History TheNostalgiaCritic / TropesOToS

* RealityEnsues
** When the Critic points out that the protagonists of ''Film/BioDome'' are moronic losers with no jobs and really shouldn't have a nice house and hot girlfriends like they do in the movie, [[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall '90s Kid]] shows up to inform him that that kind of thing happened all the time in the '90s. However, he's interrupted when his landlord shows up with an eviction notice. And a battering ram. [[ThisIsGonnaSuck And a sawed-off shotgun]].
** His phone conversation with the director for ''My Pet Monster'', which started with him calling the director to ask why he would make such a stupid movie, and the conversation turns to him trying to explain that he watches old movies to point out their shortcomings ("It's kind of my job."), and ends in depression which inspires the next episode where he eats junk food and watches old commercials.
** PlayedForLaughs in the ''WesternAnimation/HeavyMetal'' crossover, as, taking a cue from a girl's horniness after her father is killed, Diamanda kills another girl's dad to see if said girl will sleep with her, and gets punched instead.
** Also in ''Princess Diaries 2'', from another angle, Hyper is really disappointed to learn that Critic had never fallen in love with her at all, he just had StockholmSyndrome because she distracted him with things that would pander to his inner ManChild.
** In the beginning of ''Film/BridgeToTerabithia'', he reveals that all the {{groin attack}}s he's suffered over the years has made that area not function as well as it should.
** Despite the un-reality of Zod being castrated by Superman (in ''Film/ManOfSteel'' review), he still doesn't magically heal up, and more than a year later it's destroyed enough to make his porn co-star scream in horror.

** In the ''Princess Diaries 2'' review, Critic is willing to give it up to Hyper Fangirl because she's made him think they have a lot of the same media likes in common. That completely blows up when it turns out she's faking it, but they really are NotSoDifferent. Hyper Fangirl's choice to stalk Critic was shot like a ''Review Must Go On'' parallel, '[[AlterEgoActing Tamara]]' was as frustrated with her as Doug is with Reboot Critic, and Critic admits in his ''Uncanny Valley'' review that his own creeping into a person's bedroom ended badly.

* ShipTease: First with the [[FoeYay Nerd]], and then with WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick, Spoony and Linkara, followed by most other producers. He's not the [[LauncherOfAThousandShips Fandom Pony]] for nothing, y'know.

** Malcolm/Tamara (the characters) had a lot of it in ''Disney Afternoon'', mostly from her side as he's too busy being in pain, but when she's getting abused by Critic he also shows plenty of sympathy.
** Even when Malcolm and Tamara are warped in ''WesternAnimation/FoodFight'' to enable Critic and find things that'll get him money, at the end they're still more interested in {{squee}}ing over cute kids together, which leads into Critic's Selina “oh wait I'm not married” impersonation.

** In the ''WebVideo/SharkJumping'' crossover of ''Series/{{Glee}}'', Beth and Critic look pretty intensely into each other during the duet about hating jukebox musicals.
** The ''Cinderella Old vs New'' episode gives the impression that either Benny's into Hyper and she hasn't noticed, or they had a thing but it meant nothing to her.
** Critic/Tamara again in ''Film/AlvinAndTheChipmunks'', as she's wearing his tie for no reason, and they get the closest in their dancing at the end of the review.
** As with most of their crossovers, Snob/Critic get going pretty early on in ''Dear Santa'', with Critic empathizing with Snob's also abusive childhood and Snob flirting that he never gets off easy. Plus they tell the gay best friend parody (who literally calls them "lover boys") that they're doing fine and don't need break up advice. In the bloopers, when Snob mentions the abusive wooden spoon indentions on his ass, Critic takes a look.

** Hyper's Q and A vlog has her change her "how much does Critic charge for a kiss" answer from "take it!" to "ask first", giving the implication that he kisses her when she asks him to.
** Malcolm created the Benny/Critic ship by saying at a con Benny has similar to Hyper feelings for Critic, Critic at least likes/trusts him better and Benny smiles at Critic during the Hyper Boner wedding.

* SequelHook: Devil Boner put an engagement ring on Hyper's finger at the end of ''Film/GreenLantern.'' The payoff occurred five months later when they get married in the '[[Film/AlvinAndTheChipmunks Chipwrecked]]'' review.

