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Douglas Darien "Doug" Walker, born November 17, 1981, is That Guy With The Glasses (Which is to say, he's the bespectacled man the site is named after, not that he has a case of l'etat c'est moi), the main star of the site and has so many characters you'd think he had Multiple Personality Disorder.
His original characters include:
- The Nostalgia Critic
- That Guy With The Glasses of Ask That Guy With The Glasses
- Chester A. Bum of Bum Reviews
- Dominic the Bartender of Video Game Confessions
- Douchey McNitpick, a Straw Fan spoof of Troll commenters.
- Black Dog Bill, a Pirate telling Memetic Badass jokes about Bloodbeard Joe.
- Lori Prince, a news personality in both the Batman universe, and the Channel Awesome universe (according to Word of God, since his father, Larry Prince, is a news anchor on Suburban Knights).
- Emo Jones, a spoof of Wangsty people.
- Reverend Nutjob, a spoof of preachers. His antics include just being, well, nutty. He once looked at a guy in a light yellow suit and asked God to "heal this man's fashion sense".
His parody characters include:
- General Zod of Superman II
- Raoul Puke, a character based on the works of Hunter S. Thompson
- Melvin, brother of the Joker
- Tommy Wiseau, director/writer/producer/actor/possibly-alien from The Room
- Bitch Spasms, a Patch Adams analog highlighting why the movie character wouldn't make a good doctor. Killed Off for Real at the end of the Patch Adams review.
Doug Walker provides examples of the following tropes:
- Adorkable
- Alter Ego Acting: Oh, so much of it...
- Apologizes a Lot: He's most definitely a people pleaser. You want to tell him nobody will be mad if he's too busy to do a Bum Review for a popular movie or he only does a couple videos in a week because he's tired or real life gets in the way, but we know that's a lie.
- See also Spoony's story about how they both wanted to do crossovers with The Cinema Snob and Doug was so sorry about getting to Brad first that it made Spoony even angrier.
- This.
- See also Spoony's story about how they both wanted to do crossovers with The Cinema Snob and Doug was so sorry about getting to Brad first that it made Spoony even angrier.
- Artist Disillusionment: He had it for a couple of days after the Bart's Nightmare Let's Play, where he was already in a bad way from jetlag and coming back from vacation. He got upset over people acting like the video had kicked their dog and wanted to do a Take That with Douchey in place of Chester as the mouthpiece for the fans, but Michaud talked him down. He very clearly still regrets this.
- Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny: He admits in one of his Vlog reviews that he has ADD.
- Attention Whore: Not in a bad way, but sometimes it can seem like he's putting on a show for entertainment when he's in Keet mode.
- Bias Steamroller: If there's a movie with a plot that's been done before, and doesn't add anything "new to the table", he'll probably despise it and usually would try to avoid it.
- Though in his "Old vs. New" videos, he prefers the remakes often enough to avert this trope (Karate Kid, Lord of the Rings, True Grit, The Nutty Professor).
- Also inverted. Anything that treats children or teenagers like they're intelligent and challenges them will at least be given a lot of respect.
- Big Eater: He said at a con that most of what he eats is a lot of junk food. Looking at him, you wouldn't suspect it.
- Black Comedy:The Most Disturbing Aristocrats Joke Ever.
- Break the Cutie: He used to love the Twilight movies for being so gloriously awful, but Breaking Dawn made him feel so dirty that he's very close to tears in his own review.
- The Cast Showoff: If you don't know that he's a good singer and knows it, you probably haven't watched his videos. Same with his love of doing impressions. And then of course there's the fact that before making videos full-time he was a professional illustrator and is not unwilling to show off his drawing prowess.
- Catboy: No, really. See this picture.
- Careful with That Axe: He has a very high pitch range and is not afraid to flaunt it. Occasionally, it manifests itself in this trope (e.g.Tom and Jerry: The Movie, Junior, Flubber, It)
- Cosplay: He does an amazing General Zod.
- Of course, the Critic wouldn't ever have managed to take over Kickassia if it weren't for him being... well... M. Bison.
- In Suburban Knights, he dresses up as Link.
- Can't Hold His Liquor: In the commentary for IT, he recalls how he tried the Red Dwarf drinking game, couldn't finish it and puked before passing out.
- Chubby Chaser: He tends to perk up when heftier women are on scene. His fiancée and ex-girlfriend (shown in Suburban Knights) are also both highly curvaceous.
- Creator Backlash: As far as he's concerned, Melvin, Brother of the Joker and Emo Jones are UnPeople.
