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Strong Bad Email #191
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"Quit ruining my ruins, Jurassic Dork!"

Strong Bad and The Cheat try to discover what is under Strong Badia.

Cast (in order of appearance): Strong Bad, Schenkel McDoo, The Cheat, Strong Sad, Bubs, The King of Town (voice only, Easter egg), Lady (voice only, Easter egg)

Places: Computer Room, Strong Badia

Computer: Lappy 486

Date: Monday, March 3, 2008

Running Time: 3:55

Page Title: Lappy 486

DVD: strongbad_email.exe Disc Six

Contents

[edit] Transcript

STRONG BAD: {singing} Oh, who's checkin' emails with his pants, who's checkin' emails with his pants! {brings up the email}

{reads "Pasquella" as "Pathquaya"}

STRONG BAD: {typing} Well Pauly Pasqually, I know for sure there's a lotta something buried deep under Strong Badia. Mainly cause I rent out the dirt to unsavory characters in need of a place to stash, ditch, or make disappear, the evidence of their choice. {clears screen} I never really thought that there might be ancient ruins down there, though. I think this calls for America's coolest children's game show consolation prize: the metal detector! {music starts playing}

{Cut to a blackboard with "SLOP! MESS! QUIZ!" written on it}

ANNOUNCER: And our stupid contestants will receive the Taranchula brand Black Metal Detec-tor! {While he speaks, Taranchula's logo and the Taranchula Black Metal Detector appear, followed by Videlectrix Kidx logo.} From Videlectrix Kidx..sx!

{Picture of Schenkel McDoo giving an "OK" sign moves in}

SCHENKEL MCDOO: {voice} Yah guys! Maybe find some coin! {words appear as he speaks}

{Cut to Strong Badia. Strong Bad and the Cheat are standing in a large, shallow depression in the dirt with a shovel nearby. The Cheat is wearing a pith helmet. Strong Bad is using the Taranchula metal detector.}

THE CHEAT: {questioning The Cheat noises}

{Close up on Strong Bad}

STRONG BAD: I already told you, man! Where there's ruins, there's riches! And booby-traps we can steal ideas from!

{Cut back to wide shot}

THE CHEAT: {The Cheat noises, saluting}

STRONG BAD: Well, let's do thiiiiiiiiiis! {ends on a high pitch}

{Strong Bad switches on metal detector and moves it around. The metal detector makes heavy metal beats in changing frequency}

STRONG BAD: Whoa, we're getting warm! {takes a step forward, the metal detector starts playing a guitar solo} We've got something, The Cheat!

{He steps back and The Cheat sweeps the ground with a small brush. A small red object appears in the dirt.}

{Close-up of Strong Bad}

STRONG BAD: {dropping metal detector} It looks like the top of an enormous riches-filled structure! And wait, there's an inscription! {leans forward, reading} "Col...donesdry..." Must be the name of an ancient civilization!

{Cut to close-up of Strong Sad in front of the fence}

STRONG SAD: {raising finger} Uh, me again! I think that's just the cap of a bottle of {cut to bottle cap in the dirt} Cold Ones Dry. You could probably just pick it up.

{Cut back to wide shot}

STRONG BAD: What, are you crazy? I'm not touching that thing! It's booby trapped! It'll shoot a bunch of poison-tipped witch doctors at me!

{Close up of Strong Sad}

STRONG SAD: Riiiiiight. Or, it's just a bottle cap, and you're crazier than ever.

{Close up of Strong Bad}

STRONG BAD: You may be half right, kid. {picks up metal detector} Now, help me find some dang riches. {cut to wide shot. Strong Bad starts moving the metal detector over the dirt again. The detector makes heavy metal beat in changing frequency.} Uh...uh... {metal detector plays guitar solo} Whoa! {Strong Bad drops to the ground} Check out this futuristic sheet of paper!

{Close up of Strong Bad unfolding a sheet of metal foil with a picture of a smiling alien head with arms and legs and the caption "BABBY ALIEN"}

STRONG BAD: Oh. My. Geez. I knew it! Strong Badia was originally colonized by extra-terrestrials! {cut to close up of Strong Bad} That explains why I'm so brilliant! And why all beings look the same except for slight differences of our foreheads!

{Cut back to wide shot}

STRONG SAD: No, that's just a piece of tin foil with a picture Strong Mad drew of you when you were little. {close up of Strong Sad} There's even a petrified chicken nugget in there that he left you. {As he talks, shot of Strong Bad pulling said nugget out of a fold in the foil's edge}

{Cut back to wide shot}

STRONG BAD: {dropping nugget} Quit ruining my ruins, Jurassic Dork! This clearly says "Babby Alien". {close up} Which is probably the name of my true mother, who left me here as a young larva hundreds of years ago, until someone, I'm guessing an elderly oatmeal enthusiast, unwittingly disturbed my cocoon. {As he talks, the scene is described in a thought bubble by Strong Mad-style drawings} Oh, Babs! Why did you leave me stranded here?

