CHAPTERS 0:00:00 Intro 0:01:11 Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde 0:02:22 Karate Kid 0:03:06 Roger Rabbit 0:04:14 Nerd Room 0:04:42 RU-vid Channel 0:05:16 Shit Pickle 0:06:41 TMNT 0:08:24 McKids 0:09:07 Episode Breakdown 1 0:11:09 Episode Breakdown 2 0:13:12 Intellivision 0:14:00 Top Gun 0:15:23 Rocky 0:16:21 Atari 5200 0:18:51 Nintendo Power/NES Accessories 0:19:35 Godzillathon/MonsterMadness 0:20:37 Super Pitfall 0:21:37 Terminator 0:22:15 Mario is Missing 0:22:30 Ghostbusters 0:23:24 LJN 0:24:48 Day Dreamin' Davy 0:25:07 Star Wars 0:25:41 How the Nerd Stole Christmas 0:26:20 Title Cards 0:26:48 Castlevania Part3 0:28:01 Devotion to AVGN 0:31:16 12 Days of Shitsmas 0:32:42 Atari 2600 Games 0:34:28 Toxic Crusaders 0:35:56 Big Rigs 0:36:17 Board James 0:36:50 AVGN Adventures Deluxe 0:38:29 Super Mecha Death Christ 0:38:49 Rolling Rock 0:39:35 Hong Kong 97/YKWBS 0:40:08 James & Mike Mondays 0:41:04 Amiga CD32 (in 2016) 0:41:50 Commodore 64 (in 2018) 0:43:29 Consoles for AVGN 0:44:09 Amiga CD32 0:47:31 Conceptualize 0:48:07 AVGN for Pat's NES marathon 0:49:15 Power Rangers 0:52:21 Treasure Master 0:52:52 Darkwing Duck 0:53:25 Micro Machines Deck Enhancer 0:53:49 Rental Reviews 0:55:12 Ed Woodathon 0:55:36 Cartoon Reviews 0:56:00 Acting 0:57:08 Pepsiman 0:57:35 Skits vs Analogy 0:57:47 Find, Get, Hand it off 0:58:22 Origin of Darkman (in 2020) 0:59:40 Origin of S64 Returns (in 2017) 1:01:33 Origin of Legend of Kage (in 2020) 1:02:21 Games, Camera, Mic setup 1:04:05 No time
You are amazing for making this. Thank you. I'm currently doing a watchthrough challenge where I'm numbering my comments. I will try and mention you for this when I see one of the clips referenced. Bravo.
@@mayb7569 yeah, more than even James' enthusiasm, Mike is what's missing lately. They brought back Bugs for a recent ep, but you know it's not Mike so who cares
Bruh he literally wrote a lot of the scripts, played the games, BOUGHT THE GAMES, directed James, pushed him to make more avgn in the early days and still says James was 90% of the importance for the show
@@PhillipCummingsUSA No you have a point and this is pretty standard in media, Mike is more so a director/writer while James is the actor or face of the product. Obviously this is odd because James is more skilled in that field. From I can tell as being a fan since the GT days, it's obvious Mike played a massive role in the series and he should get proper credit for it.
It is quite something that he's super humble about this though. I don't know someone else in his shoes would be making a big deal of being the main reason AVGN is a thing but Mike is perfectly happy being in the background.
I remember people used to absolutely hate on Mike when he was on playing cameos on AVGN or doing his own podcasts. Now that's he's gone he was apparently always the heart of the show? Where was the love when he was still around?
Now there's a Screenwave boogeyman to point at. Notice how people suddenly started talking about the good things in the Star Wars prequels only after the Disney Movies came out? When AVGN gets bought out by Warner Bros in 15 years, people will go on and on about the magic "Screenwave era" or whatever the fuck
@@jedisquidward What's funny is that if AVGN *were* bought out by a major studio, the content would almost certainly be better than Screenwave. Not because it'd be awesome, but just because professional writers could, at the very least, be expected to do better than the Screenwave crew.
