Bring My Brown Pants

"Cat: Forget Red — let's go all the way up to Brown Alert! Kryten: There's no such thing as a Brown Alert, sir. Cat: You won't be saying that in a minute! And don't say I didn't alert you!"

- Red Dwarf, "Back in the Red part 1"

Oh Crap--literally.

With all the monsters, world destroying psychopaths, and clowns out there, the world can be a pretty frightening place. Encounters with these things can weaken not only the resolve of the strongest of men and women, but their bladders and sphincters as well.

This is when somebody's response to a scare is to piss or crap their pants, though this may not always be shown. The reasons for using this trope vary, including robbing a particular character of his or her dignity, as a joke on the extent of their cowardice, or occasionally in an attempt to show just how frightening something is. Most often this trope is used for comedic purposes, but there are a few serious examples as well.

The title comes from the old joke about the captain who, before any battle, asks his porter to Bring My Red Jacket, so his crew won't see him bleed and therefore lose morale. And then he gets to the battle he can't possibly win, and the crew seeing him bleed isn't his problem.

For a comedic metaphorical substitute see Bowel-Breaking Bricks. Compare Potty Emergency, when a character has to go and is desperate to hold on, and Potty Failure, for when they fail.

This trope is Older Than Feudalism.

May or may not be related to Oh Crap. May result from a Brown Note.

Anime and Manga
"Chibi-Chibi: Chibi? Ami: Don't scare us like that, Chibi-Chibi! Usagi: Now I need to clean up again!"
 * The Baby in Monster, constituting a Crowning Moment of Awesome for Nina.
 * Rurouni Kenshin - Kihei wets himself and passes out after being confronted by the real Battousai in the first volume.
 * Blue Gender - Yuji Kaido's reaction to his first sight of the Blue is to wet himself.
 * Read or Die - Presidents of the United States have a very low bladder capacity in this universe. They pretty much exist solely to wet themselves at whatever Big Bad is currently Badding it up.
 * Kinnikuman - The title character and Kinniku Mantaro have a tendency to do this. Most notably in Kinnikuman's case is when soiling himself in fright saves his life when his opponent, Ramenman, is so disgusted by the act that he releases Kinnikuman from his deadly Camel Clutch hold (which he had used in a previous fight to rip his opponent in half) to let him change his pants.
 * A ten year old Satoshi Batista did this in Michiko & Hatchin when a gang boss he'd tried to kill threatened to kill him if Satoshi didn't make him laugh before he finished his cigarette.
 * In the dub of Great Teacher Onizuka, the titular character finds out that a guy on a subway that he hit for harassing some woman is who will be interviewing him for a job and he says to himself that he might have just shit himself.
 * In Maris The Chojo, Maris is fighting a criminal gang in the opening scene. The gang's leader comes out in his armored suit, laughing nervously. That wasn't hydraulic fluid running down his leg. Maris is disgusted enough to throw him out into space.
 * Happens a few times in early episodes of Dragon Ball. Bulma wets her pants in the first movie, The Legend of Shenlong/Curse of the Blood Rubies after she and Goku are shot out of a plane from a lethal height.
 * Also, an earlier one-shot from Akira Toriyama entitled Dragon Boy features a scene with the heroes coming face to face with a giant robot. As Tanton, the dragon boy, fights the robot, the Princess constantly distracts him because she peed her pants and worries about her reputation and need for a bath.
 * Nozomi from the manga version of Elfen Lied was abused by her father when she was a child (he wanted her to inherit the family business, she wanted to be a singer like her mom), which led to her getting a psychological trauma that makes her wet herself whenever she becomes too nervous. Being the kind of person that she is, this happened so often that she had to wear diapers.
 * It happens to a kid in Eureka Seven. The eyes of the titular character, which are the same eyes as the monsters that murdered his entire city, frightens a mute child so deeply that he pees his pants and begins crying.
 * In chapter 27 of Akumetsu, a Corrupt Corporate Executive wets himself after Akumetsu deliberately misses a swing at his groin with an axe.
 * In the Ai no Kusabi OVA one of the members of Riki's gang does this as he's being shot at.
 * In episode 7 of Texhnolyze one member of Organ pisses his pants when some of his fellow members are shot and killed by an Alliance member, who then shoots him.
 * In Wolf Guy Wolfen Crest Kuroda takes a break from blowing up stuff (and students) to try to . When Kuroda announces these intentions the girl, Noriko, reacts by wetting herself and crying to the point where her face is a mess. Fortunately, Inugami interrupts him before he can do so.
 * Aoshika has a moment after glimpsing Inugami in his werewolf form.
 * In the first episode of Queen's Blade when the heroine Leina is attacked by Psychopathic Manchild Melona at her castle she wets herself. The Blob Monster laughs and ridicules her for doing this.
 * In Ikki Tousen: Dragon Destiny Sousou is fighting an Emotionless Girl assassin named Koushaji. She spits a needle in his best friend Kakouton's eye; this sends Sousou into absolute rage, and he releases his dragon to fight her at full strength. After fighting for awhile, Koushaji produces a liquid from between her legs (even though some people claim she actually had an orgasm from fighting him, since there is another female fighter in the same series who did have quite the Orgasmic Combat)...
 * In fact in the manga, pretty much all the major beatdowns end with at least one or both of the girls having wet herself/themselves, throw up and bleed everywhere, subverting Beauty Is Never Tarnished hard
 * In Dai Mahou Touge, after Punie defeats her Enfant Terrible Creepy Twins sisters she prepares to punish the little usurpers and, knowing their sister, the young girls lose control of their bladders. However, she never does anything worse to them then Spank the Cutie or some Tickle Torture
 * In one episode of Desert Punk, Punk is being fired upon by some bandits, and first comments that he crapped himself, and shortly afterward makes a comment about not needing a colonic.
 * In episode 184 of Sailor Moon, the girls are freaked out after hearing a noise in the hallway in Usagi's house and Mako scares them by telling them about the horrible gory monster that was there. Syiuu then tells them that he'll attack it on the count of three, but they all jump and trip on each other, only to find out that the figure was just Chibi-Chibi.


 * Berserk: the kid Guts uses as bait for child-eating insect-monsters rather visibly peed himself.
 * Nina also does this when she's about to be interrogated by Mozgus's disciples and sees how all the others are being tortured.
 * The Professor from Nichijou suffered a late-night Potty Emergency one stormy night and would've made it if not for a particularly fierce bolt of lightning.
 * While One Piece never explicitly uses this trope, Usopp, the character most likely to do this among the main cast, actually includes a pair of brown pants in his standard outfit.
 * Mahiru wets herself in terror during a flashback in Kamisama Dolls. Of course, when you're a seven year old girl staring down a demonic doll with Mind Rape as it's main weapon...
 * Hozuki-san Chi no Aneki's Gorou, most of the time when he sees something that deals with Horror.
 * In Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin, Hyena lets out a nice, steaming stream of urine when confronted by three ninja dogs.
 * In Claymore, Riful wraps Audrey in her tentacles and announces that she will start torturing her. Audrey wets herself in fear all over Riful.
 * Battle Angel Alita:
 * Happens to Satomi in Narutaru, and with good reason - her Shadow Dragon has just been cut down by a rotating blade. And not only she pees, but she also vomits and passes out.

