Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin'

History

Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin'? was conceived during the summer of 2008, while Ashly and Anthony Burch still lived at home with their parents in Phoenix, Arizona. Anthony Burch was a game reviewer at Destructoid, his Rev Rant video features expressing his opinions of tropes commonly seen in contemporary games. Having established an audience on the website, he posted the first HAWP episode on May 28, 2008. The siblings collaborated over the course of the summer to produce one episode per week, playing mildly exaggerated versions of themselves: Anthony utilizing his deadpan, fast-spoken, strongly opinionated nature, and Ashly exhibiting mild psychosis as she antagonizes him both verbally and physically. Over time, as the siblings fine-tuned the comedy and timing of the show, these aspects have come to define their characters.

Discussing the genesis of the series, Anthony states:

Ash and I got the idea for HAWP during the summer; our total lack of shit to do meant we could film an episode every week, and subsequently get the Destructoid community to acknowledge our presence through sheer force of quantity. It would have been easy for Destructoid to forget about us if we'd just filmed an episode every month, or something.

Ashly Burch describes the nature of their collaboration:

It was incredibly fun. Anthony and I had never really collaborated in that way, just the two of us, before, and I really enjoyed it. Looking back on those first episodes, I think they pale in comparison to the quality of the ones in our current season — i.e., there are less dead-baby jokes — but I like reviewing them occasionally to see what worked in them. Primarily, it's the dynamic we managed to establish between me and Anthony that I liked the best.

Since the latter half of the second season, friend and occasional contributor Justin Yngelmo has been credited as co-writer, director, and editor of the series.

A short film collaboration between the Hey Ash crew and Freddie Wong premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival as part of Nintendo's official contribution.

Format

Almost every episode begins with Ashly, comfortably seated with a controller, as her brother walks up behind her and title-drops the show. Ashly then answers him with the episode's game in a childlike accent. All audio here is supplemented with a game font, and the camera abruptly clips to the content of the week's episode.

The episodes vary in tone, but usually incorporate a great deal of surreal humor. For instance, in one early episode, Ashly re-enacts aspects of Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, strapping a toy child to her back and crushing cupcakes with her posterior on a countertop. Another early episode involves her re-enacting portions of Professor Layton, involving her poking around for hint coins and solving a bizarre puzzle that involves prostitutes. As the seasons progressed, the comedy was tightened through advances in editing and script-writing, and the addition of Justin Yngelmo added production value and a refined approach to the creation of new episodes.

Each episode ends with credits in the same font, sometimes involving a line or two of amusing commentary. During the aftermath of DVD releases or other projects by the siblings, promotional notice will be given for a slide or two. As of Season Two, the ending theme song was changed to "The Massacre" by chiptune artist FantomenK, to avoid copyright laws. Occasionally, a brief stinger will appear, after which the credits will finish.

Ashly Burch

Manic, wild Ashly Burch is the eponymous "Ash" of the show's title, and plays the unhinged half of the Burch siblings. She regularly and unrelentingly antagonizes her brother, seeing him on-camera as weak and effeminate. She is usually supported in her frequent bashing of his character by inaction from anyone else present, to his vocal chagrin. On slight occasion, a character usurps her, or she will accidentally place herself in a position of detriment—examples include the infamous The Sims pool scene at the hands of Ashley Davis, Papa Burch's effortless position above her such as in the Lord of the Rings episode, or Ashly accidentally pooping in her own bed while attempting to ruin Anthony's room.

Anthony Burch

Anthony Burch, usually portrayed as the single sane character of the series, acts as a foil to Ashly. He is almost always the recipient of his sister's lunacy and absurdity, and usually ignores or calls sarcastic attention to her wild actions. Other characters often reflect about how he smells bad. If a character is wounded in any episode, it will typically be Anthony, who will fail to receive any aid from the others.

