Ensemble Darkhorse/Web Original
Examples of Ensemble Darkhorses in Web Original include:
- From That Guy With The Glasses:
- The curtains, every time fanmail appears, there is always one on the end dedicated to the curtains. Unfortunately, Suede didn't take then with him after he moved (they were his parents', but still...).
- Doctor Insano.
- Nella! It really says something that all videos she's in get dozens of comments about on how awesome she is and how she should have her own show. And the Chick seems to be listening - Nella now shows up in almost every episode.
- Linkara on That Guy With The Glasses. One of many contributors who joined the site in late 2008, and plucked from almost complete obscurity, he quickly rose to become one of the site's biggest draws in only a few short months. Part of this was his unique niche (he is one of two Comic Book reviewers on the site), part of it was his consistent schedule (and at first, he posted more than one video a week, because he had a backlog of video reviews from before he joined the site), and part of it was his Colbert Bump from Spoony, who became a frequent collaborator. As early as January/February 2009, there was talk of him headlining a "comics and animation" section of the site called "Four Color Fantasy" (later renamed "Inked Reality"), but in fact he's so popular he's still listed separately, as an individual, on the site, a distinction shared only by Doug, Lindsay, Brad and Noah.
- takahata101 of Team Four Star ended up getting a lot of attention thanks in part to his portrayal of Nappa. Little Kuriboh would even lampshade his popularity by mentioning one of the best way to have a abridged series is having takahata provide a voice in the show.
- Nappa from Dragon Ball Abridged has easily become one of the series most popular characters, to the point where he had been making occasional appearances as a ghost despite having been completely forgotten in the original work after his death. The Abridged version of the Abridged series lampshades this by giving Nappa the line "You will love me and quote everything I say!"
- Dad from Awesome Video Games is very big with the show's fandom, to the point where they requested he get an episode all to himself. He eventually did get one with a larger focus on him, where he transformed the show into "Computer Entertainment Related Programming" to review Jack Nicklaus' Greatest 18 Holes of Major Championship Golf (misspelled as Jack Nicholson Golf in the episode title and the episode itself) on the NES.
- Similarly, Deacon (Dad's actor) from Video Games Awesome has become inordinately popular for a guy who sits in the background and says relatively little, probably thanks in part to some residual Dad-ness.
- Their only pop music reviewer, Todd in the Shadows, to a small degree.
- In the Homestar Runner toons, Strong Bad started out as a villain who was always doomed to lose to Homestar. Now he's debatably the most popular character, and definitely one of the most recognisable.
- To a lesser extent, there's Homsar. He first appeared as a one-shot gag to make fun of a typo, and over time, has been promoted up the ranks to become part of the main cast. HR's creators have joked about avoiding giving Homsar his own cartoon since they would never need to use him again.
- Same goes for Senor Cardgage.
- Trogdor and Stinkoman (Strong Bad's blue-haired anime counterpart) are also very popular with the fans. They even appear together in the fifth episode of SBCG4AP!
- Also Eh! Steve from the Show Within a Show Sweet Cuppin' Cakes. Strong Bad insists that the main character is Sherlock, some kind of "mix between a cow and a helicopter" who is constantly trying (and failing) to get a worm out of the ground, and that Eh! Steve is a background character who delivers his Catch Phrase once an episode. Nevertheless, Eh! Steve is vastly more popular and a much more recognizable symbol of the show.
- Teen Girl Squad is another good example.
- Strong Bad Lampshades this, along with The Other Darrin in the email original. After the departure of "Original Bubs," his temporary replacement "Onion Bubs" became a fan favorite.
- Onion Bubs! ONION BUUUUUBS!!!
- Played with in-universe in Strong Bad's commentary for an old King of Town toon. He hates every single thing about it except for the Blacksmith.
- To a lesser extent, there's Homsar. He first appeared as a one-shot gag to make fun of a typo, and over time, has been promoted up the ranks to become part of the main cast. HR's creators have joked about avoiding giving Homsar his own cartoon since they would never need to use him again.
