Gone Swimming, Clothes Stolen



How distressing. After having taken a brief moment to unwind, the hero, his friends, his girlfriend(s) or a combination thereof decide to go skinny dipping. And wouldn't ya know it. Looks like somebody decided to steal their clothes. Various Naked People Are Funny antics ensue as they try to get new clothing before their nakedness is exposed to all the world. Usually results in Naked People Trapped Outside.

Can also be played from an opposite perspective: The main characters can steal other people's clothes in this manner. In any case, the thievery almost always works.

In kid-friendly works, the victim will usually be left in a swimsuit or underwear.

Related to Outdoor Bath Peeping.

Anime & Manga

 * In Inuyasha, Kagome's clothes are stolen by a monkey while she bathes. Technically she isn't naked (she's wearing a swim suit), but still acts as if she is, going so far as to hide in a bush when confronting the owner of the monkey for her clothes back.
 * The Sengoku Era doesn't justify it, as pre-WWII Japanese simply took off their kimonos to swim or wash, and nakedness wasn't anything unusual or embarrassing. So the scene emphasises the difference between Kagome's modern and Westernised world and the Sengoku Jidai. She probably comes off as pretty fussy to the locals.
 * In Ranma ½, Ranma, who is currently stuck as a girl, spies Herb bathing in an onsen. Feeling particularly vindictive (Herb DID humiliate her in battle and locked her as a female), Ranma steals her clothes and taunts her about it. Cue the ki-bolt to the face.
 * It is done to Lemnear in the first chapter to the Legend Of Lemnear manga.
 * Ayashi no Ceres has this as the whole backstory - Goddess wants revenge because a guy stole her celestial clothes while she wasn't watching. Granted, her rage is understandable since she's stuck on Earth until she gets it back.
 * Semi-example in My-HiME, where the students go swimming, and someone steals the girls' underwear.
 * This happens to Goku in a Filler episode of Dragon Ball.
 * A variation happens in Maicchingu Machiko Sensei in a number of episodes. The title character goes swimming or skinny dipping and gets her suit and/or clothes stolen by her students... sometimes while she is still wearing them.
 * In Love Hina the girls of Hinata House get their clothes stolen by a group of monkeys while in a hot spring.

Comic Books

 * There's a subversion from Elf Quest, not actually involving swimming. Leetah and Nightfall enjoy an intimate nude dance, and while they're distracted Moonshade steals their clothes - so she can replace them with new ones. In any case, the elves probably wouldn't be very embarrassed by nudity anyway, at least among their friends.
 * One Captain Marvel cover involves the titular Captain dressed in a rain barrel yelling and shaking his fist at a punk who's stolen his outfit. See page image.
 * Forget the barrel, aren't his clothes the result of his magic power? What would happen if he switched back to Batson and then back to Marvel?
 * The cover of the first comic of Brazilian character Bidu/Blu (which received a makeover for his 50th anniversary).
 * Happens to Jonah in issue 9 of the original series of Jonah Hex. Jonah is forced to chase the thief, and the theft turns out to a plot to lure him across the border into Mexico.

Fairy Tales

 * In Puss in Boots, Puss claims this is what happens to his master the "Marquis" when the King passes by.

