Accentuate the Negative: Probably the only one on Channel Awesome who used it as a character trait and a plot point. The Dark Nella Saga was partly about how fangirling is awesome and establishing that the Chick found being positive about something beneath her "level of academia." She slowly defrosted as the videos went on and could talk about things she liked in small doses — while still gagging on the words "nice" and "good".
Nostalgia Chick: You have a bird! You have twenty fucking birds! Doing the can-can! Is he really such a fucker that he won't give you a ride? ...apparently he is.
In her "Top Ten Disturbing and Inescapable Christmas Songs" video. Despite not liking most parodies of "The Twelve Days of Christmas," she did admit that The Phantom of the Opera version ("The Phantom gave to me... a mask") was kinda funny.
She can't help but giggle at the one Genre Savvy line ("Because we invaded their land and cut down their trees and dug up their earth?") in Pocahontas.
While she thinks 2ge+her, MTV's Affectionate Parody of '90s Boy Bands, often strayed a little too close to the source material they were parodying, she did think they were pretty funny at times.
The Chick never stopped mistreating people, Nella never stopped being an Extreme Doormat and Dr. Tease never started taking responsibility for her experiments. Of course, a Dysfunction Junction is much funnier than a group of sane, nice ladies.
A genre of the Disney sequels involve the characters or their children learning the exact same thing as they did in the first movie. The more blatant examples — specifically, the Beauty & the Beast midquels, have the Beast learning the same lesson multiple times throughout the film.
Her Heroic BSoD about how pathetic reviewing makes her life could be considered a funny nod to the Critic's BSOD about the same. While he angsted about it for the whole episode after and got a bone to get him out of his funk, hers was never brought up again.
Shreknot being like this (at least in her view) is what bothers her the most about the movie.
The whole Dark Nella Saga is basically a riff on X-Men's "Dark Phoenix" storyline.
The Alcoholic: The Chick drank whenever she got bored during a review.
All Men Are Perverts: Brian The Sexual Predator is a Black Comedy version, and all Dan (the forgotten roomie) thinks about is boobs.
All There in the Manual: On her formspring, Elisa answered a lot of questions about characters, influences and future plans. And her love of skulls.
The Scrabble game that the Chick and Nella play in the Grease 2 review is rather... one-track minded. Words on there include such lovelies as "rimjob," "ho" and "doing it."
Also in that review, the Chick is confused as to why the students are singing about reproduction when that's the most boring part of sex.
In the Teen Witch review, she gets embarrassed at a softcore make-out scene because she thinks she must have accidentally switched it to Cinemax again.
The Makeover Fairy is one. So is Dr. Tease, to a certain extent. The Chick herself has her moments, too.
Alternate Aesop Interpretation: In-universe, she sees The Christmas Shoes as a depressing tale about a little boy who can't come to grips with his mom dying, so he buries himself in the thought that shoes would matter.
Alternate History: Her theory for Bratz is that it took place in a world where Hitler won and everybody was segregated. Yes, she hated it that much.
The mother of Thumbelina lets her get into trouble because she's pissed that she only got a very tiny teenager as a daughter. And the bird is an asexual co-dependant who thrives on the relationship drama of others.
The plot of The Great Mouse Detective is Rattigan trying desperately to prove to Basil that he's moved on from their break-up.
Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars gets sexually aroused by doing evil things.
The Little Mermaid isn't a coming-of-age story; it's the story of an overprotective dad learning to let his daughter go.
Barbie has ADD because she goes through so many jobs.
Josef Grüll, the East German bobsledder and main antagonist of Cool Runnings is a direct descendant from Major Toht, the Nazi agent from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Nostalgia Chick:Pocahontas, who seems to be an expert at posing dramatically, doesn't seem to have any real ethnicity of which to speak. She doesn't look particularly Native American. Mostly, she just looks like a kind of a-ethnic mush of unparalleled hotness.
Nostalgia Chick: I'm not into the whole, like, homoeroticism and slash, well, Slash. I'm not into that, but this movie seems so homoerotic to me. Like, look at the way he stands, y'know, and he's so obsessed with Basil...
She also has this view on Starscream from Transformers and Scar from The Lion King. Her crossover episode with Rantasmo of Needs More Gay deals with the implications of Ambiguously Gay characters in Disney.
Jaquimo:Samson loved Delilah... Nostalgia Chick: That ended... kinda bad. Jaquimo:Romeo, et Juliet... oh, impossible! Nostalgia Chick: Al-so somewhat unfortunate...
She had her own on facebook. Doug asked the viewers who they thought TGWTG people would be if they were X-Men characters. She (in-character) responded that she'd be Mystique and Todd would be Nightcrawler, before realizing that's not a particularly good comparison to make.
Her Driven to Madness rant on Roland Emmerich rivals Critic's usages of this trope for effect and lack of sanity. Mostly for the Motor Mouth-ing and how she doesn't even pause at the right places.
One of the many things that piss her off about Belle in Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas. Instead of acting like someone who just lost everything, she's now walking wistfully around the castle and behaving like the Beast's life-coach. "Every time I try this on a damsel, it never pans out."
