The re-created version of the monster character made by Joseph Scarbrough.
The original version of Steve D' Monster (next to Little Chrissy) seen on the Frazzle song on Sesame Street.
Steve D’Monster is a lavender monster puppet, created and performed by Joseph Scarbrough. The character was first originated in Sesame Street in a few songs and sketches including "Fur", "Frazzle" and the original version of "I Want a Monster to Be My Friend". The monster was made from a lavender anything pattern by Muppeteers decades ago. The puppet remake by Joseph was first emerged locally in Knoxville, Tennessee, appearing on local PBS affiliate during pledge drives in August 2004; Steve slowly grew in popularity among local viewers, as he continued to appear on local pledge drives, up until August 2005, when they were no longer televised.Afterwards, Steve later made a much wider debut in December 2007, when he began appearing in a series of videos produced exclusively for YouTube by Joseph Scarbrough Productions. The series of videos is a showcase of Steve’s wild and crazy antics, usually resulting in some kind of a backfire that may slightly dampen his spirit, if only temporarily. Originally, the Steve D’Monster videos were a one man (or one monster) show, but later in the series’ run, new characters were developed to be included in the roster, including Bethany Crystal (Steve’s gal pal sidekick), and The Squirrely Squirrels (a trio of squirrels who love to pester Steve and Bethany to no end). Although the new characters’ appearances within the YouTube series have been limited at best, due to a lack of additional puppeteers, the characters are otherwise featured heavily in-universe through other media, including comics, artwork, as well as future projects that are presently in the works.
Although the regular series of videos lasted from December 2007 to May 2013 for 52 episodes note , Steve still continues to appear in a number of one-off, stand-alone shorts and specials on Scarbrough's YouTube channel
You can see the videos here
.
This series provides examples of:
- Accidental Misnaming: Steve can't ever seem to remember Ella the Elf's name, and has refered to her as Bella, Willa, Hannah, Sarah, and Shirley.
- Acme Products: With the rare cases of unintentional product placement, most in-universe products are “Scar” brand.
- Affectionate Parody: “’Snow’ is a Four-Lettered Word” (S1) has been parodied at least three times by different YouTubers.
- Affirmative Action Girl: Part of the reason Bethany was born.
- Ageless Birthday Episode: "The Long, Dull August" (S4) both plays this straight, and lampshades it, as even though it's Steve's birthday, he's well aware that he's still four-years-old and even remarks he doesn't understand how or why."Maybe I'm trapped in some kind of time warp and I'll never get any older or something."
- Amusing Injuries: Lampshaded in “Turkey Time” (S2), in which Steve attempts to jump from an apartment balcony to the tree standing next to it, only to miss it by a longshot, and plummet to the ground below (later seen in all kinds of casts and bandages, and literally one dead eye).
- April Fools' Day: Steve and Bethany Rickroll’d viewers in 2011 (followed by Jennifer being annoyed by Caramelldansen).
- Art Evolution: The original Steve resembled more of a traditional Muppet-looking puppet until his design was slightly overhauled to reflect the Scarbrough Puppet Style. Also, the original Squirrely Squirrels look nowhere near like the same ones today.
- Aside Glance: Done more frequently in the later, more plot-driven, episodes.
- As You Know
- Attack of the Political Ad: The “Steve D’Monster for 2012” presidential campaign video (now titled “May the Best Monster Win”).
- Badass Pacifist: Bethany, to a degree.
- Berserk Button:
- Steve – Don’t call him “Stevie”.
- Jennifer – Don’t touch her tail, it’s her “best feature”.
- Big Blackout: From the shelved Steve’s Inefficient Christmas, when Santa Headquarters is plunged into darkness, after Steve pounds on the radar dashboard with his fist in frustration (in actuality, the main electrical generator coincidentally froze over, cutting off the electricity inside).
- Happens again in “O Christmas Tree”, in which Steve plunges the entire universe into darkness after he blows a circuit while plugging in the Christmas lights.
