- All of Tom's animated lively expressions can easily be some of the most entertaining parts of his videos to where if you pause at random points you could very well see a comical or at the very least amusing face, which a number have been reblogged by him on his Tumblr page.
- Whenever he does a Pokémon playthrough, his PokéDex is... a very Lemony Unreliable Narrator. His viewers affectionately call it the "TomDex". His Let's Go Eevee! TomDex can be found here. His Pokémon Sword TomDex can be found here.
Let's Plays
Streams and Stream Plays
Tom's Streams are innately hilarious in that his blind reactions are all live and in front of his numerous viewers.
- In a Monster Rancher 2 Stream Highlight, after the funeral for his monster Lil Craw, he decided to unfreeze another monster, No Licking. However, he accidentally selects the delete option, unknowingly causing another monster's death, and he finds this out when he attempts to return to the ranch. Welp.
- At 400 twitch subscribers, he promised to play through the infamous Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). It's as bad as predicted.
- Sometimes, Tom gets pretty creative when making animated shorts.
- When working on an animation for Source Sunday, he asks viewers to donate to have songs/videos from YouTube play on stream for a set amount per second. While some are hilarious (The Heavy reenacting a Rhythm Heaven minigame, "I'm at Soup", Dinner Blaster, etc.), one submission that takes the cake is "Never Gonna Hit Those Notes".
- When a viewer submitted JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's "Roundabout", he has his substitute plushie ambush him, and both freeze in place at the point when an arrow with "To Be Continued" would appear. You can see the clip here and Plox's animated take on the clip here as the last bit of the latter video.
- This gets submitted again in another Source Sunday...except the donator put in just enough money for it to cut off right before the song picks up just to screw with the viewers and Tom himself.
- However, while Tom is skilled in creating shorts with Source Filmmaker, he is prone to some rather noteworthy SNAFUs.
- Perhaps his most notorious blunder was the Eldritch Abomination-slash-Memetic Mutation known as "Dankey Kang", as he was attempting to animate Proton Jon's lucky Chance Time on The Runaway Guys' session of Mario Party 3's Woody Woods.
- While creating "Tight on Coins". Tom's attempt to animate Toad's mouth in tune with the audio soon led to a rather suggestive visual as seen here that he hilariously claimed looked more like a "mandible".
- Then behind the scenes of "A Fishy Stone Rooster", he grabs and fiddles with two points then stretches Tails so much he makes "The Tails Road".
- In a Mario Party 1 stream, all four players managed to land on a Chance Time space in one turn. Tom's reaction really cements it. The moment is aptly titled "Chance Time and Time Again".
- Effectively, every time Tom is the Card Czar in Cards Against Humanity. Better yet, just Tom playing Cards Against Humanity.
Tom: I AM THE CARD CZAR!
- The hilarity went up to eleven when he not only changed what kind of "czar" he was to match the situation, he soon mimicked certain tropes and lines from guests, and put his own twists to them.
Tom: [in Episode 5] Hello, I'm the
Nostalgia Czar, I steal Doug's bits so you don't have to!
Tom: [in Episode 81] I am the
Egg Czar!
Tom: [in Episode 129] Hey, I am the
Jep Czar, but you already knew that!
- In one game, Tom gets two of the same card, so he plans to use both when a Pick 2 card comes up. The first time one comes up, he's the Card Czar, which disappointed him. Another one did come up, so he does play both cards, and he earns a point for it.
- During a stream of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, he gives the sixth maiden a Toad voice.
- "That's Not $100!" - A stream viewer named BGNGaming misses the timing on a donation during Quiplash, making the response's joke fall flat. It didn't stop the viewer from donating an absurd amount of money anyway, instead donating $300 and eliciting the intended astonished reaction long after the round passed.
- "Dunking Myself Through Dunking Yoshi" - During Mario Party 2, Tom notices that Wario would have enough coins for a star should he win the next mini game, and he's teamed up with him. So the logical strategy would be to throw away the mini game (which is Bob-Omb Barrage) and deny him the coins... but he casually tosses a Bob-Omb and it lands straight in Yoshi's boat, inadvertently winning the mini game. Whoopsie!
- During each Workout Wednesday stream, Tom weighs himself in Wii Fit U. There's one instance in which the scale reads 2 pounds and some ounces while weighing him, since he stepped off at one point. The game even records it.
