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"A banana has two uses: food... and entertainment."
Garfield, Garfield February 4, 1982

Guaranteed to send a character into a Slippery Skid (of which this is a Sub-Trope), a Banana Peel is one of the most dangerous things you can encounter in a cartoon. Just stepping on one will inevitably lead to a pratfall or some variety of injury, often capped by a case of Circling Birdies. Sometimes part of a Trash Landing.

Despite its status as a quintessential part of Slapstick and Cartoon Physics, the use of a banana peel as an injurious prop is actually alarmingly realistic and a reference to its ubiquity on the streets of American cities in the early part of the 20th century. Refrigeration and shipping speed had combined to make bananas the most popular fruit in the country, and in that age before anti-littering laws, people would just eat the fruit and discard the peels wherever they were. As they rotted, the peels would become quite slippery and thus dangerous to tread upon. Banana peels were in fact responsible for a large number of accidents and injuries, including several severely broken legs that eventually had to be amputated, according to period sources. The problem grew so bad that modern urban street sanitation systems were invented mostly to deal with the peel; in New York City, the banana peel actually became something of a symbol of modern sanitation. This is also frequently homaged, just about anytime a cartoon character ends up crashing into a trash can, garbage truck, or any other public-sanitation device, he's likely to find himself having at least one banana peel stuck to him.

Note, however, that the slippery banana peel trope is often used unrealistically — a fresh banana peel is hardly slippery at all. One episode of Jonathan Creek makes the point that you're more likely to slip on a dog turd. Even so, it is still not an inconsiderable risk — for example, in 2001 Great Britain recorded over 300 banana-related accidents, most of which were caused by slipping on a peel. Whether or not it was hilarious to onlookers is not recorded.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 
  • Played straight in a CN City bumper in which Mojo Jojo tosses the peel on the ground after eating the banana, causing Mandark to slip on it a few seconds later.
  • Averted in a Domino's commercial where a man carrying one of their pizzas sees the peel before he can step on it and puts it in a garbage can - only to drop the pizza when a skunk pops out and startles him.
  • Played straight in this Rexona commercial when a woman slips on a banana peel she just dropped.
  • Subverted in a Red Bull commercial. Three people notice the peel and carefully step over or around it. However, the guy who drank Red Bull uses it as a skateboard.

    Animation 
  • 4 Angies: In episode 14, Kai-chan has a dream multiple times throughout the episode about her slipping on a banana peel and being dragged back up from the ground by a boy, who she assumes to be her true love.
  • Happy Heroes: Smart S. trips over a banana peel in episode 7 of Season 2, hurting him to the point that he can't perform his role as the prince in the upcoming School Play. This gives Big M. the idea to make a machine that dispenses banana peels to make everyone slip and sabotage the play.
  • GG Bond: In Season 12 episode 5, GG Bond notices the city hasn't been cleaned and slips on a banana peel that's among the trash. He slides out of control, avoiding several obstacles in a row before flying over a city resident, slipping again on a watermelon slice, and then running into a traffic light.
  • In the Lamput episode "The Chase", Lamput morphs into a banana peel and makes Fat Doc and Slim Doc, who are trying to capture him and bring him back to their lab as usual, slip into some nearby trash cans.
  • In the Noonbory and the Super 7 episode "Double Trouble", Dozegury slips up Noonbory with a banana peel to stall for time.
  • The first episode of Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: The Athletic Carousel shows that Wolffy has invented robotic banana peels that he intends to use to slip up the goats. He falls victim to one of his own banana peels instead, showing that they electrocute anyone who slips on them.
  • In Pleasant Goat Fun Class: Travel Around the World episode 20, Wolffy slips on a banana peel and only barely lands on his toes.

    Anime & Manga 
  • In Arakawa Under the Bridge episode 5, this trope is averted by Kou but played straight for P-Ko. Kou does not slip on a banana peel even after deliberately stomping on it.
    Ric: Sorry, but nowadays people don't even slip on these in comedies.
    P-ko: No way! They're clearly just broken! Usually, as soon as I set foot on one... [sets off banana-peel Slippery Skid chain reaction]
  • While Azumanga Daioh never showed a banana, much less a peel, Osaka mentions slipping on a banana peel as something she wants to try.
  • Happens in episode 7 of Baka and Test: Summon the Beasts's second season. Right after responding to a guy who sent him a text message about why he was so curious about peeping in the girl's bathroom, Akihisa sends a reply stating "Isn't it obvious? I like what I like." Unfortunately, he sent that message to one of the main girls of the show (so to her it would seem like a Love Confession from the Oblivious to Love character), and before he can correct his mistake, his friend Yuuji walks by to see what was wrong, and happens to slip on a banana peel. It causes him to slip, and he accidentally steps on Akihisa's cell phone before a reply can be made.
  • It happens early on in Bakemonogatari, when the protagonist, Araragi, discovers Senjogahara's "condition"... Because she slipped on a banana peel and fell from the stairs into his arms. After their slightly later, slightly more traumatizing encounter, Araragi demands that Hanekawa never eat a banana in school, and if she does, to always throw it away properly.
  • One of Metaletemon's attacks, from Digimon. Yes, a mega-level move is to throw a banana peel.
  • At the end of the Doraemon episode "The Not So Lucky, Lucky Cards!", the person who winds up with the deck of cards, which now consists of only the joker card, ends up slipping on a banana peel and falling into a sewer.
  • Occurs in the beginning of the Eiken OVA, the male protagonist slipping on a banana peel for a Crash-Into Hello with the future love interest. More specifically, he ends up on top of her with both hands on her (enormous) breasts. (You can watch it on JesuOtaku's review.)
  • Hetalia: Axis Powers:
    • One strip has America tripping on one. He breaks his leg even though he landed on his face.
    • It also happens to South Italy (Romano) in an old strip when he tries to charge at Germany. He trips on the peel, but winds up with a skinned arm and forehead from landing on his face.
  • Himouto! Umaru-chan has episode 6, in which one segment involving Umaru, Taihei, and Kirie playing a video game version of Game of Life while a narrator tells about all the events happening. At one point, the narrator mentions Kirie slipping on a banana peel, with the injury forcing Kirie to retire from swimming.
  • Used in Humanity Has Declined to create a time slip.
  • In episode 32 of Jewelpet Twinkle☆, Tata magically makes a bunch of banana peels appear on the race track so that the other competitors slip on them. Dian uses a magic spell to blow the peels towards Tata, and he ends up slipping on one himself and loses the race as a result.
    Tata: Mukii! This is so bitter-damon!
    Miria: Just what you get for playing dirty!
  • In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: JoJolion, this is invoked as Aisho Dainenjiyama slips on a banana peel created by the stand Paisley Park.
  • The 43rd episode of Kira Kira Happy Hirake Cocotama has a girl named Yuuka slip on a banana peel and lose one of her shoes.
  • In an episode of the anime adaptation of Kochikame, a banana on the subway platform tracks caused a train to derail with hilarity reaction.
  • Su from Love Hina sometimes leaves these around. Sarah also tries to deliberately throw one in front of Keitarō once.
  • A banana peel appeared in Nichijou during one episode, in which a karate person slipped on that banana peel.
  • In the One Piece movie One Piece Film: Gold, Baccarat's Luck-Luck Devil Fruit power allows her to alter her own or another person's luck and the Straw Hats she affects (among other unlucky things) wind up painfully slipping on banana peels that just seem to appear off-screen.
    Franky: Should I be worried here, 'cause that was funny.
  • The Ouran High School Host Club anime uses banana peels as a running gag. At first the local Trickster Twins are seen eating them to set it up; then chimpanzees start appear out of nowhere right about the time the St. Lobelia Academy girls show up. Ten episodes in they stop trying to explain it, but the banana peels keep turning up anyway. This gag does not show up in the manga.
  • The 28th episode of the PaRappa the Rapper anime has the witch accidentally free PaRappa from the cage she locked him in when she slips on a banana peel and ends up throwing the key into the lock.
  • In a variation, when Shouma from Penguindrum steps on a discarded bottle in episode 15, it has the same effect as if he had stepped on a banana peel.
  • In The Pet Girl of Sakurasou, Sorata slips on a banana peel in the beginning of Episode 7, causing him to slip and fall down on top of Mashiro. Just in time for Yuuko to enter the door.
  • In the Pokémon: The Original Series episode "Beauty and the Beach" (initially banned in the West, and then aired with several edits), Meowth uses banana peels to slip up Bulbasaur and Misty, who are helping to serve customers at a restaurant.
  • Pretty Cure:
    • In Suite Pretty Cure ♪, a Negatone gives the Cures bad luck, which makes them both slip on spontaneously-appearing banana peels and makes them fall ass-over-tea kettle.
    • Smile PreCure!: In Episode 34, Candy has the Monster of the Week weakened after consuming a giant banana and tossing its peel to make the Akanbe slip.
  • Ranma from Ranma ½ slips on a banana peel, causing a chain reaction which results in the creation of a clone of his girl-side possessed by a ghost, stepping from a Magic Mirror. After much trouble, the twin (who wasn't so much evil than horny) is sealed again in the mirror, at which point Ranma slips on a banana peel in the exact same place, resulting in a clone of his male side.
  • In Revolutionary Girl Utena, Nanami slips on a banana peel discarded by Chu-Chu.
  • In one episode of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, Itoshiki talks about wanting to die a "celebrity death", which he initially means dying by something owned by a celebrity. One example is "slipping on a celebrity's banana peel", which is immediately followed by the Rimshot sound.
  • Seton Academy: Join the Pack!: Pan Saruhara cheats in a race by throwing down a banana peel to make her oppenents slip.
  • In an episode of Sgt. Frog, Giroro distracts Keroro with a banana peel. Keroro being the big show-off that he is, he can't resist stepping and slipping on the peel. Keroro's inability to resist slipping on banana peels becomes a minor Running Gag.
  • In Tamagotchi: Happiest Story in the Universe!, Kikitchi throws banana peels onto the ground to make Memetchi and Makiko slip due to him being jealous about their interest in the magical books.
  • Undead Unluck: In her first meeting with Andy, Fuuko's attempt to flee causes her to slip on a banana that fell from a crate on top of Andy after it was brought by her Unluck.
  • The first training to make Sumika more clumsy in Whispered Words is this. Also lampshaded in its status as Discredited Trope.

