Web Video / Arby 'n' the Chief

i r guy who gon t33ch u less0n!

"This is going to be a great relationship. I can tell."

— The Arbiter

Arby 'n' the Chief is a Machinima/Live-action comedy created by Jon Graham (formerly known as "DigitalPh33r"), who also produced Deus ex Machina (2007). The series follows two figurines based on Bungie and Microsoft's Halo series coming to life while their owner is away. As the title suggests, the main characters are based on Master Chief (a Leet Lingo-speaking Jerkass whose only concern is how much he "pwns" in any given game, something that he is completely incapable of actually doing) and the Arbiter (a Deadpan Snarker who often acts as the voice of reason to the Chief's mindless ranting). One of the unique features of the series is that many of the characters actually speak through a PC voice synthesizer instead of acted voice-overs. The series is based on Graham's previous shorts, Master Chief Sucks At Halo, where the series' trademarks (including synthesized voice-overs and the Chief's personality) were developed.

The series was a massive hit among Machinima subscribers and has garnered a substantial following which helped propel the series to greater heights and wider recognition. Even though Jon Graham is working on future projects such as Chemotheraplay, Arby 'n' the Chief is already being labeled his best. In fact, many consider it to be one of the best shows that Machinima has featured on their channel.

The original series initially ended after the third season with a six-part finale, "Endgame". The finale led to a spin-off, Arby 'n' the Chief in LA, produced entirely by Machinima.com with minimal input from Graham. After a break from the series, Graham announced a fourth season of Arby 'n' the Chief in 2010, which later ended up canceling out the L.A. continuity in favor of a more streamlined narrative. This was followed by a fifth season in early 2011, and a sixth season in mid 2011. A seventh season was announced and premiered in early 2012, and finished on August 17th, 2013, ending the show as a whole...

...at least, until January 22nd, 2015, when an eighth season was announced to be in the works.

The show also had two spinoffs made by Jon himself- "Hypermail", which had Arby and Chief "out of character" as they answered fanmail and provided updates on the development of the main series, and Bytes, a three-season Gag Series that counteracted the increasing Cerebus Syndrome of the concurrent main show by hearkening back to the roots of the series by portraying the duo in lighthearted comical antics. (Seasons 1-2 are non-canon, while Season 3 is canon and ties into the main series.) While Hypermail has long since ended, Bytes is still being produced. The series also had a prototype in the format of Master Chief Sucks At Halo, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Chief being awful at Halo. Interestingly enough, Jon would revive the format nearly a decade later, only this time with Chief being awful at a variety of different games. The Chief Sucks At X series is sporadically updated and runs concurrently to Arby n The Chief.

Tropes appearing in this series:

Season 1- 4

• And Then John Was a Zombie: The "shocking" twist ending of Chief's first machinima "TEH AELINS FRUM TEH OTUAR SPAESS" in The Movie, which as mentioned above is a shoutout to the notoriously bad Doom fanfic Repercussions of Evil.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: Subverted, Chief finally regains his Recon but learns you could get it from doing the Vidmaster challenges.
• Badass Longcoat: Subverted with Agent Smirnoff. He's notoriously clumsy.
• Badass Crew: Parodied with Chief's "n00bz". Every one of them is an insanely bad Halo player and they are all beaten easily by Arbiter. Not to mention Chief says the exact point of them is to use exploits, which hurts their awesomeness significantly.
  • By the end of season 5, all of the toys qualify. Yes, even Chief.
• Big "NO!": The Chief, when the Arbiter cancels his 700 GB porn download.
  Chief: MAI SEXAY PRONZ!11!one!
• Bile Fascination: parodied in-universe in "Endgame".
  Chief: god damit this gaem is gay [Beat] wen is teh sec0nd 1 cumign out
• Black-and-Gray Morality: Scott vs. Agent Smirnoff.
• Bloody Hilarious: Scott's death.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: The episode before "Endgame" has Arbiter and Chief stuck in a game with several people, two of whom recognize Master Chief's voice from the show.
• Caught with Your Pants Down: During a Halo 3 match between Chief and professional gamer Craig, Craig notices he has a hard-on and goes at it while Chief is temporarily distracted from the match. Craig, however, gets caught in the act by his parents, and the ensuing confusion on his side allows the normally incompetent Chief to win the match.
• Chekhov's Gun: In the 10th episode of Season 4 "Night of the evading dead", Chief wakes up Arbiter by telling him there's a big spider next him, implying that he has arachnophobia. In the finale, a giant spider appears in Jon's house, and this becomes an important plot point.
• Handwave: Only a mild one in Endgame. Scott has seen Arbiter and Chief moving around and talking, why is this not an issue?
  Arbiter: He's convinced we're hallucinations brought on by his constant substance abuse
  Scott: What the hell? You guys aren't supposed to appear until after my fourth coke sandwich!
  • Then again, what about Agent Smirnoff and Skylar Loveheart? Oh that's right, they're insane.
• He's Back!: Not a character, but Chief's foot, which he cut off and was given back to him as christmas present by Arbiter, who apparently repaired it. Chief tries to invoke this trope, but ends up just as fail as he always is. It's also symbolic of the series returning to it's post "Endgame" glory.
• I Surrender, Suckers: Chief when he fights Travis.
  Chief: k k stop sotp stpo. i surendir. JK LOL
• Immune to Drugs: Scott eats cocaine sandwiches.
• Look Behind You: During the fight with Travis and Todd
  Chief: HOLEH MUTHR OF GOD. L@@K OTU. ITS TEH COVERNINT.
  • And with Arbiter.
  Chief: OMG LOOK AT ALL THE HORRIBLE THINGS OVER THERE
• Metallic Nickname: Chief's Noobs in "Digital Fruitcakes" is a subversion:
  Arbiter: "Your noobs". Sounds about right.
  Chief: ITS METALLIC MORON / WERE ACTUALLY LIEK FUCKING PRO / SRSLY
  Arbiter: I think you mean ironic.
• Mythology Gag: Jon's character, Scott, is listed in the credits with the last name, "Loveheart". Jon's character in The Movie was Skylar Loveheart.
• Overly Long Gag: The death of Scott.
• Put On A Spaceship To Hell: The fates of Cortana, Todd and Travis at the end of "King".
  Todd and Travis then had their butts made love to by a big gay outer space alien that looked suspiciously like Jon's chin and were later eaten alive.
  As the alien had no desire for females, Cortana was later thrown into an escape pod and fired directly into the center of an alien sun.
  [Beat]
  Happy?
• Samus Is a Girl: as episode 6 reminds us.
  Chief: O RLY?
  Arbiter: Yeah.
  Chief: hawt / dos she hav boobz?/
  Arbiter: I would assume so, Chief...
  Chief: COOL / H1GH FIEV
  [Beat]
  Arbiter: ...No.
  Chief: coem on / dun leev a brothar hanging
  Arbiter: What the hell is up with you today? Are you high?
  Chief: on lief, arbitur / on lief
• Self-Imposed Challenge: When Arbiter challenges Chief and his Noobs, he only uses magnum and sprint, and he wins.
  Arbiter: It's all I need.
• Surprisingly Happy Ending: The Finale involves Greg and Cortana returning to live with Arbiter and Chief, just as it seems Arbiter will be lonely and miserable living with Master Chief.
• Shout-Out: The end of the Machinima Chief produces in The Movie is an obvious shout out to the end of the So Bad, It's Good Doom fanfic Repercussions of Evil.
  • Arbiter's (though then stolen by Jon), girlfriend is named Claire Redfield.
  • Travis' name is a reference to the character of the same name from the machinima "Matchmaking" the is lampshaded in the episode they first appear.
  • "Digital Fruitcakes" (4x09) is one long Shout-Out to A Clockwork Orange, complete with the same colorful opening titles and credits.
  • In The Movie, the petition to stop Chief from making machinima in and his subsequent video response are direct references to similar events revolving around Uwe Boll. Chief even uses the same phrases as Boll in his video.
• Take That, Audience!: Jon addresses some of his more zealous fans with these from time to time. In the first episode of It's a Wonderful Live he outright tells his general response to complainers: "What's the big fucking deal?!"
  • Arbiter delivers one at the end of "Panic" (19/S3E7)https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Machinima/ArbyNTheChief#
  Arbiter: A few of you obsessive types are probably now scampering to your Xboxes to register the gamertag "assassininja4827", "assninja4827" or some other slight variation. No one will be impressed. Just wanted to call you douchebags out on that beforehand. Owned.
  • In fact, Todd, Travis, and Cortana's deaths seemed like this.
• Travel Montage: Parodied in The Movie. When Chief escapes from LA, it zooms out to the classic "line on the map" scene - except the lines are a tangled mess because Chief has no idea where he's going.
• Rasputinian Death: Scott takes A LOT of bullets to bring down. Lampshaded by the Chief.
  Why won't this faggot just die?
• Real Trailer, Fake Movie: a parodic variant in the Cold Opening to "The Mail Room II" (37/S4E12), complete with Parrot Exposition. IN 3D!
  Arbiter: Fuck 3D.
• Who Would Be Stupid Enough?: When Chief learns about the visual effects.
  Chief: put them all on
  Arbiter: Settle down, Chief. I mean most of the visual effects ARE cool and all, but some are made entirely for Machinima and it's impossible to see with them turned on. Playing with them all on would be fucking stupid. What kind of ignoramus would do that? Who, Chief? Who, I ask you? Who?
  (Ten minutes later...)

