The Hidden Genius of Kickassia 

This feels so strangely meta. Our collective experience with Doug Walker is now the weird fever dreams we had when we were younger and are now sharing back and forth to assure each other "yes, it really did happen". Kickassia is truly the new "We're Back: A Dinosaur Story".

"Midlife crisis by someone who's barely allowed themselves to live a life at all" somehow hits me hard when I'm only just past my quarterlife crisis.

I'll say this for Kickassia. It is for sure my favourite film featuring Noah Antwiler.

Funny how Brad was the first one banished in Kickassia and now he's the only contributor whose still friends with Doug; life did NOT imitate art there!

You made me realize that I had essentially the same journey - I watched Doug as a kid who was just beginning to understand media appreciation and critique, and I felt seen in a time when this space wasn’t the completely over-saturated market it is today. We didn’t have better options. Now that I’m older and can choose from other niches, I left Doug behind, and it became much easier to do after the Channel Awesome debacle. But I do believe he’s sincere no matter how it comes off, and his love for movies is real. Like the technically weird or low quality movies he riffed on, I can’t hate him, because he’s my childhood. I also, thankfully, never had a parasocial relationship with any of those people, so I was never in a position to be hurt by them. I totally get it if people feel more harshly than I do. Anyway, this was a refreshingly compassionate and honest retrospective, and I’m happy to be in your niche. 😉

This is either going to be the best B-Mask video or the last B-Mask video. Either way, it's been an honor.

Dr. Insano has like 5 different backstories: -He is the alter ego of Spoony. -He is Spoony from the future after going insane playing Final Fantasy 8. -He is from Zeist from Highlander 2: The Quickening. -He is an Al Bhed from Final Fantasy 10. -He is one of the Schlumper Brothers from Party Mania. Did I miss anything?

Can’t believe Nintendo took inspiration of this cinematic masterpiece for Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Doug takes massive swings, He misses a lot but he just keeps swingin. I can respect that

I’m glad Doug Walker said the words “fish people” all those years ago so that B-mask could use the audio in this video ✊😮‍💨

doug always said he was going for daffy duck with his critic persona, and tbh he nails the physical comedy, line delivery and timing of a cartoon character in his performance. he has a real talent for playing the critic

I was hesitant to watch this at first because I find a lot of videos about the Nostalgia Critic tend to be mean spirited with a smug sense of superiority ("lolz! This is such unfunny cringe! How could anyone ever like this stuff!? I'm so much smarter by mocking it!!"). You were actually honest in your feelings, provided proper context, and gave Doug credit where credit was due. Great job!

Refreshing take on Doug Walker that analyzes his work from the angle of "Hey, we used to like this guy, maybe there was a reason why beyond just us being dumb kids?", don't necessarily agree with everything on Kickassia but this video brings a lot up about his career that's worth considering, great video.

My thing with these creators is that a lot of them had aspirations of making it in the movie business. James, Lindsay, and Doug all went to film school hoping to become directors and Noah wanted to be a Hollywood actor and every single one of them thought this whole RU-vid thing would just be their jumping off point. It makes me sad to think that at some point they all realized that this is as good as it gets for them. They will never make it to Hollywood and they accepted that.

I am so glad to know that Dan's statement about Doug didn't rub only me the wrong way. It makes sense in the context of "The Wall" but characterizing everything Doug has ever done this way? Calling some guy clearly doing stuff for fun "fundamentally" unable to create something is so cruel, and it becomes a daunting thought for other people who want to make stuff but are afraid of making mistakes (well, like me). Thank you, B-Mask, for this video! It is motivating in a way - the fact that someone can still appreciate good qualities of a flawed project made with love after all these years

I've learned English because of Channel Awesome. It has a very dedicated community of Russian translators and dubbers working to this very day. I've translated one episode of Angry Joe, took an entire week.

I frequently watch old nostalgia critic videos, and I'm always impressed by how well they hold up, despite what I've heard some other people say. The tight, purely satirical writing of the early nostalgia critic episodes combined with Doug's very natural charisma as an entertainer (being that animated and interesting is not an easy thing to do) made the show into something very rewatchable. Whenever I put on an old nostalgia critic, I am guaranteed to laugh out loud a few times, and I often end up laughing all the way through. I am not an easy laugher. It takes a lot to impress me. It leaves me kind of baffled about what ruined the nostalgia critic for so many former fans, because I've seen a lot of people talking as if those episodes don't hold up, but I find them so compellingly charming and vintage. I can't get behind all of this post-2018 revisionism.

