The Nostalgia Critic / Tropes A to C

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Tropes A To C | Tropes D to G | Tropes H to N | Tropes O to S | Tropes T to Z

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A

• Abduction Is Love:
  • In the Princess Diaries 2 review, Hyper Fangirl comes this close to succeeding at the more realistic version of the trope by kidnapping Critic, keeping him there at gunpoint and manipulating him so much that he's ready to kiss her, with Doug confirming in the commentary that the plot of the episode was essentially just Critic almost falling into Stockholm Syndrome. Amusingly, them both kidnapping him is what helps Devil Boner and Hyper stay in love.
  • In The Phantom of the Opera (2004), while the Hyper>Critic thing is still going on, Beth is abducted by the “Fandumb of the opera” and is more into him than she should be, even while knowing he's a gross stalker.
• Aborted Arc: At one point there was a lot of "The Other Guy is the true evil boss of the site", but as soon as it started, it seemed to stop just as fast. Although it did come back with Sage's review of Speed Racer, with Critic's Drunk with Power kidnapper act crumbling when Rob comes in and shouts at him.
• Accentuate the Negative:
  • The Critic always relishes a chance to make fun of a film, even if it's one he likes or that has a large fanbase. However, at the end he'll sum up the film and mention if they did anything right. To this end, he mentions when a film isn't particularly bad, it just isn't very good, and in such had both flaws and strengths. So Bad, It's Good and Guilty Pleasures are also common comments made in the summations. The one exception to the rule is his review of The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, as he himself said that his review of that film was his honest opinion.
  • In the Sonic review, he exaggerates both his hate for the former show and his love for the latter, saying in the real thoughts that if adulting is being particularly hard, he'll want to watch the silly one.
  • In his review of Waterworld, he notes that Costner is boring and the little plot holes add up over time, but otherwise Dennis Hopper is enjoyably hammy, in spite of his running joke of "STUFF!" saving the day, he likes the detail that went into the machinery of the world as it makes the film seem more practical and real, and as an overall shoot-em-up action film, it's not all that bad.
  • Lampshaded in the review for Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea. He says right out that it's a movie he genuinely likes, despite a few issues, but as soon as he announces it (before a crowd at Anime Convention Anime Milwaukee) he's attacked by a mob when everyone assumes that he's going to do a heavily negative review. This continues to be a running theme throughout the review as the 200th Episode cameos all consist of people showing up to beat up the Critic for slamming a film by anime legend Hayao Miyazaki. At the end, the mob had calmed down, but then he insults Howl's Moving Castle, and the mob attacks him again.
  • He also notes about Stephen King and Robin Williams, to name two examples, that he thinks King has done some amazing stories and Williams is a genuinely funny and talented actor. Their films just don't play to those strengths very well.
  • Defied in Star Trek month, as he takes a look at the odd-numbered movies that will usually get the fandom frothing at the mouth, and succeeds at being fair to them, analyzing the stuff they did well as well as the bits that didn't work. This was made explicit with Insurrection, as Linkara (the diehard Trek fan) was much angrier about the flaws, while Critic (the casual fan) tried to be optimistic.
  • Inverted in the Top 11 GOOD Things About the Star Wars Prequels where he lists the things in the much-hated Star Wars Prequel trilogy that actually work or are done well, even going so far as to point out positives about Hayden Christensen's performance as Anakin.
  • Noted sadly at the end of The Uncanny Valley review, as he can't even sum-up-praise the special because accentuating is the negative is what people paid for.
  • After a nice editorial on how any director can have ups and downs at the start of Shyamalan month, he tells us “don't worry, I won't be this fair the rest of the month” before cackling evilly.
  • Invoked in The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle, as even though he likes the movie, the film is on Nostalgia Critic, and that means inevitable destruction.
• AcCENT upon the Wrong SylLABle:
  • In Maximum Overdrive, there's a random Shout-Out to Friends, saying “could I get any heavier foreshadowing?”
  • Some of his songs' lyrics fit under this trope. "The Real Chipmunks Movie" in particular has a lot of this. While he loved it, even Some Jerk With A Camera talked about it.
• Accidental Innuendoinvoked:
  • Pointed out in his review of The Neverending Story III Escape From Fantasia.
    The "Childlike" "Empress": We must not give in to the Nasty.
  • Old vs. New: The Karate Kid:
    Critic: Which is the movie that everyone wax off to? That sounded really bad.
  • When the evil aunt in James and the Giant Peach says "I'll be blowed," the Critic has to do his best to ignore it because Happiness Is Mandatory, and the fans of the movie will kill him if he doesn't praise it enough.
  • Old vs. New: Manhunter vs. Red Dragon:
    Critic: The only thing better than a hero is an anti-hero, the person who constantly walks the line between good and evil, and these are two great nuts! (beat) That sounded bad.
  • Ferngully 2:
    Pips: Boys, we've found ourselves some action!
    Critic: What? His ass?
• Accidental Misnaming:
  • He frequently does this to Matthew Broderick's character in Godzilla (1998).
  Nostalgia Critic: Good old Testosterone...
  Matthew Broderick: It's Tatapolous.
  Nostalgia Critic: Whatever.
  • Then:
    Nostalgia Critic: So after Mr. Tin-Man-Apolous-
    Matthew Broderick: It's Tatapolous.
    Nostalgia Critic: Whatever.
  • And finally:
    Nostalgia Critic: So after that, we see Audrey as she comes across Mr. Teka-novan-humpa-shiar-rikki-tikki-hamster-mamster-polly-wolly-wadda-bing-bang-supercalifragilisti-knick-knack-patty-whacky-give-the-dog-a-bannana-fanna-fo-fresca-hickory-dickory-hockety-pockety-wockety-whack-angelina-francesca-the-third.
    Matthew Broderick: It's Tatapolous.
    Nostalgia Critic: Whatever.
  • He also can't seem to pronounce Elle Fanning's name right, recurringly calling her either Ellie or Ella.
• Accidental Nightmare Fuel: Every now and then, the Critic ends up facing movies filled with this and Screams Like a Little Girl. It's a Pet-Peeve Trope of his, especially exaggerated and misguided examples.invoked
• Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: Really likes these, putting a lot of them in TBF, and talks about the trope in Underworld, saying he’s not doing the sexist thing of telling a woman to smile, but any notion of joy would help him relate to all the characters more.
• Actor Allusion: invoked In his review of Freddy vs. Jason, one of the horror mashups he auditions is between the Stringy Haired Ghost Girls from The Ring and The Grudge. The girl from The Ring wins by siccing Stitch on the girl from The Grudge.
  Critic: Look up the actress, you'll get it.
• Actually Pretty Funny: The Critic does semi-grudgingly point out jokes he finds funny in otherwise terrible movies. One near the end of Good Burger even causes him to drop in shock. In other reviews, he does acknowledge when the subject matter puts in some creativity or effort.
  • He does say that Larry Miller's performance is the one funny thing in Chairman of the Board starring Carrot Top.
  • Inverted with a scene in Jingle All the Way that contained a funny moment but dropped the funny, which caused the Critic's laughs to slowly turn into roar of anger.
    Critic: You did it! You actually did it! You ruined the only funny joke in the movie you jingle balls of ass! Damn you! Damn you all to hell!
  • Lampshaded in his review of Junior, where he brings in Dora the Explorer to help him look for a funny joke somewhere in the movie. She does manage to find one...eventually.
  • In his review of The Pagemaster he complains about all of the bad book-related puns but he thinks the pick up line Adventure says to Fantasy is funny.
    Adventure: Would you like to curl up with a good book? *gets slapped by Fantasy*
    Critic: Okay, Give them a point for a funny line.
  • In The Master of Disguise, when the film's antagonist makes a dramatic speech and evil laugh only for it to be interrupted by his farting a second later, the Critic does wind up laughing a little and admits he's impressed that it was able to make him laugh at a fart joke. Unfortunately, it then tries reusing it again later, and his reception for it being reused is less than pleased. Though he laughs again when the villain manages to laugh without farting, only to fart after he finished.
  • In Ernest Scared Stupid, he laughs at a cut-away where Ernest's teacher says that he never knew when to quit, prompting the Critic to show a "funny scenes count".
  • Despite his intense disdain for The Adventures of Pluto Nash, he does give credit to a blink-and-you'll-miss-it gag where the main character punches and breaks a mirror thinking it's his evil clone and the clone immediately punches him from behind the mirror afterwards. He makes the point, however, that despite one funny joke, the movie is still absolutely terrible.
• Adam Westing: In The Review Must Go On, several Channel Awesome members appear as... versions of their real life personas.
  • Lewis Lovhaug gives Doug reasonable advice, but then insists that his characters, Vegas Lounge Singer Harvey Finevoice and Robot Buddy Pollo are real. He's shown treating an inanimate Pollo and a pair of homemade Cybermats like they were real even though they don't respond. Oddly, Astro Megaship actually can talk, but no one cares what it thinks.
  • Lindsay Ellis suggests strongly that Doug stand by his decision for his own integrity and not because she's been trying to fill the Nostalgia Critic's niche, having had his blessing and the "Nostalgia monopoly" granted to her by Critic in her Cutthroat Island review. Then she sends Nella to kill him. Except Nella gets confused and simply drives up to him, advises him to not revive the Nostalgia Critic, and drives off. For double confusion points, she actually does this to Doug's brother Rob, and not Doug himself.
  • Brad Jones immediately declares he doesn't care about any of it and hangs up on Doug mid-sentence. In a Stinger, he demands to know when Doug is reviving Melvin, Brother of the Joker.
• Adaptation Displacementinvoked:
  • Doug's never read the book of The Neverending Story, because he keeps forgetting that there ever was a book.
  • The Critic seems to have no knowledge of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics. Doug does, however, as evidenced by his own review of Turtles Forever.
  • In a bit of irony (because he totally admits that he almost never reads the books the movies are based on, not even The Hobbit), Barnes and Noble got Doug to appear at one of their events talking about books like The Fault in Our Stars and The Walking Dead. He announces this at the end of “Top 11 Movie Trailers”, and even he seems a little confused as to why they wanted him.
  • A plot point in the Phantom review, as Beth is disappointed that nobody but her appreciates the original book.
  • He expresses annoyance that the book of The Jungle Book had themes of wanting to belong but stand out, but Disney made it the funny monkey movie.
  • Discussed with The Mummy (1999) (the Brendan Frasier movie) taking the place in modern pop culture over the original 1930s film.
• Added Alliterative Appeal:
  • In his review of the Bebe's Kids video game.
  Critic: This game is a bucket of BALLS!
  • In his review of Captain N: The Game Master.
  Critic: "Anything was better than watching this piss-poor putrid pixelated pile of pig shit!"
  • Devil Boner gets one in "Old Vs New Cinderella": "I need to bury my bullets in the body of a bastardized bitch!"
• A Dog Named "Dog": In Hyper's Q&A, she says all her cats are named Cat because she loves them too much to label them.
• Advertised Extra: Before Mad Max: Fury Road, there was a lot of “Hyper's Back!”, but she's only in the review for a few minutes, and Critic literally calls her “punchline!”
  • It's commonplace for the Instagram account to promote the new review by showing the cast in outfits for a sketch, whether they be recurring characters, one-shot characters, or parodies of pop culture. Usually these are only present in the episode for a quick gag.
• Advertising Campaigns: As of November 2021 the Critic has done twelve specials looking at 80s ads — Nostalgic Commercials!, Return of Nostalgic Commercials, Revenge of the Commercials, Dawn of the Commercials, Rise of the Commercials, Conquest of the Commercials, Battle of the Commercials, War of the Commercials, Escape from the Commercials, Planet of the Commercials, Curse of the Commercials, and Commercials Resurrection - AKA "After These Messages...", "We'll Be Right Back...", "!", "The Fourth One", "The Quickening", "Ehenzeeahneh", "Like You Give a Shit", "Just Go!", "Do It!", "This Episode Brought to You by Commercials!", "You Know the Drill!", and "We Good? Okay.". He also did an editorial in December 2016 about the twelve best Christmas commercials.
• Affectionate Parody:
  • The "Boring" song from his Junior review seems to owe a lot to the hallucination scene from Beavis and Butt-head Do America, with an equally trippy, guitar-laden backing tune ("Phantoms" by American space-rock band "Paik", to be precise).
  • Also, the end of his review of his The Garbage Pail Kids Movie review there is a direct parody of the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
  • The end of Batman & Robin is a direct nod to Mary Poppins, complete with Driving a Desk-style superimposition upon the original footage.
  • Rob and Doug note that the Scooby-Doo episode has some nods to Linkara's storylines, mainly that all this intense stuff is going on but the actual review still continues.
  • The opening and ending sequences of the The Last Airbender review are good-spirited parodies of the opening and ending from Avatar: The Last Airbender.
  • The opening of Nostalgiaween 2016 is a recreation of the opening of Gravity Falls.
  • The Wall review was a parody of the film in question, including fascists, love letter-y (Doug’s words) critical songs and Deranged Animation.

• Alas, Poor Villain: Ever since the beginning of Critic, his mother has always been portrayed as abusive in every way. But when he gets a call about her death in Jurassic Park III, and reacts stuttering and heartbroken, she's a lot more humanized.
• Alas, Poor Yorick: In the Tom and Jerry: The Movie review after the titular characters speak. Doug actually improvised the speech, surprising his friends and Rob.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: While hilarious, Doug and Rob get so smashed in the Kangaroo Jack first viewing (Rob spends most of it on the floor, Doug collapses on the couch a couple of times, they’re both shouty and slurred words and Rob eggs on Doug to give a blowjob to the bottle) that a sober Doug has to explain what happened in the beginning video.
  Rob: [at the end] do you remember how to turn the camera off?
  Doug: probably not!
• Alcohol Is Gasoline: Inverted in one of Hyper Fangirl's vlogs, where she says her boyfriend Devil Boner drinks straight gasoline to get drunk.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys:
  • Noted seriously in Tangled vs Frozen, as girls who like Edward or Jacob are probably doomed to crappy relationships.
  • In The Phantom of the Opera (2004), Beth is with Nice Guy Tim (irl too), but develops a bit of Stockholm Syndrome for the “fandumb of the opera” and is in love with the book version of the Phantom because of his tragedy. Even Critic acknowledges that the character is “psychologically sexy”.
• All Guys Want Cheerleaders: Gleefully invoked by Doug in the Christmas Story II behind the scenes, as his flirty poses make Rob uncomfortable to the point where he jokes he can't enjoy Catholic Schoolgirl anime anymore, and Malcolm even notes that he's surprisingly natural at the cheerleader moves. Out of universe it turned into "All Girls Want Men In Cheerleader Uniforms", as there is plenty of cheerleader Critic fanart both safe for work and… not.
• All There in the Manual:
  • In The Phantom of the Opera (2004), while Critic takes the focus away in the former and the song starts later in the latter, “Hyper Fangirl” and the start of “Wishing This Shit Never Happened” provides insight for why she keeps hanging around and gives a reason why she's so fixated on Critic.
  • If you don't watch Sibling Rivalry, Real Thoughts or even the vlogs, you can sometimes miss the context or more detail of scenes in Critic. For example, a lot of his points in Ghostbusters for example, both positive and negative, were explained in more detail in the Sibling Rivalry and Awesome Comics reviews.
  • In-video, all that was shown of Hyper Boner's wedding party was Benny as Best Man and Critic as maid of honor, but extra media has Tamara as their wedding planner, Bill filming the wedding and Doug as the photographer.
• All Just a Dream: The end of the Full House review, which turns out to be a Dream Within a Dream, which turns out to be a Dream Within A Dream Within A Dream, which then turns out to be A Dream Within A Dream Within A Dream Within A Dream, which turns out to be A Dream Within...
  • Alternately, the end of the Kazaam review, where the film never truly existed and the Critic mistakenly is poorly reviewing the DVD of Citizen Kane in its place.
  • The Scooby Doo review is also implied to be this. After his Heroic Sacrifice, he wakes up and is invited by Rob (he's a dinosaur) to play poker with 80's Dan and The Grim Reaper, finally deciding to move on in his life.
  • Surf Ninjas is revealed to be this, but the entire review is an Out-of-Character Alert seeing as the critic is only overly positive and lauding the film for how "good" it is.
