“[In the Cartoon Network series Chowder] The No-fruit looks like a block of tofu with two green leaves on top. Once a leaf is plucked off of the No-fruit, it rapidly transforms into a wide variety of different fruits, and will halt when the fruit is struck with a blunt object.”

you might be wondering why i’m talking about chowder. well, the concept of the no-fruit ties into what i’m discussing today!

so once upon a time in caddicarus history, the caddicarus show wasn’t the only show offered on the channel.

before the initial side-show culling of 2016, there was a whole group of other shows on the channel that would circulate along with the caddicarus show on sundays. you never knew just what you’d get on sunday; you could get a caddicarus episode, a tinker time, or a current quickie. this is why i called the 2012-16 schedule the “no-fruit” schedule. caddy would pluck a metaphorical leaf off his channel every week, and he’d have to strike it with a bat to see what he’d be releasing that sunday.

a couple of these side shows only lasted an episode or two, others went on for years. a couple were actually launched after the 2016 rebrand and lasted just before the great retooling of 2020. some actually had some elements that were integrated into the caddicarus show!

in order, these side shows were top 10’s/20’s, today’s special, caddy’s retrospectives, current quickies, tinker time, hands-on preview (H.O.P), drive thru reviews, film fridays/cinemaggots, and the caddy show. but for this entry, we’re gonna be discussing the side shows up to drive thru reviews. in the next entry, we’ll talk about the side shows that came along after the 2016 rebranding. there’s only a few, but i can talk about those a little bit more in-depth.

there’s another side show that came out between DTR and film fridays, but i’ll get to that one in another entry someday, trust me…

top 10’s/20’s! (july 15th 2012 - october 30th 2016 as a separate series)

pretty self-explanatory - they’re top 10/20 lists! even though they use the caddicarus show’s intro, this was treated as a separate series until 2017. before the 2016 rebrand, list videos used a different background for the thumbnails than the one used for the caddicarus show…

by 2016, the show began using the caddicarus show’s thumbnail background, but it was still considered a separate series.

that was until january 2017, when in the middle of the winter break between cadvent and the season 8 premiere, all of the list videos - except for the E3 2014 top 20 - were moved into the caddicarus show playlist. the block that came out of hiding from 2013 and the two mr. youtube episodes were also no longer considered canon caddicarus episodes, and those along with the E3 top 20 were moved to the “other rubbish” playlist.

after the list videos were integrated, this brought the caddicarus show’s episode count to 100…which also meant that the bubsy 3D episode was no longer the 50th episode. and i spent weeks waiting for that 50th episode…

from seasons 8 to 10, top 10 lists just became “ten lists” - lists of things that weren’t in any particular order. in 2019, when most caddicarus episode titles were changed to suit the algorithm, these ten lists were changed to say “top 10”, even though they technically weren’t top 10 lists.

my favorite list episodes were top 10 things in video games that scared me as a kid and 10 traumatic kids’ TV moments.

today’s special! (october 14th, 2012)

this one only lasted a single episode - a 22-minute video on resident evil 6. i don’t remember specifically where caddy talked about this video’s production; unfortunately, it could’ve been in a now-deleted jradgex podcast. but he’s talked before about how strenuous the video was to make. at this point, caddy would’ve only been making videos for a year, and he’d only been making gaming videos for 5 months. this was one of the first time crunches he’s had for a video, as he had to get this game finished as fast as possible and edit a whole video on it. it took a toll on him and it resulted in a video that expressed an opinion he didn’t really have time to fully form - he’d go on to dislike resi 6 later on.

caddy’s retrospectives! (november 19th, 2012 - december 6th, 2015)

this show centered around caddy sporting a white checkered shirt and delving into the first three games of a franchise in order to see if they still hold up.

this was the series that introduced caddy’s buzzcut that he wore from june 2014 to september 2015! initially meant for a single gag in part 3 of the max payne retrospective, he kept wearing this buzzcut because he realized how much he hated having long hair. that sure didn’t age well, didn’t it?

a whole retrospective would be a 3-part video, with the three videos being uploaded over three sundays. in 2015, a couple retrospectives were uploaded through 5-6 weeks, as caddy would produce an easter egg hunting video for didyouknowgaming in between parts. this was pretty controversial in the fanbase but i’ll touch on this in another entry.

there were 8 franchises explored in total - crash bandicoot, metal gear solid, tekken, oddworld, max payne, sly cooper, gex, and uncharted. after this show was canceled in 2016, he redid the crash bandicoot and oddworld retrospectives in the style of the caddicarus show. well, 2/3 of the oddworld retrospective anyway. i think caddy’s gonna save MGS for a special occasion. the spyro video was originally going to be in the form of a retrospective, but after the 2016 rebrand that was changed to be a long video covering the PS1 trilogy. as time went on, that turned into literally every mainline spyro game.

oh, and this show is also where “FUN FACT, DID YOU KNOW-” and “cooper is a swear word” originated from.

current quickies! (december 8th, 2012 - october 26th, 2016)

ah, yes - the one original pre-2016 side show that survived the 2016 side show culling. well, at least for a year.

in this series, a london cockney sex pistols fan named quick j. hoarsethroat would talk extremely fast about a brand-new video game. it took a couple of episodes for the show to find its footing; the first episode was two minutes of caddy reviewing the game entirely in his quick j. voice, at a normal speed, and dropping (censored) f-bombs every second. the second episode had the proper review part in caddy’s normal voice, but he spoke at a regular speed. the third episode began the show’s normal format in which quick j. would give some background, then take a deep breath, then the proper review would start with caddy giving a rapid-fire review in his normal voice while holiday for strings plays in the background.