Finicky dorky fans with nothing better to do than complain. When Mike was there people hated Mike, now that he’s gone they “love” him. Typical “grass is always greener” nonsense
James is a great guy don't get me wrong, but James outgrew video games a long time ago, he still does AVGN because he loves film not video games. Mike definitely is the embodiment of the AVGN character. The guy still has passion for video games and plays them religiously.
I been wanting to say this for a minute: James needs to not publish those guitar videos. It isn't impressive and that isn't why we're here. I dig bro got a new hobby (I really hope he's a beginner) but it isn't quality content. Like get good and then shred for us maybe. I love the same tunes he does but come on dude. Sorry bout the mini rant but those videos are nonsense.
Mike must have seen how relatable a character who rages at video games really is. The fact James almost didn't continue making more videos shows he really had no idea how good of an idea it was.
Not saying Mike is perfect by any means, but I think I had the complete wrong idea of the guy. He may be a bit... eccentric, but I genuinely believe he has a lot more to do with the success of the AVGN than the average person gives him credit for. James doesn't even seem to really *like* video games all that much. It's clear the character of the nerd was based on Mike. His "actually it was mostly James" response here despite him clearly having a great deal of involvement shows a humility and humbleness I hadn't associated with Mike.
I always liked Mike. Like I never had an issue with him. I think a lot of the hate of him is just because of the culture and especially how people are online. People just love to "pick at others" and find things to interpret negatively. I feel like Mike is just a normal dude, definitely a quirky dude with a fun personality, but for all intents and purposes, just a normal dude. But people just like to create extreme hellish interpretations of individuals. We'll take a small characteristic of someone or a small hint of something in someone and blow up into something big. I feel like a lot of people do that and youtubers probably get that treatment the worst and all of the "hate" toward Mike Matei is just from people's tendency toward drama and judgment and people's tendency to form 'headcanons' about each other I like him on a personal level because he really reminds me of myself. He's the "fun one". Like he acts cocky and has the "inappropriate humor" but that's just his shtick. I think also part of the hate toward Mike is just how sensitive people are these days. People don't understand the idea of "acting stupid" for comedy. If someone acts in an exaggerated way and fucks aroudn too much, for some reason people these days like to be completely oblivious to that. People nowadays attribute all sorts of bad things on someone because of their humor or how they act comedically and I feel like he got a lot of shit for it. Like he made "Loco bandito" and that was a huge controversy in the AVGN community, don't know too much about it, but honestly thinking about it, knowing Mike he probably make that stuff seriously, he probably _knew_ it was stupid and that was the joke of it when he made it. I think a huge part of it is just people getting offended because they like something to riff at. No one wants to understand Mike genuinely as a person because, who cares to understand anyone genuinely. Kids and especially people online don't do that. Mike is just a normal dude with a couple of outlandish or weird personality characteristics (nothing wrong with it) and it just mixes negatively with people wanting to rip the shit out of something or make up something bad about someone. And I'm pretty sure 95% of internet youtubers who get shit, is basically that. Even drama that gets blown up on the internet often is just normal human drama that most people in their lives experience but because it's what humans do, we exaggerate everything
@zrexx9428 repost this to the cinemassacre truth subreddit, watch them seethe and squirm. I've seen some seriously pathetic nitpicking surrounding mike and his personal life / relationships, those people need a reality check so bad 😅
Finding out that James Rolfe really doesn’t care about videogames that much is almost like finding out that Santa Claus isnt real, but an adult version of
I can relate to James. A family takes up all your life and I wouldn't have it any other way. My gaming time is few and far between and I try to squeeze in as much as I can. Saying James doesn't care about games is a bit harsh. It's just hard to invest. James still post videos of him playing retro games and he was really into Tears of the Kingdom.
@@SlothMachines He himself has said he stopped gaming at the n64. It wasn't the family or anything else, he just doesn't care about gaming as much as mike does.
I don’t know why people keep saying this…James clearly loved games as a kid, there’s multiple videos of him as a child playing various games or talking about them. Then, he played NES with Mike a lot in college by Mike’s own admission. James wasn’t in a good financial situation for years around the time he “only had 12 games”
@@diverman1023 As a kid. He stopped at the PS1/N64 era, he's said this himself. He clearly doesn't love games and hasn't been a gamer since high school.