** Unfortunately, in 2020, Doug and his crew had no choice but to shoot in their house in the wake of UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, resulting in them unable to make full skits and no recreation of certain movie scenes, which is basically like his episodes after 2010 (but before 2013).
** The unexpected retool due to the pandemic would be lifted in August 5th, 2021 for the review of one of the most notorious movies in the recent memory ''Cats.''

** His review of ''Film/DungeonsAndDragons'' starts with him saying that this is probably one of the worst movies ever, which is exactly why it's one of the ''best'' movies ever and why people need to see it.

* SpecialEffectsFailure: The Critic points it out in-universe in the ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfZelda'' show, ''Film/RedSonja'', ''WesternAnimation/CaptainNTheGameMaster'', ''Film/MortalKombatAnnihilation'', ''Film/TankGirl'', ''WesternAnimation/RockADoodle'', ''Film/SupermanIVTheQuestForPeace'', ''Film/TheGarbagePailKidsMovie'', ''[[WesternAnimation/PoundPuppies1980s Pound Puppies]]'', ''WesternAnimation/ThePebbleAndThePenguin'', ''Film/ErnestScaredStupid'', ''Film/TheNeverendingStory 3'', ''Film/DungeonsAndDragons'' and the first ''Film/SpiderMan1'' movie. He also insults [[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall Linkara]] for having bad effects as well in the S''uperman IV'' review.

** If he's reviewing a movie that includes a snooty character obsessed with tradition, expect to hear a mocking "most unorthodox" at least a few times.

* PaddleballShot: Accuses ''Film/TheAdventuresOfSharkboyAndLavagirl'' of butchering this trope extensively for [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment next to no reason]].

* PantyShot: The scene from ''WebVideo/SuburbanKnights'' comes up in his review of ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales''. He's rather proud of it.
* ParentalAbandonment: Parodied in the ''Care Bears'' review.
-->''"Don't make me tell your parents, who may or may not exist and I may or may not be keeping you from."''

** In the Chick's ''TLC'' review, he angrily defends living with his mother as her being his world. As she's never come to help when he's been blown up, kidnapped, having a breakdown or any other instances where he's got himself into trouble, it's safe to say she doesn't have the same feeling about him.
** Aunt Despair and Uncle Lies swap between this and AbusiveParents, as aside from the actively shitty stuff they do, in ''Rise Of The Commercials'' the latter lets his daughter play in the snow until she's frozen solid.
*** Aunt Despair literally pawns off Pigtail Baby with Critic at the end of ''Balto'' (who obviously can't take her so gives her to Chester) and floors it with Uncle Lies after her pretense that both the girl's "real parents" died from chokey sex backfires.

** Hyper's wedding and wedding dress vlog make it clear that Uncle Lies/Aunt Despair don't care about her life, but, like Critic with his mom, she takes any scraps of care that she can.

** In her ''Film/JingleAllTheWay'' review, Tamara rants that Arnold is way too obvious for his wife and son to get confused about who he is.

* PetPeeveTrope: [[invoked]]Not up to BerserkButton levels, but he always points out when kidnapped people are far too relaxed in their situation when they should be at least afraid. These comments tend to be {{foreshadowing}} Hyper making an apperance in the next episode so it'd make sense for Critic to be irritated about, but it annoys Doug in his own vlogs too.

* PieInTheFace: He gets one at the end of the Flim/Bloodrayne review, courtesy of Linkara.
* PintSizedPowerhouse: Seriously, what is [[Film/{{Hook}} Tinkerbell]] made out of? The Critic points out that she could have easily solved EVERYTHING in the movie by having her beat the living snot out of Captain Hook at the rest of the pirates.

