Exploding cigar An exploding cigar is a variety of cigar that explodes shortly after being lit . Such cigars are normally packed with a minute chemical explosive charge near the lighting end or with a non - chemical device that ruptures the cigar when exposed to heat . The customary intended purpose of exploding cigars is as a form of hostile practical joke , rather than to cause lasting physical harm to the butt of the joke . Nevertheless , the high risk of unintended injuries from their use caused a decline in their manufacture and sale . Although far rarer than their prank cousins , exploding cigars used as a means to kill or attempt to kill targets in real life has been claimed , and is well represented as a fictional plot device . The most infamous case concerning the intentionally deadly variety was an alleged plot by the CIA of the US in the 1960s to assassinate Fidel Castro . Notable real life incidents involving the non - lethal ilk include an exploding cigar purportedly given by Ulysses S . Grant to an acquaintance and a dust - up between Turkish military officers and Ernest Hemingway after he pranked one of them with an exploding cigar . Manufacture and decline . During the early - to mid - 20th century , exploding cigars were a popular practical joke device , frequently advertised and mentioned in newspapers of the era . Despite their popularity , the history of the exploding cigar ' s development is apparently not well documented , including how , where and when they first appeared . The largest manufacturer and purveyor of exploding cigars in the United States during the middle of the last century was the S . S . Adams Company which , according to " The Saturday Evening Post " , made more exploding cigars and other gag novelty items as of 1946 than its next eleven competitors combined . The company was founded by Soren Sorensen Adams , dubbed " king of the professional pranksters " , who invented and patented many common gag novelties such as sneezing powder , itching powder , the dribble glass and the joy buzzer . The largest New York based manufacturer of exploding cigars was Richard Appel , a German refugee from Nuremberg who in or about 1940 opened a gag novelty factory on Manhattan ' s Lower East Side . By the time exploding cigars were being turned out by manufacturers such as Adams and Appel , the chemical explosive variety had fallen out of favor . According to Adams , the large - scale switch to a non - chemical device occurred in approximately 1915 in the aftermath of a death caused by a homemade exploding cigar rigged with dynamite . Though exploding cigars were not normally rigged with dynamite but with explosive caps using a less powerful incendiary , following the incident , a number of U . S . states banned the product altogether . The replacement for chemical explosives was a metal spring mechanism , bound with cord — as the victim puffed away , the cord burned through causing the device to spring open , thus rupturing the cigar ' s end . Prank exploding cigars have caused many injuries over their history . For example , in 1902 one Edward Weinschreider sued a cigar shop for an exploding cigar which burned his hand so badly three of his fingers had to be amputated . As has been observed by one legal scholar , " [ t ] he utility of the exploding cigar is so low and the risk of injury so high as the warrant a conclusion that the cigar is defective and should not have been marketed at all . " Laws have been enacted banning the sale of exploding cigars entirely , such as Chapter 178 of Massachusetts ' Acts and Resolves , passed by its legislature in 1967 . In fiction . Both prank and intentionally deadly exploding cigars have been featured in numerous works of fiction , spanning many forms of media including literature , film , comics books , cartoons and others . A well known use of the exploding cigar in literature , for example , appears in Thomas Pynchon ' s 1973 novel , " Gravity ' s Rainbow " . In it , the character Etzel Ölsch symbolically betrays his death wish by eagerly smoking a cigar he knows to be of the prank explosive variety . Other book examples include Robert Coover ' s 1977 novel , " The Public Burning " , where a fictionalized Richard Nixon hands an exploding cigar to Uncle Sam , and Sherburne James ' " Death ' s Clenched Fist " ( 1982 ) , in which a Tammany Hall politico of the 1890s is murdered with an exploding cigar . Film examples include Cecil B . DeMille ' s 1921 romance " Fool ' s Paradise " , wherein the main character is blinded by an exploding cigar ; Laurel and Hardy ' s " Great Guns " ( 1941 ) , in which an exploding cigar provides running gag ; the Elke Sommer vehicle , " Deadlier Than the Male " ( 1967 ) , where a murder by exploding cigar is a key plot element , in The Beatles ' 1968 animated feature film , " Yellow Submarine " , where an exploding cigar is used to rebuff a psychedelic boxing monster , the 1984 comedy " Top Secret ! " , in which Omar Sharif ' s British secret agent character is pranked with an exploding cigar by a blindman , and in the 2005 film " V for Vendetta " , where the main antagonist ' s cigar is swapped with an exploding one during a comedy skit . Appearance of exploding cigars in the Warner Bros . cartoon franchises , Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes was fairly common , often coupled with the explosion resulting