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Revolting Rescue - TV Tropes

  • ️Sat Mar 26 2022

Mario: I'm gonna save Santa with my plumber-snake!
Santa Claus: [voiced by Phelous] Uhhh, no, that's okay, Mario. I'd rather you didn't save me with the— [splat] Uggghh, that wasn't worth it.

Quick! Someone's in danger! Or possibly multiple people, or even the world! Fortunately, someone's come to the rescue. Unfortunately, however, it's rather icky, and that's what the Revolting Rescue is.

Maybe it involves a Fantastic Medicinal Bodily Product that's something rather unpleasant such as snot or pee. Maybe a giant needs to use an off-putting bodily fluid to save a human somehow. Maybe someone needs to set their Farts on Fire, throw up, or use animal droppings for something, but regardless of the specifics, it's not pretty. If the person doing the rescue is The Pig-Pen, they'll usually enjoy it, but otherwise, they'd only do it grudgingly.

Usually Played for Laughs, and as such, often involves Toilet Humour. It could also involve Fartillery, Protection in Mouth, a Vomit Indiscretion Shot, Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like (perhaps from an Ungrateful Bastard, a Neat Freak, or a germophobe), Solid Gold Poop, a Heroic Sacrifice, Vulgar Humour, the Godzilla Threshold, Heart Is an Awesome Power, or Urine Trouble. All-Natural Fire Extinguisher is a sub-trope. Compare Shoot the Dog and Cruel to Be Kind.


Examples:

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Anime and Manga 

  • Crayon Shin-chan has a Superhero Episode parody where the titular character obtains superpowers... all related to fecal excretement. Including diffusing a Hostage Situation by launching a handful of poop on the unfortunate hostage's head, revolting the hostage-taker enough to ditch his captive. The hostage is not too appreciative over the rescue (can't really blame her).
  • In the first episode of Yo Kai Watch, Nate gets stuck under a huge mound of fireflies, which Whisper frees him from...by farting on the mound. Both Nate and the fireflies are grossed out.

Comic Books 

  • Futurama: In "A Cure for the Common Clod", once the citizens of New New York recover from a cold-like alien disease, they sneeze up Monstrous Germs, which coalesce into one germ that attacks the city. To save the day, the Planet Express crew infects the mutants, who sneeze up antibodies, which form another blob, that fights off the germ. It works, however, the blobs explode into snot, leaving the entire city and everyone in it Covered in Gunge.
  • In Guessing Games, a comic based on The Loud House, Virginia the pig prevents the bull from charging at Geo by farting on him.

Fan Works 

  • Boldores And Boomsticks: A Hypno uses Hypnosis on Blake and puts her to sleep. Shade is forced to lick her in the ear to wake her up, much to their mutual disgust.
  • In The Loud House fanfic A Cold and Chili Day, Lana, who had been under the effects of a gas-inducing potion, defeats an evil monster by farting on it and then setting the gas on fire.
  • In Gear Up, Lana Loud is sick, presumably because she ate something bad. Lisa cures her by giving her a medicine that makes her throw up.
  • In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic A Hole Lot of Tummy Trouble, a man has a stomach ulcer. Zecora manages to cure him but she does it with emetics and her own pee.
  • In The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World, John and George are tasked by the Guardians with checking out the Border Crossroads Inn, which appears to have been secretly taken over by baddies. Although they don’t have to do more than scope the place out, they decide to attempt to fix the robots guarding the inn, which will allow the Guardians to raid the place and net the pair more completion money. Knowing they can’t just wander over to the control shed without being noticed, John gets the bright idea to create a massive diversion by using the Inn’s unique magical plumbing system to back up all the toilets in the place. Although it works well, the Guardians are disgusted by his tactic and not only dock him part of the reward but also make him return to the Inn to clean things up.
  • In With Strings Attached, John has been put in an enchanted sleep to keep him from causing trouble. George guesses that wetting him will wake him up because of John’s water powers. But he can’t get into the guarded crumbling house where he’s being kept, so at night he climbs onto the roof and pees on John through a hole in the roof. It works.

