Web Video / The Pop Arena

"Visser Three is there. Visser Three is always there."

Gregiffer Stevens hosts The Pop Arena, a Video Review Show where he provides in-depth reviews or recaps of television shows, comics, Video Games, and movies. He is most known for his retrospectives of the Animorphs books and TV series, and discussing every show that has ever aired on Nickelodeon in Nick Knacks. He has also expanded to include retrospectives on several other series and one-shot reviews of all sorts of media.

Nick Knacks has been successful enough that in May 2020 Greg started and successfully had a Kickstarter funded for a book version covering 1979 through 1984. It promises to be even more informative than the episodes; not just adding in his corrections but having more research, episode guides for each of the shows, and interviews with significant personnel.

In early 2024, "Nick Knacks" had a spin-off called "Nick Knacks at Nite" which explores shows from the Nick at Nite after Greg reached his Patreon Goal.

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The Pop Arena contains discussions of:

• Adaptational Villainy: Applies this to the protagonist of The Girl Who Cried Monster, by pointing out that the titular "monster" never does anything worse than threaten the protagonist (which could be argued as self-defense). Meanwhile, the protagonist tries to expose him just so she can get adulation from her parents, whilst said parents end up killing him for some rather piss-poor reasons.
• Air-Vent Passageway: Greg speculates in Animorphs #30: The Reunion that KA Applegate might have been mocking this trope and jokes that nothing has messed up the Animorphs more than the ventilation system.
• Alien Among Us: For his review of Animorphs #13: The Change, Greg brings up that it's rather late to be thinking about taking the newly-freed Hork-Bajir to the press to reveal the presence of aliens on Earth when Ax, an Andalite warrior-cadet, has already been living on Earth for almost a year.
• Alien Invasion: Discussed in great detail from every angle in Greg's Opinionated Animorphs Guides.
• Aliens of London: Joked about in his review of Animorphs #40: The Other, that all Andalites have to be played by British actors.
• All Girls Like Ponies: Nick Knacks #025. cites this as a likely reason Nickelodeon picked up reruns of The Adventures of Black Beauty, along with Nick's then-lack of shows with a heroine as the undisputed star. Although, the previous episode's On the Next segment gender-flipped this trope, when Greg admitted that he also likes ponies.
• All Women Are Prudes / A Man Is Always Eager: In his review for Everworld #3: Enter the Enchanted, Greg mentions that it would have been far too easy to fall into this territory in portraying April, the book's narrator, as a typical chaste female heroine and the boys as total horndogs, but instead they were fleshed out in a realistic manner with an ever-present sexual atmosphere that doesn't feel completely inaccurate to real life.
• An Ass-Kicking Christmas: Discussed in Greg's "Batman Returns Retrospective" how all the action taking place around Christmas ties into the perverse nature of the film, that Gotham hides its true nature behind bright lights and talk about goodwill on Earth while down below twisted freaks plot and scheme.
• Anti-Climax:
  • Greg says Megamorphs #1: The Andalite's Gift ends this way after the epic Chase Scene which had come before kept building with a lot of tension and the stakes getting higher.
  • Greg discusses how anti-climatic the water balloon fight was in Animorphs Episode 1.07: The Escape.
  • Greg points out how stupid the destruction of the Yeerk pool was in the Animorphs TV show and further emphasized not to end a season cliffhanger with no idea how to proceed in the next season, because it was very clear that the writing crew had written themselves into a corner.
  • And later in his review of Animorphs #28: The Experiment Greg harshly lampoons the book for opting to shove in an anticlimax instead of showing the intense escape scenes that had to have taken place off-screen not just once, but twice.
• Artistic License – Economics: Totally torn to shreds in his "Batman Begins Retrospective" on how the capitalist society presented within the film makes no sense, that building an elevated train system would not help the less financially successful in Gotham City, and that the way in which the League of Shadows orchestrated the recession that claimed the lives of Thomas and Martha Wayne is poorly crafted and unrealistic.
• Artistic License – Engineering: One of his criticisms against The Hork-Bajir Chronicles was on how unrealistic it seems that the Yeerks could have started mass-producing spaceships and weapons as they slowly took over the planet, illustrating how logistically given their limited resources that it was flat-out impossible to achieve the way it was presented in the book.
• Artistic License – Film Production: Discussed in his review of Animorphs Episode 2.05 Changes, Part Two on how the way film and television was portrayed within the episode was inaccurate, that a TV show similar to America's Funniest Home Videos would not immediately air the video footage that Harold sent them, but rather save it up as part of a library for future seasons, and bemoaned the fact that it seems weird the creators behind the program didn't understand how television production worked.
• Artistic License – Geography: Brought up during Greg's review of Animorphs #44: The Unexpected that the flight Cassie found herself on was heading toward Sydney, Australia, yet somehow, when Cassie left the plane, she ended up a hundred kilometers away from Alice Springs, which is nowhere near Sydney.
• As You Know:
  • Discussed in his review of Animorphs #35: The Proposal how utterly pointless it is to reiterate to someone what they already know.
  • Brought up in greater detail during his review for ReBoot Episode 6 "In the Belly of the Beast."
• Attempted Rape: invoked
  • Greg discusses how unreasonable it was for Animorphs #2: The Visitor to portray Rachel as being reckless when morphing elephant to stop a man from raping her, something he frequently references while describing the hypocrisy when the Animorphs misuse their morphing powers in unjustifiably stupid ways, which is generally treated more neutrally.
  • Greg details how despicably this trope was used in his segment for Breaking Spines #5: The Time of the Hunter's Moon, with the woman in question, Cordelia Grant, fully aware of what her suitor had just tried to do to her, making her attraction towards the man all the more perplexing.
• A Wizard Did It:
  • Talked about in his Animorphs #23: The Pretender review, how Tobias believed the Ellimist was responsible for liberating the new Hork-Bajir which had suddenly appeared in the free Hork-Bajir valley.
  • And then brought up again in his review of Animorphs #30: The Reunion with a Call-Back to Animorphs #27: The Exposed on how a dangerous precedent was set with the Drode taking the credit for all the inexplicable coincidences, and speculated that perhaps the Ellimist or Crayak had sent Marco's mother his way as part of their master game.
• Ax-Crazy: He accuses the appropriately titled Ax of being this in his review of Animorphs #7. The Stranger.
• Bad Boss:
  • He points out how Visser Three is likely to kill an underling just for reminding him that bugs exist.
  • And then further shows Megabyte taking things one step further in his review of ReBoot Episode 6 "In the Belly of the Beast" by executing one of his underlings for doing something right.
• Bad Future:
  • Greg speculates that the Yeerk-controlled Earth seen in Animorphs #7: The Stranger might have simply been an Ellimist trick because of what Aftran said in Animorphs #19: The Departure.
  • Brought up again during his review of Animorphs #53: The Answer that the Bad Future in Animorphs #7: The Stranger seemed to be coming true.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • The opening of a Nick Knacks Sample Platter episode has Greg talking about a popular Nickelodeon series about a teenage girl's life, which ends and gets a revival that follows her into adulthood, with clips of iCarly and its 2021 revival playing in the background.... until he mentions Clarissa Now, which the episode is actually about.
  • He does this when talking about pillar shows in his Double Dare episode. Geraldine Laybourne, then president, wanted a major show to change the face of the network. He gives examples how Vivian Horner & Sandy Kavanaugh had Pinwheel, Cyril Schneider had You Can't Do That on Television, and Laybourne would have her own in the form of... Turkey Television.
• Bare-Handed Blade Block: In Greg's review of Ranma 1/2 Vol 1 he points out the strangeness of stopping a sword that can cut through walls and trees with your bare palms.
• Batman Gambit:
  • He talks about this in Animorphs #6: The Capture, that the Animorphs' plan to trick the Yeerk into falling into their trap relied on him leaving Rachel alive to bring to Visser Three as a host body instead of just killing her before she could wake up and alert anyone.
  • Discussed in Animorphs #22: The Solution that the Animorphs' plan to trap David in rat morph hinges on the assumption that he'd stick them all inside a Pepsi bottle they left lying around and going alone with Rachel into the construction site instead of simply ordering Rachel to bring the pieces of the blue box back or he'd kill her friends. Guess which one David picked?
  • For his review of ReBoot Episode 4 "Medusa Bug" Greg illustrates one of the few strengths during ReBoot's rather shaky early run in how Bob was shown to be in his element when talking down to and psychologically playing with his enemies by appealing to Hex's chaotic nature and convincing her to unfreeze the city of Mainframe.
• Battle Cry: In one of the stupider moments from the Animorphs TV show, Greg points out how Tom confuses a Yeerk scream of pain for a Yeerk cry of triumph in Episode 1.20 Face Off, Part 2.
• Been There, Shaped History: One of the subjects he brings up is how a better alternative to The Ellimist Chronicles would have been The Chee Chronicles, following their adventures throughout human history as they help add to the growth of civilization, strongly implying this trope.
• Big "NO!": Joked about with the words "DO NOT WANT" superimposed on the screen when Visser Three screams this in his Animorphs TV review.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: In his "Batman & Robin Retrospective" Greg talked about how Barbara, Alfred's niece, was presented in this manner, that despite being one of the heroes and suiting up to go fight crime alongside Batman and Robin how she stole and trashed Wayne's motorcycles, accused Bruce of putting Alfred into indentured servitude, and broke open encrypted files on a disk she was told to give to someone else by her uncle for no other reason than this trope in play.
