How Good is Protecto 5000?

 What is the best short made for Oh Yeah! Cartoons? The answer will always vary depending on who you ask. Some may gravitate toward shorts that would grow into their own television shows, like Fairly Odd Parents (why would you?) and ChalkZone, a lot may also lean toward Mina and the Count, or what would become My Life as a Teenage Robot. If you put it to a list, you're bound to find this short as one of the choices.

Me personally, my top picks would consist of the Mina and the Count shorts, Skippy Spankerton, Elise Mere Mortal and Herb, and this may land somewhere there for a complete top five. But I'm getting ahead of myself, is this as good as people make it out to be? Or is there another emotional spider web that needs to be tended to?

Protecto 5000 was released in 1998, during the fourth episode of Oh Yeah! Cartoons' first season. It was created and helmed by John Eng, who previously had involvement with Klasky-Csupo as a director on a few episodes of Duckman, and would also co-direct Rugrats Go Wild. He apparently also served as a production designer and visual effects artist on two B-movies from the 80s. But hey, that's freakin' awesome.

Visually

Protecto 5000 utilizes a fairly simple art direction, and to be fair traditional animation was the only process that could pull it off. It's not as action-oriented, thankfully, it has just enough for it. I'm thankful it didn't go for the ever-cliched anime aesthetic, it's as cliched as the action genre.

Story

Regarding a story that centers on the typical lonely child finds a friend in the least likely thing is admittedly not that original. Mina and the Count comes to mind as a comparison, as both feature young girls hanging out with inhuman creatures. Mina wasn't necessarily struggling to make friends, and we don't explore the emotional depths of the Count.

Protecto 5000 relies on the lonely girl aesthetic, though to be fair the relationship between them had actually developed, rather than the inhuman creature immediately latching onto the girl. This is admittedly a more commendable route to take, especially if this is a one-off. I would've written off a story as being generic, but I'm willing to give it a shot, can this get me to care about two characters within a few minutes?

One thing that works in this short's favor is that it successfully displays a feeling of helplessness. The girl gets bullied, no recourse, no attention from the teachers and trapped in a locker. It would be too easy to have Protecto, or Kenny, immediately come to her rescue because then there would be too easy of a resolve and undo any tension this would've had.

Adding to the favor is Kenny not immediately taking a liking to the girl, Nadia I think? And this isn't out of angst for losing his former protected, because that would be pointlessly dark, and sorta like dropping a bombshell in the third episode of your supposedly well-written series. Continuing, when they strike up a friendship, it isn't for saving the day, or Nadia doing it, or him saving her, again. It comes through genuine gestures, being there for someone even if they reject you.

It may not hit you in the feels, but there is a genuine attempt at portraying friendship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNDgXo5RNlQ

So, how good is Protecto 5000?

As a stark bulk of Oh Yeah! Cartoons' shorts were more comedic, this manages to stand out for the most part, well, stand out alongside shorts like Fathead. I had returned to this short more than I thought I would, it is as underrated as underrated gets, and for once I can use the term where it fits.

However, I doubt this would've worked as a longterm series. What direction could this have gone to help it last at least two seasons? What more development could the characters have? If anything, it feels like this was always intended to be a one and done deal, a self-contained story about a lonely girl who finds friendship where none would ever think to look, and restore purpose to an immortal being who spent years without whom he was built to protect.

You don't need thirteen other episodes, lest this would trail off into a sci-fi thriller where we learn of the darker plans Kenny's master had in store before he was nuked, or if Nadia's parents had something to do with the nuke leading to a falling out, or how about we go Terminator 2 up in this bitch?

Point is, sometimes all you need is one short. Other Oh Yeah! Cartoons shorts were open enough to be revisited, but shorts like this, Skippy Spankerton and the like are inherently close-ended, one goal was outlined, and it was accomplished.

LTA: Overlooked Notable Sonic Fans

Please note: This is going by events that occurred long ago. They do not define who many of these people are these days. Do not try to find and harass them. If by chance anyone I cover sees this list, you have an opportunity to confirm or dispute what was stated, I am well aware you had changed your ways or don't want to be reminded of an old chapter in your lives, this is strictly for educational purposes.

 When I wrote my previous entry, well, previous entry and a impromptu follow up, it got me thinking about infamous Sonic fans who either came into the limelight one way or another, or were too obscure to mention. When I make these entries, I don't intend for them to be scrutinized. They could be victims of circumstance, this could mark a contrast between who they were then and who they became now, it is interesting to get a fingerprint to what someone was like back then.

For instance, on my coverage of Encyclopedia Dramatica's Video Game Reviewers article I was amazed to find a blurb on a pre-Did You Know Gaming? Liam Robertson.

So this is gonna be a collection on infamous Sonic fans that were covered one way or another, as well as a reflection on drama I recalled witnessing and identifying more obscure topics. I won't cover every single one because then we'd be here all day. I'm gonna go by better known individuals first, followed by the obscure ones, and end with a bang.

AkaiDalia

In the mid-2010s, you couldn't go five pages without seeing something related to AkaiDalia. She was an artist who used a self-insert in her art, shipping it with Sonic and Shadow.... and that was it, beyond any hot takes that can be considered mildly egregious and reactions to negative comments. She drew pornographic art? Okay grandma, eat your oatmeal.

Yeah, I'm not going into as much detail because by the end of it, anything people had against Akai was build solely on discrediting her. I'm willing to accept she had some serious faults, but they couldn't be bad enough to inspire such negativity, and it says a lot when one certain individual perpetuated such hatred.

Akai trades as CobaltPie, and Cobalt, if you're reading this, there is nothing you have to do, you do not need to explain yourself.

YoshiWii1

Let's just get this out of the way, YoshiWii1 was just a very eccentric individual, and a lot of what was said against him was, in hindsight, incredibly embellished. Regretfully, I had participated in hazing the guy. YoshiWii1 was infamous for the extent he went in expressing his love of the SonAmy (Sonic and Amy Rose) ship, and general interest in Amy Rose.

This was around the time PaulandAmy got busted, so it's fair to see why people got interested, but hear me out. Yoshi considered Amy to be in her 20s, assuming she aged along with the games she appeared in. While this is a stretch, in his mind he believed Amy was of age, which is why he conducted himself the way he did.

Anything else like the reaction against gift art did not fully define why people went after the guy, I wanted to hone in on the one thing people went after the most.

Ever since then he had left the internet and disassociated himself from Sonic cold turkey, and honestly I can't blame him. Anything I had said in the past can be used as a personal lesson, and to mark me moving past who I was in the past, beyond any brief episodes.

PrincessElizabeth013

I'm gonna describe her the way she was meant to be described. It wasn't about criticism, and it reflects how disgusting this era was. Elizabeth was a young girl who was known for her attitude, otherwise owed to a lifestyle that didn't provide a healthy outlet for her to come to grips and develop proper coping mechanisms.

Needless to say, people online didn't help matters. Still shook from the advent of Sonic recolors, people harassed Elizabeth, and because of the aforementioned lack of awareness and coping mechanisms, she had reacted angrily. When you look deeper into this, it was really about people bullying a girl who would always react, and they base their harassment on something incredibly minor. For a modern example, look up OnlyJayus.

There was an old commentary made by Rion Rhino Mills on a reaction to a commentary made reacting to a voice chat Elizabeth participated in, where two girls basically harassed her, and it was disgusting. I didn't take part in the call, but I also made reaction journals relating to her, I'd find and remove those, but given how broken dA's journal system is I'd fry my laptop's memory just to find them all through constant deep scrolls.

Needless to say, if you were a part of the dA ranting community, if you had any sense you would've stepped back from it entirely after what happened here. I just wish I had learned from that soon.

Sonic93

They say don't meet your heroes. I'd say don't get to know your heroes, and Sonic93 is a good example of that. Sonic93's legacy had otherwise been reduced to nothing, she was best known for her AkaiDalia and YoshiWii1 rants, but as we saw they amounted to harassment, 85% of the time at least, that's basically toilet fodder now.

Even in her prime, I considered her annoying, insightful for my then teenaged mind, but a bit annoying. So when I discovered she was getting flack for an incredibly poor rant about a Silver fan who dared to acknowledge flaws a character had, along with reacting to a review basically criticizing Silver, I just checked out reactions to it.

She was like an appendix, one of these days she was gonna rupture, and boy did she. When it became clear the odds were no longer in her favor, she deleted her entire account. I was able to save two of her videos on my archive channel, but due to the sudden closure I was unable to save her video on Dumbsville, who for the record you should check out his take on Sonic93 to get a better grasp on who she was and how hard she fell, if she ever had anywhere to fall in hindsight.

SonicRocksMySocks

Fair warning, some of these are gonna be brief because I was not around to soak in what made them infamous. Some were either tarred out of popularity or something with minimal infamy.

And she is looking to not be infamous, just famous.

Kylee Henke, to give her her full name, was a prominent Sonic and anime artist. She was also something of a self-insertionist who put herself in most Sonic scenarios, and worst case didn't handle criticism well. Otherwise she had such a big fanbase she was tarred for association. As an outsider, I can say she is a decent artist, and is otherwise not as toxic as more contemporary big artists, maybe at best very eccentric and lacking in hindsight in some areas.

She seems to be doing pretty well for herself these days. I may be missing a bigger picture, and damn, this was back in the late-2000s/early 2010s, people from the time are probably old or dead now... This is a partial completionist run, so I'd be talking about her regardless.

Maybe she got the ED treatment because she was so popular? Do not go to harass her.

Brian Walmer

Brian Walmer, aka BW rosas, is weird, very weird. At least back then, a lot of his videos have the vibe of a serial killer's mad ramblings, as well as fixations on cartoons with furry protagonists. Guy seems like a huge rabbit hole not worth going into. Most I saw of callouts was one guy who focused on Brian's dislike of Ian Flynn.

Oh yeah, the guy could harbor interest in Gadget from Chip & Dale and Sally Acorn, but criticizing Ian Flynn is worse than murder, otherwise the guy is doing less effort than me in describing the guy, and showing me how territorial Archie Sonic fans are.

The issue is that Brian didn't do much to establish a personality beyond what became associated with him, it's almost surreal. Try checking out some of his vlogs and tell me what vibes you get when you see them. The Sonic connection is somewhat fleeting, but is a relative part of his brand.

Louisthehedgehog

Interesting fact, this guy was my second watcher on deviantArt, and at the time I was unaware of who he truly was.

From a surface level perspective, Louis is a die-hard Sonic SatAM fan who is more trigger-happy than most activists. Take Spax3's activism and Richard Kuta's love of Sonic SatAM and there you go. He is basically poison to any faction of any fandom, embodying the one percent that screams louder than anyone else. Has enough energy to cause a small riot if enough people are willing to listen.

Most I saw of him was during the heyday of Archie Sonic. Now, I hate Archie Sonic for its reliance on cliches and how territorial fans of it are, but he hates it out of passion for the characters. Think of that what you will.

He also had a long lost YouTube channel, where he got into beef with proto-trolls and more notably a victim of trolling who tried to pass himself off as a troll, but made a big ass of himself. Guess I had to be there. I was able to find one of Louis' old videos, and it was in the same way Christorians found the then lost CWC is Angry video, on Veoh.

SunaDaHedgehog

This one is both incredibly obscure, and another key individual associated with BlackBusterCritic in some way. He didn't get covered because a Sonic Brain Fart wasn't made on him, though you could argue that he deserved coverage because he was responded to, well, better late than never.