- Biting-the-Hand Humor:
- Scarbrough has expressed his displeasure with the
Executive Meddling from Google handling its entities, especially YouTube. - This video
- In-universe in "Year in Review" (S2), in which each topic Steve discusses in his review of 2008, he manages to slip in some kind of insult against Scarbrough.
- Scarbrough has expressed his displeasure with the
- Body Horror: Played for Laughs:
- In a 2009 entry, Steve cuts his hands off in order to lift a chair over his body (which he ends up dropping on himself).
- That same year, Steve is killed and literally ripped to shreds (not seen on camera) by, of all things, a rabbit.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: In a number of entriea, Steve or other characters speak directly to the viewers.
- Butt-Monkey: Steve
- By the Lights of Their Eyes: Happens in "O Christmas Tree" (S4), where Steve plugging in the Christmas lights causes a short that plunges the entire universe into total darkness.
- Captain Ersatz:
- Steve, actually.
- It’s been said that Easter Egg is, “The Joseph Scarbrough Universe’s answer to Jeanette Miller, Irma Langenstein, and other fictional females with brown hair, large glasses, and blue turtlenecks.”
- Chick Magnet: Steve has a rather large female following, partly due to his Casanova Wannabe personality.
- Christmas Episode: “Do They Know it’s Christmas?”, “Holiday Message” (both S2), the six-part “Steve’s Inefficient Christmas” (S3), “O Christmas Tree”, “Jingle Jangle All the Way”, and “Twas the Night” (all S4)
- Christmas Special: The shelved "Steve’s Inefficient Christmas".
- Steve’s Holiday Hullabaloo
- Clip Show: "Memory Lane" (S4)
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Julie
- Content Warnings: “Year in Review” (S2) ends with this disclaimer:“The comments heard in this video were made solely for comedic purposes, and should not be taken very seriously at all. If taken seriously, rinse with water for fifteen minutes. If problem persists, contact your machine’s manufacturer.”
** Deja vu in "2012: A Look Back" (S4), only this time, the disclaimer was audiovisual in the form on an Easter Egg Tip of the Day. - *Crack!* "Oh, My Back!": "The Not-Even-Pretty-Good Can Drive" (S4), Steve tries to carry a heavy box full of canned food to the community center.*Crack* Steve: Oop, there goes the back again... (Falls backward)
- Creator Cameo: Joseph Scarbrough is featured in a small number of entries, usually serving as a surrogate father figure to Steve; Steve referred to him as “Joe” to show his lack of respect for him, but since this ended up becoming an unwanted nickname in real life, Steve now refers to him as his “boss”.
- Creepy Basement: Basically the plot device of, "Down in the Basement" (S4); it also doesn't help Steve's nerves that stock haunted house sound effects can be heard, and a glowing pumpkin keeps changing positions while he isn't looking.
- Crossover: A 2009 entry featured Steve having a webcam chat with fellow YouTube puppets Colby Hussir and Dumb Dog from the Colbynfriends videos.
- Curse Cut Short: The infamous banned “You Can Be Fat Hounds tooth” entry.
- Cute Bruiser: Many think The Squirrely Squirrels are cute; they weren’t intended to be originally, but their redesigns took on a more, “Don’t let their cuteness fool you” look.
- Deadpan Snarker:
- Jennifer
- Ella the Elf
- Don't Go Into the Woods: In “Whatever Happened to Steve D’Monster?” (S3), Steve runs away from home, and at one point, is apprehensively walking through woods, where he encounters… A SPIDERRRR!!!
- Easter Egg: Lampshaded with a character who actually serves that very purpose.
- Election Day Episode: In "May the Best Monster Win," Steve decides he wants to not only be the next President of the U.S. of A., but also to be the first Monster President in history, and begins campaigning, even bringing Easter Egg in as his running mate. note
- Even the Girls Want Her: Ella the Elf's admiration for Zooey Deschanel.
