Spit-take

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Michael Colton does a spit-take while drinking a Red Bull as John Aboud watches on VH1's Best Week Ever.

A spit-take is a comedic technique in which someone spits a beverage out of his or her mouth when he or she reacts to a statement during a take. In a spit-take, the reaction is usually one of surprise. Danny Thomas is sometimes credited with popularizing its use in comedy.

[edit] In film and television

Gene Wilder performs 2 different types of spit-takes in Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles.
Another popular spit-take can be seen in the Alan Arkin and Peter Falk film Big Trouble.
In the Futurama episode "Fry and the Slurm Factory", when Fry finds out what the popular soft-drink Slurm is made out of, he spit-takes, then continues to drink only to spit-take again twice.
In The Simpsons episode "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes", when Homer sees the price of a computer he plans to buy is $5,000, he stops, takes a sip of his coffee, looks at the pricetag again, and spit-takes.
In The Rescuers Down Under, Wilbur takes a sip of soda before Miss Bianca tells him that she and Bernard have to leave for Australia tonight, and he responds by spit-taking on Bernard.
A double spit-take can be seen in Serving Sara and is performed by Matthew Perry.
In the Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip episode "B-12", some of the comedy actors of the show-within-a-show are shown engaged in a spit-take contest backstage, which later inspires Matt, (also played by Matthew Perry), to write a last-minute spit-take sketch to fill in for one which had to be cut.