• Bizarre Alien Biology:
  • Brought up constantly throughout the Animorphs Book Guide on how strange the evolution of the Andalites seems to be, with skittish prey instincts even with an inherent sense of optimism yet somehow evolving to grow deadly tail blades to let them dominate their environment, as well as having their appendix in their brains, and then he quips that perhaps the Ellimist's bloodline had something to do with it.
  • And then discussed again in his #42. The Journey review on how if you were going to use a stock "go inside a person's body" plot that it might have been best to go inside Ax rather than Marco, just to show off some freaky alien biology, do something new that no one had ever seen before.
• Bizarre Alien Reproduction: Jokingly discussed in his review of The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, that once they had escaped from their homeworld the Yeerks probably started doing their version of the "humpty-hump" to breed new soldiers in their goal of galactic enslavement.
• Black-and-White Morality: Greg mocks how clear-cut the conflict between the Mercora and the Nesk is during his review for Megamorphs #2. In the Time of the Dinosaurs.
• Body Horror: Greg points out that #39. The Hidden was probably meant as a deconstruction of this trope in an attempt to turn Animorphs into a campfire horror story, but it simply couldn't sustain the effort due to its blatant Magic A Is Magic A abuse.
• Bolivian Army Ending: Greg deconstructs this trope during his review of #54. The Beginning and likens it to the Bolivian Army Cliffhanger since KA Applegate and Michael Grant wanted to leave the door open for a possible sequel series.
• Book Ends: Greg discusses this trope in his review of #54. The Beginning and goes on to say a better ending would have been to conclude the series with the trial of Visser One and the Animorphs staring out over the beach and feeling just as worried and uncertain about the future as they started out during #1. The Invasion when the series first began.
• Bratty Half-Pint:
  • Ruthlessly mocked when he reviewed Goosebumps #3. Monster Blood and its main protagonist, Evan, an immature twelve-year-old kid who acted half his age.
  • Exaggerated when he reaches Goosebumps #5. The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb as the child protagonist within that book, Gabe, reaches whole new levels of unpleasantness, thus rocketing him to the top worst among Greg's "Goosebumps Child Protagonist Pantheon."
  • And when he revisits Evan in #18. Monster Blood II, he's shocked to discover that Evan has only grown even worse with the passage of time, all too willing now to fantasize about tormenting and even murdering other people's pets, and just generally acting like an all-around Ungrateful Bastard.
• Broken Aesop: invoked Greg points out that Animorphs book #40. The Other tries to show how wrong ableism is yet the disabled character himself barely appears in the story and simply serves as the Damsel in Distress, fully justifying Ax's treatment of him as The Load.
• Card-Carrying Villain: This was talked about in his Animorphs #25. The Extreme review about how Visser Three collecting a bunch of torture devices to display in his room felt more like he was trying to keep up appearances as a mustache-twirling supervillain rather than actually being this trope.
• Cat Scare: Noted when it popped up in his Goosebumps #3. Monster Blood review.
• Content Warnings: A couple of Nick Knacks videos have these.
  • Near the end of the Curious George video, a warning appears before a section covering the death of producer Alan Shalleck, who was murdered by clients of his "gay adult spanking service".
  • The video on Dennis the Menace opens with a warning regarding detailed descriptions of child abuse, as the it tells of Jay North's miserable experiences while growing up playing Dennis (to the point of developing homicidal thoughts against his oppressors).
• Character Shilling: Greg points out how #34. The Prophecy does this in the form of Aldrea claiming she chose Cassie's body to possess because she secretly had the strength to convince her to return to death once the mission was over, artificially boosting Cassie's character in the process.
• Chase Scene:
  • In his "Batman Begins Retrospective" Greg discusses the inconsistency during the car chase across Gotham with Batman causing so much destruction and inadvertently killing a few of the pursuing police officers when earlier in the film he had refused to execute a man without trial.
  • Greg points out during his review of ReBoot Episode 6 "In the Belly of the Beast" that chase scenes work best when there's kinetic energy, but due to the limited computer graphics at that time, the creators of the show couldn't properly animate Enzo and Frisket's pursuers quickly.
• Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: Joked about in his review of Megamorphs #3. Elfangor's Secret, that the way you could tell history had been changed was due to the fact that France beat Great Britain during the Battle of Trafalgar and became a major world power soon afterwards.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • He points out how the water gun seen early in Animorphs Episode 2.03 The Front was later used to stop the Yeerk plot to infest people using cell phones.
  • Jokingly discussed in his review of #33. The Illusion when he refers to the eagle which appeared earlier in the chapter and was later used to get the Animorphs into the location Tobias was being held at as a "Chekhov's Eagle."
  • He points out a particularly clumsy one given early in Animorphs #39. The Hidden when Cassie mentions that birds can sometimes bring down aircraft, to which Greg puts a small picture of a seagull in the corner of the video for the duration of the review until that very same thing comes out of nowhere at the end to save Cassie's ass.
  • And then brought up again in his review of #14. The Werewolf of Fever Swamp how there were so many unfired Chekhov's Guns by the time the book ended that it was just disorienting for the reader, and also that without those unconnected elements, it would probably only be about 12 pages long, and then shifted the discussion into putting the emphasis on the swamp and not the werewolf the book was promoting.
• Cliffhanger Copout: Greg was very upset at Animorphs #28. The Experiment for avoiding a cliffhanger twice.
• Clingy MacGuffin: In his review of #4. Say Cheese and Die!, Greg pointed out how the book was in desperate need of this trope to keep the main protagonist, a kid ironically named Greg, from just throwing away the cursed camera once he found out it was taking photographs of future disasters.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Greg acknowledges the intense torture Tobias undergoes in #33. The Illusion and praises the series for exploring such dark themes years before 9/11 brought such a controversial issue back into everyone's minds.
• Condemned by History: Greg invokes this in his into to You Can't Do That on Television, stating that something's importance doesn't always correlate to its actual quality.
  Important doesn't mean good.
• Conflict Ball:
  • Pointed out in his review of Animorphs #31. The Conspiracy that the tension between Jake and Marco trying to hunt down Jake's father to save him from being infested doesn't follow a clear logical line and only makes sense in context if Tom is aware that Jake is one of the "Andalite bandits," which he doesn't.
  • Discussed in Greg's review of The Secret World of Alex Mack Episode 1.03 "Shock Value" when Alex and her sister Annie panic when they see Vince and Dave in the hallways of the school, but as Greg points out there's nothing suspicious about two kids staying after school, yet they start acting suspicious to draw attention away from themselves.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Greg notes the continuity between #5. The Predator and #7. The Stranger in his Animorphs Book Guide.
  • He acknowledges all the references in #18. The Decision with the line that he's getting a "continuity boner."
  • Greg acknowledges that the reference to the new Kandrona in the Animorphs "The Leader" two-parter, while not perfect, still plays to one of the show's few strengths.
• Convenient Coma: It was noted in his review of Beast Wars: Code of Hero on how given the way Terrorsaur and Scorponok were killed this felt less like permanent death and more like they were being put on a shelf in case they needed to be brought back again.
• Covers Always Lie: Talked about in #31. The Conspiracy, in which the inside cover bears no resemblance to the events written inside the actual book.
• Damsel in Distress:
  • In his "Batman Forever Retrospective," Greg argues that Robin might be the main Damsel in Distress since he needs to be saved three times by The Hero before the movie ends, while the film's main Love Interest, Dr. Chase Meridian, only had to be saved one time by comparison.
  • During his review of ReBoot Episode 3 "Quick and the Fed," Greg points out that the normal Damsel in Distress role was fulfilled by Enzo, not Dot like some might expect, and praised the show for stepping outside the normal realm of Saturday morning cartoons by subverting the viewers' expectations.
  • He criticizes Ranma ½ for frequently putting Akane in the Damsel in Distress role, which he points out is not only repetitive but just plain bad for girls reading the manga.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • Talked about in the latter half of his Animorphs book reviews on how the early comedy from the first few books eventually feel out of place once you've gotten past David dumping a dead body down an elevator shaft, past Ax almost got butchered in a meat-packing plant, past Jake getting his brains blown out, past Marco pushing his mother off a cliff, past Tobias getting tortured, past Rachel's guilt over accidentally giving an old man a heart attack, and past Cassie getting vaporized.
  • Brought up in great depth during his ReBoot Episode 3 "Quick and the Fed" review on how the show's story structure and characters eventually changed over time to reflect changes happening in children's television at the time and how the program was more of an old historical piece in seeing how different mediums tell their stories, like the gun vs. frock debate among the Doctor Who fandom.
• Death by Newbery Medal: After discovering the ghostwriter for Animorphs #42. The Journey wrote an entire series based on animals getting hurt he delivered quite a withering, sarcastic, and faux-cutesy rant about using that for drama.
• Department of Redundancy Department:
  • He points out how redundant it was for the Ellimist to show the Animorphs the EGS Tower in the alternate future seen in Episode 1.12 The Stranger only for it to later come up on its own in Episode 1.14 The Leader, Part 1.
  • Greg notes how Animorphs #41. The Familiar repeats the standard opening exposition several chapters in, like they were worried someone might be starting the series forty-one books in.