  • That Darn Cat!’s review, with darker-than-normal jokes about Mario brothers being rapists, Tamara in love with her cat, Malcolm collecting skeletons and it all just being a promo for Snob’s movie, is just a dream from Lloyd.
• All Men Are Perverts:
  • He, Bhargav, Rob and another guy go wild over a Mud Wrestling Cat Fight in "Mortal Kombat: Annihilation".
  • In the Demolition Man behind the scenes, there's jokes made about Tamara banging the monkey (she's sleeping on it and strokes it with the gavel to clarify) and she snarks “working with boys”. Doug responds that if you work with girls they talk about you behind your back.
  • In Jurassic World, Tamara gets creeped out at Malcolm and Critic wanting to recreate Fifty Shades of Grey with her. This doesn't go to All Women Are Prudes though, as she was fine with it until she found out she had to be one getting abused.
  • Even the supposed fetishy elements in Small Soldiers aside, the review of the film seems to have sex on the brain, with thinking Alan has a vibrator in his bag, referencing Kirsten Dunst as The Jailbait Wait, obsessing over the dolls being sexualized (though to his credit he's creeped out), and having a sketch where the director is clearly being interpreted as a pedophile.
  • He has an annoyed shipper moment in X-Men 2 of all the women suddenly wanting Wolverine (not that he doesn’t want Wolverine himself) and asks why Jackman didn’t complain, but then assumes he was happy with three women in total on top of him.
• Almost Holding Hands: The Nostalgia Critic tries to hold The Nostalgia Chick's hand in their awkward date, but chickens out and looks as if he's about to cry.
• Almost Kiss:
  • Twice between Hyper and Critic in The Princess Diaries II. First time is stopped for her to say she's never been so happy in her whole life, and second is interrupted by Benny foiling her plan. Note that both times Critic looks like he wants to be anywhere else, for obvious reasons.
  • At the end of Freddy vs Jason, Snyder and Bay nearly kiss each other before chickening out. Luckily the next time they appear they've had a Fusion Dance, so they must have dealt with their closeted issues offscreen.
  • At the end of the Fury Road behind the scenes, Doug and Rob jokingly nearly kiss each other.
• All Women Are Lustful: He thinks the villain's voice in The Care Bears Movie was a result of her getting oral (he then proceeds to act this out), while we also get this line from Short Circuit:
  Critic: It's like a mix between a vibrator and a man who can't get me pregnant. This is every woman's dream come true!
  • Most of Tamara's characters, either one-shot or recurring, are sexually interested in Critic or some other Doug character, who a lot of the time (especially with Hyper) don't feel the same. She lampshaded this on her tumblr (after Fury Road where both Curiosa and Hyper are attracted to Devil Boner), saying that all her characters end up falling in love with a Doug persona.
  • Aiyanna, Heather and Tamara were all delighted to have Doug dress up as them in the Awesome Stream sketch Aiyanna directed.
• Alternate Catchphrase Inflection: The Critic usually opens his videos in either a nonchalant or cheerful tone with the line "Hello, I'm the Nostalgia Critic. I remember it so you don't have to." Sometimes the video is unusual and he says it excitedly or angrily or doesn't say it at all.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Invoked multiple times.
  • The Critic thinks Barry from Sidekicks is schizophrenic. He also believes everyone in Drop Dead Fred is insane, especially the main character in her interactions with her Imaginary Friend. It makes a lot more sense if you see it as a horror movie (not least because it fails as a comedy).
  • And apparently, Casper is psychotic!
    "TIMING!"
  • He says that Bella of Twilight infamy could actually have made a fairly good Shakespeare villain if her actions were intentional.
    • In a later video about the series, he notes that because the idea of "imprinting" is so poorly explained, he thought that Jacob chose Renesmee as his future mate so the other wolves wouldn't harm her, or through some sort of scrying power saw the future and knew that she would grow up to be his perfect match.
  • Presents Sonny, the mascot of Cocoa Puffs cereal, as having gotten addicted to the cereal as a result of his grandfather constantly feeding it to him, then trying to live a normal life once his grandfather vanished, but continuously tempted by kids who offer him more cereal.
  • For his Milk Money review, he believes that Frank was traumatized by the experiences of the movie, grew up in complete social awkwardness, changed his name, moved to San Francisco and became Denny from The Room.
  • According to the Critic, Rob Reiner made his infamously bad movie North because he wanted to take vacations all over the world and still get paid.
  • NC is convinced that Bronx from Gargoyles is actually a Gargoyle with special needs, and everyone just lets him pretend he's a dog.
  • He interprets Santa of Santa Claus: The Movie as a mostly unwilling slave to the elves.
  • He also interprets the old man at the beginning of Rad as being grumpy because he killed a family in WWII and contracted PTSD.
  • Past Critic keeps calling Present Critic a "narc" in the "Scooby Doo" review.
  • He says that Winchell, the evil kid from North, is actually a young Dick Cheney.
  • In his Pearl Harbor review, he portrays Michael Bay as "the Son of Schlock", a Jesus-like figure sent to the Earth by God to make some of the most awful yet somehow successful movies of all time.
  • He also theorizes that Bay's movies are filmed with excessive slow-motion, close ups and low angled shots because Bay is trying to film everything like it's porn.
  • He believes that Jimmy from The Wizard grew up to be The Angry Video Game Nerd.
  • Mr. Magoo is actually pretending to be blind and is really a violent psychopath.
  • In his Jurassic Park review he theorizes that Steven Spielberg's excessive use of spotlights pointed against the camera stems from some bizarre sexual fetish.
  • Mrs. Mavilda from The Christmas Tree suffers from multiple personality disorder and the Mayor, from the same movie, is a traumatized, flashback-prone Vietnam vet who counts money by how much of it he can fit in bags rather than by it's numerical denomination.
  • Duke from Adventures of the Gummi Bears is actually Skeletor from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983) before he lost his skin and became a living skeleton.
  • Jar Jar Binks was the director of Food Fight. He also attributes the film to why Charlie Sheen, who voices the lead character, went barmy.
  • A mercifully short skit portrays the director of Small Soldiers as sexually interested in sixteen year old Kirsten Dunst, and having a bondage fetish.
  • In his review of Airborne he believes that the protagonist, Mitchel, has a surfboard fetish.
  • Zack Snyder and Michael Bay are in the closet (either gay or bisexual) and use a load of Male Gaze to try and compensate. Nicer than it sounds.
  • The ending animation of Inspector Gadget Saves Christmas suggests that Penny is a maniacal genius who was plotting to take over the world this whole time and created Gadget and MAD to fight each other to distract the government while she slowly took over.
• Amusingly Awful Aim: The Critic accuses General Esperanza's entire battalion of being guilty of this trope in his review of Commando.
  Look at this — it's an entire army and they can't stop this one guy. How hard is it to hit one giant Austrian man? He's the size of a mountain! If anybody says "you can't hit the broad side of a mountain", this is the mountain they're talking about!
• Anachronism Stew:
  • During the Home Alone 3 review, The Critic pretends to be John Hughes and says that Home Alone 3 is his plan to get out of screenwriting, as no director would ever think to direct it. He asks who would possibly want to direct it, and then mentions the guy who directed Beverly Hills Chihuahua (Raja Gosnell). Said movie wouldn't be released until 11 years after Home Alone 3.
  • For the origin of Michael Bay subplot in the Pearl Harbor review, the use of smartphones... during scenes set in 1990 and the early 2000s...
• An Aesop: There's a few genuine ones scattered around, like "darkness should have a point", and "kids shouldn't be mistreated or their intelligence underestimated" The Hyper storyline also brings us "just because you like someone's work doesn't mean you know/are in love with them" and the ever classic no means no.
  • The Was That Real of Teddy Ruxpin has "sometimes the thing you were super anxious about was just in your head", which makes sense as Doug has talked a lot about having anxiety.
  • From the Mad Max: Fury Road review, “abusing women online is pathetic and just makes you look like less of a man."
  • Green Lantern (2011) has an important message for cosplayers: just because you dress up like a character (particularly Deadpool) does not give you permission to act obnoxious and harass people just because it's in character.
  • From 2015, the Emotional Christmas Episode of the year ^note While The Nutcracker 3D was the emotional one of 2018, Elf Bowling was the last review always has some kind of Reality Subtext speech/moral line for the next year.
    • Christmas With The Kranks: "We're always gonna get angry at ourselves, but, as long as you always try to learn and get better, you'll find it doesn't last that long. And trust me when I say...you're definitely worth the time."
    • I'll Be Home For Christmas: "There'll be a lot of hate and a lot of love, use them both wisely."
    • Home Alone 2: "people really are kind of like movies. Some you can be around, some you can't, but they're always worth a shot."
    • The Nutcracker In 3D: "Just do your best and try to get inspired by those who understand it better than you."
    • Elf Bowling: "Whatever changes come your way, may you make the best of them."
    • Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause: "You've worked hard enough. Enjoy your time off. You deserve it....we all deserve it."
• Amicable Exes: Averted, as even after they died Critic makes references to his parents divorcing and needing to stay far away from each other.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • The beginning of every 2015 Nostalgiaween episode, where JonTron stabs Critic in a parody of Halloween (1978). Did it actually happen (in-universe obviously) or is Critic just hallucinating?
  • In Alaska, people are divided between whether "I remember the last time I [mouthed off] to my dad... it really was the last time" means Critic got the shit beaten out of him or that was when his dad left.
• Analysis Channel: It started out as a review show of 1980s and earlier films. In the 2010s he rebranded himself to include recent films and analysis of films. Eventually admitted it character-wise too, as for a while he didn’t want to take anything seriously, even stopping others from analyzing, but later stopped that. Still big on character and using skits to make a point, but you’d expect nothing less from him.
• Animal Motifs: He's been linked to zombies twice, and for an extra bonus, the zombies in question were an allegory for depression the first time, and sexuality the second, both of which he has issues with. And while Jack from The Nightmare Before Christmas is a skeleton and not a zombie, he's still dead and Critic has played him twice in big character moments.
• And That's Terrible:
  "Nintendo: Now, you're playing with pedophilia. And that's just wrong."
• And You Were There: May have been the case for Alice in Wonderland (2010), as he brings up obvious symbolism (before Santa Christ appears) of the 'real world' appearing in fictional, and Tamara/Malice and Malcolm/Carrot Juice have a lot of traits in common. In fact a skit starring Malcolm in the studio gets You Look Familiar from Critic and he instantly turns into Carrot Juice.
• "Anger Is Healthy" Aesop: In his review of "I'll be Home for Christmas", the Critic is stuck with a character called D-Bag and he's an obnoxious jerk who loves to bring misery to others just to entertain himself. After enduring his actions for the entire episode, the Critic finally snaps when D-Bag tries to figure out why he hasn't gotten angry with him yet. The critic explains that he was always angry with D-Bag but didn't express it because he knew D-Bag would just revel in the attention and not learn anything from it. The critic goes on to further explain that being angry about injustices is important and good as it's the first step to making real change. At the same time, being uncontrollably angry and easily upset will lead to you being manipulated by those who want to exploit you. It should be worth noting that this episode was released in 2016 after Donald Trump had been elected president, the election had divisive reactions from the American population and Doug Walker (who plays the Nostalgia Critic) did not support his presidency.
  Nostalgia Critic: (snaps) BECAUSE IT'S TOO EASY!! (pause) It's the easiest thing in the world to do! Any imbecile can hate! It's lazy!! (pause) You wanna know what takes effort? Being nice. It is so hard to be nice to some people! But what am I supposed to do? Call you a jerk over and over and over, and hope that one day, you'll wake up and go (slaps both sides of his head) "I'M CURED!" Yeah, the first million times didn't work, but the millionth and one, that was the magic number! That's what got through! How likely is that gonna happen?! And don't get me wrong, there's times when we need to be angry. We need to fight. If not, we'd be goose-stepping our way to work right now! But, it should be one of the last options, not always the first, because when you get angry, you don't think straight, and people take advantage of that. And maybe you disagree with me. Okay, fine. You know what? I'll listen. I'll listen to what you have to share. And even though so much of what you say feels wrong, I'll still keep it in my mind that you could possibly be right. Because if I'm not willing to change for you, how am I supposed to expect you to change for me? I want to be patient enough to see more how we're similar rather than fear how we're different. And you know what? It's gonna be hard. It's gonna be so hard, and I'm gonna fail a lot. Hell, I've failed a lot already, but this is the one thing I'm certain the more I do it, the better I can get at it. (sighs) I may be a screw-up, but I'm tired of being lazy. And if you're tired, too... maybe we can work on being screw-ups together.
• Angrish:
  • The Nostalgia Critic gets two in during a review of the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog when Grounder blew into his hand and one of them turns into a pumpkin:
    Nostalgia Critic: What!? Pumpkin!? Buh? Pumpkin!? What!? What!? What!? Pumpkin?! What?
    • Which is called back in his review of The Thief and the Cobbler.
  • ...and another when his buddy Scratch pulled the string on his glove and made a beautiful woman:
    Nostalgia Critic: Wha-!?
  • He pulls one off where is he actually rendered unable to speak during the beginning of the Good Burger review and he is reduced to terrified whimpering.
  • In the middle of his review of Drop Dead Fred, he is able only to utter the word "No" repeatedly (and at various volume levels) for almost a full minute.
  • A Troll in Central Park reduces him to shrieking incoherent obscenities.
  • The Room, after Lisa asks if Johnny is dead. He then goes into the "Dead Parrot" sketch.
  • The Neverending Story III Escape From Fantasia review (a specific scene in particular at the end) drives the Nostalgia Critic into so much built-up angrish that he goes mad with laughter. Then he leaves the house and drives to Home Depot to buy a crowbar, and back again...
  • In The Haunting (1999) he goes on an epic freakout over how much he hates the film at the end for nearly two straight minutes that's really rather intense.
  • At the start of After Earth instead of explaining the movie like usual when the trailer runs, he shouts "no" a lot, mixed in with other disconnected expressions of disgust.
  • The BMX Bandits review has Diamanda Hagan manipulate him into some angrish, literally just because it's cute to watch.
• Angst? What Angst?invoked: The Critic points out that both Calvin from A Kid in King Arthur's Court and Ryan in Warriors of Virtue ignore the fact they are in different worlds with no idea what's going on. And echoing fan criticism, he also notices that Rebecca/Tacoma/Karl/Quinn are “bizarrely okay with fading into nothing” in “The Review Must Go On”.
• Answers to the Name of God: In BMX Bandits, Critic casually thanks God for something, Diamanda Hagan tells him he's welcome, leaving him confused.
• Antiantichrist: Satan's daughter in the Son of the Mask review is a bubbly, happy girl due to her mother, Kim Kardashian, having her watch My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic...
• The Antichrist... but she gets better (er, worse... more evil) after seeing Son of the Mask. Her cousin D-Bag is a straight example, having no humanity and really wanting to be hated.
• Applicability:
  • In-universe, he'll often apply fictional situations to his own (which yes, are fictional too). A notable example would be "Why Do We Love Zombies", where he segues from talking about the show to clearly real world depression and back again several times.
  • In “Is Tree Of Life Full Of Shit”, he discusses this personally, admitting he has no clue what Mulholland Dr. was about, but mostly remembers dreams, nightmares, passion for success and anxiety about failing. Same thing for Synecdoche, New York, where he relates to going into a bad situation even though you know it's going to be bad, and getting older with memory fading.
  • One of the reasons he gives for "Are Kid Shows Now Better Than Ever" is more relatability, like Adventure Time tackling issues like alzheimer's, or Steven Universe portraying abandonment, anxiety, sexuality, inferiority, depression and control in ways that kids will understand as well as adults.
  • "What Happened To Great Disney Villains" is mostly about the trade off from visually based pure evil villains but passive heroes to relatable heroes grappling with identity (showing Elsa and Moana mainly) but less memorable villains.
• Arc Fatigue: Referenced in-universe at the end of “The Princess Diaries 2” review, where Hyper Fangirl is shot off into the sky after Critic sinks her hopes. Benny asks Critic if they'll ever see her again, and Critic says he'll draw the arc out and bring her back if he's promised more views with her around. Sure enough she came back, though slowly gaining more Character Development (while still being horrible) and the arc dealing with Critic's issues post-kidnapping.
