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JERRY BECK
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AMID AMIDI
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That Guy With The Glasses reviews Nicktoons
by jerry
January 7, 2009 2:00 pm


And let me also take the opportunity to plug this book.

01/7/09  2:20pm
Owen says:

annoying.

01/7/09  2:33pm
Chris Sobieniak says:

Thanks Jerry for a trip down memory lane (course i was already in high school when the Nicktoons was in full swing)!

RUGRATS: Think the best vid i saw that did Rugrats justice was this…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DIQKUZIqHo

DOUG: In all fairness, I liked the first season of The Simpsons, thank you!

ROCKO’S MODERN LIFE: Notice he didn’t get into the subliminal moments in the show, but funny to hear of it in Aaahh!!! Real Monsters.

01/7/09  3:22pm

I think the scream at the very end was my favorite part!

01/7/09  3:22pm
OtherDan says:

Wow! The louder and more annoying he got the more I wanted to watch. Well, most of that stuff looked like Klasky. What about Sponge Bob? Invader Zim? etc? Not a good representation of Nick.

01/7/09  3:30pm

I want to thank you Jerry for introducing me to Nostalgia Critic. He is not for everyone but he’s the better out of all the largely mediocre and unfunny internet rant guys/gals. I pretty much agree with this review overall. Oh and useless trivia but I just wanted to comment on the mystery of Arnold’s so called “dress” from HEY ARNOLD ! It’s actually a red collared shirt that is longer then his blue shirt, so that is why it appears as a dress.

Chris: Count me in as a fan of the first season. Alot people say boring but I find it quirky and cleverly written and there is alot of funny animation. I’d definetly take it over the 10 seasons.

01/7/09  3:36pm
Andrew says:

Very entertaining, great nostaglic trip, and huge smile. :O Never heard of this guy, though.

01/7/09  3:46pm

Cool stuff, although I’m more of a Spoony Experiment fan myself among the partners involved with the Five Second Critic. The FMV Hell stuff is excellent!

I never did get why all of the characters in Doug have inhuman skin colors either.

Rocko is one of the best cartoons in history. It helps to have an open sense of humor to enjoy it. I do admit that the Chimney Sweep song is unnecessarily too similar to the Lumberjack Song.

01/7/09  4:15pm
Marc Baker says:

Honestly, I never cared for Nick, and the way they presented themselves kinda rubbed me the wrong way. ‘Rugrats’, and ‘Doug’, while loved by many, just never did it for me. ‘Ren & Stimpy’ grabbed me the most due to it’s ‘classic cartoon’ look, and feel. Which truly made it stand out for me at least. However, ‘Ren & Stimpy’ wasn’t for everyone. We all know how risky John K. truly was, and that nearly costed him his career. Anyway, that’s my two cents on Nick’s early years.

01/7/09  5:40pm

By the time I got into Nicktoons, Rocko was wrapping its run up and “Hey Arnold” just started (and of course the three original Nicktoons were still being rerunned), so I got to see more of the Nicktoons than he did.

His description of “Ren & Stimpy” was the best part. The show was my first real exposure to modern US animation, so it was a fun memory trip. (Ironically, I think I saw the Games episodes first, and didn’t see the John K eps until later on).

01/7/09  5:54pm
Anna says:

i always loved loved LOVED “Rocko’s Modern Life”.. but “Ren & Stimpy” annoyed me like you wouldn’t believe

01/7/09  6:13pm
:: smo :: says:

wow really annoying.

but good topic!

01/7/09  7:57pm
Shax says:

OtherDan: There’s a reason why he calls himself the NOSTALGIA critic.

01/7/09  8:13pm
Derek says:

Larry Flynt’s nephews just licensed Beetlejuice’s dildo.

01/7/09  8:14pm

“Rugrats’, and ‘Doug’, while loved by many, just never did it for me.”

I loved both when I was a kid but now, meh. They were the epitome of bland children’s programing. Ren and Stimpy and Rocko though, those make me LMAO today.

01/7/09  8:23pm

OT but I also loved Nick’s old live-action stuff. Shows like ALL-THAT and KENAN AND KEL felt written by professionals and appealed to everyone. Sure they weren’t as risque as Rocko or R&S but they were still pretty funny. Today it’s talentless kid actors given bad sit-com material to preform and and non-stop laugh track in the backround.

01/7/09  10:30pm

Couldn’t watch the whole thing….they guy just put me off too much.

01/7/09  11:23pm
rosa says:

That guy is the unfunniest thing I’ve ever seen.

It is interesting though about the weird camera moves at the beginning of Rugrats episodes. I’ve forgotten his name, but the same guy who worked on these scenes, also worked on the animated series of aeon flux - you can see the same sorts of weird camera moves there also.

01/8/09  12:17am
Gill says:

Liked the review, but the reviewer is awful. I loved Nicktoons, too, particularly Hey Arnold, so of course I watched it all the way through.

01/8/09  3:40am

That guy needs some downers. That or they should just shove him on Playhouse Disney in a colourful jumpsuit. He’s not fit for adults, though I agree with much of what he says.

But more importantly - that cover in your Nicktoons link isn’t the same as my copy of the book! Did they do a new cover?

01/8/09  3:46am
Daryl T says:

It doesn’t matter if you liked the shows or not, the important thing is it opened up creator driven cartoons. Without Nicktoons all animation would be toy commercials.