• Detonation Moon: For Animorphs #41. The Familiar, the Yeerks' plan involves turning the moon into a sun while the local resistance's plan involves blowing up the moon instead. Needless to say, Greg was very confused that both the outcomes for the heroes' plan and the villains' plan would have spelled doom for the entire Earth.
• Deus ex Machina: Greg slams down the "magic talking whales" from his review of Animorphs #4. The Message and points out they were only created because KA Applegate needed to get the Animorphs down to the crashed Andalite Dome ship, but didn't know any other way to pull it off other than with this trope.
• Dull Surprise: Summed up the best in his review of #24. The Suspicion:
  Greg: The Helmacrons follow, eventually getting the Visser's attention, who reacts to them with all the intensity of someone opening a bag of regular M&M's to discover peanut M&M's inside.
• Dysfunction Junction: Greg calls the Dak/Aldrea shipping "dysfunctional with a capital diss."
• Even Evil Has Standards: Greg says in his review of #44. The Unexpected that even Dorling Kindersley books, whose sales plans were built around the Tupperware party model, would be aghast with the seemingly pyramid scheme nature for the Web site of "MyReportLinks.com."
• Every Car Is a Pinto: He always points out how strange it was that a slow-moving bulldozer actually blew up an alien space fighter in #2. The Visitor.
• Evil Clown: Greg illustrates precisely how strange and out of tune with the rest of the program the appearance of an evil clown is during Nick Knacks Episode #016. Adventures in Rainbow Country. Evil clowns also appeared in most of the next few adventure/action shows Nick Knacks reviewed, with Episode #026. The Adventures of Black Beauty lampshading how unusual it feels to find so many.
• Evil Gloating: He points out how Visser Three is often prone to this.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: In "The Dark Knight Retrospective," he points out The Joker's claim to being an agent of chaos directly contradicts the massive planning he obviously had to do in order to pull off everything the way that he did.
• Experimented in College: He jokingly cites this trope whenever the topic of Loki's strange and otherworldly children frequently come up in his Everworld reviews.
• Exposed to the Elements: Talked about in great detail during his review of Animorphs #25. The Extreme when the Animorphs find themselves in the Arctic without any cold-weather morphs, and Greg concludes that he wished the Animorphs would have learned to start acquiring any animal they could have used in the future.
• Face–Heel Turn: He brings up the way in which David's turn to the side of villainy in the three-book David Trilogy seemed inconsistent with the David which had been presented before, even though both versions of the character were entertaining in their own right, and speculated that perhaps with more books to further flesh out David's character it would have been more believable.
• Female Gaze: Talked about in his review of Everworld #3. Enter The Enchanted on how April is presented realistically in this light, where she would check out a rather attractive man without being shoved into an obligatory romance plot.
• Fish People: Greg was very critical of the use of the Nartec in Animorphs #36. The Mutation and suggested they could have just as easily have been written in as an alien race instead of mutated human beings and not only would that have made more sense but it also would have eliminated many of the inconsistencies in the book.
• For Want Of A Nail: Nick Knacks #030 Going Great (and 1983) explores how events from other facets of children's entertainment that year would reshape Nickelodeon's future. Among others, The Great Video Game Crash of 1983 leaves Atari's and Nick's then-parent company, Warner Communications, in even deeper debt, requiring them to sell part of The Movie Channel to Viacom, who'd later own Nick after purchasing MTV Networks from Warner.
  • This is also happened with how Nick Knacks got started. Greg has said that he started Nick Knacks due to finding a DVD set of Hey Dude! at his local thrift store. Thinking he could start interesting videos from it.
  • The downfall of Nickelodeon Studios is presented this way by Greg. Roundhouse was filmed at Nickelodeon Studios during its 1st Season. When the 2nd Season was about to start filming, the production staff wanted to move to Los Angeles due to the tighter labor union laws and to stop commuting to Florida weekly to film. When Nickelodeon agreed, it caused a chain reaction in which every other staff realized that they too could also request the same as almost every production staff hated working at Nickelodeon Studios due to it being a tourist attraction first and a production studio second.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: During his review of #17. Why I'm Afraid of Bees, Greg is rather puzzled to how a company that lets children swap bodies with other children around their age is still in business when they offer the service pro bono, and laments the missed opportunity in writing an alternative book that would allow kids to explore their gender identities, admitting he'd prefer to be reading that book instead.
• Freeze Ray: While not a Freeze Ray in the literal sense, Greg points out during his review of #44. The Unexpected that the Yeerks' new Freeze Ray which immobilizes people should be the biggest game-changer in their invasion of Earth since they can now freeze planes in midair and infest the passengers.
• Friend-or-Idol Decision:
  • Greg points out how Animorphs Episode 1.07 The Escape took the dilemma from #17. The Underground, that of freeing captured hosts but at the cost of having the Yeerk permanently fused into the host's brains, and then killed any tension by very clearly showing how easy it was removing an infected Yeerk from a host's brain.
  • While commenting on the opening book shenanigans in his #34. The Prophecy review, Greg said that his initial thoughts when reading the book were that it might have been to maintain their cover as Animorphs, hinting at a larger dilemma presented later in the book, though of course it was just Cassie being a moron like usual.
  • Later talked about in his review of #50. The Ultimate on how the book was bringing up a good decision on the draft in recruiting disabled kids into a war against the Yeerks, with Greg also taking a jab at the real-life draft used to enlist soldiers in Vietnam.
• Freud Was Right: In a quick "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" moment during the followup to his Everworld #5. Discover the Destroyer review Greg jokingly acknowledges that Galahad's sword was meant to embody power and leadership for David, making it a penis.
• Future Imperfect: While reviewing the Alternamorphs books, he points out how likely it is we're doing it right now given how much trouble he went through tracking down accurate information on a pair of books just fifteen years old and whose contributors were all still alive.
• Genre Savvy: He pondered this a bit jokingly in his review of #40. The Other on how instead of having dealings with him, that perhaps Gaf was just savvy enough to know that Visser Three would always be there.
• Get Back in the Closet: Discussed in his Goosebumps review #2. Stay Out of the Basement in which he states that he believes the book was intentionally invoking this trope, and praised the story for its use of gay subtext even if it wasn't intentional on the author's part.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot:
  • While reviewing Animorphs Episode 1.16 Tobias, Greg inserts the images of two kissing lesbians fondling each other in the background while praising Ax's new device, which can generate thoughts for everyone around them to see, as "the greatest invention ever."
  • Later on he performed a rather hilarious parody in his review of #32. The Separation with Marco instructing Mean Rachel and Nice Rachel to start kissing and touching each other after knocking Ax out and leaving him tied up in the woods.
  • And then in his segment for Breaking Spines #4. The Hunger, Greg theorizes that the author of the book, Whitley Strieber, found lesbian erotic fantasy more sexually appealing than homosexual fantasy, which the book seemingly glosses over.
• Great Gazoo: He calls the Ellimist this in his review of #7. The Stranger.
• God and Satan Are Both Jerks: Greg eventually concludes that the actions of the two omnipotent beings of the series, the Ellimist and Crayak, portrays them both as jerks.
• Godwin's Law: Greg mocks Cassie's reference to Nazis in Megamorphs #2. In the Time of the Dinosaurs.
• Good Parents: Greg brings up how refreshing and against the grain it was to see actually reasonable parents taking their child's concerns and emotional distress seriously enough to address his fears during his review of Goosebumps #13. Piano Lessons Can Be Murder.
• Half-Human Hybrids: Discussed for his review of #25. The Extreme that mixing the DNA of an ancient alien race with that of humans for the reason given in the book, that humans have dense DNA, doesn't make sense because the Andalites' high intelligence and Telepathy suggest they have an even more complex DNA structure, and that the alien race in question had only been extinct for a few thousand years, so there wouldn't be any gaps in their genetics.
• Harmless Villain: Greg always takes the opportunity to show, aside from the Alternate Universe seen in Episode 1.17 Not My Problem, how utterly ineffectual the TV Yeerks are as villains.
• Haunted Technology: During his review of Episode 8 of Reboot, he wonders if the User thinks this way about their computer, given all the times the characters have broken the in-game rules to save the day.
  Greg: (playacting as the User) What? What, no! No, that's against the rules! They're doing it again! These games are haunted! They won't let me win!
• Healing Factor:
  • Talked about in #13. The Change, that Hork-Bajir can slice open their own heads and expose their brains for everyone to see, and the cut will completely heal within seconds.
  • Discussed in #18. The Decision on how with Taxxons regrowing limbs, the aforementioned Hork-Bajir example, and Leerans regenerating their brains that the universe was made of stronger creatures than human beings.
  • Brought up in his review of Animorphs Episode 1.06 The Message how confusing it was that morphing doesn't heal injuries like it did in the books.
• Hearing Voices: Hilariously discussed in Greg's #43. The Test review when it's revealed Tobias has been hearing Taylor's voice ever since she tortured him.
  Taylor's voice (Greg): Yaaaah, Tobias! You vile, evil bird! You're in Atlaaantis! What's a bird doing in Atlaaantis?! You suck! You're disgusting! Are those fish people?! You're in Atlaaantis! You're a bird in Atlaaantis!
• Hidden Villain: Brought up in his vlog on "The Dark Knight Rises" on how the surprise reveal of the true villain behind the Evil Plan was all too similar to Batman Begins and that while it was earned, it felt too cliche and tied into the overall lackluster nature of the film in comparison to The Dark Knight.
