Banana Peels=Slippery?

[I_m_No_Saint]

We’ve all seen it happen in cartoons, movies and video games. One character tosses a banana peel over their shoulder and some other poor bastard unwittingly steps on it and SPLAT! Where did this come from? Any ideas?

[Shagnasty]

We have done this one before but I can’t recall if there was a definite answer. I will see if I can find it.

[Colophon]

I don’t know where it first came from, but I can tell you from experience that they really ARE slippery. I was at a friend’s barbecue some years ago and slipped on a discarded banana skin on their patio. I was astounded that (a) they really are incredibly slippery and (b) that I had performed such a clichéd-but-never-actually-observed pratfall in real life. :eek:

[WhyNot]

According to Alton Brown on his Good Eats show about bananas, once upon a time bananas were insanely popular street vendor food. People would buy them on the street and eat them right there, and just toss the peel onto the pavement. The problem became so pervasive that the banana peel became a symbol of littering, and the efforts to bring in city trash cans.

A poster at Snopes ’ message board wrote:

The peels were no worse than the rest of the filth, but they were bright yellow and easy to spot, so they quickly became synonimous with garbage. Several magazines, such as Harper’s Weekly, warned that “whosoever throws banana skins on the sidewalk does a great unkindness to the public, and is quite likely to be responsible for a broken limb.” The Sunday School Advocate told the story of a man who slipped on a peel and broke his leg, which had to be amputated, leaving him unable to work, until his family ended up in the poorhouse. “All this sorrow was caused by the bit of banana peel which Miss Sweet-tooth dropped on the sidewalk.”

I’m not sure how to verify those quotes, but it’s a place to start.

I did find, in the Project Gutenberg Archives , the following report from April 2, 1870:

[Illustration: THE NEW-YORK ANTI-ORANGE-PEEL AND BANANA-SKIN ASSOCIATION,
AS THEY APPEAR IN THEIR GREAT HUMANITARIAN FEAT OF CLEARING THE
SIDE-WALKS.]
ORANGE-PEEL, ET. CETERA.
PUNCHINELLO, ever ready to hail with acclamation all that is for the
welfare of his fellow-men, is delighted to learn that an
“Anti-Orange-peel-and-Banana-skin Association” has been organized in the
city of New-York. The great number of severe accidents annually caused by
the idiotic custom of casting orange-peel and such other lubricious
integuments recklessly about the side-walks, has long furnished a topic for
public animadversion. Some of our leading citizens have taken the matter in
hand–or, to speak more correctly, on foot. The picture at the top of this
page gives a life-like representation of the Association referred to,
engaged in their benevolent work of removing from the side-walk with their
Boots all such fragments as might tend to the development of Slippers. The
Association has PUNCHINELLO’S best wishes. The Orange-Outangs who render
the side-walks dangerous have his worst.

ETA: “lubricious integuments” may be my new favorite phrase.

[Shagnasty]

Here was the previous thread I was thinking about:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=177461&highlight=banana

[psycat90]

I can also tell you they are indeed slippery from experience.

I slipped on one walking to my car before work a couple of years ago.

I was amazed. I made it a point to stay away from dangling pianos and anvils for the rest of the day.

[Colophon]

PUNCHINELLO, ever ready to hail with acclamation all that is for the
welfare of his fellow-men, is delighted to learn that an
“Anti-Orange-peel-and-Banana-skin Association” has been organized in the
city of New-York. The great number of severe accidents annually caused by
the idiotic custom of casting orange-peel and such other lubricious
integuments recklessly about the side-walks, has long furnished a topic for
public animadversion. Some of our leading citizens have taken the matter in
hand–or, to speak more correctly, on foot. The picture at the top of this
page gives a life-like representation of the Association referred to,
engaged in their benevolent work of removing from the side-walk with their
Boots all such fragments as might tend to the development of Slippers. The
Association has PUNCHINELLO’S best wishes. The Orange-Outangs who render
the side-walks dangerous have his worst.

I love it. Modern English has had all the colour sucked out of it. Can we go back to writing like this, please?

[WhyNot]

@Colophon

I love it. Modern English has had all the colour sucked out of it. Can we go back to writing like this, please?

Scroll up a bit from that article and check out “HOW TO BEHAVE AT A THEATRE.”. Replace “canes” with “cell phones”, and it could fit right in to the Pit!

