstep.

* Swee-Pea in ''Film/{{Popeye}}''.

* The live-action movie ''Film/HowTheGrinchStoleChristmas'' has this trope be a part of the Grinch's extended backstory. The Grinch arrived in Whoville as a baby (apparently by mistake) and was adopted by two women (both sisters). The identity of the Grinch's real parents are unknown.

* In an episode of ''Series/PeeWeesPlayhouse'', "Spring", Cowboy Curtis asks if the King and Queen of Cartoons found their baby boy in a basket on the doorstep of thei castle. The King says no.

* Occurs twice in the ''Series/{{MASH}}'' episode "Yessir, That's Our Baby". The episode begins with a baby girl fathered by an American G.I. being abandoned by her Korean mother at the 4077th M*A*S*H. As they subsequently learn, she can't be sent to a standard orphanage because she'll face persecution in Korean society for being part-American, and all attempts on the part of the doctors to get her to the United States ultimately fail. At the end of the episode, the doctors are forced to effectively repeat the process, depositing her at a nearby monastery via a foundling wheel as the isolated monestary is the only place she'll be able to grow up safe.

* In the ''Series/{{MASH}}'' 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. At the end of the episode, the doctors are forced to effectively repeat the process, depositing her at a nearby monastery via a foundling wheel, as they can't give her to a standard orphanage because she'll face persecution in Korean society for being part-American and all attempts on the part of the doctors to get her to the United States have ended in failure.