About

Grug (full name Grug Crood) refers to the male protagonist in the 2013 animated Dreamworks film The Croods, voiced by actor Nicolas Cage. Grug is the caveman father of the family. Grug memes trended en masse on TikTok in April and May 2025, including trends like Rhymes With Grug, The Croods Running and Grug's catchphrase "Release the baby!" Before 2025, Grug was the name of a caveman Wojak character, which was popular on 4chan in the 2010s.

Origin

On March 22nd, 2013, the animated film The Croods was released in American theaters. Grug Crood is the name of the film's male protagonist, who plays the father of the Crood family. He's voiced by actor Nicolas Cage.^[5]

The first widely shared meme about Grug Crood was called "Grug Moment." It showed the character standing with a bottom Impact caption reading, "GRUG MOMENT," in all caps. Currently, its first known upload was by iFunny ^[1] user @frut__2018 on February 4th, 2019, receiving over 3,100 smiles in six years (shown below).

Precursor

Wojak Character

On July 29th, 2014, several anonymous users on 4chan's /tg/ board submitted posts roleplaying a caveman character using Hulk speak. One of the characters was named Grug (shown below).

On October 16th, 2017, a user submitted an illustration of a caveman Wojak character along with a Hulk speak message, joking about staying home with a dakimakura (shown below).

On November 22nd, the illustration and the name Grug were combined in a thread about Net Neutrality on 4chan's /pol/ ^[2] board.

Spread

Grug Moment memes propelled the character into meme status, evident in a post that Redditor Yuri-me-ifgay shared to the /r/OkBuddyRetard ^[3] subreddit on December 3rd, 2020, which showed an angry Grug Moment, gaining over 1,400 upvotes in five years (shown below).

On August 15th, 2020, YouTuber^[4] MrMrMANGOHEAD shared a YouTube Poop with a Grug scene, using the Content Aware Scaling effect. Over five years, it received roughly 2.7 million views (shown below).

Rhymes With Grug

In one scene of The Croods, Grug Crood is inventing things. He says, "I call it a rug, rhymes with Grug. And this one, I call it a ride, rhymes with Grug" (YouTube^[6] upload shown below).

Currently, the first known meme to use Rhymes With Grug as a punchline was a video shared by YouTuber^[7] madoxthepsychic on February 13th, 2020, which showed a deep-fried meme reading, "Good job, Grug," after playing the Rhymes With Grug scene. Over five years, it received over 1,100 views (shown below).

The meme gained traction in 2025, when Rhymes With Grug became a snowclone on TikTok.

The trend seemingly started with a video from TikToker^[8] @bryan..200, shared on May 3rd. The video showed him dancing to a Jersey Club remix of The Croods main theme, with a text caption reading, "How I feel after using my own method to solve the maths problem (it rhymes with grug)." The video gained over 67,200 likes in three days (shown below).

Photo slideshows with one photo were shared on TikTok in the following days, which mostly showed Grug naming inventions that were disasters and tragedies, falling into the category of edgy humor.

For instance, on May 4th, 2025, TikToker^[9] @lilbiggefatmonke posted an iteration with a caption reading, "I call it vehicular man slaughter 'cause it rhymes with Grug," gaining over 158,500 likes in two days (shown below).

Further Spread

Following the popularity of the Rhymes With Grug trend on TikTok, other Grug memes surfaced heading into early May 2025. For instance, on April 30th, TikToker^[10] @strayz_.cat posted a video, showing a bunch of print-outs of Grug on their wall, gaining over 1.1 million likes in a week (shown below).

On May 2nd, TikToker^[11] @zyco.wf shared an anime style edit of Grug, which included text about Grug winning the 100 Men vs. 1 Gorilla fight. Over five days, the video received roughly 1.2 million likes (shown below).

Release The Baby

"Release The Baby" is a memorable line delivered by Grug in The Croods during the opening scene. Grug commands, "Release the baby!" when the family is trying to get breakfast. The baby is Grug's youngest child, who quickly chases after the mama bird, who has what the family wants: an egg (YouTube^[12] upload shown below).

The catchphrase became intertwined with the The Croods Running meme in April and May 2025, which used the same scene from the film. Early iterations of the meme on TikTok^[13] often had "Release the baby" in the description.

On May 3rd, TikToker^[14] @eastxn3 posted a meme with the Release the Baby scene, adding a caption that read, "When gang takes your phone so you have to call on the little siblings," receiving over 27,400 likes in four days (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References