Thank you for the shoutout. I’m so predictable, aren’t I?
I’m enjoying this series because I too was a fan of Spoony’s videos. During a period of unemployment around 2009-2010, his videos helped keep my spirits up during my job hunt. Other than AVGN, Spoony was the only one who seemed to really have talent and knowledge. Other TFWTG/Channel Awesome creators were mildly entertaining—the only one I really liked was LordKat, aka Jason Pullara, and his Until We Win series, not just because he reminded me of an obese version of my buddy Pete—but Spoony was the guy. I don’t know exactly what led to his downfall, but man things got ugly with all of those Channel Awssome guys.
I agree that Spoony’s Ultima retrospective was create (I still laugh at “What’s a Paladin?”) His FF X and FF XIII were gold, and I really liked his playthrough of Phantasmagoria II (“I heard that, Curtis!”—that actor uses that as the name of his own podcast!) and the game with Christopher Walken (“this guy . . . is un-fuckin’—beLIEVEable.”). The storylines were hit-or-miss, and I found Dr. Insano annoying, but the recurring “BLAGG HOOLE!” but was funny, as was Spoony’s Ultimate Warrior impression.
I’m really looking forward to the rest of this. What a blast from the, albeit embarrassing, past.
Hey - whenever I think of famous (or infamous) power trios, Rush always comes to mind, and now, whenever I think of Rush, I think of you :P I remember when my dad introduced me to them way back when and I didn't believe that so much noise could be made by three people, or that Lee could do much at once. Honestly I forgot how big of a Rush guy he is, too. He told me back in high school he'd put on 2112 and listen to it as he fell asleep at night. I also feel like it was at a Rush concert he smoked some laced green and tripped out, which I can only imagine must have been one hell of an experience.
Rush aside, we'll touch on LordKat and that drama in the next part. Ugly is an understatement. I think his screed on Spoony and Angry Joe ultimately killed the whole Blistered Thumbs division of TGWTG, though it was already on thin ice by the time. It's sad, too, because Spoony and LordKat's collab over the Pumpkinhead game was one of my favorite videos to come from either of them.
I'm glad you're enjoying! It's been fun for me to revisit all of these videos and personalities, too.
Thank you. Funny as it would be to quit in such a spectacular manner, I can't imagine you'd get a very good reference from your previous employer :P Doug Walker is very lucky he was already making f-off money at the time and his choice to pursue content creation panned out because I don't think he would have been getting any job offers after that stunt.
I haven't finished reading yet. I'm not even halfway through this part, and yet I felt compelled to comment because once again, as has occurred in every single article I've read of yours since I dug in deep with your Harry Potter series, I see you expressing cringe at things that make me say, "Oh yeah, I never liked that, either," and then turning right around to point at something you liked only for me to say, "Oh yeah, I dug that, too."
Each article has me progressively more convinced that you're my secret long lost younger brother or some shit like that (which is a legitimate possibility considering I'm adopted). Oh, and the culprit this time? Enjoying The Adventure Zone despite a usually sizable distaste for live-play podcasts like Critical Role.
Alright, back to reading.
EDIT: And now that I've finished reading, my lord, the nostalgia is strong with this one. That 2010-12 period was when I stumbled across Spoony, mainly from the crossovers they occasionally had him do with the Critic. Considering the Blistered Thumbs thing, one might've expected it to be Joe that lead me to Spoony, (I used to watch Pissed Jose quite a bit between 2009 and 2012) but I didn't really follow the TGWTG/Channel Awesome sites since my wife and I liked watching the Nerd or Critic together, so we'd usually just fire up YouTube on the PS3.
