Channel Awesome
Channel Awesome
Advertisement
ToddInTheShadows

Todd

Real Name
Todd Nathanson
Affiliation
Contributions
Website


ToddInTheShadows has been a blogger on TGWTG.com and musical talent on Youtube until 2010. He was a fan of the site for a long time before deciding to become part of the Channel Awesome family. He found the site through 5 Second Movies before the site went live in April of 2008. He reviews current (usually bad) pop music and, starting in 2012, one-hit-wonders of the past, and eventually career-ruining albums. In addition, he occasionally reviews music-related movies.

In his videos, he plays the piano (having spent eleven years playing piano) and he wears a gray hoodie in order to keep his true identity secret. The reasons for this are unclear -- he has alternately claimed that he hides his face to protect his position as a Sunday school teacher, as a secret agent, and as White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. At other times, he has said that he doesn't want his face attached to the "hamburger incident." His image-consciousness led him to do his reviews in profile silhouette, which adds to his mysteriousness. When not 'in the shadows' such as during crossover videos and during the events of Suburban Knights, Todd wears a Zorro-esque bandana that covers everything above his mouth (though it is revealed in Surburban Knights that he can't even see out of his mask, to the point of mistaking a pole for one of the villians).

Todd claims that he didn't get into pop music until an incident in 2007 when the antenna came off of his car. Because he didn't have money to fix it, he listened to pop music over and over because that was the only station that came on, and eventually he got into it. He started to review the songs he heard over and over in his personal blog. He then started filming his reviews and posting them as blogs on TGWTG under the name "MBI"; two early reviews were chosen as Awesome Blogs of the Week, which greatly increased his popularity on Youtube. As he built his fanbase, he was invited to come on to Channel Awesome.

On March 22nd, 2018, Todd announced on Twitter that he parted ways with Channel Awesome. He will continue to make reviews on his YouTube channel.

Specials

Episode Number Episode Title Description Date Released
1 Hannah Montana: The Movie A ToddInTheShadows special September 25th, 2010
2 Hannah Montana Guitar Game A Todd In The Shadows video game review October 15th, 2010
3 Commentary Eenie Meenie/OMG Todd's Pop Song Reviews commentary December 13th, 2010
4 MAGfest Vlog sorry about the quality January 22nd, 2011
5 Commentary Like a G6/Whip My Hair Todd commentary April 18th, 2011
6 Glitter Maybe she won't always be my baby. July 29th, 2011
7 MTV Video Music Awards 2011 Vlog Remember when people used to care enough about MTV to complain that they no longer showed music videos? August 30th, 2011
8 Todd's Black Eyed Peas Experience Todd stumbles upon the most anticipated game of the year at New York Comic Con! October 29th, 2011
9 Some Quick Thoughts on the Grammys It's a vlog with some quick thoughts on the Grammys. February 14th, 2012
10 From Justin to Kelly (with Nostalgia Chick) At some point during their first season, the makers of American Idol forgot that their two winners won a singing contest, not an acting contest. May 8th, 2012
11 Top Ten Groin Shots in Movies We now interrupt your regularly scheduled pop song reviews for a montage of people getting kicked in the nuts. I make no apologies.


  • 10. "Bully beatdown" - A History of Violence
  • 9. "Basic lupine urology" - The Monster Squad
  • 8. "First rule of fight club is..." - Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
  • 7. "Must-See TV" - Idiocracy
  • 6. "Scrotum speed bag" - Dumb and Dumber
  • 5. "What is love? Baby don't hurt me" - Antichrist
  • 4. "Winning" - Hot Shots Part Deux
  • 3. "Thunderballs" - Casino Royale
  • 2. "Do not try this at home" - Jackass 3.5
  • 1. "Ay-yi-yi-yi!" - Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie


(he would later express regret at not including "Nose doesn't rhyme with walls!" from Who Framed Roger Rabbit)

June 29th, 2012
12 2013 Grammy Vlog So, the Grammys happened! You care, right? Please tell me you care. February 12th, 2013
13 Burlesque If you thought Christina Aguilera's oversinging was bad, wait til you hear it for two hours straight! June 29th, 2013
14 MTV Video Music Awards 2013 Vlog So, let's talk about Miley Cyrus's butt August 28th, 2013
15 2014 Grammy Vlog Robots got awarded, same sexes got marriaged, Kendrick Lamar imagined dragons, and maybe some other stuff happened. What did Todd think? January 29th, 2014
16 2015 Grammy Vlog Sam Smith won an award, Sam Smith won an award, and finally, Sam Smith won all the awards, and then somehow the ceremony just kept going. What did Todd think? February 10th, 2015
17 The Top Ten '90s Buses This is so stupid.


