I brought this up in the Nightmare Fuel clean up thread, but the NightmareFuel.The Nostalgia Critic page definitely needs some work done. A lot of the example seem to be overthinking things and aren't really scary.
edited 4th Jun '18 6:16:31 PM by costanton11
I’ll clean up up the natter.
Holy cow is the NF page long.
The Protomen enhanced my life.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
OK. After you’re done I’ll run it by the nightmare fuel clean up thread again.
On the Nightmare fuel thread, they say things like Fridge Horror, spoiler tags, speculation, things that are only scary In-Universe, and examples that describe themselves as not being very scary should all be cut as they aren't allowed under the guidelines.
edited 6th Jun '18 3:09:54 PM by costanton11
Sorry for triple post, but I removed the spoiler tags and fridge horror from the nightmare fuel page. If anyone else wants to work on the page, go right ahead.
Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel
I'm coming here from the Nightmare Fuel cleanup thread. There really are a lot of bad examples on that page. I was planning to go over every single one of them, but even after looking at a bunch of them I saw that I was nowhere near the bottom of the page. So for now, I've got just these ones to comment on, I'm sure there are lots and lots more left to clean up afterwards.
- His icon (before it changed from That Guy with the Glasses.com to Channel Awesome.com)- the one that consists only of his face with a huge, insane grin on it. He looks like he wants to eat you and is really looking forward to it. And the circles in the background makes it look like he's coming right at you.
Is this the icon being referred to?
◊ It sounds like a total overexaggeration.
- Due to Early-Installment Weirdness, the suicide in Cartoon Allstars has a different feel to it; a longer set-up and a second-long silent black screen. Not funny, more kinda sad and creepy.
"Kinda creepy" isn't what Nightmare Fuel is about. Either this is an Understatement or not an example.
- His Halloween Special with Teddy Ruxpin, especially the ending. "Come dream with me tonight..."
- Also the moment when Teddy forces the Critic to do a more proper review of him. When the Critic nervously agrees, he asks Teddy who he really is...
Teddy: (voice turns demonic while his eyes turn red) I'M THE DEVIL!!!!!
(from the Critic's perspective, Teddy turns into a demon)
Critic: AAAAAAAAAAGH!! AAAAAAAAAAGH!! AAAAAAAAAAGH!!First bullet point is a Zero-Context Example. What exactly happens in the ending that's so scary? Second bullet point sounds like it could be OK. - In his review of Kazaam, his analogies for how bad the film sucks are initially funny (in a Black Comedy) sense, but the third one takes a turn for the disturbing:
Nostalgia Critic: "If this movie was a dog, I'd have it put down! If this movie was a car, I'd have it impounded. If this movie was a starving young woman who pleaded to me for just one bite of my ham and salami sandwich, I WOULD KILL HER!!! ... Alright that's a little dark, but, you get what I'm getting at."This doesn't sound scary. A Jump Scare isn't automatic Nightmare Fuel, and I'm not sure this even counts as one.
- Special Effect Failure of the bad green-screen aside, the build-up to him doing Good Burger in Snick, with a storm brewing in the background, ominous music and his increasing nervousness.
This sounds more ominous than terrifying, and the bit about bad special effects only make me doubt this entry's inclusion even more.
- The "Top 11 Mindfucks".
- "Yes." "Yes." "Yes."
A pure ZCE.
- "Yes." "Yes." "Yes."
- That little bit where he's remembering all the torment he got about Doug. The creepy laughing...
"You're Doug Funnie! You're Doug Funnie!"Also a ZCE.
- In his review of the Lost in Space movie Dr. Smith's mutated spider form in the movie wasn't very scary. However, when the Nostalgia Critic dressed up like him at the end, he is rather uncanny and creepy looking. It most had to do with that weird voice, and his wide eyes, which popped out more because of the dark face paint he was wearing.
Like the Cartoon Allstars example, "rather uncanny and creepy" isn't enough to qualify. Nightmare Fuel is about terror, not something that mildly unnerves you.
- When the Critic is found dead at the end of It (1990), Rob's intentionally narmy face reactions are great fun, but the high piano melody from the film skips like a Broken Record and so still keeps some fear in there.
Same as above. "Some fear" isn't enough, especially when the rest of the example is about how funny this is.
- In Alaska, whatever his dad did to him to get him never mouthing off again and still be shaky and traumatized over it years later.
This sounds like In-Universe fear, not an Audience Reaction.
- His "Return of Nostalgic Commercials" review, when he looks at the Corn Pops commercials and puts in quick, half-second clips from various horror movies mixed in with the kids's mental breakdowns. And then he goes and puts in some Evil Dead clips during the Fun Fruit Trees commercial!
- His manic attitude throughout the episode was pretty creepy, especially if you compare it to the first special. Special mention should go to when he evil laughs after proclaiming "killing smaller things gives you power!" (Cue Dramatic Thunder) and then giggles cutely like a schoolgirl.
First bullet point could be OK, second one is another case of it only being "pretty creepy". - His Hilariously Abusive Childhood has a lot of Adult Fear qualities about it, the earliest example being child!Critic allowed to have a gun.
Calling it Hilariously Abusive makes it sound like it's not actually scary.
- The end of his "He-Man Christmas Special" review. A clip of Yoda saying "You will be. You will be." plays, and when Critic wonders why he keeps saying that, the sound of Yoda's disembodied laughter plays while Critic looks around in slight fear and confusion. And the laughter keeps going, even picks up a bit more, even as Critic leaves.
- Made all the creepier when you hear a dark reprise of The Imperial March on the background.
- And then there's the end of his Next Top Eleven Christmas Specials. Usually the Critic crying and begging not to do something is great fun, but when he inserts the Star Wars characters laughing manically at him it gets a bit freaky.
For the first bullet point, "slight fear and confusion" isn't enough to count as Nightmare Fuel. The Imperial March also isn't scary enough. The last bullet point is only "a bit freaky".
- His... mixed, ongoing reactions to SWS2 (from getting excited twice over the prospect of the Spocker to wanting to kill Spoony in Kickassia to trusting him enough to drink with him again in the donation drive) don't say great things about his sanity.
OK, but is it scary? Either this needs more detail, or it isn't actually scary.
- When he appears in Insurrection, his hateful expression, stern voice, Critic breaking into tears and the Kill Bill music to top it off, makes Linkara seem far darker than the Parody Sue he's usually portrayed as.
"Darker" doesn't mean scary.
- The Red Dragon video features his take on Hannibal Lecter's most famous line, almost as disturbing as Hopkins'. Subverted and turned into a Crowning Moment Of Funny when after this, we cut to him indulging his posh side and ordering the food from a takeaway.
This one explicitly states that it ends up being funny and not scary.
- In the Transformers cartoon review, the domestic violence joke between Starscream and Megatron is really uncomfortable. Even the Critic acknowledges it being dark.
"Uncomfortable" and "dark" isn't scary.
- The effect of his teeth shattering at Mara Wilson's cutesy child acting.
- Not to mention...DON'T FUCK WITH MARA WILSON!!!
- How about when he opens the 'supposed' door where the dead and decayed godmothers sit?
First bullet point sounds like it's Played for Laughs. Second point is a ZCE. Third one sounds OK. - His getting attacked by a Facehugger. Even if he just flicks it off, those things are just as creepy in poorly animated form.
Calling it "poorly animated" and saying that he can just flick it off doesn't make this scary.
- His take on Mr. Magoo. He's actually a self-described psychopath who fakes blindness so that he can keep his handicapped parking permit.
Is lying to keep a parking permit really scary?
- "DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR!" So freaky he did it thrice.
ZCE
- In The Neverending Story III, that brief moment of silence between where he stops laughing and starts smashing.
That doesn't really sound scary at all.
- A minor one, but in his "Baby Geniuses 2" review, what is the last resort brentalfloss and Uncle Yo take to snap the Critic out of his supposed coma? An iron to the FACE! [Thankfully, they are prevented from using it, but STILL!
Calls itself "A minor one" meaning it's not very scary.
- In the "Digimon: The Movie", JesuOtaku started crying due to Ship Sinking, and this exchange occurs, and he both looks and sounds rather deranged.
Nostalgia Critic: You weren't even wearing mascara. How is it running?JesuOtaku: I don't know!The fact that this is over Ship Sinking might make it too over-the-top of a reaction to take seriously.
- In the beginning of The Wiz, Critic expected and half-wanted rape. That's massively skeevy on so many levels.
"Massively skeevy" isn't scary.
- The opening rant of Scooby-Doo. The Despair Speech in the commercial special was bad, but at least that was pretty passive. This one makes you scared that he's going to take his gun and shoot himself to make the pain go away.
- Roger. Especially his cheerful goodbye just before Critic blows himself up. Never let it be said that Orlando isn't good at acting scary.
- Speaking of Roger, didn't anyone else feel creeped out by Spoony's part of You're A Rotten Dirty Bastard? I know he isn't supposed to see them, but the thought of him laughing like a maniac while the Nostalgia Critic shoots him. Plus the brief moment the camera shows his crazed face laughing while bullets bounce off him.
- Not to mention, imagine the Spoony(!)Critic's video on it's own. Imagine you live in that universe where Doug never existed. Spoony starts the video by casually saying he likes a few movies NC tore apart, having a discussion with Douchy then the hell out of nowhere immediately goes Batshit insane and laughs like a lunatic for a good entire minute with his face right up close to the screen. But then again... seeing what Angry Joe did...
- When the present Critic's about to blow himself up, with grenade in hand, and with his copy of the movie, he says this line:
Nostalgia Critic: Hey, Scooby-Doo, where are you? I'll tell you where! IN HELL!Violation of Conversation on the Main Page, with some first-person troping to boot. The last bullet point doesn't sound that scary. - Roger. Especially his cheerful goodbye just before Critic blows himself up. Never let it be said that Orlando isn't good at acting scary.
- The Review Must Go On. Whether he was a hallucination or not, Critic learned something from Ask That Guy and acted threatening and confident instead of his usual lovable loser self, pressuring/stalking Doug into bringing him back, giving up Demo Reel and writing the nastiest ending for it possible.
- After everything he's said IRL about Accentuate the Negative, it's creepily surreal to watch Doug going crazy all on his own, screaming into his hand and flailing around at The Odd Life of Timothy Green. That it's followed by viewing Critic's shadow just around the corner signifies the Genre Shift.
- The Shout-Out to "Remember Me". Imagine you're Donnie, and everyone you know and care about is disappearing, and not only are the rest of your friends unconcerned, they don't think the other friends exist at all. Or one of them turning around and suddenly having a dinosaur head. The fact that he seems to realize he's on the road to becoming his mother makes it worse.
- Also, speaking of the Demo Reel characters, the way they're totally fine with being stuck in the Plot Hole forever, was a bit unsettling.
- Doug taking a load of tranquilizers just to get Critic out of his head isn't quite as funny as one of his characters doping up because of a bad movie.
- The whole idea of Doug being harassed by the Critic is pretty damn creepy when you think about it - an actor is being coerced by the character he plays!
- Crossing over with Tear Jerker for Donnie, but Critic's actual return. A Psychotic Smirk erases a scared Fish out of Water Donnie for good, stays there while he does his line, and a Dark Reprise of the song "The Review Must Go On" starts screaming on the soundtrack. Lampshaded by Lindsay when she starts boozing so hard at the situation that she falls over.
- The fact Douchey replaced Critic to run the plot hole. Just the fact "Douchey is now God" is terrifying enough.
- Doug's commentary, admitting that the special was actually nastier in his original draft, is a pretty chilling thought.
A big blob of poorly indented examples. Most of these seem OK, but need to be indented properly. The bit about Demo Reel characters being fine with staying in the Plot Hole is described as only "a bit unsettling". That last bullet point about how the original draft was nastier is speculation.''' - He gives an epic rant about how disgraceful Pearl Harbor is to the real event, ending it by shrieking "YOU SON OF A BITCH!" at a volume and pitch human speech was never meant to reach.
- In the joke about how Affleck's such an asshole he takes kids to a war zone, there's an awful shot of a crying girl with a good chunk of her arm gouged out. Yikes.
First bullet point doesn't describe anything scary, in fact it says it's "epic". Second bullet point sounds OK. - In the Son of the Mask the devil refuses the grant the Critic's request to be killed in order to relieve him of the suffering caused by the memory of watching the film. While such a decision is not surprising in an of itself it is remarked that "death" didn't work out so well for the Critic the last time implying that the Critic will never be permitted to die, no matter how great the suffering. Plus the sheer Kick Them While They Are Down-ness of it, as we all remember how Peaceful in Death he was when it happened in To Boldly Flee, and Doug was so proud of him in commentaries and cons for finally getting his "happy ending".'
- The Ominous Music Box Tune soundtrack playing over the scene doesn't help, nor does Critic's reaction to the begging getting refused.
- On a side note, how genuinely intimidating the Devil is. Awesome, and scary.
- Cuddly Big Good Santa Christ suddenly showing off a dark side, plus actually failing against something evil and being friends with the devil, is more than a little disheartening.
