Doug Walker
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About
Douglas Darien "Doug" Walker, born November 17, 1981,(widely known for creation "The Nostalgia Critic") is an internet personality, and one of the main reviewers and co-founder of reviewing site That Guy With The Glasses.
Online History
Doug Walker first gained notoriety on YouTube, where he started The Nostalgia Critic and 5 Second Movies. However, shortly after, his videos garnered complaints from companies such as 20th Century Fox and Lions Gate over copyright Infringement. Despite Walker explaining his videos were satirical, and thus protected by the United States First Amendment[1], YouTube took the videos down anyway. In April 2008, Walker created his own site named That Guy With The Glasses, as a means to escape YouTube deleting the videos. As of June 2008, all of Walker's videos were taken off YouTube.
Reputation
When Walker first started making videos, he garnered a giant fanbase for both 5 second videos and Nostalgia Critic. The Nostalgia Critic has received high praise from critics and audiences. The show averages 100,000 to 200,000 viewers per week. In the third quarter of the 2009 fiscal year alone, the series generated $54,000 in income from its advertising. This income allowed Walker to quit his previous job as an illustrator and to create web television professionally.
The series and character gained increased fame from a fictional feud between the Critic and fellow web reviewer character The Angry Video Game Nerd (played by James Rolfe). This began with the Critic launching a satirical attack in an early video. The feud took place over many videos in 2008–09. The two characters, and real-life comedians, are now the best of friends. Walker has informed viewers of Rolfe's projects, and Rolfe has contributed to some of the Critic's subsequent videos, such as the Voice in Suburban Knights, an attacker in his review of Ponyo for the 200th episode of the Nostalgia Critic, and a masked alien in To Boldly Flee. Walker posted on his Twitter account that he will make a cameo appearance in Rolfe's Angry Video Game Nerd film adaptation.
This carried on for a few years, until his fanbase started to decrease, with many saying that the videos were starting to get boring, and filled with mindless yelling. This unpopularity reached it's peak when Walker released a Let's Play of Bart's Nightmare[2]. Many fans saw this as his worst video, and became infamous in the Let's Play community, with Slowbeef[3], the original creator of Let's Play, tearing apart the video and the Nostalgia Critic[4]. This led Walker to spend the first part of his James and the Giant Peach review[5] apologizing.
The Nostalgia Critic
The Nostalgia Critic is Walker's most famous character, and one of the sites most watched series. He is a reviewer who reviews old nostalgic movies and tv shows from the 80's and 90's. The critic grew in popularity after a fictional feud with the Angry Video Game Nerd, which took place through many episodes, ending with the two, as well as other TGWTG reviewers, having a group fight for the site's first anniversary.
Feud with Wiseau films
On July 13 2010, Walker released a Nostalgia Critic review of cult film The Room, to positive feedback. However, soon afterwards, The company behind The Room, Wiseau films, complained about Copyright Infringement and got the video taken down. In response to this, Doug created a video poking fun at Wiseau films on 20 July. Soon, the original video was put back up, and as of September 2012, has not been taken down.
The "Death" and Return of the Nostalgia Critic
On August 23 2012, Walker released the 1st part of the sites fourth anniversary special, To Boldly Flee, in which The Critic as well as other reviewers from the site, set out to try and save Ma-Ti, a character from the 90's cartoon, Captain Planet[6]. The final part was released on September 13, in which the Nostalgia Critic sacrifices himself to save the world. This lead to many fans speculating to whether or not this meant the end of the Nostalgia Critic. A day after, on September 14, Walker released a video stating that there would no longer be weekly episodes of the Nostalgia Critic (even though the Critic may still appear in future specials) and Walker would be moving on to make other series.
On January 22, 2013, a video titled The Review Must Go On announced the return of the Nostalgia Critic. The video serves as a followup to To Boldly Flee and a conclusion to Demo Reel, his then current and biggest project. It revealed that the Demo Reel show was a Purgatory for the character, with Donnie being the Nostalgia Critic reincarnated, to help him recognize the feelings of being ridiculed. At the end Donnie was restored to the Critic persona, resulting in the Demo Reel world to be merged with the Plot Hole. The video was framed by a fictionalized version of Walker having a writer's block and pondering whether to revive The Nostalgia Critic after watching The Odd Life of Timothy Green and finds himself ranting about it like the Critic.