Info on Suna is harder to come by than you'd think. I know he made two videos, both of which were covered, albeit by different users. To get the more obscure one out of the way, I don't remember the exact content in it, and the one guy who did it had his channel taken down. You're not missing much with that reactor, he was basically a more obnoxious BBC wannabe from Detroit, who revealed his first name on his abandoned Twitter, and seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth in 2016.

Suna's more infamous video centered on defending Charles Hamilton, leading to a five part response, and Suna removing his channel at one point. The response is floating out there, and I'd be doing no justice trying to sum it up near verbatim.

All else I can say is Suna spelled backwards, is anuS.

GyroHedgie453

Recolors. You see one, you've seen them all. I was gonna reserve this spot for one other similar person, but we'll get to him shortly. Gyro's on here because he was quite infamous in his heyday.

Gyro was a speakonia commentator who used a Sonic recolor as his avatar, didn't respond well to criticism, okay what else is there to say? He had this low quality sprite series that may be lost to time, couldn't take criticism, claimed to be a troll but people didn't really buy it. Had a list of the hottest Sonic characters but this was made to soothe his ego. 

Included for the sake of inclusion, moving on.

Bludshot The Hedgehog

Hell yeah, back into obscure characters even I never heard much about. Never heard of him? Don't worry about it. All you need to know is that he had his own series featuring Sonic recolors, and all that seems to be left is a commentary by, of all people, a pre-Did You Know Gaming? Liam Robertson.

"Like can you guys shut up? I'm trying to hear the cringe."

When it comes to describing Sonic recolors, ideally these would be open and shut, beyond certain reactions to criticism. Nevertheless, Bludshot had quickly moved on from this episode of his life and has launched a gameplay channel, while frequently attending cosplay shows. So he has his life together, and shed his dumb teenager(?) phase with relative ease.

Fists the Hedgehog

Before the heyday of Sonic93, though ironically two years after Sonic93 made her YouTube channel, there was this girl. Fists used an OC that is a feminized blue variant of Knuckles (but in some lights a recolored Amy Rose with echidna features) and shipped herself with Shadow. She is basically what people made AkaiDalia out to be, thin-skinned, and also fixative on Shadow the Hedgehog. All you need to know is that multiple people had a go at her, and she would eventually leave.

But as of late, there is now word on what she's been up to, according to the description on her latest YouTube.

"My 6 year old basically took over this account to watch Ryan's World. My account no longer has other purpose. I was semi-famous (for all the wrong reasons) at one point in time before Google bought Youtube, but now I'm almost 30 and a parent of two kids so there's nothing to make content about. Anyone who remembers me, hope you're all well in life, and I'm sorry you had known me as a teenager."

I had never known you that much as a teenager, but I accept your apology anyhow.

EdenHeroineGirl

I don't know how she got noticed, but she clearly pissed someone off and fierce. Most I got from her article were small bouts of hypocrisy, using autism as a defense and was a surface level drama whore, whose connection to Sonic is incredibly fleeting. Who knows? Maybe she came back and learned from her mistakes and right now I'm reminding her of a period she'd soon like to forget.

Why am I even talking about someone too obscure to care about? Well I found something kinda funny. She was a huge fan of SonicRocksMySocks, she loved her so much she decided to plagiarize one of her drawings. Her's is at the top, come to your own conclusion: https://sta.sh/027qnoqhes38

LinkAndRutoFan

Call it guilt by association. LinkAndRutoFan was partially covered by the BlackBusterCritic in a series dedicated to calling out crappy deviantArt users. This was on one relating to AnimeActionGuy, who was infamous for tracing over stills from classic anime and passing it off as his own work, as well as creating new Sonic characters by tracing over stills from the Sonic OVA.

That would be bad enough, tracing, and since he tried to sell them as prints that makes it much worse, but on LinkAndRutoFan, he happened to like what AnimeActionGuy did with his Sonic tracings, this is/was a part of his brand, growing attached to fan characters. It doesn't help that his interests set him in low numbers, I mean I'm not one to judge people for liking Thomas the Tank Engine, but try and do things that set you above that interest.

All I can say is, he hasn't gotten better, but he hasn't gotten worse.

PsyGuy

And now to end with a bang. Okay, some more seasoned readers may know who this is, but he was the only person I haven't covered yet to reach such infamy.

Bryan Beaubien had been on the internet since 1998, that's right, before a lot of you were even born. PsyGuy was behind a number of Sonic web comics, an edgy cliche ridden Sonic fanfic called Chaos Diamonds 3, an early sprite comic called That's My Sonic, and a wider range gag of the hour comic called GG Guys.

Was he influential? Did he inspire a lot of people? Was he a big celebrity? All I know is that he turned out to be a groomer, and pedophile. I'd make a joke about Chris' mom being of age, but that'd be incredibly insensitive and sick. Not to go unnoticed, he was cancelled to hell and back, try to rebrand himself, but as of now it looks like he threw in the towel.

There is more to him I might've missed, but there was all you needed to know, no devil's advocate, no sir.

LTA: More Accurate Leftovers of Sonic Brain Fart

This is a revision of a previous entry, itself already revised but unlikely to be seen twice, so yeah. 

For a little refresher, Sonic Brainfart was a video series hosted by one BlackBusterCritic. It came out back when YouTube was more enjoyable, I mean the site is still enjoyable, but it's hardly the same these days. I was never around for the initial heyday of Sonic Brainfart, yet I still liked the videos. The key to enjoying Sonic Brainfart is knowing the difference between yourself and who he was after. Besides, everyone he covered turned out fine, or just stagnated, some learned, some didn't.

For a long time, few episodes had survived after BlackBusterCritic's original channel got terminated. Episodes such as his coverage of Charles Hamilton being one of his more notable missing videos in the series. However, by some strange miracle, his channel was reinstated, save for videos that were directly flagged it seems. We got back some videos, but it looks like some are still lost. The Wayback Machine isn't as generous, because since BlackBusterCritic made most of these in the 2010s, that would mean we hardly see videos on his front page.

Going by BlackBusterCritic's playlist for Sonic Brainfart, four videos are slated as missing, and as far as I know, those were for his one on Alix Henriol/Sonic Passion, Richard Kuta and the second part to his coverage of Chris Chan, and apparently he also did one on ConicTeamTV. I was able to somewhat confirm this via a Reddit post made by someone who likely followed BlackBusterCritic around the time.

I had already talked about Alix Henriol in my first post relating to infamous Sonic fans, as I had actually saw that video while it was still up, Chris Chan needs no further introduction, and as this is a redo I'm bringing back over information relating to Richard Kuta, but with another Sonic fan considered to have also been covered.

Richard Kuta

Whether or not BlackBusterCritic covered Richard can be confirmed in his video on Chasethehedgehog, via a promotion for it at the end. Kuta also appeared prominently in the Sonic(effs) in the News episode and was mentioned by text in his episode on Charles Hamilton.

Richard Kuta, aka Sonmanic, aka AKnotholeResident, aka DigiBrushStroke, aka something else I don't remember, is something, to say the least. Some may just think he's the guy who whined about Sonic 4, but there is more, catching up for the uninformed, and for the sake of better context.

Richard Kuta began his internet life through forum drama, one such incident involving the distribution of bootleg recordings of Sonic SatAM and subbed Sonic X episodes, and this may be near verbatim from his old Encyclopedia Dramatica article, but as this chapter in his life was poorly preserved, this is what we had.

He spent a good chunk of his internet life trying to produce a Sonic SatAM fan film, but never got the true go-ahead from SEGA themselves, much fun was to be had with how he attempted to scrounge up the resources to produce the movie, but you're not all here for that I'm sure, you're here for when he got pissed off at someone on a Weezer forum- ah just fuckin with ya.

So, green eyes. Richard Kuta posted a reaction to the trailer for Sonic 4, and lost his shit. You're probably expecting me to call this man a sheer manchild and mock him for it, but come on man, this is 2022. I'm gonna do what someone hasn't done before with him... I'm gonna try and understand what led to this.

Now, on something like this, people go for what is the most obvious. Playing devil's advocate, I'd guess Kuta's anger was directed toward how Sonic 4 is meant to be representative of the classic Genesis games, and felt the inclusion of the modern Sonic model compounded it. As if he felt both games should be mutually exclusive due to various different aspects. Kuta's background on Sonic laid heavily on Sonic SatAM and classic Sonic, and with how divisive the modern games are, it's fair to see a disconnect between contemporary titles and what looks to be a continuation of the Genesis titles.

The problem is that he annunciated on the model used, and that's what people gravitated toward. He was already not very liked, so people were more than eager to take the piss out of him, but beyond the green eyes, some were justified. Simply put, he was a raging asshole who put his ambitions before others, and by his own admission, he's neurotypical. That may sound insignificant, but that means he has greater awareness than others would on things. Sufficed to say, this would eliminate any reason to trust him on anything, and you heard of people losing friends, but this guy lost the respect of his family, and was close to becoming homeless, till that got rectified.

But you're all waiting for me to cover the big one. When I saw images of Kuta in baby garb, I was thinking "Oh, they're making a joke about him being a big baby about green eyes.", but no, it's not a joke, it's his thing. Kuta is, and by his own admission, an adult baby, is or was, there's a big yearly gap, and that just further accelerated criticism he received, not helping is how he handled criticism.

Basically a living trainwreck, and indirectly becoming the face of the worst faction of the classic fandom. If I had to say anything nice, looking at his old website he certainly had an eye for graphic design, was good for something at least. And I'd wager his fan film would've been better than what Ken Penders pitched for his take on a SatAM movie, at least Sonic never had green eyes in SatAM.

So, how did ol' Dicky get out of this one? People just stopped giving a shit, and Richard became more willing to be open about addressing his past drama... for the time. Nowadays, the last YouTube channel I saw tied to him was taken down, as a comment he left on his old Sonic 4 video is now gone, or buried, who knows? Most recently I saw a spat he was in regarding the redesigns in the garbage fire that is the Archie Sonic comics, for the record there was more wrong to it than just new designs. I didn't take down the old entry just to preserve comments that provide other theories to his infamous video and later spats.

It hits differently when you realize he is practically pushing into his 40s.

Interestingly, Richard and BlackBusterCritic are Facebook mutuals. I don't know what led to that, lest BlackBusterCritic doesn't hate most of the people he covers personally or this came from an effort by Richard to take accountability, but is still an asshole everywhere else. His longevity is what kept people talking about him, and it may carry on either retroactively, or he's gonna do something else to piss people off. I mean he made it this far.

ConicTeamTV

While there is no remaining indication of there ever being an episode done on this guy, BlackBusterCritic did bring him up in the first part of his video on Chris Chan, and mentioned him on Twitter a while back. Given what he was known for, how could he not be featured on Sonic Brainfart? But I'm getting ahead of myself.

There is a chance the one who posted about it on Reddit misremembered, but it would be a 1 out of 3 margin of error. BlackBusterCritic alluded to Richard multiple times and promoted a video that would discuss him, there is a clear indication that there was a second part to his Chris Chan episode, and as history showed with his coverage of SunaDaHedgehog, BlackBusterCritic would seize any opportunity to bite back at people who talk shit about him.

ConicTeamTV, or Connor, got noticed for one thing and one thing only, and keep in mind it's a big thing. He happened to be a legitimate fan of Sonichu. Keep in mind, it's not an ironic interest, like he checks these out to have a good laugh, he was actually interested in this series, even drew Sonichu fan art, well, fanart of the character Sonichu.

Now granted, Chris Chan was someone worthy of attention due to his means of handling trolling and what he was willing to reveal about himself, but approaching him as a genuine fan in some capacity, even now is unheard of. I had seen plenty of Sonichu thanks to GamerFromMars' documentary on Chris Chan, and it's too weird even for my nonexistent standards.

