As he himself pointed out in his Tiger Electronics episode, the Nerd mistakenly referred to the NES game Wall Street Kid as "Tax Man"... and later realized there was an actual Pac-Man bootleg/knockoff game called Tax Man.
In the Die Hard review, the Nerd jokingly suggests the idea of a Lethal Weapon game where Riggs's powerups are dog biscuits. This really does happen in the Super Nintendo game based on the movies.
While reviewing the NES game of Hudson Hawk, the Nerd discovers that the health meter is hidden in the pause menu and likens it to if you had to pull over and turn the engine off to see how much gas in your car. Before the advent of fuel gauges note Yes, there was a time when cars did not have fuel gauges. The fuel gauge was invented in 1917 by John G. Collison who took it to General Motors. By 1920, every car rolling off of assembly lines had one., cars had a long stick attached to the underside of the gas tank cap, which was typically on top of the tank, called a dipstick. The less gas the dipstick had on it when pulled out, the lower the car's fuel level was.
Acting for Two: The Nerd and James Rolfe once appeared side-by-side, and James played both the Nerd and the Bullshit Man in the Tiger Games AVGN episode. Board James paid a visit in the AVGN Games episode to bring the AVGN Monopoly game.
Gary Wolf, writer of Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, has indicated on his Facebook that he liked James' review of the Roger Rabbit video game, and praised Mike Matei's artwork from the re-visit episode.
GLOW alumni Jeanne Basone (a.k.a. "Hollywood"), who also played "Jane" in the 3DO American visual novel Plumbers Don't Wear Ties, revealed in a 2020 YouTube interview that she was well-aware of AVGN's unflattering review of the game. This despite her not remembering his name exactly, calling him the "Angry Bird"instead.
James has told the story about how he met Ed Boon, one of the creators of Mortal Kombat. Ed says he was a big fan. James was flattered and slightly taken aback: "You're a big fan?"
Banned Episode: "Atari Porn" is the only episode of the series to never be officially uploaded to the YouTube Cinemassacre channel, though it is still available on their website. That being said, Cinemassacre has now released a heavily-edited version of the episode re-titled "Atari Pork" on their official Youtube channel. Watch here.
In the original Back to the Future review, the Nerd said that he would rather eat out the rotten asshole of a roadkill skunk. For whatever reason, the theme song dropped that one word and the line became cemented as such from there.
An in-universe example; while talking about Hudson Hawk, he shows a clip of Danny Aiello asking Bruce Willis, "Play Nintendo? Bone some chicks?", which the Nerd immediately misquotes as "Play some Nintendo, bone some chicks?"
Black Sheep Hit: James Rolfe originally created the reviews and the Nerd character for two short films in college. He is actually more of a movie buff than a video game buff.
As the screen fades out to black in the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde episode after the Nerd says "Dead. Fucking. Serious.", he can briefly be seen and heard laughing.
In his Game Boy Accessories episode, when demonstrating the Booster's speakers and complaining about how loud they are, the battery compartment is clearly empty.
In the Home Alone Games episode, during the close-up of the pizza box being opened, you can see that James isn't wearing his white nerd shirt, but rather a long-sleeved blue sweater.
Cash-Cow Franchise: Even after 15+ years since it first started and the internet comedian/reviewer community evolved, the Angry Video Game Nerd still remains one of the most popular and marketable series on YouTube, ranking in over a million views only days after its uploaded.
The Cast Showoff: The Plumbers Don't Wear Ties AVGN episode. Rolfe's educational and professional background is in filmmaking, and the fact that the game is a Visual Novel with the usual minimal gameplay means that the Nerd is mostly forced to critique its story and audiovisuals.
His review of Ricky 1 brought attention to an obscure movie that would've likely been long forgotten had he not done it; Even the IMDB page for the movie was nearly empty before his video went up.
In general, he does this with a lot of the games he makes videos of, due to most of them being obscure retro titles that modern gamers haven't ever heard of, the most (in)famous being for "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" on the NES, which he lampshades in his revisit of the game.
The song "Where Did Their Hair Go" has him fighting hard not to laugh during stage 4 of Ikari Warriors.
The episode had quite a few instances of James breaking character by trying not to laugh. He failed during the latter stages of the song - you can hear him laughing off-screen.
In the Atari Sports episode, he cracks up at the Miniature Golf game just for how absurd it looks.
The Nerd cracks up at a few of Lloyd Kaufman's antics in the Toxic Crusaders episode.
At the end of the second video (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), he delivers his very first "Dead. Fuckin'. Serious." and then the video ends just as he begins to laugh, but not quick enough to cut the laugh out completely.
He also cannot contain his laughter at the ridiculously over-the-top opening narration of Hong Kong '97.