I know its unlikely but i would love to see B-Mask make more videos about the Internet Culture back in the day. Like a whole retrospective on companies like Channel Awesome,Screwattack,Rooster Teeth,Machinma and a like

I've never viewed Kickassia as an unintentional allegory for all of That Guy with the Glasses, but it makes perfect sense now.

The fact that Doug has always been willing to throw himself 100% into whatever he has a desire to do will always put me on his side. Like, yeah, he's lacking in filmmaking proficiency, but that's all right. He's still giving it his all. His appeal was also HUGE for people his age, because of shared memories. And yes I'm just at the beginning but that watermelon/sangria bit killed me.

I made an edit of this movie once, where the opening was just the first few minutes of the Princess Bride, cutting to the beginning of the film right when the grandpa begins the story, to trick you into thinking you were going to be seeing another movie. Then it periodically cuts back to the frame narrative as the kid is getting increasingly confused and worried over his grandpa's mental state as he continues telling the story of Kickassia. Also, many of Linkara's lines were replaced with Oney from Oneyplays doing his Linkara impersonation, placed in a way that turned his character into a violent rival that wanted to seize power from the critic, while no one else seemed to care.

I’ve always loved Doug’s unwavering spirit of creativity. He just keeps on making stuff and it’s not all good but some of it is, and there’s genuine passion and care, which is all that matters really

I personally get annoyed with a lot of creators who criticize Doug without looking at the full picture. This is one of those cases where that isn't the case. Thanks for the vid.

"Some people think that Lindsay is a genius for looking like she doesn't want to be there. And some people think she's a genius for breathing." Underrated joke.

What a miracle: a video essay about the nostalgia critic that i actually enjoyed watching

"Doug Walker is like your father" what kind of Oneyplays skit is that from? Jokes aside, bloody great video and nice to see someone approach the "reviewer era" with a similar kind of weird internet nostalgia as I had for it, I remember watching the shit out of Nostalgia Critic, Suede, Linkara, Angry Joe, Spoony etc back in the late 2000s and early 2010s, even though I feel like I have "outgrown" them I still appreciate some stuff that they did.

The best Animal Farm adaption

This is the best video about Doug Walker. Because like Doug, it captures somethings that a lot of creators seemingly fail to capture: fun and emotion. You mentioned this in another comment but his Ruby Bridges review is probably his best Disneycember video because he nailed what the film is about and like him, I was skeptical if he could cover it but he managed to pull it off. That’s the emotional part. The fun part is the stupid movies that you know aren’t good but goddamn they’re having fun. Kind of like Kickassia. I think a lot of content creators and even other forms of media nowadays miss the fun and emotion of what they’re making and get lost in the logical and sanitization of said media.

I was going to type out a really long thing about Doug but ill shorten it because I'm not very expressive in writing: Doug is human, the only reason we can be upset at him or laugh at his failures is because he shows us everything.That's part of his dream as an entertainer, to be seen. The fact he's been on RU-vid for over a decade in one way or another is a testament to this man' s work ethic and determination.Is he always fruitful?; no, and thats ok. I hope all of you never give up on your dreams even though your bad at it.Maybe that's God's way of keeping you moving through life; having something you always wanted to do.

Kickassia is one of the films of all time.

Kickassia was, for a feature length internet video, surprisingly well made. Everything has a kind of low-res, early 2000's naive enthusiasm about it; complete with a decent story, costumes and effects (by home movie standards) and because the people involved looked like they were having fun, it exists as a well edited testament to wasted potential.

I reckon your serious look at Kickassia is more than a little optimistic, but your final summation on The Nostalgia Critic, Doug Walker, and people's connection to them is spot-on. I cringed at Doug's creative efforts many a time and used to view his current output out of a sense of obligation, but now I can see that I keep watching him because he is genuine. He may not always hit the mark with his critiques, but he definitely cares about film.

