Where Do You Think We Are?

About

“Where Do You Think We Are?” is a quote uttered on a memorable scene from the American comedy-drama show Scrubs, where the character Perry Cox realises his friend Ben Sullivan is dead. The original scene has been subject of various parodies and used as exploitable and reaction image.

Origin

The original scene comes from the 14th episode of Scrub‘s season three, My Screw Up, originally aired at February 24th, 2004.^[1] In the episode, Doctor Perry Cox (played by John C. McGinley) angrily blames John Dorian (Zach Braff) for a patient’s death, and gets ready to go to his son’s birthday party with his brother-in-law and best friend Ben Sullivan (Brendan Fraser). After talking with him and being told by Ben to stop blaming himself for the patient’s death, Dorian comes and asks him “where do you think we are?”, making Cox realise they are on Ben’s funeral and the dead patient was Ben himself.

Spread

On December 12th, 2010, a removed user submitted on /r/pics a image that compares the original scene with a frame from the comic series TinTin, recieving over 1,030 points (97% upvoted) in less than 5 years.^[4] On December 24th, 2010, the blog Internet. And Other Assorted Flavors published a series of movie poster parodies by 4chan’s television and movies board /tv/, being one of them a parody of How Do You Know poster featuring characters from Scrubs and the title “Where do you think we are?”.^[2]

On May 11th, 2011, a thread submitted to /tv/ featured a post with a version of the scene where Dorian and Cox are in front of /tv/ board,^[6] which consequently was used as a common reaction image on /tv/.^[5] On May 24th, 2014, a post on 4chan’s My Little Pony board /mlp/ featured a version of the scene with moot and a green anon] which was also used as a common reaction image on 4chan.^[4] The phrase alone has been also used as a common response on 4chan.^[8]