Paranormal Action Squad

Paranormal Action Squad is an adult comedy animated streaming television series from YouTube Premium starring the YouTubers SeaNanners, Mr. Sark, and VanossGaming, while YouTubers TheSyndicateProject and H2O Delirious appear in guest starring roles. It is the first original animated series launched by YouTube.^[1]

Paranormal Action Squad
Created by	Adam Montoya Hank Stepleton Michael Rowe
Directed by	Michael Rowe Hank Stepleton
Composer	K.S. Rhoads
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	8
Production
Executive producers	Michael Rowe Hank Stepleton Adam Montoya Angelo Pullen Luke Stepleton Shelby Alan Brown
Editors	Lon Strickland Jack Bennett
Production companies	Pickaxe Productions Octopie Studios J and N Productions (Episode 1) 3BlackDot
Original release
Network	YouTube Premium
Release	November 16 (2016-11-16) – December 28, 2016 (2016-12-28)

Cast

• Adam Montoya as Paul
• Scott Robison as Eddie
• Nika Futterman as Pad
• Toks Olagundoye as Orb
• Evan Fong as himself
• Mr. Sark as Vanoss's father

Episodes

Season 1 (2016)

No.	Title	Written by	Release date
1	"The Party Gets Us Started"	Michael Rowe	November 16, 2016 (2016-11-16)
Paul and Eddie are veteran paranormal monster hunters and a new recruit named Vanoss desperately tries to join their team. They get alerted by an old lady that her house was taken over by ghosts who are partying to loud music. Paul and Eddie leave Vanoss behind, since he is inexperienced. They, aided by Pad - an extremely intelligent supercomputer designed to detect paranormal activity - and Orb - a football-sized magical sphere containing a powerful and immortal female being inside - infiltrate the party and realize that the ghosts cannot leave, because they are controlled by DJ, a demon called a Canaanite Lord of the Covenant. The two find out how demon is controlling the ghosts: through the music. As they are cornered by the demon, Vanoss arrives to the rescue and changes the loud techno music to Paul's romantic tape, which destroys the demon and releases the ghosts. Guest stars: Jason Hightower as the DJ demon/Canaanite Lord of the Covenant and Sasquatch.
2	"The Shape of Shifts to Come"	Kevin Oeser	November 16, 2016 (2016-11-16)
The team are hired by a school principal to take care of a Shapeshifter problem at the school. They manage to drive the Shapeshifter away from the school, but it falls in love with Eddie. After taking many forms to get closer to Eddie - even through Vanoss and Pad -; the Shapeshifter assumes the form of Eddie's deceased wife Jill, who was killed by Sasquatch. They quickly start a relationship based on lust and everything seems to be going fine, until one night, Sasquatch invades Eddie's house, savagely rips the Shapeshifter to pieces and escapes. Guest stars: Ben Diskin as the Shapeshifter's true form, Sterling Milan as the school principal and Jason Hightower as Sasquatch and the ice cream server.
3	"From Tusk til Dawn"	Chris Hayward	November 22, 2016 (2016-11-22)
Paul is trying to resurrect his childhood puppy shepherd dog Cinder using a device he created. However, things go awry and he unknowingly resurrects a zombie elephant which then proceeds to attack the local circus. Meanwhile, Eddie is training Vanoss in defensive hand-to-hand combat. The group is alerted by Pad about the havoc the zombie elephant is causing and they - minus Vanoss - go to the circus. Paul talks the zombie elephant down from doing any harm, but Eddie arrives and shoots it anyway, causing it to burst open and release a couple dozen mini-zombie elephants who run away. Paul and Eddie try to resurrect Cinder again and they succeed. Zombie Cinder rounds up the mini-zombie elephants and they allow Paul to put them out of their misery. Paul then has to euthanize zombie Cinder, which he remorsefully does. Guest stars: Ben Diskin as the zombie elephant, the circus ringmaster and the mini-zombie elephants.
4	"Eddie Sucks"	Michael Rowe	November 30, 2016 (2016-11-30)
Alerted by Pad; Paul, Eddie and Orb go to a local bar that's getting thorn up by a vampire. A brawl ensues, Paul chickens out and Eddie is bit by the vampire. A rival paranormal activity hunting squad called the Destroyers arrive, led by the narcissistic Dunham. Eddie turns into a vampira and kills a few people, becoming a target for Dunham. Vanoss tries to calm his bloodthirst with his mother's badger, which Eddie promptly sucks dry. They learn that the only way Eddie can revert to his old state is if they kill the vampire, who is hiding in a nearby cave. En route to the cave, the Destroyers attack vampire Eddie, but Vanoss arrives and incapacitates Dunham. Paul and Eddie enter the vampire's lair; and after being mocked by the vampire for his cowardice at the bar, Paul snaps and uses a nearby sword to decapitate the vampire, reverting Eddie to a human. Dunham arrives and congratulates Paul and tries to coerce him to join the Destroyers, but he and Eddie flip him off. Guest stars: Ben Diskin as the vampire, the drunk man and the fat guy and Jason Hightower as Dunham and the Destroyers.
5	"The Ghost of Christmas Presents"	Kevin Oeser	December 6, 2016 (2016-12-06)
