Squirting Flower Gag

Forget watering the flowers, this flower waters you!

"This is one of those squirting flowers."

— Jon, Garfield April 12, 2003

It's the old Practical Joke of tricking some poor sap into smelling or otherwise admiring the flower on your shirt and you, via a hidden squeeze pump, squirt water from the flower into the victim's face.

A typical stock gag for The Prankster and The Trickster. Characteristic of the Non-Ironic Clown.

Related to Garden-Hose Squirt Surprise, where a garden hose is used instead of a flower. Truth in Television as these practical joke devices indeed exist. But although real-life versions of these can only hold a little amount of water, fiction likes to turn this prank up to eleven, with the flower unleashing a ridiculous amount of water, and/or under much higher pressure than what should realistically be possible for a simple squeeze pump.

Can be turned into a Deadly Prank by having the flower squirt something far less harmless than water.

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Examples:

Comic Books

• Batman: Various iterations of the Joker have employed these as weapons, with Hollywood Acid or his Joker neurotoxin being used in place of water.
• Lucky Luke: In the spin-off series Rantanplan, the story "Le Clown" sees the titular dog and a Bratty Half-Pint named Douglas and up in a circus. When the clowns get injured just before the show, Douglas quickly dresses himself and Rantanplan up as clowns to take their place. As one of his first jokes, Douglas sprays Rantanplan with a squirting flower. With Rantanplan being who he is, the dog immediately passes out and Douglas has to perform CPR to get rid of the water Rantanplan inhaled, much to the amusement of the audience.
• Superman and Spider-Man: Steve Lombard tries pull one on a baffled Clark Kent, who cannot believe Steve thinks someone will fall for such an old, dumb trick. Not being in the mood for putting up with Lombard's bullish antics, Clark subtly manipulates the fake flower so it squirts Steve instead.

Comic Strips

• The Far Side: One comic had a flower use a squirting person on another.
• Garfield:
  • In this comic, when Jon is getting dressed for his date, he asks Garfield if he should go with a tie that contains a squirting flower, or one that can explode.
  • In one comic, Jon tells Garfield the flower on his suit is one of these, but Garfield uses his claws to scare Jon out of actually using it on him.
• MAD once ran a Don Martin strip called "Moses Through the Years". One section has a prankster friend try this on him (Rule of Funny in full force, for obvious reasons) only for him to "part" the offending stream.

Films — Animation

• Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker: During his "The Reason You Suck" Speech, Terry calls out the Joker for, among other things, using this cheap joke.
  Terry: I mean, joy buzzers, squirting flowers? Lame! Where's the "A" material? Make a face, drop your pants, something!
• In the Care Bears: Journey to Joke-A-Lot List Song "Make 'Em Laugh", one of the funny things Funshine lists is "a flower that squirts", while holding a daisy with a face that squirts bubbles.
• In "Two Chips and a Miss", Dale tries to give a bouquet of flowers to Clarice, but Chip hooks a hose to it and sets off the water as Dale smells the flowers.

Films — Live-Action

• In Batman (1989), the Joker uses the flower on his lapel to try to squirt acid on Vicki Vale and later uses it to try to drop a bell on Batman during the cathedral sequence.
• Killer Klowns from Outer Space: When Jumbo visits officer Mooney in his office, he offers Mooney a bouquet of flowers that end up spraying water in his face. Surprisingly, although the Klowns are usually fond of putting deadly spins on these classic pranks, it really is just water and all it does is piss Mooney off (at this point Jumbo was still toying with Mooney rather than planning to kill him).
• In Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Pee-Wee goes to the joke shop to "stock up". One of the things he buys is a squirting flower.
• Top Secret!. While Cedric is meeting with the blind Resistance agent/novelties salesman, the agent asks Cedric to sniff the flower on his lapel. When Cedric does so, the flower squirts water on his face.
• In Were the World Mine, the magic flower from A Midsummer Night's Dream becomes a squirting flower that spreads the juice to make people fall in Love at First Sight.

