Nostalgia Critic

The Nostalgia Critic (also known as "Critic" by AVGN and "That Critic With The Glasses Guy" by Linkara in Moulin Rouge) is a character played by Doug Walker, a.k.a. ThatGuyWithTheGlasses. The character first appeared in his own title show on YouTube. After his controversial "booting" from YouTube, the character carried on to ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com.

Mr. Walker has said that he based the character primarily on the cartoon character Daffy Duck but also had influence from the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland.

Appearance
Even since the days of YouTube, The Nostalgia Critic's appearance is largely unchanged:


 * A Black Cap


 * Black Jacket


 * White t-shirt/vest


 * Burgundy Colored Tie worn loosely


 * Goatee x

x In 2008, The Nostalgia Critic bet AskThatGuy that John McCain would win the Presidential Election. He lost, of course, and as a result, he appeared clean-shaven for the first time. He also almost always uses a pistol. In the first episodes of the series, the Critic's pistol was an airsoft SIG-Sauer P226 but he later changed it to an airsoft Beretta 92. The Critic also appears to have an airsoft Glock, so apparently the character has a near-obsessive amount of firearms in his possession.

Personality
Depending on the setting, the Critic is given to over-the-top reactions, screaming at the top of his voice at movie plots that do not make sense or do not leave any explanation, or reacting with sarcasm. He goes berserk at the mere mention of the "Bat Credit Card". The Critic becomes a power-hungry despot when given positions of authority, as seen blatantly in Kickassia. He has a strong, rather obsessive infatuation for Catherine Zeta-Jones, whose appearance in movies momentarily distracts him from the review, when he would express his desire to possess her. This has happened in reviews such as The Phantom, The Haunting, Top 11 Villain Songs, and Legend of Zorro.

Occasionally, the Critic has shown a more compassionate side to him when he criticizes a work for acting insensitive about real life events, such as Titanic - The Legend Goes On animated movie, which turned the disaster into a cliched message against whaling and established that all the passengers onboard survived the sinking. Also the Critic has shown a complete hatred for TMZ due to their lack of actual journalism. He parodied TMZ in the A.I. Artificial Intelligence review where he brought up Sandra Bullock making a $25,000 donation to rebuild a destroyed school, only for the TMZ crew to instantly state that Bullock was "fat", proceeding to do a story on this. At the end of the review, he allows them to make a story about how Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick may have understood each other better than other people thought, but they reinterpret his message and portray Spielberg and Kubrick as gay lovers, as well as insulting the latter's films. In revenge, the Critic humiliates the TMZ crew with inappropriate footage of themselves, and tells them that if they kept asking people on the internet to forget about it then they would, which would actually cause people to remember even more.

The Nostalgia Critic is also ridiculously intolerant, claiming in the Siskel and Ebert to be prejudiced against multiple religions including Islam, Taoism, The Force, Shinto, Wiccan, Catholicism, Scientology, Hellenistic's, Baha'i faith, Confucianism, Methodism, Rastafari Movement, Universalism, Magic, Gnosticism, Unitarian, Mandaeans, Druze, Jainism, Sabeans, Left-Hand Path, Zoroastrianism and whatever religion the Oompa Loompas practice.

Mental Health, Deaths & Resurrections
The Nostalgia Critic has died several times, but then showing up in the following episodes completely unharmed and without giving any explanation.

The mental health of the Nostalgia Critic has been progressively falling since he started reviewing movies. In particular, the Batman & Robin review made him go so insane he tried to kill himself many times and all sharp objects, even his tie, were confiscated from him.

Overall, the Nostalgia Critic seems to have poor mental health from the beginning of the show. He almost always shoots something, swears and threatens people's lives. The character of the Nostalgia Critic may be bipolar.

The Nostalgia Critic apparently committed suicide via self-immolation by fire after viewing Ghost Dad and became a ghost, although this was merely revenge on Malcolm and Tamara for what they did to him in the The Wicker Man|Wicker Man review.

