Recap / The Nostalgia Critic S 10 E 9

Release date: May 3, 2017

Film: The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000)

Tagline: Did you ever want to know how Fred and Wilma met? Of course not, nobody cares, but here it is anyway in the most pointless of prequels.

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Tropes:

• Actor Allusion: Four cases.
  • When Barney gets hit in the head, the Critic dubs over him saying that he's a born-again Christian and will go create God's Club, in which Stephen Baldwin played the lead.
    • The scene where Fred reveals to Barney that he is saving the ring the latter is holding at that moment for Wilma has the Critic dub lines onto the latter that it's probably for the best, given that he's saving himself for Pauly Shore.
  • The scene where Fred accosts a valet (John Cho) for trying to park his car is captioned with a poster for "Harold & Sulu Park a Car".
  • Wilma's father, Col. Slaghoople, is so loopy the Critic thinks his actor Harvey Korman never recovered from being cast in The Star Wars Holiday Special, the one Star Wars project George Lucas officially disowned.
• Actually Pretty Funny: The Critic is genuinely surprised and amused by the caveman who loudly announces his intent to poison the water supply, and laments that the movie isn't focused on that.
• Brick Joke: At the beginning, the Moviesquitoes claim they're distracting the kids in the audience so their parents would have time to themselves, George adds, "Just don't go in their bedroom for fifteen to twenty minutes." At the end of the episode, as the Moviesquitoes say goodbye, the caption "Give your parents 5 more minutes" appears.
• Call-Back: Parodying the pointlessness of this prequel film, the review opens with a faux-trailer for "The Moviesquitoes", an origins story featuring the three mosquitoes (Doug, Malcolm and Tamara) from the Jurassic Park (1993) and Wild Wild West reviews.
• Framing Device: The actual review is set as one the Moviesquitoes are watching over an Apple laptop.
• Fridge Logic: The Critic wonders how Chip, if he has a "Win"/"Lose" lever that somehow causes Fred to lose at casino games, could he could possibly owe anybody money.
• Have a Gay Old Time: See the second Running Gag below.
• Origins Episode: Spoofed with the Moviesquitoes, whose backstory amounts to nothing more than them saying hello and introducing themselves.
• Pun-Based Title: In the end, the Critic theorizes that the film was just written around a forced pun between "Rock" and "Viva Las Vegas". After the review, the Moviesquitoes also make up their own punny movie titles, such as Ghostbugsters, Hot Buzz, Incection, The Maskquito, Out of Parasite, Bugsmaids, and Hamlet.
• Review Ironic Echo:
  Gazoo: Good luck, dum-dum! You'll need it.
  Critic: I think that's what every ticket taker said when going in to see this movie.
• Running Gag:
  • The Critic being constantly horrified by the sudden appearances of Gazoo.
  • The theme song lyric "We'll Have a Gay Old Time!" plays whenever any interaction between Fred and Barney reeks of Homoerotic Subtext.
    Critic: Okay, is my joke playlist just gonna be nothing but this?
• Shout-Out:
  • The Critic compares Gazoo and his race to "night terrors Marvin the Martian has when he falls asleep on ecstasy".
  • The inadvertently creepy faces made by the characters had the Critic thinking that they could all appear on "CSI Bedrock".
  • The Critic says that the moment where Fred's eyes become slot machine reels makes him look like Judge Doom.
• Take That!:
  • As the Critic rants about how video cameras can exist in the Stone Age, he compares it to having a live audience in animation and, to illustrate his point, plays a clip from the cartoon with a Laugh Track in it.
  • When Barney gets knocked on the head along with Fred, the Critic's added voice over makes fun of Steven Baldwin's born again Christian status, and more specifically that he's going to make the film God's Club now.
  • The scene where Fred was entranced by Betty and begins mumbling, has the Critic imitate Betty claiming she doesn't speak like Bill O'Reilly. Later, when she offers a drink, the Critic dubs into her lines about how Bill Cosby gave her a drink, and again, that she doesn't speak like Bill Clinton, causing the Critic to conclude that anyone named "Bill" is a potential sexual offender (though he takes exception to the Malcolm character "Bill").
  • The Critic admits the scene where Fred and Betty are going on a date, with Barney and Wilma in tow, has comedic potential, only for that to be wasted by the fact that the film was directed by Brian Levant, of A Christmas Story 2, Are We There Yet?, Problem Child 2, Jingle All the Way and Snow Dogs infamy.
  • When he finds out that Rosie O'Donnell (who played Betty in the first film, a casting choice that caused quite a stir) has a voice cameo as an octopus, the Critic says that she finally got a perfect role in a Flintstones movie.
  Critic: Not since casting her as a chimp has felt so right.
  • The Critic thinks the scene where Chip slips Wilma's pearls into Fred's pocket to frame him was ripped off from the dumbest subplot of Titanic (1997).
  Jack: This is horseshit!
  Critic: You said it, 1997 Leonardo DiCaprio. You said it.
  • When the man trying to kill all dinosaurs gets dismissed again, the Critic angrily cries cries, "It's because of people like you that we're getting seven Transformers movies!"
• Tempting Fate: As the Critic begins to acknowledge that the plot is simple and unpredictable.
  Critic: Honestly, I'm not entirely seeing where this plot can go.
  Chip: Soon, Wilma will see him for the pathetic, primitive primate he really is.
  Critic: Ah, there's our bullshit.
• That Came Out Wrong: During the scene where Betty believes that Barney is groping a woman's breasts when he was really wiping pie cream off of her, the Critic imitates Barney trying to give Betty an explanation.
  Critic!: No, it's okay! I was just wiping my white, hot cream off her breasts!
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: How the Critic felt about the man intending to poison the dinosaurs' water supply to wipe them out, believing he's the most intriguing character in the movie.
  Critic: No, no, please! Can't we follow that other guy's story? Why did he do it? How did he do it? Can he save a couple so we can reenact Dino-Riders?
• Toilet Humor: Following a scene involving a farting dinosaur, the Critic shows an edited clip from the cartoon show in which Fred appears to have farted.
• You Need to Get Laid: The Moviesquitos tells the adults who actually want to watch their adventures to sleep with someone.

"Ooh, there's a lot of Busch gonna be sold."