Urine Trouble

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Some writers seem to have an... unusual idea of what makes comedy gold. (Not sure if it would be more troubling if "comedy gold" was an intentional or unintentional pun...) So they resort to potty humor, literally. Urine Trouble is an animal (usually a dog) or human relieving itself on something a character would prefer it not do that on is always the target. Sometimes, it's a baby letting fly with the offending tinkle.

It is usually the unfortunate fate of whatever hapless hero or character disguises himself as a tree or a fire hydrant...in which case you can hardly blame the dog.

Occasionally, it also happens with an amnesiac human who thinks he's a dog, or a dog turned into a human.

Often, but not always, the last step in a Humiliation Conga. Occasionally there will be shots of someone drinking, only for the shot to pull back and realize they're drinking from a fountain with a cherub urinating.

Often a form of Refuge in Vulgarity.

Sub-Trope of Toilet Humour. See also Dogs Are Dumb, I Ate What?, and Dung Fu. When babies do this, it's a Tinkle in the Eye.

Get it? Urine? You're-in? Get it?

Examples of Urine Trouble include:

Anime and Manga

  • In the manga of Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin, Chibi does this after the pack takes him in... while he's on Moss's head.
    • In the sequel, Hougen makes it very clear that you do not, under any circumstances, disappoint him. Not only does he have some of his henchdogs rip Nero's front paws off, he proceeds to urinate on the dog's face as he dies.
  • This happens to the haughty villainess Esmeraude in Sailor Moon R. (pictured)
  • Akamaru, of Naruto, who is actually capable of pin-point projectile urination while spinning around in all directions, which Kiba calls "Dynamic Marking". This actually serves a purpose, both for tracking and as an attack (dog urine in the eye really stings). He peed on Naruto at least once when he was unconscious, because he doesn't like him.
    • And in a filler episode, Naruto himself accidentally pees on Ino off of a roof... while disguised as Ino. (And Ino mistakes it for rain...)
    • In the original pilot manga that was submitted to Shonen Jump way back when Kishimoto was first getting started, Naruto has trapped (and evidently injured) someone who was mean to him in a hole. He then proceeds to urinate on this guy, saying it takes 10 days to get the scent out (which might have something to do with this Naruto really being a demon fox).
  • A cat example: The main character of Chi's Sweet Home got her name because she peed on everything but her litterbox when being trained to use it. Yohei remedied this by putting a peed-on sock in the litter, and Chi got the message.
    • Just to clarify: the word "chi" can mean either "pee" or "small" in Japanese, similar to the English word "wee." While she got her name from the former meaning, it seems like the latter is the one everyone thinks of after the "litter training" arc is over.
  • Lampshaded in Fullmetal Alchemist, when Ed and Al arrive at Tucker's estate, and Big Friendly Dog Alexander leaps out. When said dog is later playing with Alphonse, Ed remarks: "Let's hope he doesn't think Al's a hydrant!" Or something like that, not sure of the exact quote.
    • In a later incident, just before Hawkeye adopts (and names) Black Hayate, said puppy takes a leak on a wall. She proceeds to housebreak him - with a multiple warning shots.
  • In the Dragon Ball Z Movie, Broly: Second Coming, after trying to find a moment to relieve himself, Trunks is caught by Broly and held over the larger Saiyan's head. The inevitable happens.
    • This trope was used much more often in the original Dragon Ball series, particularly in filler. Goku has caused urine trouble for Pilaf (by going on his spy camera) and Murasaki (who was disguised as a tree - genius how Goku picked him out of all the other trees...)
    • There was also the time in The Dead Zone movie when Gohan, after getting drunk from eating a fruit, pees on Krillin's head. Keep in mind that Gohan was 4 or 5 at the time.
  • In an episode of Onegai My Melody, Kuromi gets peed on by Baku's young baby sister, Bako.
  • In Pokémon Special, Ruby and Sapphire admire a beautiful rainbow...only to realize in horror that said rainbow was formed from Emerald pissing off a high balcony. At that moment, the Pokedex resonance system goes off and Emerald, trying to find the source of the beeping, twists around and pisses directly on Ruby and Sapphire themselves!
  • Happens a lot in Inubaka, which is to be expected in a series about dogs. Specifically, puppies tend to urinate in excitement every time Suguri is around.
  • Happens in Yu-Gi-Oh! to Rex and Weevil during their Humiliation Conga flashback.
  • Baby Taro promptly pees on both Ryoko and Ayeka throughout the eighth OVA episode of Tenchi Muyo!.
  • This happens a lot in Gintama.
    • In Episode 6, Gintoki takes a piss in front of the police station after he is interrogated to show his distaste for the police force.
    • In Episode 19, Hasegawa is relieving himself off of a cliff in a flashback when a woman notices and blushes.
    • In Episode 42, Gintoki and Umibouzu pee on the giant alien they just killed as a sign of victory.
    • In Episode 53, Gintoki has to put out a fire but doesn't have any water to use, so he uses his penis to do the job for him.
    • In Episode 115, when he is lost on an island, Katsura writes a big "SOS" in the sand with his pee.
    • In Episode 190, Gintoki pisses on a mound of dirt that turns out to be a cursed cat's grave.
    • Gintoki once pisses into a river while a man (who is a little bit downstream) is trying to drink from it. [dead link]

