Pants-Pulling Prank

[Abed pulls Troy's pants down. Everyone laughs.]
Troy: [indignant] What the hell!?
Abed: "Pantsing" someone was on my list. It would've been better if you were wearing the standard giant-hearts-on-underwear, but I'll take it.
Troy: Oh, yeah? Well I hope getting pantsed is on your list! [He yanks Abed's pants down. Everyone laughs more as they see Abed is sporting Goofy Print Underwear with red hearts.]
Abed: [grinning] It is!

— Community, "The Art of Discourse"

One of many Practical Joke tropes, this one involves pulling someone's pants down to expose their underpants (also known as "pantsing"). Usually from behind.

If only the outerwear comes off, it results in Comedic Underwear Exposure as everyone sees the pantsed character's Uncool Undies or Goofy Print Underwear. If the character realizes they are completely exposed (maybe because they were Going Commando) expect a Naked Freak-Out as they fumble to cover themself or pull their pants back on.

Compare Mooning, where a character deliberately exposes their own bottom, and Joke of the Butt, where bottoms are intrinsically funny. In the Marilyn Maneuver, a skirt is blown up rather than pulled down. Also compare Shameful Strip, Stripping Snag, Wardrobe Malfunction, and Wedgie.

In general, Don't Try This at Home. This prank can lead to accusations of sexual harassment and/or indecent exposure, or simply a case of Dude, Not Funny! Leave it to fiction.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Dragon Ball: During a tournament fight, Goku swipes Tien's belt at super speed, causing Tien's pants to fall and embarrassing him.
• Fairy Tail:
  • In OVA 5, The Exciting Ryuzetsu Land, Mirajane has her top ripped off by Jenny Realight, and in retaliation, Mirajane pulls down Jenny's bikini bottom.
  • During the Oracion Seis Arc, Erza takes Lucy's belt causing her skirt to fall down in front of everyone much to her embarrassment and anger towards the Blue Pegasus boys ogling her.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • In Pokémon: The Original Series, Sabrina's father psychically pulls Ash's pants down.
  • The Akala Island Treasure Hunt in the Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon has a goofy Stoutland guide try to pull off Ash's shorts before the Treasure Hunt begins.
• Idiot Hero Goggles pantses Rider when he meets him in Splatoon.
• In the second episode of Yo-kai Watch Jam - Yo-kai Academy Y: Close Encounters of the N Kind, Koma Sandayu pantses Tamada Mataro, who is wearing briefs with a froggy print.

Comic Books

• In the 166th issue of the third volume of Green Lantern, Jade gets back at a pair of men crudely flirting with her by creating constructs of elves to pull the men's pants down.
• In the fifth issue of Harley's Little Black Book, Harley Quinn overpowers an alien boxer by pulling his shorts down.
• Speaking of Harley Quinn, she also does this to a man she assumes is Batman in "Harley Quinn Invades Comic Con International: San Diego". She wants to embarrass the Dark Knight in front of everyone, so she runs behind him and pulls his pants down to reveal boxer shorts featuring her own face. Harley assumes that Bats has a crush on her while being escorted out by police.
• In the 20th issue of Justice League Adventures, J'onn J'onzz uses his Martian telepathy to direct several people's emotions at Psycho-Pirate. The emotion of embarrassment is shown to come from a geeky high school student being pantsed.
• Justice Riders has Kid Flash stop some outlaws by using his super speed to pull their pants down.
• In the autobiographical graphic novel Smile (Raina Telgemeier) (Published September, 2010) by Raina Telgemeier, Raina breaks up with her group of "friends" when one of them pulls her skirt down in the school cafeteria.

Films — Animated

• In Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet the Wolfman, Theodore, who had developed a meaner streak than usual as a result of being bitten by the Wolfman, pulls down Alvin and Simon's pants on the opening night of their drama teacher's Jekyll and Hyde play, which results in the audience seeing Alvin and Simon in their underwear when the curtains open.

