And That's Terrible: The original quote, given a shoutout in Superman 64 part 4.
Angrish: When he gets really frustrated, he sometimes lapses into this. The entire second half of his Kaizo video is basically one long string of it.
Appropriated Appellation: According to an interview he gave, the name "ProtonJon" started out as a mildly insulting high school nickname based on the weak connection that Jon was a fan of Proto Man from Mega Man and they were studying protons in physics.
Jon: Oh fu-hu-hu-hu-hu-huck, I didn't imagine that! Oh, what the hell! I have to do all that over again... rewind! (beat) ...I'M OUT OF REWINDS! AAARRRGH, I gotta do all that over again! ...and the phone's ringing!
Be Careful What You Wish For: In this video, Jon says he approves of the romhack level made by one "Xanaboy", and recommends that he make more. Xanaboy does indeed make more, as can be seen in this video.
"Stop it with the invisible coin blocks. They're not fu- shit."
He also heavily dislikes people that send him ROM hacks with level designs that have a Game-Breaking Bug that prevents him from progressing, forcing him to edit the level himself to fix it. Protonjon also gets upset when people copy and paste the original Super Mario World level designs into their ROM hacks, citing this as lazy.
But Thou Must: In one Super Mario World ROM hack, there's a level that is called "Don't go here". Jon decides to ignore it and go there anyway, only to fall into a bottomless pit as soon as the level, causing him to say "Fine, I won't go there!" When Jon played a custom Knytt Stories level called "Don't Eat the Mushroom", he decided to listen to the title, only for the game to suddenly finish for doing so. The former had him go with logic and listen while the latter reverses the trend.
Canada, Eh?: He hails from the Great White North, and therefore draws out his "a"s and "o"s, and pronounces "z" as "zed", which occasionally results in ribbing from his American peers. It's worth noting, though, that Jon was born and raised in Newfoundland, home to perhaps the most inscrutable dialect in the English language, but he doesn't really talk like that at all.
In the Battletoads race, the other three racers got two achievements for dying 100 and 200 times, "All About The Benjamins" and "The Franklin Twins," in reference to American $100 bills. Jon's two achievements, on the other hand, were "All About The Bordens" and "The Borden Twins."
Catch Phrase: Many are associated with him, even if he only said them once (or in only one video):
Jon: ♪We wish you a merry Christmashanukkahkwanzaafestivusholidayseason, we wish you a merry Christmashanukkahkwanzaafestivusholidayseason...♪ Uh, no. Hmm, maybe if I say Kwanzaa first...
Does This Remind You of Anything?: His Let's Play of Mario's Early Years with Kelekin had the two of them rolling in a fit of laughter when the game's fill in the blank displays "The Princess has a big _____"
Dude, Not Funny!: Invoked; One episode of his Superman 64 LP introduced the "random asshole comment count".
His overall reaction to Yanama during the final part of his Notte Luminosa Let's Play.
Edutainment: He and his roommate Kelekin tackled a pair of Super NES preschool games called Mario's Early Years.
"You guys aren't going to get me with that trap any more, you have to understand that."
Elsewhere, he says that if you ever want to play Mario professionally, just play a bunch of romhacks because you'll be forced to learn all the tricks.
Growing Up Sucks: Toyed with. Prior to the release of Superman 64 part 2, Jon wrote a message saying he'd stop LPing due to how he will inevitably mature... until it was revealed to be a fake letter.
Heads Tails Edge: In his Furious Mario LP, he tried to decide what path to take by flipping a game cartridge:
"It landed on its corner."
Hell Is That Noise: In-universe, "I'm not sleeping tonight, guys, this is my nightmare sound."
Idiosyncratic Wipes: His Superman64 LP parodies the well-known Adam West Batman version with the zoomed-in-and-out logo and spinning background, except with the Superman logo instead. This is used whenever he has to reset the game and start again due to showing off a Game-Breaking Bug (or coming across one accidentally).
A similar one is used in his Donkey Kong '94 LP, but with an 8-bit Mario sprite zooming in and out accompanied by the sound effect from collecting a coin in Super Mario Bros.. This is used whenever his Super Game Boy crashes and he has to restart. Which is often.