Comic Books

  • In one issue of Preacher (Comic Book), the villain of the arc rounds up some of the KKK to help send a message to Jesse Custer by burning a cross on Jesse's lawn. A drunken Jesse calmly staggers out of the house and relieves himself of the fire hazard, which the sheet-heads don't take well.
  • A not-fit-for-print Gary Larson cartoon, included in The PreHistory of The Far Side, depicted the unfortunate results of a race of aliens shaped like fire hydrants making First Contact with a dog.
  • In the last issue of the Beasts of Burden & Hellboy Crossover, this is how the Big Bad is defeated.
  • Hinted at in Garfield when the titular cat once disguised himself as a tree. Okay, it didn't actually happen, but you can tell that Odie was definitely thinking about it.
  • In the crossover comicbook Robocop vs Terminator comic book, a poor little mutt makes the fatal error of mistaking ED-209's leg for a fire hydrant. It does not end well.

Fan Works

Film

  • In the closing credits for Monster House, the dog pees on a jack-o-lantern, extinguishing it.
  • In Bruce Almighty the movie has a Running Gag about the dog peeing on anything he feels like in the house until Bruce finally succeeds in training him as part of his understanding that he has to be responsible for his own life.
  • Transformers The Movie has Sam's dog Mojo peeing on Ironhide. Bumblebee then does the same to Agent Simmons from Sector 7.

Optimus Prime: Bumblebee, stop lubricating the man.

  • The same can be applied to pigs as well. Babe.
  • How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days has a dog peeing on both a pool table and a poker mat (if I recall correctly).
  • In Trading Places, Winthorpe's Humiliation Conga ends with him drunken, in a filthy Santa suit, at Christmas, with a dog lifting its leg on him.
  • In the Scooby Doo movie, Scrappy urinates on Daphne. It's not part of a Humiliation Conga...he's marking his territory.
    • Specifically, he urinates on Daphne's chest.
  • George of the Jungle plays this with Shep... but since Shep is an elephant that acts like a dog, that means it's played with a HUGE torrent of urine!
  • The trailer for Eddie Murphy's Meet Dave features two tiny aliens fleeing from the base of a fire hydrant when a dog appears on the scene.
  • American Pie 2 has a drunk guy peeing down a balcony, and hitting Stifler... who initially likes it, thinking it was a hot girl pouring champagne.
    • You'd think the temperature would be a clear giveaway.
    • "How did you get it so nice and warm?"
  • The dog-turned-human variant was used in The Tenth Kingdom.
  • In the first Beethoven movie Beethoven as a puppy pees on a biker woman who considered adopting him,until he did that to her.
  • In The Forbidden Kingdom, Jackie Chan's character claims to be able to make rain. He tries. It's not rain.
    • Nope. It's a Golden Shower, courtesy of Jet Li's character.
  • In Airheads, a dog is seeing peeing on a demo tape that Chaz's girlfriend threw out a window.
  • The live-action One Hundred and One Dalmatians has a dog pee on a magazine cover with Cruella de Vil's face on it. This is also * Whizzer's entire shtick.
  • In The Mask, Stanley's dog Milo, after donning the mask, pees on one of Dorian's men.
  • "Is this the Delta house?" "Sure! C'mon in!"
  • In Dirty Work, while Mitch and Sam are having a meaningful heart to heart, Sam is casually peeing off the roof.

