HRWiki:STUFF/Archive/rough copy

[edit] STUFF₂O

From: rough copy
Posted on: 20:06, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Arguments for:

1. Strong Bad says Homestar is selling Strong Bad flavored water so it is clearly a reference to a Fruit flavored water of the form X₂O wherein X is what the water is flavored as.
2. re arg 1, 3: the fact of the matter is that Homestar says that the water is Strong Bad flavored, K₂O is not suggesting that it is K flavored. SB₂O and Fruit₂O seem to be the only ones that fit the formula.
3. Fruit₂O is the preeminent brand of the ₂O market; K₂O has far less market share. A better counterexample of this naming structure, other than the Kellogg's product, would establish TTATOT, as they almost certainly wouldn't be referring to K₂O.

Arguments against:

1. TTATOT. Examples are K₂O and Fruit₂O.
2. Plays on H₂O are not unusual in pop culture.
3. This is not clearly a reference to Fruit flavored water. Fruit is not mentioned.
4. Re: arg 2: K₂O is flavored, whether or not it's obvious from the name.

Additional comments:

• Re: arg against #4: That's not what arg for #2 is saying. K₂O is not flavored with K.
  • Then we're just splitting hairs. One could just as easily make the argument that Fruit₂O uses lowercase letters that aren't part of an abbreviation, so K₂O fits better.
• Here's my plan. We just add to the existing fun fact: "Many other beverages, such as Fruit₂O make the same pun."
  • About all that does is prove this fact is TTATOT, as the revision shows.

Proposed revision:

Arguments for:

1. Takes away reference to a specific item and now refers to all of the H2O portmanteaux that exist.

Arguments against:

1. Very definition of TTATOT.
2. Weak because of the word "possibly."
3. At the risk of sounding redundant... The usage of both "possibly" and "and" really condemn this one.
4. Definitely TTATOT.

Additional comments:

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[edit] I've been STUFFing this fact since I was eight!

From: rough copy
Posted on: 22:22, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Arguments for:

1. The reference is specifically to the way Strong Sad says his line, not just the fact that there were snowballs being saved in the freezer. Strong Sad's inflection mirrors Cosby's very closely.
2. Re: Arg against #1: Cosby's routine, being from around 1967, predates Calvin and Hobbes and Nickelodeon.

Arguments against:

1. TTATOT: This gag is all over the place—there's nothing about saving snowballs in the freezer that's unique to Cosby. Take Calvin and Hobbes, or the Nickelodeon movie Snow Day, just to name two examples.
2. Lots of real-life kids try to do this same thing.
3. Re: Arg for #1: Strong Sad's inflection sounds like an excited Strong Sad, nothing more.
4. Re: Arg for #2: The fact that it predates most or all other references is no guarantee that TBC actually referred to Cosby, and Calvin and Hobbes and Nickelodeon aren't themselves necessarily references to Cosby. His routine isn't considered the ultimate source of the gag (unlike, say, when we were discussing Jeeves).
5. Re: Arg for #2: There is also the fact to consider that this isn't 1967. Whether or not Cosby's routine predated the other possible references is irrelevant, since TBC could've been referring to any of these (or, possibly, something else), which brings us back to TTATOT.
6. Like the discussion for Drive-Thru, the gag is too prevalent in popular culture to claim it is from one source.

Additional comments:

• For the record, I removed this once because someone included an "it's also a reference to..." afterwards.
  • Perhaps it is just because of my age, but even though the joke has been repeated, I immediately thought of Cosby's classic incarnation. And as noted above, Strong Sad's intonation is very close to the way Cosby delivered the line.
    • Is there any kind of supporting evidence that Strong Sad's line is similar to Cosby's? A link, perhaps?
      • I can get a recording of the line from the original routine to put alongside Strong Sad's quote. Should be able to do this in 1-2 days. (4/16)
• Re arg 1 against (now removed): what are you questioning? I considered removing the argument for not being an argument, but I'd like more detail instead.
  • Reminiscent is an extremely vague word. Are we saying this is a reference or not? If Strong Sad's line just kind of reminds someone of something, then it's hardly a fun fact.
    • Balance that with the ground-breaking and influential effect Cosby's stand-up had on comedy, the likelihood that TBC have been exposed to it, and their penchant for referring to decades-old material. I think there's a good argument here that mere "reminiscence" is sufficient to strongly hint that this is likely to be a reference, though it surely cannot be definitively proven.
      • That seems like a real stretch to me. I consider myself a Bill Cosby fan (and Matt and I are the same age), but Cosby's routine didn't spring to mind. What I did think about was Calvin and Hobbes, and about the time that I myself put a snowball in the freezer when I was young. It is unlikely that this is a direct reference, and therefore not notable.
        • (At this point in the discussion, "reminiscent" was replaced with "is very similar".)
          • I still consider it a stretch, even WITHOUT the word "reminiscent".
            • Kramer did this in "Seinfeld", too.
• The wording of the fact makes it depend on the actual sketch, which I haven't seen. If somebody could link to a video of the sketch, or even a transcript of it, that would help some of us make our judgment.
• We kind of went over this when we were discussing the Jeeves reference in Drive-Thru. Cosby was, as far as I know, the first to come up with the "snowball in the freezer." Therefore, at the very least, there needs to be a mention of Cosby. It may be a reference to Calvin and Hobbes or whatever, but Calvin and Hobbes got their idea from Cosby.
  • Jeeves, being an unusual and recently made-up word, is easy enough to trace, but the same is not true about snowballs in the freezer. Thousands, perhaps millions, of kids have independently decided to try this at home, with no knowledge whatsoever of Cosby's routine. Neither Calvin and Hobbes, nor Nickelodeon, nor Seinfeld, nor any other source are necessarily referencing Cosby. I would further suggest that for TBC to be making a reference, both Strong Sad's wording and intonation would pretty much have to be a dead-on match with Cosby's routine. Otherwise, it's close but no cigar, and hopelessly TTATOT.
• The only resemblance to the Cosby bit is the use of the words "snowball" and "freezer." In the routine, the young Cosby places the snowball in the freezer during the winter and goes to retrieve it the following July, only to find that his mother had thrown it away. So instead, Cosby goes outside and spits on his enemy. Not a reference, not reminiscent, not a chance. You gunkie.

Proposed revision:

Arguments for:

1. This revision should help avoid TTATOT by including everthing in the FF.

Arguments against:

1. Seems to defeat the purpose of a Fun Fact to say that a humorous gag used in a 'toon is a humorous gag. Seems that anyone would be able to discern that, and if they couldn't there is no logically justifiable reason for the Fun Fact.
2. This revision seems to make it nothing but TTATOT. Is there any point in essentially saying "A bunch of other people also made this joke"?
3. Re arg for 1: Actually, It emphasises the TTATOT, because the fact itself states it's "a common humorous idea", which is just clever wording to get around TTATOT.
4. Re arg for 1: Not to mention that the wording makes it so vague that its impossible to tell what the "common humorous idea" is that's being referenced

Additional comments:

• Rewording this fact can't change that it's TTATOT. Since I'm sure few people are unaware that keeping snowballs in the freezer is a common gag and that it's something just about every kid tries to do at some point, it's simply not worth noting.

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[edit] Elementary, My Dear Watson

Only voting on bold part.
From: rough copy
Posted on: 22:40, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Arguments for:

Arguments against:

1. Most likely only a play on Strong Bad's name, as no other references are made to indicate that the reference to Antimony is intentional.
2. Let me say that I changed this fact from "SB is... antimony" to "Sb" because SB is sulfur and boron. I still disagree with the fact, I was merely correcting the chemical inaccuracy.
3. Sb doesn't even appear in the toon. It's SB which would be Sulphur + Boron. (edit conflicted with the statement above).

Additional comments:

1. Because Strong Bad calls in Strong Bad flavored water, wouldn't SB20 be a reference more to Fruit20, which is Fruit flavored. I propose a rewrite to include that.

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