The Nostalgia Critic/Season 16

Quotes from the 16th season of The Nostalgia Critic, which aired in 2023.

The Ant Bully

Nostalgia Critic: I could be crazy but I swear I hear Nicholas Cage saying "Who wants magic? Fuck you".

Zoc: Who wants magic? Clacktiel!

Nostalgia Critic: [as Nicholas Cage] The film's PG so I get one!

---

Nostalgia Critic: Lucas tries to call the Exterminator while they get the candy but he accidentally gets...Pizza King?

[He has called some slovenly teenagers at a pizza parlor]

Teenager: Pizza Kingdom, hail to the king.

Nostalgia Critic: All right, that was damn close.

Lucas: No exterminator!

Teenager: No extra tomater. Got it.

Nostalgia Critic: You know, I'm not gonna lie, I'd much rather know these hideous kids as stories than the rest of this Antz Life recycling. I feel like I'm looking at Gorillaz if they worked at Pizza Planet, and those adventures sound far more interesting.

The Sword in the Stone

Nostalgia Critic: The person on his way, of course, is a boy named Arthur, played by...I think any boy who walked by the studio.

Arthur: That big fish almost swallowed me... [cut to another scene, with a caption saying "Literally the next scene", showing Arthur speaking in a deeper teenage voice] He was a monster, the biggest fish I ever saw.

Nostalgia Critic: Apparently, the original actor Rickie Sorenson's voice was changing, so one of the directors switched him out with his two sons. And you can... [Clears throat] ...barely tell.

Arthur: Oh, Sir Ector... [trips and lets out a younger voice] Whoa!

Nostalgia Critic: [as Arthur] Sorry, my balls can't decide if they're dropping or not!

---

Nostalgia Critic: [as Merlin] Ho-ho-ho! Archimedes, you were so much less of a bitch when you were a rabbit. [An image of Rabbit from The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, also voiced by Junius Matthews, is shown]

---

[The female squirrel kisses and plays roughly with Arthur]

Nostalgia Critic: Not to keep harping on this, but Pepe Le Pew got cancelled for a lot less than this. Yeah, where in the Disney+ description does it say "squirrel-handling like a Chippendale bar"? [shows an image of two male dancers with the heads of Chip and Dale] Yeah, I know I used that joke before, but it's too good to pass up.

Zathura: A Space Adventure

Walter: Give me a juice box, biatch.

Nostalgia Critic: Want to hear what else I hear from Chappelle's Show? [his next words are censored by various film ratings]

---

Nostalgia Critic: [on Kristen Stewart's bad acting] Stephanie Meyer saw this moment and said "That's the amount of range I want for Bella Swan."

Iron Man

[Tony Stark is captured by the intimidating-looking Ten Rings]

Nostalgia Critic: He's captured by - [shows the infamously hated Mandarin from Iron Man 3] oh, such a disappointing reveal later - as we flash back to... another flashback talking about Tony's rise in the weapons industry.

---

Tony Stark: I came to realize that I have more to offer this world than just making things that blow up.

Nostalgia Critic: [as Iron Man] I can offer quips and then things that'll blow up. [shows the death scene from Avengers: Endgame] I myself may blow up too.

---

Nostalgia Critic: They short circuit his suit, resulting in a- [a bright beam shoots into the sky] Oh my god, sky beam! I didn't know you went back this far!

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

[Jack and Will are crossing the sea floor while using an upside down boat to breathe. Critic shows text saying "How do they see where they're going?" "How do they stay at the bottom of the sea?" "How do they withstand such pressure?" "How do they have enough air for that long?"]

Nostalgia Critic: I feel like there's a lot of reasons that wouldn't work but repeat to yourself: "it's just a park attraction that's been turned into a movie I should really just relax."

---

Nostalgia Critic: Again though, Jack is captured and about to be executed, but fear not, Will helps him escape with a rope... I don't think it's gonna do much.

[They use the rope to repeatedly trip armed soldiers]

Nostalgia Critic: Did any guard train for anything in this?! Is someone gonna be like "look, salt"! [explosion]

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Will: Where's Jack?

