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Web Video / The Spoony Experiment

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"You believed the hype. You paid ten bucks to see a movie or fifty to play that game. Now you want revenge, because therapy is for pussies. Welcome to the experiment, where we cure the sickness with snark.
Let the healing begin."

"I met you on a Thursday
Friday, took you home
Well, Saturday I'm beggin' you, baby... just leave me alone!
You're turnin' me upside down
Pulled me to the ground when you shake me, shake me!
I'm givin' you what you need
And I'm beggin', please...
Don't break me, break me, love!""
— "Break Me", sung by the Irresponsibles

The Spoony Experiment was the home of Noah Antwiler, self-described "terrifying result of a generation raised on MTV and films by Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal at the height of their popularity."

Noah started out with text reviews of movies, which for a while were published as "A Gamer's Rant on the Movies" in Knights of the Dinner Table. He was soon inspired by the likes of Armake21, Play It Bogart, and WizWar100 to make the leap to video reviews about video games, and so created a new identity known as "The Spoony One", named after his Quirky Bard Dungeons & Dragons character "Tandem the Spoony", who was in turn named after the line "Spoony Bard" from Final Fantasy IV. He began with The Adventures of Bayou Billy, the quintessential Nintendo Hard title "which probably contributed a great deal to making me the psychological mess I am today," before moving on other titles.

Noah was perhaps most famous for his eviscerating reviews of the Final Fantasy series, specifically otherwise-beloved titles such as VIII and X. Other prominent reviews include his Lets Plays of Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh, SWAT 4, and Ripper (which he slogged through in the dark ages of pre-GameFAQs). He also did an in-depth retrospective of the Ultima franchise, discussing not only how each game would reshape video game story and gameplay design, but how the games influenced his childhood, culminating in Ultima IX being, as he describes, "a top contender for the most blundered finale to an epic storyline in the history of fiction."

Aside from video games, Noah has done reviews of movie and TV shows, both as vlogs and as dedicated reviews, and some of the former are off-the-cuff rants about new premieres he came back already hating (the ones about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 and Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen are truly something to behold), as well as similarly improv comments on the state of pro wrestling, which often run as long as the actual program he's critiquing. He is also a huge fan of Reb Brown and reviewed several of his films, often lamenting that he truly thinks Brown could have been an A-list action star if he only picked better roles.

For a time, Noah was a member of Channel Awesome (dating back to when it was known as That Guy with the Glasses), which led to numerous crossovers and collaborations with their personalities. A noted TGWTG affiliate of Noah's was Lewis "Linkara" Lovhaug; Noah's Mad Scientist character Dr. Insano became a recurring archnemesis of Linkara, and to this day "Dr. Linksano", a version of Dr. Insano from an Alternate Universe where Linkara became a Mad Scientist instead of Spoony, is a recurring cast member on Atop the Fourth Wall. Noah left TGWTG in June 2012; regardless of the sticky situation surrounding why he leftnote , he stayed on good terms with many creators and would continue to appear in some of their videos after his departure.

2013-2015 marked the approximate time that Noah's productivity began to decline as his real-life health problems, both physical and mental, started to take their toll on him, and his already sporadic output became less and less frequent. The "Spoony Experiment" website was effectively abandoned in 2017, then taken down entirely in May 2019. His Patreon once promised a full-length movie from him if it hit $5,000 a month, but once it did he was taken aback and admitted he didn't think it would happen. The movie never materialized and likely never will, and his pledges no longer reach anywhere near that goal anymore. Noah occasionally streams video games on his YouTube page and is very active on his Twitter account, but the "Spoony" character is essentially retired.

In addition to his video and game reviews, Noah also hosted a number of other video series:

In addition, Noah has:

His brother Miles also used to review movies, under the name Moviemoses. His blog can be found here, but it has received no new updates since 2018.

    List of games played on Live Wire 

Tropes:

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    A-B 
  • Aborted Arc:
    • In his Nightmare review (October 2009), Spoony was handed 7 different Nightmare (or rather Atmosfear) sequels by the Gate-Cleaner. As a punishment he was given one year to review them all. Spoony gave up on this plotline, and Tweeted a confirmation. So long Gatecleaner.
    • The Deadly Premonition LP was apparently discontinued as well. This was lampshaded during 2011's April Fools as he uploaded a video titled "Let's Play Deadly Premonition - part 2" almost one year after the first part was posted, and the still shot that appears before playing the video WAS of a previously unseen part of the game, complete with text that looks like the kind of captions Spoony frequently includes in his videos. Turned out the video was actually a Cinema Snob parody and a review of an obscure bad movie. And no, that movie had nothing in common with Deadly Premonition.
    • The Deadliest Character was nixed after its first episode because it took far too much time and effort to produce and the original animator couldn't do another episode, though he hasn't ruled out a possible Live Action fight. Now fans will never know who would win in a fight The Daleks or The Borg. Though if the Doctor Who/Star Trek comic crossover is anything to go by, Daleks because Daleks>Cybermen and Cybermen>Borg.
    • He retired his Ultimate Warrior character after the real Warrior's death, meaning his role in the ongoing story was dropped.
    • In fact the ongoing plot with Sephiroth as the grand villain and his ultimate plans are now effectively dead in the water.
    • As mentioned in the And the Adventure Continues section below, in the end of the Firing Line review, the last Reb Brown video, and the last Spoony video to date, it's implied that Sage Stallone movies would take the crown from there onward. Given that Spoony hasn't made a new video since then however it ultimately went absolutely nowhere
  • Accentuate the Negative:
    • On the one hand, Spoony/Noah will give credit where credit is due, as with Final Fantasy X,note  Final Fantasy X-2,note  Eclipse,note  and Reb Brown.note  On the other hand, any time he gives something a negative review, some assume he's Trolling, as seen when Joss Whedon fans leapt on him for saying he didn't like The Cabin in the Woods.
    • In his vlog for The Avengers (2012), Noah says that he thinks people misjudge him as overly negative because when he says "This movie was okay, I just didn't care for it personally", it gets misinterpreted as "This movie was shit". The specific example he gives is Captain America: The First Avenger, saying that he always thought Captain America was a bit two-dimensional but the movie was well-made and it's just his own hang-up that kept him from enjoying it more.
    • In his vlog for Snow White and the Huntsman, Noah says that Kristen Stewart isn't a very good actress and is not nearly as hot as the film makes her out to be, but he says that he's not trying to hate on her just to jump on the Twilight Hate Dom, and Apologizes a Lot, remarking that he really does want to like her but she just annoys him.
    • He apologized for coming across as overly negative in his review of Pacific Rim, saying he should have made it clearer that he liked how the film was an utter Cliché Storm powered solely by Rule of Cool.
  • Actor Allusion: A common gag. For example, when Christopher Lee appears in a film he will reference his roles as Dracula and Saruman, and his Cage review has constant references to Lou Ferrigno's most famous role as The Incredible Hulk.
  • Actor IS the Title Character: Spoony is fond of invoking this trope, for example during his Ripper LP:
    Noah: Christopher Walken IS the Blade Runner!
    Noah: Christopher Walken IS the Lawnmower Man!
  • Actor/Role Confusion: During his really early Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves review. He keeps referring to Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber.
  • The Ahnold: His take on Conan the Cimmerian, as interpreted by him playing around with a bunch of action figures and statuettes on his bed.
  • Air Quotes: When Spoony pretended to be Linkara for a joke video, he reviewed the first Star Wars comics, which were released before A New Hope came out. One of the differences was The Force was always in quotes, and Spoony said you could almost see the air quotes Obi-Wan was making when he spoke about it.
  • Alternate Character Interpretation: Repeatedly invoked.
    • His Ultima Retrospective declares that Lord British is actually an oppressive, self-righteous, totalitarian tyrant. He notes that British establishes a worldwide religion that he forces everyone to worship after he lets the Avatar slaughter innocents and interfere with the space-time continuum to defeat his enemies and unite the country, and when a civilization (the Gargoyles, the people of Serpent Isle) protest his rule, he goes to war with them or exiles them from the land. British also rarely lifts a finger to help the Avatar despite how many times he's saved Britannia for him, and Spoony takes the exclusion in later games of the varied races that were in the earlier ones (elves, dwarves, bobbits, etc) as evidence that British enacted a genocidal campaign and wiped them all out.
    • The avatar himself in the Runes of Virtue game, who Spoony considers a psycho axe murderer who is assaulting harmless orcs that never fight back and only try to escape him.
    • The Twilight Saga: He presents Bella Swan as a needy, manipulative sociopath who has no regard for the lives she ruins in pursuing her own desires, and Ferris Bueller as a Manipulative Bastard who enjoys toying with others. He considers Charlie to be The Woobie due to what he has to put up with from Bella, who by the fourth film is a vampire pregnant with a half-vampire child and has gotten herself mixed up in a war between werewolves and vampires, and yet does not tell him any of this for his own protection.
    • Actually discussed in his vlog for Let Me In (an adaptation of Let the Right One In), where he notes most people thought the story was an ultimately sweet tale of a boy and his vampire girlfriend, but he instead found it horrifying as he interpreted the vampire girl as a manipulative bastard who only wanted the boy to be her servant and would gladly dispose of him as soon as he was no longer fit for purpose.
  • Aluminum Christmas Trees:
    • invoked During his review of the WWF WrestleMania VCR board game, he finds out that you can win the game AND the WWF World Championship with such showstoppers such as a headlock or a suplex. He then finds out that an atomic drop is one of many moves you can use...to which he then points out that Bob Backlund did indeed win his first world title match against "Superstar" Billy Graham with an atomic drop.
    • invoked In the WWF WrestleMania VCR board game review, he does a commercial (as the Ultimate Warrior) to promote WWF squirt heads, little rubber heads of wrestlers that squirt water. Throughout the commercial, he keeps reminding the audience that these were real toys.
    • invoked In his Royal Rumble 2014 review, he mentions that several people wrote to him about that same review, asking how he faked the debut of "The Zombie" on WWECW.
  • And That's Terrible:
    • "Ric Flair just threatened a woman with sexual assault! And I'm pretty sure you can't do that!"
    • Again in Tekken. "I sold my soul to the Devil" "But that's wrong!"
  • And the Adventure Continues: At the end of the Firing Line review which Spoony claimed was the last Reb Brown movie Spoony says that, for all of the ups and downs of Reb Brown's career, he enjoyed it all, and admits that there will be a void on The Spoony Experiment that few other people could fill. After leaving offscreen the Reb Brown poster behind the sofa then suddenly turns into Sage Stallone implying that he would take the torch here on now.
  • And There Was Much Rejoicing: What he and a whole crowd of people did when Tidus decided to sacrifice himself at the end of Final Fantasy X.
  • Angrish:
    • "'Where do you hide a 300 lb. Samoan?', he says. I don't know... BUT HE WAS ABDUCTED BY NINJAS! NINJAS! Did no-one get a license plate?! Do ninfgh... Ninjas!... Kidnapping!... TV! We're not stupid!"
    • Also this:
      Avatar: The Codex of Ultimate Wisdom?
      Noah: AAAAHHHHHH!! The Avatar has to ask what the fucking Codex—No! NO!! This—! It's a—!! Do I even have to explain—?! I can't!! I can't expl—!! How—?! It's the thesis of—!! I can't! This what I'm dealing—!! THIS IS LIKE THE POPE ASKING WHAT THE FUCKING BIBLE IS!!!
  • Apologizes a Lot: In his vlog about Snow White and the Huntsman, Noah says that Kristen Stewart isn't as attractive as this film (or the Twilight series) makes her out to be, apologizing several times for saying so and being visibly displeased with how piggish this makes him look.
  • April Fools' Day:
    • 4/1/09 featured an alternate universe version of Spoony reviewing the original Final Fantasy in a Self-Parody of his own nitpicking, caustic review style, ending with a possible origin story for Dr. Insano.
    • 4/1/10 featured "The Insano Experiment" with "Weird Science" as the theme song and Insano reviewing Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
    • 4/1/11 featured a review done in the style of The Cinema Snob masquerading itself as the second part of the discontinued Deadly Premonition Let's Play.
    • 4/1/13 featured a review done in the style of Linkara masquerading itself as a Let's Play of Ultima IX with Spoony and Lord British.
    • 4/1/14 featured two "reviews": One with Spoony's girlfriend masquerading as Spoony "reviewing" Final Fantasy X / X-2 HD Remaster, and one with Spoony's dog Oreo "reviewing" Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.
  • Arc Words:
    • "What's a Paladin?" in the Ultima IX review.
    • In his Final Fantasy XIII review, "it never fucking tells you," to describe how the game almost never explains anything about any of the backstory.
  • Arrow Cam: Noah hurling a doggie toy at Spuna's head.
  • Artificial Stupidity: The squad in SWAT 4 have a tendency to hit you with flashbangs, which prompts Spoony to yell "YOU FOOL !" They also have a tendency to run in front of Spoony's gun while he's trying to fire, getting themselves and Spoonynote  killed countless times.
  • Artistic License – Geography: In his review of "Firing Line," he points out that the map of the region they're in is really in Melbourne, Australia when it's supposed to be set in Central America.
  • Artistic License – Space: "Orbital wobble?!"
  • Artistic Stimulation: The E.T. review has Spoony noting that he was insanely high on painkillers. He has no memory of actually doing the review, has no idea how he got a specific shot that should've been impossible without help or more equipment, and did the editing work in a fraction of the time he usually takes.
  • Ascended Extra: Though probably not intentional on Spoony's part, the "stupid sexy" Rikku cosplayer featured in his Final Fantasy X review now serves as the icon for one of the site's sidebar ads, even using the same picture.
  • Ascended Meme:
    • According to Angry Joe, the XCOM guys are aware of the whole BETRAYAL thing, and worked in a reference in the new game. (The strategy game, not the rant inducing FPS reboot thing.) Spoony clarified this when talking about The Bureau (The finished product of what caused the above meme): The developers wanted to name an achievement after the meme (God only knows what you would have had to do for it), but they couldn't get it past the higher-ups.
    • He incorporated the "Spoony Hates Everything" meme into the storyline, by having a villain spread it just to mess with him.
  • As You Know:
    • Spoony is very, VERY displeased with the method of delivering Exposition to new players in Ultima IX, which is accomplished by giving the player dialogue options to just ask about things from the world of Brittania that he should already know. His personal low point is when he asks what a 'paladin' is, when the previous games featured a paladin as his loyal friend who performed a Heroic Sacrifice to die on the Avatar's behalf.
    • Mentions this trope again in his review of "Night Claws," where he says "No one has ever said this ever! If someone knows something, and you know they know it, you don't have to explain it to them!"
  • A-Team Firing:
    • Tends to happen to Spoony a lot during his SWAT 4 playthrough, much to his annoyance.
      Noah: I don't know what the hell just happened, but I fucked that door frame up beyond repair!
    • Also parodied extensively in his Robowar review, in response to the plethora of scenes the soldiers are just randomly firing into the greenery like crazy. Cue Spoony firing dual AK-47's into the camera, as Sean Fausz and Angry Joe join in as well.
  • Attractive Bent-Gender: At least one comment on the third part Final Fantasy X-2 expressed this sentiment about Spoony in Yuna drag.
  • Author Appeal: Besides the more expectable things like his liking for Babylon 5, Spoony is a fan of Professional Wrestling and often slips references to it into his reviews - culminating with the appearances of the Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan HOAK HOGAN HOAKOGAN!
  • Author Avatar: The Spoony review character is little different than Noah himself, often touching on how the reviewed item has affected him in Real Life. Later during the Ultima Retrospective Spoony takes this trope to a new level when he is revealed to be the actual Avatar from the game series and proceeds to defend the Earth from the evil Guardian as an Author Avatar Avatar.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: "Giant Dizzy Gillespie" was a fan favourite, but Spoony had to stop featuring the statuette due to its fragility and it becoming slightly damaged during filming.
  • Awesomeness Is Volatile: A warning to some parts of Yor: The Hunter from the Future.
  • Backing Away Slowly: At the end of the second part his review of Final Fantasy X, Spoony is singing "A Whole New World" when Dr. Insano walks in to tell him that Mechakara has stolen Neutro, sees him singing, and slowly backs away.
  • Badass Labcoat: Dr. Insano.
  • Bag of Spilling:
    • In his Ultima VII, The Serpent Isle review, he mentions how he hates it when this trope just is, but he does like it when there's a decent explanation behind it. In that game, you start off with all the goodies from the previous installment as A Taste of Power, and then lose them all to a "teleport storm" later.
    • He mentions that when it isn't used properly, it can really hurt a game, mentioning Ultima Underworld II as a great example, where despite it taking place after Ultima VII (but before "The Serpent Isle,") you are so massively unprepared for another adventure that he says you basically showed up to the game massively overweight, out of shape, and dressed in burlap for no reason. This is, of course, after Ultima VII, when one of the weapons you can get is a sword with instant touch-of-death abilities and your abilities are literally raised to double the maximum it is possible to be.
  • The Beautiful Elite: After traveling to Washington DC to protest an internet censorship law, Spoony claimed that Capitol Hill's female population is entirely like this, even the police.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Insano ending his Dungeonmaster review shouting "Where's my Dungeons & Dragons movie?"
  • Berserk Button:
    • In SWAT 4, the "You're in my way, sir" line constantly spoken by Officer Reynolds (one of the AI squad members) leading to some truly epic rants, including the famous "I will punch you in the fucking soul!" Taken to unbelievable extremes when it's revealed that the Big Bad of Final Fantasy XIII is voiced by the SAME person as Reynolds. His fury is glorious.
    • People arguing that the Fellowship should've rode eagles to Mordor. He ranted about it in both an episode of Counter Monkey, and in his review of The Hobbit; they would've attracted Sauron's attention and then the Eagles would be killed by the Nazgul.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: His reaction to "X-Com" being turned into a First person shooter actually appeared to scare Angry Joe.
  • Big Damn Heroes:
  • Big "NO!":
    • Invoked and subverted in Ripper when Catherine collapses:
      Noah: Oh, we're winding up to a big ol' "Nooooooooooooooo!"...
      Jake: FUCK!
      Noah: ... That works too, I guess.
    • Invoked in the Highlander: The Last of the MacLeods video to parody the main villain's Narm-heavy Big "NO!".
    • He lets one out at the end of Highlander: The Source when he learns just what The Prize was.
    • He and the Sage share one together after a buildup hopefully leading to the fairy girl in Garzey's Wing getting ripped apart but then escaping at the last moment. invoked
    • Done over Twitter when he learned that the writer of the Twilight film would be scripting the Highlander Continuity Reboot.
    • We get one in Microcosm when Spoony is unable to finish writing down the continue password before the game resets. The pathos is amplified by music from Requiem for a Dream.
    • Xiaoyu gives one in Tekken: Blood Vengeance.
      Noah: You knew him for a total of five minutes. You're not exactly at the "NOOOOOO!" stage of a relationship.
    • In his Ultima IX review (as part of his long-form retrospective on the entire series) when he learns there's a character called Tydus in the game.
      Duncan: There you are, just as Tydus said you'd be...
      Noah: TIDUS?! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
      Tidus: AHAHAHAHAHA
    • After doing a Black Hole of Board Games review for WWF Wrestlemania, Macho Man Randy Savage comes and gives Spoony a d20 sourcebook for WWE: Know Your Role. All Spoony can do after seeing this is use Daniel Bryan's NO, NO, NO!
    • Happens again in another Black Hole of Board Games when April shows that he was sent another wrestling game. He's going NO, NO, NO! until she says "Take the fucking box!" And the text on his shirt changes appropriately.
  • Big Ol' Eyebrows: In Tekken: The Motion Picture, Spoony began mocking Kazuya's and Heihachi's huge eyebrows as his own eyebrows progressively grew bigger before he peeled them off.
    Noah: [laughing] Check out the eyebrows, you can hand-glide with those things!
  • Big Word Shout:
    • PUUUMPKIIINHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!
    • BEEETRAAAYAAALLLLLLLL!!!
    • This game sssuuuUUUUuuuucckkkkssss!!!
  • Big "YES!":
    • Spoony and Sage have not one but three of these in a row in the Garzey's Wing review when it looks like the fairy girl will finally die painfully after annoying them for the whole review.
    • And again in the Final Fantasy X finale when he learns that after beating Yu Yevon Tidus will disappear, complete with stock footage of crowds erupting into excited applause and celebration.
  • Black Comedy Rape: Spooning With Spoony.
  • "Blind Idiot" Translation: SWAT 4, Mission 10: "Moviefilm For Make Training Of Police And Laughing Time"
  • Book Ends:
    • At the beginning of the first video of his Final Fantasy VIII review, Spoony comments on how as bad as he said the game was, Final Fantasy X was worse. Guess what his last message at the end of the final episode is.
    • His Final Fantasy X review begins with the original Spoony (Who died at the end of his Final Fantasy VIII review) returning to take the show back from his clone, essentially book ending the period between the two reviews with the death & return of the real Spoony.
    • The final part of his FFX review featured the original/Black Lantern Spoony trying to take the show back again, providing book ends for the review; and culminated with the merging of the original & his clone, providing a book end to the era of the Spoony Clone. It also featured several call backs to the final part of his FFVIII reviews—in the commentary he referenced RedLetterMedia's clip of George Lucas pretentiously claiming that events in the Star Wars prequels "rhyme" with those in the originals.
  • Borrowed Catchphrase:
  • Breaking the Reviewer's Wall: Has happened a few times. One of the most over-the-top examples would be the conclusion of his Final Fantasy VIII review, where Dr. Insano hires Squall to kill Spoony.
  • Brick Joke:
    • The first part of his Final Fantasy X review features the original Spoony returning to take his show back from his clone, before promptly killing himself and being resurrected as a Black Lantern when told of the subject of the latest review. The third part of the review features Black Lantern Spoony raising Tidus with a Black Lantern Ring, with the intent of using him to take back the show from the clone.
    • An even further one: in the Partymania review the (alternate) Dr. Insano's origin is that he was one of the Schlumper brothers who was scorned by the unnamed female protagonist and went on to become evil. In the Warrior #2-3 review Dr. Linksano references bringing glory to the Schlumper name, implying that he is the other Schlumper brother. And given that his universe was conquered by Lord Vyce right before Linksano jumped universes, alternate!Insano is probably not doing very well.
    • Again during the first part of his Final Fantasy X review, Dr. Insano walked in asking if anybody had seen Neutro. It was later revealed that Linkara had stolen Neutro from Dr. Insano in his Power Rangers Zeo Comic review.
    • In Dr. Insano's review of The Dungeonmaster, Dr. Insano forces Bennett the Sage to provide footages for Final Fantasy X-2 at gunpoint, during The Stinger of the latter's review finale, a bald and aging Bennett almost finishes the game while Insano seemingly forgets (and doesn't care) about him.
    • In his Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh playthrough, he tells Blob not to lay with the Dark One. When Blob starts talking in a demonic voice, he says "Blob, you have lain with the Dark One, and I told you no!"
    • During his VCR Golf review, Spoony states that he'd rather watch grass grow than play the game, since at least by going out he'd get some fresh air and a chance to relax, and not have to review such a dull game. At the end of the Gone Birding VCR review, he does just that.
      Noah: Is it against the rules, maybe, to go play with my dog for a little while? You know, maybe to get away from work for a little bit?
    • In the Beastmaster 2 review, Insano has a Gaydar, but refuses to say why when Spoony asks. Years later, during Spoony's review of the Miami Vice episode with Reb Brown as the Villain of the Week, he starts fanboying over Reb's Shirtless Scene...and we cut to Insano with the Gaydar, which is merrily pinging away.
    • When Spoony starts praising the performance of a sea lion that appeared on The Love Boat, Oreo starts to get jealous and starts doing tricks for him. Spoony tells Oreo that if she really wants to impress him, she should start doing her own reviews. Well, at least she tried...
    • Spoony uses the word "eponymous" incorrectly when reviewing Final Fantasy VIII, describing two characters as "the eponymous Biggs and Wedge". A full four years later he's reviewing Ultima 7 Part 2: The Serpent Isle and says "The eponymous Serpent Isle...and hey, I even used the word Eponymous correctly."
    • A blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment in the aforementioned Serpent Isles video has him saying that Lord British's second worst fear is eating a loaf of bread laced with rat poison, but then asking what are the odds of that ever happening. Come Ultima 9, and Spoony prepares a special loaf of bread for the king....
  • Broke the Rating Scale:
    • Spoony finally decided to do away with the Ass Counter in Dead or Alive. Holly Valance and Sarah Carter cause it to EXPLODE.
    • In Part 2 of the Ultima IX retrospective, Spoony throws out the Betrayal Counter, saying that this kind of thing is hard to quantify (such as, how do you compare a minor Series Continuity Error on the Avatar history tapestry to the infamous "What's a Paladin?"), and because it was getting kind of annoying.
  • Brother–Sister Incest:
    • The vibe Spoony got from the Marky Mark Make My Video. It doesn't help that the actors in question happen to resemble him and his sister.
    • His horror at the passionate kissing and overly romantic dialogue between Luke and Leia in his review of Marvel's Star Wars comics, since it was based on an early treatment of the story before their familial relationship was decided
  • Bruce Lee Clone: His subject when reviewing the movie The Clones of Bruce Lee.
  • Bury Your Gays: He was particularly incensed by this in Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh as it resulted in the death of the only character he actually didn't want to see die horribly.
  • Buxom Beauty Standard: He certainly seems to think so. This trips him up in his Beastmaster and Final Fantasy X reviews. He laments that the actress playing Mai Shiranui in King of Fighters was not buxom like the video game character (though that's only one of a list of things they got wrong about her that he complains about). He eagerly points out that the actress is gorgeous, but nonetheless is clearly miscast.

    C-D 
  • Call-Back:
    • The Insano Experiment.
    • For his "Lords of Magick" review, he says, "Yeah! Let's contact the devil!" and holds up a magic lamp, referring back to his Final Fantasy VIII' review which had Satan in a lamp.
    • He referenced the incident again when Ransom brings up the Genie from Aladdin in his Strike Commandos review.
      Noah: Yeah, you'd THINK there was a genie in a magic lamp, wouldn't you? I had a magic lamp once, you know what it was filled with? Bullshit and demons! I don't even know what hurts worse today, the devil, or the lies.
    • His Breaking Dawn review, they talk about David Cronenberg doing the Vampire C-Section and talk about how Twilight is a bodice-ripper Harlequin Romance novel, both are things he talked about when previously reviewing Twilight movies.
    • In the Ultima IX review he exclaims "Our hero - too stupid to eat!" Which is exactly what he said about Tidus during the Final Fantasy X Review.
  • The Cameo: After Diamanda Hagan remarks in her review how much an actor in Apocalypse looks like Spoony, there are cameos by Spoony, Dr. Insano and a Spoony clone, Christian Spoony.
  • Camera Abuse: His dog Oreo has a real knack for dealing glancing blows to his tripod.
  • Captain Ersatz: Dr. Insano is apparently based on Warren Ellis' comic book character Doktor Sleepless. Burton the Robot and Spencer D. Bum both definitely qualify.
  • Celebrity Impersonator: As mentioned under Captain Ersatz, Noah's costume "characters" are all to some degree impersonations of other people's intellectual property. And he does it quite well.
  • Celebrity Resemblance: As well as comparing actors in movies and games to other celebrities, he likes to compare them to fellow web video creators. For example, Curtis Craig is The Angry Video Game Nerd, a character from Highlander: The Source is Film Brain, and Witwer is Angry Joe.
    • In the Andrew Dickman title cards and animated theme song he looks remarkably like Shaggy
  • Cerebus Syndrome: Played for laughs with the Black Hole of Board Games series. The first entry, a review of the I, Robot video board game gets an enthusiastic review and a recommendation. The second, the Wrestlemania game gets a rather angry review, with Spoony accusing the makers of wasting an awesome concept. By the third entry, the VCR Golf Games, Spoony has gone flat-out insane and is going so far as to track down the people sending him the games and murdering them. In the fourth one, Gone Birding, he's just sunk into complete despair and can't even muster up anything to say about the game.
  • Character Blog: Father Antos from Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress has a Tweeter account.
  • Character Catchphrase:
    • Dr. Insano - "With SCIENCE, of course!!"
    • "PHANTASMAGORIA!" He later stated this as his favorite word.
    • "I HEARD that, Curtis!"
    • "Wolverines!" as a Battle Cry is often used.
    • "I am never getting over this!"
    • "You Fool!!!!!" when his teammates screw up a flashbang and end up blinding him in SWAT 4.
    • When reviewing a foreign or incredibly obscure movie, "... unless you know some especially deranged Hong Kong bootleggers. And I do."
    • Spoony has a new one for his show Wrestle! Wrestle! - "Future endeavors". The WWE uses it as a polite euphemism for "he's been fired"; Spoony uses it to mean "The company's going to screw you up the ass, quit while you still have your dignity".
    • "How do you fuck that up!?"
    • The Ultima retrospective has given us "I'm the goddamn Avatar!"
    • He's appropriated the Ric Flair "Woooo!" for himself.
    • "Betrayal!" Started with X-Com but has now carried over to Ultima IX - So much so that it's the signal for the revitalized plot hole counter. (and we're apparently going to hear it A LOT in this review.)
    • Spank material.
    • In Twitter he has a tendency to utter the phrase "GOD WILLS IT!" whenever he talks about moments where religious people are acting stupid.
  • Chekhov's Gag: If you thought Spoony only introduced the Gunblade for his Final Fantasy VIII reviews, think again. He's using it again for more gags in his review of Mazes and Monsters.
    • Also in his Ultima I review. We can only hope it will appear more.
    • Again in the end of the Highlander: The Source review
    • He even loads it before using it in the FFX finale.
    • And it comes out again in his King of Fighters review. He declares it's "too Final Fantasy" for the situation though, and puts it aside.
    • He also brings it back for the FFXIII review, in which he doesn't understand the weapon upgrade system (Which putting slime on your weapon apparently makes it more powerful) so Doctor Insano attempts to demonstrate how it works.
    • The Gunblade appears to be his signature weapon, as he wields it when going to fulfill his threat of stabbing the fans who sent him VCR Golf.
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • In the second part of the FFX review, there's a throwaway gag where Dr. Insano bursts into Spoony's room to ask if anyone has seen Neutro, which he'd left parked out back while Spoony is singing "A Whole New World". Later, in Linkara's review of Zeo Rangers #1, Linkara fights a giant Mechakara by using Neutro as a zord, which he claim he took from Dr. Insano when the doctor left it "parked behind Spoony's house"
    • An example pretty close in line to the original quote that named the trope: in his Paranormal Activity 4/Sinister vlogs we see a new edition to his shelf-o-stuff to his right that can't help but be noticed even though he doesn't bring attention to it. Sure enough, during the videos, he accidentally knocks it down.
      Noah: My Identity Disc!
  • Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Inverted in Warrior #4. The secret to ending the multiverse rift is to stop caring about the insane ramblings of the comic, for they mean absolutely nothing and thus are not worth thinking about.
  • Cliffhanger:
  • Cloud Cuckoolander: His Ultimate Warrior persona is this in spades and ironically very accurate to the real-life Warrior's rambling and odd promos.
    Noah: YOU'LL NEED AN ENERGON CUBE THE SIZE OF WYOMING TO DEFEAT MY AUTOBOTS HOAK HOGAN!!
    Noah: BUTTONS! BUTTONS! WHO'S GOT THE BUTTONS?!
    Noah: IF YOU WANNA BE MY LOVER, YOU GOTTA GET WITH MY FRIENDS!! MAKE IT LAST FOREVER, BECAUSE FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS, HOAK HOGAN!!
    • Spoony's interpretation of the Warrior is easier to follow, mostly because he's not freestyling the english language and making up new words as he's going along unlike the real Ultimate Warrior.
  • Cluster F-Bomb:
    • He doesn't like small rewards for big tasks.
      Noah: A lute? A fucking lute?! I run over, bust my fucking ass to save his only daughter from an evil fucking knight, fighting fucking skeletons and spending my own fucking money on swords and shit, and the best he can do is give me a fucking guitar?!
    • He tends to get creative with these. Case in point: Ultima IX, after another crash.
      Noah: But I can't use the mantra until after he tells- [game crash] motherfucker cocksucking superc*nt son of a FUCK!
      Later...
      Noah: It's so boring and simplistic i just want to- [game crash] COCKSUCKER MOTHER OF A DUNG MERCHANT FUCK!!
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: After being driven to madness by the inanity of TNA in what would become the first "Wrestle! Wrestle!" vlog, he suggests that he should force the people watching the vlog to watch TNA.
  • Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch:
    • Lampshaded in that he's never actually played Final Fantasy IX, beyond maybe two hours, but avoided it solely because he hated the art style, and hadn't been paying any attention to the first two hours, since he wrote Zidane off as an invoked "androgynous-whiny-pansy-ass character". He also admitted that "it was likely that [he] was being fiercely unfair" to Final Fantasy IX on judging it by its art style, especially when the game was specifically targeted at fans of the NES and Super Nintendo-era Final Fantasy games like him, but he just couldn't get over it. He elaborated in his Q&A at MAGfest, and admitted his reasons for avoiding it were entirely childish, and he really can't stand the art style so much that he simply can't make himself keep playing. invoked
    • Also admitted to never playing the Worlds of Ultima spin-off games because they were based on the Ultima VI game engine, which he hated.
    • In his (alternate) Worst Films of 2010 list, he included Little Fockers just because he hated the jokes in previous movies involving Ben Stiller's character's name. He admitted to never even watching it. By alternate, we mean Spoony compiled a second list of movies that would be horrible and would probably be on his main list if he managed to watch them. Included were BloodRayne 3 and The Nutcracker in 3-D.
  • Comically Missing the Point: Played for Laughs During his Ultima IX review, he pretty much is oblivious to the fact that the Avatar asks questions he should know specifically to prevent Continuity Lockout, without even pointing out that they did this a different way in past games.
    • A real life example in his Serpent Isle review where he loses his shit over getting to the end of the game and discovering that he lost the Serpent Ring. An examination of the Avatar's paperdoll shown at the very beginning of the rant reveals that the Avatar is wearing it.
  • Continuity Porn: The new animated version of the show's opening (Both of them) contains a hurricane of references to almost everything Spoony has ever reviewed.
  • Collectible Card Game: Spoony appears in the MSF High Collectible card game. A deck designed to counterpoint his, besides the Linkara deck, is this one.
  • Cool Versus Awesome:
    • Spoony enjoys the last ten minutes of the show Deadliest Warrior for this reason, where the anachronistic warriors actually square off; but condemns most of the rest of the show on general research issues such as ignoring much of the circumstances of how various warriors would fight; a pirate, for example, wouldn't just be walking around, he'd be with 50 other pirates, on a pirate ship, and there's no way you'd ever be fighting just one Spartan.
    • The rivalry that Spoony's alter ego Dr. Insano has with Linkara arguably falls into this category as well. Linkara has magical weapons (and cheat codes), Insano has mad science, and both are entertaining as hell.
    • His parody of Deadliest Warrior, Deadliest Character does the same as the TV show, but with fictional characters, namely the Megazord and later, the Dragonzord versus Mechagodzilla.
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment: Dr. Insano figured out a way to obtain game footage of Final Fantasy X-2 without having to play the game. He forces Bennett the Sage to play for him at gunpoint.
  • Cosmic Retcon: Linkara punching the wall, a la Superboy-Prime, caused Dr. Insano to become a man (according to Linkara, anyway).
  • Covers Always Lie:
    • A Defied Trope. He screams in horror looking at the cover for Wing Commander: The Movie and explains thus: "You know that old saying, you can't judge a book by its cover? Well fuck you! That's books, not movies!"
    • In regards to Final Fantasy IX, he thinks Zidane fits in the stereotypical mold of a whiny, depressive Final Fantasy hero based solely on the cover art. He does admit that it's "massively unfair", but says that he just can't get over his dislike for the game's art style.
  • Cowboy Cop: Played during his Let's Play of SWAT 4. Spoony regularly receives penalties for taking suspects down with unauthorized use of deadly force (that is, he shot first without giving them a chance to yield), and often complains about how much following police procedure makes the game difficult.
    Noah: This whole 'presumption of innocence' thing just pisses me right off. I mean, why do we even have civil rights, it just makes my job a lot harder.
  • Critic Breakdown: The review of Ultima IX has Spoony comically perched on the armrest of his chair in a fetal position and swallowing pills pretty early on, but eventually culminates in a severe Mood Whiplash, when he suddenly breaks character and relates a very personal story of his childhood and how much the Ultima series meant to him growing up, concluding on a very serious reflection on the trauma its bungled finale had inflicted upon him.
  • Crossover:
  • Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Has this to say for the VA who voices the Ferario in Garzey's Wing:
    Noah: I swear to god, if I ever meet that women... demon-harpy... THING that voiced that fucking pixie, I WILL DUNK HER HEAD IN A BUCKET OF LYE!!
  • Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Insano says Paul in The Dungeonmaster should patent his inventions "and make a zillion dollars!"
  • Damned by Faint Praise: "For all his many faults, Bruno Mattei does Nazi porn well. Sometimes."
    • He does this unintentionally during one of his convention appearances. He shows the audience a horribly dated Sega convention presentation video from the early 90s. One of the games being promoted is "Taz Escapes From Mars". Spoony says, in an impressed tone of voice, "I've never even heard of this game."
    • Spoony subverts this whenever he talks about Highlander: The Search for Vengeance (mainly in commentary and text, as he never did an actual review). He calls the movie "okay" and "passable", but explains that since all the other Highlander movies beyond the first are terrible, being simply decent makes Search for Vengeance the second-best movie in the series.
  • Darker and Edgier: Spoony's review of Ultima IX: Ascension could be considered one of his most dark and angry outings, if not the most. Particularly disturbing is the moment in the finale where he breaks character, examines his entire collection of Ultima games in silence, then gives a very direct, honest description of precisely why the series means so much to him, then proceeds to hurl the entire collection against the wall in frustration.
  • Dark Reprise: After the events of Kickassia, he started using a much darker and heavier version of his opening theme. It didn't last too long, though.
  • Death Montage: The diamond heist mission of the SWAT 4 Let's Play has one of these with Officer Spoony repeatedly getting shot down, set to Glenn Frey's The Heat is On.
  • Despair Event Horizon:
    • After Dupre comes back to life in Ultima IX, Spoony declares every good memory he has about the Ultima series (and he shares a lot) is worthless since it all lead to that. He then says you can only pray that you die before you live long enough to see everything and everyone you love betray you.
    • In the Gone Birding! review, Spoony is so overcome with horror at the prospect of reviewing Gone Birding! (a VHS Board Game themed around bird watching), that he can't even bring himself to get pissed off at it because of how boring it is. The episode ends with him leaving prematurely, taking Oreo for a walk to the tune of "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong and calling his girlfriend to ask if they could move in together.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
    Noah: Oooooh! I just kicked Q in the joy department! That can't be smart! ... Let's do it again!
  • Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Spoony's reaction to the The Ring: Terror's Realm game, where a coworker of the protagonist put a call on hold for her. Turns out the caller was Sadako.
    Noah: Alright, Let Me Get This Straight.... You have a ghost made of rage that can literally kill you with a movie... and you put her on hold. Dude. I don't know if that's the dumbest thing I ever heard or the most awesome.
  • Different in Every Episode: Spoony does most of his reviews just sitting in his green chair where you can see posters hanging on the walls in the corner directly behind him. In almost every review he does, he changes those posters to reflect something relevant to the review itself, usually a movie poster or wall scroll of the movie or game he's reviewing. If it's anything Highlander related, it'll usually be a poster of that movie. Anything Japanese game related, expect to see wall scrolls of the game or of Cowboy Bebop: The Movie.
  • Disability Superpower: Suggests that Edward can read Bella's mind, there's just nothing in there.
  • Disposable Sex Worker: During The Lords of Magick, the Big Bad sorcerer tempts one of the protagonist to do a Face–Heel Turn by telling him to go after whores, one of whom he then kills. This prompts Spoony to call his lawyer, complaining that this proves he shouldn't have taken the insanity plea when he told the court that a wizard made him kill those hookers.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Near the end of his review of Reb's mellow role on a Love Boat episode, Noah suggests a couple of re-writes to make the episode fit Reb's more Typecast action hero character.
    • The first involves someone spilling a bloody mary on Reb's character who then tackles the guy and pushes them both overboard.
    • The other involves Reb blowing up the ship because he didn't like the service. Both these scenarios are presented while footage from other Reb films show him doing these exact things.
  • Distracted by the Sexy: In his Final Fantasy X review, he rants at one point about how Rikku is nothing more than a fanservice character and is only 15, until a picture of a cosplayer dressed as Rikku appears on-screen.
    • His Final Fantasy VIII review is derailed several times by him gushing about Quistis and Rinoa.
    • His review of Beastmaster 2 gets derailed from him gushing about the attractive actress playing the villainess. Hell, he gets distracted during his commentary when she comes on screen.
  • Disturbed Doves: A flock of doves precedes Spoony busting out the SPAS-12.
  • Doppelmerger: This is the eventual result of a rather convoluted series of events. When Spoony is killed, Linkara creates a clone of him made from the original Spoony's remains. Eventually, the original Spoony returns to life and the clone uses the transporter of Linkara's ship to fuse with the original.
  • Double Standard: In Tekken: Blood Vengence when Xiaoyu spies on Shin when he showers.
    Noah: Okay, whoa, this movie needs an adult, I'm calling creepy on this one, there's a double standard here.
  • Double Vision:
    • Playing both himself and Gordon Ramsay in his Hells Kitchen: The Game review.
    • In the Final Fantasy VIII Finale with him and Dr. Insano.
    • Upgraded to Triple Vision in "Clones of Bruce Lee" with Spoony, Dr. Insano and Spencer D. Bum.
  • Don't Explain the Joke:
    • In his Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh playthrough, he says that if Curtis put on a straightjacket, it would become a bi-curious jacket because he's bi-curious.
    • Turl made a joke in Spoony's Wing Commander review and explained it:
      Turl: As chief of security, I'm provided with a number of 'psyclones'! ... Nonono, psy-CLONES. Psy-CLONES, get it? You see, because I'm a psychlo and a clone! A psy-CLONE!
  • Down the Drain: Says in multiple videos that his least favorite level of any video game is always the obligatory sewer level. Unsurprisingly he was if anything a little extra savage to the game that's nothing but sewer levels.
  • Draw Aggro: When Spoony talked about the Artificial Stupidity in The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, he mentions trying to turn it to his advantage by invoking this trope. Namely he tried to use the aggressive NPCs in the squad to draw fire to them while he moved to the objective. Unfortunately the AI just followed where he went, drawing fire to the group.
  • Drinking Game: He made one for Tekken: Blood Vengeance: take a shot every time something happens that doesn't make sense unless you've played the games, and take two shots every time something happens that makes less sense if you've played the games, like Sumo wrestler Ganryu randomly being a gym teacher.
    • Immediately after announcing this, though, he subverts it when the film opening with Xiaoyu riding a giant panda at Super-Speed causes him to chug the entire bottle.
  • Driving Question: The Post-FF-13/Pre-FF-13-2 arc having been building up one of what exactly happened to Spoony's second home. The Big Trouble in Little China game review drops several hints, like the fact that the house somehow was set on fire, green fire nonetheless, and Spoony himself doesn't seem to remember what happened and for some weird reason he gets distracted by something unrelated every time he tries to think about it.
  • Drop-In Character: Dr. Insano and Spencer D. Bum.
  • Dude, Not Funny!: invoked
    • As a Running Gag, whenever he makes a really dark joke or reference, the camera cuts to Stock Footage of a crowd booing at a rally.
      Darkest sketch! Darkest sketch! Darkest sketch!
    • During the third part of the Final Fantasy X, he pulls this on the game itself, when Wakka compares the destruction of Home to "happy festival fireworks". He even calls it the most insensitive thing he's ever heard been uttered in any form of fiction.
    • In the commentary for the review of Highlander: The Source, he claims that he'll never again make a joke about suicide, as one of his fans killed himself shortly after sending him an email about it.
    • When reviewing the Shovelware Dirty Dancing game and he suggested that one of the minigames be about giving a coat hanger abortion. Over the stock boos, he says "What?! It happened in the movie!"
    • At the beginning of his Final Fantasy XIII review, he apologized for the gay joke he made about Squall and Seifer back in Final Fantasy VIII.
    • In his review of Ultima IX, he laid out an epic Take That! against Richard Garriott for making several games in a row where he has no choice but to kill children.

    E-H 
  • Early-Bird Cameo:
    • Spoony's original video intro began with him screaming in horror at Yuna singing in the opening of Final Fantasy X-2, which occured in his review of Final Fantasy VIII. It was four years before he actually reviewed the game and talked about the scene in question.
    • Similarly the main Spoony Experiment intro had a hang-glider hitting a power line and getting electrocuted. Not only was this many years before Massacre At Central High was reviewed, by the time Spoony reviewed it, the sequence was no longer in the intro.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • Spoony's early reviews lack an intro or theme song, and are credited to "Fanwankery Films", a name he seems to have abandoned.
    • The earliest ones were also ad-libbed. He didn't begin writing scripts until around the reviews of Robin Hood and The Thing (2002). This resulted in the jokes being much more polished, and is frequently credited as the period his show started Growing the Beard.
  • Ear Worm:
    • Spoony says that Real Emotion is the kind of annoying song that gets in your head for weeks.
    • During his Let's Play of SWAT 4, he sings the chorus of "Wild Wild West" by The Escape Club, then cheerfully tells the audience: "Yeah, you'll have that song stuck in your head for about a week. You're welcome!" Bastard.
  • Elevator Floor Announcement: Spoofed in Spoony's Let's Play of Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh when Curtis goes to investigate the restricted basement of Wyntech.
    Noah: [ding ding] Second floor: interdimensional portals and secret corporate black ops science labs!
  • Enemy Mine: Played for laughs in his LP of Deadly Premonition. One of the puzzles requires him to carry a fuse box with him.
  • Esoteric Happy Ending: In-universe. His review of Tekken (2010) shows that even with Jin winning the Iron Fist Tournament, nothing's changed.
    Noah: Hooray, that guy won a martial arts tournament which doesn't affect us at all or improve our standard of living in any way!
    We still have no healthcare!
    I've been eating rats for months!
    I have scurvy!
  • Even Evil Has Standards:
    • Dr. Insano can't stand Ferris Bueller's lack of work ethic, his spoiled, self-centered nature, and his complete lack of goals beyond his own personal amusement.
      Insano: I may be evil, but at least I'm not full of crap!
  • Even the Rats Won't Touch It: Apparently a pizza from Peter Piper's Pizza is so lacking in nutrition that even bugs avoid it as evidenced by a pizza left sitting for a month and a half that remained completely untouched.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Has this to say about the trope namer:
    Yuna: No one knows his name, so everyone calls him barkeep.
    Noah: Oh, that is a problem, here's the solution: ASK HIM HIS FUCKING NAME!
  • Everything Trying to Kill You:
    • "The floor is everywhere!"
    • The grass is even worse.
  • Evil Is Hammy: Insano.
  • Evil Laugh: Dr. Insano is of course fond of them; he criticizes Mad Scientist villain Dr. Nye in "Clones of Bruce Lee" for using one after the end of every sentence.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin:
    • "My God people, what is it about the name 'Dr. Insano' that eludes you people?"
    • Spoony is shocked to learn that when Samurai Zombie Nation says it stars "head of the samurai Namakubi" it isn't kidding. You literally play as a disembodied head.
    • Also, his explanation of the power "Death Field" in the "Gamma World Unboxing" Vlog:
      Noah: Basically what it was was you emitted a field of death.
  • Explosive Instrumentation: The swishy French tailor from Beastmaster 2 puts out such a stereotypically gay vibe that it causes Dr. Insano's 'gaydar' to short-circuit and explode.
  • Exposition: Spoony is not amused by Ultima IX's method: Having the Avatar ask everything he should really know from the previous games. It was to make the game accessible to people who hadn't played the entire series (which had been around for a long time at that point), but it's done in the laziest way possible and makes the Avatar sound like a total clod in what's supposed to be the last great adventure of the Ultima series.
  • Exposition Fairy: He is amused, and from another angle, downright impressed in Ultima: Runes of Virtue by "Terry the Adventurer", who is apparently a fellow adventurer who already got here.
  • The Extremist Was Right:
    • Spoony's reaction when Yuna in Final Fantasy X-2 shoots down a plan of an NPC to pull a Heroic Sacrifice.
      Yuna: Your plan is awful. Think about it. It's no different from what we did two years ago. We destroyed our own allies. We destroyed the Aeons who had fought together with us at our side.
      Spoony: Yeah, and guess what: It worked.
    • He also says this in relation to the booking in the run up to Randy Orton versus John Cena match at Wrestlemania. By using the most basic booking technique of having Randy (the Heel) brutally squash a midcarder Face, thereby making him look strong and dangerous on the Raw before the Pay Per View
      Spoony: You watch it and you think "Wow, Randy Orton looks like a scary dude, John Cena might be in trouble" ... It's the most basic, fundamental, written by a four year old kind of booking. And it's working.
  • Eye Scream:
    • According to this Twitter post. Fortunately doesn't seem like it had any lasting effects.
    • And his description of Karen Jarret's voice.
      Noah: I'm just coming off a migraine, it feels like a - it just feels like...someone's taking a hot needle and boring it into my EYES!
  • Face–Heel Turn: Claimed this on his Twitter. Are we witnessing the birth of Insano?
  • Face Palm:
    • He covers his whole face in shame with both hands after hearing Wakka tell Rikku not to be too disheartened about seeing her home city get destroyed in his Final Fantasy X review.
      Wakka: Hey, look. Don't get so down. BOOM! hahuhu Like happy festival fireworks, ya!?
      Noah: ...Happy... Festival... Fireworks!? That could be the STUPIDEST, MOST INSENSITIVE, IDIOT THING any character has ever said in ANY WORK OF FICTION! That's like trying to cheer people up after Hurricane Katrina.... by saying it's a giant happy waterpark!
    • And when Yuna in Final Fantasy X-2 shoots down Nooj's plan to defeat Shuyin (Which is to force Shuyin into his body, which he'll then blow up taking Shuyin with him) in favor of love, Spoony face palms, then it cuts to several other people and groups of people facepalming as well.
    • The opening to his Ultima 9 review shows him covering part of his face after seeing an NPC glitching gloriously by flying, arms flailing in all directions, moving back and forth, and spewing random clips of sound. He then screams in horror.
  • Fan Disservice: During The Beastmaster review, upon seeing a sorceress teleport out of her clothes as the camera pans up her body:
    Noah: Say, alright! Hey dude, throw something else at her, maybe she'll teleport out of her underwear too— [sees her hideously deformed face] Oh, my God! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOUR FACE?! Ah, look it's a melted John Madden! Joan Rivers! It's the lady from The Goonies!
  • Fantastic Racism:
    • Noah doesn't like easy racial characteristics.
      Dragonstrike narrator: Sounds like a couple of stupid orcs.
      Noah: Now that's just racist.
    • He claims that the lack of all the other races in the later games of the Ultima series is because of Lord British's racism. He even offers up examples that would support this.
  • Fate Worse than Death:
    • Noah doesn't think much can top TNA Impact.
      Doctor Linksano: Doctor Insano didn't go far enough. He only subjected you to one issue of Warrior. I'm going to subject you to two!
      Noah: You insane fiend! I'm not gonna read that shit again!
      Doctor Linksano: Well, I suppose we can get the same results by watching TNA Impact...
      Noah: Aaah! All right, I'll read it!
    • He makes several deadpan remarks about how death would be a welcome relief to watching yet another bad anime with Sage, after Sage breaks into his house and stalks then teleports into his room.
  • Faux Horrific: Spoony does this quite a lot, as him freaking out is a major source of comedy.
    • Like seeing the cast of the Wing Commander movie.
    • And when reviewing the film "Game Over", the line of the computer being capable of making Gary Coleman president sent Spoony and the rest of the TGWTG cast into a total panic.
      Noah: Loot the supermarket! Stockpile all the weapons and instant mash potatoes you can find! The end times are here!
    • While reviewing Night Claws he suffers a great Heroic BSoD upon witnessing Reb Brown being unceremoniously killed off.
    • Another good moment occurs during the VCR Golf review, upon discovering that the second package he was sent was another version of the game from the same company. No wonder he went mad from the revelation.
  • Feathered Fiend: Played for laughs in the review of Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh, where Spoony depicts the nerdy protagonist Curtis Craig as having an irrational fear of ducks.
  • Filler:
    • In mid-October 2010, while Spoony was under the weather due to an unspecified heart condition, he asked Scarlett to bump some of his "Greatest Hits" to the front page until he got back on his feet. However, only one video (his review of The Thing (2002)) actually got this treatment before he came back.
    • The Counter Monkey episodes seem like this as well, seeing as they were put out during a period when Spoony didn't feel the creative juices flowing, and was dealing with health issues yet again, at least they kept us entertained.
  • Flat "What":
    The Avatar: The Codex of Ultimate Wisdom?
    Noah: What.
    The Avatar: The Codex of Ultimate Wisdom?
    Noah: What.
    The Avatar: The Codex of Ultimate Wisdom?
    Noah: AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH
  • Foil: Noah's brother Miles, who's considerably calmer than his brother.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • He ended his review of Strike Commando with the claim he was going to find an "American Reb Brown movie, made by Americans...in America!" Two months later he reviewed the 1979 Captain America movies, the second of which ended with an appearance from The Gatekeither.
    • His Clones of Bruce Lee review ended with the Spoony Bum inviting Noah and Dr. Insano to play boardgames with him. Among the stack of games he holds up is Nightmare, which Spoony reviewed for Halloween a few months later.
    • He's doing it in his dogs twitter now.
    • Spoony as Lord British: "My second worst fear is eating a loaf of bread laced with rat poison... but that seems unlikely to pass." Avatar!Spoony tricks Lord British into eating said loaf in Ultima 9.
  • For the Evulz: Bella Swan's motivation, according to Noah.
  • Forced Meme: In-Universe he asked fans to make this out of the line "You okay, lady?" from The Ring: Terror's Realm. He even started with putting that line over an emotional scene in Blade: Trinity.
  • Foreign Queasine: The food tasting segments with Spoony and April. While April is fine with most of the Japanese foods, Spoony isn't, though he winds up enjoying some more than he expected (for instance, he hates kiwi the fruit, but liked the kiwi candy).
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: In his Final Fantasy VIII review, after gaining control of two brother minotaurs who fight as a team, if you watch the background you can see that he names them Dudleyz.
  • Freudian Slip: In this tweet.
  • Freudian Slippery Slope:
    • Goes into one when Lulu and her "female advantages" are introduced in FFX
      Noah: Tits jugs Lulu—I mean, it's just Lulu, the Boob Mage— Black Mage! [Beat] Sorry, I'm just pretty funbags— flustered!
    • And again in Part 3 of the FFX-2 review when Leblanc offers to help the Gullwings.
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the new awesome animated Intro, you can see a few things on the shelves with references to various games and movies he's reviewed, such as "You're In My Spot, Sir," "Unfucking Believable", and "Spooning With Spoony Volume 19".
    • He inserted Wally into the crowd of the concert scene in Final Fantasy X-2.
  • Friend in the Black Market
  • From Bad to Worse:
    • At the end of his Power Rangers review, he says Sega CD games couldn't possibly get any worse. The preview for the next review that follows proves him wrong. Big time.
    • The same thing happened after his review of Highlander II: The Quickening, despite his initially claiming it to be the worst sequel (if not the worst movie) of all time. He subsequently found Highlander: Endgame to be arguably worse in certain areas; while the story isn't as bad, the direction and editing might actually be even more incompetent than the second film's. Finally, he declares Highlander: The Source to be vastly, unimaginably worse than The Quickening.
    • Later does the same thing when beginning his Final Fantasy XIII Review. He holds up a copy of Final Fantasy VIII and growls out "I'm Sorry." Every fan seeing that video for the first time immediately had an Oh, Crap! moment.
    • For once, inverted in his review of the VCR golf games. Despite initially seeming to Go Mad from the Revelation that there were at least two different golf games floating around, he ultimately judged the second one to be much better than the first (if still kind of crappy overall), since it was short, self-explanatory and had the advantage of not requiring the player to own a putter and golf balls.
    • After all his rage at Ultima IX, he finds out that Ultima: Runes of Virtue II (or at least its SNES Porting Disaster) is an even worse game, with the only thing saving it from a truly epic verbal flogging being the fact that it's a spin-off rather than a main series game. Subverted at the end of the video, where he expects this trope to apply to the Game Boy ports, but finds that the first is actually a genuinely good game, and that while the sequel has its flaws it's still much better than the SNES version.
  • Funetik Aksent: His description of the Nightmare review refers to the "blagoh," or "black hole" in the Gatekeeper's Cockney accent.
  • Funny Background Event: While Spoony himself was busy talking about TRON: Legacy, the wallpapers on his computer desktop kept flipping from one to the next...including, at one point, a wallpaper fashioned after the big romance scene from Final Fantasy X.
    • He acknowledged the FFX wallpaper in an episode of Wrestle! Wrestle!, saying 1) "It's called 'Irony', people! IRONY!", 2) He needed a wallpaper that could fit a dual-monitor setup, and 3) Saying that it's pretty and he's never denied that the art for X and X-2 was pretty.
    • His posters on the walls of his room often have something to do with the movie he's reviewing (such as the Beastmaster posters when he reviewed those movies). For his "Cinema Snob Impersonation" video review of Zombie 5, he had a poster of Caligula, Brad Jones' favorite movie.
    • During Spoony's booze-fueled Vlog of Breaking Dawn Part 1, his dog is running around on the sofa behind him, picking up objects in its mouth, and occasionally trying to drink Spoony's rum.
      • Oreo tends to do this a lot, in both vlogs and reviews. Which is a good thing, since she doesn't ruin takes, she enhances them.
      • In more than one vlog and review, Oreo has squeaked a toy when Spoony and Miles have asked a question about the film, almost as if in response. It's both adorable and downright hilarious!
  • Furry Confusion: He brings up the classic case of this during his Kingdom Hearts livestream:
    Noah: Wait...if Goofy's a dog and Pluto's a dog... how come Goofy's sentient and Pluto isn't?
  • Gag Nose: Noah is known to make fun of his nose, including referring to it as a "Jew Nose" when he sees the shadow it casts during one commentary with Bennett, who compares it to Minas Morgul.
  • Gag Sub: The onscreen lyrics to the music which plays during Dar's "Seeking for Revenge Montage" (also serves as a Call-Back to Yor: The Hunter from the Future):
    And his pee like a flower!
    If you been travel, he'll be there to fly the bat
    Winning saaaaand!
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: Discussed in the Minority Report: Everybody Runs video game. He questions why the Precogs couldn't call all the people trying to kill you to prevent you from stopping the first guy from killing his victim. Not to mention all the people that you kill to get to that guy, and all the cops you kill to prove your innocence.
  • Gaydar: Dr. Insano has one in the Beastmaster 2 review. The Camp Gay store clerk is so flaming that it overloads. He never actually explains why he would need one.
    • For SCIENCE, of course!
    • It turns up again in Spoony's review of "Viking Bikers from Hell", the Miami Vice episode starring Reb Brown, when Spoony expresses glee over Reb's Shirtless Scene.
    • And again in Spoony's review of The Barbarians, where it goes nuts over Spoony owning a copy of the movie poster (which he insists was for the review).
      Noah: You know, I really can't wait to see how this helps you take over the world.
  • Gender Bender: The Gatekeither takes Spoony's wiener and turns him into a Valley Girl for the Party Mania review. This also applies to Linkara and Benzaie. (The review takes place on Earth-982, which apparently is a Bizarro Universe when it comes to gender.)
    • He explains in the commentary that Earth-982 is the closest to having perfectly swapped gender roles.
  • Genre Savvy: In regards to Survival Horror, as his Deadly Premonition Let's Play demonstrates.
    • He also decided to install antipersonnel mines in front of the door to his room because the villain du jour, usually of some game, keeps bursting in... for some reason.
    • He and Linkara learn the hard way that Kristanna Loken is actually very perceptive when it comes to interviewers trying to humiliate her for her role in Bloodrayne.
  • The Ghost: Dr. Insano's nurse.
  • Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Played for laughs in the second part of his review of Night Claws. After Spoony complains about the fact that Reb Brown's character is suddenly killed by the female lead with five minutes of the film remaining, then a previously unmentioned character played by Frank Stallone suddenly appears and takes over the storyline, something suddenly blows him up, and then Bayou Billy appears, complaining about the unfair review that Spoony gave his game.note 
  • Giftedly Bad: Spoony presents actor Reb Brown and director Bruno Mattei as examples of this. Also Uwe Boll to some extent, but only in his movie commentaries rather than the movies themselves.
  • A God Am I: Terl claims godhood due to his amazing ability to instinctively know how high above sea level any location is, without help.
  • Go-Karting with Bowser: Spoony allows Dr. Insano to join him in reviewing The Clones of Bruce Lee, despite the fact that Insano hired Squall to kill him in the previous episode. They even live together now.
    Noah: I told you if you are going to live here you have to stop killing people, especially me!
  • Grand Finale: After spending several years ripping the game to pieces, Spoony brings his Final Fantasy VIII review to a close with Dr. Insano turning on him and attempting a Hostile Show Takeover by sending Squall to kill him. Squall succeeds in mortally wounding him, but then Burton self destructs, killing him, Squall, Spoony, and destroying Spoony's entire house in a fiery explosion. Of course after the credits roll, Linkara recovers what's left of Spoony and states that he will bring him back to life. Which he does. Bonus points for that sequence originally being planned as a possible ending for the whole show given his major camera and website problems at the time. Everything ended up working out, so instead it just acts as a sendoff to the bedroom where he filmed the show until then, as he was finally moving out of his parents' house.
    • Another one may be coming in the Ultima IX review, especially since he revealed at the end of Ultima VIII that the entire point of the full series retrospective was to set up the review of the final game and just how much it betrayed all the games before it.
  • Grievous Bottley Harm: The Avatar attempts this on Lord British in "O British, Where Art Thou?" but seeing as British is Nigh-Invulnerable it just bounces off with a harmless "ping".
  • Guide Dang It!:
    • Spoony's main complaint about Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. Mostly because most of the spells require you to, as he put it, learn a new language and that the bosses have exactly one way to beat them. To find both of these out you either A) Learn through trial and error (not recommended unless you have too much sanity) or B) look it up online. Note that despite that he still feels it's a good game.
    • There's also quite a bit of this during Ripper as well.
    • He rants about this in Ultima 2: Revenge of the Enchantress, you have to find certain items in order to progress through the game, but the game itself literally makes no mention that you need these items, what they do in particular, or that one particular ring that is needed to slip through force fields can only be purchased once you have the blessing from some guy, and you have to find some old man living under a tree and have to pay him 500 gold to obtain it. This game was created in 1982, long before anyone had the internet to look things up. How the hell could anyone figure these out?
    • Bloodwings: Pumpkinhead's Revenge most definitely. Without the manual, he was left fruitlessly wandering around with no knowledge of the puzzles until a Xenotrope killed him. The manual clued him in to the puzzle elements but didn't tell him how the items worked, and because the guide on GameFAQs was only created as a result of the first video, he didn't even have that to fall back on, leaving him to blindly experiment with items. He eventually lost patience when his entire inventory was confiscated because he ended a clip Unknowingly Possessing Stolen Goods.
  • Hair of the Dog: In his crossover review of the Garzey's Wing anime with Bennett The Sage, Spoony intentionally kills himself by inducing a stroke 1 minute into the OVA. 30 seconds later he's brought back to life.
    Noah: WAS THAT SO STUPID THAT IT BROUGHT ME BACK TO LIFE!??
    Sage: Hair of the dog that bit ya.
  • #HashtagForLaughs: In the review of the Ultima: Runes of Virtue games, the Black Knight succeeds in his plan to annoy Spoony by spreading the hashtag "#SpoonyHatesEverything". Spoony pulls out his cellphone to confirm, and is quickly ranting. The Black Knight has succeeded, which is more than a lot of the villains on the show can say.
  • Head Desk: Has one during his Final Fantasy X review when Rikku tells Tidus not to say he's from Zanarkand because it upsets people, only for Tidus to tell the Besaid Aurochs he's from Zanarkand FOUR MINUTES LATER.
  • Hello, [Insert Name Here]:
    • During his review of Final Fantasy VIII he chose to rename Squall into "Emo Git", Rinoa into "A Whore" and her dog into "Anal". The latter two resulted in such dialogue in "A Whore's Limit Break uses Anal" and "Anal Cannon/Reversal", and eventually led into jokes about Rinoa being Seifer's sloppy seconds (with visual aid from a certain doujinshi), though he did admit it was a bit of an unfair label, but far too amusing not to go for.
    • For Final Fantasy X, he renamed Tidus "Meg Ryan" for his haircut.
  • Hell Hotel: The hotel he, Jew Wario and Angry Joe stayed at while going to E3 was hilariously bad, and we got to hear about it. It is probably the only hotel you'll hear about where the air conditioning controls are in an unscrewed, dangling panel hidden behind the TV.
  • Heroic BSoD: Spoony's reaction to Reb Brown's unceremonious death in Night Claws is to look around in bewildered horror and, instead of reviewing the rest of the movie, slowly slink away in silence. Roll credits.
  • Hurricane of Puns: In the Dragon Strike review, after a tree comes to life and attacks the elf. Eventually he apologizes and says he'll stop.
    • In his persona as "Leslie Striker," during his mini-review of Phase IV, a movie about superintelligent ants, he makes just about every ant pun out there.
    • His Twitter / X is rife with these.
  • Hypocrisy Nod: In his review of Cage 2, Spoony trashes the randomness of the climax, in which the little old FBI agent whips out a rocket launcher and uses it to shoot down the villain's helicopter. He asks "Who writes a story where an old guy just spontaneously whips out a bazooka?!" Instantly we get a still from the Ultima retrospective, showing Spoony as Gandalf with a grenade launcher. "Oh, shut up."
    • In his commentary for The Beastmaster 2, Spoony points out that he made a Portal joke in the review, which came out a week after a vlog where he said Portal jokes were completely played out. He then adds "Haven't you noticed yet that I'm a complete raving lunatic and hypocrite? Because you should."
    • Later on, he lambasted Nintendo for cashing in by re-releasing Ocarina of Time on the 3DS, and then immediately turned tail to gush about the upcoming Snake Eater remake on the same system, calling himself out yet again.
  • Hypocritical Humor:
    • "I knew grown men who admitted to openly weeping at the bit where Aeris dies in FFVII. What a bunch of pussies." * Cut to a Flash Back of him in 1994, shedding Manly Tears over the opera scene in Final Fantasy VI*
      • And later on he starts tearing up every time he mentions Aeris' death.
    • "A robot puppet? How lame is that?"
    • When his teammates in Swat 4 throw flashbangs in such a way that it blinds him, he yells "YOU FOOL!" A couple of times, he blinded himself with poorly thrown flashbangs, although he made sure to yell "YOU FOOL!" at himself.
    • Furthermore, he calls everyone who likes "Eyes on Me" a complete pussy, and ends his Final Fantasy VIII review with a music video tribute of the cast set to the song. He says in the creator commentary "I call you all pussies then subject you to the pussy song. So yeah you're all pussies, you know what, I am too".
    • In Part 1 of his Final Fantasy X review, Spoony criticizes the sexualization of underage characters like the 15-year-old Rikku... then starts drooling over a picture of a Rikku cosplayer. Also a two-in-one, since he's critical of cosplayers as well.
    • Almost immediately afterward, he scoffs at the Al Bhed's characteristic spiraled irises. Cue Insano.
    • Also, after going on about how Seymour Guado can't possibly be taken seriously due to his stupid hair and clothes, he becomes quite shaken at Seymour's summoning of Anima at the Blitzball Stadium.
      Noah: Praise be to Yevon!
    • In his review of Dungeonmaster, Doctor Insano becomes angry at the New Powers as the Plot Demands offered by the hero's computer, comparing it to if Doctor Insano himself was able to shoot lightning out of his hand screaming "SCIENCE!" (Which Insano does. Frequently).
    • Contrasting Anderton's insistence at being innocent with all the police officers trying to do their jobs whom he throws off the sides of buildings.
    • In his Ultima 7 Part 1 review, he points out that Chuckles cheated while playing The Game in the previous episode.
      Noah: What asshole wrote his jokes, anyway?
    • In his written review of Alien: Resurrection he briefly goes on a rant against Joss Whedon claiming that he won't tolerate creator worship... and then promptly gushes about how wonderful J. Michael Straczynski is like a fanboy.

    I-L 
  • I Always Wanted to Say That:
  • I Am the Trope: Arises from a hypothetical debate between a Lawful Goodinvoked player and a trigger-happy pragmatic player.
    Noah: [gallant voice] He must face justice!
    Noah: [gravely voice] I am justice. [SPLORCH]
  • I Heard That: A Running Gag during the Phantasmagoria 2 LP. Curtis constantly badmouths his boss, Paul Allen Warner, behind his back, causing Spoony to reply in character with a muffled "I HEARD THAT, CURTIS!"
    • Also brought back in the finale video, where Spoony scoffs at the idea of calling Batman, only to get a phone call from Batman saying he heard that (somehow).
  • Implacable Man: Squall who just. Wont. DIE!
  • Incendiary Exponent: FIRE APES ON FIRE.
  • Incoming Ham: The Gatekeeper in Nightmare. When he even begins to speak, a loud thunder sound is played.
  • Incompetence, Inc.: How he describes Square Enix and their business model when it comes to Final Fantasy, specifically not releasing Final Fantasy VII HD, which he describes as "printing money", and instead pushing their less popular later games and failed MMO's. In a panel at Animecon X 2013, he had a full-on existential crisis about it.
  • Indestructible Edible: According to Spoony's story The Toilet Pizza a pizza from Peter Piper's Pizza does not mold or decay instead just hardening into a pizza shaped slab of plastic.
  • I Need a Freaking Drink:
    • What Spoony says after a good 40 minute rant on The Slammies.
      Noah: I'm gonna go drink heavily now. And I may never stop.
    • Happens quite literally in his v-log for the Breaking Dawn film; Noah admits that he doesn't normally drink though he does keep alcohol on hand for guests, but the film was so terrible that he decided to get drunk.
    • During his review of Tekken: Blood Vengeance, he starts a drinking game for any scene where you need to be a Tekken fan to understand what's going onnote , which is one shot, and two shots if being a Tekken fan makes what's going on more confusing. He says this holding a shot glass and a bottle Captain Morgan. The first scene has Xiaoyu riding Panda to school — and he starts drinking directly from the bottle.
  • Infomercial: In the Final Fantasy VIII review, Dr. Insano has one to advertise his new anti-magic field generator. Gets a Call-Back in the Final Fantasy X review where he introduces the newest model...only to trail off as Wakka destroys it with a Blitzball.
  • In the Name of the Moon: In a crossover with Bennett the Sage:
    Bennett: For Lars?
    Noah: For Lars.
  • Insult to Rocks: He compares the writing in Final Fantasy XIII unfavorably to porn, Doom: Reprecussions of Evil,, and Cave paintings.
  • Insistent Terminology:
  • Inspired by…: Armake21, Playit Bogart, and Wiz War 100 as said by Spoony One in his Bayou Billy Commentary.
  • Ironic Echo: In the mission 12 LP of SWAT 4. The debriefing mentions that Lieutenant Spoony has been placed on medical leave for foot injuries sustained during the mission, an echo of and poke at Spoony injuring himself (Jones fracture in his foot) during the fund drive for That Guy With The Glasses.
    • Black Lantern Spoony also breaks his foot literally kicking Linkara's ass when he presses one of his Berserk Buttons.
    • Spoony was pretty angry about the scene in Final Fantasy X where Wakka tried to cheer up the people who's city was just destroyed by telling them it was "like happy festival fireworks". But he was happy to throw the line back at Wakka in Final Fantasy X-2 when he objected to burning down a monster-infested temple.
  • It's Personal: Spoony has mentioned several times that he prefers to review games and films that he has a personal connection with - in particular, awful games and films that he still feels burned that he wasted money on.
  • It's the Best Whatever, Ever!: After reading the synopsis of Samurai Zombie Nation, declares it to have the "Best. Plot. EVER!"
  • It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: invoked Noah takes this position with regards to certain long running franchises such as The Legend of Zelda. Whether or not he's right is beyond the scope of this article.
  • I Want My Jetpack:
    • His reaction when Captain Z-Ro shows a man on a hovering platform and calls it "the latest development in powered flight".
    • Spoony also plays with the trope and related ones like It Will Never Catch On: he tends to compare predictions of future technology from works made in the past to how technology actually has moved on. The best examples of this are in Ripper where he mocks the Unusual User Interface of the future internet and compares the character's communication gadget to the iPhone.
  • Jive Turkey: comments The GameCrazy Training Video has a monopoly on this.
  • Jump Scare: Discussed (and used) in his Paranormal Activity 4 review. Spoony ultimately discourages the use of jump scares, saying that they're not scary; they're startling. He discusses the trope further by saying that too many modern horror directors substitute jump scares in place of a real horrific atmosphere, and how they quickly become annoying, making you more scared of the movie itself rather than what's in the movie. He also refers to a Jump Scare as "the equivalent of grabbing your ear and yelling into it". He admits, though, that a Jump Scare can be done well if a movie uses it only once or twice.
    • At the start of his "The Ring: Terror's Realm" review, he accuses Resident Evil of being nothing but jumpscares and in turn not being true horror.
  • Killed Off for Real: Spencer D. Bum at the start of the Final Fantasy X review's finale.
  • Kleptomaniac Hero:
    • In part 2 of his Final Fantasy X review, the first thing that comes to mind after Sin destroys Kilika village and leaves hundreds dead is to loot the bodies. Spoony figures Tidus wouldn't have a problem with it since he had no problem with stealing someone's potions from the ship just moments earlier.
    • Lampshaded in Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh: "What does it say about me as a person that my first instinct is to rifle through her desk for useful objects?"
  • Lame Pun Reaction: A Running Gag in his LPs is that he's forced to slap himself whenever he makes a cheesy pun. He will occasionally makes an offensive pun instead and get booed by a large crowd.
  • Lampshaded the Obscure Reference:
    • Makes a Betrayal at Krondor reference, and then says "I just made a Betrayal At Krondor reference in Two-Thousand-and fucking-Eleven... I don't get out much..."
    • Another one is made in his review of Santa with Muscles
  • Large Ham:
  • Less Embarrassing Term: From the Final Fantasy VIII finale,
    Insano: It's called the Time Compressor! It condenses Time as the world perceives it into an incredibly condensed period!
    Noah: Wow, a time compressor, it...kind of looks like an Xbox DVD Remote...
    Insano: IT'S A TIME COMPRESSOR!
  • Lethal Chef: Spoony describes himself in his Hells Kitchen the game review as this saying that he can't cook anything that requires anything more then a microwave and/or a can opener or he might burn down the whole house although it is unknown if this also applies to him in real life.
  • Lethal Joke Item: In his review of Highlander: Last of the MacLeods for Atari Jaguar CD, he comments that the only weapon that's useful in the game is the rubber chicken since it has the best range of any weapon.
  • Licked by the Dog: Happens with Dr. Insano after his attempt to create a world-eating monster out of cyboplasm and his own splooge only produces a fluffy pink Ridiculously Cute Critter.
  • Like a God to Me: Says that Richard Garriott is "a god among nerds".
  • Lock-and-Load Montage: Spoony does one at the end of the Final Fantasy XIII review, because he was Genre Savvy enough to realize that he'd be attacked by a character from the game again.
  • Lord British Postulate: As well as demonstrating the Trope Namer in his Ultima Retrospective, Spoony discusses the trope in his Counter Monkey series when he unwisely gave Darth Vader a cameo in a Star Wars RPG and the adventurers promptly derailed the campaign out of obsession with trying to kill Vader.
  • Lotus-Eater Machine: It's been hinted that Spoony is currently stuck in one by Sephiroth, to prevent him from reviewing Final Fantasy VII and stopping the evil red meteor set to hit the earth. Every time he starts thinking about this game, the review glitches out and makes him happy to review something else instead.
  • Love It or Hate It: He describes Final Fantasy VIII as this right off the bat during its review. While some of his fans love it, Spoony... doesn't.
  • Lyrical Dissonance: The theme song, "Break Me" by The Irresponsibles. While being a rousing piece of Awesome Music, it has rather dark lyrics you might notice on first hearing it. Lampshaded by Spoony in a commentary where he said he loved the song but it was "basically implying that I'm a girl who likes to be domestically abused."
    • On the other hand, he is a guy who likes to be abused by bad movies and video games, so it's a bit of an apt metaphor.
    • Further lampshaded by the end of Minority Report: Everybody Runs, which features a cover of "Break Me" with the same lyrics but a much darker tone.

    M-P 
  • Mad Libs Catch Phrase: "There's X, and then there's Y." See the Quotes page for examples.
  • Mad Scientist: Dr. Insano. He'll rule the world with science!!! And also winning the 2008 Presidential Election with running mate Fu Manchu.
  • Mad Scientist's Adorable Son: Son of Insano. He hasn't actually betrayed his father but he's so gosh-darned cute and full of love it's hard to think he'd do anything actually evil.
  • Magic Versus Science: Parodied in reference to Final Fantasy VIII Ass Pull "anti-magic field", with a projector for such a thing being sold in a home shopping channel-type segment by Dr. Insano. Without any fuel. A similar gag re-appears in the Final Fantasy X review, with Dr. Insano selling an anti-magic negator...and being completely astounded when it turns out you can take it out with a Blitzball.
    • Said anti-magic generator is brought up in an episode of Atop the Fourth Wall, when Linkara asks Dr. Insano if he sold any recently, Insano responds "I haven't sold one in months, ever since they figured out it's defect against Blitzballs."
  • Maniac Monkeys: The "Rage Monkeys" that Spoony's so obsessed with in Ripper.
  • A Match Made in Stockholm: As noted by Spoony in his written review, Agent 47's "relationship" with Olga Kurylenko's character in the Hitman movie strongly comes across as this. He drives across Russia while she's stuffed in his car trunk with a dead body, constantly threatens to torture and murder her, and drags her out of a restaurant by her hair. She becomes strangely attracted to him, very overtly tries to seduce him several times, and continues to accompany him when she has several opportunities to make a run for it. Being asexual 47 ignores her sexual advances, but does eventually show some degree of protection for her.
  • Mathematician's Answer: Spoony's take on the changes to Yuna between Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2.
    Noah: Quite a long way from the traditional kimono she wore before, and her previous characterization as a kind, demure, religious care-giver with a tragic fate. But is this huge change in outfit and characterization because of the radical cultural shift in Spira because of the exposure of Yevon as a maniacal, genocidal cult run by the undead bent on world domination... or just because Japanese perverts want to see some cleavage and her cute ass in boy's shorts? Good question... The answer is "Yes".
  • Memetic Mutation: His cry of "BETRAYAL!!!" has taken on a life of its own after being invoked in his review of Ultima IX to count the number of plot holes and inconsistencies in the game. The word is also in an exclamation bubble and font style much like the Ace Attorney OBJECTION! bubble.
  • Mid-Review Sketch Show: Spoony tends to include vaguely related comedy skits with his reviews from time to time, the most elaborate of which by far were the "Predaborg" skits filmed by Ed Glaser of Dark Maze Studios, as a comedic pastiche of the film Spoony was reviewing, Robowar. His skits tend to receive a mixed reaction, with some fans being exceedingly upset by how characters like Dr. Insano hog up so much screen time from his reviews, and others asking for more comedy (Chuckles the Jester's appearance in a recent video seems to be directly inspired by the latter group).
  • Mind Screw: The "Madness of Roland" video.
    • The items on Spoony's bookshelf moving and changing around during Game Over: Control-Alt-Death.
    • The weird reality distortions in his The Ring: Terror's Realm review, where we have sudden static screens switching between multiple Spoonys reviewing different things, and a clip of the world getting destroyed by a meteor.
  • Missing White Woman Syndrome: Although she isn't missing, Spoony has a point that Reb Brown in Mercenary Fighters just looks on with a slight hint of disapproval as a dozen African women are lined up and mowed down, but when the Scary Black Man is putting his hands on that one white woman? Oh, now it's on!
  • Modeling Poses: In the final crossover video for the comic by the Ultimate Warrior, one of the alternate universe opened up was where Spoony and Linkara were models, and they ended their skit on a bunch of fashion poses as the cameraman took their pictures.
  • Monster Clown: Insano-as-Kefka in his Final Fantasy X review.
    • Averted with Chuckles, who claims he's not a clown because "clowns get paid."
  • Mood Whiplash: Fairly common and really spooky in how fast it happens because one moment you go from "Spoony" (the character) hilariously ranting to Noah's actual feelings (normally livid or depressed) on the matter.
  • Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Doctor Insano, natch.
  • MST: Spoony's weapon of choice. To wit:
    Noah: When you give someone a lamp with the devil in it you don't go, "Oh, this lamp is a little dangerous". You say, "Here's a lamp AND IT HAS THE DEVIL IN IT!" I mean what kind of weird shit was Headmaster Cid into?
  • Multiple-Choice Past: Is Dr. Insano an incarnation of Spoony trapped in a Stable Time Loop? Is he a high school loser named Alfonse Plumbottom (or Wayne Schlumper?) who had an unrequited crush on Spoony? Was he a woman (or a robot) until Linkara punched a hole in the fabric of the multiverse? Is he an immortal from the planet Zeist? Is Spoony the future incarnation of Insano? Is Insano Spoony's "Mr. Hyde"-style alter ego? Was he all of the above because Linkara punched reality (Linkara only remembering the "transformed Insano" for some reason)? Word of Spoon is that "the origins of Dr. Insano are shrouded in mystery".
    • Noah drops the trope name in the audio commentary for Kickassia. He also remarks that it's kind of impressive that he has fans dedicated enough to try and sort out the various "continuities" of Insano.
      Noah: There is no continuity, there is only Insano.
  • Mundane Made Awesome:
    • When Terl claims godhood due to his amazing ability to inherently know how high above sea level any location in the world sits, Spoony is in enraptured awe of this skill.
      Noah: Scientology is the one true religion!
    • Which parodies the fact that the Wing Commander movie presents pretty much the same situation, although it's somewhat more practical, if it wasn't for the fact every ship computer can do the same, anyway.
    • At first Spoony thought the floors were the worst enemy in Ultima III. But then fans alerted him to the fact that you can be attacked by grass outside the Final Dungeon. In response, he set up a contest for fans to make videos of themselves battling the green menace for a chance to win prizes like autographed pictures and T-shirts.
    • In his Let's Play of Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh, whenever the game dwells on the protagonist's banal mundane affairs for long periods and fails to live up to its horror theme (which is often), Spoony yells "PHANTASMAGORIA! A PUZZLE OF THE FLESH!"
      • A similar joke in Tekken: Blood Vengeance, where he yells the title dramatically in response to the film focusing on the mundane affairs of Xiaoyu and Alisa.
  • Murder Is the Best Solution: In his livestream of the DOS game Castles, the game keeps giving him moral choices (such as whether to support an exiled rebel claimant to another throne) with the third option always being "...or HAVE HIM MURDERED!" This rapidly becomes a Running Gag.
  • My Friends... and Zoidberg: In one of his Vlogs, Spoony describes the movie 2012 as having "a fantastic cast of really well known actors... and Amanda Peet."
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Likes to lampshade this when he comes across it in media. And of course there's Dr Insano in his second appearance calling the voters idiots for voting for someone called "Dr Insano".
  • Narm: invoked
    • After a while of listening to a middle-aged white woman trying to use gangsta-speak in his MST of the Game Crazy training video, Spoony's reduced to just laughing into the mike.
    • "Tell me... about Disneyland..."
  • Negative Continuity: Don't try to rack your brain over Insano's origins, Spoony's clones and wherever the hell Black Lantern Spoony fits into all of this. Clearly, as a fan of the show, he has the MST3K Mantra in mind.
    • Spoony himself has said "I find it funny people are trying to figure out the continuity at work in this vid. You know what, there is no continuity, there is only Insano."
  • Network Decay: Spoony very rarely does anything but game streaming anymore.
  • Nightmare Face: The end of the Madness of Roland review.◊
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot:
  • No Dead Body Poops: Subverted in the Ultima VI review, where as revenge for Lord British being asleep and not waking up even when Spoony/The Avatar is dying from poison and needs healing, Spoony decides that as payback he'll die on Lord British's throne so that he'll wake up and find it covered in his voided bowels.
  • No Ending: The Dirty Harry game would simply cut to a password screen upon completion of a level. Spoony would reproduce this shortly after in the review itself, abruptly cutting to black just as Spoony would about to tell what would happen in the second level. Plus, there was the exact same song as with certain more infamous instance of this trope playing in the background.
  • No Ontological Inertia: Lampshaded in Grass Battle winner #1, "Norwegian Grass":
    Fabian: You have to get to the source, the big grass monster. If you kill the source, all the grass will die. Haven't you seen The Faculty?
    Protagonist: Of course. Isn't it a bit illogical?
    Fabian: Ehm, no. It should work, I think.
  • Nostalgia Filter: Whenever Spoony talks about Fallout 3, BioShock, or the upcoming remake of XCOM, he clearly prefers the originals. It can quickly go into subjective territory if you're not of the same gaming generation of him, or if you are and don't have a strongly positive opinion of the originals.
    • He is often aware of this though, but it caused him an unpleasant surprise when his general enjoyment of Fallout 3 (barring the endgame) made him go back and try the previous games, only to discover he just can't enjoy them like he used to.
  • Note to Self: Insano's reaction to the nurses turning on the mad scientist in Clones of Bruce Lee:
    Dr.Insano: Note to self: have my nurse destroyed.
  • Obviously Evil: Spoony considers the biggest fault of Ultima VII to be that the Guardian reveals his Evil Plan too early, thereby removing the ambiguity of the Fellowship's morality and sidestepping the possible dilemma of interfering with others' faith.
  • Offscreen Inertia: In the Final Fantasy X review, Spoony apparently spent the entire two-month-long break between installments hammering the X button to farm potions from an infinitely deep chest. And he has the beard to prove it.
  • Off-the-Shelf FX: The "Time Compressor" looks an awful lot like an X-Box remote control. Dr. Insano insists it's not one!
  • Oh, Crap!: In the end of Final Fantasy X-2 review, Sephiroth appears to actually save from Yuna. Spoony freaks out thinking he's next but it turns out that he likes his show and let him be. For the time being.
  • One-Steve Limit: "Okay, any team with two Jeffs on it I automatically write off as a complete joke."
  • Overly Long Gag:
    • The entire 8 minute or so part 2 of the Final Fantasy VIII is Squall drawing 2 spells, to underline how maddening the game can be.
      Noah: [kick] You got a potion! [kick] You got a potion! [kick] You got a potion! [kick] You got a potion!
    • From his Cage review, in a conversation between Lou Ferrigno's character and two guys trying to get him to fight in a cage match:
      Noah: I like wrestling! [happy reaction shots] But I don't like fighting. [disappointed reaction shots] But I like to wrestle! [happy reaction shots] But I don't like fighting [disappointed reaction shots]
  • Overly Narrow Superlative: Lampshaded in the Gone Birding video.
    Noah: I refuse to believe there's a bird identification gaming enthusiast demographic!
  • Overused Copycat Character: "An elf with two swords. Who's surprised?"
  • Our Hero Is Dead: ...but not if Linkara has anything to say about it.
    • As he'd ended his Final Fantasy VIII review in this way just in case he couldn't make any new reviews - something which seemed entirely possible at the time - this trope was almost an example of The Hero Dies.
  • Out of Focus: Burton the Robot. Still listed in the opening credits, still part of the title card, and still sitting in the background next to Spoony, but when was the last time he ever actually did anything?
    • Ultima VI: "Burton! Death ray! Now!" And he delivered.
    • Mostly justified because, although Burton was created to be a sort of MST3K-style puppet, the 'bot is still horribly fragile and difficult to work with, making it not worth the effort to integrate into Spoony's videos in any real capacity.
    • More recent videos have not just given more of a role to Burton but are suggesting something BIG and diabolical involving the Robot Buddy is coming...
  • Outrun the Fireball: The ending of the Final Fantasy VIII review, which is just Rule of Cool. Subverted given that the fireball outran him and annihilated him down to the lump of protoplasm Linkara found after the time lapse.
  • Overly Long Scream: You try not spending the entire scene doing this after finding yourself in a Spooning with Spoony video with Bennett the Sage.
  • Overused Running Gag: Spoony has said he wants to avoid overusing Dr Insano to prevent him becoming one (though the character still seems pretty popular despite his frequent appearances) and also because doing the voice hurts his throat. However, he always manages to make these claims he's going to use Dr Insano less right before a review where Insano has a huge role, like the Ferris Bueller's Day Off review. One wonders if he's doing it on purpose.
    • One might also consider the "beyond Thunderdome" jokes to be this, especially since the entire point of the original joke was that you don't get to use the joke very often
    • Spoony has stated that many of his fans feel that his use of the fuse box counter, or counters in general, is this, however he continues to do it because it's a joke that he personally enjoys and he doesn't feel he got as much use out of it as he initially thought despite fan reactions toward the contrary.
  • Painful Adhesive Removal: During the review of Tekken: The Motion Picture, Spoony mocks the ridiculously oversized eyebrows of Heihachi and Kazuya Mishima by wearing increasingly massive sets of cardboard eyebrows over his own... until he gets bored with Heihachi's overly-long climactic Motive Rant and simply removes the now antler-sized pair of eyebrows, yelping in pain as the taped-on cardboard peels away.
  • Pelts of the Barbarian: He felt the Miami Vice episode "Viking Bikers From Hell" would have been even better if the eponymous viking bikers had also dressed like Horny Vikings.
  • Pet the Dog:
    Dr. Insano: You hear that, world? I love my pink, freakish, orb-shaped son!
  • Pistol Whip: Spoony gets one from Critical Marine in their joint review of Uncommon Valor. Spoony pulls a pistol on Critical Marine, thinking he's been sent by the President to confiscate all his guns; Critical Marine just snatches it from Spoony's hand and smacks him in the face with it.
  • Planet Baron: Doctor Insano, in his April Fool's Day review of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, claims:
    Insano: "Fifteen years after this movie, the only thing Ferris Bueller would be qualified to do is be a frycook on Venus. But nerds will own the restaurant, and I will own Venus!"
  • The Power of Rock: Yunalesca's "Mega Death" which caused the party to be "Rocked to Death".
  • Pragmatic Adaptation: Spoony says that, in his opinion, Tekken (2010) was this because it ditched the more outlandish elements of the Tekken series like the robots and Devil Gene and just focused on the fighting.
  • Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: "Well my friend, *readies anti-magic gun* that's a Paladin.".
  • Precision F-Strike: Despite being Sir Swears-a-Lot incarnate, he still manages to pull this off sometimes.
    Noah!Avatar: I'm the god-damned Avatar!
  • Precious Puppies: He has one now.
  • President Evil: Parodies the concept with President Dr. Insano following the lampshading of its occurence on Final Fantasy VII.
    Dr.Insano: You actually voted for a guy named "Dr. Insano"! What the hell is wrong with you people?!?
  • Prison Rape: In Spoony's playthrough of the sixth SWAT 4 mission, one of the criminals is shot and writhing in agony on the floor. When he happens to get down on all fours, Spoony says that it'll be a useful position for him when he goes to prison.
  • Prisons Are Gymnasiums: Says that would fill in a plot hole in Snow White & the Huntsman, and says seeing Snow White pumping iron would have been awesome to see.
  • Private Eye Monologue: Spoofed in the Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh review when Curtis finds Therese sitting on his couch after she broke into his apartment.
  • Product Placement: When Linkara brought Spoony back to life, he hardcoded the urge to shill for his book into Spoony's DNA.
  • Promotion to Opening Titles: Dr. Insano.note 
    • And now Oreo as of the new credits, complete with launcher!
  • Protagonist-Centered Morality: Points out how in the Minority Report: Everybody Runs video game, Anderton, in his quest to prove his innocence, goes on the largest killing spree in years and probably kills more cops than any other individual person in American history.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: When talking about Metroid: Other M, Spoony remarks that Samus never. Shuts. The Fuck. Up. Ever.
  • The Purge: "And people like this game! Ladies and gentlemen, I implore you; Find these people. Kill them. They're, like.. voters. Kill them all!
    • Many people exclaimed Dude, Not Funny! with that joke, however, so in his commentary he apologized for it.

    Q-T 
  • Rage Quit:
    • In the appropriately titled SWAT 4 episode "I Die A Lot", Attempt #49 involves him shooting a suspect, then wheeling around on his squad and declaring "fuck you guys too!" and opening fire on them, resulting in a friendly fire kill in kind. The reason was that the suspect shot up one of his legs, and Spoony notes in the ending text screens that this makes the Timed Mission part of the level impossible due to reduced movement speed.
    • Gives up summarizing Final Fantasy XIII's plot after the reveal that the leader of Cocoon is a Fal'Cie, capable of speaking English in either form, and thus negating the previously central-to-the-plot idea that Fal'Cie can't communicate their wishes beyond a hazy vision. When some fans expressed concern that this meant Noah was ending the review permanently, he made a follow-up post saying that he would finish reviewing the whole game and Spoony's Rage Quit in the video was just illustrating that this was the point where he got fed up with the game in real life and gave up on it.
  • The Rant:
    • During the commentary for the Party Mania review, Noah pauses the video for a couple of minutes so he can try to address some of the backlash that it caused.
    • A briefer example comes at the start of the Tekken: Blood Vengeance, when he says that he's taken heat for liking Tekken (2010) and defends his opinion.
  • Rail Roading: He criticises Final Fantasy XIII`s extreme use of this by effectively restricting the players to a linear route, which he describes as "The Hallway".
  • Readings Blew Up the Scale
    • Dr. Insano's Gaydar isn't up to the task.
      Insano: The readings are into the GIGAQUEER RANGE!! [Gaydar explodes]
    • The DOA movie exploding the Ass Counter.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot:
    • The entire reason for Final Fantasy VIII's Grand Finale was that Noah was moving out of his parents' house and replacing his camera and didn't want to change things without explanation.
    • As well as the plot of the Bloodwings: Pumpkinhead's Revenge review. The original plot was to have him forced to play it by the Gatekeeper/Cleaner/Beekeeper in the blagoh. But after weeks of frustration decided to make the plot about all the trouble he had with it.
    • Similarly, he was unable to get The Madness of Roland to run on his computer, so instead edited together a bunch of the video files extracted from the game to form a trippy series of visuals reminiscent of The Ring.
    • He's also made a few broken foot jokes ever since he broke his.
    • He wrote in a sketch in his Skullduggery video to explain the appearance of his dog. She's appeared in the background of nearly all his videos since (and sometimes before).
    • Referenced in his Kickassia commentary as well. Not concerning his role for a change, but LordKaT's role had to be shortened severely due to injuries.
    • More recently, Spoony tweeted that he might have to retire the Chuckles character because Oreo got into his costume closet and tore up the outfit (and the rubber chicken).
    • With the death of the Ultimate Warrior, Spoony is retiring his version of the character out of respect.
  • Reality-Breaking Paradox: In his Highlander II: The Quickening review, the following sentence, from the back of the movie's VHS tape box, causes a paradox that breaks reality:
    Noah: Packed with action and visual effects, HIGHLANDER 2: THE QUICKENING is the smartest sci-fi thriller since BLADE RUNNER.
  • Reality Is Unrealistic:
    • In the commentary for his Highlander: The Source review, he notes that his fellow TGWTG reviewers didn't believe that the cover version of "Princes of the Universe" was something from the actual film — they thought that Spoony was making fun of the montage that the cover plays over, and that he had found some crappy garage band's cover of the original Queen song and stuck it in the video for comedic effect.
    • In his review of the Miami Vice episode "Viking Bikers From Hell", Reb Brown's character shoots Rico in the head just before a commercial break, and in the next scene it is revealed Rico is fine except for a concussion. While Spoony admits that is actually possible in Real Life, he points out that it's weak from a storytelling standpoint.
    • After the revelation of the absurd-sounding motive for Reb Brown's character in Death of a Soldier — that he strangles women so that he can steal their voices and sing Irving Berlin showtunes — Spoony has to point out that the film was actually Based on a True Story, and the real-life counterpart of Brown's character killed for the exact same reason.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Record Needle Scratch: After playing porn music to accompany Quistis in his first Final Fantasy VIII video, the camera will continue to cut to Spoony becoming more and more interested in Quistis until he is seen with a jar of lotion in his hand, and he sees the camera is on. Cue the scratch.
  • Reference Overdosed: Especially his Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh Let's Play, where much of the humour comes from the way he crams in a reference to a film/game/internet meme in practically every sentence.
  • Remember the New Guy?: Spoony really hated this trope in Highlander: The Source when we're introduced to Anna as one of Duncan's lost loves.
  • Retroactive Recognition: invoked Noah recognizes Dr. Phlox making an appearance as a nerd who doesn't own tools nor can he figure out to check all the buttons and knobs on his Game Boy before thinking it's broken and coming into complain in the Nintendo Tech Support training video for retailers.
    Noah: EPROM!
  • Rewind, Replay, Repeat:
    The Avatar: What's a paladin?
    Noah: Show it again.
    The Avatar: What's a paladin?
    Noah: Again.
    The Avatar: What's a paladin?
    Noah: Again!
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter: Son of Insano. "Riki-tee!"
  • Ring Oldies: A Pet-Peeve Trope and common complaint in his wrestling vlogs, especially for TNA is the presence of old and over the hill wrestlers.
    Noah: What are the Nasty Boys doing alive and on my TV? ... I want to call someone, specifically I want to call the director of whatever nursing home they escaped from.
  • Robot Buddy: Burton, a Mystery Science Theater-style puppet, made of a dust bin and a handheld vacuum cleaner, who spends most of his time sitting behind Noah's chair and looking on silently. He is apparently triggered to self-destruct if Spoony is gravely injured or dies.
    • Also has voice operated functions, such as DEATH RAY, which Spoony used on Chuckles the jester as he was threatening him to shove a DVD up his ass. However, Spoony still had to manually turn Burton's head towards its target.
    • He created Burton because he originally wanted to do his own MST3K-style show.
  • Rule of Funny:
    • From the commentary on the final Final Fantasy VIII video, about Dr. Insano's appearances: "It's kind of cute how people are trying to come up with some kind of continuity for all this. There's no continuity, there's only Insano."
    • Linkara's commentary on the Warrior review notes a scene where Linkara gets a look at Dr. Insano without his goggles, which spawned all kinds of speculation due to him now knowing Insano was Spoony. He tells them all to not take it so seriously.
    • Him turning back to normal after Insano's defeat.
      Noah: I got better.
      • This might be a result of an abandoned idea Doug mentioned where Spoony would play peacemaker (like Ask That Guy did in the Brawl), only to snatch the Commissar Cap and reveal that it's still Insano, just disguised as Spoony.
  • Rule 34: It exists, and Noah knows about it. He both makes fun and caters to the fans, just like the rest of the site.
  • Running Gag: Now with its own page.
  • Sarcasm Failure: The 8-6-10 Wrestle! Wrestle! V-log. The serious kind.
    • Even earlier, the 7-30-10 Wrestle! Wrestle! has him outright admitting that TNA portraying Eric Young as "comedically" brain-damaged has him too pissed off to be funny.
    • Almost the entirety of his review of Highlander: The Source. At one point he says that all he needs to do is show a clip from the movie and then show his increasingly appalled reaction shot, as the film's stupidity speaks for itself.
  • Sanity Slippage:
    • It takes quite a bit before he can finish and articulate a complete setence after the Avatar inquires what the 'Codex of Ultimate Wisdom' is in Ultima IX.
      Noah: AAAAAHHHHHHHHH! The avatar has to ask what the fucking Codex.. No! No, it's, this... Do I even have to explain in how many ways.. I can't, I can't explain... It's the thesis of the whole... I can't, this is what I'm dealing with... This is like the Pope asking what the fucking Bible is!
    • It hits him again when he gets sent a copy of VCR Golf when he told people not to. He just gets his gunblade and heads off. Next time we see him, it's covered in blood. Then someone sends him a different vcr golf game.
  • Sarcasm Mode: This one should be pretty self explanatory.
  • Satan: In his review of Final Fantasy VIII, he ends up getting a lamp that has "TEH DEVIL" inside. Spoony is awesome enough to blind, beat and tame The Devil, though, so all is good.
  • Satanic Panic: Spoony mentions in his review of Mazes and Monsters (which runs right ahead with the premise that fantasy board games turn people into killers) that when he was young, his mother was initially worried that he was part of a cult because he was into D&D. When she saw that he and his friends were just a bunch of nerds, she changed her mind immediately.
  • Screaming at Squick
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In the Vlog review of Breaking Dawn, his theory as to why the werewolves just leave when Jacob revealed he Imprinted on Renesmee is because they think this development is just so disturbing that they don't want anything more to do with it.
    • Spoony does it himself in Part 4 of his Final Fantasy XIII review, having gotten so fed up with the story that he simply can't go on reviewing the game anymore (He later clarified that this was meant to illustrate that the part of the game that caused him to "quit" in the review was the same part that had caused him to quit playing the game in real life. He still fully intends to cover the rest of XIII and then review XIII-2).
    • Does it again after a mere 20 minutes of playing the Final Fantasy XIV MMORPG, after being horribly squicked by being able to view the child-like Lalafell in their underwear during character creation, then discovering the game has no in-game vocalizations at all, then having his first couple of quests being pointless busywork.
  • Screw Yourself: Spoony complimenting Spuna as "the sexiest woman I have ever seen."
  • Secret Test of Character: In the Final Fantasy VIII finale, Spoony proclaims that being able to sit through Eyes On Me in its entirety proves that the viewer is a pussy, and then proceeds to use the song in its entirety in the end credits.
  • Self-Deprecation:
    • In the Final Fantasy VIII finale, he talks about how making you sit through the "Pussy Song", but then talks about spending a week matching it to the Final Fantasy VIII ending credits, and says that makes him a bigger pussy then the watcher.
    • "You may not think having a cold is that debilitating, but you don't have a nose as big as mine!"
    • "Who do you think is going to pick up this game, anyway... Other than retards who review games on the internet?!"
    • Two in quick succession at the beginning of "Final Fantasy XIII - Part 5":
      Noah: You know, if you want to destroy the world, I would not exactly put "Torment a loser Internet critic" near the top of my list— Y'know what, fuck it. I'm talking to Sephiroth, who is way uglier in real life.
  • Separated by a Common Language: When TNA's then-president Dixie Carter found out about Spoony's wrestling vlogs, she tweeted at him, asking "What's this about? You being ugly?" Noah and several of his fans initially thought Carter was insulting him, until others stepped in and explained that in the Southeastern US (from which Carter hails), "ugly" is a colloquialism for "mean" or "rude".
  • Series Fauxnale: Spoony's Final Fantasy VIII finale, which he made not only to finish his Final Fantasy VIII series for good, but also to serve as his own grand finale because he was unsure if he would be able to make any more videos for a while. When Linkara caught wind of this, he made an extra skit for the finale to serve as a Sequel Hook, where he recovers some of Spoony's genetic material with the intention of bringing him back to life... leading directly into the Clones Of Bruce Lee video, where Linkara creates a clone of Spoony.
  • Serious Business:
    • He thinks Twilight is the worst cultural phenomenon of the last decade.
    • He takes his Professional Wrestling very seriously and is the quintessential IWC Elitist Smark.
  • Sexophone: In Spooning With Spoony.
  • Shared Universe: As he used to be one of the original Channel Awesome reviewers, and did lots of crossovers and cameos, Spoony is automatically considered part of the Reviewaverse.
  • Shirtless Scene:
    • Spoony, while being completely intoxicated on pain killers, drenched in sweat, and oozing just a little blood, does some sort of dance sequence in his underwear after reviewing the ET video game.
    • He also goes shirtless for a moment in the game reviewing convention panel with Angry Joe and Birdman.
  • Shock Jock: Spoony can be described as a shock jock for nerds. He's deliberately provocative in his professional and personal life, acting deliberately belligerent and obnoxious for effect. Yet he usually backs up his more controversial opinions with measured statements and succinct commentary, making him a little more thoughtful than others with that label.
  • Shout-Out: The ending for his Ultima reviews mirrors the Mass Effect 3 ending, complete with appropriate colors for the choices he is given.
  • Shouting Shooter: When you give Gandalf an assault rifle.
  • Sincerity Mode: In his 2011 v-log for the new "X-Com" game, he mentions the time during the last E3 where he shouted "BETRAYAL!" and assures us that he was not playing a character. This video has Spoony almost chillingly quiet, yet nonetheless brimming with repressed rage that his most favorite strategy game of all time has not received an update, but an In Name Only first-person shooter.
    • At the start of his Final Fantasy XIII review, he apologizes for the gay joke he made in the Final Fantasy VIII reviewnote , saying he's not sure why he ever thought it was either funny or acceptable.
    • In the Ultima IX review, there's a part where Noah drops character and, in something resembling Tranquil Fury, explains that the Ultima series means a lot to him personally since it literally made him who he is today by introducing him to video games, RPGs and fantasy literature, as well as helping him form a meaningful relationship with his brother Miles despite a ten-year age difference. This is why he considers Ultima IX such a betrayal, and the moment where he angrily throws his game manuals and lorebooks across the room carries a lot of emotional weight behind it.
  • Skyward Scream: His scream of "BETRAYAL!" in E3 over the reboot of "X-Com".
    • Repeated in E3 2011.
  • Snub by Omission: Inverted. At the end of his Highlander 2 review, he lists off the other entries in the Highlander series (gradually falling into despair at how bad they are), but noticeably excluded Highlander: The Search for Vengeance. He later explains that he didn't mention it in the list because it's actually not a bad movie.
  • So Bad It's Awesome: invoked
    • His review of Yor: The Hunter from the Future sums the movie up as this.
    • He later clarifies this in his "Robowar" review as "Things don't have to be good to be awesome!"
  • So Okay, It's Average: invokedDespite holding no punches towards the laziness and ludicrous plot directions taken in Final Fantasy X-2, he does seem to take less offense with the game than with its predecessor or other entries in the Final Fantasy series, claiming that for all intents and purposes in the end it was just a decent game and he felt he was rather nice all things considered.
  • Sophomore Slump: Discussed in his Bloodwings: Pumpkinhead's Revenge review. In a vain attempt to understand the game, he decides to watch the two Pumpkinhead films that had been released when the game came out, and speaks very enthusiastically about the first movie, praising the visuals, creature effects and Lance Henriksen's performance in particular.invoked
    Noah: And then I watched the second movie. 'Cause I'm kind of an idiot that way.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: During Part 2 of his Final Fantasy X review, he played "Ignition Remix" by R. Kelly during Yuna's sending ceremony. Because, he said, "Naturally I feel the urge to profane this most holy and solemn ritual with completely inappropriate music."
  • So What Do We Do Now?: Spoony has this reaction at the end of "Firing Line" when he's realized he's reviewed everything there is to review about Reb Brown. As he's leaving, the poster for the movie transforms into a picture of Frank Stallone.
  • Space Compression: His review of Ultima IX has him lampshade this, pointing out that the library of Britannia is about the size of a snow-cone stand and that he can circumnavigate the planet in five minutes. He apparently isn't aware that it's an Acceptable Break from Reality, but he decides to ignore that so he could make fun of it].
  • Space Is Noisy: Pointed out in his review of the Wing Commander movie. Jokes that it's because there's no air in space to get in the way of the sound.
  • Spit Take: Turning into a Running Gag.
    • Upon hearing that AJ in Mazes and Monsters wants to kill himself.
    • When he hears that Yuna from Final Fantasy X seriously wants to marry the transparently evil Seymour.
    • In The Beastmaster 2 when he makes a joke about seeing one of the Sliders coming the other way through the portal to a parallel Earth... only to actually see Kari Wührer from Sliders go through it.
    • In Lords of Magick when Michael lists off his abilities as being finding lost friends, exorcising ghosts, curing the plague, turning frogs into toads and restoring maidenheads.
      Noah: [spits] Oh man, I gotta stop drinking water during these clips.
  • Stab the Salad: Sephiroth popping in to say, ".......Love your work."
  • Stable Time Loop: Dr. Insano is created through Spoony's desire to go back in time to erase the Final Fantasy franchise from existence. To do so, he creates his own time loop where instead of studying science for decades he sends a future version of himself back in time to give him all the knowledge he needs.
  • Start of Darkness:
    • We belatedly learn (one of) Dr. Insano's origins in his review of Final Fantasy: the result of a time paradox just like the game's.
    • In the Party Mania review Insano is actually Wayne Schlumper, a teenage scientist who was rejected by a female version of Spoony. Distraught and driven to insanity over the fact she didn't go out with him and his brother, wasting his scientific efforts on a pair of carefully created dancing shoes and hair-gel, he became insane with grief and hinted he would create his own woman. In the commentary, Spoony points out that this is simply the Insano of the alternate dimension the review takes place in.
  • Stating the Simple Solution: In his review of the Big Trouble In Little China Commodore 64 game, he goes on a mini-rant about how much trouble he went to and how much money he had to spend to import a working European Commodore 64 and the mass of necessary peripherals to play the game. Then April shows up and asks him why he didn't just use an emulator.
  • Stealth Parody: Part 10 of the Final Fantasy VIII review is dedicated solely to "trashing" the original Final Fantasy and in doing so takes a bunch of potshots at himself and his caustic reviewing habits. It was so deadpan serious and over the top that Noah had to post a notice on the video that he was joking and he actually likes the game. Apparently few people noticed it was posted on April 1, 2009.
  • Stealth Pun: During his Skullduggery review, while cosplaying as Simcoe The Magician, he conjures a dog from a pair of oreos. The dog was featured prominently in some of Spoony's videos before hand, and went by the name Oreo.
  • The Stoner: Though it's probably a joke, this tweet is interesting.
    • For a given value, it might actually have been true. He was sick at the time and might have taken some pain meds, thus "high."
  • Stock Footage: Has several bits he uses, most notably footage of a crowd booing at a political rally which he cuts to whenever he does a really dark joke.
  • Strange Minds Think Alike:
    • Both he and Maffew of Botchamania feel that the only thing John Cena sells is merchandise.
    • ScrewAttack debuted a video series, DEATH BATTLE, a few days after Spoony unveiled Deadliest Character at the 2010 TGWTG Donation Drive, with a similar concept to Deadliest Character. In his commentary for Deadliest Character, Spoony mentions ScrewAttack's video & notes that whilst it's suspicious that their series debuted after his & was clearly put together quicker & with less effort than Deadliest Character, he's going to put it down to this trope for the time being, rather than Follow the Leader.
  • Strangled by the Red String: invoked During his Eclipse v-log, he almost seems to be going insane trying to figure out why Bella and Edward are in love.
    Noah: Give me one thing that they... mutually like. Give me one thing they do together. Okay, I'll make it simpler: give me one thing that Bella Swan likes at all.
  • Stupid Sexy Flanders: He expressed this same sentiment in the first part of the Final Fantasy X review in regards to a Rikku cosplayer (which wasn't about gender so much as Hypocritical Humor in regards to her stripperiffic costume).
    Noah: Stupid sexy cosplayers.
  • Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Invoked during his second Nightmare review. After reviewing the three increasingly worse "booster tapes" for the original board game, he finds that its first real sequel, Atmosfear: The Harbingers is a genuinely good game, with much more developed gameplay mechanics, better usage of the VHS tape, and generally better overall execution.
  • Stylistic Suck: According to Noah's commentary, the Dragonzord's sudden appearance in Deadliest Character was done to imitate Deadliest Warrior's habit of having a previously unmentioned factor come in out of nowhere and decide the fight, often in contradiction of the research team's earlier conclusions.
  • Suckiness Is Painful:
    • This is the point of his "Experience Bij" segments, "Bij" being Klingon for "punishment". In this particular case, Spoony shows off videos that are intensely annoying and dares the viewer to sit all the way through them.
    • He's actually stated in several TNA reviews that he thinks Impact is so bad that it causes him actual physical pain. He even gives a small demonstration where watching the Knockouts proceeds to give him a headache.
  • Take That!:
  • Take That, Audience!: Spoony gets one in during his LP of Terror TRAX: Track of the Vampire:
    Graves: I get it. She was scamming losers who can't get real dates.
    Noah: Same kind of losers who watch let's plays instead of meeting girls.
  • Talkative Loon: Spoony's eerily accurate impression of the Ultimate Warrior.
    Noah: At Wrestlemania, Hoak Hogan, you will feel the full force of my destrucity! And you had better be foked, Hoak Hogan, because I am going to foke myself this Sunday on exactly one thing, Hoak Hogan: the WWF World Heavyweight Championship! You won't be able to click your heels three times and escape my Matrix, Hoak Hogan! You have less chance than two fighters against a Star Destroyer! The only way to stop the power of the Warrior is to take off and nuke the site from orbit, Hoak Hogan! SKRONK!!!
  • Take Your Time: Expresses disbelief at this trope's use in The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, where one of the optional missions is to retake a nuclear missile bunker that has been taken over by aliens and has a missile aimed at Washington DC. As Spoony points out, delaying doing the mission could result in the start of World War III.
  • Testosterone Poisoning:
    • Yor the Hunter remains his yardstick for masculinity. He's the man!
    • Until this. Motherfucker suplexed A TRAIN.
    • Another Reb Brown clip from Mercenary Fighters allegedly tops them all:
      Disclaimer: Warning. What follows is the manliest thing ever recorded on film. Your balls may drop of in shame at the mere knowledge that you will never in your entire life do something half this manly.
  • That One Level: His playthrough of SWAT 4 has level 11 titled "I Die A Lot". That he does, and even lets you guess in the video how many times he does in fact die. 59. The final level he beats right out of the box. invoked
  • Tempting Fate:
    • Spoony's does this in the Warrior #1 review, believing that the Warrior comic can't be nearly as bad as Dr. Insano says it is, then screams in terror from one look at the cover. And yes, the comic really was that horrible.
    • On his Final Fantasy X-2 review, he comments on Yuna's ability to blind people by dancing:
      Noah: Yes, she dances so poorly it causes people to go blind. Who could possibly do a dance so horrifying it blinds people? [cue another guest appearance by Benzaie]
    • In his review of The Ring: Terror's Realm, he rants about how lame it is that the game has characters transforming into hideous monsters entirely off-screen — which provokes another appearance by Simcoe the Magician and his "make something turn into something else between edits" brand of magic.
    • In the review for the Wrestlemania VCR Board Game, Spoony talks about an advertisement on the tape for a VCR Golf game. He then immediately warns his fans not to send him any copies of the game. Three guesses as to what happened...
      Noah: Do not send me VCR Golf. I will fucking stab you.
    • In part five of his review of Final Fantasy XIII, he notes that absolutely nothing that Bartandalus says or does will put someone in such a murderous rampage that they're willing to destroy the world. Then he notes that his voice sounds familiar, and checks to see who the VA was on the Internet Movie Database... to learn that it's the same actor as Reynolds from SWAT 4.
      Noah: RAAAAAGH! SCREW COCOON! KILL THIS FUCKER, RAPE HIS HEART AND WATCH THE WORLD BURN!
  • There Was a Door: In Tekken: Blood Vengeance he's particularly exasperated when Jin and Kazuya separately punch out the walls of a room within seconds of each other and throws up his hands. He also wonders how awkward it would've been if either them of them accidentally punched out the wall Heihachi was hiding behind instead. invoked
    Noah: Anyone else? Anyone else want to punch out a wall, we've got two left!
    • This is followed by Randy Savage's Slim Jim commercial where he does this as well as the Kool-Aid Man.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Invoked several times:
    • In reviewing Game Over, Spoony points out that Drexel's comments about how Hunter is torn up about the death toll from the military co-opting some of his games as training programs would be a great plot point and character beat... if the movie ever bothered to mention it again.
    • His opinion on Ultima VI and, to a lesser extent, Ultima VIII. He notes that VI has arguably the best story of the entire series, but for him at least is ruined by an excessive focus on inventory micro-management and generally irritating gameplay. He also felt that the story of VIII definitely had potential, and even though it wasn't especially well executed, the story probems are nowhere near as bad as the gameplay problems (to say nothing of the story of Ultima IX).
  • This Explains So Much: Spoony's reaction in his "Let's Play Phantasmagoria 2", after the big reveal that the otherwise bland, dorky PC Curtis Craig is literally not of this world.
    Noah: So let's see if I have this right—according to Warner, Curtis is really an alien made out of slime and rat testicles? ... That actually explains a lot.
  • This Is Gonna Suck: When talking about The Beastmaster II: Through the Portal of Time he uses this trope to describe the reaction of fans of the first movie as soon as they saw the poster for the second and the car on the front. This was also his reaction to the Warrior comics.
  • Threat Backfire: In Ultima VIII, the Guardian gloats about exiling the Avatar to a planet where nobody has heard of him and his exploits saving Britannia. Spoony points out that previous games have demonstrated that no-one in Britannia seems to have heard of him or his exploits either!
  • Title Confusion: Spoony almost always refers to Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh as "Phantasmagoria 2: A Puzzle of the Flesh". This may be deliberate, as it means the title flows more naturally when he's yelling it as a Running Gag.
  • Too Dumb to Live: In his Knightmare review, one of the contestants had to spell the word shroud backwards. He first spells it D-U-R-H-S (shrud), and after getting a hint to use an O from the host, he confidently comes up with O-S-R-D-H-U.
    Noah: WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SPELL, YOU STUPID PILLOCK?!
    • It should be noted, however, that the team only needed to "Dispel, followed by the right letters, but in the wrong order", and as such, O-S-R-D-H-U, nonsensical or not, is a legitimate dispel. Still, it shouldn't have taken 90 seconds to work out the missing O in the first place. Calling a "SPADE" a "SHOVEL" later in their quest seals their fate, but even if they had cast the correct spell, such an offensive spell would likely have required a dispel - and swiftly at that - to avoid their dungeoneer succumbing in a somewhat comical fashion (cue "L-V-O-H-S").
  • Took a Level in Badass: After his SWAT 4 playthrough ended in 2010, in late 2013 Spoony began playing the expansion pack. While the commentary was not up to par with the original vids (since the first one at least was recorded during a livestream), he's gotten much smarter at the game. He orders his squad to secure suspects and check doors while he continues to scope out the area, he wedges doors shut so any perps moving around can't open them, he marks doors to areas he's cleared with glowsticks, and he walks rather than runs since he's learned running reduces accuracy.
  • Totally Radical:
    • Everything about Party Mania.
    • When he MST's a Game Crazy training video, one of the hosts' flagrant overuse of this sometimes reduces Spoony to hysterical laughter.
      • Said host is a woman in her mid-thirties, maybe early forties, whose delivery is so utterly white. It really is that funny.
  • Trash the Set: The finale of the Final Fantasy VIII series was Spoony's excuse to give his room a proper sendoff - by blowing it up after Burton self-destructs.
  • Troperiffic: For the sheer number of other tropes listed here.

    U-Z 
  • Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
    • In-universe, Spoony has expressed distaste for films that rely too heavily on CG characters and effects. In his review of Avatar, he compared the film to Jackie Chan's movies, stating that watching Jackie Chan and other real actors do the stunts and fight scenes gives weight to the performance that he's never felt watching computer-generated characters like the Na'vi.
    • He also explains that this trope is the reason he suspected that Carter from The Bureau: XCOM Declassified was actually a Tomato in the Mirror, since he never blinks, and for bonus points looks like the T-1000. He's half right on that.
  • Unfortunate Implications: Brings up in Mercenary Fighter that despite his supposed moral problems with killing the African villagers, Reb Brown's character doesn't protest a word as several of them are gunned down in cold blood, and instead protests shooting one white reporter. invoked
  • Unobtanium: Dr. Insano's inventions are powered by raritanium ore.
  • Unusual Euphemism: Inverted, when Spoony is describing any kind of sex act, he will do so in a graphic, unmistakable and slightly disturbing way, e.g. "Pee in her butt" or "Naked, sweaty and thrusting".
  • Uranus Is Showing: Appears in his review of Ultima II, which is followed by an immediate lampshading:
    Noah: I also probed Uranus, which is big and swampy and full of craters, but is otherwise uninteresting. Actually, there's only one town there, called New Jester, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out why. But if I were to guess, I'd say it's where all the jesters of the world were exiled for making endless Uranus jokes.
  • Valley Girl: Gender Bender Spoony and 80's Chick.
  • Van Helsing Hate Crimes: This video discusses the debate among several groups in Dungeons & Dragons about whether players can assume evil-aligned races to be expendable, consequence free. Ultimately, he suggests that the dungeonmaster interferes before the argument gets too heated, or make a rule up front determining whether this assumption is in play.
  • Verbal Tic: Hulk Hogan (as impersonated by Spoony) is seemingly incapable of not shouting "Brother!" at the end of every sentence. Similarly, Ric Flair yells "WOOOO!" anytime he speaks, though it's not so much a verbal tic as a cry for help.
    Ric Flair: I'm wrestling with concussion right now, WOOOO! [slams head onto desk]
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential:
    • In his livestream of Kingdom Hearts, Spoony seems delighted that the game gives him the opportunity to beat up Final Fantasy characters he hates such as Squall, Tidus and Wakka.
    • Also brings this up in Ultima VII in that despite you supposedly being ultimate force for good, the game lets you kill a lot of people for fun, and is most amused by being able to kill Lord British (who Spoony notes as the series goes on looks like more and more of a bad guy). Oh, and in virtually all of the Ultima games, despite being, as he says, "The Christ Figure of his religion," the Avatar is allowed to purchase and use the Armageddon Spell, which will kill everyone in the entire world.
  • Villain with Good Publicity: Dr. Insano got elected president despite making no effort to hide his supervillainy.
  • Villainous Rescue: Spoonyroth runs through Spuna in a sequence reminiscent of Aerith's death in Final Fantasy VII.
  • Visual Initiative Queue: Notes this as a positive of Final Fantasy X, calling it an "incredibly convenient" feature.
  • Voice Clip Song: A fan took his "BETRAYAL!" shout during his coverage of The Bureau: XCOM Declassified and turned it into a metal song. Spoony himself loved it and used an Ultima version of it as his intro for his Ultima IX videos.
  • Voodoo Shark:
    • His opinion on Snow's trenchcoat in the FFXIII review. Specifically, how it's stated that equipping different seals on his coat makes him powerful enough to be a Bare-Fisted Monk in a setting where guns are everywhere.
    • In his review of The Barbarians he originally thought that the villain's crossbow is merely broken for no adequately explained reason, allowing the heroes to kill him. Spoony released a correctional video when he was informed that the crossbow didn't work because the villain tried to pull the trigger with fingers that were bitten off at the beginning of the movie, which in-universe took place about a decade before the film's ending.
  • We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties: Done twice within two minutes when he realizes the protagonist of Final Fantasy X is a collection of everything he hates. Cue him screaming that he hates him and getting cut off by a picture of Insano-Kefka and the words "HATE HATE HATE" showing up on the screen. Then two seconds later when he screams, "SEND HELP!" in response to Tidus opening his mouth again.
    • Done again in the Ultima VIII review, when he goes nuts after his game character finally makes it across the water form the insanely impossible jumping required only to get blown into the water by an exploding chest. And in this case, Noah took advantage of it to add a mid-show commercial break on the Blip video.
  • Wham Episode: The Beastmaster 2 review ends with the happy note that Dr. Insanso and his son have to leave in order to stop a dimensional singularity.
    • Foreshadowing?
    • The Game Over review shows that the Spoony Experiment is a more literal title than previously indicated.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Spoony's reaction to the fact that TNA showed Samoa Joe being kidnapped by ninjas and then promptly forgot that he existed, with not so much as a single reaction, going on a month since the kidnapping. This also happens to be the moment when, after enduring the entire TNA broadcast, he finally snaps:
    Noah: But he was abducted by ninjas! NINJAS! CALL THE COPS! There are ninjas kidnapping people on TV! THE COPS! Did no one get a license plate? Do ni - NINJAS! KIDNAPPING! TV!
  • What the Hell, Hero?: In Part 2 of the Ultima IX review, Spoony briefly stops the review to chew out Richard Garriott for the fact that the Ultima series has several moments where the Avatar, supposedly an incredibly honorable and virtuous man, is forced to slaughter children with absolutely no alternative, saying that it disgusts him personally and there's no reason for it other than needless cruelty.
  • What the Hell Is That Accent?: By his own admission, foreign accents aren't really Spoony's forte, as evidenced by the fact that his version of Gordon Ramsay sounds more Australian than British.
  • When All You Have Is An Arm Laser: Insano complains that in The Dungeonmaster, Paul's answer to everything is to blast them with his arm laser.
  • When She Smiles: Considers Natalie Portman this in his Thor review.
  • Who Writes This Crap?!: Inverted in his Pumpkinhead Review, in which Linkara, dressed the Gatekeeper, puts on a mask and exclaims I AM, THE BEEKEEPER. Spoony replies, "Oh my God, I wrote that."
    • He notes in his Ultima VII review that Chuckles the Jester broke the rules of his word game in his previous appearance. "What asshole wrote his jokes, anyway?"
  • Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Invoked by Spoony in the Final Fantasy X-2 review, when Leblanc steals a sphere from the protagonists. He claims that instead of sneaking in, they should use the extremely powerful weapons capabilities of the airship demonstrated in the previous game to simply bombard Leblanc's base until she gives up both the sphere she stole and all the other spheres she has. Keep in mind that we saw that the airship was capable of leveling a city in the previous game.
    • Mentions it in his review of Final Fantasy VIII, when Rinoa tries to give the Sorceress a power-nullifying bracelet. He suggests instead she should have loaded her dog onto her wrist-mounted launcher and shot the Sorceress in the back of the head at Mach 2.
  • Wild Mass Guessing: He and his brother think that John Cena gets stronger the more merch he sells.
  • Willing Suspension of Disbelief: He says the presence of Xiaoyu's panda in Tekken: Blood Vengeance is so distracting that it completely breaks his suspension of disbelief in every scene it's in, simply because no one explains it. At all.
  • With Lyrics: He uses the tune of "Ode to Joy" for this in his Final Fantasy VIII:
    Noah: Quistis, boobies, Quistis, boobies, Squall is getting laid tonight!
  • Wouldn't Hurt a Child: In part 2 of his Ultima 9 review, he states that he hates being forced to fight children in games, and finds it sickening.
  • World of Weirdness: Set in the Reviewaverse...so, yeah, it gets weird.
  • Your Costume Needs Work: In this video he mentions that he has been mistaken for a Doctor Insano cosplayer. By someone from his own forum, no less.
  • You Shall Not Pass!: Edited himself in the The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring scene as part of a sketch for his review of Ultima.
    Noah: YOU! SHALL NOT! PASS! [starts blasting away at the Balrog with a carbine and phaser before finally blowing it away with an M79 grenade launcher]
  • You Will Be Spared: Used as a gag in the Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh review when Jocilyn visits Curtis's home.
    Noah!Curtis: [to Jocilyn] I think I'll kill you last.
  • Zeerust: When reviewing games/movies made in the past but set in the future, he will often compare the technology presented there to that which now exists, such as Apple iProducts. Shows up a lot in his Let's Play of Ripper.

 
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Video Example(s):

Noah goes after Travis

Noah goes after Travis Crabtree with a gun-blade when he brings some mixed-up mail to him (revealed to be an actual Bird-Watching VHS Board game).

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Shoot the Messenger

Chester A. Bum ...

The Grey Lanterns

Cold Running Water

Tekken Drinking...

Dr. Insano's Ga...

The Spoony Bum

The Human Spider

Dr. Insano [Evil]

The Spoony Expe...

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Noah goes after Travis

Noah goes after Travis Crabtree with a gun-blade when he brings some mixed-up mail to him (revealed to be an actual Bird-Watching VHS Board game).

How well does it match the trope?

5 (5 votes)

Example of:

Main / ShootTheMessenger

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Noah goes after...

Chester A. Bum ...

The Grey Lanterns

Cold Running Water

Tekken Drinking...

Dr. Insano's Ga...

The Spoony Bum

The Human Spider

Dr. Insano [Evil]

The Spoony Expe...