Trivia / Game Grumps

Trivia for Game Grumps.

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• Accidentally-Correct Writing: In their playthrough of Super Mario Maker, when Arin does terrible Star Wars puns in-character as Yoda, one pun is Yoda's car being a "Toyoda". Toyota was founded by and is owned by the Toyoda family, who changed the spelling to present a modern appearance.
• Acclaimed Flop:
  • Barry and Ross' playthrough of EarthBound got low views, but high praise from fans of the game (minus complaining about moments where Ross is inattentive or doesn't match Barry's levels of Squee).
  • The Devil's Third playthrough got unimpressive view counts and thus was discontinued, but it's also a favorite for fans that did watch it. It frequently got requests to be finished, and finally was in the Spring of 2019 via Twitch streams.
• Approval of God: Hayley Westenra approved of Arin and Danny's lip-syncing and dancing to her song "Prayer" at the end of Endless Ocean, so much so that she says "performing that song will never be the same again."
• Ascended Fanon:
  • A few of the specials came from common requests and ideas that circulated the Game Grumps subreddit.
  • A redditor originally wrote what eventually became the Jingle Grumps jingle.
  • Fans had been demanding a Valentines special where Suzy and Arin play through the Lion King on SNES together, since Arin once mentioned it was Suzy's favorite game. Lo and behold, on Valentines Day 2014, they did a special which was just that, and acknowledged the fandom demand for it.
  • Fans also had the idea for Ross and wife 'Commander' Holly Conrad to do a Valentines special, with Danny and Barry doing a 'bachelor pad'-style episode, knowing they were both single. While Ross and Holly ended up doing a Valentines show for FriendZone on Polaris, Danny and Barry indeed did a Steam Train special called 'Singles Train'. Ross and Holly did a Steam Train special called 'Love Train' the following year.
• Attention Deficit Creator Disorder: They always have multiple playthroughs being posted at once, and many are put on indefinite hiatus before completion for various reasons.
• Author's Saving Throw:
  • The fact they now use walkthroughs to find out where to go or what to do. Admittedly it may not always stop fans from saying "PAY ATTENTION GUYS!" but at least progress is made at a more steady pace in some games thanks to this.
  • Their February 2015 videos address complaints of not enough talk about game design, too much toilet humor, and finally lifting the Un-person status on Jon.
  • Arin has been known to be very negative about Sonic the Hedgehog games, so some fans were apprehensive of him being unnecessarily harsh to the aged Sonic Adventure: DX and potentially tainting Danny's view of it. Thankfully, Arin admitted to being overly negative, was able to stay in what he called a "zen mode" for a good bit to not tear down the game too badly, stated that his criticisms of the franchise as a whole come from him actually liking Sonic, and clarified that he doesn't try to insult the games' fans. Dan, meanwhile, realized that the game was old enough that judging it too hard would be unfair, so he embraced it and has enjoyed the game for the most part.
  • Fans still upset that Arin and Danny didn't complete Mario 64 to completion were ecstatic to see Arin try to 100% finish Mario Galaxy.
  • The very first episode of Dead Rising finally features an open acknowledgment of Arin's tendency to blame the game for his not being able to figure out some control.
  • A lot of fans were apprehensive when it turned out the Grumps would be visiting Ocarina of Time, due to Arin's sometimes controversial Zelda opinions. But within the first few episodes, he makes it clear that he still thinks the game earned the praise it got at the time and tells Dan (going in blind) that he would probably like the game. Given that Arin also goes out of his way to avoid spoiling the surprise that Sheik is actually Zelda and thereby allowing Dan to organically experience the reveal it definitely feels like Arin was deliberately invoking this trope from the outset.
  • After not doing any special "Ghoul Grumps" episodes in 2018 and receiving some backlash over it, Arin not only posted an apology video, but the two would later make Ghoul Grumps episodes in December with a "Nightmares before Christmas" theme. Judging by the comments, not only was this accepted as an apology, the idea of them playing horror/creepy/weird games just before the holidays is considered to be an interesting one.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!:
  • They somehow manage to pull this off on themselves, where they quote the Pause Balls meme as Freeze Balls in early Goof Troop episodes.
  • In Chuck Rock, they say the game reminds them a lot of "Pinicchio", their name for Pinocchio. This is immediately lampshaded by Dan, who acknowledges that he never actually called it that in the video.
