Red vs. Blue

"Our website isn't about large groups of people who hate themselves. It's more about small groups of people, that are able to hate on a much more personal level."

- Church, Indigestion 2004.

Red vs Blue is a popular machinima series portraying the never-ending war between the Red Army and the Blue Army. The episodic sitcom uses some footage taken from Halo 1 and Halo 2 multiplayer, with Blood Gulch as the main setting. Season 3's time travel subplot used Marathon to represent the past, and Halo 2 for the future. Part of Season 4 and all of Season 5 takes place on Coagulation, Zanzibar, and Waterworks.

The show is published by Rooster Teeth Productions, originally available for download per episode at their site and later released on DVD. Praised for its originality, the series has won a total of four awards from the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences. Although mainly a satirical and absurdist comedy, the show often touches on deeper philosophy about the meaning of war when it comes down to individual soldiers. The characters occasionally question the validity of their mission and whether or not it accomplishes anything, a common theme in commentary about the ethics of war.

Characters
The show's cast divides into four segments: the Red Army, the Blue Army, the Freelancer program, and unaffiliated parties that interact with the core cast. Despite the enmity the Red and Blue Team members are supposed to harbor for one another, this usually does not apply personally to the enemy soldiers, who often engage in one-on-one conversation.

Season 1


The delicate balance of indifference in Blood Gulch is disrupted when a new Red Army recruit named Donut, manages to capture the Blue Army's flag on his first day. The Blue Army also receives a new recruit, named Caboose, along with a tank named Sheila; With the tank's help, Caboose manages to accidentally kill the Blue Army's commanding officer, Church, on his first day.

In response, Blue Command hires a Freelancer mercenary named Tex to recapture the Blue flag. Church briefly returns as a ghost to warn his teammates about Tex, who soon arrives and attacks the Reds. After severely injuring Donut, Tex recaptures the Blue flag, but is captured as a result. Church appears to explain that Tex is actually his former girlfriend, whose mind is partially under the control of a psychotic AI. Church organizes a successful rescue mission, but not without its problems, and spends the rest of the season attempting to remove the AI from Tex's head.

His attempt to warn the Reds of Tex's pending attack involved taking over Lopez's body, and fails, much to his horror, she is killed by revenge-seeking Donut with a Plasma Grenade which he manages to throw halfway down the gulch, with amazing accuracy. Tex's AI manages to escape her body and possesses Caboose.

Season 2


Doc, a medic sent by both Red and Blue Commands to tend to the medical needs of both teams, arrives three months later and proves completely unhelpful. The Reds attack the Blues and manage to take Doc as a hostage, but soon tire of his personality and ditch him in the middle of the canyon. Church is still trying to get used to his new, stolen robot body, which he eventually loses when Lopez regains control and resists further attempts to possess him.

Donut is captured by the Blues, who force the Reds to build two new robot bodies in exchange for his return. Meanwhile, both teams are menaced by Tex's evil AI, O'Malley, despite the best efforts of Tex's ghost and the Blue team to stop him. This culminates in a Mexican standoff between the Reds and Blues, following the revelation that both teams are in fact secretly controlled by the same army.

O'Malley resurfaces in Doc's body and sets out to conquer the universe, kidnapping Lopez and escaping through a teleporter. The Red and Blue teams call a truce and form several two-man teams to pursue O'Malley, but something goes wrong with the teleporter, and the teams are separated and sent to different parts of the universe.

Season 3


After regrouping on Sidewinder, the Reds and Blues join forces again to confront and defeat O'Malley, only to have a reality-shattering bomb destroy the present and propel everyone into the future, except for Church who is thrown into the past.

While the others continue to battle O'Malley in the future, Church goes on a time-traveling odyssey, where a computer named Gary tells him of a prophecy that a blue being known as the "Great Destroyer" will use the "Great Weapon" to bring the "Great Doom" to billions of people at the point in the future where everyone else has ended up. Church decides to time-travel to Blood Gulch and alter the past in order to prevent the "Great Doom" along with most of the other negative events that have occurred in the storyline. However, in a classic causality loop, Church realizes that his interference is what caused all of the problems in Blood Gulch in the first place. Giving up on trying to change the past, he travels back to Sidewinder and rejoins the main group just as the bomb goes off, so that he can be blown into the future along with them.

