YMMV / Epic Rap Battles of History

YMMV Items With Their Own Pages:

• Broken Base
• Crosses The Line Twice
• Ensemble Darkhorse
• Genius Bonus
• Harsher in Hindsight
• Hilarious in Hindsight
• Memetic Mutation
• The Scrappy
• Special Effect Failure

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Other Examples:

A-C

• Accidental Innuendo: While this is usually averted (most innuendos being intentional), Donald Trump vs Joe Biden gives us:
  Trump: I'll shoot a hole through your whole party. Bigger than the hole I blew through Qasem Soleimani. [...] I'm gonna smash you, Joe!
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Was Hulk Hogan's "back to Beijing" quip really made out of Global Ignorance, as Kim Jong-il assumed? Or was it a Stealth Insult, subtly implying that Kim was a puppet of the Chinese government and/or needed China to back him up?
  • Bill Nye. Nice Guy who spends half his verse praising his opponent, or a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing Combat Pragmatist who uses compliments to segue into cheap shots on Newton's personal life?
  • The Easter Bunny. A wimp who foolishly picked a fight with a killer, and spent his second verse begging for mercy? Or a Badass Pacifist who spent his second verse expressing disgust at Genghis Khan's brutality?
  • Frederick the Great's death. It's not hard to look at it as an attempted 'fuck you' to Ivan, robbing him of doing the deed himself.
  • Walt Disney. After his sadistic and boastful verse, was he genuine about offering enjoyable, safe and well-paid jobs to Lee and Henson, or was he just trying to lure them into his company with no plan on following with his promises?
  • Ash Ketchum. Did he go too far with his line about Darwin's children, or was it standard fare for the rap battles and he just had a really good, if dark, ending line?
  • When Pennywise threatens to beat the Joker like he beats Harley Quinn, is this just another Badass Boast? Or is he saying this because he's appalled at how badly the Joker treats his girlfriend?
  • Oppenheimer says that anyone who says Thanos did nothing wrong has obviously never heard him rap. Is this a diss at Thanos' rapping skills, or is he commenting on Thanos bragging about all the terrible things he did? Possibly both?
  • Is Joe Biden a heroic badass bringing an end to the Trump presidency, or is he an amoral Manipulative Bastard, even if he might be still better than Trump? At certain points in the battle, he smiles a little too wide for comfort, especially when he poses in front of police headlights. A cynical viewer can theorize that Biden is simply putting on a performance to beat Trump by making himself look better.
• Alternative Joke Interpretation:
  • At the end of "Romeo and Juliet vs Bonnie and Clyde", Bonnie shoots Juliet, causing her to collapse. Romeo thinks Bonnie killed her and poisons himself. When Juliet regains consciousness, she is horrified when she sees Romeo lying dead, and stabs herself. Bonnie and Clyde are confused at what just happened. However, when they realize they have each other at least, they are immediately shot. Then the battle ends, and the announcer says "Who won? Who's next? You decide! Epic Rap Battles of History!" as usual. The problem is, he says the first part in a quiet voice and the second part in a loud voice. Some see the first part as mirroring Bonnie and Clyde's confused reaction to Romeo and Juliet's deaths, and the second part as the announcer getting back into character. Others see the first part as mirroring Juliet having woken up and regained consciousness, and the second part as mirroring Juliet's horrified reaction to Romeo's death.
  • In "Ghostbusters vs. Mythbusters", Venkman makes a quip about "the Lorax". Is this a riff on Jamie Hyneman's mustache, or a reference to Walter Peck, who works for the EPA?
  • Part of Peter's Copycat Mockery of Lloyd involves him standing on a box. Is this a dig at Lloyd's height via Scully Box? Or, since Peter is accusing Lloyd of complaining too much about his problems, is he illustrating Lloyd's tendency to get up on a soapbox?
  • "Your pink slime meat turned my asshole to a drive-thru": is this a joke about diarrhea, or given that drive-thrus are long and slow, constipation?
• Anvilicious: Several battles in Season 5 tackle political issues that, at least at the time, were very topical in America, namely Douglass vs Jefferson, Banner vs Jenner and Trump vs Hillary. These battles were criticized for their very heavy-handed messages (name "Slavery is bad", "Trans rights" and "Donald Trump is bad", respectively), which many viewers found obvious and/or severely liberal-biased.
• Awesome Ego: It would be easier to note those who don't show this. After all, each rapper either brags about their achievements, ridicules the opponent's achievements, or simply references events they were a part of - and you know each one of them can back up their claims.
• Awesomeness Withdrawal: A major sore spot for long-time fans is the lengthy hiatuses that have been common since the show left Maker Studios. Season 5 was assumed to be the last season of the show before "Musk vs Zuckerberg" premiered in December 2018, almost exactly two years after the season 5 finale. Season 6 debuted in April the next year, to the delight of fans who could now enjoy a consistent upload schedule of one battle per month... then the coronavirus pandemic happened, forcing Peter and Lloyd to shelve most of their ideas and cut the season short. As a result, only two battles were released in 2020, with a ten month gap between "Thanos vs Oppenheimer" and "Trump vs Biden." After Season 6 ended, there was no word if or when the show would continue until season 7 premiered in June 2021; only three battles were released that year, with a five month hiatus between the first two. 2022 would continue the trend with a ten month wait for the season's fourth battle, which wound up being the only one released that year despite being advertised as the first of two; the next episode wouldn't come out until 13 months later. However, it was later confirmed by Peter that the main reason for the lengthier gaps in-between battles was due to him and Lloyd wanting to avoid overworking themselves as they did during their time at Maker Studios and even afterwards, with Peter specifically mentioning that he had turned to alcohol and Adderall to deal with the massive workload of the Maker-produced battles, to the point where he stayed up three nights in a row for "James Bond vs. Austin Powers" and fell asleep at a dog park afterwards.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Chuck Norris. His fans love his portrayal in the series, but a number of other people don't really like the Memetic Badass jokes that comprise most of his rap, which say nothing about the sort of person he actually is.
  • Frederick Douglass either exposed Jefferson's hypocrisy of owning slaves while trying to end slavery or failed to show that he accomplished anything other than learning to read and write.
  • Caitlyn Jenner. The fact that she got nearly three times as many lines as the Hulk did adds to her controversy; some say she deserved the extra spotlight and/or that the Hulk isn't known for being a big talker anyway, while others still consider it pretty unfair.