Films — Live-Action

• The film "American Shaolin:King Of The Kickboxers 2", contains 2 examples of this, both of which set the plot in motion:
  • During a kickboxing exhibition match, the film's antagonist, Trevor Gotitall, is fighting another kickboxer when the other kickboxer's pants unexpectedly fall down (presumably because they are not tied properly), revealing his blue briefs to everyone in the room. As the man sheepishly tries to pull up his pants, Trevor is able to take advantage of his embarrassment and knock him to the floor. Trevor and his trainers realize that humiliating your opponent is an effective way to beat him mentally as well as physically.
  • In the next scene, Trevor is competing in a kickboxing tournament, and goes up against a young man named Drew Carson, who will become the film's protagonist. Midway through their fight, Trevor yanks Drew's belt off and let's Drew's pants fall to the floor, leaving Drew standing in his tighty-whities. Trevor then yanks Drew's pants from around his ankles, sending Drew flying across the ring and leaving him pants-less and humiliated in front of the large crowd of spectators, who roar with laughter at the sight of Drew in his tighty-whities. This embarrassing experience is what leads Drew to decide to go to China and learn the Shaolin form of fighting.
• During a flashback at the start of Anger Management, a bully pulls down Dave's gym shorts and underwear in front of his childhood crush Sara, embarrassing him in front of an extremely crowded and busy neighborhood who make fun of his Teeny Weenie. This proves to become a traumatic memory to Dave's self-esteem, setting the stage for the rest of the film's events.
• In Cheaper by the Dozen 2, Nigel is pantsed by Kyle after the Bakers' are accused of not having enough discipline.
• Girl House: This turns out to be the killer's Freudian Excuse. As a child, two girls pantsed him and made fun of his Teeny Weenie and he developed a hatred for women growing up.
• In High School U.S.A., a pair of girls are determined to get a photo of the butt of the Big Man on Campus Beau Middleton. One attempt involves trying to pull down his pants in the haunted house at the school fair. However, they accidentally pull down the pants of the fat nerd and photo his butt. At the end of the movie. Beau gets pantsed by a robot (It Makes Sense in Context) and the girls get their photo.
• In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry in his invisibility cloak pantses Goyle.
• One Deleted Scene from Home Alone features Uncle Frank pantsing Kevin.
• In The Hot Flashes includes a scene where one of the middle aged women on the Hot Flashes basketball team pantses a player on the teenage girl's team. Immediately leading to a foul.
• During his third Villain Song, Mean Green Mother From Outer Space, Audrey II plays around with Seymour throughout it, one method of which is yanking down his pants while he's raising an ax to cut him.
• In Munchie, the title character (a creature with magical powers) casts a spell to pants a bully while the bully performs a scene from "Romeo and Juliet" onstage at a school assembly, leaving the bully in his boxer shorts in front of the entire school. Everyone in the audience, as well as the girl playing Juliet (whom the bully has a crush on) all laugh hysterically at him.
• In Meatballs II, after Flash wins the boxing match, his opponent pants him while Flash his celebrating.
• A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge: After Jesse beats Grady during a game of baseball, Grady pulls down Jesse's pants. Another girl comments with approval on his rear.
• In Roll Bounce, Junior is pantsed in the roller rink by Sweetness' two lackeys, revealing his purple underwear and getting him laughed at by a bunch of other skaters, onlookers and even his own friends.
• Space Jam shows Sylvester the cat use a fishing rod to completely yank away orange Monstar Pound's athletic shorts during the second half of the Ultimate Game. Pound is apparently Going Commando, as he's shown denuded from the waist down, and resorts to sitting on the court with his jersey pulled down in embarrassment. "Nice butt!" Canon Foreigner Lola Bunny comments.
• At one point in The Nanny Diaries, Annie challenges Grayer to a race, only for him to pants her in order to get a head start. Leading into her meeting her love interest, as she's bent over with her pants still down.
• The opening scene of Weird Science sees this happen to Gary and Wyatt, being pantsed by their bullies in the gym, in front of all the girls.