Eddie and Paul go out to the forest looking for a tree to cut down for Christmas, but are attacked by a snowman possessed by a Muckus Demon, a descendant of the Krampus who wants to destroy Christmas. Eddie quickly kills the snowman, but the demon possesses the tree they take home. Meanwhile, Paul and Eddie activate Paul's gift for Christmas: a more advanced, highly intelligent flying robot named Cy, who is discreetly trying to take over Pad's role. The possessed Christmas tree awakens and feeds off electricity to grow in size and strength, then it heads for the city. Pad feels leaves, and Vanoss tries to join the team. They follow the tree to the power plant, where the tree uses the power to grow. Cy betrays the others and leaves. The others realize that the only way they can stop it from absorbing more power, is by disrupting the electricity, meaning that somebody has to sacrifice himself. Pad returns and jumps into the electricity, overloading the tree with too much power and destroying it, sacrificing itself. However, Orb uses her powers and resurrects her. Pad is willing to forgive them if they beat Cy to death, which they happily do. Special guest star: Tom Cassell as Cy. Guest stars: Ben Diskin as Das Snowman and Jason Hightower as Das Tree.
6	"Vanoss Vs. Evil"	Evan Shames	December 14, 2016 (2016-12-14)
Vanoss passes all the tests, (albeit not without bumps) and it's come down to a live situation against the paranormal so that he can prove his mettle and join the team. He needs to kill an Abraxus demon, which is terrorising a local playground. However, he uses the wrong weapon to try and kill it with; and sends the entire team, the demon and himself twelve years into the future. In this timeline, Paul shrunk down to Orb's size and they got married, ended up having two children. Everyone blames Vanoss, so he deserts the group and meets a homeless man. When he sees his can of beans he realizes he can rebuild the weapon he discharged, that sent them into the future. However, he forgets to attach a key piece to the weapon. Meanwhile, the Abraxus demon attacks the others and has them cornered. Vanoss arrives, and once again discharges the faultily-assembled weapon and sends everyone to a different dimension, where they are surrounded by dozens of Abraxus demons. He leaps into action and takes a few demons down, before Paul and Eddie remove his VR helmet, revealing that the test was in their head all along. Vanoss isn't deemed ready, but he is hopeful. Guest stars: Ben Diskin as the homeless man and Paul's son.
7	"A Master Class in Kicking Butt"	Evan Shames	December 21, 2016 (2016-12-21)
Eddie and Paul attend a museum tour which is disrupted by Sasquatch, who has been taunting Eddie ever since he killed Eddie's wife, Jill. Eddie snaps and attacks Sasquatch, but the beast savagely beats him up. Afterwards, Paul tries to help him cope using a flute, but all his efforts go to waste, when the ghost of John Dickman, a legendary martial arts movie star arrives to train him. After a couple weeks of intense training, Dickman subjects him to the ultimate test of strength: a fight against Vanoss and Vanoss' lifelong best friend, H2O Delirious. Though it looks like Eddie's training was a waste of time, since Vanoss and Delirious also beat him up severely. Dickman bails on Eddie, and Eddie gives up as well. However, the next day Sasquatch and Eddie run into each other at the market. Eddie challenges the animal to a fight to the death, while the watching Delirious and Vanoss chant for them to fight. Dickman also shows up to watch how the fight goes down. Eddie is losing initially, but in a fit of rage, he brutally bashes Sasquatch's face a few times, winning. The crowd at the marked boo him, and Sasquatch is taken away by its parents. As Eddie shamefully leaves the marked, Dickman comments, that "he didn't think he had it in 'em". Having learned his lesson, Eddie stays away from violence from now on, even with the still-healing Sasquatch teasing him. Special guest star: H2ODelirious as himself Guest stars: Jason Hightower as John Dickman and Sasquatch and Ben Diskin as the museum tour guide.
8	"Orb's Orbit"	Chris Hayward	December 28, 2016 (2016-12-28)
The day starts off just fine, with Paul holding a conference about paranormal activity to less than a dozen uninterested people. Out of nowhere, a portal opens with a tentacle grabbing Orb and pulling her through the portal, which closes moments after. Orb is just one of millions of vessels of knowledge for the people of Orbicon. Led by an Elder, the Orbicon people do not hold any regard for the millions of Orbs, only the information stored inside them. Orb escapes her cell by seducing a guard and manages to find her things, activating a beacon, that the people back on Earth can track. She is then recaptured and taken to the Elder, who deems the information she gathered in the last millennia useless, then she sentences Orb to a 1.000 years of confinement in a cave in 100.000 B.C. The crew back on Earth locate Orb's beacon, and find a usable portal on Earth to arrive in Orbicon. Paul, Vanoss and Pad rescue Orb, but Eddie is thrown into an unknown place and time. Guest stars: Ben Diskin as JinJon44 and the Knight Orb, Jason Hightower as Zahjah and the Soviet Soldier Orb. Note: Nika Futterman, the voice of Pad, also voices the Elder and the Egyptian Goddess Orb.

Reception

The show received mixed reaction from critics and fans.

John Schwarz of Bubbleblabber wrote that the voice actors had done their parts well, but he said that the overall premise went wrong. He also praised the overall aesthetic of the show and believed the show to be a good start for YouTube Red. The show was rated in his review 7/10.^[2]

References

1. Spangler, Todd (2 November 2016). "YouTube Red Sets Adult Animated Comedy 'Paranormal Action Squad' Starring Vanoss, SeaNanners, Mr_Sark". Variety. Retrieved 19 January 2021.
2. Schwarz, John (5 January 2017). "Season Review: Paranormal Action Squad Season One". Bubbleblabber. Retrieved 19 January 2021.