Black Friday Special: Store retrospective! CD review! Limited time only!

For today’s article, I actually had to go through some material that was completely new to me. Which is somewhat unusual, because I’ve seen everything there is to see on the website (except for the game that I briefly mentioned in the previous article). But that’s because this wasn’t something on the site, it was something you had to buy from the store. I’ve been wanting to write a few things about the website’s store for a while, but it’s somewhat difficult, because I don’t have any hands-on experience with the majority of the things in it, and the pages themselves are somewhat difficult to find archives of. So let’s just start off with my personal experiences, and then I’ll move on to what I’ve learned through research on the Wiki. And then I’ll finally get to the major thing I planned on covering in this post – the Strong Bad Sings and Other Type Hits CD.

I may have mentioned this before, but one thing that I remember from my very first visit to homestarrunner.com was the “what’s new” button displaying a new Pom Pom shirt available in the Store. Not having any idea who Pom Pom was at the time, I assumed it was a shirt with actual pompoms on it, and didn’t really investigate this any further. I would look at the store every now and then to see what kind of stuff they had, but I never had any interest in getting any of it, because A) I didn’t have any money, and B) I didn’t really trust online shopping. Over the years, I eventually did get a Homsar T-shirt, as well as hoodies of Strong Bad and The Cheat. They came with keychains, one of the Strong Badia stop sign, and one is just a white star with Homestar’s head on it. I still have those keychains, but unfortunately I don’t have any of the shirts any more. I gave one of them away, and I have no idea what happened to the other two. And that’s about it. Now, rather than just talk about the other stuff that the store contained, I’d like to provide a link to an archive of it, thanks to the Wayback Machine, and then you can look through it a bit on your own while I talk about some of the more obscure stuff.

http://web.archive.org/web/20030622133647/http://www.homestarrunner.com/store.html

Alright, so this is the old Flash-based store. If you look at the store nowadays, it’s a bit more organized, but also not quite as interesting to navigate. So looking over the stuff available here, you’ll obviously see all the different T-shirts they had available (at this specific time at least – there were actually quite a number of different ones added and removed over the years, and the wiki has a complete list if you’re interested in such things), as well as some of the extra stuff like messenger bags, and of course the figurine set. The set shown in this link is the original set with most of the main characters, and there was eventually a second set released with the characters that didn’t make it into the first set, as well as a second Homestar and buckethand Strong Bad from the new hands email. There’s a third set also, but I’ll be mentioning that later on when it becomes relevant, because it contains characters that haven’t been covered in this blog yet.

I actually do have something else worth mentioning about those, which unfortunately I can’t find an archive of, but I do remember that at one point, you could play a certain song with the “doo” noises that Homestar makes when you mouse over the shirt designs. When you got the correct note, it would show a star (I think) in the corner of the screen and when you finished the song, it would show you a preview of the figurine set. Since this particular archive already has those for sale, this was obviously an older version of the page, but none of the archives from before this date seem to have a page that loads properly, otherwise I’d link to it.

 And since I don’t really have any better time to talk about these, there’s a couple other things the store offered that are kind of interesting and worth pointing out. First off is this funky “floaty pen” that you would apparently get for free if you bought a messenger bag. I checked quite a few of the archived pages and wasn’t able to find one with this mentioned anywhere, but I do vaguely remember it existing, and you could click and drag the pen to make The Cheat float up and down in the pen. Exciting.

On a more interesting note is the Kick The Cheat doll, which I mentioned in an earlier article, since it’s the exact same thing they use in the puppet videos. From what I can tell, this was released around February 2004 (which is odd, because I seem to remember it being available before they used it in the puppet videos, but I guess I’m remembering wrong.) When it was released, there was a little game (though I use that term loosely) you could try out, which is actually somewhat similar to that hidden Taryn game from the Message Bored. Rather than link directly to the game, here’s the page that has a little rotaty The Cheat image, along with a separate link to the game.

http://web.archive.org/web/20050523001349/http://homestarrunner.com/store.html

As time went on, the store did expand its inventory to include the Strong Bad Sings CD, as well as the strongbad_email.exe DVD, which contained the first 100 emails, along with several extra bonus toons. Eventually, more DVDs would released for the later emails and the majority of the non-email toons, but those will be covered when I get to them chronologically. I basically just wanted to take a look back at the old store and point out some of its interesting bits. In May 2005, the Flash-based store was replaced with the current one. It has evolved a bit over the years, adding and removing stuff as time went on, but for the most part has stayed roughly the same, so I don’t really feel the need to link to any archives of it. Instead, with the thumbnail here you’ll find one last look at the old version, from the final archive before it was switched over.

