TRG And Friends Meme Archive

Tracking the origins of the memes and explaining the jokes from all around the TRG family. Blog name inspired by TRG & Friends Stream Archive on YouTube, avatar is from the YouTube video Emile Ruins Everything by ACFan, and blog header is from TRG Colosseum 2018.

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About the blog

Hello! Since this blog has a couple followers and I’ve managed to neglect it now for a couple months, I figure I should make a blog overview post to pin to the top of the blog

Masterlist

For ease of organization and editing, I made a masterlist for the blog on Google Docs here.

In addition to having links to all the meme-explaining posts I’ve made so far, it also has my current full list of memes for potential posts.

Asks/messenger/submissions: Open

Feel free to message me! I will happily take any suggestions, requests, or info regarding any of the memes around the TRG family!

More info under the cut~

Memes vs. running jokes

How I'm classifying a "meme" for this blog is a joke that "broke containment" so-to-speak from the LP that spawned it. Jokes that are never really brought back up outside the LP that started them are just "running jokes" and not memes. Memes have to be at least occasionally referenced outside the context of the particular LP that spawned them.

About me and why I made this blog

My name's Lisa and I'm a long-time fan of TRG and many of the associated channels (Stephenplays and Tom Fawkes in particular), though not for as long as some people. I've always enjoyed watching people play video games a bit more than I liked playing them myself (I just don't have the time or patience for certain games, though there are a bunch I do enjoy) so I easily got into watching LPs once I realized they were a thing.

I started this blog because of a few different incidents of certain members of the TRG family being clueless about each other's memes. In particular, Carlos mentioning in a Colosseum bumper about having to look up what Waluigi's bridal boutique was, Jerod being clueless about the whole Gameboy Player Disc Only story during Colosseum 2020, and Stephen and Tom chanting "Horses, horses, horses" during Jon's stream in reference to a Stephen and Friends GTA Online video.

I realized that many fans of members of the TRG family might have no clue where some of these memes started from, and that I myself don't know the origin of some of the most-quoted memes (Particularly when it comes to JoshJepson and Attacking Toucans - if anyone wants to point me to the first time something "wasn't supposed to go at an angle" I would appreciate it!) so I figured compiling a convenient list of the memes and their origins could be fun.

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I love this blog! I’ve been following TRG ever since they first started and it’s great to see all the memes that’ve spawned over the years. You did a great job compiling them and I appreciate you linking the videos too. I actually never saw Peggy being created and it was hilarious!

Oh my gosh, thank you so much! I really need to get back to posting on this blog regularly, I have fun finding the origins of some of these references.

I really should finish the “about” post I started to make. My box is open for requests/suggestions for specific memes if there’s anything you particularly want to see!

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Took a Few Liberties

Channel of origin: Disc Only Podcast/Tom Fawkes?

Explain the joke: Stephen had a dream one night about asking Tom to do an episode of Morning Mario for him. Tom agreed, but made a video about skiing safety tips instead. When Stephen asked Tom about the video, Tom just started saying "I took a few liberties!" over and over.

The dream was referenced in an episode of Custom Smash, when Stephen played as Mario in the Mario Maker costume, then later told in full during the Disc Only podcast. Tom and Stephen then made the dream into a bumper for TRG Colosseum.

Video of origin: Referenced in Custom Smash:

Story told:

Other significant videos:

Bumper during Colosseum:

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Begrudgingly, Waluigi

Channel of origin: The Runaway Guys

Explain the joke: During an episode of Fortune Street, Emile had a choice to land on Jon’s shop, or on Tom’s significantly more-expensive shop. Emile chose Jon’s, stating that his choice was “begrudgingly, Waluigi.” Jon, Tom, and Emile began joking about the phrase, saying that was Jon’s/Waluigi’s motto, it sounded like a Waluigi Covergirl ad, or that it’s how Waluigi signs his letters.

Video of origin:

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S H R I M P

Series of origin: Disc Only Podcast

Explain the joke: In an episode of Disc Only, Stephen told a story about how his mom invited him and Mal over for shrimp, but it started to storm heavily which caused a tense drive home through a flood. The way Stephen fixated on the shrimp implied that getting shrimp for dinner was well worth the potential danger of his car nearly becoming submerged in the flood waters.