** In ''Cinderella Old vs New'', Benny gets more upset than he should at Hyper dating Devil Boner, and tries to take her out.
** Real life played for laughs in Doug/Rob’s commentary of The Secret Of NIMH 2, as Doug is playing up the annoying, Rob firmly asks if he actually wants Rob to leave, and Doug immediately goes small and contrite “no”.
* PlotHole: [[invoked]] The Critic has a specialty of pointing out these. So, as lampshaded by Doug in his ''WebVideo/ToBoldlyFlee'' commentary, it was only fitting that he became one himself.
* PoliceAreUseless: Justified for Critic's kidnapping of people, with him at least getting threatened with jail and Rob apparently bailing him out a lot, but played straight with Hyper, who ''might'' have so much money she doesn't have to worry about it, but police never get mentioned with her.
* PoliceBrutality:

** When the police-men in ''Film/TheMatrix'' beat the shit out of Morpheus, Critic points out “not much has changed since 1999”.
** In ''Film/DemolitionMan'', he references all the RL cases of white police men killing black people by saying (when the film police don't hurt Snipes's character) “yeah, this is what every minority wishes the LAPD was like”. Also discussed by Malcolm in the behind the scenes, as he talks about police in other countries giving all the verbal warnings, and police in America having essentially a “shoot first, ask later” policy.

** Subverted with "When Does A Joke Go Too Far". It was very on the side of "people are crybabies and should be offended", but Doug said in a later vlog that he did it intentionally to get meninists on his side and then sweep the rug out of them in ''Film/MadMaxFuryRoad''.
** Avoided in "Does PG Mean Anything Anymore", as he says you can't act like the insane rating system is "world's turned PC", because a politically correct rating system would ''make sense''.
** In the ''Dear Santa'' bloopers, Doug and Brad have a laugh about how they'll be called "typical SJW" for calling out homophobia in the movie.

** Tamara scientist in ''Film/FantasticFour2005'' also puts away a magazine with a sexy cover for safekeeping.
* {{Portmanteau}}: In his ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'' review, he said the movie was "horribafuckus", combining the words horrible and fuck.

* PowerIsSexy: Oh yes. Not just with him craving some of his own, but he was consistently attracted to curvy brunettes who like dominating, and his guy crushes were always confident, self-possessed and usually black.

* PrecisionFStrike: Although NC gave ''Film/LittleMonsters'' a lot of criticism for its use of constant swear words in a kids movie, he gave credit to the "Holy shit!" line that the girl gives when she sees the monster entrance, since it would seem like a legitimate reaction.

* {{Prequel}}: ''Film/ScoobyDoo'' leads right into WebVideo/ToBoldlyFlee, with Critic's self-esteem imploding to the point where he knows he has to take (both suicidal and sensible) action, ContinuityPorn to segway into a love-letter send-off for the character, anomalies already starting to pop up and Critic believing the same thing Turrell does, that he was the reason Psychlo blew up.

** “Is Eyes Wide Shut Artsy Porn” makes for one of the darker editorials, and he announces in the beginning that he wants to look at a couple of {{primal fear}}s he has to segue into the next month's nostalgia-ween.

** “What You Never Knew About About Batman” to ''WesternAnimation/FoodFight'', of a far looser variety. He goes from the former to having a Catwoman-style breakdown at the start of the latter.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1RBkKxU-m0&feature=youtu.be Fuller House]] segues into ''Film/ThePhantomOfTheOpera2004'' review, with the Fandumb pretending to be Critic so he can get Beth into the studio and kidnap her.

** Demo Reel gets a rare not-just-bitter-it-ended reference in "Batman Forever" with praise that it cast a black man as Two Face.

** Hyper (and her complexity) was inspired positively by a {{keet}} fan friend that Doug made, and negatively by the amount of utter boundary breaking bullshit he gets at cons and otherwise.

* PastVictimShowcase: While talent-bended!Critic isn't dead, Shya still grabs him off the floor and presents his EmptyShell-ness to Rachel and Malcolm.

* PowerIsSexy: Oh yes. Not just with him craving some of his own, but he was consistently attracted to curvy brunettes who like dominating, and his guy!crushes were always confident, self-possessed and usually black.

*** Plus it's not explicitly stated, but old!Critic is clearly [[note]]from his shakiness, more quiet personality and inability to remember anything from his childhood[[/note]] suffering from early dementia at this point. So Critic has that to look forward to now.

** The ''AI'' review and commentary had a huge dose of this, as it's not okay for TMZ to mock celebrities, but reboot!Critic does it so much that even Malcolm in the ''Film/ManOfSteel'' behind the scenes video pointed it out, and Doug in-commentary thinks the celebrities ([[UnfortunateImplications including child stars]]) that he mocks are “asking for it”.

