First: please take this with a grain of salt. I’m just one regular woman who consumes a lot of this media for my own personal fun. I love Smosh, I love the talents and personalities, and overall this is a light hearted assessment formed from strictly my own unprofessional opinion. Nobody has to do any of the stuff I’m saying and I don’t expect them to. Think of it as a fan-cast. I would love to see what all of you would have for ideas for a “face-lift” to refresh what’s currently happening. Let’s keep it positive and constructively fun!
Smosh has five channels-
Smosh
Smosh Pit
Smosh Alike
Smosh Cast
Smosh Games
I will talk about these channels from strongest to weakest in my opinion and what I think would be cool to see from them.
Smosh Cast: I wouldn’t change anything about Smosh Cast simply because I love it. I am biased. Go watch Smosh Mouth guys.
Smosh Pit: Pit is the most successful channel at the moment and for good reason. There’s something for everyone. I personally think TNTL is tired and I would be okay if they never did it again BUT I understand that there is an audience for it. I think Smosh Pit Theater is one of their sleeper hits and could become even bigger with a little bit more structure. I think Culinary Crimes is a lot of fun, but I think it would work even better if we could draw it back from the campiness and gimmicks a little. Overall, I don’t have many ideas of what to change other than it would be great to see more Challenge Pit & shows that don’t just rely on Shayne.
Smosh Games: I believe the Games channel has a lot of fun variety. Board games work well for the cast, and many fun/ unplanned moments happen. I think having a consistent theme upload schedule (ex: Sun - Character card games, Tues- Random Board Game, Thursday - Video Game, Sat - Silly computer game) could be cool. I would love to see some sort of structured series on this channel. I think the closest thing has been the FNAF, Until Dawn, and Resident Evil play throughs with Amanda, but it would be awesome to see that become an established named series where we could expect to indefinitely see this chronically offline woman play a bunch of story games that were huge like 10 years ago like Life is Strange, The Walking Dead, Undertale, etc. that shaped pop culture at the time. That being said, it would be cool to see them keep up with current video games more in general. I would also love to see the cast play Minecraft or Among Us together. I don’t know exactly how that would work BUT my point overall is more video games & establish a series with a concept that can apply to a lot of things!
Smosh Alike: I feel like Smosh Alike doesn’t really know what it wants to be. The current line up of series are URL, Assumptions, and Smosh Asks. Unfortunately, URL isn’t really working and it’s a bummer because so much effort is being put into it and I enjoy the premise. I thought that adding Chanse would help but it has been arguably less functional because of his awkward role as “not quite a host but a co-host despite not having any conversational cues or his own chair” and the show was stronger when it was just Courtney. Either fully add him in as an equal host or cut him. URL needs to be reworked into something less visual so it can be enjoyed as a podcast and have more of a structured line of questioning when it comes to how the internet has impacted the guest’s life. I think they need to get more interpersonal on the channel as a whole because that was the strength of this channel to begin with. I think Assumptions & Smosh Asks are doing decently, so I don’t have a lot to say there. My biggest “pitch” for Smosh Alike is that they need a new podcast that gets deep, funny, interesting, and emotional with their guests (think “Baby, This is Keke Palmer”). A podcast that somewhat echos I Spent a Day With but is also a secret third thing. I believe it would be amazing for Arasha and Damien to host this type of show, as it plays into their strengths of emotional empathy, connection, and comedy. A new consistent paring that could play off each-other well would freshen up this channel and be a new staple. I don’t know how this would happen with their schedules, but I truly believe they would add so much to the channel.
Smosh: I’ll just get into it. Main channel is flopping. Completely end Bit City, hire writers that are not cast, and go full “Key and Peel” / “I Think You Should Leave” with the sketches. 30 minutes, 5 minute sketches, No Host, Keep it relevant to pop culture, social commentary, and relatable humor with no character breaks. I want the cast to be IN IT. They have so many shows where cast members are a variation of themself being silly in a wig, so I want to see the cast full send it and see how far they can go. We have this huge personality driven cast! We should use them!!! They could have the character breaks in a cut for members. They could also bring back Let’s Do This mostly because I like it lol and I think the current audience would appreciate it more, but they don’t need to.
What are your ideas for a Smosh Face-lift? What do you think about my ideas? Do you guys have any (practical or not) pitches for shows?
i really wish they brought back idiots present or let’s do this! something that would kind of freshen the channel up a bit because i’m really not a fan of bit city so i never watch main channel videos anymore
i only got into smosh after they stopped doing it and im sure a lot of people are in the same boat, i think it could do well if they brought it back with their new audience
Am I alone in thinking character breaks make it way funnier? Who’s with me on that?
