Eric Andre and The Eric Andre Show
Eric Andre is a stand up comedian who is also known for his work as an actor, writer, TV producer, and host. His biggest claim to fame might be his long running show on Adult Swim, known as The Eric Andre Show. In addition to hosting The Eric Andre Show, he also starred in the TV show Man Seeking Woman as Mike and in The Lion King remake, where he voiced the role of Azizi.
The Eric Andre Show is a sketch comedy show on Adult Swim that’s popular for its surreal humor. The show parodies public access talk shows and is famous for the pranks that Eric Andre likes to play on his guests. Celebrity guests who have appeared on the show include adult film star Asa Akira, late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, and professional wrestler Chris Jericho.
In addition to pranking their guests, Eric Andre and Hannibal Buress also pull pranks on the general public. During the summer of 2016, Adult Swim famously sent Andre to cover both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions in character for the show.
Later that same year, Andre trolled far-right conspiracy theorists by crashing a Trump Rally rally, in character for the show. Here’s a link to a video of Andre’s interaction with Alex Jones supporters at the rally.
Another classic prank Eric Andre pulled is the time when he crashed a civil war reenactment while dressed as a slave, with a white “slave catcher” chasing him around.
Hannibal Buress
Hannibal Buress is a comedian who is also known for his stand up routines and acting performances, like his role as the pediatric dentist on the show Broad City.
One of his most notable viral moments is calling out Bill Cosby as a rapist. In October 2014 a segment of Buress’ standup routine mocked Bill Cosby’s moral grandstanding considering the mounting rape allegations against Cosby.
Eric Andre Memes
Eric Andre is one of the internet’s favorite comedians and his surreal humor has created some of the most enduring and iconic memes. Even if you’ve never watched The Eric Andre Show you’ve almost certainly seen some of these memes if you’ve spent any significant amount of time on the internet in the last ten years.
Pretzels
This simple meme format comes from a scene on The Eric Andre Show where Hannibal Burress reviews different brands of pretzels. Burress eventually decides that there’s no meaningful difference between the different brands and he says “Pretzels is the same.” This has become a way for people to compare different versions of the same basic concept.
Why Are You Booing Me? I’m Right!
This is another line from Hannibal Burress, and it’s one of the most famous memes to come out of The Eric Andre Show. This has become a popular meme format that people use to express unpopular opinions.
This is one of the earliest memes to come from The Eric Andre Show. The meme comes from a scene on the show in December 2012 when Andre said he looked forward to “two more years of Obama,” to which Burress corrected him by pointing out that presidential terms are four years. The audience then booed Burress, prompting him to ask “Why are you booing me? I’m right!”
Why Would You Say Something So Controversial Yet So Brave?
This is one of The Eric Andre Show’s most popular and enduring memes. This one comes from part of a prank Andre was playing on his guest Amber Rose. Andre read a fictitious racist tweet from Rose, then asked her “Why would you say something so controversial yet so brave?” The internet picked up on it and it soon became a meme to express relatively mundane, if unorthodox, opinions.
Let me in! Let me in! Let me in!
The “Let me in! Let me in!” meme comes from Andre’s appearance at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. It’s an image macro of him trying to shake the gates around the convention site while screaming “Let me in! Let me in!” This meme started as a reaction image, and as it spread online it eventually became an exploitable macro image in its own right. Needless to say, he was not let in.
Cheers, I’ll drink to that bro!
This is another one you’ve surely seen. This image is a part of a skit in which Andre was wearing sunglasses, a wild outfit, and holding out a bottle of ranch dressing as if he’s “cheersing” someone. This was followed by him drinking the bottle of ranch. This meme is normally used as a reaction image. The meme has also sparked an association of chugging bottles of ranch with Eric Andre.
What If It Was Purple?
This is a classic skit on The Eric Andre Show where Andre is shown a variety of purple objects and he either cheers with excitement or barfs with disgust. This became a widely shared and recycled image macro.
As a meme format, this is used to compare pictures where the only significant difference is that the color scheme changes to purple. This one is similar to the classic Drake “Like/Don’t Like” exploitable.
We’ll Be Right Back
Part of the chaotic humor of The Eric Andre Show comes from the “We’ll Be Right Back” graphic that abruptly appears across the screen in the middle of whatever bedlam is happening on screen. This meme normally appears in videos online, where the video ends with a chaotic freeze frame and the “We’ll be right back” graphic suddenly appearing.
Who Shot Hannibal?
This meme that The Eric Andre Show has ever produced comes from a skit on the show where Andre murders Hannibal Burress by repeatedly shooting him with a gun. Andre then turns to the camera and asks “Who killed Hannibal?”
This tends to be one of the more “serious” and protest-oriented Eric Andre memes. In the context of the show, Andre and Burress are making a joke about climate change and later iterations of the meme tend to express complaints about cultural trends, political policies, bad employers, or self-destructive lifestyle habits.
This quickly became an image macro where the characters get labeled with different names or phrases, and Andre’s dialogue is changed to some variation of “Why would XYZ do this?”
Wack
The “wack” meme originates from a skit in which Eric Andre does a Mister Roger’s parody song and is followed by Hannibal Buress saying “wack” to express his disapproval. Similar to it’s use on The Eric Andre Show, the image has been mostly used as a reactionary meme to express ones disapproval in something. However, it’s also been widely used to explain the action of whacking something, like a tennis ball (below).
Original Eric Andre Memes