• Arc Words: For the reboot, "illusion". There's been at least three editorials centered around it, Critic is all too aware he's getting more evil and insane, and there are multiple episodes that show the invoked Reality Subtext strings of both his own show and the circumstances of his comeback. Fittingly enough comes to a head with Matrix Month, the “reality is an illusion” franchise: Critic can warp his own reality because he ruins everything.
• Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?:
  • In the behind the scenes of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Mr Walker teases Tamara that men who don't assault her have no taste.
  • In The Wiz, Critic is upset that Todd isn't a masked intruder about to rape him.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Backfires on him beautifully when he asks Welshy if he'll just keep coming back after a couple of farewells already. Welshy literally scoffs at him and says he's one to talk.
• Aroused by Their Voice:
  • Apparently, the Nostalgia Critic would "go gay" for Keith David's voice. Earlier on, in Gargoyles, he's jealous of the actor's (doesn't know his name yet) wife.
  • Invoked with his rather spot-on impersonation of The Rocky Horror Picture Show-era Tim Curry (both singing and speaking) when he does "Everyone's A Whore On Halloween".
  • In The Force Awakens commentary, Doug says that he loves Malcolm's devil voice and Tamara's British accent, and always forgets how amazing they both sound.
  • At the end of Mad Max: Fury Road, Hyper giggles with delight over Devil Boner's low growly "I'm whatever you want to be".
  • In the The Phantom of the Opera (2004), Beth has a Squee over Doug's singing voice and wishes he could have sung more as the Critic instead of Hollywood Tone-Deaf Fandumb.
  • In the IT remake review, Critic's "hello boys" entrance is a reference to Poison Ivy's entrance in "Almost Got 'im", and for want of a better word, he plays it straight.
  • Lloyd’s dream review of That Darn Cat! casts Ike as a Sex God with a smooth voice.
• Arson, Murder, and Admiration: Critic rants to Tamara at the end of The Wicker Man (2006), who just gets more and more Broken Smile-face until he reveals what he actually wants.

  Critic: You are by far the craziest, nastiest, meanest, sadistic, psychotic, criminally insane, unwell, mentally ill, fucking obsessed nutjob I have ever seen in my entire life and I'm gonna do what needs to be done about it... you wanna come work for me? My views always seem to go up when I'm in pain.

• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • Inverted in the Critic's review of Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen, in which he says of the film, "Thumbs up! Five stars! Greatest adequately-satisfying movie of all time! And I liked it, too."
  • In Nostalgia Critic's Top 11 Mindfucks, when he is confused about one of the stages of Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp: "Why is the piano flying into the air? Why is the cat breathing fire?! And...why did Beethoven suddenly turn into Elton John?"
  • John Travolta's character in Battlefield Earth is involved in "harvesting gold, torturing humans and Chewing the Scenery."
  • From the End of Days review: "I mean, Arnold's already fought savages, terrorists and the horrifying threat of pregnancy..."
  • Also, during the Critic's rant about the AVGN reviewing The Wizard, he calls the Nerd an overly long list of unmentionably vulgar adjectives and punctuates the list with a comparatively mild insult of "asshole". This trope is more evident after the cluster F bomb establishes the contrast. This was followed by him comparing AVGN to The Irate Gamer, prompting a Crosses the Line Twice style reaction from the audience.
  • In the review of the two Short Circuit movies, the Critic says this in regard to the functions of the robots:
    Nostalgia Critic: It turns out these machines are built by Nova, as they look forward to having all the robots destroy evildoers, annihilate their enemies, and serve gin and tonics.
  • At the end of the review of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, he rants a long list of "how come"s regarding how it doesn't make sense, ending with "how come Kimberly is so hot?"
  • In AI, nether TMZ or Critic seem to think that including crossdressing with sexual affairs and bigotry as "rotten stuff" is a little off.
  • The Freeze-Frame Bonus of what's wrong with America in the The Legend of Zorro review mixes important stuff like white privilege, the porn industry and crime with Michael Bay movies, Kim Kardashian/Kanye West and cat memes.
  • He starts off his Eight Crazy Nights review by listing the hardships Jewish people go through, like years of oppression, prejudiced assholes still being out there, and that said film exists.
• Artifact Title: He started out with a clear cut off date and only doing his nostalgia, but as he became an unintended Long Runner and his audience started including younger viewers who wanted him to talk about what they found nostalgic, he had to futz with the "nostalgia" part a lot, like clipless reviews can be of movies still in cinemas, but they're at least tied to nostalgic properties in some way.
• Artistic License – Gun Safety: During a high-five freeze frame during Monster Squad, Rob high-fives with his gun pointing into the hand of one of the other people.
• Artistic License – History:
  • Invoked in a joint review on Simon Sez with Obscurus Lupa. The Critic compares a "snappy comeback" with a misinformed take on the famous banter between Lady Astor and Winston Churchill. Lupa questioned his take, and he admitted he took a few liberties.
  • In the review of Pearl Harbor, he gives an extremely long rant about the undisciplined and unpreparedness of the American Military during the attack. What he fails to realize? It was a surprise attack, many of the people on the ships weren't only their compliment, but workers from all over the base so it makes sense that a few can't swim. Not to mention the fact he claims that the Doolittle Raid killed many civilians... when in reality only a few died (despite the fact that the targets were factories which are military targets).
• Artistic License – Physics: In his review of The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter, when they claim that the speed of darkness is faster than the speed of light, a picture of Einstein appears that... shall we say, calls them liars.
• Asians Eat Pets:
  • In his review of Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, when Ian threatens to send the Chipettes to a restaurant that serves roasted chipmunk, Critic questions if it's a Korean place.
  • In his review of Yogi Bear, when at the end Yogi steals three picnic tables, one of which has a dog, Critic imitates Yogi and says "We're gonna eat the dog, too! Korean food tonight!"
• Ascended Fanboy: In his audition for Demo Reel, Malcolm Ray was ecstatic at the opportunity given when Doug sent out casting calls. After getting and playing the role of Tacoma Narrows until "The Review Must Go On", it was revealed both he and co-star Rachel Tietz were retained and are now main castmembers for the Nostalgia Critic's second run.
• Ascended Meme:
  • When The Batman (2022) came out, many people joked about how the white-faced gang leader looked like Doug Walker. This would later become the entire plot of the film's review, with Critic and "Comissioner" Malcolm investigating the mysterious look-alike. It even ends with Doug putting on the makeup and costume himself (and yes, the resemblance is uncanny).
  • The ad break during the Puss in Boots: The Last Wish review calls back to the “Doug Walker crying at the computer” meme, with Doug jokingly treating the meme like some cinematic masterpiece.
    Doug: Yes, it’s such an achievement to have people all over the world say, “Who is this bald freak, and why is there always a GIF of him on my computer?”
• Aside Glance:
  • In Turbo, after Zordon says that all kid stars know how to do is go crazy, just to be sure that the audience gets the Take That!.
  • Parodied on multiple occasions such as the Home Alone 2 and Scary Godmother reviews, where we see the trope invoked from another person's point of view.
• Ass Shove: The Framing Device for Event Horizon. The Devil put hell in Critic's ass, and at the end (wanting further suffering), he sticks a Stephen King book up there.
• Ass Pullinvoked: The Critic calls out The Neverending Story III Escape From Fantasia when Bastian suddenly kicks the Nasties' asses with kung fu because ...he does.
• A Storm Is Coming: Clouds and lightning start appearing behind him when he proves once more that he's Too Dumb to Live and asks for anything so he can finish off Nick Month.
• As You Know:
  • Tamara's character in The Happening parodies this trope, starting every sentence with it to reflect the film's unrealistic dialogue.
  • He insists multiple times that using this phrase in a movie is a sign that it's going to be bad, because it's not a good way to get out exposition, and if the person already knows, there's no reason to be saying it.
• Attractive Bent-Gender:
  • In the behind the scenes, whenever Doug is in girl's clothes (like the cheerleader outfit or the Winifred dress), he'll be teased for how good he looks, and Malcolm will nearly always say how bizarrely natural he acts crossdressing. Also in a later con, he said how happy he was when he saw himself as Winifred because he looked so much like Bette Midler.
  Malcolm: You look so pretty.
  Doug: Thank you!
  • In the Osmosis Jones behind the scenes, Malcolm gets complimented for looking good in drag as well, and he's appreciative.
  • Malcolm is attracted to Tamara as a boy when she crossdresses in The Monster Squad.
  • How good the three of them look crossdressing was lampshaded in the beginning of Jupiter Ascending, as Tamara says they all enjoy playing different genders.
  • Aiyanna's Awesome Stream had her, Heather and Tamara all helping Doug to look like them, complete with their clothing/make-up aesthetics, and were pleased with the result. He obviously had fun too.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: His attempts at setting up Once Upon a Forest leads to porn being looked up instead and he himself is alienated by the premise of Milk Money.invoked
• Audience Surrogate: Occasionally Malcolm, Rachel and Tamara (all about ten years younger than Doug and Rob) will play a downplayed surrogate of Critic's younger audience who might not know something he's referencing. Whether this ends up natural or Critic being Mr. Exposition varies on the episode. Some more recent reviews invert the format by having the younger cast explain a fan-favorite topic that was past Doug's prime, such as the Toonami review.
• Audience? What Audience?:
  • In The Matrix, when Mr Schmuck wants Critic to explain to him why he doesn't like the film, Critic looks into the camera as he starts the review. Schmuck asks him why, and Critic admits “I don't know, it just feels right.”
  • Earlier in Disney Afternoon, he says “DW” as initials just has a good ring to it, while Malcolm looks confused and Tamara (who is also more than knowledgeable of the fourth wall) looks disgusted.
  • In Eragon, Malcolm and Tamara get annoyed with Critic because his eyes are talking to us, not them.
  • Lampshaded in "Rubber" as Malcolm asks if Critic is talking to them or the audience, and Critic chooses whatever option that makes him look clever.
• Author Appeal: The Critic's mentioned in a few videos how he prefers subtlety in shows and movies' messages.
  • Speaking of, any narrative show that features the Critic and isn't a review has at least one climactic fight scene, with lightning-quick punches.
  • More in the "bow chicka" vein of this trope, he's made his love for assertive women well known. He even wrote Rachel and Tamara as naturally dominant (though it's slightly more complicated as Critic liked breaking both of them) and Malcolm as an Amazon Chaser like himself.
  • Also, the suggested reason why William Shatner wrote a triple-breasted feline hooker into Star Trek V.
  • Because Doug is the kind of guy who puts his clothespins on his scrotum, and wants to redo scenes where his balls are getting hit for real, there's a lot more Groin Attacks in the show than there probably should be. By Demolition Man and The Legend of Zorro it's not being subtle any more and Critic is self-inflicting pain on his crotch with Electric Torture and whipping. Amusingly, Rob said in The Haunting real thoughts that groin attacks are one of the only three things (the others being Eye Scream and Fingore) that squick him out.
  • In 2014 alone, there were multiple instances of sex slavery/Stockholm Syndrome being played for fanservice. For a few examples, The Wicker Man (2006) review had Critic being totally okay with the possibility of staying in the kitchen and being used for sex, later cons have Doug and company making gender-reversed 50 Shades references about Critic's Captive Date time with Hyper, his punishment in Last Angry Geek's Bad Future episode was being Snob's personal prostitute, he wants to keep his clone self for fucking at the end of the Sci-Fi Guy crossover, and Tamara plays a Ms. Fanservice character called Miss Stockholm in the Development Hell game show. Critic has even called himself Princess Peach with the amount of times he's been kidnapped, and Hyper Boner tie him up for kinks and giggles.
  • As demonstrated in his out-of-character vlogs and the behind the scenes vids, Doug loves bad puns. It shows with a lot of the Critic's jokes. The behind the scenes for his Top 11 Episodes of Avatar episode has him delight in the "my cab bitches!" joke while Rob and Malcolm groan. In the behind the scenes of Demolition Man, Doug makes one pun about the pink handcuffs and Rob tells him to "shut the fuck up".
  • Noticed in the AVGN movie, as he says “there's more people bound up in the film than Fifty Shades of Grey”.
  • Doug's pointed out in many a behind the scenes video that everyone crossdresses in the studio (him most of all, though Malcolm is gaining) and how great it is. Also lampshaded positively in "The Third Titanic Movie" where Tamara wants to play Marilyn Monroe but Critic and Malcolm tell her that because it's the Nostalgia Critic, Malcolm would wear the dress. And then there's The Monster Squad where he dismisses Tamara's crossdressing cos everyone does that on his show and it's fun.
  • In their vlog for "Carpet Diem", Doug says he really loves bodyswap episodes and Rob teases it might be because he's actually female.
• Author Tract:
  • He points out that his reasons for disliking a part in Dunston Checks In with several people in getting wet, as well as Mr. Magoo (both the cartoon and the film) is because there isn't comedic suffering, which Doug Walker is well-known for including in his Creator Thumbprint.
  • In the 2011/2012 days, rants about gay stereotypes, misgendering people and sexist matters happened with more frequency.
  • “Nostalgia Critic Talks Transformers 4”, which is less of a review, and more the critic ranting for twelve minutes about the Transformers Film Series and the people who watch them.
  • Both The Lorax and The Cat in the Hat have a lot of speeches given to strawly corrupt executives about how pandering doesn't work and the books are timeless.
  • In the reboot he's gone on several rants about how any franchise needs to change and challenge itself and try new things, but they got stopped by executives manipulating the audience into milking up the same old crap and not being able to handle anything new. The Kranks review confirmed what people had suspected for a while; that he's talking about himself/CA as well.
• Avoid the Dreaded G Rating: Casper was mocked for its brief usage of salty language: "We gotta get that damn PG rating somehow." Discussed more in "Does PG mean anything anymore", mostly talking about G rated films like Snow White or The Lion King dealt with harsh topics in a clever way because they had to work around the rating, and they should be appreciated instead of "one edgy joke to make it PG".
• Awful Truth: Referenced in “Why Lie About Santa”, where he talks about having things figured out, and then being told something that destroyed his perception of reality and made him feel scared of what's next.

B

• Badass in a Nice Suit: Satan, ever since the show returned. Unsurprising, since it's the same suit Alucard wears in Brazil, and Marilyn Manson wore in the 1990s. That suit seems to be the go-to for "satanic badass."
• Bad "Bad Acting": In the Moulin Rouge! review, after a lot of very good breakdown, he shoots Brentalfloss "for a sad ending" and acts ridiculous to parody Christian's crying that sounded more like laughter.
  • As Turl Spoony found out, he's horrible at acting angry when he doesn't actually feel the emotion.
• Bad Powers, Bad People: In Fantastic Four (2005) review, Critic can summon explosions at will, Tamara has Super-Strength and can lay waste to buildings, and Malcolm can turn anything into a video game character. Luckily for the world, they just sit around and do nothing.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • An important one in the Reloaded Kickassia review. Critic starts off swooning about how the Plot Hole is a "purgatory of hell", but then his butler comes to give him a drink and he's forced to admit he's having a great time.
  • His Osmosis Jones review began with the Critic gushing about a brilliantly written animated feature about the inside workings of the human body: Inside Out.
  • In Rising Tides Crashing Skies, he admits that the Political Overcorrectness-bashing When Does A Joke Go Too Far was intentionally done before Mad Max: Fury Road to get MRAs looking foolish (as they agreed with 'people get too offended' in the former but then got offended themselves).
  • Both the audience and Critic assumes the teenager in the X-Men movie review is at least related to Aunt Despair and Uncle Lies, not Cliff but someone new, but it turns out they’re more evil/petty than thought and kidnapped Mr T’s son, letting Critic get the blame/beatdown.
  • It turns out in Home Alone 2 that Aunt Despair and Uncle Lies (abusive awful Republicans) are the ones who think homeless people deserve support, while Chester and Doe (good left-wingy parents, homeless themselves) think there’s too many hand outs. Even Critic is surprised.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: A thing for him to do is to repeat some idiot action from the movie he's watching in apparent Sarcasm Mode, but then finish it off in Sincerity Mode with an added how it went wrong for him. For example:
  Critic: Yeah, I remember acting like a monkey in eighth grade... God, I was pitied.
• Bait-and-Switch Lesbians: Much like the Have I Mentioned I Am Gay? stuff from The Haunting (1999), Alien: Resurrection's teasing between Winona Ryder and Sigourney Weaver gets on his nerves because it was just there to get teen boys excited and the only result is a male/male kiss played for laughs.
