I’m a little late finding out that The Nostalgia Critic is ending, but it’s hit me like a ton of bricks. For the past five years these videos have been just about the highlight of my week, so I’m in mourning.
Doug is moving on to other projects and I totally respect his decesions as an artist, and there will be be a sort of spiritual succesor on the site as well as potential occasional specials and such with the NC character, so all is not lost. And hey at least we still have The Nostalgia Chick for now at least.
Are there any other fans here? What are your thoughts? Your favorite moments?
Huge fan here and disappointed. I don’t think he’s for everyone, but my wife and I enjoyed the Nostalgia Critic every week as well. Doug was the only one putting out a weekly video every week, all year, for several years. My favorite reviews are(I’ll link to his actual site, though these may be on youtube as well).
yeah, i was definitely sad to hear it. glad the nostalgia chick is continuing, because i like lindsay’s stuff. some of my favorite NC reviews were neverending story 3, the other animated titanic movie, ( the commentaries were funny too) and the moulin rouge musical review. i love that mara wilson did a cameo appearance in a review after a brief disagreement with the critic on facebook/twitter. i’m looking forward to seeing how his future projects turn out.
See, I respect his right to end the series, but the way he did it pisses me off. He took the fourth year special, which is supposed to be a celebration of the fun we’ve had for the last year on his site, and turned it into a funeral. He also doesn’t seem at all remorseful about it–in his latest commentary, he treats it like a joke.
It’s the one thing about web series that I had failed to see before. In the usual media, a show ending comes with a big announcement a little ways ahead of time. Or the show just is so unpopular that you know it’s not going to last. In this, we had a web series creator who decided to try and surprise us with his departure. As I said in another thread, he essentially turned it into a celebration, trying to hide it as a fun thing to do, and that bugs the crap out of me.
I’m just lucky I decided this year not to watch the special as it came out, and so did not find out about him quitting from that, or I’d be even more pissed.
And Lindsay (The Nostalgia Chick) is great, but she’s nothing like the Nostalgia Critic. You don’t watch her to wind up laughing for 15 minutes straight. You watch her to get complex themes out of trite works.
And, no, it doesn’t help that I’m still pissed at Doug for how he handled the Spoony thing, particularly not punishing Alison (Obscurus Lupa) for her part in the debacle.
I think he’s only retiring the Nostalgia Critic character, and will still continue to do other videos. I might have misunderstood, though. Personally I like Paw and Todd in the Shadows the best.
I haven’t seen To Boldly Flee yet, so I was quite surprised when I saw the little link in the news area of the site. I figured it was going to be him reassuring fans after a joke or skit at the end of the special, not unlike some of the times he’s “quit” in-character before. I was utterly shocked to discover that this was the real deal. It’s a shame really. Doug was one of the best of the comedic internet reviewers, and one of the most consistently good.
My big internet reviewers have always been(in no order):
James Rolfe - Angry Video Game Nerd
Status: Reduced video output, but not done. Has a movie on the way. I like Mike Matei too.
Noah Antwiler - Spoony
Status: Way reduced video output. Heading towards the funny farm. My favorite reviewer in his prime.
Doug Walker - Nostalgia Critic
Status: Retired character.
These are the big three for me, followed by Film Brain, Nostaiga Chick, Blockbuster Buster, Pat the NES Punk, Todd in the Shadows, Linkara(I’m not a comic fan).
Seems to me like it’s a bad move to retire the site’s flagship character right after firing the site’s other flagship character- I love most of their talent, but i’m not sure that Linkara, the Nostalgia Chick, and Cinema Snob can carry the site on their own.
As of late i’ve personally been gorging myself on the videos of Oancitizen (arthouse cinema) and Diamanda Hagan (b-grade schlock, horror, and Christian movies, interspersed with rants about Doctor Who and obscure British TV) - i’d especially recommend the latter, since her character (Northern Irish lesbian who dresses like the love child of Lady Gaga and Heath Ledger and fancies herself a god) is downright hilarious.
Stuart Ashen (Ashens) and Brad Jones (Cinema Snob/80’s Dan) are the only ones I can add to that list. Ashens in particular is my favorite of the internet reviewers.
I ADORE Oancitizen, and recently spent a few day marathoning his videos (which may have been a mistake - his subject matter’s often dark and deep, and I needed a good cry and a nap at the end), but Diamanda Hagan’s just a little too much negative without enough funny for my tastes. When I want a Doctor Who review, Nash is my man.