But keep in mind, he was a fan of Sonichu, was, he's not anymore. But unfortunately for him, in the context of this piece he is historically significant.

Anyway, I first heard of Connor through a commentary done by HonestReviews on a commentary Connor did on one of BlackBusterCritic's videos. It was definitely after BlackBusterCritic first mentioned him as Chris Chan appears in the very video Connor covered. Because of how few people I'm covering here, I think it'll be fine for me to go into his commentary, just to give you an idea on what he was like.

Connor had made it clear he as a legitimate fan of Chris Chan, and also offered some words of defense to Richard Kuta every time he popped up. Let's just say that their common ground had more to it than Sonic...

Diapers. But who knows, Connor probably abandoned those too after a while. It is possible Connor took whatever lies Richard told him at face value, namely Richard's claims that the diaper photos posted of him were from his college days, even though he had an active profile on an adult baby site as late as 2011, when the video came out for the record.

Also racial slurs. He has hurled the n-word at the BlackBusterCritic multiple times in his video, but to be fair I can understand the lack of sensibility when he comes from a backwards rural town like... Boston, Massachusetts? Always knew that state was full of crazies.

So at this rate, he was asking for it. I don't know how the episode went down if there was one, but I know BlackBusterCritic popped in to check on his old pal Connor most of the time, such as during a livestream where BlackBusterCritic took the piss out of a crappy crossover comic he made, involving Sonic and Teen Titans. I'm basically desensitized to Sonic, but Teen Titans? Wait, nevermind, he would like Teen Titans.

You can see it for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n_OxMJRrLg

By the way, the art is awful, whoops, too late.

Oh, and he even made a terrible cover of a Michael Jackson song, word to the wise, listen to it through one earphone.

Okay, at this rate all he has done was be a complete ass and make it clear where he stands with the likes of Chris Chan and Richard Kuta at the time. People would just take the piss out of him.

He made a video addressing his past and sought to move on, and it seems he had. His music got better, and I doubt he ever bothered to draw again. And yes, he has denounced Chris Chan, something BlackBusterCritic pointed out when he brought Connor up in the Chris Chan video. As a bonus, he and Richard are not mutuals on Facebook.

Really though, had Connor not bothered to respond to BlackBusterCritic, it would've just been left at the one mention and he would not have gained the same traction as others. He wasn't even big enough to be covered on the CWCki.

Come to think of it, people who were covered by BlackBusterCritic never really had their lives ruined. Beyond people bringing up stuff from the past, they were able to just move on. Really, the only person I can think of that never got better... will be discussed in another entry.

LTA: Aftermaths of Sonic Brain Fart

 Last time I did a deep dive on an Encyclopedia Dramatica article relating to video game reviewers, and nobody really seemed to care. Today I'm going over a topic that is more or less no longer as relevant as it was in the past. Why the hell am I doing this now? Well I had to go for a root canal... twice, faced friction at work, I have assignments due tomorrow night- fuck me I need to relax.

Background

Sonic Brain Fart alludes to a short video series created by the BlackBusterCritic, or Jamin Williams, dedicated to analyzing Sonic fans of the batshit variety. In some respects he can be considered the grand-pappy of drama culture, calling out people who typically deserve it and inspire division for better or worse. But compared to others, Jamin had class. He's a skilled debater, knows his shit, and doesn't just pick on any ordinary individual.

These days Jamin had gotten into discussions relating to video games and calling out Microsoft's initial practices with the Xbox One, but his past videos will be remembered for inspiring and ushering in a particular subset of internet culture.

Why Sonic?

This should go without saying, especially for a topic relevant to videos that are now over a decade old, but it is important newcomers get caught up to speed. The Sonic the Hedgehog fandom is peculiar, to say the least. It had attracted some of the most unsavory characters over the years, and inspired some pretty hilarious results.

Now yes, there are and have been far worse fandoms then and now, but Sonic's fandom was particularly egregious and screamed the loudest. Insanity varies depending on which sector of the Sonic series you focus on, between the games, the cartoons and the comics, especially so for the former. I like Sonic games the same way I like b-movies, I'm an outsider who would rather watch hours upon hours of hot garbage than the mainstream schlock that people run into a ground, and only turn a blind eye because it's hard to hold them to similar standards held by, let's say, Minions.

My biggest issue with the Sonic fandom is how territorial they can be, and this is especially common with the comic fandom. Say one bad thing about the comics, namely Ian Flynn's contributions, and be ready to have one person try to convince you otherwise. This even goes for most of the games, and I feel people tend to turn the other cheek on certain parts, like the classic fandom (there was more to it than Richard Kuta, and I have a feeling classic fans have a similar mindset to MovieBob when he wrote his book)

"Let down because of Yoshi's Island destroying Bob's headcannon of Mario being born in Brooklyn, thus envisioning himself as Mario would be much harder to do."

Fortunately, the more infamous fans had either changed for the better or no longer have the frequency they did in the past, and I consider The Loud House to have a far worse fandom.

Ground Rules

For my deep dive I'm gonna focus solely on individuals covered in the Sonic Brain Fart series. A full video had to have been made on them in order for it to count, though one exception will apply. SolidMario will not be covered as that was outside of the Sonic drama.

I won't focus so much on the then, rather the aftermath. Also this will not be in chronological order.

KingMasterReview

KingMasterReview was a video game reviewer who happened to be quite interested in Silver the Hedgehog. He is one of the milder topics on this list, and most of what he was called on can be chalked up to being a stupid teenager, it's a known fact that we all become stupid when we become teenagers.

KMR, or Aubrey, claimed that Silver the Hedgehog was real and living with him. While this seems like a sign of someone who's one notch close to snapping, there is a reason for this. Aubrey was a big fan of Spax3 back in the day, and Spax had inserted the Noid into his reviews, treating him like an interactive character. Aubrey decided to follow suit with his own reviews and hold Silver to a similar standard, it seems.

Also this should go without saying, but the fuck frenzy that occurred at the end of Jamin's video on him was a joke.

Aubrey did post a response to Jamin's video, and Jamin's reaction to it is floating out there somewhere, but he never reached a similar level of notoriety compared to others. He continued posting for a while before going quiet, then posting an update video, then some more silence, and now it looks like he's returned, he even did roasts on WingsOfRedemption and DarkSydePhil.

All I can say about Aubrey is that back then he was just a dumb teenager, we all were, and that he was a better Silver fan than Sonic93.

Also in an ironic twist he considered Sonic 06 to be shit, Silver was just a takeaway for him.

Alix Henriol

Going from 10 to 100, let's try and keep this brief. Alix Henriol was the founder of Sonic Passion, a forum dedicated to discussions relating to expressing sexual desires relating to Sonic characters. Also she considered Sonic real and in a relationship with her.

This needs no deep discussion, but why did this happen? It seems this was all done for attention, as she had since distanced herself from Sonic Passion and in 2018, made a full address of the situation on her Instagram. Given that a lot of people never get the hint, that's fair to do. She was essentially an attention whore, and if she was serious she would've kept the site up for much longer.

Interestingly, she and Jamin had left off on good terms, he referred to her somewhat positively on a much later video about a certain visitor to her site, but when we get there.

Chasethehedgehog

On the surface Chase seemed to just be your typical deviantArt user, who just so happened to be a fan of Sonic. Now that is true, but what sets him apart from others like him is his ego, and his art legitimately making me prefer doctored screenshots. It is likely Jamin covered him long before Chase became more infamous, and moved to his then active TwisterFiendish account.

One thing I find kinda interesting is that through a commission, Twister made a piece centered on Sonichu and a more obscure fan abomination named Sonic Thorndyke. The latter is the creation of a more obscure loon named Blazesonic. If you want more info, this article is the only surviving thing detailing the guy: https://encyclopediadramatica.online/Blazesonic

Quick sum up, he is a Kingdom Hearts fan that made a crossover comic, and has a Pikachu recolor in Sora's clothes. somehow he managed to slip under Jamin's radar.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Chase had abandoned his TwisterFiendish account and I guess it's safe to say he moved on and has a new profile.... somewhere. To prevent any unwarranted harassment I won't try to seek them out.

Guptill89/MichaelDragon800

This was a double feature, and will be treated as such in this entry.

Guptill89 has never been liked. Beforehand he was a frequent commentary topic, and that's not going into his schtick. He, or his persona, likes the old days. He didn't like bad words in reviews, he doesn't like logo rebrands (though on logo simplification he would be ahead of the curve). I don't know if this was a cleverly crafted persona meant to poke fun at prudish types, I don't know if it has something to do with him being from Maine (albeit southwestern Maine).

But, for more seasoned viewers, that's not what he's known for. At some point, he decided to do a list about the ten hottest Sonic females. When going by the game's characters, only one of them is 18, yikes. He doesn't explicitly say he wants to fuck them, granted, but why call it the "hottest Sonic females", why not just call it the "Best Sonic females". Not to mention, calling the Sonic series "hot chick heaven" can either be trolling, or a self-signed death warrant.

The list was covered by Jamin in a separate commentary, and made up a quarter of his discussion on Guptill in the dedicated Sonic Brain Fart episode. He had covered how out of touch Guptill is on a lot of his opinions, that's for sure.

Let's just say Guptill did not handle any of this well. He lashed out over the commentary, even walked out on an interview when it was brought up. In this situation, admit to making it, say whatever motivated you, and maybe step away from the internet for a while. It worked for CallMeCarson, and besides, at least he didn't groom any actual minors.

Yeah, that's the thing about looking back on old punching bags, people have come that made them pale in comparison. You're gonna tell me Guptill is worse than Cosmodore? Or EDP445? Or MiniLadd? Or ToonKriticY2K?

To show you how desensitized people became over the incorporation of fictional minors, Dumbsville reacted to Guptill's list and just took the piss out of it, he didn't really see him as a threat. In a way this kinda benefited Guptill, as now any comments relating to the list would be carried on in a more lighthearted manner.

But on Guptill, though I certainly found his list to be in poor taste, I gotta say, his content beyond that list (like everything but that list), is unique, for better or worse. I've never seen regular YouTubers use the tech, aesthetics, the like he did, he made me curious. It seems thankfully what happened on YouTube didn't cross over to his personal life, if his Facebook is anything to go by. Also to be clear, his YouTube and Facebook profile are the only legitimate Guptill profiles.

MichaelDragon800 is interesting, to say the least. At first I thought he was just a passionate fan caught under foot, but let me tell you, he's weird, and an asshole, and one I have no sympathy for. He landed a spot on Sonic Brain Fart because of a comment he made on Guptill's list, in relation to the content no doubt.

Michael strikes me as a man with absolutely no self-awareness, and a bad attitude. He tried to do Brentalfloss' schtick, he can't sing. He does things you'd expect to see from a child with an imaginary friend, and, even now, has a thing for tap dancing, which for the record was an aspect to his coverage. An additional con is that the only thing that changed about his art is that he graduated from paper and magic markers to a computer program.

Either he had too much pride or no awareness, let's be real, nobody liked him back then, and he is the most apprehensive compared to others. For perspective, I had tried to be nice to him, and the one time he responded he just brushed me off. Then in 2015 I caught him lashing out in regard to My Little Pony, we got into an argument and he blocked me due to previous drama I was involved in.

I had better interactions with Spax3 and Richard Kuta, though the former didn't go anywhere, and at least Spax only got into trouble beyond what he was infamous for in later years, but not now.

Whatever the case, Michael can go fuck himself as far as I'm concerned.