{Cut to shot of Bubs standing to the side}

BUBS: Oh, sorry about that, Strong Bad. Was I supposed to come earlier?

{Cut to wide shot of Bubs and Strong Bad}

STRONG BAD: What? No, I said "Babs". "Babs".

BUBS: Bubs, Babs, whatever. I take what I can get.

STRONG BAD: Whahn?

{Close up of Bubs}

BUBS: Anyways, I'm here for my weekly, ahem, "delivery". {indicates barrels of "inTOXICatingly good WASTE" beside him}

STRONG BAD: Yeah, yeah, just bury it wherever. {cut to close up} But if you uncover any ruins, or hot aliens, or riches, they're mine, OK?

{Cut to wide shot of Bubs and Strong Bad}

BUBS: Uh, what about fellas named Rich?

STRONG BAD: Wha-what? No, I don't know anyone named Rich.

{Close up of Bubs}

BUBS: OK, good. {extreme close-up, with intensity} Then he can stay where he is!

{Wide shot}

STRONG SAD: Uh, is there any way I can unhear the last few sentences? {close up} Or years of my life?

{Cut back to the Lappy}

STRONG BAD: {typing} So, no, Pascual Perez, there are no ancient ruins buried under Strong Badia. Or, at least, not one foot under Strong Badia. Digging is hard, man! Did you ever try to dig a hole? It's not all wipes and montages like in the movies. It takes forever! But who knows what wonders lie, say, one-and-a-half feet beneath Strong Badia? Or, dare I say it, a few feet beneath Strong Badia. Why, it staggers the bad imagination.

{An illustration of what might be a few feet under Strong Badia moves onscreen. After a moment, the New Paper comes down}

[edit] Easter Eggs

"Your Friendly Neighborhood Not-The-Police"
  • Click on the text "rent out the dirt" after Strong Bad types it to see Strong Bad's business card.
  • At the end, click on the box of peas in the "impenetrable diaper crust" to hear the King of Town describe how he'd like to eat the various layers of the Earth:
THE KING OF TOWN: Ooh, that thing looks delicious! I'll take two slices of that, a piece of the igneous pie, and a molten core tart.
LADY: Oh, that looks sinful!
THE KING OF TOWN: Shut up, lady!
  • Also at the end, click on "coldonesdry" to see a promo for Cold Ones Dry:
{A Cold Ones Dry bottle cap slowly moves across a purple background}
ANNOUNCER: Cold Ones Dry, the official beverage of Taranchula.
{A picture of Schenkel McDoo appears with a word balloon reading what he's about to say}
SCHENKEL MCDOO: Yah guys, Yold Ones Vry!
ANNOUNCER: That's right Sven, learn to speak American.

[edit] Fun Facts

[edit] Explanations

  • Black metal is a style of heavy metal music characterized by the use of fast tempos, high-pitched guitars often played with tremolo picking, high-pitched shrieking vocals, and unconventional song structures. It is strongly associated with Norway and Sweden.
  • A "wipe" is a transition in which one image seems to "wipe" off (replace) the other from the screen.
  • An igneous rock is a rock or mineral that solidified from molten or partly molten material.
  • Strong Bad uses a mock Castilian Spanish pronunciation of "Pasquella" when reading the email.

[edit] Trivia

  • The layers for under Strong Badia are:
    • strong badia
    • impenetrable diaper crust
    • nougat layer
    • ancient coldonesdry
    • layer 5
    • dinosaurs n sleestak layer
  • The summary of the Podstar Runner RSS feed reads, "Strong Bad and The Cheat try to discover what ruins are buried under Strong Badia."

[edit] Remarks

  • In the preview for this email, the Stop Sign is not shown.
  • Strong Bad previously mentioned in the retirement commentary that he would like to win a metal detector in a children's game show.
  • When Strong Bad detects the tinfoil drawing, he doesn't dig in the same spot that the metal detector detected the metal.
  • Videlectrix Kidx is mentioned in this email despite there already being a Kidelectrix mentioned in Who Said What Now?.
  • Although Schenkel McDoo has no trouble pronouncing the 'c' in coin, he cannot pronounce 'cold' correctly.
  • Interestingly, Strong Sad seemed to know about the tin foil Strong Mad left for Baby Strong Bad although he is the younger brother.
  • Strong Bad rents out Strong Badia's dirt to Bubs to bury evidence; however, in colonization, Strong Bad related (albeit in an untrustworthy story) that he rented Strong Badia from Bubs.

