The Giant Bomb Iceberg, Explained

Level 1-1: The Basics

RIP RTD: In July 2013, site staff and fans alike were shook by news of site founder Ryan “Papa Bear” Davis’ tragic passing. RTD are Ryan’s initials, which he claimed stood for “Rough tough n’ dangerous.”

Brad’s Leaving: A simple statement that took on a life of its own in the community, usually as a joke. It’s difficult to pinpoint where exactly it started, potentially linked to the “Ryan Hates Brad” meme. It came full circle when Brad actually did leave the site, along with Vinny and Alex. His last Bombcast was aptly titled “Brad’s Leaving.” Before this, any reference to Brad leaving (ironic or not) was frowned upon by the mods.

Jeff Hates Games: Just a general claim that has been made since before the site’s inception, based on Jeff’s lack of fanboy energy for major franchises like Zelda and Fallout, also part of the broader “Things Jeff Hates” meme that can be seen in full on his wiki page.

Why’s it called a quick look if it’s an hour long?: Seems to be a natural reaction by first-time viewers to the site's longest-running video series.

Level 1-2: Hey Duder

Pirates Just Stole Shit?: A phrase un-ironically uttered by an incredulous Dan Ryckert during an E3 presentation of the now-shelved(?) pirate game Skull & Bones.

8.8: The score Jeff infamously gave to The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Led to doxxing and even death threats; an early example of online harassment for such figures by irate man-children.

Kane & Lynch Dead Men: Perhaps an even-more infamous review, lead to Gerstmann’s dismissal for giving a 6 to the game (that was sponsored heavily on Gamespot). The fallout lead to several staff resignations, the tarnishing of GameSpot’s reputation, and ultimately, the founding of Giant Bomb.

LOCKDOWN: One of the royalty-free songs played between segments on E3 Night Shows/Podcasts, a fan-favorite because of how hard it slaps. Went on to be the banner title of any video made in isolation at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

< >: Originally dubbed the “Sims 3 Gang Sign,” created by Paul Barnett during a drunken E3 livestream in 2010 (more on that later…) Now it is used as a sign-off in chat at the end of livestreams.

Whiskey Media: Founded by Shelby Bonnie, the company that helped fund Giant Bomb along with Comic Vine and Anime Vice (and later Screened and Tested). Named for the Whiskey Rebellion. Ceased to exist in 2012 when all the sites were sold off.

Level II: Sons of Drewberty

Intern Drew: Beloved staffer Drew Scanlon began life at GB as an intern, folding t-shirts and helping Vinny with video editing.

Pull a Brad: A reference to poor Bradley’s unfortunate habit of dying early in Quick Looks, and part of the broader “Brad is bad at games” narrative.

Cuphead Should Be Higher: An oft-repeated phrase by staffer Abby Russell during GOTY deliberations in 2017.

Buckner & Garcia: Rock duo, got popular for their arcade-themed tunes in the 80’s, wrote a song for the site called “Found Me the Bomb.”

GBUnarchived:A YouTube channel dedicated to archiving livestreams that were never officially posted on the site, and would otherwise be lost forever.

The E3 Phone Number Incident: Occurred in 2015, on the last segment of the last night of the site’s nightly E3 programming, when Johnny “The Juggernaut” Vignocchi tweeted out the actual cellphone number of his alleged friend Dave Lang. Host Jeff and guest/Canadian Adam Boyes were left to deal with the fallout. Johnny hopelessly tried to make amends with Dave on air, even offering to tweet his own number out, but the damage was done. The two have since squashed the beef and, despite the incident, Johnny V went on to get a job as an executive for Nintendo of America.

Level III: Weed 3

Jonathan Frakes: Actor best known for portraying William T. Riker on Star Trek TNG, appeared on the shoddy celeb poker game that produced freakish results when the video quality was turned down…

Barkerville: While Vinny was playing Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, Brad revealed that as a kid, he decided that the BGM track “Bloody Tears” was in fact titled “Barkerville.” He imagined it was like, werewolf town.

Brad’s Joke Crosses the Line: Refers to an uncharacteristically risqué joke Brad made about Vinny’s toddler son Max.

Dave, Site’s Down: In April 2011, all Whiskey sites (along with any others using Amazon servers) experienced a multi-day outage. A Twitch stream, entitled “Dave, Site’s Down” was put on to premiere two new videos (Quick Looks for SOCOM 4 and The $1,000,000 Pyramid), then kept going as the outage continued. Over the coming days the site would come up with a new segment for the stream, Radio Dave, a call-in show hosted by designer Dave Snider to fill the hole.

Review Cartoons: At the outset, written reviews were accompanied by cartoon icons of the staffer who penned it, and a look corresponding to the score (1-5 stars). These cartoons were later nixed in a site redesign, as Jeff felt they sometimes clashed with the tone of the review.

Midnight Brown: A band from Cotati, CA comprised of Jeff G and Chris Henderson, provided 8-bit chiptune/electroclash music for GameSpot and early Giant Bomb videos and podcasts. Released four albums, still available for free on the band’s website.

Level IV: YOU CAN’T BEAT 100%

It’s been a long road (getting from there to here): Opening lyrics from the theme song to the otherwise forgettable Star Trek offshoot Enterprise, made famous by Screened.com editor Matthew Rorie.

Ryan Hates Brad: Ryan’s sharp sense of humor was misinterpreted by some of the site’s users as genuine disdain, and Brad was often the butt of jokes in the site’s earlier days anyway.

Minerva’s Den v. Lair of the Shadow Broker: An unseasonably long debate over what the best downloadable expansion was during Game of the Year deliberations in 2010. Part of the broader “Brad digging his heels in during GOTY talk” narrative, heard on just about every GOTY podcast he was on.

Jeff & Ryan’s Frosted Tips: Frosted tips were a hairstyle for men popularized by Justin Timberlake of N’SYNC in the late 90’s/early 00’s. Hair is cut short, spiked up with gel, and bleached blond. Both Jeff and Ryan can be seen rocking this questionable (but era-appropriate) hairstyle in various GameSpot videos around that time.

$775 million:An illegal amount of money. The amount of money “video games journalist” Leigh Alexander claimed Bobby Kotick himself had spent on a Call of Duty event at that year’s E3. Used here as a catch-all for her entire appearance, which was a hot mess of drunken badgering and wardrobe malfunctions that was almost-universally panned by users when released as a podcast. She has not appeared on the Bomb since.

Level V: Icon of Sin

Time Trotters: A cartoon starring Jeff, Ryan, and Rich Gallup, animated by Gallup’s friend Ben Cuello. Only one episode, where the Trotters are sent back (in time) to play Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style, was officially released at the time. A “lost” second episode, where the two travel back to play Night Trap, first surfaced at PAX 2008, but was not officially released until the CBSi acquisition in 2012.

1 Year Anniversary Party: To celebrate their first year in business, Giant Bomb had their “Anniversary Spectacular” at a bar in San Mateo. Adam Boyes, Morgan Gray, and some other Capcom folks came as well to promote new games Age of Booty and Dark Void. The main event was a 16-player Marvel vs. Capcom 2 tournament, where the winner was awarded a Jeff G review cartoon shirt and some Capcom promotional junk. A full run-down of the evening on the 7-21-2009 Bombcast.

Ted Nyman’s Bill Cosby Impression: Former Whiskey engineer Ted Nyman debuted this on the Quake TNT (8/26/2010), years before news of Cosby’s sex crimes resurfaced. It was not very accurate anyway.

Brad Nicholson: Former freelancer, penned news stories in the pre-Scoops era. Absolutely hated by the fans.

Streaming on Justin.tv: Before it was called twitch, it was Justin.tv, where Giant Bomb started streaming after abandoning their first live-streaming service, Ustream. This was before the site had its own dedicated chat page, so fans could only watch on the Justin.tv website. Archives of each stream were available there as well, but only for a limited time, and were certainly deleted once the site changed its name. Thankfully, most of these streams have been posted in-full by the aforementioned GBUnarchived account.

Quests: The site used to feature quests, which were usually activated by visiting a specific page tied to a clue. But the most notorious quest was for getting the first comment on any new video. Quests were lost as part of a broader site redesign.

We Got a Wii: The name of a 2005 live stream done by GameSpot, anchored by Rich Gallup and Jeff G, showing the site’s staffers using the much-anticipated Wii console for the first time. Could be considered a progenitor to Giant Bomb’s lengthy internet live shows (which have now become the industry norm), but made in a time when the conventional production wisdom was still very TV-centric.

Level 666: Welcome to Hell

The Xboxalypse: A Sausalito office-era livestream that was to coincide with the shutting down of the original Xbox Live servers, featuring Ryan, Dave, Vinny, and (for the first time) Halo expert Drew. Ultimately, the servers did not shut down at the expected time, and the stream extended well into the night before it was eventually called off. Almost all of this stream has been preserved on YouTube.

