Original SuperShortsMJ

## SuperShortsMJ

**SuperShortsMJ** was a YouTube channel created and managed by Mikey and Jake, two childhood friends. It was created in late 2015 and mainly focused on skit videos portrayed by Super Mario plushies, with the addition of some varied genres of content over its lifespan. Eventually, in the midst of 2019, the channel was terminated due to an inconvenience with a new YouTube policy.

## Premise

SuperShortsMJ mainly revolved around skit-styled videos portrayed by Super Mario plushies. However, during the lifespan of the channel they expanded toward other genres. Some gaming and commentary videos were scattered into the mix over time.

## History

### The Origin (2014 - 2015)

In between years 2014 and 2015, Mikey and Jake's began to grow closer as friends. They spent more time hanging out with each other and began to share their interests with one another. They both found an interest in YouTube at a younger age and because of this they started to share some of their favorite YouTube channels with one another. With all the sharing they did with one another, they began to develop a stronger interest in creating a YouTube channel for themselves. However, with little inspiration and a low budget, their desires were seemingly hard to achieve.

After some time, Mikey found a YouTube channel named SuperMarioLogan. He immediately fell in love with their adult humor portrayed through many quality plush skit productions. With this in mind, he showed Jake the channel he found and they developed a mutual love for the channel and the premise around it. However, this love quickly turned into desire. They both wanted to try recording plush skit videos on their own, and soon enough they began doing it just for fun. So surely enough they decided they were going to begin filming their own plush skits using VideoFX Live, a free app available on the apple store.

They began recording videos for fun with the use of two Super Mario plush characters they owned, Mario and Luigi. These two became the first two characters to be portrayed by the two. Jake took on the role of Mario, the average suburban man. Mikey took on the role of Luigi, his mentally handicapped brother. The first video they created was titled "Windex!" and it was formatted in the style of an advertisement. This video revolved around Luigi advertising Windex toward Mario in a humorous manner. A few days later they recorded their second video, "The CD", which had some of the same core concepts as their previous video. Although their recording style was sloppy, they fell in love with recording these videos and wanted to keep going.

After a couple days they decided they wanted to fully pursue a YouTube channel. Being completely new to the platform, they didn't know many of the basic elements that went into a YouTube channel. After a while, they finally found out how to create a YouTube channel and titled it "SuperShortsMJ". The "SuperShorts" part of it referred to the style of content they were going to focus on producing. The "MJ" part was placed as an abbreviation of both of their names, Mikey and Jake. They thought it was the perfect name for their channel and went with it. They took "The CD", the better of the two videos, as the first video to publish to their new YouTube channel. Later that night, "The CD" was published and SuperShortsMJ was born.

### The Beginning (2015)

Upon their channel being born, Mikey and Jake kept recording more videos with each other. They would constantly meet up with one another to record videos and fell in love with pursuing YouTube. However, with the start of the channel came lots of realization for the two of them. They immediately realized the limitations they had with only just two characters under their belt. Also, after a bit of experience recording they began to slowly learn how to develop a properly coordinated plot. Still though, the begging of the channel had a lot of lackluster moments with the lackluster and inconsistent videos they were producing. The begging of the channel would go down more as an experimental phase more than anything.

They began to introduce new characters to the channel after some time. The first being Toad, who was the annoying friend to Mario and Luigi. They used him in "Toad's Mistake", which would become their most successful video from their early phase. They soon introduced Bowser too, who was Mario's archenemy. However, the most important character addition of this time were the additions of Black Yoshi and Blue Yoshi. These characters were completely based off of SuperMarioLogan's version of Black Yoshi, but since they both adored the character they both took up their own versions of the role. These early character additions set them up for more quality productions down the line.

Eventually with their new characters SuperShortsMJ was beginning to kick off. They slowly developed a small following on the platform and were slowly beginning to record better content. By the end of the year they had already gained close to 30 subscribers, a large milestone for them at the time, and were only just excited to continue recording into the new year. Mikey and Jake had only just dabbled in their creative potentials at the time, and the beginning of the channels lifespan had only set them up for victory in years to come.