Comic Books

 * In Alan Moore's 80s run on Captain Britain Weekly, Captain UK, an alternate-reality version of Captain Britain, wets herself at the sight of the Fury, the cyborg monster responsible for killing all the superheroes of her home reality, after it has wreaked havoc on Captain Britain and his compatriots.
 * In Empowered, a fat, ugly geek steals Emp's suit and puts it on, thinking it will grant him superpowers. He ends up grievously injured, wetting himself in the process. Also, Major Havok soiled himself when fighting The Caged Demonwolf.
 * In Volume 3 of Scott Pilgrim, when Scott and Todd are about to fight at Honest Ed's, and Wallace is giving Scott some advice on how to beat Todd. Scott's response: "If I peed my pants, would you guys pretend I got wet from the rain?"
 * In the movie, Scott says that line after being thrown into the air by Todd. Ramona then says, "It's not raining."
 * New 52: In Superman #6, Supergirl saves an obnoxious reporter from falling out of the sky. When she brings him to the ground, Jimmy Olsen and the other reporters complain and order in a change of pants for him.

Comedy
"And mothers are always more interested in the condition of your underwear than your body if you're ever in an accident. And they tell you that. "I hope for my sake that if you're ever in an accident, you have on clean underwear!" Well, I thought that was what an accident was! Look, you're driving a truck. Here comes another truck, gonna hit you. Now, whether you hit the truck or not, you're going to have soiled underwear! Because first you say it, then you do it!"
 * Bill Cosby said it best when describing the course of events in an auto accident:

"Master Computer: "I see the Federation has issued new uniforms." Ensign Newbie: "Star Command says it's my lucky Red Shirt!" Computer: "I see they've also given you brown pants to go with that red shirt." Ensign: "Huh?" Computer: "Just gratuitous foreshadowing...""
 * From the sci-fi audiobook Alien Adventure by John Freda.


 * Bill Engvall told the trope-naming joke during an exchange of them in the tail end of one of the Blue Collar Comedy movies.

Fan Works

 * Fairly English Story: Invoked by name during the Priestess Full Moon.
 * Happens several times to Phanpy (and others) in Latias'Journey. Understandable because the end of the fucking world plays a huge plot role.
 * Happens to Brock in Poké Wars: The Subsistence when he is confronted by an Ariados.
 * Happens to  in Kyon: Big Damn Hero, when
 * Phoenix asks for one of these in Turnabout Storm after Rarity finishes her little... err... rant about the post office and its lack of pens.

Film - Animated
"RJ: You OK, Verne? Look a little green. Verne: I blacked out for a second there, but... I get the idea: there's lights, traps and I might need to change my shell."
 * Sid in Ice Age: The Meltdown: "I just did something involuntary...and messy."
 * Porky Pig wets himself in Space Jam.
 * President Hathaway in Monsters vs. Aliens: "Boys, set the terror alert to brown, because I need to change my pants." Also, "Don't scare Insectosaurus! He'll pee himself, and we'll all be in trouble!"
 * In Over the Hedge, the animals make plans to pull off a big heist. During the briefing, RJ mentions the many traps the animals will have to watch out for. Verne is a little stunned.

"Carl: Hey, Jimmy, my pants are almost dry."
 * In Barnyard, Pip the mouse gets so nervous over the upcoming battle his bowels give away. Bonus points for being on top of Pig's head.
 * There's a subtle (yet so blatant) hint at this in the Jimmy Neutron movie.

"Humphrey: Okay, I just went."
 * In Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Brent comments, "Glad I'm wearing a diaper," upon seeing.
 * In the party ending of Shrek 2, Shrek tries to crowd surf. Everyone gets out of his way, except a puppy, which pees itself before he lands on it.
 * Alpha and Omega: Humphrey is suffering from an elaborate Potty Emergency when he and Kate are suddenly surrounded by bears.


 * There is a running gag to this effect in How to Train Your Dragon. When he assumes he's going on a expedition to find the dragons' nest, Gobber remarks that he'll pack extra undies. Later, while preparing to fight at the dragons' nest, he remarks that it's a "good thing I brought my undies."
 * Mars Needs Moms: "When you're going to shoot a laser at someone, you should bring them a change of underwear!"

Film - Live-Action
"Rusty: And give that crippled Tomcat story a rest, 'cause we've all heard it. Tuck: Gosh, Rusty... you're right, but at least when my moment of truth came I didn't take a dump down the leg of my flight suit."
 * Partially comedic example in Soldier. The commanding officer who has been setup as an Acceptable Target the entire movie is dragged down to face the soldier he had ordered dumped out of the ship like garbage at the start of the movie. As he begs for his life, a puddle forms at his feet.
 * One of the fresh arena fighters in Gladiator.
 * In the movie Innerspace, Tuck, a former pilot, gets into an argument with another pilot after drunkenly telling the story of landing a crippled plane in a storm.

"Stuart: Snowbell, are you all right? Snowbell: Yeah. In fact, good news. I no longer need a litter box. Monte: Mop up on aisle three!"
 * Sir Robin in Monty Python and the Holy Grail after seeing the rabbit for the first time, and he does it again after seeing what the rabbit is capable of. He's also described in his introduction as "Sir Robin Who Personally Wet Himself at the Battle of Baden Hill".
 * Cool Runnings: "Sanka...ya dead?" "Yeah, mon." "Well...you can pee now." "Ohh...too late."
 * In The Grudge 2, Vanessa is alone in the locker room and sees a ghost, and she reacts by peeing on her legs. Serves her right, she's the one who brought the girl to the house and restarted the whole curse...
 * A very dramatic example here: In The Battle Of Shaker Heights, Kelly and his friends plot to take revenge on the bully Lance by dragging him out of his house at gunpoint and shouting at him in German accents. Lance bawls as he urinates out of fear.
 * A subtle example occurs in Teen Wolf, when Harold Howard tells his son's principal to step off, a nice little speech punctuated at the end by a low, bestial growl (the principal knows about the family legacy of lycanthropy). After a beat, both men glance down, and Harold, back to friendly, remarks, "I knew I could count on you." It is strongly implied that the principal has wet himself. This is made even funnier by the fact that Harold is at least a foot shorter than the principal.
 * Simon the poser in True Lies. Twice.
 * In the movie White Squall, a character who is afraid of heights is forced to climb up into the ship's rigging. He pees his pants.
 * Ace Ventura "I'm looking for Ray Finkle." (Ray's father points a shotgun at Ace) "And a clean pair of shorts."
 * Non-comedic example: In Friday the 13th Part 2, one girl is hiding from Jason Voorhees beneath a bed. A rat runs by her face, and Jason learns of her whereabouts when a rivulet emerges from beneath the bed.
 * Though many fans believe so, Word of God says otherwise, claiming it was the rat.
 * In Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco, the animal trio are taken with their human masters to the airport for their trip to Canada. However, the animals break out. They try to stop their masters from taking off in the plane by sitting on the runway to get their attention. The airplane does not stop and just barely takes off over their heads. A puddle emerges from underneath Chance.
 * In Stuart Little 2, Stuart and Snowbell head out to a seedier part of town to find the whereabouts of the villainous Falcon, Stuart as intrepid as usual, and Snowbell in the need of a litter box. They meet up with Monte, who explains to the two how sinister the Falcon is. Snowbell is left terrified.

