This editorial got me thinking. Last night, I wasted away 30 minutes of my life watching "Behind The Real World" on VH-1. I was hoping to catch Al TV, but alas, I got a reality-behind-the-scenes of a reality show instead. Now we all know the basis of The Real World. 7 strangers picked to live in a plush house, drink their asses off and bang each other raw. I never watched this show much because each series is the same. You have 2 suburbanite frat boys, 1 rebellious inner-city Afro-American man, 1 Gay man or lesbian, 1 African princess, and 2 sorority tramps. Never do any of these people accomplish anything. All they do is bitch and party.

When it comes to the real world, as in reality, pooping is a part of every day living. Wouldn't you think that somewhere within that 13 episode series there would be at least one of those seven kids taking a crap? Especially after those parties. Nobody ever gets the beer shits the next day.

And they call this reality TV...my ass

well said, Ty.

In a perfect "made for TV" world we wouldn't be bothered with having to go to the can, wouldn't get sick, and all white children will have 5 close friends, 2 white, 1 hispanic, 1 oriental, and 1 black, and they will all hang out together and only have fun.

Welcome to the world of sitcoms.

I'm trying hard to picture a s(h)itcom as you describe it. I think it has less to do with the actual shit itself than with the idea of presenting a more realistic version of life on TV. I know that the bathroom figured into Seinfeld a lot -- George was always heading in to Jerry's bathroom to take a crap. But most TV shows are more interested in presenting a scripted, ideal life to take our minds off our miseries -- because if we see characters doing the same things we see ourselves doing, we no longer aspire to be those characters, and thus have less reason to watch.

"the Brady's did not even have a bathroom despite having nine people in the house --"

If you had watched more closely there was a bathroom in the Brady Bunch household; their bathroom had 2 doors on opposite sides, one entrance into the boy's bedroom and one entrance into the girl's bedroom. I seem to remember several episodes of a Brady child locked in the bathroom for some reason while a sibling was beating on the door.

Do some research.

Pissing, shitting, farting etc. is still too taboo for prime time TV. Besides, who watches sitcoms anyways? I don't. I think the last sitcom I watched on a regular basis was Seinfeld. I have never seen an episode of Friends and don't care to.

In this era of cable, DVD's, sattelites, etc. there is plenty of smut available. I say keep the poop out of sitcoms...that way old people, children, and people that don't enjoy shit jokes have a safe haven.

Ally McBeal almost had it. They had the co-ed bathroom thing, where both men and women shared one bathroom, and they had a lot of scenes in there. My ex roommate was a total Ally addict, and I would be forced to watch it if I wanted to use the computer in her room. I don't recall any poop, fart, piss or shit jokes, cause I didn't pay attention to what any of them were saying, but I do recall every time I looked up at the screen they were always in the loo.

doniker makes a good point about sitcoms being primarily concerned with being PC all the time. God forbid they should ever be concerned with the WC. It's annoying beyond belief. There's some good discussion about a lot of different cultural issues in this thread, and I agree with you, Ty, to a certain extent about the escapist/inspirational angle of entertainment. That's what it's there for primarily. I do think it's possible to be clever about bathroom scenes so that they aren't gross or a turn-off.

In my own life, I've engaged in some pretty funny convos in the bathroom while doing the Big Three--shaving, showering (yes, two can shower as well as one!) and, of course, shitting. (And there was once a hilarious send-up on Saturday Night Live of a man and woman sitting on the love toilet--a device built for two!)

Anyhoo, some great feedback from you guys so far!

P.S. to ThreePly: Once, I did pick up one of those MTV Real World Outtake Tapes at a CD store and watched it just to see what they could possibly have deleted in such a raunchy series. There was a sequence (I forget which city they were in) in which various house members sat around and admitted that 95% of the time they discussed sex. The other 5% of the time they discussed going to the bathroom. There followed scenes of that season's African princess taking a crap with the door to the small toilet room open and talking to her fellow housemates while doing so. Apparently, this was something she did regularly (I guess pun intended!) But they didn't deem it worthy of televising for whatever reasons.

