Rattle 'Em Boys! — Three skeletons in gangster suits and fedoras aim tommy guns at a man and woman in a vintage pulp illustration

Rattle 'Em Boys!

2018image macro / catchphraseclassic

Published November 11, 2026

Rattle 'Em Boys!, also known as Bones Malone and the Spooky Boys, is a Tumblr image of skeleton gangsters bursting into a room that picked up a catchphrase in 2018 and later voice acting from Zane Schacht in 2019. By late 2022, Twitter users turned the picture into a bait-and-switch gag hidden under the site's blurred content warning.

skeleton memes catchphrase memes tumblr memes bait and switch memes 2018 memes

Overview

Rattle 'Em Boys!, also tagged as Bones Malone and the Spooky Boys, pairs a drawing of tommy-gun-toting skeletons with the shouted command that gives the meme its name1. A typical post treats the skeletons like a Prohibition-era mob crew bursting into a room, with captions styled after old radio serials and gangster slang2. The gag rides on the contrast between the macabre art and the goofy boomer-dad energy of the catchphrase.

Voice actor Zane Schacht gave the picture a performed version in 2019, delivering the scene like a lost radio drama and letting other creators lip-sync, animate or remix the audio3. Later Source Filmmaker and Team Fortress 2 edits reused the voice lines on modeled skeletons, so the meme works as both a still image with the caption and a short voiced clip45. By late 2022, the picture picked up a second life on Twitter as a bait-and-switch, where users hid it behind the platform's sensitive-content blur so that tapping "show" would reveal the skeletons yelling "Rattle 'em boys!"6.

Origin & Background

Platform
Tumblr (image + caption) / Twitter (viral spread)
Key People
malignantlyuseless, jooshbag, Zane Schacht
Date
2018

Tumblr user malignantlyuseless posted the original illustration of the skeleton mobsters on March 8th, 20181. Dethchilada reblogged it with the caption "Bones Malone and the Spooky Boys," and on April 17th, 2018, jooshbag added the line "RATTLE 'EM BOYS!" that locked in the catchphrase2. The thread went on to pass 78,000 notes on Tumblr6.

The artwork itself is the meme's source; the shouted command was a later caption, not an element of the original drawing. Because the image traveled through reblogs and rewrites, no single person made the finished format, though jooshbag's reply is the post that fused the picture to the line most users quote today2.

How It Spread

On January 13th, 2019, Redditor SpelunkyDunkey crossposted the image to r/Bossfight as "Bones Malone and the Spooky Boys, Mobsters from Beyond the Grave," where it passed 22,000 upvotes7. Six months later, on July 26th, 2019, voice actor Zane Schacht (@VoicesByZane) tweeted a voiced version written as a radio-drama scene, which racked up more than 14,000 likes3.

Animators picked the audio up almost immediately. YouTuber Greatdictator released a Source Filmmaker short using Schacht's lines on July 29th, 2019, which passed 180,000 views4. A clip of the ending shout, reposted by Rowley Jefferson on July 19th, 2020, crossed 1.2 million views and became the version most people recognize from YouTube Shorts and reaction edits5.

The bait-and-switch wave started on November 18th, 2022, when @w0rstdad replied to another tweet with a blurred image that, when unblurred, showed the skeletons captioned "They unblurred the photo / Rattle 'em boys!"6. The gag spread through Twitter and Reddit NSFW-style blurs through early 2023, and on May 8th, 2023, YouTuber ClassyJavelinVA uploaded a dramatized voiced version that drew roughly 858,000 views in its first 18 days6. Later Team Fortress 2 SFM edits kept the audio in rotation on YouTube8.

Timeline

2018-03-08

Tumblr user malignantlyuseless posts the original skeleton gangster illustration.

2018-04-17

Tumblr user jooshbag adds the catchphrase "RATTLE 'EM BOYS!" to the dethchilada "Bones Malone and the Spooky Boys" reblog.

2019-01-13

SpelunkyDunkey reposts the image to Reddit's r/Bossfight, where it clears 22,000 upvotes.

2019-07-26

Voice actor Zane Schacht (@VoicesByZane) tweets a radio-drama voiceover of the scene.

2019-07-29

YouTuber Greatdictator releases a Source Filmmaker animation set to Schacht's voice lines.

2020-07-19

Rowley Jefferson's clip of the final "Rattle 'em, boys!" shout passes one million views on YouTube.

2022-11-18

Twitter user @w0rstdad posts the image under a content-warning blur as a bait-and-switch, kicking off the "They Unblurred the Photos" variant.

2023-05-08

YouTuber ClassyJavelinVA uploads a dramatized unblur voiceover that pulls roughly 858,000 views in 18 days.

Loading tweet...

Frequently Asked Questions