Chick: Wow, I sure do have a bad disposition. I think I need to be fixed. Todd:[tied up] You know, this didn't work the first five times you did this, Nostalgia Chick.
She also mentioned this in her The Little Mermaid review, claiming that Sebastian should have PTSD after his near-death in the kitchen, rather than just seeming "put-out" with Ariel afterwards.
Anguished Declaration of Love: From The Fifth Element review. "Alright, she has to beg him to say I love you, even though he's known her for like a day and a half, and he can't do it on his own, he has to do it when everyone's almost dead, just like a man."
Animal Wrongs Group: In the review of The Adventures of Milo and Otis, she spends a fair amount of time making sure people know the difference between PETA (who she calls as like being the slutty girl in drama class, always doing weird sexual shit for attention) and the guilds who do things humanely.
Animation Bump: If she's got absolutely nothing to praise about a movie, she'll at least mention if there's a pretty animated scene.
She called out the singers of "Do They Know It's Christmas Time" for being ridiculously condescending.
Nostalgia Chick: Okay guys, I get it. The hyperbole is a good way to get people's attention, but you don't think that just maybe referring to Africa as a famine-ravaged wasteland and consigning an entire continent to 'chimes of doom' might be a bit patronizing?
Chick: Y'know, let's go ahead and use the word honor no less than fifty times.
While Grease had at least a sort of "tee-hee sex" thing going on, Grease 2 makes it eye-rollingly obvious.
In Sarcasm Mode, she calls the "some war" subplot in Hair subtle while the movie focuses on a grave with the war imprinted right in the middle.
Applied Mathematics: The "women = evil" version pops up in "The Top Eleven Villainesses."
Arc Words: She was told by Nella in one episode and Dr. Tease in the following that she "has to embrace her inner fangirl." It turns out that while she didn''t (even though she really needed to), that was what defeated Dark Nella.
Her review of top movie villains included captions listing the various characters' prosecutable crimes. Amid such offenses as "Treason," "Manslaughter," "Conspiracy to Genocide" and the like are occasional mentions of "Littering" (discarding a bone from dinner) or "Animal Cruelty" (squashing bugs).
When she demonstrates how unsuitable George Carlin is for voicing a Disney character, the profane clips end up with him expressing his disgust for people named Todd.
Artifact Title: Her first username, The Dudette. She got that nickname when she first joined only because of her and Mike Ellis' identical last names and mutual love of The Big Lebowski. Despite a couple years in which her section in the members was labeled under that name, she hasn't been called The Dudette since she first joined the site. Later it was changed to "Team NChick" to more accurately preview what to expect in her section.
Artistic License – History: In her list of the Top Five Least Awful Disney Sequels. Anne Frank went to Belsen, not Auschwitz.
Artistic License – Physics: In the vlog for Super 8, Lindsay and Nella have no idea how a pick-up truck can survive crashing into a train while the train goes flying everywhere.
As Herself: Disregarding Vlogs and such, before "Playing God" where the Chick character cemented, Lindsay would do more the overview type videos (like The Smurfette Principle) as half the Chick when she wanted to be funny and bitchy and half putting that aside when she actually wanted to talk about real issues. She also did this at the end of her video about TLC, even taking her hair out the usual Girlish Pigtails.
She did her top ten list of Guilty Pleasure movies as herself.
It's easy for the viewer to tell who she's speaking as at any given moment thanks to theGirlish Pigtailsnote (and the bowtie, before she retired it). For example, it's Lindsay and Nella who are conducting the "50 Shades of Green" crowdsourced-writing venture.
As You Know: In the Ever After review, she reminds us why she likes to spy on Nella. For entertainment, naturally.
Does it three times while Lord MacGuffin goes on about Spice and the MacGuffin. She also does it in the Anastasia review when Rasputin tells her he "only wanted a Russia of flowers and rainbows and where children danced in lollipop fields".
In the Supergirl (1984) review, she fixes the camera with a hard glare after commenting on how "odd" the villain's quest to manipulate boy minds is.
She says Danny was "just a little rape-ish" in the Grease review. That phrase comes up again when Nella defends Kirk in their Star Trek battle.
She also had a huge twitter rant about how it gets used in YA novels to get the male and female lead together with no trauma.
Audience-Alienating Era: In-universe. She calls the mid-nineties era, the point where Disney was releasing a fuckton of -quels, a "dark, dark time" for the company.
Invoked. After the MacGuffin controversy following the Dune (1984) episode, Lord MacGuffin spent longer talking about what constitutes as one in the Chick's review of The Fifth Element.
They also did it for the Nella abuse. After people were Comically Missing the Point that it was all satire, Lindsay did a "Thanks For The Feedback" video explaining that the Chick has insanely low self-esteem and so Nella gets paid to be badly treated, therefore making the Chick feel good about herself. This resurfaces in a quick gag in the Disney sequels video, where it's implied that the Chick only has friends at all as long as the payments continue.
