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A classic gag, tossing a pie into another person's face. Usually, this is a cream pie (Boston Cream is evidently the classic), to get the proper Covered In Gunge effect.
This Practical Joke was a staple of silent movie comedies, which came up with most of the variants. Often, a missed throw would result in an Escalating War pie fight. The all-out pie fight is pretty much a Forgotten Trope in movies, but still shows up elsewhere.
Real Life celebrities and politicians sometime have this happen to them as a protest. For example, Anita Bryant and Bill Gates have been pied in public.
On TV, the pie is often just whipped cream or shaving cream sprayed into a pie pan, which gives a similar effect while being much cheaper than baking up a whole pie just to throw it.
Examples
Comic Books
- Suicide Squad had a Running Gag subplot about a mysterious attacker pieing their personnel. It was Captain Boomerang, who'd earlier arranged to attack himself with a boomerang pie to divert suspicion.
- British comics such as Beano and Dandy thrive on this trope, custard pies being the usual ammunition of choice. They can be thrown by hand or with a suitably elaborate Bamboo Technology device designed for the express purpose of leaving the target Covered In Gunge.
- Not strictly a comic book, but pie-ing is the signature prank of Kokopelli in the cartoons in Muse magazine. His pie of choice is banana cream, and his victim of choice is Urania.
- In Scott McCloud's Zot!, he conducted a poll for which character the reader most wanted to get a pie in the face. Unfortunately, it was won by 9-Jack-9, an electronic being previously established as The Blank. At the New Year's party featuring the pie, it passed through 9-Jack-9 to hit the runner up, Zot, in the face.
- There's a running gag of Prankster pieing Superman. Granted, on at least one occassion, the pie delivered an electric shook or other nasty surprise.
Film
- One of the earliest recorded pie scenes was a Mack Sennett short in which Mabel Normand is pied, but she does carefully remove her glasses first.
- The Three Stooges did this numerous times, most notably in the short The Sweet Pie and Pie.
- The "lost scene" from Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is a massive pie fight in the Pentagon's War Room. Cut for not quite fitting the darkness of the rest of the movie.
- The Great Race had one of, if not the, largest pie fights ever. Including one that's so big, it can't be thrown; rather, another character gets pushed into it.
- The 1978 version of Dawn Of The Dead features a group of vicious bikers storming the mall, looting stores, firing at the heroes and... throwing pies at zombies. We'd call it a Narm moment, but George Romero might have been going for laughs here.
- Bugsy Malone was a parody gangster movie with child actors (including a young Jodie Foster) and used pies instead of handguns. It also had “splurge guns”, based on the Thompson submachine gun, with drum magazines that allowed rapid pie firing.
- Laurel and Hardy made money by selling pies to throw in their short film Battle of the Century.
- The Shaggy D.A., notable for a cigar punching right through the pie.
- Going Ape
- Blazing Saddles
- Addams Family Values
- Heartburn
- The climactic scene of Nanny McPhee has this with wedding cake.
- Singing in the Rain
- During the brawl at the climax of The Pirate Movie, a cart of pies is wheeled out and a character predicts a pie fight - turns out it's pizzas being thrown around instead.
Literature
Live Action TV
- Tiswas had the Phantom Flan Flinger, a recurring character who pied people.
- Threes Company, the "bake-off" episode.
- The Brady Bunch, in the first Cousin Oliver episode, "Welcome Aboard."
- Game show What Would You Do? featured pieing as a penalty in several episodes.
- Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters as a misfired Practical Joke.
- That Girl in a Show Within A Show sequence.
- The newer version of The Mickey Mouse Club had an episode in which 13-year-old Christina Aguilera gets pied.
- Moonlighting
- The Soupy Sales Show had this as a trademark.
- This was extended to Soupy's appearances on TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes.
- I Love Lucy had a couple of pie episodes, including "The Diner."
- Love American Style, the episode with Susan Howard.
- You Cant Do That On Television featured this in several episodes, most strikingly in "Drugs."
- Many Talk Show hosts and guests have been pied. Sometimes by themselves.
- Happy Days in the episode where Chachi tries to join the Leopards.
- The Monkees endured this when they appeared on Show Within A Show "Captain Crocodile."
- Sesame Street during the song "Surprise," with even a brick wall getting pied.
- Captain and Tennille Show, during Masterjoke Theater sketches, primarily.
- Route 66, during an episode with Guest Star Soupy Sales.
- Bewitched during one of the Serena episodes, which included Elizabeth Montgomery pieing herself from across the room.
- The Dick Van Dyke Show, due to one of Rob's many pratfalls.
- Family Matters, the episode "Stop In the Name of Love."
- Babysitter's Club, with a school carnival.
- Saturday Night Live's "Heavy-Wit Championship of the World" sketch.
- Growing Pains, the "20th Anniversary" episode.
- Cybill, wedding episode.
- Third Rock From The Sun, "Dick Learns About Comedy."
- The Bob Newhart Show, as part of a practical joke Bob plans to play on Peeper.
- Gilligans Island, episode "X Marks the Spot."
- Different Strokes, when the cast visits Universal Studios.
- Even an episode of Wheel Of Fortune, with Pat and Vanna pieing each other!
- The Jackie Gleason Show at least twice.
- The Patty Duke Show, during a modeling photo shoot.
- Head of the Class, "Make Fun of the Teacher" episode.
- During an election episode in Salute Your Shorts.
- A Thanksgiving Day episode of Cheers.
- Webster, but only during a Dream Sequence.
- A Sandy Duncan appearance on The Muppet Show.
- Wild and Crazy Kids, featuring the fire department.
