The Nostalgia Critic / Tropes D to G

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Tropes A to C | Tropes D To G | Tropes H to N | Tropes O to S | Tropes T to Z

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D

• Damned by Faint Praise:
  • When referring to Anastasia, he says it's unfair to call it a cheap Disney knockoff, when it's actually an expensive Disney knockoff.
  • In his review of Steel, he had the following to say about Shaquille O'Neal's acting:
    "But give him some credit, though. He's tall."
  • He feels really bad once he's forced to praise Jim Carrey's Grinch for at least being an effective translation compared to Mike Myers' The Cat in the Hat.
  • Critic had some for the Mortal Kombat movie by comparison after watching Mortal Kombat: Annihilation:
    Nostalgia Critic: Does this make Mortal Kombat a good movie? No. But it certainly makes it a movie, which is more than I can say for this pigshit.
  • When reviewing Digimon: The Movie, he grudgingly admits that at least Pokémon: The First Movie had a moral; even if it was poorly handled.
  • Devil: Coming from Shyamalan, his thinking that Critic's idea of the janitor as the bad guy is a good twist doesn't exactly mean much.
  • In "The WORST Christmas Special Ever" he notes that even Santa Claus Conquers the Martians showed the right type of bear living in the Arctic.
  • In Mamma Mia!, the only nice thing he can say about Meryl Streep singing “Winner Takes It All” is that she looks pretty.
  • In Old vs New Spider-Man, Hyper gets upset when she can only defend MJ with "she has pretty hair".
• Damsel Scrappy: A Top 11 full of them, the "Dumbasses in Distresses". invoked
• Darker and Edgier: In a few reviews, the Critic voices his disapproval over shows that were normally light-hearted becoming this, as he felt the changes weren't set-up properly.
  • In his review of Cool as Ice, he makes it to a scene where a kid is being kidnapped, being pulled into a corner, and being shot... Before the Critic admits the kid didn't die, he says that would have been such a dark twist, possibly parodying the trope.
  • But he has also praised those who apply this concept properly, such as the more serious Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) and the 2010 version of True Grit.
  • He also believes the Spider-Man franchise would have been better if It had been Darker and Edgier.
  • Happened twice to the show:
    • After Ma-Ti died in Suburban Knights, to set up Critic's end in To Boldly Flee. The crossovers were Word of God confirmed to be Critic's way of saying goodbye, the emotional moments increased, and Critic got so broken that even Douchey felt bad for him.
    • After he came back from the Plot Hole. Jokes got nastier and more mean-spirited, there were a lot more scares, Santa Christ was revealed to have a big sadist side, and Critic ended his third episode begging for death again.
  • In terms of episodes, the first three commercial specials had dark character jokes (and angst in the first one), but were mostly focused on sweetly goofy adverts. The post-reboot commercial special included two rape awareness PSAs, which can be a shock even without Critic reacting badly.
  • Tamara in comparison to Rachel. Rachel was Cute and Psycho and abused a lot but still tried to be the Token Good Teammate, Tamara is a Creepy Good Knight Templar Hero Antagonist who has The Masochism Tango with Critic.
  • As discussed by Doug in Midwest Media Expo, he wanted to make Critic's love for Christmas more psychotic in reboot. Just compare “Holiday Clusterfuck” to “I Fucking Love Christmas”. The second episode of the month is always far less laughs and more emotion, something Doug enjoys.
  • As many people (and the commentary) noted, Disney Afternoon wasn't like Doug's usual brand of slapstick violence. Malcolm's bruised for the whole episode because he mentioned Doug, screams when his arm is lifted, tearfully says he can't feel his teeth, and when he says the name “Duck Tales”, he's unconscious on the couch, Critic has blood on his hands, and Tamara wants to call an ambulance.
• Dark Horse Victory: In the Old vs. New on Disney's Cinderella and its live action remake, the winner is Ever After.
• Dark Reprise: The original "The Review Must Go On" was still singing about how he hated his job, but the orchestral background and Doug's passionate voice made it triumphant. The stripped back rock instrumental is a lot more bitter and resigned. Doug at a con confirmed that using a song about how he has to keep going anyway was intentional, calling it the best choice.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • The review of Follow That Bird is a Bum review in disguise, as the Nostalgia Critic couldn't face snarking on the first show he ever saw and bowed out early.
  • While Critic still gets more attention, The Shining is one of the only episodes with Rachel and Malcolm alone together without their boss, and has more insight into their characters than most.
  • The Monster Squad for Tamara, as she gets separated from the sexist boy squad and has to deal with things by herself.
  • Aside from more insight into the titular fangirl's twisted head, the Hyper Fangirl vlogs let Malcolm and Tamara flesh out their characters while Critic is only usually at the end serving as her Lust Object.
  • Ironically given they're Brainwashed and Crazy, but Matrix Month for Tamara and Malcolm. They have a lot of screentime in all three episodes and get to have more character beats than usual, as well as Critic realizing how much he needs them and how badly he treats them, though this doesn't last long.
  • Rob in the Fantastic Four (2005) skits, as he's trying to get Critic/Tamara/Malcolm to do something actually good with their powers. He also exposes himself to the meteorite so he can be a better hero than them, but just gets uselessness.
  • Mad Max: Fury Road is one for Devil Boner, giving him Character Development from just Testosterone Poisoning Take That! fanservice to a much nicer version of masculinity than the toxic version the meninists perpetuate. He also gets more limelight in Old vs New: Evil Dead and Old vs New: Cinderella, although that's shared with Hyper, Benny and Critic's abuse/trauma issues.
• Deal with the Devil:
  • Vincent Price made one so that he could see into the future with 100% accuracy. He used this to record a conversation with the critic for when he reviewed The Thief and the Cobbler.
  • The Critic was made to look after Satan's daughter Evilina in exchange for a good Zod impression. He's also accepted that his final fate will be hell. And when Diamanda makes him explode in "The Uncanny Valley" epilogue, she enjoys watching him burn before she reverses time.
  • In a panel, Malcolm was dressed as the devil and was asked what would he give Hyper to make her give up her soul. He and Tamara both say giving her Critic's soul would do the trick.
  • "The Review Must Go On" has him note that Doug is just supposed to bringing a web-show back but he's playing it more like Critic as the devil trying to get a deal with him.
• Death Equals Redemption: Mama Critic takes an off-screen cue from her son in Jurassic Park III, as she goes from Alcoholic Parent who rips into him when she's drunk, to not letting him know she was sick because she didn't want to distract him from work.
• Death Glare:
  • Gives a vicious one to Linkara after he catches the latter impersonating him at the beginning of their Superman IV review.
  • Don Bluth to Critic in Conquest of the Commercials, along with silent treatment. Critic being himself, he can't handle it. In the Dragon's Lair LP, he likens it to a scary disapproving grandparent.
  • In Princess Diaries II, when Critic isn't looking at her after he asks when she'll let him go, Hyper's stepford smile slips and her face goes hard in his direction.
• Death Is Cheap: Although it doesn't stop him from trying again and again.
  • Death as Comedy: Mostly because of this being extensively used.
• Death Is Dramatic: Retcon aside, Critic got a whole movie dedicated to letting him die happy (no Death as Comedy this time as he's a Death Seeker who wants to fix his mistakes), and while it's offscreen, his mom actually gets a good few minutes in Jurassic Park III about how she died and Critic's distraught reaction.
• Deconstruction:
  • In the Scooby-Doo (2002) review, his Butt-Monkey status has finally broken him, the Doc Brown parody is closer to an intelligent old man feeling the beginnings of dementia, if he hadn't been The Ditz Roger would have been able to tell him more about the end of the world, young Critic makes him realize his extreme interest in overly-dommy women is not exactly sane, a suicide actually means something this time around with him having to get sent back from purgatory instead of just a Unexplained Recovery, and he learns by the end that he actually has to make choices to get his life better.
  • As noted below, Doug has been portraying Critic's job as pathetic and self-destructive ever since he began, with Critic himself telling Film Brain in To Boldly Flee that nobody needs him for many reasons including the fact that he's a shitty reviewer. The review of Planet of the Apes (2001) opens with an almost three minute long "truthful preview" about this, ending up calling it "white privilege: the job".
• Deconstructive Parody:
  • Of Totally Radical layabouts (such as those in Biodome, which he was in the course of reviewing) with Mr. Lovhaug's help.
  • Even of being a Caustic Critic, demonstrating just how pathetic, unhappy and masochistic you have to be to keep on doing it. Christmas With The Kranks confirms that he only started reviewing to get positive attention, and try to fix all the bad stuff that had happened in the past, and in TBF, him thinking he's a bad critic and thus worthless to humanity is one of the reasons why he wants to commit suicide.
  • Of Drunk with Power. He's so powerless that one of Doug's main traits for him is that he's constantly the victim (he's said himself that's a glutton for punishment), so whenever he does get it, he clings down hard before it will inevitably slip out of his fingers again.
  • More tragically than normal because Drama Bomb Finale, but of Cash-Cow Franchise in Scooby-Doo. Critic cry-rants in the beginning that he's only being made to suffer like this to get the site ratings, and his younger self's bitching that he's become a sold out narc quickly gets on his nerves.
  • Of being a Distressed Dude. It's given him problems, both in that he kidnaps other people to get some control back and it's made him scared to wake up, and he gets made fun of by Devil Boner and Hyper who coo over who held him hostage best.
  • Devil Boner's a parody of Testosterone Poisoning. He's Ax-Crazy, super over the top manly, had a bad childhood… but he also have Character Development, is a sweet progressive boyfriend and stands up for women. He's also genuinely shaken up at the thought of losing control and becoming abusive to Hyper.
  • Of Cloudcuckoolander's Minder, as having to look after Critic has left a toll on Malcolm and Tamara, and Malcolm can take it to an extreme, less looking after him and more just keeping him under tight control when he can.
• Deep South: The moronic straw fans who like Adam Sandler movies in Eight Crazy Nights are from here, with expository clothes like fedoras, sideways caps and cowboy hats.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • Rachel and Malcolm were part of an Ensemble Cast with Doug in Demo Reel, with their own story arcs, but when it comes to being on Critic, they're treated as much less important than he is, with less screen-time and very little insight into any sort of character they have other than how they feel about NC.
  • Straighter examples whenever there's a crossover with another reviewer, as they and/or Tamara get even less time in said episode. A few minutes at best.
  • Lampshaded in Christmas With The Kranks, when it turns out they're actually upset when he barely uses them and would knock him unconscious for promises of someone else giving them something to do.
  • Tamara on twitter has made it particularly clear that she loves the clipless reviews for avoiding this and giving her and Malcolm plenty of work.
  • Lampshaded in Jem, where they tell him they're still there, and he raises his gun at them with a smile until they leave. (Though they come back later.)
• Department of Redundancy Department:
  • Regarding Good Burger: "It's like if shit could shit, and that shit could shit, and THAT shit could shit, and THAT shit could raise money to put together a team of filmmakers to produce a steamy flaming pile of shit!"
  • Similarly, regarding Felix the Cat: The Movie: "If a piece of shit took a piece of shit, and that PIECE OF SHIT TOOK A PIECE OF SHIT, AND THAT PIECE OF SHIT TOOK A PIECE OF SHIT etc., etc., etc.,... and that piece of shit made a MOVIE, AND THAT MOVIE TOOK A PIECE OF SHIT! THIS IS A PIECE OF SHIT!"
  • "There are some things we forget about, some things we don't know about, and some things we forget about."
  • "[deadpan] Look, they're all wearing glasses, so they must be part of the losers, because they're all wearing glasses. Losers, glasses, losers, glasses. They're one and the same."
  • From Santa Christ's theme song: "He atoned for all our sins, but he also likes pancakes! He saved puppies from a fire, and he also likes pancakes!"
  • "Here's an insecure douche who's trying to look like a not insecure douche, and yet still comes across as an insecure douche. Douche!"
  • "You know, the lack of logic in the characters' lack of logic really lacks of logic!"
  • Subtle, and almost certainly a genuine oversight, but "When did a tuning fork turn into the fucking BFG?" ^note The BFG's initials stand for Big Fucking Gun. In other words, he called it "the fucking Big Fucking Gun".
• Depending on the Writer: Film Brain in The Purge review and Forest Warrior. The former is definitely a Critic/Doug-written episode, with more character sketch than review and Love Makes You Crazy, the latter is more like a BMB/Mat-written episode with 90% review, Film Brain as his usual smart analytical self and any character moments coming from Critic.
• Designated Hero: invoked
  • The Critic finds the heroes in The Lost World: Jurassic Park completely unsympathetic, pointing out that they can be held responsible for almost every death in the movie.
  • In Moulin Rouge!, Chick rants about how Christian's supposed to be sympathetic and the "good guy" but he completely humiliates Satine in front of everyone, leaving her a sobbing wreck. The boys agree with her.
  • He's not impressed by Hulk Hogan in Suburban Commando detonating a ship with the president on it, senselessly beating people, scaring the shit out the neighborhood and getting the reward of cake.
  • He's equally unimpressed by the usage of this trope when discussing the fictionalized depiction of the titular character in Patch Adams—perhaps moreso since the movie was supposed to be based around actual events—but especially after Patch and his friend steal from a hospital: "Movie, did you even say this part out loud? Your hero is stealing from a hospital?"
  • He's creeped out in The Monster Squad when the boys blackmail the girl with pictures taken while she was changing. In the real thoughts, Doug adds on that she should have been the one blackmailing them cos it's illegal.
  • During the Fantastic Four (2005) review, Critic, Tamara and Malcolm show off their jerkassery while having powers and doing nothing, just because the film's characters do it too. Rob calls them out on this.
  • In Wild Wild West, he hates Will Smith for letting Salma Hayek's character be raped and choked.
• invokedDesignated Love Interest: Lampshaded In-Universe. During Matrix Month, Tamara's Trinity expy character informs that she is the Critic's love interest, despite the fact that the two have never interacted alone together beforehand. Hilariously, he's not even the first Messiah she's hit on.
• Designated Victim: Discussed literally in Is There Another Good Shyamalan Movie?, as he's disturbed that You Can't Fight Fate means that the people who have been victimized in some way were just pre-destined pawns to be hurt. Being a bitter victim himself, and victimizing others because of it, he knows what he's talking about.
• invokedDesignated Villain:
  • Mocked by the Critic in his reviews of The Wizard and Twister, the "villains" of which were a man who finds lost children for a living, and a rival tornado chaser who dares to have corporate sponsorship.
