YMMV / Scott The Woz

Hey all, subjective items about Scott here!

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• Anti-Climax Boss: Played for Laughs with the Anti-Gex in Chibi Robo: Zip Lash, which just pathetically explodes after Scott shoves a copy of Gex: Enter the Gecko into it.
• Awesome Music:
  • The titular song from "It's a Bargain Bin Christmas".
  • "There's A Madden Just For Me" is just as awesome.
  • "Why Don't You Play Them?" from You're Not an RPG Guy is another winner, taking elements from Persona 5 and Hamilton according to the composer Garrett Williamson. It also samples "One Winged Angel" at the beginning.
  • Even the show's outro song, "Breakout" from 3D Dot Game Heroes, is catchy and upbeat, which receives a wonderful rocking guitar cover to close off "It's Awesome Baby!" along with another remix at the end of Chibi-Robo Zip Lash, and a jazz cover by Nick Carr and another remix by Sonic Mania composer Tee Lopes to open and close out You’re Not an RPG Guy, and yet another remix for Borderline Forever, this time composed by Hyper Potions.
  • "Opening / How to Talk About Video Games", which opens Borderline Forever. It is a 5 minute long medley/cover of "Breakout" in the style of various video games throughout history, such as Super Mario Bros., Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Super Mario Galaxy. At 3:16, it even quotes the theme from The Angry Video Game Nerd, paying homage to the Trope Codifier of game-centric Mid-Review Sketch Shows.
  • "Closing In", from Borderline Forever. It's a grungy rock song about Scott feeling trapped and wanting to break free from the blue border and all his usual tropes, and it sounds very different from anything else in the entire series up to this point.
  • "Break In," which debuted as the main theme for the series's TV broadcasts before replacing "Breakout" as the YouTube outro theme. Combining chiptune and rock, it's energetic and fun and serves as a worthy successor to "Breakout."
  • The tune that plays at the end of the Donkey Kong Barrel Blast video. What is especially cool is that, it starts with the “Breakout” Leitmotif before fading into “Break In”’s Leitmotif. Keep in mind, this was the first episode with “Break In” as the new outro theme, and this track is essentially the last time the “Breakout” leitmotif is ever heard in the series, acting as a nice final send-off before fading into the new main theme.
  • "Just Buy The Games" (featured in the penultimate episode of Season 6), a Charity Motivation Song parody about buying games that transitions into a song about how failure is a part of life, is where Scott's singing ability has substantially improved. The harmonic finale of the song, is definitely season-finale worthy.
  • "The Next Best Thing" from "Have a Bootleg Gaming Christmas", a song about the "benefits" of buying bootleg video games, complete with help from The 8-Bit Big Band (best known for their Grammy award-winning cover of "Meta Knight's Revenge" from Kirby Super Star).
• Broken Aesop: You're Not an RPG Guy ends with Scott accepting that there is nothing wrong with disliking another game genre (in his case, RPGs) as long as you are respectful of those who like them and aren't afraid to occasionally dip your toes in. This, despite a previous scene where Scott meets God, the latter decrying the existence of RPGs and proclaiming that he had created humanity with an innate instinct to hate RPGs.
• Broken Base: A minor case with You're Not an RPG Guy. Most liked the video overall, with some claiming it's one of his best specials. But other viewers (particularly those who enjoy RPGs) didn't care for it due to finding a lot of Scott's problems with the genre to be either from older RPGs that don't really occur in newer ones or are presented as big problems when most think otherwise. videogamedunkey's cameo as God near the end of the video also had some roll their eyes because of their own dislike towards him and his content.
• Creator Worship: Due to his peppy demeanor and memetic style of humor, Scott is one of the most beloved gaming Youtubers to come out of the late 2010s, treated as the modern answer to The Angry Video Game Nerd. Every time another similar Youtuber gets into controversy, it's practically a meme for fans to use the opportunity to boast about Scott due to his relatively clean record^note  However Scott himself has asked fans not to do this since he does not wish to be associated with said controversial figures.. As a result, it's very difficult to publicly express any dislike for him.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Lots of his jokes could be considered this, but this line from his Chia Pets video about getting Abraham Lincoln wet stands out:
  Scott: No matter the method, it feels like I’m either drowning him or waterboarding him, so I’m just going to give him a bath.
  • Even better, how did he break said Chia Pet of Abe Lincoln? A hammer swing to the back of the head.
  • The Abraham Lincoln jokes return in "Nintendo Switch: Six Years In", when Scott, after the announcement that the Nintendo Switch Sports Golf update is delayed, jokingly says that he hopes the announcements will get better. This is immediately followed by the regular Nintendo Direct animation... showing an artistic rendition of Abraham Lincoln's assassination.
