Flash is Dead!
From Homestar Runner Wiki
Toon Category: Shorts |
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Flash is dying, and the citizens of Free Country, USA have to head for the hills (or bushes) until they can learn HTML5.
Cast (in order of appearance): Homestar Runner, Strong Bad, F-Sack, Bubs (voice only; Easter egg), Coach Z (voice only; Easter egg)
Places: The Field, Bubs' Concession Stand (Easter egg)
Date: Monday, August 3, 2015
Running Time: 2:00
Page Title: Oh man! We're so doomed!!
Contents |
[edit] Transcript
{The Flash Plugin Error appears reading "This plugin is vulnerable and should be updated" and the text below it reading "Activate Flash". Homestar Runner soon after pops up from below}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: Wo-ho! Check it out! I'm vulnerable and should be updated. {The scene pans out to show the error screen is a sign being held up by two planks, as Homestar Runner is in the field with it} Hey, that sounds like my dating profile!
{Strong Bad runs to Homestar Runner, hyperventilating, with a filthy sack behind his back.}
STRONG BAD: {dropping his sack} Homestar! What are you doing, man? This is horse giblets!
HOMESTAR RUNNER: {bending forward towards the sack} Oh, hello, horse giblets! {Strong Bad turns around at the sack} I thought you were just a filthy sack!
STRONG BAD: {Strong Bad turns around to Homestar as Homestar stands back upright} No, I'm not referring to the filthy sack, whose name incidentally is F-Sack. I'm talking about the situation, man!
HOMESTAR RUNNER: What situation? I'm trying to update my dating profile.
STRONG BAD: Haven't you heard? Flash is dying!
HOMESTAR RUNNER: Oh, well, good! I'm a way better runner than that guy anyways.
STRONG BAD: No, I'm talking about Flash. Like, what we breathe. The thing what creates us all.
HOMESTAR RUNNER: Strong Bad! If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were getting a little {Homestar's cap hovers a bit} religioso on me.
{hsbody layer and draw icons fall from the sky and embed themselves slightly into the ground}
STRONG BAD: Ahh! See? That's a chunk of Flash Authoring Interface right there! It's falling apart! We gotta head for the hills!
HOMESTAR RUNNER: Are those hills? I always thought they was bushes.
STRONG BAD: Figurative.
HOMESTAR RUNNER: But actually, I never walked a couple of feet to find out for sure.
STRONG BAD: I meant it figuratively.
HOMESTAR RUNNER: Hey, let's do it right now!
STRONG BAD: I'm being figurative.
{Homestar runs towards the bushes in the background, eventually running into them and falling back.}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: Blah! Bush. Definitely bush.
STRONG BAD: Now listen. I've got enough classic motion tweens and deprecated actions in ol' F-Sack here to last us at least six months until we can learn HTML5.
HOMESTAR RUNNER: Ooh, I know what that stands for! Hyper-Text Markup Lotion! {Homestar holds up a lotion with the HTML logo, minus the L, which is used at the bottom with the word "LOSCHE!".} Let me poop a little bit out for you. {Homestar squeezes the bottle and makes a small flatulent sound with his mouth three times}
STRONG BAD: Nope, nope, nope, the land of ten-thousand nopes. Homestar, the death of Flash is equivalent to a giant meteor heading straight for the Earth!
HOMESTAR RUNNER: Oohhh, I got you. Sounds like somebody's asking for another heaping helping of... {Homestar holds up a DVD cover of Deep Impact} Deep Impact!
{Strong Bad groans}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: {putting the DVD in front of his face and then impersonating a commander} Strong Bad, this is Morgan Shawshank, I need you to hit that meteor with every Duvall you've got.
STRONG BAD: Never mind. I'll be in Bubs' fallout shelter if anybody needs me. {Picking up his sack and walking away} Good luck with yourself, Homestar.
HOMESTAR RUNNER: I don't want to miss a thing!
STRONG BAD: {in the distance} Wrong movie.
HOMESTAR RUNNER: Wait, those were two different movies?
{The Flash Plugin Error screen fills the scene with the text "Oh, man", and below it, "We gotta figure something out, fast!".}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: But they both came out, like, the same summer even.
