A Comedy Trope in which a character's underwear is exposed while other people are present, usually by accident, and much to their embarrassment. Generally involves Goofy Print Underwear or Uncool Undies. For extra embarrassment, the person might have their name written on their underwear. The primary use of this trope is comedy, catching a character in their most embarrassing state. Often this is the result of Defeat by Modesty. Fully-Clothed Nudity is the feeling this creates.
Compare Marilyn Maneuver for a specific way this happens accidentally, and Pants-Pulling Prank for a move that Invokes it intentionally. Compare Panty Shot, which usually shows viewers up a girl's skirt while it's still up, but can overlap with this trope. In addition, Panty Shots are always played for Fanservice, while Comedic Underwear Exposure usually isn't. Compare Joke of the Butt, Naked People Are Funny.
Examples:
- In an Australian commercial for the cereal Cocopops, two brothers are fighting while the younger of the two sits at the kitchen table eating a bowl of Cocopops. As the older brother yells at him from across the room, the younger brother takes a big spoonful of Cocopops and crunches down hard on it, the force from which blows off all of the older brother's outerwear, leaving him standing in his tighty-whities. The older brother's embarrassment increases when his older sister walks around the corner with her friend, who giggles when she sees him in his undies.
- A Maytag commercial shows a little boy getting his clothes ruined at school — his pen exploding in his pocket, a bully pushing him into the mud, a cafeteria worker spilling food on his shirt. Embarrassed, he walks home alone after school. In the laundry room he places his shirt and pants into the washing machine. He then struts through the kitchen in just his underpants while his mother looks at him, puzzled.
- Holeproof underwear: Because one day,
you're gonna get Caught with Your Pants Down. They're referring to Comedic Underwear Exposure, obviously, but even then...
- Berserk: During a feast in Elfhelm, Isma drunkenly decides to show off her mer form without bothering to take off her clothes first. As a result her drawers end up caught on her tailfin and get plopped on the table for everyone to see.
- Case Closed: While trying to make his getaway, Kid the Phantom Thief shoots some belt-choppers towards Ran, intending to cause a distraction via making his pants fall down, but gets Kogoro instead.
- Chimidoro Ice Cream: Shion Nagatsuki is a "half-zombie" girl who needs doki dokinote to keep her heart beating so she doesn't turn into a full zombie. In chapter 5, when she, Ema Tachibana, and Hinata Minegishi are crammed into a House of the Dead booth, Shion freaks out at the zombie carnage on-screen and slips into full zombie mode. She tries to snack on Hinata while the oblivious Ema continues playing the game ... until Ema whips the light gun up and accidentally hikes up Shion's skirt. The embarrassment of having her panties flashed is enough to make Shion's heart start beating again.
- A frequent Running Gag in the Doraemon manga would have Nobita, Suneo or Gian losing their pants while in public, due to whatever gadget-of-the-week backfiring on the users. The very first Doraemon chapter in fact ends with Nobita trying to use the then-newly introduced Takecopter on his pants... only to slip out and land pantless in front of Shizuka. (An Early-Installment Weirdness in the manga, as later chapters would depict the Takecopter capable of functioning when used over caps, hoods, or other articles of clothing)
- Dragon Ball:
- Goku demonstrates this trope in his second fight with Tenshinhan by stealing the latter's belt. Though shocked at Goku's new speed, Ten tries to reassert control over the match by bragging about his new technique, which will make speed useless. The humiliation kicks in when Goku points out, yeah, but he should probably pull his pants up, and gives back the belt. Ten embarrassingly does so as the audience snickers.
- Earlier during the General Blue saga in the anime, Krillin, whilst dangling over a lava pit, accidentally pulled Bulma’s short shorts down and exposed some strawberry patterned panties.
- In Dragon Half, Mig is first defeated when the heroes (accidentally) expose his Teddy Bear undies. Vina later uses a picture of Mig in said undies as blackmail material.
- Chapter 70 of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War opens with Kaguya and Fujiwara walking in on Ishigami while he's getting changed in the Student Council room, though it's initially framed to make it look like one of the girls is getting changed instead. Fujiwara proceeds to mock him for wearing briefs.
- In Komodo no Jikan, the bratty Kuro holds down teacher Aoki's and accidentally pulls down his pants. With another student in front of him when it happens.
- In One Piece during Alabasta arc Filler Chopper pulls the back of Sanji’s pants down to get his attention exposing love heart pattern boxers. Sanji also happened to be flirting with two belly dancers when it happened.
- In Reborn! (2004), Tsuna's basic Dying Will mode in early chapters/episodes made his clothes tear away, reducing him to his boxers.
- Early in Slam Dunk, Sakuragi tries to stop Akagi from dunking over him by holding him down. He accidentally pulls down his pants in the process.
- In Soul Eater, Lord Death picks up Rachel!Medusa by the back of her dress several times, exposing her pumpkin panties.
- In chapter 115 of Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out!, Ami is working her shift at the café without wearing pants, due to dropping boiling water on them. She tries to stay close to her desk to keep people from seeing her in her panties, but ends up being seen by Sakaki when he tries to cover for her, thinking that she was acting weird because she was working while being sick.
- In YuYu Hakusho, Kuwabara is reduced to his boxers after getting mugged and impersonated by Mitsunari for a test that has Team Urameshi figure out who's the imposter among them.
- Fun Alliance: Episode 8 culminates in Xiao Xingxing's heart-pattern underwear being exposed thanks to Thunder Mouse. This isn't as much of a problem as one may expect, as his girlfriend wears a similar shirt, and they end up bonding over that.
- Happy Friends: In Season 3 episode 28, Big M. gives Little M. instructions to cut the electrical circuit inside a building. He cuts Big M.'s belt instead, exposing his underwear.