  • During his review of The Legend of the Titanic, the Critic wonders why any of the Titanic movies need a bad guy, considering what role the iceberg plays.
  • In his Dear Santa review, he and The Cinema Snob continually jab at how often Jillian is viewed in the wrong, when Dereck was putting Crystal's needs over hers despite only just meeting Crystal. Plus, anything "wrong" she did were just relatable, mundane actions.
• Despair Speech: Said in the first commercials special after he realizes what he's been doing:
  Critic: Oh my God that's even more pathetic! I spent all my time watching the shit that people skip? What the hell's wrong with me? God, this isn't life, this is make-believe I'm pathetic, I'm not a man, I'm not a man... [picks up picture of his younger self] Look at you, you had such dreams ahead of you, such promise, you were perfect back then - okay you had stupid glasses, teeth like a chipmunk and a dumb and dumber haircut that only got dumb and dumber - but you had such hope. There's nothing left me for me anymore, I am a loser. You were right, director of My Pet Monster, I'm a loser, a weak, pathetic loser...
  • The opening of the Scooby-Doo (2002) review leaves it in the dust, as it goes over how he thinks he's never done anything in his life to make someone's better, he doesn't have any friends and that his life is the worst thing anyone could possibly go through.
  • There's another one in “Why Do We Love Zombies”, only even more depressing than the last two because it's just stated as fact.
  Critic: You come to grips that you live in a world that is always trying to get you. You can never fully be safe, you can never fully let your guard down. But we also know if we wait too long or let our guard down, at just the wrong moment... [dying sound] you'll never get that moment back again. You feel the loss, you feel the hopelessness, and that's a different kind of horror. It beats you down, slowly eats away at your humanity to the point where you really do question what you're fighting for and if it's worth fighting for anymore. It's getting used to the terror, letting it slowly destroy whatever kind humanity that's left inside you, let every bad situation build on top of each other like every one zombie can build on top of each other.
  • Although it ends up more optimistic (he sees the Santa Lie as the first time you have to deal with this and you can grow from it because you can then take part in the illusion) than the above, his speech about how much it hurts to be lied to is one of the most melancholy things he's ever done, added on by his voicing over pictures of people suffering.
  Critic: Recently it hit me why the Santa lie is not only a good thing, but an important thing. Really think about all the surprises life has thrown at you. Just when you think you've got it all figured out, you have all the answers, a bit of truth you never expected falls in your lap and changes everything. As many of us have noticed, change is hard and there's been far too many situations that's fooled us; a person who did something we thought they could never do, or a mindset we held for years now has to be totally different because of something that's occurred in your environment. Everyone has to go through these rough times at some point in their life, where suddenly the perception of reality is destroyed and everything becomes uncertain; what else was I wrong about, what other surprises could be around the corner that can make me look foolish, what should I now question or be afraid of?
• Deus ex Machina: In The Purge, Film Brain desperately wants to do a review with Critic otherwise he threatens to blow up the studio. Critic tries to let him do the end, but says it himself, letting out an “...oops” when he realizes. It's only because Film Brain's destruction app sucking that everyone manages to keep alive.
  • His review of The Star Wars Holiday Special contains one of the most blatant ones in Santa Christ, a Parody Sue which immediately solves all of the problems the Critic was going through and more. And it is absolutely wonderful.
  • Lampshaded in The Last Airbender, where because Critic's usual speech failed, he namedrops the trope and Avatar Aang saves the day instead.
  • As soon as Critic's taken hostage by Zod in Man of Steel, Superman crashes in too. Necessary because otherwise Critic would have died slowly and painfully, but even Critic lampshades it.
  • Again with Avatar, “The Best Avatar Episodes” has a completely out of nowhere, sappy-music-backed ^note as it was never even mentioned beforehand and Critic had spent all review running away speech that tells Dante he's trying to please the fans by pretending to be Zuko, and he turns out to be right.
• Developing Doomed Characters: In Alien 3 he talks about how the previous films bucked the horror cliché of disposal characters and made a sort of found family, and that’s why it sucks so much to have the opening of this film stuff Newt in the fridge.
• Devil in Disguise: In the Devil, Satan, Critic, Santa Christ, and Rita are in an elevator. Satan is actually the Shamyalan. And Rita is really Cthulu.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • When some Catwomen attack him they pull off their heels and fire them like guns. The Critic is freaked and runs for his life.
  • More seriously in Christmas Story II, where Critic lets loose on Hyper for all she's done and when she starts crying he gets upset and whimpers she's not meant to do that. confirmed in-universe and out that she was manipulating him.
• Didn't We Use This Joke Already?: Frequent when a meme he invented come up.
• Did They or Didn't They?:
  • The hand-holding "now you're pregnant" line and the last scene in the FernGully: The Last Rainforest review left fans wondering as to this. In Doug and Lindsay's two years later commentary, they confirmed the characters banged.
  • Hyper and Critic in the (confirmed long) time she had him a Captive Date. On one hand their forced Falling-in-Love Montage is the most cutesy little girl romance stuff you can imagine and their almost kisses are a big deal to her. On the other, she's a firm believer in "No" Means "Yes", even with the cutesy stuff she admits her dreams sometimes involve torturing him, she's talked about kissing Critic's face like an aggressive pet and he says “I have worst tastes to wash out of my mouth” after calling her his psychotic kinda ex girlfriend, Doug and Rob compared her to Christian Grey, and when she's stalking Critic again at Midwest Media Expo, Rob's rape jokes make Critic look traumatized. Word of Doug-facebook-jokes seems to point to a "not even Critic is sure but they probably did".
• Did Not Do the Bloody Research: The Critic used to use "twat" as an insult towards idiot characters. However, he pronounces it as "twot".
• Didn't Think This Through: Hyper Boner love their ship name right up until the official wedding when they start having second thoughts. They even allowed Critic to leave because of all the jokes on their name.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The Splash Page for Sidekicks, it shows the Nostalgia Critic kicking Chuck Norris in his cowboy ass.
  • He also headshots an angel in the 2010 Christmas special.
  • In The Monster Squad, Tamara destroys reality with internet comments.
• Dirty Old Woman: In Blues Brothers 2000, he likens Aretha Franklin's rendition of “Respect” to his grandma at a family gathering trying to dance in a sexy fashion.
• Disaster-Dodging Dog: Doug Walker's review of Independence Day lampshades this trope. After we see the main characters surviving the first Wave-Motion Gun blast, Doug seems worried about Boomer's (i.e. the dog featured in the trope page) fate. In following reviews, it became a Running Gag whenever this trope occurs in a movie (plus a subversion in the Critic's review of The Lost World: Jurassic Park).
  Critic: (sobbing) Did Boomer make it out ok?
  Voice: Boomer...will live! (Victorious Chorus in the background)
  (Doug Walker screams in joy)
• Discontinuity Nod: Somewhat, mixed in with Elephant in the Living Room, as at the end of of the AVGN Movie review Critic says that so many people asked him if he was going to make a Critic movie. He did, three big ones, but it blew up in his face so apparently they don't count anymore.
• Discussed Trope:
  • Given that the show's main character is an internet film critic, he will naturally discuss common tropes in media.
  • The characters within the series' intervallic skits and recreations often discuss the tropes of the media they are currently in. Either by being Genre Savvy or Breaking the Fourth Wall.
  • Doug and Rob discuss the Magical Negro trope, and Stephen King's involvement in it, in the commentary for It. Yes, they reference TV Tropes.
• The Disease That Shall Not Be Named: In Total Recall (1990), he says that penicillin cleared up his "runny cock" once. For those of you who remember sex education, you'll know that he's referring to syphilis. Played for laughs instead of trying to be decent.
• Disney Acid Sequence: The dream sequence from the Critic's review of Junior.
  • The "I Fucking Love Christmas" song from his review of Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.
• Disney Death: Rocko in The Pebble and the Penguin's apparent demise didn't fool the Critic one bit.
  • He's never fooled by Disney Deaths...see also Rosie.
• Disposable Sex Worker: In the Last Angry Geek's 50th episode, he admits to accidentally strangling a hooker after the mess that was his Kickassia takeover.
  • Double subverted in the Total Recall (1990) review, as when the strip club gets bombed Critic worries if the women got out safe, but That Sci-Fi Guy says "screw 'em".
• Disproportionate Retribution: Has his own page.
• Disappointed in You: He hates Don Bluth's Death Glare because it reminds him of shitty morbid grandparents shaming him for something.
• Dissimile: In the Tank Girl review: "It's like a comic book coming to life... without it actually coming to life."
• Distaff Counterpart: There was Chick for serious, and for a joke he wants to date Betty from Freddy Got Fingered because they're both insane masochists.
• Distracted by the Sexy: During the review of Bebe's Kids, he rants about a useless music video included, until camera focuses on the main female's butt which results in a quick "Dayum" before he returns to ranting on how useless the music video is.
• Do Wrong, Right: At the start of his Adventures Of Rocky and Bullwinkle review, Critic is found is his room with a revolver preparing to commit suicide. Malcolm sees him, rushes up to him, and hands him a 9mm pistol. Less kickback.
• Dodgy Toupee: In The Phantom of the Opera (2004) behind the scenes, Tamara can't stand her Hyper wig, and Doug adds that all their wigs have got filthy, and Chester's wig is as gross as you think it is.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: From the way Oan, Chick and Critic were acting when he interrupted the review of Moulin Rouge!, you'd think the latter two had just been caught cheating with each other. 
  • In-universe in “Is The Big Lebowski A Masterpiece”, where he shuts off Leon's analysis just because he's talking about castration, feeling like your penis is the only thing that makes you a man, and being a Gun Nut to compensate, all of which are issues for Critic.
  • He never outright mentions depression in “Why We Do Love Zombies”, but it's pretty clear he's using zombies as a metaphor for it with language like “let every bad situation build on top of each other like every one zombie can build on top of each other” and “it beats you down, slowly eats away at your humanity to the point where you really do question what you're fighting for and if it's worth fighting for anymore”.
  • The straw fans in Eight Crazy Nights are treated as so dumb that they're close to having brain problems, and Critic talks down to them (later killing them) like they're five years old. With his “it's funny because they shouldn't live”, it comes across as less they're worthless because they're Sandler fans (as Doug keeps saying people should like what they like) and more “they should die because dumb”.
  • Less heavy is in The Wicker Man (2006) where Critic runs after Tamara, tells her off for leaving him like he wasn't just tortured but they had sex and she's Not Staying for Breakfast, and makes the Interplay of Sex and Violence more obvious by offering her a job to sate his masochism and need for views.
  • In “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer”, while they're specifically talking about Critic's explosive Christmas joy; Critic under sedation saying he should be marketable and not scary, Tamara's well-meaning help blowing up in her face and Malcolm literally talking about how Critic should repress his sickness all give the undertone that it's about mental illness in general and how Critic needs to hide it for people to like him.
  • Hyper asking Critic in the MME panel if he “wants to build a snowman” somehow ends up as a rape reference. Rob teases "Is that what they're calling it now?", Critic looks like he might cry, Hyper proudly says even if he does what she wants she won't leave him alone, and when Critic comes back shuddering, Rob asks if he wants a Shower of Angst.
• The Dog Bites Back:
  • After The Last Airbender, Malcolm joked on twitter that both he and Rachel enjoyed the chance to torture and manhandle Doug back for once.
  • The TMNT crossover BTS has the filming of when Doug is getting stuff thrown at him (he falls over at the end and Malcolm is delighted), and he notes that people must have been wanting to do this to him all day.
• Domestic Abuse: He praises the Harley Quinn/Joker dynamic, especially the episode "Mad Love", for capturing the essence of abusive relationships.
  • Joked about in Dawn Of The Commercials during the “Got Milk” ad.
  girl Critic: He beats me with a shovel but you can skate on those abs.
  • Indulges it himself with Rachel in The Shining, so much so that she was actually scared of Doug in real life during the threatening scene.
  • Alluded to in The Swan Princess, as even though Odette and Derrick don't fit this trope, he complains that it teaches abusing someone is fine if your only compliment for them is that you think they're pretty.
  • Like Doug in the vlog, he's really saddened and unnerved by Pacifica immediately silencing herself when the bell is rung in Northwest Manor Mystery.
• Do Not Do This Cool Thing: In-universe. When the guy in Reefer Madness warns the audience of all the ways drugs can be hidden (false heels and the like), the Critic starts taking notes.
• Don't Explain the Joke: He tends to fall into this a lot when targeting comedies, oftentimes substituting explaining a joke for pointing out why it isn't funny. This is most blatant in his review of the Super Mario Bros. (1993) movie when he calls out the movie's use of a Who's on First? joke by asking whether or not it's supposed to be a Who's on First? joke.
• Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off!: He believes/grew up believing that the only way you can punish a child is to beat them.
  It's like if Dr Seuss really hated children, and wanted to give parents a way of punishing them without necessarily beating them. And yet the psychological scars still remain the same.
  • In the Patch Adams review he takes a belt to the movie.
    Critic: Bad movie! Bad, bad movie! I'm so ashamed of you!
  • He believes a stupid scene in The Legend of Zorro is actually in the imagination of the kid getting disciplined, and proceeds to bend over his desk and act that out.
• Don't Shoot the Message: In-universe. He knows full well that child abuse is bad, so destroys The Cell for showing graphic scenes just to show that obvious aesop.
• Door-Closes Ending: The end of Christmas Story II has Critic keeping the main door open in case Hyper wants him again and dejectedly closing the inside door. The downer of this was mitigated in The Matrix, when Chester is the one that uses it as a chance to be indoors and chat with Critic. (As shown in vlogs, Hyper would rather be The Dreaded to him anyway.)
  • When Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa ends on a very harsh one, accompanied by the Mark Hamill character shouting "Shut that door!", Critic plays the ending over several other famous Christmas movies, and even ends his own review by shouting "Shut that door!" and having the door close on the screen. And then the same thing happens to close off the review of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
• Dope Slap:
  • Rob is apparently known for them, as Malcolm and Doug complain in the Osmosis Jones behind the scenes.
    Doug: I'd say he's slap-happy but he's never happy.
    Malcolm: Slap-angry.
    Doug: Slap-snarly.
  • In Ghost Rider II, the Ghost Rider Pony comes in to just smack Critic on the back of his head.
  • In Jem, Malcolm slaps Critic out of it when he borrows "but the chart says" from the execs.
    Critic: Thank you.
  • In Dreamcatcher, Barney lightly hits Doug over the head with a binder for letting Tamara do "one of his mistakes" by pronouncing "psychics" as "physics".