Having caught a load of flak for her comment about The Little Mermaid ("Ugh, I hate this film, 'I sold my soul for a vagina and a man I don't know!'"), when she comes to review it, the Chick's bashing of the movie is balanced by (almost) all the other women of TGWTG defending it. They're even holding an intervention to help her get over her hatred for it.
Nostalgia Chick: Wherever she is, it must be in the land of epic!
Bad "Bad Acting": The Chick uses her friends to act out scenes from Showgirls that she can't show directly. Granted, it's not much worse than the actual thing.
In the Freddy Got Fingered review, after Gordy spins a newborn by its umbilical cord, Oancitizen says "This has to be the second worst thing I've seen involving a newborn baby. The first is this" Cue Lindsay's doll thumping down the stairs instead of "NEWBORNPORN!" (if you're at work, keep your speakers down).
Chick: Hi, I'm your Nostalgia Chick, and I'm here to tell you the story of an incredibly high-maintenance girl, an incredibly dense guy and the secret to success in any relationship: I'm talking of course about makeovers.
Bears Are Bad News: In the Milo and Otis review, she plays the Japanese-only scene when the baby bear basically mauls the poor pug.
Her review of the 1994 film Reality Bites might be the angriest one she's ever done. She hated what she saw as its glorification of pretentious "rebels" who pointlessly hurt or patronize others just because they work for "The Man", calling it "a completely un-ironic, ninety-minute version of 'Threw It on the Ground'" and its protagonists a pair of spoiled brats and all-around awful people whose problems are mostly trivial in hindsight.
Chick: What I'm trying to say is, 1994, is that I respect that you made a movie about how being young and twentysomething in 1994 is hard. I have a hard time sympathizing with you, however, because EVERYTHING IS WORSE NOW!!!
She reuses the "Threw It on the Ground" comparison when discussing RENT. While not quite as vitriolic as the Reality Bites video, it's clear that she hates RENT for many of the same reasons, which are made that much worse by the fact that it takes place against the backdrop of the HIV/AIDS crisis of The '80s. She closes the video by juxtaposing images from RENT with a clip of LGBT rights activist Larry Kramer delivering a furious speech about the reaction to the epidemic.
9/11 conspiracy theorists. She even preemptively disabled the comments for her Loose Canon video on 9/11, stating that it was entirely because she didn't want "truthers" clogging the comments section, for the sake of her own sanity and to stop herself from descending into a Cluster F-Bomb. In the actual video, Lindsay takes several jabs at 9/11 conspiracy theorists, and looks like she's struggling to contain her anger when she first mentions the subject.
Lindsay: I don't know what your reaction is when the topic or image of 9/11 is mentioned. It could be grief, it could be indifference, it could be a... conviction that jet fuel can't melt steel beams, and if you're... anything like me, blinding, white-hot rage that that phrase is even still a thing that people... take seriously...
Big Applesauce: Being a New Yorker, she's always sure to point out when movies make the city far too clean.
Bigger on the Inside: The inside of that fridge is surprisingly spacious. The Chick has enough room to stretch out her arms during the review of Roland Emmerich's films. There's also room in there for Dr. Tease, who sneaks up on the Chick from offscreen while both are in the fridge.
Lindsay also got addicted to Jedward while in Ireland, and plans to ask for their songs to be played when she's next on Radio Dead Air. Nash's response was justified.
Chick: And this movie haaates the media. Kinda ironic considering what made the Spice Girls in the first place.
Bizarro Episode: In-universe — she sees Xanadu and Teen Witch as completely plotless messes.
Chick:[while trying to fend off the BLAM sound] No, no, stop it! That doesn't work! No, no, I said no! It doesn't work. The movie has to have some form of cohesion. In a movie where shit keeps happening and nobody ever mentions it again, it just doesn't work. ...kay? [The sound comes up again.] [Chick screams and flails.]
Black-and-Gray Morality: At one point there's a Story Arc about Nella turning evil and attacking the Nostalgia Chick. The trailer for this arc describes it as battle between evil (Dark Nella) and "slightly less evil" (N Chick).
She and Nella call it "Dead Bro Walking" in their X-Men: First Class review.
It pops up again for the Super 8 review, about the guy who survives the train crash, explains the danger to the kids and then gets shot by a white military dude.
The other roommate Tammy allays Nella and the Chick's fear that the Wii Fit involves physical exercise:
Nella: But it says "fit". Tammy: Oh no! That means... Food Is Tasty! Nella:[to camera] Food is tasty!
In the "Top Ten Hottest Animated Guys", Chick tries to assert that she likes "real men", not animated or weak ones. She cuts to Todd singing along to Katy Perry on his computer with junk food in his mouth, but we've known even before this that she has the hots for projects, making woobies even woobier and submissive guys/sex bots she can control.
Bloodless Carnage: When a guy dies in Pocahontas, she's horribly confused that he just seems to get shot in the spirit.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: Word of God states that the Makeover Fairy and Dr. Tease aren't so much evil, they just have different priorities than normal people.
