Mike Matei (born 5 October 1980) is an actor, artist, YouTuber, streamer, and a former executive producer of Cinemassacre Productions, owned by his best friend James Rolfe, who he works with on writing, editing, and starring in a multitude of series.
Matei most notably works on Rolfe's famous Internet series The Angry Video Game Nerd, for which he co-writes, plays a variety of characters (Jason Voorhees, The Cowardly Lion, The Joker, Leatherface, Bugs Bunny, a Klingon, Michael Myers, etc.), and illustrated the title cards for Episodes 5-100 as well as 139. Matei was also the one who encouraged Rolfe to upload the first AVGN videos to YouTube and make more of them, since at the time he only wanted to make a trilogy of them. Eventually Rolfe was convinced, and the rest is history.
Matei has also worked on different series of Rolfe's such as Board James, in which he has his own character, the cheating Jerkass Motherfucker Mike. Him and James have their own series, James & Mike Mondays, where they review various types of video games. Matei is the editor for James & Mike Mondays.
Matei also contributes to Rolfe's site, Cinemassacre.com
, with movie and game reviews, such as when Rolfe was away to California to film Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie in 2012.
In 2015, he started playing video games on live streams and uploading them to YouTube. They include Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989), Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (NES), and many others.
He's also known, and rather infamous for, his skit video Minecraft With Gadget, which depicts him and an animated Inspector Gadget playing and reviewing Minecraft. The video has been subject to much Memetic Mutation, which likely comes from SiIvaGunner and OneyPlays' frequent references to it.
In December 2020, Matei left Cinemassacre (though on amicable terms, as he remains friends with James) to focus on his video game streaming.
Tropes associated with him:
- The Cameo: His only appearance in an AVGN video without makeup or a costume is at the very end of Lethal Weapon, in a demonstration of the player character swap mechanic, after which he says the famous line, "I'm getting too old for this shit."
- Determinator: He tends to play
Nintendo Hard NES games on his stream. To date he has beaten them all but it can take hours of trying. Key examples:- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (NES): Time needed to finish exclusively the last stage and get the best ending: 1 hour and 50 minutes.
- Ninja Gaiden 1: Time needed to finish exclusively the stage-6 levels and final boss: Two hours and thirty minutes.
- Bucky O'Hare Hard Mode: Time needed to finish exclusively the boss of the penultimate stage: 2 hours and 30 minutes.
- Ghosts 'n Goblins (Arcade): Time needed to finish exclusively stage 6 in total across three separate streams: 13 hours and 54 minutes!
- Large Ham: His guest appearances on AVGN tend to fall into this category more often than not. The best example of this would probably be his performance as The Joker.
- Man of a Thousand Voices: He does all sorts of accents and voices for each AVGN video he appears in.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Often Red to James' Blue. Out of character, he's a lot more outgoing and vocal than the comparatively shy, introverted James, and his Crazy Is Cool and over-the-top characters are often juxtaposed to the angry but more collected Nerd.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Indeed, and arguably moreso than James. You'd be hard-pressed to find a video of his (or at least with him in it) that doesn't include him swearing.
- Those Two Guys: With James in general, but especially in James & Mike Mondays.
- Vulgar Humor: Pretty much a staple in his works. Aside from AVGN, James & Mike Mondays, and his live streams, a great example of this would be his deleted yet infamous review of The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland.
