Charlie the Unicorn, Filmcow, and indie YouTube animation

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
In the mid to late two thousands,a series of disturbing incidents
occurred, harassment and coercionby two disturbed bad actors,
taking a bystander on a nonsensicaljourney, resulting in organ harvest.
And then two friends, one innocentand one guilty involved in a series
of crimes and murders resultingin countless senseless deaths.

(00:24):
Yet like many criminals we've seen,both were celebrated and adored by
internet fans repeating their manifestos.
Charlie Carl, welcome to Rewind Time.
This episode we're covering filmcow, the creator of Charlie, the
unicorn and llamas with hats.

(00:47):
Yo, it's rewind time, Mer.
Welcome to episode 12 of RewindTime, a YouTube history podcast.
I am here with co-host YouTuber Lucy.
Liven.
Wow.
Hi.
And I am your other host, max.
I have not seen much YouTubefor the record, but today

(01:11):
that's gonna start to change.
Oh.
Because our topic for todayis the Channel Film Cow.
Mm-hmm.
Which is an animation primarily focusedchannel, and it's most well known, I
would say, for the viral animated series.
Charlie The Unicorn.
Yes,

(01:32):
Lucy.
I've already said I'veseen Charlie the unicorn.
I imagine.
Have you seen Charlie the Unicorn?
I have.
I'm very familiar withCharlie, the Unicorn.
Okay.
Yeah.
I am as a child on the internetin 2008, I believe, which is when
it was first popped on YouTube.
Although it may have appearedearlier on New Grounds.
It was on New grounds, yeah.

(01:53):
In like 2005 according to, I'll get into
that.
I just wanna know when you firstsaw a film Cow video, which I
imagine is Charlie The Unicorn.
I was shown Charlie theUnicorn by my cousin, and I
used to watch it with my dad.
Wow.
Dad.
Dad mentioned.
Dad mentioned,
used to watch it, past tense.

(02:13):
Um, cool.
Okay.
How about you?
So I actually, this is funny.
Had a friend in primaryschool also called Charlie.
Oh.
And that I feel was my gatewayto Charlie the Unicorn.
So did you used to like do bits.
S saying Charlie to him?
Yeah, I believe so.
Like, have you, you won confirm,but not like, not well, no.

(02:35):
I just don't remember exactly thecontext of when I watched it, but unlike
basically all the other creators sofar with the, it's somewhat similar to
Pot of Puppet powers and that I haveseen some of probably the main videos.
Mm. But I have a more positive, uh,feeling towards Chad the Unicorn.
Wow.

(02:55):
Like
when we watched the videos, I had abit for the first time I think, in this
podcast series, a bit of nostalgia.
Wow.
Yeah.
Crazy.
I know.
Such a different vibe.
This episode thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Uh, and I was like, you know, this kindof hits Anyway, so, but I definitely,
it would've been around 2008 to 2010.

(03:16):
Mm-hmm.
And then as we'll get into, there'sa lot more Child of the Unicorn
after that, but I had never seenor knew anything about that.
Okay.
Yeah.
Alright.
Um, so Film Cow, the channel.
It is, uh, it's like an independent, uh,sort of production company, but really
there is one public guy, Beni behind it.

(03:39):
His name is Jason Steele.
Jason Steele.
Jason Steele.
He, it kind of gives
Jason Staton vibes.
It,
it is a cool hero.
It gives like, um, yeah,it gives like pseudonym,
yeah.
Like Max Eagles.
No, that's, it's
like a fake name.
Okay.
So just saying my full, fulllegal name on the podcast.
It's
literally your Instagram handle.
Um, okay, cool.
That's fine.
Should we cut that then?

(03:59):
No, no, no.
It's, it is in the descriptionif you scroll all the way
to the bottom, so, okay.
Um, it's just, uh, it's actually
your secret agent identity.
It's more, look, sorry, sidebar guys.
It's more when we put up a transcriptionof their episode when it has my name,
would people Google it in future?
It's more sticky that it comes tothings like this, but, you know.

(04:24):
Okay.
My digital footprint already Ithink is, uh, suffered damage
as a result of this project.
But Film Cow.
So Jason, Jason is posting on originallymuch like Mosh his own sort of website.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and it's called, let me find it.
I had it up.
It's called Stalling.

(04:46):
Stalling.
Sorry.
Should I play music?
You can do it.
I got,
I got lost in the La Lamais my la notes film com.
It's called Secret Agent Bob.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, that does ring a bell.
Um, and then that starts gettingposted on new grounds, which we
talked about in the Neil Cga.

(05:06):
Neil Cga.
It's very, actuallysimilar vibes to Neil Cga.
Yes.
I was thinking that as wewere kind of watching through,
um, some of the other work.
Yeah.
Mm. Um, but the new grounds,obviously, like we talked about in
the Neil episode, a lot of early flashanimation and other sort of Yeah.
Creative posting.
Mm-hmm.

(05:27):
Um, sort of grew from that community.
And it was not until 2008 that filmcast stuff, I believe, was posted on
YouTube, not by Jason, by someone else,but it was the Charlie the Unicorn video.
And that of course became a viral hit.
It may have been, no, I was tryingto figure out if I've seen it earlier

(05:47):
than 2008, but I think it was 2008.
I know because of the timeline of whatI was still in contact with my dad.
Oh yeah,
the, so this is actually crazy how muchwork it used to be, and still obviously
animation is very intensive, but hedrew the animation using Photoshop,

(06:10):
then he animated it in Flash andthen he edited it in Final Cup Pro.
Yeah.
Animation is so much work, I don't think,is this, this is the first animation
created we've covered on the pot, right?
The first, I would sayperson who's main, primary.
Yeah.
Because
see, Neil did a bit ofanimation, but it's how, how's

(06:31):
his own genre of animation?
Oh, so true.
Sorry, I should, I must pay tribute.
But I think, um, as we go on, uh,the YouTube community feels quite
passionate and protective of creatorswho primarily do animation content.
Yeah.
Because it is so timeconsuming and there is.

(06:53):
Just speaking a bit more, like broadlyon animation on YouTube, there is
definitely a sense that animation,animation YouTubers contribute a lot
in like a cultural aspect, or they workreally hard, but they don't get rewarded.
Um, because the nature of animation,like to make an animated video, you know,
you have to spend hours and hours andhours to get like a minute of footage.

(07:15):
Yep.
Um, and later down the line, obviouslyYouTube tended to prefer longer form
content, which for animators madetheir life a little bit more difficult.
Yeah.
We'll touch on that.
We'll touch on it later.
This was a good days of animation.
So this is like three
minute viral videos.
Yeah.
Era.
Yeah.
Well, YouTube
had a, an upload limit.
Oh, correct.
So you couldn't just like, we dodump, who's the YouTube expert now?

(07:37):
Like hours, hours ofcontent on the platform.
Just hours and hours.
We do be dumping.
Um,
anyway, so Charlie, the unicorn.
Mm-hmm.
Um, the original upload is not by Jason,it's by a guy called Jeff Swanson.
And he posted a copy onYouTube from New Grounds.
Mm-hmm.
And that video is still up as faras I can tell, and it has, um, more

(07:57):
video views than the actual filmcow official upload that came later.
But, you know, kind of coolthat they didn't take down the
original as far as I can tell.
Mm.
So in total, does Charlie, the unicorn,like the first one, it has like probably
over a hundred million views, right?
I feel like it's pretty prolific.
I feel like most people I know it's
probably the second mostCharlie viewed video.

(08:18):
Am I right?
Yeah.
As opposed to Charlie bit my finger.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I, I know you too.
Look at you go,
maybe we should swap rolls for the pod.
So, um, yeah, I think yeah,if the original's at 60, 68
million on the original for the originaland then it's actually so funny.
It's just the guy just Jess Swanson.
Jess Swanson.
It's like his personal channel.

(08:38):
Um, and then, and then 44 onthe, okay, so over a hundred
million.
I can do simple math.
I'm so talented.
Um, yeah, classic upload and, you know.
I was the introducer, I was the, I broughtit, so my cousin, who was like quite a bit
older than me, showed it to me and my dad,and then I went to school and I showed
it to my friends in, in middle school.

(09:00):
How was YouTube not banned?
It was like on the,
you download the video?
No, I think
this was like pre, because itwas still like 2000 and it might
have been like 2009 or something.
Yeah, so YouTube was like stillquite early, so maybe they, I
don't think they banned it yet.
Interesting.
On the school internet.

(09:20):
I don't remember ever watching YouTube.
Maybe I downloaded it at school,
I don't know, but I definitelyshowed it to my friends.
So
we should, for people who, forwhatever reason are not familiar
with Charlie, the unicorn.
Yeah.
And the video's only what,like five minutes long?
Explain what it is.
You could just watch it.
Yeah.
But in lieu of that, wewill give, we'll do a full
reenactment.
We'll
give a little, well, when we were watchingit, you knew it like line by line.

(09:43):
Yeah.
Which I was surprised by.
I don't know how you're surprised by this.
It's never really come up
that you were like sucha fan of child uniform.
I don't think
I'm such a, I think I just havelike, good memory for like,
early media that I consumed.
Mm-hmm.
Like, it's not like now, you know,it's not like these days when you're
on TikTok and you're scrollingand watching like, you know, a
hundred videos in a single session.

(10:05):
Yeah.
You have like the one video thatyou are into for like a week.
Yes.
So,
um, so for anyone that's unaware, Charlieis a unicorn and he is like a, a crotchety
type, I would say his character basis.
He's, he's grumpy.
Yeah.
He's a, he's not grumpy, a complainer.

(10:25):
Like he's, it's dep.
He's depressed basically.
Um, a bit of an eore type guy.
Hey,
let's not, um, cho he's likearmchair diagnosed Charlie.
He's
like, like a pre BoJackhorseman, if you will.
True.
Uh, and he goes on adventures,which are at the behest of two
unnamed unicorn characters.
Yes.
They're pink and blue.

(10:46):
Yeah.
I kind of always thought itwas purple, purple and blue.
But Jason said it wasblue, so I guess it's blue.
Okay.
They look, it's purple To me,it's like a lilac if anyone cares.
Um, and they Do you wannado your charlie voice
like the unicorn when they say
it?
Yeah.
Charlie.
Yeah.
Charlie, something that comes up, Ithink a lot in, uh, these film car

(11:07):
animations is someone repeating a name.
Mm-hmm.
Like the repetition of a name.
Yeah.
True.
Bit of a true, uh, 'cause we have that
in llamas with hats as well,which we'll touch on a lot.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Um, but the first Charlie of the Unicornand, uh, all of them that follow bar.
The, the finale, uh, which we'llget to, but all of them follow a
formula where Charlie goes on thisadventure and he eventually reaches

(11:31):
the final destination of the adventure.
Mm-hmm.
And a character performs a song.
It's a musical number.
Yes.
Yeah.
And typically the character explodes,and then Charlie is covered in blood and
there's normally a gag at the end, likein the original chart of the unicorn
spoilers, he has his kidney stolen.
Yeah.

(11:52):
Uh, so there's a few things thatI think we should talk about.
So let's just hit, I think mainlineCharlie, the unicorn entries, and then
we'll talk a bit about what film Cow, therest of the channel sort of looks like.
Mm-hmm.
And then we should probablydo lamas with hats.
Yeah.
Which is, you know, the other, theother notable series, I think giving

(12:13):
structure.
Um, but it's
giving topic statement.
It's giving, yeah.
Yeah.
In today's essay, I will, um, when we putthe first Charlie of the Unicorn on, I
feel like we were both having a giggle.
We were both enjoying it quite a bit.
You had a giggle.
Okay.
Just me then I, I reacted minimally, youknow, I'm sure no one's really surprised.