• Double Standard:
  • In Howard the Duck, he think it's fucked up that you have to censor female nipples for the kids, but duck tits in a PG rated film is apparently fine.
  • In Barb Wire, he calls out the difference in male/female torture scenes, with the guy fully clothed and the woman naked and writhing.
  • Pointed out in Patch Adams, as the Straw Feminist Broken Bird love interest obviously has to have her defenses broken down because all women are fragile, but Patch himself - the king of masking his insecurity - doesn't because he's the male hero who we're supposed to laugh with.
  • The Heavy Metal review and commentary both discuss the idea that men walking around naked is unthinkable, but it's fine for women to strip down for no reason.
  • The end of the Sharknado review acts like women have a lot more variation in fiction while male characters are only allowed to be manly. Not really.
  • The fact that Doug apologized for bashing boy nostalgia's sexism, but taunted anyone upset over his being gross at girl nostalgia was not lost on people.
  • He can partake in all the violent boy fantasies he wants, but just because Leslie in Bridge to Terabithia likes to "make up details about her fictional world", she's a nutjob who'll grow up killing people.
  • Invoked in "Rise of the Commercials", where he hates Polly Pocket for being a toy where you can have a mini doll, walk around in a mini world and then put the compact in your pocket, but loves the masculine Mighty Max for the same thing. He then realizes that boys toys had so much less option than their girl equivalents (whether that's true or not is better left for places not here) and feels used.
  • In Midwest Media Expo 2015, Doug actually called people out for acting like Critic was the one in the wrong just because he yelled at Hyper in Christmas Story II, and not Hyper for stalking him, breaking into his house and kidnapping him. In Disney Afternoon, he went the other way, finding it creepy when people rooted for Critic abusing Tamara/Malcolm/Rachel but demanding punishment when they tried to get their own back, as he assumed it'd be pretty obvious you were meant to be on their side.
  • In The Adventures Of Sharkboy And Lava Girl, when Lavagirl thanks Sharkboy for saving her, he says “technically you saved him first but fuck it, girl saving the guy never counts in movies”.
  • After the “bedtime barbie” commercial, he says while he doesn't want to enforce any gender stereotypes, he shows that it would be a lot creepier if it were boys snuggling up that much with a doll.
  • In The Adventures of Pluto Nash, when they have to be movie gods and are clearly bored, Tamara and Malcolm ask Critic why he can still be popular when he admits to half-assing some stuff but they're never allowed.
  • In Blade, he says good thing the gross blob isn't a woman or his nipples would suddenly be considered indecent. Also that the studio won't let the lead woman look bad, even though the movie is saying she is.
  • Pointed out in Wild Wild West, as he notes the odd trend of white guys being horribly racist and then perving over a hot black woman.
  • In "Does PG Mean Anything Anymore", he talks about how inconsistant the PG rating is, saying kids getting slaughtered is okay, but you're not allowed to show a nipple. He also talks about how the ultra-violent Drag Me to Hell got a PG-13 and a gay kiss in Love Is Strange got an R.
  • In "How Right Are Trailers", he talks about the reactions to the Civil War and Ghostbusters trailers, pointing out the flaws in the loved former one and defending the sexist-tinge-hated latter.
  • The Ghostbusters review has him pointing out that nobody gets upset at Batman being rebooted nigh-constantly, nor do they think that Christian Bale being cast ruined their childhood of seeing Michael Keaton, so it's stupid to claim that women are erasing the original Ghostbusters.
  • In "Unlimited Beers", Rachel and Tamara talk about how Doug and Malcolm don't care about dolling themselves up because they'll get objectified elsewhere anyway, but the girls constantly worry because the judging for them in comment sections is non-stop.
  • In Rogue One video, the boys complain about constant brunette British women in the Star Wars series, but Tamara as Jyn points out that nobody complained about Anakin and Luke being so similar.
  • The beginning of the Supergirl review highlights the effort they put into Superman's first movie to said Supergirl movie, and expands to how often female lead action movies have both less care and if they do badly it's treated as "women shouldn't have movies".
• Double Standard: Rape, Female on Female: Averted in "Conquest of the Commercials," albeit as a joke, as he's creeped out by the "Bedtime Barbie" commercial showing invokeda girl kissing Barbie's nipple without consent.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male:
  • Catwoman (2004) might not have been so funny if it had been four hunky guys chasing a frustrated and scared girl around, switching between either wanting to kill her or wanting to screw her, and her realizing that she should have been enjoying it because they were hot.
  • How the Santa Christ scene in the Christmas Story II review comes off. Critic is trying to say that Hyper was awful to him in a lot of ways (kidnapping, stalking) the accompanying Hyper vlog still has her happily sneaking up on him and complains that Santa Christ will never be on his side, but Santa Christ tells him he's a douche and Critic blames it on the movie filling him with hate. And can you imagine an abused female reviewer having to make it up to her male stalker and ending the review leaving the door open for him? Doug's said a lot, both in cons and the behind the scenes, that the episode was meant to be intentional victim blaming, and complained at people who think Hyper was right to get her way.
  • Averted in the Pixels behind the scenes where Tamara really doesn't want to slap Doug for real, despite Rob and Barney saying he can take it.
  • Showing Doug's complained about invoked Misaimed Fandom of her in action, the second Hyper Midwest Media Expo vlog has the crowd “aww”ing when Critic gives up and hugs her right after he asked if he could do anything that would make her leave him alone.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male:
  • Averted. Even when it's a woman he finds attractive, the "BAD TOUCH!" gag still comes out if she's inappropriate with a child.
  • To a lesser extent (sexual harassment, not rape), mixed in with Hypocritical Humor with his Superman: Story Arc review. He complains that he only hit on "Amanda" once and got in trouble, while female employees can hit on their male co-workers and it's fine.
  • Played with in the FernGully: The Last Rainforest review, the laughs again coming from how strange the situation is. Chick and Critic have happy G-Rated Sex to parody the movie and then she announces that she's made him pregnant. He starts screaming and crying while she grins and keeps a tight grip on his hands.
    • This is also a parody of the similar event in Star Trek: Enterprise, where Charles Tucker was the victim.
  • But played straight in Dawn Of The Commercials, when he assumes that all men just don't notice when a woman is harassing them, despite that Critic himself has complained about female creepers before.
    • And speaking of just a few of those female creepers, they don't get as far as rape, they're too self-obsessed and stupid for that, but Catwoman (2004) wouldn't have flown with four guys punching a woman (who was already starting to look unhealthily skinny and tired) to the floor and making sexually toned threats towards her.
  • Goes back to being played with in the hyper fangirl's fourth vlog, as Malcolm doesn't call HF out for wanting to Mind Rape Critic into loving her, but is still clearly disturbed by her Dissonant Serenity when she says it. (On the other hand, he's thought about it himself.)
  • In one of Doug's con picture captions, he freaks out about a Hyper cosplayer with a baby, fearing that it's Critic's. Played for laughs, but still dark.
• Double Standard: Violence, Child on Adult:
  • He has the following reaction on seeing an adult beating up a twelve year old in The Garbage Pail Kids Movie: "Dude, you're beating a twelve-year-old! What an asshole!". Then not a second later, it cuts to the scene where the roles are reversed: "Dude, you're getting beaten up by a twelve-year-old! What an asshole!", with the tone completely changing from shock to amusement.
  • He has the opposite reaction when he reviewed Mr. Nanny, where Hulk Hogan's character suffers abuse from the children he's supposed to watch over that would realistically have killed him.
    Critic: Okay, there's a difference between pranks and attempted murder.
• Downer Beginning: "The Top 11 Best South Park Episodes" both started and ended with Critic not being able to stand his fans.
  • Full House starts with his first ever (but not the last) You Bastard! rant at the audience for not actually caring about him.
  • The third fuck-ups starts with Critic totally having lost his “I am your Jesus” ego from the first one, and Douchey compliments him on his creative self-hate.
  • The Scooby-Doo (2002) review starts with an improvised-from-Doug rant about how much Critic hates his job and has no friends.
  • The Jurassic Park III review is not particularly happy for a few reasons, and it starts off with Critic having night-memes before sombrely stating the nightmares are yet to come.
  • "Was That Real: Teddy Ruxpin" starts off with Critic PTSD-ing about his experiences with Ruxpin, and not liking having been made to do this. It ends okay though.
  • The beginning of The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle has Critic wailing about how he killed the movie and has a gun to his head.
• Downer Ending: Has his own page.
• Dragged Off to Hell: Happens to Soulless at the end of The Cat in the Hat when the Devil collects his soul. The Critic takes a moment to recommend a very specific punishment.
• Drama Bomb Finale: While the 2012 season had more emotion than previously, the Scooby-Doo (2002) review was a Continuity Porn finale that had every hint that Critic was getting more depressed blow up into confirmation. It also leads into To Boldly Flee, another Drama Bomb Finale that took all of his issues seriously.
• Dramatic Gun Cock: During his review of James and the Giant Peach with Happiness Is Mandatory, anytime the Critic says something not nice, cue the cocking and guns to his face.
  • Gets played for laughs in his Catwoman (2004) review when the Catwomen cock their heels like guns at him.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: In "Why Do We Love Stupid", he uses Adventure Time as an example of "comedy is always based on misery" when Doug had praised it for being the upbeat exception to the rule. But then Critic is a lot more stubborn in his depression and cynicism than Doug.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • He hates himself for not having any power, but he can't see that he does. The other contributors might humiliate him, put him back in his place, not listen and so on, but they've followed him willingly, twice.
  • You could prove wrong most of the feelings expressed in his Despair Event Horizon rant at the beginning of the Scooby-Doo (2002) review. As examples: he has nobody to bounce any ideas off with? The It review shows that he and The Other Guy work on scripts together. He hasn't contributed anything to anyone? He's done more crossovers than ever this year. He's never made a person's life better? Chester would be the first to disagree. The sadness comes from how he can't see any of that.
  • As also shown in the Scooby-Doo (2002) review, teenage Critic is actually a Wide-Eyed Idealist dork than the bitter cynic he grew up to be.
  • In The Last Airbender, Rachel Katara says “Critic has a long way to go before he's capable of saving anything”. He doesn't prove her wrong, and she only knows him as a brat who keeps running away, but the audience knows something she doesn't: before he came back, he saved the world three times.
  • Goes both ways in Old vs New: Spider-Man, as Hyper doesn't know (although she'll find out and still not care) that Critic doesn't even want her as a friend, just as a prop to fuel his ego, and Critic doesn't know (although he'll find out and regret it) how dangerous Hyper is.
  • 2007 Critic in Christmas with the Kranks saying he started reviewing to get people to like him and fix things. 2015 Critic, who has gone through even more hell, sees this trope too and looks like he's going to cry.
  • In Monkeybone, up until the end, Critic knows that the kids have been treated badly, but he doesn't know who their parents are and to what extent. When Aunt Despair and Uncle Lies comes in and he makes the connection, he feels bad.
• Drama Queen: Hyper's in-universe wangst about being friendzoned pisses off the Critic, his fictional mother went Where Did We Go Wrong? at any slight mistake and Critic himself is an overly emotional princess.
• Dramatic Thunder: Combined with Evil Laugh for characters in "Return Of The Nostalgic Commercials", for characters who seem a bit too crazy.
• Driven to Suicide: NC drives a woman to suicide by singing "Holiday Clusterfuck" to her.
  • He nearly killed himself at the beginning of the Batman & Robin review.
  • Two executives kill themselves once the Critic shuts down the chart they were using as referencing.
  • NC has shot himself in the head many, many times, sometimes several times during the same movie. Add in the number of times he's begged for death, and you get a very, very long list.
  • Played seriously in the Scooby-Doo (2002) review and To Boldly Flee. While they're heroic suicides, he makes it clear in both that he has other motives than just going out a hero.
  • Subverted in the The Master of Disguise review, when he starts screaming to be lethally injected. When Rachel comes in to do so, he stops her before looking at her in horrific bewilderment and going "It was a joke, Rachel!"
  • Very likely Hyper at the end of Princess Diaries II, as Critic makes it very obvious he'll never be into her and she has a Villainous Breakdown exploding herself on a faulty disc. Next time she appears she's even more Stepford Smiler and deluded than before (which is saying something), calling said explosion a “nice trip”. She confirms in a Todd cameo that she has major suicidal tendencies.
• The Dreaded:
  • Sage, to the Critic. Maybe because of what he did to Ask That Guy. Comes to a head in The Guyver, as the normal version of Sage coddles Critic, trying to prove that the guy who tortured everyone isn't him. It doesn't work, but interestingly, Critic is the one who turns out to be the bad guy of the review.
  • In Mad Max: Fury Road, Curiosa thinks this of the meninists because they believe they're being discriminated against when women want to be in movies, while when Hyper comes in, Critic tiredly says that she's even worse given what she's done to him. After this episode, Devil Boner joins the ranks with Hyper, Critic being nervous about him in ''Cinderella Old vs New" because of the kidnapping. Not helped by how they're both proud of holding him hostage.
• Drinking Game: Does a Stephen King-inspired one with It, where he drinks for every time he notices a Stephen King cliche. He's drunk about a quarter of the way in; and shitfaced by the halfway point.
  • Dr. Smith remarks later in the review that aforementioned drinking game has been known to kill people.
  • He does one for the number of scenes in the opening of DuckTales that aren't actually in the show.
  • Averted in his review for The Langoliers, another Stephen King movie (he stops after the first shot when it's revealed to take place in Maine), as he didn't want to have to deal with the hangover.
• Driven to Madness: Critic does this to Rachel, Malcolm and even Tamara in different ways. Always putting Rachel in the abused role gifted her with a Guilt Complex, Malcolm's abuse makes him a Love Martyr with vengeance issues, and Tamara Took a Level in Dumbass due to all the infantalization.
• Dr. Jerk: There's been several brought in to stop him killing himself or throwing up, but their only motive is to make him finish the review.
  • Malcolm's phone-doctor in Jurassic Park III averts it, reassuring a tearful Critic that his mother fought as hard as she could with her illness, died in her sleep, and sweetly apologizes for his loss.
  • The doctor from Event Horizon is more icky than jerkish, constantly touching Malcolm and Tamara's faces with a glove that's been up Critic's ass
• Drone of Dread: A recurring theme in the second half of The Shining review, where Critic goes off the deep end and is completely terrifying.
  • The same rising-in-pitch note happens in Devil when Critic gets into Suicide by Cop mode for a moment and tries to goad the Devil into killing him.
