Category:YouTube

This category refers to sketches FAH filmed for their YouTube channel, as opposed to sketches they wrote for live gigs.

Not every clip on YouTube is included in this category: clips from live gigs, trailers, adverts, TV work, interviews, etc. are mostly all found on YouTube as well, but these go under the more general category VIDEOS.

Live Clips & Comedy Shorts
The Foil Arms and Hog YouTube channel was created on 26 Oct 2008, years before they were shooting weekly sketches in their office. They had presumably set it up so they could upload some recorded clips from gigs. A couple of Laughter Lounge clips are still up, but they had clips from other comedy clubs as well, such as The International.

They also uploaded their comedy shorts 'Green Issues' (23 July 2009) and 'John and Tim' (24 October 2011). Upload dates don't necessarily tell us the recording dates of course. Hog's buzz cut makes dating a bit more reliable: he had a similar look in the Laughter Lounge live show clip The Disco (7 December 2010) but his signature long curls in the clip Iphone Apps (9 December 2011). That means 'John and Tim was likely made in 2010 rather than in 2011.

You can learn everything about the origins of Green Issues, still FAH's number 1 favourite sketch!, in the video Our Top 10 Sketches 2009-2019, their New Year's roundup of 2019. As you now know, they didn't really start producing sketches at the pace they do now from 2009 onwards, so let's hope they do another one of those at the end of 2022.(*) I can imagine it now: "Foil Arms and Hog: a decade of weekly Thursday sketches (2012-2022).

(*) Yes, a decade is 10 years and not 11, but they only started in September, remember?

The First Year of Weekly Sketches
Foil Arms and Hog started filming sketches specifically for YouTube on a regular basis after their Edinburgh Fringe run in September 2012. This was their YouTube channel homepage message, posted in April 2013:

The accompanying video (now set to private) which was up on their homepage for months if not years, got 645 views in total. Today, a premiering sketch reaches on average 85 000 views on the first day. Perspectives!

They had made three playlists to structure their channel, which implies they were by then set on making their YouTube sketches a big part of their comedy careers. For their first set of office sketches, FAH decided they would number their uploads. They got to 34 before abandoning this system.
 * 1) The Office sketches (created at the start of 2013): "We come up with a silly idea and film it as best we can in our office" (22 videos in October '13)
 * 2) The Best Bits (created in 2012): "Ours and your favourite videos" (12 videos in October '13)
 * 3) Foil, Arms and Hog live (created in 2010): these were the first uploads to their Channel, perhaps even before they had the idea of filming sketches in their office for YouTube only. They had only 4 clips uploaded to this list, from their gigs in comedy clubs around Dublin (e.g. The International Comedy Club).

The first couple of sketches are tricky to reconcile with FAH's on comments on Patreon. The next video, "New Employee", didn't get numbered anymore. Interestingly, both this sketch and 'Voice Recognition' didn't originally have the "warning" NSFW in their titles! Did they receive complaints? Anyway, it's nice to know fans have been sneakily watching FAH sketches at work since 2012, isn't it!
 * Easy Out Headache Relief (now removed but released on Patreon) was the first sketch they produced all by themselves (Foil did the editing and apparently took AGES). It was apparently their second ever upload to YouTube, but that might be slightly misremembered by the lads of course. If true: which one was first?
 * XBox Kinect Paralympics Fail (Trailer) (recently removed) was uploaded on 7 September 2012. This sketch was NOT produced by FAH themselves (shot and edited by Dermot Grace). It was labeled with the number 2, but if so, where does 'Easy Out Headache' fit in?
 * Celebrity Lock-Up (still on YouTube) was uploaded on 27 January 2012, months before the next sketch in line. Did this one get a number? It seems unlikely... so this is the list we'd end up with:
 * 1) Easy Out Headache Relief (removed from YouTube, re-released on Patreon)
 * 2) XBox Kinect Paralympics Fail (Trailer) (now removed) - also a 'best bit'
 * 3) It's Good to Talk
 * 4) Bookshop
 * 5) Tennis
 * 6) Hotel Fort - also a 'best bit'
 * 7) Brennans - also a 'best bit'
 * 8) Upskilling
 * 9) Computer Rage (now removed)
 * 10) Budget
 * 11) Voice Recognition - also a 'best bit'
 * 12) Broken Radiators (now removed)
 * 13) Ceol Agus Ól - also a 'best bit'
 * 14) Band Accounts
 * 15) Hashtag - also a 'best bit'
 * 16) Santa (now removed)
 * 17) Funeral Arrangements (now removed)
 * 18) Foil Arms & Hog: New Years Eve (now removed)
 * 19) Umm - also a 'best bit'
 * 20) Excuses
 * 21) Perspectives
 * 22) Business Squash - also a 'best bit'
 * 23) The Ex-Pope's Job Interview for Centra - also a 'best bit'
 * 24) Heroin
 * 25) Dole Moments - Dentist
 * 26) Dole Moments - Cinema (now removed)
 * 27) Cinema Seating (now removed)
 * 28) Hair Cut
 * 29) Cinema Food
 * 30) ADD for dogs (later renamed "The Vet")
 * 31) He's his own worst enemy
 * 32) Newspapers
 * 33) The Baby Head Clamp - also a 'best bit'
 * 34) Hard Lads

The other two "best bits" videos were two sketches filmed for the documentary "Under The Influence". Both were parody ads, which they apparently loved making: the Heineken Rugby Advert Parody and the Drink Aware Advert Parody - Hands Aware.

