Web Video / Exploding TNT

TNT's YouTube profile picture.

ExplodingTNT is a Canadian YouTuber whose content focuses on Minecraft Machinimas and Trolling videos. His first Minecraft videos were of blowing stuff up with TNT, from which his name comes from. He has since changed his focus to the aforementioned Machinima and gained over 4 million subscribers and 1 billion total views over the course of his 6+ years on YouTube.

He has multiple popular series among the standalone videos. One of these is "Weird Comments" in which ExplodingTNT picks What If? scenarios from the comment sections of his videos, creates short clips from the ideas, and compiles them into full videos. Another is "Lost Island", which is essentially The Movie and an obvious Shout-Out to Lost. His videos usually involve many actors, some of whom have their own channels (of which Failboat is one major example).

His videos overall are very popular, and his style has inspired the likes of channels like Orepros, GoldenArmor, and CrazyFoxMovies. He also has an alternate channel named after one of the recurring characters in his videos, PinkSheep, focusing more on gaming as opposed to machinima.

Tropes associated with ExplodingTNT and his videos:

• Alternate History: Although there is a machinima involving Notch selling Minecraft to Microsoft, most of the following videos still treat him as the owner of the game, suggesting that the series takes place in one of these.
• Alternate Universe: Much of his "Weird Comments" videos involve an alternate dimension with a strange quirk.
• Celebrity Casualty: Given how many celebrities, not just Mojang employees and YouTubers but actors and politicians as well, appear frequently, and the Death Is Cheap being in play for players, it's more likely than not that if a celebrity appears, they'll die at least once. ExplodingTNT himself is a frequent casualty.
• Compilation Movie:
  • Lost Island, though Downplayed if anything because it's "Only" about half an hour in total length.
  • A compilation of all parts of the Weird Comments series before 20 here.
• Enemy Mine: Notch and Herobrine during the Lost Island Series when they team up to fight the Destroyer
• Eye Take: The standard "surprised" look in most ExplodingTNT videos, often overlapping with Oh, Crap!.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: Some videos have subjects such as "If Mobs and Players Switched Places" or "If Villagers and Players Switched Places".
• Gasshole:
  • That squid who likes to eat tacos and farts a lot.
  • Jeb and Purple Shep are also involded in many fart jokes. Other characters are as well, but not as often.
• Gender Bender: Happens to Alex and Steve in "If Boys and Girls Switched Places.
• G.I.R.L.: The events of "If There Were No Servers in Minecraft" were sparked by what happened with a girl named KittyKatCutie, who turned out to be this when "her" real-life photo was shown.
• Impossible Task Instantly Accomplished: In "If Purple Shep Had A Baby", Purple Shep asks Pink Sheep how to get a son. Pink Sheep, not wanting Purple Shep to succeed, tells Purple Shep that Purple Shep must mine every block of obsidian with a wooden pickaxe. In under 30 seconds, Purple Shep returns with a son, having successfully mined every obsidian block in the world.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: In-Universe with "If GIRLY MODE Was Added to Miencraft"
  ExplodingTNT: Oh I have an idea!!! It's the best idea yet!! If a Girly Mode was added!! It will be so funny!
  Failboat: Umm ExplodingTNT... You've basically done that idea before like 100 different times. (shows thumbnails of "If a Girls Only Dimension", "If Minecraft was Girls Only" and "If Girls Took Over Minecraft")
• "Just So" Story:
  • Villager's arms are connected, because one was so embarrassed that he sweated and flooded up Notch's property.
  • Villagers have Gag Noses, because back without them, they failed to catch the whiff of the rotten cheese while building Notch's new office.
• Kafka Komedy: ExplodingTNT is one of the nicest characters in the series, but is bullied and abused by others in one way or another in almost every video, even when he does nothing wrong.
• Married in the Future: Parodied in "If You Could Go to the Future": When ExplodingTNT is moping around feeling sad because he's still a bachelor, he sees a sign saying he'll be married in the future and he goes into the Future portal ready to meet his bride-to-be... who turns out to be a squid.