• Drowning My Sorrows: When Critic is suffering at the beginning of The Christmas Tree, there's an empty smirnoff bottle on top of the fridge. It turns out to be Rachel's or Malcolm's, as it's shown later that they drink heavily when Critic isn't around.
• Dual-Meaning Chorus: “Are You Sick Of Let It Go”, both Critic and Tamara sing “I don't care if it's just a trend, it feels like there's no end”, but he's annoyed by said trend and she's excited, mostly because it's pissing him off.
• Duct Tape for Everything:
  • In Ghost Rider II, for some reason that it's probably best not to question, Critic has Hello Kitty duct tape.
  • He binds Sage in Speed Racer with duct tape, and an alternate ending (where Rob dragged Critic off) involves Malcolm asking if a sex thing is happening again.
• Dude, She's Like in a Coma: All the Did They or Didn't They? between Hyper/Critic when he was a Captive Date ended in this trope being Word Of Doug what probably happened.
• Dude, Not Funny!: Has his own page.
• Dull Surprise:
  • The Critic mocks Shaq's acting in this fashion with his review of Kazaam and Steel.
  • There's also William Hurt's performance in Lost in Space. "I love you, wife" indeed. "He's so boring the music has to do the acting for him!"
  • And Kevin Costner in Waterworld. The Critic even reacts to a scene where it's said he will be "recycled" with "Into what? Keanu Reeves?"
  • When he finds out in the The Christmas Tree review that he's been hallucinating, his only reaction is to ask Malcolm if he has any nyquil. Justified as he's used to Sanity Slippage by that point.
• Dumb Struck: Alone in the Dark traumatized the Critic enough that he had to review the movie through a text-to-speech program on his laptop. Since he didn't want the whole review to go like that, Linkara and Spoony volunteered to help him.
• Dutch Angle:
  • The camera immediately goes skewed at the end of Old vs New: Spider-Man, when Hyper is very easily convinced into ignoring Critic's wish to be friends and to keep stalking him.
  • A lot of it in The Wicker Man (2006) to disguise the fact that Critic and Tamara are Huge Guy, Tiny Girl.
• DVD Commentary: Loads of episodes have these, with Doug alone, Doug and Rob, or Doug and whoever he did a crossover with.
• Dying Dream: In Santa Claus: The Movie, he makes a joke about this.
  • He has his own near-death one in Surf Ninjas, praising the movie's "GENIUS" after accidentally being shot by That Other Guy at the end of the last episode. He gets better due to Optimus Prime.
• Dynamic Entry: In Hocus Pocus, the DVD explodes and the witches suddenly appear in the doorway with evil laughing and in shadow.
  • Devil Boner's cameos nearly always have him coming in via explosion.
• Dysfunctional Family: The abusive sweater-wearing father was bad enough to his kids, but Labyrinth reveals that he's married to the cocaine-addicted alcoholic mother. The Phantom of the Opera (2004) behind the scenes add in that Hyper is Aunt Despair's daughter. Bonus horror points for Critic writing these in-universe after his parents died, so they're likely based on his own.
• Dysfunction Junction: Critic himself would turn a therapist's eyes into dollar signs, and none of his recurring guests escape having issues. In reboot, aside from Critic getting more issues, this got more pronounced as he had an Ensemble Cast; Rachel acted like his abused wife, Malcolm was kidnapped but has a crush on him anyway, Tamara will stab people in the eye for coke, Hyper thinks "No" Means "Yes", Aunt Despair/Uncle Lies and their poor kids pop up every now and then (and Hyper is their daughter as well), Devil Boner is over-compensating with masculinity because of Mommy Issues and Santa Christ is a Fallen Hero.

E

• Eagleland:
  • He ashamedly apologizes for the post 9-11 Patriotic Fervor shown in the Spider-Man Trilogy movies.
  • Doug's father having served during his childhood, the Critic takes special offense to disrespectful portrayals of the military. In his review of Pearl Harbor, he takes offense to Michael Bay's portrayal of the US military, and insists that Bay should've been more respectful towards the country and its history that he had been tasked with portraying. As his rant about that ended up being wrong in a lot of ways however, he apologized for it in "When Is a Movie Just a Movie". A briefer but more apt criticism of Michael Bay comes at the end of Freddy vs Jason, where he complains Bay always tries to over glorify the military but ends up portraying them as idiots. He also called Stephen King a "disrespectful asshole" for his bone-headed portrayal of fighter pilots in Literature/Dreamcatcher.
  • As sweet as the sentiment was, the speech with stirring music about America needed South Park to make them laugh again after 9/11 is pretty opposite his point above about the Patriotic Fervor shown in the Spider-Man movies.
  • The obnoxiousness of the reboot's heavy patriotism was lampshaded in the TGWTG 4 DVD menu.
    Doug: We have the American flag flying in the background even though I'm not saying anything about America... intentionally.
  • Parodied in the Dark Side Of The Internet, where when Holly says you can't just put your fingers in your ears and hope bullying will go away, Critic gets offended because “as an American” it's his god-given right to dodge responsibility.
  • His favorite part of Transformers 4 is when the lead murders a guy with an American football for this reason.
  • Parodied in the Dennys portion of Dawn Of The Commercials, where he gets obsessively patriotic about the red, white and blue pancakes tasting like “America”, until he 'realizes' that the man saying they taste like America is mentally ill and that word is all he can say.
• Early-Bird Cameo: In The Wiz review, one can see Pollo's travel body in the background a week before it appeared on Linkara's show.
  • Tamara Chambers was one of the "Catwomen" in the Catwoman (2004) review. She is now taking Rachel's place starting with the Wicker Man review.
  • According to the commentary track on his Lorax Review, A early version of the character Hyper Fan Girl appears in his top 11 South Park episodes played by Rachel Tietz wearing glasses and an orange shirt instead of a sweater. She's later played by Tamera Chambers and is a recurring character on the show.
  • There have been a few jokes here and there that first appeared on Doug's Facebook page or one of his Vlogs before finding their way into a review proper.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The lighting was bad, he didn't have the white shirt and tie, his voice was slower when he was talking and the screaming was more like screeching every word, the videos were much shorter because he was on YouTube and the character was a lot more stereotypically masculine.
  • His very first Transformers review which was very similar to his later Bum Reviews. His review of the sequel homages this.
  • While the bad childhood stuff was always there, the early videos had a few "childhood was amazing because of TV/hot female characters/etc". Later on this got retconned as the only way he could cope with everything else.
  • In his review of Tom and Jerry: The Movie, his pistol appears to be a Heckler and Koch USP, rather than the Beretta 92FS in other reviews.
  • Nostalgiaween, in it's current form, didn't appear until the Critic's third Halloween. Prior to that he did one Halloween-related video in October.
  • He was much more willing to make gay jokes whenever he noticed characters and situations looking or acting Camp Gay. When viewers started complaining about Unfortunate Implications, he ended up lampshading it in the He-Man She-Ra Christmas Special by putting up a counter for all the gay jokes he could have made during the special, before dropping such jokes altogether.
  • In both early videos and Rob's articles ^note which have jokes about injuring Doug as a child or selling him into slavery, but still kept calling him TGWTG on the old website, it's funny noting how much they tried to hide their names considering how many videos they've done as themselves in current times.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: He has to genuinely almost lose the will to live before he gets his self-esteem back. Or at least enough to be proud of his patheticness for the time being.
  • He got there properly in To Boldly Flee after a serious meltdown in the Scooby-Doo (2002) review made him realize he actually had to put effort into changing things, involving saving the world and atoning for Ma-Ti's death. It just got subverted pretty horribly a few months later.
  • Twisted at the end of The Shining, showing off everyone's low expectations. Rachel and Malcolm get some much needed time away from Critic, and Critic is better off in a fucked up Happy Place. Lampshaded by the lyrics playing over:
    Singer: Every morning, every evening/Ain't we got fun?/Not much money, oh, but honey/Ain't we got fun?
  • The end of Mad Max: Fury Road, after all the kidnapping and chasing and MRA abusive. Devil Boner and Hyper go off together, the meninists get their just desserts, there's cheering in the distance and Critic and Curiosa are sorta friends.
• Ear Worm:
  • DuckTales's theme is the biggest offender to Critic, along with the Animaniacs theme, the Power Rangers theme, and others.
  • Lampshades Frozen's "Let It Go" as a huge ear worm by singing a parody about it using "Let It Go"'s music.
  • In Hocus Pocus, "I'll Put A Nostalgic Spell On You"'s catchiness was lampshaded in the lyrics.
  Winifred: This ear worm will stay you with you until blood spurts out your nose.
  • In his Disneycember review of Encanto, when talking about the songs, he shows a fragment of "We Don't Talk About Bruno" with "I can NOT get this song out of my head" as a caption.
• Easily Forgiven:
  • Played with in Christmas Story II, as Hyper proudly says she won't learn her lesson and Critic hasn't forgiven her for what she did, but pressure from Santa Christ makes him concede anyway. (Though even when she's over him in Fury Road, he still makes it clear he doesn't want to be near her and is allowed to feel that way.) Also subverted, as even in her wedding he still can't deal with her, Doug has confirmed any friendliness towards her being just needy for attention, and all he can manage is a very small smile at her being happy away from him.
  • Earlier on in the Top 12 Christmas Specials, he likes the fact that Kevin doesn't immediately forgive his mom for abandoning him, and she has to at least acknowledge what she did.
• Easy Come, Easy Go: Judging from the opening by the Critic (back in normal clothes) in the Fantastic Four (2005) review, his/Malcolm's/Tamara's superpowers only seemed to last a weekend. Though if Critic's worry about his exploding powers in Christmas With The Kranks is any indication, they may be just be lying dormant.
• Eating the Eye Candy:
  • The Hyper Fangirl vlogs, portrayed in a bad way. Tamara calls out the Hyper Fangirl on making her vlogs all about the men and acting like she's the Yoko Oh No, and in the third vlog HFG tells Malcolm she likes him more than Tamara because he's nice and pretty.
  • In The Phantom of the Opera (2004) behind the scenes, Tamara and Beth very much enjoy getting a close-up of Doug's ass. Kind man that he is, he then twerks for them.
  • In the behind the scenes of Alvin and the Chipmunks, Tamara gets amusingly Yaoi Fangirl at her boyfriend Rob Scallon gripping Doug's thighs.
  Tamara: Good for you, Doug.
  • Hyper and her friends, as well as Curiosa, are all very appreciative of Devil Boner at the end of Mad Max: Fury Road, both for his looks and calling out of the meninists.
• Eats Babies: Arnold Schwarzenegger, apparently.
• Electric Torture: In the Transformers 4 crossover, Critic happily rigs Erod's chair to electrocute him every time he tries to bring logic into the review.
• Elephant in the Living Room:
  • To Boldly Flee gets mentioned once early on post-comeback and the context gets choking and sobbing from the Critic, but it hangs around for a lot longer, with recycled music from it playing when Critic is making a point, Critic not quite remembering what happened when Sage alludes to the plot, the same white Prophet Eyes when he died showing up as a motif for Fallen Hero reasons, Zod being the only villain to terrify him, and Critic getting extremely upset when a movie tells him "you always win when you are good".
  • An animated elephant appears in the room Critic is doing his review for The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter to tell him to tell the audience that Jonathan Brandis, the actor who played Bastian in it, committed suicide in 2003, so that they can get it out of the way already.
  • Played for Laughs and trope-named by Linkara in Bloodrayne, building up to Spoony's breakdown before leaving the site but actually talking about how he didn't have a right to wear a Castleton t-shirt in Alone in the Dark (2005) because he didn't actually go.
  • Parodied in his review of Pixels with a literal elephant singing "Futurama" until Critic points out how similar the plot is to an episode of Futurama.
• Embarrassing but Empowering Outfit: Referenced and Played for Laughs in the Fantastic Four behind the scenes when Tamara is complaining about her outfit, Rob and her talk about Doug just wanting to embarrass everyone again, but at least he has the worst outfit. And later on, Doug has a “moment of sobriety” (as Rob puts it) about how stupid he looks.
• Emotional Torque: The reason why he gives the point to the True Grit remake Mattie. The original has more realistic fear, but the "little girl version of The Terminator" is far more engaging because she's so damaged and determined.
• Enemy Mine: Donnie and Critic don't like each other (Donnie ranting about how damaging Accentuate the Negative is even before he knew Critic was a thing, and Critic adamant that Donnie's a Replacement Goldfish for him) but both of them pull What The Hell Creator for the in-universe Ass Pull ending.
• Enforced Plug: Later episodes are often interrupted by sponsors. For an example, "The Wall" had a Honey sponsor it.
• Entitled Bastard:
  • What he deems his fans in Ghost Rider II. Or to put it in his words, "barking dogs of entitlement".
  • In the TRMGO DVD review, when Critic comes back, he says “and a new era of entitled shamelessness begins”, though whether he's talking about himself or the fandom (having already called them out for hypocrisy) is unclear.
• Epic Fail:
  • In the “Princess Diaries 2” behind the scenes video, Doug gets mocked for being so weak and frail that he could only do one pull-up.
  • Even Lindsay (who once said she hates the show so much she hates sushi by cultural association) felt like Doug's review of Sailor Moon was a complete failure.
  • In Cinderella Old vs New, he wishes for "someone with an opposite opinion of [him]", and it takes three tries for Hyper to finally show up. Of course he calls her out on fucking up the one time he needs her for something.
• Epileptic Flashing Lights: While not on initial release, Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer got a pre-video sign and tag warning people with seizures to skip the part between 25.02 and 25:15.
  • There's a recent change to the intro to his videos that adds a second of this sequence without warning.
• Epiphany Therapy: Subverted. Epic singing helps him out of his larger funks, but only for a short period of time so he can continue working.
  • Also subverted by the poker game in the Scooby-Doo (2002) review. It's made clear that this is just a start, not a fix, and he's still very broken in To Boldly Flee.
• Episode Title Card: Rare; it usually just begins with The Critic's catchphrase and right into the review. But there are a couple exceptions:
  • "We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story"
  • "TMNT: The Making of The Coming Out of Our Shells Tour", which features an opening sequence followed by the title card "Critic and Nerd".
  • With the revival of the Nostalgia Critic, it appears that this will be played straight since the review for The Odd Life of Timothy Green opens up with one of these set to a metal remix of "The Review Must Go On"
• Equivalent Exchange: Knight in Sour Armor version. In The Animatrix, he thinks that even though incredible things might happen in your life, there's always a dark, troubling side waiting on the other end.
