"Hello, mythical beasts! We have our own page at TV Tropes!"
"Let's talk about that."
— Rhett, Link or Guest at the beginning of nearly every Good Mythical Morning episode
Rhett & Link are entertainers who primarily use the Internet to display their talents. They like to call themselves "Internetainers."
Charles Lincoln Neal and Rhett McLaughlin first met on the first day of first grade in Buies Creek, North Carolina, when they were held in class during recess as punishment for writing profanity on their desks. They quickly became best friends. Throughout their childhood and adolescence, they went to the same schools and even dated some of the same girls (not at the same time, of course). During their college years, they both pursued engineering degrees (civil for Rhett, industrial for Link) and shared a dorm room. They also made videos with a VHS-C camera and played them at their weekly Campus Crusade meetings.
Today, Rhett & Link are among the most successful entertainers on the Internet. They have written songs about the strangest things, and they have made videos on the strangest subjects. Their most successful operations involve making bizarre commercials for small businesses all over America. They have two main YouTube channels, one
for their main videos and the other for their ongoing talk show, Good Mythical Morning. They also have a third and a fourth channel, featuring more footage of GMM (called Good Mythical More) and making-ofs/real-world footage respectively. They sell their own albums, T-shirts, coffee mugs, and even original shoes through partnerships with Tweak Footwear and DFTBA Records. They even receive sponsorships for some of their videos. In 2011, they had their own TV show called Rhett & Link: Commercial Kings, which aired on IFC. In 2016, they created a new series for YouTubeRed called Rhett and Link's Buddy System, which currently has two seasons. More recently, they've come out with the comedy-horror novel The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek in 2019, and the number of food-based episodes of "Good Mythical Morning" inspired the creation of Inside Eats with Rhett and Link, premiering on Discovery+ in 2022.
But they have not forgotten their roots. Though they both now have their own individual homes and families, they still hang out like when they were children, and they even made a documentary of themselves searching for their teacher from first grade.
They also appeared in Epic Rap Battles of History three times: as Wilbur (Rhett) and Orville (Link) Wright, as Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi (Rhett) and Leonardo da Vinci (Link), and as Lewis (Link) and Clark (Rhett).
Rhett & Link albums include:
- I'm Sorry, What Was That? (Live in the Living Room)
- Secret Songs
- B-Sides
- Up To This Point
Rhett & Link webseries include:
- Rhett&LinKast: Originally a traditional video podcast, later became a live stream.
- Good Morning Chia Lincoln/Good Mythical Morning:
Spiritual Successor to the Rhett&LinKast, a morning talk show. - I Love Local Commercials: Later developed into the IFC television series.
- The Future According to Rhett/Link's Golden Advice for Single Guys
- Seaborne and Roach: Two private eyes on mundane stakeouts.
- Superhero and Sidekick: The misadventures of a superhero and his sidekick.
- Caption Fail: A sketch, followed by two reenactments of the sketch using YouTube's auto-transcribe captions.
- Viral Boom: On January 17, 2007, Rhett and Link stayed up for 24 hours to make 24 potentially-viral videos.
- Great American Road Trip: Sponsored by Alka-Seltzer, Rhett and Link traveled the country sampling local cuisine.
- The Mythical Show: A 30-minute variety show made in the summer of 2013, consisting of several segments including GMM-style conversation, a music video, and skits and stunts performed with other YouTube users and celebrities.
- Middle School Musical: Middle-schoolers reenact popular stories in musical format.
Rhett & Link's media contain examples of:
- 555: Averted in Epic Rap Battle, when the number "Tiffany" gives is a valid, unlisted North Carolina number.
- '80s Hair: In the 80's Song
- Accidental Pun: They'll often say "Link/Link's in the description" in their videos when talking about another video they did or just something they want to promote/advertise. Commenters often remark that they went to the description, but they couldn't find Link. They finally acknowledged it in "Corn On The Drill Contest", in which Rhett goes into the description.
- April Fools' Day: On April 1, 2013, they posted a video, "Funny Baby Panda Kiss". It consists only of YouTube ads, including a video of them explaining the premise of the non-existent video..
- 2015's AFD video is completely in unsubtitled Spanish.
- 2016's vid: 11 minutes of silence.
- 2019's vid: Invisible food.
- 2020's vid: Chewiest food. They chew on something called "chewy food" for 10 minutes, 7 minutes of silence included.
- 2021's vid: A quiz about leaving things in a volcano for a month. All the questions they got wrong, and they were very obvious ones.
- 2022's vid: They spent $1 million at the dollar store. Which they will tell you all about after they explain the weirdly complex rules they have devised, and also the nature of dollar stores. Of course, they run out of time to tell you what they actually bought.