Shortly after the teams are reunited, O'Malley lays siege to the captured fortress with an army of deadly robots, only to have them obliterated by an unknown being, before he himself is seemingly killed. The Red team leaves mid-battle in search of a mysterious distress call, without informing the Blues. They then arrive back at Blood Gulch, much to Grif's dismay.

The season ends on a cliffhanger as an alien is seen creeping up on an unsuspecting Church.

Season 4


As the Red Team re-explores Blood Gulch, Simmons' insistence that Sheila still roams the canyon, to Sarge's disbelief, leads to his exile from the group. Painting himself mostly blue and taking command of the empty Blue Base and Sheila, he takes Grif hostage, later confessing to him that he believes that Sheila might be hiding something.

Back at the fortress, the Blue Team attempts to confront the new alien, only to experience a series of humiliating defeats until Caboose manages to befriend him. The alien reveals that he has been on a sacred quest to save his people, and has come to the fortress to retrieve the Great Weapon, an Energy Sword, which only Tucker can now activate, since he accidentally discovered it first. Threatening to kill everyone otherwise, the Alien forces Tucker, Andy and Caboose to partake of his quest, with Tex trailing and then joining them. Arriving at their final destination, the team finds a temple occupied by the Zealots from Battle Creek. As Tex defeats them, Tucker uses the sword to open a gate to a flying ship, of which the alien quickly takes command. Wyoming suddenly re-appears, however, and shoots the ship down before fleeing with Tex in pursuit.

Meanwhile, Church returns to the Blue Base in Blood Gulch and encounters the blue Simmons, whom he pretends not to recognize, and comes into contact with a distant descendant of Vic, who scoffs at Church's mention of Blue Command. Tucker, Caboose, and Andy return to the gulch, and inform Church of the events at the temple. Simmons returns to the Red Base, and attempts to relay information learned from Vic Jr. about the war. At the Blue Base, Tucker becomes ill for an unknown reason, and Church is forced to call Doc for help. On his arrival, O'Malley negotiates a deal to exchange Doc's aid for something to be named later.

The Reds find Lopez, who had returned to the canyon with O'Malley, and discover that the instructions that Red Command had planted inside his head can only be played in Spanish. While Church is confirming Doc's diagnosis that Tucker is pregnant, Sarge distracts Caboose and steals Andy to translate the plans. Tucker regains alertness and complains of stomach pains. Church, upon hearing of Andy’s disappearance, becomes enraged at the whole situation. As he confronts the Reds with Sheila, Sarge radios Command for reinforcements, despite having heard the translation of the uninformative instructions.

Andy reveals that the alien had the ability to impregnate others with parasitic embryos, and Caboose radios Church to tell him that Tucker has given birth (a higher-pitched alien language is heard off-screen); and that O'Malley had left Doc after Sarge had contacted Command. As Church runs back to the Blue Base, a ship crashes into the gulch right on top of Donut.

Out of Mind
Out of Mind is a mini-series that took place in-between Season 4 and Season 5. It is a narrative from Tex's point of view, told in a much more serious tone, when she chases after Wyoming. Out of Mind first takes place in the Freezing Plains, at a different base, owned by Wyoming. Two Australian guards are the first obstacle between Tex and Wyoming. While trying to get past a locked door after killing the two guards, Wyoming charges out of it in a warthog, delivering his usual brand of humor while addressing the situation of O'Malley vaguely. He drives off, but Tex attaches a tracking device to his vehicle.