Blunder-Correcting Impulse: She convinces Todd in the Shadows to review Crossroads with her by playing "I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman" sufficiently badly on his piano that he steps in to play it correctly.
Of course it isn't just the boys who have been subjected to this; Dark Nella tied the Makeover Fairy up in the bathtub to torture her (i.e scrub off her make-up), she herself got chloroformed by the Chick and wrapped up with toilet paper, and bound the Chick's hands with a bowtie when taking over the show to bash TRON.
A Boy and His X: Lindsay's a big fan of the genre (even though her character isn't) and would have just rather Super 8 been about that instead of a monster, an army and kids with daddy issues.
On Pocahontas: "Her design was based off the looks of models like Naomi Campbell, Christie Turlington, Barbie... and Janice from The Muppets."
In the Teen Witch review, when trying to give advice to the lead with better ways to use her magic: "Help the less fortunate? Give the homeless a new lease on life? Get Reagan impeached?"
In the "Top Ten Worst Disney Sequels", she lists all the actresses 2002-era Disney could afford. Most of them are the normal interchangeable generic stars, but Your Mom and "Bea Arthur" are in there too.
During her review of Anastasia, people who have been portrayed in the movie keep bugging her about their characterization problems.
Inverted in her review of Hercules. She tearfully asks why nobody is listening to her after she demands the movie to explain its invokedFridge Logic problems.
Brick Joke: Tammy hanging upside down in the Hercules review is referred to at the end of the third "Thanks For The Feedback".
Broken Aesop: Part of her problem with The Lorax (2012): the trees are all dead and people have to buy clean air, but the town Ted lives in seems to look and operate fine anyway. As a result, the message winds up being less about the importance of sustainability and more a combination of "trees are awesome (for some reason)!" and "I hate having to pay for stuff."
Nostalgia Chick: And then he gnaws his way through China like a spiteful... gnawing... thing. Nostalgia Chick: Flynn admitted accomplishes little on his adventure besides assaulting and murdering a program and absorbing his...'program-ness'? Nostalgia Chick:Nora Efron's New York isn't very... New Yorky. Nostalgia Chick: Movies work differently from television. The stakes are...stakier. Nostalgia Chick: Use your—smart-mouth-words.
Call-Back: Her "NChick Labs" segment is full of these, referencing the Makeover Fairy, the scientists, Lord MacGuffin, and the confusion about MacGuffins. Also, "We, Fit" calls back to the Hercules review.
In her Kate & Leopold review, smitten over Hugh Jackman, she sensually unwraps a stick of butter over the sounds of David Bowie's "Space Oddity," just like she did with a banana in her Labyrinth review.
There's also a Call-Back to The Nostalgia Critic's Independence Day review, where he fawns over a hot man and then shouts "Boobs! You like boobs!" in a pained way. This time it's even less convincing.
Way back in the Teen Witch review, she says "Godlike powers are fun and all, but only when you use them on the things that truly matter" and sarcastically agrees with the movie's message of it's all about boys. In Playing God, it turns out that she and Dr. Tease did in fact play God to make herself a robot Sex Slave.
She pops up in Todd in the Shadows's review of "E.T." to first insult his taste in music and then to hit on him again. (She appears in many of his videos to be rejected afterwards)
She does the "forget about it" thing while playing with her puppy in Sad Panda's "Forget About It: Resident Evil".
Elisa dresses up like a Misfit for Benzaie's "Top Five Murder Attempts in Jem and the Holograms".
They also appear as their scientist personas to explain "Gold Fever" to The Nostalgia Critic in his "Raiders Of The Lost Arc: DuckTales".
Some episodes have plenty of cameos from other people (such as Les Miserables, Grease, The Little Mermaid, Kate & Leopold, What Women Want and the TLC and Roland Emmerich episodes).
Canon Defilement: In-universe, this is what she thinks Enchanted Christmas did to the original Beauty and the Beast. She likens to it to a clammy uncle touching you in places you'd rather not be touched right now and calls it "worse than seven holocausts".
Canon Discontinuity: The "White Rapping" episode of Thanks for the Feedback.
Can't Hold His Liquor: Before the "Hercules Drinking Game", Nella declares that she has "two hollow legs" and is in no danger of getting inebriated. By the end of the game, everybody is out cold, which leads to hilarity ensuing the next morning.
She likens them to those groups of bitchy girls at the office who talk about you behind your back.
Invoked during her "Songs About Fucking" review, when discussing how a kitten called Otto deleted the original score to "Love Never Dies". A photo of a kitten pops up, accompanied by a tiny evil giggle.
In the Chick's review of Showgirls, Nella sings a song about the movie and mentions "Chekhov's Stairs that have been there since act 1."
The mayonnaise that Lord MacGuffin is seen injecting with plot-devices is later used as... a plot device. Specifically a portal. It also brings Lord MacGuffin Back from the Dead.
Chick calls attention to how badly set up the bull in the field was in Song of the South.
