Red vs. Blue



"You ever wonder why we're here?"

"Washington: How do you ever get anything done if all you ever do is argue with each other? Church: We don't! That's part of our charm. Quit fucking it up!"

Somewhere, in space, there is a box canyon containing two military installations. Two opposing armies, one Red, one Blue, have stationed soldiers there in order to prevent the other side from... controlling two bases in a box canyon. Beyond that, the soldiers don't really know what their mission is. They don't really know why they're fighting. But one thing's for sure: those guys are a bunch of assholes. And don't get them started on the opposing army.

Red Vs Blue is a Machinima Work Com set against the background of the Halo game series. Its creators, Rooster Teeth Productions, helped spark the whole Machinima explosion and went on to establish themselves as Big Name Fans in the Halo community to the point of doing actual work for Bungie Studios, as well as making their videos available for purchase on Xbox Live. The main series, The Blood Gulch Chronicles, ran for five seasons for a total of 100 episodes, spawning two short spinoff series detailing sideplots (Out Of Mind and Recovery One), and later, a renewal of the series; Red vs. Blue Reconstruction, which is essentially the sixth season of the series featuring both the side and main plots colliding. After that, a miniseries called Relocated bridged the gap to the next series, Recreation, essentially the seventh season, which ends on a cliffhanger. The eighth season, Revelation, rounds out the trilogy, collectively known as Recollections. In addition to this, several PSAs and specials have been created as extras. The first five seasons have also been remastered, with seasons one through four now re-shot in fullscreen HD.

The ninth season has finished recently, ending on a cliffhanger to lead into season ten. It is divided between "Prequel stuff," regarding Project Freelancer in full CGI (albeit based on Halo 3 assets); and "present stuff," following the continuing adventures of the Blood Gulch crew told via Halo: Reach machinima.

All episodes are available for viewing at the Rooster Teeth website and more recently on their channel on YouTube, though you need a subscription to have full access to exclusive members-only content. Alternatively, they'd surely appreciate it if you bought the DVDs.

Other Rooster Teeth series include the live action Rooster Teeth Shorts, The Strangerhood, Immersion, Past Cast and Rooster Teeth Comics.

Has a character sheet.

Seasons One through Eight

 * Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles: Seasons 1-5 plus "Out of Mind" and "Recovery One"
 * Red vs. Blue: The Recollection: Seasons 6-8 plus "Relocated"

Season Nine
"The Director: "How are two soldiers of your caliber possibly hurt by simulation troopers?" Washington: "They... got the jump on us.""
 * The Ace: Agent Carolina.
 * Adorkable:
 * Wash, especially compared to previous seasons. He comes off as much more sociable, innocent and awkward compared to the grim, gruff and vengeful Washington we know and love.
 * And York, who is friendly and nice, but is a bit of a Butt Monkey and his snarky comments tend to invoke headshaking rather than chuckles from the other Freelancers.
 * Armed with Canon:
 * Art Shift: Burnie has said that, due to the difficulty in matching the game art style with the mocap CGI, they've embraced the difference to tell two simultaneous storylines side-by-side, with the Freelancer stuff in CGI entirely and the "future stuff" in Halo: Reach machinima.
 * Ascended Extra: York had about seven minutes of screentime prior to this season, Carolina was just talked about a couple of times, and North was.
 * Audible Gleam: During Grif's initial cleanliness tick, both times he points out how clean he's waxed the floors, we cut to a wider shot of the floor, which gives this off. It's quite amusing.
 * Aw, Look -- They Really Do Love Each Other: Church and Tex make amends
 * Back-to-Back Badasses: Agent North and Agent South obviously. SWITCH!
 * Agents Maine and Carolina of all people pull this off in episode 17.
 * Bash Brothers: North and South.....well, Bash Siblings really.
 * Beautiful All Along: South is rather attractive, at least before she develops Chronic Backstabbing Disorder.
 * Behind the Black: The Reds fail to notice Sarge's drilling machine and the even larger excavation unit until he points them out.
 * Big Damn Heroes: in Episode 3
 * Big No: gives one when.
 * Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: South, C.T., and Carolina, respectively.
 * Bloodier and Gorier: Episode two alone probably has more blood and gore in it than the rest of the series combined. Still not incredibly gory, but relatively speaking...
 * Justified as Freelancers are already using the Mk 6 armor which is, at least until Halo 4 comes out, the deadliest Power Armor in the military's arsenal. The people they're fighting don't, indicated for example by their lack of the usual voice distortion effects, making them Made of Plasticine by comparison.
 * Break the Cutie: Younger Wash's fate, sadly.
 * Butt Monkey: Lots of them as usual, but the primary Butt Monkey changes:
 * In the Freelancer segments, falls between York and Wash.
 * In the present storyline, it's Simmons.
 * Later, shifts to Maine.
 * Call Forward: In the trailer, some of Agent Maine's injuries were brought about due to a surprise attack by simulation troops.
 * In the Freelancer segments, falls between York and Wash.
 * In the present storyline, it's Simmons.
 * Later, shifts to Maine.
 * Call Forward: In the trailer, some of Agent Maine's injuries were brought about due to a surprise attack by simulation troops.