Literature

• In Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel, Greg mentions that kids would try to pants each other in his gym class. When Vice Principal Roy has a meeting with the students to try and put a stop to it, some kid hides in the bleachers and pulls his pants down. The same kid, who was dubbed "The Mad Pantser", also pulls down Rowley's pants during the Valentine's dance. The Mad Pantser never gets caught.
• In the Goosebumps book Revenge R Us, Micah Brill tries to humiliate his sister Wade by wearing her underwear on his head... which he then escalates to pouncing on Wade and trying to rip off her pants to show her friends what underwear she's currently wearing.
• In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, it’s revealed that the 15 year old James Potter used magic to do this to the 15 year old Severus Snape when he stripped Snape half-naked, force-fed him soap and may or may not have also taken Snape’s underpants off in front of huge numbers of people. Harry doesn’t take the revelation well.
• Book 2 of The Terrible Two involves trying to pull one of these on the new principal, who wears suspenders and a belt to ensure his pants stay up.

Live-Action TV

• Frasier from Cheers once brought a support group of his to the bar to help with their agoraphobia. They strike up a friendship with Norm, Cliff, and Paul who convince them to pants Frasier. It actually goes a long way towards curing their agoraphobia.
  Frasier: For I am a healer. That is what I do.
  Cliff: And we are pantsers.
  Norm: That is what we do.
  [They chase him out of the bar.]
• Chuck: In the fifth season, Morgan gets the Intersect downloaded into his head, which starts causing problems in as is begins making him forget things about himself and gives him a real attitude. Chuck compares it to a similar time right after Morgan first was able to grow a mustache and got a similar attitude, until one of the girls in their class pantsed him in front of everyone. Later, as Morgan is showing off for the personnel of the Private Military Contractors he's been hired on with, Chuck winds up pantsing him right in front of them.
• Community: In "The Art of Discourse" Abed Invokes this as he pantses Troy to complete his checklist of what he considers "quintessential college experiences". Troy promptly pantses Abed back in retaliation, but Abed was Crazy-Prepared to make the most of this by wearing Goofy Print Underwear.
  • The atmosphere turns sour real fast when Pierce decides to pants Shirley (who missed the prank) to show her what everyone was laughing about. Everyone's Reaction Shot implies they see more than her underwear. She is mortified and not amused.
  • In "Economics of Marine Biology", Abed does it again at Dean Pelton's expense. Again, it is a scheme to deliberately Invoke favorite comedy tropes: Abed makes up a fake fraternity, the Delta Cubes, to enact Wacky Fratboy Hijinx and antagonize the humorless dean. It works like a charm.
    Dean Pelton: [with an Angry Fist-Shake] Mark my words, Delta Cubes, you'll pay for this!
• Degrassi: The Next Generation: In Mercy Street, JT is pantsed by Liberty's brother Danny at a hot tub party, revealing his shortcomings to his girlfriend Manny.
• In the Drake & Josh episode "Megan's New Teacher", Megan pantses Josh after he takes away her game console.
• The Game Shakers premiere has Hudson get pantsed after Triple G tries to get him down from the hook he's suspended from.
• iCarly
  • An accidental version occurs when Spencer is stuck in a ventilation shaft and everyone's attempts to get him out only results in them pulling his pants off.
  • In "iHurt Lewbert", Sam pantses Freddie after he tells her he's not wearing a belt.
• Done twice as a challenge in Impractical Jokers, where the Jokers have to get a stranger to untangle earbud cords before a special guest walks over and pulls down their pants. The first time featured Bully Ray, Tommy Dreamer, Velvet Sky, and Luke, a child from a previous challenge. The second, filmed in Hollywood, starred Jay and Silent Bob for three Jokers; the recently fired Rob Emmer went during Sal's turn and pleaded for his job while pitifully pantsing.
• In one Kenan & Kel episode, Kel accidentally pulls Kenan's pants off while trying to get him out of a fence.
• Malcolm does this to Reese in the Malcolm in the Middle episode "Water Park".
• M*A*S*H: In "Bottoms Up", Hawkeye pantses Charles during an OR session. Unfortunately for Hawkeye, nobody finds it funny. It becomes a Once Done, Never Forgotten moment, brought up in several subsequent episodes, including the series finale.
• Mortified: In "Taylor Turns Bad", Layla convinces the grounded Taylor to sneak out, then secretly pulls Taylor's jeans off leaving her in a skirt top, her underwear and even bigger trouble with her parents.
• Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, in "Guide to Embarrassment" the school bully Loomer and nearly a dozen other kids have a contest to see who can pants Cookie the most times in one day. Cookie eventually gets around this by wearing a janitors uniform.
• 7th Heaven: On her first day of high school, Ruthie pulls Martin's pants down and is immediately suspended for it.
• Numerous times on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. Once Zack to get him and Cody on a game show. One time Cody pantsed Zack to keep him from stealing.
• That '70s Show:
  • In "Donna's Panties", While playing basketball Eric pulls down Donna's sweatpants revealing her granny panties, the rest of the episode revolves around Eric handling this inappropriately.
  • In "Misfire", during a dream sequence, Kelso pulls down Jackie's pants annoying her more than embarrassing her.
• In an episode of Friends, during a football game Ross pulls down Monica's sweatpants to stop her from catching a ball, she chases after him trying to hide her boyshorts.
• The Wonder Years
  • In "Loosiers", one of the students has their gym shorts pulled down during a basketball game, exposing his tighty-whitey briefs while Kevin and Paul laugh.