Films — Animation 

Films — Live-Action 

  • Downplayed. In Beethoven's 2nd, the family are out looking for Beethoven's missing puppies when they come across some puppy poop, but they can't tell if it means the puppies are nearby or not. Ryce reluctantly sticks her fingers into the poop to find out whether or not it's warm.
  • Evolution (2001): The plan to defeat the rapidly evolving aliens, which have now evolved into a giant amorphous thing, is to pump it full of Head & Shoulders, because the active ingredient, selenium, is toxic to them. Harry becomes firmly lodged in the creature's rectum(?) and when he's retrieved he firmly declares, "Don't you tell anyone where I've been!".
  • The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug: Bard and Bain sneak the Dwarves and Bilbo into their home up through their sewage line to hide them from the greedy Master of Laketown and his equally sleazy sidekick, Alfrid, astonishing the girls:

    Sigrid: Why are there Dwarves coming out of our toilet?
    Tilda: Will they bring us luck?

  • Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: Willie is quite displeased to learn the only way to save Indy and Short Round from a Death Trap is by pulling a release mechanism located in a slimy crevice covered in bugs. They end up crawling all over her during the attempt.
  • Men in Black: Kay's plan to save the day involves himself being swallowed whole by a giant alien bug in order to retrieve his gun.
  • Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang: In the climax of the film, Mr. Eidelweiss the talking crow inadvertently saves Uncle Phil when the resulting burp from his eating explosive putty blows the hit-women away.
  • In Sleeping Dogs (1977), Sam Neill's character escapes from the back of a police van after sticking his fingers down his throat so he throws up on the officer next to him.
  • Star Wars:
    • A New Hope: After rescuing Princess Leia, the group is forced to escape into a garbage compactor on the Death Star to avoid the Imperials.
    • In The Empire Strikes Back, Han makes a temporary shelter for Luke by cutting open the belly of a recently-deceased tauntaun and stuffing Luke into it while a more permanent two-person shelter is being built.

Literature 

  • Catherine, Called Birdy: At one point, a fire breaks out in the dining hall, which Catherine's Upper Crass father extinguishes by pissing on it.
  • In Dave, when Dave gets stuck in his cat door, his friends save him by feeding him beans, which makes him fart himself loose.
  • From the Dr. Watson novels by Robert Ryan.
    • In Dead Man's Land, someone tries to murder Watson by locking him in a stable and releasing a container of chlorine gas inside. Watson survives by burying his face in the straw which had recently been soaked with horse urine. The ammonia in the urine neutralises the chlorine gas until someone turns up to rescue him.
    • In The Dead Can Wait, Watson and a nurse are examining corpses stored in an icehouse when someone bolts the door and opens a sluice gate to a nearby lake. They block the inflowing water by cramming the corpses into the drain and holding them down with a coffin.
  • In A Dose of Doctor Dog, the sequel to Doctor Dog, Kev Gumboyle accidentally saves his baby brother's life when the baby gets snatched up by a Man-Eating Plant, only for Kev's boil to burst, spraying pus on the plant and making it drop his brother.
  • Franny K. Stein: In "Frantastic Voyage", Igor has unknowingly swallowed a bomb, forcing Franny to go inside his body to retrieve it. When there are only a few minutes left on the timer before the bomb blows up, Franny tricks him into dancing after drinking root beer in order to belch her out of his body.
  • Fudge: In "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing", Fudge swallows Dribble the turtle, so the doctors make him either excrete or vomit Dribble out by giving him emetics and laxatives. In the end, Fudge manages to purge Dribble out of his system, but it's not said whether he puked or defecated him out.
  • Gulliver's Travels: When the Lilliputian royal castle catches fire one night, Gulliver puts out the flames by peeing on them. The Empress is too disgusted to be grateful.
  • In Hally Tosis, the eponymous dog unintentionally gets rid of two burglars when they run away due to her bad breath.
  • Sing, Unburied, Sing: Leonie makes a concoction for Kayla when she has a stomachache. Thinking that it may instead make her feel worse, Jojo stuffs his fingers down Kayla's throat to force her to puke it back up.
  • In Smelly Feat by Paul Jennings, the protagonist saves a turtle and her unhatched children by literally knocking the antagonists out with his foot odour.
  • In the Paul Jennings book Uncovered, Misty wets the bed on purpose in "Ringing Wet" to set off its alarm so that she can bust burglars when they come into the house.
  • Walter the Farting Dog: Once a book, the titular Gasshole dog Walter ends up saving the day with his own flatulence.
    • In the first book, there are two burglars who are about to rob the house dry. Walter then farts so loudly that the awful stench causes the crooks to flee without taking anything.
    • In "Banned from the Beach", Betty, Billy, and the Crabbes are stuck in the ocean and can't get back to the shore. Due to having eaten uncooked fruit, Walter farts and the force of the explosion causes the waves to part, leaving a path on the ocean floor.
    • In "Walter the Farting Dog Goes on a Cruise", the cruise ship is out of power and can no longer move in the middle of the sea. Walter breaks wind with enough force to push the boat back to the shore.
    • In "Rough Weather Ahead for Walter the Farting Dog", Walter holds back his flatulence and this causes him to float into the sky. A windstorm starts to blow a swarm of butterflies around uncontrollably. To keep them from plummeting into a frozen lake, Walter finally cuts loose and the force of his own wind sends them to a warm valley.

