Banana Peel - Television Tropes & Idioms

When one Banana Peel just isn't enough.

"Discarded Banana Peel Results In Tragicomic Tableau"

— The Onion

"I've never seen documented footage of anyone slipping on a banana peel. I've heard stories, yes, people have told me stories. The Nazis used propaganda."

— Eddie Izzard

One after another, the lethal skins were cast out to feed upon the unwary. Across the course of the day, it is said they claimed as many as 120 Tenchi Academy students as their victims... Kurogane Hayate, purported master of the peels, fell to food poisoning.

- Hayate X Blade, volume 4

Guaranteed to send a character into a Slippery Skid, a Banana Peel is one of the most dangerous things you can encounter in a cartoon. Just stepping on one will inevitably lead to some variety of injury, often capped by a case of Circling Birdies.

By extension, just about anytime a cartoon character ends up crashing into a trash can, garbage truck, or any other public-sanitation device, he's likely to find himself having at least one banana peel stuck to him.

The use of a banana peel as an injurious prop is actually alarmingly realistic and a reference to its ubiquity on the streets of American cities in the early part of the 20th Century. Refrigeration and shipping speed had combined to make bananas the most popular fruit in the country, and in that age before anti-littering laws, people would just eat the fruit and discard the peels wherever they were. As they rotted, the peels would become quite slippery and thus dangerous to tread upon. Banana peels were in fact responsible for a large number of accidents and injuries, including several severely broken legs that eventually had to be amputated, according to period sources. The problem grew so bad that modern urban street sanitation systems were invented mostly to deal with the peel; in New York City, the banana peel actually became something of a symbol of modern sanitation.

Note, however, that the slippery banana peel trope is often used unrealistically — a fresh banana peel is hardly slippery at all. One episode of Jonathan Creek makes the point that you're more likely to slip on a dog turd. Even so, they are still not an inconsiderable risk — for example, in 2001 Great Britain recorded over 300 banana-related accidents, most of which were caused by slipping on a peel.

And the rest? Well...

Examples

Anime

While Azumanga Daioh never showed a banana, much less a peel, Osaka mentions slipping on a banana peel as something she wants to try.
Ouran High School Host Club has chimpanzees appear out of nowhere just to spill banana peels all over the place. In Episode 9, Haruhi slips on one of them, setting up a dashing rescue by one of the St. Lobelia Academy girls.
- Not so much in the manga, though.
In an episode of Keroro Gunsou, Giroro distracts Keroro with a banana peel. Keroro being the big showoff that he is, he can't resist stepping and slipping on the peel. Keroro's inability to resist slipping on banana peels becomes a minor Running Gag.
One strip in Axis Powers Hetalia has America tripping on one. He breaks his leg even though he landed on his face.
Featured in the opening theme animation (and song) to Excel Saga.
Occurs in the Eiken OVA.

Comics

In the Marsupilami's own comic series, there is an evil businessman who wants to make profit out of banana plantations, and his henchmen try to find original product ideas. One suggests making lubricant out of the banana peels since its slippy factor would be of great advantage, but this idea is already heavily patented. Another henchman suggests making concrete out of the banana peels, but another one points out that the concrete would be very slippery.
In the comedy comic series Nabuchodinosaure, there is an episode where the title character has to outrun another dinosaur and is carrying a lot of bananas. Therefore, he throws the banana peels at his pursuer so he keeps on slipping. The end of the story is him being bloated up because he ate all the bananas that he peeled since he doesn't like wasting food.
Guy Delisle tells in Shenzeng when he saw, in real life, a man slipping on a banana peel and he was surprised because it was just like in "comics".
Tintin in the Land of the Soviets has one villain set a banana peel as a trap for Tintin. Snowy takes notice and moves the banana peel right next to the man's foot, and he gets Hoist By His Own Petard.
Garfield makes the following observation about bananas: Its good for food and entertainment. He then proceeds to eat the banana, and toss the peel for Jon to slip on carrying groceries in a typical hilarious manner.
Played with in the Spanish strip {{Anacleto, agente secreto}}. In one gag, the main character slips on a banana peel.. in the middle of a frozen river in the South Pole.
- Yet another strip, shows the main character trying to infiltrate in one house by walking right up the facade. It works well, until he slips on a banana peel.
Oddly inversion in Spanish webcomic Un millón de monos see
Issue number five of Batman and Robin Adventures (a tie-in comic to Batman The Animated Series) featured the story "Second Banana", which begins with The Joker trying to beat a man to death with bananas ("Bananas are funny. Death by bananas is a positive riot".), complains how long it took for him to do so, and states that he'll bring plantains next time. Cue about ten or so pages of him trying to kill The Riddler, who had been declared smarter than he was. After an old bait-and-switch, he comes to kill Riddler for real... with plantains this time. The peel itself comes in at the very end, where The Joker, about to shoot Batman with a Hand Cannon, slips on it and falls, allowing the Caped Crusader to haul him back to Arkham.