Charles Hamilton

The rapper? Yes, the rapper. Charles Hamilton is a somewhat known rap artist, who seemed a little too eager to express himself. He followed a self-instilled belief system, which happened to be based around Sonic. For instance, he associated loops in the Sonic games with the circle of life. I cannot do justice in describing it. Look, express yourself, but keep things you can't explain properly to yourself, I cannot offer any kind of defense. Also, Rihanna the Hedgehog, something he made, which may be lost to time. He played this seriously.

This episode in Charles Hamilton's history somehow managed to remain off of his Wikipedia article, aside from one other element, his fixation on the color pink, albeit on a short footnote. Apparently he had beef with Soulja Boy at one point, owed to Hamilton being a Sonic fan and Soulja Boy being a Nintendo fan (and Soulja Boy had quite a presence online before he got big.)

Other than that it seemed this wasn't enough to kill Hamilton's career. He put out an album in 2018 and it got decent reviews, that's something I guess. These days people only give a shit if it's politically motivated.

Also interesting fact, Jamin's video on Charles Hamilton had been lost for the longest time, and only turned up recently when Jamin's original channel was somehow reactivated. At most all that survived was an archive of a response video made by SunaTheHedgehog, which Jamin responded to.

Chris Chan

Okay, do I really have to explain who Chris Chan is? At this point everyone and their grandmother knows who Chris Chan is. Jamin wasn't even the first to discuss Chris, but at the time, how could people not discuss Chris Chan? A lot of us know the ups, downs and the potential conclusion to the Chris Chan saga, about all I can say new is that her raping her mom was, in a twisted way, a sign of clarity and Chris realizing her parents led her to the rut she is in, and knowing her reputation, decided to go out with a bang.

This wasn't to shed her virgin with rage status, a hooker did that.

PaulandAmy

And here's that exception I alluded to. Nearly everyone knows what happened to Paul, but what he has done is so egregious it's worth mentioning.

Paul Rhodes is to Alix Henriol what KingMasterReview was to Spax3, inspired but taking that inspiration too far. While Aubrey was able to shirk his past, Paul wasn't so lucky. He had been on the internet as far back as 2004 with his own personal website, and an old deviantArt account that had only recently been discovered. He also had a Photobucket, second deviantArt and a YouTube channel which has since been purged.

Most you saw of the YouTube was a rant video and a display of his can collecting. He was a member of Sonic Passion, though it's unknown for sure how long he harbored his boner for Amy Rose. Eventually, he decided, fuck it, and decided to rape four girls. Probably butchered that, but it happened.

Now, Rhodes' arrest led to a big stigma, that unchecked obsessions with fictional characters would lead people to act on them in real life. To a degree, that is still true, though with Rhodes, the girls he raped were anywhere between 3 and 8. If this were to do with Amy, he would've gone for someone the age of 12, even had details of him forcing the girls to cosplay as Amy. Yeah, picture that.

This happened back in 2012, with the earliest release being slated within four years per approval by the parole board. It's been nearly a decade, so who knows if he's back out there?

Conclusion

The peak of Sonic the Hedgehog crazies, in hindsight, marked simpler times, where we can lay back and poke fun at people who deserved it, they were the bottom. But since then, other fandoms had reached similar heights. Danny Phantom's fandom housed a murderer, Steven Universe's fandom has a 95% toxicity rate, PowerPuff Girls is basically a sealed drum in itself, with what the fandom does and is about.

While Sonic has and will maintain its dubious legacy with its fans, it's no longer necessarily the worst fandom in general.

Ranking the Sonic Voice Cast

 What? I'm doing this now? Well after people stopped giving a shit? Well this was a key element to my early days on the internet, and since I made a Sonic game tier list not too long ago (may even be prone to updating), looking back on this, I gotta say, my introduction to it, StephenKnux, was the worst entry point for me, bar none. I get it's his opinion but he either didn't go about it the right way, or just used the worst possible examples to back it up.

You can consider this my definitive list of choices for Sonic voice actors, an ideal cast would be a mix between all three. Before I go into this, I'd like to set some rules. I'm going by the Sonic Heroes principle, as in I am only focusing on characters I consider truly integral to the Sonic series, meaning the likes of the Babylon Rogues will not be included. I will also focus mainly on the video game cast, with one exception. With that said, let's get into this.

This will be direct focuses on each actor, along with summaries on their best and worst aspects, I hope to provide context where it is necessary.

Sonic

Ryan Drummond, for a time he was in quite a gray area for me. I feel he had been otherwise ruined by people with no foresight, and ironically Spax3 wasn't part of that for me, I only learned about him after the fact. Looking into his earlier performances, it's a little rough, like the "cool" factor took heavier presence than anything else.

For the record, I will base my conclusions on how these actors performed in Sonic Heroes since that would be when they became comfortable with their characters.

When he got to Sonic Heroes, he managed to get it together, well mostly. I don't know if it was the writing or whatever, but it made me question how Drummond would handle scenes that would call for more emotional reactions. He nailed the energy, but that was about it. It's still a good voice, but I question how much staying power it would have, especially since most Sonic games afterward called for more intensive scenes.

Nevertheless, Ryan's a cool guy, unlike the creator of Infinity Train who sarcastically liked my comment, Ryan actually spoke to me during a Twitter spat I had with a Sonic tuber and held no ill-will. I respect the guy and I do consider him a good actor. Maybe he would've demonstrated some good chops had he been given the opportunity to do so.

Jason Griffith's performance is like an anime arc in itself. It started off weak, but grew stronger as he continued on, especially since Sonic games at this point became more story intensive, for better or worse. It felt like he had a character beyond his way past cool adage, and it only got better as time went on. It is important you judge these actors on the last game they performed in, because by then they got the roles down cold. Griffith was good enough to melt Spax3's heart and was cool enough to accept his apology, and also he did well as Shadow apparently.

Roger Craig Smith, sucks balls. Okay that's a stretch. Unlike Drummond and Griffith, whose filmographies are limited to certain niches; Drummond for video game roles and Griffith for English dubs, Smith had involvement in contemporary voice acting roles. But that just means he should be held to a higher level of scrutiny, as he had the experience for it. Simply put, his role does nothing for me, he's just unremarkable as an actor, I'm not gonna try and get him removed, I just don't like him.

He was involved in drama relating to Sonic the Hedgehog R, I think he talked shit about someone getting called out or added to an existing conflict. Drummond and Griffith never did anything like that

He is unremarkable, so, there. It's a tie between Drummond and Griffith.

Tails

Gonna make something painfully clear, as well as give out a fairly hot take. Stop hiring child actors. Tails has been through three of them in the Adventure era alone. It shows how much of a money sink it could be. None of them offer any painfully remarkable performances, and William Corkery has to be the worst by far. If this was all down to a single take then I could understand, but it goes to show how useless it is to hire kid actors, unless you're a pedophile who gets off to the sound of little boys.

One thing I like about Amy Palant or this era of voice actors is that SEGA, or whoever, decided to put their foot down and just hire a woman to do the roles. Sonic fans tended to be quite literal when hearing Tails played by a woman, "He's played by a girl, that means he must be one apparently." It never made any sense, and I'm hoping that's over with, though I guess at that point Tara Strong was an exception because they believed she was single.

Regretful ranting aside, I think Palant nailed the dorky genius aspect of Tails, and of course it would improve overtime as it became more natural for her to do the role. She would fit right in if she was part of the Adventure era.

Kate Higgins does a good job too, continuing where Palant left off, and SEGA keeping their foot down. I don't really have much to say, I would render this section a spiteful one because of how useless child actors are in the realm of consistent voice acting roles, but I consider Palant and Higgins to have done the character justice-

Wait, there's another?

Apparently at one point Tails received another different voice actor. This might've just been for Sonic Boom, but since that technically had a game, I might as well talk about it. Colleen O' Shaugnessey does an okay job, I guess. I'm not cutting her short because I don't like the era she's part of, I just don't have that much to say.

Knuckles

Before I go into this, I'm not gonna address Ryan Drummond's performance as Knuckles, as Sonic Shuffle is outside of the main Sonic cannon.

Michael McGaharn was only involved in one Sonic game, and at some point he left. This was the first time, in the games mind you, that these characters would be given voice actors, so I can imagine having no complete grasp on the character. McGaharn, I was gonna write him off as a bored-sounding, well, bore, but after playing Sonic Adventure, I found some more merit to his character. Hell, McGaharn actually has some impressive range. If you want an example, did you know he played Ken in Detective Barbie: Mystery of the Carnival Caper? I was gobsmacked when I saw he was credited to it, I never would've guessed.

I don't know what led him to call it quits, but I really wish he had more roles.

Scott Drier is... okay. I got to hear him at his best, and his worst, at the exact same time. Maybe he didn't handle the role well, or maybe Knuckles characterization just didn't work out for him. His chill demeanor is honestly pretty irritating, and compared to others I feel like he phoned it in more than others. He also has this odd tendency to speak gibberish.

"Aura Aura Oruah! Dang."

"Shih! Ra! Sha!"

If Knuckles kept the chill demeanor, he'd be close to being interchangeable with the likes of Espio and Shadow, for the most part. A lack of longterm application and maybe just a poor characterization has kept Drier in low numbers for me.

On Dan Green, people were not too happy with the more angry take he gave to Knuckles, at least in the anime. In the games, his new personality, for better or worse, is at least distinctive. You can't expect someone who has spent most of his life guarding the master emerald, to posses key social skills and coping mechanisms. I dunno, I just feel like Green's take made more sense.

Travis Willingham is basically interchangeable with Green, and probably reflected SEGA echoing my feelings on what direction the character should take. I got no comment on him, and I blame his performance in Rise of Lyric on bad writing, he did what was asked of him, blame the askers not the asked.

I'm giving it to Green, but McGaharn comes at a close second because I feel he could use some love as well.

Shadow

Looking back on Sonic Heroes, this was the game that sold me on David Humphrey. He finds the perfect balance between the stoic serious nature of the character, and other emotions, something that indirectly reflects development on his part.

Griffith's introduction to the character can be considered tragic at worst, as his first time voicing the character in any game was Shadow the Hedgehog, which basically hurt the character some, well depending on what path you take. He does fine enough with the role though, even getting a prime Spax's sign of approval.

Kirk Thornton... otherwise insignificant. It didn't stick with me in a good or bad way.

Let's wrap this up, this round goes to David Humphrey.

Rouge

Looking back to StephenKnux's coverage of her actors, it held up poorly, all things considered, it may even be on par with LambHoot's review of Revenge of the Flying Dutchman in terms of its rampant pettiness and ignorance of context. But in a moment.

One thing that pissed me off about his video is that he used a clip of Rouge from Sonic Adventure 2. Why use a clip from when she was starting out, and relegate a more refined take to a brief clip? Because Lani Minella's performance as Rouge in Sonic Heroes was awesome, up there with Humphrey in striking a balance between spunk and seriousness, though leaning on the former otherwise. To be fair she probably had more experience than the other actors.

Caren Manuel... this is where that LambHoot comparison comes into play. I need to provide some context. One thing I noticed in dubs performed by actors associated with 4Kids and the like, they tend to be quite literal with their roles. They have to sound things out whenever a character has their gob open for pete's sake. They also had to make sure a character's voice fit a character's appearance.

Now, I feel, at least back then, Caren Manuel got a bad rep. She does have range, if her role in Winx Club is anything to go by, but because she was a go-to for more seductive characters, and with how Rouge is portrayed physically, the word of the day is typecasting. Any fault Manuel's performance has lies not on the performance, because she was doing what was asked of her. The problem is the direction and the literal nature of characterization according to the dub team.