Chewing the Scenery: The ladies can chew with the best of them, especially Nella and especially when she's evil, but the Chick will point it out any time an actor does it.
Chick Flick: She has a whole month of Meg Ryan movies to prove to the Makeover Fairy that she's girly enough to stomach them. She manages two and then craves some Transformers.
The title card for the "Top Ten Hottest Animated Men" shows the very pleased Chick getting a show from shirtless Nightcrawler, Megamind, the Beast and... Hades.
In his song for The Worst Witch review, the Critic asks why bother dressing up like a Spartan warrior when you can have a better time at a Chippendale bar.
Color Wash: X-Men The Animated Series is reviewed with a muted color panel...until Dr. Tease gives the Chick some Truth Serum and everything becomes colorful and perky.
In-universe and defied. She's put her foot down about never doing Sailor Moon because she didn't grow up with it, says she wouldn't do it justice and hates it so much "I now hate sushi by cultural association."
Justified with her Jem review, which she has admitted was done only because she felt pressured by it's 'girly nostalgia', despite the fact she was not a fan nor ever watched the show as a kid.
Complexity Addiction: Lampshaded in a blacker way than most when a guy in Showgirls worries about his girlfriend being pregnant.
Chick: Why not just push her down the stairs and hope for the best?
Cosmic Deadline: Discussed by The Chick and Nella when they are talking about X-Men: First Class, concluding that much of the conflict that was slowly building up throughout the film was rushed into the open in a heavy-handed way as the ending approached.
The Cover Changes the Meaning: She slowed down the voices of Alvin and the Chipmunks' "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)" and added creepy images (including her silently going insane) to show how it could be considered incredibly disturbing.
Not even Nella is safe, as she collapses from roofies in NChick Labs and gets descended upon by Makeover Fairy getting out her lipstick, Lord MacGuffin injecting her with his namesake, and Brian undoing his belt.
She says "High school, Grease? Really?" There's a quick montage of the cast's ages at the time, none under 25. Same thing goes for Grease 2, although she's still grossed out by the "student" asking the teacher for a lay.
Death Glare: Nella does it a few times to the Chick in the Grease 2 review. The Chick herself is also good at shooting them, to Nella and Critic especially. Guess who are the ones withering?
Description Cut: She describes Hugh "Wolverine" Jackman as one of the manliest men in Hollywood. Cut to a montage of Jackman from his very, very unmasculine Broadway career.
She points out that Hercules's "I Want" Song is about being adulated rather than helping people, he welshed out on the deal at the end and that Zeus is just insufferable.
A reason why she dislikes the Disney Peter Pan so much is that the titular character's dickery is meant to be charming.
She's also pissed off at the Lorax turning from a benign pleader to an attempted murderer.
Reality Bites has her analyze the trope. She states the characters are well written and given good depth, but its how the film frames their actions. She says that Troy is as morally bankrupt as Daniel Plainview, but the film expects the audience to like and root for his Cool People Rebel Against Authority and unpleasant attitude.
Pointed out in places such as her reviews of both Pocahontas and Hercules, for history and myth, respectively.
Nostalgia Chick: What's more American than sanitizing your own history to the point where it's no longer recognizable? Puppies!.
In the "Top Five Least Worst Disney Sequels", she makes her own kiddified Anne Frank story where there's musical numbers and Everybody LivesHappily Ever After. So if the next few generations see that movie onscreen, they'll know who to blame.
Disney Princess: Did an episode on their marketing and trends. (And their horrendous song.)
Disney Villain Death: In her "Top Ten Disney Deaths", she advises the villains to stop having fights on high places as it never works out for them.
The Chick breaks into Spoony's house, stuns him in the jaw and ties him up all because he likes Dune (1984).
Her way of dealing with the Critic annoying her is to chloroform him with a delightfully rapey smile on her face and likewise, he returns the favor by locking her in his basement and making her review Bratz. (True, it was a kinda sweet Secret Test of Character, but still... harsh.)
When it comes to David Bowie's PACKAGE, The Chick just can't help going off-track.
In the middle of her Matilda review, while Nella tries to convince The Nostalgia Chick and Mara Wilson to join forces instead of fighting each other, she gets distracted by Mara's breasts and tries to touch them.
Nostalgia Chick: And for the rest of the movie, we pretty much go in circles of capture. He-Man gets captured, He-Man escapes, He-Man gets captured, He-Man escapes, and our new wacky rebel friends have wacky adventures trying to bust him out.
In-universe, Critic, Spoony, Todd and SadPanda have all had their turn because of the Chick. Their fangirls are grateful.
One of the worst things about Ariel is that she's dumb even for a teenager.
Does This Remind You of Anything?: Chick and Critic might have been talking about the former was brought in to do girly stuff and stopped doing it, but the undertones sounded an awful lot like two people trying really hard to not discuss an issue-laden break-up.
Less woobie and more like the usual use of the trope, but Lindsay and Nella getting hit with sausages and showered with mayonnaise during their Madness Montage that was courtesy of Freddy Got Fingered.
