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YMMV / Phelous

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  • Adorkable:
    • Phelous himself can come across as this, particularly thanks to his habit of wearing geek-themed t-shirts and other apparel.
    • It's hard to deny that Michael Myers is this whenever he appears in Phelous' videos.
  • Anvilicious: His House of Wax (2005) review has a three minute long section of him and other reviewers 'celebrating' the murder of Paris Hilton's character so over-zealously that it's clear a minute in they're mocking the creators for thinking viewers wanted to see Hilton die gratuitously for the crime of being a somewhat vacuous reality TV star and having a sex tape. And then it keeps going.
  • Awesome Music:
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
    • He refers to the rabbit-costumed doctor in Cabin Fever as as a "Big Crocodile Scene Happening".
    • Phelous killing the hooker in his basement and burping afterwards in the Mortal Komedy review.
    • There is a lengthy skit in the review of Janis/Jamie The Little Pig where Phelous!Cow randomly calls another character a "SJW cuck" which leads to Phelous!Wabuu ranting about the misuse of those words. It has absolutely nothing to do with the actual movie or dialogue of the cow.
    • In his review of the Wabuu movie, he randomly inserted the Old Man into a scene for a few seconds, but he doesn't say or do anything.
  • Broken Base:
    • His Turtles Forever review is one of his most divisive. For some it was a bad case of Accentuate the Negative especially for a fairly popular movie while others agreed with many of his criticisms. The arguments about whether the 80s Turtles underwent Flanderization is a big Broken Base for the movie and several of its detractors appreciated Phelous giving a voice to those complaints while other fans saw them as non-issues or the critics exaggerating.
    • His transistion from reviewing horror movies to reviewing mockbusters and cartoons in general has put a split between his older Channel Awesome-era fans and newer fans. Phelous being quick to mock those who complain about how he doesn't do horror reviews anymore doesn't help, although he still makes horror reviews from time to time.
    • His "Old Man" from Beauty and the Beast (Golden 1992) running gags. For some, the character is a classic Running Gag that is now integral to Phelous's humor. For others, Phelous' use of Old Man has become tired, forced and repetitive.
      • Pretty much everything said about the Old Man can also apply to Wabuu.
  • Creepy Cute: Michael Myers still walks around in his creepy white mask when he appears in Phelous' reviews, but he's not a violent psychopath, instead being a bit of a bumbling manchild who mostly hangs around just because he wants to be involved with the videos. As such, he's actually quite endearing.
  • Crosses the Line Twice:
    • The end of his Pulse 3 review. After reviewing 5 films that have the name "Pulse" he manages to resurrect a dead Angry Joe...Only for Joe to laugh manically as he shoots Phelous over and over and over again.
    • The entirety of the Titanic Bot review.
    Phelous: How big of an asshole would I be to put ice cubes in there? I'm already doing a Titanic Bot review, too late for dignity!
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Halloweenie. Comments on his videos opine that it's some of Phelous' funniest work. Pumpkinweenie is also getting some love, as well.
    • Old Man from the Good Times version of Beauty and the Beast, due to being a Fountain of Memes as well as just having a hilarious personality.
    • Old Mayor from The Christmas Tree is shaping up to be this among fans too. It helps that he's Old Man's cousin and his stupidity plays off of him instead of upstaging his popularity.
    • Wabuu, anyone? He's probably become more famous as a Phelous character than he ever was as Dingo Pictures' mascot.
    • Bat Hero, a Batman knockoff figure is one of the most popular characters to come out of Bootleg Zones appearing in many different sketches afterwards, fans loving his pathetic nature.
    • Baltard is the other Breakout Character from Bootleg Zones was a figure from Galaxy Warriors, similarly loved for his pathetic nature and his goofy ass design.
  • Friendly Fandoms: Unsurprisingly, the majority of his fandom and Obscurus Lupa's fandom. However, there are some fans of Phelous who feel that Lupa has ruined Phelous' videos.
  • Growing the Beard: For his animated film reviews, Beauty and the Beast and the introduction to Ensemble Dark Horse "Old Man" seems to be where people finally got behind the show's shift from primarily horror reviews.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • All of the jabs between Doug and Phelan in crossovers and such are not as funny now since the latter left Channel Awesome on less-than-friendly terms.