Feud With The Nerd
The Nostalgia Critic gained even more fame when he launched a satirical attack on fellow web comedian The Nerd, which began due to the endless comparisons between the two critics. The Nerd posted on his forum that he himself was a fan of the Nostalgia Critic. In response, the Critic created another video, trying to figure out the code behind the complimentary message and another video in which he blasted the Nerd for reviewing The Wizard before him. Finally, in early June, the Nerd responded in a satirical video (with disclaimers plastered all over) stating his "distaste" for the Critic, who responded by challenging the Nerd to review an awful nostalgic film. Later in the month, the Critic and the Nerd met at a video game convention in Clifton, New Jersey and had a fake brawl. The Nerd agreed to review a bad film, as long as the Critic reviewed a poor video game. Eventually, the Nerd reviewed the low-budget spoof film Ricky 1 and the Nostalgia Critic reviewed the video game version of the animated film Bebe's Kids. This in turn led to The Final Battle between the Nostalgia Critic and the Nerd, leaving the viewers with a teaser of the possibility of a sequel to The Final Battle. Despite this, the Nostalgia Critic was able to do some other reviews after the course of The Final Battle, looking relatively unscathed and unharmed. This seemed to not bother the fans of the Nostalgia Critic since he is apparently a fast healer.

On both The Nerd's official website and a behind-the-scenes video on ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com, it was revealed that the Final Battle was, in fact, filmed one day before the confrontation at Digital Press.

Aftermath
After his fight with the Nerd, the Nostalgia Critic went on to review two more videos. The first one was called Drew Struzan Tribute, which consisted of many hand-drawn posters from movies made by the same artist. His next video was Halloween '08 Special that had the Nostalgia Critic doing a review of a bear named Teddy Ruxpin. Don't be fooled by this seemingly simple video. It has a few surprises that ultimately leads our favorite Critic bloody once more, possibly dead. But this is highly unlikely since it is a Halloween special and as we know, they are not part of the series and afterwards everything is as it should be. The Nostalgia Critic then appears in Double Dragon, unharmed. Though he does die again, one has to wonder if he IS immortal after having being resurrected by Optimus Prime in the Surf Ninjas video. He even asks his viewers "Is it me or have I been dying a lot recently?" after "God" shoots him in the head before he finally collapses. In his next movie review of Howard the Duck, the Critic is once again well and healthy. He bashes this movie like no tomorrow (in his own funny way) and holds no regard for his life as he prepares to slit his wrists when the movie implies and actually starts a "sex scene" between Howard (an anthropomorphic duck) and a female human. Though he was saved from watching it (and slitting his wrists), one has to wonder how far the Nostalgia Critic would have gone.

McCain Bet
During his review of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, the Critic appears without his beard, which was due to the fact that he bet with Ask That Guy With the Glasses|Ask That Guy on McCain winning the 2008 Presidential Election rather than Obama, with the losing party having to remove his beard. He then calls out That Guy, only to discover that he too had shaved off his beard, thinking that the bet was on whether or not he would have posted the Ask That Guy Episode 31 in a week (at the time of the review, this video was unreleased, despite being several weeks after the contest deadline, due to the number of entries). Chester A. Bum then also appears and is too lacking his beard, having removed it with spray-on cheese and rats (also claiming that's how he did his "bikini area") in an attempt to fit in with the other characters. The Critic tries to reason with Chester, but Chester freaks out when the Critic says the word "change." An infuriated Critic then knocks out Ask That Guy before showing a tribute montage to his former beard. The Critic states he will "no doubt grow it back" and is seen drawing a beard on his face at the conclusion to the review. In his following review of Godzilla (1998), the Critic remains clean-shaven, but by the time The Top 11 Greatest Animated Disney Villains came around, the Critic showed some stubble on his face, indicating he was growing the beard back, as he promised. The beard had completely grown back by the Bros. Super Show review. During The Good Son review (which was released in February, but filmed in December), the beard is shown in partially-completed form.