Season 5

• Actually Pretty Funny:
  Arbiter: Tight fit.
  Chief: Leik ur mom. ROFL
  Arbiter: Fair enough. I set myself up for that one.
• Affably Evil: Trent Donnovich, despite his portrayal as a Corrupt Corporate Executive in the first episode and a harsh first meeting with Arbiter, later tries to make friends with him and invites him to the wedding "church". Subverted after Arbiter discovers he's cheating on Claire.
• Big Bad: Trent Donnovich.
• Big Damn Heroes: Greg fragbans Trent's staff in the finale before they can ban Chief and Arbiter.
• Bittersweet Ending: Jon's Xbox is permanently banned, cutting Chief and Arbiter off from online gaming and social interaction, but Trent is defeated, Arbiter and Claire are still friends and even though Greg's in hiding, at least he is still around.
• Brick Joke: In Episode 6, Brawl, Chief gives Arbiter a hug just to put a sign that says "im stuped" on his back. Arbiter doesn't know about this until the end of the episode.
  • And then it happened again in the movie.
    • And, to make it a true Brick Joke, another hug occurs in the fourth episode of Hypermail. And both characters end up getting signs on their backs.
• Bus Crash: Happens with Travis, Scott and Cortana.
• Call-Back: The pilot opens with the finale of "Wedding", the second episode from season 3.
  • Also in the the same episode, Chief tells the security guys, "We r guyz, WHO GON TEACH U LESSON!" a variation on one of his first lines from the very first episode.
• Chekhov's Gun: The typo Trent makes when spelling Arbiter's gamertag.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Timothy, the player Chief met in "Time Wasters" and other earlier episodes who called him out for being bad at Halo. In the penultimate episode he turns out to be a member of an organization of underground hackers and takes Arbiter and Chief to the organization after they got kicked from the server that Trent and Claire's wedding is taking place in.
• Co-Dragons: Trent's sisters also act as his right-hands. He also has another set of Co-Dragons in his MLG security guards, Cameron and Cody.
• Final Boss Preview: Arguably the matches against the two security guards count as this.
• Gainax Ending:
  • The ultimate fate of Todd, Travis and Cortana: being kidnapped by an alien named Zanthar (who looks suspiciously like Jon's chin) and getting butt-raped to death.
  • Season 5 ends with spoiler: Arbiter waking up to the sound of Cortana's voice, despite her being "dead". Which turns out to be an incredibly cruel prank by Chief.
• He's Back!: Greg gives Arbiter his helmet at the end of the season.
• How We Got Here: Season 5 starts with Chief and Arbiter preparing to raid a wedding. Most of the season details the events leading up to it.
• Ironic Echo: "Play to win".
  • Mythology Gag: This season runs on these. There were Call Backs to Josh Butterballs and his Stupid Obvious Information Magazine, sm0k3w33d4lyph3420, Chief also makes a few variations on his lines from previous episodes.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: In preparation for the wedding, Chief and Arbiter meet a group of console modders who help them to bypass Trent's ban on them, give them various cheats including unlimited ammo and the ability to make all the fusion coils at the wedding explode, and guns and melee attacks that result in a console ban and all of the victim's personal information being stolen.
• The Mistress: Trent has one.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In the finale (should be mentioned that this is Arbiter's answer to a "The Reason You Suck" Speech delivered to him by Trent an episode earlier):
  Arbiter: It doesn’t surprise me that a dose of emotion would have a toxic effect on an emotion-deprived cretin like you. Who’s really the plastic one here? Your bleak outlook on life is poisonous. Maybe the world is a big sinking ship. But we can’t accept that as an inevitability and use it as an excuse to act like shitheads. We have to be the change we seek. We have to build something better for ourselves.
• Refuge in Audacity: TECHNODICKS. TECHNO TECHNO TECHNO TECHNO TECHNODICKS.
• Shout-Out: The speech Chief gives to Greg in the episode "Cheaters", is an homage to the monologues Patrick Bateman gave in American Psycho.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The music at the end of "Severance", when Chief and Arbiter attack Trent, and the final battle between them is about to start, the music is surprisingly calm.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Claire gives one to Arbiter.