- Lamput:
- In the episode "Bellbottoms", at a dance club, Lamput pretends to be bellbottoms on Specs Doc and the clothes grab the attention of women who think it looks cool. The episode ends with Lamput escaping while Specs Doc is in the middle of dancing, revealing his underwear.
- In "Boxing", the referee rips Skinny Doc's shirt and pants off, leaving him in his green underwear for the boxing match.
- In "Fashion Show", the docs rip off a dress from one of the Fashion Show models thinking it's Lamput, accidentally revealing her heart-print underwear.
- In "In the Gut", to disguise himself as a doctor, Skinny Doc rips the suit off an actual doctor, exposing his underwear. The nurse sees him like that and screams.
- In an episode of ViR: The Robot Boy, when Timbuktu is hanging from balloons his pants are accidentally pulled down by Vir, revealing colorful underwear with lightning motifs.
- Anya's Ghost: Anya trips while doing the beep test in gym class and falls — and since she's wearing a skirt like all the girls are, her underwear is visible, leading to everyone laughing at her.
- In the Emmie & Friends book Remarkably Ruby, Ruby trips over a backpack in the hallway and her skirt flies up, revealing the Phineas and Ferb-print underwear she's wearing—to both her and Mia's embarrassment. Mia ducks behind a locker as the students laugh at Ruby, one calling her underwear "toddler pants".
- The Flash: Shortly after Wally West became The Flash, Alchemy disintegrated his costume (in public), saying he wasn't fit to wear it. Wally spent the rest of the fight in his boxers. (One little girl even starts saying the "I see London" rhyme.)
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen starts a chapter with Mina Murray and Allan Quatermain descending a ladder. For some reason, Mina thought it was a good idea to let Quatermain go first, despite the fact she's wearing a dress. Considering that in Vol. 2, they confess they've lusted after one another for ages, and then shag each other's brains out, you could call it foreshadowing...
- Supergirl (Wednesday Comics): During the Super-Pets' rampage, one mailman is seen running away after Krypto has bitten his pants off and exposed his heart-printed boxers.
First Mailman: Barn door's open.
Second Mailman: What? My zipper is zipped.
First Mailman: Uh...The other barn door.
- Baby Blues:
- One strip has Zoe use the taunt on Hammie, whose underwear is showing. Hammie walks off and returns with his underwear on his head, so Zoe can see it better.
- An earlier strip has Zoe reciting the same rhyme to tease Hammie, but he wasn't fazed since he was still in diapers at the time.
Zoe: [thinking] That song is a lot funnier when the person you're singing about isn't walking around in a diaper.
- In another strip, one of the ways Zoe's morning goes wrong is when Hammie sees her getting dressed and starts taunting her with the same rhyme, only for her to yell "GET OUT!!"
- Subverted several times when, between the ages of 2 and 5, Zoe liked showing off her new panties, often in public. She even did it at her kindergarten graduation when she went on stage to get her diploma.
- Wren pulls Wanda's sweatpants down in one Sunday strip, making Zoe and Hammie laugh.
- One time, Darryl's sweatpants fell while climbing a ladder into the attic, and Hammie, holding the ladder, laughed when he saw it happen.
- When Zoe was one, she opened the door of a changing room in a boutique while Wanda changed her clothes, with several women seeing Wanda in her underwear as Zoe pointed at her and shouted "MAMA!"
- When Darryl took Zoe to his office for "Take Your Kid to Work Day", she saw one of his co-workers bending over, with his underwear showing, and started to say the rhyme, but Darryl stopped her before she could finish it.
- Calvin and Hobbes: In one story arc, Calvin accidentally rips his pants at recess and ends up being forced to go up to the board and answer a math question (because he doesn't want to admit to the teacher that his underwear is showing). To add insult to injury, it was his underpants with little rocket ships on them.
Hobbes: That's why you're home early?
Calvin: Three teachers and the principal couldn't restore order. - Pretty common in Garfield, with Jon Arbuckle the most likely victim. Subverted in a strip where Jon deliberately wore a tank top and Goofy Print Underwear as loungewear on a rainy day.
- Once in For Better or for Worse John and Elly get embarrassed over a 2-year-old April showing her pink pull-up to people at the park.
- In a Liberty Meadows strip, when Jen bends over to get her pocketbook, Dean recites the rhyme. Jen punches him. Dean complains: "I thought women liked poetry..."
- In one Spy vs. Spy strip, Black Spy attaches a razor blade to White Spy's gun so why he draws it, the blade cuts through his belt and drops his pants. When White bends down to pull them back up, Black clobbers him.
- One Zits strip has Jeremy taking a picture of Walt, whose pants fell down while he carried heavy boxes.
By source material
- The Loud House:
- In Snotty Sickly Linky,
Lincoln catches a cold and the cure is to walk around in his underwear, much to his embarrassment.
- In Sunday Skivvies, Lincoln is reading comics in his underwear, then Luan, in order to demonstrate how rude it is, strips down to her underwear and reads a comic, much to his embarrassment.
- In Nice or Mean?
Lori, Luan, Lynn, Lola, and Lisa are trying to be nice to their brother Lincoln by stripping down to their underwear and reading comics with them, since he likes to read in his underwear. He's too embarrassed to read.
- In Snotty Sickly Linky,
- Star Trek: Enterprise:
- In Hoshi's Birthday Surprise,
Porthos is angry at his dog-sitter Malcolm Reed for not feeding him cheese, and so locks a sleepwalking Malcolm out of his quarters. Since Malcolm sleeps in his underwear, this leads to eight people seeing him in his undies.
- In Radiant Orb, a Parody Fic of the series, T'Pol is in her underwear for no reason, parodying the show's tendency of showing characters in their underwear.
