(yawns)
- All right, I'm gonna wear this unofficial asdfmovie cap
to hide the fact that I don't care
about my appearance today.
Problem solved.
Hey, you. So, oh, I've hit the thing.
Hey, you, my name is Thomas "TomSka" Ridgewell,
and we just released the new suicidal muffin
"Somebody kill me, I wanna die" song.
I don't know what it's actually called
at the time of filming this 'cause I'm worried
it's gonna get demonetized and
algorithmically demoted, I guess we'll find out now.
If you've watched the video or just listened to the song,
you might've noticed the incredibly unsubtle hidden message
within the song and video,
which I'm worried a lot of people are gonna misconstrue
as me saying that I hate asdfmovie,
when that's absolutely not the case.
What I was trying to say with that video
is that it's been a long time.
I've been doing this for a long time
and as time has gone on,
it's gotten harder for me to relate to
that part of my brain,
that LOL random 2007 era sense of humor
that makes asdfmovie work.
It makes me reflect and look back on my life
because it's one of the biggest and most consistent things
in my life,
but it is still something that I love very dearly,
and cherish, and am proud of.
And am optimistic for.
The video may have just come across that I hate it,
and that's not the point.
To prove that I don't hate asdfmovie,
I thought I would go through today and review it.
And I'm probably gonna be really mean about it,
which isn't gonna help the case at all.
But there you go.
(giggling)
- Got your nose.
- Look out. He's got a nose!
(gun bangs)
- All right.
So before we even start asdfmovie,
I've got to point out a visual glitch,
asdfmovie was made,
the first one at least was made
at the exact point when YouTube transitioned
from being a four by three aspect ratio
to a 16 by nine aspect ratio.
So after the first shot was animated in four by three,
I went to the animator,
"Wait, no, please make it 69."
Fun fact. It's not fun at all.
That was a really boring fact.
Mildly interesting? Mildly interesting.
- You gotta help me, man.
My tie is evil and it's gonna kill me.
Please don't hurt me.
(tie cackles evilly)
- So a fun fact about the "tie is evil" joke.
Apparently a kid killed his mom with a hammer,
but was quoted as in school saying
that his tie was evil and it was going to kill him,
which makes me think an asdfmovie fan
killed their mother with a hammer.
- Hello, parking meter.
- Hello.
- What are these jokes?
He says hello to the parking meter,
and it says hello back.
Didn't expect that.
All right, asdfmovie 1, where to begin?
I mean, it's a testament to how much
my sense of humor has sped up over the years.
Just want to get it over with these days.
Apologies to my girlfriends.
There's actually only 10 jokes,
I think, in asdfmovie 1,
whereas the average now is like 18
in the same amount of time.
I really just can't find this funny anymore, asdfmovie 1.
I think it's so many base level non sequiturs
like he says hello to the thing and the thing talks,
you didn't expect the thing to talk.
Like I appreciate that it was a beginning point,
but how did this blow up?
Were people's standards just that low back then?
- I baked you a pie.
- Oh boy. What flavor?
- Pie flavor.
(energetic guitar music)
- I still like pie flavor pie.
- I like singing.
- I like dancing.
- I like trains.
(train horn blares)
- So for the longest time,
the "I like trains" joke was originally "I like dinosaurs"
and then a dinosaur was gonna come in
and eat all the kids, but then I just
changed it to trains because I was at a train station
and thought,
"Hey, wouldn't it be funny if I got hit by a train?"
The kid was also originally voiced by
my eight year old cousin at the time,
when I had my friend Ed try and do the voice
and his delivery was just so dull and flat.
For some reason, it was just perfect.
The idea of a child character,
just having this incredibly dull and flat voice.
It just worked.
- Ha ha, they said I could never teach a llama to drive.
(llama bleats)
No llama, no!
(llama's bleat fades)
- That llama is actually just me going (bleats).
I'm a very talented voice actor.
Thank you for asking.
- Doctor, I think I might be a homosexual.
- How can you tell?
- Rainbows!
- I'm proud of 19 year old me for making a gay joke
that wasn't homophobic.
He just, he vomits rainbows, which is a symbol of gay pride.
No one's a victim there.
That is, it's a miracle that this has aged
and I still have a career intact.
So asdfmovie 2,
I'm still really proud of it.
I think it has so many jokes
that are like actual jokes
and subversions of expectations,
or just corruptions to joke formats
that are actually clever.
The first asdfmovie is what people
who don't like asdfmovie,
think all of asdfmovie is,
whereas number two actually has jokes.
And it's the distinction between them is so small,
but I'm still very proud of it today.
And I think the reason it works
is because I spent about a year
coming up with all the jokes
and actually tried hard with it.
Harder than I've tried at anything else.
Apologies to my girlfriends?