Season 6

• Abusive Parents: Kylie's motive for working with Chaos Theosis was so that she'd have enough money to leave home because of her abusive father.
• Affably Evil: Duncan in season 6 seems to qualify.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Episode 8 ends with Chaos Theosis marching on TOSER's HQ
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: Chief and Arbiter in the season 6 finale. They are commended and made internet icons for their involvement in the destruction of Chaos Theosis.
• Badass Bystander: One player in "Cradle to Grave" refuses to lie for Adam and ends up throwing him to the dogs, all with a calm demeanor despite Adam directly insulting him previously.
• Badass Crew: Chaos Theosis.
• Big Bad: Trent Donnovich is this again. Chaos Theosis is merely a front for Trent's malicious activities.
• Big Damn Heroes: Kevin and several other TOSERS enforcers in "Blackout".
• Chekhov's Gunman: In season 6, the thirteen year-old TOSER applicant, Kevin.
• Comically Small Bribe: After the dust has settled and the threat has passed, the network's compensation for players affected by Chaos Theosis — who not only banned their consoles from online play but also stole their personal and credit card information — is a coupon for buy-one-get-one-half-off blueberry milkshakes at participating restaurants. And to get the coupon you have to spend 6000 of your own gamerpoints.
• Disc-One Final Boss:
  • A villainous inversion. Chaos Theosis succeeds in destroying TOSERS, but Clyde reveals that the next part of their plan is to destroy the OMN itself.
  • Clyde himself gets fragbanned in "Severance", only for it to be revealed he was working for someone else.
• The Dragon Clyde to Trent. He leads the hackers Trent hired and is his final line of defense against
• Enemy Mine: Arby and Chief cooperate with Cameron and Cody to survive the hackers attack on the application match
• Evil Counterpart: In season 6, Arbiter's would be Clyde (both have Elite models). Chief's however is disputed; Adam would most likely fit since the two have the same cringeworthy sense of humor and are naturally apathetic when it comes to the feelings of others.
• Heroic BSoD: Arbiter. 4 months and counting. He's showing signs of coming out of it though.
• Hijacked by Ganon: In Severance, Kylie and Clyde were fragged, disbanding Chaos Theosis. However, by signing into Clyde's account using his password, Arbiter and Chief find out that Trent Donnovich, Season 5's Big Bad, was behind the entire thing.
• The Mole: Silent Strike turns out to be Chaos Theosis' double agent in TOSERS
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Episode 9 ends with Arby gearing up for one after Claire is banned and her personal accounts hacked.
• Tempting Fate: A rare example where things actually get better for the person that tempts fate.
  Arbiter: We're going to need a miracle.
  • A tank spawns behind him