- In Hoshi's Birthday Surprise,
Other
- In the Fireman Sam fanfic Everyday Craziness in Pontypandy episode "To Melt This Aussie's Heart", Tom is so worried about Ben's illness that he brings him to a clinic without even putting pants on, thus leaving his heart boxers on display in front of everyone. When Dr. Moumin finally points this out to him, he's embarrassed, and gets dressed properly.
- In the Odd Squad fanfic Full Circle, Oscar rips off his numerous layers of clothing so he can get changed into his outfit for '50s night at Club 24. When he steps out of his office and asks his assistant Oswald what she thinks, however, she tells him that he ripped off one too many layers of pants, exposing his boxers. He then darts back into his office to put on the pants that go with his outfit.
- In the Punch-Out!! fanfic Shining and Sweet chapter "Happy Hour", a drunk-off-his-ass Aran Ryan runs around in nothing but his boxers.
- A Red Rose in the Blue Wind (crossover of Sonic the Hedgehog and RWBY), has Sonic deal with CRDL this way by using his speed to hang their pants on a lamppost outside, leaving them in their underwear.
- Alice in Wonderland (1951): Cheshire Cat sabotages Alice's croquet game and bonhomie with the Queen of Hearts by flipping her over on her head and exposing her huge Goofy Print Underwear for all to see. She suffered a huge BSOD because of it.
- In Aladdin: The Return of Jafar, Abis Mal chops his own trousers off trying to slash his sword in the air while talking about a swordfight he was in.
- Elio: Shortly after he's abducted, OOOOO lifts Elio's shorts and uses an X-ray to reveal his boxers. The Luxo Jr Ball is printed on them.
- Flushed Away: Never hold onto your acquaintance's pants while on a zipline above the entire town.
- Subverted in Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers, in which Mickey's musketeer uniform is cut away by an enemy swordsman, revealing his familiar red shorts beneath.
- Mulan 2: Su shows her underwear during the "Like Other Girls" song.
- In Return to Never Land, a huge octopus mistakes Captain Hook for a codfish, grabs Hook's legs with his tentacles in an attempt to eat him, and pulls off Hook's pants in front of his entire crew, exposing his Goofy Print Underwear, much to Hook's horror and humiliation.
- Rugrats in Paris had Jean-Claude saying the rhyme after seeing Coco LaBouche getting the back of her bridal dress ripped off when Angelica deliberately steps on the train. See for yourself.
- In the How to Train Your Dragon extra DVD short The Legend of the Boneknapper Dragon Gobber's pants fall down after he gives the dragon back his bone, which had been holding up his pants for years.
- Mr. Wolf from The Bad Guys (2022) suffers this after epicly failing a dramatic grappling hook exit with his team and their bounty with the grappling hook ripping away his pants and exposing his pink-with-white-hearts boxers.
- In Wish Dragon, Din first meets Long in his boxers.
- American Horror House: As a part of a sorority Initiation Ceremony, Daria and the other pledges are sent to rob a frat house. With the penalty of being dressed only in their underwear.
- In the 1933 short "Beauty And The Bus", Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly win a car at a theatre lottery. Ascending to the stage to show the MC their winning ticket, Patsy slips and falls off the stairs; in the process she accidentally rips the MC's trousers off, leaving him in his boxer shorts.
- In Beverly Hills Bandits when at the end of the movie the burglars are caught by the police, Marty, the chubbier burglar, loses his pants, revealing blue underwear.
- Carry On Behind: When the cabaret guests have been seated on over-painted chairs, their clothes rip when they stand up, exposing their underwear; especially Arthur, whose underwear has hearts on it.
- Carry On Constable: When Constable Benson is on patrol, his braces are stolen by a pickpocket, causing his trousers to fall down as he walks around the neighbourhood and reveal his underwear.
- Doctor in the House (1954): When Jane brags about how easy the exam was for her, Grimsdyke yells out after that her slip is showing.
- In Extreme Ops, Kittie's pants rip when Will tries to pull her back up from hanging over the mountain, allowing him to see her panties.
- In Fishtales 2007 movie, the evil Captain Mavros is stripped to his polka-dot underwear during the final fight.
- Inspector Gadget (1999): Gadget gets pantsed by his robotic double during their big fight scene.
- In the Italian comedy Le Comiche 2 the main recurring victim is accidentally stripped to his underwear, revealing he is wearing a bra supporting breasts he received during an undesired augmentation surgery. The joke is entirely based on the fact that this guy is forced to wear a female garment due to the newly acquired assets.
- In the Hindi film Madhoshi, a male model is posing for an art class, dressed only in a loincloth. One of the girls in the class intentionally drops a banana peel on the floor as a prank to get the authoritative teacher to trip on it. But when the teacher slips on the peel, she grabs onto the model's loincloth and accidentally tears it off, leaving the horrified and thoroughly embarrassed model in only his tighty-whities in front of the entire class.
- In Nurse on Wheels, George's trousers fall down to reveal his Y-fronts as he attempts to force himself on Nurse Jones.
- On the Buses films:
- On the Buses: When Stan parks too close to Vera's bus, she can't open the door and has to climb out through the cab window. This causes Stan and Jack to laugh when they catch sight of her pink knickers, which Jack calls a "right pair of passion killers".
- Mutiny on the Buses:
- After he lands in horse manure, Stan has to remove his trousers, which causes him great embarrassment when he returns to the depot and Blakey sees his light blue boxers. The same pair of boxers are later visible after Stan's trousers are clawed at by a lion.
- When Nymphy Norah rips her dress during their Catfight, Olive's bra is on full display.
- In Holiday on the Buses, Joan's bra is exposed when Blakey accidentally rips her top trying to get past her so he can attack Stan.
- In Roll Bounce, Junior is pantsed by two of Sweetness' lackeys, revealing Junior's underwear.
