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 screen name, 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 and parodying them. 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, the Season 3 villains were voiced by a number of other YouTube voice actors, mainly from the group Team Four Star.

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, respectively, in a scene from the Superman Returns trailer.

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. As of episode 57, it has gone back to being called "The Abridged Series".

Billany also created two spin-off series, one based on Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monsters, and one based on the first anime series. Though set in alternate universes, these two series carry on many of the themes and running jokes of the mother series.

In addition, Littlekuriboh has created many other short videos set in the same universe as Yugioh: the abridged series. These vary from hand-drawn animations (usually drawn by somebody else), sketches, videos that make fun of a phrase from the dub or juxtapose it with other scenes, and even music video parodies (sometimes with the help of others)

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's introduction of the Shadow Realm and their hatred of Disney are often used as jokes.
 * Naruto: The Abridged Series and Dragon Ball Z: The Abridged Series are constantly referred to and/or made fun of.
 * Most characters have recurring catchphrases and are depicted in comically exaggerated versions of their personalities in the original anime.
 * Ryo Bakura is made fun of due to his British nationality as well as the fact he is a minor character despite the fact that he is the main villain of the series. He also has a "gaydar" installed in the Millennium Ring to locate gay people.
 * Joey Wheeler's Brooklyn accent is constantly lampooned, and he calls upon his "Brooklyn Rage" as his source of strength. The dream in which Seto turns him into a dog is repeatedly referenced, and implied to have been a sexual fantasy. Characters also claim it means Joey is a furry.
 * The Roba brothers are carnival folk, and are said to be the result of serious inbreeding. They are constantly trying to rid themselves of their baby, and are always offering it to other people. Espa Roba's joke about using Rex Raptor's Serpent Night Dragon as a coaster is repeated using different objects e.g. "This baby doesn't deserve a spot in our carnival act, but he might make a good coaster for my drink!" Espa is one of the many anglicised characters in the show, others including Yami Yugi, Marik Ishtar and Melvin.
 * When Marik Ishtar, his father, or Dartz say "f***" it is censored, a loud "eff" sound (a sound bite taken from Perfect Hair Forever) is heard instead of a bleep.
 * Yugi's (and Yami Yugi's) constant use of Kuriboh in duels appears to be accidental, as Yami Yugi thinks the card useless. In fact, the classic line from episode one is changed to "My Grandpa's Deck has no pathetic cards, Kaiba... except maybe for Kuriboh". In later episodes Kuriboh is photoshopped to have a large grinning mouth, and constantly talks gibberish as another reference from Perfect Hair Forever, making him a further annoyance.
 * Seto Kaiba constantly flaunts his wealth. 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!", etc.) 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. His obsession with the Blue-Eyes White Dragon is also repeatedly lampooned. It is stated in one episode that he worships money.
 * Nobody, not even Seto, respects Mokuba Kaiba, and "Shut up, Mokuba" is used as one of Seto's catchphrases. Mokuba is kidnapped repeatedly, to the point that the characters treat it as a common occurrence.
 * The change in voice actors for Tristan Taylor in the 4Kids dub is often referenced, usually noting how his original English voice sounds more unintelligent and humorous. In all but one episode, Little Kuriboh voices Tristan in imitation of his original English voice, which is described as sounding like Barney the Dinosaur.
 * In action sequences, Tristan always boasts that "My voice gives me super strength!", a poke at the Herculean feats Tristan frequently performs in the show despite ostensibly being a normal man.
 * Mako Tsunami is called a "freaky fish guy" and throws harpoons at people. He regards the ocean as a sentient being, and his romantic relationship with it is an ongoing subplot in the first two seasons.
 * Kemo begins almost every sentence with "Attention, Duelists!", even when not speaking to Duelists, and refers to himself in the third person as "my hair". He also claims to have taken "child-grabbing classes".
 * Bonz is referred to as "Zombie Boy". All he ever says is "Brains!", implying that he really is a zombie (subtitles appear whenever he says brains, suggesting Zombie is a real language). Eventually, Zombie Boy gets tired of speaking in Zombie, because "Brains!" is the only line he got in the script.
 * Grandpa wants to die and has frequent heart attacks. He also is hinted to carry on a sexual relationship with a "Black Luster Soldier" poster.
