Joel Haver

Haver was born to Canadian parents on February 13, 1996, in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, Canada.^[1][2] He grew up in Belchertown, Massachusetts, and has an older brother.^[3] Haver studied film at the Pratt Institute in New York City, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in filmmaking in 2018.^[4]

Haver produces comedy sketches and independent films, frequently using rotoscoped animation, a form of animation created by tracing on top of filmed footage.^[5][6][7][8] His films are known for their low-budget style, with Haver typically playing multiple roles in acting and production. In addition to his own channel, he has contributed to films, voice-overs, and TV productions, most notably in the video game Dispatch.^{[5][6][9][10]}

Haver has hosted an annual "Movies Shot During the Oscars" film festival, in which he encourages independent filmmakers to shoot feature-length films during the broadcast of the yearly Academy Awards ceremony.^[11] Throughout the year, in 2024, Haver published a film anthology of 12 movies, each movie being shot and edited in the span of approximately one month. He noted that he is passionate about making filmmaking more accessible.^[12][13]

In July 2022, Joel Haver published the "Toilet Paper Bears" comedy sketch on his YouTube channel, depicting a dispute between the Charmin Bears family, in which the son confronts his father about his dream to be a dancer, to his father's disappointment.^[14] Later that year, Saturday Night Live aired the "Charmin Bears" sketch, with similarities to Haver's video. Notably, a young bear confronts his father about his dream to be a dancer, the bears are colored blue, and the father and the son wear similar attire.^[14] In late July, following the SNL airing, Haver published a video entitled "SNL stole my video". Despite the title, he denied accusations of theft, rather attributing the similarities to parallel thinking. Haver remarked, "If I still was a smaller creator, which I was for a long time, I could see it rubbing me the wrong way."^[15][16][17]