in the pranked character appearing in blackface . Some examples include : " Bacall to Arms " ( 1942 ) , wherein an animated Humphrey Bogart gets zapped by an exploding cigar leaving him in blackface , 1947 ' s " Mississippi Hare " , where the character , ' Colonel Shuffle ' likewise ends up in blackface after the explosion , 1952 ' s " Rabbit ' s Kin " , in which Pete Puma offers Bugs Bunny an exploding cigar ( true to form , Bugs Bunny turns the tables on the hapless feline , placing the cigar in Pete ' s mouth after he is dazed and lighting it with expected results ) , and 1964 ' s " Dr . Devil and Mr . Hare " , where the Tasmanian Devil successfully gets Bugs Bunny to smoke an exploding cigar . Other media examples include television appearances such as when Peter Falk ' s " Columbo " must solve an industrial magnate ' s death by exploding cigar in the episode " Short Fuse " ( 1972 ) , in a season four episode of the United States television , CBS crime drama , " " titled " " , wherein the forensic team investigate the death of a man killed by an exploding cigar , and in a 1966 episode of " The Avengers " entitled " A Touch of Brimstone " ; in video games such as " Day of the Tentacle " where the player can offer George Washington an exploding cigar ; and as a stock device by the Joker in Batman comic books . For example , in " Batman " # 251 ( 1973 ) entitled " The Joker ' s Five - way Revenge " , an exploding cigar is used by the Joker to decapitate a man . Reality . CIA plot to assassinate Castro . In the late 1950s under Dwight D . Eisenhower ' s presidential administration and in the early 1960s under John F . Kennedy ' s , the CIA had been brainstorming and implementing plots to assassinate Fidel Castro , going as far as enlisting the help of mafia leaders such as Johnny Roselli and Santo Trafficante , Jr . to assist in carrying out their plans . Many assassination ideas were floated by the CIA in the covert operation which was dubbed " Operation Mongoose . " The most infamous was the CIA ' s alleged plot to capitalize on Castro ' s well known love of cigars by slipping into his supply a very real and lethal " exploding cigar . " A November 4 , 1967 " Saturday Evening Post " article reported that during Castro ' s visit to the United Nations in 1966 a CIA agent approached New York City police chief inspector Michael J . Murphy with a plan to get Castro to smoke an exploding cigar . While numerous sources state the exploding cigar plot as fact , at least one source asserts it to be simply a myth , and another , mere supermarket tabloid fodder . Another suggests that the story does have its origins in the CIA , but that it was never seriously proposed by them as a plot . Rather , the plot was made up by the CIA as an intentionally " silly " idea to feed to those questioning them about their plans for Castro , in order to deflect scrutiny from more serious areas of inquiry . Whether true or not , the CIA ' s exploding cigar assassination plot inspired the cover of the October , 1963 issue ( # 82 ) of Mad Magazine . The cover bears the headline , " You ' ll Get a BANG out of this issue of Mad Magazine " , and features a painting by Norman Mingo depicting Castro in the act of lighting a cigar wrapped with a cigar band on which is drawn Alfred E . Neuman with his fingers plugging his ears , awaiting the explosion . An exploding cigar is also featured on the poster for the Channel 4 British Documentary , " 638 Ways to Kill Castro " , which shows Castro with a cigar in his mouth that has a fuse projecting from the end and a lit match approaching . An exploding cigar was tested on a season 2 episode of Deadliest Warrior , KGB vs . CIA . The cigar completely destroyed the upper and lower jaw of a gel head but was determined to be very unreliable due to its timed fuse and small explosive payload . Ulysses S . Grant ' s delayed gift . According to a 1932 Associated Press story , U . S . President Ulysses S . Grant gave one Horace Norton , the founder of a defunct college in Chicago , an exploding cigar soon after being introduced to him , but the " joke " wasn ' t revealed until many years later . According to the story , unaware of the nature of the gift , Norton saved the cigar , keeping it on display in his college ' s museum . Years later , when the school was shutting its doors for good , the alumni thought it would be a fitting gesture to smoke the cigar at the college ' s annual reunion . The honor was given to Winstead Norton , Horace ' s grandson . During the sober speech he was presenting , Winstead lit the cigar , and after two puffs , it exploded . A 1952 news report contradicts one detail , holding that the explosion ultimately occurred at a family reunion rather than the alumni affair noted . The tale of " Grant ' s cigar " has unquestionably been embellished over time . The possibility exists that the tale is a hoax or urban legend or that the cigar was tampered with by someone after Grant ' s purported presentation . Ernest Hemingway . Reportedly , Ernest Hemingway , urged on by a group of journalists with whom he was drinking at the Palace Hotel bar in Rapallo , Italy , presented an exploding cigar to one of four bodyguards of Turkish general İsmet İnönü . When the cigar " went off " , all four guards drew their guns and aimed at Hemingway . He apparently escaped without any grievous bodily injury .