"Snowbell: This is now officially a litter box!"
 * And in an early trailer to Stuart Little 2, Snowbell gives this little hum-ding after falling down the side of a skyscraper:

""You scared the crap out of me! See? There it is.""
 * Used in Ransom when the protagonist's young son, now freed, recognizes the voice of his kidnapper. The protagonist sees the puddle he's making and gets clued in, then makes a valiant try at bluffing his way through his interaction with the villain -- of course, bluff checks are notoriously spotty when it comes to scenes like these.
 * In The Long Kiss Goodnight, a teenaged boy is smoking a cigarette when he is surprised by Charlie the Spy coming up behind him with a big sniper rifle. He pees his pants.
 * It was less a matter of him being surprised to see her with that big gun, and more a matter of her warning him that she'd use it on him if he told anyone she'd been there.
 * The guinea pig in the Eddie Murphy Doctor Dolittle:

"Columbus: At least I found a place to do number two..."
 * In probably the most inane example, 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain has one of Rocky's "friends" peeing himself because a goofy-looking doofus gives a barely-scary roar into his face.
 * A slasher piece titled Pieces has a scene with a college student cornered by a chainsaw-wielding killer. She pees her pants, which was added to the script because the actress really wet herself during a rehearsal take from being so close to a real chainsaw.
 * Or so says the apparent nephew of a conveniently deceased filmmaker who might not even exist.
 * The Exorcist where Regan wets herself while scaring everyone, most probably including herself.
 * In Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV, one of the Diaper mafia, on seeing Toxie, soils his diaper rather graphically (it is a Troma movie after all).
 * In Unforgiven the biographer W.W. Beauchamp wets himself when he's surrounded by a town's lawmen with guns pointed at him.
 * While it's never said out loud in Bad Taste, one character certainly wishes his pants were a darker shade of brown.
 * Happens to Columbus at the beginning of Zombieland. One of his rules is "beware of bathrooms" and trying to use the john at a gas station leads to an extended zombie chase.

"Madame Leota: Evil and darkness have fallen this night. But now, to survive, you must gain new sight. Jim: I must first gain new underwear!"
 * All Quiet on the Western Front As in the book, an experienced soldier tells the new recruit that it happens to lots of people.
 * Disney's The Haunted Mansion (2003):

"Tango: Do you think he's telling the truth? Cash: I don't know. But it's not raining, and he's standing in a puddle. Tango: Disgusting."
 * In Orphan, Danny wets himself when.
 * Happens in Tango and Cash, during Requin's interrogation scene:

"Vincent: Oh no. The problem. The problem, Pansy! It's started again! Pansy: Oh! Oh, don't worry, darling! Vincent: Ohhh... ohhh... Pansy: I say! Vincent: I must have fruit!"
 * Happens to Inspector Lee at the end of Rush Hour 3 (he had been suffering from constipation for most of the film).
 * Played for Drama in The Man Who Fell to Earth: When Thomas reveals his true Rubber Forehead Alien form to his human lover Mary-Lou, the terror this instills in her leads to her wetting herself.
 * In the movie Paul, Clive screams and passes out when he and Graeme first meet the titular alien. Then, as Graeme and Paul are about to pick Clive up, Paul tells Graeme that Clive peed his pants.
 * Defied in Ninth Company. While the heroes are in boot camp in Afghanistan, in one the drills they have to lie in a shallow trench, let a tank roll over them and then throw a dummy Molotov's cocktail at it. One of the heroes completes the assignement, but when he emerges from the trenches it turns out that he'd wet himself from fear, much to the amusement of his comrades. However, Drill Sergeant Nasty immediately jumps all over them, explaining that nobody cares if you weep or call for your mommy or, yes, even wet yourself, just as long as you get the job done.
 * Happens to one of the Mooks in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life when he witnesses dozens of soldiers being killed by Shadow Monsters.
 * In The Substitute, Shale decides to interrogate a bad guy Jack Bauer-style. The bad guy becomes so terrified that he poops himself.
 * Happens to Will Graham's son in Red Dragon which gave him an idea on how to defeat Francis Dolarhyde.
 * Medieval-era Vincent's "personal problem" in Time Bandits, which reactivates as he's tied to a tree with his girlfriend Pansy.

Literature
""Are you injured, sir, seeing as you just had to dispose of your pants, sir?! A shot in the arse, sir, is a very dangerous thing, sir! Shall I call an orderly to dress it, sir?!""
 * Warhammer 40000 - Commissar Ciaphas Cain, Hero of the Imperium, remarks on several occasions that he may seem brave at this moment, but he really, really needs to change his pants.
 * Discworld Examples:
 * In Monstrous Regiment, just before Corporal Strappi runs away.
 * In Feet of Clay, when Colon is hanging off the edge of a roof.
 * Unseen Academicals also mentions that Rincewind costs the Unseen University money due to an above-average amount of soiled pants. Archchancellor Ridcully, however, feels it's worth the price since Rincewind's status as a Cosmic Butt Monkey keeps it from having to be anyone else.
 * Heck, this is so common in Discworld that it nearly hits Running Gag status. Nearly every instance of extreme fright will be followed by a mention of dampness or the need to do laundry.
 * There was mention of "panic shit" in Raptor Red, when an animal was attacked.
 * There is a scene from All Quiet on the Western Front where a new soldier soils himself when bombs go off nearby. The other soldiers merely tell him he's not the first it's happened to.
 * An American officer in WWII does this in Cryptonomicon, where his incontinence is contrasted to General MacArthur's coolness.
 * This happens to the eponymous character in the novel Crabbe when he's attacked by a bear.
 * A number of Stephen King works feature this. The Shining, The Stand, Geralds Game to name a few...
 * The Bloody Road to Death by Sven Hassel. A Dirty Coward of a Nazi officer is caught by shelling on his way back to headquarters and soils himself, quickly getting rid of the evidence. Porta chooses that moment to come along and naturally draws attention to the event as loudly as possible.