• Balloon of Doom: In his review of the It miniseries, the Nostalgia Critic frequently comments on how he does not find the balloons scary. That is, until a sentient balloon with hyper-realistic eyes begins stalking him, and at the end of the review seemingly murders him. The killer balloon would become a cameo character in the Nostalgia Critic's various Halloween specials in later years.
• Barbaric Bully: Doug specifically calls this trope out in his "Doug's Top 10 WORST Cliches" video, where it's #1 on the list. As he points out, such characters are practically never interesting or even entertaining, and have little to no depth because they never actually seem to enjoy their bullying—just doing it because they're evil.
• Battle Couple: Hyper and Devil Boner are an evil (but adorable) version, with him being violently protective of her, her calling the shots, and when he goes to war in Jamaica, she totally supports him.
• Beat Without a "But": In "Commercial Resurrection," Critic caps off his review of the creepy stretchable toys by remarking, "It's pretty sick and demented, but... Nope, that's all I've got."
• "Better if Not Born" Plot: A Christmas Episode of showed him what life would have been if he never became the critic, which showed amongst other things Linkara as the owner of both Marvel and DC Comics, Angry Joe as President of the United States and Spoony as the Nostalgia Critic himself and beloved by all trolls, including Douchey McNitpick.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Parodied and Played for Laughs in Fantastic Four, where Tamara's the Brawn (flexing her muscles and getting Super-Strength), Malcolm's the brains (getting to turn anyone he doesn't like into a video game character) and Critic's the beauty, getting the tightest skimpiest outfit and the camera being right in between his legs in long shots.
• Beauty Equals Goodness:
  • He takes Babes in Toyland to task for the wedding message of "only pretty should marry pretty and ugly people are evil".
  • Subverted in Fantastic Four, as Critic spoof aesops that they were inspired by the movie to be attractive assholes in tight clothes and do nothing to help humanity.
  • In The Lorax behind the scenes, Doug makes such a point of making Hyper look as messy and unwashed as possible that even Rob and Malcolm call him out on it. Fixed in Freddyvs Jason where she's still evil but boyfriend Devil Boner thinks she's stunning.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: He's amused by the fact that the Robocop in 2014 actually has a better face after being burned, and wishes his car would blow up so he could get clearer skin.
• Be Careful What You Wish For:
  • At the end of his Kazaam review, he wishes that the movie never existed, causing it to disappear, and his review to turn into a review explaining why Citizen Kane is the worst movie of all time.
  • At the end of Dawn Of The Commercials, Angry Joe wants to do Man of Steel with Critic, but gets mocked and condescended to ^note Doug even apologized for making him a Straw Character in the commentary the entire episode.
  • The astronaut in Planet of the Apes (2001) likes the idea of reboots because then all her favorite childhood shows can be shown on the big screen, but has a breakdown when she sees the trailer poster for Jem and the Holograms (2015).
    • Lampshaded at the start, when YouTube comments want him to do a parody of Honest Trailers. He does! While mocking everything about himself and addressing every flaw about his show that he hadn't done in Matrix Month (which is why the problems with the skits aren't mentioned).
• Because You Were Nice to Me: When he's talking about how good Stand By Me is, he discusses friendship made through having nobody else, and how you want to return the favor no matter how troubled that person might be.
• Bears Are Bad News: The Critic's Halloween Special shows the Critic giving a negative review of Teddy Ruxpin. Teddy retaliates by coming to life — without his tape — and trying to kill the Critic, if he doesn't review him positively.
  The Critic: Just answer me one thing: what the hell are you?
  Teddy Ruxpin: You really want to know?
  (Critic nods)
  Teddy Ruxpin: (voice turns demonic, eyes turns red) I'M THE DEVIL!!!
  (Critic screams his head off)
• Beneath Suspicion: In The Matrix Revolutions, all it takes is fifteen minutes of them not being around for Critic to forget that Tamara and Malcolm have been brainwashed and are going to hurt him.
• Beneath the Mask: Beneath the preaching, The Lorax did this for both Black Willy Wonka and Critic. For all his hate of the film and speechifying against pandering, Critic still wants all the money for himself and isn't happy to realize that he's designed as nerd-girl bait like the Once-ler is, and for all Willy Wonka's aesops, he's still a killer who made a bad movie.
• Bestiality Is Depraved:
  • In AI poor Rachel has to stumble in an alleyway, zip up her pants, wipe her mouth and compliment an offscreen goat on "being amazing".
  • In the real review of Congo, Doug makes a quick joke about being on the receiving end of a hippo in that way.
• Better by a Different Nameinvoked: Barb Wire was this to the Critic, back when it was called Casablanca.
• Better Than It Sounds: In "Is Weird The New Brilliant", he discusses this In-Universe about Adventure Time and Steven Universe, detailing how they're sold as "teenage boy having adventures" but are far deeper than that.
• Be Yourself: Subverted in “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer”, as Tamara complains that Critic should celebrate Christmas however he wants, but is terrified along with Malcolm at the... extent of his Christmas joy.
• Big Damn Heroes: In “Top 11 Best Avatar Episodes”, Dante Basco keeps on throwing fireballs at a whimpering stuck Critic, but Malcolm comes in to save him. Subverted when Critic makes him The Bait and he winds up enflamed on the ceiling.
• The Big Damn Kiss: After a lot of No Hugging, No Kissing, Hyper Boner touch lips at the wedding.
• Big Fancy House: Both houses that belonged to the Walker boys are as gorgeous, huge and prettily decorated as each other.
  • Averted with Doug's marriage house however, as while it's pretty, it's mostly used for a creepy lonely atmosphere, some examples being Food Fight, Son of the Mask and obviously TRMGO.
  • Hyper got a huge house (with a lot of land and a lake by it) from Joe Dante when she found out what he did with barbies in his private time. In the commentary, Doug said he chose the place cos it's so gorgeous and Critic with Gold Digger eyes would almost fall into the trap.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Momentinvoked: His joint review of Ferngully with The Nostalgia Chick is The Trope Namer. The review itself ends on a BLAM with the Chick playing the accordion while the Critic dances.
  • NC's Junior review features a "boring" song that has nearly nothing to do with the review. After the song ends, he even asks for the BLAM graphic to be brought up.
  • The final clip from his Top 11 Villains review; he reveals why he's having trouble getting reviews out on time; his computer is haunted. By Ghostbusters (1984).
    Critic: Now it's going to say, "Excuse me, this is the Ghostbusters, isn't it?"
    Dana Barrett: Excuse me, this is the Ghostbusters, isn't it?
    Critic: "Yes, it is; can I help you?"
    Janine Melnitz: Yes, it is; can I help you?
    Critic: You see?!
  • The gist of the Top 11 Most Awkward Christopher Walken Moments.
  • The Critic's review of Flubber has an overly long BLAM scene that he can't even bring himself to completely say it.
    "A big-lipped—oh god I'm bored..."
  • During the Catwoman (2004) review, one of the Catwomen shows up out of nowhere riding a Sandworm. The worm goes back underground, and it's never brought up again.
  • In the middle of The Swan Princess, an alligator, remarkably similar to the one from All Dogs Go To Heaven, appears. The Critic calls out "Big-Lipped Alligator Stealing".
• Big "NO!": During the Short Circuit Nostalgia Critic review.
  • Also happens when the Critic sees Richard Roundtree in Steel.
  • Also when the Critic discovers that The Star Wars Holiday Special really exists.
  • He even list this trope at number 4 during his "Top 11 Coolest Cliches", citing that it's essentially all of drama condensed into one word.
  • Once again during the beginning of his OTHER Animated Titanic Movie review. And the ending, when he discovers a third. (both "NO!" directly taken from Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith)
  • Screams three particularly high-pitched ones after discovering that he is to review an Avengers movie different from the one he was expecting.
  • When Malice in Alice in Wonderland (2010) gets his home videos, he lunges screaming this, but then she holds up her knife and he whimpers not to hurt him.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: Critic’s family includes Ask That Guy, parents he drew as monsters and a lot of lines about drunk or homophobic relatives. There’s also the sweater family which is Ask That Guy Back from the Dead, his wife, Hyper and some poor children (at least Bum Jr is happier with Chester and Doe).
• Big "SHUT UP!": Rob has done it to Doug a few times when he wants to be the only one talking or Doug's made a particularly bad pun.
• Big "WHAT?!": Repeatedly screams this after seeing one particularly hideous grocer from Foodfight!, leading to the Bait-and-Switch moment mentioned above.
• Bilingual Dialogue: During the Top 11 Most Awkward Christopher Walken Moments, he imagines the screaming Headless Horseman at a Taco Bell drive-thru.
• Biting-the-Hand Humor:
  • He frequently takes shots at the advertisements that he allows on his videos, usually lampshading and insulting their presence at the halfway transition. It fails if the ads don't play at the halfway point, however, and in the Maximum Overdrive review, he fakes out the audience with a made-up ad with a "skip" button moving away from reach.
  • As well as Self-Deprecation, the Planet of the Apes (2001) review snips at Michaud for milking all he can out of the Critic.
  • The 2016 Gravity Falls Nostalgiaween opening replaces the Mystery Shack with Channel Awesome studios falling apart.
  • In Doug/Rob/Malcolm's Anime Midwest 2015 panel, Lindsay did a "I Quit" joke (because she had quit CA a few months earlier) and referenced Allison being fired. Malcolm did an "ooh burn" noise and Doug hugged her.
  • In TMNT 2, he lampshades that while he has many other character qualities, his marketable characteristic is "asshole".
  • In Garfield behind the scenes, Malcolm finds a wheelchair that Doug/Rob think Michaud brought on, and it devolves into "Mike stole a wheelchair and is implicating all of us in the crime".
• Bittersweet Ending: The end of To Boldly Flee. Just... just watch it. Also Scooby-Doo, the video that was meant to his finale and lead into To Boldly Flee. Critic is still very sad, but puts the job that makes him miserable aside and plays a poker game with his friends who tell him he was always welcome.
  • Really more bitter than sweet, because the only positive thing to come out of The Last Airbender is that Critic still really loves the franchise. When you weigh up that against failing all the episode, getting mind raped by Shyamalan, blood-bended by a vengeful Rachel, and of course having your creator be angry at you, it doesn't really seem like much.
  • The end of Matrix Revolutions. Malcolm and Tamara are freed from brainwashing and are actually smiling for a change, while Critic leaves the studio and his making-him-miserable reviewing life for a short time, but he just got told his power is ruining, his Heel Realization of getting he treats them badly doesn't last, and he's adamant he's not going to talk about his issues.
  • Nobody's actually happy at the end of The Shining, Critic having gone even worse with crazy, Rachel dealing with his abuse, Malcolm nearly dying just because he's black, but they distract themselves with pumpkin Food Porn, and a catatonic Critic going into an old-timey Happy Place.
  • Christmas With The Kranks is the "reassuring but sad" type, with Critic giving a speech about how we change (for good and bad) but having a Demo Reel reminder on his phone, and Santa Christ respectfully taking 2007-Critic back to his time but Critic/Tamara/Malcolm ending the review arguing. Critic also tries to get better with his own self loathing and imparts an aesop about it, but doesn't quite manage to stop hating himself.
  • "I'll Be Home For Christmas" has Critic have a thinly veiled rant about Trump supporters, saying he's terrified and will fuck up but will try to help and be kind, but Chester has found love. Summed up in Critic's last line:
  Critic: There's going to be a lot of anger, but there will also be a lot of love. Use them wisely.
  • In Phantom of the Opera, Hyper tries to apologize to Critic and reveals she's happily dating Devil Boner, but still doesn't really show self-awareness of her horrible behavior, and leaves him confused about both the movie and that Hyper had been pursuing him.
  • The Nutcracker 3D ends with the Gut Punch fact that what they were gearing up to watch was Doug/Rob's (deceased) mom talking in their Christmas Tree review. It's very sweet, especially with Real Life best friends Rachel and Tamara cuddling, but sad for all the obvious reasons.
• Black Comedy: Not to the extent of some on the site, but he'll employ this whenever he feels like it.
• Black Comedy Rape: Zig-zagged. Like with most of his suicides, the scenarios are played for dark laughs but he's always affected badly by them.
  • His Paranoia review ends with Brad promising Critic that a scary-looking horse-masked man will give him a good raping, leading to Critic running away scared.
  • In a subtle yet gross example, his TMZ rant in "The Top 11 South Park Episodes" includes saying the people who watch the show have to rub bloody tampons on the crotches to make themselves look like they've been laid. There's only one conclusion you can draw from that image.
  • He jokes in the To Boldly Flee reloaded review that Mechakara can't keep his drill in his pants. Only there as a invoked Reality Subtext Take That!, as Lewis was upset about the scene and Doug was beating himself up for accidentally making it worse so much (when he figured that adding more noises would convince Film Brain it was a fun time) that Lindsay had to defend him by saying he was a Wide-Eyed Idealist with a Happy Place.
    • In the same review, regarding Ma-Ti/Spoony, "Just point to the doll and tell us where he touched your hole."
  • He dedicates a part of “Top 11 Things You Never Noticed About Ghostbusters” to making fun of Dana getting felt up and having one of her breasts pop out.
  • He ends his Blues Brothers 2000 review with both “may God rape you with a pick-up truck, slowly, with vengeance” and wanting to remove the film's cock from inside his ass.
  • In The Purge review, he makes a joke about how if crime were legal he'd be vacationing in Canada, but then changes his mind “because that's not the safest either”. Cue the PSA trying to protect girls from being raped. This 'joke' transferred over to real life too, as at a Canadian con, he got a rape whistle. To Doug's slight credit he seems a little creeped out at first, hoping he'd never have to actually use it. Same thing (and same freaked expression) happened at Anime Iowa.
  • In The Cat in the Hat real review, Doug calls the film “anal raping” Dr Seuss and Rob thinks that's not harsh enough and calls it skullfucking.
  • In Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant mode at the end of Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer, he sings that if Christmas was a person, he'd fuck it to death.
  • In The Smurfs, he continues his bondage = automatic sex thought when he hopes that Harris doesn't get 'smurfed' by the Smurfs (for some reason) tying him down.
  • In The Phantom of the Opera (2004) behind the scenes, Rob remarks that (a very tired) Tamara in the Belle dress doesn't look right, and jokes that it seems as if Hyper's been assaulted. Plus according to Doug, Critic isn't sure if Hyper raped him or not, though his trauma is treated as both The Chew Toy and Woobie.
  • In the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice behind the scenes, Barney jokes that because Tamara didn't get attacked on the way there, the Uber driver has no taste.
  • In a couple of con panels, Rob jokes about Doug getting raped by con guests.
  • He’s annoyed (in that sarcastically cheerful way) when a creep in “Doom” says he’s gonna strip search the women and it’s played for casual laughs.
• Blackface: He refers to 'bad' geeks like The Big Bang Theory as “geek blackface”.
  • In Dear Santa, he gets annoyed over the gross gay sterotype chef and calls it "gay blackface". Doug continues in the bloopers, saying there's not a single ounce of actual gay in the actor.
• Blood from the Mouth: In Disney Afternoon, when Malcolm makes the mistake of mentioning Doug, there's a cut to him bruised, rubbing his face and with a blood stream coming from his mouth.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Aside from a few characters who relish being evil like Uncle Lies and Aunt Despair, Tamara said that the majority of the Dysfunction Junction, not just Critic, all want to be good in their own way, even if it’s bad morals to the rest of the world and they can’t always manage it.
• Bizarro Episodeinvoked:
  • Raoul Puke calls We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story one and the Nostalgia Critic does likewise for the The Star Wars Holiday Special.
  Raoul: Big lipped alligator moment? Try Big Lipped Alligator Movie!
  • Christopher Walken.
    Critic: ...I don't know where I am when he calls.
  • The "Rotten Dirty Bastard" special. After that sketch, the Critic went back to hisinvoked usual characterization, the others carried on like normal (and The Nostalgia Chick even got her best friend killed) and it was never mentioned again.
  • Subverted as of the "Scooby-Doo" review, wherein Critic ends up in Purgatory and encounters Roger again. Plus the implication that Roger potentially forshadowing To Boldly Flee. Both of these were explained by Rob in the latter's commentary, saying Santa Christ was the one telling the former's story and has Reality Warper powers so willed Roger into existence.
