Take That, Critics!

"What's fun about a movie full of ugly, slimy, mean-spirited, gloppy little monsters who run amok and attack innocent people?"

"If anyone really pisses you off, depict them in your comic as a ridiculous strawman and mock them with infuriating self-righteousness. You know, kind of like exactly what I'm doing now."

— Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw, offering some advice for budding webcomic artists.

A specific form of Take That!, in which the producers of a show respond to criticism of the show through the show itself, either through subtle in-jokes that obliquely refer to the criticism, putting lines of dialogue into the mouths of the characters, or presenting parodies of their critics. The program may even break the fourth wall to directly address the critics.

Depending on the producer, this can come in many forms; gentle ribbing or parody of the critics and their position, pointed rejoinders, triumphant gloating, and — in extreme cases — over-the-top bile that leads to the strong assumption that the critics may have struck a delicate nerve (either that, or the producer just plain Can't Take Criticism).

Sometimes features the Straw Critic. Inverted Trope of Caustic Critic. This also qualifies the show as an Author Tract.

Subtrope of Write Who You Hate. Compare Take That, Audience!, when it's the viewers who are targets of in-show satire. See also Dear Negative Reader, when the creator directly addresses the critics without the vehicle of the show, and Insult Backfire, when the critics' own words are used against them.

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Examples:

Advertising

• Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Exclusive promos for the movie made fun of the critics that didn't like it. One featured the Mooninites giving the pinky to a fake critic named Lionel. Another one featured Carl describing any critic that didn't like the movie as a 97-year-old. Ouch.
• Domino's invoked this trope by having ads featuring videos taken from focus groups about how their pizza sucked. Then they showed the Domino's execs reactions. Then the chefs vowing to do better. Then the chefs taking their new, improved pizzas to the critics' houses. "I'm eating my words!"
• This response to Stephen Colbert's criticism of a "hip" Miracle Whip ad. Stephen retorted by thanking them for all the ad revenue and announcing he'd spend all the money on mayonnaise.
• In response to PETA deprecating Dodge's use of a monkey in one of their commercials, Dodge released a new version of the commercial with an invisible monkey.
• In a commercial for Audi's "Stay Uncompromised" campaign, Ricky Gervais stoically endures a recitation of nasty Twitter comments about him... read by an adorable little girl. Given Gervais' reputation, the tweets could have very plausibly have been real.
• In response to the constant negative reviews critics have been giving to Rambo: Last Blood, Sylvester Stallone released this ad on his Instagram.
  Announcer: "It's not everyone's cup of tea."

Anime and Manga

• Osomatsu-san has an episode where a snide robot pair complain about the fact that everyone in the town acts horribly, which is a common charge thrown at the series.
• Pop Team Epic: The song "Let's Pop Together" mocks the critics and says that they'll all eventually be converted to fans anyway.

Comic Books

• Asterix: The Secret Weapon was criticised by many people for being sexist, centering as it did on a Straw Feminist One-Shot Character who mostly makes completely reasonable points. The second-to-next album, Asterix and the Class Act (a "stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else" compilation of one-shots) contains multiple comments in the original material poking fun at anyone who could possibly accuse Uderzo of anti-feminism and implying people who do are empty-headed reactionaries.
• Supergirl (2005): Issue #18 was a heavy-handed attack by the writer, Joe Kelly, on the many critics who disliked the post-Crisis Kara Zor-El's abrasive and morally questionable personality, and the book's extreme and, given the character's youth, distasteful fanservice. Kara spent the issue fighting an evil duplicate of herself who wore Pre-Crisis Supergirl's costume and self-righteously berated her for not being "wholesome". The issue particularly annoyed the critics as it was rather a straw-man view of their objections - they didn't think Kara should be perfect or a Stepford Smiler but argued that Kelly's version of the character came across as a Totally Radical sexualised fantasy of a screwed-up barely-legal teen. Two issues later the writer and artist were removed and the book underwent a heavy Retool in the direction that the critics in question were calling for.
• The Doctor Who (Titan) comics did a prologue to their Thirteenth Doctor series with a special called The Many Lives of Doctor Who featuring four or five-page vignettes featuring every previous Doctor, with a framing narrative of the Doctor's life flashing before their eyes as they regenerate from Twelve to Thirteen. The Tenth Doctor story featured Ten, Gabby, and Cindy encountering and sympathising with Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the first woman to qualify as a doctor in Britain, and was called "Nurse Who?" In the real world, "Nurse Who" had been an insult frequently used by alt-right misogynists to refer to the Thirteenth Doctor, the Doctor's first known female incarnation in mainstream canon.
• "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice & the American Way?" is an influential Superman story written during a time when the character began declining in popularity among fans and critics amidst the rising popularity of edgy, remorselessly violent anti-heroes in 90's media, with many questioning whether Supes' idealistic, humanist nature had become old-fashioned or not. The enemy he faces, The Elite, are a direct parody of The Authority, which writer Joe Kelly uses as synecdoche to describe just how unscrupulous and morally bankrupt these character archetypes were, with the story taking great lengths to portray Superman and his fettered, moral approach as superior.

Comic Strips

• Pearls Before Swine took a dig at The Comics Curmudgeon and newspaper comics snarkers in general in August 2009. As noted in the post, Stephen Pastis was being rather light-hearted anyway, and the Pastis character is often used for self-deprecating humor through the strip's history.
  • Retail took a more bitter jab at the same blog and fanbase in another strip from 2007.
  • Crock, a frequent target of the Curmudgeon blogger Josh Fruhlinger's more biting criticism, went so far as to pull the plug on a invalided soldier who, told by doctors that a lobotomy had removed all "artistic talent", said he intended to move to Baltimore and write a comics blog. (Josh was based in Baltimore at the time.) Josh, of course, had a field day with it, as seen here.
  • The Archie comic strip responded to Josh's swipes at the strip's humor as being the output of a device called the "Archie Joke-Generating Laugh Unit 3000" by featuring a character wearing a tee-shirt that had "AJGLU-3000" in a circle with a line through it (seen here). Unlike the Crock jab, however, this and later references could have been meant more fondly.
• Funky Winkerbean's author appears to be using this to get at critics who think a former-gag-a-week comic becoming a depressing, mostly cancer-themed melodrama is the same as a high school class performing Wit.
  Straw Critic Parents (essentially): The comics pa— The school play is for fun and relaxation. If we wanted cancer-themed melo— "art" we'd watch Gray's Ana— go to a museum.
• 9 Chickweed Lane: The author had his avatar Thorax breezily condemn anyone as imbeciles who didn't like the warped perspective, ornate dialogue and morals of his characters. He had earlier blamed his being forced to move his more openly sexualized fantasy strip Pibgorn off the newspaper comics page on the same people.

Fan Works

• My Immortal does this countless times, in poorly written author's notes where Tara calls out the "preps" who keep critiquing the story.
• The Villain Team-Up near the end of Twillight Sparkle's awesome adventure includes "all the people who down-rated this story".
• When there were viewer complaints about Derpy after "The Last Roundup", the author of the Total Drama Remake Fanfic Series decided to write Derpy into the fourth installment and had the contestants remind the klutzy pony she still has loyal fans.
• The Prayer Warriors often has people who badmouth the author mutilated. In Threat of Satanic Commonism, Rika and Books, two of the most prominent sporkers, are put in an arena and killed. Both are male despite really being female. Both actually liked the fact that their characterizations got to take turns beating up the protagonist.
• Dahlia Hawthorne Escaps From Pirson performs this onto a user named CJ Fortune, who has criticized various Ace Attorney TrollFics in the past. In this story, he is a hardened criminal with at least 7 crimes to his name, and the story's sixth chapter has him on trial, with Dahlia acting as his defence attorney with the intent to throw the case so he will be found guilty as part of an Eviler than Thou plan. Through Dahlia's intentional mistakes, and Professor Layton's prosecuting, CJ Fortune gets found guilty and is sentenced to be the slave of 'Canadian Judge'.
• The authors of Skyhold Academy Yearbook don't often encounter anything but pleasant feedback from their readers. But on one memorable occasion, they received a string of increasingly harsh reviews on one of their other Dragon Age projects, culminating in a friend of said reviewer making a YouTube video criticizing their writing (which he had never actually read). Rather than calling out the offenders in an author's note, however, they instead posted a cathartic chapter in The Memory Band, in which two of the student characters (who like to write Real-Person Fic about their teachers) went through an almost identical experience. Meanwhile, the offending reviews were deleted, the reviewer was successfully reported to the AO3 harassment team, and the YouTube user ended up having his entire channel pulled because of his abusive and bullying behavior in both his videos and his comments on them.
• Chatoyance wrote The Reasonably Adamant Down With Celestia Newfoal Society to insult those who criticized the messages in her stories. The story depicts the main characters (who are pretty blatant stand-ins for critics of her setting) as incompetent whiners for daring to be unhappy about their Forced Transformation and they're only portrayed more sympathetically when they realize that they are wrong.
• Both writers of Prehistoric Park Reimagined (Nathanoraptor and A-LionGleek) have allowed both that story and its spinoff Extras to include several lighthearted digs against multiple unnecessarily harsh and almost mean-spiritedly judgmental criticisms that were thrown against Reimagined's thematic predecessor Prehistoric Earth by Nathanoraptor's former cowriter Drew Luczynski.
• The end of Full Circle includes an Editor's Note from the original author that targets one critic who asked the story's republisher and beta reader, lilac-kat, why she wastes time writing a story about a kid's show.
• The Emerald Phoenix contains a scene in chapter 10 responding to a reviewer who mocked the story for making Momo's hero name "Izanami the Creator", insisting it was highly inappropriate because Izanami is a goddess of death. Specifically, Melissa brings up that Izanami is a goddess of death, only for Momo to correct her Izanami was originally a goddess of creation, which is what Momo's emphasizing with her title, and that many deities have conflicting aspects (using the fact Freya is a goddess of both love and war).

