Web Animation / Brain Dump

"The clickbaitiest show on the internet, where I discuss movies like a huge insufferable nerd!"

Goofball: I thought this show was you talking about movies.
Max: This show is whatever I want it to be.
Goofball: Yeah, and apparently you want it to be you bending over backwards to make sure you never get a date again.

Brain Dump is an online animated series by HotDiggedyDemon, where the host, Max Gilardi, mainly talks about recent movies (usually specific elements of said film like the message) in a hilariously cynical and Self-Deprecation-filled fashion. Eventually, the show developed a story arc involving disagreements between its three main characters, and explored Max's fixation on his YouTube career as a whole, with episodes taking on a true Bait-and-Switch format. The first episode, discussing the message of Zootopia, aired on YouTube September 2, 2016.

In his reviews, Max is accompanied by his sentient computer/television hybrid, Burnbot, and his annoying cartoon ghost roommate, Goofball. These three characters have their own sheet here.

List of works reviewed on Brain Dump

• Zootopia
• 10 Cloverfield Lane
• Suicide Squad (2016)
• Sausage Party
• Creep (2014)
• Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
• The VVitch
• Ghostbusters (2016)
• Doctor Strange (2016)
• The Powerpuff Girls (2016)
• Rogue One
• Moana
• The LEGO Batman Movie
• The Emoji Movie
• Venom (2018)
• The Grinch (2018)
• Once Upon A Deadpool
• Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)

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The series provides and discusses examples and of:

• Adaptational Villainy: Slimer is revealed in the episode covering Ghostbusters (2016) to dish out Domestic Abuse towards Goofball's sister. Something that the character hasn't done in any Ghostbusters media.
• Affectionate Parody: Goofball is one of Casper the Friendly Ghost.
• Anti-Escapism Aesop: In "DID THE EMOJI MOVIE HAVE TO BE BAD?", Max proposes an alternate version of the movie with this kind of message. In it, Alex is outwardly rude to everyone around him and wastes time on his phone to cope with his problems and with how unhappy he is deep down. The emojis in his phone, noticing his plight, decide to go on a quest to somehow send a message, telling him to put down his phone for five minutes and deal with his problems head-on by actually talking to his parents.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: From "Max & Goofball in: A SATURDAY NIGHT CARTOON".
  Max: Apart from spending most of it plagued with terrifying anxiety, soul-crushing depression, crippling loneliness and terrible debilitating neck pain.
• Blatant Lies: Goofball's origin story in "How Goofball Died (REAL!!!)" claims that in life, he was an African-American homosexual super-agent who worked for President Trump, and robbed a bank to pay for his transgender lover's gender reassignment surgery, and was shot to death by said money. Max rightfully calls him out on his bullshit, saying his story is based directly on Dog Day Afternoon. Goofball tries to retort that the movie might have been based on his life, but Max points out in turn that the movie came out in 1975, and that Trump wasn't president of the United States when that movie was released, or when he and Goofball met each other for the first time.
• Caustic Critic: Surprisingly almost averted. You'd expect such an insulting cynic infamous for his love of extreme Black Comedy to be the most caustic of all critics, but Max is actually fair and levelheaded to all movies, even those he dislikes. Although he still does sometimes dip into this trope, but it's almost always to parody or make fun of the trope rather than seriously exemplify it.
  • His review of Moana shows him at his angriest as a critic, but his anger is a reflection upon how Moana as a character exemplifies everything that Max cannot have in his own life.
  • "DID THE EMOJI MOVIE HAVE TO BE BAD?" has him scolding these types of critics. While in agreement The Emoji Movie was bad, he was still disappointed that all the reviews for this movie he seen were "destructive rather than constructive".
• Cerebus Syndrome: As the series evolved, it began to succumb to Continuity Creep and developing story arcs centering around Max's mental health, self-esteem, and relationships with Burnbot and Goofball. The episode titles/descriptions also continued to become more and more detached from the plots of the videos themselves (other than occasionally referencing that the video had nothing to do with the title).
  Goofball: Hey, remember when this show used to be about movies?
• Clickbait Gag: The show parodies the concept of clickbait a few times, with one episode claiming that Rogue One was discreetly pushing some sort of pro-choice agenda, only for Max and Goofball to end up spending half of the episode arguing back and forth over Grandma Brownie's Chocolate Chunker Wunker Bunkers (Now with even bigger chunks of chocolate chunks!). The other half is Max complaining about some Fridge Logic surrounding the practicality of Astromech droids before realizing he should have thought about the title better.
  • The Venom review does have a gimmick — Max fires off a bullet every so often from his shotgun. In addition, the actual review is about 2-3 minutes long, and the rest of the review is basically talking about how cool guns are.
• Clip Show: The Best of Year One is nothing but clips from the episodes from the first year of the show.
• Covered in Kisses: Happens to Goofball in "What Is Fash Ism?"
• The Cutie: It's hard to hate Burnbot.
• Death Glare: Max is a MASTER at these, especially when reacting to Goofball's behavior.
• Department of Redundancy Department:
  • During his review of the Powerpuff Girls reboot, he calls the show "a baby show for babies that only babies would like because they're stupid babies."
  • During the Rogue One episode, Goofball spends an inordinate amount of time offering Max a bowl of Grandma Brownie's Chocolate Chunker Wunker Bunkers, now with even bigger chunks of chocolate chunks.
• Downer Ending: At the end of "TOP 10 REASONS THE GRINCH IS BULLSHIT" Goofball and Burnbot abandon Max to do his show all alone after alienating everyone with his mean-spirited and insensitive comments. By the end he realizes too late that he can't do his show alone, but doesn't know what to do to fix this.
• Enforced Plug: Parodied in "What Is Fash Ism". Max meant to have a video explaining the eight or nine definitions of fascism, with a sponsorship of Raid: Shadow Legends, even having the logo on the screen the entire time. As usual, it gradually gets derailed when Goofball appears onscreen drinking what the latter claims to be a glass of cum. When finding that the carton of milk wasn't even opened and becoming increasingly distressed, Max forced Goofball to vomit out the contents to get the answer, only succeeding in covering the logo with ectoplasm. And at the most inopportune time, the CEO of Raid: Shadow Legends^note Who is portrayed as a literal demon and mob boss named "Ray D. Shadolegend" calls Max and makes some very thinly-veiled threats toward him and his extended family.
• Flowery Insults: Burnbot caps off each episode with one of many automated insults to this effect.
• Formula-Breaking Episode: "Max & Goodball in: A Saturday Night Cartoon" departs from the show's usual format and has Max and Goofball tripping out on drugs.
• Friendly Ghost: While Goofball is as harmless as the character he's a parody of, Casper, he's still a massive Jerkass, at least to Max.