(In real life, however, Doug shaved his beard off so he could be The Joker for Halloween. During the same time he also did a widely televised promo for PBS, for their upcoming documentary, "Make 'Em Laugh")

Face to Face with the Nostalgia Chick
Upon attempting a review of Ferngully: The Last Rain Forest, the Critic was called out by his female counterpart, the Nostalgia Chick (played by TheDudette), who wanted to review the movie herself. The pair traded insults before the Critic insisted she "say it to [his] face", where she ran onto the Critic's set and attacked him. However, both came to terms when they decided that the movie was so horrible that they had to put their differences aside, in spite of their thinly-veiled disdain for each other (the Chick particularly being annoyed at some of the more sexual remarks the Critic makes). The pair manage to make it through the movie, but then start insulting each other and begin to fight again. The screen cuts to static and when it returns, the Critic and Chick are playing music and dancing jovially, splitting the traditional "I remember it so you don't have to" Critic send-off line between them. This episode also marks the first Nostalgia Critic to be presented in 16:9 widescreen format, which all episodes following have been (with the exception of The Good Son, which was filmed in December before the aspect ratio shift).

Kickassia
The Critic discovered the micronation of Molossia, and becomes obsessed with taking it over and ruling it. The Critic personally attempts to solely take control, but was met with the door slammed in his face by president Kevin Baugh. The Critic decides to call upon his fellow reviewers to help him with the takeover. He motivates them with promises of continuing the invasion across the world and the second attempt was an utter failure, as the entire group was chased away by a single Uzi pulled out by Baugh.

Phelous suggests using weapons, which the Critic takes as his own idea and dresses up as M. Bison, leading the charge and successfully taking over the nation. The Critic names himself President and the Nostalgia Chick as Vice President (parodying Sarah Palin). During the next few weeks, Molossia, now Kickassia, begins to have financial problems, and the Critic does nothing but sit and watch Hogan Heroes while stealing Phelous's ideas. Baugh, in his alter ego, inspires the others to contemplate the idea of being President and gives them a receipt for 20,000 pounds of dynamite, signed by the Critic himself. The others begin to doubt the Critic's honesty and mental health, and Cinema Snob concludes that he is indeed nuts when the Critic creepily admits to buying the dynamite, in case someone threatens to take his new nation.

Film Brain overhears their plan to overthrow the Critic and tells the latter, who orders a trial for Cinema Snob. Everyone refuses to allow Snob to be exiled, but the Critic, abusing his power, overrules the refusals and Snob is exiled (though he states he's going to just stay at the hotel across the street). Everyone now decides to rebel against the Critic and decides to unleash Dr. Insano on him, after some reluctance from Spoony, but he eventually agrees. A fight ensues between the Critic and Insano, but he overpowers the mad scientist and holds him at gunpoint. Linkara and Benzai appears to stop Critic and accidentally spills it that they are conspiring against him. In panic, Insano begs for help from Santa Christ, who gets shot by the Critic and dies.

The death of Santa Christ inspires Film Brain to join the others, who gets Linkara to plan a strategy. The Critic is caught off guard the next day when all of the reviewers attack him and corner him in the presidential house's kitchen. After a severe beating, the Critic is knocked out and everyone begins to fight over the role of President. However, Santa Christ appears and advises everyone to give back the nation to Baugh, considering the trouble caused by their invasion. The Critic recovers and refuses to give his nation to anyone and attempts to activate the dynamite, but the Snob had disabled them and the Critic is victim of another severe beating. He is forced to give back Molossia to Baugh, and angrily leaves, wondering why he wanted the place at all.

Suburban Knights
The Nostalgia Critic discovered a chain mail letter in his email revealing the existence of a magical gauntlet called Malachite's Hand. After doing research he discovered that the gauntlet indeed exists, though he continued to believe there was no magical properties in it and merely wants it as an object to make people pay to see. He then finds a map that would lead him to it, but he needs others and himself to dress up like fantasy characters. The Critic sent various slips of papers to his reviewers lying that they had won a free car. They were of course enraged at the revelation and decided to plan to kill the Critic in his sleep. The Critic greets his fellow reviewers before dodging a gunshot from Linkara and tells them about Malachite's Hand. Though the reviewers, except for Film Brain are skeptical. The Critic attempts to motivate them with an epic speech, but finds his living room empty and tells everyone leaving that if they refuse to participate they are fired.