Music Videos

• A servant pulls down the pants of a general in XTC's video for Generals And Majors while the general is pointing to a world map on the wall. The victim doesn't seem to notice, being preoccupied with global conquest. Viewable on YouTube at the 2:35 mark: [1].
• Happens in the Self-Deprecation video for Skee Lo's song "I Wish" when a humiliating failure a playing basketball due to his lack of height culminates in him being pantsed by another player - [2]

Video Games

• In Nickelodeon Clickamajigs "Bully the Bully" one of the things you can do to the bully is remove his buckle. It will cause him to turn flushed after being pantsed.

Web Animation

• Happy Tree Friends: In "Gems the Breaks", Lifty and Shifty pull down Splendid's hazmat pants to expose him to the Krypto-Nut.
• At the beginning of the Shut Up! Cartoons Smosh Babies episode "The Great Big Wheel Race", Ian and Anthony pull Lenny's pants down to make him look stupid in front of Penny. Lenny catches them before they can run away, and asks them if they're trying to kiss his butt.
• Strong Bad Email: In "senior prom", Strong Bad crashes the prom with a device that will remove everyone's pants. Only after activating it does Strong Bad realize he's the only one wearing pants.

Webcomics

• Abel Rewanz from Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures yanks the pants off Daniel Ti'fiona, seeking Daniel's clan marking. Abel finds one in strip #550, and remarks that it strongly resembles a hot-iron branding. This completes a Brick Joke with strip #63, which the creator thoughtfully footnotes. For the record, Dan's clan mark is on his right shoulder, not on his furry butt.

Web Original

• Whateley Universe: In The Road to Whateley (Part 3):
  The Short Goon popped a power leap to head them off before they could get to the alley. He spun around, crouched and started glowing with ominous power. "Onnnneee... Twooo... Thr—HEY!" the shrimp yipped as Nick picked him up, completely ignoring the scary, scary power buildup and pantsed him, then flung him into a convenient and open dumpster.

