Rhett & Link are an American Internet comedy duo consisting of the two YouTube users Rhett James McLaughlin (born October 11, 1977) and Charles Lincoln "Link" Neal, III (born June 1, 1978).
Self-styled as "Internetainers" (a portmanteau of the words "Internet" and "entertainers"), they are known for their online viral videos, comedy songs, ten-episode TV series Rhett & Link: Commercial Kings for the Independent Film Channel, their daily morning talk-show titled Good Mythical Morning (GMM), their YouTube Red series Buddy System, and more recently, their YouTube channel "This Is Mythical." In their 2008 documentary, Looking for Ms. Locklear, they chronicled their search for the first grade teacher in whose class they met for the first time. All their work is put under their one banner name, Mythical Entertainment.
Video Rhett and Link
Personal lives
Rhett and Link met in 1984 on September 4th (this is the exact date they started school in Harnett County) at Buies Creek Elementary School in Buies Creek, North Carolina, where they attended first grade, a meeting about which they have subsequently written a song and made a movie (Looking For Ms. Locklear - 2008). They met through having to stay in at recess, as they were both doodling on their desks. In an interview on The Tonight Show, they state that they stayed in during recess because both of them had written swear words on their desks. They stayed in and colored in mythical creatures such as a unicorn (hence their YouTube channel name, GMM/Good Mythical Morning) In their freshman year of high school at Harnett Central High School in Angier, North Carolina, both Rhett and Link signed a blood oath on a piece of paper which said, "We will do something together some day". Link kept it through his adulthood in a wallet. Unfortunately, the wallet was lost, along with the original copy of the paper.
At age fourteen, they wrote a screenplay entitled Gutless Wonders and began shooting a film based on it. They shot only a couple of scenes, and the film was never finished. This screenplay ultimately was read in multiple episodes of Good Mythical Morning. In high school they shot a 25-minute film-parody on the tragedy of Oedipus Rex. Rhett was Oedipus, and Link was his father's servant. Rhett and Link were both members of a Punk Rock band as teenagers known as "The Wax Paper Dogz" and have played at an Independence Day festival.
Later, they were roommates at NC State, where Link studied industrial engineering and Rhett studied civil engineering. They earned degrees and worked in their respective fields for a time. Link briefly worked at IBM, while Rhett worked at Black & Veatch.
Both men now reside in Los Angeles, California, where together they run a production company named Mythical Entertainment, located in Burbank. They are both currently married, and they each have kids. Rhett married Jessie Lane in 2001 and has two children: Locke and Shepherd. Link married Christy White in 2000 and has three children: Lily (Lilian), Lincoln (Charles Lincoln IV), and Lando.
Maps Rhett and Link
YouTube career
Rhett and Link quit their jobs as engineers soon after graduating from college to shift their focus to their YouTube channel, now being one of the most watched on the platform.
In 2009, Rhett and Link were named #22 on Business Insider's Top 25 Most Creative People in Advertising List. In September of the same year, they joined the Collective, a media company in Los Angeles.
In 2014, the Rhett and Link YouTube Channel was listed on New Media Rockstars Top 100 Channels, ranked at #35.
Channels
The duo runs a number of YouTube channels including Rhett & Link, which has over 740 million views and over 4.3 million subscribers and Good Mythical Morning, a talk-show airing on weekdays at 6:00 am EST with over 3.6 billion views and over 12 million subscribers. With over 3 million subscribers and 529 million views, a third channel called Good Mythical MORE airs directly after Good Mythical Morning and is described as the "show after the show". Their fourth channel, entitled "This is Mythical" (formerly "EXTRAS-RhettandLink"), features bonus and behind the scenes videos. It has over 650 thousand subscribers, and over 57 million views. As of 2017, their fifth channel, rhettandlink5, is inactive, with only two (unlisted) videos. One is accessible via theinternetisaweirdplace.com, the other is a GEICO advert. It has over 1 thousand subscribers, and over 7 thousand views.
