pratfall

pratfall

1. slang A fall on one's buttocks, especially as an element of a comedy routine. "Prat" is a slang term for the buttocks. It's striving to be like the vaudeville acts of yesteryear, so expect plenty of corny jokes, pies in faces, and pratfalls from beginning to end.
2. slang By extension, any error, mistake, failure, etc., especially one that is humiliating in some way. Despite the many pratfalls in her election campaign, she still managed to pull ahead at the last moment and secure a victory. This is just the latest in a series of pratfalls that have served to undermine the company's credibility.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

pratfall

n. a fall on the buttocks; a fall on the buttocks done as part of a comedy act. If you want to be in musical comedy, you should learn to take a pratfall.
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • moon
  • toches
  • tokus
  • tookus
  • tuchus
  • tukkis
  • tukkus
References in periodicals archive
Heydendael recommends marketers avoid this pratfall and seize the "opportunities of the more costly, but more financially productive, adoptions of local culture and language strategies, which allow the direct marketer to penetrate and service broader segments of the local markets.
The search for a hospital outpatient, who is suspected of murder, quickly takes a back seat to pratfalls and flashes of old-fashioned physical humour.
There are pratfalls, jokes that are oldies-but-goodies and asides to camera (among them: "You see the way I f*** up the line?").
Ader's sad and funny visual embodiments of the anxiety of influence, portrayed in pathetic pratfalls (Pitfall on the Way to a New Neo Plasticism, Westkapelle, Holland, 1971, for instance), draw out a similar theme from Ray's photographs of himself wedged against a wall by a wooden plank--one realizes the artist must have felt wedged in by the example of Richard Serra and his "prop" sculptures.
But wrong-way swans, withering glares, and pratfalls begged so broadly for laughs that one longed for less.
Of course, no undertaking is more fraught with potential for intellectual pratfalls than the deep reading of popular culture (a point that Watts gamely acknowledges with a pre-emptive epigram from Walt Disney: "We just try to make a good picture.
Dix, who discussed the pratfalls and benefits of renting oddball areas.
The search for a hospital outpatient, who is suspected of murder, quickly takes a back seat to the pratfalls including flashes of old-fashioned physical humour like the lead actor chasing after a suspect and awkwardly clambering over a garden gate as it swings open beneath him.
Limp innuendo barely merits a smirk, pratfalls are predictable and a terrific ensemble
Zoolander is a film of two halves - the first mildly amusing, the second a riot of poor taste gags and pratfalls.
The pratfalls of mature relationships - messy divorces, younger lovers, growing old disgracefully - all feature here, as Meryl Streep finds herself having to choose between Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin.
So make the most of those pratfalls, catchphrases, and sly looks to camera, because Miranda Hart, right, is moving on.
The European captain has been visiting a specialist in London to avoid the pratfalls of Faldo in 2008 where he made a series of gaffes at Valhalla.
There's no way I am going to be caught in a Jacuzzi with some girl out of The Only Way Is Essex" Comedian John Bishop "We did one the other day and I felt as though I had cartoon birds circling my head, but it got massive laughs, so in tragic, hungry-for-adulation actor style I was happy" Actress Sarah Hadland on pratfalls she has to perform as Miranda Hart's "diminutive sidekick" "I love the chaos of it all, but it has got to be planned" Mary Berry, star of The Great British Bake-Off, on her idea of Christmas Day
This time round we get much of the same - heavy-handed pratfalls, blundering and overplayed comedy moments.