Film

 * The John Cleese film Romance With a Double Bass is based on this trope.
 * Planet of the Apes (1968). While the astronauts are skinny dipping in a lake, the primitive humans steal their clothes.
 * Friday the 13 th Part II. One of the female camp counselors goes skinny dipping and her clothes are stolen by a male counselor.
 * In The Parent Trap, (the 90s one) one of the twins does this to the other.
 * The protagonists of Now and Then do this as revenge on a group of boys who nailed them with Jello-filled water balloons earlier in the film.
 * I Love Trouble includes a bit in which Julia Roberts is exiting the lake when a group of boyscouts happen upon her and Nick Nolte. No clothes are stolen, but the only Modesty Towel she can get her hands on happens to be hiding behind Nolte. Still a little miffed from a previous argument the pair had had, Nolte proceeds to walk towards the boyscouts while ignoring Julia's surprised protests. Nick gets her to admit to secretly reading his novel, despite her professed disinterest in his writing, but Julia makes the mistake of mumbling how she'd expected more from the writing. As one might expect, the scene closes with an embarrassed Julia squeeling in alarm as the boyscout's camera's are going off.
 * in the 2007 St Trinian's movie, the girls band together to effect this trope on new girl Annabelle Fritton as she showers, filming the resulting nekkid antics on hidden cameras and broadcasting it on YouTube.
 * Additionally, the previous St. Trinian's movie, The Wildcats of St. Trinian's features the girls tricking a spy in their ranks into stripping down for a swimming race so they can swipe her clothes, ditch her, and send a message to their victim's handlers.
 * In Queens Logic, the guys in town for the wedding of one of their number go skinny dipping in a public pool. The clothes are stolen by the women. The guys streak through the parking lot, but fortunately one of the guys' suitcases is in the trunk of the car.
 * In Carry On Up The Jungle with the delicious Jacki Piper. She goes swimming with the Ape Man and an ape steals her clothes.
 * In the 1970 Swedish Pippi Longstocking movie Pippi on the Run, Pippi, Tommy and Annika go swimming, and some cows come along and eat Tommy and Annika's clothes, forcing them to dress in old sacks until they can get new ones. Pippi, however, escapes the trope entirely because she always goes swimming fully-clothed.
 * In Futtocks End, Hawk the butler firstly steals Carol's swimming costume, so she has to swim naked, and then follows her and steals her clothes while she's in the water.
 * In Club Paradise, the natives of the island steal the guests' clothes while they are swimming naked at Devil's Hole. They end up trekking through the jungle to a hotel wearing towels, vines, and fruit.
 * At the end of Camp Nowhere, Betty cons Walter into giving up his swimming trunks out of revenge for his spending the entire movie trying to get her to go skinny dipping.
 * In Hair (theatre), Claude and Donna's clothes vanish after a swim in the lake. Cue the taxi screeching to a halt to let her in.
 * In The Burning, Cropsy steals Karen's clothes while she and Eddy are Skinny Dipping. He scatters them in the woods and then kills her while she is collecting them.

Folk Lore

 * This is also the purported origin of the phrase "the naked truth". Truth and Falsehood went swimming. Falsehood put on Truth's clothes. Truth refused to wear the clothes of Falsehood and went naked.
 * A common theme in fairy tales involves a hero witness a group of ducks, swans, or other similar creatures "undress" from their skins and turn into beautiful women bathing in a pond. The hero will steal the skin of one of the women and only agree to give it back should she agree to follow/marry him. Occasionally, the bathers will be women from the start and the hero steals actual clothes rather than skin.
 * As mentioned above, Ayashi no Ceres is based on the Japanese version of said tales.
 * There is a joke about a master thief and his apprentice. As a test of skill the master orders his student to climb a tree and steal some eggs from the nest without disturbing the hen. The guy undresses, and climbs the tree but the hen hears him and takes alarm. The master decides to show top class, undresses, climbs the tree and steals the eggs. When he climbs down, both his student and his clothes are gone.

Literature

 * In Barry Lyndon, this is how the title character acquires the officer's clothing he uses to try and get out of fighting the war. Two gay officers have gone skinny-dipping and are too busy wrapped up in their own subplot to notice the thievery. We don't find out what happens to them.
 * Patrick McManus, in one of his books, tells a story involving an over-zealous Boy Scout leader who not only goes skinny dipping, but does so in extremely cold water. Predictably, the disgruntled scouts steal his clothes. He roars back into camp "wearing" only a bit shrubbery arranged around his privates, latches onto to who he thinks are the culprits and drags them away for a dunking. And of course, two of the troop's den mothers have shown up, and witness all of this.
 * The Star Trek: The Original Series novel My Enemy My Ally by Diane Duane has Kirk motivate Sulu to do some very creative combat maneuvers by threatening to tell a certain female lieutenant who swiped her clothing from poolside the month before.
 * In Discworld novel Men At Arms, Angua leaves her uniform in an alley while she snoops around in werewolf form. When she returns, she finds it's been stolen. Not the last time she's been caught in that position.
 * Werewolves take Vimes' clothes while he's in a hot spring in The Fifth Elephant. Though he still has his underwear on, it is not a nice situation to be in.
 * Happens to Ivan Bezdomny in The Master and Margarita when he chases Woland across Moscow. When he later shows up in his fellow writers' restaurant in underpants (and wielding an icon... long story), they are not amused.
 * One Encyclopedia Brown story was Brown solving the case of who stole a boy's clothes, leaving him naked in the woods.
 * In one of the earliest Don Camillo short stories, the title character took a swim in the river on a very hot day — and young Communist Smilzo swiped his clothes, then brought a bunch of other Reds so they could poke fun at the priest as he came out of the water in only his underdrawers. But it stopped being fun for them when Don Camillo came ashore in a minefield left over from World War II ... that was so dangerous the government had given up on trying to clear it. Smilzo apologetically walked into the minefield to bring the priest his clothing. Don Camillo absolved him, and they walked out together.