Web Videos

• In two separate clips released by "Barstool Sports", the "Pardon My Take" intern Billy Football has the back half of his pants ripped off:
  • The first clip occurs while the crew is in Las Vegas, and leaves Billy's red and black trunks (short boxer-briefs) on display, while Billy insists that the ripped pants were the only ones he brought with him to Vegas.
  • The second clip happens in the Barstool Sports office. Here, Billy is wearing khakis, the back half of which are again torn off. Billy is mockingly asked if he's wearing tighty-whities. Despite his insistence that they are boxer-briefs (and his attempts to stretch the underwear down his leg to make them appear longer than they are) he is clearly wearing white briefs with a spotted pattern.
• In Jenna Marbles's video "I'm Dog Stairs For Halloween" Julien does this to her, much to her ire and she (jokingly) tells him to move out. Later, she gets back at him by pantsing him.
  Jenna: My butt's out when you pants me, now how does it feel?! [pulls down Julien's pants]]
  Julien: Ha ha, I am naked.

Western Animation

• The Angry Beavers episode "Spooky Spoots" had Norb and Daggett pull down the pants of Scientist #1.
• In the Adventure Time episode "Who Would Win", Jake pantses Finn during their fight; which proves to be useful advice from a car salesman spirit in defeating the monster terrorizing the village. Jake then tells Finn to pull his pants up before they fight the monster again.
• Archie's Weird Mysteries, "Invisible Archie": In a final attempt to embarrass Robbie, the jock who's been distracting Betty and Veronica, Reggie pulls down his pants in front of the audience. This prank actually works. However, Reggie performs it oblivious to his becoming visible again. Able to see his tormentor, Robbie beats the stuffing out of him in retaliation.
• In Big Mouth episode "Steve the Virgin", this happens multiple times throughout the episode due to President Trump declaring it National Pantsing Week. Oddly, Played for Laughs in a series that usually takes sexual harassment seriously.
• In the Bob's Burgers episode ""Thelma & Louise Except Thelma is Linda", Louise is put in detention for pantsing one of the O'Brien brothers as payback for playing keep-away with Pocket-Sized Rudy's lunch. Later, Linda admits to Louise that she pantsed a boy when she was a kid, though in her case she also pulled down the boy's underwear as well.
• Every camper was on the receiving end in the Camp Lazlo episode "All Campers Pull Pants" What's particularly bizarre is that in most of the episodes of the series, most of the campers don't wear pants (or underwear, for that matter).
• In a flashback in the Family Guy episode, "The Tan Aquatic With Steve Zissou", Peter's childhood bully, Randy Fulcher pantses Peter twice, then pulls Peter's pants up when Peter tries to use the urinal.
• In the crossover special between The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy and Codename: Kids Next Door, "The Grim Adventures of the KND", Harold pantses the Mandy Reaper so their attacks will work, showing off pink flower underwear similar to Mandy's normal dress.
• One episode of Horrid Henry has the title character pants three boys at school then try to avoid being pantsed in retaliation when his mom makes Henry wear bloomers his aunt sent him.
• An accidental version in Jacob Two-Two. Buford falls when climbing a rope and grabs onto Jacob's pants and his weight causes poor Jacob's pants to rip off in front of everyone.
• The Johnny Bravo episode "Get Stinky" shows a slide show in the beginning of some of the pranks Stinky Brownstein played on Johnny when they were kids, one of them consisting of her pantsing him. Stinky does it to Johnny again at the end of the episode after she reveals that she was only pretending to love Johnny as yet another dirty trick.
• The Justice League Action episode "Plastic Man Saves the World" has Plastic Man imagine pantsing Brainiac while realizing that defeating Brainiac will considerably improve his reputation as a superhero.
• In Season 1 of Kablam, the "Surprising Shorts" segment would always begin with June pantsing Henry revealing his Goofy Print Underwear.
• The Loud House:
  • The montage of pranks Lincoln suffers from a bully (who is later revealed to be Ronnie Anne) in the beginning of "Heavy Meddle" includes a scene where his pants are pulled down while he's at his locker.
  • In "One of the Boys", Lincoln gets transported to an alternate universe where all his sisters are male, their personalities change dramatically and they relentlessly bully him. The one whose personality is the same no matter their gender is Lynn; both Lynn and her male counterpart pants Lincoln in the episode.
