"I also wish I'd bought that anti-flame armor last session."
"But that's a green dragon, they breath poison not fire."
"NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR RULES-LAWYERING, DUDE!"
"But that's a green dragon, they breath poison not fire."
"NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR RULES-LAWYERING, DUDE!"
SpongeBob: Wow! Three wishes, Pat! Isn't that great?!
Patrick: Wishes? I wish we'd known that earlier! (clock reverses 5 minutes)
Flying Dutchman: Okay, ya' got two wishes left.
(Patrick gives an "Oh, Crap!" Smile)
Patrick: Wishes? I wish we'd known that earlier! (clock reverses 5 minutes)
Flying Dutchman: Okay, ya' got two wishes left.
(Patrick gives an "Oh, Crap!" Smile)
We all have moments where we say, "I wish X would happen." It just so happens that in fiction, people tend to say this around something that can actually grant wishes. This can also happen when someone is preparing to make a wish, but then for whatever reason they reflexively say "I wish" for something else.
The Jackass Genie loves to abuse this trope to waste people's wishes. A Literal Genie or non-sentient entity will grant any wishes a person says, whether intended or not. A Benevolent Genie might be willing to ignore an unintended wish, or they might be forced to grant it anyway.
Though mostly focused on wishes, this trope can also apply to other requests. The key is that the person is being rhetorical or thinking out loud when they say something, without intending for it to actually be granted.
Very frequently results in Be Careful What You Wish For and Wasteful Wishing. May be followed immediately by a Retroactive Wish. I Wished You Were Dead is often used with this trope. Compare Accidental Incantation.
Examples:
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Advertising
- M&M's: In a 2018 Super Bowl ad, the Red M&M is complaining about how many people try to eat him, and stumbles on a lucky penny on the ground mid-sentence, before finishing, "Sometimes, I wish I were human!". Unbeknownst to him, this was a magic lucky penny, which grants his wish and turns him into Danny DeVito.
Anime & Manga
- Ah! My Goddess: Things are set in motion by Keichi Morisato, a down-on-his-luck college student working on an engineering degree, ordering food one night, but he accidentally dials the Goddess Relief Office. When the goddess Belldandy appears, she offers to grant him a wish. Thinking it's a prank by his senpais, he jokingly wishes she would stay by his side forever. After Belldandy confirms his wish was granted, they're forced to stay together, though they don't mind and soon become a couple, and after numerous tribulations and misadventures, they get married at the very end.
- Devil May Cry: The Animated Series: In the episode "Wishes Come True", a demonic mask appears to people, promising to grant a wish of theirs. But being a demon and not a genie, it cannot grant any wish except one for someone's death, which it does by melting them alive with acid. It'll often follow the would-be wisher out of sight before "granting" their often angrily given wish. Dante gets involved when a "wish" granted this way lands his client's innocent brother in Devil's Prison.
- Dragon Ball GT: The plot kicks off with Emperor Pilaf preparing to Make a Wish on the Black Star Dragon Balls to Take Over the World, until Goku appears. Pilaf is so scared by how strong much stronger Goku is that, in a panic, he wishes Goku was a kid again, which is promptly granted by the Dragon Balls against his will.
Comic Books
- Johnny Thunder is a member of the Justice Society of America who's a fairly normal guy who just happens to have access to a powerful wish-granting genie named Thunderbolt. The magic words to activate Thunderbolt are "Cei-U", and Johnny has the habit of starting his sentences with "Say, you", causing him to frequently make wishes by accident.
- The Smurfs: During "The Egg and the Smurfs", one smurf can't decide what to ask the titular egg for. Another impatiently shoves past him while declaring "To the devil with you!" — and accidentally bumps the egg, causing their companion to be sent straight to Hell!
- Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics): In issue 35, Sonic finds his one-billionth power ring, and he meets the all-knowing Ancient Walkers, who tell him they will reward him for this achievement by answering one question for him. Without thinking, Sonic asks "Just one?" and one of the Ancient Walkers tells him the answer to his question is "Yes". Sonic is then annoyed that he wasted his question, complaining that it isn't fair.
