2 Sense

2 Sense is an internet radio show created by 2 the Ranting Gryphon in 2003. The show's most recent reboot launched on April 22nd, 2019 via Youtube. The show’s premise involves making fun of news stories, with topics ranging from politics and religion to interesting and shocking events. 2 Sense grew rapidly in popularity from the beginning and earned a spot broadcasting live on Rant Radio before supposedly ending in 2005. The show returned with The Resurrection over a year later, after 2 moved from Arkansas to Michigan, and went on hiatus in 2008. In 2010, this time in Los Angeles, 2 Sense went to a video format and became 2 Sense 2.2 on Ustream, running until 2012.

History
Episode #1 of 2 Sense was uploaded to 2's website on May 13, 2003. Jakebe was the first cohost and none of the familiar sound effects and theme songs appeared until #3. The show’s format kept its run time around the hour mark, give or take, and segments developed naturally as listeners contributed and 2 honed his approach. Many long-time segments debuted during this first run, including listener feedback, weekly assignments, and the badass of the week.

Jakebe left the show after nearly forty episodes and several new cohosts followed until Aubrin became the main option. Other furs living with and nearby 2 also served as cohosts. Several guests arrived on 2 Sense as well, including the artists Jessie T Wolf and Timothy Albee (as he was known at the time). Audio letters trickled in, leading to the first break segments. Garr and Spazfox are the most famous break segment hosts; their contributions continued on 2 Sense for years after. 2 Sense went live on Rant Radio on September 3, 2004, setting audience and bandwidth records in the process.

At the beginning of 2005, 2 Sense became 2 Sense 2.0: a new theme song and more organized show structure debuted, including the addition of music to start the breaks. During 2.0, Uncle Kage’s News From The Future made its first appearance, which became a mainstay of 2 Sense. A new segment, gore news, also debuted and quickly became the show’s most popular. In June that year, 2 announced the end of 2 Sense, saying the show was becoming predictable and he wanted to focus on other projects. Episode #88 was the last on Rant Radio and the last to feature any of the Arkansas furs.

Sixteen months later, on November 12, 2006, 2 Sense: The Resurrection made its debut. Recording from a new location and with Nik Vulper as cohost, The Resurrection saw the return of Garr, Spazfox, and Uncle Kage and the debut of many new break segment hosts, including Stoic Wolf, Gary Walker, and Dari. New segments, such as furry baptisms, birthdays, and an interview segment called the furry fifteen minutes also appeared. The Resurrection continued for two years, with a short season break in the middle, and soon Jibba Foxcoon became the main cohost, a role he kept until the show’s end.

The Resurrection ended in late 2008 and 2 Sense appeared to be gone for good, until the debut of 2 Sense 2.2 on June 4, 2010. Now a video show broadcasting on Ustream from yet another new location, Jibba returned as cohost, and Toast the Rabbit was introduced as the technical director. A myriad of break segments appeared on the show, with the most consistent hosts being Witchiebunny and King Gourd. After a lengthy season break, the show returned for its sixth season in 2012, but it was plagued with so many technical and outside issues that 2 ended the season early.

Ever since the end of its sixth season, 2 has only vaguely hinted at a return. He teased a return for a final California season in 2013 and 2014 before he moved to Colorado, but it never materialized. 2 has since been involved in many other projects, including Myre by Alector Fencer and his new Youtube show, Beercast. The return of 2 Sense became a donation goal on 2's Patreon account, set at $1,500. As of June 2016, he is well past that point in monthly donations. Even so, there have been no recent mentions of the return of 2 Sense.

Jakebe
Jakebe the raven (later a bunny, much to 2’s dismay) was the first cohost of 2 Sense and the second longest-running in the show’s history. He brought some of the most original and interesting opinions to the show, resulting in many a debate between him and 2. Beyond 2 Sense, he’s most famous as an author. After nearly forty episodes, Jakebe left the show, ostensibly to be more of a listener than a talker. However, in 2015 (amidst controversy surrounding 2), he stated on his personal blog that he left the show when 2 refused to correct himself on air for a mistake in a news story.

Aubrin
After Jakebe left, Aubrin eventually took the cohosting reigns, notching around thirty episodes on his belt and becoming the third longest-running cohost on the show. Aubrin is a penguin and the running gag on the show was how cutely he squeaked when being poked, usually by 2. Outside the show, Aubrin was and is a prolific artist. He also hosted a break segment called the Pengi Penny. Aubrin, along with the rest of the Arkansas cohosts, left the show when the show left them.

