Here be dragons (and blue hair)

I’ve been looking forward to writing this post for a pretty long time. I actually got the inspiration for this blog from a Nostalgia Chick review that listed Trogdor in the #1 spot for “Top ten viral videos before Youtube”. In the video, she talks about how Strong Bad Emails weren’t really her thing, but it was impossible to be around on the internet in 2003 without knowing about Trogdor. I’m sure there’s tons of people who have seen that particular email, and maybe even a few who bought the Trogdor shirt, and yet have not watched anything else on the website, or at least not very much of it. And that’s what got me thinking that hey, maybe I can expose a new generation to Homestar Runner. If Trogdor can go viral, then why can’t some of the other aspects of the site be appreciated by a wider audience?  Now obviously this blog hasn’t reached anything approaching a “wide” audience, but still, I can try. I’m getting ahead of myself though. 2003 started off not with Trogdor, but with another character that has a pretty sizable fanbase. So let’s begin today with japanese cartoon.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail57.html

This was an amazing way to kick off the year. There’s a lot of say about this email, but first let me attempt to do what I did for comic and try to review this as a standalone product, disregarding things that will come from it later on.

The main body of this toon is the scene of Strong Bad explaining the design changes of what he’d look like as a Japanese cartoon. It’s kind of similar to action figure in a way, but it goes through a step-by-step process instead of just beginning with the finished product. Much like a certain other email that I’ll be talking about shortly, now that I think about it. Now, not being much of an anime fan myself, I can’t really say for sure what Strong Bad was going for with the style he’s emulating here. It seems to be pretty similar to Astro Boy, and there’s definitely some Mega Man influence in there too (though I’m probably just saying that because of the game that got released several years later… and Mega Man isn’t a Japanese cartoon anyway, so yeah). Personally when I think of stereotypical anime, I think either Voltron or Dragon Ball Z, and this doesn’t really fit into either of those (maybe the robot boots are Voltron-ish, but that’s about it). But I do like the design they settled with.

After that scene, we get to see a short glimpse of what the show would look and sound like, and this is where the name “Stinkoman” gets inexplicably connected to the new character. According to the DVD commentary (how many sentences have I started with that line?), the line that 1-Up (20X6 Homestar) says was just a reference to the island email, and that wasn’t really supposed to be his name, but they ended up liking it and it stuck. By the way, I do have to mention here that 1-Up is one of my favorite characters on the site, at least from a design standpoint. He’s just fun to draw, and every time he shows up (which isn’t really that often), he’s entertaining to watch. I guess I’m kind of breaking away from my “no talking about future events” rule, so lemme try to get back on track. I’ve got quite a few other things to mention about this email, so I’ll break out the ol’ bullet points. Many of which are listed on the Wiki as fun facts, but these are actually somewhat interesting, so I have no problem repeating them.

• The beginning of the email is a haiku (“So cool an email, I thought you would enjoy it. Ding dong Dear Strong Bad…”), and also refers to an old email virus that said “so cool a flash, enjoy it”. This was also referred to in weird dream.
• The background music used in this email is actually from the NES game Rad Racer. Eventually Stinkoman gets a different, completely original theme song.
• Again, according to the DVD commentary, the little spaceship that shows up in one of the scenes (you can see it in the first screenshot I posted) was supposed to be The Cheat. This is apparently a reference to an anime called Tenchi Muyo, where a cat could transform into a giant spaceship. I’m just quoting the Wiki here, don’t ask me.
• 1-Up says “I wanna be the guy” in this, which many people cite as the inspiration for the game of the same name (or at least the name of it). It’s been stated by Kayin (the creator of the game) that it was not a direct reference to that, but it may have been an unconscious one. Stinkoman’s response (“no way, you’re just a kid! Don’t make me laugh!”) is really similar to a line from Tengu Man in Mega Man 8, and is apparently also from Akira.
• The fake credits that play during the “challenge and fighting” song are lifted directly from the original Legend of Zelda. This and the Rad Racer music are probably what inspired the “NES endings” Easter egg at the end. If you didn’t catch that one, there’s actually some text that you can click twice and it will lead to two different things.

