high school

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Strong Bad Email #140
watch portrait death metal
"Ahh, there's no such thing as mysterious."

Patrick asks Strong Bad about his younger years.

Cast (in order of appearance): Strong Bad, The Cheat (Easter Egg, Photo), Homestar Runner, Marzipan, Strong Mad, Coach Z, Strong Sad, The Poopsmith (as The Diapersmith), Pom Pom, Homestarmecium, Bubs (as Bubsamecium), Strongbadiophage, The Homestar Runner (Easter Egg), Old-Timey Strong Bad (Easter Egg), Don Knotts (Easter Egg), Sickly Sam (Easter Egg)

Places: Computer Room, Abandoned Pie Factory, High School, Middle School, Free Petry Dish USA, Bubsamecium's Protozoa Stand, Rome (Easter Egg)

Computer: Lappy 486

Date: Sunday, January 8, 2006

Running Time: 3:02

Page Title: Lappy 486

Contents

Transcript

STRONG BAD: {singing} It's the email, baby, lunch juice!

{Strong Bad stretches out "Hey Strong Bad!", says "high-shool... er, highs- high school. highschool (as one word)" instead of just "high school", and reads "Cowiche WA" as one word.}

STRONG BAD: Well, cowichewa to you too, Patrique. Now, I have an extremely unphotographic memory. So, I guess that'd be more like a drawing, or a doodle. Like a doodle memory. {clears screen} But I would hazard a guess that we were probably just like other cartoons were in high school, i.e. we were a team of super sleuths.

{Cuts to a splash screen titled "The Homestar Runner Mysfit-steries" with "story by Youdbetterbelieveit Chimendez" in the lower right. Crudely drawn teenage versions of Homestar Runner, Marzipan, Strong Mad, and Strong Bad stand abreast in the center. Dissolve to teenage Marzipan in an old building.}

TEENAGE MARZIPAN: Stampers! My long lost uncle's abandoned pie factory sure is mysterious.

{Cut to a wider shot showing the entire gang.}

TEENAGE STRONG BAD: Ah, there's no such thing as "mysterious".

TEENAGE HOMESTAR RUNNER: I don't want to take any chances. {close up shot} We should play in a band, just to be safe.

{Cut to teenage Strong Bad, Strong Mad, Marzipan, and Homestar Runner playing the keyboard, the drums, the tambourine, and the bass guitar, respectively, on a blue backdrop. The drum says the name of the band, "Misfit-steries"}

TEENAGE HOMESTAR RUNNER: {singing without his usual speech impediment} Havin' fun with my friends. Words about a mystery. Shakin' hands with my man...

{Cut back to the Lappy 486.}

STRONG BAD: And when we weren't debating the existence of mysterious, Strong Mad and I were all the time trying to liberate Homestar from those ridiculous striped {pronounced stripe-ed} pants.

{Cut to teenage Strong Mad, Homestar, and Strong Bad near some lockers. Strong Mad and Strong Bad hold ropes attached to hooks in the ceiling and floor, which then run through hooks on Homestar's waistline. A magnet lies next to Homestar's feet.}

TEENAGE HOMESTAR RUNNER: Now you guys are sure this won't emancipate me from my ridiculous striped {pronounced stripe-ed again} pants?

{Cut back to the Lappy 486.}

STRONG BAD: So that's what high school {pronounced "high-shool", as before} was like. In, um, middle school we were a bunch of melon-headed babies with gigantic eyes and enormous...

{A baby-sized Coach Z tosses with a box marked "NOT A BALL!" up and down, with a plush football beside him. Strong Bad continues, voicing over.}

STRONG BAD: ...imaginations.

BABY COACH Z: {high-pitched, childish voice} I'm pretending I'm the craptain of the foortball torm!

{As Coach Z says this, the nursery-school style background is replaced with a black and white image of a football field.}

{Push pan to a baby Strong Bad in a diaper with a small blue cap on his head. He sits holding an NES controller.}

BABY STRONG BAD: {high-pitched, childish voice} I'm pretending I'm playing better video games! {Atari 2600 sound effects play in the background.} Aw, man! That freakin' duck swallowed both my pixels!

{Push pan to a baby Strong Sad and a baby The Poopsmith. Baby Strong Sad has a pink bow in his hair, long eyelashes, and a frilly divide between his torso and trunk. The baby Poopsmith wears a blue baby bonnet and holds a stained rattle, with a large pile of dirty diapers behind him.}

BABY STRONG SAD: I'm pretending I'm not sitting next to The Diapersmith.