To be fair, even without Mike I'm sure James could have just googled a bit. His AVGN videos usually contained pretty basic background on what was being discussed (with obvious exceptions like the Nintendo Power episode or, more recently, the Commodore one.)
Once I found out that James wasn’t really all that into video games the magic ended for me. It was all Mike’s voice and passion channeled through James. It took Mike stepping away for people to see how integral he was to the show.
I was so sad when Mike decided to retire from making AVGN with James. Even as a fan of Mike I had no idea how much he had to do with making episodes. I knew he did a lot of footage but I had no idea how much heart and brain he contributed. I just happy he and James are still friends.
Friends ... maybe not for long. Whenever something like this happens friends will eventually distance themselves due to how awkward how everything will be going forward. Its inevitable not to build a great amount of sadness and resentment not towards the individual perse moreso it would be for the lack of recognition. We can all relate in some manner. Mike was the creative force that made the AVGN character James portrays unique. Mike distanced himself because James must have failed to make Mike be all inclusive and forever tied to AVGN. The lack of respect from James to allow other entities to want to exclude Mike from receiving a lucrative bag by them considering Mike not to be an integral figure regarding the show's concept, James demonstrated the amount of loyally he has towards Mike, obviously not a brother of his. This can gravely demoralize you especially if you are being booted for being too good that could possibly overshadow the other especially when there are bugs in their ears that can cloud their judgement. I stopped watching AVGN and unsubscribed recently. The show is no longer good. I hate his shirt, he isn't hip anymore nor is his on camera rage rants unique. It seems as if a censor has been placed on every aspect of the show. Where are the rest of the guys? The podcast is not as interesting like the in-store movie critiques were during the golden days. I never been fond of Mike due to the lack of an appropriate introduction of him and we can all blame James for the misconception we have had of Mike. James hasn't been the greatest of friends and its very sad indeed.
@@jerkfacefuckasaurusrex328 Yeah, i know huh. This is what happens when people from the outside looking in, the majority of us who are or used to be fans of the show, base their opinion only on what they have been allowed to see. I can only imagine but its upsetting for sure that Mike is no longer a contributor.
I picked up on these things as well in the James & Mike Mondays videos, it was quite a revelation. When you tune in on Mike's streams you catch the same type of wordplay and comedy as in the first half of the AVGN series which I honestly much prefer over the later episodes. Kind of a shame that he wasn't credited as a co-writer or co-producer because he pretty much fulfilled that role, and I would have had a lot more respect for Mike from the beginning. At very very first I thought he was some kind of annoying tag-along wanting to insert silly costume skits into AVGN, but that turns out to mostly be James' ideas. I can imagine he wrote the whole of the Little Red Hood episode, which is one of my favorites.
@@krtlkid mike stopped doing work on the channel in the early years. then he started doing the live streams under the guise that it helped him find games to reccomend to james and sometimes he would announce new episodes coming up. Mike didnt really have anything to do with the channel at that point unless he was appearing on screen. He was just being tacked onto the secondary channel with his streams edited like it was a lets play channel. It makes sense that he finally just declared the streams its own thing seperate from the channel. There was really no need for it. It had nothing to do with the channel and bringing in screenwave guys to play along with him was really stretching it to fit.
So Mike completely wrote the script of several classic AVGN episodes? Wow. I mean, AVGN is a character that sits on his couch all day yelling and cursing at retro games, and that's Mike's actual lifestyle, so I guess it's not all that surprising.
Cinemassacre hasn’t been the same. I’m all about progression, but Justin and Kieran just don’t seem like they connect that well with James. And Pepsi Man and the Aladdin Deck Enhancer episodes were awful.
@@andykishore and that’s okay, we are all entitled to our own opinions. I feel like there’s a lot of unnecessary hate toward James regarding things like Rex Viper. It’s cool that he’s having fun playing music which is obviously a fulfilled dream and it’s a cool idea. Am I a huge fan? No. But I commend him for having fun and putting himself out there. That’s not the problem. The problem is what Cinemassacre has turned into and the mostly lackluster AVGN episodes. They should’ve just kept it simple and only put out a couple episodes a year. Quality > quantity. Sorry for the rant.
