Review: WTF101 “Self-Experimentation”

Should this service heed its own advice for experimentation?

Overview (Spoilers Below)

This week’s episode sees Ms. Foxtrot take the detention class through a time-surfing adventure where we get to see different eras of people performing experiments on themselves all for the purposes of science. Whether it’s consuming vomit and household items or the joys of cocaine, Foxtrot gives us a wide-ranging scope of (note: only guys) self-experimentation.

Our Take

Look, the gods of gross-out adult animated humor is always going to be South Park, and the producers of WTF101 will probably never get there. Sorry, the truth hurts. But this doesn’t mean we still can’t have fun. And WTF101 is a bunch of fun, however, DropOut has a bit of an issue here. Similar to VRV/Mondo at times, an animated web series behind a paywall is gonna need programming that makes you either: 1) binge a bunch of episodes or 2) give us a reason to stay subscribed week after week. If you’re gonna go with the first model, you need to have adult animation with arcs and compelling stories. The second model is the same deal and works quite well on say Rooster Teeth. Unfortunately, I’m not sure WTF101 is the type of animated franchise you launch a subscription modeled series on because the series doesn’t meet these requirements and instead features facets of a throwback Youtube-type series that might be fun but doesn’t really give the needed value the service needs to survive in an increasingly competitive market.