Channel Awesome
Doug talks with the Spoony one about what goes into being the Spoony One!
**NOTE – There are some audio issues during this interview which forced us to hold onto it for some time. We’ve finally decided to just release it after what could be fixed was fixed.
See more of Noah’s work at – http://spoonyexperiment.com/
Cool to see this, but sucks about the audio quality. I assume that’s the best you had, and you don’t want to have to redo it. I mean, it sounds like Tara on Nash’s show, which is due to running through Tara’s crappy net connection over Skype.
Everyone thought that after that Avatar Top 11 that Dante Basco would be the next Shut Up And Talk. Seems he was too busy for that. But hey! We got Spoony and he hated Man of Steel too! Just like me!
On to part 2
That doesn’t say much. Most of channel awesome didn’t. I’ll never understand the hate. I thought it was a creative take on Superman that was trying to be different than what we’re used to. Most people prefer meat on their pizza some like vegetables. Marvel is meat & DC is Vegetables I suppose.
Dante Basco wasn’t too busy for it. One of the vlogs or behind the scenes said they were able to get it done, it’s just not going up in the next five minutes. We should see it someday soon.
I didn’t even notice an audio issue. Everything sounded fine.
Same here, this used to be the standard quality of most videos a while back.
Big Elephant in the Room, huh? Yeah, sure…
I feel so bad now about always nagging Spoony in the comments to work faster. He has so much weight on him still, and it’s amazing how he carries through with it. Stay strong, man, you’re awesome!
You can be funny about positive movies by comparison- like, comparing a film you like to another film that has a similar premise that you hate, and go all “Here’s what This film did right that THAT piece of shit did wrong!” sort of thing.
But yeah, comedy is inherently mean spirited.
No, comedy is not necessarily inherently mean-spirited. It can be – but it goesn’t have to be. But all comedy, at it’s core / root, is based in failure. When something goes right, it’s not funny. It puts a smile on your face because it’s pleasant, not because it’s funny. Getting a birthday cake makes you smile, but seeing somebody stumble and fall head first into the cake makes you laugh, even if you are that person yourself.
Spoony!
I was always under the impression that the reason people don’t “make themselves available” to those facing depression or other issues, is because many people live a lifestyle that demands schedules, routines etc, meaning that supporting a friend becomes too inconvenient.
My suspicions were proven correct recently. My Dad was mad at me for not getting on the right train a few weeks ago, so we missed our intended showing of Interstellar at the cinema. He finally softened up when I explained that I was supporting my best friend during a nervous breakdown in connection with her PTSD.
Outside demands play a large part, I’m sure, though I wouldn’t call it something as trivial as “inconvenience,” especially if we’re talking about really close friends or family members. Seems to me it’s more the fact that, much as a loved one might WANT to help a person going through such issues, they might not feel like they know how, and then on top of that, they still have obligations, other loved ones depending on them, and things that are expected of them. In their minds, it’s a choice between comforting someone that they don’t think they can “really” help, and solving problems that they can actually do something about. It’s not so much that they feel inconvenienced by their loved one’s issue, as that they feel helpless in the face of it.
Of course, this is rooted in the mistaken belief that just listening and spending time with someone who is depressed or whatever isn’t, in fact, helping them in a real way. It is. But since it doesn’t feel like you’re actually DOING anything for them, and they’re unlikely to instantly cheer up before your eyes, it’s hard for people to see the value in it, at least until they themselves are in a position where they need that kind of support.
Thank you for this. I’m not a huge fan of Spoony, but it’s good to see the man behind the character.
I want more Noah Antweiler; less Spoony.
Hang out on his Twitter account.
Watch his Counter Monkey series if you want more “real Noah.” It’s him telling stories about himself and his old gaming friends and they’re hilarious.
I had to stop the second video for a bit to properly process what was presented to me. I grew up in a traditional, christian, mid-western family in a very small, narrow-minded town and never made the connections between depression, shame, and suicide that Doug and Noah presented here. I know that crazy. I treated them as different entities and despite having dealt with the aftermath of a few suicides in my community it never sunk in how the person suffering must feel they’ve been treated by others.
I’m not yet qualified to help others who have depression or to talk someone back from that ledge, but I better understand how this affliction affects people now and see that I’ve felt such things in the past as well. I’m a veteran, and having done a tour in Iraq, I lost a few comrades to PTSD. I was fortunate enough to risk taking that shame to talk to my friends and family so I could adjust to my experiences and couldn’t really understand why my fellows couldn’t. Now I know. I will take this lesson with me.