As of January 2017, the most watched videos on the Rhett & Link channel are "Epic Rap Battle: Nerd vs. Geek" with over 33 million views, followed by "My OCD (Song)" with over 30 million views, and "I'm On Vacation (Song)" with over 22 million views. The most watched videos on the Good Mythical Morning channel are "Eating a Scorpion - Bug War Challenge" with over 24 million views, "The Most Amazing Optical Illusions on the Internet," with over 21 million views and "World's Hottest Pepper Challenge - Carolina Reaper" with over 20 million views.
Good Mythical Morning (GMM)
On January 3, 2011, the duo launched a morning talk show, "Good Morning Chia Lincoln" in their studio, located in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina, with an Abraham Lincoln Chia Pet as a centerpiece, where they picked a topic, usually a personal experience or news story, and stated their opinions on it. The series ended on February 28, 2011 as a result of half of the Chia Pet dying.
After the move to Los Angeles and the cancellation of their TV Show, Commercial Kings, the duo launched Good Mythical Morning on January 9, 2012. The series took the same format as their previous show and added a "Wheel of Mythicality", containing suggestions from fans on how they would end the show, usually with a brief improvised scene.
Good Mythical Morning ran its first three seasons ending on April 5, 2013 as the duo took a break from the daily videos to start a new show with a weekly format, The Mythical Show.. The series won the Best Variety Series at the International Academy of Web Television Awards in January 2013.
The third season of GMM introduced the "Taste Test" series where the hosts guess the food in blindfolds, challenge themselves to eat something or compare a particular type of food across different brands. Some of the most popular videos in GMM from this series are the "Bug War Challenge", the "Ghost Pepper Challenge", the "Carolina Reaper Challenge" and the "Sriracha Challenge". The Season 5 of GMM brought in "Will It" series, where the hosts try and invent different varieties of a famous type of food with unusual and often increasing levels of disgusting ingredients. The first episode was aired on May 5, 2014 on Cinco De Mayo titled "Will it Taco" where they tried pine needles, baby shampoo and pork blood tacos. The series was also featured in The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon with episodes of "Will it Tea," "Will It S'more," and "Will It Hot Dog."
After the end of The Mythical Show on July 11, 2013, the duo continued with the Good Mythical Morning series, now with an addition to the main GMM episode-Good Mythical More ("the show after the show") uploaded simultaneously to a separate channel in addition to their GMM channel. The 'Good Mythical More' episodes held on to their 'improvised on the spot' nature from earlier season of GMM while the main episodes became more and more structured. Season 6 of Good Mythical Morning premiered on July 14, 2014 with a new introduction sequence with animation by Digital Twigs and music by Pomplamoose. Several notable personalities, including PewDiePie, Caillou Pettis, Mayim Bialik, Shay Mitchell, Bill Hader, Amy Schumer and Daniel Radcliffe have been guests on the show.
The 1000th episode of Good Mythical Morning was uploaded on the morning of October 13, 2016 (4 years, 9 months, and 4 days after the first episode aired on January 9, 2012). The video was titled "1000th Episode Celebration Special" and has received 2,473,740 views as of November 14, 2017. On October 19, the first episode of YouTube Red original show Rhett and Link's Buddy System aired on the Good Mythical Morning channel.
Rhett and Link have also started their third YouTube channel, Good Mythical MORE, which has more clips from their Good Mythical Morning episodes.
The Mythical Show
On April 25, 2013 Rhett and Link released the first episode of The Mythical Show on their second channel - a weekly 30 minute variety show on YouTube Thursdays at 5pm (EST). Each episode contained a multitude of shorter videos starring Rhett and Link with other actors and YouTube personalities as guests, including Tony Hale, Jill Wagner, Kat Von D, Smosh, Grace Helbig, Shay Carl, the Fine Brothers, Tessa Violet, Hannah Hart, Paul Scheer, Key & Peele, Miranda Sings, KassemG. The duo also published individual segments of The Mythical Show as standalone videos on their main channel. The first season of The Mythical Show ended July 11, 2013 after 12 episodes.
