Dear Diary

One or more characters find another character's diary and read it.

Malcolm in the Middle

Appearances

• Newhart: Season 4, episode 9, "Write to Privacy" (1985). While Michael is away on a business trip, Joanna and Stephanie go to his apartment to water his plants and find his diary, where he's written a lot of insulting things about them and his other friends. Everyone gets pissed off at Michael, and when he comes home, they confront shun him, but later, they feel guilty for violating his privacy and apologize.
• Malcolm in the Middle: Season 5, episode 3, "Goodbye Kitty" (2003). Reese finds a diary in his backpack and assumes a girl at school dropped it in there. As he reads the diary, he becomes more and more enamored with the girl who wrote it, and eventually he falls in love with her, but he's shocked when Lois sees him reading it and says, "What are you doing with my high school diary?"
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Season 3, episode 3, "Dennis and Dee's Mom is Dead" (2007). Dennis and Sweet Dee's mom dies and leaves Dennis her huge house, where Charlie discovers Dee's old diary and asks a guy named Ernesto to read it to him for a laugh, but Ernesto doesn't find it funny. He feels badly for the pathetic Dee, who was known in high school as "The Aluminum Monster" due to her metal back brace. Impressionable Charlie starts to get upset too, and soon he and Ernesto are both sobbing as they read the rest of the diary.