It's the Homestar Runner variety show! Featuring a lot of variety!

Today I’m gonna be going over some pretty interesting material. And no, this isn’t a themed post or anything, it’s just going through the usual chronological order of things. It just happens that instead of getting a string of unremarkable SBEmails, most of these toons seem to almost be going out of their way to be different from the norm. And I’m 100% ok with that. Before I get into the meat of things, there’s a couple things I want to address. First off, some current events. Yes, current. In regards to a series that has been dead for a couple years. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about yet, don’t get too excited, because it doesn’t necessarily mean the return of H*R or anything, but about a couple weeks ago, on July 18th, there was an appearance of Strong Bad and Homestar at the W00tstock event in San Diego.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0m-k6qZMx8

The toon isn’t much to look at, since there’s not really any animation, but hey, it’s the first appearance of these characters in over two years, so it’s noteworthy. I don’t really have much to say about it in general, with the exception of the line “Your Firebug show is never ever coming back.” Kind of makes you wonder if that statement also applies to a certain other series. I’m not going to get my hopes up, but Matt has gone on record saying that it will one day return without any warning, so it’s possible.

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

On a less exciting, but still-pretty-interesting note, I actually skipped over a short toon in the last post, simply called the Field Day Intro. This, much like the W00tstock thing, was shown to a live audience at a concert that was held in June 2003 (jeez, that was ten years ago, I just realized that). In between acts, various toons from the website were shown on the jumbotron, including Everybody to the Limit. This little intro was shown before that, as you can probably tell from the dialogue.

What makes this interesting is not just the fact that it’s a hidden page, but just the fact that it actually took several years to find it. A Quote of the Week from 2007 used the “sidewise” line from this, and the filename for the mp3 included the term “fieldday”, so fans tried using that as a url and happened across this. Kinda funky. And conveniently, it also allows me to segue nicely to the next toon on the list – the “Summer Jam” of 2003… or 1936, depending on how you look at it – Ballad of The Sneak.

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

I’m not sure where to begin with this one. There’s a lot to say about it, but at the same time, it’s a music video, and those typically don’t have much to comment on. So it’s mainly going to be the creation of the thing itself that I talk about here. But just to give a general opinion, I think this is a really good song, and the visuals are hysterical. There’s just a lot of great stuff going on, like the thing with the giant moustache, Sickly Sam doing the Charleston on a falling girder, and whatever the crap that “Dapper Swindler” poster is supposed to be.

This song was basically meant to be an Old-Timey equivalent of The Cheat Theme Song, and much like that one, this song was written and performed not by Matt and Mike, but a group called DaVinci’s Notebook. I did a little research (aka, looked up stuff on the Wiki like usual), and apparently they were fans of the site for several years and basically got into contact with the Chapmans, eventually forming a semi-professional relationship. This song in particular was requested to be a theme song for The Sneak, but no particular directions were given. The DVD commentary mentions that Matt originally thought it was going to be more like a commercial jingle than the full-on honky-tonk version that they ended up with.

Paul and Storm (the members of the group that worked on this song) mentioned a few interesting tidbits about the song as well. Mainly that there’s several references that either hadn’t happened yet in 1936, or were horribly irrelevant at the time, and that this was completely intentional (to match with the generic “black and white” era that previous Old-Timey toons established), but also that random sound effects were added to the song just to see what the Chapmans would animate to go with them. This led to some pretty great stuff, like Homestar’s legs randomly growing while the bottle of moonshine pops open, as well as the introduction of Coach Z’s 1936 counterpart, “Fort Wayne Locomotive”. No idea what’s up with that name. But anyway, I suppose that’s enough for this one, so next in line is a game called Population: Tire.

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

It’s impressive that in one day, homestarrunner.com updates with both a music video in the style of a 1930s barbershop quartet and a parody of games from the 1980s, and both of them are not only relevant, but are follow-ups to previous things seen on the site. This game is, of course, brought to us by the company Videlectrix, named previously as the makers of TROGDOR! (and that game "Rabbit Algebra") among others, though this is the first time the little intro ditty and their mascot (the white silhouette of the running man) appears. On this blog, I’ve already covered the revamped version of Awexome Cross 98, which also features those, but technically that didn’t come out until after this, I just reviewed it out of order.

