Cow Chop

Cow Chop Logo

Cow Chop was a channel created by James (UberHaxorNova) and Aleks (ImmortalHD) on the 29th of February, 2016. Their first upload, "FIRST VIDEO", was uploaded on the 1st of April. The channel's main content is couch gaming co-op, though they also produce sketches, vlogs, and various non-gaming series.

History[]

The name Cow Chop is said to come from Couch Co-Op, Couch Op, Cow Chop. When asked "Why cows?" James responded with "Why not? It goes with the name." ^[1]

Cow Chop was originally thought to have been part of The Creatures;^[2] however, on April 28, 2016, James and Aleks announced on a Twitch live stream that they were leaving The Creatures along with Aron, Joe, and Trevor.^[3] They still remained a part of the Rooster Teeth Let's Play Family.^[4]

The initial idea for Cow Chop was made back in 2014 according to James. While he was still with the Creatures, James hinted towards the creation of Cow Chop during James Hub 3.0 ^[5] without Aleks' consent.

The Cow Chop House era[]

April 2016 - February 2017[]

After leaving the Creatures and the office building sometime in the second half of April 2016, James rented a small house in Colorado as a filming location as well as headquarters for the newly founded group. From there on out the poor house would endure the most inhumane treatment imaginable, with food being thrown around on a regular basis. In addition, a wall would have a hole hammered into it, fireworks among other things would threaten to nearly burn down the house on several occasions and the cellar would be covered in actual human feces. Plastic and smartphones would be burned in the kitchen and furniture thrown in the garden. But it was but a mere door and a military grade stink bomb prank that caused the Cunt to finally snap. Upon seeing this torture, the Cunt, an anonymous watcher, would send the videos in question to the landlord of the Cow Chop house, who was not amused at all at the nearly total destruction the house almost came in touch with on multiple occasions. But in their eyes, the destruction of that particular door was the breaking point. The company who owned the property forced the landlord to evict the Cow Chop crew from the house, even though they replaced the door with a better one and fixed all the damages they had done to the house almost immediately after them happening. Arguing this to no avail, the Cow Chop crew had to leave but left the door behind as a sign of good faith.

February 14th - February 18th[]

Following the eviction, the crew had to make do with what they had: their personal property. To be more precise, James' personal property. In the transitional period between the two eras videos were shot in James' house (much to his dismay), with Trevor literally living on the streets (not really, though). During this period they did what they do best and caused carnage, almost losing their eyesight when playing around with bleach.

The Barn era[]

February 2017 - April 2017[]

Somehow the Cow Chop crew got the wonderful idea to rent a barn as a makeshift place to continue to make videos while now planning to move to Los Angeles, where other members of the Rooster Teeth Family were. What they had not calculated, however, was that the barn was barely heated. They were also not able to properly set up any equipment, resulting in mainly Nintendo Switch-based content. It was also revealed that the barn used to be a meth lab. Stan the fish and Jorel the intern were introduced during this period. Eventually Cow Chop moved to LA, leaving the barn behind and Jorel to take care of Stan.

The Warehouse era[]

April 2017 - December 2019[]

Cow Chop moved to a warehouse in Los Angeles, where they produced their content until the end. The warehouse allowed for more large-scale content to be made, which also meant more destruction, as well as a bigger space for the employees to work at. During the move to LA Aron left the channel, as he did not want to move. Jakob and Lindsey were added to the team in 2017 as editors and cameramen, with Lindsey having known Brett for a long time and Jakob having been a friend of Trevor's. Jacob, a new intern, also joined for a brief time, mainly as a cameraman and occasional brief on-screen personality. Matt also joined as an editor and cameraman, as he and Brett had been friends since college and was offered a job there. Near the end of 2017 Joe left the channel as he wanted to pursue different things and also was becoming a father, though Joe said there was a chance he would come back in the future. In early 2018 Anna left, as she wanted to move closer to her twin sister to help her, and Trevor took an indefinite vacation, later leaving altogether. His last hurrah was the show Woah, That’s a Let’s Play!. Later on, Alec and Abby joined as interns, with Abby leaving in September of 2018 as her internship ended; Alec decided to join Cow Chop, making the video thumbnails and later being promoted to a main cast member. Asher was also let go in September by Cow Chop.

In early 2019 while making a video, James broke his leg during a part where he had to use a skateboard. He took a break from the channel and later had to get surgery for the injury. It was announced in James' video "I'm Leaving CowChop" that he was departing from the crew. In response, Aleks posted another video titled "James Is Leaving Cow Chop" on the Cow Chop channel. He mentioned how it was not a surprise that the decision was finally made, and outlined how the remaining group planned to finish out 2019 because of contractual obligations.

