Valentine's Day Episodes

Jewelry, Roses and Chocolates. Valentine's Day (technically Saint Valentine's Day) is a big deal, and boy do writers know it! The holiday on February 14 has been used a million times in all sorts of media to bring up love and romance. White Day is a similar holiday observed in Japan and South Korea on March 14. In some countries, it's normal to give Valentine's Day cards or gifts to friends, whereas in other countries you'd only give a Valentine's Day present to someone you are romantically interested in, leading to a bit of Values Dissonance for certain audiences.

In fiction, characters face romantic challenges or break new ground on episodes that revolve around valentine's day. A Valentine's Day Episode plot typically centers around hooking up, or with struggling to find the right gift, or with someone (usually the man, usually on some kind of comedy) forgetting about the holiday and struggling to find a suitable gift. There are any number of Love Tropes, comedic love tropes and Sex Tropes that are common to Valentine-centric plots. Can be fertile ground for Shipping Tropes. And likely to be a pivotal part of a Romance Arc.

If it's the girl struggling to find a gift, it will be played for the drama of her hoping to confess her feelings on Valentine's Day. Expect her to be shown up by competitors (usually the Alpha Bitch) or a comedy of errors as she's intercepted by a variety of Moment Killers, accidental or otherwise.

While many Valentine's Day Episodes will usually air just before or on Valentine's Day, this is not always the case. To be consider a Valentine's Day Episode a work needs to both explicitly mention Valentine's Day and have a plot focused on love, romance, and relationship, when that hasn't been the sole focus previously.

See Halloween Episode and Christmas Episode

Examples of Valentine's Day Episodes include:

Anime and Manga

• Fruits Basket: Tohru, Yuki, Kagura and Kyo go into a double date in Valentines. The episode also features girls breaking into Yuki's locker to throw away any chocolate he's given so theirs will be the only one he sees.
• The second season of Kimi ni Todoke starts with one of these... Problem is, Sawako is so insecure about her feelings for Kazehaya that she doesn't give him even a friendship chocolate, which severely damages their relationship.

Comic Books

• The Hack Slash and Bomb Queen crossover was supposed to be this, though apparently due to delays causing it to be released after February the holiday aspect was dropped.
• Marvel once produced a number of I (Heart) Marvel one-shots; the Spider-Man themed one, "Web of Love", was all about Spidey trying to think of a good Valentine's Day present for his wife, Mary Jane. In the end he had Tony Stark make a pair of web-shooting bracelets for her.
• The Books of Magic had a Valentine's Day story called "This Is Not About Chocolate", in which Eros/Cupid attempted to strike back against his modern image as a cherub in a nappy (and by analogy, the comercialisation of romance in general).
• "Transformers Valentine's Day Special". It focuses on Glyph/Tap-Out, one of the franchise's lesser-known Official Couples, and Blast Off/Cosmos.

Fan Works

• Script Fic Calvin and Hobbes: The Series has "Insanity is In The Air", which gave some Character Development to Andy.
• A Sailor Moon fic features Serena lacking a gift for Darien and deciding to play Fidelity Test with him instead. It bombs because he sees through her disguise right away, and leads to a case of Idiot Ball when he keeps going along with her seduction before telling her he knows it's her.
  • Another fic features Serena and Darien celebrating Valentine's Day with sex and chocolate during the Nagano Olympics.
    

Literature

• Older Than Print: The first known connection between romance and Valentine's Day was made by Geoffrey Chaucer.
• Harry Potter had two:
  • In Chamber of Secrets, Lockhart sets up an ill-conceived Valentine's celebration which annoys everyone but himself. Ginny sends Harry a singing valentine using Lockhart's "card-carrying cupids", but it backfires badly.
  • In Order of the Phoenix, Harry takes Cho Chang to a date on Valentine's day. This also doesn't go so well.
• The Savannah Reid mystery Sugar and Spite. Savannah laments somewhat over the fact that her only Valentine's Day plan is to assist her cop buddy Dirk with a stakeout. When Dirk's ex-wife shows up and is murdered with his gun, Savannah spends the days leading up to the holiday working to clear his name and find the real killer, comforting Dirk along the way and realizing, not for the first time, that her feelings for him might be a little more complicated than just friendship. At the end he thanks her for her support by splitting a heart-shaped box of chocolates with her.

