The Angry Grandpa Interview: KidBehindACamera Talks Prank Wars, Anger Management and Rejecting TruTV
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In keeping up with the revenge prank war sparked by the viral video featuring The Angry Grandpa destroying a PS4 his son, Michael Green, chatted with us about how far AGS has come.
The show stars Charles Marvin Green (aka, Angry Grandpa) whose furious--and often funny--outbursts have been filmed by Michael Green since before 2010.
When Michael began putting the videos online, they garnered a cult following and fan base, and Angry Grandpa's YouTube channel grew to have half a million followers.
Michael shares aftermath insights and cut scenes of what happens on the show via his equally successful YouTube vlog channel, KidBehindACamera, but he also took the time to tell Empty Lighthouse about the prank war premise of "The Angry Grandpa Show," why Angry Grandpa is so angry, and being approached by truTv.
Wow. You have nearly four years of videos on your YouTube channel! Why did you start filming The Angry Grandpa Show?
I began filming the videos so I could show my sister Kimberly, who'd recently moved to New York, what she was missing at home.
I got a video camera for about 2 weeks before Christmas, with the plan that I was going to make her some family videos and send them on a DVD.
On Christmas morning 2007, Grandpa had a massive freak out because everybody opened presents without him, I thought it was hysterical how he overreacted and so I uploaded the video to Break.com so I could show my sister as soon as I possibly could, without realizing that it was also public for anybody else to see.
The next day the video had over 1 Million views and the rest is history.
Why did YouTube ban your first channel?
The first channel I uploaded on was less of a channel for videos of my dad, and more for anything I wanted to upload. At the time we only had about 3,000 subscribers so there was no level of protection against reports people would try and make against us.
So we were removed for a combination of copyright violations and TOS reports.
We were pretty angry, so we made our "edited for youtube" version of the video and as a tip of the hat to our roots, uploaded the "unedited" version to Break.com, where it still remains (http://www.break.com/video/ugc/the-angry-grandpa-responds-to-youtube-1869635):
You have over half a million YouTube subscribers, and videos are going viral! How does Charles feel about being officially Internet famous?
We've never and will never see ourselves as any kind of famous. We do get stopped in stores and we take pictures with people, but we don't consider that as "famous".
It would be arrogant of us to believe that we're anything more than ourselves and we just happen to have some people who enjoy looking at our lives from time to time.
Dad has seen people watching him over the produce section in grocery stores and he'll walk up to them and ask if they want a picture. We enjoy meeting our viewers as much as they do.
Was Charles Green on board with the idea for the show from the beginning?
This would constitute as one of my most frequently asked questions. People want to know if the videos are real or fake.
They are as real as they come and he's never been "in" on it. It's just a matter of me knowing when he's starting to lose his temper and taking advantage of the moment.
Has anyone ever asked "Why is Angry Grandpa so angry?"
Sometimes the question comes up and our answer every time is: because he woke up that morning. It's the only thing I can think of to say since he blows his lid over pretty much anything that makes him mad.
How can you tell when Angry Grandpa is about to lose his temper?
Usually when he is close to losing his temper, the first thing I will notice is he goes silent. It becomes apparent there is an issue because if the problem he has is with me, he'll just ignore me until I leave the house. The second sign is he'll mumble to himself under his breath.
Derogatory remarks about me, how lazy I am, how I need to get out. So it's a pretty good indicator that if I want to piss him off, now would be the time to do it.
But you see, by pranking him, or pushing him over the edge, he's able to reflect on what he did and how he acted and realize he was being a big baby and able to get over it rather quickly. Sometimes the best way to stop being so angry is to just...be angry haha.
Don't hold in your emotions. Man, I'd really hate to see him when his aggression is pent up.
Has anyone approached you about a television reality show or sitcom? Can you see The Angry Grandpa Show going in that direction?
SEVERAL TIMES! I can't keep count to be honest. One call in particular was with TruTV. I spoke to a female executive and the way the conversation was going, it seemed they wanted to script the show and I pulled the plug almost instantly. We don't DO fake videos and if somebody wanted us to, we'd have no interest in continuing the conversation any further.
Since then, we don't entertain the idea of a show, because we've learned through various conversations about it, that it would mean the end of our youtube channel and we have zero interest in bailing out on the people that got us to where we are.
Not that we're anywhere in particular, but we have this channel that people love and we'd never ditch that over the opportunity to be on TV.
"Angry Grandpa Destroys PS4" is officially The Angry Grandpa Show's most popular video with over 5 million views, and growing. But we hope you have plans to replace the PS4?
I plan on replacing the PS4 as soon as I can.
The biggest problem is, he broke it after I spent all my money on Christmas presents (SOME FOR HIM!) rendering me unable to even entertain the idea until after the holiday is over.
But as soon as I can, I am going to buy a new PS4, but I'm really just holding hope that he'll buy one for me, since it was his fault.
Does this mean a Prank War is in order?
We've had a prank war for a while now, but I'm only just getting started.
I'm resourceful and am confident in a notebook full of ideas to get him with. If he thought THAT was bad, wait until he gets a load of what I have in store for February.
Could you give us an example of your ideas?
Sorry, I need to play my cards close to my vest.
If somebody sends him this article, he's going to know what I have planned and it'll explode in my face. We're competitive when it comes to pranking, but I'd like to think I'm winning the war.
What kinds of videos do you think we'll be seeing in the near future?
In terms of videos of Grandpa, I couldn't say, since they happen when they happen. In terms of pranks? You can look forward to Grandpa getting really angry.
A lot. Because if I have to spend 500 dollars to replace a PS4, you can be sure I'm going to get 500 dollars worth of satisfactory revenge.