highschool
From Homestar Runner Wiki
| Strong Bad Email #140 |
|
Patrick asks Strong Bad about his younger years.
Cast (in order of appearance): Strong Bad, The Cheat (Easter egg), Homestar Runner, Marzipan, Strong Mad, Coach Z, Strong Sad, The Poopsmith (as The Diapersmith), Pom Pom, Homestarmecium, Bubs (as Bubsamecium), Strongbadiophage, The Homestar Runner (Easter egg), Old-Timey Strong Bad (Easter egg), Don Knotts (Easter egg), Sickly Sam (Easter egg)
Places: Computer Room, Abandoned Pie Factory, High School, Middle School, Free Petry Dish USA, Bubsamecium's Protozoa Stand, Rome (Easter egg)
Computer: Lappy 486
Date: Sunday, January 8, 2006
Running Time: 3:02
Page Title: Lappy 486
DVD: strongbad_email.exe Disc Five
Contents |
[edit] Transcript
STRONG BAD: {singing} It's the email, baby, lunch juice!
Subject: high schoolHey Strong bad!
What were you like during highschool?
Sincerely,
Patrick Cowiche WA
{Strong Bad stretches out "Hey Strong Bad!", says "high-shool... er, highs- high school. highschool (as one word)" instead of just "high school", and reads "Cowiche WA" as one word.}
STRONG BAD: {typing} Well, cowichewa to you too, Patrique. Now, I have an extremely unphotographic memory. So, I guess that'd be more like a drawing, or a doodle. Like a doodle memory. {clears screen} But I would hazard a guess that we were probably just like other cartoons were in high school, i.e. we were a team of super sleuths.
{Cut to a splash screen titled "The Homestar Runner Mysfit-steries" with "story by Youdbetterbelieveit Chimendez" in the lower right. Crudely drawn teenage versions of Homestar Runner, Marzipan, Strong Mad, and Strong Bad stand abreast in the center. Dissolve to teenage Marzipan in an old building.}
TEENAGE MARZIPAN: Stampers! My long lost uncle's abandoned pie factory sure is mysterious.
{Cut to a wider shot showing the entire gang.}
TEENAGE STRONG BAD: Ah, there's no such thing as "mysterious".
TEENAGE HOMESTAR RUNNER: I don't want to take any chances. {close up shot} We should play in a band, just to be safe.
{Cut to teenage Strong Bad, Strong Mad, Marzipan, and Homestar Runner playing the keyboard, the drums, the tambourine, and the electric guitar, respectively, on a blue backdrop. "Mysfit-steries" is printed on the face of the bass drum.}
TEENAGE HOMESTAR RUNNER: {singing without his usual speech impediment} Havin' fun with my friends. Words about a mystery. Shakin' hands with my man...
{Cut back to the Lappy 486.}
STRONG BAD: {typing} And when we weren't debating the existence of mysterious, Strong Mad and I were all the time trying to liberate Homestar from those ridiculous striped {pronounced "stripèd"} pants.
{Cut to teenage Strong Mad, Homestar, and Strong Bad near some lockers. Strong Mad and Strong Bad hold ropes attached to hooks in the ceiling and floor, which then run through hooks on Homestar's waistline. A magnet lies next to Homestar's feet.}
TEENAGE HOMESTAR RUNNER: Now you guys are sure this won't emancipate me from my ridiculous stripèd pants?
{Cut back to the Lappy 486.}
STRONG BAD: {typing} So that's what highschool {pronounced "high-shool", as before} was like. In, um, middle school we were a bunch of melon-headed babies with gigantic eyes and enormous...
{A baby-sized Coach Z tosses a box marked "NOT A BALL!" up and down, with a plush football beside him. Strong Bad continues, voicing over.}
STRONG BAD: ...imaginations.
BABY COACH Z: {high-pitched, childish voice} I'm pretending I'm the craptain of the foortball torm!
{As Coach Z says this, the nursery-school style background is replaced with a black and white image of a football field.}
{Push pan to a baby Strong Bad in a diaper with a small blue cap on his head. He sits holding an NES controller.}
BABY STRONG BAD: {high-pitched, childish voice} I'm pretending I'm playing better video games! {Atari 2600 sound effects play in the background.} Aw, man! That freakin' duck swallowed both my pixels!
