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Now is not a good time to photocopy your butt and staple it to your boss's face — oh no!
"Weird Al" Yankovic, "Your Horoscope for Today"

A standard juvenile office prank, where the subject drops their trousers, plants their rear end against the glass of a photocopy machine and presses start. Hilarious!

Don't Try This at Home, kids. See "Real Life" below to find out why. Mooning is this trope's more direct cousin, with the advantage of this trope being that it can be done both in advance and not in range of retaliation by the victim. Subtrope of Joke of the Butt.


Examples:

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    Advertising 
  • An ad for Comedy Central has a man climb onto a photocopier, has it collapse, try pulling a nearby cable to climb out, only for the AC unit to land on him.
  • This Japanese Pocky commercial.
    • Shot for Shot Remake for this Double A Paper commercial. Being a commercial for printing paper, the lady in this version climbs on top of the machine because the paper tray is empty...
    • Re-used wholesale for the UK launch of the product, with a locally-relevant box comped in. It was reused in France too, under its local name "Mikado".
  • A Public Service Announcement by anti-smoking group Stand, where a guy photocopies his butt (with his pants still on) and posts it above an ashtray with the caption "I don't like seeing yours either." "Costs a buck a week, but it's worth it!"
  • One for, astonishingly enough: Copier Repair
  • A Subway commercial.
  • This scene from Carrer Builder.com's Monkey Business ads.
  • This ad (Dutch version with different actors) for Double A printer paper has a female office worker climb on top of a photocopier to reach paper on a high shelf, accidentally pressing the button with her knee just as a male coworker walks in and sees the copy of her upskirt (and gets a smack with the ream of paper for it).

    Anime & Manga 
  • Ryotsu does this in Kochikame when accidentally sitting and activating a copy machine while his uniform is drying up from the rain. He then copies his entire front and rear and photocopies his boss, Daijiro Ohara's face on it.

    Comic Books 
  • She-Hulk was fired from a law firm for crushing the copier while making photocopies of her butt. She asks how they knew it was her. Turns out it was a color copier.
  • Fantastic Four #527: Ben Grimm experiences a significant windfall, and rushes off to do this, so he can send the picture to Bill Gates (The Other B.G.). Bill wonders why the Fantastic Four sent him a picture of the Grand Canyon.
  • Titeuf once did this, but was found out because his mom had sewn a label with his name on his underwear.
  • An issue of Heavy Metal has a comic in which office workers at a party do this, including other body parts. Somehow, this leads to a being made of all these parts running around the building. The cops are called, they don't find anyone, but getting into the spirit of the party, one of them copies his gun.
  • Red Ears: One gag involves an office manager having an affair with his secretary on top of the copy machine for fun. Cut to his wife and her lawyer handing him the divorce papers along with a mountain of photographs displaying his infidelity.
  • The 41st issue of the Comic-Book Adaptation of The Ren & Stimpy Show had Ren shown by Jimminy Lummox what his life would be like if he never met Stimpy. Ren is shown that he'd be the wealthy owner of a company called RenCo if he never met Stimpy, and one of the benefits he finds is that he can copy his butt to his heart's content.
  • The Off Panel strip from issue #81 Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) had the editor get chewed out over copier misuse and confronts Sonic about it. When Sonic asks why he's being yelled at, the editor shows him the copy in question that clearly has Sonic's spines to it.

    Comic Strips 
  • Dean in Liberty Meadows does this. Brandy tells him that he'll break the glass. Which is exactly what happens.
  • The stormtrooper in this Brewster Rockit: Space Guy! comic.
  • One Bloom County strip features Steve Dallas and Opus the Penguin working at the town newspaper. Steve asks what the mysterious pages are in the copier, and Opus suggests that it may be loaves of bread, deflated volleyballs... or one attractive posterior.
  • An unusual example in On the Fastrack: Meg the Cyberdog did it to produce binary code in a shape that confused Art.
  • The Thing's Mego toy counterpart does this, and similar pranks, on a regular basis in Twisted Toyfare Theatre.

