Squirrels in My Pants

Will someone help her get those squirrels out of her pants?

Rapper: Now somebody, anybody, everybody, scream!
Candace: *screams* There's squirrels in my pants!

Rapper: Wow! That girl's got some serious squirrels in her pants!
—Phineas and Ferb

A sequence where a character somehow ends up with one or more small live animals in their clothing. Naturally they're going to go crazy over it, twisting, squirming, and grabbing to get whatever's in their clothes out. This trope often appears as ants in one's pants.

Occasionally, their movement and gyrations to get rid of it makes people think that they're dancing. Sometimes, the onlookers join in.

Oop North, people do this on purpose.

Examples of Squirrels in My Pants include:

Advertising


Anime & Manga


Comic Books

  • During Adam Warren's run on Gen 13, a telepathic C-List supervillain induces Let's You and Him Fight between the team and a similar Secret Project Refugee Family, the "Mongolian Barbecue Horde". After much property damage, Grunge and his counterpart Boisterous Bruiser decide to settle the matter by "Ferret-legging": sticking live ferrets into their pants and closing the legs and waist—first one to let their ferret out loses. Grunge wins by turning his naughty bits into metal to avoid damage. The supervillain retreats; this was too much for him to handle.
  • Part of how Squirrel Girl defeated Dr. Doom in her first appearance. Well, that and being Crazy Awesome...
  • Fin Fang Foom tried to invoke this in Nextwave by putting Tabitha Smith in his pants.


Comic Strips

  • The Calvin and Hobbes strip quoted below has a subversion in which Calvin simply has a hole in his pocket, causing some of his pennies to drop down his leg.

Calvin: You never know when some crazed rodent with cold feet might be running loose in your pants.
Hobbes: Another reason not to wear 'em.


Fan Works

  • In Remember How to Smile, one of the stories from the Mellon Chronicles series of Lord of the Rings fanfiction, something like this happens. Legolas's pet ketrals get loose in King Thranduil's throne room and make an unholy mess. Thranduil catches Aragorn and Legolas trying to round them up again, and one of the ketrals, in mortal fear of him, hides in Aragorn's pants. Obviously, uncomfortable squirming and embarrassment ensues.


Films -- Animation

  • The Iron Giant: Done with, indeed, a squirrel. (In fact, the character in question actually says the trope name while he's at it, perhaps making this film the actual Trope Namer.)

Dean McCoppin: Excuse me! I'd like to apologize to everyone in advance for this. (zips down his fly to let the squirrel out, which cause a loud commotion) Check, Please!.

  • The roach does this to robots in WALL-E. Apparently, it tickles.
  • Used early on in Ratatouille, earning the victim some very funny looks. Though to be fair to the rodent in question, the victim did put him there on purpose.
  • Max from A Goofy Movie, to his eventual embarrassment, gets a possum in his pants. By the time he gets it out, the dance is already in full swing.
  • Happens during the musical number "I'll make a man out of you" from Mulan, when Yao slips a beetle down Mulan's outfits, making her dance around smacking everyone with her staff.
  • Happens in The Princess and the Frog, when one of said frogs hops right into Charlotte La Bouff's dress-much to her dismay as she dances around.
  • The exterminator from The Ant Bully is subjected to this trope when some flying insects slip up his pant leg during their defense of the anthill.
  • Happens to Chuckie in The Rugrats Movie when a fish swims up his shorts


Films -- Live-Action

  • In the Get Smart movie, Maxwell Smart ends up having a sewer rat crawl up his pants in one scene. It doesn't lead to anything resembling dancing, but the scene in question does take place in a room full of deadly, skin-destroying lasers...
  • Near the beginning of The Nutty Professor (the one with Eddie Murphy), a lot of hamsters escape their laboratory custody, wreaking havoc on a university campus. For a short scene, perviness ensues when... well, let's just say that what it looks like is played for laughs.
  • All right, the puppets in Hobgoblins never actually make it into the pants of the teens they're attacking, but they do dance and writhe to try and make it look like they're being attacked. It's probably better than the awful 80's dancing they were doing before.

