Web Video / Underdogs

Underdogs is an Australia-based YouTube group channel consisting of four members: Little Z (Zack), HopCat (Peter), Poppt1 (Jordan), and Director Cogger (Jackson).

The channel (initially called Little Z 2) was created in 2020. The group mainly makes Super Smash Bros. Ultimate videos, but are also known for playing other multi-player Nintendo games like Mario Kart and Mario Party, as well as other party games. The group also does real life videos, and in November 2020, they also started a podcast called "Underdogs Podcast".

In 2022, the channel was split into three separate ones, each containing specific video types. The main channel (renamed "Underdogs Gaming") contained gaming videos, "Underdogs" features IRL content, and "The Underdogs Podcast" for podcasts.

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Underdogs contains examples of:

• The Ace: Each member has one game that they're really good at. Jordan has Smash, Peter has Mario Kart, and Zack has Mario Party. Jackson, while having certain games that he can do good at, is usually joked to be an inversion, with the jokes being that he doesn't have a game that he's the best at, unlike the others.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: The entire point of the "Dunking Champion". While it started as just "The Dunking Diddy", this video has them starting the Running Gag of any character whose name starts with a "D" (e.g. Dark Pit, Dedede) being able to take the "Dunking" title if they kill the current champion with a dunk (i.e. killing them offstage with a spike).
• Artificial Stupidity: In "We Tried AMIIBO DOUBLES... It was bad...", the Underdogs try to train their own Amiibo for doubles, before deciding to let them train themselves while they record another video, before pitting the Amiibos against each other. This results in some rather less-than impressive Amiibos, with all of them in particular constantly spamming neutral air, much to the group's amusement and annoyance.
• Audience Participation: The green screen movies, where they ask their viewers to use their green screen clips to make videos. They then reacted to them on two separate live streams.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: Jokingly pointed out in "THEY PUT SQUID GAME IN MARIO PARTY???", where Peter starts using strategies he gets mad at Zack for.
  Peter: I've become the thing I swore to destroy. I'm using a Wario dice and looking at the board.
  Zack: You get so mad at me when I do that.
• Birthday Episode: The Underdogs sometimes release videos centered on one of their birthdays, or once on one of their editors, Shluk's, birthday, although a few of them don't actually release on their birthdays. These videos usually entail that person deciding the rules of what to play during that video.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Each of the Underdogs have been the Butt-Monkey at one point or another, but special mention goes to Jordan, who is consistently the target of some bullying, usually due to being a tryhard while playing Smash.
  • Jackson also gets the brunt of some jokes while playing various games, such as Wii Sports, as he seems to be the least skilled while playing many games.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "I'm going high!" for Jordan, used whenever he recovers high in Smash. The others have also started using it for whenever they recover high. There's also the less used "Sniper's in the building".
    • It's gotten to the point that when Peter made a Take That! Amiibo at Jordan, called Poppt2, he specifically trained it to always go high, and even gave it a jetpack at the start to allow it to go even higher.
  • Discussed in "I Challenged a Top Player to a Smash Bingo Race", where one of the spaces is "Other Player Says Catchphrase" and Jordan said a version of "Sniper's in the building".
    Jordan: What's your catchphrase!? Of course I'm gonna--
    Peter: My catchphrase is, uh... uh... "Fuck you, Poppt1". I might be worse at Smash than you, but I am better at rigging the game.
  • When playing Mario Kart Wii Jackson plays using the "Super Blooper" kart causing "SUPER BLOOPER" to be a catchphrase of his
    • Zack unsuccessfully tried to make "THE BONE RATTLER" a catchphrase when playing Mario Kart 8.
• Cherry Tapping: One memorable example of this occurs in this clip, where Jordan manages to kill a Spirit-powered Luigi (representing an SNK Boss) with Snake's box taunt.
  Jordan: Two stocks, 11% given! That is efficient!
• Color-Coded Characters: Invoked for "COLOR SMASH (COLOUR?)", where each player has to pick a character costume that matches with their given color (red for Peter, blue for Jordan, and yellow for Zack).
• Couch Gag: Mario Kart Wii and 8 videos generally start with them talking about a random topic for a few seconds before one of them shouts "Mario Kart Wii/8!" Lampshaded in "SUUUUPER BLOOOOOOOOPER (almost)":
  Zack: (sings along to the title theme for Mario Kart 8)
  Peter: That's not how these videos start, Zack, you have to be depressed.
• Crossover:
  • They fought against the Party Crashers in a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate 4v4 crew battle.
  • Their podcast sometimes has guests join for an episode. Some examples include Snuffless, TCNick3, Kiana Mai, 74Rays and most recently Jackson's Grandma Jill Clee.
• The Diss Track: The group has released one where they jokingly roasting other Smash Bros. YouTubers.
• Double Entendre: During the Pokémon Sharpedo Tank video, Jordan's first Pokémon is called "Quickie", a quicksand-based Pokémon. His presentation includes the line "Always be on the lookout for a Quickie as they can be anywhere", and who's abilities include "Suck" and "Quick Release".
• Epic Fail: In this clip, Jordan goes through one of this, which the others tease him for.
• Exact Words: During the start of the Among Us video, Choctopus tells everyone to mute at the start of the game. Jordan does just that. He mutes everyone else but not himself. The result is that everyone else can hear him talking, since they muted themselves, while he can't hear them, even when the others are telling him to mute himself.
• Expendable Clone: In the second Shark Tank video, Peter's invention, "The Better You", runs on this idea. It includes the ideas of killing the clone to harvest his organs, as well as treating it as a slave and not feeding it until does the job, and even engineering them so they don't have thumbs to prevent them from using weapons. (Don't ask how their supposed to do their jobs without thumbs)
• Forced Meme: In order to fill out the characters for the meme character tournaments, the Underdogs made up some meme characters to fill out the slots for some of the meme character tournaments (some suggested by the audience). Some of these include Shotputit1, Cogcraft, and Jordan "The" Ridley.
• Fountain of Memes: In-universe, there's King Dedede, who has spawned quite a bit of in-jokes on the channel.^note Dunking Dedede, Dragdown Dedede, King Treedede, etc. It's to the point that even the Underdogs have acknowledged this.
  Peter: You can't be the Dragdown Dedede and the Dunking Dedede, that's fucked. Dedede can only have so many in-jokes. We can only play so much Dedede on the channel.
  Zack: Yeah, we have a lot of Dedede in-jokes.
• Gratuitous French: In this video, as "Mario", Cogger makes his first appearances onscreen saying "bonjour" and "oui", French words, despite Mario being Italian.
• Guest-Star Party Member:
  • 74Rays (Sophie) sometimes takes Cogger's place in some gaming videos.
  • Snuffless (Nick) has also appeared in some videos from time to time.
  • While Peter is away on vacation, the group have also streamed episodes of "The Chair" live with guests such as EDM and Craw in Peter's place.
• Lame Last Words: From "OUR MAINS ARE BANNED":
  Zack: (misses combo) Aw, that would've been sick.
  Jordan: That would've been DICK! Aw, shit. (SDs) That's my final line before I die?
• Lethal Chef: As show in the various cooking videos, Poppt isn't exactly the best when it comes to cooking, asking some very basic questions to his partner.
  • Zack also has a tendency to add something unnecessary that ends up ruining his team's dish.
• Loads and Loads of Loading: During Jackson's presentation for the AI Evil Scanner, two pages of his presentation consist of "Loading", much to the others' amusement.
• Never My Fault: Happens frequently. During Doubles, expect one of the losers to blame their teammate for losing the game, even if it's their own fault.
• Not Helping Your Case: In "THE RISE OF THE BONE RATTLER", when Zack claims that Jordan lacks common sense, he gets challenged to battle each other in trivia. And when Zack says that it has to be about general knowledge, Jordan asks "What's general knowledge?". Peter quotes this trope, claiming he was on Jordan's side until he said that.
• Pungeon Master: Zack loves his puns, which can be seen in his presentation for the Pokémon Sharpedo Tank video, naming his 3 Pokémon "Soullusc", "Ghastropod", and "Escarghoul".
• Running Gag: So, so many. They've made one video where they rank their own Running Gags, and later created multiple meme tournaments.
• SNK Boss: The group have made various videos surrounding this idea in Ultimate, from using Spirits, or having three of them being on higher percents, in order to emulate a fight against one of these.
• That Came Out Wrong: Happens pretty frequently, especially during Mario Kart 8 videos, and especially from Jordan.
  • "the biggest rivalry in Mario Kart history...", for instance features quite a few of these:
    Jordan: (wanting an item for protection) Please give me something in my ass!
    Everyone else: What!?
    