• Blackmail: Hyper Fangirl got a Big Fancy House from a guy she stalked when she found out he had private time with barbies.
  • Earlier on, Spoony threatened Critic with pictures of Critic being in drag while he was being roofied and raped, but would only release them if the latter didn't give his opinion on Captain America.
• Bland-Name Product: Mocked in his reviews of Steel and It about a beer named Beer, with this quote from the latter.
  Critic: Oh no, she dropped a can of "Beer" beer. Is that the drink that Steel made famous?
• Blatant Lies:
  • In his first of the Star Trek reviews, he promises to never have another commercial break - after the camera decides to take him seriously when told to - and a break has happened in every NC review since then.
  • In Street Fighter, he says all the violence and gore from the games had no effect on his “decent” childhood, right before drinking from a skull and shooting his gun.
  Critic: Sorry, I have to do that every ten minutes.
  • Turbo has him tell Rita that he's not afraid of any movie. Son of the Mask, Food Fight, Starchaser and countless others would beg to differ.
  • In The Top 11 Worst Avatar Episodes, he tells Malcolm and Tamara that he's not scared of fanboys and fangirls complaining about the title, but then when the actual title comes up, he backtracks and scribbles in “by default” after the word “worst”.
  • In The Princess Diaries II, Hyper's claim that she's only going to keep Critic there until he fulfills her “dream” of reviewing the film with her. Lying because her face goes hard line right after, when they get to the house she tells him she'll think he'll like it there, and has filled it with boy-pandering comics and video games.
  • In his ode to batshittery at the end of Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer, his saying "nothing's wrong here" is the last straw for Tamara who calls him a mad man.
• Bob Ross Rib: In the beginning of the review of Ghostbusters II, they do a brief Bob Ross-parody sketch (with Doug Walker as Bob Ross) used as a visual metaphor for how the conception behind the film's plot may have turned out, even replacing whatever curse words he is accustomed to saying with "God bless".
  "Hello my happy little viewers, hello. As you recall last time, we did a happy little painting on the happy little Ghostbusters. You all seem to like this one and I don't blame you, its a wonderful piece. So today, we're going to do a happy little follow-up to this happy little picture, because you like it so much, you deserve to see it explored even more... except the parents, you didn't care for the swearing and the smoking, so uh this one we're going to make it more family friendly."
• Body Horror:
  • The Devil's minions look like they've had their skin stripped off to only leave muscle.
  • The title card for Why Do We Love Zombies rots Critic's face until he looks like one himself.
  • Tamara's gored, sizzling hands in the Ghost Rider (2007) review.
• Bond One-Liner: The Critic makes a few jokes on this trope in the Commando review, even punctuating one with the YEEEEEAAAAAAHHHH!! from CSI: Miami.
  • And "The name is Santa Claus." From the Ernest Saves Christmas review.
• Boomerang Bigot: Criticizes the Vital Information sketch from All That for unnecessary yelling and then yells, "ANYONE WHO THINKS YELLING IS FUNNY SHOULD BE SHOT!" (gets shot in the head)
• Borrowed Catchphrase: Less borrowed and more mangled, but we get this from Spoony during the eponymous spooning:
  Spoony: In case the Nostalgia Critic here doesn't remember it so I don't have to, I can tell you why. Three words - Ro-hyph-nol!
  • The Chart Guys reference Hyper Fangirl's "Don't ask why" catchphrase in the lyrics of her eponymous song.
  • In Jem, the Chart Guys beat down Critic enough somehow to get him to say "but the chart says". Malcolm slaps him out of it.
• Both Sides Have a Point:
  • The “fuckitall” commercial (and Critic refusing to help someone dying because he wants to rant about a sequel) in Blues Brothers 2000 seems to go for the aesop “you should be emotionally invested in what you watch, but movies are not that big of a deal compared to life issues”.
  • The Framing Device for Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer. Tamara and Malcolm both end up being right and wrong. Malcolm's right in that Critic is really fucked up, and even Critic knows that he needs to be restrained. Tamara's right in that for all Critic's insanity, he needs to celebrate how he wants, and after the song, he treats it like it was cathartic.
  • In Christmas With The Kranks, it's more like “both prime and classic Critic have problems”, the former having more mean-spirited jokes and sometimes not using Tamara and Malcolm to full potential, and the latter's forced memes, random clips and bad lighting. There's also the acknowledgement that they're not that different, bringing up all the skit heavy things before comeback too.
• Bound and Gagged: At the start of the Game Heroes promo. And you can see him squirming but not getting much leeway throughout the few minutes it's on.
  • Still on his obsession with trying to get Critic to do a Christmas Carol parody, the Ghost Of Christmas Future ties up Lupa with tape and tinsel. Critic's not amused.
  • Referenced a couple of times in Small Soldiers, with Malcolm having handcuffs, Critic assuming that with a sixteen year old Kirsten Dunst tied up the director must have been a pedophile, and also saying that an older sibling leaving the younger one helpless is typical. Plus inevitably assumed after the end where Hyper breaks into Critic's bedroom while he's sleeping and kidnaps him.
  • When Tamara asks him in Pixels how would he know that ball-gags are comfy, he pauses, side-eyes the camera as he says "research" and quickly moves on.
  • While he can still talk, Critic gets captured by Devil Boner and other War Boys in Mad Max: Fury Road and is chained and muzzled like Max in the film. In the Steampunk Build of Awesome Build, Jim talks about how Doug would have been fine with anything gaggy, but he personally wanted to quickly put together a blood-bag mask (that would be easy for Doug to wear and still talk) to replicate the movie.
  • In Cats And Dogs, when the kid is way too relaxed at being held hostage, Critic says that no matter what age he's been, the situation is always way more terrifying than that. Cue Hyper and their issues being a big thing in the next episode.
  • Critic's chained up with pink handcuffs in "Old vs New: Evil Dead", and gagging other times is implied when Devil Boner tells him Hyper Boner are tighter when he's tied tighter.
• Bloodless Carnage: The Critic emphasizes that even though Drake's death in The Pebble and the Penguin didn't have blood, it's still really violent for a kids' movie.
• Bolt of Divine Retribution: In his comparisons of The Ten Commandments vs. The Prince of Egypt, he claims that God is more likely a kind and loving deity, rather than a vengeful god. He was wrong.
• Boob-Based Gag: Rachel wears a ridiculously large pair of fake breasts when portraying Michael Bay's roommate, adult film star "Tina A.", in the Pearl Harbor review.
• Book Ends: With some exceptions, the Critic begins and ends each of his reviews by saying "I'm the Nostalgia Critic: I remember it so you don't have to".
  • Both his first review and what was intended to be his last review were of live-action adaptations of cartoon franchises.
  • The Christmas Tree both starts and ends with Critic hallucinating and then the episode revealing what actually went on.
  • "Matrix Month" begins and ends with Critic talking friendly with someone he's mistreated in the past few years, Chester at the beginning and going off with Malcolm/Tamara for a chat at the end.
  • In The Smurfs, the beginning has Tamara trying to get Critic to do the Fantastic Four movie in order to get money, and the end has Critic trying to copy the Smurfs and selling a movie about a rock because he wants money.
  • Alvin and the Chipmunks acknowledges that he did the 80s Chipmunk movie with the Chick both at the beginning when he thinks he's doing the latter, and at the end when Analyst 1 is sure he ended a Chipmunk review with a song before.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: We never see them get brainwashed (and they're more snarkily lampshading Critic's stupidity than being crazy), but Malcolm and Tamara in the Matrix reviews. Critic literally reality warps to get them back.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: How he invokes Santa Christ — by asking Santa to save him, then Jesus, then… Santa Christ.
  • The Critic mocks this when a character in Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland introduces himself this way:
    Nostalgia Critic: Well, I find that name obnoxious, and uncreative. I'm going to call you: obnoxiously uncreative.
  • "Nintendo games ROCK. Movie based off Nintendo games BLOW. Therefore, movies about Nintendo games BLOW ROCKS."
  • "It sucks ASS! It sucks BALLS! It sucks ASS-BALLS!"
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: A few, but the one most seem to remember is in his review of Tom and Jerry: The Movie:
  Critic: I'll do anything! Shave your back, do your taxes, prostitute myself for money! Just please not another song!
  • From "A Kid in King Arthur's Court":
    A Kid in King Arthur's Wart. A Kid in King Louie's Cart. A Cat in Bea Arthur's Cooch.
  • What Disney Afternoon consists of. Critic's trying really hard to forget his adult life for an episode and be excited for the cartoons, but he keeps mentioning his abusive school life, if Tamara and Malcolm say anything even in the slightest bit wrong he gets angry at best and violent at worst, even his excitement is... wrong.
  • A joke in The Uncanny Valley review starts off about his and other reviewer's tendency to lose focus, and ends up slipping out that he's sexually repressed for a while.
  • When Critic tells Tamara in Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer why he has to wear a Restraining Bolt.
  Critic: I don't want to scare the sweet people at home with my disturbing obsession. I wanna be relaxed, soothing, marketable.
  • In the TMNT Christmas Special, the reasons why he loves Christmas include “Santa, snow and apocalyptic flames”.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: One of his Pet Peeve Tropes, as seen in Moulin Rouge! and Spider-Man 3. When he does the same thing in To Boldly Flee, pretend to be a coward so he'll go off on his own to the Plot Hole, it's more for selfish suicidal reasons than anything heroic like the movies claim it is.
• Break the Cutie: The children in the abuse family all react differently to their Abusive Parents. Bum Jr cries, clings onto a teddy bear and rocks in the corner, Melody has a Potty Failure when she's afraid, and Cliff zig-zags between creepy and terrified. And as Hyper is confirmed as the oldest daughter, she comes pre-broken.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • One of the common jokes in the series is to replace the in-work dialogue with something production/actor-related, like "Well, I'll be featured in the sequel anyway". Rare aversion in "Is Sleepy Hollow Secretly Brilliant", where he (obviously) knows Nerd, but has watched the Monster Madness series and can't remember James's name.
  • Given that in the same con Doug complained about invoked her Misaimed Fandom, Tamara as Hyper turning the camera saying “I'm gonna stalk [Critic]. Like I do.” feels more like a reminder to the audience than anything else.
  • In Mad Max: Fury Road, Devil Boner says "oh what a glaze, what a lovely glaze" and then turns to the camera with "yeah that's the one we're going with, blow me".
  • Literally in The Wall, as Critic starts talking in front of a wall on a tv screen that Corey Taylor is watching, then things get weird and he smashes his way out for clipless playtime.
• Breaking the Reviewer's Wall: The Critic frequently uses his gun to shoot one of the characters in the movie or cartoon he's reviewing. Sometimes he calls a character from the work on the phone and has a conversation with them.
• Breather Episode: Has his own page.
• Brick Joke:
  • In his The Thief and the Cobbler review, the Critic is warned by a voice recording of Vincent Price to "Watch out for that pumpkin." Upon getting hit by said pumpkin, the critic splutters in a manner near-identical to his Sonic The Hedgehog review.
  • His questioning if Care Bears show up whenever someone says they "don't care" about something came back to haunt him during Sequel Month.
  • In Revenge of the Commercials, early on he talks about how now, the kid on the Zack the Lego Maniac commercials is probably a geeky psychopath who builds bombs to blow up the people who made fun of him. Guess what happens to the Critic in the end?
  • In his review of Mortal Kombat: The Movie, in the beginning he states that playing violent video games like Mortal Kombat as a kid didn't affect his behaviour at all. He then proceeds to shoot a gun in the air while drinking out of a skull. At the end of the video, he starts doing it again as he walks out.
  • In his 2009 review of Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen, Nostalgia Critic did a rapid style review similar to his Bum Reviews. The Bum appears in the stinger complaining about the Critic stealing his act. 2 years later, Critic starts to do the same for Transformers: Dark of the Moon only to get interrupted by the Bum who decided to sue him over plagiarism.
  • In the review of Sharknado, Critic notices Cinema Snob when he receives a ball of paper in his back. At the end of the review, after the silliest moment in the movie, both he and Snob throw paper balls at the film.
  • In Hop, Black Willy Wonka finally makes good on his threat to caramelize someone, and it’s Carrot Juice. Having been slapped around by the bunny all episode, Critic’s fine with it.
  • At the start of the Batman vs. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles review, Devil Boner mentions that he's fighting a group of time travellers, and lampshades that he's setting up a time travel joke. At the end of the review, Hyper tells him to throw all the fanfiction into one of the time travel portals, sending it back in time to Kathleen Kennedy's office as a Take That! to the Star Wars sequel trilogy.
  "Time travel joke!"
• Broken Aesop: created in his Pokemon review in terms of the "fighting is wrong" Aesop when the franchise revolves around fighting.
  • He makes a similar argument about Airborne—the main character refuses to use violence against anyone, but still humiliates them.
    "So as you see kids, it's not about physical violence; it's just about hurting somebody somehow. That's what really counts in life."
  • In The Pagemaster, he points out that having an Aesop on literacy makes no sense when the main character is already a bookworm.
  • 3 Ninjas, it's so nice Grandpa is giving his (white) grandkids lethal weaponry to fool around with like shuriken, nunchucks, swords...
  • In The Lost World: Jurassic Park, he notes that a message about protecting endangered species and the environment becomes very much lost when the protagonists who hold to this end up causing most of the problems throughout the film (involving death, destruction, sabotage). There was also the BS about taking the dinosaurs from their "natural habitat," when, in fact, the dinosaurs were CLONED FROM FOSSILS, and therefore, were completely unnatural in the first place.
  • Doug always had a justified obsession with "everyone's opinion is worth something, whether you like or dislike a show/movie doesn't matter, just talk with other people and discuss it". So why did the Looney Tunes editorial have a section where a Simpleton Voice fanboy laughed stupidly at the worst scenes of shows that Critic didn't like, but act entitled and insulting at the best scenes of the show that he did?
  • In The Cat in the Hat, the speech about how kid's entertainment should be treated with respect rings hollow since the once-Papa Wolf character had been treating Evilina abusively throughout the episode.
  • "Everyone you criticize from this point on has a face," was broken already by the giant misinformed Bay rant, but had to be purposely done when Critic outright insulted a child actress's face for being too photoshopped.
  • The "fad is just one letter away from fade" speech from The Lorax review has the Critic arguing that content creators shouldn't follow trends or base their material around pop culture jokes and references, and instead should focus on "timeless" content. It's a great message... which is undercut by the fact that the Critic has been basing a good chunk of his material around pop culture jokes since his show started - in The Lorax review alone he makes references to Frozen, The LEGO Movie, Rise of the Guardians, Willy Wonka, and the 2011 Muppet film.
  • In his review of Princess Diaries 2, he gives a lecture to Hyper Fangirl that she just wants to surround him in nostalgia and feed him opinions and things he likes rather than challenging him to be a better person, and that kind of behavior isn't love. While the speech itself is powerful, it loses a lot of its impact coming from the Critic, who has repeatedly demonstrated an inability or unwillingness to move beyond his childhood nostalgia.
  • He gets upset with The Lion King (1994) preaching “the past may have sucked, but take responsibility” (a good message) but having nobody on Simba’s side until it’s revealed he didn’t kill Mufasa.
• Broken Base: In-Universe example with Angry Joe arguing about whether Man of Steel is good or bad. The Nostalgia Critic eventually says that while he can't understand why people like the movie, he says that what they see is that they witness one of their most beloved superhero take on one of their biggest challenges makes it more interesting, and tells him to enjoy it.
• Brown Note: The Critic has a tumour in his brain that grows whenever he listens to the theme song from Doug. He calls it "Porkchop".
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Dwells on it in his review of Patch Adams, where his growing impatience with "Patch" gets worse as the eccentric medical student achieves grades near the top of his class, even though he conspicuously never seems to really study; he contrasts this depiction with Amadeus, where (as he would later dwell on in detail) Mozart's genius with music is shown with his having been raised in obsession with it.
• Buffy Speak: All the times he describes the action and Technology Porn of Waterworld as "Stufff!" Also "putting things into things" in the "Arnold" song from the Commando review.
• The Bus Came Back: After a long time away, or just getting beaten by Critic in his own show, Chester makes a cameo in Christmas Story II and plays an important part in Matrix Month.