Domestic Abuse: Played for dark laughs when Brian The Sexual Predator was beating on Nella during the "Top Ten Disturbing And Inescapable Christmas Songs".
Don't Explain the Joke: In her Cool Runnings review, where after a line, she quickly notes "that was a joke, I do that". Justified, as she's a big victim of that whole "women aren't supposed to be funny" thing.
Don't Think, Feel: Pocahontas doing this to explain how the language barrier gets sorted confuses her greatly.
Double Standard: When The Nostalgia Critic made an autism joke in his review of Ernest Saves Christmas, people got so angry he had to make a special video with him apologising. Nostalgia Chick made an autism joke (as well as a Holocaust joke and a rape/incest/pedophilia joke) in her review of Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, yet there wasn't any discontent.
In the 2013 Donation Drive, Doug got asked "is Korra a redeemable character?", and Lindsay brought up that nobody would be asking that if the character were male. She got shot down by Doug, but still.
Draco in Leather Pants: invoked Discussed in her video on The Mortal Instruments and her video on Starscream. In the former she talks about what the character ends up as: a dashing, brooding, bad boy. In the latter she talks about the trope itself, in that fans downplay the characters villainy and make him more sympathetic than he actually is.
Dramatic Thunder: Every time she says..."virgin" [CRACK!] in her Hocus Pocus review. Towards the end, she's just doing it for the hell of it.
Dueling Works: invoked Discussed in "DreamWorks vs. Disney", even though she (probably intentionally) gets a lot of the dates wrong.
Nostalgia Chick: Funny thing is, they [Dreamworks] never seem to have much interest in Pixar, save for perhaps how they can steal business from them that makes movies suspiciously like... [Shark Tale pops up to freak her out]
Summed up in her review of Thumbelina, where the despairing heroine is surprised to find her prince Cornelius alive and well - "Things are impossible! Things are... oh! Hi dead boyfriend! Thanks for coming along and proving my pessimism wrong and not making me work for that happy ending!"
Also referred to in the "Top Five Least Awful Disney Sequels", where she says that Cinderella 3 is a better story than the first film, because Cinderella has to take action herself to overcome her problems and reach a happy ending. She also gives quite a line about how she feels the original film did not do this.
Nostalgia Chick:Cinderella has the morality tale nutritional value equivalent of Fruit Loops. It is the revenge fantasy where you show up to your high school reunion in a white limo and 40 pounds lighter wearing furs, all under the guise of innocence and martyrdom.
Early-Installment Weirdness: It took a few years for her to settle on a look for the Chick. First came the novelty bowtie and the glasses (which Lindsay doesn't need). The L.A. years saw her playing around with heavy eye makeup. Nowadays, Lindsey goes the opposite route by using concealer to make the Chick seem prepubescent, pasty, and borderline creepy.
She comments on how quick and painless the one line is of Sarah forgiving Hoggle for giving her the drugged peach.
When Cinderella happily gives Anastasia some advice in Cinderella II, the Chick plays the scene where the sisters are ripping her dress to shreds.
Eats Babies: She requests that the witches in Hocus Pocus not refer to the child as a snack.
Chick: Please don't act like the child is an hors d'oeuvre, I'm pretty sure that's illegal in most states.
Either/Or Title: used in "Disaster Movies of Roland Emmerich".
Electrified Bathtub: To parody What Women Want, she throws a PS3 controller into a bath full of men's stuff, gets electrocuted but doesn't die, and gains the power to read guy minds.
Her in-universe view on She's All That. That bully guy will never hear again and the tepid puddle of a relationship between the two leads won't last.
Comes up again in The Fox and the HoundLighter and Softer midquel. Aww, how fun, a happy ending where they've got crickets to chase. ...wait, they're still babies, they're still going to be torn apart soon. Damnit.
invokedHades was the best character in Hercules by far to her, as was Ursula in the The Little Mermaid. Magneto in X-Men was "the fucking BOMB!"
In her review of Matilda she notes she feels Dahl wasn't fair to Ms. Trunchbull, because she's a complete badass — she's an athlete at the peak of physical strength, she never married or had kids, she's a home owner and a business owner, and she interprets the idea that the Trunchbull claims she was never a child as evidence of a Freudian Excuse, being mature for her age and thus mocked and ridiculed by kids, which is why she hates them.
Directly pointed out in the Dark Nella trailer. (Nostalgia Chick being the slightly less evil)
More like "fucked up" versus "fucked up", but Lindsay and Doug seem to have made sure that Chick and Critic would never able to gain the moral high ground with each other if they tried. She chloroforms him and gets into his personal space when he's unconscious? Well he thought the best way to boost her self-image would be to kidnap her and make her watch Bratz. He laughs at fictional puppies nearly dying? She thinks witches have a point when they say kids should be murdered because they smell bad. She kept trying to kill him in Kickassia so she could have power? He was willing to commit mass murder-suicide to keep said power. He gets gleeful about the prospect of her hating something in Moulin Rouge! and keeps prodding until she snaps? She was turned on by him getting upset and uncomfortable by liking something earlier. And so on and so forth.