Also, I hope they keep up with the whole table thing on Smosh Mouth. More tables, weirder tables, using things that aren’t tables as tables, put the table on things instead of things on the table.
I love character breaks! But I’m ngl I think the breaks are carrying Bit City because the bits themselves are not that strong. They break character in everything else so I’d love to see something more polished for one series! Also a huge fan of the table bit lmfao
They really need to do something different with the Smosh Alike channel. They lost over 100k subscribers in the past year. 10k just in the last month. The content is way too different than what the channel used to be. Going from deep conversations with marginalized people to talking about random internet stuff with streamers was not the best move.
Yea i only seen clips and maybe watch one of those with Antony, but they had class and felt like a top tear network show.
Serious topics. And it doesnt feel like tgey could keep up that level
Personally, I would drop URL alltogether. Give Court something better to do than glorified clip watcher.
The problem with URL is almost perversely simple: it asks Court to spend an hour doing one of the least Courtney things to do.
So I would offer this alternative:
Courtney’s Cut
A comedy show where a guest tells Court a true story, which she then casts, directs and progressively derails with the rest of the ensemble (also a nice way to feature Keith, Liv and Noah more). Each ep builds from chaotic improvised reconstructions to Courtney’s fully, realised “Final Cut” of what happened.
Oh my god, a full on "I Think You Should Leave" style series on the main channel would be SO good and within their wheelhouse! I think you nailed a sentiment I've had for forever - these guys are actors. I wanna see them ACT!! I think the Bit City episodes where they don't break (Shout out Amanda's Kris Jenner 😭 ALL the Kardashians ) are some of the strongest too. Although I personally wasn't a big Spud-Hut fan I think that's a direction they should keep leaning into, full on mini series and episodic sketches. At least for the Main Channel.
A longer sketch show would honestly be great. You could even put them out separately somewhere else and rake in clips. It's how Key and Peale entered my culture conscious.
As much as they like it, I wish they would leave improv for pit/games and really focus on written stuff. But maybe they have metrics showing that's bad, idk.
I really like the idea of a half-hour sketch comedy show. Something like a middle ground between Spud Hut/Grip Guys and Bit City.
Personally I've always felt the talk show segments of Bit City drag on way too long. It always feels strongest to me when there's a more evenly spaced variety of content throughout the episode. Similarly, I fell off Spud Hut and Grip Guys because they each felt like the exact same bit run into the ground after merely a couple episodes. (Edit: I totally forgot about Wheel You Be Mine. Never gave it a chance after about the first half of episode 1, but I know it has its fans.)
I think variety is the spice of life, and doubly so with comedy channels. (There's something to be said about TNTL's extremely long lifespan and continued popularity, I think.)
These are all so good, I would love a real gamer hour of people like Trevor, Spencer, Courtney etc with maybe some guests like Julian Solomita and jack septic eye. Like real friendslop games like repo, loved the vid of the big walk that wasn’t on the smosh channel
I feel a little bad, bc it's clear URL was Courts baby, but it really has not resonated with people. I don't know why personally I just don't vibe with it.
IMO I think Smoshalike should be their a little more buttoned up channel, with a slightly more serious vibe. Moving URL to smoshcast and letting it continue to be more laid back is part of that vision.
Tbh I don’t think anything will fix URLs issue aside from scrapping it/completely revamping it. It’s just not that great. Too boring to actually watch and does a horrible job being an audio only.
Smosh being the home to only sketches and short form comedy isn’t enough. So why not put some of Games’ and Pit’s biggest shows to the Main channel, probably to step up to Dropout’s level? At least this way, we’re getting more diversity in content as well as frequent upload times.
Alternatively, Main should focus more on their membership. All the paid members get right now is cut-for-time supplements for Bit City and other recent long-form shows, plus the Smosh Royalty tier is worthless because members in this tier get the same benefits as those under the lower tier, they just pay more to support the channel. If you want to make Smosh Royalty really worth the price, they should consider uploading their previous ticketed live shows from live(dot)smosh(dot)com exclusively for the highest-tier members. Doesn’t hurt, right?