{Push pan to a baby Strong Sad and a baby The Poopsmith. Baby Strong Sad has a pink bow in his hair, long eyelashes, and a frilly divide between his torso and trunk. The baby Poopsmith wears a blue baby bonnet and holds a stained rattle, with a large pile of dirty diapers behind him.}
BABY STRONG SAD: I'm pretending I'm not sitting next to The Diapersmith.
{As Strong Sad says this, the background, including The Diapersmith's diapers, is replaced by a black and white image of the Wright brothers' airplane.}
{The Diapersmith turns to baby Strong Sad and blows a raspberry.}
{Black and white image vanishes. Pan to the legs of Homestar Runner, who is wearing puffy red and white pants and holding a broom.}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: Now you children skedaddle. {pushes sweeping end of broom at The Diapersmith and Strong Sad}
STRONG BAD: {voicing over, in normal voice} And going even unnecessarily further back, {as Strong Bad says this, baby Pom Pom bounds by the screen, with a Bumble Ball body form and no distinguishable head.} we were all a bunch of plucky parameciums living in Free Petry Dish USA.
{Cut to a petri dish with a liquid inside resembling the shape of the United States of America.}
{Cut to a paramecium Bubs floating in a box marked "BUB5AMECIUM'S PROTOZOA STAND". A paramecium Homestar floats up.}
HOMESTARMECIUM: Hey there, Bubsamecium. I need to buy some embarrassing items for my embarrassing body parts.
BUBSAMECIUM: Certainly! Six tubes of rear-end cream coming right up! {He brings out a bag with said tubes of cream, and gives it to Homestarmecium.}
{Cut to a close-up of a viral Strong Bad resembling a bacteriophage.}
STRONGBADIOPHAGE: Oh ho ho! Whatcha buying there, Homestarmecium?
{Cut to a wide shot. Strongbadiophage "walks" in from the left.}
HOMESTARMECIUM: Uh-oh, it's Strongbadiophage. Um, uh, these are for my twin brother! {Homestarmecium divides into two of himself, and both speak in unison} These are for my twin brother! {the two Homestarmecia divide into four} These are for my twin brother! {the four divide into eight} These are for my twin brother!
STRONGBADIOPHAGE: Aaaahh!! {he runs off}
{Cut back to the Lappy 486.}
STRONG BAD: {typing} And then, of course, before that we were {pause} Romans...living in Roman times. And Don Knotts was always showing up. So there you go, Patrice. Just the facts. {types the score on different lines} Strong Bad Emails: 1, Not Strong Bad Emails: 0. {stops typing} You guys keep score at home. I'll see you next time. {runs off singing} Oh, havin' fun with my friends...
{The Paper comes down.}
[edit] Easter Eggs
- Click on the word "unphotographic" to reveal a photographic memory of the jumble caper.
- Click on the resulting image to reveal the doodle memory version of the same event. Strong Bad is carrying a large gemstone out of a vault, The Cheat is drawn as a rattlesnake-like creature carrying a turkey on a platter, and a sign points to the right reading "Subwoofers".
- Click on the word "Roman" after the paper comes down to see what those times were like.
- {Cut to The Homestar Runner and Old-Timey Strong Bad in a black and white Roman land. The Homestar Runner is dressed as Julius Caesar and Old-Timey Strong Bad is dressed as a Roman legionary.}
- THE HOMESTAR RUNNER: Oh... aqueduct.
- OLD-TIMEY STRONG BAD: Hm... yes! Vomitorium!
- DON KNOTTS: {pokes head in} Andy?
- {Pan to Sickly Sam wearing a sack reading "OLIVES". He vanishes, and an Ionic column takes his place.}
[edit] Fun Facts
[edit] Explanations
- "Cowichewa to you too" is an aural allusion to "konnichi wa", a basic Japanese greeting.
- Homestarmecium, despite his name, is drawn without a nucleus. This suggests that he could actually be construed as a bacterium (a prokaryote), rather than a paramecium (a eukaryote), and that he replicates himself using binary fission (eukaryotes replicate via mitosis).