      • After hearing about some of the unpleasant things that have gone on behind the scenes leading up to Phelous' departure from Channel Awesome, as well as his general displeasure with To Boldly Flee, a lot of his Take That's! directed towards the film, The Nostalgia Critic, Demo Reel, Doug Walker and so on seem less like friendly jabs and a lot more pointed and acidic.
      • In the Child's Play 2 crossover with Critic, Critic shamelessly whores out Suburban Knights and when Phelous calls him out on it, he says “it's either that or another midroll” before grinning and cutting to commercial. Cute, but not so much after chatlogs were revealed of Rob telling Lupa off for “too many midrolls”.
      • In the aforementioned Child's Play 2 crossover, Phelous says he hasn't seen such fake special effects since Kickassia. Critic retorts that special effects in Suburban Knights were even worse... because Phelous did them. After Phelan revealed part of the reason he left Channel Awesome was because the site's management was accused him of "half-assing" the effects in the anniversary movies behind his back, it's rather uncomfortable to watch.
    • All of the crossovers starring Phelan, Allison and Brad Jones are more likely to become uncomfortable to watch since the latter two are no longer on speaking terms with each other after the aforementioned "Not So Awesome" document came to light. Brad was seen to have so far as to mock Allison's struggles with depression in a later Cinema Snob video, which probably makes it even worse. Allison, in turn, was accused of facilitating a swatting attack on Brad's house, a claim which she denies.
    • During his review of the Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation episode "Turtles' Night Out", Phleous mocks a scene of Michelangelo condemning drug use. Mikey's VA, Kirby Morrow, died as a result of substance abuse.
    • His video about The Real Ghostbusters: Mrs. Rogers Neighborhood - ABC REDUB ends with Phelous saying about the cat Ash "she's gone." As in "went to another place." By the time he uploaded the video on YouTube, Ash was gone. As in "dead."
  • He Panned It, Now He Sucks!:
    • He's gotten quite a bit of backlash for giving a negative review of Turtles Forever stating that it glorified the 2003 incarnation of the turtles and dumbed-down the 1980s incarnation of the turtles. The YouTube version of the review had him confessing he had yet to see the 2003 series prior to first viewing Turtles Forever, which is part of what led to him hating the movie. After watching the 2003 series he now admits to liking the 2003 TMNT cartoon and the movie isn't as bad as he once thought, but still dislikes the constant Take Thats towards the 1987 Turtles. Most Turtles fans do agree his original criticism of the film is still valid though, with some saying both the '87 and '03 teams were treated poorly.
    • In a period of two months, Phelan panned Lights Out, Don't Breathe and Blair Witch all in a row (though in the case of Don't Breathe, it was more of a grudging "it's okay"). The first two films had received wide acclaim while the latter film was highly polarizing (with Phelan's friend and colleague Brad Jones giving it a glowing review). This sparked a lot of backlash along the lines of "Phelan doesn't like anything" or "Phelan is the new Spoony", something Phelan was quick to mock on Twitter.
    • He caught some flack for his review of Resident Evil Village as most of his review showed clear bias against Ethan and how he just didn't like him as a main character with his criticism amounting to "Oh he's not as cool as the others in the series". At one point calling him an idiot for not taking Heisenberg's deal to help him save his daughter. As most of his commenters pointed out though, Heisenberg nearly tried to kill him earlier in the game and didn't exactly make a convincing argument on how he would go about doing that. Plus Miranda was the only one who could reassemble Rose back into her original form, which only happened after Miranda nearly killed Ethan. And while Rose does weaken Miranda's power like Heisenberg kinda predicted, that was something neither party knew of either because that was Eveline from RE7 within Rose taking control of her power, so there was no way Ethan could've known. Yes Miranda did mock Ethan for not taking the offer too, but that also showed she knew of Heisenberg's treachery and was likely prepared for it. PlusHeisenberg himself attacked Ethan outside his factory as he was leaving it and instigated the fight. Ethan really had no intention of taking him on and was only on his way to meet up with Chris's team.
