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.

The Tandy replaced! Everybody is completely sure why!

To start off today’s post, we’ll be looking at SBEmail #40, vacation. It’s a personal favorite of mine, even though (perhaps because) it’s one of the more simplistic ones. Yes, I’ve just gone through like 20 posts saying how much the simple-format emails are lame, but shut up, this one’s different. You’ll see why, just watch it.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail40.html

When this email was first uploaded, only the first postcard was available, and then the other ones were added in every few days over the course of two weeks. And as with Marzipan’s Answering Machine, most of the humor here is audio-only (which honestly isn’t a huge difference from watching Strong Bad typing all of it). Personally, I find most of these postcards to be pretty great. So I’ll just go through them one at a time. But first, I must address “BrothaCheese”, which is by far the greatest name ever (and I’m not sure if Strong Bad was groaning at the name, the “filled with crap”, or both). And when Strong Bad got up, he made the Geddup Noise (the sound of the stool moving against the floor) vocally. For some reason. But yeah, postcard time.

1. Probably the weakest of the postcards, but I got a chuckle out of “I don’t like old ladies. I don’t even wanna see ‘em.” Otherwise, not much to say.
2. I like to think that one of the brothers would draw the postcard, and then the other would come up with the commentary for it. That’s probably the best way to come up with jokes like the one about the bike being welded to the house. That’s not something that you just come up with on the fly. I think this one’s pretty funny, and there’s a good Easter egg in it too.
3. Random guitar playing! I guess Strong Bad felt the need to show off after talking a big game in the guitar email from a few weeks ago. I don’t really have much else to say about this one, other than the fact that my town also has a broken clock tower in it. You’d think that one of these days they’d get it fixed, but it’s been broken for years. Maybe someone should start a fundraiser for it and inadvertently help out some time travelers. (Speaking of which, they missed an opportunity for a pointless reference here. They should have made the clock stop at 10:04)
4. The location of this one is practically an afterthought, but that’s fine with me, because Strong Bad’s little made-up email was hilarious, not to mention spot-on. “How can Homestar pick stuff up when he’s not wearing any Marzi-pants?” And then to top it off, there’s the Easter egg of a postcard-within-a-postcard, featuring Monkey D and his amazing “I <3 Stong Band” T-shirt. I’m not sure what Monkey D’s deal is (or whether or not he’s a reference to One Piece), but he shows up a few times in the future and always manages to catch me off guard.
5. Ending on a high note, as this is probably my favorite one. The idea of a town where everything is tan and the people eat antiques is something that needs to be implemented in like, Doctor Who or something. It would be the greatest thing ever. And once again, there’s a nice little Easter egg in this one, which probably should have just shown up on its own, but whatever. I like the random tennis racket.

Alright, so now that the vacation is over, it should be time to get back to emails, but first we need to Meet Marshie. Well, I suppose we don’t need to, but what could it hurt? Quite a lot, actually, but grit your teeth and just do it.

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

Marshie is probably the most disliked character on the entire website, but that’s kind of the point, I think. I guess. I don’t really know why he exists, to be honest, but he definitely succeeds at being an unnecessarily annoying (and “genuinely alarming”, as the Wiki calls him) mascot for Fluffy Puff. I don’t hate every appearance of Marshie, but this first commercial is somewhat weak. It has the completely pointless statements like “stuff some in your pockets for secret eating”, but it’s missing the over-the-top creepiness found in later Marshie commercials. Yeah, you’ll be seeing more of Marshie in the future.

I guess overall I’d consider this toon to be decent, but not great. The only problem is that there’s really nothing I can say about it. It goes by too quickly to even develop any coherent comments towards it. One second you’re wondering why there’s nails in the marshmallows, and then suddenly there’s an eye patch and a cigar, and then he’s hiding the marshmallows under a pillow, and it’s just … what? This is the kind of stuff that you’d see in an animutation, or possibly a Youtube Poop. And I enjoy those, but like I said, there’s not much you can really say about them, it’s something you have to experience.

Oh, and remember the last Fluffy Puff Commercial where you could press “L” to make a silhouette of Lincoln appear? This one has key-activated Easter eggs too. At the end, press “R”, and then “F”. It has to be lower-case or it won’t work. And no, I don’t know why Homestar says what he does. But anyway, with that distraction aside, we can get back to Strong Bad and his email-style antics with invisibility.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail41.html

This is a milestone in SBEmail history, as this email features the unceremonial ditching of the Tandy 400 and the first appearance of the Compy 386. As I mentioned a while ago when I talked about gimmicks, the change in computer doesn’t make too much of a difference, since they’re both pretty crappy, primitive, and text-based. But it does mark the definite end of the simplistic style of the older SBEmails that I kept complaining about. I can only think of a couple Compy-era emails that never leave the computer and focus on Strong Bad responding to the email and doing nothing else. And as you’ve probably seen from the current SBEmail menu, the Compy isn’t a permanent replacement. In fact, the DVD commentary of this email actually predicts exactly what he’ll be eventually moving on to. But don’t worry, the Compy will be sticking around for a few years.

I guess I should probably talk about the email itself sometime today. Personally, I’d say it’s one of the all-time best. There’s some that are funnier, more technologically impressive, or what have you, but I can’t think of anything that this one does wrong. The entire opening is great, the humor is great, what else could you ask for? Seriously, I can’t get over that beginning. He just shoves the computer off the desk, brings in the new one (which reacts to his statement with perfect comedic timing), and then moves on as if nothing happened. And then in the meat of the email itself, Bubs and Homestar act as if the floating Swiss cake rolls are an everyday occurrence. And Strong Mad is his usual self, with disastrous consequences.

At the end, hang around for a few seconds and there’s a little extra scene that plays out. We get to see the final moments of the Tandy (ok, maybe not the FINAL moments </spoilers>), with some nice little callbacks and stuff. Remember the Message Bored? The title of that page (the remnants of it, at least) was “Remember What the Tandy Told You”, which is actually referring to this particular Easter egg.

Well, I don’t want to spend too much time on this one (even though it is a good’n), so let’s take a look at action figure.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail42.html

I hope that eventually I’ll figure out what to say about these other than “this email was really funny and I have nothing creative or enlightening to say about it”. But yeah, this one was really funny and I have nothing creative or enlightening to say about it. But I’ll try anyway.

If this action figure really existed, I wonder if it would be possible to get all of the features to work. I remember there were some issues with that for the Buzz Lightyear toys, because it was apparently impossible to get both the extendable wings and the “helmet that does that… that-that WHOOSH thing” to function on the same toy. This one would have a few issues, like managing to get the spark mechanics to fit inside the head (since it’s detachable from the rest of the body). Also, I don’t know why, but the part I laughed at the hardest was Strong Bad making the little spark noises while the same noises were already playing in the background. You know what else this toy would need? Some sort of device that converts motor oil (or grapefruit juice) into radioactive goo.

As usual, there’s a nice little Easter egg at the end, where you get to see various other action figures. I like how they all share the same exact body, just painted differently. Apparently the He-man toys from back in the day used to be like that as well, but I never had any of those, so I’m only parroting what I’ve read. So once you’re all done looking at the various action figures and their useless features, then we can watch Strong Bad’s answers to some little questions.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail43.html

Poor translations from another language (or “Engrish”, as it is frequently called) are one of those things that are almost always funny. There’s two different types of this – automatic translators like Babelfish, and genuine mistakes from non-English speakers. This one’s most likely the latter (unless it’s just a joke), so I guess it’s technically offensive to be making fun of Viklas, but … too bad. It goes both ways when English speakers mess up other languages, and I’ve yet to see any major political movement against this kind of humor, so let’s enjoy it before it gets banned.

This email is one of those ones that has to be watched twice to really get the most out of it, since it’s hard to pay attention to what Strong Bad is saying/typing and the subtitles at the bottom at the same time. Or prehaps I am to say that much a difficulty could sometimes be had when the twice times are happens? Oh, and don’t’s to be forgetting about the springtime holiday egg that can be seen out at the conclude, wherein a flag does some manner of stylish jig. Which makes me remember it - come now, brethren, as we partake in the viewership of lures & jigs.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail44.html

This is it, everyone, the very first SBEmail I ever watched. It wasn’t the newest one when I first found the website, but since I never bothered investigating that particular part of the site, I missed out on the old Tandy days the first time around. I remember first hearing about this one from my friend at school, and when I got home that day, I finally checked out the Strong Bad Email section and was met with … well maybe not hours, but plenty of new material to keep me entertained for a while. Not to mention a reason to check out the site every Monday for new ones. Boy, I was stupid for missing out.

I can’t say that this is one of the most memorable emails for most people, but since it was my first, it always will be one for me. I do rather like the lake scenery and Strong Bad’s inexplicable tan lines. And the ending is pretty funny too. You’d think that he could just, you know, backspace to delete the part where he admits that he knows nothing about ladies, but apparently there’s a camera set up that streams these straight to the internet or … something. Oh, and I’ve never actually seen it, but apparently the “come on in the boat” thing was a joke from Sesame Street. Not sure if it was a direct ripoff, an homage, or a coincidence, but I figured I’d mention it.

There’s also a bit of weirdness with the Easter egg in this one too. It’s almost identical to the one from duck pond, but at the same time, it’s the exact opposite. Whereas that one started out with the playable version of the game and then it was eventually removed (for some reason), this one had the game added in months after the rest of the email was made. Both of them feature a lake, both have Strong Bad commenting on the graphics… yeah, I dunno what happened here. I should submit it to Stupid Coincidence Magazine and see what they have to say about it.

Next time… yeah, there’ll be some more emails. But there’s a couple other things to watch also. Not that it really matters, since the emails are basically just normal toons with Strong Bad talking at the beginning and end of it, but whatever, it’s all good.

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.