Iconic "Spider-Man pointing" meme: Exploring the history of the meme as Tobey, Andrew and Tom recreate it

With over $1.8 billion in the gross worldwide box office, Spider-Man: No Way Home has become the biggest hit of all Spidey films. NWH has also become the sixth highest-grossing film under 2018's Avengers: Infinity War.

No Way Home's success primarily relies on the movie featuring three Spideys working alongside each other. A meme based on the classic 1967 Spider-Man cartoon series featuring three live-action Spidermen has been circulated on the internet even before NWH was a possibility.

Now, a behind-the-scenes photo of Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland recreating the iconic picture has gone viral on the web (pun not intended).

The iconic meme was also recreated briefly in the film itself when the three Peter Parkers point at each other during the third-actor battle of the movie.

After what seemed like an eon of waiting, Marvel and Sony have finally admitted to Garfield and Maguire's involvement in No Way Home. The studios have finally started to promote the film featuring all three versions of the web-crawler and announced the digital release date for the massively successful movie.

On February 23, Marvel Studios released the behind-the-scenes pictures online with the caption:

"Of course, we got THE meme."

Following this, a legion of fans took to their social media to applaud the meme. Several fans were ecstatic to see the studios acknowledging the other two Spidey stars in the film after months of denial regarding their involvement.

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Origin of the "Spider-Man pointing" meme

The original meme was a still from the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon's season 1 episode 19B, titled the "Double Identity." In the episode, Peter Parker clashes with a criminal who impersonates the web-crawler to steal art. The antagonist of the storyline is Charles Cameo, who is an actor-turned criminal.

Later in the episode, Peter Parker catches Cameo while stealing precious art and treasures, when the villain pretends to the officer that he is the real Spidey. It was this confusion over the real and imposter web-crawler that gave birth to the famous meme.

This meme reportedly went viral around 2011. Later, three cinematic versions of the character were edited into the template. In Sony's Oscar-winning 2018 animated film, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the post-credit scene featured Miguel O'Hara's version of the character mistakenly reaching the 1960s' animated universe.

In the clip, he is showcased having a similar humorous interaction with the cartoon Spidey.