Children of the '80s will fondly recall the "Choose Your Own Adventure" gamebooks, a series of interactive tales that let readers control the direction of the story by periodically choosing one of several plot paths. Starting with 1979's "The Cave of Time," the prolific series captured imaginations and spawned countless clones over its impressive 20-year run, earning all sorts of pop-culture cred along the way.
And now, it's finding new life in the unlikeliest of places: Youtube.
Thanks to some incredibly creative (and seriously dedicated)
users, 'choose your path' movies are cropping up more and more frequently on
the online video megasite. Trading pages for page views, the premise is simple:
you watch a video, and towards the end have to decide what happens next, which
will then take you to a new video that continues the story. That can take a
while, too -- some of the larger tales span over 60 options.
Here are five Youtube adventures worth choosing:
The Time Machine
The unofficial kings of Choose your Path videos, the collective
known as Chad, Matt & Rob make up for their unoriginal name with completely original
adventures. Featuring a garbage can time machine, dragons, zombies, and mysterious agents, this one's quite an adventure.
Free running
Most of us will never experience the thrill of parkour free-running, but thanks to this clever duo we can at least fake it a little. Tell the acrobatic runners which way to go and watch as they somehow do it without turning ankles.
Pops cereal insanity
"Chewz ur own pops venture!" this kooky series proudly instructs. And while we're
not typically in the business of promoting sugary cereal, we're definitely in
the business of promoting completely bizarre (and borderline brilliant) videos
like these. Choose ur
path!
The Case of the Body-Shaped Bag
When their upstairs neighbor starts acting funny, Robert and Taylor set out to get to the bottom of things...choose your own adventure style.
The Treasure Hunt
The latest from Chad, Matt & Rob has the three amigos under fire for misplacing a treasure map. And in our favorite cameo ever, it co-stars Alfonso Arau, the great character actor/director best known as El Guapo from -- what else -- 80's comedy "Three Amigos."
