Web Video / Positively Dreadful

Stay Positive!

"I liked it!"

Positively Dreadful is a review show hosted by Nedburns (formerly named Sideburns), real name Ned Coyle, taking a look at everything from film and TV, to games and comic books. Unlike many of his obvious inspirations, Sideburns usually goes in with a more positive attitude, highlighting subjects he enjoys or at least sees the merit in.

Not that it's always enough to save him a headache.

Aside from the main show, Sideburns also posts Positively Quick, essentially shorter PD episodes, Convention videos, and has dabbled in the odd Let's Play.

In 2017, Coyle announced that the show would become a lower priority, feeling that the show was taking up too much of his time for too little a response, but too fun to make to cancel outright.

Positively Dreadful can be seen here.

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Positively Dreadful provides examples of:

• Achievements in Ignorance: Won the Twisted Metal contest through reckless, panic induced driving alone. He didn't know he'd entered.
• Affably Evil:
  • Jason Voorhees is depicted this way.
  • As is Calypso.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Sideburns' laptop comes to life in Mighty Moshin' Emo Rangers and declares that it is now in charge. Sideburns does not seem impressed.
• Affectionate Parody: The St. Kilda Experiment review turns out to be a parody of "internet critic goes on an adventure" videos. The DVD isn't cursed, it's just embarrassing.
• All Just a Dream: The second half of the "Dr. McNinja" video is Sideburns' dying dream after he flew a tank into space and suffocated.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: In-Universe examples.
  • Nedburns considers Al Yankovic, as depicted in The Weird Al Show, an inherently evil creature who is trying and failing to change his ways.
  • Jason Voorhees is a laidback and friendly guy who treats his murder-sprees as one would an acting career.
  • Steve Foxx is a coward who acts tough while hiding behind a camera.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Sideburns names his daughter Boo in an Imagine Spot. She doesn't take it well.
• Apathetic Citizens:
  • When the world is ending in Marvel Comics, we see one citizen who seems convinced things are going to work out just fine. He's right.
  • Likewise, a neighbour is seen simply shaking his head in disapproval when a Monster House is seen chasing after three kids and an old man.
• April Fools' Day: Reviewed the original Tomb Raider but quickly grew infuriated with the games wonky controls and abandoned the video.
• The Artifact:
  • Fellow Youtuber Mad Hat Gamer had a cameo during the Pacific Rim video, and the video ends with a plug for his channel. The same Youtuber now goes by "Berghani", and no longer uses the linked channel.
  • A third character appears alongside Random-Fan and Blake in the Atmosfear title-card. Lampshaded right at the end.
• Artifact Title: The show was originally intended to center on giving positive reviews to explicitly bad movies and games, hence, being positive about something dreadful. Though several of his reviews praise or at least compliment subjects generally seen unfavourably, such as Pacific Rim: The Game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) and Spy Kids.
• Ask a Stupid Question...: From "Tell Me What To Review":
  "Why are you in bed?"
  "...because I'm tired."
• Author Appeal: Loves superheroes and monsters.
• Back from the Dead: Sideburns has died for the sake of comedy more than once.
• Badass Boast: In an originally one-sided conversation, Allan Quatermaine gives us this eloquent rebuttle.
  Quatermaine: Imma f*ckin' kill ya!
  Moriarty: I'll just rebuild it!
  Quatermaine: Not without a f*ckin' head ya won't!
  Moriarty: There'll be others like me, Quatermaine!
  Quatermaine: I'll f*ckin' kill them too!
  Moriarty: You can't kill the future!
  Quatermaine: F*CKIN' WATCH ME!
• Balloon Belly: Sideburns gets one from trying to eat one hundred bananas for an extra life. It works.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • In the Good ending of the inFAMOUS 2 review, Sideburns uses his powers to cure the world of all disease. This destroys the medical industry and sends the world economy into chaos.
  • The Evil ending is actually better. Sideburns kills Random-Fan, but is almost immediately detained off-screen.
  • While Sideburns clearly does not think Coraline: The Game is any good, but when the game directly asks him if he enjoyed it, he can't bring himself to say no. And then it drowns him in buttons.