    Comic Books 
  • Batman:
    • Even Batman himself can be laid low by a banana peel.
    • Issue number five of The Batman and Robin Adventures (a tie-in comic to Batman: The Animated Series) features the story "Second Banana", which begins with the Joker trying to beat a man to death with bananas ("Bananas are funny. Death by bananas is a positive riot.") for welshing on a trivial bet over a baseball game, complains how long it took for him to do so, and states that he'll bring plantains next time. Cue about ten or so pages of him trying to kill the Riddler, who had been declared smarter than he was. After an old bait-and-switch, he comes to kill Riddler for real... with plantains this time. The peel itself comes in at the very end when the Joker, about to shoot Batman with a Hand Cannon, slips on it and falls, allowing the Caped Crusader to haul him back to Arkham.
    • Batman and Robin (2009) has the Joker facing off against the equally villainous Dr. Simon Hurt. He places a gun just out of his reach, and they have a contest to see who can get to the gun first, but Hurt fails to notice the banana peel Joker had left on the stone steps; he ends up slipping on it and cracking open his skull, allowing The Joker to bury him alive. (This is also a Stealth Pun: Joker referred to the banana as a "Big Mike", and "God's top gun" — referring to both the Gros Michel banana and the Archangel Michael, making it fitting that it's used to defeat a Satanic Archetype.)
  • Doom Patrol:
    • The cover of volume two, issue 34 showed a heavily armed gorilla (Monsieur Mallah) walking along the street pushing a baby carriage and about to slip on a banana peel.
    • Volume two, issue 50 has Crazy Jane slip on a banana peel because of Brotherhood of Dada member Number None.
  • The Flash: During The Silver Age of Comic Books, the Flash found himself facing a villain who got him to slip on an atomic banana peel. Cue him slipping into outer space.
  • In the Marsupilami comic series, there is an evil businessman who wants to make profit out of banana plantations, and his henchmen try to find original product ideas. One suggests making lubricant out of the banana peels since its slippy factor would be of great advantage, but this idea is already heavily patented. Another henchman suggests making concrete out of the banana peels, but another one points out that the concrete would be very slippery.
  • In the comedy comic series Nabuchodinosaure, there is an episode where the title character has to outrun another dinosaur and is carrying a lot of bananas. Therefore, he throws the banana peels at his pursuer so he keeps on slipping. The end of the story is him being bloated up because he ate all the bananas that he peeled since he doesn't like wasting food.
  • Used in The Smurfs comic book story about Baby Smurf's paper dolls, who play that trick on a hapless Greedy Smurf carrying a dessert with him.
  • Tintin:
  • In a Titeuf comic, Titeuf used a banana peel to break the leg of a doctor who was going to vaccinate the students. He was said to have hands that shakes a lot, much to the fear of the students for his syringe.
  • A short bonus story at the end of V for Vendetta has V lock a secret police agent out onto an 18 inch ledge, where he slips on one of these (which V had dropped there).

    Comic Strips 
  • There is a humorous full-page cartoon in a magazine showing a monkey skating in the jungle by having its feet in banana peels. It would be very hard for banana peels to slide on jungle soil, not to mention that the peels had the "non-slippery" part on the outside.
  • Anacleto agente secreto:
    • Played with in this Spanish strip: in one gag, the main character slips on a banana peel... in the middle of a frozen river in the South Pole.
    • Yet another strip shows the main character trying to infiltrate in one house by walking right up the façade. It works well, until he slips on a banana peel.
  • One Big Nate Sunday strip sees Nate and Teddy test this out. Neither of them slips on the peel, and they take that as proof that the trope doesn't happen in real life, only for Mrs. Godfrey to walk in and slip on it herself.
  • The Far Side: One comic features a penguin slipping on a banana peel in the middle of a vast plane of ice.
  • In Frazz, one girl tries to slip on a fresh banana peel. Much to her disappointment, she remains firmly in place... possibly because she tried it on carpet.
  • Garfield:
  • The oldest known example of slipping on a banana peel being played for humor dates to 1880 and a Harpers' Weekly two-panel cartoon called "Banana-Skin Butcheries". The gag is mixed with anti-Irish bigotry. The first panel, labeled "Cause", shows a drunken Irishman flinging his banana peel on a sidewalk. The second panel, labeled "Effect", shows a finely-dressed gentleman being carried away on a stretcher.
  • An old New Yorker cartoon by Charles Addams shows a banana peel lying innocently on a busy city sidewalk, cordoned off by "caution" signs.
  • In this Rugrats comic strip, Angelica uses a banana skin to make Tommy slip. The joke backfires when he likes it, and gets his friends to join in.