Films — Animated

• Ratatouille has a line that might be read this way. The final article of food critic Anton Ego says that "In many ways, the life of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so." However, considering Pixar's good track record with critics, that might not be so.
• Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper ripped apart The Powerpuff Girls Movie in their review, calling it a "nasty little film". At Comic-Con in San Diego that summer, creator Craig McCracken was seen wearing a T-shirt that read "a nasty little film".
• Ralph Breaks the Internet pokes fun at those who criticize the Disney Princesses as little more than damsels in distress when one of the questions they ask Vanellope is "Do people assume all your problems got solved because a big, strong man showed up?"
  Vanellope: Yes! What is up with that?

Films — Live-Action

• History of the World Part I features this in its opening sequence, with a cave-painter being the "birth of the artist", followed by the inevitable after-birth - the first critic^note Who proceeds to urinate on the painting..
• Lady in the Water features a Straw Critic expressly for this purpose, who gets killed. There is also an author who changes the entire world by becoming a martyr and is played by Shyamalan himself. In their (mostly savage) reviews of the movie, many critics were quick to note this stroke of narcissism. When the movie completely bombed he had to eat crow. Made even better by the common reaction to the critic, who became something of an Ensemble Dark Horse.
• Godzilla (1998):
  • Director Roland Emmerich lampooned Siskel & Ebert by featuring No Celebrities Were Harmed versions of the latter as the buffoonish Mayor of NYC and the former as his sycophantic sidekick to avenge their critical mauling of his previous movies^note one of those movies, Stargate, is on Ebert's most hated list; (also, presumably, a preemptive strike against criticism of the current movie). The critics just laughed it off, and Siskel even wondered why Emmerich went to the trouble of putting them in a giant monster movie but didn't have the monster either eat or squash them.^note It should be noted in the case of Godzilla actually eating people, Toho vetoed the concept, so GINO feasting on Mayor Ebert and Gene was never going to happen — though that also didn't stop the raptor expies that were GINO's kids from eating most of Philippe Roche's crew.
  • The extra in the car that is stepped on early in the film is intended to be a representation of J.D. Lees, editor of G-Fan Magazine, who had harsh criticism for the film based on information leaks prior to its release. Since hardly anyone in the audience was even going to recognize the reference, it's pretty clear that this statement was just for the benefit of Emmerich himself.
• In Meet the Spartans, they build up the gag, by having characters read unflattering reviews of the previous installment, Epic Movie, off the Internet in a mocking tone of voice.
• Superprodukcja, by usually brilliant Polish director Juliusz Machulski, stars a movie critic who is forced to become a screenwriter and director of a movie under the thumb of a mob boss. It's pretty bad.
• In Gremlins 2: The New Batch the eponymous monsters overrun a TV studio. In one scene, film critic Leonard Maltin (playing himself) is ranting about how horrible the original Gremlins is, using actual lines from his review, then gets mobbed by gremlins and starts yelling "I was just kidding! It was a 10! A 10!" This is a rare case where the producers and the critic seem to be taking things in equally good humour. (The entire sequel could be seen as a Take That! to the original, despite being directed by the same guy.) Elsewhere, the sequel demonstrates its own self-effacing good humour by including a scene where people discuss the inconsistencies in the "don't feed them after midnight" rule (before being mauled by gremlins) and another scene where Kate (Phoebe Cates) is physically dragged away as she launches into a maudlin speech about why she doesn't like Presidents' Day, parodying her speech about Christmas in the original film.
• Willow: General Kael, The Dragon of the film, is named after Pauline Kael, and the the two-headed dragon is named "Eborsisk" in the script after Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. While Pauline Kael gave negative reviews to Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Siskel and Ebert generally gave his movies good reviews. It's not exactly clear how much personal insult Lucas intended to give, so he may have just been taking playful swipes at film criticism in general.
• The Dead Pool: The film critic who gets murdered by the antagonist was supposedly inspired by Kael, who had labelled the original Dirty Harry as a "fascist movie".
• In Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Jay and Bob blast some Internet critics for making fun of them (in context of making fun of a comic book that is based on them in-universe). The film's penultimate sequence involves the two of them beating the shit out of the Internet posters (most of whom are revealed to be annoying twelve-year-olds).
  Jay: [as Silent Bob transcribes on an Internet movie site comment] All you motherfuckers are gonna pay. You are the ones who are the ball-lickers. We're gonna fuck your mothers while you watch and cry like little bitches. Once we get to Hollywood and find those Miramax fucks who are making that movie, we're gonna make 'em eat our shit, then shit out our shit, then eat their shit which is made up of our shit that we made 'em eat. Then you're all you motherfucks are next. Love, Jay and Silent Bob.
• In They Live!, after Nada destroys the signal and the aliens' true forms are revealed, a pair of critics on TV (clearly expies for Siskel and Ebert, are shown as aliens, complaining that directors like George A. Romero and John Carpenter "need to show some restraint". This is a bit odd, considering that at least Ebert greatly championed Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Halloween (1978) when many critics reviled them as trash, although Ebert hadn't been as kind to some of their later films.
• The villain of Galaxy Quest is named after Andrew Sarris because a producer had a grudge.
• A guy who shows up at the beginning of The Asylum's The Hitchhiker was based on a critic who writer and director Leigh Scott hates. He's depicted as an Ambiguously Gay porn reviewer.
• Starburst's John Brosnan delivered a Take That! to Harlan Ellison, no less, when the latter took the former to task over his good review of Gremlins (Ellison hated it, dubbing it "The Muppet Chain Saw Massacre"):
  I resent it when a critic presumes to lecture me as well as accuse me of having a severe lapse of morals because I happened to like a particular film that he didn't.
• Jamie Kennedy's Heckler is based around tearing down critics. First, it analyzes and criticizes hecklers at stand-up comedy shows, then moves on to its larger point of comparing negative critics to hecklers. A good portion of the running time is Kennedy personally confronting hecklers from his shows and critics who have panned his films.
• In RoboCop (2014) Novak's last line, "stop whining", can be interpreted as either a What the Hell, Hero? against In-Universe bioconservatives trying to uphold the Dreyfuss Act or a You Bastard! against out-of-universe Luddites.
• A poster for David Lynch's Lost Highway features "Two Thumbs Down! - Siskel & Ebert" at the top in giant block letters. Below, it reads, "Two more great reasons to see... Lost Highway". The poster also features headshots of the two main protagonists that are cut off so that their eyes are not visible.
• The Second-Salemers from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them serves as a Take That! towards the religious fundamentalist critics of the Harry Potter series. Their anti-witch views are presented as Fantastic Racism (up to and including advocating genocide), and the movement's leader, Mary Lou Barebone, is an abusive parent towards her adopted children who is killed by one of them when he turns out to be the Obscurial.
• In Spider-Man: No Way Home, while Peter and May are watching the news in their apartment, there is a Time Magazine cover that is spreading the Daily Bugle's libel, that is called "Iron Man Jr" and depicts a picture of a baby Spider-Man in a diaper crying, responding to all the fans online who called Tom Holland's Spider-Man this phrase and making it something Jameson and the mislead media would call him in the movie.
• The poster◊ for The Hunt (2020) shows negative quotes on the film's premise back when its original trailer premiered, with the slogan "The most talked about movie of the year is one that no one's actually seen. Decide for yourself."
• The Greatest Showman:
  • In-Universe. After Bennett disparages his museum, calling it a "circus of humbug", Barnum changes the name to "P.T. Barnum's Circus" and wears a hat bearing the title "Prince of Humbug" during the show.
  • Barnum's dialogue with Bennett preemptively does this for issues raised by critics.
    Barnum: A theatre critic who can't find joy in the theatre. Now who's the fraud?