oh, yeah…this is where cyoar came from!

well, it was actually introduced in “how to pull birds” buuuut most fans know it from current quickies. lol.

in 2016, after the first major rebrand, it became weekly and was uploaded every wednesday as a way for caddy to cover modern games after getting rid of the other shows. elements of tinker time and drive-thru reviews were brought in to unify the modern game review shows into one entity.

other than the 2010’s game reviewer gimmicks and the character of quick, there really wasn’t anything significant about this show. i guess i can add that the gone home review was controversial and that the 2016 thumbnail art was even MORE of an abysmal crime on graphic design than the TCS thumbnails…

i did better graphic design on my youtube channel when i was fourteen.

in 2017, caddy began to slowly phase out gimmicks on his channel, starting with current quickies. it was replaced by a variety show called the caddy show, the style of which could be compared to today’s special. it’s considered a reboot of it by some fans. quick j. hoarsethroat appeared in the caddicarus show a few times, most notably in the beginning of the aladdin episode.

oh yeah - i found the original tweet where quick j’s name was coined! caddy wanted fans to come up with a name for the current quickies character and this user came up with the name we know today. this name was first used in the top 10 games of 2014 episode in january 2015.

TINKER TIIIIIIME!!!! (june 16th, 2013 - january 24th, 2016)

along with current quickies, tinker time was met with a lot of groaaaannnss on a sunday. well, ok - that was during the period in 2015 with sporadic caddicarus episodes.

this was a laid-back show that focused on any random game caddy had been “tinkering around” with. there wasn’t really a gimmick for this show other than the ironically bombastic intro, the fake TV beside caddy, and the rating scale - unbelievable, commendable, acceptable, disreputable, and flammable. again, there was nothing really significant about this show other than a few events. caddy did a couple of sponsored “indie spotlight” videos for the playstation store in this series. there was the divisive journey review. oh, and that “stanley parable incident” mentioned in the zoo race caddicarus episode? that referred to a tinker time episode on the stanley parable that was formerly his most controversial video. basically he talked about the game for 30 seconds, and the rest of the video was a scene from the game that was replayed over and over for like 10 minutes. this was because caddy wanted the audience to see the game for themselves. obviously, a lot of fans didn’t take kindly to this. but going to caddicarus for serious in-depth reviews is like going to taco bell expecting fine authentic mexican cuisine. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

the lone privated episode of this series was the most unique one, in which caddy went to the USA (including my city!!!) and reviewed some PS vita trigger grips. this was one of the videos that didn’t make the cut for the 9/23/22 private video unlistings.

hands-on preview! (september 28th, 2014)

oh, what fun….for two episodes! that are now privated! and one of which is completely lost! except for the intro which is how i was able to make this gif!

in 2014, caddy interviewed lorne lanning in a video that’s now privated for some reason (but i found it!). later that year, he went to a preview event for alien: isolation. after this preview, he made a video about it and created yet another new show - hands-on preview, or H.O.P for short. the lorne lanning interview was then renamed under the HOP banner. and unfortunately, even though i found the oddworld episode, the alien: isolation episode is completely lost. the only remnant of the officially-named series is the intro - and thank god that was saved because that was the most memorable part of it.

drive thru reviews! (february 20th, 2014 - february 3rd, 2016)

this was a show where caddy talked super fast about a brand new game release- wait a minute, have we talked about this before?

yes, this was another rapid-fire modern game review series. but this time, caddy wasn’t playing a character, he wore a bathrobe instead of a scarf, hat and sex pistols shirt and the reviews were much shorter. it ran concurrently with current quickies so you can only imagine the confusion this caused. conceptually, it was literally the same damn show. this show along with current quickies was pretty controversial in 2015 due to them being a lot more common than caddicarus episodes.

this show started on the second channel in february 2014, but in february 2015 it was introduced to the main channel as the first wednesday show - the first time in caddicarus history that we saw more than one upload a week. unfortunately, i was only able to salvage 3 of the 9 videos that were uploaded on the second channel; in 2019, caddy privated the second channel episodes along with the drum covers for some god-forsaken reason. anyway, here’s a link to a google doc with some lost second channel vids i found!

and here’s something funny. i literally found the thumbnail/title card of this series by searching up “drive thru sign” and scrolling down a bit. only the highest quality graphic design on pre-2018 caddicarus XD

so yeah! that was a run-down of the pre-2016 side shows.

of all these shows i discussed, caddy’s retrospectives was the most beloved, as they were longer videos that were more in line with the mainline caddicarus show episodes, just without the slaughter/salvage format. it was mourned for a long time after its cancellation. current quickies, tinker time, and drive-thru reviews weren’t mourned nearly as much, but they still had their fans. all…10 of them.

this really shows you the sheer number of shows that the channel had pre-2016 lmao. and some of those shows were just the same damn thing with different steps.

it’s so crazy to think about how these gimmicky formulaic shows were on the same channel as long dennis and spons, the sentient talking kite with a face, fingers and shoes™. if you were a fan at the time, left in the late 2010’s, and came back in the 20’s like me, the culture shock whiplash was unlike any other. i seriously wonder how newer fans look at these older videos. to them it’s just weird 2010’s gimmicky game reviewer videos, but to us…

…or maybe this, depending on your viewpoint.

anyways, be grateful for what you have, 2020’s lumpies and germs. we never had graphic design this beautiful or quality this consistent.