The Pop Break Staff has put together a list of our favorite YouTube channels. While you would expect us to have divergent tastes, this list is truly a grab bag of nerdy interests. Regardless of whether your interest is horror movies, food at Disney World, pro wrestling, Dungeons and Dragons, wildlife videos, wrestling, or some of the most important TV shows of our time, you will find something in this list that will kill hours of your time, so cancel your weekend plans and fall down a YouTube rabbit hole.
Dead Meat – Tom Moore
Horror enthusiasts rarely have a place to go to get their genre fix on YouTube without having to deal with all the other film genres being in the way. Thankfully, Dead Meat sprung to life in 2017 to count some insane horror kills and delve into the genre’s biggest films.
Hosted by James A. Janisse, Dead Meat’s tentpole series “The Kill Count” tallies up horror’s bloodiest kills for fans’ gruesome enjoyment. Although the series started as a way to simply look at some wild and gory kills, Janisse has expanded the series to look into the making of horror’s most iconic films and highlight the great talent that works within horror, from special effects crews to directors. Also, he and his crew add in some delightful jokes and gags that’ll make viewers laugh amongst the scares and bloodshed.
Janisse and his wife Chelsea Rebecca also host a variety of other horror-themed shows on Dead Meat. On the “Dead Meat Podcast,” they review movies and delve into different themes within horror. They’ve created other shows like “They Talk” with fellow horror lover Zoran Gvojic where they dub over silent killers with hilarious lines as well as “What’s Your Favorite Scary Movie?” where they ask horror legends, other YouTubers, and WWE Superstars what their favorite horror flicks are.
Also, many might not know it, but horror fans likely saw James and Chelsea cameo in the new Scream movie as a pair of shouty YouTube critics and more recently, they’ve done some big interviews with the cast of films like Nope and The Quarry. Longtime horror fans and those looking to get a good slice of the genre should absolutely subscribe to Dead Meat because they truly have it all.
Check out Dead Meat here.
Community – Matt Widdis
The official YouTube channel of a cult sitcom cancelled over seven years ago may be an unlikely target for time wasting. Considering what’s been done with X-Files, Twin Peaks, and Firefly/Serenity, never rule anything – even #sixseasonsandamovie – out, though.
The show was loaded with one-liners and gags that were homages to film and TV tropes, lending itself well to short clips and great for fans, newbies, and curious Human Beings of all kinds.
Since the show’s resurgence on streaming platforms and the binge-watching that accompanied COVID-19, the channel has had a resurgence of its own. This may be what has prompted a gift from Community: a “global watch along” that will release each episode of the first season every Thursday and Sunday for fans to comment on and argue over just like a… well… you know.
Check out the Community YouTube Channel here.
Letterman – Allison Lips
Nowadays, it may feel like everyone and their grandmother has a YouTube channel. At this point, we’re getting pretty close to that point. While David Letterman content was legally uploaded to YouTube during his time has the host of the Late Show on CBS, there have always been diehard Dave fans uploading videos from The David Letterman Show, Late Night, and the early-Late Show years. Letterman’s production company, Worldwide Pants, has always looked the other way. Until a few months ago, all Letterman videos that weren’t uploaded by CBS were of dubious legality.
A few months ago, Letterman followed in Johnny Carson’s footsteps and started uploading official archival content to YouTube. It’s a treasure trove of random Letterman nonsense like that time he sent his audience to Conan O’Brien’s show. Unlike Johnny, Dave is still with us, so he also posts random videos featuring his producer Barbara Gaines as they talk about anything from that time Dave looked at a solar eclipse and damaged his eyes to answering viewers voicemails.
Check out the Official Letterman Channel here.
DFB Guide – Bill Bodkin
Prior to 2019, I never considered myself a Disney person. I lived under the general assumption that I had aged out of the park during my last trip there in 1996 (I was 14, yes I’m old) and that begrudgingly I’d return to the parks when my daughter was old enough. In the fall of 2019, after a very hard struggle with depression and found myself in the Disney Parks with my family — and I realized the hype was real and this is the most magical place on earth (regardless of age).
During the pandemic, like many parents, I was searching for literally anything to distract my kid (and myself to be honest) from the doldrums of quarantine. Thanks to a couple of friends who are super into Disney, I stumbled across the Disney Food Blog and its content-rich YouTube Channel – DFB Guide.
The state of this channel has evolved in the two years since I started regularly watching. During the park closures and during the ever-evolving the channel was an invaluable source of information about health and safety protocols, ride openings and closures, etc. Yet, at its heart, the channel with video narrated by site owner/editor-in-chief AJ Wolfe, is a celebration of the food, fun and experience of Disney World. To be fair, there is a healthy dose of honesty with all these videos — if something isn’t good, it’s getting called out. However, tone and tenor of this channel is that of a good friend who happens to be a Disney expert and wants you to have the best time by maximizing every second and dollar spent at the parks.
The videos on the channel is teeming with images of delicious, eclectic food at Disney (yes, it’s more than just hockey puck burgers and chicken fingers) plus advice on the best hotels to stay at plus tons of previews of special events, and unique trivia and history of the park.
Check out DFB Guide here.
