Web Video / Alpharad Gold

aka: Alpharad Deluxe

I didn't order a creeper!^note From left to right: Zombie, Jacob, Jo, and Dash in their real appearances.

You will never predict the next upload for this channel.

Alpharad Gold is a Let's Play channel created by John Jacob Rabon IV (aka Alpharad). First titled Alpharad Plus, the channel was originally created as a place to store bonus content for his main channel. In May of 2019, Jacob and his good friend Jo started using the channel for Let's Plays, with the idea that they would be edited down into main channel videos. However, the channel eventually spiraled into its own... unique beast.

The channel prides itself on being an irony-poisoned deviation from typical Let's Play channels, parodying and shredding most typical Let's Play conventions. Most of the content is unedited conversations between Jacob and Jo, with the gameplay mostly serving as flashing colors to turn attention to when conversation lulls. Despite (and because) of these quirks, Alpharad Gold has a dedicated and equally insane fanbase willing to play along with the bits of the hosts.

In September 2020, wishing to turn a new leaf from the excesses of the fanbase fostered, they rebranded as the channel Alpharad Deluxe, still sporting however much the same brand of offbeat content as before. On the first day of 2023, they launched a second rebrand, as Alpharad Gold, this time with a new premise added to the channel: uninterrupted daily uploads, with the restriction that every new upload must be a different game than all the last (for a particular definition of different game).

This channel provides examples of:

• Achilles' Heel: Jacob has a few Smash characters that he struggles with.
  • Mega Man is frequently stated by Jacob to be a character he doesn't understand at all.
  • Kazuya is a big one. It takes multiple episodes (some of which are hours long) to get him into Elite Smash thanks to his complicated control scheme and bad luck.
• Advertised Extra: Zombie. He's in the channel banner and has had an episode dedicated to his "joining" the group, but he's barely appeared since then because he's not an actual member.
• Anti-Humor: Oh yeah. Most of the channel's jokes barely qualify as such and are soaked in irony. It's part of the charm.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Colin, referred to as "Lil Bro" by Jacob and Jo.
• Book Dumb: Jo is a unique case in that he actively refuses to think. He isn't stupid, and he can be perfectly intelligent when he wants to be, it's just that he often doesn't want to be.
• Book Ends: The 365-day run of Alpharad Gold began with the start of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon on January 1st, and it ended with the end of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon on January 1st.
• Born Lucky: Jacob, depending on if it's funny. Especially notable in the Mario Party games, where he frequently scores high dice rolls and has the most wins by a landslide.
• Break Them by Talking: Variation: Jacob trying to point out the Stealth Pun with Kat and Ana's names to Jo and Altrive winds up backfiring when the two sandbag it by refusing to get it, causing Jacob to become defeated.
  Jacob: (sad) I thought it was cool.
• Butt-Monkey: Alternates depending on the series:
  • Jacob is hit with this hard during the Road to Elite Smash series, both suffering the horrid rulesets of his opponents and the completely unrelated conversations of Dash and Jo.
  • Dash is this in the Mario Party Superstars series. He cannot catch a break for the life of him, never scoring a win no matter how good things look for him. Even when he's pitted against three CPUs he still loses. The losing streak finally breaks in Episode 16, albeit when the crew have a common enemy and a five star handicap.
  • Braden (Captain Kidd) spent most of his episode being ruthlessly bullied by the main hosts, being trapped in a corner of Space Land and having everything he owns stolen for most of the episode. It's not even the first time it's happened to him.
  • Colin seems to have taken the role in the Gold era, often being jokingly berated and ordered around by Jacob and Jo.
• Catchphrase: A few:
  • Every Mario Party Superstars episode begins with an enthusiastic "YOOOOOOOOOO" from the cast.
  • "Our cause is just" in Smash. Notable in that fans of the show will also use it to signal to the boys that they played in a match with one.
• Character Tiers:invoked Jacob and Jo have made multiple tier list videos to rank various subjects, such as fast food restaurants, characters they could beat in a fight, and "cartoon baddies".
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Ellie. The dynamic of episodes shift when she's around, given that Jacob and Jo sometimes have to make sense of her frequent non-sequiturs.
• Cringe Comedy: The videos of January 2022, while also a Genre Throwback to Let's Plays from ten years ago, also contains and parodies the cringe of amateur Let's Players, ranging from having the timer go off in the video to having arguments with players and then proceeding to say "we'll edit it out".
• Deadpan Snarker: The whole crew delight in snarking at either whatever they're playing and especially with one another.
• Deconstruction: Of Let's Plays. The channel mostly eschews from orderly Let's Play formats like consistent schedules, finishing series, a unique intro, or high quality editing. This is more evident in the January 2022 videos where watching is like looking into a funhouse mirror of Let's Plays from ten years ago.
• The Gadfly: Most of the crew, but especially Dash. Most of what he says is some attempt to get a rise out of the other commentators.
• Game-Breaking Bug: They have a talent for finding these. Of special mention is their episodes on Paper Mario: the Thousand Year Door, where they manage to break the game repeatedly.
• Genre Throwback: The videos of January 2022 deliberately ape an older variety of Let's Play reminiscent of Markiplier or Jacksepticeye.
• LOL, 69: Frequently pointed out. A notable moment is when playing Mario Party, a Koopa Kid CPU immediately bet 69 coins in a duel, causing raucous laughter from the hosts.
• Loophole Abuse: In 2023, the channel rebranded into Alpharad Gold, with the goal being they have to play a different game a day for an entire year^note they have until Midnight PST to upload a video. So, naturally, they have managed to find some workarounds at points:
  • The very first video uploaded for the challenge was another reupload of their first Pokemon Mystery Dungeon video.
    • Similarly, if a video was recorded prior to 2023, but not posted, it counts. Case in point, "The Mario game you forgot about", the third episode of their Mario Party Advance series, "Alpharad Plus in 2023", the fifth video of their SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated series from 2021, and "This isn't Smash Bros", an Icons Battle Arena video they recorded when Altrive was still on the channel^note early 2022, given how Jacob references the Fam Squad at the start.
  • "Actually finishing a game on this channel" covers the Final Boss of Xenoblade Chronicles 3, while Jacob and Jo pretend they did an entire series about it beforehand.
  • Puyo Puyo Tetris was immediately followed by Puyo Puyo Tetris 2, despite them being effectively the same game.
    • Similarly, "We need your help..." has them play Pokemon Violet despite having done a series on Pokemon Scarlet.
  • In the latter portion of March, they managed to find a way to justifiably play Super Mario Bros. 3 six times: Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3, the original NES game, the Super Mario All-Stars version, Super Mario Bros 3.: Mario, the quick-change artist!^note Effectively a specialized save-state on Nintendo Switch Online; the player is put directly into World 8 with one of every power-up in the game in their inventory, the Wii port of Super Mario All-Stars^note played on Dolphin instead of NSO, meaning there's no rewind feature, and a copy of the NES version, sideloaded into Animal Crossing (2001).
    • Similarly, in "Apparently, you can beat Animal Crossing", after Jacob complains about how laggy the NES version is when played through an emulated Animal Crossing's own NES emulator, he and Jo agree that if they make it to World 8, they have beaten Animal Crossing.
  • Then there's also shortcuts in speedrunning games, such as Chess, in which it's a forty-two second video where they pull the Fool's Mate maneuver.
• The Mad Hatter: Jacob wants to go insane and is fully aware of the channel's brand of madness.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: A frequent occurrence on the channel.
  • During their Celeste playthrough, they pretend the game is an NES-era platformer and make frequent digs at how "old" the game is.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: One of the few times where all the members of a video are unified in a goal and taking the game seriously is when they had to band together to take down a fan in Mario Party who had a 5 star handicap, and so for that episode, there was no brain-dead mashing through dialogue options, deliberately rolling onto Bowser spaces or taking pointless gambles. There weren't even any Seinfeldian Conversations to take away from the main point of the video, which is especially notable compared to the other 1v3 Mario Party videos.
• Put on a Bus:
  • Happens to Jo for a bit when he had to finish school. He came back.
  • Tyler and Ellie don't appear on the channel after Jacob and Jo moved to California.
  • Dash temporarily left the channel and was replaced by Jawsh, but returned when Jawsh left... and then left again a couple months later with the same announcement to boot.
• Rule of Funny: Jacob claims that his luck runs on this. If it'd be funny for him to win and succeed, that's what happens. If it'd be more funny for him to lose, he's going to fail.
• Running Gag: There are many, levels of irony varying.
  • Wrong way Jo / Hi Jo, usually left by comments in Mario Maker levels or by fans in other games.
  • Reuploading the first video of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon DX, pretending it's either a new episode in the series^note the fourth episode excluded, or a different video entirely (see the first video as Alpharad Gold).
  • "Welcome to the Bald Podcast", brought on by Dash, usually after the trio have just discussed something (like they were on a podcast, except they're bald).
  • "That's a hit/miss.". Stemming from the Mario Party Superstars stickers, and used to dictate whether something great or bad happened respectively.
  • "You could get a skeleton key.". Also from Mario Party Superstars, the skeleton key is consistently treated as one of the most valuable items in the game.
  • The (mis)use of the semi colon; all thanks to minecraft; the way home.
• Running Gagged: One of the main parts of the Alpharad Plus era were the stock intros with absurd text, which added to the irony-poisoned reputation of the channel. During the Deluxe era part way in 2021^note Starting from the Pyra/Mythra Smash reaction direct, in March 2021, the intros would finally be retired, only returning once as a Call-Back for the Minecraft; the way home video with Dash.
• Seinfeldian Conversation: A majority of the content on the channel consists of Jacob and Jo shooting the shit while one of them plays a video game.
• Self-Referential Humor: There's quite a bit, given that Jacob and Jo are very aware of the memes that the channel spawned.
• Series Mascot: The channel’s mascot and profile picture is Jaelynnn, the avatar they created for their Youtubers Life playthrough. A secondary mascot is Zombie from Minecraft.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: During some Mario Maker multiplayer levels, Dash is hilariously and unnecessarily mean to Jo, acting basically like a typical playground bully to him, all while Jacob is losing his mind actually trying to beat the damn level.
• Sixth Ranger: Zombie. He barely ever shows up (for obvious reasons) but he's still recognized as a member of the channel by Jacob and Jo.
• Two Aliases, One Character: Tyler is an editor on the channel, brought up occasionally in conversation by Jo or Jacob. Miloni is an occaisional guest on the channel. They're the same person. A simple google search reveals that Miloni is Tyler's smash handle.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable: Like many auto-levels in Mario Maker, the existence of other players turns an auto-level that the gang stumble upon into this trope. Even when they take this into account and after formulating a plan, the short time-limit made it near impossible to reach the end no matter what, resulting in Jacob (and Jo and Dash occasionally chipping in) throwing himself at the level for more than 2 hours^note Including the second half of 'Another "Refreshing" Level' and 'The Hardest "Auto Mario" Level Ever., before finally caving in and doing it single-player as intended.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Master DK is incredibly good at minigames (within the limits of not being perfect), but his map play leaves a lot to be desired, and he can't be as strategic as a human person due to the limits of AI.
• Wild Card: Master Daisy immediately becomes a favorite of the crew for being completely unpredictable in Mario Party.

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