  • In "City Slickers", one of Lincoln's concerns about visiting Ronnie Anne in her new home in Great Lakes City is that she'll depants him on the Jumbotron in the city. It doesn't happen, as Ronnie Anne merely settles for depantsing Lincoln in a less crowded place and leaving him with a photograph of it as a souvenir.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In the episode "The Boys are Back in Town", the girls do this to Brick. And either he wasn't wearing any underpants, or they pulled them down along with his pants, since the act exposes his bare butt.
• In the Rick and Morty episode "Total Rickall", one of the memories that makes Morty realize Rick isn't a parasite is a memory of him pantsing Morty in front of two girls at school.
• Sanjay and Craig: In an episode called Depants Tag, everyone goes around town removing each other's pants until there is only one left standing. Many characters are caught wearing Goofy Print Underwear.
• The Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get A Clue! episode "The Many Faces of Evil" had the show's main villain Dr. Phibes attempt to clone himself and his clones all have bizarre quirks. One of the Phibes clones was a prankster who pantses the original Dr. Phibes.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Bart of Darkness", Martin Prince's pool bursts open from too many people in it, leaving him standing alone. To add insult to injury, Nelson pulls down his trunks, leaving him naked. This was also a Brick Joke from the beginning of the episode, where he brags about wearing 17 layers in the Poolmobile... that are promptly stripped off by the other swimmers. Cue Martin saying, "I brought this on myself".
  • In "22 Short Films About Springfield", Nelson points and laughs at a very tall man driving a compact car. The angry man gets out of the car and chases him down, then gives him a taste of his own medicine by pulling down his pants and forcing him to march through the center of town in his underwear, telling everybody they pass to point and laugh at him.
  • In "Special Edna", God seemingly does this to Bart when he prays in the library after noticing another patron having bought 100 faxs and only using one. He reacts to this exactly how you'd expect him too.
• Total Drama:
  • Heather and Gwen are paired up for the rock climbing challenge in "Who Can You Trust?". Gwen climbs, Heather secures her. While preparing Gwen's harness, Heather adds an extra rope with which she can tear off Gwen's skirt at a time of her choosing, which happens to be when Gwen's about halfway up the cliff and can't do anything to protect her modesty. After initial unease, Gwen decides to tough it out and keep climbing, winning not just by determination but also because her opponent, DJ, lost focus trying to look away.
  • In "Total Drama Drama Drama Drama Island", Noah taunts Duncan when Courtney leaves him behind to make a clean escape with the money. He also comes unwisely close to the bully, so Duncan retaliates by not just pulling his pants down, but by stealing them wholesale. It takes a while before Noah has the time to fetch a new pair.
  • During the challenge to build a Franken-Chris in "One Flu Over the Cuckoos", Duncan pulls down Harold's pants with the Franken-hand he gets thrown to him by Heather. Leshawna comes to Harold's defense.
  • Harold gets voted off in "2008: A Space Owen" and as he walks to the Lame-o-sine, Duncan tells him to hurry up and calls him "Doris", Harold's loathed middle name. With nothing more to lose, Harold runs back and pulls down his long-suffered bully's pants. Duncan acknowledges he deserved that.
• The Wander over Yonder episode "The Brainstorm" has Peepers proposing plans to conquer a planet and Lord Hater shooting his suggestions down by addressing a way Wander and Sylvia might ruin the plan. One possibility Lord Hater brings up is the Watchdogs being incapacitated by Sylvia pantsing them.
• What's with Andy?, episode "101 Underpants", Andy as revenge for getting laughed at when his pants fell down, plans to pants everyone at school with special belts that fall off when they're posing for a school picture. When he finds out that Lori is wearing one of the belts, he tries to "save her pants".
• In the Xiaolin Showdown premiere Raimundo does this to Omi and Omi does it to Jack. The latter allows him to win the Xiaolin Showdown.
  • In "The Shard of Lightning", Jack and his robotic double depants Omi again as one of the pranks they pull with the titular artifact.

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