    • During his review of the crossover between Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation and Power Rangers in Space Phelous throws many snide remarks towards characters of the latter franchise with him implying Adam and Andros were the only rangers past the original five he liked. Phelous got particular flack for his dislike of Bulk, Skull, and T.J. all of whom are fan favorite characters.
    • Fans of Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer thought Phelous was being surprisingly unfair with the movie and just seem to dismiss every asset of it while not even pointing out any positives (even Goodtimes and Dingo Pictures got that much in his reviews) since unlike past Christmas movies he's covered like Rapsittie Street Kids and The Christmas Tree, that this film at least had some effort put behind it. Some figuring this tying in with the song the movie was named being unpopular in Canada and, in turn, the special as well.
  • He Really Can Act: His skits usually have him being either deadpan or overacting for the sake of comedy but his Jacob's Ladder gives shows he has way more range.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Ho Yay: Invoked and lampshaded in the Foodfight! review between Phelous and Brad.
    Lupa: Are you two gay together?
  • I Am Not Shazam: When reviewing Jeepers Creepers and its sequel, he referred to the monster by the title of the movie, when its actual name is just "The Creeper". He eventually acknowledges this in the third movie by confirming that yes, he is well-aware of that fact; he just likes calling him Jeepers Creepers because it's much sillier.
  • It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: A lot of his critics say that he hasn't really changed his style at all during his run and as a result, appears to be suffering from burnout.
  • Love to Hate: The reason why Old Man is a popular character cameoing on the channel is because of his over-the-top Comedic Sociopathy.
  • Memetic Mutation:
  • Nausea Fuel: When exploring an abandoned hoarder house, Phelous and friends find the fridge. Inside, all the food has rotted away...except for the hot dogs, which look normal. Hard to say which is more disgusting.
  • Never Live It Down: The whole Running Gag of Phelous dying and coming back to life over and over. It's arguably his best-known joke, repeatedly pointed out on this very page, and was the main hook for his character in To Boldly Flee, but Phelous himself abandoned the joke after about fifty episodes and has consciously avoided it ever since. Right up until his Jacob's Ladder review, where the whole joke gets a heavy dose of Cerebus Retcon and Harsher in Hindsight in an absolute tear-jerking manner.
  • Nightmare Fuel:
    • "Monster Mike", a hideously deformed bootleg Ninja Turtle that's so evil, it actually has a pentagram carved into its head. The Albino Turtle from the second Turtles Fighters video is just as bad with its mouth and eyes looking like they're leaking blood. Needless to say, it has a pentagram too.
    • His reviews of The Human Centipede and A Serbian Film, two of the most disturbing movies of all time. In fact, he even had a Content Warning at the beginning of his review of the latter film.
  • Nightmare Retardant:
    • Having Old Man read some of the most famous Creepypastas helps make them less scary than when originally read. The fact that the ones he has read as the Old Man are generally seen as poor quality by a majority of the creepypasta community sort of adds to this
    • Phelous's insertion of goofy music/cartoon sound effects in otherwise intensely horrific scenes can also help.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
    • Responses to his early videos on Channel Awesome ranged from "shows promise" to "painfully bad"; in later years he was considered one of the most consistently entertaining producers on the site, and certainly tied with Spoony for most visually inventive reviews. Additionally, his role in Kickassia helped win over some new fans.
    • His videos ended up doing this for Wabuu, as noted in Ensemble Dark Horse above.
  • Spiritual Successor: Bootleg Zones and Miraculous Merchandise Zone, both shows that do humorous reviews of toys, could be considered this for Jeepersmedia.
  • Squick: When Bevanfield's Rapunzel blurts out to the witch that she let a prince climb into the tower, Phelous calls her carelessness more kid-friendly than, but about as stupid as, versions in which Rapunzel and the prince make out in the tower, resulting in the witch discovering via Rapunzel's Teen Pregnancy that she let a prince inside. For visual aid, Phelous displays a screenshot of an unofficial Tangled mobile game, in which the player must help Disney's Rapunzel give birth (despite her remaining a virgin by the end of Tangled).
  • Vocal Minority: Phelous has noted that while his fans who prefer his horror movie reviews and wish he would do more of them can be pretty loud, his videos reviewing mockbusters or franchise works generally perform better.
  • The Woobie:

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