Literature

• In Michael Crichton's Next (2006), Crichton wrote a minor character into his book that was currently being tried for raping a toddler, with the commentary that while his penis was fairly small, he still did significant damage to the child. Strangely enough, the rapist's name was almost identical to that of a man who had criticized Crichton's last book. The critic found this very funny.
• SF&F author and Vietnam veteran David Drake's Hammer's Slammers was reviewed unfavorably early in his career by reviewer Charles Platt, who said that if Drake had ever seen war he wouldn't have written "such queasy voyeurism". In response, many of his works feature a reprehensible character named "Platt" who typically dies violently. About the best any "Platt" can hope for is to be stupid.
• Piers Anthony takes a direct shot at his critics in the first chapter of Xanth book Currant Events: In the very first chapter, the muse Clio runs into a evil doppelganger who taunts Clio with many of the critiques of the Xanth series as she attempts to kill and replace her as the Muse Of History. (It was one of Good Magician Humphery's challenges, so she probably wouldn't have killed her, but still.) In his Author's Notes, introductions, and some of his stories, he frequently bashes critics and editors. His defense of his works (which are the print equivalent of a Summer Blockbuster) usually boils down to Quality by Popular Vote; plenty of people like them, so they must be good.
• Artist Raoul Hausmann's The Art Critic.
• Lord Byron famously satirised the various Scottish critics who had panned his early verse, in the poem English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. It can be found in Vol.1 of his collected poetic works on Gutenberg.
• Discworld:
  • A handful of books, alongside the usually glowing review snippets you see on the covers and first few pages of books, end with one from The Late Review that reads "Doesn't even write in chapters ... a complete amateur ... hasn't a clue". This review is supposedly the reason Terry Pratchett wrote his Moist von Lipwig series of books, which not only have chapters but even have Victorian-style chapter titles. The quote is also used by a vapid and shallow witch in A Hat Full of Sky to dismiss another, hard-working witch: "She's rather sad. Complete amateur. Hasn't really got a clue. Just bustles about and hopes."
  • The "critters" that infest the depths of L-space graze on books and poop out slim volumes of literary criticism.
• The Lord of the Rings: J. R. R. Tolkien's foreword features the following: "Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer."
• Older Than Feudalism: 1st Century BC Roman poet Catullus' poem 16 is a response to two of his critics, and has been described as one of the most offensive poems ever.
• A.P. Herbert's Misleading Cases In The Common Law includes the following passage, where a judge (apparently) urges the jury that they shouldn't discriminate against a critic:
  You were invited by the plaintiff's counsel to consider upon a somewhat higher plane the activities of Miss Trott, which are admittedly creative, than those of Mrs. Tulip, as being chiefly occupied in tearing to pieces the things which other men have made. But this distinction, however attractive to the lay mind, I must ask you to dismiss from your own. In many ponderous and ill‑drafted enactments our ancestors have been careful to secure to the most repellent of the King's subjects the common rights of free expression so long as it takes the harmless form of venomous and enraging words.
• Illuminatus! has a pre-emptive strike on its critics, by including the worst possible review of the novel in the text of the novel itself, and attributing it to a deeply obnoxious Camp Gay who admits that he hasn't actually read the novel itself.
• Poul Anderson's "Critique of Impure Reason" is a critique of literary fiction and its critics.
• In Candide, a Straw Critic who points out all the flaws during a play Candide is enjoying later is specified as "a pamphleteer - a Freron" - one of Voltaire's critics was Elie-Catherine Freron. This shot at critics is a little odd, given that a page or so later, Voltaire insults a few of his contemporary writers.
• P. G. Wodehouse: "A certain critic — for such men, I regret to say, do exist — made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained 'all the old Wodehouse characters under different names'. He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha; but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have outgeneralled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy."
• In one of the many chapters of The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling where Fielding speaks directly to the reader he asserts that critics are the same thing as poisoners and should all be hanged as such. (This would have been even more shocking to a contemporary reader, since Fielding had been a Chief Magistrate of London who had sentenced men to hang in Real Life.)
• S. M. Stirling has often been accused of sympathizing with the Domination of The Draka, a racist, technologically advanced Evil Empire that has conquered much of an Alternate History Earth. In response, the unrelated novel Conquistador contains the following line, in response to those making the accusation: "There is a technical term for someone who confuses the opinions of a character in a book with those of the author. That term is idiot."
• The Polish writer Katarzyna Michalak, in response to the numerous sporkings of her work on the Polish internet, wrote into her book W imie milosci an over-the-top, Card-Carrying Villain "internet hater", who deliberately thrashes a poor, disabled girl's story and cackles at driving her to tears. The real-life "haters", of course, found it hilarious.
• Meg Cabot, author of The Princess Diaries, has long gotten flak for putting pop culture references into her books. In Princess In Training, Mia struggles with an English teacher who disparages her for the same thing, resulting in the novel's CMOA in which Mia calls her on her overly-rigid view of what constitutes "culture."
• The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making was criticised because the Big Bad ruler of Fairyland in it, the Marquess, is a woman, and Marquess, despite common misconceptions, is the standard English spelling of Marquis, and not its feminine version. At the beginning of the final book in the series, The Girl Who Raced Fairyland all the way Home, it's revealed that she intentionally took a masculine title, and the characters who criticise her for it are depicted as smug, obnoxious snobs.
• After the critic Lee Wilson Dodd wrote an unfavorable article about his short stories, Ernest Hemingway published a poem called "Valentine" dedicated to "a Mr. Lee Wilson Dodd and Any of His Friends Who Want It." The last lines of the poem refer to critics as
  "very vulgar people, annals of the callous^note  a reference to the title of Dodd's article about him ,
  dope fiends, soldiers, prostitutes,
  men without a gallus."

Live-Action TV

• The Babylon 5 season four finale "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" episode ended with a dedication: "Dedicated to all the people who predicted that the Babylon Project would fail in its mission. Faith manages". The really neat part is that it works on both sides of the fourth wall. In addition, the blurb on the back of the box set contains a few comments from the show's harsher critics.
• In a Dinosaurs episode, Earl comments, when watching a puppet show, that while the aesthetic of using puppets makes it appear at first glance to be a children's show, the actual content and themes of the show make it clear that it isn't, may refer to criticism of the show being for children. Or something to that effect.
• Doctor Who has a notorious Unpleasable Fanbase, and this has sometimes annoyed creators enough to influence the show.
  • The Sixth Doctor's debut story "The Twin Dilemma", which features an extremely tumultuous post-regeneration crisis, ends with the Doctor telling his companion Peri that "Whatever else happens, I am the Doctor, whether you like it or not."
  • "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy" is based around mocking critics of the show, complete with a stereotypical Fan Boy whining that the circus isn't as good as it used to be, and the villains of the piece being a metaphor for television executives.
  • "The Christmas Invasion" has the Tenth Doctor scolding Rose for giving up on him while he was comatose following regeneration. Given that this was the first regeneration following the show's relaunch, it's easy to picture these words being aimed at everyone who dismissed David Tennant for replacing Christopher Eccleston.
  • The 2005/6 seasons were criticised by some fans who complained about the number of stories set on contemporary Earth, wanted more exotic settings and Space Opera content, and got upset about the number of contemporary pop culture references. The 2006 Christmas special, "The Runaway Bride", featured an unspeakably nasty, misanthropic, intellectually-snobbish human villain who turned out to be plotting with aliens to destroy the world just because they offered to show him the wonders of the universe, and who was given a long and unsympathetic speech mocking pop culture.
  • Peter Capaldi's first episode as the 12th Doctor includes the Time Lord asking Clara to accept the new Doctor even if he's different from what he used to be. This whole speech might as well be pointed directly at audience members who expressed disapproval of Capaldi's casting for not being as young and sexy as the previous three Doctors.
  • In "Time Heist", the Twelfth Doctor addresses fans' criticisms of his costume◊: "What do you think of the new look? I was hoping for minimalism, but I think I came up with 'magician.'"
• Richard Ingrams once attacked Fawlty Towers as unfunny. An episode of the next series featured a 'Mr. Ingrams' inflating a sex aid doll in his room.
• After the first season of Galavant the website TV by the Numbers predicted that its low ratings meant the show was unlikely to get renewed only for ABC to give it a second season anyway. The second season premiere episode was titled "A New Season aka Suck It Cancellation Bear" as a jab at the website's flawed prediction.
• Played for laughs in the TV version of Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge; in one episode, Alan keeps bringing up a negative review of the previous week's show which has clearly rankled with him, and keeps latching onto the reviewer's description of the show as 'moribund'. His every effort to try and prove the critic wrong, however, keeps backfiring and demonstrating that the criticism was clearly on point.
• The U.S.S. Minnow, the ship on Gilligan's Island, was supposed to be a jab at Federal Communications Commission president Newton Minow. Show creator Sherwood Schwartz hated Minow, and for good reason; Minow wasn't a fan of television, calling it a "vast wasteland".
• Murphy Brown:
  • When then-Vice President Dan Quayle attacked the show for its favorable depiction of a single mother, a subsequent episode included a snippet of his remarks against the character of Murphy Brown to make it sound like he was criticizing a real person. Candace Bergen, in character as Brown, then responds to his criticism. This eventually culminates in a Take That! right back at him when they arranged for a dump-truck full of potatoes to be dumped on his front porch, in reference to Quayle's equally well-publicized potato/potatoe gaff. "It's a good thing he didn't misspell 'fertilizer.'"
  • In a subsequent episode, similar to the Real Life example below, Murphy pranks art critics by presenting the random finger-painting of her preschool-age son Avery in an art museum, under the name A. Veret.
• Leonard Maltin made a cameo in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode Gorgo where he claims he liked the titular movie despite "sending two of [his] assistant editors into intensive care". Maltin had in fact written a positive review of Gorgo prior to the episode and his cameo was equally good-natured, despite the show having in earlier episodes brutally mocked Maltin's scores of MST3K movies: the episode The Undead where Crow made Mike dress up as Maltin and read a humiliating apology for "his" review and the episode Laserblast where Maltin's two-and-a-half star rating of the titular movie is constantly mentioned as a Running Gag culminating in Mike and the 'bots going through one of Maltin's books comparing his scores of classic movies to the one he gave Laserblast (coming to the conclusion that, for example, Maltin considers Laserblast to be superior to Being There and as good as Unforgiven and Sophie's Choice). In his review of The Undead he called it a black comedy, however, so it's possible he thought it wasn't supposed to be serious. All of these were, however in good fun; Maltin holds no grudges and freely admits that his reviews are just his opinion, and if you disagree that's fine and dandy too.
• The lengthy Not the Nine O'Clock News parody of The Two Ronnies came about after Ronnie Barker called the show obscene, making the point that someone whose entire routine relied on Double Entendre possibly shouldn't be throwing that particular stone.
• The Season 2 premiere of Odd Squad, "First Day", has a line from Oprah that is a direct jab at critics who despise the show simply for the Mean Boss personality she had throughout Season 1. While she is more of a Benevolent Boss in Season 2, she still keeps a lot of the old charm and some traits from the previous season (such as her catchphrases and her love of juiceboxes), which extends into Season 3.
  Oprah: If you're always yelling, that's all people think you do, and they don't see that there's a lot more to your character.
• Psych has an episode ("Let's get Hairy") featuring a psychotic Deadly Doctor as the killer of the week called Ken Tucker. He shares his name with an Entertainment Weekly critic who routinely took potshots at the show.
• Red Dwarf: In "Entangled", Kryten notes that one of the various professions that is always wrong are tv critics.
• Not surprisingly, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were not immune to ribbing each other's taste in film. For the "Worst of 1993" episode of Siskel & Ebert, both Roger and Gene selected a film the other enjoyed as that year's worst film: Roger selected Carnosaur; Gene selected Cop and a Half.
• Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear often makes fun of his critics. In Season 9 episode 1, when Richard Hammond returns from a rocket-car crash at 288 mph that left him temporarily brain-damaged and could have killed him, Clarkson thanks the (very much alive) Hammond for reminding everyone of an important lesson: Speed kills.
• The short-lived show Vengeance Unlimited had "Critical", an episode that incorporated many critics' negative statements. Most of these lines were given to the naïve 16-year-old computer whiz who was unwittingly helping the villain of the week, just to show how much they thought of the critics.
• The West Wing features an episode where Josh posts a message about some minor issue of government procedure on an Internet forum. Though the site is actually dedicated to him, the users (including a forum administrator "sitting in a muumuu and smoking Parliament Lights") attack him for getting the issue wrong. Creator Aaron Sorkin wrote this episode as a response to his experience using Television Without Pity, where he was a member for quite some time. Sorkin posted a topic about a dispute he had with a staff writer, which led to the site's users attacking him. The same episode also features the new US Poet Laureate deliver a speech wherein she says that an artist's job isn't to reach for some higher truth, but to captivate the audience's attention for as long as possible.
• In The Witcher (2019) season 2, Jaskier meets an in-universe fan of his poems who repeats common fan criticisms of The Witcher season 1, ostensibly as a critique of his poems. Jaskier responds with a lengthy diatribe insulting the fan (and by extension the audience) saying Let's See YOU Do Better!. The worst part is that Jaskier was supposed to be on a stealth mission, and his outburst gets a redshirt killed for absolutely no reason.

