The Totally Rad Show
Encyclopedia
The Totally Rad Show is a formerly weekly, now daily, video podcast
produced by Team Awesome, LLC and distributed by Revision3. TRS consists primarily of reviews and commentary on pop-culture phenomena such as movies, video games, television programs, and comic book
s. Debuted on March 27, 2007, The Totally Rad Show is hosted by Alex Albrecht
, Jeff Cannata
, and Dan Trachtenberg
.
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
.
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
featuring props such as a can of whipped cream and an American Idol
DVD.
, 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
.
. 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
.
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 This Day in Rad, which is a brief look back at a geek/pop culture event in the past. Friday shows usually substitute clips of bloopers from that week's filming for This Day in Rad.
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.
, WMV and XVID
. An audio only version is also available in .mp3 format.
Video podcast
Video podcast is a term used for the online delivery of video on demand video clip content via Atom or RSS enclosures...
produced by Team Awesome, LLC and distributed by Revision3. TRS consists primarily of reviews and commentary on pop-culture phenomena such as movies, video games, television programs, and comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
s. Debuted on March 27, 2007, The Totally Rad Show is hosted by Alex Albrecht
Alex Albrecht
Alexander Jennings Albrecht is an American television personality, actor and podcaster who resides in Brentwood a suburb of Los Angeles, California...
, Jeff Cannata
Jeff Cannata
Jeff Cannata is an actor and podcaster who is best known as co-host of The Totally Rad Show. Raised in California, he graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 1999 with a BFA in theater. Cannata has been acting since 2000 and has appeared in movies, commercials and theater. He became the co-host of The...
, and Dan Trachtenberg
Dan Trachtenberg
Dan Trachtenberg is a filmmaker and video podcast host from the Philadelphia suburbs who currently resides in the Los Angeles metro area. He is one of the three hosts of The Totally Rad Show and a former co-host of Geekdrome. Both programs are hosted at Revision3...
.
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
Podcast Awards
The People's Choice Podcast Awards, better known as the Podcast Awards, are an annual set of awards given to the best podcasts as voted by the people...
.
Original (Episodes 1-104)
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders of the Lost Ark is a 1981 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by George Lucas, and starring Harrison Ford. It is the first film in the Indiana Jones franchise...
featuring props such as a can of whipped cream and an American Idol
American Idol
American Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...
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-present)
During their panel at PAX 2010Penny Arcade Expo
The Penny Arcade Expo is a semi-annual gamer festival held in Seattle and Boston. PAX was created by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, the authors of the Penny Arcade webcomic, because they wanted to attend a show that gave equal attention to console gamers, computer gamers, and tabletop...
, 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
Ben Affleck
Benjamin Géza Affleck-Boldt , better known as Ben Affleck, is an American actor, film director, writer, and producer. He became known with his performances in Kevin Smith's films such as Mallrats and Chasing Amy...
movie, The Town
The Town (2010 film)
The Town is a 2010 crime film starring, co-written, and directed by Ben Affleck adapted from Chuck Hogan's novel Prince of Thieves. The film opened in theaters in the United States on September 17, 2010 at number one with more than $23 million and positive reviews...
.
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 transmissionManual transmission
A manual transmission, also known as a manual gearbox or standard transmission is a type of transmission used in motor vehicle applications...
. 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
Charades or charade is a word guessing game. In the form most played today, it is an acting game in which one player acts out a word or phrase, often by pantomiming similar-sounding words, and the other players guess the word or phrase. The idea is to use physical rather than verbal language to...
.
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 This Day in Rad, which is a brief look back at a geek/pop culture event in the past. Friday shows usually substitute clips of bloopers from that week's filming for This Day in Rad.
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 keyChroma key
Chroma key compositing is a technique for compositing two images together. A color range in the top layer is made transparent, revealing another image behind. The chroma keying technique is commonly used in video production and post-production...
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 is released daily at roughly midnight EDT. It is available to download in High Definition Quicktime as well as large and small QuicktimeQuickTime
QuickTime is an extensible proprietary multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. The classic version of QuickTime is available for Windows XP and later, as well as Mac OS X Leopard and...
, WMV and XVID
XviD
Xvid is a video codec library following the MPEG-4 standard, specifically MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile . It uses ASP features such as b-frames, global and quarter pixel motion compensation, lumi masking, trellis quantization, and H.263, MPEG and custom quantization matrices.Xvid is a...
. An audio only version is also available in .mp3 format.
External links
- TRS home
- TRS Discussion Forums
- Revision3
- Viral Vault: The Totally Rad Show video interview