oh internet

A site about reviewing films, video games, and nerdy culture things.

Summary

That Guy With The Glasses, or TGWTG, is a site founded by Mike Michaud, CEO of Channel Awesome. It's most well-known for Doug Walker, A.K.A. the Nostalgia Critic. Many of their members were former ScrewAttack people or were once YouTube partners. Most of their content involves reviewing or making jokes about pop culture (mostly movies, animation, and comics), along with Blistered Thumbs, their spinoff site dedicated to video games.

Contributors

• Doug Walker: Known as the Nostalgia Critic, or the titular That Guy with the Glasses, Doug Walker started his YouTube adventures by uploading what he titled "5-Second Movies," where films would be summarized in... five seconds. Today he is known as the Nostalgia Critic. He's making enough money from this foray to support himself, so he quit his job... in such an over-the-top manner. He has multiple personas that he uses in his videos, aside from his main ones, such as Ask That Guy (a depraved Q&A parody), Chester A. Bum (a... bum who reviews current movies), Dominic (a video game bar bartender), and more. See here for more information.

Team TGWTG

Reviewers that go for film and music for the most part, or create their own content for show.

• The Blockbuster Buster: Aka "ERod" (Eric Rodriguez). Reviews bad big-budget Hollywood films. He's received criticism for supposedly ripping off the Nostalgia Critic and others, and has attracted some resentment over being the last person to be hired by Channel Awesome when they stopped looking for new talent, but he's slowly gaining acceptance.

• Brad Jones: Best known as "The Cinema Snob", a less-angry reviewer who reviews... cinema, and vintage pornography. He has thicker skin than most Internet reviewers. He is often considered one of the better reviewers of the site. Has other characters, including '80s Dan (reviews 1980s kitsch) and Kung Tai Ted (reviews chop-sockey martial arts movies). Produced several independent movies, including The Hooker with a Heart of Gold, Paranoia, and The Cinema Snob Movie.

• CR: Hosts "Familiar Faces", in which he talks about obscure cartoon characters he likes.

• Diamanda Hagan: Northern Irish chick whose character is a super villain who rules a third-world dictatorship by day and moonlights as a reviewer of Z-grade movies by night. Came from the forums like Obscurus Lupa.

• Film Brain: A younger reviewer who made fun of the film Equilibrium. He apparently liked Transformers II over a Tarantino film. He also nods a lot in his videos. A lot. Has a weird tendency to blip out curses in one video, but then not in another.

• Iron Liz: Reviews tabletop RPGs. Best known as Linkara's (now ex) girlfriend and for making several cameos on his show. A lightning rod for assholes mocking her less-than-feminine looks and voice, which caused a lot of drama and mass-deletion of comments after she hosted an episode of Atop the Fourth Wall. Semi-retired to pursue a career in law enforcement, but still hosted on TGWTG.

• Luke Mochrie: Reviews movies, using the gimmick of multiple debating personalities. Son of Canadian comedian Colin Mochrie; often accused of riding his father's coattails despite rarely if ever mentioning him.

• Maven of the Eventide / Elisa: Originally a recurring character in the Nostalgia Chick's videos, now reviews vampire movies with a hammy exaggerated goth persona.

• MikeJ: A British Person who talks about sequels in his segments titled "Shameful Sequels" - and he uses sockpuppets. Real ones!

• Nash: Hosts "What the Fuck is Wrong with You", in which he comments on bizarre news stories. JesuOtaku's boyfriend.

• The Nostalgia Chick : A hipster chick who has a lot of fanboys. One paid $500 for a cheap bowtie that she owned. A graduate student of literature, she often attempts a subtextual analysis of the movies and TV shows she reviews, from a feminist perspective, with a deep reading of the depiction of gender and race in movies which are ultimately too shallow to allow such insight, such as Pocahontas. She joins the Cinema Snob, Clan of the Gray Wolf, JesuOtaku, and Oancitizen in comprising the brainer segment of Channel Awesome/Blistered Thumbs, but at the same time her videos can be a bit of a bore.

• Oancitizen: Similar to RedLetterMedia, in which he provides a semi-serious review and offers constructive criticism in an entertaining manner mixed in with actual rage. Usually reviews foreign and art house films, and so far seems like what the Nostalgic Chick would like to be.

• Obscurus Lupa: A female reviewer who was added because of this video here. She does videos similar to the Cinema Snob in a more sophomoric manner.

• PawDugan: A music and film reviewer and Let's Player who also does pixel art videos. Dating Pushing Up Roses, with whom he co-hosts the TGWTG podcast, Transmission Awesome.

• Phelous: He reviews low-budget horror films and uses green-screens a lot. He's humor is self-referential and dry, such as Phelous always dying and having many cross-overs. Currently dating Obscurus Lupa.

• Rap Critic: Reviews (surprise!) braindead rap music like the Black Eyed Peas. He was originally on the forums but was taken to the main site. He's also an actual rapper under the stage name of Masta Artisan.

• Rollo T: The MC and producer of Transmission Awesome, the official TGWTG podcast, which he co-hosts with Paw, Roses, and Y: Ruler of Time. He also does the Weekly Manga Recap podcast with Y and moonlights as a standup comedian. Has a fuzzy blue hat.

• Sad Panda: French musician who does a lot of absurdist humor in an extremely deadpan manner. He has had two main series - Sad Panda Q & A, where he starts off interviewing another TGWTG person before going completely off the rails, and Forget About It (now retired), where he "reviews" a movie whose plot he's forgotten. Wrote and performed theme songs for several other reviewers, most notably Phelous.

• That SciFi Guy: Guess. Reviews are similar to Obscurus Lupa.

• Todd In The Shadows: A music reviewer that sits with the lights off, creating a silhouette. Wears a mask when appearing in other producers' vidoes. Originally hid his face to avoid recognition, later because it had become his trademark.

• Welshy: A dude similar to Yahtzee. One guess where he's from. Reviews whatever he feels like, usually horror films and British sci-fi television. Close friends with Sad Panda and collaborates with him very often. Started off running TGWTG's official YouTube channel, then started making his own videos.

Inked Reality

A newer segment of Channel Awesome which (like Blistered Thumbs) will spin off into a separate website sometime 2012.

Inked Reality focuses on reviews of comics, anime and home produced animation.

• Ed Glaser: One of the more professional contributors. Owns a production company called Dark Maze Studios and has produced several low-budget films, most notably "Press Start". Also directs web animation and is responsible for the release of the cult film "Rampage" (aka "Turkish Rambo") getting released in the U.S.

• Eric Power Up: An animator who creates his own short cartoons.

• Happy Harry: Harry Partridge is a Newgrounds and YouTube user as well as a TGWTG contributor. He does a lot of famous flash animations, and throws in little references to Chris-chan in them. (He did the Saturday Morning Watchmen video, for example.) However, content from him takes a lot of time for him to make, so the bulk of the stuff he posts on TGWTG is reposts. He was the "Troll Hunter" at one point.

• Internet Personality Vangelus: Reviews action figures and other toys.

• JesuOtaku: Part of the DesuDes Brigade anime reviewer collective who was picked up by TGWTG. JO has an analytical reviewing style and comes off as one of the smarter people at Channel Awesome. Recovering ex-fundie who caused a stir with a lot of anti-gay posts on the Anime News Network forums before she was picked up; later mellowed out and changed her views.

• The Last Angry Geek: The first reviewer besides Doug Walker to be featured on the site; one of Walker's personal friends. Reviews comic books.

• Linkara: Another well-known reviewer. Linkara mostly reviews comic books, and narrates the whole plot while complaining about stuff within them MST3K style. He use to draw his own comics before realizing that he sucked at that, and instead hired other artists to do it for him. Lightbringer is Linkara's webcomic and Revolution of the Mask is a published comic. He started the trend of having an ongoing (and often overwrought) storyline in his reviews.

• MarzGurl: A cartoon/anime reviewer from Texas. She's into anime and makes videos about anime news; she also reviews vintage American animation. A lot of fans draw Rule 34 of her. She seems to be neutral with it.

• Suede: New Zealander who reviews anime shows and movies. Went on hiatus in 2009 when he left for a community service mission (he's a Mormon) in the boonies of New Zealand and returned in 2011. Formerly "That Dude in the Suede", now just "Suede". Has a tongue-in-cheek rivalry with Benzaie.

• Team Four Star: The creators of Dragon Ball Z Abridged, including LittleKuriboh, MasakoX, and Lanipator, the latter two of whom also do their own anime review shows. DBZ Abridged isn't posted on TGWTG, but Masako and Lani's reviews are.