(12:34):
Uh, but I did, when the second onecame on, I, I was like, oh yeah,
this is my favorite for a reason.
But we should talk aboutnumber one, candy Mountain.
Did you like the Candy Mountain song?
I nearly for, I kind of forgot the CandyMountain song in lieu of some of the, the
more iconic musical numbers in the series.
Um, but I do, I, the, my favorite part ofthe first one is the, the Leo Raddon, when

(12:59):
they like come across this, which is like
a, a giant, like it's likea dinosaur whale thing.
Yeah.
Prehistoric animal
thing.
It's like the thing that eatsthe girl in Jurassic World.
Please don't talk about that.
I, you know, I I'll include a clip.
No, don't include a clip.
I, no, they're still, still,every time I think about that.
Okay.
This is a sidebar.
I'm like extremely disturbed bythat one clip from Jurassic World

(13:22):
where, um, the hot girl from Merlin,um, who is now like a babysitter
to Chris Pratt's, not girlfriend'schildren, ex-girlfriend's children.
Mark is like thrown around.
Is it pr house house's?
No, I can't remember.
Whatever.
Random.
Random children.
And then this woman is looking after'em, and then she's like yed around

(13:43):
by dinosaurs before she's eatenby like the, I actually, sorry.
It like makes me nauseous.
It's like so disturbed and it's so totallydifferent from the rest of the movie.
Anyway, back to Charlie,the unicorn, the Leo Raddon.
This just does so play into likeearly internet, just like, it's kind
of like random xd, but I think ithas aged well where they just come
across because everything is animatedin this very cartoony like style.

(14:04):
But the Leo Raddon is like alittle bit more, I would say, like.
It's, it's more like photo,like, what's the word?
Photorealistic.
It's hard work from
a textbook.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That he's cut out in Photoshop
and Charlie just beinglike, what the hell is that?
And they're like, Leo, plu, DawnCharlie and Magical Leo plu Dawn.
I clearly have spent a lot oftime on my, um, pink and purple or

(14:25):
pink and blue unicorn impression.
I hope everyone's reallyimpressed listening at home.
It was good.
Yeah, it was good.
Thank you.
Um, I was kind of like after, andwe've watched a lot of music in
the 11 episodes that preceded this.
Uh, and I was kind of struck by howmuch I liked the Candy Mountain song.
Yeah.
Because I was like, oh, wow.

(14:46):
There's like instruments, lyrics here thatare building towards a larger narrative.
Mm. And there's music, which islike consistent with the tone and
things that are happening on screen.
Wow.
I was like, oh.
It's like, it's like basicallywe are back with like someone who
feels like they have, uh, like a.

(15:06):
Holistic artistic vision.
You know what I'm saying?
I do know what you're saying.
Yeah.
It's very good.
So that was cool.
And that carries through into thesecond one, which I think, I think
the second one might be my favorite,
Charlie The unicorn two.
I think
it does, it starts off with the unicorns.
So Charlie's had his kidneystolen and now it seems in the
second one he is recovering.

(15:29):
Um, you know, just hanging out.
He's sitting on like a little cupand he's watching TV and you hear the
two unicorns float down from the skyand they go clap club, club, club.
And they're wearing like littleflippers and snorkel masks.
Um, it's like so nonsensical.
I also need to say I'm obsessed withthe way that pink and purple, pink
and blue unicorns move where theydo the, like, um, the frame rate.

(15:53):
They, they flip in a way, whichI can't really illustrate.
And I'm sorry to our audio listening.
So it's like
the animation is, um, Ibriefly, the style is basically.
Uh, if you're familiar withsort of a flash animation of the
time, you have a 2D backdrop.
Mm-hmm.
You have 2D charactersin front of the backdrop.
Mm-hmm.
So, you know,
foreground background.

(16:14):
Yeah.
Let's go.
And
then they shuffle along.
So kind of like Mario.
Mm. Uh, along from leftor right, you know.
Mm-hmm.
But when the horses, sorry, theunicorns will move, they will flip.
Like they're like a piece of paper.
Uh, but they don't maintain,they have no 3D presence.
It's also
like they flip, he, he skipslike he could put more,

(16:37):
wow.
Sorry, I'm blowing up here.
Wow.
You're blowing up too popular mind this.
But there's an election, youknow, if you follow politics this
weekend in Australia, uh, and, uh,you know, it was a good result.
No spoilers, but quite happy,quite happy with how it went.
Sorry.
Yeah.
It was, it was a, it was a nice result.
It was, let's

(16:57):
just say the unicornI backed was a winner.
Oh, we love the powerof preferential voting.
Um, but no, the thing about theunicorns, it's like they skip frames.
Like he clearly can put moreframes in, but he chooses to
have them flip in like three.

(17:17):
I don't know how to Yeah, it's like,
yeah, well they're not, so like the, andcomplete layman's thing is like YouTube
videos typically 25 to 30 frames a second.
But animation isn't animated likeon the one from what I understand.
'cause it depends on, so depends.
That would take so much work.
Yeah.
Not, not his flash animations.

(17:38):
They're not, no.
Um, so yeah, they can animate somecharacters faster than others.
It's more that
you can tell he makes them walk verysmoothly, but when they flip, it's
like really like chunky and not smooth.
I'm not using the right uh, wordshere, but as you can tell, I'm not
visually artist statistically talented.
Yeah.
In
another timeline, animation wouldre like remain the YouTube meta.

(18:01):
Mm. And we'll be here with 20 yearsof YouTube animation history, and we'd
be like experts on the subject matter
anyway.
It just, it just tickles me like whenthey flip or they like go up into the
air and they kind of like oscillate.
Yeah.
It's so funny.
Um,
the plot of this one, Charlie has to,and guys, honestly, there are some
people very much into film Cow law.

(18:23):
Yeah.
We are not
that
No.
Is it is for us a vibesbased piece, you know?
Yeah.
Like peacefully it's a setup
for jokes.
It's
cool that it's there and it's, it'slike so many internet things, it's
like, yeah, there can be law and you candive into it if you want, but like the
surface level stuff is really enjoyable.
Yeah.
You, you can, you can enjoy it withouthaving to go through the Wiki and

(18:43):
understand everything, in my opinion.
Um, yeah.
Yeah.
But this one there is like,they're retrieving some amulet
and they're going to amulet,uh, banana Mountain and isn't be
when they like speak backwards, whereit's like, here's it, here's it.
Well, they go and see, uh, z
Oh.
And are they, are they speaking Spanish?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
They're,
there's, so I, I feel like when we'reexplaining it, it makes no sense.

(19:05):
Obviously, we would recommend you justgoing and watching these, um, you know,
give them, give them some more views.
But the, uh, the gag Z is they justare walking through the forest and
come across what is like a statueof the letter Z or Z We're from
Australia, so it's Z, but it's Z.
And they just go Si andstart speaking in Spanish

(19:26):
and Z is talking back.
Yeah.
It's talking back.
It's like a beeping andflashing kind of like a close
encounters type, like alien vibe.
Yeah.
Um, and I love, what I love somuch about so many of these gags
is that they're never explained.
Um, and Charlie is acting as like yourkind of the, the POV character where
he's like, what the fuck is that?

(19:46):
And they just move on.
Yeah.
Like, they just keep, he, I think itwas like, just keep walking Charlie.
Yeah.
Well, like a convention of the series is.
There are, um, sort of sceneswhich take place during Charlie and
the unicorn's journey to mm-hmm.
The end McGuffin.
Yeah.
Uh, and this one I think has thebest sequence of that, which is where

(20:07):
the two unicorns just keep going.
Do the noise.
They just do that and don't explain, andCharlie's like so annoyed, but they just
keep doing it and it's like, so, andthey're just walking through the Yeah.
The forest backdrop that, it's so funny.
This one
also has the choo shoe.
Yeah.

(20:27):
Which is, they go, we have to get ona train and it's just a, a sneaker.
I think the joke is obviously'cause it's a trainer.
Yeah.
Which, but obviously Americans, youwould probably call it a sneaker.
Um, but we, he's like, there's no train.
It's just a shoe.
And they're like that shoe Charlie.
And then they get in and theygo, chugger, chugger, chugger.

(20:49):
Shoe.
Shoe.
Hoo.
And again.
Completely inconsequential.
Like there's all these fun tableausand you could just cut them all
out and it would be the same.
Um, they're completelyinconsequential from point A
to B, and that's why I love it.
So they make it to banana, what's it
called?
The temple of the banana cake.
Yeah,

(21:09):
the banana place.
They need to, they're goingto find the banana king.
Yeah.
To give him the amuletagain, question mark.
Doesn't really matter.
I mean Okay.
Some people would say it matters.
Doesn't really matter foryour enjoyment of the video.
And it's like a pyramid.
It's like a temple.
Um,
I did want to note, I made a note on this,that on the temple, the Moderna temple

(21:31):
there is like the imagery of a hammer andsickle, as in like the Soviet imagery.
Mm. But they've changed it.
So that's a hammer and a banana.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was like, oh, you know, it's likean Easter egg for the parents in Trek.
You know, you're like, oh, the kidsare not gonna get that one, but
the, the dads are gonna love it.

(21:52):
Well, in the first Charlie Unicorn we hadthe C-A-N-D-Y, we had like the dancing
letters of the Candy Mountain sign.
Yeah.
And in this one we have, how would youdescribe our, uh, musical performer?
The, it is like, it's not, it has no, Iwould say at best, it's like, almost like,

(22:12):
it's kinda like a seal comes the ground.
It's like it green
slug with a Christmas hat and a beard.
It's so stupid, but it kindof just appears out of the
sand underneath the pyramids.
Honestly, the, the Wikisays it's a serpent.
No,
I'm sorry, but that's what they say it is.

(22:33):
Oh, it also says a Santa hat.
Yeah, I think, yeah,
yeah, yeah.
It's
not described, but anyway, not
relevant.
He is the banana cane.
I presume,
well, no, he's not.
No.
Who's the banana king?
Oh, Charlie's the banana King.
Um, anyway, sorry.
We'll get to that.
But he sings a song.
Yeah.
And
I think the song, it's like the,the Peak of Charlie Unicorn.

(22:54):
I agree.
The song Put a banana in your ear.
Um, would you like to perform
some?
I can only do the, um,Charlie bits, I think.
Oh, sorry.
Okay.
Yeah.
Put a banana in your ear.
A
banana in my ear.
You maybe.
Okay.
That's, yeah, go for it.
Uh, but yeah, it's like increasinglyan elaborate, um, set piece where

(23:18):
eventually Charlie is like liftedby a chorus, uh, into the sky.
But you have him throughout doingtheir ad-libs of increasing, uh,
like exasperation your frustration.
Yeah.
Uh, well, everyone, including theunicorns are, you know, cheering him on.

(23:38):
Um.
And I just think the song's really catchy.
Yeah.
Put a banana in your e there'sa key change goes crazy.
So good.
Yeah.
It's a banger.
I think we've actually sung it aroundthe house prior to this episode.
Like in the course of our relationship.
I think you have sung.
Put a banana in your ear.
'cause you, I don't wanna expose youlike this, but you're a big banana guy.

(24:01):
You love bananas.
Monkey Monkey.
Uh, yeah, I don't think it's been awhile, but when I was watching this one
particularly, I think it was the, thething I had the most recollection of.
Okay.
Which is kind of cool.
Um, but yeah, so Charlie, you know, hegoes in the sky, he becomes the banana

(24:24):
king and then, you know, plot stuffhappens, you know, end of episode.
What's, what's the twistat the end of this one?
He, oh, they rob him.
Oh yeah, they
rob, they rob his like TV house.
They steal the TV setupfrom the beginning.
Yeah.
Um, this one released 2008.
Just for the, uh,timeline focused among us.
And one year later, among us, one yearlater we have Charlie, the unicorn three.

(24:49):
Do you have any recollectionof watching this at the time?
Because I do not.
Yes.
Oh you do?
This is the one with thestarfish is Love You.
That one that the wherethey go into the ocean.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which is funny 'cause the previousone starts with them being in the
ocean, but they don't go to the ocean.
And this one they do go to the ocean.
Yeah.
They uh, the unicorns comeback from the future allegedly.

