Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series

Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series (often abbreviated to Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged or simply YGOTAS) is a popular fan parody of the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime created by Martin Billany, better known by his screename, LittleKuriboh.

Overview
As the name suggests, Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series is a dramatically shortened down version of the original series, cutting each episode down from its original twenty minutes. This includes episodes in two or more parts. During the first two seasons, all characters in the series were voiced by LittleKuriboh, even the female ones, adding to the comical effect of the parody. A notable exception of this were the characters of Rebecca Hawkins in the regular series and Gary Stu in the Other Abridged Movie, which were voiced by LittleKuriboh's (now -ex) wife, Abigail, mostly referred to by her screen-name Safty. However, with the introduction of Noah and The Big Five in Season 3, a number of other YouTube voice actors, mainly from the group Team Four Star, have become part of the main cast.

The series is focused on making fun of the eccentricities of the series, most prominently the fact that Duel Monsters is a children's card game, yet is played by teens and adults with unfaltering seriousness and unreal consequences. This leads to frequent commentaries about the role of the game in the series and the plot of such. It also lampoons the changes made to the series in the English dub, and greatly exaggerates the characters' personalities from that version, to comic effect. There are also jokes that break the "fourth wall".

The humor of the series has constantly varied and expanded from its original premise. Rather than just making fun at the original series, other elements have been added throughout time to the parody.

All episodes would end with a scene from the anime juxtaposed with audio from another source. For example, the end of episode 2 featured Téa and Yami Marik as Lois Lane and Lex Luthor in a scene from the Superman Returns trailer.

Recently as of Episode 40, LittleKuriboh has been using tracks from the English dub along with other music he usually finds for episodes. They give the series a bit more of that "Yu-Gi-Oh!-feel" to them.

Season 3, renamed Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Cancelled Series, began on May 25, 2010.

'Attention Duelists! My hair is telling you that there are: Plot Endings and/or Spoilers Below'

'Attention Duelists! My mullet is agreeing with you'

Conception
The concept behind Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series was inspired by many short parodies on the internet that used the premise of a film of TV show to lampoon the film or show it came from. After seeing Curtdogg's Yu-Gi-Oh in a Nutshell, a parody of the first season of the second series, LittleKuriboh sought to flesh out his concept, parodying a single episode of Yu-Gi-Oh!, while also seeking to make it appeal to people who had never seen the series before.

LittleKuriboh initially intended to only abridge the first episode, but after a very positive reaction, he continued to abridge the following episodes. By the time Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series exploded in popularity, he had committed to abridging every episode of the series.

