History YMMV / EpicRapBattlesOfHistory

** Most of Clint Eastwood's lines are racist insults, and the rest make fun of both Bruce Lee's and his son's respective deaths. Given the nature of the series, though, many viewers love Clint's verses for their sheer brutality.
** Voltaire rhyming Frank with Frank is painful but doing it four times straight is hilarious.

** In "Wolverine vs Freddy Krueger":
--->''I ain't got time for this, I'm saving the world\\
What qualities do you bring?\\
Just a pedophile from the midwest.\\
At least Music/RKelly could sing!''

** Frank Sinatra is often felt to be wasted in his battle against Freddie Mercury, with fans believing the battle is too focused on hyping up Mercury, with Mercury's disses against Sinatra being generic and Sinatra's accomplishments going unmentioned. His portrayal is pretty barebones aesthetically too.

** The whole existence of Albert Einstein vs Stephen Hawking can be this by the very fact that Hawking ended up dying on Einstein’s birthday, at the same age as him, [[ContrivedCoincidence and all of this on the Pi day.]]

** ''Mansa Musa vs Jeff Bezos'' clearly portrays the latter in a worse light than the former, even having Bezos boast about his own misdeeds while neither he nor his opponent mention Musa's (aside from him accidentally killing his mom). Musa even accuses Bezos of being a bad person for somehow widening income inequality as a contrast to his own generosity, which is apparently supposed to taken as a justified statement on his part given that Bezos has no retort. This is despite the fact that Musa was a literal slaver and despot (he personally owned so many slaves that over 12,000 of them accompanied him on his pilgrimage) while the worst things Bezos has ever been accused of are dodging taxes and paying below-average wages to some of his workers. Musa also brags about his philanthropy, and Bezos never bothers to retort by citing the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos#Philanthropy billions he's also given to charity]]. Bezos has certainly committed questionable actions more than deserving of criticism and mockery, but the battle frames him an extra unflattering light compared to his opponent, who was a worse person by pretty much objective every metric, and most egregiously has Bezos himself go along with his opponent's criticisms in a borderline CardCarryingVillain fashion (he outright compares himself to ''Sauron''). This is almost certainly down to Bezos being an important figure of the present while anyone Musa wronged died nearly a millennium ago.

** Pretty much everyone universally agrees that UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan was utterly wasted against [[JokeCharacter the Easter Bunny]] and that he should have went against UsefulNotes/AttilaTheHun instead.

** Quite a lot of people felt that Bruce Banner/The Hulk should have went against [[Literature/TheStrangeCaseOfDrJekyllAndMrHyde Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde]] instead of Jenner. The Hulk’s lack of screen time didn’t help manners.
** [[spoiler:Pompey the Great]], who only got ''one sentence'' before being unceremoniously [[spoiler:killed off by Catherine the Great]]..

** Both Cleopatra and Marilyn Monroe feel underutilised in their rap battle because both spend the majority of it either insulting the other's appearance, recounting their sexual histories, or finding ways to call the other a slut. Both women achieved phenomenal things during their lifetimes and yet apart from a few references to Marilyn Monroe's movies, all of it gets glossed over for an ultimately quite petty CatFight. Thankfully this seems to be a case of EarlyInstallmentWeirdness compared to later female rappers such as Joan of Arc, Julia Child, and Catherine the Great.
** While seeing [[spoiler:Bill Cosby get [[HoistByHisOwnPetard a taste of his own medicine]] for being a convicted rapist]] is pretty satisfying, some people still lamented that he only got two real lines in, especially since the rest of his "verse" takes up quite a bit of time in the battle without referencing any of the man's former legacy.

* AlasPoorScrappy: While seeing [[spoiler:Bill Cosby get [[HoistByHisOwnPetard a taste of his own medicine]] for being a convicted rapist]] is pretty satisfying, some people still lamented that he only got two real lines in, especially since the rest of his "verse" takes up quite a bit of time in the battle without referencing any of the man's former legacy.

** Both Cleopatra and Marilyn Monroe feel underutilised in their rap battle because both spend the majority of it either insulting the other's appearance, recounting their sexual histories, or finding ways to call the other a slut. Both women achieved phenomenal things during their lifetimes and yet apart from a few references to Marilyn Monroe's movies, all of it gets glossed over for a ultimately quite petty CatFight. Thankfully this seems to be a case of EarlyInstallmentWeirdness compared to later female rappers such as Joan of Arc, Julia Child, and Catherine the Great.

