Labor Dabor
From Homestar Runner Wiki
| Toon Category: Puppet Stuff |
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- This article is about the puppet stuff. For the Strong Bad Email, see labor day.
The Homestarmy makes sure that nobody (or their brother) works on Labor Day.
Cast (in order of appearance): Puppet The Cheat, Puppet Homestar Runner, Puppet Frank Bennedetto
Places: The Cheat's Computer Room
Date: Monday, September 6, 2004
Running Time: 1:25
Page Title: Labor Dabor
DVD: Everything Else, Volume 1
Contents |
Transcript
{Ten chickens are assembled like bowling pins. A bowling ball strikes all of them with an explosion sound and "Hit 'em!" appears on screen. Cut to The Cheat watching his movie and mumbling to himself. The screen shows a farmer saying "stee-rike" in a speech bubble.}
FARMER: "Stee-rike."
{Homestar Runner runs in with Frank Bennedetto}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: All right, yellow man! {hits The Cheat with orange spoon} What's the big idea workin' on Labor's Day?
THE CHEAT: {The Cheat noises}
{Homestar waves the spoon as he talks, hitting The Cheat again in the face}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: Third-style Private Bennedetto and I are out making sure nobody or their brother does any type of work at all today!
THE CHEAT: {The Cheat noises}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: Stand down, citizen. You wanna have to give me five bucks?
THE CHEAT: {inquisitive The Cheat noises}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: Todaybor Day is a Labor Day! Say it with me now, on three! Once {pronounced "ons"}, twice, three!
{A banner appears reading "Todaybor Day is Labor Day!"}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: {joined by The Cheat} Todaybor Day is a Labor—
{Bennedetto starts popping some popcorn, surprising Homestar and The Cheat, who makes alarmed noises.}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: Whoa! Wah! Bennedetto! Did you get a hold of some bad third-style rations? Keep that mess down, soldier! Keep it down! Ahh! Ahh! No! The Cheat, run for your life!
{"Happy Labor Day!!" appears on a blue screen with some popcorn. Cut back to Homestar, The Cheat, and Bennedetto}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: {Eating some popcorn} Hey, this stuff's pretty good! Nice upchuck, Bennedetto!
{"Ended." appears on red background with some popcorn}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: {singing, voiceover} Todaybor Day is Labor Daybor! Todaybor Day is Labor Daybor! Todaybor Day is Labor Daybor! Todaybor Day is a Labor Daybor! Todaybor Day! Labor Day! Daybor Day! Labor Day! Come on everybody it's Labor Day! Come on everybody it's a Daybor Day!
Easter Eggs
- After Homestar is done with his little tune, you can click on various pieces of popcorn to see some bowling animations by The Cheat.
- Click on the upper third left-most popcorn (it's completely unobstructed) to see a "STRIKE" animation.
- {Ten bowling pin chickens are assembled outside a barn. A giant blue bowling ball rolls in from the right and knocks them all down. As the bowling ball collides with the chickens, the words "Hit 'em!" appear on the screen. A farmer appears from the bottom of the screen. A chicken lands on his head, and he turns around.}
- FARMER: Stee-rike. {word balloon appears}
- Click on the mostly unobstructed popcorn directly beneath the "N" to see a "SPLIT" animation.
- {A single bowling pin stands on a white table. A guillotine blade comes down from the top and splits it in half. The halves fall onto the table, revealing disgusting-looking bowling pin innards, complete with human-like skeletons. The halves spurt blood into the center of the screen, forming the word "SPLiT".}
- Click on the huge popcorn piece beneath "DE" to see a "SPARE" animation.
- {The bowling pins are set up in a prehistoric setting. A giant The Cheat-like monster appears on the left. The Cheat monster roars, then fires eye-lasers at the bowling pins, causing six of them to go away, leaving the right-most pin in the third row, and the three left-most pins in the back row (the 6-7-8-9). The Cheat monster fires its eye-lasers again, and the rest of the bowling pins disappear. The Cheat monster roars again, and the symbol for a spare in bowling comes out of his mouth and centers on the screen with the word "SPARE!" underneath.}
- Click on the mostly unobstructed popcorn piece that is directly right of the large piece and underneath the "D." to see a "DOUBLE GUTTER" animation.