- The Artifact: They revealed in a Wired video that their "Let's talk about that" Catchphrase is this. They originally envisioned Good Mythical Morning as a show where they would, well, talk about things, hence the phrase. As the show moved on they started to actually do stuff more and more instead of just talk about it, but still kept the "Let's talk about that" opening.
- One season of GMM initially took out the "Let's talk about that" opening in favor of a short out-of-context clip from the episode. It didn't hold; fans were disappointed in the new opening style and it was eventually brought back about halfway through the season.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: Their appearances as the Wright brothers, Donatello Bardi and Leonardo da Vinci, and Lewis and Clark in Epic Rap Battles of History.
- Battle Rapping:
- Their 2010 video Epic Rap Battle! had inspired Epic Rap Battles of History, and thus helped kickstart the YouTube Battle Rapping craze.
- Since then they've made several more Battle Rapping videos, including Epic Rap Battle of Manliness, Geek vs Nerd and I'm a Textpert.
- Rhett and Link themselves have guest starred on Epic Rap Battles of History thrice.
- Blade Enthusiast: Link is known to have a great love for knives and all other things sharp. This is a source of equally great worry for Rhett and others, as he also happens to not have the best self-control or reflexes.
- Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: From Famous Last Words 2: "Bring it on, ninjas!" "Bring it on, zombies!" "Bring it on, ninja zombies!"
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Their "Will-It" series entails the duo mixing various ingredients with common foods to answer the age old question of "Will it Taco/Pizza/Donut/etc." These ingredients range from harmless and sometimes delicious combinations, such as Goldfish crackers in cereal, to even sand and charcoal. The inedibility and/or disgusting nature of the ingredients added will increase as the episode goes on, with the last item of the day usually something so foul that neither man can stomach it, whether it's pig brains, coagulated blood, mealworms, and a menagerie of other innately squicky substances.
- Broke the Rating Scale: In the GMM episode Sourest Food Challenge, the guys rate the sourness of foods on a scale of 1 to 10. The umeboshi sour plum gets an 11 from both.
- Calvinball: Risky Settlers, Knights and Allies of the Lords of Dominion of Earth: Pandemic Edition, the most complicated board game ever. And we only get to see the process of deciding who goes first.
- Butt-Monkey: Link. Throughout GMM, he has had more violent reactions to nasty food items, frequently loses games, and generally just struggles and makes a fool out of himself on a regular basis, much to everyone else's amusement.Link:"It's not that I'm stupid, it's just that I can suspend my intelligence."
- Chase often fulfills this role as well.
- Carpet of Virility: The Waxing Episode of GMM shows that Link has a plentiful amount of chest hair.
- Catchphrase: "Let's talk about that," said right after the episode's introductory line.
- "You know what time it is," before spinning The Wheel of Mythicality.
- Often when they play a game in which they're both blindfolded, Link will say, "As you can see, we can't," although there has been at least one instance of Rhett saying it.
- "Boiled for Safety" is a phrase, mostly used by the crew, usually used to answer Rhett and Link's health concerns with whatever they're being fed.
- When preparing to eat something, they will often say "Dink it, then sink it" as they knock their glasses/forks/whatever utensils they're using together (or sometimes just the food itself).
- Celebrity Resemblance: In a "Good Mythical Morning" video featuring Lady Antebellum, Rhett notes that he has often been compared in appearance to group member Charles Kelley.
- Link has mentioned on more than one occasion that people like to comment on his apparent resemblance to Dana Carvey.
- Cheaters Never Prosper: Whenever Rhett and Link have any kind of competition, they'll almost always find some way to cheat, even if they end up losing the round or the game overall.
- Comically Missing the Point: In the trailer for Good Mythical Morning, the three quotes of "anguish" from fans were thus:Chia Lincoln, I love you! Don't Leave!My life feels so empty.
- Creator Cameo: They've written and directed YouTube's 2012 April Fools' Day video "The YouTube Collection", and they make an appearance with a small gag involving the "thumbs up/down" system.
- Does Not Like Spam: Link is a notoriously picky eater and especially dislikes tomatoes and sushi. Rhett considers liver his archenemy.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The "Ultimate Hot Dog Taste Test" episode of Good Mythical Morning has a few of these moments. Rhett even realizes this at one point.Rhett: I'm just noticing that, you know, people could make some memes out of these images.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The first few seasons of Good Mythical Morning are quite different from the later ones. On the whole, the series feels much more low-budget and more actually like a YouTube series than a professional TV series, they have a different set, the Wheel of Mythicality is different and smaller, and they spend entire episodes pretty much just talking about things in a way that sounds very casual and unscripted. The episodes also begin with a clip of a random person saying "I'm (name) from (place). Let's talk about that." and the Wheel of Mythicality is spun with no real fanfare or announcement at the end of the show. The predecessor to Good Mythical Morning, Good Morning Chia Lincoln, is even more different.
