Todd In The Shadows / Tropes N to P

This page covers tropes in Todd in the Shadows.

Tropes A to C | Tropes D to F | Tropes G to I | Tropes J to M | Tropes N to P | Tropes Q to S | Tropes T to V | Tropes W to Z

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• Name McAdjective: He gave Chris Brown the nickname Captain McPunchesAGirl during his review of "I Can Transform Ya".
• Narm:invoked
  • His reaction re-listening to Linkin Park's "Crawling": "Just as hilarious as back then".
  • His reaction to Adam Levine trying to be "sexy Leatherface" in the video for "Animals".
• Narm Charm:invoked Most of the "Scatman" episode of One Hit Wonderland has him referring to Scatman John's work as cheesy, but sincere enough to be enjoyable.
• Nepotism: He blames it for the existence of Willow and Jaden Smith, Rockwell, LMFAO, and Hot Chelle Rae's careers.
  • In an unstated example, when discussing LMFAO, he tries to draw an analogy between them, The Black Eyed Peas, and various hair metal bands before settling on LMFAO as Nelson. Nelson was also arguably a case of nepotism, being the twin sons of Ricky Nelson and by extension grandsons of Ozzie and Harriet.
  • In "Best of 2015," he reminds viewers that Elle King is the daughter of Rob Schneider.
• Never Live It Down: 'Tonight...' and 'The Lazy Song' have permanently changed his image of Enrique Iglesias and Bruno Mars for the worse in his eyes. invoked
  • However, as of his Top Ten Best Songs of 2012, Bruno may have saved himself with "Locked Out of Heaven"and later again in "Top 10 Best Songs of 2013" with "Treasure".
  • He mentions how A Flock of Seagulls is remembered not only for being a One-Hit Wonder, but the Anime Hair of the lead singer.
• Nice Guy: He's repeatedly mentioned that he can't actually hate One Direction because they seem to be genuinely nice people, even if their music doesn't always reflect it.
• Non-Indicative Name: One of the recurring themes of One Hit Wonderland is that many so-called one-hit wonders technically aren't, using the definition of a one-hit wonder as "a band or artist with only one song that ever made the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100". Todd will point this out when discussing the later careers of the bands and/or artists,
  • A-Ha^note #1 with "Take on Me" in 1985: Their second-biggest hit, "The Sun Always Shines On TV", charted at #20 in the US and actually placed higher than "Take On Me" in several countries, including the UK.
  • Men Without Hats^note #3 with "The Safety Dance" in 1982: Also reached #20 with "Pop Goes the World", which Todd even comments is fairly well-remembered as far as "second singles by one-hit wonders" go. (It actually did better in their native Canada than "Safety Dance" did).
  • Billy Ray Cyrus^note #4 with "Achy Breaky Heart" in 1992: Notes that, as a country artist, being a "one-hit wonder" on those charts is basically impossible - and, indeed, Cyrus charted many times throughout The '90s. His duet with daughter Miley, "Ready, Set, Don't Go", is mentioned in passing as his first Top 10 (Country) hit in a decade, but Todd neglects to inform the viewers that it actually reached the Top 40 on the Pop charts - technically making Billy Ray Cyrus a one-hit wonder no longer. (Nor was he, or anyone else, expecting Cyrus to have a #1 hit in 2019 with his guest verse on "Old Town Road".)
  • Eddie Murphy^note #2 with the "Party All the Time" in 1985: Claims that Murphy scored a "near-hit" with the lead single off his second album, "Put Your Mouth On Me", which reached #27 on the charts (and therefore actually is a hit - though a minor one).
  • A Flock of Seagulls^note #9 with "I Ran (So Far Away)" in 1982 had not one, but two Top 40 hits outside of "I Ran (So Far Away)"; they were "Space Age Love Song" (peaked at #30) and "Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)" (peaked at #26).
  • Mr. Big^note #1 with "To Be With You" in 1992, like A Flock of Seagulls, also had two additional Top 40 hits: "Just Take My Heart", and a cover of Cat Stevens' "Wild World".
  • Dead or Alive^note #11 with "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)" in 1984 actually had a second Top 20 hit in the lead single from their next album, "Brand New Lover" (peaked at #15 in 1986), which even reached #1 on the US Dance charts.