{As Strong Sad says this, the background, including The Diapersmith's diapers, is replaced by a black and white image of the Wright brothers' airplane.}

{The Diapersmith turns to baby Strong Sad and blows a raspberry.}

{Black and white image vanishes. Pan to the legs of Homestar Runner, who is wearing puffy red and white pants and holding a broom.}

HOMESTAR RUNNER: Now you children skedaddle. {pushes sweeping end of broom at The Diapersmith and Strong Sad}

STRONG BAD: {voicing over, in normal voice} And going even unnecessarily further back, {as Strong Bad says this, baby Pom Pom bounds by the screen, with a Bumble Ball body form and no distinguishable head.} we were all a bunch of plucky parameciums living in Free Petry Dish USA.

{Cut to a petri dish with a liquid inside resembling the shape of the United States of America.}

{Cut to a paramecium Bubs floating in a box marked "BUB5AMECIUM'S PROTOZOA STAND". A paramecium Homestar floats up.}

HOMESTARMECIUM: Hey there, Bubsamecium. I need to buy some embarrassing items for my embarrassing body parts.

BUBSAMECIUM: Certainly! Six tubes of rear-end cream coming right up! {He brings out a bag with said tubes of cream, and gives it to Homestarmecium.}

{Cut to a close-up of a viral Strong Bad.}

STRONGBADIOPHAGE: Oh ho ho! Whatcha buying there, Homestarmecium?

{Cut to a wide shot. Strongbadiophage "walks" in from the left.}

HOMESTARMECIUM: Uh-oh, it's Strongbadiophage. Um, uh, these are for my twin brother! {Homestarmecium divides into two of himself, and both speak in unison} These are for my twin brother! {the two Homestarmecia divide into four} These are for my twin brother! {the four divide into eight} These are for my twin brother!

STRONGBADIOPHAGE: Aaaahh!! {he runs off}

{Cut back to the Lappy 486.}

STRONG BAD: And then, of course, before that we were {pause} Romans...living in Roman times. And Don Knotts was always showing up. So there you go, Patrice. Just the facts. {types the score on different lines} Strong Bad Emails: 1, Not Strong Bad Emails: 0. {stops typing} You guys keep score at home. I'll see you next time. {runs off singing} Oh, havin' fun with my friends...

{The Paper comes down.}

Easter Eggs

Unphotographic
  • Click on the word "unphotographic" to reveal a photographic memory of the jumble caper.
    • Click on the resulting image to reveal the doodle memory version of the same event. Strong Bad is carrying a large gemstone out of a vault, The Cheat is drawn as a rattlesnake-like creature carrying a turkey on a platter, and a sign points to the right reading "Subwoofers."
  • Click on the word "Roman" after the paper comes down to see what those times were like.
{Cut to The Homestar Runner and Old-Timey Strong Bad in a black and white Roman land. The Homestar Runner is dressed as Julius Caesar and Old-Timey Strong Bad is dressed as a Roman legionary.}
THE HOMESTAR RUNNER: Oh... aqueduct.
OLD-TIMEY STRONG BAD: Hm... yes! Vomitorium!
DON KNOTTS: {pokes head in} Andy?
{Pan to Sickly Sam wearing a sack reading "OLIVES". He vanishes, and an Ionic column takes his place.}

Fun Facts

Explanations

  • "Cowichewa to you too" is an aural allusion to "konnichi wa", a basic Japanese greeting.
  • Homestarmecium, despite his name, is drawn without a nucleus. This suggests that he could actually be construed as a bacterium (a prokaryote), rather than a paramecium (a eukaryote), and that he replicates himself using binary fission (eukaryotes replicate via mitosis).
    • On the other hand, the "hairs" on his head area may suggest he's a ciliate, not a bacterium. However, since some bacteria have cilia as well, this is not conclusive. While Bubs also has "cilia" patches, his outline suggests the stereotypical image of an amoeba rather than the typical "footprint" shape of a paramecium.
  • Strongbadiophage, which has a hexagonal head upon a column ending in 6 legs, appears to be a T4 Phage bacteriophage. This type of virus attacks bacteria, not paramecia, and forces the host cell to create copies of the virus by modifying the cell's DNA.
    • The Enterobacteria phage T4 was likely chosen to represent Strong Bad because it is by far the most easily recognised virus, not necessarily because of its nature.
    • Just as "bacteriophage" means "one who devours bacteria," "Strongbadiophage" may be taken to mean "one who devours Strong Badia" or simply "one who devours Strong Bad".
  • The Homestar Runner mentions aqueducts. The Roman Aqueduct system is perhaps the most famous ever built, running over 250 miles across their empire and supplying over a million gallons of water a day to ancient Rome alone.
  • A Roman vomitorium was a passage situated below or behind a tier of seats in an amphitheatre, through which the crowds could "spew out" of the building at the end of a show. Contrary to popular belief, it does not refer to a place where people would go to vomit.
  • In the Roman Easter egg, Sickly Sam is wearing a sack that says OLIVES, which were quite valuable in that era, both as a foodstuff and a source of oil which could be used for fuel, cleaning, etc.
  • Patrique is a French spelling of Patrick.

