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Nostalgia Critic
American review comedy web series From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Nostalgia Critic is an American review comedy web series created, directed by, and starring comedian Doug Walker. The series initially launched on YouTube on July 3, 2007, before moving to Walker's own site, That Guy with the Glasses, and finally to the online production company Channel Awesome. The show follows Walker as the title character, a bitter and sarcastic film critic who reviews films and television shows from his childhood and recent past, usually with comically exaggerated hysteria. The show focuses on analysis of the episode's subject, often incorporated with sketches, rants, or embedded storylines. Many of the films reviewed—such as Exorcist II: The Heretic, The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, Batman & Robin, and Foodfight!—are generally considered as the worst films ever made.
Walker briefly retired the series on August 14, 2012, to work on other projects, even writing the character out of existence in the Channel Awesome film To Boldly Flee. On January 22, 2013, Walker announced the show's return in a narrative video titled The Review Must Go On.[5] The show subsequently returned with a more narrative- and sketch-driven sixth season, beginning on February 5, 2013, with a review of The Odd Life of Timothy Green. Most episodes still retain the original clip-using format.
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Main cast
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- Doug Walker: The Nostalgia Critic, an aggressive, childish, foul-mouthed and hot-tempered film critic and a fictionalized version of Doug Walker himself. He is characterized by his angry rants, shrill voice and hatred of bad movies. All of the reviews star him as the main character and feature him providing commentary and criticism while talking directly to the audience. While often making jokes at the film's expense, Doug will often provide serious criticism and occasionally express his views on something relating to the film. Doug's other characters include both his past and future selves; Chester A. Bum, a homeless man; Devil Boner, the polite but insane embodiment of evil; Raoul Puke, a parody of Raoul Duke, the alter ego of Hunter S. Thompson; and parodies of Optimus Prime, General Zod, Rick Sanchez, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Frank Miller, and Michael Bay.
- Rob Walker: Rob is Doug Walker's older brother and has made appearances in videos since before the introduction of live-action sketches. Credited as "The Other Guy", Rob will often act as a straight man to other characters antics, though he has moments of absurdity on some occasions. Rob portrays some recurring characters, notably Santa Christ (a combination of Santa Claus and Jesus Christ) and Chart Guy, Rob has portrayed minor characters and acted in sketches.
- Malcolm Ray: Malcolm is one of the Critic's friends who appears on the show and works with him on his videos. Malcolm's character often falls victim to the Critic's abuse, alongside his co-star Tamara, and both usually drive the plots relating to the review. Malcolm plays secondary characters in many of the sketches, most notably as the Devil, an African-American version of Willy Wonka called Black Willy Wonka, hitman Bennie, and parodies of Pinhead, M. Night Shyamalan, and Barack Obama.
- Rachel Tietz: Rachel is a friend of the Critic and Malcolm. She portrays multiple characters, including Evilina (the daughter of Satan and Kim Kardashian) and Rita Repulsa. She left the show after season seven, but has made some cameos in later episodes.
- Tamara Chambers: After Rachel left the show to pursue a career in Los Angeles, Tamara stepped in to take her place as a regular cast member. Tamara's character often falls victim to the Critic's abuse, alongside her costar Malcolm, and both usually drive the plots relating to the review. She plays two recurring characters: Hyper Fangirl, who becomes the girlfriend and later wife of Doug's Devil Boner character, and Malice, a violent parody of the titular character from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Chambers revealed in a Reddit post that she left the show full-time in 2024, after being a part of the cast for over a decade, as she had decided to pursue other acting projects.[6] However, on a Channel Awesome live Q&A, despite not being a full-time member of the cast anymore, Walker revealed that Chambers is open to occasional future collaborations with Channel Awesome.
- Jim Jarosz: Jim is a friend of the Critic who often works with Tamara and Malcolm, though he is not present in every episode. He is responsible for most of the props and set pieces in the show, most notably for the review of Mad Max: Fury Road. His two main roles are the condescending therapist from Catwoman and Harvey Levin, the lisping flamboyant crossdressing head of TMZ.
- Walter Banasiak: Walter is one of the hosts of Awesome Comics & Coffee, and Fanscription, 2 other shows on Channel Awesome, alongside Jim and Heather Reusz. He also created the show Top 5, in which he counts down his Top 5 favorite or least favorite things. He also runs Bat-May, in which he reviews episodes from Batman: The Animated Series during the month of May, and Twilight-Tober Zone, in which he reviews episodes of The Twilight Zone during the month of October. His main roles are Father Venkman, a man obsessed with Ghostbusters to the point of making an entire religion surrounding it, and a parody of Zack Snyder, who is often seen with Doug's Michael Bay parody.
- Heather Reusz: Heather, besides starring alongside the cast in Nostalgia Critic skits, helps run the Twitch channel, where the cast play video games, watch movies, or chat with the audience. She often filled in for Tamara, and following Tamara’s departure from the full-time Channel Awesome cast, Heather has since become the main female actor in the Nostalgia Critic skits.
- Aiyanna Wade: Aiyanna was a featured panelist on Awesome Comics and was one of the co-hosts the Orbit Report with Heather Reusz as well as the Top 5 Best/Worst with Heather and Walter.
- Orlando Belisle Jr.: Orlando is a friend of the Critic who often works with him. His main characters are Peter Souless, a parody of money-hungry studio executives; Roger, an angel-in-training that "helps" the Critic in the 2010 Christmas special You're A Dirty Rotten Bastard; and The Angst, a parody of 1990s and 2000s anti-heroes. He has also played Malachite, the main villain of the 2011 anniversary special Suburban Knights.