Live Action TV

• ALF
• Arrested Development: 'Marta Complex' has a Love Triangle between the titular Marta and brothers G.O.B. and Michael.
• Beverly Hills, 90210 a bunch.
• The Big Bang Theory: "The Large Hadron Collision" has Leonard going to CERN and seeing the LHC. He has a plus one and since it will be Valentine's Day would like Penny to accompany him. Sheldon has other ideas.
• The Bold And The Beautiful
• Bones
• Boy Meets World has a few, most notably season 5 (Shawn's exes kidnap him to "protect" his new girlfriend Angela from the person he used to be) and season 6 (Amy and Alan's new baby is born prematurely).
• Brothers and Sisters
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered". Xander concocts a Love Potion to use on Cordelia so he can dump her in the most spectacular fashion possible, but it backfires. Angelus intends to use the holiday and his history with Buffy to inflict a good dose of Mind Rape on her, but Xander's problems ruin his plans.
• Charmed: "Animal Pragmatism" from season 2, in which Phoebe accidentally enables a bunch of her college buddies to cast a spell that turns animals into hunky (but slightly evil) guys.
• Cheers
• Community the first season has 'Communication Studies' and second season has 'Early 21 century Romanticism'.
• Coronation Street
• Cougar Town
• Criminal Minds: "Closing Time". The Bartender who hears everybody's sob stories decides to put the storytellers out of their misery, while Hotch's relationship with his triathlon training partner grows.
• Days of Our Lives, a bunch.
• Dawson's Creek
• Desperate Housewives
• Dharma and Greg
• The Drew Carey Show
• Eastenders
• 8 Simple Rules, at least two episodes.
• ER
• Everybody Hates Chris
• Family Matters
• Forever Knight
• Frasier at least two episodes.
• Full House at least two episodes.
• Glee: "Silly Love Songs" and "Heart"
• Grey's Anatomy, the February Day episode reminded two of the doctors that they were single and they proceeded to make out in the closet.
• Guiding Light at least two episodes.
• Happy Days, the musical montage episode "Be My Valentine."
• Home Improvement
• How I Met Your Mother at least two episodes.
• House
• Friends at least two episodes.
• The King of Queens at least two episodes.
• Las Vegas
• Mad Men
• Make It or Break It
• Married... with Children
• Melrose Place
• The Middle Two episodes as of the third season.
• Modern Family: "My Funky Valentine" in the first season and "Bixby's Back" in the second season.
• Mike and Molly
• The Nanny at least two episodes.
• Neighbours
• Nip Tuck
• The OC
• The Office: "Valentine's Day" in the second season and PDA in the seventh season.
• Outsourced (TV series)
• Parks and Recreation
• The Pretender had a Valentine's Day episode in its second season. It was Jarod's first experience of the Day, due to his deprived childhood.
• Sabrina the Teenage Witch had one in her first five seasons but dropped it for it last two as such things took on less importance in Sabrina's life.
• Saturday Night Live at least twice.
• 7th Heaven, at least two episodes.
• Smallville: In the episode "Persuasion", Clark is exposed to wish fulfilling gem-kryptonite on Valentine's Day and wishes for a more traditional relationship with Lois.
• Step by Step
• Supernatural: "My Bloody Valentine" from season 5.
• That 70s Show
• 3rd Rock from the Sun
• 30 Rock:
  • The first was "Up All Night" in Season 1, Liz Lemon trying to figure out who sent her flowers. It was future boyfriend Floyd, he meant to send them to Liz Lemler.
  • Season 3 had "St. Valentine's Day". Liz and Drew Baird go on their first official date while Jack and Elisa have a row in a church and Tracy helps Kenneth go on a date.
  • "Anna Howard Shaw Day in the fourth season has Liz try to avoid feeling lonely over the holiday by going to the dentist, it introduces Avery and Jenna has a freakout because her stalker is losing interest.
  • Season 5's "Double-Edge Sword". Jack and Liz learn why Too Much Alike is bad recipe for romance.
  • The last was the two-parter "Hey, Baby, What's Wrong" in Season 6. Liz and Criss quarrel in an IKEA, Tracy and Frank try to help Lutz be a ladies man and Jack, while trying to rescue Avery from North Korea, struggles with sexual tension with his mother-in-law.
• Veronica Mars
• Who's The Boss?
• Will and Grace

Video Games

• Each year, Fire Emblem: Heroes has a Valentines Banner that features characters celebrating a "Day of Devotion" that is basically Valentines in all but name.
• Persona has these, and they can be pretty important if the Player Character has a love interest or is about to choose one:
  • Persona 4 and Persona 4 Golden have the main boy spending a rather nice time at the beach with his girl if he has one, and if not, he'll hang out with his male friends at Junes instead. Golden, however, has a liiiiittle spin to it: if the boy has more than one potential girlfriend... he WILL have to choose only one girl and personally reject all the others. Then, each non-chosen girl will tell him how sad and depressed his choice is making her.
  • In Persona 5 , a Player Character who has romanced one girl will get a gift from her. If he has not romanced any girl, he'll be stuck with Ryuiji complaining about failed dates. And if he romances more than one girl... weeeeell...

Newspaper Comics

• Calvin and Hobbes had a series of comics about Valentine's Day every year during its run. These tend to focus on Calvin's and Susie's nascent crush.
• Peanuts often used Charlie Brown's not getting valentine cards as a theme.

Web Animation

• Teen Girl Squad. "Issue 12" involves the girls trying to find dates for the big day. What's Her Face finds true love with the Wireless Wizard, the other three girls die. The episode is "drawn" in red pen for the occasion.
  

