Meet Joe Black Opening Scene — Brad Pitt in grey suit and tie on a city street in the opening scene of Meet Joe Black

Meet Joe Black Opening Scene

1998viral videoclassic

Published September 6, 2026

Meet Joe Black Opening Scene is a viral clip from the 1998 Martin Brest drama in which Brad Pitt's character trades wistful glances with Claire Forlani before getting smashed between two moving cars. A 2019 Twitter post turned the forgotten box office bomb's most ludicrous minute into one of the internet's favorite examples of tonal whiplash.

tonal whiplash memes movie quote memes so bad its good memes mashup video memes delayed virality memes

Overview

The clip runs about sixty seconds. Brad Pitt's unnamed character and Claire Forlani's Dr. Susan Parrish say goodbye at a coffee shop, walk in opposite directions, and steal alternating glances back at each other for an almost comically drawn-out beat1. Then Pitt gets clipped by a car, launched, and pinballed off a second vehicle before landing dead in the street2.

The joke online is the whiplash: a tender meet-cute cut short by a stunt that looks straight out of a slapstick reel. People share the clip as-is to make that point, or swap in unrelated music like Ocean Man or the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme to punch up the absurdity3. It works as shorthand for any sudden tonal detour, and it doubles as a jab at the film's notorious 181-minute runtime1.

Origin & Background

Platform
Meet Joe Black (film) / Twitter (viral spread)
Creator
Martin Brest; popularized on Twitter by @ladyastronauty
Date
1998

The scene opens Martin Brest's 1998 Universal drama Meet Joe Black, loosely based on the 1934 film Death Takes a Holiday1. Pitt's character has to die in the first act so Death can borrow his body and show up at the Parrish house under the name Joe Black. The movie grossed $44 million against a $90 million budget and was best remembered for its three-hour runtime, with Emmanuel Lubezki behind the camera1.

The clip first surfaced online in an August 30th, 2006 YTMND page pairing the death with the LOL Internet meme3. A remix by YouTube user SpankTheGorilla followed on October 13th, 20064, and a straight upload by ReubenSala went up on December 24th, 20075.

How It Spread

The scene broke containment on April 11th, 2019, when Twitter user @ladyastronauty, identified by Mashable as comedian Rose O'Shea, posted the clip with the caption "This is the most bonkers one minute of a movie that I have ever seen"6. The tweet pulled in more than 28,000 retweets and 105,000 likes3. Krang T Nelson replied that he had never been more surprised by a video clip, and user @nsonic79 said they burst out laughing on first viewing and assumed it was the ending3.

Edits arrived within hours. @TonyWilde99 layered Ocean Man over the death for roughly 1,500 retweets and 9,200 likes7, and @bellarinaa scored it with the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme for around 960 retweets and 7,500 likes8. Indiewire and Mashable both wrote up the moment that week, noting how strange it was for a 21-year-old bomb to suddenly trend12.

Loading tweet...

Frequently Asked Questions