Running Gags

Running Gags have been a feature of the site since its inception. These are the jokes that the main contributors of ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com have done over and over.



Whole Site
These are special running gags that have become some popular that they are widely used in videos outside of their original creators. In fact, Suede and Benzaie have often copied each other's running gags when they had a fake feud for a few months. Listed are those gags and of course those of the whole site.

Of course!
This running gag was that whenever the Nostalgia Critic explains that the film's villains "plans to, you guessed it, take over the world", it cuts to M. Bison (Raul Julia) shouting "Of course!" This has been used a couple of more times. In addition, it has been used in similar fashion in videos by Suede, Linkara, The Spoony One, and even once by The Nerd.


 * NC Street Fighter
 * NC Mortal Kombat
 * NC Batman & Robin - (twice)
 * NC Masters of the Universe
 * NC Double Dragon - And breaks the fourth wall saying that he's never going to get sick of that joke.
 * NC The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog - It appears even the Critic is sick of it, the video, passes over the opportunity to put it in his video after the set-up, stating he's "tired" of it.
 * AT4W Watchmen - The clip is not used. Instead, Linkara, aka Lester B. Bum acts out the scene himself.
 * NC Full House
 * Let's Play Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force
 * NC Barb Wire - In a variation, this doesn't appear after the Critic said someone is taking over the world, but when the villain is stated to be "M. Bison's twin brother" (although Raul Julia had nothing to do with the movie).
 * Kickassia Part 2: A reporter interviewing the NC about ruling Kickassia tries to get him to say the phrase, but he does not do so until he talks about having sex with the Nostalgia Chick.
 * AT4W Blackest Night:Linkara and Spoony - Instead of the usual clip of M. Bison saying of course, a clip of Red Skull saying the infamous line is used.
 * NC Pound Puppies and the Legend of Big Paw-After the main villain announces plans to take over the world.
 * AT4W "Maximum Clonage"-The usual clip plays.
 * NC The Thief and the Cobbler - Plays before the NC finishes his sentence.
 * NC Ferngully 2 - After Pips tells a girl that he's "a fairy, of course."
 * NC Inspector Gadget - The clip plays after the evil Inspector Gadget discusses world domination, but NC tries to push it aside, saying the movie simply was not worthy of the joke.
 * AT4WStreet Fighter #1-Linkara plays the usual clip, then admits that time it felt obvious that he would do so.
 * Familiar Faces: Jonah Hex- The usual clip is used, but here has been given a silent film makeover.
 * Nostalgia Chick Top 5 Least Awful Disney Sequels-After Lindsay decides to make a ton of pointless pop culture references like Robin Williams did in Aladdin and the King of Thieves.

"I AM A MAN!"
This gag originated in Linkara's Superman: At Earth's End comic review. In the comic, there is a scene where Superman forcefully punches a character hard in the gut whilst screaming "I AM A MAN!", which Linkara parodied. The parody became instantly popular and as been used in other videos by HopeWithinChaos, Benzaie, AngryJoe and The Spoony One. Linkara even parodied his own joke in the Uncanny X-Men #424 review by first repeating the joke, then proclaiming "I AM A WOMAN!", followed by "wait, that's not right." He finally does another attempt, proclaiming "I AM CONFUSED ABOUT MY GENDER IDENTITY!", rambling about mixed gender rights before he completes the punch.

Citizen Kane
Doug, through his characters, often makes reference to the movie Citizen Kane, often acknowledging that it "is considered the greatest movie of all time." In The Nostalgia Critic's review of Surf Ninjas, the Critic compares the low-angle shot used to introduce Leslie Nielsen's character as the villain to Kane. In another review, for Kazaam, he wishes the movie never existed - his wish comes true and he, to his shock, ends up completing a harshly negative review of Citizen Kane instead, resulting in him being booed and someone trying to shoot him. Another Doug character, Chester A. Bum, reviewed the movie, and proclaimed it "the worst movie [he'd] ever seen in [his] life", calling it "pretentious". The end of the Bum Review, which carries Doug's genuine opinion of the movie, reveals he considers it "pretty damn good."

Shrug and Foghorn
Originally, this was intended to mock a goofy situation or one-liner intended as a lame and easy joke by playing cartoony "wa-wa-wa" noise afterwards, complete with The Nostalgia Critic shrugging and holding his hands in the air. This was first seen when Bulk and Skull were alerted to the fact that they were about to dive out a plane without their parachutes in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie. However, it is far more widely known as the response to a number of gags revolving around Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat. After a long absence, the sound effect re-appeared in the review of Mortal Kombat's sequel, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, when Cage dies an early death. The sound effect later appears again in the Nickcoms review after a "Dysfunctional Family" sketch from You Can't Do That on Television.

