BW Media Spotlight

Where you there when two of the internet’s biggest talents went to war?

When James Rolfe’s Angry Nintendo Nerd became the Angry Video Game Nerd, it was the dawn of the “angry reviewer”, a character making fun of bad media for entertainment. What was just a one-time video grew into a character, then a YouTube sensation, and then a new genre of review. The problem was the originality addicts insisted anyone trying to do what he did with any other media format was a copycat and should stop. (Imagine if these nitwits had been around for the Golden Age of comics. Plus, where were they during Pokémon and Digimon? Or all the Yu-Gi-Oh ripoffs in anime and game store shelves?)

One of those inspired was another aspiring filmmaker, Doug Walker. The Nostalgia Critic has since garnered his own fame, while the company that owns the character, Channel Awesome, has had its share of controversy. (I place that at the feet of Mike Michaud, but that story is long since over with.) His character was more into nostalgic movies and television. While Doug tried to end the character and do more film parodies, the fanbase wanted the Critic back, so he took what he was enjoying with the skits of Demo Reel and put it into his show.

However, certain vocal factions in the Nerd’s fandom pushed back at anyone replicating their favorite reviewer and took to attacking the Critic. Thus started a lifelong feud between the Angry Video Game Nerd and Nostalgia Critic that was beyond epic, continues to this day, and totally wasn’t about Rolfe and Walker taking the opportunity to do a fun bit, become friends, and show there was room for many types of negative comedy reviews on the internet. Nope, totally hate each other’s guts. As a bit of needed filler tonight we watch as the two look back on their blood feud, how it came about, and what became of them after the fact. This isn’t Saturday Night Showcase stuff because I’m trying to save that for actual shows and movies. So enjoy a documentary by Rolfe for Cinemassacre as the two (both in and out of character) explain the full history of the Nerd/Critic war!

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