Flatulence humor refers to any type of
jokeA joke is a short story or ironic depiction of a situation communicated with the intent of being humorous. These jokes will normally have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A joke can also be a single phrase or statement that employs sarcasm...
,
practical joke deviceA practical joke device is a manufactured prop or toy intended to confuse, frighten, or amuse individuals as a prank. Often, these objects are harmless facsimiles of disgusting or terrifying objects, such as vomit or spilled nail polish...
, or other humor related to
flatulenceFlatulence is the expulsion through the rectum of a mixture of gases that are byproducts of the digestion process of mammals and other animals. The mixture of gases is known as flatus, fart, or simply gas, and is expelled from the rectum in a process colloquially referred to as "passing gas" or...
.
History of Flatulence Humor
Although it is likely that flatulence humor has long been considered funny in cultures that consider the public passing of gas impolite, such jokes are rarely recorded. Two important early texts are the 5th century BC plays
The KnightsThe Knights was the fourth play written by Aristophanes, the master of an ancient form of drama known as Old Comedy. The play is a satire on the social and political life of classical Athens during the Peloponnesian War and in this respect it is typical of all the dramatist's early plays...
and
The CloudsThe Clouds is a comedy written by the celebrated playwright Aristophanes lampooning intellectual fashions in classical Athens. It was originally produced at the City Dionysia in 423 BC and it was not well received, coming last of the three plays competing at the festival that year...
, both by
AristophanesAristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a prolific and much acclaimed comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays have come down to us virtually complete...
, which contain numerous "fart" jokes. Another example from classical times appeared in
Apocolocyntosis or
The Pumpkinification of ClaudiusTiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was the fourth Roman Emperor, a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, ruling from 24 January AD 41 to his death in AD 54...
, a
satireSatire is often strictly defined as a literary genre or form; although in practice it is also found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods,...
attributed to
SenecaLucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...
on the late Roman emperor:
He later explains he got to the afterlife with a quote from
HomerHomer is a legendary ancient Greek epic poet, traditionally said to be the author of the epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey...
:
In the translated version of Penguin's
1001 Arabian NightsOne Thousand and One Nights is a collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age...
Tales, a story entitled "The Historic Fart" tells of a man that flees his country from the sheer embarrassment of farting at his
weddingA wedding is the ceremony in which two people are united in marriage or a similar institution. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes...
, only to return ten years later to discover that his fart had become so famous, that people used the anniversary of its occurrence to date other events. Upon learning this he exclaimed, "Verily, my fart has become a date! I shall be remembered forever!"
One of the most celebrated incidences of flatulence humor in early
English literatureEnglish literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; Joseph Conrad was born in Poland, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, V.S....
is in
The Miller's Tale by
Geoffrey ChaucerGeoffrey Chaucer was an English author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat, courtier and diplomat. Although he wrote many works, he is best remembered for his unfinished frame narrative The Canterbury Tales...
which dates from the 14th century. The character Nicholas hangs his buttocks out of a window and farts in the face of his rival Absolom. Absolom then sears Nicholas's backside (or "ers", meaning "arse") with a red-hot poker:
François RabelaisFrançois Rabelais was a major French Renaissance writer, doctor and Renaissance humanist. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, and both bawdy jokes and songs.- Biography :...
' tales of
Gargantua and PantagruelThe Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel is a connected series of five novels written in the 16th century by François Rabelais. It is the story of two giants, a father and his son and their adventures, written in an amusing, extravagant, satirical vein...
are laden with acts of flatulence. In Chapter XXVII of the second book, the giant, Pantagruel, releases a fart that "made the earth shake for twenty-nine miles around, and the foul air he blew out created more than fifty-three thousand tiny men, dwarves and creatures of weird shapes, and then he emitted a fat wet fart that turned into just as many tiny stooping women."
Benjamin FranklinBenjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author and printer, satirist, political theorist, politician, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, soldier, and diplomat...
, in his open letter "To the Royal Academy of Farting", satirically proposes that converting farts into a more agreeable form through science should be a milestone goal of the Royal Academy.
In
Mark TwainSamuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. Twain is most noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which has since been called the Great American Novel, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He is extensively quoted...
's
1601[Date: 1601.] Conversation, as it was the Social Fireside, in the Time of the Tudors. or simply 1601 is the title of a humorous risque work by Mark Twain, first published anonymously in 1880, and finally acknowledged by the author in 1906....