Guy:(on the ground) Hey, I'm gonna kill you, asshole!
Mitch: Sam, are you pissing off the roof?
Sam: Sorta.

Crow T. Robot: The Pee Throwing Scene, ladies and gentlemen.

  • In the much underrated Norm MacDonald/Dave Chappelle comedy Screwed, Willard(MacDonald) and Rufus(Chappelle) fake Willard's kidnapping, at one point making a fake ransom video with him in a dog cage, and being forced to eat kibble. Then, Rufus(out of frame) squirts some water on him:

Willard: Oh, God, is that urine? (tastes it) It is! It's human urine!

  • In Wolf, one mark of Jack Nicholson's advancing lycanthropy is that he yields to temptation in invoking this trope. All over his rival's leather shoes, no less.
  • In The Nutty Professor 2, Buddy Love, who turned into a baby after being tricked into drinking the youth potion happened to pee on the Dean after he picks him up.
  • Inverted by playing it for drama in Watership Down, when the dog being lured to the Efrafan attackers stops to piddle on the power pylon rather than chase Hyzenthlay. How often does Urine Trouble put lives at risk?
  • Rather spoils the moment for Marty in Back to The Future 3, when he meets the infant who's the first of the McFly family born in America.
  • In An American Werewolf in London, backpackers David and Jack hitched a lift with a shepherd's truckload of livestock. Result: "Those sheep shit in my pack."
  • Played for drama in The Runaways. After a veteran rocker acts rudely towards Joan, she urinates on his guitars.
  • In Quigley Down Under, when Crazy Cora is giving Quigley a hard time, he snarkily asks the aboriginal baby she's carrying to pee all over her new dress.
  • Micmacs: Bazil, busy spying on two arms dealers from their rooftop, pees in the eavestroughs. The liquid emerges from the downspout and forms a largeish puddle under a nearby society lady.
  • As soon as he finally hatches out of his egg, Baby Aladar from Dinosaur actually pees at his adopted lemur grandfather, Yar. Later, at the end of the film, it's Aladar and Neera's own son that does the favor.
  • The burglar in The Ref encounters a trapped safe that photographs him, sprays him in the face with cat urine, and drops him into a room with a vicious Rottweiler named "Cannibal."
  • In Planet 51 there's a shot of one townsperson's alien-dog-thing lifting its leg on a streetlight. Cue acidic hiss and the streetlight falling over.
  • Mystery Team

Jason: So you covered your hand in dog urine?
Duncan: No, I DRANK it!

Literature

  • In Gulliver's Travels, the Lilliputian castle catches on fire, and the title character has only one option for putting it out.
    • There's a Bowdlerized version out there where he spits on the fire to put it out. Makes the Lilliputian queen's shock and indignation a little more puzzling, especially when you're a kid
  • Derek Robinsons novel Piece of Cake features a dog, owned by the squadron leader, who urinates on everyone but his owner. Pilots, groundstaff, guards at division HQ: You name it, Reilly has peed on it.
  • In Terry Pratchett's Hogfather, Death in disguise as the Hogfather (a Santa Claus/ Father Christmas Expy) brings his sleigh, drawn by four enormous tusked hogs, to a department store so the children can tell him what they want for Hogswatch. One of the hogs promptly and extensively urinates on the floor, which almost every child present finds to be the most enthralling thing he or she has ever seen.
    • Averted in the same novel by the Death of Rats, who went through the motions for form's sake, but was a bit handicapped in this department.
    • Subverted in The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, as the titular rats deliberately urinate in places humans would prefer they not do so, and even go so far as to tank up on water before heading out on coordinated missions to "widdle" on people's stuff.
    • Averted in Lords and Ladies, when Granny asks Nanny Ogg to place a chamber pot beneath a large bat that's hanging from her bedroom rafters.
  • Paper Towns has school bullies shooting kids with Super Soakers filled with pee.
  • In Michael Crichton 's Eaters of the Dead, the Arab among Vikings wakes up to find a dog licking him and is terribly embarrassed because it reminds him of a morality tale about a drunken man who is licked, then peed on by a dog, but thinks he is being cared for by a kind passer-by. It's not clear whether the fable actually exists or not.

