Trivia / Dr. Crafty

• Accidentally-Correct Writing: During "Salt and Pepper," a mistake in the episode's script causes Pepper to name the planet Jupiter as the main inspiration behind the episode's character design... which was actually intended to evoke Saturn. The show pokes fun at itself through some post-production edits, which correct the mistake each time it appears via on-screen text. Outside the original context, however, the statement of Jupiter having rings is correct; they're just not nearly as prominent as Saturn's.
• Acting for Two:
  • Throughout Seasons 1 to 3, Crafty and Disgustilda shared the same voice actor, Alex Tansley himself. However, when Season 4 came around, Alex opted to step down from voicing Disgustilda, feeling that her replacement, xthedarkone, does a much better job capturing the character's energy.
  • Nurse Worse and the Fiona Frightening character Princess Mumma share a segment together in "Fanboy and the Furious." Both are voiced by Megami33.
  • In "Hocus Mansion," one person voices each of The Sanderson Sisters and the Hitchhiking Ghosts, respectively. The person who played the Sanderson Sisters is notably Katy Johnson, who would later become one of the show's head writers and Pepper's voice actress.
• Approval of God:
  • Davide Soliani, creative director of Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, said on Twitter that he liked Crafty's fan-art of the game.
  • Back when the show was still in production, Dr. Crafty's TVTropes page was actively endorsed by the show's production team, with it being linked in each episode description and on the main Dr. Crafty website.
• Author's Saving Throw: Alex tends to be fairly receptive and responsive to criticism of this show, as he wants to provide the best viewing experience that he can muster. He confirmed in a watch-along stream of Dr. Crafty that Crafty and Nurse's relationship was changed to be far more positive than it was in Season 2 thanks to fan feedback. On Twitter, he also cited the show's YMMV page here as a useful aggregate of fan criticism.
• Creator Backlash: During a celebratory rewatch of Dr. Crafty just before his VTuber debut the next day, Alex admits that he regrets the fat jokes Crafty made at Nurse's expense throughout Season 2, deeming them unfunny and flat-out mean. His embarrassment is as plain as day when he happens across one such joke in "Aqua Marina." It's also a symptom of a larger issue he has with the same season: Crafty and Nurse's constant bickering, which wore out its welcome with the writers fast and led to them turning the relationship around in Season 3.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: The voice of Crafty also plays Disgustilda until Season 4, when xthedarkone took his place.
• Dear Negative Reader: While he'd announced Dr Crafty's cancellation in late 2022, Alex Tansley did so exclusively on his soon-to-be-deleted first Discord server—nowhere else. During the subsequent months, he did not adequately communicate the show's fate in a way that reached his audiences on each of his platforms. This led to a lot of people—especially his YouTube subscribers—asking why all content related to the show randomly stopped in favor of his VTubing career. Eventually, he was provoked into making a new announcement, the most accessible mention of the show's fate of any kind, and the first time in years he opted to use YouTube's community posts feature. He is bitter, accusatory, and condescending towards those still curious, and he ends things off with an ultimatum: if people continue asking, they'll be blocked from seeing any of his content.
• He Also Did: Alex is already well known for drawing the titlecards for Atop the Fourth Wall, as well as the voice of Pollo, Linkara's robot sidekick.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: There used to be a subseries for the show called Dr. Crafty Quickies. They were traditional speed-art videos, with no commentary, no new host, and fewer jokes, if any. It was intended to serve as filler during production on the main series and the other spin-offs. The first set of such episodes was released during the gap between Seasons 3 and 4, but they were later deleted since they didn't hold many people's attention. They were also rather tedious to create and didn't give him the same satisfaction as his other works, especially since they cluttered the YouTube channel. Because fewer people watched the Quickies than the main show and its spin-offs, it is unlikely that they'll be seen again unless someone has downloaded the videos for themselves prior to their deletion. There's one more thing keeping Quickies from returning: CrafD&D, a show which he and his viewers ultimately found more engaging, ultimately fulfilled the same purpose.
