General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

How It Should Have Ended

How It Should Have Ended (HISHE) is an American animated web series that parodies popular films by depicting alternate endings and pointing out perceived flaws in their plots. Each episode is a short cartoon, typically about five minutes long, imagining how a movie would play out if its characters acted logically or its plot holes were resolved.¹

Key fact	Detail
Format	Animated comedy shorts of roughly 5 minutes, parodying films with alternate endings¹
Founders	Daniel Baxter, joined shortly after the first release by Tina Alexander²
YouTube channel	Created March 5, 2007; 10.5 million subscribers and about 3.46 billion total views across 573 videos³^•⁴
Subscriber milestone	10 million subscribers reached on December 19, 2020⁵
Most watched video	How Avengers Infinity War Should Have Ended, 51,620,377 views⁴
Recurring segments	Super Café (Batman and Superman) and Villain Pub³

Spoilers

Episodes and seasons

Episode databases organize the output into 18 numbered seasons plus a large specials category. Season 1 ran from April 2005 to April 2008 with 17 episodes, and Season 2, the first full YouTube era, ran from September 2009 to December 2010 with 16 episodes including takes on Terminator, Twilight, Avatar, Star Trek, and Inception.¹^•⁶ Season 18 began in February 2026 with "How Stranger Things Should Have Ended" and continued through 2026 with episodes such as "How Zootopia 2 Should Have Ended," "How Supergirl Should Have Ended," and "How Spider-Man Brand New Day Should Have Ended."¹^•⁶ The most recent episode listed, "How Avengers Endgame Encore Should Have Ended," aired October 2, 2026.⁹

Origins

The series began in 2005 as the result of a conversation between friends, including founder Daniel Baxter, about how often films contain necessary plot holes to create drama and bring about climactic endings. They found humor in how scenes from popular movies would play out if those plot holes were logically filled. With webcomics becoming popular at the time, Baxter conceived of an animated webcomic, and the first project was a parody of The Matrix Revolutions: he wrote a script, sketched the art by hand, recorded a voiceover, scanned the art, and assembled the piece in After Effects. Tina Alexander joined shortly after the first release.²

In the early days the cartoons were not on YouTube; the first couple of animations were shared among friends, then distributed online in the DIVX format from the team's own website, which regularly crashed under the demand for downloads.²

Moving to YouTube. In 2006 the team received a call from California congratulating them on having the number one video on YouTube, with the complication that no one from HISHE had uploaded anything to the site; fans had done it for them. The discovery that YouTube could carry the distribution load ended the server crashes, and HISHE launched its own channel in 2007.² Database listings record the channel's creation date as March 5, 2007.³ Episode databases date the series itself to April 23, 2005, reflecting the pre-YouTube website era.¹

Format and recurring segments

Each episode presents short vignettes showing how a film could have been handled differently, often by resolving a story quirk more logically. Episodes parody a wide range of franchises; the episode lists include takes on Avatar, Inception, The Wizard of Oz, Jurassic World, Toy Story 3, Harry Potter, and many Marvel and DC films.⁶ Some episodes are compilations, such as the Star Wars and Iron Man "HISHE SUPERCUT" videos.⁶

Super Café. In the superhero episodes, altered or added scenes from the film are followed by the film's superheroes interacting with Batman and Superman, both voiced by Daniel Baxter, at the Super Café. The café segment appears at the end of each superhero episode, with the exception of the HISHE episodes for Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, where it appears near the beginning. Its most notable running gag is Batman explaining his accomplishments and abilities or finding an excuse to say his catchphrase, "Because I'm Batman!", much to Superman's irritation. The Super Café format lets recurring parody characters develop over time, and the writing builds on the audience's knowledge of the characters, including deeper references such as other superheroes teasing Captain America about his theme song from the 1960s Captain America cartoon.²

Villain Pub. A companion segment gathers a film's villains in a bar setting; episode titles include "Villain Pub - To Battle!!!" and "Villain Pub - A Despicable QUIET PLACE."⁶

Production

The animation is led by Daniel Baxter, who also voices Batman and Superman and is credited as director, co-producer, and editor; Tina Alexander is credited as a writer.³^•⁷ In the early years Baxter was learning animation techniques on his own with the software he had available, which is why the original episodes look the way they do and why the early format is inconsistent.⁸

Channel performance

The channel has grown into one of YouTube's established animation outlets. It passed 10 million subscribers on December 19, 2020⁵ and stood at 10.5 million subscribers with roughly 3.46 billion total views across 573 videos as of late 2026.⁴ A new long video on the channel typically draws about 527,591 views and a new short about 306,273.⁴

The most watched long-form videos are How Avengers Infinity War Should Have Ended (51,620,377 views), How "Toy Story 3" Should Have Ended (50,293,941), How Jurassic World Should Have Ended (41,953,679), How Harry Potter Should Have Ended (37,553,173), and How The Avengers Should Have Ended (34,333,128). Among Shorts, "SUPERMAN is jealous of GODZILLA" leads with 8,346,288 views.⁴

References

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 › Comedy, drama, and general-genre web series › Premiered 1999 to 2016

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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