Fan Works
- Gaz Dreams of Genie: After Gaz breaks a genie bottle to spite Dib, she learns that this counts as opening it, the genie Azie appears to offer her Three Wishes. As Gaz is pondering her options for her first wish, Dib stumbles in and tries to warn her about how making wishes is a bad idea, only for her to snap in annoyance how she wishes he was never born, resulting in Azie erasing him from existence. When this results in a Villain World where Zim conquered Earth unopposed, Gaz ends up needing to use her second wish as a Reset Button to bring him back.
- Their Lament: Adrien/Chat Noir betrays Ladybug and their kwami and summons Gimmi, only to throw the Wish-granting kwami into a trash can when he hears Alya, Lila and Nino coming. When Alya complains that her attempt to force Marinette to make nice with Lila backfired, Adrien sarcastically wonders if Marinette wants him to wish that they were never classmates... which Gimmi treats as his request, plunging all four into a whole new reality.
Film — Animated
- Aladdin and the King of Thieves: When Iago asks why the Forty Thieves were after a particular staff, the staff reveals it contains an oracle spirit that will answer any question asked of it. The oracle informs everyone that the Forty Thieves were after the staff so it could show them where the ultimate treasure is located. Iago then asks the oracle where the ultimate treasure is, only for the oracle to tell him that it can only answer one question per person, much to his annoyance.
- Care Bears: Big Wish Movie: When Wish Bear accidentally causes trouble with her wishes, she wishes for friends who like wishes. Too Loud Bear, Messy Bear, and Me Bear like wishes but want too many, and Wish Bear accidentally wishes that Twinkers, her wishing star friend, was theirs instead.
- Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure: The movie revolves around Tinker Bell trying to obtain a wishing MacGuffin and using her wish to save her home, all while struggling to control her famous Hair-Trigger Temper. When she finally gets her hands on it, she becomes fed up with Blaze bugging her and accidentally wastes the wish while shouting at him.
Tink: I wish you'd be quiet for one minute!!
Film — Live-Action
- 13 Going on 30: After the 13-year-old Jenna is humiliated by the Six Chicks, she barricades herself in the closet and tearfully wishes to be "thirty, flirty, and thriving" while the magic dust Matty brought her falls on her; this leads to her waking up the next morning as a 30-year-old woman with a successful career at her favourite fashion magazine.
- Absolutely Anything: Aliens discover Earth and judge humanity by giving a random human godlike abilities to see what they do with it. The selected human, a teacher named Neil, is unaware of this and accidentally wishes that aliens destroy his class of unruly students, which then proceeds to happen. He eventually fixes this.
- Becket: The film is mostly about the rocky relationship between Henry II and Thomas Becket, including the former's implied desire for the latter's death: "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?"
- Labyrinth: The plot kicks off when Sarah, irritated by her baby half-brother's crying, blurts out, "I wish the goblins would come and take you away — right now!" When Toby's cries fall silent, Sarah realises to her horror what's happened and spends the rest of the film trying to get him back.
- The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause: Per the "Escape Clause" of his contract, a current Santa can resign his position by holding his personal snow globe and wishing that he had never become Santa at all. Jack Frost tricks Scott into holding the snow globe and voicing some of his regrets, allowing him to become the new Santa Claus. Scott later tricks Jack by recording him sarcastically repeating Scott's wish and playing the recording while Jack was holding his personal snow globe.
Literature
- Bruce Coville's Book of... Spine Tinglers: Implied in "Those Three Wishes"; main character Miranda Alice has gained a thousand wishes from a magical snail. At the end, though, she realizes she's got a big test that day that she forgot to study for... and her next words (and the last line of the story), said without thinking, are "I wish I were dead."