Will the future hold great things for Stinkoman and his series? Yes, but not as much as you might think. First off, there’s Main Page 17, which was released a few days after this email. It pretty much speaks for itself, I think, but I do have to draw attention to the highly Sailor Moon-esque design for Marzipan shown here (and never again). Other than that, there’s a couple short toons and cameos here and there, but unfortunately, a full series of 20X6-themed toons never happens. It would have been a nice counterpart to the 1936 toons (and a certain G.I. Joe-inspired series we’ll get to eventually), but alas. Instead, Stinkoman actually gets his own game, which is actually pretty awesome. It’ll be a couple years before that happens though, so I won’t get into any of that quite yet.
 
If japanese cartoon had been followed by a run-of-the-mill email that didn’t have anything outstanding about it, I think it probably would have been a lot more popular and impactful than it already is. This is saying something, because if I had to compare it to practically any other email on the site, it stands leagues above the rest in terms of … well, popularity and impactful-ness (setting the stage for a new subseries). So far out of all the emails we’ve watched, I’d say that only homsar and comic come close to it (comic probably surpasses it, actually, but who’s measuring). But it was not followed by a forgettable email. It was followed by dragon.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail58.html

Let’s try this the same way: S, more different S reviewing the email as a stand-alone thing. I think this’ll probably last about eleven seconds, because everyone and their dog has seen this email. So once again, we have Strong Bad showing the design process of a new character, except this is starting from scratch, not altering an existing thing. After a failed first attempt, we end up with a pretty funny-looking dragon with one beefy arm, which he gives a silly name. We then get to see some of the other characters and their attempts. I like Coach Z’s crappy little wormdingler. It’s no worse than the S is for sucks dragon. Well ok, maybe a little bit worse, but it’s still awesome. Strong Mad and Homsar (in an Easter egg) are kinda doing their own little thing, and then of course Strong Sad ruins things by having an actual good drawing, which Strong Bad promptly destroys. Ok, so maybe that was more of a summary than an actual review, but I don’t have much to say about the email itself. It’s good. I don’t know if it’s my favorite (I don’t think I have an actual favorite email), but it’s still really good, the jokes are funny, the concept works out, and then there’s a heavy metal song that comes absolutely the crap out of nowhere which pretty much everybody loves. So now here’s where I get to analyze some things.

Why exactly did this email get so popular? It’s definitely funny, but so are a lot of other emails. So are a lot of other non-email toons on the website. But if you weren’t around for the Trogdor popularity boom of 2003, you wouldn’t understand. Everybody knew what Trogdor was, and could probably quote the whole email. I knew someone who had recorded the audio of it and played it to people at school just to show them how awesome it was, which is kind of stupid, since you have to see the drawings to really understand the humor of it. I also had someone approach me and ask if I had seen the Trogdor cartoon before. He said it was about some weird wrestler guy named Superbad or something who draws a dragon and then there’s a song at the end, and … well, you just have to watch it, it’s awesome. A Trogdor T-shirt made its way into the website’s store, and quickly became the #1 top-selling item. Trogdor got mentioned in the series finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The song got put into Guitar Hero 2. Seriously, what the crap happened? Well… here’s my take on it.

School can be boring sometimes. This is an established fact. Everybody likes to doodle stuff on their papers when they’re bored. So here’s the situation: one fateful Tuesday in January 2003, you remember that new Strong Bad Email you watched the day before. You start to draw Trogdor on your math paper, or whatever. It’s pretty easy, since Strong Bad teaches you all the steps. Suddenly, the kid sitting next to you looks over at your paper and sees it, and asks what’s up with the weird looking dragon. Why does it have a big muscular arm coming out of the back of its neck? You tell them about the email, and give them the website name, or maybe wait until you get home, and then you can send it in an email or instant message.

So now your friend watches the dragon email, and thinks it’s the funniest thing ever. Remember, this was before Youtube, so most of the visual entertainment on the internet was Flash cartoons. So now this friend passes on the link to some other people. All of a sudden, you’ve got a ton of people who know what Trogdor is, but not really who Strong Bad is. Or Homestar, for that matter. Homestar might as well not even exist. Some of them will check out other parts of the website, of course, but many never move beyond this first thing. They’ll scream out “TROGDORRRR!!!!” at random, quote the email (messing up the words “consummate”, “chiaroscuro”, and “thatched-roof”, of course), and all of a sudden, a plague upon society has been released.