[edit] Goofs

  • After Strong Bad clears the screen following the business card Easter egg, the egg is still available for a few seconds by clicking the empty space.
  • After Bubs makes his appearance, the chicken nugget appears behind the shovel until the scene changes again.

[edit] Inside References

A few feet under Strong Badia.
  • Strong Bad references pants at the beginning.
  • The metal detector is made by Videlectrix Kidx.
  • The bottle cap is from a bottle of Cold Ones Dry.
  • Buried underground in one of the bottom layers is what appears to be Homeschool Winner's skull, a reference to his death from Sample of Style.
  • One of the speculated underground layers beneath the surface of Strong Badia is the nougat layer.
  • In the Easter egg, the King of Town says he would like to eat two slices of the earthen layers beneath Strong Badia and a piece of igneous pie. The King of Town then says "Shut up, lady!" The lady was previously heard in the email bottom 10, describing a "Chocolardiac Arrest".
  • The crate of peas in the top layer was where Strong Bad hoped the King of Town would be trapped in the email different town.
  • Bubs seems to be hiding the death of some fellow named Rich, whose coffin can be seen at the end of the email.
  • Strong Bad believes his parents are aliens.
  • Bubs's toxic waste cans read "iNTOXICATiNGLY good WASTE" using Lowercase i's.
  • The announcer for Cold Ones Dry was previously heard during the business trip Easter egg.
  • The business card Easter egg mentions Not-the-police.
  • The pronunciation of "metal detectOR" is a use of -or pronounced with a long O.

[edit] Real-World References

  • "Jurassic Dork" refers to Jurassic Park, a novel by Michael Crichton which later became a movie series.
  • Pascual Pérez was a major league pitcher, marking another case of a former Atlanta Braves player being mentioned.
  • Sleestaks are ancient reptilian creatures from Land of the Lost. The Poopsmith dressed as a Sleestak in Pumpkin Carve-nival and Trogdor Con '97.
  • Strong Bad's line about beings with different foreheads refers to the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode 'The Chase', in which the Enterprise crew discover a message from an ancient race who claim to have seeded the galaxy with other races that look like them, including humans, Romulans, and Klingons.
  • Strong Bad's theory about how he came to be on Earth refers to a plot point in the 1985 film Cocoon, where several elderly people find a new lease on life through swimming in a pool filled with alien cocoons.
    • The "elderly oatmeal enthusiast" he refers to is Wilford Brimley, who starred in Cocoon. During the 1980s and early 1990s, Brimley was a commercial pitchman for Quaker Oats, touting the health benefits of the company's oatmeal.
  • The song played by the Taranchula Metal Detector bears a strong resemblance to the introduction of the song Bloody Tears from the NES game Castlevania II: Simon's Quest.
  • "Babby Alien" might be a reference to the Internet meme "Babby." The external website linked here contains offensive language and/or content. content warning

[edit] Fast Forward

  • The Taranchula Black Metal Detector appears in Homestar Ruiner, the first episode of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, where various items found with it can be dug up. In later episodes, it appears with a matching shovel.
  • Strong Bad asserts that "digging isn't all wipes and montages". In Homestar Ruiner, the scenes in which Strong Bad digs holes in Marzipan's yard are passed by a wipe in one instance, and a montage in another.
  • A "Cold Ones Dry" sign would appear in Strong Badia the Free and Baddest of the Bands.

[edit] DVD Version

  • The DVD version features hidden creators' commentary. To access it, switch the DVD player's audio language selection while watching.

[edit] Commentary Transcript

(Commentary by: Mike Chapman, Matt Chapman)

MIKE: So here we are again, once again, as always, doing the commentary for the "buried" email.

MATT: We're always doing the commentary for this email.

MIKE: Yeah, all the time, Matt and Mike Chapman, doing the commentary for this email.

MATT: Just for this email.

MIKE: One-ninety-one: Buried. All the time.

MATT: Okay. Are you gonna talk about metal detectors, or— or not?

MIKE: Yeah, I had a metal detector.

MATT: Yeah, was it orange?

MIKE: It was orange. Uh, it had— it was an orange— it had an orange 7 that was the handle.

MATT: Yeah, it looked like a 7, that's right.

MIKE: And it had a little dial.

MATT: Mm-hmm.

MIKE: And I don't really remember finding anything, except maybe some coins that I had tossed out in the yard.

MATT: {laughs} Let's just turn— we'll turn them over our shoulder, and then it's like we've discovered—

MIKE: {laughs}

MATT: {after a pause} Umm, I'm'd wanna say that more than just Starcade had this metal detector as a prize for the kids that were on that show. But, like, what other kids' game shows were there?

MIKE: Well...

MATT: Oh! The Grand Prize Game! I bet you—

MIKE: Oh, from Bozo?