• Colbert Bump: Or, the "Grump Bump".
  • For Goof Troop. Just type "Goof Troop" into Google and see what the top search is. Additionally, most Goof Troop videos on YouTube have many people making references to the Game Grumps playthrough in the comment section.
  • Generally, anything they mention that you can find online will have a string of comments mentioning how Game Grumps alerted them to it. Ex: This link
  • Jon himself. While he did have his own following prior, Egoraptor's was significantly larger and many people discovered Jon through Game Grumps.
  • Continue is mentioned several times by Jon, perhaps in an attempt to invoke this trope, considering how he did this sort of thing in his own channel once or twice.
  • Ninja Sex Party experienced a significant boost in popularity thanks to Danny's inclusion on the show (as well as co-hosting Steam Train). It took NSP's Youtube channel 4 years to reach 40k, and they reached 90k in a month after Danny joined the Grumps. Now they're sitting at well over a million subscribers.
    • Tupper Ware Remix Party also got a significant boost after Danny shouted out to them...to the point where not only did they get Ninja Sex Party to collaborate on their song "The Hit", but now they also double as Ninja Sex Party's backing band. When they play together. You can check them out here.
  • Acknowledged in part 14 of their The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD playthrough, after finishing a quick singalong of "Let Her Cry" and "Hold My Hand" (which leads to them agreeing that they both sound the same).
    Danny: You're welcome, Hootie & the Blowfish, you just got the Game Grump Bump.
  • Hayley Westenra's song "Prayer" got a boost in popularity after it was featured in the ending of the Endless Ocean video. Most of the comments on any given video of the song are Grumps-related.
  • The Northern Hues and Skyhill have gotten almost all of their attention nowadays from the fact that Danny was in both of them (this was before NSP and Grumps and all that jazz).
    • In the summer of 2015, Skyhill reunited and recorded their first original song in nearly ten years. As a single on Amazon, it topped the Amazon best seller list for October 8. Not bad for a serious music duo whose singer is much better known for his comedy music and video game show.
  • During the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Part Four review, Danny raves enthusiastically about an obscure pirate-themed children's singer called Sharkman Frank, whose album he and Brian discovered by accident on YouTube. At the time they discovered Sharkman Frank, his video had one view—theirs (meaning even the uploader hadn't bothered to watch it). Within ten days of the GG episode going up, all of Sharkman Frank's videos had bumped up between 7,000 and 35,000 views.
• Corpsing: To the point where they rarely manage to say their lines with a straight face.
• Creator's Favorite: When returning to the game to play the extras in the Switch version, Dan admitted that the original Doki Doki Literature Club! playthrough was in his top five.
• Defictionalization: In Pokémon FireRed Part 62, Arin talks about YouTube commercials and makes up a fake, sell-out YouTuber named FartMcgee28, who makes video game music covers using spoons. The exact same day, the actual page was created.
• Development Hell: The Guest Grumps with Justin Roiland of Rick and Morty fame was a victim of technical issues they weren't aware of until after they finished recording and the whole episode was lost. They tried "like 4 more times" asking Justin if he could come over to redo it, but Justin reportedly "keeps making excuses not to", like getting a trick back.
• Distanced from Current Events: During a series of protests from the Black Lives Matter Movement, Arin acknowledged the show's history of racist humor and deleted several older episodes that contained racist jokes and slurs (particularly the N-bomb), including both A Link to the Past playthroughs^note only the Jon playthrough had any extensive racist humor, so it remains unclear why the Dan playthrough was also removed; the Dan playlist was unprivated in 2021, suggesting it may have been a mistake and the Bayonetta playthrough.
• #EngineeredHashtag: Parodied in the "I Burgie Burgie" shorts, which features #beefy, #RelishShits, and #BurgerFeels appearing in the corner of the video. This ended up backfiring on them, as they discovered that #beefy was already used by a gay porn website (though they found this more hilarious than anything).
• Fan Community Nickname: In the early days of Game Grumps, fans referred to themselves as "grumpers" or some variation thereof. However, both Jon and Arin expressed dislike for these names and settled on "lovelies" as an alternative. To this day, "Lovelies" is still used by both the fans and the Grumps as the official term for fans of the show.
• In Memoriam:
  • The first video of the Game Grumps' Intellivision series is dedicated to fan Ryan Mitchell, who had been put on hospice care due to complications from cystic fibrosis. He passed away the day after the video was uploaded.