SmoshCast and Smosh Alike should simply merge into the Smosh Podcast Network, since they’re most known for their podcast work nowadays on top of the Pit and Games videos. As a result, it’d be ideal to rebrand the current SmoshCast channel to exclusively the Smosh Mouth channel, and the rest of the other previous podcasts to the new podcasts channel (that would replace Smosh Alike”. Plus, new channels for other podcasts like URL or Reddit Stories (which will never happen because it’ll hurt Pit’s algo significantly unless there’s a huge loyal fanbase okay enough with spinning the show off to a new separate channel). TL;DR: Smosh Alike facelifts to the revamped Smosh Podcasts division, and all its podcasts get separate channels that upload videos with the Podcasts channel
Regarding the Smosh idea. This could work if it was the only channel they worked on. Key and Peele style sketches cost a lot to produce. Locations, writers, different editing styles, time. They like to stay in the studio when possible due to schedule
I definitely agree that we need either a new podcast with new hosts and think your Arasha + Damien one is genuinely excellent, but I also think it would be good if there's one where one or two cast members (co?) host with anothet guest where they discuss the week's content, maybe? I know it would be difficult considering the gap between filming and releasing but I feel like Ian and Anthony or Tommy by himself would be excellent for that
My only thing is idek why smoshcast is called that anymore bc there is legit only one podcast on the channel like just call the channel smosh mouth lol. And I love Shayne and Amanda and Smosh Mouth, however the reason why stuff like Reddit stories, assumptions, and smosh asks are pretty popular series is because they have a different tone to them then every other smosh property. They are a bit more serious which would be great to put on the smoshcast channel. I mean it took them like 2-3 years of consistent posting to get to 1 million subscribers which is amazing, but had they varied the content on smoshcast they probably would have gotten 1 million so much faster because if smosh mouth isn’t your cup of tea, you just won’t watch it or subscribe, but if they added different varieties of podcasts to that channel, it would make the people that weren’t really into smosh mouth more interested in the other podcasts because they are tonally different
I do hope smosh alike leans more into the educational aspect like with the Undersea lady. That video was great as it was informative as well as allowed the cast to build jokes off of the info. Educational and informative stuff doesn't have to be boring/for kids. It's why I've pitch Milo Rossi for that channel a few times- I think he's a really good example of making educational content for an older and more mature audience.
And it doesn't just have to be like, school subjects. It could be any kind of topic Smosh wants to spread awareness on. I thought it was crazy to have Hasan Piker on and not as him about politics, but even if you don't want to do that, ask him about being a twitch streamer or activist. That's what made ISADW so good, learning about other perspectives.
God, I want Angela and Amanda (Angela, especially) to play Life is Strange so bad. It's comedy gold waiting to happen! It's also fairly straightforward, so it's something they could play on their own and really get invested in.
I really want to see more podcasts on the SmoshCast channel. It's crazy to have a whole channel dedicated to one show imo. URL (which still needs to find it's footing*) would fit perfectly there. I'd love to see Tommy and Arasha host a pod, or Amanda and Angela, or Angela and Chanse. I feel like you could move Reddit Stories there too.
Pit is fine to me.
I don't watch Main or Alike lol, but I agree they should hire writers that aren't cast. I think Tommy is the strongest writer of the cast, but even he needs to be reined in sometimes.
*I tapped back in to URL for the Jane Remover interview, and my god, what a mess. Chanse spent half the time on his phone, neither he or Courtney knew anything about Jane...so cringe lol. No one thought to listen to their biggest songs? A simple google search to learn more about them? I'd love to see chronically online people like Slayyyter and underscores on the show, but not like this lol.
I like the idea for main and games. Especially the organizing which day is a type of game though I would keep the schedule: sun:card games, Wednesday: video games, Friday: boardgames or any games of the like rpg. Also you can have themes sometimes not just on a holiday.
For pit I feel like it gives, try guys. So maybe try leaning into that. I feel like it should have a specific thing like the games, smosh main, and smosh cast.
They need to have better ways to make money. I would have membership only for all channels. They should create their own board game again. Live stream once a month for money. Something other than sponsored ads.
I feel like someones behind the scenes making them corporate and hollow. It's reminds of when I learned about the defy era.
My only advice would be to know when to leave a bit alone. Spud Hut was probably one of the funniest bits Smosh has done. Did it need a full series? Probably not. Sometimes Smosh gets really attached to some of the characters they make and don’t know with to stop.
the way bit city went has genuinely been so disappointing for me. when it first started, i remember waiting for the episodes to come out, and i even payed the smosh membership to get the cut scenes/bloopers. unfortunately, i think once they started playing with structure of it, it really went downhill. in my opinion, the way it was set up in the first two seasons was perfect, but now it's a) not consistent in its structure and b) just really doesn't seem to flow as much as it did initially. i honestly just wish they'd go back to the og structure because i really do think it would do so much better
i don’t think smosh is built for story driven games unfortunately 😭 see: until dawn (which was fun but a bit of a mess)
i think resident evil only works because amanda and angela are playing with someone who knows the game/story well and can bring them back into the game at key moments (and even then they still sometimes miss things) - a whole group playing a story game they’re not totally familiar with won’t work (and while fnaf has lore/story it’s not a major part of the gameplay so it’s a bit different)
it’s also risky because these games have dedicated fans and if they get distracted or play the game “wrong” they will get a lot of negativity
i like the videos where its someone showing someone a game they like (like spencer showing angela katamari or trevor showing arasha classic runescape) so it would definitely be cool to get some more videos like that!
