Wendover Productions (2024)

Sam Denby (born: March 17, 1998 [age 26]), better known online as Wendover Productions or Half as Interesting, is an American YouTuber who makes videos on topics such as "How the Post Office Made America" and "What's the Longest Drivable Distance on Earth?". He has a third channel, Sam from Wendover. in which he has done 3 videos on, and a fourth channel, Extremities, where he explains how and why the world's most remote settlements exist. Sam, and his friend Brian (host of channel Real Engineering) created a podcast called Showmakers. He also likes planes which make up a relatively large portion of his videos.He was born in Washington D.C., but stated in 2018 that he has been living in Edinburgh, Scotland for at least two years.

History[]

Wendover Productions[]

Sam created his main channel, Wendover Productions, on February 11, 2010, but didn't post anything until August 31, 2015. His first video was, a video about how Advertisem*nts manipulate us. It wasn't until January 9, 2016, when he created his video, How to Create a Country when he gained popularity. The video gained views in the hundred-thousands, and continued going. He was pretty well known among the YouTube community, and soon after hit 100K subscribers. His videos started gaining views in the millions after awhile, and soon after, he announced his second channel, Half as Interesting. On January 5, 2018, Wendover Productions hit 1 million subscribers.

At one point, Sam tried to start a series called That Wikipedia List, a series based on topics from a Wikipedia list of strange and unusual articles. After 10 episodes, the series would stop in July of 2016. On August 29, 2017, Sam announced Half as Interesting, essentially as a continuation of TWL.

Removed Videos[]

Sam uploaded a video on October 31, 2023 titled, "How Israel's Security Failed",^[1] but this video was removed because the video violated the harassment guideline due to showing a brief clip of the personal information of a passport.^[2] The same reason is also noted when going to the video's direct link.^[3][4] However, the video is available to be seen by other methods.^[5]

Half as Interesting[]

As said in the aforementioned section, Half as Interesting was announced on August 29, 2017, and the first video (which he calls the "premiere episode"), "What's the Longest Drivable Distance on Earth?", got quite popular and gained Sam many views and subscribers. Sam made more videos on the channel, and when he made his "Why Photos of the Eiffel Tower at Night are illegal" video, he exploded, gaining over 50K subscribers that day, and 1M views, which gave him over 100K subscribers. The videos on this channel are educational with a comedic part to them. His videos are sponsored, often by website builder Squarespace, Password Manager Dashlane and Educational Platforms Skillshare and Brilliant.

Jet Lag: The Game[]

Jet Lag: The Game is a game show series by Sam. The games are mainly developed by Ben Doyle and Adam Chase.

All the carbon they generate by traveling they will offset 10 times over The Gold Standard.

Connect 4 Across America (Season 1)[]

In the first season, Sam and Brian (from Real Engineering) competed against Ben and Adam, Both teams trying to be the first to connect 4 of the 22 American states west of Mississippi (excluding Alaska and Hawaii) in a straight line. They started on March 3, 2022 at 4 a.m. A budget of $5000 allowed them to rent cars and book flights to reach their destination. To claim a state, they have to travel to the state Capitol building and then successfully complete a challenge drawn randomly from a deck of cards. It is allowed to steal a state from the other Team. If one team have 4 states that can be connected perfectly vertically, or horizontally, they win.^{[6] [7]} Each team was required to be in a hotel room between 9:30 p.m. and 4:30 a.m. in the local time of where they currently were in the game.

Circumnavigation (Season 2)[]

In the second season of Jet Lag: The Game, Sam and Joseph (from RealLifeLore) competed against Ben and Adam, each team trying to circumnavigate the world faster than the other team. They started in Union Station, Denver at a flagpole and the team that gets back to the flagpole first wins. They started on May 12, 2022 at 5 a.m. and they had 100 hours (with a 20-hour break after 48 hours; in this time they are not allowed to do challenges, flights, or anything similar) and a starting budget of $1000.

Furthermore, they can earn more money by completing challenges from a list. Each challenge has a budget with which they can finance the challenge. If they successfully complete the challenge, they will receive a certain amount of money and the other team is no longer allowed to do the challenge. If they do two challenges in a row that are less than 300 miles apart, the price of the 2nd challenge will be cut in half. Subsequent challenges are worth 1/4 of its usual value.

The least distance they are allowed to travel is 22,859 miles (36,788 km), which is the length of the Tropic of Cancer.

The second season consisted of 5 episodes released at weekly intervals. On Nebula, the episodes were always published a week earlier than on YouTube. The first episode was released on Nebula on June 29, 2022.

