50 Fun Facts About Red Vs. Blue

Who created Red vs. Blue?

He also voices Church and Lopez, and later bought the series' rights back after the studio that made it shut down.

Which production company made Red vs. Blue?

The company grew out of the series, with the whole crew quitting their day jobs once it took off.

Red vs. Blue is set in the world of which video game franchise?

The creators deliberately kept the story independent of the games' lore so newcomers could follow it.

What is the name of the desolate box canyon where the two teams are stationed?

According to Simmons, each team's base exists only in response to the other team's base.

In which year did the first episode of Red vs. Blue premiere?

It launched on April 1, which the series kept as its traditional premiere date for many later seasons.

What is the technique of syncing game footage to pre-recorded dialogue called?

The studio had never heard the word when it started; it thought it had invented the idea.

How many episodes was Red vs. Blue originally meant to run?

By episode 8 the writers had used only about a third of their joke list, and the plan kept growing from there.

How many full seasons does Red vs. Blue have?

There are also six mini-series, plus non-canon public service announcements and holiday videos.

What is the subtitle of the final season, released as a movie in 2024?

It premiered as a feature film on May 7, 2024, with an episodic cut following more than a year later.

Graham Leggat of Lincoln Center's film society called the series 'as sophisticated as' which playwright?

He described it as part locker-room humor, part absurdist tragicomedy, part vivisection of game culture.

The Red and Blue armies secretly exist as training simulations for which program?

Neither team is usually motivated to fight the other, with the exception of the Red leader.

The Freelancer agents are named after what?

Hence Agents Texas, Washington and Carolina; the AIs follow a different naming scheme entirely.

The series' AI characters are named after what?

Epsilon ends up taking over Church's identity after the original Church's death.

What over-the-top rank does Red Team's hotheaded leader hold?

Matt Hullum voices him, and also plays the incompetent medic Doc.

Season 18, Zero, was fully animated in which toolset rather than filmed in a game?

It parodied action movies instead of shooters and introduced a new cast, which its director called a 'restart'.

The 'spark for the whole series' was a debate over whether the Warthog looks like which animal?

The argument was re-created in episode 2 and became the joke the theme song's lyrics are built around.

On which website did the creator's early voiceover gameplay videos appear?

The site, run by Geoff Ramsey and Gus Sorola, closed shortly after the first trailer was ignored.

Which magazine's request to use a video on its cover CD prompted the series' relaunch?

The crew decided they needed a website to capitalise on the exposure and re-released the trailer to coincide with the issue.

An early character-introduction video was set to which Limp Bizkit song?

The action-heavy teaser promised a very different show from the situation comedy it became.

To fund working on the series full-time, the team opened an online store selling what?

Quote-based shirts and '-isms' posters remain a staple of the merchandise line.

The 2006 mini-series Out of Mind premiered exclusively on which platform?

It was also the first production shot and edited in 720p widescreen instead of letterboxed fullscreen.

The original five-season run ended in 2007 with which episode number?

The first five seasons were later reshot in high definition using the PC versions of the games.

Which 2008 season began the Recollection story arc?

It was the first season shot in the third game and moved the story to one year after that game's events.

Which animator was hired from season 8 to create the series' action sequences?

He was a fan of the show, and his animated fights took months to produce compared with a week for a game-shot episode.

The 2010 premiere of Revelation crashed the studio's site and which video host?

The first four episodes had been previewed at PAX East a month earlier.

Season 14 broke from the usual format by being what kind of season?

It mixed backstories, such as the Locus and Felix trilogy, with non-canon PSA-style episodes.

Who wrote and directed Season 15 after making 'The Brick Gulch Chronicles'?

He returned for The Shisno Paradox and co-wrote Singularity despite being unable to direct it.

In which year did the creator acquire the series' rights after the studio shut down?

The episodic version of the final season was released in December of that year.

Which character's reveal as a woman was written shortly before the episode went into production?

Church's death was improvised the same way; season 1 scripts were written on a Sunday for a Friday release.

The skull used to beat Private Jimmy to death came from which multiplayer mode?

Writing around what exists in the game is the main limitation of the technique, the creator told The Screen Savers.

Until midway through season 3, Texas-based actors recorded dialogue where?

Los Angeles-based actors such as Joel Heyman and Kathleen Zuelch recorded over the phone during season 1.

In which city are the studio's recording offices located?

Two cast members once phoned in their lines from New York State and Puerto Rico.

Which band has supplied the series' music since its first season?

Bandleader Nico Audy-Rowland sent in a song unsolicited during season 1; episode 8 was the first with any music at all.

Composer Jeff Williams left the series after season 10 to score which new show?

Its first trailer had been shown right after the season 10 credits.

When more than four characters were in a scene, Geoff Ramsey worked a gamepad with what?

Each character is a player 'puppeting' an avatar, and the camera is simply another player's first-person view.

Which older Mac games were used in season 3 for scenes set in the distant past?

Because the shooter series is their spiritual successor, the graphics quality doubles as a marker of time's progression.

In the sequel game, what input makes a character lower his weapon for dialogue scenes?

The developer added it deliberately after fixing the look-down bug the crew had exploited in the first game.

To fake crane shots, the crew first stood the camera player on what?

Later they simply stood the cameraman on other characters, a trick also used to make Donut appear to jump higher.

In the sequel game, which map served as the counterpart to the original canyon?

A huge shadow over Red Base there caused lighting problems until a glitch was found late in season 4.

Which software is used to edit the audio and video together?

After Effects adds props the game lacks, such as tombstones in episode 20 and Christmas lights.

Roughly how many downloads did the first episode get within a day?

It was featured on Slashdot, Penny Arcade and Fark the same day; server costs soon forced a move to peer-to-peer sharing.

Which game developer contacted the studio after episode 2 and turned out to be supportive?

The crew had feared a shutdown; instead a deal let them use the game without license fees, continued by 343 Industries.

BBC News Online's Darren Waters compared the show's anarchic energy to which series?

The Village Voice was less kind, dismissing season 1 as 'Clerks-meets-Star Wars'.

Barenaked Ladies frontman Ed Robertson, a fan, voiced which character?

His band had earlier commissioned special videos for its concerts.

Grifball, later an official game mode, began as a joke by which character about hurting Grif?

The joke was made in season 4 and became a real multiplayer variant in the third game.

Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare references the series with an achievement called what?

It unlocks for killing a Chupacabra; Gears of War's nod is the grenade-tagging award 'Is it a spider?'.

Diary of a Camper, the first known film made with game footage, was made in which game?

A group called The Rangers made it in the 1990s; Red vs. Blue is credited as the first such film to break out of the underground.

Paying FIRST members of the studio's website were originally called what?

Membership cost US$5 a month and brought early access, inspiring the fan-made parody 'Sponsors vs. Freeloaders'.

Which TV channel, founded by Robert Rodriguez, picked up the entire series in 2015?

Rodriguez praised its 'quality writing and pioneering motion capture techniques'.

In which year did the series win a Webby Award for Animation?

It was nominated again the following year and also took Best Animated Web Series from the IAWTV.