The Origin of El Dab!
When I first decided I wanted to start a YouTube channel in Mid-2019, one of the first major decisions that I needed to make would be the channel name. I had some initial thoughts and was considering a “gamer” name (think “LeetGamer,” “UnbeatableGamer,” etc.), but that felt a little generic to me once I realized there were about a million of those channels already out there. Plus, I didn’t want the channel to be exclusively about gaming either.
So with that conundrum in mind, we rolled on into October 2019, still without a name in mind. That is, until the annual Halloween party…
Every year we had a costume contest and people tended to go hard. That year, I had dressed as Goro from Mortal Kombat, complete with bonus arms and loincloth! The party was progressing as most parties do, when one of my friends gave me a gift that he had brought with from out of town.
You see, he knew I was a fan of wrestling (as if you couldn’t tell), so he had gotten me this awesome lucha mask that he had found out on his travels. Green, red, and yellow - it was slick as heck, so obviously an awesome gift.
Now, by this point, the party was in full swing and needless to say, a not-insignificant portion of adult beverages had been dispensed… and not to be TMI, but those extra Goro arms had me sweating up a storm haha.
So I stepped away from the party for a moment to swap into a t-shirt when the awesome lucha mask caught my eye again. Of course at this point, I knew what I needed to do! I threw on the mask, grabbed my most obnoxious orange shirt, and was struck with a burst of genius as I quickly scrawled “El Dabstroyero” across the front of the shirt!
I queued up my theme music and rolled back into the party transformed into El Dabstroyero for the first time - and a legend was born - plus, I finally had the name for my new channel!
Thrifting Throwdown
It all began when I was a kid coming home from school when I found a box full of NES games at a yard sale. It was such a thrill to find a pile of new games and add them to my own collection, and to do it so cheaply! I ended up getting hours and hours of play out of those games and actually still have most of them to this day!
This began a life-long love of thrifting - yard sales, flea markets, thrift shops - you name it! If there’s a chance to dig around in a pile of someone else’s junk looking for gems, then you can count me in!
So of course, we have a love of gaming and a love of thrifting, so it would seem like Thrifting Throwdown would be the logical conclusion! But we still needed that spark of inspiration to get the ball rolling.
That’s where we find ourselves as I stroll up to a yard sale a few miles from where I live, one bright summer day. To my shock, they said they had a box of games and as they walked over to me, I could already see this was a box of pure gold. It as filled with PSP games!
Now, for someone like me who never owned a PSP (heck, I had never even seen one before), this was a major opportunity. This was a chance to own some games that I’ve never had the chance to own before - but it would all come down to the price.
By some miracle, the games were $2 each and with a bulk deal, even cheaper - so needless to say, I bought them all! My first ever PSP haul! I rode that high for a while after, savoring the hunt, the find, the score - all of it. As I reflected back on it all, a thought crossed my mind…
“I wish I had recorded that.”
BAM - it hit me like a ton of bricks. These major game hauls were OUT THERE. They were ripe for the picking. But more importantly, this was EXCITING! It would make for an awesome video for my new YouTube channel!
So I started thinking about the logistics, doing some research, watching some other game hunting videos… and before you know it, Thrifting Throwdown was born! Ever since then, you’ve had the chance to ride shotgun with me on our weird, wacky, and wild game hunts - and I wouldn’t want it any other way - OH YEAH!
El Dabstroyero vs. the movies
Growing up, I used to love all of the cheesy B-movies from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. “The Brain that Wouldn’t Die,” “Attack of the 50 Foot Woman,” and so many other shlocky horror films were really the bread-and-butter that would grow me into a major movie/cinema buff!
It is with that love of the classics in mind that it was only natural that I was drawn to a show like Mystery Science Theater, to get my fill of cheesy films. If you’re not familiar, MST3K was a series that loving riffed on older B-movies with such joy and whimsy, that I couldn’t help but to emulate it myself whenever I watched bad movies on my own (an annoying habit I still cling to, much to the chagrin of people watching movies with me haha).
So what happens when you combine a love of cinema, a love of wresting, and a love of MST3K? You get a big heaping dose of “El Dabstroyero VS. the Movies!”
The series follows me on my journey to be the best in the world at battling bad movies, taking them to task right in the center of the squared-circle! In EDVTM, you can watch me lay the smack down on some of the most baffling B-movies and film shorts that the public domain has to offer!
So if you’ve got the guts to step into the ring with El Dab, join me as we slap a chin-lock on some classic cinema and flapjack some forgotten films!