Einen an der Waffel comes from Werner Beinhart, the 1990 film adaptation of Broesel's popular Werner comics about a rebellious plumber and biker. The title phrase is a common German idiom for being crazy or having a screw loose, literally having something wrong at the waffle, and the film's blunt northern humour helped fix it in everyday speech. Clipped for soundboards and chats, it survived long after the cinema run. On German soundboards it is often grouped with kann es sein das du dumm bist and other short insult reactions.