Season 7

• Abusive Parents: Eugene's father.
• Back for the Dead: The player Arbiter rescues in season 7 returns and ends up being fragged by his hands in a later episode .
• Batman Grabs a Gun: Despite being against Chief spending with Jon's credit card in the past, Arbiter ultimately agrees to use it to buy another Xbox after Colin bricks theirs.
• Berserk Button: Whatever you do, do not attempt to represent Eugene's clan in a negative fashion. Your life may just be ruined, and not in the conventional way.
  • It's also not wise to insult Claire in front of Arbiter.
    • Or blame him for Cortana's demise.
• Big Bad: Eugene and his clan serve as the antagonists for season 7. At first, they seem like a band of harmless, annoying trolls whom the duo befriend. This changes once the resident smart guy, Colin, acquires an upgraded version of Fragban. It then becomes a matter of Arbiter and Chief realizing who they are dealing with.
• Big Bad Wannabe: A scene from an early episode had Eugene Black confront the leader of a copycat trolling clan. Eugene delivers a biting "The Reason You Suck" Speech to the copycat and reveals that he had obtained the copycat's (embarrassing) Internet history and posted it on his school's blog before banning him.
• Cerebus Callback: An absolutely brutal one at that. In "Game Over" as Arbiter is still recovering from the shock of listening to Eugene commit suicide right in front of him, Chief offers advice on calming down, like saying good things like "I'm in my happy place". Arbiter rebuffs it, saying he doesn't have faith in mantras, and that he'd have to be "really and truly desperate" to resort to using them. In literally the next episode, "Ignition", in the span of a few minutes, Arbiter discovers Cortana didn't leave, she was murdered, that Chief accidentally killed her, followed by accidentally shattering Chief into pieces in the subsequent vengeful rage, which is immediately followed up by Tyler tracking them down and trying to break into their apartment with a chainsaw, and hearing him get gunned down by cops shortly after and having his blood drip onto him. After all that happens...?
  Arbiter: ...I'm in my happy place...I'm in my happy place...I'm in my happy place...
• Chekhov's Gun: In the 4th episode, "Terminal", Master Chief removes a plug for some reason and when The Arbiter goes to turn on the Xbox, it won't power on so he casually puts the plug back in. This just seems like a minor plot point, but in the next episode "Heat", Master Chief decides to scare Cortana and put her in the oven. When she isn't scared, he turns the oven switch on thinking the oven was unplugged and nothing would happen. Instead, she burned to pieces.
  • The matchbook in season 7.
• Cigarette of Anxiety: Both Arbiter and Chief take up smoking, each to cope with his own personal grief.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Chief swears like crazy when he realizes that he just killed Cortana.
• Darker and Edgier: By far the darkest season of the show.
• Downer Ending: The series finale, "Ignition". Arbiter and Chief commit suicide by setting the apartment ablaze.
• Dragon Their Feet: After Eugene commits suicide, Tyler goes to Arbiter and Chief's apartment to get revenge, only to be shot and killed by the police.
• Driven to Suicide: Eugene's fate.
  • Almost directly followed by Arbiter and Chief.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Chief is NOT happy to find out that Colin is a child molester.
• Evil Feels Good: Arbiter, when he gives in and starts doling out kills with Eugene's clan's fragban software. Especially after he finally got back at fragging a random player during "Spiraling" who insulted him once before in season 7. When asked how it felt, he simply states "Good." And as of 'In Memoriam', he's totally into fragbanning other players alongside Eugene.
  • Arbiter eventually sees the error of his ways once Eugene displays a much more sinister side of himself, though.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • Eugene to Arbiter. Both share the same ideologies regarding life and their places in the universe. They're also both teetering on the Moral Event Horizon, which draws the two together.
  • Chief meanwhile has Tyler as his counterpart. Both are PsychopathicManChildren, though Tyler is much more sociopathic than Chief.
• Evil Costume Switch: Chief and Arbiter both change the armor colors on their avatars to black after agreeing to use Fragban 2.0. Lampshaded by Eugene
  Eugene: Black armor now, huh? Kinda lame but whatever.
• Face–Heel Turn: Arbiter and Chief assist Eugene's clan in their fragbanning spree across the OMN. Arbiter is initially reluctant to at first, but he eventually gives in and joins the rest of the clan in fragbanning players.
  • Eventually though, Arbiter and Chief turn against the clan and stop them from fragbanning anyone else. Though, as shown in the season 7 finale, Arbiter may still have a bit of Eugene's influence in him.
• Faux Affably Evil: Eugene for the most part. He has tendencies to be kind, but they hide a very monstrous and destructive personality.
• Final Boss Preview: The toys' first confrontation with Eugene and his clan before they're mercilessly fragged.
• Foreshadowing: Eugene and Tyler repeatedly allude that Colin is involved with something beyond the pale even for them, and which they've told him to tone it down before he gets himself in trouble. Colin is a pedophile who grooms children online.
• Freudian Trio: The nameless trolling clan has Eugene as the Ego, Tyler as the Id and Colin as the Superego.
• He's Back!: A case of They're Back in "Event Horizon". The duo finally come to their senses and confront Eugene and his clan in a desperate bid to end their malice.
• Heroic BSoD: Arbiter returns to this trope, and for good reasons.
  • Eugene, Eugene, EUGENE. Despite having a calm demeanor, he has proven himself to be a complete sociopath on multiple occasions and is only staying afloat because of his sister. He isn't afloat for long, and he only gets worse from there.
• How We Got Here: The season starts with Eugene and his clan attacking an in-game funeral, and being approached by Chief and Arbiter. It later cuts to a few months prior.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Deconstructed. Chief and Arbiter's desire for companionship leads them to join Eugene and his on their fragban spree.