(25:12):
Oh yeah.
They have time machines andthey say we the future Yay.
Like Terminator.
Mm-hmm.
They, Charlie we need you.
Um, and then they do a few,you know, journey gags.
Mm-hmm.
Um, I didn't really feelmuch about this Bark ring.
Ring.
Hello?
Yeah.
Ring ring.
Hello?
Hello?
Bing ring.
Hello.

(25:33):
Hello.
Um, 'cause it's another thing that'sjust I see would be very annoying.
But I wanna deploy.
I feel like Sounds fun.
Like I am gonna make a bold claim.
I believe that that was mydad's ringtone for a period of
time.
Really?
Yeah.
That's crazy.
I told you I wash it with my dad.
His ringtone actually used to be the,um, ringtone from the movie Crank.

(25:54):
I don't know what that is.
It, I know the movie,but what's the ringtone?
No, the one with Jason Statham.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Not Jason Steele.
But what's
the ringtone?
It's like the dying phone.
It's like the, like, it's like a phoneringing, but it sounds like it's dying.
Like the battery's dying.
Anyway, I have that as a memory.
That is, you know,
if you ever want to go on a wikihole, look at the directors of Crank.

(26:17):
They have an insane filmography.
We should watch Crank two.
I think I've seen it.
I have.
I've definitely seen Crank One
Crank.
We watched it together.
It was crazy.
Oh yeah.
Crazy, crazy times.
Wait, does it, isn't that like apoint where he just like has sex and
Yeah.
On the race course,
race course.
Maybe you haven't seen it.
I was, I watched bymy, there's one in like
Chinatown where he just has sex, right?

(26:40):
It's in San Fran or No, it's in la.
Anyway, wrong Jason.
That's Jason Sta we'retalking about Jason Steele.
Film Cow.
Yeah.
Good.
Good call.
Good callback.
Yeah.
So he goes, uh, down to the ocean andthere's the song, um, which, which
is in the ocean blue, I wanna say.
It's called In
the Ocean Blue.
Uh, and something differentabout this one is, there's like

(27:03):
a wrap, sort of like a wrap.
Mission shrimp.
Yeah.
Where he wraps all of the various fishand, you know, creatures under the sea.
Yeah.
Which is kind of cool.
It was banger.
So good.
And then, uh, they have to,is this, they have to say the
snowman or no, no, no, sorry.
Next one.
All good.

(27:23):
Don't worry.
No snowman in this.
Wow.
Spoilers.
Yeah, sorry.
Um.
But they are under the water.
This is the one I thinkwith the snowman shit.
It
is the Stoneman one.
Yeah, it is the snowman one.
We're getting, this is whythe law is so deep, deep.
The law is
to, yeah, you need to juststay, stay with the gags.
But in this one they're like, we have tosave the snowman or something like that.
There's a snowman.
It's from the future.
This one is where we do start toget a little bit more convoluted

(27:44):
with like the main pull points.
Um, but ultimately, likethat is still funny.
Like, because you know, theselike scam slash like violent
unicorns are just like saying likeMcGuffin stuff, which is funny.
Um, but they, you know, Charlie risesinto like some blinding light and then
he finds a snowman and he is like,

(28:05):
Ooh, I'm glad.
Bad.
Okay.
Oh, I just couldn't resist belting the,uh, that famous weekend, uh, pop hit guys.
Okay.
We love
Abel.
Okay.
Wow.
Um.
That was that you are so talented,special, Hey, what are you saying?

(28:26):
Continue your, continueyour frame of thought.
So Charlie then finds the snowman.
He wakes up, he's like, oh, where am I?
And he's like, oh my gosh,guys, I found the snowman.
And when he is revealed that his,his horn has been cut off his head.
Wow.
Devastating to make thenose for the snowman.
And another, another brutal act ofsenseless violence towards Charlie.

(28:48):
Poor Charlie.
So around this time, Jason wasrecruited presumably by YouTube to do
a short featuring the cast of Charliethe Unicorn to promote YouTube live.
Mm. So YouTube Live was an eventseries that YouTube put on where they
got a lot of like famous creators to.

(29:11):
Rub shoulders with famous YouTubers,and it was all streamed live,
uh, from San Fran and Tokyo.
Wow.
So the Charlie short references a bunchof YouTube memes, so I'll just run through
them Here we have, uh, Rick Rowling,
love Rick Hasley.
I'm aware,
I'm aware of that.
Wow.
You know, uh, and then alsovery funnily, chocolate rain

(29:34):
would we just copied?
Yeah.
Which if you'd asked me immediatelybefore last week what that
was, I would have no idea.
But, uh, of course, now shoutout to my boy Tesson Day.
Yeah.
You got the reference.
Another
person with great politics, uh,as we'll get into this episode.
Mm, yeah.
True.
Um, but yeah, so YouTube Live Shortand then YouTube live the event.

(29:56):
Katie Perry comes out and she'slike, welcome to, you know,
the first annual YouTube Live
Teenage Dream era, Katie.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Early first.
Not, not good album, but first album.
Sorry.
The lifetime she kissed a girltour is she kissed a girl.
So on my mind.
Um, but anyway, so Katie Perry islike, you know, we, we are doing this.
Yeah.
Annual event.

(30:16):
Uh, never, never, like never held again.
One and done.
One and done.
Yeah.
That's so sad.
I would be like levitatingif I got to a YouTube live.
That would be like that.
This is my dream event.
Can you, you should saywho else was at the event.
'cause it's literally likewhat I would give to go back
in time and be at this event.
Okay.
So
can you, Perry,
will, I am from the Black Eye Peas uhhuh.

(30:40):
Uh, will it blend?
Yep.
Are you familiar?
I just think, is it a channelwhere they blend stuff?
I really like Will it blend?
Maybe we should cover them.
Okay.
I'm surprised you haven't.
Yeah.
Okay.
Will it blend
Classic
something called Michael Buckley.
It rings a bell.
He does a show called What?
The Buck.
Okay.
No, nevermind.
Uh, I think he's sorry to this man.

(31:01):
Uh, the Happy Tree Friends.
Yeah, I was gonna say we shouldcover them on the pod as well.
Do you know Happy Tree Friends?
I do
not.
Oh, okay.
I, I know Happy Tree Friends.
Okay.
Make a note.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, Fred and Mosh.
I know them in the pod.
Yeah, we do.
Uh, someone called Esme Den who's a Dutchsinger, probably doesn't help, does it?

(31:22):
Nah.
Shout out to Esme.
Uh,
Bo Burnham.
Crazy.
Does that mean we get todo a Bo Burnham episode?
I don't know.
What does he do on YouTube?
Well, he was at YouTube live with Will.
I Am So clearly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Something we'll look into.
Um, this is funny though.
Uh, they gave an award to,uh, the Queen of Jordan.
Hmm.
Yes.

(31:43):
Like what?
Uh, Rainier Al Abdullah,the Queen of Jordan.
Like the actual.
Yes.
Queen of Jordan,
the wife of King Abdullah ii,
what award
they honored her for with the YouTubeVisionary Award, for her efforts to
combat stereotypes and misconceptionsassociated with Arabs and Muslims.

(32:06):
Okay.
I know
sleigh
and given this, uh, event was notcontinued, the only recipient Wow.
Of the YouTube Visionary Award.
So shout out to the Queen of Jordan.
Congratulations to the Queen, queen of
Jordan.
Shout out to the queen.
You are my queen.
Queen.
You are
our queen.
Um, but yeah, this, thiswas never hosted again.
RIP
So sad.
Yeah.
It's almost like they would needanother sort of event or annual thing

(32:29):
to honor YouTubers and creators.
Ah, look, it's almost like maybethey would just not bad make a video.
I can, it's almost likea, there's foursome.
Foreshadowing.
It's almost like aninspired, our podcast name.
Oh, re yeah.
Yeah.
YouTube.
Rewind.
Okay.
I'm so excited for us to watchYouTube rewinds, because,
but we are building up to it.
'cause you need to knowwho all the people Yeah.
In are work.
But

(32:50):
yeah.
Um, okay, so before we talk about therest of the Charlie Unicorn mm-hmm.
One other promo I want to mention aroundthis time is the hot topic promo promoting
the line of Charlie, the Unicorn merch.
That was then available at Hot Topic
Charlie The Unicorn.
Fred Shane Dawson.
I was gonna say, everyone had, we've
had a lot of hot topicdiscussion on this episode.

(33:11):
They were really ahead of the curve.
Have you ever boughtanything from Hot Topic?
I have.
Do you know what I've worn?
Oh,
oh, actually no.
I've probably never worn it whenwe've dated, but I had it and I
sold it for quite a reasonableamount of money recently.
Do you wanna tell me?
Yeah, sure.
I thought you were gonnaguess, but you don't know.
Oh, well

(33:31):
I thought my brain wasthinking of that community.
She, and I know you bought that at 30 Rock
That I did.
Yeah.
Wow.
The Rock is in the building.
You are on one today.
Um,
anyway, it's 'causeit's an evening record.
Yeah,
yeah.
In
case you can tell it by the lighting.
Um, anyway, so if you're, I boughtand I'll see if I can include an
image a 'cause the shirt is so, um,it's, you can tell that I was 13

(34:00):
when I bought it 'cause it's a pieceof odd future merch, odd future.
The wrap collective with Tyler,the creator most prominently.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, this was a shirt which wasabout the member Earl sweatshirt.
Oh yeah.
Who at the time was missing.
'cause he, I believe went toSamoa to be rehabilitated.

(34:23):
Whole bunch of stuff there.
Uh, but it's the, his vis, it's his,uh, likeness done in the odd future art
style, which I would describe as whatkind of looks like a child's painting.
Wow.
And it's, uh, quite a bright blue.
Wow.
That's quite a, um, a sophisticatedhot topic purchase, I feel.

(34:44):
Yeah.
I mean, I did it 'cause I, I was a, ateen, a 12, four, 13-year-old mm-hmm.
Teen in America.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, naturally, uh, uh, you know,underground rap music is pretty cool.
Got a huge thing here in Australia,certainly not in Brisbane.
That's very cool.
And so I got that pickup andI sold it fairly recently for

(35:05):
more than I bought it for.
So, pretty good pickup, you know.
Yeah.
Um, but yeah, that's my hot topic story.
Mm-hmm.
Did you have anything from Hot topic?
I did.
What did you
have?
I bought two T-shirts from HotTopic when I went to America.
Okay.
For the first time.
Can we get a year about.
Ooh.
Might've been like 2012.

(35:26):
Okay.
That's basically when I was there.
Yeah.
Wow.
We were connected even thenbefore we knew each other.
Of
course.
Do you wanna know what I bought?
I think I know.
Isn't it Naan Cat?
I bought a Yan Cat t-shirt on ya cat.
Sorry guys.
Ne Cat,
which it was just a blueT-shirt with like Yan cat on it.
Wow.
Uh, but I also wore another T-shirt,which was, um, of Pinky Pie from the,
uh, my Little Pony friendship is Magic br

(35:48):
Wow.
Because I was a
Brody.
Okay.
Well the, the store hasso much range, you know?
Yeah.
What other store has undergroundsort of, um, new wave hip
hop stuff and My Little Pony.
Mm. Maybe it sayssomething about us anyway,

(36:10):
that's why come together.
You know, we have like all these,all these spheres of culture covered.
Pinky the Brain are couple.
I don't, about Nene Kat.
Um, you don't, I just know it's the,well, is there more than that video?
Okay.
We'll have to Sure.
Okay.
We have to park it there for now.
All right.
There's too much to get into.
Yeah, there's certainly more toget into with My Little Pony.

