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Web Animation / Taco-Man

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tacomanshowposter_7376.jpg
Taco-Man was an internet celebrity created by Sam T Nelson of Samination (formerly Ebolaworld). He is an animated talking taco who had "wacky" adventures. He had three series under his belt.

Taco-Man Plays A Video Game, which was a series about Taco-Man badly playing and reviewing video games.

Taco-Man: The Game Master, which was a parody of Captain N: The Game Master.

Taco-Man Theater, which was a show in which Taco-Man riffs on old cartoons.

You can watch episodes 51 onwards of Taco-Man Plays and Taco-Man Theater on the Samination YouTube channel, and the first 50 Taco-Man Plays episodes and Taco-Man: The Game Master on the Taco-Man Classics channel.

    open/close all folders 

    Games He Played In Taco-Man Plays A Video Game 

    Episodes Of Taco-Man: The Game Master 

     Cartoons Shown In Taco-Man Theater 

Bears no relation to Dubbed By Tacos.

Tropes

  • And a Diet Coke: Taco-Man claims to learn from playing Captain Novolin that everyone should try to eat healthy, and avoid sugary snacks. Later, he visits a fast food restaurant, and orders a double cheeseburger, some cheese fries, a soda with cheese...and a glass of milk, after ceaseless recommendations from one of Captain Novolin's doctors.
  • Art Shift:
    • Taco-Man briefly is computer generated in his Wild Woody review as a parody of the game's awkward CG cut-scenes.
    • Taco-Man Plays Atari 2600 takes on the blocky and un-detailed appearance of the console's games after Taco-Man awakens in Atari 2600 World.
  • Art Evolution: The animation for Taco-Man and the like is a lot more fluid in later episodes.
  • Attractive Bent-Gender: When Taco-Man disguises as a girl to investigate a case of girls disappearing at a Slumber Party, he catches the eye of the hostess' brother, Zach, who is played by another one of Samination's creations, Bunny.
  • Audience Participation: Taco-Man lets viewers of the Captain Novolin review choose what Captain Novolin does to Mayor Gooden via annotations. If you wait too long, Taco-Man picks the wrong choice, causing Captain Novolin to go to jail.
  • Bad "Bad Acting": Taco-Man torments the Resident Evil cast for their So Bad, It's Good (his own words) voice acting.
  • Badass Cape: Sometimes Taco-Man wears a red superhero cape.
  • Better by a Different Name: Taco-Man calls Five Nights at Freddy's a more realistic, but also more boring, version of Night Trap.
  • Bond One-Liner: Taco-Man delivers one before dropping Bowser into the lava pit in the second episode of ...The Game Master.
    Taco-Man: I'm Taco-Man, and you're getting the axe!
    Bowser: (while falling) That joke was so lame!
  • Breakout Character: Dig Dude has developed more of a personality than Taco-Man's other Game Master teammates (or at least the male ones). Taco-Man agrees such in the Virtual Boy episode.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: Happens quite often.
  • The Bus Came Back: Taco-Man's review of his Night Trap parody includes a visit from the supporting cast of one of his previous shows, Taco-Man: The Game Master.
  • Butt-Monkey: Taco-Man sucks at video games.
  • Captain Ersatz: The various characters from The Game Master are clearly supposed to represent the characters from Captain N.
  • Catch Phrases:
    • "Oopsidoodle!"
    • "Sheesh!"
    • "Seriously?"
    • "Groonight!"
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Villain Tack Jompson hasn't been since in Taco-Man The Game Master since the second episode. Princess Polygon and Taco-Man acknowledge this in episode #5.
    Princess Polygon: You know, there really isn't any reason for you to stay here any longer. I mean, we took care of that Tack Jompson guy or whatever a long time ago!
    Taco-Man: Yeah, whatever happened to him?
    Princess Polygon: Uh...it's not really clear.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Rocky in The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle NES game review:
    Rocky: My farts smell like rainbows!
    • One particular phrase of his, "I worship the devil! A-ha ha!" became repeated by other cute-looking characters in later reviews.
  • Clumsy Copyright Censorship:
    • When a Nintendo spokesman (who previously appeared in an episode of Samination's Completely Accurate Gaming History about the Wii U) threatens to copyright Taco-Man's Super Mario Maker review, Taco-Man uses such tactics as replacing the sound effects and music, and applying new effects to the game clips, to claim the video as his own.