** One of the most infamous examples of this is by far "Donald Trump vs Ebenezer Scrooge" as the battle was extremely clearly made back when Donald Trump was just seen as a tycoon and TV personality and not the 45th President of the United States of America. It's especially sent into this territory by the appearance of Kanye West, who would later on express support for Trump's political career and even float the idea of running for president himself.

** A meta example happened with "Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden". The match-up may have been made with the 2020 election in mind, as was the case with episodes made for past presidential elections, but the match-up was actually suggested in the Youtube comments 7 years prior, 1 year into Obama's second term and before Trump decided to officially run for President.

* WTHCastingAgency: Fan reaction to Lloyd's portrayal of Thanos has been mixed, to say the least. While his voice and delivery are just fine, fans complained that he's too short and not muscular enough to convincingly play the role, and had to rely too much on a not-terribly-convincing costume to sell the effect. Fans wondered why they couldn't just dub Lloyd's voice over an actor who looks more like the character, or just put Lloyd in makeup since he already sports the bald head and jawline for the part.

* CondemnedByHistory: Due to how long that channel has been going on, it's clear some battles were going to fall into this eventually.
** "Sarah Palin Vs Lady Gaga", the fusion of Palin's shrill voice and Lady Gaga's offensive portrayal as a trasvetite woman (a rumor that has now been very much debunked) has not made this a battle to come back to. Even without this, fans point out how the raps are one of the worst.
** While "Cleopatra vs. Marilyn Monroe" is still fairly beloved, the infamous 'Miss Carriage' line is more likely to be called 'overrated' and/or 'amoral'. Plus people are getting annoyed at how no one seemed to give [[UnpopularPopularCharacter Marilyn]] a chance.

** While "Cleopatra vs. Marilyn Monroe" is still fairly beloved, the infamous 'Miss Carriage' line is more likely to be called 'overrated' and/or [[DudeNotFunny 'amoral']]. Plus people are getting annoyed at how no one seemed to give [[UnpopularPopularCharacter Marilyn]] a chance.
* CreatorsPet: There have been cases where people have noticed that the writers stood in favor of one of the participants in a battle.
** Caitlyn Jenner in her battle against Bruce Banner was widely seen as this. The video was uploaded during LGBTQ pride month, probably motivating the creators' decision to give Jenner one of the longest verses in any battle, and it became obvious that they intended her to "win". Fans commented on how unfair the battle was, and as a result, it is considered one of their worst rap battles to date. Oh, and to add salt to the wound, most fans still consider Banner the winner of the battle despite the fact that he doesn't get nearly as many lines as Jenner.
** Frederick Douglass's battle is noticeably geared in his favor. While Thomas Jefferson gets in his fair share of burns and boasts, after Douglas goes into explicit detail about Jefferson's history of owning slaves, he spends his entire second verse defending himself without insulting Douglas. While not without its detractors, this politically influenced battle was far better received than Jenner vs Banner, as Jefferson has become an {{Acceptable Target|s}} and he did have some genuinely good lines in his first verse while bragging about his achievements (and still a couple good ones even with his "apology" verse).

** Was Hulk Hogan's "back to Beijing" quip really made out of ignorance, as Kim Jong-il assumed? Or was it a StealthInsult, subtly implying that Kim was a puppet of the Chinese government and/or needed China to back him up?

** "Your pink slime meat turned my asshole to a drive-thru": is this a joke about diarrhea, or given that drive-throughs are long and slow, constipation?

* UnacceptableTargets:
** Mr. Rogers, as Mr. T found out the hard way from the internet.
** This was the reason the series was hesitant for a long time to use Steve Irwin.

