The latest Tweets from Game Grumps (@GameGrumps). We play video games. You like video games. Find out how Dan likes his apples in this week's Game Grumps Animated.
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![Game Grumps Animated Family Feud Game Grumps Animated Family Feud](/uploads/1/2/5/2/125290824/779023424.jpg)
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- Acceptable Targets:
- The Grumps occasionally make fun of the The Irate Gamer and DarksydePhil. Jon lampshaded this in the third episode of their Incredible Crisis series, stating that the Irate Gamer is probably the only person they can make fun of without getting in trouble with their fans.
- YouTube and their content policy has been fodder for this. Many episodes bring up how, due to how videos are monetized now it is fiscally unfeasible for highly-produced content and animated content to be made anymore. This is especially evident in their April Fool's 2015 video where they make an hour long video of them animating sped up, with maybe 4-6 seconds of footage being created, and at the end of the Guild Grumps where they have a cute animal mascot lambast YouTube and tell viewers buying merch is the only way the Grumps can keep doing highly produced content.
- Sonic gets this, especially from Arin.
- The Grumps themselves have become good fodder for being poked fun at by other let’s players and reviewers, especially Arin.
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- Accidental Innuendo:
- From their Family Feud grumpage: 'Name something fathers buy for their kids to play with themselves'. Lampshaded, of course.
- 'You can tongue up?!'
- 'What a cock!' Said by Jon in response to Arin cocking a gun.
- 'Dude, look at this cute little...boy'
- 'We haven't slept together, have we?'
- 'Dude, I woke up this morning in your bed... and then I turned over and I saw you there, and I knew it was alright.'
- 'Stop trying to blow through it and enjoy yourself.'
- In their Pacific Rim video, Jon says 'I know, I'm inside you!' in regards to his and Arin's psychic connection. This is lampshaded by giggling from Dodger.
- Adaptation Displacement: Conversed. Ross and Markiplier are unaware that the James Bond Jr. series is based on a cartoon.
- Alternative Character Interpretation:
- Arin and Dan paint E102-Gamma from Sonic Adventure as a sociopath, mass murdering and compulsive deathbot with a lot of sarcasm who is very easily annoyed.
- They joke while playing Bloodborne that Gehrman uses a wheelchair, despite not needing to, just to get a better parking space and front seats at stadiums.
- Also, see here.
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- Animation Age Ghetto: Discussed in part 1 of Star Fox 64. Arin talks about how he hates that people believe that cartoon characters can't have dark and serious backstories as opposed to lighthearted ones. This discussion persists: Arin later asks Jon when the last time he saw an R-rated animated movie was.
- Arc Fatigue:
- The Sonic '06 playthrough contains at least twelve hours of content, and Shadow's Story isn't much different than Sonic's Story gameplay-wise while focusing on the actual plot. Silver's Story remedies this somewhat with radically different gameplay involving his Psychic Powers. Not helping matters is that the Grumps themselves seemed bored with it by about halfway through Shadow's campaign, going on random tangents and having long stretches where they don't mention anything about the game. Made both more Hilarious in Hindsight and Harsher in Hindsight when you realize that it will stay unfinished.
- Wind Waker HD clocks in with 73 episodes, many of which go past the standard 10 to 15-minute episodes (with the longest being well over an hour).
- Pokémon FireRed has reached over 100 episodes, and includes a lot of instances where Arin does an exhaustive amount of leveling up on-screen, stays in one area for a long period of time due to Rail Roading and NPC Roadblocks, and back-tracking. Arin didn't always beat the Gym Leaders in one go, either, and a lot of the Turn-Based Strategy gameplay drags on when he's in areas filled with tons of Pokémon trainers. Early on, he got agonizingly lost during the playthrough and put a stop to it at episode 70 so he could request an in-depth fan-submitted walkthrough, and then went back to playing the game once he got his request accomplished.
- Super Mario 64's playthrough had actually been very good at avoiding this, Arin exceeding expectations as he was usually able to get multiple stars per episode. Around the 70-Star mark, the pacing suddenly ground to a halt as Arin's focus shifted from unlocking new worlds to backtracking to the old ones and completing all of the 100-Coin stars. This usually resulted in episodes with zero progress and opened up a lot more opportunities for fan criticisms that Arin had managed to completely avoid earlier. A big part of the problem is Arin's decision to 100% the game, when a good deal of the stars past the 70 you need to win are based around exploration and trying some very out-of-the-box thinking, which rather goes against the show's style.
- The Bloodborne playthrough. Originally well-received, its second session lasted for 26 uninterrupted episodes as opposed to the usual 6-10. Enough time for people to get sick of it.
- In general, many series from 2015 lasted for weeks with little to no breaks. Coupled with the fact that episodes are only 10 minutes long and they don't cut out padding, you'll have long stretches where nothing is accomplished in episodes. Word of God is that they're sticking to the same games because they're too lazy to change and reset the equipment.
- Many fans got tired of Super Mario Maker by the time the video count reached the 70s. Adding to this is that it actually could theoretically go on forever with new levels being created every day (which Dan realizes with some awe in Part 95), plus it still gets by far the highest viewing numbers in the show's history, giving the guys very little incentive to stop. It's now the longest running series in the show's history, though they do at least break it up with other games.
- Ocarina of Time. The series is 84 episodes long, with many of the episodes consisting of Arin getting stuck somewhere, complaining the game isn't being clear on what to do/where to go, constant deaths which result in backtracking (and then more deaths because Arin refuses to stock up on supplies), Arin's baffling insistence on keeping the Hover Boots (a situationally useful item that that otherwise impairs you by making you slip like you're on ice) equipped, and in general failing to grasp the mechanics of the game. This wouldn't be so bad if he hadn't made a 30 minute video on why the game is bad, but the series, in addition to its longevity, is also serving to punch more holes in his argument as opposed to grounding it.
- The same criticism can be leveled at their playthrough of Majora's Mask, as we see Arin completely forgets about the Song of Soaring until almost reaching the second dungeon, and otherwise treats the game with overt scorn while dissuading Danny from getting invested in the story or characters, which are the primary reason it is held in such high regard.
- This happened pretty quickly with Doki Doki Literature Club!. Fans of the game were waiting for them to get to Act 2, where the game shows its true colors, but with the episodes still being only about 10 minutes, and any extra jokes cutting into that time, it took a long time to do so. It didn't help that Jingle Grumps intervened right before the crucial twist, though the Grumps quickly noticed how upset people got and made sure to put out a few more episodes of it. Many fans also complained their playthrough of Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude, airing concurrently with Doki Doki Literature Club, regularly clocked in at more than 20 minutes an episode.
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- Archive Panic: They usually post two videos every day of at least 10 to 20 minutes in length. A single month usually provides at least 10 hours of content, and they've been posting for more than four years. Understandably daunting for anyone who wants to catch up.
- Author's Saving Throw:
- The fact they now use walkthroughs to find out where to go or what to do. Admittedly it may not always stop fans from saying 'PAY ATTENTION GUYS!' but at least progress is made at a more steady pace in some games thanks to this.
- Their February 2015 videos address complaints of not enough talk about game design, too much toilet humor, and finally lifting the Un-person status on Jon.
- Arin has been known to be very negative about Sonic the Hedgehog games, so some fans were apprehensive of him being unnecessarily harsh to the aged Sonic Adventure: DX and potentially tainting Danny's view of it. Thankfully, Arin admitted to being overly negative, was able to stay in what he called a 'zen mode' for a good bit to not tear down the game too badly, stated that his criticisms of the franchise as a whole come from him actually liking Sonic, and clarified that he doesn't try to insult the games' fans. Dan, meanwhile, realized that the game was old enough that judging it too hard would be unfair, so he embraced it and has enjoyed the game for the most part.
- Fans still upset that Arin and Danny didn't complete Mario 64 to completion were estatic to see Arin try to 100% finish Mario Galaxy.
- The very first episode of Dead Rising finally features an open acknowledgment of Arin's tendency to blame the game for his not being able to figure out some control.
- A lot of fans were apprehensive when it turned out the Grumps would be visiting Ocarina of Time, due to Arin's sometimes controversial Zelda opinions. But within the first few episodes, he makes it clear that he still thinks the game earned the praise it got at the time, and tells Dan (going in blind) that he would probably like the game.
- However he's still quick to blame the game whenever he runs into difficulty and when he's unable to figure out that pressing Z always focuses the camera behind Link, he goes into complete rage blaming the game and goes back to saying the game doesn't deserve to be called a masterpiece.
- After not doing any special 'Ghoul Grumps' episodes in 2018 and receiving some backlash over it, Arin not only posted an apology video, but the two would later make Ghoul Grumps episodes in December with a 'Nightmares before Christmas' theme. Judging by the comments, not only was this accepted as an apology, the idea of them playing horror/creepy/weird games just before the holidays is considered to be an interesting one.
- Awesome Music:
- The second intro song for Game Grumps Vs. and the intro song for Steam Rolled.