There's no question in my mind now that Mike is the main one that gave AVGN it's heart and soul over the years. Such a shame to see how far Cinemassacre has fallen in the last few years because James is burnt out and doesn't care about quality any longer. I wish he would've just ended the series with Mega Man or the Earthbound episode while it was still on top but all good things must come to an end eventually.
I can see why he's so humble about it at times too. people that worship james act like lunatics when someone even points out a single one of his flaws.
Personally as a lifelong fan of AVGN since the early days, I love where the channel has gone. The podcasts are great. Even the spinoff channels like Mike and Ryan's talk about games Pod and Tony's hack the movies. There's only one podcast a week on cinemassacre proper. The odd time they'll throw a bonus ep like the Scott the woz episode but yea. Some people whined and complained that there wasn't enough avgn and nkw they're pumped out fairly quick. The quality of those in particular isn't up to where it was, but there are still some gem episodes where James puts his all in. I like the extra little bonus ones. To each there own tho. Just want to throw a hand in for the fans that don't hate the channel these days ✌❤
@@CoreyHart13 been watching it for a decent chunk of my life, over 10 years I have been checking out cinemassacre, thanks for being respectful. I want people who still have faith to enjoy the content but I'm checked out, done. I think it's bizarre when people get personally offended because not everyone likes avgn or cinemassacre anymore.
@@professorpenne9962 yea part of it is just psychotic weirdos lol, but I think another part is that James is so soft spoken and by all accounts a very sweet family man, so people hop up in his defense quickly. O get it tho, peoples tastes change. Unfortunately so do the creators so things morph over time. Like I say to each their own. There's plenty out there for everyone
I feel bad for Mike. Somehow the internet got the impression he was leeching off of James' success when it turns out it was always the other way around. Mike got a lot of undeserved shit and I'm sorry for being part of that hate train. The guy was such a humble champ he just took the hate and kept painting his bro James as the true auteur and creative mind behind AVGN. He could've easily taken credit at that point but my guy is hella humble. We miss you Mike, you were the soul of AVGN while James was just the dumb ox pulling the AVGN-cart. Today James is hardly more than a lolcow while Matei keeps going strong. I'd write more but I have no time so I refuse.
He's actually a nerd, James is just an actor. He's the brain and heart behind AVGN... I was a fan for a long time, it sucks to see the truth so late...
This is the greatest compilation video I have ever seen. Mike is an underrated artist and a lot of this explains why he is one of the few streamers I can regularly check out and not get tired of.
So basically Mike was the real driving force behind avgn. James was the star, but damn. Everything the fans loved so much came from Mike. That would be one of the reasons why the show is ASS now.
Yup, Mike was the soul of the show behind the scenes. You can tell he's infinitely more interested in this stuff than James. The show died when those fat dudes bought them out and took over. Really sad, but I guess James needed money for his kid and made a deal.
I don't even know much about what went on behind the scenes but I do know people were slagging Mike off every chance, but the comments section here is like his testimonial. I never had a problem with Mike and thought he seemed a thoroughly nice bloke.
he's very humble, he clearly contributed much more than i had known, james wouldn't have even had the means to even get ahold of some of this retro shit if it werent for mike. i used to really hate on this dude
AVGN followed the Simpsons arc. Started very experimental, hit its stride and gave us some amazing content, then went on autopilot. Seems like James would be the Matt Groening, where he was the creator and did a lot of work in the very early period, but then Mike started contributing more and more, just as the Simpsons brought in some seriously great writers, like Conan O'Brien, etc... The telltale indication is Mike's humor being more about absurdism, which you see in the characters he played - Cowardly Lion, Joker, Klingon, Bugs Bunny, all were just insanity in a great way. Also when you watch James and Mike Mondays, Mike will be really into the game they are playing, while James would be bringing up tv and movies. They really did work well together, and I know Mike Matei has some controversy around him, but I'd love to see it go back to the two of them, or see them pick up something different.