It was also used in The Top 11 Dumbest Superman Moments, to parody the opening of Superman III, with all the slapstick playing with the sound effect. However, there are so many slapstick sounds that an explosion is heard off-camera, and the Nostalgia Critic exclaims, "You broke the wa-wa machine!" Instances that followed this destruction used different music. After Number 5 gets destroyed in his Short Circuit review, the Critic shrugs, but plays death music from Super Mario Bros. instead of the foghorn. He also shrugs in the Gargoyles review as Brooklyn, Broadway, and Lexington mess up a kitchen, this time with the theme from The Three Stooges shorts. The wa-wa machine seems to be fixed now, as the Critic was able to use it twice in the Blank Check review after each time the thieves slipped in a fountain. Since then, the gag has appeared in the Suburban Commando review. Other Critic videos that feature this gag include the Siskel and Ebert Tribute, Old vs. New: King Kong', Zeus and Roxanne, Old vs. New: Ten Commandments vs. Prince of Egypt', Dungeons and Dragons', Inspector Gadget, and Raiders of the Story Arc: Ducktales.

Linkara also used this gag in his review of NFL Superpro #1, where the titular character makes a lame quip (whilst "with apologies to the Nostalgia Critic" appears on-screen).

The More You Know
This gag is a swipe at PSAs, with the viewer being taught something by a character followed by a "The More You Know" clip. This was first seen in The Nostalgia Critic and TheDudette's joint review of Ferngully: The Last Rainforest, where the Critic is taught by the Chick twice, each with a different PSA reference (including the theme from G.I. Joe, referencing it's PSAs). However, it has been used by Linkara in a similar manner when a character says something obvious and/or educational (such as in Newmen #1 and NFL Superpro #1).

"Big Lipped Alligator Moment!"
Lindsay Ellis coined this phrase to describe a random surreal moment which occurs during the course of a movie and is never brought up during the rest of the movie in question. It refers to the alligator in the movie All Dogs Go to Heaven, who had a huge lower jaw and was in an odd musical number. To quote Lindsay, "The scene comes right the fuck out of nowhere, bears little to no impact on the plot and once it's finished, no one ever speaks of it again."
 * NC Ferngully: The Last Rainforest-The gag is introduced when the Critic and The Nostalgia Chick comment on a lizard's insanely pointless and weird song about eating people. They even tried to make some BLAMs of their own during the review.
 * NC Top 11 Nostalgic Mindfucks-The Critic admits one could consider several of the discussed scenes as BLAMs, especially the hallucination scene of Beavis and Butthead Do America.
 * Transmission Awesome episode 13
 * NC Rock-a-Doodle-The Critic grudgingly summons the gag during Edmund's nightmare.
 * Nostalgia Chick Labyrinth-Used during the "Chilly Down" sequence.
 * Year One-The Chick forces some of her attackers to perform a BLAM.
 * NC Critic and Nerd: TMNT Making of Coming Out of Their Shells-Used during a song featuring surfing alligators.
 * Nostalgia Chick Xanadu-The Chick explains that no single scene can be considered a BLAM because "in a movie where shit just keeps happening and no one ever mentions it again, this just doesn't work."
 * NC We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story-Raoul Puke calls the film, "A Big-Lipped Alligator Movie," since several parts do not make sense.
 * Phelous Cabin Fever-Used during a scene where one of the characters sees Bugs Bunny operating on someone in a hospital.
 * NC Suburban Commando-Used when the Critic responds to a stale running gag in the movie by admitting he has several of his own.
 * NC Superman IV-Used during a scene where Lex Luthor was dancing with someone in an early Victorian wardrobe for a couple of seconds. The Critic tries to explain the term to Linkara, but simply says, "It's something the Nostalgia Chick came up with."
 * NC Tank Girl-The Critic calls the horrible musical number a "Big-Lipped Starving Children Moment" while showing pictures of the children people could have fed with the money instead spent on the song.
 * Bum Reviews The Princess and the Frog-After describing Louis as a "big-lipped trumpet-playing alligator," Chester A. Bum exclaims "A Big-Lipped Trumpet-Playing Alligator Moment!"
 * NC Star Wars Holiday Special-The "BLAM" starts to go off, but the Critic states that it better not as the special may prove too much for it.
 * 7 Reasons to See The Princess and the Frog-That Chick with the Goggles refuses to use the term in relation to Louis since he's in the whole movie.
 * NC Junior -the Critic gets so bored with the movie, he has a trippy dream including a rock song about his boredom and a judge sentencing him to finish watching the movie. When he wakes up, he acknowledges this as a BLAM.
 * NC Bebe's Kids -Used when Robin's and Jamika's ride through the tunnel of love is interrupted with a minimalist music video, while the Critic comments that such videos were pretty common in animated movies at the time. In this instance, the Critic said the phrase, but did not play the sound or show the logo.
 * Familiar Faces: Baby Doll: After Killer Croc gets hit with a blast of steam, the Nostalgia Critic and CR call it a "Burnt-Lipped Alligator Moment!".
 * NC Flubber -The logo appears during a dance sequence featuring lots of Flubber clones, but the alligators shield their eyes from the sight.
 * NC Ferngully 2 -After the lizard scares away a dog without singing, "No Big-Lipped Alligator Moment" appears.
 * MarzGurl The Land Before Time IX-MarzGurl points out a BLAM, then asks whether or not she was allowed to use the phrase.
 * Music Movies Willy Wonka-The logo appears after the scary tunnel scene, but Paw pushes it away.
 * MarzGurl All Dogs Go To Heaven-MarzGurl calls the Big-Lipped Alligator's song, "the moment you've all been waiting for." She also points out that the scene exists only to give Anne-Marie pneumonia, and then says she would have re-written the scene so that Anne-Marie gets sick simply from wading through the water, while helping Charlie find his watch.

