Brandon George Rogers[1] (born: August 3, 1988 ), also known as hotbananastud, is an American YouTuber, comedian, actor, director, screenwriter, artist, costume designer, and composer best known for satirical skits where he impersonates various comedic characters. In the past, he posted vlogs, but now posts mainly sketches and episodes for various web series, only five of which, Theater Class, Stuff & Sam, Blame the Hero, Blood & Makeup, and Normal British Series have been completed. He is of mixed ethnicity, with him being of Filipino and Madrid descent the only confirmed information about the topic.
About[]
Brandon's videos, whether they are sketches, vlogs or web series episodes, are often crass and offensive in nature, utilizing dark humor. However, Rogers claims that he genuinely has no bias towards any particular race, gender, sexuality or ethnicity. His style of acting and comedy is comparable to that of Tom Green and Sacha Baron Cohen.
Sketches[]
In recent years, Brandon Rogers has become best known for his sketches, where he impersonates various outlandish characters, often lampooning the stereotypes associated with those characters. Recurring characters include Grandpa, as well as a dysfunctional mother of three from A Day with Mom, Sam, and the characters of Angry Office where Rogers plays Dorian while other characters include Deeno the Filipino and Jürgen the blind fashion designer. For his sketches he often goes out in public, dressed up, and acts out his characters, which has reportedly gotten him kicked out of various establishments. His characters all live in the same universe and reference each other in various videos.
Characters[]
Grandpa[]
Brandon's first-ever character is Grandpa, a strict, blunt and slightly dimwitted grandfather who's often shown taking his grandchildren out to places. A running gag is that he refuses to buy candy that his grandson is always asking for sometimes getting it thrown at his head. Another running gag involves him trying to find a pharmacist, or talking with them on the phone. The character debuted in December 2008. In Brandon's million subscribers special video, A Day in the Park, it's revealed that Grandpa's name is George. He used to be a professional wrestler in 1972, where he competed against Helen and cheated by hitting her with a steel chair and injured her face.
Mr. Rimmer[]
Alex Rimmer, otherwise known as Mr. Rimmer, is the main protagonist of Theater Class. He's a former stand-up comedian and a theater class teacher who handles his students throughout the series despite having no knowledge of teaching and acting.
Dorian Ditsen[]
Dorian Ditsen is the Head of Marketing at the office of Angry Office. He's an irritable gay man who pushes his assistant Diesel David Burton-Espinoza and fellow coworkers around, thinking his sexual preference makes him better than them. He has an estranged brother named Damian looked down upon by his family for being straight.
Deeno the Filipino[]
Deeno (sometimes known as Tito Deeno) is a quirky Filipino man with a shrill voice who first appeared in Deeno the Filipino where he narrates his life (the routines seen in the video are things Filipinos usually do). According to the description in the video, Deeno is unintentionally voiced by Brandon's grandmother by pulling her audio talking about life. Deeno made a return in Deeno the Filipino Returns 🇵🇭 and made his final appearance in Deeno the Filipino says Farewell!👋🏽. The reason is because Brandon's grandmother can't do Deeno's voice anymore but his grandmother remains okay. Deeno is Brandon's first character that will no longer appear in his skits, and the only character who doesn't swear in English.
Hall Monitor Helen[]
Helen Brownstein is the hall monitor and detention teacher for a local school. She is very strict and carries around a megaphone to amplify her voice. The characters that are evident to go to the school are Timmy, Samantha, Sebastian, and Ignacio. She also carries supernatural abilities, such as being able to suck the life force out of people with a straw preferably through their anuses. She used to be a professional wrestler but retired in 1972 after a fight with George the Destroyer, where her face got messed up after being hit with a chair and being slammed into the turnbuckle multiple times. She now works as Bryce Tankthrust's assistant at Tankthrust babies. She also has another persona named Coach Ball, using that identity to oversee kids in swim class.