"The Doctor: "[...]There's a stench of decay here." "Sorry." Fitz smiled and wafted with his hands. "That would be me. Well, I was very frightened.""
 * Flashman farts his way down the Valley of Death during the Charge of the Light Brigade, as he hasn't eaten for days and so has no solid matter to 'release'.
 * There's a serious example in The Culture novel Matter where Prince Ferbin, a good-hearted Upper Class Twit, defecates in his pants after seeing the general next to him in battle being cut in half by enemy rounds.
 * From the Doctor Who Eighth Doctor Adventures novel The Ancestor Cell, after the humanoid TARDIS seriously malfunctions, crashlands in a horrible spooky place, and spits out everything inside her, including the Doctor and his companion Fitz, who admits to farting with terror:

""It would be wonderful if I could say that I looked at the dragon calmly and fearlessly. But I didn't. Instead, I wet myself.""
 * Fitz also once either pissed himself or came very close when trying to rescue the Doctor from the living personification of Future Me Scares Me, or possibly just the Doctor's own paradoxical and terrifying future self, in what he describes as a "surrealist hell". True to this trope, he was quite happy about the fact he was too soaked for anyone to notice. Under the circumstances, it just makes him all the more sympathetic and admirable.
 * Temeraire - Temeraire is annoyed by soldiers' tendency to do this whenever he performs any sort of minor aerial maneuver while he carries them. He thinks that he'll have to bathe for a week before feeling clean again.
 * In the first "Gord the Rogue" novel (a D&D World of Greyhawk tie-in), Gord pees himself during a beginning of the book encounter with a street gang. After leveling up big time, Gord heads back to that neighborhood at the end of the book specifically to make the gang leader both piss and crap his pants.
 * In Norman Mailer's World War II novel, The Naked and the Dead a young soldier named Hennessey soils himself during an attack. He wants to clean up, so he climbs out of his foxhole, and soon killed by an artillery shell.
 * In Ash: A Secret History, several characters piss or soil themselves on the field of battle or in other horrifying situations.
 * Going After Cacciato - This is why most of the book's plot even exists.
 * Happens in Goshawk Squadron due to the castor oil lubricant used by the World War One aircraft; another pilot recommends drinking Scotch to solve the problem.
 * Villiain William Hamleigh does not make a good end as he is marched to the gallows in The Pillars of the Earth.
 * Lampshaded and averted in The Hunt for Red October, when Jack Ryan - in a nervous spot - congratulates himself for having gone to the toilet prior to the scary bits.
 * In Point Of Impact by Stephen Hunter, the character Jack Payne's most embarrassing memory was soiling himself in front of his fellow soldiers when he was charged by a Viet Cong soldier.
 * In the novelisation of the 1989 Batman movie, when Batman attacks a criminal at the beginning, it's said that "all he could do was piss in his pants."
 * Discussed in Dragonseye, between B'nurrin and K'vin about the prospect of facing the first Threadfall in two hundred years (they're at the end of the first Interval, about to face the Second Pass). K'vin's Weyrwoman, Zulaya, surprises him by admitting she's concerned about needing to change pants during Fall herself.
 * In Lene Kaaberbol's Dina at the Dragon Fortress Dina, a 13 years old girl, is caught between two dragons:

Live Action TV
"Holly: "We're traveling faster than the speed of light. That means, by the time we see something, we've already passed through it. Even with an IQ of 6000, it's still brown-trousers time"."
 * Merton Dingle from Big Wolf on Campus has wet himself when facing various forces of evil. At one point, he even recites a haiku in which he mentions that he soiled himself and feels shame for doing so.
 * In the BBC drama Threads, the city of Sheffield comes under nuclear attack. One particularly memorable shot is simply a woman's leg, wearing heeled shoes and trousers. A stream of yellow liquid is coming out of the trouser leg. It's insanely horrible.
 * However it did lead to one of the saddest and funniest IMDB profiles ever.
 * Red Dwarf:
 * In the second episode, "Future Echoes", Holly makes a remark about the inherent difficulty in lightspeed travel.

"Kryten: We must take action. Be bold, positive, decisive. Suggest we move from blue alert to red alert, sir. Cat: Forget red! Let's go all the way up to brown alert! Kryten: But there's no such thing as brown alert, sir. Cat: You won't be saying that in a minute. And don't say I didn't alert you!"
 * Also, when Kryten's would-be replacement announces that Rimmer (though a hologram) is a viable target, Rimmer comments "Well, it's been a few years since I did that."

"Frank Burns: There's an unexploded shell out there. Hawkeye: We know, Frank, we know. Frank Burns: We've got to evacuate immediately! Hawkeye: I think I did."
 * Titus
 * In the pilot episode, Tommy pees himself when they find out Almost unnoticeable, unless you're looking for it. Mentioned in the episode's DVD commentary.
 * In the courtroom episode, it's revealed Tommy wet himself when Titus' mother shot her husband. Later, she takes the judge hostage, but he gets free when Ken goes in to talk to her. Upon seeing evidence of how the judge handled the situation, Tommy gloats, "Oh, look! The Judge wet himself!"
 * In The Young Ones episode "Flood" Mike happens to mention that there's a lion tamer in his bedroom. Neil, not knowing this, opens the door to Mike's room. When he sees the lion there's a loud squelch.
 * It happens to him again in the second series episode "Time". A light bulb in the ceiling decided to leave to get away from Neil's BO (Vyvyan was holding him over his head to use as a weapon while fighting with Rick), and Mike, Vyvyan, and Rick are preparing to jump off a ladder and onto one end of a seesaw to propel Neil toward the ceiling to put in a new light bulb. As they count down to the jump, there is a loud squelch. Mike tells Neil not to worry, as that shouldn't affect his overall weight in their calculations.
 * On NCIS, Gibbs' team have made bets on whether or not (or in which order) the suspects being questioned will wet or soil themselves.
 * In one episode of Boston Legal, Alan Shore, who has had an intense fear of clowns since childhood, has to defend a professional clown, who to his horror shows up in the courtroom in uniform. As he later confesses to Denny Crane, he refrains from looking at or coming near his client because he sincerely fears he might wet himself, though he does not actually do so.
 * In True Blood, an unfortunate police officer wets himself after a close call with Bill.
 * This happens to one of a group of African kids in 24: Redemption when a group of soldiers ambush a football game to conscript the children playing into joining the General Juma's coup d'etat.
 * It was referenced often on Reaper.
 * In an episode of Son of the Beach, main character Notch Johnson tells of his father (Corbin Bernsen), who died in the surf. Later, Notch dons his father's trunks, which have a conspicuous brown stain down the back. Seeing this, Kimberlee says, "Was your father scared when he died?"
 * In The Sopranos Christopher "does a number two in his pants" as girlfriend Adriana puts it, when he is mock executed by a pair of Russian gangsters.
 * Later on, Jackie Jr. pees himself in a car seat when Christopher and another mobster rob a benefit concert.
 * And then there was a "businessman" who wet his pants as he was dragged into a dark room so a bunch of mobsters could bash him up.
 * In Coupling, one episode involves Jeff's rather kinky interactions with his girlfriend, who ends up Chained to a Bed after he accidentally swallows the handcuff key. Earlier in the episode, he references buying laxatives in order to retrieve the key, but after he gets threatened by the girlfriend's psycho ex-boyfriend, he remarks that that will no longer be a problem.
 * Referred to in the M*A*S*H (television) episode "The Army-Navy Game":

