Leslie Nielsen’s Fart Machine Got Ted Danson Thrown Off of an Airplane

Nobody loved a fart joke quite like Leslie Nielsen.The late Naked Gun star even managed to tell a gaseous gag from beyond the grave, thanks to his gravestone, which simply reads, “Let 'er rip.”

But the best evidence of Nielsen’s deep appreciation for fart-based humor was no doubt a longtime dedication to his famous “fart machine.” Nielsen brought the handheld rubber device everywhere he went, allowing him to randomly deploy fart noises whenever he pleased, including during appearances on network television.

And, in retrospect, Nielsen’s fake flatulence may have been the only real laugh ever generated by The Pat Sajak Show.

But the bit didn’t come without some negative consequences. In addition to ruining a lot of takes on the set of Surf Ninjas, Nielsen’s fart machine once landed him and Cheers star Ted Danson in hot water with flight attendants.

Danson recently appeared on The Rich Eisen Show, alongside his wife Mary Steenburgen, and addressed the rumor that he was once thrown off of an airplane due to Nielsen’s antics. Danson confirmed that this story was true, to the surprise of Steenburgen. “I didn’t know that, that’s amazing,” she exclaimed.

“This is back when they would say to celebrities, ‘You want to board first?’” Danson recalled. “And Leslie said ‘Yes.’ So we were in the first seats as people came through.” But this preferential treatment only teed up Nielsen’s prank, because the actor greeted every third person who boarded the plane with an artificial fart sound.

“And it offended (them),” Danson explained. “And (the flight attendant) came and asked him, ‘Mr. Nielsen, please don’t. Please stop.’ He wouldn’t. Literally, he would not stop.” The other passengers were genuinely embarrassed and miffed because “ it made them think that the person behind them in line thought that it might have been them. So it put people on the spot. He was relentless.”

When asked why he was on a plane with Leslie Nielsen in the first place, Danson joked that “he was coaching me how to use (the fart machine).” But as Danson told The A.V. Club back in 2015, it was really because the two were working on the 1982 horror anthology movie Creepshow. He also noted that Nielsen was “relentlessly in love with his machine, with no sense of shame.”

Steenburgen called the anecdote “wonderful” and revealed that Dudley Moore, her Romantic Comedy co-star, also had the same type of fart machine. But apparently Moore never thought to bring it with him to every single TV interview.