Now before I get to the CD, there’s still one last thing I did want to talk about related to the store, and that’s the little Flash scenes that would play when you buy stuff. There’s two kinds – ones that would pop up within the store as you add stuff to your shopping cart, encouraging you to look at other items (I don’t have any record of these other than the Wiki mentioning them), and the “Thank You Messages” that would appear after you complete your purchase. I can’t really link to these directly, because they were intentionally coded so that they would only play after legitimately buying something and not just linking to a url.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv6CqCRqzbY

There actually was one of Strong Bad yelling at you for trying to access them the wrong way, which I could link to directly, but there’s no point in me doing so, because due to the persistence of Homestar fans, there already exists a video on Youtube showing off all four of the real messages, along with the fake one. Behold the wonder of some short scenes that you probably haven’t seen before! (link in the picture) It’s also worth noting that the one of Homestar in his pajamas would only play between midnight and 5 AM, and the other Homestar one (out in the field) would have a differently colored sky depending on the time of day. Quite a bit of effort, I must say. Remember, this store was Mike and Matt’s only source of income for quite a while, so it doesn’t hurt to put a little extra work into thanking your supporters.

Which then transitions into my next point – I’m definitely a fan of the site, but I haven’t exactly supported the series financially. So when it comes to reviewing material that I don’t own, there’s a few different options – don’t review it at all, actually support the site and buy it like I’m supposed to, or rely on other people to upload the material to the internet and watch it that way. Guess which one I picked. To be fair, I didn’t illegally download anything, I just used Youtube, but still, I do wish I had the physical copy. Maybe at some point I’ll get the DVDs (they’re all pretty cheap on the official store), but for now, I’ll just be a complete hypocrite and ask other people to support the site while I sit back and freeload. So here’s Strong Bad Sings and Other Type Hits. No, I’m not linking to it, you can search Youtube on your own.

I really do want to just get to the point and say a little about each song on this CD, but first, a short intro. It was released on November 17, 2003, and there were actually a couple emails that came out between the Halloween stuff from the previous post and this one, but I’ll be getting back to those next time. And as I’ve already stated, I don’t own the CD, so I can’t really talk much about the artwork, but the front cover of it is delightfully outlandish. The other artwork sounds kind of cool from the Wiki’s descriptions, but I can’t find any pictures of it, so I’m out of luck there. So enough loafing around, let’s just get to the songs. Whether you have the CD yourself or you have to use Youtube for it, feel free to go through them with me. Just keep in mind that I have no musical knowledge whatsoever and no position to put out any kind of meaningful review. Ready? Go.

TROGDOR: This is probably the most well-known song on the album, thanks to its appearance in Guitar Hero II. It’s also one of the few that is actually played in this format on the website – in this case, the Happy Trogday toon (though it doesn’t play in its entirety there). Overall, this is a pretty dang good song. Very … loud. And energetic.

The System is down: Good mindless fun. It’s worth mentioning that there’s actually three distinct versions of this song – this one, the one in the techno email itself, and the one on the Downloads page. This is definitely the best of the three, as it would be expected. I also like the ending, where it’s revealed that Strong Bad was somehow doing all those noises at the same time, and not just layering them over each other in post. Which was already seen in the email, of course, but meh, I still found it funny.

Strong Badia National Anthem: Well, I can’t say that this is one of the better songs in this, but I do like the attempt to make it stand out by including a class of students singing along with it. Though I have to say, it’s a bit weird how they sound like teenagers at the start and then have much higher voices while singing, unless only girls were singing. I dunno.

Oh Yeah Yeah: I can’t say I expected this one to turn into a rock song when I first read that it was on the CD. But I’m not sure what else I expected. It’s probably the most worthless song on the CD, but I might take that back after listening to some of the later ones again. 

Because, It’s Midnite: This one was also in Guitar Hero, and much like TROGDOR, is considered extremely difficult by people. Except this one is actually possible to finish on Expert, whereas TROGDOR is not. And one last thing comparing it to that song – this one also appeared in its full version on the actual website, in Limozeen vs. Sloshy. But enough about that, is the song actually any good? Well, I definitely think it is. I’ve never been a big Limozeen fan, but I can’t deny that it’s catchy, and is one of the best songs on the CD in terms of actual musical quality. I can’t say if the song actually has any kind of meaning behind it, but it’s not purely comedic either, it’s just an homage to old hair metal bands.

Circles: Remember the theme party email? Yeah, I don’t either, and I’m surprised that they did. The best part about this song (well, aside from the meaningless lyrics) is the random muttering between lines. I’m not sure exactly what was going on here, but it was definitely unprofessional, and that was obviously what they were going for, so … good job, I guess. I dunno, not too crazy about this one.

Let’s get started on doing all those awesome things I suggested: This one actually made me laugh out loud when I first listened to it. Not because of any of the pre-song comments or anything, because those were pretty useless, but because the song just completely dies as soon as it begins. I would have liked to actually hear some of the song, but this was hilarious in its own right. 

