History Main / BananaInTheTailpipe

[[folder:Film]]

* ''Anime/CrossAnge'': Hilda sabotages Ange's mecha by clogging the tailpipe with lingerie. This causes the mecha to underperform and almost get Ange killed when the engine eventually quits, causing the mecha to crash.

* The {{Trope Namer|s}} here is the film ''Film/BeverlyHillsCop'', where Eddie Murphy's character used this technique to foil a group of bumbling police officers. Famous for a notorious editing screwup: the banana he holds is curved, but the one in the tailpipe is straight -- they couldn't fit the bent one in the tailpipe. Filming mistakes aside, the movie does, surprisingly, play the trope more accurately than most: Axel uses multiple bananas to ensure an effective obstruction, and there is no fire or explosion.

* In Season 19 Episode 2 of ''Series/TopGear'', Jeremy Clarkson and James May did this to Richard Hammond's Dodge Viper before they raced to the Mexican border.[[note]]The person to finish last would be forced to cross the border into Mexico and do a review of a Mexican supercar for an upcoming segment. The presenters had also made unfortunate comments about said car (and Mexicans in general) in a previous series.[[/note]] Since the car had enormous tailpipes, and two of them at that, they were forced to add more and larger fruits to clog it down. Hammond removed the tailpipe fruit salad before attempting to set off, only to find they'd sabotaged the car in other ways as well.

* In the story "Overheated" of the ''Fanfic/FacingTheFutureSeries'', [[spoiler:during the climatic battle with Burner who had used a mountain of junk to create a giant scrap lizard, Sam stops it by jamming a giant ecto-potato construct into its tailpipe smoke stack]].

* In Soviet comedy ''Film/DogPacedAPiano'', a high school girl and her preteen sister sabotage one of the engines of a cropdusting Hoodlum helicopter with a beet because the older sister loves the pilot and doesn't want him to leave. The beet does not shoot from the pipe, but the exhaust goes to the cabin instead. The pilot lands the machine immediately after the takeoff and feels dizzy for a few minutes after. Then the girl's childhood friend with an unrequited crush surrenders himself to the police as the perpetrator to protect the girl, fearing that this accident may qualify as a murder attempt. The pilot pities him and insists that a helicopter cannot be harmed by a beet and nothing happened.[[note]]The friend still gets 15 days of community service [[ItsALongStory for systematically misleading the police and being a general nuisance]]. The girl joins him and helps him sweep streets, finally leaving the pilot alone.[[/note]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* A variant occurs in a Flash game based on the cartoon ''WesternAnimation/{{Catscratch}}''. Because Gordon, Waffle and Mr. Blik are in a monster truck with very large tailpipes, the tailpipes are stuffed with watermelons, pumpkins, or an entire bunch of bananas instead.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/GoofTroop'', Max and PJ lie to their fathers about joining the baseball team, so they try various methods to keep them from going to the games and finding out the truth. One of those methods is filling Pete's exhaust pipe with cement.

* ''Series/{{Columbo}}'': In "Death Lends a Hand", the murderer Brimmer's car fails at a crucial juncture. When Kennicut muses about how Brimmer’s car was out of action at such a crucial stage, Columbo spins him a merry yarn about how his misspent youth, putting cars out of action with a potato up the exhaust, must have played a part in him wanting to become a lawman, so he could make amends for these misdemeanours. The enigmatic Lieutenant then turns tail to leave the garage. A bemused Kennicut turns to look at the car exhaust, checks himself, then spins on his heel and follows Columbo’s lead as credits roll…

* In ''[[Videogame/SpaceQuest Space Quest 5: The Next Mutation]]'', the hero, Roger Wilco, is being stalked by a gynoid that's out to kill him for alleged mail fraud. How does Roger Wilco save himself? By hiding in a log, then, when the gynoid lands on top of said log, sticking a banana-like fruit in the exhaust pipe of her jet pack, causing it to explode.
* In the ''Franchise/SpiderMan'' game for [=PlayStation=], you have to close several smokestacks with covers, to cause an effect "like a banana in a tailpipe". In the sillier What If? mode, the tops of the covers actually have giant bananas on them.