• Ironic Echo: "Awesome possum".
• Kick the Dog: Tyler, literally.
  • The dog... also literally... bites back.
• Kick the Morality Pet:
  • Arbiter turns his back on Claire when he meets her again. While Eugene is the one to actually shoot her, Arbiter doesn't seem to have a problem with it.
  • Eugene fragbans Michelle after she breaks up with him.
• Lemon Wacky Hello: Chief getting high from smoking cereal. Lampshaded by Arbiter stating that cereal doesn't have hallucinogenic properties.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Chief after accidentally killing Cortana.
  • Arbiter says this almost word for word, when he realized what he just did after losing his temper so badly he shattered Chief into pieces after tossing him against a wall in a vengeful rage after discovering the above happened.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The normally friendly and rather cheerful Greg, who peppers his 'speech' with text lingo and smilies like Chief, becomes dead serious when he confronts Chief about Cortana's death, begins writing with perfect grammar, capitalization and punctuation, and even manages the Precision D-Strike mentioned below despite him normally going out of his way to sanitize even casual speech.
• One Last Job: Arbiter refers them taking down Eugene's Clan with Fragban 2.0 as this, and compares it to their previous conflict with Chaos Theosis.
• Precision F-Strike: Well, "D-Strike", but same principle. Delivered by Greg after he witnessed Chief not only MURDER Cortana, but is then forced to lie about it to Arbiter. After Chief thanks him for covering for him, all Greg can "say" is a simple and concise: "Damn you."
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Early on in season 7 Cortana smacks Chief with a pretty brutal one.
  Cortana: Tell me, Chief, why do you think it is that you were rejected by that girl you encountered online? Why do you think you're rejected by anybody and everybody you encounter online, for that matter? Hm? Do you think it just might possibly have something to do with this volatile attitude of yours? … Don't kid yourself Chief, the root of your issues lies far beyond my presence. You've been antagonizing everybody around you long before I entered the picture.
  Chief: well u sure as hell hasnt b33n n e fucking help skank, thats foar goddamn sure
  Cortana: That's just it, Chief. All I've been trying to do is help you. I realize the notion probably comes as a complete surprise to you, but it's true. You just can't accept it because you refuse outright to listen to reason. … Perhaps, rather than refusing to reason, you simply can't. That your under-developed brain won't allow you to.
  Chief: mai brains r the shit
  Cortana: I couldn't agree more. Utter shit. Even you know the truth. You know full well that any of us three could destroy you in any conceivable argument on any subject, and it kills you that you can't ever conjure up a rebuttal that's even remotely substantial. The only route you've found to take is to get angry and spit pathetic insults left and right that, ironically, only ever accomplish making you yourself look like a complete fool. You are a fool, Chief. Worse yet - you're an unlikeable and therefore unsympathetic fool. You're a blight. An utter embarrassment to yourself and everybody around you, twenty-four-seven. Accept it - and for God's sake, try to improve upon yourself.
  • In the final episode of Season 7, "Ignition", during the peak of his despair when Chief reveals the real reason behind Cortana's vanishing wasn't because she left, it was because he accidentally murdered her. Arbiter gives an utterly venomous one after Chief has the gall to say a tasteless reply to Arbiter's grief over resenting Greg for helping Cortana "leave" when it never happened, and how Greg left because he couldn't stomach looking at Chief after seeing him kill her, and couldn't stand hiding the truth from Arbiter. And it's easily some of the most angered words he's said to Chief. And that's saying a lot.
  Chief: u mad, bro?
  Arbiter: (Stunned Silence) ...You're poison. Your infantile volatility and cowardice rid us of our only true friends in the world.
  • In the same episode, Arbiter gives one to himself, right as he's about to commit suicide by jumping out of the apartment window after everything that's happened in the short-timespan:
  Arbiter: There's nothing left for you here. You've never belonged. You're a freak. You've contributed nothing. This is what you deserve. This also happens to be your ticket to salvation. You're a lucky motherfucker to have this opportunity. Just a couple of terrifying seconds in exchange for bliss. Now that's a fucking bargain. Don't think about it, just do it. Come on, you fucking pussy. You worthless, plastic [bleep]. Do it. Fucking do it. Now.
• Serious Business: Eugene and his clan take trolling very seriously, to the point of humiliating a copycat troll who was smearing their name.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The scene where Cortana gets melted in the apartment oven has the fucking Blue Danube Waltz playing in the background.
• Villain Protagonist: Chief and Arbiter briefly become this when they join Eugene, Tyler and Colin in their fragbanning spree.
• Villain Respect: Eugene and Tyler both respect Chief and Arbiter for their raid on Trent Donnovich's wedding, viewing it as a fine example of trolling. Colin also starts to respect Arbiter as the series goes on.
• Villainous Friendship: Eugene, Tyler and Colin are all good friends with each other. They later extend their friendship to Arbiter and Chief. Chief evens remarks at one point that Tyler and Eugene are among the few people who genuinely liked him.
• Wham Episode:
  • "Heat". Chief accidentally burns Cortana alive in the oven.
  • "Two Point Zero". Colin finishes developing Fragban 2.0 and shows it off to Eugene and Tyler.
  • "Wake" and "Dead Weight". Arbiter and Chief join Eugene, Tyler and Colin in their fragban spree.
• Wham Line: Massive Damage gives us "shes just plastic."
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are:
  • Cortana gives one to Arbiter in Terminal.
  • Greg's note that Arbiter found. "You have a good heart, Arbiter. Don't lose it."

