Why Come Only One Girl?

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Revision as of 17:34, 4 November 2006

"The Marzipan says... I'm the only girl!"

Why Come Only One Girl? is a bonus feature on Everything Else, Volume 2. It documents the history of why Marzipan is the only girl in the Homestar Runner universe.

Cast (in order of appearance): Narrator from space program, Marzipan, Homestar Runner, Preshy, Rafferdy, Scrandina, The Cheat, The Hurricane, Strong Bad

Running Time: 4:03

Transcript

{Open to the Spin 'n Say. The chord is pulled and the arrow lands on Marzipan. Zoom in slowly to the Marzipan rectangle.}

SPIN 'N SAY: The Marzipan says...

MARZIPAN: I'm the only girl!

NARRATOR: The only girl indeed. But that wasn't always the intention. Just how close did the Homestar Runner universe come to gaining a second female character? Join me on my magical flying peanut butter-powered sleigh {Cut to a sleigh with peanut butter jars for engines. The sleigh takes off.} and we'll take a journey through the past to discover— {Cut to the sad puppy from "space program"}

NARRATOR: Why Come Only One Girl? {The words appear around the puppy. A blond hair wig plops onto the puppy's head.}

{Cut to the party background for the Dancin' Bubs game. Zoom in slowly to the girl behind Marzipan.}

NARRATOR: In the year 2000, the closest thing to another female character could be found in one of the backgrounds for the Dancin' Bubs game. This is Champeen. {Her name box appears. Schetchbook drawings of Champeen scroll onto the screen.} Originally intended to be the female equivilant of Homestar Runner, Champeen would never make it out of this backgroud, nor would the weasily know-it-all, Homeschool Winner. {A spotlight pops open and illuminates Homeschool.} {softly} Boy, I'd like to clean his clock... {A still shot appears of Homeschool winning a "quiz bowl", with a giant #1 trophy to his left.}

{Cut to a pink striped background. Sketches of another female character scroll in.}

NARRATOR: The next attempt at bringing a new girl into the fold would be this little adorable angel thing, Preshy. Along with her brother Rafferdy, Preshy was going to be introduced in the unfinished cartoon, "Those Darn Cousins".

{Cut to the title screen of Those Darn Cousins. The toon begins with music. A small circle cuts through the title screen, showing a piece of chalk moving along something green. The scene opens to Homestar Runner chalking a circle around a red X in the field. Marzipan approaches.}

MARZIPAN: Hiya, Homestar. Whatcha doin'?

HOMESTAR RUNNER: None of your business, stupid!

MARZIPAN: {lowers eyebrows} Humph! {Walks away.}

HOMESTAR RUNNER: {apologetically} Oh wait, I mean, waiting for my cousins to get here; I'm sorry I always get those two things mixed up!

{A box falls from the sky with a whistling sound onto the X. Homestar opens the top of the box and peeks inside and sees his two young cousins.}

RAFFERDY: Hello, Uncle Homestar.

PRESHY: Hi, Uncle Homestar!

RAFFERDY: Hi, {unintelligibly} Homestar!!

PRESHY: {giggles}

HOMESTAR RUNNER: Hey, guys! How was your flight?

{Preshy and Rafferdy jump out of the box, knock Homestar down and stand on top of him.}

HOMESTAR RUNNER: Unh!

PRESHY: {unintelligible} —on your head.

RAFFERDY: Uncle Homestar, are you scared?

HOMESTAR RUNNER: Yeah, a little.

PRESHY: {squeals} Dah! {jumps up; squeals again} Ahh! {jumps again}

{Cut to Homestar standing up. Preshy and Rafferdy are standing around him, holding a guitar and a pitchfork, respectively.}

RAFFERDY: {pokes Homestar in the stomach with the pitchfork} What's this thing? What does this do?

HOMESTAR RUNNER: I think that's obvious.

PRESHY: I'm gonna bonk you, Homestar. {Lifts the guitar up and smashes it through Homestar's head.}

HOMESTAR RUNNER: Oof! {stars swirl and birds chirp}

RAFFERDY: Are we gonna have a band, Homestar?

HOMESTAR: {stunned} Sure, Rafferdy. I'll be lead guitar.

{Fade to black. Fade in showing Homestar tied to railroad tracks. Preshy and Rafferdy are standing near him.}

PRESHY: I love you, Homestar.

HOMESTAR RUNNER: I have a hard time believing that.

RAFFERDY: {squeals} Dah!! Yaah!! I screamed a lot of times. Aaeehhh!