Tex has a flashback talking to Church about rumors of an AI program. She explains to the viewer the background of Omega, and how he affected her. Afterwards, Tex seeks after an ex-special ops infiltration recruit named York. He is shown as out of job by attempting to rob a small shop. While Tex tries to recruit York for a mission against Omega, Delta, his AI, appears. This surprises Tex, as most AI's were removed from spec-ops recruits. The AI was very responsive to Tex, as he was afraid that Omega might have still been Tex's AI. York eventually agrees to help Tex, with his motive being revenge. He had gotten his eye damaged in some way by Omega, and has trouble seeing out of that eye.

Tex and York are next seen at Wyoming's/Omega's base. All three analyze the situation, when eventually deciding to try and get into the base. Delta was still very wary about Tex, saying that her emotions may become erratic when seeing Omega. York replies by saying that it makes them humans. Eventually, the two make it into the main portion of the base, instantly under fire by various Zealots. They successfully take them out, when Wyoming enters the battle. Tex tries to fire on him, but has a gun jam. York covers her, but gets shot on his bad side. He says he is okay, but quickly becomes unconscious. Delta says he will not survive, so Tex offers to take Delta with her. But in a surge of human emotion, he stays with York until his death, even though it will destroy himself as well. Delta creates a hologram of Tex that distracts Wyoming, allowing Tex to sneak up behind him. Tex interrogates Wyoming about Omega, in which he says that he has jumped into someone else. She figures that the information will be stored in his communication logs, so she decides to beat him unconscious to take the information, despite his offer to tell her.

Season 5


The Reds discuss how to rescue Donut from underneath the ship, unaware that he has fallen into an underground cave from the force of the craft's weight. Grif's sister emerges from the ship, though it is revealed she is meant to fill an empty position on the Blue Team after the death of Captain Butch Flowers, who was accidentally killed by the time-traveling Church. Grif gives Sister to the Blues, reasoning that, because of the Red Team's incompetence, she would be safest there. The Reds soon discover the underground cavern and find Donut alive; Simmons and Grif, however, are kidnapped by off-screen enemies. Once the Reds are reunited, Grif reveals he had been interrogated by his captors, who used Andy to translate. They soon discover an underground surveillance system spying on Blood Gulch.

Meanwhile, the Blues are in a strange state as Sister joins, with Sheila beginning to malfunction, and Tucker's alien child, Junior. Tex returns, and after learning that Wyoming was able to teleport to safety before she could interrogate him, Church deduces from his own experience that Gary is Wyoming's AI, as O'Malley was to Tex. The Blues decide to relocate Sheila's AI into the crashed ship in order to keep her alive. In the meantime, Vic contacts the Blues, urging them to attack the Red Base via the caves, and then hanging up. Instead, Doc, Junior, and Sister go through the caves alone, finding Lopez there, while Church, Tucker and Tex attack the base head on. Caboose looks after Sheila, who upon awakening, reveals "the Blue leader" to be O'Malley's new host. This in turn is revealed to be a revived Captain Flowers, accompanied by a new alien. The Reds, seeing the invasion of their base using the surveillance system, decide to capture the empty Blue Base in retaliation.

While over at Red Base, the Blues are attacked by Wyoming, who has Gary control the Blue's now empty tank. Again and again, the Blues attempt to defeat Wyoming, but every successful attack is undone by Wyoming somehow reversing time; Tucker's memory is unaffected by time reversing while everyone besides Wyoming and Gary is erased, and he is piecing together everything that is going on at this time. Tucker eventually pretends to finally have his memory wiped, when Wyoming is convinced, Tucker sneaks behind him and stabs him. Tucker then fills Church in on what has been happening, Church then asks how many times Wyoming reversed time, because every time Church went back in time he left a clone. They then find an army of Wyoming clones in the Red's Garage.

A battle then ensues where Tucker knows about everything that is going to happen as more Wyoming's keep popping up. Sarge, who wants to be the one that kills the Blues, gets the Reds to help kill the Wyoming copies. When there is only one Wyoming left, Church, Tucker, and Tex interrogate him find out that O'Malley wants to reinfect Tex to win the war. Tex hearing the reason immediately complies by broadcasting on the radio. O'Malley then accidentally infects Simmons who was on the radio. After confronting him, O'Malley jumps into everyone in the canyon, oddly having absolutely no effect on Church. When he reaches Caboose, Tex leaves her body and enters Caboose, Church does the same after.

