Harsher In Hindsight / The Nostalgia Critic

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• In the first Nerd video, he tells James Rolfe that his fans don't leave threatening messages (but they should). A Vocal Minority seems to have taken that to heart, spewing threats to Doug, women he works with, Malcolm, other producers and other fans. A phenomenon that has only gotten worse since the 2018 Channel Awesome controversy.
• In a couple of (early-year) post-Christmas reviews, Critic is an ungrateful brat complaining that his masses of (still-packaged) Christmas gifts weren't good enough. Rob said in an (original forum) post much later on that Doug was actually selling those presents, as well as stuff he got for his birthday, to keep afloat.
• In The Wizard review, he makes a Running Gag of being a twenty-six-year-old guy with a crush on the kid Lucas. This is made extremely awkward by the actor who played Lucas later being accused of child molestation. They mention this themselves in the real review, along with how the sexual predator jokes made them feel uneasy even when they were children.
• In the episode where he makes fun of Captain Planet, Critic makes fun of the episode "A Formula for Hate" due to how dated it was. It's safe to say he's not laughing after the rampant amount of misinformation about the COVID-19 Pandemic.
• Critic getting creeped out by Casper asking the girl if he can keep her in the titular film. According to con reports, some fans at youmacon that year decided to make it a meme and ask Doug if they could keep him, apparently making him regret having ever done the joke.
• In his first fuck-ups video, Critic uses the apology speech from Patton to apologize for ignoring Optimus Prime's death in The Transformers: The Movie. Years later, in his “Top 10 Favorite Movie Moments”, Doug actually relates to Patton's insane pushing himself and others, making the first moment sadder.
• In his review of The Room (2003):
  • Doug compares Johnny hitting his fiancée to a football player hitting his wife. Already in bad taste in 2010, but a few years later, the NFL was faced with the Ray Rice debacle and the subsequent outcry it caused over the league's handling of domestic violence cases.
  • It also got harder to enjoy watching Doug tear into the movie when it was revealed later down the line by numerous ex Channel Awesome employees that the production of the later anniversary movies became almost as much of a nightmare as The Room had been described by Greg Sestero in The Disaster Artist, and in a bizarre coincidence, both Tommy and Channel Awesome were guilty of the exact same offense of not providing water for their actors on a hot day and ridiculing them for requesting it.
  • The review ends with the seahorses chasing him down because all viewings of the movie have been outlawed. For a while, the review was inaccessible because the movie's creator filed a copyright claim and had it taken down.
• The Richie Rich review has Doug mocking the scientist character creating a robot bee, sarcastically saying that he's sure there'll be many uses for it. Later, the global bee population has dropped to such drastic levels that scientists actually have turned to developing robot bees to help sustain the ecosystem.
• In The Wiz:
  • Critic thinks that Todd in the Shadows a masked intruder and pleads not to be raped (although is disappointed when that's not the intention). Doug later talked in a Fan World 2016 panel about creepy fans who have followed him up to his hotel room and made him really anxious.
  • Todd and Critic agree that there'll be no praise of Joel Schumacher while the latter is still alive. This was just two weeks before the Scooby-Doo review that was intended to end the show, leading into To Boldly Flee which (originally) killed off the Critic for good.
  • Paw Dugan makes a cameo to remind the Critic that they're doing a review of The Wall as soon as he's done with the current review. By the time the Critic would get around to actually reviewing The Wall in 2019, not only would Paw have retired from making videos altogether, but The Wall would become one of the Critic's most controversial reviews ever.
• In his Jungle 2 Jungle review, he mentions that due to the Russian antagonist's silliness (and that the actor, David Ogden Stiers, played other "silly" Russian characters in other Disney films), that they, as a people, are not to be taken seriously and he even included a picture of Prime Minister Putin, saying that he "seems like a funny guy". Given Russia's increasingly aggressive foreign policy that has brought it into what can only be described as proxy conflicts with America, we realize that yes, they should be taken seriously.
• At the 25:45 in his review of The Purge he asks: "Who would actually be inspired by such a ludicrous idea." Two weeks later...
• In his review of To Boldly Flee, the Critic brings up "the ratings for Glee" as an example of how much the real world sucks. This joke made sense as a diss when the review was shot in late 2012, but by the time it was released in mid 2013, Glee's ratings were taking a well-publicized nosedive; because of this, it can come off as the Critic chastising people for not watching the show anymore.