Live-Action TV 

  • The Brittas Empire: In "That Creeping Feeling", Colin gets bitten by a spider and will die unless someone sucks out the poison. Unfortunately, this involves doing so around the crotch and from a person known to be The Pigpen. Nonetheless, Brittas volunteers, which is enough for the staff, (who had been giving him the Silent Treatment earlier on for spying on them whilst they were changing to create fitness targets) to talk to him again.
  • Doctor Who: "The Beast Below". Amy and the Doctor find themselves dropped into a dark, dank place full of refuse. The Doctor informs Amy that they are standing on a very large tongue. In order to escape, The Doctor uses the sonic screwdriver to trigger a bout of nausea. He does warn Amy in advance that their escape isn't going to be very big on dignity.
  • Farscape. In "Green Eyed Monster", Talyn is Swallowed Whole by a budong. After Rygel throws up on Stark, the latter gets the idea of making the budong do the same. Star Trek: Voyager also had a swallowed by a giant space monster plot with the same solution, but despite Trek's fondness for Layman's Terms there was no mention of the word vomit whatsoever.
  • Friends: In "The One With The Jellyfish", Monica gets stung by a jellyfish while she, Joey, and Chandler are taking a walk on the beach. Joey recalls a documentary he watched that said the best way to relieve the pain of a jellyfish sting is to urinate on it.note  Chandler pees on Monica much to the disgust of all three and they spend the rest of the episode being very awkward around each other because of this incident.
  • Star Trek: Enterprise: In "Dawn", an alien heals Trip's wound by spitting on it.

Music 

  • Songdrops: In "Skunkles the Christmas Skunk", the eponymous skunk saves Santa when he gets stuck in a snowdrift by spraying, causing the reindeer to fly away and push him out of the snow.

Video Games 

Web Animation 

  • In cs188's YTP Michael's Massive Farty Time, Michael Rosen and Harrybo try to revive their unconscious teacher by farting in her face. It works, but she's not very happy when she wakes up.
  • Minilife TV: In "Trouble Ian Paradise", as Chris chases after Ian inside their freezer, Ian loses his grip on a mountain of ice, leaving him and Chris hanging from it. Chris gets the idea to have Ian melt some of the ice with his urine to create a small cave for them to take refuge in.
  • Strong Bad Email: In "winter pool", Strong Bad, Homestar, and the Poopsmith end up trapped in a swimming pool filled with gelatin. Their rescue comes at the hands of the King of Town, and his straw...

Strong Bad: All I remember after I closed my eyes was that first, it got real loud. Then it got real hot. Then it got real slimy. Then it got quiet. And then it got...unspeakable. And when I opened my eyes, the pool was empty and three days had passed.

Web Comics 

Web Original 

  • Doodieman: The titular Doodieman has feces-based superpowers and he often saves people with them, though they're usually too disgusted to really be grateful. For example, a robber is holding a woman at gunpoint and Doodieman covers him in a pile of crap (much to the woman's annoyance, as he got a little bit of crap on her dress).
  • Protectors of the Plot Continuum:
    • When a canon character eats something that ought to be poisonous, the agents will first try using a device to make the poison vanish from the character's stomach. However, if that doesn't work, the agent will try making the character vomit with ipecac syrup, and if that doesn't work, they'll try using senna pods to make them poo.
    • Discussed in one mission, where an agent wants to kill an anthropomorphic cat villainess by masturbating (in reference to the meme "God kills a kitten every time you masturbate"), but his partner vetoes the idea.

Western Animation 

Real Life 

  • In 2019, an elderly man on a Chinese flight was experiencing a blocked bladder due to his enlarged prostate, which placed his life in jeopardy. A surgeon on the same flight then proceeded to save his life by MacGyvering a makeshift catheter & siphoning out almost a liter of urine with his mouth, spitting it out into an empty wine bottle. This procedure went on for nearly forty minutes.