After kicking Tex and O'Malley out of Caboose, Church leaves Caboose to find out Tex had knocked out Tucker, stolen his sword, kidnapped Junior, grabbed Wyoming's helmet, transferred O'Malley into her armor, and had run into the ship. Sarge, who had placed Andy in the ship earlier, contacts Andy and tells him to explode. Andy explodes apparently destroying the ship and everything on it.

Church then walks off and Sarge lets the Blues leave as they had already "had their ass kicked enough for one day". Church and Caboose then have a similar conversation to the one Grif and Simmons had at the first episode while Grif and Simmons spy on them, as Tucker and Church did in the first episode as well. Sarge then calls them to tell them about the new ATV that was made from spare parts from the Warthog a mongoose.

Recovery One
Recovery One is a Red vs Blue Xbox Live mini-series. Its plot revolves around Agent Washington, also known as Recovery One, a Freelancer like Tex, Wyoming and York. Washington's job is to recover all Freelancer A.I. constructs if the Freelancer is killed in action. Recovery One takes place roughly at the same time as season five of Blood Gulch Chronicles, and serves as a prelude to Reconstruction.

Recovery One opens with Washington at Wyoming's base, there are the bodies of three guards and York lying on the ground. Washington was sent to retrieve Delta, York's A.I. He reactivates Delta, who asks why he was not destroyed like protocol says will happen. Washington reveals that was a cover story, in truth the AI are simply locked so Recovery agents can retrieve them later.

Washington asks Delta to start a self-destruct countdown on York's armor. Afterwards, one of the guards wakes up and attacks the two. Before Washington can defeat him, he flees, knowing that the armor is about to explode. Washington runs and grabs Delta's Data Crystal Chip and jumps over the edge of the base, barely escaping the explosion.

Recovery Command contacts Washington and orders him to go to another Freelancer K.I.A site. Upon arrival, Washington sees two Freelancers, one is dead the other is standing over his body. The Freelancers are referred to as North and South, and are twin brother and sister.

Washington asks South if she saw anything, she states that she heard North scream and that she ran over to him, then blacked out, waking up just minutes after Washington's arrival. Washington asks if North had an AI with him, she tells him that North still had his A.I, Theta, and when Washington asks where her AI is, she states that she didn't receive one because she was in the group "after Washington." Apparently all of the people in the freelancer program who were scheduled to receive an AI after Washington never got theirs.

South asks if she can have some time alone with North, Washington allows and uses this time to contact Recovery Command. Recovery Command asks where the AI is, to which Washington responds he didn't have one. Command tells him that the situation is now a level zero. He walks over to South, who says that the only reason she was partnered with North is because they are twins. She always wanted to be a lone freelancer, and now that her brother is dead, she wonders how she will survive without him.

Washington, following his orders, "kills" South.

In the 3rd and 4th installments, we learn that Washington isn't following orders, and South is still alive. Washington has Delta register North AND South as K.I.A. They then move on, and in the map Headlong, we learn about Washington's history and his plan to kill whatever has been killing off the freelancers. Washington is injured while fighting it, covering for South as Delta enters her AI slot. South joins Washington when she is ready, and hears about his injury. Washington tells South to head for a ship located on the broken highway, when they get ready to go, South shoots him in the back of the head, and convinces "it" to go for Washington's armor, and not kill them. As she is running to the ship, command calls and she is identified as "Recovery Two" and we find out that South was using Washington, on command's orders, to expose the freelancer killer. In exchange, she would get an AI. South, having Delta and worrying that the killer could track her, says that she will not return to base, instead opting to go into hiding, even after command threatens her.

