Closing out 2002 on a high note

In today’s post, I’m going to try to blow through the rest of 2002’s material, which consists of 5 SBEmails, a holiday toon, and a few smaller things that shouldn’t require more than a short paragraph each. I’m not going to rush through these because of a lack of quality or anything – quite the contrary, there’s actually some really good stuff in here. But the next post will be starting out with a famous SBEmail double-hitter that really sets the bar high for 2003, and I want to give them plenty of space to work with. First off, there’s Happy T!, which doesn’t really deserve a screenshot or its own paragraph, but … there it is. This was on the Main Page for Thanksgiving, and aside from being incredibly irrelevant and useless, there’s not much I can say about it. Be sure to use the Tab key to find a hidden voice clip. But anyway, that aside, let’s start out with island.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail52.html

The basis of this one is pretty much an homage to the Looney Tunes cartoon “Wackiki Wabbit”. I would write it off as being nothing but a tribute to that, but really, only the “Strong Bad typing” segment refers to it, and the rest is original Homestar’s-stupidity-based humor. And as with most toons of this type, I enjoy it immensely. Strong Bad’s retort of “you’re gonna need to get ice cream in a second if you don’t quit asking me that” is something that I’ve always wanted to use in real life but haven’t really had any opportunity to. Usually because whenever it’s actually relevant, I forget about it. Oh, and who the crap puts salt on a sandwich?

One noteworthy thing from this email is the coinage of the name “Stinkoman”. It was kind of just brought out of nowhere as a one-time joke, but then the name was used again later on … well, if you don’t already know, you’ll find out next time. Kind of funny how that happened. Overall, I do like this email a lot. It’s the perfect blend of being short and simple, but funny and memorable. A lot of early Compy emails are like this. This is not to say that they become worse later on, of course, but these are the classics that most Homestar fans remember and can probably quote entirely from memory. Another great example of this is the next one, comic.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail53.html

I’m going to attempt to review this as if I had no idea what the future would hold. A-hem. Tetherball. Olympic Race. Sparkling. Tim Duncan.

Ok seriously though, this one’s pretty random, but then again, what on this site isn’t? Part of the humor of this email is based on the fact that Brittany is asking Strong Bad to write a comic about four people he knows absolutely nothing about – hence why he forgets all of their names (and What’s Her Face forgets So and So’s “real” name almost immediately). And much like Strong Bad, I have no idea what teenage girls actually do in their spare time, so giving them all stereotypical personalities and having them just wander around trying to “look so good” is as good a guess as any. And then the random killing comes in, because, well, it’s Strong Bad, and what else do you expect?

There’s some pretty nice Easter eggs in this one. I like the little states that appear at the beginning, and then as an added touch, you can click the top of each one to make underwear appear. That was a nice little callback. There’s another one at the end of the comic, which is ok (not my favorite), but then there’s a pretty funky one at the very end of the email, which consists of holding on a still shot for a good minute or so, while listening to a couple people from the store prattle on for a while about some new album or whatever. I’m not the type of person who would really “get” this kind of reference, I guess, but I still thought it was interesting. And there’s a swear word in the image, also, which is clearly worth pointing out.

But like I said, that was just my review of it as if I didn’t know what will happen in the website’s future. Knowing now that this is just the first of many Teen Girl Squad issues, it’s probably the weakest one of the bunch, but hey, it had to start somewhere. So yeah, if you didn’t already know that this was going to become a series… well, you do now. I didn’t really feel any need to hide this fact as spoilers or anything. It’s worth noting that there is basically a second version of this on the website, simply called “Teen Girl Squad Issue #1”, which is the exact same thing but without the sections of Strong Bad at the computer. That version only exists so it can fit in with the rest of the issues – there’s no point in watching it otherwise. Anyways, the next email on the list is morning routine.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail54.html

Jeez, and I called the last one random. I’m not sure if I can even review this one. You either like random humor or you don’t, and whether or not you like this email is probably a good judge of that. It’s not quite at the “Boop! Plane! Acid dingo spit!” level, but still, Strong Bad’s been storing eggs in the couch, and absolutely no explanation is given. It’s like the whole bucket/oatmeal/turtle situation again, but here, it’s somehow the main focus of the email. You can try to claim that the focus is on Strong Bad’s morning routine, but it’s not.

Going back to that though, I do appreciate the joke that his morning routine comprises of waking up (or being woken up, as the case may be) really late and then immediately going on the computer. That describes my life from 2007-2012 almost perfectly. And to an extent, I still do that on weekends usually, but not every day of the week like I used to. So that part I can relate to, definitely. But I don’t hide eggs in the couch. Nor do I live with underpants gnomes The Cheats. I just love Strong Sad’s reactions in this email. “Okay, I’m moving out”. And seriously, what does the R in routine stand for? I guess we’ll never know. It certainly doesn’t stand for cheat talk. But then again, I’m not sure why it would, I’m just being stupid with my segues.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail55.html

Fun fact (that is not listed on the Wiki, surprisingly) – Cory is not a town in North Dakota, but Douglas actually is. Just thought I’d mention that. Another fun fact – Strong Sad is voiced by Mike instead of Matt in this email. In the DVD commentary for Sick Day (a 2005 toon), Matt mentions that Strong Sad has been written out of cartoons a few times because his voice is the hardest to do properly when Matt’s voice is being strained. So I’m guessing that this was probably one of those situations.

I can’t remember, is this the first time that one of the incomprehensible characters is openly called out for being impossible to understand? It’s always been a running theme that the other characters understand The Cheat and Pom Pom perfectly fine, but the audience doesn’t. I guess it was just a matter of time before it was addressed.  With the exception of the whole “branch rubbing against the window” gag, I think my favorite thing from this email is the instructional record Easter egg at the end. Each of the phrases from that are actually taken from older toons, and they do make sense according to the context they were taken from. I mentioned the one from Pumpkin Carve-nival, and the others are from A Jumping Jack Contest, superhero name, and sb_email 22. Also, our old friend Monkey D shows up again. That guy never fails to make me laugh for some reason. Well anyway, I’mma break chronological order for a second here so we can save the best toon for last, so here’s current status.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail56.html

I made sure to not show the one joke that this SBEmail has in the screenshot, which is why it’s a pretty generic one. I’d say that this is the most forgettable Compy-era SBEmail ever, but I forgot about theme party. Which just goes to show how forgettable that one is, I guess. And there’s probably a bunch of other ones I forgot about too. This is also one of those moments where I kind of wish there was some backstory given, even though it has the potential to ruin the joke. So I guess I don’t really want it. But hey, there’s not much else going on here (even the Easter egg is really weak), so anything would help.

I can forgive this one for being somewhat short and rushed though, because it was released the week following the year’s Decemberween toon, which also had a couple smaller things released with it. (And the next week’s email turns out to be a really good one too, but we’ll get to that shortly). So before I cover the major holiday toon, first just take a quick look at the Decemberween Email Menu and its shiny goodness. Obviously there’s not too much to comment on, but it’s a nice little thing they made, and it has some hidden stuff in it (you know the drill), so you can take a minute to check it out. Released on the same day was Main Page 16. Man, it’s been forever since I’ve talked about any of the Main Pages. This one fits in pretty well with some the originals, because it’s not really a reference to anything specific to the site, and several of the effects aren’t funny in any way (they’re not meant to be, I realize, just saying). Though Strong Sad sledding into a tree is worth a small giggle, at least. But with that stuff out of the way, I can focus on the perfect end to a great year of Homestar material – A Decemberween Pageant.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/xmas2002.html

I’ve never seen this cartoon get the attention it deserves. Which I guess is weird to say, because outside of Homestar fan forums, you don’t really hear people talk about the series that much, but still, I feel like this should get way more praise than some of the other stuff on the site (like crying, for instance. What made that so great?). I talked about how good I thought The Best Decemberween Ever was a while back, but honestly, I think this one is even better. Why? Well, where to begin…

• I love the whole opening, with the “they’re actually on stage right now” gag, and the incredibly cheesy endorsements afterwards. Litigation Jackson is pretty great (and I’ve actually used it as a fake endorsement for something I made for school this one time), but the terrible little “Made from the best stuff” mumbling is like, the best thing ever.
• Apparently Homestar makes a better King of Town than the actual King of Town. And for some reason they need two Kobe Bryants for the play, even though we never see either one of them do anything.
• Like I just said earlier with current status, I’d love to see the full story behind this play, but at the same time, knowing everything might ruin it. I’d just love to know how the giant squid, the popular vote, and all that jazz is involved in this story.
• Bubs is absolutely useless in this play, but all of his major lines are great one-liners. “Oh, I thought you said ducks”, “I’ll need fifty bags of jold. I mean, gold. Fifty bag of golds”, and “Everybody knows me. Mine name Cornbread”. Screw “I WAS FROZEN TODAY”, these are way better to use randomly in conversation. “Famine has ruined all the town’s gold” is good too.
• This isn’t really related to the toon, but the awful production quality of the pageant remind me a lot of the “Bye Bye Greasy” episode of Home Movies - mainly Homestar being lifted by the rope and the stalling they had to do at the end. That episode is a masterpiece of awkwardness, and if you liked this toon, you should watch it. It’s on Youtube if you’re interested.
• It’s unclear if Strong Sad was really just supposed to say “What?”, or if he ended up forgetting his line. I like to think that it was the former.
• The program (accessible through an Easter egg at the end) is beautiful if only for the KoT being specifically referred to as “sir not appearing in this film”. Well, not in those exact words, but yeah. And who the crap is Gerty? 

 
And that pretty much does it for 2002. It’s hard to believe that all the stuff I’ve covered so far has only covered three years of the series. To reflect back on everything we’ve watched, I have to say that 2002 is probably the most nostalgic year of Homestar for me. Not the best, just the stuff I have the most memories with, since it was the year I discovered the website and told my friends about it. Luckily for us, there’s no sign of the quality going down anytime soon, so we’ve got several more great years of material to go through, starting with some really legendary stuff next time. So here’s to 2003, the year where Homestar probably came as close as it ever did to hitting a mainstream audience.