sooo….this is about 3 months late, i know. BUUUUUT i have much more free time now that it’s summer, and i can sing this box’s praises!

ever since i was a young caddicarus fan, i’d always wanted to own merch from him. however, being in a family that wasn’t too fond of a 12/13-year-old watching youtubers who swear like sailors, i couldn’t express my love for caddy, let alone ask for merch. however, now that i’m in my 20s, i was able to ask for and receive this wondrous blu ray box set for christmas…well, at least the idea that i’d be receiving the box at some point.

if you stay up to date on all the happenings in the caddicarus community, you may have heard about the nightmarish experiences people have had with pixel empire and the shipping of this box.

needless to say, i was among the lucky ones who received theirs in mid-march. pixel empire just seems unable to handle merch drops for million-sub youtubers - scott the woz fans are still waiting for their $100 merch boxes to ship.

but pixel empire woes aside…was this $100 blue ray box set worth the wait?

✨ absolutely! ✨

upon receiving this adorable ps1-shaped box laced with references - both visual and auditory - i was the most excited i had ever been in all my years as a beautiful person/lumpy germ! and the contents inside did not disappoint.

to this day, i still haven’t used all the stickers yet. but the ones i have used currently live on my sketchbook…

the stickers have such pretty art by prominent comedic game reviewer thumbnail/branding artist kevin fagaragan. they’re super high quality too! i love how we have an official sticker of the “good!” thumbs up guy now - that’s the one surviving pre-2020 thing that made it to this box. speaking of which, the box includes very few references to pre-2020 caddicarus aside from the history video so if you’re a veteran fan who hasn’t watched/doesn’t like the newer vids but still wants to get this, you’re out of luck.

 

as shown in the pictures above, i’ve used the pins on my backpack! but during the time since i took that picture, the pins have moved to my beanie! it’s now blazing hot where i am in the mid-south, so i’m obviously not wearing this out anymore lol, but anywhere i went when it was cooler outside, this beanie would be on my head, showing off my caddicarus and onward fan pride! just like the stickers, the pins are really high quality, much higher quality than the disney enamel pins and buttons i’ve had. the caddicarus ones stay on super tight!

and let’s not forget the gorgeous poster that’s on the top of this post!! i feel like it’s a comedic game reviewer rite of passage to have a beautiful 80’s-style poster designed by PE founder dylan west. pixel empire may tend to bite off more than they can chew but damn, do they have some talented folks.

and that sapphire ticket in the first pic? that’s a $10 pixel empire gift card. it can’t get you much on the site, but if you got the gold and platinum tickets, you got $50 and $100 respectively…and a 15/30 minute zoom call with caddy!! to this day we haven’t seen any reports of gold or platinum tickets yet, strangely. but man, that would’ve been a dream come true for me.

the picture of jim by the sticker sheet is actually a scratch and sniff. and in true caddicarus fashion, he gave us fans the ability to smell his beard - which actually smells very nice! and on the back is a thank you note signed by the man himself!

but of course, that’s not all there is to this box. the meat of this wondrous collectible is the blu ray - packaged in a jewel case with PS1-style boxart. it even comes with a “game” manual that features all kinds of references, and interviews from different people who have worked with caddy!

the disc itself resembles a UK PS1 demo disc. and when you pop it inside, it carries on that aesthetic, as the menus look and sound like old demo discs!

(on the bottom is the gif i pulled from the pixel empire page for a visual)

the root menu uses the actual music from UK demo discs, but the “press start”, main features and bonus features menus use these beautiful, ethereal, supposedly original pieces that i adore so much. unfortunately, while the credits specify who did which pieces of art for the box and menus on the disc, they don’t specify who composed the menu music, or if the music was taken from epidemic sound. i tried shazaming it and got nothing. i wish we knew who composed that beautiful music! :(

and now - let’s take a look at the videos on the disc!

the first one i watched was “how did i get here, and why is it damp?”, as i’m obviously a connoisseur of caddicarus history and i was interested to see how jim himself would recap it. and this is how i learned why jim unlisted all those private videos - sir toasty needed access to them so he could edit the video! this video was the shortest of all of the main features, only being around 40 or so minutes. and i loved it!

not only was it such a surreal experience watching a caddicarus blu ray on the big TV in the living room - as i said, this never could’ve happened when i was younger - but also, the video was a trip down memory lane and the ending actually made me tear up a bit. it’s a reminder of how the caddicarus channel wasn’t even supposed to keep going after the 2010s, and it was because of jim’s determination that he was able to pull through and make it to 1 million subs.

after that i watched “the secretive world of filming stories”, which was about a whole hour longer. it was basically caddy, cerys and olly going through different scenes of the caddicarus show’s reboot, and telling the stories about how they were filmed. i adored this one too, as the history and production of the caddicarus show is (obviously) a huge special interest of mine!

then i watched the last main feature, which was “the precious world of caddy’s PS1 collection”! this one was also around an hour and 40 minutes, and it was exactly what it said on the tin - caddy going through his PS1 collection and discussing it.

also as a sidenote, seeing jim standing in front of his shelves and talking, along with him bending down to grab two video games off the floor gave me flashbacks to season 10 caddicarus, as that was his exact filming setup and he would bend down to grab the slaughter and salvage guns during the intro…

while i loved this video, i will admit i didn’t love it as much as the previous two, but that’s pretty much just because i mostly love caddicarus for the comedy/production/history aspects rather than the video game aspect. however, i have seen caddicarus fans who only cared about the PS1 tour and not the history or filming stories vids. different needs for different fans!

and onto the bonus features…

the hidden block reunion podcast was so good!! for a caddicarus veteran like me who was around during the golden age of hidden block, it was so emotional seeing these boys together again, even though balrog wasn’t there.

the battle between caddy and brutalmoose was like, a 30 second video. i won’t say what it was, but oh my god it was the funniest shit ever.

the stanley’s phrase of the week compilation was cute, but honestly any fan could’ve made that and put it on youtube. i don’t get why it had to be a feature on the blu ray.

and finally…the credits!

this is where my biggest disappointment with the blu ray comes in. don’t get me wrong, i am 100% grateful with what we got and i couldn’t ask for anything more wondrous than this. but in advertisements for the box, there were a few scenes animated in a PS1 style that showed jim fighting different bosses, and the bosses were different characters he’s faced throughout the caddicarus reboot. the back of the case states that there are “animated gameplay featurettes”, implying that there are multiple animated shorts. however, the credits seem to be the only animated featurette on the disc, and they only showed those exact shots we saw on the advertisements, including a couple extras. the only other animated thing was the secret video on the “press start” menu, which was only a few seconds long. idk i just expected there to be much more drawn-out, fully-voice acted featurettes. they even went to the trouble to make 3D models for olly and caddy’s family, and they were only used for a second in the credits. i wasn’t the only person confused about this, as there were also others on reddit stumped on it. and it’s sad bc i was really excited about that :(

but other than that…i wholeheartedly recommend this box to any die-hard caddicarus fan!! it’s a piece of merch that none of us could’ve ever dreamed of years ago, let alone 8-10 months ago!!