Music

• It's only too obvious that 2 Live Crew's Filk Song "Banned in the USA" (which is SFW and done with Bruce Springsteen's approval) is intended to be this towards critics complaining about the use of dirty language in their music, along with them using their First Amendment rights to condemn censorship.
• In January 2013, a brief feud between country music superstar Blake Shelton and legend Ray Price ensued after a series of "Take That Critics"-type comments. While taping comments for the GAC series "Backroads" (for an episode devoted to his career), Shelton spoke out about the criticism several classic country music artists sometimes have about current country music. Shelton – known for not being shy about expressing his opinion, sometimes without thinking – stated the following: “Nobody wants to listen to their grandpa’s music ... (a)nd I don’t care how many of these old farts around Nashville going, ‘My God, that ain’t country!’ Well that’s because you don’t buy records anymore, jacka–. The kids do, and they don’t want to buy the music you were buying.” Price – not known for his outspokenness – posted the following response on his Facebook page: "It’s a shame that I have spend 63 years in this business trying to introduce music to a larger audience and to make it easier for the younger artists who are coming behind me. Every now and then some young artist will record a rock and roll type song, have a hit first time out with kids only. This is why you see stars come with a few hits only and then just fade away believing they are God’s answer to the world. This guy sounds like in his own mind that his head is so large no hat ever made will fit him. Stupidity Reigns Supreme!!!!!!! Ray Price (CHIEF “OLD FART” & JACKA–”) ” P.S. YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY AS US OLD-TIMERS. CHECK BACK IN 63 YEARS (THE YEAR 2075) AND LET US KNOW HOW YOUR NAME AND YOUR MUSIC WILL BE REMEMBERED." Shelton later realized he had offended Price, a performer he identified as one of his heroes, and scaled back his comments, and Price accepted the apology. But neither came before an exchange of "Take That Critics"-type comments.
• Many people think that the song "Droppin' Plates" by Disturbed is a Take That! at the record company who told them that because they played a unique style of music, they wouldn't become successful. Their first album sold over four million copies and they managed to score three consecutive #1 albums.
• The entire (albeit lighthearted) point of "Silly Love Songs," Paul McCartney's attempt to combine a, well, love song with a defense of the entire genre. Rock critics hated 'silly love songs' in The '70s, and took it out on the musicians...
• Eagles' song "The Long Run" has been interpreted as a response to music critics:
  People talking about us, ain't got nothing else to do
  When it all comes down, we will still come through in the long run
• Adam and the Ants' song, "Press Darlings," name drops two adversaries in the British music press, Nick Kent and Garry Bushell. Adam Ant would later extend this trope to the Friend or Foe album, where most of the tracks answer Ant's critics in the media.
• "99 Problems" by Jay-Z featured a pretty vicious one: Rap critics say it's money cash hoes/I'm from the hood, stupid/what type of facts are those?...I'm like, fuck critics/You can kiss my whole asshole/If you don't like my lyrics you can press fast-forward.
• Perhaps the most direct version of this trope came from Billy Joel, who, early in his career, actually tore up newspapers on stage that gave him bad reviews. One of the songs from his 1980 album Glass Houses, "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me", had some pointed commentary about music critics trying to drive popular culture. Rolling Stone responded by calling that song "the worst song about rock and roll ever" after a poll. In the end, the joke was on them: it became his first #1 single on the Billboard Hot 100.
  There's a new band in town, but you can't get the sound
  From a story in a magazine aimed at your average teen
• Kanye West made sure to add the lyric "And take THIS, HATERS!" to "Stronger".
• Anything Right by P.O.D. is about how no matter what they do, they'll be criticized either for being too religious or not religious enough.
• The Clash's "Garageland" isn't entirely about this, but the first few lines are a direct response to a Caustic Critic's take on one of their early live performances - they were referred to as "the kind of garage band who should be returned to the garage immediately, preferably with the engine running". Thus "Back in the garage with my bullshit detector/ Carbon monoxide making sure it's effective". The song was also meant as a response to music press and fans who had said the band had sold out by signing to a major label.
• Oingo Boingo's "Imposter": It may or may not be based on anyone specific, but it depicts a Straw Critic as a jealous failed artist ("You're just a critic, we know why you drink so much / Jealousy slowly consuming your gut").
• Christina Aguilera quite likes defending herself against criticisms of her sexual music/show. "Still Dirrty" and "Can't Hold Us Down" are both also against those types of critics. She also has "Here To Stay", "Keep on singing my song", "Bionic", "Dirrty", "Thank You", "Welcome, "Make Over", "Fighter", "Prima Donna" and "Beautiful".
• Death metal band Cryptopsy received massive fan backlash for their album "The Unspoken King" and its jump into deathcore. They later uploaded a track, "It's Dinner Time" to their myspace page mocking fans for this criticism.
• "Mean" by Taylor Swift doesn't seem like this at first, but at the end, it has a line that calls out a critic who insulted her music prior. Even better was her debut performance of the song at the 54th Grammy Awards, where she changed the line to "Someday I'll be singing this at the Grammys". Take that, indeed.
• "Mr. Writer" by Stereophonics attacks music critics for being ignorant and sexually unsuccessful, accuses them of attacking artists they used to praise just to get attention, and fantasizes about shooting them. According to the band, it's specifically about one unnamed journalist, who toured with the band, then gave them negative reviews.
• "Jools and Jim" from the Pete Townshend solo album Empty Glass doesn't even try to hide the fact it's about music critics; the title refers to the critics Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons - who had written criticising the late Keith Moon - and the lyrics spit bile at professional critics.
• Tyler, The Creator of OFWGKTA often calls out critics who label his music as "hatemongering horrorcore", but his most notable moment of disdain for the criticizing bloggers is heard at the very beginning of the title track of his debut album "Bastard" where he rants:
  "Yo, fuck 2DopeBoyz and fuck Nah Right, and any other fuck-nigga-ass blog that can't put an 18-year-old nigga making his own fucking beats, covers, videos and all that shit."
• A constant theme for Eminem.
  • Slim Shady EP is riddled with lyrics sniping at the negative response his debut album Infinite got, either turning the criticisms into boasts (Infinite was mocked for being derivative, so Slim Shady admits he bit your style, but "just to make it fresher") or dissing critics' magazines and threatening to assault other rappers at their shows. However, it is a New Sound Album dropping all the elements from Infinite that critics disliked, so it's fair to say he took the criticisms on board. Due to some of the EP material being recycled for The Slim Shady LP, this persists on LP to a certain extent (particularly on "Just Don't Give A Fuck").
  • The entirety of The Marshall Mathers LP, especially the song "The Way I Am", is a swipe at critics of his controversial content and the moral panic surrounding his music. In fact, when Eminem performed "The Way I Am" at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, he introduced the song as a "little song I wrote for my critics".
  • "On Fire" by Eminem features the line "So, the next time you blog, try to spit a flow / You want to criticize, dog? Try a little more" which is assumed to be directed at former rapper Nick Cannon who claimed that a song on his Relapse album proved him to be racist and jealous of the relationship he now has with his ex-girlfriend Mariah Carey.
  • "Chlorasceptic (Remix)", a non-album single reworked from a track on Revival, was an attempt to Win Back the Crowd after the negative reaction to Revival. The lyrics frankly address the (often contradictory) criticisms.
    You just called my shit trash?
    Thank God, I rap better when the odds are stacked!
    "Revival's wack, I don't like the 'Zombie' track,
    and when he's talkin' that garbage psychotic crap —
    where's your content at?
    What's with all the conscious rap?
    P!nk? Beyoncé this and Kehlani that?"
    I just add it to the fuel in my rocket pack
    'til I'm ready to respond, then I'ma launch it at 'em.
    Idiotic from the fuckin' embryonic sac
    to the body bag, I'll be back,
    and when I am, I'll be at your fuckin' throat like Chlorasceptic!
  • Nearly the entirety of the album Kamikaze is a rant about the critics and other rappers who shit on his previous album, Revival - not unjustifiably, as a significant proportion of the negative feedback was from the tracklist before the album came out. And it's a New Sound Album ditching the aspects critics hated about Revival...
  • A lot of Music To Be Murdered By is about Eminem's impossible position with the critics and Unpleasable Fanbase. Most of the rest of it is about his disbelief that he's still making commercially relevant music despite pushing 50.
• Queen's "Princes of the Universe" has a verse that's commonly seen as a Take That to critics who thought them past their prime: "People talk about you / People say you've had your day / I'm a man that will go far / Fly the moon and reach for the stars / With my sword and head held high / Got to pass the test first time, yeah / I know that people talk about me / I hear it every day / But I can prove them wrong 'cause I'm right first time"
• Her Space Holiday's "Meet the Pressure". There's something incredibly petty about saying that the wives of your critics masturbate while listening to the very words they criticised.
• Lou Reed's live album Take No Prisoners contained a tirade against Village Voice critic Robert Christgau, calling him a "toe fucker" and complaining about his previous album receiving a B+. Christgau responded by giving the album a C+ and thanked Reed for "pronouncing my name right" in the review.
  • Reed's Metal Machine Music, a two-record set full of monotonous guitar feedback droning has also been interpreted as a raised middle finger against the critics, by forcing them to listen to all of this before they review it.
• Sonic Youth also reacted against some bad reviews by renaming the song "Kill Yr Idols" to "I Killed Christgau With My Big Fucking Dick". Christgau later named it one of the best singles of 1984.
• Much of Britney Spears' later career is essentially this, beginning with her first Saturday Night Live appearance, her TV appearances, Kill the Lights, her fame songs in general and some unreleased tracks like "Guilty" and "Dramatic".
• Nick Cave's "Scum" is a tirade of abuse against Matt Snow, a British music journalist who had been a friend of his until he dared to give him a bad review.
• The appropriately named song, "Shut Up!" by Simple Plan
• "War Nerve" by Pantera is a direct attack on the media in general and critics in particular.
  "For every fucking second the pathetic media pisses on me and judges what I am in one paragraph - Look here - Fuck you all"
• "Panama" by Van Halen was written after a critic claimed that Van Halen only made songs about "partying, sex, and cars". Upon reading this, David Lee Roth realized that the band didn't have any songs about cars, so he decided to write one.
• Pink Floyd did this, in the third verse of "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" from their album Animals against British Moral Guardian Mary Whitehouse.
• Steve Taylor:
  • One of the more entertaining aspects of his career was his constant battles with charlatan televangelists who decried him as an agent of Satan for writing rock music. "Guilty By Association" in particular is all about critics who unfairly maligned his work as Satanic simply because of the instruments it uses and the genre of music it belongs to.
• Sting gets one in on "St. Augustine in Hell"-when Satan is listing former occupations of current residents of Hell, the last named is Music Critics.
• Madonna's song "Human Nature" from Bedtime Stories is a critique directed against her critics, namely for her more suggestive material in her music and performances.
• Lady Gaga does this in "Applause", which is all about how she doesn't care if critics hated her previous album, because she did it all for the fans.
• The last verse of Tim Minchin's "The Pope Song" delivers a verbal slap to audience members more offended by his song's profanity than by the fact that the Pope protected pedophile priests.
• Frank Zappa didn't have a high opinion of rock 'n roll critics. He famously said: "Rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, in order to provide articles for people who can't read." In his autobiography, "The Real Frank Zappa Book", he also devoted a few lines about the inanity of most critics and argued that somebody may like an album, even if someone gave it a bad review. Zappa himself discovered his main musical inspiration, Edgard Varèse, thanks to a horrible review in a magazine, and felt he had to check it out just because of that. Packard Goose on Joe's Garage is a pointed attack on rock 'n' roll journalists.
  Well, fuck all them people, I don't need no excuse
  For being what I am
  Do you hear me, then?
  All them rock 'n' roll writers is the worst kind of sleaze
  Selling punk like some new kind of English disease
  Is that the wave of the future? Aw, spare me please!
  Oh no, you gotta go
  Who do you write for, I wanna know?
  I believe you is the government's whore
  And keeping peoples dumb (I'm really dumb)
  Is where you're coming from
  And keeping peoples dumb (I'm really dumb)''
  Is where you're coming from''
  Fuck all them writers with the pen in their hand''
  I will be more specific so they might understand''
  They can all kiss my ass but because it's so grand''
  They best just stay away''
• The Rolling Stones' "It's Only Rock And Roll (But I Like It)" from It's Only Rock 'n Roll was written as a Take That! against critics who kept criticizing the band for not being as meaningful as they were before.
• Courtney Barnett's "Don't Apply Compression Gently" dismisses complaints about her music being derivative:
  I take pieces of myself from everyone around me
  I’m not individual enough for you
  I replicate the people I admire
  But at least I’m not bitter and sad
  I may not be 100% happy but at least I’m not with you!
• Die Ärzte have had several, but their most notable are "Radio brennt" where they complain about never appearing on mainstream radio (which is Hilarious in Hindsight, giving their bookable chart performance nowadays) and "Ein Lied über Zensur" (a song about censorship) which is a take that to both the censorship they had to endure early in their career and the Moral Guardians that still advocate them being banned.
• Billy Ray Cyrus fired back at his critics (particularly fellow country artist Travis Tritt) at the American Music Awards in 1993. He even referred to the title of one of Tritt's hits when he said: "As far as I'm concerned, to those people who don't like 'Achy Breaky Heart,' here's a quarter. Call someone who cares!"
• Wolf Alice wrote "Freazy" as a response to critics who didn't think they were pop enough. The lyrics flat out say that such hatred is pointless because they'll do as they like.
• For the song "Sex Metal Barbie", In This Moment looked up some of the worst comments and dirtiest gossip they could find about vocalist Maria Brink online, then wrote the song responding to them. Particular emphasis is placed on the idea that she supposedly "doesn't belong" in the Heavy Metal scene due to being a blonde woman who dresses femininely.
• tool's "Hooker With a Penis" is a Take That! against fans who accused them of selling out with their previous album, Undertow. Maynard paints such people as ignorant consumers who don't realize that every musician "sells out" simply by selling records to begin with.
• Circle Jerks' "Defamation Innuendo", specifically accusing critics of writing negative reviews without listening to the music or going to the concerts. At a couple of points in the song, Keith Morris does a spoken word impression of a lazy music journalist:
  I didn't get a chance to see the band
  Hell, I never heard of 'em
  And now I gotta write about 'em
  God, the story is due...
  The story's due tomorrow
  What should I write?
  Well, they're no good!
• The character of Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger by Richard Wagner is reportedly meant as a caricature of the Viennese music critic, Eduard Hanslick. Beckmesser's serenade in this opera is deliberately written to portray Stylistic Suck by having bad text setting and an awkward melodic line. He gets called out for this by the work's hero, professional Mastersinger Hans Sachs.
• Calliope Mori, a Vtuber from hololive, released a single in early 2021 titled "Off With Their Heads" which was targeted at critics in the English Vtuber fan community who took offense when she offered advice to a fan about Vtubing that amounted to "Stop tweeting, start creating". Calli meant the advice as inspiration to others to dive headlong into their creative passions, but some believed she was being condescending while also accusing her of being a corporate shill who got her fame and fortune from being a "company hire" without taking into account the genuine talent and hard work she put in to achieve her dreams. In response to the critics, Calli penned "Off With Their Heads" to explain, in lyrical form, that the Vtubing industry was highly competitive and that you cannot expect to succeed if you don't commit to your craft.