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Strong Bad: Oh, now this guy had some class. The Blacksmith, that guy was a good guy. I hung out with him after the cartoon; yeah, we had some good times... |
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- Red vs. Blue has Caboose, for whom the writers originally had no real plans other than for him to be a catalyst to annoy Church. Once he devolved into The Ditz of the group, he became very popular with the fandom however.
- From what you can tell by the amount of views for 6 of the Speed Paints for Fairy Foxes done by creator StickFreeks herself, Kai, Kiki, and Louie might be in that territory.
- Flippy from Happy Tree Friends.
- Flaky as well. The two are a Fan-Preferred Couple.
- There is a fine literal example of this in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: Bad Horse, who gets only a couple of songs and a brief cameo at the end. Nonetheless, he's become quite popular in the fandom.
- Bad Horse, Bad Horse! He rides across the nation, the Thoroughbred of Sin!
- In the Loading Ready Run fandom, Andrew Cownden is extremely popular despite not being a member of the core Loading Ready Run crew. The reasons for this are most likely his acting ability, the infrequency with which he appears, and his awesome accent.
- During Desert Bus for Hope, Roscoe the duck takes the dark horse title. It just wouldn't be the same without him.
- Originally just a mention in the Whateley Universe, Aquerna has become this trope. She's one of the least powerful students at Whateley Academy, and became popular enough that one of the Canon authors is now writing Aquerna stories too.
- The Irate Gamer has one in the form of the Wise Sage, even some of the fans who snark and insult the show say he's a redeeming quality, in part probably because he acts slightly better than Bores, another reason why fans probably like him is the fact the person who acts as the Sage doesn't defend Bores as much these days. Interestingly enough, the Sage doesn't appear after the Aladdin review, possibly implying that Bores is either not using him again, or the Sage was grabbing too much attention that he thinks is his.
- He finally reappeared for a brief cameo in his Cool Spot review, but he didn't get any lines.
- Chris has seemed to figure out his Darkhorse status and now he's shoehorning in Wise Sage appearances hoping it will make his videos "look better".
- Rosa Fiametta seems to be one of the most liked characters for Survival of the Fittest v4 so far, alongside being a Memetic Molester/Memetic Sex God and Launcher of a Thousand Ships. As well Orn "Dutchy" Ayers, a free-loving, comic-reading, foreign very sensitive, Icelandic immigrant, who was held in high regard by many of the handlers before he even appeared for real.
- Jared Clayton of SOTF-TV is also pretty popular, considering that he isn't even a contestant, just a mentor and has had all of one line (not even onscreen!) in the actual game. This is probably due to the in-character twitter the staff maintains for him, featuring snark galore.
- Mr. Kwong, a teacher in v4. It's very unusual for a non-student to get much attention (either in or out of character), but you'd be hard pressed to find a handler that doesn't like him.
- Con, from Kilplix N Friends, to the point where he has his very own video.
- The HVGN's basic shtick is showcasing retro gaming's ensemble darkhorses.
- Team Starkid, the group responsible for A Very Potter Musical and Me and My Dick, has Jim Povolo. Despite getting a lot of the bit parts, he manages to steal every single scene he's in.
- The Godmonster of Indian Flats is more well known from Stuart Ashen's videos than the movie where he's the titular character.
- The Metamor City Podcast has Artax, originally created as an expository engine to explain some of the more complex bits of the world's magic in universe, the fans have often cited him as a favorite character over several of the main characters.
- Cal Chuchesta of The Needle Drop
- Greg the Spider from Arby 'n' the Chief.
- The Queen of Rogues and Robbers was originally supposed to be a one-shot villain in The Questport Chronicles, but has been brought back every year due to her popularity.
- The Engineer from True Capitalist Radio. Many of the trolls who call into the show wish that he would host more than Ghost.
- Back to Ensemble Darkhorse