Rooster Teeth was born in a spare bedroom in 2003, when Burnie Burns mashed together Halo gameplay with hilarious voiceovers to create Red vs. Blue. What began as a joke about friendly fire and existential crises among space marines quickly became one of the internet’s first breakout hits and eventually the longest running web series in history. Joined by Matt Hullum, Gustavo Sorola, Jason Saldana, Joel Heyman, and Geoff Ramsey: Burnie’s friends from the web and film worlds, the scrappy young company found itself at the center of a burgeoning online entertainment empire — albeit one run out of an apartment in Buda, TX with mediocre internet.

As the company grew, so did its ambition. The team created brands like the RT Animation division, the AH Let’s Play family, and a wealth of podcasts -- led by the wildly successful Rooster Teeth Podcast. The catalog of shows grew to include titles like RT Shorts, RTAA, Million Dollars But... and Immersion, where real-life humans tested video game logic with a mix of science, comedy, and a questionable understanding of OSHA regulations. Over time, Rooster Teeth produced over 150 different series across tens of thousands of videos. After starting in a field in 2011, the RTX convention series grew to welcome hundreds of thousands of attendees on three different continents.

In 2015, the company was acquired by Otter Media, which was in turn acquired by AT&T, and then by Warner Bros as they divested from the megacorp. Burns left the company a few years later, with his last onscreen appearance in August of 2019. He retired to the peaceful countryside of Scotland, a far cry from the wild mayhem of online media. Sadly, the company closed its doors in May 2024, ending* an amazing 21 year run as a trailblazer in online media.

In 2025, after more than five years away from the company, Burnie announced his return along with his new team at Box Canyon Productions, buying back Rooster Teeth from WB and bringing it back under independent ownership. The Rooster Teeth of 2025 is a smaller, humbler version of its former iteration. Closer to the apartment and field beginnings than the entertainment juggernaut of its later years. Burnie returns to the helm older, wiser, but still ready to create some entertaining disruption.