(36:33):
Okay.
Banger.
Right.
Uh, briefly, let's sidetrack, um,and talk about as a whole, I think,
uh, Charlie Te Unicorn, which isthe parody series of Charlie, the
Unicorn that Jason starts, that we,I think both, uh, found really funny.
Well,

(36:53):
no,
no, it is, it is funny.
I think there was some parts whereI was like, oh, like maybe some
of it doesn't hold up as well assome of the Charlie of the unicorn.
What?
Well, okay.
I'll give you the context.
So Jason was like, I did this because.
I wanted to do a parody where itfeels like the commenters on chai,

(37:17):
the unicorn videos wrote the script.
Okay.
Because
they come up with all theselike, ideas that are, sorry guys.
They're, they're bad.
Mm. Uh, but they are funny.
Mm.
So, but sorry, you were gonna say
No, I, we, we can just get into the like
Yeah.
So the art style is like, they changeit to look, uh, less professional,

(37:40):
which admittedly doesn't take much.
Whoa.
It just means there's less lines.
Right.
It's,
it's less work.
And he is also doing likeless animation on each.
Yeah.
Like, they're not moving as much.
They kind of just like float around a bit.
They probably
can reuse maybe some of theassets from the episodes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, yeah.
Yeah.
It's, look, it's, it's, it'sa lower effort animation.
It's a simpler type of animation.
Yeah.

(38:01):
Um,
but I was, sorry, go ahead.
Oh, I was just gonna say, I just laughwhenever you say Charlie t Unicorn.
'cause it just reminds me of.
It reminds me of the skeleton army.
You're
obsessed with the skeletons,
just skeleton army.
Anyway, I would say the main changeoverall about, um, the parody series
is that, uh, they're two unicorns.

(38:22):
Uh, they become, uh, how do I say this?
They become like charactersfrom boys in the hood.
They, the voice acting of them has beenaltered so that they now, um, speak.
They have
the
exaggerated swagger of a young black teen.
You, just to be clear, everyone listeningthat Max is referencing a weird, uh,

(38:46):
I think they know, these guys know
well, not well, they can
Google the term.
Yeah.
It okay.
But, um, they have like, yeah, I was,we were sitting watching it and I was
like, at the unicorns doing a a VE.
It's probably the best way to describe it.
They are, and in the second series,so the second episode in the series.
That's made explicitly clear becausethey, uh, go on like a, a drug turf

(39:11):
war vendetta against, uh, the bananaLord from, it's like a GT 0.2.
It's like a
GTA script.
It's very, and they're fully
like shooting people with guns.
Yeah.
It, which is why Okay.
I wasn't sure if I was like, is this beingdone in like jest or is this being done
like, because of the time of the internetAnd we will watch some creators soon who

(39:35):
are not doing it in like an ironic way.
Yeah.
They're doing it in like a, it'sfunny to make fun of black people
way, which I was like, well,
I mean, it's not wrong to do that.
It's just more a topicof how is it done and
like what's the context.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
Um,
but no, I don't think there'sanything here that is,
it is just funny 'cause out of all of,uh, film cow's work, he has like never.

(40:00):
Done.
I would say like he's never putan effect on his voice to do
like an accent that is like,
well probably we don't know.
We didn't watch every video.
Yeah.
Because obviously, uh, there's,there's like hundreds of
videos on his channel, um,
hard to cover.
Same with any creatorwe cover pretty much.
Unless they have like a very smallvideo library, we can't watch everyone's
videos, like all of their videos.

(40:21):
Yeah.
I also, I think that for car, sorry,for creators who are not personality
based, the uh, benefit of watchinga lot more of the content I think
is sort of reduced because it's lessabout like their personal story because
it's more about we start just makingartistic judgements on the work.
Yeah.
Which is interesting.

(40:42):
Yeah.
But it's not necessarily like theirhistory, if you know what I'm saying.
Yeah,
yeah, yeah.
No, there is, there is a bitof difference in the type of
creators we've covered so far.
Yeah.
But I guess all to say, I was like,it's funny, but I was more laughing
from the aspect of it is an extremely.
Like outlandish choice to suddenly havethe unicorns be like code as black.

(41:04):
Yes.
Because they're obviouslypink and blue unicorns.
Yeah.
I just think it, it was reallycool to see the, um, like
conventions of the series disrupted.
Yeah.
So like the other one, the otherCharlie Unicorns quite formulaic.
These ones, they're a lot more freeform.
They
have guns Yeah.
And things like that.
Yeah.
It's just, and I get what he meansby talking about like the commenters.

(41:26):
Like they'll be like, wouldn't itbe funny if the unicorns had guns?
Yeah.
Or like,
and you know what, maybe in thisinstance the commentators were right.
'cause uh, uh, there, so thereare four Charlie Trons, um, the
back two, like, because the,there's not really plot focus.
Yeah.
It is mostly just rapid fire gags.

(41:47):
Uh, I did find them all pretty funny.
Mm. Uh, especially the thirdone where Therons, I guess.
Uh, I really just insistentthat they're in CSI Miami.
Yeah.
And they just keep yelling aboutCSI Miami, which as someone, they're
like, go to the beach, you know, assomeone who like made us watch NCIS.
Um, oh no, sorry, what's the SVU?

(42:09):
Sorry.
Yeah.
SVU uh, I do think that I do find crimeprocedurals like really quite funny.
Yeah, me too.
Um,
my favorite crime procedural is Lucifer.
Yeah.
Wow.
We can't get into on the
pod.
That would be, that would belike my alternate pod would
be El Lucifer Watch podcast.
'cause I, although Aly Okay.

(42:30):
I think Lucifer's like crazy,which if anyone doesn't know Yeah.
Sorry.
Lucifer an example where, uh, thetreatment of black characters is Yeah.
True.
Potentially.
It's
crazy in like an early episode, ifyou don't know Lucifer is like a pot.
It, it's a crime procedurewhere he's, he devil owns
a nightclub, but he alsohelps the police solve crimes.
Yeah.
Um, but he's like meant to be sexy,but he's also British, so he's like.

(42:53):
Ah, that was my British man impression.
Yeah, it's pretty good.
Can you do a better one?
Was he like, you can do it British show.
It's not offensive.
He's
what?
He's like, well, he like walks intoa, a gang banger, his apartment.
Jesus.
Uh, and he is like, getthis disgusting music off.
He talk like Russell boy.
Oh, what am I listening to?

(43:13):
But it's like, bro, you own a nightclub.
What do they play there?
Please
have some decorum.
Yeah.
And it's like you, uh, anyway, sorry.
Talk about Lucifer.
Um, wrap up Lucer chat.
Um, and I want to, let's tieoff Charlie, the unicorn.
There is a Charlie ofthe unicorn for mm-hmm.
Uh, and there's a songabout Miller Ps I Am
ma Feel like PI am amazed.

(43:34):
Okay.
You know, it.
So did you watch this at the
time?
This would've been when this came out.
Would've been maybe like later on.
So like, if you are my earlydiscovery of Charlie Unicorn, it was
sort of like one, two, and three.
We, in kind of close succession.
Yeah.
Ish.
This was 20, 20 12.
So three years after.
Yeah, the last.
Installment.
So I definitely saw it because I waslike, oh my God, Charlie, the unicorn.

(43:54):
It's back.
Like I remember watching it at thetime, but I don't think I had as many
repeat watches 'cause I was not reallyremembering it as I was watching it.
But then the song kicked in and Iwas like, I am the milli repeat.
Um, because, and I think my friend who Ishowed Charlie the unicorn to, and I hope
uh, she's listening 'cause we were talkingabout this when we were talking about

(44:16):
the fact that we were doing this podcast.
She was like, surely you'll becovering Charlie the unicorn.
We are.
Um, but she introduced it to, or maybeI also introduced it to her youngest
sister, um, who also then became likeobsessed with Charlie the unicorn.
So she was blaming me for the factthat her younger sibling, um, was
constantly doing like Charlie, theunicorn, like sound bites and bits

(44:38):
around the home, um, which she found.
Maybe irritating, but likemaybe in a loving way.
Um, but it would be annoying just havingyour like kids just to be like Charlie.
I think it was way worse things to be.
Yeah.
Think, imagine them being the
Fred voice.
I feel that I gave, you know, a, a abeautiful cultural moment to be shared.
Um, but I remember, uh, heryounger sister doing the, I am a

(45:03):
milli, like she liked that one.
Yeah.
From memory.
Okay, cool.
So I remembered this one to say.
Yeah, I was out of the charlie of theunicorn, um, content thirst at this point.
There you go.
So having watched this for the firsttime, I was like, it's just fine.
It's not, it's not as, it's not asmuch of a banger as three or two.
Yeah.
Two is I think peak.

(45:24):
I agree.
Yeah.
It's actually story two.
Actually
quickly, let's rank,
um, 2, 2, 2.
1, 3, 4, 1, 3, 4.
Yeah.
Okay.
Same.
And then there's also the finale,which I guess we'll talk about.
Yeah.
So 10, 10 or so years goby between installments.
Mm-hmm.
In the mid 2010s Kickstarter phase,uh, film Cow do a Kickstarter to

(45:47):
do a finale for Charlie the Unicornand raise, uh, around $200,000.
I remember the Kickstarter.
Yeah.
It's a lot of money.
Yeah, it is.
Um, and so they raised a heapof money and Jason was like,
we're gonna do the grand finale.
It's gonna be five parts.
Uh, and so I believe they released thatto backers over the next few years.

(46:09):
Yeah.
And the final thing was released in 2021.
Okay.
I do wanna say, by the way, itis a lot of money, but to my
understanding, it is just him.
With maybe some contractorsor freelancers helping them.
Yeah.
I'm not entirely sure, but like it isa lot of work to make these videos.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
So I'm not sorry, I just wanna make thatso clear that I'm not saying that creators

(46:29):
don't serve to be paid for their work,but it was more that I was like, wow.
Yeah.
It was a very successful Kickstarterfor a Charlie of the Unicorn finale.
So the finale itself isabout 40 minutes long.
Mm.
And I'm not gonna lie, we
watched it for the first time today.
Both of us.
I hadn't seen it
yet.
A tough watch.
Sorry.
Oh,

(46:51):
I think so.
It, it, it's really quite focusedon the law of Charlie, the Unicorn.
And I think it ties in somestuff from like his other series.
Yeah.
Maybe.
Which
there's some other series on his channel.
He, he does several.
There's um, quite a few.
Uh, we, we picked out like a couple thingsto watch, which we will talk about, but
there are some other like, yeah, otherseries that have like multiple seasons.

(47:15):
Um, I don't think anything that quiteachieves the same viral, like mainstream
success as Charlie, the unicorn,all s with hats, which we'll talk
about, but they do seem to have likea following, um, that enables him to
continually make, you know, episode afterepisode, um, and is still continually
running for some of 'em, I think.
Um, so I think that's what I think.

(47:36):
I'm not a hundred percent sure.
It kind of gives, we spend a lot of timewith characters who aren't Charlie or
the blue and pink unicorns we our Times.
Yeah.
They don't actually,
they don't actually do much.
Yeah.
At all.
They're not really in it that much.
We spend a lot of time withsome other characters who are
like, how would you describe it?
They're like, Nick is sort of like

(47:56):
a, they, there's a, a twist whereone of the time, sorry, one of
the plots is actually occurring10,000 years before Charlie's plot.
Uh, but that plot as awhole, there's really,
it's like a sci-fi fantasy kind of vibe.
Yeah.
It's, it's, it's,
we're trying to be nice, butit's, we were not engaged.
It, I think if you go into this, likebeing a purely just a Charlie, the unicorn

(48:24):
fan of the, like four or so, yeah, thefour Charlie, the unicorn videos, which
total like under 20 minutes long, youwould go into this and be like, this
is not, it's like not the same thing.
No, it's like a differentthing altogether.
It's not to say that thing doesn't havevalue and isn't enjoyed by some people.
It's just that I'm, if I'm going in forCharlie, the unicorn, and I'm expecting

(48:45):
to see those unicorns like flipping aroundand going, yeah, like that doesn't really,
it happens in this still, but of the 40minutes we are spending a lot of time
on like time travel, like McGuffin Law
or the thing where they're like, Charlie'sdepressed, we've gotta fix Charlie.
There's.
Yeah, there's it.
It's trying to add a deeper meaning,um, and a greater kind of overall story

(49:11):
to, and it is also sort of like, notretroactively, but I guess explaining
like some of the things that happenedin earlier, the Charlie Unicorns being
like, actually this starfish is, you know,X, Y, Z. And it's like, that's great.
I don't,
I don't really care that much though.
I just
don't think that Charlie, like, whyis Charlie the unicorn a good video?