• Y: Ruler of Time: Manga reviewer, co-hosts the TGWTG podcast. Also does the Weekly Manga Recap podcast with Rollo T.

Blistered Thumbs

The video game section of TGWTG; by far the largest subsection of Channel Awesome. These people talk, review, or attempt to cover video games. Spun off onto its own website in 2011. It will be referred to as "BT" for short here.

• Angry Joe: The manager of BT. His sidekick is Lisa Foiles. He's pretty much similar to the Angry Video Game Nerd, only focusing on recent releases, rather than nostalgic titles. Like Spoony and Zeitgeist, his review show has a highly "produced" feel to it, with Joe Vargas broadcasting from the interior of a CG space ship. The most that can be said about his reviews is that they are actually fairly decent quality, with occasional insights regarding problematic aspects of games--aspects which he claims were ignored by larger reviewing outfits such as IGN and GameSpot. However, his claims to being a "representative" for "core gamers" has garnered criticism, notably when he had a short interview with Geoff Keighley, in which Joe's lack of preparation combined with his aggressive manner caused him to come across as kind of a douche. This was heightened by the fact of his rant after the interview, which came off as very unprofessional journalism. Though in fairness, Geoff Keighley was a dick to Joe too. Joe's vision for the web site, as well as his own review show, is to review games with fierce honesty, but overall it is rare for his review scores to differ with the MetaCritic norm.

• Ashens: A reviewer from the UK who talks about bootleg consoles and crappy knock-off products involving them.

• Awesome Video Games: A bunch of Canadians who do Let's Plays and started out on ScrewAttack. A lot of their videos are just them screwing around in Minecraft or Team Fortress 2 for an hour or more.

• Bennett the Sage: He reviews contemporary games and older anime. Once had a show in which he read bad fanfiction.

• Benzaie: Oversexed French guy who reviews retro video games, heavy metal, and hentai.

• ChaosD1: Started off on the forums reviewing, of all things, variant Mountain Dew flavors. Now hosts "MMO Grinder", reviewing online games.

• Clan of the Gray Wolf: Hosted by a guy called Roo. Roo raised money for Child's Play, a charity for children involving video games. Most of his videos were created before he came to be affiliated with BT. They tend to be surprisingly well researched and highly informative pieces on video games of the early 90s, and as such they are a departure from BT's usual tone of minimal intellect. In this respect, he is arguably something like BT's equivalent counterpart to Channel Awesome's Cinema Snob--the thinking man's AVGN, you might say.

• Coldguy: Currently a review editor on the BT site. Originally hosted TGWTG's official podcast, now does a literature podcast with Jew Wario and an infrequently updated video series on foreign films. Has a funny laugh.

• Dena Natali: Lee's fiance who started out with cameos on Still Gaming before starting her own spin-off, Game Den, doing reviews and Let's Plays of horror games, especially the Silent Hill series. Unlike Lee, she actually produces videos on something like a regular schedule.

• The Game Heroes: A reviewer collective including Handsome Tom, 8-Bit Mickey, Classy Man Smiles, and others. They used to be on ScrewAttack. 8-Bit Mickey at one point was on this show called The Tester. In October 2012, they disbanded, though all of the group's members remain affiliated with Channel Awesome.

• Guru Larry: Originally part of ScrewAttack, Guru Larry joined Channel Awesome in 2009. and like Roo above contributes highly informative and well researched shows on retro video games, but with a British sense of humo(u)r. Larry is a British/European Television presenter and is also known for interviewing Chris-chan on Billy Mays and other topics. Sometimes joined by his friend Wez.

• Heisanevilgenius : He has a series called Weird Video Games. Here he discusses games that are far too weird and go beyond the norm compared to most video games out there. Claims to be the same person as Peter Chimaera, patron saint of bad fan fiction.

• HopeWithinChaos: A horizontally gifted reviewer, This guy gets a lot of donations as a result of his frequent e-begging. His most recent stuff is in the Blistered Thumbs territory, but he also likes wrestling and posts videos on Spoony's Wrestle! Wrestle! sometimes.

• JewWario: No, that's really his online handle. He's the oldest member of TGWTG, as in he's almost 40. Most of reviews are of Japanese video games that never got imported to the US, with notes on how to obtain them.

