Well, Excuse Me, Princess! — Animated Link scowling at Princess Zelda in a stone corridor from the 1989 Legend of Zelda cartoon

Well, Excuse Me, Princess!

1989catchphraseclassic

Published October 5, 2026

Snapped by Link at Princess Zelda in the 1989 Legend of Zelda cartoon on The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, the line stuck with viewers who found Link's constant irritation funnier than his heroism. Fans turned it into one of the earliest video game catchphrase memes, fueling YTMND pages, YouTube supercuts and YouTube Poops across the 2000s.

zelda memes catchphrase memes ytmnd memes youtube poop memes early internet memes

Overview

Well, Excuse Me, Princess! is the catchphrase Link throws back at Princess Zelda whenever she criticizes him in the Legend of Zelda cartoon segments of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!1. Delivered with a nasal, exasperated whine by voice actor Jonathan Potts, the line reads less like a hero's quip and more like a teenager rolling his eyes, which is exactly why fans latched onto it decades later5.

Online, the quote works as a snotty comeback to any correction or nitpick, with the audio clip itself doing most of the heavy lifting. Early 2000s uses leaned on the sheer repetition of Link's voice, pairing the audio with looping GIFs on YTMND or splicing it into unrelated cartoons for YouTube Poop edits36. The joke is partly the delivery and partly the dissonance of a sword-swinging hero sounding this petulant.

Origin & Background

Platform
The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! (TV) / YTMND (viral spread)
Date
1989

On September 8th, 1989, The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! aired the first Legend of Zelda animated segment, with Link voiced by Jonathan Potts and Zelda voiced by Cyndy Preston1. In the opening sequence, Link and Zelda leap from a cliff; Link lands on solid ground while Zelda plunges into a lake. Treading water, she mutters "Nice job, hero," and Link snaps back, "Hey, excuse me, princess"4. Link kept using variants of the line throughout the show's 13 episodes, cementing it as his verbal tic.

Nintendo and DIC Entertainment produced the cartoon; no individual fan is credited with creating the meme format, and the catchphrase traveled via grassroots YTMND and YouTube uploads rather than a single viral post3.

How It Spread

The earliest documented meme usage landed on November 26th, 2004, when YTMND user sup3r-m4rio uploaded a page that printed the phrase in bold text and looped the audio ripped from the cartoon's opening2. The page racked up more than 11,000 views over the following two decades, modest by modern standards but typical for a seed YTMND2.

Variations piled up through 2005 and 2006. On July 1st, 2005, YTMND user GCNMario posted a reworked version that pulled in more than 89,000 views5. The format jumped to YouTube on June 10th, 2006, when user kittykatstar uploaded a supercut stitching together every time Link said the line in the show; that clip pulled over 4.8 million views6. Weeks later, on July 6th, 2006, StealthedGameboy folded the audio into a YouTube Poop titled "Youtube Poop: Excuse Me, Princess 3," part of a wave of Poops that treated the Zelda cartoon as prime remix fodder7.

By the late 2000s the clip had settled into use as a sarcastic reply online, deployed whenever a commenter wanted to dismiss a correction without engaging with it3. The cartoon's low animation budget and Link's whiny delivery gave the quote a kitsch quality that aged into retro affection rather than embarrassment.

Timeline

1989-09-08

The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! airs its first Legend of Zelda segment, introducing Link's "excuse me, princess" exchange with Zelda[1].

2004-11-26

YTMND user sup3r-m4rio posts the earliest documented meme page using the phrase and audio[2].

2005-07-01

YTMND user GCNMario posts a variant that goes on to collect over 89,000 views[5].

2006-06-10

YouTuber kittykatstar uploads a supercut of every Link "excuse me, princess" line, drawing more than 4.8 million views[6].

2006-07-06

StealthedGameboy posts "Youtube Poop: Excuse Me, Princess 3," part of the Poop remix wave built around the Zelda cartoon[7].

Frequently Asked Questions