Reconstruction


Communications with Outpost 17B "Valhalla" has been totally cut off. Two Recovery Agents, from Recovery Six and Recovery Nine, are sent to the Outpost to investigate the situation. They record footage of what they saw of the Red and Blue forces stationed at that outpost and send it to Command. Not long after, Communications with the two Agents were lost as well. However, the Agent from Recovery Nine manages to record a fight with an unknown opponent before the soldier dies. Soon, a Battalion-size Armor force was sent to the Outpost to secure the entire area. They find a surviving Red army soldier, which was immediately sent to Command for interrogation. After the interrogation, the Councilor of Project Freelancer sends Agent Washington to seek help from soldiers which have experience with A.I.s, to track down an entity known as the Meta. These soldiers turn out to be Simmons, Grif, Sarge, Caboose, and Church. Along the hunt, Agent Washington discovers a whole bunch of soldiers with attitudes whom he did not expected and also secrets that awaits them.

Relocated
Rooster Teeth has now released all of the episodes of the Relocated series. It takes you back to the Reds, now struggling to do the usual nothing, but this time it is on Valhalla. Meanwhile Caboose is working in the shadows. For once he is actually reasonably successful in keeping his actions covert as there is no real clue as to what he is doing. Sarge has called in Lopez to help him with the new Warthog and inform the reds that he killed Sister and that they have indirectly won the fight in Blood Gulch. While in the holo-chamber, testing the new warthog, Grif sees and talks to Donut who tells him that someone found something under the sand and that he needs help. (This could be a possible reference to Tucker who called in about the same thing in episode 17 of reconstruction). This opens the door for a new series, which is coming in the summer of 2009. You can find the episodes at.

Relocated marks the first time Red vs Blue was directed by someone other than Burnie Burns or Matt Hullum (Original Creators of the show). Guest Director Gavin Free was flown over from the United Kingdom to perform the task over a period of 2 months.

Recreation
Red vs Blue: Recreation is a continuation of Red vs Blue: Relocated, still set in Outpost 17-B "Vahalla", the first year after the "war". The trailer came out on June 6, 2009, and the season is scheduled for Summer 2009, on every Mondays. In the trailer, it is revealed that Church and Tex will still be making an appearance (in what condition cannot yet be certain), despite the events of Red vs Blue: Reconstruction. Red Team now dominates the canyon with Sarge, Grif, Simmons, Lopez, and Donut (although Donut is in a coma). Church and Tex are their ghost forms. The condition of Church's robot body is unknown although it was last seen with Caboose attempting to hook up Epsilon, the AI with Churches memories, to it. Judging by the huge explosions and fire coming from blue base it is logical to assume that it is non-functional.

Red vs Blue: Animated
At PAX 08 on August 29th, Rooster Teeth showed a short RvB animation film. The film started with Church, Grif and Simmons going on a mission to rescue Sarge and Tex, surprisingly finding Covenant forces on the way. 300px

The PSAs
The PSA's are short videos made by Rooster Teeth based around their machinima Red vs Blue, but not in context with any of the series. (The Blood Gulch Chronicles, Reconstruction etc.). Therefore, characters who have died in the main series may be alive in these short videos, and the events in the PSA's do not affect the series. The PSA's are often made to give information on the Halo games or to make a statement about the current world climate (e.g the worlds money crisis), or sometimes they have no point at all.

List of PSA's

 * PSA 1- WMD (weapons of mass destruction)

The first PSA. Simmons and Grif are trying to explain why WMD's should not be used, and why violence is never the answer. While they do this, one of the Blues, (probably Church), is shooting at them with the Sniper rifle. Grif gets more and more annoyed and starts fighting back. (The fighting happens off screen, while Simmons continues talking). The screen goes blank, and a final shot is fired, which seems to hit Simmons, who retaliates.)


