Nostalgia Critic is an American review comedy web series created, directed by, and starring comedian Doug Walker. The series initially launched on YouTube on July 3, 2007, before moving to Walker's own site, That Guy with the Glasses, and finally to the online production company Channel Awesome. The show follows Walker as the title character, a bitter and sarcastic critic who reviews films and television shows from his childhood and recent past, usually with comically exaggerated hysteria. The show focuses on analysis of the episode's subject, often incorporated with sketches, rants, or embedded storylines. Many of the films reviewed—such as Exorcist II: The Heretic, The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, Batman & Robin, and Foodfight!—are generally considered as the worst films ever made.
| Nostalgia Critic | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | |
| Created by | Doug Walker |
| Developed by | Doug Walker Rob Walker |
| Written by | Doug Walker Rob Walker |
| Directed by | Doug Walker |
| Starring |
|
| Theme music composer | Michael "Skitch" Schiciano[1] |
| Opening theme | "The Review Must Go On" (2013–present) |
| Ending theme | "The Review Must Go On" (2011; 2013–present) Various |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 17 |
| No. of episodes | 707 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Michael Michaud |
| Producer | Doug Walker |
| Production locations | Downers Grove, Illinois (2007–12; 2020–21; 2023; 2024–present) Lombard, Illinois (2013–2020; 2021–2023; 2023–2024) |
| Editor | Doug Walker |
| Camera setup | Single-camera |
| Running time | Various (avg. 15–30 minutes) |
| Production company | Channel Awesome |
| Original release | |
| Network | |
| Release | July 3, 2007 – present |
Walker briefly retired the series on August 14, 2012, to work on other projects, even writing the character out of existence in the Channel Awesome film To Boldly Flee. On January 22, 2013, Walker announced the show's return in a narrative video titled The Review Must Go On.[5] The show subsequently returned with a more narrative- and sketch-driven sixth season, beginning on February 5, 2013, with a review of The Odd Life of Timothy Green. Most episodes still retain the original clip-using format.
Main cast
edit- Doug Walker: The Nostalgia Critic, an aggressive, childish, foul-mouthed and hot-tempered film critic and a fictionalized version of Doug Walker himself. He is characterized by his angry rants and hatred of bad movies. All of the reviews star him as the main character and feature him providing commentary and criticism while talking directly to the audience. Doug's other characters include both his past and future selves, Chester A. Bum, a homeless man, Devil Boner, the polite but insane embodiment of evil, Raoul Puke, a parody of Raoul Duke, the alter ego of Hunter S. Thompson, and parodies of Optimus Prime, General Zod, Rick Sanchez, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Frank Miller, and Michael Bay.
- Rob Walker: Rob has made appearances in videos since before the introduction of live-action sketches, credited as "The Other Guy". As well as portraying recurring characters, notably Santa Christ (a combination of Santa Claus and Jesus Christ) and Chart Guy, Rob has portrayed minor characters and acted in sketches.
- Malcolm Ray: Malcolm is one of the Critic's friends who appears on the show and works with him on his videos. Malcolm often plays many secondary characters in the many of the sketches, most notably as the Devil, an African-American version of Willy Wonka called Black Willy Wonka, hitman Bennie, and parodies of Pinhead, M. Night Shyamalan, and Barack Obama.
- Rachel Tietz: Rachel is friend of the Critic's and Malcolm on the show. She portrays multiple characters, including Evilina (the daughter of Satan and Kim Kardashian) and Rita Repulsa. She left the show after season seven, but has made some cameos in later episodes.
- Tamara Chambers: After Rachel left the show to pursue a career in Los Angeles, Tamara stepped in to take her place as a regular cast member. She plays twos recurring character called Hyper Fangirl, who becomes the girlfriend and later wife of Doug's Devil Boner character, and Malice, a violent parody of the titular character from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
- Jim Jarosz: Jim is a friend of the Critic's who often works with Tamara and Malcolm, though he is not present in every episode as Tamara, Malcolm, or even Rob are. He is mainly responsible for most of the props and set pieces in the show, most notably for the review of Mad Max: Fury Road. His two main roles are simpering condescending therapist from Catwoman and Harvey Levin, the lisping loud flamboyant crossdressing head of TMZ.
- Walter Banasiak: Walter is one of the hosts of Awesome Comics & Coffee, another show on Channel Awesome, alongside Jim and Heather Reusz. He also created the show Top 5, in which he counts down his Top 5 favorite or least favorite things. He also runs Bat-May, in which he reviews episodes from Batman: The Animated Series during the entire month of May, and Twilight-Tober Zone, in which he reviews episodes of The Twilight Zone during the entire month of October. His main roles are a parody of Zack Snyder and Father Venkman, a man obsessed with Ghostbusters and made an entire religion surrounding it.
