The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man: His name is my name, too.

If you had been in Chicago recently and noticed several eye-catching yellow flyers plastered around Logan Square and Wicker Park, one question may be on your mind: “Who — and/or what — is the Pee Pee Poo Poo Man?” 

The first answer to that question is perhaps the more bizarre response: In 2019, a Toronto man received the on-the-(brown)-nose moniker for throwing a bucket full of liquefied poop at several individuals over a three-day rain of terror at the York University and University of Toronto campuses. The second answer to that question (and the impetus for the flyers) is an underground movie by Toronto filmmaker Braden Sitter Sr. inspired by the real life Pee Pee Poo Poo Man. Sitter doesn’t merely seek to tell the Pee Pee Poo Poo Man story, and rather than recite the events of the phenomenon, the movie instead poses a new question — What makes a Pee Pee Poo Poo Man? 

The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man screened at Chicago’s Music Box Theatre on April 24th as part of a tour pretty much single-handedly managed by Sitter (on top of serving as writer, director and editor) to get the low-budget flick in front of as many people as possible. I received a personal invite over Twitter/X from the filmmaker, which was enough to get me in a seat for a movie I was interested in but reserved skepticism for as well. Make no mistake, this “2025 Chicago Film Critics Association & Rotten Tomatoes Emerging Critic” is not pay-for-play, but (1) I’m not getting paid to write this, so, whatever, and (2) In our current filmmaking landscape — if not precarious before, certainly precarious now as U.S. pipelines for incubating and showcasing independent talent are at risk of losing funding — it’s as important as ever that real, innovative movies of every size and scope have a shot at getting seen, especially when the filmmaker takes on their own promotion rather than relying on a studio to deem them worthy of a viral marketing campaign or even an adequate trailer. I would believe in this even if The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man was not my cup of tea or wasn’t a film of substance; but what I found most exciting about this feature emerging from a scene dubbed the “New Toronto Bizarre” is that The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man is smart, sensitive, and sympathetic, aptly identifying the alienation of our times. 

To some extent, there are parallels between The People’s Joker and The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man. Artistically, both are scrappy movies made with the collaboration of fellow friends and artists (including flourishes of animation) that house character studies of loneliness and shattered identity within edgelord comedy packaging. But even simpler than that, The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man isn’t entirely unlike Todd Phillips’ Joker as it gives us a backstory for our character that shows the descent from social disconnect and mental illness to villainy. (Like The People’s Joker, The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man is also just better than Todd Phillips’ Joker). Sitter said at the Chicago Q&A that the story came from putting himself in the shoes of Pee Pee Poo Poo Man, imagining what it would take to do something like that. In the movie, that turning point is a bad acid trip. 

It’s not outright stated whether Miguel — the eventual PPPPM — is schizophrenic, but regardless, he quickly falls down a rabbit hole of conspiracy and paranoia that completes his transformation into the titular antagonist (there’s one gag about a Google search that made me laugh very hard). Where most movies would use up their run time slowly taking us through the character’s turn, Miguel begins donning a construction helmet and his shit-filled bucket about halfway through the movie. And suddenly, this paranoid, eccentric comedy takes an unexpected direction. 

This is not a widely available nor widely seen movie, making it challenging to talk about without giving away too much. What I can say is that Sitter isn’t just interested in what makes a Pee Pee Poo Poo Man, but in the lives of the people he… uh, splashes. It’s not a dramatic turn — there’s a hilarious poetry performance from Kids in the Hall alum Paul Bellini, a unicyclist, and an unpredictable argument between two women that involves a skirt, a rabid dog, and a massive package of drugs. Maybe these vignettes are all prolonged set ups for the inevitable delivery of what’s on the package, but the movie’s empathetic intentions become apparent in this period that you’d expect to be the most cut and dry (or, uh, wet). 

I don’t live in Toronto and this was the first I learned about the Pee Pee Poo Poo Man story, but it’s not difficult for me to imagine the way the man was perceived. Every day online and in the news I see alarm-ringing assessments of the so-called dangerous criminals that invade our public spaces and how often people in the midst of clear mental health crises are either demonized or made a punchline. There’s obviously many completely legitimate reasons to feel disgusted by the idea of being covered in a bucket of piss and shit, but what I appreciate in the movie is the way the Pee Pee Poo Poo Man’s victims have their statuses shift as they feel the embarrassment and alienation that is often cast on someone identified as too “crazy” or “filthy” for public space. Their problems may not carry the same weight as Miguel’s, but once they’re walking around Toronto, covered in fecal matter, who’s to say they’re all that different? Who is the Pee Pee Poo Poo Man? In some ways, it could be any of us. Maybe the Pee Pee Poo Poo Man is all of us. 

The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man is positioned to be a cult, midnight favorite, and while I hope more people have a chance to see it, I sincerely hope it becomes more than that, too. It’s nauseatingly funny, but it’s also worth sitting in it (ahhhh the puns!) to contemplate how we long for connection. In a disconnected society, maybe all it takes is one Pee Pee Poo Poo Man to bring us together. 💩