 * Since being fired by Kaibacorp, the Big Five have been hired by and act as the executive board of 4kids entertainment. Florence (Yami Bakura) reveals that Melvin also works for 4kids, as they are the most evil entity on the show, and are trying to get YGO!TAS cancelled, which Melvin helps them accomplish at the end of season 2.
 * Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack" plays almost every time Duke Devlin talks.
 * Shadi talks just like Borat and is an extreme anti-Semite. When questioned, Shadi says that his job is to fill in the plot, and to prevent the fourth wall from being broken. It is said that the fourth wall is somehow endangered by the Egyptian God Cards (Yugi asks Shadi what effect paper trading cards can have on the world, and this is the explanation given).
 * Maximillion Pegasus is thought to be gay, as he greets many situations and characters with a large affectionate "Ooooooooohhhhh", and the revelation that he had a wife is treated as a plot twist. It turned out that Abridged-verse Pegasus is indeed straight and Bakura's gaydar was actually pointing at his right-hand man Croquet. In a flashback, Kaiba asks to Pegasus with "What are you, gay?" to which Pegasus replies "Bitch I might be". He then goes on to make a variety of sexual puns/Freudian slips, confusing his sexuality further.
 * When talking to or about Mai Valentine, other characters nearly always mention her breasts. Mai herself is very proud of them.
 * Yami Yugi moves between outright proclaiming that he is gay to blatantly hitting on the female characters. In Season 3 it is revealed that this is because he mistakes most of the male cast for women and vice versa.
 * The concept of "card games on motorcycles" in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's is often laughed at by characters from YGOTAS and YGXTAS. Whenever motorcycles are in the show, 5D's is usually referenced in some way, shape, or form. Jack Atlas speaks in a heavy, brain-damaged type of way (possibly due to the creator's mediocre opinion on Jack's English voice actor). Yugi refers to this manner of speech as a "stereotypical Australian accent".
 * Duel Monsters is rarely called by name, instead referred to 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.
 * All of Marik's henchmen are named Steve, as the Millennium Rod can only control people named "Steve".
 * Odion Ishtar has great interest in the Gummy Bears.
 * "Obnoxious Celtic Guardian" is referred to by a different adjective every time it is summoned, such as "disgruntled", "frustrated" and "agnostic".
 * "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 "torment" plays anytime that "Obelisk the Tormentor" attacks.
 * Yami Marik is named Melvin. He loves to give people hugs and has a habit of calling people Binky-boy, a tendency shared by Mr. Ishtar and Marik.
 * Weevil Underwood and Rex Raptor talk like Beavis and Butt-head, respectively.
 * Bandit Keith ends almost every sentence with "In America" and constantly references America. In Episode 23 he is revealed to be actually Canadian, and subsequently adopts Canadian slang as his running gag.
 * A show-within-a-show called "Zorc and Pals" appears in several episodes. The show stars Zorc and Bakura as a romantic couple and is a parody of fantastical 1980s sitcoms.
 * Yugi once said, "Every time Kaiba smiles, a puppy dies." In subsequent episodes, subtitles such as "+1 Dead Puppies" and "+9001 Dead Puppies" accompany every Kaiba smile.
 * Captions reading "Actual 4Kids Dialogue" are used to mark dialogue drawn verbatim from 4Kids's dub of the anime that seems humorous or idiotic. In reality, many more lines of ordinary dialogue are drawn directly from the dub.
 * 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, which is a reference to the German mastermind Hans Gruber from the movie Die Hard.
 * Tea has a religious enthusiasm for friendship and becomes enraged whenever anyone speaks of friendship in a disparaging manner.
 * Dartz's thick accent makes it difficult for even his henchmen to understand him (the words "do" and "duel" are frequently confused) and his hair is constantly changing color. He is a reference to the character Coiffio from Perfect Hair Forever.
 * Serenity Wheeler's strong faith in and love for Joey is frequently juxtaposed against his ineptitude and insensitivity.
 * Various henchmen wield "invisible guns", parodying how most scenes where people had guns were censored in the 4Kids dub.
 * Since characters in the Abridged Series see all the holes in the plotlines, they question a lot of Ishizu's explanations, to which she invariably answers "Because shut up."
 * Whenever a character is speaking in Ancient Egyptian, it's actually a sentence backwards.
 * During Duels where the rules of the Duel heavily differ from the actual game, characters will often call attention to it as obvious cheating, or question whether anyone actually knows how to play the card game.
 * Jinzo is said to have the power to block Internet memes (a play on his ability to block Trap Cards in the anime and card game), much to the annoyance of Kaiba and Joey, whose Decks are said to be filled with internet jokes and references.