  • 10. The Spicebus
  • 9. The Jordan Cruiser
  • 8. Cruis'n USA Skool Bus
  • 7. Desert Bus
  • 6. Catbus
  • 5. Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
  • 4. Jerome Bettis
  • 3. Vengabus
  • 2. The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down
  • 1. The Magic School Bus
November 11, 2022
18 I Fact-Checked The Worst Video Essayist on YouTube A partial debunking of every false claim in fraudulent YouTuber James Somerton's videos.

Timecodes by user ‪@6ViolinRed‬

  • 0:00 - Introduction
  • 3:45 - 1. Gay porn invented Skype
  • 4:45 - 2. J.K. Rowling once said you could magically gender-transition at Hogwarts
  • 5:50 - 3. The reason Hitler murdered Ernst Rohm is because he was fat
  • 6:56 - 4. England had a homophobic propaganda campaign against Italian tourism because Italy was turning their kids gay
  • 9:44 - 5. Disney stole from gay charities
  • 10:34 - 6. Marvel Comics writer Allan Heinberg did a PR blitz to force his editors to let him write gay characters
  • 13:22 - Bonus Claim: Michael Bendis also wasn't allowed to write gay characters
  • 14:51 - 7. Jeffrey Dahmer inspired violent hate mobs
  • 16:47 - 8. The SS was "teeming with homosexuals"
  • 17:19 - Bonus Claim: The Hitler Youth was also run by homosexuals
  • 18:35 - 9. There was a big outrage about the gay sex scenes in "Red, White & Royal Blue"
  • 25:38 - 10. The life and death of gay porn star Joey Stefano
  • 29:54 - 11. Tolkien was "nearly laughed out of" Oxford because LTOR was "soft"
  • 30:58 - 12. The record box office for a recent Chinese blockbuster was obviously faked
  • 33:46 - 13. Disney cynically exploited Howard Ashman's death
  • 36:46 - 14. "Rocky Horror" saved 20th Century Fox
  • 37:40 - 15. "Legend of Korra" was moved to streaming because it was too gay for television
  • 39:10 - 16. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was controversial because any kissing or touching was taboo lyrical content
  • 40:11 - 17. Weird Dahmer fangirls are shipping him with his first victim
  • 42:20 - 18. Disney CEO Bob Iger has a strong pro-gay rights record
  • 46:12 - Bonus Claim: Bob Iger wouldn't let Valkyrie be gay in "Thor: Ragnarok"
  • 46:50 - 19. The origin of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's "Good Omens"
  • 48:20 - 20. "Yuri on Ice" was censored because of its time slot
  • 49:35 - 21. The case against lesbian author Radclyffe Hall was thrown out because men were uncomfortable talking about lesbianism
  • 50:24 - 22. The Nazis invented our current body standards
  • 55:49 - Brief tangent about co-writer Nick
  • 59:31 - 23. NAMBLA appropriated images from Disney's "Aladdin"
  • 1:00:54 - 24. '90s gay rights activists weren't fighting against employment discrimination
  • 1:04:29 - 25. China keeps jacking up their cut of the profits from imported Hollywood movies
  • 1:05:49 - 26. Disney princesses are marketed to funerals
  • 1:06:50 - 27. Dying AIDS patients kept a "Beauty and the Beast" rose by their beds
  • 1:08:04 - 28. Bob Iger was working on the DCEU because he hates Bob Chapek
  • 1:09:39 - 29. Major industries spend most of their budget buying and burying new technology
  • 1:10:54 - 30. Pirates were philanthropists
  • 1:14:24 - 31. The gay panic trial of John Parisie
  • 1:18:55 - 32. Stan lee loves this Scarlet Witch moment
  • 1:20:33 - 33. Janelle Monae came out because you didn't understand "Pynk"
  • 1:25:16 - 34. European peasants were paranoid about their friends and neighbors being vampires
  • 1:29:27 - 35. The Hitchcock Thing
  • 1:32:43 - Bonus Claim A: Katharine Hepburn didn't believe gay people existed
  • 1:33:53 - Bonus Claim B: There was a deleted dickpic subplot in "Birds of Prey"
  • 1:35:08 - Bonus Claim C: J.K. Rowling says Draco is pro-trans
  • 1:35:42 - Conclusion
December 3, 2023

Links


Advertisement