* A variant occurs in a Flash game based on the cartoon ''WesternAnimation/{{Catscratch}}''. Because Gordon, Waffle and Mr. Blik are in a monster truck with very large tailpipes, the tailpipes are stuffed with watermelons, pumpkins, or an entire bunch of bananas instead.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}''
** In the episode "The Honking", Leela plans to kill the were-car by shoving a silver potato in its tailpipe. Unfortunately, it doesn't have one, "thanks to Ed Begley Jr.'s electric motor, the most evil propulsion system ever conceived!"
** In "Into the Wild Green Yonder", the Feministas sabotage a sweeper by pouring sugar in the fuel tank and shoving an organic potato (crawling with worms) in the tailpipe.

* In ''WesternAnimation/WhereOnEarthIsCarmenSandiego'', Zack disables Carmen's flying machine by shooting an arrow into the exhaust port.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'', Hayley's attempts to stop industrialists from bulldozing a forest include shoving a banana in the exhaust pipe of a bulldozer, but she's interrupted by a group of eco-terrorists who ask her to join them.
%%* Appeared in the short-lived ''WesternAnimation/AceVentura: Pet Detective'' series.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'', Jack and Smokescreen return from a mission together laughing their heads off. Smokescreen asks what Jack put in his boss's exhaust pipe, and Jack responds with "Pizza". They specifically dump fast food on people's cars as a way of circumventing the fact that [[ThouShaltNotKill they shouldn't be violently hurting people for petty reasons]]. Arcee is less than impressed.

* In a ''WesternAnimation/CodeLyoko'' comic, Odd tries to do this to a bunch of bulldozers pipes. It works as well as one would expect.

* At the end of the ''WesternAnimation/BumpInTheNight'' episode "It Sang from Beyond the Stars", Mr. Bumpy puts a potato into the tailpipe of Sleemoth and Gloog's UFO after tricking them into leaving. This causes their spaceship to explode and the two aliens to drift off into space.

* ''Anime/CrossAnge'': Hilda sabotages Ange's mecha by clogging the tailpipe with lingerie. This causes the mecha to underperform and almost get Ange killed when the engine eventually quits, causing the mecha to crash.

%%* ''ComicBook/BillyTheCat'' uses it too.

* In the 1996 live-action version of ''[[Film/OneHundredAndOneDalmatians1996 101 Dalmatians]]'', raccoons put a large nut in the tailpipe of the bad guys' truck. The pressure does shoot the nut out eventually -- when the bad guy is examining the tailpipe.

* Terra does this to Cherry in ''Pep Squad'', which leads to the funny image (seen in the trailer) of Cherry holding up a banana and angrily growling "''Who did this to me''?"
* In Soviet comedy ''Dog Paced a Piano'' a high school girl and her preteen sister sabotage one of the engines of a cropdusting Hoodlum helicopter with a beet because the older sister loves the pilot and doesn't want him to leave. The beet does not shoot from the pipe, but the exhaust goes to the cabin instead. The pilot lands the machine immediately after the takeoff and feels dizzy for a few minutes after. Then the girl's childhood friend with an unrequited crush surrenders himself to the police as the perpetrator to protect the girl, fearing that this accident may qualify as a murder attempt. The pilot pities him and insists that a helicopter cannot be harmed by a beet and nothing happened.[[note]]The friend still gets 15 days of community service [[ItsALongStory for systematically misleading the police and being a general nuisance]]. The girl joins him and helps him sweep streets, finally leaving the pilot alone.[[/note]]

* ''Spud,'' a 2005 teen comedy novel by South African writer John van de Ruit, includes a moment where the headmaster's car is "sodomized" by a banana, and the engine explodes as a result. The boy accused of the crime, Guy Emberton, is named after a friend of the author's; he actually said in the acknowledgments that the real Emberton "isn't really a banana vandal," thus spoiling this scene slightly.
* There is an interview with Creator/TerryPratchett where he imagines the Discworld subversion of this: someone on stakeout on horseback, and someone else (the Librarian?) sneaking up behind them with a banana. Something similar actually happens in ''Literature/{{Night Watch|Discworld}}''. Except instead of a horse, it's an ox. And instead of a banana, it's a handful of fresh ginger. And instead of making the animal [[HilarityEnsues stop moving]]...

* Creator/GarrisonKeillor wrote in ''Lake Wobegon Days'' that he disliked his sister's boyfriend who addressed him as "Sport" so he put a potato in his tailpipe.