• …But He Sounds Handsome: When Jim plays Jared Leto playing Joker in the Suicide Squad (2016) review and gets too into character.
  Jim: Jim? Who's Jim? Sounds like a handsome guy.
• But Wait, There's More!:
  • The Critic notes that the Rock Biter's sitcom antics in The NeverEnding Story III: Escape from Fantasia wasn't enough. It gets worse.
  • Tamara sings this to the Critic before going off on the other ways Frozen's fanbase is ruining everything.

C

• Call-Back:
  • In his "Old vs. New: The Ten Commandments vs. The Prince of Egypt" review, he says that one way The Ten Commandments is superior is that we learn Moses's last name. Clips are then shown of various characters saying "Moses, Moses..." Soon after, we see a clip of the "Super Mario Bros." movie where Luigi explains that he and Mario's last names are just "Mario". The Nostalgia Critic then threatens, "Don't start with me!"
  • In his review of The NeverEnding Story III: Escape from Fantasia, the Critic asks to be taken to Fantasia. The camera zooms in and out on him, repeatedly hitting him. As he's shouting in agony, he calls back to his review of It as he yells "WHY IS IT SO MEAN?!"
    • Speaking of which, in said IT review, after mentioning that one of the characters as a child is played by Jonathan Brandis, the elephant from his The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter review shows up for a moment, only to be told to "Piss off!"
  • In his The Thief and the Cobbler review, when a pumpkin falls on his predicted by a past recording sent to his phone, he says "WHAT?!? PUMPKIN?!? WHAT?!?! WHAT!?!...PUMPKIN?!? WHAT?!?!" This was done before in his Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog review when he says this after Grounder blows into his hand and a pumpkin pops out the other.
  • Though he doesn't play his Stephen King Drinking Game (from his review of It) during his review of The Langoliers, he takes a shot anyway after he finds out that it's set in Maine.
  • In his Little Monsters review, Fred Savage's character said "I want my BROTHER!!", to which the Critic said, "As well as some FOOD!!!"
  • In his The Magic Voyage review, when the Critic asks what you'd call someone pulling a telescope out of their pants, there's a callback to the second commercial special; specifically the Wunder Boner ad. "My wife would like that!"
  • In his Inspector Gadget (1999) review, the Critic pondered when Inspector Gadget would ever need bubbles. Cuts to a clip from his second "Commercials" special where he said "Fucking bubbles!"
  • The third Top 11 Fuck Ups video has a callback to his sped-up "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" breakdown in Battlefield Earth. Only this time it keeps going.
  • His Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog review refers back to his Space Jam review when explaining what a furry is.
  • The Ghost Rider (2007) title card has one of Critic's psychotic faces from The Shining review.
  • Never mentioned, but Film Brain is wearing a Gryffindor tie in The Purge, like he did in Suburban Knights.
  • As well as being invoked Reality Subtext (Doug said in one of his vlogs that he wanted firebending so he could hurt people), Critic failing at firebending in “Top Best Avatar Episodes” is a nod back to “Top 11 Adult Jokes We Never Got As Kids” where he set some poor random guy on fire.
  • The Rogue figurine, revealed by Chester to be Critic's wank doll, is reacted to with delight by the hyper fangirl, who might not like Critic so much if she knew what it was used for.
  • The quick panic in Daredevil about his joke file (old memes) and not being able to find a Soprano's reference, is a nod back to Star Trek V where he runs out of references and finds it hard to make an actual joke.
  • In the The Adventures Of Sharkboy And Lava Girl, he has a Jeeves-style servant (just differently named) just like he did in the Plot Hole reviews.
  • Many years back, an Ask That Guy-lite Doug did a black and white video (starring a Mr Puppy) about Hollywood taking down five second movies. In Jurassic World, he does another one about copyright people taking down Critic reviews.
    • “The review must go on” wording gets mentioned twice, and Critic ends up on the floor like Donnie did (only much less afraid and sad). Plus there's an indulgent invoked Split Personality moment of one Critic being a Love Martyr abuse victim of another version of him.
  • Hyper desperately going for shallow prettiness when she's got nothing to defend happens in both Old vs New Cinderella (where she just wants to defend Cindy's Costume Porn) and Old vs New Spider-Man (where all she likes Mary Jane Watson for is her pretty hair).
  • At the end of Rogue One, when he realizes Sequel Month 2 will suck, his face falls just like the last time he announced Sequel Month.
  • Hyper (along with Tamara) cosplays Velma Dinkley as she had said she wanted to do in her Q&A video. Her calling Devil Boner to imitate Scooby Doo also calls back to her likening him to her pet dog in the Q&A video.
• Call-Forward:
  • Critic wanting himself as a forced Sex Slave in “The Sixth Day” crossover makes Snob taking over the site and keeping him as a broken hooker in the Bad Future feel even more like karma. And given that Critic/Snob sex-slavery cameo was filmed when Pop Quiz Hotshot pilot was trying to be got out, a lot of people assume it was a reference to that, where Snob kidnaps Critic, Tamara and others. Although the second episode of the show made that Canon Discontinuity.
• The Cameo: Everyone in TGWTG appears in at least one episode (the co-reviewers are seen below in Crossover). But the most notable was Mara Wilson in A Simple Wish.
  • He's made a few cameos in death for Atop the Fourth Wall and The Nostalgia Chick, showing what he's been doing since then and even displaying some more Character Development in the process.
  • Then the animators of the anime Unlimited Psychic Squad threw him and The Angry Video Game Nerd in as background characters its fifth episode.
  • Much to his French fans' surprise, he also cameoed in two episodes of the web series Joueur du Grenier, in which he plays an evil Russian soldier.
  • In a creepy scene of AI (one of a few), Doug himself appears (usual room, usual clothes, usual voice) as an abusive parent who bludgeons his child's furby to death.
  • At the end of the Fourth Commercial special, he got Greg Sestero from The Room to take part in a partial reenactment.
  • In his review of The Wicker Man (2006), Carl Copenhagen and Quinn from Demo Reel make a brief cameo at the bar. As do Spoony and The Cinema Snob.
  • Doug (as his In-Universe creator self) makes a appearance in the Hyper Fangirl's first vlog, and while Critic reacts with anger to her, Doug is just twitchy, afraid and confused.
  • The ending of his review of The Purge features a short animated parody of Pinky and the Brain, with Rob Paulsen and Maurice LaMarche voicing the characters (and questioning Critic's apparent claim that the profanity-laden work was for a kid's show).
  • The ending of his Top 11 Worst Avatar Episodes, he got Dante Basco to appear at the end, with a Sequel Hook that he will appear in the next episode as well
  • Because of a invoked Throw It In! moment from Malcolm, Tacoma shows up at the end of the Hyper Fangirl's second vlog, with half of his face burned off.
  • The Maximum Overdrive review begins with JonTron "killing" the Critic for reviewing Foodfight!, which the former already released two months ahead of the Critic's own take.
  • Rachel as Evilina appears in the Ghostbusters review, representing all the girls who are excited to see themselves in a movie.
• Canon Discontinuity: Even though his character hadn't been cemented at that point, there are still lines in the "Top 11 Animated Hotties" that have been proven wrong or he wouldn't dare say now.
  • From the existence of Hyper Fangirl (and Critic being very aware of her), and how the rape whistle commercial mocking is a trend but nothing else from “Dawn Of The Commercials” has been mentioned again, the whole “men can't be harassed and women's anger to being harassed makes them hotter” subplot of that episode has been probably for the best erased from memory.
  • While there are a lot of foreshadowing lines of hers in Spider-Man Old vs New, Hyper Hearing Voices and having hallucinations that push her to go stalk Critic were never brought up again, and her “Saga” recap on the DVD ignores that scene.
  • Invoked in We Wish You A Turtles Christmas, as Critic tells Tamara he'll make his destroying the world not canon.
• Canon Welding:
  • The Last Airbender ties Doug's Avatar vlogs (and everything he says) to the Critic canon. The reverse happens in Doug's Adventure Time vlog of “Business Time”, with Critic appearing at the start and end of the review. Hyper is also aware of Doug and Rob's vlog of Scooby-Doo, and credits herself with "them getting into it".
  • An Ask That Guy with the Glasses episode established that Rob is the brother of Ask That Guy as well, leading to both shows' Abusive Parents ending up as the same people.
• Captain Ersatz: He lampshades the use of fast talking supernatural characters by multiple in the 1980s in his Little Monsters video, complete with a long segment of 4 characters (Drop Dead Fred, Genie, Beetlejuice, and Maurice from said movie) all talking at the same time in the same tone of voice.
• Captain Obvious:
  • Referenced in the Red Sonja review; after Red Sonja's sister dies, Kalidor tells her, "She's dead." The Critic responds to this with, "THANK YOU, CAPTAIN OBVIOUS. If I get hit by an arrow, you'll be sure to tell me, right?!"
  • In-universe example: In his Full House review, after The Critic shoots the heads off the Olsen Twins, he remarks: "Ah. I did it. (Beat) They're dead."
  • Other times, if a character says something painfully obvious, the Critic will smack his head mock-dramatically and exclaim "a-DOOOOOIIIIIIII!"
  • In his crossover "Familiar Faces" episode on the Batman: The Animated Series character Baby Doll, a scene from Batman: The Brave and the Bold is shown where Batman looks at a Time Bomb readout for two seconds before exclaiming "it's a bomb!" The Critic comments that Batman must be "THE WORLD'S GREATEST DETECTIVE!"
  • In his review of The Room, after Johnny kills himself, Lisa's Captain Obvious moment leads to the Critic paraphrasing the "Dead Parrot" sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus to describe Johnny's current state.
  • In his review of Bebe's Kids:
    • Critic: Perhaps you remember my video game review of Bebe's Kids. [Clips of Critic destroying the game angrily] I didn't like it.
  • In his James and the Giant Peach review after seeing two musical numbers with lyrics full of blatantly obvious matter, the Critic devises some names for potential songs on the soundtrack, such as "The Sky Is Blue", "Butts Make Poo", and "My Tongue is in My Mouth".
• Captive Date: At the end of Small Soldiers, Hyper breaks into Critic's bedroom and kidnaps him, forcing him to be this at gunpoint for two weeks. Actually treated as a big deal, as Critic tries (but fails) to get sympathy for it and Midwest Media Expo 2015 had Doug confirm it was her Moral Event Horizon.
  • He's suffered this before in Spooning With Spoony 2, having to lie there catatonic while Spoony hammers it in how much he got used and fucked when he was roofied.
• Card-Carrying Villain: TMZ. "Just swallow your dignity and remember...you have no soul to lose."
• Catharsis Factor: Invoked talking about The Cable Guy in “Top 10 Films I Like But Everybody Else Hates”, Doug admitted that the main reason why he enjoyed the film was because he's had a lot of boundary-crossing people in his life since getting this job, and “it's an unfair self-indulgent release” to think that they're as wacky obsessive as Jim Carrey in the film. Critic says the same thing in “Why Does Everyone Hate [the film]”.
• Cathartic Scream:
  • “I Fucking Love Christmas” is batshit and loud enough to considered one, and afterwards Critic tells a terrified Malcolm and Tamara that he needed that.
  • Showing some Aesop Amnesia, Mamma Mia! has Tamara tell Critic to say what he hates about his fanbase, because she thinks nobody is listening and it'll be like screaming into a pillow. Doesn't work out well.
• Casual Kink:
  • In the Top 11 Best Villain Songs, he ends his discussion on ''The Cellblock Tango with he'd be glad to let the women kill him as long as they played the song.
  • When Tamara says she crossdresses in The Monster Squad like she wants it to a big deal, Critic snorts and tells her everyone crossdresses in his show, with Malcolm and Jim in the background agreeing that it's fun and Jason being asked his dress size.
  • In Eight Crazy Nights, both Malcolm and Rachel are up for a threesome with Critic, but he's in a Hates Being Touched mood and angrily gets them off him.
  • In Jurassic World, Critic, Tamara and Malcolm all want to re-enact Fifty Shades of Grey with each other. Tamara only refuses because the men want her to be Ana.
  • In The Wicker Man (2006), Critic hires Tamara to make him suffer, and according to rl Tamara's Ship Tease, she goes between beating him every week and letting him be dominant at other times.
  • In Pixels, he tells Tamara that ball-gags are actually pretty comfortable.
  • Hyper Boner in Cinderella Old vs New have a couple, like being proud of the other one kidnapping Critic (much to his annoyance), her writing fanfic about him and being quite happy with his penis gun. In Freddy vs Jason, they have loud offscreen sex in front of Critic, and he calls that "battle" a draw. Evil Dead Old Vs New implies they take Critic hostage regularly to bond with each other. Even in Tamara's Velma cosplay video, Hyper shamelessly calls up Devil Boner to imitate Scooby Doo, and her tone implies she's into it.
  • While Critic sleeps in Jurassic Park III, Rob watches over him while reading tentacle porn.
  • In Suicide Squad (2016), Critic is perfectly happy with unused anal beads.
  • Devil Boner mistakes a make-up applicator for a butt plug in the Hyper Boner make-up vlog, and Hyper encourages him to play with it.
  • Brad jokingly but knowingly gave Critic a daddy kink in his Jesus Bro livestream, ship teaseing that he's Critic's pretend dad and that's why he spanks him so much for all the cursing in the videos.
• Catapult Nightmare: Played straight (if just referenced) in That Scifi Guy's The 6th Day crossover review, where Critic says he wakes up swearing and screaming every morning. Not even treated as a joke, he just has issues.
• Catchphrase Interruptus: In several introductions, he fails to get through his catchphrase before breaking down in rage, weeping, or laughter (See This Is Gonna Suck).
  • The BLAM signal was cut off partway through on at least two reviews (Flubber and the The Star Wars Holiday Special).
  • At the end of the Full House review, his attempts to sign off with his catchphrase get interrupted by demonic mutant alien Olsen Twins, causing him to wake up from a Catapult Nightmare each time. After going through this several times, he just looks at the camera and says, "You know what I do, and you know why I do it."
• Cat Fight:
  • The whole plot of the original Face/Off review, with Tamara and Rachel fighting each other to be Critic's Token Chick. They both end up being the Butt-Monkey, as Rachel gets boxed up and sent to California, and Malcolm tells Tamara that she has to clean up Critic's vomit. They admitted in a co-vlog some years later that they were glad the ep got lost, as it wouldn't have helped misogyny aimed at them any (which Doug understood when Tamara told him).
  • Gender-inverted with Devil Boner and Benny in Cinderella Old vs New, as they fight over who gets to be Hyper's outlet for violence. They settle it over both of them loving Ever After.
• Cat Girl: Reviewing Catwoman (2004) causes the Critic's house to be attacked by a League of Catwomen. And the Eartha Kitt stand-in (and later, the Halle Berry stand-in) is a man!
• Catharsis Factor:
  • In-universe, going with the Recursive Canon trend, two skits in Rise of the Commercials have Malcolm and Tamara characters getting hurt by a Critic character and then gleefully humiliating/beating him. Critic himself gets to write another ^note the first one established to be written by him after his mom died “abusive parent treats Tamara badly” sketch too.
  • Doug had said anyway that Critic uses the commercial episodes to take a break from shit (and that's why they can be so dark), but Critic himself says in Hocus Pocus that it's been too weird of a Halloween and he needs some familiar comfort.
• Catholic Schoolgirls Rule: Doug's flirty posing in the cheerleader costume during Christmas Story II behind the scenes makes Rob bemoan that he'll never able to be able to watch Catholic schoolgirl anime again.
• Camera Abuse: Completing a Rule of Three for meta jokes in the episode, The Matrix ends with Critic flying into the sky, and when he hits the limit he crashes into the camera, cracks it and falls back down.
• Career Versus Family: According to Doug at the end of The Christmas Tree, his mom gave up a career in opera to take care of two boys.
• Caught with Your Pants Down: In the big group review of The Last Airbender, the reviewers think that he set it up like he did for Dragonball Evolution the year before. It turns out that he doesn't even know their names and they catch him fapping to George Takei's biography for further insult.
  Critic: ...this is awkward.