Season 8

• Actually Pretty Funny: Arbiter and Chief sit in the shower and throw insults at each other like they usually do. Chief tosses a "you're gay" at Arbiter to which he retorts that since they're both in the shower, it applies to both of them. Then both toys have a genuine laugh over it.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: PAL, originally coherent and friendly, devolves into a personality similar to the Chief we all know and love, pretty much becoming an immature version of HAL 9000.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • Chief (in the form of a drone named PAL), Arbiter, and Cortana are on a spaceship for some reason, with Arbiter occasionally having flashes of the events of Season 7. Arbiter and Chief then return to life after they are killed in this world.
  • Discussed by Arbiter when he starts noticing some oddities after returning to life. Despite Chief apparently blowing up Jon's apartment, familiar furniture and decorations still somehow made it into this new setting. Arbiter also notices how their lives are similar to a video game in hindsight, with their lives easily dividable into various stages and their enemies like progressively harder bosses. Things are weird enough for Arbiter to seriously consider alternate universes and timelines to explain everything.
• Back for the Finale / The Bus Came Back:
  • Josh Butterballs, Gregory, Sarah, and even a minor online gamer from the very first episode all reappear in the first episode of the season. Jon himself as a character also finally makes a reappearance.
  • Zanthar, the butt-raping alien that is totally not Jon's chin and the one responsible for Cortana, Todd, and Travis's disappearances, returns to perform a hostile takeover of Arbiter's ship.
  • The TOSERS organization makes a return.
  • The Serious Business guys return in a cameo.
  • Adam returns as the season's Big Bad.
  • Chief's friend Jeremy, AKA XxXsM0k3w33d4LyPh3420XxX, also appears, having become an internet celebrity through his Halo Reach kill montages. He's promptly killed by Adam.
  • Clyde and Kylie from Chaos Theosis return, with Duncan also getting a mention. Clyde is killed off fairly quickly however.
  • Jon himself returns after seasons and years of being suspiciously absent from his own apartment...only to be killed by Adam.
  • Agent Smirnoff returns to kill Black Cat and rescue Arbiter and Chief from being kidnapped in the finale... only to in turn by killed by a grenade he sets off.
• Back from the Dead: For reasons yet unexplained, Arbiter and Chief return to life in new toy bodies.
• Bathos: Jon is suddenly killed by an exploding X-Box, a sudden and horrifying turn of events that freaks both Arbiter and Chief out. Also, some of the shrapnel ended up in Jon's crotch.
• Big Bad: Adam.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Invoked. Near the end of their James Bond parody, Arbiter is storming off when Chief says 'well i guess that's a raptor^note Chief is trying to say 'That's a wrap' but keeps replacing 'wrap' with 'raptor' throughout the film'. Suddenly, Arbiter is attacked a giant plastic dinosaur toy and is pinned down by it when Chief then pulls a knife out and stabs it to death. There is no word on whether if it was real or a prop, and judging from Arbiters reaction he's just as confused.
• Chekhov's Gun: Several things from the 2001 arc.
  • Several of the weapons in the armory are eventually used by Arbiter when the situation starts to get dire, but the AT mine is of particular note as a Chekhov's Boomerang. It's how Arbiter defeats PAL, by tricking him into getting within its range and using that to convince him to let Arbiter out of containment. Even after that, it finally gets detonated when one of the Allens triggers it.
  • The button on the ship's sound system that is implied to open one of the doors eventually causes PAL to accidentally let Arbiter back on the ship after locking him out to suffocate.
  • The copy of Custer's Revenge on the ship's computer distracts the Allens due to their obsession with raping butts, allowing Arbiter to evade them.
  • Most obviously, the warheads in the cargo bay. They get detonated by Arbiter in the finale when he gets wounded and outnumbered.
• Continuity Nod:
  • In the 2001 arc, Todd, Travis and obscure one-shot character Randall are listed as being aboard the ship in cryosleep.
  • Chief's "noobs" (Todd, Kyle, and Tucker) from "Digital Fruitcakes" have their iPhones listed on the ship's computer.
  • Trent Donnovich is revealed to have been sent to prison after the events of Season 6, where he's been raped daily.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Chief retains his X-Box Live troll attitude and the season shows how even more unwelcome this behavior is in the PC 2010s. For instance, the other players in a Halo 4 match waste no time reporting Chief for his behavior instead of argue with him like previous seasons would have them do.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Arbiter and Chief die again, but this time directly confront and talk to Jon. Taking down the fourth wall a bit, Jon explains that in spite of all the misery and existential dread that he filtered from his own life into Arbiter, their existence is ultimately not an unhappy one; Arby 'N' The Chief is the source of many people's happiness so in spite of the apparent meaninglessness that plagued them, their life has meaning. Realizing that his existence genuinely cheers people up, Arbiter joins Chief in reincarnating back into Jon's apartment, this time with Cortana and Greg also resurrected. And with the series ending, Arbiter is finally free from the terrible feelings and choices Jon had him make, and the show's gonna be back to basics as a series of short comedy sketches where the toys just hang out and have fun from now on.
• Evil Versus Evil: Halo: Reach is shown to have erupted into a turf war between a resurgent Chaos Theosis and another Hacker Clan led by Kylie.
• Gag Penis: The Allens claim to have 14-inch-penises... and 7 testicles... and ejaculates for a duration of 11 minutes...
• How We Got Here: At some point following the ending of Season 7, Claire holds an online funeral for Arbiter and the Chief (since it's on a Halo server, you can probably guess how well that goes). We then see Arbiter and Chief watching from a cliff, then cut to them playing the game, Arbiter pushing Chief to help him in "bringing it all down."
• Little "No": Arbiter when he finds himself with Chief and as a toy once more.
• Planet of Steves: Every one of Zanthar's mooks is named Allen.
• Political Overcorrectness: Aside from the TOSERS, who expand their activities to reacting to people complaining about differing political views, Real Life police angrily brushes off Arbiter's attempts at reporting a pedophile when more important things, like misgendering, are going on.
• Misery Builds Character: Arguing with Strawman about emotional pain, Arbiter makes the case that pain is necessary and sometimes even important to grow as a person.
• Mundane Solution: TOSERS throw Arbiter and Chief in internet jail. As Strawman dramatically monologues about their avatars rotting in their cell and he and his fellow TOSERS watching with pleasure, Arbiter simply shuts off their console. Strawman later alerts his superior that they escaped.
• No Fourth Wall: Arbiter and Chief die in an explosion again, but suddenly find themselves faced with Jon himself, tearing down the fourth wall to tearfully apologize for putting Arbiter through so much existential pain but also to reassure him and Chief that their adventures, as written by him, had been the bright spot in many people's lives.
• Revisiting the Roots: Season 8 returns the series to Arbiter and Chief simply hanging out in Jon's apartment and dishing out satirical commentary on online culture, this time expanding to things like Youtube, Let's Plays, streams, and Patreon.
• Shaped Like Itself: Arbiter and Chief get into an arguement about racism, hate crimes and being the leaders of the alt-right against a zealous TOSER called Moderator Strawman.
• Starter Villain: PAL 9001 and Zanthar for the first act, which takes place before the toys even come back to life in the real world.
• Take That!:
  • Downplayed when Arbiter finds out that Donald Trump has become President of the United States, to which both he and Chief act with mild confusion. A more appropriate Take That! is given towards those who childishly cut ties with friends who supported him, as exemplified by a Reach player becoming upset with a friend of ten years revealing that he voted Trump.
  • TOSERS seem to be a parody of the anti-free speech far left, treating things such as misgendering and saying mean things as serious issues and banning players for them.
  • Ray Cist is an over-the-top caricature of far-right racist extremists.
• Wham Episode: "Play To Win": Jon comes home and is promptly tracked down and killed by Adam.
• Wham Shot:
  • In the very first episode, we see Arbiter and Chief, alive and well in both Reach avatar and toy form.
  • Arbiter plugs in a USB drive and looks through it...to find program files for all of the series' previous antagonists.
  • Arbiter encounters his hallucination of Eugene once more, but shrugs it off as another unknown player that entered their server. After a confused and silent look from Chief, Arbiter looks at the wi-fi router...which is unplugged.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The majority of the first half of Season 8 is the plot of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Then the aliens obsessed with anal rape show up.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Arbiter confronts Jon for putting him through so much misery for the sake of his series. While Jon tearfully apologizes, he notes that by filtering his own misery through Arbiter, he managed to show viewers going through similar things that You Are Not Alone, and thus became a genuinely happy part of many people's lives. By extension, Arbiter and Chief themselves had been bright spots for so many people, leading to Arbiter forgiving Jon.
• You Keep Using That Word:
  • Chief gets really into calling Arbiter a "cuck." Eventually, Arbiter calls him out on the fact that he doesn't even know what that word means.
  • Turns out the TOSERS or at least Strawman don't even know what the "alt-right" are either, just that they're bad and racist.
• You Know I'm Black, Right?: An SJW attempts to pull this on Chief by claiming he's part Native American.

Arby N The Chief in L.A.

• Moonwalk Dance: An episode has Arbiter and the Chief visit several attractions and sights around L.A./Hollywood, one of which is the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Chief does the moonwalk on Michael Jackson's tile, although, because of the format of the show (live-action action figures), only his upper body is seen, while his legs are not.