    Fan Works 

    Films — Animation 
  • In Anastasia, Sigmund Freud steps on one. That's right, a literal Freudian Slip.
  • Parodied in Flushed Away. While chasing Roddy, Spike and Whitey notice and very carefully step around a banana peel despite it being bigger than they are, allowing their target to get a good distance away from them. Immediately afterwards, they slip on a pair of much smaller slugs.
  • Kung Fu Panda: Secrets of the Furious Five: Monkey's flashback shows that banana peels were his favorite prank to the hapless villagers. Then he attempts this on Oogway by surrounding him with peels, but the turtle manages to get past them all and Monkey falls prey to his own trap.
  • In The Powerpuff Girls Movie, Hacha Chacha's plan for world domination involves littering the city with banana peels so people will slip on them.
    My name is Hacha Chacha, and here is my spiel,
    A diabolical plan with lots of ap-peel,
    Spreading out bananas far and wide,
    And fixing up the folks for a slippery slide!
  • The Princess and the Frog gives an example of the real-life conditions causing this trope in the description. Tiana is negotiating a real estate deal with the Fenners, and the shorter of the two eats a banana peel and discards it carelessly on the ground. No-one slips on it, however.
  • The Super Mario Bros. Movie has an example that plays out the same way it does in the Mario Kart series. The Kong who escorts Mario, Peach, and Toad through the Jungle Kingdom grabs and eats a banana during the drive before tossing the peel onto the road. Swanky Kong ends up driving over the peel and careening off the road.
  • In The Wizard of Speed and Time (both the short and the feature), the title character, after a minute of running hyperfast across the world, encounters a banana peel that trips him up.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In Aquaman: The Cast of the Angler, Aquaman slips on one of the Angler's discarded banana peels and has trouble with a guard as a result.
  • Discussed in Batman, where Lt. Eckhardt, asked by a reporter about two Hoodlums found beaten up by Batman, responds that those two just slipped on a banana peel.
  • In Billy Madison, a bus driver tosses a banana peel out of the window onto the highway. The banana peel slowly rots, forgotten, as the film goes on... until the end of the film when the Jerkass O'Doyle family's car drives onto it, swerves around and ends up driving off the cliff.
  • In The Black Balloon, Charlie and his friend Russell appear in a School Play about Noah's Ark as two monkeys. Their dance involves one of them dropping a banana peel and the other pretending to slip.
  • Exaggerated in Chaplin's film The Circus when the Tramp slips on a banana peel on a tightrope, placed there by a monkey.
  • In the movie version of The Colour of Magic, the wizards try to kill Trymon by using a banana peel as a distraction so he would die because of wet cement covering him; it fails. Later on, during the climactic battle atop the Tower of Art, Trymon slips on a banana peel and is hit by his own spell.
  • The Diamond Arm uses a watermelon rind instead of a banana peel (bananas were much rarer than watermelons in The '60s' USSR), but to the same result: the protagonist slips on a rind right in front of the contrabandists' pharmacy and is mistaken for the actual courier.
  • In Fatty's Tintype Tangle, a random passer-by drops a banana peel right in front of Fatty Arbuckle's porch just as Fatty is leaving home.
  • One of Sam Boga's men slips on a large bunch of them in The Gods Must Be Crazy. It was pretty much inevitable, considering the guerrillas were camped out in a forest of banana trees that was being shredded by machine gun fire.
  • In the football game of Horse Feathers, one of Chico and Harpo's plays involves the use of banana peels for offensive blocking — but Harpo is enjoying it so much, he tosses one under teammate Zeppo, who is running with the ball.
  • It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World has a banana peel joke in the final scene. Ethel Merman is the victim.
  • Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl subverts the banana peel joke as part of the "Custard Pie Lecture" sketch. Rather than slipping on the skin, Michael Palin picks it up and stuffs it down Terry Jones's overalls.
  • Shaolin Soccer:
    • Played straight and subverted. In an early scene, the main character and his coach watch a woman trip on a banana peel, they then cut to a shaolin temple where a monk trips, catches himself and proceeds to jump across a field of banana peels, landing on each one and using it as a jumping point.
    • There's a callback to this at the end of the movie, when a woman slips on a banana peel and catches herself spectacularly, starting a chain of scenes showing that the main character and his girlfriend are now world-famous and have started a craze for learning amazing martial arts skills.
  • In Sherlock, Jr. (1924), Buster Keaton sets a banana peel trap for his rival but ends up slipping on it himself.
  • In Singin' in the Rain, Donald O'Connor sings that one of the ways to "Make 'em Laugh" is to slip on a banana peel.
  • In Woody Allen's Sleeper, the future has produced giant-sized bananas. Naturally, two characters have lots of trouble staying upright when the peels are left on the ground.
  • An especially goofy example occurs in the Bob Hope movie The Son of Paleface, when he tosses out handfuls of banana peels to trip up Red Indians, who are pursuing his old car on horseback.
  • In The Son of the Sheik, Pincher the mischievous vaudevillian deliberately chucks a banana peel under the strong man's feet during his act. The strong man falls down, and in the process reveals that his supposed heavy barbell is really hollow.
  • In Transylvania 6-5000, Fejos carries banana peels in his pockets and throws them on the ground and then attempts to slip on them in an effort to prove his comedic talents to Gil. However, he keeps falling over before he even reaches the peels.
  • The The Three Stooges short "Pardon My Scotch" features an interesting variation on this trope. Curly launches an unpeeled banana into the mouth of an opera singer to get him to shut up. The indignant opera singer attempts to storm out, but slips on the half of the banana he spit out.
  • Subverted in the French movie La Vengeance du serpent à plumes. The protagonist is trailed by an assassin in the Parisian subway while eating a banana. You'd expect this trope to come into play, but the bad guy instead slips on a discarded metal can just as he's about to strike, and falls on his own blade. The clueless "hero" then blindly tosses the banana peel behind him, which lands on the face of the dying assassin.
  • In the V for Vendetta movie, this is part of the Benny Hill-inspired skit on TV, with Gordon Dietrich (Stephen Fry) dropping a banana under the feet of the fake V, allowing the guards to catch him.
  • The opening of Wrongfully Accused has the prison bus slip on a banana peel while driving through the mountain road, causing it to fall off a cliff.

    Jokes 
  • A very old joke:
    Q: What do you call two banana peels?
    A: A pair of slippers!