### The Expansion Era (2016)

After reflecting on the year before them, Mikey and Jake knew there were many ways to better the development of their channel. They instantly kicked off the year by executing more interesting video concepts. One of the most notable being "Black Yoshi's Girlfriend", which would become one of their most popular videos in years to come. They also continued on some of the improvements they began to make in the previous year. They added more unique characters like Frog and Junior, which were not relevant characters at the time but had unique personalities that diversified their channel from other plush skit YouTubers.

In continuation of producing more interesting video concepts, they began their first ever series, titled "Super Mario Civil War". This series tackled more of an episodic style than the normal skit format they had gone for and introduced several new, unique characters as well as a more realistic plot. Although the editing and general execution of this series was poor, the concepts buried within it proved SuperShortsMJ as one of a kind. The series lasted through out most of the year and ended at 10 total episodes. This series began to raise heads in the plush community and their community would continue to grow.

With the success of their first series they only wanted continue making more episodic styled productions. They first tried a "Super Mario Civil War 2", which began as a second part to the first series. However, with many conflicting ideas and little to no direction, this series quickly failed. They also began a series based off of the New Super Mario Bros. video game series. This series consisted of 3 episodes per "world", having a speculated total of 24 episodes. This series almost concluded, but due to a corruption of video files it inevitably failed. They also experimented with a game show type series, but this also failed because of a lack of inspiration.

Besides plush skit videos, Mikey and Jake began producing other genres of videos during this time. They recorded a few gaming videos ranging from Minecraft all the way to Call Of Duty. These videos did not receive the same amount of appreciation as their plush content, and Mikey and Jake generally did not enjoy recording them as much as plush content. These videos were short lived, but remained on the channel until the point of its termination. It was rumored that these videos came out due to a lack of enjoyment in plush video creation, but that rumor was quickly proven false as plush videos continued to come out.

Toward the end of the year Mikey and Jake parted from series for a while and continued pursuing skit styled plush videos. The finished off the year strong with many enjoyable videos including some of the first holiday special videos. Their parting from series was short lived, as the end of the year introduced their second official series titled "Black Yoshi's Black Ops Mission". Through several months of various new concepts, SuperShortsMJ shaped into a more unique channel with a varied premise.

### The Golden Age (2017)

After what was a relatively successful year for the channel, Mikey and Jake took it a step further immediately into the beginning of 2017. They started off the year by tying loose ends from the end of 2016. They finished their second official series "Black Yoshi's Black Ops Mission", with a total of 7 episodes. Although the series was far less appreciated than "Super Mario Civil War", they were both happy to see another series come to a complete finish. Besides this, they finished producing leftover short concepts they had carried over from 2016. Even though 2017 began in a similar way to 2016, Mikey and Jake had plans beyond what their slowly growing fanbase could imagine.

With almost 2 years of YouTube experience under his belt Mikey had began developing ways he could improve the quality of SuperShortsMJ. At first he created a new and fresh looking profile picture for the channel, which would become the most iconic SuperShortsMJ profile picture of the original channel. He also learned how to create video thumbnails which he would soon use on some of their unreleased content. Some other basic notable changes were the addition of playlists, a proper channel description and a new channel background. These changes would go on to be the foundation of a newly formed channel that was underway.

The quality of videos also began to change as Mikey and Jake both realized flaws in their video production in previous years. They began producing shorter videos as they realized how draining some of their 20 to 30 minute shorts could be. There was also better lighting, angling and acting implemented during this time. Characters started to gain very distinct personalities and voice acting specific characters became more finite than before. Characters like Junior and his friends, Koops and Shy Guy, entered the scene as main characters. With that, there were more minor characters put in to diversify the channel's content, like Woody and Waluigi. SuperShortsMJ was expanding their field of expertise and improving with the resources they had.