Nik Vulper
Nik the tiger-fox was recruited as cohost for The Resurrection and appeared on nearly every episode for the show’s third season, finishing with twenty-four episodes to his name. Nik also debuted his Haiku Poetry Time segment. A few episodes in, a fan gifted Nik a small gong for him to ring before reading the week’s poetry. He was also integral to the Furry Baptism segment as a source of ‘goo’ to baptize new furries with. Nik left the show before its fourth season and 2 vaguely revealed a falling out between them.

Jibba Foxcoon
Jibba debuted during The Resurrection and became the main cohost after Nik left. He appeared in over fifty episodes, making him the longest-running cohost in 2 Sense history. Jibba often debated with 2 on certain subjects, especially religion, but he is most famous for his boisterous laughter during the Gore News segment, which only added to that segment’s popularity. Outside the show, Jibba is known as a dance instructor and has appeared on stage with 2 as a comedian.

Others
A great many other people filled the cohost role throughout the history of 2 Sense. During the original run, Arkansas furs Prismo, Dax, Riku, and Adric made appearances. During and after The Resurrection, Julie, Alpha Wolf, Kalas, Firechild, and DJ Ear all appeared on the show. Break hosts Spazfox and Garr also served as cohosts.

2 Sense
In Dear 2 Letters, listeners wrote letters to the show about all kinds of topics, both serious and silly. Dear 2 has the distinction of being the only segment to appear on every single episode of 2 Sense ever created. It is frequently cited by 2 and company to be their favorite segment on the show. Even after 2 Sense 2.0 ended, 2 continued to record regular Dear 2 segments on his own. Dear 2 was the source of many jokes and debates throughout the show.

World News was the meat of the broadcast. 2 read and commented upon news articles taken generally from ‘credible news sites’. While 2 Sense usually focused on politics, culture, religion, and authority figures, the topics covered by the world news varied wildly from show to show. Several famous running gags came from world news stories Occasionally, a news story would feature a particularly awesome individual doing something amazing, and the Badass of the Week was born. 2 read these stories as examples of what the (now-inactive) Army of Doom was all about. The Badass of the Week fell out of favor after 2 Sense 2.0.

The Furry News segment was the first to appear on 2 Sense ever. Much like the world news, the stories pulled for this segment were sourced from the furry community specifically, but also covered animal- and nature-related news. The cohost leads this segment from episode #3 onward. 2 cut Furry News after the show went to Rant Radio, in order to appeal to the wider demographic.

A segment that grew naturally out of the show’s early days, 2 gave the listeners a Weekly Assignment for them to respond to. These were random questions for listeners to answer in a dedicated segment and sometimes the questions were inspired by the day’s news. It was cut from The Resurrection to keep the run time down and because 2 was getting tired of the segment.

At the beginning of the episode, Listener Feedback was read in response to the previous episode’s content and discussion. This was folded into Dear 2 Letters for The Resurrection, again to streamline the show. Dumb Laws were also read at the show’s beginning, with each episode dedicated to one US state’s crazy but true laws.

2 Sense 2.0
While it technically appeared on episodes #2 and #3, This Week in History is mostly known for its run during the days of 2.0. This became the cohost’s segment and, as the name suggests, was a review of famous events that happened during the broadcast week. Because of the live nature of the show, the Chatroom Game Question was a regular segment, in which 2 gave the listeners in the IRC chat a fill-in-the-blank style question. The answers were read at the end of the broadcast. Both of these were eclipsed in popularity by Gore News, which became even more popular when Jibba Foxcoon debuted. In Gore News, 2 read short news stories about bizarre, stupid, or crazy ways that people died (or came close to dying), including stories of people getting beaten to death by toilet seats, parents bludgeoning their kids attempting to exorcise them, and gangsters doing drive-by shootings on a midget.

2 Sense: The Resurrection
The core segments for The Resurrection became World News, Gore News, and Dear 2 Letters. Among the new segments were Furry Baptisms, where aspiring new furries would send in a picture and short description about themselves and their interests, and 2 would give them a name and a phenotype, baptizing them into the furry community. At first, Nik Vulper would ‘splort’ on them as part of the baptizing process, but later a box full of deadly weapons (actually sound effects) was used for the baptism. Furry Birthdays were also read. Both of these segments faded after submissions dried up later in the season.