    Literature 
  • Computer War by Mack Reynolds. When a couple of saboteurs infiltrate a government office, one of them is eating a banana as 'local colour' so he will look like anything but a spy trying to remain unobtrusive. After bluffing their way past a guard, they run into the same guard later on when he catches them coming out of a restricted area. They have to kill him on the spot and throw his body down a stairwell, rubbing the banana on his shoes and leaving the peel to Make It Look Like an Accident.
  • According to the Discworld Fools' Guild Diary:
    15 Offle: On this day in the Year of the Running Stoat, the first banana was off-loaded at the docks in Ankh-Morpork (according to the Histories of Marcellus) and the first banana-skin joke took place eighteen minutes later. Question for students: how often do you see banana-skins in the street?
  • The Franny K. Stein book The Fran That Time Forgot had Franny wind up in a Bad Future where her teenage self was planning to terrorize everyone with an army of elephant monsters as a result of Franny's short-sighted effort in changing her Embarrassing Middle Name and telling her infant self that there is nothing worse than being laughed at when she time-traveled back to the day she was born. When restrained by one of the elephant monsters, Franny breaks free by shoving cheese from her voice-activated cheese cannon up the monster's trunk and having him tripped up by a banana peel that had been lying there all this time from her years of neglecting to clean her room.
  • In Miss Bindergarten Has a Wild Day in Kindergarten, Danny falls victim to this in the cafeteria.
  • In The Pal Patrol, a book based on The Lion King, Simba arrives at Pride Rock an hour later than he promised Timon and Pumbaa because he had to help a herd of elephants who slipped on some banana peels that a troop of monkeys tossed on the ground. When Simba asks Timon and Pumbaa why the monkeys can't remember to clean up after themselves, Pumbaa tells him that he thought monkeys never forgot. Timon reminds him that it's elephants who never forget anything.
  • Roys Bedoys: In "No Littering, Roys Bedoys!", Maker slips on a banana peel while skating.
  • Star Wars Legends: Mentioned in Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, when Nick Rostu stalls a mob by firing into the floor and making the first meter or two turn into slippery goo, so that they all fall in heaps and struggle in vain to stand.
    Nick Rostu: Not bad. Maybe not up there with slipping on a raballa peel, but still pretty funny.
  • MAD Kids did a magazine cover that featured Naruto Uzumaki slipping on a banana peel
  • An outtake in one of the Tough Magic books has the main character dueling a clown. Unsurprisingly, one of the tricks the clown pulls is making a banana peel field. Which he himself falls prey to.
  • Watch Out for Banana Peels (and Other Important Sesame Safety Tips) is a book based on Sesame Street. The book's cover art features Grover slipping on a banana peel that Elmo tosses on the ground, and the page for Safety Tip #2 features a similar thing happening.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Acme School of Stuff had a Radio Shack Armatron try inserting a VCR cassette. One instance had the robot slip on a peel.
  • On an episode of America's Funniest Home Videos Tom Bergeron introduces a banana peel as "a great source of pratfalls" as he drops one at his feet. The series of clips that follows are pratfalls, but none involving banana peels.
  • In an episode of German kids show Bernd das Brot, Star Wars series gets parodied. The heroes go against the Clown Warriors, and Bernd as always gets the short end of the stick, respectively bananas since they don't have enough light swords for everybody. But since he is also insanely Genre Savvy, he weaponizes his bananas - clowns must slip on them when they see one.
  • There was an episode of Castelo Rá-Tim-Bum where Caipora ate some bananas and kept throwing the peels everywhere. Pretty much everyone in the castle slips on them.
  • Cheers: One season 2 episode has Coach trying to break his record for least amount of glasses broken. As the timer starts running out, he begins cavalierly breaking glasses left and right, much to Carla's horror. Coach reassures her even he can't be that clumsy... the next act break ends with Coach sitting in defeat, staring at a banana peel.
    Coach: Damn exotic drinks...
  • In the pilot episode of Dead Like Me (called "Pilot"), George goes to collect a soul and the banana peel on the floor of the bank is the subject of debate, as she thinks she knows that this will be the cause of someone's death — and even after the bank is held hostage and shot up, she turns out to be right.
  • In season 4, episode 1 of the French series Dix pour cent Charlotte Gainsbourg, playing herself, falsely claims to have slipped on a banana peel... and then actually slips on said peel and goes flying down the stairs.
  • The Goodies:
    • In episode "Cunning Stunts", Bill wants to commit suicide, so enters the Eurovision Loony Contest. One scene has him coming across a table piled with bananas, which he proceeds to eat and throw the peels on the ground so he can slip on them. Graeme and Tim race to stop him and end up slipping over the skins also.
    • And a mimed banana peel causes a nasty accident in "Daylight Robbery on the Orient Express".
  • An episode of Good Eats featuring bananas and plantains spoofed this multiple times.
  • How I Met Your Mother: A series of flashbacks reveal that the gang once decided to test this by dropping a banana peel on the floor of MacClaren's and having Barney step on it. Barney insists it won't work but ends up slipping. This turns out to be a good thing, as he falls he bumps into a woman who was about to choke and the jolt clears her throat.
  • Jonathan Creek:
    • The first episode saw the title character experimenting with this after seeing a commercial making use of it; after taking a good run at it, he ended up slipping on dog muck instead.
    • Another character complained about the use of this trope in an unaired TV commercial, especially since it depicted a bicycle slippping on the peel.
  • In the LazyTown episode "Robbie's Dream Team", Robbie Rotten demonstrates this to the title dream-team of Robbie lookalikes as a potential plan to defeat Sportacus by dropping several banana peels on the ground during "We Are Number One". They promptly slip on them themselves and fall to the ground.
    Robbie: Now watch, and learn, here's the deal! He'll slip and slide on this banana peel~!
    [watches in utter disbelief as his lookalikes step on the peels themselves and slip over]
    Robbie: WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!
  • MTV Movie & TV Award had a spoof of the 1998 Godzilla movie's taxi chase scene. With Godzilla in pursuit, Christopher Lloyd, playing a senile taxi driver, gets surprised and drops a banana peel out of the window, causing Godzilla to fall over. Link here.
  • The MythBusters tested this trope by building a field full of banana peels and running an obstacle course over it. For comparison, they also had a similar field coated in animal birthing lubricant (which Jamie happened to have in the shop). While the peels were definitely more slippery than solid ground, it was nowhere near as slick as the lubed ground and (assuming you know the peel is there) it was certainly not an automatic slip like you'd see in a cartoon.
  • In Odd Squad, Nana Banana is a villain with the ability to fire bananas out of her hands. The floor of her lair is littered with banana peels, which causes Agent Olympia and the Stitcher to slide crazily when they race in an attempt to grab the Stitcher's notebook in "Who is Agent Otis?".
  • The opening credits of each episode of Resident Alien feature Ikea instructional manual style instructions on how for a Hugh Mann alien to blend into human society. The credits for "Family Day" depict this, the twist being that simply taking the banana peel and throwing it in the trash gets the red X because the gag is that you're supposed to slip on the banana peel.
  • The anti-embarrassment spell from Sabrina the Teenage Witch involves a magic banana peel that when slipped on, causes the embarrassee to laugh at themselves. Sabrina uses it on Valerie to remove her embarrassment but ends up getting humiliated as a consequence. At the end of the episode Sabrina tosses it over her shoulder but it misses the trash bin, just as Libby approaches carrying a large cake.
  • Super Sentai:
  • The Weekly with Charlie Pickering: During her piece on the gig economy, one of the gags that Zoë Coombs Marr performs as part of her "Uber Gags" gig is stepping on a banana peel and doing a pratfall on to her back. She then adds that, as contractors, gig economy workers have no coverage for workplace injuries.
  • In the Canadian public TV series Today's Special, a female mime illustrates why dropping banana peels is a bad idea: [1]
  • "Nutrition" (a.k.a. "Good, Healthy Foods"), a 1981 season episode of You Can't Do That on Television:
    Christine: [eating a banana] You know, bananas just might be nature's original "take-out" food. Get it? "Take out"? [silence] Anyway, you can still have a lot of fun with the skin. Watch this. [tosses the peel onto the floor in front of her; Ross walks by and slips on it, causing a gigantic offscreen crash]

    Manhua 
  • Banana peel gags are a recurring gag in Old Master Q, but one 12-panel strip takes it to it's logical extreme when Chiu decides to prank Master Q in the first 3 panels by throwing a peel from behind a wall and laughing as Master Q slips. So Master Q decides to retaliate... by dumping a dustbin of peels on Chiu when he next shows up. Cut to Chiu slipping over peels for 9 panels.

    Music 
  • "Fallin' Never Felt So Good" by Shawn Camp:
    Now I'm a guy that does what he feels
    But I never seem to spot that banana peel
    With eyes shut tight and nerves of steel
    I'm takin' the plunge, baby, head over heels
    Fallin' never felt so good...
  • A Playground Song set to the long-ago Chiquita advertising jingle:
    I'm Chiquita Banana, and I'm here to say
    Get rid of your teacher the easy way.
    Just put a banana peel on the floor
    And watch her go sliding out the door.
  • The girl in the first verse of Psychostick's "It's Just a Movie, Stupid" slips on a banana peel but is saved from falling by a guy who's described in the song as "tall and dark, and strong and kind, and sensitive with washboard abs".
  • Wall of Voodoo: Stan Ridgway has his "Salesman" slipping on a banana peel (it's only metaphoric, though).
  • Steppenwolf's "Twisted":
    While climbing up Mt. Everest to get away from all the noise
    I slipped on a banana peel and almost got destroyed
    And I was worried all the way down to the ground
    When it comes to holding safety nets
    Nobody seems to be around

    Music Videos 
  • In the video for Mastodon's "Show Yourself", an incompetent Grim Reaper (who's been failing to kill the band for the whole video), discards a banana peel into the street which somehow manages to make Mastodon's tour bus skid out of control and crash, killing all of them.
  • In the video for "Psycho" by Puddle of Mudd, a Banana Peel causes a lethal slip to happen in a shower similar to a famous scene from the movie the music video was based on.
  • This happens to Ivy Levan in the video for her song "Hot Damn" after she's defeated most of a gang of criminals who were menacing the diner she works at.
  • Happens to the female protagonist in the clip for White Town's "Your Woman".