[edit] Easter Eggs
- At the end, click on the Red Button on the Flash Plugin Error screen to see a scene with the Concession Stand.
- {the shutter of the Concession Stand is down and the sign reads "BUBS' FALLOUT 5HELTER"}.
- STRONG BAD: Bubs, where's the bathroom in this place? It's just a bunch of canned goods.
- BUBS: Well, you know what they say, Strong Bad. Today's Pork and Beans is tomorrow's toilet.
- COACH Z: And in some rare cases, today's.
- STRONG BAD: Ugh! Bubs, I thought you said this fallout shelter was Coach Z-free.
- BUBS: Well, somebody's gotta carry on the human race.
- STRONG BAD: W-ah! I don't want to think about words any more.
- At the end, click on "gotta" to see Homestar's dating profile on his website.
head> )title(Untitled)title( /head} ,body.
helscome my dating prolif
its not done.
Name: Homestar Michael (stipe) Runner
Type: Single-ish no-armed whitey. Is vulnerable and
should be updated.
Status: Marzipan'd
Likes: beans b/w rice. thats all i can think umf tonight.
No likes: four door sedans. billfolds.
*this site is best viewed using Ned's cape 1.0 or lower
- HOMESTAR RUNNER: Welcome to my dating profile. It's not done. Name, Homestar Michael Runner. Type! Single-ish no-armed whitey, is vulnerable and should be updated. Status, Marzipan'd! Likes! Beans backed with rice. Umm... that's all I can think of tonight. No likes. Aw, this one is easy; four-door Sedans and billfolds! I don't even know what a billfold is. Boo-ding! This site is best viewed using Ned's cape 1.0 or lower.
- At the end, click on "fast" to see a scene with F-Sack.
- F-SACK: Aw man, Strong Bad. Sometimes, I wish you had named me "Horse Giblets". Better than that ol' name F-Sack; sounds unsavory.
[edit] Fun Facts
[edit] Explanations
- HTML stands for "HyperText Markup Language", the standard format websites are written in.
- The entire short alludes to Adobe Flash Player, which was the software platform used to play all the homestarrunner.com cartoons in web browsers. There had been periodic concerns about security issues with Flash Player; with many calling for Flash to be abandoned entirely in favor of the more modern and secure HTML5. This movement gained significant momentum when the browsers Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome officially deprecated Flash, tagging them as permanently non-secure plugins "in need of an update" regardless of their actual version. This situation led directly to the creation of the cartoon: the opening recreates the Firefox error message for an out-of-date plugin.
[edit] Trivia
- This is the first short since The Animated Adventures of Puppet Homestar in September of 2009, nearly six years earlier. This closes what was then the biggest gap ever in between a type of toon; it has since been surpassed by the over-seven-year gap between Marzipan's Answering Machine Versions 16.2 and 17.2.
- This is the first appearance of Homestar's updated asymmetrical squint/eyebrow raise, which would be used again in Homestar Runner Goes for the Gold. The only time previously that the older version of this animation appeared is in secret recipes.
- The YouTube description for this toon is "Strong Bad tries to warn Homestar of impending doom. Homestar tries to update his dating profile."
[edit] Remarks
- This is the sixth toon in a row not to include a back button.
- On the TV Time Toons Menu, the description reads "It's all over! Head for the hills!" in the New Stuff menu while the Shorts section simply reads "It's all over!".
- The Easter egg showing Homestar's dating profile is read aloud instead of opening in a separate window, making it reminiscent of a DVD version of such an Easter egg.
[edit] Fixed Goofs
- Originally, the tall grass around objects embedded into the ground was a different shade of green from the rest of the grass. It was fixed within a few minutes, with only the grass around the Flash authoring interface pieces remaining the alternate shade of green.
[edit] Glitches
- All three Easter eggs have a clickable field around them before Homestar finishes talking, but cannot be activated until then.
[edit] Inside References
- Homestar Runner's dating profile is a reference to Homestar Runner's Website.
- The profile contains the phrase "beans b/w rice".
- Homestar describes his relationship status as Marzipan'd.