They won the 2014 People's Choice Webby Award for individual comedy short or episode for their "Middle School Musical - Breaking Bad" video that was a part of The Mythical Show's "Middle School Musicals" segments.
This Is Mythical
On March 20, 2017, their company, Mythical Entertainment, announced their new channel, This Is Mythical. The channel is a revamp of their EXTRAs channel, and it is run by the Mythical Crew. It contains several series such as: "This Is Mythical" videos, which are general vlogs; "Mythicalicious," a food series with varying themes; the return of "Ear Biscuits," Rhett and Link's podcast; "Ten Feet Tall", a series run by Mythical Entertainment's up-and-coming bromance, Mike & Alex; and "GMM Recuts," a revamp of shorts formerly part of a playlist called "Gum Swallower's Digest," that contain cuts and edits of scenes from Good Mythical Morning, and are created by John Warder.
Notable videos and guest appearances
Their first viral video was "Wolfpack or Tarheels?" uploaded on Rhett's personal YouTube channel in 2006 (no longer active) of his 3-year-old son Locke McLaughlin crying over the loss of the NC State Wolfpack and their rivalry with the North Carolina Tar Heels. YouTube wanted to feature this video on the home page but the duo asked to have one of their songs featured instead as they wanted to be known by their comedic work and not a viral video. After the video was removed for unknown reasons, the duo uploaded it to their channel, Rhett and Link, where it currently has almost half a million views.
After being featured on YouTube's homepage and the subsequent release of "The Facebook Song" (their most viewed video for several years), Rhett and Link established a presence on the web.
In September 2012 Rhett and Link uploaded a video of them singing "All Night Long" by Lionel Richie, literally all night long. They recorded over 11 hours of footage starting at 7:25pm on the Santa Monica Pier and ending the night at 6:30am on Mt. Wilson.
YouTube Rewind videos have included Rhett and Link since 2012. Rewind YouTube Style 2012 featured the duo and the Dope Zebra (who was part of LMFAO music video for "Sorry for Party Rocking"), YouTube Rewind: What Does 2013 Say?, YouTube Rewind: Turn Down for 2014 and YouTube Rewind: Now Watch Me Rewind had them dancing in ridiculous manners.
Rhett and Link have been guests in three "Epic Rap Battles of History". On February 16, 2012, the duo was featured in a Season 2 episode of the series, playing the Wright Brothers, battling the Mario Brothers. On July 14, 2014, Rhett and Link, along with Smosh, appeared in the season 3 finale of the series, in which they played two of the four Renaissance artists battling against the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Link played the role of Leonardo da Vinci and Rhett the role of Donatello. Their latest appearance was on May 25, 2015, opening Season 4.5 with the battle of Lewis and Clark vs. Bill and Ted. Link played the role of Meriwether Lewis and Rhett the role of William Clark.
Rhett and Link have also appeared in several videos by the Fine Brothers for the YouTubers React series, as well as being the subject of one episode of the Kids React series.
Sponsored videos and web advertisements
Rhett and Link's first sponsored video, "Cornhole Song", was made for AJJ Cornhole in 2007, and since then the duo have integrated other small brands like Smule, with "I am a Thoughtful Guy" and iRESQ. Many larger companies have since sponsored the duo's videos including Alka-Seltzer, McDonald's, Wendy's and Cadillac among others.
In January 2008, they worked as web correspondents on the Sundance Film Festival for IGotShotgun.com in partnership with Cadillac. Summer of the same year they spent releasing videos for the Alka-Seltzer Great American Road Trip. The series won the Gold award in the Consumer Goods category at Advertising Age's 2008 W3 Awards, as well as best online campaign at Adweek's 2008 Buzz Awards. The series also picked up two Golds (Best Campaign, Best Single) and a Craft award (Music) at the 2009 Bessies and received two golds in the interactive category for Viral Marketing and Business to Consumer website at the 2009 Advertising & Design Club of Canada Awards.