    Podcasts 

    Pro Wrestling 
  • On Magnificent Championship Wrestling's Fourth Anniversary show, Space Monkey defeated Kwan Chang when they latter held the former up for a power slam or something... and then slipped on a banana peel, pinning himself.
  • During a Dramatic Dream Team match, Super Sasadango Machine put a banana peel on his face when Kazushi Sakuraba leaped to double stomp it, causing Sakuraba to slide off.

    Puppet Shows 
  • This is referenced in the song "Oops, I Goofed Again!" from Bear in the Big Blue House, in which Bear sings "If I slip and trip on a banana peel, I say 'oops, I goofed again'."
  • In The Muppet Show this trope is in play when the Swedish Chef's demonstration of making a banana split by chopping a banana is continually interrupted by a Mexican musical conga line passing by at different times. At the end of his patience, he gets his revenge by throwing a (spotty!) peel on the ground in front of his counter and luring the conga line to make another pass, and they all fall on their faces.
  • Sesame Street:
    • In a segment, Grover returns from Jordan with a basket of banana peels. As he dumps them on the ground, he calls out the viewer's expectations that he'll slip on them ("Comedy 101!") and vows that won't happen. He still manages anyhow.
    • On one of the recurring "Monster Clubhouse" segments, a Muppet comes into the clubhouse asking for the "National Slip-on-the-Banana-Peel Club".
    • In the Elmo's World episode about Shoes, Elmo watches the Shoe Channel, which tells him the story of when shoes were first invented. In prehistoric times, cavemen tried to make shoes out of banana peels, which caused them to slide into trees.
    • In Episode 5023, Joey and Davey toss their banana peels on the ground, and Zoe, who attempts a ballet leap, slips on them, breaking her arm as a result.

    Tabletop Games 
  • The "Homebrewed" Falling Anvil discipline for Dungeons & Dragons version 3.0/3.5 contains three different maneuvers related to this, ranging from dropping a single banana peel near you from your hand, to causing banana peels to rain from the sky for thirty feet around you.

    Theatre 
  • Discussed by Ella in Bells Are Ringing:
    Is it a crime to tell him or is it a crime not to?
    Is it "you mustn't" or "you've got to?"
    Should you say, "Hey watch out for that banana peel, Bud,"
    Or just remain silent, then laugh as he crashes with a thud?
  • In Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, Krapp eats a banana, drops the peel on the floor, and later slips on it.

    Theme Parks 

    Video Games 
  • Ace Attorney:
  • Pipo Monkeys from Ape Escape occasionally drop these.
  • There is a powerup called Banana Peel in Backyard Hockey which sends the opponent into a Slippery Skid, even though there is no actual banana peel in the powerup except for the icon.
  • In Carrie's Order Up!, these show up in later levels, dropped by littering customers. Walking over them provides predictable results, but you can spin right through them without consequence.
  • The PC racing game Crazyracing Kartrider features a banana peel item.
  • In the Darkwing Duck Licensed Game for the [[Platform NES]], if Darkwing steps on a banana peel, he will slip on it, stunning him. During the battle with Quackerjack, Mr. Banana Brain tosses banana peels at Darkwing, but these kind can actually take away his health.
  • During one phase of the final boss in Donkey Kong 64, you have to make him slip on giant banana peels. There are also parts earlier in the game where running over a banana peel results in slipping on it.
  • Fallen Aces allows you to pick up banana peels and weaponize them. Especially in fights, where you can throw the peel you're holding at your target's feet to induce a Slippery Skid on them.
  • Flood Runner 3 and 4 have an achievement for slipping on a certain number of banana peels.
  • In Garfield Lasagna Party, when it's one player's turn to roll, the other players can choose to spend two coins if they have them in their inventory to use the banana peel. Each banana peel used takes one space away from the total number of the player's roll.
  • In the adventure game Gobliiins, one of the player characters can make a werewolf novelist laugh by intentionally slipping on a banana... just a banana.
  • Hitman 3: Agent 47 can throw a banana on the ground. Characters who slip on it lose consciousness, including targets.
  • HuniePop: This art by the Character Designer features a Super-Deformed Audrey having slipped on one of these.
  • In Stars And Time: Slipping on the banana peel on the north side of Dormont will kill Siffrin, allowing them to loop.
  • Referenced in Jardinains! and the sequel Jardinains 2! with the powerup that looks like a banana peel and makes all the nains slip and fall off their bricks. You can go on a mad nain-bouncing spree, but have to watch out for the flowerpots that the nains were holding and dropped when they fell.
  • Kingdom Hearts:
    • The Bouncywild enemies in Kingdom Hearts occasionally toss banana peels. Should Sora step on one, he will slip, fall on his ass, and lose a ton of munny.
    • In Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, they lost the banana peels, and in its PS2 remake, it was re-added, although Sora will now lose Moogle Points instead.
    • Also, in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep during the Fruitball minigame, if your character gets hit by a bunch of bananas, banana peels will spead thoughout your side of the field. If you slip on one, your character is knocked out for several seconds.
  • In Kingdom of Loathing, if your character eats a banana and then continues adventuring in the same area, you will eventually trip over the peel. There is a trophy for doing this multiple times.
  • The Last Story has prank bananas that can somehow be fired from Zael's crossbow at NPCs and party members, leading to much hilarity.
  • In Luck be a Landlord, the Banana Peel is a potential symbol, selectable directly or generatable if a Banana is consumed by a Monkey or Mrs. Fruit. If a Thief is near it, both it and the Thief will be destroyed, with a comical sound resembling that of a Looney Tunes character running.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • Mario Kart: The series features banana peels as an item; crashing into one causes you cart to spin out and possibly lose coins.
    • Mario Party 4:
      • Two of the junctions on Koopa's Seaside Soiree do not let the player choose which way to go, instead having a Ukiki throw down a banana peel that the player slips on, whisking them off in one of two random directions.
      • During the minigame Tree Stomp, Ukikis will eat bananas and throw the peels into the scene where the solo character tries to dodge the spiky belts of the other three characters' wooden robots. If the solo player slips due to the peel, they'll lose balance and be in danger of being touched by the rivals' spikes. However, if a robot from the trio slips, then it will lose balance and move rapidly (which, depending on the case, may or may not be a good thing for the solo player). Either way, it's a difficult minigame for the solo player, as they'd have to survive for 45 seconds against the three rivals and the Ukikis.
    • Mario Party 5: The minigame Mass A-peel, hosted by Donkey Kong, pits all characters in a square area with lots of bananas, but also empty peels. The objective is to gather as many bananas as possible while avoiding tripping with the peels (as that would make them waste time). When the minigame ends, the bananas gathered will be traded for coins for each character.
    • Mario Party: Star Rush: In Bowser's Shocking Slipup, if players hit the Roulette Blocks at the wrong time, instead of shocking Bowser with lightning, the blocks will instead dispense banana peels that cause any characters that step on them to slip and fall.
    • Super Mario Party: Trip Navigator is a minigame where player must race to the center of the stage, but banana peels are scattered all over the place, and will slow down any players that slip on them.
    • Luigi's Mansion has banana peels which can be sucked by your vacuum cleaner. The green ghosts tend to drop them to make Luigi slip and lose coins after falling.
  • Moshi Monsters: In one of the magazines, Roary Scrawl accidentally trips on a banana peel and gets stew on his girlfriend Tyra Fangs's head.
  • Mother 3:
    • Fassad is both very fond of bananas and rather careless about where he discards the peels. This bites him in the ass at the end of Chapter 5. Running over them will make you slip, even if you happen to be in a hovering Pork Bean.
    • There is an item called an "Ancient Banana", which can be used in battle to make an enemy trip and lose about 50 HP. A pathetically weak item, unless you use them against the EXP-rich Soot Dumplings (assuming you can find them).
  • Banana peels are one of Octodad's biggest obstacles. Slipping on one will cause Octodad to flop over completely, greatly increasing the chance of him knocking something over and causing a spike in his Suspicion meter if anyone is watching.
  • Pikmin 4: Bananas are treasures, and are referred to as the "Slapstick Crescent" as a reference to the gag of somebody slipping on banana peels. Olimar even mentions that such a thing happened to him once.
  • Pizza Tower has enemies that throw banana peels. Stepping in these causes player to slip.
  • Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes has "Banana Peel" as a Plant Trick. Using this allows the Plant Hero to move a Zombie teammate to another lane (a.k.a. making them "slip") while also drawing a Banana Tribe card for the Plant Hero.
  • Professor Layton and the Unwound Future features several maze puzzles based on the banana peel gag, usually triggered by Layton finding a discarded banana peel and expressing dismay at the careless littering.
  • Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon has Raidou slip on a peel early in the game while cornering a suspect with unbelievable luck. The banana peel is later used as the standard slip/tripping animation.
  • The first secret hot spring scene in Riviera: The Promised Land was a simple walk-in-and-witness scenario. The PSP remake, however, adds a very difficult quicktime event challenge by having an utterly badass Grim Angel struggle almost hopelessly over a randomly placed banana peel.
  • Subverted in the first episode of Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse. Max's psychic visions hint that a thrown-away banana peel is important, and that the heavy they're trying to dispose of ends up falling down a manhole. If the player opens the manhole and places the banana peel in front of it, the heavy comes over to tell them "no littering", and while he's distracted, Max runs up behind him and bangs two dustbin lids together, stunning the heavy into the hole.
    Sam: Oldest trick in the book!
  • In the handheld electronic game Slip 'n' Slide, you controls a street sweeper trying to stop suicidal banana-eating/skin-discarding pedestrians from killing themselves by stepping on these.
  • In the Competition mode of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, a banana peel is one of the items one player can use against another.
  • In Space Station 13 the Clown starts with a banana that they can eat to produce a peel to be used in their pranks. The Botanist can grow bigger bananas that slip you for longer.
  • Super Smash Bros. Brawl has banana peels as items, and also Diddy Kong can drop them any time. Oddly, they cause tripping just as effectively if you opt to throw them directly at your opponents instead of letting them step on them.
  • In Team Fortress 2, a banana peel can be found next to a grinder at Mann vs. Machine's Mannhattan. Anyone who steps on the banana peel will slip right into the grinder, leading to their death. Hilariously enough, this includes robot bosses, which a skilled Pyro can airblast them towards the banana peel to receive an instant kill.
  • Touch Detective: In Episode 2, after Mackenzie figures out Chloe was the one who ransacked Penelope's room as she carried one of her signed bananas, Chloe tries to eat the evidence and tosses away the peel, only to immediately slip and fall.
  • Um Jammer Lammy involves a banana peel accident. After Lammy gets her new guitar and dashes off, in her haste she slips on PJ Berri's banana peel and dies. This leads to performing concerts in Hell. The U.S. version, however, significantly alters the accident to Lammy being flung through the air after having her belt get caught on the door and the result location to a/an (presumably more humid) island.
  • Water Warfare has banana peels as an item that make you slip if you run over them—rather difficult to distinguish from the pick-up-able item, too. Strangely, they make you unable to turn your head as well, which we're still working out.
  • In Zettai Hero Project, during the battles against Darkdeath Evilman, you can attempt to run away from the Seemingly Hopeless Boss Fight. When you try to do this in the early parts of the game, the main character slips on a banana peel and dies.