• Hide Your Gays:
  • Joked about in his review for Animorphs Episode 2.03 The Front, that Marco's sudden interest in shoes and shopping had nothing to do with him being gay.
  • Later brought up again in his review of #2. Stay Out of the Basement, that rather than being played straight, the book seemed to be creating a metaphor for their father's rather strongly implied gay identity instead of explicitly concealing it.
• Historical Fiction: Discussed for the Civil War half of Animorphs #47. The Resistance.
• History Repeats: Nick Knacks #030. "Going Great (and 1983)" calls out Ron Miller's Disney regime for charging a premium price for The Disney Channel, and refusing to license their latest content to the networks, essentially cutting off most of their library to everyone but wealthy Americans. Greg then warns that the not-yet-launched Disney+ also seems guilty of screwing over the public like this.
• Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act: Discussed during his review of Megamorphs #3. Elfangor's Secret. After chasing Visser Four across history, the Animorphs finds themselves in an alternate version of D-Day, and Hitler himself is just a low-ranking truck driver, who Tobias "accidentally" cuts with his Hork-Bajir blades. Described as such by Greg:
  Greg: Cassie manages to talk him down, but Rachel drops a grenade on a tank and the explosion causes Tobias to jump and accidentally stab Hitler dead. Yes, all those time travel stories about how you can't kill Hitler, and here's one where they actually do manage to kill Hitler, but it doesn't matter! Well played, Applegate. Well played.
• Hive Mind: He notes this in his review of #5. The Predator on how the ants they morph don't have a sense of individual identity, referencing the most famous example, that of the Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
• Honor Before Reason:
  • Greg speculates in his review for Animorphs Episode 1.14 The Leader, Part 1 that the reason the Yeerks only use one type of security measure in all of their installations might be from a sense of fair play, although it was more likely due to their sheer incompetence.
  • He gets confused when the Yeerks throw away their guns and morph animals to fight the heroes in his #52. The Sacrifice review and quips this trope is the reason.
  • During his review of #54. The Beginning Greg theorizes that perhaps the reason the Andalites are not fooling the Kelbrid, who have never seen what an Andalite looks like before, into believing they are not really Andalites in order to expedite their search for Prince Aximili might be because they are good sports, even though it wouldn't be that hard to do so.
• Hurricane of Puns: In his "Batman & Robin Retrospective," Greg confessed, among other things, that he didn't really mind Mr. Freeze's infamous thousand ice puns.
• Hypocrite:
  • Greg points out in his review of Animorphs #2. The Visitor how making a big show in stealing two drunk teens' guns instead of just flying away and then later berating Rachel rather harshly in using her morphing powers to stop a rapist make Jake and Marco both look like hypocrites.
  • In Greg's "Batman Begins Retrospective," he points out that Batman's decision not to kill the villain but that he doesn't have to save him from an imminent crash results in Batman being directly responsible for his death.
  • Greg gets frustrated that no one else on the team calls out Marco on his hypocrisy in bringing up the incident back in #12. The Reaction when Rachel lied about her allergy to the crocodile to the rest of the Animorphs when he was doing the same thing she'd done in #35. The Proposal.
• Idiot Ball:
  • He points out how the Yeerks frequently carry it with them in the Animorphs TV series.
  • He also believes all the heroes to be carrying this in his review of ReBoot Episode 2 "Racing the Clock."
    • In the following episode, he states that the villains seem to still be carrying this just a little bit when Bob appears to save the day by flying through their open roof and they act like it's a big surprise.
  • Said in his review of #51. The Absolute on how the otherwise engaging book could have done without passing around the Idiot Ball so much.
  • In his review of Say Cheese and Die, he calls out the main protagonists for continuing to use the camera, even though it's become blatantly obvious this thing is supernatural in the most evil of ways.
• Idiot Hero:
  • Talked about during his review of ReBoot Episode 3 "Quick and the Fed" on how Bob's best role was grand superhero adventuring, but that unrelated criminal activities and accidental catastrophes that he is partly to blame for reveal how much of a rookie Bob really us.
  • And later in his review of ReBoot Episode 7 "The Crimson Binome," Greg ranks Bob as a "6.5 on the hero effectiveness scale."
• If It's You, It's Okay: Brought up in a rather hilarious parody for his review of #23. The Pretender, that Tobias would be willing to have bird sex with Rachel, and when it was revealed that her bird morph was actually male:
  Tobias (Greg): Ahhh, screw it. I'll be a gay bird for you, Rachel.
• Imagine Spot: Brought up frequently during Greg's The Secret World of Alex Mack Episode Guide.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Joked about during his review for #29. The Sickness when the Yeerk soldiers keep missing their targets, and Greg quips they had brought in the "stormtrooper squad," complete with the superimposed image of Imperial Stormtroopers.
• Informed Ability: Talked about in his "Batman Begins Retrospective," that despite Ra's al Ghul listing all of the League of Shadows' accomplishments, it didn't truly feel real with how they had been presented throughout the film.
• Informed Attractiveness:
  • Talked about in his review of Animorphs Episode 1.11 The Reaction, that Jason John McCole, the TV show's version of Jeremy Jason McCole, wasn't necessarily ugly but he also wasn't that much of a looker, who was described in the books as a sort of older Jonathan Taylor Thomas.
  • And then brought up again during his "Batman & Robin Retrospective," where he pointed out that despite the fact that Uma Thurman is relatively attractive in her own right, she doesn't have any of the blinding beauty aspects Poison Ivy is known for and he suggested that maybe she should have swapped roles with Nicole Kidman in the previous film.
• In Name Only: During his "Batman Forever Retrospective," Greg points out that besides a general "two" motif, Tommy Lee Jones's Two-Face is "two-faced" in name only.
• Insufficiently Advanced Alien: In his review of the infamous Helmacron books, both in #24. The Suspicion and #42. The Journey, Greg wonders how the Helmacrons ever developed FTL drives when they acted so stupidly, and he speculated that perhaps the Crayak whipped them up in a last-minute deadline to create a new evil species.
• It's Been Done: When Greg discusses Nickelodeon's "pre-World War II aesthetic" in their 1979 promos and Pinwheel, he wonders if someone actually could make a decent children's package show^note a TV show airing old and new shorts with an original Framing Device with that aesthetic, complete with a kinetoscope similar to those seen in Nick's first logo and commercials. He then admits that someone actually did, but 10 years after Nick launched, and for a different channel...cue the Shining Time Station opening. He points out that even some of Pinwheel's puppeteers moved on to that series.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: In-universe example. One of his biggest issues with the Animorphs graphic novels (at least the one that was out at the time) is that it's so slavishly faithful to the original book that it sometimes gets akward in the new medium, like retaining expository dialogue about what things look like even though we can now see them.
• Just Friends: Greg points out in his review of Alex Mack Episode 1.05 "School Dance" that while there was some slight Alex/Ray Ship Tease there it never really developed into anything further as the series progressed and for once he was happy to see a boy and girl who just happened to be friends instead of Love Interests.
• Karma Houdini: While reviewing The Secret World of Alex Mack Episode 1.08 "The Feud," Greg calls Ray out for escaping any kind of punishment after risking his life and Alex's well-being over an All-4-One concert, though he does like to imagine the character's absence from the next episode meant he was ashamed and hiding from Alex for a while.
• Kick the Dog: Lampshaded by Greg during his review of #32. The Separation when Mean Rachel tears up Nice Rachel's teddy bear.
• Last of His Kind: Greg brings up that the Arn seen in #34. The Prophecy, "Queef," is now the last survivor of his race and jokes that means he has to imagine him with the voice of Christopher Eccleston.
• Left Hanging: During his review for the Animorphs TV show, Greg brings up that several of his favorite shows never got a proper ending and advised against season-ending cliffhangers in case the show was cancelled in the next season.
• Limb-Sensation Fascination: Talked about during his review for #29. The Sickness, when Greg read out the passage when Cassie morphed as a Yeerk infested a host body, and used it to point out that as cruel as some Yeerks such as Visser Three can be, the species themselves are not evil.
• Limited Animation: Discusses this technique and its various uses in the Nick Knacks episodes of Danger Mouse, Bananaman, Star Trek: The Animated Series and Curious George, citing Star Trek as having the worst animation he had seen up to that point, as is the case with Filmation's infamous reputation of employing this method extensively.
• Literal Split Personality: Talked about in great detail during his review of Animorphs #32. The Separation as he pointed out that, as hokey as the concept was, you could still do some interesting things with it to explore Rachel's character, but lamented the fact that Nice Rachel was where the execution fell apart in that she was completely antithetical to everything Rachel Prime stood for.
• Loophole Abuse: Greg describes the Andalites' plan in #38. The Arrival to unleash a particle virus which had similar effects to the quantum virus that had been outlawed after its use in The Hork-Bajir Chronicles as "loophole city."
• Luke, I Am Your Father:
  • Brought up during Greg's review of Animorphs #5. The Predator when it was revealed that Visser One was Marco's mom, complete with a superimposed image of Luke Skywalker himself.
  • And then later used to illustrate certain thematic values in how Tobias, an emotional and moralistic member of the team, got a relative on the side of the heroes with Elfangor as his father, while Marco, a more ruthless and cold pragmatist, got a relative on the side of the villains with Visser One's host body being that of his mother, though at the same time admitting that the Marco/Visser One stuff had a better story structure and was more well constructed.
• Made of Plasticine:
  • Greg frequently points out how Taxxons are more useful as tools but when it comes to combat they are very easy to kill.
  • He invokes this trope in #18. The Decision when he quips that between a sample of Leerans, Taxxons, and Hork-Bajir, human beings themselves fall under this definition.
• Mad Scientist: Discussed in his review of #2. Stay Out of the Basement how despite being the antagonist of the book that Margaret and Casey's "mad scientist" father couldn't be classified as the monster of the week, given that he tried to look after his two kids, spared the life of his original host and his friend Martinez from work, and that he would even spend time helping out neighbors with household chores, and concluded that he was instead a "gay father" archetype instead.
• Magic A Is Magic A:
  • Greg points out that Brandon Sanderson's greatest writing strength is his ability to establish comprehensible rules for the various fantasy worlds he writes and praises him for always sticking to them, though he adds that the actual writing style itself tends to be very dry as a result of this.
  • While reviewing #39. The Hidden, Greg admits he'd be willing to ignore the blatant violations of the internal rules for morphing as long as it resulted in a good story, such as the morphing buffalo slowly being developed throughout the series and eventually becoming its own character.
• Magical Native American: Brought up and then harshly condemned during the review of Breaking Spines #15. Southpaw, which paints the Native American antagonists behind the werewolf killings in a negative light by casting evil magics on the poor unsuspecting white people and destroying the symbolic pastime of colonial America to the point that the single white guy on their side turns on them. WTF indeed.
• Magical Negro: He calls the one from the Animorphs TV show Episode 1.16 Tobias one of the most straight examples of this trope he's ever seen, with a random black guy who appears in only one scene, gives Tobias a bit of wise advice, and then promptly vanishes.
• Male Gaze: Brought up and discussed in his review of Breaking Spines #1. Vertical Run along with, among other things, rape, torture, and homophobic and racist slurs.
• Manly Tears: Brought up in his review of Ranma 1/2 Vol 1.
• Mary Sue: invoked
  • Greg was rather critical of the term "Mary Sue" in Animorphs #38. The Arrival because he feels it's become meaningless since the original description from "A Trekkie's Tale" has been distorted into any female character who is overly qualified at what she does.
  • Greg's review of the Jack Reacher film discusses how it takes such a character and really makes him work in a four-step process: Reacher never does anything blatantly impossible, the other heroes aren't made to look like idiots to prop him up, the villains are so evil that you can't wait to see a Wish-Fulfillment character like Reacher take them out, and every single other aspect of the film is so top-notch that you don't really care about the ridiculousness of its main character.
• Mind Meld: Greg jokes that Visser Three uses a Vulcan mind meld to stop Chapman's host from rebelling in Animorphs Episode 1.05 Between Friends.
• Miss Exposition: Greg points out in #36. The Mutation that Queen Soco was being built up to be the Big Bad of the book, but after her first encounter with the Animorphs, she was never seen again, meaning her entire character existed solely for the purpose of dumping exposition.
• Mood Whiplash: He notes the strangeness of the ending in #42. The Journey being Played for Laughs when the dog that still has the rabies is eventually going to die and that in the meantime everyone else in the building is in serious danger.
• Moral Event Horizon: invoked In one of Greg's longer rants he fully lists how he believes Tobias making the decision to preserve the timeline by causing the KT Extinction Event in Megamorphs #2. In the Time of the Dinosaurs has Tobias crossing this line.
• Murder by Inaction:
  • Batman's "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you" rationale given when confronting the main villain for the last time is ripped to pieces by Greg during his "Batman Begins Retrospective" where he highlights the hypocrisy of the statement and how it contradicts the last two hours of the movie.
  • And then brought up again in his review of Animorphs #29. The Sickness about how Erek's pacifist programming seemed to contradict itself in that restraining someone (which had been previously shown in the series) was against his code while standing by as a sick person died without calling for help was allowed, and then called back to the Batman example listed above.
• Never Say "Die": Discussed in Nick Knacks #043. Adventures of the Little Prince, when the English dub tried to cover up the death of a dancing bear by having the narrator and the Little Prince claim that the bear is recovering in a hospital offscreen. Greg responds by asking why the episode received an English dub at all, especially when 13 other episodes remained available only in Japanese.
• Never Trust a Title: Greg points out that there was absolutely no prophecy mentioned in his review of #34. The Prophecy.
• Never Speak Ill of the Dead: Greg gives this theory as for why Nick at Nite's less-than-flattering promos for The Donna Reed Show stopped. Reed passed away from pancreatic cancer in 1986, so having promotions and commercials that made fun of her show would've been in bad taste to air after her passing.
• No Endor Holocaust:
  • While Greg has many problems with Megamorphs #2. In the Time of the Dinosaurs, one of the issues he describes was how the nuclear explosion had no effect on the setting when it should have been one of the biggest non-Yeerk events in the series.
  • In #41. The Familiar he's quite disconcerted that both the heroes' and villains' plans would wipe out all life on Earth.
• No Name Given:
  • Discussed quite early in the life of the Opinionated Animorphs Book Guide on how the characters who are refusing to give out their last names also reveal so much secondary information about where they live, what their parents' names and occupations are, details from the city they live in, and finally how they are reacting to the latest Yeerk plot of the week to the point that any attempts to hunt them down wouldn't be too hard if the Yeerks really put their minds into it.
  • He's quite irked that the otherwise great character of "the Governor" in #51. The Absolute is given this treatment, despite several other one-shot characters, including her own husband, getting names in the same book. The only explanation he can come up with is the writer was trying to preserve the conceit that the Animorphs can't reveal any information about their identities in case a Yeerk finds the books...except this is two books after the Wham Episode where they find out everything.
• No OSHA Compliance: Jokingly discussed in his review of #26. The Attack, that the Iskoort sold their public safety department for some beads.
• Nostalgia Filter: Greg examines how to be a Nostalgia Critic properly in his "The Land Before Time" review.
• Not Now, Kiddo:
  • Poked fun at in his review of #2. Stay Out of the Basement, that in the land of Goosebumps, no matter how serious things get, your parents or the adult guardians looking after you will never believe you, ever.
  • And then in his review of #4. Say Cheese and Die! it was noted that Greg wasn't really a fan of this trope at all, that although it was necessary to keep the adults from stepping in and dealing with these situations, that it fed a negative stereotype to the kids reading these books to never trust adults with their problems, and that Animorphs only made it work because, due to the nature of the Yeerks, any possible authority figure to confide in might be the enemy, making it a Justified Trope.
  • Which is why he's utterly flabberghasted in Monster Blood III, when the bully character is able to convince the police and fire depts. that a giant kid is rampaging around the town without any difficulties.
• Only Sane Employee: Gideon Van de Leur in his Doctor Who Season 6 skit.
• Operation: [Blank]: Greg calls the Animorphs' final plan in #22. The Solution Operation "Why the hell didn't we do this the first time," or Operation WTHDWDTTFT.
• Overused Running Gag: Early on he read all the book passages in an impression of Christian Bale's Batman voice for no real reason. It didn't take long for the fans to get fed up, so it stopped after a few books.
• Padding: invoked
  • In his review of #6. The Capture he points out how time that could have been better spent developing Jake's character was wasted on Juan and Terry playing basketball and Jake buying a birthday present for his mom with Rachel and Cassie.
  • Brought up during Animorphs Episode 1.15 The Leader, Part 2 how the buttons used to fly the Blade ship to Earth or the Yeerk home world are both identical simply to pad out the episode.
  • Greg jokes during his review for The Secret World of Alex Mack Episode 1.08 "The Feud" that his segue into the backstory of the All-4-One band as well as their history with the show was designed to pad out the review due to the typically short runtime of his videos.
  • In #42. The Journey, Greg points out a key sign to invoking this trope would be when you can flip around all the roles of the characters without any significant effect on the story, i.e. whatever happens doesn't depend on who the character is and adds nothing to their development.
  • In #49. The Diversion he takes a Tropes Are Not Bad approach, noting that the book is a major Wham Episode built around four scenes that the fans had been waiting to see for a long time. And yet, those scenes also couldn't fill a whole book by themselves so we get several bits of filler along the way that still manage to largely be entertaining in their own right.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis: Brought up and picked apart in great detail during his review of Everworld #2. Land of Loss, in how pop culture references in a fictional medium relate to everyday life, and his own thoughts on using them.
• Power Perversion Potential: Greg was disappointed when Tobias morphed into Taylor in #43. The Test, which completely ignored Tobias's reaction to morphing a human woman and speculates this was because there's no way a straight cis teenage boy's reaction to something like this could be put in a kids' book series. He claims it's an absolute certainty that Tobias spent ten minutes fondling Taylor's breasts before heading out.
• Product Placement: He has a ball with the opening scene of #49. The Diversion where Tobias poetically describes his love of McDonald's. Even better, he points out that while the series did have several fast food chain partnerships, this wasn't one of them, meaning the ghostwriter apparently just loved the place that much herself.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: Examined in his review of Everworld #2. Land of Loss on how, rather than playing it straight, the Vikings the heroes meet up with subvert this trope with quick retreats, and once they are captured, moping around and giving up rather than fighting to the last man, and Greg quips, "God, these guys are like the anti-Klingons!"
• Punch-Clock Hero:
  • He brings this up in his "Batman Returns Retrospective" on how Batman seemed to be the equivalent of a blue-collar worker punching in his time slot to go out and fight crime whenever a new threat appears, and that while he would have liked to have seen this given more pathos in his "Batman Forever Retrospective" that what was presented there was a step backward in terms of Wayne's character.
  • Discussed in his look at The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks on how the introduction of locomotives tied into the narrative of forward progression within the game and how this made Link essentially a blue-collar hero rather than a prophesized Chosen One.
• Puppeteer Parasite: During his VISSER review, Greg discusses the Yeerks' ability to take over other bodies and concludes that they are not a genetically evil species, that no matter how much they must be stopped, it's merely what they were designed to do in their natural environment.
• Purpose-Driven Immortality: Talked about in his review of Megamorphs #3. Elfangor's Secret when the Animorphs were given total immunity to anything that might kill them on the condition that Jake would die, and used by Greg to describe how despicable the Ellimist's methods are.
• Ramming Always Works: Talked about in his review of #36. The Mutation how ramming an alien submersible spaceship while in a flesh-and-blood killer whale morph is a very bad idea and yet somehow, it still works.
• Red Herring:
  • He points out how the Ellimist offering the six Animorphs a choice was just a way to secretly help them out without interfering in Animorphs #7. The Stranger.
  • Brought up during his #14. The Werewolf of Fever Swamp review that the Swamp Hermit was presented as a Red Herring and not really the werewolf that had been terrorizing the swamp.
• Reset Button: He points out in his review of Animorphs #19. The Departure how everything goes back to the way it was at the beginning.
• Revealing Cover Up: Lampshaded in Phantom of the Auditorium, where it's pointed out that the bad guy's attempts to drive the heroes away is having the opposite effect.
• Rigged Contest: Discussed in his episodes of Nick Knacks on the Kids Choice Awards. Greg questions the legitimacy of fan complaints about Nickelodeon rigging the awards in the channel's favor, pointing out the most logistical reasoning behind the accusations was that Nick, at least in the early years, was polling kids who were more likely to watch Nick than other channels aimed at kids.
  • Part 2 also pointed out that the late 2000's saw a sudden rise in Disney Channel shows winning in their respective category.
• Sadist Teacher: Discussed in his The Secret World of Alex Mack Episode Guide review what complete jerks the teachers working at Alex's school are. Quickly becomes Fridge Horror when Greg reveals he'd had teachers like this during his time spent in the public education system.
• Series Continuity Error: #34: The Prophecy is called out for making a mess out of the continuity which came before it as well as having no effect on anything afterwards, and how it couldn't even maintain its own internal continuity thanks to an editing oversight that resulted in something the characters already knew being portrayed as a huge shock later on.
• Silicon-Based Life: During his review of Animorphs #25. The Extreme, Greg points out the high likelihood that the Venber, an ancient alien race adapted to extreme temperatures below zero, are silicon-based lifeforms, and further went on to explain that mixing their DNA with that of human beings makes no sense because the two races exist on an entirely different spectrum.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Greg describes the Animorphs' plan to trash the world leaders' conference during the David Trilogy so that the Yeerks couldn't infest them this way.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • invoked Greg notes that the Animorphs TV series use special effects that fail to meet his standards.
  • The topic gets discussed in the Nick Knacks episode of The Tomorrow People (1973). Greg notes how primitive the effects were even compared to '70s Doctor Who, before playing an interview of Nicholas Young (John) also expressing his disappointment of the effects while filming the show. Taking particular umbrage at a very needless use of Chroma Key to have people in a ticket booth despite having an actual prop used in other shots.
• Spirit World: Greg deconstructs how the Spirit World in his first episode reviewing the YuYu Hakusho series is framed as an objective standpoint for the audience as well as Yusuke.
• Status Quo Is God:
  • Greg's confusion over Cassie's morals being challenged in #9. The Secret and resulting in her returning to the way she thought in the beginning is one of his funnier takes.
  • He notes in his review of The Hork-Bajir Chronicles on how seers shake up the status quo rather than maintain it.
  • This was then brought up again during his review of Animorphs #26. The Attack on how the Crayak assumed this trope would be in play no matter the outcome regarding the fate of the Iskoort, but that the Ellimist had planned to eliminate the Howlers all along.
  • Greg remarks on how the structure of ReBoot shakes up the status quo in his review of ReBoot Episode 3 "Quick and the Fed."
  • Discussed on how in his The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks review the game was stepping outside the typical realm of Zelda adventures by presenting a Link who was more of a blue-collar worker and had to work hard to beat the villain so that New Hyrule could advance further into the future rather than restore the kingdom to its former glory.
• Strictly Formula: He points out the plot structure of Inspector Gadget was completely locked in stone without a single exception across its run, which really made his attempt to watch the entire thing a slog. He had to regularly remind himself that the show was never intended for this kind of binge-watching and would be a lot more tolerable if you were just watching an episode every few days, by your own choice.
• Techno Babble:
  • During his review of Alex Mack Episode 1.06 "Science Fair" Greg points out that Annie's entry for the local science fair doesn't qualify as Techno Babble since an ion engine actually exists in Real Life, although a later character's entry clearly falls under the definition of Techno Babble.
  • In his segment for Breaking Spines #7. The Hollow Man Greg notes that this was one of the few instances with Techno Babble done right.
• Technology Marches On: Discussed in a ten-year retrospective on the book guide, Animorphs in the Age of Trump - with the proliferation of the internet and smartphones, it's hard to imagine the Yeerks getting away with some of their more obtrusive actions. Including landing the blade ship in the first book.
• Techno Wizard: In one of his funnier rants for the Animorphs TV show, Greg points out how Ax reprogramming a cell phone to display images when it isn't designed to do that is highly inaccurate, and speculates that Ax might have literally cast a magic spell on the phone.
• Tempting Fate: Discussed in Greg's review of ReBoot Episode 1 "The Tearing" that the second Bob promised he wasn't going to leave the diner a Game suddenly appeared over the city.
  Greg: Despite Megabyte's continued threats, Bob insists he'll stay right here and make sure Dot's Diner is safe. And because birds shit in your mouth the moment you look up, that's when a Game Cube starts to descend on Mainframe.
• Tethercat Principle: A big part of why he hates Mr. Ed, as the need to devote substantial screen time to wacky horse antics in each episode means that the marital spats going on most of the time hardly ever get any resolution, giving the impression that these couples just all hate each other and are constantly at each other's throats with the actual subject of their current argument totally beside the point.
• That Came Out Wrong: This was noted in his Everworld #2. Land of Loss review:
  Christopher: What, are you with the CIA now?
  Mark: No need to spy, Holmes, I could've heard you outside.
  Christopher: "Holmes?" Holmes? Well listen up, homey: A) You're a lily-white kid from upper middle class whose mommy and daddy drive minivans that would match except that one is blue and the other is green, so you are not, repeat, not a street-wise black kid. And: B) Don't listen in on my phone calls.
  Mark: You need to get over this attitude towards black people.
  Christopher: I don't have an attitude towards black people. I have an attitude towards punks, punk.
  Mark: Yeah, right, it just so happens all your friends are white.
  Christopher: Hey, it so happens I'm trapped in hell with a black guy! I spent last night with a black guy! I'm sleeping with him right now in -
  Mark: No way! Oh man, oh man!
  Christopher: That came out wrong.
  Mark: Aw, man. No, no, that's cool. I'm down with that. That's cool. To each his own, man. I support you. You know, you gotta be what you gotta be, Tinky Winky.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Discussed in his "The Dark Knight Retrospective," that for all of Batman's efforts The Joker survives and Harvey Dent dies at the end, and Greg praises the film for stepping outside the realm of your typical summer blockbuster superhero action genre with this kind of focused storytelling.
• The Brute: Talked about in his vlog on "The Dark Knight Rises" about how without the strong thematic presence that The Joker had in the previous film the movie's main antagonist, Bane, is less of an ideological opponent and instead just a physical wall that had very little staying power.
• The Chessmaster: Brought up in his "Batman Begins Retrospective" on how despite being told that the League of Shadows was responsible for the fall of Rome, the Black Plague, and the fire of London that there was no sense of scope and size shown and that as stands it was hard to believe they were serious puppet masters who could terrify the Mob.
• The Hero: In his review of ReBoot Episode 3 "Quick and the Fed" he dissects the structure of the series in question to reveal how Bob, despite being the main protagonist of the show, isn't your typical Saturday morning cartoon hero.
• The Leader: Brought up in his Animorphs #50. The Ultimate review on how the reason Jake was chosen as leader of the team was simply because the Animorphs' understanding of war and conflict comes directly from pop culture and that he was the responsible upper middle class white guy with the least amount of baggage, so it was the logical choice.
• The Mole: As Greg points out in his #23. The Pretender review, the reveal that Aria is secretly Visser Three seems to be rather out-of-character for him, and attributes it to the author trying to flesh out Visser Three more and give him more depth, but then the ghostwritten era began, and this was promptly forgotten.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: invoked He was quite disappointed that Tobias' mother Loren doesn't get to do anything in the remaining few books after her highly emotional reintroduction.
  • In his review off You Can't Scare Me, he feels that the Mud Men where highly underutilized.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: invoked
  • Greg calls out the Animorphs TV show when Ax's plan to get back home fails, restoring the status quo. Since everyone knew going in that this was the last episode, why not just let him succeed and give a tiny bit of closure to at least one of the characters?
  • Greg was so intrigued by the concept of a morphing buffalo slowly developing human-level intelligence and becoming part of the Animorphs team that he'd be willing to forgive the blatant Magic A Is Magic A abuse to get there. Unfortunately, the buffalo doesn't survive the book it's introduced in.
  • Greg laments that the two Alternamorphs books wasted a promising idea in just about every way possible, with the writers seemingly having no idea what to do with this opportunity; there's only one real "good" path and any deviation from this path meant instant death, the readers were kept away from the action, and having any knowledge of the series was actually punished!
  • Greg points out that #43. The Test feels far more like part two of an unfinished trilogy for Taylor than an actual conclusion to her story arc. He's also disappointed in the complete lack of attention given to Tobias morphing a woman, though he acknowledges that any realistic teenage boy's reaction would probably be inappropriate for the books' target audience.
  • He's utterly baffled at how #44. The Unexpected refuses to take advantage of being set in Australia, with the writer's reasons for wanting to set a story there apparently beginning and ending with "Cassie morphs a kangaroo," to the point that Cassie is an even bigger idiot than usual just so she can be in a position to do it. He suggests a much better story would be her having to flee into the Australian wilderness and waging a guerilla war against the Controllers chasing her by acquiring the most dangerous animals she can find on a continent that has no shortage of them.
  • In Say Cheese and Die he calls out the story for not giving the protagonists enough motivation, suggesting a Drunk on the Dark Side plot where they abuse a positive atribute of the camera (for example, every fifth picture shows a good future), or use it for Revenge or vigilante justice a la Death Note.
  • In It Came from Beneath the Kitchen Sink, laments that the worst thing the Grool did for the protagonist's birthday was to rain out her trip to an amusement park, when it could have caused who-knows how much Final Destination-esque havoc.
• Timey-Wimey Ball:
  • Greg was very confused over the Techno Babble behind the Time Travel from Animorphs #11. The Forgotten, and advised future authors who wanted to write good Time Travel to avoid writing Time Travel altogether.
  • During Elfangor's Secret, Greg notes that the villains attempts to Make Wrong What Once Went Right end up making things difficult for himself (among other things, he can't find Einstein because he never left Germany). As such, he suggests that any future time travelers should try to change history in reverse-chronological order (i.e., save JFK and Martin Luther King Jr., then stop Hitler's rise to power), so that the Ripple Effect doesn't hinder you as much.
• Too Dumb to Live: This trope was talked about when it was revealed that the security code to gain access to the Pemalite ship was simply "six," with Greg insisting that there's a difference between being a little too trusting and being "too stupid to live," and that with the way this is portrayed, you could have sent Gomer Pyle to go kill the Pemalites.
• Trekkie: During his review of #47. The Resistance he was confused on how a man who has two children and was left alone to watch them could mistake the Animorphs for Star Trek aliens, and then later commented on how the book had some very Unfortunate Implications on how the plight of the escaped slaves seemed to more closely mirror that of the book's Trekkers even as he verbally tore to pieces many of the hateful and prejudiced misconceptions people outside the fandom have about Trekkers.
• Unexplained Recovery:
  • Shown during Greg's review of Animorphs Episode 1.04 On the Run that Rachel was crushed in fly morph yet when she reappears she's perfectly fine.
  • And then brought up later that Tobias was very clearly killed in Animorphs Episode 1.07 The Escape, and then in the next episode, he's suddenly alive and well without any explanation.
• Unreliable Narrator:
  • He theorizes that Jake's incompetence in #36. The Mutation may be the result of Hahn's tragic death affecting his judgment, but he'd have to be lying about his reasons to the rest of the team for that to be true, suggesting this trope.
  • Greg talks about how Ax misled the readers during #38. The Arrival when the Animorphs split up, and while he admits the constant use of this trope would have seriously hurt the Animorphs series, this one time was a rather unique twist, and he praised the book for it.
• Villain Ball:
  • He frequently discusses how Visser Three carries this most of the time.
  • He finds David's tendency to suddenly carry the Villain Ball after his switch in #22. The Solution to be rather jarring and inconsistent with the character as we had seen him before.
• Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World: Discussed in Greg's Animorphs guides, though most notably pointed out when the Chee, sentient androids that could disguise themselves with holograms, would take the heroes' place to keep up their cover of being ordinary everyday schoolchildren.
• We Can Rule Together:
  • Greg points out during his review of VISSER when Visser Three makes a rather pathetic attempt to use this trope to bait and trap Visser One into saying something that would discredit her before the Council of Thirteen, but of course Visser One is too smart for that.
  • In his review of #43. The Test, he points out how Taylor made this offer to Tobias, though he turned her down.
• Why Don't Ya Just Shoot Him?: In his review of #4. The Message, he talks about how, as opposed to just blasting away at the Animorphs with his Blade ship, Visser Three instead morphs into some aquatic monster to follow them after rescuing Ax from the crashed Dome ship.
• You Have Failed Me:
  • From the Animorphs book series, Greg discusses how this is typically Visser Three's primary method in dealing with his subordinates whenever they screw up his plans and wonders how it is that nobody ever notices the large number of people disappearing from the city they live in.
  • During his review of the TV show, Greg brings up how stupid it was when two Yeerks refused to report their failure to Visser Three in Animorphs Episode 1.13 The Forgotten because we never see Visser Three punishing his minions like he did in the books.
  • Hilariously brought up again in his review of VISSER when it turns out that killing your underlings is the least offensive crime the Council of Thirteen punishes, which explains why Visser Three does it so frequently without repercussions. Greg summarizes it as such:
  Greg: What? You killed twenty subordinates? Community service, I say! Oh, wait... you also misfiled XP-12? Off with her head!
• Yo-Yo Plot Point:
  Greg: Visser Three is there. Visser Three is always there.

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ThePopArena contains examples of:

• Aborted Arc:
  • Greg announced plans to review the Eighth Doctor Adventures books starting in January, 2012, but he never did.
  • This was then un-aborted for 2016 when he neared the end of Animorphs and had the time for it. The promo video ends with "for real this time."
• Alternative Character Interpretation: invoked
  • The Animorphs books portray Cassie as the moral center of the team. Greg considers Cassie's moral speeches to be very annoying and treats her more as The Load.
  • Greg offers a darker and more dangerous interpretation to Tobias than the Animorphs books did.
• Ascended Extra: Dealin' Dan Hawk, a minor throwaway character from the opening chapters of #3. The Encounter, is turned into a full-blown Running Gag with the Animorphs repeatedly screwing him over until he decides to take them all out. He even appears in the Nick Knacks episode about Dusty's Treehouse, netting another target for the Olympic Entertainment Group's scam.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: While pondering over the inexplicable behavior of the dinosaurs in his Megamorphs #2. In the Time of the Dinosaurs review Greg instantly gets distracted by a mouse with a cookie crumb, and goes off to catch it, ending the video.
• Bait-and-Switch: Near the end of the series, Dealin' Dan Hawk is seen on the phone with the Yeerks, asking for a polar bear morph, implying that he was the one who kills Rachel. Turns out he accidentally got a panda bear morph, Rachel's killer was just some random Yeerk, and Dan's only contribution was 'guy who dumped Rachel's corpse out an airlock on his way out'.
• Berserk Button:
  • He is otherwise very fair to most of the media he reviews, even if he personally doesn't enjoy it, such as emphasizing the So Bad, It's Good aspects of Batman & Robin, but the one thing that drove him into a blistering rage was Megamorphs #2. In the Time of the Dinosaurs, to the point that he refused to believe KA Applegate wrote it of her own free will, and even today he still has a hard time letting go of it whenever it crops in reviews.
  • Greg, really, really doesn't like Roy Lichtenstein, considering him to have gotten famous at the expense of the comic artists whose works he copied.
  • When he reviewed Mister Ed for Nick Knacks, he spent nearly half an hour discussing the show's premise, characters and production history before revealing that he absolutely hates the series because of its overall cynical tone and mean-spirited humor.
  • Greg absolutely tears into Say Cheese and Die Again! for the rampant usage of fatshaming, with Greg slowly becoming morbidly obese thanks to the effects of the camera. Not only does he call out the book for using obesity as a horror trope, he also calls out R.L. Stine himself for including it in the first place.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Nick Knacks episode #051 The Donna Reed Show states that modern viewers might recognize Donna Reed for playing Mary in It's a Wonderful Life, Lorene in From Here to Eternity, or Sacajawea in The Far Horizons.
• Buffy Speak: Featured prominently in his review of Animorphs Episode 1.02 My Name is Jake, Part 2 when describing the adapted construction site that the Animorphs meet Elfangor in:
  Greg: Jake shows up and tells everyone what he saw at the construction... site... place... thing.
• Deadpan Snarker: He is known to be quite sarcastic when the need arises.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first several Animorphs reviews feature some ill-conceived attempts to be like the successful video reviewers of the time, with Greg noting that his "garbage disposal Muppet" narration voice in particular makes it impossible for new viewers to keep watching now, resulting in them barely gaining any new views since the series ended.
  • His early Goosebumps reviews are very similar in style to his Animorphs book guides. However, starting with his 2015 review of Monster Blood, he started incorporating some new elements such as spooky stock background music and a static background image usually relating to that book's theme.