For me, I can never hate Doug. There will always be that appreciation for Doug/NC for helping me realize my enjoyment of film analysis, criticism, creativity, and even comedy, as I loved his reviews as a kid, and still do enjoy many of his old reviews still from before he took his break to work on Demo Reel. His first review I ever saw was Sidekicks, which my step-brother showed me and my brother on his laptop back in middle school. I immediately loved him for how wildly energetic he was, and followed him religiously up until 2015-2016 when I was entering my sophomore year of high school. I still checked in on him every once in a while, but when the Channel Awesome controversies hit, it confirmed to me that I had outgrown the man and it was time to move on from him for good. But, every now and again, I still check up on him and see some current review he's made. His passion for films is just so enthusiastic even to this day, and yeah, he definitely doesn't land with all his takes, or has some that don't seem fleshed out enough to fully understand, or even has some which can be considered very surface level. But he does seem to love the discussion of film, and find the parts of it that are good, even back during his early days when he focused solely on bad movies. He has such an important to me and my childhood, I can never say I was embarrassed to watch him. For all his faults, I loved NC, and I still enjoy listening to Doug every now and again as or outside the NC.

It's weird, you and I basically had the exact same journey going back through Doug's content after The Wall review, and came out with nearly the same conclusions. Though I'd say the reason why, even after all the drama, all the bullshit, all the dumb obviously self-righteous bullshit, one of the other big reasons I keep coming back is because Doug's one of the few reviewers I know of who can very accurately describe the feel and emotional weight of a movie in a way that feels very real and straight-to-the-point; he doesn't feel he's above the material anymore, he responds to the material. At least in his recent reviews. One of Doug's biggest problems in the past was listening TOO much to his audience and catering to an older Internet crowd that loved late-2000's lolrandom Internet culture. You could argue he helped foster that alongside AVGN, but: even back then, his best reviews were ones that he was driven and passionate about (for better and for worse), they just weren't his most popular. People came for the Nostalgia Critic, the persona, people stayed for Doug, the person. The Nostalgia Critic these days doesn't feel like an entity separate from Doug anymore, they feel like an slight exaggeration of his own insightful thoughts on a movie, and that difference goes a long way. People love to say "Doug's struggling, he's not good, he's a wasted talent" and that couldn't be further from the truth. I mean for God's sakes, this man has had how many industry people on his show over the years? Mara Wilson, he's got a framed tweet from Roger Ebert liking his stuff, Tom Ruegger and much of the old Animaniacs writing team, Michael Salvatori, Ralph Bakshi loved his LotR review, one of the animators for Secret of Nimh (Philo Barnhart) came on just to give trivia about the movie, he even got DON BLUTH HIMSELF to use his show to try and kickstart a Dragon's Lair movie. Hell, part of why Seth Kearsley even talks about Eight Crazy Nights (and probably even released the cancelled Kingdom Hearts pilot) was because Doug was one of the first people to give his movie a fair shake and not insult the animation talent behind it, so much so that he wrote a giant e-mail TO Doug explaining what he would later explain to everyone else online, years before he ever did it publicly. Some of these you could chalk up as Internet cameos, but if this man is able to get so many people to come on his show, sometimes just to simply talk about their movies, he must be doing something right.

I just found a DVD of Kickassia last month in a second-hand shop for $1.5. It's probably the coolest and rarest piece in my entire DVD collection.

39:00 I actually completely agree with this. Doug's opinion series where he just talks about what he thinks of any movie/ show are 100 times better than the Nostalgia Critic sketches. Some times he makes some good points in the NC videos, I do exactly what you said and skip the skits lol. Idk, his videos have continued to be a guilty pleasure of mine and probably will for years.

I was baffled by this upload, but after watching, I think I gained more respect for you, B- Mask. That was really level headed and measured, and it helps that I share a similar experience growing up watching Channel Awesome. You made me feel quite... nostalgic. Hardy-har-har! As cheesy as it is, I really do like your message at the end. You left me hopeful and sentimental and I hope you'll inspire people who watch this to be more thoughtful, kind and move on to do greater things. Even Doug. Maybe especially Doug.

As much as I had enjoyed Dan Olsen's video on Doug's Wall video, it has been triggering some sort of imposter syndrome-ey existential crisis in myself. This video helped calm that new intrusive voice.

Only B-Mask could make me ravenously devour an hour long video essay about a guy whose work I never liked in the first place and not only like it but walk away with a newfound appreciation for his influence, warts and all. AND YOU INCLUDED DOUBLE TOASTED!!! You're the best, B. This vid is the best kind of Christmas gift: the kind I didn't know I wanted. You're knockin' 'em dead. Merry Christmas to you!