    • When Taco-Man Theater covers Care Bears in the Land Without Feelings, Taco-Man has to dub over the songs with his own improvised compositions.
    • When Taco-Man covers Bart Vs The Space Mutants, the same copyright lawyer from the Care Bears in the Land Without Feelings prevents Taco-Man from showing the Simpsons onscreen and prevents him from saying Bart's line of, "Eat my shorts!" as it is a copyrighted trademark. However, Taco-Man winds up pushing his luck and his show is then seized and called "Ebo-LAW-world".
  • Commuting on a Bus: Taco-Man's wife and son appear only sporadically these days, as does Ben Burrito, his boss from his superhero days. Taco-Man lampshaded this when he reviewed his Night Trap parody, on Halloween 2015.
    Taco-Man: Hey, it's my boss! I haven't seen him since...he stole my wife.note 
  • Continue Your Mission, Dammit!: In Part 2 of Taco-Man Plays Night Trap, Taco-Man gets to continue, even though he screwed up. (Also, you can view the clip.)
    Megan gets dropped into the trap that was meant for the augers.
    Megan: Ahhhhhhhhhh!
    Kelly: Control, how could you let that happen?
    Taco-Man: Who told me to? It's just Megan. You should be thanking me.
    Cut to Simms.
    Simms: Megan is dead.
    Taco-Man: And?
    Simms: And yes, you could have saved her.
    Taco-Man: True.
    Simms: You were responsible for her life, and you screwed up.
    Taco-Man: Was she really alive?
    Simms: There's a lot going on in this house, too bad you're not going to be around to see anymore of it. Breaking contact.
    Taco-Man's connection is disabled.
    Taco-Man: Fine!
    Screen cuts back to the scene and Taco-Man saves Megan.
    Megan: Get away!
    Megan escapes through the door near her.
    Kelly: Way to go, control! I knew you could do it!
    Taco-Man: Well, at least she's still gone...
  • Continuity Cavalcade:
    • Taco-Man Plays Atari 2600 begins with Taco-Man drinking at a bar populated by characters from previous reviews, as well as the girls from his Night Trap parody.
    • Taco-Man's 2015 Halloween special has characters who appeared in some of his other cartoons and reviews stop by while he waits for part two of the game to load, and after he completes the game. He naturally Lampshades this, with Flat Joy, after Blobert from A Boy and His Blob pops up to request some jellybeans:
      Taco-Man: Oh, look. It's a character from a previous episode. How original.
  • Crossover:
    • Taco-Man's parody of Night Trap has characters from other Ebolaworld cartoons portray Sarah's family. Homestar Runner also pops up at one point.
    • Taco-Man Plays Mickey Mousecapade includes a visit from Prostitute Mickey.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Taco-Man can get pretty sassy when dealing with bad games, or even bad writing for his cartoons.
  • Demoted to Extra: Blast the Hedgehog, who's rarely seen, much less talks, since the 4th episode of Taco-Man The Game Master.
  • Deranged Animation: Detective Taco seems more surreal than most of Taco-Man's cartoons, especially when the characters sit or stand silently, while bearing different designs (eg, Detective Taco with lipstick, Lady with three eyes).
  • Disco Dan: In the Night Trap parody, Meagan uses Eighties slang and fashion in a more liberal manner than the other girls. Taco-Man finds this so obnoxious, he lets the leechers eat her.
  • Do Not Try This at Home: Scenes of Taco-Man performing such activities as smoking and pointing a gun towards his head get accompanied with reminders for kids not to do them.
  • Double Entendre: For starters, Chomp's introduction in the first episode of Taco-Man The Game Master:
    Chomp: Hi, I'm Chomp, and I like to eat yummy balls.
  • Dramatic Thunder: The Altered Beast review has some, prompting Taco-Man to ask if there's a storm outside.
  • Drugs Are Good: Taco-Man teaches this at the end of one Game Master episode. After he gives Sonic the Hedgehog cocaine as an anti-depressant, he tells the viewers: "So, remember, kids: If you're ever feeling down, do drugs! Especially cocaine."
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: The un-remastered version of the first Taco-Man: The Game Master episode gets frequently interrupted by Taco-Man reviewing Killer Instinct, in abruptly-appearing vignettes that don't seem to advance the main plot. Princess Polygon's more masculine-sounding voice can also sound jarring to viewers introduced through a video released after Rina-Chan took over the role.
  • Evolving Credits: The end credits of Taco-Man Plays a Video Game play against an ever-lengthening compilation of one clip from each previous episode.