- The Room (2003): After being caught having sex in Johnny and Lisa's apartment, Mike and Michelle flee. But Mike realizes he forgot his underwear. Under the guise of having forgotten his book, he grabs the underwear from behind Claudette. Well, Claudette, she saw it sticking out of his pocket, she pulls it out, and she's showing everybody his underwear.
- Transformers (2007): During the battle between Bumblebee and Barricade, the Decepticon Frenzy attacks Sam and ends up pulling off Sam's pants in the scuffle to kill him, forcing a terrified Sam to run for his life in his Goofy Print Underwear.
- Up Pompeii! films:
- Up Pompeii!: When Nero inspects Lurcio after he has become his newest champion, Lurcio worries that his slip is showing.
- Up the Front: When Lurk is Disguised in Drag for El Puncturio's Knife-Throwing Act, Colonel von Gutz throws a knife at him. It doesn't harm him but causes his knickers to fall around his ankles.
- In the movie Goldy II: Saga of the Golden Bear the main villain, Boss Cooperman has his pants ripped off by a bear while he gives a speech on a stage, revealing his polka-dot underwear in front of the public.
- In a German movie Mr. Nanny: Ein Mann Fur Mamma an evil stepfather candidate, Dietmar, rips his pants while chasing his fiancee's daughter through a playground, revealing his white underwear.
- Occurs two times in Meet Molly, when the titular protagonist and her friends Linda and Susan are hosed down by Molly's brother Ricky while going home from trick or treating, ruining their hula dancer costumes and the treats they got. The former 3 get revenge by dumping Ricky's underwear over his sister Jill and her best friend Dolores the following day.
- Angela Nicely: In "Supermodel", when trying out to be a model for a clothing magazine, a woman named Melanie asks Angela what her hobbies are. When Angela reveals she can stand on her head, she demonstrates, and her skirt falls down, showing her underwear and embarrassing her mother.
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid:
- In one of the books, Rodrick locks Greg out of his hotel room while the latter is in his underwear.
- Later in the same book, Greg climbs up a tree to save a blanket his little brother Manny threw up into it, only for his pants to fall down, exposing his embarrassing Wonder Woman underpants.
- INVADERS of the ROKUJYOUMA!?: When Theiamillis is using her beam weapons against the other invaders in her first encounter with them, and Koutaro fails to get past her force field, Sanae demonstrates that she can slip past the field, and then flips Theia's Pimped-Out Dress up over her head, showing off her underwear, which, to Theia's embarrassment, have a picture of a bear on them. Some time later, Sanae does the exact same thing to Theia's cousin, Clan, who is trying to murder Theia for the throne.
- The Saga of Darren Shan has a trio of vampires take their clothes off to walk through a patch of thorns that would shred fabric, just to make this joke on Gavner Purl. He's wearing pink and yellow elephant print boxers, which he says he got from a girlfriend. Of course, when he dies in the next book, and his last words are "I'm sorry if my snoring kept you awake", the manga adaptation says that he was addressing said girlfriend. The manga adaptation also plays up the fanservice angle of getting the muscular vampire warriors out of their clothes, making it a lot of people's favorite page.
- Dirty Bertie: Zigzagged in "Pants". Bertie loses a bet with Nick, meaning that he has to go to school in his underwear, but he skirts the rules by saying that he is wearing them— under his trousers. He then tricks Nick into exposing his underwear by asking him if he's Going Commando.
- Ellen and Otis: Pointed out by Otis in the "biennial beet" chapter of Ellen Tebbits when he notices that Ellen tore her dress.
- The kids' book P is for Poop contains the lines "U is for underwear, Dad's only PJs. V is for view, too much on display", as the girl expresses disgust at her dad sleeping in his underwear.
- Roys Bedoys:
- In "Don’t Be Greedy, Roys Bedoys!", Roys plays video games in his undies and doesn't see why he can’t just go to the store without getting dressed first.
- In "Distance Learning Has Rules, Roys Bedoys!", Loys walks up to Roys in his underwear while Roys is doing online schooling with his classmates.
- Adventures in Wonderland: In the episode "To Tear is Human", Alice gets embarrassed when her pants get ripped during a game of Charades and is laughed at, which might be considered Laser-Guided Karma due to her having laughed at a boy who embarrassed himself by dropping his lunch tray at school. By the end, Alice learns to not laugh at others' misfortune from the experience.
- On the first episode of The Big Bang Theory, Leonard and Sheldon go to retrieve Penny's TV from her heavily-muscular ex-boyfriend. The scene cuts to them leaving minus their pants.
- The Brady Bunch: In the episode "Law and Disorder", Bobby ruins his good suit after rescuing a cat. He returns home to find it empty, and is then revealed in the laundry room wearing only his undershirt and underpants as he hurriedly puts his dirty clothes and an entire box of detergent into the washing machine. Bobby is next seen in his underwear walking into his bedroom, where he puts on clean clothes.
- Community:
- During the episode "The Art of Discourse" Abed and Troy both pantsed each other to the amusement of the other study group members. Pierce decides he wants in on the fun and pantses Shirley. He then learns the valuable lesson that it is never okay for a guy to pants a woman.
- Abed's revelation that Jeff and Britta have been having secret sex includes a flashback to the time he walked in on them on St. Patrick's Day in his dorm room in only their underwear, and they tried to claim a leprechaun stole their clothes.
- In the episode "Cooperative Calligraphy", when Annie's lost pen sends the group into chaos, it results in the entire group getting dressed down to their undies and strip searching each other behind flipped tables separated by gender, which still doesn't lead to them finding the pen.
- Friends: At Barry and Mindy's wedding Rachel accidentally tucks the skirt of her hideous bridesmaid's dress into the back of her underwear and ends up walking down the aisle with her orange panties visible. After the ceremony she's humiliated and asks Ross why he didn't say anything. Ross replies that interrupting to point it out would have been worse.
