At 11 a.m. CDT Tuesday, Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla announced that they had repurchased their old production company, Smosh. 

Smosh is most well-known as a skit-based YouTube channel that became very popular in the mid to late 2000s, amassing 25 million subscribers and many videos with over 10 million views.

Hecox and Padilla explained the history behind Smosh’s ownership in a video uploaded to the Smosh YouTube channel Tuesday.

“In 2005, Anthony and I created this channel, Smosh, as a way to make each other laugh and just have fun,” Hecox said. “Very quickly, it resonated with millions of people and it turned into a career for us.” 

Hecox said that after six years of doing almost everything themselves, the pair realized their pace wasn’t sustainable.

“So, in 2011, we were approached by a company who offered to buy Smosh and they promised to help us turn into everything we’d ever dreamed of,” Padilla said. 

Padilla said that while the quality of the videos went up, he realized he had no time or energy to commit to creating the duo’s skits that he felt were the foundation of the channel.

“After about six years, I realized that this company’s goals for Smosh were just too different from my own,” Padilla said.

In 2017, Padilla left Smosh and began creating content on a solo YouTube channel.

“I just need to do what’s best for me, and that, right now, for me is to focus on creating stuff as an independent creator on my own channel,” Padilla said in a 2017 video announcing his departure. 

In Tuesday’s video, Hecox said that in 2018, Smosh’s parent company suddenly went out of business, which threatened the existence of Smosh.

However, Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal of Good Mythical Morning, another well-known YouTube duo, stepped in and purchased Smosh with their company Mythical Entertainment.

“We acquired Smosh 4 years ago in the first creator-to-creator acquisition of its kind— a huge moment in Mythical’s history,” reads a Mythical tweet announcing Hecox and Padilla’s reacquisition. 

Padilla said he and Hecox began spending time together last year and he soon realized that the Smosh sketches were a reflection of the magic the pair felt when they were making something together.

“So we came up with the totally insane idea of ‘What if we bought Smosh?’” Hecox said. “After months of negotiating and deliberating on whether this was a good idea or not … today, Anthony and I can say officially that we own Smosh.” 

Hecox said sketch comedy written by the duo will return to the Smosh YouTube channel.

“Classic Smosh is back,” Padilla said.

Hecox’s mother, an iconic character in original Smosh skits, appeared at the end of Tuesday’s video, ribbing Hecox in a call-back to older skits. 

The video ended with a title card reading “SMOSH WILL RETURN NEXT WEEK” and asked viewers to help fund “an independent Smosh.”

[email protected]