"That looks like a new dance! Kinky!

  • No one was dancing, but in the movie of Harry Potter, when Draco gets turned into a ferret he gets put in Crabbe's pants. There is a song about this by the wizard rock group "Draco and the Malfoys" called "Goyle's Pants". (The song gets it wrong about whose pants ferret!Draco went into.)
  • Several The Three Stooges shorts make use of this.
    • One of the earliest being "Ants in the Pantry" with a mouse down the back of somebody's shirt, usually leading the Stooges to start doing That Russian Squat Dance to the rhythm of the victim's hopping.
    • One instance was in Hoi Polloi when a dancer tries to teach the stooges how to dance proper, until a bee flies down the back of her dress, leading to hilarity
    • Happens in the 2012 film of the same name, with a lobster
  • In the silent film Safety Last, a mouse crawls up the pants of Harold Lloyd's character as he climbs up the a sixteen-story building. He dances on a ledge and nearly falls. The crowd below applauds, thinking he's showing off.
  • Occured in the movie How to Eat Fried Worms, when Billy and Joe both had to put worms in their pants. Joe for losing a bet against Billy, and Billy for messing up on one worm that Joe did not know about.
  • Happens to the Principal in Max Keeble's Big Move.
  • Happens in Grind with a lizard when the group was left alone in the desert
  • Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade — the opening sequence showed that young Indy developing Why Did It Have to Be Snakes? came from, among a rapid set of other unpleasant snake encounters, getting several small ones inside his shirt.


Literature

  • Discworld
  • Ferret legging is popular in the People's Republic of West Yorkshire in Charles Stross's Singularity Sky. Owing to a certain amount of confusion as to which traditions belong to which parts of North Britain, they have to seal up their kilts with duct-tape first.
  • In Taltos, Vlad carries baby Loiosh around everywhere with him, tucked into his shirt where it's warm. Luckily, Loiosh is sentient and has the sense to subvert the "uncomfortable squirming" part of this trope.
  • One book in the Casca the Eternal Mercenary series showed a practical joke pulled on a particularly nasty sergeant during Casca's French Foreign Legion service in Vietnam: a couple of non-venomous snakes under the blankets at the foot of the sergeant's bed — and then slithering their way up along his body, until one "popped its head out from under the covers and stuck its tongue out at him."


Live-Action TV

Now everytime I get busy,
 Now everytime I want get down and dance,
Because everytime I start moving like this,
What that mean, got ants in me pants.

  • One of the times Michael Palin hosted Saturday Night Live, he put cats down his pants during the monologue.
  • An episode of The Red Green Show had as the entire plot: "Old Man Sedgewick Gets a Badger Caught in His Pants". Exactly What It Says.
  • The ant variety (red ants, to be specific) happened to Mike Rowe on Dirty Jobs when he was in Louisiana raiding alligator nests. Ants like to live in alligator nests. He ended up having to take off his pants on camera (behind the airboat, of course).
  • In Community episode Environmental Science Troy has a lab rat climb up his leg and proceeds to freak out.
  • Although he doesn't notice it, Zack from The Suite Life On Deck had a snake crawl up his pants and bite him, knocking him unconscious.

Zack: Ow! Yeah, something definitely just bit me.

  • In one of the early episodes of Drake and Josh, a girl Josh liked left a snake for him in his jacket that he left behind at a restaurant, which leads to a "trouser snake" situation.
  • In That's So Raven, a bloopers sequence is shown on the season 1 finale, with a goofup of Cory accidentally letting his rat Lionel climb down his shirt

Cory: He's in my shirt!!! (Offstage & Eddie laughing)

  • Also occurs in the spin-off Cory in The House, when Lionel is shipped to the White House and Sophie lets him escape, leading to Lionel climbing up the president's pant leg during an important press conference. Hilarity Ensues
  • Although not an animal, this trope was invoked in Wizards of Waverly Place when a trophyman was charmed with the Murrieta Animata spell uses this trope to escape from Max
  • El Chavo del Ocho: When Dona Florinda's restaurant became rat-infested, she and La Chillindrina each jumped into a chair for safety while El Chavo chased the rat with a broom. When El Chavo unwittingly touched La Chillindrina with the broom, she thought the rat went up her legs. Dona Florinda later experienced the same.
  • Dads Army: In "Room at the Bottom", Corporal Jones gets ants in his pants and, while trying to remove them, accidentally signals the platoon to advance into an ambush.