During the course of 2017, several shorts began to reflect the improvements in video quality Mikey and Jake had been working so hard to incorporate. This period of time was the birth of some of the most iconic SuoerShortsMJ videos of all time. This included videos such as "Toad's Mistake 2", "Mario's Birthday Surprise", "The Heist" and "Xtreme Pillow Wars" were some of their outstanding accomplishments of the time. These videos were even being released at an extremely consistent rate all across the year. Mikey and Jake would get off their school bus and get straight to recording almost every day. This consistency and newly found quality attracted an even larger fanbase, bringing them up to around 70 subscribers by the middle of the year.

With the success they were enduring for the first half of the year, they decided to attempt "Super Mario Civil War 2" for a second time. Mikey and Jake figured that with their new production style they could find the inspiration and creativity to fully create this series. They anticipated 20 episodes for this series and were off to a good start until their inspiration ran dry and they inevitably had to quit production on the series for a second time. Despite this setback, they continued producing shorts at a similar rate to which they were before. However, the second half of the year was definitely less inspired than before and attracted a smaller audience.

Toward the end of 2017 videos were being produced at a more occasional rate and were lacking the quality at which they were being produced toward the start of the year. Mikey and Jake did not mention any lack of motivation, but their fanbase began to hypothesize a possible burn out after such an active year. Eventually at the end of the year videos completely stopped coming out without any notice from Mikey or Jake. Their fanbase was confused by this considering the severe drop in inspiration from the beginning of the year. Through the end of the year SuperShortsMJ had gone dark, without any word from Mikey or Jake about the situation.

### The Dark Age (2018)

Even with a lackluster end to 2017, it was clear after such a consistent year that Mikey and Jake both had overworked themselves producing content. The beginning of 2018 was a complete point of inactivity for SuperShortsMJ without a single message from Mikey or Jake on the situation. This became a starting point for a lot of invalidated rumors for many fans of the channel. Many predicted after such an active year they mutually agreed on quitting and few predicted far worse. Many figured something happened to the two, however that theory was unlikely considering their young age.

Eventually after a few more months of no content, some fans began to part from the channel. SuperShortsMJ's subscriber count went down slightly and a few active fans were never to be seen again beyond this point. Rumors would also continue to speculate from the group of fans that still had faith in their return. Many began to believe the idea that they were going to permanently quit considering it had been almost a full year since any sign of activity from the channel. From any viewers perspective, the chances of the channel returning any time soon looked grim. However, the fateful few continued to hope for a return.

Over their long absence, many viewers continued to cycle into the channel with plush videos beginning to rise in relevance across YouTube. Videos like "Toad's Mistake 2" and "The Koopalings" began to inherit massive amounts of views compared to what they usually received. During this time "Toad's Mistake 2" would reach over 5,000 views and "The Koopalings" would surpass the 1,000 views mark. So despite the initial decline in channel activity, the rise of the plush skit genre across YouTube graced some statistical gain across the channel.

In the middle of 2018, the profile picture and banner for SuperShortsMJ were completely blacked out. This was the first sign of any activity on the channel since late 2017. The slowly populating fanbase noticed this quickly, and most saw this as a parting message from both Mikey and Jake. This left just as many hopeless for their return as hopeful. Regardless of the black out many still saw possibility for a return. Since it was the first sign of any presence from Mikey or Jake in almost a year, the excitement took over their fanbase in any possible return. Regardless, the odds were still out of their favor.

In December of 2018, SuperShortsMJ hit 100 subscribers after 3 years of being on the platform. Their subscriber count had nearly doubled since the beginning of the year because of the rapidly increasing support and views from some of their more notable videos. This was still a considerable milestone for both Mikey and Jake since it was a goal they both set for themselves 3 years prior, in 2015. This caused the active fanbase to celebrate the accomplishment in honor of the inactive channel. Although they finally achieved one of their earliest goals, considering it had been over a year since their last upload, it still seemed unlikely for a return.

To everyone's surprise, on Christmas day of 2018, SuperShortsMJ returned with their first new video in over a year. Many fans expected their return to be some form of an announcement but it came out to be a Fortnite gaming montage. Fans were surprised by this but were still in shock for their return. Although it was not confirmed, many figured this was their comeback video. So even through an inactive and somewhat hopeless year SuperShortsMJ had finally made their return after a long year of complete inactivity.