  • Walt Disney, for his portrayal being an Anthropomorphic Representation of the Disney company instead of a direct portrayal of the actual man. While some people found it a dark and hilarious Take That! to the Disney corporation's amount of power nowadays, some others were rather disappointed that they didn't got to see the real Walt Disney rap, as his verse didn't have any references to anything the real person did. This makes him one of the few characters that fans would not mind being reused in the future in the form of an Alternative Character Interpretation.
  • While there's general agreement among the fanbase that both Dracula and Thanos lost their battles badly, there's a lot of disagreement as to why. Some say that their verses were horrible, while others say that they actually did pretty well but only looked bad in comparison because of how epic their opponent's verses were.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • While Hal 9000's appearance in Bill Gates vs Steve Jobs is a general representation of advanced technology itself surpassing its creators and humanity in general, being one of the most iconic examples of A.I. Is a Crapshoot, he is still easily the most bizarre out of all the mid-battle entries in the series, as he drastically changes the mood of the battle, has a Non-Standard Character Design by not being physically portrayed by a human actor, and does not appear at all during the "Who Won, Who's Next, You Decide" sequence or the Epic Dance Battles of History. When FBE made a Teens React of this battle, and made a poll at the end to ask who won, they didn't even mention HAL as an option.
  • Joe Biden being disrupted by Russian hackers is a much more straightforward example. Even the characters themselves don't seem to understand what just happened or how.
    Russian hacker 1: [What did you do?]
    Joe Biden: What is this malarkey?
    Russian hacker 2: [Oh fuck!]
• Character Perception Evolution:
  • Captain Kirk was initially not well received due to his odd, disjointed flow, and his battle against Christopher Columbus was one of the more disliked as a result. However, in the years since the battle's release, both returning viewers and newer ones are more likely to think of the comical portrayal of William Shatner's acting as the most unique and memorable aspect of the battle; plus it still fits into the beat and his actual disses are decent, attacking Columbus's racism, ego, and idiocy which modern viewers are likely to agree with. It also helps that Columbus disses Kirk's rapping style in the battle itself. Nowadays, it's easier to find viewers who think Kirk is funny rather than grating.
  • Skrillex was intially seen, especially by those who hate Dubstep, to have been an obvious loser that was easily curb-stomped by the far more talented Mozart. As time went on and the hate on Dubstep died down, many began to re-evaluate the battle and realized it was actually far fairer than they thought. Several fans even came out and said Skrillex won due to him attacking Mozart more personally by bringing up the Austrian composer' family issues, bizarre Toilet Humor, and dying broke. With Mozart on the other hand, while still generally agreed to have won based on talent, viewers realized that he mostly just attacks Skrillex' music over and over again, with insults that could apply to any dubstep artist, not just Skrillex. By contrast, Skrillex' disses are specific only to Mozart.
• Cliché Storm: "Adam vs Eve" has been widely criticized as consisting entirely of generic "sitcom married couple" jokes that everyone has already heard a hundred times before with nothing clever or original added into them.
• Condemned by History: The show's first season is not looked back on as fondly as it was when it first premiered; much of this can be chalked up to Early-Installment Weirdness, as the show back then placed more of an emphasis on silly humor than the over-the-top grandiosity and clever rhyme schemes that would come to define later seasons. While most battles of later seasons would have matchups between characters that have lots in common, season one's battles were often between characters who had very little, if any, connection to one another ("Abe Lincoln vs Chuck Norris," "Lady Gaga vs Sarah Palin," "Genghis Kahn vs Easter Bunny," and "Ben Franklin vs Billy Mays" all come to mind.) What doesn't help is that many of the characters featured in that season would fade from relevance (Kim Jong-il, Sarah Palin, Vince Offer), making the first season feel more dated than later seasons that would use more timeless characters — and on top of that, many of the first season's characters who did stick around in the public eye were often shown through the lens of topical-at-the-time memes that would fall out of favor not long thereafter (i.e. Chuck Norris being a Memetic Badass, Justin Bieber being a Bratty Half-Pint Butt-Monkey, Lady Gaga being a man in drag as a reference to rumors that were widely discredited even at the time).
• Creepy Awesome:
  • Walt Disney is presented as a terrifying corporate slave-driver, but he manages to assert ownership over Stan Lee, Jim Henson, and even the Epic Rap Battles themselves. He drops some impressive rhymes, too.
  • Robert Oppenheimer's downright haunting performance is unsettling and magnetic in equal measure. Between his Cold Ham demeanor, his Radio Voice, his permanent Thousand-Yard Stare, and his background being stock footage of nuclear tests, it's hard not to be creeped out by him... and it's partly because of this that most viewers believe he absolutely dominated his battle against Thanos.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Now has its own page.

D-H

• Designated Hero: Regarding both this trope and that immediately below, the historical battles suffer at times from lopsidedness, where one side is portrayed in a manner that is historically fair while the other side uses Hollywood History.
  • George Washington is called out as a hypocrite for being a freedom fighter while owning slaves whereas William Wallace is shown as Mel Gibson's Braveheart which gave him a Historical Hero Upgrade. The real Wallace was a feudal lord and a warrior who owned serfs and would certainly not suffer republicanism of any kind and degree. This prevents the battle from being a fair fight since Washington can't fully attack Wallace and call him out for his hypocrisy or remind him that Robert the Bruce was the real Braveheart. Additionally, Washington's overall character is given a rather undignified portrayal compared to the heavily idealized Wallace, with his hideous artificial teeth made very prominently visible throughout the battle to the point of becoming distracting.
  • "Thor vs. Zeus" pits the Thor of Norse mythology against the Zeus of classical myths, and despite the former's depiction being ostensibly generic, with precisely one line making any explicit Marvel-specific reference, his general characterization here is heavily influenced by his popular modern portrayal as a superhero. As a result, while Thor disses Zeus for being "a shapeshifting rapist", Zeus never points out that Odin of Norse Myth was just as much a man-whore, that Thor in one story killed a random bystander when he tossed a dwarf into a funeral pyre, or the time that Loki slept with his wife Sif, not to mention any of the other many embarrassing hijinks that happened in the myths.
  • Caitlyn Jenner is clearly supposed to be seen as some kind of positive symbol and, according to the creators themselves, was given a longer verse "to address controversies surrounding transgender people", but most of her lines don’t really show that and instead feel more like Filler and/or nonsensical, so her unfair amount of lines still feel unfair. And that's without mentioning how quite a lot of her most controversial moments, like her support of conservative Republicans or her vehicular manslaughter are never brought up in the battle.