- Creator Thumbprint: He has big things for tragic funniness, worlds where even the Straight Man is crazy and Jerkass Woobies. Also, whenever he needs a girl's name in Critic or Ask That Guy videos, it'll always be "Vanessa".
- Depraved Bisexual: Not Doug himself, but an Alter Ego Acting persona he put on in the third DVD advertisement. Shirtless, psychotic and threatening a tied up "pretty" guy with a knife.
- Designated Protagonist Syndrome: One of his main problems with Sleeping Beauty is that the leads are so deathly dull. And this is the guy that argued Snow White and Cinderella weren't all that bad from a feminist POV.
- Did Not Do the Research: In his Aladdin review, he mentions that Aladdin and Jasmine, while do have chemistry, still follow the three dates and get married routine that other Disney movie followed. They were actually engage and didn't get married until the third movie, four years later in real life and in-between a second movie and tv series.
- Double Standard: While discussing Daria in his top favorite TV shows, he notices that men have a tendency to love Daria's monotone voice but hate the same thing in her boyfriend, while women react vice versa.
- Double Standard Abuse (Female on Male): Defied. In Twilight, as much as he hates Edward for the usual reasons, he also loathes Bella just as much for being such a manipulative, uncaring Domestic Abuser.
- Erotic Eating: With a banana and a lollipop, both Lampshaded to the best of his ability.
- Even the Guys Want Him: We won't go into audience examples, but In-Universe he's been nearly kissed twice and managed to get out of a hug before he got his ass groped.
- As for the guys he wants, he has a bit of a thing for Jacob from Twilight.
- Fan Service Pack: He's stopped with the middle-aged-man shirts and ridiculously baggy jeans to actually have clothes that fit him. God bless self-confidence.
- Female Gaze: Invoked. There are a lot of things he does that makes his girl fans squee and immature male fans reach for Brain Bleach. [1]
- Friend to All Children: In a much less screwed up way than The Nostalgia Critic. He lampshaded his protectiveness of kids in the Ponyo commentary, adding that he's speaking as someone who doesn't have kids of his own.
- Funny Character, Boring Actor: He's usually funnier with his brother Rob, who helps write his videos.
- Good Feels Good: Sadly it's a Missing Episode, but the commentary for A Simple Wish was basically twenty minutes of him discussing how awesome it feels to be a genuine Nice Guy and he doesn't care if people think he's weak for apologizing all the time.
- The Glomp: He's a big fan of these at conventions.
- Guilty Pleasure: He has several, most notably being the Twilight movies, which he's admitted to loving for being so stupid.
- He's All Grown Up: As this picture so eloquently states.
- I Am Not Spock: Even though The Nostalgia Critic is a hyperbolic wreck who would have probably died in the real world long ago, people still confuse Doug with his character.
- Keet: He used to be pretty shy when he was starting out, but now he's pretty much always happy, hug-loving and very bouncy.
- Lampshaded the Obscure Reference: In a video where he was in Austria, he made a reference to Julie Taymor's work, and noted that about five people watching might get it.
- Like Brother and Sister: Watch any behind the scenes material with him and Lindsay Ellis; they're this trope.
- Man of a Thousand Voices
- Mean Character, Nice Actor: Most of his characters are awful people or deeply screwed-up, or both. The Nostalgia Critic is a bratty lunatic and a bag of issues; "Ask That Guy With The Glasses" is a sadistic monster; in the trailer for the TGWTG Volume 3 DVD, Doug has kidnapped someone and glued them to a chair to torture them (and promote the DVD). Other TGWTG contributors and fans seem to agree that the real Doug Walker is a ridiculously nice guy. (See Nice Guy below.)
- Misblamed: Fans have a tendency to blame him for whatever happens in crossovers or specials, forgetting that the majority of people on the site have their own character and will speak up if they feel he's writing them wrongly.
- Mr. Fanservice: As well as some of the things he does for the Critic and Ask That Guy, he takes every opportunity he can to flirt with people, start a striptease for con-goers or show off some skin.
- Nice Guy: He's a sweet man. In his commentary for Zombie 5, Noah Antwiler (a nice guy on his own) said how Doug called him up to profusely apologize for coincidentally using his idea of dressing up like The Cinema Snob first.
- In a tweet, Lindsay called him one of the rare Really Nice Guys.
- On Facebook, a Troll was calling Doug every single sexually degrading thing he could think of for a long while. He then asked when he lost his virginity. Doug finally responded with a Your Mom joke... and then apologized for having to be "needlessly cruel" sometimes.