  • Discussed when reviewing Blue Swede^note #1 with "Hooked on a Feeling" in 1974, as while they had a second Top 10 hit with a cover of the Association's "Never My Love", they are still a one-hit wonder to him because the song had no lasting appeal and is remembered by almost no one. He compares it to PSY's "Gentleman" in that regard. Meanwhile, he maintains that this does not apply to less famous yet still remembered songs like Rick Astley's "Together Forever" and such.
  • Sir Mix-A-Lot^note #1 with "Baby Got Back" in 1992's first album, which was released four years before "Baby Got Back," went platinum.
  • Falco^note #1 with "Rock Me Amadeus" in 1985's "Vienna Calling" reached #18 on the Hot 100.
  • In some cases, it's the opposite, with the one-hit wonder song not even charting in the top 40, which technically means that they weren't hit songs.
    • "It's Raining Men" by The Weather Girls only reached #46 (though it went to #1 on the Dance charts).
    • Wall of Voodoo's "Mexican Radio" peaked at #58 in America, but is still well-remembered as a one-hit wonder.
    • "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" only got to #87 on the Hot 100 in 1997, long after its initial release in 1979.
    • "I Melt with You" by Modern English only charted at #78 initially, and was actually outcharted by the re-release of itself... by two positions.
    • The Waitresses is an even more egregious example. Described by bandleader Chris Butler as a one-hit wonder with two half-hits, "I Know What Boys Like" peaked at #62 while "Christmas Wrapping" didn't even chart on the Hot 100. Amazingly, the latter single would eventually become a holiday classic, overshadowing the former's success.
  • When discussing Harvey Danger's "Flagpole Sitta" and the overexposure of alt-rock as the 90's came to a close, Todd bluntly states that by the end of the decade, "alternative rock wasn't the alternative to anything anymore. It was the mainstream."
• Non-Serial Movie: His opinion on The Monkees' Head.
• Noodle Incident: "I am not having any bottles broken over anyone's head in this room. Not after the DL incident. I'll tell you about it sometime. *shudder* So much blood..." He would later explain it on Twitter, even later in "Grenade."
  • Also, the "Lupa Fiasco".
  • "I haven't had to deal with this many girls on fire since I accidentally set the..."
• Noodle Implements: Something more twisted than S&M, and involving a trombone.
  • Also part of the Lupa Fiasco.
    Lupa: What am I supposed to do with all these geese?!
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: When putting "Cool for the Summer" at #2 on his lists of the best songs of 2015, he didn't even realize at first that it was a song about a lesbian fling, such was the effect that its raw power had on him. Upon examining the lyrics...
  Todd: ...whoosh. I'd have never noticed! If it is, it's certainly better than "Girl Crush".
• Not Hyperbole
  • Whenever he makes a statement like "'The Time' is the worst Black Eyed Peas song. Worse than 'Imma Be'. Worst than 'My Humps'" and "'The Lazy Song' is so far my least favorite song of 2011, a year that includes a song called 'Tonight (I'm Fucking You)'".
  • The latter of which actually does turn out to be hyperbole, as 'Tonight (I'm Fucking You)' ranks much higher on his "Worst Songs of 2011" list than 'The Lazy Song' does. He admits that 'The Lazy Song' grew on him, but he still feels the need to punch Bruno Mars in the face when he hears it.
  • Passage has a calypso cover, "just like The Simpsons!" Todd then reveals it is in fact the exact same song ("Man Smart (Woman Smarter)") that Homer and Marge covered in "Treehouse of Horror II".
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer:
  • Todd claims that people indeed discussed "Baby Got Back"'s deeper meaning back in the day.
  • In "Break Up", after the line "Don't I make your earlobe freeze?" he puts a caption reading "Seriously, I didn't make that up."
  • "... so I felt obligated to listen to their latest single, "Carry Out", which consists entirely of fast-food-related double entendres. [Beat] Seriously."
  • Also, on the "BedRock" review, when he lists the members of Young Money.
    Todd: Mack Maine... Jae Millz... Lil Chuckee... Lil' Twist... T Streets... and a bunch of other names that sound like I'm just making them up, though I swear to God I'm not.
  • In the "Worst Songs Of 1987" video, he has to clarify that yes, Starship's "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" is one of his favourite songs of the 80s.