• Discredited Meme: The meme of replacing the fan communities of creators who get involved in controversy on sites like Reddit with ones dedicated to Scott died after Scott himself asked people to knock it off since he doesn’t want to be associated with said creator’s controversies.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Dr. Jerry Attricks, Scott's therapist introduced in "The Dark Age of Nintendo" mini-series, became well-liked for his Large Ham acting and upbeat energy.
  • Jeb Jab, due to his obsession with Gex.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Scott's catchphrase is "Hey all, Scott here", not "Hey y'all, Scott here". You have no excuse for getting this wrong. This misconception even gets referenced as a quick joke in the 200th episode.
• Genius Bonus:
  • In You're Not an RPG Guy, Scott's friends don't really know what an RPG is themselves, with one of them thinking it's a political party in Guinea. Turns out he's not wrong; one of the major political parties in Guinea is indeed named RPG (Rally of the Guinean People, or Rassemblement du Peuple Guinéen in French).
  • A throwaway joke about Kirby in Game Boy: When Boy Met Game ("Kirby fits everywhere; put him in court, I don't care") is likely an intentional reference to the late American attorney John Kirby, famous for defending Nintendo and winning in the Universal Studios v. Nintendo case regarding the copyright issue of Donkey Kong, and having the character Kirby named in his honor.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Much of the humor in "Subscription Boxes" comes at the expense of Loot Crate, with Scott quipping that the money they've raked in from YouTube sponsorships has likely funded all of Oklahoma's government. Less than two months after the video was posted, Loot Crate filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and laid off most of its employees. Lampshaded in "It's A Bargain Bin Christmas".
  • The opening of "Cancelled Games", where Scott is in a mad panic over his privacy and security, becomes a little harder to watch after the real-life Scott's Twitter account was hacked near the end of December 2020.
• He Panned It, Now He Sucks!: In "Nintendo Switch: Five Years In", Scott criticizing the use of the Unity game engine for Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania comes off as unfair to some due to him talking down to the engine itself and being convinced that it's the reason why the collection's physics don't feel 1:1 to the original games. He later owned up to his mistake after some pushback, though, and promised to do better research in the future.
• He Really Can Act: Scott usually is very wacky and upbeat, even during his more negative reviews, but the Chibi-Robo! Zip-Lash video, while still generally keeping the tone as positive as he can, brings out very genuine anger and disappointment that he sells very well. Of particular note is when he finishes up the review portion and explains why he holds such disdain over a game that is technically functional and finished, and what makes him so bitter about its existence and how insulted he felt over Nintendo betting the franchise's future on its success. His aside for this has genuine heart and soul put into it, and that's even with the wisecracks his friends regularly make throughout the video in place, which arguably help keep it from being Narm.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In "A Look Back at E3 Rumors" Scott mentions that there were rumors floating around that there would be two new Metroid games revealed that year. "Yeah, I don't buy it." Lampshaded in the E3 2017 video.
  • In "From Reveal to Release", Scott complains about how Konami has never fully revealed their new Contra game since 2011. Two days later, during Nintendo's E3 2019 Direct, Contra: Rogue Corps was revealed.
  • Mixed with Heartwarming in Hindsight. In his "Most Wanted Switch Games" video, he listed "Super Mario 3D All Stars" which would be a compilation of all mainlines 3D Mario games. Fast-forward to September 2020 and his wish would come true with the announcement of on actual "Super Mario 3D All-Stars" (though it only includes Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine and the first Super Mario Galaxy) as well as a Switch remake of Super Mario 3D World. He lampshaded it through a tweet.
  • In "Homecoming", Scott accidentally hired a funeral planner for his homecoming dance, and at one point the funeral planner asked where to put the coffin, to which Scott yelled at him and said that the event is a "no coffin dance." A year later, and in 2020 "Coffin Dance" became an actual thing.
  • In "Cancelled Games", Scott brings up a cancelled Metroid game for the DS called Metroid Dread. In the E3 2021 Nintendo Direct, the game was officially unveiled. For extra irony, a mock-up of the then non-existent game’s box was prominently featured in the video's thumbnail.
  • In the comments for this fan video, a user claimed 'I like to think the blue border follows him at all times' Needless to say, once Borderline Forever was uploaded, a few other users were quick to point out how right they were, especially because of the ending, where Scott volunteers to keep the border on himself for the sake of the world.
  • In his review of Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Scott (ironically) says he would love to play with "Random" (a item box on the character selection screen which picks a random character). As many comments under the video pointed out, one Beenox employee must have taken him too seriously.