HOMESTAR RUNNER: {exhausted} Nice work, kid.

{Fade to black. A text that reads, "Unfinished, see?" fades in.}

NARRATOR: The cartoon was abandoned in favor of... oh, I dunno, a second batch of fortune cookies {the fortune cookies game is shown} or something equally hilarious. {A fortune cookie opens, revealing the fortune, "This is a really bad fortune."}

{Fade to an electric orange background with white outlines of Cheerleader, So and So, What's Her Face, and The Ugly One.}

NARRATOR: With the invention of the Teen Girl Squad more than a year away, things were looking dire for the ladytypes in Homestar Runner Land. {Many sketches of female characters scroll across the screen.} So began a concerted effort to create a new female character and put her in a cartoon.

NARRATOR: But there were many questions: What should she look like? Should she be a dull human? Should she have cloven feet or hands? If she were to wear a burlap sack, should it say "potatoes", "potate", or simply have a picture of a potato on it? And what would she be called?

{A list from the sketchbook displays the rejected names: Polenda, Panta, Esteen, Polentia, Ladyfinger, Saragraham, Melda, Shimmie, Sissy, Kurla, Broccoli Carrot, Sister Supreme, Mandy Candy, Sugar Shine, Sister Sweet, Bandy, 'Sup, Tesa Tessa}

NARRATOR: {sketchbook examples of the following appear} Buttershine? Pou Baby? Sister Sue? Elkfoot? What would she sound like? Can Melissa do a different voice?

{Cut to The Cheat standing in the field next to a drawing of a girl torn out of a sketchbook, named Scrandina.}

SCRANDINA: {in Melissa Palmer's Marzipan voice} I'm not Marzipan!

THE CHEAT: {screams with his arms in the air and runs away.}

NARRATOR: That answers that question!

{Cut to a blue background.}

NARRATOR: Finally this corn-dog-cotton-candy-looking lady was settled on as the design, {four sketches of the female are shown} though it's unclear what name was chosen for her. I'm hoping it was "The Hurricane". {Another sketch of the female is shown with the name in the subtitle} She even made it off the sketchbook and into Flash.

{Cut to Homestar and Marzipan standing in the field. The female drops into place between them.}

NARRATOR: She was placed in this scene, prepped for animation, and then a new Legend of Zelda game probably came out and she was never heard from again. {The female pops out of existance.}

HOMESTAR RUNNER: Why, Ganondorf?! Why?!

{Homestar takes a small bottle and swipes Marzipan into it.}

HOMESTAR RUNNER: Hup! Doo doo doo doooo!

{A yellow notice flashes, "YOU CAUGHT A MARZIPAN!"}

{Cut to a silhouette of all the main characters except Homsar standing in the field. The characters are slowly illuminated while a "?" flashes.}

NARRATOR: Since it seems increasingly unlikely that we'll see another girl character in our lifetime, we can only imagine what it would be like if any of these gals {sketchbook examples appear} showed up in a Homestar Runner... cartoon!

{Cut with a "boop!" to Strong Bad standing at The Stick next to a rejected character with "smug" on her abdomen.}

STRONG BAD: —my style. {gets slapped} Ouh!

{Boop! Strong Bad is talking to "The Hurricane".}

STRONG BAD: —my types. {gets slapped} Ah!

{Boop! Strong Bad is talking to a red-haired girl in a yellow dress and pigtails.}

STRONG BAD: —my stuff. {gets slapped} Ooh!

{Boop! Strong Bad is standing with The Cheat, talking to a girl with a burlap "Potatoes" sack.}

STRONG BAD: —The Cheat. {gets slapped} Oh!

{Cut to the peanut butter-powered sleigh.}

NARRATOR: Ohoho, that's rich. Bye now!

{The sleigh takes off. Fade to a black background with white text that reads, "Bye now, see?"}

Easter Eggs

• A commentary can be heard by switching your DVD player's audio language selection while watching.

Commentary Transcript

(Commentary by: Mike Chapman, Matt Chapman)

MIKE: I don’t have to tell ya Matt, this is our second try at doing the commentary for this cartoon.

MATT: Let’s talk about the Spin ‘n Say.

MIKE: Oh, you mean my favorite game on homestarrunner.com website?

MATT: I remember for the “the something says” voice I did a bunch of weird stuff to it in whatever sound editing program we were using at the time to make it sound extra crappy.

MIKE: Mmm hmm.

MATT: And it’s— it sounds extra crappy.

MIKE: It does! It sounds nice n— nice ‘n crappy.

