History YMMV / ThePoparena

** The mortally wounded Taxxon chomping up its own guts in #25. The Extreme was one of the images from ''Animorphs'' that stuck in his head the most even after he forgot which book it was from.

* BetterThanCanon: At the end of most of his ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'' reviews, he gives suggestions on how he would re-write the book if given the chance. His ideas are almost always ''way'' better than what's in the actual books.

* OverusedRunningGag:
** "Animorphs! The Great Sci-Fi Epic!"
** Early on he read all the book passages in an impression of Christian Bale's Batman voice for no real reason. It didn't take long for the fans to get fed up, so it stopped after a few books.
* TheScrappy: Greg made "Cassie is a moron" into a catchphrase during his Animorphs reviews.

* AccidentalInnuendo: During his ''Megamorphs #2. In the Time of the Dinosaurs'' review, Greg points out in a ShoutOut to ''Literature/TheMagicSchoolBus'' that Phoebe's line "I like being erupted!" after getting blown out of a volcano along with her friends [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar could be interpreted in a different way...]]

* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop:
** Greg points out in his review of ''WesternAnimation/ReBoot'' Episode 5 "The TIFF" that Dot punching Bob over some verbal taunting was sending the message to kids that violence would solve all their problems.
** Greg's review of the 1980s ''Literature/CuriousGeorge'' cartoon points out that when George "makes up" for his wrongdoings by doing something good, the good deed usually seems irrelevant to the trouble George caused, giving off the message, "You can do bad things as long as you also do an equal number of good things."

** Ultimately his view of ''Series/MyThreeSons'', which had its share of uncomfortable racist and sexist humor, but they tended to be confined to just poor choices in the occasional script rather than anything endemic to the show itself, and it was also quite ahead of its time in allowing its child characters to age along with the actors and having a man doing traditionally feminine things while never being the butt of the joke because of it. He also holds this up as proof positive that he's not just some hipster who automatically hates anything old, like plenty of negative comments have accused him of.

* OlderThanTheyThink: "The Questionable Legacy of Creator/{{Disney}}'s ''Disney/{{Snow White| and the Seven Dwarfs}}''" seems to treat Creator/WaltDisney's underdog story as a fabrication to keep ''Snow White'' noteworthy even after aspects of it aged poorly, or objectively pale to the Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon's subsequent movies[[note]]Greg notes that even the second one, ''Disney/{{Pinocchio}}'', at least boasts a title character with more development and agency than Snow White[[/note]]. However, even when ''Snow White'' just came out, [[http://filmic-light.blogspot.com/2013/11/1937-time-magazine.html Hollywood treated Walt as an underdog]].

** The Nick Knacks episode about children's pop culture in 1983 compared the original Creator/DisneyChannel to Creator/DisneyPlus, hiding a bunch of old Creator/{{Disney}} content and only a few original shows behind a paywall. Disney+ hadn't launched yet, but seemed to have enough original programming in the works to downplay this issue. However, a few months after launch, customers still ended up lamenting Disney+'s small amount of worthwhile exclusive programming -- especially since several of the shows announced earlier either still seemed far from done, or got rejected from Disney+ for not seeming "family-friendly".

* HilariousInHindsight: In Nick Knacks Episode #004, Greg comments that ''Series/ShiningTimeStation'''s "pre-WWII aesthetic" would have made it a perfect fit for Creator/{{Nickelodeon}} in 1979, even though it premiered on Creator/{{PBS}} instead of Nick. Greg learned after posting the episode that Creator/NickJr reran ''Shining Time Station'', during the early 2000's. (This discovery also resulted in Greg announcing that the show would receive its own Nick Knacks video.)

* TheScrappy: Greg has made "Cassie is a moron" into a catchphrase.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: The review of ''Stay Out of the Basement'' muses on the possibility of Dr. Brewer being either gay or bisexual, and the plant monster personifying the heterosexual facade he believes he needs in order to be a good father.[[note]]This interpretation disregards the story's final scare, in which a SuddenlyVoiced "dad-fodill" calls himself the real Dr. Brewer.[[/note]]

* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: Greg points out in his review of ''WesternAnimation/ReBoot'' Episode 5 "The TIFF" that Dot punching Bob over some verbal taunting was sending the message to kids that violence would solve all their problems.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Goosebumps Monthly calls a ''lot'' of the protagonists too selfish or inconsiderate for Greg's investment.

* SlowPacedBeginning: Nick Knacks can fall guilty of this if the viewer ever thinks that Greg spends too much time setting up the subject's historical context. Among others, #001 QUBE focuses mainly on the cable package that Warner-Amex bundled Nickelodeon's predecessor with, and #047 Creator/NickAtNite spends almost 14 minutes exploring the general history of TV and the rise and aging of Baby Boomers; Greg lampshaded the latter by showing a card reading, "And now, the Nickelodeon stuff" afterwards.

