Greetings and salutations dear blog readers. Today marks the 14th anniversary of LoadingReadyRun. Now we don’t normally do much in the way of celebration when it comes to the sites birthday but figured to hell with “normal”. NOT THIS YEAR! This year, we will go a few notches above the bare minimum. I thought it would be fun to get the crew to share some of their favourite memories and thoughts on 14 years of LoadingReadyRun. So let’s get started.
Beej
My favourite memory is entirely self-serving: I was manning our booth at PAX West and someone walked up to thank me for playing Shadowrun: Dragonfall on-stream. He then introduced himself: he was the game’s head writer. Then he told me that the rest of Harebrained Schemes had watched most of my run and really enjoyed it. I was floored by the fact that our streaming not only meant something to the fans, but was also loved by the people making the games we play.
Paul
Now that we are mostly settled into to Moonbase Mk5, it’s fun to look back at the previous Moonbases to see the physical manifestation of how far we have have come, both as a company and as a community. I always imagine that each new office will be big enough for our needs, but as our space increases, so does our ambition and I’m sure that before long we will trying to figure out how to do 10 player games of Commander or something equally silly. The fact that this can all exist built on the support of LRR Community is a source of constant amazement for me and, whether through streaming, scripted videos, Desert Bus, podcasts, vlogs or whatever else we can come up with, I hope we can continue to entertain you for a long time to come.
Ian
I’ve heard LoadingReadyRun described before as “the people who invented being funny on the internet“. While LRR didn’t invent the idea, 14 years of continuously being funny on the internet is an amazing accomplishment. Three years ago, Cori and I stepped into a stream directly after driving from Edmonton, and we’ve never looked back. I am honoured to be able to continue to educate, entertain, and otherwise interact with the stellar members of LoadingReadyRun, and our equally amazing fans, who I firmly believe are the best community on the Internet.
Cori
Cori just sent me this Dropbox link. Enjoy 😀
Graham
One fun moment that comes to mind is when Kathleen and I visited England some years back, we “arranged” an ad hoc LRR meetup for an afternoon when we’d be in London. Us and a dozen or so Runners hung out at an outdoor pub, but nobody wanted to leave, so we ended up sneaking into a school and just sitting around in a multi-purpose room, shooting the shit until late into the evening. We actively try to foster a positive community, and it shows because they’re great.
Sometimes I have to just stop and internalize that this is my job. I feel so lucky that our community has allowed us to entertain them for as long as they have, and stuck with us through so many changes in who LRR is and what we make. To the community: You trust us, and it means the world to me. Thank you for letting us be creative.
Serge
Only a couple years ago we were filming Feed Dump in the basement of Moonbase 3. Sitting on old couches, passing a single camera back and forth, and trying to remember to point the mic at the person speaking. Sitting in the new Moonbase, recording Feed Dump on the new set, I was shocked at how much things have changed and improved. It’s amazing how much the support from the community has allowed LRR to grow. A couple years ago I would have never guessed LRR would be where it is now. I look forward to seeing how much we continue to grow.
Adam
Fourteen years ago, my friends force fed me French fries. I’m still mad about that.
Kathleen
One of my favourite LRR memories is shooting Hell’s Kitchen, a video from 2006. I’m not sure the video is even online right now, but this was an “us playing us video” before Commodore Hustle had been invented.
The gist of the video was Morgan and Bill’s kitchen was gross, and so we kidnapped someone to clean it for us. The victim was my friend Brad Kirkland, who I think may have been visiting Victoria especially for the “privilege” of being in a LRR video and hanging out shooting with us.
In the plot, we basically grab Brad off the street and stuff him into a large sack and carry him off, exactly the same way someone gets kidnapped in a cartoon. Unfortunately we overestimated our upper body strength, and we absolutely dropped Brad right on his head onto the concrete and almost concussed him. Then we went back to filming, and we were all pleased with how the video turned out. Early LRR was always this whirlwind of action and lightly controlled chaos, and our friends would always end up get sucked into it, either by holding equipment, writing jokes or being forced to make their acting debuts because our visions were just a little too big for our actual capabilities. We’re a more organized now, but we’re still pulling our friends into videos and projects with us, because after 14 years of doing this, there is still a joyous energy that fills what we do. We don’t just make comedy because it’s our jobs, we do it because we love working together, and we want to make ourselves and our audience laugh. It’s still fun to do what we do, and as a bonus, it’s been years since we dropped someone on their head during filming.
PS – Brad turned out fine. He moved to England and got a PHD, so we clearly did Dr. Kirkland no lasting damage.
Heather
There’s so many good things that have come from hanging out and working with LRR. But my favourite moments are going to be the times that my friends have told me to come back. From the first time Kathleen told me to come hang around more on film days years ago, to yesterday when we all wave goodbye and yell out “see you tomorrow”.
James
Fourteen years ago I force fed my best friend French fries. It was an enjoyable experience.
But for real. 14 years is a long time and I don’t have many concrete, vivid memories of those early years. But the night Graham, Ben, Morgan and myself went to some awful house party only to leave early, walk back to my place and buy some french fries on the way home continues to be one of the most fun shoots we’ve ever done. I get to hang out with my closest friends and play video games and make silly videos. That’s 100% because of you. Thank you.