Always sucks when you find out that these people who happily take credit for everything actually had a lot of help from others and they don’t appreciate or acknowledge it enough. Clearly Mike had a huge part in making AVGN what it was.
Seems like avgn was 25% Mike not 1%, and Mike helped inspire James at the beginning to get the ball rolling. James honestly didn't give him enough credit, kinda sad.
@@ProtomanButCallMeBluesCrack open a dictionary once in your life and learn what the term 'grift' actually means. Playing a fictional character is not swindling people out of their money.
@@johnhorne3052 clearly you need to open a lexicon, otherwise you would know what an idiom is. It was never to be taken literal. If I was saying James was stealing Mike's life I would've typed "james was stealing MIke's life". Either you're autistic or english isn't your first language otherwise you wouldn't have bothered. Idioms have figurative meaning which in this respect it means "to profit", which James absolutely did profit off the back of MIke. That is not up for debate. The logic here is that James content, and fictional character was not authentic to James or his writing for which he was often credited with.
Clearly i had misjudged Mike in years past. I found him annoying at times but now i have a much greater respect for him. Its obvious in hindsight how much he contributed to making the show what it was. My apologies, Mike. I was wrong. If AVGN had been named Angry Video Game NerdS it might still be great today
Great video, this must have taken a lot of time and effort to compile. Mike is being really humble here which is surprising. He's basically the real AVGN and never takes credit for it. Once Mike left it was obvious AVGN had no steam.
I get the feeling that Mike needs a big confidence boost and to start building some self respect so that he is not left in the shadows like he was from AVGN again.
After watching this makes me feel like the AVGN Movie was lacking Mike. Even if mike won't say it, AVGN is big because his involvement directed it artistically. The stuff he focused on is the parts we like. Like with any I.P.. It wil fail when it forgets why people watch.
The movie would've been way better if James and Mike had written it all, just the two of them. Instead of making a movie that fans really wanted, James put the AVGN character in it and then shoehorned every other single filmaking thing into it that he was a fan of. Which is fine, but not if you're going to call it an AVGN movie. The whole thing was too long and felt like a collection of things James liked and then he plopped the AVGN into it.
@@TooBokoo he may have a passion for movies but he certainly can't make one. outside of that one with rocky punching people randomly, I admit that was funny but then rest is garbage.
Yeah James and Mike made it The intro song was BIG to and booty added his spice. The movie was as shitfest Screenwave have not contribute doanything. I get that James has a family but most families let the father work to provide for them
Same. Some big youtuber from my country recently made a video talking about how AVGN was mostly Mike Matei and I was like "What? Is that true???" and then got into the Cinemassacre rabbit hole too. I will continue to support James, obviously, but watching his new and old content knowing all of this gives a weird feeling. It sounds really dumb when put in this way, but it actually feels like finding out Santa isn't real all over again, lol.
It's pretty amazing. Just a few of Mike's characters and ideas are better than anything Screenwave has added to AVGN. Mike and James were genuinely funny and you could tell they were two guys with similar humor and it was so organic, same with Bootsy when they added him. Screenwave is a bunch of chodes with bland, unfunny ideas that seem like they try and force them out of some generic corporate comedy toolkit that they bought from somewhere. It's truly sad to see what the channel has become.
Its too bad he got a lot of flack from some fans. I honestly think hes a genius but I do know he isnt personable on camera like James. James has charisma and Mike has the brains. When Mike was on camera he wanted to be vulgar (because the show is vulgar af lol) and came up with the name motherfucker Mike only to be hit with backlash. Which to me is BS.
@@daoyang223 Mike deserved a lot of flack of some dumb shit he did but no doubt he was essential to the channel and his chemistry with James on screen was always great to watch. Mike actually comes across as quite humble in this really, he was super important to cinemassacre
I remember in the mid 2010s when people would comment how much of a hack Mike is and how much he sucks, especially when he was doing stuff for the channel while James was filming his movie. Only now that he's "gone" people are coming out of the woodwork to say how great he was, usually just as a way to shit on whatever the new people are doing.