    Web Animation 

    Webcomics 

    Web Original 

    Websites 

    Web Videos 
  • One Funimation Update Quickie takes this to truly ridiculous extents in one of its funniest episodes by having a careless Scott drop a banana in frustration. Then, a man walking by who was a major character in the rest of the month's quickies slips on the banana, falls off the roof of the building from it, and dies. Turns out it was All Just a Dream... which in return was All Just a Dream Chris Sabat had before getting hired by Funimation.
  • The Wall Street Journal's video review of the Apple Watch 4 had a stuntwoman slip on a banana peel to test the watch's emergency alert function.
  • Joueur du Grenier:
    • For the review of Drake of the 99 Dragons, to show how easy it is to die in the game, a sketch with Fred as the eponymous Drake has him slip on a banana peel... and die.
    • The second comics-based games episode starts off with a parody of Barbara Gordon / Oracle's origin story, showing how Commissioner Magret's daughter got crippled following an attack by the villainous Banana-Man... who threw a banana peel at her, on which she slipped (which is shown in slow-motion and with dramatic music).
    • Subverted in the Scooby-Doo episode, where Fred's final trap for the Red Ghost is to drop a banana peel on the floor. When the Red Ghost comes close, instead of slipping it stops... and complains that people should put banana peels into a trash bin, it's just dirty.
  • One episode of Rooster Teeth's Immersion series involved trying to re-create the Mario Kart version of this trope. To nobody's surprise, trying it with five banana peels had no effect; the attempt using a literal thousand banana peels went a little differently.

