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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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