    Films — Animation 
  • Monsters vs. Aliens has a scanner to Mission Control only admitting someone after scanning their eyes, hands, ears, elbows, and yup... dropping their pants so it can scan their butt.
  • Gru's Minions are seen doing this to amuse themselves in one scene from Despicable Me.
  • In The LEGO Movie, two of Lord Business' mooks do this on a copier. Since they don't take their pants off or they're part of their bodies, the results are exact illustrations of the back of their legs. Said copier is a transformed Captain Metalbeard, who promptly transforms back, trashes them, then explains that one of the rules of being a pirate is that nobody is allowed to put their butt on a pirate's face.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • The Spirit: Sand prints a copy of her rear, The Spirit retrieves it, immediately knowing that it's her "perfect ass". Considering the last time he saw her was when she was 12, that's particularly squicky. And then he shows it to every bellboy at every swanky hotel in Central City to find where she's staying. A few complimentary comments later, it works. The one that recognizes it, incidentally? A midget.
  • In 40 Days and 40 Nights one of the protagonist's female coworkers does this to try to make the protagonist lose his bet of not having sex (or masturbating) for 40 days.
  • Ed Begley Jr's character in She-Devil is stone cold busted because of this. Did it never occur to him to take the ring off?
  • Tina was handing out pictures of her butt she'd copied at the Christmas Party in Scrooged.
  • Bad Eggs:
    Julie: "Photocopier busted?"
    Ben: "Yeah. Now I have to walk around the office describing my arse to everybody."
  • The Stinger for Dennis the Menace features Andrea doing the facial variant when she gets her necklace caught in the photocopier at Alice's workplace and Dennis presses the Print button.
  • In Tom & Jerry (2021), Jerry climbs into the bed of a photocopier at one point and gets copied in various poses, one of which is this gag.