  • Todd makes sure to point out he didn't add the Blades of Glory clip in "Niggas in Paris" (just after Kanye West quoted the movie), it's in the actual video!
  • In the OHW for Mr. Big's "To Be with You", he can barely believe that the long list of Hair Metal bands he compiled are real.
  • In another OHW, this time for "Rock And Roll, Hoochie Koo" by Rick Derringer, Todd emphasizes this when he says that Rick Derringer produced "Weird Al" Yankovic's albums in the 1980s, and to further prove that he isn't lying, he includes a clip of Al himself talking about Rick Derringer.
  • In the "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" OHW episode, Todd listed a bunch of 60s bubblegum pop groups with ridiculous names such as "The 1910 Fruitgum Company", "Captain Groovy and His Bubblegum Army", and "The Rock and Roll Dubble Bubble Trading Card Co. of Philadelphia - 19141".
    Todd: These are all real.
• "Not So Different" Remark: He states in the review of the "Cruise" remix that, in the last ten years, mainstream Country Music has essentially become the "white" version of Glam Rap in its lyrical themes, and has taken on a growing number of stylistic cues from hip-hop. He goes so far as to claim that the video for "Cruise" is essentially a rap video with white chicks.
• Not That There's Anything Wrong with That: The chorus for Pitbull's "Back In Time" provokes Todd to thinking this, though the way he says it makes it come off more like Ho Yay.
  Todd: My sweet baby? You're the one? What the living crap does this have to do with Men in Black? Do Agent J and K fall in love in this movie? ...Not that I'm opposed to watching that.
• Nothing but Hits: Todd's criteria for including a song on his Best or Worst Hit Songs list is that the song in question must either be on the Billboard Year-End Hot 100 for that year or peak in the Top 20 sometime during that year.
• No True Scotsman: As explained on his review of "#selfie", he's reluctant to review EDM songs because every time he tries Todd get a flood of complaints claiming said song isn't real EDM.
• N-Word Privileges: Todd doesn't have them, and as such has to rely on the subtitles when he has to mention 'Niggas in Paris' by name. And even those are censored.
  • Double Subversion near the end of the review, when the subtitles censor the word "Paris" instead of the usual, making it look like it might say "Niggas in Penis".
  • Then in his Top Ten Best Hit Songs of 2012 review, he ends a long string of "-izzle" words with "...ma nizzle! Am I allowed to say 'nizzle'?"
  • He doesn't consider Rednex (a Swedish group) to have this for caricaturing Southerners.
• Odd Friendship: In the "Niggas in Paris" review, he discusses how weird it is that Kanye West and Jay-Z are friends and collaborate on music, considering their contrasting personalities.
• Offscreen Teleportation: He displays this in the Bad Movie Beatdown review of Sunday School Musical. (see also Stealth Hi/Bye)
  Film Brain: Todd, I'm curious. How did you get in here?
  Todd: I move in the space between spaces.
• Old School Introductory Rap: Todd uses this in his One Hit Wonderland episode covering the 90s hit "Whoomp! There It Is" by Tag Team. Specifically, after playing some clips from their attempted followup, "U Go Girl", Todd offers his own impression to make fun of Tag Team's middling skills as rappers:
  Todd: We're Tag Team and we're here to say / we support black women in a major way!
• Older Than They Look:
  • He's shocked that Carly Rae Jepsen is 26, and how she is "an adult [that] successfully sound[s] like an eighth grader trying to sound like a grown-up".
  • He's even more shocked on Kimberly Perry being 28, but appearing 16 in If I Die Young.
  • His main problem with Ariana Grande's attempts at a "sexy" image is that she looks like a 9-year-old wearing make-up.
• Once an Episode:
  • Every Pop Song Review and One Hit Wonderland episode starts with him playing the song he's about to discuss on his piano. Subverted occasionally:
    • His review of Lady Gaga's "Alejandro" has him instead play Ace of Base's "The Sign", due to the former sampling the latter.
    • For Willow Smith's "Whip My Hair" he has to listen to the song clip twice first—and stave off the title text with "No, no, I got this."
    • His review of LMFAO's "Sexy and I Know It" saw him flat-out refusing to play the song. The captions start off by displaying the name of the song and artists as usual, but instead of "A pop song review", the next caption is "Play the song, Todd." to which Todd responds "NO!"
