Douglas Darien Walker (born November 17, 1981) is an American comedian, film critic, actor, filmmaker, and YouTuber. He is best known for creating and starring in the satirical film review web series Nostalgia Critic, wherein the title character reviews nostalgic media in an exaggeratedly aggressive manner.[3] After an initial run on YouTube, Walker co-created the website That Guy with the Glasses (later merged into Channel Awesome) in 2008, where he and the series gained wider popularity. The site also presented other media critics who created similar content, including Lindsay Ellis and Angry Joe. Walker and his series returned to YouTube in 2012.[4][5] As of 2025, Walker still creates the show but with less of an angry or profane approach.
Walker is the son of Barney Walker (b. 1946), a naval officer and musician, and Sandra Ruth (née Polkow) Walker (1947–2016), a therapist.[6][7] Both parents, as well as Walker's older brother Rob (b. 1979), would later appear regularly in his videos. Due to his father's career, Walker was born on a naval base in Naples, Italy, and moved frequently as a child, spending parts of his childhood in Rhode Island, Washington, and Jacksonville, Florida, before moving to the Chicago, Illinois, area in his teen years.
Walker attended and graduated from Northern Illinois University, majoring in mass communication and minoring in visual art, also serving as an editor and cartoonist for the school newspaper.[8]
After graduating from college, Walker worked as an illustrator and janitor. He started making videos on the then fairly new video sharing site YouTube in his spare time. Although his early Nostalgia Critic videos were popular, Walker claims his rise to internet fame first came from the success of his 5 Second Movies edits. Walker has stated that the Nostalgia Critic character is primarily inspired by Daffy Duck and the Queen of Hearts, as well as by comedians Lewis Black, Stephen Colbert, and Bill Murray.[9]
In 2008, Walker moved his skits from YouTube to independent site That Guy With the Glasses, later renamed Channel Awesome, with videos hosted via Blip.tv.[10] The majority of his skits have since been reuploaded to YouTube, and form a full web series spanning several seasons. Walker now works as a full-time content creator and staff member of Channel Awesome in Chicago, under the leadership of CEO Mike Michaud.[11]
In September 2012, Walker announced that the Nostalgia Critic series would be ending and that he and his brother would create the sketch comedy web series Demo Reel. In January 2013, however, Walker released "The Review Must Go On", a short film announcing that the series would continue. The new incarnation would co-star Malcolm Ray and Rachel Tietz of Demo Reel, playing fictionalized versions of themselves as well as performing in sketches. Tamara Chambers would later join the series following Tietz's departure.[12]
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