Tom voiced what he imagined Stephen’s thoughts to have been during the flood, which was just the word “SHRIMP” with the echo effect on his voice changer turned up, which chat took to typing as “S H R I M P” with the spaces between each letter.

Video of origin:

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Peggy

Sub-memes: AHWEE!, Oh lawd she coming, October 5th, 2033

Channel of origin: StephenPlays

Explain the joke: During Extra Life 2018, chat had put enough money towards the game Amazing Island to get it played. Stephen, Mal, and Dan were all experiencing the game for the first time, their only knowledge of it coming from chat (including Stephen’s friend, Thomas, who had played it before), mostly hyping up the questionable quality of the game.

When naming the human player character, Stephen looked to chat for suggestions. Thomas suggested Peggy, though Stephen decided on Fargothia, with a promise to Thomas that the first monster would be named Peggy.

After a series of baffling questions and unnecessary, long-winded explanations, the game generated a bipedal creature with white, orange, and black coloring. Going through the customization options, Stephen was surprised by several of the things the game let him do, including removing the monster’s eyes and adding a single “cute” wing to its tail. There were also several options to pick from for the creature’s voice, each with a higher pitched variant. The higher-pitched “Cutie” voice was the clear choice for Peggy, with Stephen and chat imitating it with “AHWEE!”

Before ending the Amazing Island segment, Stephen jumped into a racing minigame with Peggy to see her in action. As soon as the race started, though, Peggy’s incredible speed surprised everyone, and she got to the finish well before her opponent. The combination of her extreme speed and unsettling appearance led to several comments of “Oh lawd she coming!”

Amazing Island proved to be so popular that only two games were played before it returned to the top of the donation list to be played again. When loading in Peggy for the second round of Amazing Island, because Stephen had previously messed with his GameCube’s internal clock, the memory card gave Peggy’s creation date as October 5th, 2033. It was declared a prophecy that on that date Peggy would be born. Mal set a reminder on her phone to be reminded of Peggy on that date, and Stephen encouraged the viewers to do the same.

Video of origin: https://youtu.be/3ZEOAWZulz4

Other significant videos:

The Prophecy: https://youtu.be/kgeKL2NkI2I

Memorable Moments: https://youtu.be/TV0Ed8Wbhdg , https://youtu.be/pgsh71kIPE8

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Smefanye

Channel of origin: Lucahjin

Explain the joke: When starting the America’s Next Top Model LP, Lucah and Jon first had to name their in-game character. Lucah didn’t want to use her own name and began typing “Smeg”, though difficulties with the wiimote led to her typing “Smef” instead. Deciding to roll with it, Jon suggested Smefanye with Lucah deciding on the spelling.

Video of origin: https://youtu.be/eA0MFWSL7m8

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Chugga’s Lost Innocence: the Trilogy

Channel of origin: The Runaway Guys (technically ProtonJon’s Twitch)

Explain the joke: Due to his sheltered upbringing and tendency to talk before thinking, Emile is prone to making accidental innuendo or needing certain terms explained to him. Those moments especially tend to come up during TRG livestreams, with three particularly memorable instances being referred to as Chugga’s Lost Innocence Parts 1, 2, and 3.

The original Chugga’s Lost Innocence (doing Daisy on hard) has its own post here.

The second “Chugga’s Lost Innocence” moment happened during TRG’s “Free from Dokapon” stream, when the group (plus Masae) played a couple rounds of Quiplash. During the final round of one game, the players were given a prompt to come up with an insult using the word “Twerk”. Tim‘s response of “You queef twerky beef jerky” won the round, leading to Emile asking the others what a “queef” is. Masae commented that she was going to ask if Emile knew that word, Tim compared the moment to the infamous original “Lost Innocence” incident, and Jon just repeated “NO” over and over again before pretending to end the stream. Masae let chat explain the term to Emile, so nobody in the room had to say it on stream. Emile then used “queef” during the first round of the following game in an attempt to own the joke and show off his “new knowledge”.

A couple different moments from TRG’s Super Mario Party stream are considered to make up Chugga’s Lost Innocence 3.

While Waluigi was on-screen, Emile was impressed by how much detail was put into the textures on the character model, particularly in the clothes. However, the words Emile picked to word that thought were “Waluigi’s overalls are very… sexily detailed.” After Jon, Tim, and Masae reacted predictably to the odd word choice, Emile’s attempt at explaining that he thought “the leather looks cool” only dug himself deeper.