- Barney Walker: Doug and Rob's father who helps out behind the scenes and often appears as himself. Pre-reboot episodes portrayed him as abusive towards the Critic.
- Chaplin & Buster: Doug Walker's two pet cats who appear as talking versions of themselves in various skits. They are known for repeatedly announcing their own names for no reason, as in "I'm Chaplin/Buster!". They are mentored by The Cinema Snob's own talking pet cat, Lloyd.
All of the cast members play fictionalized versions of their real counterparts as well as other characters during sketches. The series has also featured guest stars Dante Basco, Don Bluth, Kyle Hebert, JonTron, Maurice LaMarche, Rob Paulsen, Gilbert Gottfried, James Rolfe, Tom Ruegger, Michael Salvatori, Greg Sestero, Sherri Stoner, Chris Stuckmann, Cree Summer, Rob Scallon, Corey Taylor and Mara Wilson as themselves, where they co-review, act in sketch segments, or make a cameo appearance.[7]
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History
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The series was initially launched on YouTube on July 3, 2007, with a review of Transformers, but episodes were frequently removed by the website following complaints of copyright infringement. In April 2008, the videos were taken down from YouTube but an arrangement between the company and Blip.tv, the content host of both the series and parent company Channel Awesome, in 2009 resulted in them being featured on YouTube once more, although Blip was still the main platform of their videos besides the Channel Awesome site until Blip's shutdown in 2015.[8][9]
A spin-off, called The Nostalgia Chick, was announced in the video The Search for the Nostalgia Chick (August 10, 2008). The concept was for a female host to review female-targeted "nostalgic" films and television,[10] and though it was presented as a contest, it was predetermined that all three candidates would end up on the site:[11] Lindsay Ellis (who reviewed Disney's Pocahontas), Krissy Diggs (who reviewed Sailor Moon), and Kaylyn Saucedo (who reviewed The Last Unicorn). Ellis, then using the name "The Dudette," took the Nostalgia Chick title, as announced in a video on the site, Nostalgia Chick Winner! (September 15, 2008).[10] Diggs and Saucedo then joined That Guy with the Glasses as That Chick with the Goggles and Marzgurl, respectively.
On September 14, 2012, Walker announced the retirement of Nostalgia Critic (although the Critic was planned to make appearances on special occasions). He and his brother, series co-creator and co-writer Rob Walker, felt that they had gone as far as they could with the series. Another reason was the controversy over the Stop Online Piracy Act, also known as the SOPA Bill, which posed a major threat to Channel Awesome. The Bill ended up dead in the water, but Channel Awesome feared another piece of legislation being drafted or even passed. The Critic was killed off at the end of the site's 2012 anniversary movie, To Boldly Flee, which was meant to serve as the grand finale of the Nostalgia Critic show. The Walker brothers then focused their efforts on another web series, Demo Reel, which revolved around a struggling film production company run by an over-ambitious, egotistical, and incompetent filmmaker named Donnie DuPre (played by Doug Walker) and consisting of up-and-coming author and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Tacoma Narrows (played by Malcom Ray), failed actress Rebecca Stone (played by Rachel Teitz), East German cameraman and photographer Karl Copenhagen (played by Rob Walker), and Irish make-up artist "Quinn" (played by frequent collaborator Jim Jarosz). In the show, the studio aims to recreate famous movies, both old and new, badly on purpose to gain Hollywood's attention so they can make their own major motion picture. However, the series was unsuccessful; what was planned as a several seasons-long sitcom turned into a one-season series with 6 episodes, with one episode not airing.
On January 22, 2013, Walker released a sketch short film titled The Review Must Go On, announcing the return of Nostalgia Critic and the end of Demo Reel. Ray, Teitz, and Jarosz would join the Walker brothers in the revival, although Teitz was later replaced by Tamara Chambers (who originally auditioned for Demo Reel) in season 8. Teitz would still make occasional appearances in later episodes.[12] Chambers would later leave the show herself in 2024, to pursue other acting projects.
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Episodes
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As of July 25, 2025, Nostalgia Critic has a total of 761 episodes, currently in its eighteenth season.
Episode format
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The series focuses on the Nostalgia Critic, a short-tempered film reviewer looking back at films usually from his childhood and adolescence. GigaOM describes it as "high energy and shamelessly nerdy".[14] Reuters described him as having "offbeat personalities".[15] In each episode, the Critic restates important plot-points, guiding the viewer, while making jokes out of notable or questionable scenes. The reviews are interspersed with recurring memes, false or satirical dubbing of dialogue, comedic sketches and pop culture gags—such as making fun of famous actors who starred in lesser-known roles before their rise to fame. The show also features special episodes, such as the "Top 11" list countdowns for his favorite or least favorite films, villains, or moments in television shows; and "Old vs. New" which compares the reboot of a popular film or series to the original.
Since the revival of the series in 2013, Walker occasionally produces an editorial which discusses relevant film topics; while still featuring the Critic persona, these videos are much less comedic and contain no sketches or other actors. Beginning with Jurassic World on June 23, 2015, the series also occasionally features "clipless reviews" of films that are still currently in theaters to avoid copyright infringement instead of stills and clips. These reviews instead feature scenes from the movies comedically re-enacted by Walker, his friends and family, other Channel Awesome contributors, and other people associated with Walker.
Walker describes his philosophy thus: "[We need a critic of nostalgia] because everybody already does it. When we look at movies and shows from our youth, they're rarely as good as we remember them, and oftentimes it's quite humorous to compare what you liked then to what you like now. That's basically what the Nostalgia Critic is about, looking back at just how much nostalgia cloaked our vision in heavenly bliss and how bizarre the reality is."[16]
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