- On the other hand, the "hairs" on his head area may suggest he's a ciliate, not a bacterium. However, since some bacteria have cilia as well, this is not conclusive. While Bubs also has "cilia" patches, his outline suggests the stereotypical image of an amoeba rather than the typical "footprint" shape of a paramecium.
- Strongbadiophage, which has a hexagonal head upon a column ending in 6 legs, appears to be a T4 Phage bacteriophage. This type of virus attacks bacteria, not paramecia, and forces the host cell to create copies of the virus by modifying the cell's DNA.
- Just as "bacteriophage" means "one who devours bacteria," "Strongbadiophage" may be taken to mean "one who devours Strong Badia" or simply "one who devours Strong Bad".
- The Homestar Runner mentions aqueducts. The Roman Aqueduct system is perhaps the most famous ever built, running over 250 miles across their empire and supplying over a million gallons of water a day to ancient Rome alone.
- A Roman vomitorium was a passage situated below or behind a tier of seats in an amphitheatre, through which the crowds could "spew out" of the building at the end of a show (essentially an exit). Contrary to popular belief, it does not refer to a place where people would go to vomit.
- In the Roman Easter egg, Sickly Sam is wearing a sack that says OLIVES; these were quite valuable in that era, both as a foodstuff and a source of oil which could be used for fuel, cleaning, etc.
- Patrique is a French spelling of Patrick. Patrice is the feminine equivalent.
[edit] Trivia
- When this email was released, the main page button read "new strong bad email" and "nothing else!". The site had just experienced a then-unusually long hiatus (35 days) since the last major update.
- "The Homestar Runner Mysfit-steries" is written by Youdbetterbelieveit Chimendez.
- The summary for the Podstar Runner RSS feed reads, "Strong Bad makes up a buncha stuff that's not true. Don't you believe a word of it!"
[edit] Remarks
- Strong Bad breaks the fourth wall by acknowledging the fact that he is a cartoon character.
- Teenage Marzipan has legs.
- This email appears to support the idea that Strong Bad and Homestar were once friends, as was first suggested by Homestar in The Best Decemberween Ever.
- Teenage Homestar plays guitar left-handed.
- Teenage Homestar sings out of tune.
- While Strong Mad generally plays bass (i.e. Cool Tapes), his teenage counterpart plays the drums, normally played by The Cheat.
- Baby Coach Z wearing green pajamas supports the theory that he wears a green body suit, as Strong Bad questioned in labor day.
- Strong Bad seems to be a little confused on Coach Z's age: In his "middle school" flashback, Coach Z appears about the same age as he is, but in stand-up, Strong Sad's video tape reveals that Coach Z was already an adult when Strong Bad was a little kid. Their conflicting ages were also seen in record book, which also shows that Strong Bad resembled his Lil' self as a baby, as opposed to the melon-headed variant.
- He also seems to be confused on the age of Homestar. In the high school variant, Homestar appears to be a teenager, much like all of them. However, in the middle school variant, Homestar acts as the babysitter for the other characters, who are toddlers.
- Petri dish is misspelled in "Free Petry Dish USA" as a reference to Free Country, USA.
- When Homestarmecium replicates himself, he does so horizontally, each time. However, every time the screen pulls out, the Homestarmecia are lined up vertically prior to the next replication, despite having never moved from their horizontal alignment.
- The high-school aged Homestar's eyes appear to be essentially his normal eyes rotated 90° clockwise.
- According to his name, Strongbadiophage is a virus. However, he is the same size as the full cells of Homestarmecium and Bubsamecium. In real life, most viruses are far smaller than any single cell.
- Homestarmecium, Bubsamecium and Strongbadiophage are portmanteaus.
[edit] Goofs
- When The Homestar Runner Mysfit-steries title card drops down, Strong Bad's head is seen in front of the card for one frame.
- Baby Strong Bad's right eye doesn't have the star-shaped pupil as his left does.
- When Strong Bad says "we were a bunch of melon-headed babies with gigantic eyes...", there is a slight skip in the audio when Strong Bad says "gigantic".
[edit] Fixed Goofs
- When the email was released, Strong Bad's reflection went outside of the Lappy's screen as he got up. This occurred due to lack of using a masking effect. This was corrected shortly after it was released.
