Web Video / Glove and Boots

Glove and Boots is a Video Blog focusing on two puppets, Mario and Fafa the Groundhog. They often discuss things that are going on, in both their lives and in the world, from the Zombie Apocalypse to Time Travel to Twinkies.

The show was created by Damien Eckhardt-Jacobi (Mario) and Vincent Bova (Fafa), two street performers who used puppets to entertain people on the New York City subway. Met with variable success, they began posting videos in 2004 with a style that was reminiscent of a pastiche of early edutainment shows like Sesame Street and The Electric Company (1971), complete with some music videos. The show was on hiatus until 2010, at which time the format received some changes in technology and switched to a slightly older demographic, with more references to pop culture and the like.

In 2012, Glove and Boots won a Twitter Shorty Award for Best Videoblogger.

Underwent a minor overhaul in 2017, introducing a gaming channel and 4 new recurring segments:

• Paradoke (A karaoke parody series);
• "Don't be a Dummy" with Johnny T. (In which Johnny teaches viewers not to be a dummy);
• "Uncle Joe's Stories". In which Cool Uncle Joe the Squirrel tells funny stories of his life ;
• And a reboot of Mario's Word of the Week.

In late 2017, the channel ran into money troubles due to changes in the YouTube algorithm (mainly the site cracking down on anything their advertisers deem inappropriate for children, and Glove and Boots unfortunately tends to fall into the Animation Age Ghetto) and in video sharing on Facebook, and was forced to go on hiatus. After more than a year, they announced in December 2018 that they would start making new content focusing on appealing to a younger audience.

Their YouTube channel can be found here, and their (sadly now inactive) gaming channel can be found here. Their posts are often on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and occasionally make it onto Reddit. They also have separate Twitter accounts for Mario and for Fafa. Videos up to Season 7 from both the main channel and gaming channel are also available on Vimeo here, including some that were removed from YouTube to fit with the changes made in 2018 and 2019.

As of December 2020, the channel along with all of its social media platforms are currently inactive, most likely because of YouTube's policy enforced by COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act), the global COVID-19 Pandemic, "The Ring-A-Tangs" YouTube Channel, and the departure of puppeteer, Vincent Bova who moved away from New York (where the show was filmed) to Pennsylvania in August 2020. Their most recent video was uploaded on December 30, 2019.

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This work provides examples of:

• Affectionate Parody: Several of their videos are these, such as "Jigsaw Puzzle", "The Pee-wee Herman Blog", "An Ode to Seuss", and the music videos featuring Gorilla, like "Gorillage People" and "Call Me Maybe.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • Inverted in "Restaurant Etiquette" with how Mario describes the three main kinds of people at a restaurant:
    The Waiter: Person that takes your order
    The Cook: Person that makes your food
    Other Customers: Annoying people at the other tables who talk too loud and order the last dish of the special you wanted.
  • This comment on "The Most Dangerous Sport":
    Megachamp:The most is Fishing on a boat. You'll either die of drowning, consumption, rotor or boredom.
  • The number one item in their Top Ten Lists is often less extreme than the rest of the list. Mario Lampshades this in "Ten Things You Shouldn't Do While Camping" when he tries to mix things up by making number one "Get lost, fall down, and break your leg".
• Ax-Crazy: Jack Woods, full stop. Armed with a shotgun loaded with holy wafers and sunshine.
• Being Evil Sucks: Zombie is a nice guy who adores puppies and singing, but by virtue of being a brain-eating zombie, is not really accepted by Fafa or Mario.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: All the time.
• Brick Joke:
  • While it may have not intended to be, Mario making Fafa a sandwich in "Photoshop Tutorial," only for Gorilla to eat it in an AMA Reddit answer video a few months later counts as one.
  • Near the beginning of Top 10 Reasons Time Travel is No Good, a time-travelling Mario tries to stop Present!Mario and Present!Fafa from making the current blog, which Present!Mario ignores as he doesn't trust him, with Future!Fafa explaining that Time travel's frustrating and that they should make it number 1. Fast forward to number 1, where Mario tries to disprove it by stopping the blog before it starts, rewinding time back to near the start of the video, where the previously occurred events play out again.
• Brooklyn Rage: Fafa's cousin, Johnny T, has all the qualities, from the accent to the attitude.
• Calling Your Attacks: In Zombie University:
  Mario: KNIFE TO THE EYYYE! (shink!)
• Can't Take Anything with You: One of the downsides of time travel discussed is that you show up naked, an example demonstrated with how the Terminator showed up in the nude after going back in time from the future.
• Catchphrase:
  • Johnny T.: "Boom. Done."
  • As shown on the Reddit question series, Stewart can only say, "I LOVE vertical videos!"
    • Although, as of the 100,000 Subscribers special, he has said more than "I LOVE vertical videos!"
• Celeb Crush: Mario has one on Katy Perry. He also mentions Mila Kunis (he often pronounces the name "Mina Kulis" though) a lot, even flirting with her in a (fake) interview.
• Christmas Episode: "Carol of the Mehs," featuring Gorilla, along with "The Glove and Boots Christmas Spectacular."
• Chromosome Casting: To the chagrin of many a YouTube commentator, there has never been a female character on the blog. Handwaved in one video where Mario says that he's holding out for Katy Perry.
  Mario: You're damn right I'm holding out for Katy Perry!
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander:
  • Surprisingly, Fafa is more of a cloudcuckoolander than the hyperactive Mario. Mario does some illogical things, but usually in the Music Videos where he gets over-excited. Fafa is the one who comes up with most of the crazy ideas in the blog. And most of the ideas, period. Most of the ideas are crazy.
  • Fafa becomes a REALLY huge one in "The Pee-wee Herman Blog", which kind of comes as expected considering he's playing... well, Pee-wee Herman.
  • And there was that one time when he made a happy-go-lucky song about DOOMSDAY.
• Continuity Nod: In "Fun Health Care Alternatives," when Mario explains what one could do when king, there is a picture from the SPAM blog where the SPAMs were going to burn him at the stake.
• Corpsing: Oftentimes the puppeteers won't hold their laughter during blogs, and they won't try to hide it in the final product. An In-Universe example occurs in "Testing Four Things We Found At The Dollar Store", where they had to stop the video for a couple seconds (the screen displaying a "Laugh Break" card) because they were laughing too hard.
• Curse Cut Short: "Jigsaw Puzzle"
  Mario: Why you rotten, no good, son of a-!
• Destination Defenestration: Happens in the Word of the Week video for "Defenestrate". To demonstrate the word, Mario throws himself out of the window, thinking he'll be okay because Superman does it all the time, despite the fact he's wearing a Robin costume.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Gorilla. No points for guessing his species.
  • Zombie is a, well, you know...
• Delayed Reaction: In "Fix Your Grammar", Fafa notices Johnny T. is in his Nazi outfit a little bit after he comes in.