Nik’s Haiku Poetry Time lasted as long as Nik did. The segment was preceded by striking a gong, which was given to Nik by a fan of the show, and listeners were encouraged to take a deep breath and relax while he read the haiku. Usually the poems were inspired by recent events in the news or Nik’s life. Furry Fifteen Minutes was a fairly regular segment that originally debuted on the show’s first run, became a more official segment during The Resurrection: 2 interviewed a fellow furry on the show, usually asking them questions about life in the community. This segment ended due to lack of listener interest.

2 Sense 2.2
Thanks to the new video format, many new segments debuted on 2 Sense 2.2. First was the Bunny Holidays, read by technical director Toast the Rabbit. These were unusual holidays during the broadcast week, sometimes found by Toast and sometimes created by Toast. Without Furry Fifteen Minutes, 2 and company sought a replacement and eventually settled on the Top Ten, where images of ‘the ten best XYZ’ were displayed and commented on. The top ten premises was dropped for season six and the segment simply became The Gallery of Shame.

2 Sense
It’s worth noting that the first officially recognized breaks for the show were actually parody Commercials that played from episode #3 to #18, at which point 2 ran out of commercials to play. It was joked that 2 would start putting real commercials to advertise for other furries, but he quickly shot that idea down.

Garr became the first break segment host in the show’s history and one of the longest-lasting with his Word of the Week. After submitting an audio letter that made 2 and Aubrin melt, Garr’s famously deep, soothing, sexy voice was put to good use throughout the show’s history. In this first segment, Garr would define a seldom-used English word and challenged both the hosts and listeners to use the word.

Spazfox debuted shortly thereafter with his famous DVD of the Week segment, where he reviewed movies and the contents of their respective DVDs in comedic fashion. Because Garr’s segments kept changing, Spazfox’s DVD of the Week is the record holder for the longest-lasting break segment in the show’s history.

Aubrin’s Pengi Penny and Malenko’s Trippy Goo also debuted during the first run. Both of their respective hosts used the segments to talk about what was on their minds, but while Aubrin was pretty straightforward, Malenko was anything but. While he claimed to be perfectly stable and drug-free, Malenko’s Trippy Goo had the aesthetic and surrealism of a pleasantly strange trip through the complex inner workings of the mind. He presented a surreal problem and came up with an equally surreal but somehow logical solution. Unfortunately, Malenko was institutionalized by his parents and only returned once after that before never being heard from again.

2 Sense 2.0
Garr’s segment during 2.0 became Travel Stories, a series of strange but true tales about his many failed attempts to get to Anthrocon. These stories took him everywhere from the Arctic Circle to Athens to the Carpathian Mountains to Cambodia and everywhere in between. The only completely new segment to appear during 2.0 was News From the Future by Uncle Kage. He reported news ostensibly from the future, but often parodying current events in the process. In one story, he referenced the 9/11 terrorist attacks from the future, saying they “damaged the Heptagon, then known as the Pentagon until the addition of two new sides.”

2 Sense: The Resurrection
The Resurrection was a bonanza for new break hosts. While Garr, Spazfox, and Kage all returned many new breaks came and went during the course of The Resurrection. One of the earliest examples was Over the Pond by the young Gary Walker, who made fun of news from the UK with an appropriately posh accent. He was baptized as a duck during the season. Garr's segment changed twice in one season, first as the show's International Correspondent and then as a broader segment for Garr to talk about whatever was on his mind, which 2 called Rage Poetry.

Dari the Emobird was all about an emo bird named Dari. A parody of emo culture, which was all the rage at the time, Dari moped and mumbled about the misery and sadness in his life. Edsel also debuted with Horoscopes, which were often extreme and/or outlandish predictions for all of the listeners’ astrological signs. Later on, Stoic Wolf appeared with Sagely Advice, where he offered advice for making life “just a little more interesting.” 2 praised Stoic Wolf’s unique delivery and nonsequitur approach to the segment.

Because the fourth season of 2 Sense coincided with the 2008 United States elections, many segments of the time were political in nature. Sadosuke appeared with articulate counter-points to 2’s opinions, often with a distinctly libertarian bend. While he and 2 frequently clashed, the segment offered a great balance of opinion on the show. Uncle Kage also took on the character Eddy Schaloski and presented election coverage, making fun of the presidential candidates in the process. Edsel dropped his horoscope angle and made a comedic political campaign of his own, delivering a Weekly Address on the show.