* AcceptableTargets:
** In the very first battle we have Bill O'Reilly coming out and admitting that he's so evil, his heart is blacker than Creator/DonCheadle.
** Two consecutive battles near the start of Season 1 threw in disses towards John [=McCain=], including ''Abraham Lincoln'', the most famous Republican in American history, citing a vote for him as a ''bad'' thing. However, years later Joe Biden [[ThrowTheDogABone throws the dog a bone]] by calling Trump out for dissing him and fallen Marines.
** UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler is one of the only characters to have something horrible happen to him at the end of the video. ''Three times.'' Whether or not you think he raps better than Vader, he's Adolf Hitler and Vader is allowed to kill him at the end of every video because ''he's that evil.''
** Public opinions on UsefulNotes/ThomasJefferson and UsefulNotes/ThomasEdison have both taken a beating since people have become more and more aware of their uglier actions and choices (though many historians disagree with the way these two have been presented in popular culture lately, with many still defending their reputations). Both were given opponents designed to knock them down a peg. While Edison vs Tesla started out fairly egalitarian until Tesla eviscerates him in the last stanza, Jefferson vs Frederick Douglass is an utter bloodbath. Jefferson is forced to use his entire second verse to answer Douglass about his participation in slavery. It may be worth noting that ''Theatre/{{Hamilton}}'', the cultural phenomenon also involving history and rap music, criticizes Jefferson very harshly on the same subject.
** UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump gets ''torn to shreds'' in his rap battle against Hillary Clinton, with the worst of it coming from what ''he himself'' is made to say. His next battle isn't quite as hard on him, but his portrayal is still decidedly unfavorable.
** [[spoiler:Creator/BillCosby]], having recently been sent to prison after dozens of rape accusations, spends most of his appearance unconscious after being roofied himself by [[spoiler:Creator/JoanRivers]]. [[spoiler:Rivers]] proceeds to eviscerate [[spoiler:Cosby]]. When he wakes up later in the battle, [[spoiler:Rivers]] just wacks him on the head to knock him out again. When [[spoiler:Creator/RobinWilliams]] shows up, he makes absolutely no acknowledgement of [[spoiler:Cosby]].

* NightmareRetardant: Thanos' first verse has him boasting about his power, his murder of his daughter, defeating the Avengers, and slaughtering half of the universe. His ''second'' verse involves the Thanos Copter and ''VideoGame/{{Fortnite}}''.

* RuleOfCool: The foundation of the whole series. You have far-flung historical characters that know enough about each other for a ''rap battle''. They are even ''fictional'' characters rapping against real people; dead or alive. It doesn't make any sense but it sure is cool.

** "Your pink slime meat turnd my asshole to a drivetrough": is this a diarrhea joke, or given that drivethroughs are long and slow, constipation joke?

* RetroactiveRecognition: The man who plays Watson in ''Sherlock Holmes vs Batman'' is [[Creator/KyleMooney]]!

* RetroactiveRecognition: The man who plays Watson in ''Sherlock Holmes vs Batman'' is [[Series/SaturdayNightLive Kyle Mooney!]]

* AwesomenessWithdrawal: A major sore spot for long-time fans is the lengthy hiatuses that have been common since the show left Maker Studios. Season 5 was assumed to be the last season of the show before "Musk vs Zuckerberg" premiered in December 2018, almost exactly two years after the season 5 finale. Season 6 debuted in April the next year, to the delight of fans who could now enjoy a consistent upload schedule of one battle per month... [[FromBadToWorse then the coronavirus pandemic happened]] and forced Peter and Lloyd to shelve a lot of their ideas and cut the season short. As a result, only ''two'' battles were released in 2020, with a ten month gap between "Thanos vs Oppenheimer" and "Trump vs Biden." After Season 6 ended, there was no word if or when the show would continue until season 7 premiered in June 2021; only three battles were released that year, with a five month hiatus between the first and second battles of the season. 2022 would continue the trend with a ten month wait for the season's fourth battle, which wound up being the only battle released that year.

* DesignatedVillain:
** George Washington is called out as a hypocrite for owning slaves while William Wallace is shown as Creator/MelGibson's Film/{{Braveheart}} which gave him a HistoricalHeroUpgrade. The real Wallace was a feudal lord and a warrior who owned serfs and would certainly not suffer republicanism of any kind and degree. This prevents the battle from being a fair fight since Washington can't fully attack Wallace and call him out for ''his'' [[{{Hypocrite}} hypocrisy]] or remind him that Robert the Bruce was the real Braveheart. Additionally, Washington's overall character is given a rather undignified portrayal compared to the heavily idealized Wallace, with his hideous artificial teeth made ''very'' prominently visible throughout the battle to the point of becoming distracting.
** ''Rasputin vs. Joseph Stalin'' has a little of this going on. While Stalin was, well... a horrible person, [[spoiler:the battle takes a turn out of its usual format and gives five characters one verse each]] before the fact that Rasputin wasn't exactly a non-controversial guy either can be unpacked, making his first verse a little of a case of the pot calling the kettle an asshole and getting a pass on it.
** ''Ivan the Terrible vs Alexander the Great'' [[spoiler:(and other "greats" like Catherine, Pompey and Frederick)]] portrays Ivan IV as being intrinsically worse than the others which a cursory glance through their biographies would find highly generous to the latter group, [[spoiler:with UsefulNotes/CatherineTheGreat]] shown more positively than Ivan IV. [[spoiler:Catherine dismisses the horse story as BS as the only character in the battle who gets a rebuttal verse]], while Ivan IV is not allowed to challenge the similarly bogus claim mentioned by Frederick that he murdered the builders of St. Basil's Cathedral by plucking out their eyes, nor note his AccidentalMurder of his son as indeed accidental and instantly, deeply regretted, or otherwise talk about his positive achievements, merely being a left as a caricature.

