Lewis at first would do his comic reviews and would just focus on that, but then gradually started slipping more and more of his "story" stuff into his reviews over time - initially small skits like with 90's kid, but then gradually started introducing longer and more involved skits over a set of reviews.
This is not a surprise. He 'borrowed' the skit format from AVGN and other established reviewers. While most treated skits as just a stupid thing to move a review forward or, as an example, to point out an absurdity of a situation in the reviewed medium(such as Spoony's Dr Insano skit in the FF8 review was more a commentary of an over the top villain being an elected official), Lewis treats skits as a cohesive, joined universe where him and the other reviewers share it as, are superpowered beings that smash down fiction they don't like while having adventures.
One thing to keep in mind is Lewis, at least at one point, thought fictional worlds are real. That any 'creation' of fiction is the act of channeling an alternate dimension's facts on paper. Some can argue how metaphorical he was at this statement, but this in tandem of his fevered continuity protection of the 'shared reviewer universe' really makes you think.
He was best when he was fully focused on a comic and focused on being informative while critical. I generally enjoyed the Tandy Kids comic reviews best for that reason. But then the reviews started to focus around his storytime skits and became a chore to sit through while you waited for Lewis to do a story where he's the big hero guy or playing a hero going though a big moral crisis.
His early stuff was pretty bad too. He famously stopped a review of an indie limited-run comic to bitch that 'Revolution of the Mask' was so much better and must be purchased.
Also the crossover stuff as I recall was a mandate for CA contributors - or at least was expected to be a thing so they all promoted each other once it had become common practice.
A lot of the earlier crossovers were two guys sitting next to each other talking about a medium with MAYBE a 2-minute framing skit.
I seem to recall Linkara was basically second to Doug at CA's height as I recall? At least he seemed to be popular enough to usually be on front page when he updated.
Hah, no. Lewis was always on the front page because he always updated. Update frequency dictated who was on the front page, not popularity. In CA's height, SPoony was second. Then Joe, then Brad. The only time Lewis could have ever been second in popularity was probably right before the exodus.
Their "problems" with that scene are strictly performative. If they really had a problem with it, either one of them could have put their foot down and refused to film it. What was Doug gonna do, recast one of the roles? Cut their nonexistent pay?
Back then edgy internet humor was the bee's knees, and now it's totally wrong and problematic, hence they have to cover their asses. It's the same as Spoony apologizing for his "sissy sissy, gay gay" song, except they conveniently have a scapegoat they can blame it all on in the form of big bad Doug. If there's another major internet culture shift, they'll change their tune again. They may even fool themselves with this bullshit, but their morals are whatever makes the shekels flow and keeps them from having to get a job at McDonald's.
This is 100% correct. Neither had a problem with the scene, or at least a problem that warranted a moral outrage. Either could have refused to film it and Doug couldn't force them to film it since they didn't have contracts. He could've threatened to kick them off the site, but imagine how that would sound, even with the earlier 'edgy internet humor' days.
"We got kicked off the site because we refused to film a rape scene". Yeah... Doug's not that stupid. No one had a problem with the rape scene while it was filmed. The "Change the Channel" doc reveals a lot about everyone's hypocrisy and the sad thing is they didn't realize it.
Just like how Upside Down Cross was revealed to be real after years of denial.