Film

The opening of Wrongfully Accused had the prison bus slip on a banana peel while driving through the mountain road, causing it to fall off the cliff!
Shaolin Soccer plays it strait and subverts it. In an early scene the main character and his coach watch a women trip on a banana peel, they then cut to a shaolin temple where a monk trips, catches himself and procedes to jump across a field banana peels, landing on each one and using it as a jumping point.
It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) has a banana peel joke in the final scene. Ethel Merman is the victim.
Monty Python Live At the Hollywood Bowl (1982) subverts the banana peel joke as part of the "Custard Pie Lecture" sketch. Rather than slipping on the skin, Michael Palin picks it up and stuffs it down Terry Jones's overalls.
In Singing In The Rain, Donald O'Connor sings that one of the ways to "Make 'em Laugh" is to slip on a banana peel.
In Woody Allen's Sleeper, the future has produced giant-sized bananas. Naturally, two characters have lots of trouble staying standing when the peels are left on the ground.
The movie version of the Colour of Magic the wizards try to kill Trymon by using a banana peel as a distraction so that he would die because of wet cement covering him, it fails and later on during the climactic battle atop the tower of art Trymon slips on a banana peel and hit by his own spell.

Live Action TV

In the pilot episode of Dead Like Me (called "Pilot"), George goes to collect a soul and the banana peel on the floor of the bank is the subject of debate, as she thinks she is Genre Savvy enough to know that this will be the cause of someone's death—and even after the bank is held hostage and shot up, she turns out to be right.
As mentioned, the first episode of Jonathan Creek saw him experimenting with this after seeing a commercial making use of it; after taking a good run at it, he ended up slipping on dog muck instead.
In The Goodies episode "Cunning Stunts", Bill is seen throwing several banana peels on the floor just so he can slip all over them as part of his entry in the Eurovision Loony Contest. Graeme and Tim also slip all over the skins.
An episode of Good Eats featuring bananas and plantains spoofed this multiple times.
The Myth Busters tested this trope by building a field full of banana peels and running an obstacle course over it. For comparison, they also had a similar field coated in animal birthing lubricant. While the peels were definitely more slippery than solid ground, it was nowhere near as slick as the lubed ground and (assuming you know the peel is there) it was certainly not an automatic slip like you'd see in a cartoon. You know what that means...

