Former Web Video film critic, novelist, soldier and part time film producer/voice actor.
Mr. Mendo (Jennifer Mendo Duffman Novelli, though you should really call her Mendo) originally rose to prominence as part of The Agony Booth; it was at her urging that the rarely-updated recap site briefly became a competitor of Channel Awesome, for better or for worse.
Sometimes mistaken for the leader of the site (she was merely the most public member of the editorial staff), she played an early role in the careers of Sursum Ursa and The Film Renegado, as well as discovering Sofie Liv.
Her first taste of viral fame came when she provoked the ire of fans of Repo! The Genetic Opera in a lengthy critique that dubbed the film "4Chan the Musical." According to rumors, mentions of her name would trigger angry responses in Repo! fan forums for years afterwards.
A former soldier, she made good use of her deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. During the former, she wrote a novel entitled Kingdom Rattus (originally a collaboration with KJ Taylor), while in the latter she created her show Mr. Mendo's Hack Attack. She even filmed some of her early videos while still in an active war zone.
At her height, she was known for her frequent guest spots with the likes of Diamanda Hagan and Count Jackula, as well as her ability to get into heated arguments with just about any big name Web Video creator who crossed her path.
Despite years of declaring herself "the internet's strongest man" she came out as a trans woman in 2019.
Following the implosion of the Reviewaverse scene, she's largely stepped back from creating videos to focus on her budding career
as a movie producer. In 2022, the majority of her videos were removed from YouTube as collateral damage from a dispute between Fangoria Magazine and controversial filmmaker Wig Wolf, with whom Mendo is a frequent collaborator.
Hack Attack and other works contain examples of:
- Alternative Character Interpretation: Among others, she's declared that Rotti Largo of Repo! The Genetic Opera is a pedophile and Mary Bailey is the real villain of It's a Wonderful Life.
- Angst Dissonance: In-universe, Mr. Mendo opens a serious question in her Scott Pilgrim vs. The World review with a sarcastic acknowledgement that this movie doesn't speak to him in the way it does a lot of college students since he had to join the army.
- Ashcan Copy: Invoked. The 1966 version of The Hobbit, which, according to Mendo, has something to do with both Pizza Hut and Mikhail Gorbachev...
- Author Appeal: Her film career thus far has involved A LOT of horror/exploitation movies. In terms of Hack Attack, a not insignificant number of films covered have been horror, exploitation, or outright pornography. In addition, there are constant references to rap music, right down to the title of the shownote .
- Similarly, she loved having guests in her reviews. She often said the crossovers were what made it fun.
- Berserk Button: WHITE FEZ!
- Big Fun: Portrays this generally, but turned up to eleven in The Wizard of Oz. Her Wizard is a hard-partying, piano humping machine!
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: Can be seen from behind her shades, which aren't exactly small...
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Among the films that Mendo finds unintentionally funny? The Room (2003), Birdemic, and Cannibal Holocaust!
-
Broken Aesop:Forrest Gump teaches us that one man can make a difference, as long as he never thinks or makes a decision for himself.- Or, on Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: "Do you really buy that this movie is about Scott gaining self-respect, or do you wonder when we were supposed to notice that he had no self-respect, before or after hooking up with three hot chicks and fighting and obliterating six people?"
- Or, on
- Buffy Speak: "But really, that was a good movie, and this film and a good one are as dissimilar as two completely dissimilar things...in a bag."
- From Japanese Hell: "When I think of America, I think of Encino Man. I mean, is there a more patriotic film? It's a movie that shows that no matter what your background is, people will accept you! I mean, sure, it's not perfect, I mean, there are times when you just want to weaz the ju-uice, and they're like, 'Dude, need fundage, bro.' And yes, sometimes we spend a little too much time trying to edge some nug with nice cones to really focus on our problems, but America is a country that would never bag on a bro just 'cause he gets a little crus-ty!"
- From Japanese Hell
- Character Name Alias: Before it became her legal middle name, "Mendo" was a Shout-Out to Mendo Shutaro from Urusei Yatsura. Incidentally, her other names come from Jennifer Walters and Duffman.
- Comical Overreacting: During a review of Antichrist with Diamanda Hagan, both couldn't stop screaming at the various darks forms Groin Attack that happened at the climax.
- Conspiracy Theorist: Parodied. During a sleepover with The Omega, Mendo came to the conclusion that The Last Unicorn was "an elaborate metaphor for a woman's menstrual cycle".
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: When Mendo forwards a bunch of her hate mail to the Film Renegado's site, Renegado forces her to watch Atletico San Pancho. And, when that doesn't work, he starts playing Menudo!
- Cool Shades: The Guccis.
- Dramatic Reading: Of the guidebook to The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants.
- Dreadful Musician: Parodied. Just as Randy Savage proved that anyone can rap, Joshua the Anarchist showed conclusively that this is not the case.
- Even Evil Has Standards: She may eat puppies, but even he feels bad about forcing Fear Fan to watch Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS and Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom about twenty times each.
- Conversely, they determine that, while Salo may be the more disturbing film, it still claims the moral high ground over Ilsa, since at least Salo isn't intended to be titilating.
- Fantastic Drug: From this review:Sursum Ursa: Are you on drugs?(a beat)Mr. Mendo: Define "drugs"?
- Fauxlosophic Narration: Parodied. She took issue with The Beast of Yucca Flats for this, only to have her own narrator suddenly appear.
- Foreshadowing: In the review of The Beast of Yucca Flats, Mendo is shown covering a DVD with a pillow. That DVD? Sailor and the 7 Ballz. Fourteen episodes later...
- Fun with Subtitles: From the review of the Pink Lady movie:Mr. Mendo: No surprise, then, that they got their own motion picture with the catchy title of:Subtitle: ピンク・レディーの活動大写真Mr. Mendo: ...that.
- From the Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie review:
Subtitle: Interracial stegosaurus porn! Make this happen, internet! - From the Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie review
- Happy Place: Her happy place is where every movie is dubbed over by lines from Son in Law. (Well, technically Encino Man, but would you really know the difference?)
- Human-Focused Adaptation: Discussed as a high point of My Little Pony: Equestria Girls.
- Hypocrisy Nod: To cap off a review of Rubber, a pointless, nonsensical film that is being watched from inside itself, Mr. Mendo and The Omega get into a pointless, nonsensical argument that is being watched from inside the review.
- Or in the crossover review of Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie, much was made of the copious amounts of fan-service, particularly from Sofie...while lying in bed in a slinky black dress.
Demoversi (only line): "Pointless cameos are SO 2011! (a beat) Wait..."Mr. Mendo: "Trying to pick the worst Coleman Francis film is like deciding what kind of cancer you'd like to have." *Lights cigar* - Or in the crossover review
- Long List: In this second look at It's a Wonderful Life, Mendo concluded that it was only fit for "whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, the sick, the venal, rustlers, cut-throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers, and Methodists!"
- Red Baron: "The Internet's Strongest Man".
- Self-Deprecation: Mendo's summation of ALF's Special Christmas: it's depressing, uneven, and it "had more filler than my Macho Man Randy Savage review!"
- "You know, you'd think after three years of doing this show I would be a lot better at it..."
- "You know, you'd think after three years
- Shared Universe: The Reviewaverse.
- Simple Country Lawyer: Now, Mr. Mendo's not one of those big city lawyers, but it seems to him that there's a huge plot-hole in Rae Dawn Chong's back-story!