%%* ''Series/{{Columbo}}'' did this with a potato.
* A variation was used in ''Series/PushingDaisies'': the murderer shoved a potato into the tailpipe of Ned's car to fill the car with exhaust and knock out Ned and Emerson during a stakeout. Such a thing could only happen if the exhaust system already had a leak up near the passenger compartment, which they would have noticed when the car suddenly became louder because the muffler was being bypassed.
%%* The same was used much earlier in an episode of ''Series/{{Ironside|1967}}''.
* Subverted in ''Series/{{Minder}}'', in which a potato was used in this manner to shoot out and smash the window of another car.

* When the ''Series/MythBusters'' tried this, everything they stuffed up the tailpipe shot out immediately when Jamie started the engine.

* Used in an episode of ''Series/{{Psych}}'' to stop a car thief from reaching 200 mph in a stolen car and thus getting away with murder.

* Happened in ''Tee Off, Series/MrBean'' when the eponymous character hits a golf ball into a car's tailpipe, causing it to churn and sputter for several seconds before shooting the ball out at high speed.

* In an episode of ''Series/BurnNotice''[[note]]"Official Business" (Season 6)[[/note]], Fiona stuffs a folded woven belt (clearly shown as porous and ''not'' something that could cause a complete blockage) into the exhaust pipe of an SUV. It doesn't cause the car to blow up or even keep it from being driven but causes sufficient damage that the bad guys have to limp to the nearest service station...which was the point of the exercise, as the good guys needed to hide tools in the SUV for the next step of their plan.
* In the first episode of ''Series/DadsArmy'', while having a discussion of how to take on a tank with improvised weapons, Jones suggests plugging the exhaust with spuds (potatoes). Mainwarring points out that it wouldn't work because tanks have long, thin exhaust pipes. [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Jones asks why they can't use long, thin spuds.]]

* ''Series/MissFishersMurderMysteries'': In "Blood at the Wheel", Phyrne sabotages Jack's car by stuffing her stocking into the exhaust pipe.
* ''Series/DeathInParadise'': In "Written in Murder", DI Mooney stops a suspect from escaping by stuffing a banana up the tailpipe of his motor scooter. He comments that a potato would have been better, but he made do with what he had to hand.

* A clear ShoutOut in the super-short-lived ''WesternAnimation/ClerksTheAnimatedSeries'': one episode revolved around spoofing courtroom dramas and featured actor Judge Reinhold as...well, an actual judge: the Honorable Judge Reinhold. The episode became a crazy patchwork of dream sequences, usually ending in a CatapultNightmare for the character having the dream. In Reinhold's dream, his final verdict is interrupted by Detective Axel Foley, the lead character of the ''Film/BeverlyHillsCop'' series, bursting into the courtroom and telling "Billy" he needed his help. (Judge Reinhold played Detective William Rosewood in the 'Film/BeverlyHillsCop'' films.) Reinhold eagerly drops his black robe and rushes to Axel's aid. The two spend many happy hours stuffing bananas in tailpipes and laughing as cars malfunction...until the fruit vendor runs out of bananas, at which point it's Reinhold's turn to catapult awake.

* In the 1996 live-action version of ''[[Film/OneHundredAndOneDalmatians1996 101 Dalmatians]]'', raccoons put a large nut in the tailpipe of the bad guys' truck. The pressure does shoot the nut out eventually -- when the bad guy is examining the tail pipe.

* In Soviet comedy ''Dog Paced a Piano'' a high school girl and her preteen sister sabotage one of the engines of a cropdusting Hoodlum helicopter with a beet, because the older sister loves the pilot and doesn't want him to leave. The beet does not shoot from the pipe, but the exhaust goes to the cabin instead. The pilot lands the machine immediately after the takeoff and feels dizzy for a few minutes after. Then the girl's childhood friend with an unrequited crush surrenders himself to the police as the perpetrator to protect the girl, fearing that this accident may qualify as a murder attempt. The pilot pities him and insists that a helicopter cannot be harmed by a beet and nothing happened.[[note]]The friend still gets 15 days of community service [[ItsALongStory for systematically misleading the police and being a general nuisance]]. The girl joins him and helps him sweep streets, finally leaving the pilot alone.[[/note]]

* Averted in favour of the more realistic option in, of all things, ''Series/{{Glee}}'', when Mercedes stuffs tater tots up the exhaust pipe of Sue Sylvester's Le Car and does several thousand dollars' worth of damage.