    Literature 
  • Adrian Mole: In Wilderness Years, two colleagues are caught photocopying their private parts.
    Photocopies of Bill and Megan's private parts are being passed round the office, but the copies are so blurred that it is impossible to tell which is Bill's and which is Megan's. That photocopier never did work properly.
  • The Great Greene Heist: The copy room has been locked ever since Jackson’s brother used school equipment to make photocopies of his butt.
  • The Laundry Files short story "Overtime" deals with Bob pulling Christmas watch duty in the aftermath of the office party. The first sign that something's wrong is when he goes to the photocopier, finds a few cheek copies, and realizes one of them shows the thorax of a giant cockroach...
  • The Bonfire of the Vanities has a variation of this, when one of Peter Fallow's drunken female acquaintances, bitter about Maria Ruskin's having inadvertently exposed her illegal subletting of her rent-controlled apartment, runs off several copies of a certain nearby spot and then gives them to Peter to pass on to Maria. "Tell her it's from the little twat who turned her in."
  • Played for Body Horror in a short story from David Lubar's Invasion of the Road Weenies. Two young boys are taken to their father's work and decide to do this with their brand new copy machines. The each make 100 copies of their butt and face respectively, in that order. The first one notices his runs out of toner near the end, as his crack is completely gone at the end. He thinks nothing of it until the second finishes his face and comes up with his facial features removed. It's described as like the surface of an egg, with a lipless mouth, two nostrils, and no eyebrows or eyelashes. It's then that he checks his bottom, and realizes his crack is sealed over. It's also then he realizes he needs to use the bathroom.
  • Space Brat: Variant in book 2 - while at the Museum of New Inventions, Blork finds what appears to be an ordinary copy machine in one room and starts making faces at its side (which is as reflective as a mirror). One face is so awful, he decides to make a copy of it, climbs onto the machine and hits the start button... which gets him dumped inside. Turns out the device was actually a "Complete Copier", which makes an exact duplicate of anything that gets put into it, and since it was set on Negative, Blork's Evil Twin Krolb is created as a result.
  • Paul Jennings' short story "Cry Baby" is so-called because of the main character's pain when sitting down, due to having done this.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Monk goes to an office undercover, his deductive skills are noticed by his co-workers who ask him to identify the photocopy of a pair of Caucasian buttcheeks pinned to the bulletin board.
  • Saturday Night Live featured a Parody Commercial for the Xerox 790 Assjet, a photocopier made just for this, with special buttock-shaped platen glass.
  • An episode of TLC had a patient who had photocopied her butt, and broken the glass. Her only response (holding up the photocopy) "Does my bum look big in this?"
    • Later, in the same, she's being treated for burns after doing the same with her breasts. Again "Do my boobs look small in this?"
  • Done by Kevin in The Office.
  • In the Bones episode "The Man in the Fallout Shelter", Angela implores Brennan to come to the office Christmas party to stop her from repeating what she did last Christmas party. "...it took me WEEKS to collect all those copies... Friends don't let friends photocopy their butts"
  • An episode of Heroes has an interesting example when Hiro attempts to prevent the suicide of a co-worker incited by a Humiliation Conga started by, you guessed it, drunkenly photocopying his butt during an office party. We never see Hiro actually prevent it, however, since history refuses to change and the co-worker somehow finds ways to embarrass himself by doing the same thing at a different time (Ando even refers to the poor sap as "The guy with the famous butt.") After about 47 failed attempts, Hiro just gives up and has a long talk with the guy.
  • In one Christmas Episode of Married... with Children, a male bank clerk was making copies of a female coworker's behind at Marcy's office party. (Everyone was clearly drunk.)
  • On an episode of Malcolm in the Middle, Hal frets over meeting his new boss because he never makes a good first impression. The scene cuts to previous disastrous introductions including one in which Hal is caught by a new boss copying his backside while being cheered on by his co-workers.
  • One session of "Weird Newscasters" on Whose Line Is It Anyway? involves Wayne as a secretary demanding to know who left photocopies of a butt in her intray. He takes his search into the audience.
  • A unique variant comes up in the Japanese Soramimi Hour, dedicated to Japanese mishearings of songs from all over the world. Apparently the Japanese have misheard the line "tea, tea and coffee" (from "You're So Great" by Blur) as "Chinchin Copy", whereupon a quickie music video shows a man buck naked and lying face down on the copier. There should be no need to translate "chinchin" at this point...
  • On Mock the Week, the game "Scenes We'd Like To See" throws up the suggestion "Things You Don't Want To Hear In The Workplace":
    Frankie Boyle: "That wasn't the copier, that was the paper shredder; and what did you do to your arse?!"
  • In a sketch from A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Tony Inchpractice (Hugh Laurie) hosts a talk show titled "Photocopying My Genitals With". After Tony photocopies his genitals, his guest Sir Alan Beaverby (Stephen Fry) elects to copy his bottom instead.
  • In an episode of Made in Canada, one of the grips makes a Cheek Copy during a wrap party.
  • On Boy Meets World when Shawn and Cory are working in an office mailroom Shawn starts to do this before Cory stops him.
  • In the Torchwood episode "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang", Jack apparently loves the strange quirks of office life, including cheek copies.
  • Deconstructed on the 1000 Ways to Die story, "X-Mess Carol": A drunk intern at an office party decides to photocopy her butt for her boss during a Christmas party as a gift to him. The glass breaks out from under her and electrocutes her to death.
  • In the 2 Broke Girls episode "And the Temporary Distraction", Max and Caroline get an office temp job where Max photocopies her butt. Max then gets Caroline fired by accusing her of sexual harrassment, using the cheek copies as proof.
  • An episode of Brazilian sitcom Os Normais has a woman photocopying her butt and sending to an executive, claiming it's her curriculum (she gets hired, of course, and becomes his mistress). Later the executive's wife and the show's protagonist have a discussion involving how the butt is altered in said pictures (including the woman sitting on a glass table!).
  • In a Christmas episode of QI, Stephen Fry observes that there are more incidents of copying machines needing to be repaired during the Christmas season than during the rest of the year, for just this reason.
  • One sketch from Smack the Pony has a disgruntled employee deliver her resignation to her overbearing boss by, instead of photocopying the memo she was told to, taking three hundred photocopies of her bare breasts and three hundred more of her bare arse, and then putting them all up on the office wall.
  • This turns up as a Noodle Incident in Father Ted, who was forced to photocopy his rear end when he lost a bet. "They never let him in that library again."
  • An episode of London's Burning saw Blue Watch called to a tax office where a worker had to be extricated from a photocopier after he tried this and the glass broke.
  • On The Joe Schmo Show, Kip only wanted pictures of positivity in his photo album, not pictures of negativity. So, naturally, Hutch, "The Asshole," absconded with it and filled it with photos of his buttocks.
  • Not a photocopier example, but in this The Mitchell and Webb Situation sketch, a spy is delivering a microfilm containing top secret submarine blueprints to his handler, when the spy sheepishly admits that he got piss drunk after the mission and may have used his Spy Cam to take a photo ("maybe just a couple") of his arse, which is included in the film. Cut to the handler in a dark room with at least a dozen developed photos of the spy's arse and no submarine plans.
  • In Arrested Development, a drunk Lindsey manages to do an unintentional version, as she is sitting on a photocopier while talking about buying a Volvo. She then shows Michael what she thinks is a picture of the car in question...
    Michael: This is not a Volvo.
  • O'Leary and Minogue in Wellington Paranormal are sent to investigate a office worker who's missing. It turns out that the photocopier also acts as a portal.
  • Is It Legal?: In the episode “Whodunnit”, Stella discovers several photocopies of someone’s butt in her office and tries to find out who did the deed. It’s eventually revealed to be the photocopying engineer (he has black-outs apparently). A couple of other characters get in on the act too, with Alison photocopying her breasts at the end of the episode and Bob photo-copying his butt as well later on (only for his crush, Sarah, to show up and see the act).
  • Red Dwarf: A deleted scene in "Dear Dave" has the Cat use the Captain's old photocopier to take photos of his butt for use as wallpaper and drapes for his room. Rimmer notices Cat doing so and decides to put him on report for misusing the photocopier.

