2008 / Video / Flash-style absurdist sketch compilation
asdfmovie
‘I like trains’ became one of the series’ best-known recurring lines.
The original is hosted off-site; this page provides context and a link to it.
What was this?
The short moves quickly between unrelated sketches, including a talking muffin and a character shouting about trains.
Why it spread
The original traveled through YouTube embeds, Flash-animation fandom, early social feeds, and quote-heavy message boards. Later installments and remixes made the strange little universe a durable shared vocabulary.
What happened
The short moves quickly between unrelated sketches, including a talking muffin and a character shouting about trains.
Where it came from
Tom Ridgewell, working as TomSka, uploaded the first asdfmovie in August 2008. Its tiny animated sketches were built around sudden non sequiturs, recurring voices, and jokes that ended before they had time to explain themselves.
Why it mattered
asdfmovie captures a specific kind of late-2000s web comedy: homemade, aggressively brief, and built around brief sketches with abrupt, nontraditional setups and endings.
How it spread
The original traveled through YouTube embeds, Flash-animation fandom, early social feeds, and quote-heavy message boards. Later installments and remixes made the strange little universe a durable shared vocabulary.
Keep going
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