- Originally, on the Mysfit-steries title screen, Strong Mad's fist was visibly protruding from between Marzipan's thighs. This too was fixed promptly.
[edit] Inside References
- The photo from the "photographic memory" Easter egg is a screen shot from caper.
- There is another reference to Homestar Runner's pants.
- The "Pie factory" was originally mentioned in stunt double, though the location bears a resemblance to Eustice Pietimer's estate in That A Ghost.
- The horizontal lines on the wall of the middle school may be a reference to the lines on the wall of the Basement of the Brothers Strong.
- During his song, Homestar mentions "shaking hands with my man", possibly supporting the notion that he has invisible hands.
- The "stripèd" pronunciation was used previously in New Boots to describe the Striped Green Rabbit.
- The "freakin' duck" is a reference to one of the deleted scenes in In Search of the Yello Dello, and also to Main Page 13. In this context, it most likely refers to the Atari Dragon.
- Baby Strong Bad has a star-shaped reflection in his left eye and a swirl on his chin, which can also be seen in the Old 404 page and Main Page 11.
- Strong Bad gives part of the score at the end as "Not Strong Bad Emails". Also, the box Baby Coach Z is playing with is labeled "Not a Ball!".
- Baby Coach Z is seen playing with a cardboard box.
[edit] Real-World References
- "The Homestar Runner Mysfit-steries" parodies Scooby-Doo, as well as numerous other Hanna-Barbera cartoons such as Jabberjaw, Josie and the Pussycats, The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, and Speed Buggy. These cartoons featured common themes of teenagers and young adults solving mysteries and occasionally playing together in bands.
- In addition, "Stampers" is a parody of the ubiquitous nonsensical Scooby-Doo exclamations, such as "Jinkies!", "Jeepers!", and "Zoinks!" and Teenage Strong Bad's comment on "no such thing as mysterious" is a play on the repeated claims of characters saying "There's no such things as ghosts", mostly used in the similar cartoons.
- The "middle school" portion of the email parodies Jim Henson's Muppet Babies and other American cartoons that followed the trend of presenting established characters in a franchise as children or toddlers (such as Scooby-Doo).
- Based on the "freakin' duck", Baby Strong Bad is most likely playing Adventure.
- The black and white picture behind Baby Strong Sad and The Diapersmith is from the historic first flight made by the Wright brothers in 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
- Live action backdrops such as this one and the football field behind Baby Coach Z were used in Muppet Babies when the babies would use their imaginations.
- Homestar as the matronly nursery character saying "Now you children skedaddle" is a reference to and hybrid of both Nanny from Muppet Babies and the Mammy-Two-Shoes character from Tom and Jerry. The costume and Southern colloquialisms are suggestive of the "Mammy" character, who often wallops the cat with a broom when he misbehaves. "Nanny", likewise, was only shown from the waist down.
- Baby Pom Pom's peglike limbs give him the appearance of a Bumble Ball.
- Don Knotts (1924-2006), who passed away shortly after this email was released, was an actor best known for playing Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show. He also twice guest-starred in the New Scooby-Doo Movies cartoons.
- The "Roman times" Easter egg is a reference to The Roman Holidays, a Hanna Barbera animated sitcom from 1972. Like The Flintstones and The Jetsons before it, the basic premise was plunking a typical sitcom family into another time period (in this case, 63 A.D.).
- "Just the facts" is a reference to the phrase "Just the facts, ma'am", which was made popular by the TV police procedural Dragnet, despite the fact the phrase was never used on the show.
[edit] Fast Forward
- Teenage Strong Bad reappears in the abandoned factory and is seen in the supergroup in alternate universe.
- Teenage Strong Mad reappears in his room during the Strong Bad Email imaginary, although he looks slightly different. This may be due to the fact that Strong Bad has a "doodle memory".
[edit] DVD Version
- The DVD version features creators' commentary. To access it, switch your DVD player's audio language selection while watching.
[edit] Commentary Transcript
(Commentary by: Mike Chapman, Matt Chapman, and Karen Wagner)
MATT: You guys went to high school, right?
MIKE: I've been to high school once!
KAREN: Yeah, I— I went to the same high school!
MATT: Me too, though. DHS, '92!