    Music 
  • The song "We Photocopy Our Body Parts" by Songs to Wear Pants To.
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Your Horoscope For Today" offers Leos the following advice: "Now is not a good time to photocopy your butt and staple it to your boss's face, oh no!" Which leaves the question of whether there is a good time to do so.
  • Occurs in the music video of Britney Spears's "Womanizer".
  • In "Look at All These Idiots" from The Simpsons Sing the Blues, Mr. Burns Sings about his employees' "Xeroxing their buttocks".
  • The Fiery Furnaces "I'm Gonna Run".
    I slit my wrists with my Swingline
    Copied myself 500 times
  • The dimwitted protagonist in the music video of Lene Alexandra's "My Boobs Are OK" makes several cheek copies.
  • Mentioned in the Jeff MacDougall song "Bekcy The Office Party Drunk Girl"
    Hey, let's go copy our body parts
  • The opening lines of the Bob River Anti-Christmas Song The Christmas Party Song go: "It's Christmas time and I'm in trouble/Got too drunk at the company affair/Sat on a copier, wore no apparel/Did it on a dare."
  • In the music video for "Till I Die" by Chris Brown, a random woman is seen photocopying her butt under her skirt in the background of one scene, with her panties around her ankles for good measure.

    Print Media 
  • The first issue of MAD to feature its current Hotter and Sexier format had this lovely cover: Alfred E. Neuman's butt copy is his face.

    Video Games 
  • You can do this in Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition. On the level "Pigsty", there are several photocopy machines and if you step on them, an image of Duke's rear end comes out. He's got a tattoo with a lady's name on there. You can also do this in Duke Nukem Forever, where photocopying Duke's butt provides an Ego Boost and a permanent bonus to Duke's Life Meter.
  • A Flash game called Slackman, set in your office, allows you to, among other things, do this for lots of points.
  • Salem does this in one of the trailers for Army of Two.
  • One of the items you can collect for your clan's lounge in Kingdom of Loathing is a fax machine, which can be used to copy and distribute photocopied monsters to other players. If you use a photocopier out of combat, however, the monster you make a copy of is your butt (which can then be played in a fax machine like any other monster). High-level butts are formidable opponents, and a great way to powerlevel early in the game because they never get to attack first.
  • In Pajama Sam: Thunder and Lighting Aren't So Frightening, Sam can attempt this in George Someone's office (without removing his pants, thankfully). The paper, however, comes out blank.
  • A puzzle in McPixel has doing this as an incorrect solution.
  • The Soviet Consulate in Jazzpunk has a photocopier which allows the player to do this when interacted with. The player can attempt to use this on a nearby face scanner to unlock a door. Surprisingly, it works.
    Scanner: Welcome back, Dr. Buttley.
  • Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon has a photocopier near the end of the game; if you use the command "copy butt", the game informs you that this isn't a good idea.
  • This web game revolves around you doing it without getting caught.
  • Yuppie Psycho: The copiers let you save your game, but Mr. Hugo finds it way more fun to use them to make copies of his butt.

