Web Animation / Alpha Betas

We keep the lights on.^note Clockwise from top, Buck, Mason, Tommy, and Eddie

"The only thing separating us from the complete breakdown of society is four twenty-something gamers?!"

— Darryl, Pilot Episode

Video games are powering the world thanks to a massive, top-secret CIA program. The show follows an elite virtual strike force of four top gamers as they drop into the virtual realms of video games to fix potentially world-ending issues. Known as the Alpha Team, these four wilfully reckless and dangerously arrogant guys are the tip of a five-hundred billion dollar US Government spear sent to be heroes in high-octane pixelated worlds.

Alpha Betas is an adult comedy web series created in a partnership between 3BackDot, Starburns Industries and four YouTubers from VanossGaming & Company: Vanoss himself, BasicallyIDoWrk, Terroriser and I AM WILDCAT - with the latter four voicing the main characters, who are deliberately exaggerated versions of their voice actors. A pilot episode for the show was released on March 13, 2021 on Vanoss's Youtube channel.

See the official trailer here, and see the pilot episode here!

On July 20th, 2021, a Kickstarter page was made to fund the series so the creators could have full creative freedom for the show.

WhatNot Publishing produced a four-issue Alpha Betas comic book series.

On September 12, 2023, It was confirmed that Alpha Betas was cancelled due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strikes and 2023 WGA strikes stopping production for months, however, Brian Hanby, one of the executive producers and voice actors of the show said that it was on a “big pause” and not cancelled.

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Provides examples of:

• All for Nothing: The second episode reveals Allison had replaced Alpha Team with Bravo Team... But the latter, as well as every other team she tried to deploy, failed to get the job done where Alpha Team could have succeeded.
• Art Shift: Allison's Exposition Dump in the pilot is illustrated with a company video with Hanna-Barbera styled characters.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Because most of Alpha Team, barring Eddie, take "don't touch the floor" that seriously, they opt for some tricky methods to open the front door for Stephen: Tommy tries to use a remote controlled car to open the door, but the car gets jammed on the stairs and the moat shortly afterward; Buck tries to use hover shoes, but fails due to knocking himself out in a sneezing mishap; Mason calls a SWAT team on their house. Unlike the others, this proved to be successful, albeit causing Eddie to be trampled while the SWAT leader states that it's a felony to report a fake grundle assault.
• Batman Gambit: The pilot features a failed attempt at this. One of the members of the Bravo Team was posing as an in-game prostitute being held captive as part of a plot to get the Alpha Team fired by preying on Eddie's Chronic Hero Syndrome. They just didn't take into account that he's the best "Don't touch the floor" player of all time.
• Black Comedy: A LOT of it, no thanks to the Alpha Team outright being Heroic Comedic Sociopaths.
• Black Dude Dies First: Mason is the first of the Alpha Team to be taken out in the pilot episode. Oddly, despite Leaning on the Fourth Wall and making race-based comments throughout the episode (such as lampshading how Code Black is the code for absolute disaster), he doesn't have a remark for this (besides being annoyed at Tommy for causing his death).
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Alpha Team has all the arrogance and immaturity associated with gamers and then some, but they are genuinely good at their job and always get results. This apparently has ended up to the point where Allison hates them for this reason and is trying to sabotage them so she can have a legitimate reason to fire and replace them.
• Death Is Cheap: If you die in the game, you don't die in real life. That said, the program that lets Alpha Team enter games has a 30-minute reboot system, meaning that if they die they can't immediately re-enter the game. As a result, dying can potentially lock out someone for the remainder of one of the shorter missions (as seen with Mason and Tommy in the pilot). The second episode ends on a stated aversion as a Cliffhanger: if they're careless with dying in this one particular game, they'll die IRL.
• Everyone Has Standards: Alpha Team may be comprised of anti-heroes and borderline sociopaths, but for their many flaws they all seem to draw the line at discrimination and bigots in general, given they're quick to cite racism and sexism as problematic while discussing the late 1800's.
• Foreshadowing:
  • As the group leaps off the train, not only is Mason off screen when the other three Alpha Team members roll down the hill, but you can also hear an odd squelching noise and him groaning too.
  • All those snarks Allison has made towards Alpha Team have not been for nothing, as her true opinions of them are revealed at the end of the pilot episode.
  • The mission briefing says that all NPC characters have vanished from the game, but multiple enemies and the prostitute character show up. It's a hint that they're not actually NPCs.
• 420, Blaze It: Sneakily snuck into the page quote when Darryl was describing his shock with the Alpha Team.
• Groin Attack: Mason delivers one to Tommy in the real world after the latter's transportation plan got him killed.
• Inside a Computer System: The main aspect of the show, with Alpha Team going into video games in order to maintain the world's power. Due to the nature of the rigs that let them get into the game, this allows them to interact with the game in ways normal players can't (specifically listing the ability to drive non-drivable car props or kill things that can't normally be killed by the playerbase), thus helping them a lot in their adventures.
• Kill It with Fire: How Eddie kills the Nazi Commander in the opening of the Pilot.
  Eddie: What's up ya Nazi biiiiyatch?! *cue flamethrower*
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: The second episode wastes no time hiding any of the twists from the Pilot Episode, in particular Stephen being a robot, and Allison attempting to replace Alpha Team with Bravo Team.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Mason is quick to start leaning upon being introduced:
  Mason: It feels really natural to introduce us in detail for the benefit of a new audience.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: When Alpha Team is getting strapped in to enter "Red Head Intervention", Ruby asks Tommy, Mason and Buck if they're ready to go... excluding Eddie completely, whose attempt at a conversation is chopped down immediately.
• Nice Guy: Stephen, especially when compared to Allison.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: As a result of Tommy trying to avoid having to ride a horse, the group ends up going on a train ride that not only had a group they had to fight, but also leads to Mason dying in-game just as they got to the destination.
• No Equal-Opportunity Time Travel: When the group boards a train in Red Head Intervention (set in the late 1800's), one of the passengers calls out Mason for not sitting in a segregated car. Mason circumvents this by casually shooting said passenger.^note Who, it should be noted, shares the same VA as Mason himself.
• Rage Breaking Point: The moment an Unintentionally Unwinnable glitch occurs during a Stealth Escort Mission that Buck is quickly getting irritated by (The drug dealer ended up walking straight into a wall and kept walking into it), he quickly snaps and murders the drug dealer he was supposed to be shadowing.
  Buck: How can we simulate an entire city, BUT ONE GUY WALKING IN A STRAIGHT PREDETERMINED LINE IS IMPOSSIBLE?!
• Real Event, Fictional Cause: Apparently a malfunction in the video game power grid ended up being the cause of the New York City Blackout of 1977, a blackout in India in 2012, and the Chernobyl Disaster of 1986.
• The Reveal: At the end of the pilot episode, it's revealed that Allison has been running a second team, Bravo Team, in an attempt to sabotage Alpha Team in order to have an excuse to fire and replace them.
• Robotic Reveal: Stephen, at the end of the pilot, much to the surprise of Bravo Team.
• Serious Business: Alpha Team (minus Eddie) consider the game Don't touch the floor to be this to the point of foregoing practicality in favor of Awesome, but Impractical to open the front door.
• Shout-Out: Inevitable considering this series REVOLVES around going into video games.
  • A parody of Red Dead Redemption 2 can be seen in the series poster, with Tommy performing a Kamehame Hadouken straight out of Street Fighter.
    • In the Pilot Episode, Alpha Team goes straight into the Red Dead Redemption 2 parody, which is titled Red Head Intervention.
  • In the Pilot Episode during Allison's Exposition Dump for how the world's powered by video games, a parody of the classic Donkey Kong can be seen glitching out.
  • A parody of PornHub titled CornHub could be seen on Tommy's phone in a Freeze-Frame Bonus.
  • In Terroriser's preview for the series, Buck is seen doing a Stealth Escort Mission straight out of a parody of Grand Theft Auto V, right down to the HUD being near identical.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • After failing to ride a horse every time he tries in the pilot, Tommy is forced into a position where he has to ride one to stop Two-Buck Chuck. Swallowing his pride, Tommy makes a leap for the nearest horse... and promptly crashes into the ground, completely missing the horse. Even ignoring the fact that Animals Hate Him, he's nowhere near a good enough angle to land on the horse's back—and even if he were, Tommy just doesn't have the physical strength to successfully pull off that kind of feat. Moreover, what happens next is also fairly accurate to what would happen if you landed on the ground next to an untamed horse—you'd probably get trampled.
  • Simply being annoying isn't good enough of a reason to fire someone—especially if they get good results, and even moreso if they're not easily replaced. The Alpha Team is obnoxious and borderline sociopathic, but they're genuinely good at their job, so Energy Division is willing to put up with their shenanigans as long as the good work continues. As a result, Allison has to resort to more underhanded methods to try and get them fired.
• Time Skip: The second episode takes place a year and a half after the first one, as in the time skip, the COVID-19 Pandemic took place, Allison had retired Alpha Team in favor of Bravo Team, and Alpha Team had disbanded with Eddie leaving to go on a "vision quest", or rather work at a Best Buy.
• Ye Goode Olde Days: Subverted. Tommy expresses his fondness for the time period of Red Head Intervention (the late 1800's)—only for the others to immediately point out everything problematic about said time period (from the rampant racism/sexism to overall uncleanliness). Tommy then backpedals and says he was mainly referring to the train the team is currently on.

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