Tell me about some of your favorite (non-riffing or cheesy movie-related) YouTube channels. I’ll start with Erwin Saunders, the delightfully rumpled and flustered pixie hunter: Erwin Saunders - YouTube
The combination of impressive visual effects for the pixies and Erwin’s very unsophisticated narration and presence is brilliant and a lot of fun to watch.
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Adult Wednesday Addams. Which unfortunately got taken down due to legal threats, but of course others have saved it:
I watch a lot of Nuke’s Top 5, the best YouTube channel for weekly anthologies of (puported) paranormal video clips from around the net.
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I hadn’t seen Adult Wednesday Addams before, but that’s great.
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Two words: TURBAQUE and JETTLE (a turbojet engine-powered barbeque grill and a pulsejet heated tea kettle, respectively). Furze also built the world’s fastest pram (baby carriage), bumper car, and mobility scooter, as well as a working hoverbike.
He’s presently excavating a tunnel between his house, his workshop shed, and an underground bunker in the backyard that he previously built — by hand (with assistance from some quiet hydraulic gadgets so as not to disturb the neighbors).
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I have a few channels I really enjoy. My favorite is usually Bald and Bankrupt. He’s a guy traveling around to places I’d love to see one day. Mostly gritty ex Soviet cities and Russian towns. I enjoy seeing old communist places and hearing stories about the way of life back then.
Another channel I really like is The B1M. It talks about awesome construction projects around the world.
I also sub to a Dprk channel. I’m totally fascinated with the place and I enjoy reading real news about the place and not sensationalized western media about it.
Lastly I follow several different walking channels. Just people walking around cool places, like a virtual street view. Japan, Sweden, NYC, Tehran, Afghanistan, and so on.
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In addition to Auralnauts, Team Coco, Hanging with Doctor Z, Adam Savage’s Tested, and David Lynch Theater, I’ve got to give a should out to Cinema Insomnia, though being from Sacramento where the show originated on public access, and knowing several of the people involves, I may be a little biased.
I also have a massive happily married man crush on Simone Giertz, but even my wife has to concede that’s only natural. If you aren’t familiar with her, she’s basically a one-woman Gizmonics institute, who builds her own (mostly) functional real life invention exchanges.
And while he doesn’t release stuff as often as he used to, I still follow Neil Cicierega, better known to some as the musician Lemon Demon, who also produces numerous stupid shorts, the occasional video game, extremely weird remixes, and puppet shows.
And as a classic Doctor Who fan, I love Dalek 63*88; a couple of guys which produces short but extremely professional documentaries about little bits of Doctor Who ephemera things that nothing but a die-hard fan would care about. But unlike most youtubers who just regurgitate what they’ve read online, these guys actually get out there and do research. Hard research like actually going out on site to dig through the local newspaper archives or parish records of some small town where there was once a fete in which a Dalek prop was featured, or trying to figure out what happened to a particular set piece that got recycled multiple times in future productions at the BBC (or in some cases, James Bond or Star Wars). It’s extremely specialized and nerdy, but their stuff is often more interesting than the extras that come on the official release DVDs.
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I follow several channels, but I’ll mention just a few of my faves.
First is Cinematic Excrement. He reviews movies and often looks at bad ones. He did a two-part look at Manos and is currently reviewing the Razzie winners for Worst Picture year by year.
My favorite for my hobby of model railroading is the DIY & Digital Railroad. Jimmy talks about 3d printing and arduinos, but he also tells how to use budget materials. He’s very positive about the hobby, which is always good to see.
I’ll wrap up with two channels I first found through Geek & Sundry. First is Dael Kingsmill’s MonarchsFactory. Dael came to G&S through her interest in mythology. She still does myth videos, but now she also releases content related to D&D. She does do some silly stuff now and again as well.
Last is Kiri Callaghan’s Kirosity. Kiri started out with a focus on learning interesting things. Over time she’s talked about her life, both good and bad. Her channel’s been quiet for a while, but she will have the sequel to her first book “Alys” out soon, so she’s hoping to post more on YT again.
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I’m pretty sure I saw Simone Giertz’s TED Talk video, but I hadn’t come upon her channel on YouTube. That’s fun stuff.
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I haven’t keyed into the model train hobby specifically, but I do love odd diorama making videos. There are quite a lot of channels doing that right now. Here’s one that’s fun: https://www.youtube.com/c/BoyleiHobbyTime/featured
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Oh my. Well, setting aside the obvious (OSP, some of the gamer channels, MST/Rifftrax/Mads Are Back) and the NSFW (Vivziepop, home of Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel) and the political…
In no particular order (looking at what’s latest on my subscriptions feed)… futurist Isaac Arthur, Algodoo race artist Mikan, restoration artists My Mechanics and TysyTube, machinist Clickspring, Jelle’s Marble Runs of course, professional game wrecker Let’s Game it Out, sudoku specialists Cracking the Cryptic, Brady Haran’s Periodic Videos (and most of his other science channels too), local science explainer Dr Paul Sutter whom I was fortunate to have as the guide of a trip to see the eclipse in 2017 (even though a cloud covered it at the last second and we missed it), the Corning Museum of Glass, especially Bill Gudenrath’s videos (and despite the fact that the Toledo Museum has the better collection, IMO), and resin artist Thalasso Hobbyer.
