It’s
truly hard to believe, but this summer marked the 10th anniversary
of when Doug Walker began posting videos on Youtube under the moniker
“Nostalgia Critic.” It’s hard to grasp
just how consequential and far-reaching the work of the Walker brothers and
their current and former colleagues on TGWTG/Channel Awesome have been in
pushing the bounds of online content and media criticism, and just how many remarkable
careers have been given a boost as a result.
Doing so would require far more time and space than I currently have on
this site, but it is a project well-worth undertaking one day, because no
matter what form human online activity takes in the future, this remarkable
past decade is worth remembering and celebrating.
For
now, though, we will train out thoughts of appreciation to the man who was part
of the very beginning, and who was, for many of us, the gateway to an entire
online world that has become a continuous and essential part of our daily
lives. Doug Walker initially wanted to
retire the Nostalgia Critic persona about 5 years ago so as to move on to other
creative projects, but soon found that he (or, perhaps more accurately, his
fanbase) just couldn’t quit the raving madman with a black cap, bad tie, and
worse attitude he had created.
However,
in a touch of sweet irony given the name of his character, attachment to the
past has never held him down from trying out new ideas. Since bringing back the character in 2013, he
has continuously reinvented and altered the format of the show, throwing in more
sketches, outside recurring characters, theme songs, and has most recently
taken to effectively creating his own “parody” versions of recent theatrical
releases, often while they’re still in theaters. It certainly took some getting used to the
new feel of everything at first, but since then he’s continued at full throttle
and seems to have no regrets with coming back, and at this point there are actually
more of the “new” NCs than there are of the old ones.
And
so of course, there’s no better way to pause and say “thank you” than to- what
else- honor this important anniversary with a Top 11 List of the Best Nostalgia
Critic episodes since the big return (I’m deliberately excluding the old ones
because I’ve already listed my favorites of those). Also, for this list I’ve only focused on the regular
movie/show NC reviews, not his shorter editorials from the off weeks, since
they’re a different creature entirely and thus can’t really be compared the
same way.
And
with that said, here is my list of the Top 11 Nostalgia Critic episodes since
his the return. Why Top 11? Because he’s always gone one step beyond for
us, so we ought to do the same for him.
Honorable
Mentions: The Cat in the Hat, Foodfight, all the Nostalgic Commercial Specials, Bloodrayne, Mad Max: Fury Road, Top 11 Dumbest LOTR Moments, Top 11 WORST Avatar Episodes, Eight Crazy Nights, Dragon’s Lair, Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie
11.
Mamma Mia (originally aired February 17, 2015)
Doug
Walker has often trained his critical sights on films and franchises that were
meant to appeal to particularly narrow or problematic ideals of machismo and
masculine identity (the Transformers
franchise being a key recurring example).
His scathing critiques of the worst kinds of online internet “meninists”
are undoubtedly some of his most important work, but with Mamma Mia, he flips his usual script and takes a similarly scathing
look at the sorts of female-audience-seeking rom-coms that, in their own way,
are just as backwards and repressive in their views of women as the works of
Michael Bay or Zach Snyder are of men.
10.
The Purge (originally aired July 29, 2014)
Considered
one of the worst missed opportunities for a horror movies of recent years, a
Nostalgia Critic take on the film was always going to be good, but I’m sure no
one could have predicted how good until the very end of the review, when a side
gag about Pinky and the Brain breaking up concludes with the actual voice actors from the
Animaniacs show appearing in Doug’s hotel room to record a profanity-filled
fight between the two. Forget being one
of the best NCs of all time, this one should go down as a virtual cultural
touchstone for everyone who grew up with the characters and perpetually
wondered why the Brain really did keep putting up with his bumbling
sidekick.
9.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (May 28, 2013)
This
controversial Spielberg/Kubrick hybrid was right up in the wheelhouse of the
Walker Brothers (Doug speaks repeatedly of his admiration for the work of
Stanley Kubrick), meaning that an extra level of knowledge and passion was
evident in every shot and joke. That
alone would have made this one for the record books, but the boys went the
extra mile and used this NC as a vehicle for a vicious (and much-needed)
takedown of TMZ specifically, and our collective culture of pulpy, superficial,
scandal-driven media consumption in general.
Sadly, since the rise of a certain orange-colored Godzilla, this is one
of those videos whose message has only gotten more potent and powerful with
time.
8.
The 3rd Animated Titanic Movie (originally aired September
26, 2016)
The
first two animated Titanic musicals are two of the most horrific things ever
created by mankind. Ergo, the NC videos
on them rank as two of the funniest things the Walkers have ever produced. Yet despite this, Doug insisted for years
that the THIRD animated Titanic movie was one of the films he would never
submit himself to. Well, last year he
finally broke down, and the results were every bit as amazing (and the movie
every bit as atrocious) as we’d all hoped.
7.
Wicker Man (originally aired January 21, 2014)
The
themed reviews of January are always a special time for the NC, as regular and
as important a fixture of the Channel Awesome site as Nostalgiaween and Doug
Walker’s massive Christmas Boner, and Nicholas Cage Month, the first January
after the return of the character, was no exception. The Wicker
Man video was not only the highlight of that month, but is particularly
special for being the official introduction of Tamara into the Channel Awesome
universe after Rachel’s departure the month before.