(49:32):
Because it's like fiveminutes of good jokes.
It's like absurd, surreal comedy.
Yeah.
Song.
And yet, and the plot is just, uh,like a vehicle to deliver those things.
But when I think when they're like, we'redoing something for 40 minutes, like
the conventions of doing like a shortfilm, like the plot does become more
important just because you can't, likepacing wise, you can't just continue

(49:56):
doing what you do over four minutes.
Mm. And I just don't thinkthe introduction of those plot
elements makes a better video.
You won't entirely understand whatI'm referencing here, but I think
for our, for our listeners who areentrenched in YouTube culture, like
myself guys, it's just not kind ofgiving like watch a studio energy.

(50:20):
Like it's kind of giving, like, I'm notsaying it's the same, but it is sort
of giving like I, you know, want to dothis bigger project that you know is
more ambitious, but it's ultimately likemaybe only of interest to, or it's most
of interest to the creator itself, andthen a small portion of the audience
as opposed to the audience at large.

(50:40):
You mean like higher production valuedoesn't necessarily make better products?
Yeah, but anyone who doesn't
know what I'm talking about it, this was,I feel like I have told you about this.
There was sort of a big scandal.
It was kind of recent.
Didn't they come
out and be like, pay formy, my streaming service?
Yeah.
Honestly, I don't know.
Yeah, no.
They were like, we're gonnaleave you YouTube and we're
gonna start a streaming service.
Actually,
good for them.
That's actually swag.
They didn't know that.

(51:00):
I think I said that at the time.
Well.
It's, it's not well, okay.
With, without the context.
It's maybe feels more swagthan it kind of was, but Okay.
Uh, essentially, and also theyrecently laid off a bunch of
their stuff, so not that swag.
Um, but it kind of, and I'm notsaying that's what it is, but that's
what it gives me in terms of like,

(51:23):
who is it for?
Who is because is it for the fan?
Well, maybe it is for the fans.
Like maybe there is like a dedicatedgroup of film cow fans who like,
love this like fantasy sci-fi law.
Um, but as someone who I feel likeI was a troll, the Unicorn fan.
I'm like, if I was like 14 and this allhappened in like a close or succession
of time, I would be watching this.

(51:44):
Like, what?
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
It would look, the video itselfhas I think 900,000 views.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, so like a fraction of what.
The original ones.
It obviously has been a really longperiod of time, and we have talked
about creators where they've achievedreally early viral success and they
can't maintain that same level.

(52:06):
Yep.
Just due to like algorithm stuff,content saturation, like all of that.
So I'm not saying that, but I, I dothink maybe not that many people,
had it been more of like an originalCharlie, the Unicorn video, I think
it would've seen some more success.
Cool.
Okay.
So,
yeah.
Uh, that feels like such a down,I will say you don't know this,
but Jason has said thathe will do a Charlie Teron

(52:32):
mm-hmm.
Version of the Chai, the unicorn finale.
Okay.
I would probably watch that.
So
would I, well, now thatI've seen all of them, yeah.
Yeah, I would watch that.
Um, that's gonna be, that could be sick.
Yeah.
But, so yeah, I, I feellike it's such a bummer.
'cause I love Charlie the unicorn.
I just, no, it's,
well, no one look, no offense, butno one is associating Charlie The
unicorn with this, this finale.

(52:54):
They're associating it with the bangers.
I went
on Reddit and they werethe film cow sub Reddit.
Yeah.
And people were like, oh, it's so,like, they were like, now we have
answers to all of these questions.
And I'm like, you werewondering about No, I'm not.
I just was genuinely like, okay, so likefor them, they're really happy to know.
And so that,
I mean, they're the people that paid$200,000 to make this so, so true.

(53:15):
I hope they're happy.
I
hope they're happy.
That's the thing.
As long as it, not everycreative project does actually
need to serve a mass audience.
I was just a bit like, I think Idid say something like, what if
we just clipped out the bits thatjust have Charlie and the unicorns.
Yeah.
But anyway.
Okay.
So that's, the animationwas beautiful though.
Unicorn beautiful animation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was
the nicest animation byfar, which makes sense.

(53:37):
The money's
on screen, folks.
You
can see the money.
It's 40 minutes long.
Cool.
Charlie, you unicorn?
Mm-hmm.
Not the only thing
No.
That Jason has produced.
No, we went through and Jason's stillpublishing new animation even now.
Mm-hmm.
So over 20 years, which is pretty cool.
'cause animation on YouTube,not as, uh, lucrative as it was

(54:02):
ah, when the platform began.
Yes.
Do you wanna talk about that?
He published, was it a video?
He put up a video announcing his Patreon.
Mm.
And he did a bit of explanationabout why he was going to Patreon.
Um, and I think there may havebeen a way for you to directly

(54:22):
support him prior to this.
Mm. Um, but he does say in the Patreonthat, you know, animation doesn't
pay, especially the animation thathe does, which has, uh, elements
that are not friendly to advertisers.
Yeah.
Uh, it pays very little.
So they're the, the figures there for you.
So.
When I, when these came up on thescreen, he, so he showed his, um, YouTube

(54:46):
analytics, which include the amountof money he was making for a video.
And I obviously spend a decent amountof time in the YouTube backend.
And I have like a general senseof, at least with my own statistics
and creators who are maybe inlike similar niches to me, um, how
much money you make from a video.
And when I saw these figures from FilmCow, from Jason, I like, my jaw dropped.

(55:07):
I was like, wow, that's extremely low.
Um, so for one of his videos,which is about a minute and a half
long, 'cause again, animation,it's very difficult to make it.
I believe it
was Nic the Hedgehog.
Yeah.
So it's like a Sonic the Hedgehog parody.
So it'd been up, uh, this hadbeen uploaded for two years, so
over the two years it got 350,000views, 8,000 watch hours, and it

(55:31):
made just about 50 US dollars.
And to me that like, okay,there's a few elements for our.
Uh, listeners, if you don't knowthat influence, um, ad sense
revenue on a YouTube video.
So there is, or like your CPM.
Um, so just bear with mewhile I nerd out a bit.

(55:52):
Um, but it can be, so your, the genreof your video, um, which determines
what type of ads play on your video.
So, um, for example, myself, I'm in likethe fashion, lifestyle, beauty niche,
and that tends to have pretty high payingads because obviously plenty of ads.
Hmm.
Women be shopping, max ismouthing women, be shopping.

(56:13):
Thank you so much for that Max.
Uh, but
that's, that's how it works guys.
Sorry.
It,
it advertisers will put money behind.
Yeah.
Um,
demographics that are morelucrative than others.
Yes, sure.
Um, but you know what actuallyis the highest CPM is tech,
which is men be shopping.
Uh, if we're to stereotype, Hey,
everyone has an iPhone.

(56:33):
Yeah.
Okay.
But, so I'd like to buythe world an iPhone.
Okay.
That's what Don Draper said
in, okay.
He did not say that
when he was the busin.
Have you seen Busin Mad Men?
Oh
God.
When
he had the broccoli cut.
Um, sorry.
Anyway, continue CPMs.
Uh,
but so someone like Marcus Brownley,uh, has like, would have a really
high CP M 'cause he's a tech channel.

(56:53):
So tech really high fashion,lifestyle, beauty, all pretty high.
Gaming, a bit lower.
Um, as a CPM, that's kind ofgenerally what has been said.
Yeah, it changed from time.
Time.
But anyway, if you have adult contentin your video and it's like not, you
know, safe for work or it's not likefamily friendly, that goes lower.
And another thing that impacts theamount of money you make is the watch

(57:17):
time or like the length of the video.
Because if it's over eight minutes long,I think it might've been made shorter,
but it was eight minutes originally.
If it, a video is longer than eightminutes, you can put in a midroll.
So you'll have the video that goesat the beginning and at the end.
But if it's longer than eight minutes,then you can also have midrolls,
then you can have multiple midrolls.
Um, so he's not, film cow would not beeligible for mid-rolls a lot of the time.

(57:37):
Um, and so that, and that's like a mainrevenue generator for a lot of creators
anyway, all to say the $50 for 350,000views is extremely, extremely low.
Yeah.
So low.
Even if it's only a minute long,even if you don't get mid rolls,
I still think that's really low.
Um, I was quite shocked by that figure.
Like, I think that's really crazy.

(57:59):
I mean, it does make sense.
Yeah.
Like I don't think many brands are puttingtheir hand up to have their product
promoted alongside a video where Sonicand Tales are in a romantic relationship,
but unfortunately Tales is murdered anduh, then Sonic extracts revenge on Dr.

(58:20):
Robotic when you, but you know Yeah.
When you upload a video on YouTube,you are asked to, uh, rate it yourself.
Yeah.
And mention if there is.
Like frequent course language.
Yeah.
Or if there is any violenceor anything like that.
But because Film Cow is a higherprofile creator, um, he would
likely have to be more stringent.

(58:41):
And you, he would have to be like,someone does get killed in this video,
or there is depicted violence, orthere is swearing, or there is, you
know, adult themes and stuff like that.
Um, so yeah, he would be,that automatically then like
takes a lot of ads out of therunning to be put on your video.
I would say.
So, yeah.
Feel for him that, yeah.

(59:02):
It's really, really, so I will
say adult content is probably afrequent theme of the animation Yeah.
That we watch.
There's a dark side, I thinklike a, if you were to.
Nail down like tropes or like stylistic,uh, you know, um, characteristics.

(59:23):
Mm-hmm.
Calling cards for film.
Cow stuff is like, you havesomething like the Charlie, the
unicorns or like talking animals orthings that present traditionally
as like childlike in animation.
Mm. But then it's takes like a unexpecteddark turn, you know, like the, the
talking animals kill each other or Yeah.

(59:44):
You know, they'll likedo cannibalism or an
early video we watched was called Ferrets.
Yeah.
Ferrets.
'cause we did watch some other videosother than the mainline kind of series.
And in ferrets it is two.
I actually quite liked Ferrets.
I thought this was quite a funny Yeah.
Video.
But it's, it's two cute littleanimals kind of talking to each
other about like, all the thingsthat they like about the day.

(01:00:06):
It kind of, they have
like, it's like life's a happy song.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a musical.
Yeah.
Very like that vibe.
Um, and then it isrevealed that what is the.
The fart.
Uh, he's a Nazi, but should wesay that, can we say that word?
Nope.
Uh, pineapple.
Pineapple.
The fart is a member of the NationalSocialist movement and supports

(01:00:33):
the selective breeding of humans topromote, in some view better humans.
And he participates in violent acts.
We're saying this in a veryroundabout way because we realize
that we couldn't just say what,what the ferret says that they are.
Yeah.
Much like film Cow, we are victimsof, we're victims of censorship.

(01:00:55):
Censorship.
Um, but yeah.
So,
um, but yeah, and thenthere's like, you know, the
marshmallow people video as well.
Yeah.
This does a similar thing.
The cute marshmallows go and do crimes.
Um, they
do cannibalism.
Yeah, exactly.
Things like that.
Yeah,
that's, it's a recurring gag.
There's usually like a rug pool.
Of something a bit darker.
There is like some stabbings orsome type of extreme violence.

(01:01:16):
Yeah.
This is what,
this is where people did Elsa Gate,they were like the, the child and the
animations on YouTube are crazy, bro.
But these are obviouslylike not for children.
Yeah.
But
I can see how in early internetthough, that people would be like,
I'll put this video on for my child.
Yep.
But this was like pre cocoa melon.
You weren't like letting it run.
And honestly, there's nothinghere that I think is gonna be too

(01:01:39):
traumatizing.
Yeah, yeah.
Like
you don't know aboutHappy Tree Friends, right?
No.
No.
Okay.
We'll leave that for another episode.
Um,
okay.
Specific videos I wanna shout outChris Brown, American Superhero.
This is for me, this is
crazy.
Beginning of, uh, a morelike political side mm-hmm.

(01:02:02):
Of the content.
Uh, and the concept is that ChrisBrown is a, a superhero per the title.
Uh, and he gets called by.
The police to stop various petty crimes.
And what that involves is him arriving onscene, identifying that the perpetrator is

(01:02:23):
a woman, and then you watch as he punchesand like beats the female perpetrators
for and a uncomfortable amount of time.
Mm. And at the end there is a,uh, there's a male perpetrator and
naturally he doesn't do anything.
Uh,
yeah.
He says, I'm gonna sit this one out.
Yeah.
Um, so I think this is anintentionally uncomfortable watch.

(01:02:45):
How do you feel?
Yeah.
I actually was like looking away.
It, it is really uncomfortable, um,to watch 'cause Chris Brown sucks.
Yeah.
So if you dunno, the, thecontext of this is that, uh,
Chris Brown has a, a history of.

(01:03:06):
Domestic abuse.
Uh, yeah.
Most notably, obviously involving Rihanna.
Uh, and so this video, I think is a,like a criticism of that behavior.
I do think it's crazy still.
I actually worked in retail once,um, and obviously you have your like,

(01:03:26):
approved corporate retail playlist.
Yeah.
Um,
or your manager will just put on theirplaylist and they were like repeatedly
playing like Chris Brown songs.
And I was a bit like, Hey, shouldwe like, maybe not be listening
to Chris because, 'cause Okay.
Not to get into, you know, hot water.
But like, there are obviously some artistswhere there is like allegations or things.

(01:03:49):
He, he, he, there's someallegations that you know are not.
Like people debate about ow people debate.
But with Chris Brown, it'slike there's no debate.
He has been convicted and found guilty.
There's him.
I'm
sad.
No, but there's literally likevideos and like pictures of

(01:04:09):
him like assaulting Rihanna.
Like there's, and, and so it's likeclear as day and then people are just
like, no, but I, but I love Chris Brown.
It's like, what?
Yeah.
Just not, not at theretail, not at the store.
Not at the department store.
Just blasting Chris Brown.
Yeah.
Anyway, um, I also think thiswas interesting because we talked

(01:04:30):
about Charlie to Unicorn, wherethe, uh, unicorns for some reason,
uh, speak with a a VE, but in theChris Brown video, he decidedly
has an extremely like white voice.
'cause he's just voiced by Jason.
I think Jason voices all thecharacters with some Yep.
Rare cameos.
An exception.

(01:04:50):
Um, but he just literally gives him.
Like, no.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think he was probably sensitive to,and uh, obviously he wouldn't be the
first to have this accusation levelat him, but, uh, there are certain
people who think that criticism ofChris Brown is, uh, primarily due to

(01:05:11):
his, uh, race, uh, and not his actions.
Mm.
Uh, but we don't need to get into that.
We need to get into that becauseI think, I think our opinions
on the matter is quite clear.
Would you agree?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, but I think, I just thought itwas interesting that uh, 'cause if you
watch Charlie Toron in like a vacuum,you might be like, and also the reason
is because some other YouTubers dodo like accents as a point of comedy.

(01:05:36):
Yeah.
Um, but
I mean,
like to be offensive.
Yes.
Like on purpose.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I don't think doing,when you're a voice actor, I
don't think doing an accent.
Is inly.
I think if it's a
racist stereotype and that's what'sused as the comedy, it's not good.
Yeah.
Okay.

(01:05:56):
Um, look,
anyway, I just thoughtit was interesting Yeah.
To, to mention that.
Okay.
In context with the others.
Well, it's good that you bring up,um, stereotypical accents and voice
actors depiction of them because theIt's Cake Boss video has us treated
to, uh, like a parody depiction ofeveryone's favorite reality show.

(01:06:17):
Cake Boss
Buddy
Vetro or Cake Boss, I guess.
Uh,
I'm the Cake Boss.
Um, can you tell everyone about Cake Boss?
I feel like you know moreabout Cake Boss than I do.
My
family.
My, my siblings did watch a bit ofCake Boss when I was growing up.
Um, all I know is that it's justlike the Cake Boss is a, is a
guy, he's a Italian American.

(01:06:38):
Mm-hmm.
Shout out to my.
Italian Americanos.
Uh, anyway, he, he's in, uh, a partof America, you know, around New York.
It might be Jersey, it mightnot be, you know, I'm not sure.
Not American.
Uh, and he, no stereotypes here.
He has a, a cake shop and hisfamily, it's like a family business.

(01:07:01):
And somehow there's like dramaabout running the cake shop.
'cause it's drama, 'cause reality tv.
Yeah.
It's very popular.
And it ran for like a bazillionyears, like those shows.
Yeah.
The Cake Boss.
There's Ace of Cakes.
Oh, what's that?
Ace of Cakes is like the other Cakeboss, but it's like, not Cake Boss,
but it's basically the same thing.
Okay.
So he spawned a Cake Empire.
A cake is stuff.
Goldman.

(01:07:21):
Yeah.
Yeah.
But this is Buddy Vetro.
Yeah.
Well shout out to my boy buddy.
But yeah, this video is,uh, played pretty straight.
Uh, it's just making fun of the, theconcept of a reality show where, uh,
you know, the drama is primarily.
Personal.
We just need to make, make cakes.
Yeah.
I did.

(01:07:41):
I was obsessed with the depiction oflike, how, because every, it is like
a cake of the week kind of format.
There's usually like one main cakein each episode and then maybe a
couple of the cakes, but there'slike one big cake they're working on.
Yeah.
Uh, and it was like, the conceptof this video was like, I'm making
a cake for a guy's birthday wherehe's going to like his fishing home.

(01:08:02):
And so I thought I'd surprise him witha cake that looks like his fishing home.
Yeah.
And I'm like, that's exactly whatit's like every time where they're
like, what if we just made a cake thatlooked like the thing that they like?
Yeah.
It's like extremely funny.
The client is a firefighter.
Cool.
We're gonna make a cake, whichlooks like a fire engine.
Oh,
we gotta
put a little guy in it.
It
looks like him firing a fire.
Guy's like 40
years old.
It's like, why does hewant personalized cake?
No, I,

(01:08:23):
no, I, I love a personalized cake.
I think it's great.
Um, but I also laugh a lot because theyreference the fact that, uh, the cake boss
always, it's, it's like not usually mostlymade out of cake 'cause it's mostly made
out of Rice Krispies covered in fondant.
Are you aware of this in, I,I'm a bad, so I wasn't sure
the, you know, the authenticityof this claim in the video.
No, it's, is that what it is?

(01:08:43):
That is exactly
what happens in the, so Okay.
In order to do these like sculptedcakes to do 'em with cake is really
difficult because cake is like soft.
Yeah.
And then you're puttingfondant on, which is heavy.
So for structure, a lot of the timewith these cakes, they are mostly
made of rice Krispy treats, whichis just, you know what those are?
Yeah.
It's like rice with lc.
Yeah.
With marshmallow on them.

(01:09:04):
So they're like hard.
And then most, the
LCM kid is actually potentiallya listener of this podcast.
Wow.
Shout out if he's listening,he knows who he is.
But mostly the cakes end up being like,not mostly cake, they're just rice crispy.
Yeah.
With a small amount of cake.
Like, so if it was like a house,like the whole thing would be made

(01:09:25):
of rice crispy, then maybe just likeone floor of the house would be cake.
Okay.
So that, it's easy 'cause then you're justdoing like sculpting with like a clay-like
substance, but it's Rice Krispies.
And it's a, sorry, maybe this is justmade funny to me 'cause I'm into baking.
I think it's really funny that it's like acommon, like a meme within cake decorating
that people are like, look how cool itis that I made all of this out of cake.

(01:09:47):
But it's like, you didn't, you madeit out of Rice Krispies, which are
infinitely more malleable and moldable.
It's like way easy to do.
Obviously.
It's still difficult, but like also if youordered cake and you just got a fucking
massive rice, crispy, just a bit of cake.
It sucks.
It's so funny.
Tastes like shit fondant.
Tastes like ass.
But aren't these people justdoing it for the photo anyway?

(01:10:08):
I limited sympathy.
Okay.
I think it's funny.
It's like a funny, okay.
It's funny.
It's funny to me.
It's funny to me.
Um,
anyway, this is good.
Also, his arms keep being like small.
He keeps drawing hisarms in different ways.
The cake bowls.
Yeah, the
cake
bowls.
Cake bowls.
Um, there is, they're good.
Another little series, not aformal series, but they're tied.

(01:10:32):
By common theme, which is thefilm Cow sort of political videos.
Mm.
Where there'll be, uh, like apolitical figure of the day.
So back in like the twothousands, you have John McCain.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, and you have the video, JohnMcCain and his vegetable friends
where he talks to, uh, vegetables.
Vegetables that talk back to him.

(01:10:52):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, uh, everyone's like, okay, butall of these videos and there's,
there's ones with Obama, uh, andthere's all the way up to present
day where there's one with Joe Biden.
They don't seem to make anysort of explicit political
points that we could pick up.
We didn't watch all of them.

(01:11:13):
Uh, but I did see someone once ask Jasonabout like, oh, you make like videos
with political characters, uh, and they,they don't have political messages in.
So it's not just us thathas identified this.
And I do just think maybeit's an engagement tactic.
Yeah.
Do you
think?
I would say it brings new people in.
Yeah.
Did he say, did herespond to that question?

(01:11:34):
No.
Oh, not that I saw.
Okay.
Yeah, guess we'll never know.
I, there's also like a thing where you'relike, oh, he's doing like pop art where
he's taking like the famous figures of theday and, you know, recontextualizing them.
So that angle is quite interesting.
I remember early internet, there were somany, like George Bush, like memes or like
websites where I would be like, you know,beat up George Bush, kill George Bush.

(01:11:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I feel like it is kind ofan ex, like it's always been
like that on the internet.
I
feel like less now, right?
Yeah, less now.
But
although we are not in the, the, thiscircle of media really, but, uh, I
know a lot of people don't like theorange buffoon in the White House,
so I think there's some similarstuff, uh, going on with Trump.

(01:12:21):
Yeah.
Right now.
But I do wanna say though, the, theone with Joe Biden where, uh, he.
He's, uh, doing his first day andthere's like a, a singing kettle that,
you know, traipses across his desk.
I The teapot?
Yeah.
Uh, I was like, this actually maybe is,uh, you know, documentary footage of,
uh, jokes, his dementia, uh, progressing.

(01:12:43):
Wow.
But, um, you know, who'sto say, who's to say, look,
no videos of Bernie?
No, definitely not.
Hmm.
Uh, so we're getting, we're gettingtowards, uh, some spicy stuff because
fairly recently there was a video,uh, with a political angle and a
famous person mentioned, they're notdepicted in the video 'cause it's,

(01:13:07):
uh, a song about their death actually.
Uh, the video is called RIP HenryKissinger, and it's a celebration
of the death of Henry Kissinger.
Lucy, do you wanna tell usabout hes Henry Kissinger.

(01:13:28):
No,
I get that.
It's a controversial, uh, a topic.
Uh, but he's a, a formerUS, uh, diplomat, I guess.
Uh, he was, he had positions in, uh,the US government in the sixties and
seventies and is seen as one of the, uh,the primary architects of the Vietnam War.

