YouTube: Cracked's After Hours with a side of Rubi Whipple

I woke up this morning and for some reason was really, really missing a comedy pop culture video series that sadly ended pretty abruptly last December. Until recently, the Cracked website also had an active YouTube channel where every month for the last few years (since around 2011) they've produced a series called, After Hours.

After several active years on YouTube the staff and producers for the Cracked website were fired, effectively ending the run of all their YouTube series in order to focus more fully on the website. Now I don't know what must've gone on behind closed doors over at Cracked, but I think cutting all their YouTube shows was a pretty fucking stupid idea. But, I'm probably biased.

What I can say is that I really miss their brand of humor, their political statements and the stabs they took at analyzing and making light of pop culture. Specifically, After Hours.

The After Hours series showed four friends sitting around a diner table debating pop culture questions. Like crazy internet theories about The Simpsons, or which movie about ghosts was the best for the ghosts. Or, which movie has the best version of Hell. These weren't always funny but they were always insanely well researched and well argued.

This morning when I was getting ready for work, I realized how much I really missed that series and that group of characters (and writers). Daniel O'Brien, Soren Bowie, Michael Swaim and Katie Willert all portrayed these friends and pop culture fanatics with a great deal of charm. After Hours was a great series and it's really only one of the many series Cracked produced on YouTube that were charming, interesting and memorable.

Anyway. I thought since I was missing it and rewatching some old favorites, I'd share them with you and hope that if you never watched one before you give it a try now. [Also, I don't necessarily want to advocate for a company that literally fired all the video staff I loved, soooooooooooooo idk, watch with adblock on. Or don't, because that would be WRONG? Who am I to say.]

PS. And let me do a little legwork for fannish people. If you like like After Hours, you might find yourself here someday.

If you start with the video below it goes right into the playlist.

Also, if you'e got a minute, go give Starline Hodge some love. She often wrote for the show and did background acting as the waitress, which were always great bits. She created a great web comic called Rubi Whipple that more people should read.