• Disrupting the Theater: The video "Movie Theater Etiquette" is all about this trope, detailing things on what not to do in a theater, including talking during the movie and having your phone go off.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The early videos from 2004-2006 have several differences from the video blogs that began in the 2010s, most notably with Mario's accent and design, as well as several characters that haven't appeared at all in the video blog series.
  • To a lesser extent, this also applies to the blogs from 2011. The blogs almost always stuck to the "house" backdrop, lines of dialogue were more frequently split up into different takes, and the lighting was different.
• Edutainment Show: Early videos tended to be similar to Sesame Street in that there would be a lesson about certain words like Mario's "Word of the Day" (cyanoacrylate). Now they've moved on to explaining pop culture, although "Word of the Day" (now "Word of the Week") has reappeared.
• Epic Fail: When playing Rock Band, Mario, Fafa, and Gorilla manage to lose both after the song was already over and before they even started playing!
  • Mario was so taken in by Hanzi's commercial in "Amazing Product Commercial" that he bought seven boxes of Amazing Product when he and Fafa were supposed to be selling it in the first place. What drives this into Epic Fail territory is the fact that we never find out what Product is.
• Exact Words: "Worst Game Show Ever!":
  Hanzi: Do you agree with Zombie Max Headroom?
  Mario: What? No, I do not agree! Answer is Denver Broncos!
  Hanzi: No, sorry, is correct! Zombie Headroom does love brains!
  • Later:
    Hanzi: But don't you want to try quick-fire round?
    Mario: Yes!
    Fafa: Mario, don't—
    Hanzi: Then hold still as you are quick-ly lit on fi- re!
• Gassy Scare: In the Don't Be a Dummy (with Johnny T.) episode "Don't Google Your Illness":
  Johnny T.: The other day, my stomach was kinda upset. So I googled what I should do. In fifteen minutes, I was convinced that I had cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, fibromyalgia, and AIDS. I didn't have none of those! Turns out, I just had to take a sh-*bleep*.
• The Ghost: Apparently Fafa has a sister, but she's never seen and mentioned only once.
• A God Am I: Stan Lee claims to be this in "Movies, Thor, and Stan Lee."
  Stan: I remember when I created Earth, space, time, and matter!
• Grammar Nazi: Briefly played with in "Fix Your Grammar" when Johnny T. comes into the blog in his Nazi outfit ^note last seen in "The Hero's Journey" video. Although also played straight, as Johnny T. really doesn't like people using incorrect words and grammar.
• Groin Attack: In "Mario's Word of the Week - Lalochezia", Fafa intends to convey the word's meaning^note The use of vulgar language to relieve stress, or pain by kicking Mario in the nuts. Instead, Mario tricks Fafa into getting kicked in the nuts.
• Happy Dance: The Apocalypse didn't happen! Dance Gorilla!
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: If "Time Machine" is to be believed, Mario and Fafa have been pals since the days of the dinosaurs.
• Hidden Depths: Mario has moments of surprising competency, such as in "Do you know the way to San Jose?", when Mario can from memory cite the necessary route from Brooklyn, New York to San Jose, California.
  • He can also speedily name every actor who has played James Bond up until the year 2014 when his status as 'the biggest James Bond fan' is challenged.
• Hilarious Outtakes:
  • The upload of "Evolution of the Hipster" was followed by an outtake reel shortly after. There have been five outtake videos since, with the sixth being split into two parts.
  • Outtakes will also sometimes appear as The Stinger, such as in "Ten Terrible Lawn Decorations".
• Hostile Show Takeover: Gorilla in "Fafa's Photoshop Tutorial", after catching him red-handed messing with computer Gorilla.
• Hypocritical Humor: See I Resemble That Remark below.
  • Also Invoked in "Fix Your Grammar."
    Fafa: Our vernacular ain't so great neither, so we're not tryin' to be preachy or anything.
• Interface Screw: In the now-removed Word of the Week video for "Indelible"^note Cannot be forgotten, removed or erased, the word "indelible" is still onscreen during the "Thanks for watching!" screen, the "See you next week!" screen, and even the Bento Box logo at the very end. The text under the Bento Box logo even reads "Get that word away from our logo."
• I Resemble That Remark!: Mario's take on about 80% of EVERY OPINION. He doesn't change. Ever. ^note but we love him anyway
• Irony: "Everything Needs An Update" is full of this. Throughout the video, Fafa is in the process of updating everything in the house in order to optimize, improve or make things more convenient, from replacing their books with a Kindle, to updating various electronic objects like Mario's phone, the computer, the fridge, the toaster, and so forth. Sounds fine enough...except Mario cannot actually do any of the things he wants to do because everything is updating and taking extremely long to do so, thus making his situation so utterly inconvenient that it drives him up the wall. He can't even go outside because Bill Gates somehow managed to figure out how to stop global warming by a process that requires updating the outdoors for the next 72 hours.