    Web Comics 

    Web Original 

    Western Animation 
  • The Simpsons:
    • This is Bart Simpson's signature prank, culminating in putting the copies into prayer books and handing them out to the parishioners. One of his earliest chalkboard gags was "I will not Xerox my butt."
    • In "The Debarted", Skinner foils Bart's prank by putting Super Glue on the photocopy machine and having Bart be the unwilling living model for an art class.
    • "Special Edna" has Bart being caught between doing an assignment, and being tempted to take advantage of the free copies on the machine at the library by doing a Cheek Copy. He prays for guidance, and his shorts fall down. Naturally, he runs into the copy room, and the next thing the audience sees is the green glow of the copy machine.
    • Another moment has him reveal that merely reciting the teacher's copy machine code makes his butt feel warm.
    • In the Treehouse of Horror story where the world plunges into the technological apocalypse that was thought to have happened because of the Y2K virus (thanks to Homer not updating the computers at the nuclear plant), Nelson breaks into school to photocopy his butt. Unfortunately, he does this while the machines begin to go haywire, and Nelson gets sucked into the machine.
  • Parodied in Ed, Edd n Eddy, when Johnny gives Nazz a picture of... a wooden board, much to her bewilderment. He quickly explains: "Plank photocopied his butt!"
  • Robot Chicken depicts a photocopier being charged with sexual harassment.
    • Another sketch had a boss demanding an employee give him several copies of his ass. And to try to keep his balls off the glass this time.
  • In The Fairly OddParents! episode "Pixies, Inc.", Cosmo is seen doing this (though at least he keeps his pants on) as the Pixies discuss the need to set a stupid patsy up with an important-sounding but meaningless position as a sop to the Fairies who now work for them.
  • As with pretty much every juvenile prank imaginable, this shows up in Beavis and Butt-Head, on the episode "Temporary Insanity."
    Butt-Head: Huh huh. I'm enlarging my butt.
    • The episode "Copy Machine" revolved around this. While trying to copy his butt, Beavis ends up falling through the glass. Soon the fire department is called in to get him out with a local news crew covering the story. They're worried that his femoral artery may be cut, meaning he could bleed out if they get him out. Butt-head tries to activate the machine (wanting to see his "female artery") which makes him pop out. Later, with the machine fixed and Beavis' butt stitched up, he wonders what his stitches look like. Butt-head suggests that he use the copier and he does—and of course, falls through again.
  • Cow and Chicken:
    • In the episode "Bad Chicken", Chicken plays with the school's photocopier by copying his behind and other body parts. He convinces his sister Cow to do the same.
    • "The Full Mounty" has a scene where Cow and Chicken fool around with a photocopier during Take Your Kids to Work Day by using it to copy Cow's butt.
  • Kowalski does this as a sight gag in The Penguins of Madagascar episode "Fit to Print".
  • My Gym Partner's a Monkey exaggerates Cheek Copy a bit: Jake Spidermonkey sees a photocopier in Principal Pixiefrog's office and makes good use of it. When he's done with his butt, he's still not satisfied. So, he proceeds to plant his face on the glass instead, which gains him some very sore red eyes later on.
  • A subtle example from Futurama: Fry has the code for paradox-correcting time travel tatoo'd on his buttock, for no reason. "Decision 3012" has a man traveling back in time to prevent Richard Nixon from being re-elected. He does so by reading from a certain grainy photocopy...
  • Hey Arnold!: "Suspended" shows the rather immature Harold Bergman copying his butt (pants down and all) at the library (while Arnold is actually doing research on school rules). They are later seen running out of the library as the angry librarian is yelling "Never come back again!"
  • Done by accident in The Amazing World of Gumball: Gumball thought laying across a high-definition scanner naked would let him enter the internet, but instead just sent a scan to Darwin, who was operating the computer (and started washing his eyes immediately thereafter). Although, because he was standing in the same position the T-800 took when time-traveling, it wasn't his butt Darwin got an eyeful of.
  • Oh No! It's An Alien Invasion: In one episode the kids attempt to set a new world record for doing this, only to be beaten by the aliens who have a photocopier that produces its own paper.
  • This is implied to have happened in Regular Show when Muscle Man inadvertently believes that Mordecai and Rigby were making fun of his mom. He pulls out a picture of her and states "Give her a kiss and tell her she's beautiful." . The two obey and apologize only to be forced to eat the picture and told that this was all a giant prank.. Muscle Man gleefully adds "That's not even a picture of our mom. It's a picture of my buttcheek I just squished it up to look like a woman's face!". This causes Mordecai and Rigby to exchange glances that totally scream I Ate WHAT?!?. Its even more apparent when they're told that he had copies if they were still hungry.
  • A 30-second bumper from I Am Weasel has Weasel chastising Baboon for copying his butt, only to get tempted into doing himself when his boss, the Red Guy, catches him.note 
    Red Guy: Where do you think you are anyway?
    Weasel: A cartoon studio.
    (cut to all three copying their butts at once)
  • A Nicktoons bumper from the early 2000's had Dog doing this with Cat's face.
  • In the Phineas and Ferb episode "Run Away Runway", when Dr. Doofenshmirtz looks over his imperfect photocopy clones, he comments, "Why is it when people copy their butts, it comes out perfect?"
  • Chuckie once did this in an episode of All Grown Up!.
  • A variant appears in Tamagotchi Video Adventures. Tarakotchi and Zattchi demonstrate how to work the photo copier they've chosen to be Tamagotchi Museum's Earth exhibit by using it to copy Cosmotchi's face onto Tarakotchi's belly. Tarakotchi somehow gets the copied face to whistle.
    Cosmotchi: Not my best side... but I like it!
  • A G-rated version in Arthur when Binky photocopies his face pressed against the glass while making copies for a school assignment.
  • T.U.F.F. Puppy:
    • The episode "Puppy Unplugged" has Dudley use up a power source lent to Keswick by aliens by, among other things, making multiple photocopies of his behind. Dudley also mentions that he gave a photocopy of his posterior to his friend Phil as a wedding gift.
    • In "Puppy Pause", one of the ways Dudley goofs off is that he photocopies his behind to create greeting cards with butt-related puns (e.g. "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Rear", "Happy Keister").

