- I accidentally became a meme
and this is that story.
My name is Joe Cirkiel and you may know me from this meme.
- Have you ever had a dreams, that, that you had?
- This all started in the year 1999.
I was five years old.
My favorite thing to do when I was a kid
was watch fantasy action stuff,
you know, Dragon Ball Z, Power Rangers.
I liked all the Disney stuff.
Hercules came out around the summer
before I went into kindergarten
and I definitely watched it a lot.
I really liked the soundtrack, especially "Zero to Hero."
That was a tune, that still is a tune.
One day, my mom reached out to me and said,
"Do you want to be in a movie?"
There was a few schools that they filmed at
for this HBO production.
The reason my elementary school got picked, in part,
was because the production manager,
their kid was in my class,
or in one of the kindergarten classes.
At first, I really had no idea
what this production was about.
They had repurposed one of the bigger classrooms
to look sort of like a nursery.
There's lights, there's cameras.
I picked up pretty early on
that it was about bedtime stories and rituals,
because that was what the people interviewing us
were interested in.
So they were asking us guiding questions to that effect.
The red sweater, the haircut, that was like all of my mom.
She really wanted me to get on TV.
They were asking us a bunch of questions.
There wasn't anyone that I would consider a rival per se,
but there were kids that were even better
at getting the attention of the producers.
And based on a promise I made to my mother
in the car this morning
that I was definitely gonna get on TV,
I kind of had a sense that time was running out
and I didn't get as much talking time
as compared with the other kids on my panel.
And then they asked me about dreams.
I remember this one scene from Hercules
where Hercules searches out for Pan,
who's Danny DeVito's character.
He doesn't want to train anybody anymore and he's a failure.
So that's when Hercules comes in
and tries to persuade him about a dream.
"Have you ever had a dream?
I've had a dream that I wanted so much
that I could do anything."
And once he said that it really resonated with Pan
and Pan said, "Okay, fine.
I'm gonna train you."
And the rest is history.
So that was when I came in
with my Hail Mary speech about dreams.
Suffice to say, I didn't come even close
to what Hercules had to say about dreams.
- Have you ever had a dreams, that, that you, um
you had, you could, you do, you.
- I'm thinking a little bit slower than how I'm talking,
which tends to happen, so.
- You, you can do so, you do, you can you.
- But I'm kind of hoping that if I have the beginning
and the end of that speech down,
everything else was gonna kind of fall into place.
- You could, you want him to do you so much
you can do anything.
- So as everyone likes to point out,
my signature lean back and smile is just like,
"oh, I totally nailed that."
If memory serves me,
the reaction in the room was very dead pan and professional
by the interviewers.
So they just kind of let me talk like, "Oh, okay.
Yeah, dreams, sure like, run with that.
And, oh, you know, we're all set here, Joe.
Like, that was great, you know, good job."
I wasn't too sure whether they were gonna use anything
that I said,
but I definitely felt like what I said
was really, really compelling.
I didn't hear much follow-up about the movie
until it was time to go see the premier in New York.
And so it was this big, fancy hall that HBO booked out
and they invited all the kids that had a speaking part
and it was kind of a red carpet moment.
And I enjoyed watching the production
and all my other friends that talked.
And then my part is an outtake at the end of the movie.
The whole audience is laughing at me.
With the benefit of hindsight,
I think they were more so laughing with me,
but I didn't feel that at the time.
And I actually was so upset with the producers.
I actually blamed them.
I thought that they had manipulated the film in some way
to make it look like I stammered.
I didn't even accept that I had stammered on the camera,
which isn't true, but it's just to say,
I wasn't necessarily a good sport about that.
Especially because for the rest of my childhood
and early teenage years,
that was always gonna be shown at most family reunions.
Anyone in my family that wanted to get a VHS or a DVD
of that documentary, got it.
And they all reveled in my part.
And I just kind of want that swept under the rug.
I want to get past it.
And it was more or less buried.
And then one of my friends reaches out to me in high school
and he says, "Dude, I can't believe it.
Somebody circulated the clip of your video."
Eventually someone put that on YouTube
and it started to get momentum.
It was in the tens of thousands
to the hundreds of thousands of views.
The last time I looked on YouTube,
but the original post it's about 76 million views.
And that's just YouTube.
So now I want to take this opportunity
to say what I meant to say that time.
Have you ever had a dream that was so palpable,
so crucial to your goals and your aspirations
that you would do absolutely anything to accomplish it?
I've had that dream and this is my story.
(laughs)
(exciting music)