This isn’t an amazing game, but it’s still a decent way to spend a few minutes. At first it seems like the only thing you do is bounce the tire with the mouse cursor, but there’s actually a fair amount of depth to it – hitting The Cheat, Strong Sad, balloons, and seagulls gets you bonuses (and hitting a Cold One resets your multiplier), and the flag indicates which way the wind is blowing, which does effect gameplay pretty significantly. If you get a score of at least 500, an airplane will fly by with a random message. Also, the color of the sky depends on what time you’re playing the game. In my screenshot, it’s dark blue because I was playing at about 8:00 PM. Fun fact – a Wiki user actually made a DS homebrew version of this game. It looks more fun than the Flash version. Pretty cool, I must say.

In my opinion, the best thing about this game is the crappy little storyline/instruction thing at the beginning. It’s pretty spot-on in terms of making fun of old video games that try to shoehorn in a plot that was clearly made up after the game was designed. And the randomly red words remind me of the words in quotes in the intro to the original Zelda game. But once again, I find myself talking too much about one specific update when I have plenty of other stuff to cover. So after these past few things, what could possibly be next? I suppose it could be anything.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail78.html

This one’s a little different from most of the other SBEmails. I’ll leave it to the readers to figure out what. (Hint – it’s not the fact that the email was brought up with the command “sb_enail.com”.) But seriously though, I’m not sure if they just wanted to take a break from Strong Bad for a while, but I’m not complaining. I love Strong Bad and everything, but it’s nice to see Homestar-centered toons once in a while too. I feel like the actual email for this one was probably just chosen at random, because it doesn’t seem like the kind that would usually have much potential for a funny or memorable toon. Maybe they just couldn’t find a decent one and decided to just screw it and pick a random one, but have Homestar answer it instead just to mix things up a bit. Whatever the reason was, it worked pretty well, because the whole “Homestar pouring Mountain Dew on the computer” thing is another one of those classic moments from the site that gets mentioned later on from time to time.

Other highlights include Coach Z bringing back the “Reg had the ball at the top of the key” line and the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Sgt. Pepper costume that The Cheat is inexplicably wearing. Also be sure to stick around after the ending for some words of wisdom from Homestar. Oh, and I know this has nothing to do with anything (or nothing to do with anything, as the case may be), but “Fish Lake” once again reminds me of The Brak Show (much like Gooblies from the previous email), where there’s a place called One Fish Lake. I always found that pretty funny, and have used that as a personal nickname for a small fishing pond in Zelda: Twilight Princess. Now here I am again ending a review with a Zelda reference. I need to stop doing that. Otherwise people will catch on to the formula, and it will get stale. Speaking of which, here’s the process.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail79.html

I like when things become self-aware. The website has always had that air to it anyway, but this email kind of pushes that to the extreme. I mean, how many shows can you think of where someone within the show/movie/game/whatever not only acknowledges that there’s a certain formula to things, but breaks it down bit by bit? I’m sure there’s quite a few of them, actually – the “Butt Out” episode of South Park comes to mind, and there’s stuff like Kazooie pointing out in Banjo-Tooie that when the music changes, a boss fight is sure to follow. But again, this email takes it to a completely different level.

Near the beginning, Strong Bad mentions that he always makes fun of the submitter’s name and spelling errors (and then proceeds to misspell “occasionally” shortly afterwards), which is obvious, but then he mentions the two ways of following up on that. I remember seeing a post on a message board claiming that it’s true – he almost always uses one or the other. But I just went back myself and looked at some recent emails, and it’s not as common as you think. Granted, when I hear the “something something, eh, whoever” intro, it usually stands out to me as matching that formula, but unless you’re specifically looking out for it, it’s not really something you’d catch on to. I also try to avoid doing similar things myself while writing these posts, mainly the “alright, that’s enough of that one, next up is [blank]” segues. I still do it a lot, but I try to break it up as much as possible.

I guess the last thing to mention about this one (no, it has nothing to do with Bubs and the hot bees, I’m going to just ignore that and pretend it never happened … even though it was admittedly pretty funny) is the high number of Easter eggs. By my count, there’s eight of them (the Wiki doesn’t count the “wait 10-15 seconds after the end” kind as Easter eggs, but I do), which I think is the most in any toon so far. Most are nothing home to write home about, but the stuff at the ending is pretty funny (and for the record, the Discount Alligator guy says “bald spot”. Yes, I misheard that at first too), and hey, I got a screenshot out of them. Alright, that’s enough of that one, next up is [blank]. I mean stunt double.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail80.html

I actually wanted to keep going with a few more toons after this one, but this is such a classic that I’d hate to follow up this blockbuster with something lackluster. Now since this email is another one along the lines of comic or japanese cartoon that is basically spawned a mini-series on the site, I’ll once again try to review it as a standalone thing and keep future installments out of mind. Which is pretty easy for me, since I’ve never actually watched/played the third one yet. At a glance, it seems like your typical parody of spy movies (or action movies in general), kind of like Austin Powers. But while those movies are pretty self-aware that they’re parodies, this one legitimately tries to take itself seriously, but fails miserably.