I too enjoyed Dan Olson's video dismantling NC review of The Wall, but simultaneously found his review of Doug as a content creator too personal and harsh. Likely more personal based on his history, but still hit me at the time of watching it. I found your video suitably well balanced here, having watched NC just over 10 years ago I had recently been ashamed of having ever enjoyed it. Your description about not being too embarrassed of the things we briefly enjoyed growing up is very relatable.

This is without a doubt the best piece of nostalgia critic discourse on RU-vid. I sometimes wonder why some people spend the time to make a giant video essay just to say they hate Doug. Why waste your life on that when you could just simply not watch Nostalgia Critic.

Next B-Mask video idea: 2-hour deep dive on the history and impact of the RU-vidr "evil alter egos" trope

Chris O’Neil would be proud of this, that’s for sure.

Great video. Honestly, I spent the last few years espousing the virtues of the modern "Breadtube" video essayists over this old Channel Awesome stuff. Much of that came from a rejection of CA's actions that were indicted in the Google Doc back in 2018. After all, the video essayists, with their deeper, more cerebral way of looking at art, are surely healthier creators to get into than Doug ever was. Two things changed this for me. The first was the mobbing of Lindsay Ellis a year or so ago, which revealed that all of this intellectualism didn't prevent the kinds of asinine bad-faith-verging-on-mob-violence that's so common on the Internet (and seeing other Breadtube creators either not speak up until it was too late, or worse, actively pile on Lindsay, very nearly tarred and feathered the entire scene for me). The second was when I started work on my own film, my first feature since film school. I thought all the theory and philosophy would help me with my work, but that was not at all the case. It turns out, surrounding myself with deeply cynical examples of how "X piece of media you like is actually morally deficient" just made me scared to write at all, out of fear that whatever I wrote, through some trick of my subconscious, would be deleterious to the morality of the world, or something. I actually had to completely wean myself off of anything movie-related on RU-vid in order to get any work done. That obviously speaks more to my frame of mind at the time than to the validity of video essayists, but I can't deny that that's how it happened. For all of Doug's faults, he genuinely seems to bring an unironic, uncynical love to whatever it is he's talking about, at least most of the time. And if I'm being honest, that sometimes seems to be in really short supply among the biggest RU-vid movie critics of our current moment.

I'm glad that a video like this exists. After years of constant, "Doug Walker bad, x other yt reviewer good" being repeated at nauseum, it's nice to see someone who is critical of his work without acting like he murdered their family.

Quite possibly the best Doug Walker analysis I've ever seen (and I've seen quite a few)

After watching this and Joon The King's Nostalgia Critic video I have a really hard time returning to Lady Emily's Nostalgia Critic videos or anything similar, I have simply grown too fond of Doug Walker. Channel Awesome was managed horribly and Doug is partially at fault for that but I can't help but respect the man for continuing to do what he loves and have passion for his craft all these years later, to me he really does seem like a naive yet nice and kind person. I didnt grow up with Nostalgia Critic but always known about him, watching OneyPlays since 2016 very much developed a curiosity towards the Critic. I've watched Kickassia or by myself atleast 3-4 times by now and it leaves me feeling giddy and joyful each time, there's an unironic joy and magic to this film and I'm really glad you made this video to point that out. Thanks for making such a great video! (PS I'd like to recommend ProJared's old 2007 Screwattack series "Nametags" if you enjoy this sort of early youtube content, I watch it multiple times a year.)

Incredible

I feel like the Internet hating on Nostalgia Critic these days is like the Internet hating on Twilight in the early 2010s: people will look back at it a decade later and realize "wow. we kind of went overboard with this. I'm almost frighted by how everyone seemed to have the same opinion on this."

Hey almightyloli is making a series on this right now too. The collective unconscious strikes

Man, this video really got me to rethink my feelings on Doug Walker and Channel Awesome as a whole. Back in the day, I thought they were awesome. After a while, I grew out of him and resented him and what creators like him used to do. Now, and especially after hearing your own thoughts and observations, I've come to see him for both the good and bad he had. To completely write The Nostalgia Critic/Doug Walker and creators like him as providing nothing of value and being narrow-minded fools is itself narrow-minded. I remember watching Doug and James for that matter and learning about new films I've never heard of and learning how to form and express my own opinions. Sure, I don't share all of Doug's opinions. Hell, a lot of them I strongly disagree with. But his passion for cinema and media, in general, has stuck with me. This video reminded me of just how funny him and these movies could be. I was also reminded of the flaws too, especially the actual poor treatment of the producers on the site, which shouldn't be forgotten. But, I feel now that I can finally grasp a more mature understanding of The Nostalgia Critic and Channel Awesome. Was it cringey? A fair amount of the time, sure. Was it time wasted? Absolutely not. I owe a lot to these old reviews. It helped me learn a lot about my tastes, tastes that are, of course, still growing and changing. That ending analogy put it brilliantly. Thank you for making this video, B-Mask. I had no idea I'd love it as much as I did.

