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Awesome / The Spoony Experiment

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For Spoony's Counter Monkey series, go here.


  • The trailer for his Let's Play of Terror TRAX: Track of the Vampire. "Van Helsing. Buffy. Anita Blake. They're all his bitches."
  • The final video of Spoony's SWAT 4 playthrough. Not only does he finish the hardest level in the game in his first playthrough , but his AI subordinates actually show some competence for once: one even manages a headshot with a shotgun at long range. Hell, it's more a crowning moment of awesome for the AI companions than him.
    • The synchronized kills as his two AI companions drop two terrorists the second they point their gun at him was a particular highlight.
  • Not a crowning moment for himself, but for Squall at the end of his Final Fantasy VIII review. After talking endlessly on how ridiculous the Gunblade's design is, after Squall impales him he asks him to at least tell him what the "gun" part of the Gunblade does. Squall answers by pulling the trigger, firing Spoony off the length of the blade and into a wall.
    • Even better: After witnessing a gunblade's power firsthand, he begins using one himself against foes like Tidus, The Guardian, and even the Highlander: Last of the MacLeods!
    • Alas, it's been broken at the end of his Final Fantasy XIII review. Although it remains to be seen if it will be repaired or not, as it has become somewhat of his signature weapon by now, like Linkara's Magic Gun, the Nostalgia Critic's pistol, or The Angry Video Game Nerd's NES Blaster Bazooka.
  • Winning the Mashable Open Web Award for funniest person to follow, cause that's pretty badass for a guy who receives his entire budget from some ads and mostly donations, and has no hype machine beyond his fanbase backing him. Maybe this is a joint CMoA, for both his fans and for him.
  • Editing himself into The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring as Gandalf and taking down the Balrog with an AK-47, a phaser, and a grenade launcher. "All right, time to bust out the Flame of Anor. Enjoy the fireworks!"
  • The ending of Part 3 of the Final Fantasy X review. Those are damn near cinematic production values there.
    • Could've had something to do with 'Constantine' playing in the background, still awesome though.
  • Calling out Spike Games after they dismissed his review of the Deadliest Warrior game as deluded, and argued the game would have been better if they had a bigger budget. Spoony rubbished their claims about the budget by pointing out that Spike Games is a subsidiary of Spike TV, so it was hardly like they were a no-budget indie studio, and that if you get a small budget then the smart thing is to make the most of it rather make a cheap cash-in, so that you would receive a larger budget for your next title.
  • Doing the Back to the Future poster poses next to a Delorean at PAX Prime.
    • Especially since he took the time to pop into a convenience store and buy a cheap wristwatch before he posed for the photos. While many people at PAX used the car for a photo op, he was (according to the car's owners) the only one to actually bother with props.
  • Nick's animated intro seen in the Wendy's training video riff, stuffed to the brim with callbacks to various projects and clearly a huge labor of love.
  • The rampage at the end of Strike Commando is really awesome feeling like a Narmtacular 80's B Movie rampage complete with Awesome Music and Reb's signature scream dubbed BY A FREAKING T-REX!
  • Kicking Film Brain's ass through the camera because he was reviewing Hudson Hawk, when Spoony had previously said he was going to review the film and game nine months earlier, culminating in Spoony smashing a chair into the camera/Buck's face.
  • Accomplishing what neither The Angry Video Game Nerd nor his tech-support pal could—managing to get a Jaguar CD to work for his review of Highlander: Last Of The MacLeods, and actually being able to finish the game and obtain all the footage he needed right before the system permanently broke down. The Gods Of Reviewing were certainly smiling down upon him that day.
  • With his vlog "Health Update" he gets quite a few retroactive ones. All that wearing heavy costumes under hot lights, dragging around his filming equipment and trying to fix up his greenscreen setup, and all of Kickassia? He did all of it while suffering from a serious heart problem that could kill him (or at least make him feel like he's dying as he passes out) if he does too much strenuous activity.
    • It wasn't just any hot light—it was a freakin' Tungsten. For that alone, he gets major props.
  • After reviewing Highlander: The Source, Spoony outright declares that the film did more harm to his childhood memories than Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, and punches the DVD case for The Source with the case for The Phantom Menace. After a beat, he looks at that DVD case, declares "Fuck you too!" and punches that out of the air, picks up his copy of "Highlander 2: The Dick Kickening" and cuts to the scene of John C McGinley's character screaming in agony. The shot then cuts back to Spoony, who spots his Jaguar CD with Highlander: Last Of The MacLeods resting on top, prompting Spoony to grab his Gunblade & scream "There can be only one!" and decapitate the game. He then poses, expecting a Quickening to occur. It doesn't.
    • Before that, him absolutely exploding that the "Source" was just granting an immortal the ability to father a child, and that it's acquired by McCloud passing a Sheathe Your Sword test - making a franchise already on slippery slope of Sequelitis into the exact opposite of the "There Can Only Be One" battle of the original, and even worse making the deaths of the series' Ensemble Darkhorses completely meaningless. He proceeds to further chew out the movie for screwing over the series' core principles and accusing the creators of the movie of having a "burning, seething contempt" towards the series and its fans.
  • The Deadliest Character showdown between Mechagodzilla from the Godzilla films and the original Megazord. Everyone (be it the fellow Channel Awesome regulars or those watching it online) were wowed by the animation that was used for this battle when the episode premiered at the 2010 charity drive.
    • For that matter, getting both Power Rangers fan Linkara and Godzilla fan James Rolfe to act as the guest experts, especially when Spoony has had disagreements with Rolfe in the past.
    • And what could possibly be cool enough to follow this up in the next episode? THE BORG VS. THE DALEKS!
  • Spoony as the Nostalgia Critic. It's kind of scary.
    • Similarly, his impersonation of The Cinema Snob. He gets it down to the reactions.
  • The final battle against Black Lantern Spoony, and how he is "defeated."
    • Plus, he managed to Outrun the Fireball this time
    • Let's not forget just before that when Tidus shows up, and starts trash talking. Spoony grins at the camera remarking that "Sometimes, life's good to me", before picking up his Gunblade & loading it with bullets. All the while, Tidus is still talking, saying that he's not going to use his sword; but the most destructive force in Spira, a Blitzball. Which Spoony then punctures before Tidus can use it, before attacking Tidus and screaming about how he hates Final Fantasy X.
  • During the 2010 charity drive, everyone was asked to name their choice for the greatest animated film of all time. The choice of Spoony, who's stated a few times that he doesn't care that much for anime, even the good ones? Grave of the Fireflies.
    • Similarly, during a Doctor Who-related discussion on LordKaT's stream (which was obviously meant to antagonize Spoony, as he hates the show), Linkara jokingly asked Spoony who his favorite Doctor was; without missing a beat, he replied, "Rowan Atkinson."
  • Spoony's long talk about how iMPACT! disgusted him due to utilizing Kurt and Karen Angle's children as fodder for storylines really hit home as an awesome moment: regardless of what you think of Spoony's behaviour to his fans, you do not fuck with children on Spoony's watch.
  • He delivers the ultimate Take That! to Avatar, illustrating how cheesy '80s action movie Mercenary Fighter matches the plot beat for beat.
  • Spoony appropriating Linkara's "I am a man!" and doing a Groin Attack on a Headless.
    Now me on the other hand... I fight like a dirty bastard.
  • Any time he has to go to a location an exert any large amounts of physical effort could be included thanks to his heart condition that can reduce him to a pale dying mess on the floor. In particular he not only had to deal with that, but injured his back while handling his equipment in E3 2011, which he managed to stave off until he returned home and relaxed, which his back took as an opportunity to immediately seize up and force him to go to the hospital to get it treated. This isn't the first time Spoony has shrugged off a major injury until it simply refused to be ignored, but it sorta speaks to his Determinator style that he keeps it from interfering with his work until he simply has no other choice but to get it taken care of.
  • In his Lords of Magick review, his argument that—no matter how bad and low budget that film is—it still presents a more believable and well-plotted example of a character being corrupted by evil than the Star Wars prequels.
  • Playing Final Fantasy X2 with one hand and reading A Dance with Dragons with the other. For proper context, the video went up just a week after the book was released.
  • Flipping eleven coasters. Sure, Sad Panda soon blows his record away, but since the most their guide had ever seen successfully flipped was six, it's quite impressive from an American who'd never heard of the game before.
  • The fact that his Vlog of Breaking Dawn actually manages to be longer than the actual movie, and far more entertaining and intelligent. While he's drunk off his ass.
  • His vlog about Channel Awesome's trip to Washington DC includes a story of Spoony scared out of his mind filming Angry Joe as Corporate Commander, on the steps of the US Capitol, all while a sniper on the roof is keeping an eye on them.
  • And of course, his triumphant return to reviews in the Skullduggery review.
  • The masterful editing job in the Ultima VIII review, perfectly laying a montage of exploding treasure chests onto the 1812 Overture.
    • Hell, reviewing the entire series just so people who've never played the games and watch his show can understand how bad Ultima IX is, and they'll have the context for the fall of the series.
  • When Spoony finally finishes reviewing Final Fantasy X-2, not only does he get attacked by Yuna but he gets saved by none other then Sephiroth, who then hands him Final Fantasy XIII.
    Sephiroth: Just wanted to say... Love your work.
  • One for both Spoony and X-2: Spoony finding one good thing about the game by acknowledging that the "A Thousand Words" cutscene was "actually really good" considering how much he tore apart the opening song of the game and "Eyes On Me."
    • For better context, he prepared himself for the concert, thinking it would be as bad as the opening theme and was already riffing on it by editing in lightning bolts.
    • And he ends it by saying he never wants people complaining about how he never says anything positive again.
  • The new show opening, premiering in the Tekken: Blood Vengeance review. The animation is pretty damn amazing.
    • From the new opening has Spoony using a new weapon, the "Oreo Cannon". Badass Adorable personified, anyone?
  • Someone took Spoony's infamous "Betrayal" rant (regarding the X-Com reboot) and made a song around it. Watch it here.
    • Spoony himself found the video so amusing and creative that he tweeted the song's link to his followers.
      • And then using it in the opening of the second part of the Ultima IX review.
  • His review of Ultima IX had him tearing into the game and even had a Counter Gag, counting the numbers of plot holes and inconsistencies or "Betrayals" the game had. It ended up at 93 by the end of the first part. What's really funny is that the last 40 in the first video were done in less then ten minutes. He stopped this in part two, but mostly because 1) it was getting annoying and 2) he realized that he can't judge all "betrayals" equally. However, he does point out that it went high in those first twenty minutes of playing the game, and he gathered clips to replace the counter.
    • The repeated gag of the Avatar asking "What's a paladin?" spawned a flurry of similar jokes ("Linkara: What's a comic book?"; "Say, Spock, what's a Vulcan?") on Twitter, causing "WhatsAPaladin" to trend in the U.S. for the next two days.
    • The detailed account of What Could Have Been to ensure we fully understand how pissed off the game makes him.
  • Calling out Richard Garriott over the repeated instances in the Ultima series of the Avatar being forced into killing children. Despite his usual schtick of playing up his anger about everything, it's clear that he's genuinely offended and disgusted by it.
  • At the end of the Ultima IX review, Spoony pulls out his new Anti-magic Gun, figuring it would be quite effective against the Guardian. In response, the Guardian gives him three options - destroy the Black Gate, eventually driving away his friends and fans; embrace madness and end humanity's suffering through death; or go through the Black Gate and become one with the Guardian, their combined power making any world theirs for the taking. Spoony casually rejects the offer.
    Guardian: But I think we all know how this ends, don't we, Avatar?
    Guardian: ...What?
    Guardian: What are you dribbling about?
    Spoony: Well, my friend... That's a Paladin. (Dramatic Gun Cock, BLAM)
    • Oh my yes. Even at his lowest, even after being betrayed by his favorite series, he still remembers what the game has forgotten.
    • Even the music for the ending credits is awesomely appropriate: "The Thing I Hate" by Stabbing Westward whose main chrous lyric is the very much appropriate "I won't become the thing I hate!"
    • A little earlier, Spoony describes how the Ultima games affected his life. Not only does this underscore his bitterness towards Ultima's downfall, it provides arguments against everyone who claims that video games are worthless. He learned to read, and at an advanced level, from the text of the games. They had deep, moving storylines that affected his tastes in fiction. Finally, they helped him build a relationship with his much older brother, and his biggest memory of his brother is playing Ultima with him. It's a perfect representation of what video games can do, and underscores how big a betrayal Ultima IX was.
  • ConBravo 2012 - D20 Live: Tandem Returns
  • At the end of his crossover review of Transformers 3 with Brad Jones, he makes one last ditch effort to reason with the It's Not Supposed to Win Oscars crowd, that this movie could have been so much better, even as a simple summer blockbuster where shit gets blown up, if the story was more stream-lined, more focused on the Autobots, there was no pointless characters and sub-plots, offensive stereotypes, etc.
  • Having an item in Torchlight II named after him. Videogame Immortality achieved!
  • The vlogs on Paranormal Activity 4 and Sinister, which are more a video essay on how horror films work, and why jump scares can't carry one.
    • Note that he says that jump scares are not in and of themselves bad, and are indeed effective in carrying fear and horror when they're few and are built up enough to make them worth it, but they become the lowest form of horror if they're too numerous.
  • His rant in the Skyfall vlog against the compulsion to remake old classics when they could just release them as-is into theatres. While his angrish on the subject is rather amusing, the whole thing is one big good point, especially since they could make money without having spend money to make a new film to cash in on the old film's popularity.
  • Spoony ranting about how Final Fantasy XIII consistently fails at even the most basic level of storytelling is always a delight to watch. Part II of his review starts off with ten minutes about how the game fails to explain anything about the world, character motivations, or backstories. And even when he checks into the Walls of Text of the in-game wiki, what he's looking for is still not explained. While Spoony admits that he nitpicks the hell out of the game, Final Fantasy XIII is a video game and shouldn't have to make the player read supplemental material to understand what's going on. In Part 3, Spoony outright calls the writing so bad, it becomes the main enemy of the game by having the characters constantly pointing out one of the main flaws in the story.
    "Hey, shithead! [...] Fuck you! [...] You got my mom killed, you gungho cockbrain! You grin like an asshole and for fuck's sake, brush that fucking hair off from between your fucking eyes, you slimy little jizzbucket! Fuck you! *flips a double bird*"
  • His Ultima Retrospective Youtube playlist was shared by Richard Garriott himself! See Here.
  • Spoony, after seeing the twist in Night Claws and being cheated out of what to him sounded to be one of the most Crazy Is Cool ideas in movie history, rips into the every single moment right after the "betrayal", including how the Sasquatch scientist was really a bounty hunter the entire time and Frank Stallone's one and only scene, then proceeds to call it the worst Reb Brown movie ever.
  • In the Prometheus vlog, he and Miles give articulate arguments as to why, in their opinions, the movie is not as intelligent as it thinks it is.
  • Pointing out, during his Final Fantasy XIII review, that Lightning is quite happy to leave an entire town to die of starvation by cutting off their food supply (though Hope does thankfully talk her out of it); and that the PSICOM soldiers that the player mows down by the platoon are actually heroic as they're just trying to protect the populace from the L'Cie, who they've been told are terrorists.
  • His Iron Man 3 Vlog has him pointing out in an angry state about how offensive it is in his opinion that the Extremis soldiers are war veterans that lost their limbs and are fighting America because of that.
  • Spoony ending his review of Final Fantasy XIII not with riffing on the ending or even the final boss, but losing it when he comes across a talking fal'Cie, prompting him to rip apart why it causes the entire plot to collapse in on itself.