Elmer[]
Elmer is the name given to people cloned by Thrust Babies, a company owned by Bryce Tankthrust. Each clone has various jobs working at places owned by Bryce Tankthrust, which include: Cashier, Dollar Store Worker, Uber Driver, and Disneyland Worker. All clones hate their jobs, making quips and insults about everyone who comes in. He appeared in the video Elmer Hates His Job, and also made a short appearance in Grandpa Hates Disneyland. The Secretary version of Elmer is killed by Bryce Tankthrust in episode 14 of Stuff and Sam, and another version of Sam who helps Sam break into Thrust Babies is killed in episode 16. The Elmers are at birth inspected and their heart is removed if in good condition, to be used by Bryce Tankthrust as a replacement heart, making every Elmer emotionless.
Mom[]
Mom is a character that first appeared in A Day With Mom. She's the dysfunctional mother of three children: Samantha, Timmy, and a baby that she's constantly losing and injuring. She's addicted to coffee, which causes her to go berserk, screaming, running and rolling in public. In A Day at the Park, it's revealed that her name is Cathy.
Timmy[]
Timmy is a young boy who's never seen on camera but serves as the point of view for many videos as explained by Rogers in a Facebook post. His Grandpa's annoying grandchild, the middle son of Mom, and one of the kids pointed out by Elmer.
Japanese Girlfriend[]
The Japanese Girlfriend is a, well, Japanese girlfriend who has a rocky relationship with her boyfriend, with the two of them constantly fighting and arguing. There are implications, however, that she is not really Japanese.
Bryce Tankthrust[]
Bryce Tankthrust (aka The CEO) is a rich businesswoman who owns the company Dorian Ditsen works for. She loves to rub her wealth in other people's faces, and has once thrown her latte at a poor person yelling One percent represent!. She always follows a strict schedule and always makes time for her servicing. Bryce also runs a shady adoption agency called Tankthrust babies, an adoption agency that doesn't really put up babies for adoption. She serves as the antagonist for Stuff and Sam. We learn in this web series that she uses the adoption agency as a cover to clones to infinity Elmers in order to have an infinite supply of heart, which she has to change every two days or so to be able to be compassionate and feel emotions. She is killed in Juss Call Me Daddy Sam, which is episode 18 of Stuff & Sam only to be brought back in the series Blame the Hero having had been written back to life in Brandon's book.
Sam[]
Sam is a thirty-eight-year-old straight man, who is known for wearing bright blue and yellow and creating inspirational cards for young disabled children. He also has am old roommate named Donna Phitts, a friend of Grandpa's. He has his own series called Stuff & Sam.
Jürgen Klausvonschwitz[]
Jürgen is a blind German fashion designer, whose employees go to great lengths to keep him from hurting them, himself, etc. However, they also tend to exploit his blindness. They have switched his clocks so he comes into the office at 10:00 at night, and let him cut the hair of a disabled boy named Cockwaddle (who turns out to be his son before being mysteriously abducted) instead of real people.
Sebastian/Blame[]
Sebastian is a Hispanic boy who has a best friend Igancio who is supposedly also Hispanic. He would later grow up to become Blame, a gang thug. In 2033 he would travel back in time attempting to stop his younger self from getting a gang tattoo. This would cause the events of the video A Day at the Beach and the Blame the Hero series, in which he has the starring role.
Lord Mingeworthy[]
Lord Mingeworthy is an American man who claims to be British. He is married to Lady Mingeworthy, played by Georgina Leahy. Several outfit appearances show that they support football (or soccer, for the Americans) club West Ham United, based in London. Lord Mingeworthy speaks with a heavily exaggerated form of Received Pronunciation, or RP for short, common among members of the British elite. His wife’s speech is more rough and most likely places her birthplace (or at least education) somewhere on the South or East End of London. However, inflections of her husbands speech pattern show in her voice, meaning she was either well-brought up or had been in close contact with the Mingeworthy clan and others like them for quite some time.
Marisol De La Gorgonzola[]
Marisol De La Gorgonzola is a self-taught psychiatrist/practicing therapist that first appeared in Halloween Therapy. She helps the other characters with their problems including Dorian Ditsen, Mom, Normal British Husband, and Jürgen.
Clifton[]
Clifton is a famous cat on the Internet and apparently the most famous due to his ability to speak. Off camera, however, he is rather mean to his owner Lenny. frequently disobeying him. Their appearance in What's Trending made Clifton run away from Lenny after being but in the spotlight a lot often. Eventually, the two make amends.