Video Games

The Mario Kart series features banana peels as an item; crashing into one causes you cart to spin out and possibly lose coins.
The PC racing game Crazyracing Kartrider also features a banana peel item.
Super Smash Bros Brawl has banana peels as items, and also Diddy Kong can drop them any time. Sometimes players will trip even without slipping on one though.
Gumshoe slips on some of these in Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations, in the stairs leading to the Heavenly hall. The peels were left in there by Larry, who advises to be careful when going back because the peels would still be there.
In Mother 3, Fassad is both very fond of bananas and rather careless about where he throws the peels, and it's possible to slip on them. This bites him in the ass at the end of Chapter 5.
Pipo Monkeys from Ape Escape occasionally drop these.
In Kingdom Of Loathing, if your character eats a banana and then continues adventuring in the same area, you will eventually trip over the peel. There is a trophy for doing this multiple times.
In the adventure game Gobliiins, one of the playing characters can make a werewolf novelist laugh by intentionally slipping on a banana... just a banana.
Raidou Kuzunoha Vs King Abaddon has Raidou slip on a peel early in the game while cornering a suspect with unbelievable luck. The banana peel is later used as the standard slip/tripping animation.
Um Jammer Lammy involves a banana peel accident. After Lammy gets her new guitar and dashes off, in her haste she slips on P. J. Berri's banana peel and dies. This leads to performing concerts in Hell. The U.S. version, however, significantly alters the accident and the result location to a (presumably more humid) island.

Western Animation

One Darkwing Duck villain with the Relm-esque ability to call something into existence by painting it, made a banana peel for Darkwing to slip on, and bemoaned the necessity of painting such a mundane object.
Garfield And Friends
- Garfield engaged in a little rapid-fire banana eating in order to slip up the "monster" he thought have invaded his home. It was Jon, back from the store.
- Happens in the Orson's Farm segment, where aliens arrive to steal away the Earth's comedy. The animals try everything to convince them otherwise by trying to make them laugh, such as jokes, slapstick humor, and a singing segment about the joys of humor, but nothing works. Finally, with their time almost up, Roy the rooster accidentally slips on a banana peel he threw away seconds ago, making the aliens burst with laughter.
It would be easier to list the Looney Tunes cartoons that don't use this trope than the ones that do.
A subversion from Family Guy: After Cleveland found out Quagmire was sleeping with his wife, Mayor Adam West gives Quagmire a banana to protect him from an angry Cleveland, the implication being that Quagmire would use it to slip Cleveland up. When the big chase scene comes to use the fruit, Quagmire instead throws the entire banana at Cleveland. It does what it would do in real life.
Subverted in an episode of Robot Chicken. In a "Behind the scenes" of the original Battlestar Galactica we see a montage of clips of the Cylon actors falling over in the costumes in a variety of interesting ways, culminating with a lone Cylon taking his time to walk down a hallway towards a banana peel on the floor. Just as he's about to reach it he's hit by a wrecking ball and sent flying through the hull into space.
Futurama. Fry gets tiny, tiny fruit as a gift. He throws a near microscopic banana peel on the floor. Amy Wong slips and falls on it. Of course, Amy IS a klutz...
Inspector Gadget got turned into a cyborg super-investigator after he seriously injured himself by... slipping on a banana peel.
Metalocalypse - the band gets an in-house therapist who reinforces good behavior with banana stickers (the sort of thing one would reward to preschool kids) - when they have enough of him and give him his notice, he rushes them in a fit of rage, but slips on a banana sticker, and plummets out a window.

Real Life

Charlie Chaplin was once asked how do to a perfect banana peel gag. He replied that a woman should be walking along, see the banana peel, step over and continue walking until she falls down an open manhole.
This Troper's English teacher slipped on a banana peel and broke her wrist. I had a substitute for two months. No joke!

Other

This image◊ is made of this trope, Steampunk, and win.
This troper remembers seeing a humorous full-page cartoon in a magazine showing a monkey skating in the jungle by having its feet in banana peels. Fridge Logic later told him it would be very hard for banana peels to slide on jungle soil, not to mention that the peels had the "non-slippery" part on the outside.
One Funimation Update Quickie takes this to truly ridiculous extents in one of its funniest episodes by having a careless Scott drop a banana in frustration. Then, a man walking by who was a major character in the rest of the month's quickies slips on the banana, falls off the roof of the building from it, and dies. Turns out it was All Just A Dream... which in return was All Just A Dream Chris Sabat had before getting hired by Funimation.