Excuse Plot: She says that the main "plot" in Grease was just to facilitate cool dance numbers.
invoked She's willing to admit that creative thought probably wasn't allowed in the Disney sequels, but she's still going to tear them apart.
In-universe: played for laughs and subverted. Her boss, the Nostalgia Critic, calls Chick out for getting out of her original role and reviewing media not meant for a female audience. She goes ahead and reviews what she wants anyway, much to his chagrin.
Discussed and invoked in her review of the Disney short Der Fuehrer's Face. She notes that the Disney propaganda pieces of World War II seem much more mindful of their greater cultural implications than their Warner Brothers counterparts, and while they're still kinda offensive, they seem to be greatly toned down and more humanizing than other propaganda pieces of the time.
In Song of the South, a caption states confusion as to why the crows in Dumbo were hated so much, as they really weren't that bad.
Fake Brit: invoked The lead in Grease 2. She has to keep correcting herself when she calls him Australian instead.
Parodied in-universe with Nella and Nostalgia Chick's "Kirk vs. Picard" debate.
Also parodied at the start of The Chipmunk Adventure crossover, where both Critic and Chick are hiding from their crazy fans and end up arguing about who has the craziest fans.
Neither Lindsay nor Elisa are shy about showing off their cleavage. Elisa wears corsets as Maven of the Eventide (and a leather catsuit for the Underworld review), and Lindsay as the Chick often wears low-cut tops. In her first review (Pocahontas) she wore a shirt with a low neckline (although Lindsay's retrospective commentary on her first review includes some snarking at herself for showing off so much).
More equal opportunity stuff in The Chipmunk Adventure review. Chick gives us a flash of her censored breasts, and Critic naturally has a Shirtless Scene.
On Pocahontas, when talking about Meeko vs. Percy personifying the two sides of the fighting: "...right down to when they stole our bowl of cherries! Those red-skin bastards!"
When The Makeover Fairy's make-up gets scraped off, she hides her face with a paper bag and cries that she wants to hide her flaws. We see her in the next episode and she doesn't look any different.
Chick and Maven both rewind any shirtless scene or crotch shot from Will Smith.
Female Misogynist: Discussed quite a bit in the "Dear Stephenie Meyer" video where she points out that many Twilight detractors were other young women and how society and culture (and the Girl-Show Ghetto) play into it, and moreover, a "strong female character" that's written to be as "un-girly" as possible can be just as sexist as a Damsel in Distress.
Lindsay: [As a] culture, we kinda hate teenage girls. We hate their music (shows a One Direction music video), we hate their insipid backstabbing, we hate their vanity, we hate their selfie sticks, we hate their make-up, we hate their stupid books and the stupid sexy actors they made famous and their stupid sparkly vampires, and then we wonder why so many girls are eager to distance themselves from being objects of societal contempt.
Points out that Ever After is basically just a feminist retelling of "Cinderella".
She also deconstructs this a bit in the "Dear Stephenie Meyer" video, where she makes it a point to illustrate that many so-called "strong female role models" can have many elements of internalized misogyny in them as well.
First Installment Wins: In-universe. Naturally she likes most of the original Disney movies compared to their sequels, but she also has to admit The Little Mermaid is much better than its successor.
Fisher King: She lampshades how ridiculous it is for Scar in The Lion King to cause a drought so quickly.
She criticizes Don Bluth when he tried to imitate Disney with Thumbelina and Anastasia.
On one of her most hated movies:
Chick: All The Little Mermaid did was put that godforsaken Disney musical 90s formula in place.
She gets annoyed by how the "Cinderella" story gets told over and over and over...
When talking about DreamWorks:
Chick: Think about it! Aladdin is the proto-typical DreamWorks movie. Family films got a good case of distinctive voice actor-itis after this.
Discussed in Lindsay and Nella's vlog of The Hunger Games, where they concede that the concept is similar to Battle Royale, but the two franchises are saying completely different things about in society.
On the subject of reviews, when people ask Lindsay for advice on how to get in the business, she tells them to not act like Doug because the "angry reviewer" shtick has got stale and he's one of the few who can make his character's temper look genuine.
She says the scene in "Enchanted Christmas" where the Beast nearly destroys the rose is completely pointless if you saw the original's ending.
She also said that the romantic story in Titanic needed to happen because everyone knew what was going to happen to the ship.
In the episode "Top Ten Boy Bands of the '90s", she remarks about this when she reaches #2.
Nostalgia Chick: There's only twoleft. It's just like TRL again. Let's take a look outside, shall we? [Chick looks outside; Stock Footage of squeeing crowds outside the MTV Studio holding giant *NSYNC signs] Nostalgia Chick: Yup.
Her Xanadu review mentions her love for aliens and robots and has her finally getting pissed off with just doing girly shit. The next episode was a four part arc, starting with The Transformers: The Movie and the Critic yelling at her for going into his territory.
"Inside the NChick Labs", with Nella's lessons in identifying evil:
Brian: Why do we need to know this? Nella: ...Oh, you'll see.