• Brick Joke:
  • One video well establishing that Sideburns used to be borderline obsessed with The Nightmare Before Christmas. Almost two years later, he is joined for an unrelated review by a large Jack Skellington doll.
  • Sideburns greets the War Father, asking him if he broke into his house to give him free stuff. By Atmosfear, someone in a mask actually does.
  • The House devours numerous heroes towards the start of Monster House. Later Nedburns' ponders what else is inside, and we see all of them casually hanging out together in a spare room. Goku teaches them the Kamehameha, and they destroy the house at the end of the video.
• Broken Pedestal: Is completely disgusted when the Introspective Emo Ranger reprograms a sentient robot girl to be his sex slave. Proceeds to tear a poster of him off his wall, shred it, and eat it.
• Call-Back:
  • Has some trouble with the infamous screaming book in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone DVD, and is explicitly attacked by books in Ghostbusters: The Video Game.
  • When returning from space, Steve flies past the tank Sideburns drove into space, and crashes into Jason Voorhees.
  • Evil Sideburns returns right at the end of Twisted Metal.
  • Coraline: The Game has a bunch to the original video.
    • The Preying Mantis Tractor Mech is again treated with great significance.
    • Sideburn's yells "Coraline Smash!" while raging.
    • An unintentional one. The segment portraying the third act as a video game is extremely similar to how the actual game functions.
    • Sideburns refuses the Other Mother pizza, which gave her the strength to live on as just a hand in the original video.
    • The Other Niece gets kicked out of the house, which happened to the real one in Spy Kids and Blake in Atmosfear.
• The Cameo:
  • The Last Angry Geek of Comic Book Issues appears in "Convergence Tie-Ins" to discuss The Question. Fellow comic fan Julz Chan also appears to discuss Superman, and later Ms. Marvel.
  • Fellow Youtuber Kapinarmic voices Jason Voorhees.
  • Berghani (formerly Mad Hat Game) has also made a number of appearances.
• Carpet of Virility: His chest hair is often visible through the top of his shirt.
• Catchphrase: "Stay Positive!"
• Caustic Critic: Mostly averted, as most of the show is Sideburns gushing about things that he loves. Comes close in Tomb Raider and War of the Monsters, however.

• Creepy Child: The Cute/Cool Niece has her moments.
• Crossover:
  • Fellow comic book nerds John Haslach, Julz Chan, and The Last Angry Geek show up to overlook Convergence.
  • Reviewed Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! with Berghani. He also appears in the AVCon convention video.
  • Sideburns returned the favour on Berghani's channel, looking at a number of Gravity Falls flash games.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Mario clobbers him and Berghani at the end of Mario Party 2.
  • Less literally in the same video, Berghani crushes Sideburns in mini-games after he stops playing nice.
  • Constance the house overpowers and devours dozens of heroes without much resistance, many of which should be ridiculously overpowered.
• Dance Party Ending:
  • "Top 5 Commercials"
  • The Haunted Mask ends with Sideburns and Carly Beth dancing.
• Dead Baby Comedy: Its brief, but Sideburns throws Baby Mario at Bowser, impaling him on one of his spikes.
• Death by Gluttony: After eating ninety nine bananas, Sideburns chokes and dies eating the one hundredth. Thanksfully this grants him an extra life.
• Death from Above: How Julz Chan defeats the War Father.
• Defeat Equals Friendship: After finally managing to subdue Sideburns, the Guardian watches the rest of the movie with him and leaves on good terms. Sideburns calls the police on him almost immediately.
• Destructive Saviour:
  • In true Ghostbusters tradition, Sideburns does far more damage than the ghost he's chasing.
  • Also brought up in Pacific Rim: The Game.
• Determinator: Berghani apparently ran all the way from Sweden to film their crossover. In seconds. Before Sideburns had asked.
• Double Entendre: "At least I'm good at riding wood and grabbing balls." He's talking about Quidditch.
• Downer Ending: Nedburns hallucinated half of the Dr. McNinja video, and is now floating dead in space.