The Love Toilet was fucking awesome.

I seem to remember in a good number of Brady Bunch episodes Jan bitching because Marsha was in the bathroom brushing her hair, and she had to brush 500 strokes or something. But no, none of the Bradys ever took a crap.

The Simpsons are in the bathroom or fighting over it pretty often. However, none of them has ever taken a crap either.

BTW -- "immaculate digestion" -- how do the kids say it? ROFL?

Assblaster; there've been a good number of poop-time incidents on the Simpsons; Two I can think of immediately are: Homer the Inventor, invents a toilet/recliner...Bart uses it almost at once. Another, homer's sitting on the toilet at home, when the floor gives out, dropping him (still seated) into the livingroom. Oh yeah, and he's seen in the can a lot at work.

this post was so bland. i was really wanting to drop one of those coinstar machines on your faux-academic head, and now i just want to declare that i believe you are a boring titcarver, and that i hope the coinstar fairy doesnt jingle on your tingle.

you are such a prat.

Constipation Station is a new series on PBS.

Hey, crappercritic! What can I say, man? I majored in Titcarving with a minor in Prattery.

Dave J: didn't know that about the Simpsons, since I don't watch it. Now, if we could just move those kinds of scenes from the animated universe into the real one! AB2K--yeah, you're right. I believe there was addictive, ritual hairbrushing on The Brady Bunch. I just don't consider it a real bathroom activity, since it can be done anywhere in the house.

Incidentally, the point was made by the riotously drunken and sleazy next-door neighbors in 'The Brady Bunch Movie' that the Bradys lacked a bathroom and 'never went.' I believe it was the sex-crazed Jean Smart character who croaked out that line under the influence of one too many Bloody Marys. Difference between the Brady movie(s) and the Brady TV series was that the former was intentionally funny, the latter was unintentionally so.

I do have the feeling, however, that sooner or later, some sitcom couple is going to have a knock-down, drag-out while one of them is on the crapper.

Am I the only person who remembers the sitcom "Married with Children?" Al had a toilet in the garage of the house of which he was quite proud. I can recall many episodes in which Al would take the newspaper out to this toilet to relieve himself.

A question for you, shamelessazadog: was ole Al ever shown on the toilet, though? Or did he just say he was going out there to do the doo? Give us the lowdown.

Dave J do you remember when the Simpsons went to Japan, and Homer's ass was on TV because of the complex hotel toilet. I also remember once some chick was in the stall and picked up her feet when alien women walked in. When they asked her why she did that she said "For more leverage"

As much as I hate most of the Ally McBeal ideas there were some funny scenes about the guy that liked a clean bowl. I think I remember something about an automatic flush remote control. Does anyone remember a show discussing how guys like a normal white porcelan bowl? A lot of you are right, there are not many bathroom scenes in movies or TV. I guess its like the pistol in an action movie that shoots 100 rounds without reloading. The action stars never poop either.

British TV recently showed a group of celebrities in Thailand. They were on a detox trip which included taking a vitamin drink several times a day and having 2 enemas a day. They showed English celebrites being interviewed while taking a dump. One celebrity took nearly 2 hours to have his first dump. Nothing was left to your emagination.

emagination. is that a computer's imagination??

There is a show that displays true shamelessness on the subject. I'm talking about Fox's King of the Hill. There is one episode which revolves entirely from start to finish about Hank's bout with constipation. All of Hank's neighbors are trying to help him shit and his wife, Peggy turns it into the focal point of each and every minute of the episode. So there is one good example of a TV Shitcom. Of course the climax at the end of the episode features Hank finally releasing the demons. Great episode.

That one South Park episode where everyone shat themselves when a certain noise was played was pretty cool.

I remember that episode of South Park. Kenny had explosive diarrhea and the whole town caught whatever bug he had. It was fantastic.