• Escapist Character: Variant with the Aw Girls, as Doug describes them as wanting to turn off the world and just enjoy some cute fluff without really paying attention.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Name-dropped by Critic in Dia's review of BMX Bandits, where General Anesthetic holds him at gunpoint to do the crossover.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Parodied at the end of some of the Critic's reviews.
  • Full House: The Critic attributes the show's longevity (eight seasons, all of which he considered boring) to the Olsen twins being actually mutant aliens sending subliminal messages to viewers to submit to their will.
  • Foodfight!: The Critic pinpoints Jar Jar Binks as the director of the film (explaining why it is considered one of the worst animated productions of all time), causing him to send a missile at his house.
  • Has a genuine one at the end of his Mad Max: Fury Road review, where (while he thinks it's good) he is wondering why it is so immensely beloved. When he finally realizes that the movie was basically an R-rated Roadrunner cartoon with its Show, Don't Tell style and hidden intelligence, and that there's not a single scene he could imagine skipping, he decides that it really is as amazing as everyone says it is.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • In Ghostbusters, even the meninists aren't evil enough to trash little girls enjoying the 2016 movie, and tell Evilina that they're glad she likes it.
  • In It (2017), New Pennywise is shocked that the Critic tried the Stephen King drinking game (Old Pennywise not so much).
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Perhaps unintentionally, in The Emoji Movie review, he refers to Gene as "Meh", the emotion he supposed to be trying to convey.
• Everyone Is Bi: Fitting as Doug has this as such a Creator Thumbprint that even Rob gets annoyed.^note Note that this is all characters, not actors themselves, though Tamara and Malcolm are both in the LGBT community Critic goes between bisexual and a Transparent Closet, and has been Raised as the Opposite Gender, Malcolm has a big crush on Critic as does Jim (who is according to Malcolm, also a transgender man), Rachel had sex with the female Eight Crazy Nights, Hyper is hot for Rachel and Carrie Fisher (and also has some hints of genderfluidity such as her desire to grow stubble), and Tamara lampshades in Jupiter Ascending that they all like playing different genders.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • The Critic may hate Scrappy Doo, but in the Scooby Doo reviews, even he's appalled at the Mystery Inc. ditching Scrappy even for his overall obnoxiousness, comparing it to "ditching a premature kid to the wilds" and calls out OOC on Scooby, who is usually protective of Scrappy even if the latter is being obnoxious.
  • He was pretty disgusted with the Adulterer from The Tommyknockers for not just cheating on his wife, but rejecting her sandwiches, laughing at her behind her back, and sleeping with his mistress instead of looking for a missing child. He even said that Darth Vader would be upset by it all.
  • He cannot bring himself to badmouth Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird. He breaks down 3 minutes 45 seconds into the review, crying over the crude jokes he already made, how this was the first show he remembered watching and genuinely loved it so much. He gives the rest of the review to Chester Bum.
  • M. Night Shyamalan is a frequent target of the Critic's rants in the reboot, but even he gives a "No. Just… No" Reaction to the twist^note the supposed Dragon was actually the Big Bad, built herself a human robot and recalled sunshine, then "stole [Sunshine's] essence to make [her] elixir for Brand X" in Foodfight!.
• Evil Laugh:
  • When NC denies the existence of the The Star Wars Holiday Special on account of being too stupid to possibly exist, it is immediately followed by a sound clip of Yoda laughing in a menacing way, which freaks out the Critic.
  • In the Junior acid dream sequence, the Judge (as played by Doug's friend Bhargav Dronamraju) has a drawn out evil laugh that borders on Affably Evil.
  • Bennett the Sage chuckles villainously in both his appearances in the Care Bears II and Star Chaser reviews.
  • In his review of A Simple Wish Mara Wilson laughs while Critic is begging for mercy.
  • At the end of "Why Do Good Directors Go Bad", after he says not to worry, the rest of Shya month will be nastier.
  • Aiyanna as Harley in Suicide Squad (2016) gives out a good cackle to the camera.
• Evil Uncle: In the TMNT movie review, Shredder tells Critic that this is his family, and Critic responds that means he's the drunk uncle who beats up pets.
• Evolving Credits:
  • Since the reboot and with Rachel's departure, images from The Shining review and other newer reviews have been spliced into the credits.
  • With the bringing back of Old Vs. New the opening has changed from the cartoon kid and old man dueling it out to now a live-action version with Tamara as the kid and Malcolm as the old man.
  • DVD reviews will mix Prime clips with a couple of reboot moments to show where said review is on the timeline. Like Paranoia has Pearl Harbor jokes in the credits so it's set after that episode, and The Uncanny Valley only has Critic getting his balls beaten amidst prime clips so it's set after The Wicker Man (2006) review.
  • Season 10 onward has changed the intro sequence from a clip show to some stylized combination of clips flying around the scene and shots of the side characters such as Santa Christ and Hyper Fangirl, all done by Fard Muhammed. The 2017 intro is based off of [1]'s intro, the 2018 intro shows the actors on large screens surrounded by clips of their biggest characters, and the 2019 intro zooms in on a sea of clips from the show and passes by various characters in the meantime.
• Exact Words:
  • How he undertook his Ice Bucket Challenge without giving in to fan demands for Fanservice. The Ice was a DVD of Cool as Ice.
  • In the crossover review of BMX Bandits, he wishes he were dead and tells the General (who is holding him at gunpoint) that it's just a figure of speech.
• Excessive Mourning: While it is his fault, the SK-TBF season is Critic having a slow breakdown over Ma-Ti’s death until it’s one of the reasons he wants to kill himself.
• Excuse Plot:
  • Doug said on the Donation Drive that the only reason "The Top 11 Dumbest LOTR Moments" existed was Rachel only being a geek of Tolkien and wanted to play an elf in something.
  • In The Purge commentary, Doug admitted that the entire episode was written around the “voice actors reprising their roles” joke, and that was the main thing he cared about.
• Eyes Never Lie:
  • When he's sedated in Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer and is in forced Stepford Smiler mode, he has a nice marketable smile, but his eyes are always looking hysterical.
  • In Christmas Story II, when he's been told that he's in the wrong and should make it up to Hyper, she runs up to him and he backs up a little while still looking terrified of her. Same thing happens at the end of The Phantom of the Opera (2004), although at least this time he gets to call her out for her bullshit and not get punished.
  • Even with all the psychotic smirks and the demonic music, when Critic puts the hat on in “The Review Must Go On” his eyes look painfully sad.
• Eye Scream:
  • At the end of Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, when everyone is beating him for not liking Howl's Moving Castle, someone jabs a DVD edge into his eye. Not in real life obviously, but still looks painful.
  • In Man of Steel, one of Joe's ideas of how to torture Critic (that he's unaware that Zod is taking seriously) is gouging out his eyes with a vacuum.
  • When Malice kills Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, she's holding both a brain and an eye in her hand.
  • The fall out from the (not actually seen) Take That, Audience! at the end of Mamma Mia! has Critic with an eye popped right out of the socket.
  • In Osmosis Jones, when trying to put fake eyelashes on someone during a bus ride like the film, he gets jolted and ends up with the person's eyeball in his hand.
  • In Jem, Tamara stabs Malcolm in the eye with a pen for taking her diet coke.
  • Lucy Lacemaker, the alien that takes Critic to the Trial portion of the Wall review, has one good eye and the other is an... eye socket full of blood.

F

• Face Palm: The Garbage Pail Kids Movie review opens with a two-handed facepalm.
  • Happens again in his review of The NeverEnding Story III.
  • And again during one particular scene in Felix the Cat: The Movie.
  • By the last time the meninists are whining in their car in Mad Max: Fury Road, Devil Boner has gone from migraines to just having his face in his hands.
• Facial Dialogue: In Disney Afternoon, when Critic hits Malcolm for talking about Doug, Tamara says nothing, but shows concern for Malcolm and panic that Critic is being so creepy with her face all while Critic is talking.
• Facial Dialogue: Briefly in “Is The Big Lebowski A Masterpiece”, when Leon explains “figurative castration” as “feeling like you're losing the qualities that make you a man”, Critic's eyes go straight to his crotch in agreement. Remember the last episode had him reveal that he'd lost a load of feeling down there.
• Failed a Spot Check: In his review of The Langoliers, he points out that the pilot walks past ten rows of seats before realizing the plane is almost empty and later how the blind girl can detect the gun wielding maniac before the people who are looking directly in his direction miss him.
  • In Alaska, he mocks the search and rescue team flying right past the bright yellow plane they are specifically looking for.
  • He has one of his own when he only just realizes Bitch Spasm's dead body has been on his floor for five episodes.
  • At the end of Small Soldiers, Hyper is standing creepily at the foot of his bed and he doesn't notice her at all.
  • In The Garfield Movie, he doesn't notice Malcolm playing a ghetto Santa Christ, a Valley Girl Tamara playing Devil Boner, or Tamara again as Uncle Yo.
  • In Scooby-Doo 2, he fails to notice that Roger is back (even calling him Tamara), much to the angel's frustration.
  Critic: Some people never open their eyes.
• Failure Hero: In his reviews of Steel and Captain America (1990), the Critic seems to view the titular characters as this. Also Hulk Hogan's character in Mr. Nanny — he gets owned by the psychopathic kids he takes care of, as well as villain's mooks.
• Fake Action Prologue: The opening of the Maximum Overdrive review has someone (JonTron) in a mask stalking through Critic's house and stabbing him. After the credits, Critic's on a food binge and acts like that never happened. Not so cheap as the usual trope, because reboot Critic has a tendency to hallucinate.
• Fake-Out Opening:
  • The Critic ends the review very quickly at the beginning of the Scooby-Doo (2002) review. Of course, after he acknowledges he can't do that, so the review continues after the credits had started rolling. Also serves as Character Development from the Battlefield Earth review, as back then he had to be forced to go back to a review by past Critic and past Ma-Ti.
  • The start of Film/Garfield review has five minutes of Critic starring in a Coen Brothers parody film before he actually gets to the review.
• Falling-in-Love Montage: Subverted. Princess Diaries II starts off with Critic and Hyper Fangirl doing cliched romantic things with sappy music playing, but then it turns out that Hyper Fangirl kidnapped him and is forcing her to love her at gunpoint. If you rewatch, you'll notice that while Hyper is having genuine fun, Critic's face always looks he's struggling to keep the façade up and is going to crack..
• False Reassurance:
  • In his Animaniacs tribute, one of the writers for the show mentioned that he thinks Daffy Duck is the perfect cartoon character of all time, and thinks he was a big influence in the creation of the show. The Critic nonchalantly responds: "I-I would know nothing about him being an influence." For those of you who don't know the joke, Doug created the Nostalgia Critic to be a sort of real life version of Daffy Duck, copying his mannerisms and sarcastic and belligerent outlook on life.
  • In Captain Planet, he bitterly says that in his experience, “I'll be with you in spirit” means the person saying it to you is a Dirty Coward.
• False Soulmate: despite being with Devil Boner, the song “Hyper Fangirl” has her believing that she and Critic “have been destiny, right from the start”, despite the fact that even the “start” was him refusing to sleep with her.
• Family of Choice: Hyper in her Q&A refers to Devil Boner, Benny, and Bill as her family.
• Fan Boy: Of Sesame Street. When he reviewed Follow That Bird he squeed at the sight of every muppet.
• Fan Disservice: Has his own page.
• Fandom Heresy:
  • Invoked during TMNT with the Running Gag of putting up captions inducing nerd rage (like “Greedo shot first”) to distract people from getting too angry at when they actually have positive stuff to say about the movie.
  • Weaponized in “The Best Avatar Episodes”, as his power is meta, and he tells the comments that Joss Whedon is overrated just so he can have more ammo.
• Fanon Discontinuity: invoked
  • The Critic says, of his disappointment concerning The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter, that he's glad that was the last of the series and they never made The NeverEnding Story III. He then turns on the theme music, really loud, to drown out a bunch of voices insisting that they did. He later subverted this, only to regret it severely.
  • In his comparison of the first Batman movie and The Dark Knight, The Critic makes an off-hand remark about how Tommy Lee Jones's portrayal of Two-Face never happened. Ditto for the Bat Credit Card.
  • In his "Top 11 Simpsons Episodes" list, the Critic claims that the show was "taken off the air too quickly" only to be reminded that the show is in its 23rd season.
• Fanservice: Has his own page.
• Fantastic Fireworks: When he uses his ruining power in Matrix Revolutions, the Plot Hole explodes in his face and then fades away with firework sound effects.
• Fan Vid:
  • Doug proclaimed this video to be the best tribute to the Critic he'd seen yet. Most comments agree that the song ("Testing 1, 2, 3" by Barenaked Ladies) match the character perfectly.
  • He also recced a very similar conceit (Critic's depression/lots of To Boldly Flee) video a few years later, complimenting it for making him look epic.
• Fashion Hurts:
  • While Critic only skims over how Claire is treated in the Jurassic World review, Tamara was angry about having to wear heels. Subverted with her Matrix outfit, as in the first behind the scenes she's dreading wearing it and looks like she's gonna cry, but says later on that it's actually pretty easy to move in.
  • Doug himself with the Link outfit in Suburban Knights. He was proud of the fanservice, but they filmed in cold weather and Rob even told Michaud in the meeting that bro was really shivering.
  • According to Doug at Fan World, the Winifred costume was the hardest to put on (as it took forever and he had difficulty with the hair and the nails), but he was really proud and happy to wear it.
  • Name-dropped by Malcolm in the Underworld BTS, when Walter finds a spray-painted umbrella that stinks the room out.
• Faux Action Girl:
  • He notes a painfully straight use of this, which he calls "Dumbass in Distress Disorder" in A Kid in King Arthur's Court.
  • Inverted with Sparky from Steel, who was crippled by an accident from the beginning of the film. She was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of the movie, but in the film's climax, it was revealed that her wheelchair had weapons and she used them against the bad guys. The Critic points out that the movie probably should have been about her.
  • In the audio commentary for Quest for Camelot, Doug says he wanted to reference Dumbass in Distress Disorder in reference to Kayley, but wasn't sure people would remember the joke after so long. He does later add her to his top 11 list of Dumbasses in Distress.
  • Angsteen in the Daredevil review. Somewhat of a Redundant Parody as she doesn't do anything but lampshade that she's useless even before dying.
• Faux Horrific: Really horrible things make Critic scream or cause him pain.
• Fear Is the Appropriate Response: Discussed more seriously in “Should We Scare The Shit Out Of Our Kids”, as he wants people to understand that it's okay to be scared by life and that everyone copes with that in their own way.
• Felony Misdemeanor: His reaction to the "Bat Credit Card".
