# Dick The Birthday Boy Dick the Birthday Boy is a vintage Polaroid of a young Rich Evans from Red Letter Media posing beside the Billy Bob Bear mascot at ShowBiz Pizza, made instantly meme-worthy by his shirt reading "Dick the Birthday Boy." First surfaced as an on-camera prank in a 2013 Best of the Worst episode, it spread as a cursed image across Reddit and Tumblr. ## Overview Dick the Birthday Boy is a Polaroid photograph showing a young Rich Evans, presenter and actor at video production company Red Letter Media, standing beside Billy Bob Bear, the animatronic mascot of the now defunct ShowBiz Pizza Place chain[1]. The image gets its name from the shirt Evans is wearing, which pairs his childhood nickname "Dick" with the words "the Birthday Boy," producing an accidentally lewd caption alongside a wide-eyed animatronic bear[3]. The photo is treated online as a textbook cursed image and awkward family photo, drawing its comic weight from the vintage color palette, the looming costumed mascot, and the unfortunate wording all landing at once[3]. Among Red Letter Media fans it is also read as a piece of Rich Evans lore, since the picture is now framed in the RLM studio[4]. ## How It Spread The image drifted out of the Red Letter Media fanbase when it was posted without context to Funnyjunk on September 20, 2014, and then to Reddit's r/WTF on November 14, 2014, where it collected more than 7,300 upvotes and picked up its cursed image reputation[3]. It resurfaced on r/nostalgia on February 18, 2016 with commenters identifying the ShowBiz Pizza setting, then reached r/cursedimages on February 25, 2018 and spread widely across Tumblr posts tagged as cursed[3]. The Polaroid hit mainstream television on November 30, 2018, when Julia Roberts appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and was surprised with photos from her teenage job at ShowBiz Pizza, including the Dick the Birthday Boy image, joking that she may have been the one inside the bear costume[5]. Red Letter Media revisited the story in June 2019 as guests on Macaulay Culkin's Bunny Ears podcast, with the full history of the photo laid out around the 22-minute mark[6]. In September 2022, Red Letter Media released a follow-up video titled "Dick the Birthday Boy: The Legacy Continues," revealing the Polaroid was one of a set of family photos that the studio deliberately kept blurred so only in-person guests could see them[2]. In November 2023 the crew disclosed that a copy of the photo had briefly appeared on the set of the Five Nights at Freddy's live-action film before being removed, with Mike Stoklasa quipping that he would license it to any sequel for one dollar because of the themed-restaurant tie-in[4]. ## How to Use The meme is used as a standalone cursed image, dropped into threads about awkward childhood photos, unfortunate name coincidences, or nostalgic pizza-chain animatronics. Common edits add speech balloons on Billy Bob Bear reacting to the shirt, a joke format that circulated on r/memes as early as April 2017[3]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Dick The Birthday Boy? It is a Polaroid photo of Red Letter Media's Rich Evans as a child, standing next to the Billy Bob Bear mascot at ShowBiz Pizza while wearing a shirt reading "Dick the Birthday Boy," widely shared as a cursed image[1]. ### Where did Dick The Birthday Boy come from? The photo was surfaced publicly on November 5, 2013, when Red Letter Media cast members used it to prank Rich Evans in an episode of Best of the Worst[1]. ### What does Dick The Birthday Boy mean? The name comes from Evans's childhood nickname "Dick" printed next to "the Birthday Boy" on his party shirt, producing a caption that reads as unintentionally lewd beside the animatronic bear[3]. ### How do you use Dick The Birthday Boy? People post the original Polaroid as a cursed image or add speech-bubble edits to Billy Bob Bear reacting to the shirt, a joke format that appeared on r/memes in April 2017[3]. ### Is Dick The Birthday Boy still popular? It stays in circulation as a classic cursed image, and Red Letter Media has kept referencing it, including a 2022 follow-up video and a 2023 revelation that the photo briefly made it onto the Five Nights at Freddy's movie set[2][4]. ## References 1. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7eSdXLmj9A]() 2. [https://www.youtube.com/@RedLetterMedia]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dick-the-birthday-boy]() 4. [https://www.redlettermedia.com/]() 5. [https://people.com/movies/julia-roberts-wore-a-bear-costume-and-handed-out-birthday-cakes-at-showbiz-pizza-as-a-teen/]() 6. [https://www.bunnyears.com/]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/dick-the-birthday-boy Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library