Potty Emergency/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A character really needs to use a restroom, but is prevented by various obstacles.

  • Straight: Alice needs to find a toilet, but all the ones she finds are either occupied, out-of-order, or out of her reach.
  • Exaggerated: Alice is on the verge of wetting her pants, and the nearest toilet is twelve million miles away through a labyrinth of falling water and people drinking lemonade.
    • Alice is seen searching for a bathroom in episode 1, and four episodes later mentions that she still hasn't found one.
  • Justified: The restrooms are being cleaned or renovated.
  • Inverted: Alice is locked in the bathroom and is trying to escape.
    • Alice is in a desert and is desperate for a drink, but is constantly prevented from quenching her thirst.
  • Subverted: While jogging, Alice mentions that she has to go, and quickly sees a port-a-potty nearby.
  • Double Subverted: ...but it is immediately knocked over by a bulldozer. Cue the futile attempts to find a bathroom.
  • Parodied: Alice is on the verge of bursting her bladder before realizing that Nobody Poops, and then skips away happily.
    • Alice is actually a mushroom, and realizes it does not need to pee.
  • Deconstructed: Fed up with trying to find a bathroom, Alice enters a back alley and gets mugged, assaulted, and/or kidnapped.
  • Reconstructed: Alice readies a Taser or can of mace before entering the alley.
  • Zig-Zagged: Alice finds a public bathroom in a park, but discovers that the toilet is flooded. When she tries to leave, the door won't open. She attempts to use the sink, only to be interrupted by Bob the janitor, who informs her the lock is broken and suggests she climb out the window. While doing so, she gets stuck. After Charlie and Dave arrive and pull her free, she runs behind the building and relieves herself against the wall, not noticing the mens' room next door.
  • Averted: Usable toilets are in every building, or Nobody Poops.
  • Enforced: "We need to find a new way to make Alice a Chew Toy... our audience likes Toilet Humor, right?"
  • Lampshaded: Alice asks the theme park's staff why it only has one bathroom.
  • Invoked: Bob arranges a lemonade-drinking contest between Alice and Carol, then locks the bathroom door.
  • Defied: Alice always carries a porta-potty around with her.
  • Discussed: "Why are you having so much trouble finding a bathroom?" "I don't know, all of them seem to just explode before I can go!"
  • Conversed: "You'd think these characters would be able to hunt down a bathroom more easily..."
  • Exploited: Carol sets up a pay toilet at Alice's outdoor rock concert.
  • Played For Laughs: It usually is.
  • Played For Drama: Alice is a giantess in the middle of a major city, and does not want to cause a flood.