Three things punctuate my memory of 2004: crying over how pathetic I was at Dance Dance Revolution, Lindsay Lohan and a series of commercials featuring two haunting creatures with misshapen eyes and mouths screaming at me about the delights of Quiznos subs. “We love the subs, coz they are good to us,” yelled a weird and disconcerting creature in a bowler hat, before going on to describe the sandwiches at Quiznos as tasty, crunchy and warm. So, you’re probably wondering: Why am I talking about this now, in the year 2019? Well, a tweet reminiscing about those creatures ― the spongmonkeys (yes, that’s their actual name; more on that in second) ― and their musical stylings by writer Erin Sullivan took off on Sunday night. Which made me realize that I still remember every single lyric to these dumb ads. Sullivan’s tweet quipped that the spongmonkeys were why millennials don’t own homes ― a riff off the very 2019 internet joke that stems from claims that millennials can’t afford homes because of things like avocado toast and lattes. The tweet has more than 15,000 retweets and 58,000 likes.

millennials don’t own homes because this quiznos commercial put a hex on us as children pic.twitter.com/Cmg6QcyYHW — Erin Sullivan (@sullivem) June 17, 2019

In response to Sullivan, I’ve been pleased to realize that I’m not the only who remembered and have never stopped thinking about these bizarre commercials:

Hol up.



I entirely forgot that quiznos was advertising with a short lived internet meme long before the current state of corporate twitter.



Like they actually aired this on tv where your dad could see it. Ahead of their damn time. — Silveretta (@Saint_SIl) June 17, 2019

I think about this commercial once a week, easily.



My eyes often loose focus and I'll chant "dey got a pepper bar" in a high pitched wail directed up towards an uncaring god. Does he hear my cries? Does he care? Only the shadows truly know and they refuse to say as of yet. — Ryan Hartman (@RyanHartmanWins) June 17, 2019

I see Quiznos is trending and all I have to say is;



Every time I get sleep paralysis, I think of your hell-spawns called the Spongmonkeys.



Screw you, Quiznos, for cursing me. pic.twitter.com/0ptgLsd9AB — Ty 😃 (@tcmich31) June 17, 2019

Let’s get back to the basics here. For starters, what the actual fuck is a spongmonkey? As spongmonkey is a portmanteau of the term “spong,” which on British website b3ta means “the practice of adding large staring eyes with small pupils to an image,” plus, well, monkeys. They were created by writer and animation director Joel Veitch, who appeared to have made them in 2003 and featured them in a delightfully odd video called “We Like the Moon.” “The song was improvised with my brother Alex. We had been to the pub, and bashed the song out when we got home. I made the lyrics up as I went along, and it was recorded on to a video camera. The next morning I watched it back, still liked it, so I put together the animation and whacked it up on the internet,” Veitch told me via email.

Quiznos didn’t elaborate on how it became intrigued by the spongmonkeys, but told HuffPost that its “brand team has enjoyed taking a trip down memory lane in the Twitter comments.” “Some things will never change, though. We still love da moon, and we still have a pepper barrr,” Mark Lohmann, Quiznos’ chief brand officer, said in an email. I learned how Quiznos got ahold of them via a 2004 Slate interview with the company’s chief marketing officer, Trey Hall. Apparently, the brand’s ad firm received a clip of Veitch’s “We Like the Moon” from his site rathergood.com and “decided it was perfect for a new campaign.” The sandwich brand was apparently seeking to make a “dramatic” statement with its small advertising budget; the spongmonkeys Quiznos commercials became part of a Quiznos ad campaign that hit TV screens all around the United States during the 2004 Super Bowl. Veitch told me that Quiznos had their “agency writing on the songs [too], as they are commercials and that’s how commercials work.” He also indicated that his favorite of the spongmonkey ads ― yes, there was more than one ― was the one where the creatures are dressed as Huns, helmets and all. “It’s not particularly well known but it is my favourite. I feel like there is something particularly noble in their assertion that they are too civilised to eat raw subs. Yes, those little Spongmonkies are very refined, and anyone who thinks otherwise should be ashamed of themselves,” said Veitch.