Ross: What was I supposed to do, stand up and yell "Hey, Rachel, your butt is showing!"?
- In one episode of Hannah Montana, Miley accidentally splits her pants (though the result is never shown), and a young girl who sees the tear on the seat points at her and recites the rhyme.
- Happy Days: At their army physicals, Potsie and Ralph were forced to strip, exposing their Goofy Print Underwear.
- Joan of Arcadia: When some mean girls take a photo of Joan in the locker room, lacking pants and instead just her purple panties, she chases them out of the locker room to get them to delete the photo, winding up in the middle of the hallway without any pants on.
- Kamen Rider OOO: In his debut, a wall is broken in front of Eiji Hino while wearing nothing but underwear. Double points since it also serves as an Iconic Outfit.
- Malcolm in the Middle: In the episode "Funeral", when the Wilkerson family decide to all go off and do whatever they want without worrying about anybody else, Malcolm in anxiously getting ready for his date with Julie. When Julie unexpectedly arrives at the house early, nobody pays attention to the fact that she starts heading for Malcolm's room before he is dressed and ready to go. As a result, she walks into his room while he is wearing nothing but his Tighty-Whities. Malcolm is humiliated, but Julie is horrified and she subsequently storms out of the house.
- Me And My Grandma: While on a film set, Janey's grandma drives off in a car, unaware Janey's dress is stuck in the door, tearing it off her and exposing her Team Jacob underwear, the ensuing footage of this goes viral and becomes memed.
- In The Mighty Boosh, Howard is trying to impress some goth girls. When he gets up, his incredibly tight trousers split through the rear to reveal his goofy, colorful, and decidedly not goth briefs. The girls just laugh at him.
- Modern Family:
- In the episode "On the Same Paige", Cam teases Mitch for being too modest and easily embarrassed, including being too embarrassed to be seen in his boxer briefs in the gym locker room. Later, in order to prove that he can go out on a limb and take a risk, Mitch dresses up like a bumble bee for the parents' talent show at Lily's school, and flies across the stage on a wire. However, when he is unable to get down, Cam tries to pull him down by yanking on his pants, but instead only manages to rip the pants off. This ironically leaves an embarrassed Mitch swinging on a wire in his boxer briefs in front of the entire talent show audience.
- In the episode, Fifteen Percent Haley leaves the room while on a video call with Dylan. Her mother Claire walks in, wearing only an open robe and black underwear, not realizing Dylan is able to see her through the camera, when he points this out to her she quickly drops to the ground and crawls away in embarrassment.
- Several scenes with Bulk and Skull in the first season of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers end up with at least one of them accidentally exposing their underwear.
- In the "See Here, Private Partridge" episode of The Partridge Family, 10-year-old Danny accidentally receives a draft notice. After Shirley is unable to convince Army officers of their error, she defiantly sends Danny to the induction physical. In the men’s locker room Danny obeys an officer’s command and takes his clothes off with the adult recruits (at one point, stepping inside a locker to modestly remove his trousers) before completing each stage of the physical. Danny and the grown draftees are then shown in their underpants and about to be formally inducted when he is spotted by a senior officer… and is rejected for failing the height requirement.
- Pee-wee's Playhouse: In one episode Peewee is flying around the world and says "I see London... I see France... I see Moscow's underpants!"
- Radio Enfer: While practicing speleology with Vincent and Léo at school, Dominique is able to reach the part above the girls' locker room. Both Vincent and Léo fight over going there as well, with the latter pulling the former's pants to prevent him from going there, thus exposing Vincent's underwear much to Léo's amusement.
- In the Shameless episode, "Frank's Northern Shuttle Express", having the house to herself for the first time, Fiona takes the opportunity to dance around in only her underwear, that is until Ford walks in and catches her.
- Star Trek: Voyager: In "Twisted", an anomaly is causing the rooms in the spaceship to change position, resulting in a guy standing in the engine room in his undies.
- That '70s Show pulled this in an episode where Eric pantses Donna during a pick up basketball game, exposing some rather unflattering Sears Catalog bloomers and humiliating her. Eric apologizes at the end of the episode with the Spoof Aesop, "I shouldn't have pulled your pants down in public, once you started letting me pull them down in private."
- Happens a few times in the British television series Uncle Max:
- In the episode "Uncle Max Goes to the Arcade", Uncle Max and his nephew Luke make the acquaintance of a woman and a young girl in the arcade, but a group of bullies begin to harass them. Max then uses the claw from the claw machine to pants the leader of the bullies, revealing his cartoonish boxer shorts to his friends, who laugh at him at he runs away.
- In "Uncle Max Goes to the Cinema", Uncle Max competes with another moviegoer to see who can eat the most snacks. They use the straws from their sodas to suck up additional food. When a young usher enters the theater to see what the commotion is all about while holding a tray of snacks, Max and the other moviegoer proceed to suck up all of the usher's snacks, but are also accidentally able to suck up most of the usher's clothing, leaving the embarrassed usher in only his bird-themed boxer shorts in front of the entire theater.
- In one episode of Wizards vs. Aliens, a group of bullies threatening the main characters have all their clothes except for their garish boxers disappeared, causing them to run away in horror.
- On You Can't Do That on Television, Jono Gebert is tricked into wearing an all-white outfit for a sketch.The director, Les Lye, tells him that white clothing will throw the color cameras off-kilter, so he demands that Jono take off his white sweatshirt, and then his white undershirt. Les then notices that Jono is wearing white jeans. After a moment, Jono pulls off his pants and stands onstage in his tighty-whities. Les gives the underpants a tug, but an embarrassed Jono runs off-camera.