The schedule is changed to two weeks to provide Walker more time to work on his review. Also, the Nostalgia Critic is now reviewing newer movies more often so long as they are not currently playing in theaters and available on DVD or any other releasable forms so that he can get the footage needed. The official return of the Nostalgia Critic was announced and debuted on February 5, 2013 with the first episode being The Odd Life of Timothy Green. In addition, Walker's Demo Reel costars, Malcolm Ray and Rachel Tietz, joined the cast for sketches throughout the review.
5 Second Videos
5 Second Videos, is a video blog in which Walker attempts to explain different movies in a short amount of time. 5 Second Videos was one of the two series which walker started on YouTube, with the other one being Nostalgia Critic. This meant that the majority of videos were taken down due to copyright infringement. In 2008, Walker discontinued the series, due to concerns the series would become stale. Despite this, other site reviewers continued the series with their own versions.
Ask That Guy With The Glasses
Ask That Guy With The Glasses, or known simply as Ask That Guy, is a show with centers around the titular character, played by Walker. In it he's presented with questions send by fans, read by a narrator. He then proceeds to respond with the most sick and spiteful answers possible.This often reveals horrifying and downright disturbing facts about various aspects of his life.
Bum Reviews
Bum Reviews is a series in which Walker plays Chester A. Bum, a tramp who reviews recent movies in a fast style, similar to the Nostalgia Critic's review of Transformers. The first review was released in May 2008, and starting with the Thor review, Walker releases a separate video detailing his real opinions of the films. That segment evolved eventually into Sibling Rivalry, a show in which he discusses the films together with his brother, Rob Walker.
Demo Reel
Demo Reel was Doug Walker's main project after finishing the Nostalgia Critic. It is notable for being filmed in a proper studio, rather than Walker's basement as the Nostalgia Critic was. The show began on October 30, 2012 with a parody of Christopher Nolan's Batman films.
The story revolves around Donnie DuPre (played by Walker), the founder of an independent film studio called "Demo Reel", who believes he can not only remake famous movies, but also make them better with a shoestring budget.
Doug Walker described it as his personal dream project. Demo Reel, while still poking fun at movies and Hollywood in general, was a far more darker and character-driven show than the Nostalgia Critic. Unfortunately, the fans were very polarized about it, praising some funny jokes and character development but criticizing the pacing issues and lack of focus. This, in turn, resulted with Demo Reel ending with the return of the Nostalgia Critic.
How to be a Pirate
How to Be a Pirate was a show by Doug Walker that debuted on the site on October 21st, 2010. In it, a pirate named Black Dog Bill (who's real name is Howard) tells the viewers proper use and stories about certain aspect's of a pirate clothing and accessories. As the video progresses, he attempts asking the patrons of the bar he at which he shoots the video their opinions on certain matters. When they refuse to socialize with him, Black Dog Bill tells the audience a bit of gossip about said patron. Every video ends with Black Dog Bill telling the people stories of Blood Beard Joe, a legendary pirate famed for impossible feats.
Doug has admitted that the reason for creating this show was to build up a role that Black Dog Bill would play in the original idea for the 3rd Year anniversary, then called Ninjas vs Pirates, before it eventually became Suburban Knights.
Merry Zodmas
Merry Zodmas was a show where Doug dresses up like Terrance Stamp's General Zod from Superman II. The show showed up in time for Christmas 2010 and has Zod analyze certain aspects of the holiday season, like snowmen and gifts.
Video Game Confessions
In this show Walker plays the role of Dominic the Bartender, who retells stories he has heard from patrons at the "Pixel Palace". The clientele are usually the classic video gaming elite such as Mario, Sonic, Samus etc.. The video game characters tell Dominic the story and he retells them, usually drawing what was happening in the story. The first episode aired April 7th, 2009.
Search Interest
External References
[1] Wikipedia – First Amendment to the United States Constitution
[2] That Guy With The Glasses (via Wayback Machine) – Let's Play Bart's Nightmare
[3] YouTube – Slowbeef's Channel
[4] Blip (via Wayback Machine) – Retsupurae vs the Nostalgia Critic
[5] That Guy with the Glasses (via Wayback Machine) – James and the Giant Peach review
[6] Wikipedia – Captain Planet