"Church: It took a couple versions of me, but I think... I think sometimes you've just gotta let go. And if you do, the things you let go sometimes come back on their own. They did today."
 * Washington's catch phrase. Hell, half the things that come out of Wash's mouth, really.
 * Maine can be seen picking up his signature weapon, the "Knifle" as one of the Mooks he tests it on dubs it, during episode 15.
 * Call Back: The batteries  are branded "Puma Batteries."
 * In Episode 14, Caboose mentions that Grif is yellow, not orange.
 * In Episode 19, Church's speech to Tex at the end is a condensed version of his revelation as he went into the Epsilon unit.
 * In Episode 19, Church's speech to Tex at the end is a condensed version of his revelation as he went into the Epsilon unit.

"South: "You stupid bi-""
 * The Cameo: Ian and Anthony of Smosh cameo as two mooks in Episode 3.
 * The Caper: The Freelancers' sarcophagus heist is set up like this.
 * Character Development: Kinda all over the map with Church. Building on his ending speech in Revelations, he now sees himself as Alpha, having been reincarnated from Epsilon. But now that he's dealing with the less capable season one versions of his teammates, he's quickly regained his temper from the BGC era. He also becomes more reflective, more introspective.
 * For an inverted example, we see how Wash started off as an idealistic nice, if stiff and awkward, guy. This does not bode well.
 * Chase Fight: Most of episode 17.
 * Chekhov's Armory: The Sarcophagus room in Episode 15, filled to the brim with weapons from throughout the Halo series, most of which are used by the end of the episode.
 * Continuity Nod:
 * South uses a voice filter like Tex and C.T. did. Might also be a Running Gag since only female Freelancers use them.
 * In Episode 4, Tucker asks Caboose if they should help, and Caboose replies that he doesn't think they can, since he can't get a clear shot at Church.
 * In Episode 15, Maine is walking around a room filled with Covenant weapons, stops,
 * "That's a good look."
 * Lopez is mistaken to be Simmons and decides to go along with it for the sake of getting people to listen to him. One of the things he claims that supposedly proves he's human is getting math problems wrong for no reason, a reference to when Simmons pretended he was good at math by giving a very wrong answer to a multiplication problem.
 * Contractual Genre Blindness: Sarge is very aware that setting off a bomb in the core will not stabilize the planet, but believes it necessary to have several dramatic setbacks and calamities before finding the solution the the planet's instability.
 * Conveniently Timed Guard: In the second episode, when the guard catches South stealing data from the terminal.
 * Curse Cut Short:

"FSN: "Somebody call for a ride?" Carolina: "You're late." FSN: "Ah, well. You can take it out of my tip.""
 * A Date with Rosie Palms: Tucker again mistakenly believes Donut is a girl instead of a guy in pink armor. He then comments on how awkward that makes what he did twenty minutes ago during "alone time".
 * A Day in the Limelight: The Dakotas get a focus plot early in the season, and C.T. gets a character establishing scene about midway through, but the Prequel half of the season is definitively more about Carolina, York, Washington, Tex, and, to a lesser extent, Maine.
 * Deadpan Snarker: The Pelican pilot, Four Seven Niner