And that’s just scratching the surface.
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Having recently gotten into printmaking, I’ve been seeking out some interesting channels around that hobby. I love David Bull’s channel. David Frazer’s linocuts are spectacular, but I wish his videos were longer and more detailed.
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Twinsthenewtrend - these twins are so sweet and kind and funny, just what the world needs in these trying times
Mario the Maker Magician - was introduced to Mario during the KS telethon, and am now a big fan
Brandon Acker - classical guitarist and lutist who’s both very talented and personable
smalin - does visualizations of classical music that are both beautiful and educational
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I loved those Mario the Maker Magician videos during the Kickstarter.
And I’m becoming a big fan of those “first time listening” videos. The twins are great, and I also enjoy Jamel_AKA_Jamal - YouTube.
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I’m a big fan of Mark Rober. He tackles really fun engineering challenges in a generally friendly and engaging way.
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The only problem I have with Mark Rober is that he thinks all squirrels are male, even the pregnant ones.
Dude, squirrels come in both sexes! Dude!
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The Lonely Island, Good Mythical Morning, Popular MMOs, and Stephen Colbert’s Late Show.
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As someone who likes animation and puppetry, I like:
Let Me Explain Studios (the only storytime animator I like), the bizarre squizzy, and the screaming legend Sr Pelo. For puppetry, there’s TikTok star Toiley T. Paper, Crisp Rat (Tutter’s identical cousin who’s a lot sillier than him), Glove and Boots, and Barnaby Dixon.
Honorable Mentions: Saberspark, zefrank1, Phantom Strider, Potter Puppet Pals, JonTron, Caddicarus, and Smooth McGroove.
The last two animation channels I picked have some weird, bizarre, and funny content. No explanations needed.
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Let me see. There are several.
Puppet Weirdness
Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared- I will always love how Muppety-puppety they are and how creative, yet dark the segments get. There’s a few theory videos on what they mean. IIRC, MatPat’s is my favorite. They’ll have a TV show coming soon from Conan O’Brien’s company.
Potter Puppet Pals- If you’re a fan of either the books or the movies, this is another oldie parody thing. Perhaps most famous for their short “The Mysterious Ticking Noise.” Done by Neil Cicerega who has done music with his band Lemon Demon and done stuff with Disney.
Uncle Teddy- A friend of mine did this channel. He seems to be busy with other projects currently, but his li’l seal puppet visits various places such as Disney World.
Reactors
There isn’t too much to talk about here, but I just generally like these reactors best of the many I watch. There’s a variety of shows, but I mainly watch first-time reactions to my favorites (mostly animated)
The Flaming Shark- He gets special notation, as he’s one of the few I know of who posts links to his full reactions to movies and shows for free.
The Third Bill- He mostly does music, but some animated shows as well.
Riffing Adjacent
AC Racebest- Home to ‘Bronies React’ which is sort of riffing for the My Little Pony set. There’s also his video game channel Ready Player Dumb which he does with his wife and is often very funny too.
Phelan Porteous- This guy has been sarcastically talking about a variety of movies for years now. He mostly does horror or animation, but also likes to talk about aspects of things like bootleg toys, Ghostbusters, Garfield, and more. I highly recommend his Dingo Pictures videos as well as the other animation ones.
Saberspark- He talks about a lot of animation-- mostly really terrible, terrible animation. This can include NSFW productions, the downfall of once popular creations/creators/channels, and just generally weird animated movies and stuff.
Stoned Gremlin Productions (Cinema Snob)- Like Phelan, he’s also been at this a long time and has gone over many cult or shock films as well as other weirdness. He discovered Balloonland and Whizzo around the same time as the Rifftrax guys, if not sooner.
zefrank1- He’s got a thread of his own on these forums, but in case you didn’t see it then, he does a Morgan Freeman-esque documentary voice while providing hilarious commentary over nature videos and sprinkles in zoological facts as well.
True Crime
Brooke Makenna- She seems so sweet and treats the cases seriously, focusing heavily on the victims when telling their stories.
Coffeehouse Crime- This is a newer channel, but seems to cover interesting cases, including some I hadn’t seen elsewhere.
Eleanor Neale- Another true crime commenter who discusses many cases in a straightforward manner and is able to express the mindset of the abused which can be hard to wrap one’s head around if they’d never been in that situation.
Kendall Rae- She’s another commentator who can explain and express the victims of abuse and their mindsets in the true crime cases.
Mr Ballen- He’s a great storyteller and does true crime, but also weird and paranormal stuff here and there.
Other Stuff
Babish Culinary Universe- I love how Babish covers cooking basics, but also makes plenty of videos trying to replicate food from TV and movies. Here’s hoping he does a MST3K one someday!
Doctor Mike- I like how informative he is and he does fun stuff like reacting to memes and medical scenes in movies and shows.
How to Cook That- Not only does this channel have nice baking advice and such, the host really seems to know her stuff and how food works, as she vigilantly debunks dangerous and just ineffective ‘hacks’ found all over YouTube.
Phantom Strider- He talks about animation and video games, primarily via top number lists.
Unplanned Downtime- This channel appeals to my love of Disney World. They have a variety of shows highlighting various aspects and also do skits and songs and such that kinda have that low-budget MST host segment feel.
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