- And then there's 'The Fast Runner' a fan remix done out of the various song bits they sing in episode 24 of their Sonic 06 playthrough.
- Pretty much all of the Stupid Statement Dance Mixes they've spawned. Highlights include 'Banana Shoes' (which the Grumps said was their favourite at MAGFest 2013), 'Goof Troop Boop', 'Underneath the Water', 'Pause Balls', 'Beat the Dingle' (admittedly invoked when Arin demanded a remix) and 'Hey Mr. Wilson'.
- The trance mix of Barracuda's 'Where is the Love', used for the famous 'they realize friendship's more important' moment from Arin and Jon's playthrough of Mario Party 4.
- The two mixes of the Cleric Beast theme heard in the background of thisGame Grumps Animated episode.
- Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
- In the first episode of their Donkey Kong Country playthrough, Birdo is edited in to appear briefly. She quickly runs off-screen and no mention is made of it. (Jon was singing part of the Super Mario 2 Boss music, so Barry edited her in.)
- Lampshaded in Pokemon FireRed #17. The episode opens with an unrelated improv sketch that goes on for almost 2 minutes, and they admit afterwards that a new viewer would be terribly confused if this were the first episode they watched.
- Broken Base:
- Some fans dismiss the series due to a long standing Fandom Rivalry between reddit and 4chan. Jon has used a couple of reddit memes in his work and has mentioned the site a few times in Game Grumps, as has Arin. However, most people outside the rivalry find the whole situation ridiculous. Jon and Arin specifically mention this Broken Base at the start of their Secret of Mana playthrough and also find it to be ridiculous. Incidentally, they have a thriving subreddit.
- Jon and Arin ignoring hints in Sonic '06. Fans either think it causes some of the funnier moments in the episode or find it infuriating due to contributing to Arc Fatigue.
- Naughty Bear, Episode 1. Frustration at the episode led to debate as to whether Jon and Arin talking was the most important part of the show, or if Jon and Arin playing and progressing through a game was more important. To wit, they stumbled through the first section, ignoring hints and dialogues, and then complained they didn't know what to do. This kind of thing, for better or worse, gets the YouTube commenters up in arms.
- The Seinfeldian Conversation. Some people think they should talk about the game and funny events in the game (ex: Shadow's kick to the back of Silver's head, which they missed four times). Other people either don't care or argue that their completely random conversations make the show what it is.
- There's also a pretty big divide among the fans as to who was right in the Guts argument: during a competition, if one player figures out how a game mechanic works after starting, are they obligated to tell the other player what they found out so both are on even footing, or can they keep it to themselves, since learning this mechanic could be considered fair competitive advancement, much like gaining points or devising a new strategy?
- In some of the later Sonic '06 episodes, Jon mentioned that he hated the original BioShock and Arin seems to have mixed feelings about BioShock Infinite. Arin also once again continues talking about how much he hates the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot. Jon tried to subdue this by constantly complimenting BioShock: Infinite and kept trying to get Arin to shut up about Tomb Raider (since Jon does like it). This has seemingly caused another rift among Grump fans, with some fans thinking that Arin was coming off a bit pretentious about his ideas regarding game design; but most of all there are now Grump fans who argue whether or not if some groups of fans are just blindly agreeing with Jon and/or Arin's opinions, or on the other side of the coin if some fans are just being rude to Jon and Arin's opinions. There does not seem to be much of an in-between.
- This is lampshaded when they play Contra III, as Arin reveals his hatred of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time because it's 'boring as fuck'. Jon cautions him:'Hey! Wanna see a Game Grumps video with a giant half dislike bar?'
- Their playthrough of Wind Waker HD attracted this, particularly Episode 25, which is colloquially known as 'the episode where Arin doesn't press ZR.' The outcry was less to do with Arin's incompetence as much as his constant problem of blaming the game for his own lack of skill. On the flipside, the series also had a very heartwarming and widely praised episode where Danny talks about his struggles with depression and OCD when he was younger. Supporters say they should give the Grumps a break because they produce quality episodes like that in spite of all their flaws, while the other side say it doesn't excuse the frustrating lack of skill and Arin's dickbaggery towards the game's design.
- Sonic Boom for various reasons. First, a simple argument over whether this game or Sonic 2006 is worse: expected. Somewhat less expected is the argument over whether or not Arin should be abusing the 'Knuckles jump glitch' so constantly to either the amusement or annoyance of viewers. Later on, specifically in episode 20, it became clear that using the glitch led to skipping triggers and caused the game to glitch out in ways that would not have happened if they hadn't broken sequence. Arin was either completely oblivious to this or wanted to see how far he could take it.
- Super Mario 64 lost a good deal of fans when Arin abruptly became obsessed with 100% completing it, leading to multiple episodes with negligible forward progress despite some of them pushing 20 minutes. Similar to their Wind Waker run, he's quite prone to forgetting one of Mario's moves (most often the Ground Pound) and yelling at the game over it. Note also his insistence that his early statements about loving the game were just Pandering to the Base, when many fans noted that he seemed to be enjoying it before the harder levels started kicking his ass. On the plus side, he has the occasional humble moment where he acknowledges that the problem is likely just how bad he is at it, including spotting a sign out in the open that explained how to kill ghosts, which he'd been complaining about for a while.
- The playthrough of Sonic Adventure (the first 3D Sonic game they've done on the show that isn't hated among Sonic fans) spawned inevitable arguments between fans of the 3D Sonic series and those who agree with Arin that the 3D Sonic games have always sucked. In addition, many people who have played Sonic Adventure have accused Arin of intentionally triggering the bugs he finds while pretending he's just naturally encountering them to make the game seem way more unplayable than it actually is (namely when he managed to lose all of his lives by clipping through the first loop in episode 1), while other fans either don't believe he'd do that or are taking the position that even if he is doing it on purpose, the mere existence of the glitches for him to exploit is still a damning black mark on the game itself.
- In general, quite a few Sonic fans have gotten tired of Arin's complaints regarding the series. Not that the franchise doesn't warrant criticism from time to time, but the frequent passive-aggressive rants can become obnoxious. On the other hand, fans that hate Sonic naturally like the commentary.
- However, the viewers' tiring of this schtick came to a head when it became clear during their playthrough of Sonic 1 that no Sonic game is safe from Arin's blind hatred of the series, up to and including the classics. While Sonic 1 is by no means perfect, almost all of Arin's complaints throughout the playthrough amount to him blindly charging through each level, constantly getting hit and/or dying, and then chewing the game out because he can't 'go fast'. What's worse is that he then snaps at Dan whenever the latter (rightfully) points out the flaws behind his logic. While some have defended Arin's criticism of the more modern Sonic games as being at least somewhat justified, Arin's constant whining and game-blaming here was met with nearly universal derision from the viewers, who felt that he took the schtick too far.
- The The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds playthrough, mainly due to Dan's trouble playing the game. This playthrough is the first time he's even held a 3DS. He complains frequently about his huge thumbs screwing with the controls and constantly asks Arin where to go and what to do without exploring the game himself. In short, he's had so much trouble with a game based on one he loved in the past that it caused some rumbling among the fans.
- The Grumps playing the Bloodborne DLC. People either think this is great since it opens up the possibility of continuing other games that have had DLC, or you think that the series was long enough already and they should have just played a different game and forget about Bloodborne.
- The Undertale Genocide run, despite being highly requested, divided the fanbase neatly. One camp is still happy they're doing it, with some of them seeing it as payback for Ross' sadistic Mario Maker levels and general antics. The second camp doesn't want them to do it because it's clear the two of them like the world of Undertale and don't want to destroy it, but think they have no choice because of fan demand. These camps tend to argue back and forth, with many of the latter wanting them to prematurely end the playthrough. For further breakage, when it became clear that the genocide run was genuinely distressing (see: Ross storming out of the room crying when they killed Papyrus), a lot of fans who started out enjoying it wanted them to back out.
- The Super Mario Maker series has likewise split the fans into two camps: the camp that genuinely enjoys the series, particularly Arin's reactions to all of the Troll levels he plays through, and the camp that believes the series has worn out its welcome and is taking time and effort that could be devoted to finishing some of the games that the Grumps have abandoned, like FireRed.
- The Shovel Knight co-op playthrough has fans split, not because of annoyance over them revisiting the game, but because some fans had hoped that they would play the Plague of Shadows expansion instead. Others are excited to see Dan get to join in on the adventure this time.
- Dan and Arin's co-op playthrough of Portal 2 has had mixed reactions from fans. Some were glad to see the game revisited after Arin and Jon's playthrough ended abruptly, while others were turned off by Arin's incessant Ho Yay throughout most of the series, the repetition of certain jokes well past the point of being funny (most prominently Arin repeating the word 'goop' over and over again in the final set of chambers), their overreliance on walkthroughs (usually resulting from them simply missing something obvious), and/or Dan generally being The Load throughout the entire playthrough.