- Children of the Lamp: In The Akhenaten Adventure, during the plane trip to meet their uncle, John and Philippa find themselves seated near a couple who don't handle the turbulence well. Unaware that the two kids they're chatting with are djinn, the couple says they wish they were back home — and feeling sorry for them, Philippa grants that wish when she falls asleep, teleporting them to their home in Poughkeepsie without even intending to or knowing she could.
- Five Children and It: The children meet the grumpy Psammead, who grants them a wish a day, the effects of which expire at sunset. Throughout the story, they make wishes which turn out not to be useful to them, but one of the times they say "I wish" accidentally is when they wish that their baby brother The Lamb would grow up. He grows into a very capable young man, and they have to do everything they can to stop him from going away before sunset.
- Half Magic: The kids are watching a film called Sandra, and Martha, the youngest, gets bored. She says, "I wish I weren't here!" while forgetting that she's touching the handbag with the magic wishing coin in it, which only grants wishes halfway. She becomes ghostly, rendered half "there" and half not. In frustration, Jane snatches up the handbag and shouts, "I wish I'd never even heard of that charm!" which causes her to think the coin is only an imaginary story and prevents her from using it to wish Martha back to normal.
- In the short story "The King with the Paper Face" by Norman Hunter, the King of Astufflavia is taken ill just before an international conference he was supposed to be presiding over, and his courtiers, worried about the diplomatic consequences, make a lifelike puppet of him to take his place, with a good impersonator to do the voice. After the first successful performance, one of them quips that it almost makes him wish he were alive. Unfortunately a passing fairy overhears the last four words, and, wrongly believing she's making everyone happy, grants the wish. King Paper Face springs to life in the middle of the summit and starts shouting out the items on the old laundry book his face was made from.
- The Marvelous Land of Oz: Downplayed. When Tip swallows a wishing pill, it causes him terrible pain, and he blurts out, "I wish I'd never swallowed the pill!" The wish is granted, the pain stops, and the pill is back where it was. The Woggle-Bug says that Tip never felt any pain at all, since he never swallowed the pill. Tip retorts, "then it was a splendid imitation of pain!"
- My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!: Back on Earth, Atsuko broke into a Heroic BSoD over the death of her first friend, but in the end, she decided to live on out of the other girl's Positive Friend Influence that made a big difference on her own life that can sustain beyond the other girl's death — and then privately wishes that, if Reincarnation was a thing like her favourite fiction, there will be a Reincarnation Friendship between them in their next lives. This being an Isekai series, both do reincarnate to the same universe, as friends: Atsuko as Sophia, and her friend as Catarina.
- The Picture of Dorian Gray: Dorian says it's unfair that his new portrait will remain young forever, while he'll grow old and ugly. He then muses that he'd make a Deal with the Devil to reverse it, to the shock of his friends. It turns out that the devil was listening, because that's what actually happens: Dorian stays as he was the day the portrait was painted, while his portrait begins to age and change to reflect his life-choices; gaining a dour expression when his girlfriend kills herself, growing sallow when he contracts an STD, and gaining a hypocritical sneer when he tries to make up for his evil by doing an equal amount of good.
- Puddle Lane:
- In The Flying Saucer, Tessa the cat accidentally presses a Big Red Button when she gets into a flying saucer and says, "I wish it would fly somewhere," which it does. Later, when she is scared and wants to go home, she says, "I wish I was home," and accidentally sits on the button; and the saucer flies home.
- In Mr Grimble Grumbles, the cantankerous Mr Grimble meets the magician, who grants him one wish. Mr Grimble refuses to wish for anything, and soon after this, he sees the Griffle vanish and mutters, "I wish I could vanish like that." When he does vanish, he's horrified as he realises that his wish came true and goes back home. His wife sends him back to the magician to put him right.