Trivia

  • When this email was released, the main page button read "new strong bad email" and "nothing else!". The site had just experienced an unusually long hiatus, 35 days, since the last major update.
  • "The Homestar Runner Mysfit-steries" is written by Youdbetterbelieveit Chimendez.
  • The summary on the Podstar Runner RSS feed for this video says, "Strong Bad makes up a buncha stuff that's not true. Don't you believe a word of it!"

Remarks

Homestarmeciam, before and after cutaway
  • Strong Bad breaks the fourth wall by acknowledging the fact that he is a cartoon character.
  • This email appears to support the idea that Strong Bad and Homestar were once friends, as was first suggested by Homestar in The Best Decemberween Ever.
  • Teenage Homestar plays a left-handed bass guitar.
  • While Strong Mad generally plays bass (i.e. Cool Tapes), his teenage counterpart plays the drums, normally played by The Cheat.
  • Baby Coach Z wearing green pajamas supports the theory that he wears a green body suit, as Strong Bad questioned in labor day.
  • Strong Bad seems to be a little confused on Coach Z's age: In his "middle school" flashback, Coach Z appears about the same age as him, but in stand-up, Strong Sad's video tape reveals that Coach Z was already an adult when Strong Bad was a little kid. Their conflicting ages were also seen in record book.
  • Middle schoolers are typically between the ages of twelve and fourteen.
  • Petri dish is misspelled in "Free Petry Dish USA" as a reference to Free Country, USA.
  • When Homestarmecium replicates himself, he does so horizontally, each time. However, every time the screen pulls out, the Homestarmecia are lined up vertically prior to the next replication, despite having never moved from their horizontal alignment.
  • Strong Bad missuses Latin when he says "parameciums" as opposed to the correct "paramecia."
  • The high-school aged Homestar's eyes appear to be essentially his normal eyes rotated 45° clockwise.

Goofs

  • When The Homestar Runner Mysfit-steries title card drops down, Strong Bad's head is seen in front of the card for one frame.
  • Baby Strong Bad's right eye doesn't have the star-shaped pupil as his left does.

Fixed Goofs

Masking goof
An unsettling mistake
  • When the email was released, Strong Bad's reflection went outside of the Lappy's screen as he got up. This occurred due to lack of using a masking effect. This was corrected shortly after it was released.
  • Originally, on the Mysfit-steries title screen, Strong Mad's fist was visibly protruding from between Marzipan's thighs. This too was fixed promptly.

Inside References

Real-World References

  • "The Homestar Runner Mysfit-steries" parodies Scooby-Doo, as well as numerous other Hanna-Barbera cartoons such as Jabberjaw, Josie and the Pussycats, and Speed Buggy. These cartoons featured common themes of teenagers and young adults solving mysteries and occasionally playing together in bands.
  • "Stampers" is a parody of the ubiquitous nonsensical Scooby-Doo exclamations, such as "Jinkies!", "Jeepers!", and "Zoinks!"
  • The "middle school" portion of the email parodies Jim Henson's Muppet Babies and other American cartoons that followed the trend of presenting established characters in a franchise as children or toddlers (such as, incidentally, Scooby-Doo).
  • Based on the "freakin' duck", Baby Strong Bad is most likely playing Adventure.
  • The black and white picture behind Baby Strong Sad and The Diapersmith is from the historic first flight made by the Wright brothers in 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
    • Live action backdrops such as this one and the football field behind Baby Coach Z were used in Muppet Babies when the babies would use their imaginations.
  • Homestar as the matronly nursery character saying "Now you children skedaddle" is a reference to and hybrid of both Nanny from Muppet Babies and the Mammy-Two-Shoes character from Tom and Jerry. The costume and Southern colloquialisms are suggestive of the "Mammy" character, who often wallops the cat with a broom when he misbehaves. "Nanny", likewise, was only shown from the waist down.
  • Don Knotts, who passed away shortly after this email was released, was an actor best known for playing Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show. He also twice guest-starred in the New Scooby-Doo Movies cartoons.
  • The "Roman times" Easter egg may be a reference to The Roman Holidays, a Hanna Barbera animated sitcom from 1972. Like The Flintstones and The Jetsons before it, the basic premise was plunking a typical sitcom family into another time period (in this case, 63 A.D.).
  • "Just the facts" is a reference to the phrase "Just the facts, ma'am", which was made popular by the TV police procedural Dragnet, despite the fact the phrase was never used on the show.

Fast Forward

  • Teenage Strong Bad reappears in the abandoned factory and is seen in the supergroup in alternate universe.

External Links

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