<\/p>\n
Dropout.tv has been in the news a lot lately, announcing one new initiative after another, including the company\u2019s first Blu-rays, first 24\/7 streaming channel, and first licensed outside content, as well as a new \u201cSuperfan\u201d pricing tier, an animated shorts anthology, and a crowdfunded board game built around the company\u2019s flagship show, Game Changer<\/em>. (The Kickstarter, as of this writing, is about to hit $4 million in pledges.) That\u2019s a lot of sudden changes for the comedy company that started out as CollegeHumor. Fans and industry watchers may wonder why it\u2019s all happening at once.<\/p>\n According to CEO Sam Reich, that rush of innovations wasn\u2019t deliberately planned as a wave.<\/p>\n \u201cThese projects, a lot of which are finding light now, have been in the works for a long time,\u201d he tells Polygon. \u201cIt’s sort of a coincidence that they’re all landing in 2026. But they are all things that we think will contribute meaningfully to the business.\u201d<\/p>\n How have the new projects landed with fans? Unsurprisingly, Dropout\u2019s results have varied.<\/p>\n \u201cTo take them item by item: I think Superfan is off to a good start,\u201d he says. \u201cWe’re a little worried about alienating our core fan base, first and foremost. So we really wanted to launch it with limited proposition value. And now we’re kind of stuck in this zone where it’s like, \u2018In order to grow this thing, we do have to make it more meaningful in terms of proposition value? And what is that going to be?\u2019 And answering that question has been kind of a fun creative exercise. So suffice it to say, not a gangbuster success \u2014 middling success, enough that we’ll continue to work on it.\u201d<\/p>\n Image: Carl Palmer\/Channel 4<\/p>\n Regarding Dropout\u2019s first pickup of an outside show, Don’t Hug Me, I’m Scared<\/em>, Reich says, \u201cThe fandom has embraced it a surprising lot. I think licensing is a little tricky for us, because even with Don’t Hug Me<\/em> being a success, we can only scale it so much and still feel like we are doing honor to the Dropout ethos. There aren’t a thousand Don’t Hug Me, I\u2019m Scared<\/em>s out there. So we’ll continue to work our way outward.\u201d<\/p>\n The 24\/7 cable-style streaming channel, Reich says, has gotten \u201ca surprisingly good response.\u201d He wants to \u201cinvest a little bit more in diversifying it, make sure it stays fresh, blah, blah, blah.\u201d<\/p>\n As to Game Changer: Home Edition<\/em>, he says the Kickstarter\u2019s massive success is \u201cconsistent with our outermost expectations with performance.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe thought there was a chance of this, but it was kind of like the outer Saturn ring of expectation in terms of how it’s performing. We have a saying around here, an anti-perfectionist saying, which is \u2018Shoot for A-minus.\u2019 The reason being, we have to experiment and be comfortable with a bit of failure in order to innovate. Innovation comes with failure. And I think A-minus is exactly the zone we’re in.\u201d<\/p>\n When the Game Changer<\/em> Blu-ray set became available for pre-order, it sold out instantly. (It appears to be available again at Dropout\u2019s merch store \u2014 for now.) That suggests an audience for more Dropout home video sets. Reich says he does want to continue putting Dropout shows on disc, though \u201cit\u2019s a little more complicated than you might think, making them. But my mission is to try to have a more robust offering of Blu-rays by the holiday season of 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n Even if there was no specific plan behind 2026\u2019s new wave of experimentation, there is still something of a philosophy behind it all: Not just \u201cShoot for A-minus,\u201d Reich says, but an urge to make sure any given step away from the company\u2019s core focus on original streaming gaming and comedy shows meaningfully contributes to the company\u2019s brand and bottom line.<\/p>\n \u201cWe try not to get too consumed by pet projects merely because they’re cool and shiny,\u201d he says. \u201cIn the case of something like Game Changer: Home Edition<\/em>, we really do see a path for it where it’s something that we can continue to expand on every year.\u201d<\/p>\n But he describes Dropout as \u201ca simple company\u201d that\u2019s always trying to balance its staff\u2019s creative ambitions with practicality.<\/p>\n Sam Reich on the set of Game ChangerPhoto: Kate Elliott\/Dropout<\/p>\n \u201cI’m determined to keep it simple even as it gets bigger \u2014 and bigger companies inevitably get more complex,\u201d Reich says. \u201cBut I think the shadow side of simplicity is sometimes that we’re not doing cool and obvious things. And I think it’s, in some ways, a year of cool and obvious things, where we finally have the opportunity to grow up in a few key ways. If we didn’t see that, we probably wouldn’t be as invested in Dropout as we are.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, as Dropout\u2019s profile expands, some of its core players are getting increasingly prominent outside careers \u2014 a good thing for their future, but a problematic one for a company that specializes in getting viewers to emotionally invest in specific performers and their interactions. Brennan Lee Mulligan is GMing for Critical Role<\/em>. Vic Michaelis is starring in TV and movies. Josh Ruben has directed several well-received horror movies, including the 2025 standout Heart Eyes<\/em>. Jeremy Culhane has joined the Saturday Night Live <\/em>cast, Izzy Roland has made an independent supernatural-drama movie and has another in the works, and so on. Mulligan also derisively brings up his own age and the core cast\u2019s age from time to time during Dropout appearances, suggesting that he\u2019s sometimes embarrassed to still be doing goofy subversive comedy in his 30s, now nearly 40s. What\u2019s the plan for Dropout\u2019s future if its core cast eventually wants to move on to other things?<\/p>\n \u201cI’ve fielded questions like this before, and it doesn’t worry me very much,\u201d Reich says. \u201cMaybe it should. I do think there is a way in which this happens very organically. I’m still doing this, and I started doing it when I was 21. That’s when I was first hired by CollegeHumor. And the content has managed to grow up with us in a way that’s very organic. We tend to appeal to both the young people who love comedy, and folks about the age we are.\u201d<\/p>\n Reich points to Greg Davies, Alex Horne, and Taskmaster<\/em> as evidence that Dropout shows like Game Changer<\/em> and Make Some Noise <\/em>should be able to continue for decades, in part because Dropout keeps investing in new comedians.<\/p>\n \u201cVery naturally, the comedy scene in Los Angeles and on the internet itself unfolds in such a way where younger comedians are arriving in the mix all the time,\u201d he says. \u201cI don’t think that people are aware of there being much age disparity on stage, but there already is. Demi [Adejuyigbe] is meaningfully younger than us. Anna [Garcia] is even younger. And they fit right in. I mean, in my mind, there comes a point where just good comedy is good comedy and it’s sort of ageless. Now, will I still be doing Game Changer<\/em> at the age of 60 or 70? Right now, I can only say I rather hope so.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dropout.tv has been in the news a lot lately, announcing one new initiative after another, including the company\u2019s first Blu-rays, first 24\/7 streaming channel, and first licensed outside content, as well as a new \u201cSuperfan\u201d pricing tier, an animated shorts anthology, and a crowdfunded board game built around the company\u2019s flagship show, Game Changer. (The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[2869,5001,7723,5510,7725,7724],"class_list":{"0":"post-7949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-latest-news","8":"tag-ceo","9":"tag-changing","10":"tag-dropout","11":"tag-explains","12":"tag-reich","13":"tag-sam"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}