The Totally Rad Show
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''The Totally Rad Show'' was a weekly, later turned daily, video podcast produced by ''Team Awesome, LLC'' and distributed by Revision3. TRS consisted primarily of reviews and commentary on pop-culture phenomena such as movies,
video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
s,
television programs A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed betw ...
, and
comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...
s. Debuted on March 27, 2007, The Totally Rad Show was hosted by Alex Albrecht, Jeff Cannata, and
Dan Trachtenberg Dan Trachtenberg (born May 11, 1981) is an American filmmaker and podcast host.Rachel Kurland, Scare Tactics Pay off for Cheltenham’s Dan Trachtenberg'. The Jewish Exponent. March 14, 2016. Retrieved October 6, 2017. He is best known for directi ...
. On November 19, 2012, The Totally Rad Show released an episode titled "A Look Back – Episode 1 (Part 1)" where they announced that the Totally Rad Show would be coming to an end as of November 26, 2012. Episodes #1–103 were filmed and edited (#105 was filmed but not edited) by Steve Koncelik. As of episode #104, Steve departed the show, and Mike Gaines took on the filming and editing. In 2008, the show received a People's Voice Webby Award and the "Best Produced" Podcast Award. On March 27, 2017, they reunited for a 10 year anniversary show.


Weekly Episodes (2007– 2010)


Intros


Original (Episodes 1–104)

Each of the first 104 episodes of The Totally Rad Show opened with a re-enactment or re-interpretation of a scene from a popular movie or iconic pop-culture moment. For example, the opening scene of the very first podcast was a parody of ''
Raiders of the Lost Ark ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' is a 1981 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Lawrence Kasdan, based on a story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman. It stars Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, Ronal ...
'' featuring props such as a can of whipped cream and an ''
American Idol ''American Idol'' is an American singing competition television series created by Simon Fuller, produced by Fremantle North America and 19 Entertainment, and distributed by Fremantle North America. It aired on Fox from June 11, 2002, to Ap ...
'' DVD.


Missions: Interlude (Episodes 105–130)

From episode 105 through 130, the show opened with Alex, Jeff, and Dan having a brief discussion about a topic (usually pop culture or otherwise "geek" related), then being interrupted by someone either fan or production-related giving the hosts a "mission" to complete during the episode. The missions became the list of show topics for that week.


Lyrics (Episodes 131–182)

Starting with episode 131, the lyrics to the show's theme tune change from week to week, generally reflecting a popular video game or film.


Show Format

A dialogue introduced the subjects discussed on the show, followed by various segments that begin with brief interstitial video shorts, sometimes produced and submitted by fans of the show. The segments varied from episode to episode, usually including reviews, discussions, and current news about the movie, television, video game, and comic book industries.


Daily Episodes (September 2010 – November 2012)

During their panel at PAX 2010, TRS announced the switch from a weekly to daily format. The daily version of TRS premiered on September 20, 2010, with a review of the Ben Affleck movie, '' The Town''.


Daily Format

Each week, episodes usually consist of movie and video game reviews, with the other segments rotating in and out depending on current interests and events. Other recurring segments include Television, Comics, Growing Up Rad (some sort of nostalgia-based discussion or activity), Game With a Name (the hosts play a game with a guest star), and the humorous ''Dan Becomes A Man'', during which Alex or Jeff show Dan, the youngest member of the trio, how to do something he has never done before such as smoke a cigar or drive a car with a
manual transmission A manual transmission (MT), also known as manual gearbox, standard transmission (in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States), or stick shift (in the United States), is a multi-speed motor vehicle transmission (mechanics), transmission ...
. A newer addition the daily format allows for is recurring game segments where the hosts compete each other on pop culture related games like Versus, Tagline Takedown, Media Mashup, and
Charades Charades (, ). is a parlor game, parlor or party game, party word game, word guessing game. Originally, the game was a dramatic form of literary charades: a single person would act out each syllable of a word or phrase in order, followed by the w ...
. Occasionally, TRS produces special segments based on the hosts' coverage of trade shows, holiday celebrations, or group gaming sessions. Usually the show wraps up with promotions of sponsors and the hosts answering a Twitter question (formerly This Day in Rad, where they looked at a pop culture or historic event that happened on said day). Friday episodes usually substitute clips of bloopers from that week's filming instead of a Twitter question.


Production

With the exception of on-location segments and show-opening parodies, the Totally Rad Show is filmed in front of a green screen in Alex's garage. This allows the use of Chroma key to superimpose segment-specific backgrounds, gaming sessions, trailers and cut-scenes, as well as images of packaging or covers of the media referenced during the discussion. Although cameraman/editor Mike Gaines (formerly Steve) does not appear onscreen, his voice is sometimes heard, and his presence is felt through creative, artistic or informative contributions to the recorded video.


Distribution

The show was released daily. It is available to download in High Definition QuickTime as well as large and small
QuickTime QuickTime is an extensible multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. Created in 1991, the latest Mac version, QuickTime X, is avai ...
,
WMV Windows Media Video (WMV) is a series of video codecs and their corresponding video coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows Media framework. WMV consists of three distinct codecs: The original video compression technology ...
and
XVID Xvid (formerly "XviD") is a video codec library following the MPEG-4 video coding standard, specifically MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile (ASP). It uses ASP features such as b-frames, global and quarter pixel motion compensation, lumi mas ...
. An audio only version is also available in
.mp3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Orig ...
format.


Reception

For '' Wired'', Adario Strange gave the show high praise saying, "With 'TRS,' the editing, show pacing, subject matter, editorial wit and overall presentation make this the best weekly video podcast I've seen—period." In one author's experiment of only watching Revision3 content during the 2007–2008 writer's strike, ''ForeverGeek'' gave the show a 10 out of 10 , saying "you quickly feel like you are friends with the three hosts and that you could hang out with them."


Awards


Episode list


See also

* Diggnation


References


External links

*
Viral Vault: The Totally Rad Show
video interview {{DEFAULTSORT:Totally Rad Show, The Video podcasts Audio podcasts American non-fiction web series Revision3 2007 podcast debuts 2012 podcast endings