Funny / Lindsay Ellis 2021 Episodes

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Tracing the Roots of Pop Culture Transphobia

• The Running Gag of Lindsay comedically playing up her "deadly rivalry" with Natalie Wynn throughout the episode, punctuated with Natalie being credited in the end credits as someone who is not to be specially thanked. She even claims it is an offical YouTube feud and is selling pins for each side. Lindsay's pin has a symbol of the Phantom's half-mask, and Natalie's has cat ears.
  • She also doesn't even bother with keeping a straight face as she describes how this is now a YouTuber feud, which only makes it all the funnier.
• Lindsay at one point got e-mailed by a particularly irate fan of Gary of Swindon, who apparently believed her video on Death of the Author was meant literally and was an encouragement to murder J. K. Rowling.
  Lindsay: (in response mail) This is an interesting perspective — are you familiar with the theory of ligma?
• After a truly shockingly long series of examples of movie featuring trans women where the whole joke is "Dude finds out that lady has a penis, immediately throws up", Lindsay asks the Fridge Logic question of how these guys manage to live if they throw up anytime they see a penis.
  • She brings up another case of Fridge Logic in regards to the Family Guy example, when Brian (a dog) vomits for a full minute over having sex with Quagmire's dad (who is a trans woman).
  Lindsay: Also, Quagmire's dad had sex with a DOG. And it's the dog who's vomiting…?
• The sheer Black Comedy of Lindsay's line regarding the vomiting:
  Lindsay: Trans panic puke walked so that attack helicopter could fly......literally.
• Lindsay's hammy, dark response, blatantly stolen from Natalie, to the Think of the Children! argument constantly getting evoked in any reactionary movement, complete with dramatic music and red filter. She then says that the circumstances of the "feud" entitled her to steal jokes.
  Lindsay: Hang your shitty child for all I care! Mackayleigh will just have to figure out how to navigate a world where the gays are allowed to kiss in public on her own!
• Jenny Nicholson gets brought back to do hammy voiceovers, this time doing Rowling, with Angelina voicing most of the women characters in Troubled Blood. Angelina's "overblown cockney lady" is particularly inspiring.
• On the flipside, H.Bomberguy having to do the narration and repeatedly doing Double Takes over some of the descriptions.
  Harris: (after having already read several passages about bit characters described as morbidly "overweight" or "obese") "A hugely obese—" Okay, this is getting ridiculous!
  • In another case, he struggles through a very, very thick cockney accent that was written phonetically to denote the character as lower class, capping it off with "You don't have to write the accent in, Joanne, we get that you hate poor people".
• Lindsay once again proves she can work The Phantom of the Opera into anything. Anything.
  Lindsay: But [this fake statistic about trans people in prison] sounds plausible, doesn't it? Because that presumption of trans women as predatory is already there...inside your mind...like the Phanto—
• Thanks to some less-than-flattering descriptions of fat characters in Troubled Blood, several segments of the book is scored by "Mr. D's Delicious Donuts" from The Letter People. This is brought back for the credits, causing an otherwise sobering finale about the evolution of transphobia in media to be juxtaposed with a whole bunch of animated CGI doughnuts.

Mask Off

• On New York City mayor Bill de Blasio eating pizza with a fork & knife:
  Lindsay: Which to be fair is the only reason to criticize the man.
• The infomercial-style list of Twitter script phrases.
• "Are you ready to see why Mommy's canceled?"
• At one point, Lindsay struggles to pronounce Glenn Greenwald's Alliterative Name, briefly questioning his mother's decision to even name him that and eventually settling on just calling him "Gloop Glorpglorp".
• There's one line that, after all her incredibly heavy commentary, stands out as unquestionably the funniest line in the entire video, made better by the sense of catharsis after well over half an hour of laying herself bare to the video's audience:
  Lindsay: ...what have I done to you? Are you... are you RENT fans?
• Lindsay shows a DM conversation with an "anonymous" Asian-American friend regarding the issue that got her criticised in the first place, blatantly leaving Todd Nathanson's name unblurred.
• In the middle of her Serious Business Sincerity Mode near the end of the video, she defends her friends and co-creators that have become targets of online harassment by association:
  Lindsay: Jenny is one of the smartest, most insightful people I know. Sarah always floors me with how much research and sensitivity she brings to her topics, and she's only 22. Natalie... well, she's a whore, but she's my whore.
• As part of the ongoing faux-rivalry with ContraPoints she made the video exactly three seconds longer than Natalie's video about her own cancellation.

