HRWiki:STUFF/Archive/video games

Prison Without Bars

From: video games
Posted on: 22:55, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Arguments for:

• The following was originally written over a year and four months ago:

You have to bear in mind the timing of it all. The email's debut was January 12, 2004. Only four days prior to that, My Prison Without Bars was released. It was the hot topic of the weekend. I vividly remember the Monday morning I first saw the email and thinking to myself: Wow, they put a pop-culture reference in there! If I had known of the Wiki's existence at the time, I would have added the fun fact then.
    Time passes. Nearly thirteen months later, some anonymous contributor (I don't know who) adds the fact to the page, but it's been so long that the context and the feeling of a year ago are gone, and so it seems like this so-called fact is a stretch. I can see where you're coming from in this.
    But it's not a stretch. The key phrase here is "prison without." Without bars, without walls -- or even, as Strong Bad says, without toilets -- it doesn't matter what it's without... The fact is that the phrase, given the context of the day, is too coincidental to be a coincidence. It is an apropos reference, and a valid fun fact.
    It's true that Strong Bad mentions Alcatraz, but I think that's because TBC already had prison on the brain due to the constant news coverage of Pete Rose's book (and the shocking revelations within it).

• Re: the first arg against: TBC did the emails over the weekend at the time this email was released.
• Re: the second arg against: As mentioned above, the parallel is "prison without" / "prison with no".
• Re: the third arg against: "bars" is not the parallel. See the previous arguments.
• Re: the fourth arg against: You have to take into account the timing of the release dates. See above.
• Re: the sixth arg against: Sure they are. They mention events in their lives and other things. But even if they don't reference current events very often, does that mean they never can?

Arguments against:

• I think it's just a coincidence it's mentioned, since they were probably working on the e-mail before the book came out
• The book's title uses "bars", not "walls" or "toilet". There's no parallel.
• The intro doesn't even have the words "bars" in it!
• A Google search shows a lot articles and song titles with a similar line. "A prison with no walls/bars" is a common metaphor.
• Re: the third arg for: How is "a prison without" the parallel when the intro says "a prison with no walls"? It can't be a parallel if it doesn't even occur both times.
• Strong Bad says "with no". The books title is "without"
• TBC are not known to make references to current events.

Additional comments:

• Maybe we can revise it to say "possibly a reference".
  • Okay, tweak'd.
• Fwd: Re: The fifth arg for: Timing is not everything.
  • Huh? Of course it is. Except for the parallel phrase "prison without", timing is the most important part of this one.
    • I agree. I hear TBC are fans of Baseball, and if that's true, they probably knew about the book before it was actually released. They probably knew of the date it was going to be released. Although it may not be a direct reference in the WAY Strong Bad says it, the mention of it in general is probably a reference to the current event of the time.

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All my peoples got sent up the river

From: video games
Posted on: 18:59, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Arguments for:

Arguments against:

• Strong Bad seems more streetwise and less like the type who would make a historical homage. Therefore the second thing listed there is way more likely.
• "All my peoples" and the Cold One bear closer resemblance to the second fact.

Additional comments:

Proposed revision:

Arguments for:

• This is way more likely than the "libation offerings" bit.

Arguments against:

Additional comments:

• This could probably be reworded even more. {The person who STUFF'd this is not all that familiar with gangsta practice.}
• The "for my dead homies" quote and 40 oz. "forty" scene are in the Wayans movie Don't be a Menace to South Central..., and perhaps elsewhere.

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