• Flat "What": Greg delivers one of these followed by one of the larger Big "WHAT?!" variety when he learns the Yeerks apparently have no security for their computer systems on the Blade ship.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In his review of Animorphs Episode 1.04 On the Run, he states quite clearly that Rachel will eventually die later on.
  • He jokes that AniTV predicted the future when Marco commented that Cassie looked like she'd acquired a ghost in Animorphs Episode 1.06 The Message.
  • Greg referenced Animorphs #42. The Journey infamously breaking the morphing rules well before coming to that review.
• Green-Eyed Monster: During his review of "Who is Bugs Potter?" Greg stops the video several times and insists he's not jealous that Gordon Korman had four books published before he even became a legal adult.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: He is known to indulge in a few from time to time.
• Insistent Terminology: Greg always pronounces it "Fictional Olympics Gymnastics Star Carla Belnikoff."
• Jump Scare:
  • The yeti attacks in his review of the Alternamorphs books.
  • The Clock Man remained lost while Greg edited Nick Knacks' montage of Pinwheel shorts, so instead he distorted a stock image and his narration. (He later included footage of the real "Clock Man" in the first Nick Knacks Addendum.)
• Malaproper: He's infamously bad at pronouncing names, pronouncing "escape" as "ex-cape."
• Male Gaze: During his review of ReBoot Episode 7 "The Crimson Binome" Greg gets distracted by Dot's ass and quips someone must have been paying someone else to render it that way.
• Metaphorgotten: Played for laughs while reviewing "The Angels Take Manhattan." It begins by mocking stereotypical film noir dialogue, which finally degenerates into him getting completely lost inside the "worm and apple" metaphor he was trying to make.
• Mood Whiplash: The episode on Curious George has an abrupt shift in tone towards the end. It talks about the guy who helped make the TV shorts going to libraries and schools after the show ended to read Curious George books to children. Then, abruptly, there's a "Content warning: murder, possible hate crime," and Greg talks about how the guy was unfortunately murdered by clients of his "gay adult spanking service."
  Greg: Hey, five year-old who clicked this looking for Curious George videos, you're definitely in the wrong place. I need you to shoo, right now. Shoo.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: From Nick Knacks #073 The History of Looney Tunes on Television (Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon):
  • Greg reports that the shorts Warner Bros. sold off to Associated Artists Productions in 1956 include the earliest appearances of Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Tweety, Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, and Pepé Le Pew... and Big Chungus.
  • Greg also recalls The '90s as a very productive decade for the Looney Tunes. Before he discusses WB adding some newer shorts to Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon and buying back the ones they sold to AAP so long ago, he recounts the campaign for Bugs Bunny's 50th anniversary, Tiny Toon Adventures, Taz-Mania, The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show... and Space Jam, the last of which he reads off with an aggravated tone.
• Narm: invoked
  • Greg can't help laughing every time he says "the Anti-Morphing Ray."
  • Greg finds the line "And then the Dracon beam blew up the buffalo" so unintentionally funny that he recites it mockingly instead of his usually serious manner.
• Not Bad: Despite not liking the Goosebumps books, Greg was always quick to label which ones were actually good. The ones he seemed to enjoy were Welcome to Dead House, Stay Out of the Basement, Let's Get Invisible, Welcome to Camp Nightmare, The Haunted Mask, Piano Lessons Can Be Murder, Deep Trouble, Phantom of the Auditorium, A Night in Terror Tower, It Came from Beneath the Sink, The Horror at Camp Jellyjam, How I Got My Shrunken Head, Ghost Camp, Calling All Creeps, The Curse of Camp Cold Lake, The Haunted School, Werewolf Skin, I Live in Your Basement and Cry of the Cat.
• Orphaned Punchline: "Shut up, Char...Cassie." This was a reference to a Lost review show with the Running Gag "Shut up, Charlie," whose creator he collaborated with briefly, which was little seen and has mostly been taken down.
• Pet the Dog: After all the times he's made clear how much he despises Cassie, he actually lets her off the hook regarding her not recognizing Sydney Airport's flight designation, despite many other fans mocking her for it, saying that he doubts he'd know it either as a teen.
• Precision F-Strike: He is known to indulge in a few on a fairly regular basis, to the point that it was commented on in his early reviews.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: His final Goosebumps Monthly review starts with him playing a clip of R.L. Stine taking part in a panel discussing A Wrinkle in Time and admitting he has no personal connection to it, prompting Greg to tear into Stine, calling him a poor writer churning out cheap, low-quality books whose popularity was due to merchandising and Tim Jacobus' cover artwork, not Stine himself. This goes on for 15 minutes before he gets into his review of Monster Blood IV.
• Running Gag:
  • "Animorphs! The Great Sci-Fi Epic!"
  • "Visser Three is there. Visser Three is always there."
  • "Because...reasons."
  • His references to the Bug fighter getting blown up by a slow-moving bulldozer in Animorphs #2. The Visitor.
  • His humorous metaphors for how fragile the Taxxons are.
  • "Because you see... Cassie is a moron."
  • His speculations that the Ellimist might have somehow been responsible for all the oddities in the Andalites' evolution.
  • Rachel's elephant morph accidentally screwing over Dealin' Dan Hawk after their initial run in. This soon extends to his reletives (his brother was in the drug house with the frozen Chee) and his ancestors (when they time travel to a medieval battle, the soldier she spooks notes that the fortune teller was right- that elephant really will haunt the Hawk family forever).
  • In Nick Knacks, his growing confusion that, for some reason, just about every kids’ adventure show Nick aired in the ‘70s and ‘80s had an episode with a creepy clown.
  • In Nick Knacks, after moments of Values Dissonance: "The past was a mistake!"
• Shipper on Deck: Despite the fact that the series had long since ended, Greg always preferred the Marco/Rachel ship over the Rachel/Tobias ship in that they seemed to have greater chemistry, and would occasionally promote his support of the shipping from time to time in his Animorphs reviews.
• Shout-Out: To mark the start of the ghostwritten era of Animorphs, his review of #25 The Extreme begins with a long monologue about the thrill of going to a bookstore. It is actually an almost word-for-word recitation of a passage from Hunter S. Thompson's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" only with the references and locales updated to reflect Greg's childhood.
• Shown Their Work:
  • After reaching the ghostwriter era of Animorphs, Greg does an impressive job of tracking down the identity of each ghostwriter, and what other work they did. And for "In the Time of the Dinosaurs" he enlisted an actual paleontologist to help explain how accurate or inaccurate the book's portrayal of dinosaurs is.
  • Before reviewing the Animorphs TV show, he got an interview with producer Ron Oliver. This paid off with several insights into the conditions the series was made under throughout the course of the reviews.
  • For the Civil War portion of "#47: The Resistance," he actually managed to track down the very obscure poem erroneously used as a song from the Civil War, and figured out why it was likely used as such.
  • Nick Knacks, a program-by-program retrospective of Nickelodeon, seems to have a lot of research put into it, with Greg consulting any source he can find (including multiple books about Nick's history) for information on every show Nick aired, no matter how obscure. The videos' comprehensiveness even earned Greg an endorsement from the AV Club, and a call from NickRewind.
  • His Sample Platter video on the Tiny Toon Adventures episode "Elephant Issues" debunks the long-standing rumor that the episode was banned after its original airing due to the "One Beer" segment by showing newspaper listings, TV promos and Toon Zone forum postings to prove the episode actually aired at least a few times on Fox Kids, Nickelodeon and Kids' WB throughout the '90s.
• Take That Me:
  • In his first Animorphs review, Greg accidentally refers to Andalites as "minotaurs" instead of "centaurs." Much later, while reviewing the second Megamorphs book, he briefly ponders whether he should give the book kudos for not mixing up the velociraptor and the deinonychus, but he changes his mind:
  Greg: That's the dinosaur equivalent of congratulating someone for not calling the monster "Frankenstein" — or confusing centaurs and minotaurs. Who the hell does that?"
  • And then later brought up again during his Animorphs reprinted reviews where he harshly condemns himself mid-speak in confusing centaurs and minotaurs.
• Unusual Chapter Numbers: Some of the series are so hard to find any footage of that Greg can't actually watch any episodes, only clips and commercials. He does the best he can to produce an episode with what he has available. On a few lucky occasions after the original Nick Knacks episode goes up, lost footage or episodes of the original series will be found, and Greg will go in and do a follow-up episode to give more information and a better assessment on the series. When this happens, he appends a ".5" to the original episode number. So far, three series have been lucky enough to find missing episodes or additional footage:
  • #004.5 By the Way: A show so rare that he couldn't find any footage or information other than a single print ad. Over a year later, the opening, closing, and 10 minutes of segments featuring the host, Josie, were uploaded by YouTuber tvguy1979.
  • #005.5 Hocus Focus: Another YouTube archivist, JonQUBE managed to convince Jim Jinkins to turn over a copy of an episode to be hosted on their channel for archival and curiosity purposes two years after Greg's initial video.
  • #034.5 Vic's Vacant Lot: Almost three years after his episode went up, which Greg had to piece together from a scant amount of clips, a full episode of Vic's was uploaded to the Internet Archive.
• Viewers Like You: Each Nick Knacks video from Reggie Jackson's Wide World of Sports onwards begins with Greg announcing that the series is "...brought to you by Patreon", which he gives a different tagline in every episode.

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