Elizabeth: He elected to stay behind to give us a chance.

Nostalgia Critic: [as Jack] Need a little help over here. Help! I know you can hear me, you American Horror Story rejects! You can't have this franchise without me! Disney doubled down on that!

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Nostalgia Critic: The speech works though as the massive Army of Pirate Lords and the massive Army of British Navy line themselves up...to watch just two ships duke it out. Right, they were building up this giant epic battle, everyone needs to get involved, and it's just two ships spinning around like they're in a potty. Dude, even if you just said the other ships were fighting while these two were spinning around, I don't even need to see it. I just need to know what's happening and they're not just sitting there like people who have money on an Internet boxer. Why the hell did all these people show up?

---

Nostalgia Critic: One of the signs you're watching a bad pirate movie when you're two hours in and you get to your first sword fight. Think about that.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Nostalgia Critic: Meanwhile our gender swapped The Shape of Water continues as the missionary helps the mermaid after her case breaks. [in a bored tone as the mermaid gains human legs, a cliched plot device] Oh look, she turns human when she's on land. [shows a poster for Luca] Hold my beer.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Nostalgia Critic: Now zombie shark sounds like a fun idea but again they're shot like we're supposed to believe they're really there, like they show them in slow motion so we can be wowed by them and... don't you just feel nothing looking at that? You can put CGI Scooby-Doo in there and I'd be the same amount of blown away.

Nostalgia Critic: [as zombie shark] Come on guys, let's head out before they make a tornado out of us.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Nostalgia Critic: Look at the design of this guy, he looks like a Monty Python cartoon mixed with a drag version of Brain's robot body. Everything about this guy is pretty damn funny. Even his quick backstory gets a good laugh.

[Little Jack is reenacting his nursery rhyme but is upstaged by Pinocchio]

Jack: What's impressive? I've been a boy the whole time!

Nostalgia Critic: Wouldn't be the first time Pinocchio beat you. Doesn't mean there's technically four of these that came out last year? [Shows posters for 3 Pinocchio movies that came out in 2022]

---

Nostalgia Critic: This film also has the crazy mean spiritedness of the best Shrek movies. Like when one of these sisters is told she'll carry her weight in gold, the Midas touch turns her into exactly that and she never wakes up. Yeah the body count adds up to 23, which doesn't include these poor people that couldn't have survived this.

[Shows scene where Goldi smashes a ship in a bottle full of mini people]

Goldi: Hand over that map, or I'll punch holes in the lot of ya.

Nostalgia Critic: Again love a PG movie that actually has a reason to be PG.

The Simpsons Movie

Nostalgia Critic: We discover this is all a film the Simpsons are watching.

Homer: I can't believe we're paying to see something we get on TV for free.

Nostalgia Critic: If you present it that way, it'll come across that way.

---

Bart: [imitating Mickey Mouse] I'm the mascot of an evil corporation.

[cut to a future Disney+ ad with the company's acquired Simpsons characters]

Homer: Now everybody smile!

Nostalgia Critic: Can predict the future!

---

Nostalgia Critic: It looks like Homer does win the truck and they make their way to Alaska. They almost get caught but a quick fake out saves the day.

[Bart scribbles on the Simpsons' wanted poster so it looks like another family]

Cashier: There they are! [points to another family that coincidentally resembles Bart's doodled version]

Nostalgia Critic: Not gonna lie, I wanna know the story of every single one of those doppelgangers.

Beethoven

[Emily is drowning]

Nostalgia Critic: Beethoven of course hears the cries and jumps in to save her. I think my favorite is he can somehow sense she's going to be in trouble miles away even before she falls in.

Nostalgia Critic: [as Beethoven] My doggy sense is going woof!

The Little Mermaid

King Triton: Is it true you rescued a human from drowning?

Ariel: You don't even know him!

Nostalgia Critic: You don't either!

