Every pool can be a jacuzzi if you fart long enough.
(thinking) It's not fair! I'm not the only one who stinks. When Mum lets off a poot, she coughs at the same time to cover it up. When Dad lets off, he's so sneaky you don't know what's coming until it hits you. Gran's always letting rip. She just blames the cat. Suzy claims she never trumps, but she sounds like a brass band when she thinks no one's listening! And when the dog boffs, he wafts it about! So there, everybody does it! But *I* do it best... Especially in the bath!
— Bertie Burns, Dirty Bertie, "Pooh! Is That You, Bertie?"
A lot of comedies seem to follow this rule: if farting is funny, then it's even funnier when it's underwater, the reason being that farting underwater produces a bubble.
The thing is, this bubble means that it's pretty hard to pretend you didn't fart, while on the flip side, if there is air in your swimsuit and it gets released, it's easy to be mistaken for having farted. Also, it's clear who did it unless more than one person is in close proximity to the one who farted. Plus, bubbles are sort of inherently funny anyway.
Common among people who fart a lot anyway and anyone boorish and/or slobby, but any character can be part of this gag. It may or may not be followed by Instant Fish Kill.
Sub-trope of Toilet Humour. Compare Putting the Pee in Pool for another water-related potty joke.
Examples:
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Advertising
- In a Claude the Cat PSA, Claude tells the viewers that a gas leak produces bubbles "just like in the bath".
- A Japanese soap commercial (which was shown for its humor on The Tonight Show during the Carson era) showed a small army of young Japanese boys bathing (to the tune of Beethoven's Turkish March) in a large tub... with a fart bubbling up as a tag.
- An advertisement for a woman's magazine had the usual beautiful woman relaxing in the bath...cue fart bubble to show that this particular magazine is a bit more down-to-earth than others.
Comic Books
- In Kids Are Weird, Oscar farts in the bath without realizing and says, "What was that horrible smell? Maybe it was those bubbles."
- In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW) comic "Nightmare Rarity", according to Pinkie Pie, Rarity farted in the hot tub when she (Pinkie Pie) made a joke.
- A tie-in comic for The Ren & Stimpy Show, the duo get jobs as lifeguards at a public pool. While there, Ren shows the ability to "blow" massive twenty-foot bubbles underwater, which he uses to discipline a rowdy kid by tossing him out of the pool. He claims it was "a powerful geeft, that I swore only to use for the Forces of Good."
Comic Strips
- This
◊ Dennis the Menace (US) strip has the titular character fart in the tub while taking his bath. An unamused Alice responds with "Yes, Dennis, I get it. You're a jacuzzi. Now knock it off!"
Fan Works
- In "Hatch Ya Later" Kabaton seems to be in a bubbling hot tub, but when he gets out it stops bubbling, revealing it to be gas.
Films — Animation
- In Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Milo is embarrassed when he falls into a pool and air loudly bubbles out of his shorts, making it seem like he farted.
- In Finding Nemo, a bunch of underwater mines explode, and a pelican mistakes another pelican for having farted because the explosion caused a bubble near the pelican.
Pelican: Nice.
- A scene in The Lion King 1 ½, Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa hang out in a pool of water that bubbles like a hot tub. When Pumbaa gets out, the bubbles disappear, implying they were all because of his farting.
Timon: I'm out!
Simba: Right behind you! - Shrek:
- In the first movie, Shrek farts in a pond and it smells so bad, three fish float up dead, and some of the reeds around the pond wilt over. He's later seen eating one of the fish in his house.
- In Shrek 2, Shrek and Fiona fart in a mud bath, grossing out some fairies.
Films — Live-Action
- In A Cinderella Story, Brianna does this while in a pool, which prompts her sister to angrily attack her while their synchronized swimming instructor tries to get them to stop fighting.
- Hot Shots! Part Deux: When President Benson and his team are scuba diving and an enemy boat appears overhead, the president does an enormous fart that stinks the enemy soldiers out so bad, that it actually kills them.
- In The Legend of Johnny Lingo, when Tama and Mahana are playing in the river, Tama makes Mahana laugh by making fart bubbles.
- In The Master of Disguise, the villain, who has a habit of farting, does one last fart after his Karmic Death in a pool.
- Mr. Popper's Penguins: One of the penguins is named Stinky because he farts a lot. He once farts while in a tub of icy water.
