Random Toon

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(random.bat/go rando!)
(random.bat/go rando!: This isn't due to a ruffle update but the entire site update (also fix sp))
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==random.bat/go rando!==
==random.bat/go rando!==
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A similar button was also added to the top right of the [[Strong Bad Email]] menu on September 12, 2005, along with a [[Scroll Button Song]] referencing it. Originally labeled "random.bat", the button appears in the top-right corner of the computer screen. Pressing it causes the menu to select several random emails in sequence. Prior to the Ruffle update, it would then load the last random email it picked, tough now it opens the selected email's description, allowing the user to pick between YouTube and on site versions, if available. [[Strong Bad]] says one of several things when it's activated:
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A similar button was also added to the top right of the [[Strong Bad Email]] menu on September 12, 2005, along with a [[Scroll Button Song]] referencing it. Originally labeled "random.bat", the button appears in the top-right corner of the computer screen. Pressing it causes the menu to select several random emails in sequence. Prior to the December 31, 2020 update, it would then load the last random email it picked, though now it opens the selected email's description, allowing the user to pick between YouTube and on site versions, if available. [[Strong Bad]] says one of several things when it's activated:
*'''STRONG BAD:''' Brrrrrrakatakatakataka...ta..ka...tick...tick... Brring!
*'''STRONG BAD:''' Brrrrrrakatakatakataka...ta..ka...tick...tick... Brring!

Revision as of 03:51, 5 January 2021

"Random" redirects here. For a random wiki page, see Special:Random.
'Round and 'round it goes...where it stops nobody knows...

Contents

Random Toon Button

The Random Toon Button was added to the main pages alongside Quote of the Week, Weekly Fanstuff, and Sketchbook on September 12, 2005 and can be accessed by clicking the button labeled R. It loads a random Toon, Strong Bad Email, Marzipan's Answering Machine, or Teen Girl Squad. If you don't like the selection it comes up with, you can press the "again" button on the left side of the box before you are redirected, which will restart the selection process. You can also press the "close" button on the right of the box to abort the selection.

random.bat/go rando!

A similar button was also added to the top right of the Strong Bad Email menu on September 12, 2005, along with a Scroll Button Song referencing it. Originally labeled "random.bat", the button appears in the top-right corner of the computer screen. Pressing it causes the menu to select several random emails in sequence. Prior to the December 31, 2020 update, it would then load the last random email it picked, though now it opens the selected email's description, allowing the user to pick between YouTube and on site versions, if available. Strong Bad says one of several things when it's activated:

  • STRONG BAD: Brrrrrrakatakatakataka...ta..ka...tick...tick... Brring!
  • STRONG BAD: {higher pitched and louder} Lakalakalakalaka... tuck... tuck... tuck... tuck... {low pitched} Bong.
  • STRONG BAD: How 'bout this one? Donk. {a random email is then picked without a roulette of emails}
  • STRONG BAD: Broooodagadagadaga..da..ga..da...ga... Dooj.

The random.bat button was removed from the menu after Strong Bad destroyed Lappy 486 in hremail3184, and then was put back as "go rando!" on August 31, 2009, with the introduction of the first Compé scroll button song.

Navigation Bar

The random toon button was also added to the navigation bar at the bottom of every page. It reads "rando". It doesn't show the roulette box, simply jumping straight to another toon. Thus far, this has not been added to the special navbars of Main Page 22 or virus, since the navbar is part of the .swf. On most of the toons, they use main_nav.swf.

Fun Facts

Trivia

  • Some of the names of toons were too long for the Main Page random box, leaving the last few letters cut off. They were soon renamed to fit.
Old Title (Letters Left Out) Solution
Homestar Presents: Present(s) H*R Presents: Presents
HomestarRunner.com: PAY PL(US!) HomestarRunner.com: PAY+
In Search of the Yello Dell(o) Unfixed
Peasant's Quest Movie Trail(er) Peasant's Quest Trailer
Puppet Jam: Bad Jokes (none) Bad Jokes (renamed for consistency)
Puppet Jam: Mission Control (none) Mission Control (renamed for consistency)
Puppet Jam: Tropical Lazor (Beams) Tropical Lazor Beams
Puppet Jam: Vitamins/Celebr(ities) Vitamins/Celebrities
Strong Bad is in Jail Cartoo(n) Strong Bad is in Jail
Sweet Cuppin Cakes December(ween) Sweet Cuppin Cakes Dween
Teen Girl Squad Decemberwe(en) Teen Girl Squad Dween
The House That Gave Sucky T(reats) House ... Sucky Treats
Sickly Sam's Big Outing (none) Big Outing
Doomy Tales of the Macabre (none) Tales of the Macabre
The House That Gave Sucky T(ricks) Unfixed
Later That Night... (none) Halloween 2016 Cartoon
Homestar Runner Goes For the Gold (none) HR Goes4Gold
Characters from Yonder Web(site) Unfixed

Remarks

  • When the rando link in the navigation bar loads a Puppet Stuff, it is placed on a light blue background. This is because a Puppet Stuff is layered over another page, but the rando link doesn't work with this. The Random Toon button on the Main Pages does allow an external Flash link to be layered over them, so a Puppet Stuff is layered over them.
  • ".bat" is the filename extension for batch files, which are text files with a series of commands intended to be executed by the MS-DOS or Windows command interpreters.
  • While "random.bat" is running, the names of the various Strong Bad Emails can still be clicked as they flash on the screen.
  • Shortly after being released, a number of minor changes were made to the randomizer. The following issues were resolved:
    • Homestar and the Nice Present and Homestar vs. Little Girl (the two Decemberween In July puppet toons) were not originally included in the random list. There was just a comment in the XML file reading "<!--note to add puppet dween!-->", reminding The Brothers Chaps to add them.
    • Labor Dabor didn't originally work, as the URLs for the HTML and SWF files were reversed in the XML.
    • If the R button on the main page was clicked more than once (either after closing the randomizer box or while it was up), and it picked a Strong Bad Email, the email number in the URL would be larger than the correct number by the number of Strong Bad Emails (it would redirect to something like sbemail405.html). This was because it kept a counter of the emails as it read the email names from the XML file, and clicking the R again caused it to re-read the list without resetting the counter.
      • flashback was immune to this problem, as it has a different URL from the others (to distinguish it from Not the 100th Email!!!, which itself is not in the XML list).
    • The Random Toon machine didn't have the "&" or "_" symbols embedded, so lures & jigs was shown as "SBEMAIL: LURES  JIGS" and sb_email 22 was displayed as "SBEMAIL: SBEMAIL 22".
  • In the XML code, the newest email has the code: new="yup" after it.
  • The XML document is not valid as there is no root element in the document.

Goofs

Fixed Goofs

  • On Monday, January 9, 2006, when the Scroll Button Song was updated, a new bug was introduced to random.bat: the screen would not automatically scroll to the emails as they are selected by the roulette. This was later fixed.
  • Strongest Man in the World used to appear as "Strongest Man in the Worldk" in the randomizer. This has since been fixed.
  • The Next Epi-Snowed was originally listed in the XML file as ccd06.html instead of ccdo6.html. This was later fixed.

Inside References

  • One of the 'random.bat' raps ends with "Dooj".

Real-World References

External Links

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