• Drive-In Theater: The setting of the War of the Monsters review.
• Drives Like Crazy: Nedburns, apparently. It's how he managed to accidentally win Twisted Metal without any weapons.
• Driven to Suicide: Finishing the Donkey Kong Country games leaves Sideburns feeling empty and unfulfilled, leading to him considering this.
• Drop-In Character:
  • Random-Fan, who tends to show up whenever a second character is needed.
  • The Cute/Cool Niece drops in even more frequently, though usually for shorter scenes.
• Drowning My Sorrows: When he finds out he still can't beat Donkey Kong Country, he doesn't take it very well.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: During the Good half of the inFAMOUS 2 video, he is frustrated that people constantly beg him for help. Subverted immediately when the citizens of New Marais then rush to save ''him''.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The first episode, "Triple Helix" had terrible audio quality, Sideburns wore a different shirt, and the review played out like a fan-episode of Atop the Fourth Wall. Very obviously rushed. He also wore a hat early on.
  • Convention videos started out very long, with a whole video for each day of each convention, along with cosplay events cut into multiple parts. These became progressively shorter and shorter, until they generally began barely scratching past five minutes.
• Easter Egg: Liked to include hidden links to other videos through hidden messages back when Youtube used annotations.
• The End of the World as We Know It: What watching The St. Kilda Experiment will cause. Subverted. It's just a bad film.
• Evil Knock Off: The Other Brother.
• Evil Make Over: Sideburn's face becomes chalk white for the evil half of inFAMOUS 2.
• Face–Heel Turn:
  • Sideburns becomes deranged and psychotic during the evil half of the inFAMOUS 2 review.
  • Even later, he tries to murder his friends over a game of Atmosfear.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • The screen zooms out early into "The Haunted Mask". Pausing the video reveals the background is actually a darkened picture of Slappy the Dummy.
  • While searching the world for a copy of Mario Party 3, Sideburns and Berghani miss a copy nestled in the roots of a tree.
  • "Just because it isn't real doesn't mean you are safe."
  • "He's reading this too."
• A God Am I: Evil Sideburns doesn't think he's God. He thinks he's the Devil.
• God Is Good: At the very least, he doesn't condone meaningless killing or using your faith to justify your terrible actions.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: After some difficulty, Sideburns finally manages to call on fellow Youtuber Julz Chan to help save him from the War Father. Eventually.
• Graceful Loser: When he and the other Ghostbusters are killed in battle, Sideburns isn't happy about it, but just calmly tells everyone to get in the trap.
• Gushing About Shows You Like: Basically the whole point.
• Halloween Episode: Ghostbusters: The Video Game.
• Hero Antagonist: The Guardian only persists in attacking Sideburns because he thinks he's going to cause the apocalypse.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Subverted.
  "Or maybe it was the little multi-eyed mutants. They look pretty monstery."
• I Am a Humanitarian: After asking for a "treat", Cool Niece appears. Nedburns laments that he can't eat it all by myself.
• Informed Attribute: Nedburns's friend Blake is described as "the nicest guy ever," but is earlier shown punching him in the face for no reason.
• Kaiju: Have been discussed during reviews of Pacific Rim: The Game and War of the Monsters.
• Killed Off for Real: The Other Brother.
• Knight of Cerebus: War Father is the first antagonist to be taken seriously, holding Sideburns at gun point.
• Laughing Mad: In Monster House, from a bit of awkward animation.
• Lost Episode: "Coraline" in some cases. While not the only episode affected by a copyright strike, it is the only one made unavailable in some countries because of it.
• Malevolent Masked Man:
  • The War Father.
  • The Guardian, though he's a case of Good Is Not Nice.
• Meaningful Name: Averted and played straight before quietly changing his name from "That Kid with the Sideburns". While he is no longer a kid, he very obviously has sideburns. Of course, the name was accurate several years prior.