- In another Source Sunday, a guest commentator sends in the tune of Neon Genesis Evangelion with Reese's Puffs. Everyone broke into hysterics, even Tom. And after that, a mashup of Linkin Park's "One Step Closer" with Bass Fishing is played.
- Both "I wonder it buds the flower" and "Great.... maybe" from Back at the Ranch, both are so funny that he debates which one he will raid with when the stream ended, during the stream.
- One match of Overwatch streamed on Twitch has him and the Derp Crew on defense against a full team of Reinhardts. Hilarity Ensues.
- In his Mario Kart 8 subscriber stream, Tom messes around at some points:
- Deliberately challenging himself with a setup that is the heaviest possible for a few tracks.
- When at Toad's Turnpike, he throws the race by driving along with the traffic and driving safely.
- Tom and friends do an all-Link race. Well, his friends pick Link. Tom, on the other hand... Everyone else's reactions really sell it.
- While streaming Clustertruck, he was a couple hours in, when the words; "Hello TomFawkes" appeared on screen. He quickly realizes that the developers are in the chat and are screwing with his game, like making him fly and changing the trucks to glowing "god trucks". Then the words "We've had enough." came on screen, worrying Tom and crashing his game. Only for YouTube to open and start Rickrolling the entire stream.
- The thumbnail created for his Donkey Kong 64 playthrough is hilarious it its own way. Diddy Kong's reaction sells it.
- His brother catches wind of another artwork by the thumbnail artist depicting a nude Tom with party hats on nipples and privates and during Tom's DK64 stream, texts the image to their parents. Even funnier, the brother brings attention to the fireplace in the text.
- In Part 17 of the Pokémon Moon Nuzlocke, Tom debates for a moment over where to find his Brooklet Hill catch. He has the choice of a patch of grass and a lake. He chooses the grass because the lake guarantees that he'll get a Water-Type, of which he already has two (Clown Prince the Brionne and Edwyn Slows the Slowpoke). His encounter for the area? It's a Psyduck.
- The first episode features his interpretation of the opening cutscene, which plays out like a Mad Libs: Lillie is being chased by the TSA for trying to get Kirby past customs.
- Tom catches an Alolan Diglett for his Nuzlocke team. What does he name it? Whackamolé. Even the picture he uses to represent it is just Whacka edited to look like an Alolan Diglett!
- Those who have played Town of Salem before know that the Serial Killer (for a variety of reasons) is a very tricky role to play, requiring a skilled player to obtain victory. Either that or a very dumb town, as Floppy Jalopy (Chilled) was marked by a confirmed sheriff (Tom) from Day 4note He makes the claim day 3, but wasn't proven to be the sheriff until day 4 and nobody did anything, giving him the victory.
- So a couple of episodes of Pokémon Moon Nuzlocke ended up getting copyright claimed for Oceanic Operetta being used. What does he do to get around it? He uses this lovely masterpiece in its place.
- When Tom finishes the story mode for Hyrule Warriors, he made a spoof Where Are They Now about the major characters. Highlights include Zelda hitting on boys to Impa's dismay and using the Sheik form to sneak into the boys' locker room, alleged marriages between Darunia and Ruto along with Midna and Agitha, Lana and Cia becoming idols, and Wizzro's failed fortune telling business adventure.
- On a Fortune Cookie stream, during a game of Mario Party 6, the game decides to give 6 Battle Minigames, though five of those were back to back, shocking Tom and the chat.
- His reaction to Temmie Village.
- Tom's thumbnail artist is at it again for his Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment playthrough: the artwork depicts Tom in Specter Knight's garb playing golf using the scythe as a club.
- During his playthrough of the N Sane Trilogy, when Tom sees Polar for the first time:
- Just any of Tom's You Were Trying Too Hard moments with certain puzzles, especially during streams. Yes, it can be frustrating for some viewers who know what the solution is, but the payoff of "Oh, you're supposed to do it this way" is glorious.
- After successfully navigating a ravine of vanishing platforms in the Vault of Glass in Destiny, the raid fireteam - consisting of members of the Derp Crew (Tom, Ze, Galm, Chilled Chaos), Aphex, and Galm's friend Phontomen - stage a "revival ritual" for Chilled while the latter is on break to get a brownie.
