Kissing the Ground

After a character has been lost at sea, on a near-deadly airplane flight, or perhaps just on a vacation gone wrong, they'll be so happy to have solid ground beneath their feet or be back home that they'll start to kiss the ground, no matter how filthy it may be. Sometimes for added humor they'll begin to spit and wipe their mouths in disgust afterwards.

Not to be confused with Beach Kiss, though often times it's much more literal.

Examples of Kissing the Ground include:

Film

In Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, the eponymous character does this when he arrives back in England after the crusades. Then proceeds to find that his father's been executed on false charges and all his lands confiscated.
- Parodied in Robin Hood Men in Tights. Robin kisses the ground noisily when he lands in England, then spits sand out of his mouth.
In The Pacifier, Lulu, after a horrible experience with Zoe's driving, happily embraces the ground when they reach school.
Flash Gordon (1980). After Flash manages to crash land a plane without killing them, Dale Arden says "Hold me for a second, then drop me, I'll kiss the ground."

Literature

In one of the I, Robot stories, Powell and Donovan do that after an interstellar travel a half mad AI sent them on.

Live Action TV

In the pilot episode of Sliders, Rembrandt kisses the ground when he thinks they've made it back to their home dimension from a world of ice and tornadoes. Unfortunately, of course, he was wrong.

Newspaper Comic

Calvin and Hobbes: Calvin kisses the ground in an early strip after surviving sliding down a playground slide.

Western Animation

When Donald Duck lands on a deserted island in the short "Sea Salts", the ant he was with in the raft kisses the beach.
In Tiny Toon Adventures How I Spent My Vacation, Plucky is so happy to be home from a horrible road trip that took all summer that he kisses Hamton's lawn, only to discover that there's fertilizer on it as plants start to grow on his tongue.
In the Winnie the Pooh short "Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too", Tigger kisses the snow after being rescued from a tree.
The Tex Avery short "The Cat Who Hated People" has the cat flying to the moon to get away from people, only to be driven mad by the moon's inhabitants. After returning to Earth, he hugs the sidewalk and kisses it.
Bob the tomato did this in the Veggie Tales episode "An Easter Carol", after he and Mr. Nezzer land on the ground from riding in a runaway cart.
The Road to El Dorado: Miguel and Tulio both kiss the ground upon their boat arriving in South America.
My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic episode "The Mysterious Mare Do Well". The Mare shows Dash up by saving a cart full of ponies. One pony hops out and kisses the ground out of gratitude for having been saved.
Ed does this once in The Incredibly Mental Misadventures Of Ed Grimley. He then muses that it doesn't really taste as good as you think it will.

Real Life

Pope John Paul II used to do this.