 * PSA 2

A very short PSA with Tucker explaining that they haven't released an episode that week because they can't possibly compete with the release of Halo 2. Ends with Tucker complaining about getting 'white stuff' off his armor, and Caboose saying that its actually him cleaning the armor. This is a reference to the point in season one when Tucker got black stuff on his armor from going through the teleporter and Caboose cleaned it off.
 * PSA 3 Tattoo Point-Counterpoint

In this PSA, Grif and Church are arguing the pros and cons of tattoos. Church says you should never get a tattoo because they're stupid and because in ten years you'll regret getting one. Grif says that they're cool and as long as you avoid bad designs you will be respected and, apart from the pain, you'll feel good. Church then says that if you must get a tattoo, it should be of your favourite character from your favorite web cartoon (Hinting himself). The PSA seemingly has no point, but does give good arguments for and against tattoos.


 * Planning to Fail.

This episode appears to have no point. Seemingly set around the time when the teams have returned to the canyon, before the ship arrives, but after Tex returns. Doc is at the Red base with Grif. Grif says nobody likes Doc because he doesn't have a Zombie Plan. Doc says that this is complete rubbish, and nobody has a Zombie Plan, and asked the rest of the Reds if they do, and it turns out that he is wrong. Grif plans to go to Alaska when zombies take over the world, because "Zombies have zero body heat. They'll freeze like corps-sicles!". Simmons has two weeks worth of food stored in his attic, but refuses to say what he will do after the two weeks are over, so not to let Grif know in case he becomes a zombie and comes after him. Sarge has 37 Zombie Plans, 36 of which involve using Grif as bait, and 1 involves infecting himself so he can then eat Grif. He also reveals that the reason he carries a Shotgun with him at all times is to protect himself from zombies. Doc begins to say that with all the problems in the world, he can't believe people spend time thinking about Zombie Plans. Before he finishes saying this, the Blues begin to approach apparently affected by a zombie virus. The Reds scatter, and it becomes apparent that there is no infection, and it is just a plot by the Blues to get the Reds' flag.

Production


The writing process for the series has changed over time. Early in season 1, Burns wrote the episode scripts from week to week, with minimal planning in advance; major plot events were conceived shortly before they were filmed. For the second season, Matt Hullum became a main writer. A rough plot outline is now written before a season begins, although the actual content of an individual episode is still decided on a more short-term basis. Because Red vs. Blue is loosely based on the Halo universe, Rooster Teeth encountered some difficulties when trying to synchronize events in the series with the release of Halo 2.

Aside from a few scenes created using Marathon Infinity, Marathon 2, and the PC version of Halo, Red vs. Blue is mostly filmed with interconnected Xbox consoles. As the series title suggests, the videos are largely set in the Halo map Blood Gulch and its Halo 2 counterpart, Coagulation. However, some episodes have been filmed on other maps, including Sidewinder from Halo and Zanzibar from Halo 2. Within a multiplayer game session, the people controlling the avatars "puppet" their characters, moving them around, firing weapons, and performing other actions as dictated by the script, and in synchronization with the episode's dialogue, which is recorded ahead of time.

The "camera" is simply another player, whose first-person perspective is recorded raw to a computer. As the recording occurs within the game, a few different bugs and post-production techniques have been exploited in order to achieve desired visual effects. In particular, Adobe Premiere Pro is used to edit the audio and video together, impose letterboxing to hide the camera player's head-up display, add the titles and fade-to-black screens, and create some visual effects that cannot be accomplished in-game.

Impact on Machinima
Red vs. Blue is widely credited with attracting public attention to machinima. Although examples had existed since the 1990s, Clive Thompson credits Red vs. Blue as "the first to break out of the underground". Tavares, Gil, and Roque call it machinima's "first big success". Thompson notes that "Microsoft has been so strangely solicitous that when it was developing the sequel to Halo last year, the designers actually inserted a special command — a joystick button that makes a soldier lower his weapon — designed solely to make it easier for Rooster Teeth to do dialogue." The series has inspired other machinima productions, including The Codex, Fire Team Charlie, and This Spartan Life.