"Rob: Fresh underwear for Mr Savage."
 * Woolsey is implied to have pissed himself in the Stargate SG-1 episode "The Shroud" after . After being beamed down to the SGC, he starts to look down at himself before being distracted by Jack O'Neill being beamed away. According to Michael Shanks, they were going to include a shot of the actual act, but it was cut for being unnecessary and crude.
 * Robert Lee claimed this was necessary after a Myth Busters small-scale test literally blew up in Adam's face.

"Adam: It was absolutely the scariest thing I have ever done on this show. 10 on the brown pants index."
 * Another one, in "Inverted Underwater Car":

"Might be an idea to wear brown trousers and a shirt the colour of blood."
 * The last episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: as the cast march into Sunnydale High for the final battle, Xander tells the Potentials where the bathrooms are. If they don't have to go, he suggests they picture what they're about to face - . "Better to go now."
 * The Thick of It - Malcolm Tucker invokes this at one point when summoning Nicola to his office.

"Alexis: Weren't you scared? Castle: Me? Scared? No way, come on. Now excuse while I change my shorts."
 * In The Tudors, Catherine Howard wets herself at the sight of Lady Rochford's death.
 * Castle:

"Blunkett: (sniffs) Has the dog dropped one? Interviewer: Actually, that was me."
 * Whose Line Is It Anyway - This is said almost word-for-word by Colin when the Scene From The Hat was Most Confusing Battle Cries.
 * Link. The line comes soon after 1:45
 * Two and A Half Men: After Walden apologises for nearly killing them with his reckless driving, Alan apologises for peeing on his car seat.
 * American Horror Story: A girl caught in the middle of a school shooting pisses herself while hiding from the shooter.
 * In the The Blue and The Gray TV miniseries, Malachi wets himself while going into his first battle of the American Civil War. He whispers the fact to his brother and says that everyone is going to notice. His brother then mentions that everyone had just crossed a deep creek.
 * Sherlock tells Watson that will soon pass out of his system. Watson quips that it's already happened.
 * In one sketch by Rory Bremner, Bremner portrayed David Blunkett, who was Home Secretary at the time. Early on, he makes a Blind Mistake which almost leads to an accident:

Music
"Well the crowd cleared away, and I began to pray, as the water fell on the floor; I'm telling you son, it ain't no fun, staring straight down a forty-four."
 * Lynyrd Skynyrd in the song Gimmie Three Steps:

Mythology
""...he was sore afraid, and it is said that he wet himself when he saw Thor.""
 * One account is given in Norse Mythology, cited in the Prose Edda (Brodeur's Translation). The story concerns a giant, Hrungnir, about to duel with Thor:

Professional Wrestling
"Austin: "McMahon 3:16 says 'I just pissed my pants!'""
 * Psycho Sid crapping his pants in the middle of his Wrestlemania XIII match against The Undertaker is one of the most enduring tales in the Professional Wrestling fandom. Unfortunately for Sid, he managed to live it down, by replacing that image with his horrific leg break in 2001.
 * Austin pulling a  gun on Vince:


 * Possibly because of the Vince incident mentioned above, anytime a non-wrestling persona is in the ring with a wrestler, under the implication he's going to get his ass kicked, the ring announcers always say something to the extent of "Good thing he's wearing dark pants."
 * In the 2011 revival of Tough Enough, Stone Cold Steve Austin admitted that very early in his career, he shat himself in the middle of a match, but simply continued.

Theater
"Dionysos: How I went pale at this sight! Xanthias: (points at Dionysos' robe) And this, out of fright, went brown for you."
 * In A Very Potter Sequel, right before they travel back in time, says something along the lines of, "I hope you're all wearing your diapers." After the time travel, Ron asked, "Why did I just shit my pants?"
 * Happens regularly in Aristophanes' plays, an example from The Frogs (Dionysos' slave Xanthias has just described to him a horrible monster that may or may not have existed) :

Video Games
"Snipes: That was a little too close. Now we gotta wait 15 minutes before we can change our shorts."
 * In Battlefield: Vietnam, the player character would whimper and then proceed to defecate if you let yourself fall without using a parachute for a long enough time.
 * Happens multiple times in the Metal Gear Solid series.
 * The first Metal Gear Solid has Otacon peeing his pants when confronted with an insane cyborg ninja. This gets mentioned in the Tanker chapter of Metal Gear Solid 2, where if you hide in a locker, Otacon will note that this is like when he and Snake first met, only reversed. Snake will than add, "Not unless I wet my pants."
 * Happens to Otacon's sister as well in Metal Gear Solid 2. One of the elderly hostages in the Plant mission will also wet herself upon you mistaking her for Jennifer.
 * In Metal Gear Solid 3 Sokolov wets himself when Ocelot decides to play Russian Roulette with him while juggling three pistols. Snake also does this while being tortured by a sadistic Complete Monster.
 * This happens to Johnny Sasaki in every game he's been in. And if he doesn't crap his pants in a scene, he comes very close.
 * The Sims - Sometimes happens to Sims when they see ghosts.
 * Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories
 * Tink voids himself in anticipation of summoning Tyrant Overlord Zenon.
 * An encounter in the Item World has the player ending up in a bonus room full of cockatrices to initiate a fight. The cockatrice the player talks to claims to wet his feathers in surprise.
 * During Laharl's anime-rific cutscene, Taro pees down his leg in fearsome awe.
 * Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten- Fuka worries about wetting her bed when she gets scared at one point.
 * Mass Effect 2 - "Be still, Mouse. You can change your pants in a moment." Comes after two Oh Crap lines in quick succession, no less.
 * Played for Laughs in the ending to De Blob 2 when the hero defecates red paint onto the Hypno Ray dish at sight of the black hole.
 * Several characters soil themselves at the mere mention of Tyrant Overlord Baal in Disgaea 3.
 * In the opening scene of Breath Of Fire 3, one of the miner claims to have wet himself in fright of the main character Ryu (in dragon form) running wild through the mine, spreading panic to all the workers.
 * In Final Fantasy VIII, after the opening siege mission, one member of SeeD claims he wet himself on the battlefield.
 * In Eternal Sonata, the party is about to cross the unstable-looking Cabasa Bridge. Beat thinks he's going to wet himself. After they cross, Allegretto asks if he did, and Beat denies it nervously.
 * The Dragoon sidequest in Ogre Battle 64 has the player searching for a legendary dragon name the Grozz Nuy. In the process of finding it, the player must track down a series of equipment pieces, all of them take some investigation all over the game's world. Searching for the Dragoon's sword has the player locating a barkeep- a man who claims he saw the dragon, peed his pants, then passed out in the snow.
 * Some of the Mooks in The Punisher will say they've wet or soiled themselves after Castle gruesomely kills a fellow Mook in front of them.
 * There is also a hostage who will say he crapped his pants after Castle forces a Mook to disarm a bomb he had strapped onto his body.
 * Capcom's Shadow of Rome: The player has the ability to scare opponents into peeing themselves. In fact, it's one of the game's side goals.
 * Used as a joke by Lt.-Cmd. Snipes in Freespace 2, during a recon mission far behind enemy lines with only a very small time window before they get left behind by the rest of the Allied fleet. His wing of starfighters exits from the subspace node the exact moment a Shivan Sathanas-class Juggernaut accelerates to full speed to enter it.