    • His One Hit Wonderland episode on Chumbawumba's "Tubthumping", where he plays the song's intro, then stops in order to shout the song's famous "I GET KNOCKED DOWN!"
    • For his recap of the best songs of 2013, he tries to play Rihanna's verse from "The Monster" by Eminem, but breaks down and just starts banging on random piano keys due to how bad a year for pop music he felt 2013 was. Then he pours himself some bourbon.
    • His One Hit Wonderland episode on "Float On" starts with him playing the Modest Mouse song, only to reveal that it was an April Fools' Day prank and that he's instead reviewing the song of the same name by The Floaters.
    • Before playing the piano intro, his review of John Legend's "All of Me" starts with a clip of his Grammy vlog earlier that year, where he comments that he didn't even know John Legend had released a song that year, before cutting back to present-time Todd, angry that a song that he dismissed as "not mattering" is now one of the biggest hits of the year.
    • His "#selfie" review begins with him sighing heavily, pushing a button for a pre-made beat on his keyboard, and playing the song's hook very off-beat, with just one finger. By contrast, his review of "Turn Down For What"—a song he enjoys that could be played in a similar way—has him actually playing a more complete piano version.
    • His One Hit Wonderland episode on "Turning Japanese" by The Vapors, which was requested by one of his Patreon supporters, starts as a review of James Blunt's "You're Beautiful", but changes a minute in when Todd receives a message by the user changing his request, which Todd is more than happy to oblige with considering his dislike of the latter song.
    • His One Hit Wonderland episode on "Tic Tac Toe" by Kyper has Todd instead play the song's "Owner of a Lonely Heart" sample instead of "Tic Tac Toe" itself.
    • His review of "Trollz" by 6ix9ine has him play a few random keys before giving up, stating that he didn't bother learning how the song goes (considering how controversial the artist is).
    • His review of "death bed (coffee for your head)" by Powfu ft. Beabadoobee has him comment "Those aren't real names" when the captions display the title and artists.
    • His "Break My Soul Vs. Falling Back" review has him seemingly play the latter normally, only to reveal later on in the video that he just made something up because he couldn't remember how the song went.
  • He's also starting to sign off his reviews in the same way: "I'm Todd in the Shadows, and ________." The blank is either filled with "I'm out" or a joke - often a Call-Back - related to the song. Like from his "Scream and Shout" video:
    Todd: I'm Todd in the Shadows, saying "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!"
  • And right after that, most of the time the review ends with the last brief moment/lines of the music video of the song he's reviewing.
  • At the end of episodes, he plays a snippet from some song that contrasts ironically with the one he reviewed (i.e. "Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)", which is about dancing, gets Genesis's "I Can't Dance"), shares the same name as the song (i.e. The Chainsmokers' "Closer" gets Nine Inch Nails' "Closer"), or a song that relates to the name of the artist (i.e. "Without Me" by Halsey ends with "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" by Paul McCartney).
  • Every worst-of list of a year uses a song clip from that year for the countdown that is not on his list, yet has a suitably derogatory title. Examples to date include "I Hate This Part", "Bad", "Fuck You", "Silly Love Songs", "Blow", "Sorry 2004", "Blow Me", "I Knew You Were Trouble", "Break Free" (more for the lyric - "this is, the part where I say I don't wanna..."), and "You Should Be Sad". Meanwhile, best-of lists use a mashup of the most popular hit songs from that year, with 2009 to 2011 using DJ Earworm's "United States of Pop" mash-up for that year, the 2012 to 2017 lists using mashups by DJ Drybones, and lists from 2018 onwards using mashups from DylanGLC.
    • However, he was forced to change this for the 2013 lists due to copyright rules, though; he had to hastily reedit the worst-of list to swap in a generic tune for "I Knew You Were Trouble", while the best-of list used a one-second sample of "Treasure" that was deemed acceptable.
    • This ended up affecting the best list at least once: The "Worst of 2015" list uses "I Don't Fuck With You" as a bumper song... and while editing the video, Todd realized how much he loved the song and put it at #7 on the best list.
    • Averted with the 2022 worst list, with the bumper song ("abcdefu" by Gayle) actually being on the list proper, at #4.
