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Toilet Humour
aka: Toilet Humor

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"To whoever took the 'L' from the 'MOTOR POOL' sign, haha, we are all very amused."
Ms. Packard, Atlantis: The Lost Empire

Simply put, toilet humour comprises jokes about urine, feces (human or otherwise), bums, fannies, willies, other naughty bits, fluids, farts and the immolation of them, boogers, bodily functions, and various other yucky stuff. It is very popular with young children, but as they grow up, they tend to find greater amusement in more witty jokes (at least, most of them do), and toilet humour is generally regarded with great dislike from the eyes of the mature audience. On the other hand, when toilet humour is mixed with Slapstick, the result is generally viewed as humourous. People falling into manure is good for a laugh across all age groups.

Toilet humour is related to Vulgar Humor. You could say it is the "cleaner counterpart". e.g What did the Pirate find in the ship toilet? The Captain's Log. note 

Toilet humour is common on grossout shows and shows with large amounts of Black Comedy, but is not restricted to them. In a show which rarely relies on toilet humour, such instances tend to be lampshaded ("Oh, just what this episode needs - a fart joke"). Often toilet humour is used as filler, which results in a Bottom of the Barrel Joke.

Almost guaranteed in anything with babies in it.

Before anyone tells you humor was cleaner back in the old days, this trope is Older Than Dirt. A Sumerian proverb, dating to 1900 BCE goes "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap."

I Ate WHAT?! is the trope when eating is involved. Characters that are Gassholes and most instances of Fartillery are also usually meant for comedic purposes. Compare Tinkle in the Eye, Nose Nuggets, Road Apples, Urine Trouble, Revolting Rescue, and Joke of the Butt. Can be played very lightly via Calling Your Bathroom Breaks. Humor that involves an actual toilet is often involved in a Potty Emergency (but this Trope often applies there too). You can have some toilet humour without having anything gross actually happen by employing a Grossout Fakeout.

Not to be confused with Toilet Horror, though the two can overlap in Horror Comedy or in a moment of Mood Whiplash in other works.


Sub-tropes:

  • All-Natural Fire Extinguisher: I can't believe anyone would do something as disgusting as put out a fire by peeing on the flames!
  • Anuscape Plan: The most straightforward way out of something's body is through... the butt. Because this is just about the worst exit, some characters will vehemently avoid it - or take it, and (hilariously) regret it.
  • Ass Shove: The act of something being shoved up someone’s ass or something being pulled out of someone’s rectum.
  • Bodily Fluid Blacklight Reveal: When a blacklight reveals an area is stained with a bodily fluid, typically semen, urine, but sometimes blood and poop, typically played for comedy.
  • Bird-Poop Gag: Ugh! That bird pooped on my shoulder!
  • Bizarre Taste in Food: But specifically if it's things like feces, urine, vomit, and the like.
  • Calling Your Bathroom Breaks: I gotta use the bathroom so bad that I feel beholden to telling everyone about my need to relieve myself with no regard to how abruptly impolite that would be.
  • Calling Your Nausea: That was so gross, I think I'm going to throw up!
  • Covered in Gunge: Being covered in slimy stuff is ew!
  • The Diaper Change: Poopy diapers, EEW!
  • Dirty Foreigner: Foreigners have very poor personal hygiene!
  • The Dreaded Toilet Duty: I have to clean bathrooms?! Blech!
  • Dung Fu: Using poop as a weapon! Yuck!
  • Ear Cleaning: Earwax removal—ick!
  • Eat Dirt, Cheap: Ewww, those guys are eating mud!
  • Eat That: I can't believe I have to eat this in part of a reality show! It's freaking nasty!
  • Egging: Eww, run! Someone's throwing rotten eggs at us!
  • Even the Rats Won't Touch It: This food item is so unappetizing that not even vermin will chow down on it!
  • Fan Disservice: That's not sexy at all! It's just flat-out gross! Why would they show that gross-looking person in a skimpy outfit on camera?!
  • Fartillery: Weaponized farts.
  • Gasshole: Burping and farting is gross!
  • Gassy Scare: Eww, their "illness" was only gas!
  • I Ate WHAT?!: Someone eats an unpleasant substance and is grossed out after realizing what it was.
  • Joke of the Butt: Jokes revolving around the rear end, such as a person having their backside exposed, the person being subjected to remarks on how huge their keister is or characters using comedic euphemisms to refer to the hindquarters.
  • Laxative Prank: Did you seriously just slip laxatives into my drink? Surely you know that in real life, there are more serious consequences to this kind of prank than making it harder to control my bowels!
  • Lost My Appetite: Oh, God! I just lost interest in eating because of that disgusting thing I just saw/heard!
  • Mess on a Plate: I haven't tasted the food, but by the look of it, it seems disgusting!
  • Messy Maggots: Ew, I'm not touching anything that's covered in maggots!
  • Mistaken for Toilet: Someone mistakes something for a toilet or bathroom.
  • Naked People Are Funny: Nudity is depicted for humorous purposes.
  • Nature Tinkling: Did that guy just take a wizz out in the open instead of waiting until he's in an indoor bathroom? Nasty! I hope I never have to relieve myself without access to the facilities.
  • Nausea Dissonance: Okay, this is gross, but for some reason, it doesn't gross me out. Weird.
  • Nausea Fuel: Good Lord! It's what this page is all about! I can't believe I'm actually going to stomach this disgusting mess of a page!
  • Nose Nuggets: Jokes about boogers and mucus.
  • Pesky Pigeons: Pigeons are gross!
  • The Pig-Pen: Gross! A person with poor hygiene is impossible to be by!
  • Plaguemaster: Eww! You're spreading diseases to us? Gross!
  • Pooping Food: I don't care how good the food probably tastes! I will NEVER eat any food that came right out of a creature's rectum! Disgusting!
  • Pooping Where You Shouldn't: Disgusting! Someone pooped outside of the toilet!
  • Prone to Vomiting: Vomit is disgusting! It makes me want to vomit!
  • Put Off Their Food: Did you have to describe that gross thing with a superficial resemblance to what I'm about to eat? Now I can't eat it!
  • Putting the Pee in Pool: Gross! Somebody peed in the pool!
  • Reduced to Ratburgers: Yuck! I can't believe I have to eat something gross like rats to keep from starving myself! I hate being homeless!
  • Revenge Is a Dish Best Served: Bleh! That person put something gross in my food! I guess they were trying to get back at me for something I did!
  • Revolting Rescue: Thank you for saving my life, but also ew!
  • Road Apples: Eew! I stepped in poop!
  • Screaming at Squick: OH, MY GOD! THIS IS SO DISGUSTING! I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW DISGUSTING IT IS THAT IT'S MAKING ME SCREAM THIS LOUD!
  • Selective Squeamishness Suppression: I'm a neat freak and for some reason, I can handle blood and gore, but not dirt and grime! That's filthy!
  • Shock Site: Close it out! This website's too disgusting to look at!
  • Slipping into Stink: Gross! I've fallen into something extremely disgusting and smelly!
  • Smelly Feet Gag: Put your shoes back on! Your foot odor is making me gag!
  • Smelly Skunk: Skunks are gross!
  • Spit Shake: Spitting on your hands to seal the deal—yuck! What is wrong with a clean handshake?
  • Spit Shine: Gross! Why would you want to clean my shoes with your saliva?!
  • Spit Take: *spits out drink* Oh, God! That was so gross!
  • Squick: Yuck! That really grossed me out!
  • Sticky Situation: Disgusting! I'm covered in something sticky!
  • Stress Vomit: Ewww, calm down! You're so anxious, you just threw up!
  • Swallowed a Fly: Eew! A bug went into my mouth!
  • Swarm of Rats: Yuck! How many rats are coming out from sewers? Those are making me puke!
  • Talking Poo: Poop is already gross enough, but poop that talks is crossing the line!
  • Tastes Better Than It Looks: Ewww, what a Mess on a Plate! Wait... it's actually delicious!
  • This Is Wrong on So Many Levels!: Oh, my God! That is disgusting and gross on so many levels!
  • Tinkle in the Eye: What's worse than changing dirty diapers is the baby peeing in my face! Urine is just as disgusting as poop!
  • Toilet Paper Substitute: It's so gross that there's no toilet paper and I have to use something unconventional to wipe my ass!
  • Toilet Training Plot: Any story that's about a child learning to use the toilet can be expected to feature toilet humor.
  • Trash of the Titans: This place is an absolute pig sty! How could anyone stand living in this disgusting place?!
  • Uncleanliness Is Next to Ungodliness: Yuck! You're such an unclean and disgusting douchebag!
  • Underwater Fart Gag: Gross! Somebody farted in the pool!
  • Uranus Is Showing: Innuendos on how the planet Uranus can be pronounced to sound like "your anus".
  • Urine Trouble: Eww! My pet just peed on the furniture!
  • Vomit Chain Reaction: Oh, God! Just watching that person vomit makes me want to vomit!
  • Way Past the Expiration Date: Gross! Just how long has this been sitting in the fridge?
  • Yellow Snow: Blech! Who peed in the snow?
  • You Dirty Rat!: Those rats are filthy and disgusting!
  • You Make Me Sick: My response to you, who said or did something repugnant! That's how disgusting you are!
  • You Need a Breath Mint: ...because your breath stinks!