• Memetic Badass: In-Universe.
  • Sideburns believes that Brodski from Jason X ascended to godhood in death.
  • He also thinks highly of Graeme, an ambitious contestant from Trapped!
• Multiple Endings: inFAMOUS 2 is split into two separate videos for the good and evil paths of the game.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Manages to kill an ice monster just by turning off his air conditioner.
• Mundane Solution: When attacked by a child assassin, Sideburns responds by picking them up and putting them outside.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Sideburns is horrified after he accidentally kills Zeke in inFAMOUS 2 because Zeke owed him money.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Sideburns orders the Other Mother a pizza after she becomes rail thin. This gives her hand the strength to drag Coraline away at the end of the film.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot:
  • The War Father, a soldier priest supervillain.
  • In total, Sideburns himself is an internet reviewer who studies magic, catches ghosts, and has had electric powers.
• No Endor Holocaust: Finds the concept of a world made entirely of chocolate (as shown in a commercial) completely horrifying for this reason.
• Non-Indicative Name:
  • "Top 5 Commercials" spotlights eight commercials.
  • Sideburns had a full beard for a while.
• Nostalgia Filter:
  • Sideburns dons a pair of literal Nostalgia Goggles when he reviews the Harry Potter DVD.
  • Berghani dares not to blindly praise the Nintendo 64, and is forced to make this point:
    Berghani: Overrated doesn't mean bad.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: "You can make this stuff up, but it's not as funny."
• Not So Harmless: Sideburns' laptop coming to life is played for laughs until it kills him at the end of the video.
• Offscreen Inertia: The Other Brother is last seen awkwardly standing around after the review ends. Over a year later, Sideburns finally notices his remains on the floor, having apparently not moved from that spot at any point.
• Overly Long Gag: After rage quitting Tomb Raider he storms out of the room, but leaves the camera running. For three minutes.
• Overly Narrow Superlative: "Top Five Things I Did Not Hate About The New 52."
• Parental Neglect: Sideburns' mother appears twice in "Top 5 Commercials", first telling him to go away, and later ignoring him as he's chased down the street.
• Physical God: Sideburns accidentally becomes one after wishing for infinite wishes.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: The War Father.
• Pungeon Master: Evil Sideburns.
• Rage Quit:
  • Finds out the hard way that Tomb Raider isn't the game for him.
  • Subverted in Twisted Metal. When he's ready to start raging, he instead takes a minute to relax and collect himself. It helps. But not much.
• Real After All:
  • Arkvoodle, from Destroy All Humans 2.
  • The player character and Cerebulon crash to Earth after Sideburns watches them being sent into space in-game.
• Rule of Cool: Defied.
  Now you might say this makes my argument invalid. I say no. I have questions. Where did he get that? Your cool thing is invalid!
• Running Gag:
  • Obituaries for various characters crop up a lot. Eventually gets lampshaded in Trapped!
    "I write a lot of obituaries on this show..."
  • Pacific Rim is bound to come up whenever a giant robot is involved.
• Sad Clown: Its occasionally hinted that Sideburns is a sad, unfulfilled man who retreats into his entertainment to cope, and can't even find success online.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • What happens when Sideburns meets his Other Brother after reviewing Coraline.
  • The camera's reaction to Sideburns trying to talk about Totally Awesome Hulk.
• Self-Deprecation:
  • Has made more than a handful of jabs at his minuscule view count, and the hat he used to wear.
  • A whole episode is dedicated to The St. Kilda Experiment, a short film he helped make in high school. It is poor.
• Serious Business: As one might expect, Sideburns takes Mario Party very seriously.
• Sequel Episode:
  • "Triple Helix" – "Triple Helix revisited"
  • "Top Ten Things I Didn't Hate About the New 52" – "Convergence Tie-Ins"
  • "Destroy All Humans" – "Destroy All Humans 2"
  • "Coraline" – "Coraline.com" – "Coraline: The Game"
• Shout-Out: Will reference The Aquabats!, Gravity Falls, Team Fortress 2 and Pacific Rim at any opportunity.
• Show Within a Show: Ultra IV vs. Kinetifrog, from War of the Monsters.
• Sincerity Mode: Explicitly used in "Deadpool Bi-Annual".
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Berghani. Ironically enough, Sideburns swears even more than him in Berghani's side of the crossover.
• Soundtrack Dissonance:
  • "Heaven is a Place on Earth" played over the more violent imagery from Destroy All Humans!.
  • And later "Don't Stop Believing" during the Evil Ending of inFAMOUS 2.
  • And even later, "Jingle Bells" to a montage of Jason murdering people.
• Stunned Silence: Lampshaded after seeing a moustache animated in stop motion.
  "If I were capable of shutting up, I'd be speechless!"
• Super-Speed: Berghani can run from Sweden to Australia in about two seconds. This seems to be a natural ability of Swedes.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The War Father is defeated when he is struck by lightning. While he is intact afterwards, he is very much dead.
• Stylistic Suck: Sideburns dons a terrible Darth Vader costume, in reference to the villain's very cheap-looking costume in Spy Kids: All the Time in the World.
• Take That!:
  • While gushing about Pacific Rim, he notes that it was nice that one Man of Steel didn't disappoint in 2013.
  • After a ghost possesses a copy of Ghostbusters: The Video Game, Sideburns notes that a spirit haunting a nostalgic video game seems utterly ridiculous.
  • Comments that the bland and poorly used characters of Emo Rangers are just being true to the source material. But that later seasons put much more depth into their characters.
  • At one point, he indirectly refers to River Song as "the most obnoxious, irritating piece of tainted faecal matter I've ever had the displeasure of slashing my eyes out to after watching them on the TV screen."
  • After he is defeated, the true identity of the War Father is revealed as Donald Trump.
• Take That Me: While pretending to "play" a fight scene like a game, Sideburns misses a prompt reading "Press X to Win instantly," referring to some of his previous screw ups in game reviews.
• The Thing That Would Not Leave: It is implied that Berghani never left Sideburns' house in the two-year gap between crossovers.
• Troll: Calypso, true to his home series.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:invoked Apparently, Thor not wearing his helmet in the movies is worth committing suicide over.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:invoked His main issue with Triple Helix. Though he feels the comic is full of great idea and cool character concepts, it attempts to do every single one of them at the same time and becomes an incomprehensible mess.
• Time Skip: Played for Laughs. In five years, the only things that have changed are new episodes of Emo Rangers.
• Took a Level in Jerkass:
  • Seems particularly Ax-Crazy and rude during Ghostbusters: The Video Game.
  • Seems to have come back by Atmosfear, considering he tries to murder his friends over a board game.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Berghani forces himself into an already planned video, and at one point sets Sideburns on fire, but later cries and begs to stay when he thinks he's going to make him leave.
• The Worf Effect: Played for Laughs. The Monster House is able to overpower and eat dozens of extremely powerful heroes, including Goku, Godzilla and Doctor Manhattan.
• Your Heart's Desire: Sees Jessica Rabbit, Harley Quinn and Lumpy Space Princess in the Mirror of Erised.

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"Any Tomb Raider fans here? Yeah? Good! YOU PLAY IT!"

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