That night, the Critic overlooks his costume for the quest before finding Ma-Ti in his room, holding his own slip promising a car, though the Critic claims he never sent Ma-Ti one. Ma-Ti attempts to propose that he could join him and the others on the quest, though the Critic convinces him to stay. The Critic dresses up as Link and splits up the group in order to cover more ground.

Leading Team A, the Critic encounters various enemies, such as Cat, Chester A. Bum (as "The Voice of the Forest"), and Witch Warrior. All through this, the Critic fails to stay in character and accidentally continued to show his bare crotch due to his short skirt. Obscurus Lupa (as Snow White) and Nostalgia Chick (as Arwin) teach him to act like a lady, despite his protests. Ma-Ti continually shows up, offering to help, but knowing that he is useless, the group wards him off by lying that the Nostalgia Chick lost her contact lens or that 8 Bit Mickey had a goat fetish and is in need of goat porn in order to be properly aroused.

The Critic and Team A arrive at a house and finds a book, which when opened, released Jaffers, the creator of the game. However, realizing that the critics are not true of heart, he attempts to kill them before they can find the gauntlet. Walking back home, the Critic snaps and rants about the others' insistence on staying in character, why he should even bother with stopping Malachite, and that Zelda is such a cockblocker. In his anger, the Critic realizes that Malachite sent him the chain letter, and that he wanted someone smart, brave, and adventurous enough (though Mickey corrects him by saying that he is in fact very greedy and none of those he listed). Realizing the danger of the situation, the Critic sets out of stop Malachite before running in Suede, having returned from his church mission and was a temp obstacle. On the way to the gauntlet, Suede tells him and the group about the backstory of Malachite. However, much to his rage, the Critic discovers that the gauntlet is in fact right where they started. Taking out the gauntlet and after shortly defeating Jaffers, the Critic discovers that Jaffers had replaced the gauntlet with a Power Glove, much to the approval of everyone present.

Jaffers breaks free however, and calls on the help of his obstacles (though they are temporarily delayed by street traffic) and an epic battle ensues, with Team B returning to help with the fight. Malachite arrives and kills most of the Obstacles (except for Cloak #1, who is revealed to be the Last Angry Geek) and dons the Power Glove, having full control over his magical powers once again. However, Ma-Ti appears and interrupts his attempt to destroy the world of technology, ranting about how everyone has been a dick to him before trying one last time to do something. He points at Malachite and yells heart, effectively hurting the sorcerer. Realizing that Ma-Ti's ring is the Ring of Aeon (Malachite's old friend and the forefather of technology) the Critic and the others cheer Ma-Ti on as he fights off Malachite, resulting in a huge explosion that kills him. The Critic is saddened and has his cremated remains be put in an Oatmeal can and launched into space. After a few days of depressive loitering, Linkara accidentally mentions the Necronomicon, inspiring the Critic to find the book with Chester A. Bum.

Possible endings and true ending of the series
There were episodes where the Critic's depression hinted possible ends of the Nostalgia Critic series. At the end of his My Pet Monster review, Critic called the director to ask why he created this horrendous film. In an embarrassing twist, the Critic admits he rented and willingly watched the movie, as well as pointing out it's part of his "job" to watch children's programing and criticize it at the age of 28 (at the time of the review). He closes the review by sitting at a chair by the window rethinking about his life, which led fans to believe it was the end. However, there was review the week after as a depressed Critic reviewed 90's commercials, still feeling worthless about himself. The Critic would build his confidence back after singing an interpretation of "Poor Jack" from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Another incident was the review for Scooby-Doo the movie. After almost ending the episode by saying "It fucking sucks!", the critic goes on a rant that progressively gets worse. He cries how his life so far had absolutely no purpose other than to review nostalgic films and shows. He says how he can't go out every night to be with friends, nor does he remember having any friends, and wishes to belong somewhere where he can contribute and feel belonging instead of being humiliated. He concludes by criticizing the people online who demand too much from the Critic (especially since most of the videos before this were crossovers with other members of the site), and that he works to the bone to give them everything they want. After reviewing the movie with his past and future counterparts, as well as being visited by Roger, who later tells Critic that there are so much that awaits him, Critic wakes up to Dinosaur Rob, who has a poker game at the house with 80's Dan and The Ghost of Christmas Future. Oblivious to the Critic, Rob has asked his brother to play cards with him for the past four years, but he wouldn't listen. Taking Roger's advice to "do things a little different," Critic joins the three cardplayers for a game, wishing that he'd play a long time ago (all which reference the series finale of Star Trek: The Next Generations). This was all build up to the site's 4th anniversary film To Boldly Flee