- The The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time playthrough has proven to be divisive, in part due to Arin's controversial Sequelitis video of the game. The videos of the Water Temple, in particular, garnered this reaction when Arin used a walkthrough to quickly complete it. It also didn't help matters when Arin put on the Hover Boots and refused to take them off: this is either hilarious or annoying, depending on who you ask.
- Speaking of walkthroughs, Arin has taken to using them much more frequently with recent games. While many fans are perfectly fine with this since many of the more complex games almost require the use of a cheat guide, there are others who don't like the Grumps not giving the games an honest try without the guides, especially when they seem to give up and default to using them very quickly (sometimes even having a guide available before they even start recording).
- The playthrough of INSIDE started with both Arin and Danny going into the game blind, but around episode 8 Arin reveals that he 'knows more about the game than he led on' and occasionally gives Dan the solutions to puzzles. Some fans don't mind as it prevents many minutes of aimless wandering around trying to figure out what to do, while other fans argue that Arin giving Dan the answers takes all the fun out of the game. It came to a head in episode 12, where Arin gives away the first twist of the game ('You can swim and breathe underwater now!') a good 15 seconds before the twist actually becomes apparent.
- The new Grump Head designs have gotten this reaction.
- Arin genuinely believes that there is no inherent reason to like The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, claiming on multiple occasions that the only reason people pretend to like it is because it has Zelda in the name. This has gotten him heat from almost all sides, even from people who don't like Skyward Sword, because Arin is openly dismissive of their tastes and opinions. It got even worse when he claimed that Skyward Sword is notably worse than Sonic 06 and is probably worse than The Legend of Zelda CD-i Games, despite Skyward Sword at least being functioning and the other two bordering on literally unplayable. Also not helping his case, Arin has admitted to barely even playing Skyward Sword before giving up on it altogether, specifically just starting in the second area which requires the use of bomb bowling.
- In 2018, Arin began a playthrough of Skyward Sword on the channel, and the trope is back in full force. Though the videos have consistently positive like-to-dislike ratios, the comments overwhelmingly criticize Arin for forcing his negative opinions on the game, and blaming the game for his own mistakes and failures at paying attention.
- The playthrough of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has rapidly become this after an initially warm reception. While Danny on the controller should have alleviated the usual backlash against Arin's deliberate lack of skill and focus, it soon became clear that neither was paying great attention, causing Dan to miss the instructions for critical gameplay features (he messes up simple attacks constantly, he has no idea how leveling up or using Shine Sprites works, and it takes until well into Chapter 2 for him to realize he can switch out partners), skip past instructions on what his goals are, and waste time on things he doesn't need to — or can't currently — do. Compounding this is the fact that Arin has a guide, but instead of glancing at it whenever they're stuck, he alternates between intentionally ignoring it in favor of giving him bad advice (causing Dan to waste an entire episode pointlessly backtracking) and reading from it point-by-point, including intentionally spoiling things that are coming up for Dan, such as explaining the entire subquest on how to enter Glitzville before Dan even knows he has to go there.
- Also, they refuse to extend most episodes past the usual ten-minute mark. Considering that it took them 73 parts to beat Wind Waker HD, and it takes them over half of that just to get through this game's second chapter, many are not optimistic, assuming they'll either drag it out until they stop having fun or add it onto the pile of cancelled playthroughs (they completed it in 132 episodes, for record, rivalling Mario Maker in longevity).
- The Pokemon Sun and Moon playthrough has divided people. Fans who hate the playthrough dislike the short episodes despite the tutorial being infamously long and Arin getting Pokemon types wrong. While fans who enjoy it are excited for Danny to see the Alolan Forms and the humour the game brings.
- Shortly after Jingle Grumps 2017 began, Arin made a surprise announcement that Doki Doki Literature Club would be returning in the middle of Jingle Grumps due to fan request. While Doki Doki fans were glad to hear this, others thought that the fact Arin had to explicitly address when the playthrough would be returning spoke poorly of the Doki Doki fanbase, accusing said fanbase of being extremely rabid and forcing the Grumps to cater only to their demands.
- Given their already base-breaking nature, Dan and Arin effectively taking over the Game Grumps channel and putting everyone else on a busnote has split the fan base right down the middle. Some think it's perfectly justified, since the channel's supposed to focus on the Grumps and the other series, like Steam Train and Grumpcade, were intended to be extras anyway. Others hate the direction the show has taken since then, accusing the Grumps of locking everyone else on the team out of the channel because they don't agree with the direction Arin wants to take it (namely only playing games that he can make fun of easily or play terribly and then rage at).
- The Grumps have left several playthroughs unfinished, most notably Trauma Center. Reasons range from the game simply becoming too difficult to the Grumps simply losing interest. Fans, especially in comment sections, are split on this. On the one hand, watching the Grumps play a game they don't want to play would likely lead to Arc Fatigue and overall just annoy Dan and Arin to the point of not having fun anymore. On the other hand, Arin and Dan cutting a playthrough short out of boredom instead of giving it a chance is very annoying to some, especially for story-based games that some wanted to see Arin and Dan react to. Both sides get muddled when a playthrough is unfinished despite Arin and Dan clearly having a fun time playing it.
- As of 2019, the above debate has seen considerable flare up due to the Grumps literally not finishing a single playthrough via episodes since 2017. For several games, such as Detroit: Become Human, Kitty Love, and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, the Grumps have finished them via streams. This is also another debate: Some enjoy the more laid-back style of the streams, the Grumps being accompanied by their friends, and in general just games seeing proper completion. Others really dislike the streams due to the Grumps often getting off-topic, the aforementioned company as opposed to the Dan-and-Arin duo, and (as is the nature of streaming) long periods of break and inactivity (albeit sometimes it's due to thanking donors.)
- Cliché Storm: Discussed when talking about lazily-executed Big Boo's Haunts, with Jon using the term 'tropey as fuck'.
- Creator's Pet: Arin is a huge fan of Beedrill and uses him in battle constantly, even when he's useless. Many comments expressed dislike for Beedrill, but that hasn't stopped anything. Likewise, Jon had a strong soft spot for Torchic and decided he would stop him from evolving because of his cuteness, thinking Torchic's evolved forms were ugly, even though this meant Torchic would not grow to its full potential. Arin later revealed he was using Beedrill to troll viewers and knows very well that Beedrill doesn't stand up like other 'Mons in competitive gameplay. On his Twitter, he was simply overjoyed to know it got a Mega Evolution in Gen VI and agreed with ProJared that Beedrill wouldn't be useless anymore.
- Critical Research Failure: Easily the most common and infamous criticism of the Grumps is that this happens way more often than it should.
- In Episode 32 of the Sonic Adventure: DX playthrough, Dan and Arin constantly insult and lambaste the writer of a walkthrough that they're using for the Knuckles part of the game for being completely unhelpful with the Master Emerald locations. These locations are actually randomized every time the player enters the level or dies, which the walkthrough can't really help with bar general advice and pointing out some obscure possible spots (though to be fair, the walkthrough also failed to mention that the locations were randomized).
- During the Castlevania: Dracula X playthrough, Arin gets the Castlevania lore wrong. First he mistakenly thinks Simon Belmont was the protagonist of Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, assuming it to be a direct sequel to the first two games, when in fact the protagonist is Trevor Belmont, and the game is a prequel. Second he states that 'Alucard is Dracula,' when actually Alucard is Dracula's son. Both Arin and Danny also seem to mistakenly think Super Castlevania IV is a sequel to the NES titles, when it's actually a remake of the original Castlevania.
- It becomes increasingly obvious during the Ocarina of Time playthrough that the majority of Arin's problems with the game are due to his own playstyle. Most of the enemies that he claims force you to wait can in fact be very easily dispatched by either hitting them in the back, blocking and counter-attacking, or just using a Deku Nut to force them to be vulnerable. However, Arin refuses to block except against enemies that explicitly require it and refuses to acknowledge that Deku Nuts are an option. His argument is that blocking wastes time but he only ends up wasting more time by taking unnecessary damage and spamming sword swipes, which in 2D Zeldas is a valid form of combat but in 3D Zeldas only resets enemy attack patterns and takes longer for them to let their guard down.
- Arin has admitted that he gets impatient while fighting more complex enemies, and that he likes to play aggressively.
- At the beginning of Sonic and the Black Knight Arin calls it one of the few games in the franchise that everyone agrees is bad, which caused the Sonic Storybook Series to become a Stillborn Franchise. In fact, it's the second game in the series and largely considered a Surprisingly Improved Sequel to Sonic and the Secret Rings, getting praise for the cutscenes, art style, voice acting, and spawning the fan favorite Merlina as the game's antagonist, with some even calling it the last good Sonic game. It's possible Arin was confused by the fact that the planned third game in the series was never released.
- While playing Road Runner's Death Valley Rally, Arin claims Speedy Gonzales is 'super racist'. While he's undeniably stereotypical, he's not depicted negatively or in a racist manner, nor is he any more of a stereotype than Foghorn Leghorn or Pepe Le Pew. In fact, Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales (basically, Speedy is always the hero, always wins and always makes his gringo opponents look like idiots).
