In which I realize that H*R has really random humor sometimes

Boy, is it ever Monday! No, really though, I apologize for the long gap between uploads. There’s been a lot of mandatory overtime at work, so I haven’t had much time for writing. So rather than come up with some long intro thing, I’ll just cut to the chase so I can maybe get this uploaded at a reasonable time. To start today, we have techno.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail45.html

This one’s pretty similar to guitar, but it’s not quite as funny, in my opinion. I still like the song, and have attempted on at least one occasion to get some people to assist me in doing a live rendition of it (since I, unlike Strong Bad, lack the ability to overlap my own voice while singing).

And really, that’s about all I can say here. This is another one of the “classic” SBEmails that most fans of the series will remember fondly, but it doesn’t lend itself to review very well, because it’s pretty much just one basic concept, which was executed pretty well. If I had to nitpick, I’d just complain about the legs on Strong Bad’s desk being really crappy looking. Are they supposed to be rotated 45 degrees from the way you’d expect them to be, or what? And where did the carpet go? Eh, whatever. We’re off to a pretty good start as far as quality material, but in my opinion, the next one, your friends, is even better. 

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail46.html

This is about as senseless as it gets, but it’s like, the best thing ever. Why is it so funny to watch Strong Bad pointlessly and indiscriminately attacking the rest of the cast? I don’t know, but it is. And some of his methods of doing so are rather creative as well. Such as asking Homestar to put his head in a pool of lava, and him happily agreeing to it. And I would claim that it’s repetitive to smash the record into both Bubs and the King, but it works in its own way. Why did he have two of those, anyway?

The mystery behind this one is Coach Z’s punishment. Strong Bad gives him a bag of Andy Capp’s Hot Fries, and … that’s it. There have been several fan theories, but basically all of them were debunked by the DVD commentary for this email, where Mike and Matt basically admit that they don’t know what the point of it was. The best theory though is that Strong Bad poured a bunch of hot sauce on them, because he can be seen with a bottle of it in the Marzipan and Homsar scenes. Maybe that was the intent, and they just never made it entirely clear that this was the plan, and then forgot about it later on? I dunno, but it’s minor enough to not really worry about it too much, and I kind of like the fact that it’s completely out of place and nonsensical. Which segues nicely into the next toon here – “out of place and nonsensical” describes Parsnips-A-Plenty quite well.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/parsnips.html

Mike Chapman is a big fan of these 1930s Homestar toons, and has gone on record in an interview somewhere (I can’t be arsed to find a direct link) that as long as one of their friends continues to find them funny, then they’re pretty much justified. I’m not sure what the general consensus on them is, but I find them hilarious, and I really can’t explain why. It’s not like they’re really parodying actual cartoons from this era – these are MUCH stupider, the animation is practically non-existent (instead of being overly animated like early cartoons were, back when everything was alive and in constant motion), and there’s parts that are simply inexcusable, like the shifting of characters and background objects between edits. But I love them anyway. So I’m gonna have to go back to bullet list format for this one.

• This is the first appearance of Fat Dudley, 1930s Marzipan, and Sickly Sam, and it’s also the first time that Old-Timey Homestar and Strong Bad get speaking roles. I’m not quite sure where the name “Fat Dudley” comes from, but apparently his voice was inspired by the scarecrow from this cartoon. (You can skip to about 4:50)
• While these cartoons do have very little to do with actual old cartoons most of the time, Strong Bad does a rather good job as the villain here. He has no motivation whatsoever, and the giant handlebar moustache is perfect. I also like his weird telescope.
• ….. What?
• FILL IN THE BLANKS: What do YOU think happened in the missing scene? Whoever comes up with the best idea will have it animated and your name awkwardly edited into the dialogue. Except not really. Seriously though, the missing scene is one of my favorite gags on the whole site.
• Sickly Sam is … I don’t even know what. I think his appearance in this cartoon is perfect, and in a way, I kind of wish he had never shown up again after this. I guess I just like it when things have no reason to exist, and having a character just appear randomly at the end of a cartoon and then disappear in a puff of smoke is about as inexplicable as it gets. He also wears a “potates” bag, which is kind of awesome.
• Gotta have the wink at the end. It’s as much of a staple as the “everybody laughs” ending.

I don’t know if anything on this website could be considered “normal”, but considering it’s following Parsnips-A-Plenty, I think the next email, new hands, at least comes close. Well, sort of.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail47.html

When asked what Strong Bad would like to have as a replacement for his hand, his first idea is a bucket, for dumping oatmeal on turtles. I think the running gag of this entire post can be summed up with 1930s Homestar’s flat “What?” reaction. I don’t want to respond to every single joke with something along the lines of “lol, this is so wacky, I love random humor”, but it’s becoming difficult to say anything else. I mean… come on. Dumping oatmeal on a turtle. Why is that funny? I don’t know. But it is.

