Originally and chiefly Australian, the phrase a hatful of arseholes, also a bagful of arseholes, is used in similes expressing notions such as ugliness and silliness.

This phrase occurs, for example, in the review of Dick Johnson: Don’t Tell Me I Can’t Do That, the autobiography of the Australian racing driver Dick Johnson (born 1945)—review by Tony Davis, published in The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) of Friday 19^th March 1999:

So much of the text assumes knowledge and so little is fleshed out. There are few insights into how a touring car team is run, nor any real sense of the struggles of DJ’s early years. Personalities are buried; DJ describes one person as being “as funny as a hatful of arseholes” which enriches neither the art of the mixed metaphor nor the reader’s knowledge.

The following are, in chronological order, some of the occurrences of the phrase a hatful of arseholes, also a bagful of arseholes, that I have found:

1-: From Call me when the Cross turns over (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1957), by the Australian author D’Arcy Francis Niland (1917-1967)—bronzas: anuses, with reference to the colour:

“I know the one with the ugly face like a hatful of bronzas. Who’s the other?”

2-: From Bazza Pulls it Off! More Adventures of Barry McKenzie (Melbourne: Sun Books Pty Ltd, 1971), by the Australian comedian Barry Humphries (1934-2023), who created the fictional character of Barry McKenzie:

bagful of arseholes (see under hatful of arseholes). As silly as a B.F.O.A.
[…]
hatful of arseholes (see under bagful).

3-: From Jockey Rides Honest Race (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1972), by Geoff Morley—as quoted in A Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms (Sydney University Press in association with Oxford University Press Australia, 1990), by Gerald Alfred Wilkes (1927-2020):

The floor as filthy as a hatful of arseholes and sheilas sitting down against the wall.

4-: From a letter to the Editors, by ‘Melba (an art fart)’, published in Tharunka (Kensington, New South Wales, Australia) of Wednesday 21^st May 1975—Tharunka is the student newspaper of the University of New South Wales:

The rarest thing that has ever happened at this Uni is the “Victory in Vietnam” party—this has to be funnier than a bag full of arseholes. Blood must be cheap to start having parties about a war, eh Colin? It’s got undertones of Charles Manson, Himmler, Capone, etc. etc.

5-: From Breaking Out (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1979), by Derek Maitland:

Murphy said: “What happened to Bars?”
“Same thing. It didn’t sound right anymore. It didn’t say what I wanted to say.”
“What is it that you want to say, Nole?”
“That I’m the best bloody playwright in the world—and the rest of you are a pack of cunts.”
“Why don’t you call it A Pack of Cunts, then?”
“That’s not bad,” Chisholm admitted. “It has a certain jolly, matey, desperate sort of Australian ring about it—like The Desert Rats and A Hatful of Arseholes.”
“Be serious, for Christ’s sake,” Murphy moaned. “You can’t put on a play called A Hatful of Arseholes. There might be sheilas in the audience.”

6-: From African Calliope: A Journey to the Sudan (New York: Penguin Books, 1981), by the U.S. author Edward Hoagland (born 1932):

“What gets up my nose,” he went on, “is that most of the women have a face like a hatful of assholes. It isn’t only that they have nothing better to do with themselves than come out to Africa. Their director up in London isn’t about to ship his assier ladies out to where you’ve got all these black men lounging about. He’ll send them to Chile or Hong Kong; he’s got proper ideas. Otherwise he wouldn’t be religious.”

7-: From Lily on the Dustbin: Slang of Australian Women and Families (Penguin Books Australia Ltd., 1982), by the Australian author Nancy Keesing (1923-1993):

‘as ugly as a hatful of arseholes’.

8-: From Australia on the small screen 1970–1995 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1996), by Scott Murray:

Channel Chaos
Barry Peak, 1984
▪ [No opening production credit.] Alternative titles: ‘Copfile’, ‘A Hatful of Arseholes’ (working). © 1984 Hatful Productions.

9-: From The war of the sexes drags on, by Heather Kennedy, published in The Age (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) of Saturday 5^th January 1985:

“Now you’ve got women thinking they can drive trucks, for crissake,” says Jack Hardy, who’s been doing that for 20 years. (Jack asked that his opinion but not his real name be used. “My old lady mightn’t like it. She gets upset enough now about things.”)
“These women come along and ridge, every one of ’em’s got a face like a hatful of arseholes, and they want to drive trucks.
“That’s hard work, it’s men’s work, and it should stay men’s work. But I s’pose it’ll come. A lot of women today, they’re not feminine any more. And they wonder why the men are ducking for cover.”

10-: From The Frozen Franklin (New York: Pocket Books, 1990), by Sean Hanlon:

“Frankie is full of horseshit,” the Gripper reported to Donald as soon as we were settled in. “The man doesn’t have any juice with the lady scientist. She wouldn’t even give him the time of day. She didn’t even turn around when he was talking to her. She kept looking at this silly cow with a tube sticking out of its belly. Funny as a bagful of arseholes, as far as I’m concerned.”

11-: From The High San Juan (New York: Bantam Books, 1990), by Kristopher Franklin:

Ware glanced back toward the other two. Where had Cuellar come up with a pair like that? Ugly as a hatful of assholes, and just about as bright.

12-: From Signaller Johnston’s Secret War: New Guinea, 1943–45 (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1998), by the Australian traveller, soldier and author Peter Pinney (1922-1992):

“Bloody officers,” he swore. “Not worth a hatful of arseholes.”