At least it matches her outfit.
A character through some sort of circumstance gets a piece of chewed gum in their hair, making it impossible to get the sticky substance out. They might try home remedies such as peanut butter or oil. In some drastic cases, cut it out, which may result in a Gag Haircut or Traumatic Haircut.
A Sub-Trope of Gross Gum Gag.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- One Doraemon issue has Nobita using Doraemon's Gadget-of-the-Week, the Accuracy Hat (which gives its wearer Improbable Aiming Skills at throwing objects) to throw a long wad of gum at Gian and Suneo from a distance after overhearing them talking bad behind his back, sticking it into both of their hairs at once — cue disgusted yells from Gian and Suneo.
- A Naruto OVA, Shippu Konoha Gakuen Den, has Hinata and Ino ask why Sakura is shown cutting her hair in the High School AU ending. Sakura explains that she laid down on the grass and got a piece of gum in her hair.
- Ouran High School Host Club: Haruhi states that this is the reason for her boyish haircut. Before the school year, someone stuck a piece of gum in her hair and she just decided to cut it all off since getting gum out of long hair is a pain.
Comic Strips
- Curtis: One arc starts with Barry putting a piece of gum in Curtis's hair while he's asleep, gluing his pillow there. Mom has to cut it free, leaving Curtis with a huge bald patch.
Fan Works
- In Psalm of the Lark, Harley mentions that a boy got bubblegum in her hair as children:
"...and the gum was so hard by that point that peanut butter wasn't gonna do the trick," she was babbling as I pulled out the sofa-sleeper. "Had to chop it right off! Boy, was I steamed — I didn't speak to Robbie for a week! Little jerk. I ended up dating him Sophomore year in high school, though; not a bad kisser."
Films — Live-Action
- In It Takes Two, one of the twins discreetly spits a piece of gum on her dad's Child Hater fiancée, forcing her to get a really short haircut.
Literature
- Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day: Alexander kicks off the day by waking up with chewing gum in his hair.
Puppet Shows
- The Linda Lavin episode of The Muppet Show has a variation where the focus is not on the character who gets the gum in their hair. After the "The More I See You" number, Stantler drops his gum over the edge of his and Waldorf's balcony and yells at a woman below to throw it back. He gets a whole wig thrown back at him and yells that she could've taken it out first.
Video Games
- In Kindergarten, Alpha Bitch Cindy's favorite way of bullying other girls is getting boys to put gum in their hair. Over the course of the game and its sequel, she does it to all three of the other girls in the cast at one point or another.
- Her mission in the first game has her tasking the player to do this to Lily (whose brother used to be Cindy's boyfriend before breaking up with her) during morning time in exchange for the player getting to be her boyfriend.
- The mission "The Hitman's Potty Guard" in the second game has her tell Ted to do this to one of the other girls in exchange for her helping him cause a distraction, which he needs for his plan to kill another of his classmates. He reluctantly does so to Carla, which causes some problems when he and the player need Carla's help later in the mission.
- In the final mission of the second game, she tells the player to do this to Penny if he wants her to help with his plan to kill Ms. Applegate. Since Penny is a cyborg and the player uses her remote control to keep her from retaliating, she calls it "the least satisfying gumming ever", but still keeps her word.
Web Animation
- In The Trash Pack webseries, Scum Gum, being a living wad of gum, has a tendency to get stuck onto things. This ends up including in Blow Fly's fur when he hugs onto him.
Webcomics
- In Questionable Content, Raven manages
to get some gum in Faye's hair completely accidentally. In the next strip, Pintsize is uncharacteristically genuinely helpful in getting the gum out with peanut butter.
Western Animation
- This is a favorite tactic of the Six-Gum Gang in Codename: Kids Next Door. Since their revolvers fire chewing gum, they commonly fire it at other kids' hair.
- Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: In the short, "Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow", Bloo blows a bubblegum bubble, which pops in Mac's hair. This is bad news for Mac, since his school picture is tomorrow. Bloo gets Scissors to cut the gum out, giving Mac a bald spot. Bloo tries to remedy his mistake, but gives Mac a disastrous haircut. In the end, Bloo gets a bunch of fuzzy imaginary friends to pose as Mac's hair. Mac is less than amused.
- In Gravity Falls, a flashback to Dipper and Mabel in elementary school shows a bully sticking a piece of gum in Mabel's hair, ruining picture day for her. Dipper suggests just shaving a chunk of it off, using his own hair to demonstrate, cheering her up.
- In The Loud House episode "Heavy Meddle", Lincoln gets a piece of gum stuck in his hair by a bully, and tries to get it out before his sisters notice, knowing they will want to intervene if they find out he was being bullied.
- At the end of a Rocket Power episode, Twister is forced to pick up garbage around Madtown Skatepark as punishment for ruining a new ramp. A bunch of kids throw their trash at him, including a piece of gum that gets stuck in his hair.
- Rugrats:
- In the original 1991 series episode, "Showdown at Teeter-Totter Gulch", the most common form of punishment from Prudence (A.K.A. The Junk Food Kid) was getting her gum in the other children's hair, forcing their parents to get it cut. This happens to Belinda early in the episode, and near the end of the episode, Tommy gives Prudence a taste of her own medicine by popping her bubble as she inflates it. After Prudence reappears with her hair cut short, she is much more soft-spoken and kinder to the other children, takes up eating healthy foods, and shares them.
- In "Hair!", another episode of the 1991 series, this happens to Angelica who pigs out on saltwater taffy and gets some of it stuck in her hair. Stu tells her he went through a similar experience, and he had to get his head shaved.
- In the All Grown Up! episode, "Truth or Consequences", one of Tommy's home movies shows Susie trying to pull a large wad of gum out of Kimi's hair.
- In the 2021 series episode, "The Chop", Angelica gets Gabi's gum in her hair after she chews it against her wishes. When the babies try to get it out using such things as diaper rash cream, crayons, and Reptar Puffs, it only results in them sticking to the gum. In the end, Angelica has to get her hair cut to get the many things out of it.
- The Simpsons episode "22 Short Films About Springfield" has Lisa get bubble gum stuck in her hair. She spends the whole episode trying increasingly drastic methods to try and get it out.
- In Total DramaRama episode "Gum and Gummer", Beth accidentally gets gum stuck in Leshawna's hair and spends the rest of the episode trying to help her get it out.
- Near the end of the Trolls: The Beat Goes On! episode "Doc Doc, Who's There?", Gia Grooves gets gum stuck in her hair from unknown circumstances. Due to the nature of the Trolls' hair, she needs an emergency medical treatment for it, though she doesn't get a proper one until Dr. Moonbloom comes for her (following a couple of unsuccessful attempts from Poppy while she was taking Moonbloom's place).