- Even the Subtitler Is Stumped: In “Monster Medley” (S3), Steve sings a medley of songs that have the exact same tune (“Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and “The Alphabet Song”), but the subtitle lyrics don’t match what he is singing.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Because no one knows Easter Egg’s real name! Hell, even her background stories are inconsistent (intentional to emphasize her mysteriousness).
- For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: If it wasn’t for the Ninja Turtles, Steve could be the prime example of this trope.
- Funny Background Event: Done twice in "Steve’s Inefficient Christmas" (S3), when the Santa Headquarters experiences a Big Blackout, the radar screen flashes a “Total System Shutdown” error message, but for a split second, a flash is replaced with an image of Grover from Sesame Street. Later still, the radar screen has a standby message that reads, “Dude, You’re Screwed!”
- Genre-Busting
- Genre Throwback: The series was partly a throwback to classic sitcoms of The '60s, particularly the last couple of seasons, which actually utilized the same Laugh Track from The '60s.
- Halloween Episode: “The Monster Mismatch” (S2), “Down in the Basement”, and “Haven’t I Seen Me Somewhere Before?” (both S4).
- Hilarious Outtakes: Two different episodes entitled, "I Never Make Misteaks," (one from S2, the other from S3) are dedicated to showcasing outtakes and bloopers from previous episodes.Steve: GET YOUR HEAD OUTTA THE FRAME, YA BIG DUMMY!!!
- Hollywood Darkness: In “O Christmas Tree” (S4), it takes Steve 24 hours to try to chop a Christmas tree down; after the first 12 hours, it’s supposedly the middle of the night, even though it was shot during the day, and darkened in post-production.
- How Can Santa Deliver All Those Toys??: It manages to utilize multiple tropes in one. For starters, this trope turned out to be Steve’s Not Actually the Ultimate Question, which resulted in Ella the Elf giving him basically a Mathematician's Answer, which caused Steve to have a Heroic BSoD, prompting Ella to simplify her answer to,“Magic, kid. That’s how he does it. Magic.”
- Hurricane of Puns
- I Got a Rock: Actually, that's all Steve got as a result of going trick-or-treating as himself in "The Monster Mismatch" (S3).
- Incredibly Lame Pun:“Does Mary Sanford have a son? Get it? Get it? You don’t get it? What is this, an audience, or just a punch of people sitting in front of their computers with nothin’ better to do?!”
- Laugh Track: The series utilized one beginning in Season Five.
- Steve lampshades it usage in "2012: A Look Back" (S4), when he opens his Monstrocity News broadcast with, "This is Monstrocity News, the only newsprogram where you can hear the sounds of laughter, other than The Gary Gnu Show."
- Subverted in "Steve Vs. Internet Commercialism" (S4), where Steve is constantly interrupted by a series of commercials, which is met with boos and hisses.
- Left the Background Music On: This was the case for many Season One episodes, where Steve's original leitmotif would be looped to compensate for music scoring (something that wasn't used regularly until Season Seven).
- Literal-Minded: Just to give an idea, Steve thinks the act of drawing straws means to actually sketch draws on a piece of paper.
- Malaproper: Steve is the resident troper of this universe.
- Long List: From part of "Steve's Inefficient Christmas" (S3), Steve goes over his Christmas List... of people whom he wishes to receive presents from, scribbled onto an index card... that folds out and expands to nearly his entire body length.
- Medium Awareness: Steve occasionally points out that he is appearing in YouTube videos.
- Medium Blending: Steve once transformed from a puppet to a cartoon.
- Multiple Demographic Appeal: The series is particularly popular with teenagers, and baby boomers.
- Muppet: Well duh, they’re all puppets!
- Nicknaming the Enemy: Steve refers to The Squirrely Squirrels as, “Bushy-tailed rats”.
- Only Sane Man: Bethany perhaps, though Justine seems to be all too aware that Jennifer’s schemes usually backfire.
- Out of Order: This happens to season seven, because it was one of the few seasons where the episodes had scheduled release dates, with some entries being better suited for certain dates, rather than releasing them in chronological order.
- Perky Goth: Subverted with The Squirrely Squirrels, though Word of God has it they’re not exactly goth.
