PhantomStrider - TV Tropes

"Howdy!"

Josh Strider, born February 3, 1989, better known online as PhantomStrider, is an online critic known for his Top Ten lists reviewing various media, mostly animation. He created his channel on November 13, 2007, but wouldn't start regularly uploading videos until March 7, 2014.

He also has a second channel, LiveStrider, where he posts more casual videos.

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PhantomStrider contains examples of:

• Actually Pretty Funny: What Strider thinks of two Teen Titans Go! episodes ("Think About Your Future" and the crossover with The Powerpuff Girls (2016)).
• Actually Quite Catchy: His review for Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue is pretty negative, but he does dance to "Wonderful Ways to Say No".
• Artistic License:
  • In his "Top 10 Worst Adult Cartoon Episodes" video, he gets many events of the Brickleberry episode "Two Weeks Notice" wrong. For instance, he states Steve was going to die from an STD in the next 24 hours. However, the episode states it was actually going to kill him in the next two weeks. Also, it's revealed he actually wasn't dying; Dr. Kuzniak, who diagnosed him, accidentally mixed up his blood sample with another patient's.
  • In his 5 Worst/Best Lego Games list when he discuses Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, he stated that Mark Hamill and Clancy Brown reprise their roles as the Joker and Lex Luthor respectively. While he was correct about Lex Luthor, he wasn't about the Joker as Christopher Corey Smith voices the character in that game instead of Mark Hamill.
  • In "Top 10 Worst Sitcoms of All Time" he put The Brady Bunch as #3, which would be fine for his argument that the show was too bland, overly tame, and annoyingly cutesy. However, he didn't use clips from the 70s series he was deriding, but instead used footage from the film A Very Brady Sequel, which is known as one of the edgier things to come from the normally family-friendly franchise and contained elements like incest, drug use, and attempted murder — none of which were in the original series.
• Ash Face:
  • Josh gets this repeatedly during his "Top 6 Worst Religious Cartoons" (and when he talks about religious cartoons in other videos), Courtesy of God.
  • He also suffered this six times in the transitions of his "Top 6 Worst Bugs Bunny Cartoons". These resulted from him holding up signs reading "Scooby-Doo sucks", Teen Titans Go!, "Regular Show is overrated", and "Ed, Edd n Eddy sucks".
  • He experiences this once more in his "Top 3 Worst & Best DreamWorks Movies" video when discussing The Prince of Egypt.
• Black Comedy Burst: In "Modern Kids Cartoons' Worst Episodes", Strider mentions that when he was a little kid, his favourite show was Fireman Sam. This is followed by an edited version of the opening where, after slipping on a skateboard, instead of landing safely in the fire engine Jupiter, Sam flies through the window and bleeds out on the ground. The remainder of the segment is fairly light-hearted, and among the less negative sections of the video.
• Bolt of Divine Retribution: Done as a Running Gag in his Top 6 Worst Religious Cartoons video, and whenever he talks about religious cartoons in other videos.

  Phantom Strider: (To God) Are you going to do this every time I review one of these?

