"Hey, dork! You've got toilet paper stuck to your shoe!"
— Bar patron responding to Larry, Leisure Suit Larry 1: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards
A classic form of Toilet Humour: Somebody leaves the bathroom (often spending a lot of time in there) and a sheet of toilet paper is stuck to their foot. This is highly embarrassing, especially if someone points it out.
A variant also involves a woman (usually a woman) who leaves the bathroom with a length of toilet paper trailing from under her skirt. Another variant has a character getting wrapped up in the toilet paper trail, looking like a mummy.
Not to be confused with There Will Be Toilet Paper. For other non-bathroom appearances of toilet paper, see Toilet Paper Prank.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Advertising
- An ad for the Chase Freedom credit card has a man use "cash-back" to go to a superhero comic book convention, where he steps on the toilet paper on one dressed-up guy's boot, earning a look of approval from another guy dressed up as a superhero.
Comic Strips
- In Scary Gary, Leopold mistakes mummy wrappings stuck to Gary’s shoe for toilet paper at one point.
Fan Works
- The Bolt Chronicles: When Mittens first enters Nirvana after her death in "The Gift," she sees thousands of creatures milling around and chatting with each other. They stop once they see her and smile. Turns out they're aware she's coming and want to celebrate her entrance into Nirvana, given that she has successfully completed her especially difficult life task — but the cat thinks they're amused at something about her instead. She jokingly evokes this trope as a possible reason.
Mittens: [thinks] What? I've got a stream of toilet paper stuck to my foot or something?
Films — Animation
- In Monsters, Inc., Mike Wazowski ends up with a piece of toilet paper stuck to his foot after he and Sulley have come out from hiding in the bathroom from Randall. The DVD Commentary noted this because the simple gag was one of the hardest things for the animation team to render.
- In The Sponge Bob Movie Sponge Out Of Water, Bubbles the Dolphin has toilet paper stuck to his foot when he walks out of the restroom.
- Poop Jr. has some toilet paper stuck on his foot in The Emoji Movie.
- In Turning Red, Mei has some toilet paper stuck on her foot after she leaves the bathroom the first time she turns into a giant red panda.
Films — Live-Action
- In College Road Trip, Albert the pig has toilet paper stuck to one of his hooves after using a bathroom.
- The Eddie Murphy remake of Dr. Dolittle has Lucky the dog leaving the bathroom in this manner.
- Happens to Emma Thompson's character in Junior as part of her Cute Clumsy Girl schtick.
- In Minutemen, the trio saves a boy the embarrassment of having toilet paper stuck to his shoe the second time.
- In Smokey and the Bandit, when Sheriff Buford T. Justice comes out of a mens room during his chase of The Bandit, he is trailing a toilet paper line, and a kindly waitress sweetly catches up to him and helps him clear it up. As she leaves, he turns and comments to himself about her posterior (in a genuinely heart-warming moment for an antagonist.)
- A newscast in Spider-Man: Homecoming includes a candid photo of Spider-Man taking some toilet paper off of his boot while leaving a port-a-potty.
Live-Action TV
- Used only semi-comedically in an episode of All in the Family: Archie & Edith visit Mike & Gloria in California. One night during their stay, Gloria talks to her mother: the marriage isn't going well, and they might divorce. They use the bathroom for privacy during their talk. They both cry, and Edith in particular uses some toilet paper to wipe her eyes. When they leave Edith has a trail of toilet paper in her hand; when Archie calls her on it she says she was "using it for Kleenex" without going into details.
- The Big Comfy Couch: In "Scrub-A-Dub", Loonette gets a piece of toilet paper stuck to her shoe. When she walks back to the couch, she unrolls the whole roll, deciding to use the toilet paper to decorate the couch and make a cheerleader's outfit.
- In an episode of Hannah Montana, after Miley's false assumptions cause Jackson to lose his girlfriend, Miley tries to humiliate herself via this method in hope that she and Jackson will be "even".
Music
- Happens to the guy in charge of detention in the music video for Brooklyn Queen's "Emoji". The guy isn't very happy when a girl points it out and threatens her with more detention.
Video Games
- In Leisure Suit Larry 1: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards, Larry has this happen to him whenever he uses the bathroom in the bar. Walking close past the other patrons in the bar after a bathroom visit wil result in one of them pointing this out, and Larry nonchalantly removing the toilet paper.
Western Animation
- In the The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Mystery", Darwin had a tendency to trail toilet paper from the bathroom and through the halls. When Principal Brown was pushed down the stairs by Miss Simian, he got wrapped in the toilet paper and landed in Gumball's locker.
- The Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys episode "The Apes of Wrath" has a scene where Lord Nebula has some toilet paper stuck to his foot.
- In the Cow and Chicken episode "Red Butler", the Red Guy finds toilet paper stuck to his foot after going to the bathroom on Cow's behalf (he takes his career as a butler that seriously).
- In one episode of Detentionaire, Holger saves his crush, Greta, from walking around with toiler paper stuck to her foot.
- The Fairly OddParents! episode "Scary GodCouple" begins with Foop appearing before the Anti-Fairy Council with toilet paper stuck to his foot.
- The Loud House:
- The current page image is from the episode "One of the Boys". After getting a swirlie from Luke (the male version of Luna), Lincoln walks down the hallway with an entire roll of toilet paper stuck to his foot.
- It also briefly happens to Lana in "Brawl in the Family".
- Mad Jack the Pirate: subverted in the episode "The Curse of the Mummy's Toe". Mad Jack, Snuck and Chuck steal the eponymous Mummy's Toe from the treasure room of a pyramid, and activate a Booby Trap as a result. They barely escape the trap, and during their escape briefly end up in the pyramid's bathroom. Afterwards, Mad Jack notices what looks like toilet paper stuck to his shoe and thinks it's this trope. However, the toilet paper is actually a bandage of the Mummy the stolen toe belonged to, and who came to get it back.
- Pelswick enters the classroom with one stuck to his wheel in one episode (the kid's a paraplegic, BTW).
- Leonard McLeish on Pound Puppies (2010) gets some stuck to his foot after using the bathroom before leaving for his first day as vice-supervisor of sewage and wastewater management.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- Mr. Krabs runs out from the bathroom of the Krusty Krab with toilet paper on his foot in the episode, "Sailor Mouth", when trying to figure out why all the customers left the Krusty Krab.
- In the episode, "MermaidPants", a fish comes out of the Krusty Krab bathroom with toilet paper stuck to his foot. SpongeBob and Patrick, who are in their Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy costumes, think the fish is injured and his bandages have come loose, so they wrap him in bandages. Needless to say, the fish is not happy with them.
- Total Drama: In "Up the Creek", Beth needs to go to the bathroom right when Chris gives the instructions for the day's challenge. She gets her thing done as fast as possible and comes running back with a toiler paper trail just as the instructions are over and the challenge begins.
- In the T.U.F.F. Puppy episode, "The Curse of King Mutt'', Snaptrap trails toilet paper, then trips and wraps himself in it, looking like a mummy. The Chameleon and Bird Brain think he wrapped himself in toilet paper to disguise himself as King Mutt's mummy and scare Dudley into finding King Mutt's bone for them, and Snaptrap nervously tells them they're right before telling them what really happened through Suspiciously Specific Denial.
- The Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones? episode "Embarrassment" has Shannon exit the girl's bathroom with some toilet paper stuck to the foot of her prosthetic leg.
Real Life
- On 4 October 2018, Donald Trump boarded Air Force One in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with what seemed to be a piece of toilet paper stuck to his left shoe
. It could also be a napkin or other form of paper, but it led to a lot of mockery once the video went viral.