* In an episode of ''Series/BurnNotice''[[note]]"Official Business" (Season 6)[[/note]], Fiona stuffs a folded woven belt (clearly shown as porous and ''not'' something that could cause a complete blockage) into the exhaust pipe of an SUV. It doesn't cause the car to blow up or even keep it from being driven, but causes sufficient damage that the bad guys have to limp to the nearest service station...which was the point of the exercise, as the good guys needed to hide tools in the SUV for the next step of their plan.

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls2016'': In "Man Up 2: Still Man-ing", Buttercup stops Manboy's weaponized lawnmower by clogging the exhaust pipe with a bottle cap, which make the engine explode.

* ''ComicBook/BillyTheCat'' uses it too.

* This happened in ''Film/TheThreeStooges'' a couple times.

* In Soviet comedy ''Dog Paced a Piano'' a high school girl and her preteen sister sabotage one of engines of a cropdusting Hoodlum helicopter with a beet. Because the older sister loves the pilot and doesn't want him to leave. The beet does not shoot from the pipe, but the exhaust goes to the cabin instead. The pilot lands the machine immediately after the takeoff and feels dizzy for a few minutes after. Then the girl's [[ChildhoodFriendRomance Unlucky Childhood Friend]] surrenders himself to the police as the perpetrator, fearing that this accident may qualify as a murder attempt. The pilot pities him and insists that a helicopter cannot be harmed by beet and nothing happened.[[note]]The friend still gets 15 days of community service [[ItsALongStory for systematically misleading the police and being a general nuisance]]. The girl joins him and helps him sweep streets, finally leaving the pilot alone.[[/note]]

* ''Series/{{Columbo}}'' did this with a potato.
* A variation was used in ''Series/PushingDaisies'': the murderer shoved a potato into the tailpipe of Ned's car to fill the car with exhaust and knock out Ned and Emerson during a stakeout.
** Such a thing could only happen if the exhaust system already had a leak up near the passenger compartment, which they would have noticed when the car suddenly became louder because the muffler was being bypassed.
** The same was used much earlier in an episode of ''Series/{{Ironside|1967}}''.

* Happened in ''Series/{{Eastenders}}'', with a potato. A man put it in his enemy's car's tailpipe and sniggered as the car sputtered. He stopped laughing when the pressure ejected the potato into his shop window.

* The second case of ''VisualNovel/ApolloJusticeAceAttorney'' featured a car being disabled by -- wait for it -- [[spoiler:a pair of panties. MAGICAL panties]].
** [[spoiler: To the relief of one and all, the person who they were stolen from (yes, stolen from) doesn't wear them; they're part of a BagOfHolding-type act. But that doesn't make the choice of prop any less disturbing...]]

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "The Honking", Leela plans to kill the were-car by shoving a silver potato in its tailpipe. Unfortunately, it doesn't have one, "thanks to Ed Begley Jr.'s electric motor, the most evil propulsion system ever conceived!"
** Again, in "Into the Wild Green Yonder", when the Feministas sabotage a sweeper by pouring sugar in the fuel tank and shoving an organic potato (crawling with worms) in the tailpipe.

* Appeared in the short-lived ''WesternAnimation/AceVentura: Pet Detective'' series.

** Similarly, some joke stores sell tailpipe whistles. [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin They fit over the pipe and partially obstruct air flow in a way that causes it to make a whistling sound.]]
*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYRDuOCKr2A The whistles go whoo whoo]]

* In the ''Franchise/SpiderMan'' game for [=PlayStation=], you have to close several smokestacks with covers, to cause an effect "like a banana in a tailpipe". In the sillier What If? mode, the tops of the covers actually have bananas on them.

* There is an interview with Creator/TerryPratchett where he imagines the Discworld subversion of this: someone on stakeout on horseback, and someone else (the Librarian?) sneaking up behind them with a banana. Something similar actually happens in ''[[Discworld/NightWatch Night Watch]]''. Except instead of a horse, it's an ox. And instead of a banana, it's a handful of fresh ginger. And instead of making the animal [[HilarityEnsues stop moving]]...

A subtrope of VehicularSabotage. Contrast WeaponizedExhaust, which this sort of thing should theoretically prevent.

* In the live-action version of ''Film/OneHundredAndOneDalmatians'', raccoons put a large nut in the tailpipe of the bad guys' truck. The pressure does shoot the nut out eventually -- when the bad guy is examining the tail pipe.