- Who parked their car on my sandwich?
- I did.
(screams)
- I was actually convinced to cut out the
"Who parked their car on my sandwich"
and the, "Oh no, I spilled my milk" jokes
out of asdfmovie 2
in favor of two of my least favorite jokes
that went in instead.
And that was an important lesson for me
in not listening to anyone else,
and anything they think because it's all dumb.
'Cause those were better jokes
than the ones that went in instead.
- Hey man, look at my new dog.
- Oh yeah, that's pretty cool.
Aw, there's no dog there.
- Ohhhh.
- [Both] Ohhhh.
(upbeat music)
- Ah, the new dog joke.
When had a competition for someone to write
an asdfmovie joke,
and their joke was funnier than any of the other jokes
in the actual episode.
Fuck.
- Pfft. Screw gravity.
(ascending slide whistle)
- The screw gravity joke.
I always wanted it to be "fuck gravity,"
but I wasn't ready to put a "fuck" on my main channel.
And to this day I still, I stand by the decision.
"Fuck gravity" is a better line.
"Screw" just doesn't land.
- Oh, what is that happening? Why would you do this?
- I am punching your salad!
- Nooo!
(applause)
- Stop. I fucking hate the "punching your salad" joke.
It's so bad. It's so forced.
It's me trying to replicate the three joke format
of "I like trains" with just LOL random bullshit.
I'm desperately trying to do an Egoraptor impression like
"Oh, whoa. What are you doing, man? Stop! Whoa!"
It's, oh, I'm ashamed.
Oh, I'm ashamed.
- Honey, why is the baby on fire?
- Buy me more jewelry!
- There's actually a vine of Maisie Williams,
who plays Arya Stark in Game of Thrones,
quoting the "Buy me more jewelry" asdfmovie clip.
She's seen asdfmovie!
- Buy me more jewelry!
- Hey guys, check out my new camera.
Oh wait, this isn't a camera.
- A lot of people always ask me what my favorite
asdfmovie joke is.
And I think I always say it's the new camera one
because that's actually the first ever kind of like joke
I ever wrote, was my first ever animation
back when I was like 11 years old or 12 years old,
the original version of that joke
was a minute and a half long.
Somehow I took a minute and a half
to tell that exact same joke.
And this one is like 1.5 seconds.
So again, a testimony to the increase of my sense of humor.
Okay, asdfmovie 3.
It's got some good beats in it,
but it's also got a lot of the most tryhardy jokes in it
where I'm just trying to be random.
It's like, I'm kind of losing grip on what I'm doing.
I'm developing more of an anxiety about performing
and making a funny video,
and I think it really shows.
It's still got some very solid beats in there.
Even if a lot of the jokes I have borrowed
from younger versions of myself.
- You're getting mugged kid.
- No, you're getting mugged.
- Ah, how the hell does that even work?
- So after just doing a bad impression of Egoraptor
in asdfmovie 3,
I got him into asdfmovie 4.
I didn't direct him very well
and I didn't get the line delivery done the way I wanted to,
but I was too nervous to say "Please do it again"
'cause it was already a big favor.
So oops.
- Oh.
- Banana fight!
- [Gunman] No!
- Banana fight.
Yeah, let's try a little harder.
It's funny.
So asdfmovie 4 definitely has a few dud beats in it.
Like just jokes that I'm trying too hard on.
Really the ones that are just
someone getting shot in the face.
I don't know why I was like
"The shooting in the face one was funny from the last one.
Let's just do that some more."
But ultimately I think asdfmovie 4
is kind of me getting back on form
and figuring out what does and doesn't work.
Mostly, like I said,
it's about two jokes that I don't really like in it,
but I think I'm very proud of asdf 4
and it was my favorite one for the longest time
because the jokes are quite varied
and a lot of them are actually jokes.
(rock music)
- Hey man, you wanna play some video games?
No way, dude. You always beat me.
- Tell no one!
- So there's another example of self censorship
in asdfmovie 5 when it's like,
"Hey, do you want to play some video games?"
"No way, dude, you always beat me."
The original joke was,
"Hey son, you want to play some video games?"
"No way dad, you always beat me."
And then he beats the shit out of him.
And I kind of at the last minute just changed it.
'Cause I was like, "Is this going too far?"
And it's another one of these decisions where I stand by it.
I think I made the right call,
but the original joke was funnier.
It was a better joke.
- I wonder if my pony can fly.
Huh.
- "I wonder if my pony can fly"
is another one of those jokes that I sincerely regret
because the original version of the joke
was just a closeup of a guy holding a baby.
And he's like,
"I wonder if my baby can fly"
and he throws it off screen
and there's like a two second pause.
And he's like, "Nope."
That was funny.
And instead I just went for a bullshit,
"The pony flies."