  • The existential Game Grumps Animated (or rather, Game Grumps Puppeteered) video "Fleeting Beauty" is dedicated to frequent GG Animated contributor Steve Dorian, a.k.a. LemonyFresh, who had then-recently passed away. It shows some footage of Dorian's animations near the end.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: In June 2020, following protests to the murder of George Floyd and renewed sensitivity to racism, many older Game Grumps episodes were privatized that contained "edgy" race-related jokes (often featuring Jon). This also included both Jon's and Dan's full The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past series and the whole Bayonetta playthrough. A few other videos that contain pedophilia related jokes, like Part 5, the Sad Hoshi episode of Journey to Silius and part one of Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey were privatized later. On May 28, 2021, Dan's playthrough of A Link To the Past was un-privatized, making his playthrough available once more, but the other videos remain privatized.
• Missing Episode:
  • In Episode 8 of Super Mario Maker, Arin mentioned that he and Dan recorded a Grumpcade episode with Justin Roiland (of Rick and Morty fame), but the footage was lost.
  • In April 2019, due to the scandal surrounding ProJared, every episode of Grumpcade featuring him was made private.
  • The original commentary for the last leg of the A Link Between Worlds playthrough got deleted by accident. Dan and Arin couldn't replay the game due to complications caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, so they just re-recorded commentary over the untouched gameplay footage.
  • One of the Grump's games of Mario Party Superstars ended up completely lost. Dan is noticeably upset about this in a separate Superstars video where it's mentioned, as the missing footage showed that he managed to secure his first win in a Mario Party.
• The Pete Best: Danny replaced Jon eleven months into the series. Jon still has enough memorable moments to still become as associated with the series, though.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • Flannelson, a popular fan animator, has some of his fan animations uploaded to the main Game Grumps channel.
  • Esquirebob, another fan animator, had his Sad Hoshi animation uploaded to the main channel.
  • Since Game Grumps Animated went weekly in 2015, many more fan animators have been recruited to make animations for the official channel.
  • Drej9, a YouTuber who created monthly compilations of Game Grumps moments, was recruited by Arin to create compilations for the official channel beginning January 2015.
  • Jon had mentioned several times throughout his run that he had been a huge Egoraptor fan since he was a teenager. Unsurprisingly, he would have a few Squee moments whenever Arin's work was alluded to (ex. when he did his Metal Gear Awesome voice during their Super Smash Bros. Brawl playthrough).
  • Stranger Things star Finn Wolfhard had been a huge Grumps fan prior to appearing on Guest Grumps. In a roundabout way, Danny and Arin are also big fans of Stranger Things, so it was a win-win situation.
  • The Grumps are fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000, with Arin describing Game Grumps as them MSTing video games. Arin, Danny and Brian were interviewed by Joel during the Bring Back MST3K telethon, and they even played the video game version of Manos: The Hands of Fate with Crow!
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor:
  • After Ross and Holly divorced, she entered into a complicated relationship with ProJared that eventually ended his marriage with prominent cosplayer Heidi O'Farrell. It's not confirmed if this is what led to Holly and Ross divorcing, as Ross has refused to publicly comment further on the matter. In any event, the Grumps ended up pulling all of the videos featuring ProJared after allegations about him soliciting minors over Tumblr and SnapChat were revealed. Jared's former network NormalBoots admitted the allegations went back to at least April 2019 and were consulting their legal counsel until the story blew up and they couldn't keep a lid on it.
  • According to Arin and Danny at a convention, This is mainly the reason why Jon Jafari will most likely never appear on the show again due to his controversial political discussion with twitch streamer Destiny in 2017.
• Rule 34 – Creator Reactions:
  • Jon and Arin are well aware of the One True Bromance nature of their partnership, and have no compunctions about lampshading it. After they discovered a Rule 34 pic of themselves, they went on to tweet about it, and mention it in at least two different episodes. Egoraptor signs off from Sonic '06 by pretending to make sweet love off-camera (as a "gift" to the viewers). Arin's only complaint about the Rule 34 drawn of them is that they're usually portrayed playing on a flat-screen TV when in reality they use a CRT.
  • Suzy actually went on Twitter and joked disapproving of the LACK of Rule 34 for Game Grumps, calling the fans slackers◊.
