The Art of the Fart
The Unexpected Origin Story of the Whoopee Cushion
At the top of the comedic gold pyramid, above the slapstick staples of banana peel slips and throwing a pie in someone’s face sits the timeless fart gag—embodied by none other than THE Whoopee Cushion.
But, this icon of auditory tomfoolery wasn’t the first of its kind. Historians point to medieval jesters, who, with a pig bladder and a dream, were the original composers of the butt symphony.
Well, this first Substack post has already gone with the wind. Fine, I’ll stop.
Yet, the only name in history we remember is the Whoopee Cushion. Why?
Well, because the indelicate device came onto the market at just the right time.
The Whoopee Cushion was invented in 1930 at JEM Rubber Co. in Canada. Contrary to popular belief, the name “Whoopee” wasn’t kept because it signifies the noise the item makes. Whoopee at that time meant fun and silliness, it was also a slang euphemism for sex (“making whoopee”).
Anyways, The Whoopee Cushion was primed and ready to be sold to a buyer. So, JEM & Co took the designs and tried to sell it to 1 of 2 top novelty companies in North America at the time - S.S. Adams and Johnson Smith & Company.
They first approached S.S. Adams, an American inventor, who created famous gag items like the snake in a can, itching powder, the handshake buzzer and the stink bomb. For JEM, they felt the Whoopee Cushion would be right up S.S. Adam’s alley.
But to their surprise, he flatly said no, ironically citing that he found “the whole idea too indelicate”.
So, JEM approached the other leading novelty company, Johnson Smith & Company, who loved the idea and ended up selling the Whoopee Cushion with immense success.
A large chunk of that success can be attributed to the time period. It was the early 1930s, and America had just entered into The Great Depression.
The stock market lost almost 90% of its value between 1929 and 1933. 11,000 banks failed, leaving many Americans with no savings, which caused the domino effect of unemployment rising to 25% at the peak of the Depression and family income to drop by 40%.
It was an unspeakably difficult time. I mean, the name says it all, people were depressed and they needed a reason to smile and laugh.
Enter, The Whoopee Cushion - a harmless, joyful and silly moment of relief packaged in rubber.
Soon, The Whoopee Cushion surpassed the banana peel and hand buzzer as the favorite gag gift.
But, the popularity didn’t end after The Great Depression. The Whoopee Cushion has successfully managed to stay relevant to modern day.
In 2009, there was even a scientific study done on The Whoopee Cushion by Professor Trevor Cox, an expert in acoustics at the University of Salford in England. He carried out an online poll to figure out what makes farting funny, and used the results of the experiment to raise money for the charity group Comic Relief.
34,000 people took the online poll, which consisted of listening to 6 of 20 possible farting sounds and rating them on how much each made them laugh.
The results were unexpected:
“Longer whoopee cushion sounds are funnier―the funniest sound is seven seconds long so it is better to sit on a whoopee slowly for maximum effect.
“Whiny sounds are funnier―three out of the top five sounds scoring full marks for funniness were classified as ‘whiny’.
“Females find whoopee cushion sounds slightly funnier than males (very interesting).
“Whoopee sounds get less funny as you get older (not in my case).
“Europe finds whoopee cushions funnier than America”
“Sounds get funnier the more you listen to them.”
The Whoopee Cushion even entered deep into Hollywood, without many of us even realizing it…
THE Whoopi Goldberg is named after the comedic item - correction, she named herself after it.
Whoopi was born as Caryn Elaine Johnson and decided to rename herself during a pivotal time during the 1970s Black Arts Movement.
She chose Whoopi after her Whoopee Cushion jokes and Goldberg to honor her Jewish ancestors and never looked back.
So, there you have it. An ode to the Whoopee Cushion (I never thought I’d write those words ever in my life).
Even though there are now fart apps you can download on your iPhone to play the same exact noises, there’s still something special about the original, which gives The Whoopee Cushion its staying power even to this day.
Just last week my brother sent me videos of my 3 year old niece, hysterically laughing from playing with her new Whoopee Cushion. The unbridled joy and excitement at producing a mischievous noise somehow never seems to disappoint…