* ''Anime/CrossAnge'': Hilda sabotages Ange's mecha by clogging the tailpipe with lingerie. This causes the mecha to underperform and almost get Ange killed when the engine eventually quits and it crashes.

* ''Anime/CrossAnge'': Hilda sabotages Ange's mecha by clogging the tailpipe with lingerie. This causes the mecha to underperform and almost get Ange killed.

A subtrope of VehicularSabotage.

* ''Series/DeathInParadise'': In "Written in Murder", DI stops a suspect by escaping by stuffing a banana up the tailpipe of his motor scooter. He comments that a potato would have been better, but he made do with what he had to hand.

[[RealityIsUnrealistic If only it worked like that in real life]]. A banana or a single potato jammed into the tailpipe will probably be ejected at high speed. Completely blocking the tailpipe of a car with something that can't simply be blown out (which can be as simple as ''more'' bananas) ''will'' smother the engine, but will not set the car on fire.

* There was an episode of the ''Anime/LittleLulu'' anime where Wilbur's butler was replaced by a [[DrillSergeantNasty stricter butler]] who anticipated all of the tricks that Lulu and the others were going to pull on him. Finally, they come up with a plan to work together to get rid of the mean butler. One of the tricks involved Tubby stuffing a handkerchief in the tailpipe of the limosine, and when the mean butler checked the tailpipe, the handkerchief came loose and he wound up with a face full of smoke and soot from the tailpipe.

* The TropeNamer here is the film ''Film/BeverlyHillsCop'', where Eddie Murphy's character used this technique to foil a group of bumbling police officers. Famous for a notorious editing screwup: the banana he holds is curved, but the one in the tailpipe is straight -- they couldn't fit the bent one in the tailpipe. Filming mistakes aside, the movie does, surprisingly, play the trope more accurately than most: Axel uses multiple bananas to ensure an effective obstruction, and there is no fire or explosion.

* In Soviet comedy ''Dog Paced a Piano'' a high school girl and her preteen sister sabotage one of engines of a cropdusting Hoodlum helicopter with a beet. Because the older sister loves the pilot and doesn't want him to leave. The beet does not shoot from the pipe, but the exhaust goes to the cabin instead. The pilot lands the machine immediately after the takeoff and feels dizzy for a few minutes after. Then the girl's UnluckyChildhoodFriend surrenders himself to the police as the perpetrator, fearing that this accident may qualify as a murder attempt. The pilot pities him and insists that a helicopter cannot be harmed by beet and nothing happened.[[note]]The friend still gets 15 days of community service [[ItsALongStory for systematically misleading the police and being a general nuisance]]. The girl joins him and helps him sweep streets, finally leaving the pilot alone.[[/note]]

* In the ''Franchise/SpiderMan'' game for Playstation, you have to close several smokestacks with covers, to cause an effect "like a banana in a tailpipe". In the sillier What If? mode, the tops of the covers actually have bananas on them.

* A clear ShoutOut in the super-short-lived ''WesternAnimation/ClerksTheAnimatedSeries'': one episode revolved around spoofing courtroom dramas and featured actor Judge Reinhold as...well, an actual judge: the Honorable Judge Reinhold. The episode became a crazy patchwork of dream sequences, usually ending in a CatapultNightmare for the character having the dream. In Reinhold's dream, his final verdict is interrupted by Detective Axel Foley, the lead character of the ''Film/BeverlyHillsCop'' series, bursting into the courtroom and telling "Billy" he needed his help. (Judge Reinhold played Detective William Rosewood in the 'Film/BeverlyHillsCop'' films). Reinhold eagerly drops his black robe and rushes to Axel's aid. The two spend many happy hours stuffing bananas in tailpipes and laughing as cars malfunction...until the fruit vendor runs out of bananas, at which point it's Reinhold's turn to catapult awake.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'', Jack and Smokescreen return from a mission together laughing their heads off. Smokescreen asks what Jack put in his boss's exhaust pipe, and Jack responds with "Pizza". They specifically dump fast food on people's cars as a way of circumventing the fact that [[ThouShallNotKill they shouldn't be violently hurting people for petty reasons]]. Arcee is less than impressed.

** Similarly, some joke stores sell tailpipe whistles. [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin They fit over the pipe and partially obstruct air flow in a way that causes it to make a whistling sound]].

And [[HehHehYouSaidX stop snickering]] already! [[AccidentalInnuendo That's not what this trope means]]!!