  • The same review also has the Critic mock the idea of the entire Channel Awesome crew facing imminent death at one point, sarcastically commenting on maybe they'll all be fired. Not so funny in light of the "Change the Channel" movement, which led to the majority of the site's reviewers quitting in protest, especially considering how many of the infamous incidents cited happened on the set of that very movie.
• The opening skit for Jupiter Ascending, about how Tamara as Lana might be better being played by a man or a trans woman, is not all that funny once you read real Lana's speech about feeling so miserable presenting male that she once tried to kill herself. The fact that her sister Lilly was forced to out herself by The Daily Mail some months later doesn't help the awkwardness of that opening scene, either.
• The "When Does A Joke Go Too Far?" editorial:
  • The Critic complains about college campuses being offended by Seinfeld, and asks aren't colleges still meant to be "wild". They are, just not in a good way.
  • He points to Louis C.K. as someone who makes often line-crossing jokes in his comedy, but isn't doing it out of mean-spiritedness or shock value for shock value's sake. Then CK was not only accused of sexual harassment, but also attempted to make a comeback that was panned for being little more than a longwinded rant about so-called overly sensitive millennials including insulting the Parkland survivors.
• In "The Top Nostalgia Mindfucks," there's a clip from Who Framed Roger Rabbit where he dubs over the scene where Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny meet, with Critic!Bugs quipping on how Pixar is going to bail the company out, referencing the fact that the films in Pixar's lineup were being seen as far better than the entries in the main Disney Animated Canon, which was going through an Audience-Alienating Era. Flash forward to the early 2010's and Disney's animated features have been considered to have had a fine return to form, which would be Hilarious in Hindsight on its own, except for the fact that Pixar ended up simultaneously going through an Audience-Alienating Era with most of its films in that part of the decade receiving lukewarm reception, and The Good Dinosaur being the studio's first film to flop financially.
• Early Critic's jokey awkwardness regarding furries gets a little more understandable when Doug in a 2016 con talked about a well-meaning but scary fursuiter who had stalked him to his hotel room and made him worried enough that he didn't want to tell his wife about it and give her anxiety.
• In his review of The Matrix, there was a re-igniting gag of a comically overbearing and controlling boss/producer. Funny, right? Well, right around the time this review was released, several producers left Channel Awesome, mainly because of Mike Michaud, a seriously overbearing and controlling boss/producer. Yeah...
• He also did a scathing review of Moonwalker about two and a half months before Michael Jackson died. While that in itself was just a coincidence, and the movie was bad, there are some moments that are awkward now:
  • The villain in "Smooth Criminal" wants to get all of the kids of the world addicted to drugs. As it turned out, a small pharmacy's worth of drugs was found at Neverland Ranch. And while Jackson was legally cleared of child molestation, he was Convicted by Public Opinion before Posthumous Popularity Potential took effect. Not to mention that drugs were what wound up killing Michael.
  • "And I have to say this is easily the best part of the movie because it starts out with Michael Jackson's best scene. People trying to kill him." His death was reported as a homicide; his physician was eventually convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Later, in his commentary for this review, half of the jokes Doug cracks are about how awkward some of his jokes have become since Michael's death. But the joke about how the best scene has people trying to kill him is not mentioned.
• There was also the example in the TMNT review where NC made fun of Master Splinter's voice. NC was instantly showered with insulting messages from fans of his voice actor, Mako. NC addressed this later, acting surprised by the backlash since "it's not like the guy died or some-- GOD DAMMIT!". It's even worse when he said that it was like Mr. Miyagi had smoked a million cigarettes. Mako's cause of death? Esophageal cancer. At least he was able to get an amusing segue out of it.
• In the Mad Max: Fury Road review, the Tom Hardy fangirls cringe a bit at Critic mentioning Louis C.K. is a feminist — this becomes a bit harsher when Louis was accused of having sexually harassed several women in the past.
• During the review of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Critic takes a shot at the number of celebrities who have recently been outed for sexually assaulting or harassing people. A few months later during the fallout of the Channel Awesome exodus, allegations that the deceased Justin Carmical was a sexual predator were brought to light, something Doug knew about before Justin's death.
• Phelous comparing Critic to a doll in Child's Play (1988) has more Reality Subtext after all the CA troubles and Doug just being the passive face of it who hasn’t done anything to help. Allison Pregler has compared Doug to a JC Penny mannequin.
• In Film Brain's review of The Jazz Singer, there was a joke about Doug sleeping with Mike Ellis which gets pretty uncomfortable when a list of grievances came out and Ellis sexually harassed multiple people.