I got into nostalgia critic in the late naughts and early 10s when I first really got into RU-vid, there was a high schooler I did a acting program with who I looked up to and he told me about nostalgia critic. I watched a few videos and I was hooked. So when I think of Doug my thoughts always drift towards the post kickassia era of skits and those occasional serious reviews. Doug really got me to think about movies in a way I hadn’t before and although I drifted towards more intellectual creators over the years I always had a soft spot for Doug. I’m so glad someone else feels as I do.

A well-delivered take as always. Doug Walkers catalog and the whole angry reviewer era he spawned are an indelible part of the history of online entertainment, and while the truths that have come to light regarding Channel Awesome and my own changing tastes have put me among those that don’t have much use for or interest in his work, it’s valuable to look back on it (and at what it is presently) and see what’s left. If, for you or anyone else, that’s something valuable, then I guess that’s something. Merry merry, everyone.

Finally, some good fucking food. Jokes aside, I appreciate how whenever you cover a subject, you always seem to make an effort to add something to the conversation that hasn't already been said by everyone else while still being sincere in the point you're trying to make

The last part of the video is the most truthful and accurate analysis of Nostalgia Critic I've seen.

Dude you’re only person who I would watch a 50 minute video about Kickassia

Although I haven't watched Doug in years, it's nice to see him level out. Him and James will always have a big impact on me in my humble beginnings on the internet.

I gotta say as a young teen growing up on the wild west of the internet and seeing pioneers of internet culture It truly was a magical time Rip the wild west 2000s - 2016 you were beautiful, weird and edgy time but mostly beautiful and edgy

Kickassia is so genius that they made a civ mod of it.

I will always be grateful to Nostalgia Critic and That Guy with the Glasses. I managed to learn English thanks to hundreds of videos from this site. Different authors were like different difficulty levels. Doug was easy to understand, he spoke loudly and clearly. Lindsey spoke quietly and calmly, and I had to listen to some fragments over and over again to get everything. At first I was kind of apprehensive of Spoony, he seemed very, very weird. But in the end he became my favorite author, his bizarre works I enjoyed the most. What a master of delivery! This carefree, irresponsible and overly ambitious undertaking ended very badly. And it probably couldn't have ended any other way. But its authors knew how to entertain and even how to educate. I only hope that after all these years at least some of their conflicts have been resolved, and some resentments have subsided.

This is a thorough, well thought out, and objective look at Doug Walker. I highly respect you looking at all aspects of the situation, but also making a video from your heart that you know might be controversial, but you feel the need to be honest about. You’re a very intelligent and cool dude, thank you and keep up the great work.

Doug sure did have a lot of influence in a lot of us, we may like to think we “out growth him” but speak for myself I’ll check out his stuff every now and then and sometimes I can see where’s he’s coming from.

Thank you so much for making this video. As a former long time fan of Doug’s during high school, his reviewing style and strangely earnest passion of filmmaking was actually one of the earliest kickstarters of me growing a genuine love for the craft of it all. While I can’t say that I like to look back on his stuff with complete enthusiasm, his presence in my life is what helped me get to where I am today. No matter what I or others think of the man now, there’s no denying that he made an impact in more ways than one.

Bravo, man. With genuine sincerity, you put words to a feeling I've had, but didn't know how to articulate. It's nice to know I wasn't the only one. Thank you!

