Fire hydrants: Stoic, unflinching protectors of our livlihoods. Have you ever wanted to know more? Today, we give you the Whole Story.

This video marks the second appearance of Nigel Fitzgerald Brouwer, and marks the point at which “The whole Story” has officially become a series, rather than a single video. As such, Paul provided me a few words with regards to his inspiration.

The Whole Story series was inspired by, among other things, John Hodgman’s Areas of my Expertise and Lore Fitzgerald Sjöberg’s Alt Text videos for Wired. I love the idea of a historian not only being incorrect but actually flat out lying, but speaking with enough authority to seem semi plausible. As with the Spam episode, instead of just making everything up whole cloth, I found it was funnier to get the small details correct even if the larger parts of the story were completely silly. For instance, the modern fire hydrant was indeed invented by Birdsill Holly around the time mentioned in the video. Big thanks to Tensen for providing the great drawings of a dragon attacking a plasma tv and with its nose caught in the 6 pack ring (the most dangerous weapon mankind has ever developed). I was also quite happy with what I came up with for the diagram of the Fire Hyrda. It is the combination of 4 highly detailed engine cross sections and I feel it gets across the ridiculous complexity of the 23 foot long machine.

Checkpoint is available to view over at PATV. Today’s episode is titled: Project – Buy Our Shit

UPDATE: There it is! Unskippable is now online! Final Fantasy Crystal Bearers

Cheers!