Flatulence humor
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Flatulence humor refers to any type of joke, practical joke device, or other humor related to flatulence.
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[edit] History of Flatulence Humor
Although it is likely that flatulence humor has long been considered funny in cultures that consider the public passing of gas impolite, such jokes are rarely recorded. An important early text is the 5th century BC play The Knights by Aristophanes which has numerous fart jokes.[1] Another example from classical times appeared in Apocolocyntosis or The Pumpkinification of Claudius, a satire attributed to Seneca on the late Roman emperor:
At once he bubbled up the ghost, and there was an end to that shadow of a life.…The last words he was heard to speak in this world were these. When he had made a great noise with that end of him which talked easiest, he cried out, "Oh dear, oh dear! I think I have made a mess of myself."[2]
He later explains he got to the afterlife with a quote from Homer:
"Breezes wafted me from Ilion unto the Ciconian land."[2]
In the translated version of Penguin's 1001 Arabian Nights Tales, a story entitled "The Historic Fart" tells of a man that flees his country from the sheer embarrassment of farting at his wedding.
One of the most celebrated incidences of flatulence humor in early English literature is in The Miller's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer which dates from the 14th Century. The character Nicholas hangs his buttocks out of a window and farts in the face of his rival Absolom. Absolom then sears Nicholas's backside (or "ers", meaning "arse") with a red-hot poker:
"Sing, sweet bird, I kneen nat where thou art!"
This Nicholas anon let fle a fart
As greet as it had been a thonder-dent
That with the strook he was almost yblent
And he was ready with iron hoot
And Nicholas ammyd the ers he smoot.[3]
François Rabelais' tales of Gargantua and Pantagruel are laden with acts of flatulence. In Chapter XXVII of the second book, the giant, Pantagruel, releases a fart that "made the earth shake for twenty-nine miles around, and the foul air he blew out created more than fifty-three thousand tiny men, dwarves and creatures of weird shapes, and then he emitted a fat wet fart that turned into just as many tiny stooping women."[4]
Benjamin Franklin, in his open letter "To the Royal Academy of Farting", satirically proposes that converting farts into a more agreeable form through science should be a milestone goal of the Royal Academy.[5]
In Mark Twain's 1601, properly named [ Date: 1601.] Conversation, as it was the Social Fireside, in the Time of the Tudors, a cupbearer at Court who's a Diarist reports:
In ye heat of ye talk it befel yt one did breake wind, yielding an exceding mightie and distresfull stink, whereat all did laugh full sore.[6]
The Queen inquires as to the source, and receives various replies. Lady Alice says
Good your grace, an' I had room for such a thundergust within mine ancient bowels, 'tis not in reason I coulde discharge ye same and live to thank God for yt He did choose handmaid so humble whereby to shew his power. Nay, 'tis not I yt have broughte forth this rich o'ermastering fog, this fragrant gloom, so pray you seeke ye further."[6]
In the 1940s a clandestine record called "The Crepitation Contest" [1] was produced, allegedly by Canadian Broadcast Corporation staff (narration by sportscaster Sidney S. Brown, who identifies himself in the closing seconds of the original unedited recording, and "sound effects" by his producer, Jules Lipton). The recording is in the manner of a seemingly real radio broadcast of a live sporting event, complete with pre-game interviews of the contestants (the “champion”, Lord Windismere and the challenger, Paul Boomer), detailed descriptions of all aspects of the competition as it unfolds, including the rules and traditions associated with the sport, play-by-play reporting, and crowd sounds reacting to the drama. The listener also hears a game official on the field as he announces scores attributed to the flatulence sounds emitted by each contestant in the competition.
Flatulence humor and the lighting of farts also appears in cinema:
- Farting featured heavily in one scene of Blazing Saddles. This caused some controversy in the United States: when it was run as a television movie of the week by ABC the farting sounds were overdubbed with sounds from the surrounding horses, so the scene had cowboys sitting around a campfire standing up and leaning over for no apparent reason (Dawson, 1999, p. 125).
- Star Trek V, the first Star Trek production to contain a fart joke, is known jokingly as Blazing Starships in reference to Blazing Saddles. The second joke in Star Trek lore came in an episode of Star Trek episode where a whoopie cushion was referenced.
- "I fart in your general direction" is a popular phrase from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
- The lighting of flatulence is a plot device in the movie, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut and flatulence in general is featured prominently in many South Park episodes, notably "Spontaneous Combustion".
- In the movie Dumb and Dumber, Lloyd Christmas, played by Jim Carrey, lights a fart during a dream sequence.
- In the movie Down Periscope, the Stingray (SS-161) while attempting to elude the USS Orlando (SSN-852) by remaining silent, Buckman (the cook) farts very loudly. The sonar operator on the Orlando reported he heard what sounded like "an explosion". During the remainder of the sceen there are various shots of the crew of the U. S. S. Stingray as the fart passes them.
[edit] Whoopee Cushion
A whoopee cushion, also known as a poo-poo cushion and Razzberry Cushion, is a practical joke device that produces a noise resembling a raspberry or human flatulence. It is made from two sheets of rubber that are glued together at the edges. There is a small opening with a flap at one end for air to enter and leave the cushion.
To use it, one must first inflate it with air and then place it on a chair. An unsuspecting victim sits on the whoopee cushion, forcing the air out of the opening, which causes the flap to vibrate and produce its distinctive sound.
The item was invented in 1930 by the JEM Rubber Co. of Toronto, Canada, by employees who were experimenting with scrap sheets of rubber[7]. The owner of the company approached Samuel Adams, the inventor of numerous practical jokes and owner of S.S. Adams Co., with the newly invented item. Adams said that the item was "too vulgar" and would never sell. JEM Rubber offered the idea to the Johnson Smith Company which sold it with great success. S.S. Adams Co. later released its own version, but called it the "Razzbery Cushion."[7]
The whoopee cushion has been in numerous books and TV shows.
In the 1990s, a new era of technology opened, as self-inflating whoopee cushions (which use a springy foam to draw in more air) and remote-controlled whoopee cushions (electronic devices) were introduced.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Aristophanes, The Knights
- ^ a b Project Gutenberg: E-text No. 10001, English translation of the Apocolocyntosis by W. H. D. Rouse, 1920
- ^ The Miller's Prologue and Tale (lines 3805-3810)
- ^ François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel. W.W. Norton & Co. 1990, p.214
- ^ Benjamin Franklin, To the Royal Academu of Farting, c. 1781, at teachingamericanhistory.org
- ^ a b 1601 by Mark Twain
- ^ a b Whoopee Cushion got first airing here, Toronto Star Mar 31, 2008
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