- River of Dancing Gods: Master thief Macore defeats the Big Bad, a Villain with Good Publicity, by tricking him into one of these. Before the villain gives a major political speech, Macore hides a genie bottle inside the microphone stand. Then he hacks the teleprompter to change the speech to contain the words "I wish you could all know, truly know what the world will be like when we win." Once the villain reads those words, everyone in the audience knows how horrible the world would be if he won.
- The children's story Three Wishes by Lucille Clifton features a Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane version. When Zenobia finds a penny on New Year's Day with her birth year on it, her best friend Victor tells her it will grant her three wishes. Half-jokingly, she wishes it wasn't so cold outside, and the sun comes out. But then she gets into an argument with Victor over whether the penny really granted her wish or not, and she finally blurts out "Man, I wish you'd get out of here!" Victor promptly runs away, leaving her to realize that she just wasted another wish. Fortunately, after a talk with her mother, she makes a really worthwhile wish – to have a good friend again – and at that moment Victor comes back to make up with her.
- The Wheel of Time: When Mat passed through the Eelfinn's portal in Rhuidean, he assumed that it worked like the Aelfinn's portal in Tear did, and that he would get answers to three questions. When the Eelfinn didn't answer his questions (and because he was angry about certain other things, such as the holes in his memory and his difficulties with the Aes Sedai), he blurted out that he wanted the holes in his memory filled, that he wanted a way to be free of the Aes Sedai, and that he wanted to get back to Rhuidean, unaware that the Eelfinn would grant his Three Wishes.
Live-Action TV
- Doctor Who: In "Voyage of the Damned", at one point the Doctor learns to invoke "Security Protocol One" to make the Hosts stop attacking and answer three questions. The second time the Doctor uses this, he first asks to confirm that he gets three questions, then realizes his mistake and wastes his second question asking if he can start again. However, he manages to make his third question count.
- Genie in the House: Sophie and Emma always make accidental wishes with their Genie friend Adil. For example, Emma unintentionally wished the family 400 years into the future when she was just offhandedly saying she wished it were time for her favorite TV show to start.
- Good Luck Charlie: In The Stinger of "Alley Oops", Gabe opens the mystery box he won from a claw machine, only to be very disappointed when he sees the mystery prize is just a whistle. Gabe then leaves the room, and PJ blows the whistle, which summons a genie. The genie tells PJ that he gets three wishes, but he only has one minute to use his wishes. Without thinking, PJ wishes he knew what to wish for, and the genie says, "That’s one." PJ then says "That counted?! Man, I wish I hadn’t done that.", and the genie says "That’s two." Gabe then walks back into the room, sees the genie, and keeps trying to ask PJ what’s going on, and PJ wishes Gabe would leave him alone. The genie then makes Gabe disappear from the room, says "That’s three.", and disappears himself. PJ is left disappointed that he wasted all three of his wishes.
- Odd Squad: One client who buys a magic lamp is told by Olive and Otto that he has a single wish left after he wasted the first two on a pair of sneakers and a basketball. He wishes they told him that this morning, which of course, brings him back to that morning.
- Once Upon a Time (2011): In season 6, episode 5, "Street Rats", Emma finds Aladdin and utters a seemingly innocuous wish that she never was the Saviour, since the role brought her more trouble than rewards, and Aladdin was a previous Saviour that managed to literally cut himself off from his role. Come episode 10, "Wish You Were Here", and the Evil Queen takes hold of a magic lamp, turns Aladdin into its genie, and wishes him to grant Emma's previous wish.
- Power Rangers Mystic Force: In "Dark Wish: Part 3", Leelee gets hold of Jenji the cat genie, and he gives her one wish. She then starts biting her nails and says to herself that she wishes she could stop biting them so much. Jenji overhears that, and makes the "wish" come true by giving her really long fingernails, much to her horror.