- In Nim's Island, Nim is worried that some tourists will bother her animal friends, so she tries to get Selkie the sea lion to fart next to the boat to put them off visiting the island.
- In The Smurfs 2, the Smurfs are bathing in the sink and Grouchy farts, which disgusts Vanity.
- In the opening credits of Spy Hard, one of the divers produces a trail of bubbles from the wrong end of her suit.
Literature
- In the Dirty Bertie book "Pooh, Is That You, Bertie?", Bertie is told off for farting in public, then says, "We all do it, but I do it best of all, especially in the bath!"
- Discworld: Subtly invoked in Hogfather where Ridcully, describing the many features of the B.S. Johnson "Typhoon" Indoor Ablutorium with Automatic Soapdish, describes the jacuzzi as "that tub over there's got a big blower thingy so's you get bubbly water without even havin' to eat starchy food."
- In the kids' book Farley Farts, Farley's sister is amused by Farley farting in the pool.
Live-Action TV
- In The Stinger of the Good Luck Charlie episode "Battle of the Bands", Bob and Gabe use Bruce and Lucas's hot tub while Bruce and Lucas are away. Bubbles appear and Gabe asks how it was possible because he didn't put the setting on. Bob says that he didn't either, but with three trays of tacosnote , they're going to get bubbles.
- Done For Science! on an episode of MythBusters that dealt with flatulence. It was the best idea they could come up with for capturing a flatus to analyze its chemical composition. Cue Adam Savage sitting in a bathtub (in swimsuit) making bubbles into a funnel, which are draw into a plastic cartridge under vacuum.
- A sketch in a 1993 episode of Saturday Night Live has host Kevin Kline play a man with chronic flatulence. One scene has him in a tub producing the expected bubbles.
Radio
- In I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, a Good News, Bad News exchange consists of Tim saying, "Good news! I've got a new jacuzzi." and Willie saying, "Bad news! It wasn't a jacuzzi when I got in."
Web Animation
- Talking Tom Shorts: In the episode "Breaking The Pool Rules", Tom farts in the pool.
Web Comics
- A throwaway panel in a Promises Promises comic has an instructor chastise an embarrassed woman (whom the other swimmers are straying away from) that there's no such thing as "bubbles pose".
Western Animation
- All Hail King Julien: In the episode "My Fair Fooza", when King Julien and friends are in the hot tub, King Julien teaches Mary Ann about it and Mort says it's fun to toot in and toots. Mary Ann's fart was so powerful, that Mort and Maurice fell down.
- Bobby's World: In "Swim By Me", Uncle Ted takes Bobby to the community center for swimming lessons. During his first lesson, the teacher asks Bobby to put his face in the water and make bubbles. Bobby is standing next to Uncle Ted, and asks him how he can make bubbles without putting his face in the water. Uncle Ted answers, "Tell you what, Bob-o, let's just keep that our little secret, okay?"
- A gag in The Critic has Jay in a jacuzzi. Some women want to join him — but then they realize it isn't turned on and there are bubbles anyway.
- Ed, Edd n Eddy: In "Hot Buttered Ed", there's a scene where Ed is smiling while making fart bubbles in the ocean. Edd and Eddy glare at him.
- In the Family Guy episode "Extra Large Medium", Meg and Stewie are forced to bathe together and entertain each other by farting in the tub. When Meg queefs, Stewie runs out screaming.
- In the Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil episode "Clean... to the Extreme", one of the deals in the Chain of Deals is providing the bubbles for Brianna's bath. Gunther does so by farting but Brianna doesn't seem to mind.
- In Jimmy Two-Shoes, Beezy farts in a lake, causing eight fish to float up dead from the awful smell.
- The animated "Meet the Infernites" clip in Calling All Mixels features the three Infernites in a lava hot tub. A bubble rises out of the lava, which then pops. Flain and Vulk react in disgust, while Zorch grins at his handiwork.
- Implied in the Phineas and Ferb episode "Spa Day", when Buford is in a jacuzzi. He says it isn't plugged in, but it's bubbling anyway.
- The Ren & Stimpy Show: Ren farts in the bath in "Space Madness".
- In The Simpsons episode "The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons", Homer and Apu are sitting in a jacuzzi and Jasper offers to turn on the bubbles.