""I swear this has never happened to me before...""
 * Death From Above: Episode 15. Anything more would ruin the epicness.
 * Demoted to Extra: Wyoming. Despite being the second freelancer introduced and one of the main villains of the original five seasons, he barely does anything in this season. He has only one or two lines and spends most of his screen time being injured by Tex and enemy soldiers. Burnie Burns states that this due to Wyoming's quirkier voice and personality running a risk of detracting from the more seriously toned Freelancer plot-line.
 * Dodge The Paint: Tex does a pretty good job at this, and it's implied that Carolina does too.
 * Does This Remind You of Anything?: Andy the bomb, failing to blow up.

"Wash What the fuck is with this guy?"
 * Doomed by Canon: Every freelancer we've been introduced to has a horrid fate. The sole exception is.
 * The Dragon:
 * Dream Apocalypse:
 * The Easy Way or the Hard Way: Said in episode 3.
 * Elite Mook: The Pyromaniac Carolina and Washington encounter is able to shrug off Battle Rifle rounds and give the duo some trouble before Carolina smashes him in the face with a gravity hammer. Also counts as a Big Lipped Alligator Moment. Where the hell did this guy come from, and what's his story?
 * Wash even lampshades it:
 * Elite Mook: The Pyromaniac Carolina and Washington encounter is able to shrug off Battle Rifle rounds and give the duo some trouble before Carolina smashes him in the face with a gravity hammer. Also counts as a Big Lipped Alligator Moment. Where the hell did this guy come from, and what's his story?
 * Wash even lampshades it:

"York: "Hey, man. Do you mind holding this for me for a sec?" Soldier: "Huh?" York: "Thank you." FILSS: "Firing main cannon." Soldier: "Oh, son of a...""
 * Episode 13 gives us a glimpse of him alongside the rest of the Insurrectionists. Presumably all of them will show up in later episodes to be mini-bosses for the rest of the team.
 * The jet-pack mooks in Episode 17, who are decidedly harder to kill than ordinary mooks amd pull off some impressive stunts of their own. Just one of them was able to out-muscle MAINE!
 * Most of the Insurrectionist's mooks tend to be simply armed guys in white or green uniforms, the black and red ODST's serve as Elite Mooks.
 * Enemy Chatter: During the action scene in episode 3, two of the mooks get in a short argument over a rifle.
 * Also in episode 2, at the very beginning, when one mook is complaining to another about job assignment.
 * We also see two guys get in an argument as Maine falls past them. It appears to be the newest Running Gag.
 * Face Death with Dignity:
 * The Faceless: Finally averted in the cases of York, North Dakota, South Dakota, Carolina, Connecticut, and the Counselor thanks to Monty Oum, but still holds true for Maine, Wash,, and the Blood Gulch Crew.
 * Kind of holds true for the Director as well. While many parts of his face are seen and he gets a lot of views from the back, his entire face, especially his eyes, have yet to show.
 * Fiery Redhead:
 * Five-Man Band: The main Freelancer characters fit this trope perfectly.
 * The Hero: Carolina.
 * The Lancer: Washington.
 * The Big Guy: Maine, Wyoming, and South form a Big Guy trio.
 * The Smart Guy: York. Also doubles as the team's second Lancer, being the only guy on the team Carolina treats equally as both a friend and colleague.
 * The Chick: Well, C.T. is more of the Dark Chick. North also fits this role, to an extent, since his primary concern is taking care of the others.
 * Sixth Ranger:
 * Flash Back Back Back: Has happened twice, with the words "order" and "change" repeated to trigger the flashback.
 * Foil: The Freelancers to the Blood Gulch Red and Blue Teams. While the former was a group of skilled, badass elite soldiers they inevitably fall apart as a unit due to in-fighting, jealousy, and betrayal, failing to do much in the War. The latter however started out as enemies but over-time fostered a bizarre if powerful alliance with each other, actually managing to do great things via cooperation instead of competition despite the incompetence of their members, even managing to kill several of the Freelancers and having a far greater impact in fostering a peace between the Humans and Aliens. To further accentuate this, both groups have at their focal point a Leonard Church.
 * Foregone Conclusion: We already know what will happen to all of the "past" characters, as well as the fact that Project Freelancer eventually ends up as a colossal failure.
 * Genre Blindness: In episode 15: When someone hands you a rapidly beeping, glowing object and then dashes away, you probably shouldn't stand there staring at it.

