Doug Walker (TGWTG, Nostalgia Critic, Bum Reviews, and other projects)

When we have online personalities who maintain their fanbases after posting videos of corpses, coming out as white supremacists, scamming underage fans via semi-legal gambling, and getting outed as sexual harassers, I'm not surprised that being a bad manager doesn't make that much of a ripple.

I mean not just that, Walker outright ignored some concerns during filming some of the anniversary specials about content that was either sexist or incredibly uncomfortable for Lindsay Ellis and Allison Pregler to deal with, namely their catfight in the film (she said "I can't do this" and Walker responded by demanding she do it regardless). Apparently the original draft for To Boldly Flee had Lewis Lovhaug as Mechakara assault Ellis in a manner that was meant to be one big sexual harassment/rape joke. Lovhaug and Ellis had to fight with him to remove it and yet Ellis still had to overdub, as she put it, "assault noises" for the scene. Keep in mind that Ellis has been sexually assaulted in the past.

Coupled with many of the failings behind the scenes of the movies (giving two weeks notice for Marzgurl to make costumes for Suburban Knights, failing to provide water for the crew in To Boldly Flee, leaving them in a hot room for much of the shoot, not even having the script ready until five minutes before shooting, etc.), it's an exercise in bizarre behind the scenes choices that really do remind me of Wiseau (among other things that honestly would require a huge list because there's a lot). Combined with Michaud's own actions (which Pregler and Pushing Up Roses actually accused him of sexism as well, apparently he has a particular hatred towards women) and the Walker brothers either ignoring it, siding with Michaud, or engaging in similar toxic behaviors (Rob called them children for even voicing their complaints), plus the Indiegogo scam, it's all a hellhole that has been out in the open for a while that's being brought up again with a lot more vigor than previously.

I don't know how much of this is previously known stuff and how much of it is stuff that's new (Dan Olson revealed some stuff that is probably new info), but it's all crazy. I'm beginning to think this could wind up being another nail into the coffin of Channel Awesome.

edited 22nd Mar '18 1:13:46 PM by AdricDePsycho

Doug's continued prodding at anime fans doesn't help much, either.

Doug outright didn't watch half of the shows of the people on the site, I don't think. It's quite obvious whenever he did crossovers with them that they had to guide him through what they were reviewing.

To be fair, plenty of contributors don't watch other contributors shows. If you make weekly content, don't have time for that. Simple fact of life.

Well, that's true, I'll concede that.

- Doug had to be told what a two-camera scene is. ... on the day of shooting. Sure he hell knows what it is now since we seen him utilize 2-camera scenes in Demo Reel and the revived NC (you gotta learn sometime) but could he at least have learned that BEFORE-hand??

- Mike insisted that CA not be an LLC, but a corporation. This was apparently to enable shares of the company given out to fellow creators, but they been rocky in fulfilling that task.

I reiterate my statement I made 5 years ago: Doug shouldn't have made the movies. He was clearly out of his league. It doesn't matter that it was a learning experience for him. He said in the commentaries that it left him malnourished, crabby, and depressed over what he was doing to his friends.

I am consistently perplexed as to the company's incompetence of changing their shows and schedules without prior notice to the viewers- there is no rhyme or reason to how they manage them. And this #changethechannel thing puts me in a hard place. I love the NC and I even got to meet the Walkers at cons. I even worked on art for them once (no I'm not disclosing what that is here). So Lupa again whistleblowing everything they did is her right and is something that SHOULD be happening, but at the cost of looking back at all the enjoyment I had in shame.

edited 22nd Mar '18 1:56:41 PM by kyun

They also apparently had to take Holly Christine Brown (the former head of HR of the site, was fired the day after a surgery) to a safe house after they'd fired Mike Ellis (former COO). They, uh, took baseball bats and a sword with them to her house so she could get packed and Doug tested pepper spray in the sink. Imagine water hitting a spoon and that's apparently kind of what happened.

When she was fired she was prevented from getting work for a couple years because of the contracts they made her sign too.

You shouldn't feel ashamed of something you didn't know. A lot of media that people love was made by assholes, including Nostalgia Critic. It's up to you whether you want to support them in the future, as people have lauded creators who did much worse (ex. Hitchcock) but nobody should be expected to do a thorough investigation of a personality before experiencing their work.

edited 22nd Mar '18 2:04:18 PM by IniuriaTalis

Hate The Jerk Not The Werk.

Look, it's up to you personally if you want to keep watching his work. I stopped watching him a long time ago but if you want to keep watching him, that's your right.

Ellis was apparently a massive creep in general, trying to solicit an affair from Holly (despite being married himself) and having weird conversations with Sean Fausz.

edited 22nd Mar '18 2:09:58 PM by Motyka5

Yeah, Mike Ellis doesn't sound like a good person at all from what I gathered from the Twitter convo. Still just leaves a really bizarre image in my head of Michaud and the Walker brothers guarding her with bats and a sword.

Sean Fausz also mentioned about Dan Rizzo, aka That Aussie Guy who was fired from the site and outright unpersoned by them because he was a huge piece of shit. Apparently he lied about having connections with Screw Attack, scared some people into thinking they'd get fired, and other bizarre shit. Plus I think I heard somewhere in the past about him assaulting Lindsay Ellis or something.

edited 22nd Mar '18 2:12:59 PM by AdricDePsycho

Yeah, that's...honestly just strange. Did it never occur to them to just call the police if they thought she was in danger?

What I find interesting is that no one really seems to know why Bhargo left, apparently including the CA higher-ups themselves.

edited 22nd Mar '18 2:15:41 PM by Motyka5

Honestly I don't think a lot of things occurred to them.

Also, apparently that Barfiesta thing they did at one point was meant to be a challenger to fucking Facebook? Like, yeah, hindsight is 20/20 and all but that's probably the second most hilarious thing out of this entire set of revelations.

edited 22nd Mar '18 2:16:10 PM by AdricDePsycho

Wow, that is all pretty bad...

> the second most hilarious thing out of this entire set of revelations.

What's the most hilarious thing then?

The thing about the baseball bats, pepper spray, and sword I mentioned earlier.

Ah

Who were they supposed to be fighting off anyway?

Was to protect her from some recently fired member of the management who was an incredibly horrible person. It just seemed goofy to do that though. Like, baseball bats I get, a goddamn sword I don't.

Especially since in likdlyhood they could just bring a gun

Swords are way more threatening than bats. A guy at my college killed a wannabe robber with a sword.

It's Chicago, so probably not.

One of these things is not like the other...