A Ruby The Size Of A Tangerine

Submission 853

Part of a series on Some Men Just Want to Watch the World Burn. [View Related Entries]

About

A Ruby the Size of a Tangerine is a line delivered by actor Michael Caine as the character Alfred Pennyworth in the 2008 Batman film The Dark Knight. The line, which comes from the same monologue that includes the quote "Some men just want to watch the world burn," became a prominent source of YouTube Poop remixes in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

Origin

In 2008's The Dark Knight, Alfred (Michael Caine) tells Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) a story about a bandit who was stealing gemstones but throwing them away to create chaos. At one point in the monologue, Alfred tells Wayne he discovered a child playing with "a ruby the size of a tangerine" (shown below).

On March 31st, 2009, YouTuber ModernGeekery^[1] uploaded a YouTube Poop in which many of the words in Caine's monologue are replaced with him saying "tangerine." The video gained over 924,000 views in 15 years (shown below).

Spread

Over the following years, the scene inspired similar edits on YouTube. On April 26th, 2009, YouTuber Fall On Your Sword^[2] posted a tangerine-focused YouTube Poop of the scene, gaining over 747,000 views in 15 years (shown below, left). On January 7th, 2013, YouTuber GK^[3] posted an edit of an Alfred monologue from The Dark Knight Rises using "tangerine," gaining over 26,000 views in 11 years (shown below, right).

The line also inspired some image-based memes. For example, on August 1st, 2020, Redditor The31stUser posted a meme referencing the scene in /r/NolanBatmanMemes,^[4] gaining over 130 points in four years (shown below, left). On August 8th, Redditor whiderboss posted another "tangerine" meme on the subreddit,^[5] gaining over 310 points in the same timeframe (shown below, right).