more armies
From Homestar Runner Wiki
| Strong Bad Email #172 |
|
Strong Bad gives us a tour of his Vaguely Military Career Fair.
Cast (in order of appearance): Strong Bad, The Cheat, [[Strong Mad|]], Strong Sad, Coach Z, The King of Town, The Poopsmith, Homestar Runner
Places: Computer Room, Strong Bad's Basement, Gymnasium, Strong Badia, The King of Town's Castle
Computer: Lappy 486
Date: Monday, May 21, 2007
Running Time: 3:40
Page Title: Lappy 486
Contents |
Transcript
STRONG BAD: Bring to me a suitable email, that I may check it down.
subject: Strong Badia's ArmyMr Strong Bad
I have three sons that wish to join the Strongbadia army.
Do you have any pamphlets, brochures, video information
that could assist.
Yours,
Paul, Perth
Western Australia
{He says "Mr" as "Mere" and says "Hey, I am no mere Strong Bad, okay?!" after reading "Mr Strong Bad". He also reads "Paul, Perth" as one name.}
STRONG BAD: {typing} Look Perthy Paul, I've been over this already: Strong Badia doesn't have/need an army. When we need muscle, we farm it out to our favorite band of shady missionaries, er I mean mercenaries, MERCENARIES! In fact, if your sons are so bonzer to enlist, they can {doesn't type} just {typing} swing by their booth at our Vaguely Military Career Fair, which just happens to be starting right now!
{Cut to a wide shot of The Cheat next to Strong Bad.}
THE CHEAT: {The Cheat noises}
STRONG BAD: Oh, it's not for three weeks. Okay.
{Cut to a black screen reading "2 weeks later...". Cut to Strong Bad in his basement.}
STRONG BAD: Introducing...
{Cut to The Cheat on the couch, with a cane, a bowtie, and a top hat reading "Tito". He turns left and right and waves.}
STRONG BAD: ...Tito the Tophaticent! And his beautiful assistant,
{Cut to a wide shot of the basement, revealing Strong Mad standing behind the couch with two basketballs in his singlet. He waves. Silhouettes of Strong Bad and Strong Sad are visible.}
STRONG BAD: Strong Mad with two basketballs shoved down his singlet!
STRONG SAD: Yaaaay!! {claps}
{Cut to a black screen reading "1 week later...". Cut to Strong Bad sitting at a booth in the gymnasium, wearing an eyepatch and a taped-on mustache. On the booth is a muffler, a stack of brochures, and a pipe. Coach Z walks by.}
STRONG BAD: Excuse me, Ganglo-Saxon. You look like the type of kid that gets his lunch handed to him daily. Well, if you'd like to be the lunch-handerer {raises his glove, revealing a robotic claw taped to it} for a change, then boy, do the On Point Kings have a brochure for you!
{Strong Bad puts the brochure on the table. It has the On Point Kings logo on top of a camouflage-style background.}
STRONG BAD: It's a Roman trifold {opens brochure} printed on 65-pound cardstock.
{The camera zooms in on the various features of the brochure.}
STRONG BAD: 14-point Helvetica, laid out using Quark Xpress! A pirated version of Quark Xpress!
{Flips open to another side of the brochure, which shows photos of the On Point Kings in action.}
STRONG BAD: We specialize in black ops, brown ops, and the occasional beige op.
{Cut to footage of Strong Badia, where a hopscotch grid has been drawn on the dirt. Strong Bad, Strong Mad, and The Cheat are there, all wearing fake mustaches. "CLASSIFIED" has been stamped on the screen. The Cheat starts hopping along the squares.}
STRONG BAD: Come on, The Cheat! Go for sixies! Sixies!
{Cut back to Strong Bad at the booth.}
STRONG BAD: How do you ever expect to get an {shows off his features as he says them} eye patch, mustache, or robotic arm like this— clank, clank— unless you join up with a shady band of missionaries? Oh, crap, I did it again! {camera moves away} Mercenaries, I meant mercenaries! {screen pans right and fades out} We do bad stuff!
{Cut to The King of Town at his booth. He is asleep and snoring while he is fed Giblet Gravy through a mask and tube. There is a TV on his table, as well as a sign reading, "Out to lunch Watch video" and an arrow pointing to the TV. Two posters are on the wall. Cut to the video, which shows a silhouetted The Poopsmith slowly climbing up the King's castle.}
THE KING OF TOWN: {voiceover} The drive... the power... the skills... the motivation... the power again...
{The Poopsmith has reached the top of the castle. He grabs his shovel.}
THE KING OF TOWN: {voiceover} The fortitude...
{The Poopsmith holds the shovel by his side.}
THE KING OF TOWN: {voiceover} The strive...
{The Poopsmith holds the shovel up to the dark, cloudy sky as lightning flashes.}
THE KING OF TOWN: {voiceover} The ideals...
{Lightning strikes the shovel, which gives The Poopsmith dark gloves, a gas mask, a club, and a shield.}
THE KING OF TOWN: {voiceover} The list of attributes...
{Zoom out on The Poopsmith, revealing a black and white poster with five Poopsmiths with the same gear. A King of Town logo is in the center and the words "The Municipality" are at the top.}
THE KING OF TOWN: {voiceover} The Municipality. {words appear as the King says them} Honor. Valor. Buttor.
