The ''Rooster Teeth Podcast'', formerly known as the ''Drunk Tank'', is a weekly

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...

produced by

Rooster Teeth Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC is an American digital media company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Founded in 2003 by Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Geoff Ramsey, Jason Saldaña, Gus Sorola, and Joel Heyman, Rooster Teeth is a subsidiary of W ...

. It is hosted by

Gus Sorola Gustavo Raul "Gus" Sorola III (born February 22, 1978) is an American actor and podcast host. He is best known for his work with Rooster Teeth. Early life Sorola was born in Austin, and raised in Eagle Pass, Texas, near the Mexico–United S ...

and features various members of Rooster Teeth's staff each week. It is sometimes advertised as simply The ''RT Podcast''. It was named Best Gaming Podcast by the

Podcast Awards The People's Choice Podcast Awards, better known as the Podcast Awards, are global awards given annually to the best podcasts as voted by the general public. Founded in 2005 by Todd Cochrane of Podcast Connect Inc., the Podcast Awards changed han ...

in 2012 and 2013.

History

On December 9, 2008, after temporarily reviving a feature on their website from their previous website, 'drunkgamers.com,' Rooster Teeth released their first audio podcast, ''The Drunk Tank'', available for download through iTunes,

Zune Marketplace Zune is a discontinued media management software for Microsoft Windows that functions as a full media player application with a library, an interface to the Zune Marketplace, and as a media streaming server. The software is used to sync with all ...

, and their website. It soon became one of the most popular features of the site, at one point becoming the #1 most downloaded podcast on iTunes, as well as a featured podcast in the iTunes Store. New episodes have regularly been released every Wednesday since April 10, 2009, with occasional special episodes or multiple releases in one week. In 2009 they began uploading podcast themed "let's play" style videos on Rooster Teeth's

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 ...

channel. They later moved these videos to their own Let's Play channel in 2013. On June 23, 2010, the podcast changed to a .m4a "enhanced" format which allows listeners to use an interactive "link dump" to be able to view more information on the topics of the week's podcast. On September 28, 2011, Sorola announced ''The Drunk Tank'' was to be re-christened ''The Rooster Teeth Podcast'' to create a more unified public image for the company. On August 18, 2010, the podcast was officially implemented into the Rooster Teeth website. To celebrate their 100th episode on February 9, 2011, they released their first ever video podcast which featured Gus Sorola,

Geoff Ramsey Geoffrey Lazer Ramsey (born Geoffrey Paul Wright, later Geoffrey Paul Fink on June 19, 1975) is an American voice actor, film producer and internet personality. He co-founded the production company Rooster Teeth and is known for voicing Dexter G ...

Burnie Burns Michael Justin "Burnie" Burns (born January 18, 1973) is an American writer, actor, producer, comedian, host, and director previously based in Austin, Texas. He is a co-founder, former chief executive officer, and former chief creative offic ...

, and Griffon Ramsey. On January 18, 2012, the podcast gained its first sponsor, Audible.com.

Pizza Hut Pizza Hut is an American multinational restaurant chain and international franchise founded in 1958 in Wichita, Kansas by Dan and Frank Carney. They serve their signature pan pizza and other dishes including pasta, breadsticks and dessert a ...

sold an official Rooster Teeth Podcast pizza in 2014 as part of a brand campaign with Fullscreen, which was nominated for a Streamy Award the following year. In 2016 Pizza Hut sponsored multiple episodes of the podcast as part of a partnership with Rooster Teeth, which received multiple nominations at the 9th Annual Shorty Awards. On September 26, 2016, Sorola unveiled the new set along with the new logo, replacing the one that had been in use since 2011. A live ticketed event was held for the 500th episode. In July 2020 the podcast was part of Spotify’s Vodcast launch lineup. A weekly series called ''Rooster Teeth Animated Adventures'' features short stories told from the podcast in the form of animation. A 2014 conversation on the podcast about a hypothetical scenario involving an immortal snail became the source of a recurring meme on social media. Videos discussing the snail on TikTok had amassed over 230 million views by November 2021.

Format

Since its inception, the podcast has usually featured three or four of the Rooster Teeth staff members as well as the occasional guest such as

Zachary Levi Zachary Levi Pugh ( ; born September 29, 1980) is an American actor. He received critical acclaim for starring as Chuck Bartowski in the series '' Chuck'', and as the title character in '' Shazam!'' and its 2023 sequel, as a part of the DC Ex ...

or friends or family of the staff members. Currently the main cast members of the podcast are

Barbara Dunkelman Barbara Julie Dunkelman (born July 2, 1989) is a Canadian actress and internet personality. She is known for her work with the production company Rooster Teeth, where she serves as a Creative Director and was formerly the Director of Social and ...

, and Gavin Free.

was a regular host until September 2019, but briefly returned in 2020 before leaving the company that June. The podcast is largely a comedic commentary on the

popular culture Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...

of the week, including video games, recent news, website features, sports, movies, television shows. It is also used to announce the company’s upcoming projects as well as occasionally highlighting fan-made projects.

References

External links

* {{Rooster Teeth Productions Comedy and humor podcasts Video podcasts Video game podcasts Rooster Teeth Audio podcasts 2008 podcast debuts American podcasts