The Tandy returns! Nobody is entirely sure how!

Now that I feel adequately caught up with all the weird old stuff on the website, I suppose it’s time to get back on track and see where Strong Bad Emails left off. Last time, Strong Bad’s terrible computer, Tandy 400, exploded. I wasn’t really a part of the fandom back then (I was aware of the website somewhere around this time, but remember, I didn’t know about SBEmail yet), so I can’t say for sure what the fanbase thought about this new development, but I imagine that many thought it would be the end of SBEmail, or at least the beginning of a radical new change. Now I’ve gone on and on about how it does sort of mark the transition in style for the series, but really, it kind of leads to a big anticlimax, as we’ll see in a second here. First off, just for kicks, check out the old menu screen that was up between the release of gimmicks and the email to follow it. Which happens to be called weird dream. Here it is.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail34.html

This is a weird one. Which is appropriate, given the title. I do like that Strong Bad wasn’t immediately able to fix or replace the Tandy, and so we’re able to get sort of a change of scenery in this one. I’ve never really used a Mac before, so I can’t provide any insightful commentary regarding the accuracy or lack thereof of The Cheat’s “Tangerine Dreams” computer. I just like how Strong Bad is completely unaware of how a mouse works (or GUI, for that matter).

So… yeah, then there’s the whole matter of the titular weird dream. Pretty messed up. I’m not sure how a dream could just consist of a single image, but apparently this dream was an actual one that Mike had. Not sure if he blames it on the Pudding Pops, but I probably would. I do like to use that as an excuse every once in a while. (That and tight pants.) Also, why and how did The Cheat have this image already on his computer? And then he seemed surprised when it was opened up, too. Weird. Maybe this whole email was a weird dream. Or maybe the whole series is. OMG conspiracy. Oh, and let this be another reminder to always search for Easter Eggs during toons. Just click on the Flash window and hold the Tab key, and if you see any yellow boxes pop up, then click them. The ones in this toon show up at the very end, but they’re going to start showing up in the middle more and more often. I’ll be sure to point out the really funny ones, but it’s always worth looking for them anyway, and I’m not going to constantly have reminders that you should look out for them. Eventually it will become a given.

Next up, rather than another email, we’ll actually be looking at something else from The Cheat’s computer. It’s the all-time classic, #1 summer jam of 2002 – Everybody to the Limit!

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

This is the most nonsensical song, but it’s also ridiculously catchy. Seriously, I don’t think I have anything negative to say about this. The animation is crude, but this is Powered by The Cheat, it’s supposed to be, and I don’t think the music video would really benefit from having top-of-the-line visuals. Really, when you’re singing about fhqwhgads, what sort of visuals do you really expect? Random jpegs of a CD, duct tape, whiffle ball, the Adventure duck/dragon sprite, and portraits of the Kennedys make about as much sense as anything else.

Alright, so let me try to figure out exactly what this song is about. I’m not entirely sure what “Everybody to the Limit” is supposed to mean, I assume it’s just some meaningless term to the extent of “party until you can’t party no more” or whatever. “Come on, fhqwhgads” is basically just being condescending. It’s like … come on, you really think I’m going to give two craps about your stupid love letter? (I’m sure you already know this if you’ve read the previous posts, but fhqwhgads was the sender of the i love you email. Go back and watch that one again if you don’t remember). So apparently fhqwhgads (represented in this cartoon by the Atari dragon) is “jocking” Strong Bad, and also acting as if she knows him. And because of this pathetic attempt, she’s kind of making an idiot out of herself, and even Strong Bad kind of feels sorry for her. (Yes, I’m considering fhqwhgads to be a girl, even though there’s no guarantee that this is the case. I’ve just always assumed that it was, so whatever.) And … that’s about it. Why did I bother to search for meaning in this song? I’m not sure. Just watch it a few dozen more times, and then watch this thing, and then it’s time for another classic – sisters.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail35.html

This is the major exception to my standard “Strong Bad’s failed attempts at being a ladies’ man aren’t that funny” rule. And that is mainly due to the antics of the miraculously working Tandy. I do want to know how exactly Strong Bad got it working again with a couple pieces of duct tape and apparently nothing else. Didn’t the screen completely shatter when it exploded? Now it just has a crack in it, and not even a very big one. Yes, it’s cartoon logic, I know, I’m just pointing stuff out.