Reevaluating The Little Mermaid before Disney horks up another live action remake

• Just the generally-dejected tone in which Lindsay starts off the video ^note alluding to her "cancellation," as discussed in her previous video:
  Ursula: The miserable, the lonely and depressed / Pathetic
  Scrolling message underneath: Smash that Subscribe Button * Donate to the Lindsay Ellis Funyon Fund
  • This continues throughout short editing gags throughout the rest of the video.
    Lindsay: ...and what terrifying evil genius engineering made [Frozen (2013)] crack for toddlers.
    Subtitle: Editor's note: pls send help, trapped with two-year-old who watches Frozen daily.
• There's no Jenny Nicholson to provide voiceovers this time, but Lindsay does do a good high-class voice imagining what Babara Ehrenreich might sound like critiquing the Disney Princesses.
• Talking about Ariel's literal "man cave":
  Lindsay: Like if she was a dude in the suburbs, that would be just like nothing but Simpsons pinball machines.
• Calling back to Showgirls (covered during her Nostalgia Chick days) to illustrate character wants vs. needs before admitting that it "was a bad example."
• "See, mermaids, like the Danish themselves, don't have souls."
• Beginning her "requisite self-promo portion" at the end with:
  Lindsay: Hi, I'm Alan Smithee, the director of this film.

Loki, The MCU, and Narcissism

• The "ugly undertones" of the song "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" by Looking Glass are portrayed with an off-key kazoo solo of the song, with a caption reading "How do you like that Content ID"
• The running gag of Thanos throwing Gamora off the cliff backed by "You'll Be In My Heart".
• The Voice Clip Song of Loki's "through the anus" line over the end credits, which Angelina was specifically proud of.
  • In reference to this, an announcement Lindsay made on Patreon^note about a tier being discontinued later was signed "With glorious anus, Lindsay".

