asdfmovie

asdfmovie (pronounced "ass-duff") is a British animated sketch comedy web series created by Thomas "TomSka" Ridgewell, in which each episode strings together dozens of wordless or one-line gags, most only a few seconds long. The first episode was uploaded to YouTube on August 10, 2008, and the series has run intermittently ever since, reaching a sixteenth installment in February 2026.^{1 • 2}

Origin

Before it was a video series, asdf was a webcomic. Ridgewell posted the strips on the art site Sheezyart under the username "asdfman," and later on his own site, asdfland; most of the clips in the animations are adapted from those comic strips. He has said he drew inspiration from The Lazer Collection and other Flash animations of the era, which prompted him to make his own series in a similar style.¹

The lowercase stylization has been kept throughout, though the title is sometimes inaccurately rendered "ASDF Movie."⁹

Format

Each episode is a compilation of very short, unrelated sketches in simple, mostly black-and-white animation. A Boing Boing retrospective describes the formula as essentially unchanged across the run: a few minutes of animated mini-sketches, each no longer than a handful of seconds, delivering non sequitur after non sequitur, strung together with bursts of static between setups. The reviewer attributes the format's effectiveness to its relentless pace, which keeps viewers from dwelling on any single joke.³

The humor is deliberately absurd and often dark. Recurring gags include a character who says "Die, potato" and steps on a potato, a suicidal talking muffin, a skateboarding cow, and the catchphrase "I LIKE TRAINS," spoken by a boy who is then struck by a train. Recurring characters include Mine Turtle and Desmond the Moonbear.^{4 • 10} Guns, grenades, and knives appear regularly, though the violence is cartoonish, and jokes also touch on darker subjects such as police brutality, alcoholism, and suicide.⁴

Spinoffs and related media

Several sketches grew into standalone musical videos listed as specials on TheTVDB: "I Like Trains" (September 23, 2011), "Everybody Do The Flop" (January 17, 2014), "Beep Beep I'm a Sheep" (April 1, 2017), and "The Muffin Song" (May 11, 2018), along with "Mine Turtle" (June 22, 2012).⁵ Clips from the series circulate widely as reaction videos and GIFs, particularly on Tumblr, and many fan imitations exist; Ridgewell encouraged these with the "asdfcomp" contest, challenging users to make their own skits in the asdf style.⁹

The franchise expanded beyond video. In 2015 Ridgewell announced a book of comics based on the series with the artist and YouTuber Matt Ley, saying that "asdf is very intense, in-your-face and catchphrase-y, and that's because that's what works on YouTube."¹¹ As of 2026 the series has also produced two card games.⁴

Voice cast and guests

Ridgewell voices various characters across 15 episodes. Regular cast members include Chloe Dungate (13 episodes from 2010) and Eddie Bowley (7 episodes from 2013), with Jack Douglass appearing in 5 episodes and Todd Bryanton voicing the Do the Flop Guy.⁷ Guest voices listed for the series include the YouTubers PewDiePie and Markiplier, the singer Kylie Minogue, and Sam Lavagnino as the Muffin.¹²

Reception and influence

On IMDb the series holds a 7.8/10 rating weighted from about 850 user votes, with per-episode ratings ranging from 6.3 to 7.6.^{7 • 13} Commenters and reviewers have described it as one of the defining random-humor franchises of the late 2000s and early 2010s YouTube era, and a 2026 Boing Boing piece called it an internet institution of nearly two decades that shaped the humor of a generation.^{10 • 3} A screen-comedy essay comparing slapstick traditions with modern media cites the series' short form and joke-forward focus as the basis of its popularity.¹⁴

The series' success allowed Ridgewell to produce other content, including live-action comedy sketches and the animated series Crash Zoom, and he founded the production company TurboPunch. He started posting sketches at 16 and created asdfmovie while studying Media Production at the University of Lincoln, writing, shooting, directing, and editing his early work himself.⁴

Ridgewell has been explicit about the series' intended audience. In his video "No Kids Allowed" he tells viewers under 13 that his videos are not appropriate for them and asks younger fans to show the content to their parents so they can make an informed decision; his channel description reads "Not suitable for kids."⁴

References

1. asdfmovie, Know Your Meme
2. asdfmovie, Season 1, TheTVDB
3. Bite-sized sketch comedy anthology asdfmovie returns, Boing Boing (2026)
4. TomSka, Plugged In YouTube Review
5. asdfmovie, Aired Order, TheTVDB
6. Asdfmovie (Series), Asdfmovie Wiki, Fandom
7. Asdfmovie (TV Series 2008– ), IMDb
8. asdfmovie, Simkl
9. asdfmovie, Dictionary.com Slang
10. asdfmovie: TomSka's Surreal Stick-Figure Animation Series Explained, Meme.com
11. Tom Ridgewell to Release asdf Comic Book, TenEighty (2015)
12. asdfmovie, SensCritique
13. Asdfmovie, Ratings, IMDb
14. Why Chase when you can eat Pie?, Screen Comedy, University of St Andrews

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Web-native and streaming-original series › Early English-language web series (1997–mid 2010s)

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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