• Lee Davidge / Sasha Nein: Host of "Still Gaming". A sickly reviewer who produces quarterly videos. His gimmick is that, rather than film himself on video, he takes still photos (hence the title) of himself and semi-animates them. Formerly a member of PBC Productions, a now-defunct company that also included Little Miss Gamer and non-TGWTG web series Captain S. Lee hasn't produced a full-length video in about two years; he keeps promising a comeback but near-constant health issues have prevented it. Married to Dena Natali.

• Leon Thomas: Creator of Heart of Gaming, a dark comedy sketch show focused on video games. He ended Heart of Gaming after 70 episodes, feeling it had run its course, and is now producing Renegade Cut, a series about oddball film topics. Leon also co-hosts the Blistered Thumbs Podcast.

• Mike "the Birdman" Dodd: Dodd found success as a podcaster before joining TGWTG. Currently hosts This Week in Geek, a pop culture news show, and Review a Day, which is what it sounds like. Also a member of the Game Heroes.

• Psychotaku: An insane Japanese otaku who hijacks TV broadcasts to rant about Japan-only video games; played by Mark Fujita, a Japanese-American part-time wrestler in real life. Sometimes hijacked himself by the Psychoneko, an American weeaboo girl.

• PushingUpRoses: PawDugan's girlfriend who does Let's Play videos. Co-hosts Transmission Awesome. Currently on hiatus due to severe health problems.

• ReviewTechUSA: Was once commented on by Retsupurae, and has some drama screencaps in the gallery below.

• RinryGameGame: A gamer girl with an extremely cute voice who reviews retro video games. Currently on hiatus.

• Taylor Hoyt: Host of "Shinkara", which despite the name is not what Linkara shows when he wears ankle socks. Taylor reviews cult Japanese games like Viewtiful Joe or Persona 4 and appears in his videos as anime-style illustrations of himself. Unlike most other people on the site, his videos are hosted on YouTube, not Blip.

• Zeitgeist Game Review: A guy that's much more positive with his reviews. His reviews are highly "produced", with a lot of green-screen work and other frills, which partly distract from the fact that his reviews are very bland in their content and commentary. Generally, he presents the footage of many cut-scenes from the game he is reviewing, so as to imbue his videos with the very slick appearance afforded by footage from a $30 million LucasArts production. He is more open to criticism than Spoony or Angry Joe, and has been known to engage critics on BT's forums. He openly admits to receiving free review copies of games from publishers, and some detractors have noted that he seems to provide selective praise to those games. To be fair, however, it is equally likely that he is just extremely partial toward generic big-budget titles.

Former Contributors

• Apollo Z. Hack: A reviewer of sci-fi movies, especially Japanese tokusatsu. While reviewers like Spoony and Linkara have storylines in their reviews, AZH was made the story the main focus of his videos, with the review secondary to the plot. He left TGWTG over creative differences.

• Chef Protoss: Came and went without producing a single video. May have done a cameo in a podcast once or twice.

• TheDistressedWatcher/TheAmazingAtheist: The Amazing Atheist is (in)famous for other reasons. He did a review of the book Lolita and a "Let's Watch" of Æon Flux which is going into lawsuit territory. There were two petitions on the site to remove him, both of which failed. Eventually quit because of conflict with TGWTG admins.

• Fool Fantastic: Produced only three videos and then disappeared. Notable for being the youngest reviewer picked up by TGWTG at 17.

• LordKaT: A 711chan moderator and former TGWTG member. Did walkthroughs of very hard retro games. He flounced, and screencaps can be viewed below. He got burned out on video production and called it quits, but is still an associate of TGWTG and runs regular livestreams on his website.

• ThatAussieGuy: Video game reviewer, co-founder of Blistered Thumbs, and original host of the TGWTG podcast. He was fired for reasons that have remained undisclosed for legal reasons, though there are rumors of sexual harassment. All his videos and references to him (except for crossovers) have been removed from the site and attendant wiki.

• Little Miss Gamer: Another Ex-ScrewAttack contributor; like Lee, a member of now-inactive company PBC Productions. Reviewed retro games with a "nice" persona. She quit online video production and is now a manager of the Jim Henson Foundation and co-owns a puppet show performance company with her husband.

• That Chick With The Goggles: Reviewed video games. Became inactive on the site due to major technical difficulties, appearing in more cameos than she produced videos, and finally quit to focus on real life. Now works as an illustrator/graphic designer.