Also in 2008, Rhett and Link released web series "Seaborne and Roach", sponsored by SpyAssociates.com, and "Surrogate Sharers" series advertising Starburst candy.
In 2009, the duo started to create free low-budget commercials for small local businesses throughout the U.S. in the web series "I Love Local Commercials", sponsored by Microbilt. At first they made 4 commercials for local businesses in their home state North Carolina - TDM Autosales, Bobby Denning Furniture, and Redhouse Furniture. These videos quickly went viral on YouTube, especially the Redhouse video, with its controversial jingle "Where Black People and White People Buy Furniture". The success of these commercials spurred Rhett and Link to continue creating commercials and for that they offered people across U.S. to nominate their favorite local businesses to take part in the web series. The popularity of the duo's commercials garnered the attention of major advertising publications such as Advertising Age and AdWeek, and their commercials were featured on CNN, NPR, The New York Times, Forbes, and TMZ. A commercial for Cullman Liquidation Center won Best Local Commercial at the 2010 Ad Age Viral Video Awards. In 2010, Rhett and Link produced a commercial for Donut Prince, George Lopez' favorite doughnut place. Later they appeared in his show Lopez Tonight, where he called them "undisputed masters of bad local commercials".
The success of the web series led to Rhett and Link's television show, Rhett & Link: Commercial Kings on IFC. Every episode, Link's Epic Fail is featured, where Link trips over a cement pyramid and scrapes up his hip and arm.
In 2009, Rhett and Link produced "Fast Food Folk Song" as a web commercial for Taco Bell, and in 2010 it won the Contest of Awesome for the Best Comic Music Video of 2009. The contest awarded them a trip to Los Angeles and a cameo in a Weezer music video.
In 2010, Rhett and Link created a stop motion video "T-shirt War" as a commercial for T-shirt printing company Rush T-shirts, in which they used 222 T-shirts with unique designs. The video already had 2 million views after only two weeks of being online, and quickly reached 4 million. "T-shirt War" also won in Best Online Promotion at the Apparel Industry category at the 2010 Spirit Awards. After the success of this commercial Rhett and Link received a call from McDonald's and Coca Cola asking them to make a TV commercial with a T-shirt War theme. The commercial was also uploaded on YouTube, and this video, entitled "T-shirt War 2", reached 1 million views in two weeks.
Also in 2010, Rhett and Link released an online music video sponsored by SleepBetter.org - "2 Guys 600 pillows". Time listed the video as one of the Top-10 Talented Web Videos of 2010, and the video also won Best Editing category and Peoples' Voice Award at the 2011 Webby Awards. Rhett and Link continued working with SleepBetter.org, and in November 2012 they made another music video, "Sleep Tight".
In 2011, Rhett and Link made a commercial for Ojai Valley Taxidermy, owned by Chuck Testa, as part of their TV show, Rhett & Link: Commercial Kings. After the episode featuring the commercial aired, Chuck Testa uploaded the commercial to his company's YouTube channel. The ad went viral, topping 13 million views (as of January 2013) and spawning the "Nope! Chuck Testa" Internet meme. The Chuck Testa ad was included in Time's Top 10 Memes of 2011. Also in 2011, Rhett and Link released a music video entitled "PHOTOSHOP Song" which was sponsored by Canvas On Demand.
In September 2012, the duo released the video "Epic Rap Battle of Manliness" sponsored by Build.com.
In October 2013, Rhett and Link released a music video entitled "Epic Rap Battle: Nerd vs. Geek" which was sponsored by TigerDirect. They have made other Rap Battles, featured on their second channel, along with all their other music videos.
In December 2013, the duo released a music video in partnership with Buick's "In the Moment" campaign entitled "Get Off the Phone.".