KAREN: '88!
MATT: And ye— And yes, and yes, and yes we are the best! {laughs} Strong Bad has a serious problem discerning, uh, people's, like names, uh their—
KAREN: —from the state that they live in.
MIKE: Yeah.
MATT: Yeah—
KAREN: ...or country.
MATT: —And also usually in—includes their little, uh, signoff... What's the opposite of a salutation? What do you call the "Sincerely"?
MIKE: A valutation.
{laughter}
KAREN: An unutation.
MIKE: An unutation!
MATT: {in response to the "Mysfit-steries" title screen} Um, so, this is not a parody of anything; this is a completely original idea that we came up with.
KAREN: {laughs} Yeah!
MATT: Stampers! There was stampers!
MIKE: That's—
MATT: — an homage to Neil!
KAREN: Another— another reference to Neil!
MIKE: There's Homestar, in his sweet Jim McMahon jersey with no sleeves!
KAREN: Stripe— stripèd pants!
MATT: {laughing} Stri— he's wearing a mid-'80s, uh, football player, but then his pants are clearly, like, late '70s.
MIKE: Well, his pants are also, um, Indiana University's basketball team, their warmups are those pants.
MATT: Really?
MIKE: Yeah, they're awesome.
KAREN: They're striped?!
MIKE: They look like clowns. Yeah, it looks like a circus when they're in their pre-game warmups.
MATT: Well, doesn't our brother Donnie have a pair? I feel like there's a picture of all of us from, like, you know, '78 or something, and Donnie's wearing some ridiculous stripèd pants!
MIKE: Homestar looks kinda like Donnie... {laughter} from the '70s!
MATT: He does! If we put giant glasses on him?
KAREN: Yep, that would be him!
MATT: —and tube socks pulled up to his neck!
{laughter}
MIKE: Sorry, Donnie. He's not even here to defend himself.
MATT: Yeah, that's ch—
KAREN: Poor guy.
MATT: —cheap shots. Cheap shots. Donnie's responsible for... the reason we— we're funny at all
MATT: {In response to the "middle school" scene} This is also not a parody of anything.
KAREN: Nope! {chuckles}
MIKE: I like how this— the wall in Strong Bad's nursery is similar, but just more baby-oriented.
MATT: Yeah.
KAREN: {laughs} Pink, and baby yellow...
MATT: I should paint that in, uh, in my nursery!
MIKE: Yeah, there you go!
KAREN: Okay, seriously, we need to make a onesie that has the little—
MATT: Diapersmith? {laughs}
KAREN: —little Diapersmith on it. {laughs} I do get requests for, uh, you know, Poopsmith baby clothes!
MIKE: Makes sense!
MATT: What are those balls called, that Pom Pom just looked like?
MIKE: Oh, the Bumble Balls?
{speaking simultaneously}
MATT: Yeah, those things. They jiggle— yeah! {laughs}
MIKE: You turn 'em on, and they just jiggle!
MATT: We should maybe, uh, I can't tell if it's just this monitor, but that background is really nice. You can't really see it on this monitor. Mike made this creepy cellular background. {laughs}
MIKE: That's the only cellular device I have, is a cellular background.
{laughter}
MATT: It's true.
KAREN: I think those things kinda freak out, um, Little Girl a little bit.
MATT AND MIKE: Really?
KAREN: She didn't like those, unh-uh.
MATT: She doesn't like those sh— Homestarmeciums?
KAREN: No, she doesn't like 'em.
MIKE: So there was a show that was not, uh, very widely seen called The Holidays, that was basically The Jetsons and The Flinstones, but in, uh, Roman times, and they had a pet lion.
MATT: {laughs}
KAREN: I do not remember that at all!
MIKE: Yeah! Yeah, I—I saw it a few times on the USA Cartoon Express.
MATT: That's right.
[edit] Fun Facts
- Jim McMahon was an NFL quarterback who played from 1982 until 1996. McMahon played for the Chicago Bears during the early part of his career and led the team to a Super Bowl victory. He wore jersey number 9 for his entire career.
- USA Cartoon Express was a block of cartoon programming on the USA Network in the '80s and '90s.
- The opposite of a salutation is a valediction.