Moving Very Slowly: Meh, I can’t say I’m a fan of death metal. Or “stoner metal”, as people are claiming this song actually is. I dunno,  music genres are a mystery to me. Point is, it’s not that great of a song in my opinion. And it’s the longest one on the CD. Eugh. But yeah, anything Taranchula-related is pretty hit-or-miss. I did enjoy the death metal email, but that came long after this. At the time of this CD’s released, I think the only things related to the band were the original band names email and the short clip from fingers.

Sweet Cuppin’ Cakes Theme Song: What the crap was this? Like, seriously, what was this? I guess it fits in with the concept of the actual cartoon, I’ll give it that much. And I did enjoy the rapid “everybody knows it” bit, because it reminded me of the “check it out, check it out” from Lookin at a Thing in a Bag. And then there was a weird voice at the end. It might have been Eh! Steve, but it sounded more like Homsar. The wiki can’t decide what was up with it either.

i think i have a chance with this guy: So mix together The System is down with Teen Girl Squad, and you get this. Sure, why not. Not as fun as the original techno song, but the lyrics are at least pretty funny in this one. I think I’ll put some ants on this guy. 

It’s like it was meant to be: No clue where this one came from. It’s not even from the original Strong Bad Sings toon. And I’d say this has a good contender of being more useless than Oh Yeah Yeah, but … nah, it’s not quite that bad. It just lost focus pretty quickly. It went from being a love song to just Strong Bad repeatedly insisting that he’s being serious. I completely forgot this one existed when I got to it my second time going through the CD, and the first time was only like, two hours ago. So yeah.

NITE MAMAS: Y’know, this CD is making me rethink my opinion on Limozeen. They might seem kind of out of place compared to the rest of the Homestar universe, but I legitimately enjoy their music. I don’t think this one is quite as good as Because, It’s Midnite, but they’re both good in different ways. This one’s just a bit too repetitive, I think, but it’s still a nice tune.

Sensitive to Bees: Ok, this song is legitimately funny, thanks to Strong Bad’s live commentary. And Homestar joining in at the end and messing up. It doesn’t hurt that the song itself is really stupid to begin with, but not in the Oh Yeah Yeah kind of way, because this one does have substance, it’s just … well, really stupid. And sometimes that can be a good thing.

You’ve got an Ugly & Stupid BUTT: I was disappointed when this changed its tone after the first line. I wanted to see where the song would be heading, and I can’t say I expected it to completely change genre and just devolve into him saying essentially the same thing over and over.

These peoples try to fade me: This is one of the songs on the album that I’ve always been interested in hearing , and now that I have, I must say it didn’t quite live up to my expectations. Coach Z has better raps out there – namely Hip Hop Dance and Rap Song. Neither of which I’ve covered yet in this blog, but I’ll get to them in due time. This song wasn’t awful by any means, but I feel like it was too repetitive, and the funny parts went by too quickly. Now there is one other thing I must mention about this song, and that’s the music video that comes along with it. If you have the CD, it should automatically play if you get to this song when playing it on a computer. If not, just check Youtube. It’s nothing to write home about, but I was surprised to see its similarities to the one from New Boots. And this one came first, so it’s kind of weird to realize that a toon that I was quite familiar with is actually sort of a follow-up to something older.

The ladies in Town all know my name: Ok, enough of these. Let’s get started was funny, It’s like it was meant to be was forgettable, and this one was just kind of dumb. It seemed like it had potential, but then it just stopped. Which I guess was kind of the joke, but come on, you had a nice melody going and then just killed it.

The theme from DANGERESQUE II: This time, it’s not Dangeresque I: Man, that’s a long title. But that aside, this was a pretty good one, I think. It definitely has the spy movie feel to it, and some of the lyrics were quite funny (I enjoyed the “length of pipe” bit). And on another note, there was actually a preview of this song in an old SBEmail menu. For the sake of being thorough, here’s a link. Be aware that the links on the sticky note don’t actually work in this mirror, but there were two of them: one for this song, one for #19. 

Somebody Told Me (Now I Believe Them): This is the last of the ones taken from the Strong Bad Sings toon, and at least we ended on a good note. Yes, the song is repetitive, but at least it wasn’t less than I expected. In fact, I rather liked the twangy feel to it. Not great by any means, but it took a single line that I enjoyed from the original toon and actually made it better.

THE Cheat is NOT DEAD: I always enjoyed the original version of this song, and this is an extended version of it with a random choir and overly enthusiastic gospel segment at the end, so you’ll get no complaints from me. I’d say that this, TROGDOR, and the next song are in close competition for the best non-Limozeen song on the album, and it’s really just a matter of personal taste to say which is the superior song.

EVERYBODY TO THE LIMIT (Live): Definitely ending on a high note here. I think this is my favorite out of the three that I just mentioned as the contenders for “best on the album”, but it really is a close call. This one just has a lot of energy behind it, and it’s a fun song in general. I can picture Strong Bad on stage singing this to a crowd of fans. It’s a strange image, I’ll grant you that much, but I can picture it nonetheless. 

Secret Song: This one is found by waiting on the last track for a few minutes. And it makes me realize that Homestar really wasn’t on this CD very much. Friggin’ Strong Bad always stealing the spotlight. Anyway, this was a nice little Easter egg. Not the best song on the album, but definitely not the worst.

And there we go, that’s the whole CD. Definitely a big range of lots of different types of music, some good, some bad, but overall, I have to say it was an interesting collection, and I’m glad I checked it out, even if I was about ten years late. Next time will be a more standard update, with some classic SBEmail goodness, and perhaps a bit of other stuff. But this was a nice little diversion, and I’ve been wanting to go over the store for a while, so I’m glad I got that done. But this post came out much longer than I anticipated, so I’ll have to wrap it up here for now.

Halloween 2003 Goodness (Also, I'm Not Dead!)

I don’t want to start a trend of beginning posts with something along the lines of “well, the reason this one is late is because of [blank]”. But I suppose I won’t have to worry about beginning posts that way if I would actually update on schedule. So yeah, it’s been a long time, and I don’t have any major reason for slacking off as much as I have, other than getting a new computer sent to me shortly after posting the previous article and getting addicted to Minecraft for a while. Then following that, some various Pokémon shenanigans distracted me as well. So right now I’m taking a break from my playthrough of Pokémon Y to finally get back to this blog and cover the Halloween 2003 material before Halloween 2013 is actually upon us. This time around, there’s no fewer than four separate things released for the holiday, so let’s get started with the Malloween Commercial.

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

Huh. Didn’t the last post also start with a Marshie commercial? Kinda weird how that happened. But this one is significantly better, in my opinion. If you hate Marshie commercials in general, then this one probably isn’t going to change your opinion on them, but the character is kind of made to be hated in the first place, so I think these are meant to be enjoyed in kind of an ironic way.

So in this one, Marshie ups the creepiness level a bit from last time, not necessarily due to the vampire costume or anything, but just his mannerisms in general. His appearance at the beginning is almost somewhat of a jump scare, he starts choking randomly in the middle of a sentence, talks about scaring your dad, and is also seen briefly freaking out backstage. And if that kind of behavior isn’t exactly your cup of tea, then hopefully lines such as “orange and black flavored marshmallows” and “a tidal wave of marshalades” are at least worth a smile. Now what I’d like to know is what the whole “Monte Negro” thing was all about. He’s just kind of a drawing on the side of a marshmallow that says “oh yes” and then that’s it. I don’t get it.

Homestar’s appearance in this is solid all-around. I do like his shirt, the giant eyeball, and his generic can of “Can D”. Plus seeing him annoy Strong Bad at the end is always funny. Overall, I’d say this is a pretty decent toon, at least considering the fact that it was pretty much meant as something to tide you over until the proper Halloween toon the next week. And if this wasn’t enough, there’s even a game based on this toon that was released a while later, so the Chapmans were definitely busy at this time of year. So let’s go check it out – here’s Marshie’s Malloween Mix-Up.

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

Out of all the games listed on the current Games menu of the website, this is the one I find the most forgettable. It’s not the one I’ve played the least, since there’s one on there that I have still to this day not actually played for more than maybe two minutes. I’ll be getting to that one eventually. But for now, I’ll try to think of something substantial to say about this game. For one thing, it’s actually more interesting to play than the majority of the things on the Old Games page, and actually, it’s more fun than a couple on the New Games page too.

It’s basically a poor man’s Ikaruga (which is incidentally a game I have never played, but I’ve seen some stuff about it, and the color-changing mechanic is almost certainly inspired from that game), but also reminds me a bit of Fantasy Zone in the way that you drop the bombs. And then of course there’s the death animation straight out of Mega Man, and the Konami pause sound effect. Yet with all those references to old games (Ikaruga isn’t old, but you know what I mean), this is actually the only thing on the New Games menu that isn’t done in a pixellated style. And since I like to explain site history whenever I get a chance to, I feel like I should explain that this game was originally only accessed through a link on the Main Page for a few weeks, then it was never linked to anywhere on the site for almost a year. It was finally brought back once the Games menu split into the old (Handheld) and new (Shooter) menus and there was adequate space to fit it in. But anyway, I didn’t want to resume this blog just to talk about below-average material, I want to get to some funny stuff. So I’m definitely looking forward to revisiting the bizarrely titled 3 Times Halloween Funjob. Let’s do this like Brutus.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/ween03.html

Overall, I feel like this toon isn’t quite as good as the past couple Halloween toons, but I can’t find anything negative to say about it either, so I guess it just had some tough competition. I’ll be going over the toon in standard bullet point format in a second, but first I want to address the costumes. I won’t be explaining each one of them in detail or anything, because I’d basically just be copy/pasting info from the Wiki, but I will list the ones that I actually knew about before having to look up info on them: The Cheat (Izzy), King of Town (Hamburglar), Stinkoman (Speed Racer), and Poopsmith (M. Bison). Some of the other ones, like Slash and Magnum PI, are things that I am somewhat aware of, but I wouldn’t be able to explain who those people are if someone asked me. Anyway, onto the dissection:

• I looked up the meaning of “credenza”, and I remembered correctly – it’s a type of furniture. Apparently it was also the term used for a servant that would test food or drinks for poison before giving it to someone of high importance. I guess I can kind of see the loose connection between that definition and how the plant died (Homestar watering it with Yoo-Hoo), but … actually, no, even then, it still doesn’t make any sense. Marzipan, where the crap did you get that name from? I guess it makes about as much sense as naming a character after a type of candy, though.
• I rather enjoyed the King of Town’s attempts to be cool in this cartoon. It’s rare to see his character actually do something even remotely interesting, and I just like how he kind of quickly degenerated to “the character who eats a lot” to “the character who is really lame and fully acknowledges this”. And although his usual eating shtick is usually not funny at all, I did enjoy him eating the candy corn lights near the end.
• Also regarding character development, this toon reveals that Coach Z’s accent is probably just done for attention, and not because he just naturally talks that way. He’s able to say “trick or treat” just fine after Bubs berates him for saying it stupidly the first time, and then also explains that it’s a crowd pleaser. There was already a hint of this being the case back with “get your head in the game, The Chort! The Cheat is wide open!” back in mascot, but I think this is the first time when it’s formally addressed.
• We have the return of The House That Gave Sucky Treats briefly in the middle of the toon, and just like in the original, there’s multiple choices you can pick for different dialogue. And in addition to the three choices you’re initially given, you can give them the pumpkin on the ground (or just click somewhere else on the screen) and have Stinkoman show up for three more choices. Since it’s rather time consuming to play through the first half of the toon six times to see all the results, I did everyone a favor and just recorded the different outcomes. You can see them here.
• After going through the toon all those times, I realized that the following scene shows the Poopsmith doing his usual routine while everyone else is out having fun. Poor guy. Well, he might be doing it voluntarily, but that’s still a little sad. Then again, if he had hung around with the King of Town like usual, then the KoT may not have gotten up to the antics that he did in this toon, so I can’t really complain. And as with the last two Halloween toons, clicking ol’ Poopstick’s head in the scene where Homestar brags about his bum candy will cause Homsar to appear in a rather random fashion.
• Credenza actually did come back to life. That’s awesome. It actually shows up a few times later on in the series, but you have to be a pretty diehard fan to notice, because … well, it’s a plant.
• Homestar of course can’t go through the toon without a few classic lines, in this case, I’d say that pretty much anything he said towards the ending was pretty great, the highlight being “somebody’s a-grabbin’ a-my butt”, but I also rather enjoyed him quietly cheering for himself getting a million pounds of candy, and referring to The Goblin as dressing up like a Santam’n.
• The ending scene has plenty of gags when you click on different characters, mainly of the “hey whoever, I really like your costume. [guesses incorrectly]” variety. Though I have to admit the one you get from clicking on Strong Sad caught me off-guard, because I remember first hearing that gag from a Spoony video and not knowing what it was referring to. I didn’t remember it being in this at all. And no, I still don’t know what it’s referring to. Yes, I know the wiki explains it, but too bad, I’m not going to read that.
• The best Easter egg of the toon is definitely the one from clicking on one of the candy corn lights at the end. Seriously!

Alright, so now that the main Halloween cartoon is over, you’d think that the next toon would be a standard SBEmail or something, but nope, in 2003, we got a little something extra, which turned out to be one of my favorite recurring segments on the site: Fan Costume Commentary.

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

Strong Bad really brought some of his best material to this riffing. Always the jerk to make fun of people’s names or spelling in emails, he has now been promoted to making fun of people’s costumes, and it’s hilarious. Honestly, half of these costumes aren’t even that bad. The one of Homestar that Strong Bad wanted to shoot with a compound bow (and take the Kleenex boxes off its feet) was actually really good looking. But yeah, the mashed potato man and Dumpy Robert Smith, among others, were not so great. I hope the people who submitted these photos enjoyed the humor and didn’t take the insults personally.

I must also acknowledge the whole “squirrel gnawed The Cheat into a pumpkin” bit, because I always found it really funny for some inexplicable reason, and I like quoting it whenever anything even barely tangentially related comes up. Mainly “those squirrels’ rates are … pretendous”. I think anything involving Strong Bad and squirrels is just inherently funny – just look at “some people are squirrel-handed” from kids’ book. Or maybe I’m just weird. And I also noticed that Strong Bad referred to the hypothetical video game levels as "boards". I've heard a few people use that term before, but it still seems weird to me. Not sure if it's a regional thing, or what. I guess it's kind of like soda vs pop.

This has been a relatively short post, but I think right now actually a pretty good place to stop, because I don’t want to get burned out too quickly, and this way, the post has one clearly defined theme to it. It’s better to do this than to review all the Halloween stuff and then also a couple random SBEmails. So seriously, I’m hoping this means that I’ll be able to commit myself to writing these regularly again. I don’t want to promise anything, because last time I said that, there was a two-month wait. But I’ll try. Oh, and as one last thing, check out this article. I don’t really have anything specific to say about it, but it’s just nice to see praise for Homestar, and knowing that other people still care about the series.

Some people like to post things. Today I am going to post things.

Salutations. Insert explanation/apology for the long gap between posts. And then I suppose there could be some kind of an intro statement too, but I really don’t have much to say in terms of leading into this. I’ve looked ahead, and there’s not really any kind of theme to the upcoming toons, so as usual, I’ll just try to get through as much material as possible here. This one might actually be a bit longer than usual to try and make up for the delay, also. So without further ado, here’s Mr. Shmallow.

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

The cheesy commercials in the Homestar series (such as the other Fluffy Puff commercials that this is based on, and a large variety of different stuff to come in the future) are one of my favorite types of toons. I also generally like the Old-Timey stuff. But for some reason, this toon doesn’t really do it for me. It has a few funny parts, like the constant repeating of “hand-puffed in the factory in Neuconsin”, but overall this one just turned out kind of boring, I think.

I can’t completely dislike this toon, because it did bring us Delicious “Bag” (which also appears in a pretty funny Easter egg at the end), which is just a great name for a candy product no matter how you look at it. And I can’t properly review this without at least pointing out the 50s-styled people with jetpacks when this is supposed to be set in the 30s, but as with Ballad of The Sneak, the lack of consistency with sticking to one time period is pretty much part of the joke. I also have to question what was up with the random sweating towards the end (the theory I was able to find is that it’s just a reference to old television sets having really hot lighting), but it kind of just goes without any kind of explanation. But yeah, not really much else to talk about here. Generally I like taking a break from SBEmails, but here I’m genuinely looking forward to rewatching some of the next ones in line, starting with date.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail81.html

First I must point out that this was first uploaded on August 18, 2003, and today’s date is exactly ten years later. And it’s doubly weird to have a coincidence with the date like that on a toon that’s actually called date. But tis just a coincidence. But anyways, there’s actually a surprising amount of things to talk about with this one. It’s been a while since I’ve busted out the ol’ bullet point format, so why not?

• Gotta love the HRAMERDSXR. The crappy little tune that plays when you start it out (in the playable version at the end) is incredibly bad (and therefore awesome), the graphics are … the same, actually, and some of the random things they can say like “Strong Bad read a book!” are the icing on the cake.
• I’m surprised to learn that Sid Hoffman and Sid Frenchman are not actually real people. Well, I’m sure there’s people with those names somewhere in the world, but they’re not well-known, is what I’m saying. I assumed they were celebrities I’d never heard of.
• The table at the marshmallow place has no legs or pole to hold it up. It’s just kind of sitting on their laps.
• Ah, the first appearance of the bear holding a shark. You know, a while back I found something in Wal-mart that had a logo very similar to that, and I wanted to take a picture of it so I could post it when I got around to reviewing this email, but didn’t have my 3DS (or anything else with a camera) with me at the time, so I figured I’d get it later. So I checked again a couple weeks ago and I couldn’t find it. And I don’t even remember what the thing was. But oh well.
• What the crap is Super Mud?
• The Sid Hoffman/Frenchman game at the end used to have a glitchy “prize” for getting 20 correct. It’s been fixed, but thanks to web archives, I’m able to show you the original ending.

Overall, this is just a great email. Pretty much every part of it was funny, and I’ve already pointed most of them out, and there’s not any reason to list the others, so let’s just move on to another good email – impression.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail82.html

Anything Strong Sad-related is always good in my book, so this is a pretty solid one as far as I’m concerned. Before getting to the actual contest itself, fans of the series will notice the use of the name “Jhonka” (with a very DnD-ish Easter egg associated with it). I swear, you can’t go two minutes without tripping over something that will randomly come back in some format later in the series. And sure enough, immediately after that we get not only Coach Z referring to Strong Sad as “the deathly pallor”, but also The King of Town randomly booing in the audience, and then shortly after, Homestar saying “oh.. some animal died”. Yes, every one of those things will come back as some kind of a running gag later on.

As for the contest itself, I do have to admit that Strong Bad’s costume is pretty good. The tape recorder was of course a pretty lame trick, but the paper plate face and white beret are nice low-budget costume pieces. (“I know!”) Not quite as funny as Homestar’s hippo (or “elephant”) slippers and sock taped to his head (as later seen in the hilarious Easter egg at the end), but if I had to actually judge the costume in terms of accuracy, Strong Bad’s wins. Homsar of course gets first place, but he did a bit too good of a job.

And then here’s the part where I admit something pretty embarrassing. When I was in … fifth grade, I think it was, we did a highly abridged play of the first Harry Potter book. I ended up getting the role of Voldemort, who was described as having a completely white face with red eyes and slits for a nose. So I did actually make a crappy paper plate mask for the role. And since Voldemort’s appearance in that book was a face coming out of the back of Quirrell’s head, I figured they could just strap the mask to the back of their head while I did the voice from elsewhere in the room, but no, the teacher insisted that I stand back-to-back with the other guy. It was a little bit pathetic. And also highly unrelated to this blog, so uh, labor day.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail83.html

This is not the greatest email by any means, but it has a few decent moments. The highlight of it for me is the Schene- [looks up spelling] Schenectady Crispies commercial in the Easter egg at the end. Knowing my love for Strong Sad, you'd think I would like that part at the end where everyone laughs at his joke and he gets somewhat appreciated for a while, but really, that just felt really awkward to me. The bulk of the email basically consists of Strong Bad doing really bad observational humor as people walk by, which, to be fair, is pretty much what he said he’d be doing at the start, so it at least delivered on that promise.

Out of all the things he mentioned, the only one that stands out to me (well, aside from the really lame comments towards Strong Mad and The Cheat, which were bad enough to be funny) was asking Coach Z if he’s green and naked, or just wearing a body suit. I too would like to know that. Aside from that, I just wanted to point out the “Everybody Knows It” song accessible at the end. I’m not going to actually say anything about it, just pointing it out. Because reasons. And since I already talked quite a bit about the past few emails, that’ll be good enough for this one. It’s time for another classic – kids’ book.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail84.html

This is another one of those emails that everybody loves. There’s just something inherently funny about drawing over other artwork and making it into something new. Right? I know I can’t be alone in having done this to pictures on like, worksheets and handouts at school. I don’t think I’ve ever done the thing where I scratch out the words and make that into something else too, but that’s just the next logical step, and maybe I should give it a try sometime.

The Chapmans definitely had fun making this one. Mike in particular listed it as his favorite during a conference in 2006 (the same one where Matt said personal favorites was his, which I mentioned when I reviewed that email), because it was just fun to make a book like this and then just draw all over it and make it into something funny. And thanks to the DVD commentary, we now know the “Fran could play linebacker for the Raiders” part basically came from Matt drawing the girl with really broad shoulders and then Mike basically just made fun of the drawing. The same thing probably happened to “Beth looks like a dude”, honestly.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sb_book/sb_book1.html

So yeah, this email was already pretty great on its own, but it also has the best Easter egg on the entire website, Strumstar Hammer. I wish I had more to say about this, but it really speaks for itself. There’s only like two pages of the book that aren’t hilarious. If you haven’t seen this thing yet, I can’t recommend it enough, and it’s surprising to me that it’s never actually been shown anywhere else on the website other than an easily missable Easter egg, because every Homestar fan should be aware of it.

Like I said though, there’s not really too much I can comment on aside from just pointing out parts that I found funny, which is practically all of it. So after reading through that, we now get to move straight on to some more of Strong Bad’s literature in the format of Teen Girl Squad Issue #4.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/tgs4.html

I always thought the voices (well, voice, since all the girls sound the same anyway) sounded a bit off in this one, and reading the transcript for the DVD commentary pretty much verifies that I wasn’t crazy. Kind of. It’s hard to tell if they were being serious about any of it or not. They basically said that Ryan Sterritt made the issue while the brothers were sick and/or out of town, which was most likely not true, but the part about being sick could have been, because it would explain the voice difference. Now I just need an explanation for New Boots.

Theorizing aside, this is the first TGS issue to not have the plot centered around them trying to look good and/or attract boys. Well, Cheerleader still does that, but the fact that they’re now in a school setting does sort of show that the series has a chance of evolving over time. Obviously I already know that it has, but I just … whatever, you know what I mean. It’s Teen Girl Squad, these are just hard to write about. I can’t really say anything about Brett Bretterson, Quarterman, or any of the other stuff from this issue because they don’t really show up again later on in any kind of notable way. I think this is the first one to establish that So and So’s “good student” personality though. Prior to this issue, she didn’t really have any kind of noteworthy traits. And once again I can’t really come up with any clever way to lead into the next toon, so whatever, let’s just watch 2 years.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail85.html

Fun fact about this email – the “E” in “E. Fullmer” stands for Elder. The sender was actually going on a missionary trip for the Mormon church, which explains the two years of not being able to follow the website. Another fun fact … or maybe just an opinion – “Homestar Runner’s Website” is another really great Easter egg, and one that I quote more often than necessary. Mainly the “helscome” part. If you’ve watched my playthrough of Bikdip’s Adventure 2 (or less likely, actually played the game), you may remember the guy in the bomb shop saying “helscome my bonshop”. Yep, that’s what it was inspired by. And to point out yet another overly specific reference, I actually titled one of the posts of this blog “Super Old Games n’Such (… And Coach Z). I wonder if anyone realized that was actually a callback to this email. Probably not.

Ok, do I have anything else actually worth saying about this email? I did find it funny, so I don’t have any complaints, but I’m struggling to find something to point out that isn’t just repeating a joke I liked. I do have to wonder what’s up with the “Fireworks or die” mural, now that I think about it. Does it mean that you if you don’t like fireworks, you should die? Or that you have to bring some when you come to Strong Badia? No idea. So I guess I’ll just end this review as abruptly as Strong Bad did. But unlike him, I won’t wait 15 seconds to move on to something else. (Yes, that’s your hint to stick around at the ending, if you haven’t already done so.) So here’s something completely out of left field – Everybody Knows It.

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

I don’t think anybody ever saw this coming. This is (obviously) the first instance of puppets on the website, and certainly not the last. There’s kind of a divide in the fanbase on these – some find them really unfunny, some (not very many people though, from what I can tell) think they’re funnier than the normal toons, and some are neutral. I’m pretty much neutral towards them, but I think on average they do turn out slightly less interesting than the normally animated stuff, with a few exceptions.

There’s a bit of history to this one – originally it was posted under the name of “Whoa! Puppets”, then retitled about a week later to “Puppet Thing”, and then again another week later to the name they finally settled with. The first title makes sense, since it was a completely new concept to the website, and then I guess they just decided that “Puppet Thing” was too generic of a title and it would look out of place when later puppet toons were made. Speaking of the puppets themselves, Homestar has felt eyes that can be moved to either side of the head (and when he turns around in certain parts you can see the eyeless side, which is always kinda funny), and The Cheat is simply a Kick The Cheat toy that they used to sell in the store. I can’t seem to find a record of when that toy was released though.

One day I do want to do an in-depth post about the store and the various things sold there, plus some redesigns it went through and various Easter eggs, but that will be a task for another day. You’ve probably already noticed by now that I haven’t said anything about this toon as a whole, and that’s not about to change. But I will link to some pictures that were Easter eggs in the original release (and have been removed for whatever reason). And if I want to get this post up sometime today, I need to keep on truckin’ along. Maybe I’d be better inspired if I had a sign that said no loafing.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail86.html

I never particularly liked this one like anything. Like with labor day, I can’t say it’s really a bad email, but it doesn’t Strong Bad does some hilarious stand up comedy routines to some of the other ones hot babes that I’ve reviewed recently come by his house all the time. The opening was a bit long and drawn-out (and not particularly funny, either, kind of like all my reviews), and then we get to the awesome part with the postears, which take over Strong Bad’s living room and start spouting out memes is where the email gets somewhat humorous, but again, are not really reaching able to defeat Strong Bad’s usual standards rock-hard abs. The whole thing just seems kind of thrown together, and the weird lack of a loading screen at the beginning indicates that as well. Yeah, I’m not sure what was up with that either.

This probably would have been funnier if, instead of focusing on multiple poscomputers that range from moderately funny (“I have friends!”) decent like the Compy 386 to pretty standard crappy and not really interesting in the slightest and also buck-toothed, like the Tandy (the space whale one), Strong Bad had instead designed his own poscomputer with what he thinks would be inspirational built-in lazor guns and a Cold One dispenser. So probably something like Trogdor threatening to burninate loafers What are you talking about, I already have one of those!, or a picture of The Cheat winning a trophy for hard work. No way, man, that guy already has enough of an ego. But I think I’ve said enough about this one words in my lifetime, so let’s finish up with one more SBEmail, this one distinctly different from worse than all the rest because I, I mean, because Strong Bad was busy that day. Here’s mile.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail87.html

This is a nice one to finish on. It’s weird, it’s distinctive, and I probably don’t have very much to say about it. So … I’m not sure if they just didn’t feel like making a normal email this week, or Matt wasn’t feeling up to doing the voices for more than a couple lines, or what, but I’m fine with it. Powered by The Cheat stuff is funny in its own awful way, and this is probably one of the better toons done in this style. The entire mile cartwheel marathon thing was great, and even the computer sections were funny, especially the abbreviations at the end. And “don’t let that from stopping you from organizing your own”. And let's not forget The Cheat's ridiculous amount of self-indulgence, including a parade with Super Mario Bros fireworks being cleaned up Rocky and Bullwinkle-style by The Poopsmith.

There’s a very-easy-to-miss Easter egg at the end of this one that I wasn’t aware of at all, which you access by pressing the “O” key. It’s a nice little callback to something from the Museum. And there’s also a weird unused animation of headless Homestar doing a jig that was found through a Flash decompiler. It was almost certainly going to be used for the “Cheatsa parties” Easter egg, but then for whatever reason was abandoned and not used until wayyy later in SBEmail 179.

Alright, well, that was one heckuva long post, so I’m definitely done for now. Hopefully I’ll get another one out before the end of the month, but if not, then … well, that would be lame, but I guess we’ll just have to deal with it. Next time should be a bunch of Halloween stuff, and as I’m sure you can tell from the last three installments of those, they’re some pretty good toons.