- Easter Egg: On the side of the Mythical Shoe is a message in morse code. They revealed the secret on the Series Finale of Good Morning Chia Lincoln.
- The '80s: The song "In The 80's."
- Extremely Short Timespan: Rhett and Link once performed karaoke through an entire night singing Lionel Richie’s song All Night Long for 11 hours in Real Time with 158 continues performances.note While travelling around Los Angeles, beginning at Santa Monica Beach Pier during the sunset and ending on Mount Wilson during the sunrise. Which they recorded for a video on their channel note . They also discussed this event on an episode of Good Mythical Morning.
- Extreme Omnivore: Videos such as the Will It series often involve eating things like the parts of animals that are typically not eaten (such as the eyes, the heart, or the anus) or things like crayons that are technically edible but not meant as food.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the aforementioned '80s song, we get a very brief look at the back of Rhett's guitar...
- Fun T-Shirt: Link often sports these.
- Gentle Giant: Rhett is 6'7", 6'9" with his hair, but is a self-described introvert at heart.
- Go Out with a Smile: In "Our Official Apocalypse Video", Rhett suggests "going out with a happy face", though it eventually turns into Cry Laughing.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: They and all of their crew make a point to not swear, and to keep the show as family-friendly as possible. Even when they do swear, it's usually bleeped out.
- Hair-Contrast Duo: Their hair colors aren't meaningful of course, but Rhett has light brown hair while Link's is black.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Probably the most well-known examples. They've been best friends since first grade and are still going strong.
- Hiccup Hijinks: If there's a video of them eating spicy foods, it's almost inevitable that one or both of them will get the hiccups. And when Kobe Bryant appeared on the show, he got the hiccups along with the both of them.
- Hollywood Board Games: Part of the pair's schtick is that Link has a more slow reasoning and Rhett gets exasperated by it or tries to help him when they are on a timed game. For example, when playing Pictionary with "taco bell" as the prompt, Rhett gives Link as many clues as humanly possible — even going as far as drawing a bell and writing "TAC" next to it. Link answers "tack bell".
- The Internet: Though this goes without saying, they have done multiple songs about the Internet or specific websites, like The Facebook Song and Internet Overdose Song.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Rhett in "The Tragedy."
- Kitschy Local Commercial: The entire premise of Rhett & Link: Commercial Kings.
- Last-Name Basis: Rhett will most often refer to Link by his last name "Neal".
- Lethally Stupid: Link will always find some way to nearly injure himself and those around him. Rhett always shows visible concern whenever Link handles anything sharp. Even mundane objects such as a blender could be considered weapons in Link's hands.
- Like an Old Married Couple: They admitted to being this in a Wired interview.
- List Song: "Have You Ever?" is an increasingly-bizarre list of embarrassing, awkward, or just plain unfortunate situations, starting with stuff like waving to someone who was actually waving to another person, then progressing to "dating relatives by mistake" or having your cheese hat mocked by a dinosaur.
- Long Runner: "Good Mythical Morning" is currently on season 20 and still going strong, and seasons usually average around 100 episodes. Including the much shorter "Good Morning Chia Lincoln", that's still 21 seasons of content.
- Meaningful Name: Coincidentally, in Good Mythical Morning, Rhett sits on the right and Link sits on the left (from their perspective, not ours). Link's name is doubly coincidentally meaningful because "links" means "left" in German and Dutch.
- Metaphorgotten: The direction all their "Amazingly Amazing Science" segments eventually take.
- Mind Screw: Dope Zebra. The one video that has NOTHING to do with anything previous to it.
- Mistaken for Gay: This has happened to them before, due to being two men traveling together. To avoid this, they frequently remind the audience of their separate homes with respective families. (See above.)
- Mistaken for Racist: Their local commercial for The Red House was accused of being racist so much so that they had to make a response video explaining themselves.
- For those curious, the real reason they did the video that way was because the business is located in a small Southern town where post-integration is still a big deal and the store was marketed that way to "them."
- The Movie: Rhett and Link wrote, produced and directed a feature length Documentary which was released in 2008 Looking For Ms Locklear (Trailer) where the pair set out to find their first grade teacher Miss Lenora Locklear who was responsible for them becoming lifelong friends, while also highlighting the political struggle for identity of the obscure Native American Lumbee Tribe.