Podcasts

• The Announcer in The Adventure Zone: Balance calls out people who say that Griffin can't put elevators in a Dungeons & Dragons podcast.

Professional Wrestling

• In recent years, the WWE has made numerous subtext references to Triple H's real-life marriage to Vince McMahon's daughter Stephanie McMahon, which many critics claimed was the only reason Triple H became a main eventer.
  • In 2006, when Stephanie was expecting their first child, Shawn Michaels asked Triple H who he thought got her pregnant. Triple H's response: "I don't know, but I tell you what - that guy's gotta be one hell of a stud!"
  • When Stephanie gave birth on the same night that RAW aired live, Michaels explained Triple H's absence by saying he was at the hospital without the McMahons knowing, then said, "Between you and me, I think he knows who the father is."
  • In a later show, when Shane McMahon told Triple H and Michaels to grow up, Triple H brought up how Shane's father "put his own daughter in an I Quit match, just days before she married a man with the world's largest peni..." (Michaels cuts him off before he can finish.)
  • On RAW's 15th anniversary, when the McMahons tried to shoot a family portrait, Triple H came out and said he felt like he was a part of their family. Later, Stephanie got back at Vince for all the times he humiliated her by kissing Triple H. Trip's response: "All right Steph, see you at home... I mean, your brother's a gnome..."
  • This all came full circle in the buildup to WrestleMania 25 when Triple H and the WWE not only admitted to the marriage on TV but used it to hype his match with Randy Orton by having Orton assault Stephanie. On an episode of Smackdown, Triple H called his marriage "the worst-kept secret in the WWE".
• WWE had an infamously horrible feud between Triple H and Kane centering around a dead ex-girlfriend of Kane's. However, Vince McMahon expected the angle to take WWE into its second boom period and duplicate the success of Austin vs The Rock, and was quite displeased when the fans hated it. The Raw after the infamous mannequin rape promo, Triple H cut a promo about how he didn't care that people were offended and anyone who was offended was so lame they shouldn't be permitted to watch WWE. It's very easy to watch that promo and hear Vince's voice coming out of Triple H's mouth.
• During the early turn of the century, WWE had the Right to Censor heel stable, which was a direct shot at the Parent's Television Council and other such media watchdog groups. Interestingly, the RTC was actually pretty successful - giving the WWE a kayfabe reason to make some of the changes the PTC and allies were calling for.
  • WCW had a much less well known stable of a similar nature called "Standards and Practices", consisting of Lenny Lane, Lodi, and Ms. Hancock. This one was created by Vince Russo after he got pissed off at Turner Broadcasting for limiting violence and edgy material on WCW Monday Nitro broadcasts. WCW and Russo being, well, WCW and Russo, S&P was never really used for much of anything, and they disappeared fairly quickly. However, it was Stacy Keibler's start in wrestling. And really, it's hard to complain about Stacy Keibler dressing as a secretary and doing table dances. (Incidentally, if you're wondering why a team called Standards and Practices would have a valet doing erotic dances, ask Russo, because no one else has a clue.)
• Hulk Hogan had always been a target of criticism by the The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, a wrestling dirt sheet written by Dave Meltzer. Hogan had "won" "Most Overrated Wrestler" 3 times from the Wrestling Observer Awards^note 3 times when this happened in 1995, he would later "win" four more, giving him a grand total of 7 for his career. So at World War 3 1995, during Hogan's "return from the Darkside" (it was a storyline that Hogan was no longer a good guy because of Kevin Sullivan's Dungeon of Doom stable. Except for he was. It's WCW, it's always been very confusing), burning the clothes of his previous identity. Hogan would produce an Issue of Wrestling Observer, calling it a rag sheet, and was a dinosaur compared to the Internet. Hogan would then throw it to a fire burning his clothes. Dave Meltzer would take note; not only did Hogan win "Most Overrated Wrestler" that year, but he also won "Most Embarrassing Wrestler" as well. He also had all of the "swervy" booking changes in the newsletter before the PPV went down.
  Hulk Hogan: The Internet's got all the scoops!
• Dave Meltzer was also the target of UWF promoter Herb Abrams' wrath, in the form of a Jobber named Davey "The Observer" Meltzer. Steve Williams methodically took apart "Meltzer" and then stuffed a copy of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter in his mouth as a final humiliation.
• A very obscure instance ended up having incredible results in March of 2012. Ringbelles was one of a few websites whose staff was skeptical about Sweet Saraya doing anything meaningful in SHIMMER when it was revealed Britani wouldn't be returning for Volume 45. Not only was Saraya there, but her entrance on volume 46 was abrupt enough to make a woman scream, Ringbelles staff member Jennifer. Saraya didn't miss a beat and tried jumping the guardrail to push aside all the fans between them, but couldn't get through and so turned her frustrations on Veda Scott.
• In 2012, Charlie Haas bombarded Ring of Honor with videos about things that pissed him off after Shelton Benjamin left for New Japan. In 2013 Ari Berenstein of 411 MANIA gave Haas some tips on Twitter about how to make his videos better, which lead to Haas making a video about how fans trying to help him pissed him off, citing everything Berenstein had suggested.