(01:13:53):
So not a, not a cool guy.
Uh, and it seems that, uh, Jasonshared that sentiment 'cause, uh,
the video is, uh, very, very, uh,strong in its criticism, lyrics
like, I wish You had Never been Born.
Uh, and it goes on to describe howhe died by falling into a vat of

(01:14:14):
poo, which guys not, not strictlytrue, but, uh, funny to imagine.
Yeah.
Just want to shout that one out.
Bango.
Yeah.
I mean, do you not agree?
Don't tell me you, you're pro Vietnam war.
I'm
not.
I am not pro Vietnam.
I'm not pro Henry kisser.

(01:14:34):
It's just, it's just totallyquite different to what we've
Yeah, it is.
I do think he's getting, he's lettinga, it lean a bit looser in his,
uh, later more established years.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I
agree.
Um, but is another, he
said they can't hurt me.
Another entry in our just theonly gonna make $40 anyway
in our series of cor being based Yeah.
Like the anti m just stuff.

(01:14:55):
Yeah.
Okay, cool.
So we're getting there.
Llamas with llamas with
hats.
I feel Okay.
In a rewind time.
First, I think you were more familiarwith llamas with hats than I was.
I think I only watched one.
I, I don't know what it is.
Funnily enough, I really liked Charlie TheUnicorn as a, you know, a middle schooler,

(01:15:15):
but llamas with hats didn't do it for me.
There's no music.
The vibes.
Are kind of more bad.
Yeah.
Llamas with hats,
it's decidedly more violent
set up.
We have two llamas.
The one is named Carl, the otheris unnamed for much of the series.
Uh, and it's normally justshot in like one location.

(01:15:38):
Sorry.
It's de it's well, youknow it Yeah, yeah, I
know what you mean.
I'm just, uh,
and the two lamas are facingeach other and they engage in a
dialogue and it cuts back and forth.
And the unnamed llama does this thingwhere he just keeps saying, Carl.
Yeah.
That's like the Charlie of this series.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, and through the episode, itwill be revealed that Carl has done

(01:15:58):
something like a horrific crime.
Like he's eating someone, hebasically always does war crimes.
Yeah.
And it progresses through the series.
He does more and more likeserious, uh, like actions, I guess.
So like in the first one,he just like kills someone.
In the second one, he.
Like sinks a cruise ship and he sinks allthe lifeboats, which I found pretty funny.

(01:16:21):
And I actually don't think I'dreally watched beyond this.
Um, because in the third one hedoes a coup in South America,
which is actually another, I think,uh, somewhat political point.
If we take, uh, the stuff about Kissingerin context, just given what we know of,

(01:16:43):
uh, the American involvement in cos inSouth America through the 20th century
and then lambs with hats for, he, uh,he sets off a nuke and he, uh, floats
faces by the, uh, the camera, I guess.
Uh, on balloons.
They're like parachute
down.
Yeah, they're like fleshy faces.

(01:17:04):
Yeah.
But then this, this just keeps going on.
So there's, there's about12 episodes in this series.
Um, and he, you know, continuallydoes crazy stuff and the other llama
is like, stop this, this is crazy.
And he's like, well, I, I, you know, whatcould I do, you know, about this stuff?
Um,
yeah.
The, the bit is quite funny.

(01:17:24):
Yeah.
Is like the, the primary llama islike getting upset with him and he's
like, there's also a lot of, like,he spends quite a bit of time denying
it or pretending he's not involvedand then like, admitting to things.
He is like a, um, like a,um, psychopath, I guess.
Yeah.
Like he doesn't have any empathy.
Right.
He doesn't think he'sdoing anything wrong.

(01:17:45):
No, he's just like, well he had to.
Yeah, exactly.
He, he'll be like, I didn't do anything.
I didn't do anything.
And then he'll be like,but what about this?
And he's like, well, yeah, I did do that.
It's kinda like that is the bit, yeah.
And the dialogue is like very much, it'svery quick, rapidly paced back and forth.
Um, and there's like minimal animationin these series compared to Charlie,
the unicorn.
Yeah.

(01:18:05):
Yeah.
So it is dialogue focusedand I do think, um.
There is some good gagsthrough the episodes.
Not so much that I am like, youknow, I'm not, I'm not putting this
up with my YouTube grates just yet.
Mm-hmm.
But I did, like, there is things that Ithink, uh, are quite funny, uh, from the
llamas, especially around episode six.
You have Carl, uh, he describes himself asthe, the Henry Ford of human meat when he

(01:18:32):
has his organ crushing processing plant.
Mm. And I was like, yeah, you know, themeat train, the one before, uh, when he's
harvesting the hands of white children,he just says white, he's gotta pay.
And I was like, funny.
That's funny.
Um,
yeah, I do giggle at that too.
But the series, it does take a, amore like somber, you know, direction

(01:18:55):
because eventually we learn theother llama, his name is Paul, he.
Doesn't wanna see Carlanymore given his crimes.
Mm. And then Carl continuesto do the acts, but he's just
talking to a mask of Paul.
Mm. Which eventually becomes,uh, not sentient, but, uh,

(01:19:18):
Carl sees it as talking to him.
He's like, clearly, yeah.
He's already psychopath.
He's then entering like, clearlylike some type of psychosis.
Yeah.
Where he is convinced that Paul is like,guiding him to do these acts of violence.
Yeah.
And it does seem by likethe final episodes that, um,
Carl has destroyed the world.
Yeah.
And everyone's dead.
And he goes to see Paul one lasttime and it's Paul's skeleton.

(01:19:42):
Yeah.
With the little hat.
Yeah.
They haven't even talked about it.
They are wearing hats.
Well, they're alarms with hats.
Alarms with the
hats.
Um, and then Carl has, uh,sort of a mental break.
He's, uh, yelling his own name, Carl,which is like the, the trademark of
the series and talking to himself.
And, uh, it appears that he,he takes a little jump Yes.
Off a bridge into the water.

(01:20:03):
Well, his fate is revealed to inlater episodes, but to the casual
viewers, yes, it does, uh, seemlike it is the end for Carl.
Yeah, it's very grim.
Anyway, we then some years laterhave similar to Charlie the
Unicorn, a Kickstarter for afinal episode of alarms with Hats.

(01:20:23):
Mm-hmm.
Because I think people were like,wow, that was a depressing ending.
And they're like, well,we can do it again.
Uh, this Kickstarter made another$250,000 around, which pretty good.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and we skimmed through this epilogue.
'cause we, I don't think either of usare really that taken by alarms with hats

(01:20:43):
similar to, it's not for me.
I do appreciate the gags, butlike, yeah, I don't have the same
nostalgia goggles for it thatI did for Charlie, the Unicorn.
But this.
Epilogue is about 20 somethingminutes long and is similar
to the Charlie Unicorn finale.
Is like, a lot of it is likesurrealist, like floating through.

(01:21:06):
I don't know how to,
it just asks us to reallybuy into Carl as a character.
Yeah.
And I don't think we do, 'causewe just see him as silly llama.
He's a silly llama who does war crimes.
Yeah.
And
they're like, but do you think he's okay?
I am like, well,
do you think he feels
bad?
I'm like him.
I don't really care.
Yeah.

(01:21:26):
I would do just think he, they basicallydid, um, end of Gelian, uh, which
if you guys haven't seen Av EvangelGian, the TV show, they did a genesis.
Yeah.
They did final two episodes andpeople were like, wow, this, you
know, these were compromised.
Why were they like this?
And so they made a movie redoingthe final two episodes, and it was

(01:21:48):
pretty much the, the same if notmore grim than the original ending.
Uh, but you know,
it's just, yeah, it's, it's, it'sa lot of like surrealist, like just
like music and like di like, notdialogue, but like narration of like,
yeah,
yeah.
It's not really like, it's not likeanother Lum is with Hats episode

(01:22:10):
similar to the Charlie Unicorn finale.
It's like, not really the same.
It's it's not a spiritual successor.
It's, well, I suppose it's directsuccess, you know what I mean?
It's, it's just like,it's a different thing.
He's trying to be more exploratorywith it, and that is fantastic, but
it is not something that I think wasof particularly interest to either of
us.
Yeah.
I think that the, the takeaway from thisis that like there are some properties

(01:22:37):
that start as like YouTube or otheronline creations that are then transferred
into like a more mainstream media.
Um.
Like property?
Mm. Like what's the, what's thatsinging TV show you watched?
That was a, originally a YouTube series.

(01:22:57):
You might have to do some, have some more.
It has,
it is a Greek What or the, itwas the one, it was on Amazon.
It it's a singing show.
It's an animated show.
And they sing.
You mean has been hotel?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't, it's not Greek.
No.
What is it?
Why it's,
was it a web series originally?

(01:23:17):
Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was a web series.
Yeah.
Thanks guys.
Wow.
The Viv C bot.
Yeah.
And there's also hell of a boss and Yeah.
Oh, thank
you.
Wow.
I was like, wow, I've really, here.
You just said the singing show.
That's great.
Okay.
Yeah.
I
don't, sorry, I don'tknow anything about it.
I was like, you mean the
animated one where they're likedemons and stuff, but Yeah.

(01:23:38):
They're literally likefrom the underworld.
You didn't say that.
No, but like you, you said Okay.
But you know what I mean?
So like Sure.
They did changes to that, right?
To make it like a quoteunquote real TV show.
Uh,
yeah.
Like, no.
Yeah.
It is a real show.
I would say that they, the originalstuff that was uploaded on YouTube was

(01:24:00):
closer to like an actual like TV pilot.
Yeah.
Like it was, I think the, the, thevision was always to have it be that,
and I don't know, I think film cow,and correct me if I'm wrong, but like,
I don't think the intention was evernecessarily for it to, like, I think
it works best as an internet video.

(01:24:20):
I don't know.
You could make it into a TV show, butlike, could you It like the enjoyment
of Charlie the unicorn is that it'slike two minutes long and it's funny.
Yeah.
In that, whereas I know what you mean.
I'm just, there are things, whatsaying is there's a version of these.
This big finale, there's a versionof a, there's a child, the Unicorn
movie that potentially makes sense,but this is not what I think that is.

(01:24:45):
Yeah, I know what you mean.
There are some things where they,uh, can go on to have a, another life
in like mainstream media or can besuccessfully transferred, but I don't
think this was, this is not an example.
I can't imagine like a, a studioexec seeing the China Unicorn finale,
all the lambs and hats epilogue.
Exactly.
And being like, yeah,let's put this on Prime.
No, unlike Minsu Beast, where his YouTubeformula was adapted for Amazon Prime.

(01:25:12):
Right.
And we got a great.
Competition
reality TV show about it.
So good.
Um,
but yeah, I know what you mean.
It's, or like
Nathan Fielder, someonewho has done YouTube stuff.
Burn early.
There we go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There are, yeah, there areexamples where it can be
translated or adapted and changed.
I don't know if these can be, but Ithink, I think that's part of the charm.

(01:25:32):
I kind of like that they are,you know, for the internet
and for that type of culture.
Um, but I think in trying tomake like 20, 30, 40 minute long
versions of things I'm like, they,it almost doesn't work that way.
'cause it was never designed to beanything longer than a two to five
minute long internet video full of gags.

(01:25:53):
But yeah.
So there is one lastvideo that we watched.
Yeah.
Um, which is called Justice.
Mm-hmm.
And it's different to a lot of theother stuff we have spoken about.
'cause this is a, like a personal essay.
About an experience in Jason's own life.