  • In his GameBoy Color video, Scott talks about the Virtual Boy and its lack of portability, asking, "In what world is this portable?" Come June 2021, well, this one.
  • In "Polybius", Scott defeats a sentient arcade machine by bashing in its "face" (but with a baseball bat rather than a crowbar).
  • A particularly infamous example is a brief gag in the "Game Foods" episode where, in a Mario-themed box of Lucky Charms-esque cereal, Scott confusedly displays a deformed marshmellow... that happens to resemble the cast of a viral game that would take the world by storm a few years later, with said game eventually becoming the subject of a meme in which people would randomly see references to the game in real life. Guess it was a "game food" in more ways than one. The comments section on the video has fully turned to pointing this out. Even better, this video was actually released 12 days before Among Us was ever released.
  • After Scott the Woz was announced to be coming to TV, this little gag becomes some hilarious Biting-the-Hand Humor.
    Scott: If we go on this show, we'll reach all cable TV viewers.
    Rex: So... nobody?
    Scott: Hey, that's a lot more nobody than yesterday.
  • In his video on Mario Kart 8 Deluxe he states near the end that the game was, contrary to the rumors, unlikely to receive any future DLC. Come the February 2022 Nintendo Direct, less than a year later, and the game was announced to be getting 48 remastered tracks in 6 waves over the course of the next year.
  • Because of a string of circumstances beyond Scott's control, the 2022 Christmas Episode "Merry Christmas, Data Design!" wasn't uploaded until January 7th, 2023. In the video, Scott and his friends try to make Christmas gifts for everyone at the "Left Pole" to upstage Santa, only to miss the Christmas deadline themselves by almost four months, as the video ended on April 16th, 2023 In-Universe.
  • In his video on E3 2018, he gets surprised at the announcement that Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course was "coming in 2019", asking "It's DLC. How can it take that long?" Said DLC would not be released until June 30, 2022.
  • In his video "E for Irrelavent" Scott states he finds it weird that Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies was given an M-rating by the ESRB when every other Ace Attorney game released before and after it got a T-rating. When Dual Destinies got remastered in 2024 as a part of the Apolo Justice Trilogy Collection, it would end up getting a T-rating like every other game in the series.
• It Was His Sled: It is incredibly common knowledge that Steel Wool was the killer of Chet and the others in "The Greatest Mysteries of Gaming", becoming frequently referred to in later videos.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "This is now a Scott the Woz subreddit". ^ExplanationOriginating on /r/jontron, the go-to response when a gaming YouTuber brings about controversy or is otherwise discredited/deplatformed is seemingly to "replace" him with Scott. Examples include JonTron himself, Etika, and ProJared. Became a Discredited Meme after Scott himself told everyone to cut it out, saying he doesn't want to be associated with such negative situations.
  • "Can we acknowledge that Scott really did X for a one second joke? That's some dedication".^ExplanationScott has been regularly praised in the comments of his videos for staging fully-fledged CutawayGags. This was so common that it evolved into jokes such as "I can't believe Scott really died for a 1 second gag" in response to a cutaway of him being turned into a ghost.
  • "Is That a Threat?" ^ExplanationA running gag from his Wii Play video after he reads the tagline on the back of the game's box. Usually used as a response to anything that seems vaguely threatening.
  • Terminal illness ^Explanation JonTron jokingly referred to Scott in this manner, saying “[he] sounds like a terminal illness” in reference to his subreddit replacing him with Scott. Scott later responded in kind (read the back of the paper backwards).
  • "This guy looks like Tom Holland/every Spider-Man actor mixed together." ^ExplanationA common observation found in the comments of many Scott videos, often by people who have just discovered his videos, is that Scott looks like Tom Holland/Spider-Man. The fact that Scott has an episode titled "Homecoming" didn't help either.
  • "When's the L Button episode?" ^Explanation In "Instruction Manuals", the Idea Wheel tells Scott to make an episode about the L Button, which then happened offscreen. Cue fans wanting to see an actual L Button episode in full. This was eventually acknowledged in Borderline Forever where one of the lyrics of "Stupid Nintendo Games" involves Scott answering the requests, accompanied by him spinning the Idea Wheel again with every single spot on it being for the L Button.
    • Similarly, a few years later in the episode "E3 2000", Scott mentions being distracted enough to talk about the Nintendo DS stylus for 20 minutes offscreen. Fans have since added it to the list of videos Scott needs to actually make.
  • I'm Irrelevant ^ExplanationA self-deprecating clip of Scott from "Cheat Codes", shown after he admits to have played Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on the Mac. The clip along with the still is applied by fans to other things as a Take That!.
