Rhett McLaughlin

Rhett McLaughlin and Charles "Link" Neal first met on September 4, 1984, the date they started first grade at Buies Creek Elementary School in Buies Creek, Harnett County, North Carolina. They subsequently wrote a song and made a documentary about this meeting: Looking for Ms. Locklear. In an interview on The Tonight Show, they stated that they had to stay in during recess because both of them had written swear words on their desks. They were given coloring books to fill out with mythical creatures (such as unicorns), hence their YouTube channel name, Good Mythical Morning.

At age fourteen, they wrote a screenplay entitled Gutless Wonders and began shooting a film based on it. They shot only a couple of scenes, and the film was never finished. This screenplay ultimately was read in multiple episodes of Good Mythical Morning. In high school they shot a 25-minute film-parody on the tragedy of Oedipus Rex, with McLaughlin as Oedipus, and Neal as his father's servant. McLaughlin and Neal were both members of a Christian punk rock band as teenagers known as "The Wax Paper Dogz".

In 1996, they started college and were roommates at North Carolina State University, where Neal studied industrial engineering while McLaughlin studied civil engineering. McLaughlin graduated magna cum laude in December 2000, and Neal graduated summa cum laude in May 2001. They worked in their respective fields for a time, Neal at IBM and McLaughlin at Black & Veatch. They also made videos and performed comedy sketches for a religious organization, Cru. During their time at Cru, they began developing their signature comedy style as a duo, subsequently deciding to become full-time entertainers.

McLaughlin and Neal quit their jobs as engineers soon after graduating from college to shift their focus to their Christian evangelism with Cru. They made comedic videos for meetings and conferences after being inspired by the host at the first weekly Cru meeting they attended as freshmen at North Carolina State University. Later, they transitioned to making comedic YouTube videos full-time, without Christian ministry.