In his review of the various pornographic Atari games, he tries to hold back his laughter and lets out a few smirks due to how ridiculous the games are.
His review of Life of Black Tiger for the PlayStation 4 features Gilbert Gottfried playing the Fred Fuchs character that the Nerd has referenced numerous times in the past. When Gilbert starts Chewing the Scenery, James is doing his best to hold back the smile on his face, using his right hand to cover his mouth up. He's right on the verge of laughing. Gottfried himself even gives a chuckle while delivering the line.
Fred Fuchs: Oh, I'M SORRY. I'm just a guy who built a computer in the jungle without electricity or internet. I'm not EDUCATED ENOUGH, for the GUY who talks about BUFFALO (stifles laugh) SHIT IN HIS BASEMENT!
The female chef in the "Shits Kitchen" segment of the Jurassic Park: Trespasser review. When The Nerd starts chewing her out over the quality of her "shit", she can be seen looking downwards with a big shit-eating grin on her face, attempting to stifle her laughter.
While reviewing Greendog for the Sega Genesis, the nerd tries to stay calm and relaxed, but snaps back to his usual self after the game pushes him too far. One particular moment of rage was so spontaneous that James tries to hold back a smile on his face while you hear audible laughter from behind the camera.
In his Taito Legends review (specifically the segment on Operation Thunderbolt), you can hear the Nerd barely containing his laughter when he encounters a tank in the middle of an office building.
During the Earthworm Jim Trilogy video, he says the music that plays on the level "What the Heck?" is Ride of the Valkyries, but it's actually Night on Bald Mountain. Even stranger, he said earlier the level gave him Disney Fantasia vibes, which based one of its segments on Night on Bald Mountain.
Creator Backlash: While not fully ashamed of his older works, he admits there were elements in certain reviews he wishes he'd done differently. The "Re-Revisited" series spawned from such wishes.
Creator Breakdown: Not the most extreme example, but that "every other week" release schedule back when he was on GameTrailers really burned James out, causing him to scale back to the more standard "once a month" schedule.
Creator's Favorite: James has frequently listed the R.O.B. the Robot episode as one of his favorites.
The Danza: The Nerd's first name is James according to the Winter Games, Spider-Man, Action 52, and Superman (NES) videos. Which comes off as somewhat jarring if you watch these episodes after having seen Season 3 of Board James, unless you think the AVGN episodes are an alternate continuity.
Defictionalization: There are a couple of episodes in which he casually mentions names of fake ridiculous games, this has caused some fans to actually google those games causing some curious results:
In his review of Shaq Fu, he mentions Full House Tournament Fighter. Later, someone on YouTube submitted the alleged intro of the game, and he even submitted a whole battle between Uncle Jesse and Joey.
In the review of Kid Kool, he mentions the game ''Doctor Claw's Dump and Pump''. Since then, there were a couple of fake YouTube videos claiming to be the intro of the game to mislead the people that actually try to Google it. Taken even further when somebody brought an exact replica of the cartridge used in the Kid Kool video to a convention for James to sign.
There was also a "New York 2017" video game on Newgrounds, although it was later removed.
In the Super Pitfall episode, when Pitfall Harry dies from falling into a trap, the Nerd has the idea of a trap where there's a pool of lava over the spikes, fire sharks swimming in it, spikes coming from the side stabbing and squashing at the same time, laser cannons, and upside down volcanoes. His video game, The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures, has that trap without the laser cannons. When the Nerd reviews his own game and finds the trap, he becomes ashamed because he had the idea and he is the only one to blame.
Sort of. In the Godzilla episode, the new swear word he invents at the end of the episode is comically Censor Barred. However, he revealed at a Q&A panel that the word he spoke was "Scunt." Presumably, he left it censored because it was funnier that way.
Episode 4, where the Nerd reviews the Roger Rabbit game, was originally going to end with an improvised skit where he complains about the title's flaws and lists things he'd rather do than play it. Unfortunately, the recording equipment malfunctioned and the audio was never recorded. The resulting footage, considered useless, was wiped out. (The scene where the Nerd calls Jessica Rabbit was scripted, with the audio dubbed in post.)
Development Gag: In episode 144, when he reviewed the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers games, the video starts off with five multi-colored Nerds representing different video game consoles. This is meant to represent the early idea that different forms of the AVGN would review games for different consoles.
DVD Commentary: James has provided audio commentary for select episodes on the AVGN DVDs. Some of these versions were also released on his YouTube channel.
Dyeing for Your Art: James grew his mustache to play Gomez in the Addams Family review.
Enforced Method Acting: Several times, those are genuine reactions, and sometimes James thinks they were so good that they're worth putting into the final take. Gameplaywise, he shows that he's actually playing the game and that he wasn't staging them. If it's a new game he's never played before (Namely Dragon's Lair), some of those are his actual thoughts.