I Need a Freaking Drink: Battletoads has the "Alcoholic in Training" achievement: "This game stops sobriety." Of course, they're all just drinking water/soda pop, but the trope is clearly invoked.
And in another project: "What's up here? Is it a secret? Is it pizza? Is it secret pizza? It's... A KAIZO TRAP! You sadistic son of a bitch. I didn't fall for that."
Lampshade Hanging: This video Has Jon talking about his ancient, somewhat malfunctioning NES, when he says this line:
"My NES is somewhat like my update schedule, it only works every six months."
Also during his Superman 64 LP, after completing the 1st level of the Gameboy game: "Thanks for hanging around for the first stage. See you again in 2 months when we do stage two."
Leap of Faith: He's made his fair share of these. It even became one of his catchphrases.
Lemony Narrator: In the 4-player Battletoads race, the achievements start doing this, especially in the later stages:
After Jake*
SuperJeenius
gets stuck on Karnath's Lair for an entire video, Jon remembers an easier way to beat the stage and tells Jake, who berates Jon for not telling him sooner. This earns Jon the achievement "My Bad...:Should've said that sooner".
Late in the race, Jake turns out to have been ignorant of the fact that Battletoads has a 2-player mode. This earns him the achievement "That Other Health Bar?:Totally there for looks".
In Level 12, Patrick*
PCULL
is killed over and over by a cloud enemy. Jon proceeds to kill it on his first try and brag about it, earning him the achievement "Wow:This guy sounds like a dick".
Also, when SuperJeenius is ranting about how the sprint always kills him, he proceeds to say it's the one thing that always gets him. The achievement that follows is "I Thought It Was Snakes?:You were thinking it too".
Man Child: In Part 2 of Let's Play Donkey Kong 94, Jon calls himself this after saying that the crocodile creatures from Donkey Kong Jr. resembled the alligators from Gator Golf.
Missing Episode: His six-part LP of stage 3 from Enigmatic Mario, the second SMW romhack he did, was deleted from YouTube because they muted the audio. It can still be found there, because several people have uploaded mirror copies.
A lot of his old collaboration and challenge videos, which were never uploaded to YouTube in the first place, can be found on Google Video.
With rumours that Google Video is going to purge their archive, he finally began uploading some of these older videos, and he started off with a bang.
Mood Whiplash: In the first six minutes of cutscenes in his blind LP of Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon, Jon sees a gritty, action-y game that revolves around murder. He gets ready to play, and then stereotypical helicopter musicstarts playing.
Old Shame: His first LP, of Kirby Super Star. He only uploaded the first part, Spring Breeze, to YouTube and refuses to upload the rest, though others have in his stead.
Pet Peeve Trope: In-Universe example; oh, how Jon hates invisible coin blocks. He considers them Fake Difficulty, as most of the time they're used for traps that can't be avoided unless Jon already falls into them. Yet, he keeps seeing this on a regular basis.
Platform Hell: Kaizo, of course. Many of the other romhacks he plays also try for this, with varying degrees of success.
Player Tic: During his play through of the Ninja Gaiden series on the NES, he climbs a wall to the top and constantly jumps up from it after killing a boss as his way of doing a victory pose.
A Rare Sentence: In the first part of Superman 64's Stage 6: "Oh no, I pushed him through the wrong part of the floor! ...Never thought I'd say THAT."
In the second part: "Is that forklift humping that robot?!" Which cues a "Never Thought I'd Say That" counter.
Running Gag: Sort of. Any time Leet Lingo happens, Jon reads it as if he doesn't understand it.
Invisible coin blocks.
An occasional one is Jon reacting with exaggerated shock when a character 'dies' in game, especially if it's in a very cartoonish fashion that you wouldn't expect to take seriously. Also shows up in The Runaway Guys.
Chris Redfield in Resident Evil 5 supposedly being an (American) football star.
Save Scumming: Justified, as many of the romhacks in which he does this are designed to be nigh-impossible to beat without gratuitous use of savestates.
Schedule Slip: Ever since he graduated from university in mid-2008, his updates have been erratic at best. He eventually declared the longest of these hiccups (summer 2009 to spring 2010) to be a full-fledged hiatus.
The Superman 64 LP. He is just before the halfway mark of the game as of January 2013, as stated in the Development Hell section.
He finally hit the halfway point, uploading his video of Stage 7 on January 31, 2013.