    • The review actually continues, in which the game makes even less sense, as the protagonists continue to try and defeat the main villain, which said villain has explicitly and repeatedly told them WILL DESTROY THE WORLD THEY LIVE IN, which is what he wants, as the ensuing cataclysm will reunite him with some unseen, unexplained Maker. Despite a lot of blatant exposition, the heroes are still constantly confused by the villain's motivations, and never do the one thing that could thwart the villain's plans and solve the entire situation, which is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, even though some of them explicitly suggest this.
    • The insane plot culminates during the final battle when the heroes' L'Cie brands cause them to become crystal-zombies, only for them to have an offscreen Unexplained Recovery due to The Power of Friendship, which Spoony calls bullshit on in a manner reminiscent to his Highlander: The Source review.
    Spoony: Fuck you! Fuck you, game! You don't get to do this! You don't get to hang the fucking Sword of Damocles over the protagonists' heads, the main fear that's been driving them onward since the beginning of the fucking game, you don't get to do that, and then just Hand Wave it away by jerking off a brony and jizzing friendship sparkles all over it! This is such schmaltzy, lazily written, saccharine, childish, Pollyanna bullshit, I'm amazed I didn't get diabetes just watching it! Yeah, it all comes down to love and friendship. And you know what, I'm sure love and friendship can overcome the L'Cie curse and bring someone back. And y'know, all those other people who became L'Cie, who left behind friends, and children, and husbands, and families, y'know what? Fuck it. I guess those people just didn't want it bad enough!
  • His entire brawl against Snow, who presents the greatest and least funny challenge Spoony has faced yet for his mandatory end-of-Final Fantasy-review fight, and the first time Spoony has personally and legitimately KILLED his opponent. With his bare hands, no less.
  • Right after looking that the video for the Wrestlemania VCR game and seeing that the video consists of nothing but random clips with text describing points, he states, despite his early surprise with the game getting the most votes, that he understood that people voted for it because they wanted to see hammy acting. Most likely from Hulk Hogan. The video fails to even deliver on that, and that the other VCR board games have higher production values than the video did, and in fact his own videos have higher production values and proceeds to make clips in the style the video did to show how cheap they are. He points out that that the title in fact lies as most of the clips aren't even from a Wrestlemania, and the ones that are from Wrestlemania are from Wrestlemania IV, which is regarded as one the weakest of the series, and clips from the same match aren't shown in right order, so a person would like to watch the video for the clips can't even do that.
    • Let's admit it, Spoony impersonating all four wrestlers flawlessly was a pretty damn awesome display of acting.
  • Actually coming up with 20 minutes of entertaining material out of the mind-numbingly boring game VCR Golf.
  • SWAT 4 Mission #15 is one long, brutal (and still hilarious) Take That! to Russia's shockingly homophobic laws that have had the spotlight thrust on them thanks to the Olympics.
  • Richard Garriot actually meeting him in person and saying he not only loves his videos, but actually appreciates the criticism that Spoony has dished out over the years.
    • And then Richard Garriot goes along with a skit video of Avatar!Spoony testing out the Lord British Postulate on Lord British himself! How awesome is that?!
  • His WrestleWrestle Vlog on TNA Impact's 8-26-10 episode, his summation of Orlando Jordan's character and gimmick, he's Depraved Bisexual that sexually assaults anybody he sees. His summation is accompanied with him sarcastically commenting that's exactly what bisexuals, coupled with his clear disgust, speak for itself so well he barely even needs to say anymore.
  • The final chapter of his Final Fantasy XIII review series. He endures a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from Snow, who beats Spoony to a bloody pulp and even snaps his gunblade in two. Spoony is able to push through this before using some Atmosfear boardgames to counteract Snow's gravity-coat derived Super-Strength and rip Snow's throat out. It's one of the most brutal and bloody fight-scenes to ever be featured in the story segments of an internet review show.
