Where did Kermit Did 9/11 come from?

The underlying trivia was first posted by Tumblr account Nerdyfacts on August 24, 2013, and the "Kermit did 9/11" phrasing went viral in a January 12, 2015 tweet by @jfruh.

What does Kermit Did 9/11 mean?

It inverts It's a Wonderful Life logic: because the towers stand in the film's alternate reality where Kermit was never born, posters joke that his existence must have caused their fall. Director Kirk Thatcher said the towers appear only because the production reused old backdrops.

How do you use Kermit Did 9/11?

People share the still frame of Kermit standing before the Twin Towers with mock conspiracy captions, or recite the r/copypasta writeup as if it were a serious theory.

Is Kermit Did 9/11 still popular?

The joke has had periodic revivals, including a 2021 r/AskReddit comment with over 50,000 points that reintroduced the theory to a new audience.

Kermit Did 9/11

Q: What is Kermit Did 9/11?

It is an ironic fan theory joke claiming Kermit the Frog's existence caused the September 11 attacks, based on a 2002 Muppet film scene where the Twin Towers appear only in a world without Kermit.

2013fan theory / copypastaclassic

Published October 28, 2026

Kermit Did 9/11 is a running fan theory joke claiming that Kermit the Frog's existence somehow caused the September 11 attacks, based on a 2002 Muppet TV film scene where an angel shows Kermit a world without him and the Twin Towers happen to appear in the background. After the trivia was shared on Tumblr in 2013, the gag broke out in January 2015 when a Twitter user posted a Wikipedia screenshot linking the detail to Muppet canon. By August 2019, Reddit's r/copypasta elevated a long version of the theory to over 6,400 points.

muppets memes fan theory memes conspiracy memes dark humor memes copypasta memes

Overview

The joke works by inverting It's a Wonderful Life logic. In A Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, an angel shows Kermit an alternate reality in which he was never born, and in that reality the Twin Towers are still standing in a New York cityscape shot, even though the towers do not appear anywhere else in the film1. Fans flipped that implication: if Kermit's non-existence saved the towers, then Kermit's existence must have caused their destruction3.

Typical posts combine the still frame of Kermit smiling in front of the intact Twin Towers with mock-serious conspiracy captions, or restate the theory as a straight-faced explainer in copypasta form7. Director Kirk Thatcher has twice confirmed the practical answer, saying the Canadian production reused background cycloramas and translights that were more than a year old at the time of filming5 9. The gag is less about the Muppets than about the comic premise of blaming a felt frog for a national tragedy with sincere, documentary-style phrasing.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Tumblr (origin) / Twitter (viral spread)

Date

2013

The Twin Towers appear in a single composite shot during A Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, which aired on NBC in November 200211. On August 24, 2013, Tumblr account Nerdyfacts posted the trivia that the towers stand only in the film's "world without Kermit" sequence1. The next day, Funnyjunk user sexualtyranosaurus reposted the Tumblr find under the title "Kermit is a terrorist"10, giving the gag its first explicit framing as a joke that Kermit caused the attacks.

The film's director Kirk Thatcher later addressed the detail directly. On May 21, 2014, Thatcher told a now-deleted @BradFraggle tweet that the towers' presence "implies that the background cycloramas/translights that were available in Canada were more than a year old," meaning the Toronto-area production reused dated backdrops5. He repeated the same explanation to another Twitter user on March 10, 20169.

How It Spread

On December 5, 2014, a now-deleted Reddit account posted the Muppet factoid in an r/movies thread about scenes removed after 9/11, pointing to the Wikipedia article "List of entertainment affected by the September 11 attacks"4. The gag broke out properly on January 12, 2015, when Twitter user @jfruh shared a screenshot of that Wikipedia entry with the caption "for those of you who missed it last night: wikipedia heavily implies that it's muppets canon that kermit did 9/11"2. The tweet picked up over 7,000 retweets and 11,000 likes and became the catalyst most later posts cite.

Mainstream humor sites followed. Cracked published "5 Signs The Muppets Caused 9/11" on October 14, 20156, then released a video version of the theory on December 5, 2017. An r/shittymoviedetails thread on October 15, 2018 restated the premise as a bogus film detail10, and on August 26, 2019, user akaSashk posted a long-form writeup to r/copypasta that reached over 6,400 points7.

The theory resurfaced in 2021 when Reddit user JesusDiedForBaron answered an r/AskReddit question titled "What fan theory do you 100% accept as true" with the Kermit theory. That comment accumulated over 50,000 points and was widely screenshotted on other platforms8.

Timeline

2002-11-29

A Merry Muppet Christmas Movie airs on NBC, including a composite shot of Kermit in front of the Twin Towers during the "world without Kermit" sequence[1].

2017-12-05

Cracked releases a video version of the theory on YouTube.

2018-10-15

An r/shittymoviedetails post restates the Kermit 9/11 premise[10].

2019-08-26

Redditor akaSashk posts the long-form copypasta to r/copypasta, where it scores over 6,400 points[7].

2021-02-11

A comment by JesusDiedForBaron on r/AskReddit featuring the theory accumulates over 50,000 points[8].

How to Use This Meme

Posts usually combine a screenshot of Kermit in front of the intact Twin Towers with mock-serious conspiracy phrasing, or quote the r/copypasta writeup verbatim7. Common conventions include replying "kermit did 9/11" to any Muppet-related post, citing the fake Wikipedia claim as if it were canon2, or presenting the theory on a list of fan theories someone accepts as 100% true8.