The Adventures of Duane & BrandO / YMMV

Broken Base:
- "The Carpet is Lava" is easily the duo's most controversial song, being entirely about a husband and his friends abusing his wife, Played for Laughs. It's either a hilarious shock comedy that's so overly brutal that it's funny, or simply so brutal that it's just genuinely misogynistic and uncomfortable. To a lesser, if still very contentious degree, the duo has several lines easily seen as blatant sexism in their discography (such as Roll's appearance in "Mega Man 2" and the beatdown against the Dark Queen in "Battletoads") that remain fought over by fans as to whether they're tasteless in a funny way or tasteless in an offensive way.
- Attached to above is their habit of occasionally using other dated language such as "faggot", as well as one use of the N-word in "Double Dragon". Do they get a pass as per the tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top machismo presented in their songs, or not on the basis of being actually offensive? The debate was so bad that for a while, the comments on some of their most popular videos (including "Double Dragon") were disabled for years.
Friendly Fandoms: There's a significant fan overlap with Brentalfloss, another artist who specialized in making With Lyrics songs of Nintendo games, many of which were also covered by Duane and BrandO as they both got popular around the same time. It helps that the two also shared in a similar sense of humor (albeit with Brentalfloss seen as the slightly cleaner and sillier of the projects), and they themselves were fans of each other — Brent attended as a Special Guest in a few of the duo's live shows, and end up getting a proper featured appearance in "Mario 3".
Genius Bonus: The personalities of the ghosts in the "Pac-Man" song mirror not only their original names, but also their behaviors in the original game. Blinky relentlessly pursues Pac-Man, Pinky and Inky are more strategic (Inky also lives up to his original name, Bashful), and Clyde goes into the lower-left corner sometimes, and was long believed to behave randomly ("I'm gonna go over here right now...").
Harsher in Hindsight: "The Carpet Is Lava" suddenly becomes extremely dark with the revelation that Duane's wife (the woman in the video), according to Brando, slept with a mutual acquaintance of theirs, an affair that resulted in the two falling out and breaking up in 2010.
Heartwarming Moments:
- Following their breakup in 2010, Duane and BrandO ended up performing a surprise reunion show in A&G Ohio 2011, along with the following Facebook posts to each other. Even as it was revealed that their initial breakup was the result of bad blood, the two were genuinely happy to work together again, no doubt sowing the seeds to their reunion the following year. To quote a Facebook exchange following the event:
  Duane: It was really nice seeing you this weekend. I'm glad we could put our differences behind us and play MM2 for the fans again! BTW, I really enjoyed your set, and the direction you're taking with your solo work.
  BrandO: Likewise, man! Had a rockin' time. It was great to see you, and great to see your show is just as high octane as it's always been. Keep kickin' ass, bro, I'm sure we'll see each other around! :)
- When the two did reunite in 2012, when pressed as to why, Duane gave a succinct explanation: "Because I missed my friend."
Nightmare Fuel: In the original version of "Battletoads", Rash only hits the Dark Queen a few times and is done with it. In the rerelease, however, the entire final verse has her crying and apologizing profusely in the background while Rash beats her senseless throughout, and to top it off, the music video ends with a shot of him and Zitz raping her. Thankfully, the dialogue in this last shot lessens the impact somewhat.
Dark Queen: (muffled) "Get your fucking dick out of my mouth!"
(Beat)
Dark Queen: "Oh you're right, it does taste like chicken."
(Group laughter)

YMMV / The Adventures of Duane & BrandO

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