"Recovery Command: "Well, I guess so much for our go-around." Angel: "I heard that, four-seven-niner." Recovery Command: "Yup, that's 'cause I transmitted it.""
 * Good-Looking Privates: We start seeing Freelancers' faces in Season 9, and so far, everyone's quite pretty.
 * Good Scars, Evil Scars: York has his messed-up eye, and Maine is shot in the throat.
 * Goomba Stomp: South does this to a guard. The Mk6 armor does weigh several hundred pounds after all.
 * Groin Attack: North delivers one to a Mook before shooting him in Episode 3.
 * In Episode 10,
 * Possibly a Continuity Nod as she does this to Grif too, she seems to have a thing against orange-ish guys' crotches.
 * Gun Fu: The Freelancers come right out of the gate with this as North and South Dakota get into a big gunfight in the enemy base. When Carolina shows up to bail them out of trouble, she shows that she's just as good at it.
 * In Episode 10, there's the
 * Gun Twirling:  does a little twirl in Episode 10, after
 * Informed Ability: Simmons can play the banjo. Not that anyone on Red Team noticed.
 * Insane Troll Logic: Sarge's plan to save the world, appropriately entitled "Sarge's plan to kick the planet's ass." Ah, Sarge, we missed that about you.
 * Irony: Virtually everything we learn about Project Freelancer puts a weird spin on what we have seen of them in previous seasons (Eg. Alpha "didn't remember being a calculator" here he has pride in his calculating abilities, the suprising comaderie between the Freelancers.).
 * Is This Thing Still On?: Subverted.

": We found you in the place where they were keeping you, and we traveled a really really long way to come to this place and fought a bunch of people, and then fought a bunch of more people, and then we got you and took you and saved you! The end."
 * Knuckle-Cracking: Agent Maine invokes this in episode 13.
 * Leeroy Jenkins: Despite her brother telling her repeatedly to turn on her motion tracker so he can provide better aid, South refuses on grounds that "it'll take too long" and charges in anyway.
 * The same episode also has a possible Shout-Out to the trope as well, with two guards complaining about another guard named Jenkins.
 * Maine and Wyoming in
 * Leitmotif: Carolina and Tex have a rather special one whenever the two cross paths. It mixes the Agent Tex theme with the vocals from Extraction.
 * Lotus Eater Machine: The "present" half of the story takes place from Church's perspective after the events of Revelations, trapped in the Epsilon unit.
 * Made of Iron: Maine.
 * Men Are the Expendable Gender: Averted! In episode 17, one of the mooks that Tex shoots on the freeway has a female voice, and one of the jet-pack mooks Carolina fights on the truck seems to be a girl too.
 * Mexican Standoff: Between Agent South and a trooper, holding two cups of coffee, and looking at the alarm.
 * Mind Screw:
 * Mood Whiplash:
 * Episode 2 shows the Dakota twins as incredibly skilled and coordinated fighters. Now remember how we were introduced to them and their ultimate fate, making you wonder what the hell happened to them.
 * being best friends.
 * C.T. being.
 * York being
 * Wash respects the DIRECTOR. Yeah.
 * Episode 18 starts with Grif being made of awesome and hilarity, continues with the return of Andy, and the Blood Gulch crew finishes up with the deadpan line "We're all going to die now."
 * Mook Chivalry: The only guards that seem to make an effort to shoot at the Twins are the Snipers. Everyone else runs towards the duo, one at a time, hoping to get killed in the coolest way possible.
 * My God, What Have I Done?: As soon as Church realises that the memory unit isn't failing, but rather Caboose has managed to find a way to free him from it, he instantly regrets his prior action..
 * Nostalgia Ain't Like It Used to Be: Church's body, Caboose, and Tucker are back to their season one versions; in other words, pretty lame. Also, the camaraderie between the Reds and Blues didn't exist in season 1, as Church realized upon walking up to the simulation versions.
 * Offscreen Moment of Awesome
 * Offscreen Moment of Awesome
 * Offscreen Moment of Awesome
 * Offscreen Moment of Awesome