, properly named [ Date: 1601.] Conversation, as it was the Social Fireside, in the Time of the Tudors, a cupbearer at Court who's a Diarist reports:
The Queen inquires as to the source, and receives various replies. Lady Alice says
In the 1940s a clandestine record called "The Crepitation Contest" was produced, allegedly by Canadian Broadcast Corporation staff (narration by sportscaster Sidney S. Brown, who identifies himself in the closing seconds of the original unedited recording, and "sound effects" by his producer, Jules Lipton). The recording is in the manner of a seemingly real radio broadcast of a live sporting event, complete with pre-game interviews of the contestants (the “champion”, Lord Windismere and the challenger, Paul Boomer), detailed descriptions of all aspects of the competition as it unfolds, including the rules and traditions associated with the sport, play-by-play reporting, and crowd sounds reacting to the drama. The listener also hears a game official on the field as he announces scores attributed to the flatulence sounds emitted by each contestant in the competition.
The assigning of blame
The sourcing of a fart involves a ritual of assignment that sometimes takes the form of a rhyming game. The trick is to pin the blame on someone else, often by means of deception, or using a back and forth rhyming game that includes phrases such as:
- He who observed it served it.
- He who first ejected it detected it.
- Whoever rhymed it crimed it.
- Whoever spoke last set off the blast.
- Whoever smelt it, dealt it.
- Whoever denied it supplied it.
- The next person who speaks is the person who reeks.
- The smeller's the feller.
- Who sat on a duck?
- The one who said the verse just made the atmosphere worse.
- He who accuses blew the fuses.
- The first chicken that cackles, laid the egg.
- Whoever did the rhyme did the crime.
And in some cases, blame was laid upon either the dog or the cat.
Fart jokes in popular culture
Flatulence humor and the
lighting of fartsFart lighting, variously referred to as fart-burning, blue-darting, blue flame, blue angel, flatus ignition, and pyroflatulence, is the practice of setting fire to the gases produced by human flatulence, often producing a blue hue...
also appears in
cinemaFilm encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects....
and TV series:
- Farting featured heavily in one scene of Blazing Saddles
Blazing Saddles is a satirical Western comedy film directed by Mel Brooks. Starring Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder, it was written by Brooks, Andrew Bergman, Richard Pryor, Norman Steinberg, and Al Uger, and was based on Bergman's story and draft...
. This caused some controversy in the United States: when it was run as a television movie of the weekThe ABC Movie of the Week was a weekly television anthology series, featuring made-for-TV movies, that aired on the ABC network in various permutations from 1969 to 1976.-History:...
by ABCThe American Broadcasting Company is an American television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. It first broadcast on television in 1948...
the farting sounds were overdubbedOverdubbing is a technique used by recording studios to add a supplementary recorded sound to a previously recorded performance....
with sounds from the surrounding horses, so the scene had cowboys sitting around a campfire standing up and leaning over for no apparent reason (Dawson, 1999, p. 125).
- Star Trek V, the first Star Trek production to contain a fart joke, is known jokingly as Blazing Starships in reference to Blazing Saddles. The second joke in Star Trek lore came in an episode of Star Trek episode where a whoopie cushion was referenced.
- "I fart in your general direction!" is a popular phrase from Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a 1975 comedy film written and performed by the comedy group Monty Python , and directed by Gilliam and Jones...
.
- The lighting of flatulence is a plot device in the movie, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is a 1999 American animated satirical comedy/musical film based on the animated television series South Park...
and flatulence in general is featured prominently in many South Park episodes, particularly those featuring Terrance and Phillip.
- In the movie Down Periscope
Down Periscope is a 1996 comedy movie starring Kelsey Grammer as the captain of a rust-bucket submarine called the USS Stingray who is fighting for his career...
, Buckman (the cook) farts very loudly. The sonarSonar is a technique that uses sound propagation to navigate, communicate with or detect other vessels. There are two kinds of sonar: active and passive. Sonar may be used as a means of acoustic location and of measurement of the echo characteristics of "targets" in the water...
operator on the Orlando reported he heard what sounded like "an explosion". During the remainder of the scene there are various shots of the crew of the U. S. S. Stingray as the fart passes them.
- In Garfield: The Movie and Garfield: A Tail Of Two Kitties
Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties is a theatrical sequel to the 2004 live-action feature film Garfield: The Movie...
, Garfield does some crude flatulence.
- In the episode of The Mighty B!
The Mighty B! is a Nickelodeon show created by Erik Wiese, Cynthia True and Amy Poehler. Poehler also provides the voice of the title character, Bessie Higgenbottom. Its first episode premiered on April 26, 2008.-Development:...
