The wedgie's pop-culture pull proves irresistible

Johnny Knoxville is doing more than just continuing the low-brow  cosplay costumes for sale  Jackass series with its fourth installment, Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa.
The 42-year-old comedic performer and actor is also keeping the flame alive for a sophomoric film tradition: the wedgie.
Playing 86-year-old Irving Zisman, Knoxville delivers wedgies so profound that they are featured not just in the comedy (opening Friday) itself, but also in the trailer and on promotional posters for the Paramount franchise.
"The wedgie is one of the many things in my repertoire," says Knoxville. "Simple is funny. Underpants are funny. And it works every time."
This act of pulling another's underwear violently upward to inflict irritation and a comically goofy appearance enjoyed its golden era in comedies released during the Reagan administration in the 1980s, says Matt Zaller, host of the show MetacafeUnfiltered at thevideo-sharing site Metacafe.com.
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"They were the thing to do to the protagonist-of-the-day — mostly nerds — in the very common underdog comedies," says Zaller. "It was an easy way for filmmakers to get a laugh. But we might have over-saturated the market since there was a wedgie in about 50% of the movies."
In the Cold War world, the wedgie was also a sure way to build up sympathy for the plucky screen heroes in comedies such as 1984's Revenge of the Nerds and in 1985's Just One of the Guys. Craig Detweiler, director of Pepperdine University's Center for Entertainment, Media and Culture, recalls living in Japan in the 1980s and watching the wedgie-mania rise onscreen.
"It's interesting to think about the wedgie as kind of an extension of Japanese sumo  cosplay costumes store   wrestling taken to its logical extreme," says Detweiler. "It's an Americanized version of the classic power move."