"Wash: "Whoa, that's hot!""
 * Oh Crap: Episode 3 has Church realize that the Reds weren't his buddies in season 1, what his simulation is based on, when he walks up to them.
 * gets these moments many times in Episode 10 when
 * As usual, Maine continues to inspire this reaction in people. Those poor mooks...
 * Church has a minor one when he realizes
 * And Church has a much bigger one twice in the finale
 * Ominous Latin Chanting: At the end of Episode 16. There's a very light chanting, which is a Call Forward to another incident where Maine was about to
 * The Oner: Episode 17 has one during the Chase Fight. An interview with Monty revealed that his nickname for the shot ended up being the name of the episode.
 * Only Sane Man: Wash and York share this role in the group, though in almost opposite ways. Wash is rather uptight and straitlaced, while York is a laid-back smartass.
 * Opening Narration: Church tries to helpfully provide one for the viewers, except he's repeatedly interrupted by Tucker to the point of frustration, and finally just drops it.
 * Plot Tumor: The Freelancer program, originally introduced as just independent agents back in season one, has evolved into this. Overlaps with Characterization Marches On and retcon.
 * Phrase Catcher: Any mention of Agent Maine fighting someone is typically met with "Man, I almost feel bad for them."
 * Pyromaniac: In "The Sarcophagus," Wash and Carolina get attacked by one. It was awesome.

"Church: No. I'm not going to say "I love you." I'm going to say"
 * Quirky Miniboss Squad: The six ODST Insurrectionists first seen in Episode 13 seem to be shaping up as this. The team consists of a Pyromaniac, a Girl, a Guy With No Sleeves, a Cold Sniper, a guy in heavier armour and a "regular" ODST with a bandolier and a kukri.
 * Reality Warper:
 * Red Herring: Episode 3 refers to "her" who is a total Badass and is viewed by the twins with awe . Overlaps with Foreshadowing as a "Beta Protocol" was activated before
 * Another piece of Foreshadowing is that
 * The Reveal: Well, some backstory reveals. In the PAX East trailer, we learn the Meta didn't speak because he was shot in the throat during Project Freelancer.
 * Screaming Warrior: North lets out a mighty roar in Episode 2 when he shoots up a mook guard's torso and face in slow motion.
 * Series Continuity Error: An in-universe example occurs when
 * She Fu: Agent Carolina, overlapping with Dance Battler.
 * Ship Tease: Between Carolina and York.
 * Wash and C.T.
 * Shout-Out: When Tucker and Church are making up names, the two they come up with are Smith and Anderson.
 * Which are instantly conglomerated into Andersmith.
 * Washington saying "That's a good look." when Maine picks up the Brute Shot seems reminiscent of Terminator 2, when John Conner says "That's definitely you." as The Terminator picks up the minigun.
 * Sarge's plan to stop the earthquakes is almost exactly like the one from The Core.
 * Grif's OCD is a possible Shout-Out to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, in that he does things in threes so that the people he loves don't die.
 * Stock Scream: The Wilhelm is heard during the third episode.
 * There Are No Girls on the Internet: Tuckers assumes this when Caboose mentions he once had an internet girlfriend, but it turned out it was just his e-mail.
 * True Companions:
 * Unwanted Rescue:
 * Wham! Episode:
 * Wham! Line:

"Tucker: "Romance happens in movies. In real life, it's called stalking." Caboose: "Well, maybe all of this is happening inside of a movie! Tucker: "Oh please. Who the fuck would watch that movie? All we do is sit around and talk.""
 * Who Would Want to Watch Us?: In Episode 9.