- While streaming PUBG, Tom ran into another player without any weapons of his own while riding a motorcycle with the much maligned sidecar. This turned out to be quite fortuitous for this random player, as Tom gifted his weapons to the unknown player, while he drove the motorcycle. Once they reach a safe zone, they peacefully part ways. When the zone is shrinking again, Tom waits at the end of a bridge, hoping to reunite with his newfound friend. Said friend actually manages to make it to the next safe zone with Tom, and they continue to travel along all the way to the end of the game together, with Tom making it to the top ten completely unarmed. The best part? When this random player found a different motorcycle with a sidecar, he waits for Tom! Unfortunately, Tom's new friend doesn't make it into the top five, as he becomes the sixth to last casualty of the match, where we discover his tag is theRAYMOND. Shortly after recovering the equipment left by theRAYMOND, though, Tom is sniped and eliminated at number three, without firing a single shot. This was all in a solo match, as well.
- What does he do on the 10th Anniversary of his channel? Rewatch his old Smash Fighter Machinmas. Tom cringefest ensues.
- During a subscriber Mario Kart 8 stream, one commentator mentions having to deal with horse colons as a vet tech. Then, someone asks about Lucahjin, since she likes horses, and whether she had to deal with a "throat colonoscopy". Tom had fun with that phrase.
- During the 11/01/2018 Smash Ultimate Direct, the Piranha Plant appears in one of the trailers. Tom snarks that "Piranha Plant joins the battle."...then spends the entire rest of the trailer in stunned silence as he is proven right, only managing a "Huh!?" at the very end.
- Tom's "readings" of the Pokédex is chock full of incredibly lemony commentary. You can watch the Let's Go version here.
- During a Mario Golf livestream, Tom's struggles against Sonny prompts this phrase:
- Tom's video thumbnail art for Pokémon Sword is, hilariously, Tom in the female trainer's outfit screaming at the Screaming Quagsire. Though, for Gym Battle episodes, they switch positions so that they're both facing the same direction, Screaming Quagsire in front of Tom.
- Speaking of Screaming Quagsire, he has one for his team named "The Voice." He even replaced its cry with the scream!
- Tom does the trainer spin Once an Episode for the Pokémon Sword Let's Play. So naturally, he evolves a MilceryHow it's doneThe trainer needs to do the spin while the Milcery has one of seven Sweet items held. Duration, direction, and time of day influences appearance. It's supposed to emulate whipping cream into a meringue, but it's, paradoxically, outlandishly accurate for Pokémon standards. by sheer coincidence. His subsequent attempt to catch a Sudowoodo ends in an accidental knockout by Farfetch'd, who then evolves as the knockout blow was its third critical hit of the battle.
- Tom has a overly dramatic My God, What Have I Done? moment after he creates Arctozolt. Its TomDex entry is even funnier:
Tom Dex: "Arctozolt, the Fossil Pokémon. Oh god! Oh no! What have you done? Oh Jesus Christ no! Oh dear god why? Please just kill it! Put it out of its misery!"
- Tom getting increasingly annoyed at Hop and his Bolthund because it's constantly using Roar to bring out another one of his Pokémon, when he wants to defeat it with The Voice.
- Tom attempts to sic The Voice against Leon's Charizard, thinking Quagsire's type matchup will give him an edge. That would be the perfect plan... if Charizard didn't have a Grass-type move in his arsenal as a countermeasure, which easily one-shots The Voice due to having a double-weakness to Grass-type. His response is a nonplussed "Oh no."
- All of the perfectly timed bit-donations/subscriptions in his livestreams. Some examples...
Terra: Master Xehanort and the Unversed are connected somehow?
Vegeta: BINGO! - Tom laughed for a solid minute when Sans was revealed as a Mii Gunner costume for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Even his followers were telling him to breathe.
- Though he commissioned a different artist from his previous Shovel Knight playthroughs, the humor remains on point for "King of Cards": King Knight playing Yu-Gi-Oh!.
- One of Persona 5's confidants is named Toranosuke Yoshida, nicknamed Tora. Tom decides to roll with it, and ends up using his Tora impression for him.
Tom!Tora: Tora runs his political campaign on a platform of no purple stuff!
