About

Chunk Addresses Congress is a YTMND site featuring a cutout image of Chunk from the 1985 adventure–comedy film Goonies photoshopped into a joint session of the U.S. Congress with a soundbite of the character blaming his friends for ignoring his forewarning. Since its YTMND debut in 2005, the site has inspired hundreds of parodies in which various fictional characters and celebrities are depicted as if they're delivering a speech before the Congress, set to a soundbite or voice-dubbed audio track with echo effect.

Origin

In December 2005, YTMND user KingCrimson created the site "Chunk Addresses Congress," which shows Chunk from the 1985 adventure–comedy film Goonies delivering a heated "I told you" speech before the United States Congress, possibly in reference to the launch of a U.S. military operation in Iraq. The background image of the U.S. House of Representative chamber originates from a stock photograph of former U.S. president George W. Bush presiding over a joint session of the Congress.

"I said there was gonna be trouble, but you didn't listen! You guys are crazy!"

The original site garnered at least 160,000 views prior to being taken down with the suspension of KingCrimson's account. Over a year later, it was re-uploaded by YTMND user BTape on January 6th, 2007. The mirror site has since gained more than 30,000 views. Prior to this, the Goonies character had been prominently featured in another well-known YTMND fad Chunk is Indestructible.

Spread

Despite the removal of KingCrimson's original instance from YTMND, the fad took off in December 2005, inspiring more than 100 derivative sites over the span of a week. On December 11th, YTMND user drhouse created the spin-off site Cartman Addresses Congress, which features an audio clip from an episode of South Park in which Cartman pays a visit to Washington D.C. in order to lobby Congress to restore stem cell research. In the following years, more than 540 "congressional address" parody sites emerged on YTMND, with at least 25 instances garnering more than 10,000 views. Some of the other notable examples in the series includes Willy Wonka Addresses Congress, Leonidas Addresses Congress and Beavis and Butthead Address Congress.

Various Examples

External References