On November 1, 2010, a thread was started on 4chan by an anon asking for advice for senior pranks at his high school. Within the first few posts, someone said "Take a cow upstairs. They can only walk up stairs and can't walk down. It usually takes a crane to get them out."

The thread continued to use the phrase "usually takes a crane to get them out" in various different situations, and there were variations such as "put a crane upstairs. usually takes a cow to get them out"

This meme is now on Meme Generator for easy macro-creation. Some of the macros include:

This meme is still new, and it's development may or may not take off. Threads on /b/ haven't shown much use of this catchphrase, but it has potential and can be used in a lot of situations.