Running gags

 * 4Kids Entertainment is often used as a joke because they make fun of the Shadow Realm and that they hate Disney.
 * Naruto: The Abridged Series and Dragon Ball Z: The Abridged are constantly referred to and/or made fun of.
 * Most characters have reoccurring catchphrases.
 * Characters assume that Ryo Bakura is gay and is made fun of due to his British nationality as well as the fact he is a minor character until the last season. He also has a "gaydar" installed in the Millennium Ring to locate gay people.
 * Ryo Bakura's parents wanted to name him Florence and thus has become his nickname, much to his dislike as he feels it is a girl's name. This is a reference to the movie "Funny Girl" specifically the line "Who would name a boy Florence?"
 * Joey Wheeler's Brooklyn accent is constantly lampooned. Many jokes are made about Joey being a furry - he has claimed to be one, denied being one when called such by Kaiba.
 * When Marik Ishtar or his father say "f***" it is censored, a loud "eff" sound (itself a sound byte taken from Perfect Hair Forever) is heard instead of a bleep. Dartz has also adopted this tendency in some videos.
 * Seto Kaiba constantly mentions how rich he is and loves to flaunt it in the face of other characters. His line from the first episode of "Screw the rules, I have money!" has since become an internet meme. Other episodes have Kaiba paraphrasing the line in various ways. ("Screw the rules, I have green hair!", "Screw the money, I have rules!") Additionally, his lust for power is occasionally treated as a fetish, to the point that he becomes aroused whenever an Egyptian God card is summoned. Also, many characters refer to his enormous ego, and he approves of this himself.
 * Nobody, not even Seto, respects Mokuba Kaiba, and most characters simply respond to anything he says with "Shut up, Mokuba!" Mokuba is also kidnapped repeatedly, to the point that the characters treat it as a common occurrence and show no concern for him.
 * Mako Tsunami is called a "freaky fish guy" and throws harpoons at people. He is in love with the ocean, but their relationship has problems as she rarely speaks to him. They have recently reconciled.
 * Kemo begins almost every sentence with "Attention duelists!", even when not speaking to duelists, and constantly makes reference to his hair when doing anything. He also claims to have taken "child-grabbing" classes.
 * Grandpa wants to die and has frequent heart attacks which never actually kill him. He also is hinted to carry on a sexual relationship with a "Black Luster Soldier" poster.
 * Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack" plays whenever Duke Devlin talks. He also likes Joey's sister, Serenity, and openly competes with Tristan for her affection (which actually happens in the real anime). Everything he says has something to do with sex.
 * Shadi is Borat. Other characters constantly point out that his role in the series is useless because he only explains things after they have already happened.
 * Maximillion Pegasus is thought to be gay, and the revelation that he had a wife and is straight is treated as a plot twist. He has since been implied to be a pedophile, and is still considered gay by other characters.He recently brought his dead wife back to life as a zombie at one of Mariks evil meetings with the help of teddy.
 * Mai Valentine's purpose of only being there to provide fanservice is lampooned by most characters, who only notice her breasts. Mai herself is very proud of them, claims them not to be fake (which the other characters object to), and frequently talks about them.
 * Yami Yugi moves between outright proclaiming that he is gay to blatantly hitting on the female characters. He is also known for killing a gay clown.
 * The characters find various scenes or elements of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX and Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's ridiculous, such as the use of slang in the dub of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX and the "card games on motorcycles" premise of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's. Visions of the future are sometimes shown using GX or 5D's footage, and the characters are universally horrified.
 * Everybody refers to Duel Monsters simply as "a children's card game." Card games are referenced constantly as the most important thing in the world, and are the way in which all problems are solved. However, it is considered ridiculous for a child to be good at it (as suggested with the introduction of Rebecca Hawkins)
 * All of Marik's henchmen are named Steve, as the Millennium Rod can only control people named "Steve". When he wishes to control people not named Steve, he must first trick them into legally changing their names to it.
 * Odion Ishtar seems to have great interest in children things.
 * "Obnoxious Celtic Guardian" is referred to by a different adjective every time it is summoned, such as "disgruntled", "bamboozled", "frustrated" and "agnostic".
 * The Egyptian Gods have each a joke along: "Slifer the Sky Dragon" is called "Slifer the Executive Producer", a jab at Slifer's English name being derived from 4Kids executive Roger Slifer. "The Winged Dragon of Ra" is called "Mega Ultra Chicken", which is a reference to Aqua Teen Hunger Force. A sound clip of Joey and Tristan saying the word "torment" is played anytime that "Obelisk the Tormentor" attacks.
 * Yami Marik is named Melvin, and rather then being Marik's alter-ego he is Marik's imaginary friend. He loves to give people "hugs", which he uses as euphemism for murder. Melvin has a habit of calling people Binky-boy, a tendency shared by Mr. Ishtar and Marik.
 * Weevil Underwood and Rex Raptor are Beavis and Butthead respectively.
 * Bandit Keith ends every sentence with "In America" and constantly references America even though he is actually Canadian.
 * Zorc loves to destroy things, frequently proclaiming he will destroy the world. Whenever he mentions this, a laugh track is played.
 * Rebecca Hawkins' bear is depicted as possessed by a demonic spirit, speaking in a guttural voice about Hell, Satan and death.
 * Yugi once said, "Every time Kaiba smiles, a puppy dies." This would be referenced later (four times so far), with "+1 Dead Puppies", "+100 Dead Puppies", "+9001 Dead Puppies", and "+10000000000 Dead Puppies" accompanying every Kaiba smile.
 * Captions reading "Actual 4Kids Dialogue" crop up during some of the more absurd lines, indicating that the dialogue wasn't something LittleKuriboh made up.
 * Bonz is constantly being referred to as "Zombie Boy" and he only says the word "brains", which he constantly does when talking. Subtitles were added, that help the viewer and the characters understand what he's trying to say. When Marik kicked him out of the Evil Council, he defected to Dartz' team.
 * Roland and Kaiba's other suit are Nazi German stereotypes with high pitched voices and heavy German accents. They refer to Kaiba as "Der Führer" In episode 39, they introduce themselves as Gruber and Hans, wich is a reference to the the German terrorist Hans Gruber in the movie 'die hard'.
 * Tea flirts with Yugi and Yami at any chance she gets. She drools over Marik too. She constantly gives friendship speeches and is considered slutty and annoying.