- During the Vs game of Family Feud Decades, Arin answers Alan Grant for the question 'Name a famous Country singer, saying he did the song Chattahoochee. Which is by Alan Jackson.
- Crosses the Line Twice:
- The domestic abuse jokes in the Mary-Kate & Ashley episode manage to be hilarious due to a combination of Anti-Humor and Mood Whiplash.
- Sad Hoshi, a depressed Japanese man who is eventually revealed to be a pedophile.
- Anything having to do with Mr. Wilson.
- The polio song from part 31 of Super Mario Sunshine. They stop to discuss just how wrong it is, then just keep on singing.
- This gem of a quote from Sonic '06 Part 59:Arin: 'I wanna take a girl to the Grand Canyon, fuck her, and then throw her in.'
- Racist Bassist.
- During Disney Princess Enchanted Journey Part 1, Arin and Dan make a very dark extended rape joke. Barry even includes a trigger warning for the video and gives them an award for 'Worst' (at Danny and Arin's request).
- During the Shadow the Hedgehog playthrough, Arin and Danny get to a level where one of the possible objectives is trying to kill the President of the United Federation. In Episodes 8 and 9, the Grumps proceed to make a ton of jokes about wanting to to kill the President (clearly implying they mean President Obama), how hard it is to do, and how they want to be good but still kill him because it's their dream. At one point Arin asks Barry to take it out of context:Arin: Gimmie that gun! Gimmie that gun! I need to shoot the present!
- Their playthrough of Trauma Center Second Opinion crosses the line a couple dozen times, especially when talking to Linda.
- Ross and Brian playing Who's Your Daddy? marches right into this once Ross starts using his baby voice. There's something equally funny and disturbing about hearing the words 'Suck my node, daddy,' in a squeaky, cartoonish warble.
- Arin's story about scamming free Uber rides by giving out a guest pass code that also gives him a free ride is just kind of a tangent... However, him proceeding to post said code on a video, assuring he'll probably have free Uber rides for the rest of his life, is hilarious in the sheer audacity of it.
- At one point in Mary-Kate & Ashley: Sweet 16 - Licensed to Drive, Jon and Arin begin going off with a bit impersonating a Sassy Black Woman, and Jon ends up turning the bit into a domestic abuse story played for laughs. It's probably Jon's 'black woman' voice that makes it hilarious.
- The second act of Doki Doki Literature Club!, where the game takes a sudden nosedive into psychological horror, with a healthy dose of Genre Deconstruction and The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You, is usually genuinely disturbing; however, the Grumps manage to make it utterly hilarious due in large part to Danny (who was going in completely blind) being utterly terrified by the whole thing. Special note goes to his referring to Yuri's horrific on-screen suicide as Clifford the Big Red Stab Wound.
- Discredited Meme:
- Arin said in part 14 of Sonic '06 that he hates the 'It's a thing in a thing: Thing-ception!' meme associated with Inception.
- 'God Dammit Ross' was a popular running joke but has now long since been retired with Ross citing that the joke became less funny and harder to take when thousands of strangers were using it as an excuse to be a jerk to him.
- Ear Worm:
- Practically all the intro songs, all of which aren't much longer than a couple of seconds. This includes the regular Game Grumps intro, the Game Grumps VS intro, the Guest Grumps intro (composed by Grant Kirkhope), and the Steam Train intro.
- Any and all of the Stupid Statement Dance Mix songs.
- Ending Fatigue: Dan himself gets a bit of it with Super Mario 3D World with not only a false ending to the main game, but two entire bonus worlds that also require more star farming from the main levels. The second one could almost qualify as an entire game in its own right. When they got to the actual final part of the game, which requires every collectible to enter, they finally decided to finish it in a series of livestreams while moving on to another game for their main videos.
- #EngineeredHashtag: Parodied in the 'I Burgie Burgie' shorts, which features #beefy, #RelishShits, and #BurgerFeels appearing in the corner of the video. Discussed in later episodes, after they realized that #beefy was already used by a gay porn website (an issue that they find more hilarious than anything).
- Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Jon and Arin instantly like Blaze when she first shows up, and when they finally get to play her, Jon expresses surprise that he's actually having fun playing Sonic '06.
- While every single made-up character has their own fanbase, Sad Hoshi, Gloop the Fish, Mycaruba, and the Alternative Character Interpretation of Mr. Wilson are all generally loved the most. The Twitchy Ass Taillow from the first Game Grumps Animated, as well as the Lotad family and Poppy Bros., also enjoyed popularity for a while before they all went Out of Focus.
- Barry, formerly the show's editor, and Suzy, Arin's wife, both manage to rival the Grumps themselves in terms of popularity. Barry started getting a lot of fan love around the time Sonic 2006 and Return to Dreamland came out, mostly due to the funny annotations he put on-screen whenever he's addressed by the Grumps, before bolstering it over time with his incredible editing skills, as shown during Nintendo Land and Drakkhen, while Suzy slowly became loved through being adorable. Both became even more popular with their appearances on Steam Rolled through averting disliked aspects of the show, with Barry proving himself to be fairly competent at video games while Suzy generally requests to read the instructions. Eventually, the two of them got their own show just because of how much people loved them. While Suzy has since become a base breaker, Barry has avoided any criticism.
- Grant Kirkhope's guest appearance became insanely popular over-night.
- Danny's dad, Avi, has grown on the fanbase. Danny often tells hilarious but also sweet stories about him with some Memetic Badass status. The fandom went pretty wild went Danny played a phone message that was in no way was exaggerated.
- Emo Teen Dan from the I Burgie Burgie and the All Hail Burgie commercials.
- Ninja Brian joining the Grumps is one of the most positively received changes since Barry started joining in.
- Epileptic Trees: Oh boy. See the debate around Jon's departure from the show. While some understand Jon left to continue his show, other people weren't so sure. The general fanbase let it go after they got used to and accepted Danny. A subset of the fandom, meanwhile, devoted itself to gathering a great deal of evidence pointing toward a conspiracy of some kind rooted in Jon's sudden departure. This doesn't have much traction outside of that subset—which is as far as we're going on this wiki. This was finally Jossed at Magfest 2015, where Jon and Arin publicly reunited. Later on, Jon's Unperson status was finally lifted and the Grumps began to mention him more and more. And then, before the end of 2015, Jon and Arin had a full onscreen reunion in Jon's 'Starcade' series on his channel, putting more rumors at rest... but starting a slew of others.
- Fan Nickname: The fanbase came up with 'Kinda Grump' for Danny, half out of wanting Jon to keep his title and half out of his temperament being somewhere between Arin's and Jon's. This has since died out.
- Fountain of Memes: Two incredibly quotable people in one room. The result was inevitable.
- Fridge Brilliance: Both of the Grumps have this on camera at one point, due to them knowing the character names as a child, but never making the connections until it was brought up in adulthood.
- Jon didn't realize that Dil Pickles was named after dill pickles until he was discussed in Rugrats in Paris.
- Arin didn't realize that Chao derive their name from chaos until Jon mispronounced the word.
- When they fight Silver in Sonic '06, it's a frustrating experience because of his telekinetic ability ('It's no use!'). When they play as Silver, that same ability becomes cathartic against an utterly helpless Sonic, and Jon declares Sonic Team 'geniuses' because of this. All Arin can do is mockingly scream 'IT'S NO USE!' over and over again as he defeats Sonic.
- On average, Wind Waker had some longer episodes compared to those in other series, with a 44-minute finale eventually showing up as Part 73. Most likely, this is because of a moment in Part 10 of Katamari Damacy when Arin brings up a certain awkward story that he'd allegedly tell in Part 78 of Wind Waker.
- Fridge Logic:
- They wonder how Kirby's partners can fly.
- They wonder how Torchic, a small bird Pokemon, can both growl and scratch.
- Friendly Fandoms: With several Youtubers, particularly Markiplier, The Completionist, and ProJared.
- 'Funny Aneurysm' Moment:
- A Game Grumps animated based on a Naruto video game ended with Jon looking at Arin◊ exactly the same way Sasuke looked at Naruto before leaving Konoha to pursue a personal quest... About a month later, and Jon left the Grumps to pursue his own quest.
- In Kirby's Epic Yarn, Danny and Arin joked about the goofiness and cheesiness of the Fast and the Furious movies in a video uploaded the day after Paul Walker died in a car crash.
- In Disney Think Fast, one of the hosts says of Genie 'For my third wish, go die!' A few months later, Robin Williams, the voice of Genie (though not in the game)committed suicide.
- In part 2 of You Don't Know Jack, Arin cried out: 'JOOOOOON! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?' Then Jon left. Oops.
- Pro Jared's first appearance on Grumpcade was preceded with a skit with him and Ross having some bad blood over a fictional feud. In 2019, all of Jared's collab videos with the Grumps have been deleted from the channel following Jared's scandal involving exchanging nudes with fans (some that were allegedly underage) and accusations from his ex-wife that he cheated on her with Holly, Ross' ex-wife.