  • Many fans assumed Suzy would be creeped out by Polygrumps, a Tumblr wall dedicated to erotic fanfiction and images of all members of the Game Grumps, including her, having sex in all combinations. Instead, she encouraged it, said she found it hilarious, and as long as it doesn't affect her personal life it's okay. She then Instagrammed this image for the fans. However, Arin isn't thrilled about pornographic art of Suzy, insisting one artist change a NSFW comic to not include her likeness before releasing the comic.
  • Polygrumps is followed up on in FireRed Part 28, where it turns out Arin is also completely fine with it (and both loves seeing pictures with him with other men and with him and Suzy). In fact, the only person mentioned to be even slightly uncomfortable with Rule 34 is Danny, who went back and forth on the matter.
    • This has changed over the years, though: in Mario 35, Arin admits that he does find it weird to draw porn of them because they're real people, not fictional characters, and would prefer not to see that much fanart of him. Additionally, Danny explains that, even though he doesn't want to "ruin anyone's fun" and doesn't think the people who draw porn of them are bad people, he would prefer if people didn't post it because it makes him really uncomfortable. They did clarify in the same video that they were fine with non-sexual fanart, it was just the rule-34 fanart that they were uncomfortable with.
  • Kevin doesn't want to be included in Rule 34 since he has a younger sister and he doesn't want her to be accidentally exposed to erotica of him online, and fans are accommodating for the most part. Danny later gave a similar reason for why he doesn't like porn of himself, as he has young nephews who are internet-savvy enough to look up their uncle online and he doesn't want them to see that or get bullied for it.
• Schedule Slip:
  • Actually done intentionally: On St. Patrick's Day 2014, for the first time in the channel's history, no new Game Grumps episodes were uploaded. Instead, three Steam Train episodes were uploaded, featuring Barry and Ross being drunk. This is presumably because neither Arin nor Danny drink, so it would be difficult for either of them to participate in any St. Patrick's Day-themed episodes.
  • On August 14th, 2014, there were no Game Grumps or Steam Train episodes uploaded due to a widespread problem with YouTube's uploading process. They apologized profusely about it on Twitter, disappointed that they finally missed a day.
  • They skipped a day in the playthrough of Sonic Adventure and put up a standalone video instead, due to not wanting to show buildings being destroyed on the anniversary of the September 11th attacks.
  • In general, whenever Arin and Dan abandon a game due to hating it but have to return to it in a second session. Due to popular demand, they usually only grant the lovelies ONE MORE additional session (several episodes) before abandoning it again without another word. This happens whether or not they outright state they're not gonna finish it in the videos.
  • They skipped a Game Grumps upload on June 2, 2020 in observation of Blackout Tuesday, a day where artists would not post new material and instead would boost the Black Lives Matter Movement.
• Screwed by the Lawyers:
  • During one of their rematches on Kirby's Dream Course, Arin and Danny both mention how annoyed they are that their YouTube partner group has prevented some videos from being uploaded all because of the Grumps singing copyrighted songs in said videos, despite the fact none of the audio from the original songs are used.
    • Probably one of the reasons why the Grumps have split from Polaris entirely, but also mainly because Polaris had been attempting to force partner/affiliate channels to make certain videos private, etc.
  • Part 4 of the Strider 2 playthrough was made private as a result of the video featuring footage from an Italian TV show, the owners of the footage likely being the ones to have content ID'd the video.
  • Tied in with Executive Meddling: Someone apparently botched the Sling deal on "Table Flip", which made the series only available in the US. Ross boycotted the show because his parents couldn't even watch it back in Australia. Suzy revealed they fired the legal counsel who worked with them on it.
• Similarly Named Works:
  • An old website named Game Grump exists, though they've been inactive for more than a year now. The website is now a parked domain.
  • Ron Gilbert uses "Grumpy Gamer" for his website name and online handles.
• Throw It In!: The gag where Danny declares himself to be "Grump" and "Not So Grump" in NEW GRUMP STORE NEW GRUMP SHIRTS!! was made up during the recording.
• Un-Canceled:
  • Jon and Arin returned to their Castlevania III playthrough in mid-March, almost exactly six months after rage quitting, with little to no warning.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past was resumed after being put on indefinite hiatus following the seventh episode. There seemed to be some Missing Footage seeing as they pick up in the Dark World where they hadn't even gotten to the third dungeon yet, but after a few episodes this halted again, and then shortly afterwards Jon left.