Bobby Worst[]
Bobby Worst is a terrorist who is Bryce Tankthrust's love interest. He spends his time doing evil things, which are nuisances at best. He used to be a kid named Eric who was usually bullied by his classmates and his own father, with Bryce as his only friend. One day, Bryce tried proposing to him by offering her heart, but the moment is interrupted by a duel between Hitler and Lincoln, the former being Bobby's grandfather. After seeing Hitler make fun of Coach Best's profession, he attempts to make his dad proud by killing his grandfather. This only convinces Coach Best to change his identity, leading to Bobby getting orphaned.
Web-Series[]
Theater Class[]
Brandon Rogers longest running web series, Theater Class, follows a college theater class and their teacher, Mr. Rimmer, in the style of a mockumentary. Alex Rimmer (played by Rogers), a former stand-up comedian, decides to teach a semester of theater arts at a college, despite not knowing anything about teaching. Tensions grew between him and his students, as they end up in predicament after predicament, but at the same time unwittingly grow closer together. The series ran for two seasons, each episode roughly 5-10 minutes long. The first season ran for 14 episodes, and the second season was ended at 10, without a well-rounded conclusion.
A sequel series, Class Acts, which aims to wrap up the story, was announced in early 2024. It aired throughout February 23 to October 5 with 8 episodes.
Magic Funhouse[]
Brandon Rogers second series, Magic Funhouse, follows the story of a recently hired assistant who works on a children's show called Magic Funhouse as he's always wanted to work on TV. Rogers plays the main host who is a model to children on camera but a ruthless and psychotic individual off-camera. The first episode is available on YouTube, however the rest of the show is on the streaming service vrv.com.
Stuff & Sam![]
Stuff & Sam! follows Sam played by Rogers on his quest to adopt a baby and become a father. He's accompanied by his co-star and roommate Donna. This series includes many of his established YouTube characters, including Helen, Elmer, Blame, and Bryce Tankthrust. This series consisted of 20 episodes and ended on February 26, 2018.
Blame The Hero[]
Blame The Hero is the aftermath of the video A Day at the Beach and shows how Blame, a gang thug, will try to fix the mess he created when going back through time to stop his old past self from getting a gang sign tattoo The series consisted of 7 episodes, and ended on July 1, 2019.
Blood & Makeup[]
Blood and Makeup is a 3-part series. It is centered around the backstory of Blah Blah the Clown, a depressed, psychotic children's entertainer who appeared in three videos before the series was first released. The series details how Blah Blah ended up where he is in the previous videos, going from an elite actor and children's show host to patient at a mental institution. During the series, the viewers are made to believe he went insane and systematically murdered other cast and crew from his hit show. It's revealed in the latter half of the final episode, however, that the chocolate bars he was promoting, included an ingredient which made people see everyone as clowns, and due to the fact that everyone hates clowns, they killed themselves when they saw themselves.
Normal British Series[]
Normal British Series is a 5-part series which explores the origins of the Mingeworthies, who were criminals taken in by the Queen of England to do her bidding. Bryce, her assistant Donovan, and her boyfriend Bobby Worst soon appear with an integrated subplot of their own.
BRYCE[]
BRYCE is a 3-part series that released throughout 2023, revolving around Bryce Tankthrust's origins.
Memes[]
In the fall of 2015, a clip from Brandon Rogers sketch Grandpa Hates Valentines was posted on Vine and went viral, prompting people to make various edits with the clip. The clip is a scene where Rogers is playing Grandpa, and his grandson, who is off camera, picks up a box of Valentine's candy, to which Rogers retorts Put that candy back, I'm not buying you all that meth. His grandson throws the candy at his head, to which Rogers challenges "Try me, b*tch" . The edits of the clip usually show scenes from movies or viral videos where someone is throwing something, and then switch to Brandon getting hit in the head, with the objects sometimes being edited into the original clip in place of the candy box.
Brandon went uncredited and didn't immediately have a noticeable gain in subscriptions, as many people were unaware of who made the original clip. The meme was featured in an episode of Teens React by the Fine Bros. , where they discussed the issue of stealing and not giving credit to original creators and had the teens react to the original sketch.
