Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Apr 1, 2014 20:55:46 GMT -5
Cypher Raige: Hi, people! We're back for another round of HSR reviews! Quality. That is the best way to describe these sbemails. This is the very good stuff right here, and the great thing is that it keeps getting better for a good stretch of time. It's a joy to go back and watch these over again, and I'm glad to be able to share my thoughts on them with you guys. D'awwwwww! Big hugs, everyone! BIG HUGE HUGS! And now I'd like to pass the mic, uh huh uh huh, to random dude, c'mon and do anything ya like!
random dude: Hi, Raige, people reading this! I also enjoyed these sbemails. For probably the first week in quite a while, none of the 'toons that we review this week are duds, and the quality only continues to go up from here for quite some time. So anyway, let's get to reviewing.
Strong Bad Email #41: invisibility
Cypher Raige: Tandy 400, we hardly knew ye! While this email is ostensibly about how Strong Bad's life as an invisible would be pretty much just like his life as a non-invisible, that is pretty much entirely overshadowed by Strong Bad's acquisition of a gleaming new Compy 386 and his unceremonious dumping of the sad old Tandy 400. The main story has some funny lines, such as Bubs regretful apology as he watches his chocolate treats walk away from him (there's a country song in there, I just know it!) and Homestar realizing that Swiss cake rolls may not be the most nutritious treat in the world, but the best stuff comes when you wait around after The Paper comes down. After a fade to black, we see the poor, abandoned Tandy 400 lying face up in a garbage can. If you adjust the knobs on the screen, you will see a series of sad messages from the Tandy, reminiscent of the death of the HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Something something march of time something something pace of technology something something Swiss cake rolls.
random dude: And Strong Bad rings in a new era of more elaborate, better sbemails, with the sub-chiptune audio capabilities of the Compy 386's start up chime. Or something. This isn't the best sbemail of the week by far, but, like you said, Raige, there's a handful of good lines in here. I enjoyed Strong Bad prefacing his response with "Well, dumb-name...", Homestar addressing the Swiss Cake Rolls ("hey guys"), and Strong Bad referring to his older brother by the amusingly stupid name of "brain-for-brains". Also, it's interesting to see the Tandy 400 refer to The Paper as "the printer", showing that the Brothers Chaps hadn't quite finished developing her as a semi-anthropomorphized character yet (though they'd already decided on a gender for Strong Bad's longest-tenured antiquated technological companion). Oh, and Raige, I think you might be onto something with that food-themed country song idea.
Strong Bad Email #42: action figure
Cypher Raige: As a child of the 80's who owned many He-Man action figures (BECAUSE BOYS DON'T PLAY WITH DOLLS THEY ARE TOTALLY NOT DOLLS DON'T EVEN CALL THEM THAT!!!), this sbemail got a good number of I HA's from me. I love the ridiculously exaggerated musculature of the Strong Bad action figure, and also the multitude of gimmicky additions such as the "double deuce action," glow in the dark abs, and scars when you soak it in water. But the absolute best feature of this sbemail comes in the easter egg at the end, where we see the first appearance of the Homestarniverse's resident toy company, Cheap As Free Toys. If you click on Peanut Strong Bad, you get to see the packaged toy versions of select members of the HSR cast. I love them all and would have bought every single one if the Brothers Chaps had made them, but alas, they did not. I only wish we could have gotten a Marzipan action figure since GI Joe and He-Man always had the one token female character (Lady Jane, Teela) that no boy I ever knew actually owned.
random dude: There were token female characters in GI Joe?!? I'd always assumed that all of those 80s children's cartoons wholeheartedly embraced 19th Century ideals of separate spheres of the sexes when it came to their elaborate 22 minute toy commercials. But anyway, in his imagination Strong Bad is a mater when it comes to cheesy cool, and his imaginary action figure seems to contain an amalgam of every lame action hero figure functionality sans the "I say 16different phrases in a muffled voice with audio quality approaching that of a bootleg recording of a Neutral Milk Hotel show! 16 phrases: totally worth your parents shelling out twice the normal price for this toy, right kids?" vocal capacity of the talking action figure. Anyway, enough with the run-on sentences. As a child of the 90s, I too owned many action figures, and was amused by how poorly the Strong Bad action figure resembles our somewhat rotund, large-headed protagonist, but simultaneously how well the action figure resembles other action figures in it's reliance on bragging about semi-human levels of flexibility and lame plastic weapons (I loved Strong Bad's reading of "croissants," by the way).
