Mr. Weebl
fig. 39
This is Sparta
The movie 300 was released in 2006. It is
based on a graphic novel portrayal of the 300
Spartan soliders who fought in the Battle of
Thermopylae against an army of over one mil-
lion. The protagonist Leonidas, King of Sparta,
declines peace with the Persians by shout-
ing at the Persian Messenger “This is Sparta!”
and kicking him into a large well proceeded
by the killing of the other Persian messengers.
A number of memes developed from this one
scene, especially due to the extreme reaction
of Leonidas and has been used in many cross
over memes and parodies. (Fig. 39) The for-
mat is usually to ask a question and respond
with “This is Sparta,” often accompanied with
an image of Leonidas yelling. Many remixes
were also created both with other memes and
only this audio clip. Another portion of the 300
meme is to parody the way Leonidas kicks the
Persian messenger. Yet another is the cut-out of
Leonidas’ screaming face being placed on many
other images, such as being photoshopped into
the poster for the movie Home Alone because
the original features the main actor, Macaulay
Culkin, screaming. Similar to the “One Does
Not Simply” meme (see page 17), many adap-
tations of this scene parody through rhyme.
Jonti Picking, known as Weebl or Mr. Weebl,
is a flash animator and one of the oldest ani-
mators on Youtube. A number of his videos
have become viral memes, especially those
which featured funny songs with repeated
phrases. Weebl is also a part of the band
Savlonic, which is a digital group much like
Gorillaz. Savlonic is a synthpop band consist-
ing of singer Roscoe Thunderpants (voiced by
Weebl), singer/keyboardist Evangeline D’isco
(voiced by Sarah Darling), and backing vocal-
ist/drummer Kandi Flaus (voiced by Katt
Wade). The band has released two albums and
eight music videos, all animated by Weebl.
Perhaps the most well known, and one of the
earliest videos is entitled “Badgers” released
in 2003. (Fig. 40) In it a number of dancing
badgers appear accompanied by a tune repeat-
ing the word “badgers.” The chorus used the
phrase “mushroom, mushroom” and “snake
its a snake oh, its a snake” also with imag-
ery of mushrooms and snakes respectively.
There have been a number of remixes and par-
ody videos, including a Christmas themed
video released by Mr. Weebl. There are also
a lot of videos of live action people mimic-
ing the dance. The video peaked in 2004.
fig. 40
The Meme Textbook | 21