Doug is such a common point in film appreciation for people of a certain age. I feel like he was so inevitable that he could be used like carbon dating for film dorks. It's nice to see someone tap into that instead of just dog piling on him (not that he doesn't deserve a decent amount of that) I think the critic, if not doug himself, should be looked at from that perspective more often. Does it say more about the people watching the critic or the videos themselves that people of specific types found his work as enduring as they did? P.S. Thanks to this vid I'm reminded that I forced my mum (someone who at the time was wholly unfamiliar with tgwtg, internet humour or even film really) to watch kickassia. As far as I remember, to get her to understand the stuff I enjoyed watching???

you're paving the way for the doug walker redemption arc, doing gods work here

At the end of the day, the word that best encompasses Doug Walker is "Earnest". And I think how much you like his content is going to come down to how willing you are to meet his content on its terms and identify with it. Like the willing suspension of disbelief, but rather than believing the impossible you're connecting with the laughable.

I don’t get why people say Doug is like a happy clown on stage but a sad man behind the scene. Is not that I care that much but is kinda frustrating when everyone said that when in reality the guy looks fine. Is like everyone is seeing things that I don’t.

This really made me think of the NC as a creator we can all relate to. Even after every video, he’s still got some good points and jokes we think back to.

So, I watched this when it was released back in 2010, and I'm not gonna lie, I liked it. I've not seen it in like, 10+ years, and it probably hasn't aged well, but back then, when I was a 21 year old young man, it was great. It is weird how my memories of watching it for the first time are as old now as things from the late 90's were back then.

As someone who similarly spent many of their earlier years watching the critic, and whose content was some of my first exposure to critique in general, this video was immensely cathartic. Top notch work as always

The fact you nailed Doug's cadence PERFECTLY when you were recapping Kickassia for like the first minute

Omg, that "father" point of view was perfect!!!

Dear God, it feels we're coming full circle with this and I already love it. Second-hand embarrassment and my love for B-Mask...take me awaaaaayyyyy

It's nice to hear someone say something kind about Doug. I still watch him from time to time. I love his Stephen King reviews, for example.

I don't normally like videos that "Review" other creators, often times I find it to be disrespectful, but this...this was a wonderful video. You came at this from a place of understanding and even appreciation for him and his content, rather than simply bashing him for his older content. You even shined a light on his latest content, and how he's clearly evolved, even if only a little. What I've always appreciated about Doug's reviews was how he clearly knows what he's talking about, even if he doesn't always hit his mark. He's clearly a fan of movies and film making. He usually tries to be fair and shine light on both the good and the bad of a film. And you know, thruough all the years of hearing so many bad scandals with RU-vidrs I grew up watching, I take a weird sort of comfort in knowing that Doug's worst crime was, seemingly, just being incompetent. He's an idiot, but he's an idiot with passion and appreciation for what he has to talk about. I'll always respect him for that.

Doug staying relevant through all these years shows that he is absolute force of nature. I highly respect that guy and I'm glad he is still dropping great content

I love the thumbnail art so much Doug is drawn looking real crazy

I appreciate seeing a little positivity for this era of dumb fun for once. Even if it was painfully unprepared and stressful to film apparently.

I really needed this video. I discovered Doug videos when I finished high school and became a great fan. I learned English watching his videos. But then “Change the channel” happened at the same time I felt his videos weren’t as good as the first ones, so I stoped watching. But this Halloween I remember his Nostalgiaween videos, how watching them was a bit of a tradition, and that make me curious to see his most recent work.

"Ah, isn't that cute? You're nostalgic for the Nostalgia Critic." - Doug Walker, 2013

What an incredibly empathetic video. Thank you so much for making this. I don’t know what else to say without sounding like I’m exaggerating, but I just seriously loved this. Beautiful, beautiful video. I hope I can be as understanding and empathetic as you present yourself in this video someday.