In May 2014, a new segment sponsored by Gillette was included on Good Mythical Morning for the week subscription campaign, as well as with the release of the "Kissing Your Face" video on the main channel.
In May 2015, the duo released a new music video, "Just Being Honest", sponsored by Wendy's new beverage "Honest Tea". As well as Sip Me Up, a streaming marketing campaign on June 18 where the duo created personalized content for the fans in real time.
On May 6, 2015, Rhett and Link teamed up with Hot Pockets and released the "Will It Hot Pocket?" episode in their popular "Will It" series on Good Mythical Morning where the Hot Pocket crust was replaced with odd items based on fan-suggestions.
On June 5, 2015, a new segment on Good Mythical Morning was announced called "The Back Up Plan" sponsored by GEICO, where the duo explore different career opportunities. As of August 2016, there are 10 released episodes. Episodes have featured the duo trying the jobs of beekeeping, real estate sales, commercial cereal production, glassblowing, commercial flavor manufacturing, becoming potential "Marstronauts" at the Jet Propulsion Laboratories, aquatic animal keeping, ice sculpting, livestock auctioneering, and baking pies. The final segment served as both an episode of "The Back Up Plan" and an installment in their "Will It?" series. The segment subsequently ended within the season.
Several episodes of Good Mythical Morning in 2016 were sponsored by Amazon Echo.
Podcast
On September 27, 2013, Rhett and Link launched an audio podcast on iTunes and SoundCloud called "Ear Biscuits". The podcast debuted in the US on the iTunes charts at #22. and it is described as intimate discussions with each other such as how they became blood brothers, their close encounters with death, and more. They also interview other notable Internet personalities such as Grace Helbig, Julian Smith Phillip DeFranco, PewDiePie and Rainn Wilson. They've had live recordings on VidCon as well as Rhett-and-Link-only episodes each month.
As of July 2015, the podcast is number #14 on the iTunes US Comedy Charts. The podcast has won them a Shorty Award for Best Podcast in April 2016.
On March 27, 2017, the podcast returned from a hiatus with a new video format on their latest channel, This Is Mythical. The podcast continues to be released on iTunes and Soundcloud, as well as Spotify.
Music
Rhett and Link are known to perform live musical comedy and have completed two albums. In 2001, Rhett and Link independently released Just Mail Us the Grammy, featuring the popular song "The Unibrow Song". In 2005, Rhett and Link independently released I'm Sorry, What Was That? (Live in the Living Room), a live album featuring "The Wal-Mart Song". The album is available at the iTunes Store. In April 2007, Rhett and Link placed 3rd in the TurboTax TaxRap Contest, a contest judged by Vanilla Ice. In 2008, Rhett and Link independently released Websongs Vol 1, an online album featuring "Facebook Song", "Cornhole Song" and "Velcro Song". On February 1, 2009 Rhett and Link independently released Secret Songs, a collection of songs that were previously only available to winners of their monthly "Community Building Exercises", a part of their "Quest for the Seven Keys" contest.
On December 4, 2009, Rhett and Link teamed up with DFTBA Records and created a new album called Up To This Point.
In May 2015, Rhett and Link released a new album with the songs from their series, "Song Biscuits", which involved them writing a song with a guest (or just themselves) within an hour and performing it. This album is entitled Song Biscuits: Volume 1 and is available on iTunes.
To correspond with their YouTube Red show, Rhett & Link's Buddy System, the duo released the album Buddy System (Music From Season 1) which includes seven songs, one from each episode. It was released a week before the premiere date in October 2016 and is available on Google Play Music and iTunes.
Rhett and Link have also released all of their albums and singles onto Google Play Music.
Film and television
Rhett and Link starred in the IFC original series, Rhett & Link: Commercial Kings. The show chronicled the quest of Rhett and Link as they traveled the country making local commercials for small businesses. Having premiered Friday, June 24, 2011 at 10:00pm ET/PT on IFC, this ten-part docu-comedy is based on their successful web series I Love Local Commercials and features Rhett and Link helping local businesses achieve their goals by creating eye-catching local commercials using local talent. The show was, however, canceled.
