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Cow tipping

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cow tipping is a pastime allegedly common in rural areas, in which participants sneak up on an upright sleeping cow and then push it over for amusement.

Some variants of this urban legend state that the cow is then unable to get up.^{[citation needed}]

Fact or urban legend?

Based on the cow's weight and body structure, and the potential force that could be exerted make the tipping by pushing physically impossible for a single person.^[1] However it could potentially be done by two people. ^[2] The amount of force and feasibility of tipping would also be highly dependent upon the stance of cow at the moment. Adding to this problem is the fact that most cows sleep lying down.^[3]

Cow tipping in popular culture

References to cow tipping have appeared in many humorous media, such as the comic strip Garfield. Many video games have included humorous references, such as Barnyard for GBA, The Bard's Tale, The Sims 2, Crash Tag Team Racing, Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, Ultima Online, Asheron's Call: Dark Majesty[1], Destroy All Humans!, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, and Day of the Tentacle. Television shows that reference it include Drawn Together, That '70s Show, and Beavis and Butt-Head. The films mentioning it include Barnyard: The Original Party Animals, Larva, Heathers, Sweet Home Alabama, Tommy Boy, and Cars. The radio show Foxy and Tom often discusses cow tipping.

In 1991, NPR broadcast a half-hour radio play called "Cow Tipping," a comedy about five hapless college-aged cow tippers in Illinois. The play was produced by the Midwest Radio Theatre Workshop.

In the song "Lou Reed" by The Little Willies, the lyrics include: "And we don't mean to sound like we're trippin/But we swear to God/We saw Lou Reed cow tippin."

In the blink-182 song, 'Degenerate', one of the verses begins with "Went to a farm to tip some cows/Forgot that I left my pants down".

In the Carrie Underwood song "I Ain't In Checotah Anymore", Underwood says she would rather be tipping cows than living in New York City.

There is a cow tipping parody in the Pixar animated movie Cars. It takes the form of tractor tipping.

In numerous Garfield comics, where Jon takes Garfield on a trip to his parent's farm, Jon and his immature brother (a stereotypical representation of what could be referred to as a 'Hillbilly' begin 'Cow Tipping' as a socially acceptable pastime.