- Non-Standard Game Over: Usually the two go through several rounds of a game until a winner is declared. In the Try Not to Twitch video featuring Myth, Link managed to automatically lose the game about halfway through the video. How? There were a series of boxes and Link got up from his chair to inspect them (this was against the rules as there was supposed a jumpscare). Stevie yelled at Link and gave him -15 points. Thus meaning he'd get the punishment regardless of whether Rhett or Myth won.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Rhett has a much stronger stomach than Link, so if he starts gagging or retching when eating something, you know the food is really bad.
- "No. Just… No" Reaction: When they got invited to a Blue Man show and Link was selected to be the audience participant. The Blue Man initially selected Rhett, but had this reaction when he stood up and realized he wouldn't fit in the suit.
- And again to Rhett when he took his kids to Lego Land. He and his kids were super excited to find a ride that they were tall enough to ride, only for the operator to tell them Rhett was too tall to ride.
- Perma-Stubble: Link.
- Placebo Effect: One episode has Rhett and Link try some pills that claim to nullify the capsaicin in hot peppers. The pills are really just vitamins, and it’s one elaborate prank to get Link to eat a bunch of spicy foods. The prank pretty much backfires because Link actually thinks the pills work.
- Portmanteau: They often refer to themselves as Internetainers.
- Prematurely Grey-Haired: Link has a hereditary condition that causes this, and he doesn't bother to cover it up.
- Real Trailer, Fake Movie: Past Meets President.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Rhett's Blue to Link's Red.
- Relative Error: "Get off the Phone!"
- Replacement Goldfish: "BFFs" where Link is replaced by Rhett...
- Running Gag: On Good Mythical Morning, any mention of Tokyo will cause Rhett to go "WHAAAAAAAAAAT?", getting longer and longer each time, while a picture of a Japanese flag and Tokyo appear behind a cat trying to catch a fly. Unless Rhett says it himself, then he doesn't have to do anything.
- The stun cane.
- Link and Jen's love-hate rivalry.
- Link and his "Walmart strategy."
- Rhett's "Ambient Massage Song (The Booty Knot Song)."
- Road Trip Plot: Sponsored by Alka-Seltzer.
- Serious Business: When they get interested in something, they get into it.
- Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Rhett tends to be the more gung ho of the duo while Link tends to be more hesitant and reserved. Emphasized in their "Will it?" videos, where Link tends to throw up just about everything while Rhett (usually) manages to stomach just about everything.
- Sore Loser: Link. In most of the challenges that involve punishment in some way, Link will occasionally try underhanded tactics to ensure he wins. Usually, this is wanting enough points in the final round to win regardless of the scores so they can avoid a tie. Rhett is also guilty of this himself, but due to Link's massive losing streaks, he seems to be the worse of the two.
- Spiritual Successor: "Good Morning Chia Lincoln" became "Good Mythical Morning" a year later.
- Steampunk: The Spot the Differences music video has a Steampunk Toothfairy!
- There's also a Steampunk Rhett in the video for "Rub Some Bacon On It."
- Stop Motion: Their T-Shirt wars.
- Straight Man: While they both take equal parts in their hijinks, Rhett comes off as the more mature of the two at times.
- Suddenly Shouting: Inverted twice in the Jamaican Vacation Hoax video.Rhett: "UNDERTAKE! THIS DESCRIBES FRACTIONALLY touch."
Rhett: "UNDERTAKE! THIS DISCOURSE actually types." - Supreme Chef: Josh, the head chef of Mythical Kitchen and most of the food items on Good Mythical Morning, is undoubtedly this.
- Testosterone Poisoning: Epic Rap Battle of Manliness.
- Also, the characters "Randy and Dandy Mandy" that occasionally appear qualify for this trope as well.
- That Came Out Wrong: In "Showering in Public", Link says that he will "piggyback off [Rhett's] nude experiences," and makes it clear he does not mean it literally. He continues to say he might do it literally with his wife, though.
- Link has a special knack for these. See also: GMM #316:"If I ride you, then I can take you home!" and, The Dishwasher Painter Man Song: "Stoking at day, stroking at night on the dishwasher... with my paintbrush... Nothing inappropriate about that..." ("Brushstrokes on the steel! Brushstrokes on the steel, now I'm stroking the steel!") He describes drumming a beat on his headboard with "Why you beating off the...? Uh...making a beat!"
- Link has a special knack for these. See also: GMM #316
- Turn Your Head and Cough: In Caption Fail 3, a police officer does this to a speeding driver. For some reason.
- You're Drinking Breast Milk: Not exactly drinking, but in "Strange Lollipop Taste Test ft. Rosanna Pansino & iJustine", the aforementioned guest presenters are given lollipops with various unusual flavours. Take a guess what flavour the last lollipop they taste is (which is spoiled in the thumbnail for the video). The two girls both have a minor freakout when they find out.
Rhett or Link: You know what time it is...
Troper: It's time to spin the Wheel of Trope-icality!
