Doug and Mr. Plinkett

So, as those who read the Who Did This? Page are aware, or ought to be: Douglas Harper of Pennsylvania is the creator and primary author of this site. He is the Editor in the usual dictionary sense. Myself, I am Assistant Editor and a friend of Doug’s, and thereby it has happened that I’ve spoken to him on several occasions over video chats.

Recently, whilst I was laying at home sick with covid and passing time by watching YouTube videos, I got a recommendation for the “Mr. Plinkett” Star Wars Phantom Menace review from Red Letter Media. It is an in-depth critique of the Star Wars prequel The Phantom Menace, narrated by a character named Mr. Plinkett, who is implied to be a serial killer who kidnaps women and tortures them by forcing them to watch this movie.

The videos date to the era when YouTube had a time restriction, so they are all cut into roughly 10-minute increments that yield a 70-minute complete film which has its own IMDB page. While I was laying in bed watching the second video in the series, I stopped coughing for long enough to get through a joke where Plinkett begins describing the Cuban Missile Crisis and then snootily declares that it was called World War One and “you stupid people need to learn your history right.” Cut to an image of a home library laden with books.

Immediately when the image popped on screen, it looked familiar to me. Later in the video it came up again. I realized it bore an awfully strong resemblance to Doug's office, which is always plainly behind him while we’re chatting over Zoom. I very nearly sent him a link to the video right then with a “Ha ha, this library looks just like yours!” However, I thought about it and figured, oh, it’s probably just coincidence – anyone with the same model of bookshelf ends up with a similar looking library, and lots of people store knicknacks on their top shelf and a set of OEDs on the bottom. Plus Doug seemed busy that day, so I decided not to bug him with this rather lame observation.

A few days later, we were having a video chat. Once again, I spy that same Ikea bookshelf with the OEDs on the bottom and the knicknacks on top. At this point, I notice the exact combination of antiques on the top shelf is dead on the same as Plinkett’s bookshelf – a long landscape photograph of soldiers, a little wooden birdhouse, a black box with kind of Greek looking figures, a wooden cage, old photos. There’s identical blue trim on the doorframe and another blue frame peeking up behind the bookshelf.

I finally told him that I was pretty sure I’d seen his office in a Star Wars review on YouTube. He didn’t seem to react much and his answer was merely, “Well, I do have a son named Luke.” Basically, he brushed it off like he didn’t really believe it.

Okay, well, it seemed he didn’t know anything about it. He wasn’t a secret producer of the video or winner of a “get your bookshelf in our video” contest or something. 

Later I sent him the video, cued up to the very image. At that point he had to agree: somehow a picture of his office had ended up at the 5:19 mark in the famous Mr. Plinkett Phantom Menace review that has millions of views. His office has changed very little in the eleven years since the video was first posted. 

He didn’t have any idea how the photo ended up in there. I tried to contact Red Letter Media through their Patreon, to see if they recalled how they got the picture, but I never got a response from them. 

So it remains a mystery. Doug’s office has somehow become the symbol for “books and education” in Mr. Plinkett videos. That has to put it amongst the geekiest offices in the entire world.