Example subpages:

Other examples:

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    Advertising 
  • Apparently, this commercial for baby diapers is a real Australian ad. Let's just say that the mother will be cleaning out her car for a while, and hope we never learn what a number four is...
  • There are a couple of somewhat popular ads that got uploaded to YouTube and other video sharing sites countless times. For example:
  • A campaign against secondhand smoke used the phrase "passing gas" instead of smoking in reference to the gases expelled from smoking cigarettes. The ads usually involved one character mentioning he or she needed to pass gas and the others would tell them to go to another room or do it outside as a narrator explained the dangers of "passing gas" in the presence of others.
  • The "Bleachable Moments" ad campaign for Clorox had a few instances of this. In one ad, a little boy proudly informs his mother that he used the potty. The mother goes to the bathroom, looks at the training toilet, and with a confused expression says, "Where is it?" Then her gaze drifts over to a nearby vase...
  • One ad that tells people to get checked for kidney disease features a song called "Everybody Pees", which is about people peeing in all sorts of crazy ways and stating that everybody pees.
  • "Tinkle, tinkle, Little Claire, sitting on your potty chair..."
  • Claude the Cat:
    • If gas is mentioned, there's usually a fart joke.
    • One video begins with Claude digging then saying, "So much for privacy" implying he wanted to go number two.
    • In one video, Claude describes the beach as a litter box.
  • The Energy Sheets commercial. The people in the commercial are saying stuff like "I take a sheet in the pool" and such, referring to where they take the product.
  • The Charmin bears: the toilet paper company has an entire international advertising campaign based around taking the phrase "Does a bear shit in the woods?" to its logical extreme. (Apparently, the answer is "Yes, and they use Charmin toilet tissue to clean up afterwards.")
    • Lampshaded in one episode of Saturday Night Live (not verbatim): "An ad for Dancing with the Stars was banned from airing due to a woman showing too much cleavage, yet the lewd commercials with bears showing off their asses still manage to air."
    • A German toilet paper company proceeded to make a parody. "Scheißt ein Bär in den Wald?" is the German version and means exactly the same.
    • And the German version of the initial Charmin bear advert is even more explicit than the American one (then again, they can get by with more shit on German television...).
  • One wonders how this ad for Luvs Diapers got past the radar. Yes, you saw it correctly. Those babies are having a competition for...who can be the most "heavy duty".
  • This advertisement for the Intercity 125 shows the train stopping "to spend a penny", followed by a flock of disturbed birds fleeing from offscreen, next to a sign labelled "inconveniences".
  • Cryptoland: When Christopher asks Connie where he gets his ideas, Connie looks at a public restroom labeled "Shitcoin". The camera zooms in on 1-dollar bills labeled "Wipe paperrr".