• The Merch: Dr. Crafty merchandise is available on TeePublic. Much of it contains additional artwork of the show's main cast used for buttons, mugs, posters, and other memorabilia. Additionally, Alex puts up some of his fan art for the same purpose.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content: A good chunk of this show's content is influenced by fan input:
  • The contents of each Chara-Cafe and Shake-Up Salon episode are voted upon by the show's Patreon patrons.
  • The Top Ten Tub has two recurring episode types in which fan-submitted content is used:
    • First introduced in Season 2 are the Original Character countdowns, which focus on Crafty and Messi giving their thoughts on a list of ten different original characters.
    • First introduced in Season 3 are the Dr. Crafty Fan Character countdowns. The top ten fan characters on each episode are inducted into the show's canon as occasional background gag characters.
  • If the production team feels a fan's commission can have an episode built around them, then they're liable to become part of the show's seasonal Commission Months. The Top Ten Tub's Original Character countdowns take place during these months.
  • The show has bonus episodes that serve as rewards to whoever subscribes to the highest tier on the show's Patreon page. These lucky fans have much more creative input on these episodes than the ones found in the main show.
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • "Worst Sonic Characters" received quite a response from the YouTube Commentary Community, with commentaries on the episode done by Keyblade Master, NaiTaiDai, Ceradust, and Azelf101, among others as Alex and his team produced the last few episodes of Season 4. Soon after familiarizing himself with the community, Alex made way for some commentators to have cameo appearances in Season 4's remaining Questionable Qloset segments, with their appearances culminating in the final gag in "Revolving Door." There, the Crafty-original cast speed-date several commentators, with some of the ones who did commentaries on "Worst Sonic Characters" being among them.
  • Partway through Season 4's production, Metal Crafty's voice actor was fired over their behind-the-scenes toxicity. In addition to removing all credit of their contributions before certain episodes went public, the show's staff developed a new ending scene for "Crafty Horror Picture Show"—the final main show episode of the season—to justify their absence and foreshadow their replacement. It reveals that Metal Crafty lost his voice after weeks of screaming through his punishment since "Let's. Get. Metal..." And the succeeding episode, "Revolving Door," has a brief gag where Kayden Monroe obliquely comments on the matter in character, admitting that Metal deserves a better voice.
• Series Hiatus: After much deliberation, Alex ultimately announced his decision to put the series on hold in August 2022. The funds needed to cover production costs just aren't available to him, and most of his production team members are busy with other projects. Thus, he's begun doubling down on VTubing in addition to the commission work he already does, hoping to attract enough attention and financial support on both Twitch and Patreon to warrant continuing his first show. This hiatus would be updated to a full-on cancelation a few months later.
• Schedule Slip: Personal matters have forced Alex to skip a week at one point or another. Thankfully he has the foresight to warn his fans via Twitter. For example, the HalloWinter Special Month was going to be Season 1's Halloween Month, but Hurricane Irma damaged Alex's home and forced the episodes to be delayed until December.
• Troubled Production: On his Twitter page, Alex discussed some of the hassles that came from developing Season 3's Hero Month--more specifically, the "I Need a Hero Academia" finale special. It proved to be an extremely ambitious project for Dr. Crafty's development team. However, it was also unanimously agreed that the finale was a little too indulgent. The sheer scope of "I Need a Hero Academia" made way for several unexpected issues, with some unlucky personal matters only adding to the stress. While it was a joy for the team to see "I Need a Hero Academia" come together, it also left the team feeling severely burned out. Not wanting this cycle to repeat, Tansley decided to significantly improve how he and his team manage their production. Unfortunately, this wasn't enough; when the time came to devise a finale for Season 4, Tansley realized they risked repeating those same mistakes. He cut the finale entirely, and soon after, he begun realizing that it was no longer financially feasible to continue the show, leading to it being canceled wholesale.
• Word of God: Alex, on Twitter, claimed that anything Pepper’s creator Blue-Paint-Sea does with the character is canon to the show. Thus, tropes pertaining to Blue-Paint-Sea's art as it pertains to Dr. Crafty are covered throughout these Dr. Crafty pages.
• What Could Have Been: There are so many documented scrapped concepts for this series that they warranted having their own page here.

---