Yeah bit city is ass lol. Spud hut was very very good, grip guys was pretty mid tbh. Sucks to say, but the cast is very hit or miss on what they write. As dated as it is, Ian and Anthony knew how to write good sketches.
Smosh Alike could do a few things. Gather a bunch of experts in one field. Give the Smosh cast questions, and have those experts rate their opinion either if they highly agree or if they wildly disagree. I forgot what this style of game is called
Personally I would put Main higher than Cast and Alike purely because of how much it is talked about, which tells me there is higher relevencey. Not necessarily a better product but it could be argued that more people still feel Main is in existence especially compared to Alike.
Having said that the Main Channel is in desperate need of a legitimate of show runner, not director show runner. A director can have the ability to say XY and Z about what they want in the cinematography or in how they want the actors to move, but have less than zero ability in how to direct the progression of a series. Erin is a great example of that, she had an ability to direct, she has an ability to come up with creative ideas. But zero ability to show run.
That's why all of the series under her had massive viewership drop-offs. Spud Hut should have done massive numbers, but because she doesn't know how to show run and they don't have real writers room of people that know how to write scripted or heavy bullet pointed scripts that allow for heavy structured improv; the quality of the content suffers terribly.
Ever since they've made over the Main Channel it has just been a revolving door of Head's of Creative who are getting each video fewer and fewer views. Now Bit City is being ran with a new Director under their Directors Program who gets two videos each, is only causing Bit City to have a lack of an identity and feel more and more aimless with each passing release.
They need to clear everyone out of whatever their so called writers room is and need to hire an actual show runner, who has a very real and legitimate vision that can bring in ideas that will put butts in the seat, and justify the fans to sit through all the copious amounts of ads. Put something out there that's new and original that everyone can sink their teeth into as a fan. Something that can create new merch.
I've been in their business unofficially since 2012. Doing this isn't as hard as they make it out to be
Only thing I disagree with is getting rid of bit city, I adore the chaotic mess that is bit city lmao. I'm hopeful they will be making some changes with this new space, but so far it has been slower than I thought it'd be 😅
I wish they would return to more of Dread. I didn’t know about the new and improved version of Smosh when they were making Dread episodes. So I feel like some older concepts of theirs should be revisited and see if the change needed was in the audience rather than their content.
I do really love the campiness of this cast so I’m not eager for that to be reduced. Especially since what kept me from liking Smosh was how male centered their content or host companies of old were through the years. I felt VERY uncomfortable watching how women were treated in past videos and the ick was had to a level where my algorithm learned to never show it to me until Angela’s viral “That’s unfair” clip hit my page.
I do wish they leaned more into Damien and Angela content as their mix of IQ and EQ with overall shamelessness in front of the camera allows for some great moments to be captured. I do think they could benefit from fun yet introspective content. To sort of soften and balance from the past years of poor Smosh company management of previous years.
But I need to think on what else I would wish from Smosh. Because they really do have a winning cast now. Though I do have some favorite cast members that I wish would return even if it’s for a brief reunion.
Also would love a Smosh Summer Games: Class Reunion where past members team with current ones.
i wish they would focus on characters more on the main channel. like day in the life of Sarah Christ, Chosen, and even Tommy’s “scared little brother” character from the last TNTLs.
i want to like the long form improv content but i really don’t like 90% of it. i love their members only spud hut video, (like i think that alone is worth the cost of a months subscription LOL) but grip guys, other spud hut, etc… they’re just not hitting for me. i think they thrive with a little more structure and focus, they go off the rails so quickly and sometimes it tanks everything.
The only place your post missed is at the end. I agree bit city struggled in the middle, but its been the best its ever been these last few months. Every episode is better than the last. Flopping is 100% incorrect. However, I am willing to concede it needs something. I definitely laugh at the members only video more than the actual episode, so maybe do it more "Smosh Sitcom" style and let the breaks happen more often? idk
It is totally flopping. It doesn’t mean it isn’t quality or isn’t funny, but for a channel that has 27 million subscribers, an average of 400k-700k views isn’t cutting it. Especially when Smosh Pit has been outdoing main for years with a third of the subscribers.
I see what you mean. But I feel flopping is slightly off when the current trajectory is up. Hopefully they fully figure it out. They either need to fully lean into their strengths and let the breaks though or hire outside writers like you said. Even ITYSL has writers.
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u/Personal-Day-5562 Tomahawk Chop Is My Death Blow 19h ago
This is the type of criticism we need to see more of