In 2013, YouTube briefly shut down his channel, before quickly reinstating it.
In a now-deleted stream made shortly after his departure, former video editor Kieran Fallon alledged that Screenwave's management pressured the video crew to go for "topical" video subjects (usually tying into some recent movie or game release). Specific examples he gave include:
Kieran states that management was insistent on them making an episode on Sonic 3 & Knuckles rather than their original choice of The Last Ninja to capitalize on the hype for the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) movie. Kieran felt the latter made for a better and more true-to-the-show episode and won out.
One case where he didn't win out was the "Chronologically Confused Kingdom Hearts, which he thought was a terrible idea due to James' lack of connection to the material and argued against. He still regrets the episode.
Inspired a glut of profanity-filled internet video game reviews, with The Irate Gamer being among the most prominent.
He also has some imitators in other countries, like the Joueur du Grenier ("The Attic Gamer") in France.
Fountain of Expies: Since James kicked off the whole "angry video game reviewer" trend, dozens if not hundreds of people attempted to follow in his footsteps. The fad died out around 2010 when online game review shows became less about swearing and Toilet Humour and more about reviewing the game more thoroughly.
Genre Popularizer: Of the "angry video game reviewing" (and more broadly, the comedy sketch style of video game review) kind, if you're not going to call those others copycats.
After the Back to the Future re-revisited episode, he mentioned that he had another game to re-revisit. The expression in the Nerd's face gave very obvious hints that he was going to re-revisit the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde NES game. One month later, this is the game that he re-revisited. Could count as Foreshadowing too.
In his first Chronologically Confused video, he complains about the upcoming Rocky movie being called Rocky Balboa, and sarcastically quips "Now with talk of Rambo 4 coming out, what're they gonna do, call it John Rambo?!" Well, that's exactly what they did... until they subsequently changed it again to just Rambo (and it actually was called John Rambo in some countries).
In The Texas Chainsaw Massacre episode, Chop Top (played by Mike Matei) lampshades this while fan-gushing at the Nerd. This episode was released in October 2007 while the film was still called John Rambo.
In that same video he comments about the Mega Man games: "Now if only they made a Mega Man 9, it would come full circle." That game was released less than two years later.
Meaningful Release Date: Some episodes were released at the same time as a movie relating to it. James eventually cut down on this practice as he felt it made the releases too predictable.
The Rocky episode was released less than a week before Rocky Balboa.
The Spider-Man episode was released the day after Spider-Man 3 premiered in the Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, and nearly three weeks before its US release.
Meme Acknowledgement: The Atari 50 game, which contains Cybermorph, has an "achivement" called "Where Did You Learn to Fly?", which you receive if you bump into a mountain. Obviously one of the developers of Atari 50 is an AVGN fan.
Seemingly averted for his 50th episode, which comes off as an otherwise typical episode where he reviews Superman for NES. At the end, however, he reads off a whole bunch of fan letters and comments asking him to review the highly infamous and oft-requested Superman 64, which he then did for his 51st episode. The Superman 64 review is also the last episode to take place in his old apartment, before moving to the wood-paneled basement for his Batman reviews.
The 75th episode features the return of Bugs Bunny as the Nerd reviews the Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle games.
The 100th episode features the Nerd reviewing the Robot series, Gyromite and Stack-Up... and saving the world from a superpowered R.O.B.
The 119th episode, "Desert Bus", celebrates the Nerd's 10th anniversary.
In a happy coincidence, the AVGN Movie ended up being completed mid-2014, ten years since James made the first Angry Nerd video.
The 139th episode "Mega Man Games" celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Nerd's YouTube channel.
For the 150th episode, he focuses on the Polybius legend.
In the 175th episode, he reviews The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, which to date, is the Nerd's longest episode, and a few months away from the game's 20th anniversary.
The 199th episode marks 15 years since the Nerd's review of the NES versions of Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street, with the completely different Commodore 64 versions of those games.
And the next episode, the 200th, kicks off with the Nerd settling things once and for all with his arch-nemesis, LJN Toys.
Likewise, the two-part review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, which comprised Episodes 18 and 19, was also not on his YouTube channel for years, likely to avoid copyright infringement from using movie footage. He uploaded an edited version in late 2020.
Money, Dear Boy: In his 3 million subscribers video, James more or less admits that he’s still doing AVGN videos because it’s what brings in the most traffic and money for him.
The 2018 episodes were released on Amazon first; unless you resided in the US or UK, you had to wait for them to come out on YouTube due to geographical restrictions.
Invoked a few times; the Nerd laments that the U.S. never got Super Back to the Future 2 (SNES) and Final Fantasy 2, 3 and 5. Also alluded to in the Darkwing Duck episode, saying the Turbo Grafx 16/PC Engine had fewer bad games than other consoles (many of which weren't initially released in the states).
