Here’s how Collab used licensed clips and human voiceovers to turn Rufus Goodboy into YouTube’s best-in-show animal compilation channel

Thanks to its core business–collecting, licensing, managing, and protecting the usage rights of user-generated content–Collab has a vast library of thousands of thousands of clips.

And Will McFadden decided he wanted to do something with them.

McFadden, who co-founded Collab in 2012 alongside his brothers James and Tyler, is the business’s Chief Creative Officer–and a content creator himself. He’s been making comedy content for about as long as YouTube has existed, and says his passion for it is (like Collab itself) a family business.

“I went to UC Santa Barbara and got a BFA in theater. And James, Tyler, and I are very different and skilled in different ways, but our dad was an actor,” he says. “We used to make sketch comedy videos where James would direct and edit, Tyler would write and produce, and I would write and act. We kind of formed Voltron: we had very clear skillsets and knew our avenues.”

As his part of “Voltron,” McFadden discovered a love for not just writing, but animation and voiceover acting, too.

And when Collab decided to make use of its trove of pet videos by launching a themed YouTube compilation channel, he found a way to put those skills to new use.

“We started the channel around 2020, maybe 2019, but at first we were just making kind of cute animal compilations and it wasn’t really doing much,” he says. “It wasn’t really going anywhere.”

The McFaddens had an idea: What if they tried adding comedic voiceovers, both to sew the different collections of clips together and to give the channel–called Rufus Goodboy–a consistent identity that set it apart from other compilation channels?

That turned out to be the secret sauce.

“I think the first big one that took off was a sea shanty that I made as a cat,” McFadden says, laughing. “I grew up a big fan of Weird Al, so I love parody songs, and I was like, ‘What if I make parody songs about cats?'”

Of course, if there’s one thing the internet loves, it’s cats. But Rufus Goodboy is inclusive of all animals, from household staples like dogs and cats to rarer pets like birds and chinchillas to wild creatures like bears and moose.

For McFadden, the entire channel is an explosion of creativity. From 2022 to the beginning of 2026, he was firmly at the front of the development and production pipeline. Each week, he combed through the thousands of new clips submitted to Collab’s library, searching for just the right ones.

What makes a good Rufus clip?

It’s tricky, McFadden says. “What I’m always looking for is an animal that’s expressive and emoting, where I can try to read their mind–which is a very very actor approach. I need to get into the mindset,” he laughs. “What are the given circumstances of this kangaroo? What is he feeling right now? It’s just a fun creative exercise.”

That being said, there are limitations. McFadden does Homeward Bound-style voiceovers, where he isn’t syncing his words to the animal’s moving mouth, but instead is speaking over a closed mouth. So, if a dog is barking too much or a cat is constantly meowing, that breaks the immersion and makes it difficult for him to layer his commentary.

Once McFadden had a selection of clips he knew would work, he got to recording.

“Usually [the voiceover] is improvised,” he explains. “If it’s a parody song, I spend time trying to make sure those lyrics really hit, and if it’s a longer clip where I’m really trying to nail certain beats, I’ll script it out just so I don’t get flustered. But I like the looseness of improv, the mistakes and the little eccentricities that come out when I’m riffing. It makes the clips more relatable and funnier.”

Up until January of this year, Rufus Goodboy was being managed by another team member, and wasn’t really getting dedicated attention. That showed in its engagement, which floated between ~500K and 1 million views per month.

McFadden thought it could do better, so he took over and started looking for the why behind its lack of growth.

“One thing I noticed was that a lot of my videos were getting stolen and reuploaded as Shorts, but getting turned into little ranked compilations,” he says. “One was a ranked German German Shepherd video. I think it had 20 or 30 million views, and I was like, ‘Huh, why did it do that?’ So I started making some ranked compilations, and they woke the channel up in a new way.”

McFadden also played into other trends, like making “raccoon core” and “Golden Retriever-core” videos.

Since he took over, Rufus Goodboy has grown from ~80,000 YouTube subscribers to over 700,000. In July, it hit 150 million views per month.

And McFadden knows exactly what he wants to do with this bigger platform.

“I care a great deal about helping animals find their homes,” he says. “My partner and I have fostered dogs for years and years. I want to do more with the channel in terms of doing some good in that space.”

He plans to introduce a long-form series that will highlight senior dogs, as well as dogs that have been in the shelter/foster systems for extended periods of time.

“I actually posted a video today that is an adoptable dog,” he says. “I made a little song and tagged the rescue he’s currently being fostered at. Obviously the dream is that we post videos saying, ‘Hey, here are three dogs who have been in the shelter system for 400 days each,’ and then we get to come back with an update about how the dogs got adopted. I think that would feel good for everybody involved.”

Ultimately, he says, “I want the channel to not just be silly voices and funny animal videos, but also doing some good.”

Collab is a Tubefilter partner.