Jomboy Media – Tom Moore
Sports highlights might be fun to check out on YouTube every now and again, but what if you could have some hilarious commentary behind it? Well, you can if you subscribe to Jomboy Media as he digs deep into the biggest sports moments, especially baseball, and provides some funny insights and incredible lip-reading. Whether it’s trying to figure out what managers are screaming at umpires after an ejection or breaking down botched calls on the field, Jomboy Media is constantly delivering some hilarious lines and rants that even viewers who aren’t big into sports will get a laugh out of.
Recently, Jomboy Media has expanded past just sports breakdowns and even signed a programming deal with YES Network. Now, Jomboy and his crew have some fun gaming tournaments, including a heated in-office Wordle tournament every Wednesday, and plenty of podcasts for all of your sports needs. You can even watch them live-react to games all throughout baseball season and deliver a hilarious recap of the dumbest things happening in the sports world. So, if you’re looking for some unique sports content and highlights and want a great laugh in between it all, Jomboy Media needs to be your next subscription.
Check out Jomboy Media here.
Matthew Colville – Matt Widdis
If you have no interest in Dungeons & Dragons, the books or movies of Dune, or even the band Rush (in which case shame on you,) but everyone loves a good story. Under the auspices of a tutorial on being a Dungeonmaster, Matt Colville has supplied several years of videos that are a masterclass on world-building and narrative structure.
Over the years, Colville has worked as an author of both Critical Role comic books and his own Ratcatchers novels and a game designer spanning from the Xbox classic Mercenaries to collectible card games and TTRPGs based on Star Trek and Dune. And therein lies the rub. The bearded baritone says that he’s going to talk about how elves and dwarves don’t get along but ends up giving you 30 minutes or more on your rights and responsibilities as a creative, the subtexts to Marvel movies, or the explanation of World War I that you wish your 10th grade history teacher had given you.
Check Out Matthew Colville’s Channel here.
Being the Elite – Bill Bodkin
Being the Elite started as a personal travel vlog for brothers Matt and Nick Jackson quickly became the most important YouTube channel in wrestling history.
While that might seem like hyperbole, I believe this is a fact. Through this channel Matt and Nick Jackson not only raised their profile throughout the world of pro wrestling, but they helped create a brand that not helped put numerous wrestlers on the map, but was also a main reason for the groundbreaking independent show All In and the formation of All Elite Wrestling (where do you think the Elite in AEW comes from?) — the largest American pro wrestling company not named WWE.
Being the Elite’s success lies in two parts — its stone cold honesty and it’s absolutely absurdity. The channel honestly depicts the real life personalities of the wrestlers on it. It’s documented a grown man (Brandon Cutler – the editor and camera man for BTE) breaking down in tears over realizing their dreams of signing a major wrestling contract to the grind of international travel to how wrestlers across the country dealt with the pandemic.
It’s also one of the silliest damn YouTube channels you’ve ever come across. It’s a wild blend of sketch comedy, industry parody and inside jokes that’ll have you howling throughout. Storylines with the late Mr. Brodie Lee were uproarious, while the oft-hilarious saga the anxiety-riddled millennial “Hangman” Adam Page and his friends in The Dark Order (including the amazing Christmas musical “Hangman the Handsome Cowboy”) lead to one of AEW’s biggest and most emotional pay offs ever.
Being the Elite is also where storylines for The Bucks’ home promotions — whether it be Ring of Honor, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, New Japan Pro Wrestling or now All Elite Wrestling are born. The episode that dropped today (August 15, 2022) ends with an absolutely huge tease that an injured AEW star may be soon to return.
Check out Being the Elite here.
Eric Bugenhagen – Matt Widdis
It’s all about MINDSET! That’s the rallying cry of Boogz, the garage gym demi-god that is becoming the gym bro role model not seen since the death of Aziz “Zyzz” Shavershian.
A former wrestler at University of Wisconsin and current sports entertainer with WWE (under the moniker Rick Boogz), Bugenhagen blends freakish intensity with a tongue-in-cheek self-awareness that entertains as it inspires. Whether he’s doing keg lifts alongside his wife, fringe lifts like Bulgarian split squats, or just going for maximum poundage to 80s soundtracks and thrash metal, Boogz is making it happen and he wants that for you too.
Check out Eric Bugenhagen’s Channel here.
Bedtime Stories – Matt Widdis
I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with the unexplained and paranormal. Even as a kid, I found jump scares in horror to be cheap and gore to be ineffective. When I went to bed, I wasn’t worried about Freddy Kruger. I was worried about facing my doppelganger or alien abduction. Bedtime Stories brings back those creepy vibes with illustrated tales of documented UFO activity, urban legends, true crime, and stories of purported ghosts, cryptids, and even stranger things (no pun intended.) Channel writer, Richard While, has taken over narrator duties and his placid English accent adds to the tone of these often unbelievable but even more often riveting tales.
Check out the Bedtime Stories channel here.
Casual Geographic – Matt Widdis
Originally operating under the title of “Hood Nature,” Casual Geographic is the brainchild of New Jersey native, Mamadou B Ndiaye. What my dude has done is present interesting and bizarre animal facts using slang, idiom, and metaphor to not only describe the subject in hilarious deadpan but also evade YoutTube guideline flags while doing so about topics like predation and reproduction. Orcas are “homicidal Oreo dolphins,” Honey Badgers have more “black Air Force energy” than any other animal, and you won’t believe how many people that hippopotamus “put on a T-shirt” each year.
Check out the Casual Geographic Channel here.
Comments are closed.