[mhendo]

@WhyNot

I’m not sure how to verify those quotes, but it’s a place to start.

I can confirm the Harper’s Weekly quote. It’s from the April 26, 1879 issue of the magazine.

I’ve downloaded the relevant page from the HarpWeek website (subscription only), and posted it on my webspace. You can view the page here. The bit about the banana and orange skins is in a small paragraph, near the bottom of column 3.

I also found an article from the October 26, 1895 issue titled “The Cleaning of the Streets of New York,” in which the author felt that banana peels were important enough to mention by name:

It will be impossible to secure anything approaching
a thorough state of cleanliness until three reforms are ac-
complished:

First.—The people must be taught not to throw paper,
banana peel, and other litter into the streets, or they must
be prevented from doing so by an application of the legal
penalties.

Second.—The pavements of a very large part of the
city must be radically changed. They are often of such
a horrible character that cleaning is made impossible.

Third.—Street-sprinkling must be taken out of the
hands of the contractor, who sprinkles only in front of
the premises of those who pay for the service. It must
be so regulated as to be much less copious, and it must be
absolutely under the control of this department, or, which
would be better, the city would be kept so clean that no
sprinkling will be necessary, so clean that no wind can
raise a dust and no rain can create mud.

Page image here. The reference is near the top of column 1.

[mhendo]

A search of the ProQuest historical newspapers database also reveals numerous references to banana peels and the hazards they cause. I’ve uploaded three articles from the Chicago Daily Tribune:

Article 1
Article 2
Article 3

Note: all files are pdf.

I particularly love the first article, which describes new ordinances being put into place in Chicago to discourage people from littering. The article, from July 1, 1881, described the dangers posed by banana peels and similar hazards, and the title expresses very well the outrage of the writer:

**AN INSIDIOUS FOE

The Dangerous Banana-Peel and
the Treacherous Orange-
Rind.

The Fiends Who Throw Them on the
Sodewalks to be Suppressed
by Law**

[Joey_P]

No comment on the OP other then to say I too have slipped on banana peels.

[Sapo]

Funny that just yesterday, I saw one on the floor and wondered about this.

If you really want to break your neck, try a mango peel. There is some slippery stuff.

[Joey_P]

@Sapo

Funny that just yesterday, I saw one on the floor and wondered about this.

If you really want to break your neck, try a mango peel. There is some slippery stuff.

Even better, put Pledge on a linoleum floor. If you walk on it with socks on it’s like walking on wet ice. Even funnier if you don’t tell someone about it. (At least in college we found if funny to watch people almost break their necks)

[Sapo]

@Joey P

Even better, put Pledge on a linoleum floor. If you walk on it with socks on it’s like walking on wet ice. Even funnier if you don’t tell someone about it. (At least in college we found if funny to watch people almost break their necks)

The steps on my parent’s house were half tile, half wood. Wood which my mom would shine with pledge. We are all still alive. Somehow.

[knowletter]

The hazard here is magnolia blossoms and tulip tree blossoms, which are treacherous when the thick, wet, petals are stepped on.
But imagine a clown act at the circus trying to get across what they are dealing with. Not a recognizable object even when you know about them.

[Shagnasty]

@Joey P

Even better, put Pledge on a linoleum floor. If you walk on it with socks on it’s like walking on wet ice. Even funnier if you don’t tell someone about it. (At least in college we found if funny to watch people almost break their necks)

My MIL comes over on Mondays to watch the kids. Despite the fact that she is quite the rich woman, she cleans like a illegal Mexican maid with deportation threats against her. She did a great job of refinishing the stairs in this faux wood pattern. A few weeks later, she apparently polished them them with Pledge. My pregnant wife called for help that night downstairs and I heard her plea from upstairs and I rushed to her aid. A third of the way down those steep stairs, my feet only covered in socks did not stand a chance. My legs flew up, my back caught the brunt on it, I twisted and slid down to the bottom in violent fashion hitting every body area imaginable. I opted not to go to the hospital but the next few weeks were quite painful. I could barely walk or keep my head up straight. Say no to Pledge as a floor or stair polish.

[ntcrawler]

All these threads about bananas, and Kurt Cameron, just gave me a huge craving and I had to have one. Talk about the teeming millions and subliminal advertising