The Review: The New Look 'Good Mythical Morning'

Evening all,

Welcome to a new week here on A Series of Unfortunate Irritations! Today I will be reviewing the new look ‘Good Mythical Morning’; what exactly is new, the reaction it’s had and whether the change was for the better.

I’ve written about the Youtube duo Rhett and Link many times reviewing their book and reviewing their channel. They’ve made quite an empire between the two of them; a book, a tour, a podcast, shed loads of merchandise, music and of course their morning show, Good Mythical Morning (GMM for short- while writing Good Mythical Morning repeatedly would be awesome for my word count, it’s not so great if I want to get this blog out today!) These self-proclaimed internetainer’s have crammed a lot into the last few years in terms of building up their rep and getting themselves noticed. In 2012 the first series of GMM started in Rhett’s garage and if you watch it back now, you can certainly tell they were at the beginning of their journey; they seemed a little self-conscious and more reserved and while they had their show staples such as ‘The Wheel of Mythicality’ and their phrase “let’s talk about that”, it didn’t have the snappiness and polish that today’s shows provide.

However, as each series passed their opening credits changed the show looked more polished, they renovated their set and gradually built a bigger mythical crew to help them to progress.  All this didn’t go without notice however and with each change came criticism as well as praise from fans. But instead of paying too much attention to the negatives, Rhett and Link persevered and carried on making improvements and adding and changing things according to where they saw their mythical entertainment show going, as well as taking on board some advice from fans too - they couldn’t not listen to fans at all, after all GMM is made to entertain an audience. This attitude and approach to their work is testament to the GMM brand and is why they have won the hearts of some many fans worldwide. It’s also this attitude that inspired their recent format changes for GMM.

credit: Youtube

Before 6^th November, fans would’ve expected to see one episode of GMM followed by an episode of their ‘after the show show’ Good Mythical More. The Wheel of Mythicality was spun and the answer revealed in the main GMM episode, then the extra show was usually another game or short stream of consciousness type of episode. To really get across the meaning of Good Mythical More, I draw comparison to the Marvel films; everyone knows you cannot simply exit the cinema screen after the credits roll on a Marvel film!! There’s always something fun for the fans at the end and even a teaser for the next in the Marvel series. Good Mythical More is a lot like this in the way that the crew are often involved in these episodes and quite often you get extra trivial and fun bits from Rhett and Link. The new look GMM, which was started on November 6^th, comprises of 4 episodes that together make one huge helping of GMM. While there is an immediate change in format, there is also a change in the way that content was distributed across GMM and Good Mythical More. The Wheel of Mythicality for example is now spun in the 4^th episode of the main show and the answer is not then revealed until clicking over to Good Mythical More. This is clearly a move from Rhett and Link to encourage fans to go that extra mile to get the most from the GMM brand.

As with previous series’, the pair received a lot of criticism for the change. Even I admittedly wasn’t a fan of the change at first. I, like many others, didn’t know why they needed to split content across 5 episodes. GMM was a 15-minute break in my working day and now it’s a lot more than that. It was not only the format that came under fire, many were saying it was confusing. I must say, in the first couple of days it did prove a bit overcomplicated as there was a bit of searching for the next episode going on. However, Rhett and Link responded to this by making the first episode more visible to fans, adding a green border around the first episode and then making sure that this initial click would lead fans into a playlist type scenario where each of the individual episodes would then play after one another in order. This improvement has made it a lot easier for everyone of course and I must say that I am getting used to the new 4-episode commitment. Yes, many would again say “if it ain’t broke, why fix it?” and some comments on their videos were a lot more negative still, but I understand why they made the change and respect them for it.

You see, Rhett and Link are Youtuber’s. They internetain on the daily and have done so for over 5 years on GMM. They have had enough experience by now to know just how hard it is to stay relevant and on top of their game in the huge internet culture we have now, not to mention the huge presence Youtube has nowadays. Everyone looks online for things before they ask an actual human now, let’s face it so I completely understand why Rhett and Link have always, and will always make changes. Things rarely stay the same online for 5 years straight so to expect this duo to stay the same for 5 years? A bit unreasonable, surely. The pair did discuss the show’s changes and fans’ reaction to them in an episode of Good Mythical More which I think was a great thing to do. They’re under no illusion that change is hard and the changes to their show came as a shock, but they also said how they wanted fans to appreciate the online realm the show was in and how they wanted to try something new with their show and follow their visions for it. I say fair play to that one.

You can watch this ‘More’ episode here.

The new format has given fans a wider variety of content too. Today’s episodes for example covered cryotherapy, sauna pants, Big Mac vs The Whopper and the censored kissing game (not as weird or sexual as it sounds, promise!). The food challenges haven’t disappeared, and there are even more special guests and more from the mythical crew too. There’s no doubt Rhett and Link will continue to make changes to GMM to give fans more and more mythical content in a wider variety of ways but I welcome this and have faith that they make their changes for the better. The recent change while unexpected, is proving itself day by day and I respect the pair’s commitment to evolving and trying new things, so if I had to say one thing to close it would be to Rhett and Link themselves:

Keep up the good work!

So that’s all from me for tonight, I will be back on Thursday for more!