---

Nostalgia Critic: These reactions when she combs her hair with a fork have almost no movement, but the timing, editing and little that they do animate make it one of the funniest moments in any Disney film. I am not even kidding, as a kid, I rewound this scene so many times, it started to scratch the tape. [the scene where a newly human but naked Ariel is shown] Which is weird, all my friends had this scene scratched up for some reason.

---

[Ariel is transformed back with a mermaid tail coming out the bottom of her dress]

Nostalgia Critic: They're too late, though, as she's turned back into a mermaid, which always made me wonder, where'd the underwear go? Is it just... inside the tail? OK, I thought too hard about this. Not in that way.

The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

SpongeBob: Well, let's ask my wall of 374 consecutive employee of the month awards.

PhantomStrider: Interesting side note: This would mean that SpongeBob has been working at the Krusty Krab for 31 years. Assuming he started working at 14, that would make SpongeBob roughly 45, so you can understand him wanting that promotion.

Nostalgia Critic: Dude, I'm 41. if he has that amount of relentless energy, I assure you he's cooking more than Krabby Patties.

---

[Spongebob steps on Plankton and scrapes him on the ground as though he's gum]

Nostalgia Critic: You know, just because there's no blood doesn't mean it's not gruesome to watch.

---

PhantomStrider: Sandy even had a story where she returns to the surface and transforms into a real squirrel, causing Patrick to vomit repeatedly. She was going to be chased by Men In Black and helped SpongeBob and Patrick get home near the end, but it was cut due to Nickelodeon saying they didn't like Sandy as a fugitive and Patrick vomiting was too gross even for SpongeBob.

Nostalgia Critic: Did they see some of the later episodes?!

The Great Mouse Detective

Nostalgia Critic: I know a percent of you watched this scene asking "do I like mice now?" [shows the stripper mouse scene] Disney actually had a hard time, pun totally intended, getting this past censors because it was deemed too risque for a G film. Again all the smoking, drinking, onscreen and offscreen deaths were fine but this was pushing the limit. They eventually convinced them by saying they're not human, they're mice so nothing questionable is going on. I think a lot of questioning was going on with people after watching the scene. I know what mouse hole I wouldn't mind getting stuck in.

[An animated Gadget Hackwrench is offended and leaves]

Nostalgia Critic: Oh come on baby, don't be like that! [gets slapped] How can someone so small slap that hard?

---

[Seeing the violent climactic fight]

Nostalgia Critic: Jesus! Thank God those women were mice or this would have been too much for kids. This though: "Frankie, make it sound more like he's gargling blood every time he's hit. We're 80s Disney, we can't leave the kids unscarred."

The Super Mario Bros. Movie

Nostalgia Critic: For that matter I just realized his name is Toad and yet they're all called toads.

Princess Peach: Just don't hurt my Toads!

Nostalgia Critic: Is that like when you meet a guy named Guy? You know it's stupid to think about but it's all you can think about?

---

Nostalgia Critic: Not that Luigi needs any help waiting as he's imprisoned with... [some of the prisoners are Goombas] henchmen? Yeah what'd they do? They walk back and forth in the wrong direction or glitch accidentally giving infinite 1-ups? [shows infinite 1-Up trick]

The Road to El Dorado

Nostalgia Critic: It turns out they're accidentally thrown onto the ship of Hernán Cortés who surprisingly plays a small role given his - [shows the violent Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire] Jesus Christ! - history and he sentences them to slavery.

---

Nostalgia Critic: By the way, when they wanted to make this film more family friendly, they reportedly had to draw Chel a lot less sexy. How the hell did she look before if THIS was the less sexy version?! [her breasts are enlarged] Okay, got it got it got it!

Robin Hood

[Maid Marian is forcefully kissing Skippy, with added captions "Step away from the child!" "Hands and lips off!" "Seek an adult...a different adult!" "He's not even your species!"]

Nostalgia Critic: Not okay! Just because you look like a lady Fox McLeod doesn't mean you can barrel roll into first base, you predator! You literal predator!

