Nostalgia Critic
Genre
Created byDoug Walker
Developed byDoug Walker
Rob Walker
Written byDoug Walker
Rob Walker
Directed byDoug Walker
Starring
  • Doug Walker (2007–present)
  • Rachel Tietz (2012–14)
  • Malcolm Ray (2012–present)
  • Tamara Chambers (2014–present)
  • Rob Walker (2007–present)
  • Jim Jarosz (2012–present)
  • Walter Banasiak (2016–present)
  • Heather Reusz (2016–present)
  • Aiyanna Wade (2016–present)
Theme music composerMichael "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 originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons17
No. of episodes665
Production
Executive producerMichael Michaud
ProducerDoug Walker
Production locationsDowners Grove, Illinois (2007–12; 2020–21)
Lombard, Illinois
(2013–2020; 2021–present)
EditorDoug Walker
Camera setupSingle-camera
Running timeVarious (avg. 15–30 minutes)
Production companyChannel Awesome
Original release
Network
ReleaseJuly 3, 2007 (2007-07-03) –
present

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.

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 called "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

  • Doug Walker: The Nostalgia Critic, an aggressive, childish 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.
  • 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), 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, most notably as the Devil in some of the sketches.
  • Rachel Tietz: Rachel is friend of the Critic's and Malcolm on the show. She portrays multiple characters, including Evilina and Rita Repulsa. She left the show after season six, 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 a recurring character called Hyper Fangirl.
  • 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 and Malcolm 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.

(Note: All of the cast members play fictionalized versions of their real counterparts as well as other characters during sketches.) (Note 2: The series has also featured guest stars Dante Basco, Don Bluth, Kyle Hebert, JonTron, Maurice LaMarche, Rob Paulsen, 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

The 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 content host Blip in 2009 resulted in them being featured on YouTube once more.[7][8]

Nostalgia Critic creator and star Doug Walker at ConnectiCon in 2012

The announcement of a spin-off, called The Nostalgia Chick, was created in "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 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, as he and his brother felt that they had gone as far as they could with the series. Walker then focused his efforts on another web series called Demo Reel, but on January 22, 2013, Walker released a sketch short film titled "The Review Must Go On", announcing the return of the Nostalgia Critic; Malcolm Ray and Rachel Tietz of Demo Reel joined the series as side characters.[11] On December 30, 2015, Nostalgia Critic aired its 300th episode, a review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. On October 10, 2018, Nostalgia Critic aired its 400th episode, a countdown of the top 11 Stephen King movies. On October 14, 2020, it aired its 500th episode, a review of The Stand. On November 9, 2022, the series aired its 600th episode, a review of Anastasia.

Episode format

The 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 re-enacted comedically by Walker, his family and other Channel Awesome contributors.

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]