Strong Bad Email #43: little questions
Cypher Raige: In this email, is attractive message from our brothers overseas deployment clasp available! Foldingclasp looks rather poor knowledge of the English language, as many of their message is confusing and impossible to decipher. Boot almost never reach shit, sends power to control responding so helpfully subtitled importance to the public. It's fun to randomly send spam these readers loose run through the translator a few times. What is your opinion of this email, random guy?
random dude: I like this email, even if it may be a bit mean-spirited of the email to center around the (albeit atrocious) grammar of someone who presumably speaks very little English. But as a someone who enjoys things like the ostensibly-written-by-native-English-speakers mocking of other, less grammatically confused sbemails, or stuff like "Dot Dot Dot", and "How Is Babby Formed?", I was pretty much guaranteed to love this sbemail. I enjoyed Strong Bad's nonsense-English, especially "It was not came's. He borrowed mine," which is easily my favorite instance of Strong Bad mocking a grammatical error out of everything that we've reviewed thus far. Also, "I'm've" is a pretty hilarious pseudo-contraction. And if you click on the word "Sweden" at the end of Strong Bad's graded copy of the sender's email, you can see anthropomorphized versions of the Swedish and Strongbadian flags shaking hands with piles of Swedish meatballs and Swedish fish at their feet, and a caption reading "Strong Badia Welcomes Swedish Goods."
Strong Bad Email #44: lures and jigs
Cypher Raige: Fish Show with Coach Z and Strong Bad is a thing that should totally be a thing. I would watch the thing out of that thing! I love Strong Bad's "lure" of "We've got a, uh, a keg... of WORMS! And, ummm... phytoplankton!" Also amusing is Strong Bad's brief slip that reveals a crack in his masculine veneer as he admits to not knowing anything about the ladies. Thankfully, he totally saves his manhood by shouting out "YES I'M AWESOME!" and running away, a tactic that I myself have employed none of the times. An easter egg at the end (click on the word "fishing" after The Paper comes down) reveals a game called Fishing Challenge '91. It sucks.
random dude: Yeah, that was some unimpeachably smooth talking there by Strong Bad at the end of this cartoon. I'd forgotten how much I liked this sbemail, from the way Strong Bad attempts to phonetically pronounce "fishs [sic]", to the way that the cheap title sequence and Coach Z's stilted delivery when asking Strong Bad about his lures on Fish Show with Coach Z and Strong Bad so perfectly capture the tone of real-world fishing programs, to the way that Strong Bad's idiotic "jig" actually works. And, yes, Strong Bad saying "phytoplankton" is incredibly awesome for some reason, even more so than with "croissants." And I dunno, Raige, I thought that game had some pretty good graphics and audio, although I was disappointed to learn that it resets your score to 1000 once you exceed a four-digit score.
Strong Bad Email #45: techno
Cypher Raige: I cannot tell you all how happy I am to have reached this point. Of all of the sbemails we have reviewed so far, techno is my absolute favorite, and one of my favorite things of all time from this site. There are so many great things about this email, beginning with Strong Bad's grudging acknowledgment of the cleverness of the email sender's name, "Silent J," a reference to Jay and Silent Bob from the Kevin Smith View Askewniverse (see, I'm not the only one who makes up stupid words!). Next, we get Strong Bad's takedown of some of the generic tropes of late 90's techno/house/trance, with Strong Bad looping his own vocalized noises over each other to create a fairly serviceable techno song in its own right. Finally, after a brief pause, the Cheat takes over, flipping the lights on and off to create a strobe effect and using a glow stick to perform his own light show. "Lightswitch raves" is one of the most wonderful terms ever, and my own brief exposure to rave culture in the late 90's just makes this whole thing a joy. If you click on the Cheat's lightswitch after The Paper comes down, you'll see a flyer for the Cheat's Lightswitch Rave, featuring DJ The Stick and DJ from Full House! Also available is a download of Strong Bad's techno song, which has the power to drive you insane if listened to over and over probably.
random dude: I too greatly enjoyed this sbemail. Even more so than the always-entertaining Strong Badian National Anthem, "Techno" is one of the site's most iconic songs. If I had to point to any moment when the site really came into its own, I think one could make a strong case for this particular cartoon. From here on out, the cartoons range almost entirely from solid to great for quite some time.
random dude: Hi, Raige, people reading this! I also enjoyed these sbemails. For probably the first week in quite a while, none of the 'toons that we review this week are duds, and the quality only continues to go up from here for quite some time. So anyway, let's get to reviewing.
