Twenty One years ago the words “do you ever wonder why we’re here” changed the internet forever. With those words, Red vs Blue was born. That show went on to become the second longest running animated webseries of all time. It was also the start of Rooster Teeth, a production company that went on to produce RWBY, Camp Camp, gen:Lock, numerous Smashmouth music videos, created the in person event RTX, spun off into Achievement Hunter, and more. They’ve made full length movies and documentaries, shorts and cartoons. Eventually they were bought by Fullscreen and then Warner Bros. Discovery. What started in a bedroom in Austin Texas with a group of friends grew to hundreds of employees. On March 6, 2024, it was announced that Rooster Teeth would be shutting down.
I discovered them in college, during season 3 of Red vs Blue. I found the short 3-5 minute episodes hilarious and needed more, so to watch the company blow up to what it eventually became was pretty interesting. After Red vs Blue, I got sucked into their Shorts and a Walk into Morder. The Know, which was their gaming news program was where I was getting a lot of my video game information for a while. Needless to say that Rooster Teeth became a large part of my life and I was a fan. While I am no where near as immersed in their content as I once was, this news does still hit hard for me.
I stopped watching after Monty Oum died and it came out that they had pretty much become very corporate in the way they did things and doing so screwed over animators and Monty’s wife, Sheena. Oum created a character based on Sheena, Winter Schnee, and she was supposed to voice her, but instead after Monty’s death they didn’t reach out and instead auditioned other voice actors. Sheena voiced numerous small parts on RWBY up until that point. After reading all that, it made me realize that what was once a bunch of friends making content. It had grown and while I still watched the content, I had a new outlook on it.
Of course over the years that wasn’t the last the only controversy that came out about the company. Over the years it was reported that people were being over worked, under paid, sexual and racial issues came out. It was exactly like you’d expect from any traditional company. That’s what Rooster Teeth had become, a traditional company. No longer was it just a group of friends doing it for fun.
Of course when you become a company and are bought by Warner Bros Discovery, money plays a big part in your decisions. With Warner Bros Discovery making movies and then shelving them for tax cuts, it’s no wonder they put Rooster Teeth on the chopping block. If Batgirl, which had Brendan Fraser in a highly anticipated role can’t be released, even on Max, what hope did they have? After Warner Bros and Discovery merged, they shut down CNN+ and there were rumors that Rooster Teeth could be next. It took a few years, but they finally brought the axe down.
While this was coming for a while and I think a lot of people knew it would eventually, I think it took longer than most people would have thought. I will miss their glory days and my thoughts are with all those who are affected by this. I don’t just mean the employees, I also mean those who grew up watching and wanting to be them. The ones who would laugh with them on their podcasts and live shows. We’re all hurting a little bit with this news.