  • He experiences this once more in his "Top 3 Worst & Best DreamWorks Movies" video when discussing The Prince of Egypt.
• Broke the Rating Scale: In his worst video games list, the sixth worst game (Zelda: Wand of Gamelon) is a 0/10. The other entries are in the negative numbers. Similarly, in his "Worst Cartoon Network Specials", he gives The Annoying Orange Christmas Special a -1030/10, primarily for how it uses "Weird Al" Yankovic.
• Butt-Monkey: If the Bolt of Divine Retribution Running Gag and Looney Tunes-style Self-Deprecation are any indication, this is definitely a trope that applies to Strider himself.
  • One particular video, which focused on the worst African cartoons, had all the transitions including Josh receiving a lot of pain from Mother Nature via animals, weather, natural disasters, and the moon being crushed onto him. All while he tries his best to list the number for each segment.
  • As stated above, Josh has also been struck by God's lightning in a few of his videos, whenever Josh tries to discuss the usage of religion (usually Christianity) in a show.
• Cartoon Juggling: He began to pick up the cascade style at the end of each video.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "Jeebus!" or some other variant.
  • "And if you like these shows, that's great! It's just my silly, personal opinion."
  • In his later videos, he usually opens up with "Howdy, this is PhantomStrider."
• Content Warnings: Some videos include brief warnings if the following clip has violent/Squicky content, for example, his "Top Ten Worst Family Guy Episodes".
• Crossover: He has done a crossover with Robyn from Anime America about the worst anime as well as anime he hates that everyone else likes. The Nostalgia Critic has also made an appearance in "Top Ten Worst Movies of All Time" and joined him for "Top Ten Creepiest Animated Movies", eventually having more crossovers with him to this day. Blameitonjorge joined him for "Top Ten Creepiest Kids' Show Characters" and "Top Ten Darkest Episodes of Kids Shows". The Mysterious Mr. Enter joined him for "Top Ten Best SpongeBob SquarePants Episodes". Simpsons expert TheRealJims co-hosted "Top Five Best/Worst Simpsons Games" and "Top Five Worst and Best Modern Simpsons Episodes".
• Damned by Faint Praise: In his video on the Top 6 Worst Mario games, he gives Mario's Game Gallery credit for providing perfectly functional versions of games that no Mario fan had ever asked for.
• Dude, Not Funny!: His reaction to the wrist slitting joke in "Top Ten Worst Family Guy Episodes".
• Early-Installment Weirdness: His earliest countdown videos open with a voice saying, "Read the disclaimer." This was before his avatar, along with Boo, started appearing onscreen during the opening disclaimer.
• Everyone Has Standards: Inverted. He usually doesn't like overly mean spirited comedy, but he actually raved about the pretty infamous South Park episode Stanley's Cup because he knows from experience how glurgey the movies it was parodying were.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: No matter how bad something is when he's reviewing it, Strider pretty much watches his language and remarkably avoids swearing harsher than "crap". This was averted once in his Top 10 Simpsons Episodes video.
• Happily Married: In one of his Instagram post, he is married since August 2024.
• Head Desk: Bangs his head against his desk after introducing Ren Seeks Help as both the worst cartoon of all time and having the worst cartoon character of all time (Ren).
  • He also does this at the end of his Mulan II segment of his Top Ten Worst Disney Films, where he literally bangs his head hard against the desk while he puts up with the end of an annoying musical number from said film. And his last head bang is in time with the song ending.
  • He does it once again in his Top Ten Worst Theme Songs video in reaction to the theme from Scaredy Squirrel.
• Insult to Rocks: In his list of the top 10 worst PBS Kids show episodes, Strider mentions he finds Teletubbies so incohesive that he thinks calling it a drug trip "would be an insult to drug trips".
• Land Down Under: Strider is from Australia, after all.
• Limited Wardrobe: In almost every video on his live-action channel, he always wears a maroon (now orange) button-up shirt and is rarely seen wearing anything else.
• Made in Country X: Is a firm believer in the "Terrible Art/Products are Produced in Country X" when it comes to Canadian cartoons, outright declaring all Canadian animation to be horrible in his Worst Canadian Cartoons list.
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: He tried to avert this by refusing to ever review Where the Dead Go to Die.
• Obligatory Swearing: Notable by its absence, Strider is one of the few internet reviewers who rarely swears for humor value, if at all.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Dark Strider. Basically, a more edgier version of Josh's internet persona, who wears a dark blue shirt, and sporting dark shadowy make-up on his face to resemble Batman or any edgy superhero. He turns into this whenever he gets really pissed from watching particular bad content for some of his lists.
• The Thing That Would Not Leave: Strider's Pet-Peeve Trope, as discussed in some videos such as "Top 6 Worst Bugs Bunny Cartoons", "5 Best/Worst Bob's Burgers Episodes", and "10 Most Overrated Spongebob Episodes".

  Strider: There's this... odd trope in some cartoons, where a friend — or enemy — will stay over at the main character's house, intrude upon their privacy, wreck their house and make them miserable, but the main character is always "too polite" to say anything, so they can tolerate this from days to months on end, and I personally think it's among the stupidest tropes in all of cartoons.

• Think of the Children!:
  • Strider always gives a heads up to his viewers if some graphic violence is going to be shown. He's even censored more graphic scenes for the viewers. He's taken this trope up to eleven after watching Where the Dead Go to Die and turned it off after watching ten minutes, saying that it's the worst piece of animation he's ever seen in his life, and he'll never forgive himself if a child looked that up because he mentioned it. Scroll down to The Mysterious Mr. Enter's video on the comments to see his sentiments on the film.
  • He even removed an earlier video that focused on controversial anime, due to the video showing lots of gory scenes and otherwise. He also didn't want young viewers to search up those anime that were listed in the now-deleted video "Top Ten Worst Anime".
• Worst. Whatever. Ever!: He throws this accusation around a lot. It's a rare case of being justified, as the shows and movies Strider discusses often really are bad enough to warrant this title.

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