- Retcon: Steve was originally established as having dyslexia, making reading and writing difficult for him. Through no explanation, this disability was dropped; Steve’s reading and writing skills seem to vary, depending on what the situation calls for, in some cases, he can read and write fairly well, but other times he has difficulties that would be typical of a four-year-old.
- Retool: A minor and subtle example - earlier entries in the series were mostly Steve speaking one-on-one with viewers, however, in the last two seasons, entries were becoming more and more plot-driven, and any interaction with viewers were mostly reduced to aside glances.
- Series Fauxnale: While "Memory Lane" (S4) wasn't the last episode chronologically, because it was a Clip Show, it was the last one released.
- Shout-Out:
- In “Anime Domine” (S3), Steve transforms himself from a puppet to an anime character (in reference to Anime Muppets used in recent seasons of Sesame Street); he also remarks,
“Ikuto [Tsukiyomi], eat your heart out!”- Steve’s presidential campaign slogan, “Don’t be a donkey, vote for Steve” is basically stolen from Alvin’s school presidential campaign from a 1983 episode of Alvin and the Chipmunks.
- Steve getting killed by a rabbit and the rabbit whistling “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again” is a wicked nod to the climax of Stalag 17.
- A Monstrocity News Update does a brief report on the fictional Mary Sanford, asking if she has a son (and Mary is also quoted as calling the rumor monger a, “Big Dummy!”).
- "Whatever Happened to Steve D'Monster?" (S3) included a nod to the Seinfeld episode, "The Maid", in which Kramer gets lost downtown, and accepts a ride from a stranger.
- "Accentuation" (S3) contained a nod to a poor knock-knock joke from Lyle Kane, as well as Steve owning a copy of Colin Mochrie's Guide to Different Accents in Different Countries.
- "Down in the Basement" (S4), Steve hears a chilling sound reminiscent of Jason Voorhees' famous, "Ki-ki-ki ma-ma-ma," sound, though it was actually a ghastly pot with a jar of peanut butter on top of it, stating, "Jif-Jif-Jif pot-pot-pot".
- From the same entry, Steve runs upstairs screaming, and when he reaches the top of the stairs, he briefly pauses, looks at the camera, then screams again, before running off, in a nod to Home Alone.
- Sibling Seniority Squabble: Jennifer is five minutes older than Julie, while Julie is two minutes older than Justine.
- Signature Laugh:
- Steve’s inward “huh-huh-huh”.
- Julie’s obnoxious chuckle.
- Species Surname: Jennifer, Julie, and Justine Squirrel.
-
Spiritual Successor: To the works of Jim Henson, Shari Lewis, and Sid & Marty Krofft.
- Take That!: Steve’s 2012 presidential campaign video, in which he brings in Easter Egg as his running mate, is a jab at the 2008 elections, when Republican nominee John McCain brought in a then-unknown Sarah Palin as his running mate.
- Taken for Granite: Subverted from the popular "'Snow' is a Four-Lettered Word" (S1) entry, in which Steve is literally frozen stiff from being out in the cold.
- Theme Initials: Jennifer Squirrel, Julie Squirrel, and Justine Squirrel.
- They Killed Kenny: Again, Steve dies at least once by being killed by a bunny rabbit!
- Trademark Favorite Food:
- Steve’s love for corndogs.
- Averted with The Squirrely Squirrels and nuts of any kind.
- Tuckerization:
- Bethany Crystal is named after Joseph Scarbrough’s high school crush (first name is the same, last name is changed slightly).
- Jennifer, Julie, and Justine were named in honor of a trio of complex secondary characters from an Internet Role-Playing Game/Series that Scarbrough was involved with.
- Valentine's Day Episodes: "February 14" (S1) and "The Choice" (S3).
- What Are Records?: When taking a survey on a computer, Steve is asked if he's ever taken a VCR apart to figure out how it works.Steve: What's a VCR?
- Whole Costume Reference: Easter Egg dresses like Jeanette from Alvin and the Chipmunks and Irma from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987).