    Arts 

    Comedy 
  • Bill Cosby's famous standup act, Bill Cosby: Himself featured a rant about how fathers are the most fun family members because they're the only ones allowed to have gas. He also discussed how his father used to blame his farts on invisible animals.
  • Billy Connolly's early material featured an abundance of toilet and body function jokes. The most famous example is one where he speaks at length about being trapped in an airplane toilet with the previous visitor's "jobby" still floating in it, not flushing away and being unable to leave because he'd never be able to convince anyone that he didn't do it himself! He's no stranger to jokes about willies and bums either (a joke about the latter pretty much kickstarted his career outside Scotland).
  • Oh, Bob Saget. The comedy special That Ain't Right features lighting farts, an examination of the potential literal meaning of the phrase "fuck that shit", a man from Spain getting his head stuck up an elephant's ass, and that time where Bob got garlic diarrhea after eating at The Stinking Rose and then used it to kill a vampire.
  • Eddie Murphy has a bit in Delirious that starts off with farting in the bath tub and ends with a turd, a cracked skull and his brother with a G.I. Joe up his butt.
  • George Carlin defines a fart in its simplest context: "Shit without the mess."
  • Larry the Cable Guy is notorious for overusing this.

    Comic Strips 
  • Gary Larson liked putting outhouse jokes into The Far Side, though he did have a problem getting them past his editors in the early years.
    • One of his favorites was one featuring a boy in the foreground practicing his sousaphone behind an outhouse; in the background, beyond the outhouse, stand a cluster of awed onlookers.
  • Garfield has had a few examples here and there over the years.
  • Marvin...just the entire run of Marvin, a strip that seems obsessed with a diaper-wearing toddler's fecal production and his apparent willingness to sit smugly stewing in it indefinitely. (This behavior and the strip's unswerving focus on it is one of the bêtes noir of The Comics Curmudgeon.)
  • BabyBlues: Frequently used as a running gag and is commonly used on Wren. Another running gag has Wren constantly eat prunes and the after-math always has her pooping herself. In one comic, Wren gets diarrhea after eating a whole bag of prunes and stinks up the van, leaving Darryl with a empty diaper bag and a trip the store to get pull-ups.
  • In a Pearls Before Swine strip in which Pig tries to impress a woman with his travel, he tries to prove he does know whether or not he's in North America by proclaiming I'M IN CONTINENT!!

    Eastern Animation 
  • Aachi and Ssipak has an entire plot that revolves around a future where feces is the main source of power and the main characters are protecting a hooker who has very... *ahem* generous bowels.
  • Bread Barbershop: In "The Barber of Bakery Town", during a competition with a rival, Bread designs his cupcake person's frosting to look like poop, complete with texture. He goes back on it, turning it into a golden dragon instead.
  • Happy Heroes: Season 8 episode 11 is about Big M. being stuck floating in the air. He gets tired of not being able to control where he floats and finds a solution - propel himself in the direction he wants by farting. He then runs into an aerial traffic cop who fines him for polluting the air with his gas.
  • Lavatory-Lovestory: This is a cartoon in which a lovelorn men's room attendant falls in love. In one scene all the men in the stalls are unnerved when the woman starts peeking underneath them in an effort to find her admirer. Later, she accidentally whacks a man in the face with her bouquet, causing him to fall into the toilet.
  • Tooba Tooba Noonbory: "Blast Party" is about the characters getting gas from yams and farting uncontrollably.

