G4’s new show ‘Boosted’ looking to showcase esports through a ‘comedic lens’

G4 officially relaunched their channel last week with a host of new shows in their lineup, including the esports comedy show, “Boosted,” which premieres Tuesday, Nov. 23.

According to a press release, “Boosted” is described as “a weekly esports comedy series for curious gamers and esports fanatics alike. … Boosted will cover the latest trends, news and tournaments in the esports world every week.”

G4 has already experimented with this kind of content before the official relaunch with The Bleep Esports Show, which can be found on their esports-centered YouTube channel.

Nerd Street caught up with the three hosts of the show, Indiana “Froskurinn” Black, Alex “GoldenBoy” Mendez and Ovilee May aka Ovilee, ahead of the launch of “Boosted.”

All three of them had different experiences with G4 back when it originally aired. Ovilee was young during its original run and didn’t have much experience with G4 at all until she was approached to work with them.

“I grew up in a household where, you know, premier TV channels, that was not on the menu for us. And it was still kind of before the times of the internet,” Ovilee said. “And as a child, I didn't really know who I was supposed to talk to or find out about it. But once I heard about G4, I went through, like, the entire back catalogue of all the old ‘Attack of the Show!s’ and ‘Xplay,’ and I got to see, like Kevin Pereira and Adam Sessler, do their thing. And that got me super excited for G4 and it's relaunch. So even though I wasn't a part of the [original] run, I feel like I was able to live through it by just standing really close to Kevin Pereira and just breathing in his air.”

Photo credit: G4

Froskurinn and GoldenBoy did have some experience with G4 before being approached for the relaunch, and both have vivid memories of it.

“I watched G4 a lot growing up,” Froskurinn said. “I remember really vividly when the iPhone was being released and like following the coverage religiously on G4. ‘Xplay’ and ‘Attack of the Show!’ were kind of like my go-to, so getting the casting call originally for G4, I was like ‘this is the one that I want to go really hard for.’”

“G4 was like a huge part of my, like, just daily content consumption as a kid,” GoldenBoy said. “I was like, super into, obviously, ‘Attack of the Show!’ and ‘Xplay,’ I definitely watched like way more ‘Xplay’ because I was always you know, a gamer nerd and stuff, and so I loved all the reviews especially for the bad games because they always found a way to like take the bad games and … make good content out of a bad game, which, you know, we're doing to this day in esports for a lot of games.”

Why now?

A big part of what will make G4 successful is whether the gaming community as a whole is ready for this type of content again. A big question is what G4 will do differently now from what was done back then, and the answer isn’t just black and white. However, for “Boosted,” a show that didn’t exist during the network’s original run, that question doesn’t exist. Instead, the only question that can be asked is “why now?”

Photo credit: G4

“I mean, basically, you know, long story short, I think that quality gaming content is something that will never really go out of style,” GoldenBoy said. “People want to watch other folks enjoy video games, but also people want to watch other folks with, you know, opinions and perspectives and bring those games to light and really, I guess, highlight how incredible this community is.”

Froskurinn compared the generational standpoints of gaming to how horror films evolved. Like the different themes in different generations of horror films, that evolution takes the same shape in gaming.

“Now we're of an age where we became content creators, and now in the current landscape of how entertainment is being made, mainstream is finally like ‘hmm, we could take these content creators and we could just give them tools to make really polished content.’ And that's all G4 is at its heart and soul, it’s content creators. … I actually do think that it is timing-related. It just took us all the time to grow up and now we're ready to build the things that inspired us back then.”

SNL Weekend Update but make it esports

As for what the hosts want to do with the show, it’s been described as “The Bleep Esports show and more” by Ovilee, and Froskurinn said it was heavily inspired by SNL Weekend Update. G4 already has something like this called the G4 Esports Update, which is a “cold read” where the hosts read whatever the writer puts into the prompter without reading it beforehand.

“I think we were really heavily inspired by like SNL Weekend Update, which is where things like the cold read come from, and it was more about encapsulating the culture around esports of that like, we speak in internet memes, our lingo is changing all the time,” Froskurinn said. “Even if I don't watch Halo like [GoldenBoy], I have common ground of just how we interact and how we think about games. And I think that's where Boosted is really trying to hit is definitely through the the comedic lens for people that don't have to be hardcore esports fans, but maybe like more esports curious, and are brought in by the culture around esports and not the raw like ‘today Team Liquid went 3-0 versus,’ you know, like that's not so much what we're interested in.”

Photo credit: G4

Ovilee has a similar take, but wants to take “Boosted” and make it super weird.

“I want to see [GoldenBoy] get launched out of a cannon into a bus where he parachutes out and that's how he's dropping into the studio for the day. Or I want to see Frosk talking about, you know, the world championship, but she's riding on a horse because Team Liquid won or something like that. I love weird shit,” Ovilee said.

Unsurprisingly, GoldenBoy had the reaction one might expect to that idea, but Ovilee has it all planned out to be 100 percent safe.

“Yeah, so he launches through the bus, he comes in through the backside, he does like a barrel roll or something and then he launches out through the side door like a kid getting dropped off for school,” Ovilee said.

Clearly, the team has some big plans for “Boosted,” and it is sure to be a hilarious show that all esports fans, across many games, can enjoy. The show can be watched on their YouTube and Twitch channels and will also be put on broadcast TV shortly after its premiere.

Lead photo credit: G4