Rev Up Those Fryers

2010catchphraseclassic

Published September 25, 2026 · Version 4.0.1

"Rev Up Those Fryers" is a catchphrase from a 2001 SpongeBob SquarePants episode where a hungry fish gets thrown out of the Krusty Krab mid-sentence. The line jumped from 4chan's anime board to Tumblr and Reddit starting in July 2010, spawning years of image macros, looping edits and Gordon Ramsay photoshops.

spongebobcatchphrase memessnowclone memes4chan memesdialogue edit memes

Overview

"Rev Up Those Fryers" refers to the incomplete line an unnamed pirate-obsessed fish yells as he barges into the Krusty Krab: "Rev up those fryers, cause I am sure hungry for one"1. Mr. Krabs cuts him off and tosses him out the door before he can finish the sentence, and the abrupt interruption is the whole joke that made it a reusable format.

The meme mostly lives as image macros and short looping edits built around that shove-out moment3. A common convention is to reword the fish's demand, keeping the exact cadence but swapping in whatever the poster is hungry for, whether it's a specific food, a fictional character or something absurd. A separate visual template took off in 2013 when a Tumblr user pasted Gordon Ramsay's face onto the fish in response to another user posting "rev up those FUCKING FRYERS"3.

Origin & Background

Platform
SpongeBob SquarePants (source) / 4chan (meme spread)
Date
2010

The line comes from the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Argh!", which first aired in 2001 as part of the show's second season1. In the scene, a fish in a pirate hat walks through the Krusty Krab doors, starts shouting the fryers line, and Mr. Krabs throws him out mid-word1.

The earliest documented usage as a meme comes from a post on 4chan's anime (/a/) board on July 3rd, 20103. A week later, on July 10th, 2010, a clip of the scene was uploaded to YouTube where it later passed 240,000 views1.

How It Spread

After the July 3rd, 2010 /a/ post, the scene picked up on 4chan through image macros and exploitable edits over the following years3. On July 24th, 2010, a YouTube user posted a version that loops the moment the fish enters the Krusty Krab, extending the gag into a short repeating bit2.

The meme later moved onto Tumblr and Reddit3. In 2013, a Tumblr user photoshopped Gordon Ramsay onto the fish in reply to a post reading "rev up those FUCKING FRYERS," giving the format one of its most recycled visual variants3. On August 19th, 2019, a post on /r/bikinibottomtwitter reworked the line and pulled in more than 320 points, showing the catchphrase was still circulating in SpongeBob communities almost a decade after its first 4chan appearance3.

Additional YouTube uploads over the years kept the original clip in circulation and gave newer viewers an easy way to find the source scene45.

How to Use This Meme

The typical format keeps the fish's opening cadence ("Rev up those fryers, cause I am sure hungry for a...") and swaps the missing noun with whatever the joke targets. Image macro versions often pair the fish's entry frame with the punchline text, while looping edits play the shove-out on repeat for comic effect2.

Frequently Asked Questions