• Good Bad Girl: Burnbot is an absolute cutie, but she's also very sexually active and seems to be, against Max's wishes, in a steamy carnal relationship with his microwave.
• Guilty Pleasures: Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure is this to Max. While he denies liking it, Goofball only has to sing one line from "No Girl's Toy" before Max starts enthusiastically singing along in perfect unison.
• Halloween Episode / Halloween Cosplay: The "WHY WOMEN SHOULDN'T BE GHOSTBUSTERS" episode, where Max, Goofball, and Burnbot review the supernatural comedy film Ghostbusters (2016) dressed as Jack Skellington, the Ghostbusters logo, and a scarecrow, respectively.
• Heroic Blue Screen of Death: "TOP TEN REASONS GARFIELD IS REPUGNANT" ends up completely shattering Max's world view when Goofball learns about the Flat Earth theory off the internet, then uses Max's own intended Socratic Method to change his own viewpoints. The end result literally causes Max's eyes to blue screen like a computer.
  Goofball: Well if you don't believe me because my theories are crackpot, and you don't believe authority because they have too much incentive to lie to you, then I guess all you've really done is eliminate any possible source of reliable information that you can use to construct your foundational understanding of the reality you live in.
• Hey, You!: Goofball only ever refers to Max as "Creep", and has never once addressed him by name, even when flirting with him. In "What Is Fash Ism?", when a neighbor asks Goofball if he and Max can attend a party she's planning, Goofball genuinely does not appear to know who "Max" is, and it takes him a moment to realize that "Max" is the Creep.
• Jerkass: Goofball is one spiteful son of a bitch.
• Jumping the Shark: Discussed in-universe in "What is Fash Ism?" After Goofball drinks a glass of cum onscreen in a YouTube video, Max starts talking about all the subscribers he's going to lose because of it.
  Max: 'Oh, yeah, Brain Dump? I used to like it, until I got to the episode where the cartoon ghost drinks a GLASS OF CUM! I KINDA FELL OUT OF IT AFTER THAT!'
• Let's See YOU Do Better!: Max holds this mentality in regards to film criticism in ''"DID THE EMOJI MOVIE HAVE TO BE BAD?" where he believes that if you're going to criticize a movie, you should do so in a constructive manner and talk about what would you have done if you had been put in charge of making the movie.
  Max: There are a lot of bad reviews for The Emoji Movie out there. Each more scathing than the last. Harsh tongues lashing in competition with each other, trying to prove who can be the most nasty with their biting condemnation. And having seen The Emoji Movie myself...twice...I can't say the film doesn't deserve it. It's bad! But all of these reviews are destructive. None of them are constructive. And you know what? I believe that if you want to be a movie reviewer, if you want to behave as if you have any semblance of authority on the subject of film, you have to be able to speak about even the most repugnant, unsalvageable movie in a constructive way. Because unless you have the wherewithal to prove that given the opportunity, you could have done better, then you're no authority on anything and your opinion is worthless!
• Lying Creator: Invoked and Played for Laughs. The Venom (2018) review promises that there will be "NO GIMMICKS" in the title. The episode opens on Max wielding a shotgun. He then straight up admits that he lied and there is, indeed, a gimmick in the review.
• Once per Episode: At the end of every episode, Burnbot generates a hammy, long-winded insult for Max to shout out. The sole exception is in "IS BATMAN VS SUPERMAN REALLY THAT BAD?", in which she instead gives the audience a cute wink.
• Long List: He provides three in "The Apu That I Know."
  • The first is a list of everything he knows about Apu:
    "He's an immigrant who was born and raised in India; he came to this country looking for a higher education in the field of technology; he lived in America illegally at first but was able to go through the proper channels and receive his official US citizenship as of Episode S07E23; he's a business owner and a hard worker — sometimes to his own detriment; he's smart — so smart, in fact that he has a doctorate in computer science which, of course, does technically mean he's a doctor; all the women in Springfield want to bang him; he has a Cool Car; he enjoys clog dancing, apparently; he has a hot wife — albeit, one that was arranged to him; he's expressed an interest in screenwriting; on several occasions, he's been shown serving as a volunteer firefighter; he's a hopeless romantic; he enjoys gardening; he's vegan; he's close, personal friends with two-time Rock n Roll Hall of Fame inductee and 18-time Grammy Award-Winning visionary musician Sir James Paul McCartney; he's a man of great faith; he likes to sing; he likes to bowl; he likes to cook; he's not much of a talker but he loves to listen; and, yes, in his leisure time, he enjoys building furniture and then having a discussion about where it could be placed in a room."
  • The second is a list of all the ways Homer Simpson unflatteringly portrays the average white American:
    "While he does have his own set of redeeming qualities, [Homer] is most frequently portrayed as being lazy, obese, ignorant, wrathful, alcoholic, obnoxious, insensitive, loud, ugly, selfish, homophobic, uneducated, slovenly, gluttonous, irresponsible, oblivious, bald, and he's got a weird penis."
  • The third is a list of the "unflattering and oftentimes critical depictions of countless other demographics" on the show:
    "Cops (depicted as Chief Wiggum gazing lovingly at a box of donuts), Christians (Ned Flanders cuddling his Bible), the developmentally impaired (Ralph Wiggum cheering for a banana on the floor), people with alcoholism (a red-eyed, red-nosed Barney Gumble passed out at the bar, holding a mug of beer and wearing a lampshade on his head), the elderly (Grandpa Simpson yelling at a cloud), American southerners (Cletus Spuckler picking his nose and cuddling a pig as Brandine smokes a cigarette while breastfeeding a baby), the 1% (Mr. Burns drinking wine and watching Smithers hang a nude portrait of him), liberals (Lisa Simpson marching angrily while holding up a picket sign with the words "No Fun Allowed" written on it), conservatives (Rich Texan lounging naked in a kiddie-pool while twirling around dual revolvers), lawyers (Lionel Hutz digging through a dumpster), doctors (Dr. Nick sawing off a patient's leg while staring confusedly at a diagram of a human body), educators (Principal Skinner sweating profusely and tugging at his shirt collar while he offers you a plate of steamed hams), politicians (Mayor Quimby sexually harassing a visibly disgusted woman in a bikini), celebrities (Troy McClure and Krusty the Clown snorting cocaine), Scots (a shirtless, kilt-wearing Groundskeeper Willie putting up his dukes with a crazed look in his eyes), Italians (Fat Tony firing a Tommy gun), Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys (the two evil French guys from "The Crepes of Wrath" pouring antifreeze into a wine barrel), people with one giant hand (a guy with a giant hand struggling to pick up a dime), Milhouse (Milhouse glances around and shrugs)..."
• Malicious Misnaming: Shadolegend in "What Is Fash Ism?" continually mispronounces Max's last name with a hard G, despite Max's attempts to correct him, as he clearly considers Max with an apathetic sense of loathing and serfdom.
• Overly Long Gag:
  • The whole "ROGUE ONE IS PRO-ABORTION" gets stuck in a loop once Goofball asks Max if he wants a bowl of Grandma Brownie's Chocolate Chunker Wunker Bunkers (Now with even bigger chunks of chocolate chunks!), the name said in full pretty much every time, and Max getting side tracked to the point that he can't even remember what the point of the video was by the end of it.
  • "Now we're all gonna sit here until I have at least 20 million subscribers."
• Mood Whiplash: The Halloween episode takes a turn for the darker (which is later lampshaded by Max) when Goofball's sister shows up, who is revealed to be in a physically and emotionally abusive relationship, and Goofball has to leave early to deal with the mess.
• No Kill like Overkill: "A Saturday Night Cartoon" features Max and Goofball tripping on drugs, and Goofball just goes full bore.
  Goofball: Have you ever done 10 Venezuelan Ghost Shrooms at once?
  (Max processes what Goofball just said.)
  Max: ...I've never done any Venezuelan Ghost Shrooms at once.
  Goofball: Well then I would say this is going to be one hell of a new experience. My cousin Julio says at most you should only take two, so I figure if we take ten, then shit's going to get really weird.
• Never Trust a Title: One of the series' main shticks. Every episode has an extremely clickbait-y title and thumbnail that either exaggerates his opinion or has nothing to do with the episode — the most notable example being "THEORY: ROGUE ONE IS PRO-ABORTION," where most of the episode is spent on an Overly Long Gag parodying Product Placement, and his actual "rant" about Rogue One winds up being about R2-D2's function as a robot.
• Norse by Norsewest: The PewDiePie parody who visits Max claims to come from a magical place which he vehemently insists on calling "Swooden", and eventually teleports Max there via a song number, showing the place to be some weird stereotypical Sugar Bowl version of Sweden, heavily filtered through the lense of Dr. Seuss's works. Max lampshades upon returning from "Swooden".
  Max: Your country almost seems like the amalgamation of two or three different countries, but we'll table that momentarily...
• Pet the Dog: Despite claiming it's only because he doesn't enjoy making Max's life miserable because he's already miserable, Goofball makes a genuine attempt to cheer Max up during one of his 'Anxiety Days'. It takes Goofball singing a line from "No Girl's Toy" to even get Max off the floor, and it works, only for Max to strangle him after the fact.
  • The end of the Halloween episode is one of these for Goofball as well, as it reveals his seething hatred for his sister's abusive husband Slimer. After it's revealed he physically abuses her as well, he leaves to comfort her.
• Power Trio: The three characters are Max, Goofball, and Burnbot.
• Practically Joker: Max’s nemesis, the Jokester, is a thinly-veiled Joker knockoff, and the sheer lack of subtlety about it is played for laughs.
• Railroading: Goofball accuses Max of doing this when he's conducting a Dungeons & Dragons session and states that Goofball can't just cast magic missile to create a Dungeon Bypass for his work.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Goofball gives Max a brutal one in his review of Creep (2014).
    Goofball: So wait, if you're not a creep, then why are your arms and legs so disproportionately long? How come you chew your fingernails? Why do you have a beard on your neck? How come you only shower, like, twice a week? Why did you see a psychiatrist for two years? What do you guys talk about? Why do you own these books? How come you don't have any friends? How come the bottom of your feet are so dirty? Why do you know the words to Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure? Why do you watch so many documentaries about serial killers? Why would a man who knows all the words to ''Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure'' also be a man who watches so many documentaries about serial killers?
  • Max returns the favor while strangling Goofball near the end of "What Is Fash Ism?" after Goofball ruins yet another video of his with his bullshit antics.