- In Phelous's House of Wax review, everyone else celebrates Paris Hilton's death in the film, while he's disgusted by their behavior.
- He invited Mara Wilson to appear in his A Simple Wish review as a way of saying sorry due to his fanbase sending her bad messages over her acting skills.
- Older Than They Think: In-universe, while talking about Cinderella, he brought up that it was really Pinocchio that started the whole "wish and you'll do fine" business that people dislike the Disney Princess range of movies for.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Whenever Doug tries to do an accent it inevitably turns into some sort of weird Eastern European accent. See his "How To Be a Pirate" videos and his contributions to Lupa's Tommy Wiseau videos for examples.
- Opinion Myopia: An openly clear aversion. Playing himself in his videos, he has noted that he (usually) understands that some people just feel differently about works than he does.
- Oral Fixation Fixation: Put anything phallic in front of him and he will lick it. His Ask That Guy With The Glasses pipe, a lollipop, a lightsaber (three times), a banana, a joystick... Women were pleased.
- Raised Catholic: Doug said he attended Catholic school when he was a kid in his Melody Time review.
- In some of his flashback videos, Catholic items (and a church) are seen. In his video "Off to Defeat the Nerd," he asks Rob what they were bapitized as.
- Pretty Boy: Lampshaded often by both him and others.
- Prima Donna Director: His "persona" in "The Kickassian War". In real life he's a nice but firm perfectionist version.
- Sad Clown: While he's fine now, the character of the Critic came from a quite extreme "nostalgia phase"/"mid-midlife crisis" and he's one of those comedians that believes some of the best comedy comes from being miserable.
- Sarcasm Failure: Towards the end of his Boys Beware riff. He can only say "...wow" to the assertion that gay people are mentally ill.
- Shameless Fanservice Boy: As seen by the donation drives and some cons with Rob, he carries on the teasing even when others are uncomfortable.
- Shirtless Scene: By this point he's had so many he might have actually topped Benzaie for most times half naked on the site.
- Shrinking Violet: In his Disneycember review of A Goofy Movie, he joke-cries that the shy, stuttering guy in the corner really can't get the hot girl in real life. Cue fangirl d'awwing.
- Sick and Wrong: He was particularly disgusted and upset by Breaking Dawn, Part 1 trying to discuss the topic of abortion, stating that a subject like that requires you to, among other things be highly knowledgeable on the subject and know what you're talking about, neither of which fits the film's take on the subject.
- Smarter Than You Look: People have a tendency to assume he's just as stupid as the Critic. He regularly proves this assumption wrong with his own reviews, commentaries and eloquent posts on facebook.
- So Bad Its Horrible: Doug has this opinion about Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1 and The Garbage Pail Kids Movie. In his commentary for the latter, he said that this was one of the rare times where he shares The Nostalgia Critic's view on the movie.
- Stop Being Stereotypical: This is his problem with Enchanted. He states that by the 90s Disney movies, the princesses and female leads weren't ditzy damsels and Enchanted was acting like they were.
- Talking to Himself: He does have loads of characters, and sometimes they interact with each other.
- Tear Jerker: He can get through Grave of the Fireflies alright, but Wolf's Rain always makes him cry.
- The Tease: He likes his flirting. A lot. All for fun, though.
- Tethercat Principle: He will occasionally use defiance of this trope as a joke.
- Too Kinky to Torture: He certainly comes off like this when he reveals he willingly and without regret put clothespins on his private parts for the second animated Titanic movie review.
- True Art Is Angsty: Doug went through this phase during his high school/college years and made a few short films during that time, which he now considers Old Shames to poke fun of.
- Undying Loyalty: He's fiercely attached to the other contributors and will always look after them, even going so far as to feel guilty when they got sunburned in Kickassia. They care just as much about him in return.
- Vocal Evolution: The Critic lost Doug's Chicago accent and become broader, Ask That Guy's voice become posher and Chester's voice is a bit lower now.
- The Woobie: He really loves playing these, whether they're pure woobie or the jerkass kind. The only characters of his that don't have issues of some nature are Dominic and Raoul Puke. The former is a bartender dealing with the personal problems of video game characters and the latter is a druggie. That should tell you something.
- Women Are Wiser: In his As Himself review of Paranormal Activity III, he not-very-seriously calls the films anti-men for always having them be idiots.
- The Workaholic: Rob said on a forum post that Doug's fiancée doesn't get to see him as often as she'd like because they're always working. And with that in mind, Doug himself understandably gets a bit frustrated with people who call him "lazy".
- ↑ This might also possibly account for some of the more venomous reactions he gets.