- In AC/DC concerts, one of the traditions is seeing Angus Young strip down to his underwear.
- The music video for Anne-Marie's "BIRTHDAY", includes a Cinderella Plot in which the singer's clothes disappear when she gets back home, leaving her in only her panties, leading into a Birthday Suit Surprise Party as she gets upstairs covering herself with some newspaper.
- The Decemberists: "Los Angeles, I'm Yours" gives us this one, with Sophisticated as Hell:
- Ric Flair has on more than one occasion been stripped down to his underwear, usually pastel-colored briefs.
- On the 12/19/1994 episode of Monday Night Raw (in the main event no less), there was a tag team match which pitted Well Dunn (managed by Harvey Wippleman) against the Bushwhackers (accompanied by Howard Finkel). During the conclusion of the match, Wippleman tries to interfere and he gets pantsed by Finkel for his troubles, revealing the former's tighty whiteys and Wippleman being immediately, properly and appropriately embarrassed)
- Goldust was stripped of his attire at WrestleMania 12 by "Rowdy" Roddy Piper to reveal he was wearing women's underwear, but given the nature of the character, it was more creepy than funny.
- In another example involving "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, he ripped the kilt off Brother Love at Wrestle Mania 5, exposing red underwear which was no different from all the other wrestlers' trunks. Nonetheless, Brother Love fled the ring in embarrassment.
- Vickie Guerrero was once revealed to be wearing granny panties with her catchphrase, "EXCUSE ME!", written on them.
- Billy Gunn, Chuck Palumbo and Rico got pantsed en masse by Al Snow, Maven and Torrie Wilson to reveal they were all wearing skimpy thongs, going with their Ambiguously Gay gimmick.
- Jimmy Hart got pulled out of his pants during Saturday Night's Main Event, revealing that he was wearing bright red briefs.
- In 2002, Molly Holly had a few instances (two on TV, plus house shows) where she was revealed as wearing granny panties, to go with the prude character she was playing at the time.
- Roberto Rodriguez was once revealed to be wearing underwear with a picture of Alberto Del Rio on them.
- Ivory got stripped down to her underwear while she was in Right To Censor, which included granny panties with little flowers on them.
- In 2001, Lance Storm was pantsed by Edge and Christian to reveal he was wearing Power Rangers underwear.
- Stacy Keibler was probably the most frequent target on the roster during her time with the WWE. Her unmentionables being exposed was Played for Laughs as much as it was for Fanservice.
- Between the Lions: In the first Un-People/Re-People segment, during a marching parade, the Un-People place the "Un" on the sign, "Best Dressed", changing it to "Best Undressed". As a result, everyone's clothes disappear, save for their tank tops and underwear. Fortunately, that problem was fixed, thanks to the heroic Re-People!
- Noises Off has this as one of its points. Most of the characters lose their trousers (or skirts) at least once through the play.
- When Crash Bandicoot gets hit by a scimitar in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, his pants are cut off, revealing his pink polka-dot boxers.
- In Ghosts 'n Goblins and Ghouls 'n Ghosts, protagonist Sir Arthur loses his armor after the first hit and has to fight on in his heart/strawberry print boxers. Another hit reduces the life counter.
- In Hades II, Dionysus returns, but is much more visibly intoxicated than in the first game, and is clad in nothing but a leopard-print g-string. Since things are much more dire on Olympus in the sequel, he's been hitting the sauce more to cope, and it certainly shows.
- In Maximo: Ghosts to Glory, Arthur's 3D counterpart loses his clothes when he only has one segment left on his Life Meter. Unlike Arthur, he can actually acquire a variety of different boxer shorts (though hearts are the default).
- In Punch-Out!!, King Hippo's trunks fall when Little Mac punches him in the mouth.
- Puyo Puyo Sun: When Arle encounters him, Ragnus uses magic and ages himself up to prepare to fight her, only for his armor pants to fall down, revealing his underwear and causing both characters to blush in embarrassment.
- In Rocket Knight Adventures, enemies are stripped to their underwear when defeated. This can also happen in the revival Rocket Knight, but only to the pigs and it depends on how they're defeated.
- In The Simpsons Arcade game, the first boss' pants will drop as an Idle Animation, revealing sparkly pink briefs.
- Three Wonders: In Midnight Wanderers, the characters lose their clothes after taking a hit. However, their shorts are drab and utilitarian.
- In ToeJam & Earl, Earl occasionally drops his pants and has to stop for a moment to pull them back up. (Funnily enough, his boxers are almost identical to his shorts.) Also implied to happen during some elevator rides to the next level if two are playing.
Earl: Oops.
Toejam: Get a belt, Earl! - In WarioWare: Smooth Moves, one minigame has two cowboys in a quick-draw contest. The winner shoots the opponent's pants down.
- Dayum:
- In “Types of Neighbors Portrayed by Minecraft”, the “Neighbor’s Kid” is a little boy wearing nothing but underwear.
- In “Types of Kids at Sleepovers Portrayed by Minecraft”, not only did Jerry not bring anything to the sleepover, he showed up in his undies.
- Homestar Runner:
- Strong Bad has lost his pants often enough to get a page about it on the Homestar Runner Wiki
.
- In the Strong Bad Email "stand up", Strong Sad shows the viewers a video of a young Strong Bad doing stand-up comedy at the school talent show, only to be embarrassed when his pants fall down onstage.
- In "weird dream", Strong Bad says he once dreamed of "The United States in tight-white brand underdrawers" after eating too many pudding pops.
- In the Powered by The Cheat short "New Boots", PBTC Strong Bad is drawn wearing baggy pants that expose his underwear, which the real Strong Bad complains about: "You made my underwears showing! Everyone knows I don't wear any underwears!"