  • Executive Meddling: In-universe: A lawyer takes over Taco-Man's show at the end of his Bart vs. The Space Mutants review, turning it into a lawyer-centirc show called Lawyer Talk.
  • Expy: Many characters on Taco-Man: The Game Master are expies of existing video game characters, as well as characters from Captain N: The Game Master.
    • Princess Polygon - Princess Peach (Super Mario Bros.) and Princess Lana (Captain N)
    • Derek the Brave - Dirk the Daring (Dragon's Lair) and Simon Belmont (Captain N)
    • Dig Dude - Dig Dug (Dig Dug) and Mega Man (Captain N)
    • Chomp - Pac-Man (Pac-Man)
    • Blast the Hedgehog - Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic the Hedgehog)
    • Virtual Boy - Game Boy (Captain N)
      • In Chomp and Blast's cases, they are Pac-Man's nephew and Sonic's cousin, respectively.
  • Fake-Out Opening: Taco-Man Plays Super Mario Maker starts out as Taco-Man Plays Super Mario Bros. 3, until he encounters some enemies he didn't remember finding in level #1 before.
  • Fridge Horror: In-universe, Taco-Man admits when reviewing his Night Trap parody that he doesn't remember what happened to the girl whose name he assumed for the investigation.
    So, if I replaced their friend Dana, where is Dana? Did we kill her?!
  • George Lucas Altered Version: Sam T. released a "remastered" version of the first Taco-Man: The Game Master episode on Jun 19, 2009, containing "...new scenes, jokes, and a different ending!" Rina-Chan also re-dubbed Princess Polygon's lines to match later episodes.
  • Gilligan Cut/Ignored Epiphany: After Taco-Man escapes Atari 2600 World, he swears never to drink again. A cut to "Later That Night" shows Taco-Man sitting at home and reading a newspaper, appearing to subvert both of these tropes. However, a cut to "Later Later That Night" shows him getting drunk at the same bar he visited at the beginning of the video, zig-zagging these tropes.
  • Hanging Judge: Princess Polygon loves giving people the chair.
  • Hypocrite: In Taco-Man Plays Zelda 2, Princess Zelda tells Taco-Man to watch his language when he dropped the F-bomb, even though she cussed earlier in the episode.
  • Idiot Hero: Taco-Man
  • I Know You Know I Know: Combined into one big trope in Taco-Man Plays Night Trap:
    Enter Tony.
    Taco-Man: Gay.
    Kelly: Tony...
    Meanwhile, in Hall 1...
    Sheila: What is it, dear?
    Victor: I sense something is wrong.
    Taco-Man: Ya think?
    Victor: I'm not quite sure what...
    Back with Kelly and Tony...note 
    Kelly: Tony, I don't understand.
    Kelly turns to Taco-Man.
    Kelly: This is crazy!
    Taco-Man: Is she talking about the plot?
    Tony: Don't be foolish, Kelly. They wouldn't stand in my way!
    Tony turns to Taco-Man.
    Tony: Would you?
    Tony is about to kill Kelly.
    Kelly: NOW!
    Taco-Man triggers the trap and Tony slides down.
    Taco-Man: Neeeeeeeh... he don't know me very well, do he?
    Kelly: Thanks, control. That was close.
    Taco-Man: Well, it's not that I WANT to help you out.
  • Jerkass: Taco-Man
    • Derek the Brave can be this at times too, especially in the first two episodes of Taco-Man The Game Master.
  • Karma Houdini: Taco-Man in his Taco-Man Safety Tips gives kids HORRIBLE advice, sometimes which results in death. He never faces any repercussions for his actions.
  • Logo Joke: Videos that end with Vanity Plates for The Ebolaworld Channel and Sam T. Productions have a random sound (usually a piece of dialogue from the video) play during them.
  • Love Theme: A piece of royalty-free soul music, simply titled "Sexy 70's Soul", plays whenever Taco-Man shows two characters having sex, or appearing to have sex. The Muppet Adventure review re-purposes this for Miss Piggy developing a crush on Taco-Man, after he compares his eyes and voice to those of Kermit the Frog.
  • Medium Blending:
    • Taco-Man seems to have a live-action house.
    • Taco-Man's Resident Evil videos place him inside the games, still rendered in 2D.
  • Mondegreen Gag: Taco-Man constantly worries that the title of Taco-Man: The Game Master sounds more like, Taco-Man: The Gay Master when people put the AcCENT Upon the Wrong SylLABle.
  • Mood Whiplash:
    • Taco-Man's first Mario Paint short cuts from him doing several badass and glorious things, to him realizing he has cancer, to him happily riding an elephant into the sunset. The part in spoilers seems especially jarring because of Taco-Man's voice changing, and the music stopping.
    • Several parts of the Awesome Possum... Kicks Dr. Machino's Butt episode have Taco-Man breaking the mood with depressing scenes of real-life footage of polluted/scorched lands, wasted rainforests, and dirty oceans.