- The game's final boss has the ability to disable certain skills, which leads to this exchange:
Crow's Endure is triggered by an attack he's weak to. Boss disables some skills
Futaba: Crow doesn't have much health left! Someone heal him!
Pop-up: Unable to cure!
Tom starts laughing
- As a continuation of the Hall of the Turnip King saga, Tom put up a joke Sub Goal where he will eat a turnip. The goal was met. Stream of him eating one live ensued for a whole twenty minutes. He manages to finish the thing (minus the woody stem) and surprisingly enjoyed it all the while.
- Pokémon Scarlet and Violet:
- Screaming Quagsire returns when Tom stumbles upon the Paldean for Johtonian Wooper trade.
- Through sheer luck, he manages to guess the secret menu order to access the Medali Gym battle.
- When he runs across a shiny Spidops, Tom is completely silent while he quickly catches it. Then he lets out a scream.
- Tom's vtuber model is designed like a wizard, with either a classic pointy wizard or a red hood, the latter of which his viewers immediately associated with Lord Dona'tor. The funny thing is that the artist had no idea who Lord Dona'tor is; the hood was a happy coincidence!
Custom Smash
Tom's concepts in
Smash arena design can get chaotically hilarious at times, and he records footage of his stages in action. If you want to get in on the madness, this series of videos have the respective Stage
IDs in the video description.
- Starting in "Gourmet Race", StephenPlays becomes obsessed with teeth (or pointing out characters that don't appear to have them) and brings it up at least once per video.
- ProtonJon plays as Rosalina once a video purely for stream meme reasons (noting repeatedly that he doesn't actually know how to play as her), yet seems to win every time he does.
- MalMakes always playing as Mr Game and Watch once every video, regardless of the gimmick of the level, just to see if she can get a 9-Hammer through random chance.
- Stephen playing as Pac-Man and it turning out that this gives him a way to break Tom's latest stage gimmick, usually involving the hydrant move;
- If a level involves jumping between two platforms or areas, Stephen will describe going to the other one as "the other Arby's".
- Tom referring to the male Wii Fit Trainer as "Darryl".
- Jon does the same thing when using Mario's purple coloration, referring to him as Waluigi.
- Tom playing as a weird Mii character depicting a game from a franchise unfitting for Smash, such as Agent #47 from Hitman.
- Whenever someone plays as the Ice Climbers, they refer to Nana as their wife. This includes Mal.
- The Jacked Hammer video. All of it! To the point the rounds do not end with at least one of them being left in a laughing fit. Especially when Stephen finds ways to use the Phantom Thieves of Heart Spirit as a gimmick-breaker (he used R.O.B.'s top, Peach's turnip, and Jon-controlled Diddy Kong's peanuts (Stephen was Zero Suit Samus that time) to avoid auto-pickup of hammers).
- The final round is especially hilarious due to Stephen's single-minded focus on Jon's nuts, and how his decision to play as Zero Suit Samus creates an unforeseen complication.note Namely that her height (not helped by having Jet boots in the style of weaponized Combat Stilettos) means that most of the moves she can perform while holding a nut can't set off the explosives.
- Bounce Castle brings us a hilarious tangent. Stephen declares Hidden Valley as the only ranch dressing. When Tom counters about the glory of Wishbone, the next four minutes are dominated by discussion of the show Wishbone (specifically about how Stephen was absolutely convinced it was about Wishbone being a detective).
- Someone loses track of their character. Sometimes these cases are justified:
- Two or more players have the same character, with Fisty Buffs, Hide 'n' Seal, and Dunkey Kong outright requiring it for their gimmicks:
Stephen during Jacked Hammer: Mallory! note Stephen had specifically said he was going with R.O.B., only for Mal to pick the same character — in the same color, no less. Jon ends up combining on them for seven of his nine knockouts.
- Two or more players have the same color chosen for their characters.
Stephen during Tragic Pneumatic: I got confused which purple I was! note Stephen was using Toon Link, referencing TRG's Four Swords Adventures playthrough, while Jon was using Mario, and both were using their purple color.
- At least one Inkling is involved, and the non-Inkling player who loses track of their character is the one who got inked.
Jon during The Box: I think Mal and I lost track of each other because I painted her.
- Jon uses a certain voice, usually when the required character is in the current match. Purple Mario (usually Jon himself) and King K. Rool are the most common.
