The trope
of slipping on a banana peel is often encountered in the comics, but a
search through online newspaper archives reveals scores of reports of people
being injured, or even killed, in that way. Following is a representative list.
1888, Will
H. Willis, Galveston, TX, slips, shoots himself, dies (see below)
1891, Catharine
Finney, Philadelphia, dies
1901,
Thomas McGuire, Rochester, NY, injured
1902, Mrs.
August Ritter, Newton, KS, injured
1907, “William
Lytle, of San Francisco, is haunted, pursued, and terrorized by a plague of
banana skins. For nearly two years he has lived in terror of death or injury
from the peelings of the fruit, and even now, after suffering all kinds of
hurts and woes, he firmly believes that the banana skins at last will kill him.”
“Man Has Many a Slip,” The Washington
Post, 7 July 1907.
1915,
Richard L. Williams, Youngstown, OH, dies (see below)
1922,
Robert H. Russell, Dallas, dies (see below)
1924, Caspar
Schmidt, Middletown, CT, slips, shoots wife dead (see below)
2001
Dorothy M. Ellis Williams, Edwardsville, IL, injured
2007,
Joyce Walker, Chicago, injured
2011, Ida
Valentine, Fontana, CA, injured
“A
Singular Cause of Death,” The Daily City
News (New Castle, PA), 18 May 1888, p. 1.
“Slips on
Banana Peel; Soldier Dies,” Pittsburgh Daily
Post, 29 June 1915, p. 1.
“Banana
Peel Fall Kills an Insurance Agent at Dallas,” Concordia Blade-Empire (KS), 10 June 1922, p. 1.
“Banana
Peel | Caused Him to Slip and Gun To Be Discharged, Killing Wife, Is Husband’s
Story,” Cincinnati Enquirer, 27
December 1924, p. 1.
“Purse
Grabber Meets Defeat on Banana Peel,” New
Cambria Leader (MO), 11 Nov. 1927.
Here are
two Prohibition-era reports in which slipping on a banana skin leads to the discovery of
alcohol.
“Banana
Peel Leads to Booze,” The Tennessean
(Nashville, TN), 22 November 1923, p. 1.
“Slipped
On A Banana Peel; Slipped In Can,” The
Klamath News (Klamath Falls, OR), 14 August 1925, p. 1.
Jeff
Corriveau, “Deflocked,” 28 May 2017. 5 of 7 panels.
Guy
Delisle, Shenzhen: A Travelogue from
China (Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 2006), 66. In the late 1990s
cartoonist Delisle worked in China supervising a French firm’s outsourced
animation work.
Charley Jones’ Laugh Book, vol. 8, no. 10, May 1953, p. 54.
Atlas Obscura
24 July 2019
When New Yorkers Were Menaced
By Banana Peels
They slipped and fell.
Really!
[…] Slipping on
a banana peel is a cliché, a vintage vaudeville gag. But its origins weren’t
just slapstick comedy. Before it became a comedy trope, banana peels menaced
New Yorkers for decades. […]