- Goddamn Bats: Arin finds Boos to be this in Super Mario Sunshine until he realizes that he could jump on them.
- Growing the Beard: Danny really grew into his role as Not so Grump. It's generally accepted that the point when the intro was changed to be less a remake of Jon's intro, instead using Danny's voice to create a more harmonious version, was also the point where Danny and Arin's playing off of each other really started to take off.
- Two words: Mayor Luigi. The Grumps themselves have declared it as Danny's Win the Crowd moment.
- Harsher in Hindsight:
- A fair number of Jon's last episodes, thanks to the fact that we didn't know they were his final episodes at the time. Things like Jon gleefully declaring 'THE GAME GRUMPS ARE BACK, FOLKS!' in Shatterhand are a lot sadder in the wake of the sudden announcement that he'd left the show for good.
- Jon's wildly censored rant during Part 36 of the Sonic '06 playthrough was considered one of the funniest moments of the series and a prime example of Censored for Comedy. After his political leanings, which will not be elaborated on, came to light, Arin's clear discomfort during the rant coupled with Jon's wording and Barry's insistence on reprimanding Jon through the editing for it make it seem as if Jon was repeatedly violating his N-Word Privileges.
- This Twitter conversation featuring Jon and Ross about Jon being replaced as Not So Grump.
- During Jon's tenure, he and Arin got in several arguments on and off camera about how the show should be edited, with particular focus on borrowing Continue Show's dramatic replays with Nightwish music. Fans didn't think anything of it at the time (and most of them agreed with Jon), but after Jon's departure, it became obvious in retrospect that Jon and Arin didn't agree on how the channel should develop.
- In the middle of their panel at MAGfest 13, Ross pulled out his phone to discover Monty Oum is calling him. He ignored the call, saying 'Not now, Monty.' According to Ross, Monty's wife Sheena was calling to tell him about Monty's coma. One could only imagine the panel grinding to a halt if he'd actually answered his phone.
- Arin can be very bad at games and has a tendency to blame his own mistakes on the game. This has made him memetically infamous. This is sadder when you realize that, thanks to the popularity of his Sequilitis, a lot of people saw him as a game design genius back in the day.
- During the first episode of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Arin mentions being faithful with no hesitation and states that he wouldn't cheat on anyone. Dan on the other hand is a little more apprehensive, saying 'good for you, I would have... done the same thing.' It's later revealed in the Bratz Forever Diamonds playthrough with Dan and Kevin on Single Train 2016 that Dan has actually cheated on a partner before.
- The inclusions of new members of SuperMeganote becomes a lot more depressing when Mark later on stated he, Matt and Ryan stopped collaborating with him due to him becoming a lot more controlling and demanding, resulting with the two moving out of Mark's apartment and cutting ties with him, putting a strain on Mark's friendship with the Grumps. Not helped by the abrupt end of collaborations with Mark with the Grumps, especially surprisingly he wasn't invited on the Grumps tours. Ironically enough, around mid-2019, SuperMega would depart from Game Grumps to focus on their own channel, making their whole split with Mark more or less pointless (although some have noted that Matt himself posted how he and Mark made peace in a Twitter post from 2016, implying that Ryan's the only one who still harbors some animosity towards Mark).
- The Love Train episode involving Ross and Commander Holly (and arguably any time the two had loving moments together, such as when Ross kept plugging his and her let's play of Undertale) becomes this when the two divorced in 2018, which within itself would have been fine...until 2019 rolled around and ProJared was called out by his now ex-wife for cheating on her with Holly around the month she left LA to move to Seattle where she and Jared lived, with fans connecting two and two and debating that Holly had been cheating behind Ross's back, hence the divorce.
- Related to the previous example is the 8th episode of their Super Mario Galaxy series from 2015. There's a moment in the episode where Ross and Holly are mentioned and Arin and Danny comment on how Ross and Holly were 'perfect for each other'.
- The many jokes about the Grumps firing Barry can feel like this after his departure from the show. 'Barry not included' indeed.
- He Panned It, Now He Sucks!:
- The reaction was not kind when Dan and Arin started a playthrough of Sonic Adventure and were particularly unforgiving in their commentary.
- Arin mentioned in a Link: The Faces of Evil video that he dislikes Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, a popular ongoing playthrough that Dan has openly adored. Cue fans bashing him as a poor sport and accusing him of intentionally sabotaging the series by spoiling the game for Dan with his strategy guide.
- Arin has a notorious bias against modern-day AAA games, especially story-driven games. Whenever Arin plays a game that fits this criteria, he isn't shy about openly criticizing it, his response ranging from passive-aggressive to incredibly blunt and dismissive of other's opinions. And whenever said game is incredibly well-received, such as Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, God of War (PS4), or Spider-Man (PS4), comment-driven backlash ensues.
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Arin and Danny's playthrough of Punch-Out!! for Wii started exactly one day before Little Mac was announced for the fourth Super Smash Bros. game. Made endlessly funnier by the fact that they actually discuss the possibility of a Punch-Out character making it into Smash Bros. in the third episode (though they were predicting King Hippo rather than Little Mac).
- From within the same playthrough, partway through Danny's last rematch with Don Flamenco, he and Arin have a Seinfeldian Conversation on the nature of headbutting (Danny was looking for a way to shut Arin up without releasing the controller). Then they fight Aran Ryan, who cheats by (amongst other things) headbutting. The video even finishes with Ryan KO'ing Danny with a headbutt.
- Also from the same playthrough, Arin thinks it would be awesome if Little Mac became 'comically jacked' from his experiences boxing. Though not available in the standard mode of gameplay, Little Mac can transform into the ridiculously bulky Giga Mac in two-player mode, a form that is his Final Smash in the upcoming Smash Bros.
- On a related note, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! has Danny make a joke about fighting someone who says 'Here it come!' before throwing a punch. In the Wii's Punch-Out, Disco Kid does exactly that.
- In their The Amazing Frog? video, they were fighting over a crown (and supposedly the title of 'Ribbit King'). Cue a Game Grumps VS series in which they face off in a against each other in a game titled Ribbit King.
- A momentary joke about people coming to watch games over cats during Jon and Arin's playthrough of Mega Man 7 became funnier when the 2014 April Fool's Day joke was Arin and Ross's cats fooling around for the entire episode.
- In the Super Mario 3D World playthrough, they play as Peach and Luigi. Sometimes, they joke about Luigi flirting with Peach or being attracted to her. Now, wasn't there a little song they sang...?
- In their Sonic Adventure playthrough, Dan makes a joke about Tails' tails becoming erect whenever he sees a hot girl. Just over a week later, in an episode of Sonic Boom, Tails meets a nice girl and becomes smitten to the point where his tails accidentally propel him into the air.
- In the Guest Grumps episode with Finn Wolfhard, the Grumps joke about whether they should be swearing so much in front of a 14-year-old boy. Later that year, Finn would play a Sir Swearsalot character, Richie Tozier in the Warner Bros. adaptation of It.
- In their playthrough of Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, they assume the 'Beep-o' is a Sound-Effect Bleep and call him 'Fucko' instead. In Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude, one of the girls, Analisa, calls Larry 'fucko' when he implies she's Hispanic (she's actually Italian).
- During the Pokémon FireRed playthrough, Danny predicted that recording Game Grumps would have taken such a toll on the cast that they would become extremely old within three years. In this hypothetical scenario, Barry is the only one who hasn’t aged abnormally. Three years after this joke was made, Barry announced he would be leaving Game Grumps
- In Part 8 of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), Arin slipped up and referred to a non-existent video game called The Legend of Greg. Five years later, a children's novel called The Legend of Gregis set for release in summer 2018.
- Part 81 (as well as the latter half of Part 80) of Super Mario Maker has Arin being driven to madness over a particularly brutal level called 'P is for Pain'. The creator of said level, Dan Salvato, would go on to drive Dan to a completelydifferentkind ofmadnessa mere year and a half later.
- In the short story 'The Arbitrator' by Morley Roberts, first published in 1896, protagonist Gurdon is writing a newspaper piece on seven unlikeable bourgeoisies, who he refers to as the 'Seven Asses'.
- In Part 1 of the Cuphead episode (which aired on October 6, 2017), when the Devil is about to claim the souls of Cuphead and his brother Mugman, one of the Grumps shouts out 'We don't have souls! We're fuckin' cups!' Almost a month later, the game developers of Studio MDHR, Chad and Jared Moldenhauer, would prove the Grumps wrong: that Cuphead and Mugman do have souls, just inside their cups-for-heads.
- In Part 1 of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Ross joked about a 'third' Catherine named 'Qatherine,' which becomes hilarious with the Updated Re-releaseCatherine: Full Body having a third woman called Rin, which is in fact short for Qatherine. They even predicted her having an unnatural hair color and being a Cute Clumsy Girl.
- Arin suffered through another Super Mario Maker level which is filled completely with invisible blocks so that you can't jump at all. Super Mario Maker 2 actually makes this easier to inflict on players by simply making it a condition of beating the level, with the flag disappearing if you ever jump.