Live-Action TV

  • While even The Young Ones wasn't quite rude enough to show it openly on television, Vyvyan was once shown from behind, apparently urinating on a low brick wall. When he steps aside, the head of a pop singer is revealed looking over the wall, suggesting that he's just been subjected to this trope during his band's guest performance.
    • Neil once refused to let the other lads use his cherished speaker as a barricade, protesting that Jimi Hendrix once pissed on it.
  • An episode of Angel had Charles Gunn magically influenced to "mark his territory" around the Wolfram & Hart offices during a Hallowe'en party, which culminated in his accidental wetting of a co-worker.

Wesley: Charles, you just peed on my shoes.

  • A routine Benny Hill performed several times has him thanking a host via telephone for a lovely stay at their house, and compliments them on the loveliness of a bathroom decorated in pink, with a gold toilet. "You don't have a pink bathroom?...You do have a pink spare room where you keep your euphonium." A euphonium is a brass instrument that looks like a tuba, but smaller.
  • Young Blades: In "Rub-a-Dub Sub," D'Artagnan rescues a baby from a runaway cart, and the baby pees in his face. Used to set up a Pun:

Baby's Mother: I'm so relieved!
Baby: (Pees.)
Jacqueline: So is he.

  • iCarly makes the same joke the trope title does in one episode. Also, there occasionally is pee humor that fits this category.
  • In the episode "Here Kitty" of House MD, after Kutner got back at House:

Dr. Remy 'Thirteen' Hadley: Why are you still alive?
Dr. Lawrence Kutner: I'm not sure.
Dr. Remy 'Thirteen' Hadley: I guess he was impressed that you stood up to him. *And* got a cat to pee in his chair.
Dr. Lawrence Kutner: Yeah. A cat.

New Media

  • There's an I Can Has Hot Dog photo involving a puppy peeing on a laptop.
    • Reminiscent of the T-shirt slogan: "Meddle not in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer".
  • The end of the Bitey of Brackenwood Flash "Prowlies at the River" involves Bitey, the protagonist and Jerkass of the series, beating up and scaring off a bunch of the titular creatures so that he can have a drink, only for the Prowlies to bust out laughing at him and Bitey to come up gagging. The reason? Another character, Bingbong from another Brackenwood flash, is peeing upstream into the river!