  • Mr. Exposition: Ben Burrito and Ashley share this role in the Night Trap parody, with Jessica becoming confused by Ashley's habit of clumsily delivering information the two of them already know.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Taco-Man The Game Master has Princess Polygon, who usually wears a dress that exposes her cleavage.
  • Multiple Endings: Taco-Man's Night Trap parody has at least nine endings. Players who fail the mission early receive one of five variations on Ben Burrito scolding them, depending on when and how exactly they lost. Players who save as many girls as possible, as well as Taco-Man, receive one of four variations on Taco-Man bidding them farewell, depending on how many leechers they caught. When Taco-Man tries to play the parody himself, he purposely loses a few times, in order to see all of the bad endings, and he also treats viewers to a reel of all the different versions of his closing remarks.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Taco-Man experiences this in his Resident Evil 3: Nemesis review, after apparently killing Carlos and Jill. Fortunately, Carlos regains consciousness, and also saves Jill.
  • The New Adventures: Taco-Man advises against using this title when reviewing Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures.
    You know, I never understood why games use the word "new" in their title. After about a year, the game is considered old! It's like those New Super Mario Bros. games. Now they're the Old New Super Mario Bros.
    • Despite this, he sticks the phrase onto the title of Clock Tower 2 when he reviews that game.
  • No Medication for Me: Taco-Man shamelessly admits in the review of A Boy and His Blob that he hasn't been taking his medications, which apparently keep him from having delusions of an audience constantly watching him.
  • Not Distracted by the Sexy: Taco-Man never seems to notice that his therapist in the Silent Hill review wears progressively skimpier clothing, which disappears completely earlier than she does.
  • One-Person Birthday Party: The second Mario Paint-style short has Taco-Man throw one for himself, because all his friends died beforehand.
  • Overused Running Gag: A clip of an old guy from Mad Dog McCree saying, "Hoho, you missed that one. Try another!" every time Taco-Man makes a mistake in a video game. And when he finally makes the target, the old man says "Nice shooting! Try another one!"
  • Previously on…:
    • Episode 8 of Taco-Man the Game Master begins with clips from the first two episodes, recalling how Taco-Man's wife lost him, then became seduced by Ben Burrito.
    • Taco-Man's review of the second Clock Tower game has one, showing the best ending of the first game. Taco-Man then admits that he failed to achieve that ending in his review of that game.
  • Rage Against the Author: Taco-Man and Sam T. don't have a healthy relationship, to say the least.
  • Rage Quit: How a few of the Taco-Man Plays A Video Game episodes have ended.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: Princess Polygon usually is the one who saves our heroes whenever they're in trouble.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Taco-Man Plays Five Nights At Freddy's begins with Taco-Man announcing his departure from Taco-Man Plays a Video Game, then applying to become a nighttime security guard at Freddy's. After deciding that the job feels too boring some times, and too scary other times, Taco-Man returns to Taco-Man Plays...
  • Shoddy Knock Off Product: One episode of The Stupid Adventures of Taco-Man revolves around Taco-Man taking out a poorly drawn counterpart of his known as Toco-Man.
  • Shoo Out the New Guy: Zig-zagged in Part 2 of "I've Got a Woody". In order to accept Woody as a new member of his team, he fires Virtual Boy. However, Woody tuns out to be so obnoxious and un-likable, that Taco-Man stars to miss Virtual Boy! He gets rid of Woody by sending him to the real world.
  • Shower Scene: Taco-Man treats the player of his Night Trap parody to one if he/she achieves a perfect score. The scene features Taco-Man in his "Dana" disguise, to the disgust of Ben Burrito.
  • Stating the Simple Solution: Taco-Man wonders why the Care Bears don't have Wish Bear wish away all of their problems.
  • Stuff Blowing Up: Taco-Man sometimes tries to make the games he reviews more exciting by adding explosions.
  • Stylistic Suck: Taco-Man's Mario Paint short has more amateurish animation and voice acting (provided by Mike Peterson rather than Sam T.) than normal Taco-Man cartoons. This carried into four other shorts, including one made especially for the 50th Taco-Man Plays a Video Game episode. Also, in the live Halloween specials, this incarnation of Taco-Man visits the normal Taco-Man while trick-or-treating, much to the latter's confusion.