Radio

• Showing an uncharacteristically pointy side, radio comedy team Bob & Ray reacted to New York Magazine critic John Simon's negative review of their stage show by incorporating him into their skits as 'The Worst Person in the World' - a character who never spoke, just made rude noises while other characters (that is, Bob and/or Ray) commented loudly on his uncouth manners. (Broadcaster Keith Olbermann later picked up the concept, sans specific attack, and used it in his Countdown.)

Sports

• Game Six of the 1995 World Series, which clinched the championship for the Atlanta Braves, might be seen as a Take That to the Braves' most overly critical fans. Tom Glavine was the winning pitcher with eight one-hit innings; many Atlanta fans booed him throughout the year for being the Braves' union representative during the previous year's strike. The game's lone run was scored on Dave Justice's home run; Justice had been booed throughout that very game after claiming the Braves fans hadn't been enthusiastic throughout the series.
• Michael Jordan's Hall Of Fame induction speech. Yes, the greatest player of all time had detractors, and he went after them. He devoted his crowning moment to belittling anyone and everyone who had slighted him, ever. He singled out coaches and players for insults they had hurled his way as far back as 20 years ago—singling out Isiah Thomas, Magic Johnson, George Gervin, Bryon Russel and Jeff Van Gundy among others—while barely mentioning his own family at all, and even that was to remind them how tough they had it having to put up with his ego. He even flew in, at his own expense, the high school coach who cut him from the varsity team sophomore year and the player that coach had kept on the team instead of him, just to embarrass them.
  Michael Jordan: “I wanted to make sure you understood: You made a mistake, dude.”
• Australian Rules Football: In early 2004, businessman Allan Scott (no, not that one) criticised Port Adelaide coach Mark Williams, stating that Williams would never coach Port to an AFL premiership. Following Port Adelaide's victory in the 2004 AFL Grand Final, Williams made the famous speech "Allan Scott - You were wrong!"
• The famous rant by Giants owner Wellington Mara about the Giants being "the worst team ever to win the Super Bowl" (They didn't)
• An interesting case of someone attacking someone else's critics. After Holly Holm defeated UFC Women's World Bantamweight Champion Ronda Rousey at UFC 193, winning the title and ending Rousey's undefeated streak, many people said that Rousey's career was over. Professional Wrestler Allysin Kay responded with this Instagram post, talking about how unpredictable Mixed Martial Arts is and how many of the critics would never have the courage to actually enter a fight.

Stand-Up Comedy

• Michael Richards' racially-fueled tirade shows what happens when criticizing your critics goes horribly wrong. When he was heckled, Richards starting using the n-word at the heckler, and used some very racist remarks on top of that. That moment killed Richards' career, right then and there. These days, this racial tirade is all Richards is known for.
• Discussed by Christopher Titus in a stand-up special. He mentions that "every comedian has sixty things in his head he's used a million times" when someone heckles them onstage. Titus remarks that the real way to make a comedian have a nervous breakdown is to sit as close to the stage as possible and never laugh.
• In the Martin Lawrence special Runteldat, there's one bit where he rants about critics and how much he hates them.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons: The web animation "The Red Dragon's Interview" shows Wizards of the Coast taking one of these at anyone who criticizes not the execution of 4e, but its highly controversial content by depicting them as a literal and figurative troll. The whole thing is rather tongue-in-cheek.
• In Ars Magica, one of the backstory's major bad guys was the Scottish wizard Davnalleous, named for Dave Nalle, a game designer and reviewer who was critical of the game early on. Later editions of the game explained the name as an attempted Latinization of a more plausibly Gaelic-sounding name (Damhan Allaidh, which translates as "Spider").

Theatre

• The 2007 production of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors at the Stratford Festival was panned for being disjointed and nonsensical. In response, they added a giant penguin which wandered across the stage sometime during the third act, with a sign on its back reading "For the critics".
• Richard Wagner famously wrote Sixtus Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg as a harsh caricature of Viennese music critic Eduard Hanslick. The result was ambiguous: "Beckmesser" (and the adjective "beckmesserisch" derived therefrom) entered the German language as a word for a pedantic but uninspired critic, but on the other hand, Hanslick remains the most well-known music critic of his time...
• In one of the most extreme cases ever, magician Criss Angel found out during an April 2009 performance of his much-pilloried Las Vegas show Criss Angel BeLIEve that celebrity blogger Perez Hilton was in the audience...using Twitter to tell his followers that the show stunk. During the curtain call, Criss pointed him out to the audience and profanely dissed him. The media stir in Vegas this caused proved a setback for Criss, as commentators derided him as unprofessional and a disgrace to the Vegas entertainment scene.
• [title of show] discusses some of its own reviews within the show.
  Hunter: Jeff, what was that bad review in anyway?
  Jeff: Broadway.com.
  Hunter: Broadway.com?! Broadway.com can kneel down, open its online mouth and suck my—
  Jeff, Heidi, and Susan: ♪ ♫ Festival medley! ♪ ♫
  Hunter: (yelling over the others) IT CAN SUCK MY FUCKING COCK!

Video Games

• The computer game Peggle has often been described (notably by Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw) as being pure luck with no room for skill. In the sequel Peggle Nights, if the player attains the relatively difficult achievement of 100% Clear on all the levels, the quip of the "lucky" rabbit character Warren in the trophy room is "You cleared all the pegs? I'm starting to think there's more to this game than chance!"
• After spending several games being panned and savaged by critics, NISA decides to fire back with the first trophy of Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory with the following quote.
  Neptune: Oooh, looks like you started a new game! Think any game reviewers won't get this one?
• Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge advertises an "optional easy mode for beginners and magazine reviewers" in its back cover .
• A subtle one in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag has the in-universe front for the antagonist faction panning the idea of a game about Ratonhnhaké:ton, specifically citing his stoic yet angry personality — echoing some real-world player complaints about him — but also claiming that depicting his early years was not recommended either because, "although Ratonhnhaké:ton's early life would be of some interest to our more educated audience, it is unlikely that his story would appeal on a broader scale... being too 'foreign', as it were, to normal audiences."
• In the Borderlands 2 DLC Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage, Mr. Torgue directs you to track down and murder the authors of video game reviews he disagrees with. Interestingly, none of the games reviewed seems to be a stand-in for Borderlands itself.
• Might and Magic III includes a monster named "Scorpia", which is an ugly, gray-skinned, obese woman. It is no coincidence that Scorpia was the nickname of a female game journalist who had given Might and Magic II a scathing review... Reportedly, she felt "flattered" to be included in the game.
• The 25th Ward does a Zig-Zagged version between this and Take That, Audience!, with the trope of visual novels being expected to have Multiple Endings. The answer? A final chapter with 100 different endings, and you have to re-play the chapter over and over, going through the same sets of choices to get them.
• PETA included a not-so-subtle jab to the criticism and backlash their video game parodies received in Pokémon: Red, White & Blue (a sequel to Pokémon Black and Blue) by having one of the opponents the player fights being an overweight McDonald's customer who whines about his childhood being ruined and accuses the Pokémon of taking things way too seriously after he is beaten.
• Pokémon itself did this in Generation V with Team Plasma, the villains Pokémon Black and White, as a swipe at the criticisms that many religious and animal rights groups made against the series; depicting them as a literal Knight Templar Animal Wrongs Group. Ghetsis, The Man Behind the Man of Unova, depicts himself as a figure of good, but ultimately has self-serving goals for the group. As of Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, half of the group have realized their error and reform, but the other half have discarded the "animal rights" excuse for their actions and are now flat-out terrorists.
• After many complaints of the later Paper Mario entries doing away with the diverse and and unique NPCs of the earlier games and replacing them all with flocks of identical-looking Toads, Paper Mario: The Origami King has Big Bad King Olly attempting to commit Toad genocide for the petty reason that a Toad had gravely offended him, and since they all look the same, he was seeing the face of the guy he hated everywhere he went, so he decided that they all had to go.
• Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel: For its many departures from canon, the game was a lightning rod of controversy among the Fallout fan community even during its production. In the credits, the game calls out a Fallout fan messageboard that was host to particularly strong condemnation of the upcoming game and tells them, "Thanks for the laughs!"

