"Fuckin' boopin' ass game!" - JonTron
One's grump. The other is not so grump. You know the drill.
Game Grumps is a web-show created by Arin Hanson (Egoraptor) and Jon Jafari (JonTron) that involves them doing commentary on various games. Both of them were previously known for their own respective productions. Egoraptor is, of course, famous for the Awesome Series, along with Sequelitis and Girlchan in Paradise, among other things. JonTron is famous for, naturally, the JonTron Show on YouTube, along with a spin-off channel focusing on League of Legends. He's also involved in Polaris and Blistered Thumbs on That Guy With The Glasses. Due to the history of these internet personalities, many fans were both skeptical and excited for this show. Many speculations were formed about it at the time, and many different assumptions and viewpoints were expressed; among them were how well they would gel together and how well their styles of humor would work on the same video.
An interesting note is that the Grumps are often referred to as their real names as opposed to their internet aliases to drive home the "two dudes just playin' gamez" concept. Game Grumps came to fruition due to an argument between Arin and Jon about whether Wolf and Fox from StarFox were clones while they were playing Super Smash Brothers Brawl. A friend they were with told them that they were being needlessly grumpy over the game... and the rest is history. The two internet personalities created the channel on July 10th, 2012, and began the first era of Game Grumps with a Kirby Superstar play-through on the 18th. What set GG apart from the typical Let's Play was the lack of focus on the game mechanics, which at the time was seen as rather fresh and interesting.
It indeed was.
What made the show work wasn't specifically because it was so different from other Let's Plays, as mentioned before. The duo typically strayed away from LP hallmarks, yes, but they did it in favor of spontaneous conversation, vulgar, often goofball humor, a TON of gratuitous yelling and frequently (and hilariously) pointing out absurdities in the games themselves as opposed to just being different for the sake of it. To extenuate the supposed differentiation intention, Arin and Jon had made it clear several times that the videos weren't Let's Plays. Among the best early GG videos are the Goof Troop, Sonic '06 (although the length is an issue for some people) and Kirby Superstar series', along with the Chuckie Cheese and Mary-Kate and Ashley one-offs.
Beyond the challenges and quirks that made the show a blast to watch, though, was the dynamic between Jon and Arin. It was clear from the get-go that they were close friends and enjoyed each others' company, but their personalities and ideals often clashed, leading to many hilarious moments and rather though-provoking arguments. Both were rather hot-blooded and ready to go into mad tangents at the drop of a hat, but Jon seemed to do it more often. There was also Barry, their intrepid and sarcastic editor who soon developed a following and memetic worship from viewers. Some of the show's most insane and hysterical moments come from his little touches, so that's not a bad thing by any means.
Although the show, like any popular one, was polarizing from the very beginning, it quickly attracted a large fan-base that spawned tons of remixes, fan-art and a (usually) strong relationship between the Grumps themselves and viewers. Due to the massive popularity, the channel spawned numerous series' outside of the main one (Game Grumps, obviously); GG VS, GG Animated, Guest Grumps, Steam Train, Steam Rolled and Table Flip, along with several special holiday-themed series' (although just about everything after the Animated series began almost a year later).
In spite of the hilarious humor, numerous memorable episodes and endless memes, however, the series was definitely not without its flaws.
It was arguably around the time the Naughty Bear video was released where the Grumps began to really show signs of decreasing in quality. The duo seriously started to lose their humorous edge (to those that found them funny in the first place, anyway), hints became consistently ignored, which they blamed on the game's design as opposed to their own lack of attention, and some of their most notorious habits (ECH and Arin's often poorly formed opinions, among other things) became near impossible to bear. Even before that, though, the Grumps frequently stopped playing games out of nowhere either due to minor frustrations or simply losing interest a couple parts in. Not only that, but several fans felt that the Sonic '06 play-through went on a bit too long. Many instances within the YouTube comments and in various forums show that the show's decline can be pointed to as just as much a result of the constant bickering between individuals and idiotic mindsets as the shortcomings of the duo themselves.
Then, on June 25th, 2013, Jon left, causing quite the uproar amongst viewers due to the abruptness of it. His replacement was Dan Avidan (Danny Sexbang) of NinjaSexParty fame. The already large divide between the fans continued to grow at an increasingly fast pace and it was utterly obliterated upon the introduction of Steam Train, RIGHT AFTER Jon departing no less. At the time, you could count the amount of people taking this in stride on one hand. All of this thankfully cooled down after a while, however, and Danny eventually grew on the fans.
Danny indeed stuck out like a sore thumb for a while, being a bit too similar to Arin and agreeing with more or less everything he said, but the Wind Waker HD play-through revealed some rather dark secrets regarding Danny, causing many viewers (including me) to sympathize with him. He also developed a penchant for telling crazy stories and generally just wanting nothing more than to fuck around, which soon caused most to overlook his less defined days. The introduction of all the new series' listed above after Steam Train, along with new Grumps Ross O'Donovan/RubberRoss and Suzy Hanson/Mortem3r, garnered attention and a lot of positive feedback. Ross became the channel's go-to affectionate punching bag and a frequent source of faux-blame and Suzy became well known for being a friendly lass with a surprising penchant for occasional trash-talking and macrebe comments.
A good deal of the bad aftertaste of Jon's leave has passed due to the cast doing their best to establish new things and move on from the Golden Age of the channel. Unfortunately, the polarizing views of the show itself have yet to relent, however, and there's no end in sight in terms of arguing and petty bullshit. Again, though, that's to be expected of fan-bases of popular web-shows, and Game Grumps is certainly no different.
In a couple months, the show will have completed its second year, and all things considered, you can tell that the show has come a long way regardless of any roadblocks in the past.
What started off as simply two popular dudes on the web deciding to do a show together morphed into an internet phenomenon and one of YouTube's more notable attractions. To some, it might not seem like much, but to fans of gaming and, well, funny shit online in general, it's huge. The proverbial commentary cocoon sprouted into a beautiful butterfly and has become more popular than anyone initially expected, and there's no end in sight. Despite many complaints that the channel was dying and was becoming more a business than just a laid-back, funny thing for gamers to watch, Game Grumps is still as hilarious and interesting as ever despite everything it has gone through. Although the show will always inspire different viewpoints and will always have its flaws, its success is inarguable and it's near impossible to resist at least watching a few videos every once in a while.