New York Yankees batter Nick Swisher reacts after teammate A.J. Burnett slapped a shaving cream "pie" into his face after he hit a solo walk-off home run.
Now seen mostly in sports celebrations and as political protests, the custom of smashing a pie in the face of someone as a prank gained popularity in the early 1900s as a slapstick film technique. While likely not the first person to ever pull off the pie-in-the-face trick, director Mack Sennett made it famous in his movies and earned himself the nickname Custard Pie King. The ploy took to the screen for the first time in 1913 in Sennett’s That Ragtime Band and then gained even greater notoriety when The Three Stooges carried on the tradition years later.