Music

  • Music example: The song "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" by Ray Stevens:

The day the squirrel went berserk
 In the First Self-Righteous Church
 In that sleepy little town of Pascagoula (Pascagoula!)
 It was a fight for survival
 That broke out in revival
 They were jumpin' pews and shoutin' Hallelujah!

  • The Chenille Sisters, a contemporary folk band with no actual familial relations, has the "Ants-in-Your-Pants Dance", which is much more annoying once you outgrow it.
  • On his album "Late Last Night", which is full of songs designed for children to dance along to, Joe Scruggs has a song called "Ants In My Pants" about various dances brought on by difficult or dangerous situations (such as the "I-Can't-Move Boogaloo" and the "Up-To-Your-Chin Save-Yourself-Swim"), including, of course, the "I Got Ants in My Pants Dance".
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Everything You Know Is Wrong" has this lovely bit:

One day I was driving in the fast lane
 With a rabid wolverine in my underwear

Puppet Shows

  • In Muppet Treasure Island, Gonzo observes at one point that his pants are filled with starfish. This later becomes helpful when he whips out the starfish during a fight scene and uses them as shuriken, but at the time of the comment, it only serves to weird out Rizzo.

Rizzo: You and your hobbies!


Radio

  • In the Last Will and Testament sketch, the lawyer gets a rabid Tasmanian devil in his trousers instead of a boot to the head.


Tabletop Games

  • There exists a Game Breaker Dungeons & Dragons build where a character that benefits from being poisoned purposefully puts snakes down his pants to grow stronger.


Theater

  • Sylvester McCoy got his stage name from a character he played who stuffed ferrets down his trousers; before becoming The Doctor, his performing this act was his major claim to fame.


Video Games

  • When Larry in Leisure Suit Larry 3: Passionate Patti In Pursuit Of The Pulsating Pectorals has sex with Tawni on the beach, he suddenly stands up after a while and squirms because a crab has climbed up his pants. Strangely, Tawni is not amused.
  • In Okami Issun does this to Sakuya.


Web Comics


Web Original

  • In the origin story of Fey in the Whateley Universe, ordinary high school frosh Nick Reilly is slowly turning against his will into a hot redheaded babe who also happens to be a powerful mage. He gets confronted by a school bully who rips Nick's shirt off, stressing out Nick so much that he accidentally unleashes dozens of hobgoblins who happen to appear as psychedelic-colored squirrels. Two of them go straight up the bully's pants legs. Hilarity Ensues.

"Ohhh nuts!"