- The Sarah Jane Adventures: In "The Mad Woman in the Attic", Rani feels left out when the rest of the team start reminiscing with former member Maria, so after running away when her old friend calls her to investigate supernatural activity, she wishes that they (Sarah Jane, Luke, and Clyde) would "leave [her] alone". Later on, after the group restores Eve's ship, the ship decides to grant Rani's earlier wish, to thank her for her help. This results in Sarah Jane, Luke, and Clyde being erased from existence. Cut to about fifty years later, and Rani is living alone in Sarah Jane's attic, still resentful of the wish she made, until a kid named Adam comes along and, after listening to her story, decides to undo the wish for her, sending her back to the moment the ship regained power.
- The Twilight Zone (1985): In the episode, "I of Newton", a mathematician blurts out that he would sell his soul to solve the equation he is working on. The Devil promptly appears, ready to take him up on this offer
.
- Wizards of Waverly Place: In The Movie, Alex smuggles a wand and a dangerous spellbook to the family's Caribbean vacation. When she and her mom get into an argument, Alex furiously says she wishes her parents had never met — speaking in a moment of anger and not actually meaning it. Unfortunately, Alex's wish is granted by the spellbook, which alters reality and causes her parents to have never met. The rest of the plot involves Alex and Justin on an adventure to undo the wish before she and her siblings forget their lives and disappear forever.
Video Games
- Darby The Dragon: While arguing with his older sister about holding the magic wand, Darby says to her "I wish you were small!", causing the wand to shrink her down to a third of her original size.
- Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Hotaru Yura was half asleep when Kyubey came to her. She asked to sleep a little longer, which counted as a wish for the contract, and she became a magical girl as a result.
- Persona 5 Royal: At various points throughout the game, each member of the Phantom Thieves speaks to Dr. Maruki and talks about their deepest wishes. At the time, they had no idea that Dr. Maruki might gain the ability to alter reality, that he would gladly use that power to grant their wishes, or that their wishes being granted would have such dire consequences for themselves and for Tokyo.
- Twisted Metal: Head-On: In the Outlaw ending, the Roberts siblings argue over how they're going to deal with Calypso, the evil, wish-granting perpetrator of the Twisted Metal competition. In frustration, Carl accidentally blurts out that he wishes Jamie would shut up, which Calypso grants by making her mouth disappear.
Web Animation
- The Annoying Orange: Subverted in Liam the Leprechaun's debut episode. Orange finds Liam's pot of gold and Liam offers him three wishes for its return, but Orange soon learns there are rules against everything he tries to wish for (he can't wish for the pot of gold, he can't wish for the same thing twice, he can't wish for more wishes). Frustrated, Orange mutters, "I wish there wasn't so many rules," and Liam angrily tells him that's against the rules, too.
- Dungeon Soup: In the episode DJINN'S LAST WISH, the Barbarian (transformed into a genie) has turned the tables on the titular Djinn by playing his own game against him, twisting the Djinn's wishes to screw him over — the first wish, for freedom, leaves the Djinn without any legs (since he technically didn't have them, just a smoke trail that looks gross as flesh), and the second wish, for legs, results in the Djinn growing a pair of legs out of his forehead (because he didn't specify the location for the legs). The Djinn, thoroughly unhappy with what's happened, absentmindedly utters "I just wish I could be in my old skin", which the Barbarian immediately jumps upon for the last wish before the Djinn could stop him. This leaves the Djinn old and withered on top of everything else.
- The Frollo Show: In Frollo Beats Up Evil Residents, the Irate Gamer is aghast at the anticlimactic battle between Frollo and Jafar and had hoped for a more challenging clash. Kazaam the Genie overhears this and powers up Jafar, who expresses his gratitude by biting off the Gamer's head (as a giant cobra). Later on, Stocking wishes somebody could screw Frollo, which, again, is overheard by Kazaam. Much to Frollo's horror, Jafar is resurrected as a genie.
- Minilife TV: In "The Semi-Finals", Chris and Ian find a Lottery Lamp buried in the park, which holds a mechanical genie that can grant them one wish. They get the idea to use it to save Minilife Studios from debt, but as they discuss how exactly they should make their wish, Ian accidentally wastes it by saying, "I wish we had our phones." before realizing his mistake.
Webcomics
- Biter Comics: Exaggerated in one comic featuring a Jackass Genie called a Djerk. This guy interprets everything you say as a wish, even if you didn't say "I wish" first. When a man asks the Djerk to give him a second, the genie "grants" it. The man then calls the genie a dick, causing the genie to become phallic in shape. After the man says the genie is just pissing him off, the genie urinates on him with enough force to knock him off the flight of stairs leading to his lamp.
- Cyanide and Happiness: In one strip, a man helps an alien repair its transporter, and in return, the alien offers to answer one question about the universe before leaving. The man asks to clarify if the question can be about anything at all. The alien answers "yes" and leaves without another word.
- Nedroid: Reginald wishes his blood were poison so that the mosquitoes biting him would die. A genie suddenly appears to grant the wish. It works a little too well.
- The Wotch has The Bottle of Ishtarru, which was used to summon Angie. Genies summoned through this bottle are subjected to a curse that requires them to grant (in the worst way possible) any wish casually said nearby, and the students in the high school made them frequently.
Web Video
- Chris and Jack: In "The Perfect Wish to Outsmart a Genie", when discussing hypothetical wishes and their potential downsides, Geoff gets tired of the genie lazily adding Geoff's eyeballs falling out as the catch when a wish has no other issues. The genie suggests that Geoff should just wish for stronger eyeballs, which Geoff sarcastically echoes, realizing too late that he has just used up his second wish.
Western Animation
- Aladdin: The Series: At the end of "Some Enchanted Genie", a young orphan girl named Dhandi is about to free her genie, Eden, with her last wish, but she accidentally wishes for them to be together forever. Dhandi is upset about what she did, but Eden takes it in stride since genies can live forever, and Dhandi needs someone to protect her.
- Archie's Weird Mysteries: In "Me! Me! Me!", Veronica gets so annoyed with doing work that she wishes everyone was just like her so they could understand how she feels, unaware that the idol she's holding can grant wishes. This causes everyone in Riverdale to start acting like Veronica and eventually turn into clones of her. After Veronica realizes just how annoying she can be, she finds the idol and tries to undo her wish, only succeeding when she makes another accidental wish for things to go back to normal.
- Babar: In the episode ''A Charmed Life" after a day of being overwhelmed by his duties, Babar idly wishes he wasn't king while holding a gypsy amulet, and is shocked to see it came true, when he returns home to find Celesteville never existed and Rataxes is in charge instead. The man who gave it to him did try to warn him, but Babar unfortunately wasn't paying attention.
- Care Bears & Cousins: In "Wishing Well", Lotsa Heart is anxious about reciting a poem, so she wishes to herself that tomorrow would never come. Wish Bear happens to be nearby and then causes The Night That Never Ends.
- A favorite of Desiree from Danny Phantom. In "Memory Blank", Sam angrily says (hyperbolically) that she wishes she had never met Danny, which Desiree happily and giddily grants as it undoes Danny ever becoming a half-ghost in the first place. Desiree does play loose with what counts as a wish to further her own interests, as earlier in the episode, when Sam says "Unless something happens to Paulina, and the party got cancelled, not that I'd wish that", Desiree grants this non-wish on the grounds that Sam said the word "wish".
- Donkey Kong Country (1996):
- In "Orangutango", the second and third times King K. Rool's subordinate Klump does his jumping-jack dance, K. Rool says, "I wish you wouldn't do that." When K. Rool manages to win one wish on the Crystal Coconut, he gets so annoyed by Klump's dancing that he shouts, "I WISH YOU WOULDN'T DO THAT!" Klump promptly stops dancing while K. Rool realizes he just wasted his only wish.
- In "The Day the Island Stood Still", Donkey Kong makes the mistake of saying he wishes he can sleep forever in the presence of the Crystal Coconut which results in time being frozen for most of the world and Donkey Kong entering an extreme duration of sleep.
- Dragon Tales: In the episode "To Kingdom Come", Ord finds a shell on the beach. He looks into it and wishes that he had a hat like the one Max was wearing and gets it. Cassie explains that Ord has a magical wish shell. The others ask to use it, but Ord refuses, wishing to be somewhere where he doesn't have to share. This results in him being teleported to Kingdom Come, a luxurious resort that is impossible to leave. Ord gets scared and wishes his friends were with him, so the others are teleported to Kingdom Come as well. When Zak points out that Ord could have wished to go back home instead of wishing everyone else there, Ord wishes for everyone to go back home, but the wish shell breaks, as you're only allowed Three Wishes with it.
- DuckTales (2017):
- "Quack Pack!" reveals partway through that the Trapped in TV Land scenario the group finds themself in was due to Donald unknowingly rubbing the Lamp of Ali Baba and wishing his family could be more normal. Gene the Genie's version of a normal family just so happened to be informed by '90s sitcoms.
- In "The Phantom and the Sorceress!", Lena's magic has gotten so strong and out of control that the kids making wishes around her cause them to accidentally come true. At the top of the episode, the kids pop out of the television in front of Uncle Scrooge, causing him to guess that someone (Dewey) made a wish that made their video game real.
- Exploding Kittens: Godcat explains that he was sent to the Higgins family because one of them prayed for His help. To prove it, he plays footage of matriarch Abbie at a bar going on a drunken rant about how embarrassing her husband and kids are, all of which was preceded by the phrase "Dear God" (obviously said as a casual exclamation).
Abbie: That wasn't a prayer!!
Godcat: Any phrase that begins with "Dear God" qualifies as a prayer. Believe me, it drives the IT guy up the wall. - The Fairly OddParents!: Regardless of intent, if a fairy godchild says "I wish," the fairy godparent(s) is obligated to make it happen.
- In "Dream Goat", after Timmy wishes for Chompy the goat to be free, his Babysitter from Hell Vicky is assumed to have kidnapped Chompy and gets imprisoned. Timmy is fine with this at first, but he actually feels unconscious guilt about it, causing him to make bizarre and destructive wishes in his sleep that his fairy godparents are forced to grant.
- In "The Boy Who Would Be Queen", Timmy tries to think of a birthday gift for Trixie, but he has trouble "thinking like a girl." Cosmo jokes that the only way he'd be able to do that would be to wish himself into a girl, and both he and Timmy fall about laughing at the idea. This pisses off Wanda enough that when Timmy blurts out, "Like I'd wish I was a girl!" she twists it into a wish and promptly grants it.
Female Timmy: What did you do?! I didn't wish for this!
Wanda: Well, you said "I", "wish", and "girl". - In "Nectar of the Odds", Timmy begins selling lemonade infused with Cosmo's magic-laced sweat, which makes it taste improbably delicious. Unfortunately, it also turns out to have wish-granting properties, which Timmy learns when a customer idly wishes his pet dog were still alive so it could try the lemonade, and it magically appears in front of him. None of Timmy's customers ever catches on, but their accidental wishes still cause enough chaos that Timmy is forced to undo the wish in its entirety, including all the money he'd earned.
- The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy:
- "A Dumb Wish" is all about the titular trio accidentally making wishes after Billy releases Grim’s mom from a magic lamp and grants the trio three wishes. Billy wishes he knew what he wanted to wish for (a volcano, but then he can’t wish for a volcano because he only got one wish), while Mandy’s first wish is for Billy and Grim to shut up when they won’t stop arguing over what Grim wanted to wish for. The last wish is when Billy, Grim, and Grim’s mom annoy Mandy so much that she wishes for everyone on Earth to disappear. Not that Mandy minds it, though.
- "Wishbones" features a magical, talking skull named Thromnambular who grants people’s wishes. At one point, he’s found by Nergal Jr., who can’t think of what to wish for since he keeps thinking of ways his ideas could backfire. Soon, Jr. gets so frustrated that he accidentally wishes he knew what to wish for, just like Billy did when he met Grim’s mom. Jr. then knows what he should wish for, but Thromnambular tells him that everyone only gets one wish, and teleports away, leaving Jr. disappointed. Of course, based on how all the other wishes went, Jr. is lucky nothing happened.
- In the short story, The Magic Boots, a man nostalgically says to himself, "Ah, the good old days, I wish they were here again", without realising that the boots he's wearing are magic and grant wishes. Thus, he ends up time-travelling to the time of his childhood.
- My Little Pony 'n Friends: In "The Magic Coins: Part 1", a sudden rainstorm forces the ponies to go inside, and Baby Lickety Split wishes that it'd never rain again, unknowingly stepping on a wish-granting coin that ends up causing a severe drought.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "Growing Up is Hard to Do", Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle wish out loud that they were adults so that they could have all the freedom of being grown. Unbeknownst to them, the nearby flower is magic and makes them magically age.
- In P.J. Sparkles, once she gains her powers, P.J. can do almost anything, provided she phrases it "I'd love it if X happened." When explaining to Peter that she'd love to take him to Twinkle Town with her, she accidentally summons a portal that whisks them there.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- In "Shanghaied", both Patrick and SpongeBob accidentally waste two of their Three Wishes from the Flying Dutchman. Patrick says he wishes they had known about the three wishes earlier (causing time to go back five minutes), and SpongeBob says he wishes Squidward were there to see it (causing Squidward to appear on the ship, right after he had gotten home).
- "Wishing You Well" has two of them, one from Squidward and one from Mr. Krabs.
- When Squidward gets out of the Wishing Well after spending all night in there with SpongeBob and Patrick, he sarcastically wishes he were as far away from them as possible. Since this is after SpongeBob and Patrick unearthed the magic at the bottom of the well, Squidward's wish comes true when he gets hit by and stuck to the front of a bus that's headed "far away."
- Mr. Krabs tries to prove there's no such thing as magic by wishing he were steamed with a side of melted butter. This results in Krabs turning into a real-life crab that's about to be eaten by a real-life human, causing Krabs to frantically backpedal as the episode ends:
Mr. Krabs: I do believe in magic! I do believe in magic! I do believe in magic! OHHHH NOOOO!
- Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!: This happens twice when the team encounters a Jackass Genie called the Wigglenog in "Meet the Wigglenog".
- Before the team even met the Wigglenog, Chiro wished for "some real excitement," causing a horde of monsters to attack them.
- When an exasperated Gibson wishes Otto wasn't "such a colossal dunderhead," the Wigglenog makes Otto the smartest being in the galaxy. The Wigglenog even lampshades it when Gibson says he didn't mean it.
Wigglenog: Purposefully or with a doubt, a wish is a wish, when spoken out.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012): In '"The Weird World of Wyrm", the group encounter the titular space genie when Casey accidentally wishes for something exciting to happen while exploring a wrecked ship, resulting in the group fighting space zombies. Of course the group had no way of knowing about Wyrm until he revealed himself and that they unwittingly freed him from his prison. Later, while mulling over how to use their two wishes, Don gets irritated of Casey's dumb suggestions and wishes he would smarten up. Naturally the Wyrm hears this and grants the wish. note
- Three Delivery: In "The Other Garden", after getting humiliated, Sid angrily wishes that he, Sue, and Tobey had never met Nana. Unbeknownst to Sid, he had consumed a magical soup made from a recipe that can grant wishes, and as a result, the trio ended up in an Alternate Timeline where Kong Li has taken over without opposition.
- Wander Over Yonder: In "The Picnic", Lord Hater wished for Wander to leave him alone for five seconds after being annoyed by him throughout the episode. Of course, the celestial being that appears every millennium grants him his wish, which made Hater completely waste his one wish, which he saved to rule the universe.