• The "Boss Mabel" vlog where Rob said he hurt Doug for the "good of the company" happened a month before Allison got fired.
• The Running Gag of his "fandom" nitpicking about the new color of his wall whenever his studio changes. Fast forward to 2019, and his infamous review of The Wall disappoints not just his detractors but his fans. Now the whole joke about people complaining about the wall feels like a premonition for people complaining about The Wall.
• The FernGully crossover where he and The Nostalgia Chick throttle each other, as well as the other videos depicting them as bitter rivals. While Chick's anger and resentment towards Critic was just acting, as they were friends at the time, nowadays Lindsay Ellis is no longer friends with Doug and in fact genuinely resents him after the Channel Awesome controversy.
• Early on in the Critic's review of Flubber, he notes that Robin Williams had a strange tendency to act in films that weren't particularly good. Not so funny knowing Williams took a number of roles, including some of those for which the posters were shown, just to pay the bills, before battles with depression and later dementia that ultimately claimed his life.
• His review on 80s and 90s sports movies have him comment on how over the top its villains are, using Kreese from The Karate Kid as one such example by mocking his Overly Narrow Superlative, where he makes him say "God, I need a girlfriend." In the third season of the Sequel Series Cobra Kai it's revealed he already had one before his Start of Darkness. It wasn't the only thing that went wrong.
• In his Top 11 Disney Villains video, he jokingly cites Frollo's perverted behavior as part of an extended comparison to Bill O'Reilly. 2017 would see O'Reilly get fired from Fox News after a wave of sexual misconduct allegations against him.
• Critic firing Rachel in the The Master of Disguise review can be awkward after real Rachel leaves in Face/Off, with Doug admitting in The Wicker Man (2006) commentary that she was going to leave after Catwoman (2004) but moving plans fell through.
• In the Ghost Dad review, he calls Bill Cosby a good role model. Later that year, Cosby was caught up in a sexual assault scandal. There would later be a joke in The Adventures of Pluto Nash review about Eddie Murphy attempting to defend him "when everybody knew he was guilty."
• While short hindsight, as it happened on the same day as the review was filmed, Critic's upset speech about nerds becoming bullies in Ghostbusters becomes more necessary when Leslie Jones got a ton of racist abuse on twitter.
• The Jurassic Park III review has the Critic receive a call telling him his mother passed in her sleep, deeply upsetting him. Two years later, Doug really would lose his mother this way.
• In the 2010 Christmas Special You're a Rotten Dirty Bastard, the Critic discovers how all the other reviewers would have had much better lives without him. Then came the 2018 #ChangeTheChannel mass-exodus, citing poor treatment and gross mismanagement. The only people in the video who are still left on the site are his brother Rob and The Cinema Snob.
• While he talked about it before, Critic's '"Eureka!" Moment' in Catwoman of realizing he should be grateful for hot women harassing him, gets more awkward when Doug discussed that the bad parts of Hyper aren't fictional and he's been creeped on a lot.
• In-universe, there was his review of Ponyo, where the main character's hometown in Japan is flooded by a massive tsunami. A Running Gag throughout the entire review was him trying not to make the connection the 2011 tsunami in Japan.
• Threefold for Doug being in the Entrepreneur magazine during the Jack Frost review: CA's business practices are pretty terrible, Doug isn't even involved in the business side, and even Doug said years later he had to apologize to Michaud for getting the attention.
• In his review of Bridge to Terabithia, the Critic explains that if one of the kids from To Kill a Mockingbird died, for example, that would have been more effective because they were children with realistic personalities, compared to the cardboard cutouts in Bridge to Terabithia. This becomes much sadder once we learn that Jem died before the events of Go Set a Watchman.
• One of the fuck-ups videos featured a gag where Critic beat the crap out of Mike Ellis. A while after that, Ellis was fired for behavior that was so bad that the rest of the higher up staff escorted their then PR lady Holly to a safehouse with baseball bats and a sword.
  • Not only that, but given Channel Awesome’s infamous “we regret you felt that way” response, the line the Critic says before his beatdown does not sit well:
  Critic:There's no problem too big that can't be solved by a humble apology.