The stunts done by Strong “Bad” are of course the highlight here; my favorite being the one where he jumps into the pie factory. I just like how it’s basically reused footage, but in-universe they really did do a second take of it with the different sign. And they somehow messed up the editing to show “shark pond” again for a split second. But really, all of the scenes are funny in their own way. The weirdest is probably the one where he’s looking into a ping-pong paddle (I think it supposed to be a magnifying glass) and the tape is right behind him. And so is Homestar, for some reason.

The ending teases a sequel to be released a year later. I won’t spoil what happens, but it’s a pretty good follow-up. And reviewing this one in hindsight makes me wonder if what we saw here was the whole movie, or just random clips of it. Because if this was the entire thing, then it’s kind of lacking in comparison to the rest of the Dangeresque series. The plot is pretty disjointed, to say the least, and none of the characters are particularly fleshed-out. But again, when this was the only Dangeresque thing on the site, it was still hilarious, so I can’t complain.

One more minor thing, but it can’t go unstated – the “I’m a long-time watcher, first time writer. (Ooh! An LTWFTW!)” thing is very commonly used as an introduction by Homestar fans on forums and whatnot. I think I’m guilty of using it myself on at least one occasion, and I think someone used it in the comments on this very blog. I’m not complaining about it, just making an observation. If you’ve never hung around a Homestar fan forum before, prepare for a lot of inside jokes and random quoting. Lord knows I’ve used “crapful, geroge” as the ending to a message more than enough times. Well, whoever, that’s all we have time for today. So until next time, always remember that uh, something. Or stuff. Mumble mumble Beth looks like a dude mumble mumble.

[preeeeow]

[15 seconds later] Hey Stwong Bad, I bwought back your 80’s weference.

Random humor strikes back (not that it ever really left)

At this point, I think my main goal for this blog is to prevent any of the “articles uploaded in this month” counters on the right side of the page remain at one (or zero, for that matter). Update from the future: Yeah, I kinda failed at that goal. Oops. It’s been a couple weeks, and I have mandatory overtime yet again, but I think I can squeeze one of these out. So let’s start off the week with a good’n – crazy cartoon.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail72.html

This is another one of those emails that is pretty well-known for establishing a new aspect of the website, kind of like dragon and japanese cartoon. But the thing is, Sweet Cuppin’ Cakes isn’t really revisited that much in the future. If anything, this establishes The Cheat’s distinctive animation style. Yes, we’ve seen it already in a couple music videos, but this is the first one with The Cheat’s inexplicable voice acting and the self-glorification that tends to show up in his cartoons. I don’t want to completely glance over the actual email section of this, since the whole “I’m not even gonna call you ****** again” bit is pretty funny, but there’s a lot to talk about here, so I think that’s about all I need to mention.

So … Sweet Cuppin’ Cakes. I can see exactly why this never took off as a major spinoff of the website – it seems like it would get old pretty quickly. The “one character chases another” plot has been very successful in some classic cartoons like Wile E Coyote & Road Runner, Tom & Jerry, Sylvester & Tweety, and probably a billion others, but I’m not too sure about Sherlock (yes, that is the cowcopter’s name, according to DVD commentary) vs. The Worm and Eh! Steve! vs. The Wheelchair. I think it’s mainly because the typical Homestar brand of humor is primarily dialogue-based, not really slapstick. So yeah, I’m kind of glad it only shows up a couple times.

Personally, I find The Cheat’s cartoon to be the best part of this email, but I can see people thinking differently, since both parts are pretty solid. But you can’t go wrong with “I can do it. I will do it nine times”. I’m not sure why that line is so quotable, it just is. And then you’ve got the trophy obsession, randomly magenta Coach Z, and funky fake-out ending. It’s one of the many things on the websites that is legitimately funny, but doesn’t lend itself to intelligent discussion. One thing I will point out about it is the fact that, much like the original Teen Girl Squad episode, this cartoon got a de-SBEmailiarized version released. It was mainly to fill out the Powered by The Cheat section of the Toons page (which I still don’t see the purpose of, but whatever).

One last thing before I move on – despite me saying that Sweet Cuppin’ Cakes doesn’t make much of a comeback beyond this email, it did actually get a Main Page dedicated to it a few weeks later. It’s pretty standard fare for Main Pages, with some kinda interesting things like the HTML behind the background, but the main thing I want to point out is something I actually just learned about when I looked at the wiki page – after a site-wide April Fools gag, this page got a little glitchy in a few places for some reason. If you’re interested at all, I’d look at the wiki page, which links to a mirror of the old version. I don’t see the point in pointing out all the differences here, since they’re pretty minor and only super hardcore fans would care about it. So instead, let’s move on to the site’s best source of random, “crazy” humor – Teen Girl Squad (Issue #3).

http://www.homestarrunner.com/tgs3.html

I’m beginning to realize the futility of properly reviewing Teen Girl Squad (or any other random humor-based toons, for that matter), but that won’t stop me from at least pointing out which parts I think are funny. For this one, it’s definitely the possums. I don’t even know why, it’s just the way Strong Bad says it, and how the word just slides in from the side of the screen. The sun turning into a buzzsaw and killing the birds at the beginning is pretty great too. That now marks the third (and unfortunately, last) time that birds are randomly killed by something at the start of a TGS issue. I rather liked that running gag.

So for my attempt to analyze the un-analyze-able, I do have to question What’s Her Face’s exclusion from the rest of the group in this issue. It’s something that’ll happen a lot in future issues also. Having never been part of a squad of teen girls myself, I can’t claim to understand the mentality that goes into those kinds of things, but I just figured that if you’re going to be superficial and obsessed with looking SO GOOD, the character named “The Ugly One” is probably the one you’d exclude. I’d say it’s because she’s the smart one, but that’s actually So and So, at least if you’re talking about book smarts. What’s Her Face is just the logical one. I dunno, maybe she just doesn’t have enough money to hang out with the rest of them. I think that’s probably the best I’m going to get out of this. So maybe the next email will be slightly more intelligent. Spoilers – it’s not really. So here’s mascot.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail73.html

I’ve been staring at the screen for a good ten minutes now trying to figure out what to say about this email. I’m not the type to just write down the first thing that comes to mind, like “dumple”, and then just roll with it and see what happens. But maybe I should try doing that more often. It seemed to work out for the past few sentences, at least. But yeah, dumple. That’s an awesome name for a thing, and I always think of it when I fight the Water Dumple enemies in Pikmin. And then I end up thinking about the “really hungry and tired” Easter egg, which I always found funny for some reason.

So anyways, here we have The Cheat breaking a bunch of electronics, including an NES (I hope it was broken to begin with, otherwise that’s a complete waste of a quality piece of equipment). And Coach Z continues to confuse everyone by referring to both “The Chort” and “The Cheat” in the same sentence. Some people seem to think that he was referring to two different people, but I think it’s just Coach Z being his usual confusing self. It’s been hinted to in a few toons (not any that we’ve watched yet, from what I can remember) that his accent is pretty much bogus and done just for attention, so I see this as being one of those cases. It’s like slowbeef saying “Mare-io” specifically because it annoys viewers.

This email is somewhat noteworthy for the bit at the end that shows the notes for the CGNU fight song. I’m sure that influenced some high school bands to play the song while messing around. I say this because I know I certainly did that, and taught the song to a few other people too. And there’s a Quote of the Week from a few years later of a band playing it, so yeah, clearly I wasn’t the only one to make any use of it. And in the next email, we get to see The Cheat make use of some privileges.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail74.html

It’s nice to have a more normal SBEmail after the past few things I’ve had to review. Yes, I just called an email that involves relaxing in a crisper drawer “normal”. Compared to crazy cartoon, though… yeah. This one may have some wackiness in it, but that’s par for the course in this series. But I usually find the little things funnier, like The Cheat showing up on the wrong side of the stool and catching Strong Bad off guard. And the “hardest chord ever” Easter egg that requires eleven fingers to play. The weird “killer truck” movie that The Cheat is watching is pretty funny too. And I’ve gotta admit it – when I was younger, I went through a phase where I’d mute TV shows and just read the closed captioning. I don’t know why I did that, I just discovered the CC button one day and wanted to make more use out of it than necessary.

Well, I’ve got to ask eventually – what did The Cheat do to Strong Sad’s face and hands? Apparently nothing permanently damaging, since he’s fine the next time we see him, but still, that sounded like a drill or something, and all I can think of is a certain scene from the origins email. We haven’t gotten to that one yet, but some of you probably know what I’m referring to. But I don’t want to dwell on that too much, so instead, I’ll just ask what the “Strong Mad Bath” and “Strong Bad Math” privileges entail, and why The Cheat would want to take advantage of either of those. Or “braces”, for that matter. But alas, some things were not meant to be. So let’s see, will the next email be another sort of “reserved” one, or will it be more craziness? Well, it’s called funny, and you can see the screenshot of it right below this paragraph, so I think you can probably figure it out.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail75.html

Replace all instances of the word “funny” with the word “stupid” and I think this email would be more accurate. I was originally going to sum this one up with just the word “no” and nothing else, but after rewatching it, I don’t completely hate this email, I just hate part of it. Mainly the whole floppy disk / squee squaw / ketchup thing. I’m not going to act like this is offensively bad or anything, I just never cared for it much. So I’ll focus on the positives here.

First, the intro. It’s random, yes, but hey, I’m really not one to hate on random stuff, it’s just hard to write about. But I like little unexpected things like that, they’re usually pretty funny. And as far as the actual “funny” stuff goes, I did at least get a laugh out of the scene with Strong Bad dancing around like a complete spaz (well, that’s half of the email, but I’m specifically referring to the part with Strong Sad). And the whole bit with the ketchup bomb was kinda funny too. So overall, it’s not a terrible email, but it’s never been a favorite of mine either. Whenever I think of it, all I can think of is “Aunt Ruthie! Aunt Ruthie! There’s ketchup on the computer!”, which I always found to be painfully unfunny. And because I’d prefer to not end on a subpar email, let’s check out a couple more, starting with sibbie.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail76.html

I think this and trevor the vampire are the only emails named after the sender. Must have been pretty cool for Sibbie to see his/her email get answered, assuming they stuck around long enough to actually see the result – I sometimes wonder how many emails are sent by someone who discovers the site one day, and then forgets about it later that week. I don’t think this would be one of them though, since they knew about fhqwhgads. And I hope they remembered the cheat talk email too, because the callback to that in the Easter egg was awesome.

I’ve said a few times now that it’s very unclear how Strong Bad’s “email show” is actually being broadcast and viewed by people in-universe, but I can generally ignore this before it’s just a cartoon and doesn’t always have to make sense. But here, the song about Sibbie was recorded, remixed, put on the internet, downloaded by Strong Sad, and became a top-rated song on the radio within a matter of minutes. And then it happened again to “I Freakin’ Hate Sibbie” in about three seconds, with no recording equipment anywhere nearby. So it’s kind of hard to ignore here, but at the same time, that’s the entire point of the joke. So what’s there to say? I can’t complain about something making no sense if it’s not supposed to.

I’d also make some sort of a comment here about Strong Sad’s iPod, but I’ve never owned one, nor do I really know anything about them, so there’s not much to say. Forum posts in regards to this email were the first time I’ve ever heard of them, though, so I’m guessing they had just recently become popular. From what I can tell, they were first released in October 2001, and this email was from June 2003, so make of that what you will. Wouldn’t be the first time I hadn’t heard of something until years after it became relevant. Anyway though, one more email for today, and I don’t have any clever way of introducing it, so here’s suntan.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail77.html

I always remember this as the definitive “summertime” email, not only because of the subject, but because it was the first one to be released after summer vacation started. I had just graduated from Junior High, and many of my friends (who were also Homestar fans) were going to a different high school than me. I just remember having AIM conversations about the new emails when they would come out, this being the first of them. Judging this email by its actual merits and not my personal nostalgia for it, it’s still pretty solid overall, but that’s what I specifically remember it for.

My favorite part about this one is some of the little touches. Marzipan’s drink umbrella is an interesting design choice, and I like the Easter egg at the end that reveals that the Ab-Abber 2000 doesn’t actually include the marker. So apparently it’s just a box with instructions in it. Then there’s the matter of the cloitsterizer, which is a wooden piece of cheese on a string that the Chapmans actually saw a kid dragging around in a store once. I would really love to know the story behind that. Instead, the only stories we get out of the DVD commentary are regarding The King of Town’s sunglasses and Gooblies the stuffed lobster. But everyone knows that the best name for a lobster is actually “Hippo”.

This email also introduced the phrase “all up ons”, which is used many times in the future for a number of things, joining the ranks of stuff like “LLC,,.” and “b/w”. Except those two aren’t ever spoken aloud, so maybe they’re bad examples. But I just now realized that I haven’t really said anything about the main subject of the email. Do I really have to? Strong Bad draws fake abs on himself. That is such a Strong Bad thing to do that it doesn’t even really need to be talked about. So … yeah, I think I’m pretty much done with this one. And therefore, done with this post.

Update from the future! It turns out I actually missed an update from this timeframe - released on the same day as the sibbie email was Marzipan's Answering Machine 8.0. So let's take a look at that too.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/answer8.html

Here we have a mix of some of the usual Answering Machine staples: Coach Z being creepy, Strong Bad leaving pranks, and Homestar being dumb as usual. I'd say this particular version doesn't stand out in any huge way, but there's still some observations to be made. First of all, we have a follow-up to an older Answering Machine (4.0 to be specific) where Marzipan says that if Strong Bad is going to leave a prank call, it should be the one where she wins a contest, because that's her favorite. I can't say it's my favorite, since he's definitely had funnier material, but it was a solid effort. And I did like his stumbling over the word "stoop", though that was probably just Matt messing up and then rolling with it, rather than something actually written into the script.

This is also the first time that Marzipan receives a call from someone that doesn't exist within the same universe/timeframe as the main characters, in this case, Stinkoman. It's never fully established if the 20X6 characters exist in the future, or if they're just a show-within-a-show sort of thing. In fact, I think both explanations are given simultaneously. (I'm mainly thinking of the time capsule email for the "future" argument). But either way, it's just a joke, so who cares. Apparently I do, because I wrote about it. But one other thing that I'll bring up is that the Grape-Nuts Robot does exist here, which means that either Strong Bad wasn't completely making up that email in personal favorites, or that he decided afterwards that it was a good idea and commissioned Bubs to make one anyway. However, in that same email, Strong Bad claims that he left such a good prank call that it made the Answering Machine explode, which evidently did not happen here, unless canonically that email takes place after this.

Well, I've used the term "canonically" in reference to Homestar Runner, so I don't think there's any hope left for me to be taken seriously. So I guess I'll just head back to the future and write the second post of 2014. See you then!

Today's theme: not having a theme

Happy Fireworks, everyone! Or at least everyone in the US, I suppose. I could go ahead and review that toon to be relevant, but there’s not much of a reason to. Instead, I’ll just keep on truckin’ through the SBEmails lined up ahead of us, plus the short toon that got clumped in with them. And it seems like the majority of these are rather solid and memorable emails, too. So let’s get crackin’ and start out with autobiography.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail67.html

Despite Strong Bad calling this a solid email (and me also stating that two sentences ago), this is probably the worst of the bunch from today’s update. Which doesn’t mean this is a particularly bad email; it’s just not as good as the ones to follow it. Much like Marzipan’s Answering Machine (and early SBEmails where he never left the computer), the humor here is almost entirely audio-based, though there are a few visual gags included in this. So if you don’t like those toons, you’re probably not going to be a huge fan of this one. I do generally enjoy the Answering Machines, but I feel like this email falls a bit flat.

Out of the three excerpts of the autobiography we get to hear, I think the first (the basketball one) is probably the best, if only because it’s another instance of Strong Bad inadvertently admitting his shortcomings, which I always find amusing. And it also spawned the “Reg had the ball at the top of the key” running joke, which is … kind of inexplicable, honestly. There’s a lot of running gags in this series that make no sense, but this is a key example of one. Or an example of one at the top of the key, at least. I dunno. But yeah, that part was my favorite. The one about the girlfriend having to go to another planet wasn’t bad, but Strong Bad talking about imaginary girlfriends isn’t exactly a new concept.

The last bit just confuses me. I’m not sure which part of the scrap of paper was supposed to be funny enough to make milk and cookies shoot out of Strong Bad’s nose. It is kind of amusing, yes, but I don’t think I really get it. So they just wrote extra zeros on a one-dollar bill and were able to trick someone with it? Probably Homestar. But this is another instance of something happening off-screen that I wish we could actually see happen, and in this case, I think it would actually improve the joke instead of ruining it. And I think that Matt and Mike probably realized this later, because the next two toons actually focus on Strong Bad and The Cheat pulling off some sort of plot, or in this case, caper.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail68.html

This one is undeniably a classic, even though (and possibly because) I have no idea what’s going on. So let’s step back and look at the facts. James (the email sender) mentions that Strong Bad and The Cheat haven’t been cooperating much lately, even though I don’t believe there’s any evidence of this being the case. Strong Bad has a flashback to an incident where they break into Homestar’s house to steal some jumbles (a kind of word puzzle), but The Cheat breaks a cow lamp and they get caught. Sometime after this incident, Strong Bad gets mad at The Cheat for screwing up the jumble caper, so they stop talking to each other for a while (again, allegedly. There hasn’t actually been a big gap in The Cheat’s appearances or anything like that, so I have no idea what James is referring to, unless he’s like me and just wanted to see the dollar bill scheme from the previous email). Strong Bad realizes he’s being petty and breaks into a song for absolutely no reason, and then they make up.

If that doesn’t count as a pulled-out-of-nowhere plot, I don’t know what does. But trust me, I’m not saying this is a bad thing. I like when things make no sense (usually – the dollar bill thing is an instance where I think it doesn’t work that well), and this email manages to work itself into bizarre enough situations where it turns out to be really funny. Cinnamon-faced Homestar is truly comedic gold as far as I’m concerned (if you didn’t stick around at the ending for his second appearance, rewatch the email), and the song from this email is one of the best on the website. And I just love how there’s really no reason for him to be singing it. Feeling guilty for abandoning The Cheat is one thing, but this is a song specifically about being glad that he’s not dead. And because I feel like I should point it out, the Wiki mentions that the song is rather similar to A Sign Of The Times by Petula Clark. After listening to it, I agree. And so now that these two buddies are reunited (from the argument that we never saw – I cannot stress this enough), they can pull off all sorts of new capers, such as the one seen in Lookin at a Thing in a Bag.

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

You know, I think this one needs to be broken down a bit like the previous email, because it’s every bit as nonsensical, perhaps moreso. The way I see it, there’s two possible plots that took place here. Plot A: SB, SM, and TC pretend to look in bags in order to get Homestar curious and want to hang out with them. They then ask him to get some drinks, which he does because he thinks that then they’ll let him see what’s in the bag. He buys the drinks from Bubs (who is in on the plot), gives them to the guys, and then leaves. Bubs gets one of the drinks, and all is good.

Plot B: Bubs is actually the one who pays for the drinks (or gives them away for free – as Strong Bad puts it, he “donates the drinks to our cause”), and the entire plot with Homestar and the bags is pretty much just to waste his time and make him look stupid. To be fair, we do never actually see Homestar pay for the drinks, so this is quite possible. So which one is true? Eh, I don’t mind not knowing, actually. Once again, the fact that the toon doesn’t make much sense doesn’t really hold it back. I still find it to be really funny, and that’s all that matters.

And then this is the part where I point out a bunch of other stuff. First, the thing that Bubs was doing – allow me to quote Mike from the DVD commentary here: “I was in New York and there was some guy hawking, watches or something on the street saying ‘checkitoutcheckitoutcheckitout’, we came by the same place about three hours later and he was still saying ‘checkitoutcheckitoutcheckitout’.” Awesome. Also, “More like, you get me a drink!” is another Homestar quote that I use in everyday life. And yes, I do still use that exact wording even if someone tells me to do something other than get them a drink. And finally, this is another “Not Quite Strong Bad Email”, because much like Arcade Game, when this toon first released, there was a sticky note on the Compy that linked to the toon. Why does this matter? It doesn’t. I think they did that because fans were checking the Email menu more often than the actual homepage, so this was a way to get more people to see the new toon. But as a final statement for this toon, I’d consider it one of my personal favorites. And so is the next email – personal favorites.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail69.html

While I’ve been writing these posts, I’ve often wondered if I actually do have a favorite email. There’s a lot of really funny ones that I enjoy every time I watch them, but I’ve never been able to decide on a specific one. But you know what, I think this is my favorite, and I’m not just saying that because of the name of it. Until I find another one that makes me say otherwise, this is my favorite email. Why? Because the entire thing is hilarious, why else? Even the intro is amazing, and it’s non-stop rapid-fire jokes from then on. Matt Chapman agrees with me too (or at least did during the Flashforward 2006 conference, his opinion might have changed since then).

Short of just listing the things that make this funny, I don’t know if there’s much I can say about this email. So I’ll just mention the parts that I thought were the best. The Marshmallow’s Last Stand-style part was probably the highlight of it for me. How can you not laugh at “I like-a to say, HOLY CRAP!” “Oh nooo, it’s a Stwong Baaaad!”? I don’t even know WHY it’s funny, it just is. Of course, the soy sauce bits are a close second though. And I like how those were apparently two different emails. There’s some good stuff at the end of the email too, be sure to check both of the clickable Easter eggs multiple times, and hit the Q button for good measure.

Apparently this email has somewhat of a history for confusing fans. It’s been pointed out in interviews and the DVD commentary that they keep getting questions asking where the other emails shown in this clip show are, and so the website FAQ specifically had to mention that they were fake. I thought it was pretty obvious, but it wouldn’t be the first time someone failed to understand a joke. It does raise a question though – did any of this stuff actually happen in-universe? The Grape-Nuts Robot does make appearances later on, but that could just be because Strong Bad thought it was a good idea and then asked Bubs to make it later on. Oh, and I feel obligated to point out that Coach Z originally said “I’m a white guy with a knife!” during the stone bridge scene, and then it was changed. And speaking of people with a big white face…

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail70.html

I think my brain is broken. I went from overanalyzing caper and Lookin at a Thing in a Bag to spouting out what was funny about personal favorites without providing anything insightful, and I think the drastic change is preventing me from saying anything about this email. Or maybe there’s just not that much to say about it, that’s possible too. It pretty much all comes down to one joke, and that’s Strong Bad completely missing the obvious. You do have to wonder if he legitimately forgot about Strong Sad, or if he just refused to do anything nice for him. Well ok, you don’t HAVE to wonder that, but I’m trying to be analytical here, and I’m having a hard time.

My favorite part of this – actually, hold that thought, I remembered the awesome Easter egg. Click on The Cheat’s picture for a nice little medical diagram. You don’t get very long to look at it, so either take a screenshot or look on the Wiki. But anyway, my favorite part of this is probably either the fact that Strong Bad doesn’t have a specific apology for The Poopsmith other than “sorry I threw that first cake at Strong Sad”, or the fact that he put beans on it. And then in an additional Easter egg at the end, a bunch of other crap gets piled on top of it. I want some General Tso’s chicken now. But I can’t eat yet, I still need to write about two more emails. Or at least 2 emails.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail71.html

For all the times I’ve griped about it not being funny when Strong Bad pretends that he’s a ladies’ man, I have to admit, this is a major exception. This email doesn’t focus on any one specific thing and do it really well, but it does have a lot of smaller things that add up to a pretty funny result. The “I’ll answer two emails this week. [pause] Number two:” bit was handled perfectly, and maybe I’m just weird, but I found it hilarious when Strong Bad said “About 70 or 50 fine women”. You could tell from the inflection that he kind of dropped his expectations a bit partway through the sentence, pretty much admitting that maybe he’s not THAT awesome, but still awesome enough for 50 to show up. I dunno, it was just a funny line.

The main highlight of this one (aside from the little logo that keeps popping up, what with its funky little tune and whatnot) is the sequence of events that happens in fast-forward. There’s a lot of quick little blink-and-you’ll-miss-it gags in there, one of which actually comes into play in another …[counts] 79 emails. And no, I’m not talking about the Pigs on Head LCD game that eventually got released. Oh, and there’s a sombrero too, which are always awesome. The 2003 Ladies’ Choice Awards (dun da-na-nun da-nun *tssh*) were funny in their own right too, mainly Strong Sad’s sarcasm. And I actually didn’t even think about it until just now, but both of the emails received here were completely inconsequential in regards to that event. I like when that happens.

Ok, I lied. The real highlight of this email is actually the Easter egg at the end. Just the name alone is awesome – Uncle Strong Bad’s Flavor Taste Style Chewing Powders. “Whisk away the worries!” I don’t care if it had nothing to do with the rest of the email, that’s the best part now. It’s not like the rest of the email had any kind of consistent narrative to it anyway. That seems to be a bit of a running theme today – the theme of not having a theme. I think I know what the title for this post is going to be now. Thank you, Uncle Strong Bad, for saving me 20 minutes of trying to think of something clever.

And so now all I have to do is write some final statement about how the next post is going to include this and that, and then copy the whole thing into Notepad, paste it into the blogspot editor thing, re-add the italics, and put in the pictures and hyperlinks. Oh, and add the alt text for the images where I choose a funny quote from the email, even though I don’t know how to actually access that text while viewing the blog. It certainly isn’t the mouseover text, because that just shows the name of the toon. This is something else, and I don’t know how to get to it. Someone please tell me.



Also, by request, it would be very helpful if people helped vote for Moore, Oklahoma in this contest held by Coca-Cola. I got a message on Youtube about a week ago asking for me to mention this in a video, and, like a complete jackass, I failed to do this. But there is still time left for the contest. Moore was hit by a really bad tornado recently and the winner of this contest gets $100,000, which would help pay for repairing the damage caused. All you have to do is register for the site and vote for Veteran's Memorial Park in Moore, Oklahoma. I just did it myself and it only took about two minutes, so there's no excuse for being lazy.