Series-wide tropes

• Aesop Amnesia: Chief has come to the realisation that he sucks at Halo at least three times. It usually doesn't stick. However, as of "Double Trouble", he's finally learned to play well enough to fight two professional players together with Arbiter and almost win.
• Arch-Nemesis: The series showcases several for both toys, usually one each per season.
  • For Arbiter: Scott, Trent Donnovich, Adam McIntyre, and finally Eugene.
  • For Chief: Todd, Trent's bodyguard duo, and Kylie (to an extent).
• Arc Number: Every time you see a clock, it will either display 3:43, 13:37 or digits that will add up to 7 (which is a reference to Bungie).
• Author Avatar: Arbiter, and Jon has already admitted to it; this has not, however prevented many instances of Author Filibuster from occurring. (Though they have become more rare as of late.)
  • Amazingly, Chief has also become this in some recent episodes, seeming to embody Jon's wild, silly, artistic, and emotional side while Arbiter embodies his logical thought, controlled behaviour, and cynicism. How much Chief channels Graham and how much he is of his classic stupid self varies from episode to episode.
• Author Filibuster: Arbiter has sometimes been used to get across beliefs and opinions that Jon himself also shares. Chief usually has the opposing opinion of Arbiter so that the latter can counter the nonsensical arguments and statements that the former makes.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Chief and Arbiter in the season 5 pilot.
  • Hell, pretty much any time they are facing a threat online.
• Book Ends: Both the series pilot, and what at the time was the series finale, have a scene where someone at least claiming to be a delivery boy knocks on the door.
  • In the series finale, Arbiter and Chief both hold the same weapons they wielded when they first met.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: The figurines' owner is named "Jon", and the second episode has Chief commenting on a Bungie blog post about the first episode. Furthermore, the plot of The Movie is started when Chief watches several machinima videos by DigitalPh33r. There are also multiple references to Arby 'N' The Chief being a real machinima show within the show's universe.
• The Bus Came Back: Todd, Travis, and Skylar Loveheart return in The Reboot after being absent from the series for more than a decade.
• Canon Discontinuity: To much relief from the fans, the L.A. continuity was scrapped when season 4 came around.
  • The original series finale Endgame is also considered non-canon aside from the introduction of Claire.
  • The Season 3 Finale "King" is this as well, mostly due to the 4th wall-breaking nature of it and the silly nonsensical ending that was thrown out the window with Cortana's return in Season 6, whereas she had been previously killed off at the end of King.
• Catchphrase: The Chief has "NO U", among other things.
  • Ur mom and me were *insert Double Entendre* last night!
  • UR FACE!1
  • lol remember arbitur?
    • Chief even calls a drunken Arbiter out on using this one.
  Arbiter: LOL, remember Chief?
  Chief: HAY. thats mai thing arbitur. u cant use mai thing. remember. remember its mien. lol remember arbitur?
  Arbiter: LOL, I remember Chief.
  Chief: LOL. ur so silly.
  Arbitur: I know, LOL.
  Chief: LOL
  • FREEZE / TOSERS / GET DOWN ON THE FUKCING GROUND
• Cerebus Syndrome: The show is probably the most notable for making such a drastic change in tone from pure comedy to somber drama from seasons 5 to 7. It stands to reason why season 7 is considered so bleak compared to its predecessors; main themes include death, grief, murder, and lies.
• Characterization Marches On: most noticeable with Chief - he used to be simply a Small Name, Big Ego Fan Dumb Ditz, but then he started realizing that he is not as good at Halo as he previously thought. And he has recently got a tiny grasp of sarcasm (not that he makes use of it very frequently). His relationship with Arbiter has been changing over time, too. See also Author Avatar above.
  • It's also a little weird watching Chief write off many games as stupid and that Halo is way better than them (like Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Devil May Cry 4 and Call Of Duty 4) and took some serious convincing to get him to even play them when you later see the Chief willingly play many different games without a mention of Halo or even that the game sucks (like Grand Theft Auto IV and Resident Evil 5).
  • By Season 7, Chief even displays the ability to think way ahead into the future to the point where he makes a multi-layered argument to Greg about why telling Arbiter that Chief is the one responsible for Cortana's disappearance would be a bad idea. He goes so far as to predict Arbiter's emotional state beyond simply beating Chief up, understanding that Arbiter would be miserable and probably blame himself for Cortana's death. This all becomes a bit ironic when you consider that only a couple of episodes earlier Cortana criticized Chief's lack of ability to form actual arguments. A far cry from the "no u" style argumentation Chief had generally used up to this point.
• Deadpan Snarker: Arbiter. Also, Chief's hallucination of Cortana.
• Deconstruction: The series acted as one for the state of video games and the gaming community when it first started. With the start of season 5, the series began deconstructing the Living Toys trope. The sixth season takes it further, and the seventh makes the previous two look like fairy tales, taking apart the whole show's premise by conveying the existential dread of it to the fullest extent.
• The Faceless: Almost all of the human characters have never been seen, instead being represented by their Halo avatars. The only exceptions to this are Skylar Loveheart, Scott, Agent Smirnoff, and Jon as of Season 8.
• Foreshadowing: In Season 3 Episode 4, two of Craig's Major League Gamer] pals get (presumably Halo-induced) erections and decide to go rub one out. This later becomes the catalyst for Master Chief's win against Craig later in the episode.
• Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: Introduced in season 4... never to be mentioned again.
  • ...until "Hypernews I" (43/S5E5), where it turns into somewhat of a Leaning on the Fourth Wall variety.
  Chief: didnt we set up taht acount liek months ago?
  • After Season 5 finished, the mail slot has spun off into its own show - Arby 'n' the Chief: Hypermail
• Fan Dumb: in-universe - Master Chief is a parody of the Unpleasable Fanbase of Halo.
• Freudian Trio: Chief is The Id, Arbiter is The Ego, and Cortana is The Superego.
• Gamer Chick:
  • Cortana, although she's hardly been seen actually playing games.
  • Claire counts as well, and may as well be the archetype for all gamer chicks.
