In 2022, a group of voice actors from Team Fortress 2—Valve’s game of first-person shooting and endlessly shouting “MEDDDICCC!” when I’m right behind you, like I always am—caused chaos across small-town America in a hunt for sandwiches. Well, “sandviches”. They were also searching for the Medic, because some things never change.
It was a delightful series in which the actors, including Ellen McLain, who portrayed TF2’s loudspeaker-dominating Administrator but is more famous as GLaDOS from the Portal games, baffled bystanders while blaring at each other in-character. The videos have peaked in their most recent chapter: the Search for Sandvich becomes Song for Sandvich (opens in new tab), with the voice actors performing a version of Mamma Mia by ABBA only with the lyrics changed to reference The Heavy’s edible device.
They’re joined in this banjo rendition of the 1975 pop classic by actor Liz McCarthy, after a series of bizarre Twin Peaks references throughout the saga climaxed in her appearance as a mystery woman lurking in the Seattle Public Library (opens in new tab). (In Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, McCarthy played a character listed in the credits as “Giggling Secretary”.) Honestly, it’s not just the bystanders who’ve been a bit baffled by these videos, though that’s no bad thing.
It’s wonderful seeing the actors have such a good time, and makes me wish Valve would sling some more work their way. I don’t need a Team Fortress 3, but the Meet the Team videos were as important as the good times I had in 2Fort and Badlands. More animated adventures, maybe adapted from the surprisingly good TF2 comics (opens in new tab), would make me a happy man. We never did find out what would happen in the never-published issue seven, a cliffhanger that genuinely bothers me more than the absence of Half-Life 3 at this point.
