'Succulent Chinese meal' guy addresses video that made him famous 33 years later

When your gearing up to suggest a Chinese takeaway for tea, a few things tend to pop into your mind.

For starts, will it be a yes? Of course. Are you going to pretend to be that bloke off Gavin and Stacey asking 'Did someone order a Chinese?' when you walk in with armfuls of grub? Probably.

And are you going to refer to your scran as a 'succulent Chinese meal' while scoffing it down? Absolutely!

More than three decades on from when the iconic video of a bloke getting bundled into the back of a police car while bellowing in a Shakespearean voice went viral, we're still quoting it on a weekly basis.

He was strong-armed out of a restaurant in Sydney, Australia, in front of various news crews as a gang of coppers placed him under arrest and tried to shut him up - all the while shoving him into the back of a police car.

But this so-called criminal had a right set of lungs on him and decided to use them - and the waiting press - to his advantage by voicing his displeasure to the dozens of cameras pointed at him.

In a theatrical voice, the man yelled: "Gentlemen, this is democracy manifest! Have a look at the headlock here. See that chap over there, he - Get your hands off my penis! This is the bloke who got me on the penis people."

By this point, the red-faced officers are desperately trying to cuff him and get him on his way.

But the bloke continued his rant, saying: "Why did you do this to me? What is the charge? Eating a meal? A succulent Chinese meal!"

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As you can see, there's plenty of iconic lines in there to chose from, but it's the last one which really made an impact.

When it first started circulating way back in 1991, there was speculation that the mystery man was a Hungarian chess player named Paul Charles Dozsa, who was notorious for dining and dashing - hence his arrest at a restaurant.

But this was merely a rumour and the real 'succulent Chinese meal' lover was later unmasked as Jack Karlson.

The star of the legendary meme, who lives in regional Queensland, explained that people did loosely get part of the story right during a chat with LADbible in 2020.

Jack explained: "They [the police] thought I was some international criminal, a Hungarian who used to rob restaurants.

"They thought I was him... which I'm obviously not. They ran in and arrested me and that's what you saw on the video.

"I knew the cops hated me so I thought they might have tried to grab me for something I did not do."

He claimed he opted for his unorthodox solution of 'pretending to be a lunatic' due to years of bad interactions with cops, so he reckoned they might cart him off to an asylum instead of prison.

The Aussie continued: "Back in those days I was a bit wild, and I thought maybe I just carry on the way I carry on and they might send me to a lunatic asylum. "They're easy to escape from...I've done it a couple of times before.

"They dragged me out of the restaurant and I just carried on. They were trying to put handcuffs on me, pulling my arm behind my back, I just thought I would say something that would distract them."

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He was eventually let go and went back to living his life - until he later found out that the video had gone viral about eight years ago when someone told him he 'was on that internet thing'.

Nowadays, Jack is leaning into the fact that he is a major part of Australian meme culture and has now sat down with New Zealand comedian and TV star Guy Williams to address his claim to fame 33 years later.

In the debut episode of the funnyman's new season of New Zealand Today, where he comically investigates the 'most interesting' news stories, the pair spoke about the origin of the 'succulent Chinese meal' statement.

Guy just wanted him to settle a row between two Chinese restaurants in Auckland about who serves better food, but they had a good old chinwag too.

After telling Jack that his voice is 'absolutely beautiful', he then got down to business and asked what was going through his mind when he was being nicked.

The meme star said: "That democracy manifest arrest, I probably was thinking, 'here it is again, they're doing the same thing all over again, the police'. Run in with guns and handcuffs. I thought, 'well, let's make a show of all this!'"

He admitted that the police officers didn't actually brush up against his manhood as he had claimed and explained that he said it 'because I was being arrested', while adding: "You should be able to say things like that, shouldn't you?"

And much to a lot of viewers disappointment, Jack revealed that he had made up the fact he was trying to pretend he was insane so that he would get thrown into an asylum.

Asked if he was simply 'talking sh*t', he replied with a chuckle: "Yeah, course."