Thank you, Noah. Thank you, Doug.
I’m glad you received help and I hope I can properly handle the knowledge you’ve imparted.
Just wanted to take a moment and thank you for your service.
I didn’t notice any audio issues whilst watching this, and otherwise found it very enjoyable. It was very nice to see the mind of my favorite Internet Icon being picked and hear Noah’s musings and opinions on a number of subjects close to him.
I also find it easy to forget just how humble his or anyone else’s careers start off.
(This interview has also reminded me that I still haven’t played “Ultima VII,” yet… or “The Secret of Monkey Island II.” Shame on me!)
In regards to the fallout of the CA/Spoony breakup, I have to stand with Noah. “Last Action Hero” was frickin’ awesome.
What actually happened with that breakup thing?
To break it down to you: twitter. That’s what happened. Spoony is…well he himself has stated that he can sometimes be an ass(at least he sees it himself unlike most people nowadays) and one of his jokes was rather distasteful in the eye of some. Not saying who it is but I personally didn’t see the issue and so didn’t the person who was joked about but someone else did if I recall correctly.
Wasn’t the main reason for the breakup but part of it I’m almost sure.
Doesn’t matter nowadays…it’s kind of a punchline now(and I LOVE it).
I do kind of wish they had actually talked about that matter. I wasn’t into the site enough yet while the controversy was going on to understand what the hell anyone was talking about when it was brought up later.
I missed it too; whole ordeal happened whikle I was on vacation. CA should bring Spoony back, Cinema Snob should bring Jarrid back, & Aflac should bring Gilbert back. PR & PC be damned.
That’s another thing this site needs; an edit button. Damn typos….
If you want to hear about what happened with all of that then I would recommend watching Spoony’s commentary of ‘To Boldly Flee’ as he goes into detail about his split with Channel Awesome.
Just watched it. Spoony was right about some things. Doug should never have killed off the Nostalgia Critic. Also, the old site had a really bad design.
Then again, I’m not sure they’re handling this new move to a different site correctly. They probably should have kept the TGWTG URL and just redesigned the site.
The Star Wars prequels were great. What the Disney fuckers are doing is easily on par with EA raping Ultima and destroying decades of lore.
Really? The movie is only a year away and we’ve only seen a teaser. How can you be absolutely sure that they’ll fuck up (as if the Star Wars franchise wasn’t messed up before)?
He isn’t
Who ever did the audio clean up did a great job. I probably wouldn’t have noticed at all if you didn’t put up the disclaimer. So hugs and a beer to the audio person.
I’d just like to offer another thanks for bringing up an issue like depression. I’ve had it my whole life. Somtimes I act like a dick to people who i like, somtimes I can only think of negative things to say and sometimes I can’t say anything at all. Then I think and re-think and re-think about how I acted and it makes it all worse. I know I’m not alone, but hearing about how other people feel or felt or what they do to deal with it is always a great thing.
They kind of missed the one big question that I was curious about. Is Doug going to bring Spoony back to Channel Awesome and if he did make the offer would Spoony accept it? That’s what I want to know.
No, it is incredibly unlikely they will bother to do join up TSE and CA again as even before the split it was mostly just a mutual traffic feed rather than Spoony or CA really needing one another, more to the point however it was a mutual split as CA only wanted to suspend Spoony’s videos for a while rather than having him leave but he talked them and they all decided it would be best to go separate ways. Spoony didn’t want to have to censor his comments on Twitter and CA’s management didn’t want to have to deal with another big controversy over something he might say.
As Spoony puts it, it was a very civil split and there were no hurt feelings on either side but they both understand that they really had nothing to gain by being linked any more.
Oh and it isn’t up to Doug, he has a big sway with the management I’d imagine, for obvious reasons but I doubt from a business stand-point that it is his decision.
Spoony actually addressed the big elephant in the room way back in his To Boldly Flee commentary
http://spoonyexperiment.com/commentaries/to-boldly-flee-part-1-spoony-commentary/
From what I remember the gist was that the parting of ways was Spoony’s choice, do to a number of circumstances including financial, sticking to Spoony’s own website rather than channelawesome was financially in his best interest, and that although Spoony and Lupa had their issues, he acknowledged he didn’t handle it as well as he could and he holds no ill will towards Lupa
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a video that has been a full-on Spoony video. You two are teases. -_- I would have said yes to making fun of awful movies. Spoony: The Original Troll. Although, that story was really cool. I could just image meeting someone that made something that I love and for them to say such complimentary things. I don’t know what I would do! Also, this interview made me realize why people get so angry at the Transformer franchise in a bigger way than I ever understood and it made me understand why I don’t get angry at it. It’s about how connected you are to the original Transformer series. I’ve only seen one episode of the original series and that’s why I only disliked the second movie. I’m not connected to it. It makes a lot of sense now. That Star Wars phone music bit made me laugh. I actually would say that if you took out Jar Jar Binks and got a better child actor for Anakin, it would be great. Those are the only things that bothered me about the movie. I thought the Dark Knight Rises was meh. I mostly liked Man of Steel except for the ending but I don’t ask for a lot in my movies.