This retrospective does have me wishing I'd paid more attention to Spoony in his heyday. As mentioned before, I didn't really watch much of his stuff when I did discover him, but what I did watch I enjoyed. I'm not sure why I never stuck with it, most likely it was due to simply feeling like I had too much other stuff that I was watching at that time, which is sad since looking back reveals much of what I watched to be pretty mediocre. That was also pretty near to the peak of my tabletop gaming and MMORPG days, though. Until mid 2012 most of the time that I didn't spend with my wife or working was spent planning for or running Pathfinder games, or raiding in WoW, all considerable time sinks.
Well, I'd say the odds of us being long-lost siblings is quite low given the circumstances of my family, but... well, who knows what my father got up to before he settled down. More likely that you're just a man of discerning and patrician tastes, like myself ;)
Honestly, I think my distaste for Critical Role and D20 have less to do with my usual dislike of long-winded and poorly told recountings of roleplaying game incidents so much as it is my limited tolerance for so many people involved with them. Like any podcast, I find two or three of the players to be likeable, one or two tolerable but unremarkable, but there's always at least another one or two that I cannot fucking stand period and sour the entire thing. If you've ever seen anything about Critical Role, you can probably tell exactly who the two that just killed any hope for me ever liking it right just from looking at the line-up of players. But with Adventure Zone... they're an acquired taste but I like the McElroy brothers, and their father is a surprisingly good addition to the group. Travis is a weird sex pest and hard to like outside of Adventure Zone but I can usually forget that he is... well, like he is.
As to having too much stuff to watch, I get that. There were a lot of Channel Awesome contributors back in the day and keeping up with all of them was a real commitment. I suspect part of the ultimate undoing of the site was it just got too big and there were too many people, competing interests, so on and so forth. I also suspect a big part of the "Change the Channel" movement was a dedicated attempt to sink the site to benefit a small group of users that had a vested interest in TGWTG tanking to get their own site off the ground, but... we'll talk about that later. Point is, Angry Alejandro was one of those guys I just never watched and only knew about because he popped up in Spoony and Linkara's videos a lot. We'll talk more about Pissed Pablo next time though ;)
Thank you for the shoutout. I’m so predictable, aren’t I?
I’m enjoying this series because I too was a fan of Spoony’s videos. During a period of unemployment around 2009-2010, his videos helped keep my spirits up during my job hunt. Other than AVGN, Spoony was the only one who seemed to really have talent and knowledge. Other TFWTG/Channel Awesome creators were mildly entertaining—the only one I really liked was LordKat, aka Jason Pullara, and his Until We Win series, not just because he reminded me of an obese version of my buddy Pete—but Spoony was the guy. I don’t know exactly what led to his downfall, but man things got ugly with all of those Channel Awssome guys.
I agree that Spoony’s Ultima retrospective was create (I still laugh at “What’s a Paladin?”) His FF X and FF XIII were gold, and I really liked his playthrough of Phantasmagoria II (“I heard that, Curtis!”—that actor uses that as the name of his own podcast!) and the game with Christopher Walken (“this guy . . . is un-fuckin’—beLIEVEable.”). The storylines were hit-or-miss, and I found Dr. Insano annoying, but the recurring “BLAGG HOOLE!” but was funny, as was Spoony’s Ultimate Warrior impression.
I’m really looking forward to the rest of this. What a blast from the, albeit embarrassing, past.
Hey - whenever I think of famous (or infamous) power trios, Rush always comes to mind, and now, whenever I think of Rush, I think of you :P I remember when my dad introduced me to them way back when and I didn't believe that so much noise could be made by three people, or that Lee could do much at once. Honestly I forgot how big of a Rush guy he is, too. He told me back in high school he'd put on 2112 and listen to it as he fell asleep at night. I also feel like it was at a Rush concert he smoked some laced green and tripped out, which I can only imagine must have been one hell of an experience.
Rush aside, we'll touch on LordKat and that drama in the next part. Ugly is an understatement. I think his screed on Spoony and Angry Joe ultimately killed the whole Blistered Thumbs division of TGWTG, though it was already on thin ice by the time. It's sad, too, because Spoony and LordKat's collab over the Pumpkinhead game was one of my favorite videos to come from either of them.
