Here’s What Would Really Happen If You Put a Banana in a Car’s Tailpipe

Picture this: You’re a spy, you’re being tailed by a bad guy, and you just happen to have a banana in your pocket. (Just stay with me here.) According to decades of movies and TV shows, you know exactly what to do—jam that yellow fruit right into their car’s exhaust pipe and watch their car choke and die while you make your getaway, right? Or maybe you’re not a spy and you’re just someone who likes pranks. After all, the ol’ banana-in-the-tailpipe trick is the ultimate revenge prank, right up there with sugar in the gas tank, corn flakes in the heater vents and Vaseline under the door handle—but way funnier, less damaging and less illegal. Or is it?

“‘Banana in the tailpipe’ is entirely Hollywood magic,” says Paul Knoll, a car manufacturing expert and the marketing director at American Trucks. It’s been a staple of pop-culture pranks for generations, most famously in the 1984 classic Beverly Hills Cop, where Eddie Murphy’s character, Axel Foley, uses the trick to foil police officers tailing him.

But does this legendary gag actually work in real life, or have we all been—pardon the pun—slipping up? With the help of Knoll and fellow car experts Chris Pyle and Tim Rodifer, we decided to peel back the layers of this fruity automotive mystery. Read on to learn the truth.

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Where did the “banana in a tailpipe” trick come from originally?

If you think the banana-in-the-tailpipe trope originated with the comedy classic Beverly Hills Cop, you’d be close—but not quite right. While the 1984 movie certainly popularized the prank and turned it into a cultural phenomenon, the concept actually predates Murphy’s antics by more than a decade. The real OG of produce-in-a-tailpipe tampering appears to be the classic TV detective series Columbo. In the 1971 episode “Death Lends a Hand,” the detective used a potato (not a banana) to disable a suspect’s car. The potato version of this trick also showed up in The Three Stooges and the 1980 film Hollywood Knights, where the gang stuffed a spud into a police car’s tailpipe at a drive-in diner with hilarious results.

So why did Beverly Hills Cop go with a banana instead of a potato? According to Hollywood legend, the scene was originally scripted with a potato, but somewhere between script and screen, Eddie Murphy’s produce of choice changed. The switch might have been for comedic effect—there’s just something inherently funnier about a banana—or it might have just been what they had on hand during filming. (Fun fact: If you watch the scene closely, you’ll notice a continuity error. The banana Murphy holds is curved, but the one lodged in the tailpipe is straight. Turns out, they couldn’t actually fit a bent banana into the pipe, so they had to swap it out.)

At any rate, it took off from there. The film turned the idea into such an iconic trope that it’s been referenced in countless shows since, from The Golden Girls (where Sophia, my personal hero, did it to a cop car off-screen) to Psych (where they used “tailpipe vegetables” to stop a car thief).

What’s the theory behind this trick?

The logic behind shoving a banana in an exhaust pipe does make some sense—at least if you don’t know much about cars. Here’s how it’s supposed to work, according to Pyle: Your car’s engine is essentially a big air pump. It sucks in fresh air and fuel, ignites the mixture to create power, then expels the exhaust gases out through—you guessed it—the tailpipe. Block that tailpipe, and theoretically, the exhaust has nowhere to go. The gases build up, creating pressure that essentially suffocates the engine. No exhaust out means no fresh air in, and without oxygen, your engine stalls faster than a car with a banana in its … well, you get it. At least, that’s what the movies would have you believe. The prankster makes a clean getaway while their victim sits there, confused and embarrassed, with a face full of banana-scented exhaust.

Especially in older vehicles, which had simpler exhaust systems without all the modern sensors and pressure-release mechanisms, a good solid blockage could theoretically cause enough problems to stall the engine. The question is: Does a banana (or even a potato) actually create enough of that blockage?

What would actually happen if you put a banana in a tailpipe?

Here’s where we burst your bubble, or in this case, blow out your banana. The reality of what happens if you put a banana in a tailpipe is far less dramatic than Hollywood would have you believe. Spoiler alert: The banana loses every time. “If you placed a banana in a tailpipe, the worst that would happen is it would blow out on a sidewalk, and someone may slip on it,” says Pyle.