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 Dragon Ball 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" and is a part of Team Four Star, the creators of one of the more popular Dragon Ball Z abridged series. He also regularly makes fun of both his series in the other, particularly his abridged Naruto series and the Team Four Star Dragon Ball Z abridged, in which he once references the "Naruto The Abridged Comedy Fandub Spoof Series Show" as having no fanbase. By this point, Abridging has more or less become a genre unto itself.

Voice actors for Yu-Gi-Oh's American dub are aware of the Abridged series and have actually quoted lines from episodes as per fan requests at conventions. Examples of this include Wayne Grayson saying 'Nyeh' and 'Brooklyn Rage!!' in his Joey voice, and Greg Abbey saying 'My voice gives me super-strength' in his Tristan voice. Dan Green read an excerpt from the second episode of Cr@psule Monsters in his Yugi and Yami voices.

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, which was later removed by Youtube, LittleKuriboh cosplays as the Abridged version of Kaiba. 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.

There has never been a claim by 4Kids themselves to have the videos removed, and a theory adopted by LittleKuriboh's fans is that other users are flagging the videos. Several users have left messages on LittleKuriboh's message board saying they flagged the videos. LittleKuriboh's fans responded 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. The official website began hosting their videos on the site REVVER, which, by including ads at the end of every video, helps Little Kuriboh pay for the site's 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 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 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, logo and quote at the end. A bonus ending was also added with a little variation of the "Screw the rules" joke. On April 29, 2009, LittleKuriboh 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.

Littlekuriboh's first and second accounts were subject to suspension from YouTube on grounds of copyright infringement, although it was later reinstated; the most recent period of suspension was from March to April 2011, bringing the total number of consecutive suspensions to four.

In June 2011, CardGamesFTW was banned from Youtube due to copyright claims from several Japanese sources, but reopened one week later.

In February 2012 CardGamesFTW was banned again, but was reinstated in March of that same year.

LittleKuriboh has said in one of his Card Games For Charity videos that his channel being taken down was automated although fans did not listen and there have been more videos posted to YouTube of fans getting mad at 4Kids Entertainment.

On June 26, 2012 CardGamesFTW was suspended and unsuspended on July 15.

On July 29, 2012 CardGamesFTW was terminated. LittleKuriboh had posted a video saying this might happen and that he would continue to post new episodes on his new account Little Kuriboh. On August 7, CardGamesFTW returned, minus episode 56.

On December 16, 2012, his CardgamesFTW account was terminated from YouTube again.

On February 25, 2013, the channel was terminated again.

On April 28, 2013, the channel was terminated again.

On June 25, 2013, the channel was terminated again.

On July 22, 2013, the channel was terminated again.

On October 30, 2013, the channel was terminated again.

On December 23, 2013, the channel was terminated again.

On May 13, 2014, the channel was terminated again.