Doug
Doug is a 1990s cartoon that debuted on Nickelodeon and later moved to ABC. It has reportedly scarred Doug Walker for life since plenty of people compared him to the boring title character while Walker was growing up. It was first mentioned in episode 16 of Ask That Guy With the Glasses, when ThatGuy sarcastically claimed the show was about him after being asked, "Were you the inspiration for the smash Nickelodeon series 'Doug'?" He first referred to the trauma the show caused him in The Nostalgia Critic's "Nicktoons" video. The Critic called Doug "the scariest, ugliest, most horrifying creation that Nickelodeon studios has ever produced", discussing the show reawakened taunting memories, and even playing the theme song caused him to go ballistic. In the "Nickcoms" and Gargoyles reviews, the Critic refused to refer to Doug by name. During the Bum Review of Up, which features a talking dog named Dug, Chester A. Bum proclaimed that he loves Doug and figured out that the Nostalgia Critic hates it mostly because one of the characters (which he falsely assumed was Patti Mayonnaise) has the same name as him. Walker also attempted to feature Doug in Theme Lyrics, but ended up calling the writers "Hitlers" and threatening to kill them. The Doug theme returned to haunt the Nostalgia Critic once again in "Top 11 F*ckups", after he demanded the crew to stop playing the theme to Melvin Brother of the Joker, and "Old vs. New: Willy Wonka", after he demanded the crew to stop playing "Wonka's Welcome Song" and "It's a Small World". The song played again in "Raiders of the Story Arc: Ducktales" after the Critic exclaimed he was tired of hearing the Ducktales theme.

At the beginning of the Nostalgia Critic's review of Doug's 1st Movie, the Critic revealed that his annoyance with the song caused him to develop a brain tumor which he nicknamed, "Porkchop". Fortunately, the tumor combusted after the Critic discovered the movie (and Disney's Doug) featured a completely different theme song. He deemed this version as bland and forgettable as the show itself. The original intro music suddenly started playing again at the end of the review, causing the Critic's head to explode.

It's a Trap!
When a character is falling into a trap, footage of Admiral Ackbar announcing "It's a TRAP!" (the scene in Return of the Jedi where he and Lando realize that Sidious has played them like a fizzz)
 * Familiar Faces: Grey Spy
 * The Spoony Experiment: Captain America
 * NC Warriors of Virtue
 * NC The Next Karate Kid
 * NC The Neverending Story 3
 * NC Jaws 4

Man?!
Exclaimed whenever someone reviews a movie that portrays humans in a negative, pollution-loving light. Later instances include a newsreel announced by Doug Walker detailing man's evil.
 * NC Ferngully
 * NC Free Willy
 * NC Ferngully 2
 * NC The Lost World: Jurassic Park
 * NC Once Upon a Forest
 * Nostalgia Chick Grease 2-In this case, Doug discusses men's influence on women's decisions about social behavior.

Superman theme
Some videos include the well-known theme song to the Superman movies. (This list isn't in chronological order.)
 * NC Top 11 Dumbest Superman Moments
 * NC Gargoyles
 * NC Warriors of Virtue
 * NC Captain America
 * NC Superman IV
 * NC Top 11 Dumbasses in Distress
 * Spoony Captain America
 * AT4W Action Comics #1

"It's Only a Model"
Reviewers noticing an artificial-looking building use a clip of Terry Gilliam in Monty Python and the Holy Grail pointing out the fakeness of Camelot.