• Female Gaze:
  • In his original run, while he would sometimes fall for Male Gaze, as the female audience increased he would point it out more in a negative way and give all the fanservice himself. Reboot had a lot more Male Gaze for a while, with Critic admitting in The Uncanny Valley that he was repressing sexuality, but gradually got more balanced, with Doug and Tamara sharing the fanservice role.
  • Outright subverted in the promo to see editorials early, where he promises shirtlessness at the end but the video cuts off before you can see anything.
  • After Malcolm has some in-universe Male Gaze by creating Chun-Li, Critic tells him “hey! Something for the lady?” and he creates Zangief for Tamara. What's amusing is that Critic, while not female ^note though his gender issues are a Running Gag, seems to enjoy the latter more than the former.
  • Disparaged in The Adventures Of Sharkboy And Lava Girl where he calls a shirtless Jacob carrying Bella something “just to make some horny cougar's fantasy come to life”.
  • Labyrinth is full of non-mocking comments about David Bowie being really appealing to women.
  • In The Phantom of the Opera (2004) behind the scenes, Tamara and Beth have fun focusing the camera on Doug's ass, and when he twerks for them, Beth glees “happy international women's day”.
  • The 'music video' at the start of the Jem review. In-universe as well, as the execs got Critic dancing and posing prettily in drag, and a camera gaze pans up his body, making him uncomfortable.
  • A music video that Malcolm guest starred in had his cameo be washing a car and shaking his ass at the camera.
  • In the first DVD, there's an extended behind the scenes bit after the Ghostbusters chase, where Doug strips out of wet clothes for Rob, and Doug's commentary hopes a woman will masturbate to it.
  • Two of Hyper's favorite movies are To Boldly Flee and Suburban Knights, both of which have juicy Critic angst, gay subtext and a lot of male skin.
  • The gay kind. Tamara, Heather and Aiyanna all look like badass queens, not sexualized for the Male Gaze, and so queer girls have gone harder on the Squee.
  • Gay version played for laughs in the Aladdin live action remake debate video, where Tamara admits she missed the Jasmine slave outfit, and makes a running gag of wanting it on everyone, including trying to get Doug to wear it.
• Fiery Sensuality: The Critic lampshades this trope in his review of Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale when he gets to the part where the heroes enter a dragon's cave to retrieve the elf's head and are helped by a fiery aparition in the shape of a nude fairy. The Critic even references the fiery apparition of Esmeralda from Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
  I swear animated films are trying to create a fetish for sexy fire.
• Filler: Regardless of how much Critic suffers or not, most episodes you can tell Doug is passionate and puts as much effort in as he can to produce a good show. But there a few reviews every now and then where it's obvious he just wants to quiet the fan demand and get it out the way, like Pokémon: The Series. This is invoked in The Adventures of Pluto Nash, in which the Critic says that the movie has so little effort put in it that he's doing the same thing, and has pre-recorded it while he's preparing for the next review. Also serves as Breather Episode, as the last was six-months-in-making The Phantom of the Opera (2004) and next is “beast of a review” Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
  • Like Pluto Nash (an episode before a big clipless video), Clockstoppers has Critic telling everyone that he's not going to make a big thing of it, and Malcolm/Tamara take a day off.
• Finale Season: The Suburban Knights-To Boldly Flee season was meant to be this, with more feminist speeches and bisexuality moments as an ease-in to what Demo Reel consisted of, more character drama and less jokes, foreshadowing Critic's end in what Doug said was in every episode, getting all the crossovers he could out of the way, and Critic learning to be a better less-Fan Hater person.
• Fire and Brimstone Hell: Where the Devil and Evilina reside. Lots of lava waterfalls, screaming and naked tortured bodies.
• First-World Problems:
  • Exaggerated in ''Blue Brothers 2000”, when Critic ends up killing a woman second-hand because he was too pissy about the original movie getting a bad sequel to help.
  • Doug's (which is practically a sequel vlog) “The Ice King's Glasses Issue” is much... more passionate about the subject, but “When Is A Movie Just A Movie” also touches on it, saying movies are there to help, and you can point out problematic stuff but leave it alone if it pisses you off. (That doesn't apply to him of course, hypocrisy played for laughs.)
  • Mocked by name in Care Bears Nutcracker, as he does a short invoked Acting for Two bit about how the Care Bears only care about white kids crying instead of ruthless dictators slaughtering brown people.
  • The TMNT review opening song lampshades that Critic and Nerd are sheltered manchildren in their thirties and whining over nothing.
  • The fake trailer for himself in Planet of the Apes (2001) replaces his logo with “White Privilege: The Job”.
  • In Christmas With The Kranks, he says the trope by name when it comes to people complaining about Starbucks not putting Christmas on their cups.
  • His response to Sarah's complaining in Labyrinth.
  Critic: The first step to accepting my white privilege is acting like I hate it.
  • Complaining about MRAs in the Fury Road commentary, Doug says that while there is shit men go through, it's nowhere near as bad as what women and other minorities deal with. This comes back in Ghostbusters, when after hearing how excited Evilina was for the 2016 movie, the meninists bluster a bit before they realize they should complain about real problems, not whine about how men are oppressed.
  • In Smurfs 2, he mocks Smurfette's angst of having her birthday forgotten, saying blue privilege should be a thing.
  • Considering that he has dyslexia and ADHD, he takes great relish in mocking Percy Jackson and the Olympians for thinking that this combo is the worst ever.
• Five-Episode Pilot: The "Raiders of the Story Arc" episodes have the Critic watching these sorts of pilot episodes and determine whether or not the show still holds up.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing:
  • At 35 seconds in to “The Best Avatar Episodes”, you can hear a door opening, less than a minute before Dante Basco comes in and blasts Critic with a fireball.
  • Literally right after he mentions his amusement of Rick being like a funny pervert uncle he had (but avoided), Best Friends makes him think that Rick is fucking his niece. Turns out to be a con, but he’s not having a good time for a minute.
• Five-Token Band: Parodied in The Monster Squad, with Critic as the White Male Lead with an X-Men t-shirt, Malcolm as the black kid, Jim as the cool kid, Rob as the geeky kid and Jason as the Hollywood Pudgy kid.
  • Talking about the McDonalds kids, (with two girls!), he's glad for the diversity but says his problem is just that they're bland characters.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Not particularly great friends, but Rachel and Malcolm - and more extreme with Tamara and Malcolm as she has more confidence than Rachel - will look out for each other and team up against Critic's abuse.
• Fix Fic: Rob branched out on his own (with Walter) for Fanscription, including a video fixing the problems of "Return Of The Jedi'' along the lines of what if Luke had died in that movie. The Critic episode of “Ghostbusters 2” where they redo the movie is what inspired the show.
• Flashback Twist: In his 100th episode, the Critic prepares to roll out a "Crummy Ass Clip Show" while he goes off to smoke a joint. It starts with a clip from the Captain Planet review, with the Critic interviewing Ma-Ti. After a few moments, Ma-Ti notices that the Critic is doing nothing but rolling out a clip show for his 100th episode and calls him a wuss for not doing something special. The Past Nostalgia Critic agrees, and they browbeat the Present Nostalgia Critic into reviewing Battlefield Earth. This means that the Critic re-created the Ma-Ti scene for that episode, down to the relative quality of that recording.
• Flat Character: The Aw Girls in Alvin And The Chipmunks. Tropes Are Not Bad, as they represent girls who just want to turn their brains off for cute media, but the episode lampshades they don't have personalities to work off of.
• Flat "What":
  • The twist in the middle of The Secret of NIMH 2 is so incredibly stupid that the Nostalgia Critic can only respond like this, at least at first.
  • During his review of James and the Giant Peach, saying it isn't flat enough. He writes it on a piece of paper. Twice.
  • In his Kazaam review, he says "What?" when Kazaam uses the rhyme, "Green Egg and Ham IT!" and later when Kazaam says he doesn't believe in fairy tales.
• Flawless Token: He's really not a fan of Disney making their reboot female leads perfect, as it kills any character growth or interest in their journey.
• Flipping the Bird: In Hyper's third vlog, Doug As Himself's reaction to Rob As Himself wanting him as a sidekick because “you're only in it to abuse the sidekick”.
• Fluffy the Terrible: In his review of Exorcist 2: The Heretic, he thinks Pazuzu is a very silly name for a demon. It also leads into this joke:
  Father 1: Quickly, father! We must get the holy water and destroy Squishy Puppy!
  Father 2: What?
  Father 1: Squishy Puppy!
  Father 2: Aww, that sounds adorable.
  Father 1: No, he's not! He's a horrible demon that eats children's brains! Look!
  Father 2: Yeah, but when you put the name Squishy Puppy under him, he seems so much cuter.
  Father 1: No, he doesn't! He's a... Oh, you're right. Look at that. We should adopt one of those!
• F--: In his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) trilogy movie review, after a Montage of his freaking out at the utter monstrosity that is the third movie, he makes this memorable quote;
  "This movie is so bad, I have to make up a new word to describe how BAD it is. It's... it's... Horibifuckus! Horibifuckus!"
  • At the end of the video, he even put the word on his screen to further prove his point.
• Foil:
  • In Mad Max: Fury Road, even before he yells at them, Devil Boner and the meninists in term of masculinity. His thought of being a real man is playing football or building muscle, while their version of it is rant videos at women they don't like.
  • Also Curiosa to Hyper. Curiosa's tired of dealing with misogyny, while Hyper has issues with that herself. The former actually listens to Critic while the latter never has, plus Hyper just likes any man because pretty, and Curiosa is only attracted to Devil Boner after the feminist rant.
• Follow the Leader: The Critic points out in-universe 3 Ninjas tries to cash in on Home Alone and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) and later points out Surf Ninjas tries to rip off 3 Ninjas.
  • In-universe, he does a “Top 11 Movie Trailers” right after Watch Mojo did that list themselves, and after brief complaining he lampshades all the complaints (even from producers) that he's been doing a lot of reviews of movies that other TGWTG people have done.
  • JonTron stabs him in the beginning of Maximum Overdrive for reviewing Foodfight! after he did, and homaging quite a few scenes of Jon's own review.
  • In a Self-Deprecation/Take That! mode, Planet of the Apes (2001) calls him a entitled nitpicking whiny crybaby giving birth to other nitpicking whiny crybabies, showing Snob, Film Brain, Linkara, Chick and Mike J. Also adding on that Critic himself did the same thing for the Nerd.
  • In Ghost Rider II, Mike J passive-aggressives about Critic re-reviewing about ten things he's already done.
• Foot Popping: Given that The Princess Diaries is the Trope Namer, obviously pops up in the review of the sequel. And even more obviously, Critic's the one to do it in his first Almost Kiss with Hyper.
• Forced Meme:
  • "I Was Frozen Today" quote from Suburban Commando.
  • Evil Popcorn Man from Free Willy.
  • With Double Team, there's "Frying the coke". Acknowledged in that he knew it probably wouldn't catch on, but he at least wanted to throw it out there.
  • in The Tommyknockers, he explains the gag, which is essentially a moment that is so stupid and ridiculous, it wraps around and becomes a Moment of Awesome. A...So Bad, It's Good applied to specific moments, if you will.
  • In the Honest Trailers parody in Planet of the Apes (2001), “bat credit card”, “frying the coke” and Big-Lipped Alligator Moment all get listed as “forced painful memes”.
  • Doug admitted in Fan World 2016 that there was a time where he was obsessed with pushing memes, and in Christmas With The Kranks it's a big part of why he hates his 2007 self.
• Forced to Watch:
  • While Rachel and Malcolm don't particularly like Critic, and have made him suffer themselves, they still don't like watching (or hearing) him get talent-bended in The Last Airbender. Mostly because it's them next.
  • The first viewing of "Angry Birds" is more Suckiness Is Painful than the Critic review, with an angry Rob at one point grabbing Doug's head and forcing him closer.
• Forceful Kiss: In Shark Jumping, Hyper checks off this box by wanting a poster of the time she passionately kissed Critic's face “like an aggressive pet”. Critic himself states this in Christmas Story II when he says he has worst tastes than her to wash out of his mouth.
• Forgot About His Powers: In the review of The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter, he notes that Bastian could simply wish his troubles away. Likewise, he also noted in Captain N: The Game Master that the poorly-defined powers of Kevin could simply be used to warp to the villains and shoot 'em point-blank. And in The NeverEnding Story III: Escape from Fantasia, juxtaposing that the villains and Bastian's sister wished for things while the Idiot Hero didn't.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend:
  • Tacoma? Rebecca? Karl? Quinn? Who on earth are they? Double subverted as everyone but Rebecca (Donnie's alive too!) has popped up again, but Critic always has other things to do and doesn't notice them.
• Forgotten Theme Tune Lyrics: A lot of new fans don't know that his “The Review Must Go On” theme tune actually came from the Moulin Rouge! review, and both parodied “The Show Must Go On” and foreshadowed his end ^note as this was the review where Doug decided he should wrap up. Doug pointed this out himself in Connecticon 2016, saying that when he came back, that song about having to carry on made the most sense to use.
• Foregone Conclusion: Many viewers already knew how the Nostalgia Critic would feel about Independence Day, because he already bashed the movie in his Godzilla (1998) review.
• Foreshadowing: Has his own page.
• Formula-Breaking Episode: Several examples of episodes which deviate from the norm:
  • By definition, the episodes which don't follow the formula of trashing one bad movie count: "Top 11", "Old vs. New", "Raiders of the Story Arc". The "Old vs. New"s are usually a lot more analytical than usual.
  • Anytime The Nostalgia Critic reviews a movie with another reviewer. See Crossover for the list.
  • "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Launch", which isn't a Nostalgia Critic review but stars the character.
  • "Bebe's Kids", which was the only time The Nostalgia Critic reviewed a video game. It was done as part of a deal between The Angry Video Game Nerd and himself where the two would perform each other's jobs for one review (James Rolfe reviewed the obscure Rocky parody "Ricky 1").
    • He would later review The Blues Brothers on a DVD, and do a Let's Play of the Nintendo Hard Bart's Nightmare.
  • "Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird", which broke The Nostalgia Critic: he was unable to make fun of it because he loves Sesame Street. He invites Chester A. Bum to take his place for the last minute of the video.
  • "Drew Struzan Tribute". Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
  • "Teddy Ruxpin", which was not only the first review based on a toy, but also was done in the format of a slasher/thriller movie in the second half of the video.
  • "The Good Son". Doug Walker had temporarily lost his voice in real life, so he performed this review by remaining silent and writing out his thoughts on cue cards. The only word he uttered in the entire review was "ASS!"