  • The Pokémon FireRed playthrough was restored after 8 months of no updates, pausing at May 22nd, 2014, and resuming the second of January 2015. The reason it was stopped in the first place was due to Arin getting hopelessly lost in the overworld without a clue on how to move on, so he asked for fans to send him a walkthrough. Five ponied up and the playthrough was rolling again once the Grumps got to a point where they were free to play it again.
  • Danny went back to the NES version of Punch-Out!! to beat Mike Tyson after a hiatus that lasted for over a year. A month after that, he picked up the Wii version again to do some Title Defense matches.
  • A Link To The Past was picked up again by Arin and Danny several years after the playthrough with Jon stopped. Instead of starting where they left off like the other un-canceled playthroughs, they decided to start a new one from the beginning.
    • The same thing happened with Portal 2.
  • The original A Link Between Worlds playthrough from 2015 was quietly cancelled after 48 episodes. This left a noticeable gap in the archives since 1) it was a popular series, 2) Dan and Arin got very far into the game already, and 3) the Grumps tend to complete any The Legend of Zelda games they play. Dan later clarified that he was not in a good place mentally during that time period, and going back to A Link Between Worlds in particular dug up bad memories. The playthrough was eventually restarted in 2020, as Dan was in a much better headspace and the COVID-19 pandemic gave the Grumps a good excuse to treat the fans.
  • They resumed playing The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask after a 2 year hiatus and completed it.
  • They originally quit House Party (2017) during their original 2017 playthrough because the Vicki quest was so difficult. They returned to the game in early 2020, after it had undergone various updates and even added the Grumps themselves as characters in the game.
• Viral Marketing:
  • They were sent a copy of Dead Space 3, and all signs point to this being the case. However, they don't come out of character to praise it or anything, which is certainly commendable for being in that position.
  • Along with the Continue? crew and Angry Joe, they (Danny and Arin) played a lot of Xbox Live Arcade games in the summer of 2013. Like those other two, they just played like they normally do.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Arin, when coming up with the idea of Game Grumps, originally planned it out as a podcast.
  • A playthrough of Conker's Bad Fur Day was planned during the Jon era. While 3 episodes worth of gameplay were filmed, they never finished the game or uploaded the episodes since they thought their commentary was bad. According to Arin at a panel, it was also because Jon - who has previously included the game in several 'Best Of' lists - was slowly "realizing it wasn't all that great." Arin described the experience as "depressing", and also claimed Conker's was the worst game they ever played for the show at the time.
  • It's been heavily suggested by content such as the trailer for Steam Train Ross released on his channel that originally Danny was supposed to be exclusive to Steam Train while Jon stayed on Grumps. Circumstances changed with Jon's depature, prompting Dan to co-host both shows.
  • According to Ross during the Grumpcade session of the James Bond Jr. game, there were some sessions during the Jon-era that were recorded with facecam. He said they were never used because they were awkward to watch.
  • Arin and Danny had said during their playthrough of Super Mario 64 that they were going to go for 100% Completion for the first time on the show, and they were completely serious about it. They got pretty far, but then they got stuck on the 100 coin missions and decided to just finish without getting all of the stars.
  • Arin and Jon were going to do a playthrough of Dino City, but they stopped recording after one episode since the jokes immediately devolved into making references about the JonTron review of it.
  • If Arin had won season 3 of The Tester, Game Grumps probably would've never seen the light of day.
• Why Fandom Can't Have Nice Things: In Part 32 of the Sonic Adventure playthrough, Arin and Dan make fun of the author whose FAQ they're using for Knuckles' stages, due to it being massively unhelpful^note it does note that the emerald fragment locations are randomized, but doesn't offer any advice other than "Just stick with it and you can do it"; unfortunately, they used the author's name in the video, which led to some not-so-Lovelies tracking the guy down and harassing him via email and phone. The guys ended up taking down the episode and replacing it with an edited version where the writer's name is covered up by a voice saying "PIZZA!", and sending a formal apology as well as explaining the situation of the GG subreddit. The author responded and was very cool about the whole thing, explaining that he wrote the FAQ back in middle school so it's obviously not the best in the world, and adding that he was glad the vast majority of Lovelies were standing up for him in the comments of the original video.

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