    Western Animation 
  • Seeing as how The Amazing World of Gumball has the walking talking Banana Joe, this joke was going to happen.
    • And it did with the largest kids in Elmore Jr. High: Tina Rex and Hector Jötunheim both slipping on Banana Joe, usually crushing him underfoot in the process.
    • Banana Joe actually weaponizes this trope in "The Inquisition", taking off his peel and using it to trip up the villain, who was trying to escape.
  • The Angry Beavers episode "Beavemaster" had a scene where Tor slipped on a banana peel and fell down a cliff.
  • One episode of Arthur has Brain slip on a banana peel resulting in a badly sprained ankle on one leg and a torn knee ligament in the other.
  • Batman: The Brave and the Bold:
    • Batmite use this to take out Gorilla Grodd, while pretending to be Batman, in "Legends of the Dark Mite!" ("Irony' good.")
    • Falseface slip on Detective Chimp's discarded banana peel in "The Golden Age of Justice!".
  • Two episodes of Beany and Cecil featuring the little astronaut mouse Little Ace From Outer Space use the banana peel in a non-accidental fashion. Rockets launched from Cape Bananapeel have a giant mechanical hand come out and squeeze the rocket out of a banana peel.
  • In Richard Scarry's Best Learning Songs Video Ever, Freddie Fox slips on one after his song about numbers. Epic Fail ensues.
  • The two-part pilot episode of Bonkers has this as a plot point. Bonkers notes that no Toon can resist the urge to perform this gag, and it is later used to prove that the villain isn't really a Toon.
  • The Bunsen Is a Beast episode "Remote Outta Control" has a scene where Bunsen, Mikey, Darcy and Amanda have to make their way through various obstacles in Amanda's Smart House, one of which is a trail of banana peels. As with the other hazards, Amanda isn't successful in avoiding them.
  • In "Upside-Down Frown Cake" from Butterbean's Cafe, Ms. Marmalady slips on one left lying around by Spork and Spatch.
  • ChalkZone:
    • The original Oh Yeah! Cartoons pilot at one point has Rudy draw a banana peel in the path of Bully Nerd to trip him up.
    • "Double Trouble" has Skrawl's minions the Beanie Boys use a banana peel as a form of attack. Snap laughs this off at first, saying it's one of the oldest gags ever, but he shortly falls for it just the same.
  • Codename: Kids Next Door: In "Operation: S.N.O.W.I.N.G.", Numbuh One throws some banana peels before a quadruped Humongous Mecha (straight out of The Empire Strikes Back). The mecha pilots burst into laughter at this sight, but then their vehicle steps on a peel in the snow... and it immediately topples to the side.
  • In the Color Classics cartoon "Tears of an Onion", a banana takes off its peel to swim, then comes out and slips on its own peel.
  • In the C.O.P.S. episode "The Case of the Bad Luck Burglar", Buttons McBoomBoom slips on a banana peel while trying to explain to Big Boss why he bungled his latest assignment.
  • Danger Mouse: DM deliberately slips on one during his fight against himself (It Makes Sense in Context) in "Attack of the Clown". In the original series episode "The Bad Luck Eye of the Little Yellow God," he slips on a banana peel dropped by a gorilla as part of the Humiliation Conga he goes through in the episode.
  • Darkwing Duck:
    • The villain Splatter Phoenix, who has the ability to call something into existence by painting it, makes a banana peel for Darkwing to slip on, and bemoans the necessity of painting such a mundane object.
    • There is also "Apes of Wrath", which takes place on an island filled with gorillas who love to eat bananas; however, it's not until the last few seconds of the episode when Darkwing accidentally slips on a banana peel and comments, "Well, you knew someone had to do it."
  • Dennis the Menace: In "The Wizzer of Odd", when Dennis and Ruff wind up in the Land of Odd, they are advised by the Munchies to see the Wizzer by following the Yellow Banana Road if they want to make their way back home. As they follow said road, they slip on banana peels.
  • In the "Me and My Guide" song from Doc McStuffins: "Toy Hospital: Mole Money, Mole Problems", this is averted. The guide dog Mountie navigates Hil the toy mole around one.
    Doc McStuffins: Looks like you two are perfect together.
  • Naturally, the Donkey Kong Country animated series has this happen more than once. In fact, one episode begins and ends with people slipping on banana peels!
  • True to its Looney Tunes roots, Duck Dodgers features this gag:
    • In episode "Shiver Me Dodgers", incognito on a pirate spaceship, Dodgers slips on some banana peels on a staircase while trying to be "inconspicuous". He then angrily rants about how someone can be stupid enough to leaves banana peels on stair steps — to find out that the culprit is an enormous gorilla crewmate.
    • In "The Six Wazillion Dollar Duck", Dodgers' first test of his new cybernetic legs is to run at Super-Speed over a treadmill while eating a banana... and he lets the peel slip under his feet, naturally causing a crash.
  • DuckTales (1987): In the episode "Allowance Day", the plane taxis across one as Launchpad brings it in for a landing, causing yet another crash.
  • Ed, Edd n Eddy:
  • In the Eek! The Cat special "It's a Very Merry Eeks-mas", Santa Claus slips on a banana peel and gets severely injured after he complains about the mob of angry reindeer.
  • A subversion from Family Guy: After Cleveland found out Quagmire was sleeping with his wife, Mayor Adam West gives Quagmire a banana to protect him from an angry Cleveland, the implication being that Quagmire would use it to slip Cleveland up. When the big chase scene comes to use the fruit, Quagmire instead throws the entire banana at Cleveland. It does what it would do in real life.
  • Fanboy and Chum Chum:
    • Yo trips Fanboy with a banana peel in the episode "Prank Master".
    • Mr. Mufflin trips on a banana peel at the end of "Funny Face".
  • Fireman Sam: In "The Wishing Well", Elvis attempts to throw a banana peel into the bin from over his shoulder, but misses the mark, and Station Officer Steele slips on it and pratfalls.
  • Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: In "Crime After Crime", Bloo deliberately tries to get punished by Mr. Herriman by filling the hallway with bananas, causing him to fall down a long flight of stairs. Unfortunately for Bloo, Herriman doesn't punish him (due to the prank serving his paranoia at the moment).
    Bloo: What a slip-up, Mr. H! You should have kept your eyes peeled! Get it? 'Cause I made you slip on banana peels? Get it?
    Mr. Herriman: Why, I could have been killed... by that terrifying villain that was stalking me in the halls. Oh, you've saved my life, Master Blooregard! You have my eternal gratitude!
  • Futurama. Fry gets tiny, tiny fruit as a gift. He throws a near-microscopic banana peel on the floor. Amy Wong who was Carrying a Cake, slips and falls on it. Of course, Amy IS a klutz....
  • The plot of one Future-Worm! short; Danny slips on a banana peel in the school cafeteria that results in his lunch splattering all over him and embarrassing him in front of everyone. His first two attempts to avoid this fate end up being Failure Is the Only Option, then when he and Future-Worm prepare to tie the banana peel to a rocket and fire it into the sun it turns out someone has to slip on the peel, because if it were to fly into the sun it would cause the sun to explode.
  • Garfield and Friends:
    • Garfield engages in a little rapid-fire banana eating in order to slip up the "monster" he thinks have invaded his home. It is Jon, back from the store.
    • Happens in the Orson's Farm segment, where aliens arrive to steal away the Earth's comedy, since it's considered a deadly weapon for their race. The animals try everything to make them laugh in order to get rid of them, such as jokes, slapstick humor, and a singing segment about the joys of humor, but nothing works. Finally, with their time almost up, Roy the rooster accidentally slips on a banana peel he threw away seconds ago, making the aliens (literally) burst with laughter.
  • The Garfield Show episode "The Write Stuff" has Garfield annoyed by his show becoming a ludicrously shoddy soap opera and finding that it's because the show's newest writer Samuel W. Underburger is humorless and hasn't laughed since he was eight years old (the reason being that he saw a man slip on a banana peel and felt guilty for laughing at the man's misfortune). After several failures to get Underburger to laugh and therefore gain a sense of humor, Garfield ultimately succeeds when the man ends up slipping on a banana peel.
  • God Rocks!: In the BibleToons episode "Lava-Java Rescue", Chip slips on a banana peel trying to stop a Lava-Java from playing with the grocery store food.
  • The Hair Bear Bunch episode "The Bear Who Came to Dinner" has Square Bear slipping on a banana peel dropped by zookeeper Peevly and landing on his back. Hair Bear gets Square to fake a serious injury so he can threaten Peevly with an animal negligence suit if he doesn't nurse Square back to health. At the episode's climax, Botch slips on a banana peel Peevly errantly tosses, and Hair runs the threat again—this time in lieu of a promotion for Botch.
  • House of Mouse: In "Not So Goofy", Baloo tosses away a peel and Goofy slips on it. Because he was trained to be "un-Goofy", Goofy manages to keep the tray he is carrying put while he slips.
  • Inspector Gadget got turned into a cyborg super-investigator (sort of) after he seriously injured himself by... slipping on a banana peel. A surprisingly realistic depiction for a children's cartoon.
  • The title character on Jimmy Two-Shoes manages to weaponize this in a fight against the Rodeo Clowns.
  • On JoJo's Circus, JoJo's parents attend a club in which one of the things they do for fun is slipping on banana peels. They are clowns, after all.
  • Zelda defeats a dragon this way (while Link is trying to defeat it) in the The Legend of Zelda (1989) episode "Kiss N'Tell".
  • Looney Tunes cartoons love this trope. It's probably easier to list those cartoons that don't use it than those that do (still not a short list, though).
  • In The Loud House episode "The Green House", as part of Lincoln's plan to reduce his sisters' massive energy-wasting habits, he suggests to Luan that, rather than cook banana cream pies to throw, she use banana peels for comedy. She initially balks at the idea, saying that she's above that gag, but starts to see the a-peel when Lincoln slips on a peel.
  • The Magic School Bus: During the "Producer" segment at the end of "Plays Ball", the producer slips on a banana peel towards the end of the phone call that makes up the segment. Liz slips on the same banana peel shortly after that.
  • Metalocalypse: The band gets an in-house therapist who reinforces good behavior with banana stickers (the sort of thing one would reward to preschool kids) — when they have enough of him and give him his notice, he rushes them in a fit of rage, but slips on a banana sticker, and plummets out a window.
  • Muppet Babies:
    • In "No Laughing Matter", Kermit tries to prove to Fozzie that he can still be funny without his Great-Uncle Schnozzie's lucky joke book by having him slip on a banana peel. When Fozzie tries to do so, he ends up kicking it into Piggy's face.
    • In "Best Friends Fixer Uppers", Bunsen invents a banana-peel powered disco ball for a science fair being held on the moon. When Beaker gathers banana peels for it, he slips on one and crashes through a wall, leaving a Beaker-shaped hole in it.
    • In "Boo-Boo Patrol", Fozzie's sister Rozzie slips on one during the episode's namesake song, but Fozzie catches her before she can hit the ground.
    • Subverted in "The Ribbiter"; Kermit is reluctant to let Robin become the titular vllain, so one of his ways of sabotaging Robin's chance of passing Dr. Meanzo's final test, driving a car to the finish line without knocking over a barrel of pickles, is by tossing banana peels onto the road. When Robin dodges the banana peels, Kermit uses one of Summer's frozen water balloons to create a patch of ice, which Robin slips on.
    • In "Tarzanimal", the babies put banana peels on their feet to use as roller skates.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • In season 3 episode "One Bad Apple", this is one of the mean pranks done by Babs Seed to the Cutie Mark Crusaders during "The Villain Sucks" Song.
    • In season 7 episode "Forever Filly", part of the puppet show Rarity and Sweetie Belle attend has a gag involving the puppets sliding around on a banana peel.
    • In season 9 episode "The Last Laugh", one of Cheese Sandwich's comedy factory's projects is a banana peel that goes into a Slippery Skid all across the floor, tripping up everyone it slides under.
  • A CGI ident for Nickelodeon's Nicktoons block had its orange blob mascot slip on one of these at the end.
  • Oh Yeah! Cartoons used this in the Super Santa short "Vegetation", where Santa grabs the peel off of a mutant banana and ends up slipping on the peel.
  • The Penguins of Madagascar: In "Little Zoo Coupe", the lemurs challenge the penguins to a race around the zoo. Just as it looks as if the penguins are about to win, Phil, who is part of the audience, tosses a banana peel onto the track. The penguins slip on the banana peel, resulting in the lemurs winning the race. When Kowalski calls Phil out for this, Mason tells Phil that Kowalski's right; it's not like throwing poo; there are consequences.
  • A variant in the B-plot of the Phineas and Ferb episode "Suddenly Suzy", with Perry the Platypus driving a banana shipping company's delivery truck chasing Doofenshmirtz with his Carbon-Footprint-inator (a giant foot made of carbon paper). The truck that Perry's driving contains a giant banana on the roof of the trailer; Perry stops below the Carbon-Footprint-inator and drops the banana, causing the Inator to slip on it and stick itself into Doofenshmirtz's blimp.
  • The Pink Panther: As "Pinkfinger", the panther slinks along a high-rise ledge when an enemy agent places a peel in his path. Skids off the ledge, into a garbage can, and the peel lands full on his noggin.
  • The Popeye cartoon "Be Kind to Aminals" has him squaring off with Bluto, who owns a produce cart pulled by a mistreated horse. A bunch of bananas gets thrown to the pavement, and things go naturally from there.
  • The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In "City of Frownsville" , when Hal Larious (a.k.a. Lou Gubrious) slips on a banana peel dropped by Bubbles, it causes the then-crying populace of Townsville to start laughing again.
  • In the Ready Jet Go! episode "Mars Rock For Mom", Sunspot slips on a banana peel that Jet tossed away.
  • Rick and Morty: In "Final Desmithation", one of the mooks Rick shoots blank fortune cookies at steps back and also closes his mouth, avoiding suffering a random fate as his comrades did. Unfortunately, he then trips on a banana, one of his transformed coworkers, breaking his neck.
  • Robot Chicken:
    • Subverted in a "Behind the scenes" of the original Battlestar Galactica: we see a montage of clips of the Cylon actors falling over in the costumes in a variety of interesting ways, culminating with a lone Cylon taking his time to walk down a hallway towards a banana peel on the floor. Just as he's about to reach it he's hit by a wrecking ball and sent flying through the hull into space.
    • Played straight...er when Jesus slips on a banana peel while walking on water.
  • Rolling with the Ronks!: "The Flying Dodo" ends with Walter slipping on a banana peel.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants:
    • In the episode "Funny Pants", Patrick slips on the same banana peel several times.
    • Exaggerated in the episode "The Bully", where Flats drives a truck trying to run over SpongeBob but the truck slips on a banana peel and flips over.
    • In the episode, "Unreal Estate", Squidward tricks SpongeBob into thinking he is allergic to his pineapple house, and tries to help SpongeBob move into a new house. When Squidward shows SpongeBob a banana house, what follows is a cutaway that parodies the show's theme song, wherein SpongeBob slips on a banana peel.
  • In the Taz-Mania episode "Tazmanian Lullaby", during one scene Francis X Bushlad tries tons of things, but the screen keeps shaking. The camera then focuses on Francis to reveal that Francis slipped on a banana peel three times.
  • Used liberally in the Teen Titans Go! episode "Gorilla". Beast Boy (turned into a gorilla) throws them at Robin as a Running Gag. And Raven somehow slips on a peel while levitating above the floor.
  • The Toonsylvania episode "Baby Human" ends with Igor rushing off to dispose of the formula he made that created the titular Baby Human, only to trip on a banana peel tossed aside by Phil. This results in the formula being spilled over and created hundreds of Baby Humans that end up consuming the entire world.
  • In the Toxic Crusaders episode "The Snail Must Go Through", a banana peel in middle of the road causes a race car driver Crash Shelby drive his vehicle into a barge full of snails, which turns him into a mutant superhero known as Snailman.
  • What A Cartoon! Show:
    • In the short "Strange Things", the robot museum has on display "the most dangerous thing in the world", a banana peel. (At the end, the custodian decides to replace it with his assistant instead.)
    • "Boid n' Woim" has Woim do this to Boid during a Rollercoaster Mine chase. Appropriately lampshaded by Woim...
      Woim: [eating a banana, to the audience] You know what I'm gonna do with this banana peel, don't ya?
  • The Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa episode "Thoroughly Moodern Lily" had Cody slip on a banana peel.
  • Winnie the Pooh:
    • In the climax of the The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh episode "The Good, the Bad, and the Tigger", Tigger stops the runaway train entirely by throwing a banana peel onto the tracks, causing said train to crash.
    • In "Eeyore's Sad Day" from My Friends Tigger & Pooh, Tigger tries this as a comedy gag to cheer up Eeyore, asking Pooh what kind of shoes you make out of a banana and saying "Slippers," but there is no response except the caw of a bird.