During a later co-op minigame, the players are tasked with working together to push Toad’s balloon into as many smaller balloons as they can, using fans to push him as he rose through the stage. When Toad’s balloon reached Emile, he explained “I think I just want to maybe blow him a little bit,” and didn’t realize the accidental innuendo even after Jon repeated the unfortunate word choice with a sarcastic “thanks, Emile,” instead assuming Jon was mad about the gameplay choice. After some teasing from Jon and Masae about how innocent and precious he was for not realizing, and likely seeing chat’s reaction, Emile finally realized how his words could’ve been interpreted, insisting that he was just trying to be helpful, with Masae and Jon joking that he was VERY helpful, and that Toad is thankful and very pleased.

Videos of origin:

Chugga’s Lost Innocence 2: https://youtu.be/tHbE_S437sY

Chugga’s Lost Innocence 3: https://youtu.be/M_lcPOXROeI

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Chugga’s Lost Innocence

Also called/Sub-memes: Do Daisy on Hard, Chuggaa Wood, Emile x Daisy, Daisy’s heart-shaped box

Channel of origin: The Runaway Guys (technically ProtonJon’s Twitch)

Explain the joke: During TRG’s first livestream on ProtonJon’s Twitch channel, the group played a game of Mario Party 6 on the board Faire Square. Since there was no guest to be player 4, they had to pick their AI opponent and difficulty, with Jon suggesting Daisy. When asking what difficulty to set Daisy to, Emile very awkwardly worded his question “Should we do Daisy on hard?” a wording choice that Jon had to repeat twice in disbelief, and chat called him out on.

During an early minigame in which players are searching for underwater treasure chests, Emile again used questionable word choice as he stated “And I get… wood” as he found a wooden treasure chest. While Jon missed the quote at the time, chat certainly didn’t. Emile soon made it worse by pointing out that it was almost morning, making it into a “morning wood” joke, and a comment in chat made a connection to the earlier quote, saying “Well now you’re ready to do Daisy on hard.”

Later, the 1-vs-3 minigame Crate and Peril came up with Daisy as the single player, holding and tilting a box that the other three players have to run around inside, avoiding obstacles. Deciding to have fun with the joke ship/running gag, Emile declared “I am inside Daisy’s heart-shaped box.” He knew it was a song reference, and just assumed it was referring to a heart-shaped Valentines chocolate box, and Jon had to spell it out for him, stating “It means vagina!”

Soon after the stream, Lucahjin visited with TRG to record the Littlebigplanet 2 LP and refused to let Emile live down his Daisy comments, especially as she played as Daisy in Fortune street, pointing out anything Emile said that could be turned into innuendo and telling him to read the book she got him (which I plan on making a separate post for). When TRG started their LP of Mario Party 5, Emile had hinted that he’d be playing as Toad since Donkey Kong was no longer a playable character. However, due to the infamous stream, Emile decided to play as Daisy instead, saying goodbye to his sanity as he picked her.

Video of origin: https://youtu.be/0uRH1evT8eY

Other significant videos:

Daisy’s heart-shaped box: https://youtu.be/gI6Ca2Prp2k

Lucahjin references the stream while playing as Daisy in Fortune Street: https://youtu.be/pUMT0dY3WUU

Emile picks Daisy as his new player character: https://youtu.be/IUXfo6Qod-Q

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INFINITY MONEY

Channel of origin: The Runaway Guys (Colosseum)

Explain the joke: During The Runaway Guys Colosseum 2020, one of the bumpers featured Tom acting out doing Colosseum with Amiibo representing the other people involved. Tom then claims to have raised “Infinity Money!” while showing a paper “donation tracker” with a big infinity symbol.

After the bumper aired, Tom’s “dream” of getting infinite money is sometimes referenced during situations such as an influx of donations, a glitch occurring that causes donation jingles to play twice per donation, or the events on a Mario Party board reacting oddly to Emile’s maxed-out coin count.

Video of origin: https://youtu.be/SUHiuEgTLE8

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Chain smoker Zelda

Also called: Chain Smoker of Hyrule, “Where are my scratchers, Link?”