(01:26:14):
It's about a time that he was ajuror on a drug trafficking case.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and it talks about, andit's depicted through animation.
So, uh, it's much like the,the other stuff on the channel.
It is an animated video, but it's justthat the subject matter, obviously.
And the animation
style is different.
It's not like cartoony and he's

(01:26:35):
not telling jokes 'causeit's like a personal essay.
It's,
it's serious.
Yeah.
Uh,
but he talks about how he was on adrug trafficking case and he talks
about the evidence that's presentedand how it is, uh, quite poor.
And he imagines that he'll say thatthe accused is not guilty, but he's

(01:26:56):
actually the person that's beenpicked as like the, the fill in juror.
Alternate.
The alternate, yeah.
So he doesn't actuallysit, uh, and deliberate.
He gets sent home.
Uh, and then the court calls him and islike, yeah, the jury found the guy guilty.
Mm. Um,
it's really good.
I would recommend people to go watch it.

(01:27:17):
Yeah.
'cause it's told really Yeah.
Quite emo and well, yeah,
it is.
Yeah.
It's really interestinghow, um, well, it's done.
Um, I think it's like an, it's almostlike when we would watch stuff, uh,
in the Neil Riga episode and he would,um, switch between like, genres,

(01:27:38):
forms of expression and was likeproficient, like multifaceted Yeah.
In that way because, um, there'snothing that I could see that was
much like this on the channel.
Mm. Uh but this was a, you know,if they were like, they sat me
down, uh, a university and introto legal ethics and were like,
what do you think of this video?
I'd be like, yeah.
Wow.
That's, that's really good to startdiscussion about, uh, you know.

(01:28:04):
The, the merits of the jury trial.
Mm-hmm.
And also just like the American legalsystem and how they treat certain
charges and how they, you know, theprosecution are bringing a case with
extremely limited amounts of evidence.
Um, yeah, it is really beautifully told.

(01:28:25):
I think the depiction, likethe, the animation and all
the work, it's quite emotive.
Um, really totally differentfrom everything else on his
channel, but really good.
And I, if he made more videos likethat, I would definitely watch them.
I thought, obviously this one is likea unique, like, personal anecdote.
Um, but it, I think as an example ofwhere, you know, it may not be something

(01:28:48):
that gets as much acclaim for him,but I feel like you can tell from that
that you know, he's a creative or anartist because that's like who he is.
Yep.
Like he, he knew that putting thatvideo up, like probably wouldn't.
Make him money or beparticularly successful.
I, I don't know, but like, yeah,he made it because he wanted

(01:29:08):
to make it, you know, I think
that, and like if you look at thechannel now there, and we watched, we
actually for the first time, I think inthis series, tuned into a live stream
from the person
we are covering.
Uh,
he was live as we were.
Yeah.
And Justin just
like, uh, retro video game streaming.
Mm-hmm.
Um, so he was playing somethingon the, the Sega Satin, which

(01:29:31):
I consulted before my time.
Mm. Um, so that's how all that is.
But, uh, I think he has obviouslybeen doing online content for,
you know, more than 20 years now.
Mm. And there's still, I don't think anysign of him, um, you know, doing like a
TV show or some sort of mainstream thing.

(01:29:53):
So I imagine that hopefully hehas figured out a way to make this
viable with his audience througha combination of like Patreon and.
Contributions.
Yeah.
Live streaming and things like that.
It makes
sense.
Like this isn't another example where Ifeel it does so make sense for a creator
to be a live streamer because the type ofcontent they make is so time consuming.

(01:30:14):
Yep.
Um, that live streaming a few days aweek is a great way to stay in touch
with your audience, but also make money.
Um, yeah.
From your, from your built-in audience oryour, your core audience, which, how many
do we see, how many subscribers they have?
I think he
has about 1 million.
Yeah.
Okay.
So similar to Neil,

(01:30:34):
similar to Tesone, Dave.
So true.
All these artists andcreators, all these OG
at the 1 million mark.
Yeah.
The thing is, is like, there'sjust so many more viewers now.
Like if you were a popular channel backthen, you may be like more vital to
the history of YouTube in that sense.

(01:30:56):
But because now, you know, YouTube has.
Hundreds of millions, ifnot billions of users.
Like every, you know, every Tom, Dick andHarry has 2 million subscribers, it seems.
Mm. And that one day will hopefully be us.
Oh.
You know?

(01:31:16):
Yeah.
Because I saw that minuses, I sawthose ad revenues from uh, uh, Jason's
channel today and, you know, I wouldn'tturn my nose up at, you know, $50 No.
For that much work.
That seems like really,that seems super fair.
Uh, alright.
You conflicted out.
What do you think of the,the, the legacy of Film Cow?

(01:31:41):
Jason's animations, Charlie The Unicorn.
I think Charlie the Unicorn isjust such an iconic internet series
and is so like key I would say to.
YouTube's DNA, so much so that, youknow, they invited him to be part of the
first and only YouTube live, um, event.

(01:32:02):
But I think what I really like aboutJason's work and Charlie the Unicorn,
is that it is a really great exampleof how something like YouTube and
obviously, you know, there's also newgrounds and there's other websites,
but we're talking about YouTube.
YouTube can help Ha sorry.
YouTube has helped so many creators finda home for their work and find an audience

(01:32:25):
for their work that, you know, in, in themainstream would not have been successful.
Yeah.
Like if Jason was like, I'm gonnapitch this to like Adult Swim, the
only thing I would say is like, maybeAdult Swim is, it's kind of adult swim
coded does give Brick and Morty Yeah.
At some point.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, it does.
I'm
sure it was like an influence.
I wouldn't be surprised.
Um, but it, it, yeah, it, it is.

(01:32:49):
What's wonderful about YouTube is itcan be a platform for creators to.
Broadcast themselves and their work,um, without all of the, you know,
censorship and constraints of mainstreammedia or like mainstream networks.
Yeah.
Um, so I just think it's wonderful that,
where do you rank rank Charlie theUnicorn as one of the most recognizable

(01:33:13):
YouTube original characters?
Pretty high.
Yeah.
I can't really, I'm obviously not a bigYouTuber, so I can't say who competes,
but I know who Charlie, the Unicorn is.
Yeah.
I, I think and that'swhy we were covering it.
'cause it's obviously, so it is again, anearly example of something from YouTube
like breaking out into the mainstream.
And this again was like, I wasn't,I didn't have a YouTube account.

(01:33:35):
I wasn't like logged in and subscribingto things, but I was going onto YouTube
to show people Charlie, the Unicorn,very similar to how I was going onto
YouTube to show people pot of pals.
So, yeah.
Also the fact that it's an originalip, he would've been getting a
cut from those hot topic sales.
That pot of puppet power'smuch more difficult to do.

(01:33:57):
Yeah, exactly.
So true.
So true.
Which kind of smart.
Yeah, no, it like, you'reright, it is original ip.
Will it, will we, you know,however, will it be dethroned by
our love for the annoying orange?
No.
The annoying orange we've seen so far.
I don't, I don't mind Tim.
No, it seems funny.
You, you must be lying.
The Fred and I Justine stuff.

(01:34:18):
It was a kind of a nice to seehim, you know, tell him the orange.
Yeah.
In those videos.
Anyway, that's for a few chip.
So
what do you feel about the legacyof Film Cow and Charlie The Unicorn
and even the llamas and hats?
I'm
pretty positive overall on this channel.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I enjoyed, um,much of what we watched.

(01:34:39):
I've obviously been a bit, um, Ihaven't been super positive regarding
like the longer form epiloguesthat were produced in recent years.
But, you know, they're, they'resort of final chapters, epilogues,
they're often not very good.
You know, it's much easier to write thebeginning of a story than the end of one.

(01:35:02):
So outside of that, um, like I think thereis a pretty good hit rate on this channel.
Like, if you watch a video, there'snormally at least a funny gag or concept.
And given how short a lot of theseare, it's a pretty good hit rate.
Mm.
And I really like most of the music.
Yeah.
Um, it's, it's like, do you feel tobe able to do, sorry, to be able to

(01:35:25):
do animation and comedy and voiceacting and music all at this level
is like, it's super impressive.
Do you feel similar?
I feel like I'm, I'm trying notto compare the two, but I feel
given your, um, review, do you feelsimilarly about Film Cow to how you
feel about Neil Cga in that episode?

(01:35:45):
Mm, no.
I think that Neil.
Generally the videos are better.
Oh.
And there's a, a wider spectrumof content that I enjoyed so
well.
Yeah, okay.
But But still impressive.
Exactly, exactly.
You appreciate.
No, there is similarities.
Like they came up at the same time.
Yeah.
They're similar.
Age.
Neil is like
more something you would personally enjoy.

(01:36:06):
Yeah.
But you acknowledge that.
Yeah.
'cause I think it's so impressive.
Jason does all the music,all the animation, like Yeah.
As you said, it's so impress.
There's even
some live action stuff that wedidn't talk about, but we did watch.
Um, it's just was not something thatwe thought was super interesting.
But yeah, it's the spectrum ishe does do, he has an extended
range of skills in the content.

(01:36:27):
Reflects that.
Yeah.
No, a hundred percent.
And favorite video, I feel likewe both will say at the same time.
1, 2, 2, 3. Charlie I The unicorn.
Two.
Yeah.
Wow.
There you go.
Fun.
Um, Lucy, that's it forthis episode of Rewind Time.
What are you subscribing to this week?

(01:36:47):
Ooh.
I am subscribing to what I hadfor brunch, which was a grilled
chicken burrito from Guzman I Gomez.
Wow.
Shout out to Guzman and Gomez.
Thank you for sponsoringthis episode of Rewind Time.
No,
I, I haven't been a Guzman girlyhistorically, but I woke up this morning

(01:37:09):
and I said, I'm gonna make history.
Uh, no.
I woke up this morning and Isaid, I would like to have a
chicken burrito, and I did that.
Okay.
I did just that.
Yeah.
Alright.
Guzman and Gomez.
Okay.
You know, yeah.
So I'm a, a fan broadly.
Mm-hmm.
Um, you know, actually for someof our international listeners.

(01:37:30):
GYG coming oh my gosh.
Into overseas territories very soon,given it's now a public company.
Oh.
Have you invested, you got stocks in GYG?
I do not think GYG isa, a good investment.
There's some free advice, uh,
but we are not a financial advice podcast.
Correct.
Yeah.
Sorry.
Uh, but yeah, no, I, I'm notactively invested in GYG.
Okay.

(01:37:51):
What are you subscribingto this week, max?
This week I am subscribing to,
this is a good one, IndianaJones and the Great Circle.
Yeah.
Which is a fairly recently releasedIndiana Jones adventure game that
I'm playing on Xbox Game Pass.

(01:38:13):
And it's sort of like set between Raidersof the Lost Ark and Temple of Doom.
Mm-hmm.
And it's, uh, you know, you're runningaround the Vatican solving Wow mysteries.
You're running around conclavethe pyramids going in tombs.
Uh, and it's just been a sort ofgood, uh, like, you know, classic

(01:38:33):
single player game experience
filling that uncharted hole.
Yeah.
Well, you know, we don't get a lot of, uh,big budget single player stuff these days.
No, we don't.
No, because, uh, you know, unlikelike the YouTube creator economy,
uh, not great, not a great timeto be a video game developer.

(01:38:56):
Mm. Uh, so it's good to appreciate,uh, the games that we do get.
And so, yeah, that's what I'msubscribing to this week, peepee.
Uh, okay.
So we will be back next week withanother episode of Rewind Time.
Thank you for listening.
If you have any comments, please feelfree to leave them in the comments

(01:39:18):
section of the YouTube video.
And if you've been listening to thepodcast and you haven't yet subscribed.
What are you doing?
Just hit the subscribe button.
We talk about the importance of YouTubecreators and, you know, building,
building that subscriber base.
And, uh, hey, why not?
You've made it all the way to the end.
You're hearing, you'rehearing the ending bit.

(01:39:41):
Do us, do you wish?
A kindness.
Wow.
Thank you for that call to action.
Uh, okay, that's it for everyone.
Time.
Uh, we'll see you next week.
Bye.

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