The Best Fart Jokes In Movies

How many Oscar-winning movies feature fart jokes? More than you'd think. 1988's "Rain Man" has a scene in which Raymond Babbitt lets one loose in a phone booth. 1990's "Dances with Wolves" sees Timmons tell John Dunbar to put his passed gas in his book. Sergeant Dignam cuts the cheese in 2006's "The Departed." The Oscar-bait fart joke most deserving of its own award, however, occurs in "Amadeus," Milos Forman's 1984 film adaptation of Peter Shaffer's Tony-winning play.

"Amadeus" tells the story of spiteful Antonio Salieri, who plots to destroy Mozart. This scheme might be pure fiction, but one aspect that is historically accurate is Mozart's fondness for lowbrow humor. In one hilarious scene, Mozart is challenged to play piano in the styles of various different composers. Salieri, hiding under a mask, challenges Mozart to do a Salieri impression. Mozart already has the crowd in hysterics with his imitation of Salieri's stilted playing, before he concludes the performance by lifting his coattails and releasing an impressively loud fart. Everyone applauds — except Salieri.

"'Blazing Saddles' for me was a film that truly broke ground," said director Mel Brooks of his 1974 Western spoof (via OC Weekly). "It also broke wind ... and maybe that's why it broke ground." He might be right. Many earlier Westerns include scenes of cowboys eating beans around the campfire, but it wasn't until "Blazing Saddles" that audiences could actually hear the results of spending so much time eating "the musical fruit."

While the "Blazing Saddles"' campfire scene wasn't actually the first cinematic fart joke, it was certainly a turning point for the lowbrow art. At the time, the joke was seen as outrageous and offensive: TV airings even went so far as to censor the fart noises, resulting in a minute of odd silence. Removed from its groundbreaking context, the fart scene is far from the funniest or most shocking scene in the movie, but it still works as an example of Brooks' "everything but the kitchen sink" approach to comedy. One subtler bonus fart joke is also present in the movie: Governor Le Petomane is named after "Le Pétomane," a French comedian famous for his flatulence.

Mike Judge's "Idiocracy" received virtually no marketing during its 2006 theatrical release (via NPR). Yet the dystopian satire has since gone on to become one of the most heavily-referenced cult films of the modern era. Some people think it predicted the future, while others have criticized the film for potentially eugenics-minded undertones. Wherever one stands on the film's politics and overall quality, however, one has to admit one thing: Some of its jokes are still pretty funny, particularly those related to the entertainment of the film's intelligence-free world.

The TV show "Ow! My Balls!" might be the funniest faux-production, but don't sleep on the motion picture simply titled "A**," which consists entirely of a 90-minute close-up of a butt, occasionally farting. We're told it's the number-one movie in America, and that it won eight Oscars, including best screenplay. A movie like this actually exists in real life — the Andy Warhol production "Taylor Mead's A**." That production was not a blockbuster hit, however. 

As part of his climactic plea for people to start using their brains again, everyman hero Joe Bauers offers his thoughts on how to bring fart humor to a higher level. In his day, he says, "movies ... had stories, so you cared whose a** it was, and why it was farting, and I believe that time can come again!" Too true, Joe. Too true.

In terms of breaking ground in the realm of fart humor, "The Lion King" was to animated films what "Blazing Saddles" was to live-action ones. The first farts ever featured in a Disney animated film occur in the musical number "Hakuna Matata." The "no worries" philosophy captured in this tune truly helped warthog Pumbaa through a difficult time, it is revealed. In his youth, he was sensitive about his flatulence. As meerkat Timon sings, "He found his aroma lacked a certain appeal/He could clear the Savana after every meal!" Pumbaa emphatically adds that "it hurt that my friends never stood downwind."

The effects of Pumbaa's flatulence are vibrantly animated, with monkeys falling out of trees, grass wilting, and animals running away from the stench. The word "fart," however, is off-limits: When Pumbaa is about to sing the contextually sensible rhyme for "downhearted," Timon interjects, "Pumbaa, not in front of the kid." Fart humor continues to surround the character of Pumbaa throughout the movie, however. At one point, when he correctly theorizes about the stars in the sky being balls of gas, Timon responds, "With you, everything's gas."

One of the most useful narrative functions of the fart joke is providing character development. A well-done fart joke brings light to the personalities of both he who smelt it, and he who dealt it. A good example of this is the silent-but-deadly gag in Edgar Wright's 2004 zombie comedy "Shaun of the Dead." The satisfaction with which slobby Ed apologizes for passing gas well before his stuffy friend Shaun even notices is informative, as is their ensuing laughter. It's a perfect illustration of how these very different personalities have become friends.

If you're the kind of person who enjoys fart jokes, this scene will make you laugh. But even if you're the kind of person who doesn't find it funny, there's still a character-driven purpose to this scene. Moreover, when the gag returns in the movie's dramatically zombie-filled climax, this silly moment of friendship takes on an air of tragedy.

When creating humor many will deem to be in bad taste, one of the most effective strategies is to go so far that the offensiveness itself becomes the joke. There are fair concerns to be raised about whether the "equal opportunity offender" ambitions of "South Park" are actually worthwhile, but when the raunchy animated series sticks to silliness and crudity, the results are frequently hilarious. The 1999 musical feature film "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut" is still a series high point, and the scene in which the boys watch the "Terrance & Phillip: A**es of Fire" movie remains a work of genius stupidity.

"Terrance & Phillip" is essentially a stand-in for how parents' groups saw "South Park" itself: A mass of sheer offensiveness with no redeeming social value. The Canadian duo's movie starts with a non-sequitur joke that has a fart for a punchline, escalates into a series of unpublishable insults, and then dives into a full-fledged musical number about an act too disturbing to describe here. An instrumental break, where a traditional musical might insert a tap number, is instead accompanied by rhythmic flatulence. Everyone leaves the theater in offense — except for Stan, Kyle, Cartman, Kenny, and Ike, who are enraptured by the new additions to their vocabulary.

For all the examples on this list of genuinely good fart jokes, the fact remains that the vast majority of cinematic farts are lazy attempts at comedy in unfunny films. As such, it makes sense to use fart jokes as a means of satirizing cinema's low points. "Idiocracy" takes this to far-future extremes with "A**," but for a parody of lazy fart humor that more closely resembles the genuine article, look no further than the fake trailer for "The Fatties: Fart 2," seen in the opening of Ben Stiller's 2008 film, "Tropic Thunder."

"The Fatties: Fart 2" stars in-universe actor Jeff Portnoy as every member of an ultra-flatulent family, who cause trouble in a fancy restaurant. It's virtually indistinguishable from many of the last few decades' worst family comedies. In the film's main storyline, Jeff Portnoy is insecure about whether or not people only like him for his farts. He is, in fact, attempting to become a serious actor by starring in the in-universe "Tropic Thunder" Vietnam War epic.