"Toot Toot", Bessie farts in a Honeybee meeting, therefore causing humor.
- In the episode of Unfabulous
Unfabulous is an American children's television series on Nickelodeon in TEENick about an "unfabulous" junior high school student, played by Emma Roberts...
"The Toot", Addie farts while giving a book report, making people laugh at her afterwards.
- In Date Movie
Date Movie is a American parody film, which was directed and written by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, two of the writers of the first Scary Movie. Much of the story line was based on that of the well-known romantic comedy My Big Fat Greek Wedding...
, flatulence is heavily featured in the scene where the African-American couple are kissing and the teenage girl farts. The teenage boy replies to her that everybody farts. With her hearing that, she farts very uncontrollably and loudly for over 10 seconds. Then the teenage boy simply replies with "Damn!".
- Flatulence features heavily among the humour in British adult comic book
A comic book is a magazine made up of narrative artwork, often accompanied by dialog and often including brief descriptive prose...
VizViz is a popular British comic magazine which has been running since 1979.The comic's style parodies the strait-laced British comics of the post-war period, notably The Beano and The Dandy, but with incongruous language, crude toilet humour, black comedy, surreal humour and either sexual or violent...
; its regular characters include "Johnny FartpantsJohnny Fartpants was arguably the first character in Viz magazine to achieve UK-wide notoriety, and was certainly on a lot of teenagers' T-shirts in the late 1980s. He is, on the face of it, an ordinary boy; except that he suffers from extreme, excessive flatulence which is not only offensive to...
", who appears in a flatulence-based strip; there are also frequent references to passing of gas in the "Roger's ProfanisaurusRoger's Profanisaurus is a compendium of profanity, featuring the foulmouthed Viz character Roger Mellie, the man on the telly. The title is a word play on Roget's Thesaurus. The book is published in the United Kingdom by Viz, and described as "the foulest-mouthed book ever to stalk the face of...
" section.
- In Little Giants
Little Giants is a 1994 family comedy film, starring Rick Moranis and Ed O'Neill as brothers in a small Ohio town, coaching rival Pee-Wee Football teams.-Synopsis:...
(1994), a boy in the Giants team has flatulence from eating.
Fart humor & information books
There are dozens of books about fart history, fart jokes, and fart culture. One of them (see Farts A Spotter's Guide
, below) even has its own electronic fart machine with 10 fart recordings. Walter the Farting Dog
is a children's book that reached No. 1 on the New York Times's Best-Seller list. Who Cut the Cheese?
is probably the most comprehensive history of flatulence in literature, humor, religion, films, et al.
Fart Proudly: Writings of Benjamin Franklin You Never Read in School
(Enthea Press) edited by Carl Japikse, ISBN 89804-801-X
1994 Oh, Vulgar Wind: A Sympathetic Overview of the Common Fart
(Culture Concepts, Toronto) by Munroe Scott, ISBN 921472-47-1
1998 Tailwinds: The Lore and Language of Fizzles, Farts and Toots
(Michael O'Marra Books Ltd) by Peter Furze
1999 Who Cut the Cheese? A Cultural History of the Fart
(Ten Speed Press) by Jim DawsonJim Dawson is a Hollywood, California-based author who has written two books about farting, including the best-selling 'Who Cut the Cheese?' His third, titled 'Did Somebody Step on a Duck?,' is due out in May 2010...
, ISBN 781580 080118
2001 Walter the Farting Dog
(Frog Ltd) by William KotzwinkleWilliam Kotzwinkle is an author and screenwriter. He was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. His most popular works to date include the novelization of E.T. the Extra Terrestrial William Kotzwinkle (born 1943) is an author and screenwriter. He was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. His most popular works...
and Glenn MurrayGlenn Murray is an English football player who plays as a striker for English League One side Brighton & Hove Albion.-Career:...
; illustrated by Audrey Colman, ISBN 781583 940532
2006 Blame It on the Dog: A Modern History of the Fart
(Ten Speed Press) by Jim DawsonJim Dawson is a Hollywood, California-based author who has written two books about farting, including the best-selling 'Who Cut the Cheese?' His third, titled 'Did Somebody Step on a Duck?,' is due out in May 2010...
, ISBN 781580 087513
2008 Farts: A Spotter's Guide (Chronicle Books) by Crai S. Bower; illustrated by Travis Millard, ISBN 780811 866095
External links