# The Rock Driving The Rock Driving is a multi-pane exploitable comic built from screen captures of Dwayne Johnson's 2009 family film Race to Witch Mountain, where his character turns to face a passenger with a startled expression. The format began on a Newgrounds thread in July 2009 and spread across forums, 4chan and Quickmeme, becoming one of the earliest widely remixed three-panel reaction comics on the web. ## Origin On July 29th, 2009, Newgrounds Forum user MetalStar started a thread with a blank three-panel template cut from Race to Witch Mountain, inviting other members to Photoshop their own captions over the stills[1]. The thread grew to more than 690 replies across the following ten months and became the earliest documented hub for the format[3]. The source footage comes from the taxi scene in which Dwayne Johnson's character Jack Bruno realizes two children have climbed into the back of his cab, the specific head-turn reaction that defines the meme's third panel[3]. While Johnson stars in the film, the comic format itself was assembled by Newgrounds users; Johnson and the studio behind the film did not create the meme. - **Platform:** Newgrounds Forum / Quickmeme (viral spread) - **Creator:** MetalStar (Newgrounds user) - **Date:** 2009 ## Overview The Rock Driving is a three-panel comic template cut from a cab scene in Race to Witch Mountain in which Jack Bruno, played by Dwayne Johnson, notices the two kids who have snuck into his back seat[1]. The first panel shows Jack asking a question, the second shows the passenger's reply, and the third shows Johnson's wide-eyed, head-whipped reaction. Users swap the dialogue in panels one and two so the third panel reads as a punchline shock take. The appeal comes from the extreme physicality of that final frame. Johnson's exaggerated expression works for almost any absurd twist, so edits ranged from topical political jokes to video game in-jokes to NSFW gags[3]. Captions were added directly over the panels in classic image-macro Impact font, and later versions used Spanish, Portuguese and other translations as the format spread internationally[5]. Alongside the standard three-panel layout, remixers also produced extended versions with more panels or substituted the back-seat character to fit niche jokes, such as the World of Warcraft Cataclysm riff on MMO Champion in 2010[4]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is The Rock Driving? It is a three-panel exploitable comic that uses screen captures of Dwayne Johnson's taxi scene in Race to Witch Mountain, with user-written dialogue leading to his startled reaction in the final panel[3]. ### Where did The Rock Driving come from? Newgrounds Forum user MetalStar posted the blank three-panel template on July 29th, 2009, kicking off a long thread of user-captioned versions[1]. ### What does The Rock Driving mean? The format sets up a question or statement in the first two panels and uses Dwayne Johnson's exaggerated head-turn reaction in the third as the punchline, so it signals shock, disbelief or an absurd twist[2]. ### How do you use The Rock Driving? People typically caption the first panel with a question from Jack Bruno, the second with the passenger's unexpected reply, and leave the third panel as the silent reaction, often built in a generator like Quickmeme[7]. ### Is The Rock Driving still popular? It is still cited as a classic early reaction-comic template, with its Quickmeme page accumulating over 41,000 user submissions during its peak run from 2011 to 2014[7]. ## References 1. [https://web.archive.org/web/20090802091802/https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1087743/6]() 2. [https://coed.com/2011/06/29/the-25-funniest-rock-driving-in-race-to-witch-mountain-memes-photos/]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-rock-driving]() 4. [https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/775417-The-Rock-Driving?p=9124754]() 5. [https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=118605381]() 6. [https://web.archive.org/web/20090802102715/https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1087743]() 7. [http://www.quickmeme.com/The-Rock-Driving/]() 8. [https://www.reddit.com/r/rule34/comments/tofti/the_rock_driving_xpost_from_r4chan/]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/the-rock-driving Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library