After Random Encounters's last major hit, Five Nights at Freddy's: The Musical, spawned a multi-part main story with original content and spinoffs, the same happened when they adapted Baldi's Basics in Education and Learning; the first video garnered over 99 million views, and so the team produced additional content and made it into a series. The Baldi's Basics series is one of their most popular; it was used for a charity campaign
in 2018, and when RE ran a poll tournament for their most popular video, all three did well and "Baldi's Big Zoo" garnered enough votes to win its first round even when that round's poll went up before the video was released.
The story at first follows the game's storyline, albeit with the player character, played by troupe fixture AJ Pinkerton, being the one sucked into the game rather than a side character. The first sequel adapted the camping minigame demo and the second was original content. You can find them here:
This web video series has examples of:
- Adaptation Expansion: In Field Trip, Playtime, Gotta Sweep, and 1st Prize all go on the camping trip as well and get to contribute. The Principal also gets a brief cameonote .
- Antagonist Title: Baldi is still the villain, with AJ having to solve either simple or ridiculous puzzles while facing bizarre obstacles and the rest of his class to keep him happy.
- As Himself: During cast recording videos, 1st Prize and Gotta Sweep are portrayed by the actual props.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: Baldi says "No running in the halls!", normally a quote associated with Principal of the Thing, during Field Trip (where Principal is largely absent aside from his Breaking the Fourth Wall reference). He then says "When will you learn?", another quote by Principal of the Thing, to him during Big Zoo after Playtime drops a Logic Bomb by telling him there are no halls in the zoo.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: The Principal of the Thing does this in Field Trip by warning that breaking the fourth wall is against the rules (as it is in the game).
- Brick Joke: 1st Prize's desire to hug a moose is brought back twice in Big Zoo after being a throwaway comment in Field Trip, including a clip near the end of the video where he slowly chases a moose, who is running from him.
- Camping Episode: Field Trip has the class go camping.
- The Cameo: Since everyone seems to give Arts and Crafters no attention like most fan content of the game does, at most he just gets minor cameos, though, despite a few scenes of him startling AJ in Field Trip. He doesn’t even appear in Big Zoo.
- Can't You Read the Sign?: Field Trip begins with Baldi happily waving beside a "No Campfires" sign. Building a campfire and keeping it going is the goal of the video.
- Cartoon Creature: The Orangnuropteraptorpus that appears in Baldi's Big Zoo appears to be the zoo's equivalent to the unsolvable math problems from the main game. A strange creature that appears very unusual and bizarre, AJ has trouble identifying it, getting him belittled by Playtime and Principal of the Thing (and Baldi even remarking that, like with the math problems, he gets angrier for every animal AJ gets wrong).
- Class Trip: Both Field Trip and Big Zoo.
- Curse Cut Short: In Big Zoo, AJ attempts to mention to Playtime after she mentions the orangnuropteraptorpus that her answer is a load of something, only to get interrupted by Baldi.AJ: That is a load of -
Baldi: I get angrier for each animal you don't know! -
Dawson Casting: The students are probably supposed to be young children, but are all played by adults. This contributes to the Stylistic Suck aesthetic, taken from the original game, as well as working well with the idea that AJ is supposed to be an adult who was sucked into the game and turned into a student; imagination filling in the blanks is easier if everyone looks the same age. - Demoted to Extra: Arts and Crafters made small appearances in Baldi's Basics and Field Trip, but is entirely absent from Big Zoo. Gotta Sweep was also a big presence during the former two, but only makes one appearance near the end of the latter (as the driver of the bus when he tells everyone they have to go).
- Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off!: Baldi threatenly hits his palm with his ruler as he walks or if AJ makes mistakes.
- Drives Like Crazy: Gotta Sweep crashes the school bus in Big Zoo. In fairness, given that Gotta Sweep is a sapient broom, it's a wonder that it could get the bus started in the first place.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The distortion on the characters' voices is more prominent in Basics than in later videos, albeit still present.
- Evil Teacher: Baldi, naturally. This time around, he flagrantly breaks rules outside of the school and takes over a zoo just to take his class on a field trip (that gets cut short when they need to run from the cops).
- Hell Is That Noise: Baldi slapping his ruler against his hand is this for AJ, especially in Field Trip but also in Basics.
- Here We Go Again!: "Let's go to the zoo next!" in Field Trip after how badly the camping trip went. The line prompted enough fans to ask for a video about the class's adventures at the zoo that Random Encounters actually made one, making this a retroactive Sequel Hook.
- Horrible Camping Trip: Field Trip has everyone fighting over firewood, Cloudy Copter trying to put out the campfire (probably because they're banned), and Gotta Sweep knocking AJ into the flames.
- Hybrid Monster: The "orangnuropteraptopus" in Big Zoo. AJ has no idea what it's supposed to be, and everyone treats him like he should know better, even if they're easier on 1st Prize and It's a Bully, who have no idea what even normal animals are.
- Ironic Echo: Just like in the game, the Principal says "When will you learn?" when sending AJ to detention. In Big Zoo, after being informed that there are no halls in the zoo so his rules don’t work, Baldi says "When will you learn?" to the Principal.
- Nose Nuggets: The Principal lectures Baldi for picking his nose.
- Only Sane Man: AJ, due to being the only normal person from the real world while the others are NPCs native to a bizarre video game.
- Product Placement: Parodied. In the first video's blooper reel, they pretend to be unsuccessfully shilling World of Tanks, with the "gameplay footage" being clips from GoldenEye and the "link in the description" being a joke about how the video isn't actually sponsored.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The protagonist tries this at the beginning, opting to wait on the bus as opposed to participating in the camping trip, but is stopped by the Bully.
- Sequel Hook: Talking about going to the zoo in Field Trip is retroactively this.
- Shout-Out: AJ wears a shirt with the Blue Badger on it.
- Stylistic Suck: Multiple special effects, in fitting with how the original game's aesthetic relied on this.
- Take That!: A Blooper Reel for Baldi's Big Zoo sees It's a Bully refer to Star Wars: The Last Jedi as a turd. The recording video for the same song also has AJ refer to pre-redesign Sonic as an abomination "made in Hell".
- Tempting Fate: AJ mentions how glad he is that the Principal isn't there to lecture him for breaking rules during the field trip... only for the Principal to call his cell phone to lecture him for breaking the fourth wall.
- That Makes Me Feel Angry: Playtime's reaction to AJ cutting her jump rope is just to say, "Aww, that makes me sad." Granted, this is what she says in the game when this happens.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: With how much he's had to go through in each video and his failure in Basics keeping him trapped in the game, AJ's last-minute victories in Field Trip and Big Zoo are this.
- Trapped in TV Land: The Player, played by AJ, is trapped inside an anonymously sent copy of the game. Succeeding in the main quest would have presumably freed him, but thanks to The Beard grabbing the seventh notebook, he's still there.
- Unexplained Recovery: AJ should be horribly burned after Field Trip when Gotta Sweep bumped him into the campfire, but by Big Zoo, he's completely fine.
- Voice of the Legion: Downplayed. If you listen closely, you'll notice that some of the game characters (particularly It's a Bully and Principal of the Thing) have the same distorted, echoey effects applied to their voices as in the original game, but it's more subtle here than it is in the game.
- You Got Murder: While he doesn't actually die, AJ is trapped in the game after he receives it in the mail from an anonymous source.
- Your Mom: The Blooper Reel for Baldi's Big Zoo sees 1st Prize's comment on the yak lead into this joke.1st Prize: This big bovine is your mother! Haw haw haw!
