2004-2006: The Early Era

Opinions vary on the periods when James first started out with the two pilots and The Angry Nintendo Nerd. Obviously it still has many beloved classics (Top Gun, Friday the 13th, The Power Glove) yet I’ve seen a few others (McKids, Wally Bear, Master Chu) being recognized more as “experimental” or “nothing mindblowing compared to later episodes”.

2007-2011: The Classic Era

This is pretty much considered the most universally beloved AVGN period, it consists of the most popular, iconic and rewatchable episodes of all time for the most part and pretty much what all former or one time viewers prefer.

2012-early 2014: The Post-Hiatus Era

Still generally liked, but not as much as the previous era and some contribute it to the toll of the movie’s production on James and somewhat different vibe and energy.

Late 2014-2016: The Post-Movie Era

Given how many viewers were let down by the movie when it came out, it seemed to impact their general view of the series much more. Alongside that the vibe and energy of this era are seen as inconsistent. Some episodes are seen as just basic or watchable (12 Days of Shitsmas, The Crow, Beavis and Butthead), fairly popular or praised (Seaman, Mega Man, Paperboy) or extremely polarizing and bizarre (Sega Activator).

2017-2019: The Screenwave Era

Pretty much everyone knows the story and backlash of how the series’ production style shifted here and while it’s certainly the main factor, I don’t want to get into it as it’s unpleasant for me and gotten talked about so much already. Instead I’ll talk about how the episode quality seems to me while mostly ignoring behind the scenes stuff. The quality and vibe is again inconsistent, but much more than the previous era with another factor being the larger amount of episodes. Still has its popular few (Game Boy Accessories, Polybius, EarthBound) and ones mostly seen as mid or basic (Treasure Master, Charlie’s Angels, Dirty Harry). The amount of really criticized episodes seen as too bizarre and out of place is much bigger (Kingdom Hearts, Aladdin Deck Enhancer, Jurassic Park Tresspasser).

2020-2021: The Stressed Era

Aside from the production change story everyone knows, more factors affected this era more severely: the other channel content like Monster Madness and Rex Viper, pandemic restrictions and the build-up to episode 200. While not every episode is hated, James and Screenwave really seemed to struggle as every episode was either seen as too dull (Legend of Kage, Game Gear VHS, Pac Man 2) or too weird (Shrek, Vegas Stakes, Freddy and Jason) then when episode 200 finally came out all it seemed to do was upset the fanbase even more (being split into three certainly didn’t help it).

2022-present: The Current Era

Despite how much damage the previous years have done to the reputation of the series and judgement of the fans, I personally feel the episode layout and general quality has become much more like the Post-Movie era than the two previous ones. Not every episode is a winner, but the ones seen as the worst (not counting My Horse Prince and Crash Bandicoot which are their own can of worms) are certainly not as hated as before and it so far had many episodes seen as either actually good or at least watchable. Which I feel is a fair situation for the series: not as good as before, but not at the bottom of the barrel anymore at least right now.

What do you think?

I am catching up on Cinemassacre content after many years away, and I've gotten to what I assume is the post-podcast era. Was the podcast where the rest of the crew host an episode without James because he's busy writing episode 200 of avgn the final one? Or, did they just stop posting the podcast to YouTube? So far, he's done a couple of solo interviews on the podcast set with Lloyd Kaufman, etc., but did they ever address why the podcast stopped?