    • A bit earlier, he looks straight at the camera and says with dead seriousness that this is the worst-written game he's ever played. For the full impact of this, recall his thoughts on Ultima IX.
    • The opening of the XIII review has him holding VIII, and saying "I'm sorry." Although it is partly due to XIII being that much worse in his opinion, he does look back a bit better at VIII these days, and he does apologise for his more controversial jokes from the review.
  • His commentary of of the Final Fantasy X criticizing how pathetic a fight Yu Yevon is, and he points out the in-universe justifications most fans of the game give for why the fight is so easy, to which he points out if Yu Yevon being pathetic was the point then it would have made killing in a cutscene to make more sense than having boss fight.
  • On the Final Fantasy XIII commentary, he goes into how he actually had to improve the editing of some of the cutscenes, putting in more reaction shots and such so that they wouldn't slow the videos down too much, or result in awkward split-second glimpses of the next shot before cutting back to him.
  • While watching the Miami Vice episode where Reb Brown played the villain, Spoony gets despondent when Reb goes up against Tubbs, sure that he's about to see his hero die again. Instead, Reb turns out to be wearing body armor, and is barely affected by several bullets before shooting Tubbs in the head, albeit non-fatally. And when he does finally die, it's a Dying Moment of Awesome that almost takes Crockett with him.
    • And the dinosaur roar from Duel is added when we see the replay.
  • Spoony's disgust at how shameless the fanservice the character creator for Final Fantasy 14 is... especially when some of the fanservice involves children.
  • When reminiscing about The Ultimate Warrior, he brings up how his title match with Hulk Hogan is his all-time favorite match, even though he admits the match itself wasn't very good, he likes for the fact that it's one of the few clean losses Hulk Hogan had in that era, fully admitting that his preference for the match is just personal taste and little else.
  • His amazing Black Knight costume from Ultima: Runes of Virtue.
    • Speaking of The Black Knight, credit where it's due. He's one of the few villains to get one over on Spoony.
  • His review of the Commodore 64 version of Big Trouble in Little China could be considered a tribute to the movie itself, which he clearly shows a lot of love for, as it's filled with many references to it. One could even end up checking it out thanks to him.
  • The sheer amount of Shown Their Work he did in his latest "Black Hole of Board Games."
  • After catching flak on the internets (as usual) for calling the return of (The Man Called) Sting to the WWE a terrible debut and really, really bad idea, Spoony gives his haters an entire You Can't Handle the Parody.
    "Son, we've got a wrestling product that sucks balls, and these balls need to be kicked by men with standards. Who's gonna do it? You? You mouthbreathing Youtube commenters? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Dolph Ziggler, and you curse the Cenation. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That burying Ziggler, while tragic, probably saves pay-per-view buys. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves buys! You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at Xbox Live parties, you want me on that vlog! You need me on that vlog! We use words like 'Kayfabe,' 'Mark,' 'Workrate'. We use these words as the backbone of a childhood spent loving wrestling. You use them as a punchline! I have neither the time or the inclination to explain myself to a mob who rises and sleeps demanding to know my every opinion on every goddamn thing in the world, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just say 'Thank you', and click on an ad along the way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a camera, and make a blogpost! Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to!"
  • Doctor Insano gets one during the Massacre At Central High Review, in which he successfully divides by zero to teleport Spoony back from wherever he was taken to.
  • In his Avengers: Age of Ultron review, Spoony and April both give Tony a serious What the Hell, Hero? speech for the entire movie being his fault.
  • In Spoony and April's review of WrestleMania 32, Spoony calls out the insane risk that Shane McMahon took in diving off the top of the cage onto the Spanish announce table. Besides just being amazed that Shane pulled it off at all, Spoony gives a What the Hell, Hero? speech, saying the spot was insane when Mick Foley did it in 1998, only now it was even more risky because the cage was even taller. Spoony gets especially mad on how Shane did this in front of his kids, and that if he had missed, Shane would be crippled at best. He also says that the fact the move went off without a hitch is no excuse for planning it in the first place.

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