- To be clear the original idea was that two people were to be set up to be pied, unfortunately one of the three hosts had been pieing the two other so in revenge the other two hosts (with three kids) come up to give a well deserved pie to the third (Omar gooding i think was his name) Omar says he deserves it and counts down except Jessica and Danny (I think those were the other two names) threw the pies ahead of time! And all the kids clustered there started throwing pies which resulted in an all out pie WAR! Which has been used in the title sequence ever since.
- In one gag of the Spanish sketch show ˇVaya semanita!, they are asked to do more intelligent humor, so they decide to pie Stephen Hawking in the face.
- Unfabulous, where a classroom presentation on the American Revolution turned into a Boston Cream Pie fight.
- Moe Howard, of The Three Stooges, once demonstrated proper pie-throwing technique
 to Mike Douglas and Ted Knight during a 1973 episode of Douglas' daytime talk show.
- Johnny Carson would often get hit with pies in a recurring Tonight Show sketch theme.
Music
- The Beastie Boys in the video for "{You've Got To) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)".
- Bette Midler's video of "Beast of Burden".
NewspaperComics
Theater
Video Games
- Nethack has a cream pie item, which causes blindness. On the one hand, stealing from shops will result in Keystone Kops showing up to pie you and beat you with rubber hoses until you die. On the other hand, pieing something does not count as an attack, and the pie takes up the weapon slot, which makes it very useful for characters attempting the pacifist conduct.
- Makai Kingdom has these as weapons, though their basic purpose is to heal their targets.
- The Pie Throw is a whole series of Weapons (Gags) in the MMORPG Toon Town
- Johnathan from Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin can throw cream pies at enemies.
- When leveled up it's also arguably the most powerful Dark-element weapon in the game making it the perfect tool to take out Bonus Boss Richter Belmont.
- The only way to defeat the terrifying, monstrous, bloodthirsty Yeti in King's Quest V is to throw a cream pie in its face. This was not one of its best puzzles.
Webcomics
Western Animation
- Homer Simpson became the Pieman, a costumed vigilante whose schtick was throwing pies at annoying people, in an episode of The Simpsons.
- This is also the reason Sideshow Bob was selected as Krusty's assistant over his brother Cecil, as Bob's dignity made the take all the funnier.
Bob: [after being hit by the pie] ...Oh, dear.
- The "Balmy Swami" episode of Dastardly And Muttley In Their Flying Machines included an airborne pie fight among the Vulture Squadron members.
- The Tom And Jerry short Quiet Please!, Tom catches Jerry on the kitchen counter. Jerry asks for a moment to draw up a last will and testament, in which he leaves a custard pie "to Tom, my favorite cat". Reading this, Tom eagerly tells him to "Lemme have it!"...So Yeah.
- In Solid Serenade, Jerry hits him with *two* pies...one of which has a steam iron hidden inside of it.
- Tom pelts Jerry with one at the end of Jerry's Diary.
- Many instances in Looney Tunes:
- Bugs Bunny repeatedly hits Elmer Fudd with these during a scene in Slick Hare.
- Unfortunately for Elmer, he tries to retaliate and hits Humphrey Bogart. "Why did you hit me in the face with a coconut custard pie with whipped cream?" Bogie asks menacingly.
- Vaudevillains Bugs and Elmer take turns with this in What's Up, Doc?.
- In Shishkabugs, Bugs releases a spring-loaded pie into the face of the king, causing royal cook Yosemite Sam to be led away to the dungeon.
- In Leghorn Swoggled, Foghorn Leghorn rigs a toy train with a pie and sends it to the front door of the Barnyard Dawg's house, causing the latter to get pelted when he sticks his head out to see what's going on.
- Daffy Dilly has Daffy Duck trying to cure a dying millionaire by getting him to laugh. After he achieves this accidentally, by landing in a cake, Daffy is hired as a sort of household jester and ends the cartoon getting repeatedly pelted with cakes and pies. ("It's a living!")
- In the opening of American Dragon Jake Long, Annoying Younger Sibling Haley is hit in the face with a pie by her mother as Jake passes them on the way to school.
- The first of many indignities Phineas And Ferb sister Candace received when she went on a picnic with her boyfriend's Enfant Terrible sister Suzy was a blueberry pie in the face. In case you were wondering what else that little girl did to her, it was the same picnic which gave us the Trope Namer song for Squirrels In My Pants.
- Candace also gets pelted with pies aplenty in the episode "Let's Take a Quiz".
- In the Gargoyles episode "Vendettas", an Ascended Extra, who turned out to be a mook in several past episodes, follows Goliath and Hudson around all night with a BFG, after his revenge. Eventually, he gets his chance...and shoots Goliath with a pie.
Hudson: Hmm, banana cream!
Truth In Television
- The University of Victoria's Engineering Students' Society has an annual fundraiser on March 14th, Pi Day (3/14 - get it?) One person makes a donation to have an individual of their choice pied; the victim can dodge the pastry by matching the donation. Some good-natured individuals allow themselves to be pied but donate as well.
- Same with University of Calgary's own Engineering people. Oh Crap. This is a Berserk Button.
- The Biotic Baking Brigade, a San Francisco-based left-wing activist group, specializes in throwing pies in the faces of those it regards as its political foes.
- Former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien was once pied by a member of this group.
- As mentioned at the top of this page, Bill Gates suffered a similar fate on a trip to Belgium.
- Indeed The Other Wiki has a page devoted to people who have been "pied" at some point.
- And then there are the organizations that are dedicated to pieing people. Like these people.
- Players on baseball's New York Yankees have taken to giving these to the player who gets a game-winning hit in a game.
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