Western Animation

  • Phineas and Ferb
    • Named from the scene in the episode "Comet Kermillain" where Candace gets... What do you think she gets? Now extended!—With extra ass shaking action!
    • In the episode "Fast and the Phineas" Perry slings a piece of cheese down the back of Doofenshmirtz's pants causing a mouse to run up his pants leg.
  • Rugrats
    • In an early episode, Tommy attempt to bring a lizard to a costumed performer of Reptar at an ice show (It Makes Sense in Context). When he hides it in his diaper, it doesn't quite make him dance, but it does make him make weird facial expressions. The same happens to Chuckie later on but the parents think they're "antsy," of course.
    • Chuckie also had an experience with some sand, which surely gains half a mark because people did think he was dancing.
    • Angelica suffers a consequence reminiscent of this trope when a flying bucket of ice lands on her head, sending it you know where.
    • In the later seasons once Dil is introduced, he hides a duckling in his diaper. But his dancing is more like fidgeting since the duck is tickling him from inside it.
  • The Simpsons: Marge visits the police to get them to stop someone sending Bart threatening letters. Wiggum claims there's no law against it, at which point Lou hands him a book saying there is - and it's also illegal to put squirrels down your pants for the purpose of gambling. Cue Wiggum telling some cops in the next room to knock it off.
  • Despite that he doesn't wear pants, this happened to Donald Duck in 1942's Donald Gets Drafted, in which he's standing over an ant hill, and the ants start climbing all over him. Despite his commanding officer, Pete, telling him not to move, he naturally squirms uncontrollably.
  • In the short "Baby Puss" from Tom and Jerry, when Tom's friends harrass him for dressing up like a baby and changing his diaper. Shortly after changing him, one of his friends tosses a fish into his diaper, forcing him to fidget around and lead everyone into doing a congo-like dance.
  • In the episode "Enter the Chipmunk" of Johnny Bravo, Johnny accidentally invents a powerful fighting style which relies on the fighter letting a live chipmunk into his pants.
  • Happens to Cruella with a jar of ants in One Hundred And One Dalmations: The Series, soon turning into an improvised conga line as everyone joins in behind her.
  • On Jimmy Two Shoes, Jimmy delibritely invokes this trope to help him win a dance contest in "Dance Jimmy Dance". An earlier short had Jimmy appear to be dancing, but it turns out a bee was stinging him.
  • In The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Refund" the store manager, who turns out to be a tiny puppet does this to Richard while attacking him.
  • Animaniacs: happens to Dr. Scratchensniff twice in "The Monkey Song" first after Wakko pours a bucket of bugs down his pants, again when Pesto and Squit fall down into his clothes while fighting.
  • In an episode of Dexters Laboratory, Dexter becomes stupid from overloading his brain. One of the actions he does while acting stupid is strip down to his underwear and drop a fish inside of it, making do a mambo-like dance.
  • In an episode of the original Ben 10, when Ben (as Fourarms) catches a cold and fights against bug tamer Clancy, he uses Ants to battle Fourarms. The result is Fourarms scratching and throwing himself around an abandoned apartment, inevitably destroying it with Ants in his Pants
  • Jake Long from American Dragon: Jake Long is subjected to this trope while doing his test of wisdom in battle at the Isle of Draco. The chancellor assigning him his test of wisdom in battle chose brownies as the enemy. Hilarity Ensues.
  • In the Catscratch episode "Go Gomez,Go" Waffle's pet lizard gets loose then Tad finds out he went into his pants.
  • Ed, Edd n Eddy
    • Once in Flea Bitten Ed when Rolfs bunny's jump into Ed's jacket
    • Lastly in Urban Ed when Ed tells Eddy to hold a worm, then puts it down his shirt
    • There is an unofficial example in which after Rolf curb stomps Eddy in a fight the former after which insulted and disgraced one of Rolf's heritage's celebrations, Rolf decides to celebrate with the Eds by dumping Eels in their pants as a form of good will, the eds however don't find this comfortable at all...
  • In the Goof Troop episode "Come Fly With Me" a bunch of Flies attack Goofy by doing this.
  • In Kid VS Kat, Coop's dad was transformed into a rat due to a misfire of Kat's ray gun, and while in this state, he runs up Coop's pants to hide from stray alley cats
  • Happens to Carl in As Told by Ginger when a naked mole rat climbs up his pants leg.
  • Happens sometimes in Kim Possible because of Rufus or any other factors.
    • In "Crush", this was invoked because Ron couldn't find Rufus until Rufus appeared in his clothes.
    • In "Mind Games", where it was useful because it unlocked an elevator door hidden behind a furnace.
  • The Pink Panther (in the series where he doesn't remain mute) became a baseball star because of a flea.


Real Life

  • Squirrel vs Motorcycle. Squirrel wins. One of the funniest things you'll ever read
  • The story at the bottom of this page has a guy that this happened to, with a JELLYFISH.
  • Sans the squirming, tucking a small pet into one's shirt (not pants) can sometimes be the safest way to carry them, if it's cold out and you don't want to risk them escaping in transit.

Wow, she had actual squirrels in her pants!
We just got served!

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