Literature

• Briefly mentioned in Bad Hare Day. When Tim Swanson, a wannabe magician, enters a magic shop and tries getting some cheap trick gadgets for himself, the shopkeeper asks how much money he's got. When Tim replies he only has $2.50, the shopkeeper says he could buy a squirting flower.
• Near the end of the first Captain Underpants book, George does this to Ms. Ribble.
• One of the many ancient gags employed by the Fools' Guild in Discworld:
  • In Men at Arms, the Guild greeter asks Nobby and Colon "It's a long shot, I know, but I don't suppose either of you gentlemen would like a sniff of my buttonhole?" They don't fall for it, and it's clear he never really expected them to, because no-one ever does. The flower squirts slightly as an involuntary reaction when he gets emotional.
  • In Making Money, the Patrician's dignity is threatened by a practitioner of clown martial arts (sloshi), leading to the weirdest He's Got a Weapon! in the multiverse:
    "Look out! He's got a daisy!" [Moist] shouted, and then thought: I just shouted "Look out! He's got a daisy!" and I think I'm going to remember, for ever, just how embarrassing this is.
• The Famous Five: In Five go to Billycock Hill, Julian and Dick's friend Toby is a prankster, and Julian refers to this particular trick when telling the others about him.
• Jeeves and Wooster: In "The Rummy Affair of Old Biffy", Bertie tries to get Biffy to use this prank on Sir Roderick Glossop, in order to get Biffy out of an unwanted engagement to Glossop's daughter Honoria. Biffy loses his nerve and doesn't go through with it.

Live-Action TV

• The Big Bang Theory: The episode "The Itchy Brain Simulation" has a subplot in which Sheldon tries to get people to "smell" the novelty flower he bought.
• CSI: NY: Homicide Det. Don Flack does not find this trope amusing.
  • Subverted in "Child's Play" when a murder investigation leads to a joke shop run by a man called "Laughing Larry" who's wearing a plastic camera around his neck and grinning. While questioning him, Flack tells him that if he squirts him with it, he'll arrest him for assaulting an officer. The man gets a dejected look on his face and refrains.
  • Subverted in "To What End?". While questioning a guy in a flash mob of mostly identical clowns, Flack notices him touching a fake flower on his chest and exclaims, "If you squirt me with that thing, I will shoot you right here in front of everybody; I'm not kidding!" The guy wisely chooses not to.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: The invention presented by the Mads in "The Corpse Vanishes" is a Playing with Fire variant.
• Saturday Night Live: One Weekend Update segment has Goober the Clown appear as a guest commentator. One of the first things she does is squirt news anchor Colin Jost with her obviously-fake lapel flower. Colin takes it like a pro.

Radio

• In one of his monologues on My Word!, Frank Muir claimed to have bought one for a novel purpose: to squirt cold water into his tea at the railway station café without drawing attention to himself, and thereby make it cool enough to drink before his train arrives.

Tabletop Games

• In the Champions supplement C.L.O.W.N., one of the superpowered weapons used by C.L.O.W.N. is the Shrinking Violet Squirting Flower. When it is used on an opponent, they are shrunk down to 1/16th normal height, but their clothes are not. This leaves them tiny and naked.

Video Games

• In Bugsy on the ZX Spectrum, there's a Running Gag that all the gangsters' guns are really water pistols. As Bugsy discovers if he tries to rob the post office twice, other things can squirt water too:
  "Aw, not again," says the clerk who lipped me last time. "Well, this time I'm ready for ya."
  Too late I notice the large artificial rose in his lapel. He is already squeezing the bulb in his pocket. Soaked ta the skin I retreat wit' my legs between my tail.
• Discworld: A court jester pulls this trick on Rincewind if you ask him for his name.
  Jester: I can't tell you, but Mr. Flower knows!
  Rincewind: Oh, well then, if you like: Ahem. Hello, Mr. Flower...
  [Rincewind gets a face full of water]
• In the online game Elmo's Potty Time, based on Sesame Street, a clown squirts Elmo, Zoe, and Baby Bear with a squirting flower.
• In Kingdom of Loathing, you can find an acid-squirting flower, dropped by the demonic clowns in The "Fun" House. Whenever you take damage, it'll squirt the enemy to deal damage.
• In LEGO City Undercover, one of the clown robbers who rob the Cherry Tree Hills bank makes a police officer fall for his squirting flower trick.
• The Loud House:
  • The online game Clean-o-Clock features Luan's trick flower: she will randomly think about one of her siblings, and when you click on them, she will squirt them.
  • Another game, Welcome to the Loud House, has Luan randomly squirt her flower.
• Toontown Online: Every Toon starts with a flower as a Level 1 "squirt gag" (attack) to use against Cogs.

