Pokémon: Detective Pikachu (2019 Film)

2018viral eventclassic

Published September 22, 2026

Pokémon: Detective Pikachu is the 2019 Warner Bros. live-action film starring Ryan Reynolds as the voice of a caffeine-addicted detective mouse, and its trailers became a meme factory months before release. The unsettling fuzzy redesigns of Jigglypuff, Mr. Mime and Mewtwo, plus a fake feature-length dance video called Detective Leakachu, gave the internet reactions and jokes that ran for the entire 2018 to 2019 press cycle.

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Overview

Pokémon: Detective Pikachu is a live-action adaptation of the 2016 Nintendo 3DS game of the same name, directed by Rob Letterman and voiced by Ryan Reynolds in the title role1. What made it a meme, rather than just a movie, was the reaction cycle around its two theatrical trailers, which forced casual viewers to reckon with what beloved Pokémon designs look like when rendered as photoreal CGI creatures walking around a live-action city.

The recurring joke templates that came out of the film were: horrified reaction posts about specific Pokémon (a furry Jigglypuff, a Mr. Mime whose body parts aren't clothes but flesh, a heavily muscled Mewtwo), Ryan Reynolds voice memes where users pointed out Pikachu sounded like Deadpool, and mashups placing these creatures next to unrelated internet figures like Gritty34. The Mr. Mime scene alone spawned an entire genre of horror reaction tweets and fan art after Polygon and Kotaku both ran pieces arguing that the character was inadvertently terrifying23.

The cycle peaked twice: first with the trailer drops in November 2018 and February 2019, then again with the May 2019 Detective Leakachu prank video that Ryan Reynolds himself promoted on Twitter5.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube trailers / Twitter (viral spread)
Date
2018

Legendary Entertainment announced the live-action Detective Pikachu project in November 2017, setting a May 10, 2019 release with Ryan Reynolds voicing Pikachu, Justice Smith and Kathryn Newton in live-action roles, and Rob Letterman directing1. Universal Pictures handled international distribution outside Japan, with Toho releasing domestically in the same Legendary partnership structure used for the Godzilla reboot1.

The meme cycle proper started on November 12, 2018, when Warner Bros. Pictures released the first trailer on YouTube8. Within hours, discussion threads on r/movies, r/Pokemon and r/Nintendo were arguing about whether Reynolds' Deadpool-adjacent voice fit Pikachu, whether Jigglypuff should have fur, and whether Mr. Mime looked like a person or a nightmare5. Polygon published its explainer that same day arguing that Mr. Mime's appearance was objectively disturbing because his shirt, gloves and shoes are not clothing but body parts, which pushed the character back into meme rotation2.

How It Spread

The first trailer's release on November 12, 2018 triggered same-day coverage from gaming and pop culture outlets. Kotaku aggregated horror reactions to Mr. Mime, including tweets from PokeBeach and journalist Jacob Oller joking that whoever gave the character freckles and tiny head hairs should go to prison3. Twitter user @akfamilyhomeak compared a still from the trailer to the Surprised Pikachu meme, and the crossover post pulled thousands of retweets according to the Know Your Meme entry5.

The second trailer landed on February 26, 2019, adding Charizard, Machamp, Snubbull, Ludicolo, Cubone, Snorlax, Eevee and a menacing Mewtwo to the meme pool4. The Verge covered the drop the same day, calling out Mewtwo as the standout image and noting the earlier trailers had already gone viral for a gag-inducing Lickitung tongue and a gross-looking Bulbasaur4. Ludicolo working as a bartender in the trailer became its own micro-cycle, with users comparing the creature to the Philadelphia Flyers mascot Gritty5. Pluckers Wing Bar photoshopped Mewtwo holding chicken wings as a promo tweet, and it cleared 200 retweets during that same news cycle5.

The strangest viral moment came on May 7, 2019, three days before release. A YouTube channel called Inspector Pikachu uploaded a video titled POKÉMON Detective Pikachu: Full Picture, running one hour and 43 minutes, with a watermark reading R. Reynolds. The first 30 seconds contained what looked like leaked footage; the remaining 1 hour 42 minutes was Pikachu doing dance aerobics to a synthwave loop5. Ryan Reynolds tweeted the link himself, and the official Pokemon Detective Pikachu Twitter account temporarily renamed itself to Detective Leakachu. The video passed 4.3 million views inside 13 hours5. Rolling Stone's review the following week acknowledged that Reynolds' Deadpool-tinged Pikachu was already meme currency by the time the film opened6.

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