Potty Dance

This amusing dance may be seen in characters suffering a Potty Emergency attempting to avert Potty Failure, with varying success. It can involve awkward facial expressions, squirming, fidgeting, holding the crotch, and crossing legs. This dance can be done by males or females, with slight variations in posture; female versions may play with their skirts as they struggle not to wet them. The character may vocally explain their predicament to others, or attempt to remain dignified in vain as they start to lose control.

Also sometimes referred to as the pee-pee dance. Often considered children's behavior, but not always; it may also be seen in adults desperately trying to avoid an accident. Along with the associated Potty Emergency and Potty Failure, it is frequently used as a form of Toilet Humor; YMMV on whether you find it amusing, merely crude, or a mixture thereof.

Examples of Potty Dance include:

Advertising

Pull Ups had a commercial where kids do the Potty Dance. It has steps! You can visit their website to download the song.

Anime and Manga

In Case Closed: Conan fakes a Potty Emergency during a case this way (in order to Pull the Thread on the suspect).
Ichigo Mashimaro: Chapter 14/Episode 6: Miu does it while lying on the bed because holding it in is temporarily preferable to entering the bathroom without a Varia Suit.
Maruko in one of the Chibi Maruko Chan manga issues, where she starts doing "the duck walk".
Izzy in the second part of Digimon The Movie (though his reason why depends on whether you're watching the dub or original—either Tai's mom's cooking kicked in or Koushiro simply drank too much).
In Elfen Lied, Lucy (as Nyuu) does this before finally just going on the floor.
Magical Doremi has an episode with this pose.
In volume 2 of Tokyopop's Warcraft Legends manga, a little girl does this in the story "Family Values."
In Season 2, Episode 2 of Those Who Hunt Elves the main characters ran out of toilet paper. This trope is occurs during the resulting Potty Emergency. Given the nature of the show, Hilarity Ensues.
Mikan often end up doing this in Go! Go! Itsutsugo Land. She never makes it...

Film: Animated

Monsters, Inc..

Sulley: That's a cute little dance you got there, it's almost like you gotta...
Boo: *squeals desperately*
Sulley: Oh!
*cut to Sulley standing outside a stall whistling*

Film: Live Action

Blazing Saddles: When Taggart gets an idea he gets excited and jumps around. Hedley Lamarr thinks he's doing one of these.
Bronson Pinchot does this in a film called Second Sight, except it's an extremely elaborate dance they call the peepee dance. He plays a psychic who is channeling someone else who has to pee.
Mentioned in The Great Muppet Caper; Kermit, Fozzie and Gonzo are developing pictures to catch a jewel thief, but they do it in the Happiness Hotel's only restroom. As Pops says, "Catch him in another room! We got people dancin' up an' down on one leg out here!"

Literature

According to Robert Parrish's autobiography (he was one of the Little Rascals), they called this a European, or You're a'-Peein'.
Fregly in Diary of a Wimpy Kid reportedly does this while screaming "JUICE!! JUUUUIIIICE!!!!" as part of his bizarre use of slang.

Live-Action TV

The Love Boat: Isaac does this when forced to share a cabin (and a bathroom) with the other male crew.
In The Revenge Files Of Alistair Fury a boy does this whilst waiting outside the toilet while Alistair and his friends are holding a meeting inside it. (He doesn't make it).
Spoofed in Malcolm in the Middle where Dewey's way of charming their babysitter is to bounce up and down singing "Poopy poopy poopy" over and over.
In Episode 6 of the South Korean TV show The City Hall, the extremely cute but thoroughly obnoxious councilwoman Min Joo-hwa does this during her Potty Emergency, before eventually suffering Potty Failure and wetting her skirt.

Recorded and Stand Up Comedy

There's a joke that the Charleston dance developed from this trope.
- As well as Irish dancing.

Tabletop Games

The Green Apple Quicksteps card from the Shadowrun card game, which removes an enemy runner from play for a turn.

Video Games

The Sims: Sims do this and yell at the player to get their attention so the player can direct them to the restroom.
In Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 & 2 park guests with a high enough bathroom score change their normal walking animation into a frenetic one of these, particularly if your park's bathrooms are poorly placed or if you're evil enough to charge to use the bathroom.
- In Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, the park guests do this when their Toilet meter is high.
In the Tamagotchi PC Pack game, all the Tamagotchi except for Kuchipatchi and Ichigotchi do this when you say the command "Use the bathroom" through the microphone.
Final Fantasy VII features in NPC at the Wall Market bar doing one of these while waiting for a sick bar patron to finish up.

Western Animation

Futurama: Bender does it briefly in Bender's Big Score after drinking a bunch of beers, lampshades comments on the lunacy of a robot having to go to the bathroom.
Recess: Mikey, after T.J. makes him drink water from a hosepipe.
An unnamed Water Tribe boy does this in the second episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Wakko during the Potty Emergency Trope Namer Animaniacs cartoon.
Homer Simpson does this after drinking way too much crab juice in The Simpsons.
- Otto is mesmerized by Ralph's Potty Dance in "How The Test Was Won".
Loopy did this in KaBlam! due to Larry being in the bathroom too long...he recently got muscular, and was admiring himself.
King Julien in The Penguins of Madagascar remarks in "Friend In A Box" that he never learned "that dance." Being the king, he just goes wherever he is. Kowalski takes two steps away from Julien upon hearing that.

Real Life

In Legoland in Windsor near one of the toilets, there are two Legomen doing this.
Truth in Television for just about every toddler on the planet.
There's an old joke saying that tapdancing was invented by a man called Stepan Stepanovich who was inspired by the unusual dances his family performed every time he occupied the toilet for too long.