Reception

Nostalgia Critic received a positive response with many praising the humor, characters, and Doug Walker's performance. Greg Weisman, producer of Gargoyles, stated that he enjoyed the Critic's review of the show.[15] Roger Ebert called the episode "A Tribute to Siskel and Ebert" "the best, funniest video about Siskel & Ebert I've ever seen".[16] Walker later stated in his editorial titled "Farewell to Roger Ebert" that he has since had the quote framed and hung up on his wall, and in "The Making of a Nostalgia Critic Episode", it can be seen on his desk.[17] Animation writer Paul Dini also thanked the Critic for his episode "The Top 11 Batman: The Animated Series Episodes".[18] Seth Kearsley, director of Eight Crazy Nights, praised the Critic's review of the movie on his Twitter account.[19] 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. Both Bill Farmer, the voice of Goofy,[20] and Jason Marsden, the voice of Max, praised Channel Awesome after watching the Critic's editorial, Is Goofy Secretly Badass?[21] On August 27, 2017, the Critic did a crossover with fellow Channel Awesome critic, Nash Bozard. For Here There Be Dragons, Bozard's review series about fantasy films and adaptations, the Nostalgia Critic and Nash reviewed the short-lived Syfy series The Dresden Files.[22] In 2019, Walker released a music video review of Pink Floyd – The Wall, accompanied by a standalone album, titled The Wall – Nostalgia Critic, featuring Corey Taylor and Rob Scallon. This received overwhelmingly poor reviews from critics and viewers.[23][24] In 2022, Walker released a review of the film Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. This review was praised on Twitter by Mark DeCarlo, the voice of Hugh Neutron in both the film, and TV series.[25]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Schiciano, Michael "Skitch" (May 13, 2013). "The Review Must Go On (Nostalgia Critic Theme)". Bandcamp.
  2. ↑ Roettgers, Janko (July 21, 2015). "Maker Studios Is Shutting Down Blip Next Month". Variety. Retrieved April 26, 2021.
  3. ↑ "Bangarang - Nostalgia Critic". Vimeo. November 14, 2017. Retrieved June 26, 2023.
  4. ↑ "Black Cauldron - Nostalgia Critic". Vimeo. January 29, 2019. Retrieved June 26, 2023.
  5. ↑ "The Review Must Go On". That Guy with the Glasses. Archived from the original on January 27, 2013. Retrieved January 22, 2013.
  6. ↑ "Nostalgia Critic (TV Series 2007– )" – via www.imdb.com.
  7. ↑ Pickard, Anna (November 19, 2007). "The five-second movies and why you should watch them". The Guardian. London. Retrieved December 9, 2008.
  8. ↑ 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.
  9. 1 2 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)
  10. ↑ 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.
  11. ↑ Pickett, Leah (November 21, 2013). "Get to know the man behind 'Nostalgia Critic'". WBEZ Chicago. Retrieved March 19, 2021.
  12. ↑ 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.
  13. ↑ "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.
  14. ↑ Dunne, Susan (January 28, 2011). "U-Con at UConn is for the Nerds". The Hartford Courant. Retrieved October 20, 2013.
  15. ↑ "Search Ask Greg : Gargoyles : Station Eight". S8.org. Retrieved October 20, 2013.
  16. ↑ Ebert, Roger [@ebertchicago] (November 4, 2010). "The best, funniest video about Siskel & Ebert I've ever seen. http://j.mp/kpxx8 From Nostalgia Critic http://j.mp/1z4pVJ" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  17. ↑ Walker, Doug (August 11, 2010). "Animaniacs Tribute". Nostalgia Critic Animaniacs Tribute. Archived from the original on August 15, 2010.
  18. ↑ Dini, Paul [@Paul_Dini] (August 17, 2011). "Thanks both to @TGWTG for his nice words about B:TAS and to everyone who pointed me to his list. I miss that show" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  19. ↑ Kearsley, Seth [@SethKearsley] (June 17, 2014). "Hilarious. 8 Crazy Nights - Nostalgia Critic: via @YouTube" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  20. ↑ Farmer, Bill [@GoofyBill] (March 4, 2016). "@ChannelAwesome I've been voicing Goofy for nearly 30 years & I totally loved your video on Goofy! Very fresh & fun!" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  21. ↑ Mars-mas, Jason [@JasonMarsden] (March 3, 2016). "Yup that's my pop! @GoofyBill" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  22. ↑ Butcher, Jim [@longshotauthor] (August 23, 2017). "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ICANTSTOPLAUGHINGHAHAHAHAHAH" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  23. ↑ Lozada, Leslie (October 6, 2019). "The odd review of Nostalgia Critic's The Wall". Medium. Retrieved July 17, 2022.
  24. ↑ Fantano, Anthony. "Doug Walker - Nostalgia Critic's The Wall". The Needle Drop. Retrieved July 17, 2022.
  25. ↑ "It seems Neutron is making a lot of waves these days & its especially exciting 2 see the bigger youtubers talking about it 2! Makes one hopeful for a #JimmyNeutronRevival & if nothing else shows how loved the franchise really is all around! Thx NC 4 checking out this masterpiece!". Twitter. Retrieved March 20, 2023.

Notes

  1. ↑ From November 14, 2017 (Bangarang (2017))[3] to January 29, 2019 (The Black Cauldron).[4]

    Quotations related to The Nostalgia Critic at Wikiquote

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