    Jordan: I don't have anything to protect me.
    Peter: Jordan, shut the fuck up, for your own sake. I say this as a friend.
    Jordan: (misses Item Box) I missed the box!
    Peter: (laughs) Shut up, Jordan!
    
    Jordan: (while drifting very near the edge of the course) Oh, I'm on the edge! Oh, it's fine.
    Zack: Jordan, stop it!
    
    Peter: (runs into a Red Shell Jordan was holding behind him) Oh, Jordan, watch where you're puttin' that dumpy.
    Jordan: It was literally-- You came into my ass.
    Peter: (laughs) Jordan, shut up! Shut the fuck up!
    Jordan: I was holding it there! I was holding it there, and you came in!
    (a bit later)
    Sophie: (laughing) Jordan...
    Jordan: You should've seen him.
    Sophie: I don't want to see that.
    Jordan: I was going straight.
    Peter: Not very, by the sounds of it.
  • "The WORST Doubles Teammate" also has one:
    Zack: Oh my God, I thought I was fucking Jackson.
    Jackson: You were doing what?
• They Killed Kenny Again: In all the green screen videos that the Underdogs have seen, Peter has died in many of them.
  Peter: I know me dead on the floor makes a lot of appearances too.
  Zack: That's why you keep dying, 'cause you did such a good death animation.
• Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: Happens quite often, usually referred to as a "HopCat Victory". Nicely exemplified in this match, where Peter wins the match just because everyone else killed each other at the same time.

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