Viva La Dirt League or VLDL are a

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

group of professional sketch comedy

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

rs. The founding members are Rowan Bettjeman, Alan Morrison and Adam King, but their productions have featured other regular cast members such as Byron Coll, Hamish Parkinson, Adrian Williamson,

David Correos David Correos (born 8 December 1992) is a comedian from New Zealand. He was the winner of the Billy T Award in 2016. Early life Correos's parents immigrated to Christchurch in the 1980s from the Philippines; he grew up in Woolston. During his ...

, Britt Scott Clark, Ben Van Lier, Ellie Harwood, and Robert Hartley. , their YouTube channel has 4.66 million subscribers, and over 1.553 billion views. Their second YouTube channel, ''Viva La Dirt League D&D'', has 309 thousand subscribers, and over 27.4 million views. They have a Spanish language channel, , launched in July 2022, which has 3 thousand subscribers and over 203 thousand views.

Background

Before forming VLDL, Bettjeman and Morrison's short ''Beached'' was selected for showing at the

New Zealand International Film Festival New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...

in 2010. Bettjeman and Morrison present a weekly

news media The news media or news industry are forms of mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public or a target public. These include news agencies, print media (newspapers, news magazines), broadcast news (radio and television), and ...

online clip show "Media Ocre Awards" for the WatchMe.co.nz. The group went full-time in 2017. The group's sketches have been nominated for

Streamy Awards The YouTube Streamy Awards, also known as the Streamy Awards or Streamys, are presented annually by Dick Clark Productions and Tubefilter to recognize excellence in online video, including directing, acting, producing, and writing. The forma ...

. Fans of the group include English actor

Andrew Koji Andrew Julian Hiroaki Koji (; born 10 November 1987) is a British actor and martial artist. He had his breakout role as Ah Sahm in the Cinemax series ''Warrior'' in 2019. Koji went on to play Storm Shadow in ''Snake Eyes'' (2021) and assassi ...

. The group is represented by

Creative Artists Agency Creative Artists Agency LLC (CAA) is an American talent and sports agency based in Los Angeles, California. It is regarded as an influential company in the talent agency business and manages numerous clients. In March 2016, CAA had 1,800 emplo ...

Series

''PUBG Logic''

''PUBG Logic'' is set in an

online multiplayer A multiplayer video game is a video game in which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time, either locally on the same computing system ( couch co-op), on different computing systems via a local area network, or ...

battle royale game A battle royale game is an online multiplayer video game genre that blends last-man-standing gameplay with the survival, exploration and scavenging elements of a survival game. Battle royale games involve dozens to hundreds of players, who st ...

(ostensibly ''

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds ''PUBG: Battlegrounds'' (previously known as ''PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds'') is a battle royale game developed by PUBG Studios and published by Krafton. The game, which was inspired by the Japanese film '' Battle Royale'' (2000), is based ...

''). Characters are players'

avatars Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearanc ...

and the comedy focuses on the bugs, gameplay limitations, and exploits in the game. Use of the ''

PUBG ''PUBG: Battlegrounds'' (previously known as ''PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds'') is a battle royale game developed by PUBG Studios and published by Krafton. The game, which was inspired by the Japanese film '' Battle Royale'' (2000), is base ...

'' imagery has been endorsed by the game's creators, and due to the popularity of the game, and the group's sketches, they have attended gaming conventions (

Armageddon According to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, Armageddon (, from grc, Ἁρμαγεδών ''Harmagedōn'', Late Latin: , from Hebrew: ''Har Məgīddō'') is the prophesied location of a gathering of armies ...

) and tournaments (

League of Legends Pro League The ''League of Legends'' Pro League (LPL) is the top-level professional league for '' League of Legends'' in China. The first season of the LPL was the 2013 Spring season. The top three finishers of the playoff tournament receive automatic bid ...

) to promote these characters. A supercut of the first season has reached over 17 million views on YouTube.

