There Is No Queen of England

Origin

The line is from Megamind, the DreamWorks animated film released in the US on November 5, 2010. Hal Stewart — a cameraman turned reluctant superhero, and one of animation’s more pathetic antagonists — tries to convince Roxanne Ritchi that the world is a disappointment, and delivers a list:

“There is no Easter Bunny, there is no Tooth Fairy, and there is no Queen of England.”

The joke in the film is that two of those are true and the third is emphatically not. Hal has assembled a list of childhood illusions and included, with total confidence, a living head of state.

What it means / how it’s used

The meme is a snowclone: the first two items stay, and the third is replaced with something the poster wants to deny. The structure carries the joke — two reasonable statements followed by a confident denial of something obviously real.

Its uses:

• Mocking a stubborn misconception someone refuses to abandon.
• Denying an unwelcome fact for comic effect.
• Fandom versions rejecting a canon development.
• Self-aware denial of something the poster does not want to be true.

The format works because Hal’s delivery is completely sincere. He is not being contrarian; he genuinely appears to believe all three. That earnestness is what separates it from ordinary denial jokes.

How it spread

The first documented two-panel version came from a Facebook post on February 1, 2017, which took 5,400+ likes over three years. It moved to Reddit on August 11, 2018, where a version took 5,900+ upvotes and established the swappable-third-item convention.

Its breakout came a full year later. On August 9, 2019, a Reddit post took 38,000+ upvotes in five days, and the format entered wide circulation across Reddit, Twitter, and Instagram.

Megamind itself has had a striking internet afterlife. The film underperformed on release and was largely forgotten, then acquired a substantial ironic following in the late 2010s and 2020s — the “no bitches?” edit being its other major export. It is now referenced online far more than it ever was in cinemas.

Notable examples & variations

• Third-item swaps denying a widely known fact.
• Fandom versions rejecting an unpopular canon event.
• Versions where the third item is genuinely fictional, subverting the joke.
• Edits keeping Hal’s delivery but replacing the character.
• Text-only uses of the three-item structure.

Legacy / cultural impact

The meme is part of Megamind’s unlikely rehabilitation as an internet touchstone. Few 2010 animated films have gained more cultural relevance a decade after release, and almost all of it comes from a handful of frames featuring its least competent character.

The structure has also proved durable independently. Listing two true things and one confidently false one is now a recognisable joke shape online, used without any reference to the film that supplied it.