(growls)
- I'm gonna punch you in the face.
- But it's Opposite Day.
- Oh no!
- I like that joke.
So asdfmovie 5, once again,
it's got a handful of dud beats
where I'm clearly trying too hard,
but ultimately it's fairly solid.
But I think the pattern so far is that
the even numbered episodes are just the better ones.
Just speaking of, let's move on to asdfmovie 6.
(dubstep music)
(trumpet plays)
- Hey, you got a license for that?
- You'll never take me alive!
(trumpet toots)
- So that trumpet in asdfmovie 6 is just me going
(mimics trumpet).
It's a skill I guess I have.
- Hey, did you know that carrots are good for your eyesight?
- You lied to me.
- So I think the carrots being good for your eyesight joke
is one of the first ever asdf jokes I ever wrote.
I just couldn't think of a way to really make it funny.
And then Vsauce just showed up on the scene
and it was like, "You're funny.
You tell facts, your voice just works!"
And it was just kind of a perfect fit.
- Hello. - Hello.
- Hello.
- Hello!
- [All Four] Oh no!
- So the barbershop quartet Mine Turtle joke
was not actually written by me.
Every asdfmovie there's like maybe one joke
that my friends have just donated and been like,
"Please don't credit me.
I don't want to be associated with your work."
But that one I think was written by my friend, Dan.
Thanks Dan.
- Oh, a puppy!
- Oh, careful, honey, he has a knife.
- Oh, what? No, no I don't!
- So the fucking puppy with a knife,
the dog was obviously supposed to have like a knife
held behind his back,
but it became apparent pretty quickly that
that wasn't very easy to depict.
And Ben wasn't very good at drawing dogs, I guess.
So just put a knife on him and that's enough
that you get the joke apparently.
So asdfmovie 6,
I think it's kind of a pretty perfect one.
Like the only joke I'm not that happy with
is the "Don't think about cats" one,
because I knew I had a funnier punchline for that joke,
but I lost a sketchbook
and I forgot the punchline to the joke,
but I still put it in anyway
and I made up a new punchline,
and that punchline was not as good.
(yells)
(cheerful music)
- Hey Stacy, do you want to go to the prom with me?
- I'm sorry, but I'm a ghost.
- But you're not dead. (gun bangs)
- Bye, Brian.
- Oh yeah, asdfmovie 7
was the one where all the suicide jokes show up
because I started suffering with mental health issues
and I definitely put it into my work.
Yeah.
- Oh, I'm so full.
- You have room for muffin?
- No.
- Why won't you let me die?
- I absolutely loved working with little Sam
who voices the muffin and also Catbug from Bravest Warriors.
I had to direct him over the phone because
he was over in LA and I actually had to direct him
through his mother because he was in a sound booth.
So I'd be like, "No, no, no.
Have your young child scream
"I want to die" like this."
And then she'd have to pass that onto him
and be like, "Okay honey, say "I wanna die!""
And all the while it was like 3:00 AM for me in England.
That was a weird evening.
(screams)
- Oh yeah. I confirmed that all asdf characters
are just naked at all times,
that's why you don't see clothes on them.
They're just, shirtless.
Yeah.
So I'm actually really happy with asdfmovie 7 still.
No one particular joke jumps out at me and it doesn't work.
There's not really any compromises. I like that one a lot.
I just burped. That was all my love coming out of me.
- Have you seen the baby?
- No, I think he got outside.
- You fool.
("Everybody Do The Flop")
- I regret not using almost all of these jokes.
Once they were made, they were pretty funny.
Except the pineapple joke.
I fucking hate that joke, actually.
- Happy birthday!
(screams)
- It's a boy.
- That's funny.
'Cause that's Eddie in the happy birthday one
and then he had a baby boy.
I predicted the future.
- Hey. You know who's gay?
Us.
- So Ben who animates the asdfmovies
wrote the final in the trilogy of,
"Hey, you know, who's gay?" jokes.
And it's really funny.
Why are the jokes I don't write the funnier ones?
It's 'cause I'm not funny!
The deleted scenes, ultimately I just regret not using
most of those jokes.
They were pretty good.
I could be like a whole asdfmovie ahead by now
If I hadn't, oh, I'm so stupid.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] And now, a cow pretending to be a man.
- Alan, are you a cow?
- What? No.
- Yeah, me neither. You guys want to go skateboards?
- Ah, the cow from asdfmovie 8.
I can't hide it.
I'm basically just doing an impression
of a character from Family Guy, the guy who was like,
"So I was about to bone my girlfriend."
I'm just doing that character
who I guess is like Minnesotan?
I just like that one voice from Family Guy,
and I wanted to put it in asdfmovie.
(panting)
- You're adopted.
(sad piano chord)
- That shit got me.
