Acting for Two: Given that this series is pretty much made on a shoe-string budget, it was inevitable that Lewis would have to have many roles played by a single person. To wit:
In the Previously on Countdown segment, Chester A. Bum and The Nostalgia Critic have a long discussion about blowing up the world. Doug also played Lori Prince, a newscaster that appeared a number of times prior to the dissolution of the Channel Awesome producers in 2018.
Lewis does this extensively, playing at least a substantial chunk of the character roster, including Linkara, '90s Kid, Cable, Mechakara, Harvey, Linksano, Moarte, etc. It's gotten to the point where there are at least four Linkara-acted characters living in the same household and interacting on a fairly regular basis.
Linkara's father, Loren Lovhaug plays a future version of Linkara, the Silent Hill antagonist Whatley, and the Contest Champion serial killer Billy Tor.
Lewis' brother, Graham Lovhaug portrayed the Ghost of Christmas Present, as well as Aplos/Steven the Wizard and Contest of Champions contestant Heavy Wrex.
Will Wolfgram potrays Jaeris (the Gunslinger), Snowflame, and Terrance Baxter.
Julie Sydor plays Erin, one of Linkara's temporary companions, and Contest Champion Empira.
Iron Liz, Lewis' ex-girlfriend portrayed herself and Judas Liz.
Darin Calhoun, who wrote and colored The Wild, shared the review done by Linkara on May 27th, 2021. He himself acknowledges the comic is bad, but the artwork done by Josh Diffey was enough to make up for it. Calhoun later got in contact with Lewis and discussed details surrounding the comic's Troubled Production, which Lewis ended up sharing in his "Still Another 15 Missed Opportunities" list.
Originally, Lewis just referred to Dr. Linksano as "the Dr. Insano from another universe", but fans really latched onto the name "Linksano", so he ran with it.
Lewis's commentary on his Power Rangers #1 review reveals that he did not originally plan to use the gun acquired from Cable to defeat Mechakara, and that he put it in specifically to fulfill the fans' expectations of it having been a Chekhov's Gun.
"Mechakara" was originally a Fan Nickname. Linkara and allies call him this, he never uses it himself and neither do his allies on Lord Vyce's team, until To Boldly Flee when his... sort of ally Terl calls him "Mechakara". In Atop the Fourth Wall: The Movie, he angrily points out that "Mechakara" is not his name.
Fans needed a name for the spirit in the Magic Gun in their fanfiction, and eventually decided upon 'Meg'. Linkara eventually noted he liked the name 'Margaret' (which 'Meg' can be short for) on Twitter. Flash-forward to Psychoman #1, and it's revealed that the spirit goes by the name 'Margaret'. However, starting with The Ring, vol. 4, 'Margaret' would be relegated to a deadname for Mark after the character came out as a trans man.
California Doubling: Edmonton stands in for Minneapolis in the Mechakara vs. Neutro battle in the Power Rangers Zeo review. One of the buildings in the background has a sign that reads "Telus", which is a Canadian telecommunications company. Word of God confirms this. Apparently he could not find enough suitable photographs of Minneapolis.
In the review of Gokaiger's first five episodes, he questions why the Gokaigers' transformation into the Magirangers in their respective tribute episode had an elaborate sequence when they already transformed into the Magirangers in the first episode with little fanfare. The more lavish and show-accurate transformation sequences into past teams are usually reserved for tribute episodes, even if they've transformed into them before.
In "My Top 15 Favorite Episodes of AT4W", he flat-out states "Like with many other content producers, I hate my early stuff," reaching from the first few years. He doesn't think the scripts are terrible and is grateful for them giving his early success, but he admits that all he can see watching them are the mistakes and lack of refinement his current episodes have.
Much like Kaylyn Saucedo in regards to Farewell, FamiKamen Rider, Lewis has expressed regret over moving up Gameboy #3 from it was planned in light of Justin Carmical's history of sexual abuse and additionally, no longer keeps the JewWario hat he had in honor of him. In the unboxing video he uploaded on March 2024, while he doesn't come out and say it's the reason why, it seems this has extended to all of the Gameboy series, as he mentions he's been reluctant to revisit to the series and probably won't for a long time because "it invokes bad memories", suggesting that the revelations about Carmical have soured him on the Gameboy comic as a whole.
Lewis has shown regret for making personal attacks towards certain creators in his earlier episodes, believing such comments were uncalled for and examples of fandom entitlement. In his "Yet Another Top 15 Screw-Ups" video, he specifically regrets telling to whoever thought it was a good idea to kill off Lian at the end of Justice League: Cry for Justice to get salt poured in their eyes. In later years, he's made a greater effort to call out this type of behaviour and avoid targeting creators during his reviews, to the point where even the show's theme song was rewritten to remove the shots taken at Rob Liefeld and Gary Brodsky's expense.
Linkara: Dude, there are many things I would love to be remembered for and a shitty greenscreen shot from Doug's review of Bloodrayne that we had to punch up because he didn't bring the funny ain't one of 'em. XD
When he put together a compilation video of his Silent Hill reviews, Lewis admitted in the end credits that he didn't really find the older Silent Hill reviews that funny and felt he came across as whiny more than anything.
Uploads of compilation videos note that they may contain views Lewis no longer holds and feature appearances or references to content creators he no longer associates with. These videos often contain minor edits, which sometimes includes the removal of content and opinions Lewis no longer wants in his videos.
During the commentary stream for All He Sees He Conquers, Lewis admitted that bringing back Ensign Monroe for the finale was a mistake in hindsight, as viewers thought he would be a recurring character. However, Monroe was only ever planned to appear in the one storyline, due to being a preexisting character, and Lewis admitted that he either should have made that more clear or not have included him in the finale at all.
Creator's Favorite Episode: His review of JLA/Titans: The Technis Imperative, which is incidentally his favorite comic book of all time.
Dawson Casting: It's confirmed on the DVD's behind-the-scenes extras that '90s Kid's is somewhere between the ages of 12-16, despite his creator/actor having started playing the character in his 20s. Lewis eventually decided to rename the character "'90s Dude" at the end of "The Sleepwalker" arc, since it just wasn't believable for him to still be playing a "kid" when he was now in his 30s.
Follow the Leader: Lewis once dedicated an entire episode to reviewing old adverts in comic books in an attempt to copy The Nostalgia Critic's "After These Messages" episodes, where he reviewed nostalgic commercials. It never became a recurring segment like the Critic's videos, but Linkara was able to reincorporate the idea into his Comic Book Quickies videos.
Hey, It's That Sound!: He uses sound effects from the Descent games to good effect in the story arcs, and especially during the climactic battles. Many of them match events in the scenes that would trigger them in the games. Some sounds may be recognizable from RPG Maker's classic stock sound effects, as well.
The first issue of the 2001: A Space Odyssey comic was dedicated to Marcus Almand, a late friend of Lewis', and independant comic book creator of Razor Kid.
The review for Gameboy #3 was originally scheduled for later, but moved up in honor of Justin Carmical after his suicide — and resulted in Creator Backlash after #ChangeTheChannel resulted in Carmical being outed as a sexual predator.
The Crossover review of Southland Tales he did with other members of Channel Awesome currently fits this description with Linkara choosing not to re-upload it after leaving the site for various reasons, including it being loaded with copyrighted material and Linkara no longer being friends with some of the people involved in the video.
All of his "Comics in Five Panels" videos (his equivalent to Doug Walker's "Five Second Movies) were lost following the shutdown of Blip, with only a handful of fan uploads left behind.
Linkara did a short review of Silent Hill: Sinner's Reward to coincide with his review of Dying Inside, where he recommended it as a good Silent Hill comic. To date, the video has not been uploaded since.
For his reviews of Silent Hill: Dying Inside and Silent Hill: Dead/Alive, Linkara made "alternate endings" for the storyline segments, parodying the multiple endings typical of a Silent Hill game. While the Dying Inside endings were uploaded to his Youtube channel, the Dead/Alive endings remain lost, most likely due to an extensive sequence where Linkara did the "Thriller" dance that would trigger Youtube's Content ID.
Looping Lines: During the scene when Linkara abandons Vyce in a barren universe after his first defeat, all of Lewis's lines are dubbed in, presumably due to the outdoor filming conditions obscuring his voice.
Milestone Celebration: Every February 15th, Linkara reviews a Youngblood comic because his very first text review of a comic was of a Youngblood issue on that date.
He also takes a look at the Clone Saga during the shows video anniversary.
For the 200th episode, he finally reviewed One More Day after years of making fun of it on the show.
For the 300th episode, he reviewed Frank Miller's Holy Terror, which Linkara claimed to be the comic he hates the most.
For the 400th episode, he reviewed the comic adaptation of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, complete with musical numbers that parodied the songs used in the film. Extra notable, as he had to have the comic translated due to it never being released in English.
As 2018 marks the 10th anniversary of the show, Linkara has dedicated every review (sans Patreon requested videos) to following up on material he covered in the past decade.
While Lewis initially had no plans for the show's 15th anniversary, he ended up deciding to start hosting streams of the storyline segments while he and friends give commentary and various behind the scenes info.
In Pollo's first appearance, he was voiced by Microsoft Sam, but the voice source was later changed to Speakonia's "American Male #1". As of "ROMTROSPECTIVE: ROM The Space Knight #1-46", he's now voiced by his former title card artist, Alex "Dr. Crafty" Tansley.
NIMUE was once voiced by Allison Pregler rather than her usual voice actress, after Linkara needed some extra lines recorded on short notice.
Out of Order: In the Contest of Champions storyline, Linkara's semifinal match against Billy Tor is shown before his quarterfinal match against Sphinx Yonder. The reason for this is because Billy Tor's match is acting as the Halloween storyline of 2021 (after two years of delay), and the race against Sphinx Yonder would require a massive amount of special effects which would seriously overwork The Game Show Reviewer if it was done in the intended order, before October 2021. In order to avoid putting him into "crunch beyond crunch", these matches were done out of order.
Real-Life Relative: His parents, brother, ex-girlfriend, and wife have appeared on the show numerous times.
Linkara's commentary for review of the Power Rangers comic notes that in his morphing sequence his glasses reappear and notes that it is excusable by the fact that that kind of thing happens in the original.
In his original script for All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder #6, he originally followed up his line "So, 5 hours ago from 3 hours ago?" with a yell of frustration, but it didn't have the right comedic punch, so he suddenly exclaimed "WHAT TIME IS IT?!", which he felt was the more appropriate response.
In his review of the Superman IV: The Quest for PeaceComic-Book Adaptation, when Allison Pregler walks off in disappointment that it wasn't their crossover, she walks off and calls out off screen "Stealin' your stuff!", prompting him to cry out "Aw, dammit!". Turns out it was totally ad-libbed and Lewis is obviously Corpsing.
Troubled Production: 2022 was not kind to Lewis as many of the reviews, especially the Patreon-sponsored reviews, had been too long like Man of Steel and Maximum Carnage, both nearly 90 minutes long. This also was on top of a number of conventions he attended as well as family obligations. His first attempt at a break in April didn't work as Event Comics Month bled into it, leading him to cancel Secret Origins Month for 2022 (meaning the event would have a two year hiatus instead of one) so he could try and catch up, especially since 2022 is the tenth anniversary of "Longbox of the Damned".
The Contest of Champions is one of the biggest cases of this, mixed with Schedule Slip, and much to Linkara's absolute frustration. It was supposed to be a short and fun series to tide things over while he worked on the next major storyline. However, due to a combination of the falling out of Channel Awesome producers, the COVID 19 Pandemic, and near constant delays for any number of reasons including trying to avoid putting The Game Show Reviewer under crunch for the really special effects heavy bits, the Contest took over six years to finally complete on Christmas, 2023. To put things in perspective, the previous Sleepwalker arc was nearly three hours long in the compilation, and only took two years (2015 - 2017) to complete by comparison.
Two Voices, One Character: Amethyst is the official voice actress for NIMUE. However, on the few occasions where Amethyst wasn't able to record her dialogue in time for an episode's release, Allison Pregler has filled in the role for her. In-universe, the discrepancy between their voices is usually hand-waved as a result of NIMUE's vocal processor temporarily malfunctioning.
After Holokara is defeated, the Gunslinger is seen entering Linkara's house and picking up the hard-light projector. However, Holokara is not seen in the final confrontation with him. Its confirmed that he forgot about it, and by the time he remembered, it was too late to film and edit new footage involving it.
According to NIMUE, her statements of "Information" are a Shout-Out to Zen from Blake's 7.
When asked about the opening of the 600th episode, he stated that it was to put to bed the Caligula gag after the collective falling out Lewis and the other people who left Channel Awesome had with Brad Jones.
A reply to a comment on the The Adventures of Chrissie Claus #1 review reveals the Christmas version of the theme song is set to be redone to edit out the names of creators, but he's yet to have the time and money to have it edited.
During the Anniversary Commentary for A Piece of the World is Misssing, Lewis confirmed that only the people taken from Linkara's universe were restored by the Entity's death, as it had been too long for the previous victims and they were permanently part of the Entity's form.
During the Commentary for His Blue Soul, Lewis confirmed that there was only one version of the Entity in the multiverse, and that the same also applied to the other Elder Gods.
In the storyline portion of Linkara's review of Babylon 5 #1, The Game Show Reviewer had a voice cameo as the docking controller for the orbital drydock building Comicron Two. In the comments of the video, he said that his character was named "Yard Commander D. Clark" and he was from the Independent Space Organization.
Viga had to explicitly explain that her character is not married to Linkara.
Write What You Know: As Lewis has explained at certain times, many of the series he reviews as Patreon-sponsored reviews are because either they were not part of his childhood (as he's explained concerning reviews of Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger and Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger) or only go so far (in his review of GaoGaiGar eps 1-4, he's explained that he only remembers the Gundam boom in the early 2000s while he's stated in his Sonic reviews he's only played the Sega Genesis games).
Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: At the Youmacon 2014 Q&A, he admitted that while he planned from the beginning that the King of Worms would have a chrome mask, 90% of the final design was made up on the spot.
As of the June 29, 2014 livestream, the top ten fan favourite episodes are:
10) Warrior #1 9) Silent Hill: Dead/Alive #5 8) Justice League: Cry for Justice #5-7 7) Countdown, Part 2 6) Marville #4 5) Superman at Earth's End 4) All-Star Batman #1-2 3) JLA/Titans: The Technis Imperative 2) Pokemon: The Electric Tale of Pikachu 1) One More Day
Lewis noted that Warrior #1 actually placed 9th in the fan vote, but because technically it's an episode of The Spoony Experiment (albeit one with AT4W storyline implications, and one that is included with the "normal" AT4W episodes on the new site), he moved it to 10th in the countdown.
was labelled as a review of Power Rangers (2017), when it was really a look at the New 52 in the style of Jimquisition. Jim Sterling found it and left a response in the comments:Not fat enough 7/10.