Rhett and Link are among the first group of Internet personalities who tried to transition from the Internet into network television. In 2007, along with Stevie Ryan and Joy Leslie, Rhett and Link hosted the short-lived series Online Nation, a show that featured the best viral videos from the Internet, part of the 2007 fall lineup on the CW Network. The premiere episode was seen by 1 million people, but the show was cancelled after only four episodes. As the hosts, Rhett and Link responded with an Internet video.
They appeared as guests on Lopez Tonight where they were interviewed, made a commercial for George's favorite doughnut place, and were back-up dancers for the remainder of the show after their interview. They have also appeared on Last Call with Carson Daly, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and Conan. As of July 2017, the duo have also appeared three times on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Rhett and Link served as musical correspondents for Brink, hosted by Josh Zepps, on the Science Channel. They wrote and produced three music videos including "My Robot Girlfriend", "Space Junk", and "The S.E.T.I. Song".
Rhett and Link also produced segments for Phil Vischer's "What's in the Bible". In that, they were a singing duo named "The Fabulous Bentley Brothers" performing teaching songs about different books, or topics, in the Bible.
In 2006, Rhett and Link began work on a documentary about their search for their first grade teacher, Ms. Locklear, entitled Looking for Ms. Locklear. The film released in 2008 and won the Southern Lens Award from South Carolina Public TV, which led to the film screening on PBS in South Carolina. The film also won audience choice awards at the ACE Film Festival and the Secret City Film Festival, and won 2nd place documentary at the Secret City Film Festival. The documentary was an official selection at the Real to Reel Film Festival, the Landlocked Film Festival, the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, BendFilm Festival, Asheville Film Festival, and the Cucalorus Film Festival. On September 9, 2009 the duo released the movie on DVD, distributing it over the Internet.
Rhett and Link appeared on the WWE Network original series Legends House, judging the WWE Legends' custom commercials.
Rhett and Link appeared in the edutainment web series Wonder Quest, and guest starred in 2 episodes as Thomas Edison (Rhett) and William Hammer (Link). Most recently, Rhett and Link created, wrote, produced, and starred in their show, Rhett and Link's Buddy System, which was released on YouTube Red. This show proved to be a success when they were featured in Variety as the most watched digital show, beating out Netflix's Orange Is the New Black and Amazon's The Man in the High Castle.
Book of Mythicality
Rhett and Link unveiled their upcoming book, to be published by Crown Archetype, Rhett and Link's Book of Mythicality: A Field Guide to Curiosity, Creativity and Tomfoolery on February 13th, 2017. It was also made available for pre-order from several major online retailers on the same day. The front cover was shown for the first time during an interview with the duo on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on March 24th, 2017. Rhett and Link have described the book as "a hilarious blend of autobiography, trivia and advice" and will include the story behind their friendship and career, as well as tips on how to "add Mythicality" to the reader's life, supported by anecdotes from their own past. The book was officially released on October 10th, 2017 and then made it onto The New York Times Best Seller List in the "Advice, How-To and Miscellaneous" section for the week ending October 14, 2017.
Tour of Mythicality
It was announced on May 16th, 2017 that Rhett and Link would be going on tour around the United States in order to promote their upcoming book, performing at 16 theatres around the country. Tickets were made available for pre-sale the same day. The demand was so high that second shows were added to five of the theatres, bringing the total number of shows up to 21. Tickets were made available to the general public on May 19th. A further two early shows were added to theatres in New York and Los Angeles on August 12th, with the duo confirming this would be the last addition to the lineup, the final total number of shows now at 23.
Awards and nominations
Sources
External links
- Official website
- Rhett McLaughlin on IMDb
- Link Neal on IMDb
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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