Good Mythical Morning


Good Mythical Morning is an American comedy, talk and variety YouTube series created by Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal. The show first aired on YouTube on January 9, 2012, and continues to be uploaded every weekday. As of July 2020, the show has seventeen regular seasons and three summer seasons, one being part of season 11 and two being standalone seasons. The YouTube channel has over 16.5 million subscribers and more than 6.5 billion total video views.
The show has featured many celebrities and Internet personalities, including Daniel Radcliffe, Felix Kjellberg, Hank Green, Kobe Bryant, Joseph Garrett, Gus Johnson, Megan Fox, Coyote Peterson and Linkin Park.

History and premise

On January 3, 2011, Rhett and Link aired the first episode of Good Morning Chia Lincoln, a daily show similar in theme and format. The show was retired on February 28, after 40 episodes.
Rhett and Link aired the first episode of Good Mythical Morning approximately one year later on January 9, 2012, to their YouTube channel of the same name. The series' crew only consisted of one member during the first season, but has since grown to have twenty-eight members, as a part of Mythical Entertainment. Fan reactions to their behind-the-scenes crew led to the creation of the YouTube channel "Mythical", which focuses on the antics of their crew and other skits. The show focuses on Rhett and Link as they tell stories, sing songs, do challenges, and more. On November 6, 2017, Good Mythical Morning became a YouTube Original series. Shortly after, they reverted to their classic format.

Format

Good Mythical Morning is uploaded to YouTube every weekday morning, at approximately 6:00 AM Eastern Time. Each episode usually consists of Rhett and Link doing antics, playing food-related games, and answering often absurd questions.
During the 12th season of GMM, from the 53rd episode, they followed the 4-episode-per-day format, where they upload 4 GMM episodes and make them public at the same time. In the regular 15-minute episodes they made it into 30 minutes of Good Mythical Morning. They continued the 4-episode format until the end of Season 12, as when the 13th season was launched, they reduced it to 3 episodes per week.
At the announcement of the 14th season, they cut off the 3-episode format and switched back to making only one episode per day, followed by their weekly Saturday morning show, Let's Talk About That hosted by their executive producer, Stevie Wynne Levine. Following this on Sundays is Mythical Kitchen, which is hosted by Good Mythical Morning's head chef, Josh Scherer.
At the end of every episode, Rhett and Link spin the "Wheel of Mythicality", which can land on categories such as "6 Degrees of Bacon," "Winface," and "Gifticality." The contents of the wheel often change between seasons. The consequences of each wheel spin are determined in Good Mythical More, a more relaxed after-show.
Due to the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning on March 30, 2020, Good Mythical Morning adopted a modified format in which episodes consist of a mix between prerecorded studio episodes and episodes featuring Rhett and Link broadcasting over video call from their own homes. This format continued until June 8, 2020, when the release schedule returned to normal, and the show was once again being recorded in the studio.

Let's Talk About That (LTAT)

LTAT was a Saturday show that aired at 6:00 Eastern Time hosted by Stevie Wynne Levine. Before LTAT, they had a few other Friday morning shows, including Ear Biscuits, and Good Mythical Crew, continuing.
LTAT was a discussion of the main show's episodes that week. The show began with a "rejected GMM food", which was usually food that was not selected for a video that week for various reasons but was saved for Rhett, Link, and Stevie to try during LTAT. Chef Josh often appeared to describe the food. The show originally began with the "beverage of the week", where they drank an odd beverage and talked about how it tasted and then used a segue to transition to the LTAT's main topic.
LTAT was discontinued on December 21, 2019 having completed 54 episodes across two seasons. As a replacement, Rhett & Link began recording vlogs on their original main channel.

Episodes

The third season of Good Mythical Morning introduced the "Taste Test" series which include episodes where the hosts guess the food in blindfolds, challenge themselves to eat something often spicy and disgusting, and compare a particular type of food across different brands. Some of the most popular videos from this series are the "Bug War Challenge", the "Ghost Pepper Challenge", the "Carolina Reaper Challenge" and the "Sriracha Challenge". The fifth season brought the "Will It" series, in which the hosts try and invent different varieties of a famous type of food with unusual and increasingly disgusting ingredients. The first episode of "Will It" was aired on May 5, 2014, on Cinco De Mayo titled "Will it Taco" where Rhett and Link tried tacos made of pine needles, baby shampoo, and congealed pork blood.
Many Internet and other personalities have appeared in the show. The Gregory Brothers starred in a season one episode. Chuck Testa starred in two season 2 episodes. The fifth season featured Taryn Southern, Craig Benzine and Meghan Camarena. Season 6 featured Hannah Hart, Daniel Radcliffe, Felix Kjellberg, Jamie Spafford and Barry Taylor from Sorted Food and Lilly Singh. Season 7 featured Lady Antebellum, Rosanna Pansino, Kaelem, Lindsey Stirling, Joseph Garrett, Barry Taylor and Ben Ebbrell from Sorted Food, Mamrie Hart, Zach King, Amy Schumer and Bill Hader. Season 8 featured Smosh, Shay Mitchell, Grace Helbig, Chester See, Colleen Ballinger, Dan Avidan and Arin Hanson from Game Grumps, Steve Zaragoza and Lee Newton. Season 9 featured Jenn McAllister, Kevin Smith, Redfoo, Hank Green and Tony Hale. Grace Helbig, Hannah Hart and Mamrie Hart also appeared in the tenth and eleventh season. The eleventh season featured Michael Stevens, Mayim Bialik, comedy duo Jake and Amir, Linkin Park, Jake Roper, Chachi Gonzales, Gabbie Hanna, the Game Grumps, Rosanna Pansino, iJustine, Hank Green and his brother John Green, Big E, Kofi Kingston, Xavier Woods and Pete Holmes and Becky Lynch.

Reception

The show has become very popular on YouTube, with the Good Mythical Morning channel having more than 16 million subscribers and over 5 billion video views as of April 2019. Each episode generally gains over 1 million views. The show has also won Best Variety Series at the International Academy of Web Television Awards, Best Web Series at the Shorty Awards, Best Comedy Series and Best Non-Fiction Channel, Series or Show at the Streamy Awards, among many others. The series was also featured in The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon with episodes of "Will It Tea," "Will It S'more," "Will It Hot Dog," and "Will It Hummus?"
While the fan response to the series has been mostly positive, the relaunched format starting November 6, 2017, was met with a negative reaction from many fans. Several viewers criticized the new format, targeting the show for losing its charm, suddenly focusing on guest stars, and making the new episodes feel forced and rushed. Many fans also reacted negatively to the decision to split each episode into four parts. While the show addressed these complaints in a video response, the number of views for newer episodes steadily declined in the following weeks, with only a handful of episodes surpassing one million views. Despite this, the show currently has retained over fifteen million subscribers to their YouTube channel.
In July 2018, the show reverted to the older format, and complaints by fans became much less pronounced. The show once again regularly surpasses a million views per episode.
In December 2019, Good Mythical Morning won "Show of the Year" at the 9th Streamy Awards.