“HIPY PAPY BTHETHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY”
Don’t worry. This entire blog is not in gibberish. The above is a quote from winnie-pooh.org regarding Eeyore’s birthday wherein Owl writes a birthday message on the (now empty) honey pot Pooh plans to gift his gloomy friend.
“I’m just saying ‘A Happy Birthday’,” said Owl carelessly.
“It’s a nice long one,” said Pooh, very much impressed by it.
This blog has previously featured messaging to kids regarding their birthdays and the positive character traits they should manifest on this oh-so-exciting day. More recently, though, I was thinking of famous fictional birthdays.
- Eeyore’s regrettably forgotten birthday was one that came to mind.
- Harry Potter, too, at age 11, suffers the overlooked birthday fate. Until Hagrid shows up — with a cake no less — although he admits it may have been squashed a bit. “I mighta sat on it at some point, but it’ll taste all right.”
- Bilbo Baggins Eleventy First Birthday is featured on a Huffington Post list of the 10 Best Parties in Literature. After all, he invites the entire shire for feasting and Gandalf’s fireworks.
- One more that I came across cried out to be included. Per The Telegraph’s Five Best Fictional Birthdays: “Teddy Robinson, at his own birthday party in Teddy Robinson Stories (1952), loses his head completely and sings to his guests: ‘I’m glad you came/But all the same/The party’s really for me.’”
Yet I struggled to remember or find more examples of fictional birthday parties. There were many, many suggestions made for how to host a party in the vein of a various beloved fictional character. Here’s a great round-up of book party ideas.
Still, I found little on fictional representations of characters’ actual birthdays.
Nevertheless, some sites shared the fictional birthdays of familiar characters. You might want to check out Flavorwire’s Infographic (featuring TV and movie characters — I share my birthday with Kitty of That ’70s Show and Peggy from King of the Hill) or Fictional History’s (a more literary version, although not every day of the calendar is full).
In the meantime, help me out. You’re readers. What other birthdays in fiction can you recall?
Birthdays are Best 