After spending the special wanting to find and save Ma-Ti, in To Boldly Flee: Part 8, The Critic convinces him to cross over and then joins with the Plot Hole to save the universe. He is presumed dead as he is along with The Last Angry Geek and Anakin Skywalker as Force Ghosts, though he may have ascended as a higher being. Only Film Brain and Bennett The Sage appear to know of his sacrifice.

On September 14th, 2012, Doug announced via video update that To Boldly Flee has marked the end of the Nostalgia Critic as a show. However, he did say the character isn't technically "dead" and may appear in future specials. One of which is that in Nostalgia Chick's "Cutthroat Island" review, where he phones the Chick from the Plot Hole, telling her to continue the Nostalgia name. Chick is able to tell that one of the results of merging with the Plot Hole is turning the Critic into a Muppet (although he claims the Muppet thing comes and goes).

He then appears before Harvey Finevoice in "AT4W: Archie Christmas Stocking" Review, claiming that despite being the Universe, still has Bills to pay so has taken up the job as one of the Ghosts of Christmas Past. He & Harvey watch how Linkara met Harvey before realising that Harvey has a dead son. He asks Harvey "Where (he) thinks (he) is, right now?" and then disappears to let Harvey meet the Ghost of Christmas Present.

Revival
As of January 22, 2013 Doug Walker had officially brought back the character in a video called The Review Must Go On and the first episode of the new run commenced February 5th. The video does not ignore the events of To Boldly Flee, but instead states the Demo Reel show as a Purgatory for the character, with Donnie being the Nostalgia Critic reincarnated. At the end Donnie enters the portal, restoring him the Critic persona and merging the Demo Reel world with the Plot Hole.

Future Nostalgia Critic
In his review of Tommy Wiseau's The Room, The Critic is confronted by his future self, who is a parody of Doc Brown from Back to the Future. This version of the Critic takes him to the future where seahorses rule, so The Room can be considered nostalgic. Just as the review ends, the seahorses break in, intending to arrest the two counterparts for watching the outlawed movie. The two managed to escape in their DeLorean, but their time-travelling has caused the Critic's house to alter and give him a tail.

After his review of The Langoliers, the Future NC appears yet again to aid the Critic in seeing if the Langoliers' jobs of eating the past is true. Which it is, though the Langoliers realize they were eating 2:35 instead of 2:30.

In the Scooby-Doo review, the synchronized preparations of watching the movie causes an anamoly in which the past, present, and future Critics meet to review Scooby-Doo. The Future Critic intending to watch it as his memory of the show has gotten fuzzy with age. In the end, the Future Critic gives his summation of the film as failing to remind him of the good times he had watching the original show, at which all of reality begins to tear itself apart due to the utter failure of the movie in the terms of past, present, and future. In order to save all of the universe, the present NC throws a grenade to his counterparts, destroying their copies of the movie as well as his own, saving the world.

Spoony Nostalgia Critic
In a world where the NC isn't born, all of the reviewers of Channel Awesome lead much much better lives. Such as Linkara being president of Marvel and DC, Nostalgia Chick being a successful filmmaker with a loving family, Cinema Snob (character) as a popular porn star, AngryJoe the president of the United States with the power to annihilate any nation he chooses, etc. In Spoony's case, he has become this world's Nostalgia Critic. However, he is more positive in his reviews. So much so that even someone like Douchey McNitpick is grateful that he exists at all.