- Arin and Danny's playthrough of Punch-Out!! for Wii started exactly one day before Little Mac was announced for the fourth Super Smash Bros. game. Made endlessly funnier by the fact that they actually discuss the possibility of a Punch-Out character making it into Smash Bros. in the third episode (though they were predicting King Hippo rather than Little Mac).
- Ho Yay:
- In Kirby Super Star, if you eat some food, you can kiss your partner to give them some of it, leading to Arin and Jon talking about kissing each other on-camera. This lead to, in one episode when Egoraptor had Wheelie: 'I wanted to ride you, but apparently I had to kiss you first'.
- Picked up on the Steam Train playthrough of The Sims 4, in which Arin and Dan avatars are quickly thrown into a passionate love affair.
- The entire ending of Part 7 of Super Mario 64. Arin asks Dan to kiss him, then makes a kissing noise and insists it really happened. In Part 14, Arin reveals that he actually did think he was gay for a few years as a kid, thanks to how badly his parents screwed up The Talk.
- There's been some humorous teasing between Danny and Kevin. One of the Ask the Grumps videos has Kevin and Danny look at each other with a heart between them for the avatar. There was another time where Danny was advertising CDs and when Kevin had trouble finding the hole (ninja eye mask) Danny teasingly said 'I'll help you find it.' And of course Kevin playing Danny's hotdog girlfriend in the Burgie ad.
- Danny wants to bend Kevin over a table and take him to 'Frisko Town.' Wherever that is.
- This priceless exchange in Dead RisingPart 44:
Danny: I’m serious now—
Arin: Were you not serious the last time?
Danny: If you don’t run right for the hideout… I’m going to fuck your face.
[they both laugh]
Arin: See the thing is you’re supposed to say something I don’t want.
- They mention that the phrase 'Is [x] in Egoraptor?' comes off as this.
- Part 2 of Banjo Kazooie ends with 'Next time on Game Grumps, Jon and I go on a date.'
- 'This game is like sand! It's coarse, and rough! Not like YOU, AIR-IN!' (Timon & Pumbaa's Jungle Games)
- Apparently, there's pornographic fan art of the Game Grumps on the internet. Jon and Arin are aware of this, finding it absolutely hilarious.
- There are multiple instances where they joke about making out offscreen or making kissing noises and sex sounds. A running gag of Game Grumps Versus is the 'winner' receiving a blowjob.
- Jon: 'Arin, don't leave. Arin don't [door slams, Jon laughs] ARRRINNN! I love you!'
- Jon: 'At least I'm comfortable with the fact that I like a man's penis, rock hard! I can't help it if I like the chest-bear of a man, muscular and strong! I want him. Where is he?'
- In The Merch video, they suggest buying a shirt for 'that special someone.' Cue a picture of Arin holding Jon lovingly, each in their respective shirts.
- From a Super Mario Sunshine episode: 'WE HAD SEX!'
- Arin's tale of The D Club in the Ninjabread Man episode.
- Later subverted by Arin, insisting that it's a way of desensitizing oneself to the awkwardness of not trying to see another man's wiener — also stating that it isn't gay until someone is actually turned on by it.
- When Dan and Arin were playing Checkers in Game Grumps Vs they had hand icons on-screen to move their checker pieces with. This happened.Arin: C'mere, c'mere!
Dan: No, don't touch me!
Arin:[referring to the board arrangement] How come you're always on top?
Dan: This is no time for holding hands! Get away from my fucking hand! No, it's weird!
Youtube Game Grumps Animated
![Game grumps Game grumps](/uploads/1/2/5/2/125290824/305814738.jpg)
Game Grumps Animated Do It
- 'Holy Shit!' Quotient: After years of refusing to do so, Dan and Arin finally acknowledged the JonTron era on Episode 109 of Pokemon: Fire Red, in reference to the fact that the series had surpassed Sonic 06 as the Grumps' longest series. The fandom promptly lost their minds.
- Hype Backlash: The Mario Maker playthrough got hit with this hard. At first, it was hands down one of the Grumps' most popular series due to the now famous rages of both Arin andDanny caused by how hard the levels were, as well as having some of the funniest moments such as Arin's many rants and the now famous 'Yoda Jokes'. However, as the series went on, more and more people became increasingly sick of it, claiming that it had grown repetitive and that the constant returns to it were impedding the Grumps progress on other popular playthroughs, most notably Fire Red.
- I Am Not Shazam: During Nintendo Land: Metroid Blast.Arin: I'm in a space ship and Jon is on land as a Metroid.
Jon: As a Metroid!? I am in fact a Metroid. - It's Short, So It Sucks!: Discussed in their Donkey Kong Country playthrough. Their opinion is that a game shouldn't be any longer than it needs to be, and that a tight six-hour game is far better to a sixty-hour game spent mostly just wandering between the actual 'game' parts.
- Just Here for Godzilla:
- A number of fans claimed to have lost interest in the series once Jon left - not necessarily out of spite towards Arin or Danny, but because of the sort of conversations that occurred between Arin and Jon specifically.
- The opposite is now true for Danny, with many fans enjoying him seeing games he never had played before and hearing stories about his life, along with him being way more forgiving of games than Arin.
- Sonic 3 and Knuckles was made a much more enjoyable and well-played game thanks to the Completionist being a guest commentator. If it wasn't for his professionalism, Aren's constant ragging on the game would have been unbearable.
- Lets See You Do Better:
- During their Sonic Adventure playthrough, the two make fun of a YouTuber who made a video criticizing Man of Steel by sarcastically saying, 'I've never made a film before and Zack Snyder's made many. Here's my opinion on why he's not good.' This is especially ironic, considering that they are literally saying this while playing Sonic Adventure, a game that the two have been openly criticizing any chance they get. Arin, to his credit, acknowledges the hypocrisy in his statement a few moments later, though the irony seems to be lost on Danny.
- Memetic Badass:
- Barry. Even before his first true appearances on the show he had a cult following, and now that he has a presence, he's lived up to the reputation and won every episode of Steam Rolled he's participated in so far. Arin and Danny invoke this in Super Mario Sunshine when they finally get the Pachinko machine star, saying Barry came in and did it for them and then spend an entire minute gushing about how amazing Barry is.
- Apparently, Macho Man Randy Savage saved the world from the Rapture.
- Memetic Loser: Arin, who's negativity and refusal to take blame for his own mistakes in games has started leading to hisownshareof 'This is How you DON'T Play' videos. Let's just say there's a reason Arin Sucks at Video Games is a popular meme for both the Grumps' fandom and hatedom.
- Memetic Molester: Mr. Wilson. According to Danny he teaches Dennis how to play a game called 'butt-ball' in his basement and warns him to never tell his parents.
- Memetic Mutation: Enough to warrant its own page.
- Moe: Suzy to some. Also, in a rare male example, Danny and Barry seem to come off as moe to many fangirls.
- Most Annoying Sound:
- Referenced by Danny in episode 47 of Super Mario Sunshine:
Danny: And stops the beeping.Danny: And help preserve my sanity. Beep. Beep. Beep.- Similarly, in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Danny contemplates dying just to stop the constant beeping.
- Most Wonderful Sound:
- The 'boop' noise from the Goof Troop game. It's the boopinest game ever!
- Jon's screaming is just about always hilarious to listen to, as well as his singing. Same goes for Danny, as both Jon and Danny are talented singers. Arin's not so bad, either.
- Whenever Arin cracks up at something particularly funny, you can't help but laugh with him.
- Danny's distinctive giggle is also very contagious. He's noted that it leaves a very distinctive signature on their recording software, so Barry can always tell when it's about to happen.
- Nausea Fuel:
- In Episode 42 of the Sonic '06 playthrough, we hear a really graphic story from Jon about the time that Arin got food poisoning while he was at MAGfest. Definitely not for the squeamish.
- In Episode 87 of the Sonic playthrough, Arin has another profoundly graphic story about food poisoning. Incidentally, this story is told during White Acropolis, just like the first story was.
- The episode based on the Build-a-Bear game has several vertigo-inducing camera wiggly woogles paired with Arin doing a particularly sickening voice.
- A compilation of every fart and burp emitted on the show.
- Never Live It Down:
- Jon claims that pointing out he says 'legitimately' often has led to this with some of his other friends.
- Table Flip never really recovered from the Sling deal; the news of lovelies having to pay to get new episodes or wait 2 months for them to be uploaded on YouTube (especially on a service only available to Americans) caused a huge controversy. Videos advertising new episodes on Sling are disliked so heavily that it's become a Running Gag of sorts, and Ross even admitted that he would no longer go onto the show.
- Brian drew attention to his PhD in several of his early appearances as a Running Gag, though quickly dropped it. You wouldn't know that from the fans, who still bring it up. He's even lampshaded it before in one of the videos, how fans and the other Grumps keep bringing it up more than Brian himself, now.
