Growing the Beard/Web Original

Red Letter Media's Plinkett reviews were excellent deconstructions of the Star Trek film franchise, but there was little else to them other than the movie reviews. It wasn't until the Star Wars prequel reviews that Plinkett became a fully fleshed out character: kidnapping, rape, murder, and all. The reviews themselves were also a significant jump up in quality, to the point of being a must-see for any sci-fi fan.
While not bad in the least, The Nostalgia Critic was a little less focused in subject matter at the start of his show. He found his footing and niche sometime after starting up thatguywiththeglasses.com and uploading to Blip.tv. A good bet would be his review of The Wizard (film) or Batman and Robin. His yelling felt less like pathetic whining and more hammy and over-the-top, more visual gags were in place and the increased time limit of Blip meant he could focus on more aspects of the film. Both reviews had gags that still resonate two years later.
- Doug Walker feels somewhat embarrassed when commentating on his review for Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue in 2010, spending most of the review explaining what he hadn't got right with the Nostalgia Critic character.
While opinions differ on where exactly The Nostalgia Chick got consistently good (whether it was Nella coming in more often or it was where she started looking at tropes as well as doing reviews), but the first step was probably the Black Comedy-filled "Top 10 Disturbing Songs" list where she proved dark humour is what she's incredibly good at.
The New Adventures of Captain S grew the beard with episode 6, Nigel Strikes Back, when it became Darker and Edgier, focussed more on the characters' motivations and generally gave more reasons to the audience to care more about the events of the series.
Tribe Twelve started out as Marble Hornets lite, but has been steadily improving.
These days it's hard to picture The Cinema Snob minus the beard. In the beginning he looked old, dorky and neurotic. Also, the video camera stock was as crappy as the films.
Atop the Fourth Wall was pretty much just like any other review show for its first several months, though a very good one. And then Mechakara appeared, helping the show stand out from the pack with its genuinely suspenseful and compelling storylines, as well as some of the best production values seen in such a series. And all without losing focus on the reviews themselves.
- Though there is a growing number of people who wish that Linkara would dial down the number of Myth Arcs he's been putting in his reviews...
- His review of Superman: At Earth's End can be considered a Beard moment as well, ditching the early "Now we've got it" intro and having memorable skits that would become recurring gags, such as "I AM A MAN", "Because Poor Literacy Is Kewl" and "Of course! Don't you know anything about science?". To say nothing of the ending, which would give the show its tagline of "Where bad comics burn".
Tree Fog started out with simple song covers, but it really took off when it developed a plot with the band splitting up. This coincided with the shaving of Alex's beard, strangely enough.
The Spoony Experiment's beard-growing moment is (according to both by fans and Noah Antwiller himself) the review of the The Thing computer game, which marked the point where reviews were scripted instead of improvised and where Noah developed the sarcastic and snarky personality that would become a hallmark of the Spoony character.
Marz Gurl had reviews of some rather unremarkable animes early on during her time on TGWTG ; one of her few claims to fame was having blue hair. In early 2011, she started reviewing the entirety of the Land Before Time series, including the short-lived TV show and some video games. As it went on, some of her fellow reviewers begged her to stop for her own sanity. Afterwards, she has started reviewing more mainstream animated films, such as documenting Don Bluth's career.