Dinosaurs getting it on with automobiles: Phrase uttered during the 11-18-2008 Bombcast by Brad ver batim; a complete non sequitur referencing pictures the young Shoemaker had apparently seen online. Host Ryan was quick to chide Brad for derailing the ‘cast, but it did spawn a forum topic for further discussion.

Arrow Pointing Down: Of two meanings. First, a line of novelty t-shirts where the downward pointing arrow is in reference to the wearer’s (usually male) genitalia. Generally accompanied by a suggestive slogan such as “The Man, The Myth, The Legend.” Second, the name of Ryan’s blog he used after quitting GameSpot in protest of his pal Jeff’s dismissal. Went on to be used as the name for three pre-Bombcast podcasts featuring Ryan, Jeff, and (in one instance) Alex.

Ice-T Shoutout: Rapper/actor/gamer Ice-T gave “that whole Giant Bomb clique” a shoutout on his Ustream, sometime in 2009. Sadly, the collab Ryan was hoping for never materialized, and with the demise of Ustream the video is gone for good as well. Really, there is no record of this aside from me (and perhaps some other sickos) remembering it happened.

COCAINEMOUNTAIN.com: HEY COME ON OVER TO COCAIN MOUNTAIN WE'LL PLAY SOME ROCKBAND COOL OKAY BUT I'M ON DRUMS

Level 7: Nobody Wins

Headboard: The name of a ska/power-pop/rap-rock band that Jeff and Alex were in. Originally formed as a hip-hop duo between Jeff (U.S. Pipe) and fellow Petaluman Glenn Rubenstein in 1995, went on to be an 8-piece with the self-released debut Brendan Goes to College (includes the absolute bop “Mattress Disco”). Their cover of “Everybody Wants Something” was used as part of the soundtrack for the original Degrassi series (minus U.S. Pipe's verse). Actual Headboard CD’s are exceptionally rare, but the tracks are available on YouTube.

Jeff & Alex Crib Videos: Now-lost videos of Jeff and Alex showing off their “cribs” (at the time when the MTV show of the same name was popping off). Some screencaps of Jeff’s video are on his page, but I am not able to find the full video anywhere anymore. Alex showed his bedroom (which was also seen in the Robocop feature around the same time).

Internal Affairs: A short-run podcast created by then-intern Nick Robinson in 2011. Nick went on to work for Polygon, but was let go from the site after allegations of creepy/untoward DM’s with women surfaced on twitter.

Dave’s Secret GOTY Note: Perhaps the greatest mystery of all, what was in the sealed note Dave Snider gave to the boys before their GOTY deliberations in 2010 (in case of gridlock). Since Mass Effect 2 was a pretty easy pick that year there was never a need to open the note. According to legend, the fellas only remembered the note once recording was done, opened it, had a nice chuckle, and went on their separate ways. In January the following year, Ryan and Dave hosted a livestream where the question of the note came up. Ryan refused to say what was in it. The mystery has remained unsolved since.

Lost & Damned Quick Look: The site posted a Quick Look for the GTA IV expansion campaign “The Lost and Damned” after its release in 2009, but the video was soon deleted once the publisher intervened. There are no copies of this video left anywhere on the internet from what I can tell. (EDIT: I was wrong, there is a copy of the video on YouTube)

Suburban All-Stars: The name of a rap-group consisting of Jeff, Ryan, and Alex. Lyrics are comically profane and overtly sexual, akin to 2 Live Crew. Songs include “Some of the Real” and “In the Can” (which plays on the double entendre for “can” meaning both “butt” and “toilet”). Produced one tape, Karaoke Godfathers, and one photo of Jeff holding a sign reading “SEXIST BULL-SHIT” aside Ryan and Alex performing.

ひどいナンセンス: Roughly translates to “Terrible Nonsense” in Japanese. The name given to a still-unexplained “after hours” livestream that occurred at the Whiskey offices on 10/02/2010, featuring Jeff, Ryan, and Matt drinking Coors Lite’s on set while jarring, sometimes nightmarish video and audio effects were added by Vinny (and Drew) in the booth. It is just a random, chaotic, drunken mess that only a handful of the most diehard Giant Bomb-heads would have seen live. The rest of us are left here to wonder what the fuck it was even about.

And of course, the stream produced the absolute classic line: “She got a penitentiary body.”