In case it has somehow escaped you, we here at MRFH like movies. I like movies. I also like TV.

When I’m not able to enjoy either of those things I find the withdrawal symptoms soothed by the insomnia-inducing glow of my faithful computer box and its infinite number of entertaining videos.

I first introduced you to some of my favorites last year, but I have since then realized that I neglected quite a few other worthy efforts made by very talented individuals. I’m going to list those for you now so that the voices in my head will let me sleep and stop commanding me to give homage to the almighty awesome that is…

*Warning! Every one of these series uses some pretty harsh language at times. You have been warned*

HAWP

“Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin’?”  You don’t want to know the answer to that question nearly as much as you want to see the complete strangeness that is going to unfold before you.

HAWP’s focus is Ashly, our nutsy-bobo –but-quirky-and-loveable video game enthusiast and her brother Anthony, who plays straight man to all the oddness of his sister and their father. Each episode is a fairly short, fairly on-topic discussion of whatever video game Ash happens to be playin’.

Sometimes there’s  equal parts actual talk of the game and equal parts wacky happenings that plays out in kind of an awkward sitcom type of way. Sometimes, though, the game is mentioned and then the rest is just this family being strange and hilarious. It’s all great to watch because everyone does such an amazing job acting, and even when they don’t it just adds to, instead of takes away from, the entertainment value.

Our own Poolman is to blame for hooking me on HAWP with the episode where Ash’s brother admits that he doesn’t play puzzle games because he’s colorblind.  Somehow Ash went all her life without knowing this about her sibling, or what the word even means. Her ensuing shock over and relentless questioning about her brother’s condition as he gets angrier and angrier is one of the few times I’ll call something “laugh out loud funny”.

“So if I wear a green sweater would I be a disembodied head just floating around?”

Unskippable

As with anything even remotely amusing, MST3K has spawned legions of imitators, some good and most bad. That being said I am eternally grateful to Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, not only for his amazing Zero Punctuation video game reviews, but for urging his audience to check out another Escapist Magazine video series called Unskippable.

As technology advances and allows video games more and more epic opening cinematics, we the gamers are blessed with a fantastic way of being brought into our game’s story and characters. The other 90% of the time it’s boring, pretentious, pointless drivel that no amount of pounding buttons will end, hence the series title. Two guys decided to take a formula the Satellite of Love made famous for movies and apply it to these infuriatingly unavoidable circumstances.

Graham and Paul are the brave souls dedicated to tearing these games a new one, and I love them for it. Graham has a smooth, sly voice reminiscent of Mike Nelson, and Paul, well…Paul kind sounds like a young Phil Hartman with a cold. The two play off of each other well, do good impressions of the characters they’re mocking, and know how to write hilarious material. If you’ve ever been plagued by the frustration of unskippable cutscenes you’ll find this very cathartic. Check out their other offerings on the site, as well.

Angry Video Game Nerd

Thanks to one of our readers, joe r, for this one. He left a comment on my first internet video series list I did, basically asking why AVGN was left out. Having never heard of this guy, and with nothing better to do, I immediately clicked the link joe handily provided me and proceeded to waste an entire day.

The Nerd reviews old video games, mostly on the NES and SNES, but heads all the way back to pre-Atari consoles. It’s a cool blast of memories to watch him tackle pretty much every old console that we remember (and many that we don’t), and he’ll leave even the nerdiest of video game nerds feeling humbled.

As you might guess by the title, his humor is mostly in expressing extreme anger directed at crappy games, systems, accessories and the like. The homicidal rage inspired by the sheer awfulness has ended with many an item turned into so many pieces of plastic and wasted dreams. This is great for me, because I love a good roast, but sometimes he loses me. I appreciate a good feces joke as much as the next person (if the next person is another woman), but when he goes into diatribes comparing the games to diarrhea, and saying he’d rather eat the unsavoriest of unsavory parts of a roadkill skunk, all accompanied by a constant stream of curses, I get a bit put off. And that’s just in the title song! Which is so catchy that it’s a sin and makes me want to hurt people when it’s stuck in my head.

Regardless of all that I gulped down video after video until, in about a week, I had gone through Nerd’s entire 5 years of hate and Rolling Rock-fueled benders down memory lane.

Nostalgia Critic

I ended up a fan of NC after watching a messed up kids’ movie on YouTube that I hadn’t seen in years. In the comments section someone mentioned the movie being on a list of screwed up movie moments done some guy called Nostalgia Critic. Just the name alone had me interested, and I wanted to know more about this list of disturbing films.

Lucky for me the video in question was in the sidebar so that all I need do was click and enjoy. And enjoy I did, with my favorite so far being his review of IT. Nostalgia Critic is everything I could ever want in a video reviewer. He’s likeable and relatable, has a consistently cool sense of style, writes good material and is able to act that material out on camera like he has an idea what he’s doing, and darnit if the guy can’t do some uncanny impressions that really add to the mockery. Mocking he sure does, but one thing I love about him over the AVGN is that, while NC is angry quite a lot of the time, he isn’t psychotic all of the time. This makes him more relatable to me than the Nerd, and honestly I don’t lament the absence of endless poo jokes.

Interestingly enough, I wasn’t the only person mentally comparing the two. Apparently a lot of AVGN’s fans watched NC’s videos and so many commented on the similarities (they both like old stuff and are kind of angry?) that a funny side story developed where NC called AVGN out, ending in a switch of roles to prove the better reviewer and eventually an “Epic Battle!”

Like Adam needed his Eve, Nostalgic Critic put out a casting call for a female reviewer counterpart. She would handle all the pop culture that no boy paid attention to, much less would able to do a review on. Which brings me to:

Nostalgia Chick

Generally I find female comedians unfunny and uninteresting. I know, I’m a female and I’m hoping that my audience finds me funny and interesting. So where does that leave us? Yeah I don’t care either.

The problem isn’t really that most comediennes are heavy on the jokes about sexism, shoes and feminine hygiene products (they are), but the delivery is crap. Women tend to be reserved, going for the dry wit and deadpan shtick a la Bob Newhart, and it usuallyends up being awkward and uncomfortable.

Okay now that you sat with me through my treacherous rant, I’ll make my point. Nostalgia Chick is a bit reserved, and sometimes I wish she would put some friggin’ emphasis in her voice, but…I LOVE HER. She’s funny, smart, goofy, and watching her lust over David Bowie’s twists and turns was seriously entertaining. And guess what else? She’s gloriously absent of heavy-handed feminism and all around fun-stomping.

If nothing else she coined Big-Lipped Alligator Moment, and I’m very thankful for that.