- In "senior prom", Strong Bad crashes a prom, wielding a remote that will make everybody's pants poof away. Unfortunately, he winds up in his boxers because he was the only person at the prom that was wearing pants.
- Main Page 24 has a gag of Strong Bad walking by in the background in his underwear (thankfully blurred out), trying to find his pants.
- In "nightlife", Strong Bad gets kicked out of Club Technochocolate after he somehow loses his pants (which he blames on his pants being "mysteriously drawn" to the club's "lightèd floors"), leaving him in leopard-print briefs.
- In "Halloween Hijinks", Teen Homestar ends up in ridiculous stripèd boxers after Teen Strong Bad manages to liberate him from his "absurd zig-zaggèd pants".
- Strong Bad has lost his pants often enough to get a page about it on the Homestar Runner Wiki
- In Eerie Cuties, the Mirror Monster is supposed to be evil, but being based on Genki Girl Nina, it can only manage to Poke the Poodle ... including pantsing Chloe.
- In Everyday Heroes, Mr. Mighty comes home with his uniform in tatters after his daily battle with evil. He smells dinner cooking, and bends over the stove to get a sniff
, exposing his Goofy Print Underwear with his superhero logo, just as the neighbor lady walks in.
- The Petri Dish: Due to Sleep Deprivation, Thaddeus once forgot to wear pants to work.
- In the Troom Troom video "26 Awkward Situations at College", one of the awkward situations profiled involves a young man in a P.E. class, which is very invigorating for him until the elastic on his nylon pants gives out, causing them to fall down and reveal his blue briefs to the rest of the class. Despite his efforts to keep his pants up, he is unable to do jumping jacks with the rest of the class without his pants continuing to fall down.
- In the "123GoTrends" video "We Tested TikTok DIY Clothes Hacks", Adam is embarrassed on a first date when his pants sag and his date inadvertently gets a peak of his bright red boxer briefs with white stars on them. He is then able to repurpose a pair of suspenders and clip one end to his socks and the other end to his tucked-in shirt under his pants, thus his shirt stays tucked in even if his pants start to sag.
- In the Smosh video, "IF PEOPLE WERE CARS", to parody hit and runs, a jogger (Ian) bumps into a woman on the street (Courtney) and tears her skirt off, exposing her purple underwear, and in obnoxious driver fashion, gets out of there immediately.
- In the Charles Your Hangover episode, "Teacher" featuring Lauren Lapkus the titular embodiment of a hangover makes class a living hell for the teacher, including when her supervisor walks in, getting her dress caught in her desk drawer. Ripping it off and exposing her striped underwear to both the supervisor and her entire class.
- In the first episode of The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, where all the pants got controlled by a pair of intelligence-enhanced jeans, everyone lost their pants.
- In The Adventures of T-Rex, the Transformation Sequence of the titular dinosaur superhero group involved each member having his clothes sucked off, revealing their boxers, which matched their costume colors.
- In the first episode of Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake, Fionna pulls down her pants and exposes her panties in protest to being fired by her boss, Queenie.
Fionna: No one even cares about your dumb tours! [pulls down pants]
Queenie: [flinching and looking away] Jesus! Stop! - In Alvin and the Chipmunks, Alvin ends up in his boxers after gluing himself to the saddle of a bucking bull while competing in a rodeo.
- One Running Gag in Animal Mechanicals is Komodo pulling a pair of underwear out of his arsenal.
- Bratz:
- In "Pet Show", a flashback shows that while Burdine was bragging after winning the previous competition in question, the runner-up let his dog tear off her skirt during her acceptance speech. As a result, she had to slink offstage covering her bloomers with her trophy.
- In "Truth or Dare", Sasha cites splitting her pants while dancing in the cafeteria as the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to her.
- The Casagrandes:
- In "V.I.Peeved", Hector embarrasses his granddaughter Carlota by wandering around the living room in his underwear while she's making a video.
- In "Maybe-Sitter", Hector forgets to wear pants when trying to dress up formal for a party.
- In "Achy, Breaky Art", Frida rips off her dress to reveal a jumpsuit underneath. Carl tries, but belatedly realises that he's only wearing underwear under his clothes.
- In "Battle of the Grandpas", Hector's pants fall down, revealing his red underwear, which angers a bull, causing the bull to charge at him.
- Danny Phantom: The titular character is the main victim — the last episode alone goes through at least three different shots of him losing his clothes in a comedic manner to reveal him wearing nothing but his underpants...in a row. Some fans have chronicled his development by looking at his underwear choices throughout the series.
- Elmer Fudd had his undies revealed in a comedic manner a lot.
- The Fairly OddParents!
- In the episode "Chin Up", Timmy rips off his clothes to attempt a superhero moment while in a comic book to reveal his superhero costume, neglecting that he doesn't actually have one.
- In the episode "Class Clown", Beta Bitch Veronica arrives to the mall wearing an outfit made of tissue paper, sugar, and powdered milk. When Timmy crashes into her knocking them both into the mall fountain, the outfit dissolves as a result.
- In the Harley Quinn episode, "The 83rd Annual Villy Awards", after a scuffle at the Villy Awards, Harley and Ivy storm out, dismissing the entire event, with Harley unaware that her dress has ripped open in the back to expose her pink heart underwear.
- In Hero: 108, there's a Running Gag involving Woo the Wise in which his robe lifts up at random moments against his will, exposing his red underwear.
- The Jetsons: In "Instant Replay", Rosie the robot angrily rips the dress off a snobbish socialite who had insulted the titular family. Both Jane and the woman had entered a party wearing identical dresses, which led to the whole conflict.
- Kim Possible: Ron's Running Gag. It got to the point where even the Ron toys released had "pants losing action".
- Looney Tunes: In "The Wacky Wabbit," Elmer gets his pickaxe (which he was planning to attack Bugs with) lodged in a rock mound. Bugs comes out with a pair of scissors and cuts Elmer's pants down revealing polka dot boxers and a girdle.
