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Strong Bad Email #172
watch underlings the paper
"The Homestarmy has a career for you in the no-armed forces!"

Strong Bad gives us a tour of his Vaguely Military Career Fair.

Cast (in order of appearance): Strong Bad, The Cheat/Tito, [[Strong Mad|]], Strong Sad, Coach Z, The King of Town, The Poopsmith, Homestar Runner, Firebert (Easter egg)

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.

{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: {clears screen, typing} Look Perthy Paul, I've been over this already: Strong Badia doesn't have/need{pronounces have-slash-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. Strong Bad turns around to face him.}

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 QuarkXpress! A pirated version of QuarkXpress!

{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 peeks in from the right side of the screen.}

STRONG BAD: Oh. That's a bad sign.

{Strong Bad leaves again.}

Easter Eggs

Fairly Religious Overtones!
  • 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 red permanent marker and angrily replaces "Firebert" with "Trogdor." He smiles and sighs happily as a large crowd of people gathers around and mumbles to each other. The only discernible phrases are "Oh, Trogdor, man, it's Trogdor" and "He looks taller."}

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.
  • "Jumping in" is a typical gang initiation ritual where new members are attacked by several gang members at once. The new member must fight back to prove himself before being accepted.
  • "Step-headed red-child" is a spoonerism of "redheaded stepchild", an expression used to refer to a social outcast.
  • "Ganglo-Saxon" is a portmanteau of "gangly" and "Anglo-Saxon".
  • 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.

Trivia

"Bro, sure!"

Remarks

  • The font Helvetica is not present anywhere on the On Point Kings' brochure. Part of it is actually set in Coolvetica, a knockoff version.

Goofs

  • Coach Z's emblem is backwards.
  • At the end, after Strong Bad goes away, the right edge of the table disappears.
  • As Strong Bad leaves the desk at the end (for the first time), a tiny bit of his reflection on the computer overlaps on the top of the wall.

Inside References

  • This email makes several references to 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 Strong Badia.
    • The Cheat does not receive any visitors until he replaces "Firebert" with "Trogdor". In army, Strong Bad had commented that Firebert was not a good commando name.
    • A poster at Homestar's booth is captioned with "Do you has?" In army, Homestar asks Strong Bad, "Do you has what it takes to join the Homestarmy?" This poster is also available as a downloadable wallpaper.
    • In army, Homestar tells his troops to give five bucks to the Homestarmy. Here, he states, "You look like you come from a long line of five-bucks-havers."
  • 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 mentioned 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" (this email is #172).
    • The sound it makes is an extended version of the one from Sick Day.
  • 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.
  • The sound The Cheat makes in the beginning of the Firebert Easter Egg is similar to the one he made in mile after Strong Bad left.
  • The skeleton costume visible on the hands of the "shady missionary" on the cover of Taranchula's album was also worn by the guitarist in their Moving Very Slowly music video.

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.
  • QuarkXPress is a page layout application for Mac and Windows.
  • The pamphlet for the Homestarmy features the cover art for the Atari 2600 version of Space Invaders.
  • Strong Bad's mercenary costume closely resemblances that of Major Bludd, a mercenary from the G.I. Joe cartoon series.

External Links

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