• Large Ham:
  • Thor, of course!
  • This is the main reason why Hanzi is so popular.
• Let's Play: A few episodes are this, with Mario and Fafa playing some classic NES games on their Wii, as well as a little bit of Left 4 Dead and Rock Band.
• Life-or-Limb Decision: In "Jigsaw Puzzle," in order to get out of the handcuffs, Mario cuts Fafa's arm off with a hacksaw.
  Fafa: Did you have to cut it off at the shoulder? I don't even got no nub!
  Mario: A difficult decision had to be made!
• Lighter and Softer: The goal of the 2018-2019 season was to pivot the channel's content towards kids, ranging from an edutainment-like feel similar to their pre-2010 videos (such as "Naughty or Nice" and "Mario Interviews Number 1") to videos with a similar feel to the early-mid 2010s seasons without the vulgar or violent content (such as "The Terrible History of Photographs" and "There's No Bad Pizza").
• Made of Iron: Subverted in "Amazing Product Commercial" when Hanzi drives over the Amazing Product to demonstrate how tough it is.
  Hanzi: It broke. [Beat] Don't do that!
• Malaproper: Evidently, "heighth" is used pretty commonly on the internet, as shown in "Fix Your Grammar."
• Manly Tears: "Nine Movies that Make Men Cry" is centered around movies that invoke this.
• Merging Machine: In "The Teleporter", Mario and Gorilla end up fusing together after going through the teleporter together; the resulting fusion is quickly dubbed "Gorillario" by Johnny T. The same happens to Fafa and Johnny T at the end of the video, with the fusion promptly dubbing itself "Fafa T".
• Mirror Match:
  • The Halo 2012 Debate, between Red Master Chief and Blue Master Chief.
  • Fafa's Ping Pong match takes it to an extreme.
• Mock Headroom: In "Worst Game Show Ever!", the first round of Hanzi's game show is based on The Hollywood Squares and features Zombie Max Headroom in the center square, who's represented by a Zombie puppet dressed as Max Headroom, is inside a TV like him, and electronically stutters like him.
  Fafa: Why is he a zombie? Max Headroom's not dead.
  Hanzi: His career is!
• Mondegreen Gag: In "#CancelGloveAndBoots", when Mario and Fafa are blogging about juice, Mario says he doesn't like juice. When a troll watches the blog, he thinks Mario said he doesn't like Jews and tries to get the blog cancelled.
• Montages: The video blog makes liberal use of various kinds of montages, be it a sad or happy.
• New Media Are Evil:
  • In "Ten Reasons Why We Hate Facebook"; but in this case, rather than the media itself, it's mostly the people that use said media.
  • "Candy Crush Saga is Evil" is a straighter example, with Fafa outright saying it wants your brains.
• Noodle Incident: In "Restaurant Etiquette", Fafa mentions something happening in iHop that caused Mario and Fafa to get banned from it.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Santa lets himself be tied up and makes Mario and Fafa think that he's gone crazy in their Christmas Episode just so he can have some fun because Christmas Eve is boring.
• Obsolete Occupation: Discussed in the episode "Top 10 reasons why Time Travelling is no good" when Fafa points out how you can't get a job in the past or future with your current job skills. Then Mario goes on to provide an example.
  PAST
  Mario: Well, I write blogs for a living.
  Employer: Ha ha ha! You can't make a living doing that!
  FUTURE
  Mario: Well, I write blogs for a living.
  Employer: Ha ha ha! You still write?!
• Oh, Crap!: Mario's reaction to a number of potential disasters, ranging from Temporal destruction to Doomsday.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Often happens due to Corpsing, as mentioned above. Mario is the most likely candidate, and his accent has slipped multiple times in the Let's Play episodes, specifically the classic NES games on their Wii.
• Puppet Show: Of course... right?
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Mario, a loud guy very prone to being overly emotional, is the red oni to the calmer and more rational (most of the time) Fafa's blue.
• Relax-o-Vision: Used liberally during "Jigsaw Puzzle".
• Ridiculous Future Inflation: In the future, a McRib costs sixty-four thousand dollars.
• Rouge Angles of Satin: Mario's Word of the Week has gone awry twice because of typos. The episode for "Degust" was supposed to be for "Disgusting", and the episode for "Riposte" was supposed to be for "Repost".
• Shout-Out: There are tons of references to various bits of pop culture from over the years, ranging from Top Gun to Shaun of the Dead.
  • Naturally, being puppets, Muppet references pop up sometimes. (Mario having his first initial on his bed is a reference to Ernie and Bert's beds).
  • Mario and Fafa's even worse Presidential Candidates are Kylo Ren, Dracula, Gargamel, Mojo Jojo, Bluto, one of the Borg, and Elmo.
  • From the same video, Mojo Jojo had a plan to turn Congress into dogs.
• Shmuck Bait: The Lollipop Hat in "Jigsaw Puzzle", which doesn't seem to have as much to do with lollipops as it does with blades slowly closing in on the head of whoever wears it.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: With DJTayJames, the official DJ of Justin Bieber, during their competition for Twitter's 2012 Shorty awards.
• Slippery Slope Fallacy: Played for Laughs in "vertical video syndrome", where they claim vertical smartphone video will lead to theaters having to be rebuilt to have vertical screens, that birds will hurt themselves flying into tall theaters, that people will get stiff necks from looking up so much, and finally implying that movies will be pan and scanned to vertical formats.
• Snake Oil Salesman: In his introductory video, Mario found Hanzi on Craig's List specifically to sell their crappy product by making his hammy commercial. It doesn't go as planned. See Epic Fail.
• Sound-Effect Bleep: Sassy, but not cheaply vulgar. Mario gets these often, as does Johnny T. in "The Hero's Journey".
  Johnny T: This guy's a real piece of sh[BLEEP]t.
• Space Whale Aesop: The message of "This VIDEO will BLOW YOUR MIND and be the BEST PART OF YOUR DAY!" is "Don't fall for Clickbait and share them with everybody, because you'll be eaten by 'a horrible monster named Luis'".
• Stupid Crooks: Pirates robbed Mario and Fafa, buried the money somewhere in New York City, and then promptly forgot where they buried it.
• Talking Animal: Fafa and Gorilla, although the latter speaks in "mehs."
• Take That!:
  • Hipsters get a whole video dedicated to how annoying they are.
  • "Hanzi's Video Review" is a parody of the review videos of YouTuber Ray William Johnson.
  • Mario and Fafa make their distaste for Pepsi quite clear in "Your Ad Here".
  • In their parody of Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke and Pharrell, Mario keeps singing non-sequitur lines that he made up about random things, such as the letter A. When Fafa tells him that he's ruining the song, Mario answers that everyone's been sick of the original song for 18 months, so he's not really ruining anything. ^note  The parody was uploaded 18 months after the original song was released.
  • In "Top Ten Reasons We Hate Facebook", Mario refers to Facebook games as cults.
  Mario: F*ck you, Mike! I will not join your cult!
  • Candy Crush Saga is Evil is a massive jab for the afford mentioned game.
• Teleporters and Transporters: Mario brings a teleporter onto the blog.
• This Is No Time to Panic: Fafa warns Mario about the dangers of panicking during a zombie apocalypse:
  Mario: Zombies! Zombies everywhere!
  Fafa: Mario, don't panic. That's when the zombies get you, when you start panicking.
  Mario: I'm not panicking! Do I look like I'm panicking to you?! I know you got to keep it together when the zombies come! Otherwise, they COME! They eat your BRAINS! They get on your COMPUTER! THEY GET ON YOUR TV! THEY GET IN YOUR COMICS! THEY GET EVERYWHERE! AAAAAAAHHHHH!
• Time Travel Tropes: Played with in 10 Reasons Why Time Travel is No Good
• Time Machine: In the Time Travel blog, as expected.
• Toilet Humor: In 10 Reasons Why Time Travel is No Good:
  Fafa: Number 6A: The past is gross.
  Mario: (Beat) Everything is covered in feces!
  Fafa: Number 6B: In the future, you are gross.
  Mario: (Beat) There's nowhere to take a feces!
• Top Ten List: Some of their blogs, like "10 Reasons Why We Hate Facebook", "Nine Movies that Make Men Cry", and "Top Ten Worst Top Ten Lists".
• Trailers Always Spoil: Parodied in "Please Stop Giving Everything Away, Hollywood!" They literally tell you the whole story of The Empire Strikes Back.
• The Unintelligible: Gorilla, who speaks exclusively in "Meh"s. Occasionally, a joke will hinge on the audience at least somewhat understanding what he's saying, in which case his speech will sound more like he's just replacing every consonant with "m".
• Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: Mario and Fafa's idea for condensing the Olympic Games to prevent it from getting too overwhelming.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Bobo Rimple Killer in "Blog Crasher!" is dangerous, psychopathic, killer criminal who wants revenge on Mario for putting his life hell, especially for killing his brother, Bobo RumpleCuddles in "Cute Character Blog. His appearance brings the series into it's darkest hour.
• Visual Pun: Their return in December 2018 is started by a hype train. That is to say, a literal train that drives through their house.
  Fafa: Oh! I always wondered what these train tracks were for!
• Vlog Series: Of course, being a videos series posted on YouTube.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?:
  • Mario sounds kind of Eastern European, but it's never addressed.
  • Hanzi has some French or Italian accent going on, but that isn't addressed either.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Subverted; the blog is set in Brooklyn, NYC.
• Which Me?: Fafa uses a Time Machine to hang out with himself, to which Mario fears for the worst and so he uses the Time Machine to get his own Time Clones and destroys the Time Machine!
• With Friends Like These...: Mario's Facebook "friend" Mike; the embodiment of all things awful about Facebook.

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