We have tales that speak of unfortunate direction and a publisher that threw a small developer under the bus, but no, the world ends because of a poor take and a fucking foghorn not going off. Priorities.

Karen Strassman reflects a return to normalcy for the character, and it's also a good performance to boot. I just wanna move on, so I'd give it to Strassman on this one.

E-123 Omega

Omega has been consistent in terms of voice roles, well for the most part. Jon St. John does a good job bringing this character to life, so moving on.

What's interesting is that even after the 4Kids cast took over for future games, Omega was given an actor outside of the union 4Kids used. In Shadow the Hedgehog he was played by Jeff Kramer, and he continues with St. John's take. Did you know Kramer played Superman in that crappy Superman game Rerez covered?

Vic Mignogna unfortunately never got to participate much in the games, and after something happened with him that I don't want to bring up, it's unlikely we'll ever hear from him again. At most I got one clip out of him.

Then there was Maddie Blaustein, she played Omega in Sonic 06. I mean no offense, but why cast her? Seems like a loose bet, all things considered. Her role plays deeper into the literal nature of 4Kids dubbing, she nails the robotic nature a bit too well and ironically peels away any character Omega should have, I mean in terms of expression. I was able to get some expression out of the other actors. If I had to guess, I assume the voice recording process was rushed as well and they were forced to use the best takes they had, and that may go for casting as well.

Also to be clear Blaustein passed away time ago. Rest in peace.

So, who's gonna be my pick? Well I don't want to side with Mignogna, not because of what happened but because I have very little to go by on his performance. Blaustein's performance, may she rest in peace, but I didn't like her performance, she did great everywhere else. Jon St. John can go fuck himself as far as I'm concerned; politics, otherwise he told people who didn't align to his political views to unfriend him on Facebook. Danny Antonucci had bigger balls than him.

Jeff Kramer wins, technically.

Amy Rose

Referring to StephenKnux again... why use a clip from Jennifer Doulliard's very first performance as the character? If you want the proper Adventure Amy experience, once more go to Sonic Heroes. At that point, Amy was... kinda annoying. She sounded like a hyper teenager at times and as the game went on it got on my nerves. It wasn't so bad in the previous games because by then her role wasn't as ironed out, but I have a feeling things might not've improved much had she been kept on. It never got better for me, sorry to say.

Lisa Ortiz has been considered Amy's best voice, and that title has yet to be disputed. She manages to get Amy's character down to a science, the spunk, childish and kindly nature of the character was not lost on her.

Cindy Robinson started off rough, but had never become anything more than passable. Her performance doesn't feel natural, or maybe the writing makes it seem that way.

Okay, so you know the winner, Ortiz. Yeah this didn't require much thought.

Cream

This is gonna be quick. Cream had the most consistent voice changes, all things considered. Sarah Wulfeck was alright, but this was her first time playing the character, and boy does it show. I feel like she struggles to pull off the little girl voice at times, certainly not that natural, but time could've helped matters.

Rebecca Honig managed to provide a more natural sound for Cream, but I can understand if it becomes grating for some the more you hear it.

Michelle Ruff (I think) is probably the most natural of the two.

So it's otherwise a three way tie, but Ruff is on the more favorable end.

Big

Aka a living meme driven into the dirt by a lack of effort to improve the quality and running with the joke until it indirectly disproves the flat earth theory. This is gonna be another quick one, especially since I didn't hear much of Kyle Herbert's performance.

Jon St. John, all things considered, sounded a little flat, even monotone at worst. Even with quick quips during gameplay, they just didn't sound good at all. I'd be saying this no matter who played Big in Sonic Heroes, and I liked St. John's Omega, in spite of what you saw.

So Oliver Wyman, referring back to that literal nature, plays the stupidity of Big straight, but offers some more life in his performance. It's nothing special, but to me it sounds like more effort went into the role, and Wyman does have some decent range, all things considered.

Wyman wins.

Espio

Espio's voice history is interesting, in that his actors not only offer differing voices, but portrayals that otherwise fit the character.

Bill Corkery provides a voice akin to a typical ninja, though more gruff. I gotta say, it grew on me the more I heard it, and helped to provide some distinction between other similar characters. I have a feeling they brought Bill on because of his kids; his son and daughter were in Sonic Heroes. I wonder how that played out?

"Hey Bill, do you have any kids?"

"Uh, yeah?"

"Tell me about them, I swear I don't want to indulge."

"Well, my son's been getting into acting."

"Mhm, he your only child?"

"I got a daughter too, what're you trying to ask?"

"We're hosting a bring your children to work day tomorrow."

"But that's when we're recording the dialog."

"I know."

(after William and Emily arrive)

"Hey kids! Wanna experience what your daddy does? Get into that booth, scripts will be provided."

To be fair that sounds like a big coincidence, but fuck it, Corkery does a good job with what was offered to him.

David Willis' take is closer to that of Shadow, but at least fits the ninja motif for the most part, and is fairly natural. I kinda wish we got a little more out of Willis here, all we had thus far was Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic X, would've loved to see how far he would take Espio.

Troy Baker took the ninja role a bit too seriously. While he got it down... how do I put this? Corkery and Willis did it in a way that helps to provide potential for personalities, characterizations and actions well beyond the ninja motif. For his role in Sonic Generations, there was very little to get from his performance. Would he have been able to break from that? Who knows.

So I'm calling it a tie between Corkery and Willis, because both inspired faith that they could own the roles beyond the ninja aesthetic. Amazingly Willis and Baker are neck and neck, and Willis is ahead.

I haven't heard Matthew Mercer's performance much, but based on one clip, it's fine. Also holy shit Espio was in Sonic Forces?

Charmy

While the boy actors for Tails had nothing to offer, Emily Corkery actually did a damn good job as Charmy. She nailed the hyperactive nature of the character, and made the role believable. Would she have made a good Cream? Who knows.

Amy Birnbaum, she does alright, but I'm picking up a bit of her role as Max from Pokemon, which suggests some minimal range on her part. She is a good actress, heck, like McGaharn she appeared in a PC game from my childhood, I Spy Spooky Mansion (which for the record was developed in New York hence how Birnbaum got involved). It's an okay role, but derivative at worst.

Colleen O'Shaugnessey is another return to form for the character, take what I said about Corkery's performance and apply it here.

All three offer some good roles, but Birnbaum easily ranks below each of them. I'll go with Shaugnessey. O'Shaugnessey? O' who cares.

Vector

Mark Biagi provided a good portrayal of what Vector was meant to be at the time, a gruff goofball, and that's about it.

Let's get this next one out of the way, James Carter Cathcart, aka the former without James, aka Jimmy Zoppi, aka Jack Black's evil twin was clearly trying too hard to capture the spirit of the previous portrayal, and added in a silly voice for some reason. It just didn't work, he has absolutely nothing to show for it. And I'm not just saying that because he gave the finger to a group of actors who didn't deserve it, joined a shittier dub team and I hate him.

Keith Silverstein is like a marriage between both voices, and I dunno, it works well enough. If either is out of the picture you can go with him. He's my pick for this one.

Silver

It's an open and shut case. Both Pete Capella and Quinton Flynn provide decent performances for the character, but the former had a very rough introduction. He was clearly trying his hardest, but never had time to fully iron out his chops. On the other hand, I heard so little of Flynn that I can't make a solid judgement.

So I'll call it a tie, though I feel Capella deserved at least one more chance, we can leave off with what is surefire his best, until I realize I could check out his tenure on Sonic the Hedgehog R, lest it's done ironically.

Blaze

Out of the gate, this is another tie. Erica Schroder helped to establish the serious nature of Blaze early on, and given that 06 was a majority of the new cast at their weakest, it's saying a lot. Lisa Bailey continues from this, but I'm picking up a slight "Eastern" tone in her voice. There may be someone else, but laziness is keeping me from finding out.

But that's all good, it's another tie, let's move on.

Eggman

Someone must've really favored Mike Pollock, and in this day and age it's either him or nobody.

Nevertheless, Deem Bristow offered a great performance as Eggman; one last jab at StephenKnux, way to sell me on only part of what Eggman was like in the Adventure era. His performance in Heroes needs no further word, just know it's an appropriate balance between evil and some other stuff. Point is it's good.

Also, Bristow passed away time after Heroes was released. Rest in peace.

Let's be fair, Pollock has utilized a very common voice used in other 4Kids shows. I sorta dogged on Amy Birnbaum for that, and neglected to bring it up for Ortiz. But in spite of this, Pollock really shined, shined, he's still playing Eggman to this day. There's finding your voice, then finding where the voice fits best, and Eggman is where Pollock's voice fits best.

He provides a malleable performance, and the fact that he managed to stay on really reflects his staying power.

E-102 Gamma

I'm sorta, sorta, am breaking my set rule by talking about a voice change that only occurred in a cartoon and not the games, but I feel it's worth bringing up because Gamma never had much appearances afterwards.

Steve Broadie is sorta like a prototypical Jon St. John for his performance. But I was unable to get that much out of it. It fit the nature of the character, I guess. Did you know he also participated in that crappy Frogger game for the PS2?

Also, Broadie passed away in 2001. Rest in peace.

Andrew Rannells... otherwise continues the literal theory and does a typical robot voice. Rannells himself is quite interesting, as he previously was associated with an Omaha-based talent union (he played Archie in Archie's Weird Mysteries, which used said union), and would go on to perform in The Book of Mormon.

The guy's a decent actor, and did what was asked of him, everyone did what was asked of them, why blame them for a bad performance? It's all about direction, and I learned that the hard way when it came to David Moo, I'm still hurting from that phase in my life.

Conclusion

If Sonic Forces is anything to go by, there is a chance I missed someone. So, because I'm too lazy to do my own research... I don't want to force you to do anything you don't want to.

Two Shitty Wicker Man Parodies

 It dawned on me, better late than never, but both the Angry Video Game Nerd and Nostalgia Critic, two faces of YouTube review culture, pioneers if you will, two reviewers who're grinding to make ends meet, two reviewers that I refuse to see through rose-tinted sunglasses, they both did shitty Wicker Man parodies, and incorporated memes.

Now, though I've never seen either version of The Wicker Man, at the very least I know about the finale, for it is the basis for the parodies done. This refers to the Nostalgia Critic's review of the 2006 remake of The Wicker Man and the Angry Video Game Nerd's review of Shrek: Fairy Tale Freakdown.

Nostalgia Critic's

Nostalgia Critic's Wicker Man review came out during his skit-happy phase, which is important to bring up as a bulk of them incorporate skits relevant to the films he was covering, well most of them, you can see Doug pop a boner to Dr. Seuss most of the time. This was around the time Rachel... Johnson? Left the show and was the introduction to Tamera Chambers.

This was during a dedicated month to Nicholas Cage movies, and for its infamy I can see why Doug decided to cover it. So, does he get crucified for not liking the original? Fuck no he's not about contrarianism unless it's convenient to him. Don't expect him to get burned in the titular wicker man, it all goes down to... memes. Yeah, Nostalgia Critic is driven to address the Not the Bees meme. Does it accomplish anything? Is there a finer point? Yeah, there is. It reflects low quality writing with no nuance. What's the application of the meme? You Don't Say has a better application than Not the Bees.

The review was cringe then, and it's cringe now, much like the Nostalgia Critic at large, and nothing has ever changed that.

Angry Video Game Nerd's

But first a word from our sponsors... Is the Angry Video Game Nerd returning to form? Probably not.

This review came out around the time Shrek was added to the National Film Registry thanks to its cultural significance, along with being a damn good movie.

