About

His Reward Is the Canoe is a quote from the satirical British television show Brass Eye. Meant to parody criminal documentaries, the clip shows a prisoner who is being rewarded for good behavior by being given an hour to sit in a canoe located inside the prison. The clip's audio has been used in animations and became a sound on TikTok in 2022.

Origin

The clip comes from season one, episode five of the satirical British TV show, Brass Eye,^[1] titled "Crime." The episode is a satirical exposé of life in prison done in the style of a news broadcast. At one point, they show a prisoner who is being rewarded for good behavior, and his reward is sitting in a canoe for up to an hour. The clip was posted to YouTube on January 3rd, 2019, by Andrew Symes, gaining over 132,000 views in nearly four years (shown below).

Spread

The clip began spreading on social media in the following years, and others began referencing it in skits and memes. For example, on July 20th, 2019, Twitter user @sauce_ros^[2] posted photos inspired by the clip, gaining over 50 retweets and 290 likes in three and a half years (shown below, left). On January 13th, 2022, DeviantArt^[3] user FoxLoverIris posted art inspired by the scene (shown below, right).

The sound began growing popular on TikTok starting in the summer of 2022. On August 10th, 2022, TikToker rsy005 posted the clip there, gaining over 2.9 million likes in two months (shown below, left). The sound has since been used in over 290 videos as of November 7th, 2022. On October 23rd, user zongchisthirdwheel posted a video showing a Genshin Impact character with the sound, gaining over 40,000 likes in two weeks (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References