Colonel Toad — Watercolor painting of a toad dressed as a 19th-century gentleman sitting on a wooden chair

Colonel Toad

2011image macroclassic

Published August 11, 2026

Colonel Toad is an image macro featuring a watercolor of a toad dressed in 19th-century gentleman's clothing, modeled on Ingres' Portrait of Louis-François Bertin. The picture first appeared as an Etsy print in 2011 and became a widely shared reaction template after picking up traction on Twitter in mid-2020.

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Overview

Colonel Toad, also called Sir Toad or "Frog In Suit Sitting In Chair," is an image macro built around a watercolor of a toad in formal 19th-century attire1. The pose directly echoes Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres' 1832 oil painting Portrait of Louis-François Bertin, with the amphibian substituted for the seated journalist2. Redditor SgtGhostie later claimed authorship of the original watercolor on r/frogs9.

The subject is often mistaken for a frog, and the picture works both as a standalone reaction and as the visual for the "Gentlemen, It Is With Great Pleasure To Inform You That X" caption format6. It also folded into the running "It's Wednesday My Dudes" tradition on Reddit, giving the weekly frog joke a new face7.

Origin & Background

Platform
Etsy / Pinterest (source), Twitter and Reddit (viral spread)
Creator
paintingbrooklyn; Redditor SgtGhostie claims to have painted the watercolor
Date
2011

An Etsy store called paintingbrooklyn started selling the watercolor as a shippable print under the name "Colonel Toad" in 20111. Pinterest user Carla Stey saved the image on August 1st, 2011, and an early copy still lives on that pin today1. The paintingbrooklyn shop went inactive some time afterward.

Meme edits did not appear until six years later. On October 6th, 2017, the Facebook page Viva La Frog Memes posted a version quoting lyrics from Big Shaq's "Man's Not Hot" and cross-posted it to Instagram, where it picked up 61 likes over four years3.

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Instagram

How It Spread

The image stayed niche until May 19th, 2020, when Twitter user @ChappellTracker posted Colonel Toad alongside another handsome-amphibian painting with the caption "guess what it's 𝕔𝕚𝕧𝕚𝕝𝕚𝕫𝕖𝕕 𝕗𝕣𝕠𝕘 𝕥𝕚𝕞𝕖," collecting roughly 125,600 likes over the next year and a half4. On August 23rd, 2020, @roobeekeane paired the toad with the line "when the Zoom call ends and I am left with my thoughts," clearing about 184,700 likes5. A Redditor turned that tweet into an Impact-font macro on r/trippinthroughtime the next day8.

On January 13th, 2021, Redditor yayo123452 posted a Colonel Toad edit to r/memes that added the character to the ongoing "It's Wednesday My Dudes" lore, earning about 32,600 upvotes7. Variations kept surfacing through 2021 with the top caption fixed as "Gentlemen, it is with great pleasure that I inform you that," and the bottom line swapped for whatever the poster wanted to share6. On September 26th, 2021, Redditor Ac3_HUNT3r used the template to announce their birthday and pulled roughly 18,200 upvotes10.

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How to Use This Meme

Templates typically fix the top caption as "Gentlemen, it is with great pleasure that I inform you that," followed by whatever the poster wants to declare on the bottom line6. The announcement is often wholesome, absurd, or self-deprecating rather than snarky, playing off the character's dignified pose. Some variants drop the caption entirely and use the toad as a straight reaction for feeling composed, over-formal, or ready to deliver news5.

Frequently Asked Questions