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Lets Play / Hobo Bros

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hobobros.jpg
WA-HEY!note 

"Welcome to the Glitchy Boy's gaming channel Hobo Bros! Where we play stupid crap. Mods, hacks, memes and bootlegs, if its weird, funny or awesome, we'll play it!"
—Their previous channel description

Hobo Bros is the YouTube channel of Luke Lerdwichagul (known to some as SMG4) and his brother Kevin. Most of their videos are Lets Plays of multiplayer games, especially those in the Super Mario Bros. series. They also enjoy multiplayer minigame modes of otherwise single player games.

On December 3, 2016, Luke uploaded a video on his SMG4 channel announcing the start of the Hobo Bros channel. The channel had been started a few days earlier on November 28, but it wasn't until December 3 that they uploaded their first video, on Super Smash Bros, and they've been going strong ever since.

Their style is very informal and casual, with lots of emphasis on humor. Although there are some games that they take fairly seriously (mainly Super Smash Bros. games), they prefer to just screw around with their games and have fun. Most of the games they play are poorly made (intentionally or not), surreal, based around memes, and/or more.

They are also notable for coming up with an idea for a game that was later actually made, as well as creating their own epic miniseries in the form of The Carl Chronicles.

They also started Minus World, a group of Nintendo fan YouTubers who get together to play various games, particularly a multiplayer mod of Super Mario 64.

Starting in 2018, they started playing games less due to more focus on Meta Runner and other projects, and mostly react to meme compilations and, staring in early 2020, old SMG4 videos and SMG4 Wiki entries.

Starting in 2021, the channel has gone on hiatus for the foreseeable future, so that the duo can work on Glitch’s ever-expanding catalog of projects.

    open/close all folders 

    Games the Hobo Bros have played 

    Other video series they have 
  • Hobo Theatre: Luke plays around with props in Garry's Mod while the other (usually Kevin) lists words or phrases based on a particular theme, and Luke has to work those words into a story he tells using the Gmod props.
  • Hobo Amigos: Luke and Kevin play games (mostly Mario Party) with their editors, Martin and Harry.
  • Hobo Pod: Luke and Kevin talk about various subjects, although so far, they have mostly talked about Kevin's old Deviantart account.
  • Hobo Mobile: Luke and Kevin look through the Google Play Store to find the worst games possible, especially those that are blatant ripoffs of popular games.

Tropes present in the Hobo Bros' videos include:

  • Aborted Arc: They seem to have discontinued their series on Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location despite only being on the third level. It's unknown exactly why they stopped (although it might simply be because they aren't horror fans), or whether or not they plan to get back to it eventually.
  • The Ace: Downplayed with Luke. In some games (particularly Super Mario 64), he is very knowledgeable of most of the levels, and usually knows what he's doing. But there are other games where he does... not so well, particularly Super Mario Maker, where he gives up constantly, and Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location, where he goes Lovable Coward.
  • all lowercase letters: A lot of the later videos' titles are like this, mostly the meme reaction videos.
  • And I Must Scream: While playing Who's Your Daddy?, Luke (playing as the dad) decides to help the baby (who Kevin is playing as) commit suicide by dropping him into the swimming pool. The baby glitches and falls through the bottom of the pool. After that, the video cuts to Luke and Kevin trying a different game mode, so it's unclear if the baby actually died eventually, or if the baby would have kept falling forever, and Luke and Kevin had to restart the game.
    Kevin: I went into another dimension.
    Luke: Well, shit.
    Kevin: I don't think I'm dead, though.
  • April Fools' Day: On April 1, 2017, they uploaded a video claiming to be footage of a new Five Nights at Freddy's game. It was actually Fatty Bear's Birthday Surprise, a children's game about a friendly teddy bear.
  • Asian Speekee Engrish: They sometimes do "Asian voices" that use this accent. The brothers note that they have Chinese ancestry themselves, but still find the voices funny.
  • Ass Shove: Referenced a few times.
    • At one point while playing New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Kevin, playing as Mario, has Mario jump over a pit of lava, only for a Podoboo to jump out and hit Mario from below, killing him. Luke and Kevin then joke that Mario was killed by the Podoboo going up his butt.
    • They joke about Mario's voice in Hotel Mario, saying he sounds like he has "something shoved up his ass."
  • Body Horror: Often Played for Laughs with the way they contort the bodies of Garry's Mod characters.
    • Turned up to eleven with the two videos in which they contort Mario's face.
  • Black Comedy Rape: It's come up several times in their Nickelodeon Toon Twister 3 D series: Carl attempts to get Timmy to take a bagel from his pants in Part 3, and in Part 4, Mr. Krabs is perfectly happy to do the same to Carl in prison.
  • Breaking Old Trends: The "Hobo Theater" videos originally had Kevin read a list of words relating to the video's theme, with Luke having to work each word into the story. However, this eventually led to Kevin saying phrases, or even full sentences, instead of single words, and they seem to have abandoned the idea of using single words despite doing it for many videos.
  • Buffy Speak: Luke is often prone to this, like in this exchange in "Squidella gears up for SPLATOON 2":
    Luke: Alright, so she is actually one of the... most championship people. (starts laughing)
    Kevin: Most championship people?
    Luke: You love my English?
    Kevin: Yes!
    Luke: I love my English!
  • Catchphrase: They have a few:
    • "Welcome back, you sexy hobos!", as said at the beginning of nearly every video.
    • Luke has "Ooh, my ass!" which he sometimes says when his character in a game gets hit, or almost gets hit.
    • "My Cupdick!" is a variation of the above, specifically used during their playthrough of Cuphead. It gets to the point where Luke starts calling the character, and even the game, "Cupdick".
    • Kevin has "I did it! I did barrier skeep!", quoting this video, which he says when he and Luke do some amazing feat in a game.
    • Kevin also has "This is the run", used to try and motivate himself and Luke when they keep failing in a game and convince them that this will be their final attempt.
  • Christmas Episode:
    • "Santa Claus and the Christmas Visit" is this for the Hobo Theatre series.
    • They celebrated Christmas 2016 by playing... Pokemon games, which they jokingly called "very Christmasy".
  • Circus Episode: The Hobo Theatre episode "The Bowser Jr. Tragedy" has Bowser and Bowser Jr. go to an amusement park. Bowser goes off on his own to ride the Tunnel of Love ride, while Bowser Jr. starts to ride other rides when he suddenly stops to consider his relationship with Bowser, and things only get stranger from there.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Both brothers regularly show off their bizarre senses of humor. This is especially noticeable in the "Hobo Theatre" videos, where the stories they tell often descend into madness, and it gets to the point that they're laughing so hard at, say, Captain Falcon deciding that he wants to be a wizard, that they can barely speak.
  • Comedic Sociopathy: Luke and Kevin discuss the concept of schadenfreude while struggling with the levels in one of their Super Mario Maker videos. Martin puts a comment on the screen saying that he enjoys watching Luke and Kevin struggle, complete with an evil grinning emoticon.
  • Companion Cube: In NECROPHOBIA, they become very fond of a human corpse they find in the haunted house and start carrying it with them, trying to take it to the end of the map with them. They even name it Wilson as a Shout-Out to Cast Away.
  • Cuteness Proximity: Isabelle causes this to Kevin.
  • A Day in the Limelight:
    • A lot of "Hobo Theatre" episodes feature focus on characters from Luke's other channel such as Fishy Boopkins, Bob, and SMG3.
    • Whenever Luke and Kevin read the SMG4 Wiki definitely falls into this, as they look at pages on specific characters.