  • Mansa Musa vs Jeff Bezos clearly portrays the latter in a worse light than the former, even having Bezos boast about his own misdeeds while neither he nor his opponent mention Musa's (aside from him accidentally killing his mom). Musa even accuses Bezos of being a bad person for somehow widening income inequality as a contrast to his own generosity, which is apparently supposed to taken as a justified statement on his part given that Bezos has no retort. This is despite the fact that Musa was a literal slaver and despot (he personally owned so many slaves that over 12,000 of them accompanied him on his pilgrimage) while the worst things Bezos has ever been accused of are dodging taxes and paying below-average wages to some of his workers. Musa also brags about his philanthropy, and Bezos never bothers to retort by citing the billions he's also given to charity. Bezos has certainly committed questionable actions more than deserving of criticism and mockery, but the battle frames him an extra unflattering light compared to his opponent, and most egregiously has Bezos himself go along with his opponent's criticisms in a borderline Card-Carrying Villain fashion (he outright compares himself to Sauron). This is almost certainly down to Bezos being an important figure of the present while anyone Musa wronged died nearly a millennium ago.
• Designated Villain: Ivan the Terrible vs Alexander the Great (and other "greats" like Catherine, Pompey and Frederick) portrays Ivan IV as being intrinsically worse than the others which a cursory glance through their biographies would find highly generous to the latter group, with Catherine the Great shown more positively than Ivan IV. Catherine dismisses the horse story as BS as the only character in the battle who gets a rebuttal verse, while Ivan IV is not allowed to challenge the similarly bogus claim mentioned by Frederick that he murdered the builders of St. Basil's Cathedral by plucking out their eyes, nor note his Accidental Murder of his son as indeed accidental and instantly, deeply regretted, or otherwise talk about his positive achievements, merely being left as a caricature.
• Fan Nickname: "Astrophysics Black Guy" for Neil deGrasse Tyson.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content:
  • Some fans would have preferred to see the original version of Donald Trump vs Hillary Clinton over the final product due to it being significantly less one-sided in Hillary’s favor and the additions of Ronald Reagan and Bernie Sanders bringing a lot more into the battle.
  • Lara Croft vs Indiana Jones originally had Nathan Drake from Uncharted as a third battler, as evident on the Patreon preview. In the final battle, he's only mentioned in a couple lines, but fans of the Uncharted franchise would've liked to see more of him.
• Fountain of Memes:
  • Juliet from "Bonnie and Clyde vs. Romeo and Juliet" battle on Tumblr.
  • When Theodore Roosevelt got his battle, this was bound to happen with his weird facial expressions and his over-the-top delivery.
• Franchise Original Sin:
  • Stevie Wonder vs Wonder Woman received many complaints for the superficial nature of its premise, even though this easily applies as well to many older battles that based themselves off of just having similar names (Ghostbusters vs Mythbusters, Artists vs TMNT) or general occupations/roles (Lewis and Clark vs Bill and Ted, Wright Brothers vs Mario Brothers), if even that (Genghis Khan vs Easter Bunny).
  • The accusation of biased rap battles. Blatant political bias existed back from the first battle, when Bill O'Reilly was portrayed as a Card-Carrying Villain who spent his whole second verse admitting to being a terrible person who only survives by stirring up controversies over non-issues. This is a rare case where the flaws were actually worse in the earlier installments, but were ignored because expectations were lower.
  • Season 6 has had some people complaining about an overuse of meme joke/references in a lot of its battles, with some people calling them unfunny, “cringy” or out of place... despite the fact that they have been doing meme jokes/references since the start, most notably in Abe Lincoln vs Chuck Norris, where most of Chuck Norris’ lines were just a bunch of Chuck Norris’ Facts copy and pasted into the lyrics. Again, this could be a case where the flaws were ignored in the earlier installments because expectations were lower.
  • Season 6 has also released a bit of controversy about an overuse of fictional characters and pop-culture related people over historical figures, with quite a lot of people wanting for them to "bring back the history"... despite the fact that not only has the season featured multiple historical figures, but that the series has never truly centered around only historical figures and has always featured fictional characters and celebrities as often as them, having had fictional characters since the second battle^note Darth Vader vs Hitler, and celebrities since the first one.^note John Lennon vs Bill O'Reilly In fact, their first matchup that was undeniably historical vs historical was Gandhi vs Martin Luther King Jr., the twenty-ninth installment in the series. Though, if you only look at fictional characters, then the argument makes a bit more sense, with 5 out of the (so far) 9 battles of the season featuring fictional characters, 3 against each other.
  • Thanos was criticized for how unconvincing his costume looked. But this was also the case with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in ”Artists vs. TMNT”, but it was easier to over-look since the rap itself was considered rather good (if a bit too short) and the costumes, considering they were on budget, weren’t that bad as they at least resembled the characters. But Thanos looks too small and the mask looking too static and fake. It doesn’t help that TMNT was mostly famous from the cartoons and comics, while Thanos had become popular from a rather popular live-action film series, making the ERB-version look like a bootlegged version.
  • While still generally well-liked, "Elon Musk vs. Mark Zuckerberg" did attract some criticism for giving Musk a Historical Hero Upgrade and largely ignoring the many scandals surrounding his companies. Similar criticisms could also have been made of the battle's Season 2 predecessor, "Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs", which made no mention of things like Microsoft's long history of legally questionable anti-competitive behaviours or the infamous abuses of employees by Apple's East Asian contractors. The difference was that "Gates vs. Jobs" came out at a time when public and media sentiment towards Silicon Valley was generally broadly positive, so it was considered unremarkable that a battle featuring two of its most prominent figures would focus more on the positive sides of their work, whereas "Musk vs. Zuckerberg" came out at a time when SV's influence on society was considered more controversial. This may be why the next battle to feature a Silicon Valley billionaire, "Jeff Bezos vs. Mansa Musa", puts much heavier emphasis on scrutinizing the darker elements of Bezos's business practices.
• Growing the Beard: When the series started, the costumes and special effects were cheaply-done, the lyrics lacked complexity, and most of the rappers didn't even have a very good sense of rhythm. By the end of Season 1, all of these things had been significantly polished, and the beginning of Season 2 kicked it up another notch. The iconic "Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs" battle set the standard of great-looking production values and intelligent and innovative rapping which the rest of the series continues to hold (and improve).
• He Really Can Act:
  • Walt Disney is considered to be one of the biggest sources of Nightmare Fuel in the series, and it mainly due to Zach Sherwin's performance as a psychotic, greedy, and Faux Affably Evil amalgamation of the Disney company.
  • Lloyd's performance as Robin Williams is not only considered to be incredibly faithful to the man himself, but also genuinely heartwarming. His performance as Steve Irwin would earn similar praise.