- When the Critic briefly contemplates showing the baby with Loki's face and the "Schwarzenegger-Baby from Junior" back-to-back, you know trouble is coming... and sure enough, he suffers a prolonged heart attack to the tune of a blaring klaxon and flashing red letters as he struggles to take his medication after seeing the results.
- And to make things worse, that image◊ was the TGWTG-paused screenshot on the commentary. For good reason, that video was at the bottom that day so people clicking on the site wouldn't be greeted with it first thing.
- And to make things worse, that image
- Incidentally, the same review also keeps coming back to how the movie itself is not only abrasive and not funny, but over-the-top, inappropriately nightmarish. (It keeps freeze-framing on particularly disturbing moments, like the eyeless dog or the baby with three penises, and makes them darkly hilarious by having "A Family Picture!" laid over the image.)
- Critic's demented faces when he tries to throw the movie. “From hell's heart, I... throw you the fuck out! Muahaha!”
- Hell. It would have been acceptable to just show fire, skulls and brimstone along with screaming, but Doug had to go one step further with naked tortured corpses hanging around everywhere and skinless minions.
Another bad indentation blob. Describing the Devil as "Awesome, and scary" is unnecessary, we want to focus on the "scary" and not the awesome. Santa Christ's dark side is "disheartening" which isn't scary. The bullet point about overlaying "A Family Picture!" over scary images describes itself as "darkly hilarious" and is more about the movie itself than the review this page is about.
edited 8th Jun '18 8:44:39 AM by Zuxtron
Some of those are genuinely scary in context and I’ll expand on the zero context ones.
A few of the examples seem Played for Laughs, which would disqualify them.
I mean it’s an Audience Reaction, so I assumed even if the intention was comedy and it came off bad-scary it was valid.
It could be, but I'm unsure of the exact requirements. Maybe Zuxtron has some ideas on what to do.
Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel
Something that's Played for Laughs CAN end up being Nightmare Fuel if the humor doesn't get through and it just ends up being scary (see Accidental Nightmare Fuel). After all, humor and horror are both subjective, and something that attempts to be one can become the other for some people.
But usually, if something that's played for laughs is on a nightmare fuel page, it's just someone shoehorning stuff in there to pad out the page, out of a mistaken belief that it makes the show look darker and cooler (it actually just makes us look like cowards).
What other entries do you think should be changed?
I’m working on it.
Ok. Thank you.
Noticed these entries on YMMV.Pop Quiz Hotshot and wasn't sure what to do with them.
" Evil Is Sexy: Critic from the reboot onwards. He's deranged with a hint of I Just Want to Have Friends woobie, and the Ho Yay is ramped up. And given that it's all improvised by Doug, the Ask That Guy reminder definitely does not hurt. Thirdly, the fact that he loves looking pretty in a tiara helps."
" Heartwarming in Hindsight: In the Star Wars edition, Critic loves Leia for being a diplomat and progressing roles for women. In the January 2017 women's march, Leia and Carrie Fisher were on a lot of protest signs."
" No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: Downplayed, as the badly-received pilot didn't do so well for CA's reputation, leading in retooling it into what a lot of people considered Growing the Beard, but as Fard said, “like, dislike, as long as you watch the video ;)”."
" Too Good to Last: Self imposed. People liked the post-pilot full of character fuel episodes, but it was always a show forced by Michaud, and so they put out the required episodes so not to be investigated and never did anymore."
The Protomen enhanced my life.
Are any of those really gushing? People did like it, think Critic was attractive and there were Leia signs at the protests, but it’s also talking about how it was Michaud-forced and gave bad publicity.
Friends forevermore
Shouldn't all these pages be at the "current" name Channel Awesome?
I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.
What should be done about the TearJerker.You Can Play This and the Heartwarming.You Can Play This pages, given what we now know about him puts many of the moments in an uncomfortable light?
Friends forevermore
As long as the examples are still valid after the allegations, they can remain.
The tributes to him by others that are linked on the page have been taken down by the creators, for what it's worth.
For reason the Harsher in Hindsight entry on Carmichael's history of abuse only links to a reddit thread, and never just says that he was accused of sexual assault. Why is this?
Friends forevermore
Because the person who wrote the example didn't know how to word it, most likely.
Any other suggestions regarding the Nostalgia Critic Nightmare Fuel Page?
edited 18th May '18 11:01:56 PM by FGHIK
I missed the part where that's my problem.