 * Wide-Eyed Idealist: Young Wash is this, especially in comparison to his future self.
 * Your Mind Makes It Real

Season Ten
"Caboose: We sort of call the new guy Church, y'know, sometimes. Church: What."
 * Artificial Gravity: On the various ships. In Episode 2, Wash accidentally turns it off on one of them.
 * Attack! Attack! Retreat! Retreat!: Washington and York against the Insurrection soldiers in the trailer.
 * Brick Joke: Remember the Insurrectionist grunt Delta was talking to? The one who got spaced? Yeah, we see him in orbit at the beginning of episode 2.
 * Call Forward: Oh, Wash. You don't even know.
 * Continuity Nod:
 * Wash appears to use an EMP, or emp, to disable a number of Warthogs.
 * In Season 9, we learn that South hates flying. In Season 10, North mentions she always needed a barf bag on their family trips.
 * Wash dodges a car flying at him during a fight, and wonders out loud, "Why do cars hate me?"
 * At the end of the preview trailer, it references Washington's catchphrase, "THE BIGGEST SEASON EVER. OF ALL TIME.
 * Curb Stomp Battle:
 * Enemy Chatter: The Running Gag from last season is still going strong, with two mooks in episode 2 sniping at each other about being under attack.
 * Flat What

"Church: "What's the appropriate amount of time to go by for that joke to be ok?""
 * Grey and Gray Morality: Suggested by Delta to an Insurrectionist grunt. The Freelancers and Insurrectionists can't be called good and evil, just two groups working for different goals.
 * Guns Akimbo: Carolina seems to have made a twin set of Plasma Rifles her weapons of choice judging from the trailers.
 * Hyper-Destructive Bouncing Ball: The Insurrection soldiers fail to realize that.
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Wash destroying the artificial gravity while trying to hack the system, in Episode 2. Not that it's a bad thing for the audience, because we get treated to an epically awesome zero-gee battle.
 * Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Emphasized even more strongly for Washington, when York notes in the trailer that he's easily the worst fighter in the squad. (Of course, the other people in the squad are York, North, Carolina, and Maine...)
 * Replacement Goldfish:
 * Shout-Out: The first episode shows a split-second still of Rooster Teeth Animated Adventures.
 * Summon Bigger Fish: Washington signals for a pod containing to fight the sleeveless Insurrectionist.
 * The Plot Thickens: In the Freelancer plot, anyway. At the end of Episode 2, we see.
 * Too Soon: After Sarge quips that ever since Donut was shot, he probably has a few more holes in him, he invokes this trope by name. Church's response?


 * Tranquil Fury: Church is NOT happy . But instead of his usual raving and ranting, he just gets more and more teeth-clenched and sarcastic at every new revelation.
 * Unexplained Recovery: The Insurrection soldiers that were shown in Season 9 as a Quirky Miniboss Squad. The soldier with the bandolier is the most glaring example, as he was last seen taking a Wave Motion Gun right to the face, yet appears in the trailer with his only visible injuries being a mechnical arm and some heavy damage to his armor.

Others
PSAs and specials

Rooster Teeth has also created several videos outside of the main series created for promotions or just to make humorous videos that aren't related to the plot of the show.

"Donut: Hey, Caboose. Have you seen my grenade? Caboose: Yes, I put it in my pants. Wait-... (cue explosion)"
 * Actor Allusion: The "Off The Charts" PSA displays pictures and bios of the "manliest" members of the Rooster Teeth community, including actual Rooster Teeth team member Gus Sorola. Sarge questions whether Gus should even be in the "manly" montage at all, to which Simmons (voiced by Gus) hurriedly rushes to assert that Gus is indeed very manly, adding an even greater level of metafiction to the already very meta PSAs.
 * Buried Alive: This happens to Sarge in an April Fool's Day episode when Grif mistakes him for being dead. He escaped by eating his way out of the grave.
 * Continuity Nod: Tucker's less than normal knowledge of time comes up again in the Rock the Veto PSA when has says they were playing Blindfold for "like 30 hours last night."
 * Decided by One Vote: A Type 3 scenario that ends up unresolved in the Election Night video. Grif apparently meant to vote, but forgot to register in time due to his usual laziness.
 * Department of Redundancy Department: The American Grifball League of America.
 * Eagle Land: Type 1, parodied. After examining how Red vs. Blue would be done by other countries, Church and Tucker decide to do it the American way, which they conclude is driving big cars and blowing shit up. The video ends with a Warthog flying over an explosion with the American flag in the background and "America the Beautiful" playing.
 * Explosive Stupidity: Caboose was prone to this during the Fourth of July PSA about handling fireworks.

