Potty Dance

Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now!

There he/she is, about to begin their speech for class and bam! the character feels a sharp pain. A character's hands fly to their crotch and they turn their knees inward, in an attempt to not "wet" themselves. They then begin to hop from one foot to the other.

The character gets questionable looks from their classmates. Maybe they've done it once before. This dance can be done by males or females, with slight variations in posture.

The pose is often seen in people experiencing a Potty Emergency.

Also commonly referred to as the pee-pee dance. Predominantly children's behavior.

Examples of Potty Dance include:

Advertising

• Pull Ups had a commercial where kids do the "Potty Dance", except that it's not a dance about having to go, but a dance about the bathroom. It has steps! You can visit their website to download the song.

Anime & Manga

• In Case Closed: Conan fakes a Potty Emergency during a case this way (in order to Pull the Thread on the suspect).
• Ichigo Mashimaro: Chapter 14/Episode 6: Miu does it while lying on the bed because holding it in is temporarily preferable to entering the bathroom without a Varia Suit.
• Maruko in one of the Chibi Maruko Chan manga issues, where she starts doing "the duck walk".
• Izzy in the second part of Digimon The Movie (though his reason why depends on whether you're watching the dub or original — either Tai's mom's cooking kicked in or Koushiro simply drank too much).
• In Elfen Lied, Lucy (as Nyuu) does this in the first episode before finally just going on the floor.
• Magical Doremi: In episode 7, Pop jumps up and down while trying to hold it, groaning, due to having had too much ice cream.
• In volume 2 of Tokyopop's Warcraft Legends manga, a little girl does this in the story "Family Values."
• In Season 2, Episode 2 of Those Who Hunt Elves the main characters ran out of toilet paper. This trope is occurs during the resulting Potty Emergency. Given the nature of the show, Hilarity Ensues.
• Mikan often end up doing this in Go! Go! Itsutsugo Land. She never makes it...

Fan Works

• Since this is (of course) Fetish Fuel for some, there are pictures/fan art on the internet describing both the event and the act itself. Places where these are posted on Imageboards are called "Desperation Threads".
• In FernGully: The Last Rainforest Remix, Usagi does this after drinking a lemonade.
• Happened to Chibiusa in Anastasia Remix.

Film: Animated

• Monsters, Inc..

Sulley: That's a cute little dance you got there, it's almost like you gotta... Boo: *squeals desperately* Sulley: Oh! *cut to Sulley standing outside a stall whistling*

Comedy

• There's a joke that the Charleston dance developed from this trope.
  • As well as Irish dancing.

Film: Live Action

• Blazing Saddles: When Taggart gets an idea he gets excited and jumps around. Hedley Lamarr thinks he's doing one of these.
• Bronson Pinchot does this in a film called Second Sight, except it's an extremely elaborate dance they call the pee-pee dance. He plays a psychic who is channeling someone else who has to pee.
• Mentioned in The Great Muppet Caper; Kermit, Fozzie and Gonzo are developing pictures to catch a jewel thief, but they do it in the Happiness Hotel's only restroom. As Pops says, "Catch him in another room! We got people dancin' up an' down on one leg out here!"

Literature

• According to Robert Parrish's autobiography (he was one of the Little Rascals), they called this a European, or You're a'-Peein'.
• Fregley in Diary of a Wimpy Kid reportedly does this while screaming "JUICE!! JUUUUIIIICE!!!!" as part of his bizarre use of slang.

Live Action Television

• The Love Boat: Isaac does this when forced to share a cabin (and a bathroom) with the other male crew.
• In The Revenge Files Of Alistair Fury a boy does this whilst waiting outside the toilet while Alistair and his friends are holding a meeting inside it. (He doesn't make it).
• Spoofed in Malcolm in the Middle where Dewey's way of charming their babysitter is to bounce up and down singing "Poopy poopy poopy" over and over.

Videogames

• The Sims: Sims do this and yell at the player to get their attention so the player can direct them to the restroom.
• In Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 & 2 park guests with a high enough bathroom score change their normal walking animation into a frenetic one of these, particularly if your park's bathrooms are poorly placed or if you're evil enough to charge to use the bathroom.
  • In Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, the park guests do this when their Toilet meter is high.
• In the Tamagotchi PC Pack game, all the Tamagotchi except for Kuchipatchi and Ichigotchi do this when you say the command "Use the bathroom" through the microphone.
• Final Fantasy VII features in NPC at the Wall Market bar doing one of these while waiting for a sick bar patron to finish up.

Western Animation

• Camp Lazlo: In "Hold It Lazlo", Lazlo wins the lemonade-drinking contest. Just when Samson is getting ready to take a picture of him, he sees Lazlo hopping around and asks him to pose more like a champion. Lazlo then responds that he has to go pee.
• Futurama: Bender does it briefly in Bender's Big Score after drinking a bunch of beers, and lampshades comments on the lunacy of a robot having to go to the bathroom.
• Recess: Mikey, after T.J. makes him drink water from a hosepipe in "Parents Night".
• An unnamed Water Tribe boy does this in the second episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
• Wakko during the Potty Emergency Trope Namer Animaniacs cartoon.
• The Simpsons:
  • Homer Simpson does this after drinking way too much crab juice in "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson".
  • Otto is mesmerized by Ralph's Potty Dance in "How The Test Was Won".
• Loopy and her mother did this in the Ka Blam! episode "Takes a Knockin' and Keeps Tick-Tockin'" due to Larry being in the bathroom too long...he recently got muscular, and he was admiring himself.
• Mort does this in The Penguins of Madagascar episode "Friend In A Box", and Kowalski comments that he's "doing the first traditional steps of the potty dance". King Julien then remarks that he has never learned "that dance." Being the king, he just goes wherever he is. Kowalski takes two steps away from Julien upon hearing that.
• Dot's cousin Margot in the "Dot." episode "Margot La Magnifique" does this 4m20s in saying she has to pee in french, and Dot's app translates this as "I have to pee pee".
• At the end of the The Ren and Stimpy Show episode "Fire Dogs", Stimpy says he's so excited that he can barely contain himself. An offscreen dog says that he can't either, and then we see several dogs (including Mrs. Buttloaves) squirming and jumping around.
• Teen Titans Go!: In "Serious Business", Robin jumps around while he's waiting for Raven to get out of the bathroom. The other Titans proceed to have a musical number about it called "The Pee-Pee Dance".
• Camp Lazlo: In "Hold It Lazlo", Lazlo wins a lemonade-drinking contest and begins to jump around while he's about to pose for a champion photo. Samson takes note of this and asks him to look like more of a champion.

Card Games

• The Green Apple Quicksteps card from Shadowrun, which removes an enemy runner from play for a turn.

Real Life

• In Legoland in Windsor near one of the toilets, there are two Legomen doing this.
• Truth in Television for just about every toddler on the planet.
• There's an old joke saying that tapdancing was invented by a man called Stepan Stepanovich who was inspired by the unusual dances his family performed every time he occupied the toilet for too long.