- Arin's never going to hear the end of it with his constant Take Thats to Sonic, especially when it came to his constant attacks to the game on GrumpCade with Jirard, who is a fan of the series.
- In fact, this mentality has extended to virtually any game he doesn't find to his taste — with mixed reception.
- Add to Arin's never ending list, never reading the instructions tends to always be a lingering factor in the Snark Bait Arin has.
- Even if it was a deliberate troll job, Matt and Ryan will never escape the initial release of the November 2017 Best of Game Grumps compilation where nearly every clip was titled 'SOME TOKENS!', which was meant to only be used for a Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude clip at the very end. When the video was reposted with the proper subtitle cards, an overwhelming majority of the comments were jokes or references to 'SOME TOKENS!'
- Much more deeper, Ryan and Matt probably will never live down the endless fandom theories and accusations about their fallout with Markiplier, especially in regards to the abrupt cease of collaboration between the Grumps and Mark. (Although Mark has appeared on NSP videos even after their fallout, so his relationship with the grumps, or at the very least Dan, probably isn't that terrible).
- Nightmare Fuel: On Grumpcade, during the first episode of Vice: Project Doom, the second half of the episode is made up of outtakes from the sketch in the beginning. What starts out as a hilarious example of Ross's social anxiety slowly becomes creepy when Ross, Barry, and Jared are literally holed up in their hotel room, while some... excessive... fans lean against their door upon realizing it's them. The creep factor ends up reaching full when the fans push a note under their door, trying to pass themselves off as Magfest employees in order to get the three's phone numbers. The guys are understandably scared shitless.
- No Problem with Licensed Games:
- Goof Troop. They found it a little derivative of Zelda, but also pointed out that it did a lot of things that Zelda wouldn't do until Four Swords (for example: co-op with the ability to grief the other player).
- The Naruto Shippuden fighting game, saying the fighting reminds them of Marvel vs. Capcom and that there's plenty of Scenery Porn.
- Arin also likes The New Adventures of Mary-Kate and Ashley.
- Surprisingly, both Arin and Danny find themselves enjoying a licensed jelly bean game. Definitely more so than M&M Beach Party, according to Danny.
Danny: This is already better than any other game we've played today. - Older Than They Think: World Famous Pugilist Tommy Ray Handley only became a memetic popular character after the joke regarding him late in their Kirby's Epic Yarn gameplay, but he was actually named earlier in Super Mario Sunshine.
- One-Episode Wonder: There is a sizeable list of 'one-offs': games that they only make one episode of, largely because the game isn't worth playing for any longer. This is mostly for games that are either boring or where some element of it is so bad that they won't be able to focus on entertaining the audience.
- One-Scene Wonder: Each time one of the Grump's parents is heard it's usually hilarious and memorable. Danny's dad was finally heard over a phone message after many many stories. Jon's mother called during one episode of Sonic 2006 and Ross called his dad to get parental permission to play Amazing World.
- Padding:
- They decide to play the Samurai mini-game of Kirby Super Star since the episode was 3 minutes short.
- In Goof Troop's eighth installment, they spend some time on the boss, but are still a minute short, so Jon slowly reads the password out in an attempt fill the remaining time. There's a cutscene immediately after, and then (even though they are overtime) they drag out the names of the fruit they obtain once they regain control.Arin: Okay; we gotta spend four minutes on this boss.
Jon: I know we're transparent most of the time, but you are just crystalline water. - The finale of Joe and Mac ran short, so the video is capped off with several minutes of cats dancing as Jon and Arin sing songs from Space Jam.
- Paranoia Fuel: A story Arin shared while playing Conker's Bad Fur Day. He was home alone one day, and his family's cordless phone rang. It was down in the basement, so he went to go answer it. He answered, and all he heard was an echoing droning noise, which he has admitted to being afraid of (and still is, as evidenced in another video when he explicity says low, droning noises rising in intensity freak him out). So basically he was home all alone, in a dark basement, hearing a noise that utterly terrifies him through a phone...
- Play the Game, Skip the Story: They don't have much patience for dialogue, even though skipping it almost always gets them in trouble.
- Poe's Law: On their Play with the Teletubbies video, the actual Teletubbies channel posted a comment thanking them for playing their game. Naturally, many users weren't sure if it was real or fake.
- The Problem with Licensed Games: Arin and Jon generally feel this way about the licensed games they received, although it's Played for Laughs.
- Playing Rugrats In Paris: The Movie leads to Arin committing suicide.
- Playing Spice World results in .
- The second episode of the aforementioned jelly bean game has the Grumps both completely going back on their opinions from the previous episode when they try out some different game modes.
Arin:This is probably the worst thing I've played all day! Perhaps all year! - Replacement Scrappy:
- Ross and Danny started out as this after Jon left, but they eventually got Rescued from the Scrappy Heap.
- Kevin was this from the day he joined to the day he left primarily because of issues with his editing when compared to Barry's editing style.
- Depending on some fans, Ryan and Matt tend to be this for Barry now that he's left the show. Incredibly ironic considering Ryan and Matt's impressive content work from SUPERMega, Markiplier and their old channel Cyndago.
- Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
- Their New Super Mario Bros Wii playthrough, starting with Part 6, which takes place after they read the comments, wherein they decided they were being too vitriolic about their stance of It's the Same, Now It Sucks!. Also, Jon was genuinely upset that he pissed off a lot of the viewers, which helped with this trope.
- Danny started out as The Scrappy from day one simply for not being the same Not-so-Grump. The first episode of Super Mario Bros. 2 is the start of Danny being Rescued from the Scrappy Heap.
- Scrappy Mechanic: For Jon, the shovel in Goof Troop, which wants you to perform systematic digging for Meaningless Lives.
- Seasonal Rot
- April-early July 2015 for some. Playthroughs like Bloodborne went on for really long intervals with little to no breaks, poor choices of games, lack of memorable playthroughs, and criticisms of Dan and Arin not having enough energy to keep going the mentioned long series. They've since improved, though.
- While originally Steam Train and Grumpcade were about the same level of popularity as the main channel, they have been getting significantly less popular throughout 2016. This is made even more apparent due to the fact that the average viewcount of a Game Grumps episode has been increasing over time, while the average viewcounts for Steam Train and Grumpcade have been decreasing. It's not uncommon to see Game Grumps episodes with 700k views or 500k views sandwiching a middle slot episode that hasn't even reached 100k views yet, when originally 250k was the standard for all three shows. This got so bad that at the start of 2017, the middle slot was put on indefinite hiatus with plans to revamp it to increase audience retention. As a result of this, Ross Barry and Brian's involvement with creating episodes has become largely nonexistant.
- For some, the show in general has experienced rot. Decently common complaints include Arin's negativity about games he's biased against, general incompetence at games and overuse of walkthroughs for simple things they completely fail to notice, the Grumps annoying Valley Girl impressions, an over-reliance on juvenile or 'wacky' humor, and excessive use ofJapanese Ranguage.
- Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: In their Mega Man 7 videos, after an inability to defeat Bass, they listened to their fans to find the awesomeness that is the Rush Suit, and after realizing Proto Man explained how there are more secrets, they decided to go for 100% Completion before continuing with the main game.
- Slow-Paced Beginning:
- The Grumps have had several series that start out slow and boring but then generally start picking up the pace within a episode or two.
- They attempted to do a playthrough of Conker's Bad Fur Day, but the game's sloppy start caused Arin to give up on the game after about 30 minutes.
- Snark Bait: Episodes where the Grumps' flaws are more apparent and/or they make negligible progress are this to many people.
- So Bad, It's Good: They've have gone on record several times remarking how games that are so bad they're good are their absolute favorites to play due to all the sheer joke fodder they provide. Danny thoroughly enjoyed their playthrough of Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric and has reminisced about it numerous times, describing it as 'the gift that kept on giving' and like 'a stupid loyal dog who's always there for you'. The duo expressed extreme regret when they finally finished the game, lamenting their abuse of the Knuckles Infinite Jump to skip a solid few hours of the game, because it shortened the amount of time they got to play it.
- So Unfunny, It's Funny: The running joke from 'Jordan vs. Bird' of Arin picking grapes up off the ground, which continues through the episode and into others despite the fact that Danny hates it.
- Special Effects Failure: The Grumps's games are played at 60fps, but their recording software is only set to 30fps. This means any game constructs with a two-frame flicker effect will either appear completely solid or completely invisible. This will often make watching games like Castlevania or Gradius confusing, as several important sprites feature such an effect. Even in games that don't normally feature such an effect, it's usually the standard used for the player character in their invincibility frames after getting hit, meaning that viewers tend to see the player character sprite vanish for several seconds after getting hit, only to reappear somewhere else as they continue playing.
- Episode 28 of Super Mario Maker took three upload attempts before the audio was properly synced.
- They managed to skip three whole episodes of Phoenix Wright, taking over a week to fix the situation. Though they also made sure to point out that whatever went wrong, it was in no way the fault of their new editor Ben.