@@jedisquidward I mean it's better late than never I guess that some people are figuring out that james is a fraud in a lot of ways. some of the most iconic avgn episodes were written by mike. he didn't make his own theme song and now thinks he's some metal guitar player, pre written movie reviews from a self proclaimed movie buff...dude is whack.
Imagine if in the beginning Mike did the AVGN character instead of James.. It wouldn't be as successful cuz James has a natural charisma and likeness about himself but the actual AVGN character would be authentic to Mike because Mike's creepy, weird, passionate about games, he has an annoying voice, a nerdy real name Mike Matei, that's such nerdyness.. and goofiness about him just like the nerd character.. I'm sure till this day Mike would be reviewing games with the same passion he had back in 06 cuz you can hear in his voice he loves games and being weird... plus majority of the best episodes were inspired by Mike. Think about it..... James created that character to spoof Mike and make him laugh so Mike was pretty much the base for that character..
I watch Mike's channel more now a days, it's entertaining hearing some of the things he or the chat are talking about. Strange & Filthy toilet humor all the time I love it, James is good at portraying this type of character but the Mike lives it.
Wow I didn't know Mike was so involved in AVGN. But actually, it explains everything, why the last AVGN have not been very good, why AVGN focused more on the "cinematic" side of its videos than the games since Mike left, etc... Too bad for Mike that Screenwave came in, I wonder how they settled things out for Mike when he left, if he's still paid...
James is a frustrated wannabe movie director, after the AVGN movie was received poorly he seemed to get more bitter. With the AVGN character he clearly started to rely on the gimmick to remain relevant, eventually he got employed by Screenwave in order to make more money and get better production vaues. This probably annoyed Mike who then pretty much stopped working with James on AVGN. And it's sucked since then.
i can't remember where i heard it but it might have been on one of Mike's videos years ago but he says he has made enough money to be set for life. so i guess he doesn't need to do or help out cinemassacre.
I absolutely loved when they did episodes together. AVGN is still good but I think it has gone through the majority of the material it could use, in the later years I preferred and loved when they pkayed games together because their energy is so good!
yeah Bimmions 4LIFE US Bimmions will continue to make fun of BAMES why because fuck him he's the hard R word and us douchebags have no room in our lives for his kind amiright? This pedestal sure is tall.
Awesome! I've always liked mike and thought he was hilarious. He really made AVGN feel cohesive, the dynamic between him and james (and guitar guy) is irreplaceable. Like the three amigos making funny shit together. The new guys are great too! but, In other words, mike was the ying to james' yang. Him and james created things TOGETHER. But now it feels like the new guys just work for "AVGN" as a brand or company, the feel is totally different and it shows.
I´ve watched every AVGN , James & Mike Mondays, Board James and different random videos multiple times during the past decade... Mike was the real nerd of the two, while James had the filming equipment, capabilities and knowledge, Mike delivered the real Nerdness to the shows. Mike is the more creative and awake guy, just listen to the dialogues, especially at Jams & Mike Mondays: Mike always comes up with different stuff at a high range while James often justs answer things monotonously while not starting an own topic and his answers are often just like "yeah" "aha" or "mhm". James reacts slower and doesn´t contribute much to all the game stuff anymore. I liked Mike more than James right from the beginning. Now that he left cinemassacre, the nerd souls is gone as well. Mike, do your own stuff, you deserve way more subs and attention. Have a good one guys.
James is a great actor, great guy. I think he stopped being interested in games around college, but all the memories and how good of an actor he is basically makes up for it.
He stopped playing games before college. HE NEVER grew up with the 3rd Gen consoles. N64/Playstation is alien to him. I don't think he ever really put much thought into SNES either, like the fact that Mike had to hold his hand while playing Megaman X was very eye opening for me.
@@ProtomanButCallMeBlues James said once he was crazed about the n64 and bought a bunch of stuff for it, I don’t remember the video but it probably was on a James and Mike episode. I take James’ word for it.
