Below is a list of all the Featured Articles selected from the LoadingReadyRun wiki. The highest on the list is the current Featured Article.
May 2014
May 2014
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Feed Dump is a weekly series on the Escapist. It is one of two shows to replace the Escapist News Network, the other show being CheckPoint. Feed Dump has a similar format to Phailhaüs and The Whatever Thing, in which a host reads amusing news stories and the co-hosts make color commentary. "Pic/Word/Day of the Day" from the previous incarnations were not incorporated into Feed Dump. Graham was the host for almost every episode for the first two years, though Kathleen has hosted more frequently following Feed Dump 100 as well as taking over editing duties. Graham hosted Hot Nurses and Pregnant Chimps without any co-hosts. Though not explicitly a replacement for the Phailhaüs, no new Phailhaüs episodes have been made since the premiere of Feed Dump. |
April 2014
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Tim Sevenhuysen is a former LoadingReadyRun crewmember and the creator of the behind-the-scenes series Loading Time. Tim became acquainted with the crew by "bribing" his way onto the first Desert Bus for Hope set with a chocolate cake. He was an official crewmember from October 2009 until September 2010, when he left the crew to finish his Master's degree in sociology. Tim now lives in Edmonton with his wife Larissa, with whom he has two sons. His latest appearance in a LoadingReadyRun video was in CommodoreHUSTLE 026 - The Bee Team with eight-day-old son Calvin. |
March 2014
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Prior to being hosted on the Escapist, weekly updates would occasionally have non-standard intros. Most of the Holiday Specials in the earlier seasons had a special festive intro. In High Noon, the intro is given the same sepia, old film filter present in the video. The bonus video Green Noon has the logo floating just off a green screen. In Customer Servicing, the intro crashes while Graham tries to watch it on his phone. In Superman and the Concentrated Light Ray, a snippet of the Superman cartoon theme plays instead of the LRR theme. In the first Mercenary Solutions, the opening is green with a camouflage pattern. |
February 2014
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Phailhaüs is a show hosted by Graham where he reports and comments on weird news. It is the spiritual successor to The Whatever Thing. In the "Phunny Story" segment (one example of the frequent replacements of F's with PH's), Graham and a co-host report on an amusing news story. This is followed by the "Pic of the Day" and the "Word of the Day," a segment revived from The Idiot Room. Graham appeared in all but one episode. One Phailhaüs was lost when Kathleen, who was taking up editing duties, had her computer stolen from her Vancouver home. With the similar Feed Dump as a weekly series on the Escapist, the Phailhaüs' future is uncertain. |
January 2014
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Things On My Head (sometimes abbreviated TOMH) was Paul's contribution to Operation: Viral Outbreak, and the only channel involved to have more episodes posted afterwards. It was a parody of pointless, low-effort, deliberately obtuse Internet videos. In each video, for one minute and twenty-one seconds, Paul stares directly at the camera while balancing something on his head and acting as if he's fascinated by what the viewer is saying. The channel came with the description, "More subscriptions means more things on my head!" Paul uploaded an episode of Things on my Head every day in January 2011 for Things on my January. During AskPaul LIVE 2K13, Paul said this backfired, as many people unsubscribed. Things on my Head has been referenced in weekly videos such as The Tale of Matt Wiggins. A revival of Things on my Head was the lowest unreached stretch goal for the Season 11 Kickstarter. |
December 2013
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Jangles and Jones Save Christmas is the Season Three Holiday Special. As told by Story Guy, Jangles and Jones awake to find the head of Evil Inc. has captured Santa Claus to punish the world's children. Jones convinces the head of Evil Inc. (rather quickly) that he's made a mistake. Instead of appealing to his compassion, he relents because he enjoys seasonal treats like eggnog. The video ends with a holiday rap from 64K and an appearance from the Holiday Thought Police from the previous week's video The C Word. This video marks an early reference to Edward James Olmos, and it has the first appearance of Spot the Dog before he became a running gag. |
November 2013
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The fifth annual Desert Bus for Hope (occasionally called De5ert Bus) began November 18, 2011 and ended 150 hours later, at midnight on November 25. The crew raised $383,125.10, approximately one-tenth of what Child's Play would raise that year. It was the last Desert Bus where the drivers drove for 24 hours (except for Bill, who drove two twelve-hour shifts). Clubbing was frequent. This iteration of Desert Bus spawned "Well Dong" that would evolve into "Whale dong" in future events, BidBot, Alex's late-night radio show DerpLine, the mercifully discontinued exclamation "AFRICA!" and QWOP. Celebrity call-ins included Grant Imahara, Neil Gaiman and Minecraft creator Markus Perrson. It is the only Desert Bus event where Bill has not crashed. |