• One-Hit Wonder: The point of One Hit Wonderland, obviously. Occasionally discussed outside of it: invoked
  • He mentions how Mike Posner and the Far East Movement still managed to get a second hit, and asks for Hot Chelle Rae to not reach this. Then he says that despite the failure of LMFAO's follow-up single, they managed to still get a second hit with an even worse song.
  • While talking about "Put It Down On Me", he stated he was adding Jeremih to "...the growing list of one-hit wonders who technically have a second hit."
    • This gets even funnier as of 2014, now that Jeremih has a third hit with "Don't Tell 'Em".
• The One Thing I Don't Hate About You: Todd commends Lukas Graham for using actual instruments in an age of increasingly electronic and synthesized music, as well as having lyrics about something other than clubbing and/or sex - and then immediately tears into their biggest hit, "7 Years", which would also be his #1 worst song of 2016.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: During his review of LMFAO's "Sexy and I Know It", Todd is so disgusted with the song that he refuses to do his obligatory piano cover to start off the video. He does briefly play a section of the track later on, if only to show how mindless and repetitive the main riff is.
• Origins Episode: "Play That Funky Music" by Wild Cherry literally describes exactly how the band came into popularity in the first place. Some audience member really did shout "Play that funky music, white boy" during one of their gigs.
• Orphaned Punchline: "...WASHING MACHINE!"
• ...Or So I Heard:
  • In the From Justin to Kelly review:
    Todd: Your average Disney Channel sitcom gets raunchier than this. (Beat) Not that I watch those.
  • Todd repeatedly states that most of the opinions he's formed for PSY's "Gangnam Style" is based off of simply what he's read up on the internet.
    Or so I've read.
  • Played With in the Mac And Devin Go To High School review. Rap Critic, who has previously announced that he's never smoked weed, seems to be incredibly knowledgeable about its effects and what it does to people.
    Rap Critic: Is this what's suppose to happen when you're high on weed? Ca-Cause that's not what happens. What happens is stuff becomes funnier and music slightly speeds up. Chemically, the effects of weed are kind of mundane.
    Todd: Wait a minute, since when do you know so much about getting high?
    Rap Critic: What are you, a cop?
  • Naturally comes up a lot in the Trainwreckords retrospective for Mission Earth, as any and all allegations or more critical statements have to be soft-pedaled with additions like "people have said".
    Todd: I AM, of course. not saying that! [nervous chuckle] We are gonna... tread very carefully here.
• Out-of-Genre Experience: In December 2023, Todd shared a nearly two-hour video in the aftermath of H.Bomberguy's four-hour video on plagiarism, centering on the various examples of how LGBTQ-centric creator James Somerton ripped off other people's work and made up his own facts on his video essays.
• Out of the Ghetto: invoked In his review of "Turn Down For What", he stated that he thinks Daft Punk transcends the EDM genre, which he otherwise has little time for. However, he had a hard time explaining precisely why without, in his words, sounding like the racist white kid in Do the Right Thing trying to explain why he likes Michael Jordan.
• Overly Long Gag: His comparison of Hot Chelle Rae's brand of partying to high school all-night grad parties.
• Overly Narrow Superlative: He does this to "Best Song Ever" in "Top 10 Hit Songs of 2013"
  Todd: And we danced all night to the 6th best hit song of 2013
• Pandering to the Base: invokedHe questions about this in "Alejandro".
  Todd: Ok. Even if you are one of Gaga's many gay fans, at what point do you feel pandered to? Like, when do you reach the point where even you have to look back and say: "Ok, this is getting kinda gay."
  • Double subverted in his review of "Born This Way", when he wonders which heavily marginalized group's self esteem the song intends to boost.
    Lady Gaga: ♪Just put your paws up.
    Todd: Furries. Also I guess gay people.
  • Also says "Mistletoe" is this, since it's "using Christmas as an excuse for kissing Bieber fantasies."
• People Fall Off Chairs: Todd in the "Drive By" review when he hears the "my love for you went viral" line.
• Pet the Dog: Surprisingly, this happens a fair amount in his Trainwreckords videos. Todd always acknowledges an artist's accomplishments and strengths, and will generally commend a willingness to stretch creatively (even if he's just as quick to ridicule the results).