"Space Quest 1 (after crash landing an escape pod): That is the seat. It may be slightly moist after that landing."
 * Tagline for Plants vs. Zombies: "Be prepared to soil your plants!"
 * In Planescape: Torment, a very stuck-up lecturer in the Sensorium is giving a rather uninformed and overall bad talk on the Blood War. One of the main character's possible responses to this is to literally scare the crap out of him.
 * Used several times during the Space Quest series:

""No thanks, I just went.""
 * In the Death Knight starting area in World of Warcraft, one of the enemies you face, the Scarlet Peasant, will sometimes on being attacked say "ungh... I... I think I pooped..."
 * After the Cat Scare --  -- in the upstairs bathroom from Return to Ravenhearst, you can click on the (disgusting) toilet, triggering a captioned comment from your character that suggests you've just invoked this trope:

"Phoenix Wright: *gulp* Maybe I should have brought a diaper with me today."
 * In Medal of Honor: Allied Assault at the end of the Norway campaign, "Scuttling the U-529", one of the escort ally soldiers quote, "I think I wet myself.
 * In Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, during the course of the "Flyboys" mission, you teammate Frank Minoso will mention he's "low on ammo, and needs to change his shorts".
 * Referenced in Dragon Age: Origins. Before the battle of Ostagar, Alistair and the Player Character are sent to go ready a signal fire. If you ask Duncan what you should do if the archdemon appears on the battlefield, Alistair quips "We soil our drawers, that's what."
 * If you run into a dragon, Zevran may say "Uh, I may have just browned my pants."
 * Since Stacking takes place in a world populated by Russian matroyshka dolls, scared people leave behind sawdust.
 * Case 3 of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations, when Phoenix had to confront in court.


 * In BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend, Hazama cops to nearly peeing himself.

Web Comics
""I can't stop peeing my pants. I'm out of urine, but I'm peeing my pants with blood now because of my body's biological need to pee my pants from the terror I'm experiencing""
 * Happens in Stage Select when This Banana Is Armed makes itself known.
 * Regina Darkblood in Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures had this kind of reaction, when she discovered that Dan had awakened as an Incubus since she last fought him.
 * Black Mage from Eight Bit Theater somehow manages to do this to Thief's pants, while the latter is wearing them.
 * When Sam tries out the JATO truck in Freefall, he expresses a need for a change of clothes.
 * Super Stupor: "I don't wanna be a villain anymore! I just wanna go home! And maybe wear pants without feces in them!"
 * The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
 * Martin the Monster makes a bad guy flunky do this.
 * Earlier in the comic, we get this delightful quote from a ninja on the bad end of the Inverse Ninja Law:

"Pirate Captain: Mate, we need something white to wave for surrendering! Mate: Your bloomers? Pirate Captain: A minute too late for that, mate!"
 * And again in this strip.
 * Schlock Mercenary: Howard Tayler has a lot of fun with this gag. He's used it probably several dozen times since the beginning of the strip.
 * In the three strips starting here, this gag is set-up and used.
 * Again here!
 * They used a version a long time ago that proves even AIs can soil themselves.
 * Stew from Fur Will Fly reacts poorly to Brad's arrival in this strip.
 * Riley from Angel Moxie wets herself when a giant monster grabs her, prompting the monster to hope that it's sweat. It's confirmed otherwise when Alex teases Riley about it.
 * Gabe from Penny Arcade wets himself when Tycho sneaks up on him while he's playing F.E.A.R.. Gabe tries to pass it off as a spilled drink.
 * Camp Calomine has the usually cool-headed Charles ask for brown shorts when he learns of a serial killer on the loose.
 * In Questionable Content it's mentioned (though not shown) to have happened to Marten, though to be fair, "You try being used as a human shield by a scimitar-wielding monk and see how well your bladder holds up!"
 * Randy makes Yelling Bird shit himself with fear.
 * Sluggy Freelance has used it a few times. Here's one from a pirate captain, no less (in fairness, he just realized that are rushing in for the kill):

"Nodwick: Well this is ominous... Yeagar: If "ominous" means "something that makes you need to change your shorts", then I've learned a new word today."
 * Sonic and Pals. Used so much that it's become a Running Gag.
 * Hunter of Suicide for Hire once cornered a Depraved Homosexual Stalker with a Crush and managed to frighten him into both soiling himself and deciding it was in his better interests to leave Hunter alone.
 * AJ in User Friendly here.
 * Eastwood of Exterminatus Now wets himself when the gang is stuck in the Collapsing Lair of his Arch Nemesis Morth. It mostly seems to have been used to lighten the mood of what would otherwise be a genuinely serious, sombre scene.
 * Happens here in Wapsi Square due to a case of Mugging the Monster.
 * This is how Zintiel's confrontation with her brother Tares ended in this strip of Flaky Pastry.
 * In this Trigger Star strip, after watching Hash Brown's run-in with Saurkraut, Avocado comments, "Hey, I didn't know your pants could change color."
 * Implied in this Megatokyo strip.
 * In a moment from Nodwick reminiscent of the Blair Witch Project:

Web Original
""I guess I wet my pants for nothing!" "...I don't have to pee-tinkle anymore.""
 * Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series.