• Negative Continuity: Almost every episode ignores what happened in the last episode, except for the occasional memories of said episode that lead to the escapades in this episode.
• Oh, Crap!: Any character will usually exhibit this with an Eye Take, sometimes followed by Stuff Blowing Up.
• Permadeath: "If You Couldn't Respawn-Minecraft has player accounts deleted upon death."
  • Inverted in "If you couldn't DIE in Minecraft."
• Ret-Gone: In "If You Could Go To The Past in Minecraft", the leader of the Creepers goes to the past to convince Notch to give creepers arms. Thinking the creepers are ugly, he removes them from the game instead, meaning they never existed.
• Running Gag:
  • Noobs tend to like dead bushes a lot more than commonly sought-after items such as diamonds.
  • The Peeing Enderman, an enderman who pees a lot, especially on others.
  • Failboat's terrible singing.
  • The "I give up" Hole filled with lava, which characters jump into for a variety of reasons.
• Schmuck Bait: In "If a Lucky Bar was Added to Minecraft", Notch clearly announces that insulting him will result in one's lucky bar going down. Two guys then trash-talk him. Notch appears, having heard what they said, and then disappears. The guys, thinking nothing happened, continue to trash-talk before the Ender Dragon and Wither come and ambush them.
• Shout-Out:
  • For a time, ExplodingTNT would show an image of himself as 8-bit Mario.
  • The Title and basic premise of Lost Island refers to Lost.
  • If Captain Underpants Played Minecraft.
  • John Cena is referenced in some videos, and even appears as a character a few times.
  • In "Lost in Space", when ExplodingTNT isn't picked as one of the astronaunts to be sent on a mission by Notch, he tries to "volunteer as tribute" to go in Pom Pom's place.
  Notch: You can't volunteer. This isn't Hunger Games.
• Shower of Awkward: Herobrine, deciding to get his revenge on Notch for tricking him, finds Notch showering naked, and he decides to go blind.
• Shower Shy: In "If Herobrine Took A Shower", Herobrine is initially ready to go to a public shower to remove his bad smell, but then realizes that he has to get naked there. When he sees a crowd gathered to see him shower, he drives them all away in rage.
• Stuff Blowing Up:
  • ExplodingTNT started on YouTube with videos focusing on this. More recently, he made a series involving betting with Pink Sheep over whether or not large amounts of TNT would blow up various objects (or even The End!)
  • Many times, massive TNT explosions will result largely from rage, but sometimes also from things like farts and/or lava.
• Status Quo Is God: No ill effects of a given episode ever carry over to the next. Even Failboat's death in Lost Island has been reverted. In fact, the only lasting effects of any events have been Purple Shep's birth, Pink Sheep's romance with and eventual marriage to Crystal Sheep (and said romance's effects on himself and Purple Shep), and, most recently, ExplodingTNT's voice reveal, with all but the last transpiring almost completely on the Pink Sheep channel and barely affecting ExplodingTNT's own channel.
• Take That!: Political satire isn't alien to this series either. Donald Trump's policies are lampooned in a number of videos, as are North Korea and its nuclear program.
• Tamer and Chaster: ExplodingTNT's earlier videos were more adult, with swearing, Vulgar Humor, and Pink Sheep's character as an extreme pervert who lusts after everyone else. Since 2014, his videos have been squeaky clean, most likely to reach a wider audience.
• Twist Ending:
  • At the end of Lost Island, the survivors of the plane crash get rescued by a helicopter pilot, who found the island thanks to a Tracking Device on his brother. Right as ExplodingTNT, Notch and Herobrine appear to be safe, Herobrine farts. The heli pilot reveals that his brother was the deathly-allergic-to-farts pilot of the plane whose crash stranded ExplodingTNT and co. on the island in the first place. The helicopter explodes soon after The Reveal.
  • Happens occasionally in TNT's regular videos as well.
• Urine Trouble: The Peeing Enderman, who always has a bad case of urinary incontience, and will be willing to relieve his business on someone else.
• What If?: The "Weird Comments" series is essentially ExplodingTNT taking such scenarios from user comments and making funny clips from them.
• Whole-Plot Reference: "Lost Island" series to Lost, both being focused on plane crash survivors being stranded on an island and facing a mysterious threat that threatens to kill them.