  • Surprise Slide Staircase: In Taco-Man Plays Night Trap, Taco-Man wants to use it badly:
    Taco-Man: Uh, you know, there is a back door and a door in the living room area.
    Silence...
    Taco-Man: Be very, very quiet.
    Megan and Cindy: Ahhhhhhhhh!
    Megan and Cindy run up the stairs.
    Taco-Man: Oh, why can't I use the stair trap on the girls?
    • The other time is this:
    Taco-Man: Again, too bad I can't use the stair trap...
  • Tainted by the Preview: invoked Discussed in the Rise of the Robots review, which often contrasts a tantalizing, buzzword-filled preview with the mediocre game itself.
  • Take That, Audience!: Taco-Man drunkenly rants in the Atari 2600 video that his viewers seem fickle and ungrateful.
  • Take That, Critics!: In one part of Night Trap, when the girls head back to the living room while one of them (Lisa) is heading over to the bathroom, Taco-Man gives out a stern warning that the next accommodating scene would be the one that would start up the 1993 Senate hearings that would furthermore lead to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board. A video clip of the Senate hearings is shown, Night Trap-style, in which Nintendo's vice-president Howard Lincoln responded to Senator Joe Lieberman's baseless claim with the knowledge that the game had no rating at the time it was released, followed by the "controversial" bathroom scene in which Lisa is captured by augers about to drain her blood before leading her away. This in turn is followed by another Night Trap-style clip of the hearings, this time with Lieberman making a baseless claim that the game promoted "capturing and torturing women". Scene then cuts back to the real gameplay, with Taco-Man showing the right way to save Lisa this time, all the while responding:
    Yeah? Well, that's not the point! The point is that you're supposed to save her, NOT let her get drilled by a bunch of guys!
  • Title Theme Tune: Taco-Man Plays A Video Game has its own theme song, which spoofs the theme of Saturday Supercade. Eventually, it became an end credits song instead.
  • Toilet Humor: For starters, Donkey Kong hurls a brown substance at Taco-Man. In response, he says "That better be chocolate.".
  • Unexplained Recovery: All four of the girls from the Night Trap parody appear alive and well in the Atari 2600 video. Even Sarah and Meagan appear, despite failing to survive the good endings of the parody.
  • Ungrateful Bastard: Minus the "bastard" part, Taco-Man calls Princess Zelda this in his Zelda II review, since she constantly expressed impatience with how long it was taking him to rescue her, didn't thank him for doing so, and sounded sarcastic when singing praises of "a banana beat[ing] a shitty game from the '80s".
  • The Unintelligible: Edward Carnby's dialogue sounds like gibberish. However, when Taco-Man becomes really drunk, he can apparently understand Carnby.
  • Verbal Tic: Jessica from the Night Trap parody begins each of her lines with the word, "Like..."
  • Viewers Like You: During the end credits of Taco-Man Plays a Video Game, Taco-Man lists all of his Pateron supporters, and gives Special Thanks to those who donate at least $50 per episode by reading their names aloud.
  • Wham Line/Dead All Along: The Silent Hill review details a therapy session for Taco-Man, who wonders why a superhero like himself would also believe himself to host a show about playing video games. The therapist's diagnosis:"You're dead." Apparently, Taco-Man's superhero career came to an end in 2004, when his nemesis, Donald McRonald, killed him. On top of that, the therapist only existed in Taco-Man's imagination.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Used in Taco-Man Plays Night Trap:
    Kelly runs upstairs, but is stopped by augers.
    Kelly: Ahhh!
    Taco-Man: Well, what did you expect running UPSTAIRS?
  • What the Hell, Player?: Ben Burrito scolds players of the Night Trap parody if they let Taco-Man or any of the girls die. Subverted if the player lets Taco-Man survive long enough to get killed by Sarah, as Ben Burrito ponders taking over Taco-Man's show. Averted when Taco-Man lets the leechers kill Meagan, as neither he nor the player receive a scolding afterward.
  • Wholesome Crossdresser: Taco-Man as Dana in his Night Trap parody, and Taco-Croft in his Tomb Raider review.
  • Writing Around Trademarks: Poked at for laughs in Taco-Man's review of Bart vs. The Space Mutants, which features thinly veiled parodies of the The Simpsons (known as the Sicksons).

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