Cuphead

2017viral videoclassic

Published August 17, 2026

Cuphead is a 2017 run-and-gun indie video game built around 1930s rubber hose animation and punishing boss fights1. The game became a meme touchstone thanks to a viral video of a games journalist fumbling its tutorial, which reignited the long-running argument about whether critics should be good at the games they cover3.

gamingboss fight memes2017 memesfail memesindie game memes

Overview

Cuphead is a run-and-gun platformer drawn in the style of 1930s Fleischer and Disney cartoons, with wobbly rubber hose limbs, scratchy film grain and a jazz soundtrack that got it a BAFTA Games award for music1. Players control the cup-headed brothers Cuphead and Mugman, who lose a bet to the devil at his casino and have to collect soul contracts from a roster of bosses to keep their own souls1.

The game is famous for being extremely hard. Bosses have multiple phases, hitboxes are tight, and even the tutorial trips people up, which is where the meme half of Cuphead's reputation comes from3. Beyond the game itself, Cuphead spawned a Netflix animated show, a paid DLC expansion, and a sprawling fanart scene that KYM notes turned quickly and predictably horny once Ms. Chalice showed up2.

Origin & Background

Platform
Xbox / PC (game release), YouTube (viral spread)
Creator
Chad and Jared Moldenhauer
Date
2017

Brothers Chad and Jared Moldenhauer started work on Cuphead at Studio MDHR in 2010, with Jared Clark handling animation and 1930s cartoons as the visual reference2. Microsoft first showed gameplay at its E3 2014 press conference, and a proper trailer landed at E3 2015, before the game finally launched on Xbox One and Windows on September 29th, 20172. It sold over 4 million copies inside its first stretch on shelves and won Best Independent Game at The Game Awards 20171.

The meme moment arrived a month before release. On August 24th, 2017, VentureBeat uploaded footage of GamesBeat writer Dean Takahashi spending 26 minutes failing the Cuphead tutorial level3. Within two weeks the clip pulled around 300,000 views and 2,100 comments, most of them mocking the run, and Takahashi wrote a follow-up piece titled "Cuphead hands on: My 26 minutes of shame with an old-time cartoon game"3.

How It Spread

On September 4th, 2017, GameRevolution ran a piece framing the Takahashi clip as reigniting the "game journalists should be good at games" debate, and the video hit the front page of /r/pcgaming the next day, where commenters compared it to Polygon's infamous Doom gameplay video3. That argument stuck around every time a Cuphead clip resurfaced for years afterward.

Fan enthusiasm ran on its own track. On June 12th, 2017, Redditor Karma_Kurva posted a "Cuphead = 💗" GIF to /r/gaming that pulled more than 4,600 points and 250 comments in three months2. On July 3rd, Redditor Kzandor cross-pollinated with a Legend of Zelda fanart done in Cuphead's rubber hose style on /r/zelda, which hit over 7,200 points2. When Studio MDHR announced the DLC Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course at E3 2018, Reddit user AlphieRDL spotted that the initials spelled "DLC" in a post that gained more than 4,200 points2.

The brand kept expanding. On July 9th, 2019, The Hollywood Reporter broke that Netflix and King Features Syndicate were producing The Cuphead Show!, with the Moldenhauers as executive producers and Emmy winner Dave Wasson attached4. Twitter user @pop_lys reacted with "nothing matters anymore, only Cuphead," a post that pulled over 400 retweets and 1,800 likes2.

How to Use This Meme

As a meme, Cuphead usually shows up in two flavors. The first is the Takahashi tutorial clip, still pulled out any time someone wants to argue that games press are bad at games, typically pasted with a caption about "game journalist mode" or an accessibility slider joke3. The second is the visual style itself, borrowed for fanart and edits that redraw other characters as 1930s rubber hose cartoons with pie-slice eyes and white gloves, a convention Redditors like Kzandor helped set early with cross-franchise pieces2.