Webcomics

• Shortpacked! frequently broke up its "Flashbacked!" plotline to use Robin as a surrogate for criticism that his comic had gotten too serious. "The End of Shortpacked" was interpreted by many as a direct response to the John Solomon review, featuring a hostile customer upset that his opinion on how to run the store was not taken as the gospel and declaring the staff to be too arrogant to listen to him and regular customers to be merely yes-men.
• Penny Arcade:
  • In direct response to Kevin Smith's statement that Jersey Girl "wasn't for Critics", the creators came up with a random strip called The Adventures of Twisp and Catsby, daring the critics to criticize it (ironically, Twisp and Catsby became incredibly popular. No critic wanted to criticize them).
    Gabe & Tycho: I'd bet you'd love to criticize that, wouldn't you, you Critics? But you can't. It's not for you.
  • [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/8/30/ Penny Arcade also had a variant: after making fun of various game reviewers for years, they worry about the critics' response to their own game. Cue cut to the big review sites throwing a party: "Hey, guys - I just started my review! Do you know if there is a number less than zero?"
• VG Cats ran a strip with a controversial abortion joke. "Now some people weren't happy about the content of that last strip, and we can't have someone not happy. Not on the Internet."
• Sinfest has been doing this a lot starting around late January 2013, labeling anyone that dislikes Xanthe or the Sisterhood Arc as a Straw Misogynist regardless of the reason.
  • There have been a number of strips that have characters read actual fan complaints about the series' current direction, then put on "Patriarchy-filtering glasses" that supposedly reveal what the complainers really mean, which is always misogynistic whining. For example, complaints about Monique's Character Derailment get turned into "Waaaah! 'Nique doesn't show her ass anymore!"

Web Originals

• The Nostalgia Chick got a lot of negative reaction to her "rapping about rape" video. Feeling that Spoony wasn't getting nearly as much criticism for the rape jokes in his own videos, she had a line in the "Inside the NChick Labs" special where reprimands one of the other characters for even mentioning the rap, declaring "we're not Spoony, we can't get away with that shit".
• The Nostalgia Critic tends to do this in regards to his Fan Dumb, most notably with his character of "Douchy McNitpick", who endlessly whines and bitches about every tiny mistake he makes and finds the idea of agreeing with him on anything to be repulsive. In his James and the Giant Peach review, he did a Running Gag that the fans of the movie were pointing guns at his head so he couldn't actually criticize it. At the end of the review, he both says what he doesn't like about it and very fairly says many things that he thought the movie did do well, only for the Fan Dumb (in voiceover) to shriek "HE SAID HE DIDN'T LIKE IT!" and attack him. On the whole, Doug mixes it with a lot of Self-Deprecation and a constant need to apologize for things that aren't his fault, so nobody really gets upset. At the end of his review for A Simple Wish, the Critic is confronted by Mara Wilson, who had been the leading child actress in that movie. Angry with him for mocking her for doing such terrible movies, she starts playing some of the really bad home-made films the Critic did in his teens, showing him as an extremely awkward adolescent. The episode commentary explained the circumstances behind Mara's cameo, how the whole thing was arranged between her and Doug, and how both of them had great fun doing it. Doug has stated that he considers it to be the best joke he's ever made in the show.
• Ultra Fast Pony:
  • After making fun of the source material for several episodes, "One Joke to Rule Them All" made fun of fellow Abridged Series Friendship is Witchcraft. In the video description, the series creator preemptively called out anyone who viewed Friendship Is Witchcraft as a Sacred Cow:
    insult the canon? "heh, that was kinda funny."
    insult the fanon? "I'LL EAT YOUR FAMILY!"
  • In The Stinger of "Ponynet Fight", Twilight wonders whether it's possible to troll bronies and Pinkie Pie answers by posting screenshots of negative comments from prior UFP episodes. The Author Avatar shows up to tell his haters that they're giving bronies a bad name... then he realizes that he's also to blame for riling them up in the first place.
• Todd in the Shadows considers this a personal pet peeve when reviewing music. In his review for the aforementioned "Applause," he states that he has never once seen a musician call out her critics or haters without sounding whiny or pathetic.
• The Cinema Snob: His entire persona is based on snobby movie critics, like Roger Ebert, though he does respect his opinions overall.
• Radiodrome: Josh (but other hosts often too) seem to hate mainstream critics for condemning many of the B-movies, horror movies and exploitation films they tend to like. Even though a lot of these films aren't exactly quality pictures, making general critics' opinions understandable at least. Radiodrome devoted one episode to a 1980 Siskel & Ebert review of a slasher movie that they at the time both gave a thumbs down. The duo then condemned the entire genre on both its artistic merit as well as their lack of ethics. Josh, Brad, and other co-hosts reviewed every single quote from this (then) 30-year-old review that should be viewed in the context of its time anyway, only to simply disagree with all of the points that Siskel and Ebert raised.
• Sam & Mickey's The Real Housewives of Toys 'R' Us has Barbie vent in episode #2, about the argument that her unrealistically beautiful image makes her a damaging role model for little girls. She argues that little girls shouldn't feel intimidated by her beauty, because children play with all sorts of unrealistically-designed toys. She also reminds President Business and his council, who lobbied the criticism against her appearance in the episode, that she does promote such empowering values as achieving seemingly impossible dreams, refusing to act subservient, and overcoming male dominance.
• YouTube singer AmaLee, who specializes in English anime covers, has an April Fools' Day tradition of doing this to her Hate Dumb by taking songs and changing the lyrics to call-out particular types of hate comments the most common being "She Changed It, Now She Sucks". Ranging from such heresy as not signing a direct translation of the lyrics to "being a sell-out".
• Played for Laughs in The Angry Video Game Nerd's review of Jurassic Park: Trespasser when the game's producer Seamus Blackley gets sick of the game's constant negative reviews and plans to trap critics and reviewers on his private island to be brainwashed into loving it. It's especially funny as Seamus himself provides the voice over and goes full Big Bad after giving an earnest interview about why the game was so bad.
• invoked Arin and Danny, when playing Sonic and the Black Knight, are not having a good time as they're not fans of it at the best of times but Arin is struggling immensely at a suddenly harder level. Not being able to figure out what to do, he loses it and fires a fierce take that at fans who mock him for getting distracted during playthroughs and missing critical exposition or instructions. Ironically, this burst of anger inevitably gets them through the level.
  Arin: When has the game ever told me?! It never did! And I'm sure it did and someone's gonna make a fucking video, like it's gonna start with me saying "they never said it" and then it's gonna smash-cut to just us talking about fucking smacking a butt or two and it's gonna say it on the screen and it's gonna zoom in slowly on the screen and I'm gonna look like an idiot, like an asshole! It's exactly what's gonna happen, I know it!
  Danny: That is what's gonna happen.
  Arin: It's happened so many fucking times in my life and I'm sick of it! I'm sick of it!!!' Sonic has made me sick of it!
  Danny: This is your legacy. This is my legacy! We have no children; this is our legacy! Wow!
  Arin: When I was a kid I was like "I'm gonna make a movie or something and I'm gonna make a show that'll inspire millions!" No! I'm gonna get cut up into an "Arin sucks compilation" on Youtube by some fucking Sonic fan who's like "Shut up you don't know!"
  (Beat)
  Danny: ...Wow... wow dude! You alright?