First warning sign, James is reviewing a Game Boy Color game, only the Game Boy Color game, one that can be easily summed up for its poor control and gameplay. But as something that is sponsored, you know what that means? An overlong skit and establishment of the source material, along with dinking around with Game Boy Video.

It takes forever to get into the game review, and it ends before you know it, but where does Wicker Man come into play? Well, playing on the cultural significance aspect, this is twisted as Shrek becoming a main point of governmental influence, also Brogres. I haven't heard that term since the 2010s. Shrek is a great movie, don't get me wrong, but I'm no fan of subcultures, too mentally draining, even cancerous in some circles.

The Draw

Both episodes incorporate Wicker Man parodies, both incorporate dead or overdone memes, both came out well into the heyday of either reviewer, both use skits where they were rarely necessary before, both are cringeworthy in their own special ways.

But which one of the two is worse? The AVGN video left a rotten taste in my mouth, and didn't even function well as a dedicated review. This would've been a good time to do a marathon of Shrek games, and if you're so desperate to incorporate brogre culture, have the AVGN become one. You don't have to take it as far as retreading stuff like the Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre reviews, but anything would be better than what we got.

The Nostalgia Critic, well, I never want to revisit any Nostalgia Critic review, even thinking about his Wicker Man review made me cringe, it's a given for many of his reviews at this point, along with trying to make jokes out of the most innate occurrences he could find.

Both seem pointless when you really think about it, and frankly both are trash. If I marked any disservice to Shrek, just know I'm condemning the nerd for tainting its name with his crappy review, and keep in mind he said the game sucked.

Things about Sonic Heroes

 Sonic Heroes is one of my favorite Sonic games of all time. I maintain it is one of the last objectively good Sonic games before the dark ages, and that is a hill I'm willing to die on. It's the kind of game that's packed to the gills with action, fun, and a bunch of petty stuff to think about. Such as...

I like how Sonic has friends in this, foregoing the past spirit in the Genesis era where Sonic reflects many a 90s kid, wasting away in a dirty basement with no meaningful social life, and don't get me started on where Tails falls into this.

It's interesting how this is the last piece of Sonic media where Tails is voiced by a child actor, ever since the 4Kids era, SEGA put their foot down and didn't want to blow through their checkbook and hours of auditions just to keep things going. It's more convenient to have an adult female voice Tails, and it's something people can get behind.... unless you're a pedophile who gets off to hearing the voices of little boys.

In spite of not being centered on them, Team Dark has the best campaign in the entire game, best story, best dynamic, I just summed up the essentials right there. I wish Shadow the Hedgehog better explored Shadow's origin, and by that I mean have it in the spirit of Sonic Heroes, you can have the different cast, but the edge factor of Shadow the Hedgehog is burning a hole through my threshold.

The difficulty level is pretty unorganized; on the title screen, it basically goes normal, hard, easy, then normal. People are always gonna play the normal difficulty first, Team Sonic, and follow it up with Team Dark, the hard difficulty, so when they get to Team Rose, the easy mode, as in one with shorter levels and a tutorial, it's basically like whiplash. Though if anything people can consider this a nice break from harder campaigns.

Team Chaotix is technically the most expendable team in the game. Beyond establishing a twist involving Eggman, you can cut this team out and it'd only effect a minor percentage of the story at large, and no I'm not suggesting it just be Sonic the whole way, I'm a grown ass man... who likes cartoons and this game. They are essentially just an alternative version of the normal difficulty. Also during team battles you only face two teams each time so really if it was just teams Rose, Dark and Sonic it really wouldn't hamper the game's progression much.

The dialog placement can be hilarious at worst, with Knuckles commenting on the intensity of running a loop before even clearing the starting slope. Also Eggman referring to any team as "boys", even Team Rose, and well, Team Dark if you wanna get technical.

This is one of the few games where spamming attacks actually feels rewarding. If you tried natural progression you'd essentially be on boss fights longer than usual, and it's all about getting the lowest time possible.

Scott Drier sounds like Dan Green after smoking the finest green. I don't know if the Sonic series was Scott's first role, but the quality of his chops are incredibly varied, they land well most of the time, but otherwise he sounds more chill than the situation gives him any right to be. I just didn't like it much, but I don't really have a definitive favorite actor for Knuckles, though I will say I admire the range of his actor in the first Sonic Adventure, did you know he played Ken in Detective Barbie: Mystery of the Carnival Caper?

Speaking of actors, I feel like this is where the actors really began to feel comfortable in their roles. I get why they were swapped out, if anything 4Kids offered a smaller price or it was just more convenient, but they went through similar progression.

I will say this, this game sold me on David Humphrey's performance as Shadow, Lani Minella killed it as Rouge in this game, and thank goodness Omega's voice was consistent, because I hate Jon St. John with a passion. Sarah Wulfeck (whatever her last name is), really works best in small doses, but Cream the Rabbit's voice history had the most consistency all things considered. Jennifer Doulliard... she's okay, I had time to digest her at her best, but I feel like Lisa Ortiz struck the right level of spunk, Amy just sounds like a bratty teenager at worst.

Ryan Drummond and Jason Griffith are basically on the same level for their performances, both were just getting into the role and were cut off before they could carry on with the honing of their roles. Roger Craig Smith sucks ass, but not to the point I'd go beyond that statement, I lack good taste, not sense.

I give this game bonus points for using, hands down, the best sixth generation game engine RenderWare, even if most in-game cutscenes contrast heavily with its other cinematics.

But at the end of the day, this game got relatively positive reviews in its heyday, ammo for my arsenal, for my opinions that reek of arse.

Let's Look at an Old ED Article

 In high school I used to frequent Encyclopedia Dramatica. One of the articles I used to check out the most often was the one on video game reviewers. And no I don't have a particular reason why. I recognize many of them, others not so much, but if there's one thing I love, it's research. So, I'm gonna go over every section of the article and try to piece together summaries of every reviewer, otherwise determining what happened to them since then.

A common theme you may find relates to the Angry Video Game Nerd, Irate Gamer or Asalieri. Things may get repetitive because they are a good way to provide proper context on most reviewers listed. With that said, maybe you'll recognize some reviewers, maybe I'll introduce you to someone new, maybe you'll just glance over an analysis of something nobody gives a shit about, and by that I mean me.

I won't go into too deep of detail with many of these reviewers, if I were to do that we'd be here all day. Here's the article if you wanna follow along: https://encyclopediadramatica.online/Video_Game_Reviewers

5,000+ Subscribers

The article divides reviewers into two camps, more notable reviewers for better or worse, and lesser known reviewers that have made their way onto the list one way or another.

Angry Video Game Nerd

This would normally be the part where I wax on about how Angry Video Game Nerd used to be the greatest thing ever and yadda yadda yadda. AVGN was influential, and that can be both a good thing and a bad thing. What got Angry Video Game Nerd such traction was the lack of a market on retro game reviews at the time, at most you got old magazine reviews.

Because he was so popular, he influenced many an angry reviewer, who you'll see covered soon enough. Looking back, influence aside, I don't consider AVGN to be good. First and foremost, he's a comedic reviewer, playing games while holding an exaggerated attitude, and yet people take what he says seriously, I mean to be fair legitimate points suffice, but stuff like his Lester the Unlikely review really showcase how far he has to reach for most of his jokes.

The less that is said about his new content the better, Screenwave definitely played a role in how far James is sinking, and I can say with certainty Justin Silverman is trying to co-opt the entire channel. James tries these new things because they are in with the mainstream internet, also the fact James rarely plays games himself and even resorts to cheating in his early days. Just saying.

It's beautiful to see people like him get taken down a notch, never make an exception for anybody.

Aqualunggamereviews

First of many obscure reviewers on this list. Aqualung, or Ken Blakey, was one of many reviewers that came out of the woodwork in 2007 when AVGN mania was getting big. Unlike other contemporaries, Ken is a lot more mellow, which allowed him to avoid the brunt of rip-off allegations that would soon plague the internet. He focuses on retro content and is still very active to this day.

Ken's brand lies on more serious game analyses, at least nowadays, something that is otherwise rare in the retro gaming scene.

Armake21

Here's another familiar name for those who used YouTube in 2007. Though he received equal popularity, at his core he was an AVGN clone that people were okay with for some reason, maybe it's just appealing to the right people?

For his work you had to be there, I don't want to go too deep into a cornerstone of the retro community because I'm bound to get something wrong. He was active as late as last year, and I even saw him comment on an Irate Gamer review, a comment that was otherwise not negative. I can tell he at the very least grew as a person.

Asalieri

Not necessarily known for game reviews, rather reviewing reviewers. One thing I like about Asalieri is, aside from his personality, he was one of the few Irate Gamer critics who didn't just go off the rip-off stigma, he actually brought on legitimate criticisms, beyond any small nitpicks, but who's counting? Also known for being an early critic of That Guy With the Glasses, man was ahead by several years.

His video production has halted, but he is still floating around on social media and has become associated with another reviewer who will be covered soon. He maintained a lot of associates over the years, who will also be covered. I like him just fine, he speaks his mind and didn't reject my friend request on Steam, I got nothing else.

Ben Yahtzee Croshaw

Yahtzee is best known for Zero Punctuation, which I have never watched, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt that it's spectacular. All I have to really offer is disagreement on his review of Silent Hill Homecoming if it's on the basis of it being by a western developer. Guess that comes with the upbringing.

One thing to note is that one reviewer, DarkLordJadow, borrows the concept from Zero Punctuation for some reviews he did. Why lift a specific context near verbatim? Who knows...

BlackBusterCritic

Takes me back to the days of Sonic Brain Fart, when Sonic fans were truly at their worst. Don't get it twisted, Jamin Williams called out people who deserved it, and some of them got out of it okay, as we may see soon enough, swallow your pride. Most I've seen for game reviews was coverage of Sonic and the Black Knight, though I consider Secret Rings to be far more shitty.

I've seen plenty of movie reviews by him, and they are straight up fire. Guy's got a hell of a personality. He more recently turned his focus to poking fun at the Xbox community, and to be fair a crappy franchise isn't as harmful as a corporation seeking to hurt gaming, guy has his priorities in check.

Caddicarus

I stopped watching Caddicarus a long time ago. At one point I had mad respect for his honesty and often times contrarian views; he liked the 1995 Casper movie and hated Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase. His humor is great and I will maintain that. Recently he carved a niche on compilation-type videos, but what made me drop off is one of his Dreamworks ones, where he offered a common opinion on how bad they've become, and from there I never got back into it.

Guy's still good, but I've lost interest long ago.

Classic Game Room

This series had actually predated many of the reviewers covered here, even AVGN's 2004 pilots, starting in 1999 on a startup website.

Simply put, it is a very basic review show that has a persistent framework for every episode, including a bog-standard modern game spin-off. The show is no longer in production, and this is owed to greed. The creator, Mark Bussler, used Patreon to support himself but became over-reliant on it for many projects, and tried to get even more money by bringing his show to Amazon Prime. Nowadays he's working in the book publishing industry.

I'd like to think Bobsheaux would move his show to Amazon Prime several years from now, right after he moves to Patreon full time.

David Clothier

Okay I'm at a loss. Either this guy pissed someone off real fierce and put him on this article, or he's an immature asshole who got torn a new one. Sounds like an off-brand Austin McBroom based on the details I got from this.

I got nothing, let's skip.

Gamemaster81

Best reason for this guy's inclusion was his popularity justifying it, or association with someone else further down the list. I've seen some of his videos, and at worst he can be kinda boring. It's said he was tied to scams and partnership ploys, but apparently this either wasn't enough to take him down, or he had since mended his ways, or people just stopped caring.

If you're in to slower content, see if this guy is up your alley.