** In the Hyper Fangirl vlogs, Tamara and Hyper Fangirl (who is played by RL!Tamara) talk to each other and don't get on, and Doug and Critic co-exist in general; ever since “The Review Must Go On”, their meetings and allusions to each other aren't exactly as sweet as the WebVideo/ToBoldlyFlee talk.
** Some (but not all) sketches or sketch characters are Critic writing them in-universe (like fathers played by him abusing their daughters played by Tamara) or ic!Rachel/Malcolm/Tamara pretending to be other people (like Katara, Sokka or Elsa) to fuck with Critic's head.

** After character!Malcolm's Sokka outfit in “The Top 11 Best Avatar Episodes”, pay attention to 'Sokka' and 'Katara' in ''The Last Airbender'' and how similar they are to character!Malcolm and character!Rachel. Sokka/Malcolm lets Katara/Rachel take the lead and is pretty easy-going, though knows that Critic is an asshole coward. Katara/Rachel gets upset at Critic's behavior, punishes him for it, and has a vengeful streak (see Master Of Disguise) that she blames on Shyamalan but is really just putting Critic in his place.
** [[spoiler: Dr Smith being Critic's father]] oddly makes sense, with kindergarten!Critic drawing his parents as monsters, [[spoiler: Smith]] expressing concern for Critic's drinking in ''It'', and Critic's mix of both affection and disdain for him.

** "Is Tree Of Life Full Of Bullshit" was twitter!criticized by Kyle for this reason, although he deleted the tweet soon afterwards.

** In the ''Princess Diaries 2'' review, Critic is willing to give it up to Hyper Fangirl because she's made him think they have a lot of the same media likes in common. That completely blows up when it turns out she's faking it, but they really are NotSoDifferent. Hyper Fangirl's choice to stalk Critic was shot like a ''Review Must Go On'' parallel, '[[AlterEgoActing Tamara]]' was as frustrated with her as Doug is with Reboot!Critic, and Critic admits in his ''Uncanny Valley'' review that his own creeping into a person's bedroom ended badly.

** Quite reasonably, Clone!Critic tries to bolt in “The Sixth Day” review when That Sci Fi Guy coin-tosses to decide if Critic will be his house slave or present!Critic's SexSlave.

** In ''Film/ThePhantomOfTheOpera2004'', when [[spoiler: Doug!Fandumb and Doug!Crawford]] are singing at each other, Beth says this is the only time she believes the chemistry.

** On top of all the other problems, the "men can't get or don't notice being sexually harassed" message in "Dawn Of The Commercials" doesn't even hold water for reboot!Critic, let alone his prime self, as we've both seen and heard him feel awful about getting groped many times and all genders feeling entitled to him.

** Inverted in ''Film/AfterEarth'', when Malcolm!Will Smith tries to give him a motivational speech about how he has something to live for, but Critic has no time for it, calling him completely unoriginal.

* SocialServicesDoesNotExist: Done to keep the BlackComedy going. You'd think ''somebody'' would come in to give kid!Critic a break, but nope. Not to mention Aunt Despair and Uncle Lies' poor kids.

** Invoked in “Rise Of The Commercials”, where the happy Mentos commercial music plays over boss!Doug getting the shit beaten out of him by Jim, Malcolm and Tamara.

** A lot of the arguments that Joe says in ''Film/ManOfSteel'' are just there for Critic to get the upper hand complaint on. RL!Joe understood this, as he said on [[https://twitter.com/AngryJoeShow/status/405073142172770305 twitter]] that one day he'll give a proper defense. Doug at least realized in the commentary that he had given himself most of the talking and apologized, while Joe let him off but said "If I had free range, I would counterpoint everything you said".

** The Critic was asked to review the recent ''TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles'' movie. He made fun of Splinter's voice, saying he sounded like he'd smoked an entire carton of Marlboros... not knowing his [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender beloved]] [[WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack voice actor]], Creator/{{Mako}}, had [[FunnyAneurysmMoment recently died of throat cancer]]. The fans who were familiar with Mako's work... reacted poorly. Since then, any time Mako has come up in a review, the Critic has made sure to [[HundredPercentAdorationRating only speak of him]] [[LikeAGodToMe with the highest praise]] (including showing [[TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth Mako's head wreathed in light]] with an [[CherubicChoir angelic choir]] singing in the background).