  • "TMNT". While it's still in the typical format, it's from a very recent film (2007), so that breaks tradition of doing solely nostalgic movies from the '80s and '90s.
  • "Transformers 2", which took the format of his earliest reviews, i.e. no film clips, and more like what his Bum Reviews series would evolve into.
  • "We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story" had Doug in character as Raoul Duke (here named "Raoul Puke") from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
  • "Alone in the Dark", which had The Nostalgia Critic again unable to speak, but this time using Mac speak to convey his thoughts. He was also accompanied by Spoony and Linkara, and the review took place in a different environment than usual.
  • "Baby Geniuses" took the form of a disturbed Nostalgia Critic walking around a convention in a daze after having seen this film, and narrating in the style of film noir.
  • "Commercials", which didn't feature the typical white wall or his usual attire but instead The Nostalgia Critic sitting in a recliner wearing an "I Donut Donuts" T-shirt and watching TV. His review was focused on commercials, not TV shows or movies like it usually is.
  • "You're a Rotten Dirty Bastard Christmas Special" was a parody of It's a Wonderful Life where the Critic sees what things would be like if he was never born. Only problem is, everyone involved with Channel Awesome is well off, and the angel sent to show the Critic the error of his ways lost out on being God's number one guy just because the Critic existed.
  • "Jungle 2 Jungle'" was reviewed in the style of a nature documentary.
  • "Raiders of the Story Arc: Transformers" has Doug playing the character of Optimus Prime.
  • Jurassic World has zero clips of the movie. Instead Malcolm, Tamara, Jim, Rob and Doug act it out as invoked No Budget as possible while Critic sums up what happens.
  • In the Pixels commentary, Doug says that if he has to do jokes in front of a wall that's fine, but if he has the idea to do something new and more visual and story/character-based, he's always got far more excited. Plus they satisfy his workaholic side.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You:
  • Critic's Medium Awareness is Played for Drama in the reboot, he saves the worst beating for you in the Master Of Disguise breakdown and he shoots a hole into the audience's wall in every opening theme.
  • A running thread is that he also knows Doug exists and is pissed off, calling him the powerless character multiple times.
• Freakier Than Fiction: Well, fiction is stranger than some other fiction, anyway. In reality, he tried to make DuckTales Darker and Edgier as a joke by suggesting that Scrooge made all his money by racketeering, embezzlement and so on. However, he actually made it in a far worse way: exploiting African natives.
• Freedom from Choice: In The Wicker Man, he muses that being a Sex Slave who just stays inside and doesn’t talk to people sounds like a fun vacation.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: During his review of "The Pound Puppies Movie", there's a parody of Fight Club where The Nostalgia Critic splices a naughty frame into a children's movie. In this case, it's two dogs humping. The image is only on-screen for a frame.
  • A fairly damning You Bastard! one happens in Once Upon a Forest, as it shows "you" clicking on a porn site that has a barely legal girl being told to suffer for other people's enjoyment. Critic clearly doesn't have much love for his audience.
  • In AI there's post-it notes everywhere about forcing yourself to be thin (on the TMZ side, but given Critic's weight-bashing...) and pleading that it'll be over soon on the Critic's side.
  • Hyper's invoked wangsty facebook in Old vs New: Spider-Man shows she was born in 1984, making her only a couple of years younger than Critic.
  • In keeping with the meta aspect, the pick-up artist book Jason is reading in the “Top 11 Best Avatar Episodes” has a portion of Doug apologizing because he's been starving himself (again) due spending all of his time editing. The page contains these lines:
    Do you really think anyone's going to be attracted to you when you say "Oh yeah, I pause online videos to see if they put in secret jokes?" God, I'm surprised several women haven't just stripped naked shouting "Take me!" from reading that line. Jesus Christ! We'll spare you from pausing the video to look up any any other secrets, because there aren't any.
  • In the The Legend of Zorro review, he lists all of America's problems as:
    fast food, pride, dependence on phones, dick pics, porn, bad governments, corruption, Michael Bay movies, pollution, overtaxing, causing climate change, TMZ, youtube comments, pretty much any comments online, watching TLC, still calling it TLC, bitching about nothing, white privilege, bad education, cat memes, any memes, kryptonite (yes we are actually allergic to that), chipmunk films, giving Kanye West work, high cholesterol, Fox News, MSNBC, Kim Kardashian, tabloid magazines, weird greeting cards, White Castle, obsessing over bad fashion, drugs, that creepy bald guy from those Six Flags commercials, snobby hipsters, crime, bad Zorro sequels.
  • The◊ people telling him to do an Honest Trailer of himself in Planet of the Apes (2001) are all (the ones who would leave insulting YT comments anyway) Doug's other characters, including Ask That Guy who is slightly annoyed by his own death.
  • In Conquest Of The Commercials, the kids are playing with the meninist car prop from the Fury Road review. More A+ parenting there, abusive dad character.
  • The 2017 credits intro is one of those where you travel through and see clips and characters fly by, so you're going to spot something new every time you see it. Like there's Uncle Lies and Aunt Despair surfing on a blunt, the scene of Devil Boner threatening Benny with a gun blowjob and the second to last clip is the (intentionally) scary Critic being revealed in the mirror during TRMGO.
• Friendship Moment: It’s toxic and messy, but Malcolm and Tamara have been there long enough to have some with Critic, like the hugging when they’re celebrating his Overly Long Gag in Final Fantasy.
• French Maid: Nobody mentions it in-universe, but Tamara’s got one of these costumes in The Wall.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Critic's childhood was hell, and provides a lot of insight for how messed up he is, but he showed this trope in The Cell where he talked about having a bad childhood not being a good excuse for being a bad person as an adult.
• Friendly Rivalry: After Old Vs New Cinderella, Benny and Devil Boner seem to have developed this. At his wedding, Devil Boner teases Benny about being a better shot than him, and they laugh about it before exchanging a Death Glare.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • In-universe, from his review of Chairman of the Board:
  "Wait a minute! Edison! Like Thomas Edison, the great inventor! I just got it!" *maniacal laughter*
  • In-universe. "Wait a sec, next month is January, and you know what that means! SEQUELS MONTH!...... *his smile slowly turns into a look of worry and shock while he reaches for his Dennis Miller doll to try and cheer him up.*
  • After years of making fun of Stephen King's works for not being as scary as people make them out to be, the Critic has an epiphany after watching Maximum Overdrive:
  I don't think he wanted to scare us with this; I think he wanted to make us laugh. I mean let's be honest, no film using AC/DC is intending to scare anyone. In a strange way, I think he's not only mocking horror tropes, but his own tropes as well. When he says 'I just wanted someone to do Stephen King right.', maybe he's referring to the fact that he's never meant to be taken too seriously. There's always a bit of otherworldly insanity that even he can poke fun of and laugh at.
• Fridge Logic: In his review of Gargoyles, the Critic also points out in-universe the logic flaw of hiding in "plain, vulnerable sight" when they turn to stone during the day.
  • The Critic also mentions that Kevin from Captain N: The Game Master should be able to use his powers, or the abundant warp zones, to just blast Mother Brain with little problem. He demonstrates both scenarios.
    • Similar example used in The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter, when he notes how Bastian could have wished all the troubles away.
  • He also noted in the Free Willy review that if Willy can jump over the rocks, why couldn't he jump over the net, which was considerably lower?
  • In his review of The Legend of The Titanic, he wonders why Tentacles the octopus can't move the iceberg out of the path of the Titanic if he can throw it there.
• From Bad to Worse: The reboot had already less time between Take That, Audience! complaints than prime did because of demands to bring the show back, but Critic finding out that he was a designated protagonist to a wall in The King and I just intensified the problem.
  • Master of Disguise foreshadows a lot of awful yet to come. To give a few examples, he complains about the Happy Madison audience being stupid — he kills some off in Eight Crazy Nights. Rachel is angry about her birthday being forgotten and gets fired - she'll be treated much worse in The Shining, and will leave by Face/Off. Critic beats the shit out of innocent people with a baseball bat — he'll kill a child by bludgeoning her to death in Vampire Reviews' Monster Mash episode.
  • According to Doug, Critic's Christmas love gets more extreme (in "Top 12 Santa Clauses", he wants to kidnap Christmas, tie it up in his basement, visit it every night and chop off its body so he could consume it and slowly become Christmas) every year until it culminated in "I Fucking Love Christmas", which was the nastiest he could twist it.
  • The Lorax (2012) and Spider-Man are just Hyper whining about being friendzoned, not leaving Critic alone but not actively hurting him either. Fat Grandma convinces her to start stalking and not stop at the end of the latter.
• From the Mouths of Babes:
  • In his review of Milk Money, a mother asks her daughter who is with Ed Harris's character. The daughter replies that she's a hooker. The mother seems barely offended by such language. The Critic takes this to the extreme: "She's a bitch ass whore fuck!"
  • He gives a few examples of the questions he as a child asked in the game of Guess Who, and they're all cheerfully disturbing ones like "is your person Jewish?" or "did your person sleep with Mommy?"
• Frothy Mugs of Water: At the end of “What You Never Knew About Ghostbusters”, Doug shares a cute story of his dad telling him (due to not wanting to explain to a young child what alcohol was) that the alcohol drunk in the film was actually a “magic drink that turned them into ghostbusters”.
• Fruit Cart: He is deeply disappointed when Cop and a Half, a 90's buddy cop movie, fails to take advantage of this.
• Fully Absorbed Finale: Not that the Nostalgic Critic series' finale was bad, but his story arc was ultimately wrapped up in To Boldly Flee.
• Fun T-Shirt: In Disney Afternoon, when he tries regressing to being a kid, he switches out his normal clothes for a “No Fear” brand t-shirt. Ironic as even Tamara's scared of him in this one.
  • For every commercials special (which were initially meant to be Lighter and Softer), he wears a comfy looking "I [donut] donuts" t-shirt.
• Fun with Acronyms: Critic suggests that the attacking cat women are suffering from C.R.A.H.B.S. Catwomen Raging Against Halley Berry Syndrome.
  • In the review of Small Soldiers, the critic tries to research on what Joe Dante's problem is after seeing the deformed Gwendy dolls. —>"Apparently it's called "Justification Experimentation Serving Unusual Sexuality", or in abbreviated terms... J.E.S.U.S.!!"

G

• Gainax Ending: The end of The Garbage Pail Kids Movie review, in which Critic turns into a turd singing Also sprach Zarathustra With Lyrics.
• "Gaining Confidence" Song: The first commercial special features a parody of ""Poor Jack" after Critic gets depressed over his career and wastes his day watching commercials. It begins with Critic slowly lamenting how he feels useless and unappreciated, but he soon begins boasting about how he is a good reviewer, dons his trademark jacket, and gets back to work.
• Gaslighting: In Christmas Story II, a mix of Hyper's Wounded Gazelle Gambit and Santa Christ's Victim-Blaming make Critic blame his "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Hyper on the movie filling him with hate, even when he openly told her that wasn't the case and he loves Christmas. Doug in Midwest Media Expo confirmed that it was meant to be Critic being treated like crap, not “you should be on Hyper's side”.
• Geeky Turn-On: The canonically married chart guys ask each other out for a math date in the IT review.
• Gender Flip:
  • When he comes to the sexual harassment PSA in Dawn Of The Commercials, he suddenly wonders what it would be like gender reversed and decides it wouldn't work because men are too stupid to realize they're getting harassed.
  • Subverted in Alice in Wonderland (2010) where it looks like Critic is going to be the Alice (with conspicuous shots of his butt being the only thing in view before he falls down the rabbit hole), but then “Malice” is introduced.
  • While sadly stopping before Critic can make a leather catsuit, in Foodfight! the start is him parody Selina Kyle's breakdown in Batman Returns. The exact moment after he's been triggered is a genuinely natural copy of a woman losing it.
  • The opening/possible hallucination parody of Halloween (1978) beginning 2015's nostalgia-ween month has Critic taking the place of the teenage sister Judith while Jon-Tron is Michael Myers.
  • At Midwest Media Expo 2015, after complaining that fandom ignores everything Hyper did to Critic and made Critic seem like the bad guy for yelling at her about it, Doug and Rob agree with an audience member that Hyper's logic is like Christian Grey's and Critic's her Ana.
  • In The Phantom of the Opera (2004), “The Fandumb of the Opera” is after Beth, playing the franchise genders straight, but Hyper is still after Critic, angry that he's not interested and trying to manipulate him again.
  • The Framing Device in the IT remake review is a parody of "Almost Got 'Im" from Batman, and Critic enters like Poison Ivy. Like in Food Fight, there's no making fun that he's in the girl role.
• Genius Bonus: Lampshaded in-universe in the Mr. Nanny review:
  "Bonus points to whoever got that ''What's Up Doc?'' reference"
  • In the commentary for the Leprechaun review, Doug notes that three people knew the song "Hop On Your Pogo Stick" from the Goofy cartoon "Victory Vehicles".
  • He assumes you don't get it but he wants a St. Sebastian homage in The Swan Princess. St. Sebastian was stabbed to death with arrows, and Improbable Aiming Skills are a problem in the movie.
• Genre-Killer: He implies this during his "Is Parody Dead?" editorial with regard to Spy Hard being the start of a downward trend, and Scary Movie 5 taking off the brakes on tumbling down that slope. Curiously, those movies and every other horrible parody he has seen since then were created by Seltzer and Friedberg. Though he never calls them out directly, he does point out that their movies are the only ones still selling because all other parody has been driven out of theaters and "there is a sucker born every minute" for the bad parody films to capitalize on. He goes on to say that most parody now come from places like Comedy Central and Web Originals.
• Genre Shift: For whatever reason, maybe because Doug realized with "The Review Must Go On" that he was eerily good at triggering people, the reboot shifted from prime's character-based tragicomedy to horror. Good examples are Son Of The Mask where even Santa Christ is evil, The Cat In The Hat where Critic acts like a Babysitter from Hell and The Shining, where Critic terrorizes Rachel in an upsetting way (being a parody of the film but working in its own context).
  • Catwoman (2004) in terms of what audience he wants to play up to. He literally has a speech calling himself a sexist, and he explains to the catwomen how Male Gaze will give him more views than the Female Gaze Doug was feeding on before. This was only temporary though, and he went back to casting MRAs as villains.
  • According to Doug, the Moulin Rouge! review was when he decided that Critic should be wrapped up for good but also that episodes with their own subplots (in addition to the overall Story Arc and character) were far more fun than basic reviews.