The Gaming Goose

I don't know the context of the image they used for his section, but it can be anything but good. Gaming Goose is a former Asalieri protege. Looking at his most recent review, from 11 years ago, his channel boasts some decent effects, an engaging personality and informative perspectives on games, along with some humor peppered in.

I saw him participate in a tribute video relating to a reviewer who will be covered soon, so at the very least it seems like he's doing well for himself, for whatever may have got him EDed in the first place.

Haedox

I saw one or two videos by this guy a while back, and I dunno, they didn't really do a whole lot for me. Something about him rubs me the wrong way, either his personality or views.

He had recently called it quits due to mental health concerns, so be it, follow your conscious and do what will keep you stable.

Happy Console Gamer

One of the more enthusiastic retro gamers out there, best summation. Apparently once had involvement with Mike Matei and some others before that fell through. Either he is guilty by association or did something seriously wrong, but looking into one of his videos, it's one of those "if you're in the mood" types. It gave me the confidence to feel it could be good.

He has done nothing big to get his own article, and I think he was just big enough to cover and essentially call him a douchebag in three different ways.

Hellsing920

Another perennial figure of the old YouTube. He did it all, rants, movie reviews and video game reviews. They're basically let's play style reviews amounting to basic complaints, but you do you I guess. He is perhaps best known for Reaction and Review, which basically had Hellsing react to scenes from a movie, but not showing them for copyright sake. I liked how he gave a positive review of the 2004 Catwoman film.

More recently he was known for his association with closeted lolcow Clay Claymore, with the only thing they had in common was their hatred of MrEnter and Doug Walker, and, sad to say, Hellsing passed away some time ago. Wanna hear something creepy? A long time ago I made a journal reacting to the death of HappyCabbie and remarked Hellsing was next. It's chilling when your predictions come true.

All else I can say, rest in peace.

Irate Gamer

A perennial punching bag in YouTube's early days, and a sign of how overly-protective people are of creators. How bad was it? They caused Irate Gamer to lose his partnership within days of getting it. I would've taken this more seriously if the entire bandwagon didn't consist of rampant pettiness. It got so bad I didn't even care about legitimate issues.

The Irate Gamer Sucks Blog is still getting updates, and it shows me just how sad and pathetic of a life the writer leads. In the era of EDP445, The Ace Family, Sam Pepper, Screenwave and countless others, apparently Chris Bores' idiocy is still more important. A-Log.

These days Chris posts infrequently on YouTube, but since then has received something of a re-evaluation, as his content is reflective of a foregone era. Also James is cool with him now. But I guess some memes never die.

I just used a bunch of words James used, I must be ripping him off.

Jedite1

Another relic of the old YouTube, though I never caught much of his content, he was fairly big back in the day. Guy's a mystery, his channel has since been removed and few archives circulate. For stuff like these, all you need to know is that people like him drew an audience, was good for the time but otherwise fell off.

Maybe he just decided to move on with his life?

Silent Rob

Perhaps best known for getting the anti-Irate Gamer bandwagon going, but also doing reviews. He distinguished himself from the AVGN by taking on a douchebag persona, one persisting to this day. It kinda works, I admire his honestly and staying true to the character. That's about it.

I'm in his Facebook group, he's associated with Asalieri, he has begun to hate the Angry Video Game Nerd, times have really changed.

Pat the NES Punk

I first heard of Pat through his appearance in the AVGN's Nintendo World Championship episode. I saw about a few episodes of Pat's show before I dropped off around the time he dedicated his efforts to podcasting. Long story short he became a total douchebag no longer worthy of anyone's time.

Also appeared on Pawn Stars at one point.

Pete Dorr

Negligible by today's standards, but still going. He seems chill enough, don't know what he did to piss people off but it seems he got out of it. He also does Twitch streams and let's plays, I caught him doing one for an obscure mail order Game Boy Advance game.

He's doing well, but otherwise not painfully interesting.

PlayItBogart

Back to the more relevant underdogs of the 2007 era. Many of his reviews had remained lost for several years but gradually started popping back up again. He otherwise strayed from the angry gamer persona and tried out some dry humor, other times he did both, which may be why he actually got decent numbers by then. Had a more relatable form of anger by the looks of his Hydlide review.

More recently, it seems he either became a drag queen or transitioned. I didn't know what to expect.

ProJared

Okay, I'm sure 80% of you were aware of the controversy he was involved in, where he was accused of cheating on his wife and exposure. One thing I respect him for is how he not only handled it greatly, but actually got out of it and is now going strong.

Funny thing is that the section on him was written before the controversy got out. They were both behind yet ahead of the curve.

RetroGamer3

Asalieri fans may recognize him through coverage of a few of his videos. At most I just saw Ed (his name)'s Dr Jekyll & Mr. Hyde review, and he ironically echoes how I feel about the game. Just keep moving, the hard part is not getting bored.

He is perhaps more infamous for his more pronounced love of AVGN and association with a more infamous YouTuber for false flagging videos criticizing him, as well as trying to combat trolling. Things slowed to a halt for Ed, but his negative review of AVGN's movie is getting reevaluated. He's a truther.

Retroware TV

Not so much a reviewer, rather a collective for game reviewers. Saw their logo some time before on an old Rerez video and an old PushingUpRoses review. Good site, but apparently held toxic standards. Moving on.

StillGaming

Looking into him, at first I thought his content was purged and he was an "at his peak" kind of guy, but after some deeper looking, it turns out he was a former contributor to That Guy With the Glasses.

One interesting quirk to StillGaming, or Lee, is that his persona is represented by a moving JPEG, showing him at different positions. I'll admit, I never saw that before. How prevalent was he on TGWTG? Well he appeared on their first anniversary special, but left before any other ones it seems. Guy had a hunch.

His activity is slim to none, he's not doing very much anymore aside from posting on Twitter.

Spax3

He's not known so much for his reviews, rather his drama. Years ago, during the 4Kids era of the Sonic series he was one of the more prominent figures in complaining about the actors present; think MrEnter when he bashed SpongeBob writers, but Spax was far more vocal. He also had a tendency to flag down videos criticizing him.

But since then, he had taken accountability for his mistakes and sought to better himself, making peace with the 4Kids cast, whoever he could access, even those he flagged. Seeing most of his posts he seemed to be genuinely apologetic, good on him, I'm glad he is showing he was truly sorry. There were some rough patches though, like sending images of self mutilation and stalking a girl over criticism. Guy was clearly facing some serious demons, this was in 2019, and years since it looks like he was at least trying to get help.

His old videos are floating around, but I snapped up two of his less egregious ones. If he wants me to take them down though I gotta honor the request.

SpoonyOne

Needs no further introduction. Okay maybe a little, 2007-era retro game reviewer, got picked up by That Guy With the Glasses, turned into an enormous asshole, became a human trainwreck, occasionally pops up online with content.

Watch Down the Rabbit Hole to know the full story, because it's exhaustive.

Stan Burdman

Watched a bunch of his content but never bothered again. Otherwise negligible, but brings a sense of sophistication to most of his angry reviews. There is some variety in emotion though, I'll give him that much. At most he was allegedly tied to selling games and banking through Amazon referrals.

Also formerly associated with Asalieri, but it seems that had petered out, he hasn't posted anything new since three years ago, but posts on Facebook.

Taco-Man

I really don't like this guy. Okay that's a stretch, I used to watch his content after discovering him through his series Snowy the Frostman, which I attest is actually decent. The more I watched him, the less funny he got. Basically banked through cheap nostalgia, surface level edgelord humor and charging money for his older content, suddenly.

He seems to have given up on game reviews and focused more on flash animation, hell, the one blurb of him on this article had been updated and, let me show you:

"A show about a cartoon taco that started out as Captain N parody that became a video game review show that was relevant for 3 days, is getting canceled soon because the creator realized that the show was not giving him as much YouTube money compare to his shitty parodies."

See? On the nose.

UrinatingTree

Alphabetical order is a bitch. We're back to perennial favorites, details above may apply here. He had vanished for several years before resurfacing and redirecting his content toward sports. Nothing more to say, other than it's nice to see old channels resurface in some regard.

Nothing more to say, this is turning into AVGN episode 200.

WizWar100

I never really saw much of WizWar in the past, but based on brief observations it looks as though he tried out the angry schtick. He had moved to a new channel at some point, and I actually caught something from it, what looked to be an endorsement of a SEGA plug and play console by AtGames, aka that piece of shit Rerez covered years back. He was also associated with Spax3 at one point. Interesting trivia, Spax took inspiration from WizWar and Jedite for his review of the Transformers Famicom game, and both associated with him at some point.

Seemingly ended on a high note, I haven't seen anything from him since 4 years ago. I have no fucking clue.

RazorFist

A reviewer of the assholish variety. He was known for unapologetic reviews that more often than not took the piss out of fanboys or existed for the sake of contrarianism. Associated with Asalieri, both hid a road bump, but seemingly patched things up.

Twist of the century, he became more dedicated to right wing political content, any gaming content would be associated with the former. I did not see that coming, but there you go, he's happy enough and nobody bothered to clown on him since. Cult of personality? Or maybe he's right and people don't want to admit it?

Less than 5,000 Subscribers

Well then, we're only half way through huh? There won't be a part 2. I'm gonna get this shit done.

AKewsticRockR

Apparently got started through an attempt at a clean version of a review of some crappy TMNT game for the NES, but that's not interesting enough. Perhaps better known for trying to ape on other reviewers, getting into a fight with the Irate Gamer, which the latter didn't even care enough to mention.

Last I saw of AKewsticRockR he had a shit ton of Irate Gamer videos, and my sodium levels skyrocketed with all that salt. He also apparently got into spats with Asalieri, Silent Rob and someone else who's gonna be addressed soon.

I remember watching a parody he did of Ray William Johnson, but he has since purged his YouTube and deleted his Twitter. Good riddance I guess.

Alexander4488

Aka the Game Dude, and a prominent target of pro-AVGN simping. Compared to Irate Gamer, Game Dude was the worst, not because he apparently plagiarized, but because of how he conducted himself. If it's obscure or a new installment in a long-running franchise, he would be sure to bash on it without much thought, he can go fuck himself, Sonic Heroes was awesome.

Also had the tendency to re-edit videos that did not meet his standards or were criticized. But apparently that was the only interesting thing about him.

It wasn't until years after I first heard of him that I finally understood the greater picture. He clearly had mental issues, taking major criticisms to heart and wanting to be seen in an approving light. Also nothing much else, just that he had been in legal trouble after bad encounters with his ex-girlfriend, and had fled the country. You sure ripping off the AVGN is worse?

If you want more info, check out this recent video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P106m3dtrpU

Isvaffel

Basically a 4Chan troll who posed as the AVGN, and had spearheaded an ironic following, though unfortunately he was overshadowed due to Irate Gamer rustling so many jimmies. Possibly one of the first to use misleading video titles to get people to click on his channel, and claiming to be the actual Angry Video Game Nerd. Had to be there.

His purpose fulfilled, he basically vanished at some point, but may we forever remember him for his magnum opus, his review of Super Metroid.

Bastard Gamer

Another Asalieri associate, until that petered out, until that got resolved. Along with game reviews he also did parodies of popular punching bags at the time. All else I could say is that if he cut his hair and got horn-rimmed glasses he could cosplay as Justin Silverman and get AVGN the time he so desperately lacks.

CaztheGamerGuy

I have no idea who he is. I name-dropped him long ago, he saw it, called it out, I apologized and that was the end of it. I don't know what led him to get listed on here, lest in a chad move he did it himself for free publicity. Looks like it could be good, so... thanks? Not safe to say he dropped off since his last review was over a year ago, but let's see what happens.