- {Cut to a bowling line outside a city with two heads on the left and right sides of the screen. The two heads spit out bowling balls into their respective gutter. The end of the bowling lane turns into a mouth and chomps up the bowling balls, then emits a flashing "DOUBLe gUTTeR" sign.}
- Click on the lower second right-most popcorn (it's mostly unobstructed) to see an "IT'S STILL YOUR TURN!!!" animation.
- {A bowling pin with shoes, glasses and a mustache stands impatiently at the end of the lane. It checks its watch, then frowns at the camera and starts talking in subtitled gibberish.}
- BOWLING PIN: {words appear on screen} IT'S STILL YOUR TURN!!!
- {The screen changes to a cell phone with the words "YOR ANNOY ING FREND" on its display, and flashing red words say "turn off the cell phone & bowl". A bunch of bowling balls make up the background.}
Fun Facts
Explanations
- A "double gutter" is when both balls bowled in a frame of bowling are gutter balls; that is, when the ball rolls foul.
Trivia
- This toon was called Labor Day when it originally premiered.
- Homestar's wooden spoon is drawn in vectors and superimposed; it would be hard to make it float in midair in front of Homestar for real.
- The sign that says "Todaybor day is labor day" is also drawn in. It's easy to see this if you switch the quality between high and low, because the rest of the movie doesn't change. (Recorded movies, such as AVI, MOV, and MPEG files, are not anti-aliased when imported into Flash)
- Looking closely, you can see a bit of a red glow on Homestar from the iMac, making it seem it was actually on but drawn over in Flash.
Remarks
- Frank Bennedetto, presumed dead (army), is now revealed to be alive.
- It appears that The Cheat is making toons for use on automatic scoring computers at bowling alleys. Some scorers play such animations when someone gets a strike, spare, split, etc.
Real-World References
- The Macromedia Flash interface is shown here when The Cheat is working on his animation.
DVD Version
- The DVD version features hidden creators' commentary. To access it, switch your DVD player's audio language selection while watching.
Commentary Transcript
(Commentary by: Mike Chapman, Matt Chapman)
MIKE: Ah, look at The Cheat's bowling uh, strike animations.
MATT: It would be a dream come true if we could get these in a bowling alley somewhere.
MIKE: That was an idea we had uh, for awhile.
MATT: Yeah.
MIKE: The Cheat bowling animations.
MATT: Yeah, we were gonna make that just be its own cartoon at some point, I think. So there's that, uh— There's some magic going on here Mike with that— that spoon.
MIKE: That spoon is animated in Flash—
MATT: Yeah.
MIKE: —and put over top. You couldn't maybe tell quite as much when it was on the web and very tiny as you can—
MATT: Yeah.
MIKE: —watching it large screen.
MATT: It looks alright. Look! Emotion Eric was in town and he controlled Bennedetto.
MIKE: He's a master puppeteer.
MATT: Yeah, he did a great job. There's a lot of timing involved in that part, I remember, getting him to be puking up all that popcorn at the right time.
MIKE: We had popcorn around in that room for awhile too.
MATT: Yeah, there might still be a few pieces.
MIKE: Is that it?
MATT: No, he's gotta sing the song and—
MIKE: Oh, yeah.
MATT: —"Nice upchuck, Bennedetto." So it's fun to try and take things from cartoons and adapt them into puppet style like the Homestarmy.
MIKE: Yeah, the Homestarmy. Yeah, I mean, we got the bowls.
MATT: We got the tangerine iMac. We got the bowls, the orange. We actually got orange spoons until we realized quickly we wouldn't be able to use them.
MIKE: Yeah. No, those were wood spoons and we spray painted it like the bowls.
MATT: Right.
MIKE: Yeah, spray paint.
Real World References
- "Emotion Eric" is the nickname of Eric Wu, who ran a popular website called Eric Conveys an Emotion[1], in which Wu would act out an emotion suggested to him by a fan. The Brothers Chaps guest-starred in one of his "Adventure Edition" photo galleries, 'The Football Game' [2]. Eric Conveys an Emotion has not been updated since July 21, 2006.