• Central Theme: Prime was taking responsibility, which kicked into overdrive after Ma-Ti died, while reboot is Sanity Slippage and meta, with Critic (also Hyper Fangirl, and Rachel/Malcolm/Tamara aren't particularly sane) losing more of his mind, and for the most part either rejecting the idea that he's a character or playing into that by doing whatever it takes to get views.
• Cerebus Retcon:
  • In early episodes, he's proud of how his generation got raised by television. In later ones, not so much. Check out the bitterness when he discusses how Mike Teevee's parents are useless for letting the box take care of their child.
  • Started in The Guyver and returned to in The Wicker Man (2006), even his Fountain of Memes reputation got turned more dramatic. The former has Sage trying to get his old memes back because Critic had more fun back then and isn't so much with trying to force things like "platypus bunny", and the latter has Critic actually making a scrapbook of his old bear jokes and nearly crying because he has no idea what one to pick.
  • Fans suspected something was up with the insane amount of crossovers in 2012, but Lewis reassured them it was just a way for Doug to work on the fourth year, nothing more. But then To Boldly Flee ended, and Doug revealed they were Critic's Tenth Doctor-like way of saying goodbye, and even if the Plot Hole didn't exist, would have still found a way to kill himself for good.
  • It was around from the beginning, but Christmas With The Kranks makes the entire show more of a Tragic Dream as it's outright said Critic only started reviewing to get people to like him and stop abusing him.
  • "Hyper Fangirl" was a ridiculous name like any other character (Tamara hadn't even thought about her having a real name), until "Phantom Of The Opera" where she sings that it's an identity she can't get out of.
• Cerebus Rollercoaster: Doug has a talent for writing comedy, then slamming you in the face with feels, then woo! Back to funny!
• Cerebus Syndrome:
  • The show has got steadily darker as time goes on, with Critic's Abusive Parents and job issues getting more involved, post-SK episodes setting up his death and guilt over Ma-Ti, and the revival heavy on the disturbing imagery. In a post, Doug said that he enjoys having a more emotional edge to his stuff]].
  • Lampshaded in Batman Forever where Schumacher was hired to make the show more family friendly after being too dark.
• The Chain of Harm: Critic’s a perpetual victim, so he hurts Rachel/Malcolm/Tamara and sometimes they hurt him back or each other. Uncle Lies and Aunt Despair are also happy to admit that History Repeats with abuse.
• Change the Uncomfortable Subject:
  • In The Guyver, when Sage asks if Critic remembers the plots of Kickassia, Suburban Knights and To Boldly Flee, he gives a very unsure “...yes?” and stutters that he doesn't know when asked if Sage was at evil then. He then jumps the subject and accuses Sage of having an Evil Twin.
  • In Hyper's second vlog, Malcolm asks her how she gets into the studio every day and she tells him bye before very quickly moving onto dino Rob. And when Tamara complains about the sexist questions, she doesn't even bother saying anything else before hounding Critic again.
  • In Christmas Story II, he reintroduces Hyper and says It's a Long Story regarding what happened between them before stating “[he] has worse tastes to wash out of [his] mouth” regarding the Christmas Story franchise.
  • When "Alvin and The Chipmunks: The Squeakuel", makes a joke about "you're fired" being the most famous words Trump will say, Critic gets super awkward and can't even get a line out before Trump tweets about him.
  • In Speed Racer, he slips out that he knows chloroform makes you a little delusional, and when asked how, he changes subject to knocking out Malcolm even though that doesn't answer how.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "(Hello,) I'm the Nostalgia Critic, I remember it so you don't have to!" At the end of Why Do We Holiday So Early, he stumbles over the "nost-" part, and giggles that he's never screwed that up before.
  • "They did it! They actually did it!" when the film does something bad he thought wouldn't happen.
  • "Why top 11? Because I like to go one step beyond." Lampshaded and changed sometimes, depending on the circumstances.
  • "BUT WAIT!! BUT WAIT!! WAIT A MINUTE!!"
  • (Witnessing a disturbing, morally awkward or offensive scene or line) "...really? You're gonna (description)?" shrugs "All right..."
  • "Which makes the previous scene, ENTIRELY POINTLESS.", complete with a point of the index finger and a ding.
    • "This has been another... POINTLESS MOMENT."
  • "Are you even trying?"
  • "An abomination of ASSNESS!"
  • "It's X the fucking Y!" seems to be becoming one, for whenever a movie tries way too hard for its subject matter, like, say, Felix the Cat: The Movie.
  • "BOOBS, you like BOOBS!" whenever he's trying to snap himself out of getting distracted by his man-crushes.
  • "You see?"
  • Dinosaur Rob's "I'm a dinosaur."
  • "By the way, that's [actor name] as [character]."
  • (Any time something inappropriate comes up in a family film) "You know, for kids!"
    • Alternately he might say " A family picture!"
  • (Any time something that everyone already knows about appears in one of his countdowns) "Yeah, yeah, you all knew THIS was coming!"
  • "Pretty lame", as a punchline to a highly underwhelming scene in a movie.
  • "Hey?! You know that (person or thing) that (attribute or action of said person or thing)....Well; They made a (movie or thing), now...."
    *About Tommy Wiseau in The Room*: "You know that creepy guy who always looks at you funny on the subway? Yeah, he made a movie, apparently."
    *About "Chia Pets" in the first Commercials special*: "You know how they say something is so boring, that they'd rather watch grass grow? Well, now they made a toy out of it!"
  • Hyper Fangirl's was "Don't ask why!" in "Old Vs New Spider-Man" and on her Facebook page for a long while. It came back twice in her Q&A video.
• Character Focus: The whole point of the show is to be a character piece for Critic, but "Old vs New: Cinderella'' especially focuses on the different ways he was abused by his parents vs Hyper being abused by Aunt Despair.
• Character Shilling:
  • In Turbo, Zordon tells Critic "your criticisms are restoring braincells to the viewers, and the movie's powers are getting weaker". Subverted later when Critic proves how awful he can be, and Zordon is mad at him for not being honorable.
  • Again in The Last Airbender, where Rachel Katara says right off the bat that Critic's reviewing skills are awesome. Like Zordon, she's proven wrong.
  • Lampshaded in The Matrix Reloaded, as Malcolm and Tamara realize telling Critic he's The Chosen One was a bad idea because he already thinks he's the messiah anyway. (plus even telling him that was Critic's writing)
  • Subverted in Christmas Story II with Hyper, as Critic (after telling her very firmly that there was no issue with him losing his love of Christmas) acts like she helped him see that the original movie was still good, but Doug said at a con later that she was still the bad guy and Critic was just getting his head fucked with.
• Character’s Most Hated Song: Critic really hates the Doug theme song because it reminds him of his childhood mockery for sharing a name with the main character. Whenever he hears it, he goes into a screaming murderous tantrum.
• Chekhov's Gun: The big monkey toy was actually first seen in the Transformers III Bum/Critic review, but only started getting used as a trauma cure attempt as of Patch Adams.
• Cherubic Choir: There's a heavenly choir at the beginning of Dawn Of The Commercials, for the Serious Business joke of him being like Jesus because he's invoked Pandering to the Base who want more commercial episodes.
• Chewbacca Defense:
  • In his Suburban Commando review, the Critic suggests using the line "I was FROZEN today!" for this.
  • He thought Batman & Robin was so bad that lawyers can use this that their client's offense was a lesser crime than making the movie.
• Chewing the Scenery: Aside from the Critic himself being a jewel of an example of this, he points this out in a couple reviews.
  • Specifically the Drop Dead Fred review. Fred: AGGH! The death breath! SHE KILLED ME WITH THE DEATH BREATH! BEEGONNNNNNE, EEEVILLL ONNNNNNE!!! Nostalgia Critic: "This scenery is wonderful! Oh, hey, there's even more background I can chew!"
  • Also, the BAATTLEFIEELD EAAARTH!! review.
• Chiaroscuro: For "The Review Must Go On" and Son of the Mask, Doug makes his house look extremely dark, lonely and uninviting.
• Chickification: He calls this "Dumbass in Distress Syndrome." Although originally only used for women went stupid in the third act, he expands the trope to include Distressed Dudes later on.
  • He's somewhat irritated that the strong, independent teacher in Sidekicks being reduced to the lowest common denominator in Barry's teenage mind.
  • In Small Soldiers, he's pissed about the dolls having badass dresses like an Egyptian Queen and a Spartan Warrior, but acting like shallow valley girls.
  • Parodied and inverted by Chick and Critic in the Ferngully review. After perfectly happy G-Rated Sex, she forces a never-to-be-mentioned-again pregnancy on him and is seconds away from Evil Laughing while he has a breakdown.
  • When a Hyper cosplayer has an additional baby carriage, Doug jokingly freaks that it might be Critic's. The implication of rape comes from the fact Critic was kidnapped and dating Hyper against his will.
• Chirping Crickets: The Good Burger review uses the tumbleweed variation. On third instance, the tumbleweed quits it.
• Christmas Episode: Multiple ones per season: "Top 12 Greatest Christmas Specials", "Jingle All the Way", "He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special", "Jack Frost", "The Return of the Christmas Specials", "The Star Wars Holiday Special", "Ernest Saves Christmas", "Rover Dangerfield", "You're a Rotten Dirty Bastard", "The Grinch", "Babes in Toyland", "Santa Claus: the Movie", "Top 12 Santa Clauses", "Why Lie About Santa Claus?", "The Worst Christmas Special Ever", "Why Is Arthur Christmas a Masterpiece", "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer", "A Christmas Story 2", "What You Never Knew About Christmas Vacation", "Care Bears Nutcracker Suite", and "We Wish You a Turtle Christmas".
• Clark Kenting: Mocked by the Critic in his "Top 11 Dumbest Superman Moments".
  • Also extensively mocked during the end of Jingle All the Way review, where the main character's wife and son are unable to recognize him despite the fact that he is Arnold Schwarzenegger:
    Man in Turboman Costume Who is Obviously Ahnold: Your dad is not mad at you.
    Kid: How do you know all that.
    Critic, as Kid: Yes, do tell strange, muscle-bound, big-teethed, square-jawed, Austrian-accented he-man who isn't in any way my father.
• Cliffhanger: At the end of Conquest Of The Commercials, Critic gets tired of Don Bluth's staring, screams Please, I Will Do Anything!, and then it cuts to “will continue next week”.
• Clip Show: Parodied and subverted; the Critic plans to foist a 'crummy-ass clip show' on his viewers for his 100th episode, but unfortunately the characters in the clip he shows — Ma-Ti and an earlier version of the Critic — take exception to this. According to the episode's commentary, Walker was originally planning on doing a Clip Show...albeit one with original clips ("Hey, remember when I fought Satan?").
  • The "Top 11 F*ck-Ups" may serve as a clip show in and of itself.
• Clone Angst Poor clone Critic in That Sci-Fi Guy's “The Sixth Day” review either has to be TSFG's maid or original Critic's Sex Slave.
• Close-Enough Timeline: After returning from reviewing The Room in the future, the Critic discovers that everything is exactly the same except his walls are a different color and he somehow has a tail.
• Closet Key: In Conquest Of The Commercials, he jokingly (but still sweetly) recommends Steven Universe and The Legend of Korra for a little girl who is way too into her barbie, because they might help her work things out.
• Closet Sublet: Subverted in The Swan Princess, as Critic thinks he's making Malcolm and Tamara live in the studio closet until whenever he needs them again, but really they're out and plotting bitter vengeance against him for his Mean Boss ways. In Connecticon 2016 Doug joked that he still keeps them in the closet and going to cons is a rare treat out.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Christopher Walken.
  Walken: Jelly donut... Jelly donut. Goodbye.
  Critic: I... I don't even know where I am when he calls.
• Cluster F-Bomb:
  • This video, in which he rants about The Angry Video Game Nerd's review of The Wizard (which came out exactly twelve days before the Critic's review, and one day after he posted his list of movies to review). His insult lasts for well over a minute.
  • At one point in the "final fight" between the Nostalgia Critic and The Angry Video Game Nerd, they start firing insults at each other, and eventually it degrades into them just saying "Fuck" at each other repeatedly. A "Making of" video shows that this caused them both to crack up. Rob jokes that the entire Nerd/Critic rivalry can be summed up by this one exchange.
  • A notable one in his Battlefield Earth review. It was undercranked because it is much, much funnier that way.
  • Also "fuck" was heard a lot in one part of his The NeverEnding Story III: Escape from Fantasia review, especially in his comparisons of Rock Biter and his family to a sitcom.
    Nostalgia Critic: You've turned this character into a fucking sitcom! Like the fucking Flintstones and the fucking Dinosaurs! Don't fucking believe me? Take a fucking look at these fucking scenes of those fucking shows and then fucking tell me they don't fucking look like the fucking same thing, you fucking fuck FUCK!
  • He unleashes another one in his review of Milk Money when a kid brings a prostitute to class for an oral presentation that breaks... just a few rules.
  • The Reveal of The Lorax's Once-ler induces an acceleratingly rapid-fire cluster of "Fuck you!" repetitions from him.
  • Related and amusing, the MME Channel Awesome panel had Rob talk about how their mother complains because she wants to show their stuff to her church group (or even watch it herself) but can't because of all the swearing. Lampshaded in Christmas With The Kranks when Critic's mom asks him to stop swearing, and he tells her to shut up because people find it charming. A while after she died, Doug made sure to not say the F word for a little over a year, just to prove to her and himself that he didn’t have to rely on it.
• Comically Missing the Point: The police-boyfriend in Catwoman (2004) gets roundly mocked for calling a piece of art "elegant and whimsical", but it's not like he's working or saying it when he's interrogating someone.
• Color Blind Casting: Due to the limited number of actors, it's common for Malcolm and Rachel/Tamara to play characters that don't match their race or gender. Malcolm has played the white Steve Trevor and the Indian Simon Masrani, while Tamara has played boys several times, as well as the Japanese Katana.
• Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch:
  • Critic reviewing Doug, Hey Arnold! and the anime series Pokémon: The First Movie was based off of. He admitted he had never actually seen them, but argued in the latter case that it could be open to a broad audience not familiar with the franchise. invoked
  • He received criticism for reviewing Thomas and the Magic Railroad and stating that he has never seen the show the movie was based on. This is featured in his third "Top 11 Fuck Ups" video and he states that he has done this before (like his Pokemon review mentioned above) and he received a lot of requests by fans to review the movie so he did. 
  • In Fantastic Four (2005) review, Critic, Tamara and Malcolm all agree that the 2015 film is going to suck because of how bad the former film was. Unlike the other examples, Played for Laughs as they're all being jerks.
  • In the chorus of booing the Paranormal Activity trailer at the start of "Should Found Footage Stop", one guy shouts "fuck you movie I don't have to see".
  • As mentioned above, what’s nostalgic to his audience can vary, and people will demand that he talk about their nostalgia, so Doug either had to find time to watch something he didn’t grow up with or form a sometimes negative opinion based on not much of a show. (As Rob complained, saying no and meaning it is apparently not an option.) The solution is the younger Ensemble Cast, who get to talk about Sailor Moon, Dragonball or Power Rangers and make everyone happy.
• Complaining About People Not Liking the Show: invoked He did this himself with The Looney Tunes Show, characterizing the people who didn't enjoy it as whiny babies who couldn't appreciate good humor.
• Complexity Addiction: Lampshaded several times by the Critic.
  • We're Back: A horde of superintelligent dinosaurs are helpless to stop an old man because he has a contract.
  • Red Sonja: the sorcerer could have kept stabbing Sonja when she charged him.
    Maybe I should stab her again. Maybe I should stab her again. Maybe I should stab her again.
  • A Kid in King Arthur's Court: he points out King Arthur could easily had Balasko executed for treason rather than employ the contrived plot they planned instead.
  • Captain N: He notes that Kevin could have easily used his reality altering abilities in several ways to simply shoot Mother Brain.
  • It: He wonders why the clown torments the children (badly) when he could simply kill them on the spot.
  • Waterworld: He notices that Kevin Costner's character manages to deliver a long speech and drop a flare blowing the boat up while being surrounded by a ton of armed Smokers.
  • Also in Waterworld he wonders why the normal humans treat mutants like scum and won't let them live in their society despite the mutants having gills can do dozens of things that can make life easier for the normals.
• Condescending Compassion: He’s made a couple of jokes about mansplaining, like in the Wonder Woman (2017) clipless review with Batman saying “let me batsplain”.
