Skeleton Looking at Explosion — Skeleton in a red suit holding a For Sale sign while looking over his shoulder at a mushroom cloud explosion

Skeleton Looking at Explosion

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Published October 20, 2026

Skeleton Looking at Explosion, also known as Como Te Decía, repurposes the cover of Megadeth's 1986 album Peace Sells... but Who's Buying?, where mascot Vic Rattlehead stands calmly in front of a nuclear blast. The exploitable first surfaced on a Swiss blog in September 2015, then went viral in October 2020 through Spanish-speaking Facebook pages that captioned Vic's dialogue with the phrase 'Como te decía' ('As I was saying').

exploitable templates object labeling skeleton memes cover art parody memes dismissal memes

Overview

Posts place a labeled explosion behind Vic Rattlehead while his dialogue barrels through an unrelated topic, letting his skeletal indifference carry the joke2. The blast gets tagged with any catastrophe, bad news or embarrassing fact the poster wants to deflect, from nuclear war to personal failure, while Vic keeps monologuing as if nothing is happening5.

In Spanish-speaking versions, Vic's speech bubble begins with 'Como te decía' ('As I was saying'), setting up a punchline where the disaster is beneath his attention5. The humor sits between dark comedy and self-deprecation, with English iterations also captioning Vic's lines to mock willful ignorance, hollow excuses or deflection2.

Origin & Background

Platform
Draven's Tales from the Crypt blog (origin) / Facebook (viral spread)
Date
2015

The source image comes from the cover of Megadeth's second studio album Peace Sells... but Who's Buying?, released on September 19, 1986, which depicts Vic Rattlehead planting a 'For Sale' sign in front of a bombed-out U.N. Headquarters1. The album's interior artwork includes a shot of Vic looking back at a mushroom cloud, which later supplied the base image for the meme.

The earliest documented exploitable version was posted on the Swiss blog Draven's Tales from the Crypt in September 2015, cleanly separating Vic from the backdrop so users could insert their own captions and labeled explosions2. The original image artist is Ed Repka, but the person who converted it into a reusable template is unconfirmed. The format sat mostly dormant until Redditor Orange-laddy brought it back to /r/dankmemes on March 29, 2020, with a '2020 Can't Get Any Worse' edit3.

How It Spread

After Orange-laddy's March 29, 2020 /r/dankmemes post, the Facebook page El cuartel del metal reposted another iteration on June 7, 2020, which drew over 1,500 likes and 490 shares in five months and gave the template renewed exposure in metal and meme-adjacent communities4. Momentum built through the summer before Spanish-speaking Facebook pages locked in the 'Como te decía' framing in mid-October5.

On October 15, 2020, La USCO Mijo 1.0 posted an edit of Vic ignoring a mass murder to focus on celebrity gossip, which accumulated over 400 reactions and 23,000 shares within 18 days5. That same day, Shingeki no Memes posted a version that gathered over 7,200 reactions, and El mismo video de Hyungwon perreando con diferentes canciones ran its own iteration about toxicity inside the Latin American MONSTA X fandom5. Google Trends queries for 'como te decia meme' and 'meme calavera explosion' showed a bump the same week5.

Cross-platform spread followed within days. Redditor burgervandreamz reposted a Facebook version to /r/Mujico on October 16, 2020, where it collected over 1,100 upvotes6. Two days later, Redditor Aloysius uploaded a clean template to /r/MemeTemplatesOfficial, picking up 932 upvotes7. On October 22, El Profe Romero's Facebook page used the format to mock Argentinians who equated COVID-19 quarantine with dictatorship, drawing over 5,100 reactions and 3,500 shares8.

Timeline

1986-09-19

Megadeth released Peace Sells... but Who's Buying?, whose cover art and interior panels became the meme's source image[1].

2015-09

Draven's Tales from the Crypt blog posted the first known exploitable cutout of Vic Rattlehead with the explosion background[2].

2020-03-29

Redditor Orange-laddy posted a '2020 Can't Get Any Worse' edit using the format to /r/dankmemes[3].

2020-06-07

Facebook page El cuartel del metal reposted another version, which gathered over 1,500 likes in five months[4].

2020-10-15

Spanish-speaking Facebook pages including La USCO Mijo 1.0 and Shingeki no Memes popularized the 'Como te decía' caption, with one edit hitting 23,000 shares[5].

2020-10-16

Redditor burgervandreamz reposted a Facebook version to /r/Mujico, where it drew over 1,100 upvotes[6].

2020-10-18

Redditor Aloysius shared a clean template on /r/MemeTemplatesOfficial, which hit 932 upvotes[7].

2020-10-22

El Profe Romero posted an Argentina quarantine edit that drew over 5,100 reactions and 3,500 shares[8].

How to Use This Meme

Start with the base image of Vic Rattlehead in the foreground and the explosion behind him. Label the explosion with something bad, awkward or catastrophic, from a geopolitical crisis to an embarrassing personal moment. Give Vic a speech bubble or caption where he either ignores the blast outright or launches into unrelated commentary, often opening with 'Como te decía' in Spanish-language edits. The gap between the scale of the disaster and the triviality of what Vic is saying is where the joke lands.

Frequently Asked Questions