- •In Bolt, the director pulls one of these when Mindy-from-the-Network asks for a less than happy ending. He ends it abruptly and says to Mindy "How does your audience feel about... cliffhangers? You wanted unhappy 18-35 year olds, I'll give you unhappy 18-35 year olds. Small example but it works."
- A cover for the film version of Coraline features the trope name, word for word, written on a wall.
- The Princess and the Frog: Dr. Facilier promises to "make all [Lawrence and Naveen's] wildest dreams come true." To quote Discworld, remember some of your dreams? In this case, Facilier uses Exact Words and double-meanings to convince the pair to accept his deal; Facilier identifies Naveen as "Wanting to be free" and offers "Green" to get that (The card for future shows Naveen on a lily pad). Lawrence is recognized as always being a servant, but is offered a chance to improve his station (Lawrence's future card shows him and Naveen in switched positions). When they accept, Naveen is turned into a frog and Lawrence is given Naveen's appearance.
- This drives the movie Shrek Forever After. When Shrek wants "one day where I can be an ogre like I used to be," he gets it. Too bad the deal he made with the Big Bad has rather unpleasant consequences.
- This happens to Merida in Brave when she wished that her mother would "change" without saying specifics and to the prince of the legend who wishes for "the strength of ten men", was turned into a bear and caused him to kill everyone in the throne room and his brothers were among the victims.
- In Wreck-It Ralph, the Nicelanders challenge Ralph that if he can get a medal, he can get the keys to the penthouse. Ralph does manage to get a medal, but because of his and Fix-It Felix's (who went to find Ralph) absence, Fix-it Felix Jr. has already been declared out of order and will be unplugged soon. As promised, Ralph gets the key to the penthouse but it is now abandoned.
- Toy Story 3 has the main characters wishing early on that they would get played with again. When they do, it's at a day care where they happen to be assigned to toddlers who handle them too roughly. (All the main characters are toys meant for older kids than toddlers.) (And when Buzz Lightyear tries to negotiate with Lotso, the toy in charge of all the other toys, to get himself and the rest of the main characters put into the room with the older kids, Buzz and eventually the other toys find out that Lotso runs the place like a prison
- •Towards the end of TinkerBell and the Last Treasure, Tink accidentally uses the Mirror of Incanta, which she intended to use to repair the broken moonstone, when she snaps at her Non-Human Sidekick, "I wish you would be quiet for just one minute!"
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- The Spectacular Spider Man: In Group Therapy, just before going to sleep, Peter remarks, "I wish I could just wake up tomorrow, with Doc and his merry morons back in jail." Oh, he gets his wish alright. But at the cost of losing himself to the symbiote, waking up exhausted, and being out of the loop for a whole day that his aunt has had a heart attack.
- •Sofia the First: King Roland's wish for a baker's life in "The Baker King". To a lesser extent in that same episode, Amber wanting the cake to have one hundred layers.
• The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) episode "The Pulverizer Returns" has Timothy (a.k.a. The Pulverizer), an enamored fanboy of the Turtles, joining the Foot Clan in order to impress the Turtles. When the Shredder announces that Mutagen will be experimented on Foot Soldiers in order to make them more of a threat towards the turtles, Pulverizer voluteers to be the first, hoping to turn on the Foot and join the Turtles in the hopes of becoming a mutant like them, DESPITE the Turtles warning him of how dangerous and stupid of an idea it is. In the end, Timothy painfully gets his wish. He is now Mutagen Man.
- In "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted", Candace busts Phineas and Ferb on building an unsafe airlift, and their mother sends them away to a reformatory school; at first, Candace is glad they are away, but it is not too long before she begins to miss them. Then when she finds out how the reformatory school is run. Candace's friend Stacy even calls her out on this:
Stacy: You finally have everything you ever wanted. Call me when you get over it!
- Turns out it was all just a dream, which then turns out to be Perry's Nightmare.