- Spoiled by the Format: The TMNT Tournament Fighters Game Grumps Vs. episode is specified as 'best out of five' by Arin (after he loses twice). He manages to take the next round, but it's clear that Jon's going to win because there's only a couple minutes left in the episode by that point.
- In Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Fighting Edition, Jon comments that he could win the episode when there's 5 full minutes left on the video. He actually DOES win. They just decide to have another round anyway.
- Arin takes a 2-1 advantage in a best of five about nine minutes before the end of the Castlevania: Judgment video. It's painfully obvious that Jon's going to win the fourth round and tie it up. Not only does Jon tie it up, but he ends up winning the fifth match.
- Chu Chu Rocket takes up two episodes, and despite Jon having 2/3 victories at the start of the second episode, the second episode is 18 minutes long. Jon actually wins about a third into the episode, and they just spend a surprising amount of time on the game's puzzle mode.
- The Super Mario Maker episodes give the level codes for each level they play in the video description, making it clear from the start which levels, if any, they actually beat in each episode.
- They discuss all this in Episode 30, where after Danny gives Arin five more tries to beat the level, he notes that there may only be twenty seconds left on the video when he gets to the last one.
- Squick: When Dan brings up the topic of sex, Arin will occasionally respond with his own sexual anecdotes such as what a woman's vagina tastes like or when he ejaculated on a girl's chest. The key problem with this is that in other episodes, Arin will mention how Suzy is the only girl he's ever slept with. When you put two and two together, you then realize Arin is describing in graphic detail his sex life with Suzy. It suddenly makes his stories a lot grosser, as well as raises the question of if Suzy is even comfortable having her sex life broadcasted like that.
- Tear Jerker: See here.
- That One Boss:
- In their case, Silver and Iblis. It generally takes the Grumps roughly 15 minutes to beat either of them each time, for all the wrong reasons.
- They seem to have a problem with Freeze Man, Turbo Man, and Doctor Wily.Arin: Man it's a shit strategy that your best is to get hit by an attack that does the least damage.
- They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The first episode with Danny from Ninja Sex Party has received a lot of dislikes, with a good portion of the comments complaining about Jon's absence.
- Steam Train elicited this during its first few days, probably not helped by them being posted on the same day Jon left. It was so bad that the first two posted videos (the introduction and Hotline Miami Part 1) received a significant portion of dislikes.
- Despite Steam Train's rocky start, many fans warmed up to the series some even stating they like Steam Train's format over the original Game Grumps. Ross taking a hiatus from the show resulted in Steam Train being shelved indefinitely in 2017 and a lot of fans expressed disappointment in the loss. In 2018, Arin and Danny actually started playing PC games on Game Grumps which fans believe was the final nail in the coffin for any hope of Steam Train ever returning.
- The addition of an end slate with an in-video subscribe button and animated outro has caused people to accuse the Grumps of hypocrisy and selling out.
- The new Grump heads to some fans.
- Steam Train elicited this during its first few days, probably not helped by them being posted on the same day Jon left. It was so bad that the first two posted videos (the introduction and Hotline Miami Part 1) received a significant portion of dislikes.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The two receive Psycho Dream, a Super Famicom What Do You Mean, It Wasn't Made on Drugs? game... and choose to make it a one-off.
- Ditto with Sengoku Basara, a Hack & Slash set in Feudal Japan.
- The Grumps picked up Mega Man X7 for four episodes before ragequitting it, and they didn't even pick Flame Hyenard's stage. It would have been hilarious to see them react to his constant screaming of BURN TO THE- BUR- BURN! - BURN TO THE GROUND! BURN TO THE- BURN TO THE GROUND!
- They finally pick up Shadow the Hedgehog and play for... 12 episodes.
- Danny had never even set eyes on Super Mario 64, yet for some reason Arin's the one who plays it. And he's clearly forgotten a lot about it, so they don't even have the excuse of not wanting to irritate people by being bad at it. Dan eventually explained that he now prefers to only play games he's already good at, having grown quite a bit more self-conscious about playing badly in public.
- They decided to play Battle for Bikini Bottom due to the surprisingly large amount of copies they were sent. They played for around 4 episodes and only barely finished the first level. However, Arin confirmed that on his twitter that he will consider bringing it back.
- Plenty of viewers felt that Danny should have been the one to play Spider-Man (PS4) since he actually seemed interested in the game and was having fun telling stories about his time in New York, compared to Arin who seemed checked out from the very beginning and spent the whole time playing badly on purpose and making Toilet Humor jokes about Spider-Man's webbing.
- Uncanny Valley: Though it's never named, their argument about whether Princess Elise is cute seems to hinge on whether or not she falls into it.
- Vocal Minority: Possibly the reason why the complaints in the comments section are never addressed: ultimately, the vast majority of their videos have at least 95% likes, even on episodes of no real note. It's when it's not a minority anymore (e.g. the Steam Train fiasco) that the complaints get some kind of acknowledgement and/or apology.
- What an Idiot!:
- Arin in particular could have an entire section of this trope dedicated to him. Even his most staunch defenders cannot deny he has had more than few... Great lapses in judgement whilst playing games.
- During a game of Wheel of Fortune, Arin and Jon could not figure out the puzzle SPI__ FRIED SHRIMPnote .
- In Episode 83 of Pokémon FireRed, Schnote evolves and Arin attempts to delete Scratch to make room for Wing Attack. He ends up deleting Flamethrower instead.
Danny: What is wrong with you? How do you fuck up a menu?- The Elite Four run as a whole leads to an entire string of this. Arin first swears that he is only planning to use Beedrill during the entire gauntlent, but quickly reneges on this when Bruno proves tougher than he expected. He switches his Articuno onto Pokemon spamming rock moves, twice. Doesn't heal his Zapdos of its paralyzation between battles and keep it at the front of his party. Sends out his Moltres against an Arcanine claiming that it knows non-fire moves, only to realize it knows nothing but fire moves. The icing on the cake is when Arin finally makes it to the final battle, gets Gary down to only Exeggutor and Alakazam, and forgets that both are weak to bug types and doesn't use his Beedrill until it's too late.
- In Part 22 of the Grumps's Super Mario Galaxy playthrough, Arin spends most of the episode trying to complete 'Passing the Swim Test,' a mission where Mario has to steal a gold Koopa shell from a penguin and give it to the swim coach to earn a Power Star. Why does Arin spend so much time on this? He fails to notice said gold shell after the penguin carrying it passes by him several times, all in clear visibility. And keep in mind that the penguin is visibly holding the shell out in front of him as he swims. Needless to say, the viewers didn't respond kindly.
- Comments on the Ocarina of Time playthrough are becoming a thesis on Sanity Slippage with viewers getting continuously angrier at Arin’s refusal to take off the hover boots (which put Link into permanent Slippery Skid mode). It really came to a head in Part 67 when Arin kept getting caught by the guards in Gerudo’s Fortress (an area with zero use for the hover boots’ floaty powers), and rears its ugly head again in part 74 when Arin can’t solve a puzzle because he has no arrows. Except he skipped right past a dropped bundle of arrows five minutes before that. Explosive debates ensued over whether the boots made him do it or Arin just sucks at video games. Then a few episodes later Arin says he hates the hover boots.
- What Do You Mean, It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: Despite the goofiness, Arin and Jon confess in one of the Mega Man 7 videos that they are neither high nor drunk when doing the show. In fact, Arin is actually a teetotaler.
- The accusation that the Grumps are drunk or high is one they've fielded before, with even Jay Onrait and Dan O'Toole alleging that they must be on weed at least.
- Subverted during a few episodes of Grump's Dream Course. At the time, Arin was heavily sick and was prescribed an opioid medication, but they exaggerate/assume incorrectly by claiming he was taking opium. Regardless, the effects are noticeable during the session they play starting from Part 22.
- Win the Crowd: Danny largely won over the fans still hurting over Jon's departure with his 'Mayor Luigi' bit during Super Mario Bros. 2.
- The Woobie: Arin's constant failure at Nickelodeon GUTS goes from hilarious to sad when, try as he might, he just can't get past a certain point in the second obstacle course, until he just has his character crawl into a corner and wait for the time to run out.
- Dan is becoming quite the Woobie in their playthrough of The Wacky World of Miniature Golf; every time he takes the controller, he starts sounding like he's about to cry...
- They often make characters out to be this, notably Gloop and Moundo. See Alternative Character Interpretation.
- Hoshi, a character made up on the spot when Dan states that there's nothing sadder than a sad Japanese man. He presumably got blamed for the loss of his co-workers' jobs (even if it wasn't his fault), and while feeling miserable, he still empathizes with his wife's bad day, which is much less bad in comparison, and won't let other people inconvenience themselves for his sake despite how bad he has it... They then completely subvert any sympathy for him by stating that he's a pedophile, and when he feels down, his wife allows him to indulge in pictures of young children.
- Yoko Oh No: After Arin put a trigger warning for discussion of suicide on one video, Suzy got attacked for 'forcing' him to do it. Here is her opinion on it.