Super break for family of YouTubers

SCARY STUFF: Left to right: Bella Sheridan, Harley Sheridan, Neil Sheridan and Tyler Black

A FORMER Shaw teacher hopes to find fame through his new super career venture.

Neil Sheridan (28) launched an online video channel 'just for fun' so that his two children could dress up in superhero costumes and watch replays of their adventures.

But since its set up around one year ago, the YouTube channel called Littledramakids, boasts more than 136,000 subscribers and 28m views on the most popular video, Spiderman vs Wonder Woman vs Hulk, which was posted four months ago.

Many of the videos feature Mr Sheridan's son Harley Sheridan (five), who plays Hulk, his daughter Bella Sheridan (eight), who plays roles such as Frozen's Elsa, his stepson Tyler Black (eight), who plays Spider-Man, and his partner.

The family acts out scenes from their favourite cartoons and uploads a new superhero battle each week for their growing audience.

Mr Sheridan said: "My kids kept watching videos of other kids dressed up as Spider-Man and Superman.

"They wanted to get involved themselves so we started off by creating two videos just for fun and put them online.

"We left it completely for three months and then checked it one day to find it had 6,000 views.

"It was fantastic and over the next few weeks, the views grew to 20,000, to 100,000 and so on.

"I was amazed, wondering who would watch my kids and me playing dress up.

"But I decided I needed to make a go of this to try and build a YouTube channel."

Scenes in the videos include Hulk rugby tackling Spider-Man, Spider-Man winning a game of snap and Hulk using his strength to strangle Spider-Man, holding him a meter above the ground.

YouTuber Mr Sheridan, who lives in Moston, left his eight-year-long career working with Year 2 pupils who have learning difficulties to try and make a success of his channel.

The heroic dad said: "Most teachers would get a bottle of wine or bunch of flowers when they left, but they bought me my first morph suit.

"The head teacher encouraged me to put everything I had into the videos and allowed me to work on a temporary basis in the meantime.

"Thanks to her belief and my children's love, we now have over 135,000 subscribers and get over 22 million views a month.

"The job brings in what I used to make in a month in a week. Big players earn £80,000 per month just through adverts.

"The bonus with this job is that it is something I love doing and I get to spend all the time with my kids."

To subscribe to the channel, visit www.tinyurl.com/jl6dpuh.