About
T-Rex’s Short Arms, also known as T-Rex’s Tiny Arms, Sad T-Rex, or just T-Rex Arms, refers to a running joke, often illustrated, in which a tyrannosaurus rex can’t accomplish a human task that would otherwise be simple, due to the length of the creature’s arms in contrast with the large size of its body. The most common instances of the joke refer to the T-Rex not being able to masturbate or remove its party hat after a birthday party. Often times, this inability causes the T-Rex to become sad.
Origin
The first known instance of the joke online comes from the Apr 7, 2007 posting of a clip by the user “tallworm” from the 2007 Disney film Meet The Robinsons. In the clip, the character Tiny the Dinosaur chases Lewis Robinson into a corner, but can’t grab him because of his small arms. Tiny, voiced by Joe Mateo, says “I have a big head, and tiny arms. I’m just not sure how well this plan was thought through.”[1]
In comics, the first appearance was a one-panel in The Far Side, the comic by Gary Larson, circa the mid 1980s.
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Spread
In 2009, a comic called “Sad T-Rex” by Christian Blethen, was posted to /r/funny and received 148 votes (84% upvoted).[2]
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In 2011, the comic was reposted first by Fuck_You_Im_Scottish, then by user wrong_game, netting 366 points (88% upvoted)[3] and 581 points (86% upvoted)[4] respectively.
As the comic gained in popularity, people expanded the joke. On January 22, 2012, the Tumblr “T-Rex Trying” was founded by Hugh Murphy, devoted to comic sketches of a T-Rex attempting different tasks. Of the five images he posted that day, the two most popular received 31,182 notes[5] and 13,201 notes[6]. Murphy published a book of his drawings on October 7, 2014 [7].
Since the popularity of these two examples, many other examples have been created by other webcomic authors, and many of these have been collected on Reddit or Tumblr.
In 2014, the browser Chrome Canary featured a T-Rex with Short Arms on the “Can’t Connect to the Internet” page. While waiting for their connections to resume, users could click the dinosaur and play a running game offline [8].
Notable Examples
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Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
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Search Interest
External References
[1]The Disney Wiki – Tiny the Dinosaur / 7-1-2007
[2]Reddit – Sad T-rex / 5-6-2009
[3]Reddit – Why is T-Rex so sad? / 3-10-2011
[4]Reddit – The sad life of T-rex / 6-14-2011
[5]Tumblr – T-Rex Trying to Paint His House /1-22-2012
[6]Tumblr – T-Rex Trying to Put on a Cardigan / 1-22-2012
[7]Amazon – T-Rex Trying and Trying: The Unfortunate Trials of a Prehistoric Family / 10-7-2014
[8]DCInno – Google Chrome Now Uses a Dinosaur Video Game To Entertain You When You Can’t Get Online / 9-27-2014