Red Letter Media (RedLetterMedia.com)

About

RedLetterMedia is a video production company run by Mike Stoklasa, Rich Evans and Jay Bauman out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin which came to widespread notoriety with the release of Stoklasa's Star Wars: The Phantom Menace review. The company has since gone on to become a major YouTube channel with popular shows such as; The Plinkett Reviews, Half in the Bag, Best of the Worst and Previously Recorded. The Company has also released a few micro budget features films such as "Feeding Frenzy" and the up and coming "Space Cop".

History

RedLetterMedia was launched by founders Mike Stoklasa and Jay Bauman in 2004, initially producing low-budget comedic short films along side their primary Actor and Stage Hand Rich Evans. Since 2009, the company transitioned to YouTube full time due to its higher audience compared with RedLetterMedia's Blip TV channel. The RedLetterMedia YouTube channel^[23] has since been gaining upwards of 60 million video views and 205,000 subscribers over the last seven years.

Harry S. Plinkett Reviews

Mr Plinkett is a character created by both Rich Evans and Mike Stoklasa that rose to fame in 2009 with the hour long Star Wars: The Phantom Menace review. The Character was first shown during a short video called "the cleaning lady" with Rich Evans in the titular role. Harry S. Plinkett is portrayed as a schizophrenic and psychotic centenarian who is shown to be a serial killer during his outings.

In 2008, Stoklasa reviewed the 1994 science fiction film Star Trek Generations as the character Mr. Plinkett. Originally Stoklasa found that his original deconstruction of the film (by doing it straight and with his own voice) wasn't entertaining. Thus Stoklasa took up Rich Evans' Mr Plinkett Character as a way to increase the deconstruction's entertainment value. Encouraged by positive reaction, he continued to make reviews for the three other Star Trek: The Next Generation films.^[10]

In December 2009, a 70-minute critique of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace^[11] was released on the site. The review includes clips from the film, the development documentary film The Beginning and live-action segments filmed by Stoklasa. The video quickly received high views and praise with Damon Lindelof and Simon Pegg linking the video to their respective fans.

Additional Plinkett reviews were subsequently released for the following two Star Wars prequels (Attack of the Clones ^[13] and Revenge of the Sith ^[14]), Avatar ,^[15] Titanic ^[16], Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ^[17], Star Trek ,^[18] Baby's Day Out ^[19] and Cop Dog ^[120].

Half in the Bag

Half in the Bag is a semi-regular series in created in 2011 in which Stoklasa and Bauman do a traditional review of recently released movies in a way that resembles a 1980s sitcom. The show has been likened to Siskle and Ebert and found a strong and consistent audience, making each video rise to an average of 200000 views per video.

Half in the Bag also contains short sitcom like sequences at the beginning and end of each video. These sequences usually contain jokes pertaining to the movies being reviewed such as over the top action scenes and erroneous plot twists to the sitcom story. Rich Evans also appears frequently in the show as his version of Mr Plinkett or other side characters usually as the comic relief or as a deus ex machina to push the sitcom story forward.

Best of the Worst

On January 22nd, 2013, the first episode of show Best of the Worst was uploaded to YouTube, in which the films Russian Terminator, Ninja Vengeance and Never Too Young to Die are discussed. The series features RedLetterMedia staff sitting in a living room providing commentary as they watch various low-budget films. This series has also spawned a spin off called Wheel of the Worst where the films being decided are chosen from a spun wheel reminiscent of game shows.

During the course of the series, the series has managed to highlight many films which have since gained cult stasis or became jokes due to the poor quality or bizarre editing seen in the films. Such films include The Miami Connection, Killing American Style and Blood Debts.

Previously Recorded

On July 17th, 2014, the web series Previously Recorded was launched, which features video game reviews by co-hosts Rich Evans and Jack Packard. The first episode features discussion of the 2013 platform game Risk of Rain.

Previously Recorded has also entered twitch streaming with both Evans and Packard streaming the titles they are currently playing while discussing various topics.

Other Series/Topics

Along side their reviews, RedLetterMedia also creates skits relating to various movie news or recently reviewed films. These skits come in the form of either a side discussion of the various films yet to come out or as a comic sketch highlighting various issues in a movie.

On top of doing reviews, RedLetterMedia also provide commentaries to multiple films with some in the style of Plinkett reviews and others as a typical round table discussion. These commentaries are found on the RLM Band Camp website for free or for downloadable purchase.

Red Letter Media have also been working on a range of full feature films since 2004 with their latest Sci-Fi comedy feature "Space Cop" being completed by 2015.

Highlights

What's Wrong with Your Face?

"What's wrong with your face" is a memorable quote from the original Phantom Menace review in which Plinkett reacts strongly to the appearance of a Nemoidean worker.

Pizza Rolls

Mr. Plinkett often mentions Totino's pizza rolls in his reviews, ending videos with the phrase "Email me if you want a pizza roll. Leave a comment on this webzone if you want a pizza roll." The catchphrase, and pizza rolls in general, have since been adopted by the fandom as a symbol of Mr. Plinkett and RedLetterMedia.

Hack Frauds

"Hack Frauds" relates to a common joke among the fans of RedLetterMedia. The phase relates to an insult Stoklasa directs towards actor Adam Sandler in the Half in the Bag episode which reviews the film Jack and Jill. The phase has been used by Stoklasa multiple times since as a description of a producer who creates films purely for profit. Fans of the series began referring to Stoklasa and Bauman by this phase as a joke due to the long periods between the releases of Plinkett Reviews.

Ishtar Trailer

Ishtar relates to the 1987 film staring Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman which became a legendary box office failure. During RedLetterMedia's Best of the Worst: The Star Wars Holiday Special episode, Stoklasa sarcastically states that the The Star Wars Holiday Special was itself a good idea unlike the film Ishtar. The episode then shows the cinematic trailer of Ishtar and repeats it throughout the episode.

This has lead to fans repeating the numerous lines of dialogue in the trailer and directing them towards Stoklasa and Bauman such as: "These men are pawns" and "They will be hailed as the true messengers of god"

Traffic

As of October 2014, RedLetterMedia.com has a global rank of 58,114 and a United States rank of 14,089 on the traffic analytics site Alexa.^[24]

Search Interest

Search interest for RedLetterMedia only picked up in 2009, after the Mr. Plinkett Phantom Menace review was released. As of October 2014, a DeviantArt search for "redlettermedia" returns 121 results. ^[22]

External References