October 2013
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The Warriors of Darkness are a group of dysfunctional and possibly demonic warriors. Introduced in The Truce, they struggle to live ordinary lives, often reacting improperly to routine domestic frustrations. Ulric is played by Paul in every appearance. Jer plays Ragnar, Morgan plays Krull and Ben Wilkinson plays Derek (though Graham has stood in for Ragnar and Derek, and James for Ragnar.) The CommodoreHUSTLE episode Viral featured the Warriors and a beardless Paul wearing an unconvincing beard. A $3,000 donation to the Season 11 Kickstarter was given the title "Warrior of Darkness." |
September 2013
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Superman and the Concentrated Light Ray is a weekly update from Season 2. This short was edited from the 1941 animated short "Superman," the first Superman cartoon made by Max Fleischer. Clark (played by Paul) is desperate to convince people he's actually Superman, and a mad scientist kidnaps Lois Lane (played by Kate Stark). The titular concentrated light ray nearly spells Superman's end, but Superman punches it. The old-timey announcer voice Graham invokes appears in later productions such as Carcinogen Cola, and a small audio clip from this cartoon was used in Snakes on the Brain. |
August 2013
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Jeremy Michael Petter is one of the primary players in LoadingReadyRun. Credited as "J. Michael Petter" in Season One, Jer attended Oak Bay High School with the other members of LoadingReadyRun. He was the president of his 12th grade class. He loves ducks, giving shelter to several stuffed ducks, including celebrity mallard Roscoe P. Jangles IV. He has contributed his musical skills to weekly updates like The Ballad of the Fanboy and The Superintendent's Sorrow. He was the field reporter in ENN, continuing this responsibility in CheckPoint until he took an indefinite hiatus from LRR in September 2011. Despite this, he has been an official driver at every Desert Bus since 2008. He married his longtime girlfriend Tally Heilke on June 23, 2013. |
July 2013
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The Small Time Thieves are the main characters featured in Small Time, a Season Three weekly update. Bill and Morgan play thieves. They aspire to pull off great movie-style heists, but they are continually stymied by their limitations. They compromise for smaller and smaller robberies until the spoils of their heist are pitiful or nonexistent (from a vagrant's change to the contents of a lost-and-found box). Morgan's thief seems to be slightly smarter than Bill's, though Bill can summon a box of Timbits from Hammerspace. They appeared in the LoadingReadyRumble and despite their incompetence, they bested their kidnapper in I SAW What You Did There. |
June 2013
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Operation: Tube Men Enter is a video associated with an abandoned fan competition. In the video, Matt and Tim face off in a field, wielding huge cardboard tubes. Tim eats a brownie before they converge, where the video ends and encourages fans to suggest what happens next. This video is not listed on LoadingReadyRun. It was posted to the Runners site at LoadingReadyRunners.com. The sound design is reminiscent of Alex's previous sound design efforts, though there are no credits listed. No follow-up was ever released. |
May 2013
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Celestial Sea is a seven-part machinima miniseries posted during Season Two, edited from footage from Star Ocean: Till the End of Time. It follows Myke Bluehair (voiced by Graham) on an perilous journey as he's separated from his girlfriend Amy (voiced by Kathleen over Skype). Myke frequently bemoans his adventures forcing him to skip lunch. This series introduced the running gag "Gravitic Warp, and the first episode brought back the "Sporting News Baseball" theme to the LRR logo opening. While the series has its fans, comments from the crew indicate that there will never be a second season of Celestial Sea. |
April 2013
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This Hat is a recurring gag in Feed Dump that acts as part of the outro leading to the end credits. The host (almost always Graham) will lead into the credits with some variation of the phrase, "There may be better sources for news, but they don't have this hat," as he puts on the proverbial hat. Many new hats get donated by fans for inclusion in Feed Dump, though most of them are not useful as costume hats. The "ridiculous pimp hat" featured in All The Little People has never been This Hat. |
March 2013