01/8/09  11:11am
Mike Hollingsworth says:

I hate this man.

01/8/09  11:25am
OtherDan says:

Shax, point taken. In hindsight, it was good to look over those offerings. If the guy toned it down, it might be watchable without the headache.

01/9/09  12:20am
Carlos says:

I’ve seen this guy before. He does decent stuff, but he tries sooo hard to be funny it’s irritating. He thinks twitching his face and flailing around is hilarious, but it’s just annoying. I liked the clips he picked, but he was pretty harsh on the early Nick days. Everything up until the 2000’s was gold. I mean, if he hates this stuff, he better not look at today’s shows… Dammit, what the hell happened to cartoons…

01/9/09  7:51am
EHH says:

Carlos, the point he is trying to make that not all cartoons in the 80s and 90s were masterpieces.

01/9/09  10:57am
EatRune says:

Rick Roberts: I actually think “talentless kid actors given bad sit-com material to preform and and non-stop laugh track in the backround” seems to fit the description of All That and Kenan & Kel just as much as it does for what’s on today.

I actually found some of the stuff pretty funny, such as what the Rugrats would grow up to be (I thought he would mention that we DID get to see what they looked like in 9-10 years). I particularly liked the name Doug joke, as I knew someone a few years ago with that name who was sometimes called “Doug Funnie.”

I actually don’t think people remember or talk about “Aah! Real Monsters” as much.

01/9/09  5:44pm
TJR says:

I enjoyed the guy with the glasses and think he’s funny.

01/10/09  12:02am
Dr. Pepper says:

“I loved both when I was a kid but now, meh. They were the epitome of bland children’s programing.”

What? So you loved the kid’s show as a kid but dislike it as an adult so it is therefore “bad”?

01/10/09  9:23am
BugsTummy says:

A good rundown of Nick’s shows but it doesn’t seem like he remembers much of any of it. Hey Arnold! was not just about a kid living in a city, it had some of the best writing of children’s TV shows, and apart from Arnold (strangely enough) everyone else on the show had distinct and very interesting personalities. It’s also unfair to call Gerald the “black friend everyone has,” he is probably the funniest character on the show and not just a sidekick. Anyhow, seems like he was going more for the laughs as opposed to accuracy, but I never realized how surreal and weird Nick’s shows were (CatDog comes to mind…)

01/11/09  4:03pm
Chris Sobieniak says:

Thanks Rob for the kind words on my thoughts on The Simpsons. I just think there was an equal balance between the story and animation in that first season alone that slowly tipped more to the writers’ side as the show went on. The animation only really serves to tell what the writers want than what the cartoonists may have in mind.

> It is interesting though about the weird camera moves at the beginning of Rugrats episodes. I’ve forgotten his name, but the same guy who worked on these scenes, also worked on the animated series of aeon flux - you can see the same sorts of weird camera moves there also.

You mean Peter Chung I take it. Technically he only worked on the main title sequence of the series, and a pilot called “Tommy Pickles and the Great White Thing”, but left when production of the TV series began, but his use of camera angles continued to be used in the series itself.

Daryl T. does bring up an important point about why the Nicktoons were made in the first place, and how it shaped TV animation for the rest of the decade from where it had been before. We did not want to go through another decade worth of toy ads now could we?

In the end, guys like NC often are just there for comedy than to try to act like “yeah, I’ve seen/play this before, here’s why it sucked!” There’s a lot of so-called reviewers out there through places like YouTube who have picked up the torch that was ignited by those like Angry Video Game Nerd, and try to do the same shtick but fall flat of expectations either due to limited resources or talent. In some way, it reminds me of the crank calling craze of the 90’s spear-headed by The Jerky Boys, everyone and their mom had to put out a CD worth of useless material to flood the shelves.

Aside from the Nicktoons review, someone else through GwtG’s site has done a review of her own detailing animation’s history while emphasizing why it’s not a children’s medium most would perceive it as, though I find I could only go through the first few minutes of it before I shut it off! I just couldn’t stand it!
http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/marzgurl/reviews/2595-a-history-of-animation-part-1
http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/marzgurl/reviews/3048-a-history-of-animation-part-2

01/23/09  5:38pm
Iain says:

I just got word from the administrator of the “That Guy” website, The Nostalgia Critic is planning to review “Ferngully” on Feb 3rd, The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog television series on Feb 17th, and at the end of March, the abominational Titanic animated movie (well at least the US version other than the rumored Italian version) on the 17th and Don Bluth’s “Rock-A-Doodle” on the 24th.

And for those who haven’t seen That Guy with the Glasses’ other reviews of animated fare, here’s the links:
Super Mario Bros Super Show - http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/3061-super-mario-brothers-super-show
Top 11 Nostalgic Animated Shows - http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/1870-top-11-nostalgic-animated-shows
Top 11 Nostalgic Animated Hotties - http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/910-top-11-hottest-animated-women
Captain Planet - http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/609-captain-planet
Pokemon: The First Movie - http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/163-pokemon-the-movie
and Space Jam - http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/45-space-jam-review

P.S. I agree with Chris Sobieniak about MarzGirl, she’s annoyingly dull rather than informative and funny in comparison with another female participant of T.G.W.T.G., Lindsay Ellis (The Nostalgia Chick.)

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