""I don't know what's going on, Homestar, but I'm not at liberty to discuss what I just did in my pants!""
 * Homestar Runner

"Harry: Expecto! Expcecto! Bill Corbett: Expecto need a change-a pants after this!"
 * Also, Strong Bad's phrase "not for the faint of heart or the faint of butt" probably references this.
 * Strong Sad will say "Where are you going? You can't take on Trogdor without calling product support first! You'll void your warranty! And maybe your bladder!" if you try to go outside with out talking to him first in Strong Bads Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 5.
 * Happens to two out of three bad guys in "Ayla and the Great Shoulder Angel Conspiracy" in the Whateley Universe.
 * Riff Trax:
 * Harry Potter, as Harry is desperately trying and failing to summon his Patronus:

"Mike Nelson: Well that was kind of scar-... Kevin what happened? Kevin Murphy: I spilled water in my lap. Mike: But you weren't drinking any- Kevin: I spilled my water!"
 * The Grudge, after Yoko is attacked by Kayako.

"Todd in the Shadows: Wet yourselves and run!"
 * The Nostalgia Critic does it during the "Top 11 Nostalgic Mind Fucks" countdown, then again in the "Top 11 Nostalgia Critic Fuck-Ups" countdown, when the Critic wets himself when the Banshee from Darby O'Gill and the Little People is brought up.
 * The Literal Video version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" features the line "Get out of my way, I've gotta pee!" After one of the possessed kids leaps at her, she sings "Never mind, I just went on the floor! Now I need to find a mop!"
 * Lupis from the rebooted [Darwin's Soldiers] Furtopia RP wets himself out of fear several times. Luckily, he spends a fair portion of the RP in diapers. Justified by the fact that he is four years old and not fully toilet trained.
 * Garlic Jr. is definitely in need of brown pants in the Dragon Ball Abridged version of the first movie, Dead Zone, after summoning the dragon and getting ranted at before his wish is granted.
 * The very first thing that Jimmy Brennan of Survival of the Fittest v4 does once he wakes up on the island is... wet himself. Then he starts crying and running around screaming throughout the forest, eventually shouting out that "Craig Hoyle will rape you and wear your skin as a coat!"
 * Tabi Gweneth similarly wets herself (and passes out) soon after waking up on the island...notably, she still doesn't realize that she is in fact on Survival of the Fittest. Possibly a natural reaction to being threatened with an umbrella, but it still makes you wonder about her every-day life.
 * Theatrica features someone urinating themselves just before standing trial. To be fair, the trial procedure is severe, and the punishment system rather brutal.
 * Zero Punctuation - Yahtzee refers to the game Amnesia: The Dark Descent as being "almost unmatched as a constipation aid." He also praises Thief as providing the sort of immersion that launched an unexpected cat right back off his lap with a reflexive jet of pee.
 * Suburban Knights has one of these once the members of That Guy With The Glasses realize the Cloaks aren't just confused LAR Pers, but actually scary magic people.

"Church: Heeyy. Is it possible for to piss its pants? Because I'm pretty sure I just did that."
 * Nash, Film Brain and Linkara have this to say in the failed TV Pilot for Wonder Woman is about to hurt someone: PANTS TO BE DARKENED! Also happens when JO catches the boys doing a review while she waited four hours to meet Gary Larson.
 * In Red vs. Blue: Revelation episode 19, after :

Western Animation
"Marge: Are you kids wearing clean underwear? Bart: Not anymore."
 * Done lots of times in The Simpsons.
 * During a mini-episode collection where the Simpsons sleep through church and wake up to find that the Armageddon has begun:

"Marge: Careful of the apple pie on the seat. Grandpa Simpson: Uh oh! Marge: Grandpa are you sitting on the pie? Grandpa Simpson: I sure hope so."
 * When learning how to pilot a helicopter Barney has his helicopter thrown into a tail spin by his instructor. After he corrects the flight and apologizes to his teacher he's told not to worry, that's what the diapers are for.
 * In a Treehouse of Horror episode, Bart awakens from a frightening dream. His first words after calming down are "I hope this is sweat."
 * In another Halloween episode, Bart says he has a story so scary you'll wet your pants. Grandpa tells him he already did.
 * In one episode the children of Springfield sneak into a horror movie called The Bloodening, about children with psychic powers. During a showdown with an angry pitchfork carrying mob, they start revealing the secrets of the town by reading their minds. Just before the cutaway, the thought they reveal is "Now you're thinking 'I hope that's Shepherd's Pie in my knickers...'."
 * In another episode, Homer prepares to face off against a grizzly bear by constructing a makeshift suit of armor...without a seat. He explains that this is in case he gets extremely frightened, because he doesn't want to ruin the suit.
 * And subverted in another episode. Where Sideshow Bob has hijacked a nuke. Marge calms herself down knowing the kids have clean underwear. Cut to Bart's room, where his underwear is on his bed with sting cords as it zooms in on it.
 * On the ride home from an apple orchard.

"Cartman: Oh, my God. I crapped my pants! H-heh heh! Hey-hey you guys, check it out!"
 * South Park:
 * In a short produced for the MTV Movie Awards, the cast of South Park is dropped into the Coliseum scene from Gladiator, and Cartman's reaction is "You guys, I crapped my pants!" Later they are saved by the aliens from Battlefield Earth and are given Scientology personality tests, which Cartman think are perfect for wiping himself.
 * In the second episode of "Imaginationland", the episode begins with Butters safe back home. But then he wakes up and realizes he's still in Imaginationland as it's invaded by imagination's most vile creatures. The mayor explains he peed his pants and fainted.
 * "Le Petit Tourette" featured Cartman admitting to wetting himself when faced with big trouble.
 * In "Hell On Earth 2006", Cartman attempts a Bloody Mary-type ritual to summon Biggie Smalls. Just as Cartman repeats "Biggie Smalls" for the third time, Butters pops in the door behind him. Cartman is so scared he craps his pants.

"Jake: Scared you, didn't I? Fu Dog: Nah, I'm always this damp."
 * Total Drama Island:
 * Cody pees himself twice when confronted by bears in one episode.
 * As does Owen in another episode, after being chased by giant prehistoric beaver-things (Don't ask).
 * Lindsay also peed herself in the second season, while she's in an outhouse no less and being scared by Beth.
 * Brick also pees himself in the fourth season due to his fear of the dark. Evidently, he also did this on his first and last day of high school.
 * The Boondocks:
 * Uncle Ruckus is mopping a hospital floor when he's suddenly confronted by three gun-toting thugs demanding to know where Gangstalicious is. Ruckus' (surprisingly even-toned) reply: "Could you repeat that again? I couldn't hear you over the sound of me shitting myself."
 * Ed Wuncler III claims in the first episode that, after shitting himself over a dozen times in Iraq, and running out of toilet paper and having to use his thumb after the second time, he was nicknamed "Stinkbomb" and no longer taken on patrol for fear of the stench alerting enemies.
 * In the half episode "Fu Dog Takes A Walk", American Dragon: Jake Long has Fu Dog falling into a pool of growing green goo. Luckily, the title character snatches him out of the air.