Impact
Many people have also started to make their own "Abridged Series" of the same kind as LittleKuriboh. Some of the more successful ones include Naruto and Dragonball Z. LittleKuriboh encourages this, and has made guest appearances on both of those shows, and even created a friendly parody of the Naruto abridged series, titled "Naruto The Abridged Comedy Fandub Spoof Series Show". He also regularly makes fun of both series in his own, particularly the Naruto Abridged, which he once references as having no fanbase. By this point, Abridging has more or less become a genre unto itself.

Impostors
In light of the popularity of "The Abridged Series", several fake accounts have cropped up, most actually insulting LittleKuriboh and his work. The rise of fake LittleKuriboh videos is later parodied in episode 18, when Yami summons LittleKuriboh impostors, which prevents Pegasus from finding the real LittleKuriboh, and thus prevents him from watching the Abridged series (as well as making Yami the winner of the duel).

Copyright infringement charges on YouTube
On the week of March 8, 2007, the first episode of Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series was removed from YouTube by site administration, citing copyright infringement as the reason for the removal. LittleKuriboh reportedly heard nothing from the administration regarding this removal or if the the other episodes are in danger of being removed as well. In response to this, LittleKuriboh posted Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series Episode 1 (Live Performance), which was a video of him performing the voice over part of episode 1 on the street, without using footage from the anime. Soon after this, episode 2 was also removed for the same reason.

On March 12, 2007, LittleKuriboh posted a live video announcing several new sites that his videos would be available on. In the video, LittleKuriboh is in a Kaiba cosplay outfit and impersonates Kaiba (Which was later removed by Youtube). The three new sites presented were http://www.jentsproductions.com/littlekuriboh/, http://www.dailymotion.com/littlekuriboh/, and http://www.littlekuriboh.head-desk.org/. However, http://www.littlekuriboh.head-desk.org/ is no longer available due to bandwidth issues.

On June 19, just one day after release, all parts of The Abridged Movie were removed from YouTube (parts 1, 2, and 3 were removed by YouTube while part 4 is removed by LK) along with episode 20, 21 and 22. However, DailyMotion.com has started removing videos as well. LittleKuriboh later reported on his LiveJournal that he removed the movie, but would re-upload it to remove a brief jab at Upper Deck Entertainment.

However, while YouTube has claimed copyright infringement is displayed on the videos, there has never been a claim by 4Kids themselves to have the videos removed. This has further supported the theory adopted by LittleKuriboh's fans that other users themselves are flagging the videos. Due to the enormous number of videos on YouTube, administrators appear to not have the time to review the material in question and promptly delete it without a second thought. Several users have left messages on LittleKuriboh's message board saying they were the ones who flagged the videos. LittleKuriboh's fans respond in kind by blocking the users and flagging their videos to have their accounts closed. In response to the flagging, LittleKuriboh had Kaiba, while sitting at the computer, say "I'm busy flagging YouTube videos to compensate for the fact that I have an extremely small penis."