Strong Bad Email #41: invisibility
Cypher Raige: Tandy 400, we hardly knew ye! While this email is ostensibly about how Strong Bad's life as an invisible would be pretty much just like his life as a non-invisible, that is pretty much entirely overshadowed by Strong Bad's acquisition of a gleaming new Compy 386 and his unceremonious dumping of the sad old Tandy 400. The main story has some funny lines, such as Bubs regretful apology as he watches his chocolate treats walk away from him (there's a country song in there, I just know it!) and Homestar realizing that Swiss cake rolls may not be the most nutritious treat in the world, but the best stuff comes when you wait around after The Paper comes down. After a fade to black, we see the poor, abandoned Tandy 400 lying face up in a garbage can. If you adjust the knobs on the screen, you will see a series of sad messages from the Tandy, reminiscent of the death of the HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Something something march of time something something pace of technology something something Swiss cake rolls.
random dude: And Strong Bad rings in a new era of more elaborate, better sbemails, with the sub-chiptune audio capabilities of the Compy 386's start up chime. Or something. This isn't the best sbemail of the week by far, but, like you said, Raige, there's a handful of good lines in here. I enjoyed Strong Bad prefacing his response with "Well, dumb-name...", Homestar addressing the Swiss Cake Rolls ("hey guys"), and Strong Bad referring to his older brother by the amusingly stupid name of "brain-for-brains". Also, it's interesting to see the Tandy 400 refer to The Paper as "the printer", showing that the Brothers Chaps hadn't quite finished developing her as a semi-anthropomorphized character yet (though they'd already decided on a gender for Strong Bad's longest-tenured antiquated technological companion). Oh, and Raige, I think you might be onto something with that food-themed country song idea.
Strong Bad Email #42: action figure
Cypher Raige: As a child of the 80's who owned many He-Man action figures (BECAUSE BOYS DON'T PLAY WITH DOLLS THEY ARE TOTALLY NOT DOLLS DON'T EVEN CALL THEM THAT!!!), this sbemail got a good number of I HA's from me. I love the ridiculously exaggerated musculature of the Strong Bad action figure, and also the multitude of gimmicky additions such as the "double deuce action," glow in the dark abs, and scars when you soak it in water. But the absolute best feature of this sbemail comes in the easter egg at the end, where we see the first appearance of the Homestarniverse's resident toy company, Cheap As Free Toys. If you click on Peanut Strong Bad, you get to see the packaged toy versions of select members of the HSR cast. I love them all and would have bought every single one if the Brothers Chaps had made them, but alas, they did not. I only wish we could have gotten a Marzipan action figure since GI Joe and He-Man always had the one token female character (Lady Jane, Teela) that no boy I ever knew actually owned.
random dude: There were token female characters in GI Joe?!? I'd always assumed that all of those 80s children's cartoons wholeheartedly embraced 19th Century ideals of separate spheres of the sexes when it came to their elaborate 22 minute toy commercials. But anyway, in his imagination Strong Bad is a mater when it comes to cheesy cool, and his imaginary action figure seems to contain an amalgam of every lame action hero figure functionality sans the "I say 16different phrases in a muffled voice with audio quality approaching that of a bootleg recording of a Neutral Milk Hotel show! 16 phrases: totally worth your parents shelling out twice the normal price for this toy, right kids?" vocal capacity of the talking action figure. Anyway, enough with the run-on sentences. As a child of the 90s, I too owned many action figures, and was amused by how poorly the Strong Bad action figure resembles our somewhat rotund, large-headed protagonist, but simultaneously how well the action figure resembles other action figures in it's reliance on bragging about semi-human levels of flexibility and lame plastic weapons (I loved Strong Bad's reading of "croissants," by the way).
