YouTube stars Rhett & Link celebrated their new comedy series with a premiere at the Academy Museum Wednesday night.
The Good mythical morning co-hosts are expanding their comedy broadcasts with a new series on their YouTube channel called WonderholeThe series “combines docu-comedy, sketch comedy, original music, visual effects, celebrity cameos and downright crazy attitude,” according to Mythical Entertainment, the company the duo co-owns. The company independently financed the project.
Thursday’s premiere kicked off with cocktails and mingling, as guests including actor Jason Segel snapped photos on the red carpet. Then, attendees were ushered into a screening room to watch the first two episodes, which launch on YouTube later this month, and hear from the stars themselves. The episodes, which were introduced by YouTube’s chief business officer Mary Ellen Coe, drew laughs and cheers from the audience.
“We took a huge creative risk by saying we wanted to bet on ourselves,” Link Neal told the audience after the screening, adding that they could “put everything into something instead of asking permission.”
Neal said that after watching the episodes he had “a million things” he wanted to debrief about, joking, “Let's do a postmortem, team.”
Rhett McLaughlin, Jason Segel and Link Neal
Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for Mythical Entertainment
Rhett McLaughlin explained to the audience what the duo saw as some of the positive aspects of knowing the series would be released on YouTube. “Studios would have had notes on that, right?” he said. “We were able to make the thing we wanted to make for the audience we wanted to attract.”
The duo also took time during the conversation to mention their Mythical Entertainment team, which worked on the series. “They’re all working on the other shows that they’re working on at Mythical,” McLaughlin said. “They didn’t necessarily have time to have a new project on their schedule, but they all gave it their all.”
The festivities concluded with an afterparty at the museum's restaurant, Fanny's. Wonderhole will be released on Rhett & Link's YouTube on August 23, with new episodes every week.