Lightning McQueen's Ka-Chow

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Part of a series on Cars (film franchise). [View Related Entries]

About

Lightning McQueen's "Ka-Chow" is the catchphrase of the character Lightning McQueen from the 2006 Disney and Pixar film Cars. It began spreading in 2016 as an ironic punchline in image macros on Facebook, iFunny and Reddit.

Origin

In Disney/Pixar's 2006 film Cars, protagonist Lightning McQueen is a cocky and popular rookie racer in a world of anthropomorphic cars. His catchphrase is "ka-chow."

Spread

Following the release of Cars, "ka-chow" was primarily used as a reference to the character. The second most popular Urban Dictionary^[1] definition of "ka-chow" describes a male orgasm after oral sex. On May 14th, 2015, Weird Facebook page Family Friendly Memes For The Dankest Of The Tweens^[2] posted a picture of Lightning McQueen with the caption "KACHOW / ~frenchfag." The post gained only 7 likes, but was reposted to Onsizzle^[3] in the Dank Memes entry on July 17th, 2016, where it gained over 300 upvotes.

Towards the end of August, Instagram user thenochillpost^[4] posted an image advising men to start a conversation with a girl using “Kachow” in a post that gained 1,255 likes (shown below). On August 25th, the Twitter account @DankMemePlug^[5] reposted the joke in a tweet and gained over 4,200 retweets and 6,300 likes as of October 12th, 2016. Over the course of September, Kachow memes grew popular on iFunny^[6] and Reddit.^[7]^[8]

Kerchoo

"Kerchoo" is an intentionally degraded variation of "Ka-Chow," featuring a photograph of Lightning McQueen.

On September 17th, 2016, Tumblr user neutralasshole^[9] posted the earliest known iteration of Kerchoo above the caption "Kootchow" (shown below). The post received more than 200 notes.

On September 27th, the picture appeared on the Facebook page Eric's Creepy Memes^[10], this time paired in a chat window with another degraded Cars character named "Kuhcherga." The post received more than 5,400 reactions and 3,400 shares.

The most prominent version of Kerchoo appeared on October 1st, when Instagram user @nakedpopicles^[11] posted a variation under the the caption "When you try your best and it still isn't enough" (shown below). The post received more than 11,300 likes.