- Heather Reusz: Heather, besides starring alongside the cast in Nostalgia Critic skits, helps to run the Twitch channel, where the cast play video games, watch movies, or just chat with the audience.
- Aiyanna Wade: Aiyanna was a featured panelist on Awesome Comics and was one of the co-hosts the Orbit Report with Heather Reusz as well as the Top 5 Best/Worst with Heather and Walter Banasiak.
- Orlando Belisle Jr.: Orlando is a friend of the Critic's who often works with Critc. His main characters are Peter Souless, a parody of money-hungry executives who appears in the reviews of the movie adaptations of Dr. Seuss, Roger, an angel-in-training that "helps" the Critic in the 2010 Christmas special, and The Angst, a parody of 1990's and 2000's anti-heroes. He has also played Malachite, the main villain of the 2011 anniversary special Suburban Knights.
- Barney Walker: Doug and Rob's father who helps out behind-the-scenes and often appears as himself.
- Chaplin & Buster: Doug Walker's two pet cats who appear as talking versions of themselves in various skits. They are known for repeatedly announcing their own names for no reason, as in "I'm Chaplin/Buster!". They are mentored by The Cinema Snob's own talking pet cat, Lloyd.
All of the cast members play fictionalized versions of their real counterparts as well as other characters during sketches. The series has also featured guest stars Dante Basco, Don Bluth, Kyle Hebert, JonTron, Maurice LaMarche, Rob Paulsen, Gilbert Gottfried, James Rolfe, Tom Ruegger, Michael Salvatori, Greg Sestero, Sherri Stoner, Chris Stuckmann, Cree Summer, Rob Scallon, Corey Taylor and Mara Wilson as themselves; co-reviewing, acting in sketch segments, or making a cameo appearance)[6]
History
editThe series was initially launched on YouTube on July 3, 2007, with a review of Transformers, but episodes were frequently removed by the website following complaints of copyright infringement. In April 2008, the videos were taken down from YouTube but an arrangement between the company and Blip.tv, the content host of both the series and parent company Channel Awesome, in 2009 resulted in them being featured on YouTube once more, although Blip was still the main platform of their videos besides the Channel Awesome site until Blip's shutdown in 2015.[7][8]
A spin-off, called The Nostalgia Chick, was announced in the video The Search for the Nostalgia Chick (August 10, 2008). The concept was for a female host to review female-targeted "nostalgic" films and television,[9] and though it was presented as a contest, it was predetermined that all three candidates would end up on the site:[10] Lindsay Ellis (who reviewed Disney's Pocahontas), Krissy Diggs (who reviewed Sailor Moon), and Kaylyn Saucedo (who reviewed The Last Unicorn). Ellis, then using the name "The Dudette," took the Nostalgia Chick title, as announced in a video on the site, Nostalgia Chick Winner! (September 15, 2008).[9] Diggs and Saucedo then joined That Guy with the Glasses as That Chick with the Goggles and Marzgurl, respectively.
On September 14, 2012, Walker announced the retirement of Nostalgia Critic and that it would no longer be a weekly production (although Critic was planned to make appearances on special occasions), as he and his brother, series co-creator and co-writer Rob Walker, felt that they had gone as far as they could with the series. Another reason was the controversy over the Stop Online Privacy Act, also known as the SOPA Bill, which posed a major threat to Channel Awesome. The Bill ended up dead in the water, but Channel Awesome feared another piece of legislation being drafted or even passed. The Critic was killed off at the end of the site's 2012 anniversary movie, To Boldy Flee, which was meant to serve as the grand finale of the Nostalgia Critic show. The Walker brothers then focused their efforts on another web series which was planned to be the big replacement for Nostalgia Critic that they had in the works since 2008 called Demo Reel, which revolved around a struggling film production company called "Demo Reel" run by an over-ambitious, egotistical, and incompetent filmmaker named Donnie DuPre (played by Doug Walker himself) and consisting of up-and-coming author and Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Tacoma Narrows (played by Malcom Ray), failed actress Rebecca Stone (played by Rachel Teitz), East German cameraman and photographer Karl Copenhagen (played by Rob Walker), and Irish make-up artist "Quinn" (played by frequent collaborator Jim Jarosz) that aims to recreate famous movies, both old and new, badly on purpose in order to gain Hollywood's attention so they can make their own major motion picture. However, the series was unsuccessful and what was planned to be a several season-long sitcom series turned into a one season series with 6 episodes, with one episode not even airing.