6.
Devil (October 29 2013), After Earth (June 30, 2014), The Happening (January 12, 2016), Lady in the Water (January 26, 2016)
Oh
Shyamalan. Something about your
awfulness as a filmmaker always manages to bring out the best and sharpest the
Walker Brothers have to offer. Because
of how pointedly gleeful the NC takedowns of this man’s travesties masquerading
as films are, I couldn’t bring myself to try and judge these separately;
otherwise half this list would be taken up by Shyamalan films (they’ve also
done an equally excellent NC for Signs,
but that was before the retirement, so I’m not listing it here). They are all works of comedic art, as
brilliant as the films themselves aren’t, and deserved to be appreciated
together.
5.
Les Miserables (originally aired August 20, 2013)
Back
in the very young days of this blog, which I coincidentally started right when
Doug Walker tried retiring the Nostalgia Critic, I ranked the massive crossover
review of Moulin Rouge as the
best Nostalgia Critic review for its sheer size and scope. Since the return, he has done an increasing
number of really big reviews in the same vein, with larger effects, songs, and
bigger and bigger stars, including ones tackling other big musical
releases. While some (Phantom of the Opera) didn’t quite reach
the same heights as the Moulin Rouge
one did, the review of the recent Les
Miserables remake absolutely did, creating a comedic critic experience
every bit as sublime as his first foray into this genre.
4.
The Last Airbender (originally aired September 3, 2013)
Yes,
this is also a Shyamalan movie, but there is a very specific reason I’m putting
it ahead of the others listed above. You
see, there was once a time, way back in the early days of TGWTG, where Doug
would list the upcoming reviews he planned to do a month or so in advance. It didn’t take long, of course, for negative
reactions to preemptively start filtering in beforehand, in the vein of, “How
DARE he lay his hands on THIS classic??”
Soon, he abandoned the practice entirely, which meant that, in most
cases, there would rarely be any clue what movie he was doing next more than a
week or two in advance.
The Last Airbender was a rare exception
to this- soon after the return, Doug announced that he fully intended to give
the film the full NC treatment, but as he’d never seen any of the original show
before, he announced almost a year in advance that he would first watch every
episode of the original series and document his thoughts, the first time he’d ever
done something like that. This allowed
our anticipation of the eventual film review, which was never going to be
anything less than amazing, to build and marinate in a way that it never has
for any other NC. The payoff of finally
seeing it when it came brought the sort of satisfaction few other things
can.
Plus,
his videos on the TV show (which he now lauds as his new favorite show of all
time) directly led to the ongoing Vlog series he now does with Rob, which have
expanded beyond The Last Airbender to
include Legend of Korra, Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, Steven
Universe, and more, which are, in my book, every bit as excellent as any of
the other material on the site.
3. The Lorax (originally aired May 6, 2014)
Dr.
Seuss, much like Stanley Kubrick, has always been one of the artists Doug
Walker professes a particular devotion to.
Naturally, this has made the recent slew of live-action “adaptations” of
his classic books all the more painful for him to watch, and thus, all the
funnier for us to experience. With the
Lorax review, though, he went the extra mile to deconstruct just how culturally
harmful this particularly noxious form of modern capitalism is. Not only are these movies and the marketing
around them horribly at odds with the spirit of the original works, they
represent a modern trend that simply seeks to consume all there is of a fad
until nothing is left. In addition to
ripping into an awful film, Doug took extra care with this video to remind us
how such seemingly “harmless” movies contribute to a culture where we allow
ourselves and the world around to become an emptier, unhappier place, rather
than a better one.
2.
Man of Steel (originally aired November 26, 2013)
And
speaking of Man of Steel, Nostalgia
Critic was clearly hitting a sweet spot in late 2013, as he followed up his
huge reviews of Les Miserables and The Last Airbender with another of his
all-time greats, a crossover with Angry Joe looking at what, at the time, was
the most bitterly divisive of the superhero movie franchises being
created. The review is every bit as big
and bombastic as the film itself, featuring a return of Doug’s Donner-era Zod
impersonation, and a crossover with the Superhero Café squad from How It Should
Have Ended.
And
the #1 Nostalgia Critic video since his return is…..
1.
Top 11 Best Avatar Episodes (September 23, 2014)
There
was a lot going for this episode from the outset. It’s Avatar
themed, always a winning choice. It’s a
Top 11, and those have always been some of the best and most interesting works
by the Walkers. What sets this one apart
as both the best Top 11 they’ve ever done AND the best video they’ve done
period since bringing back the character is the presence of Dante Basco as
possibly the best guest appearance ever within the NC universe, appearing as a
live-action version of Zuko obsessed with destroying the Nostalgia Critic for
daring to critique his show. Add in some
of the greatest fourth wall humor ever written, and you have something truly
special, something destined to last as long as the show will.
And
that concludes our very, very brief look at the Nostalgia Critic’s work since
returning from the beyond all those years ago.
It has been a remarkable journey with him and his cohorts, and I
sincerely hope we have years more to look forward to. Thank you, Doug and Rob, for everything.
-Noah Franc `
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