James Rolfe commented about unused ideas for the Nintendo World Championship episode, which included one in which the two versions of the cartridge unleashed a magical power when combined, and another that spoofed The Maltese Falcon, with gangsters approaching the Nerd, willing to kill for the game.
He originally intended to do a video on Contra as the Nerd, but opted to talk about it as himself instead, as part of his mini-series of video game memories. Though he later did do a Contra retrospective as the Nerd in 2022.
James released the review on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III movie (which was not supposed to be an official episode of the Angry Video Game Nerd) with the intention of starting a spin-off series called The Angry Movie Nerd. The series never happened. He eventually started doing movie reviews as himself for Spike.com instead. Considering the infamously strict modern YouTube copyright policies, it is unlikely this series would ever be Un-Cancelled.
The original planned ending for the The Texas Chainsaw Massacre episode was to involve a longer chase sequence, which would result in Leatherface getting stuck on some rocks, and the Nerd would then decapitate him with his own chainsaw.
As mentioned in the James & Mike Mondays episode "Blue's Journey", originally James was considering a different character for each console; in addition to the Angry Nintendo Nerd, there would be Sega Shithead and Pissed Off Playstation Poindexter. Obviously, this was scrapped in favor of the Nerd covering all systems.
The 39-minute long EarthBound video was originally going to be a straightforward game review by James himself, but he decided to make it into an AVGN episode after he (in his own words) "realized that there were plenty of wacky moments in the game that the Nerd could react to".
James wanted to review Micro Machines in one of the earliest AVGN episodes, but for some reason, he never got around to it until it was part of the Aladdin Deck Enhancer episode.
When he originally recorded the Roger Rabbit episode, he ended the episode with a spontaneous rant where he described everything wrong with the game. Unfortunately, the audio wasn't recorded due to technical problems, and the mute video scene was deleted, with only one still image remaining.
James posted a list that Mike made back in 2007 that shows episode ideas spanning through 2010. Some of the games listed did become episodes, either as standalone episodes or incorporated into bigger videos. Quite a few games and consoles didn't make it to full episodes.
Apparently in the original script of the Sega 32x video, right before destroying the console, The Nerd was supposed to say the line "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go lick my cat's pussy piss slit." It was likely cut for being too vulgar even for the Nerd. What makes it funnier is that in a video where he and Mike sign old scripts for charity, James seemed to forget that he wrote it and couldn't contain his laughter, while Mike berates him for not including it.
James wanted to make a special about casino games where the Nerd would've gone to Las Vegas. The COVID-19 Pandemic put a stop to actually traveling there in person, but the overall idea was salvaged for the "Fear and Loathing in Vegas Stakes" episode with lots of Chroma Key.
The end of the Game Boy Accessories video off-handedly mentions that James Rolfe originally wanted to do a different ending to the video, where he'd make up a bunch of increasingly strange fake Game Boy accessories to parody the real ones; however, once he learned of the Pedisedate (an accessory that was meant to be used in hospitals as a method of applying anesthetics to children before surgeries), he decided nothing he could've possibly come up with would be any weirder than it, and so The Nerd instead promptly begins freaking out about the implications of the Pedisedate, culminating in him crying out "I WANNA BE SEDATED BY A GAME BOY!" in song.
In the "Hanging Out in the Nerd Room" episode, he was toying with the idea of an Atari Accessories episode (obviously, a sequel to the NES Accessories episode), but it never materialized. One of the items that he would've reviewed was the Cosmic Commander controller.
Supposedly, there was a Sonic & Knuckles episode planned for 2022 but it never came to fruition.
The Movie
Rolfe did originally intend to use the actual E.T. in the movie, and began going through the normal rights procedures with Universal. Unfortunately, they started corresponding with him less and less often, and made him jump through bigger and bigger proverbial hoops, until they eventually informed him that he would need to get permission from Steven Spielberg himself to use the character. Realizing that he'd never get a meeting with the busiest director in Hollywood, Rolfe went ahead and used the Captain Ersatz "Ee Tee" instead.
James revealed on an episode of Cinemassacre Video that he was going to do a gag where he had a "pee bar" that emptied when he went to the bathroom, but before he could film it, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World beat him to the punch, so he left it out.