When Brandon appeared on the Fine Bros channel himself in YouTubers React to YouTube Rewind 2015, he was asked what the highlight of his year as creator was, to which he replied Try me, bitch.
Subscriber milestones[]
- 1 million subscribers: March 20, 2016[2]
- 2 million subscribers: September 17, 2016
- 3 million subscribers: May 26, 2017
- 4 million subscribers: May 21, 2018[3]
- 5 million subscribers: May 6, 2019
- 6 million subscribers: May 25, 2022
Quotes[]
- "I need a pharmacist!"
- "Try me, bitch."
- "America always wins!"
- "Fuck, I think I left the groceries on the roof!" [brakes car, baby falls off the roof] "Well, at least it wasn't the eggs."
- "Glee can go fuck itself!"
- "I drink to forget, but I always remember."
- [Drops phone in the glass of water] "Donovan, do I sound like a mermaid?"
- ”Pull over here there’s a poor person I want to throw my latte at.”
- ”Excuse me Filipino man, please do that in the bathroom.”
- “My son is in town, schedule a hug for 3:00pm and move my 3 to 4 and my 4 o’clock to the break room. If donna’s still in there, fire her, she has a husband.”
- ”You, in the slutty outfit. You’re not getting pregnant on my jungle gym.”
- "What did I tell you about the candy? This sweetie 'gon gives you diabetes. No."
- "Hurry up in there! My grandson needs to take a Walt Disney shit!"
- "Last week I got mugged by a goddamn ballerina. She tried to make me pass away. then the bitch spun away."
- "Attention everyone, the CEO is here, I need you all to look like you just BUSTED A NUT!"
- [talks through megaphone] "This is a place of silence!"
- "Out of my way. I'm a mom making a difference."
- "Tell Barbara I'm gonna slit her throat"
- "Give me back my colostomy bag, Grandpa's gonna have a Black Friday blowout!"
- "You have four eyes?"
- "NO TIME FOR CAILLOU!"
- "Welcome to detention young man, I'll be your asshole."
- "This shower is gonna have to be PTA! Pits! Tits! Ass."
- "My syndrome may be down but my hopes are up!"
- [Points finger] "You wanna see Jesus??"
- "STOP BEING BLIND IT'S BAD FOR YOUR EYES!"
- "Sweet beautiful orbs./Look at these air orbs./There are too many orbs happening here."
- "MOVE, IM GAY." [pushes others out of the way]
- "I'm not having it!"
- "The babies come out of a woman's Clititerareus."
- "No man it's called cli-to-ris, three sylellables."
- "I haven't touched a piece of candy in 20 years"
- "fuck off Janet, I'm not going to your fucking baby shower."
- "Not because I'm Mexican, but because I'm Native American."
- "You want to see Jesus?"
- "I'm a real Grandpa"
- "We meet again Jeremy, I'm still alive asshole!"
- "The only fucks I'll give will come out of your paycheck"
- "There is one thing worse than a rapist. [Another person] - A child"
- ”You can’t beep at a horny person”
- ”I’m about to make this the horniest turtle”
- [Pulls out lollipops] “Sometimes arrows don’t do the trick so you gotta go old school”
- “I bought these fuckers from the Filipino dark web”
- “I love chocolate”
- “One of these arrows is just ketamine”
- “I wanted to become a ballerina, you know what I became? HIV positive”
- “That’s it, you just lost toilet paper privileges. Have fun getting creative”
- “Come on we’re going on a casserole drive-by”
- “Oh sweetie you’re not a mistake, you’re a regret”
Trivia[]
- As explained in a Facebook post, when Elmer sees Grandpa as a child in Grandpa HATES Disneyland, it's because he ate the hotdogs that make you see through time in Elmer Hates His Job.
- He is currently a writer and voice artist for Helluva Boss, created by Vivienne Medrano, playing the role as "Blitzo" among other characters.
- In YouTubers React, Brandon's still referred to as "hotbananastud".
- In 2018, Brandon came out as Gay in the 271st episode of the Drinkin' Bros Podcast.
- His favorite color is Teal.
- He used to work in a hotel for 6 years.
- He was nominated for the 2020 tenth annual Streamy Awards in the "Comedy category".
- He worked on the Elisa Lam case[4]
- He owns Heelys.