Am I wrong? Obviously not every instance of someone hearing about Trogdor happened in this fashion, but I have a feeling that a good portion of them did. Now, this doesn’t mean that the email is bad, or that fans who started with Trogdor aren’t true fans, or anything of that sort, but it’s just weird how everything kind of exploded out of this one email. I really wonder how popular it would have gotten if not for the random song at the end. It’s funny, because that was actually a last-minute addition to the email that they decided to put in. It was supposed to just end at the Strong Sad scene, but when they were putting in the finishing touches, Matt randomly started singing the Trogdor song in the crazy high-pitched voice, and then there was no way to NOT include that.

Alright, so now that I’ve written a nearly-full-length post about two emails and absolutely nothing else, I’d like to actually jump ahead three years to January 13, 2006, when a toon called Happy Trogday was released. I can’t think of a better way to end this post than to show just how insane some fans went.

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

Good. Gravy. There’s really not much I can say about this other than … wow, people really loved Trogdor. This one’ll definitely take multiple viewings to really process all the images in the montage. You’ve got kids’ drawings, photoshops, some 3D models, dolls, and even some stupid crap like a fish stick shaped like Trogdor that was probably sold on eBay or something.

The ending of this is pretty awesome. I’m glad that they mentioned Stinkoman being overshadowed by Trogdor (and the fact that the emails came out back-to-back), but of course, even that moment itself gets overshadowed by Trogdor. Or actually, Trogador, the 20X6 version. This was a character that was first shown off at a convention, and it was stated that it would probably never end up on the actual site. But then this happened. It was a pretty cool moment for die-hard fans of the site (like myself) who knew of Trogador’s existence from the Wiki but never expected to see it show up like this.

Alright, well I may not have covered a lot of material in this post, but these two emails are a really tough act to follow. Next time things will cool down and go back to normal, which is actually kind of disappointing. I like it when I’m able to analyze stuff like this and really say a lot about something, instead of going for the more rapid-fire approach that I usually take. But I’m only a third of the way through the site’s archive, at best, and I don’t have twenty paragraphs to say about every single email, so … yeah. I’m happy with how this post came out, and I hope to see some good comments on this one. Feel free to share your own experiences with Trogdor and the way he suddenly exploded into the mainstream media.

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.

In which I review websites on my review website

So it turns out I didn’t die. I just haven’t had much of an opportunity to write one of these in a while, so hopefully this’ll be a pretty good one, and then I can get back into the groove of things again. Last time, I discussed Marzipan’s Answering Machine #7, as well as the ghosts email, which were sort of the supplementary Halloween toons for 2002. I’ve left the major toon of the holiday for the start of this post, which is good, because now I’ll have a great one to start off with today. So let’s take a gander at Pumpkin Carve-nival.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/halloween2002.html

Like the other Halloween toons before it (and the ones to come), this one has quite a lot going on, so I’mma go with bullet list format again on this. But first, I will say that this is a great example of a toon that’s even funnier the second time around, mainly because of the ramifications that the twist ending has. It makes absolutely no sense once you put any amount of thought into it, but who cares? It’s hilarious. Alright, so to start from the beginning…
 

• I like the pre-judging conversations at the beginning. I, like Strong Sad, have no idea what Coach Z is talking about (well, I didn’t before looking it up on the wiki, at least), but “The Pajama Jammie-Jam” is an awesome name for a thing. And then after that, Bubs has an easily-missable line in the background once Homestar takes center stage, which made me laugh out loud when I heard it.
• I was going to point out that there was lightning after the dramatic intro statement made by Homestar in both of the previous Halloween toons, but it actually didn’t happen in Sucky Treats. I think it still counts as a running gag though.
• Homestar’s “yeah, that’s gross” in response to the King saying that the pumpkin looked “particularly luscious” was pretty funny, and again, easily missble the first time through. And as a pointless bit of trivia, The Cheat says “The King of Town is so lame” in that scene. We know this because of a future email.
• Witches’ brew. I can’t explain why this is funny to me, it just is. I just like how Homestar brings it up not twice, but FOUR times in this cartoon. With absolutely no explanation. It’s kind of like “The Steve”. Just mention something enough times and it will become a running gag even if there’s really nothing inherently funny about it.
• I mentioned in Sucky Treats that The Poopsmith will be the key to unlocking Homsar in all the Halloween toons to follow, and that is indeed the case here, as you should probably know if you’re doing the Tab trick. Homsar’s scene in this isn’t one of his stronger performances, but it’s kind of hard to judge what’s funny and what isn’t when Homsar’s dialogue is almost entirely non-sequiturs.
• Couple things about Pom Pom’s scene – first of all, Homestar’s line has always been really memorable for me (again, for reasons I can’t really explain). Second, the pumpkin is carved in an impossible way (unless you use a piece of wire to hold up the floating piece). And lastly, I think “Second place” might actually be the best score he gave to anyone, unless “good,” “most improved,” or “not last” is considered better.
• After seeing Marzipan’s pumpkin and really thinking about it for a minute, I realize that there’s no way she would have done anything other than leave it on the vine. Most of the other characters also acted in a way that makes far too much sense. Stop and think for a second if the King would have actually carved something. Of course not, he would have eaten it. Same for Strong Mad – it makes perfect sense that he would have forgotten to carve it. I know I’m being kind of stupid and obvious right now, it’s like “yeah, Matt and Mike know their characters well and had them act in-character”, but I think this goes to show how well-defined their personalities really are, even this early in the series. It’s like a pumpkin personality test. Give someone a pumpkin, tell them to do what they want with it, and the results will probably tell you quite a bit about that person.
• Strong Bad and Bubs’s pumpkins fit their characters pretty well too, but for some reason I can’t help but feel like they’re a bit disappointing. I think that one of the characters (probably Strong Sad) should have made a really elaborate carving, but the closest to that was Pom Pom’s. I’m not sure what Bubs’s pumpkin is even supposed to be, other than some kind of weird engine that freaks out The Cheat way more than necessary.
• The ending. Oh god, the ending. I think that “Strong Bad as Homestar as Angus Young” and “The Goblin as Strong Bad as The Bee” are good enough punchlines on their own to justify the entire thing, but once you kind of analyze it a bit, there’s a few irregularities that make it even funnier. Knowing now that Strong Bad was actually the one judging everyone’s pumpkins, it puts kind of a twist on the way he treated everyone. At first it seems like Homestar is just being his usual clueless self, but it’s actually Strong Bad being a jerk to the people he doesn’t like (Marzipan, KoT, Homsar, etc). He also invented the witches’ brew running gag for some reason.
• But on the other hand, the DVD commentary for this cartoon mentions that the twist ending was actually a last-minute idea, and the toon wasn’t planned around it. I’m not sure how to react to that, honestly. So Strong Bad was actually supposed to dress up as “The Bee”? Sure, why not. Let’s go with it. Makes as much sense as imitating Homestar’s voice flawlessly. (And operating with no arms, for that matter)

The last thing I should say about this one is in regards to the Easter eggs at the end. There’s a freaking creepy one when you click on the moon, a funny one with Homestar, and an awesome one with the King. His life really is a joke. And I like how they apparently got so many emails about it that they had to flat-out say “no, Kingio Bros is just a joke” in the website FAQ.

Alright, well that took entirely too long, but it was a great toon, so it deserved it. You know what doesn’t deserve a long review? theme party.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail49.html

This isn’t as bad as some of the Tandy emails, but … I started this sentence with “this isn’t as bad as…”, so obviously it’s not that great either. The main joke of this, of course, is that their theme party should actually have no theme and just be a generic frat party. And since I’ve never been to one of those (nor would I want to), I can’t say I have any personal connection to this one, but it’s still kind of funny in its own way. The best part about this is the unauthorized use of copyrighted characters on the T-shirt (from the Easter egg). They should have given them mohawks and wheelchairs so they wouldn’t get sued.

This is not only the shorted Compy-era SBEmail, but it’s also the last one where the entire email consists of staring at the back of Strong Bad’s head with no variation. There’s still one other email I can think of that comes close to fitting that description, but it technically doesn’t count. I’ll point it out when we get there. And I guess I should say something about the Circles song, so … it’s a song that exists. I don’t know if it’s a parody of anything in particular, and I don’t think I’ve ever laughed at it, but I was able to remember the entire song when I rewatched it just now, so obviously it has some staying power. But overall, this email was probably kind of rushed, which is ok, because the next one makes up for it. Let’s celebrate 50 emails with 50 emails. Ready? Go!

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail50.html

While not as momentous as emails 100, 150, and 200, this is still a nice milestone email, and definitely one of the classics. I kind of wish that he would have answered a few more emails at the beginning before getting distracted, but it works just fine as it is currently, so it’s not a huge complaint. At least we were able to get the “matt = MATT!!” joke before moving on. And then begins the Homestar section of the email, what with the fondue pot and all them good times. Maybe he was using it for witches’ brew. The secret to a perfect brew is to use an item that will also be showing up as a running gag in the future.

I would like to know exactly what was going on in that phone call, by the way. The most accurate thing anyone’s been able to come up with was Strong Bad was talking to poachers who were offering money for Strong Sad’s feet. Which is kind of concerning, but luckily nothing ever comes from that. The major thing that everyone remembers from this email is Homestar’s various failures to delete the email, particularly the first: “BALEETED!” It’s definitely worth a look at the screen full of failed commands. If you look it up on the wiki, you’ll get a complete list, including the ones that Homestar’s head is blocking. My favorite is probably “bubs”. The best part of this email is probably the Easter egg at the end, though. It doesn’t get much better than Lord Elsington Hallstingdingdingworth. Emtarkanderundersgunderson comes close though.

You’d think that I would have some more things to say about that one, but I guess the humor kind of speaks for itself. I’ve got one more email left to talk about today, and it’s one that I have quite a bit to talk about. So let’s spend a while looking at one of my favorite things on the website, website.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail51.html

I love really bad websites. With movies, games, and the like, it’s always entertaining to watch reviews making fun of the bad ones, but websites are kind of a different breed, because you can access them for free, and you don’t have to sit through hours of terrible material to find the parts worth making fun of. You can usually tell when a website is really poorly made right after first seeing it. Hence why people probably avoid my freewebs page. For any bad website fan, I suggest going to http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/. But not until after reading this post, of course, because you’ll probably be there for a while.

Strong Bad’s breakdown of what makes a “good” website hits most of the important points here. I actually had the teacher play us this email in a web design class I had in high school just to stress what not to do. I’m not sure how common these types of pages are nowadays, but I know they were freaking everywhere in the late 90s / early 2000s, and I used to actually regularly visit a few of them. Which is kind of funny when you realize that most of these are abandoned as soon as they are made, so there’s no point in checking back, but alas.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbsite/

The highlight of this email of course is Strong Bad’s website, which you can access from the end of the email. Depending on what browser you use, you may or may not be greeted with the “WELCOME TO YOUR DOOM” sound clip (from Altered Beast). It’s got plenty of pointless animated GIFs and pictures of The Cheat (including one that will never load). Take the couple minutes it takes to look through all of it, and let yourself be taken back to the day when useless websites like these reigned supreme.

There’s a few links at the bottom, most of which do some pretty interesting things. First off is the “Enter” animation, which causes the page to load inside itself. I actually made a parody of this on my own website, because hey, why not. The mouse GIF leads to a weird little page called the Email Processing Room, which is just a looping animation of how Strong Bad processes his emails and decides which ones to reply to. This was apparently linked to in an automatic reply that you would get if you emailed Strong Bad back in the day, but this is no longer the case. Kind of similar to The Secrets That I Keep, actually. (Which is also linked to through the next thing I’m talking about.) Also worth noting are the “Pride, Detail, Ethics” signs, which link to a dead page. They used to link to something called “The Rumor”, but it got taken down. I’ve never bothered investigating this further, but archives do exist if you know where to look.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sadjournal/

Finally, there’s this little gem, known as Strong Sad’s Lament. You access it through the F10 button on the bottom of SB’s page. I like to think of this page as the most obscure thing on the website that is actively linked to. Obviously you’ve got weird crap like Wireless Bizness that practically nobody has ever heard of, but that’s never been officially linked to, whereas this can be accessed if you know where to look for it. It’s also one of the few things that has been updated a number of times since its initial release, so even the people who knew about it when it first came out might not have checked it out since then.

Strong Sad is, of course, my favorite character, so I do appreciate this blog and the extra insight into his life. There’s not too many posts, so I definitely recommend reading through all of them (only took me about 5 minutes I think). I’m not going to go into a huge review of each of the posts or anything, because I think they pretty much speak for themselves, and this post is getting long enough as it is. So just give it a look, and let’s all hope that the dead state of his blog doesn’t imply anything about the future of mine.