    Max: If only there was somebody to blame...oh! wait! There is!...it's you. It's you, Goofball. The one working against me. The saboteur. IT'S YOU, GOOFBALL, IT'S ALWAYS BEEN YOU! BECAUSE NO MATTER HOW HARD I WORK, NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES I TRY, YOU'RE ALWAYS THERE! WITH A BOX OF FAKE CEREAL, OR A VENTRILOQUIST'S DUMMY, OR A...A FUCKING GLASS OF CUM!!!
• Rule 34: In the Grinch episode, Goofball shows Max a fan drawing of the two (Max and Goofball) in bed together. Max takes this about as well as you'd expect.
• Running Gag: Max insufferably reminding the audience that he won "#1 show on in the internet" in his Sausage Party review.
  • In general, in some episodes Max usually says "Goofball, do you mind? Can't you see I'm (shining whatever point he was trying to make in a negative light)?"
  • DANGEROUS SOCIOPATH CALL THE POLICE
• Self-Deprecation / Loser Protagonist: Half of the series' comedy stems from Max's joking self-loathing.
• Shout-Out:
  • As a character, Goofball may be inspired by The Nostalgia Critic's take on Casper. A movie reviewer is haunted by an annoying ghost who goes out of his way to antagonize said reviewer- they're practically clones of each other, even to the point of sounding similar.
  • In the Moana review, Goofball sings No Girls Toy in an attempt to cheer Max up. It works... until Max strangles him, Simpsons style.
  • Burnbot's insult at the end of the video on thePowerpuff Girls reboot is an insult used by Chris O'Neill in this Steam Train video.
  • In the Grinch review, Max describes Burnbot by singing part of Scooter Computer and Mr. Chips.
  • In that same review, Max calls Burnbot "inanimate". Burnbot asks, "Does this feel inanimate to you, punk?" and shocks him.
  • In the Dungeons & Dragons review, Goofball wears Link's clothes while music from Majora's Mask plays as he imagines himself finding a pretty mermaid in a cave. He also calls Max "Creepshow" at the beginning of the episode.
• Special Guest: Sonic The Hedgehog shows up in Max's review of the live action movie, or rather the internet's reaction to the initial trailer reveal. Sonic was recently in a horrible accident and is nothing more than a vegetable in a wheelchair who talks through a computer with a robotic voice like Stephen Hawking.
• The Sociopath: Due to his intense love for violence in his entertainment, Max's Self-Deprecation frequently mentions that he's a dangerous sociopath.
  Max G: (About the Powerpuff Girls) It's supposed to be violent!
• "Stop Having Fun" Guys: Invoked and discussed. In his video on Apu, Max notes that many of the legitimate claims made by the social justice movement in recent years have been shouted down for being "too sensitive", and painted as wanting everything completely sanitized, with their most vocal critics claiming that they're this trope.
• Talking Down the Suicidal: In "MINECRAFT VILLAGERS make me ANGRY", there is one villager named Mike the Cartographer whom Max dubs his favorite. At one point Mike tries jumping off a ledge (or rather gets stuck up there without a way down), and Max has to try and save him.
• Take That!: While not mentioned by name, a throwaway line in "Deadpool Is Scamming You!" indicates Max dosen't think well on PewDiePie. Or T-Series for that matter.
  • 1: Girls should not fight or go on dangerous, exciting adventures; they should only go to school.
  • 2: Women should not have breasts. And if they do have breasts, they will either be exiled to an island or their breasts will be taken from them in painful surgical procedures. ^note Miss Sara Bellum was removed from the show in-universe because the show's creators thought she was "inappropriate". Ms. Keane, who had a modest chest size in the original show, is now inexplicably completely flat-chested.
  • 3: Men are inexpendable, but women are replaceable.^note With the sole exception of Ms. Keane, all of the returning female characters had their voice actors replaced. Meanwhile, every single major male character has their original voice actors reprising their original roles.
    Max: Congratulations, Cartoon Network; you're ''so'' progressive.
• The Voiceless: Burnbot never speaks, and she probably doesn't have the ability to, as an immobile computer.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Discussed in the Grinch video. After a lengthy back-and-forth between Max and Goofball about which of them Burnbot hates more, Max denies Goofball's claim that Burnbot thinks the show sucks, his reasoning being that Burnbot - despite being well-established by this point as just as much a living, thinking being as Max and Goofball - is just a computer and can't think. Max refuses to apologize for saying this, going off into a tangent about how Burnbot is just an inanimate appliance whose circuits and computer chips are incapable of producing anything similar to human thought and emotion (even singing a brief song about how she's just a bunch of mechanical parts and will never know anything about how the human mind works) - all of this he says right in front of a despondent Burnbot, who snaps, electrocutes Max, and leaves him to do his show without her help. It should be noted that Goofball is genuinely offended by Max's comments here, and he repeatedly argues that Burnbot has thoughts and feelings just like everyone else, but Max refuses to hear him out.
• Whole-Plot Reference: His Grinch video is an obtuse adaptation of the titular story that showcases how Max believes the Grinch should be portrayed with himself as the Grinch, Goofball as the Whos, and Burnbot as Max (the dog).

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I'm Max G, that was my Brain Dump of the week, and I hope you hated it!

Hot-Diggedy Demon.com...

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VIDEO SCORECARD

Ruined lives	12/25
Bizarre framing	4/25
Mocked the president	23/25
Confusing stinger	9/25

Final Score: 48/100

Burnbot's automated insult of the week:
Go fuck a food processor you radioactive diarrhea smear