---

[Prince John ties Sir Hiss, puts him in a basket, and sits on it]

Nostalgia Critic: [as Prince John] I told you, no tongue in public! Just for that I'm going to tie you up and sit on your face. Don't give me that look, I am literally describing what's going on here!

Monster House

Jenny: If those are the teeth and that's the tongue, then that must be the uvula.

Chowder: So it's a girl house.

Nostalgia Critic: Spoilers.

---

[Constance dies when she is coated in cement]

Nostalgia Critic: Well that's always convenient when you can combine the cause of death with the burial ritual.

Coraline

Nostalgia Critic: So I'm not going to lie, I don't like how these dogs look in real life, so the idea of an entire audience of them looking at me smiling is kind of like the Eyes Wide Shut ball all looking at me. It's 11 herbs and spices of uncomfortable.

[Other April Spink and Miriam Forcible give a burlesque performance]

Nostalgia Critic: Okay I take it back, this is all those things I said one sentence ago. I should point out this is one of the first stop motion films to be shot in 3D and while a lot of it did look amazing in the theater, this was like a big screen version of that old lady from The Shining but all you saw was a close-up of her flabbergasters.

---

Nostalgia Critic: Yep, fakeout ending. She has to get rid of the key, and again while this is pretty short, it's also pretty pointless. I've seen this movie maybe a dozen times and I always forget this ending is in here. Is there even that big a threat? I mean what, is the hand actually going to drag her all the way from outside to the door? Nothing would get in the way during that walk?

Home Alone

Nostalgia Critic: Kevin's mother played by Catherine O'Hara has had enough of his outbursts and sends him upstairs right after a supposed cop played by Joe Pesci warns her not to trust anyone this time of year...so she and her husband trust him this time of year and tell him all their security details.

Peter McCallister: Automatic timers for our lights, locks for our doors. That's about as well as anybody can do these days right?

Nostalgia Critic: I don't know what's more disturbing: how easy it was to get that information or how easy it was to get a cop uniform to get that information. Wait a minute..."bolice"?! Damn you, convincing Spirit Halloween clearance aisle!

Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale

Le Petite Ballerina: Oh Jerry, what should we do?

Nostalgia Critic: [as Jerry] I don't know. I literally just found out right now you can talk! In fact, how come I the adult can never talk, yet Tuffy the baby always speaks perfect English?

---

Nostalgia Critic: [on Tom's expressions during slapstick scenes] No really, his expressions could be a Faces of Death cover! We come back to the Ballerina trying to escape, which honestly serves no purpose except to remind you she's in the story, [shows sexy closeups of the Ballerina] and sometimes I think the animators like drawing her too much...

Wakko's Wish

Nostalgia Critic: So I want to talk about one of your most ambitious films ever connected to Animaniacs.

Tom Ruegger: Ernest Goes to Hell?

Nostalgia Critic: No, Wakko's Wish.

---

Nostalgia Critic: Taking the story a bit more seriously does allow for smaller jokes to suddenly seem funnier like having the villain named King Salazar the Pushy or their financial adviser just shrugging "we're broke."

Narrator: And the country's fortunes plummeted.

Financial advisor: We're broke.

[Caption: Totally different from Warner Bros. today!]

---

Nostalgia Critic: This is where a lot of issues with the film start to fix themselves. Most movies would have Dot's death be 100% serious and Wakko would use his wish to save her, but instead it's a fakeout, and what does Wakko wish for?

Wakko: Not one, but two haypennies!

Nostalgia Critic: What?! Oh but it gets better. You know the operation Dot wanted? It wasn't to cure her sickness, it was plastic surgery to give her a beauty mark!

Dot: I call it a cutie mark.

Nostalgia Critic: Yeah! Like all those serious moments with her were pretty much just building up these really stupid jokes. But I love the balls that takes. This would be like Bambi's mom dying and then years later she comes back and says "No I told your dad I couldn't be with you because I shot the Hunter and was on the run." It'd be insultingly ridiculous, but what a bizarrely long way to go for a joke.