Yeah, unfortunately, there is a stigma with depression. I remember when a family member first found out that my best friend had depression. She was like “I don’t know if you should be friends with somebody like that”. I really enjoyed this video. I don’t really watch Spoony’s videos so I felt like I learned a lot about him. The audio was only bad towards the end of the second video. It was fine besides that.
WOW, this is a long comment. My apologies!
Good on you guys for talking frankly about depression. I know exactly where Noah was coming from. This is one of the best Shut Up and Talk’s I’ve seen because it didn’t feel staged. Noah looked on the verge of tears when he spoke about the people we lost this year. We all knew who you were referring to, Justin. We’ll miss you.
Depression hit me hard after my Father died, I hit a real bad patch. My work, relationships and life suffered. My supervisor at the time told me to just “get over it”. What an ass.
I eventually did get my life back but not after losing my job and a lot of self respect. After several short term jobs that went no where, I felt “Nobody wanted me”. I grabbed that life preserver and got some help. I now have a great job and I’m back in the world again. Don’t let ANYONE tell you to “Just get over it”. We all heal at different rates and in our own time.
Again, thanks for this and continue to fight the good fight.
FF8 and X are “beloved”?
Don’t know about that.
FF8 was a disappointment to most players at the time, compared to FF7.
And I think FFX is mostly only loved by younger people who didn’t grow up with the earlier games.
I didn’t HATE either game but they are 2 of the worst in the main series.
It’s true…Positive reviews about good things are just plain boring, with the exception of a positive review of a so-bad-it’s-good/funny movie/game/comic. Then again, you may just have an unpopular opinion about whether something is bad or good & only want to hear the opinion of someone whom agrees with you.
They say that psychologically humans tend to focus on negativity, get pumped up by negativity, & remember negativity, while positive things are calming & forgettable.
Ooh, speaking of “we’ve lost a lot of people this year due to depression,” don’t forget to upload JewWario’s backlog.
I’m not the first to say this, but hearing you talk about depression meant a lot to me. I’ve only come to terms with it last February, after about four years of denial and I’m still struggling with the stigma, with asking for help and other things you’ve mentioned. I also feel like I’m lazy and unproductive and all around helpless. What you said gave me courage to fight. Thank you very much!
Touching interview, I’m a huge fan of Spoony and he was someone who I thought was awesome for actually giving some negative Final Fantasy reviews cause it bored me how everyone praised those games yet I failed to see the appeal. To finally see Spoony coming out and pointing out the stuff in those games I just can’t get behind was amazing to me and I have an ENORMOUS amount of respect for him both as a person and as a performer. His Ultima reviews are also some of the best I’ve seen and the only time I’ve witnessed someone actually taking games SERIOUSLY. I know it’s easy to say “it’s just a game” but when you care about a series, when it means something to you, not it’s NOT just a game anymore and I highly agree with what he said about that. Love you, Spoony!
audio seems fine, then again i’m not picky
Good story, I am glad to learn channel awesome and Spoon have no bad blood between them.
This was really really interesting guys! Thanks for sharing all that with us, it was very enlightening!
I don’t think I’ll be watching anymore of Spoony’s videos. Don’t take that the wrong way, I’m a hyper fan. I’ve watched nearly everyone of his videos (aside from Counter-Monkey and blogs). One the greatest things about The Spoony Experiment is chatting with other fans. Watching a video of him ripping on something and seeing people dispute his opinion and then people come in to explain why which results in debates. Not flame wars, not comment fights but actual well thought out debates. I’ve seen less flame wars on Spoony Experiment than I have any other reviewer or critic. That’s a major contribution to the Spoony Experiment. He provokes intelligent thoughtful comments.
With those comments gone… what are we to do? Can we not join in on the fun? We’re not allowed to? Why? Just because some assholes go and bug him to make videos faster? The 80% get punished for the 20% of trolls? I can’t see why Spoony did this. Way to kill the community.
You kow what I would find really interesting? An interview with Phelan.