Love Never Dies: A Magnificent Musical Trashfire Sequel to Phantom of the Opera

• Some of the soundtrack choices throughout the video, beginning with a MIDI rendition of Jason Derulo's "Savage Love", ending on a MIDI rendition of Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle".
  • During the plot summary, using "Dancing on my Own" and "I Knew You Were Trouble" to underscore Meg, and "Bad Blood" to underscore Madame Giry.
• "Remember Meg. We'll come back to Meg."
• For the sake of the essay, Lindsay has the both arduous yet all-too-desirable task of explaining what the heck is even happening in the plot of Love Never Dies:
  Lindsay: (after a lengthy beat, and while grinning at the camera) ...it is perfect... I wouldn't change anything.
  • For the sake of discussing the plot, Lindsay covers the 2011 made-for-broadcast Melbourne recording, but makes note of one improvement from previous versions: in that recording, the Phantom royally hams it up against a giant portrait of Christine, as opposed to the West End version where it was to... "a RealDoll".
    Lindsay: Oh, Ramin, why...
  • Describing Gangle, Miss Fleck, and Mr. Squelch as "Alan Cumming, Harley Quinn, and Uncle Fester".
  • The entire dynamic of Meg desperately vying for the Phantom's attention gets described as "I hope Phantom-senpai notices me!"
  • Lindsay mentions how the entire beat of Raoul having become an alcoholic who gambled away his and Christine's riches is weirdly reminiscent of how fanfic authors tended to characterize him circa 2002.
    Lindsay: ...I guess Andrew Lloyd Webber spent some time on FanFiction.Net. (takes a sip) AO3 didn't exist yet.
  • She further underscores Raoul getting grilled for his bad habits with Laganja Estranja's "I FEEL VERY ATTACKED!" outburst.
  • "Gustave goes to bed, and then guess who breaks down the door like the Kool-Aid Man?" (dramatically enters The Phantom with an "OH YEAH!" sound effect)
  • Lindsay once again tearing apart the sheer unintentional hilarity that is "Beneath A Moonless Sky", an "8-minute-long dirge" of the Phantom and Christine reminiscing how they had sex many, many times in the same night.
    Lindsay: Despite his virgin status, he hits it and quits it like thirty times in one night... (laughing to herself) stamina... phanima...
  • Lindsay's sheer discomfort at the "The Beauty Underneath", a Totally Radical rock-inspired anthem that's supposed to sound like the Phantom rallying the 10-year-old Gustave into his footsteps, but instead just sounds really, really vaguely sexual.
    Hank Hill: Mother of God, it's all toilet sounds!
  • "...and that's the end of act one."
    Jeb Bush: ...Please clap.
  • Pointing out that in-universe, the Phantom wrote several of the performed songs, including the inane vaudeville ditty that is "Bathing Beauty". What's more is that right afterwards as Meg expresses anguish of still not getting the Phantom's attention...
    Lindsay: (as Meg) "What, he didn't watch me sing 'Bathing Beauties'?! I had quick change!"
  • "Whyyyyyyyyy does she looooooove me...?"
    Lindsay: She does not.
  • "Then Meg shows up and establishes that she likes the ocean and its inherent eroticism..."
  • "So this show ends with... the Phantom of the Opera negotiating a hostage crisis..."
    Lindsay: "Give me the gun," said the Phantom of the Opera.
• Lindsay also has to explain the plot for The Phantom of Manhattan (the basis for Love Never Dies), this time filled with Stylistic Suck drawings & Memetic Mutation graphics.
  Lindsay: Before they even met, Raoul got his dick shot off by performing a heroic deed in Paris.
  [laughs, as illustrations show Raoul, with tears in his eyes, staring at his blurred-out member on the ground]
  And everyone was so sad for him thinking no woman would ever want to marry him!
  • Soon after, showing a sperm wearing a Phantom mask with the caption "I am sorry for this drawing."
  • The horror-struck expression Christine makes when she recognizes the cymbal monkey toy the Phantom sends her.
  • The Persian- who has been reduced to an Ethnic Scrappy in the book- is just a big sign with arms and legs that reads: "Who Thought This Character Was a Good Idea?"
• Lindsay's lead-in to discussing the hilariously nonsensical ending is an audio excerpt capturing her showing Kaveh from MusicalSplaining the moment for the first time. Once he realizes that Christine gets shot by accident and dies, both of them begin howling in laughter.
• The headlines for the Cosmopolitan issue:
  Summer's Almost Here! Rooftop Views That Will Take Your Breath Away! (No Deformed Stalker Required)
  All I Ask of You: How One Woman's Romance With a Vicomte Ended in Drinking, Tears, and Tragedy
  Pop Quiz! Does He Live In an Underground Lair With a Sex Doll of You or Is He Just Shy?
  How to Find the Perfect Wedding Dress for You and His Sex Doll
  Garnier #Girl Boss: How to Snatch Success From Difficult Coworkers Without the Help of a Hideous Musical Genius Who, Again, Keeps a Sex Doll of You in His Home (And Still Have Time for the Gym!)
• The ending slideshow is a bunch of pictures of Erik raising Gustave, consisting of stock photos with the two's faces very poorly overlaid onto the models' faces. Some highlights include the two visiting a cemetery (with Gustave still smiling ear to ear), Erik and Raoul playing with Gustave (a Brick Joke referencing her earlier quip that the Erik, Raoul, and Gustave are now in a Two and a Half Men situation), and an elderly Phantom and his grown up Gustave (except Gustave still has a ten-year-old's face and Erik's black hair is blending into the model's grey hair).

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