{Cut to Homestar Runner's booth. Homestar is wearing an orange bowl on his head and is wielding an orange spoon. The table has the popcorn machine Frank Bennedetto behind a sign reading "Not free popcorn, memorial statue". There are two posters on the wall, one depicting Homestar wearing the same outfit, with the caption "Do You Has?", and another depicting the orange bowl and spoon, with the caption "Boond You Like?"}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: Say, young man! Say, young man, young man, young man, young man, young man, young man, young man! {points at viewer} You look like you come from a long line of five bucks-havers. Well, the Homestarmy has a career for you {points} in the no-armed forces!
{Cut to closeup of Homestar.}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: Say, you good at video games? I'm not good at video games. {chuckles} The last time I fired up one of my old Sega tapes, it made me a waffle. {zoom in} Say, you like pamphlets? {holds up a book of "Game Program Instructions" by Videlectrix} Here's a pamphlet! {tears book in half} Here's two pamphlets!
{Cut to the original wide shot.}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: Say, you got a girlfriend? Well, what if your girlfriend was a {holds up spoon} wooden spoon and an {bowl flies off his head} orange plastic bowl? {lowers eyelids} That'd be really weird, man. What kind of screwed-up kid are you? {angry} We don't recruit your kind! {waves spoon} Get out of here!
{Cut back to Strong Bad at the Lappy.}
STRONG BAD: {typing} So that's fair, right Dinkum? You send your coolest son off to join the On Point Kings. He'll have to be jumped in. You send your fat son off to join The Municipality. He'll have to be {short pause} pooped in. And then you send your step-headed red-child off to certain doom in the Homestarmy. He's gonna wanna be jumped out. Well, I gotta go find the bicycle pump. Tito the Tophaticent's beautiful assistant's looking a little...lopsided.
{Strong Bad gets up and leaves. The Paper comes down with an odd, sick-sounding noise; it is crumpled and torn. Strong Bad's head returns from the right side of the screen.}
STRONG BAD: Oh. That's a bad sign.
{Strong Bad leaves again.}
Easter Eggs
- Click on "Shady Missionaries" to see a Taranchula album of the same name.
- When Homestar says "The last time I fired up one of my old Sega tapes it made me a waffle", click anywhere on the screen to bring up a picture of a waffle iron with a Genesis-like controller and cartridge attached to it.
- At the end, click on "Tito the Tophaticent's" to see a video clip:
- {The Cheat, in his Firebert outfit, is standing in front of a sign that bears the Cheat Commandos logo and reads "Meet TV's Firebert!" After a long pause with cricket sounds, he takes out a fine tip permanent marker and replaces "Firebert" with "Trogdor." A large crowd of people gathers around.}
Fun Facts
Explanations
- Mercenaries are hired soldiers not currently a member of any national armed forces organization, while missionaries preach religious teachings.
- Strong Bad uses stereotypical examples of Australian English in his reply, "bonzer" (meaning excellent) and "fair dinkum" (meaning true or genuine).
- Black ops are covert operations which involve activities of a legally or ethically questionable nature.
- Giblet gravy is gravy with the giblets, or internal organs, of turkey or chicken. It is usually served with the type of poultry from which the giblets came.
Trivia
- The label on the Floppy Disk Container reads "dark seed".
Remarks
- At the end, Strong Bad's head is clearly behind and looking away from The Paper, yet he acts as if he is looking at it.
Inside References
- This email heavily references army. These include:
- Strong Bad's claim that he already said Strong Badia has/needs no army.
- The memorial to Frank Bennedetto, the only casualty of The Battle of Strongbadia.
- The Cheat does not receive any visitors before he changes "Firebert", which Strong Bad said (in the email army) was not a good commando name, to "Trogdor".
- The Cheat's Tito costume is from part-time job.
- The music during the Tito scene is from Strongest Man in the World.
- The Municipality was previously used in disconnected.
- The Paper's poor condition is a reference to montage, where it's stated that "The Paper stuck around until email #173, at which time Strong Bad upgraded to an inkjet printer". As this is email #172, this could very well be foreshadowing the end of the Paper era by the next email.
- The sound it makes is the same as the one from Sick Day, though an extended version of it.
- The On Point Kings were first referenced in origins.
- The smashed muffler and a pipe are sitting on Strong Bad's recruiting stand.
- In his "Homestarmy" monologue, Homestar mentions Sega tapes.
- The time displayed on the scoreboard is 3:14.
- Homestar's line about pursuing a career in the "no-armed forces" references Homestar's lack of visible arms.
- Strong Bad's costume, from when he is running the On Point Kings booth, features a mustache.
Real-World References
- The Municipality video closely resembles a commercial for the US Marines.
- Similarly, the Poopsmith's shield has "Pooper Fi" written on it, a parody of "Semper Fi" a motto of the US Marines.
- Joe Piscopo is an American comedian known for his work in Saturday Night Live.
- The On Point Knights brochure is actually set in Coolvetica, an edited version of Helvetica;
- Much of the brochure appears to be set in House Industries' Chalet Book.
- QuarkXPress is a page layout application for Mac and Windows.
- The brochure for the On Point Kings states that the version of QuarkXPress is registered to "B4KDØR H4XXØR" on the third inside page. This is a reference to computer hackers who use "backdoors" to crack software copy-protection.
- B4KDØR H4XXØR is leetspeak.
- The pamphlet for the Homestarmy features the cover art for the Atari 2600 version of Space Invaders.
External Links
- watch "more armies"
- watch "more armies" on the old Flash site
- view the Flash file for "more armies"
- forum thread re: "more armies"
