Accentuate the Negative: While it's in-character for him to usually cry, rage and tear apart awful shit, he also does tributes, So Bad, It's Good movies and Guilty Pleasures. Even with some of the real crap, he'll do a more general review at the end and say if they did anything right.
Environmental stuff, mostly because the movies are so anvilicious and the people "delivering the message" are so unlikable and uncaring about anything else.
Politicians. He usually tends to attack the right wing, but Obama and Michael Moore have gotten a few take thats too (though such attacks are no where near as harsh).
Averted with "Wicca". In his review of the Blair Witch sequel, he says he won't make fun of it because he doesn't know the religion, he just needs Erica (basically the Wiccan version of Jessie) to shut the fuck up.
The premise behind SCARY SLOW-MO takes already creepy scenes and slows them down to enhance the nightmare factor.
The giant baby from the Baby Geniuses review. Oh God...
Acting for Two: Besides any time Spider-Smith appears, Mortal Kombat Annihilation has a dialogue between the Critic, Ask That Guy With The Glasses, and Chester A. Bum, and Captain N has an appearance by Dominic, from Video Game Confessions.
Actually Pretty Funny/Actually Pretty Awesome: 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!
He notes that Once Upon a Forest is surprisingly nuanced for an early '90s environmental message movie, not portraying all humans as evil and keeping one character's parents dead at the end.
And when the reaction the gangster makes in Steel when the grenade falls in front of him.
For Moulin Rouge!, he angsts over how fantastic "El Tango De Roxanne" is. In the commentary, Doug chooses "The Show Must Go On" sequence as the other bit in the movie he has nothing but love for.
Adaptation Displacement: In-universe (or in the commentaries at least) Doug's never read the book of The Neverending Story, because he keeps forgetting that there ever was a book.
Adult Fear: Especially as we've got to know him and what he was like as a child, his early line about shooting his TMNT doll because he was scared of it. Children shouldn't have guns anyway, let alone children with admitted issues.
His kindergarten drawing of his monster parents ripping him in half has the same effect.
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).
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.
And again at the end of the Surf Ninjas review. It was shown in sepia tones and played mostly as a Wizard of Oz ending parody: "And you were there! And you were there!" "Really?!" "...no!..."
All Women Are Lustful: He thinks the villain's voice in Care Bears 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!
Alternative Character Interpretation: 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).
He says that Bella of Twilight infamy could actually have made a fairly good Shakespeare villain.
Presents Sunny, the mascot of Cocoa Puffs cereal, as 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 kept getting tempted by kids who offered him more cereal.
For his Milk Money review, he believes that Frank might just be a younger version of Denny.
Though this is more of a Did Not Do the Research, 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.
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.
An Aesop: There's a few genuine ones scattered around, like "darkness should have a point", "kids shouldn't be mistreated or their intelligence underestimated" and most importantly "everyone's allowed to have their own opinions on movies".
And Starring: Orlando Belisle was credited this way in "You're a Dirty Rotten Bastard".
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:
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.
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: "Why is the piano flying into the air? Why is the cat breathing fire?! And...why did Beethoven suddenly turn into Elton John?"
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.
Artistic License - Physics: In his review of The Neverending Story II, 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.
Ass Pull: The Critic calls out The Neverending Story 3 in-universe 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.
Audio Erotica: In-Universe; Apparently, the Nostalgia Critic would "go gay" for Keith David's voice.
And whenever he properly sings, you get a whole load of comments from fangirls who want to hump his voice.
Vincent Price leaving a taped message for the critic. Especially when he say "yes."
Invoked with his rather spot-on impersonation of Rocky Horror Picture Show-era Tim Curry (both singing and speaking) when he does "Everyone's A Whore On Halloween".
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.
Also, the suggested reason why William Shatner wrote a triple-breasted feline hooker into Star Trek V.
Bad Bad Acting: In the Moulin Rouge! review, after a lot of very good breakdown, he shoots Floss "for a sad ending" and acts ridiculous to parody Christian's crying that sounded more like laughter.
Generally, if he's not actually feeling rage, then he can't act like he's angry to save his life.
Bait-and-Switch Comment: A recent 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.
Bare Your Midriff: A form of Fetish Fuel for Critic, who actually likes Belle, but the fact that she didn't show her navel left her off his list of hot animated women. On the other hand Jasmine and Ariel were shoe-ins because of this.
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.
Bias Steamroller: He occasionally drives one of these. Especially over The Flintstones and Doug, especially the latter for how badly he was bullied over it.
Big Fancy House: Both houses that belonged to the Walker boys are as gorgeous, huge and prettily decorated as each other.
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.
Black and White Morality: Doug is really not a fan of this trope, having talked about how much he can't stand the oft-used plot of cardboard bullies having it out for innocent victims with no explanation.
The "Rotten Dirty Bastard" special. After that sketch, the Critic went back to hisinvokedusualcharacterization, the others carried on like normal (and The Nostalgia Chick even got her best friend killed) and it was never mentioned again.
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?
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!
Bound And Bagged: 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.
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".
Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: How he invokes Santa Christ — by asking Santa to save him, then Jesus, then… of course… Santa Christ.
Nostalgia Critic: Well, I find that name obnoxious, and uncreative. I'm going to call you: obnoxiously uncreative.
Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: A few, but the one most seem to remember is in his review of the Tom and Jerry movie:
Critic: I'll do anything! Shave your back, do your taxes, prostitute myself for money! Just please not another song!
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".
Breaking The Reviewers 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.
In his The Thief and the Cobbler review, the Critic is warned by a voice recording ofVincent 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.
He brings up the "It's Afterburner!" gag from his Suburban Commando review during his Return of the Nostalgic Commercials episode.
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 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.
Broken Aesop: created in his Pokémon review in terms of the "fighting is wrong" Aesop when the franchise revolves around fighting.
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.
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".
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.
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 3: Return to 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?!"
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 The 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 third Nostalgic Commercial Special, he calls back to his Halloween special from 2008 (so therefore from almost two and a half years ago), bringing back Devil Teddy Ruxpin.
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 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!"
A slightly creepy version happened in the B-Team's review of Avatar: The Last Airbender. His cameo is him fondling a book and asking Takei to teach him the "Spocker", becoming embarrassed when the guys are watching him. Spoony raped him with the "Spocker" in Spooning With Spoony II.
In his review of Child's Play with Phelous, when Phelous asks "Why would the police ever suspect a doll?" the Critic responds with "Hey, you should see what my Teddy Ruxpin can do."
Canon Banned: Even though his character hadn't been totally 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.
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."
Catchphrase: "(Hello,) I'm the Nostalgia Critic, I remember it so you don't have to!"
"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.
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."
Caught with Your Pants Down: In the big group review of Avatar 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.
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 the Chewbacca Defense 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 (page quote for the trope page): "This scenery is wonderful! Oh, hey, there's even more background I can chew!"
Christmas Episode: "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".
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.
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.
Clothing Damage: He's so angry at the end of his The Neverending Story 3 review that his clothes start coming off. He's a total mess by the time he's finished.
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 pretty much be summed up by this one exchange.
Also "fuck" was heard a lot in one part of his The Neverending Story 3 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 fuckingFlintstones and the fuckingDinosaurs! 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.
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.
Continuity Nod: In Moulin Rouge!, the song "Guilty Pleasures" involves a quickfire list of the movies he's liked for being silly, including Commando, Rocky IV and the Ninja Turtles movies.
Cool Old Guy: His grandfather ate sandpaper and called himself a girl's name, but Critic still seems to like him.
Couch Gag: Every episode since the 100th ends with a quote from the movie played over the Channel Awesome Vanity Plate at the end.
Courtroom Antics: In his Transformers: Dark of the Moon review, Chester A. Bum takes the Critic to court for stealing his act.
Crazy Awesome: aka "Accentuate The Awesome", from the review of Double Team starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dennis Rodman, of all people. Mickey Rourke played the villain. And yet, at the finale of the movie... the only positive thing that the Nostalgia Critic has to say about the movie.
The Critic: Oh my God! We have Mickey Rourke on a mine, in the middle of a minefield, with a FEROCIOUS TIGER, in a COLISEUM, with Jean Claude Van Damme, Dennis Rodman,Belloch
(the actor who playing Belloch in Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark
, and a BABY IN A BASKET. If this does not deliver the most f***ing epic imagery I have EVER SEEN in my entire life, I have lost ALL HOPE in mankind.
(after the scene) The Critic: WOOOOOOOOO! BEST! DEATH! EVER!
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.
Critical Backlash: In his review of Waterworld, he said in-universe the movie did have its good points, and overall was just mediocre rather than horrible.
Cue the Flying Pigs: In his review of Jack Frost, 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*
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.
D-F
Damned by Faint Praise: In his review of Steel, he had the following to say about Shaquille O'Neal's acting:
"But give him some credit, though. He's tall."
Damsel Scrappy: A Top 11 full of them, the "Dumbasses in Distresses". invoked
Darker and Edgier: In a few reviews, the Critic voices his disapproval over shows that were normally light-hearted becoming this, as he felt the changes weren't set-up properly.
In his review of Cool as Ice, he makes it to a scene where a kid is being kidnapped, being pulled into a corner, and being shot... Before the Critic admits the kid didn't die, he says that would have been such a dark twist, possibly parodying the trope.
But he has also praised those who apply this concept properly, such as the more serious Sonic SatAM and True Grit.
Of Innocent Fanservice Boy. His naivete does get him punished, something of which Spoony in SWSII is quite happy to rub in his face.
Even of being a Caustic Critic, demonstrating just how pathetic, unhappy and masochistic you have to be to keep on doing it.
Of Drunk with Power. He's so powerless that one of Doug's main traits for him is that he's constantly the victim (he's said himself that's a glutton for punishment), so whenever he does get it, he clings down hard before it will inevitably slip out of his fingers again.
Regarding Good Burger: "It's like if shit could shit, and that shit could shit, and THAT shit could shit, and THAT shit could raise money to put together a team of filmmakers to produce a steamy flaming pile of shit!"
"There are some things we forget about, some things we don't know about, and some things we forget about."
"[deadpan] Look, they're all wearing glasses, so they must be part of the losers, because they're all wearing glasses. Losers, glasses, losers, glasses. They're one and the same."
From Santa Christ's theme song: "He atoned for all our sins, but he also likes pancakes! He saved puppies from a fire, and he also likes pancakes!"
"Here's an insecure douche who's trying to look like a not insecure douche, and yet still comes across as an insecure douche. Douche!"
Designated Hero: The Critic finds the heroes in The Lost World: Jurassic Park completely unsympathetic, pointing out that they can be held responsible for almost every death in the movie.
In Moulin Rouge!, Chick rants about how Christian's supposed to be sympathetic and the "good guy" but he completely humiliates Satine in front of everyone, leaving her a sobbing wreck. The boys agree with her.
He's not impressed by Hulk Hogan in Suburban Commando detonating a ship with the president on it, senselessly beating people, scaring the shit out the neighborhood and getting the reward of cake.
Despair Speech: Said in the first commercials special after he realizes what he's been doing:
Critic: Oh my God that's even more pathetic! I spent all my time watching the shit that people skip? What the hell's wrong with me? God, this isn't life, this is make-believe I'm pathetic, I'm not a man, I'm not a man... [picks up picture of his younger self] Look at you, you had such dreams ahead of you, such promise, you were perfect back then - okay you had stupid glasses, teeth like a chipmunk and a dumb and dumber haircut that only got dumb and dumber - but you had such hope. There's nothing left me for me anymore, I am a loser. You were right, director of My Pet Monster, I'm a loser, a weak, pathetic loser...
He got sent to jail for making an unpopular Let's Play.
He gets terrorized and later killed by Teddy Ruxpin for giving a negative review.
We only hear about it, but he mouthed off to his Dad once with "this is the nineties, old man" and was punished so badly that he never did it again.
Douchey's whole shtick is to want the Critic hanged, waterboarded or tortured in some other fashion for the great crimes of things like wearing eyeliner, not being good at maths and mispronunciation of names
Dissimile: In the Tank Girl review: "It's like a comic book coming to life... without it actually coming to life."
Domestic Abuse: He praises the Harley Quinn/Joker dynamic, especially the episode "Mad Love", for capturing the essence of abusive relationships.
Don't Explain the Joke: He tends to fall into this a lot when targeting comedies, oftentimes substituting explaining a joke for pointing out why it isn't funny. This is most blatant in his review of the Super Mario Bros. movie when he calls out the movie's use of a Who's on First? joke by asking whether or not it's supposed to be a Who's on First? joke.
Downer Ending: To parody the weird ending of the movie, the end to the My Pet Monster review has the Critic insecure and realizing how pitiful he is. This carried into the Commercials Special.
The "Top Eleven Dumbest Superman Moments" has him miserable over what happened to the stars of the Superman movies and then going off to kill himself.
Dramatic Irony: He hates himself for not having any power, but he can't see that he does. The other contributors might humiliate him, put him back in his place, not listen and so on, but they've followed himwillingly, twice.
Dramatic Thunder: Combined with Evil Laugh for characters in "Return Of The Nostalgic Commercials", for characters who seem a bit too crazy.
Driven to Suicide: NC drives a woman to suicide by singing "Holiday Clusterfuck" to her.
Nostalgia Critic:I already had an abortion. (Casper stares at the Critic, wide-eyed) Nostalgia Critic: Okay, that was a little disturbing— Casper: Wow. Nostalgia Critic: Okay, that was a little dark humor, I mean it's nothing— Casper: Wow! Nostalgia Critic: Okay, okay, let's just move on! Casper: ...You sicken me.
The Nostalgia Critic has one of these reactions in his review for Tank Girl.
NC took "Dude, Not Funny!" Up to Eleven in his North review when he referred to a joke about Governor Ho's wife being barren as "the worst thing ever uttered by mankind".
Brought up in The Room review, after Johnny laughs at Mark's story.
"Ha ha ha, that's not funny you sick fuck."
This is his reaction to both the pranks that the two leads play on random children (which the Critic says are more cruel than funny) in Little Monsters, and to the aftermath.
"Well, maybe the kids' reactions will be funny..." * scenes are the kids' parents screaming at the innocent children, the youngest of whom looks to be about four* "....That was HORRIFIC!"
His reaction to the scene in Alaska where one of the hunters use the mother's skin to disturb the baby bear.
He found the pain of the robot in Doug's First Movie difficult to watch.
He's called himself out on this one, twice;
His joke about Splinter's VA sounding like a chain-smoker in TMNT (2007). It was Mako Iwamatsu, who had died of throat cancer before the movie was released, and the movie was dedicated to his memory. He apologized, mentioning he was completely unaware of any of it, and he's made a gag of walking on eggshells around his earlier roles, like in Sidekicks.
In the initial version of his Ernest Saves Christmas review, he told a joke about autism as a pot-shot to the puppet show's quality. He considers this a bigger mishap than screwing up basic math, and later edited it out because he found it too offensive.
Sometimes, he catches himself about to make a quip that goes too far, stops himself, and the "Joke Aborted" screen shows.
Dysfunction Junction: Critic himself would turn a therapist's eyes into dollar signs, and none of his recurring guests escape having issues.
Early Installment Weirdness: The lighting was bad, he didn't have the white shirt and tie, his voice was slower when he was talking and the screaming was more like screeching every word, the videos were much shorter because he was on YouTube and the character was a lot more sterotypically masculine.
Earn Your Happy Ending: He has to genuinely almost lose the will to live before he gets his self-esteem back. Or at least enough to be proud of his patheticness for the time being.
Emotional Torque: The reason why he gives the point to the True Grit remake Mattie. The original has more realistic fear, but the "little girl version of The Terminator is far more engaging because she's so damaged and determined.
Episode Title Card: Rare; it usually just begins with The Critic's catchphrase and right into the review. But there are a couple exceptions:
"We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story"
"TMNT: The Making of The Coming Out of Our Shells Tour", which features an opening sequence followed by the title card "Critic and Nerd".
Everything's Better with Princesses: This annoys the Critic when he sees it. The Critic points out that the Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon's princess Sally just kept the princess title because it sounds cute, granted the show reveals the king is alive but for health reasons can't resume his duties,so he tells her to "Queen it up, bitch!" He mocks Princess Lana for this too. He makes a joke suggesting that Lana is staying a princess to avoid responsibility. "Politics is fun!"
He also guesses that Princess Oriana in the Felix the Cat Movie legally changed her first name to "Princess" (her last name is the name of her kingdom after all...), since we know for certain that both her parents are dead.
When NC denies the existence of the Star Wars Holiday Special on account of being too stupid to possibly exist, it is immediately followed by a sound clip of Yoda laughing in a menacing way, which freaks out the Critic.
In the Junior acid dream sequence, the Judge (as played by Doug's friend Bhargav Dronamraju) has a drawn out evil laugh that borders on Affably Evil.
F Minus Minus / Broke The Rating Scale: In his TMNT trilogy movie review, after a Montage of his freaking out at the utter monstrosity that is the third movie, he makes this memorable quote;
"This movie is so bad, I have to make up a new word to describe how BAD it is. It's... it's... Horibifuckus! Horibifuckus!"
At the end of the video, he even put the word on his screen to further prove his point.
Fail O'Suckyname/Name McAdjective: Used by the Critic in his review of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, in which he acts out the pitch by its creator, whom he dubs "Fuckup McDumbass" Likewise with the Critic's worst fan, "Douchey McNitpick". The review of Pound Puppies gives us Pussy McPantaloon-Britches.
Failed a Spot Check: In his review of The Langoliers, he points out that the pilot walks past ten rows of seats before realizing the plane is almost empty and later how the blind girl can detect the gun wielding maniac before the people who are looking directly in his direction miss him.
In Alaska, he mocks the search and rescue team flying right past the bright yellow plane they are specifically looking for.
Failure Hero: In his reviews of Steel and Captain America, the Critic seems to view the titular characters as this. Also Hulk Hogan's character in Mr. Nanny - he gets owned by the psychopathic kids he takes care of, as well as the mooks of the big bad.
3 Ninjas: What parents don't like the grandfather of their children (who happens to be Asian when the rest of the family is white) teaching their kids to use shurikens and swords?
Blank Check: Money is root of happiness and kids should lie to their parents.
Fanon Discontinuity: In-universe. The Critic says, of his disappointment concerning The Neverending Story 2, that he's glad that was the last of the series and they never made The Neverending Story 3. He then turns on the theme music, really loud, to drown out a bunch of voices insisting that they did. He later subverted this, only to regret it severely.
Fanservice: Giving a victory blowjob to his joystick after the battle with Angry Joe. The gesture is appreciated, Doug.
He does like showing off his chest, especially that often-shown scene of when he quits his job.
This commercial, with the suffering factor set on deliciously high.
Likewise, Spooning With Spoony II had him shirtless, traumatized and shamelessly objectified.
In the first Care Bears movie, he thinks that the villain is getting eaten out while she does her lines. He then demonstrates by giving us a series of quite lovely orgasm noises.
In his Jaws 3D review, he simulates an entire offscreen sex scene by himself, providing the orgasmic-sounding voices for both the man and the woman. Goodness.
The DVD menus seem to be made for this: the first consists of him wearing an air hostess uniform and the second has Rob barging in on him while he's in the shower.
His chloroforming at the hands of The Nostalgia Chick in her Transformers review. Mostly due how to she's enjoying it and he's, well, not.
He's been soaked through at least three times. Doug even said he had to sell his old jacket partly because of it.
Done in an equal-opportunity way for the Moulin Rouge! review. Girls get pregnant from Critic singing while guys get the Chick, Elisa and Nella in boob-enhancing corsets.
In-universe, this is his belief as to why Catherine Zeta Jones plays up her character's bisexuality in the remake of The Haunting.
False Reassurance: In his Animaniacs tribute, one of the writers for the show mentioned that he thinks Daffy Duck is pretty much the perfect cartoon character of all time, and thinks he was a big influence in the creation of the show. The Critic nonchalantly responds: "I-I would know nothing about him being an influence." For those of you who don't know the joke, Doug created the Nostalgia Critic to be a sort of real life version of Daffy Duck, copying his mannerisms and sarcastic and belligerent outlook on life.
Nostalgia Critic notes a painfully straight use of this, which he calls "Dumbass in Distress Disorder" in A Kid in King Arthur's Court.
Inverted with Sparky from Steel, who was crippled by an accident from the beginning of the film. She was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of the movie, but in the film's climax, it was revealed that her wheelchair had weapons and she used them against the bad guys. The Critic points out that the movie probably should have been about her.
In the audio commentary for Quest for Camelot, Doug says he wanted to reference Dumbass in Distress Disorder in reference to Kayley, but wasn't sure people would remember the joke after so long. He does later add her to his top 11 list of Dumbasses in Distress.
Faux Horrific: Really horrible things make Critic scream.
Female Gaze: He likes catering to his female fanbase, just look at the fanservice entries.
Flashback Twist: In his 100th episode, the Critic prepares to roll out a "Crummy Ass Clip Show" while he goes off to smoke a joint. It starts with a clip from the Captain Planet review, with the Critic interviewing Ma-Ti. After a few moments, Ma-Ti notices that the Critic is doing nothing but rolling out a clip show for his 100th episode and calls him a wuss for not doing something special. The Past Nostalgia Critic agrees, and they convince Future Nostalgia Critic to review Battlefield Earth. Note that this means that the Critic re-created the Ma-Ti scene for that episode, down to the relative quality of that recording.
Flat What: The twist in the middle of The Secret of NIMH 2 is so incredibly stupid that the Nostalgia Critic can only respond like this, at least at first.
During his review of James and the Giant Peach, saying it isn't flat enough. He writes it on a piece of paper. Twice.
With Double Team, there's "Frying the coke". Acknowledged in that he knew it probably wouldn't catch on, but he at least wanted to throw it out there.
in The Tommyknockers, he explains the gag, which is essentially a moment that is so stupid and ridiculous, it wraps around and becomes a Moment Of Awesome. A...So Bad, It's Good applied to specific moments, if you will.
Early on in the review of "My Pet Monster", he said that he was pitied by his high school classmates for not acting his age. Cut to the end, and he gets pitied again by the director of the movie for the same reason.
In his "Top Twelve Greatest Christmas Specials", he said he thought he was the only one to hide in the cupboard when he got scared. About a year later, in "Old vs. New: Willy Wonka vs. Charlie", we got what he was scared of.
His breakdown to Lord Kat about the damage done to his ego with LK beating Bebe's Kids is lead-up to his admitting to CR that he can't cope with people going into his territory a few months later.
During an argument with the Nerd before they switch jobs for an episode, he asks mockingly if the Nerd thinks his gig is easy. That never came up again.
In the Chick's Bratz review, his reason for forcing her to watch it was because he wanted her to be proud of being able to sit through the worst girly movie of all time. His conclusion at the end of his first commercials special is that he's "pathetic but proud".
Freeze Frame Bonus: During his review of "The Pound Puppies Movie", there's a parody of Fight Club where The Nostalgia Critic splices a naughty frame into a children's movie. In this case, it's two dogs humping. The image is only on-screen for a frame.
Fridge Brilliance: In-universe, from his review of Chairman of the Board:
"Wait a minute! Edison! Like Thomas Edison, the great inventor! I just got it!" *maniacal laughter*
Fridge Horror: In-universe. "Wait a sec, next month is January, and you know what that means! SEQUELS MONTH!...... *his smile slowly turns into a look of worry and shock while he reaches for his Dennis Miller doll to try and cheer him up.*
Fridge Logic: In his review of Gargoyles, the Critic also points out in-universe the logic flaw of hiding in "plain, vulnerable sight" when they turn to stone during the day.
The Critic also mentions that Kevin from Captain N: The Game Master should be able to use his powers, or the abundant warp zones, to just blast Mother Brain with little problem. He demonstrates both scenarios.
Similar example used in The Neverending Story II, when he notes how Bastian could have wished all the troubles away.
He also noted in the Free Willy review that if Willy can jump over the rocks, why couldn't he jump over the net, which was considerably lower?
In his review of the OTHER Titanic animated movie, he wonders why Tentacles the octopus can't move the iceberg out of the path of the Titanic if he can throw it there.
From the Mouths of Babes: In his review of Milk Money, a mother asks her daughter who is with Ed Harris's character. The daughter replies that she's a hooker. The mother seems barely offended by such language. The Critic takes this to the extreme: "She's a bitch ass whore fuck!"
Fruit Cart: He is deeply disappointed when Cop and a Half, a 90's buddy cop movie, fails to take advantage of this.
Critic: But I have to admit, for all the bad times, the Superman movies really do manage to put me in a good mood. Like seeing Christopher Reeve right before he had that tragic accident and died... Or Margot Kidder before she went mentally insane... Or the shots of New York with the World Trade Center in the background... I'm the Nostalgia Critic. I'm going to go kill myself.
"Let's just say in my Space Jam review, when I said there weren't people out there who wanted to fuck bunnies, I was wrong."
He actually said that was a little harsh and gave the most general term of the fandom.
He later followed this up in his review of Rock-A-Doodle:
Edmond: I'm a[ll] furry! Nostalgia Critic: Kid, you're a little too young to know what that word means. I'm an adult, and I'm still not exactly sure what it means!...Nor do I wish to find out.
Though his review of Rover Dangerfield completely ignores the furry connotations, he does create a furry version of himself at the end, "The Nostalgia Kitten."
Genius Bonus: Lampshaded in-universe in the Mr. Nanny review:
"Bonus points to whoever got that What's Up Doc? reference"
In the commentary for the Leprechaun review, Doug notes that three people knew the song "Hop On Your Pogo Stick" from the Goofy cartoon "Victory Vehicles".
Critic: The only way this could be any more lame/cliche/stupid is if they did [something]. (Cut to a scene of the exact thing he described in whatever he's reviewing).
Subverted in his review of Cop and a Half, where after wondering what the next stupid plot event is, it cuts to him for a moment of silence, and he says, "Oh, I don't have a vid, I'm just asking."
God Is Evil: And he's not pleased about being mistaken for kind and loving.
Godwin's Law: ALL HEIL MONDO BURGER! Though averted in his Garbage Pail Kids review — think about it: a society where it's socially acceptable to imprison and kill ugly people.
Also, Nostalgia Critic doing the Can-Can with Hitler.
You're just standing there, thinking you're about to shake ha- PSYCH! HEIL HITLER * BANG!*
Invoked in a serious way during Bebe's Kids. When Robin is supposed to redeem himself by going back to the kids, Critic's not impressed and likens "he acted abusive but at least he didn't leave them" to "he killed five hundred people but at least he's not Hitler".
Gonna Fly Now Montage: Parodied, demonstrating the Critic's claim that anything is awesome with fast editing and 80s music, he does so with his morning routine.
Critic: And flights of assholes sing thee to thy rest.
Grandfather Clause: Like many web review shows, he started out without any intro sequence, theme song or opening credits. Unlike those, however, he still doesn't have them, most probably because it would spoil his introduction style.
"It's just Sonic and a group of industrial freedom fighters, trying to stop Robotnik and bring Green back to the valley. Wait Wait Wait, I can't comprehend this, an environmental message that is SUBTLE!"
Groin Attack: The Nostalgia Critic does this to himself with a hammer in his Blank Check review.
After Conan throws a sword into a guy, the Nostalgia Critic calls it a low blow and calls him "Conan the crotch-stabber".
Among the gay overtones perceived by the Critic to exist in Masters of the Universe is the repeated laser shots to the crotch. Granted, the shots often seem, if you examine them closely, to be hitting fairly far away from the crotch, but at regular film speed and at a single glance it is easy enough to make the mistake and it doesn't always seem clear.
In Doug and Rob's commentary of "The OTHER Animated Titanic Movie", Rob mentioned that Doug attached clothespins to his scrotum in order to shoot the crying scene.
The Guards Must Be Crazy: The Critic points out the president has no secret service in Captain America.
At a Bad Movies Anonymous meeting, he admits that he likes Spider-Man 3, much to the chagrin of the other members.
Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Referenced in his review of The Secret Of NIMH II, in which one of the characters says something about changing his underwear despite not even wearing pants.
Hannibal Lecture: Played with, the director of My Pet Monster just pitied him and asked him a few questions which he gave the answers to with increasing shame. His own self-esteem did most of the breakage.
Have I Mentioned I Am Gay?: Despite it making his guy parts happy, he still takes the Haunting remake to task for how horribly anvilly they made Catherine Zeta Jones's lesbian character compared to the original and how her sexuality is just used for fanservice.
Headdesk: The beginning of "A Kid In King Arthur's Court."
Heh Heh, You Said X: The Critic does this to himself thanks to the Stephen King drinking game.
"Heh heh, 'come'."
And again when looking back at his unfortunate Mako incident.
Hey, It's That Guy!: invoked Anthony Terrell Smith, A. K. A. Tone Lōc, seems to have gotten recognition as "That guy" who's in all the horrible movies.
Highly Visible Ninja: The Critic chastises the ninjas in 3 Ninjas for not being stealthy.
Historical In-Joke: Lampshaded in the We're Back! review, as a quote from the Critic flat-out states that anyone unfamiliar with Hunter S. Thompson won't understand most of the jokes used in the review.
Holding Back the Phlebotinum: The Critic complains about Bastian refusing to use the Auryn to escape danger on The Neverending Story II, predominantly because while the potential for backfire is revealed, there's no way Bastian could have known.
Which is nothing compared to his frustration in the third movie, where said disadvantage does not exist yet he still doesn't think to use it, unlike his sister and the Nasties, whom the critic feels are better heroes (more accurately, they'd make better protagonists).
Hollywood Darkness: The Critic points this out in his review of "Cop & 1/2".
Hookers and Blow: Pops up every now and then. In what is a nice change from the norm, though, he doesn't act like all prostitutes are women and he's pissed at Milk Money for implying that it's easy to get out of that life.
Hostile Show Takeover: The Nostalgia Critic's Transformers: Dark of the Moon review ended up being done by Chester A. Bum after he sued him for stealing his style.
Hot Scientist: In Bio Dome, he complains that Kylie Minogue and the brunette woman ("Miss October") look more like GQ models than real scientists.
In the SNICK segment, he complained that yelling doesn't make anything funny and that anyone who does that must get shot. Guess what happened.
As he puts it... "SCREAMING IN EVERY OTHER SENTENCE IS NOT FUNNY! IT IS LOUD AND ANNOYING! AND ANYONE WHO DOES IT SHOULD BE SHOT! *gets shot in the forehead* UNSHOT! *the wound disappears* AND GIVEN A BAG OF MONEY! *a bag of money appears in his hands to his surprise, a beat...* ...how about some lounge music? *lounge music plays* Yeah!"
Critic: (With a plain white background behind him) "I mean seriously, what moron would just have a plain white background the whole entire time? (beat) He'd be a fucking idiot."
While calling the Nostalgia Critic, "Christopher Walken" objects to painting him the way he did while doing those exact things (pausing and whispering mid-sentence and reading and adjusting cue-cards).
In The Nostalgia Critic's Mortal Kombat: Annihilation video, he criticizes the special effects, saying that even the Angry Video Game Nerd could pull them off. The Nostalgia Critic doesn't exactly utilize great special effects either.
Critic: But luckily all that violence and gore had no disturbing side effects on our decent childhoods! [Drinks from a skull, fires a pistol in the air.] Sorry, I have to do that every twelve minutes.
From the Zeus and Roxanne review:
Critic: Next you're going to be telling me internet reviewers can make lives making fun of movies.
Any case where he criticises anyone for overacting their anger, preferably with a "I am acting!" scene. Of course, those actors generally don't intend it to be funny.
He says in his "Top Eleven Saddest Nostalgic Moments" list that a guy can't cry because that makes him a pussy and calls "The Little Match Girl" one of the few things he's got teary-eyed at. Critic... how many times have you broken down again?
Parodied in his "Little Monsters" review:
Glen: What the hell is going on? Look at this mess. The hell am I stepping in? Doritos? Jesus!
Critic: (as Glen) This is worse than that fucking time I caught you goddamn swearing!
Star Trek: The Motion Picture: "It's like watching clips of a movie and then watching someone comment on it! *beat* Who the hell would want to see that?"
I Am Not Leonard Nimoy: If the actor in any film is famous enough, the Critic will not even bother to learn the characters' names, just referring to them by their actors' names.
Critic: So we see our main character Ian Malcolm. Oh fuck it, let's just call him "Jeff Goldblum" because we all know that's who he's really playing.
Danica McKellar's love interest character in Sidekicks is referred to as Winnie Cooper. The Critic later justifies this by insisting she is just a Captain Ersatz version of Winnie.
The Critic himself: The Nostalgia Critic is a character; Doug Walker is the actual person, although as evident by the reviews and comments regarding Disney's "Doug" series, as well as "Doug's First Movie", the Critic's first name is also apparently Doug.
Idiosyncratic Wipes: Derides the overuse of curtain wipes in Battlefield Earth. In the Sonic The Hedgehog episode, Nostalgia Critic tried to push the clip with Bison away. In a later review, he kept pulling another shot into frame to see if the Cinema Snob was still talking about Manimal.
Chester A. Bum: Meanwhile, Bert and Ernie are flying, Super Grover is flying, and Oscar is flying, except on the ground, and Cookie Monster ate his car because he thought it was a cookie! I thought my car was a cookie once! But it wasn't a cookie. Or a car. It was MAN.
Improbable Aiming Skills: The NC parodies this in his Commando review by firing his pistol in every random direction he can think of (including at his own head) and still hitting soldiers.
In behind the scenes videos, Doug and Rob Walker have flirted with this on a couple of occasions. During their slightly drunk Christmas video they managed to go from "I love you, man, you're a kick-ass brother" to "Gay and incestuous! You heard it here, folks!" in about two minutes, via a discussion of Doug's balls.
The DVD also has Doug stripping slowly out of wet clothes while Rob films and hums supposedly stripper music, bantering back and forth with lines like "I'm saving this for our honeymoon" and "You know you want this shit".
In the second DVD's menu, Rob (or his camera) is rather insistent on seeing Doug in the shower.
In the Snob/Phelous review of Troll 4, a weepy, wasted Critic moves his arm down from the Other Guy's shoulder to his waist.
In an interview with Random Odds, they admit to being so baity that they didn't even need fic, but Rob still wants more.
In a rehearsal video, Doug acts like a pony and asks Rob to ride him. Rob tackles him to the floor and noms on his neck instead.
Incredibly Lame Pun: This happens a few times, whether or not the Critic is pointing them out in movies, or making them himself. An example from Howard the Duck, which somehow does both:
Howard: Oh no, it's a quake! Critic: Don't you mean a quack?
One about Cheetara in Top 11 Hottest Animated Women, saying that she "gave new meaning to the term 'fast pussy.'"
In The Style Of: The Cinema Snob, for a review with him. He drops it after a few minutes and the realization that he lacks the Snob's pitch range.
Not to mention We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story, copying Hunter S. Thompson.
Ironic Echo: In the Simon Sez review, the breakdown violin music from the commercials special is playing again when he's so overjoyed that someone (Lupa) actually listened to him for once he's got a whole new perspective on life. What makes it this trope and not Triumphant Reprise is that it's a Yank the Dog's Chain.
One of his "Next Top 11 Fuck-ups" was about recurring mispronounciations.
It's a Wonderful Plot: The 2010 Christmas special has the Critic's Guardian Angel show him what others' life would be like if the Critic had never existed. Turns out most of them would have much more successful careers (ranging from The Cinema Snob being a successful porn star to Angry Joe being President Evil) and even his Guardian Angel would be God's Number Two.
It's Been Done: The commentary of the above mentioned video reveals Doug's disappointment upon finding out that subvertingIt's a Wonderful Plot wasn't as original an idea as he thought it was. Though at least he's the first to have the story explore what the Guardian Angel's own life would be like without the protagonist.
It Will Never Catch On: Critic's attitude towards Power Rangers when he was younger, which he explained in his review of the Power Rangers movie and "this is why [he] is not in the stock market".
The Jailbait Wait: He uses the example of how The Olsen Twins grew up from troll-children to anorexic barbie dolls to demonstrate how gross this is.
Jeopardy! Thinking Music: Used in the North review when trying to find a joke, and then again in the Rover Dangerfield review when Rover in thrown into a truck with a bunch of corn.
"What is dumbest fucking possible joke that could be used as a punchline for this scene?" (answer: [I'm turning into a corn dog).
Jerkass: The Nostalgia Critic considers Peter Banning from Hook to be this, then acts out a hypothetical scenario where Peter's kids ask him questions and he answers them bluntly, like refuting the existence of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and God. After Peter's kids cry from this startling info, he insensitively asks, "Oh, WHAT??"
Juggling Loaded Guns: The Critic accidentally shoots Bert and Mickey Mouse after watching Quest for Camelot.
Jumping the Shark: Used correctly in-universe a few times, but misused other times, like with Independence Day and The Neverending Story 3 uses (since he didn't think those movies were good before the points he mentioned).
In his review of Care Bears In Wonderland, he takes the freaky face the wizard makes during his song and attaches it to the end of the Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark trailer. DAMN, is it effective!
Bennet the Sage claims to be the devil, and that he can do this for the Sequel Month. When the Critic takes him up on it, Sage angrily rebukes him for actually believing him. Critic says he would have given Sage "everything" in return, and Bennet decides to play along after all. Strangely, it seems to work, leaving Sage pondering whether he really is the devil.
Lock and Load Montage: He tools up with a pistol, knuckle dusters, cricket bat, padded jacket and SWAT helmet to...review The Secret Of NIMH 2. "BRING IT ON!"
Long List: In the video where The Critic is pissed because Angry Video Game Nerd made a review of The Wizard before he did, The Critic called The Nerd a ton of vulgar, disparaging names:
Loophole Abuse: He got a lot of request to review The Room, but it was made in 2003 - too recently for the "nostalgia" subject. Fortunately, the Critic's future self turned up to take him ahead in time so he could do it.
Lost Aesop: Even Santa Christ can't figure out what the moral of "You're a Rotten Dirty Bastard" is.
Santa Christ: And the moral of the story is...! [stares about blankly] Um...[Credits roll]
Lost Episode: Old vs. New on The War of the Worlds. As confirmed in the Next Top 11 Fuck-Ups, he decided not to do the video because he felt neither movie held up well enough. Thankfully, Tommy Wiseau sued them so they had an excuse to get out of it.
Lonely Piano Piece: Ones from various soundtracks play when he's alone and really miserable.
Ditto with the Felix the Cat movie, which he feels was worse because in The Magic Voyage, you could at least make out what they were saying and the constant noise was all the dialogue, whereas Felix had the background noise being heard over the character's thoughts and sentences.
M-O
Made of Explodium: The Nostalgia Critic's Pun-O-Meter can't count to 6 without exploding.
A Running Gag in his and Phelous' review of Child's Play has the Critic 'testing' various objects by hitting them with a hammer, only for them to explode in his face before he can even do it.
Male Gaze: In Barb Wire, he lampshades how they try their hardest to make a woman getting tortured be titillating and the man not at all.
In the Superman Story Arc, he punishes his male audience with a screamer for being distracted by Lois's totally necessary partial upskirt shot.
According to Elisa's formspring, Team NChick had to force Doug to let them wear the burlesque outfits (they enjoy dressing up), most likely because he was worried about this trope.
In End of Days when the female lead takes her top off: "hello, pointless breast shot!" *few seconds later* "goodbye, pointless breast shot!"
His one complaint about the Batman episode "Mad Love" is the unneeded fanservice of Doctor Harley and her colleague in short mini-skirts.
In his review of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, The Critic initially trashes the Mileena vs. Sonya fight as just pointless violence and pandering, but slowly gets sucked into it due to the fanservice. Eventually, he and three others who show up in the background are hooting and hollering at the fight.
Over on the DVD review of Reefer Madness, he's a little weirded out on the wife character getting extra focus when she puts on her stockings. Especially when the prudish doctor is supposed to be telling this story to the group of people.
Manipulative Editing: In his Jingle All the Way review, the Critic shows us the scene where Ted's reindeer chases Howard through the house. Since he never mentioned the reindeer previously, it's made to look like this reindeer comes out of nowhere in the film (and thus, sort of a Big Lipped Alligator Moment). In reality, the reindeer was introduced early in the film, where it had a nasty disposition towards Howard. So the reindeer's re-appearance is basically a Brick Joke.
In the same review, the Critic makes fun of Howard's line, "I didn't make it." upon seeing the empty school gym. The Critic thought this was pointing out the obvious, but it's meant to be an Ironic Echo to a line Howard said at the start of the film: "I'm gonna make it.", referring to Howard wanting to arrive at Jamie's karate promotion on time. But those clips were never shown.
A Man Is Always Eager: Defied. He says, with disgusted sarcasm, "imagine that, a boy being pressured into something" while discussing how awful Bella is.
Also defied with him as a character. Despite his perviness and love of sex, we've mostly seen or heard about the times where he really hasn't wanted to instead of vice versa.
In his review of the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog when he says that Robotnik plans to take over the world it cuts to him sitting in his chair. And he refuses to use the "OF COURSE!" gag and in fact pushes back the transition to the "OF COURSE!" gag when it tries to slide its way in.
In his Kazaam! review, he notices all the parallels between the way the hero treats the titular character and slavery, but he can't quite figure out the word. As he tries figure it out, it slowly appears on the screen below him. He then notices the word on the screen and figures it out.
In his review of "Baby Geniuses", he looks down as if to look at the video loading bar when trying to see how long he's been talking about the film in his Noir Monologue.
There's also Lucas, the kid with the Power Glove in The Wizard who the Critic makes out to be a God amongst Men.
Parodied with Santa Christ.
Mid-Review Sketch Show: Very common in his series, and (along with the Angry Video Game Nerd) the reviewer who popularized the usual TGWTG style of mixing sketch comedy with reviews.
M.I.B.: The security guards in Bebe's Kids, which prompt the Critic to reference a coupleother instances of this trope.
Mistaken for Masturbating: Played with in "Next Nostalgia Critic Fuck-Ups"; Douchy's mom doesn't even come into the room and assumes Douchy is doing it.
Douchy's mom: Are you masturbating again?
Douchy: Mom!
Douchy's mom: Just stop doing it to the pictures of the Green M&M! It's unnatural!
Mondegreen:invoked In the third commercial special, The Nostalgia Critic misheard Usagi Yojimbo as "You sucky your Jimbo!"
He also can't understand what Michael Jackson is singing in Smooth Criminal.
Money, Dear Boy: invoked The Nostalgia Critic frequently points out when good actors appear in films he pans; i.e. Abe Vigoda (Good Burger, North) and Christopher Plummer (Rock-A-Doodle). He figures they only do it for the money.
In Chairman Of the Board, Critic announces he's going to do a movie called Critic and Trout (co-starring an actual trout). The reason? They offered him too much money to refuse.
Monochrome Casting: He'll often mention it when there's just a movie full of white people or a Token Black character gets shown for only a few seconds.
Mood Whiplash: The Critic points out the sudden dark tone the previously light-hearted Short Circuit 2 takes in its third act.
Nostalgia Critic:NOOOO, JOHNNY FIIIIIVE! STOP, YOU MONSTERS! HE'S ALREADY DEA-EA-EA-EAAAAAAAD..! *Breaks down crying*
In his "Top 11 Saddest Nostalgic Moments", he notes how the death of Bambi's mother is followed by a scene of birds singing a cheerful song.
He points it out while parodying the concept in Cool as Ice, where, after the entire movie was spent with the titular character chasing down the hot daughter of conservative parents, the girl's brother is kidnapped by gangsters, they pull him off screen and you hear a gunshot. The Critic points out that the gunshot didn't happen, but it'd be cool if it did.
In his Top 11 Scariest Nostalgic Moments video, he comments on how the creepy tunnel scene in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory comes out of nowhere in an otherwise upbeat movie, and is never mentioned again afterwards.
In "Top 11 Dumbest Spiderman Moments", he mentions the Mood Whiplash following the dance scene from Spiderman 3, where, after said dance scene, Peter hits Mary Jane, then sulks about it. He then play it out...
(dances for a few seconds with happy dance music playing, interrupted by him punching someone offscreen) I'm a monster. (turns and blocks his face with thunder sound effect)
Moral Event Horizon: Invoked. The adulterer in The Tommyknockers loses all hope when he leaves a search for a missing child to go fuck his mistress.
More than Mind Control: Sage realizes that maybe he is the devil when Critic acts ditzier than normal, giving him all his money and jumping off a cliff because Sage off-handedly told him to.
Mundane Fantastic: The Critic never finds it strange that people from the movies he watches visit him or any of the other weird things that happen to him.
Never a Self-Made Woman: Ferngully II and The Secret Of NIHM II draw his ire for making Christa and Mrs Brisby stay home and look after things, nobody giving them any credit and the films instead focusing on a minor male character from the first movies.
Newsreel: The "man is evil" gag from his "Fern Gully 2" and "Once Upon a Forest" reviews is executed in the style of a newsreel, complete with Jack Shaindlin stock music.
No Endor Holocaust: Referenced in his Double Dragon review. He points out that the film takes place in the (then) future date of 2007. Since the review was made in 2008, Doug mocks that it was a funny couple of months cleaning up the mess seen in the film.
You think that's going extreme on killing the DVD? Well, that nothing compared to what the Nostalgia Critic did to the DVD for The Neverending Story 3.
No More for Me: During It, the talking head in the refridgerator forces the Critic to end his in-universe Drinking Game early.
Non-Sequitur Thud: At the beginning and end of the A Kid In King Arthur's Court review, he repeatedly hits his head in an attempt to forget all about the movie, resulting in Mondegreen titles like "A Cat in Bea Arthur's Cooch". Also, at the end, he accidentally says "I remember it so you don't Blue's Clues", instead of his usual catch phrase.
Noodle Incident: In the future, seahorses have somehow taken over the world. The only explanation we get is Future Nostalgia Critic saying that they really should've seen it coming.
Critic: So while participating in post boat-burning, stepdaughter-kidnapping, inevitable death sex - which let's be honest is the best sex.
Nostalgia Filter: Averted, since the Critic's purpose is showing that the eighties and early nineties had their fair share of terrible or otherwise disappointing shows and movies, and mocked on occasion. The exception is his Top 11 lists, which are much more positive. Also, some normals reviews and "Old Vs New", where he picks two versions of one work (both exceptionally good) and compares one to the other to find the better one.
Some reviews - like Gargoyles or Hook - he will heavily admit that he truly likes, but even so he still pick out flaws and fridge logic in them.
The one time the Critic succumbs to the Nostalgia Filter is during his review of Follow That Bird, forcing Chester A. Bum to finish it for him.
Notable Commercial Campaigns: As of 5/24/11 The Critic has done three specials looking at 80s ads — Nostalgic Commercials!, Return of Nostalgic Commercials, and Revenge of the Commercials - AKA, "We'll Be Right Back", "After These Messages" and "!".
Early in Inspector Gadget, he gave a Not Editing This Footage Disclaimer—He wanted it made clear he did not shoehorn in the Yahoo! jingle.
Also done in Captain N, to say he didn't add "OO-WEE-OH!" noises to a march of guards.
Not so Dire: Snarked on in Suburban Commando where Shelley Duvall was only screaming "for health". He thinks next week it'll be running down the street yelling rape to "ease the tension".
No Yay: Sometimes pointed out by the Critic in-universe, Kazaam being a major offender.
N.C.: Bad touch! BAD TOUCH!
Thinkinvoked about his relationship with Spoony too hard and you might be squicked out.
Neutral Female: He points out that JLo's character in The Cell must have a blank slate for a mind, as it was easy to enslave her and also easy to free her.
He does that again in The Lost World with the Men in Suits.
And in Quest for Camelot, where the villain has a far more sinister character design than the others knights around him.
Oh Crap: An EXTENDED Oh Crap. In his review of The Room, he laughs at Tommy Wiseau's performance and asks where the real actor is. As he realizes to his horror that Tommy Wiseau IS the lead actor, his smile slowly fades into a face of pure horrific stupefaction.
And another when at the end of his "Old vs. New" of The Ten Commandments and The Prince of Egypt. As God reveals that he was upset with one of the judgments, the Critic's face goes through about ten priceless seconds of varying degrees of "...I'm fucked, aren't I."
Linkara's initial reaction to Nostalgia Critic at the beginning of their crossover review for Superman IV was FULL of this.
This is his initial reaction to the Captain Planet AIDS episode.
Operation Jealousy: He thinks this is happening with Dexter in Good Burger, as Monique looks like the female version of Ed and they're on a double date.
Overcrank: The premise behind "Scary Slow-Mo", where he plays a scene slowly to make it more scary.
Overly-Long Gag: He has a tendency towards this. Some of the more prominent examples:
The Critic himself has arguably been guilty of OLGs from time to time. The "laughing at Zack" and "Becky memorial" bits from Saved by the Bell, and the "bunny boobies" bit from Space Jam all dragged a bit.
As well as Mr. Tachanova Humpascheier Rickydicky Hamstermaster Pollywolly Wannabingbangme Supercalafragalistic Knickknackpaddywhackgivethedoga Bananafanafofresca Hickorydickoryhockitypockitywockitywhack Angelina Francesca the Third. ("It's Tatapolous.") Whatever.
Tone Lōc? Tony Lock? T. One Lock? Tone-Loc Picard?
The outbursts of "no" during the Drop Dead Fred review, going on for quite a while, ranging from loud and angry to quiet and disbelieving and back again.
The alien from Independence Day asking if it is an old girlfriend ("Stephanie?").
Both the Critic's reaction to Apollo getting beat up and the clapping scene in Rocky IV get really drawn out.
Spoony-as-the-Critic's crazed laughter in "You're a Dirty Rotten Bastard".
Drs. Insano and Smith's maniacal laughter in the The Secret of NIMH 2 review.
Overused Running Gag: In his review of Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, when the Critic portrays the scene of Little Nemo piloting a blimp as the Hindenburg Disaster, a disclaimer acknowledges that the joke has been overused, and claims that it will be the last time he will ever use it.
Doug has said he's got seriously tired of the "Bat Credit Card" joke and will only do it once at cons.
P-R
Pac-Man Fever: Noted in Suburban Commando, where an arcade game shown is portrayed as a game where you fight aliens while the Critic recognizes it as Afterburner, which has nothing to do with aliens.
Padding: Doug's been known to occasionally make a few jokes about a movie, and then stretch them out a tad too far.
Painting the Fourth Wall: In Moulin Rouge!, the Guilty Pleasures song is the only one where they look down the barrel of the camera, i.e it's more directed to the audience than to Critic.
"Don't make me tell your parents, who may or may not exist and I may or may not be keeping you from."
Parody Commercial: One of Nostalgia Critic's occasional jokes is to make one out of one of the items in the work he reviews.
Phrase Catcher: The following exchange has happened on at least two crossovers in Walker's house:
Critic: How did you get in here? Other character: I broke in.
Pintsized Powerhouse: Seriously, what the hell is Tinkerbell made out of? The Critic points out that she could have easily solved EVERYTHING in the movie by having her beat the living snot out of Captain Hook at the rest of the pirates.
Playing Against Type: The Critic points out in Hook that Julia Roberts went Beyond the Impossible by playing a character who is traditionally very similar to her real-life persona... by playing it in a manner completely opposite of her real life persona.
Playing to the Fetishes: Doug knows that fangirls like seeing him in pain and he's a lot more sexualised now than he was back when he first started. (Goes for Critic, Ask That Guy and Doug himself.)
It probably wasn't a coincidence that Critic getting date-raped by Spoony and Ask That Guy getting terrified/dominated by Sage happened at the exact same time.
There's even a joke amongst the other contributors that if their video includes Doug or his characters suffering, the views will usually be pretty high.
In Film Brain's livestream of reading the Fetish Fuel Wiki, someone asked if Doug was okay with his rather extreme "yay suffering" page. Film Brain's response was that Doug wasn't just okay with it, he loves that kinda thing and feeds off it. So there's that.
Plot Hole: invoked The Critic has a specialty of pointing out these.
Plot-Induced Stupidity: In the review of The Neverending Story 2, he notes that Bastian could simply wish his troubles away. Likewise, he also noted in Captain N: The Game Master that the poorly-defined powers of Kevin could simply be used to warp to the villains and shoot 'em point-blank. And in Neverending 3, juxtaposing that the villains and Bastian's sister wished for things while the Idiot Hero didn't.
Portmanteau: In his Batman & Robin review, he said the movie was "horribafuckus", combining the words horrible and fuck.
In his Full House review, he said the show was manufactured precious shit... or "precshit", as he liked to call it.
Similarly, in his Home Alone 3 review, he said many of John Hughes's '90s movies tended to fall into the category of slapstick shit, or "slapshit", as he liked to call it.
Precision F-Strike: Although NC gave Little Monsters a lot of criticism for its use of constant swear words in a kids movie, he gave credit to the "Holy shit!" line that the girl gives when she sees the monster entrance, since it would seem like a legitimate reaction.
Pretty Little Headshots: For comedy, time and sanity purposes (because only a minority of people want to see his brain splattered on the wall), if he gets shot in the forehead there'll be only be a small hole there with a tiny bit of blood. If he gets shot in the side, there'll be nothing.
Princesses Rule: In the review for ''Felix the Cat: The Movie," he scratches his head over Princess Oriana is a princess when her parents are dead and she is ruling the nation, then theorizes that she had her first name legally changed to 'Princess' so she could keep the title.
Quizzical Tilt: Parodied in The Thief and the Cobbler review when Tak and Yumyum look at each other while tilting their heads left and right, Critic mimics them until his head does a full rotation.
Rape as Comedy: Zig-zagged. Like with most of his suicides, the scenarios are played for dark laughs but he's always affected badly by them.
Rape Is OK When It Is Female on Male: Averted. Even when it's a woman he finds attractive, the "BAD TOUCH!" gag still comes out if she's inappropriate with a child.
To a lesser extent (sexual harassment, not rape), mixed in with Hypocritical Humor with his Superman: Story Arc review. He complains that he only hit on "Amanda" once and got in trouble, while female employees can hit on their male co-workers and it's fine.
Played with in the Ferngully review, the laughs again coming from how strange the situation is. Chick and Critic have happy G-Rated Sex to parody the movie and then she announces that she's made him pregnant. He starts screaming and crying while she grins and keeps a tight grip on his hands.
Reaching Between The Lines: Two characters who aren't in the same frame usually act as if they're talking by a video link, though the Critic throws something at Ask That Guy and knocks him out. He also appears to interact with the physical frame of M. Bison saying "OF COURSE!" and The Cinema Snob's musings on Manimal.
Reality Ensues: When the Critic points out that the protagonists of Bio-Dome are moronic losers with no jobs and really shouldn't have a nice house and hot girlfriends like they do in the movie, 90's Kid shows up to inform him that that kind of thing happened all the time in the 90's. However, he's interrupted when his landlord shows up with an eviction notice. And a battering ram. And a sawed-off shotgun.
His phone conversation with the director for My Pet Monster, which started with him calling the director to ask why he would make such a stupid movie, and the conversation turns to him trying to explain that he watches old movies to point out their shortcomings ("It's kind of my job."), and ends in depression which inspires the next episode where he eats junk food and watches old commercials.
Real Life Writes the Plot: Minor instance, since January 2012 some of his reviews have ads into the middle of the video as well, so he works this into the script of the reviews.
Rebus Bubble: In the Saved By the Bell review, Duck + Oil = Gravestone.
Record Needle Scratch: Occurs in the Jack Frost review when he spots a chained-up Superman toy with Batman's head.
Nostalgia Critic: Anyone who does it should be shot (is shot in the forehead), un-shot (bullet hole disappears), and given a bag of money (bag of money appears)! (offhandedly) How about some lounge music? (lounge music plays) Yeah, that's nice.
Rouge Angles of Satin: The Critic's "Top 11 F* ck Ups" notes his spelling errors from time to time. It even has a deliberate one, Lampshaded by Douchey McNitpick, at the end.
Subverted in the commentary for The Care Bears Movie. Doug points out that "penguin" is spelled wrong in a caption, and asks why Rob didn't catch it, because he should know that Doug is "dyslexic as hell." The word was spelled correctly.
The "You're A Dirty Rotten Bastard" episode has quite a few Fridge Logic issues (Joe being President Evil, Canada being nuked, certainpeople being happy bunnies when they had problems that in no way related to the Critic, Critic has said many times that reviewing makes his life suck more etc.) but you've got to remember that it was just a way to make the Critic look like the biggest douche and loser in all of creation.
Rule 63: The title card for Moulin Rouge! involves a genderswapped Critic dressed like Satine but with his tie, hat and jacket still on.
Running Gag: Many. Somewhat subverted, because Doug believes there is a limit to reusing gags before they become boring, and so, a lot of these already become artifacts before long.
Lampshaded in the Critic's review of Suburban Commando, after criticizing the movie's weak running gags. "But who am I talk about running gags? Big Lipped Alligator Moment-Elephant-Chuck Norris." (the BLAM logo, Burger King and Chuck Norris appear in rapid succession).
"How many times are we going to see this kind of scene..." *arbitrarily large number appears on screen* "Okay, I'm gonna kill myself now."
As another form of the above, he gushes about an unexpected cool/funny/awesome thing, then the movie does something to ruin it, and he tries desperately to keep smiling.
The Critic demanding an answer to the question "WHAT! ABOUT! [Name of pet placed in peril during the movie]!" and being answered with a heavenly voice saying "[Name of animal] will live", leading to the Critic throwing his arms in the air whilst screaming in joy.
In his "Doug's 1st Movie" review: "But I digress", gradually getting more aggravated every time he says it.
Genesis?!
S-T
Sadist Show: The character was created to suffer. First it was just bad movies, now it's bad movies and well, life in general. Doug even said in an interview that most people just keep watching to see the Critic get tortured all the time.
Sarcasm Failure: "I got nothing." Or some variation thereof whenever the Critic encounters something bad enough that even he can't think of a response.
In FernGully 2, he can't even make fun of one of Batty's impersonations, as he doesn't even recognise it.
Sarcasm Mode: The entirety of the Surf Ninjas review.
Also, the end of the Good Burger review, until he breaks out of it with much rage, complete with Demon Head.
The Critic has a knack for questioning, in a deadpan, unamused voice, who the villain is in an animated movie when said villain is talking amongst a crowd. Also happens in the review of The Phantom.
The Scottish Trope: Whenever the Critic says the word "elephant" (but not "elephants"), The Burger King's face flies into the screen, and whenever he mentions Chuck Norris, we're treated to a picture of Chuck Norris over a backdrop of fireworks with a voice saying "A-CHUCK A-NORRIIIIIIISSSS!!" And, as the Critic points out in his review of Free Willy, if he says the full title of a movie, he has to review it next week.
In Rock-A-Doodle, after the Duke of Owls is turned tiny, he says he turned into Cartman, and says, "Screw this movie, I'm going home." Then another scene, followed by, "No, screw this movie, home."
When reviewing the Star Wars Holiday Special, he tries to bail out of his introduction in order to get away from it.
He's also taken a couple of potshots at his own speaking voice, what with Zack (in the Revenge of the Nostalgic Commercials) listing him as "Obnoxious High-Pitched Critic", and the Bum calling him "an even more high-pitched Sam Kinison" in the Kickassia Bum Review.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: He uses this trope word for word in The Secret of NIMH 2, pointing out that nothing that happened in the movie would have happened if the townspeople hadn't praised Timmy to be some hero in the first place.
"So let me get this straight: Timmy's great destiny was to stop a jealous mastermind who wouldn't have been a jealous mastermind until he had heard that Timmy had a great destiny. In other words, if they DIDN'T FUCKING BUILD HIM UP, NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED!TALK ABOUT A SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY, YOU DUMBASSES!"
Douchey McNitpick's name.
Sequelitis: In-universe, and probably out too, The Critic did not enjoy Sequel Month.
Also, The Neverending Story 2 ("So when I heard that there was another movie, I got excited as hell. I loved the first one and I couldn't wait to see another one. It blewed.") and the third and fourth Jaws.
The Critic identifies Kazaam, Moonwalker, and Sidekicks as these (Though the latter is subverted in that a family member directed the film instead of the person himself).
Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Played for dark laughs in the James and the Giant Peach review. He got sent to jail for the below-average Let's Play, didn't exactly have a good time (his jacket and tie are missing), even Chester acts entitled at the press conference, has to be good for a movie he doesn't like because he doesn't want to A) be shot and B) have everyone still hate him. In the end, he gives his honest opinion that he can see why people like it but it's not for him and he gets killed for that.
Shower Scene: In the DVD menu, Rob barges in on him while he's showering. Critic's rather freaked by this.
Shown Their Work: In the North review, the Critic goes into a ballistic rage about the infamous "Inuits murder their own people callously" scene, with information that Inuits haven't been doing this for over hundreds of years, they only did it in famine and as a last resort, they certainly didn't set up a theme-park-like business for it.
His interviews to the creators of Animaniacs in his tribute to the show are extremely in depth. The clips he includes are hard to find including an original recording of Orson Welles complaining about doing a commercial.
His "Top 11 Cereal Mascots" countdown proved he can do a terrific amount of research when he really wants to, finding very old clips to compare the old versions of the mascots with the new, and giving history and background in abundance.
His The Thief and the Cobbler review mentioned the film's troubled production and he even saw the "Recobbled Cut".
Sincerity Mode: He usually ends his reviews with a much more honest and less jokey review of the movie, seriously saying what the overall problems are and, in many cases, acknowledging the movie's good points.
He will occasionally interject a genuine compliment into an otherwise negative review, preceding it with "I'm serious" so it is not mistaken for sarcasm. An example is his high opinion of the "Smooth Criminal" sequence from Michael Jackson's Moonwalker.
Slow Clap: The Critic points out its overuse in various sports movies in his 90s Sports Montage, and later on appears to initiate one in Rocky IV.
Small Reference Pools: A somewhat strange example is the 2010 Christmas special, where in the commentary Doug apparently thought he was the first person ever to think of doing a twisted inversion of It's a Wonderful Plot. Needless to say, the fans soon put him straight on all the existing examples.
Also referenced in some reviews where he gets irritated at the fans who have no idea what he's talking about. "Go watch a black and white movie!"
So Bad, It's Good:invoked His opinion on The Room and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987, to the point where he suggests it because of it. Out of character, Doug Walker declared Devil one of the worst movies he saw in 2010, but recommended seeing it for this reason.
Doug and Rob recommend watching The Neverending Story 3 in their commentary to see all the hundreds of other horrible things that they didn't have time to mention without making the review three hours long (for a hour and a half long movie).
His review of Dungeons & Dragons starts with him saying that this is probably one of the worst movies ever, which is exactly why it's one of the best movies ever and why people need to see it.
By definition, the episodes which don't follow the formula of trashing one bad movie count: "Top 11", "Old vs. New", "Raiders of the Story Arc". The "Old vs. New"s are usually a lot more analytical than usual.
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Launch", which isn't a Nostalgia Critic review but stars the character.
"Bebe's Kids", which was the only time The Nostalgia Critic reviewed a video game. It was done as part of a deal between The Angry Video Game Nerd and himself where the two would perform each other's jobs for one review (James Rolfe reviewed the obscure Rocky parody "Ricky 1").
"Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird", which broke The Nostalgia Critic: he was unable to make fun of it because he loves Sesame Street. He invites Chester A. Bum to take his place for the last minute of the video.
"Teddy Ruxpin", which was not only the first review based on a toy, but also was done in the format of a slasher/thriller movie in the second half of the video.
"Fern Gully", which was the first crossover video (with The Nostalgia Chick), and the first to be produced in widescreen.
"The Good Son". Doug Walker had temporarily lost his voice in real life, so he performed this review by remaining silent and writing out his thoughts on cue cards. The only word he uttered in the entire review was "ASS!"
"TMNT". While it's still in the typical format, it's from a very recent film (2007), so that breaks tradition of doing solely nostalgic movies from the '80s and '90s.
"Transformers 2", which took the format of his earliest reviews, i.e. no film clips, and more like what his Bum Reviews series would evolve into.
"We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story" had Doug in character as Raoul Duke (here named "Raoul Puke") from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
"Alone in the Dark", which had The Nostalgia Critic again unable to speak, but this time using Mac speak to convey his thoughts. He was also accompanied by Spoony and Linkara, and the review took place in a different environment than usual.
"Superman IV" was another crossover review; this time, with Linkara.
Much like "Fern Gully" and "Superman IV", The Nostalgia Critic reviewed "Leprechaun" with Cinema Snob.
"Baby Geniuses" took the form of a disturbed Nostalgia Critic walking around a convention in a daze after having seen this film, and narrating in the style of film noir.
"Commercials", which didn't feature the typical white wall or his usual attire but instead The Nostalgia Critic sitting in a recliner wearing an "I Donut Donuts" T-shirt and watching TV. His review was focused on commercials, not TV shows or movies like it usually is.
"You're a Rotten Dirty Bastard Christmas Special" was a parody of It's a Wonderful Life where the Critic sees what things would be like if he was never born. Only problem is, everyone involved with Channel Awesome is well off, and even the angel sent to show the Critic the error of his ways lost out on being God's number one guy just because the Critic existed.
The Critic's reasoning for why Waterworld was a bomb at the box office. He even says that it's not bad as an action movie, but ultimately fails to live up to its high budget (which the movie didn't even manage to reach in cinemas).
Cloverfield. Everything about it is adequate to him.
He found FernGully 2 to be quite the forgettable movie, which had no reason to exist beyond milking cash out of those who bought FernGully.
Song of the South, in "Return of Nostalgic Commercials": "See the movie that that millions of people around the world are calling...OKAY!
According to "Top 11 Nostalgia Critics I Will Never Do", this is why he refuses to review Toys.
Soundtrack Dissonance: He sings "Pure Imagination" over the tunnel sequence of Willy Wonka to demonstrate how out of place it is.
Spank the Cutie: Usually the movie reaction lines he chooses are funny but never really suggesting anything, yet "Old vs. New: True Grit" made it like two characters threatening to spank him.
"WHAT THE HELL!? Did they just talk? Did Tom & Jerry, one of the most famous silent duos of all time, just speak to each other?? No. No, no, no, no no no, it's gotta be a mistake. I gotta be hearing things. I'm gonna just go ahead and eat my customary 3-pound watermelon and drink my traditional pitcher of sangria both at the same time while I confirm how wrong I was about this ridiculous misunderstanding..."
Also done in his Video Game Review, when he partakes in the Nerd's favourite beverage during the opening.
After performing one in his Milk Money review, he lampshades it by yelling, "Why is it I'm always drinking when a scene like that happens?"
John Hughes:"There! I did it! I wrote the worst Home Alone script ever. I know I'm contractually obligated to write at least one more movie, but this script is so terrible no studio would ever buy it. Haha!" Producer:"We'll take it." John Hughes:"My career is over!"
Squick: His in-universe reaction in the Conan reviews to a segment where Arnold says that working out is "like cumming": "CONAN: THE CUMMER... EW"
Stalker without a Crush: The Ghost Of Christmas Future is just a little too obsessed with getting the Critic to do what he wants.
State The Simple Solution: In the crossover for Star Trek Insurrection, Linkara has taken over the tv and plans on continuing with the review and go at Nemesis. Critic is horrified and cannot take it when Sci-fi Guy, whose been standing in the corner for the review, tells him to just turn off the tv. It works.
Sting: Doug often plays "Shock Horror (a)" by Dick Walter (also frequently heard on The Ren & Stimpy Show) when something he considers shocking appears on the screen. Some examples of when it's played include:
Showing a picture of the dog and dolphin hybrids at the very end of his Zeus and Roxanne review.
From ''Return of the Nostalgic Commercials, "Wunder Boner".
"MAN!"
The Stinger: Usually of the "funny quote after the credits" type, but in the Zeus And Roxanne review he follows it with a Brick Joke after playing with the audience's expectations.
Another Stinger is actually a two minute pitch of the new upcoming DVD and appearances at cons for the special people that love him so much. Note that this is actually Doug Walker, not Nostalgia Critic.
Two clips from the Casper review were re-used in subsequent episodes: "TIMING!" and "Exposition, exposition..."
Stock Sound Effects: Two notable examples include whenever there is a fight scene and punching is involved or whenever he fires his gun.
Stop Being Stereotypical: He has this view with dorky white guys, like Pauly Shore and Vanilla Ice.
Story Arc: His massive insecurity with his job. It was set up in Full House where he complains at his fans for not appreciating what he does for them, comes out when he gets upset at other contributors for stealing it and being better than him, ran through Kickassia when he would rather commit mass murder-suicide than lose the power he had for once gained, he breaks down to CR about his Inferiority Superiority Complex and it all culminated in the My Pet Monster/"Commercials Special" double parter. His unhappiness with it still gets referred to every few episodes, though.
In a lighter, sillier example, the Nerd/Critic rivalry. Light because it ended in a kickass brawl and didn't include near-Death By Despair.
Stuffed into the Fridge: In his review of Alaska, he has a rant about how using a parent's death merely as a plot device is disgusting.
Stunned Silence: The Critic is left absolutely speechless when he hears Eric Idle singing in The Secret of NIMH 2. He tried to say out some kind of reaction, but just couldn't think of any words to say.
Another example ironically came about as the result of him deciding an insult was too severe. In one of his anti-AVGN videos, the Nostalgia Critic accuses him of having become his Irate Gamer. Boos are heard from the audience and the Nostalgia Critic admits that was going too far and apologizes.
In Top 11 Fuck Ups, we are introduced to Douchey McNitpick, who represents the more hostile side of the people that point out the Nostalgia Critic's mistakes, and he proceeds to bitch and moan about every little screw-up he finds in the Critic's videos. At the end, the Nostalgia Critic tells his viewers to point out his mistakes politely, and not be belligerent like McNitpick, right before he gets fed up with his whining, warps over to his house, and tears Douchey a new one.
In the Next Top 11 Fuck Ups, Douchey becomes much more of a take that. He doesn't complain quite as much, but he's established as pretty much just living in a world of nothing but World of Warcraft, pornography, and criticizing the Nostalgia Critic. He also lives with his mother...and apparently masturbates to the green M&M.
He apparently doesn't like Jeff Dunham: In the Tank Girl review, he calls the heroine's jokes offensive and unfunny. "Like a female Jeff Dunham."
In the review of Conan The Barbarian he took a shot at Avatar:
Conan: Oh no! I'm pulled into Avatar! The visuals will be stunning but the story will be absolute bullshit!
Subverted in the Old vs. New Debate for The Nutty Professor, in which the Nostalgia Critic talks about beating up Dave Chappelle...for leaving his show at the height of its success, and leaving the Critic wanting more.
He doesn't seem to like Chris Tucker, as in his Drop Dead Fred review he ranks him just below Jar Jar Binks on his scale of annoyance.
The Nostalgia Critic makes two attacks against Twilight in his Care Bears review, Edward Cullen was also on his scale on annoyance. This is by no means the only time he bashes Edward. In A Troll In Central Park, at one point the Critic says that Stanley is "as bland as Edward from Twilight".
And then in Care Bears Movie 2:
Christy: Hey, this is a lot like those Twilight movies— Dark Heart:"No, it's not! We're BUTCH compared to that shit!"
In the Star Trek review, he calls it the franchise that's been setting women back hundreds of years.
A brief gag in the A Troll In Central Park review lists all the reasons why Stanley the Troll will never have his own dreams come true. One of them is "He's more annoying than the trolls at Encyclopedia Dramatica."
The Critic has made a lot of negative comparisons to the Star Wars prequels to varying degrees of subtlety.
Hulk Hogan fighting security guards in Mr. Nanny: "Calm down, dude, you're not on American Gladiators. And even if you were it'd probably get cancelled."
Ever since he was forced to take down his review of The Room, he takes any and all opportunities for a Take That to Tommy Wiseau. He even puts on a show in his Tommy Wiseau impression at conventions!
The FernGully 2 review mocks Batty's non-joke about oysters with "Because if you can't be funny, be confusing! It works really well for the 'New Yorker'!"
In the Care Bears Movie 2, Santa Christ pops up for a bit reading the paper, and at one point says "Fucking bears." At first, you might think he's just insulting the Care Bears, until you remember that not only are the Critic and Rob from Chicago, but the Chicago Bears had just lost the NFC Championship game.
In the 'Care Bears in Wonderland review, when the characters are falling down in a hole:
Critic as White Rabbit: You might remember this from the much better Disney movie.
Critic as White Rabbit: No, the MUCH BETTER Disney movie!
Also in The Care Bears Movie, when Nicholas casts a spell in the magic show that turns the spectating children demonic and makes them attack each other:
Nostalgia Critic: Oh no, he turned them into Youtube commenters!
The Tape Knew You Would Say That: Reviewing The Thief and the Cobbler, he gets a phone call from Vincent Price, who manages to hold a complete conversation with the Critic despite being dead, even when the Critic tries to catch him out with nonsense. He recorded his end of the conversation years in advance with the help of an oracle.
Teens Are Monsters/Kids Are Cruel: Any school-related memories will usually involve his getting some kind of abuse, which makes his hate-on for one note bullies slightly strange.
In the review of Doug's First Movie, he just can't suspend his disbelief to buy that teenage girls - the species that pick on thighs for not being perfect - would call the monster in drag "cute".
Technology Porn: The description of Waterworld's action scenes displays vaguely sarcastic excitement over the amount of contraption manipulation involved:
Ooh, look at that stuff go! Have you ever seen so much stuff happen in the same time? Ooh, now he's spinning some stuff. That stuff must be important because that stuff allows him to do this stuff...
Tempting Fate: Happens a lot to the Critic - repeatedly asserting that such a stupid thing as The Star Wars Holiday Special cannot possibly exist. He suffered for that.
At the end of his Flubber review, the Critic proverbally kicks himself in the nuts when he asks if there is a movie written only by John Hughes (a co-writer for the movie) that's worse than Flubber... and he immediately gets Home Alone 3.
Rover Dangerfield: "Well, I suppose it could be worse. I mean, it is a kids' film; I suppose they could be singing a song right now NONONONONONONONONO—" Cue song.
The 2010 Christmas Special: "Wait, you're just a two-bit angel without any wings! What are you going to do to me?" [Gets a beating.]
FernGully 2 wasn't all that bad in the Critic's eyes (at least, it wasn't horrifying godawful), and thinks that if he gets more sequels like that, he'll be able to survive Sequel Month. Cue The Secret Of NIMH 2 poster.
And a video later he starts wondering where is the spectacular badness of the movie, since it is just a typical dumb sequel dumb. A mere second later...
And in the end he says that he doesn't even care what movie he's going to review next. Enter the Care Bears...
In his list of "Dumbasses in Distress" he wonders if Princess Peach will start attacking by crying. Cue Super Princess Peach clip.
Looks like the Critic should have probably waited until his Star Trek odd-numbered movie review season was over before gloating about the lack of a Linkara appearance...
Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: The critic thought Sweetheart the rabbit from The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland was a dude, due to having blue fur, gender-neutral voice and lack of feminine features like big eyelashes for example.
There Are No Therapists: There was in the beginning, as one of his running gags was complaining about therapy bills, but he went into this trope when the character got crazier. Mostly because it's much more amusing this way.
The Critic complains in-universe that this is one of the biggest faults of Last Action Hero, as Big Bad Benedict's evil plan to form an army of the greatest villains in movie history is one of the coolest concepts in the movie but is never allowed to come to fruition.
He also complained that the plot of Blank Check could've been interesting (a kid winds up with a lot of money and buys a castle) but it was too bland to pull it off.
He accuses The Blair Witch 2 of this, saying that, if you're gonna acknowledge the film is a phenomenon within the film's universe, they should at least maybe lampshade the marketing or commercialization, but they never do.
In a variation, he frequently adds "mothafucka" in voice-over to the end of an emphatic and/or tough-sounding line from a character ("Taste the rainbow, motherfucker!"); in his commentary for the Superman IV review he says that he has discovered that you can add special extra oomph to anything by adding the word "motherfucker" to the end of it. And it's true.
This Is Gonna Suck: Pro-tip - if a review starts with anything else besides "Hello, I'm The Nostalgia Critic; I remember it so you don't have to", then the general consensus is that the subject is gonna suck. More specific examples include:
Essentially the Critic's reaction when he sees that he will have to review the Good Burger movie to finish Nickelodeon month.
Nostalgia Critic: I don't want to review this movie.
His desk-banging at the beginning of A Kid in King Arthur's Court should be an indication of what's to come.
Also used in Follow That Bird; however, if you watched that review...
Used in his Garbage Pail Kids review when he tries to describe the movie at the beginning "It's, uh... it's... uh... i-it's... it's gonna hurt. I'm not gonna lie, this is really going to hurt."
Nostalgia Critic: I got nothing. I have absolutely nothing. I mean, what the hell am I supposed to say? "Garbage Pail Kids". Does the title even sound like it's going to attempt to be a good movie? (Long pause). I feel raped. I feel honest to God raped by this movie; it is that bad. There is no talent, no effort, nothing salvageable! Nothing salvageable about this movie at all!
In the beginning of his Batman & Robin review, the Critic puts a cyanide pill out of his hat just in case he needs to kill himself to escape the review. He tries to use it after hearing two lines of dialogue.
At the start of the Cool as Ice review, he's laughing too hard at Vanilla Ice to say it.
In the Tank Girl review he can't even finish his catchphrase without breaking down crying.
In the Star Wars Holiday Special review he actually tries to run away before finishing his catchphrase.
In the Lost in Space review he tries to hide in the shower in another vain effort to avoid the movie.
"Hello, I'm the Nostalgia Critic. I remember it- I fucking hate Bio-Dome, I fucking hate Bio-Dome, I FUCKING HATE BIO-DOME! I HATE IT, I HATE IT, I HATE IT!AYAYAYAYAYA—!!!([splashed with water]) Thank you. Anyway,... I fucking hate Biodome!"
He's been using this trope at the end of several videos, so we know that next week's movie is gonna suck a week in advance.
His A Troll In Central Park review opens up with him pacing and trying to express to the viewers how horrible the movie is.
"A Troll in Central— FUCK THIS MOVIEEEEEE!(punches himself) A Troll in Central Park!"
The Care Bears Movie is a slight exception; his lack of the usual opening is out of the embarrassment of having to admit that his job is to review the movie rather than the quality of the movie itself (not to say he thinks that it's a masterpiece by any means...)
Nostalgia Critic: I really hope you people appreciate what I do for you, 'cause lemme tell ya: It's not always easy! The stupid ass shit I gotta put up with, well, frankly it's more than I can bear.
At the end of "TMNT: Raiders of the Story Arc" he announces Sequels Month, only for his joy to quickly turn to horror. Next, the review for The Neverending Story 3 beginning with him wailing pitifully at the quality of the movie and the many more to come.
The The Secret Of NIMH sequel gets two. At the beginning of the video, he cocks a gun, puts on a SWAT helmet and padded jacket, grabs a set of brass knuckles and finally a Cricket bat before sitting down.
Nostalgia Critic: BRING IT ON!
And then an unspoken one halfway into the movie.
Nostalgia Critic: I have to be honest, as we near the 3rd act of this film, I'm not seeing the spectular badness it's supposed to have. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's bad, but it's just a basic dumb sequel bad, I mean, nothing really propels it into incredibly awful. Timmy: Jenny, look! What happened to them? Jenny: He's turned the Humans into dogs! (It cuts back to the Critic, with a dumbstruck expression. He finally drops the SWAT helmet from the opening over his hat).
In Masters Of The Universe fil, at one point, he says:
"So He-Man is going to use his awesome cosmic powers and medieval-style fighting moves...in the suburbs of New Jersey?" *sob* "This is gonna suck, isn't it?"
He begins his The Magic Voyage review raving incoherently before he can even attempt to begin his opening catch phrase. He then blows fire into the camera.
This Is Reality: The Critic mocks this relentlessly (or as relentlessly as possible while drunk) in his review of It.
Three Yay: Critic, Chick and Brentalfloss in the Moulin Rouge! review. You've got Floss calling Critic "baby" when they're alone, Floss and Chick dancing together and her spanking him in "El Tango De Pretense" and a basic confirmation that Chick and Critic have had sex (real sex, not g-rated fairy rape) when he recognizes her bedroom immediately. It also doesn't help that all three of them prove throughout the review that they have No Sense of Personal Space when it comes to the others.
Almost inevitably with the amount of Ho Yay they've had between them already, but Spoony/Critic/Linkara in the Alone in the Dark review. There's one such moment when Spoony forces Critic's computer voice to say "I like wearing women's clothing" (serving as lulzy foreshadowing to SWS2 where he made Critic dress up like a dirty ballerina) and Linkara looks rather interested.
Throw It In: In the review of Commando, during the fight sequence when Arnold's character and a henchman crash into a porn scene being filmed, the Critic wonders whether the footage of the two fighting actually made it into the porno.
Critic: Don't try to class up this movie, lady. It's not worth it.
Too Soon: Pushed his Good Son review back a month due to the death of one of Macaulay Culkin's two sisters.
Subverted in his Blank Check review, where he makes a joke about Michael Jackson, waiting just under two months after his death, telling us it's no longer too soon and nothing we can say about him could take away what he truly was...
Nostalgia Critic: Don't be afraid, people. No matter how hard you laugh, he will always be a genius.
The TMNT review featured him mocking Splinter's voice, saying it sounded like "Mr. Miyagi if he smoked a million Marlboros". This didn't go over well at all: he was mocking one of the most beloved voice actors of all time, who had recently died of esophagus cancer. In the very next video, the Critic apologized, saying he had no idea who the actor was, that he had died, or even how he died. He'd intended to mock the voice, not the person. 'Course he still gets flack for this, and he even mentioned it as one of his Top Eleven F* ck-Ups.
Or Top 12, in the case of Top 12 Greatest Christmas Specials. Why Top 12? Because IT'S CHRISTMAS!
In his review of North, The Critic creates a top ten list of double entendres that could be added to Jason Alexander's character saying, "Here, loosen his pants!"
[Trope Name]: This is how the Nostalgia Critic sums up how every conversation in The Avengers goes:
Emma Peel: I’m going to start saying something clever while you…
True Art Is Incomprehensible: His main problem with The Cell is that it tries too hard to be this trope without any real meaning behind the imagery.invoked
The Unpronounceable: The Critic (and several others) had some trouble pronouncing Tone Lōc. He also had some trouble with some names in Drop Dead Fred (including the last name of that guy from The Young Ones, that chick from Gremlins, and OH FUCK YOU!), as well as Hubie in The Pebble and the Penguin (he says it "hubby").
Unreadably Fast Text: In his tribute to Siskel And Ebert, after S&E's mocking of protestants in their outtakes, The Critic made a disclaimer that he isn't prejudiced against other religions, except for a really long list that scrolled across the screen.
Critic: Especially the middle one.
In his review of Junior, after Danny DeVito's character asked Arnold why he couldn't have a baby, The Critic replied with: "That's a very valid question. Why not? Oh wait, maybe because of these." And the screen fills with reasons why not. The list stays on screen for only a second.
In his review of A Troll In Central Park, the screen fills with reasons why Stanley won't have his dreams come true. Then it cuts back to the film clips, where Gus says, "You're a coward!", which was one of the choices in the long list.
Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The Critic is careful to point this out every single time it happens, and illustrates in My Pet Monster by being completely unfazed to see that his brother has the head of a dinosaur.
Up to Eleven: "Why "Top 11"? Because I like to go one step beyond."
Vacation Dear Boy: The Nostalgia Critic points out that Rob Reiner's North was made as an attempt for the director to go on vacation and get paid for it.
Vacation Episode: After the first commercial special, according to Doug the following two were done when the Critic needed a break.
Values Dissonance: In-universe. While he understands the original True Grit was filmed in the sixties, he still wants to call PETA for the poor snake getting abused.
Viewer Gender Confusion: The "NickComs" video mocks this in-universe with the game "Guy or Girl".
A straighter example is with Swiftheart from Care Bears in Wonderland.
Viewers Are Morons: The Critic complains about this in his Captain America review, where they put the name of every place, every single time the scene shifts to another scenery. At one point he gets fed up with it and puts captions under every little thing on-screen.
In his TMNT review, he finds it an odd contradiction that the opening of the film briefly glosses over the Turtles' origins (which would sound pretty weird to those unfamiliar with the franchise), as apparently this movie is made for the fans, yet when Leonardo first appears, the movie features the subtitle "Leonardo" to let us know who he is.
Villain Song: Most, though not all, of the Top Eleven villain songs. The Nostalgia Critic defines it as "songs sung by or about the villain", so they don't all quite fit the trope.
Wasted Song: In the Felix the Cat review, there's only twenty seconds of him singing 80s goodness. This may have been intentional considering the next episode...
Wet Sari Scene: Doug even said in a commentary that he had to sell the old Critic jacket because he was getting it soaked too much.
Wham Episode: More personal than most but the ending of My Pet Monster has his low self-esteem and job insecurity (which have been building up from at least the review of Full House) hit him right in the face. The depression carries on to the next episode.
In his "Alaska" film review, the grand and whimsical music (while a plane is flying with nothing happening), leads him to sing Clear! Clear Clear Clear... Your Cleaaaaaaaaaaaaar!
What Were You Thinking: A common reaction by the Critic. For example, after realizing that Kazaam was a slave to a little white kid, he blurts loudly, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!"
White and Grey Morality: The Nerd/Critic rivalry, mostly for how pathetically meaningless it was. Even during the fighting they had moments of being nice to each other. Doug's later writings tuned out the white, though.
White Male Lead: Addressed in the True Grit Old vs New. He calls Maddy the lead (as you'd think it would be obvious) and tells The Dude off when he starts whining.
Who's on First?: NC makes an Abbott and Costello routine out of the moment in the Super Mario Bros. Movie where it shows that Mario and Luigi's last name is Mario.
Spliced in footage from the actual bit during his review of Hook.
A Wizard Did It: Whenever something happens for no particular reason in Moonwalker, the Nostalgia Critic points out that it is happening because "Jackson wills it!"
The Woobie: Invoked. He feels incredibly sorry for the abused slave robot in Doug's First Movie.
An in-universe example: He missed a large section of the hidden message in The Angry Video Game Nerd's forum post because he "Forgot to carry the 1."
Written-In Infirmity: Doug's surprisingly prone to throat infections, forcing him to get creative to make videos without talking. In "The Good Son", he never spoke and communicated through cue cards, subtitles, and the use of sound effects. In "Alone in the Dark", he speaks through MacInTalk (plus he has Linkara and Spoony joining him).
What The Hell, Casting Agency?: The Critic points this out in-universe when he sees someone famous in crappy movies or shows.
(As Eric Idle in Casper): I'm far too talented to be in this movie!
Yet Another Christmas Carol: Literally defied. He refuses to do one despite cajoling from the Ghost of Christmas Future.
Yoko Oh No: Doug's poor fiancée, Robin, gets a lot of hate, and she hasn't even appeared in any videos (that doesn't mean, however, that she is below making a voice-over cameo).
Which is sad, considering what she does for a living (she works with disabled children). And like her partner, she's really◊ pretty when not dressed up.
The hate has died down somewhat since the Transformers III review, where, courtesy of her, his neck sported a big hickey and scratch marks.
You Bastard: In his video game review for the DVD, he angrily (and quite tearfully) yells at the large portion of the audience who just want to see him suffer. It's actually a surprise that it took him so long.
Critic: Because that's all you want to see isn't it? You just wanna see me angry! Dance monkey dance!
And in his review of Cop and a Half, he calls us all sick pigs for wanting him to suffer through it.
A slightly creepy Freeze Frame Bonus one happens in the review of Once Upon A Forest. The second porn visit is a sex trafficking site that includes a fifteen year old girl. Knowing that he's a feminist Papa Wolf who views his audience as pretty sadistic, you gotta wonder what he's trying to say.
In the introduction to his review of Doug's First Movie, he calls out his fans for constantly requesting him to review the movie despite his hatred of everything relating to the show.
You Can Leave Your Hat On: In a DVD extra, the Critic stripteases out of his wet Ghostbusters uniform while Rob hums stripper music.
You Have Failed Me: The Critic does this to a behind-the-scenes guy in the first Top 11 Nostalgic F*ck Ups.
You Need to Get Laid: Ernest Saves Christmas, word for word: "You need to get laid, Ernest."
As well as the whole movie in Sidekicks.
You Put the X in XY: In Pagemaster, he says the character Adventure (a talking book, played by Patrick Stewart) puts "the 'dick' into 'dictionary'".
You Should Have Died Instead: The Critic calls out the boy protagonist in Alaska saying this to his dad about his mom dying, and wishes he would spontaneously combust once he stormed off to his room
Your Vampires Suck: During The Care Bears Movie, the Critic mocks Nicholas by saying that he's become a vampire. Not one of those sparkling ones, though, they totally suck ass.
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