I, too, was sad to hear that NC was leaving, but Doug gave him one hell of a send off, and either way, I understand why he was ready to stop. He wanted to go out on a good note, while the character was still funny, and I think that particular deadline was drawing closer all the time. But I will miss him terribly.
My favorite reviewers right now are Todd in the Shadows, (who has some of the best timing and editing on the site), Nostalgia Chick (usually the most interesting reviews, with the best “sidekick” characters), Oancitizen (I honestly think “The Man Who Fell to Earth” is the best review to ever grace the site, and every David Bowie fan and internet review fan should see it. Seriously.), and, weirdly enough, Linkara. I don’t read comics, and he’s not really all that funny, but he’s just so…himself. I don’t think I have ever seen anyone in my life who acted like such a nerd, but knew he was cool, and was right. It’s almost comforting.
As you can tell, I’ve been a Chanel Awesome fan since almost the beginning.
I find Brad Jones funny sometimes, but aren’t most of his Cinema Snob reviews of “porno-lite” movies? Not my cup of tea, though I am open to recommendations if you have any specific reviews.
Am I the only one who can’t stand the Nostalgia Critic? His shows seem so long and drawn out and his voice is like nails on a chalkboard. I do somewhat like the Nostalgia Chick though…
Now AVGN. Love it… Brings back memories of playing NES/SNES with a bunch of foul-mouth 13 year olds. Cracks me up…
Most of the films fall into under the generic banner of “exploitation” some of which is porn both soft and hard, but many are just gore and/or gross out films. I’d recommend his Hitler Dead or Alive, Ninja Terminator, Nukie and the Pierre Kirby reviews. None of those are porn and none are particularly gory.
For Ashens it’s difficult to pick out specifics since he’s so very consistent, there’s honestly only a few of his videos I don’t like. Some of my favorites are POPStation Watch 6:Retieval Mankind’s Batman, Oriental Hero(Blip exclusive), Turbo-The Board Game (with Guru Larry), Poundland Girl’s Toys Special 1&2, and the Game.Com review.
What is “the Spoony thing”? I understand that Spoony doesn’t work for TGWTG any more, but don’t know what happened.
It’s a shame that Doug has retired the NC, and I think it could be the death of the site. His reviews were the main attraction, after all. But it’s better that he stop, rather than drop in quality because his heart isn’t in it any more.
Paraphrasing Spoony himself from the “To Boldly Flee” commentary, he left Channel Awesome because it wasn’t bringing him any extra viewers, he was tired of taking two weeks out of his schedule a year to film the aniversery specials without getting paid, and he was generally tired of the politics of CA’s higher ups.
The more interesting stuff, however, was the whole Lupa debacle - Spoony made a joke on twitter basically stating that he wanted to tie one of the other female reviewers up in his basement and rape her. Lupa (the joke was not about her) got offended and informed the producers at CA, who told Spoony that he wasn’t allowed to tweet those kinds of things. Spoony took it badly to say the least, and completely lost his shit on Twitter (I think he called one of the female producers a c*nt), and was suspended from the site. So he quit. Then he had a nervous breakdown, went to a new shrink, was diagnosed as bipolar, got his meds changed, and says he’s feeling much better. But he’s still not sorry for the joke.
The joke was about JO(JesuOtaku), an anime reviewer on the site. She is dating Nash, some other guy who does stuff with LordKat’s site. Spoony tweeted that if Nash isn’t taking care of her right, he’d gladly tie her to radiator and…something else. It was a rude joke, but JO didn’t get offended.
Two months later, Obscurus Lupa(Allison Pregler) got upset about it and made a fuss, which lead to a Twitter explosion from Spoony and basically got him removed.
I’m no Spoony advocate(he can be nuts), but I think Spoony didn’t really deserve to get dumped, unless there was a lot more going on than this story.
It wasn’t the joke that got him fired, it was the following tweet-insanity in which he sarcastically offered to cut off his penis as penance, then called his boss a c*nt. If I called my boss that, I’d be fired on the spot, and rightly so. But even that didn’t get him fired, just suspended. Spoony chose to leave, at least according to his To Boldly Flee commentary.
Maybe Lupa was being a bit of a tattle tale (maybe), but everything that went down afterwards was all on Spoony. Doesn’t mean he’s not funny, I still watch his site. But the man got everything he deserved.