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Friday Nights is a four part miniseries and spinoff of commodoreHUSTLE, focusing specifically on Magic: The Gathering. Paul is taught by the other members of LoadingReadyRun how to play Magic, coming to a head at a Friday Nights Magic session at Yellowjacket Games. Friday Nights was produced in association with Wizards of the Coast, the creators of Magic. Bradley Rains composed an original chiptune-inspired electronic soundtrack for this series. The first series was released on DVD. The second season began on March 15, 2013 with the release of Friday Nights: The Return. |
February 2013
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Annika and Khaavren are Kathleen's two cats, featured in many LRR videos, a few Crapshots and one episode of ENN. Khaavren is a tabby cat described by Kathleen as "lovable, but entitled." He can be silly and occasionally ornery. Annika was a friendly and very vocal black cat, inspiring Kathleen to create the webcomic Things My Cat Hates. Annika was a lover of human food, especially French fries. Annika passed away in January 2013 at the age of thirteen. |
January 2013
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Daily Drop was a show produced by the crew over four days in September 2010. Various objects were recorded dropping against a concrete floor in the Victoria Event Centre using a high-speed camera. Objects that didn't break when dropped were hit with a crowbar. The episodes were accompanied with music from Younnat. It was released weekdays from October 10, 2010 until the finale on May 28, 2011. |
December 2012
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Awesome Brothers is an image macro originating from the LRR forums. A photo of Graham from a self-serve photo booth at the Child's Play Charity Dinner in 2009 was Photoshopped with a then-unknown bearded man giving a thumbs-up. Elomin Sha named them the Awesome Brothers. Two years later, Graham would finally be 'reunited' with the other Awesome Brother, a PAX enforcer named Ishmael. |
November 2012
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Clubbing is a drinking game where the participants must trick another player to discover a hidden vessel of club soda (a "club") that they must drink as quickly as possible. A club can be countered with a second club, in which case the first player must counter or drinks both clubs. Clubbing came to prominence during the fourth Desert Bus for Hope and clubbing has occurred at subsequent Desert Bus events and at PAX. The creation of clubbing was fictionalized in the commodoreHUSTLE episode Bros Clubbing Bros. |
October 2012
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Operation: Viral Outbreak was a social experiment performed in tandem with the release of commodoreHUSTLE 006 - Viral. The crew made their own videos and YouTube channels and encouraged fans to spread them around the Internet to see if any would go viral. Each entry touches on themes of widespread viral videos. Epic Nunchuck Fail (pictured) was the most successful, accruing half a million views and making appearances in mainstream media. |
September 2012
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Hot Water at PAX is the weekly video posted on April 12, 2010. It is the first commodoreHUSTLE to be hosted on the Escapist. It was shot almost entirely at the inaugural PAX East in Boston, Massachusetts. The plot involves the crew struggling to share a hotel room (and bathroom) among the seven of them. Then editor-in-chief of the Escapist Russ Pitts makes a guest appearance. Hot Water at PAX was first posted with a stinger of forum member Wraith proposing to fellow forum member TheRocket. |
August 2012
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Metal Gear August is the title of the five-part Unskippable miniseries that ran in August 2009. Metal Gear Solid 4's notoriously long opening cutscene had been requested numerous times by fans. Graham and Paul decided to split the cutscene into five separate episodes to do it justice. It was the first series of episodes dedicated to a single game, paving the way for several other multi-episode entries. |
June/July 2012
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The Idiot Room was a video podcast produced by Graham and his coworkers in the Victoria marketing department of Pixpo (now Mixpo) during the summer of 2006. It starred Graham, Trenton Crawford and Aidan Henry. Nathan Mosher appeared in the first four episodes. Graham often played the straight man to the bizarre antics and Jackass-style misbehavior of Aidan and Trenton. The Idiot Room introduced the Word of the Day segment that would later be reused in the Phailhaüs. |
April/May 2012
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Spot the Dog is a ceramic figurine of a dog that the crew has placed in the background of videos. He started appearing in Season 5, but until his prominent appearance in Reality Tear in Season 8, it wasn't known outside the crew that his appearances were a deliberate joke. Finding Spot in the background of videos has become an alternate reality game.
Spot has no spots. |