MATT: {laughs} Mike was talking to me about how he thinks {laughs} that dog is wha— that dog is anima—

MIKE: This guy’s voice.

MATT: The narrator, yeah.

MIKE: Because he’s also in the Strong Bad Email all about space— the space program, and there’s a film strip that has this voice and the dog’s in that too.

MATT: Yeah.

MIKE: It’s really the only common thread between the two.

MATT: {laughs} So this is all about the girls, Mike. Girl characters that we tried to make for years now.

MIKE: And that Champeen was she was early too. I mean, yeah, she was ’99 maybe—

MATT: Yeah!

MIKE: 2000 at the latest.

MATT: Yeah.

MIKE: And most of these actually were probably 2000, 2001.

MATT: Yeah, ‘cause this uh— most of these were from a second batch, a second sort of try at making a new, female character. This, ‘cause yeah you started this uh, a while ago.

MIKE: Yeah.

MATT: A couple weeks ago— {laughs} No, this was cartoon you can tell from Marzipan— you added Marzipan’s new mouth to this, though, I see.

MIKE: Yeah, I did.

MATT: It doesn’t have the crappy old mouth. And old fat body Homestar.

MIKE: So this was an old cartoon that we had started, most of this animation was done, but none of the dialogue had been recorded. And there’s some {laughs} the voices of some cute kids. Our— our niece and nephew did the voices for us. {pause until Preshy screams} um—

MATT: It was very fun recording this with them.

MIKE: Yeah, I’m still enjoying watchin’ it, that’s why I’m not saying anything.

MATT: {laughs}

MIKE: But anyway this was the premise of the cartoon that we were gonna make. It was Homestar’s cousins come and they’re—

MATT: And they call him Uncle Homestar.

MIKE: And they call him Uncle Homestar for no reason and then they—

MATT: —terrorize him.

MIKE: —terrorize him but when anyone else is around is around they’re really sweet to him so everybody else thinks his cousins are real sweet but he’s trying to convince everybody they’re—

MATT: They’re trying to kill him.

MIKE: —the royal terrors.

MATT: {in Homestar’s voice} Mmm! I screamed a lot a times!

{Pause until the Fortune Cookies game is shown.}

MIKE: Oh— Oh wait! This is my favorite game {Matt laughs} on homestarrunner.com!

MATT: So many games, it’s just like what Strong Bad said recently about trading card games being more like trading card activities.

MIKE: Or goings-on. Yeah.

MATT: Uh, yeah so that’s a reason why we kind of stopped with the— the Teen Girl Squad came out and that kind of became the new female outlet. You know people say there’s only one girl on homestartunner.com but really there’s— very positive female role models—

MIKE: Yeah.

MATT: —in the Teen Girl Squad.

MIKE: For some reason Matt wanted them to be half deer.

MATT: {laughs} I was way into drawing a cloven— cloven feet at that time. Reading— reading a lot of Hellboy, maybe. {short pause} That’s a real list— all these drawings are real from a— a sketchbook from a long time ago and that’s a real list of names. Tessa, I think Scrandina, is pretty good. {short pause; Missy says, "I'm not Marzipan!"} This wa— I felt kind of bad asking Melissa to record that line, I don’t think that she kind of got that we were making fun of her inability—

MIKE: Lack of range.

MATT: Yeah.

{Both laugh.}

MATT: Craig did that one with the car— with the guitar there. {short pause} The one-legged popsicle one would have been— would heave been interesting to see how she worked.

{Pause until the narrator mentions the Legend of Zelda game.}

MIKE: Probably Windwaker.

MATT: Windwaker, yeah.

{Pause until Homestar catches Marzipan in a jar.}

MATT: Oh. You can use that later when you run out of energy; the Marzipan flies out and fills up half your hearts. {pause until get to group shot} Where’s Homsar and tha— that’s the core eleven, that’s not the core twelve. Homsar wasn’t in there. He’s hiding somewhere—

MIKE: Usually an Easter egg.

MATT: You have to click on the Poopsmith.

MIKE: He’s still an Easter egg from characters page.

MATT: Yeah, that’s true.

{Short pause until scene cuts from one girl slapping Strong Bad to another.}

MIKE: Boop!

MATT: Do it again, Mike.

MIKE: Boop!

MATT: Good job.

MIKE: I—

MATT: P-Butt.

MIKE: P-Butt! {laughs, then pause until the end}

Fun Facts

• Ganondorf is the main antagonist of the Legend of Zelda series.
• A burlap sack with "Potate" written on it is a reference to Sickly Sam.

Related Links

• Everything Else, Volume 2