On January 22, 2013, Walker released a sketch short film titled The Review Must Go On, announcing the return of Nostalgia Critic with a sixth season and the end of Demo Reel. Ray, Teitz, and Jarosz would join the Walker brothers in the revival, although Teitz was later replaced by Tamara Chambers (who originally auditioned for Demo Reel) with season 8, although the former would still make occasional appearances in later episodes.[11] In 2014, Walker and Dante Basco collaborated in a countdown of the top eleven best episodes of the television series Avatar: The Last Airbender, on which Basco had played the character Zuko.
On October 2, 2024, the series aired its 700th episode, a review of Killer Klowns from Outer Space.
Episode format
editThe series focuses on the Nostalgia Critic, a short-tempered film reviewer looking back at films usually from his childhood and adolescence. GigaOM describes it as "high energy and shamelessly nerdy".[12] Reuters described him as having "offbeat personalities".[13] In each episode, the Critic restates important plot-points, guiding the viewer, while making jokes out of notable or questionable scenes. The reviews are interspersed with recurring memes, false or satirical dubbing of dialogue, comedic sketches and pop culture gags—such as making fun of famous actors who starred in lesser-known roles before their rise to fame. The show also features special episodes, such as the "Top 11" list countdowns for his favorite or least favorite films, villains, or moments in television shows; and "Old vs. New" which compares the reboot of a popular film or series to the original.
Since the revival of the series in 2013, Walker occasionally produces an editorial which discusses relevant film topics; while still featuring the Critic persona, these videos are much less comedic and contain no sketches or other actors. Beginning with Jurassic World on June 23, 2015, the series also occasionally features "clipless reviews" of films that are still currently in theaters to avoid copyright infringement instead of stills and clips. These reviews instead feature scenes from the movies comedically re-enacted by Walker, his friends and family, other Channel Awesome contributors, and other people associated with Walker.
Walker describes his philosophy thus: "[We need a critic of nostalgia] because everybody already does it. When we look at movies and shows from our youth, they're rarely as good as we remember them, and oftentimes it's quite humorous to compare what you liked then to what you like now. That's basically what the Nostalgia Critic is about, looking back at just how much nostalgia cloaked our vision in heavenly bliss and how bizarre the reality is."[14]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Schiciano, Michael "Skitch" (May 13, 2013). "The Review Must Go On (Nostalgia Critic Theme)". Bandcamp.
- ^ Roettgers, Janko (July 21, 2015). "Maker Studios Is Shutting Down Blip Next Month". Variety. Retrieved April 26, 2021.
- ^ "Bangarang - Nostalgia Critic". Vimeo. November 14, 2017. Retrieved June 26, 2023.
- ^ "Black Cauldron - Nostalgia Critic". Vimeo. January 29, 2019. Retrieved June 26, 2023.
- ^ "The Review Must Go On". That Guy with the Glasses. Archived from the original on January 27, 2013. Retrieved January 22, 2013.
- ^ "Nostalgia Critic (TV Series 2007– )" – via www.imdb.com.
- ^ Pickard, Anna (November 19, 2007). "The five-second movies and why you should watch them". The Guardian. London. Retrieved December 9, 2008.
- ^ Learmonth, Mike (July 28, 2009). "Blip.tv Brings Programs to YouTube, Ads to 'Channel Awesome'". Advertising Age. Archived from the original on November 7, 2015. Retrieved July 30, 2009.
- ^ a b Jenkins, Mike; Bacio, Jose (June 19, 2009). "The Man Hour". Man Hour Goes Nostalgic. Archived from the original on February 2, 2010. Retrieved December 24, 2009. (iTunes)
- ^ Rogers, Ian M. (August 23, 2021). "There Are Other Weird People Out There Like Me: An Interview with Krissy Diggs". ...But I Also Have a Day Job. Retrieved August 23, 2022.
- ^ Pickett, Leah (November 21, 2013). "Get to know the man behind 'Nostalgia Critic'". WBEZ Chicago. Retrieved March 19, 2021.
- ^ Shannon, Liz (October 6, 2009). "Nostalgia Critic Takes Apart Your Childhood Favorites — Tech News and Analysis". Gigaom.com. Archived from the original on March 11, 2015. Retrieved October 20, 2013.
- ^ "South Florida's Largest Video Game Event Gathers Hottest Video Games, Gamers, World Champs and Game Platforms Creators". Business Wire (Press release). Reuters. October 13, 2009. Archived from the original on November 29, 2014. Retrieved October 20, 2013.
- ^ Dunne, Susan (January 28, 2011). "U-Con at UConn is for the Nerds". The Hartford Courant. Retrieved October 20, 2013.
Notes
edit- ^ From November 14, 2017 (Bangarang (2017))[3] to January 29, 2019 (The Black Cauldron (1985)).[4]
External links
edit
Quotations related to The Nostalgia Critic at Wikiquote