  • This game blows! ^ExplanationScott's most popular Running Gag originating in the "A Look Back at the 3DS" episode, where Scott says this while holding a copy of Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash before throwing it in a toilet.
  • "I've been staring at this all day, I still don't get it." ^ExplanationScott expresses confusion over anime in the "Anime Games" episode, claiming that he spent all day staring at a piece of paper with "anime" written on it. Becomes a meme template to express confusion over other things.◊
  • [Holding the Sex Manual] "Did I miss a page?" ^ExplanationThis still◊ from the We Dare episode with the accompanying caption is often paired with a particularly dubious claim about sex, often from hentai, to express confusion about how someone comes to this conclusion.
  • The montage of Scott screaming at the end of the "The Worst Games of All Time" has seen some use as a reaction video in response to intense fury or frustration.
  • Scott without glasses. ^ExplanationThe episode "3D Classics for Nintendo 3DS" marks the first time ever that Scott has taken his glasses off on-camera. Naturally, the internet went wild with it, pointing out how weird he looks without glasses.
  • Ever since Scott announced that reruns of his show would air on television, it's become a trend to edit fake screen captures and Ad Bumpers of Scott the Woz as a television series, most commonly on 2010s-era Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon. Here's one example.
  • "Isn't that the guy who owns Sonic Jam?" ^Explanation The opening of "The Rarest of Games" has Scott lament that he owns Sonic Jam, saying, "It's a pretty rare game, but I don't want to be known as 'the guy who owns Sonic Jam' when I'm dead." Naturally, fans began to refer to Scott as "the guy who owns Sonic Jam."
  • "Holy fuck Scott the woz" ^ExplanationAn edited political cartoon—originally showing a family at a museum looking at a comedian on display—was altered so that it features Scott on display instead. Commonly, the cartoon, a voiced version of it, or just the phrase itself, is posted in reaction to any mention or appearance of Scott. Gained additional popularity as a reaction to Scott's videos being picked up by the channel G4.
  • The clip of Scott getting hit in the face with a frying pan (from his Virtual Boy video) has been subjected to numerous edits and variations online.
  • PORN^ExplanationA shot from "Rated E for Irrelevant" showing Scott leaning against a monitor displaying this word in a gigantic typeface when mentioning how part of the Adults Only rating's stigma comes from the fact that most titles given it are porn games. The contrast between Scott's body language and the monitor's contents made the shot a popular reaction image online, usually posted in response to NSFW art or mentions of/allusions to such.
  • "Hey all, Scott here, and this is bad! Real bad!"^ExplanationThe opening of Scott's first WiiWare Chronicles episode has Scott running for his life while saying this line. The footage of Scott is frequently imposed on other backgrounds to make it look like he's running away from something else.
  • "No reason, just felt like it."^ExplanationThe opening to Third Party Controllers where Scott casually says "I'm on life support now. No reason, just felt like it." often gets quoted, with the "life support" bit replaced with something equally random.
  • Scott's fans will often jokingly mistake other white guys with glasses and brown hair for Scott.
  • "Square Enix fans, does this ever happen to you?" (BAM!)^ExplanationScott's sympathy for fans of Square Enix after getting snubbed on the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters has been used in response to Square Enix botching any other project, including the Chrono Cross remaster, or by fans of other video game companies who have been similarly snubbed repeatedly.
• Narm Charm:
  • Although Scott isn't a fantastic singer, he's often spirited enough when he does break out into song that the viewer can't help but get swept up in the number. It helps that his vocal chops have improved a great deal from "The Bible Game Gospel" to "Closing In".
  • In "The Gifts of Gaming", the "Big Scott Comfort Scene" can come off as cheesy, yet genuinely touching. Despite the low production value of the series, and it normally focusing on comedy above all else. It helps that the scene is highly relatable, making it easy to sympathize with Scott. Being overwhelmed by the feeling that his friends don't care about him, and only show up because they get tangled up in his antics, getting to him to badly that he runs off to his room to cry. And when Jerry and Target Employee come in to comfort him, while the acting could use work, it can still come off as genuinely heartwarming. Especially when Jerry admits that he wasn't working, and really did want to spend the holidays with everyone there. Not just showing up to help because he's paid to help Scott as his therapist.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The ending of the Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash review. The build-up to the reveal of Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash hidden in the toilets, coming back to haunt Scott, the sheer horror on his face and his screaming at the discovery, are all played like a horror movie scenario where the protagonist finds out they're trapped with a dangerous threat. The tense music also doesn't help, especially since it completely overrides the upbeat Breakout theme that always plays at the end of each video.