"Ice King: Entirely by choice!"
 * Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends example: Terence does this at the end of Eddie Monster.
 * King of the Hill:
 * When the depressed and drunk Bill steals a tank and ends up driving it onto a live-fire artillery range, Dale Gribble reacts thusly to a shell exploding nearby: "Gentlemen, the crap has literally been scared out of me..."
 * In another episode, "Gone with the Windstorm", Bobby has to deal with a strange bully at school that jumps out of weird places to scare Bobby. One scene, Bobby comes home from school wearing a pair of effeminate pair of track pants. Bobby explains the bully scared him into soiling his regular clothes.
 * Happy Tree Friends: A group of characters are riding on a school bus around a perilous cliff. Petunia the skunk has been drinking a lot of cherry juice and needs to visit the washroom. Chaos ensues, and soon the bus is headed for the edge of a cliff. Petunia puddles the floor, and dies doing so.
 * Men In Black: The Series:
 * Frank swallows a device armed to create a black hole. The agents get it out of him by scaring it out- threatening him with a painful surgical procedure an axe.
 * In another episode a bomb is discovered in MIB headquarters. Someone suggests evacuating the building and Jay remarks "I'm evacuating as we speak".
 * In an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Billy having become sick of Grim's rules decides to try and fart on him after some struggling he says "here it comes!" but it doesn't go as planned then he remarks "aw now I gots to change my pants".
 * In another episode (forgot the name) Billy hops into Grim's arms, prompting him to remark, "That better be sweat drippin' down your leg."
 * In the Futurama episode "War is The H Word", Fry and Bender join the army to take advantage of a military service discount at a 7/11 to get cheap gum. However, war is declared, and they are forced to fight an intergalactic battle against a bunch of bouncing balls. At one point, Fry is charged with providing covering fire for his unit when the balls mount a huge offensive. Fry chickens out and blasts a hole in the ground to hide in. Later, Zapp berates him saying "While other soldiers were fighting and dying pointlessly, he was hiding in a hole in a pool of his own cowardice." Fry's response? "That wasn't cowardice!"
 * Every time bricks fall out of Bender
 * Dada of Pucca pees himself on almost all episodes (or just every one), leaving a nasty yellow puddle behind. He pees himself everytime he gets scared or tense, than happens to be everytime anyone confronts him, or even talk or look at him...
 * A Parody Commercial on Jimmy Two-Shoes had a Ghost-In-A-Box scaring a baby, who quickly fills his diaper.
 * A child swimming in a pool in Sym-Bionic Titan does this after the titular robot just barely stops itself from falling face-first onto him.
 * In Adventure Time, Ice King soils himself when he sees the true form of Marceline's dad.

"Death: The revelation, jackass! It could have helped you save your marriage. But too late. And by the way, when the lightning hit you, you soiled yourself. Enjoy."
 * When Peter has a near-death experience on Family Guy, Death tries to show him that he needs to appreciate Lois more. When Peter doesn't get it, Death has him return to his body.

"Stan: I hope this is sweat."
 * American Dad: In the Halloween episode "Best Little Horror House in Langley Falls", Francine pees herself while visiting Buckle the Mountain Man's haunted house.
 * In another episode, Stan participates in an illegal car race, and is so excited that he looks down and finds his crotch is wet.

"Buford: (on a sinking ship) Well, that's the end of that diaper.
 * Mentioned in Avatar: The Last Airbender, when Azula gave a very threatening speech to the Dai Li, staring down one agent in particular who Mai later said looked like he was going to pee his pants.
 * During the Equalist raid of the Pro-Bending Tournament in The Legend of Korra "And the Winner Is...", the (very dedicated) announcer covers an Equalist trespassing into his booth, aiming a lightning-bending device at him at point-blank range and the wetting of his own pants.
 * Used as a Running Gag on Almost Naked Animals, where Octo (an octopus, of course) "inks" himself when scared.
 * The Venture Brothers episode "Home Insecurity" has Dean peeing himself after an encounter with a security bot with a screen depicting his dad's face.
 * Phineas and Ferb: Buford and Baljeet are the usual victims of this.

Buford: (on a roller coaster and a musical) I'm glad I'm wearing boxers that are already brown!

Baljeet: (about to perform) I'm about to let my feelings out through these pleather pants!"

"Doofenshmirtz: Say goodbye to this pair of lederhosen..."
 * Also:

"Knock Out: I think I leaked a little transmission fluid."
 * Transformers Prime: When Knock Out just obtained a cybertronian artifact he wonders what it is, Megatron demonstrates its a shield generator when he fires at Knock Out without warning.

Real Life
""It was while practicing that a Home Guard bomber got his sticky bomb stuck to his trouser leg and couldn't shift it. A quick thinking mate whipped the trousers off and got rid of them and the bomb. After the following explosion, the trousers were in a bit of a mess -- though I think they were a bit of a mess prior to the explosion.""
 * The book Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers notes that this is a natural reaction to extreme stress, and has little to do with cowardice. This biological response exists as a response to help you escape from danger (lightening your load, reducing the risk of getting waste in any vital systems should you be injured, creating something that masks your scent, etc). Ever heard the phrase "Piss like a race-horse"? Makes the animal (or person) lighter and therefore faster for the Fight/Flight response.
 * This is similar to the explanation for why turkey vultures will sometimes vomit on the approach of predators -- they're shedding weight so they can fly away.
 * As pointed out in House To House: A Soldier's Memoir, most soldiers naturally soil themselves in combat as a reaction to the stress of battle. Battlefields rapidly become a very smelly place, and a lot of experienced troops will defecate or urinate prior to expected combat in an effort to avoid this.
 * Some scavenger animals will defecate on their food if interrupted by a predator, to spoil the food for their attacker, and just disgust them in general.
 * There's a rather old joke about the French military, which actually did have bright red pants as part of the uniform for a while. It runs very much like the summary of the joke in the description with the exception that it has a bit of symmetry that trading the coat for pants doesn't quite have.
 * In the medical profession, especially nursing, a patient soiling themselves is commonly referred to as a "Code Brown."
 * In Col. "Mad" Mike Hoare's account of his 1964 campaign in the Congo, Congo Mercenary, he mentions an incident in which machine-gun fire blew the antenna off of a communications vehicle. The driver then reported to Hoare and said, with a mischevious grin, "Permission to change my aerial and my pants, sir?"
 * True story involving an incident with a sticky grenade:


 * Even Tokugawa Ieyasu cannot avoid this. He reportedly had soiled himself during the narrow escape after his defeat in the Battle of Mikatagahara.
 * In Russia, sudden feats of fear-induced diarrhea are referred to as "a bear's illness". This refers to an old hunting practice of hunting bears in winter or early spring, when they typically hibernate. Hunters would use rattles, and other noisy instruments to wake the bear up and lure it out of the bear-hole; the poor creature would routinely soil itself after such an unceremonious wake-up call. Incidentally, a once-widespread but now almost forgotten euphemism for doing number two was "to go hunt a bear".