This is awesome, and I'm happy content like this getting out there. More and more, people are finally realizing how great Mike was and is. I genuinely like all the videos that people gave him crap for (Elmo, Gadget, etc) and the rage clips, I share a very similar sense of humor, and it's nice to see him getting proper credit and recognition. Kyle and Bootsy obviously were a huge part too, so not leaving them out. I still give James credit for the entertainment and ideas from earlier times, but I like watching retro gaming, and I prefer watching people like Mike and Erin really play and experience the games with us as viewers, versus some random forced scripted laziness written by who the F knows.
omg i just knew Mike as "Motuerfuxker Mike" but never knew all of the things he contributed to AVGN and James T_T kudos to this guy, hope he could get back to AVGN to make it's production value rise again (it's kinda degrading or losing some of it's charm for some reason. i prefer the oldschool episodes tbh)
I used to think the AVGN was serious and not a character. For some reason I didn’t think he had a script. I really thought it was a guy ranting while playing NES games. I don’t know what I was thinking.
People here really need to look up in confirmation bias. Yes, Mike deserves credit for practically helping every step on the way with this series, but he wasn't the "REAL creator." James still did most of the editing, writing, directing, and nearly all of the acting himself. If you rewatch the video, you'll see that he is always careful to point out the scripts he wrote himself were nearly always while James was writing other scripts. Every other time, he gave suggestions for what to do. Not "I wrote literally every line, did every camera shot, created every effect, did James' dippers, made his food, ect, ect, ect." Like, consider the stuff he didn't say. For instance. "I showed him the Rocky game." That still leaves the writing, acting, effects, and ideas. "I played the Godzilla game as a kid." But James was clearly more of a Godzilla fan, and we don't know if Mike came up with the idea for the other game sections. The Jaws section and many of the other ones are misleading. Playing the same games isn't the same thing as making the entire episode. Was recording, making the art, buying the games, and generally being useful as hell a big factor in these video's greatness? Yes. Does that mean James wasn't the REAL creator of the series, and he relayed entirely on Mike's help? No. AVGN is just as much James baby as Mike's. Don't throw him under the bus just because he didn't literally do everything.
Thank you. People see lazy James in 2023 and assume he was always that way and therefore Mike MUST have been the workhorse behind the series. Not the case. The obvious rebuttal to that argument is the fact that James had already written, filmed, and edited three episodes of AVGN (before it was called that) before Mike even saw them. Not to mention the fact that every behind the scenes video/write-up in the 00s and 10s never said a word about Mike writing any episodes in their entirety.
@@cakins1986 I think James partially got the idea for making AVGN from a short film Mike made in college actually. It's been posted on the Cinemassacres second channel. Some people call it avgn episode zero. I think they created it together imo
Yeah Bames is such a dickhole. Don't you feel better. He would never give Mike credit. He's always been a complete hack. It's also true that the barbie video where he talks about being a one man crew was all lies :D
I was an angry youth, and on my old channel any time i saw Mike in a video I'd lose my shit in the comments saying the worst things about this guy, saying it was James' channel and i wasnt watching for Mike and shit... seeing this makes me feel pretty bad. If he ever saw any of my comments, and I'm sure he would have, i hope it didnt get to him that much.
For all the faults people wanna put on Mike, recent years have really shown how strong of a comedic writer he is. James is a great frontman but Mike is a better writer and the older episodes really show. It feels like Mike putting his actual frustrations and anger into the Nerd character moreso than James. Not throwing shade to James, I think he’s a better actor for the character than Mike would be but Mike leaving Cinemassacre has left a very noticeable gap and I wish him the best with his streams. #ultimatechallenge
Wow! I just finished the first part when he's playing Atari Pac-Man and talking about how it all got started, but I'm surprised I don't recall hearing James himself talk about this story I feel like he would talk about this but I don't know I guess Mike Matei has a better memory of it. We definitely have Mike to thank for this legendary series to have started.
I’ve always like Mike more than James in J&MM, I don’t count AVGN since he’s not an actual person. James seems really awkward and uptight in later episodes, like he was trying to suppress his personality, case in point “Uh huh. Yeah. Uh huh. Yup.”