  • Peter and Lloyd's performances as Joker and Pennywise were universally praised, with both staying very true to the characters and absolutely nailing their portrayals.
  • Peter's performance of Oppenheimer was universally-praised for capturing the broken spirit of a man haunted by his past sins and the destruction that unfolded as a result of them.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight:
  • Jim Henson praising Stan Lee for the legacy he has left behind serves as a rather beautiful eulogy in the wake of his death, which was not unnoticed by many viewers.
  • As also mentioned in harsher in hindsight, after that bit of dark, venty Biting-the-Hand Humor from Disney's verse, the fact that ERB was able to break away from Maker and achieve success independently again on their own terms and schedule adds one touch of a small victory even as the rest of the battle grows more sobering with the company's continued acquisition of companies. This humble series was able to get out of it, after all.
  • The whole existence of Albert Einstein vs Stephen Hawking can be this by the very fact that Hawking ended up dying on Einstein's birthday, at the same age as him, and all of this on the Pi day.
  • Seeing Rhett & Link and Smosh get to rap together serves as a reminder of how Good Mythical Morning bought Smosh after the Defy Media scandal left them without a parent company.
• Ho Yay:
  • The reference to Steve likely refers to the fundamentalist/anti-gay slogan "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve".
  • Freddie Mercury in his final line to Sinatra.
• Iron Woobie:
  • It's subtle, but Vladimir Lenin apparently watched his most trusted student dismantle his efforts toward a socialist paradise in favor of a brutal dictatorship. The reason you don't notice is that Lenin vents about this with authority.
  • An even subtler example: Robin Williams never abandons his cheerful and boisterous demeanor at any point in the battle, and yet still makes coded references to his struggles with drug addiction and suicidal depression.
  • J. Robert Oppenheimer is a masterful version of this. He is obviously traumatized by his decision to create the atomic bomb, and yet he still stares down a mighty supervillain.

I-R

• Improved Second Attempt: In terms of a Classical Musician vs Pop Musician battle, "Skrillex vs. Mozart" is considered a vast improvement over "Justin Bieber vs. Beethoven". Bieber is disliked for being turned into a far too annoying and whiny Joke Character with no shot against Beethoven. Meanwhile, Skrillex's battle with Mozart is a lot fairer as he gets to use more personal attacks against Amadeus.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!:
  • A common complaint on "Artists vs. Turtles" is that it's too short for an 8-person battle, and that the Turtles' verses are half as long as the Artists'.
  • The rap part of "David Copperfield vs. Harry Houdini" lasts less than a hundred seconds, with just two relatively short verses for each rapper, which is disappointing coming off the mid-season hiatus.
  • For one specific part of an episode being this trope, a lot of people were displeased at the "Bruce Banner vs. Caitlyn Jenner" fight, since Hulk barely has any lines while Caitlyn's closing verse is one of the longest verses in any battle.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: There was a fair bit of backlash when "Ronald McDonald vs. the Burger King" was released, since it had just recently been an episode of Flash in the Pan, and their lines were unchanged outside of some minor tweaks. However, the production value, beat, and the appearance of Wendy at the end did redeem it in the eyes of most fans, though some still think the choice was lazy.
• Magnificent Bastard: Darth Vader vs. Adolf Hitler Trilogy: Darth Vader, the notorious Sith Lord, is pitted against the more vile Adolf Hitler, and proves himself to be one of the series' most dignified and pragmatic rappers, consistently displaying cleverness in defeating his opponent each time. In the first battle, he force-chokes Hitler and bathes him in Carbonite, all while continuing to rap, and in the second battle, he thaws him out so they could have a rematch, only to trick Hitler into standing over the Rancor Pit, disposing of him before his verse can properly end. When Hitler escapes the pit and challenges him to a third and final battle, Vader accepts, spending his verse verbally deconstructing and humiliating Hitler and his campaign before passing the mic to his "homeboy", Boba Fett, whose bars he genuinely enjoys before Hitler suddenly kills him in a fit of rage. While Hitler furiously rants to Vader, the Sith Lord calmly walks up to him and slices him in half, putting him down for good.
• Memetic Badass: Abe Lincoln. In his first appearance, he raps against fellow Memetic Badass Chuck Norris. In his next two appearances, he's carried in by a giant eagle to deliver a verbal beatdown to Obama and Romney, and again later to Trump and Clinton.
• Misaimed Fandom: The creators cited this as one of the reasons for their long hiatus between seasons 5 and 6. Basically they weren't pleased with the comments and reactions of the Trump vs. Hillary battle being so different from what they expected, namely with many comments appearing to unironically glorify the overtly racist statements made by Trump's in-battle character.
• Moral Event Horizon: Donald Trump crosses it when he shows no restraint in his attempt to call Obama the N-word following a series of other blatantly bigoted statements, triggering Abraham Lincoln to intervene; this moment was indeed seen to cross a line by many audiences, but not for the reason the creators intended.
• More Popular Replacement: In terms of Donald Trump’s opponents, Joe Biden fared better than Hillary Clinton. This is due to Clinton’s disses against Trump being overshadowed by those of Lincoln and Trump himself. Come the next political battle, due to the lack of Lincoln and Trump’s raps being less self deprecating, Biden is the one who gets to have all the best lines against his opponent, including an enormous "The Reason You Suck" Speech in his second verse.
• Narm:
  • Confucius making zero effort into sounding like an old man.
  • Just like Bill Skarsgård in It (2017), Lloyd's Pennywise voice has been compared to Scooby-Doo during some parts.
  • Thanos calling himself "Fortnite's dopest dancer" in what's otherwise a dead-serious battle comes off as this, which is only highlighted by the fact that he threatens to kill Oppenheimer like his throat cancer did right after.
  • While the special effects are legitimately good, Pennywise's "clown spider" form is just as unintentionally laughable as it was in It: Chapter Two. Doesn't help that it occurs at the very end of the battle, being played as a badass moment which the Joker never gets a chance to mock.
• Narm Charm:
  • Lloyd's Pennywise voice may be strange and cartoonish, but they ultimately don't do anything to make the portrayal any less cool or menacing — in fact, the goofy voice also has the added effect of making the punchlines funnier.
  • J. Robert Oppenheimer has been aptly described as looking like an older version of Eminem, which Peter even jokes about at the beginning of the BTS video. However, Peter's masterful portrayal of Oppenheimer as a haunted, guilt-ridden man led to fans considering Oppenheimer one of the season's best rappers.
• Nausea Fuel:
  • In the Making Of video for "Elvis vs. Michael Jackson", there is a clip of Epic Lloyd spitting out half-eaten bananas into a trash can. He doesn't like bananas too much.