''Epic NPC Man''

''Epic NPC Man'' is a sketch comedy set within "''Skycraft''", an entirely fictional fantasy MMORPG where

non-playing character A non-player character (NPC), or non-playable character, is any character in a game that is not controlled by a player. The term originated in traditional tabletop role-playing games where it applies to characters controlled by the gamemaster o ...

s (NPCs) and players interact. The series deconstructs the logic of RPGs, the mechanics of video games and the fantasy genre at large, typically spoofing real-life game franchises such as ''

The Elder Scrolls ''The Elder Scrolls'' is a series of Action role-playing game, action role-playing video games primarily developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. The series focuses on Nonlinear gameplay, free-form gameplay in an ...

'', ''

World of Warcraft ''World of Warcraft'' (''WoW'') is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. Set in the ''Warcraft'' fantasy universe, ''World of Warcraft'' takes place within the world of Azeroth ...

'', ''

Dark Souls is a series of action role-playing games created by Hidetaka Miyazaki of FromSoftware and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. The series began with the release of '' Dark Souls'' (2011) and has seen two sequels, ''Dark Souls II'' (2014) ...

'' and ''

The Witcher ''The Witcher'' ( pl, Wiedźmin ) is a series of six fantasy novels and 15 short stories written by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. The series revolves around the eponymous "witcher", Geralt of Rivia. In Sapkowski's works, "witchers" are be ...

''. Initially, ''Epic NPC Man'' was presented almost exclusively from the perspective of Greg (Morrison), a lowly NPC garlic farmer and quest-giver in the tranquil but unremarkable village of Honeywood in the nation of Azerim. Other recurring characters include the blacksmith Bodger (Bettjeman) and the sorcerer Baradün (King). Many scenes have been filmed at

Howick Historical Village Howick Historical Village is a living museum in Auckland, New Zealand. It is a recreation of a New Zealand colonial village using surviving buildings from the surrounding area. Despite its name, the Village is actually located in the suburb of ...

''Baelin's Route: An Epic NPC Man Adventure''

In 2020, the group crowdfunded NZ$660,000 (c. €390,000) via Kickstarter to produce a short film set in the ''Epic NPC Man'' universe. ''Baelin's Route: An Epic NPC Man Adventure'' premiered on YouTube on 9 May 2021. The film, which was written by Morrison and directed by Morrison and King, stars Bettjeman as Baelin, a non-player character whose normal route, from home to fishing spot, is interrupted by a human player (Ben Van Lier) and a damsel in distress (Phoenix Cross) making him into a reluctant hero. It had over 900 thousand views within 24 hours of its release.

''Bored''

''Bored'' is a series of sketches primarily based in a computer store. New Zealand Radio Award-winning presenter Ellie Harwood co-stars as an employee.

Viva La Dirt League D&D

Starting in July 2019, Viva released a short Dungeons and Dragons series where their ''Epic NPC Man'' characters adventured into Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, with Robert Hartley as Dungeon Master. Building on its success, in March 2020, Viva launched their second YouTube channel focusing on

Dungeons and Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TS ...

content set in the ''Epic NPC Man'' universe. King, Morrison and Bettjeman reprise their roles as Greg, Baradun and Bodger and Van Lier debuts the character Bob in the campaign.

Studio

A Kickstarter campaign for a filming studio and office space for the company raised over US$2.5 Million in March 2022, with a location to be determined. In August, the Kickstarter campaign page (Update #38) and the VLDL YouTube channel updated with the news of the new studio location having been secured after a long search. The video shows a tour of the new, unrenovated facilities.

References

External links

* * {{authority control Comedy YouTubers English-language YouTube channels Gaming YouTubers New Zealand comedy troupes New Zealand television producers New Zealand YouTubers People from Auckland Works based on Dungeons & Dragons YouTube channels launched in 2011 YouTube filmmakers Comedy-related YouTube channels