    Real Life 
  • Yes, people have done this in Real Life, and there are many reasons why you shouldn't:
    • The most obvious is that you're putting some highly sensitive body parts on top of fragile glass, beneath which are moving metal parts and electrical wiring. People (being roughly a hundred times the weight of the heaviest book) can — and do — fall through the glass (like the guy in this viral security camera footage). One study reported that approximately 15% of major copier repairs are the result of people attempting this trope.
    • Many copy machines are digital these days, and they remember when recent copies were made, which helps them narrow down who might have made the copy.
    • Any copies acquired by your coworkers may be used in ways detrimental to your promotion prospects (although if your superiors can recognize your specific rear end, they probably weren't that great to start with).
    • It can get you fired. Or, if not fired, at least demoted or suspended without pay, or forced to attend Sensitivity Training, or could get your pay docked.
    • It wastes toner. Hey, high schools aren't made of money.
  • A variant prank is to make enough photocopies of your butt that you can tape them end to end (so to speak) in a chain. Feed the chain into a scroll-fed fax machine, enter the fax number of someone you don't like, and when one end comes out, tape it to the other end. You are now sending an infinite series of butts to the other end (or at least wasted all their toner). Try not to do this at an office building, though, where they'll discover your prank through the exorbitant phone bill you've racked up in the process. Even if you do this at home, 1. Most fax machines also have caller ID circuitry built right in and will print your number and other condemning messages on the top of the page, fingering you as the culprit, and 2. Hope you don't mind the incredibly exorbitant phone bill you're going to rack up pulling off this prank, particularly if the recipient is out of state (or worse, in a different country).

 
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Alternative Title(s): Photocopying Your Bottom

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Jerry messing around the copy

Jerry messing around the copy machine and suggestively pressing his butt against the glass - Tom And Jerry 2021

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