We've Been Waiting for You, Miss O'Neil

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Part of a series on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. [View Related Entries]

About

"We've Been Waiting for You, Miss O'Neil is a memorable line uttered by an unnamed Foot Soldier in the film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Clips from the scene, which include the character telling the character April O'Neil to "shut it" and slapping her in the face, have been used in reaction images, GIFs and remix videos.

Origin

On March 30th, 1990, the film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released in the United States.^[1] In the film, a group of members of the Foot Clan, soldiers for the film's antagonists, approach April O'Neil (portrayed by Judith Hoag). They have the following exchange (shown below).

Foot Soldier: We have been waiting for you, Miss O'Neil.
April O'Neil: Am I behind on my Sony payments again? Ha ha ha.
Foot Messenger: Your mouth may yet bring you much trouble, Miss O'Neil. I deliver a message.
[Slaps her hard in the face.]
Foot Messenger: Shut it!

Spread

On September 23rd, 2006, YouTuber Ljandj99 published a remix of the scene. The post received more than 37,000 views in less than 14 years (shown below, left).

Six years later, on March 6th, 2012, Redditor ^[2] CosmikHippo posted a GIF on the /r/reactiongifs subreddit. The post received more than 145 points (91% upvoted) in less than 10 years (shown below, right).

The following year, the GIF was posted on GIPHY ^[3] with the caption "What did five fingers say to the face?" (shown below).

On February 9th, 2020, iFunny ^[4] user ZacTheFirst shared the clip on the website. the post received more than 50,000 reactionsn and 550 comments in less than three days (shown below).