### The Final Phase (2019)

With another new year of the channel came an entirely new version of SuperShortsMJ. After the inactive year that was 2018, Mikey finally uploaded an announcement video regarding the channel as well as thanking the fanbase for 100 subscribers. He explained that they were burnt out from the channel and had different priorities than before. He also mentioned he had moved in the midst of 2018, which separated him from Jake but did not make recording impossible. At the end of the video, he confirmed they would continue to make videos but that many things would change from before.

At a later date another announcement was made regarding the changes to content that would come. Mikey announced he had learned some information about editing, and that videos might include some aspects of editing. He also mentioned that they would restart "Super Mario Civil War 2" considering they had matured since the last time they attempted finishing the series. The fanbase was very excited to finally see the return of their favorite content creators, and hoped this time around Mikey and Jake would return with the same amazing content they fell in love with early on.

Soon after these announcements SuperShortsMJ was finally active again, making their return with "Super Mario Civil War 2" in production with the publishing of some new shorts. They made sequels to some of their fan favorites with videos "Stuck In A Box 2" and "Xtreme Pillow Wars 2", which both showed a considerable change in how the channel functioned. All the new videos showcased minor points of enhanced editing, such as gun shot sound effects and background music. This was surprising to most, as SuperShortsMJ in years prior had never showed much structure and editing to their videos.

During the course of the year things were moving smoothly for Mikey and Jake. They had brought back a good amount of their fanbase, and many were enjoying the new formatting of videos. "Super Mario Civil War 2" was also being uploaded at a consistent rate and it was looking hopeful that Mikey and Jake would complete it by the end of the year. Older videos were also continuing to receive significant recognition like "Toad's Mistake 2", which was on the verge of hitting 10,000 views. The new version of the channel was becoming something the whole community was in for.

During the summer, Jake left to attend camp and in his absence Mikey decided to start pursuing new types of videos. Without the ability to record plush he expanded to different genres, similar to how in 2016 he tried gaming videos. He began creating story telling videos that were commentaries about funny experiences he had with his friends. He also began vlogging some stupid situations with his friends. This new kind of content attracted an extreme following. SuperShortsMJ went up from 100 subscribers to around 175 subscribers in almost 2 months. The expansion in genre gave them a larger following, so individuals who did not enjoy plush could indulge in some of the channels content.

Just as things were going great for SuperShortsMJ's return, July 2019 would change things forever. YouTube had announced a new policy earlier in the summer regarding some of the rules surrounding e-mails and how YouTube would manage that. Mikey was oblivious to this because he had been in summer camp temporarily, so once the policy was put in place it was already too late. SuperShortsMJ was terminated that same month and all of their content and their following was deleted. Mikey was devastated, and it was unclear how the future of SuperShortsMJ would look beyond this point.

## Characters

### Main Characters

The main characters mainly consisted of individuals who lived in Mario's house as well as those who were friends with him.