• Conspicuously Light Patch: Makes fun of this in Felix the Cat: The Movie:
  Critic: Look out for that bat! It's painted into the background, so obviously it's not going to move!
• Continuity Nod: Has his own page.
• Continuity Porn:
  • Christmas With The Kranks was full of it, from reminders to how bad Critic's childhood was, to what his clothes were in the episodes before his normal outfit, plus the many memes he's tried to force over the years.
  • In The Phantom of the Opera (2004), there is a lot of nods to previous Hyper>Critic episodes; clips are shown from Princess Diaries II and Christmas Story II when Hyper is singing about refusing to give up on Critic, he's still showing some leg in order for worse things not to happen, and the Hyper/Devil Boner ship from Fury Road is still going on. Hyper's statement of only being happy when she's got Critic as a Captive Date gets looked at again too, plus The Lorax analysts using her.
  • The abuse family sketches have a lot of references to what Critic had said happened in his childhood, and Malcolm-child slowly turning horrible out of what he's exposed to is a reference to Ask That Guy's experience.
  • Fittingly for the last review in the 2013-2018 studio, The Nutcracker 3D is full of it, with Rachel acting more like Rebecca/Donnie (crazy and deluded but still decent) from Demo Reel, even the Express VPN ad having a TRMGO Call-Back with a Critic-ish Doug stealing the original's identity, Critic's To Boldly Flee insecurity about people only watching him because he's loud, Rachel finding out her version of Home Alone sucks like 2007 Critic wrt his review in Kranks, and everyone watching Mrs Walker talk from the ending of the Worst Christmas Special.
• Continuity Snarl: In a super minor behind the scenes example, when filming the Third Animated Titanic Movie, Doug said having his mum in the audience would be confusing as Critic's mom is meant to be dead. (This was before she passed in real life as well.)
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: If you can consider movies to be "antagonists" then his treatment of two movies that are Very Loosely Based on a True Story come to mind. Both films arguably disrespected the people involved in the real events they covered, but whereas Patch Adams was emotionally manipulative Glurge which Flanderized its title character, Balto was at least legitimately entertaining and heartwarming on its own merits.
• Convenient Miscarriage: He's rather disgusted by the miscarriage in Blair Witch II being there for no other purpose than gorn.
• Convulsive Seizures: Averted in Christmas with the Kranks, as he gets made to have a siezure and instead of flailing, he slows down, his eyes roll back and he collapses.
• Cool Car: When he reviews Son of the Mask, the only thing in the entire film that he genuinely compliments is the "Charlie Sheen-mobile" that Mask-Tim gets for the final chase against Loki.
  • Devil Boner's car is so cool that the model of it gives Doug a boner in the behind the scenes.
• Cool Old Guy:
  • His grandfather ate sandpaper, told people that haunted woods existed and called himself Vanessa, but Critic still seems to like him.
  • Don Bluth is a more threatening example, but awesome nonetheless.
• Cool Versus Awesome: During the "Cinderella: Old vs. New" segment, a grudge match breaks out between Benny the assassin and Devil Boner. Critic badly wants to go and watch, but Hyper Fangirl forces him to stay and finish the debate.
• Corner of Woe:
  • As a kid, he used to hide in the cupboard when he was afraid, and loves A Christmas Story for validating that detail and making him feel like he wasn't alone.
  • In Conquest Of The Commercials, he's so upset about the mid-eighties AYDS chocolate commercial and their ignorance that he has to curl up in a corner.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Joe Don Baker's character in Congo. The Critic also comments that shooting down his satellite as revenge for putting the mission before the death of Bruce Campbell's character would put thousands out of work, but was acceptable as long as JDB learned his lesson.
  • Peter Soulless from the Critic's The Cat in the Hat review, the man who purchased the rights to every Dr. Seuss book so he could make movies out of them. Not only is he soiling your childhood with focus-grouped money-making ploys, but he sold his soul to Satan to make them profitable.
• Cosplay:
  • There's been plenty of fans dressing like every character of Doug's, but this woman got the honor of being called the best version of him he'd ever seen.
  • Tamara was really delighted about someone dressing up as Aunt Despair.
  • Amusingly, according to Doug at Fan World, he'll pretend he's not actually himself and just a good cosplayer when he's not in the mood to get noticed.
  • On Halloween, apparently Hyper dresses as Critic and Devil Boner dresses as Hyper. Tamara's personal channel also included Hyper in a Velma Dinkley cosplay contest.
• Counterpoint Duet: In The Phantom of the Opera (2004), “Wishing This Shit Never Happened”. Beth is singing about her love for the book Phantom, wishing that the musical version never happened, while Hyper is singing about missing the happiness she felt when she had Critic as a Captive Date, wanting to go back to times where she could imagine he liked her.
• Couch Gag:
  • Every episode since the 100th ends with a quote from the movie played over the Channel Awesome Vanity Plate at the end.
  • The writings on the gravestones as well as the people on the couch in the 2017 Nostalgiaween opening sequence are different in each episode.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Black Willy Wonka says at the very start of the Hyper Story Arc that Critic could just unfriend her on facebook and stop seeing her Entitled to Have You posts, but Critic's need for attention wins out.
• Courtroom Antics: In his Transformers: Dark of the Moon review, Chester A. Bum takes the Critic to court for stealing his act.
• Covers Always Lie:
  • Critic's face and placement in the Les Misérables (2012) title card make it look like this will be another angsty-arc episode for him. In the actual review however, he's given very little spotlight.
  • One picture on the TGWTG 4 DVD had Critic pointing a gun at his head with a desperate look on his face. This was nowhere to be found in any review.
  • The Purge title card, with Critic's Psychotic Smirk, makes it look like he'll be the bad guy. He's not, it's Film Brain.
  • One would assume from the The Shining Call-Back title card that Ghost Rider (2007) would be a heavy episode. It isn't, understandably so given The Wicker Man (2006) being so dark and story-based.
  • Devil Boner is only in the Demolition Man review for a minute.
• Crazy-Prepared: Vincent Price apparently thought that a conversation with the Nostalgia Critic while he was reviewing The Thief and the Cobbler was so important that he recorded many lines of conversation that somehow were the exactly right lines needed at the right time, decades before this review took place, long after his death.
• Creator Backlash: Doug towards Critic in-universe, with The Last Airbender having a scene between them that isn't exactly like the To Boldly Flee talk.
  Doug: God why did I write you so stupid?
• Creator Breakdown:
  • Referenced in-universe during Jurassic Park III, as there's a sequel sketch of sorts to the child abuse scene from AI (with dad Doug forcing child Tamara to throw her doll away as she cries), and when it cuts back to Critic, he lampshades that he was in a dark place when he wrote that.
  • The Critic review of The Uncanny Valley mocks-slash-lampshades that Doug is tired and has nothing left to offer so is getting other people to contribute to disguise that fact.
• Creepy Doll:
  • The Traumatic Childhood-Cure Monkey Plushie. The actual plushie itself looks awesomely cuddly, but with a name like that and how he treats it (not to mentioned it was properly introduced to try and make a victim of child sexual abuse laugh), the giggles are going to be uncomfortable.
  • He doesn't have much luck with bear toys especially, like in “The Uncanny Valley”, his popples toy cut him with glass and called him racial slurs.
  • Cindy in the The 6th Day review he did with That Sci-Fi Guy, although complaining about how scary it is ends up with a moment of him randomly pretending to give a blowjob. It doesn't even make that much sense in context, aside from fanservice.
• Cringe Comedy:
  • Jason, Jori, Rachel and Malcolm's TMZ characters yelping and clapping like seals in AI. Even Critic looks embarrassed.
  • In a similar vein, the straw fans in Eight Crazy Nights being treated as so dumb they make animal noises when Critic condescendingly gives them a “feeding time”.
  • Critic's Pretty Fly for a White Guy routine in Alice in Wonderland (2010) after the Mad Hatter does his breakdance. Malice lampshades it by asking for the third time if he's sure he didn't escape from an asylum.
  • The opening of the TMNT crossover, with a song about how Critic and Nerd are wasting their lives playing over a montage of them failing at being any form of badass.
  • Critic being pathetic with the big guns in Doom while Hyper, Benny and Devil Boner look annoyed is both in character and hard to watch.
• Critic Breakdown:
  • The Critic has built a large part of his reputation on this sort of reaction, especially in regards to Batman & Robin's notorious 'Bat Credit Card'.
  • Batman & Robin had him undergo such a breakdown that he had to be restrained by orderlies in three Time Skips throughout the video. Even after calming down, could not say or hear the words "Bat Credit Card" for years afterwards without leaping into another homicidal rage.
  • His review of Food Fight opens with him wandering into his home in a daze. He then snaps, destroying the DVD with the garbage disposal followed by frantically smashing every product in the kitchen which was featured in the film (or on the DVD jewel case).
  • The NeverEnding Story III: Escape from Fantasia causes the Nostalgia Critic to go Laughing Mad, go to the hardware store and buy a hammer, and smash the DVD in a fit of rage.
  • He gets so depressed during his review of Son of the Mask that he literally begs The Devil himself to kill him. The Devil refuses, because he just loves idea the Critic is undergoing a Fate Worse than Death.
• Critical Backlashinvoked:
  • In his review of Waterworld, he said the movie did have its good points, and overall was just mediocre rather than horrible.
  • In Rogue One behind the scenes, Tamara liked Jingle All the Way (in an ironic way she has to explain) and Rob jokingly gets pissed at her.
• Crossover: Quite a lot.^note Note that this list only includes crossover episodes that are hosted under The Nostalgia Critic channel other than anniversary specials. The show has done several other crossovers counted as episodes of the other shows, such as Batman: The Animated Series: Baby Doll with CR, The Chipmunk Adventure with The Nostalgia Chick, two Child's Play sequels with Phelous, and Count Chocula with Maven Of The Eventide.
  • FernGully: The Last Rainforest: The Nostalgia Chick
  • TMNT Coming Out of Their Shells Tour: The Angry Video Game Nerd
  • Alone In The Dark: Spoony and Linkara.
  • Superman IV: The Quest for Peace: Linkara
  • Leprechaun: The Cinema Snob
  • Simon Sez: Obscurus Lupa
  • Moulin Rouge!: Brentalfloss and The Nostalgia Chick.
  • Child's Play (1988): Phelous
  • Star Trek: Insurrection: Linkara
  • Starchaser: The Legend of Orin: Bennett the Sage
  • Heavy Metal: Diamanda Hagan
  • Digimon: The Movie: JesuOtaku
  • Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: The cast of 80's Dan.
  • The Wiz: Todd in the Shadows
  • Total Recall (1990): That SciFi Guy
  • Les Misérables (2012): Oancitizen, Paw Dugan, and Brentalfloss.
  • Sharknado: The Cinema Snob
  • Man of Steel: Angry Joe
  • BloodRayne: Spoony and Linkara.
  • Ghost Rider 2: MikeJ
  • Forest Warrior: Film Brain
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014): The Angry Video Game Nerd
  • The Smurfs: Andre the Black Nerd
  • The Force Awakens: The Cinema Snob
  • Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: Angry Joe
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows: The Angry Video Game Nerd and Andre the Black Nerd
  • Rogue One: Chris Stuckmann
  • The Sorcerer's Apprentice: Some Jerk with a Camera
  • The Mummy (2017): The Angry Video Game Nerd
  • Dragonball Evolution: MasakoX and LittleKuriboh
  • The Last Jedi: The Cinema Snob and Chris Stuckmann
  • Batman Forever: The Last Angry Geek
  • That Darn Cat!: The Cinema Snob
  • The Wall: Corey Taylor of Slipknot, Sam Fennah + The Kivouachians
  • Justice League (2017): The Cinema Snob, CinemaSins, and the Angry Video Game Nerd
  • Cats: The Cinema Snob
• Cruel and Unusual Death: In Man Of Steel, Zod reveals what would have been Critic's fate if he'd given himself up in TBF: tortured until his corpse wouldn't be recognized as human.
• Crying Indian: When Tom and Jerry start singing and dancing in Tom and Jerry: The Movie.
• Cry into Chest:
  • When Nash tells them he's going to do Highlander, Malcolm cries on Tamara's shoulder.
  • After the first viewing of X-Men Origins Wolverine, Doug fails at being hitty and ends up crying on Rob’s shoulder, gripping his arm and saying he wants to die. Funnily enough, Critic in the actual review managed to keep pretty calm.
• Crystal Dragon Jesus: Evidently, the city of Cincinnati according to Babes in Toyland, where the characters manage to be immune to a Hate Plague by singing a song about Cincinnati.
• Cult: In Jem, after making them sing a C note when Tamara stabs Malcolm in the eye, he then tells them to get their cult clothes on because they're having kool-aid later.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • LittleKuriboh guest stars on the Ponyo review and promptly beats the Nostalgia Critic up with a bat while casually telling him how angry he is that he assumes Critic is going to be insulting towards Ponyo.
  • While all of it was off-screen, Mr. Magoo delivers one to the Critic when the latter attempted to kill him.
  • Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory annihilating its remake 4-1 in the second "Old vs. New" battle (compared to most 3-2 match-ups). The Critic even admits that the 1971 film was the superior version even before starting the review.
  • True Grit's 2010 remake over its 1969 original also 4-1.
  • A few in "Freddy vs Jason": Ash from Evil Dead beats Ash from Pokémon: The Series^note (she deleted the tweet but Tamara wanted a whole show where Jim/Ash just slaughter her different pokemon), Malice stabs Dorothy and Devil Boner blows away both Chester and Santa Christ.
  • Critic might abuse Malcolm and Tamara emotionally, but they always win when it comes to physical revenge beatings.
• Cue the Flying Pigs: In his review of Jack Frost (1998), the Critic is astounded by the idea that a light rock band playing "Frosty the Snowman" could make it big. "Yeah, right, and I'm in this month's edition of Entrepreneur." He is. No, really, he is.
  Nostalgia Critic: They'll print anything these days.
• Curse Cut Short:
  • This happens at the end of the Free Willy review, when the Critic tries not to say the title of the next movie (because if he says it he will have to review the movie), and finally does say it:
  Nostalgia Critic: "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUU—" *cut to the evil popcorn man*
  • After the Cluster F-Bomb over the initial reveal of The Lorax's Once-ler, his hope that he will at least be a relateable Everyman becoming dashed by footage of his Younger and Hipper personality produces an extended, restrained Atomic F-Bomb during a massive Freak Out.
  Nostalgia Critic: "Ffffffff-ffffffffffff-ffffff-fffffff-ffff-fffffff-fffffffffffffffffffffff—... I don't care for that."
  • MikeJ's cameo in the Christmas Story II review, angry at Critic for reviewing yet another movie he's already done, calls him a “cu-” before getting cut off.
• Cute Kitten: Doug got a new cat called Chaplin before the Critic's Alien vs Predator: Requiem, and spends most of the commercial break showing him off. He appears in several later reviews in either cameos or ad breaks, and later gets his own subplot with Lloyd in the That Darn Cat! review.
• Cuteness Proximity: Doug likes doing cutesy voice to Chaplin when the kitty comes in for pets during the first viewings.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check:
  • The Critic notes that the titular Ghost Dad could have made a lot of money for his children simply by proving his existence as a ghost to the public.
  • He also notes in the Flintstones Cocoa/Fruity Pebbles cereal commercials, Barney's constant zany schemes to steal Fred's cereal are easily hundreds if not thousands of times more expensive than just going down to the store and buying a box.
• Cut Song: In The Phantom of the Opera (2004) commentary, Beth talks about wishing Doug as Critic could have sung more, and that they did actually have one where he's mocking both Phantom actors, but it was cut for time.
• Cyanide Pill: The Critic has one hidden away when he watches Batman & Robin after being deprived of all his other means of suicide. He tries to swallow it after hearing only two lines of dialogue.
• Cycle of Revenge: What will happen is Critic will make Rachel/Malcolm/Tamara suffer because he's a Troubled Abuser (even says in the The Shining that he's Revenge by Proxy-ing), they'll try to hurt him back, and he'll just make them suffer more with no question as to why they're angry. Doug is slightly disturbed by a lot of fandom being on Critic's side, and said in the Disney Afternoon commentary that Tamara and Malcolm are the ones to feel pity for.

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