While this trick aims to block exhaust and make the car run poorly, it simply won’t work because the banana isn’t large enough in diameter to effectively seal off the pipe. “The banana would get hot and blow out likely in about 10 minutes or less,” Pyle says. Even if the banana was big enough and you managed to cram it in there really well, once that engine fires up, the force of the exhaust gases would likely send that fruit flying faster than you can say “We ain’t gonna fall for no banana in no tailpipe” (another classic line from Beverly Hills Cop).

The popular TV show MythBusters put this theory to the test in its 2004 episode “Scuba Diver, Car Capers,” and their findings confirmed what our experts say: Everything they stuffed up the tailpipe—including bananas—shot out immediately when they started the engine. Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman tried multiple items and got the same result every time. The myth was thoroughly busted.

Then there’s the fact that modern cars are even less vulnerable to this prank than older vehicles, Rodifer says. Today’s engines come equipped with sophisticated sensors that monitor exhaust pressure and engine performance. If something did manage to create a blockage, these sensors would detect the problem and adjust how the engine runs to compensate. Many modern exhaust systems also have multiple pathways and pressure-release points that allow gases to escape even if the main tailpipe is partially blocked.

Would a potato do a better job at stalling a car?

Since the original version of this prank used a potato instead of a banana, you might be wondering if the spud is the superior saboteur. The answer is: marginally, but probably still not enough to be effective.

“I guess you could shove a sock or potato into the pipe to restrict the flow,” Pyle says. A potato is denser and firmer than a banana, so it might wedge in there better and take longer to blow out. But here’s the catch: “Many exhaust systems are not airtight,” he says. “So a car can get the exhaust out to some degree through condensation weep holes and bad gaskets. The car will run, but it will have less power. It will bog down.”

Knoll notes that older vehicles with weaker exhaust systems might stall momentarily if something were stuffed in tightly enough. But even then, it wouldn’t be enough to stop them for good.

So what would actually get the job done if you really wanted to disable a car this way? (Not that we’re recommending it!) According to the experts, you’d need something much more substantial and form-fitting. A rubber plug or mallet head that could create a genuine seal might work temporarily, but even then, modern cars have enough ways for exhaust to escape that you’d be hard-pressed to completely disable one.

Could sticking something in a car’s tailpipe damage the car—or even be dangerous?

The good news for would-be pranksters (and victims) is that shoving a banana or potato in a tailpipe is unlikely to cause serious damage to a vehicle. “This will not really damage the car,” Pyle says. “Once the restriction blows out and/or is removed, the car will go right back to running right.”

However, there are some caveats. If your exhaust system is old and rusty, the temporary back pressure could potentially cause car problems. “This restriction could cause the muffler to swell and blow out a weak spot or cause a gasket between two pipes to fail,” Pyle says. “You would then have an exhaust leak to address.” But that’s more a function of an already compromised exhaust system than the banana itself being particularly destructive.

As for the dramatic explosions you see in cartoons and movies? Pure fiction. “It definitely would not set the car on fire,” Knoll says. Rodifer agrees but adds a word of caution: “Blocking an exhaust is not a good idea, and any restriction can cause engine damage over time.” So while a single banana prank probably won’t destroy an engine, repeatedly blocking an exhaust system or leaving something lodged in there long term could eventually lead to problems.

The truth behind the banana

So there you have it: The reality is far less exciting than the movies. No Michael Bay–style explosions, no clouds of smoke and definitely no stranded bad guys. Just a mushy banana on the pavement and maybe some puzzled looks from your intended victim when they find fruit splattered behind their car.

Instead, Pyle suggests that if you’re looking for harmless pranks, “something much more fun is to tape a balloon to the exhaust, which fills up and explodes, or to clip a kazoo to the pipe so it makes an annoying noise each time you rev the engine.” Now those are pranks we can get behind. (And yes, pun intended!)

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Sources:

• Paul Knoll, marketing director at American Trucks; email interview, Oct. 15, 2025
• Chris Pyle, certified mechanic and auto expert at JustAnswer; phone interview, Oct. 15, 2025
• Tim Rodifer, technical director of Mr. Transmission – Milex Complete Auto Care; phone interview, Oct. 14, 2025
• TV Tropes: “Banana in the Tailpipe”
• MythResults: “MythBusters Episode 15 – Scuba Diver, Car Capers”
• Tampa Bay Times: “30 Years Later, ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ Still Doesn’t Fall for the Banana in the Tailpipe”

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