    Pinball 
  • Fully embraced by America's Most Haunted at every opportunity.
  • Heavily used in Stern Pinball's Family Guy, just like its namesake. Operators can tone it down, however.
  • The "Joe's Diner" mode from The Flintstones ends with a large pterodactyl flying overhead and releasing a giant dropping on the diner.
  • Capcom Pinball's Flipper Football includes belches, farts, and burps in its repertoire of sound effects. Which are still mild compared to the game's nonstop barrage of profanity...
  • Inappropriately enough, the South Park pinball from Sega is loaded with this.
  • WhizBang Pinball's Whoa Nellie! Big Juicy Melons has a horse that's seen shooting a melon out of its posterior. Another part of the play field shows it farting onto a lit match, which launches a fireball (that doubles as a score light).
  • The "13-UTT" dimension in Rick and Morty causes fart sounds to play whenever the ball hits anything.

    Pro Wrestling 
  • The 1987 Slammy Awards: In a literal case, one of the nominees for the "Best Personal Hygiene" award was King Kong Bundy, who is seen using the toilet to defecate himself ... and it is implied he held it all in (and we mean ALL in) until his bowels finally gave way.
  • John Cena occasionally pulls this out for the kids.
  • Who can forget the time Eddie Guerrero gave The Big Show a tainted burrito, giving him diarrhea in the middle of a match, and then stealing all the toilet paper from the toilet stalls before he got in? And the next week, Eddie Guerrero sprayed The Big Show down with a hose connected to a septic truck.

    Puppet Shows 
  • The Bear in the Big Blue House installment "Potty Time with Bear" pretty much operated on this when it wasn't offering practical information on children's potty training.
  • On Dinosaurs, Baby often makes mention of having dirty diapers with comical reactions from Earl. Some prominent examples include the lyrics, "I take every chance to make a poop in my pants" in the "I'm the Baby (Gotta Love Me)" music video, and the entire plot of "Nature Calls" dealt with Earl's unsuccessful attempts to potty-train Baby.
  • The Muppet Show:
    • In "Episode 106: Jim Nabors", Kermit introduces Fozzie as "the man who thinks that Elton John is a singing bathroom".
    • In "Episode 310: Marisa Berenson", a wig trainer tells Louis Kazagger that he doesn't use "sham"-poo for his wigs, only real poo.
    • In "Episode 504: Shirley Bassey", Statler and Waldorf share the following exchange after the guest star's first number:
    Waldorf: "Fire Down Below", great number.
    Statler: Thanks.
    Waldorf: Thanks? You didn't write "Fire Down Below".
    Statler: No, but the guy who did had just had a bowl of my chili.
  • Muppets Tonight: The Seinfeld Babies sketch from "Episode 107: Sandra Bullock" parodies the Seinfeld epsiode, "The Contest" by having Baby Jerry say that whoever can go the longest without soiling their diaper wins the contest. Baby Kramer proceeds to do his business and declares, "I'm out".
  • Sesame Street: "Elmo's Potty Time" is mainly educational, but there are a few joke moments, like a giant primate needing to pee and chasing a giant toilet, jokes during a song about toilet paper being made (such as when a large toilet roll is being seen in the manufacturing process, asking, "If the roll ran out, would we hire a truck?!") and kids shouting synonyms for pee and poop, the peeing part ending in a shout of "I REALLY NEED TO URINATE!".

    Radio 
  • Howard Stern and his superhero, Fartman.
  • Opie & Anthony: "Fart Equals Funny" is one of their basic tenets.
  • Listeners are spared listening Giles Wemmbley-Hogg's bout of amoebic dysentery during his trip to Thailand, except to be told afterward about it...
    ...spending the night, squatting over a hole, spraying pint after pint of red-hot magma down the back of [his] legs.
  • The Stephanie Miller Show describes itself as "a Mensa meeting with fart jokes!"
  • Martin/Molloy featured lots of this, which the hosts acknowledged and frequently mocked themselves for. The "Blimpy, the Lactose Intolerant Cat" sketches were built entirely around it.