Live Action TV

 * A Seinfeld plot involved this having happened to George at one time.
 * In the first episode of The Sleepover Club TV series, the M and M's clothes are stolen by one of the girls after a swimming lesson. After they apparently take ages to change, the teacher makes the boys come out (after hearing them claim that they can't find their clothes), otherwise they will receive detention. They were forced to come out of the changing rooms using a float to cover their penises.
 * Happens to Mr. Bean once. A kid steals his swimming trunks and he's forced to somehow get back to the changing room without showing any of his private parts. Unfortunately, some people end up seeing his bum and freak.
 * Actually, the audience sees his bum. The other people see what the audience can't.
 * The "other people" being a class of schoolgirls.
 * Happens once on Three's Company, with Jack as the victim and Larry as the culprit.
 * An Evening Shade episode had this happen to Burt Reynolds and two other men.
 * Happens with the whole gang in the That '70s Show episode "Hyde Moves In".
 * In an Our Gang episode, while the boys are swimming, their clothes aren't stolen, just soaked and then tied in knots by their rivals, rendering them unwearable.
 * In another, the kids steal the clothes of a man while he went swimming; the reason being that they believed that he was going to marry their beloved teacher Ms. Crabtree (and this being the 20s, teachers were required to be unmarried), and he would not be able to if he had no clothes. Turns out, . Cue embarrassment..
 * During an escalating prank war between Margaret and Hawkeye and B.J. on M*A*S*H, Maragret steals the boys clothes while they are showering. Hawkeye and B.J. are forced to walk naked through the camp back to their tent, only to find it full of nurses waiting for them.
 * The first-season episode of The Dukes of Hazzard "Deputy Dukes" starts the hijinks with this trope. Their "dates" steal their duds, so Bo and Luke end up trying to chase them in the General Lee au natural. Naturally, they literally run into Sheriff Rosco (and his car), and he promptly arrests them on his usual variety of trumped-up charges. Then, he (very hesitantly) looks inside, sees their lack of attire, and (just as hesitantly) adds, "...in...decent...exposure."
 * Then in the season two episode "The Ghost of General Lee", two crooks inadvertently steal Bo and Luke's clothes (as they're skinny-dipping) when they steal the General. Again, this was just the opening scene.
 * Happens plenty of times on Home and Away, including Ric's clothes stolen by Cassie in 2005 and Matthew's stolen by Ruby in 2008. The latter, which was filmed, ended up going viral.
 * Married... with Children: A girl offers to go skinny-dipping with Bud, and ends up running his underwear up the school's flagpole.
 * This is apparently a frequent problem for Chang on Community.
 * In an episode of Girls In Love, the girls take revenge on Magda's ex by doing this. They steal his togs while he is in the shower at the pool, and then remove all of his clothes from his locker.

Music
"Trudging slowly over wet sand Back to the bench where your clothes were stolen"
 * The first two lines of Morrissey's "Everyday Is Like Sunday":

"Dove into the water Just like Pharaoh's daugher Dove into the Nile. Someone saw me there And stole my underwear And left me with a smile."
 * The summer camp song "Once I Went in Swimming."

Mythology

 * In Hindu mythology, Krishna, as a teenager, used to steal the clothes of milkmaids while they were bathing.

Newspaper Comics

 * Happened in 9 Chickweed Lane.
 * It also happens in an issue of Little Nemo in Slumberland from 1908, making this trope at least Older Than Radio.
 * The Phantom: There are at least two storylines that begin with the Phantom's clothes being stolen while he's swimming in a river. In both cases, the problem is not naked antics, but rather what the person who stole the clothes does while wearing them.

Video Games

 * The player does this to some Mooks in Final Fantasy X-2 to steal their uniforms.
 * In the screensaver adventures of Johnny Castaway, he bathes near his island, while his clothes hang on a stick, when a seagull steals them. He simply decides not to come out until the scene refreshes.
 * In Shin Megami Tensei II, if you avoid the lawful part you have to steal a bathing Fury's robe, since wearing it will mask your alignment and allow you to pass the Cherubs guarding the entrance to Eden. If you later on return it (a lengthy detour at this point), she will be thankful that you "found" her "lost" clothes and raise each of your stats by one.
 * Possibly in a nod to historical accuracy, this is one of the first things to do in Rome: Pathway to Power. The main character, a slave, needs to disguise himself with a citizen's toga in order to interact with people and buy things, and the only way to get one is by stealing it from some poor guy in the baths.
 * A sidequest in Morrowind involves retrieving a pair of pants stolen from a Dark Elf while he was swimming.
 * In The Sims 3: Late Night, Sims can go skinny dipping and have their clothes stolen by other Sims.
 * Okami presents a twist: The bather is preparing to be a Human Sacrifice, and Ammy needs the clothes for a plan to save her.

Webcomics

 * In the first gratuitous shower scene of Freefall, a raccoon swipes Florence's towel while she's washing (205).
 * In Alice, the title character and her friends Dot and Joanne go skinny-dipping, putting all their clothes in a plastic bag, which a dog then carries off in its mouth. They share a large cardboard box in order to get to their respective homes. Dot and Joanne, but not Alice, make it indoors undetected.
 * In a Penny and Aggie flashback, teenage Lynda takes two friends skinny-dipping in order to teach them to celebrate their bodies, free of the "repressive male patriarchy." Her lesson backfires when Rob and Henry steal their clothes, whereupon one friend fears she'll "turn lesbo" after spending too much time naked with girls, while the other is turned on by the possibility that Rob was checking out her breasts.

Western Animation

 * This happened to Samurai Jack in one of the most bizarre episode s of the series, appropriately named "Jack is Naked". Hilarity Ensues as he keeps finding new ridiculous costumes to wear, but loses those as well.
 * In The Road to El Dorado, the heroes go skinny dipping and their clothes are stolen by monkeys.
 * In the Wacky Races episode "Beat the Clock to Yellow Rock", a group of bear cubs do this to the Ant Hill Mob.
 * In Tiny Toon Adventures, this happened to Hamton when he went skinny dipping in Montana Max's pool in "A Bacon Strip".
 * Happened during a bumper for the show Ed, Edd, and Eddy where the Kanker sisters stole their clothes as shown here +
 * An episode of Camp Lazlo has the Squirrel Scouts steal the Jelly Beans' scout uniforms while the latter were swimming, leaving the Beans in their swimsuits, and their scout uniforms in a tree.
 * This also happened in the Gummi Bears episode "Friar Tum", to a trio of monks that were taking a little swim in a nearby lake. The troll trio that the Gummis had outsmarted several times in the past were the ones who stole the monks' robes to disguise themselves.
 * Likewise, The Little Lulu Show episode, "Five Little Babies", had the boys get their clothes stolen by Lulu and Annie while they were swimming, as revenge for a prank that they played on Lulu earlier.

Real Life

 * There is a popular (and likely apocryphal) story that America's first female reporter, Anne Royall, came across John Quincy Adams while he was skinny-dipping in the Potomac River and sat on his clothes until he agreed to an interview.
 * There was another story in which said president had his clothes stolen while he was skinny-dipping and he had to ask a passerby to run to the White House and bring him back another outfit.
 * Thieves were a big problem at the Roman baths for exactly this reason. The Romans didn't have the same issues with nudity that we have, but clothes were a lot more expensive back then.
 * Many baths offered to sell cheap robes at ridiculously steep prices to bathers whose clothes were stolen. Many of those baths also had thieves on their payroll.
 * Before George Washington was ever a president, a revolutionary, or even a lieutenant in the French and Indian War, there is a record of a court proceeding against a girl who stole his clothing or at least his belongings while he was swimming on a trip.
 * There is a story in America's Dumbest Criminals of a businesswoman who, after a long summer drive, decided to skinny-dip in a river to cool off. While swimming some men arrived at the river and blocked the route to her clothes. Too embarrassed to head for said clothes, she jumped in her car, sped home, and was pulled over by an officer who was shortly quite embarrassed himself.