Review Party Recommends: Captain Disillusion

You know, I could be writing about some Amazon feature today, but when I sat down to the keys, I was instead pulled to YouTube, where I saw something that made me smile: a new video from the Captain, Captain Disillusion, that is. And that meant it was time for a watch. And now it means it’s time for a Review Party Recommends.

So much of what we do here on the podcast and blog is READ reviews, but this is our chance to recommend, to give you OUR review on something we believe is worth your time and attention.

Today, it’s Captain D.

Who is he? I’ll let his copy do the talking:

In a world where the content of digital images and videos can no longer be taken at face value, an unlikely hero fights for the acceptance of truth. Captain Disillusion guides children of all ages through the maze of visual fakery to the open spaces of reality and peace of mind. Subscribe to get fun and detailed explanations of current "unbelievable" viral videos that fool the masses!

In the guise of a Saturday morning television science educator, combined with superheroic powers of video editing (and breaking down), the Captain takes you on a wild and whimsical ride with every video, showing the flaws in faked stunts and informing you along the way.

And he has been doing this since 2007 (!!!), starting with that famous penguin slap video:

That lower image is from the video I watched today, 16 years later.

The costume, the makeup, the dark red corner, and the holding of the video frame. It’s ALL SO CONSISTENT! And it is consistently TOP NOTCH, and I haven’t even mentioned the sound design, the millisecond long jokes you’ll need to pause the video to catch, and just how darn entertaining it is to follow side characters, villain arcs, and to watch the Captain pull off better VFX as a joke/demonstration than the video he is debunking.

In a way, he’s reviewing the viral videos in the same sense we here have our Me, You, and Meme Review segments- taking something so enormously popular, then shredding it until we find the truth. Not that we can claim to be as hard-working or effective as CD.

All we can do is salute him.

Here’s the link again. Go watch him.