Frequently Asked Questions

Cuphead

2017viral videoclassic

Published August 17, 2026

Cuphead is a 2017 run-and-gun indie video game built around 1930s rubber hose animation and punishing boss fights1. The game became a meme touchstone thanks to a viral video of a games journalist fumbling its tutorial, which reignited the long-running argument about whether critics should be good at the games they cover3.

gaming boss fight memes 2017 memes fail memes indie game memes

Overview

Cuphead is a run-and-gun platformer drawn in the style of 1930s Fleischer and Disney cartoons, with wobbly rubber hose limbs, scratchy film grain and a jazz soundtrack that got it a BAFTA Games award for music1. Players control the cup-headed brothers Cuphead and Mugman, who lose a bet to the devil at his casino and have to collect soul contracts from a roster of bosses to keep their own souls1.

The game is famous for being extremely hard. Bosses have multiple phases, hitboxes are tight, and even the tutorial trips people up, which is where the meme half of Cuphead's reputation comes from3. Beyond the game itself, Cuphead spawned a Netflix animated show, a paid DLC expansion, and a sprawling fanart scene that KYM notes turned quickly and predictably horny once Ms. Chalice showed up2.

Origin & Background

Platform
Xbox / PC (game release), YouTube (viral spread)
Creator
Chad and Jared Moldenhauer
Date
2017

Brothers Chad and Jared Moldenhauer started work on Cuphead at Studio MDHR in 2010, with Jared Clark handling animation and 1930s cartoons as the visual reference2. Microsoft first showed gameplay at its E3 2014 press conference, and a proper trailer landed at E3 2015, before the game finally launched on Xbox One and Windows on September 29th, 20172. It sold over 4 million copies inside its first stretch on shelves and won Best Independent Game at The Game Awards 20171.

The meme moment arrived a month before release. On August 24th, 2017, VentureBeat uploaded footage of GamesBeat writer Dean Takahashi spending 26 minutes failing the Cuphead tutorial level3. Within two weeks the clip pulled around 300,000 views and 2,100 comments, most of them mocking the run, and Takahashi wrote a follow-up piece titled "Cuphead hands on: My 26 minutes of shame with an old-time cartoon game"3.

How It Spread

On September 4th, 2017, GameRevolution ran a piece framing the Takahashi clip as reigniting the "game journalists should be good at games" debate, and the video hit the front page of /r/pcgaming the next day, where commenters compared it to Polygon's infamous Doom gameplay video3. That argument stuck around every time a Cuphead clip resurfaced for years afterward.

Fan enthusiasm ran on its own track. On June 12th, 2017, Redditor Karma_Kurva posted a "Cuphead = 💗" GIF to /r/gaming that pulled more than 4,600 points and 250 comments in three months2. On July 3rd, Redditor Kzandor cross-pollinated with a Legend of Zelda fanart done in Cuphead's rubber hose style on /r/zelda, which hit over 7,200 points2. When Studio MDHR announced the DLC Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course at E3 2018, Reddit user AlphieRDL spotted that the initials spelled "DLC" in a post that gained more than 4,200 points2.

The brand kept expanding. On July 9th, 2019, The Hollywood Reporter broke that Netflix and King Features Syndicate were producing The Cuphead Show!, with the Moldenhauers as executive producers and Emmy winner Dave Wasson attached4. Twitter user @pop_lys reacted with "nothing matters anymore, only Cuphead," a post that pulled over 400 retweets and 1,800 likes2.

How to Use This Meme

As a meme, Cuphead usually shows up in two flavors. The first is the Takahashi tutorial clip, still pulled out any time someone wants to argue that games press are bad at games, typically pasted with a caption about "game journalist mode" or an accessibility slider joke3. The second is the visual style itself, borrowed for fanart and edits that redraw other characters as 1930s rubber hose cartoons with pie-slice eyes and white gloves, a convention Redditors like Kzandor helped set early with cross-franchise pieces2.

Frequently Asked Questions