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Website / Channel Awesome

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/channelawesome.png
Logo circa 2014note 

Channel Awesome, formerly known as That Guy With the Glasses, was the pop culture reviewing site network, featuring numerous critics, sketch comedians, and riffers when first launched in June 4, 2008. Occasionally and early on they did Anniversary Specials with the big names. It was divided into Blistered Thumbs, Inked Reality, Team TGWTG, and Barfiesta.

From November 2010 to January 2014, they operated a spinoff site Blistered Thumbs, which featured gaming-centric videos and articles; after that site closed, its contributors were moved to the main site. There were plans at one point to spin off Channel Awesome's comics and anime reviewers into a new site called Inked Reality as well, but those plans never went through. In addition a third video reviewing site named Barfiesta, which focused on Chicago nightlife and was run by Rob Walker and restaurant critic Laura Lopez, was operational for a few months in late 2009 before shutting down.

On December 2, 2014, Rob Walker announced on his Facebook page that thatguywiththeglasses.com was no longer the website for Doug and the rest of Channel Awesome's content creators. They had a new website using the company's name: channelawesome.com. (the URL now just redirects to the channel's YouTube page)

In late March and early April 2018, many former and then-current contributors came forward and compiled over seventy pages of grievances regarding years of mismanagement, sexual harassment, and abuse by Channel Awesome's higher ups. Between the longstanding problems plaguing the company coming to light, a couple of badly handled responses (among them, "we sincerely regret you felt that way" and the official one) by management, and predatory behavior reports about deceased former contributor Justin Carmical becoming public, all but two videomakers departed in the immediate aftermath, leading to the planned tenth anniversary movie being scrapped.

The channel also now has a Twitch channel, spearheaded by Nostalgia Critic actress and former Top 5 contributor Heather Reusz. The schedule alternates every weekday between different contributors (mostly from Nostalgia Critic) streaming games casually and interacting with fans via chat, with a "Tournament Tuesday" every Tuesday pitting the contributors against each other in gameplay.

Despite continuing operations on other platforms, the website hasn't been updated since April 5, 2023 for unknown reasons. As of February 16, 2024, the URL is now defunct and redirects to the YouTube channel.

Please restrict examples from the following shows to their respective pages, unless they're from non-anniversary special crossover videos.

    Specials and current producers/shows 

    Former producers/shows 

Channel Awesome provides examples of:

    open/close all folders 

    A-H 
  • Accentuate the Negative: Much of the site, especially the more informal reviewers. Though, reportedly, not all producers find everything as bad as their in-character reviews indicate.
    • While not common, this trope can be subverted by some shows. StuffYouLike is one example, as it looks at one aspect Ursa feels films do especially right. Rocked is another example, as he often goes into depth on what works for him when reviewing songs and albums. Even when reviewing albums he doesn't like, he'll sometimes point out what he thinks the album is doing right.
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot:
    • According to Zod in Merry Zodmas part 3, Braniac only went crazy after they loaded Windows Vista onto him.
    • Mechakara from Atop the Fourth Wall is another example.
    • The Nostalgia Critic's Microwave was struck by lightning and now hates him.
  • All Gays Are Pedophiles: Doug's riffing on "Boys Beware" mocks this belief mercilessly.
  • All Love Is Unrequited: Getting to be a big thing between the characters. Everyone wants Lupa, especially Todd who obsesses over her. The Chick goes to extreme measures to try and get Todd to love her and all of them have failed. Linkara wants to win the Chick's heart but she and Marz only pretended to sleep with him for fun. Critic and Chick have some kind of relationship, but he's totally in love while she just cares for him very much. Linkara also has at least a fanboy crush on Critic but Critic dislikes him, and Film Brain wants Critic to be his, but Critic very rarely realizes his existence. Spoony wants everyone.
  • And Knowing Is Half the Battle: Spoofed by name when the Critic and the Chick review FernGully: The Last Rainforest. Also spoofed by the question-answering title character of Ask That Guy with the Glasses in one episode of his show and again in the review of Uwe Boll's BloodRayne with Linkara and Spoony.
    Linkara: Now I know! And knowing makes it all the more confusing.
  • And You Were There: Subverted at the end of his Surf Ninjas review, where he is surrounded by his friends after having a dream where he reviewed Surf Ninjas and liked it. He tells his friends that they were there; then, when one asks "Really?", he says, "No."
  • Angrish: Lampshaded in the AVGN/Critic review, in which The Angry Video Game Nerd points out to the Nostalgia Critic that he's too angry to come up with a coherent way to express his distaste over how ugly Master Splinter looks in there.
  • Anti Villains: At least in the two specials. Doug has said that when he's writing them, he draws from the Batman Rogues Gallery: they're all horrible people, certainly, but they're sympathetic too and will look after each other in a sometimes manipulative, Tough Love way.
  • Anvilicious: In-universe, reviewers have sometimes criticized something they were reviewing for being this.
  • Apocalypse How: Class 0. In a Christmas special linked from the Nostalgia Critic's section of the site, there's an alternate timeline where President Angry Joe completely annihilates the country of Canada with one press of a button.
  • April Fools' Day: The site pulled a particularly effective one on April 1, 2009 when all of Walker's characters swapped videos: That Guy With The Glasses lowered himself to review a movie enthusiastically and asked for spare change, The Nostalgia Critic was horrified by the questions asked of Ask That Guy With The Glasses, and Chester A. Bum remembered The NeverEnding Story (1984) though he didn't remember why. Ask That Guy also claimed not to be good at impressions.
  • Arch-Enemy: The Nostalgia Critic and The Angry Video Game Nerd, before their reconciliation. Also, Dr, Insano appears to be an arch-foe of both Spoony and Linkara.
  • Artifact Title:
    • Originally a site to hold Doug Walker's (also known as That Guy With The Glasses) videos, the site pretty soon after introduced other contributors to write articles and host videos, most of whom do not have glasses.
    • Also an artifact subtitle for TGWTG: Home of "5 Second Movies" and "Nostalgia Critic". While the series were indeed always hosted on the site, it seemed a bit odd that this was the site's subtitle when "5 Second Movies" was discontinued in 2008 and Nostalgia Critic was discontinued for a time, yet many other series were actively producing new content.
  • Bad Boss: "In-universe", the Nostalgia Critic (and Rob, The Other Guy) runs TGWTG, so if someone's reviewing something particularly painful, it's probably because he made them do it. Nonetheless, he gets outwitted and walked over quite a lot.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: As many former producers have noted, Channel Awesome focused a lot more exclusively on the Nostalgia Critic and Doug related properties, and the higher ups showed little interest in promoting the other producers. Now with the mass exodus of the site's former producers, Doug's properties will now have to hold Channel Awesome together by itself.
  • Berserk Button:
  • Better than a Bare Bulb: Half of Phelous and Linkara's The AirZone Solution review and Phelous and Film Brain's Lockjaw review have constantly lampshade the set-up of crossover reviews.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Spoony and Linkara show up when the topic being reviewed is so bad for the Critic that a friend (or two in the case of Alone in the Dark) is required to make it through the review. The Critic is not happy about this.
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: This trope was first named by the Nostalgia Chick (after a scene from All Dogs Go to Heaven), while she and the Critic were reviewing FernGully: The Last Rainforest. It's been lampshaded in-universe a few times too.
    • The Nostalgia Critic sings a hilarious rendition of "Sweet Transvestite" while the Nostalgia Chick randomly plays the accordion in the background.
      Nostalgia Critic: (singing) I'm just a cheap toxic-ite from Transsexual... (looks over at the Nostalgia Chick in confusion)
      Nostalgia Chick: Did that make any sense?
      Nostalgia Critic: No.
      Nostalgia Chick: Are you ever going to mention it again?
      Nostalgia Critic: Probably not.
      Nostalgia Chick: Big-Lipped Alligator Moment!
  • Big Good: Santa Christ.
  • Big "NO!": Panda, to Smarty's death in episode 4 of Panda Q&A.
  • Bizarre Alien Biology: According to Merry Zodmas, Kryptonians grow their heads back after consuming a radioactive beverage.
  • Black Comedy:The Most Disturbing Aristocrats Joke Ever.
  • Black Comedy Rape:
    • Zig-zagged in all three "Spooning With Spoony" segments. The horror and Spoony's smug objectification of everyone provides the funny, not specifically that they were raped. Also as a bonus, The Nostalgia Chick and The Nostalgia Critic are the most traumatized, yet Lindsay and Doug came up with their respective episode idea.
    • Averted in "Ask That Guy VIOLATES Ma-Ti" when it looks like this will be the case, but Ma-Ti fights back and then points out how sick it is that anyone wanted to watch that video. He then rapes Ask That Guy because that's what people want.
  • Brick Joke: Arguably, "Go Watch Porn" and LordKat's seductive strawberry eating in the Dragonball Evolution review. Both were alluded to in the MAGFest Q&A video, which was probably recorded afterwards.
  • Bring My Brown Pants:
    • Lee craps himself when he sees King Hippo in Punch-Out!! for the Wii.
    • Linkara, Nash, and FilmBrain have their "pants to be darkened" gag from their review of the 2011 Wonder Woman TV pilot.
  • Book Ends: In 2008, Doug Walker left YouTube to start ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com (which eventually became Channel Awesome). In 2024, the Channel Awesome website was shut down and now redirects to his YouTube channel.
  • Broken Aesop: By the truckload.
    • There's even a Broken Spoof Aesop in "You're a Rotten Dirty Bastard". The whole message of the special is that the Critic makes everyone miserable and the whole world would be better off without him, especially his fellow site contributors. Except President Angry Joe blows up Canada and probably kills Phelous, which is offhandedly mentioned within the special itself.
      • Although, considering how often Phelous dies in his own reviews, it was probably just a minor inconvenience... And the other Canadian contributors and family members who live in Canada also died, and nobody knows if Phelous shares his cloning facilities with them.
      • Also, the implication that the Nostalgia Critic's existence has somehow stopped Canada from becoming an Evil Empire.Probably because Dr. Terawatt would've been successful in this universe like everyone else and finally took over Canada.
  • Butt-Monkey:
    • Ma-Ti, until his ultimate sacrifice in Suburban Knights, when he had enough of being treated as such.
    • Melvin, Brother of the Joker.
    • The Critic himself, he tries to throw his weight around in crossovers, but either the others get over him, or he defeats himself.
  • Blessed with Suck: Phelous, apparently. Lampshaded in a crossover: Angry Joe thinks its awesome he comes back to life after he dies at the end of every review. Phelous, given what he has to review, disagrees.
  • Casanova Wannabe: Site exec Mike Ellis in Benzaie's crossover sitcom.
  • Cat Fight:
    • The entire male crew on the site loves cat fights, as shown in the review for Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.
    • Doug proposes one to settle the tie between Nostalgia Chick finalists. They refuse and he is forced to simply pick one.
  • Caustic Critic: About half the site.
    • And then deconstructed, as Critic, Sage, Lupa and Oancitizen have all had breakdowns over what they're doing in life.
      • Spoony had a similar breakdown for comedic effect, although it was in a review he made after leaving the site
  • Cerebus Syndrome: In the latter half of 2012, there was a lot of emotional episodes going around. Linkara's storyline about him turning evil followed by his True Companions fighting and then revealing Harvey's miserable backstory, Critic's Drama Bomb Finale of Scooby-Doo and To Boldly Flee taking out all comedy about his patheticness, Chick reaching the height of her Took a Level in Jerkass with Charlie's Angels (2000), Chester suffering a breakdown in Wreck-It Ralph and never really getting back to his happy keet self, Ask That Guy's hanging on a cliffhanger, Demo Reel having a comedic Non-Indicative First Episode before diving right into drama with a touch of humor, Lupa's 100th episode where deadite versions of her friends attack her insecurities and Oan's 50th where he goes in-depth to what depression feels like. Fan reaction is a little stunned, but really wanting more.
  • Closer to Earth: The concept is smashed, shredded and shat on with this site. The women are just as crazy and fight-happy as the guys.
  • Cloudcuckoolander:
    • Tommy Wiseau in "The Tommy Wiseau Show" has shades of this. Poodles. Even moreso in Lupa's "A Day in the Life of Tommy Wiseau".
    • Bargo. If you watch "Coffee With Bargo", you'll see why.
  • Cluster F-Bomb: There is no shortage of swearing from many of the reviewers in their own individual shows.
    • Also, when the Nostalgia Critic and The Angry Video Game Nerd team-up to review The Making Of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Coming Out Of Our Shell video, you can bet they lay on the swearing but thick.
    • In fact, Linkara has been given grief by some fans for NOT swearing.
  • Comic Trio: The Critic, Spoony and Linkara in Alone in the Dark (2005). They even parody The Three Stooges at the end of the review. Hell, if they had bothered to put shadows in front of the clips, the whole thing would have been one epic MSTing.
  • Continuity Lockout: With the sheer volume of shout-outs, callbacks and cameos on display, and a frankly intimidating number of shows available, god knows what the site looks like to people who've just found it.
    • Case in point: two major plot points (Black Lantern Spoony's creation and original Spoony's resurrection) from an arc in Spoony's videos don't make any sense unless you watch two random non-consecutive Linkara videos.
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment:
    • The Critic punishes the Nostalgia Chick for reviewing non-girly movies (and chloroforming him) by making her watch Bratz.
    • In a slightly more proportionate example, the Critic punished Spoony for raping him in Spooning With Spoony 2 by making him do Bloodwings: Pumpkinhead's Revenge again.
  • Costume Copycat:
    • Linkara impersonates the Critic to review Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. The Critic is not impressed.
    • The Critic impersonates the Cinema Snob in the Leprechaun review. The Snob is also not impressed.
    • Doug has occasionally gone to events dressed as Linkara, who will shortly after appear as the Green Ranger and confront him on this.
    • Phelous and Nostalgia Critic dress as the other in their Child's Play (1988) review but got the skit wrong.
  • Crapsaccharine World:
    • The sockpuppet Fluffy Cloud Heaven... with sex slaves as told in Coffee with Bargo.
    • According to the That Guy Riffs of Casper, the friendly ghost killed several people and committed and/or was witness to various other atrocities, that weren't gone into because 'it's not that kind of story'.
    • The alternate timeline in You're a Dirty, Rotten Bastard probably counts: Angry Joe blew up Canada. He was applauded.
  • Cringe Comedy: The Critic and the Chick's hideously awkward date in "Thanks For The Feedback: Date With Doug."
  • Crossover: Amongst TGWTG's reviewers, there are far too many to list here. However, of note is a very special guest appearance by non-Channel-Awesome personality brentalfloss for the Nostalgia' Critic's Musical Moulin Rouge! review (along with Linkara, Phelous, and Team Nostalgia Chick).
  • Culture Clash: According to one of Spoony's vlogs, this happens to Benzaie when he's introduced to the concept of sales tax.note 
  • A Day in the Limelight: Many members of the site's "B-team" came together to review Dragonball Evolution while they were attending a convention. For some, it was their first appearance in a video in months. It was also a movie that many people had wanted the Nostalgia Critic himself to review, so it got a lot of attention when it came out.
  • Death Glare: Linkara withers under the Critic's glare when he's caught pretending to be the Critic in their Superman IV review.
  • Death Is Cheap: In the case of Phelous and the Nostalgia Critic. Both lampshade it too.
  • Death World: Krypton, both canonically and according to Zod. Zod mentions frequent meteor showers and acid rain that melts the heads of any children foolish enough to play in it, and uranium slurry as a food instead of snowcones.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: In the Bad Movie Cinema Snob of McBain.
    Cinema Snob: And you know else they're evil? One's called Hans. Ahh, God bless foreign xenophobia.
  • Depraved Bisexual:
    • Spoony in his Spooning With Spoony videos. He's had post-coital conversations (some rohypnol-induced) with the Nostalgia Chick, That Chick With the Goggles, Benzaie, the Nostalgia Critic, Angry Joe, and Bennett the Sage.
    • Ask That Guy counts and it is nobody's surprise.
    • Master Bate and Dr. Tease as well.
  • Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: Nash and Nella broke into the TARDIS. The Doctor was... not pleased.
  • Don't Explain the Joke: Epic Fail.
  • Dramatic Ellipsis: Notable to the point of overuse in Masterpiece Fanfic Theatre review of "Until the End of Time" and the Linkara/Spoony crossover review of Warrior #1.
  • Driven to Suicide:
    • The Linkara/MarzGurl Cool World review opens with Linkara preventing MarzGurl from suffocating herself with a pillow, the result of an ill-advised attempt to watch the movie alone. MarzGurl has a second attempt foiled by Linkara, and she returns the favour later.
    • The Nostalgia Critic also attempts to kill himself (despite precautions taken to prevent him from doing so) so that he doesn't have to watch Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin. He is stopped by a guy in an increasingly bloodstained lab coat.
  • Dude, Not Funny!:
    • Invoked at the 2013 Donation Drive, Rob tells Doug off for his "Minnie Mouse hanged and gored like Drew Barrymore from Scream" 'joke', reminding him that they're doing a children's charity.
    • Smarty groaned in pain when Doug told Suede that he should hold his baby "Michael Jackson-style".
  • Dysfunction Junction: Some of these people need a really good therapist.
  • Egocentric Team Naming: First called "That Guy with the Glasses" after Doug's Internet handle before being renamed to "Channel Awesome". Ironically, the website became more focused on Doug after the rename.
  • Enforced Method Acting:invoked Chester A. Bum's live appearance during Transmission Awesome has Walker trying very hard (in character) to annoy his friends. He succeeds.
  • Epic Hail: The Nostalgia signal.
    Linkara: No one should have to watch Uwe Boll alone, especially with Spoony.
  • Erotic Eating: LordKat of Until We Win eating a strawberry in the Dragonball Evolution joint review.
  • Et Tu, Brute?: In the Brawl: "Et tu, Lee from Still Gaming?" Echoed later in Kickassia.
  • Even Evil Has Standards:
    • Linksano may very well be evil, psychotic and out to kill Linkara, but as shown in Linkara's joint review with Film Brain on the movie The Spirit, he will not condone the murder of kittens.
    • While he's made jokes about pedophilia, vaginal bleeding, and that whole thing with the strawberries in the past, LordKat was appalled at the "Can we rape them?" line from Hudson Hawk.
    • Even Ask That Guy was horrified by Bennett the Sage.
    • During the Dragonball Evolution crossover review, even if Sean is the one who forces everyone to suffer through the movie, even he's horrified at LordKat's seductive strawberry eating, squicking with the rest of the reviewers he locked in.
  • Everyone Is Bi: Most likely aided by the ficdom, if it makes for laughs or fanservice then anyone can express an interest in their own gender.
  • Facepalm: Everyone has their moments at the second when they realize that some of the stuff they are reviewing contains some elements that are either egregious errors from the writers, filmmakers or directors, or just because whatever these people have to say regarding their works that are just wrong or ridiculous.
  • Fat and Skinny: Sean Fausz and Paw, respectively, who do a fair amount of crossovers.
  • Female Gaze: The women give out as much fanservice as you'd expect them to, but it's mostly the men indulging in it. Especially Doug. In fact, it seems that when Channel Awesome tried to increase its female audience, they discovered that "cute nerdy guys who review interesting things, offer fanservice and suffer appealingly" is the answer.
  • Foreshadowing: In his Battlefield Earth review, the Nostalgia Critic implies that there are two Sci-Fi films that are as bad or even significantly worse than Battlefield Earth. Doug has since revealed that one of the films in question is Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, but is keeping his lips sealed as to what the second film is.
  • Fridge Logic:
  • Frivolous Lawsuit: The site was threatened with one for its review of The Room. The Critic made an awesome sketch out of it.
  • Funny Background Event:
    • The review of Interstella 5555 always has one of the four reviewers dancing in the background.
    • In the video where everyone sings Rebecca Black's "Friday", you can see a guy stab himself in the background.
  • Gag Sub: From the Star Wars Holiday Special review Doug Walker did:
    Wookiee mother: Junior, come over here and eat your yak testicles!
    Young Wookiee: They taste like diarrhea. I wish I was adopted!
    Elder Wookiee/Wookiee mother: You were adopted! You're just a Sand-Person we glued hair onto! Now eat your dinner, you abomination!
  • Girl on Girl Is Hot
    • Spoony and Sage, watching the Nostalgia Chick and That Chick With The Goggles fighting during the Brawl.
    • Mike J in his review of Dumb and Dumberer, while he watches a pointless dream sequence that doesn't go anywhere. While he watches a pointless dream sequence that doesn't go anywhere. While he...
    • Also, "Linking Up With Linkara"
  • Guy on Guy Is Hot: Came on a bit later than Girl on Girl Is Hot, but became the default when Michaud and company figured out that was how to get more women watching. Including the wives/girlfriends, who love watching Doug/Lewis/anyone else have Homoerotic Subtext with other men.
  • Go-Karting with Bowser: The Nerd and The Critic argue over a game of Geek Fight in the middle of a battle.
  • A God Am I:
  • God Is Evil: He stripped away all of Film Brain's clothes and smote the Critic, so he seems to be shaping up to this in this universe.
  • Gratuitous Italian: During the Superman IV: The Quest for Peace review, the Critic and Linkara start spouting off various Italian words like the underwearing-a man is doing.
  • Green Aesop: The Critic has picked on a few series with this trope as their theme and ripped on them for it. However, as he made clear with his praise for the use of this trope in Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), he appreciates a well-written Green Aesop that's subtle and not one that bashes you over the head for it. And as the Chick noted in the Ferngully The Last Rainforest review, some of these shows don't actually give a helpful message at all.
  • Heroic BSoD: Several in Sean Fausz's case, but the result is always the same - Sean sitting in the bath, crying uncontrollably to the tune of Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On.
  • Hotter and Sexier: In a fucked up, crossing so many lines way, Spooning With Spoony 2 compared to the first one. While the first had Benzaie naked in a bow tie, it was mostly Spoony holding a twisted interview. The second had both Spoony and Critic showing skin and Spoony talking mostly about how he fucked Critic and Joe out of their minds.
  • Hype Backlash: In-universe, Lee from Still Gaming is about to put Neon Genesis Evangelion on his and Dena's top anime theme songs, but he changes his mind when he realises the lyrics are about Shinji...
    Lee: Shinji is a piece of shit! And EVA is overrated.
    Dena: DUDE! You... you can't say that, you're... you're gonna piss people off.

    I-P 
  • Idiot Ball: Pointed out and named by Linkara in his crossover with Film Brain:
    Film Brain: Finally they get back to the idea of killing The Spirit, which of course they plan to do by having Plaster cut him up to tiny little pieces that they will post all over the country. Or you know, they could just blow him up.
    Linkara: Shh! The Octopus is holding his idiot ball!
  • Improv:
    • The Nostalgia Critic is the only one of Doug's shows that requires a script. Ask That Guy and Bum Reviews are completely spontaneous.
    • Spoony also does some of his videos without a script.
  • invokedInferred Holocaust: Linkara and the Critic point out Superman getting rid of all the nukes in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace would lead to Israel getting invaded on all sides and the Soviet Union and U.S. going at it with conventional warfare.
  • Internet Mimic: A large number of community members have handles like "That (Person) with the (Noun)". Linkara even called himself "(Ask) That Guy With The Hat" in his Ask That Guy segment.
  • In the Style of: Many of the critics will, on occasion, do reviews in the style of other critics. Most notable: Linkara, Film Brain, and others have done reviews In the Style of Chester A. Bum.
  • Jeopardy! Thinking Music: Used in the Nickcoms video, and again in his North review when playing "Spot the Joke."
  • Killed Off for Real: Melvin, in the live donation drive; and Ask That Guy, in the final Ask That Guy with the Glasses episode, just before the move to the Channel Awesome site.
  • Kung-Fu Jesus: Giant Robotic Donkey Kong Jesus Riding A Puff Of Smoke, to be precise. Originally from the Cloverfield trailer review as to what he wanted the monster of that film to be, later on it fights Super Mecha Death Christ "whatever version you are at the moment" in the 1st Anniversary Brawl.
  • Lampshade Hanging:
    • After Linkara says he saw the Nostalgia Critic signal in the sky, during his Alone in the Dark (2005) review, the Critic wonders out loud why he installed the thing in the first place.
    • In his review of Lockjaw, Phelous manages to Lampshade the act of hanging a lampshade. When Film Brain calls out how stupid it is that a character would willingly watch bad movies, Phelous just puts a lampshade on his own head.
  • Large Ham: A lot of it.
    • Despite Ask That Guy With the Glasses and Dominic being quite constrained, Doug is otherwise a very Large Ham (besides the Nostalgia Critic and Chester A. Bum, there's Spider-Smith from the Lost in Space review, Casper from the eponymous film, both characters in "The Tommy Wiseau Show", Douchey McNitpick and the pirate in How to be a Pirate).
    • Joe is pretty over-the-top too. His constant use of green screen and explosions doesn't help matters.
    • Diamanda Hagan, Obscurus Lupa and Team NChick are all pretty wonderful at mugging and/or chewing scenery.
    • Let's be honest and say that most members have indulged in it, and some use it as their entire persona (Linkara and MarzGurl come swiftly to mind).
  • Like Brother and Sister: Whenever The Nostalgia Critic and The Nostalgia Chick are together. They perfectly illustrate a breed of cooperative psychosis only known to siblings. In fact, Doug and Lindsay act like little kids when they're together too, although obviously they're much nicer than their characters.
  • Massive Multiplayer Crossover:
    • The TGWTG anniversary crossovers for the first 4 years of the site, are straight examples. You can see more of them in their own pages. Each filming was accompanied by various smaller crossover videos posted during their releases schedules.
    • In September 2009, the Critic, with Spoony and Linkara (thanks to the Nostalgia Signal) review the Alone in the Dark (2005) film by Uwe Boll. And they reprise the same formula during the review of Uwe Boll's BloodRayne, some years later.
    • In January 2010, a large portion of the site finally reviews Dragonball Evolution, with no escape (except for Masako X), all according to the Critic's note  plans.
    • The 2009 charity drive employed this, when some of the contributors of the site traveled to Chicago, as so did Spooning With Spoony 2.
  • Medium Awareness: Often used in the interest of comedy.
  • Milking the Giant Cow: MasakoX does it so often that LittleKuriboh made a dance of it.
  • Mind Screw: "Coffee With Bargo". Godlike penguins and robotic unicorns running at the speed of light. The sequel adds in Bargo as a tranvestite male lesbian heroin addict and panda bears in Ronald Reagan masks.
  • Misaimed Fandom: Addressed in-universe by Y: Ruler of Time in "Reaction Shots" with various series:
    What To Take From It: Death is but another aspect of life, but the nature of the soul is eternal and meddling with it can have consequences.
    What We DO Take From It: BANKAI!
  • Mood Whiplash: Not the site's fault, but blip will play invoked Tear Jerker cancer research adverts or Nightmare Fuel rape PSAs before we get some hammy comedy from the reviewers.
  • Mr. Fanservice: Benzaie, Critic, JewWario and Spoony really do enjoy teasing their fangirls. And, Doug and Justin have got this covered in real life too.
  • MST: Done during some of the sample clips. This is even more noticeable in Alone in the Dark (2005): Three guys reviewing a crappy movie while, for the most part, it's voiceover.
    • They even won a contest at RiffTrax and got to record a special Rifftrax Presents of Batman Forever with a brief appearance from Mike, Bill and Kevin.
    • Doug has started a riff series premiering with the anti-gay propaganda short Boys Beware
  • Mundane Fantastic: Despite a fairly normal world, Linkara has a magic gun, there are several mad scientists and robots around, The Nostalgia Chick also knows a fairy, a number of the reviewers have Street Fighter like powers, there's a Portal Network in washing machines...
  • Mundane Made Awesome: coaster flipping
  • Narrow Parody: The Tommy Wiseau Show video was a particularly spiteful example, in which the representation of "John From The RoomMovie.com" eventually resorts to bawling his own name; the only detail Doug knew about the man in question. The other contributors are not exempt from this either.
  • Nerds Are Sexy: Everyone on the site has an active fanbase of people (often of both genders) who would love to take them home.
  • Nightmare Retardant: Uwe Boll flickering the lights in Alone in the Dark (2005) does not impress the three reviewing stooges in-universe.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot:
    • Giant Robotic Donkey Kong Jesus Riding on a Puff of Smoke.
    • Coffee with Bargo features robot zombie unicorns "messing shit up", which was apparently orchestrated by a Dr. Manhattan Jedi penguin, who may or may not be a messianic spork god as well.
  • Nonindicative Name: The "5-Second Movies", for the most part, aren't exactly five seconds long.
  • Nothing Is the Same Anymore:
    • To Boldly Flee was the big game-changer. While some shows went on as normal, Critic is explicitly dead yet somewhere in the universe. Chick can't help but miss him, Chester got more Critic-like in snark and depression, Ask That Guy started being able to question the plot holes of the Hummel figurine, and Malachite's Hand had a plot point in Linkara's show.
    • The 2018 controversy is a big changer to the channel and the internet review community that it pioneered. A majority of Channel Awesome members left with bitter feelings for Nostalgia Critic/Doug Walker, where he only had a few loyal friends that stayed with him, and as time passed, they moved on with their own projects and lives (including Doug who continued the Nostalgia Critic show anyway, but mostly improving his attitude to be more professional and no longer stirring up controversies), but their relations are forever strained. To say that the face of the channel and the internet review video community completely changed that day is an understatement.
  • "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: So many reviews cover things that the reviewers have to assure the audience actually happened in those works.
    • The cafe in this video is a real place. The last part even gives you the address in case you want to stop by.
  • Not Me This Time: After several reviewers were stuck watching The Last Airbender, they figure The Nostalgia Critic set them up since he did something similar before with Dragonball Evolution. When they contact him, he's horrified at the idea of anyone sitting through it.
  • Official Couple: There are multiple in Real Life. There's The Nostalgia Chick and Todd in the Shadows, Phelous and Obscurus Lupa, Diamanda Hagan and The Omega (who are married), and Paw & Elisa (who are also married), to mention some examples. Linkara and Iron Liz were this during her time on his show, although they have since parted amicably.
  • Old Shame: invoked
    • In episode 5 of Masterpiece Fanfic Theater, Bennett reads a script-formatted crossover fanfiction between Pokémon: The Series, Digimon Adventure, and Sailor Moon, with a self-insert character and a plot ripped off from a Doctor Who audio drama, written by... Linkara, who spends most of the episode tied up to an armchair, trying in vain to get Bennett to stop reading it.
    • The Flashback! series, in which Doug showcases some of the stuff he's done when he was younger. It's up to the viewer if they are bad, but he definitely is embarrassed.
  • Ominous Latin Chanting: The leitmotif of the Nerd-Critic feud was Verdi's Dies Irae (for those who don't know, the lyrics are about Armageddon).
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: Even in commentaries, interviews, etc, producers will frequently refer to each other by their site names. Inverted by Sean Fausz, whom no one calls "Hope Within Chaos" (but there's a running gag where people call him "The Epic Fail Guy").
  • The Pen Is Mightier:
    • And at the end of their crossover review of the Ninja Turtles' Coming Out Of Their Shells tour, the Nerd casually flicks a pen at the Critic, thus once again causing the two to fight.
  • Person with the Clothing
  • Perverse Sexual Lust: Aside from both Nostalgia Critic's and Doug's own 'hottest animated women', it seems to be a running gag that if one of the guys is a fan of Batman (and a lot of them are), they have the hots for Harley Quinn. Critic raved about her in his list, Linkara had a daydream about her while reviewing Countdown, and E-Rod had a video dedicated to her, to name a few examples.
  • Plot Hole: The Critic, and indeed all the contributors whose specialty is reviewing bad stuff, thrive on pointing these out.
  • Pokémon Speak: Mike J's Film Brain cut-out.
    "Symbolism!"
  • Precision F-Strike: "Masterpiece Fanfic Theater" episode 5.
    Linkara: Son of a bitch!
    Sage: So you can swear.
    Linkara: Yeah! And I can also say fu- (Sage gags him with a sock)
    • Later, during the 2010 Charity Drive...
      Linkara: I will say "fuck" live on Ustream if we hit $40,000.
      Brad: You just did.
      Linkara: ...no, I didn't.
  • Protagonist-Centered Morality: Nobody apart from the Critic hallucination gets what they want in "The Review Must Go On". Real!Critic is back to that job he can't stand, in-universe Doug had to give up the show-baby he'd been nursing since 2008, the Demo Reel crew are forced to accept that they aren't real, the Creator made Douchey take over the Plot Hole against his will, and Lindsay is seething at the thought of Critic being in the limelight again.
  • Punch Parry: In the Nostalgia Critic / AVGN crossover battle.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!:

    Q-Z 
  • Queer People Are Funny: The base of many a joke and much fanservice; although male surprisingly more than female.
  • Reaching Between the Lines: The Critic fires a pistol at Linkara when he catches him impersonating him; Linkara asks how he did that. Spoony and Film Brain's arguement over reviewing Hudson Hawk ends with Spoony beating up Film Brain.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot:
    • According to Spoony's commentary, in the joint review of the Alone in the Dark (2005) movie he did with the Critic and Linkara, Doug came up with the gag about losing his voice because he had a nasty throat infection that day. They also had to film it in his basement because of road work going on outside.
    • He lost his voice again and used a black-and-white-like video to say what he wants, Gag Dub included.
  • Recursive Canon: The anniversary specials add another layer between the contributors' videos - where Linkara is a world-saving hero, Angry Joe lives on a space station and has electrical powers, Spoony has enemies that have killed and cloned him, the Nostalgia Chick's sidekick Nella turned evil and rampaged across America - and the real world, as they're all still their characters, but are the people who work for TGWTG and make the videos.
  • Relax-o-Vision: A picture of puppies appears when Ask That Guy reenacts a pig and a frog getting it on. You can hear his horrified reaction.
  • Retirony: "And it's probably a bad thing to mention that every single one of these soldiers has just 2 days left before retirement."
  • The Reveal: For 35 episodes, the face of Chad "CR!" Rocco was not familiar for the audience... until episode 36, where the Nostalgia Critic revealed it.
  • Rogues Gallery: The site has been developing a few throughout its shows, mainly thanks to the increasing amounts of plot present in them.
  • Rousing Speech: In "The Review Must Go On" the fictionalized Doug Walker is struggling with his choice to retire the Nostalgia Critic and is contemplating bringing him back. Other contributors of the site discourage him, saying he had a perfectly fine send-off in To Boldly Flee and the Scooby-Doo review and there was no need to feel unease. But he becomes haunted by the Critic (as a manifestation of his subconscious) and he realized he wasn't ready to retire the character, he was simply burned out over the years of playing him and other projects. When they finally sit down to discuss the Critics return, Doug had this to say:
    Doug Walker: "One last condition... (holds up copy of The Odd Life of Timothy Green) This must be the first review."
    Nostalgia Critic: "Why?"
    Doug: "Because this is the movie that brought you back, that made me realize I can do this again. I feel like I owe it."
    NC: "But nobody saw it, I don't know how many people remember it."
    Doug: "Maybe it's to show that something that's regarded as terrible or forgettable can still inspire something creative."
  • Rule of Funny
  • Running Gag: Many, though sometimes they're retired to avoid overuse.
    Nostalgia Critic: His goal is, you guessed it, to Take Over the World.
    M. Bison: OF COURSE!
    • Most of the contributors have their own running gags, but the M. Bison gag is near universal.
    • BIG LIPPED ALLIGATOR MOMENT!
    • Pee Wee Herman's "This is crack."
    • "It's only a model."
    • Lee from Still Gaming has the "Wendee Lee count".
    • Whenever someone comes into NC's place, he'll ask "How did you get in here?" To which the response will always be a variant of "I broke in."
    • Tommy Wiseau's very existence appears to have become a running gag across much of the site, especially after The Room fiasco.
    • Love scenes have a song from Birdemic, Damien Carter's "Just Hanging Out (With My Family)", played over them.
    • A gag that shows up every now and then under a few reviewers is the "I love the Power Glove. It's so bad." scene from The Wizard.
    • Reviews in the early part of 2012 seem to enjoy using Big Sean's "Dance (A$$)" (whose opening line consists of "ass" repeated 20 times in a row) to make a downfall-of-society/Male Gaze point.
    • Contributors not knowing each other because the site is just so damn big.
    • "Send all your hate mail to Linkara."
  • Sad Clown: A lot of the TGWTG contributors have had bad experiences (depression, heart conditions, attempted suicide and so on) and use Black Comedy to blow a raspberry to the sucky things in life.
  • Sarcasm Failure: In episode 2 of That Guy Riffs, after a cow jumps over a moon.
  • Scare Chord: Used humorously on occasion, such as in the Ferngully The Last Rainforest review.
    Nostalgia Critic: "Could this be that naive creature known as..."
    Critic/Chick: "MAN?!"
    *Scare Chord*
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
    • The Nostalgia Critic tries to quit the Ferngully The Last Rainforest review and leave it to the Chick, but she doesn't let him go.
    • The Critic also tries to run away at the start of his review of The Star Wars Holiday Special, but Rob catches him.
    • During the Spoony/Lordkat Pumpkinhead "Until We Win" episode, Spoony is so disgusted by the game's moon logic that he tries to quit, but then remembers that the two of them are trapped in "The Black Hole" (which looks like a hotel room) and can't leave.
    • A meta-example. In the wake of the "Channel Not So Awesome" revelations, combined with CA's attempt at PR damage control, a massive exodus of nearly forty contributors began. As of mid-April 2018, Brad Jones and Guru Larry were the only members still on the site, and the Channel Awesome website going down made Brad Jones the last member left.
  • Self-Deprecation:
    • Doug's parody of Hitler Parodies is loaded with this. "This is why Spoony won that Open Web Award!"
    • "Thanks for the Feedback Episode 1: Date With Doug" paints the Chick as an obsessively geeky shut-in - Nella says that at least going on a date will get her out of the apartment for more than three hours - and the Critic as just as socially awkward, if not more, and unable to arrange food more complex than cereal.
    • The credits to the Christmas special reveal that the CGI shot of Canada blowing up was done by Phelous... a Canadian.
    • It seems that all of the contributors will portray themselves as jerks, idiots, losers, creeps, stalkers, social inadequates, or nerds if it's cogent to the review or more entertaining that way.
  • Sentimental Music Cue: Mocked by the Critic during its use in Saved by the Bell and, of course, Full House.
  • Sequelitis: Mike J's in-universe raison d'être.
  • Serious Business:
    • The Critic and the Chick beat the hell out of each other over who gets to review Ferngully The Last Rainforest. The Critic tries to kill himself rather than watch Batman & Robin. Film reviews are a serious business.
    • The Game Heroes kidnap the Critic and scare the shit out of him just so they can get more sales on their "hero" t-shirts.
  • Shameless Self-Promotion:
    • Anthony Ragusa invades Panda and Welshy's Q&A session just to promote his show.
    • Also, Linkara with his comic, Revolution of the Mask. He even programs clone Spoony to shamelessly promote it for him.
  • Shared Universe: Pretty much started the Reviewnaverse.
  • Ship Tease: A lot of it with Nostalgia Critic and Nostalgia Chick, and Linkara and MarzGurl. Todd in the Shadows had a bad case of unrequited love for Obscurus Lupa; Romance on the Set led to The Nostalgia Chick developing the same for Todd (Todd edges into Stalker with a Crush; the Chick jumps in head-first). There's plenty of other examples.
  • Shock and Awe: Several characters exhibit this across the site, including N. Bison, Dr. Insano, Dark Nella, and Angry Joe.
  • Sidekick: Most of the contributors work alone, but some of them work with a sidekick. In most cases, this is an inanimate object (Burton the Robot for Spoony; Pollo for Linkara; Beary for Benzaie; the Film Brain puppet for Mike J), but there's are also a few flesh-and-blood humans such as Nostalgia Chick's BFF Nella (also Elisa and others that appear less often, now collectively known as "Team NChick"), Lisa Foiles for Joe, and LPer Pushing Up Roses for Paw.
  • Silence Is Golden: When the Critic lost his voice again, he decided to show "Ask That Guy VIOLATING Ma-Ti" in this fashion.
  • The Smurfette Principle: The site suffered from this quite badly in the early days, and the Nostalgia Chick contest was created to get more women and more women viewers. Now though, a lot of just-as-crazy females are around and they've cottoned on how to really get more girls watching, which has proved a success according to Michaud.
  • Sound-Effect Bleep: Lee (at least in his "Still Gaming" shows), whenever he uses more profane language.
  • Special Effect Failure: In the review of Alone in the Dark (2005), several points are criticized in-universe for seemingly intentional flubs with edits, like a villain getting killed by a CGI bullet that went nowhere near him, letting a shot of a dead character moving her head stay in the film, and the absence of any damage or gore from an unseen monster attack in the last scene.
  • Spin-Off: Gaming-related material was given its own Channel Awesome site, Blistered Thumbs, though it only operated until January 2014.
  • Spiritual Successor: The Last Airbender review for the Dragonball Evolution review.
  • Springtime for Hitler: According to their commentary, The Cinema Snob and Phelous' review of Troll 4 was supposed to be a deliberate feeding of trolls, due to the overuse of cameos, and, there not being a Troll 4. It actually had rather few negative comments. Brad and Phelan were sad there wasn't a backlash on that video's comment section.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: This is one of Phelous' main running gags, placing wacky and upbeat music to violent and gory scenes, as well as adding cartoon sound effects.
  • Squee:
    • JewWario was fond of doing this around cats. His review of the Ouendan series has a world-shattering atomic Squee.
    • As the Nostalgia Chick's character develops, she's come to say that her sidekick Nella's role is to add fangirly squeeing to her reviews, because the Chick is a serious academic and such things are beneath her. The mask slips quite often, though. This was even a plot point in her "Dark Nella Saga".
  • Squick: In-universe, Spoony and Linkara's review of Warrior, which ends with the comic's title character appearing to rape Santa Claus. Even Noah is lost for words.
  • The Stinger: Since the Battlefield Earth review, most of the entire site's featured reviewers end their reviews with the Channel Awesome logo accompanied by a silly/strange quote from the review.
  • Suckiness Is Painful: A recurring theme, especially for the Nostalgia Critic.
  • Sure, Let's Go with That: Quoted verbatim several times in Linkara and MarzGurl's review of Cool World in response to the movie's increasing amount of bizarre and improbable plot twists.
  • Surrounded by Idiots: Critic notes that in Stephen King's It, virtually every non-main character happens to be a total idiot and/or asshole. He wonders what's wrong with them that they become such asshole magnets.
  • Synthetic Voice Actor: The Nostalgia Critic is forced to use this after the Alone in the Dark (2005) movie left him literally speechless... again.
  • Take Over the World:
  • Take That!:
    • In Lanipator's review of Final Fantasy: Unlimited, he says: "I mean, It's Final Fantasy! Everything with Final Fantasy on it is pure quality, right?" Cut to clips from Final Fantasy XII ("I'm Captain Basch!") and then a silent Lanipator.
    • The review of the best anime themes of all time includes Neon Genesis Evangelion, not because Lee likes the show or it has a lot of fans or he even likes the music, but just to point out that Shinji jerks it over Asuka's bed. He doesn't hate the show overall though, he's just cold toward Shinji (which he says the theme song keeps promoting).
    • The Nostalgia Critic is so traumatized by watching Uwe Boll's Alone in the Dark (2005) that he claims in the review that his doctor says he may never speak again thanks to it.
    • When it became clear that the Nostalgia Critic's review of The Room was taken down for "copyright infringement" (despite obviously being protected by fair use), a parody video was made called "The Tommy Wiseau Show". Wiseau himself is let off fairly lightly, almost to Affectionate Parody levels. A fellow named "John" from TheRoomMovie.com, however, is given perhaps the most brutal evisceration of Doug Walker's online career, being portrayed as a raging, paranoid, and greedy lunatic, obsessed with money and Wiseau's "good image". The video even ends with him crying "I'm John from TheRoomMovie.com!" over and over again, as if he might want his fans to... "get in touch" with him. It's pretty obvious that TGWTG had some unpleasant dealings with him after the review was taken down...
      • Exaggerated when The Critic, Linkara, Obscurus Lupa, Phelous, and Cinema Snob come together in what can only be described as "The Day of Many Wiseaus".
    • CR delivers an excellent (yet affectionate) one when talking about Wayne's World.
    "Yeah right, like some random guy from Chicago can become famous just by talking about movies, making funny faces at the camera, and spouting absurd catchphrases. And not only that, but become a huge trendsetter too. Ridiculous."
    • Welshy does not like Kate Austen from Lost, or Rose from Doctor Who.
    • The Nostalgia Critic did one to his nastier fans with a character called "Douchey McNitpick".
  • This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: "Don't you EVER bring logic into this movie again! This is Ferngully The Last Rainforest, BITCH!"
    • "We play Magic: The Gathering, BITCH!"
    • "I have passion panties, BITCH!"
    • "It's MAGIC, BITCH!"
    • "I'm Eight-Bit Mickey, BITCH!"
  • Top Ten List: Top 11, in fact.
  • True Companions: If anyone is unfairly treated anywhere, they'll all band together to help. Expect a lot of Papa Wolves and Mama Bears.
    • Big, Screwed-Up Family: In-character, Doug calls them like a dysfunctional family - filled with horrible, fucked up people - who snipe all the time but still sorta love each other despite everything.
  • Two Guys and a Girl: Paw Dugan, Todd in the Shadows and Pushing Up Roses in the Head review, popularly a One True Threesome for a section of the fans ever since.
  • Two-Part Trilogy: Kickassia is standalone, but Suburban Knights and To Boldly Flee interlink.
  • Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: The first-year anniversary video had not just NC and AVGN fighting, but just about everyone on the TGWTG site taking sides of reviewers and gamers.
  • Unfortunate Implications: Y Ruler of Time points this in-universe out in the manga Alive when the supervirus they're dealing with came from Africa after a man ate a monkey and they call the virus Black.
  • Un-person:
    • That Aussie Guy, who was actually a pretty big mover and shaker on the site back in its earlier days — he co-founded Transmission Awesome, and helped get Blistered Thumbs off the ground. He was even flown in from Australia to appear in the Brawl. But then his videos were completely removed from the site and all traces of him were expunged from the Channel Awesome Wiki. This was done very quietly at first, in hopes that nobody would notice (all very 1984), but eventually enough people asked about it that Mike Michaud had to offer a (vague) explanation: He was released from the site, and all traces of him (except for the Brawl) are gone for "legal reasons."
    • His name was censored out of the episode of "Masterpiece Fanfic Theatre" that featured a story about the TGWTG gang.
    • The fact that he is still in the Brawl leads to some confusion for those who became fans after his removal from the site; they watch the video of the Brawl because of its nigh-legendary status, and wonder who the heck this guy is whipping a boomerang around the room.
    • Apparently he spread a lot of gossip around during the year 1 shoot, and hated certain contributors for no reason whatsoever.
    • Brad Jones and Phelan joke in their Suburban Knights commentary that he was one of The Cloaks, along with former contributors LordKaT and The Distressed Watcher.
      Brad: Dan Rizzo as: James Rolfe as: The Voice
    • In April 2018 this seems to have become the norm when most of the contributors left the site. This notably includes Linkara, one of the most prominent figures since the early days, and Suede, who had previously left and received a heartfelt send-off years ago; both were simply deleted from the website with no announcement whatsoever. This is particularly noticeable as of April. Nearly every producer who has ever been associated with the site has left. No mention of these producers can be found outside of the site's official response to their complaints (though a few videos can be found in Archived Shows), and the site's front page consists of Doug, Guru Larry, Brad Jones, and their associates' videos. It seems Doug wants nothing to do with the departed, as much as Lewis has tried to maintain some semblance of relationship.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The Critic points out no one pays attention to four turtles playing music.
  • The 'Verse: Many of the reviewers' shows are set in the same universe and have common characters such as Doctor Insano.
  • Vestigial Empire: At its height in the late oughts/early tens, Channel Awesome had over two dozen reviewers and contributors who were, or later went on to be, top-tier content creators in their fields. Well-known members such as Team Four Star (as individual members before being known as such) and Angry Joe, to say nothing of the Nostalgia Critic himself, have consistently drawn 1 million+ views on a majority of their videos for years, and even second tier (at least in comparison to the above) contributors like Lindsay Ellis and Linkara command Youtube subscriber counts in the high six figures. There was a time when almost any aspiring reviewer or Caustic Critic of note was a Channel Awesome member or affiliate. But following their highly-publicized collapse in 2018, the site shrunk in size and viewership to support only the Nostalgia Critic and a couple hangers-on. It doesn't even exist as a site anymore, only a Youtube channel.
  • Video Review Show
  • Viewers Are Morons: Discussed in the Oscar Retrospective episode of Film Conscience, namely the belief that the producers of the Oscars buy into this trope, hence the dumbing down and almost schizophrenic nature of the Oscars of current years.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Critic and The Nostalgia Chick. In fact, most of the critics tend to be excessively mean to one another (they actually all like each other in real life) with exceptions like Little Miss Gamer, who was the Nice Girl of the site.
  • Wham Episode: The "Change The Channel" controversy of Spring 2018 played out as a real life one of these:
  • What Did I Do Last Night?: The "Spooning With Spoony" and "Linking Up With Linkara" videos. Also The Nostalgia Chick's Hercules review.
  • What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids? and/or What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: In some reviews for ostensibly family-friendly films with notably family-unfriendly content, the Nostalgia Critic will comment, "You know, for kids!"invoked
    • Many of the website's shows deal with family-friendly subjects, but are still meant for an adult audience.
    • Given new life in the review for Son of the Mask with "A Family Picture!.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Chef Protoss.
    • At the beginning of MarzGurl and Linkara's review of Cool World, Linkara says he needs help to fight Dr. Insano. It's never brought up again, nor does it fit in continuity with the Adamantium Rage and Warrior reviews from around the same time. Of course, Insano doesn't have a continuity as such.
      • There is no continuity, there is only Insano.note 
  • What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: To the point where Ma-Ti is the resident Butt-Monkey... until it is subverted during To Boldly Flee.
  • When All You Have Is a Hammer…:
    • Since Channel Awesome producers typically cannot afford sets, studios, elaborate effects or locations almost all the important events in Channel Awesome storylines takes place in a living room or a basement or hotel room or in front of the desk where the producers normally film their reviews.
    • Taken to an extreme in To Boldly Flee where the main actors converted houses into spaceships or spaceships into houses. And it gets extended into an Atop the Fourth Wall story where a completely separate antagonist does the same thing.
  • With Lyrics:
    • "Songs That Don't Need Lyrics But I Added Them Anyway HA!"
    • That Chick With The Goggles also does this in her review of Ecco: Tides of Time.
    • During the opening text crawl in the Alone in the Dark (2005) review, Linkara and Spoony sing "Bo-RING. This is so boring, this is so boring, get to the show!" to the theme of Star Wars.
  • World of Weirdness: Exactly what the Reviewaverse is.

TIMING!

Alternative Title(s): That Guy With The Glasses

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