In Memoriam: The Pie in the Face Gag

 

Serious question for anyone still watching scripted television today – when was the last time (if ever) you saw a character take a pie in the face? 

 

 

I’m guessing the answer will be zero. Like funny drunks and bosses who chase their secretaries around a desk, this once-renowned paragon of slapstick humor seems to have been phased out of polite society by our elitist betters. Try hitting someone with a pie now and your show will earn a TV-M rating for an offensive exhibition of violence, not to mention an egregious waste of pastry.

 

But in the Comfort TV era, a custard pie in the face was a guaranteed laugh generator, as well as an homage to the earliest days of silent cinema. According to what my friend Mitchell Hadley refers to as “the always reliable Wikipedia” (I sense sarcasm), its first victim was comedian Ben Turpin in the 1909 movie Mr. Flip. But from Our Miss Brooks to Night Court – a span of 40 years in network television, it was a moment that might happen at any time, on any series, to preserve a proud show business tradition.

 

The most prominent keeper of that tradition was Soupy Sales, who hosted children’s shows between 1949 and 1979. 

 

 

Sales’ pie-tossing antics were the inspiration for two classic TV moments. “When a Bowling Pin Talks, Listen,” is one of my five favorite episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show. It starts with Rob arriving home after a day of trying unsuccessfully to generate an idea for a comedy sketch. His son Richie suggests doing something with a talking bowling pin; the next day, Rob, Buddy and Sally develop that idea into a wonderful routine for Alan Brady (the scenes in this series that illustrate the creativity of talented writers are always a delight.)

 

But unbeknownst to Rob, Richie’s idea came from watching a talking bowling pin bit on a children’s show hosted by Uncle Spunky. The joy in the writer’s room turns to panic when they realize they could be fired for stealing from another series. 

 

Alan finds a solution, and at Rob’s urging agrees to appear on Uncle Spunky’s show, unaware that every guest gets hit with a pie. Alan is ready for payback, but it doesn’t go quite as planned.

 

Also inspired by Soupy, “Captain Crocodile,” the host of a kids’ show in an early episode of The Monkees. The band appears on the series, and all four of them are hit with pies before the episode’s opening credits. 

 

 

Of course Lucille Ball would get in on this fun, and more than once. Remember “The Diner” on I Love Lucy, which ended with the kind of full-out pie fight made famous by the Three Stooges? And on The Lucy Show, when Lucy enters a pie-baking contest, I’m sure most viewers knew exactly how the episode would end – and enjoyed it anyway. 

 

 

Slapstick wasn’t as commonplace on The Brady Bunch, but this was a series in which Mike fell into his own wedding cake in the first episode. Four seasons later, Cousin Oliver was welcomed to the family in a show best remembered for that infamous event (“Welcome Aboard”), but also featured the family re-enacting a silent comedy at a movie studio, complete with pies splattering everywhere. 

 

 

Even Norman Lear’s sophisticated, topical sitcoms weren’t above a little lowbrow humor every once in a while. I recall a Maude episode about a telethon, in which Maude didn’t wait for God to get Walter and hit him with a pie instead.

 

All of these scenes are meant to be funny, yet I did feel a little sorry for two flying pie victims on two different shows, perhaps because they were both teenage girls in the process of having their dreams shattered.

 

On The Patty Duke Show, Patty cures a rare moment of low self-confidence by landing a modeling job – but the gig is for a comedic advertising campaign in which she is doused with water, dropped from a hammock and, yes, hit with a pie. 

 

 

And on The Love Boat, Vicki is thrilled when a famous child star boards to shoot scenes from a movie on the ship, and offers Vicki a chance to be her stand-in. But that means taking the abuse the star is too good to handle, including – you guessed it. Guest star Alison Arngrim, the devil child from Little House on the Prairie, is in familiar territory here.

 

Do I have a favorite? Glad you asked. It’s the Bewitched episode “Double, Double, Toil and Trouble,” in which Serena impersonates Sam and torments a confused Darrin, until he finally sees through her charade. But that’s when Samantha returns home, with a pie from the bakery. Still believing she’s Serena, he lets her have it. What makes this moment special is how Elizabeth Montgomery clearly breaks character, being unable to suppress her laughter, while the line she was supposed to say was looped in later. 

 

 

First runner-up among my favorites: “There Was a Time Ann Met a Pie Man,” an episode of That Girl built entirely around a pie hit. 

 

Ann is offered a comedy spot on a popular TV show in which she will be the target, and wonders whether it will hurt her career. 

 

 

Second runner-up: who can forget this commercial parody clip with Johnny Carson that was aired every year on The Tonight Show’s anniversary broadcast?  

 

 

 

And with Christmas TV viewing right around the corner, don’t miss “’Twas the Pie Before Christmas,” from the final season of The Bob Newhart Show. 

 

Yes, I know I missed quite a few. Be sure to add your favorites to the comments. And if pies are still being thrown somewhere on series television, let me know. I’d be delighted to learn that my eulogy was premature.