Channel of Origin: StephenPlays, The Runaway Guys

Explain the joke: In two separate LPs, and completely independently of each other, both Stephen and TRG ended up voicing Princess Zelda with a “chain smoker” voice. While Stephen’s was first, Jon, Emile, and Tim had no idea about Stephen’s chain smoker voice for Zelda until after they finished their recording.

Stephen’s Zelda: When Stephen and Mal played Ocarina of Time, Stephen decided to voice Princess Zelda with a rough, deep “chain smoker” voice, possibly inspired by her animation in her first scene where she held her fist in front of her as though preparing to cover a cough or clear her throat. Mal pointed out that the voice sounded like Korin from Dragon Ball, so Stephen will sometimes use a Korin impression to remember how to do the voice.

TRG’s Zelda: In the beginning of the “Jon and Tim attempt to guide Emile through A Link to the Past” LP, a dialogue box comes up with no indication at first who’s speaking. Emile gave the dialogue a raspy, weakened voice, likely assuming it to be the injured king or a defeated guardsman. When the speaker identified themself as Zelda, however, Emile joked she was just out smoking. Jon ran with the joke, characterizing and voicing Zelda as a chain smoker, often asking Link to get her “smokes” or “scratchers” while he’s out adventuring.

Video of origin (Stephen): https://youtu.be/VvMr9Btd9wU

Video of origin (TRG): https://youtu.be/NfeN2A_yTtI

Other significant videos:

Memorable Moment video: https://youtu.be/_Pak7j4Uf0Y

Stephen and Mal play A Link to the Past also using chain smoker Zelda voice: https://youtu.be/N6pJgBUNrSQ

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It doesn’t affect Misdreavus!

Also called: It doesn’t affect Affection!

Channel of origin: Chuggaaconroy

Explain the joke: While challenging one of the colosseums in Pokemon Colosseum, Emile decided to send out his shadow Misdreavus to work on purifying her. The AI, however, did not seem to know how to handle a Pokemon with so many immunities - as a Ghost type with the Levitate ability, Misdreavous is immune to Normal, Fighting, and Ground type attacks, which the AI tried to use against Misdreavous 12 times in that one episode (plus one instance where the AI used an attack that would’ve been super-effective against the Ghost type on Quagsire instead). It lead to a “It doesn’t affect Misdreavous” counter for the rest of the LP, and Emile deciding to use Misdreavous on his team.

He asked his viewers for name ideas, eventually naming her Affection, as a play on the “It doesn’t affect…” message. By the end of the LP, the counter totaled 31 instances of the AI trying to attack Affection with moves she’s immune to.

Emile will occasionally make references to Affection when Misdreavous shows up in later Pokemon LPs, and during TRG Colosseum 2021’s Pokemon Gym Challenge, Emile’s team included Affection, now a Mismagius since Pokemon from gen 4 and later were available.

Video of origin: https://youtu.be/p7lIG7eTQrQ

Other significant videos:

Misdreavus gets her name: https://youtu.be/iCFsmY3jtik

Affection returns for the Gym Challenge: https://youtu.be/eDbibTait8Y

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Stephen names characters (Two different, though related, memes)

Meme 1: Big Friend

Meme 2: Fat Goofy

Channel of origin: StephenPlays

Explain the joke: Due to a combination of Stephen’s lack of pop culture awareness and his notoriously poor memory, Stephen has a hard time remembering the names of various characters. He’ll often come up with his own names or descriptions, which will occasionally catch on and often be used in lieu of their actual names.

During a game of Broken Picturephone, Stephen was given a phrase including “Harry Potter” and “ hand puppets”, so he drew hand puppets of who he identified as “Harry Potter and his Big Friend”, only remembering the name Hagrid after someone else said it.

When Stephen started his First20 of Kingdom Hearts 3, he admitted to not knowing much about Kingdom Hearts OR Disney. When Pete made his first appearance, Stephen had no clue who he was, calling him Fat Goofy despite knowing he’s not Goofy.