"Caboose: WHAT? Grandma, nooo! Sarge: Don't even get me started on the "gobble-gobble"."
 * "Faux To" Guide: The guide to making an online video.
 * The Fire Safety PSA. For the love of God, don't take their advice.
 * Four Point Scale: The PSA about the gaming industry lampshades this practice.
 * The Grinch: Church in the Christmas special. His acts include shooting the Red's Christmas tree decorations, spreading lies about Santa to Caboose and stealing the present he tricked Tucker into getting for him.
 * Lethal Chef: Sarge's dish for the 2008 Thanksgiving dinner was severed human hands dressed like turkeys due to misunderstanding his research materials (first-grader reports) while Caboose misinterpreted a sexual metaphor his grandmother once told him in his youth and brought "hair pie". Sarge had to set him straight on that one.

"Church: Don't worry Caboose, I'm sure when the game comes out there'll be a way to shut it off. Caboose: Good. I need sleep. Sarge: Sleep? When that game comes out, I won't sleep for a week! Church: Yeah, no, it's not that, it's just that he's having trouble sleeping because he can see through his eyelids now. Sarge: Oh. That's creepy."
 * Memetic Badass: In-universe, sort of... In a series of PSA videos made to hype Halo 3: ODST, Sergeant Johnson is painted to be even more of this than he already was in the Halo games with claims that he once took out an entire Covenant Batallion single handedly, is immortal, and has laser vision.
 * New Years Resolution: Both teams spent the New Year's video in a "Resolveathon" to come up with the best resolutions. The losers had suffer a Fate Worse Than Death...actually following through on their resolutions. The Blues take advantage of this by resolving to beat up the Reds.
 * Required Secondary Powers: Actually averted in the "Upgrading" PSA, when Caboose gets his armor stuck on invisibility mode:

"Doc: Guys, trust me. I'm a doctor. Simmons: No, you're not! You just play one on the internet!"
 * Right Behind Me: Church kinda invokes the wrath of Sgt. Johnson in the 3rd ODST PSA this way.
 * Schmuck Bait: The second and third season DVDs have bonus videos implying either a love story with Tex or "Sheila's Sexy Adventure". Clicking either of those and you get berated for actually expecting something.
 * Seemingly-Profound Fool: The "What I Did On My Summer" PSA has Caboose unwittingly "escaping into the campaign" of Halo: Reach, either becoming, being mistaken for, or revealing himself to be Noble Six.
 * The Internet Is Serious Business: A PSA was made about this.
 * Trust Me, I'm an X: From the bird flu PSA.


 * Unexplained Recovery: Most of the time, if a character suffers a seemingly fatal injury, they'll turn out to be fine later, to the point that towards the end of the series they don't even bother explaining it anymore.
 * Wildlife Commentary Spoof: One of the bonuses in the Red vs. Blue DVD is a movie spoof that has Sarge doing this to Grif (framed as a hunting show, naturally).
 * Worst Aid: The general premise of the cold and flu PSA. "I've had the bullets in my shotgun medically coated for the fastest possible injection of life-saving medicine."
 * Worst Whatever Ever: Sarge gives this during the 2008 Thanksgiving special when he discovers it doesn't involve inviting your enemies over and shooting them in the back.

Red vs. Blue: Animated

A series pilot that was shown at PAX 2008 and later announced dead at the 2010 San Diego Comic Con, due to a combination of time constraints, money and the staff's inability to work on the timeframe of another company. The Pilot/Trailer can be found here.


 * Animated Adaptation: Well, slightly more animated than the in-game footage that is used.
 * Groin Attack: A Grunt manages to do this to Simmons.
 * What Could Have Been: As stated it was an ambitious idea, the crew just didn't have the money and time for it. They also didn't like the fact that someone else had to do the animation, so they couldn't do it in-house.

"And I mean, hell...if you gotta spend the rest of your life in a memory...you might as well make it a good one."