  • George Washington's teeth can get a bit distracting due to this.
• Never Live It Down: Because Cleopatra gets in three lines attacking Marilyn Monroe for being promiscuous, detractors may claim that every single woman vs. woman battle consists entirely of both sides calling each other sluts.
• Nightmare Retardant:
  • Pennywise unravels his face to reveal his horrific, toothy maw and exposes Joker to the Deadlights. The Facial Horror is greatly mitigated by the fact that the Deadlights are just three glowing Pennywise heads floating around in a circle, making fun of Jared Leto Joker's resemblance to Tekashi 6ix9ine.
  • Thanos' first verse has him boasting about his power, his murder of his daughter, defeating the Avengers, and slaughtering half of the universe. His second verse involves the Thanos Copter and Fortnite.
• Older Than They Think:
  • There's a small group who considers Rhett & Link's Epic Rap Battles to be ripoffs of these; their first Epic Rap Battle (the straight-up match between the two) predates "John Lennon vs Bill O Reilly".^note Nevermind that the two pairs are on pretty good terms with each other, and that Rhett and Link appeared in "Mario Brothers vs Wright Brothers", "Artists vs. Turtles", and "Lewis & Clark vs Bill & Ted", while Peter and Lloyd made a cameo in R&L's Epic Rap Battle of Manliness.
  • A couple of YouTube comments on Goku vs Superman mentioned that Lloyd doesn't quite have the build to portray Superman. They probably never heard of George Reeves.
  • The folks who complained about Caitlyn Jenner's transition being portrayed as a Magical Girl transformation in the style of Sailor Moon probably never heard of the Sailor Starlights, who are male scouts whose transformed forms are female.
  • Trump supporters have also accused ERB of a recent liberal bias after his rap battle with Hillary Clinton, ignoring that in the past they've made fun of other conservative figures like Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, and (most frequently in the early years) John McCain. Not to mention considering their support for gay rights and feminism, ERB has been pretty front and center with what politics they support.
  • An invoked example in "Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden". The match-up may have been made with the 2020 election in mind, as was the case with episodes made for past presidential elections, but the YouTube comment suggesting the battle on the "YOU DECIDE" screen is from 7 years prior, 1 year into Obama's second term and before Trump decided to officially run for President.
  • This humor magazine imagined Lance Armstrong interacting with Babe Ruth two years before the ERB video released.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Boba Fett appears for all of maybe eight seconds in the season 3 premiere. The half-verse that he does manage to get is awesome.
  • Pompey the Great didn't even get to start his verse due to being decapitated with about five seconds of screentime, and yet many people jokingly determined him the winner of the battle. It helps that his appearance is some historically accurate black comedy.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Fan consensus is that even if Thanos did have some good bars, he's simply left in the dust by NicePeter's epic and haunting performance as Oppenheimer.
• Questionable Casting:
  • Peter's portrayal of Lady Gaga wasn't received all that well due to it being a Crosscast Role, not helped by an actual actress playing Gaga's opponent in the same battle making it especially blatant. Nowadays it'd be considered transphobic since it played into rumors about Gaga being a crossdressing man.
  • In hindsight, the white Lloyd playing the Mongolian Genghis Khan is an unfortunate example of whitewashing — the portrayal only avoids counting as yellowface due to Lloyd making no attempt to look Asian, which is only a step above the worst-case scenario.
    • The same can be said of Peter playing the Indian Freddie Mercury. He avoids straight-up brownface, but still not the best look in this day and age.
  • Fan reaction to Lloyd's portrayal of Thanos was mixed. While his voice and delivery are fine, the use of a not-terribly-convincing Thanos head mask looks jarring, with fans believing either that they should have just put Lloyd in makeup since he already sports the bald head and jawline for the part, or that he couldn't play the part at all since he's too short and not muscular enough so they should've just dubbed Lloyd's voice over an actor who looks more like the character.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Ray William Johnson is a fairly divisive YouTube creator, to say the least. However, he was able to stand his ground as an actor for the show, with many people considering his eight-second Boba Fett performance to be the best part of the third "Adolf Hitler vs Darth Vader" match, and a number of people considering his raps as Goku to be better than Superman's in the eponymous "Goku vs Superman".
  • Donald Trump’s portrayal in his battle against Hillary Clinton had a noticeably divisive reaction due to him being a Straw Character whose raps were intended to insult himself much more than his actual opponent. His portrayal in his battle against Joe Biden was still anything but kind, but this time his raps are devoted to dragging Biden rather than himself, making the battle much less one sided.
• Retroactive Recognition: The man who plays Watson in Sherlock Holmes vs Batman is Kyle Mooney!
• Rewatch Bonus: Thanks to the show's use of fast-paced rap music and chroma keyed visuals, just about every episode has at least one clever lyric or Funny Background Event that you're guaranteed to miss on the first viewing, unless you have extremely quick comprehension skills.
• Rooting for the Empire:
  • Genghis Khan is almost unanimously agreed to have won in "Genghis Khan vs. Easter Bunny".
  • The xenophobic Columbus more well-liked among some fans in "Columbus vs. Kirk" due to many people finding their imitation of William Shatner's speaking style extremely annoying to listen to.
  • In the second "Adolf Hitler vs Darth Vader" battle, many people like Hitler better, even though he's definitely the more evil of the two. Of course, if you're on Vader's side, you're still rooting for the empire.
  • Majority of people thought that Walter White beat Rick Grimes.
  • A fair few people thought The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man won in "Ghostbusters vs. Mythbusters".
  • Most viewers thought that the Terminator beat Robocop.
  • In "Jim Henson vs. Stan Lee", the winner is generally considered to have been Walt Disney.
  • A non-negligible number of viewers firmly hold that Vlad the Impaler - clearly the more evil of the two - beat Count Dracula.
  • Despite Sigmund Freud being a narcisstic jerkass psychologist, many fans believe he won the battle against the more altruistic Mother Teresa.

S-T

• Shocking Moments: After about two years after the Season 5 finale, the main channel uploaded a video announcing that they were back! Season 6 is scheduled to come out in Spring 2019, but first with a bonus battle coming out only a week later!
• Spoiled by the Format:
  • "Stan Lee vs. Jim Henson". The video's length is 5:32, making it the longest ERB episode for its time. So when Lee and Henson stop battling and make peace only 2 minutes in, you just know a third rapper is about to enter.
    • Also subverted later in the episode. If you're expecting the battle to continue after Disney's verse, forget about it — the remaining 2 minutes and 10 seconds are spent on the end slate.
  • A similar situation arises in "Alexander the Great vs. Ivan the Terrible" when Ivan kills Alexander and seemingly wins the battle... less than halfway through the video. And again when Frederick the Great dies and there are still two minutes to go.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • "Frank Sinatra vs Freddie Mercury" is an intentional one of these, sounding similar to Queen's "We Will Rock You".
  • The beat used for "Michael Jordan vs Muhammad Ali" sounds suspiciously similar to the Key & Peele theme. Makes sense, seeing how the titular duo star in the battle.
  • "Goku vs. Superman" also sounds like an upbeat, more industrial version of the Battle Lost theme from Quake III: Arena.
  • Invoked in "Ash Ketchum vs. Charles Darwin". The beat sounds very similar to the opening chords of the Pokémon anime.
• Take That, Scrappy!: "NicePeter vs. EpicLLOYD 2" has Lloyd taking two shots at the series' widely-disliked portrayal of Batman.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Pretty much everyone universally agrees that Genghis Khan was utterly wasted against a Joke Character like the Easter Bunny.
  • Quite a lot of people thought too that Napoléon Bonaparte was wasted against Napoleon Dynamite, especially for very little of his accomplishments being brought up, and feel that he should have went against another world leader like Charlemagne, Alexander the Great, or even the aforementioned Genghis Khan.
  • Both Cleopatra and Marilyn Monroe feel underutilized in their rap battle because both spend the majority of it either insulting the other's appearance, recounting their sexual histories, or finding ways to call the other a slut. Both women achieved phenomenal things during their lifetimes and yet apart from a few references to Marilyn Monroe's movies, all of it gets glossed over for an ultimately quite petty Cat Fight. Thankfully this seems to be a case of Early-Installment Weirdness compared to later female rappers such as Joan of Arc, Julia Child, and Catherine the Great.
  • Batman's appearance in Season 2 was... not the most well-received, so to speak. Instead of being a proper Adaptation Distillation of the Caped Crusader like the show had done (and would continue to do) with other fictional characters, Peter instead saw fit to play Batman as an exaggerated parody of a very specific iteration of the character (namely the Christian Bale version, which had already been parodied to death by the time the battle came out). Not helping matters was that the Dark Knight got few good lines; most of his raps were either very generic or just immature and don't fit the character at all. It seems the creators ended up agreeing with the sentiment, as evidenced by this line from the Season 5 finale:
    Epic Lloyd: (to Nice Peter) We try to tell you things, but you're too stubborn to understand
    Like "Dude, that is not a cool way to play Batman!"
  • Adam vs. Eve is often regarded as underwhelming due to the battle's theme being more of a "boys vs girls" battle, with little reference to the actual biblical Adam and Eve in the lyrics. Others have noted that Jenna Marbles was underutilized as a guest star.
  • Frank Sinatra is often felt to be wasted in his battle against Freddie Mercury, with fans believing the battle is too focused on hyping up Mercury since Sinatra's accomplishments go unmentioned and even the disses against him are pretty generic. Sinatra's portrayal is also considered barebones, with Lloyd not capturing how the real Sinatra sounds and his costume just being a generic Sharp-Dressed Man outfit, not even a hat like Sinatra would often wear.
  • Fans complained that the rap of Frederick Douglass was more about Jefferson owning slaves, to the detriment of informing the audience about Douglass's accomplishments / character and he ended up being Flanderized.
  • Quite a lot of people felt that Bruce Banner/The Hulk should have gone up against Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde instead of Jenner. The Hulk’s lack of screen time didn’t help matters.
  • Pompey the Great, who only got one sentence before being unceremoniously killed off by Catherine the Great. While it's funny, a lot of people wish he could've been a proper rapper.
  • Walt Disney, for the reasons given under Base-Breaking Character above.
  • Stevie Wonder vs Wonder Woman was this for both rappers. Many fans feel that Stevie should have rapped against Ray Charles and Diana against Xena.
  • The portrayal of Dracula in Vlad the Impaler vs Count Dracula fully embraced the campier aspects of the character while also acknowledging the more frightful ones. A lot of fans would have preferred if the former had been ignored instead, as it means that Dracula in general comes across as far more comical and less intimidating compared to Vlad, as opposed to being the romanticized version of the Vlad legend with all the Prince of Wallachia's negative traits played up to eleven. More generally, fans have also called Dracula's portrayal unfocused, as a lot of both his lines and Vlad's disses pertain to vampire legends in general rather than being specifically about Dracula himself.
  • While seeing Bill Cosby get a taste of his own medicine for being a convicted rapist is pretty satisfying, ultimately his "verse" does take up quite a bit of time in the battle without referencing any of the man's former legacy, leading some to lament that he only got two real lines in and that he could've had a proper verse.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Many people felt that Jim Henson and Stan Lee should have teamed up against Walt Disney, or otherwise that the unique setup involving the three of them could have been explored further. Some people also felt the lack of George Lucas throughout the whole battle.
  • Similar to the above, some people felt the lack of Colonel Sanders in “Ronald McDonald vs The Burger King”, and the lack of Abraham Lincoln in “Donald Trump vs Joe Biden” especially after he had made an appearance in the two previous election battles, breaking the series’ tradition.
  • The Joker vs. Pennywise bases the character design for Pennywise primarily on the Bill Skarsgård version of the character. Many fans hoped to see the Tim Curry Pennywise make an appearance, but that version is only referenced in a diss by the Joker, saying he'll chase away Pennywise so fast "they'll call you Tim Scurry."
  • An extremely minor example, but with how many disses are aimed directly at him, a lot of fans were hoping for a cameo by Zach Sherwin as Stephen King, similarly to the Justice League's appearance.
    • Similarly minor, but Harry Potter vs. Luke Skywalker only has one, very easy to miss reference to the Darth Vader vs. Adolf Hitler battles, and it is not represented in the visuals.
  • Another minor example in The Joker vs. Pennywise is how The Joker never gets a chance to make fun of Pennywise’s highly lampooned “clown spider” form, with the battle ending once the transformation is complete.
  • Fans have noticed that any time a battle consists of an older/"original" character/person and a newer one, the newer one tends to get the shaft, with weaker lines (and sometimes fewer lines overall), the older character often getting the last and most effective word, and a widely-declared landslide victory in the older character's favor. Examples include Justin Bieber vs Beethoven, Mozart vs Skrillex, Babe Ruth vs Lance Armstrong, and George R.R. Martin vs J.R.R. Tolkien. Suffice to say, fans aren't very fond of this happening, especially if they're fans of the newer combatant and were hoping for a fair fight. This also tends to happen whenever a real person battles a fictional character, in favor of the real person, like Artists vs TMNT, Ash Ketchum vs Charles Darwin, Vlad the Impaler vs Count Dracula and Thanos vs J. Robert Oppenheimer.
• Tough Act to Follow:
  • "George Washington vs William Wallace" was considered by some to be extremely underwhelming, especially coming after the excellent string of battles that was "Goku vs Superman", "Edgar Allan Poe vs Stephen King", and "Isaac Newton vs Bill Nye".
  • Season 3 in general compared to season 2. A common complaint is that few of the songs are memorable.
  • "Oprah Winfrey vs Ellen DeGeneres" had the uphill task of following the highly popular "Jack the Ripper vs. Hannibal Lecter".
  • "Lewis & Clark vs. Bill & Ted" had the bad luck to come out after the hiatus that occurred after the director battle royale, and then over the next few weeks was overshadowed by progressively better battles.
  • "Stan Lee vs. Jim Henson". Not only did it come on the heels of "East vs. West Philosophers" and "Shaka Zulu vs. Julius Caesar", both of which got very positive reception, but it served as the finale for Season 4—an honor that many people thought would go to "Philosophers". This set the bar high for the battle... only for the titular characters to get roughly one verse each of actual battle rapping ^note Stan gets an additional half-verse before patching things up and being friendly. And then Walt Disney enters and turns the rest of the battle into just a Boastful Rap about himself and how he now owns the creations of both competitors. It hurts that the battle's flow is rather slow and the lyrics aren't particularly memorable; people seem to like the concept but not the execution, and consider it a good battle but far from a good season finale.

U-W

• Ugly Cute: Pikachu in "Ash Ketchum vs. Charles Darwin". While in his native works he's a Ridiculously Cute Critter, here he's this trope thanks to the 2D drawings of him used in the battle being rather crudely drawn (though Drawing Around Trademarks may have been in effect).
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
  • The brief zoom-in on Ash Ketchum's eye in "Ash Ketchum vs. Charles Darwin" where it changes from live-action to his familiar anime style. Thankfully, it goes back to live-action soon afterwards, but the transition still looks weird due to Limited Animation which is shared with the Pokémon creatures shown in-battle.
  • The appearance of Thanos as portrayed with sub-professional practical effects falls squarely into this.
• Unconventional Learning Experience: The amount of detail weaved into the verses and visuals of a battle can surprise listeners, especially when it comes to actual historical figures. In fact, many rap battles can get people to learn about obscure figures like Voltaire, Lao Tzu, Shaka Zulu, Frederick Douglass, Jacques Cousteau, J. Robert Oppenheimer, etc. Lloyd and his wife even once held a keynote event where they discussed about how ERB can be used for student engagement and learning.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Virtually no one expected the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man to join the Ghostbusters' battle as a rapper in his own right.
  • While Jacques Cousteau fits quite well as an opponent for Steve Irwin, he was hardly his most popular opponent, not being as well-known as the Crocodile Hunter despite his contributions to cinema and undersea travel.
  • Deadpool vs Boba Fett came completely out of left field, due to them both being modern fictional characters that weren't even the main characters in most of their respective franchises.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • It now feels pretty odd that "John Lennon vs. Bill O'Reilly" makes no mention of the numerous sexual harassment accusations that all but destroyed O'Reilly's career.
  • The Sarah Palin Vs Lady Gaga rap battle is quite antiquated, as the portrayal of Lady Gaga clearly comes from before she became an acclaimed actress, only referencing her singing career. Meanwhile, Sarah Palin more or less fell out of relevance not long after the 2008 election.
  • "Master Chief vs Leonidas" was clearly made before Jesse and Jeana of Prank vs. Prank had broken up, prior to 300 losing its relevance in pop culture, and the general decline in reception and standing of the Halo series.
  • "Doc Brown vs Doctor Who" became dated on account of all the various directions Doctor Who went in during the 2010s and 2020s - it lacks any mention of the 50th Anniversary Specials, the controversial storyline decisions made during Chris Chibnall's time as showrunner, and the first female and black incarnations of the Doctor. On the flipside, while the Back to the Future aspects are mostly not outdated, the fact that 2015 came and went despite featuring heavily in Back to the Future Part II would've at least warranted a mention.
  • "J. R. R. Tolkien vs George R. R. Martin" was very obviously made before Game of Thrones ended, because otherwise, Tolkien would definitely have brought up the show's infamously disappointing final season.
  • "Deadpool vs. Boba Fett" was clearly made before the second season of The Mandalorian, where Boba returns after his presumed death by Sarlacc. It was also clearly made before the first Deadpool movie actually came out, as Fett dismissively refers to Ryan Reynolds as "the prick from Van Wilder" and claims he should be dropped, but the actual movie ended up being a smash hit that earned Reynolds loads of praise and greatly boosted his popularity.
  • For that matter, the "Vader vs Hitler" trilogy was very obviously produced before the sequel trilogy came out, as the notoriously polarized reception of those movies would've been brought up otherwise (indeed, it was brought up in the battle between Luke Skywalker and Harry Potter).
  • "Miley Cyrus vs Joan of Arc" was pretty clearly made just a little while after Miley's 2013 VMA performance, as the majority of her portrayal was based around it, a portrayal that would end up being a pretty small part of her career as she would end up changing a lot since then, though it's not like she would continue being relevant for long anyways.
  • "Rick Grimes vs. Walter White" suffers a lot from being made prior to the Seasonal Rot The Walking Dead went through, which would've absolutely been mentioned otherwise, not to mention the meteoric rise in popularity Negan received that would otherwise warrant his character a mention in the battle. Conversely, on the Breaking Bad side of things, the battle predates Better Call Saul by a year and the general acclaim that show received would've likely resulted in more overt references to Saul Goodman or Mike Ehrmantraut had the battle released later. Finally, there's also the fact that the connection between the two is that they were the lead characters of series that aired on AMC, which failed to maintain relevance once The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and Better Call Saul all finished airing.
  • "Ghostbusters vs Mythbusters" clearly precedes the three Ghostbusters movies that came out in the years following the battle (the 2016 reboot, Afterlife, and Frozen Empire), and would've likely made mention of them had the battle released several years after the fact. For the Mythbusters, the battle precedes the show's ending in 2016, and on a more depressing note, the untimely passing of Grant Imahara in 2020.
  • Justin Bieber's rap battle is clearly set back when he was a teen idol, as he changed his image and music quite significantly in the coming years.
