I spent my entire childhood assuming that slipping on banana peels was a thing that only happened in cartoons, similar to running off a cliff and not falling until one looks down.

In my early twenties I was walking down the street and absentmindedly stepped on a banana peel and I can confirm that they are every bit as slippery as Mario Kart would have you believe.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 2:29 PM on December 9 [2 favorites]

how to slip on a banana skin in a silent movie. (yt/1:01)
posted by clavdivs at 2:29 PM on December 9

Smokin' Banana Peels is a 3m40s documentary video essay by Rodney Anonymous and Joe Jack Talcum about the non-metaphorical act of smoking banana peels, as recorded by the Dead Milkmen.
posted by eschatfische at 2:31 PM on December 9 [2 favorites]

Yep. I too have slipped on a banana peel. Managed not to fall but it was a close thing.
posted by supermedusa at 2:44 PM on December 9 [1 favorite]

Once, years ago, me and a friend walked along a marathon route after the runners were all gone, but before the cleanup started. There was a stand where they apparently were handing out gatorade or something in little paper cups, and the road was plastered with a mat of flattened, sticky cups. About a mile further along someone had apparently been handing out bananas, and there it was, a giant yellow slick of banana peels. Surprisingly non-slippery!
posted by phooky at 3:32 PM on December 9

someone give bois a macarthur already
posted by minervous at 3:39 PM on December 9 [1 favorite]

Thank you eschatfische

In all my years of diggin that tune, I'd never seen the video. It is everything I'd hoped it would be
posted by ginger.beef at 3:54 PM on December 9 [1 favorite]

I once slipped on a half tomato and I went down JUST like it was a banana peel. Bruised the hell out of my hip and even hit my head on the floor. Someone who saw it literally said "wow you wiped out just like a cartoon character stepping on a banana peel" but because it was a tomato I'll never get the satisfaction of having executed one of the classic pratfalls. Life is so unfair
posted by potrzebie at 4:26 PM on December 9

I just finished reading Banana by Dan Koeppel, which among many other interesting facts about the history of banana cultivation and trade, mentioned that the previous most common banana type eaten around the world, the Gros Michel, had a slippery, oily skin. It is likely the reason that people slipping on banana peels in movies and cartoons is such a cliche.

Here's a link with some of the same info (in part 2, paragraph 4). The Gros Michel fell out of favor (but is not extinct) due to rampant disease affecting the crop and making widespread cultivation difficult if not impossible. The replacement which most of us are most familiar with now outside of banana growing areas, the Cavendish, does not have such a slippery skin, so the cliché in cartoons has lost its reference, at least in my mind. The cavendish has other disease issues affecting future cultivation, so the decades-long effort to find a disease-resistant, easily shippable, and tasty banana, continues.

I'd recommend the book, but while reading it, I wished it was a little more compellingly written. There's some great anecdotes throughout, though.
posted by msbrauer at 4:29 PM on December 9

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