** In his ''Film/MadMaxFuryRoad'' review, RatedMForManly Devil Boner delivers an absolutely vicious one to the Meninists who complain ([[InternetToughGuy only online, of course]]) about how a female lead "ruined" ''Fury Road'', and how women getting more prominent roles in action flicks have them FeelingOppressedByTheirExistence.

--> ’''Critic:''' You're too stupid to even get that joke [he pulls down an evolutionary scale chart. Hyper Fangirl’s going the other way, and under the name Homo moronicus]! On the evolutionary scale, you're the only one that's walking backwards! You're the Surgeon General's warning on every pack of cigarettes [Suddenly he's a cheerleader]! Gimme an I, gimme an H, gimme an A-T-E-U [He’s back to his normal clothing]! IIIIIII HAAAATE YOOOUUUUU!!!!

--> ‘’’Critic:’’’ I HATE YOU! I hate everything about you! If there was a likeability scale between 1 and 10, you'd be negative Pi! You'd be outlawed in 28 states just so people don't have to talk to you again! If they were to make a cologne out of you, it'd be called Essence of Annoying! If cancer got cancer, you'd be the one they would name it after! Knock knock!
--> ‘’’Hyper Fangirl:’’’ (dejected) Who's there?
--> ‘’’Critic:’’’ Nobody! Because nobody would ever want to see you! When people ask monks what the meaning of life is, they'd say stay away from your dumb ass! You're Beethoven's lost symphony, Death to Joy! Would everyone in an orange sweater, brown hair, glasses and a likeable personality please raise their hand?
--> ‘’’Hyper Fangirl:’’’[raises her hand]
--> ‘’’Critic:’’’ You're too stupid to even get that joke [he pulls down an evolutionary scale chart. Hyper Fangirl’s going the other way, and under the name Homo moronicus]! On the evolutionary scale, you're the only one that's walking backwards! You're the Surgeon General's warning on every pack of cigarettes [Suddenly he's a cheerleader]! Gimme an I, gimme an H, gimme an A-T-E-U [He’s back to his normal clothing]! IIIIIII HAAAATE YOOOUUUUU!!!!

—-> ‘’’Critic:’’’ I HATE YOU! I hate everything about you! If there was a likeability scale between 1 and 10, you'd be negative Pi! You'd be outlawed in 28 states just so people don't have to talk to you again! If they were to make a cologne out of you, it'd be called Essence of Annoying! If cancer got cancer, you'd be the one they would name it after! Knock knock!
—-> ‘’’Hyper Fangirl:’’’ (dejected) Who's there?
—-> ‘’’Critic:’’’ Nobody! Because nobody would ever want to see you! When people ask monks what the meaning of life is, they'd say stay away from your dumb ass! You're Beethoven's lost symphony, Death to Joy! Would everyone in an orange sweater, brown hair, glasses and a likeable personality please raise their hand?
—-> ‘’’Hyper Fangirl:’’’[raises her hand]
—-> ‘’’Critic:’’’ You're too stupid to even get that joke [he pulls down an evolutionary scale chart. Hyper Fangirl’s going the other way, and under the name Homo moronicus]! On the evolutionary scale, you're the only one that's walking backwards! You're the Surgeon General's warning on every pack of cigarettes [Suddenly he's a cheerleader]! Gimme an I, gimme an H, gimme an A-T-E-U [He’s back to his normal clothing]! IIIIIII HAAAATE YOOOUUUUU!!!!

** Devil Boner, Benny, and Critic's awful collaborative fanfiction makes more sense and gets a lot funnier when the ending reveals it gave [[spoiler:Kathleen Kennedy]] for [[spoiler:the ''Franchise/StarWars'' sequel trilogy]], and each of their parts represents a different part of the trilogy.

* RevisitingTheRoots: Due to lockdown from COVID pandemic, Nostalgia Critic eventually resorted back to his normal review with barely little skits, which grew back several fans for returning to what made him so famous.

* RevisingTheRoots: Due to lockdown from COVID pandemic, Nostalgia Critic eventually resorted back to his normal review with barely little skits, which grew back several fans for returning to what made him so famous.

* SpringtimeForHitler: The Critic's explanation for why ''Film/HomeAlone3'' was written by John Hughes.