2 Sense 2.2.
With the power of video broadcasting, break segments immediately shifted gears for 2 Sense. There were few consistent hosts during the show’s run on video, though many contributed short-lived attempts. Spazfox returned briefly with Spazfox Plays Nintendo, where he reviewed NES games to decide which ones to save and delete. This makes him the only break host to appear on every incarnation of the 2 Sense show: the first run, 2.0, The Resurrection, and 2.2.

Jim-Bob Billy-Bob was a parody of a southern redneck who ignorantly and hilariously commented on current events in the political and social world of the US. Furry Under Scrutiny by William F. Stagley was an animated movie review segment where Stagley took a close look at favorite furry movies like Disney’s Robin Hood and The Secret of NIMH and examined their impact on the community. Another movie review segment, Movies for the Masses by Aksel, appeared much later in the series.

The two most reliable video break segments were Witchybunny’s Top Frags and Fursuit Tip of the Week by King Gourd. The former was a montage of the best kill cams from first-person shooters, with narration by Witchy, often featuring insanely good or lucky frags. The latter was a series of satirical fursuiting tips present by the charismatic King Gourd. Beyond the regular segments, the breaks for 2 Sense 2.2 sometimes featured footage from furry events or short films with a furry bend.

Running gags
The first recurring gag on 2 Sense is Witchychicky, which began on episode #2 with a Dear 2 Letter from a fan who hosted a Neopets forum. On the forum, she had a wall of shame on which she put the usernames of people with terrible grammar. One user, Witchychicky, threatened to shut down the forum, claiming her name was copyrighted. 2 responded by using the word witchychicky as a euphemism for stupid. He also (correctly) stated that this user could not have a copyright on the name anyway. The word was used frequently on the show, but the gag solidified a few weeks later when the actual user Witchychicky sent a poorly written letter to 2 Sense. Shortly thereafter, witchychicky became an official word on Urban Dictionary. The phrase fell out of favor on the show, but was referenced in the title of the official 2 Sense DVD: ‘The Witchychicky Collection’.

Easily the most famous running joke on the show is the terrified screaming of the word Bees. On episode #46, a news story was read about a truck carrying beehives that fell over on a highway. The hives broke open, unleashing millions of angry bees. This story was so shocking and terrifying to 2 and Aubrin that they screamed “BEES! BEEEEEEES!” over and over. When 2 Sense went live, it was a frequent chat joke to “scream” BEEEEEEES on the channel anytime bees were mentioned. This lead to the chat crashing at one point and bees remained a staple of 2 Sense for the rest of its existence. A swarm of bees was even including in the opening animation of 2 Sense 2.2.

On an episode during the show’s first run, a news article featured a German man with the last name Schleigelhoffen. The name was so funny and unusual that it was frequently referenced on the show. It quickly became used as a replacement for words that 2 and company had a hard time pronouncing, a practice that continued until the show’s end. A weekly assignment even sought to find a replacement for Schleigelhoffen, but nothing the listeners submitted could top it.

During The Resurrection, 2 read a story from Africa about an anti-rape device that women wore in their vaginas. It was essentially a condom lined with sharp hooks on the inside, designed to cause intense penile pain. Such an idea terrified 2 and Jibba, and the idea of penis-shredding Gears inside a woman quickly caught on. The concept came to a head-on a 2.2 episode featuring the show’s cover artist Agent Elrond. When Jibba asked “Do you have gears?” she proceeded (with theatrics) to pull a bicycle gear out of her pocket. 2 and Jibba were paralyzed with laughter for twenty minutes and the gear became a prop on the show.

Also during The Resurrection, a friend of 2 and Jibba once said the word Oww in such a flamboyantly gay manner that they quickly wound up repeating it throughout the show’s history. It fell out of favor during the video shows but is still responsible for several memorable moments. During a news story about a depressed UK teenager who was being bullied at school, a psychologist recommended listening to whale calls as a form of relaxing music. While 2 imitated whale noises, Jibba responded by saying “Owwww…” and smoothly transitioning into a whale sound, which broke them both into fits of laughter.

One of the most damaging running jokes came later in the show’s existence. In episode #158, 2 read a news story about a mentally disturbed man who threatened to kill his girlfriend in a poem he wrote called I Ruined Your Face. The title alone was so hilarious to 2 (who had been using the phrase ‘my face’ on the show and in stand up for years) that he could not continue and passed the story to Jibba, who also could not go on. They wound up laughing for so long that it broke the show’s timing. After the episode concluded, Toast recorded 2, and Jibba continuing to roll and stumble around the studio, laughing without end. The phrase ‘I ruined your face’ was an instant symbol of the 2 Sense 2.2 days.