• Pokémon Speak:
  • He doesn't like when singers say their own name in their songs. But he is particularly hard on Jason Derulo for this.
  • Once Todd figures out that along with "7 Years" showing Lukas Graham is a huge egomaniac and both his releases are Self Titled Albums, he says he's surprised the lyrics aren't "Lukas, Lukas Graham, Lukas Graham..."
• Poor Man's Substitute: invoked He considers Jessie J to be the poor man's substitute to Katy Perry, just as flexible (and fake) in personality and her stage persona but not as enjoyable.
• Pop-Culture Isolation: invoked An apparent in-work example in his list of the 10 worst songs of 1976. He chooses "Convoy" by C. W. McCall in part because he doesn't understand how trucking was so popular as to inspire a hit song, and "Convoy" does nothing towards its case.
• Periphery Demographic: invoked He admits to liking the One Direction song "Best Song Ever" even if it has some bad moments.
• Person as Verb: In his review of "Feel This Moment" by Pitbull featuring Christina Aguilera, He mentions how it's the same usual song as always, with Pitbull being Pitbull, and Christina Aguilera Christina Aguilera-ing like she always does.
  • Also deconstructed when reviewing "Marvin Gaye" by Charlie Puth and Meghan Trainor:
    Todd: If this was any other song, the fact that they decided to use Marvin Gaye's name as a verb would be the stupidest thing about it. "Let's Pink Floyd and put another brick in the wall."
• Pet-Peeve Trope:
  • Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Particularly if it's Beyonce-on-male, but Todd in general doesn't like the idea that women are "allowed" to get away with abusing their male partners.
  • Clark Kenting: People's inability to recognize the obvious fact that Hannah Montana is Miley in a wig drives Todd up the wall. Todd even references Clark Kent and Christopher Reeve's performance of the character.
  • Domestic Abuse: He struggled to avoid making this the focal point of his review of "I Can Transform Ya", although he doesn't let what Chris Brown did to Rihanna ever pass by without commenting on it.
  • Songs that take place In Da Club. Todd feels that there's very little variations to these kinds of songs, and that a song has to be very good in order for him to let this side. He does like ironic club songs that spin the scene into something empty or depressing, however.
  • Child Popstar: Not only does Todd consider such pop stars in general to be not very good, he feels like the music industry is consistently abusing young talent.
    Todd: One crisis at a time, Todd...
  • Lyrics/Video Mismatch: He'll not only point it out, but it will be the focus of a good part of his reviews if the music video is especially egregious with not matching the lyrics.
  • Painful Rhyme: invoked Forms the basis of his Running Gag: "Finish the Rhyme!" Notably, he used one of these to highlight the Date Rape implications in Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines". When he came across the lyric "what rhymes with 'hug me'?", he pointed out that "fuck me", the obvious answer in a song like this, didn't rhyme... but "drug me" did.
  • Rhyming with Itself: Annoys him quite a bit, as he considers it lazy.
  • Scatting: Any excessive parts of inane singing. Not the case for Scatman John, however, whose rapid jazz scatting elicits respect from Todd. Also, background vocals singing "HEY!" or "OH!".
    Todd: Hip hop! Stop. Shouting. Ohhh.
  • The Four Chords of Pop: While the chords are popular for a reason, he considers such chords to be creatively bankrupt.
  • Lyrical Shoehorn: With Train being the greatest offender.
  • When choruses in party/love songs end with the word "tonight".
  • Music Is Politics:invoked In the Trainwreckords episodes on Liz Phair's Funstyle and Metallica's St. Anger, Todd mentions that he loathes anti-music-industry rants from successful artists, considering it the bottom of the barrel in terms of creativity.
• The Power of Hate: Todd decided to take a different route when LMFAO told him to "STOP! HATIN'S BAD!" and look at the song from a more loving point of view. Not hating music almost erased him out of existence.
• Precision F-Strike:
  • A fairly enraged one in the "Deuces" review, especially jarring because up to that point there had barely been any strong language in his videos at all. When Chris Brown says a particularly triggering line for Todd, Todd is silent for a moment before screaming "go fuck yourself, Chris Brown!"
  • There was also this bit, though he wasn't in character at the time.
    Todd: As soon as you turn that camera off, I'm beating the shit out of you.
  • Something of a Tactical F Campaign throughout the "Tonight..." review.
  • His response to anyone who might not like Cee-Lo's "Fuck You" is... guess it.
    Todd: I disagree with your opinion. Also fuck you.
  • In his Worst Hit Songs of 2004 list, he discusses how this can be done well ("Fuck You"), badly ("Tonight..."), or really badly (Eamon's "Fuck It").
  • Todd introduces the "Worst of 2013" retrospect with "Good fucking riddance!! No, seriously, 2013 can go screw itself."
  • During his S Club 7 episode of One Hit Wonderland, while discussing their TV show, he delivers one to the band themselves after they diss Hanson by saying "fuck you! Hanson got really good in their later years!"
  • Once Meghan Trainor sings "Dear future husband\Make time for me, don't leave me lonely\And no we'll never see your family more than mine", Todd's response is "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!"
  • At the end of his Worst Hits of 1991 video, he delivers a point-blank "Fuck you, Bryan Adams, you censoring dick!" after discovering he'd used legal standovers to have his information removed from AllMusic, an impartial reference publication.
• Pretender Diss: Todd's opinion of Bebe Rexha is that while she is genuinely determined to become a star and wants it very badly, she "has only ever been a clip art stock photo of a pop star, a shallow facsimile of the real thing with no fanbase, identity or memorable songs".
• Pretty Fly for a White Guy: This dissonance comes up fairly often when Todd discusses white musicians trying and failing to posture in ways more associated with Black music or culture.
  • Todd notes that Pat Monahan is way too white (and also not young enough) to get away with singing "I'm so gangsta, I'm so thug" in "Hey, Soul Sister".
  • This dissonance is a big factor in his first discussion of Iggy Azalea with his review of "Fancy", due to Iggy being a white woman who was getting noticed in the rap space...while also affecting a manner of speech in her rapping meant to invoke Black people, which gained her a lot of prominent criticism.
  • Madonna's "American Life" rap brings up some of this dissonance due to how poorly she sells it, as well as how completely out-of-touch the subject matter (her wealthy white lifestyle) makes it.
  • The One Hit Wonderland episode on Snow's "Informer" discusses the controversy of a white Canadian rapper becoming famous for reggae, with Todd bringing up the genuinely angry "Impostor" parody version from In Living Color! and expressing doubt about a lyric where Snow claims his voice has convinced people he's Jamaican.
  • Todd's review of Ariana Grande's "7 rings" focuses on the controversy the song encountered for appropriating Black aesthetics, including lines about hair extensions, invoking the culture of boasting about wealth, and even the music video setting, which were criticized as inauthentic coming from a white singer who hasn't faced the oppression these aesthetics arose from.
  • Liz Phair is criticized a little for it in the Trainwreckords episode on Funstyle, but while Liz has cringeworthy raps, what she most often dips into is stereotypical Indian culture, which also confuses Todd and make him uncomfortable.
  Todd: What'd India do to you?
  • The Trainwreckords episode on The Human League's Crash discusses some instances where the very white British band, as a result of having different writing and production for the album, found themselves performing some AAVE slang in their songs which they were not only incapable of selling, but also, in interviews, proved they didn't even understand, even in cases where the words' meaning would be immediately understood through context. Todd does not let them off the hook for the song "Swang" in particular.
• Previously on…: Double-subverted:
  Todd: Previously on Todd In The Shadows: Your Mom! Hah! Also, on my show, this happened.
• Pun: Both Lampshaded by Todd in his work and pointed out in the awful lyrics of "Carry Out", which are mostly food Double Entendres linked together in lyrical form.
  Todd: I'd like to dip my McNuggets in your special sauce!
  • "Fittingly enough, a song called 'Whistle' totally blows!"
    • Which is still more tasteful than the Double Entendre that the song itself is based on.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: FINISH. THE. RHYME!
  • CAN'T... GET... CLEAAAAAN!
  • Three words: Deep. Blue. Something.
• Pungeon Master: He points out in "The Safety Dance" that Men Without Hats should not be confused with the Australian pop band Men At Work (both of whom reached popularity at exactly the same time), but says that they both should have combined bands a few years later to become Men Without Work. He also says that shortly after releasing "The Safety Dance", Men Without Hats became Men Without Hits. He stops himself before he goes any further.

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