* TearJerker: Nick Knacks Episode #020, ''Vegetable Soup'', praises the [[SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped timeless anti-racist morals]], but laments that most viewers only seem to remember [[UncannyValley how creepy the puppets looked]]. The ending abandons the usual formula of doo-wop music and plugs, to juxtapose a Japanese man's recollection of internment camps, with a 2018 news report of young Mexican immigrants being locked in cages.
** The episode on ''Series/DennisTheMenace'' talks about actor Jay North, who was abused physically and verbally by his aunt and uncle when he made mistakes or didn't perform up to their standards, and did not tell anyone, even his mother, about the abuse for fear of retaliation from said aunt and uncle. North started to draw dark drawings on the backsides of scripts or pretending he was one of the children from ''Village of the Damned'' to cope.
*** The end of the episode has Greg state that the abuse of child actors is still very common, and concluding that {{Creator/Nickelodeon}} has not always succeded with the prevention of the abuse of child actors. Like the ''Vegetable Soup'' episode, it forgoes the usual doo-wop music at the end.

* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments:
** His review of ''Castaway on the Moon'', which is equally a love letter to his father, who commissioned it.
** Nick Knacks Episode #005, ''Hocus Focus'', a show for which he could only find the intro, the end credits, and a commercial, turns into a very comprehensive biography of its host, puppeteer Brad Williams. Greg bookends the retrospective by discussing entertainers who deserve a lot more respect than they actually receive.
** Insisting on bringing attention to Spook, the third dog to play Franchise/{{Lassie}} who didn’t last long due to his lack of screen presence and is typically left out of official cast lists, because “he’s a good boy who did his best.”

** The episode on ''Series/DennisTheMenace'' talks about actor Jay North, who was abused on set by his aunt and uncle (put in charge of him by his mother, unaware of the abuse), and did not tell anyone about the abuse for fear of retaliation from said aunt and uncle, and nobody noticing the [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior dark drawings he would draw on scripts]] or pretending [[Film/VillageOfTheDamned1960 he had powers that could make people hurt themselves]]. The end of the episode has Greg conclude that {{Creator/Nickelodeon}} has not learned anything about the treatment of child actors. Like the ''Vegetable Soup'' episode, it forgoes the usual doo-wop music at the end.

** The episode on ''Series/DennisTheMenace'' talks about actor Jay North, who was abused on set by his aunt and uncle (put in charge of him by his mother, unaware of the abuse), and did not tell anyone about the abuse for fear of retaliation from said aunt and uncle, and nobody noticing the [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior dark drawings he would draw on scripts]] or pretending [[Film/VillageOfTheDamned1960 he had powers that could make people hurt themselves]]. The end of the episode has Greg conclude that Creator/Nickelodeon has not learned anything about the treatment of child actors. Like the ''Vegetable Soup'' episode, it forgoes the usual doo-wop music at the end.

* FollowTheLeader:
** Greg is imitating the WebSite/SFDebris Opinionated [[Franchise/StarTrek Trek]] reviews. He isn't ashamed of it, though, and even references it in the opening of every Opinionated ''{{Series/Animorphs}}'' review.
** SF Debris himself would later do a book review for ''{{Literature/Foundation}}'', though he found it a quite awkward process and says more are unlikely. Though he also did ''Literature/WorldWarZ'' later on.

** This concept is viciously eviscerated in the pilot episode to Greg's Doctor Who book series when discussing the Epic of Gilgamesh and how despite the Doctor's preaching that unwanted sexual touching should be respected simply due to the primitive time period that in the actual era the tale comes from a stone tablet has the citizens of Gilgamesh's kingdom praying for a companion to come to their king so that he would stop molesting them. And it is ''[[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome glorious]]'' to see.

* BrokenBase: Greg's anti-police rhetoric in his ''Belle and Sebastian'' and ''Monster Blood III'' videos has viewers split between those who think it was appropriate in context and those who think Greg was getting on his soapbox about something completely unrelated to the subject matter.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: The review of ''Stay Out of the Basement'' muses on the possibility of Dr. Brewer being a GayDad, and the plant monster personifying the heterosexual facade he believes he needs in order to be a good father.[[note]]This interpretation disregards the story's final scare, in which a SuddenlyVoiced "dad-fodill" calls himself the real Dr. Brewer.[[/note]]

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: The review of ''Stay Out of the Basement'' muses on the possibility of Dr. Brewer being bisexual, and the plant monster personifying the heterosexual facade he believes he needs in order to be a good father.[[note]]This interpretation disregards the story's final scare, in which a SuddenlyVoiced "daddy-lion" calls himself the real Dr. Brewer.[[/note]]