ConsoleVania

Basically a YouTube extension of an old British TV series Guru Larry dropped some time ago. Thing about extensions is that there is much context I've missed, and that this isn't produced with an internet audience in mind, at least a more contemporary one.

So pass.

Darknessthecurse

Another big name in late-2000s YouTube, but not big enough to be listed sooner. Best known for his Sonic reviews, and screaming, oh god the screaming. That's basically it, aside from rants he did. Probably butchered this something fierce.

The EMU Review

This was basically one of many ventures by Jason Heine. Whether or not this worked is up to anyone's interpretation. While it seems like he's straying from reviews, he did post some on his channel, I saw his review of Hooters Road Trip, and it was decent. Still going so it really requires no further digging.

FreezeCracker

He was a former associate of GameLife, the first YouTube video game review series. Geoff Mendicino (FreezeCracker), was the only one who was able to find success after the runner of GameLife got put on house arrest and basically killed the entire channel, along with his toxic nature. Geoff is a gaming tournament player and took part in an interview for Down the Rabbit Hole, which focused on GameLife, so check that out.

Furious Famicom Faggot

Not really a video game reviewer, rather an attempted flash parody series meant to poke fun at the burgeoning angry reviewer craze. This was made by SomethingAwful, aka the pioneers in digging out crap on the internet, until they became woefully irrelevant. 

FFF can be traced to one Dave Kelly, or Shmorky, or Daisy these days. For years, Shmorky was something of an enigma, either that or nothing much interesting went on with him. That is, until he was called out for pedophilia in 2016 on Kiwi Farms. Before then he had actually landed work on Adult Swim, he was behind the infamous This is Fine bumper by the way.

Futuramaooy

I had actually discussed him way back when. But to keep things consistent, here's a rundown. He posted reviews and otherwise mocked the Irate Gamer, then he disappeared for some time. He temporarily rebranded to Mega-Rhys before he went dark in the mid-2010s for whatever reason.

Aside from his profiles, his YouTube presence has been wiped clean. I have no idea what his content was actually like, and oh my, I'm curious.

Gamerweb 2.0

This came out when GameLife was still big and standards were relatively low. The results of this were, to say the least, hilarious. Unfortunately the full pilot is nowhere to be found, and the only insight we have is an article posted by UKResistance, and a forum post by the guy who ran this show. Damn, I could've really used a laugh.

http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/2006/03/another-bunch-of-complete-morons-have.html

Gligar13Vids

Possibly one of the most successful trolls on YouTube, successful in that while people are wise to not feeding the trolls, their pride and love for their favorite franchises is enough to make for a big exception. Obviously he would never admit to it being a farce, but people still fell for it. Whatever you think of him, take what he says with a grain of salt.

Still occasionally posts, but is otherwise a relic of the older days of the internet.

GreatExpectations320

Guy seems to come and go. I was never able to find any of his reviews, either that or I was too lazy to try. I saw him around the time Hellsing920 died and he offered some words on his behalf. Seems he removed many of his videos and just moved on. At the time also hated trolls with a passion.

Hitting a lot of short stops here...

Jfreedan

He was a pretty infamous reviewer back then, infamous for his aversion to criticism, false flagging people who posts videos about him, and otherwise for his lack of talent. I know he flagged a video that caused another Asalieri associate, TOGProfessor, to jump to a new channel.

Hosts a few different channels, with his second one it seems he's not bothering with YouTube anymore. Also lifted a heavily contested video he did where he jogged in a ridiculous outfit from an archive on Silent Rob's Facebook group. It's not mine, it's not his, but it is historically significant.

KingMasterReview

More seasoned YouTubers will recognize him as the very first topic of BlackBusterCritic's Sonic Brain Fart series. What led to this? Oh not much, just pretending that Silver the Hedgehog was real and living with him. Compared to the other people Jamin went after, he was pretty basic by comparison, also possibly the same age as Silver.

Aubrey, for his first name, was a fan of Spax3, and to set the record straight Silver was just a takeaway from a game Aubrey hates. Aside from a reaction he made to Jamin, Aubrey managed to keep going for a while until he vanished for several years. I saw him make a new video and assumed that was it, but going back to it now, he has made a lot of new content.

He overcame that stutter he was known for, and seems to be in a good state of mind these days. He could easily say he wasn't any of the other people Jamin covered, just an idiotic teenager back then.

LiamRProductions

Must've pissed somebody off and fierce. All I got from this tidbit was that his voice was annoying, and that he allegedly ripped off a ScrewAttack video. A lot has changed since then, and he has become a contributor to Did You Know Gaming and Unseen64. Either he buried the lead on any juicier stuff, or British accents trigger someone's fight or flight.

MarioTehPlumber

Oh hey, another troll and relic of the old YouTube. Anything he did was to piss people off, and he has succeeded and then some. I actually got involved with John's circle and screwed around with people who took him seriously. Did I get anything out of it? Well I got a friend, John to follow me on Twitter for some time, it was one of the more rewarding trolling circles I was involved in.

Amakusa666

This is gonna be a grey area. This guy has absolutely no recorded YouTube presence available, it seems like he was better known through his forum presence. He is linked to the TurboGrafx-16 crowd, which is apparently filled to the brim with pretentious assholes.

We may figure out his placement here in a bit, chances are he either attacked forum moderators or just got into beef with someone else who included him on this thread for the hell of it. There was likely nothing on his YouTube to begin with.

MonkeyGameGuides

Once more we have a blatant internet troll. Interesting fact, his videos were the first to be covered in CuteFuzzyWeasel's Feeding the Trolls series. Basically one of those "Talk negatively about good games" types, but to me I consider him to be the funniest of the bunch. He had removed a bulk of his videos, but I was able to see most of them. One was an admittance of being a troll, two others were attempts at cooking shows, more surrealistic takes that are actually very funny, shame they're gone now.

He had an upload as recent as one year ago, and people are eager to see him again. Me too, he's funny.

Gaming in the Clinton Years

A collection of re-released clips from a public access series called Flights of Fantasy. His reviews were archived by the National Academy of Video Game Testers and Reviewers, or NAVGTR. Because of this, people classified the host, George Wood, under the name NAVGTR. This misunderstanding persisted for quite some time.

George is perhaps best known for being one hell of an unintentional troll, for how he plays and commentates on these games. He may have even been the first retro reviewer in this regard, but to be fair he played these when they were new.

Last anyone saw of him he gave his thoughts on Barack Obama. Who knows where he's at these days.

NC17 Productions

Yet another hate bandwagon, but he was either unable to cover his basis, attempted to parody but couldn't do it right, or was a troll engaging in a little social experiment? He was angry, but had no idea how to use it. I appreciate anyone showing how thin-skinned AVGN fans are though.

He had left long ago, though long after his heyday for these angry reviews. Otherwise he was hardly deterred by a bunch of children and mentally stunted adults who believed AVGN gave a shit about them.

NecroVMX

Another chill reviewer who did let's play style reviews, mostly of Game Boy Advance games. He still posts from time to time on YouTube, but has since become involved with indie game development, running Kisareth Studios. His inclusion either stems from him pissing off the wrong person (because that's not getting old at this point apparently), or some other reason.

Seems likable enough, and more adept at time management, hint hint.

Nintega

Okay, it seems like his inclusion, along with a previous one and later one, was owed to forum drama and him taking the piss out of two of his most frequent enemies. Dave Medina, the full name, was an annoying asshole who frequently got banned from forums relating to the TurboGrafx-16, as well as being a total creep who flagged down videos criticizing him. Multiple uploads of one of his videos surfaced, some of which contain quite the tale relating to him.

Images of him floated around, but they're now gone because of ED's previous takedowns and Photobucket shitting the bed. Apparently into drag.

The PissedOffVideoGamer

Aka that morbidly obese commentary bandwagon who bashed on the GameCube some time ago. A few years ago he resurfaced and did some commentaries on MarioTehPlumber and others, but it looks like he's gone again. Had a hell of a lot of other profiles too, I just never thought we'd see more of him for a while.

Only thing worse than his lone surviving review was a commentary done on it by FoxtrotDeltaLima497.

Riz Rave Reviews

He was an old contributor to That Guy With the Glasses. He was fired allegedly following a dispute between him and Spoony (yay Riz), and his videos are essentially lost media these days. The only thing remaining of his presence was an edited clip of one of his reviews. He allegedly used an existing Contra review as his own, but this info is now lost, even if it isn't valuable.

The Sega Kid

Alleged to be one of the earliest off-shoots of the angry reviewer craze. Apparently his reviews were so bad that nobody bothered to archive them. They know who he is, but don't want anything more than that to come out. People either mellowed or he buried the lead so well nobody bothered to look into it.

I'm still curious though, his reviews can't possibly be worse than, I dunno, Marlyonama's.

VIB113

To set the record straight, or to copy off the article, people refer to VIB as Sizzler07, but that was just someone who re-uploaded VIB's review. VIB is infamous for being a child, okay he also did negative reviews of Contra and Mortal Kombat's Genesis port (his head would explode when he plays the Game Boy port). He did a third review, but that's been lost.

I could leave it at that, but he actually returned to YouTube in 2012 and is still active... and now identifies as female, my bad. I believe he was involved in a troll circle I was involved in until it collapsed in on itself. I had thought VIB was driven off at that point, but his last upload was ten months ago.

Reason I did this was because it was amazing where many of these reviewers turned up.

TheSuperRobotSoujaOG

Another one of those reviewers that turned up in 2007. Apparently he was the victim of constant trolling, and he did not take it lying down. He has been through multiple accounts, and for a while I thought he was gone for good, not a trace of his old reviews remained (aside from an edited clip). But in some twist, he became associated with Spax3 (even after earlier days where he bashed Spax during the peak of his more infamous days, but that seems to have dissipated), and rebranded as Super Ace Gamer.

I saw his review of Shovel Knight, and it was pretty damn good, glad he's doing well for himself. Hell, for some reason the Wayback Machine is pretty generous, you can see his very first YouTube account before it got hacked and see what kind of videos he used to make.

Tatsujincorp

To wrap up the TurboGrafx-16 drama, here is the other opponent of Nintega. Seemingly just your run-off-the-mill douchebag, and it's unknown if he actually ever posted video game reviews, just some weird stuff. He is otherwise active on Facebook, and is an example of what James Rolfe should've done, and that was to retire and become a true father.

There's a greater story behind this, but I assume Nintega put this guy on the page to take the piss out of him, but he was so inoffensive that they had to cherrypick.

Undercoverfilmer00v

Essentially an anonymous reviewer who obscured his face for his reviews, otherwise known as David Roger Vega. He did gameplay videos for Goldeneye 007 and made reviews of Double Dragon 3 and Mickey Mousecapades. He also got into beef with AkewsticRockR, but I don't know which side to take. He put his account on lockdown at some point.

But that can't be enough. Apparently he was brought down for stalking a sportscaster, but since became active on Twitch, well last I saw of him anyways.

Conclusion

So, not as big of a bang to end it all, but fuck it. I hope you didn't expect much out of this, if this was my 200th journal special, well I don't really have any fans to disappoint. This has been in the back of my head for years, I wanted to go back to a persistent memory I had, was it worth it? Partly. It satisfied my curiosity, I guess, and I finally understood what led to them getting put on here in the first place, whether they caused drama, were big enough to be taken seriously, or just involved through pre-existing drama, and that not all of them are necessarily tied to game reviews.

It is interesting to go back to this collection of reviewers with new eyes, to see where they were back in the day, and how they have evolved over the years. Have you learned something from this? Probably not.