• In his commentary for the Critic's review of A Simple Wish, Doug explains how Mara Wilson's initial misunderstanding of his content was amicably resolved (leading to her cameo in said review) and wishes for people to "just be nice" in handling such situations. Fast forward years later to the "Not So Awesome" document, which portrayed Doug as an Extreme Doormat to his bosses at best and a Manchild oblivious to other people's hardships at worst — both of which stretch the definition of "nice". Doug's crediting of Holly (their then-PR representative) as the one who resolved the matter became even harsher after Channel Awesome released two official responses to the document, both of which earned a lot of backlash for being insincere and, in the case of the second, mean-spirited and inaccurate. More than a few people noted that had Holly still been their PR representative, a better response might have been released.
• In the Street Fighter review, he admits the only legit funny scene is when Zangief, seeing a truck on TV heading towards them shouts "CHANGE THE CHANNEL!". For several months starting in March of 2018, there had been a movement called "Change the Channel" dedicated to calling out Channel Awesome's ethics. Unsurprisingly, that video has since been used for the movement.
• During Dawn of the Commercials, the Critic discusses a sexual harassment PSA between a female employee and her boss. In 2018, the "Not So Awesome" documents contain details of former content creators being sexually harassed and before that, in more general terms, Doug talked about getting so much sexual harassment that he created Hyper.
• In the Suburban Knights commentary, Doug talked about his fear that nobody enjoyed crossovers with him and just were doing it to be polite, and Rob told us that he didn’t even want to go to the meeting because he feared mutiny. Come 2018 and people did mutiny, as even those who liked him were tired of his Extreme Doormat attitude towards CEO Mike Michaud.
• A big point in the Deadpool 2 review was toxic vocal minorities in fandoms, using his own, Deadpool's and Rick and Morty's as examples. Less than a week later, Kelly Marie Tran, the actress who played Rose in The Last Jedi, was bullied off social media by assholes in the Star Wars fandom.
• During his review of Richie Rich the Critic says that actor Mike McShane's career died because of him doing films like that one. However, once you learn about the massive amount of Executive Meddling that occurred behind the scenes of Whose Line Is It Anyway? (where he was a frequently featured player) that had a hand in stifling his career, the comment becomes much more difficult to hear.
• In 2012, at a con, Doug admitted he gets stressed about directing and sometimes doesn't enjoy it. With all the stories about how self absorbed he was in the movies, you can see why, and even he's apologized for breakdowns and hoped he's got better with new casts.
• In the The Sorcerer's Apprentice review, Some Jerk with a Camera lists a bunch of characters from Disney movies (or movies owned by Disney) that went through Disney Deaths. One of them is Iron Man, who was Killed Off for Real in Avengers: Endgame.
• In the reviews of Dr. Seuss movie adaptations, as well as a few others, Doug had Rob and Malcolm play a few market researchers who go by, "What the chart says" as a checklist of what to put into the movies to have a lot of people go see them in theaters and market them products. Channel Awesome partly operated under this philosophy when it came to some of the smaller creators wanting to do big things, such as a tribute to Jew Wario/Justin Carmichael after he died (way before his controversy came out). Mike Michaud told them they couldn't because they didn't get the amount of traffic the larger creators did.
• What inspired his whitewashing editorial (where he talked about other forms as well, like how trans actors should play trans characters) was Scarlett Johansson playing a Japanese woman in Ghost in the Shell (2017). In 2018, until backlash made her back out, she was going to play a fat trans man in a movie made by the GITS director.
• During his Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties review, the Critic compares the film having Liz the vet replace Jane Goodall at the Royal Animal Conservancy to having Paul Blart: Mall Cop replace Rudy Giuliani at the opening of the 9/11 Museum. Months later, Giuliani accepted a position on Donald Trump's legal team. His time with Trump was filled with corruption allegations, nonsensical defences of Trump, and suspected involvement in inciting the 2021 United States Capitol attack, thoroughly wrecking his reputation. Maybe Paul Blart would have been a more dignified alternative to America's Mayor.
• While some of it can be Hilarious in Hindsight, parts of his review of Hancock can come off as this as it had been completed and was being edited the morning after the 2022 Academy Awards where Will Smith slapped Chris Rock. While noting some "missed jokes," some parts can be rough in hindsight of Smith's actions.
• His Old Vs. New of The Nutty Professor has him stating how we all wish we could beat up Dave Chappelle, seemlingly seeting up a Take That! joke... before revealing that the joke is actually about beating Dave for ending his show at its prime and leaving the audience wanting more. With Chappelle's recent material being met with a lot of controversy over its supposed offensive nature, it's safe to say that some people might have a different reason for wanting to beat him up.

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