Papa Burch

Breakout cameo character Papa Burch (David Burch) is the patriarch of the Burch household, and an avid reader of romance novels. In one early episode, he was shown to have an encyclopedic, borderline psychic knowledge of The Twilight Saga, and is usually involved in an episode in a brief one-or-two line shot. His minimal involvement in the show lends greater comedy to his short appearances, and he appears to be the progenitor of both Ashly's loose grip on reality and Anthony's deadpan attitude. He attends panels focused on his children's work and is a consistent fan favorite.

Leigh Davis

Leigh Davis(formerly known as Ashley Davis) is the creator and producer of Once Upon a Pixel, a spin-off web series dedicated to re-envisioning video game characters and plots in a fairy tale-esque approach. She was the real-life wife of Anthony Burch making the transition from girlfriend to fiance on-camera during the surprise intro to the The Sims episode of HAWP. Her character has been shown to take an adorable and wide-eyed stance on the antics of the siblings, but on two occasions, she has shown a darker side by fatally threatening Ashly Burch, usually accompanied with evil laughter. While she was initially an extra in the early episodes, her presence has gradually increased, and now she is usually seen in each episode until the season 5 finale following her real life divorce from Anthony Burch.

Reception

Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin'? has received positive reviews since its inception. Regularly the cast appears at the Penny Arcade Expo conventions to meet with fans and discuss the evolution of video game culture. Video game voice actor David Hayter, the voice actor of Solid Snake in the Metal Gear Solid series, contributed his voice to the Season One finale.

Other work

Anthony Burch is an employee at Rocket Jump; he took the position after leaving his former post as a writer at video game developer Gearbox Software. He was the lead writer for Borderlands 2, and contributed his script-writing and vocal talent to the "Claptrap Proposal" that Gearbox produced to help Borderlands fan Ben propose to his girlfriend Tora. Anthony is also the co-writer and co-star of the defunct web series "Anthony Saves the World". Anthony also contributed to the Telltale Games' episodic adventure, Tales From the Borderlands.

Ashly Burch has starred in several small shorts as well as a feature-film, Must Come Down, written by Kenny Riches and produced by Patrick Fugit. The film was released on DVD on November 16, 2012. She also lent her voice to Tiny Tina, a non-playable character in Borderlands 2, as well as the Bane, a "cursed" gun that yells annoying sounds and phrases while severely restricting the user's movement. In addition, she provided the voices of Ayla in the game Awesomenauts Reid in Aliens: Colonial Marines, and Miss Pauling in Valve's Team Fortress 2 short videos. Most recently, Ashly voiced Chloe Price in Dontnod Entertainment's video game Life Is Strange, for which she was nominated for a Golden Joystick Award.

The three HAWP-characters Papa, Anthony and Ashly Burch were all featured as Downloadable Content for the 2013 video game Saints Row IV. They were all voiced by the original cast and could be called via phone as homies to help the player out in battle or to just hang out with. They can be called separately, however when called together they converse with each other in similar ways as in Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin'?.

Ashley Davis currently produces a Web Comic named JailBird as well as running her own website oddlookingbird.com.

HAWPcast & HeyAshTwitch

The show is also the subject of the popular podcast "HAWPcast", originally involving only Anthony and Ashly Burch, but expanded to include Ashley Davis and Justin Yngelmo, among others. It is updated infrequently and typically surrounds video game philosophy as well as various insights into their lives and backstories, usually around an hour long apiece. The standard HAWPcasts at one point were almost completely replaced by a format called "Keepin' It Real" where the HAWP crew interviewed notable members of the game industry. Regular HAWPcasts returned in 2015. The HAWPcast is often streamed on their twitch.tv channel.

Currently the HAWP Crew stream on their twitch.tv channel with their good friends Grant Cushman (who streams on Tuesdays), Aaron Linde (who streams on Thursdays), Tamara & Justin (who stream late hours on Thursdays) & Brad Nicholson (who streams on Saturdays).

Episodes

Upload dates refer to the date the episode was uploaded to GameTrailers.com.