Schmuck Bait: During the "Bad Place Mario" romhack, one of the levels is labeled "Don't Go Here." He immediately goes there. It sends him instantly tumbling into the pit, making him lose a life. "Fine. I won't go there."
In the "Don't Eat the Mushrooms" level for Knytt Stories, Jon proceeds to listen to the level's title and avoids picking up the mushroom. This results in the game ending extremely quickly after only playing for 2 minutes.
"My NES is like my update schedule; it only works once every six months."
A lot of Stage 7 of his Superman 64 Lets Play was spent apologizing about his release schedule.
After singing something: "I'm pretty sure I'm about to be arrested by the SPCA for killing cats."
Before The Runaway Guys' Thrown Controllers panel at PAX: "Welcome to the biggest trainwreck in history."note Jon has a way of Tempting Fate when the Guys are involved, and true to form, the panel was plagued by technical issues (including Jon's computer almost giving up) that also sent it way over time.
At the end of episode 20 of Resident Evil 5:
Jon: We're going to use this week's "What We Missed" to cover...how you're actually supposed to play the game, because if I've learned anything from watching back this footage and editing it together...it's that we don't play this game right at all.
Shout Out: Each Superman 64 ring stage clip ends with a screen tallying up the rings Superman has flown through, with the Sonic the Hedgehog theme playing as a Take That.
On seeing levels styled after roguelikes in Don't Eat The Mushroom, he asked, confused, "Dwarf Fortress?"
Shown Their Work: His Superman 64 LP has much more sophisticated editing than usual, not to mention the detailed trivia and history sections throughout each video. Case-in-point: episode 5. To top it off, his e-mail interview with Eric Caen (the game's producer) became cited as a source for the game's Wikipedia article.
Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors: In one of Superman 64's many, many glitches, he demonstrates that an innocent bystander seems to be completely impervious to Superman's attacks, including when he throws an exploding crate at her, but immediately keels over if she's even grazed by a Dark Shadow attack.
Take That: In response to all the ROM hacks he received that heavily relies on invisible blocks, Protonjon created a level that was filled with over ''300'' invisible blocks just to show people that levels would get as bad as that if people don't stop relying on invisible blocks. Protonjon also had two of his friends play the level so that they could get extremely pissed off at the level design, which would drive the point home. In short, the level was a big middle finger to everyone that relied on invisible blocks because everyone else was doing it.
Two Lines, No Waiting: During Stage 5 of Superman 64, he essentially interrupted the game (though you could still see him playing it in the picture-in-picture) to do a full LP of the Game Boy version of Superman, returning afterwards to show all the glitches he missed.
Verbal Tic: He calls these "word of the week", because they change over time. In the specific LP where he mentions this, the tics are "boogie" and "EXTREEEME!", as he himself points out.
Visual Innuendo: In "Mario's Early Years," he and Kelekin notice that one stage puts a "Box" in a... very inopportune location on Princess Peach's body. They fall apart laughing.
Wasn't That Fun?: After the end of Kaizo World Special Stage 2: "THERE! I GOT PISSED! YA HAPPY?! ...Well, that was fun. I wonder what the next stage is like? :D"
♪ Come on, come on, now / Let's keep moving now / Why is this so slow / Don't make me fast-forward / Because it really sucks / Can I jump over here / No I prob'ly can't / Goodbye Yoshi, I hate you / AH I GOTTA RUN / Didn't make it in time / Rewind space-time ♪ ♪ Wish these lyrics would be on the screen so I'd know them / I - hate - make-ing - up - stuff / because my voice goes outta tune ♪
You Bastard: ProtonJon's reaction after Super Jeenius dumped him into a pit of spikes for an instant Game Over in their Let's Play of Resident Evil 5 with Super Jeenius laughing at the whole thing because he did it on purpose. Granted, they just reached a checkpoint so nothing was lost, but Jon wasn't too happy at first.
ProtonJon: *falls into a pit of spikes and dies* WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT!? Super Jeenius: WE GOT A CHECKPOINT! ProtonJon: You're a dick... Super Jeenius laughs uncontrollably
is a Let's Player, part of the original group of Video Let's Players from Something Awful. Like most of them, he created a YouTube account to host the videos he made. One day, he posted a two
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