A major Doug-positive video on RU-vid has been a long time coming. Whenever I look at reviews which are critical of Doug's work, even ones which aren't explicitly tied to the ChangeTheChannel debacle, there are the same few points that come up. Doug is an egomaniac, a control freak, he only understands art at a surface level, he wants to be perceived as a great artist but can't make "art", he's a walking tragedy trapped in a cage he built for himself and desperately wants to move on but can't. When the controversy happened I took it all at face value and left it at that, but now looking at his most recent output, those criticisms can't help but feel needlessly aggressive. I look at Doug's output nowadays and I wondered to myself if I had entered into a completely alternate dimension. He made valid points, he admired certain aspects of a film not on a base level but through a deeper understanding and he criticized other aspects of the film and his elaborations on WHY lined up well and were understandable. He seemed to enjoy his job, he seemed to enjoy being the Nostalgia Critic, and he was branching out from the main show and creating spinoffs where he was able to express his opinion outside the veneer of a persona which people also enjoyed. And outside of that, he seems like a nice, open, and friendly person, and if the Double Toasted interview (and many, many testimonies from fans who have met him) seem to refute that fact. He wasn't screaming so often! Sure there was the occasional skit here or there, but while I don't find them particularly funny, I DO think they're charming. Hell, like you said, there are even older reviews that make poignant points. But most importantly, it was his critique that made me reconsider these movies. Like you said, we don't know Doug, and the people who wrote the ChangeTheChannel document did. But unless Doug had this secret alternate persona he would switch between when meeting fans and when interacting with CA members, it's hard for me to really believe that Doug is that shallow and egomaniacal. If anything, modern criticisms of Doug's work seem less like they want to deconstruct his creative process in and of itself and more like these people are reconciling with themselves how they could ever be fans of someone as "low-brow" as Doug Walker. It's like your friend said, as a teenager you hate your father, because you feel you've outgrown him and are broadening your horizons. Just about NONE of these videos seem to include the Double Toasted interview which gave us the most direct view into Doug's mindset that you were ever going to get outside of a con meetup, and the fact that videos coming out even after it never seem to include it as a reference point is mind-boggling. If anything, it seems to suggest that these people think they know Doug Walker well enough that they don't NEED to include the interview and, unless you were part of CA and knew him personally, that comes off to me as more arrogant than anything they could criticize him for. I'm not gonna completely romanticize him and say Doug Walker is a completely perfect content creator or that the people who wrote the ChangeTheChannel document are completely wrong. He HAS problems with how he reviews movies and creates content, and his inaction led to Channel Awesome members being mistreated or worse, but Doug is not a egomaniac nor is he a hack fraud. And while the people who criticize him are capable of making their own thought-provoking content, I feel like they are still in a "teenage" phase of understanding him and would rather stick with the version of Doug they know.

I just want to point out, I actually think the idea of lampooning the idea of armor with muscle patterns by using a sharpie on the dude's bare torso was fairly clever. The muscle pattern on the armor is meant to look intimidating; the sharpie is meant to look like armor that is meant to look intimidating.

This is the best essay on Doug Walker I've ever seen. The father paralelism is just perfect

I know a lot of people have soured on him and his work, but I honestly like Doug, and the Nostalgia Critic.I still like Brad Jones and the Cinema Snob. As TheAlmightyLoli put it in a video a few months ago, the worst you could really say was that Doug was a bad boss. But honestly, the majority of the Channel Awesome contributors who left the site have acted honestly worse than Doug has looked. For his part, I think Doug has, at least in part, recognized that his career isn't what he thought it would be, but what he has is good. There's a lesson here that people need to make sure they know their partners when they start ventures like this, and not hang all their hopes on long shots.

I really appreciate the last section of this video. As someone whose main consumption of Doug's videos was his Disneycember videos, I feel a lot of his own critics are a bit too eager to characterize him as an "incurious" person.

29:20 I don't care what anyone says, that reveal of who the Nostalgia Critic is in the alternate timeline is one of the funniest damn things Doug Walker ever wrote.

This is how B-Mask gets cancelled

love this positive re-interpretation of doug's work. his favourite films list is my favourite video he's done - it introduced me to A LOT as a youngster, including the works of hunter s. thompson (who i was mad into, like any teenager would be) off the back of the fear and loathing reccomendation. the man has some choice taste. hope this video does well!!

Unpopular and "evil" take: What happened with CA was unprofessional and stupid, but giving the time frame and the people involved... I don't think any would've done better. Doug just happened to be the boss. You have to remember, all the stuff about catering, precision, equipment, being careful about interactions with fans etc. It's obvious now to current youtube. But back in the day you didn't need a good mic, best software or even lighting to be good. I've watched others after the Change the Channel and they don't look much more professional compared to Doug. That is to say what they know they know because of Doug's mistakes and current Doug looks more professional then current them, so I don't know if things would've been better for them under Nostalgic Spoony or anyone else. That's why I think nothing really changed after the leak, besides JewWorio, nothing really changed and everyone remained the same as after the leak. The site was losing it's luster anyway and they weren't as influential as they were before the leak so nothing really happened. NC didn't fell down because of some one thing that was bad. It was a downward slope because the internet changed and because he himself is aging and it continues to be exactly that.

so now we are in the "well it was actualy good" arc of the anime of Douglas D Nost'algia Critique

Never really clicked with Dan Olson either, honestly lol. Doug is someone who I've continued to enjoy watching throughout the years, even with shit like The Wall review behind him. Nowadays I think he's found that good balance between humourous riffing and personal analysis and whatever ego he may have once had is seemingly gone. That Top 20 Favourite Films video you brought up even introduced me to many movies I still adore to this day including Lost in Translation, which has since become my #1 all-time favourite. So I have Doug to thank for that.