Web Comics

• Xkcd: Is fond of mixing love and science for Valentine's Day comics. #63, #223, #543, #701.
• SMBC: Had this couple strengthen their relationship on Valentine's Day.
• Electric Wonderland: "Valentine's Day Massacre" has the three main females argue over a guy and make fools of themselves in the process. The comic itself never refers to Valentine's Day by name.

Western Animation

• The Cleveland Show had three across it runs:
  • In "A Short Story and a Tall Tale", Cleveland and Donna head to Los Angeles for a basketball game. Cleveland's jeering gets him targeted for Revenge by the players.
  • In "There Goes El Neighborhood", Cleveland Jr. sets up Cecelia on a date but his jealousy gets the better of him.
  • In "Here Comes the Bribe", Cleveland and Donna head to couples counselling only for Cleveland to begin bribing the therapist to rig it in his favour.
• Blue's Clues: Featured in an episode, though in a similar fashion to You Mean "Xmas", they refer to the holiday as "Love Day".
• Futurama
  • 'Put Your Head on My Shoulder' focuses on a Fry/Amy relationship. Just as Fry decides to break up, they get in an accident and Zoidberg has to graft Fry's head onto Amy's shoulder to keep him alive.
  • In 'Love and Rockets', Planet Express gets a lucrative job transporting candy hearts, while Bender starts dating the Planet Express Ship's computer, then chooses the worst possible time to break up with her. The whole thing plays out as a very strange parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The episode also features some Ship Teasing for the Will They or Won't They? relationship between Fry and Leela.
• Johnny Bravo had a Valentine's Day special, where it's revealed that Johnny was born on February 14. It had him finally meet a woman who likes him, only she turns out to be a secret agent.
• Peanuts had a few Valentine TV Special, including "Be my Valentine, Charlie Brown" and "A Charlie Brown Valentine".
• In The Simpsons:
  • Homer and a bunch of other married men got mad at Apu for making them look bad one Valentine's Day by his over-the-top romancing of Manjua - getting Elton John to sing for her, etc.
  • "I Love Lisa" focuses on a crush Ralph Wiggum has on Lisa.
  • One episode has Lisa falling for a boy who acts like a young Ernest Hemmingway.
• "Gangland" in Season 2 of The Spectacular Spider-Man. There's a huge group date...and a mobster summit where Hammerhead betrays Tombstone/The Big Man, and a three-way fight between Tombstone, Silvermane, and Doc Ock breaks out. The Green Goblin put Hammerhead up to it.
• SpongeBob SquarePants had a story where he schemed to get the best Valentines Day present ever for Patrick. Things go wrong, Hilarity Ensues.
• The House of Mouse episode "Goofy's Valentine Date."
• Recess had "That Stinking Feeling" and "My Funny Valentines" paired together for airing. "That Stinking Feeling" was about Spinelli's crush on a boy, while "My Funny Valentines" (which is the more official Valentines episode) was about T.J. making joke Valentine cards for the girls of the school, but with them thinking that he had crushes on him. Ship Tease ensued between T.J. and Spinelli (again). Oddly enough, the episode didn't air anywhere near the Holliday (though the show is usually in it's off-season in February)
• Doug's 1st Movie was set around Valentine's Day, centering around a Valentine's Dance.
• While KaBlam! doesn't have an official Valentine's Day episode, "A Nut In Every Bite!" (where Henry falls in love with Dawn, the network executive's granddaughter) was usually re-ran in February.
• Rugrats had a Valentine's Day two-parter.
• The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Hearts And Hooves Day", in which the Cutie Mark Crusaders try to get Cherilee and Big Mac together using a love potion. It doesn't go as well as they'd hoped.
• 101 Dalmatians: The Series had "Valentine's Daze", showing Cruella's dislike for the holliday as she has no one to be her Valentine.
• "Rose is Red" in Thomas the Tank Engine. It's mainly a vehicle to sink the semi-popular fan couple of Thomas/Rosie.
• American Dad!:
  • The climax of "One Little Word" is set on Valentine's Day, Stan having to choose between his love for Francine and his loyalty to Bullock for career advancement. Stan does make the right choice and chooses Francine... right when she's begging him to help Bullock with his bullet wound.
  • "May the Best Stan Win" opens on Valentine's Day, focusing on how Stan neglects Francine. He proves his love in the end by fighting off his future cyborg-self.
• "Valentine's Day in Quahog" in Family Guy, a massive self-aware parody of this trope, Meta Twisting the usual trappings in every which way they can, serving as a Vignette Episode to show how everyone celebrates the holiday. As this is Family Guy, Hilarity Ensues.
• "An Earth Shatteringly Romantic Solar Valentine's Day Opposites Special" in Solar Opposites. Wanting to enjoy a tuna meal at their favourite restaurant, the Solars remove all love from Earth so that there's no special Valentine's Day menu that will take tuna off the menu. It snowballs into super-intelligent and now distributed across the globe parrots taking over Earth.