Le Petomane -- or the Man with the Magic Ass

When Joseph Pujol was born in Marseilles in 1857, no one expected that he would one day be known for a special talent that would never ever be seen again.
As a young man, he groomed himself to be a trombonist, but soon discovered proficiency with another type of wind instrument. His freak discovery was made on a trip to the ocean after diving underwater and experiencing an odd sensation: the cold rush of water through his anus and into his stomach.

Upon swimming to shore, he soon amazed his friends when he expelled a large quantity of water in a fountain-like spout. Experimenting with his newfound talent, he soon discovered that he could suck up large quantities of air into his rectum and blast it all out at will in one windy gust.

The Art of the Fart is Born

While serving in the French army, he entertained comrades at the front with his flatulent hijinks, but refused to perform in public. In 1892, his friends finally convinced him to go to Paris and try for a career in show business (as if show business needed another bag of wind). He was hired immediately at the world famous Moulin Rouge music hall, where he adopted the stage name "Le Petomane" which roughly translated as "The Fartiste."

Pujol's act became an overnight success, entertaining the likes of Toulouse-Lautrec, the King of Belgium, Sarah Bernhardt, and Sigmund Freud. In fact, Freud kept a portrait of Le Petomane in his office ... but that does figure.

Jerry Lewis is a Genius Here

As time went on, Joseph Pujol further crafted his performance, doing fart "impressions" ranging from a demure bride on her wedding night, a bawdy long-married lady, a ten-second-long vibrato, and his piece de resistance impression: the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake!

Furthermore, he could blow out lit candles set on the other end of the stage. He also could smoke an entire cigarette and blast out a billow of smoke as a finale. In addition, he'd shove a rubber tube in his rectum and play tunes on a flute.

What?! And Leave Show Business?!

After several years and several lawsuits, Pujol left the Moulin Rouge to start his own theater company. To spite him, the Moulin Rouge replaced him with an act billed as the "Woman Petomane", a fraud where an actress concealed air-bellows under her petticoats.

One more fact about his act: every morning he'd give himself an enema to make sure that his gases were odorless.

Pujol stopped performing in 1914, after his sons were sent off to fight in World War I. He went back to his hometown, Marseilles, and became a baker (don't ask how he made the holes in the donuts).

The End is Near

Upon his death in 1945, at almost ninety years old, a medical school offered his family a large sum of money to examine his body. They refused.

To sum up his life, Joseph Pujol was a gas.

RESOURCES:

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, "Le Petomane", Wikipedia, URL: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_P%C3%A9tomane)
Cecil Adams, "Did a French Vaudeville Star Once Specialize in Trained Flatulence?", The Straight Dope, URL: (http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_394.html)
Paul Spinrad, "Joseph Pujol, the Fartiste", RE/search Guide to Bodily Fluids, 1994
Jim Dawson, "Who Cut the Cheese?, a Cultural History of the Fart" , Ten Speed Press, 1999