In "Kirk vs. Picard", Nella says Squee gives fangirls power. Squee is what defeats Dark Nella.
In the *NSYNC Christmas album review, she gets in her car and the radio turns on, leading to her screaming in terror when "The Christmas Shoes" starts playing. Guess what she reviews the next week?
At the end of What Women Want, she snorts at the idea of treating men with respect and less objectification. The next week, she makes a list of the "Top Ten Hottest Animated Guys".
There'll be usually some hint as to what the following review will be on her twitter, you just have to guess.
Showgirls taught her that the person you raped probably would have wanted to put out anyway. Add in some Sanity Slippage and we're betting Todd is cursing that movie.
Forgotten Fallen Friend: "Rest in peace, y'all get a hat. With a candle on it. Now to go off and develop a million more characters!"
The NChick shorts. They're still in-character and funny, but they're less cynical comedy and more bringing attention to some really influential early animation.
"Thanks For The Feedback", where there's no review and it's looking at the characters "behind the scenes".
City of Angels and You've Got Mail were both a bit like her version of the Critic's "Old vs New", with her comparing the movies to the ones they were based off.
"Nostalgic Baby Dolls" looked at dolls marketed at girls, in a way that was filled with literal Dead Baby Comedy.
Lindsay: ...There have been lots of studies done on the idea that when a guy says he "wants a girl with a sense of humor", he means he "wants a girl who thinks I'M funny".
Chick: Uncle Remus has probably seen children, loved ones sold down the river. Slaves in practice if not in name. [sings happily] ...zippedy-do-dah-zippedy-dee-day.
In Top Ten Viral Videos from the Ancient Internet (aka Before YouTube) she realizes that it's never clarified whether the numbers in "Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me" are supposed to be partners or encounters.
Chick:[on a girl bunny with 1718 on her] Good lord, lady. Hope it's the latter.
In the review concerning Divergent and other such YA movies, she unintentionally mispronounces "City of Bones" as "City of Boners".
Another instance using the word "boner": the "Labyrinth" trailer starts with the Chick saying "I think everyone probably remembers their first bone—Bowie."
Chick: It gets even worse in 2012 when we find that the earth or at the part under California like one of those hollow Nestle milk balls, California's just disintegrating into the nothing f-falling into- the world isn't hollow b-but here is why The Day After Tomorrow was the worst offender see 2012 is really stupid in broad strokes the stupidest. It tries to back itself up with the science but really no it's just stupid at the same time it's just- it's not even trying to be... anything other than... idiotic see the wonderful thing... about this movie... is that we now know that buildings cannot stay standing with giant gaping holes in them what did Godzilla just... did he knock... did he knock a hole through the met-life building and then daintily stepped through it? Doesn't- doesn't make sense that it's just a hole it it it should just be gone. And in Godzilla the-there are little frustrating things that I think are meant to be like comic relief moments, trying to make fun of New Yorkers thinking they know everything. And I'm thinking where the hell are they trying to get to that they're trying to give directions in the first place isn't their objective here to just not die? Where are they trying to get the Frenchman. Then the stupidest thing happens. There are three suspension bridges closer to the Brooklyn bridge and that brings us full-circle what suspension bridge is a non New Yorker most likely to have heard of? The Brooklyn bridge! They didn't even need that line to piss me off! And I don't need to be thinking that he could be going to the 59th street bridge which is in fact much closer and much bigger and more practical for catching Godzillas! [whimpers] And that tsunami? That results from the ocean current? And the split from California isn't happening where the fault line is in the San Andreas mountains it's happening in the city where the people are cos we need to end act one in LA and the Atlantic current causes tornadoes on the complete other side of the country? Whether patterns in LA come from the pacific ocean and it's surrounded by mountains on all sides. And- and the lady survives the helicopter crash and yet there are no charred bodies scattered around the streets never once does the child have to behold the remains of the horrified- how did he catch Godzilla with that little fishing lure from so far away?! And the Russian ship makes it all the way down 5th Avenue a-and the end of the movies the wolves thrown in there for good measure chasing Donnie Darko. Wolves that are set up two shots from an hour earlier! Is this the dumbest dog in America? He's just standing there! People running, screaming dying all around him does he just want an easy death?
She does this in a slightly saner way in her review of Pocahontas, asking questions like, "Why are there moose in Southeast Virginia?", "Why doesn't listening to your heart bridge language gaps anymore?", and so on.
Friendship Moment: They're rare, but they do happen, like Nella and Elisa just wanting the Chick to not be lonely anymore (even if there is an ulterior motive) or the Chick showing affection for Nella's Womanchild-ness.
From Bad to Worse: At least before Nella was getting paid to put up with abuse. According to Sister Act though, she's now having to do it for free. Only good news is that she's trying to complain about it.
The Chick's obsession with Todd is a gloriously funny trainwreck. Just when you think she can't make herself look any crazier, she goes to a new low.
Not just with Chick. It's great fun to see just how much more dysfunctional this whole set-up and characters can get.