After it premiered at a rented hall at the University of Baltimore in March 1972, John Waters’s third feature established his reputation as a cinematic provocateur. To hype the film’s outrageous imagery—most infamously a scene involving Divine and dog excrement—and extreme themes including incest, coprophilia, and exhibitionism, barf bags were distributed during screenings during the film's original run. Waters also knew that word of mouth—spurred by shock, sensationalism, and catchy dialogue—would fill theater seats, which led to Pink Flamingo’s success as a midnight movie at New York’s famed Elgin Theater, where it ran for over a year.