* Mario - The sane, hardworking man burdened by his friends and family that bring him down. He is forced to deal with his brother Luigi's shenanigans on a daily basis as well as vouch for Black Yoshi and Blue Yoshi's countless troubles. He works at two dead end jobs and has horrible luck with everything he aspires to do.
* Luigi - The ignorant and lazy brother to Mario who often doesn't do much but cause trouble in the house. Mario usually sent to stop whatever he's up to but doesn't normally accomplish that task. He tends to hang out alone and do whatever pleases him for the time being.
* Black Yoshi - The freeloading gangster that leeches off Mario. He barks orders at Mario for new video games and pretty much anything that costs him any money. He's an avid Call of Duty fan and plays it on a day to day basis, and when he's not he's engaging in criminal activity. He spends most of his time with Blue Yoshi, his cousin.
* Blue Yoshi - The freeloading gangster that leeches off Mario. He lives in Mario's house with his cousin, Black Yoshi, who he spends the most time with. He's an avid Call of Duty fan and plays it on a day to day basis, and when he's not he's engaging in criminal activity. He is smarter than Black Yoshi, and usually acts as a voice of reason.
* Bowser - The lazy, TV addicted father of Junior. He hates his child and spends most of his time isolated away from the rest of the house. He subconsciously hates Mario but lives with him because he can't pay his own rent. He usually only gets engaged with the others when he needs something.
* Junior - The mischievous son of Bowser. He spends most of his time engaging in troublesome activity with his two best friends Koops and Kamak. They like to play video games, talk amongst each other and play around while terrorizing the other members of the household.
* Koops - The friend of Junior's who has a lisp and is extremely poor. He hangs out with Junior for a home and electricity which he does not normally see when he's not with him. He engages in whatever Junior wants to do and usually doesn't complain as he has fun doing it. Sometimes however he gets annoyed with Junior and doesn't prefer their activities together.
* Kamak - The friend of Junior's who is a gay and he is a smart kid. He often hangs out with Junior because he doesn't have a lot of friends, and often goes with it. He likes the energy his friend group gives off and likes it most times. He also has a crush on Junior that he can't shake, and likes being around him consistently.

### Supporting Characters

The supporting characters consist of characters that were not consistently active but still played a part in Mario's life.

* Toad
* Frog
* Woody
* Pablo
* Tyrone
* FYI Guy
* Waluigi
* Elmo

### Minor Characters

The minor characters consist of characters that rarely appear but have some significance on the overall flow of the channel.

* Chubs
* Milk Man
* Frank Figgles
* Thanksgiving Dinner

## Series

### Shorts (2015 - 2019)

Shorts was the most longest ongoing series on SuperShortsMJ, and it was a series that lasted until the channels termination. It revolved around Mario and the family and friends that lived at his house. Shorts had a skit-styled plot and with each video came a brand new idea. Plots never connected with this series, so each video was its own unique scenario portrayed by the new characters. They rarely showcased any true plot structure and focused primarily on the entertainment value of the characters and comedic sketches.

### Super Mario Civil War (2016 - 2016)

Super Mario Civil War was one of the most popular series on SuperShortsMJ. It was 10 episodes long and followed an episodic style with a connecting plot with each episode. It revolved around the devastating story of the war between the Mushroom Kingdom and Bowser's Kingdom. The plot in this series was very serious and well planned, with devastating death scenes and an insane action packed story. It did not show much comedic quality as it took a more serious turn.

### Super Mario Civil War 2 (2016, 2017, 2019)

Super Mario Civil War 2 was the sequel designed to take place after the events that took place in Super Mario Civil War. It was attempted 3 different times without success. Originally it was planned to be 15 episodes long and followed the same episodic style that was portrayed in Super Mario Civil War. It revolved around the death of Bowser and how the new villain Frog took over his legacy and became the enemy toward the Mushroom Kingdom. It did not last very long as the main villain and plot that revolved around him did not work out, and it was cancelled soon after the first few episodes. The second attempt was about the devil resurrecting the deceased from the previous series in an insane 20 episode series. However, this idea failed with little direction for such a long planned series. The final time was done with more editing, and more simply revolved around Bowser returning. This idea failed because of the channel being terminated in the midst of production.

### Super Mario Adventures (2016)

Super Mario Adventures was a video game styled series designed to take place in different locations corresponding to different worlds. The series was made to have many episodes, approximately 3 episodes for every world that Mario and Luigi explored. It was a replication of the New Super Mario Bros. video games and included boss fights and enemies. The series ultimately turned into an exploration series, where Mario and Luigi explored new lands such as the outdoors and different indoor areas. This series was on the verge of being completed when the data for the final episodes was ultimately deleted.

### The Danger Games (2016)

The Danger Games was a game show styled series that was anticipated to release on SuperShortsMJ. It was designed to be a relatively short series and dealt with the theme of death in the design of a wipe-out styled game show. The characters would participate in dangerous stunts and if they failed they would perish, and the final man standing would win a cash prize. The series did not really have much hype around it, and it was a relatively basic idea so it was cancelled early on.