This thing reminds me of Gorilla Interrupted, the first RLM movie before they were even RLM. I'm not a huge fan of the Walkers or Channel Awesome but I loved this video. It's the efforts of a bunch of fans who want to make a film and, ultimately, suck at it but in a way that's kind of Ed Wood levels where I think you can absolutely be entertained by it and learn from it. It feels like RU-vids High School/early college years which got people looking at other movies. Had that air of naughtiness like back when you were a kid, watchin something like Billy Connolly or Monty Python back in the day where you'd laugh because they swore and talked about sex and other crap. The main take away was It felt doable and you felt like "If they could do it, why can't I?" I find it so weird that there are kids who are alive who didn't live in a world without RU-vid. But they weren't part of the RU-vid that I remember when it was MAINLY AMVs (you got your choice of Linkin Park "Breaking the Habit" or Drowning Pool "Bodies"), people putting up music illegally, you had the odd movie critic (some dude called the Angry Nintendo Nerd?), a BOATLOAD of pirated Adult Swim stuff like Aqua Teen Hunger force, and this weird intimacy to it all. Like it felt like a bustling marketplace where you could find almost anything! Was still effectively corporate (Don't think we can fool ourselves with that) but it felt like it was something you alone knew about. I think the most powerful lesson of Channel awesome and RU-vid is "Prepare for Fame/infamy if you ever show your face because oh man, there's a price to pay for the loss of anonymity. Also, please don't nearly kill someone during the making of your film. Especially not someone with undiagnosed BiPolar disorder and a heart condition." Thanks B, for giving a different perspective on this!

Being an (ahem) older person, I saw the NC through the eyes of my teen-aged sons, who adored him. Of course, much of what they loved on the (to me) magical new Internet seemed a tad immature to someone my age, but it was fun watching how he inspired them, and I found him honestly funny and insightful enough to justify his career choice. Does a critic have to always be right or should they simply get you thinking about a film? I think the latter, and the content was for a young audience anyway, so it didn't need to be profound. It just had to be a good introduction to the subject. Anyway, when RU-vid recently recommended a video to me heavily criticising his work, I was baffled, so I looked up Channel Awesome today and watched a few reviews (more adult versions of the old NC, totally watchable), then hit the old ThatGuyWithTheGlasses content, and found them pretty much as I remembered. I was left feeling that what most people have probably come to dislike about Doug is that he reminds them of their own aging and must therefore be unceremoniously consigned to the back of the desk drawer like a photo that shows you in a gawky stage of development.

Whenever you say "Doug Walker" 3 times at midnight, he appears. You can run, but it's already too late

Doug Walker is like the Nikola Tesla on internet movie reviewers. His ambition trumps over petty squables when he does something. He thinks about the bigger picture when making something. Even if the Kickassia is a 'bad' movie it is a time capsule that nobody would have made. As you said, it captures the 2000s internet comedy precisesly and present itself now as nostalgic movie of the time.

I like that you appreciate Doug has gotten better. He's calmer, less cynical and if he's gonna cram a reference into a review he has a bit more of a point to make than he previously would have. This was the first video of yours I saw. I imagine I will watch more. Also I kind of liked To Boldly Flee (don't hurt me I thought it was funny) and I didn't have too much issue with Doug bringing Demo Reel type skits into the show. I especially liked that Dragonball one you show here.

Awesome video. I like how you mention his videos displayed some movies from a very slanted or specific perspective, because I think Doug's work has also gone under the same scrutiny in some videos. And in a similar way, this displays his work from a lot more of an appreciative if not straight positive light. That's really refreshing because I think Doug and friends are really creatives in the end, despite the cringe and failures. It's fun to see somebody praise the hiddem jems for once really

I don’t think this movie is very funny but Doug going “Oh hey you gave into the madness, that’s awesome” is good