Strong Bad Email #43: little questions
Cypher Raige: In this email, is attractive message from our brothers overseas deployment clasp available! Foldingclasp looks rather poor knowledge of the English language, as many of their message is confusing and impossible to decipher. Boot almost never reach shit, sends power to control responding so helpfully subtitled importance to the public. It's fun to randomly send spam these readers loose run through the translator a few times. What is your opinion of this email, random guy?
random dude: I like this email, even if it may be a bit mean-spirited of the email to center around the (albeit atrocious) grammar of someone who presumably speaks very little English. But as a someone who enjoys things like the ostensibly-written-by-native-English-speakers mocking of other, less grammatically confused sbemails, or stuff like "Dot Dot Dot", and "How Is Babby Formed?", I was pretty much guaranteed to love this sbemail. I enjoyed Strong Bad's nonsense-English, especially "It was not came's. He borrowed mine," which is easily my favorite instance of Strong Bad mocking a grammatical error out of everything that we've reviewed thus far. Also, "I'm've" is a pretty hilarious pseudo-contraction. And if you click on the word "Sweden" at the end of Strong Bad's graded copy of the sender's email, you can see anthropomorphized versions of the Swedish and Strongbadian flags shaking hands with piles of Swedish meatballs and Swedish fish at their feet, and a caption reading "Strong Badia Welcomes Swedish Goods."
Strong Bad Email #44: lures and jigs
Cypher Raige: Fish Show with Coach Z and Strong Bad is a thing that should totally be a thing. I would watch the thing out of that thing! I love Strong Bad's "lure" of "We've got a, uh, a keg... of WORMS! And, ummm... phytoplankton!" Also amusing is Strong Bad's brief slip that reveals a crack in his masculine veneer as he admits to not knowing anything about the ladies. Thankfully, he totally saves his manhood by shouting out "YES I'M AWESOME!" and running away, a tactic that I myself have employed none of the times. An easter egg at the end (click on the word "fishing" after The Paper comes down) reveals a game called Fishing Challenge '91. It sucks.
random dude: Yeah, that was some unimpeachably smooth talking there by Strong Bad at the end of this cartoon. I'd forgotten how much I liked this sbemail, from the way Strong Bad attempts to phonetically pronounce "fishs [sic]", to the way that the cheap title sequence and Coach Z's stilted delivery when asking Strong Bad about his lures on Fish Show with Coach Z and Strong Bad so perfectly capture the tone of real-world fishing programs, to the way that Strong Bad's idiotic "jig" actually works. And, yes, Strong Bad saying "phytoplankton" is incredibly awesome for some reason, even more so than with "croissants." And I dunno, Raige, I thought that game had some pretty good graphics and audio, although I was disappointed to learn that it resets your score to 1000 once you exceed a four-digit score.
Strong Bad Email #45: techno
Cypher Raige: I cannot tell you all how happy I am to have reached this point. Of all of the sbemails we have reviewed so far, techno is my absolute favorite, and one of my favorite things of all time from this site. There are so many great things about this email, beginning with Strong Bad's grudging acknowledgment of the cleverness of the email sender's name, "Silent J," a reference to Jay and Silent Bob from the Kevin Smith View Askewniverse (see, I'm not the only one who makes up stupid words!). Next, we get Strong Bad's takedown of some of the generic tropes of late 90's techno/house/trance, with Strong Bad looping his own vocalized noises over each other to create a fairly serviceable techno song in its own right. Finally, after a brief pause, the Cheat takes over, flipping the lights on and off to create a strobe effect and using a glow stick to perform his own light show. "Lightswitch raves" is one of the most wonderful terms ever, and my own brief exposure to rave culture in the late 90's just makes this whole thing a joy. If you click on the Cheat's lightswitch after The Paper comes down, you'll see a flyer for the Cheat's Lightswitch Rave, featuring DJ The Stick and DJ from Full House! Also available is a download of Strong Bad's techno song, which has the power to drive you insane if listened to over and over probably.
random dude: I too greatly enjoyed this sbemail. Even more so than the always-entertaining Strong Badian National Anthem, "Techno" is one of the site's most iconic songs. If I had to point to any moment when the site really came into its own, I think one could make a strong case for this particular cartoon. From here on out, the cartoons range almost entirely from solid to great for quite some time.