100th Episode
On April 1st 2007, four years since the release of Episode 1, it was announced by Burnie in the forums that Episode 100 would not only be the final episode in Season 5, but also the last episode of the Blood Gulch Chronicles. At the time, it was unknown if there would be another series based in another location.

Endings
The series finale was distributed with three alternate endings; the ending which was shown to a viewer depended on which link in Burnie's post they followed to watch the episode. An additional three endings were included in the special features of the Season 5 DVD.

Trivia

 * Red vs. Blue, was originally intended to last only six installments, but its popularity led to the production of 100 episodes of The Blood Gulch Chronicles, several stand-alone special videos, three miniseries, and another full-length series, with yet another series on the way.
 * Red Vs Blue follows the Halo canon very loosely, with differences emerging whenever it is necessary for the plot.
 * As a running gag in Blood Gulch Chronicles, whenever a character dies the last words they say are "Hurk! Blah...". A couple of exceptions are the Grunts from episodes 39 and 40, and an alternate ending to episode 100, in which the phrase "Son of a bitch!" is substituted.
 * Another running gag is whenever someone is possessed by Church or Tex, the character exclaims "higakugurk".
 * Some of the voice actors from Red vs Blue were featured in the level Crow's Nest in Halo 3, as two Marines arguing over a password. The voices vary depending on difficulty. This indicates the overwhelming popularity of the series, even among Bungie and Microsoft.
 * On Easy and Normal it's Jason Saldaña (Tucker) and Matt Hullum(Sarge and Doc) ([[Media:Tucker Doc password.ogg|Listen]]);
 * On Heroic it's Geoff Ramsey (Grif) and Gus Sorola (Simmons);
 * And on Legendary it's Burnie Burns (Church and many others) and Joel Heyman (Caboose) ([[Media:Church Caboose password.ogg|Listen]]).
 * Gus also voices the Sergeant in Floodgate, on the radio early in the level.
 * On Bungie.net, look at a service record with the Flag Kill Medal, scroll over the flag symbol and it will say "It's right next to the headlight fluid". This is a reference to episodes 3 and 4 of Blood Gulch Chronicles where the new recruit, Donut is sent on a fool's errand to fetch "headlight fluid" and "elbow grease".
 * Red vs. Blue was featured on Discovery Channel's documentary, Rise of the Video Game, with an interview of the creator of Red vs. Blue creator and original cast.
 * In the episode 100 of Blood Gulch Chronicles, when Tex takes off in the Pelican, the word "Marathon" is partially obscured on the underside. This is an obvious reference to Bungie's previous game series, Marathon, in appreciation from Rooster Teeth.
 * A running gag is that Simmons will yell "Shotgun!" and then Grif will yell "shotgun!" after, only to say "fuck!". If you have the IWHBYD Skull on and you're playing Tsavo Highway, two will say shotgun and the second one will say damn.
 * Most of the character names can be found in Halo: CE's Temporary Profile feature. Out of the randomly generated names, Caboose, Church, Donut, Simmons, and Doc are commonly found. It is possibly Rooster Teeth named their characters using this feature. This featured is continued in Halo 3, with names like Caboose and Donut showing up as temporary profiles.
 * The popular Double EXP Weekend game type "Grifball" is based off of Red vs Blue, specifically episode 59.
 * There is a reference to Red vs Blue in Gears of War. Within the game there is a achievement called “Is It a Spider?”. To obtain it, you are required to kill 100 enemies in ranked matches with a grenade tag, referencing episodes 11 and 57.
 * Rooster Teeth made two Red vs Blue PSA (Public service announcements) videos for Xbox Live's partnership with Rock the Vote in late-summer 2008, for the United States Presidential election.
 * Yet another running gag is that Church always carries around a Sniper Rifle, and yet he is utterly incapable of hitting anything with it, even when the target is standing still. However, he is shown in one episode to be a crack shot with the pistol, hitting caboose in the foot from several yards away. For some reason, he can't kill close range.

Internal Links

 * Rooster Teeth
 * List of Characters in Red vs. Blue
 * Grifball