Pillow Fight
Monica: When women hang out, we don't have pillow fights in our underwear.
Chandler: (doubled over in shock)
Monica: I'm sorry, we do. We do! I don't know why I said that.
A gathering of female characters in a not particularly serious battle or physical challenge for purposes of titillation. Often, literally, a pillow fight (i.e., at a Slumber Party) but may include similar situations like volleyball, particularly when wardrobe is skimpy and the action is bouncy.
If it actually involves pillows, the chances of said pillows breaking apart and covering the place with their stuffing is fairly high.
Advertising
- A promo for the Australian version of Beauty and the Geek featured a pillow fight between the beauties and the geeks. The beauties, of course, were clad in lingerie.
Anime & Manga
- The Pillow Fight in Kemeko Deluxe is... excessively destructive. But fanservice is given, nonetheless.
- There's a particularly adorable one in Tokyo Mew Mew.
- A uselessly badass pillow fight with the Japanese team in Eyeshield 21 involves players using their special techniques with the pillows against each other.
- In Fairy Tail, there is a pillow fight after the Garuna arc, just before Loki is revealed to be Leo, stellar spirit of the Lion. It starts out pretty normal. Then Natsu hits Lucy so hard with a pillow she ends up flat on her back in the yard. She decides to leave before she gets killed.
- Mahou Sensei Negima
- During their Kyoto vacation/school field trip, several of the girls of 3-A have an epic pillow fight with their boy teacher's kiss as the prize. Despite what you may assume from the previous sentence, very little of it was used as Fetish Fuel.
- Also take note that the girls will indulge in the occasional pillow fight given the opportunity.
- In K-On!, Mugi can hardly wait to start one during the Class Trip. She has scarily good aim, too.
- Akira and Fumi from Aoi Hana love to show their friendship by pummeling each other with pillows from time to time.
- In the two-part "Remote Island Syndrome" from Haruhi Suzumiya, the title character is extremely good at it during the club trip. Just before the murder mystery starts, Haruhi throws one into Arakawa's face unerringly. The Mood Whiplash is quite hard, especially if you haven't read the light novels.
- One Piece: When the Strawhats spend the night in Yuba, a pillow fight is started when Usopp tries to sleep, claiming he'd worked hard that day. Zoro argrily throws a pillow at him saying he'd rested the most of any of them. Usopp throws one at Zoro as payback, one at Chopper for having to be carried the whole way, and one at Sanji for trying to sleep in Vivi's bed. Eventually the four of them start beating each other up.
Comedy
- From the words of comedian Demetri Martin:
"I've codified the five different types of pillow fights:
Man vs Woman: fun
Woman vs. Woman: awesome
Man vs. Man: gay
Man vs. Pillow: crazy, and
Pillow vs. Pillow: Crazy Awesome."
Comic Books
- A pillow fight precedes the Screw Yourself scenario in the XXXenophile story "Doppelgang-Bang".
Films -- Animation
- There is a scene in Megamind remarkably similar to a pillow fight scene, complete with slow motion and feathers flying through the air. Except with bags of money. The feathers are replaced by hundred dollar bills.
Films -- Live-Action
- Animal House. Arguably the Trope Codifier.
- Dale Arden vs. Princess Aura in the 1980 Flash Gordon movie. Real pillow fight.
- Used with a twist in The Hot Chick. Whoever knew a pillow could be so deadly?
- A pillow fight between Jenny McCarthy and Pamela Anderson in the opening of Scary Movie 3 starts with Anderson's character hitting McCarthy's with a pillow, but it eventually leads to them using a glass vase, a laptop, & Anderson's character giving McCarthy a wedgie.
- A pillow fight happens in Spice World.
- Inverted in Little Nicky, when our protagonist beats up his brother with a pillow.
Live-Action TV
- In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Dirty Girls". Xander is wakened from a dream of scantily clad Potential Slayers having a pillow fight, to the reality of the girls in frumpy pyjamas and bathrobes, complaining about a clogged toilet.
- The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers episode "Crystal of Nightmares" features Billy instigating one with the male cast, complete with feathers flying around the room.
- In the That '70s Show episode "Your Time Is Gonna Come," Donna, Jackie and Kelso's girlfriend Annette hold one of these. The guys imagine them in a stereotypical "sexy slumber party" setting, where they, among other things, suggest having a nude pillow fight. In reality, they just sit around bored.
- Savannah and Marti have one in Hellcats, though they are fully clothed at the time.
- How to Be Indie: One occurs between Indie and Evil Cousin Ruby in "How to Keep Your Cool in a Heat Wave". Evil Cousin Ruby has a 'hand tooled combat pillow'.
- The second series finale of Glee features one between the girls in their hotel room.
Music Videos
- The music video for AKB48's "Heavy Rotation" features the girls pillow fighting in their underwear.
Pro Wrestling
- Often used for titillation in the WWE, where pillow fight matches between Divas often appear at PPVs.
Video Games
- The entire purpose of Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball.
- To a lesser extent, Beach Spikers.
Web Comics
- Used as part of a spell in Looking for Group.
- In Sluggy Freelance: Years of Yarncraft, the She-Demons of the sorority house Flaya Hed'decappa fights with Vorpal Pillows against the adventurers panty-raiding them.
- Eerie Cuties had Layla vs. Brooke pillow fight during "all girls invited" sleepover party arc. And then them two again, in a slightly more serious bed fight with monstering out.
- Devil Bear had the Daivas hurling pillows and puns at each other.
Web Original
- A pillow fight ensues between Little Miss Gamer and The Nostalgia Chick in the one-year Anniversary Brawl of That Guy With The Glasses.com.
- In the Whateley Universe, pillow fights are somewhat common among Team Kimba, particularly between Tennyo and Jade.
- Team RWBY has one in their own inimitable style in S1E19 of RWBY Chibi, including Pillow Spam and somehow getting a Dramatic Gun Cock out of a pillow. Later, when Ruby spies Son, Neptune and Ren engaged in a more traditional pillow fight, she dismisses them as "amateurs".
Western Animation
- Parodied in SpongeBob SquarePants. Patrick's pillow can be cocked like a gun.
- Also parodied in a recent episode of Family Guy, where Joe, Cleveland, Quagmire, and Peter get into a pillow fight, which turns into a fist fight.
- The short-lived American adaptation of the Australian sitcom Sit Down Shut Up has an episode where the hippie science teacher Miracle Grohe tells Principal Sezno about an underground club where women in skimpy pajamas pillow fight each other.
- The end credits for Code Lyoko Season 1 (taken from the short pilot Garage Kids) show Ulrich and Yumi having a pillow fight.
- Applejack and Rarity's conflicting attitudes culminate in one in "Look Before You Sleep" from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic.
- Happens commonly in Madeline.
- Happens at the end of the pilot of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy with Billy and Grim. It is one-sided and Grim is at a disadvantage since it is just his body. His head can still feel the pain, though.