  • The usage of Skrillex in the battle against Mozart firmly dates it to the peak of popularity of Skrillex's dubstep-heavy music style and relevance (although they do have Mozart diss that everyone will forget Skrillex in months while he's been famous for centuries). Similarly, Napoleon Dynamite, Billy Mays and Vince Offer were all well past their peak popularity even when their battles came out, and would totally fade from relevance soon after.
  • In 2020, Ellen DeGeneres was accused by former employees of running a toxic work environment, which would have given Oprah a lot more ammunition had the battle been made a few years later. On the other hand, Ellen would very likely have attacked Oprah for her association with disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein if the battle were produced after Weinstein's 2017 sexual misconduct revelations and subsequent downfall.
  • One of the most infamous examples of this is by far "Donald Trump vs Ebenezer Scrooge" as the battle was extremely clearly made back when Donald Trump was just seen as a tycoon and TV personality and not the 45th President of the United States of America. It's especially sent into this territory by the appearance of Kanye West, who would later become increasingly more erratic and right-wing to the point of outright praising Hitler.
  • "Elon Musk vs. Mark Zuckerberg" was made at a time when Elon Musk was much less controversial than he is today, and it's obviously dated by the lack of references to things like Musk's disastrous buyout of Twitter, or the many controversies surrounding Tesla Autopilot. You can also tell the battle came out prior to the rollout of the Metaverse, as otherwise Musk would definitely have dissed Zuckerberg over the failure of that project. Generally, it's not uncommon to find people requesting a sequel for the battle to cover what it missed.
  • "Thanos vs. J. Robert Oppenheimer" may have done this in record time, since the battle preceded the acclaimed Oppenheimer biopic by Christopher Nolan, which went onto smash the box office and win seven Academy Awards.
• Vindicated by History:
  • Walt Disney's appearance in "Stan Lee vs. Jim Henson" was initially divisive for being one-note and more of a caricature of the Disney company, rather than being based on the actual person. However, as the years went on, controversies such as the mixed reactions of the Star Wars sequels and the Disney Live-Action Remakes, the acquisition of 20th Century Studios and shutdown of Blue Sky Studios have made viewers more accepting of the caricature, even if it still doesn't represent who Walt really was. It also helps that Zach Sherwin's performance as Disney is generally considered to be top-notch, being genuinely frightening during his whole verse.
  • Similarly, "Thomas Jefferson vs. Frederick Douglass" was initially seen as being too "woke" with Jefferson needing an entire verse to try and justify his owning of slaves while Douglass spends a lot of time calling it out without talking a lot about himself. However over the years, especially in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, the battle has been seen in a more positive light, with Douglass' points being seen as more valid than ever while also giving some amazing disses, and many realizing that Jefferson's portrayal was a lot more nuanced and balanced than how most media has portrayed him. It helps that Frederick Douglass was more known for speaking about his issues with society than himself, something that the battle understood well even if some still feel he should have at least been able to talk about more given how much he's done.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • "Goku vs. Superman". Particularly the Air Jousting at the end, and Goku turning Super Saiyan.
  • In "Batman vs. Sherlock Holmes", the visual effects for Batman's first verse were pretty boss.
  • "Zeus vs Thor" is animated with Lego Blocks, akin to The LEGO Movie.
  • Season 5 in general has visual effects that are more cinematic than the previous seasons (the tree branch scene in "J. R. R. Tolkien vs. George R.R. Martin", the Blue Team scene in "Gordon Ramsay vs. Julia Child" and Bruce Banner’s transformation are examples), but "James Bond vs. Austin Powers" takes the cake. Bond's first verse is comparable to the stunning visuals of James Bond movie openings (complete with a Bond Gun Barrel), Austin's verse is also an eye-pleaser, and Sean Connery's Bond comes by to top it off.
  • If "Elon Musk vs. Mark Zuckerberg" showcases anything, it's that season 6 will have a considerable upgrade in VFX, mostly showcased by the effects of Musk interacting with his own subtitles by picking one of them up and flying to Mars, dodging a satellite.
  • The special effects of Robin Williams' emergence from the genie lamp in "Carlin vs Pryor" look damn cool.
  • In "The Joker vs. Pennywise", the backgrounds on Joker's side look like they came straight from a comic book, while the recreations of Signature Scenes from It (2017) and its sequel are incredibly faithful, especially Pennywise's Deadlights form.
  • "Luke Skywalker vs. Harry Potter" is also animated with LEGO, and features many masterfully recreated locations from both film franchises. It also takes full advantage of Star Wars and Wizarding World having many, many LEGO sets by cramming in as many cameos as possible from the two franchises in the form of minifigures.
• Vocal Minority: Almost every battle has a very high ratio of likes to dislikes, but the comment sections of at least 40% of the videos have many hate comments.
• Win Back the Crowd:
  • The fandom was displeased with the unannounced hiatus that happened after the "Bill Gates vs Steve Jobs", some even going so far as to think that the work would become an Orphaned Series. Cue the announcement that the next six Rap Battles would be uploaded back-to-back every fortnight, followed by a holiday break and more episodes. This was impeded only by a small Schedule Slip in regards to "Batman vs Sherlock Holmes".
  • It happened between Seasons 3 and 4. Many fans found "Artists vs Turtles" to be an incredibly disappointing finale to the third season, but were immensely pleased when Season 4 came back with "Ghostbusters vs. Mythbusters", which they considered a group battle done right.
  • When season 4.5 came around, many fans found the first two battles lackluster and began accusing Peter and Lloyd of selling out and not having fun anymore. Then along came "Terminator vs Robocop", which silenced some dissenters, and then "Philosophers East vs West", which was met with a great deal of praise.
  • After some controversial battles in Season 5, the mid-season finale "Alexander the Great vs. Ivan the Terrible" was very popular again.
  • Season 5 was accused of having numerous battles that didn't make sense and/or were too heavily weighted in one side's favor. Then Tony Hawk vs. Wayne Gretzky finally got back to a sensible and balanced match.
  • After the disappointed reaction many fans had to Vlad the Impaler vs. Count Dracula, we get The Joker vs. Pennywise which not only has a much more energetic beat but is also much more horrifying, pulling no punches and showing exactly how evil and insane both of its participants are.
• The Woobie:
  • The Easter Bunny really bit off more than he could chew.
  • Freddie Mercury starts off as one. He spends most of Frank Sinatra's first verse and part of his first verse moping at his piano, saying that he's heard all the insults that Frank hurled at him before. Then he gets going.
  • J. Robert Oppenheimer has a perpetual horrified My God, What Have I Done? expression and spends his verses surrounded by first the atomic explosions his work wrought, then dust in the aftermath of Thanos' snap.

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