** In season 5, the excellent portrayal and characterization of Julia Child and [[spoiler:Catherine the Great]] finally made the fanbase amends with the ERB team for their previous lackluster female / male vs. female battles and/or accusation that almost every female characters appeared has elements of SlutShaming in their verse.

* UnpopularPopularCharacter: Despite the majority consensus being that Cleopatra won her rap battle, Marilyn is just as likely - if not more likely - to be brought up when discussing the rap battle. Some have even gone so far as to argue that Cleopatra's only good line was the infamous 'Miss Carriage' line and Marilyn in actuality had better lines throughout the whole rap battle.

* BreakoutCharacter: Theodore Roosevelt went from merely hosting one episode of ERB News to hosting every one afterwards, and then he was finally used in a battle against Winston Churchill.

** While "Cleopatra vs. Marilyn Monroe" is still beloved. The infamous 'Miss Carriage' line is more likely to be called 'overrated' and/or [[DudeNotFunny 'amoral']]. Plus people are getting annoyed how no one seemed to give [[UnpopularPopularCharacter Marilyn]] a chance.

* UnpopularPopularCharacter: Despite the consensus was the Cleopatra won, Marilyn likely to be talked about more. With people saying Cleopatra's only good line was the infamous 'Miss Carriage' line and Marilyn in actuality had better lines. Even for people that don't think that, their is also growing base that that line is either too overrated and/or amoral even for a rap battle.

** The usage of Music/{{Skrillex}} in the battle against Mozart firmly dates it to the peak of popularity of Skrillex's dubstep-heavy music style and relevance.

* CondemnedByHistory: Due to how long that channel has been going on, it's clear it was going to fall into this eventually.
** "Ash Ketchum vs. Charles Darwin", either due expectations being increased over time and/or the [[HarsherInHindsight news Ash would stop being the Pokémon anime's protagonist]], this battle hasn't been seen in the good light nowadays. These days the only reason people have come back to this battle are for aforementioned news, they otherwise now think this rap battle is trash.

** While the special effects are legitimately good, Pennywise’s “clown spider” form is just as unintentionally laughable as it was in Film/ItChapterTwo. Doesn’t help that it occurs at the very end of the battle, being played as a badass moment which the Joker never gets a chance to mock.

** There's a small group who considers WebVideo/RhettAndLink’s Epic Rap Battles to be ripoffs of these; their first Epic Rap Battle (the straight-up match between the two) ''predates'' "John Lennon vs Bill O Reilly".[[note]]Nevermind that the two pairs are on pretty good terms with each other, and that Rhett and Link appeared in "Mario Brothers vs Wright Brothers", "Artists vs. Turtles", and "Lewis & Clark vs Bill & Ted", while Peter and Lloyd made a cameo in R&L's Epic Rap Battle of Manliness.[[/note]]

** “Miley Cyrus vs Joan of Arc” was pretty clearly made just a little while after Miley’s 2013 VMA performance, as the majority of her portrayal was based around it, a portrayal that would end up being a pretty small part of her career as she would end up changing a lot since then, though it’s not like she would continue being relevant for long anyways.

** One of the most infamous examples of this is by far “Donald Trump vs Ebenezer Scrooge” as the battle was extremely clearly made back when Donald Trump was just seen as a tycoon and TV personality and not the 45th President of the United States of America. It’s especially sent into this territory by the appearance of Kanye West, who would later on express support for Trump's political career and even float the idea of running for president himself.

* VindicatedByHistory: Creator/WaltDisney's appearance in "Creator/StanLee vs. Creator/JimHenson" was initially divisive for being one-note and more of a caricature of the Disney company, rather than being based on the actual person. However, as the years went on, controversies such as the mixed reactions of the ''Franchise/StarWars'' sequels and the Film/DisneyLiveActionRemakes, the acquisition of Creator/TwentiethCenturyStudios and shutdown of Creator/BlueSkyStudios have made viewers more accepting of the caricature. It also helps that Zach Sherwin's performance as Disney is generally considered to be top-notch, being genuinely frightening during his whole verse.

** J. Robert Oppenheimer has a perpetual horrified MyGodWhatHaveIDone expression and spends his verses surrounded by first the atomic explosions his work wrought, then dust in the aftermath of Thanos’ snap.