The Start of Sketch Serials
Before FAH made a second Hard Lads episode, their 34th sketch was simply called "Hard Lads". They released these follow-up episodes in quick succession too (all premiere dates 2013). While the London episode was sadly taken down (reportedly because Foil's phone number was on screen and he got some rogue phone calls), fans of Hard Lads would have to wait a whole year till 'The Priest' (19 October 2014) and yet another year for 'The Girl' (12 November 2015) for the last installment so far. Let's agree we're due another Hard Lads now, right?
 * 1) Hard Lads - renamed Hard Lads Ep. 1 - 'The New Guy' on 7 October
 * 2) Hard Lads Ep. 2 - 'The Meeting' on 15 October
 * 3) Hard Lads Ep. 3 - 'London' on 25 October

The same goes for Business Dudes: originally these sketches were simply called "Heroin" (the first) and "Newspapers" (the second), released 1 April and 25 July 2013 respectively. By the third episode, 'Punchy Face' (7 November) they'd given up on numbering sketches, and also decided on "Business Dudes" as their series title. Much later on, the 'Visiting Gran' series got the same treatment: originally a one-off, then turned into a series and numbered accordingly.

By 2014, their sketch serials had made it into their own playlists, one for each: 'The Business Dudes', 'Ceol Agus Ól' [sic] and 'Hard Lads'.

Sketch Seasons and Sketch Thursdays
Around 2014 they chose a different way to make playlists: seasons! They had 5 seasons in total until they also abandoned that idea and switched to the (loosely) themed playlists they still use now. Well... 'use' is a big word, because some playlists really are a mess: check out the 'Losers' playlist with only one video in it, or the Quarantine playlist that has 7, while there were undeniably 13 sketches filmed during lockdown in total. The playlist 'Office Sketches' still exists though, with well over 100 sketches in it, which is excellent for binging of course!

It's interesting to note the parallels with TV sketch comedy since we know that FAH have always wanted to have their own show. Just like in TV, their seasons were followed by a hiatus when they were doing their various Fringe runs and tours. Back then, while they did release weekly sketches, they didn't yet upload one the year round, which is why those seasons made sense. Not long after, the 'seasonal playlists' disappeared.
 * 1) Season 1 sketches such as It's Good to Talk, Bookshop and Tennis were filmed in the fall of 2012
 * 2) Season 2 sketches such as Ceol Agus Ól and Umm (the first episodes) were filmed in the winter and Christmas months of late 2012 - early 2013
 * 3) Season 3 sketches such as Hair Cut, Cinema Food and The Vet were filmed in the spring and summer of 2013
 * 4) Season 4 sketches among which many follow-up sketches (Umm, Ceol agus Ól, Business Dudes) were filmed in the fall of 2013
 * 5) Season 5 sketches such as Luas Tannoy, Movie OMG! and Space Missions from Hell were all from 2014, so this was basically the '2014 season'
 * 6) The playlist that came after was simply called 'new season 2015'.

So what about Thursdays? The description of their 2013 playlist 'Season 2' reads: "'Every Thursday we shoot a different sketch in our office in Dublin - these are the results!'"If taken literally, that means they had Thursdays reserved for the shoots as they weren't gigging on that weekday in those years (except for festival season). That matches with the upload dates for sketches, which aren't on a Thursday at all. It takes time to edit a sketch, so the upload could be the next day or the following week, depending how much 'post' was needed. Here's a calender with the release dates of some sketches indicated:



Renaming Sketches
We've mentioned how the release of follow-up sketches (Umm 1 and 2) and serials (e.g. Hard Lads) leads to the first 'episodes' to get their titles expanded to 'part 1' or similar. But for unknown reasons (unless you can think of one?), sketches occasionally get a totally new name. Check these out: what do you think?
 * Babies: 'Two Toddlers Shoot the Breeze'
 * Hashtag: 'Twitter Twats'
 * The Vet: 'ADD for Dogs'
 * Band Accounts: 'Accountant'
 * John and Tim: originally had 'The Electricity Bill' added to it. Perhaps they wanted to do a series about them?
 * The Internet Café: 'The Real Web Summit', in reference to the 2015 Web Summit held in Dublin.
 * How to Fix a Relationship was renamed 'Relationship MOT/NCT' in January 2020. Most non-Irish FAHns had to look up what that meant and it was immediately agreed on Twitter this wasn't FAH's best move...

Not All Sketches Survive
As you will have noticed, a handful of sketches have been taken offline since. It's not just because of an accidental display of their personal information either! The lads have commented on taking down older sketches after fans kept pleading for their release: "'Ahh thanks guys. We do a bit of a cull every so often for various reasons, sometimes we hate the sketch and sometimes it's dated badly.'"Maybe they'll end up on Patreon some day with a little bit of context from the lads, just as they have already returned 'Easy Out Headache Relief' (taken down for that second reason) and 'Hard Lads Ep. 3' to us.

FAHns have of course been able to download these sketches in the past. You can watch a selection of them here: