PAX East - 8 Apr 2018
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The Brothers Chaps appeared at PAX East in Boston, Massachusetts, on Sunday, April 8, 2018, from 1:30 PM to 2:30 PM at Dragonfly Theater. The panel was entitled "Homestar Runner: Games Games Games!", hosted by Jon Ritter. It was first announced by the PAX website, then by @StrongBadActual and the Index Page on March 19, 2018. It was streamed online at twitch.tv/pax3. The PAX website description reads:
Join creators Matt and Mike Chapman for a panel full of all things Homestar Runner, games, and upcoming projects! They will discuss games that have influenced their work, games they play now, and their plans for the future of Homestar Runner. Bring some of your best questions about thatched roofed cottages for a Q&A at the end of the panel.
A prototype of the upcoming Trogdor-themed board game, Trogdor!! The Board Game, was playable every day from 12 PM to 2 PM in Kickstarter Couchland (room 103).
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Transcript
{The projector screen shows a two-frame animation, labeled "The great webiste", with crudely-drawn pictures of "homestrunner" (kicking his legs) and "Stong bah" (lifting his arms).}
{Jon Ritter taps the microphone; the audience cheers.}
JON: Looks like some people are still funneling in, but... do you realize why you all are here?
AUDIENCE: {cheering}
JON: How has your PAX East been?
AUDIENCE: {cheering}
JON: Awesome. Please forgive me, my voice is going 'cause I've been demoing all night— all day. Um, my name's Jon Ritter from Lay Waste Games, we made a game called Dragoon, if anyone's ever heard of it...
AUDIENCE: {cheering}
JON: Uh, so, we are here for one of the most glorious things in the world, which is Homestar Runner.
AUDIENCE: {cheering}
JON: If you were alive before... I would say 1999 sometime, you may remember it. Um, it was a time before YouTube, it was a time before social media. Um, but there was an oasis out there, uh, pre-Internet, uh, I would say, uh, that was Homestar Runner, so please welcome... Mike and Matt Chapman.
AUDIENCE: {cheering}
MIKE: Thank you, Jon.
MATT: {simultaneously} Thank you.
MIKE: Thank you very much.
MATT: Thank you guys... for coming. It's super cool, we very rarely do this, {points into the audience} I see a lot of dedicated Deleteheads out there, that's... {gives a thumbs-up} fantastic. I tried to look up—
MIKE: {simultaneously} Nice.
MATT: —I found a place that made, like, paper hats like you get at Burger King and I couldn't get them to custom-make a Delete key to put on your head. So I'm still gonna work on it, I'm gonna press them, and say that "there's a market! There's like five people, I saw! The crowd will buy this!" Um, you know, it's super cool, we rarely, uh, do stuff like this, so it's been amazing to meet a bunch of you guys, and to see, uh, you guys in this room, what do you say about that, Mike?
MIKE: I say thank you for everyone for following us for... some of you, eighteen years, or fifteen years, or thirteen years, or twelve years, or ten years, or five... or one month! So thank you, everybody, for, um, sort of going on this ridiculous journey that we had no idea that it would... eighteen years later, we'd be... still doing stuff like this. So thank you very much, for everyone.
JON: So, uh, since we are at PAX East, uh, I think one thing we want to get into first is, uh, talking about, uh, how long have games been part of your life, and kind of how have they been part of your life, before Homestar Runner?
MATT: Um, games have been part of our life— Mike and I are kind of that perfect age, we've got a brother that's ten years older than— than me, uh, and so, we still got a lot of the, um, like all the '70s culture because he was so much older than us even if we weren't like consious for a lot of it. Um, so, we had, uh, you know, we had, what was it called—
MIKE: We had Stunt Cycle—
MATT: Stunt Cycle for the Atari...
MIKE: {simultaneously} —for Atari, it was a console that was just one game, and the console itself had a hand— mus— uh, motorcycle handlebars with a throttle on the right and you just... jumped buses, and then you clear, like, two buses and then a third bus...
MATT: How many buses, Mike?
MIKE: Uh, {laughs} I can jump... I don't remember!
MATT: {whispering} Some of my buses...
MIKE: {Powered by The Cheat Bubs voice} Some of my buses! {audience and Jon laugh} You jumped over some of my buses!
MATT: Did you realize that you were being, uh, influenced by Stunt Cycle when you made that Powered by The Cheat?
MIKE: {overlapping} I think so, that was the first— yeah, so that was probably '77 or '78 when we had that game... and then I do remember having the Atari 2600, and one Saturday night when my parents were gone and our older brother babysat us... and he had actually found about— uh, found out about the Easter egg on— uh, in Adventure, on, um, the 2600 which is sort of the first Easter egg ever, and you find this invisible dot and it shows the creator's name. I don't know how, in 1981, people found out about things like that, but... I remember... finding the first Easter egg in a video game.
MATT: Yeah, so we w— got to be around for sort of the birth of all of it. You know, like we got to— we were there— and, we got to go to arcades, we were there when Nintendo came out, we bought it for Christmas or whatever, we got Game Boys, we got— so it's— we were like... that perfect age where we've gotten to just grow with all of video games. Um, so, yeah, sorry, I got freaked out. Um...
MIKE: {looking at the screen} I thought you said we weren't gonna be up there.
MATT: Um... well, we gotta start showin' stuff, they don't want to see this anymore.
JON: {laughs}
MIKE: We're going to do all our animation in, uh, Google Slides from now on!
MATT: Uh, so, uh, yeah, so, uh, we'll just get right into it. So let me, uh, skip around in here, where's some stuff...
{He skips past slides of Strong Bad's Website, Thorax Corporation, a brain logo reading "fcusa", the homestarrunnerdotcom YouTube channel, End Boss, and the @StrongBadActual "health class" reply, before settling on a crudely-drawn comic. In the first panel, the character has a boulder next to him and a hole in front of him, and he says "There is something in this hole". In the second panel, he is holding a shiny dagger and saying "Wow! This weapon is as sharp a blade as I've seen!". In the third panel, he approaches a well and says "Finally, water!". In the fourth panel, he falls into the bucket and says "Oomf!".}
MATT: So, uh, this is, uh... a King's Quest comic Mike and I made on vacation, uh, in, you know, '85?
MIKE: Comic book adaptation. Yeah, probably '86?
MATT: Yeah...
MIKE: 1986? King's Quest 1?
MATT: So, uh, if you've ever played TROGDOR!, Peasant's Quest, or know any of that world of Homestar... heavily influenced by the canon Roberta Williams... uh, series of games. Uh, so I'll just— I'll just go ahead and go through this for you, there's just— there's just four pages, there's way more, I won't subject you to it all.
JON: What, so what— what year was this?
MATT: Uh, so this was probably from '85?
MIKE: '85 or '86, yeah.
MATT: Yeah. Uh, so, uh, here he is in the top-left there, he's— he's pushed over a rock, and he says, {British accent} "There is something in this hole!" {normal voice} And then, {British accent} "Oh! Wow! This weapon is as sharp a blade as I've seen!" {normal voice} That's my— I just watched a lot of Monty Python with my dad and I was just trying to... mimic what I saw. {British accent} "Fi—" {normal voice} And now, okay, now he's just thirsty all of a sudden. He found a dagger and now he's thirsty and he found a well. We were trying to adapt all the puzzles from the game into a comic, it's hard to link them. {British accent} "Finally, water!" "Oomf!"
{The slide changes to the next page. In the first panel, the character falls into the well and thinks "I'm so dumb!". In the second panel, he says "Wow! Another glowing spot". In the third panel, he starts swimming toward a rainbow spot, and in the fourth panel, he enters it.}
MATT: "I'm so dumb!" {normal voice} He falls... down into the well. {British accent} "Wow! Another glowing spot!" {normal voice} Apparently there was a glowing spot. So this is something, uh, already we were this big of nerds where there was this part in King's Quest where it defies physics, and you swim through the bottom of a well, and into just a— a like dry hole of water—
MIKE: {simultaneously} —hasn't fallen and gotten into the hole somehow—
MATT: Yeah, yeah, they don't do like— you don't swim back up, you just go right through the bottom and then it's just dry. And we were just like, that is— we just were callin' BS on that, I'm sorry. Uh—
MIKE: We can not stand for this in our adaptation.
MATT: Yeah. So, uh, thanks to those, uh, what were those smelly markers called?
MIKE: Fiddlesticks.
MATT: Fiddlesticks! Thanks to Fiddlesticks, we made this rainbow glowing spot. And it's just— I don't know, we don't explain it, you kinda smoosh through it, it looks like that thing from— from Annihilation, it's the shimmer. And you go right through there, {goopy noises}
{The slide changes to the next page. In the first panel, the character comes out of a hole, sees a boulder and some fire, and says "What's that?". The second panel shows a dragon breathing the fire, as the character hides behind the boulder, saying "Whoa". In the third panel, he throws the dagger, and it hits the dragon in the fourth panel, as the character says "That was close!".}
MATT: {British accent} "What's that?" "Whoa!" {fire breathing noises} {normal voice} And he's not gonna find out what it is, he's just gonna chuck a dagger at it, like as soon as he sees it. I'm not gonna try and reason with that dragon. It is goin' down! {dragon-stabbing noise} And it's just, like, just— that's a lot of blood there.
MIKE: That dragon, by the way, is pretty close to the Ed Emberley dragon in, uh, Ed Emberley's How to Draw Animals book. So he taught us, he taught us how to start drawin' dragons.
MATT: {British accent} "That was close!"
{The slide changes to the next page. The first panel shows the character running, saying "The mirror!". The second panel shows him holding a mirror with him dressed as a king, as he says "That's me! A-a-as a king!". The third panel has a caption reading "Later..." as he rests on a boulder, saying "I'm hungry. I think I'll have a walnut". The fourth panel shows him throwing a shiny walnut at the boulder, saying "This should crack it."}
MATT: {British accent} "The mirror!" {normal voice} You had to quest for a mirror. {British accent} "That's me! A-a-as a king!" {normal voice} And then, later, "I'm hungry. I think I'll have a walnut." {audience laughs} "This should crack it." And there was—
MIKE: Look at that hand.
MATT: Yeah, Mike drew that hand, I had to— there were some of these frames where I was like, "Mike, I can't draw somebody throwin' a hand, you gotta— you gotta take over for me." So that's a Mike frame there, for sure. Uh, so there y— so that's— that's— we were obsessed with video games, making dumb things about them, they— they already influenced our, like, culture and creativity like the stuff we wanted to make. Um, and the next thing I'll show you if you will bear— bear with us, um, this has actually been on YouTube for, like, a decade. Um... I, uh, we made a Punch-Out!! movie in 1987—
MIKE: Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!.
MATT: —uh, and it was probably 25 minutes long, and it was unwatchable. {audience laughs} So, uh, I—
MIKE: And it still is.
MATT: W— no, yes. Well, uh, that— that remains to be seen. We'll see— we'll see, uh, how— we'll look at your faces and I'll stop it if there's too much cringing happening in the audience. Uh, and so, to teach myself Final Cut, I'm like, "I'm gonna try and make this thing watchable." So, uh, I'm still gonna skip around in it, 'cause it's still kinda hard to get through. But, um, I, uh, I—
{He skips past a slide of a CD reading "doomed and confused", and goes to the "Punch-Out!!" slide, before going back to the "doomed and confused" slide.}
MATT: Oh, and also, uh, later in life, we made, uh, Doom mods, we made, uh— we were way into— into Dazed and Confused, and we made a Doomed and Confused mod. And Slater was the flaming skull, and when he'd fly, he'd go—
MIKE AND MATT: "Hey, man, what's happenin'?" {audience laughs}
MATT: And you'd hear, uh—
MIKE: We did MIDI versions of, like, Sweet Emotion, and a couple of the songs from the soundtrack.
MATT: Benny would go "I hope you're wearin' more than a jock strap under there, ya little rat!". Anyways, all right, {goes to the Punch-Out!! slide} so, here we go, guys, I give you 1987 our parents' basement, uh, Punch-Out!! The Movie, so the effects and stuff, uh, anything that you might find remotely good about this was done way later. All the bad stuff was the— was original.
{The video starts playing. Open to black.}
KID: {voiceover} Punch-Out!! The Movie.
{Cut to a kid playing Punch-Out!!.}
KID: Gosh, I wish I could fight like Little Mac. {one of the characters wins}
{Zoom in to the kid's head. Zoom out of teenage Mike's head. He is wearing an open black jacket over what appears to be a white bunched-up shirt. He speaks in a nasally voice, with something similar to a toothpick in his mouth.}
ANNOUNCER MIKE: Ladies and gentlemen, in our first match tonight, we have for you... to my left, in the white trunks, France's Glass Jaw, Glass Joe!
{Glass Joe's sprite slides along the bottom of the screen as video game music plays and a kid runs onscreen from the right with white trunks and boxing gloves.}
ANNOUNCER MIKE: {hums to the video game music} And...
MATT: {not in the video} What's happening to your shirt, Mike?
ANNOUNCER MIKE: {takes his "shirt" out of his jacket} we have... our own challenger, Little Mac!
MIKE: {not in the video; overlapping} I couldn't be bothered to wear an actual shirt.
{Little Mac's sprite slides along the top of the screen as video game music plays and a young Matt runs onscreen from the left with white trunks, a white undershirt, and boxing gloves. Mike leaves to the right.}
ANNOUNCER MIKE: {offscreen} Begin.
{A pixelated speech bubble reading "Fight!" appears from Mike's direction. A pixelated health bar appears at the top of the screen. Video game music plays. Little Mac swings at Glass Joe twice, then "hits" him three times. A sound effect plays and some health is removed from the second bar each time he's hit. Little Mac hits him one last time, causing Glass Joe to fall over. All the health is drained from his health bar. A video game sound effect plays. Another kid runs onscreen.}
KID: 1! 2! 3! 4! 5! {each number appears in a pixelated speech bubble}
{Glass Joe gets back up and the kid leaves to the left. A "Fight!" speech bubble appears from his direction.}
MATT: {not in the video} All right, so this— this goes on for way too long, so let's get... let's get to our next match here. {skips to 2:24 in the video} Von Kaiser? We'll go straight to Von Kaiser.
{Von Kaiser's sprite slides across the bottom of the screen. There is a kid with red pants, a sleeprobe, and boxing gloves in the background. He takes off his sleeprobe as a new announcer comes into the frame, speaking in an exaggerated announcer voice.}
ANNOUNCER KID: And to my right, in the red trunks, challenger Little Mac!
{Little Mac runs in from the left, and video game music plays. The announcer leaves to the right, and a "Fight!" speech bubble appears from his direction. Little Mac punches once, causing Von Kaiser to fall over. Cut to a different scene. Mike is the announcer again, this time wearing a large black wig.}
ANNOUNCER MIKE: Little Mac!
{Faded clips of Little Mac winning slide around the screen. Cut to another scene, with the second announcer.}
ANNOUNCER KID: Little Mac!
{Cut to another scene with Mike as the announcer, with his earlier costume.}
ANNOUNCER MIKE: Little Mac!
{Clips of Little Mac punching people are shown. Video game sprites slide across the screen.}
MATT: {not in the video} Mike was really hitting me really hard.
{Cut to the announcer kid.}
ANNOUNCER KID: Piston Honda!
{Piston Honda's sprite slides along the bottom of the screen and a kid with black shorts walks in from the left. He hits Little Mac, causing him to fall over. White pixelated text reading "GET UP!!" appears at the bottom of the screen, as a speech bubble pointing offscreen begins counting to five. Pinton Honda falls down. Cut back to another scene with the announcer kid.}
ANNOUNCER KID: King Hippo!
{Cut to Little Mac punching King Hippo (someone with a pillow beneath their shirt) repeatedly, as King Hippo's sprite slides in from the right, and back out to the left. Cut to Mike as the announcer.}
ANNOUNCER MIKE: The Great Tiger!
{Cut to Little Mac and the Great Tiger (someone with yellow pants and a towel over his head). The Great Tiger's sprite slides in from the right, back out to the left. The Great Tiger turns back and forth. The clip is sped up, then he moves across the screen using stop motion, hitting Little Mac every time. Cut to Mike as the announcer, with his wig from earlier.}
ANNOUNCER MIKE: Don Flamenco!
{Don Flamenco (a kid with red shorts) comes onscreen from the right. Don Flamenco's sprite slides up from the bottom. It slides back down as Don Flamenco performs a punching motion. Humming is heard to the video game music. Cut to a scene with Little Mac and another wrestler. Little Mac punches him and he falls over. A kid comes onscreen.}
KID: TKO! {a "TKO" speech bubble appears}
{Cut to another victory by Little Mac.}
ANOTHER ANNOUNCER: KO! {a "KO" speech bubble appears}
{Cut to another victory by Little Mac.}
ANOTHER ANNOUNCER: TKO! {a "TKO" speech bubble appears}
{Cut to another victory by Little Mac.}
ANOTHER ANNOUNCER: TKO! {a "TKO" speech bubble appears}
{Cut to another victory by Little Mac.}
ANOTHER ANNOUNCER: TKO! {a "TKO" speech bubble appears}
{The video pauses for a moment as victory music plays. Cut to the Punch-Out!! title screen, with Little Mac in the same pose. The audience applauds as the video ends. The presentation exits full screen.}
MATT: Uh, yeah, so—
MIKE: {simultaneously} There's that.
MATT: —so there was that. {audience laughs} Uh, I encourage you to, if you want to try and find it on YouTube, the comments are hilarious, because l— lots of people ha— most of the people don't realize this was actually made in 1987, and so they're just like {angry voice} "What sort of terrible phone or camera are you using for that?". {audience laughs}
JON: So now that we've seen your glorious creation process when you were kids, uh, {laugh} how did that—
MATT: Hasn't changed.
JON: It hasn't changed. At all.
MATT: {smiles and waves his hand jokingly}
JON: Um, with the— with the introduction of social media, and tools that make stuff like this insanely easier, uh, how did you guys do everything right before Homestar Runner and leading up to Homestar Runner?
MIKE: So yeah, right before Homestar, I mean the beginning of Homestar, the first thing we ever animated was in, um, Mario Paint for the Super Nintendo. {audience cheers}
{The slide changes to a screenshot of thoraxcorp.com, then to a video of Strong Bad's website}
MIKE: And... we were sort of... {quietly to Matt} I don't know, what— what am I supposed to say about that? {the video starts playing} I don't remember... our plan.
MATT: We didn't have a plan. This is what the internet looked like back then. It ran this chunky too, that's intentional. Um, and there wasn't a whole lot going on, and then— and then Flash came out. Uh, and it kinda changed everything, 'cause previously, even— even though we could make things like... uh, stuff in Mario Paint, then even if we filmed the TV and somehow got the video, it was like, how do you digitize that video? I mean—
MIKE: {holds up his fingers; simultaneously} This big...
MATT: —you couldn't get it on a computer. Right, it has to be this small, or how are you going to form the bandwidth for it? So, uh, and even, it's funny, looking at this, we were even, like, we w— I— I think we had a— didn't we have a— I remember—
MIKE: {overlapping} Yeah, at the time we got these pictures of The Cheat, it was a big deal because we had just gotten a digital camera, so this is 2002, and at the time it was still kind of hard to get a photographic image on—
MATT: You just had to scan it.
MIKE: —on your computer. If you had to take a picture with a film camera, and get it printed, and scan it, and then put it— you know, put it on, uh, so many discs. What were those things? Sticks, uh, these sticks—
MATT: {laughing} Memory sticks.
MIKE: Memory sticks. Yeah. Um... yeah, but so anyway, just getting a photograph on your computer was actually kind of a cool thing, I remember thinking, there's pictures of The Cheat, which is, wow. {audience laughs}
MATT: So, sixteen.
JON: So back then when you were creating Homestar Runner, what types of games did you guys play and how did that influence what you were creating for the site?
{As he speaks, the video stops and the thoraxcorp.com slide appears.}
MIKE: I mean... I think the look of the site and the look of the world of Homestar Runner has been heavily influenced by video games, our cartoons are basically sidescrolling, and they've got the blue sky and green hills background of, uh, Mario... Mario Brothers, and those types of, um, you know, Nintendo and Super Nintendo era platformers.
MATT: It's true.
MIKE: So that— uh, just the aesthetic... of the whole thing has been heavily influenced by that.
{The presentation skips past slides of a brain reading "fcusa", the homestarrunnerdotcom YouTube channel, End Boss, the @StrongBadActual "health class" reply, the four King's Quest comic pages, Doomed and Confused, and Punch-Out!! The Movie, before settling on the Videlectrix logo from Peasant's Quest Preview.}
MATT: And then, once we started making cartoons, it was kind of hard not to just let all that stuff, uh, seep into it, so, uh, we were huge Activision aficionados as kids— uh, I never won any patches, but I definitely took, uh, pictures of high scores to try and—
MIKE: Sea Quest! I think Sea Quest is still my favorite game of all time.
MATT: Yeah.
MIKE: It's really good.
MATT: So we decided to invent a— a— a company, a ficticious company that we could then have an excuse to make bad video games on our cartoon even though it had nothing to do with our cartoon. Uh, so we invented Videlectrix.
{The slide changes to a picture from the Peasant's Quest Preview "Good Graphics" Easter egg. The audience laughs and cheers.}
MIKE: Specializing... I sometimes forget what type of graphics we make at Videlectrix—
MATT: {simultaneously} Yeah, he has a hard time.
{The presentation switches back to full screen.}
MIKE: —so I get Matt to remind me.
MATT: {as Videlectrix One} I SAID GOOD GRAPHICS! {audience laughs} I HAVE TO COME IN EVERY DAY AND LOOK AT THIS MESS!
{The slide briefly switches to a WarioWare D.I.Y. video, before going back to the "good graphics" slide}
MATT: Uh, and uh, so, what else was coming out, right? When we first lived together, Mike and I were doing the website, we lived in an apartment together. Um, it was right between, uh, N64 and GameCube.
MIKE: {simultaneously} N64 and GameCube, yep.
MATT: So we were way into, uh, like, Majora's Mask, which was kind of the lovely swan song of the N64.
MIKE: {simultaneously} {unintelligible}
MATT: And then, uh, and then we got into— and then we all had, uh, GameBoy Advances too. Um, and we were way into— I— I think that— the first WarioWare micro-minigames, incorporated, it was called. {audience cheers} Still might be one of my— way in the top 5 possibly of the video games that, uh, that I like. Um, so, and I think that, um, just those short nuggets, like it was perfect, like of content, and then I played that sort of style translates really well to content for the web, especially at that time, even— even though it was Flash and it was vector, you still maybe had to make a game— a mini-game to watch or play while you loaded this, you know, {mockingly} 175K file! {audience laughs} Uh, so I think that, uh, that— that definitely seeped into all of that.
MIKE: Um... yeah. {quietly to Matt} You wanna show the Wario—
MATT: {unintelligible} Um, yeah, do you wanna— okay. {to the audience} Well, so, uh, so WarioWare, this is sort of diverging... {to Jon} is this okay to— {to the audience} uh, so we love WarioWare, and then we somehow missed— I don't know if it was just with, we had kids and stuff, or what was happening, but we just missed WarioWare D.I.Y. entirely, and we fortunately found out about it a few months ago, right before, like, the Wii Shop Channel stopped, like, letting you download its companion app. Uh, so we both bought it, and, uh, we've been busy, uh, making games, it's funny, uh, 'cause {gestures to Jon} Jonathan was just like "Oh, so you got— you made these back in the day?", we were like, no, we made these like last week! {audience laughs}
MIKE: And we can literally only share them with each other.
MATT: Yeah. Uh, so here's a little compilation that we outputted from the Wii, uh, and Mike's got his DS here, we've got a webcam and we can maybe show you, if— if this doesn't cover everything. Um, you'll— you'll recognize some faces, some fun faces.
{The slide switches to the WarioWare D.I.Y. Showcase video. The video starts playing.}
{Cut to a blue "Shuffle" Wario TV. The text "Become a MAN" appears as the Wario bomb starts counting down. Cut to Homestar with sleepy eyes and a nightcap, holding a bottle of cinnamon. The mouse pointer taps the cinnamon, causing dots to appear on Homestar's chin, with the text "Poof". The stylus taps again, causing more dots, with a "PAFF!". The stylus taps again, causing a full cinnamon beard, with a "PUFF!" as Homestar smiles and opens his eyes wide. Confetti rains down and the bomb blows up.}
{Cut to a red "D.I.Y. Games" Wario TV. The text "Jump in Car!" appears as the Wario bomb starts counting down. The Dangeresque theme plays. Cut to Dangeresque on top of a building, both silhouetted against the sunset (except Dangeresque's cool, cool glasses and the building's windows, which are yellow). The Gremlin is below, unsilhouetted in front of the building, moving to the right for a few seconds, then stopping repeatedly. A curved dotted line is in front of Dangeresque, pointing to an X on the ground, showing the direction of his jump. Dangeresque jumps too early, and smashes on the ground as the scene turns black-and-white. The bomb blows up, and the Wario TV breaks. The game restarts. After the car moves twice, Dangeresque jumps and lands in the car. The Wario bomb blows up.}
{Cut to a red "D.I.Y. Games" Wario TV. The text "Shoot Eyes!" appears as the Wario bomb starts counting down. Space music plays. Cut to outer space, where the Space Machine is moving up and down on the left side, and a giant Bozar is moving up and down on the right. The Space Machine shoots three times, but misses. The bomb blows up, and the Wario TV breaks. The game restarts. Again, the Space Machine shoots three times. The first shot hits Bozar's eyes, turning his head red. The bomb blows up.}
{Cut to a red "D.I.Y. Games" Wario TV. The text "GO DUMPLES!" appears as the Wario bomb starts counting down. The CGNU theme plays. Cut to the Athletic Field, where the scoreboard simply reads "CGNU". There is a Super Nintendo, a radio, and a trophy on the ground, and Homestar Runner as the Jolly Dumple dances in the background. A golf club at the bottom of the screen moves left and right repeatedly. It swings rapidly, hitting all three items. The bomb blows up. The game restarts. Again, the golf club hits all three items, and the bomb blows up.}
{Cut to a blue "Shuffle" Wario TV. The Wario bomb starts counting down. The TROGDOR theme plays. Cut to Peasantry. There is a thatched-roof cottage on the right side, and Trogdor on the left, moving up and down with four fireballs in front of him. The audience cheers.}
MATT: This is not a game, just— it's a— it's a tech demo!
{The bomb blows up, and the Wario TV breaks.}
{Cut to a red "D.I.Y. Games" Wario TV. The text "Jump Roofs!" appears as the Wario bomb starts counting down. The Dangeresque theme plays. Cut to Dangeresque running on top of buildings, with everything silhouetted against a purple background (except Dangeresque's cool, cool glasses and the buildings' windows, which are yellow). Dangeresque jumps over spaces between buildings.}
MATT: This is a— an endless "gonna have to jump"-er.
{Dangeresque jumps twice, and misses the second time. The bomb blows up, and the Wario TV breaks. The game restarts. Dangeresque fails to jump the first space, and falls immediately. After a few seconds, the bomb blows up, and the Wario TV breaks.}
{Cut to a blue "Shuffle" Wario TV. The Wario bomb starts counting down. Cut to the Smoky Office, as portrayed in Dangeresque Roomisode 1: Behind the Dangerdesque.}
MIKE: I didn't get very far on that one.
MATT: That was unfinished.
MIKE: But that lamp is, uh, {unintelligible}
{While Mike speaks, cut to a red "D.I.Y. Games" Wario TV. The text "BURNINATE!!" appears as the Wario bomb starts counting down. The TROGDOR theme plays. Cut to a brown wood table with Trogdor on the right side, and three Trogdor!! The Board Game tiles arranged vertically on the left side. The top and bottom tiles are burninated, while the middle is unburninated. A pair of dice is in the corner.}
MATT: That's a nice Dangeresque office— {the crowd cheers upon seeing Trogdor} oh, here's a d— a demo of the Trogdor game!
{Trogdor moves toward the unburninated tile and burninates it. The tile flips over to the burninated side. Trogdor jumps up and hits the top of the screen, shaking it. The bomb blows up.}
{Cut to a red "D.I.Y. Games" Wario TV. The text "Cross river!" appears as the Wario bomb starts counting down. The Peasant's Quest theme plays. Cut to a tree and a river in Peasantry. Rather Dashing is on the left side, walking toward the river. Four words are floating around, "bridge", "build", "pinecone", and "get". A command bar is at the bottom. The cursor clicks "build" and "bridge". They appear in the command bar, and a bridge appears. Rather Dashing walks across, and dances. A response appears:}
Somehow
you make a
bridge even
though you
failed out of
bridgemaking
school.
{The bomb blows up and the game restarts. This time, "get" "pinecone" is selected. Rather Dashing falls into the river.}
You got a
pinecone &
then fell in
the river
You dead.
{The bomb blows up and the Wario TV breaks. The game restarts. "build" "pinecone" is selected. Rather Dashing falls into the river.}
Build a
pinecone?
That's your
big plan?
You dead.
{The bomb blows up and the Wario TV breaks. The Game Over screen is shown.}
{Cut to a red "D.I.Y. Games" Wario TV. The text "Don't drown!" appears as the Wario bomb starts counting down. The Peasant's Quest theme plays. Cut to a cliff over water, with two cows on it. Rather Dashing is walking toward the cliff. Four words are floating around, "meat", "cows", "talk", and "hold". A command bar is at the bottom.}
MATT: One more. One more!
{"hold" "cows" is selected. Rather Dashing falls.}
Holding
cows isn't
how mama
raised you.
You dead.
{The bomb blows up and the Wario TV breaks. The game restarts. "talk" "meat" is selected. Rather Dashing falls.}
Meat
doesn't
have
ears.
{The bomb blows up and the Wario TV breaks. The game restarts. "hold" "meat" is selected. Rather Dashing holds up the meat, and an eagle carries him away.}
A bold
eagle flies
down and
snatches
the meat.
Hold on!
{The bomb blows up and the game restarts.}
MATT: Wait, that's the last one.
{"talk" "cows" is selected. Rather Dashing falls.}
The cows
tell you not
to walk off
the cliff. You
don't listen.
{The bomb blows up and the Wario TV breaks.}
{Cut to a red "D.I.Y. Games" Wario TV. The text "Nine Times!" appears as a Wario bomb starts counting down. Cut to the Powered by The Cheat Field, with Strong Bad on the left and Homestar on the right. Strong Bad kicks Homestar in the face nine times. Each time, the number appears at the bottom in a different color. On the ninth time, Homestar's head explodes, leaving smoke rising out of it. Strong Bad dances. The bomb blows up and the game ends. The video ends.}
MATT: There you go.
{The audience cheers.}
MATT: Do you have anything else, Mike, that— th—that we didn't show, that's on your DS?
MIKE: {simultaneously} Let's see... {takes off his glasses and looks at his Nintendo DS} Not— let's see, I did start to make a StrongBadZone one, but I didn't get very far.
{As he speaks, Jon Ritter walks in and adjusts some equipment. Matt minimizes the presentation, revealing his desktop image: a gorilla with a spacesuit poorly drawn on in white outlines. There are numerous files and folders scattered around, including some images that were seen earlier in the presentation. The audience laughs at the desktop image. Matt opens the Photo Booth webcam, makes it fullscreen, and points the camera at Mike's DS. A StrongBadZone-like WarioWare D.I.Y. game starts.}
MIKE: Oh, no, that one.
{The bomb blows up and the Wario TV breaks. The game restarts.}
MIKE: Oh. There it goes—
MATT: Died!
MIKE: Here it goes again.
MATT: Here, back it up a little bit so it's— it zoom— i—it's out of focus.
{The camera backs up, showing the game clearer. The audience cheers.}
MIKE: StrongBadZone, this webcam, there we go.
{The bomb blows up and the Wario TV breaks. The game restarts.}
MIKE: All he does is move back and forth.
MATT: {laughs}
MIKE: It's very exciting to make games—
MATT: {Vector Strong Bad voice} YOUR NOTHING A SPLODE.
{The audience laughs.}
MATT: Anything else?
MIKE: Um...
MATT: Anything great?
MIKE: I don't think anything great, for sure.
MATT: Aww. What about just your face? {holds the camera up to Mike's face} Let's just look at your face.
{Mike makes an exaggerated concerned face. The audience laughs.}
MIKE: That's pretty great, right?
MATT: I thought you had more in there, all right, we'll just— we'll just turn that right off. {minimizes Photo Booth}
MIKE: {simultaneously} Well you know, I gave— I gave you pretty much everything.
{Matt reopens the presentation.}
MIKE: Oh. No. Sorry.
MATT: Oh, got somethin' else? {minimizes the presentation and reopens Photo Booth}
MIKE: One more— it doesn't do anything, but I was working on, um... how to make Thy Dungeonman-style, uh, amber... graphics.
{Mike shows a WarioWare Thy Dungeonman 3-like orange drawing of an eye. The webcam freezes.}
MATT: It froze. It froze.
MIKE: It froze.
MATT: They can see it.
{The audience laughs.}
MATT: It's really— tha— see— {Videlectrix One voice} Finally you make me some GOOD GRAPHICS! {the audience laughs} After eighteen years!
MIKE: {overlapping} It's an eyeball. {pause} Oh, that one did have a game, you just have to turn the eyeball red. You tap it three times, and the eyeball turns red. Pretty fun, huh?
MATT: Frantic eyeball gameplay! {pause} Uhh, what else, Jonathan? {laughs}
MIKE: Yeah, we're done, we're out.
MATT: {simultaneously} Can you steer us— We're way over here, {gestures away} can you steer us back?
JON: Yeah, yeah, I got you, I got you, I got you, all right, uh... back when you created the game— created Homestar Runner, and you were doin' all this... crazy stuff, uh... you had a ton of fans. A lot of which are here.
{The audience cheers. Mike puts his glasses back on.}
MIKE: Thanks, guys! Thanks, guys!
JON: How have you... stayed connected with those fans, brought in more fans... utilized social media, like, wh— theh— social media didn't exist back then, it does now. Like what do you do... current day? In the— in the day that Flash might die?
MATT: {overlapping} We go to PAX once every ten years. {the audience laughs} Uh, no, so back then, uh... we always— and this is a fine approach for other people, we were very much not into the, like, {pausing in his sentences with an exaggerated tone, clearly making it up as he goes} we wanted a creators' section of the website, where you... we blogged about how hard it is making Flash cartoons, and oh look, I, you know, slipped on... coffee this morning. Get twelve million subs! {normal tone} Um, so no, we were, uh... we just wanted to focus on the cartoons. We just wanted to make new stuff, if we had time to spare, we figured it should be spent on making new stuff for people that would enjoy it.
MIKE: Yeah, a weekly cartoon was sort of the other way of doing things. If we had sort of engaged and done a bunch of, uh... gone to a bunch of cons and stuff, I think it would've... prevented us from being able to make... the content we make.
MATT: {simultaneously} Yeah, so—
MIKE: ...so we chose to make content and focus on that.
MATT: Which, now our weekly cartoon is like the— the chumpiest schedule... uh, for production, apparently. Like according to the current cycle of YouTube life, it's just like, "Sorry, it's been five minutes. You didn't make a new cartoon? Unsubscribe!"
JON: So now— now, in your spare time, 'cause you're not making content, uh...
MIKE: {sarcastically} Thanks, Jon! {the audience laughs} Youch!
{Jon comes over and hugs Matt}
MIKE: We put up a new cartoon last week... man!
JON: No, no, no, no, no.
MATT: {Strong Bad voice; simultaneously} Always be'sing and do'sing...
JON: What... what game— what games do you guys play? Currently? Well, besides WarioWare.
MIKE: Uh, not much. I'm mostly Nintendo, I got— I've got a Switch that I play... Mario Odyssey, and with my daughter, and, um... yeah. Mostly Nintendo... we're mostly Nintendo gamers.
MATT: {simultaneously} Yeah, we'll always buy whatever new... new, uh, console Nintendo puts out. Um... I sometimes buy— I have a PS4, I got No Man's Sky, and, uh, I— I've played it a little bit. Um, I don't have a ton of time, like there's so many awesome games, like, uh, so we stay in the sort of indie realm, because they're like, they're... they're— the sensibility just feels like... uh, closer to us, and also they're just like they're usually bite-sized, there's just smaller teams, the game has to be smaller, so I have time to actually play it, and finish, and enjoy it.
JON: So um, instead of playing games... you're actually working on a game, that, is it kind of a secret, but not really?
MATT: Not really at all, I guess, at this point.
JON: {mumbles} Does anyone here know about it?
{The audience cheers.}
MATT: It is not a video game...
JON: No.
MATT: It is a board game. Uh, {changes the slide to a photo of Trogdor!! The Board Game} with this guy.
{The audience cheers.}
MATT: Uh, so, Mike and I, uh, we were late to the tabletop thing, I mean we were always had a few games, uh, in the cabinet, but, uh, but it wasn't really until we had kids, and wanted to start playing games with our kids, and we were like "what's the current gaming landscape like for tabletop stuff?", and got into, like, Ticket to Ride, and {unintelligible}
MIKE: {simultaneously} {unintelligible}
MATT: {unintelligible} Yeah, exactly, and that just sort of opened the floodgates, and then, now we're in like a, you know, we're still on season one, and the world is in horrible shape in Pandemic season one. But we have like a group that meets now, that does Risk, Legacy, and so we're much— we're still not, like, we're still learning and, and— and anyways. So this stuff is in the front of our brains, and we were— we were walking around L.A. after some, uh, uh, L.A. meetings...
MIKE: {simultaneously} {unintelligible} meetings.
MATT: And, uh, and just started, like, talking about, like, "we should make a game!" and we started— and by the time we got home, we just started 3D printing prototypes and printing out cards and we started banging out this Trogdor game. Um, so it's sort of an adaptation— it's the board game adaptation of the video game adaptation of the song from the cartoon that a pretend wrestleman sang. Fifteen years ago.
{The audience cheers.}
MATT: Um, we say it's a— it's a game of burnination, cooperation, and peasant-tation.
{The audience laughs.}
MATT: Uh, my daughter came up with that, actually. Uh, and, uh, so yeah, so it's cooperative, you're all Trogdor, 'cause no one can actually control Trogdor, so you're all— you each assume the role of a Keeper of Trogdor, and, uh, you each have different powers, and you move Trogdor around Peasantry, the tiles are flippable and burninated on the other side, as you can see, the cottages are flippable too, they have fire on the inside. Um, peasants wear this flaming helmet and then leave a path of, like, chaos and— and fire after you move them. Uh, and, uh, we— we demoed it the last few days, thanks to Kickstarter and their Kickstarter Couchland. And, um...
{The audience cheers.}
MIKE: It was a lot of fun.
MATT: Yeah, and, uh, I— it seemed like everyone had a lot of fun. They were either the nicest, uh, playtest demo people, and were just leaving, 's like {whispering} "Oh my God, that was horrible! Did you see?" {normal voice} And, uh, which is like, that's okay too, I'll take that. Um, but it seems like people were into it. So we're hoping— it's still, uh, in development, we're working with James Ernest from Cheapass Games, um, {the audience cheers} who made Tak, he made, uh, Kill Doctor Lucky, which is a fantastic reverse Clue where you're— you're all trying to murder one guy. Uh, and, uh, in a mansion, which is super fun. Um, so, Mike and I brought him, like, a, um, it had all the elements, like we brought him these cards and these movement stuff, and, uh, and then, he is helping us undo all of the, like... no-nos that we did in board gaming. Um, and so, we're going to Kickstart this late summer, is the hope, and, uh, so, which, uh, because, so, uh, that said, these are all 3D-printed prototypes you see here, of the knights and peasants and Trogdor. {changes the slide to a rough draft of the box art} Um, this is like the box art, this is like the first rough, he cranked this out in like a half an hour, his name's Chris Schweizer, who, uh, he does the Crogan's series, he does, uh, The Creeps, which is this, uh, um, cool kids, um, graphic novel, and then, what's his— what's his blog? He does this awesome Schweizer Craft, he makes these, like, papercraft, like, things, he's going through history and drawing different, um, like, warriors throughout history, so he was perfect for this. {changes the slide to the Kickcheater logo from sbemail 206} Um, and, uh, and then, yeah, so we're doin' a— we're doin' a... {the audience laughs} We're doin' a Kickcheater. {changes the slide to a Trogdor miniature piece} Uh, and so that's what the, the, the, like, sculpt will look like, so they— it will take a while to produce, because we want the Trogdor to not just be a mini, we wanted it to be a full color, uh, vinyl figurine... that you'll get. So, the peasants and things will be... not bad quality, just not quite as fancy. Um, we got the guy who did all of our old, um, figurines, I'm gonna let Mike finish this sentence, because I keep talking.
MIKE: {laughs} The guy who did our figurines fifteen years ago, Rick Van Velsor, he, uh, kinda stopped doing, uh, sculpting toys, and so we called him, and he's like "yeah, I'll do it", and he got out all his wax and tools and sculpting stuff, and I think he enjoyed getting back into it doing sculpts that he's done Trogdor, {the slide changes to a peasant} and the flaming, {the slide changes to a burninated peasant} running around peasants...
MATT: {simultaneously} These— these are unpainted.
MIKE: ...on fire... {the slide changes to the archers} the archers, um, Mendelev and Dongolev, {the slide changes to a burninated cottage} a flaming cottage, {the slide changes to a knight} and then some... knights... {the slide changes to the Troghammer}
MATT: That's the Troghammer. He comes out and, we say that, uh, after a series, a point in the game he comes out and makes it harder, and he's like the, um, board game equivalent of the Mario music getting faster in the last ninety seconds. {imitates the sound} Um... uh, what else, Mike? Do we have some... we have some friends below the table that might want to say hi.
MIKE: Oh yeah, we can always do that.
{The audience cheers.}
MATT: That sounded like a weird euphemism, and it's... {the audience laughs} not intended that way.
MIKE: {simultaneously} {unintelligible}
MATT: First, this— this guy's been stuck in a, uh, in a suitcase for, like— Mike— Mike went camping right before this, so this guy's been stuck in a suitcase for, like, a week and a half, maybe. He's— he's not doin' so good.
{Matt brings up Puppet Homestar, with his eyes twisted sideways. The audience cheers.}
MATT: In addition to the fact that I've been speaking, uh, like Strong Bad for three or four days in a row now. Um, well, I'll just... I'll just let you listen.
HOMESTAR RUNNER: {speaking in a strained voice throughout} Hey, guys.
{The audience laughs.}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: Things aren't going so great for me right now. I'm fallin' on some hard times. Can somebody get me a sandwich? How you doin', PAX East?
{The audience cheers.}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: It's so nice to see you guys. I don't have arms, or I would move my eyes to happy eyes. But this is all you get. I'm so sorry, you guys. I wish I sounded like myself. I've been smokin' twelve packs a day. I'm so stressed out from bein' at PAX. It's like that suitcase. They wouldn't let me out. {Matt pushes Homestar back under the table} And now, they're makin' me go back under the table.
{The audience cheers. Matt starts bringing up what appears to be a Strong Bad puppet, then stops.}
MATT: Were you expecting something else? {starts navigating his computer} Uh, here, why don't we... I always say it's best to... to give our friend Strong Bad some ammunition. Uh, so where are we here... so, I thought I would, uh, play you guys... uh, right before Homestar Runner, uh, {to Jon} where— how are we doin' on time?
JON: Uh, we're good, we're good. We got twenty... eight minutes.
MATT: All right. {thumbs up} Uh, Mike and I went to film school, and this was— I graduated in 19— 1998, and so it was before digital film was really a thing that you could afford, um, I moved back to Atlanta, it was before they filmed all of the Avengers movies in Atlanta, and you could get no kind of film work in Atlanta. Um, and I was like, I just really wanted to create— I wanted to make stuff. And then also, all my other friends hadn't gra— I got to graduate six months early, so like, nobody else I knew was even in town to even collaborate, or make anything with. And, um, I was way into Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight at the time. And, uh...
{The audience cheers.}
MATT: So, uh, so I got into, uh, to level, uh, editing, and modding, and found like "Wait, I can make cutscenes? I can put in my own sound clips? I can put in my own textures? Like, I can— I can make films with this!" So, um, I put out a— a little level called The Mechanics of the Force. And, which is a play on words, because you're a droid that gets the Force! {the audience laughs} So I was like, I was messin' with Star Wars canon way before Rian Johnson, like I was being... committing some, uh, serious, uh, what do you call it... what's the— sacrilege, that's the word I'm looking for. Anyways, I, uh, i— it's terrible, and so I figured I'd let, uh, Strong Bad, uh, ha— uh, have a go at it.
{Matt clicks a file called "motf_gameplayshort.m4v" in a "paxvidz" folder. The only other file in the folder is "sbemail94_yt.mp4". The video begins, showing an episode selector. The only episode included is "MOTF 1", subtitled "The Force Within".}
MATT: The audio's real low, so don't sweat.
{A Star Wars-style title screen appears, reading "STAR WARS: MECHANICS OF THE FORCE". The audience cheers.}
STRONG BAD: Okay, this is really quiet.
{A ship starts approaching from the left side of the screen.}
STRONG BAD: Is there supposed to be— man, there's some serious aliasing happening there. Whoa, what's that?!
{The camera angle changes, revealing the ship approaching a planet. The text "A freighter delivers a load of droids to a smelting facility on Baok 4" appears onscreen.}
STRONG BAD: A giant metal space whale! {reading} A freighter delivers a load of droids to a smelting facility on Baok 4. That sounds like a made-up Star Wars word.
{A small ship flies from the freighter.}
STRONG BAD: Oh there it goes! Peow! That planet is clearly 2D.
{The player falls down in first person into a conveyor belt full of droids leading to an incinerator.}
STRONG BAD: Whoa!
{The text "Where am I? Oh No!" appears onscreen}
STRONG BAD: Where am I? Oh no! Oh, look at all these droids, they're dying in a pit! What, where are we? The texturing is terrible in here.
{Two guards start running toward the player. The player picks up a Battery and a Stormtrooper Rifle. As Strong Bad talks, the player shoots both guards and picks up a Red Key.}
STRONG BAD: Oh no, these guys! Goatface! Shoot-'em-up Dan! Oh, I got 'em.
{The player picks up 3 Energy Cells, and turns toward a window with panels in front of it.}
STRONG BAD: Okay let's see... lotta panels... I wanted every panel to do something. None of the panels in video games do anything!
{The right panel is activated, each time causing an explosion on the conveyor belt.}
STRONG BAD: That one makes explosions.
{The left panel is activated, each time causing droids to fall from a hole in the ceiling.}
STRONG BAD: This one makes droids! Put 'em together...
{The right panel is activated, blowing up the droid.}
STRONG BAD: Sorry, R5-D4!
{The player walks through a door into another room.}
STRONG BAD: Let's see, where we going to—
{Cut to the player shooting a guard.}
STRONG BAD: Oh! Blew that guy away, goin' here...
{The player walks to a door labeled "Memory Banks".}
STRONG BAD: Uh... {sarcastically} I wonder what's in there.
{The audience laughs. The player presses a panel, causing the door to spark.}
STRONG BAD: Uh, that door doesn't work.
{The text "Memory banks! I've got to find a way in there." appears onscreen.}
STRONG BAD: In case you couldn't read I guess, "Memory banks! I've got to find a way in there." I really was handholding.
{Cut to the player on the other side of the conveyor belt. The player activates the right panel, each time making a Gonk droid fall from the ceiling.}
STRONG BAD: Oh, this makes Gonk droids.
{The player activates the left panel, blowing up the Gonk droid.}
STRONG BAD: Yes! This is the best factory ever!
{The audience laughs. The player activates the right panel several times in a row, spawning several Gonk droids.}
STRONG BAD: More Gonk droids!
{The player activates the left panel, blowing up the Gonk droids.}
STRONG BAD: Let 'er rip!
{The player activates the right panel several times in quick sucession, spawning more Gonk droids.}
STRONG BAD: {rapidly} Press press press press press press press press press press press press press.
{The player activates the left panel, blowing up most of the Gonk droids.}
STRONG BAD: Dooj! Oh no, a couple survi— {activates the left panel again} there we go. Take 'em out!
{Cut to another area. The player approaches a door.}
STRONG BAD: What's in here, let's see.
{A cutscene begins, showing two guards standing above an unconsious man with a lightsaber on the ground nearby. Text reads "Filthy Jedi brat! Should've finished your training before meddling with us!", followed by "Your stupid religion can't save you now." The camera rotates around the room angularly.}
STRONG BAD: Ooh! A cutscene! Look at the smooth rotating camera! {robot noises} Movin' on some... serious angles there.
{Cut back to the door.}
STRONG BAD: It looked like they... they killed a Jedi in there.
{The player shoots the door open, and the guards attack.}
STRONG BAD: Waste these guys... oh, the—
{Another window opens, then disappears. The player falls, and "Press FIRE to restart this level." appears.}
STRONG BAD: Whah! Whoa! What's happening? Oh, I'm dead! Look at that sweet custom skin.
{Cut to another area.}
STRONG BAD: I just used other, like, textures from the game and stuck 'em on the normal model.
{The player looks at a red screen showing green wireframe models of droids with changing text.}
STRONG BAD: Ooh, that's a custom GIF. Wireframes of some droids...
{The player moves to an astromech droid in a display case.}
STRONG BAD: Ooh, and there's a droid on that side... Little R5 over there and...
{The player moves to a protocol droid in a display case.}
STRONG BAD: Ooh, and a... protocol droid! Let's see what happens if we press this button over here!
{The player activates a panel, and the two droids merge in their separate display cases. The audience laughs.}
STRONG BAD: Wah! What's happening?! Oh my God! It made an abomination! What sick sort of factory is this?
{The player collects Rail Charges and Power Cells while moving to the wall to observe pictures of guards.}
STRONG BAD: Now where are we? We're... what is this, pictures of like the employee of the month? {the audience laughs} Here at the smelting facility? 17 days without blowing someone up with a thermal detonator!
{Cut to another area. The player opens a door and finds a screen reading "STORED DATA TO BE BULK ERASED", "PROTOCOL DROID MEMORY BANK", "SUBJECT: 3TD". Panels sit below the screen.}
STRONG BAD: Ooh, stored data, more... more custom GIFs that are... really chunky-lookin'. "To be bulk erased"! Oh no! You're a protocol droid whose memory had been erased. Let's see, let's see what these... sweet memories look like! I smell cutscenes!
{The player approaches the panel and a cutscene begins, showing a Jedi in a gray stone area using a training remote, with an older man standing nearby. Text reads "ThreeTeeDee! That's me, These must be my memory banks!", followed by "Objective completed!".}
STRONG BAD: Okay... it's a pretty boring life.
{Cut to another scene. The two Jedi are standing in a spaceship with an orange astromech droid.}
STRONG BAD: Okay, we got a... orange droid.
{Cut to another scene of the two Jedi in a brick house.}
STRONG BAD: He just stood around with these two guys? His whole life?
{Cut to another scene of the two Jedi in a circular canyon.}
STRONG BAD: That's it, he just stood around in circular rooms with a Jedi and an old guy! That's all he did!
{Cut to the dead Jedi on the ground.}
STRONG BAD: This poor droid! Had a terrible life.
{Cut to another area. Text reads "Entered Secret Area!", followed by "Battery Health Pickup" and two "Oil Tank"s. A nearby screen reads "CARGO MAGNET --ON--"}
STRONG BAD: Okay, let's skip to the end, you guys. This is the best part. "Cargo magnet"... "on"? Let's turn it... off.
{The player activates a panel. Cut to another room. Four guards are crushed by a large metallic object. The audience laughs.}
STRONG BAD: There we go.
{The video ends and the audience cheers.}
STRONG BAD: All right, that was the best part. All right, I— that was a pretty terrible level. But at least it had a— a good grand finale {pronounced final-ay}. {pause} Hi, PAX guys, thanks for— thank you guys for coming out.
MIKE: Strong Bad.
STRONG BAD: What?
MIKE: I'm eating lozenges for... sustenance, this is my fourth one today. The first two were breakfast, and this is my lunch.
STRONG BAD: That's great. Will somebody get Mike some lunch?
MIKE: {laughing} No... that's not what I'm saying, but I keep chomping on them.
STRONG BAD: {overlapping} Oh, okay. Hey, Jonathan, what's going on, man?
JON: We're gonna do some Q&A.
STRONG BAD: Some Q&A.
MIKE: Q&A.
STRONG BAD: You guys wanna talk to humans and/or puppets?
{The audience cheers.}
MIKE: Puppets...
STRONG BAD: We don't normal— {pauses}
JON: So if anybody has any questions, line up at the mic right here. Walk, don't run, walk, don't run, walk, don't run. Um, we're gonna get a couple in, hopefully, we get a little bit of time. Uh, so your question for Mike, Matt, or Strong Bad, uh, whoever's first.
{Mike picks up the Homestar puppet.}
MIKE: {regular Homestar voice} Homestar Runner's really great!
MATT: Mike will be Home... Powered by The Cheat Homestar.
JON: Oh... oh, what's that?
MIKE: We have gifts!
{Someone places a package on the table.}
MATT: A traveller approaches!
JON: Thank you so much.
STRONG BAD: This isn't going to explode, is it?
{Matt tries to unwrap the package with his free hand, and Mike comes to help.}
STRONG BAD: Oh man... oh man... you might want to run, 'cause I'm gonna be filled with rage in a second.
{Mike shows the present to the audience.}
STRONG BAD: A Deep Impact DVD?! {the audience cheers} Get outta my face, man!
{Mike pulls another present out of the package.}
MIKE: Very long socks.
STRONG BAD: Oh wait! But tube socks! You didn't tell me there were tube socks! All right, give me these...
MIKE: {overlapping} {unintelligible} stripes on these guys.
{Mike and Matt each place a sock on Strong Bad's head.}
STRONG BAD: Oh, I love these tube socks. Come here, tube socks. Oh... oh, that's right. Ohh... I feel so much better. Sorry for freakin' out about the Deep Impact. Your tube socks fixed it all. Thanks, man. {rests his head on the table} Ohh...
JON: Next question.
{The audience laughs.}
FAN: I don't know how to follow that... {Matt laughs} Um, mine's not so much as a question, but as a thank you. Um... and I know I'm not the only one 'cause I've talked to a ton of people about this, especially people that are here today, growing up, um, you guys were huge in my life. I was bullied very badly, and I know a lot of us fellow nerd geek gamers, proud of it now, were, and I didn't have a lot to laugh about, back then, and... coming home, and watching Strong Bad especially, and Teen Girl Squad, {the audience cheers} which was... everything. {Strong Bad voice} Arrowed! {laughs; normal voice} ...was, like, the only way I got to laugh throughout... a lot of my childhood. So I just wanted to say thank you.
MATT: That's amazing. Thank you. I'm not gonna {unintelligible}— thank you so much. It's nice to hear 'cause we always worry that {points to Strong Bad} this guy is too much of a jerk, and we don't want to influence anybody to act like Strong Bad, he's supposed to— you're supposed to laugh at him. Uh, so that's good to hear. Thank you so much.
MIKE: Hey, thank you very much. It's nice to know that sometimes, when it feels like we're making these dumb cartoons, it's like "What are we contributing to society, really?" and the fact that it helps people through hard times makes it— makes me feel like what we're doing is not completely worthless.
{The audience cheers.}
MATT: That's gonna be the— the— the epitaph on Mike's headstone. "Not completely worthless".
MIKE: {laughs} Thanks.
FAN: Hi!
MATT: Hi, how's it going?
FAN: It's going great. Um, another thank you. You guys were one of the conversation topics I had on my first date with my now-wife, so—
{The audience cheers.}
MATT: Nice!
FAN: Thank you!
MIKE: Love those stories.
STRONG BAD: We're makin' dreams come true, people!
{The audience laughs.}
FAN: Uh, also, my sister-in-law couldn't be here with us today, I was wondering if you could say hi to my sister-in-law Becca.
STRONG BAD: Hi—
MIKE: {overlapping} Hi, Becca. Oh, you— {points to Strong Bad} you mean him.
STRONG BAD: {to Mike} Stealin' my thunders?
FAN: Thank you.
STRONG BAD: Hi, Becca. {rhythmically} Becca. Becca. {to the rhythm of The System is Down; the audience cheers and claps along} Becca-lup-dup. Becca-lup-dup. Becca-lup-dup. Becca-lup-dup. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-Becca. Sa-ka-sa-ka-sa-ka-sa-ka-Becca. The Becca... is... elsewhere, apparently.
{The audience laughs.}
FAN: Hey, guys, um, so this is kind of a weird question... a couple years ago, you guys directed a music video for, like, one of my favorite bands Of Montreal, and... that was a really weird convergence of, like, one of my favorite bands and, like, you guys... I was like nerding out, like these two forces have collided and now I get to enjoy them, but I always kinda wondered how that, like, happened, like how'd that come together, was the video like your design, like, what... what happened there?
MIKE: We're friends with them. The drummer at the time, uh, was— went to kindergarten with Matt. So we've known one of the members for a long time, and we {unintelligible}—
MATT: {overlapping} Tell him his other significance real quick.
MIKE: Oh, and he was the one that coined the phrase Homestar Runner.
FAN: Oh!
{The audience gasps.}
MIKE: Um, he— he—
FAN: {overlapping; unintelligible}
MIKE: Yeah, exactly, and that was— uh, so he was the drummer for Of Montreal then, and so, yeah, they asked us to make a video...
MATT: And then we— we didn't have a very big budget, so we went to this costume place where somebody got a deal, and, uh, it was just, like, "Hey, we'll take whatever you can get for this much money", they gave us a handful of—
FAN: {overlapping; unintelligible}
MATT: —yeah. And then we knew a friend that, uh, could get us into this awesome old theater for free, so we were like, "All right, we'll do kind of a, like—"
MIKE: You got a bear costume...
MATT: "—more pageanty thing." Um, so, uh, yeah, it was pretty— it wasn't slapped together, but it was like we were— we were working with limited resources, which is actually something I feel like we probably do best when we have... if I— if I had, like, a big budget to do whatever I wanted, it would be terrible. I need— I need a shoestring and some duct tape.
FAN: It was brilliant, I love all— everything you guys have done, thank you so much.
MATT: Thank you so much!
MIKE: Thank you!
DANI: Hey, my name's Dani, uh, big fan for years, um—
MIKE: Donnie with a Y or an I-E?
DANI: It's actually D-A-N-I.
MIKE: Oh, okay. Nice.
{Strong Bad nods. The audience laughs.}
DANI: But, um...
STRONG BAD: Switchin' it up! I like that!
DANI: Any time. Um, my question is, you humorously touched upon it on the website a little bit, but with Flash going the way of the dodo sadly, uh, what plans... uh, do you sort of have to preserve your work in sort of its original format, with like the Easter eggs, and the clickables, what— what do you guys have planned for that?
MIKE: Do you— do you have any ideas?
{The audience laughs.}
MATT: We are— I mean, we're— it's a thing we're actively working on all the time now, trying to find out what's the best, uh, way to do it. Um, you can do m— I mean we're, like, 90% there with HTML5, but you don't really— the files are actually bigger than Flash files, so then... if it's the same, it like— you start to get into a bandwidth issue, which is just funny 'cause like... you know, all video content is now just {air quotes} "free" to host on YouTube or wherever, um, so... it's, uh, it's hard. So, yeah, we put the ones on YouTube, we try and make Easter eggs...
MIKE: When we're adding Easter— when we do YouTube stuff, we usually have the Easter eggs at the end automatically since you can't click, but, um...
MATT: We try and— we try and make it— we put a fake-out thing that looks like the next video is loading, so at least there's some sort of, like—
MIKE: "Oh, it's a secret!"
MATT: —you still have to find it... yeah. Um, but we're trying. We're trying to preserve all that. Uh, we— I— it's— I had Strong Bad Tweet at the Internet Archive, to, uh, be like, "Hey, uh, you guys like outdated web things..."
STRONG BAD: "I am an outdated web thing!" {the audience laughs} "Help preserve me!"
MATT: We'll see— we'll see if we ever get their attention.
DANI: Thank you.
FAN: Hey, uh— uh, Scott Essa, New York. Um, just wanted to, um, ask you guys, with the benefit of time, to reflect, um... what— what character or— or video or game are you, uh, most proud of, that you guys worked on?
MIKE: I think for me, the Peasant's Quest, uh, adventure game that we made, was probably the most fun thing to do. {the audience cheers} That was the— one of the few sort of, um, more than one week, uh, as far as scheduling, how— how we made it, um, we pulled it off, and I thought it was not only funny, but a good homage, but an actual fun game to play too, so to me it was that.
MATT: I— uh, it's actually— I like the... we made a CD forever ago, with a bunch of, like, souped-up versions of the songs called Strong Bad Sings.
{The audience cheers.}
STRONG BAD: Oh, you guys like that, huh? Sweet!
MATT: Uh, so that actually— uh, again, 'cause I feel like, even if you didn't know our cartoons, I feel like we made some weird song you might not know what the hell you were listening to, but like, you— you'd probably be entertained, and so anytime we can make something that sort of transcends the usual, you know, thing we kind of do, um, and could stand on its own, I— which I hope that it does, um, so yeah, so the CD for me.
MIKE: Yeah, and one more quick thing, the thing I liked was, um, we have this fake metal band called Limozeen {the audience cheers} and this fake indie rock band called sloshy, and the fact that we were able to— they split a seven-inch where they covered each other's songs and so that was super fun to, like, do a metal— like, I don't know. There was something that was just, like, genuine about it, like it was fun and funny, but it's also like, "man, this was like... I like these songs! I like my fake band's covers of the other fake band's songs!"
{The audience laughs.}
FAN: Thank you very much, appreciate it.
FAN: Hey, guys, um, continuing on the music note, uh, we saw Strong Bad and Homestar featured on the Hi-Five Soup album, which had Carl in the Super Show, um, so when and— when and how did that Aquabats collaboration start, and is there any work with them in the future?
MATT: Uh, so we met Parker Jacobs, who was Christian Jacobs', the Bat Commander, uh, his brother, and he does— he's done all the art, like, he— he, like, not all the art, they both do art, but anyways. Uh, so we met him through— he worked {unintelligible}—
MIKE: {overlapping} Magazine, he worked for a magazine, right?
MATT: Yeah. And so we knew, uh, the family, we knew that, like, crew, and then, um... once, uh, Yo Gabba Gabba! started, um, I think we just got back in touch with them. We did a little cartoon in a Yo Gabba Gabba!, uh... which season is that from? I forget.
MIKE: Two, maybe.
MATT: We made one of the little animations, so then we worked with them then, and then, um... we just kept in touch with those guys, and we all liked each other, and we all just kinda became friends long-distance, and then I actually moved to L.A. for a few years, and then we both wrote and directed some Yo Gabba Gabba! episodes, and then I wrote and directed some, uh, uh, Aquabats and stuff, and so we just made pals with those guys, they— they liked Homesta— I mean it was literally 2001 I think we did this interview with Parker Jacobs for some bay area, like, tech magazine or something? Um, so yeah, so that's where it came from, I— we would love to, actually— I talked to Christian for the first time in a long time ago, uh, er... talked to him for the first time in a long time, recently, and, um... so yeah, we'd love to work with those guys again. That was probably some of the... talking about, like, working with the budget and stuff, those guys are just right in the perfect spot where they— they can get some decent money and they know how to spend it, you know, and they, like, they put it to such good use and make the weirdest crap you've ever seen, so, uh, they're super fun to work with.
FAN: Perfect, thank you.
{The audience cheers.}
FAN: So, uh, in addition to this stuff you just mentioned, Matt, I know you've worked on Gravity Falls a little bit, {the audience cheers; Strong Bad nods} was there any, like... uh, was there any, like, big challenge you guys had work— uh, moving to television from your own stuff in Flash, or was it just a smooth transition?
MATT: Uh, that was just writing, and doing some voices, so I mean it wasn't, uh— it wasn't crazy, but doing longer-form stuff for sure, I mean that was a half-hour long show, so yeah, I mean, I— we find that... our strengths are in shorter-form things, and we— we have— we like longer-form stuff, we would like to write it, but we're just maybe not as good at it. Um, so, uh, yeah, so that was more, uh, that was— that was challenging, it was hard. Um, but it was super fun, uh, and it was great, too, to work on something like that, and especiall— saying with, like, The Aquabats and stuff where I— it was like, not my main gig, and working on this other thing, but like super happy to have my name on it, like, it was like, I love— love the content from top to bottom, and would gladly be associated with it in any way, um... so yeah, it took some time, but I eventually got— got past I think the— the first, uh, script I turned in, which was for the episode Boyz Crazy, where Mabel clones the boy ba— finds the cloned boy band, um... they, uh, there was something about, like, formatting your script, and it was like, they— Disney uses this kind of formatting, and the program I used, which was not the same program used as some other thing, so basically I wrote a double episode, I wrote a, like, 45-minute long episode, {laughing} instead of a 22-minute long episode, and, uh... but, uh, but I still got hired after that. That was my spec script, and they— they hired me after that, so... I guess I didn't screw up too bad.
{The audience cheers.}
FAN: Thank you.
FAN: Hello— oh, I'm too short for this mic. Um, I'm shaking, I'm so excited to be here—
STRONG BAD: Don't shake!
FAN: Um— sorry, Strong Bad. {laughs} Um, so real quick I wanted to say, I am like one of the hugest fans of WarioWare, so thank you for having good taste.
STRONG BAD: Yes!
FAN: And I know you already did this with Becca, but I promised my friend Morey that, um, he loves Strong Bad and I promised I'd try to get Strong Bad to say hi to him, maybe even I love you.
STRONG BAD: Let's all say "hi, Morey, I love you". 3, 2, 1, {in an exaggerated sarcastic tone; joined by the audience} Hi, Morey. I love you.
FAN: Okay. And, um, my actual question—
STRONG BAD: Now wait, hang on, I didn't give you the bill yet.
FAN: Oh, okay. I will pay any amount, Strong Bad. {laughs}
STRONG BAD: No, what's your next one? I'm joking.
FAN: My next one is, in Marzipan's Answering Machine 17, I know Coach Z's crime was probably left unsaid for humor reasons, but I am dying to know... what did Coach Z do? What di— what crime did he commit?
STRONG BAD: You'll have to hear it from the long-form podcast. Like, serial, that goes into the sordid affair that was the Coach Z debacle.
FAN: {laughing} Thank you so—
STRONG BAD: We're workin' with, uh, WNYC, and Radiolab, to— to do a deep dive.
FAN: {laughing} I can't wait. Thank you so much.
MATT: That's not true, by the way.
FAN: I know. Sadly. I'm still shaking, thank you so much for—
STRONG BAD: Stop shaking!
FAN: I'm sorry!
STRONG BAD: Stop it!
FAN: Thank you so much for improving my life so much.
STRONG BAD: Thank you for improving mine.
FAN: Ahh!
{The audience applauds.}
MATT: Somebody ask Mike something.
MIKE: No, I'm perfectly comfortable staying here in silence, believe me.
FAN: Um, just a quick one, something that I'm sure is on a lot of people's minds, Strong Bad, how do you type with boxing gloves on?
{The audience laughs. Mike rests his head on the table briefly and smiles.}
MIKE: Everybody get out, quick.
STRONG BAD: Enforcers. Get this guy outta here. This is in my rider! I put it in my rider! No one can ask about the boxing gloves! And the typing! Here, it's like this!
{Matt waggles the puppet over his keyboard.}
STRONG BAD: That's how I type with boxing gloves!
{The audience laughs.}
This section of the page is incomplete. You can help the Homestar Runner Wiki by expanding it.
Fun Facts
Trivia
- The Google Slides presentation was titled "Paxineasta", according to the tab at the top of the page. Other tabs included the "My Drive" page on Google Drive, and a Gmail page with a "Panel Accepted!" email to an address beginning with "slimchaps@".
- "PAX" is short for "Penny Arcade Expo", as it was founded by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, the authors of the Penny Arcade webcomic. Tycho Brahe, one of the comics' two main characters, previously appeared alongside Strong Bad in Poker Night at the Inventory.
Inside References
- The Brothers Chaps quote "You jumped over some of my buses!" from mile.
This section of the page is incomplete. You can help the Homestar Runner Wiki by expanding it.