 * Nostalgia Chick Labyrinth


 * NC Red Sonja


 * NC Old vs. New: Batman vs. Dark Knight
 * NC Quest for Camelot
 * NC Little Nemo
 * Nash Doctor Who Classic- Castrovalva
 * SadPanda Forget About It: Harry Potter

Bat Credit Card
The Nostalgia Critic hates several parts of Batman and Robin, especially the part where Batman participates at an auction and pulls out a credit card bearing Batman's logo and name. The Critic hates this part so much, he goes into a rage whenever someone shows or mentions the "Bat Credit Card" in other videos.
 * NCBatman and Robin
 * NC Superman IV
 * NC Next Nostalgia Critic Fuckups
 * Atop the Fourth Wall: Silent Hill: Dead/Alive #3 and 4
 * NC Rover Dangerfield (Used as the "Cat Credit-Card")
 * NC You're a Rotten Dirty Bastard Bloopers (With Spoony)
 * NC Top 11 Dumbest Spider-man Moments
 * Music Movies: Phantom of the Opera
 * NC Top 11 Batman The Animated Series Episodes

Benny Hill Theme

 * Nostalgia Chick Top 11 Villainesses
 * NC Good Burger
 * NC Last Action Hero
 * NC Leprechaun
 * NC Little Nemo
 * Nostalgia Chick Labyrinth (Twice)

Singing Birds
When the Nostalgia Critic discussed some emotionally wrenching scenes from Disney movies in "Top 11 Saddest Nostaglic Moments", he included the iconic death of Bambi's mother. However, he also pointed out that in order to prevent viewers from feeling overly sad, Bambi jarringly follows this scene with cutesy animation of birds singing in springtime. He subsequently decided to add this clip to other tragic movie and TV show scenes.
 * NC Top 11 Saddest Nostalgic Moments-After the deaths of Bambi's mother, Mufasa, Old Yeller, and the Critic himself.
 * NC Jack Frost-After the title character gets involved in a car crash.
 * NC Top 11 Batman The Animated Series Episodes-After Bruce Wayne has a nightmare in which Two-Face's parents ask him, "Why couldn't you save our son?"
 * Nostalgia Chick Top 10 Disney Deaths-Lindsay plays the birds' song, which she calls her favorite part of Bambi's mother's death scene, right before announcing choices #10-#2. She also refers to one part of A Bug's Life, in which a scene cuts from a bird feeding Hopper to her children to all the ants cheerfuly gathering food, as "another Bambi scene transition."

KHAAAN!
This running gag consists of the well-known clip of Captain Kirk screaming "KHAN!" in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, played after the mention of the word "Khan" or variant of it.
 * NC Mortal Kombat Annihilation
 * NC Top 11 Disney Villains
 * Nostalgia Chick Mulan
 * NC Top 11 Scariest Performances
 * Nash (Not) Doctor Who Classic- Evolution of the Daleks
 * AT4W Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan #1
 * AT4W Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan #2-Linkara did not show the actual clip, but instead showed the part of the comic adapting the scene. He responded to this part by ranting about how the panel occupying it only took a very small portion of the lower right-hand corner of the page.
 * NC Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Used as part of the Star Trek Month theme at the beginning of every Star Trek review. Also, when an extremely long shot without any cuts frustrates the Critic, he asks Angry Joe if there will be any cuts. Angry Joe proceeds to parody the scene as Khan.  The Critic then yells "CUT!" the same way Kirk said "Khan".

Porn Music
This same song plays when something naughty happens.
 * NC Sidekicks
 * NC Gargoyles
 * AskThatGuy: 43
 * AskThatGuy: 49
 * Nostalgia Chick Mulan
 * NC Commando
 * Ask That Guy VIOLATES Ma-Ti
 * NC The Phantom
 * NC Zeus and Roxanne
 * NC Raiders of the Story Arc: TMNT
 * Nostalgia Chick Top Ten Evil Nostalgic Characters
 * NC The Langoliers
 * NC Raiders of the Story Arc: X-Men
 * NC The Haunting
 * AT4W All-Star Comics #8

Dr. Gonzo
In Dr. Gonzo's articles, he has a gag where he shows a pic of the Screaming Gaming Kid. He shows it when he wants to show when things get extreme in gaming. The kid in the picture is really Fred Figglehorn of YouTube.

What could go wrong?
Whenever the young leads of the Land Before Time movies decided to go out and solve the current crisis on their own, MarzGurl played a clip from the second movie of Cera asking, "What could go wrong?" even though something bad will inevitably happen.

Wrong Music
During several occasions during his Doctor Who Classic reviews, Nash states that certain bizarre scenes don't match with the music. He replaces the score with something silly, yet more appropriate. Ex. Doctor Who- The TV Movie :  The Master makes a grand entrance in his imperial robes. Given the silliness of the costume, Nash replaces the score with Tomboy's "It's OK to be gay."

Another example was in the crossover with Linkara on the Justice Leauge review when Green Lanter was flying under the brigde using his ring to produce Helycoptar blades, Nash then replaced the music with the theme of Inpector Gadget.