Elmer: [to us] Don't waugh. I'll bet pwenty of you men wear one of these!
- The Loud House:
- A Running Gag is that Lincoln, the main character, likes to read comics in his underwear.
- In "Health Kicked", Lynn Sr.'s too-tight leather pants rip off, causing his two eldest daughters to gag.
- "Legends" ends with Lynn Sr. and Lincoln losing a bet and having to go to the airport in their underwear.
- In "Making the Case", Lincoln takes an embarrassing video of Luna splitting her pants.
- In "Bizaritorium," Lincoln gets pantsed by the RV toilet after Lana increases its flushing power.
- In Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Goofy is prone to showing off his pineapple underpants. First happens in "Donald's Hiccups".
- In the Monster Farm episode "Tractor Terror", Cowapatra has her polka dot bloomers revealed when the berserk tractor snags off the bandages covering up her pelvis.
- Mr. Magoo: Waldo winds up with his polka-dot boxers exposed in "Saddle Battle" when a bucking bronco throws him out of his pants, thanks to the glue Prezly put on the saddle to keep Waldo on the horse.
- My Gym Partner's a Monkey did the same thing as early as the advert for the show. Why animals wearing no clothes themselves find it funny is unknown.
- In Phineas and Ferb, Doofenshmirtz turns out to have Perry the Platypus-printed boxers. Since Perry is his nemesis, this is awkward, to say the least.
Doof: For your information, I had these way before I met you.
- The Pink Panther: An episode of the cartoons had the Panther as a vigilante of sorts, defeating villains by reciting the rhyme, and then cutting their belts off, allowing him to defeat them in the confusion. This doesn't work on the Big Bad though, as he happened to be wearing two pairs of pants.
- Pinky Dinky Doo: In "Stinky Pinky Doo", Daffinee makes fun of Pinky's bad breath but gets karma at the end of the episode when she bends down and rips her dress, exposing her bunny underwear.
- Punky Brewster: In "The Quartersize Quarterback", Allen involuntarily drops trou in an attempt to catch a football. Margaux laughs at his polka dot boxers.
- In Sabrina: The Animated Series, Sabrina and Chloe have their pants fall down in front of the cafeteria
and Gem in the series splits her pants.
- In a dress-up short for Shimmer and Shine, Leah wishes for her and the genies to change out of their old outfits. Shine messes up the wish, leaving them all in their colorful underwear, which Leah clarifies is not what she meant.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: has some of the most examples of this trope out of any shows, down to even the theme song.
- During SpongeBob's boat rampage throughout the city in "Mrs. Puff, You're Fired", Patrick's pants somehow get stuck on SpongeBob's face, leaving Patrick running after SpongeBob's boat in his underwear.
- At the end of Tokyo Mater, Kabuto is seen in underwear after Mater beat him in a drift race. Since all of the characters are vehicles, Kabuto is stripped of his modifications and is left unpainted.
Kabuto: I'm stock!!! [his ninjas all laugh at him]
- What's with Andy?:
- In "Busting", Andy is flung through the air and loses his pants.
- In "The Very Bad Idea", Andy is flying with some balloons and, to avoid crashing into the power lines, loses weight by stripping down to his underwear.
- Wish Kid: In "Captain Mayhem", Nick's wish to be the titular superhero wears off when he is holding Mel's car above his head, stripping him of his costume and leaving him wearing just a pair of white boxer shorts with blue flowers. He runs out of the way to avoid getting crushed by the car, and runs into Mrs. Opal, who exclaims "Oh my gosh! I think I just had a close encounter with an alien in his underwear!"
- Woody Woodpecker:
- In the featurette "Janie Get Your Gun", towards the end of it, when Woody is holding up Ms. Meany's (a.k.a. Calamity Jane's) train attached to her hat at the wedding reception, he falls into a hole and her wedding dress falls (or gets ripped) off, leaving her in her pink bloomers or pantalets, and mortified.
- In the "Witch Crafty", after the witch rides the flying broom into a tree at one point, the broom is left stuck there as well as her purple mini dress which she falls out of and lands on her feet on the ground. Noticing the viewers see her in her pink corset (or bustier) and white bloomers (or pantalets), she modestly tries to cover up with some shrubbery and exits the scene.
- In January 2023, during a concert in Inglewood, CA, Harry Styles slid across the stage while performing his song "Music for a Sushi Restaurant", which caused him to accidentally split his leather pants. Because a large part of his bare leg was visible, there was much online debate over whether he was wearing underwear at all, but one prominent video of the incident showed that he was definitely wearing what appeared to be black briefs, as too much of his leg was bare for them to have been boxer briefs.
- The issue of pants falling down unexpectedly in public is a frequent issue in karate and other forms of martial arts, given the baggy pants often required to be worn as uniforms, along with the relatively flimsy drawstrings on the pants that can snap or break easily, especially given the amount of leg and waist movement required in martial arts:
- In 2011, a video went viral of a Wushu performance given by a University of Viginia student named Keenan Stone at UCLA in California. In the middle of his routine, the elastic waistband of Stone's uniform pants snapped, causing his pants to fall to his ankles and leaving him in his black boxer briefs in front of the hundreds of people in the stadium. Despite his embarrassment, Stone kicked off his pants and successfully finished the routine in his underwear.
- A similar (albeit less publicized) incident happened at a Kyokushin Karate Tournament in Laval, Quebec in 2008. As two young men were fighting in the tournament, one of them unexpectedly had his pants fall down, leaving him in his black boxer briefs and jockstrap in front of the roomful of spectators. Despite having his pants around his ankles, the young man was able to sweep his opponent. The video of this incident was later uploaded to YouTube.