The ending of the "Aladdin Deck Enhancer" episode has the Nerd give his last wish to the Aladdin Thermos Genie: he wants all of the Deck Enhancers in the world to explode. It then cuts to a montage of short, fan-submitted clips (complete with credits in the subtitles as they play out) showing exactly just that.
The "Deadly Towers" episode was nothing but this; the Nerd asked fans to send in funny lines about the game and he'd weave many of them into a review.
Post-Script Season: As mentioned in the R.O.B. the Robot commentary, James wrote that episode as if it were a series finale. So technically, every episode after R.O.B. the Robot is this.
Justified when he went from two videos a month to one, since the amount of work began to really exhaust him, and he also started working on the movie.
Back when he only had planned to make a trilogy of videos, the first two, of Castlevania II: Simon's Quest and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde came out on May 7 and May 15, 2004, respectively. The third, The Karate Kid, came out on February 10, 2006, for almost a two-year gap between those videos.
Screwed by the Lawyers: AVGN has got into copyright disputes with MGM/UA for clips from the Rocky films during his review of the Rocky game for Sega Master System. When his reviews are released on DVD, any footage from films is edited out. Same when re-released on YouTube, with different music.
Similarly, the Back to the Future and Wayne's World reviews are edited on DVD and Blu-ray to remove the film clips, presumably for the same reasons.
The Nerd's analog TV can't tune into TV signals anymore.
And the reason he still owns an analog TV is because certain games—such as those that use a light gun—interface strangely with a flat panel.
Throw It In!: Mike Matei seemingly improvised a lot of his lines in the Wizard of OZ review. You can see James struggling not to crack up in a few shots.
The gag in the Greendog episode where James gives two fingers while singing "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, FUCK YOU!" leaves the camera running to capture off-camera laughter and James corpsing.
The end of the Home Alone Games episode has Macaulay Culkin ask if the Nerd wants to play Good Son on Jaguar CD. The Nerd agrees and the two walk off camera... and the camera keeps rolling for a second even after James breaks character and says "All right, that sounds good, yeah."
Troubled Production: The volume 8 DVD was delayed due to several issues: first James had technical problems, then the DVD was lost in the mail and it looked like he'd have to redo the whole thing because his computer crashed (he had backups, but the program he had used to make it had been discontinued, so it wouldn't have worked). Fortunately, the DVD was found... only for the manufacturer to go out of business so they had to find another one. Watch James's explanation of the whole ordeal here.
Uncredited Role: Kieran Fallon, one of the Screenwave Media crew, sometimes does uncredited voices or roles in a few AVGN episodes: He's the singer during the Wrestling Games song; he's Henry Jones Sr. in the Tomb Raider episode; he's the genie in the Aladdin Deck Enhancer episode; he's the lips on the Darkman VHS cover.
Mike Matei confirmed via Reddit and Twitch that he helped write (or entirely wrote) many AVGN episodes, such as the first Superman episode (James wrote the sequel episode about Superman 64).
Word of God: James has to frequently dispel rumors from some fans that he's losing interest in making the series. The biggest examples were the Desert Bus and Mega Man Games videos, which both had the Nerd briefly retiring; this led to some fans asking if those were series finales, confusing him. He said that he'll let fans know when the series will be concluding. A pretty big one occurred in 2011 when James Rolfe made a special video addressing some fan concerns that he was retiring the character- a rumor likely because he was putting out less AVGN episodes at the time. He then shook his head and held up the script for the then-upcoming Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie.
The first two episodes were labeled in the "Shorts" tape of the "Cinemassacre Gold Collection" as "Bad NES Games".
When James intended the first 3 episodes to be the only episodes he would make, he originally posted them directly onto his newly formed Cinemassacre site under the name "The Angry Nintendo Nerd Trilogy".
Miscellaneous trivia:
The Darkwing Duck episode introduces the "Shit Scale", a scale to measure the awfulness of a game.
The Final Fantasy VI episode introduces the "Good-Ass Scale", the polar opposite of the Shit Scale. It measures how awesome a game is.
Purple: Unknown.
Indigo: Unknown.
Blue: Unknown.
Light Blue: Good Like Robin Hood. Basically fun to play, and you'll leave with a sense of accomplishment once you finish it. (Super Mario World, Super Castlevania IV)
Cyan: Dope as a Kaleidoscope. Really fun to play, and something you can go back to due to its replay value. (Donkey Kong Country, Super Metroid)
Green: Fuck Me through the Fucking Ceiling!!! A true gem, a timeless masterpiece that should be played by anyone with an interest in video games. (Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past)
Desert Bus.