Clockwise from left: Adam King, Rowan Betjeman, Britt Scott Clark, and Alan Morrison - in costume for Epic NPC Man
Viva La Dirt League are a New Zealand based sketch comedy troupe. They were founded in 2011 by Rowan Bettjeman and Alan Morrison, and joined shortly afterwards by Adam King, forming the core three of the group.
They work with many other regular cast members, including Byron Coll, Hamish Parkinson, Adrian Williamson, David Correos, Britt Scott Clark, Ben Van Lier, Ellie Harwood, and Robert Hartley.
They are best known for their sketches about video games and video game culture.
Their sketches are organised into series. Notable enough to have their own pages are:
- Bored - set in an fictional version of a real-life electronics store
- Epic NPC Man - set in a
sort-of fictional MMORPG nominaly named `Skycraft`.- Their second channel features several cast members playing a D&D campaign set in the world of Skycraft.
Other series include:
- PUBG logic
- Other game logic sketches, which are typically much shorter running:
- REKT
- Gamer Santa
- Buffed Up Nerds
- Berry: Voice Artist Extraordinaire
- Bad Therapist
- Mental Health - a series of sketches raising awareness about mental health.
External links to their stuff:
- Their official webpage is here.
- Their Youtube channel is here.
- Their D&D Youtube channel is here.
- Their Wikipedia page is here.
Tropes include:
- Air Quotes: In "Using Air Quotes wrong your entire life - Air Quotes", the guys discover Rowan thinks that air quotes means "genuine emphasis" and he unwittingly insulted his girlfriend by using them.
- All in a Row: Parodied in "Weird JRPG travel style" with the hero getting weirded out by the rest of the characters running in a row behind him. His attempts to get them to walk across freaks them out and they leave to form their own line.
- Bromantic Comedy: "Dancing for your life in PUBG - Dance", which, er... climaxes on this note.
- Comedic Work, Serious Scene:
- The Mental Health series was — by design — far less straight-up funny than their regular output and instead about understanding mental health.
- A number of their videos focus on a
heartwarming or Tear Jerker moment.
- Cutscene Power to the Max: In "Cut-Scene vs Game-Play", Hero slaughters an orc in a badass cutscene, then winds up spinning around in confusion and getting beaten to death when the cutscene switches to gameplay.
- Distracted by the Sexy: In "Witcher Logic", Geralt can't fight a Bruxa very well because she keeps becoming a beautiful woman between attacks,
- Fourth Ranger: Several of the regulars outside of the principle three appear regularly enough that anyone would be easily forgiven for not realising that they're not part of the main cast. Some even write for them on occasion too.
- Mistaken for Pregnant: In "Assuming someone's pregnant - Not Pregnant", a lady comes over to congratulate Ellie on being pregnant and tries to awkwardly cover it up when she realises Ellie isn't pregnant.
- Mr. Fanservice: If anyone's not wearing a shirt, it's usually Rowan. Could apply to the entire cast in Buffed Up Nerds.
- Only Sane Man:
- Alan often plays this role.
- In Witcher logic, Dandelion/Jaskier comments on Geralt's insane RPG-protagonist antics like drinking vast amounts of dangerous potions.
- Vorpal Pillow: Parodied in "Family Will (Movie Murder Logic Exposed)" when a man tries to suffocate his brother with a pillow but only succeeds in annoying him as he still can breath through the material.Were you trying to kill me?
- Wildlife Commentary Spoof: "Clubbing in the Wild" has a David Attenborough-style commentary for the guys trying to pick up a group of women dancing in the woods.