    Theatre 
  • In 1776, at one point, RI delegate Stephen Hopkins is out using the latrine when his time to vote is called; the Congressional secretary marks this as "Rhode Island passes," sending the rest of Congress into a fit of laughter. Later, Benjamin Franklin is discussing his thoughts about not truly being an Englishman since he doesn't have the rights of one.
    Franklin: But to call me one without those rights is like calling an ox a bull; he's thankful for the honor but would much rather have restored what's rightfully his.
    Dickinson: When did you first notice they were missing, sir?
  • The Clouds: At one point, Strepsiades is speaking to one of the students at the Thinkery, surrounded by kneeling students. When he's told that they are studying the reaches of Hell, he's quick to point out that their "third eyes" are facing the sky.
  • The Comedy of Errors: The Ephesian Antipholus starts slinging insults with the Dromio keeping him out of his house and descends into threatening to fart in his face.
  • Matilda: Mr Wormwood's hair is green due to a mistake and claims it's to celebrate the green things like "lettuce and snot".
  • Urinetown is a Black Comedy musical about a dystopian future where, due to a drought, people have to pay to pee.
  • "Haus of Holbein" from Six features this line...
    For blonder hair, you just add a
    Magical ingredient from your bladder.

    Real Life 
  • Older Than Dirt: The oldest known joke of any kind comes from a Sumerian tablet dated to c. 1900 BCE. It's a fart joke:
    "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial - a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap."
  • Flatuists, A.K.A. professional farters, are people paid to fart on command. The earliest known flatuist was mentioned by St. Augustine of Hippo in his book, "City of God", which was written in the 5th Century A.D. One 12th-century Englishman by the name of Roland was given a feudal grant of 110 acres in Suffolk provided that every year he would, on Christmas Day, entertain the King by performing "altogether, and at once, a leap, a puff, and a fart." He and his descendants did so for 200 years.
  • "Fart Proudly" was the title of an essay by Benjamin Franklin. You read that right.
  • The Maasai people of Tanzania, a nomadic tribe known for wearing toga-like wraps instead of Western apparel, refer to Westerners as iloredaa enjekat, or "those who hold their farts in with trousers".
  • Leslie Nielsen's gravestone reads "Let 'er rip."
  • Comedian Michael Bentine recalled his life as Intelligence Officer to an Australian bomber squadron during WW2. The Germans made a war crimes protest to Switzerland that had to be investigated at the highest levels and which led back to Bentine's squadron, who had been indenting for more than the usual amount of replacement chemical toilets, claiming the onboard lavatories had been damaged beyond repair by enemy flak. It turned out that every time the toilets got full, rather than have them drained and cleaned on return to base, the earthy Aussies had been ejecting them over German towns and cities as an additional, unofficial, weapon of war, hoping to splash the maximum possible number of Germans as a courtesy detail to go with the bombs. The Germans protested formally about noxious chemical warfare, the Swiss Red Cross formally investigated, and all RAF crews were officially forbidden to empty aircraft toilets over Germany....
  • Most gift shops for any rural or semi-rural destination will have novelty items befitting this trope, such as toy animals that "defecate" at will, chocolate candies that resemble the droppings of local fauna, or T-shirts with illustrations and jokes along those lines.
  • The "poop cake" story.
  • Jack Kim, aka Mr Toilet, founder of the World Toilet Organisation, invokes this trope as a means of promoting better sanitation globally.
  • A themed restaurant in Taiwan was infamous for having certain dishes served in a toilet-shaped bowl. The contents if you didn't know any better may as looked liked someone having a bad day on said bowl.


Alternative Title(s): Toilet Humor, Bathroom Humor, Potty Humor, Potty Humour

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