    Real Life 
  • Charlie Chaplin was once asked how to do a perfect banana peel gag. He replied that a woman should be walking along, see the banana peel, step over and continue walking until she falls down an open manhole.
  • Bobby Leach did numerous death-defying stunts like swimming down Niagara in a barrel. One day, he slipped on an orange peel, fell, broke his leg so badly it was amputated, and eventually died (from gangrene complications). Bananas and oranges: the difference between hilarity and gruesome, horrible death. A related accident saw a French mountain climber, who had conquered most of the highest peaks in the world without injury, die in an accident at home. He fell off a chair in his kitchen whilst attempting to change a light bulb.
  • Guy Delisle tells in Shenzeng when he saw, in real life, a man slipping on a banana peel and he was surprised because it was just like in "comics".
  • Many marathons offer bananas to runners late in the race. Bananas are a tasty and digestible source of energy. And there's nothing like having dozens of discarded (and decaying) banana peels in the middle of a footrace.
  • Yes, that really happens. Yes, it was studied. Yes, they got an Ig Nobel prize for it.
  • The "Banana Peel Challenge" which appeared on the Internet in March 2016 has teens trying to exploit a banana peel slip to see if they can pull one off.
  • There are multiple legal cases of people suing public places (stores, train stations, and so on) for slipping and falling on fruit, particularly banana peels.

Alternative Title(s): Banana Slip

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Boid n Woim - Banana Peel gag

Why else would Woim be eating a banana during a Rollercoaster Mine chase?

How well does it match the trope?

5 (7 votes)

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