Tag Across Europe (Season 3)[]

Unlike the first two seasons, this season had only Sam, Ben, and Adam competing with each other. Each of them were trying to reach their proposed destination with Ben's goal at Borkum, Germany, Sam's goal at Zermatt, Switzerland and Adam's goal at Jersey, United Kingdom, before they get tagged by the two other players. They all started at Charleville-Mézières, France at 6 a.m. on July 26, 2022, with Ben being the first runner. When they get tagged, the next person to begin escaping the taggers will immediately start attempting to reach their destination while the other two players wait for 45 minutes. If none of them manages to arrive at their destination in a period of 3 days, whoever is closest to their destination wins the season. There was also a rest period each night between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. in which the spot they start back up at 6 a.m. the next morning was the same spot they left off at 8 p.m. the previous evening.

Like the first two seasons, challenges will give you a set amount of budget. This season also includes "Curse Cards", which limits the runner from doing a specific action. Vetoing any card will force the runner to only walk or run for 30 minutes.

The third season consisted of 7 episodes released in the same sequence as the previous seasons, starting on Nebula on September 7, 2022 and YouTube on September 14, 2022.

Battle 4 America (Season 4)[]

This season is the return of Brian from Real Engineering and the return of Ben and Adam teaming up. This season was in a similar vein to the first season, except it was across the entire US, not just the western states. The object was to claim the most states in 4 days.

Both teams started in Times Square, NYC at 8 a.m. on October 25, 2022 and pulled 7 challenge cards out of their decks. To claim a state, the team goes to the state and completes any of those 7 challenges they have. Once a state is claimed, the card they used gets discarded and a new one goes in the hand. (each team always has 7 cards)

The main twist this season unlike Season 1 is that one team can attack the other team's state by claiming 2 bordering states, and then entering the opponent territory to declare a battle. After 30 minutes, a card is drawn from the battle deck. The team that wins the battle will get the state, and lock it in. Locked states cannot be challenged again.

Rest periods this season ended at 8 a.m. EST, while they started 1 hour later than the previous one every day. (at 8, 9, 10, and 11 p.m. EST each respective day)

Another twist was that an extra 2 points was awarded to the team that claims the greatest area.

Race Across New Zealand (Season 5)[]

This season welcomed a new guest for Sam's teammate, Toby Hendy, who runs the channel Tibees. This is the first season with a female playing the game. The game started at 8 a.m. NZDT on January 22, 2023, in Cape Reinga at the very top of New Zealand. The object was to race down to Lookout Point on the bottom of New Zealand.

Players must complete challenges to unlock roads to the next challenge, and there are a number of different ways to go. A coin reward is given for completed challenges (usually multiples of 5) and the coins can be used to buy powerups. There were 5 to choose from. Nerf Bullet, Roadblock, Tracker Off, Curse, and Skip.

Both teams have a Nerf gun and 1 nerf bullet costs 10 coins. If a player hits a player on the other team with the bullet, they are frozen for 30 minutes.

Roadblocks cost 15 coins and these get thrown behind you on your route. The other team must complete that challenge on the roadblock before continuing. If they can't, they can veto it and not move for 30 minutes.

Tracker off costs 25 coins and you can use it to turn off your tracker, hiding your location from your opponents for 45 minutes. This was never used at all in the season.

Curses cost 25 coins and teams can use these to slow down the other team.

Skip costs 100 coins and it allows you to skip any challenge you want, while still leaving it for your opponents.

Any challenge can be vetoed for a time penalty (usually multiples of 15 minutes) and no reward.

Rest periods were from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m. every night.

The Layover was in the form of a podcast this time. (still Nebula exclusive)

The Layover continued on after this season until Season 6 started.

Other Channels[]

Sam has four other channels, Sam from Wendover, Showmakers, Extremities, and Jet Lag: The Game.. Sam from Wendover does vlogs, Showmakers is a podcast with friend Brian, host of "Real Engineering", Extremities explains how and why the world's most remote settlements exist. The third of the four reached 100K subscribers on July 3, 2021.

Controversy[]

Sam was a Patron of YouTuber Exurb1a. When YouTuber Pieke Roelofs filed criminal complaints against Exurb1a, Sam withdrew his Patreon support; Sam didn't make this public but offered Roelofs money in exchange for her silence about it. Roelofs, who felt blackmailed by Exurb1a already, didn't take Sam's 'bribe' very well since this as seen as an attempt to silence her, so she made their conversation public as a result. ^[8]

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