I'm glad you're enjoying! It's been fun for me to revisit all of these videos and personalities, too.
This was an interesting read, and a funny video. A funny way to quit, not sure if I'd do that though, especially since I like where I'm at.
Thank you. Funny as it would be to quit in such a spectacular manner, I can't imagine you'd get a very good reference from your previous employer :P Doug Walker is very lucky he was already making f-off money at the time and his choice to pursue content creation panned out because I don't think he would have been getting any job offers after that stunt.
Oh yeah, I highly doubt he would.
I haven't finished reading yet. I'm not even halfway through this part, and yet I felt compelled to comment because once again, as has occurred in every single article I've read of yours since I dug in deep with your Harry Potter series, I see you expressing cringe at things that make me say, "Oh yeah, I never liked that, either," and then turning right around to point at something you liked only for me to say, "Oh yeah, I dug that, too."
Each article has me progressively more convinced that you're my secret long lost younger brother or some shit like that (which is a legitimate possibility considering I'm adopted). Oh, and the culprit this time? Enjoying The Adventure Zone despite a usually sizable distaste for live-play podcasts like Critical Role.
Alright, back to reading.
EDIT: And now that I've finished reading, my lord, the nostalgia is strong with this one. That 2010-12 period was when I stumbled across Spoony, mainly from the crossovers they occasionally had him do with the Critic. Considering the Blistered Thumbs thing, one might've expected it to be Joe that lead me to Spoony, (I used to watch Pissed Jose quite a bit between 2009 and 2012) but I didn't really follow the TGWTG/Channel Awesome sites since my wife and I liked watching the Nerd or Critic together, so we'd usually just fire up YouTube on the PS3.
This retrospective does have me wishing I'd paid more attention to Spoony in his heyday. As mentioned before, I didn't really watch much of his stuff when I did discover him, but what I did watch I enjoyed. I'm not sure why I never stuck with it, most likely it was due to simply feeling like I had too much other stuff that I was watching at that time, which is sad since looking back reveals much of what I watched to be pretty mediocre. That was also pretty near to the peak of my tabletop gaming and MMORPG days, though. Until mid 2012 most of the time that I didn't spend with my wife or working was spent planning for or running Pathfinder games, or raiding in WoW, all considerable time sinks.
Well, I'd say the odds of us being long-lost siblings is quite low given the circumstances of my family, but... well, who knows what my father got up to before he settled down. More likely that you're just a man of discerning and patrician tastes, like myself ;)
Honestly, I think my distaste for Critical Role and D20 have less to do with my usual dislike of long-winded and poorly told recountings of roleplaying game incidents so much as it is my limited tolerance for so many people involved with them. Like any podcast, I find two or three of the players to be likeable, one or two tolerable but unremarkable, but there's always at least another one or two that I cannot fucking stand period and sour the entire thing. If you've ever seen anything about Critical Role, you can probably tell exactly who the two that just killed any hope for me ever liking it right just from looking at the line-up of players. But with Adventure Zone... they're an acquired taste but I like the McElroy brothers, and their father is a surprisingly good addition to the group. Travis is a weird sex pest and hard to like outside of Adventure Zone but I can usually forget that he is... well, like he is.
As to having too much stuff to watch, I get that. There were a lot of Channel Awesome contributors back in the day and keeping up with all of them was a real commitment. I suspect part of the ultimate undoing of the site was it just got too big and there were too many people, competing interests, so on and so forth. I also suspect a big part of the "Change the Channel" movement was a dedicated attempt to sink the site to benefit a small group of users that had a vested interest in TGWTG tanking to get their own site off the ground, but... we'll talk about that later. Point is, Angry Alejandro was one of those guys I just never watched and only knew about because he popped up in Spoony and Linkara's videos a lot. We'll talk more about Pissed Pablo next time though ;)