Mega64

Submission 10,104

About

Mega64 is a sketch comedy troupe focused on video games which consists of Rocco Botte, Derrick Acosta and Shawn Chatfield. After spending two years working on a public access comedy show, they began uploading skits from the episodes to YouTube.

Online History

Botte, Acosta and Chatfield launched the website Mega64.com^[1] in April 2003 to host video clips of skits from their eponymous public access television show, intended to air in November 2004 (shown below). The premise of the show centers around Dr. Poque, a former video game programmer who invents a new type of console called the Mega64, which can downloads video games directly into the player’s brain using a virtual reality helmet. Though these episodes never made it on air, they were later released on DVD through Something Awful's publishing company, Awful Video.

Each episode consisted of two to five skits set in the world of either real or fictional games, in which the main characters try to interact with unsuspecting strangers in real life who often have no idea what is happening. By November^[2] 2003, the troupe began uploading these skits online, starting with a parody of the 1999 Sega Dreamcast open world adventure game Shenmue.^[3] In the game, the main character Ryo Hazuki walks through areas of Yokosuka, Japan on a search for the man who killed his father, which involves going up to non-playable characters and ask them questions (shown below, left). In the parody sketch, Mega64 member Rocco Botte is shown cosplaying as Hazuki, walking through southern California and quoting lines from the game to people on the street (shown below, right).

The troupe did not join YouTube^[5] until February 24th, 2006. As of July 2012, their channel has 220,200 subscribers, and 86,947,459 video views overall, with an average of 37,300 views a day. More than 50 of the 301 skits on their YouTube channel are interpretations of well-known video games, such as Katamari Damacy, Super Smash Brothers and several games from the Legend of Zelda series. Mega64 also maintains a wiki for their productions^[8], a subreddit^[18], a Twitter^[6] account with 12,518 followers and a Facbook fan page^[7] with 10,161 likes.

Podcast

On September 35th, 2006, the crew launched a podcast^[11] to complement the series. While it was initially audio-only, on December 24th, 2007, they added a video component to these episodes. The podcasts occasionally include special guests or friends of the crew^[12] and stream live^[13] every Sunday at 10pm EST.

Reputation

Throughout its time online, Mega64 skits have appeared on GameTrailers^[19], IGN^[20], Cracked^[21], Game Informer^[22], Joystiq^[23] and Destructoid.^[24] The success of the web series has also led them to partnerships with Spike TV^[25], GameTap and Adult Swim^[26] and the band Freezepop, for whom Mega64 directed a music video.

The series has included a handful of notable guest stars^[14] including Konami's Hideo Kojima^[15], Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto^[16] and Valve's Gabe Newell.^[17] Fans of the series launched a forum, Mega64ums^[9] as early as 2006 for them to interact, eventually chronicling all of the catchphrases^[10] said on the show or its podcast that had become inside jokes on the forums.