On June 22, 2007, LittleKuriboh began offering direct downloads of every episode in WMV format, plus episode 1 of Cr@psule Monsters, the Christmas Special, and the Abridged Movie, through a website with the domain http://www.yugiohtheabridgedseries.com/ so as to avoid the risk of removal by YouTube and DailyMotion. The full site formally launched on July 16, 2007. As of July 20, 2007 the site has added a bittorrent tracker. Season 1, Cr@psule Monsters, the Christmas Special, and the Abridged Movie are currently available in two torrents: One containing the videos in WMV format, and the other in MP4 format. Recently, the official website has began hosting their videos on the site REVVER, which, though including ads at the end of every video, helps Little Kuriboh pay for the sites server load, which is excessive due to the episodes extreme popularity. On October 5, 2007, LittleKuriboh's site was accidentally crashed by the admins in an attempt to add a friends list function.

On July 10, 2007, LittleKuriboh's account was suspended on YouTube, likely due to repeated flagging by other users. However, the account was re-opened again three days later on July 13, as well as LittleKuriboh being awarded status in the Most Subscribed and Most Viewed league tables, which some fans believe he should have been in previously. On August 13, 2007, LittleKuriboh's YouTube account was suspended yet again. The last video he posted was a video of LittleKuriboh himself proposing to his girlfriend. The video was disguised as "Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series Episode 2X". Disguising videos by the thumbnail is indeed a violation of Youtube's terms of service, and may have played a part in the second suspension. This created another uproar from his fans demanding for LittleKuriboh's account to be returned once again with no response from YouTube's administrators. Many fans of LittleKuriboh continue to upload his videos onto YouTube.

CardGamesFTW
LittleKuriboh has created a second account on YouTube, the same account that was featured at the end of Marik's Evil Council of Doom #1, CardGamesFTW, and has uploaded all Episodes of Season 1 & 2 of The Abridged Series, the 2nd Christmas special, and the Movie, as well as other comedic material.

On April 13, 2009, LittleKuriboh uploaded a redux version of Episode 1 with better quality video and audio. This episode was formatted like later episodes with the Season 1 intro, with the logo and end quote at the end. A bonus ending was also added with a little variation of the "Screw the rules" joke. On April 29, 2009, LK uploaded older episodes of the series. All episodes of Seasons 1 & 2 have been uploaded.

On December 16, 2009, LittleKuriboh's channel won an award in Mashable's 3rd Annual Open Web Awards for the Funniest YouTube Channel. On January 8, 2010, LittleKuriboh was chosen to attend an interview with Kanashimi at 91.8 the Fan. He accepted. On January 30, 2010, LittleKuriboh's channel became the #1 most subscribed channel in Japan. To celebrate, he created a Magibon-esque video, referencing the former #1 channel.

Recently YouTube has started to remove the videos again, and as of December 2010, the CardGamesFTW account has been shut down. Copyright claims from Nihon Ad Systems, the company that animated the show, have cause the account to be terminated and thus YGOTAS episodes and related videos will be uploaded on blip.tv as well as LittleKuriboh's spare account Ninjabridge which was previously used to upload his parody of Naruto the Abridged Series, Naruto the Abridged Comedy Spoof Series and of course the official Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged website.

NAS made a further copyright violation claim against the Yu-Gi-Oh! Season 0 Abridged pilot episode on the Ninjabridge account, despite the fact that the rights to that particular series belonged to Toei Animation instead.

As of January 2011, the CardGamesFTW account has been restored, and LittleKuriboh stated on his profile that he has plans for new videos soon.

Music
Most episodes have background music conveniently placed to fit the perfect moments.

Bonus videos
Besides the normal videos LittleKuriboh also made bonus videos. These include: