Web Video / Epic Rap Battles of History

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EPIC RAP BATTLES OF HISTORYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

Your Life! VERSUS! TV Tropes! BEGIN!

What happens when you take historical figures, popular media personalities, and fictional characters, and have them pair off and compete against each other... in rap contests?

You get Epic Rap Battles of History. The YouTube web series is Exactly What It Says on the Tin — comedians Peter Shukoff (Nice Peter) and Lloyd Ahlquist (EpicLloyd), alongside guest YouTube performers such as George Watsky and Zach Sherwin (and even celebrities such as Snoop Dogg and "Weird Al" Yankovic), portray these people Battle Rapping against each other in comic online videos. The videos are written by Peter and Lloyd themselves, the results of considerable amounts of research into each subject that make them absolute goldmines for Stealth Puns, Genius Bonuses, and other impressive showcases if you know to look.

Since starting in September 2010, the series has run for six complete seasons, with its seventh currently underway after premiering on June 14, 2021. December 2015 and 2018 also saw the releases of additional battles between seasons, with the 2018 extras being extended into a brief spinoff series, Flash-in-the-Pan Hip-Hop Conflicts of Nowadays, which simply featured Peter and Lloyd in a studio rapping as their respective characters for requests that they considered popular but not enough to warrant a full ERB production.^note One of the battles covered, however — Ronald McDonald vs. the Burger King — would eventually be adapted into a full production in the next season.

You can find the first season on Nice Peter's YouTube channel here, and the subsequent seasons on the official channel for the show. You can also watch any episode as well as check out character bios and official voting results on the official website linked above.

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Epic Rap Battles of History provide examples of the following tropes:

Sub-pages

• Formula-Breaking Episode
• Funny Background Event
• Shown Their Work
• Stealth Pun
• Take That!

A-F

• Abandoned Mascot: In-universe, delivered by Wendy as a jab towards Ronald McDonald.
  "And McDonald's gave your job to a box with a face! Left you behind, like a quiet kid in a Play Place!"
• Accidental Pun: The catch phrase "Who Won?" takes on new meaning in "Doctor Who vs. Doc Brown" as pointed out by many in the comments (claiming that indeed he did).
• Action Girl: Sacagawea in Lewis and Clark vs. Bill and Ted. She doesn't rap, but she fights an angry black bear to prevent it from attacking Lewis and Clark, so they can keep rapping.
  • Catherine the Great from Alexander the Great vs. Ivan the Terrible, who entered the battle by beheading Pompay the Great with a garrote wire.
  • Wonder Woman.
• Actual Pacifist: Both Gandhi and MLK Jr. qualify. The whole rap between them is how much more of a pacifist each one is than the other, and the battle really heats up as the two come closer and closer to not getting violent with each other.
  Gandhi: I am passively resisting the fact that you suck. I am celibate because I don't give a fuck!
• Added Alliterative Appeal:
  • From Benjamin Franklin vs. Billy Mays:
    "Hi! Billy Mays here, with a special TV offer! Watch me crush this bald, fat, foppish founding father!"
  • From Edgar Allan Poe vs. Stephen King:
    "Your flow's so-so, Poe's poems pwn posers!"
• Adolf Hitlarious: Hitler is played rather comedically in Darth Vader vs. Adolf Hitler, complete with Large Ham antics and an exaggerated German accent.
• Aerith and Bob: Invoked by Pablo Picasso, referring to himself as "Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso" and Bob Ross as "Bob".
• All Periods Are PMS:
  • Adam would be (mostly) fine having Eve around if she didn't start bleeding and turn into a demon every month. The other main issue is her constant nagging.
  • Bob Ross described Pablo Picasso's dour attitude as his "blue period".
  • In Babe Ruth vs Lance Armstrong
    Babe: With all that blood and attitude you're like a menstrual cyclist!
• Air Guitar: Done by Bill & Ted, naturally. Lewis and Clark even claimed that they inspired it.
• The Alcoholic:
  • Teddy Roosevelt calls Winston Churchill a "bloated, drunk old man" who needs to "do-si-do on over to a 12-step program". Churchill opens his verse by requesting "a cigar and a large glass of brandy" and admits to being "toasted" while battling.
  • Ivan the Terrible threatens to smack Alexander the Great "harder than [he] hit that bottle". Alexander responds by accusing Ivan of having "vodka bars" and demanding Ivan fetch him a drink.
  • Wolverine. "The only thing that scares me is a fridge with no beer".
• Alternative Character Interpretation:invoked Most of the rappers' personalities are exaggerated from what history remembers, or canon in the case of fictional characters.
  • Justin Bieber is depicted as an annoying, pint-sized brat, but more often than not, the real Bieber is not as annoying.
  • Mister Rogers was normally a friendly man, but in his battle, he's a perpetually placid fellow with a short fuse.
  • Beethoven is a good example. In Real Life, he was a caustic, Delicate and Sickly musician but with strong opinions. In ERB? Manly as hell.
  • Every other comment for "Gordon Ramsay vs. Julia Child" points out that the former chef deliberately plays up his aggression and profanity for American television.
• Always Someone Better: In "Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates", this is Jobs' main argument — while Gates is no doubt an outstanding innovator, Jobs claims that he'll never match the level of his own success.
• American Eagle: Matches between American political figures tend to be crashed by Abraham Lincoln being airlifted in by a giant bald eagle and dropping in to give both competitors a "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
• Anachronism Stew: Frequently, though it is justified by Rule of Funny and Rule of Cool, and the fact that, if this trope wasn't in effect, most of the battles wouldn't be able to happen.
• And I Must Scream: Hitler's ultimate fate. No sooner does he learn he's a ghost, he gets wrangled up by the Ghost Busters and placed in a trap.
• Animated Episode:
  • The series' first foray into fully-animated battles was "Zeus vs. Thor," which displays the characters as LEGO figures.
  • "Harry Potter vs. Luke Skywalker" was also a LEGO-animated battle.
  • "Godzilla vs. King Kong" was fully animated via Motion Capture.
• Antagonist in Mourning:
  • At the end of their rap battle, Bonnie & Clyde briefly mourn the suicides of their opponents, Romeo and Juliet.
  • Bill Gates mourns Steve Jobs after he dies, then gets angry at Jobs for leaving him.
• Antiquated Linguistics: Shakespeare uses this, true to form. See also Sophisticated as Hell below.
• Apologetic Attacker:
  • Stan Lee apologizes for his rage during his second verse against Jim Henson. He laments that Jim was taken too soon from this world.
  • Thomas Jefferson and Frederick Douglass both had shades of this in their second verse. Jefferson admitted guilt for participating in the plantation system, and Douglass acknowledged that Jefferson's contributions to history should not be understated, despite his flaws.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • Santa's naughty list.
    Nice Peter: "Master Chief: Has guns, repeated acts of violence. Moses: Killed Egyptian dude, buried him in sand. Mozart: TOO DANG LOUD." (Mister Rogers is also on the list, with the subtitle "Creepy, racist?".)
  • Joseph Stalin in the season 2 finale.
    Stalin: "You got off easy when they pickled that moose cock! I'd leave your neck in a noose in a trench and shot! Your whole family — shot! All your wizard friends — shot! Anyone who sold you pierogi — shot!"
• Artifact Title: The battles actually tend to feature celebrities and fictional characters as often as they feature historical figures, having had fictional characters since its second battle^note Darth Vader vs Adolf Hitler and celebrities since its first one^note John Lennon vs Bill O'Reilly . The Season 4.5 News video tries to justify this by saying that "all things are history".
• Artistic License – History: Inevitable with a series based on history.
  • The portrayal of William Wallace and his men are based off the Braveheart movie, where they're painted in woad and wearing kilts. In real life, Sir William Wallace was a rich, well-to-do land owning nobleman from the southlands of Scotland. Kilts wouldn't be invented until 400 years after his death, and the movie was largely based off a poem about Wallace written 170 years after his death. The battle attempts to set up a Slobs vs. Snobs relation between the two, but Washington would've been the Slob in real life in comparison. Leonidas is also depicted using his appearance from 300 instead of a historically-accurate depiction, though this is somewhat more justifiable considering that he is rapping against Master Chief.
  • Nietzsche's portrayal is inaccurate in that he is equated with his most bombastic proclamations and he describes himself as a "nihilist" which the real Nietzsche did not. Nietzsche argued against nihilism and he described it in detail but always as something to be overcome. That said, they did get Nietzsche's real-life dislike for Socrates and Voltaire right. Also the line "They call me Ubermensch!" may be interpreted as this trope, but since it's not the same as "I AM the Ubermensch!" it gets a pass, barely.
  • Shaka refers to Caesar's legionaries as "pasty white hordes" at one point. While a Sub-Saharan African like Shaka would of course consider them very light by comparison, they definitely could not be described as pasty. Caesar's men were mainly recruited from what are now central and southern Italy (the parts north of the Rubicon were considered Celtic at that point), and so the dominant phenotype among them would be tanned/olive-skinned, as well as brown-haired and brown-eyed (something attested to by the Pompeii frescoes, and, well, modern central and southern Italians, who haven't changed genetically since the fall of the Roman Empire). In fact many Roman accounts made a specific distinction between themselves and the Germanic/Celtic/Belgic tribes specifically because lighter features were much more common among the latter groups.
  • In "Mr. T. vs. Mr. Rogers", Mr. T calls Mr. Rogers a 40-year-old virgin. Though this is an obvious reference to the movie The 40-Year-Old Virgin playing off of Rogers's super-family-friendly persona, this was not actually true, as Rogers got married in his mid-20s, and had a son when he was in his early 30s.
  • Abraham Lincoln is loud and bombastic with a deep voice. In real life, Lincoln was widely known to be soft-spoken with a squeaky voice, though not without gravitas. This was duplicated fairly accurately in Lincoln.
  • Theodore Roosevelt, similarly, had a very squeaky voice in real life, and a posh Mid-Atlantic accent one.
  • When Christopher Columbus threatens Captain Kirk with shoving a flag up his ass and claim him for Spain, the Spanish flag he's holding is the current variation of the Rojigualda flag that was adopted in 1785, more than two and a half centuries after Columbus died.
  • George Carlin claims to have been "born in the Bronx and brought up in Harlem", when he was actually born and raised in Manhattan (though the specific neighborhood he grew up in, Morningside Heights, had the nickname "White Harlem" so it's not completely inaccurate.)
• Ascended Extra: Of a sort. The outro ERB logo from Thomas Edison Vs. Nicola Tesla in Season 2 is used in the extended outro for all battles in the first half of Season 3.
  • Vladimir Putin, Sir Isaac Newton and Theodore Roosevelt have gone from newscasters to actual Rap Battlers.
    • Only fans that have been following since at least the first half of season 2 seem to remember that Charles Darwin was also a newscaster before a battler. He was also the first to greet us with the much beloved "What's up, bitches?"
  • George Washington went from having a brief cameo in the Ben Franklin vs Billy Mays battle to having his own rap battle against William Wallace.
  • Oprah's actress, November Christine, first appeared as a background activist in Martin Luther King Jr vs. Gandhi. Her wardrobe and silent presence alone convinced ERB to offer her another role.
  • "Ronald McDonald vs. The Burger King" started off as a Flash-in-the-Pan Hip-Hop Conflict of Nowadays before being elevated to a full proper rap battle.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Steve Jobs leaves his battle with Bill Gates to turn Heaven a profit. Robin Williams does something very similar at the end of his battle.
• As Himself: Nice Peter and Epic Lloyd in the first and fifth season finales.
  • KassemG cameos as himself in both Nice Peter vs EpicLLOYD and Cleopatra vs Marilyn Monroe.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership:
  • Napoleon, Emperor of France.
  • Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith.
  • Adolf Hitler, Chancellor and Fuhrer of Germany.
  • Genghis Khan, Khagan of the Mongol Empire.
  • Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the USA.
  • Benjamin Franklin, Governor of Pennsylvania.
  • Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska.
  • Kim Jong-il, Leader of North Korea.
  • Leonidas, King of the Spartans.
  • Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt.
  • Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the US, got fed up with the lack of ERB over the summer, and told Epic Lloyd and Nice Peter to get off their asses and get back to work with a structured release schedule. If they didn't, he threatened to carve his own chin out of Mount Rushmore and beat them with his own stoney mustache.
  • Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States.
    "I'm the head of state, you're like a head of cabbage
    'Bout to get smacked... by my stimulus package!
  • Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts.
  • Moses, leader and savior of the Israelites. His authority is only surpassed by God.
  • Josef Stalin, Premier of the Soviet Union.
  • Vladimir Lenin, also Premier of the Soviet Union.
  • Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Soviet Union.
  • Vladimir Putin, President of Russia.
  • Rick Grimes, deputy sheriff of King County, Georgia
  • George Washington, the first President of the United States.
  • Shaka Zulu, monarch of the Zulu Kingdom
  • Julius Caesar, Roman dictator and consul.
  • Despite not being a politician or ruler, Walt Disney nonetheless counts due to his position as the founder of one of the largest and most powerful media empires of all time.
  • Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States.
  • Ivan the Terrible, 1st Tsar of Russia
  • Alexander the Great, King of the Macedonian Empire.
  • Frederick the Great, King of Prussia.
  • Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia.
  • Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State (chief diplomat) of the USA.
  • Donald Trump, CEO of the Trump Organization. He later became the 45th President of the United States after his battle was released, and received two further battles surrounding both of his presidential elections.
  • Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
  • Vlad the Impaler, Voivode (King) of Wallachia.
  • Joe Biden, 46th President of the United States.
  • Richard the Lionheart, King of England.
  • Mansa Musa, King of Mali.
• Ass Shove: A few.
  Napoleon Bonaparte: "I'm going to shove your moon boots straight up your poop chute!"
  Columbus: "I'll stick a flag up your ass and claim you for Spain!"
  Master Chief: "Cortana says you're Greek, so why don't you stick these lyrics up your ass?"
  Obama: "Republicans need a puppet and you fit, got their hand so far up your rear, call you Mitt."
  Al Capone: "So show respect or get that tongue ripped out your neck and shoved straight up your poop deck!"
  Renaissance Artists: "You beat the Foot but it won't go well when you catch an Italian boot to the half shell!"
  Oprah Winfrey: "I'll lodge my fabulous shoe up your suit pants, baby!"
• Assimilation Plot: Walt Disney strongly implies that owning the rights to the works of Jim Henson and Stan Lee means they're doomed to become cogs in his enormous machine.
  You belong to Disney! Which means you stay busy!
  Cranking out magic and assembly-line whimsy!
• Ate His Gun:
  • Mario tried to do so behind the scenes when Princess Peach nagged the ever-living bajeezus out of him. He finds out that the gun is empty and starts crying.
  • In their third battle, Vader mocks Hitler by stating that when his bunker "started getting fired up", he "put a gun in [his] mouth and fired up". (He actually shot himself through his right temple.)
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever:
  • Chuck Norris' second verse.
  • The Mario Brothers grow a bit in their second verse after eating mushrooms.
  • The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man appears during "Ghostbusters vs MythBusters".
• Attractive Bent-Gender: NicePeter as Lady Gaga.
• Audience Participation: Each showdown is based off a fan suggestion.
• Author Appeal: In the BTS video for "Al Capone vs Blackbeard" Lloyd says that he himself is Italian, which not only explains Capone, but his previous role as Frank Sinatra, not to mention his take on Mario.
• Author's Retaliation: During the second rap battle between the creators Nice Peter and EpicLLOYD, Nice Peter comments "if you weren't so cheap we could hire some editors that do good work". Immediately after, Nice Peter's hand is edited to be comically large, to his chagrin. EpicLLOYD comments "aw, c'mon, now what the fuck did I do?", having been given a giant head, with the editor not seeming content to just punish Nice Peter for the comment.
• Auto-Tune: Used for Stephen Hawking's rapping, as well as Oprah and Stedman Graham in Ellen DeGeneres vs. Oprah Winfrey.
• Awesomeness Is Volatile: Goku vs. Superman ends with the two of them flying at each other and causing a huge explosion.
• Back from the Dead: The series' premise. Several historically deceased people (and few fictional characters who did not survive their respective stories) have returned from the dead to do some Battle Rapping. The characters lampshade it too.
• Bad Boss:
  Walt Disney: Artist begging me to stop? I won't let 'em! Labor conditions in my shops? I don't sweat 'em!
• Badass Army: Both Shaka Zulu and Julius Caesar drop lines about the superiority of their own armies, with their soldiers getting in on the action during the rap battle.
• Badass Boast: Nearly everyone invokes this.
  • Special mention goes to Abe Lincoln, who scoffs at how Chuck Norris can block bullets with his beard by boasting how he catches them with his skull.
• Badass Bookworm: Ben Franklin is an educated gentleman. Then there's Albert Einstein, Sherlock Holmes, Stephen Hawking, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Walter White, Sir Isaac Newton, Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson, the Renaissance Artists, the Ghostbusters, the Mythbusters, all of the Philosophers^note Well, except Socrates, technically, as he didn't like books, Thomas Jefferson, Frederick Douglass, Charles Darwin, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jacques Cousteau, Sigmund Freud and J. Robert Oppenheimer.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Frank Sinatra, Bill O'Reilly, Thomas Edison, Al Capone, Barack Obama, Vladimir Lenin and Mikhail Gorbachev, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Ellen DeGeneres, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Stan Lee, Walt Disney, J. R. R. Tolkien, Teddy Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, the Joker and J. Robert Oppenheimer.
• Badass Long Robe: Gandalf, Dumbledore and Moses with their wizard/holy man robes. Socrates with his Greek toga. Sun Tzu with his long red coat and scale mail. Confucius and Laozi with their hanfu.
• Badass Pacifist: Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr; passively resisting and forgiving hard.
• The Bad Guy Wins:
  • Jim Henson vs. Stan Lee: Walt Disney successfully takes over both of their works as well as the ERBs themselves.
• Bash Brothers: The rap battle version of this occurs basically any time there's a team of two or more rapping in tandem, such as with the Mario Bros or the Mythbusters.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Exaggerated; in one part of Elon Musk's second verse in "Elon Musk vs. Mark Zuckerberg", he flies from Earth to Mars with no problem being able to continue rapping in space (even dodging a satellite).
• Batman Gambit: Sun Tzu is able to pull one off on the Western Philosophers by stroking their own egos so their own philosophical differences turn themselves against each other.
  • Ironically averted when Batman himself comes to fight.
• Battle in the Rain: The climax of "Theodore Roosevelt vs Winston Churchill" has both participants duking it out in Winston's "stormy London" backdrop.
• Battle Rapping: The best example online not to involve an actual battle league.
• Bestiality Is Depraved: Having heard that Catherine the Great supposedly enjoys such things, Ivan the Terrible offers a horse as a gift, but such claims are immediately denied^note Catherine the Great actually died of a heart attack, but her detractors tried to smear her name by claiming she died mid-coitus with a horse.
• Berserk Button:
  • Einstein pushes Hawking's button when he questions the validity of Hawking's Black Hole Theory.
  • Dr. Seuss does not like being accused of writing the Twilight series.
  • Mr. Rogers goes from mostly-polite teasing to outright scary when accused of child molestation.
  • Don't tell Kim Jong-il he's from China.
  • Leonidas learned the hard way not to put his hands (or feet) on Master Chief.
  • Marilyn Monroe got downright vicious when her miscarriages were brought up.
  • Chuck Norris loses his cool when he has a bucket of pennies dumped all over his head.
  • Don't call Marty a chicken.
  • Barack Obama doesn't like having his wife being called the "female version of Patrick Ewing" very much.
  • You can tell that Santa's elves don't take kindly to being referred to as slaves.
  • Babe Ruth seems absolutely pissed off that Lance Armstrong cheated and tears him a new one for it. ^note  There was controversy over whether or not Babe Ruth called his famous home run shot, but the general opinion is that he did not cheat, which makes his anger in the rap more justified.
  • Mozart seems very offended that Skrillex could be considered "a musician."
  • Vladimir Lenin is extremely angry that Stalin completely destroyed his revolution.
  • Blackbeard looks like he's about to cut Capone open after his beard gets insulted.
  • Do not take the Lord's name in vain around Joan of Arc, lest she get vicious.
  • Muhammad Ali loses his cool when Michael Jordan refers to him by his birth name of Cassius. This was actually an easy way to get him pissed off in real life.
    • For his part, Michael Jordan gets angry and aggressive when Ali accuses him of selling out.
  • Reminding Superman of how he got his ass kicked by a "bat with no powers" gets him to turn around and fly toward Goku.
  • Ray Stantz steps forward intending to fight Grant when the latter taunts him about the ghost that "popped his cherry". The other Ghostbusters have to hold him back.
  • Nietzsche is furious after being referred to as Socrates' student. This is quite accurate as the real Nietzsche didn't approve of Socrates. Socrates, meanwhile, gets vicious after Nietzsche calls him a plebe.
    • Also from the Philosophers battle, Voltaire loses his cool when Socrates calls him a frog^note  a common ethnic slur against the French, Lao Tzu snaps at Sun Tzu when the latter tells him his philosophy doesn't make sense, and Confuicus drops his politeness when Sun Tzu makes fun of his eyebrows.
  • Stan Lee loses control of his rage when Jim Henson and Kermit the Frog accuse him of stealing credit from his friend Jack Kirby.
  • Do not accuse Sean Connery's James Bond of being a misogynist or point out that he didn't do his own stunts.
  • "Bruce Banner vs. Caitlyn Jenner" is all about this. First Banner starts to get angry when talking about Jenner abandoning her wives and children, and warns Jenner to run away before he transforms. Jenner of course only pushes his button even harder with lines like "If it wasn't for your cousin, you'd never have sex!" What finally triggers Banner's inevitable transformation is when Jenner brings up his father abusing and killing his mother. Later, after both have "transformed", Hulk pushes Caitlyn's button by threatening to "smash" on her daughter Kylie, which causes Jenner to shoot him with two pistols (which don't hurt him).
  • Surprisingly, in Joker vs. Pennywise, the former only loses his temper when Pennywise threatens Batman.
• Bigger Is Better in Bed:
  • According to Kim Jong-Il, Hulk Hogan's wife thinks so.
  • Master Chief claims to have showed Leonidas' Queen his "plasma cannon" while he was away.
  • Beethoven claims he has "more cock than Smith & Wesson". As he says this, Bach pops up on screen nodding and holding his hands a foot and a half apart, in the universal gesture for "it was this big".
  • Barack Obama threatens to slap Romney with his "stimulus package".
  • Stephen King mentions his "big dick bibliography".
• Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head: Mitt Romney and Barack Obama eventually resort to childish bickering.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Napoleon Bonaparte gets one at the beginning of his second line. ^note "T'as une tête a faire sauter les plaques d'egouts!" That translates to "You've got a face that could blow off a manhole cover!"
  • Also, Christopher Columbus gets "Arrivederci! Imma leave before this battle begins!"
  • When Putin enters the Season 2 finale, he drops the line "...doing judo moves and schooling every communist сука", which is Russian for bitch. It helps that the word comes off sounding like a heavily-accented "sucka".
  • Joan of Arc gets on too, with "Je suis la fille en feu" meaning "I'm the girl on fire" (right before calling herself Katniss Everdeen).
  • The sign behind Goku says "歴史の壮大なヒップホップの戦い (Rekishi no Sōdaina Hip-Hop no Tatakai)" ("Epic Rap Battles of History" in Japanese).
  • Part of William Wallace's rap is "Alba gu bràth," which means "Scotland forever."
  • When J. R. R. Tolkien accuses George R. R. Martin of stealing his initials, he makes the American Sign Language sign for "R".
  • Ivan the Terrible says "На здоровье" (Russian for "Bless you", or "cheers/bottoms up" when drinking) to Alexander the Great during his I Surrender, Suckers attempt.
  • When the Russian hackers appear on screen during Joe Biden's second verse, one says, "Что ты сделал?"^note What did you do?, and the other screams in panic, "Ох ебать!"^note Oh fuck!
  • In "Godzilla vs. King Kong", Kong raps "here's your sign" to Godzilla in the American Sign Language.
• Bilingual Rhyme: In "Rasputin vs. Stalin," Putin boasts about his rap skills, "Blow it up like a tuba / While I'm balling in Cuba / Doing judo moves and schooling every communist сука," the latter word being Russian for "bitch."
• Binomium ridiculus: Lewis and Clark call Bill and Ted dickweeds, while holding up an illustration of the latter as garden weeds with heads, with the caption "Weedus Dickus" at the bottom.
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: Walt Disney's portrayal in Jim Henson vs Stan Lee is that of a corporate dictator who forces out every ounce of effort from his underlings in the name of profit. He even mentions that he owns the Epic Rap Battles by way of Maker Studios.
• Bittersweet Ending: The end of "George Carlin vs. Richard Pryor," when Robin Williams delivers a high-energy thrashing to the other comedians, but ends the battle by saying, "Gotta set myself free" and vanishing as a reference to his real-life suicide.
• Black-and-White Morality:
  • The Easter Bunny, a cute, friendly rabbit who gives candy to children, vs. Genghis Khan, a barbarian who murdered and raped countless people.
  • The dashing, heroic Captain Kirk vs. the slave-owning, genocidal Christopher Columbus.
  • Rick Grimes, deputy sheriff and leader of apocalypse zombie team, vs. Walter White, a criminal drug kingpin.
  • RoboCop, a By-the-Book Cop whose highest goal is to serve the public trust, vs. the Terminator, an unstoppable Killer Robot with no concept of love nor honour.
  • Wolverine, a superhero who's saved the world countless times, vs. Freddy Krueger, a literal nightmare creature who takes pride in killing teenagers in their sleep.
• Black Comedy: There are a number of jokes in the series based around this. For instance, look at the mocking references to characters dying in their original canons / real life, the racist comments that pop up from time to time, and everything that Hitler and Stalin say.
• Blade Reflection: Inverted by Mitt Romney when he holds up a silver spoon reflecting the image of Barack Obama.
• Boastful Rap: The rappers brag just as much about themselves as they diss their opponents.
• Book Ends:
  • Each episode begins and ends with the announcer doing a Title Scream.
  • Season two begins and ends with battles involving World War II-era dictators played by Lloyd, facing off against Peter as someone notoriously difficult to kill.
  • "Hitler vs. Vader 3" ends with the same words that began "Hitler vs. Vader 1": "I am Adolf Hitler..."
  • "Edgar Allan Poe vs. Stephen King" begins with the first line of The Raven, "Once upon a midnight dreary...", and ends with its final line, "Nevermore."
  • Justified via Timey-Wimey Ball in "Doc Brown vs. Doctor Who", which begins and ends with The Doctor saying "Actually, if you don't mind, it's just The Doctor".
• Brainless Beauty: According to Cleopatra, Marilyn Monroe has "an hourglass figure, but that's about it," and she can't even read.
  • Strangely enough, this is artistic license - the actual Monroe was very intelligent, though many people overlooked it at the time.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • Both NicePeter vs. EpicLLOYD battles have them rapping about the series itself, naturally.
  • Steve Jobs interrupts The Narrator at the beginning of the battle:
    Narrator: BILL GATES! VERSUS—
    Steve Jobs: [pops up] Let me just step right in. / I've got things to invent! [shoves away the "Epic Rap Battles of History" title card]
  • The Tenth Doctor corrects the narrator on his name:
    Narrator: DOC BROWN! VS! DOCTOR WHO!! BEGIN!
    Tenth Doctor: Oh, actually, if you don't mind, it's just The Doctor.
  • In the Season 4 finale, Walt Disney notes that "I own this whole series!", a reference to ERB being produced by Disney-owned Maker Studios at the time.
  • As should be expected of the character, Deadpool addresses the viewer right from the get-go, and walks up to address the camera during a side shot meant to show both rappers.
  • Elon Musk, during the line "I'm making brilliant innovations in a race against the dark ages", lifts up the on-screen caption for the latter half of the line, causing it to dangle like a chain.
  • Steve Irwin briefly addresses the audience while doing his Wildlife Commentary Spoof. To emphasize this, since the rapper usually faces the camera anyway, Irwin walks into Jacques Cousteau's side of the video and addresses that camera.
  • The outro for "Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump" is reworded into "Who Won? Who's Next? You LITERALLY Decide!", as a reminder that its release took place before voting for the 2020 presidential election closed.
• Breath Weapon: Played With. Multiple people boast that their rapping skills give them the ability to spit verbal fire.
  • Gandhi has raps so hot, he spits yoga fire.
  • Putin spits hot borscht when he's crushing these beats.
  • Doc Brown spits it hot and generates way more power than 1.21 jigawatts.
  • Superman, perhaps the only literal example on this list, threatens to freeze the entire Saiyan race with his Super Breath.
• Brick Joke:
  • The first quote at the end of the first season finale says "If Season 2 does not have a Russian character, I will kill this NicePeter with my bare hands" and is credited to Vladimir Putin. No Russians appear in Season 2... until the finale, where four Russians (and a Georgian) battle each other (the first five-way battle), including Putin... who is played by NicePeter.
  • Skrillex calls out Mozart for his infamous scatological sense of humor, who throws it^note The insults, not poop. right back in his face.
    Mozart: "In two more months, the world will forget about your Skrill-excrement!"
    Mozart: "Oh yes, I've heard that EP, and see, I transcribed it here [pronounced "hee-yah."]/Tell me: what comes after the 68th measure of diarrhea?"
  • Stephen King vs Edgar Allan Poe both begins and ends with lines from The Raven.
• British Teeth:
  • Half of Frank Sinatra's rips on Freddie Mercury.
  • Jack the Ripper has molars as messed-up as he is. Somewhat of a double example, as those are Dan Bull's natural teeth.
  • James Bond tells Austin Powers that the many foes he's faced "were not as crooked and rotten as your teeth are."
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Vlad the Impaler demonstrates how horror-filled his life is with his opening 2 lines:
  Imagine forests of corpses dripping on a buffet.
  You call that a nightmare? I call that a Tuesday.
• But We Used a Condom!: Parodied in "Godzilla vs. King Kong": Kong says he doesn't know how Godzilla got pregnant in Godzilla (1998) since his whole suit's a "big rubber."
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Adolf Hitler. Gets frozen in carbonite, thawed out to battle again, then dropped into the Rancor pit, then avoids the Sarlaac pit only to get sliced in half by Vader's lightsaber As if that wasn't enough, in the season 4 promo, Hitler's ghost gets trapped in the Ghostbusters' trap.. Doubles as a Jerkass Woobie because, well, he's Hitler, and it's hard to say he doesn't deserve it after everything he's done.
  • The Easter Bunny, unsurprisingly, gets destroyed in his rap battle.
  • Ebeneezer Scrooge first gets startled awake by Trump, then yelled at by three rappers - the last of whom is Nightmare Fuel to him - until he nearly starts crying before changing his ways. This was bound to happen since the battle is an abridged version (with new characters) of A Christmas Carol.
  • It's no secret Bill Nye's a bit outclassed, even though he had some good lines. Even his own teammate Neil DeGrasse Tyson is somewhat condescending towards him.
    Tyson: (to Newton) Why don't you pick on a brain your own size?
  • Tory, as on Mythbusters. He outright fails to come up with a line, and it's implied he inadvertently summoned Stay Puft.
  • All 4 of the other rappers in "Spielberg vs. Hitchcock" insult Michael Bay or his movies in some way.
  • Austin Powers; near the end of the fight both James Bonds ignore him in favor of insulting each other. At best, he's given brief acknowledgements before the battle picks back up.
  • Pompey the Great; unlike the rest of Ivan the Terrible's competition, he doesn't even get past his introductory screen before getting killed off.
  • Bill Cosby gets his pudding spiked prior to entering, causing him to fall unconscious three lines into his battle. He's then brutally roasted by Joan Rivers, who hits him in the head with a lamp when he begins to wake up.
• Call-Back:
  • The battle between the creators themselves featured cameos from nearly all the characters they've played as before.
  • The rematch with Vader and Hitler begins with Hitler frozen in carbonite, just as he was at the end of their original battle.
  • During "Rasputin vs. Stalin", Lenin's arrival and verse is similar to Lincoln's during Obama Vs Romney. He stands between both rappers and criticizes them one after the other, even repeating some movements and shots.
  • "Donald Trump vs Ebenezer Scrooge" has Zach Sherwin play a character who dies in the original timeline but survives in an alternate timeline. The same is true for Doc Brown, who was also portrayed by Sherwin. It's also true, in a way, for Sherlock, who died in the planned final installment for the Sherlock Holmes book series, but when the series became a Franchise Zombie, the first of these new books revealed that Sherlock had been alive all along.
  • "Stephen King vs Edgar Allan Poe" is a three way callback:
    • 1. "Einstein vs Stephen Hawking" had a character portrayed by Zach Sherwin rap against a Stephen -king. Now Sherwin is a Stephen -king.
    • 2. "Dr. Seuss vs Shakespeare" also had George Watsky play a poet.
    • 3. "Doc Brown vs Doctor Who" also had a character portrayed by Sherwin rap against a character portrayed by Watsky.
  • Carl Sagan makes a very small cameo in Sir Isaac Newton Vs. Bill Nye, which is similar to his previous brief appearance in Albert Einstein Vs. Stephen Hawking
  • Look carefully at the arcade game in the Turtles' lair during "Renaissance Artists vs TMNT". It's playing "The Wright Brothers vs the Mario Brothers", which is not only Rhett & Link's previous appearance but the last time a Nintendo game was brought up.
    • Both battles also feature Italian characters.
  • In the Behind the Scenes of "Zeus vs. Thor", Lloyd starts off by shiftily asking toward the camera "You wanna buy some t-shirts?"
  • "Jack the Ripper vs. Hannibal Lecter" has Hannibal getting taken out of his straitjacket Jack's first verse, and then making a comment about it later on ("Pity your verse wasn't worth the trip in the jacket"), similar to how Mr. Rogers changed his shoes through Mr. T's first verse and commented on it ("I hope you don't mind if I change my shoes").
  • "Steven Spielberg vs Alfred Hitchcock" not only has Steven mimic the Hurricane of Puns from, quite appropriately, a Stephen (King), and the whole thing escalates into a five-way just like Rasputin vs Stalin did.
  • By the time "Lewis and Clark vs. Bill and Ted" come around, the series had already portrayed many of the historical figures that Bill and Ted encountered. Napoleon Bonaparte, Abraham Lincoln, Genghis Khan, Ludwig van Beethoven and Joan of Arc appear as cameos in their ERBOH incarnations, and the similarities between the phone booth and Doctor Who's TARDIS are mentioned.
    • Ted is also wearing a Mario Brothers shirt, as both Bill and Ted and the Mario Brothers have opponents portrayed by Rhett and Link.
  • "Jim Henson vs Stan Lee" has a LOT in common with the popular "Bill Gates vs Steve Jobs" - Peter plays the one who's deceased, the "hippy" in a turtleneck sweater no less; Lloyd is the still-living one with the Awesome Ego who eventually admits that he misses his supposed rival; and there's a third surprise guest rapper who's more powerful than the both of them could hope to deal with.
    • It also shares a few traits with "Isaac Newton vs Bill Nye". Not only does Peter give Henson a similar voice to Nye, but at one point, Lee threatens to "leave [Henson] squealing like MEMEMEMEMEMEME", a reference to Beaker, who Newton compared Nye to. And then, of course, there's the Walking Spoiler. However, in "Henson vs Lee", Peter's character and the Walking Spoiler are both deceased, while Peter's primary opponent is living. The opposite is true in "Newton vs Nye".
  • Deadpool brings up the fact that Boba Fett only had five lines across the whole of the Hitler vs. Vader trilogy, one of which was just him screaming. He also does an Elvis Impersonation while talking shit about his father, which is what the real Elvis did during his battle against Michael Jackson.
  • In "Alexander the Great vs Ivan the Terrible," When Ivan mentions how he was "The first Tsar of all or Russia," the participants of "Rasputin vs Stalin" appear behind him.
  • In the BTS for "Charles Darwin vs Ash Ketchum", Nice Peter attempts a Call-Back to the "heroin joke" Running Gag, but he is quickly cut off.
  • "Theodore Roosevelt vs. Winston Churchill" has Churchill claim that of the Mount Rushmore presidents, Roosevelt would be the bassist of their rock band. This is fully depicted with Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln from their prior episodes. Roosevelt also quotes his "What's up, bitches?" catchphrase from the newscasts.
  • The rematch between the creators has them appearing in the backgrounds of the many rappers they previously played.
  • "Joker vs Pennywise" - the Joker (NicePeter) brings up the Justice League while briefly showing ERB's own take on the "Big Three" (Lloyd as Superman, Lilly Singh as Wonder Woman and Peter again as Batman).
  • "J Robert Oppenheimer vs Thanos" - Oppenheimer's throat cancer heavily affects his breathing, which when combined with the heavy static in his verses sounds just like Vader Breath. Darth Vader is one of Peter's earliest and best known roles.
• Canis Major: In the final battle (of season 1), Kassem G rides a magnificent flying wolf.
• Capitalism Is Bad: Karl Marx calls out Henry Ford on how his legacy amounts to treating workers horribly and causing harmful effects to the climate all for the sake of profit.
• Card-Carrying Villain:
  • Darth Vader and Adolf Hitler, naturally. Each one insists they are more evil than the other.
  • Bill O'Reilly also, particularly during his second verse where he outright admits to being evil.
  • Josef Stalin as well. He outright states he abused Russia.
    Look into my eyes, you perverted witch!
    See the soul of the man who made Mother Russia his bitch!
    You think I give a fuck about my wife?!
    My own son got locked up in prison and I didn't save his life!
  • Thomas Edison, who openly admits that he screwed Tesla over, and is shown electrocuting a puppy during his second verse. The real-life Edison electrocuted several animals—most famously an elephant named Topsy—in an effort to discredit alternating current technology, of which Nikola Tesla was a prominent figure.
  • Jack the Ripper is proud of the gruesomeness of his crimes. However, his opponent, Hannibal Lecter, does not fit the three spheres of this trope.
  • Walt Disney brags about overworking his artists and running sweatshops.
  • Blackbeard claims that his heart is many degrees colder than the deep sea.
  • Ivan the Terrible accepts and embraces his epithet after poisoning Alexander the Great.
  • Freddy Krueger brags about being the product of a "twisted mind" and claims that beneath his terrifying exterior, there's nothing but the love of killing.
  You got a healing factor? I got a kill-bitches-on-the-ceiling factor
  Under that mask, you're a singer/actor. Under my skin, I'm a slasher/slasher!
  • Vlad the Impaler spends most of his first verse bragging about how many people he brutally murdered, and even claims to be the spawn of the devil. Later, he also brags about committing "heinous acts on rats" while imprisoned.
  • Pennywise proudly describes himself as a ruthless demon who haunts nightmares.
  • The Joker, for his part, embraces his nickname as "the Harlequin of Hate" and claims to have committed atrocities to which Pennywise's murders pale in comparison.
• Catchphrase:
  • The narrator opens and closes every battle the same way.
    EPIC RAP BATTLES OF HISTORY! [Character 1] vs. [Character 2]! BEGIN!
    WHO WON? WHO'S NEXT? YOU DECIDE! EPIC RAP BATTLES OF HISTORY!
  • Theodore Roosevelt always begins ERB News with "What's up, bitches?!" The catchphrase even got carried over to Teddy's own rap battle against Winston Churchill.
• Celibate Hero:
  • Gandhi is one, because he doesn't give a fuck.
  • So is Mother Teresa, although Freud mocks her, claiming her chastity vow is "redundant".
  • The Doctor, Nikola Tesla, Joan of Arc and Sir Isaac Newton are all accused of being this and none of them denies it.
• Chairman of the Brawl: Lee kicks a chair at Eastwood as he disses him about the "invisible Obama" speech.
• Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: Steve Irwin slings this insult at Jacques Cousteau, telling him to "embrace your French nature and quietly surrender."
• Chess Motifs: In "Alexander the Great vs. Ivan the Terrible", Alex topples a king on a chess board when he mentions that Ivan died during a chess game. Additionally, when Catherine the Great says "Checkmate!", there is a line of chess pieces with her in between as the Queen, and the King beside her (representing Ivan) falls down.
• Christmas Episode: "Moses vs Santa Claus" was uploaded December 2012; "Donald Trump vs Ebenezer Scrooge" was uploaded December 2013.
• Cigar Chomper: Winston Churchill is portrayed as this in his battle with Theodore Roosevelt, as he was in real life, and even uses this habit to state how Roosevelt could never pull it off since he's asthmatic.
• Circling Monologue: Jordan spends most of his third verse pacing around Ali.
• Clean Cut: Hitler falls victim to this at the end of his third battle with Vader.
• Climactic Battle Resurrection: More than two thirds of the contestants have come Back from the Dead to rap.
  • Inverted with characters who have died recently dying in the middle of the rap to be replaced by someone else.
  • Also inverted with Donald Trump (in his first appearance, anyway); while his real self is still alive, In-Universe he's outright stated to be dead and his ghost is haunting Scrooge.
• Clothing Damage: Goku takes a lot of it after absorbing a blast from Superman's heat vision.
  • Behind The Scenes footage revealed it was done with scissors and a lighter.
    Ray William Johnson: While I was still wearing them? Did we have to do it this way?
• Cluster F-Bomb:
  • John Lennon vs. Bill O'Reilly, while maybe not exactly fitting here, is much more frequent in swearing than the other battles.
  • Compared to the other battles from later seasons, "George R. R. Martin vs J. R. R. Tolkien" also has quite a few cusses dropped by both sides.
  • "Nice Peter vs EpicLLOYD 2" is the most curse-heavy battle in the series, showing how dead serious and angry Peter and Lloyd are going at each other, Peter in particular swears a total of nine times in just his first verse.
  • George Carlin uses all of the Seven Dirty Words (of which he's the Trope Namer) to fill a verse.
• Coins for the Dead: Thor vs Zeus, Thor references the role of this custom in Greek Mythology with one of his lyrics:
  Here, take these Drachma for your eyes,
  When you get to River Styx, tell your three-headed bitch I say "Hi!"
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: In "Renaissance Artists vs TMNT", the Renaissance Artists Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphael all have the colors of the turtles named after them somewhere on their costumes.
• Company Cameo: Near the end of "Jim Henson vs. Stan Lee," Walt Disney, representing the Disney brand, pops up to do a verse bragging about how much his company owns, including the ERBOH series itself. When Disney shows Henson and Lee his "empire of joy," one of the logos depicted is that of Maker Studios, the Disney-owned subsidiary that produced ERBOH at the time, with the ERBOH logo right below it.
  Disney: I'm owning this battle! In fact, I own this whole series!
• Compensating for Something: Dumbledore asks Gandalf if his staff is part of this.
• Continuity Cavalcade:
  • "Lewis and Clark vs Bill and Ted" has several historical figures on the San Dimas side that appeared in both the movie and past rap battles!
  • "Fredrick Douglass vs Thomas Jefferson" shows several American rap battlers from previous episodes during Jefferson's line:
    "Set up a little place called the United States. Sound familiar?"
  • "Ivan the Terrible vs. Alexander the Great" has a similar scene, where the five Russian rappers (and PewDiePie as Baryshnikov) reappear around Ivan:
    "I'm the first Tsar of all of Russia!"
  • Nice Peter vs Epic Lloyd 2 has them going through many of the backgrounds they've used over the years with Rick Grimes vs Walter White, Jim Henson vs. Stan Lee and George RR Martin vs. JRR Tolkien as examples.
• Cool Shades: NicePeter has a signature pair.
• Cooking Duel: "Gordon Ramsay vs. Julia Child" has the two Supreme Chefs engage in a cook-off and a rap-off.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive:
  • Nikola Tesla's largest issue with Thomas Edison is how Tesla wanted to give electricity to the world for free, but Edison strongarmed him with politics and business practices to turn a profit with it.
  • Mitt Romney essentially begins his battle by saying Screw the Rules, I Have Money!.
  • Donald Trump and Ebeneezer Scrooge. Donald Trump even outright states that he's not known for his heart, and Scrooge even got a sub-trope named after him.
• Country Matters:
  • Hitler starts off round 3 with this. By contrast, his opponent Vader went out of his way to not drop one in round 2.
    Hitler: SCREW YOU, you big black CUNT!
  • Also, in "James Bond vs Austin Powers", James Bond calls Sean Connery's James Bond an old one, right before promising to beat up "the man who does your stunts".
  • George Carlin, naturally, drops one during his verse where he quotes the Seven Dirty Words (for which he is famously the Trope Namer).
• Creative Closing Credits: Almost Once an Episode, always involving the logo of the show. Some examples include it being crossed by two electric shocks forming an X (Tesla vs. Edison); six logos chanting like they were cheering on in a match (Ruth vs. Armstrong); and two big logos calling their "logo armies" and setting war between them (Washington vs. Wallace, Shaka vs. Caesar).
• Creator Cameo: If EpicLloyd isn't playing one of the rappers, he usually appears as a background character, usually someone being referenced to by one of the rappers. Examples include:
  • Carl Sagan in Einstein vs Hawking.
    • Reprised in Isaac Newton Vs. Bill Nye.
  • John McCain in Palin vs Gaga.
  • Johann Sebastian Bach in Bieber vs Beethoven.
  • Hannibal, Murdoch, Face, and Mr. McFeely in T vs Rogers.
  • Pleistarchus (Leonidas' six year old son) in Leonidas vs Master Chief.
    • Ironically, Lloyd was the voice for Leonidas, but not the character.
  • Marlon Brando in Cleopatra vs Marilyn Monroe.
    • Nice Peter also plays John F. Kennedy, his first-ever cameo in the series. He's otherwise rapped in every single battle till then.
  • Marty McFly in Doc Brown vs. Doctor Who, where he is notably the first cameo of his nature to speak a line.
  • Jon Na, the director of photography for Columbus Vs Kirk, cameos as Sulu.
  • Nice Peter shows up as all the cowboys in Clint Eastwood's backdrop.
  • EpicLloyd cameos in Santa vs Moses as Santa's elves.
  • Peter appears in Adam Vs Eve as "Steve."
  • Nice Peter is a reverend amongst the Indian crowd in Gandhi Vs Martin Luther King Jr. while EpicLloyd is the one white guy in a crowd of African Americans following Martin Luther King. The Behind The Scenes show Lloyd slowly creeping his head up in the back of the crowd just so that he can be there, hoping nobody will notice.
  • Nice Peter and Epic Lloyd both appear as girls behind Miley Cyrus in Miley Cyrus Vs. Joan of Arc.
  • Nice Peter plays both Jimmy Olsen and Krillin in Goku Vs Superman.
  • Lloyd again as Dr. Phil in Oprah Vs Ellen.
  • Roman legionaries in Shaka Zulu vs. Julius Caesar.
• Creator Provincialism: Most episodes have at least one American participating in the battle, sometimes not even people very well known outside of the USA, such as Bill Nye, Mr. Rogers, Randy Savage,... The exceptions where none of the portrayed battlers were born Americans or American fictional characters have been:
  • Albert Einstein vs. Stephen Hawking (German native, British native)
  • Genghis Khan vs. the Easter Bunny (Mongolian, European folklore character)
  • Gandalf vs. Dumbledore (Characters created by British writers)
  • Moses vs. Santa Claus (Middle East, European folklore)
  • Adam vs. Eve (The Bible)
  • Rasputin vs. Stalin (Russia)
  • Zeus vs. Thor (Greek mythology, Scandinavian mythology)
  • Eastern Philosophers vs. Western Philosophers (Chinese and European, to be precise)
  • Shaka Zulu vs. Julius Caesar (representing the Zulu Kingdom and the Roman Empire, respectively)
  • Ivan the Terrible vs. Alexander the Great (Russian vs Macedonian, Prussian and Roman, and also a Russian of Prussian descent)
  • Ash Ketchum vs. Charles Darwin (Japanese anime character, English native)
  • Guy Fawkes vs Che Guevara (English, Argentinean)
  • Jacques Cousteau vs Steve Irwin (French, Australian)
  • Mother Teresa vs Sigmund Freud (Albanian, Austrian)
  • Vlad the Impaler (Romanian) vs Count Dracula (Fictional character from Romania, created by Irish author)
  • Ragnar Lodbrok (Scandinavian) vs Richard the Lionheart (British)
• Creepy Blue Eyes: Peter's wide and expressive blue eyes serve the series well, especially when he's playing a lunatic.
• Creepy Monotone:
  • Mister Rogers.
  • HAL 9000, naturally.
  • Bob Ross has one similar to Mister Rogers.
  • Leonardo da Vinci's mellow tones never waver even as he threatens to turn ninja turtles into mincemeat.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Justin Bieber VS. Beethoven. Given Bieber's reputation on YouTube, you can probably imagine how this goes.
  • The Easter Bunny vs. Genghis Khan. The Easter Bunny spends his second verse panicking.
  • In their rematch, Hitler's "the reason you suck" song leaves Vader completely out of words, so much that he couldn't think of any comeback lines, and made him turn his back in shame. Or he was just acting that way to lure Hitler into standing over the Rancor pit. In their second rematch, Vader's rapid-fire onslaught reduces Hitler to barely-coherent, non-rhyming screeched imprecations ...right before he gets bisected by Vader's lightsaber.
  • If we're talking about popularity, Mr. T, Bill O'Reilly, and Frank Sinatra are getting curb-stomped harder than the Easter Bunny on the official site. In fact, Mr. T is the second-least popular battler, just above Justin Bieber. You'll need to log in through Facebook in order to see the stats.
  • Thomas Edison gets completely vilified by Nikola Tesla's claims of how Edison made sure he could make money off of the concept of electricity. The fans agree: Edison only has ~15% of the vote. Given Edison's recent reputation with the Internet demographic, it's not surprising.
  • Babe Ruth annihilates Lance Armstrong in his second verse. Lance is visibly shocked.
  • Unexpected challengers often win, but even among those it's near universally agreed upon that Walt Disney completely stomped all over, not only Stan Lee and Jim Henson, but Peter Shukoff and Lloyd Ahlquist as well.
  • Speaking of unexpected challengers, Thanos versus Oppenheimer sounds like an easy win for the Mad Titan, but you'll have trouble finding a single comment claiming this was the case. Most agree that Peter's chilling performance as Oppenheimer stole the show, and that Thanos's own verses and flow were outmatched.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: Even if vastly outclassed in terms of ability and popularity, all the characters manage to get at least some effective jabs in against their superior opponents.
• Curse Cut Short: In "Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton", Donald Trump almost says a particular pejorative term.
  Trump: This whole system's rigged, and we all know the riggers! For the last eight years, this country's been run by— (CAW!)
• Crossover: With The Annoying Orange in Epic Rap Battles of Kitchenry.
• Cuteness Proximity: NicePeter in the behind the scenes video of Cleopatra Vs. Marilyn Monroe.
  NicePeter: *holding tiny snake* You are the smallest snake I've ever even dreamed about!
• Dance Party Ending: A lot of the battles like to have the characters just dancing at the end. Among the examples are "Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs", "Rasputin vs. Stalin", and "Donald Trump vs. Ebeneezer Scrooge". From the 2nd season on, almost all of them show the characters dancing in the credits. Their second channel features a few Dance Battles of History to the tunes of their battles.
  • One aversion is the "Eastern Philosophers vs. Western Philosophers" — both teams were just squabbling with each other to the point where the narrator yells at them so that he can do his ending spiel.
• Dead to Begin With: While many battles feature characters talking about the circumstances of their own deaths, or those of their opponents, this can usually be interpreted as just fourth-wall-breaking for the sake of a joke, diss, or boast. In "Mother Teresa vs Sigmund Freud", however, this trope is far more explicit, with Teresa appearing literally in Heaven with a luminous angelic aura around her; while Freud (who appears in anachronistic black and white, while his background has color) lies on the couch reminiscing about his own death, like one of his own patients might do if he were a ghost.
• Deal with the Devil: Walt Disney's last few lines in Jim Henson vs. Stan Lee carry this implication, with Henson and Lee both becoming rich and secured (albeit very reluctantly and possible even against their will), but at the cost of becoming just another low level worker in Disney's "empire of joy".
• Death Glare: Mister Rogers ends his second verse with a very scary one.
• Deliberately Jumping the Gun: During the Bill Gates vs Steve Jobs episode, Jobs interrupts the announcer in the middle of introducing the contestants and goes straight into a high energy rap, trying to blitz Gates with it.
• Deliberately Monochrome: See Retraux below.
• Department of Redundancy Department: Freddy Krueger describes himself as a slasher/slasher (even pronouncing the slash in the middle to get the point across).
• Designated Girl Fight: Four examples at this point:
  • Sarah Palin vs. Lady Gaga
  • Cleopatra vs. Marilyn Monroe
  • Joan of Arc vs. Miley Cyrus
  • Ellen DeGeneres vs. Oprah Winfrey
• Diagonal Cut: Vader does this to Hitler with his lightsaber at the end of their third battle.
• A Dick in Name:
  • Invoked by Joan Rivers, who asks if she can nickname Richard Pryor "Dick" and suggests that might be what his fifth wife called him when he remarried his previous wife.
  • Richard the Lionheart uses his shortened name as a boast about his masculinity.
    I'm the number one Dick rising up to make you feel small!
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: A common - and highly effective - diss used against opponents higher up in Super Weight (i.e. The Terminator, Freddy Kreuger, Pennywise), since it would be hard for them to justify being beat out by relatively ordinary people.
• The Disease That Shall Not Be Named: "You played butthole roulette, and you lost the draw!" It's then described in the next line as "a disease no one knew existed".
• Disproportionate Retribution: How Josef Stalin describes what he'd do to Rasputin.
  "You got off easy when they pickled that moose cock! I'd leave your neck in a noose in a trench and shot! Your whole family: shot! All your wizard friends: shot! Anyone who sold you pierogi: shot!"
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: When Lewis and Clark show off the fishes they caught, Sacagawea sighs and holds up a fish bigger than both of theirs put together.
• The Dog Bites Back: At some point during each of their verses, Spielberg, Hitchcock, Tarantino and Kubrick disparage Michael Bay, only for him to turn up a minute from the end and cheerfully tear them all to shreds.
• Don't Try This at Home: In the behind-the-scenes video for Cleopatra vs. Marilyn Monroe, Lloyd shows off a Vader vs Hitler shirt and tells viewers not to wear it at school because it might get them expelled.
• Double-Meaning Title: The show's title could both be about the hyping of the Battle Rapping or also referring to the rappers who are Historical and Public Domain Characters.
• Downer Ending: Not often, but it happens:
  • "Romeo & Juliet vs. Bonnie & Clyde" ends with both couples dead, the former due to a similar confusion as seen in their source material, while the latter are shot dead as it happened in real life. It's somewhat downplayed by it mostly being portrayed as Black Comedy.
  • "Stan Lee vs. Jim Henson" had the bleakest ending of any battle in the series to date; Stan Lee and Jim Henson make up with each other, only for the Anthropomorphic Personification of Disney - portrayed as a younger version of Walt Disney, to step in and berate the two for wasting their working hours arguing, boasts about his owning of so many franchises and media conglomerates, the shoddy conditions he keeps his workers in, and how Lee and Henson are ultimately doomed to becoming one in a million of faceless artists in Disney's "Empire of Joy".
• Dramatic Irony: Anyone who knows how the story of Bonnie and Clyde ends will find a lot of this in their commenting on Romeo and Juliet's untimely demises and stating that they still have each other. They get gunned down immediately after this.
• Draft Dodging: This is a general topic of mocking for certain people who have managed to avoid servicing during war times. Examples include Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Muhammad Ali, Alfred Hitchcock,^note  inverted, as Alfred wanted to serve, but couldn't because of his weight George R.R. Martin, etc.
• Dude, Not Funny!: Invoked.
  • Frank Sinatra reacts this way to being addressed with two slurs.
    "Easy there, Jaws of Life! I can't stand a racist; I love the coloreds and the queers - just ask Sammy Davis!"
  • Stan Lee realizes he's gone too far when he threatens to put Jim Henson out to pasture like Mr. Hooper.
  • Michael Jordan comments on how disgusted he is that Muhammad Ali would say his stint as a baseball player was more tragic than his father's murder.
  • Steve Irwin reacts this way when Jacques Cousteau mocks him for getting "killed by a fish kids pet at the aquarium."
    Holy smokes, what a place to go! You'd need a submarine for a blow that low!
  • Even Hannibal thinks Jack the Ripper's line about the 7/7 bombers was in terrible taste, going so far as to say he was doing fine before he said it.
• Dynamic Entry: Abraham Lincoln flies in on a bald eagle, free falls between Romney and Obama (calling them 'shiny turds') and bitch slaps them both. They never saw it coming.
  • He does it again in Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • The first season finale gives viewers a glimpse of the Super Mario Bros., King Henry VIII, and Master Chief. ERB News also revealed the Wright Brothers, Elvis, and Steve Jobs. Henry VIII did not show up anywhere in Season 2.
  • "Rick Grimes vs. Walter White" briefly shows that Superman and Edgar Allan Poe will be contestants in the "More Battles" section (but obviously not against each other). The battle immediately after that also has another preview showing Isaac Newton.
  • The BTS for the season 3 finale has Walt D in con footage, before they picked him to participate in the first video of season 4.
  • At the very end of Copperfield vs. Houdini, Lao Tzu briefly appears in the "More Battles" window. Similarly, in Lewis and Clark vs. Bill and Ted, of all of B&T's companions shown, only Socrates had never been in a previous rap battle^note The Billy The Kid shown was one of the background cowboys from Bruce Lee vs. Clint Eastwood.. Both would later appear in ''Eastern Philosophers vs. Western Philosophers".
  • A brief sneak peek of Steve Irwin was shown at the very end of George Carlin vs Richard Pryor.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Season 1 in general is pretty weird compared with subsequent seasons. Cases in point:
  • Most of the early rap battles put characters against each other who seem very randomly picked. In later episodes they have more in common with each other and thus seem more fit to oppose one another: they have the same profession, are similar icons, have similar sounding names, were real life rivals, or are similar characters from a different franchise.
  • The announcer had a different voice for the first few battles.
  • The lyrics for the first battles weren't as refined and contained a lot of cursing. This was rectified in later seasons.
  • Lennon vs. O'Reilly, the first battle, lacks the subtitles and was originally censored.
  • Abe Lincoln vs. Chuck Norris is the only battle the announcer does not kick off by shouting "BEGIN!"
  • Kim Jong-il vs the Mega Powers is the only match where a person who comes in during the middle is announced by the announcer. It also uses a different font for the subtitles than all the other battles.
  • The first season episode featuring Hulk Hogan has Nice Peter playing the character in a rather unconvincing muscle suit. If they were shooting the episode now, with their much higher profile and budgets, now they would be able to cast a convincing look-a-like or might even have gotten Hogan himself to play the role.
  • Donald Trump, the only rapper so far to appear in two different titles, is effectively portrayed as two different characters in Donald Trump vs Ebenezer Scrooge and Donald Trump vs Hillary Clinton. This is largely because the 2016 election wildly changed the public's perception of Trump, leading to jokes about his complexion, the size of his hands, and the accusations of racism against him.
  • "Henry VIII vs. Hillary Clinton" was set to release in season 2, immediately after Vader/Hitler 2, but Peter and Lloyd felt the battle didn't live up to their own expectations at the time, so they never officially released it until 2020. While Peter is still the announcer, he sounds like a completely different person altogether. He was already starting to settle on the deep exaggerated announcer voice half-way into season 1.
• E = MC Hammer: In Shakespeare vs. Doctor Seuss, during the Cat in the Hat's line about "you leave a classroom looking like the end of Macbeth", the blackboard in the background has the equation "1 + 2 = SO MUCH BLOOD".
• The End... Or Is It?: Freddy Krueger vs. Wolverine ends with the latter seemingly escaping the nightmares induced by the former, only for Freddy to repeatedly, subtly appear in the background of his intended victim's bedroom, showing that this may very well all be part of his plan to kill Wolverine; very befitting given the pervasiveness of this trope in the Nightmare films and other horror movies.
• Epic Fail: Hitler claims that Vader's entire life is one long string of these. Vader doesn't have any comeback other than laughing as Hitler steps over the Rancor pit before dropping him in.
• Evasive Fight-Thread Episode: It is nearly impossible to come to a consensus over who "wins" each rap battle. Everyone's rap style and lyrics are determined by their popular image, so each side will also sound wildly different and some matchups will feel more equal then others. In addition, the raps are accompanied by dramatic elements and special effects that are either indicating the current rapper's superiority, or are just for fun, and this further confuses the issue. The creators themselves leave the winner up to the viewers and post official polls on some social media of theirs, but the YouTube commentators and other enthusiasts elsewhere are consistently much more concerned with the matter of "Who Won?" as opposed to "Who's Next?"
  • Goku vs. Superman, being based on the Trope Codifier of literal fight threads, ends on a note resembling this trope on a likewise more literal level: both heroes physically fly into each other, with their climactic collision creating an explosion which transitions to the ending screen.
  • Freddy Krueger vs. Wolverine ends with Wolverine having successfully escaped Freddy's overt attempt to kill him by seemingly waking up, but as he delivers his last verse it becomes increasingly apparent that it's a Dream Within a Dream... and then the battle just ends.
• Elvis Impersonator: EpicLLOYD as Elvis.
  • Robert Hoffman as Deadpool as Elvis. (also voiced by Epic LLOYD)
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Even Hannibal Lecter, a sociopathic cannibal, thinks that Jack the Ripper saying he's more terrifying than the 7/7 terrorist bombing is going too far. Though Lecter's second verse suggests that what bothers him more about Jack is the fact that he's "sloppy", and the terrorist line is simply part of that.
  • In their third battle, Darth Vader derides Hitler's attempts to convince the world that the Jews are evil. This may be less having standards and more mocking Hitler's failures, but given Vader's final line in the first battle it's probably a mix of both. Vader also shies away from using the word "cunt", unlike Hitler.
  • The Joker may have no problem killing kids (Jason Todd, for example, which he mentions in the battle), but even he is disgusted by sexualizing them; he slams the infamous preteen group sex scene in It and says “Even I wouldn't stoop to that kind of impropriety!”
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Austin Powers may happily admit to being a swinging Lovable Sex Maniac who engages in unprotected sex with multiple women, but he would never force himself on a woman who rejects his advances, unlike the "a bit rapey" Sean Connery.
  • Che Guevara is a Communist revolutionary who brags about all the people he's killed for the cause, but he's still appalled by the Catholic Church turning a blind eye to rampant child molestation.
  • Rasputin, no angel himself, says that what Stalin did to Russia was a disgrace.
• Event Title: As the title suggests, this show is about Battle Rapping.
• "Everybody Dies" Ending: "Bonnie and Clyde vs. Romeo and Juliet" ends with R&J dead by their own hands and B&C gunned down.
• Evil Laugh: Genghis Khan for the intimidation.
• Eviler than Thou:
  • The basis of the Hitler vs. Vader matches is who is worse than the other.
  • Played straight by Jack the Ripper, who boasts that his crimes are so gruesome that they would sicken and appall even his opponent, Hannibal Lecter. He also claims to be scarier than the 7/7 bombers.
  • The Joker claims to be this to Pennywise:
    Joker: When I compare your antics to the fiendish schemes I revel in,
    They pale like the moonlight you can dance with the devil in.
• Evil Versus Evil:
  • Adolf Hitler vs. Darth Vader is what happens when card carrying villains rap battle.
  • Blackbeard vs. Al Capone are both outlaws.
  • Jack the Ripper vs. Hannibal Lecter, where Lecter brags about his refined style while Jack points out that, unlike Lecter, he's real, killed actual people and "never got caught."
    Hannibal Lecter: I don't mind that you're naughty, Jack; I hate that you're sloppy!
  • Shaka Zulu vs. Julius Caesar portrays both contestants as ruthless tyrants.
  • All of the rappers in Alexander the Great vs. Ivan the Terrible (which also include Catherine the Great) are all portrayed as ruthless murderous tyrants, with only Frederick the Great coming off looking better.
  • "Vlad The Impaler vs. Dracula" pits one of the most famous gothic villains in all of fiction against one of the most brutal mass murderers in history.
  • Joker vs. Pennywise is a battle between the two most iconic Monster Clowns in fiction.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: In Scrooge vs. Donald Trump, after Scrooge has been visited by the second of the three ghosts:
  Scrooge: NO! THIS ISN'T HAPPENING!
  OH THIS IS MADDENING AGONY—wait, actually
  Harkening back to the dead Donald's lecture
  I still am expecting a final specter...(Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come slowly rises behind him)
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Invoked in the opening lines of "Doctor Who vs. Doc Brown".
  Announcer: DOC BROWN! VERSUS! DOCTOR WHO! BEGIN!
  10th Doctor: Ooh actually, if you don't mind, it's just "the Doctor".
• Fanservice:
  • Cleopatra Vs Marilyn Monroe.
  • Eve (played by YouTube celebrity JennaMarbles)
• Fanservice Extra: The two girls at the end of "Moses vs Santa Claus".
• Fat and Skinny: Lloyd and Peter, respectively. Lloyd isn't actually fat, it's just that Peter is so tall and skinny the far shorter and more proportionally built Lloyd looks it in comparison.
• Faux Affably Evil: Walt Disney boasts of his power and wealth, mocks the suffering of artists under his employ, and offers to make Jim Henson and Stan Lee rich if they join his "empire of joy", all with a chipper (and creepy) smile on his face.
• First-Name Ultimatum: Mr. Rogers gives one of these to Mr. T.
  Mr. Rogers: I'll say this once Laurence, I hope it's understood. Get right back in your van and get the fuck outta my neighborhood.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing:
  • The YouTube thumbnail for Zeus vs. Thor shows the participants' weapons (thunderbolt and hammer, respectively), and the title card is indeed on-screen for all of five seconds: it's written in LEGO, on a large red peg-board, the first clue that this particular battle is Built with LEGO.
  • George Carlin vs Richard Pryor - Joan Rivers attacks Bill Cosby with a familiar-looking gold oil lamp, the only indication of the final surprise addition, Robin Williams.
• Flipping the Bird:
  • Lady Gaga flips off Sarah Palin a split second before the battle begins. John McCain flips off the whole world at the end.
  • Master Chief gives a long one to Leonidas at the end of his rap.
  • Barack Obama stealthily does this to Mitt Romney. While commenting on how it would be awkward to have a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Lady, he counts off with his middle finger, pinky, and ring finger, in that order.
  • Bruce Lee gives Clint Eastwood his two-finger push-up. "KUNG F-U!"
  • Look at the background in Pablo Picasso vs. Bob Ross battle, and you'll see Pablo sketching a hand with extended middle finger.
  • Jack the Ripper performs the British version of this gesture at the end of his second verse.
  • Michael Bay gives an epic double deuce to the other combatants (who dissed him throughout the entire rap battle) while a nuclear explosion goes off in the background.
  • Wayne Gretzky gives Tony Hawk his own rendition of a fingerflip. "Sit on this and rotate 900 degrees!"
  • It's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, but at the end of the line, "You made Thunderball two bloody times," Austin Powers gives the camera a two-finger salute - the British equivalent of the middle finger.
  • Done by both George Carlin, Richard Pryor and Joan Rivers, although Pryor's was censored, as a reference to TV censor rules in that era.
  • Guy Fawkes gives Che Guevara the two-fingered salute because he "[doesn't] give two Guy Fawkes".
  • The Burger King draws the McDonald's double arch, then turns it into a double deuce.
• Flung Clothing:
  • EpicLloyd changes out of his gym outfit in this way.
  • How Lance Armstrong removes his suit in his battle. The BTS shows it to be a velcro breakaway.
    • Amusingly, the number of messed-up attempts at that may have led to Peter doing a completely green-screened one in Tony Hawk vs Wayne Gretsky.
• A Foggy Day in London Town: The atmosphere during the Sherlock Holmes scenes in the battle between him and Batman and during the Jack the Ripper scenes in the battle between him and Hannibal Lecter.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The teaser at the end of Season One included a supposed ultimatum by Vladimir Putin that if Season Two doesn't feature a Russian he will kill Nice Peter with his bare hands. There aren't any until the Season Finale, which features a match between Russians (four of them and a Georgian, to be exact, including Nice Peter as Putin).
  • Ben Franklin makes several death threats to Billy Mays, promising to "craft a lyrical coffin", telling him to "join or die", and referencing "Death of a Salesman". At first, this just seems like the usual hip-hop trash talk, but then Billy dies.
  • Stephen Hawking's silhouette is visible right at the start of the Vader vs. Hitler rematch.
  • Shakespeare vs. Doctor Seuss: During Seuss's first verse, a blackboard in the background alludes to Things 1 and 2 showing up later.
  • Santa Claus has Mozart on his naughty list for being "TOO DANG LOUD", in his own words. A few videos later, Mozart squares off against Skrillex, who's also been accused of being too dang loud.
  • Picasso refers to Muhammad Ali in his opening verse - who is one of the featured characters of the very next battle.
  • Steven Spielberg calls Michael Bay a "schlep" with no Oscars, Alfred Hitchcock comments on the clunky acting in Transformers, Quentin Tarantino calls Bay a "sell-out", and Stanley Kubrick calls Bay's Ninja Turtles movie a "waste of potential". Guess who shows up for the last verse?
  • In Stan Lee vs Jim Henson, Henson doesn't actually insult Lee's work, and actually calls him "a creative man." They reconcile at the end.
  • Combined with Irony in the season 6 trailer. The trailer contains Stock Footage of Walt Disney boasting, "I OWN THIS WHOLE SERIES!" In the BTS for "Elon Musk vs. Mark Zuckerberg", it was revealed that this battle was produced independently of Maker Studios, which by then had been completely bought out by Disney. Season 6 is also produced independently.
• Food Porn: The Battle between Gordon Ramsay and Julia Child is sure to make you hungry.
• Foregone Conclusion:
  • Most viewers side with Darth Vader as the winner, because who in their right mind would say that Hitler won?
  • Justin Bieber VS Beethoven. While Bieber does get a few disses in, he's basically a Joke Character from the get-go.
  • Genghis Khan VS Easter Bunny. The announcer at the start sighs before namedropping the Easter Bunny, and once he finishes his (already weak) first verse the battle immediately nosedives in favor of Khan.
  • Joan of Arc (Pious, Courageous, Warrior Saint) VS Miley Cyrus (Borderline Annoying, Spoiled Rich, Showtime Snob, and a Loose Woman).
  • One of the Cardinal Sins of Rap Battles is "Going on the Defensive" which is exactly what Thomas Jefferson did. Then again, he really had no choice as not mentioning the slave trade or any regret over it would've been highly Out-Of-Character for him.
• For the Evulz:
  • The reason Hitler gives for messing up the Star Wars prequels.
  • Darth only thawed Hitler out for their rematch and to drop him into the Rancor Pit.
• Four Is Death:
  • Jack the Ripper vs. Hannibal Lecter, both serial killers, is the fourth rap battle of Season 4.
  • The first four-man battle of season 4 (Romeo & Juliet vs Bonnie and Clyde) [[spoiler:ends in everyone dying.
  • In the fourth rap battle of season 6, four of the five characters have passed on in Real Life, and the fifth is knocked unconscious twice.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: If there are four or more rappers in a battle, they will usually fit this trope. Examples include, but are not limited to:
  • The four rappers in Romeo and Juliet vs Bonnie and Clyde: Romeo (melancholic), Juliet (sanguine), Bonnie (choleric) and Clyde (phlegmatic).
  • The five rappers in Steven Spielberg vs Alfred Hitchcock: Spielberg (sanguine), Hitchcock (phlegmatic), Quentin Tarantino and Michael Bay (choleric), and Stanley Kubrick (melancholic).
  • The four rappers who have appeared in off-season battles so far: Deadpool (sanguine), Boba Fett (melancholic), Elon Musk (choleric), and Mark Zuckerberg (phlegmatic).
  • The four rappers in Mario Bros vs Wright Bros: Orville (phlegmatic), Wilbur (melancholic), Mario (sanguine), and Luigi (choleric).
  • The five rappers in Rasputin vs Stalin: Rasputin (phlegmatic), Stalin and Lenin (choleric, especially the latter), Gorbachev (sanguine), and Putin (melancholic).
  • The five rappers in Alexander the Great vs Ivan the Terrible: Ivan (melancholic), Alexander (choleric), Frederick and Pompey (sanguine) and Catherine (phlegmatic).
  • The five rappers in George Carlin vs Richard Pryor: Carlin and Bill Cosby (sanguine), Pryor (phlegmatic), Joan Rivers (choleric) and Robin Williams (melancholic).
  • The four Mt. Rushmore presidents: Roosevelt (sanguine), Washington (phlegmatic), Lincoln (choleric) and Jefferson (melancholic).
  • In general, we have the main actors Nice Peter (phlegmatic) and Epic LLOYD (choleric), and the two most commonly recurring actors for the longest time, Zach Sherwin (melancholic) and George Watsky (sanguine).
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • There's often so much going on the screen that some of the humor can be missed. For instance, Kim Jong-Il's rocket launcher fires his own head.
  • Outside of the raps, the first two videos in season three after the December-May hiatus have both had at least one split-second shot of a future battle in the "more battles" section. This also happened sporadically throughout season 4.
  • Before Terminator's final verse, his Search Mode window includes a Call-Back to Bruce Lee vs. Clint Eastwood.^note Firepower: Cool in the 80's, maybe.
  • Lao Tzu briefly appears in the "More Battles" window at the end of David Copperfield vs. Harry Houdini, two battles ahead of his own.
  • When Nietzsche spells his name, an individual copy of himself slides onscreen for each letter. All the consonants show him standing straight as a pole, but the vowels have noticeably different poses.
  • When Walt Disney shows off his "empire of joy", all the sketchpads the artists are drawing on contain logos of various channels and studios owned by The Walt Disney Company, including ESPN, ABC, A&E, and Maker Studios.
  • Lightning strikes on Jack the Ripper's line "This is horrorcore"; pausing at the right time shows Jack glaring at the viewer, teeth bared.
  • The mock HBO screen has George R. R. Martin striking poses to resemble the HBO logo; beneath him is the slogan "dope-ass programming."
  • The Season 5 mid-season finale (Ivan the Terrible vs Alexander the Great) has text that flashes for less than a second during the thank-you message at the end. It says it "takes a special kind of person" to pause for it, and thanks the viewer again.
  • The list Santa Claus consults as he tells off Moses also includes Master Chief, Mr. Rogers, and Mozart.
• Freudian Trio:
  • The three rappers in Hulk Hogan and Macho Man vs Kim Jong-il: Hogan (id), Kim (ego) and Macho Man (superego).
  • The three rappers in Billy Mays vs Ben Franklin: Vince Offer (id), Mays (ego) and Franklin (superego).
  • The three rappers in Steve Jobs vs Bill Gates: Gates (id), Jobs (ego), and HAL 9000 (superego).
  • The three rappers in Barack Obama vs Mitt Romney: Romney (id), Abe Lincoln (ego) and Obama (superego).
  • the three ghosts in Dondald Trump vs Ebenezer Scrooge: Kanye West (id), J.P. Morgan (ego) and Death (superego).
  • The three rappers in Sir Isaac Newton vs Bill Nye: Newton (id), Nye (ego) and Neil deGrasse Tyson (superego).
  • The three western philosophers: Nietzsche (id), Socrates (ego), and Voltaire (superego).
  • The three eastern philosophers: Sun Tzu (id), Confucius (ego) and Lao Tzu (superego).
  • The three rappers in Stan Lee vs Jim Henson: Walt Disney (id), Lee (ego), and Henson (superego).
  • The three rappers in James Bond vs Austin Powers: Powers (id), Craig!Bond (ego), and Connery!Bond (superego).
  • In general, we have the core three ERB writers: Nice Peter (id), Epic Lloyd (ego), and Zach Sherwin (superego).
• Funny Background Event: Has its own page.
• Fun with Acronyms: Karl Marx ends his rap by claiming that Henry Ford will fulfill the F.O.R.D. acronym — Found On Road Dead.
• Fun with Subtitles:
  • In "Kirk vs. Columbus", the word Klingon is written in Klingon.
  • When Luigi's profanity is censored by the sound of collected coins, the subtitles also use the image of coins from the Mario Bros games as a form of censorship.
  • The words да ("yes") and сука ("bitch") in Rasputin vs. Stalin are written in Cyrillic.
  • The words "На здоровье!" ("Bless you!") in "Alexander the Great vs. Ivan the Terrible" are also written in Cyrillic, although the word "нет" ("no") is not, instead written as it is pronounced ("nyet").
  • At the beginning of "Ash vs. Darwin", Ash's first lines are slightly higher up the screen than usual, but move to their usual place when the camera rotates around Ash.
  • At one point in his first verse, Elon Musk picks up one of his subtitles.
  • The absolute very end frame of "Lara Croft vs. Indiana Jones" previews Godzilla for the next rap battle.

G-L

• Gag Nose: Actor Zach Sherwin has a famously hooked nose, which has been the source of humour thrice:
  • Ebenezer Scrooge makes fun of J.P. Morgan's "gross ghost proboscis" while the camera focuses on Scrooge's own funny nose.
  • Socrates tells Voltaire to "keep his fat nose in his coffee".
  • Tony Hawk says that Wayne Gretzky's nose has such a steep slope, even he wouldn't use it as a ramp.
  • Apart from Zach, there's a throwaway line from Marilyn Monroe directed at Cleopatra:
    Marilyn: This ugly hag and KassemG got matching noses!
• Gang Up on the Human: A musical variation happens when Ebenezer Scrooge (Human) fights against Donald Trump, JP Morgan, Kanye West, and The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come (Ghosts).
• Gave Up Too Soon: Mirroring the ending of Romeo and Juliet, Bonnie shoots Juliet, apparently killing her, prompting Romeo to poison himself. The second he swallows the poison, Juliet regains her consciousness.
• Gender Scoff: The whole point of Adam vs. Eve is Man vs. Woman, with both complaining about each other's flaws.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Occasionally a third rapper will unexpectedly interrupt the battle at hand to oppose both of the original parties.
  • HAL 9000; Watch "Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates" all the way to the end, and you'll find no comments calling for a battle involving him.
  • Abraham Lincoln during "Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney", arriving being carried by a giant bald eagle. According to NicePeter, any historical figure can interrupt a rap battle at any time, if they're being carried by a winged beast.
  • The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in "Ghostbusters vs. Mythbusters". While he's an iconic part of the Ghostbusters movie, the Mythbusters definitely weren't expecting him.
  • Exaggerated in "Rasputin vs. Stalin", "Spielberg vs. Hitchcock" and "Alexander the Great vs. Ivan the Terrible", , where the rap battle keeps getting interrupted by more and more "fleas".
  • Defied in "Houdini vs. Copperfield": Criss Angel tries to butt-in and steal the show, but Houdini bluntly tells him that no one actually summoned him and he dejectedly leaves.
• Girls vs. Boys Plot: "Adam vs. Eve" is this trope in battle rap form, where half of the lyrics are actual Biblical references and the other half consists of insults based on gender stereotypes.
• A Glass of Chianti: Naturally mentioned in "Jack the Ripper vs Hannibal Lecter", by the latter:
  And catch what the iller serial killer can deliver
  Rhymes finer than the Chianti I would pair with your liver
• Global Ignorance: Hulk Hogan tells Kim Jong-Il to go back to Beijing. Kim doesn't let that one slide, angrily pointing out that Beijing is in China, not Korea.
• A God Am I:
  • Implied by Chuck Norris. Who was, y'know, 100 feet tall and glowing at the time, which may have lent some credence to his claim.
  • Kim Jong-Il calls himself one.
  • Cleopatra claims to be descended from the gods. Justified here in that the Egyptians really did believe the Pharaohs were incarnations of the gods.
  • Bill Gates calls himself one too because he owns Xbox.
  • Justified with Zeus and Thor, who really are gods.
  • Ivan the Terrible describes himself as "Heaven-sent, divine and holy".
  • Alexander the Great claims immortality, which was associated with the Gods in Ancient Greece, so he's indirectly calling himself one.
• Gone Horribly Right: Everything Bill Gates has done leads to HAL 9000... and Bill seems to realize it.
• Gratuitous French:
  • Napoleon Bonaparte breaks into this partway through his rap. Naturally, it translates to another Take That!.
  • Joan of Arc says "je suis la fille en feu (I am the girl on fire) call me Katniss Everdeen" in her first verse.
• Gratuitous Russian:
  • Vladimir Putin calls Rasputin, Stalin, Lenin, and Gorbachev "bitch" in Russian.
  • Ivan the Terrible says "Bless you!" to Alexander the Great in Russian.
• Groin Attack:
  • In round three, Hitler vows to kick Vader's balls (and face).
  • Stalin also references the historical removal of Rasputin's "moose cock."
  • Batman threatens to crush Sherlock Holmes's "British nuts until they're bangers and mash."
  • There are many references to how William Wallace was castrated during his execution, and George Washington outright threatens to knee him in the "moose knuckle."
  • Hannibal Lecter vows to roast Jack the Ripper's balls on a Hibachi.
  • Thor does this to a frost giant's (pixelated) junk, and later threatens to kick Zeus's "wrinkly dick back in [his] toga".
  • Oprah threatens to "lodge [her] fabulous shoe up [Ellen's] suit pants," which could be this or Ass Shove.
  • Nietzsche warns Sun Tzu that he'll "put a knee up in [his] chi."
  • James Bond (the Sean Connery edition) claims he can break the balls of James Bond (Daniel Craig version) without using a Q.
  • Caitlyn Jenner threatens to put a javelin through Hulk's "jolly green discus".
  • Ivan the Terrible says if Alexander the Great approaches him he'll get “a huge sack like Novgorod!”.
  • implied when Wayne Gretzky says Tony Hawk will “catch a slapshot to the deck!“
  • When battling Guy Fawkes, Che Guevara references how "they cut your junk out!"
  • Vlad the Impaler threatens to turn Dracula's "taint to a 'tis" by putting a stick through it
  • The Easter Bunny, of all people, threatens to ram his foot up Genghis Khan's vagina.
  • Henry Ford announces to Karl Marx that "Any Prussian trying to seize his private property will catch a torque wrench to his private parts properly."
• Gross-Up Close-Up: Austin Powers gets a shot of just his yellow, plaque-ridden teeth during his first verse.
• Hannibal Lecture: As you might expect, Hannibal Lector does it during his battle with Jack the Ripper. He spends about half of his verses psychoanalyzing Jack, describing him as an Attention Whore with no class.
• Ham-to-Ham Combat: The entire premise; historical figures outhamming each other through raps.
• Handicapped Badass:
  • Attentive viewers will notice that Hawking is playing Angry Birds on the console he uses to speak. Without using his hands.
  • Darth Vader is technically an example of this trope because of his life-support armor.
• Hair-Raising Hare: What the Easter Bunny attempts to be.
• Hashtag Rap:
  • In Darth Vader's first verse in "Hitler vs. Vader 2".
    I strike back hard against a Nazi
    Brain toss your ass in the air — Yahtzee!
  • In "Gandhi vs. Martin Luther King, Jr.":
    King: Flatten your style like bread — naan-violence.
  • And Al Capone does the same during his rap against Blackbeard:
    I'm the emcee assassin, slash like Edward Kenway!
    Raps so hard, call me Al — dente.
  • In Walter White's first verse in "Rick Grimes vs Walter White".
    Run you over with my Aztec — GTA.
  • In "Stephen King vs. Edgar Allan Poe":
    King: I'm a mad dog, fangs shining — Cujo.
  • Boba Fett from his bonus battle against Deadpool:
    I'm a legend, you're a trend; you ain't got half the skills I got.
    I'll beat your ass with one eye closed — Boba Fetty Wap!
  • In "Gordon Ramsay vs. Julia Child":
    Child: Concede, I've got this in the bag — sous-vide!^FYISous-vide is a cooking method in which food is put in an airtight bag and then cooked in boiling water
  • James Bond in "James Bond vs. Austin Powers":
    I only need one round — *gunshot* — golden gun.
  • Mark Zuckerberg unleashes a slew of these against Elon Musk:
    Watch me Oculus, Instagram, WhatsApp — post!
    I'm cleaning up like a Wet-nap — boast!
    I drive around in a hatchback — beep-beep!
    I'll end your story like Snapchat — ghost!
• Heavy Mithril: George R. R. Martin claims to be more "rock 'n' roll" than J. R. R. Tolkien. Tolkien proves him wrong by pointing out this trope.
  I'm more rock 'n' roll than you've ever been!
  Don't believe me? Ask Led Zeppelin!
• Henpecked Husband:
  • Adam complains multiple times about how Eve never shuts up or stops nagging him over every. Last. Little. Detail.
  • Stedman Graham appears in this role to Oprah.
• Hero vs. Villain Duet:
  • "Genghis Khan vs Easter Bunny" features the Mongolian warlord rapping against the holiday mascot. The Easter Bunny critiques Khan's appearance and violent nature while Khan threatens the Bunny.
  • "Napoleon vs Napoleon" features French tyrant Napoleon Bonaparte rapping against the titular character from the film Napoleon Dynamite, with the two mocking the other's appearance and actions.
  • "Rick Grimes vs Walter White" features the heroic cop Rick Grimes from The Walking Dead against Walter White, the drug dealing main protagonist of Breaking Bad. Grimes is disgusted by White's crimes and treatment of his family, while White mocks Grimes as incompetent.
  • "Terminator vs RoboCop" features RoboCop from the film of the same name against the T-800 from The Terminator. RoboCop attacks the Terminator's villainy and lack of humanity, while the Terminator gloats about its strength and RoboCop's physical and mental inferiority.
  • "Freddy Krueger vs Wolverine" features Freddy Krueger, the undead serial child killer from A Nightmare on Elm Street up against Wolverine from Marvel Comics. Krueger boasts his invulnerability and fear factor, while Wolverine mocks Krueger for being an ineffective villain and for not being a challenging foe.
  • "Thanos vs J. Robert Oppenheimer" has Thanos from Marvel Comics against the inventor of the nuclear bomb. Thanos plays off Oppenheimer's guilt and mocks him for his failures, while Oppenheimer condemns Thanos for his villainy and mocks his accomplishments.
• Hilarious Outtakes: Behind the scenes, NicePeter (as Columbus) accidentally smacks Omar Gharaibeh (as Spock) in the face while delivering a neck chop.
• Hipster: While dressing up as Skrillex, Lloyd says that all you need are a pair of black glasses and magnetic earrings and you'll look like one.
• Historical Badass Upgrade: Some of the rappers, but especially Abraham Lincoln.
• Historical Domain Character: Majority of the characters, with Abraham Lincoln and Adolf Hitler being the most prominent ones.
• Historical In-Joke: So many, with them almost all very well researched.
• Hit You So Hard, Your X Will Feel It!: Columbus will beat Kirk so bad, they'll feel it in the next generation.
• Halloween Episode: "Vlad the Impaler vs Count Dracula" in Season 6, released in the last week of October.
• Honest Corporate Executive:
  • Donald Trump vs. Ebeneezer Scrooge features J.P. Morgan, the Ghost of Rich Dudes Past.
    J.P. Morgan: Your greed is the curse that will tear you apart. What good is your purse if you're poor in your heart?
  • Bill Gates. His battle with Steve Jobs is by far the least hostile in the series. He even refers to Jobs as his friend after Jobs ascends. He also brags about having given away more than his opponent's net worth to AIDS research. Jobs probably also qualifies, given that he ascends to Heaven at the end.
  • Elon Musk just wants to stave off "the Dark Ages" and send mankind to Mars, while he calls out Mark Zuckerberg for "selling us out for some net worth".
• Hong Kong Dub: Clint Eastwood mocks Bruce Lee about this, saying he needs to practice more on matching his lip flaps, as Eastwood's mouth actually falls out of sync with his lines for a brief moment.
• Hurricane Kick: Xin Wuku pulls off one perfectly in the behind the scenes.
• Hurricane of Puns:
  • "Nikola Tesla vs. Thomas Edison" is filled with numerous electricity, internet, and light bulb puns.
  • Albert Einstein's first verse.
    Albert Einstein: When I apply my battle theory, minds are relatively blown.
    So take a seat, Steve. Oop, I see you brought your own.
    What's with your voice? I can't frickin' tell!
    You sound like WALL-E having sex with a Speak & Spell!
    I'll school you anywhere, MIT to Oxford.
    All your fans will be like, "Um, that was Hawk-ward!"
    I'm as dope as two rappers. You better be scared!
    'Cause that means Albert E equals MC squared!
  • "Gandhi vs. Martin Luther King" has an extended one:
    Martin Luther King: I'm the King of civil rights from the city to suburbia.
    No shoes, no shirt, but I'm still gonna serve ya!
    Make ya swallow your words so you can break the fast,
    Then thank God almighty you can eat at last.
    I admire the way you broke the British power,
    But I have a dream that one day you'll take a shower!
    Like the H in your name, you ought to remain silent.
    Flatten your style like bread — naan-violence.
    Gandhi: You would know about bread, Dr. Birming-ham sandwich.
    Boycott those grits, sit in with some spinach.
    With protests and women, the same advice goes
    Always stay away from the hos!
    Martin Luther King: I've got so much street cred, they write my name on the signs!
    I'd ring ya for tech support, but I got a no-bell prize!
  • Superman's verses are filled with Dragon Ball Z related puns and in-jokes.
  • Stephen King indulges in one in his first verse.
    Stephen King: I'm making dedicated readers shivery and jittery.
    Feel that rage and misery!
    You better start running, man. You're in deep poo, Poe!
    I'm a mad dog, fangs shining — Cujo!
    Tommyknock you down till you can't stand up.
    You're as soft as Po, the Kung Fu Panda!
  • As does Thor:
    Thor: Brought forth by my raging thunderstorm force.
    'Cause I don't get nice, I get Norse! (Noirse!)
    Valhalla-atcha boy and we'll flyte it out!
    But keep your Asgard up, I Ragnarök the house!
  • Just about every other line in "James Bond vs. Austin Powers" contains some sort of pun on a Bond movie title.
  • Steven Spielberg mimics Stephen King's:
    Spielberg: Trying to duel with me, Alfred? You must be psycho!
    I'll bring back Jaws and take a bite of your lifeboat!
    I'm always so on top of my game, I get the vertigo!
    My jet's in the terminal, waiting for me to Murder! ya!
  • Stevie Wonder vs. Wonder Woman is full of puns on Stevie Wonder songs. At one point Diana begins a line with "I just called to say..." and in another line, Stevie says he comes from a "higher ground."
  • George Carlin ends his verse with one of these:
  So call this Pryor-rrhea, I doo-doo on you constantly
  No pauses in my punchlines, no commas in my comedy
  You'll be down for the count when this counterculture counter-man
  Serves you with a stand-uppercut you can't counter, damn!
  I'm Wilder than Gene when I'm killing a beat
  You're steady taking second place — that's a Silver Streak.
  • Steve Irwin does a short one in his first verse:
  I'm a wild man, you're a subdued sub-dude
  The only crocs you could handle are some slip-on shoes.
  Crikey! You're such a boring guy
  You could make a whole show about the ocean dry!

  • Later in the same battle:
  Jacques Cousteau: Wanna talk about sons? Better watch what you say now!
  You almost turned yours into Outback Mistakehouse!
  Steve Irwin: Would you rather talk about your brother? Hoo boy!
  Nazi nazi nazi! Oi oi oi...
  Jacques: Enough with your antics and madness!
  Contain yourself like my underwater breathing apparatus.
  • Sigmund Freud ends his first verse with one, to which Teresa responds with one of her own:
  Freud: You took credit that you didn't deserve
  You're the fakest Sister Act since Whoopi Goldberg!
  You were running Project Pimp The Projects!
  For you, Calcutta meant Cal-cutta cheque!
  I can see right through you and you've got no flavour —
  I'm battling a Communion wafer.
  Teresa: You call that a verse? You're super-ego tripping!
  I have to say, Sigmund, you're Freudian slipping!
  I built mad missions in my saviour's name
  All you built was a mad tolerance for cocaine!
  Obsessed with masturbation, but you're off the beat
  Your flows are so poor I should be washing their feet.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • In the season 1 finale, EpicLLOYD mocks Peter for his receding hairline, despite being bald himself.
  • Blackbeard taunts Al Capone about having syphilis, but Blackbeard also had syphilis. However he may be taunting Capone over the fact that Al died from syphilis, whereas Blackbeard didn't.
  • Clint Eastwood tells Bruce Lee he needs to make sure his voice matches his lips... as his own mouth flaps fail to match up with that line.
  • Walter White makes fun of Rick Grimes for how his wife cheated on him with Shane, never mind the fact that Skyler cheated on him with Ted.
  • David Copperfield calls Harry Houdini out on "talking shit about his hero," despite the fact that that's exactly what he's doing to Houdini, his hero.
  • While Lewis and Clark call Bill and Ted useless because they have to depend on their Hypercompetent Sidekick Rufus to get them out of jams, Sacajawea is in the background doing the heavy lifting - catching by far the biggest fish, rowing the canoe they're on, and wrestling and slaying a bear by herself.
  • Shaka Zulu mocks Caesar for having been assassinated by his close friends... and fails to mention that he himself met exactly the same fate.
  • Sun Tzu mocks Confucius's oversized eyebrows, even though his eyebrows are just as big, if not bigger.
  • RoboCop drops a line about how much of a disappointment Terminator 3 was, but as the Terminator points out, RoboCop's third film didn't go over well, either.
  • Deadpool mocks Boba Fett for having two different voices...with the help of his Red Voice and Yellow Voice.
  • In the season 5 finale, Peter accuses Lloyd of trying to find rhymes for "erection", despite having done just that in his previous line.
  • Wendy doesn't have much room to mock Burger King for being "always second fiddle".
• I Am Not Shazam: Invoked, The Doctor corrects the Narrator on calling him Doctor Who.
• I Did What I Had to Do:
  • How Lance Armstrong justifies his infamous blood doping in the name of winning — verbatim, no less.
  • Invoked by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, in reference to the fact that its creation prevented a protracted land war against Japan, which was almost certain to be an even bloodier outcome. This is accurate to the real Oppenheimer, who maintained even 20 years after the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that it was a necessary evil that prevented a far greater loss of life.
• I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: Ragnar Lodbrok clarifies that he's a warrior, not a linguist.
  Lodbrok: But I think the King of England should probably speak English!
• In-Universe Factoid Failure: In "Hulk Hogan vs. Kim Jong-Il", Hogan claims he'll leg-drop Kim back to Beijing.
  Kim: Beijing is in China, you blonde asshole!
• Incoming Ham: Usually how a surprise competitor introduces themselves.
  • Abraham Lincoln during the Romney/Obama battle:
    Lincoln: BY THE POWER INVESTED IN ME BY THIS GIANT BALD BIRD!
  • The announcer barely even gets to finish opening the second battle before...
    Hitler: I AM ADOLF HITLER, COMMANDER OF ZE THIRD REICH!
  • Hitler also opens his third battle with:
    Hitler: SCREW YOU, you big, black cunt!
  • Steve Jobs ensured he didn't get to finish at ALL.
    Announcer: Bill Gates! VS!
    Jobs: Lemme just step right in, I got things to INVENT!
  • In Spielberg vs Hitchcock, Michael Bay butts in on Stanley Kubrick while flying in on a helicopter at sunset (one of his tropes), and it just gets less and less kosher from there.
  • Walt Disney shouts his way into a sentimental moment to a...disturbing rendition of the Mickey Mouse anthem
  • Putin In the Russian rulers battle. "Did somebody say real power?"
  • Also from Rasputin vs Stalin, Lenin drops in out of nowhere and immediately starts yelling at Stalin.
  • Robin Williams's appearance in George Carlin vs Richard Pryor
    Robin Williams: (flying out of a magic lamp) GOOD MORNING MOVIE BOMBS!
• Informed Ability:
  • Elvis claims to have 1 rap for Michael Jackson's monkey, 2 for his clothes, 3 for his family, and 4 for his nose. Besides some cracks about his abusive father and his relationship to his wife, he ends up making fun of some completely different traits of his instead.
  • Sigmund Freud starts his verse saying the amount of jokes he could make about Teresa's looks are abundant, but he doesn't end up making any other jokes about Teresa's appearance after that.
• Interrupted by the End: The end of "Donald Trump vs. Ebeneezer Scrooge".
  Scrooge: It's Christmas, I haven't missed my chance to be different! God bless us every—
  WHO WON!? WHO'S NEXT!? YOU DECIDE!
• Insistent Terminology: The title of the rap battle calls The Doctor "Doctor Who", but as he points out in his first line, it's just The Doctor.
• Insult Backfire:
  • Skrillex tries to call Mozart weird for his obsession over scatological humor. Mozart turns it back on him by referring to Skrillex's music as "skrill-excrement" and "diarrhea".
  • Lewis and Clark attempt to insult Bill and Ted with the line "We inspired pioneers and travelers near and far / You inspired air guitar and Dude, Where's My Car?!" When air guitar is mentioned, you can see Bill and Ted smiling like it's the coolest thing.
  • Justin Bieber mocks Beethoven for being deafened by his own music. Beethoven responds that he's glad he's deaf because now he can't hear "that piece of shit My World".
  • The Easter Bunny accuses Genghis Khan of being a brutal rapist barbarian. Khan takes pride in the accusation, boasts that he ravaged land from Poland to Korea, and threatens to slaughter the Easter Bunny's family to make a new coat.
  • Dumbledore retorts Gandalf's homophobic insults with "I prefer the company of wizards and I'm PROUD of it!"
  • Michael Jackson vs. Elvis Presley gives us two double examples:
    • Jackson accuses Elvis of stealing rock and roll from black people. Elvis owns up to it and turns it back on Michael to mock his racial identity, saying, "I stole from black culture — why are you offended?" Jackson's next verse, where he goes from a black child to an adult with white skin, opens with him stating, "I didn't lose any chocolate, I just added vanilla."
    • Elvis calls Jackson out on his alleged pedophilia, and Jackson points out that Elvis is the one whose wife was fourteen when he met her, and that their eventual daughter married him. Elvis then turns that insult inside out by claiming that he only allowed this because he knew Jackson would not want to have sex with her.
  • Cleopatra tells Marilyn Monroe, "You sleep with any ugly dude who says he likes it hot." Marilyn responds by bragging that she slept with Marlon Brando and JFK, while Cleopatra slept with her own brothers.
  • Frank Sinatra mocks Freddie Mercury's AIDS, telling him that he "played butthole roulette" and "lost the draw". Freddie responds by proudly stating that he "took one for both teams from a disease no-one knew existed".
  • William Wallace does this three times in his battle against George Washington:
    • When George points out that Wallace died before he was actually free, Wallace responds by painting his death as a Heroic Sacrifice while George died in a comfy home owning slaves.
    • When George makes fun of Wallace's Cruel and Unusual Death, Wallace claims even if he was emasculated, eviscerated and beheaded, he'd still be able to rip George's ass on the mike.
    • Finally, when George pokes fun at Scotland for being "only famous for golf and haggis", Wallace replies with this line:
      Don't tee off with me, laddy!
      If you held my balls, you couldn't be my caddy!
  • Mr. Rogers says Mr. T calls himself by such a short name because he can't spell his real name. Mr. T responds that he's so awesome, he only needs one letter.
  • Similar to the above, Deadpool says that Boba Fett is overrated due to only having five lines in the original Star Wars trilogy's entirety, including the Wilhelm Scream. Fett responds that he's so awesome, he only needs five lines.
  • Craig!James Bond and Austin Powers team up against Connery!Bond, calling him out on his misogyny. Connery!Bond thinks it makes him more of a gentleman.
  • Jim Henson calls Stan Lee out on taking credit for "Jack Kirby's comic books." Lee reminds them that he and Kirby were close friends, and Lee, in fact, often fought in favour of Kirby's credit.
  • Wonder Woman mocks Stevie Wonder for being blind. Stevie points out that she could be blinder than him, due to calling herself "Ms. Independent" despite "running off with a guy" in her origin story.
  • Winston Churchill mocks the premature deaths of Teddy Roosevelt's family. Roosevelt points out that at least he wasn't abandoned by his family like Churchill was.
  • J. R. R. Tolkien also manages this thrice:
    • At the beginning of the battle, George R. R. Martin criticizes The Lord of the Rings for being unrealistic. Tolkien reminds him that the genre they both write for is literally called "fantasy."
    • Martin makes the terrible pun "I'll cut you like my teeth on Beauty and the Beast." Tolkien responds that he cut his teeth in World War I, while Martin avoided the Vietnam War.
    • Martin claims to be "rock and roll" compared to Tolkien. The latter not only claims the opposite, but proves it: he points out that Led Zeppelin was inspired by him.
  • Zeus boasts about "getting bitches." Thor thinks it makes him a "rapist." Even more awesomely, Thor defies this trope: he claims that the only reason why he won't spit in Zeus's face is because, thanks to his aforementioned sex obsession, he'd probably like it.
  • In "Spielberg vs. Hitchcock", Spielberg refers to the fact that Michael Bay never won any Oscars, Hitchcock criticizes the acting in Transformers, Tarantino refers to Bay's movies as "sellout bullshit", and Kubrick calls the Ninja Turtles movie Bay produced a "waste of potential". Bay then shows up to inform the others that to him, box office success is more important than critical success.
  • In "Elon Musk vs. Mark Zuckerberg", Mark mocks Elon's getting high on Joe Rogan's podcast, to which Elon directly responds by saying that not even marijuana can slow his pace.
  • Che Guevara boasts about how his face appears on lots of merchandise. Guy Fawkes is quick to point out that buying such merchandise is supporting capitalism, despite Guevara being a communist.
  • Vlad the Impaler mocks Count Dracula for inspiring Lighter and Softer recent portrayals of vampires like Count Chocula. Dracula responds by opening his verses with a reference to Count von Count. He later drives the point home further by accusing Vlad of having "less taste than an Anne Rice cake" and telling him he lost so bad, he "should join Team Jacob".
  • Rasputin brags about being well-endowed and threatens to seduce Stalin's wife. At the start of his first verse, Stalin makes a point of how little he cares about his wife by openly boasting about how abusively he treated his son.
  • Donald Trump mocks Joe Biden for his family tragedies and his accusations of being inappropriate with children; Biden responds by noting that as he's experienced the pain of losing loved ones firsthand, he knows how Trump must have felt after the death of Jeffrey Epstein.
  • After Henry Ford points out that only dictators respect Karl Marx, Marx points out that Ford's name is in Mein Kampf.
• Insurance Fraud: Al Capone threatens to burn down Blackbeard's boat for the insurance money.
• In the Back: Darth Vader doesn't give Adolf Hitler a chance to finish rapping his second verse in Round 3. He just sneaks up behind him and cuts him in half with his lightsaber.
• Iron Butt Monkey: Adolf Hitler survives being frozen in carbonite in the first battle and dropped into the Rancor pit in the second. He appears to have been Killed Off for Real by being cut in half in the third. He does continue to scream afterwards, but that's probably just Rule of Funny.
• Irony: Sir Isaac Newton, in his first verse against Bill Nye, criticizes him for wasting his time debating creationists. Sir Isaac Newton himself was a creationist, making this inadvertent self-deprecation.^note It's understandable since Newton lived before Lamarck. Evolution didn't exist as a scientific theory in his time, only as a vague idea which few scientists adhered to Alternatively, it could be interpreted as a Stealth Insult: Nye is wasting his time battling Newton, because there's no chance he can win.
• I Surrender, Suckers: Ivan the Terrible admits defeat when faced with Alexander the Great's rapping skills, and shares with him a drink... that just so happens to be poisoned. He then tries the same thing with Frederick the Great, who dies before he can make good on the opportunity. He does so a third time when Catherine the Great shows up, but she doesn't take the bait.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: Marty McFly only seems to object to the Fourth Doctor referring to him as a chicken, not his earlier insinuation that he has an Oedipal complex.
• Jaw Drop:
  • In the aftermath of Shakespeare's Motor Mouth segment. Even the beat stops.
  • NicePeter's jaw drops when Epic Lloyd strips out of his leotard.
  • Robin's jaw drops when beholding Sherlock Holmes's deductive skills.
  • The Christmas elves are quite surprised that Moses' religion forbids bacon.
• Jerkass: Some rappers come off as this, whether it's by making fun of their opponent's handicap or illness or a deceased member of their family, or boasting about their awful crimes.
  • Thomas Edison is a greedy, idea-stealing, and Tesla-smearing jerkass. He's an absolute jerkass in fact.
  • Josef Stalin, who shows no remorse for his actions, and even brags about leaving his own son to die in prison.
  • Adolf Hitler, naturally considering he is considered one of the most evil men (if not the most evil) in history. Several of his lines are jokes about how he had Jews murdered in death camps.
  • Jack the Ripper, who not only brags about murdering people but also favorably compares himself to modern terrorists. He's such a jerk that even Hannibal Lecter calls him out on it.
  • Donald Trump, who in his first appearance insults Scrooge instead of telling him how to change his ways. And he's even worse in his match against Hillary Clinton where he drops many sexist and racist remarks, referencing the real Donald Trump's behavior in the 2016 election.
• Jerkass Gods: The Greek pantheon, according to Thor. While excellently researched, this part is also hypocritical since the Norse pantheon were no less jerky than the Greek ones; it's the main reason why Loki gets so much Draco in Leather Pants. Thor's father Odin was guilty of everything and more that he accuses to Zeus. Thor in the original myths, while less of a jerk, was also hardly all that flattering himself.
  Thor: Who would ever worship someone as abusive as Zeus is? You're ruthless to humans; your crew is like the Clash of the Douches!
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Lampshaded by Abraham Lincoln in "Obama vs. Romney". Lincoln accuses Romney of being a flip-flopper and only caring about money rather than the country, but also agrees with him that Obama hasn't made any meaningful change in his time in office.
  • Referenced in "Ghostbusters vs. Mythbusters", when the Mythbusters point out that, as much of a dick as Walter Peck was, he was right that the Ghostbusters were doing some shady shit.
  • Thomas Edison is unabashedly a massive Jerkass, but he notes in his second verse that without him, there would be no Epic Rap Battles of History.
    Edison: Without me? Here's a taste of how this battle would be. No lights, no camera, no sound. (screen goes black) See?
• Joke Character:
  • Even the narrator sighs when he introduces the Easter Bunny.
  • The "Mr. T vs. Mr. Rogers" battle set up Mr. Rogers to look like this, but ultimately subverted it, and instead turns him into a Lethal Joke Character.
  • Criss Angel, who tries to enter the battle in “David Copperfield vs Harry Houdini” after hearing “angel” but gets rejected by Houdini telling him that he said “angle”.
  • Pompey the Great, who tries to enter the battle in “Alexander the Great vs Ivan the Terrible” before getting beheaded by Catherine the Great, this is a reference to how he was killed in real life before he could give a speech.
  • Bill Cosby, who only gets to say two full lines before falling unconscious for his pudding being drugged, and is completely annihilated by Joan Rivers. This is due to his recent conviction on multiple counts of rape and sexual assault.
• Just Here for Godzilla: In-universe, during their Rap battle, Epic Lloyd invokes this as the reason people visit Nice Peter's YouTube channel.
• Kiai: Bruce Lee doesn't need words to fight Clint Eastwood, when he can just say "waaataaaw" instead.
• Kids Rock: Young Michael Jackson, played by then-10-year-old Bentley Green.
• Kick the Dog: While constant general hostility is to be expected given the nature of the series, a few moments stand out as particularly cruel, especially those made at the expense of tragedies that affected other people (usually family members) besides those they are used to mock:
  • Cleopatra mocks Marilyn Monroe for her lost babies, saying that she should be called "Miss Carriage".
  • Clint Eastwood ends his battle with Bruce Lee by referencing the death of his son Brandon.
  • Michael Jordan mocks the Parkinson's disease of Muhammad Ali, who retaliates in kind by mocking the murder of Jordan's father.
  • Goku uses his final line to mock the real-life accident that caused Christopher Reeve to be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
  • Ash Ketchum uses his own franchise's catchphrase to mock Darwin's multiple dead children.
  • Joseph Stalin notably dedicates nearly every line he says to this, mainly just boasting about the horrific effects his rule had on Russia.
  • Jacques Cousteau mocks Steve Irwin's death, which the latter comments on in outrage.
  • Pennywise mocks Joker about Heath Ledger's death. To make it worse, he taunts Joker about the rumor that Ledger died due to after-effects from his portrayal of him.
• Killed Mid-Sentence:
  • Darth Vader barely gives Adolf Hitler a chance to say his name, nevermind finishing his second verse (which doesn't even rhyme) in round 3. He sliced him in half with his lightsaber. Hitler never saw it coming. Then again, Boba Fett wasn't expecting to be shot flying offscreen in the middle of his verse either.
  • Pompey the Great doesn't get to say much more than his name before he's beheaded.
  • Bonnie and Clyde get gunned down by the Feds while Clyde talks about how they've got each other's backs.
• Kissing Cousins: Skrillex claims that Mozart and his cousin Maria Anna Thekla engaged in more than kissing. Stephen King also says the same about Edgar Allan Poe (and is creeped out by it); as does Caitlyn Jenner about Bruce Banner; and Ash Ketchum about Charles Darwin.
• Knight of Cerebus: Walt Disney interrupts a touching moment between Stan Lee and Jim Henson and unleashes a genuinely unsettling verse about owning them both.
  • Hal 9000 made for a very similar effect with his appearance earlier in the series.
  • Freddy Krueger is genuinely, overtly horrific as he attempts to kill Wolverine and looks poised to succeed, remaining an evident threat even after Logan's ensuing Catapult Nightmare saves him in the immediate term.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Peter and Lloyd got "Weird Al" Yankovic for a rap battle. Lloyd reveals in the Behind The Scenes that both of them have been huge fans of his music for all their lives. Lloyd starts singing "Yoda", saying it's the song he grew up on.
• Knocking the Knockoff: With the premise of of the show often involving two (usually) related characters rapping against each other, this inevitably comes into play whenever a character and an Expy of the character are involved, with the original often calling out the Expy for being a cheap ripoff.
  • Vlad the Impaler faces off against Dracula, the fictional vampire inspired by him, and in the battle is portrayed in the Hollywood image of Bela Lugosi from Dracula (1931). Vlad is quick to point out his campy attire, among other aspects that were dumbed down for media portrayal.
  • Harry Potter vs. Luke Skywalker has Luke pointing out exactly how many similarities the wizard boy had conceptually copied, including being an orphan who finds himself under the tutelage of a wise old mentor and eventually learning he is The Chosen One.
• Kubrick Stare: Dr. Seuss has a frightening one. Given that he never says a word...
  • Hannibal Lecter naturally does this during his verses.
  • Stanley Kubrick does this at the beginning of his verse.
  • Ivan the Terrible does this in nearly every scene he's in because he's creepy.
  • Mitt Romney also does this in his opening lines, a reference to the then-popular dig that he was creepy-looking.
• Lampshade Hanging:
  • Shakespeare's first verse is in iambic pentameter. Likewise, Edgar Allen Poe's first verse is in trochaic octameter. Both of them take notice.
    Shakespeare: I hath been iambic on that ass, ye bastard.
    
    Edgar Allen Poe: I will choke this joker with a trochee 'til his cheeks are teary!
  • Hannibal Lecter calls Jack the Ripper out for the mistakes he made in the battle.
    Hannibal Lecter: Jack, you're a classic megalomaniac.
    You haven't mentioned me once in your entire battle rap!
    Pity your verse wasn't worth the trip in the jacket,
    Quit jacking off on the track and put the lotion in the basket!
    
    No, no, Jack, you were doing fine,
    Before your ham-fisted attempt at a terrorist line!
    How typical of Jack the Ripper to chase a headline!
    Pick Ray Liotta's brain and ask him how I get mine.
• Large Ham: As this is a show about rap battles between large personalities, this is expected.
  • Hitler, Genghis Khan, Mr. T, Leonidas, Luigi, Freddie Mercury, and Martin Luther King Jr.
  • Also, Lincoln. Especially so in Romney vs. Obama.
    Abraham Lincoln: Of the people! By the people! For the people! EAGLE!!!
  • Chuck Norris, Beethoven, Mozart, Skrillex, Columbus, Lance Armstrong, Darth Vader, O'Reilly, and Tesla too.
  • The Season 4 mid-season finale proved that five of the best directors of our time definitely had huge egos. Especially Michael "MOTHERFUCKING MONEY!" Bay.
  • Vladimir Lenin and Teddy Roosevelt. Oh god, Teddy Roosevelt. Almost everything he says in the ERB News he hosts comes out hammy.
    Teddy Roosevelt: POLARIZING NEWS!!!
  • They're just the worst. Almost everyone to appear in these vids is hamming it up, though HAL 9000 is an exception with his Creepy Monotone, as is Vladimir Putin, who doesn't seem all too excited.
  • Walt Disney, perhaps the largest ham in the entire series.
    • Basically any character played by Zach Sherwin qualifies, except Stephen King and Sherlock Holmes, who are both in the Cold Ham territory, and Egon Spengler, who speaks in a Creepy Monotone.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • Marilyn Monroe quips that Cleopatra's nose matches Kassem G, one of NicePeter's associates. Also when she whispers "tossing Caesar's salad".
  • "Tony Hawk vs Wayne Gretzky" includes a little nod/jab towards those who think that some of ERB's matchups have little or no connection at all.
    Gretzky: For true sports fans, this was finished as soon as they heard the matchup!
  • In "Theodore Roosevelt vs. Winston Churchill", Churchill compares Roosevelt to the actor portraying him, EpicLLOYD.
  • Ronald McDonald's line that he's Nice Peter and the Burger King is EpicLLOYD works as a diss but also literally refers to the actors playing them.
• Lethal Joke Character:
  • Note the tinny music that plays when Mr. Rogers is introduced... which then turns into the regular rap music as Mr. Rogers lets out a chilling rap against Mr. T.
  • In the "Rasputin vs. Stalin" episode, Gorbachev is presented as a smiling, jovial, gentler, and downright adorable Russian leader — who promptly serves Rasputin, Stalin, and Lenin.
  • Michael Bay has the last laugh on all the other, superior directors, by the power of motherfucking money as well as having been provoked by all the other directors having gone out of their way to insult him without him even being in the battle as far as they knew.
• Leitmotif:
  • From the second season battles onward, the music will be slightly varied when it's a different participant rapping.
  • In "Nikola Tesla vs. Thomas Edison", the synth riff is lower in pitch for Edison.
  • Virtually any musical combatant will add elements of their style to the rap:
    • In "Mozart vs. Skrillex", the beat is more dubstep-y for Skrillex. When Mozart's rapping however, a violin is prominently featured.
    • In "Beiber vs. Beethoven", two Beethoven pieces are sampled. Beiber's music uses Fur Elise, while Beethoven's utilizes Beethoven's 5th.
    • Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley both bring elements from their music (and age) to their raps.
  • "Donald Trump vs. Ebeneezer Scrooge" brings three different styles. Donald Trump gets one all for himself, then it shifts for Ebenezer and J.P. Morgan. Kanye West's appearance basically counts as a musical Genre Shift, which plays out for the rest of the battle.
  • William Wallace gets backed up by bagpipes for sections of his verses.
  • In "Ghostbusters vs. MythBusters", the Ghostbusters' verses have a theremin sound in the background, while the MythBusters' lines are backed by drawn-out guitar chords like on their show.
  • Romeo and Juliet's verses are accompanied with violin chords and jingle bells.
  • Spielberg vs Hitchcock had individual scores for the five different directors, with Spielberg's having the sweeping instrumentals of his big-budget blockbuster, while Hitchcock had more classical-sounding music for his more simpler yet beautiful and effective scores. Tarantino had much grittier, street-wise beats, and Kubrick's was more spacey and artsy, including a rendition of "Also Sprach Zarathustra", the opening music from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Finally, Bay's music was just as bombastic and triumphant as he makes his own films, and their scores, to be. Yet each score had their own underlying elements that connected them together.
• Let's Get Dangerous!:
  • Beethoven after chucking over his piano.
    Beethoven: I'm committing verbal murder in the major third degree! My name is Beethoven, motherfucker, maybe you heard of me!
  • Marilyn Monroe taking off her earrings in her second verse.
• Light/Darkness Juxtaposition: In Thomas Jefferson vs. Frederick Douglass, Jefferson's background is inside his home during the day, while Douglass's is on a plantation at night. This serves to further highlight their opposing personalities and backgrounds.
• Lighter and Softer:
  • Episodes featuring Christian "Internetainers" Rhett & Link have no explicit cursing. This doesn't mean said episodes won't, say, make a "nut-Sacagawea" pun (Lewis & Clark vs. Bill and Ted) or bleep out curses (Mario Bros vs Wright Bros).
  • Similarly, Isaac Newton vs. Bill Nye has clean language, in keeping with Weird Al's family-friendly style. Doesn't mean he holds back on the rapping, though.
• Lonely at the Top: Bill Gates expresses sentiments in this vein after Steve Jobs ascends to a higher plane of existence.

M-R

• Madonna-Whore Complex: Joan of Arc and Miley Cyrus embody these two archetypes, and the chastity of the former and the promiscuity of the latter are brought up quite often in their battle.
• The Mafia: Freddie Mercury says it's no secret that Frank Sinatra is connected to them.
• Man of a Thousand Voices / Man of a Thousand Faces: Both Peter and Lloyd, based on how many characters they've played. In part, it's due to an excellent makeup squad, but both have showcased positively brilliant voice acting chops to match. Lloyd's versatility in particularly been commented on; as more than one Youtube commenter puts it: "Why does Lloyd look like everyone?"
• Marionette Master: Dr. Seuss "raps" through his characters, The Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 & Thing 2.
• Marilyn Maneuver: The lady herself shows us how it's done (In universe it's her, anyway).
• Meaningful Background Event:
  • Look at Freddie Mercury's background as his verses go on. It starts out as a black sky with some almost invisible clouds, but as he continues and gets louder and hammier, we see flashes of light and the clouds become more visible. Compared to the usual consistent backgrounds, this is a neat touch.
  • During Blackbeard's second verse, Blackbeard's pirates can be seen stealing from Capone as he says he will "pilfer all your rum and sell it at a profit". Later during Al Capone's last verse, behind him Edward Kenway is briefly seen making a deal with Capone's gangsters, and then starts assassinating Blackbeard's crew towards the end as his name is dropped.
  • In "Moses vs Santa Claus", the Red Sea is visibly parting to reveal a path during Moses' verses.
  • During "Donald Trump vs Ebenezer Scrooge", there is a clock on the mantle of the fireplace in Scrooge's background that begins the battle showing the time as midnight, which would follow the original story of Marley's ghost appearing at that time. It speeds up an hour before each of the three ghosts show up: it is one o'clock at the first ghost's appearance, two o'clock at the second ghost, and three o'clock with the last ghost.
  • Near the end of James Bond's second verse, the Sean Connery version of the characters pops up in the background, ready to join the rap battle.
  • Guy Fawkes smacks away the lit cigar Che Guevara flings at him... and it lands on his barrels of gunpowder. At the very end of the rap the barrels finally go off.
• Mêlée à Trois:
  • Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates vs. HAL 9000
  • Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney vs. Abraham Lincoln
  • Rasputin vs. Stalin vs. Lenin vs. Gorbachev vs. Putin
  • Ghostbusters vs. MythBusters vs. Stay Puft the Marshmallow Man
  • Steven Spielberg vs. Alfred Hitchcock vs. Quentin Tarantino vs. Stanley Kubrick vs. Michael Bay
  • The Eastern Philosophers vs. Western Philosophers starts off as 3 against 3, battling for their respective sides, but then Sun Tzu tricks the West into fighting each other. When he suggests that they take advantage of the discord and finish them off, Lao Tzu and Confucius disagree with his hostile tactics and strategy.
    Narrator: WHAT IS WINNING? WHO IS NEXT? YOU DECIDE!
  • James Bond vs. Austin Powers vs. Sean Connery!James Bond; unlike most other battles where a third rapper enters, the first two actually get to respond with further verses in this one, making it a proper three-way battle.
  • Jim Henson vs. Stan Lee vs. Walt Disney
  • Alexander the Great vs. Ivan the Terrible vs. Frederick the Great vs. Pompey the Great vs. Catherine the Great
  • George Carlin vs. Richard Pryor vs. Bill Cosby (for all of five seconds) vs. Joan Rivers vs. Robin Williams
  • John Wick vs. John Rambo vs. John McClane. Notable as the first battle that begins as a three-way melee, as opposed to two characters battling and a third entering later.
• The Merch: Invoked by Guy Fawkes, who notes the irony that the face of his opponent Che Guevara, an image of Communist revolution, has now been plastered on T-shirts and coasters to make money for capitalists.
• Metaphorgotten: The 10th Doctor: "You're not going to tear any holes in the fabric of space and time. Actually it's more like a rug, really.
• Mexican Standoff: John Wick vs. John Rambo vs. John McClane ends with all three ready to shoot each other.
• Mic Drop: Elvis Presley finished his lines with one at the end of the rap battle with Michael Jackson
  • Wayne Gretzky substituted his hockey stick at the end of his rap against Tony Hawk.
• Midword Rhyme:
  Mario Bros.: Like POW!
  How ya like me now?
  Spit flames out our mouths like our name was Bow
  …ser!
• "Miss X" Pun: In "Cleopatra vs. Marilyn Monroe", Cleopatra disses Marilyn by claiming she's lost so many babies, she should be called "Miss Carriage".
• Monochrome Past:
  • Hitler's verses are shot in monochrome. Until Vader Force Chokes him into his in-color side, that is.
  • Young Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Babe Ruth, and Alfred Hitchcock are also shot in monochrome.
  • Martin Luther King Jr. stays monochrome even when he crosses over into Gandhi's setting.
  • Lenin has a special version. It's red and white.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • Jobs vs Gates starts like a normal battle. And then Jobs Ascends to a Higher Plane of Existence and HAL 9000 reveals himself.
  • Bill and Ted's second verse has a high-spirited Badass Boast from the two followed by them telling Lewis that he's going to commit suicide.
  • In the Season 4 finale, Stan Lee and Jim Henson put aside their antagonism and become friends... right before Walt Disney enters.
• Mooks: "Bruce Lee vs Clint Eastwood" and "Deadpool vs Boba Fett" have both battlers whooping the asses of cowboys/ninjas/thugs/rebels while rapping.
  • Rick Grimes is also seem shooting walkers while rapping against Walter White.
• Moonwalk Dance:
  • Naturally done by Michael Jackson when battling Elvis, after the line: "Watch me moonwalk and I step on your blue suede".
  • It's done by Darth Vader in his first confrontation vs. Hitler for the style points.
• Motor Mouth:
  • YouTube's greatest Motor Mouth, George Watsky, pulls this one off on three occasions (the Fourth Doctor, Edgar Allan Poe and the Bard himself) at impressive speed, even for typical Motor Mouth standards.
  • Robin in "Sherlock Holmes vs. Batman" in contrast to the slower and lower-pitched Batman.
  • Babe Ruth manages to rap in the style of a radio sports announcer and barely pauses for a breath once he starts.
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic did to math equations what George Watsky did to Shakespeare. Both of Isaac Newton's verses are rather lengthy, but speed by pretty fast. However, in his second verse, he prattles off a very complex math equation at super speed.
  • Given Confucianism's adherence to respect and tradition and the slow and steady speed of Confucius' lines in the first verse, his rather rapid-fire rapping in the second (with Lao Tzu beatboxing) is quite a shift.
• Mr. Fanservice: Leonidas and John Rambo. Neither wears anything to cover their well-built torsos.
• Ms. Fanservice: Marilyn Monroe and Cleopatra play this up, true to their historical counterparts. Eve ends up being this by virtue of a fig leaf Garden Garment.
• Musical World Hypothesis: The high amount of impossibility between the matchups would imply Alternate Universe of some sort. However, the instrumentals appear to be diegetic, as in these instances:
  • In Steve Jobs VS Bill Gates, Steve says he bets "this beat" was made on one of his Apple products. Nope. Fruity Loops. PC.
  • After the beat abruptly stops in the rematch between Hitler and Vader, Hitler's visibly confused and asks, "Where is the DJ?"
• My Name Is Inigo Montoya: Used frequently. To quote a few:
  Pablo Picasso: My name is Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso! Back. To. You. Bob.
  Friedrich Nietzsche: 'CAUSE I'M N-I-E-T-Z-S-C-H-E! AND I'LL END ANY MOTHERFUCKER, LIKE MY NAME IN A SPELLING BEE!
  Hillary Clinton: First name is Hillary, middle name Rodham, last name is Clinton, and lyrics, I got 'em.
  George Carlin: Here we go, it's George Carlin, I'm a mad dog snarlin'...
  Thanos: I am Thanos, and I crush tracks like tesseracts in my palm.
  Chuck Norris: I AM CHUCK FUCKING NORRIS!
• Mythology Gag:
  • Although the Turtles appear in their traditionally colored masks, when Mikey spits his first line, the three other Turtles appear from behind him all wearing their original red masks. ^note Though the comics were in black and white, early covers show them all wearing red masks, as seen on The Other Wiki
  • One within ERB itself - the apparently random spinning jump and Three-Point Landing Lego!Zeus does is the sort of thing they normally do with recurring guest, stuntman Xin Wuku.
  • "Theodore Roosevelt vs. Winston Churchill" makes a reference to Theodore Roosevelt's role in hosting ERB News in one of his first lines. The video is paused and the static picture animated with the moving mouth like the News.
    Roosevelt: "WHAT'S UP BITCHES!"
  • In "Ragnar Lodbrok vs. Richard the Lionheart", Richard says how he "[came] through in the end like Sean Connery." On the surface, it references Connery's uncredited role in the final scene of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves; but it is also somewhat of a reference to ERB's "James Bond vs. Austin Powers", where Sean Connery's Bond joined in at the latter half of the battle.
• News Parody: The first battle has a parody news ticker that shows up twice.
• Nice Mean And In Between:
  • The three rappers in Hulk Hogan and Macho Man vs Kim Jong-il: Macho Man (nice), Kim(mean) and Hogan (in-between).
  • The three rappers in Billy Mays vs Ben Franklin: Mays (nice), Franklin (mean) and Vince Offer (in-between).
  • The three rappers in Steve Jobs vs Bill Gates: Jobs (nice), HAL 9000 (mean), and Gates (in-between).
  • The three rappers in Barack Obama vs Mitt Romney: Obama (nice), Romney (mean) and Abe Lincoln (in-between).
  • The three rappers in Hitler vs Vader 3: Boba Fett (nice), Hitler (mean) and Vader (in-between).
  • the three ghosts in Donald Trump vs Ebenezer Scrooge: J.P. Morgan (nice), Death (mean) and Kanye West (in-between).
  • The three rappers in Isaac Newton vs Bill Nye: Nye (nice), Newton (mean), and Neil deGrasse Tyson (in-between).
  • The European philosophers Voltaire (nice), Nietzsche (mean), and Socrates (in-between).
  • The Chinese philosophers Lao Tzu (nice), Sun Tzu (mean), and Confucius (in-between).
  • The three rappers in Jim Henson vs Stan Lee: Henson (nice), Walt Disney (mean), and Lee (in-between).
  • The three rappers in Ronald McDonald vs The Burger King: Ronald (nice), Wendy (mean) and Burger King (in-between).
• Nightmare Face:
  • The facial expression made by Stanley Kubrick when he goes "Do another take and get it right / 127 TIMES!" Knowing the way Kubrick was in real life, it's definitely intentional.
  • J. R. R. Tolkien also makes one, when he says that both George R.R. Martin and Jon Snow know nothing.
  • Skrillex has a demonic face for a split-second when he calls himself a "scary monster."
  • Pennywise is a given, but during the battle he displays his most nightmarish face from the movie where his entire head splits open.
• Noble Bird of Prey: A gigantic bald eagle makes an appearance in Obama vs. Romney as Abe Lincoln's way of getting to the battle.
  "By the powers invested in me by this giant bald bird…"
• Noble Male, Roguish Male:
  • In "Romeo & Juliet vs. Bonnie & Clyde", both Romeo and Juliet are noble, while Clyde and Bonnie are both roguish.
  • RoboCop (noble) vs Terminator (roguish)
• Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: Marty McFly (as usual) during Doc Brown vs. Doctor Who.
• Nobody Loves the Bassist: Invoked in "Theodore Roosevelt vs. Winston Churchill".
  Churchill: "If Rushmore was a band, then you'd play bass!"
• Noodle Implements: We actually can't really tell what it is Gordon Ramsay and Julia Child are cooking. The former, after calling in the blue team, is making something that involves carrots and noodles, and apparently made beef wellington offscreen earlier; the latter starts off with what's apparently a fish recipe, then later dumps a bunch of chopped onions into a pan, sprinkles on some pepper, and then goes to work on a chicken.
• No Indoor Voice:
  • Leonidas, The Announcer himself, Hitler, Lincoln, Chuck Norris, Genghis Khan, Billy Mays, Vince Offer, Mr. T, Luigi, Goku, Shaka Zulu, Gordon Ramsay, Frederick Douglass, Theodore Roosevelt, Michael Bay and Joan Rivers.
  • Lenin in Rasputin vs Stalin Justified, because he often did this in speeches in real life.
  • Michelangelo^note (the sculptor, not the turtle), of all people
  • Walt Disney puts all the other examples to shame as he screams every single line in the Voice of the Legion.
• No OSHA Compliance: Karl Marx raps about the working conditions of Henry Ford's factories.
  Karl Marx: Yeesh! Your factory conditions were bleak, crammed with machines, cranking out four severed fingers a week!
• No Sense of Direction:
  • Santa's elves give Moses a GPS, asking how it's possible for someone to get lost for 40 years.
  • Captain Kirk asks Columbus when he's finally going to arrive at a place he set sail for.
• No Swastikas: Adolf Hitler's arm band sports a rock 'n' roll horns shaped symbol.
• Non-Indicative Name: Generally, the series is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. However, not all of the features figured are historical; some are mythological or even fictional. And not all of the battles are rapped. And some aren't even battles.
• NOT!: Doc Brown opens his verse with this.
  Great Scott, you're great— NOT! I spit it hot and generate way more power than 1.21 gigawatts!
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: Charles Darwin is quick to mention that Ash Ketchum can't turn 11 years old.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent:
  • Most notably, Peter's John Lennon is missing his trademark Liverpudlian accent. Somewhat justified as it was the very first battle.
  • Inverted in this case there wasn't an accent to begin with. Lloyd and Peter had to give Mike Diva (Bruce Lee) accent lessons to make him sound more Asian.
  • Also, Rasputin appears to not have a Russian accent, as does Lenin.
  • Elon Musk also does not have a South African accent, though this is justified as he's also a Canadian and American citizen and his native accent has faded overtime.
• No True Scotsman: When Michael Jackson claims that Elvis Presley "stole" rock-and-roll from black culture, Elvis directly owns up to it and questions why Michael, with his shifting racial identity, would identify with that culture.
  Elvis: I stole from black culture! Why are you offended?
• No, You:
  Obama: Oh yeah? Well, you're stupid.
  Romney: You're stupid!
• Obviously Evil: Ivan The Terrible and Vlad the Impaler. Their zeal for murder and mayhem is downright cartoonish, even by the standards of this series.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Elvis Presley vs. Michael Jackson. The latter was married to the former's daughter, though they eventually divorced. Naturally, this subject was included in their battle.
• Offhand Backhand:
  • Bruce Lee and Clint Eastwood pull off a lot of these, Bruce with ninjas and Clint with cowboys. They do so while rapping.
  • Chuck Norris does this with some goons as well, not even paying attention to them.
  • Wonder Woman deflects a meteor at one point during her verse without even looking at it.
• Old Maid: Sigmund Freud is surprised by Mother Teresa's existence being an exception to his psychological theories
  Sigmund: An exception to my theory, I can't believe this! Here we have a Mother that nobody wants to sleep with!
• Old-Timey Cinema Countdown: Steven Spielberg's pre-battle intro has one of these in the background.
• Once a Season:
  • Hitler vs Vader and something horrible happening to the former. For the first three seasons at least. Hitler also had something bad happen to his ghost in the S4 teaser but Vader wasn't present.
  • Season Two starting with Rasputin vs. Stalin kicked off a once-per-season tradition of a 1v1 battle being interrupted by a string of other combatants.
• One Degree of Separation: Genghis Khan is quite proud that his genetics are now found all the way from New York to Japan.
• The Oner: Flash in the Pan Hiphop Conflicts of Nowadays. Apparently the production is so simple that they let the editors take the day off.
• Only in It for the Money:
  • Michael Bay's entire verse can be summed up as: "I don't care if my movies suck, I'm making bank!"
  • Sigmund Freud calls out Mother Teresa for exploiting all the charity work she spent her entire life doing as a means to cash out.
• Or Was It a Dream?: The end of Wolverine vs Freddy Krueger, as we see Freddy starting to appear in Wolverine's ceiling.
• Other Me Annoys Me: "James Bond vs. Austin Powers" gets interrupted halfway through by Sean Connery's Bond, who then proceeds to rip a new one against Bond, who had been rapping the entire time.
• Outhumbling Each Other: In the episode "MLK Jr. vs. Mahatma Gandhi", they try to out-forgive each other.
• Out-of-Genre Experience: Most of the rap battles are... er... rap battles, but so far, we have:
  • Justin Bieber vs Beethoven, which samples liberally from Beethoven's oeuvre.
  • Steve Jobs vs Bill Gates, which is house.
  • Frank Sinatra vs Freddie Mercury, which is heavily influenced by Queen's Genre-Busting style, specifically the operatic and hard rock.
  • Mozart vs Skrillex, which emulates both artists' styles very well.
  • Jack the Ripper vs Hannibal Lecter doesn't change style musically, but the visuals are reminiscent of supernatural horror films.
• Overly Long Name: Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso takes up much of one of his verses just saying out his name. Note that this isn't even the whole thing; it's just as much as he can fit into one verse.
• Pædo Hunt: Accusations of pedophilia from one battler to another occur very frequently.
  • Mr. T to Mr. Rogers:
    Mr. T: So before you come to battle with your PBS crap, how 'bout I call up CPS about them kids on your lap, foo'!
  • Elvis Presley to Michael Jackson:
    Elvis: 'Cause all you wanna do is teach kids the birds and the bees!
  • To which Jackson directly fires back in his next verse:
    Michael: How you gonna talk about the birds and bees, when you met your own wife when she was only 14?
  • And there's also the Fourth Doctor:
    You're a possibly pedophilic individual who should have never been born!
  • Moses gets this on Santa twice:
    • First this:
      You need to stop breaking into houses and creeping
      And peeping on naughty kids while they sleeping
    • And later:
      Thou shalt not let children sit on a grown man's lap at the mall
  • Stephen King to Edgar Allan Poe:
    Perving on your first cousin when she's 13 years old?
    Now that's disturbing!
  • In "Freddy Krueger vs. Wolverine":
    Wolverine: You're a pedophile from the Midwest; at least R. Kelly could sing!
  • The Joker to Pennywise about Stephen King:
    Tell your author, for his next gangbang scene:
    How about a little more PG, and a lot less 13?
    Even I wouldn't stoop to that kind of impropriety!
    This is Earth, you space demon. We live in a society!
  • Between Donald Trump and Joe Biden:
    Trump: I'm not a little girl's shoulders, so you can't touch this, MC Stammer!
    Biden: The pain of losing loved ones is something I have seen,
    So I know how you must have felt when they killed Jeffrey Epstein!
  • Lara Croft to Indiana Jones about his Love Interest in Raiders of the Lost Ark:
    Marion was 15 when you raided her bones
    That's no time for love, Dr. Jones!
• Parody Assistance: Skrillex appeared in a live version of the rap battle in which he was featured, and a removed ERB News was hosted by Hulk Hogan.
• Parody Episode: NicePeter and Daneboe teamed up to give us The Annoying Orange VS M&M in Epic Rap Battles of Kitchenry.
• Pec Flex: The Hulk, being played by bodybuilder Mike O'Hearn, does this often throughout his battle against Caitlyn Jenner.
• Perception Filter: By the time you get around to Hitler Vs. Vader 3, you're probably so used to seeing suggestions for the battle you just saw during the closing line, that unrelated comments such as "is that pewdiepie" and "BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH :(" pass without notice.
• Phony Degree: Part of Doc Brown's diss against The Doctor, specifically for calling himself just that.
  I'm not sure what sort of scientific authority you purport to be
  But I'm a real doctor! Where'd you get your degree?
• Pig Latin: Guy Fawkes calls Che Guevara an "ump-Che."
  Guy Fawkes: That's Bay of Pigs Latin!
• Pirate: Blackbeard is a Type 1; pure evil and very dangerous.
• Piss-Take Rap: Done very intentionally. Captain Kirk, being done in the typical parody standard of William Shatner, is the most obvious … and it works. At the start of his second verse, Columbus is baffled at what he just heard, believing that someone set Kirk's brain on stun.
• Place Worse Than Death: Thomas Edison claims that he's so dope he makes New Jersey look good.
• Playing with Fire: Gandhi has "Raps so hot, he spits Yoga Fire!" (though it's shown coming out of his palm and not his mouth).
• Politically Incorrect Hero: Indiana Jones boasts about his brave expeditions while berating Lara Croft for getting "woke" and mocking her sex appeal (or perceived lack thereof). Lara throws this back at him by calling out his outdated views and cheap shots.
• Precision F-Strike:
  • Almost every single video has at least one well-placed curse word in there somewhere. Examples include:
    Chuck Norris: I AM CHUCK FUCKING NORRIS!
    Lady Gaga: You are the sum of everything I despise, with the most dysfunctional family since the Jackson FUCKING Five!
    Beethoven: My name is Beethoven, MOTHERFUCKER, maybe you've heard of me!
    Kirk: You … spaghetti-eating FUCK!
    NicePeter: You've got as much music talent as Chuck FUCKING Norris!
    NicePeter: FUCK the rap battles and you, I quit!
    Adolf Hitler: Now stand at attention, and Sieg FUCKING Heil!
    Julia Child: Oooh, I'm so glad you've spent this time with me. Now EAT A DICK!!! Bon appetit!
    Marylin Monroe: I had some ugly boys, but you're forgetting the others — Marlon Brando and the Kennedys, while you FUCKED your own brothers!
    Steve Jobs: I need to bring up some basic SHIT, why you'd name your company after your dick?
    Mr. Rogers: I'll say this once, Laurence, I hope it's understood, get right back in your van and get the FUCK out of my neighborhood.
    Chuck Norris: I wear a black belt on the beard that I grow on my DICK!
    Clint Eastwood: Those little dances you do don't threaten me, Bruce. FUCK you, dude, I even squint better than you.
    Bruce Lee: A man who argues with people who aren't even there is more fit to rap against THIS FUCKING CHAIR!
    Gandhi: I am passively resisting the fact that you suck. I am celibate because I don't give a FUUUUUUUUCCCCCCK.
    Goku: YOUR POWERS HAVE BEEN BORING SINCE THE NINETEEN FUCKING FORTIES!
    Michael Bay: MOTHER FUCKING MONEY!!! (This appears to be his catchphrase)
  • Donald Trump's F-strike in his battle against Scrooge is audibly muted and censored in the subtitles.
    Donald Trump: So when the clock strikes, prepare to enter a world of Christmas pain, 'cause I'm out! I've got my own f***ing problems, call me 2 Chainz.
  • "It's-a me, Mario!" "And Luigi, MOTHA*dling*!^note Do we have a coin?"
• Prison Rape:
  Juliet: You'll get an ass rippin' worse than your boyfriend's in prison.
  • One of Blackbeard's lines suggests Capone averted it:
    You spent time in Alcatraz; I'm sure you were fine if you dropped the soap as little as you drop dope rhymes.
• Product Placement:
  • "Blackbeard vs. Al Capone" starts and ends by giving thanks to Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. Edward Kenway is even mentioned in the lyrics AND seen in the background behind both Capone and Blackbeard, eventually killing a few pirates in traditional assassin style, not to mention the other subtle references to the game.
  • Lloyd spends a good minute advertising for a company that donated 100% organic, fully compostable eating utensils and dishware in the BTS of Donald Trump vs. Ebeneezer Scrooge. He even points out the company's address with a full display on the screen.
  • In the announcement for "Season 3.5" Teddy Roosevelt wants to make sure everyone knows about the US government's new healthcare website, although he calls it "POLARIZING NEWS" and says he doesn't "give a damn" whether viewers like or hate it, as long as they know about it.
• Psychic Strangle: Darth Vader uses this on Adolf Hitler during their first rap battle.
• Public Domain Character: A fair number of the fictional characters who appear in the series are in the public domain, such as Count Dracula and Sherlock Holmes.
• Pun: While not usually part of one of the rap battles themselves, Charles Darwin hosts ERB News and spits out two of them.
  • From the BTS of "Joan of Arc vs Miley Cyrus":
    Lloyd: "Wanna buy some heroin(e)? (nod at Joan of Arc) Geddit?"
  • In-battle, Pablo gets one during Bob Ross Vs Pablo Bicasso, while the camera is framing only his head and shoulders.
    Picasso: I could make better art with my wiener... (camera zooms out to reveal him holding a wiener dog) Lump!
  • Another BTS (Rick Grimes vs Walter White) has Peter as Rick claiming he eats his breakfast at Carl Jr's. You really need to follow his show for this one.
  • Charles Darwin in one news video.
    On behalf of us all here at Epic Rap Battles of History, thank you for choosing youtube.com/ERB. It is, after all, a natural selection.
  • Caitlyn Jenner calls Bruce Banner being "boron" when he's happy.
  • As Wayne Gretzky points out, Tony Hawk is on his fourth wife - "Talk about the X Games!"
  • Che Guevara to Guy Fawkes: "What's the Fawkes say now?"
    • Guevara himself says that, despite his asthma, he will "take your breath away".
  • Steve Irwin says that Jacques Cousteau is so boring, he could "make a whole show about the ocean dry".
  • In the same battle, the inventor of SCUBA tells Irwin to "contain yourself, like my underwater breathing apparatus".
  • From Ghostbusters vs. Mythbusters
    Egon: " I'll kick your hiney. man./ "I'm a savage killer.''
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!:
  • Naturally, used by Leonidas.
  • Clint Eastwood punctuated the end of his first verse with bullets.
• The Queen's Latin: NicePeter uses a British accent when rapping as Julius Caesar for "Caesar vs. Shaka Zulu".
• Rage Quit: In EpicLloyd vs.NicePeter:
  Lloyd: I'm gonna knock you right out of your little Superman socks! You were nothing before you rode up on KassemG's jock!
  Peter: Man, you don't even need to say that kind of shit. Fuck the rap battles and you, I quit.
  • And he threatens this again in the rematch, under slightly different circumstances:
    Peter: And tonight I'm not quitting the battles, bitch! I'm quitting YOU!
• Rated M for Manly:
  • Hitler vs Vader (all three battles)
  • Lincoln vs Chuck Norris
  • Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage's parts in Kim Jong-Il vs Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage
  • Leonidas vs Master Chief
  • Bruce Lee vs Clint Eastwood
  • Lance Armstrong vs Babe Ruth
  • Goku vs Superman
  • RoboCop vs The Terminator
  • Teddy Roosevelt vs Winston Churchill
  • Wolverine's half of “Freddy Krueger vs Wolverine”
  • John Wick vs John Rambo vs John McClane
• Reaching Between the Lines: Bill Gates puts his hand through an iPad by hitting it with an iPhone (iPwn) and hits Steve with said iPhone (iSmack).
• This Is Reality: When Peter tells Lloyd that he is as musically talented as Chuck Norris, he doesn't mean it as a compliment. Despite being such a Memetic Badass, Norris isn't as good as music as he is at acting or martial arts.
• Real Men Cook:
  • Blink and you'll miss it, but after Napoleon (Bonaparte) threatens to beat Napoleon (Dynamite) "so bad they'll make a virgin meringue," the former briefly appears in chef's garb, whisking something in a bowl.
  • Walter White cooks a dish called "Blue Sky," which is, of course, meth.
  • Gordon Ramsay, obviously.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Abe Lincoln interrupts the battle between Romney and Obama to deliver one of these.
    Lincoln: *To Obama* You! I wanna like you! Don't talk about change, just do it! I fought for what was on my brain until a bullet went through iiiiit! *To Romney* And you! Moneybags! You're a pancake, you're flip-floppity! It's a country, not a company, you can play like Monopoly!
  • Babe Ruth also gives Lance Armstrong one of these with both barrels, in the rapid-fire style of a radio sports announcer. He takes four long sentences to nail Armstrong for forgetting "what real sportsmanship was!" before finally pausing for breath.
    Babe Ruth: It's the bottom of the ninth against the Texan in a bathing suit, filled with more artificial ingredients than a Baby Ruth
    And it may be way too soon, but I'm calling my shot, and I'm not talking about those Italian syringes you brought
    The Sultan of Swat'll knock you right outta the park and round the bases to the sound of uproaring applause
    While you hang your head in shame and disgrace because you got lost and forgot what real sportsmanship was!
  • Lenin delivers an awesome one to Josef Stalin about how communism was about bringing down social classes and benefit the proletariat, yet he used it to hop himself to power, and stopped a great revolution.
  • The Ghost of Christmas Future gives Ebenezer Scrooge a truly frightening one;
    You're gonna die!
    With no one to love you and no one to cry!
    Alone by yourself on the bed of your death with the stench of regret on your last dying breath!
    'Cause you've chosen the path of a selfish man
    With Tiny Tim's innocent blood on your hands!
  • Nikola Tesla gives an epic one to Thomas Edison in his second verse.
    You Fool!! You think you can touch me with this?!
    You could not handle my gifts with your greedy little mind!
    What was inside of mine was ahead of its time!
    
    YOU DID NOT STEAL FROM ME; YOU STOLE ME FROM MANKIND!
  • Freddie Mercury's first verse is one to Frank Sinatra:
    Don't you think I've heard those things before
    You're just a bully who's too scared to go to war
    You had a hit song called "My Way" but someone else wrote it
    You're the least talented rat in your whole pack! of rodents!
    You've got 4 notes in your whole range, you can't act and you can't dance!
    I'm more powerful than you when I'm wearing women's pants!
    Why do you stand there in a suit? It's like you're trying to bore me
    When I rock the UK, South America gets horny
    Because my songs have balls!
    They're the anthems of victory!
    Your music sounds like the soundtrack to a vasectomy
  • Joan Rivers is merciless in destroying Bill Cosby:
  Cosby, you can't be here! You're making people nervous!
  So let me end you real quick like I was Hannibal Buress!
  It turns out you were just like your sweater: monstrous!
  The men that I slept with only wish they were unconscious!
  My sex jokes offend, you're on the sex offender registry
  Oh, who are you wearing now? Is that... state penitentiary?
  • Joe Biden tears into Donald Trump hard in his second verse, bringing up: Police Brutality with the death of Breonna Taylor; Trump's desire to emulate his "racist asshole" father; his attempts to cheat in the 2020 election and rally his supporters in attacking the Postal Service; his numerous extramarital affairs; his forged academic records; his obsessive fear of losing power; his notoriously anti-LGBTQ+ vice president; the fact that he got away with breaking numerous constitutional laws with no repercussions; his culpability in 200,000+ deaths caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic due to his refusal to take it seriously and blaming the public for thinking it was an issue; his repeated denigration of veterans and fallen soldiers; his supposed involvements with Russia and Vladimir Putin; how he's bankrupt due to his failed businesses; his baseless claims of voter fraud; how he changed the tax code to give the rich even more money; how he needed to be physically escorted to walk down a very short ramp after his speech to the graduates at West Point; and how even Melania doesn't think he's a very good husband.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: A few of the rap battles feature the dynamic, with the red rapper essentially shouting their lines or otherwise showing much enthusiasm during the match and the blue rapper keeping a low profile in one or both regards. Usually Peter is the blue oni and Lloyd is the red oni, but inversions are seen as well.
  • Examples where Peter is blue and/or Lloyd is red:
    • Adolf Hitler (red) vs Darth Vader (blue)
    • Sarah Palin (red) vs Lady Gaga (blue)
    • Albert Einstein (red) vs Steven Hawking (blue)
    • Genghis Khan (red) vs the Easter Bunny (blue)
    • Napoleon Bonaparte (red) vs. Napoleon Dynamite (blue)
    • Gandalf (red) vs Dumbledore (blue)
    • Mr. T (red) vs Mr. Rogers (blue)
    • Epic Lloyd (red) vs Nice Peter (blue) in their first battle
    • Leonidas (red) vs Master Chief (blue)
    • Bill Gates (red) vs Steve Jobs (blue). When Steve Jobs dies, he is replaced by the even bluer HAL 9000.
    • The tenth doctor (blue) eventually turns into the fourth doctor (red).
    • Batman (blue) and his sidekick Robin (red)
    • Pablo Picasso (red) vs. Bob Ross (blue)
    • Walter White (red) vs Rick Grimes (blue)
    • Isaac Newton (red) vs Bill Nye (blue) the latter is later joined by the even bluer Neil deGrasse Tyson
    • The Mythbusters Adam Savage (red) and Jamie Hyneman (blue)
    • Bonnie and Clyde (red) vs Romeo and Juliet (blue)
    • Harry Houdini (red) vs. David Copperfield (blue)
    • Terminator (red) vs RoboCop (blue)
    • Shaka Zulu (red) vs. Julius Caesar (blue)
    • Stan Lee (red) vs. Jim Henson (blue) before Walt Disney (even more of a red than Stan Lee) arrives
    • Deadpool (red) vs Boba Fett (blue)
    • Gordon Ramsay (red) vs. Julia Child (blue)
    • Frederick Douglass (red) vs Thomas Jefferson (blue)
    • Ash Ketchum (red) vs Charles Darwin (blue)
    • Wayne Gretzky (red) vs. Tony Hawk (blue)
    • Teddy Roosevelt (red) vs Winston Churchill (blue)
    • Elon Musk (red) vs Mark Zuckerberg (blue)
    • Che Guevara (red) vs Guy Fawkes (blue)
    • Steve Irwin (red) vs Jacques Cousteau (blue)
    • Mother Teresa (red) vs Sigmund Freud (blue)
    • Thanos (red) vs J. Robert Oppenheimer (blue)
    • Donald Trump (red) vs Joe Biden (blue)
  • Examples where Peter is red and/or Lloyd is blue:
    • Abe Lincoln (red) vs Chuck Norris (blue)... subverted when Chuck Norris loses his shit and activates his Super Mode, thus becoming far more red than his opponent.
    • Hulk Hogan (red) and Macho Man Randy Savage (blue)
    • Billy Mays (red) vs. Ben Franklin (blue) before the former dies and is replaced by the even more red Vince Offer
    • Christopher Columbus (red) vs. Captain Kirk (blue)
    • Michael Jackson (red) vs Elvis Presley (blue)
    • Freddie Mercury (red) vs Frank Sinatra (blue)
    • Bruce Lee (red) vs. Clint Eastwood (blue)
    • Santa Claus (red) vs Moses (blue)
    • Blackbeard (red) vs. Al Capone (blue)
    • Zeus (red) vs Thor (blue)
    • Jack the Ripper (red) vs. Hannibal Lector (blue)
    • Austin Powers (red) vs. James Bond (blue) before Sean Connery (even bluer than Daniel Craig) arrives
    • Nice Peter (red) vs Epic Lloyd (blue) in their second battle
  • Miscellaneous examples:
    • Dr. Seuss's characters (red) vs William Shakespeare (blue)
    • Mario Bros (red) vs Wright Bros (blue)
    • Mitt Romney (red) vs Barack Obama (blue) who are interrupted by Abe Lincoln (even more red than Romney)
    • Gandhi (red) vs Martin Luther King Jr. (blue)
    • Edgar Allan Poe (red) vs Stephen King (blue)
    • The artists form a team of two red (Raphael and Michelangelo) and two blue (Leonardo and Donatello), like the turtles named after them
    • Bill and Ted (red) vs Lewis and Clark (blue)
    • Stevie Wonder (red) vs Wonder Woman (blue)
• Reference Overdosed: Each battle is brimful of references to all the things both celebrities are famous for, some of them told in the form of a quick pun or a throwaway line. Some lines will be things anyone with basic knowledge about the celebrity can get, others are more for the die-hard fans and/or people knowledgeable about the historical person. It also invites viewers to look up more about the people or characters battling each other in the video. The same goes for the actors portraying them.
• Reflective Eyes: EpicLloyd pulls off an impressive quick change backflip in the reflection of NicePeter's sunglasses.
• Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?: Most characters brag about the accomplishments they're famous for.
• Reset Button: The Doc Brown vs. Doctor Who video is stuck in a time loop. The "EPIC RAP BATTLES OF HISTORY" logo itself is used the exact same way at both the beginning and end of the video, at which point the video resets to give the Tenth Doctor another chance … but he just turns off the video with his sonic screwdriver.
• Retraux: Various people from history are presented through the lens(es) of their respective time periods:
  • Anyone famous from the 1920s through the 1960s—including Babe Ruth, Marilyn Monroe, Martin Luther King Jr. and more—will be Deliberately Monochrome. ^note Figures older than this are usually in color, possibly because our collective mental images of them are from either paintings or later color fictional portrayals. In Cleopatra vs. Marilyn Monroe and Gandhi vs. MLK Jr., the former is in color while the latter is in B&W.
    • Hitler's verses until Vader uses the Force to bring him into his own screen. May double as Anachronism Stew when you notice that Vader claims that he came before Hitler, and all of his screentime is shot in color. Then again, he does hail from a galaxy far, far away.
    • Martin Luther King Jr. stays in monochrome even when he crosses over into Gandhi's colored setting.
  • The Wright Brothers have a grainy sepia tone and their audio is processed to sound like it was recorded on a phonograph.
  • Aside from the fact that young Elvis is shot in monochrome, both old Elvis and young Michael are shown as if on 1970's television. Old Michael even has a special filter on him that makes him appear as in the '90s video clips.
  • Freddie Mercury uses popular visual effects from the 70's—recalling the "Bohemian Rhapsody" video specifically.
  • Bruce Lee vs Clint Eastwood has a retro colour filter for both contestants.
  • A meta example in NicePeter vs. EpicLloyd; when Peter turns into John Lennon, the image quality of him is much poorer, as a reference to the poor image quality of the John Lennon vs. Bill O'Reilly video, as it was their first video and had only a $50 budget.
  • The climax of "Theodore Roosevelt vs Winston Churchill" is monochromatic and choppy just like in early films. The BTS reveals that the effect was done by shooting the scene in twice the normal speed, then slowing it down.
  • Lenin is shown in red and white, making him appear as if he stepped out of a Russian Revolution-era propaganda poster.
• Retired Badass: Bob Ross served 20 years in the United States Air Force.
• The Reveal: The Narrator is a bear, apparently… That is, until he was next revealed to be a hippopotamus. Or a Giraffe. Or a snake.
• Rhymes on a Dime: Kanye West.
  Just take a lesson from Yeezy
  You're missing the point, Ebeneezy
  There's more to your life than your work, take it easy
  Even I can make time for Azizy!
  • And also the following quip Blackbeard made toward Al Capone:
  You're an obese greasy sleaze squeezing a diseased Peter that no skeezer would touch if she had fifty-foot tweezers!
• Rhyming with Itself:
  • In Sherlock Holmes vs. Batman, Sherlock does this.
    Watson: Holmes, you've cracked the case!
    Sherlock: You're a batshit crazy basket case!
  • The Cat In The Hat almost does this, with the rhyming part being the second-to-last word in each line.
    "Even Horton doesn't wanna hear you - And Cindy Lou Who is afraid to go near you!
  • "Rasputin vs Stalin" pulls this off.
    Lenin: "Josef, you were supposed to be my right-hand man/but your loyalty shriveled up like your right hand, man!"
  • Vader in "Hitler vs. Vader 3" does this in his verse.
    Vader: I got a million clones, they die for me; my bounty hunters ride for me; yo homeboy, finish this rhyme for me!'''
    • Vader did it twice in that verse:
      Vader: You wrote a little book, got em fired up.
      Had a beer-hall putsch, got em fired up.
      And when your bunker started getting fired up
      You put a gun in your mouth and fired up!
  • Kanye West (The Ghost of What's Right Now) in Donald Trump vs. Ebeneezer Scrooge:
    Kanye West:: Well you're about to be right! now! I'm the Ghost of What's Right! Now!
  • At the beginning of "George Washington vs. William Wallace":
    George Washington: There's a difference between you and me, Willy! I fought 'til I was actually free, Willy!
  • Michael Bay does this:
    Michael Bay Set up shop and got a few drops of that Got Milk money! Rose to the Rock, now I got that socks made of silk money; I ain't got that guilt money!
  • Oprah Winfrey begins with this:
    Oprah: I'm the queen of TV and I'm here to destroy ya. So check under your seat because I got something for ya!
  • Edgar Allan Poe does this twice:
    Poe: But y'all don't hear me, all should fear me! I'll forever be better, you'll never be near me!
    • And:
      Poe: Stephen, you pretend to do it! I've been really living through it!
  • Harry Houdini also does this:
    Houdini: little spaces small enough to fit your talent David! You're not a challenge David!
  • Voltaire doubles up the doubling up while arguing with Socrates:
    Voltaire: Let me be frank - don't start beef with the Frank who hangs with B. Franks giving ladies beef franks!
    • In the same battle, Sun Tzu also does this:
      Sun Tzu: Yo I wrote The Art of War so you better get your guns out. These white boys gettin' burned, 'cause guess what? Now the Sun's out.
  • Austin Powers starts off with one:
    Austin Powers: You look a lot more blond in your movie, baby. That's alright, let's just keep it groovy, baby!
  • Happens a couple times in "Tony Hawk vs. Wayne Gretzky":
    Tony Hawk: You got your whole league to protect and adore you-so which goon's gonna take this battle for you?
    Tony: I drop rhymes like I'm dropping into a half-pipe, I'll thrash this asswipe, hit you like a hash pipe.
    Wayne Gretzky: Let me tell you what putting a puck in the net's worth. Double what you've banked in bucks; check my net worth.
    Tony: Great one, Wayne! Let me say something, Wayne. I got 99 problems and you ain't one, Wayne!
    Wayne: 184, that's plenty of 'em! And I've set 183 of 'em!
  • From "Nice Peter vs. Epic LLOYD 2":
    Peter: Aaaand doink — nice punchline, bro. Your jokes haven't grown since you told 'em in a lunch line, bro.
  • In "John Wick vs. John Rambo vs. John McClane", Rambo starts off his verse with this.
    Rambo: Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don't turn it off... Unless, it's one of your movies, in which case, I just turn it off!
• Riddled and Rattled: The ending of "Bonnie and Clyde vs. Romeo and Juliet" has the former pair lamenting the death of their rivals, before being riddled with bullets as they're completing their last verse. The screen cuts to black before they fall.
• Rule of Cool: Don't try to imagine how it would be possible for people from different time periods, franchises or media to battle one another, let alone how a fictional character can battle a Real Life person.
• Running Gag:
  • Many of the battles feature one rapper threatening to choke the other with something that references the character (Jordan with Ali's "own jump rope," Mr. T with Mr. Rogers' "own sweater sleeves," etc.)
  • In the behind the scenes videos, there's a running theme of Lloyd jokingly asking other people if they want to buy some heroin. Lloyd first said it while dressed as Gandalf in the BTS for "Gandalf vs Dumbledore",
    • When he does this to Bentley Green, the kid starts shouting out for the police to help him. Cue Lloyd running for the exit.
    • George Watsky plays the Heroin joke on him in the Behind the Scenes for Doc Brown vs. Doctor Who.
    • Averted in Adam vs. Eve; nobody does the heroin joke in the Behind the Scenes.
    • In the "Hitler vs. Vader 3" BTS, Lloyd speaks low to the camera:
      EpicLloyd: You know what's in that jetpack, don't you? [Beat] Rocket fuel.
      ...AND HERO—!
    • Invoked but Defied in the BTS of Michael Jordan vs. Muhammad Ali. Lloyd is trying to show off the snack table, including a cake that the catering lady brought in. When the camera wanders to look elsewhere, Lloyd calls them out on it before storming off.
      Hey, hey, hey! All you want to hear is a heroin joke. Whatever.
    • In Rick Grimes vs. Walter White's BTS, Peter informs Lloyd that, tragically, "the heroin joke didn't make it." Then they hold a melodramatic funeral for said joke, implying that we will never hear it again.
    • In the BTS for "Charles Darwin vs Ash Ketchum", Peter attempts a Call-Back to the original heroin joke: wearing a white beard, running to the camera and saying the heroin joke; but he is quickly cut off.
  • Lloyd also sometimes dresses up in part of the costume and imitates the announcer.
    Lloyd: (with Gandalf's beard) "The Oakridge Boys Vs. ZZ Top!"
  • There also seems to be one in the second season's behind the scenes videos of people not recognizing who one of the rappers is supposed to be, such as one man not realizing Lloyd was dressed as Mario.
  • See Unusual Euphemism below. It's becoming a trademark of the series.
  • "Spielberg vs. Hitchcock" has one Take That! at Michael Bay in each verse. Even the last verse, Michael Bay's, is one of these, as it basically consists of him admitting he's Only in It for the Money and feels no shame over that.
  • For the ERB News: "These are dates!" followed by merchandise advertising and closing with a non-sequitur.
  • In all three of his rap battles against Darth Vader, Adolf Hitler facetiously invites Vader to make use of something seemingly innocent that was used murderously in concentration camps during World War II. In the first: "You need to wash up, dog. Here, step in my shower." In the second: "You need a vacation. Here, take a trip on my train." In the third "I baked you something. Here, pop into my oven."
  • If a person avoided service in the war, they will generally be mocked for it. Examples include Elvis Presley^note Who actually was drafted and was deployed to Germany, where he met Priscilla, Frank Sinatra, Muhammad Ali, Alfred Hitchcock^note Inverted, since Alfred wanted to serve, but couldn't because he didn't pass the physical due to his weight, George R.R. Martin, etc.
  • Several times, a character played by Lloyd is called ugly by way of saying they look like EpicLlyod.

S-Z

• Santa's Sweatshop: In "Moses vs Santa Claus", Moses compares Santa to the pharaohs and implores him to "let [his] little people go." The elves themselves are quick to deny being slaves, though.
• Scare 'Em Straight: The stinger from the Behind The Scenes video for Donald Trump vs. Ebeneezer Scrooge:
  The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come: You know who's gonna visit you if you have heroin? Death. Death loves heroin.
• Screaming Warrior: Goku roars his first two lines at the top of his lungs.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Romney uses this during his rap. Abraham Lincoln chastises him for it when he shows up.
  "I'm not going to let this battle be dictated by facts. I'm rich! I got fat stacks and super PACs."
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The bickering amongst the Western philosophers by the end of their battle against the East gets Nietzsche fed enough to storm off at the ending title card.
• Season Finale: The following rap battles are what closes each season:
  • Seasons 1 and 5: NicePeter vs. EpicLloyd
  • Season 2: Grigori Rasputin vs. Joseph Stalin vs. Vladimir Lenin vs. Mikhail Gorbachev vs. Vladimir Putin
  • Season 3: Artists vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
  • Season 4: Stan Lee vs. Jim Henson vs. Walt Disney
  • Season 6: Harry Potter vs. Luke Skywalker
• Second Episode Introduction: Darth Vader and Adolf Hitler, the show's Breakout Characters, were introduced in the show's second episode.
• Seen It All:
  • After Shaka Zulu says that Caesar's walking into a massacre and would send his head back to Rome wrapped in his own banner, Caesar says in the most unimpressed manner possible that he'll crush Shaka just like everyone else.
  • Richard Pryor brings up his childhood in a brothel to say he's “seen some shit” (but none of it was as bad as Carlin's haircut).
  • Vlad the Impaler talks about “forests of corpses dripping on a buffet” and says “I call that a Tuesday!”
• Self-Deprecation:
  • Bruce Lee mocks one who would rap against people who aren't even there ...while Clint Eastwood isn't onscreen.
  • Al Capone admits he had syphilis, but only so he can call Blackbeard "a huge dick."
  • The Narrator during the ERB news.
    Charles Darwin: Even the Announcer is bringing his A-game.
    Narrator: EP. IC. RAP…BATTLLLLEEESSS!!! FHAUCKIT!
  • Kubrick's diss saying that Spielberg's production of A. I. was the "worst waste of potential since the Ninja Turtles" may be a meta example, calling back to the oft-criticized Artists vs. Turtles rap battle. It is also a Take That! towards Michael Bay, calling his Ninja Turtles movie a waste of potential.
  • "Nice Peter vs. EpicLLOYD 2" sees two slams against their portrayal of Batman from "Batman vs. Sherlock Holmes".
    EpicLLOYD: And then I try to tell you things, but you're too stubborn to understand, / Like, "Dude, that is not a cool way to play Batman!"
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Quite a few of the matchups are like this:
  • Justin Bieber (sensitive) and Beethoven (manly, emphasized by his baritone)
  • Easter Bunny (sensitive) and Genghis Khan (manly)
  • Mr. Rogers (sensitive) and Mr. T (manly)
  • Bob Ross (sensitive) and Pablo Picasso (manly)
  • J. Robert Oppenheimer (sensitive, with a large emphasis on the emotional toll the bomb took on him) vs. Thanos (manly)
• Sequel Escalation: The rematch(es) between Hitler and Vader. Considering these are the first battles of seasons 2 and 3, this is expected.
  • Each season finale tends to top the last one. The Season 2 finale had five rappers (Rasputin, Stalin, Lenin, Gorbachev, Putin), which at the time was the biggest group in any one video. The season 3 finale tops that by having a whopping eight rappers perform (the four Ninja Turtles versus their four artist namesakes).
  • The season 4 premiere tops that easily enough with up to 5 people on each side (Ray, Winston, Peter and Egon with cameo by Janine on one, and Adam and Jamie plus Kari, Grant and Tory on the other and the surprise addition of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man taking it literally up to eleven!)
• Serial Escalation: The season two finale. Rasputin gives his verse. Then Stalin gives his. Then Vladimir Lenin drops in and starts trashing both of them. Okay, he's probably just the Russian equivalent of Abraham Lincoln... Then, knock knock, and it's Mikhail Gorbachev, pulling a Who's on First? with his 'birthmarks'. Then it's Vladimir Putin. "And for god's sake, we need a Russian!" indeed.
  • Then there's the Season 4 premiere, "Ghostbusters vs. Mythbusters". It starts with just Peter, Ray, and Egon. Then Winston joins them, and they battle Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman for awhile. Then the latter two bring the B-Team (Tori, Grant and Kari) into the battle. Then Stay Puft shows up. Few, if any, bemoaned the end of the Hitler/Vader matches.
• Shabby Heroes, Well-Dressed Villains:
  • Freddie Mercury is portrayed in a much more positive light than his opponent, Frank Sinatra.
  • While Tesla has a certain amount of style, his outfit is much shabbier than that of Thomas Edison.
• Sharp-Dressed Man:
  • Tesla refers to himself as "impeccably dressed".
  • James Bond the Craig version boasts of being “bespoke from [his] head to [his] toe”
• Sherlock Scan: Done by the man himself to determine Batman's secret identity.
• Shirtless Scene: Vladimir Putin shows up in his memetic form.
  • Muhammad Ali as well.
• Short Teens, Tall Adults:
  • Inverted in Napoleon vs Napoleon, where 6'0" Peter plays a teenager while 5'6" Lloyd plays an adult. Most likely intentional, as the adult was the original Napoleon.
  • Played straight in "Batman vs. Sherlock", where Peter plays Batman while Lloyd plays Robin.
  • Also played straight in Lewis and Clark vs Bill and Ted. Lloyd and Peter respectively play Bill and Ted, while Lewis and Clark are respectively portrayed by guest duo Rhett and Link from Good Mythical Morning. Link is 6'0 like Peter, while Rhett is an absolute giant at 6'7".
• Show, Don't Tell: Abraham Lincoln's advice to Barack Obama:
  "Don't talk about change, just do it! I fought for what was on my brain until a bullet went through it!"
• Shout-Out:
  • "Hitler vs. Vader 2" has Darth Vader referencing another famous sci-fi franchise alongside Return of the Jedi.
    "I'm going to enjoy watching you die"
    "So let me do it with my own eyes"
  • "Goku vs Superman" has Goku singing these bars, which are modeled after Soulja Boy's famous song, "Crank That". Goku even does the crank dance during the verse. Another Soulja Boy reference is seen in "John Wick vs John Rambo vs John McClane".
    Goku: Look at those panties (OH!)
    You got that camel TOE!
    I'll report to Lois Lane and Superman that HO!
  • Right at the beginning of the Mythbusters' verse, Jamie says to Adam, "Let's do it like we do on the Discovery Channel."
  • "Eastern Philosophers vs Western Philosophers" includes a ton of references to old-school hip hop. Socrates calls Lao Tzu and Confucius the Yin and Yang Twins, before saying that he'll pick apart Sun Tzu's Wu with his "method, man." Additionally, one of Lao Tzu's lines is, "I'll make you move, bitch, get out the way!", which doubles as a pun on Lao Tzu being the founder of Taoism, the Tao literally meaning "the way".
  • The way Jon Snow sits up in the background during the end of Martin's first verse in Tolkien vs Martin is eerily similar to the way The Undertaker and Kane used to do it.
  • "Tony Hawk vs Wayne Gretzky":
    • At the start of the battle, Hawk compares the rap battle with the feud between Lil Wayne and Birdman, CEO of his former label Cash Money.
      Not Cash Money; it's just Wayne versus Birdman!
    • Wayne Gretzky exclaims, "It's a street fight, T. Hawk!"
    • During Tony Hawk's second verse, he says, "I got 99 problems, and you ain't one, Wayne!"
  • "Guy Fawkes vs Che Guevara" has Che say, "What's the Fawkes say now?!", before Guy Fawkes does a pained noise like a fox's bark to drive the pun further home.
  • Ronald McDonald exclaims, "Ask Rick and Morty who's the lyrical boss/I've got lines for days, call me Szechuan sauce!"
  • Being Australian, Steve Irwin's lines of course includes a "Down Under" reference.
    You better run, you better take cover/Cause crikey, I'm going from croc to Jacques hunter!
  • Mother Teresa calls herself a "one woman Nun–D.M.C." Later, Sigmund Freud calls her "the fakest Sister Act since Whoopi Goldberg."
  • The outro for "Vlad the Impaler vs Count Dracula" references the first Castlevania.
  • Pennywise references his use of red balloons by saying, "I've got 99 red balloons, bitch, and I dare you to take one!"
  • "Ragnar Lodbrok vs Richard the Lionheart" references The Lion King (1994) twice, with the songs "Circle of Life" and "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" being used as diss materials.
  • Scru Face Jean confirmed in his video that Mansa Musa calling out Jeff Bezos' real name ("he ain't a Bezos; his real name is Jorgensen!") is a reference to a similar scene in 8 Mile.
  • "Godzilla vs. King Kong": Godzilla opens his verse with "From the depths of the sea," referencing Snoop Dogg's "Who Am I (What's My Name)?" Kong calls him out on it.
• Shown Their Work: Has its own page.
• Sibling Incest:
  • Mario tells the Wright Brothers to "just get back in [their] biplane and make out with each other".
  • As Monroe says Cleopatra was "fucking her brothers".
  • Thor points out that Hera is Zeus's wife and sister, and "that's grosser than a Gorgon!"
• Signature Shot: Steven Spielberg vs. Alfred Hitchcock showcases each of the five directors with their trademark shooting style, and signature added effects.
  • Steven Spielberg: Track-in to close up, and using copious amounts of CGI.
  • Alfred Hitchcock: Showing off a side profile of Hitchcock from his show, "Alfred Hitchcock Presents".
  • Quentin Tarantino: Trunk Shot, in addition to basic angles showing the entirety of a dialogue.
  • Stanley Kubrick: Kubrick Stare, plus a tracking shot of him on a Big Wheels.
  • Michael Bay: "zoom in low with a telephoto" while panning, as well as a helicopter at sunset, and plenty of explosions.
• The Singularity: Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs ends on this note; it goes from the two one-upping each other to the idea that their technology is going to end up getting the best of either of them.
• Sistine Steal: In the rap battle between the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and their Renaissance namesakes, Michaelangelo strikes the pose of God from the Sistine Chapel to make a point about his rapping prowess. "I'm a rap God, and you can't quite touch me!"
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: Defied. After Adam realizes that he may have gone too far with calling Eve a colossal bitch, he apologizes, and she apologizes for everything she said as well. Adam wants to give her a hug to make up, but she'll be having none of it.
• Slasher Smile: Not, as you might expect, Stephen King. Not even Hannibal Lecter. Nope, the culprit here is none other than Walt Disney, who crashes into the Jim Henson vs. Stan Lee battle and proceeds to dominate it.
• Sleeps with Everyone but You:
  • Sigmund Freud to Mother Teresa. Though both rappers comment on Freud's high libido, he's disparaging of Teresa's looks at best, referring to her as "a mother that no one wants to sleep with" and her vow of chastity as “redundant”.
  • Indiana Jones boasts about his reputation as The Casanova, but still insists that he has no interest in Lara Croft.
• Sliding Scale of Realistic vs. Fantastic: Both real life historical figures have been portrayed as well as fictional characters from novels, plays, mythology, video games, comics, television, and films. Often even directly against one another.
• Slobs Versus Snobs:
  • Romeo & Juliet, aristocratic scions of wealthy Italian families, versus Bonnie & Clyde, rough mannered American bank robbers.
  • Jack the Ripper, a thug "covered in more piss than kitty litter", versus Hannibal Lecter, the guy with the doctorate degree and a glass of Chianti.
  • Spielberg vs Hitchcock has each of the pretentious directors seeing himself as the snob. All four of them think Michael Bay is a slob and he thinks all of them are snobs. He acknowledges that all of them see him as "evil".
  • The battle presents "George Washington versus William Wallace" as a "powdered prick in a blousy outfit" vs a savage in war paint.
  • Julius Caesar, stoic and cultured ruler of the world's largest empire, versus Shaka Zulu, hotblooded leader of a primitive horde of barbarians.
  • Lewis and Clark, a pair of intelligent and well-spoken explorers, cartographers, zoologists, and botanists vs. Bill and Ted, a pair of dumb and hapless teenagers.
  • The clean and incredibly well-spoken Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. vs. the unwashed and scrawny Gandhi with "no shoes and no shirt".
  • Sophisticated French military and political leader Napoleon Bonaparte vs. dumb, gawky, mouth-breathing high-school student Napoleon Dynamite.
  • The vulgar and raunchy George R. R. Martin vs. J. R. R. Tolkien the uptight tweed-wearing Oxford professor.
  • Jacques Cousteau, a French filmmaker with a Palme d'Or and multiple Oscars, versus Steve Irwin, an Australian TV host who wrestles wild animals for a living.
  • In Henry Ford vs. Karl Marx, Ford describes himself and Marx with this, praising himself for "drip[ping] with style" while calling Marx a "broke slob" and an "utopian hobo".
• Slut-Shaming:
  • Cleopatra vs. Marilyn Monroe has the characters viciously attacking each other's respective sex lives.
  • Joan of Arc brags that she only gets down on her knees for prayer and calls Miley Cyrus a “ratchet skank”.
  • Frank Sinatra mocks Freddie Mercury for playing “butthole roulette”.
  • Wonder Woman calls out Stevie Wonder for having “nine different kids by five different mothers."
• Small Reference Pools:
  • Leonidas and Willam Wallace's portrayals are based on their respective portrayals in 300 and Braveheart — movies that make up nearly all of their modern-day fame.
  • Subverted with Tolkien and Martin — one might expect the only points of reference to be their most famous respective works and their best-known adaptations, but a reference to Martin writing Beauty and the Beast (1987) is there.
• Some of My Best Friends Are X: Frank Sinatra's first verse for Freddie Mercury is filled with barbs regarding Mercury's bisexuality. When Mercury responds by mocking Sinatra's Italian heritage, he doesn't take it well and clarifies that he doesn't have anything against bisexuals in general. The way he words it, though...
  Easy there, Jaws of life! I can't stand a racist
  I love the coloreds and the queers — just ask Sammy Davis!
• Sophisticated as Hell:
  • Shakespeare does this quite a lot.
    Shakespeare: What light through yonder poser breaks?
    Shakespeare: I hath been iambic on that ass, ye bastard.
    Shakespeare: Ye hoebag!
  • Sherlock Holmes does this heavily.
  • In "Rasputin vs Stalin" again:
    Vladimir Lenin: I fought the bondage of classes, the proletariat masses/have brought me here to spit a thesis against both of yo' asses!
  • Isaac Newton:
    "What's up, bitches? My name is Sir Isaac Newton. I am a philosopher, a mathematician and I invented so much sweet shit you wouldn't believe."
  • Romeo and Juliet, being Shakespearean characters, do quite a bit of this.
  • Hannibal Lecter boasts of his refined lifestyle in contrast to his opponent, whom he describes as "covered in more piss than kitty litter".
  • The philosophers in "Eastern philosophers vs. Western philosophers" lecture each other on ethics, wisdom, and discipline while describing about the ass-whoopings they're going to hand each other.
  • Both rappers in Thanos vs. Oppenheimer have lines that reference obscure comics lore, nuclear physics, and internet memes.
• Speak Ill of the Dead: Technically, this has been done several times due to majority of the historical characters being deceased in real life. However, straight examples are Goku during his bout with Superman (using the late Christopher Reeve's disability as a taunt during the rap's closing), and Clint Eastwood during his bout with Bruce Lee (mocking the latter for his and his son's deaths).
• Special Effect Failure: Invoked. Doc Brown makes fun of how lame the special effects are in the Doctor Who series.
• Spelling for Emphasis: In "Western vs. Eastern Philosophers", Nietzsche raps "I'm N-I-E-T-Z-S-C-H-E! And I'll end any motherfucker like my name in a spelling bee!"
• Spell My Name With An S: Hitler's first name is spelled 'Adolph' on his title card at the beginning, but is spelled in the more conventional way, 'Adolf', in the subtitles where he introduces himself. Both spellings are valid. In the rematch, however, Hitler's title card uses the spelling 'Adolf'.
• Spin-Off: 9 The Official Fanzine type that shows the behind the scenes and extra info.
  • Epic Rap Battles of History—Behind the Scenes
  • Epic Drawings of History with Marydoodles
  • Epic Makeup with Ceciley
  • Epic Dance Battles of History
  • The following follow along the lines of the Re-imagining type of Spin-Off:
    • Epic Cartoon Rap Battles Of History by The Infinite Source.
    • Chaotic Rap Battles
  • Flash In The Pan Hip Hop Conflicts Of Nowadays tackles subjects that don't quite fall into "ëpic" or "history", but are done due to overwhelming fan request. Peter and Lloyd perform the rap with barebones production in front of the camera inside the recording studio. "Ronald McDonald vs. The Burger King" was eventually elevated to a proper rap battle.
• Spiritual Successor: ERB could be described as Celebrity Deathmatch minus the blood, gore, and censorship; but in a musical form.
• Splash of Color: Both played straight (with Gandhi in MLK background) and inverted (with MLK in Gandhi background) in Gandhi vs Martin Luther King Jr. during the hugging scene.
• Spoiler Title: "Hulk Hogan and Macho Man vs. Kim Jong-il" is the only battle thus far whose title mentions someone who appears later in the battle.
• Stealing the Credit:
  • Bill Gates and Steve Jobs accuse each other of this back-to-back:
    Gates: Well, Steve, you steal all the credit for work that other people do! Did your fat beard Wozniak write these raps for you, too?
    Jobs: Ooh... Everybody knows Windows bit off Apple!
  • This is also a large part of the focus of Tesla's rap vs. Edison - that the latter had stolen the former's patents and ideas, then discredited him to prevent his further ideas from going forward.
  • It's not an accusation levelled against either combatant, but the Joker references how “Bob Kane stole from Bill Finger!”
• Stealth Insult:
  • "Why don't you's get back in your biplane and make out with each other?"
  • "Show this petty officer who's the hardest!"
  • "So kiss my ass, Frankie." A blink-and-you'll-miss-it type; the chorus shouts "Ass!" instead of "Frank" as Sinatra appears onscreen.
  • "And people with jobs use PC!"
  • "So dope I even make New Jersey look good!"
  • Rick Grimes calls Walter White a "lab rat", referencing not just the latter's career but also his experimental cancer treatments.
  • "You waste your time debating Creationists..." is an overt insult to Bill Nye, and a stealth insult to Creationists.
  • Considering both characters are British spies, Austin Powers doing the two-finger salute, the British equivalent to Flipping the Bird, when he says "two bloody times" qualifies as this.
  • When Nice Peter insults the editor in the rematch between the creators, said editor responds by enlarging Peter's hand and Lloyd's head, silently implying that Peter needs to keep his hands out of other people's business and that Lloyd needs to get his head deflated.
  • "I like you just the way you are, one in a million."
• Stealth Pun: Has its own page.
• Stunt Double: The break-dancing portion of Mister Rogers' verse is not NicePeter.
• Stupid Jetpack Hitler: Hitler apparently travelled through time and messed with the Star Wars prequels.
• Stylistic Suck:
  • Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney takes the cake, really. Both of them have incredibly stilted speech that you'd expect from career politicians, and the battle eventually dissolves into childish bickering. Then Abraham Lincoln shows up...
  • Captain Kirk's rapping style, which parodies William Shatner's delivery to the point Christopher Columbus says rapping against him isn't even fun.
  • Side-series "Flash-in-the-Pan Hip-Hop Conflicts of Nowadays" has this in spades: the announcer sounds bored (and high-pitched), Peter and Lloyd are just filming themselves in the recording booth without any attempt at backgrounds or special effects, and they're barely even attempting to do a proper voice for the rappers.
• Subverted Catchphrase: In "Eastern Philosophers vs. Western Philosophers", as the battle ends with each side's members arguing with one another, the Announcer closes the battle with "WHAT IS WINNING?" instead of the usual "WHO WON?"
• Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: Defied. Kanye West (the Ghost of What's Right Now) goes out of his way to make sure all his lines end with a rhyme.
  Kanye West: Just take a lesson from Yeezy.
  You're missing the point Ebeneezy
  There's more to life than your work, take it easy.
  Even I can make time for Azizy.
  • Played straight by Vader in Round 2:
    Darth Vader: I'm a certified Sith Lord, you runt
    So suck on deez... deez robot nuts!
• Sudden Downer Ending: Romeo and Juliet vs. Bonnie and Clyde. Everyone dies. Even the narrator didn't know what to think of it.
• Superior Successor: Sometimes claimed by the newer battler, sometimes denied by the older.
  Stephen Hawking: (to Albert Einstein) While it's true that my work is based on you,
  I'm a supercomputer, you're like a TI-82.
  Gandhi: (to Martin Luther King Jr.) Everything you preach, I said it first.
  You should jot down these words, plagiarize my whole verse.
  Steven Spielberg: (to Alfred Hitchcock) Picture a child sitting next to a projector
  learning from your films to become a much better director.
  Now picture a three billion dollar dream machine
  who can block bust all over your crop duster scene!
  David Copperfield: (to Harry Houdini) When I was a child, you were a god to me; I had to do what you do.
  Now, you're like a Chinese wall to me; bitch, I'll walk right through you!
• Super Mode:
  • In the first Vader/Hitler battle, Vader begins to use The Force in his second verse to choke Hitler and then freeze him in carbonite.
  • Chuck Norris in his second verse, resulting in bursts of fire and Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever.
  • The Mario Brothers grow larger in their second verse, complete with the appropriate sound from the game.
  • Goku, unsurprisingly, goes Super Saiyan to rap against Superman.
• "Super Sentai" Stance: The Renaissance artists pull one of these off at the beginning of Leonardo da Vinci's verse.
• Symbol Swearing: Donald Trump's Precision F-Strike is both audibly muted and shown as "F***ing" in the subtitles.
• Take Up My Sword:
  • Hulk Hogan gets shot down via bazooka by Kim Jong-Il, so Macho Man tags in to fight back in place of the injured Hogan.
  • After Billy Mays dies mid-battle against Ben Franklin, the ShamWow guy dramatically emerges to finish the battle.
  • After Doc Brown takes out the Tenth Doctor with a Dalek, the Fourth Doctor takes his place.
• Take a Third Option: Mitt Romney vs Barack Obama vs Abraham Lincoln.
  • And Walt Disney in Stan Lee vs Jim Henson, after the two men end up making amends.
• Take That, Audience!: Leonidas mocks Master Chief's fans as puny, fat computer nerds who masturbate to their games to give themselves "first-person shooters".
• Teeny Weenie:
  • Clint Eastwood claims that Bruce Lee's One-Inch Punch is the same size as his pecker.
  • When Beethoven mentions Bieber can't hit puberty, Bach implies this about Justin, popping up on screen shaking his head sadly and holding his finger and thumb an inch apart.
  • According to Skrillex, Mozart has a little magic flute.
  • "Why'd you name your company after your dick?!"
  • Superman thinks Goku wears "hammer pants" to hide having "tiny genitals."
  • Eve tells Adam to ditch the fig leaf and cover his penis with a pine needle instead.
  • Thanos accuses Oppenheimer of having a tiny dick.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Both the Western Philosophers and Eastern Philosophers don't work as well as most of the other teams in the show. Both of their last verses have the rappers dissing their own teammates instead of the other side. Both times, one of the philosophers (Voltaire and Confucius) tries to calm down the other two, only to get dissed himself and respond angrily.
• Tempting Fate:
  "Now no one can stop me! The world is mine!" "I'm sorry, Bill. I'm afraid I can't let you do that..."
  "Wait! Harkening back to the dead Donald's lecture, I still am expecting a final specter!"
  "And there is no man who could ever muck with what we've left behind."
  "It's kinda sad though really, so young to have just died. Well at least we got each other, just Bonnie and-"
  • Ivan the Terrible does this twice in one battle:
    Ivan the Terrible: There's no great who could defeat this Russian!
    Frederick the Great: Psst! What about a flute-busting Prussian?
    
    Ivan the Terrible: It's another great day, and another great victory, 'cause no great can beat me!
    Pompey the Great: What about me, Pompey? Yeah!
    (enter Catherine the Great as well)
• Testosterone Poisoning: Nice Peter behind the scenes for Mitt vs. Obama.
  "I am gonna get sooooo many women pregnant!"
• That Russian Squat Dance: Done at the end of "Rasputin vs. Stalin", naturally.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!: Luke Skywalker weaponizes this trope in his first verse by showing a literal side-by-side comparison of what elements of Star Wars that the Harry Potter franchise ripped off.
  Luke: Your origin story was mostly stolen from me.
  You may be a Potter, but Harry, I planted the seed.
  Let's see: little orphan raised by relatives in solitude
  Suddenly gets taken under wing by funky wizard dude
  Learns that he's been destined to have powerful gifts
  But between the two of us I think I got the cooler stick!
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!:
  • Vader, Chuck Norris, Gandalf, Batman, Kirk, and a few others all pull this off at various points.
    Chuck Norris: I've spilt more blood and gore than forty score of your puny Civil Wars, bitch!
    Gandalf: Tom riddle me this, you bitch, how's your little wand gonna beat my staff?
    Batman: So bring it on, bitch, I'm Batman!
    Boba Fett: Bitch, who you callin' clone? You're a Deathstroke ripoff!
    HAL 9000:"I'm on Linux, bitch, I thought you GNU."
    Pennywise: I got 99 red balloons, bitch! And I dare you to take one.
  • Other variants pop up in "Rasputin vs. Stalin":
    Mikhail Gorbachev: I had the balls to let Baryshnikov dance, playa!
    Vladimir Putin: Doing judo moves and schooling every communist сука!
  • Miley Cyrus is "the hottest thing since Britney, bitch!"
  • "Alexander the Great vs. Ivan the Terrible" gives us two from Catherine the Great:
    "I'm the boss, bitch, that you just can't meddle with!"
    "Empress to Tsar 8, bitch! Checkmate!"
    • The same battle has a variant from Alexander, who doesn't use the word itself but gets it across with his wording and emphasis.
    "Little Vasilyevich, let me spell out the list!"
  • Freddy Krueger does this twice, naturally. “Welcome to primetime, bitch!”
  • Theodore Roosevelt's catchphrase in ERB News is "What's up, bitches?!" He even refers to this in his rap battle against Winston Churchill.
• The Three Certainties in Life: Benjamin Franklin claims that his victory is even more certain than the other two.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: J. Robert Oppenheimer perpetually has one, mirroring his real-life appearance in footage following the detonation of atom bombs he helped create.
• Tick Tock Tune: If you listen closely, the beat for “Mother Teresa vs. Sigmund Freud” includes the sound of a ticking clock. This is a reference to how psychiatric appointments are usually timed, and how Sigmund Freud is holding a pocket watch throughout the battle (even ending his final verse with “our time is up, Teresa”).
• Title Scream: EPIC RAP BATTLES OF HISTORYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!
• Time Skip: In the Elvis Presley vs Michael Jackson fight, both characters go through this. Michael spins into his older, whiter self, and Elvis gets fat from eating too much.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: The Doctor begins explaining how space and time work, then says "nevermind" and gives Doc Brown the nut shell.
• Toilet Humor:
  • Elvis Presley's death on the can is inevitably brought up when he fights Michael Jackson.
    Elvis: Well I died on the shitter, but I don't give a crap!
  • NicePeter likes to pantomime popping a squat. He's done it four times, as Mozart, Donald Trump, Steven Spielberg, and Nietzsche; the former of which was known for his scatological interests which are brought up numerous times during the battle.
  • George Carlin (who is also played by Peter) dabbled into a bunch of these in rapid-fire succession:
    Non-stopping brain droppings like my wit's got the shits!
    So call this Pryor-rhea, I doo-doo on you constantly!
• Token White: In his second verse, Martin Luther King is accompanied by a group of people, all of whom are black except for the one white guy played by Lloyd. Similarly, in Gandhi's second verse, he's accompanied by Indians and one white reverend played by Nice Peter.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: In Bonnie and Clyde vs Romeo and Juliet, Bonnie (tomboy) is a rough and tough criminal lady and Juliet (girly) is a super feminine Shakespearean aristocrat. Clyde and Romeo even play the Spear Counterpart to their lovers.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth:
  • Count Dracula admits to getting nauseous at the thought of biting someone with personal hygiene as poor as Vlad the Impaler's.
  • Pennywise's Deadlights normally drive all who see them to madness, but the Joker is so insane to begin with that they don't faze him at all.
• Tranquil Fury:
  • Chuck Norris starts off this way, nonchalantly blocking punches and arrows aimed at him, but having a bucket full of pennies dumped over his head makes him lose his cool.
  • Master Chief maintains his calmness throughout his battle, but you can tell he's pissed off.
  • Mister Rogers. He doesn't raise his soft, polite voice even once, but he does go into Creepy Monotone, calls Mr T "Laurence" like a teacher to a naughty child, and swears.
  • After his first verse, Bill Gates has this; Steve Jobs launches verses, but Bill just calmly responds to them. He loses this when Steve dies.
    Steve Jobs: I bet this beat was made on an Apple!
    Bill Gates: Nope, Fruity Loops. PC.
    Steve Jobs: (angry) You will never, ever catch a virus on an Apple!
    Bill Gates: But you can still afford a doctor if you buy a PC.
  • Clint Eastwood throughout his rap just calmly shoots everyone and everything around him while launching insults at Bruce Lee.
  • Bob Ross never raises his voice above a calm whisper all throughout his battle with Picasso.
  • Hannibal Lecter clearly shows contempt with Jack The Ripper, but he keeps a calm tone when tearing his flaws apart.
• Transformation Sequence:
  • Young Michael Jackson spins transforming into older Michael Jackson. And from the same video, young, handsome Elvis scarfing down sandwiches to transform into old, fat Elvis.
  • The Tenth Doctor regenerates into the Fourth Doctor.
  • Gandalf the White gets his 'ass knocked back' to Gandalf the Grey.
  • Before the battle even starts, Clark Kent spins rapidly around while changing into his Superman outfit. In the same episode, Goku goes Super Saiyan near the start of his first verse.
• Trunk Shot: "Harry Potter vs Luke Skywalker" has a unique take on this with the dead tauntaun.
• Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: Only with rap.
• The Unblinking:
  • How Mark Zuckerberg is portrayed; he never once blinks, and only closes his eyes to feign sleeping. He even directly acknowledges it in a line ("You can't sneak up on Zuck, I don't even fucking blink!").
  • Similarly, Hannibal Lecter, though this one is just following the source material.
  • Dr. Oppenheimer also never blinks onscreen, emphasizing his perpetual Thousand-Yard Stare.
• Unfortunate Names: The Wright Brothers, according to the Mario Bros.
  Luigi: Look at these two; their lives must've been horrible!
  Mario: Two dorky dudes...
  Luigi: ...named Wilbur and Orville!
• The Unintelligible: The announcer gradually becomes this as more videos are released. Each video tries to top the last. Though it's subverted more starting with Stephen King vs Edgar Allan Poe.
• Unusual Euphemism:
  • The Wright Bros. stayed up all night "playing Donkey Kong" with Princess Peach.
  • Leonidas claims Master Chief's fans are sweaty nerds that give themselves "first-person shooters". In return, Master Chief claims he showed Leonidas' wife his "plasma cannon".
  • Michael Jackson "hee-hee"-d Elvis's daughter.
  • Joe DiMaggio "took a swing in [Marilyn Monroe's] batter's box," and Cleopatra has been "tossing Caesar's salad".
  • Steve Jobs makes the "GUI" (gooey) that Bill Gates's wife "uses".
  • Freddie Mercury acknowledges that he "took one for both teams" when he contracted AIDS.
  • Barack Obama threatens to smack Mitt Romney with his "stimulus package".
  • Robin took Sherlock's lady friend Irene Adler back to his pad "to BAM!-POW!-KERSPLAT! her".
  • Captain Kirk wonders if Queen Isabella would like his "Captain's Log".
  • Mozart's cousin "blew notes" on his "little magic flute".
  • The Incredible Hulk's best-known Catchphrase gets turned into one.
    "Best thing you make - Kylie ass! She eighteen? HULK SMASH!"
  • In the rematch between the creators, EpicLloyd tells Nice Peter, "Your whole name means 'dick'!"
  • Lara Croft refers to Indiana Jones' sexual relationship with Marion Ravenwood as "raid[ing] her bones".
• Viewers Are Geniuses: Even with a concept so simple as "take two or more historical figures/characters/celebrities", it's surprising just how many allusions to various events and traits of the characters in question can be found under the surface of the lyrics. Fittingly enough, the users of the website Genius go into depth with these, as do members of the Epic Rap Battles of History Wiki.
• Villainous Breakdown: Hitler appears to go through this after shooting Boba Fett in his third battle against Darth Vader. He screams angrily that Vader won't cheat him and unleashes a barrage of insults that can barely be called a verse— his lines didn't even come close to rhyming:
  Hitler: Oh, sieg HELL no! You're not going to cheat ME, Mr. Sunglasses-All-The-Time!
  I'll take you, and your new boyfriend Goofy, and all your spermy soldier guys
  And throw you in a butthole in the sand!
  I am Adolf — [Vader slices him in half] — Hitler...
• Villainous Friendship: "Pennywise likes The Devil, we have so much fun together!"
• Villain Song: Real-world figures aside, hearing such fictional villains as Darth Vader and Hannibal Lecter get to rap could be seen this way.
• Visual Pun:
  • Billy Mays with his "lightning rod cock."
  • Picasso claims that he can make better art with his weiner... Lump!
  • When Donatello (the turtle) says "I don't Gattamelata clue what you do," we briefly see Donatello (the sculptor) working on his famed sculpture of Gattamelata.
  • The BTS for "Lewis and Clark vs Bill and Ted":
    Lloyd: You guys wanna start the BTS... or... [holds up an oar]
  • Alfred Hitchcock does the Robot dance while claiming that Steven Spielberg is "more horrible than Megan Fox's acting in Transformers". Doubles as a Stealth Insult when you consider what the movie is about.
• The Voiceless: Dr. Seuss lets his art do the talking for him.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: "Gordon Ramsey vs Julia Child" references Ramsey's habit of deliberately horking up whatever doesn't agree with him, fourfold.
• Wait for Your Date: Briefly touched upon in Adam's verse in Adam vs. Eve:
  You call it complex, but yo, I'd call you a mess. You take two hours to come — three more to get dressed!
• Walking Spoiler: It's hard to discuss Lenin, Gorbachev, and Putin's role in the season 2 finale without lessening the impact of their arrival.
  • Similarly, it's hard to talk about Spielberg and Hitchcock's video without mentioning the other three directors.
  • In general, any time a third party intrudes on a battle. Talking about either said third party or the battle itself is sure to spoil the other.
• We ARE Struggling Together: Both the Eastern and Western Philosophers start out as three-man teams, but by their respective final verses, they're squabbling with each other. In the West's case, it was because of a clever Batman Gambit by Sun Tzu — the East's was self-inflicted after one too many Ice Cream Koans.
• Wham Line: The introduction of a third side is usually this.
  • "I'm sorry, Bill, I'm afraid I can't do that." HAL's intro.
  • "CAW!" The eagle introducing Abraham Lincoln in the Obama/Romney battle, the first time a rapper returned outside of the Hitler/Vader rematch
  • There are several in the season 2 finale:
    • "I have no pride for you who ruined everything my revolution was doing to stop the bourgeoisie!" Lenin's introduction.
    • "Did somebody say 'birthmarks'?" Gorbachev's intro, the first time we got a fourth side.
    • Followed by "Did somebody say 'real power'?" Putin's intro, forming a fifth side.
  • "Because you're standing over the Rancor pit." After Adolf Hitler delivers a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Darth Vader, Stephen Hawking comes in to announce that it was Exactly as Planned.
  • "Just say the first thing that pops into your mind." And thus the Stay Puft marshmallow man appears to battle the Ghostbusters and the MythBusters. *BOOM* "Uh!" *BOOM* "Uhh!"
  • "Did somebody say Angel?", Criss Angel's attempt at getting into the Houdini/Copperfield battle, but subverted once the former shoos him away.
  • Three in Spielberg vs. Hitchcock.
    • "Cut! Gimme a Tylenol." Quentin Tarantino's introduction
    • Followed by "Genius is a powerful word", which introduces Stanley Kubrick.
    • And last but not least, there's "That's enough", the line that introduces Michael Bay.
  • "M-I-C, I rock the mic properly!", heralding Walt Disney crashing the Stan Lee/Jim Henson rap battle.
  • In "Frederick Douglas vs. Thomas Jefferson", there's the second line of Jefferson's second verse which reveals that this verse isn't going to be an ordinary Boastful Rap:
    Jefferson: Aw, Frederick, I never heard a verse I dug less/Alright, I admit it, I confess!
  • "I wouldn't exactly call you original", dropped by Sean Connery's James Bond when he crashes the battle between Daniel Craig's Bond and Austin Powers.
  • Three in Ivan the Terrible vs. Alexander the Great:
    • "Psst, what about a flute-busting Prussian?", Frederick the Great's introduction into the rap battle.
    • "What about me? Pompey!", self-explanatory; he's killed immediately by the character below.
    • "Macedonians, Prussians, and Romans? Those aren't worthy opponents", the line Catherine the Great uses to take the stage.
  • In "Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton", there's a point in Trump's verse where he stops insulting Hillary and starts talking about his policies with one particularly shocking line.
    "I'm gonna run these streets like I run my casinos / more police, and less Latinos!"
    • And then another one shortly after:
    Donald Trump: For the last eight years, this country's been run by-
    Abe Lincoln's eagle: CAW!
  • "Where's the beef? Right here!" Wendy drops this when she buts in on "Ronald McDonald vs. the Burger King".
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Frank Sinatra makes fun of Freddie Mercury's fashion sense, but Freddie responds by exclaiming he's more powerful than Frank is even while while wearing women's pants.
• Wildlife Commentary Spoof: In "Jacques Cousteau vs Steve Irwin", during Steve's first verse he crosses over to Jacques' side and proceeds to describe Jacques as if he were observing a dangerous and rare creature.
• A Wild Rapper Appears!:
  • Defied by Adolf Hitler in Round 3 against Darth Vader. Vader tries to send in Boba Fett as a backup rapper, but Hitler is having none of it and shoots him.
    Hitler: Oh sieg hell no! You're not going to cheat me, Mister Sunglasses All The Time!
  • Robin invites himself into the Batman vs. Sherlock Holmes showdown, providing a rapid-fire bridge before Batman reasserts the original pace and style.
• With Due Respect: A variant:
  Sun Tzu: Laozi, I don't mean no disrespect, but you need to fill your bowl with some shit that makes some sense!
• World of Ham: Everyone here is a rapper engaged in Ham-to-Ham Combat.
• World of Pun: If you couldn't already tell from reading this far into the page. Every single ERB song contains countless puns, rhymes, alliterations, double entendres, and other clever uses of wordplay.
• World of Snark: Everyone is portrayed as being a Deadpan Snarker, and almost all humor in this show comes from the characters exchanging all kinds of acerbic quips with each other.
• Would Hit a Girl: Captain Kirk strikes the alien lady multiple times. He also kisses her.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl:
  • Beethoven claims this is why he can't assault Bieber.
  • Lincoln apparently won't hit women, as at the end of "Trump vs. Hillary", he slaps Trump twice instead of hitting both candidates like he did in "Obama vs. Romney" — though he did move like he was about to hit Hillary afterward, causing her to flinch. This was a very deliberate decision on Peter's characterization of Lincoln: he wasn't going to strike Hillary, and wasn't going to show Trump any respect.
• Writer on Board: While most battles have all participants nail a few key blows against their opponents, or have a weak start with a killer Wham Line finish, others are so lop-sided (or have a special guest who acts as a mouthpiece) that it's clear the writers heavily favor one side. While nobody's going to dispute who should win in Genghis Khan vs. the Easter Bunny, the slant in other episodes has led to some backlash against fans who take exception.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: If Einstein is "as dope as two rappers", then he would be "MC doubled", not "MC squared". What makes this especially jarring is that the real Einstein was...well, you know. Then again, the correct version just wouldn't be as punny.
• Writing Around Trademarks: Unavoidable with "Ronald McDonald vs Burger King" — the M on Ronald's suit is replaced with an E for ERB (though it also looks like a sideways M anyway), and what appeared to be golden arches in his background are really just yellow circles, while Burger King's outfit is just a generic Henry VIII-styled royal robe that only looks like the real one from a distance.
• X Called; They Want Their Y Back:
  • Mr. T says this to Mr. Rogers:
    Mr. T: Hello? It's for you! Bill Cosby wants his sweater!
  • Elon Musk mocks Mark Zuckerberg's robotic mannerisms with this.
    Elon: You acted so robotic, Star Trek's like, "We need Lieutenant Data back!"
  • Freddy Krueger to Wolverine:
    Freddy: Flock of Seagulls called, they want their hairstyle returned!
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe:
  • Played with by Shakespeare, featuring such things as "ye hoebag".
    Shakespeare: I'll put a slug between your shoulder blades
    Then ask what light through yonder poser breaks.
  • Romeo and Juliet, being Shakespearean characters, also uses this in their raps.
    Romeo: En garde! Thou artless beetle-headed flax wench!
• Yet Another Christmas Carol: Donald Trump vs Ebeneezer Scrooge, with the former as Marley, and JP Morgan, Kanye West and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come as Ghosts of the Past, What's Right Now, and... Yet to Come.
• You Are Fat: Used whenever a fat rapper is featured, with some notable examples being Santa Claus, Elvis "the King of Jelly Rolls" Presley, Babe Ruth, Alfred Hitchcock and George R. R. Martin. In some cases, however, the trope is pushed to its limits, as characters who are Hollywood Pudgy at worst, such as Martin Luther King and Julia Child, are still mocked for it. Even Harry Houdini and Steve Irwin are called "chunky".
• You Keep Using That Word: Pablo Picasso points out that Bob Ross probably has no idea what cubism means.
• You Need to Get Laid: Or rather, J.P. Morgan says Ebenezer Scrooge should have gotten laid:
  Morgan: You should have made like Sebastian and kissed de girl!
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: The Wright Brothers spend their first few lines saying this to the Mario Brothers. "Your princess is in our castle now!"
• Your Mom:
  • Vader to Hitler: "So many dudes been with your mom, who even knows if I'm your father?"
  • Hawking to Einstein: "There are ten million million million million million million million million million particles in the universe that we can observe/ Your mama took the ugly ones and put them into one nerd".
  • Inverted by Obama, who compliments Romney's father as a Take That! to Romney:
    Obama: They say your father was a great man, you must be what's left.
  • Bruce Lee: "I beat the Good, and the Bad. You must be the ugly. I would mess up your face, but your mama did it for me!"
  • Charles Darwin ends his battle against Ash Ketchum with a nod to the popular fan theory that Professor Oak is banging Ash's mom.

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Who won? Who's next? You decide!
EPIC! RAP! BATTLESOFHISTORYYYYY!

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