Video of origin - Big Friend: https://youtu.be/llmLjmT8hFs

Video of origin - Fat Goofy: https://youtu.be/ZfrCYwyFTtM

Memorable Moment video - Fat Goofy: https://youtu.be/9gzQbRp0WRM

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Captain Falcon x Horse

Also called: Captain Falcon why are you dating that horse?, Friend Connection, the original brony

Channel of origin: The Runaway Guys

Explain the joke: During TRG’s LP of Wii Party, the first of the “pair games” to be played was Friend Connection. Even though the game consistently referred to it as a friendship test, its resemblance to a dating game or relationship compatibility checker did not go unnoticed. The mii pairs with the best and worst scores are shown in portraits, and the placeholder scores used randomly-selected Miis from the console. They were playing on Emile’s Wii, which had a lot of creative Miis of various characters.

The Miis that were chosen to represent the top score were of Captain Falcon and Mr. Ed, leading to Jon’s quote, “Captain Falcon why are you dating that horse?!” He then noticed the portrait for the worst pair, noting that the Miis looked like Snape and Hermione

Years later, Jon - who’s associated with Captain Falcon - and Lucahjin - who’s associated with horses - become a couple, leading some (including Emile) to point out that “Captain Falcon why are you dating that horse?” strangely seemed to foreshadow their relationship.

Video of origin: https://youtu.be/wFIbL3IEtaA

Animation by ACFan120: https://youtu.be/ZUXeulIMwNk

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Restaurant violence/Outback Stabhouse

Also called: Breakfast stabbings

Related meme: The Disc Only mall

Series of origin: Disc Only Podcast

Explain the joke: During episode 2 of the Disc Only Podcast, Jerod and Stephen began exchanging stories about incidents at breakfast restaurants: Jerod going to a Waffle House and “almost getting stabbed” because the manager pulled out a knife to kick out some unruly customers, and Stephen knowing about someone ACTUALLY getting stabbed at a Denny’s.

In episode 5, after a callback to the breakfast stabbings conversation, Stephen lamented how long it’s been since he’s been to a restaurant, saying that he’d risk being stabbed just to go to one. After Jon quickly disagreed, Stephen began constructing scenarios in which someone may agree to get stabbed for food, to see how Jon would react to them.

Jon stated that his favorite type of place to go out to eat was a steakhouse, so Stephen set his hypothetical scenario at a ridiculously fancy 5-star steakhouse, with scientists on-hand to ensure everything is safe, and the food is free. But the catch is, in order to eat there, you’d have to get stabbed. Jon maintained that even a free 5-star steak from a steakhouse wasn’t worth being stabbed, though Stephen, Tom, and Jerod continued to discuss the hypothetical steakhouse, soon named Outback Stabhouse, in which you can get stabbed instead of paying.

Videos of origin:

Breakfast stabbings: https://youtu.be/kRShPgJH9f0

Outback Stabhouse: https://youtu.be/0Unq8EAAaH0

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Safety Beach

Channel of origin: StephenPlays

Explain the joke: During a Stephen and Friends session of GTA Online, Stephen designed a game in which players in planes try to kill players in cars/on motorcycles by crashing into them, at which point they too become a plane to try to kill whoever’s remaining.

However, it turned out to be much harder than expected to get kills as the planes. Several players ended up driving around the beach next to the Pier, and despite the lack of cover and numerous attempts to kill on the beach, the planes still struggled to kill the other players. The beach was then dubbed “safety beach” due to how easy it seemed to avoid getting killed while on the beach.

In the following episode, a different beach is dubbed “unsafety beach” due to the cops being attracted to the beach and swiftly killing anyone who gained a wanted level.

Video of origin: https://youtu.be/HbsPMtJcurc

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Someday my prince will come!

Channel of origin: Tom Fawkes

Explain the joke: After a particularly chaotic pinball mini game during Mario Party 5, Jon jokingly challenged Tom to animate it. For his SFM animation, Tom put Donkey Kong’s head on Daisy’s body to represent Emile (since he was playing as Daisy because DK was no longer an option). While working on it, Tom posed Daisy Kong in a classic “wistful Princess” pose, tweeting the image with the caption “Someday my prince will come!”

When referencing the image and tweet, Tom will voice the caption with a tone that’s loud (almost forceful), slightly grating, and flat - deliberately subverting the stereotypical Princess tone of gentle and melodic.

Tweet of origin: https://twitter.com/TomFawkes/status/729455746899951617?s=20&t=KQURZIoJVlcR3QbjSC7alQ

Video being made that spawned the image and tweet: https://youtu.be/TvqJNRM7IT4