Video Games

  • Okami lets our lupine hero pee on enemies as an attack to gain valuable Demon Fangs. And she's God.
    • Even stranger? You have to pay money in order to do this.
    • It can later be upgraded into explosive crap.
    • For the most part, this barely does any damage, thus is only used to get said valuable Demon Fangs. However, improving your strength enough does allow these moves to be used for Cherry Tapping. And if you get and equip the Infinity Plus One Bead Necklace, they become deadly all on their own.
  • One of Chaos' Finishing Moves in the fighting game Primal Rage is "Golden Shower", which is exactly what it sounds like. This move was considered so Squicky that Atari had to re-release the game with the move removed.
  • You can do this to people in Postal and its sequel.
  • In Duke Nukem 3D, Duke mentions that he is going to rip off the head of the boss he is fighting and shit down its neck. In a cut scene following that battle, you can see him squatting over the neck reading a newspaper.
    • It's also worth mentioning that there's an averted version of the trope. You can literally make Duke pee by going into a restroom and walking up to a urinal. Ah, much better!
  • Conkers Bad Fur Day lets you do this as part of solving a puzzle. Its multiplayer mode has a stage with a restroom setting, too ... and within it, this is your ONLY weapon. Even if you chose a female-looking model.
    • It's really tricky and requires practice, but apparently it is possible for women to urinate in this manner. You might wonder just what would possess anyone to practice something like that, but remember that this is Conker we're talking about.
  • In Metal Gear Solid 2, Raiden can get urinated on by a guard, and you can get some pretty amusing responses from the other characters. The Guy apparently has a never-ending bladder, and Raiden is considered The Scrappy of the series...
    • In the original, allowing a wolf pup to urinate on one of Snake's precious cardboard boxes would make said box a scent mask against the adult wolves, making it possible to sneak past them.
  • This has evolved to the point of legend in the Leisure Suit Larry franchise, where in the original game a dog would walk along and urinate on you if you stood around long enough, and the same dog would later re-appear time and time again in subsequent games.
    • I thought he just showed up at the beginning of "Larry II" and that was it.
  • Dog can urinate on certain landmarks in Dragon Age Origins, marking the regions they are located in as his territory. This grants him "Mabari Dominance", a passive attack/defense bonus that lasts as long as he remains in the area. It's a testament to how dog friendly Ferelden is that nobody objects to Dog peeing all over the place. Not even the Dalish raise a fuss when Dog "claims" one of their tents. The Alienage Elves also don't object to Dog whizzing on their sacred tree.
    • Most Alienages have long since chopped down their vhenadahl for firewood or let it wither. It's a tradition whose purpose has long since been forgotten.
    • The sequel has a scene where your player character's dog pees on a burglar (if you let the burglar go).
  • A non-dog related example. In Final Fantasy IX, Zidane and Vivi share a male bonding moment when they both pee off the edge of a cliff in one scene.
  • In the second Jak and Daxter game, there's a cutscene in which the crocadog pees on Kor's walking staff. Jak and Daxter find this amusing; Kor does not.
  • Characters from Team Fortress 2 received new weapons on an update. One of the Sniper's weapons is called Jarate which is, simply put, throwing jars filled with his own piss at people, which makes every hit on them a mini-crit until it goes away. The canonical explanation is that it makes them lose the will to live.
    • Made even better with the recent polycount update, where the sniper now has a tranquilizer rifle; Only instead of tranquilizer, the darts are filled with Jarate. Each shot result in a yellow blast like standard jarate with the same effect.
  • In the South Park video game for the N64, your primary weapon is a snowball. If you switch to Secondary Fire, you will be throwing yellow snowballs, and upon firing you hear a zipping noise and a peeing noise, and the resulting snowball will be yellow and do more damage.
  • In Soldier of Fortune's first level, you can find a terrorist relieving himself outside the restrooms. Later on, there's a scene of one pissing on a hostage.
  • In Halo 3 on The Ark, there's a Brute urinating in the corner of one room of the Cartographer building.
  • In Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, if you befriend Muffy, one of the first cut scenes you can trigger with her involves your dog chasing her, and apparently peeing on her.

Web Comics

Western Animation

Doof: Hey, wait, I just realised- that was a conscious decision. You peed on my couch!

Krusty: So, why do they call this a Urine Monkey? [beat] Oh.

Real Life

  • R. Kelly. That is all.
  • Tip for the first-time parent or inexperienced babysitter: if you need to change a diaper (especially on a male infant) do not have your face right over the baby (in fact, keeping something over the relevant body parts is a good move).
  • Democratic councilman Steven Lipsky got drunk and urinated on a crowd in Washington, D.C.
    • And poor Jimmy Carter had to deal with his own, drunken brother deciding to take a whizz on the White House lawn, in front of reporters.
  • And, of course, then there's Ozzy Osbourne peeing on the Alamo. In a dress.
    • Ozzy later said that some Hispanic prisoners with whom he shared a holding cell claimed they pee on the Alamo all the time.
  • Courtesy of FailBlog, a rather tasteless way of identifying the restrooms in a certain pub.
  • There was a story about a man who kept getting harassed by pranksters at his house at night. He fought back by using water guns filled with - you guessed it - urine.
  • Alan Shepard's flight into space was only supposed to last 15 minutes, but it was delayed for hours. There was no provision for elimination built into his suit, so....
    • Yuri Gagarin, first human in space, averted this trope by peeing on a tire of the bus that took him to the launch pad, starting a cosmonaut tradition.
  • Male dogs and cats mark their territory by spraying it with urine.
    • Though somewhat rarer, female dogs and cats do this, too.
    • As do plenty of other mammal species.
  • "Gardy loo!"