  • Critic himself has always had a lot of sex, but 2016 introduced genuine romance, with Hyper/Devil Boner (and other characters as sometimes partners), Chester/Doe, and Aunt Despair/Uncle Lies. Chart Guys and Snyder/Bay are also couples.
• Get Out!: In the Hyper Fangirl's fourth vlog, when she comes across him, Spoony and Linkara (both of whom are freaked out/annoyed by her), Critic grits at her to leave and literally chases her out the room. She just screams “I love you too!”
• The Ghost: Double subverted with Critic's parents, as they're monstrously abusive and Doug can't exactly show that, plus his mom felt bad for even shouting one line at him. He told everyone in The Christmas Tree that Doug's real parents were his parents, but then it was revealed that was just in Critic's head and these people don't know who he is.
• Gilded Cage:
  • The reboot has him a lot more powerful and gaining pleasure and safety from being the Meta Guy who can hurt Malcolm, Tamara and Rachel in any way he wants, but he's also so much sadder and confused, stating outright in “WTF Is Up With The Ending With The Graduate” that the prison bars are getting stronger.
  • Tamara even taunts him about it in The Wicker Man (2006), saying it's not like he can leave or call anyone for help.
  • Literally in The Matrix, as the Camera Abuse ending shows his world having a limit, much to his annoyance.
  • In the Bad Future 2019, he's still in the studio, but he's not allowed to do anything or go anywhere without prostituting himself for Snob's pleasure.
  • In Princess Diaries II, Hyper wants her Big Fancy House to be one for Critic, as she tells him she think he'll like it there, and Doug on commentary saying he chose the place because it would make Critic almost fall into the trap.
  • In “Hyper Fangirl”, the analysts try to make the studio one for Hyper, saying that if she stays stalking Critic, she'll be “loved all her days” by naïve teenagers who use her as an Audience Surrogate, but she can't leave “there's nowhere else to go”. She buys it, singing she'll be Hyper Fangirl “always”.
  • It's no surprise then, that Doug revealed on his GOTG2 Disneycember review that he loves this set-up of feeling more like you're an emotional prisoner than say, being chained to a wall.
• Gilligan Cut: A Running Gag of his goes something like this:
  Critic: The only way this could be any more lame/cliche/stupid is if they did [something].
  (Cut to a scene of the exact thing he described in whatever he's reviewing).
  • Subverted in his review of Cop and a Half, where after wondering what the next stupid plot event is, it cuts to him for a moment of silence, and he says, "Oh, I don't have a vid, I'm just asking."
  • Lampshaded in his review of North, when he points out all the racial stereotypes North meets as he tries to find new parents.
  Critic: Why don't you have him just drop by France, where everyone wears berets, smokes, drinks wine, and every tv channel has 24 hours of Jerry Lewis— it's the next scene, isn't it? (cuts to that exact thing)
  • Lampshaded in a different way the third time it's used in the Batman & Robin review, where he double dares the movie to once again cut to his sarcastic prediction (this time it's Poison Ivy proclaiming "curses!" upon defeat) and goes crazy when it does.
  • A different sort of Gilligan Cut happens in his The King and I review: he comments on how he won't sell out for some musical fad, just before a "Harlem Shake" sequence... wherein he shoots all the dancers.
  • In Son of the Mask Kim Kardashian assures that she put the movie where no one would find it. Cut to Critic finding the DVD in a public trash can and deciding it must be worth reviewing.
• Girl-Show Ghetto: An invoked trend in Bridge to Terabithia, where he mocks My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, New Girl, The Hunger Games, One Direction, Fifty Shades of Grey, and The Jonas Brothers just because they're references to girl things.
  • In his DuckTales video, Critic paused the review for a good few minutes to complain about what he thought to be a huge drop in quality in one of the episodes. The cause? It starred Webby and so had apparently turned into a 'girls' show'...which was obviously something very bad to the Critic from the way he tore it up. The message seemed to be: boys' show = awesome entertainment. Girls' show = vomit inducing mess that no little boy would ever want to watch.
  • invoked Going from Doug's Disneycember hatred of the film, the stinger for the Small Soldiers review plays The Princess Diaries sequel (a cute Chick Flick) out like impending torture. In the actual episode, he still acts like it should give a message to girls and not just be fun nonsense, but at least he's self aware in having Hyper Fangirl distract him with Testosterone Poisoning boy things.
  • His main criticism of Mamma Mia! is that it's a prime example of what exactly is wrong with the Chick Flick genre. While many films that fit the criteria can be smart, funny, or interesting, he feels like many film-makers feel they don't need to put any effort into them simply because "it's for women". This in turn makes the films feel like they look down on the viewer.
  • In the beginning of Lady in the Water, Frozen gets praise for pointing out all the flaws in the previous Disney films, having two female leads (one of them a Queen), and having a song so popular that even boys like it. Rob's character even snides that “13 year old boys are the most important demographic”.
  • Averted when it comes to a female character Doug likes however, as if he relates to a woman then he can endearingly gush/defend her for hours on end, and if you add up he probably has. Examples include Harley Quinn, the Disney princesses especially Cinderella, Bubblegum from Adventure Time, the Gems from Steven Universe, and Jane from Daria.
• Girls vs. Boys Plot: In his crossover with The Nostalgia Chick to review The Chipmunk Adventure, the video escalated into the two of them having their own battle of the sexes in song.
• The Glomp: In Freddy vs Jason, Hyper leaps into Devil Boner's arms, they land offscreen and they do loud things together.
• Glory Days: Every so often he'll refer to the pre-reboot days as his, but That Man Is Dead and he has to find new ways of doing things. Comes to a head in Christmas with the Kranks, where he's tired and wants to go back to the early times of reviewing.
• Glowing Eyes: In a Shout-Out to the show's Avatar State, Critic in the The Last Airbender title card has glowing white eyes. However, as he fails all the time in the episode, it's really just a Call-Back to his blanked out eyes in To Boldly Flee.
• Godwin's Law: ALL HEIL MONDO BURGER! Though averted in his Garbage Pail Kids review — think about it: a society where it's socially acceptable to imprison and kill ugly people.
  • Also, Nostalgia Critic doing the Can-Can with Hitler.
  • You're just standing there, thinking you're about to shake ha- PSYCH! HEIL HITLER * BANG!*
  • Invoked in a serious way during Bébé's Kids. When Robin is supposed to redeem himself by going back to the kids, Critic's not impressed and likens "he acted abusive but at least he didn't leave them" to "he killed five hundred people but at least he's not Hitler". Same thing goes for using a dino-baby as bait, which he calls "Hitler-level douchey".
    • Not even April escapes his wrath when he believes she's joking about the loss of innocent families when her building falls down. Bit of a change since he accuses her of probably reacting the same to the Hindenburg disaster, but still counts.
  • He calls Zod and Turrell's ship in To Boldly Flee the "SS Leather Bar". With their Word of Gay Like an Old Married Couple status, this has some Queer People Are Funny connotations too.
  • Taking the Care Bears' tendency to help only white blonde girls to the extreme, he assumes they do that because one day they'll rebuild “the master race”.
  • In "Rise of the Commercials", he describes the greyed-out dystopia of "cookie boredom" in the TMNT Cookies commercial as being ruled by "Cookie Hitler".
• Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Aunt Despair has four children, and Uncle Lies casually asides to her that they need the morning after pill more often.
• Good-Looking Privates: Played for Laughs in After Earth, as Doug, Tamara and Malcolm (all attractive people) play soldiers more interested in looking good than actually protecting themselves.
• Good Night, Sweet Prince: Critic eulogizes Johnny from The Room (2003) with a parody of the quote:
  Critic: Good night, sweet prick, and flights of assholes sing thee to thy rest.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: Critic will go between hating the chart guys and what they stand for, and being friendly with them when he thinks they can help him get money.
• Gorgeous Period Dress: In Hocus Pocus, Doug's dress is even prettier than Bette Midler's in the movie. Beth's and Tamara's costumes are really nice as well, especially as Beth said Jim got bits of the dresses from thrift shops.
• Gorn:
  • About 80% of the fanfic/fanart with him involves this. The majority of people who do them don't want to actually hurt him though and thankfully, Doug knows this. In a 2011 con, he talked about Torture Porn fanart specifically, and reassures that he's fine with it and that he never thinks “who's watching me? Why do they think this?”
  • Plenty of it is shown in hell, with bleeding women in their underwear hanging from nooses, and shirtless men getting impaled.
  • "Old vs New: Evil Dead'' has Hyper and Devil Boner both into gore, but Hyper has to see that it's personally causing pain (and she's admitted to Critic that some of her happy dreams involve torturing him) and Devil Boner just wants it as bloody and creative as possible.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Played for Laughs in the Lupa crossover “A Talking Cat”, when she shoots him (after he shot her) and he says in a goofy voice “hey my organs are down here!”
  • The end of Ghost Dad has Tamara and Malcolm beating Critic offscreen (for treating them like crap) to the point where he's begging “Sexy Dorothy” to stop.
  • Malice killing everyone in Alice in Wonderland (2010) is always offscreen, with Critic's reactions and the person's screaming being the only clues to what's happening.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: The Haunting (1999)'s "It's about family!" scene and comparing it to the climax of the original causes the Critic to imitate the remake's director acting like a Manchild claiming his work is more adult. To emphasize his point, he never uses mature language in this monologue, at worst resorting to playground level insults.
• Grandfather Clause: Like many web review shows, he started out without any intro sequence, theme song or opening credits. The show gained a theme song during the second run of the series, just after The Review Must Go On. The theme song? A metal version of the properly named song used to herald the return of the Critic in the aforementioned video.
• G-Rated Sex: With The Nostalgia Chick in the FernGully review. Confirmed as the characters fucking by Doug and Lindsay in their commentary.
• Gratuitous Japanese: In The Last Airbender review's opening, the text 'この映画は吸う' appears over the Nostalgia Critic name, which means This movie sucks.
• Gratuitous Princess: This annoys the Critic when he sees it. The Critic points out that the Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon's princess Sally just kept the princess title because it sounds cute, granted the show reveals the king is alive but for health reasons can't resume his duties, so he tells her to "Queen it up, bitch!" He mocks Princess Lana for this too. He makes a joke suggesting that Lana is staying a princess to avoid responsibility. "Politics is fun!"
  • He also guesses that Princess Oriana in the Felix the Cat Movie legally changed her first name to "Princess" (her last name is the name of her kingdom after all...), since we know for certain that both her parents are dead.
• Green Aesop: In the Sonic SatAm review.
  "And it's just Sonic and a secret group of Freedom Fighters who try to stop this industrial takeover and bring the green back to the forest. ...Wait, wait wait wait wait wait, I can't comprehend this. An environmental message that's... SUBTLE ?!"
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: Tends to be the case. Santa Christ is a Big Good but can be pushed too far, yet Sage the devil is actually Lighter and Softer than normal Sage.
• Groin Attack:
  • The Nostalgia Critic does this to himself with a hammer in his Blank Check review.
  • After Conan throws a sword into a guy, the Nostalgia Critic calls it a low blow and calls him "Conan the crotch-stabber".
  • Among the gay overtones perceived by the Critic to exist in Masters of the Universe is the repeated laser shots to the crotch. Granted, the shots often seem, if you examine them closely, to be hitting fairly far away from the crotch, but at regular film speed and at a single glance it is easy enough to make the mistake and it doesn't always seem clear.
  • For the crying/wibbling scene in “The OTHER Titanic Animated Movie”, Doug put clothespins on his scrotum. We don't know why either.
  • During the Ponyo review, voice actor Spike Spencer comes in and says how much he likes the Critic while the Critic says the same during overlapping conversations. Near the end, Spike Spencer plants a grenade in the Critic's groin and leaves before it goes boom.
  • Malcolm hits him with a bat there in The Wicker Man (2006) review. In the commentary, Doug talks over the scene with he'd like to have kids one day, but if attacks such as this (because he didn't wear protection) have made him unable to, then so be it.
  • In the Ghost Dad review for tricking them into thinking he was dead and made them do embarrassing things, Tamara and Malcolm beat him up off screen. It is implied Tamara hits him there as "Sexy Dorothy" singing "Somewhere over his nut sack."
  • In The Matrix, Schmuck gets Critic (in high pitched squeaking mode) to shut up by threatening to liquidate his balls.
  • In The Legend of Zorro, when he sees Catherine Zeta Jones, he whips down his erection. For obvious reasons he regrets it.
  • Self-inflicted in Demolition Man, as to cut down on his swearing (even saying “balls” or “Jesus”), he put a electric shock device on his crotch.
  • In "Old vs New: Evil Dead", Hyper cheerfully perks that if Critic doesn't do what she wants, she'll destroy his testicles.
  • He's very disappointed that the sexual deviant in Mars Attacks doesn't get his dick cut off as a Karmic Death.
  • Rare Female Example in Ghost Rider II, as Tamara's date character is frozen in horror at smoke coming out of her burned vagina. Of course Doug still has to get his Author Appeal in, as he-as-Cage starts to masturbate onscreen and his dick decays in a poof. Twice.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy:
  • The Critic points out the President has no Secret Service in Captain America (1990).
  • In his review of The Wiz the Critic finds both Todd in the Shadows and Paw Dugan and Linkara got into his hotel room when he had locked the door. He's questions the security of the hotel.
• Guilty Pleasures: IN SONG! (from the Moulin Rouge! crossover review)
  • The Critic describes the Short Circuit movies and Judge Dredd as this.
  • He also said that he denied watching Gargoyles in public, but he'd actually watch it on a regular basis.
  • He admits that Ernest Saves Christmas is a shallow, stupid movie. He also watches it every year.
  • He just plain adores Commando. And who can blame him?
  • He calls out Hook for its stupidity, but on the whole, he loves the movie. Or at least the first two acts.
  • Through all its faults, he loves Rocky IV.
  • At a Bad Movies Anonymous meeting, he admits that he likes Spider-Man 3, much to the chagrin of the other members.
• Gun Twirling: In reboot credits. Rule of Cool applies, as he'd just shot the fourth wall, looks as sulky as possible and there's a huge explosion of fire behind him.
• Gut Punch:
  • Critic's mom dying in Jurassic Park III. It's a punch for Critic as well, who goes from bored and pissy over what he thinks is going to be an irritating hospital call to a tearful “w...what?”
  • Even leaving aside the fact that it got undone as the series finale, a lot of people have said they can't watch the Scooby-Doo (2002) review more than a couple of times as it's just too emotionally painful. Doesn't help that Doug improvised the opening rant.

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