• Giant Spider: The finale of season four introduces one, which even terrifies arachnophobe viewers.
• Homage: "Hypernews I" to Ocarina of Time, which is Jon's favourite game. And that's despite Chief giving the game an extremely negative review, akin to The Angry Video Game Nerd, making it somewhat an Affectionate Parody of the former (and possibly the latter).
• Jerkass: Master Chief.
  • Arbiter zig zags from Jerkass to Jerk with a Heart of Gold. But then again, it's Jon.
  • And Travis, to a lesser extent than Chief.
  • Trent Donnovich makes Chief look like a decent human being action figure.
    • Subverted in Trent's case during the second half of the fifth season. He's actually rather friendly, although it remains to be seen whether he's genuinely nice or if it's just a gambit to gain Arbiters trust.
    • Double Subverted.
  • Craig.
• Killed Off for Real: Not "killed" per say but one of the security guards from the wedding gets fragged during the application match. The other one makes it out though.
  • He made a brief reappearance in the attack on TOSER's HQ where he fought along side his friend on split screen before both of them were fragged. Also Claire was also fragged during the attack too, in a way that arguably is a Moral Event Horizon for Adam.
    • Adam passed his Moral Event Horizon a loooooong time before then.
  • In Endgame, Scott literally gets killed. Also, at the end of Season 3, Cortana, Todd and Travis all got killed.
  • In Season 7, Cortana gets cooked alive inside of an oven by Master Chief.
  • In Season 7, "Crush", after getting told off by Arbiter for only wanting him as a friend and nothing more, Claire gets frag-banned by Arbiter's new clan.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Arbiter. It pops up every now and then, but is most noticable in season 5. His "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Trent Donnovich pretty much sums up what this trope is all about.
• Language Tropes:
  • Master Chief: Leet Lingo + LOLspeak + Pluralses + Rouge Angles of Satin + Malaproper + Cluster F-Bomb
  • The Arbiter: Sophisticated as Hell + Precision F-Strike
  • Cortana: Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness
  • Greg: txtspk + drawings
• Leitmotif: The theme from The Pursuit of Happyness and Three Little Girls from the Mikado.
• Living Toys: The premise.
• Machinima and Live Action Puppeteering.
• The Movie: Arby 'n' The Chief: The Movie. "Endgame" could also be considered one.
• Nietzsche Wannabe:
  • Arguably FEELS GOOD MAN in "King".
  • In season 5 Trent Donnovich, as demonstrated with his "sinking ship" analogy.
• Odd Couple: the eponymous characters.
  • Not to mention Chief's temporary crush on Cortana. Their personalities are the weird part.
• Oddly Small Organization The clan of hackers that will be the main antagonists of season six seem to only have four members, according to the trailer and Jon's blog at least.
• Oh, Crap!: Chief's usual reaction to Arbiter's rage.
• Only Sane Man: Inverted, as the Chief is the only really odd character.
  • Or actually zig-zagged for Arbiter: characters of common sense comparable to him come and go, as do Chief-alikes.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Chief. How else do you explain him destroying a Call of Duty 4 disc just to spite Arbiter?
  • Adam in Season Six. Holy fucking shit. Technically, he doesn't qualify for the 'man' part of this trope, but absolutely everything else fits him to a tee.
  • Tyler also qualifies.
• Running Gag
  • Josh Butterballs and his SOI Magazine.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Chief LOVES this.
  • MAI ROFLCOPTER / IT GOAS SOI SOI SOI SOI SOI SOI SOI
  • ROFL car goes NNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
  • MAI ROFLKNIEF GOEZ SLIEC SLIEC SLIEC SLIEC LOLOLOL
  • Is that the one that goes WHARBLEGURBLEH?
• Series Continuity Error: Quite a few.
  • In the original Master Chief Sucks At Halo trilogy, there was an Arbiter character whose personality was comparable to Chief's. In Arby 'n' the Chief pilot, an Arbiter figurine arrives in a box, seemingly meeting Chief for the first time. However, in "Face-Off" (episode 16/S3E4) Arbiter refers to a "sick montage" Chief made with him in the original trilogy, implying that he is the same character. Retcon? Breaking the Fourth Wall?
  • Negative Continuity was once consciously introduced in "Pirates" (episode 28/S4E3).
  • Season four was supposed to take place sometime after "King" (season 3 finale); Arbiter and Chief seem to be still living in Jon's home in Canada. Fair enough. However, the fifth season seems to have borrowed Claire from "Endgame", this time voiced by Elizabeth Carr-Ernst. How they managed to stay at the same place (if this is supposed to take place after "Endgame") is never mentioned.
• Shoo Out the New Guy: The massive backlash and subsequent removal of Todd and Travis.
• The Sociopath:
  • Adam, despite being eight, is incredibly wrathful and indifferent to others' suffering and emotions. When he returns in Season 8, he's become more cold and sociopathic, now killing people by using his fragban hacks to cause their consoles to explode.
  • Tyler is a more low-functioning example, being easily angered and incredibly violent.
• The Speechless: Greg, who can't talk due to being a spider writes on sticky notes to communicate.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Greg LOVES doing this to scare Chief and Arbiter, it helps that he's a Uncanny Valley spider toy.
• Straight Man: The Arbiter
• Stylistic Suck: Don't mess with Chief when he's got beats to lay.
  ACTIVATE, ACTIV-ACTIVATE, ACTIVATE, ACTIV-ACTIVATE, ACTIVATE, ACTIV-ACTIVATE...
• Synthetic Voice Actor: the eponymous characters and Cortana. This is constantly lampshaded in season 5, even to the point of deconstruction.
• Take That!: As shown by the Chief being a Take That! at Halo's Fan Dumb and indicated by some episodes' director commentaries, the plots of some episodes are aimed at common complaints that the Halo fanbase made about the games, or make fun of Xbox Live users in general. This intensified when Graham discontinued It's A Wonderful Live, a separate machinima series designed to vent out those same frustrations.
• Too Dumb to Live: Master Chief. We're talking Beavis And Butthead levels here.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Arby and the Chief constantly get on each others nerves, though the two will occasionally express fondness for each other.
• Your Mind Makes It Real: Not exactly but when someone is killed with the fragban hack equipped, it will result in a console ban and all of the victim's personal information to be stolen.

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