Really, that’s kind of the highlight of the email right there. I could comment on other stuff, like The Cheat shrinking to about half of his normal size to fit into the bucket, Coach Z’s single-line rap song, and the nice Easter egg at the end. Also, to fast forward a few years, the Homestar Store eventually started selling figurines of the characters, and one of the alternate ones was Buckethand Strong Bad, even though he only shows up in this one email and then never again. But … turtle. Oatmeal. I can’t get over this. Just … why?

Ok, let me try to focus. If I was asked the same question, what would I pick? From a practical standpoint, one of them could be like, a Swiss army knife or something, but then the other hand would have to be something that could make proper use of it. If I had a Mega Man arm blaster, I wouldn’t be able to operate the knife. So really, they’d have to be things that could be unscrewed and replaced depending on my needs. It’s a boring answer, but it’s the most logical. Or I could just go with a bucket. I’m sure that would be handy from time to time. But whatever, I think that’s enough obsessing over buckets for now, let’s just check out the new Marzipan’s Answering Machine.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/answer7.html

To state the obvious, this one was released for Halloween 2002. The major toon of the year, Pumpkin Carve-nival, was technically released before this one (and the following email), but I’ll be waiting until next time to properly review it, because of pacing issues. As far as Answering Machines go, this one’s not superb, but it’s got a few good moments in it, so it’s at least worth checking out for the last two messages.

Strong Sad’s message is kind of disappointing here. I feel like there was potential for this idea to be expanded upon, but it kind of just ended. Kind of a weak start. Bubs’s message isn’t really a favorite of mine either, but I do like the image of him kicking Coach Z and then just sort of abandoning him and calling Marzipan to let her know that the delivery was successful. I wonder what he did to cheese her off this time. Next up, Homsar wailing for a while. Kay, moving on.

Homestar’s message is pretty funny, if only because of “Dead Guy Perez, alternately known as the DGP”. I’ve kind of adopted that name for use in video games and stuff whenever there’s a body laying around that for whatever reason lends itself to having a name. For instance, the person outside of Kraid’s area in Super Metroid is totally a Dead Guy Perez. And then lastly, Strong Bad’s obligatory prank call ranks as at least “satisfactory” on my just-now-made-up scale of quality. No point in really repeating anything he said, but it was pretty funny, particularly the stuff about darting quickly into the street, and his blatant lying about the egging.

There’s actually an Easter egg at the end of this one, which is kind of easy to miss, because you generally wouldn’t expect these to have any. But just click the tape at the end to hear Homestar sing a little ditty. It’s actually a reference to his costume from the Carve-nival, but as we haven’t seen that yet, I guess the joke is somewhat lost here. Which is totally fine with me, because I wasn’t even aware of who Angus Young actually is until I looked it up just now. Remember, I’m not one for recognizing celebrities, especially musicians. Anyway, ghosts.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail48.html

I’ve always enjoyed this one. I’ve heard people refer to it a couple times as “the email that’s really different from all the rest”, but aside from it taking place at night, I don’t think there’s anything that weird about it, other than the usual weirdness that we’ve grown to love. Like Strong Bad’s giant ears and The Cheat’s afro. What’s up with that anyway? I don’t think it has anything to do with Ghostbusters, so I’m stumped.

To continue with my trend of finding the stupidest and most inconsequential parts of toons to be the funniest, here I find Strong Bad calling out to the Chinese food to be oddly funny. I guess it’s just the way he says it, or the fact that there’s kind of just a box of Chinese food sitting in the field for no real reason. I dunno. Oh, and I should probably address the intro to this one. He says “Boy, is it ever Monday” because the email was actually released on a Thursday, instead of Monday (as the usual schedule would dictate). That’s because the major Halloween toon was released on that day instead, this was just sort of a bonus later on in the week, along with the Answering Machine.

This email introduces a couple new running gags to the series as well. First off, and most obvious, is the Tandy’s return and the Bad Graphics Ghost. Strong Bad’s old computers may eventually get replaced, but they’re never quite forgotten, and will show up from time to time in appearances like this. And speaking of the ghost, there’s a somewhat-difficult-to-access Easter egg at the end that you get by making all of the ghost’s pixels disappear. Rather than moving the mouse over it and trying to be as fast and accurate as possible, you can actually just hold the Tab key and accomplish this pretty easily. The reward is rather funky. But the other running gag here is the start of the constantly-changing floppy disk in the little container next to the computer. Generally, every time it’s seen, there will be the name of some old PC game on it. The vast majority of these are games I’ve never heard of, so I’ve never been entirely interested in it, but for some people, it’s a fun little thing to keep an eye out for, so that’s why I’m mentioning it.

Well, that’s gonna be it for now. I feel like this article was a little shorter than usual, but it seems to match the length of most of my other ones, so I guess I’m just getting faster at writing them or something. Next time there’ll be some pretty cool stuff, including the 2002 Halloween toon and the 50th Strong Bad Email, plus one of my favorite (and often overlooked) parts of the site. So I’ll have that to look forward to.