Alright, so let’s look at the facts here. Strong Bad gets an email from two sisters, who he immediately starts fantasizing about. Despite knowing nothing about them (or even what the sister’s name is), he pictures them as girls from Leisure Suit Larry, and feels as though he should be having children with them some day. Both of them. Uh.. little creepy there, SB. And I believe I have the right to say this, because I wasn’t much better than this a few years ago when I was in my “desperate for online relationships” phase. When I think that’s sad, then you know you have some problems.

Like I said though, the real star of this one is the Tandy and its awful malfunctions. Maybe Bubs tried to duct tape The Cheat to the computer at first, and so a few of the hairs got stuck inside it and now it’s gotten all weird. I have a feeling that “saved. forever.” option didn’t even exist before the gimmicks incident. I wish there were a few more of these Broken Tandy emails, but the next few are decidedly more normal. Next one’s another fan favorite though – guitar.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail36.html

Why is this one so funny? I know pretty much nothing about guitars (other than I don’t want to eat one), yet this got a legitimate laugh out of me when I just rewatched it, even though I knew exactly what was going to happen. I think it’s just so utterly stupid and overly energetic that there’s simply no other reaction to it.

Incredibly pointless fact: I always used to get confused by the beginning of Strong Bad’s response here. He says “Not much, man”, lists off a couple basic things he knows about (including “trembalos”, which are not a thing that exist), and then says “I can do it all”. I used to think that he was starting out by being somewhat humble, and then abruptly changed to acting like a know-it-all. But then I realized that the “not much” was probably just a reply to the “Hey Strong Bad whats up” at the start of the email, and not to “Can you play the Guitar?”. Oops. I think my original misunderstanding actually made it funnier, though. Also, Strong Bad can type RIDICULOUSLY fast. Not to mention type with his head, like he did in sisters. Forgot to mention – apparently when that email first came out, he typed “bam bam bigalow” instead of “head hit keyboard”. Kay then. Anyway, I’m gonna try to get through a couple more quick ones, so here’s dullard.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail37.html

I simultaneously don’t understand people like this, yet I am occasionally guilty of being one at the same time. By that, I mean that I don’t get why some people feel like they can just stand around and talk to people when they’re supposed to be working (taking calls, in the case of my job). I feel like they should be reprimanded for wasting time, but they continue to get away with it. But on the other hand, I do occasionally do this myself, but only when we have a lot of downtime and it’s excusable behavior. I assume Homestar falls into the former category here, because he seems like the type to just not do his job and get away with it. But that reminds me – what the crap is their job? We do occasionally see some of the characters in this setting (and there’s even a little miniseries revolving around it that I’ll be getting to eventually), but yeah. I’ve read in some interviews that Matt once worked for EarthLink (and was eventually able to quit when Homestar merchandise sales got high enough), so it’s possible that this office setting is inspired by that.

As for the actual methods shown here, they’re … eh, nothing special really. Probably didn’t need to have both “the bird” and the one where he completely ignores him, as they were pretty similar, but hey, more of Homestar babbling on about nothing is fine with me. And I guess I should point out the Dilbert homage in the comic you can click on. I never read any of those comics, but I definitely recognize the art style. There’ll be more of those later on in the series (whenever the office is revisited, basically), and it’s also worth mentioning that the DVD version of this email actually features four different comics. If you’re into such things, then look it up on the HR Wiki. No, I’m not going to provide a link. But I will provide one for the next email, helium.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail38.html

The premise behind this one is simple, but it works. All three of the characters that breathe the helium have a pretty funny reaction to it, and it doesn’t get old, because they’re all totally different. I like Strong Bad’s little “high voice crew” song, and of course, basically anything Homestar says is pretty great. And then there’s the Easter egg at the end (Tab trick. Use it.), which is an awesome little callback to Main Page 15. And that’s really all I have to say about this one. It’s certainly not a bad email, but it’s not one of the more memorable ones either. No point in dragging this one out any longer than necessary, so let’s just check out the last one for today, property of ones.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail39.html

I always forget that this isn’t one of the really early SBEmails, because it really feels like one. It’s quite similar to butt IQ, which is probably why I make that mistake, but the fact that it never leaves the computer and nothing terribly interesting happens doesn’t help that misconception. This one doesn’t have any Easter eggs in it, which is actually somewhat noteworthy because it’s actually the last one to have that distinction, with the exception of #133, which … is debatable. Don’t worry about that yet. But yeah, break out that Tab button from now on. Some of the non-SBEmail toons don’t have any Easter eggs, but it doesn’t hurt to make sure. And yes, I am talking way more about Easter eggs (or lack thereof) than the actual email, because it was kind of boring and I have nothing relevant to say about it, because I don’t drink beer (or “ones”), and have no preference. I will point out that the cross-stitch at the end isn’t aligned properly though. Because that’s the kind of thing that I notice.

That’ll be it for now, because the next email is actually pretty long, and in my opinion, it’s really funny. So I’ll want to give it plenty of attention next time, instead of trying to cram it in at the end here. I will, however, cram in one more website menu, because it actually debuted on the same day as guitar, and I talked about a boatload of menus last time, so I’d rather go over it now rather than later, when it would be totally out of place. So what kind of horrible outdated menu is it? Actually, it’s the current Toons menu. Yep, it’s been around ever since 2002, and hasn’t needed to be replaced since. I’m sure that if you’ve done any amount of exploring on the website, you’ve almost certainly run into it at some point, but give it another look anyway.

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

If you haven’t discovered them yet, that screenshot shows off both of the Easter eggs on this menu. The “Joy of Painting” VHS tape has one of them, and clicking on the left side of the booklet does the other. (And do it a few times to get different results.) So… as a menu, this does its job very well, I think, and there’s not really any reason for me to review it, but I will point out a couple other random things about it.

First off, this isn’t the original version of the page. The original one didn’t have the “Powered by The Cheat” button on the remote (I still don’t get why that has its own page, honestly), nor did “Puppet Stuff”, since it hadn’t really been started yet, and the buttons for Strong Bad Email, Marzipan’s Answering Machine, and Teen Girl Squad were all consolidated into one “Features” button. There’s also a relatively new thing added to the page (circa 2007), which is the “NEW STUFF!” tape. It basically lists off the Toons in order from newest to oldest, and this list actually includes some stuff that isn’t anywhere else on the menu, due to lack of updating it. And it includes SBEmails on there too, which I suppose makes sense, but it also means more work for them, because they had to create the little preview clips for everything.

And here’s one last pointless thing. When you hover the mouse over the Strong Bad Email button, a “sample” email plays on the TV, some stupid thing about salty plum soda. Now here’s the interesting part. That email actually originated from some weird dropped experimental thing called “Wireless Bizness”. I don’t have a screenshot for it, but I swear that this thing existed at some point. It was basically a way to read short and simple SBEmails on old mobile phones (from before phones were able to show video and stuff). It was never officially announced, from what I remember, but fans found it around the same time that they found a bunch of other hidden pages, many of which I’ve already shown off. The page no longer works, unfortunately, and nobody seems to have a backup or mirror for it. All I can really say about it is that it once had about 6 or so emails on it, one of which was the “salty plum soda” one, and three of which are now viewable in a DVD-only special called E-mail Birds. The rest have fallen into obscurity, and I’m unable to find any positive information on them. Which sucks, because I know I had actually copied them down into Notepad way back years ago, but I don’t have any of the files from that computer anymore. It’s not like we’re missing out on something amazing, but still, it’s a weird and incredibly obscure part of the website’s history, and it would be nice to have a record of them.