Jon opening Tragic Pneumatic: [Waluigi voice] I don't agree to any sanctions until he [most likely Josh, using Mario's America color] gives me the secret recipe.
Jon during Boss Battle's fourth match-up: [Donkey Kong Country cartoon K. Rool voice] I'll get that Crystal Coconut.
- Boss Battle is full of unexpected lineups:
- Cannon Canyon features The Runaway Guys and MasaeAnela as the other testers. Among the highlights:
- For the first time, Jon loses a match of Custom Smash while playing as Rosalina. Who's responsible for breaking his streak? None other than an utterly delighted Emile.
- Later on, Jon is determined to keep Emile from winning as Daisy. He's successful in this effort, but thanks to Tom, as Jon was eliminated first.
- In one match, Jon learns the hard way that Snake is apparently just a little too big to recover from falling down one of the side pits. While he can fly back up, his hitbox seems to keep dragging him into the cannon right above, launching him back down the pit. In the following match, Masae plays King K. Rool, and he (as Purple Mario/Waluigi) tosses her down that same pit...
Jon: [calmly] Bye. You ain't getting out of that.
Masae: [equally calm] Yeah, I am.
Jon: [still calm] You're literally too big to get out of it.
Masae: [casually slipping under the cannon and standing up] No, I'm not.
Jon: [no longer calm] WHAT?! [Masae laughs triumphantly] How's she but not Snake—?! WHAT?! I disagree, Sakurai!
- Masae then gets caught in a loop with the other diagonal cannon where she keeps flying back up, only to get knocked into it and fired right back down. It only ends when Emile attempts to finish her off and ends up killing Jon, then flipping her back onto solid ground before getting blindsided by a vengeful Jon.
- The end of Tragic Pneumatic brings this exchange between Tom and Jon, the last two players left:
Jon: I got a kid in this too. Depending on matchup.
Tom: Who?
Jon: Lucina!
- Jon specifically mentioned 'depending on matchup' because the only guaranteed parent of Lucina's is Chrom; only a female Robin (Jon's character that match) can be Lucina's other parent among the Fire Emblem contingent in Smash. note Lucina is the only member of her group whose confirmed parent is on the paternal side; the rest of the second-generation Awakening crew (sans Morgan, automatically the opposite gender of Robin) have their maternal side constant.
- A certain character's move is often described as either problematic (usually Pac-Man's hydrant when controlled by Stephen) or the move that makes them the best for the gimmick (item-based ones primarily using Rosalina's Gravitational Pull and the Animal Crossing duo's Pocket).
- The problematic moments not relating to Stephen being Pac-Man:
- certain recovery moves at bad times
Tom during the last bout of Tragic Pneumatic: Not Nosferatunote Robin's Down Special, a healing move — oh, God, my Up-Bnote Shulk's Air Slash, which Tom had inadvertently activated!
- Certain moves that break a certain gimmick, usually auto-item pickup gimmicks that certain characters have a move to bypass. Tom suggests banning such characters for that kind of gimmick.
- The moves that really worked when used in the right situations:
- Yoshi's tongue move, which scored Josh Jepson a knockout during Tragic Pneumatic
- Lucas' PK Freeze:
Tom while laughing during the final bout of The Box: Now you know what it's like.... to play online.... with a Lucas!note Jon had hit Stephen with PK Freeze three times in succession, and R.O.B. (Stephen's character that bout) then suicided off a lava platform trying to recover from the third.
- Pac-Man's trampoline, when red and the person hitting it has at least one jump left
- Daisy/Peach's Parasol and floating, which combined to score Jon a full-stock Spin Cycle round win.
- Isabelle's fishing pole.
Stephen during a match of The Box: Mallory, you and that fishing pole!
Tom: THE BOX!
- Pac-Man's hydrant when positioned in a specific spot.
- Knockback-type moves when used with specific positioning.
Others
- Behold to all...Tom presents The Hall of the Turnip King!
- Super SMASH OR PASS Bros. Ultimate! An April Fools' Day joke that was a very clever play on the concept of "Smash or Pass" videos.
- Tom sings his own version of the RhymesWithStomach Rainbow Road song in a Mario Kart video. Somehow, he gets hit by a shell at the exact same point of the song repeating, meaning the second line is always "...I just got hit by a shell!" By the third time, he can barely contain his own disbelief.