On March 17, 2019 (the day before James announced his departure from Cow Chop), the channel reached its highest subscriber count of 938,060. As of August 2019 the channel had just under 890,000 subscribers, with an average loss of 272 subscribers per day. While there was at the time no official statement with regard to the future of Cow Chop after 2019, it was inferred that the channel would disband. On April 4th, 2019, through Patreon, there was an announcement of a "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS" sale happening soon, making it obvious that Cow Chop would be ending that year. During the Cow Chop panel at RTX 2019, Aleks introduced and ended the panel by saying "Welcome to the final Cow Chop panel ever," and "Thank you for coming to the final Cow Chop panel ever," respectively.

During the year, Garrett and Adri joined as interns and later were hired as main cast members. John and Tony also made their presence known and Matt started appearing more on camera. Brett and Aleks also bought cockroaches which are currently residing as pets in the Warehouse. Jakob and Alec made their own channel, OFFCANNY, which they planned to pursue once Cow Chop ended. Through September to November Alec, Lindsey and Matt left the group. On December 20, 2019, John tweeted a picture of the warehouse, simply saying "That's a wrap", concluding and announcing that Cow Chop had officially ended.

On December 31st, 2019, after ending all of their other shows and doing their Christmas special, Cow Chop uploaded its last video titled "THE FINAL INTERVIEW", a sequel to their first-ever video after the channel trailer, "THE SUCCESS STORY".

Members[]

Final[]

Former[]

Aron (2016 - 2017)
Joe (2016 - 2017)
Jorel (2016 - 2017)
Jacob (2017 - 2017)
Anna (2016 - 2018)
Trevor (2016 - 2018)
Asher (2016 - 2018)
Abby (2018 - 2018)
James (2016 - 2019)
Alec (2018 - 2019)
Lindsey (2017 - 2019)
Matt (2017-2019)

Guests[]

Michael Jones from Rooster Teeth/ Achievement Hunter
Geoff Ramsey from Rooster Teeth/ Achievement Hunter
Dexter Manning - YouTube Videomaker and old friend of the group.
Sugar Pine 7 - Former LetsPlay family member and friends of Cow Chop.
Funhaus - Due to the Cow Chop Crew already knowing most of the employees at Funhaus (They had all been formerly employed in the YouTube Gaming Network Channel, Machinima), the groups constantly do videos together mainly involving live action or competitive gaming.
According to Aleks on Reddit during the AMA Dec 19 of 2016, SSoHPKC (or Seamus) would have possibly been a guest on Cow Chop.

Trivia[]

The main emoji for Cow Chop are 🐮🔪. They are commonly found on the channel's "About" section as well as in the description for all of their videos. Fans also place those emoji on videos that Cow Chop reacts to on the WRONG SIDE OF YOUTUBE.
Aleks originally came up with the name "Cow Chop".
According to the guys, the Adult Swim television series "The Eric Andre Show" was a major influence on the creation of their YouTube channel.
If things got too out of hand in a video and someone actually started to get hurt, they had a safe phrase, "Please stop, I'm drowning"; however, according to Aron in a Behind the Cow Chop Video and James on their first Reddit AMA questionnaire, they did not have a safe word. However, once James’ accident happened in 2019, the new safe word appeared to be "Bone", as demonstrated by Jakob in a stream.
It normally takes anywhere from 20 minutes to 3 hours to film a video and 1-3 days to edit a video according to Trevor on the First Cow Chop Reddit AMA Questionnaire.
According to James, his plan for 2017 was for Cow Chop to move to Los Angeles, California, due to them having more contacts there and it being a better location for the YouTube group; they managed to fulfill that plan and made a warehouse in LA their headquarters for the final years of Cow Chop.
The rap beats done for the transitions in Cow Chop videos are done by oZealous.
Even though the Cow Chop staff was originally not supposed to be in videos, according to James, they went on to take on a regular presence in Cow Chop videos.
The Cow Chop set was referenced on NoPixel, a Grand Theft Auto V role-play server James and Aleks frequent, and both James and Aleks have reacted to it, as well as reacted to each other's reactions to the set.

Quotes about Cow Chop[]

"Cow Chop are freaks!" - Jeremy Dooley, My Brain Doesn't Work So Good No More - Off Topic #64

"It's a hell of a crew..." - Michael, My Brain Doesn't Work So Good No More - Off Topic #64

"They make us look like a fucking joke... Oh yeah we're a bunch of pussies." - Michael and Geoff, My Brain Doesn't Work So Good No More - Off Topic #64