And that's right, shamelessazadog. I forgot all about Married with Children. Al was always going into the crapper. They never showed him actually doing it, but it was always a big deal when he'd stand up, tuck a newspaper under his arm, hitch up his pants and stoll purposefully towards the can. They made a lot of reference to the smell and occasionally the sound, but never actually aired a pooping noise.

Good times, though.

I remember that episode of South Park. I just remember the boys bathroom being in the classroom for Kenny to shit in, and Mr. Garison saying, "I've got the green apple splatters!" Classic.

With all this South Park referencing has everyone forgotten "Mr. Hanky"? I mean, the character WAS a turd! You don't get any better than that! Especially when he would hop around and leave (what looked like) real shit smears and stains where he had been. OK, so we didn't see someone sqeeze Mr. Hanky out, but when you have a piece of shit as your focused character...what more could you ask for!

Something else interesting. I watched "Chapelle's Show" with Black comedian Dave Chappelle on Comedy Central last night. He did a bit for the people who were saying he had a childish episode or something, so as revenge he had a gospel quire singing the old favorite "Diarhea, Diarhea" song from many of our past childhoods. And there were some NEW verses in it that were extremely funny and graphic even for Comedy Central. They made references to a "mudhole", "pants full of slime" & something about pudding running down your leg I think. I felt it was sort of a breakthrough and the gospel singers added that extra touch! Did anyone else see this?

-AP

YES DONIKER!! THATS WHAT I ALWAYS WONDERED!! NO BATHROOM!!!

Yes! I saw that, too! It was cracking me up! I love that song!

"When your with the one you love, and you feel the hot butt mud, diahrrea, diahrrea". It was great!

Yeah, Mr. Hanky is about the best you are gonna get. No one wants to see actual shit oozing out of the glory hole.

HHEEHEH TODAYS TV ISNT POOLESS THERES MR HANKE AND MANY POO JOKES ON SOME YOU JUST HAVE TO LOOK HARD THE ONLY WAY BETTER IF IT LOOKED MORE REALISTIC

while we are all reminiscing about poop tv, here's one: the south park where people ate food up their ass and shat our of their mouths. yummy!

duh, I meant to say, "the south park where people ate food up their ass and shat out of their mouths"

You have to love Scrubs - a number of poop jokes, normally involving the effect coffee can have on our bowels.

Imagine the Olsen twins taking a shit!

I recall reading about a scene in Monty Python's Flying Circus in which they showed a guy sitting against a wall with his butt through a hole in that wall, and then they intercut this with a shot, outside the place, of his bare behind out in the great outdoors, with poop coming out...

Wasn't there an episode of "All in the Family" where Archie had a bad case of diarrhea? In fact, I think it was the show in which "Cousin Maude" (Bea Arthur) was introduced.

BTW--that was about the last time I watched TV.

TSV, they did show the Olsen twin's diaper being changed on TV once (80's).

Yes, I believe wea re heading in the right direction. Television is slowly starting to recognize bodily functions, and is gradually incoporating them into TV.

Then what about "the flush heard around the world". The first toilet flushing sound was on "All in the Family" (1972).
_______
It's not nice to fool mother nature.

Odd, isn't it, that something as mundane as a toilet flushing was considered controversial when depicted on that episode of 'All In The Family.' Today, no one would blink. Also, it's my opinion that if 'All In The Family' were debuting today, Archie would be shown on the pot reading a newspaper.

Hmmm...kinda glad it debuted in the early 'Seventies now.

Thanks for reminding me about this thread, TBW. (I had posted a query on the forums about whether the Brady house had a bathroom.)

I wonder, with six kids sharing one bathroom, if there weren't a lot of times when somebody had to go in there right after somebody else had stunk it up really bad.

(Ooh, that thought doesn't do anything for my long-repressed Marcia Brady fantasies!)

Also, don't you imagine that Greg at least once or twice managed to "accidentally" walk in on Marcia in the tub when she had forgotten to lock the door to the boys' room? Of course, he might have also walked in on her taking a grunt.

You never really get to know somebody until you have to share a bathroom with them.

Wonder why my comment above isn't showing up on the sidebar?