Linkara NC
This version of the Critic appears briefly during Linkara's reviews of the Warrior comics. He at first wears the same attire as usual, except he is most likely reviewing comics rather than nostalgic movies. He then later appears wearing Linkara's hat and jacket.

Captain Explainypants
In the beginning of the review for the film Child's Play, Phelous is wearing the critic's trademark outfit. He even speaks in the same manner. Of course, the Critic dresses and acts in the same manner as Phelous. In Phelous's later reviews, his impression of the Nostalgia Critic returns as its own character: Captain Explainypants, who interrupts the reviews to explain a joke Phelous made before ultimately being killed before he can finish explaining every time.

Young Nostalgia Critic
During his Scooby-Doo review, the Critic is confronted by his past self, who is extremely enthusiastic about watching the Scooby-Doo movie for the first time, expecting for it to be a funny satire of the original show. Upon seeing his future self, the Young Critic is excited and asks if he has become a very successful writer "selling his ideas for a bajillion dollars". However, the Critic tries to discourage him by telling him about Mara Wilson's eventual attack on him during his A Simple Wish review, though it fails as the Young Critic believes that he has been brainwashed by the government and has become a "Nark". It is also shown that this version has no idea what "nostalgia" means.

Throughout the review, the Young Critic becomes confused by the out of character behavior of his beloved characters and how the CGI Scooby sucks compared to the recently unveiled CGI Gollum in Lord of the Rings. He attempts to justify the film's flaws as a callback to the original's poor animation and as funny satire (he becomes confused when he is shown Disaster Movie, Epic Movie, and Date Movie, which are examples of unfunny satires). At the end of the review, Young Critic summarizes his feelings as that the movie failed to live up to his expectations as a satire of his childhood and that the characters failed to be the characters. At the synched negative reviews between the past, present, and future, all of reality begins to tear itself apart. The NC realizes that the utter failure of the Scooby-Doo movie is causing the disaster, and throws a grenade to both of his counterparts in order to destroy the movie. The young Critic calls his present counterpart a "Nark" before exploding.

Donnie DuPre
When The Nostalgia Critic merged with The Plot Hole, he ended up in in his own purgatory known as Demo Reel. There he was Donnie DuPre, who was born as Jimmy Boyd, a former child actor. Long after the death of his mother, famous actress Elisa Hoffman, Boyd took the name of Donnie DuPre where he would strive to become a director, and filmmaker. He was the founder of Demo Reel, a movie company that remade movies to make them better, and subconsciously a means to attack the Hollywood system for the death of Donnie's mother.

When Donnie is forced to discover that he was The Nostalgia Critic, and that Demo Reel was a world created just for him, he decides to step through the portal to return to the Critic's universe as the world of Demo Reel merges witht the Plot Hole. Donnie puts the suit, cap, and tie back on and declares that The Nostalgia Critic has returned.

Master of Evil
The Nostalgia Critic guest stars in two episodes of Joueur du Grenier, a French game-reviewing show, in 2012 and 2013, eight months apart. For these appareances, The Critic plays a character known as the "Master of Evil" according to his voice-mail, though he also makes a heavy reference to his usual catchphrase.

The Master of Evil first witnesses via camera recordings the titular character Grenier (Frédéric Molas) as he impressively commando-style saved a colonel friend of his, Sébastien "Seb" Rassiat, from a guarded gang camp in the desert. Complimenting him, he also reveals that he knows his identity, before starring at the camera with a evil plotting smile for a cliffhanger. 

Eight months later, The Master of Evil phones at Grenier's and Seb's, asking if the former remembers him. The two never having had the actual occasion to meet each other, Grenier doesn't. So the Master assures him that he does, so Grenier doesn't have to, and there starts a series of winkings between the characters. For the rest of the episode, he lets them a box of video games to review. At the end of the episode, Grenier finds the Master's address on the box's backside, and ends up in a factory's basement, with journal scraps and pictures. Then a phone purposefully left there rings. The Master congratulates Grenier for finding him, and summons him at his hotel, eight other months later. Eventually, they do meet, and dance together.