Western Animation

• Occasionally happens in The Simpsons, usually through the mouth of the Comic Book Guy. When he points out a continuity error that the producers had made ("Should The Simpsons get a horse?" when they did have one in an earlier episode, with completely different circumstances), followed by Homer asking "Anyone care what this guy thinks?" - with the entire town yelling "No!" at him.
  • This Something Awful.com faked script for "The Simpsons Movie" mentions this joke in particular when it states "Good, if we point out our flaws then we don't need to fix them."
  • "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show" is as much about Executive Meddling, Totally Radical, and Shoo Out the New Guy as it is fan criticism, though Comic Book Guy's critique tends to be what it's best remembered for (that and Poochie's ultimate fate).
  • In the episode "No Good Read Goes Unpunished" Marge and Lisa wonder what to do when a decades old piece of media is considered offensive. The camera then pans to a photo of Apu, signed "Don't have a cow". Marge and Lisa look directly at the camera and state that the problem will be dealt with later, if at all.
• Family Guy:
  • "Boys Do Cry" closed with Peter responding to criticism of the content of the show by saying the following:
    Peter: (talking with Lois; the camera slowly zooms in during) Like, for instance, if you're watching a TV show and you decide to take your values from that, you're an idiot. Maybe you should take responsibility for what values your kids are getting. Maybe you shouldn't be letting your kids watch certain shows in the first place if you have such a big problem with them, instead of blaming the shows themselves. (blatantly looks at the viewer) Yeah.
  • In an earlier episode, in response to a bad review by Entertainment Weekly Peter uses a page from EW as toilet paper.
  • Some argue whether turning Quagmire, a self-professed rapist, into a prudish Self-Deprecation avatar to Brian and Peter's immorality counts as this trope as well.
• Drawn Together tried to do this with an Entertainment Weekly review using the justification of the cast saying "Members with these characteristics aren't our target audience." Unfortunately, they listed so many characteristics that it's impossible to find a member of society that doesn't fit into some of the demographics that were mentioned. In the end, though, the critic and Spanky Ham admit they both have points: she isn't the target audience and Drawn Together is "a steaming pile of sh*t". Entertainment Weekly kept playing along, though, culminating in a review that went "I gave the show an F. They killed off my coworkers. If this continues, we'll have to get married."
• Futurama has Bender say, "Have you ever tried simply turning off the TV, sitting down with your children, and hitting them?" in response to parents who blame television shows (like Futurama) for making their kids misbehave. Given the way it's presented, it's kind of a Spoof Aesop.
• In Animaniacs, Slappy Squirrel repeatedly badmouthed Moral Guardians who wanted over-the-top, slapstick violence toned down.
  • One cartoon specifically had her nephew Skippy deal with bullying, to which all the nonviolent solutions failed and he resorted to Aunt Slappy's favorite solution - liberal use of cartoon explosives. The same toon's B-plot saw Slappy forced to build some machine to tone down on-screen violence, which ended up working by moving the violence offscreen.
  • Subverted in an episode which pit Slappy against Siskel & Ebert knockoffs but didn't seem to be a shot at them personally - A) Slappy's shtick is being a washed-up cartoon star, of course she'd have to deal with critics; and B) the show made liberal use of No Celebrities Were Harmed, they weren't not going to lampoon recognizable faces if they could help it.
• MAD does this on occasion with some Self-Deprecation thrown in, much like its print version. It Makes Sense in Context since their main purpose is to criticize pop culture as a whole.
• Siskel and Ebert caricatures appear in the Bakshi Mighty Mouse finale "Mighty's Tone Poem" to tell everybody what they think of Mighty Mouse's home movies (which he's screening as punishment to four of his foes). Petey Pate gives them the heave-ho:
  Petey Pate: Beat it, Baldy! You too, Fatso! The doughnut shop is down the street. Just follow the trail of cops!
• At the end of The Beatles episode "Tell Me Why," a donkey eats one of the boys' guitars. George quips "Eight million mules in Spain and we had to get one that's a music critic."
  • In "Not a Second Time," the boys are in an African jungle en route to a concert in Johannesburg. Ringo is frightened by an approaching team of crocodiles:
  Guide: Oh, don't worry about those crocs. They're music lovers.
  Ringo: Yeah...well, I hope they're not critics.
• Very common in Teen Titans Go!, given its reputation as a divisive show. An episode or two a season is dedicated to mocking the show's vocal Hatedom. The show tends to revel in Self-Deprecation, so these episodes are as much the result of them loving playing up the show's infamous representation as it is them sincerely telling the hatedom to relax.
  • The episode "Let's Get Serious" had the Young Justice cartoon version of Aqualad pointing out how incompetent this iteration of the Titans was. The Titans thus decided to "get serious", but instead became parodic pastiches of Darker and Edgier comic book characters, and the end of the episode implies that things will go back to normal in the next episode. Notably, it's one of the few of the few non-special episodes that even the hatedom enjoys.
  • In "Más y Menos", when the Titans are seeing a video detailing Más and Menos' superpowers, there's a video in the upper right corner (that has a picture of a baby crying) that says "Teen Titanz NO!" by someone named ChildHoodDestroyed.
  • "The Return of Slade" is has a Bait-and-Switch title designed to drum up interest from older fans of the original series. Slade never appears onscreen, and the Titans proceed to talk about how awesome the "three episodes and a made-for-tv movie" was, with Beast Boy saying "It's too bad nobody will ever see it"! The rest of the episode is one big Author Tract involving BB and Cyborg getting upset that a clown they hired is too silly, so they turn it into a psychotic Monster Clown. Raven says that "Clowns are supposed to be silly because THEY'RE FOR KIDS!", and claims that the two of them are letting nostalgia blind them and that they need to grow up. In case you didn't get it, the episode uses clowns as a thinly-veiled and obvious metaphor for the show itself, with Beast Boy and Cyborg standing in for the show's Hatedom.
  • Then there's the episode "The Fourth Wall" which mocks the critics by having the show's characters seemingly acknowledging the lack of quality, and working to improve themselves by making their humour more "high brow" by putting on British accents and talking generally about politics, emphasizing emotion and character by hamming up their lines, and finally boosting their animation by threatening the animators and changing their style to an almost Disney-esque style with faded colours and faux-traditionally animated backgrounds. However, at the end of the episode, they realize it's better to be true to one's self and return to form.
    • The episode “Toddler Titans… Yay” rehashes plot line from “The Fourth Wall” by having Control Freak once again making complaints towards the teen titans and being deemed in the wrong for it. This time however the episode takes jabs at those criticizing the show for only caring about appealing to little children and refusing to honor the legacy of the original series. This is carried out by having the Teen Titans sent to an alternate world that is a Dora The Explorer knockoff and having them cause havoc there to escape.
  • The second half of "Two Parter" not only took a jab at the critics but also had a cameo from "Weird Al" Yankovic as Darkseid that was meant to parody the more serious episodes of past DC productions.
  • "The Titans Show" takes it a step further by having the villains of the show play the role of the normal audience viewing the series. Control Freak reveals he was responsible for the last five episodes being held on an island to make the Titans more interesting for the villains to watch. Starfire questions why people who hate them all would devote so much time and energy watching them and the Titans show her the "brutal" comments left online about them. Control Freak reminds them that "opinions on the internet aren't accurate indicators of popularity and success."
  • "Teen Titans Roar!" is one towards critics of Thundercats Roar, with the Titans playing the role of the Hatedom decrying the reboot as ruining the franchise, except for Starfire, who plays the reasonable "normal" person who gives the new show a chance. This culminates in a battle between the Titans and the Roar! Thundercats where the Titans are easily defeated (except for Starfire, who didn't fight), after which the spirit of the original Lion-O descends from Heaven to declare Roar! a worthy successor to his show and that anyone who disagrees "has a poop mouth with poop opinions". At which point, Roar! Lion-O thanks him for the totally sincere and not forced endorsement.
• The Garbage Pail Kids cartoon starts off out with one of these. The first skit in the very first episode consists of a stereotypical Moral Guardian decrying the show, questioning why it would ever be put on the air, only to be silenced by the channel changing to the actual cartoon.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: "Fame and Misfortune" gives the message of "It's a children's show that teaches social skills, you should really just relax!" and that imperfections are what makes the characters who they are. The episode's climax even has many of the ponies that have harassed the Mane Six throughout the episode echoing the usual criticisms thrown towards the characters, with Applejack being the most boring character.
• Harley Quinn (2019) features a jab at critics of the show, portraying two male sexist stoners who hate the show, complete with "Release the Snyder Cut" and "The Last Jedi Isn't Canon" shirts. The former rants about Harley Quinn being a Mary Sue and the show being feminist propaganda despite not having actually seen it (and yet somehow wrote a review for it) and wonders why would anyone make a show set in Gotham City with Batman as a bit character (despite having seen all 5 seasons of Gotham. He's finally persuaded to watch the latest Harley Quinn since it focuses on Batman and Batgirl and Harley is not in it.

Real Life

• Older Than Steam: When Michelangelo was painting Last Judgement for the Sistine Chapel, priest Biagio da Cesana complained about the figures being nude. He proceeded to depict Biagio in hell as Minos, and making that figure censored... by a snake attacking Biago's privates. Biagio tried to complain to Pope Paul III, who responded in kind:
  Paul III: As pope, I have power over earth and heaven. However, Michelangelo drew you in hell, which I have no power over.
• Gustav Klimt entitled one of his works Goldfish To My Critics.
• Benjamin Disraeli, who earned his living as a novelist, said that "Critics are those who have failed in literature and art."
• German composer Max Reger legendarily wrote the following to a critic who had panned his music:
  "I am sitting in the smallest room in my house. Your review is in front of me. Soon it will be behind me."
• Quote of lost origin: Critics are like eunuchs at an orgy. Meaning, they may claim to know everything about how to do it, but cannot do it themselves.
• At the 2013 World Wide Developer's Conference, while introducing the redesigned Mac Pro desktop computer, Apple senior vice president Phil Schiller said "'Can't innovate anymore', my ass!", in reference to those that felt Apple's best days were over after Steve Jobs' death in 2011.
• In 1947, Han van Meegeren was arrested on charges of selling artwork by the Dutch master Johannes Vermeer to Hermann Goering. It turned out that the painting was actually part of a scheme to ruin art critics: van Meegren had painted it himself. His plan worked: he was found guilty of forgery^note which carried a much lighter punishment than selling Dutch cultural treasures to the Nazis would have, and the Dutch art critics were greatly embarrassed.
• When a news website limited their review of an Amanda Palmer concert to the topic of a wardrobe malfunction that occurred onstage to the exclusion of her actual singing and performance, Amanda responded magnificently in the form of a song.
• A museum tested the skill of art critics by presenting paintings drawn by actual monkeys, then claimed they came from a very famous surrealist painter. Out of around 20 critics, only one of them exclaimed correctly that they were obviously drawn by a monkey; all others fell for it completely.
• On June 22, 1941, Jean Marais inflicted a beatdown on critic Alain Laubreaux at a Parisian restaurant. Laubreaux was a homophobic and antisemitic collaborationist who lambasted the plays of Marais' lover Jean Cocteau purely out of Nazi-friendly ideological bias. It inspired a similar scene in The Last Metro.
• After the film Bohemian Rhapsody depicted the creation of the song of the same name, a montage of savage critiques filled the screen. This was in stark contrast to end of film, where the song became the centerpiece of the massive Live Aid concert. Not to mention that the song made the top ten lists in three different decades (the original release, after being featured in Wayne's World and the Freddie Mercury biop) and is considered by the Rolling Stone magazine as among the greatest songs of all time.

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