  • Demoted to Extra: The "Hobo Theatre" series used to be one of the main draws of their channel, with Hobo Theatre videos being uploaded frequently, if not almost as often as gameplay videos. However, when the channel decided on an official upload schedule, Hobo Theatre was pushed back to being only uploaded on Sundays along with Hobo Pod, meaning that the channel would upload only one or the other on Sundays.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: The first Hobo Theatre video was a video on SMG4's channel titled SMG4 Theatre: Mr. Joey goes to the theatre. It's still Luke making up a story with Garry's Mod props, but in this video, he mostly tells the story by himself, and there's no real theme or words that Luke has to work into the story.
  • Faux Horrific: They do this a lot. One example is their video on "Barney's Hide and Seek Game", where they make up a backstory about Barney being a Satanic Creepy Doll, and react with mock horror with almost everything Barney does in-game.
  • The Gambling Addict: Played for laughs in their playthrough of Super Mario Odyssey. The brothers discover a room which Kevin dubs "the casino", with a slot machine-like minigame that requires 10 coins to play. Kevin gets so determined to win the minigame that he starts to gamble away all their money, to Luke's protest. When they go back out to collect more coins, Kevin makes it clear that he intends to spend them at "the casino". The episode in which this happens is even titled "Gambling is Bad" as a reference to this scene.
  • Gameplay Grading: At the end of each Hobo Theatre video, Kevin grades Luke based on how well the story went.
  • Genre Savvy: At the beginning of NECROPHOBIA, a Garry's Mod horror map, Luke and Kevin notice the game suddenly lagging and realize that something else had spawned in the area, they just couldn't see it yet.
  • The Hyena: There isn't much that the bros don't find funny. They keep laughing throughout most of their videos, when they're not struggling with a hard game (and even sometimes when they are.) In one particular Hobo Theatre video, Kevin kept laughing harder and harder until he started crying, and unashamedly admitted it.
  • Idiot Ball: The Hobo Bros claim that they're getting worse the more they play Super Mario 64, and cite this as the reason why.
    Kevin: Have you noticed that we're actually getting worse as the game goes on?
    Luke: Yeah, I know! We were so good doing that lava level, and now I'm sad.
    Kevin: It's because of me, my retard-ness is washing off on you. This is what happens when you spend too much time with Mario, this shit happens!
    • During their first playthrough of Super Mario Party, Martin's bad luck from Mario Party 10 seems to have rubbed off onto Kevin.
  • In the Hood: Parodied in this Halloween video. Luke, wearing a hoodie, claims that he's dressed as a "scary hobo" for Halloween.
  • Inherently Funny Words: Carried over from SMG4's other videos is the constant use of "hobo", most likely because it's just a funny word.
  • Lemony Narrator: Their cameraman and editor, Martin, sometimes puts snarky comments on the screen describing what Luke and Kevin are doing.
  • Lovable Coward: Luke dips into this in the Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location and Baldi's Basics in Education and Learning videos. He often tries to cover his face when he's not playing, and when he is playing, Kevin often urges him to keep going. Kevin gets scared too, although not nearly as often.
  • Malicious Misnaming: Downplayed. They like to call the Koopalings by the wrong names, although less out of hatred and more because they simply find it funny. For example, they call the Koopalings in general "Iggies", and they call Iggy "Donald Duck".
  • Massive Multiplayer Crossover: The "Hobo Theatre" videos often use characters and items from a variety of video games and other works. For example, "Not Just Another Order" includes Big Smoke, Luigi, Kabu, John Cena, and Goofy, among others. Justified in that these videos are made using Garry's Mod, which was specifically designed to incorporate all these elements and allow for crossovers like this.
  • Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: In-Universe. Luke and Kevin have Chinese ancestry, but find the stereotypical East Asian voice hilarious.
  • Prison Episode: Their Hobo Theatre series has "The Great Luigi Escape", in which Luigi breaks out of prison.
  • Rage Quit: Luke is prone to this when playing Super Mario Maker levels. In one episode, which is even titled "SMG4 (Luke's nickname) RAGE QUITS", he gets so pissed that he has to get up and leave the room in order to stay calm.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Although both brothers are Large Hams to some extent, Luke usually has more extreme reactions than Kevin, who is usually somewhat calmer.
  • Refuge in Audacity: In "Not Just Another Order", Luke and Kevin jokingly claim that their goal is to offend as many cultures as possible.
  • Running Gag: The "You are retard?" clip from Borat plays whenever they make an especially stupid mistake.
  • Ship Sinking: SMG4 shot down the infamous Mario x Meggy ship from the main channel by confirming she is under 18 after Kevin touches a cardboard cutout of her inappropriately.
    Luke: "I'm gonna call Chris Hansen, you're goin' to jail."
    (Kevin is seen getting incarcerated with Chris Hansen next to him)
  • Shout-Out:
  • Sir Swears-a-Lot: Both brothers curse a lot, but especially Luke. "Ooh, my ass!" is a catchphrase for him.
    • Kevin tends to lampshade this from time to time, stating that he intends to "keep it PG".
  • Swallowed Whole: In the Hobo Theatre video "Waluigi and the Great Heist", Globox swallows Waluigi to help him sneak into the bank.
  • Violent Glaswegian: Invoked, Kevin sometimes tries to imitate a Scottish accent when he gets angry at a game.
  • With Lyrics: In one video, they make up lyrics to their outro music. "Hobo Bros, Hobo Bros, gonna watch Hobo Bros..." The actual outro for that episode actually starts out with their version before shifting to the normal version.

"We'll see you guys next time on Hobo Bros! Bye-bye!"

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