Web Animation

• Subverted in ASDF Movie 1. One of the scenes has a guy asking another guy to smell his artificial flower. Instead of squirting water from the flower, a monster pops out from his chest.

Webcomics

• A Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic has a clown tell a child that clowns eventually evolved away from humans and developed a new way to eliminate waste without removing their costumes. He then squirts his flower on the child.

Western Animation

• The Arthur episode "Buster Bombs" opens with Buster showing off his "comedy garden". One thing he grows are squirting flowers: he smells one, it sprays him with water, and he laughs.
• In one episode of Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, a circus clown does this to Captain Caveman. Afterward, the clown laughs like Wally Gator.
• In an episode of Garfield and Friends, Binky the Clown uses this gag to get the attention of Garfield. He tells him to smell the flower, which squirts him.
• JoJo's Circus: In "Flower Shower", it's shown that adult clowns always take sentient squirting flowers to work. When JoJo's father's flower runs out of water, JoJo and Goliath go to the garden to get him a replacement, but every time they get close to the squirting flowers, they get sprayed. However, Bal Boa advises that they move from side to side like a snake so that they can get one without getting water in the face, and it works.
• The Loud House: As the family prankster, Luan by default carries one of these as part of her regular outfit. In the pilot, Luan tries to squirt Lincoln with the flower; he dodges it, but she then squirts from one of the flowers on her shoes straight into his mouth.
• The Magic Roundabout: In the episode "Digger!", Dougal uses one on Ermintrude when he gets her to smell the flower on his hat, causing her to stumble and fall onto Dylan, Brian and Florence. None of them, including Digger, find that very amusing.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: The episode "The Last Laugh" has Pinkie Pie inspecting Cheese Sandwich's laugh factory and its party goods; upon looking at the squirting flower, Pinkie suggests something radical like making the whole costume squirt, which gives the management a great idea.
• The Ren & Stimpy Show: In "Circus Midgets", one of the midgets asks Ren to smell the flower on his shirt. Ren knows what's coming, but obliges anyway because he's thirsty. Unfortunately for him, instead of water, the flower contains a bee — with a wrench to hit him with!
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Homie the Clown", Homer, dressed as Krusty, squirts Bart with a flower, and then the water bounces off onto Lisa in a bank shot. Homer explains that the gag was his major at clown college.
  • "Fear of Flying" begins with the crowd at Moe's bar pranking Moe in various ways. Barney asks Moe if he wants to smell his lapel flower. Moe does, and Barney takes the opportunity to light Moe's tie on fire.
  • In "Pulpit Friction", Marge finds her wedding dress has been switched with Krusty's clown suit. She squirts the flower and it shoots vodka into her mouth.
  • In "The Nightmare After Krustmas", when Reverend Lovejoy is resuscitating Krusty after he nearly drowned during an attempted baptism in a frozen river, water squirts out of Krusty's flower, which froze instantly due to the cold.
  • "Clown v. Board of Education" shows that Legs and Johnny Tightlips from the mafia are fans of this trope, the latter wanting Krusty to give him a squirt between the eyes, but because Krusty is wearing a wire inside the flower which would short-circuit if he squirted, he's hesitant. This leads Johnny Tightlips to pull out his gun, demanding this gag. Ultimately, this trope was subverted because a sweatdrop lands on the flower, shocking Krusty, which the mafia goons accept as a funny enough substitution.
    Johnny Tightlips: One of us is going to be splattered in the next five seconds!
• In the Superman: The Animated Series episode "World's Finest", when the Joker gets his hands on a big chunk of Kryptonite and intends to kill Superman, the latter arrives in a Kryptonite-Proof Suit. The Joker has an Oh, Crap! moment... before "remembering" that the flower on his chest is loaded with acid.
• In the Underdog episode "The Big Shrink", Simon Bar Sinister's plan is to use a flower to squirt everyone in the city with water that causes them to shrink, so he can be the self-proclaimed "Biggest Man in the World".

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