While serving in the army, he told his fellow soldiers about his special ability, and repeated it for their amusement, sucking up water from a pan into his rectum and then projecting it up to several yards.

[6] Some of the highlights of his stage act involved sound effects of cannon fire and thunderstorms, as well as playing "'O Sole Mio" and "La Marseillaise" on an ocarina through a rubber tube in his anus.

Pujol was fined 3,000 francs (equivalent to Ff96,000 in 2022), and the Moulin Rouge lost their star attraction as the disagreement led him to set up his own travelling show called the Theatre Pompadour.

In addition, Le Pétomane was added to David Lee's 2007 reworked revival of the 1953 Broadway play Can-Can, which had originally been written by Abe Burroughs and Cole Porter.

The updated play, staged at the Pasadena Playhouse, featured musical theatre actor Robert Yacko as the fartiste, with sound effects provided by the band's trombone and piccolo players.

In 1979 Ian MacNaughton made a short humorous film, written by Galton and Simpson called Le Pétomane, based on Joseph Pujol's story and starring veteran comic actor Leonard Rossiter.

[11] The 1983 Italian movie Il Petomane, directed by Pasquale Festa Campanile and starring Ugo Tognazzi, gives a poetic rendition of the character, contrasting his deep longing for normality with the condition of 'freak' to which his act relegated him.

The 1998 documentary Le Pétomane by Igor Vamos examines Joseph Pujol's place in history through archival films (none of which actually include him), historical documents, photographs, recreations and fake or tongue-in-cheek interviews.