- Strong Bad previously called Homestar a "no-armed whitey" in The Interview.
- Homestar previously gave Strong Bad a Deep Impact DVD in The Best Decemberween Ever and Real-Live E-Mails.
- The DVD cover appears here as a vectorized version with alternate text.
- Bubs mentions pork and beans, which were previously mentioned in helium, Arcade Game, and business trip.
- Marzipan called Homestar "Homestar Michael Runner" in Halloween Potion-ma-jig.
[edit] Real-World References
- Homestar mistakes Flash for the comic book hero of the same name, The Flash.
- Strong Bad references the state nickname of Minnesota, "The Land of 10,000 Lakes".
- Michael Stipe is a musician best known as the lead singer of the band R.E.M. He was the first inspiration for Strong Sad's voice.
- The film Homestar is confusing for Deep Impact is Armageddon, which was directed by Michael Bay and released several weeks after Deep Impact in 1998. Both films had similar subject matter, which involved objects from space potentially striking Earth.
- "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" was a song from the soundtrack to Armageddon. The song was written by Diane Warren and performed by Aerosmith, and was the first song by the band to reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100.
- Homestar's mention of "Morgan Shawshank" refers to Deep Impact star Morgan Freeman, who played the President of the United States in the film and starred as Red in The Shawshank Redemption.
- He also mentions Robert Duvall, who played Captain Spurgeon "Fish" Tanner in Deep Impact.
- "Ned's cape 1.0" is a reference to Netscape 1.0, an Internet browser released in 1994.
- Jeffrey Lyons, mentioned on the vectorized Deep Impact cover, is a film, theater, and television critic based in New York City. He has hosted several television programs based on film reviews, including the PBS-produced Sneak Previews where he was one of the replacements for the original hosts, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert.
[edit] Fast Forward
- The accompanying @StrongBadActual Tweet also refers to Hypertext Markup Lotion.
- This toon is later referenced in the Brothers Chaps' interview from Lost in the Stacks in 2017, where they further discuss what the death of Flash means for the future of Homestar Runner.
- The website started updating its content to HTML5 format starting with TROGDOR! on January 13, 2018. A new version of the site was launched on July 17, 2018 and ultimately abandoned. This was followed by a second redesign on December 31, 2020 which updated the site to have HTML5 menus and play Flash files on the emulator Ruffle.
[edit] YouTube Version
- The YouTube version has two exclamation marks in its name.
- As with most of the YouTube versions of recent toons, a group of nine thumbnails appears at the end of the main cartoon, parodying YouTube's related video thumbnails. However, unlike the previous two toons with these fake thumbnails, all of the thumbnails present in this version are new. The thumbnails are as follows:
Homsar and F-Sack and in The Field as there's an explosion in the background. This is a reference to the "meteor" Strong Bad compared Flash's death to. | A thumbnail drawn by The Cheat reading "Pow'd by The Cheat", a reference to Powered By The Cheat. | Pom Pom is seen on blue gradient without a head and his eyes moved onto his body. There is white text above him reading "The New Style!". |
A cross-eyed dancing Bubs is on a gray floor against a purple polka-dotted background with the text above him reading "Still Dang Dancin'!", a reference to Dancin' Bubs. | A real-life plushie Strong Bad is seen in a room with a poster in the background. This plushie is first seen in Dangeresque: Puppet Squad and is first shown clearly in a tweet by @StrongBadActual. | Puppet Homestar is with Mike Chapman again in "Coffee Town with Homestar + Mike" Episode 12. However, the name of the show is in black text in a white box and is over Mike's face. |
There are four Strong Bads with one of their arms extended against a blue gradient. | A peasant from Peasant's Quest Online? hovering over the Compé's keyboard on Strong Bad's desk. The peasant is leaving a bouncy, dashed white line behind him, à la Where U Goin' 2? | Multiple light brown, blue and white diagonal stripes. Text above reads "Cool Stripes w/ The Poopsmith". |
- After the thumbnails, the Easter eggs are played in the order of Bubs' Fallout Shelter, the monologue by F-Sack, and then Homestar Runner's dating website.