• That Jewish Guy / Rooney Productions: Reviewed Jewish-American and Hebrew-language pop culture. Also reviewed classic literature as "Guy Lynor", a metalhead in makeup. After not producing any videos for a year, his contract was simply not renewed.

• The Spoony One: Reviewed a ton of bad video games and movies. He also rants about movies, wrestling, and tabletop RPGs in his vlogs. See his own article for more. Quit TGWTG due to personal and business differences.

• Transylvania Television: An "adult" puppet show created by amateur puppeteer Gordon Smuder, similar to Avenue Q, about a group of monsters running a dysfunctional TV station out of a castle in Transylvania. Left TGWTG to pursue other ventures, including a local-access TV Halloween special.

Origins

TGWTG was created in April 2008 once Doug Walker's reviews as the Nostalgia Critic on YouTube were constantly pulled for copyright complaints. His college friend, Bhargav Dronamraju, had recently founded the production company Channel Awesome with Mike Ellis and CEO Mike Michaud, and approached Walker about creating a website for the Nostalgia Critic.

Michaud gave Doug Walker his own site, and then others joined as time went on. The site gained a higher profile status once Doug more or less cornered the Angry Video Game Nerd into a mock duel.

Current status

Doug Walker and others are still making reviews and such today. The site is unusually successful for a web outfit devoted to inane nerd culture, allowing Mike Michaud to fly the better part of the site's staff out to do anniversary videos every year. The first of these, in 2009, was unassuming enough, with Doug Walker leading the site's movie reviewers in a fist-fight against the site's video game reviewers, led by the Angry Video Game Nerd, whose celebrity they were at the time milking.

The following summer, in 2010, Channel Awesome created a feature-length film entitled Kickassia, opinion over which is fiercely contested between those who consider it the greatest thing ever, and those who consider it a train wreck. Its current IMDB score is a 6.0, with most user reviews being either 1-2 stars, or 9-10, depending on which camp the reviewer aligns with. Kickassia was followed in 2011 by Suburban Knights, which received more or less the same reception.

2012's anniversary, To Boldly Flee, has been reported to be the last big anniversary movie, the strain of securing transportation and lodging for 20+ people from around the world to shoot a movie in two and a half weeks having apparently caught up with Channel Awesome. The same year, Doug Walker, Lindsay "Nostalgia Chick" Ellis, and Todd "in the Shadows" Nathanson signed a deal with video host Blip.tv to receive financial backing as part of Blip's initiative to cultivate web talent.

Meanwhile, in fall 2012, Channel Awesome began leasing a warehouse studio in Chicago that will be used to film shows by Doug Walker and others, as well as lent to film students from a local university for their own projects, with the goal of creating a hub for entertainment.

Facts

Images

Wheee!	10 Donuts shirt.	TGWTG pals!	The Nostalgia Chick.
MarzGurl.	TheDistressedWatcher/TheAmazingAtheist .	The Cinema Snob.	Mike Michaud, the CEO of Channel Awesome.
Film Brain.	The Spoony One.	Film Brain and The Spoony One had an argument in the past.	Hary Partridge.
Harry Partridge follows Chris-chan drama.	HopeWithinChaos.	HopeWithinChaos needs money.	Angry Joe.
Ashens.	Awesome Video Games.	Bennett the Sage.	Benzaie.
Roo of Clan of the Grey Wolf.	Coldguy.	The Game Heroes.	Guru Larry.
Heisanevilgenius.	JewWario.	Lee from Still Gaming, aka SashaNein	ReviewTechUSA.
ReviewTechUSA and YouTube drama.	ReviewTechUSA and TGWTG drama.	Zeitgeist Game Review.	Zeitgeist Game Review dress-up.
Ex-TGWTG member LordKaT.	This is why LordKaT left.	That Dude in the Suede	Ex-TGWTG member ThatAussieGuy.
EX-TGWTG member That Chick With The Goggles.	Kickassia DVD cover art.	Doug Walker, screaming about something.	That face.

Videos

Related Pages

Angry Joe

The Angry Video Game Nerd

Brad Jones

Doug Walker

Linkara

LittleKuriboh

ScrewAttack

The Spoony Experiment

Tommy Wiseau

TV Tropes

External Links

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