    • The full uncut version of The Dark Age of Nintendo has the Ultra Smash portion's end scene slightly edited. Instead of a Smash Cut to the end-slate, it's a Smash Cut to a black screen as his terrifyingly geniune scream echoes (a la Solid Snake's death scream).
  • The set-up for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is pretty terrifying. Scott inadvertently causes a Time Crash due to the space-time continuum thinking that he's just talking about vanilla Mario Kart 8 again. Seeing time and space distort as it jumps between the Scotts from each Mario Kart review is pretty disturbing. The kicker? After talking about Deluxe and everything it brought to the table, it still wasn't enough to return things to normal and the universe ends up collapsing on itself. At least Scott knows to get new shoes for the next time the universe gets torn apart.
  • After Wendy's Employee dies in Memory Cards, he has a creepy wide smile on his face, which stays on for the rest of the episode whenever his corpse appears onscreen.
    • Near the end of the episode, we also see the disturbing Wham Shot of the hands of Chet Shaft and Officer Steel Wool bursting from their graves.
  • While played for laughs, the thought of a blue border obstructing your vision and the associated discomfort whenever it's noticed is rather discomforting.
• One-Scene Wonder: Scott's friend "I Dont Know How I Didn't Realize I Had To Twist The Joystick In Pole Position I Was Just A Kid Leave Me Alone" from "Plug 'n' Play Games" is pretty well-liked despite just appearing for an Overly Long Name gag.
• Play-Along Meme: The Running Gag of Jeb Jab believing everything is Gex (except for Gex itself) has encouraged a lot of fans to refer to random things as Gex. For example, fans call guns Gex because Jeb said his gun was Gex in Borderline Forever.
• Rainbow Lens: At least a few people have drawn the parallel that You're Not An RPG Guy feels a bit reminiscent of a coming out story—just a lot lower-stakes, and very much Played for Laughs.
• Retroactive Recognition: The person that uses a hammer on their GBA copy of Madden 05 at the end of "It's Awesome Baby!"? Jschlatt. James of Schaffrillas Productions also appears in the episode — he's the guy talking about Madden 09 in the beginning.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: "Borderline Forever" starts with an opening sequence and a musical number, followed by nearly 20 minutes of Scott just talking about games until he becomes aware of the blue border and the plot begins to get going.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • When the background fades to black near the end of "The Bible Game," the chroma-key starts showing and a green outline appears around Scott.
  • Scott's desk falling over at the end of the Game Room episode is very clearly shot using a green screen due to the camera angle being different than it usually it when he's at his desk and also because his jacket is slightly translucent due to its dark color combined with said effect.
  • The monster at the end of the Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash episode was created with impressive stop motion animation, but the thin white outline in some shots makes it obvious that it was chroma keyed in. Similarly, the copies of Zip Lash floating in the water that merge to make up the monster's body are clearly 3D models.
  • The shots of Scott and Terry talking to each other while driving at the start of You're Not an RPG Guy still have some artifacting from the green screen at the top of the frames of each scene.
  • Vince Young's cameo in "Borderline Forever" was shot in an open field in the middle of the day, which doesn't really mesh with him being in the Madden 08 ship.
• Spiritual Successor: The Shovelware Variety Hour is this to The WiiWare Chronicles, both being marathon review series of mediocre to terrible third-party Wii games.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • The opening song for "You're Not An RPG Guy!" sounds very similar to both the main theme of Super Mario 3D World and Jump Up, Super Star.
  • "Why Don't You Play Them?" from the same episode clearly took much inspiration from Persona 5's soundtrack, and the visuals of the video at that point model themselves after the game's art style.
  • "Just Buy The Games", from Episode 249, is a song very much inspired by Michael Jackson's "We Are The World". Fitting, given it's a charity song in regards to games that ended up bombing financially.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: In Season 6, Scott changed his iconic "Breakout" ending theme to an original soundalike piece, the same one used as the theme song for his TV show to avoid copyright issues. Even those who don't mind the new theme were upset about the change due to how long "Breakout" has been associated with the channel.
• Unexpected Character:
  • "It's Awesome, Baby!" has two surprising cameos of Caddicarus and Jirard Khalil.
  • "It's A Bargain Bin Christmas" has two major ones: James Rolfe (as a narrator) and Vince Young.
  • "You're Not An RPG Guy!" has videogamedunkey as God. Yes, God.
  • "Borderline Forever" features numerous Youtube-based content creators in small roles (perhaps most prominently Jacksfilms as Hector Andfriends, the host of Throats for Thought), but most surprisingly features former NFL player Brett Favre as an antagonist due to his appearance on the Madden '09, box. The sequence where the border closes around Ohio also has a uncredited cameo by Linkara, of Atop the Fourth Wall fame.

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