Yeah, asdfmovie 8.
It's a successful continuation of the series,
but yeah, you're definitely starting to see
my own cynicism really bleed into this series.
- Jimmy, take out the dog.
- Yes, Mother.
(dog barks)
- For a walk, Jimmy.
(upbeat music)
- I think at this point in the history of asdfmovie,
I've started really relying heavily on wordplay
and people taking or doing things literally,
which was not what it originally was.
It was much more about non-sequitur comedy.
And I think that again is a sign of me,
not necessarily running out of ideas,
but just my sense of humor changing.
I'm doing my best to like try and get back to there,
but I just got to evolve.
- What's his name?
- His name is David.
- Hello, I am David.
- Markiplier has such a good voice.
I love having him in asdfmovie.
He's just got a naturally incredibly comedic voice.
You'll notice that in asdfmovie,
a lot of the voices are American.
The ones I'm doing myself, because I just think
American accents lend themselves to non-sequitur comedy,
much more than British accents.
Like if I'm doing a more jaded or sarcastic joke,
I'll do a British accent.
But if it's like quite "Whoa," out there,
it's usually a more American voice.
- Can Susie come out to play?
- Sure.
- Yay!
- The baby popping out of the tummy
was one of the only jokes that I had an editor,
when I was doing the book,
say "You have to remove the blood. It's too gross."
So I removed from the cartoon as well.
(footsteps)
- [Man] Whoops.
- I'm proud of that stairs joke.
It's fucking stupid,
but it's a good subversion of expectations.
So like how asdfmovie 6 or 7
had loads of suicide jokes
because I was really struggling with my mental health,
asdfmovie 9 has loads of jokes about like
parents abandoning you or affairs.
- I think we should just be friends.
- Mother.
- And that's really just because my parents' marriage
fell apart while making this.
And it was the only thing on my mind.
So if I wanted to make this asdfmovie,
I had to incorporate that into the video.
(upbeat music)
- Haha, chase me, Susie, chase me!
Mm, good.
- Included this joke just 'cause I wanted to hear
Elliot go "Mm, good."
- Is this you?
- Yes.
- Hello! - Hi!
- The "Is this you" joke is another one of those jokes
that I wrote like an hour or two hours
before the episode came out
and then had Ben animate it like at 4:00 AM.
I just wanted to do that voice, just "Hello. Hi."
- You know what I hate? Child murderers.
- Oh no, here comes one now.
- I'm gonna get ya!
- All right.
Another example of self-censorship,
the original joke was,
"You know what I hate? Child molesters."
And then a child who is trying to molest them shows up.
Again, it's a literal joke,
but one that I kind of copped out on
and went with child murderers,
it's not as good, but once again,
I kind of played it safe because I'm a wuss.
- I don't want to be fat anymore.
- Haha, he's fat and suicidal. I wonder where that...
- Meow, meow, I'm a cow. I said, meow, meow, I'm a-
- No!
- Oh, it was only once I released asdfmovie 10
that I realized that I'd done the
"Beep beep I'm a sheep" joke wrong.
The first bit was supposed to be like one sheep goes,
"Beep beep, I'm a sheep. I said, beep beep, I'm a sheep."
And then after a pause,
another one joins in and they do it together.
And then when it gets to the second time
and they're all doing it,
it has built up to it more in a way.
And I just kind of bonked up my own delivery.
I don't like asdfmovie 10.
I don't know if I'll get more fond of it
as the years go by,
but I find all of the jokes in it really easy to deconstruct
and predict.
I mean, they are all like a character says
they are or they're about to do a thing,
and then they literally do the thing.
- Cannonball!
- Not very clever. It's not even jaded.
It's just lazy, I guess?
I do want to make an asdfmovie 11,
because I love the challenge of it.
I love the challenge of being able to tap into
my younger sensibilities and evolve a little bit comedically
and keep this series going.
That's the hard bit,
the hard bit originally was "Can I make a viral hit?"
and now it's "Can I keep this going?
Can I still do it?"
10 year anniversary of asdfmovie 1
is coming up on August 10th, and like,
that would be a perfect release date,
but I haven't even touched pen to paper yet.
And I'm I guess, feeling kind of in a way demoralized,
because I don't like asdfmovie 10 anymore.
But also inspired because I want to outdo myself.
But also there is the curse of
odd versus even numbered asdfmovies.
So yeah, those were my opinions on asdfmovie
and some fun facts to do with the series.
I actually probably have like 10 times more fun facts,
but I'll save those for a book that I will never ever
write one day.
Sorry to leave this video on kind of a bum note,
but I just need to try harder I guess.
Asdfmovie 11 coming August 10th.
Is it? I don't know. I don't know.
Oh God, I don't know.
(yells)
(cheerful music)