MATT: Yeah, Bozo. The Bozo No No Show. {imitating a clown} Oh, hey, man!

MIKE: Umm, I tried to find— I looked up the Grand Prize Game on YouTube... a few months ago. I didn't find any. {unintelligible}

MATT: No? But didn't you see some— there's like some home— didn't we find you can still buy a home Grand Prize Game kit?

MIKE: Yep, one of those Archie McPhee-type stores sells them.

{pause until Strong Sad appears}

MATT: Five buckets and some ping-pong balls?

MIKE: {laughs} Yep. Twenty-two dollars!

MATT: {laughs}

MIKE: Uhh... are there any dry beers, still in... production?

MATT: No, I think they're just dark, and I think they just— It was a weird way of weaseling in, like, more European beers into the American...

MIKE: Pallette?

MATT: ...beer-drinking crowd. Yeah. And now, they just are, they— they don't have to masquerade as something else now. They can just be themselves.{pause until Strong Bad finds the "BABBY ALIEN" sheet of paper} Uhh... what about— Babby Alien. My niece drew a picture of a babby alien all the time.

MIKE: {laughing} Your 14-year-old niece.

MATT: She was not 14. She was maybe 9 at the time. I thought "baby" had two B's in it.

MIKE: I was surprised that she spelled "alien" correctly—

MATT: I know!

MIKE: —and "baby" incorrectly.

MATT: Yeah. That tells you something about this {slightly louder voice} X-Files culture {unintelligible}.

MIKE: Wait. Wait...

MATT: X-Files is the most popular cult show on TV!

MIKE: Wait. Who ever called it an X-Files culture?

MATT: You know, there's...

MIKE: The movie tanked!

MATT: Yeah, you know, 2008, the X-Files year.

MIKE: No, that movie tanked!

MATT: Wait, there's another movie? {laughs} I was talking about... the program, from the show.

MIKE: Ohh...

MATT: That is a disgusting drawing of a Strong Bad larva, Mike.

MIKE: That is not a disgusting drawing of Wilford Brimley beating it to a pulp, though.

{pause until after Bubs says, "Was I supposed to come earlier?"}

MATT: Uh, Bubs has some really good— Oh, this is— That's an intoxicatingly good waste. Is that what it's called?

MIKE: Yeah, I think so. ...In one of the other commentaries, we're trying to remember all the sketchy things that Bubs... does. This was one of them.

MATT: Yeah.

MIKE: Organs, and chicken beaks, and toxic waste.

MATT: Umm, we should bury some stuff in our backyards, our respective backyards, for our daughters to find, I think.

MIKE: That's a good idea.

MATT: You know, let's go ahead and do it now, and then they will get them—

MIKE: You know, little girls, how they're always out digging in the backyard—

MATT: Well, mine's gonna be.

MIKE: Okay. She's gonna be...

MATT: {simultaneously} My little girl is gonna say "robot" and "waffle", thank you very much. Those are two not-very-little-girl-type things to say.

MIKE: Yeah, "waffle". {laughs}

MATT: A doodley thing. It's not that it's manly; it's more that it's, uh... she's gonna be hardscrabble. A hardscrabble kid!

MIKE: You're just gonna throw her out in the backyard every morning, and... open the door up at 4.

MATT: Give her a spade. {Strong Bad voice} See if there's anything buried back there.

MIKE: I'm gonna play Xbox.

MATT: {after New Paper comes down} Atlantis.

[edit] Fun Facts

  • The beginning of the commentary implies that it was recorded soon after the commentary for magic trick.
  • "All the time" is said three times during the commentary.
  • Starcade was a game show in which contestants competed against each other by playing arcade video games.
  • The Bozo Show was a long-running children's TV show about a clown of the same name.
    • The Grand Prize Game was a segment in which a boy and a girl were randomly selected from the audience to throw ping-pong balls into progressively-numbered buckets until they either reached the last bucket (allowing them to win a prize) or missed.
      • At the time the commentary was recorded, there were only 11 videos on YouTube containing the exact phrase "grand prize game". ([1])
  • Archie McPhee is a novelty dealer.
  • The X-Files was a science fiction TV series than ran from 1993 to 2002. A film adaption was released in 1998.
    • 2008 being "the X-Files year" alludes to The X-Files: I Want to Believe, a sequel to the first film, which was released that year. As Mike mentions, it did poorly in theaters, earning a gross of only $4 million on its opening day, and received mixed to negative reviews from critics.
  • Matt and Mike briefly talk about the "sketchy things" Bubs has done.
  • "Not-very-little-girl-type" is an instance of both Not X and Type.
  • Xbox refers to a series of video game consoles created by Microsoft, beginning with the console of the same name.
  • Atlantis is a island from Greek mythology that is said to have sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

[edit] External Links

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