Homestar Runner Reviews Week 8 (1/26/14)
Jan 26, 2014 2:16:35 GMT -5
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Jan 26, 2014 2:16:35 GMT -5
Cypher Raige: Another week, another Homestar Runner review. This week we are reviewing a handful of Strong Bad Emails, which are still somewhat in their infancy here, but are about to blow up to the one thing that made this site so popular (it's twue!). The evolution of the sbemails is kind of a microcosm of the evolution of the site's voice, even though the majority of the peripheral characters don't show up in them often. A lot of the humor found in other cartoons would first grow here, so in a way, the sbemails set the tone for the rest of the site. Take it away, random dude!
random dude: I agree about the sbemails still being in their infancy, and I think it's partly due to how brief most of these 'toons we're reviewing this week are. There's some decent ideas for jokes in these sbemails, but as you said, Raige, they don't feel as fully fleshed out as they would in later installments of the feature.
Strong Bad Email #11: i rule
Cypher Raige: This first email is pretty short, but it touches on Strong Bad's illusions of grandeur as the main bad dude/strongest bad. His dominion of Strong Badia is not much more than an old fence, a tire, and a stop sign on it, and his only subject is the Cheat, who doesn't seem too busy carrying out Strong Bad's evil will. But hey, I have laughed at the homemade sign that says "STRONG BADIA POP: TIRE" since I was in diaper school, so it was all worth it!
random dude: Yeah, this isn't a great cartoon, but it's noteworthy in that it introduces us to Strong Badia, which would become one of the most commonly used settings for scenes in later 'toons. And I also love that crappy sign.
Strong Bad Email #12: credit card
Cypher Raige: Man, it must be super easy to be the nemesis of Homestar Runner. So stupid! Here we see Strong Bad receiving a phishing email (was it even called "phishing" yet back then?), which he then immediately repurposes and forwards to Homestar. Of course, Homestar cheerily replies with his info, because Homestar is your dumb grandmother. This joke was probably much funnier to internet geeks when it came out, as opposed to now when phishing is a common occurrence. But I love the list of items that Strong Bad charges to Homestar's credit card, especially the robotic dog/shark. Definitely need one of those!
random dude: Homestar's cheerful stupidity is the best part about this email ("You've got the same email address as my friend Strong Bad!"). That, and I liked the way that the email was from "John, and some other people who aren't scam artists." I thought this one was kind of slight, but it was probably the funniest one that we review this week.
Strong Bad Email #13: i she be
Cypher Raige: Just like in the previous email, we see the Brothers Chaps playing to their internet geek audience with this toon. Strong Bad receives a love letter from a girl with poor grammar, whom he immediately rejects due to his high standards. However, he forwards the message to the Cheat, who happily accepts his leftovers. But here the Borthers Chaps expose another old internet scam: catfishing. The Cheat chats up Strong Bad's castoff lady and tries to arrange an IRL meetup. However, the Cheat says he looks like Strong Mad. Is Strong Mad in on the joke? Does the Cheat have other nefarious plans for this poor girl? We will never know, but we do know this: Homestar Runner tackled the issue of catfishing a full decade before MTV did, proving that MTV sucks and should die right now.
random dude: I thought this one was just OK, apart from Strong Bad mocking the sender's grammar, which I always find hilarious.
Strong Bad Email #14: duck pond
Cypher Raige: This sbemail gives me the warm fuzzies. At first it seems like a simple silly dig at early PC games, but what we really get is a commentary on modern tehcnology and how it robs our kids of real experiences. Remember, kids, no matter how awesome those little green rectangular ducks look on your screen, they are no substitute for the real feeling of getting outside, smelling the fresh air, and flinging baked goods at aquatic waterfowl. Get off your butts and get outside, kids! It may be your last chance due to global climate change/Fukushima/Obama something something. Or maybe I am just reading too much into this one.
random dude: You might be reading a little too much into this one Raige. Just a little. But I too, enjoy what the Brothers Chaps are doing here with their old video game references. In fact, I love the way that Homestar Runner references pop culture in general capturing the spirit of the subject for parody, and playfully poking fun at some of the more ridiculous aspects of it, rather than engage in relentlessly bashing the pop culture and hoping viewers found it funny. I realized that this was what made the Brothers Chaps myriad pop culture references so awesome when I read Todd VanDerWerff's excellent piece on Homestar Runner on the AV Club a few months ago, and he said basically the same thing I said, only much more eloquently, and several months earlier (if you've been reading these reviews and haven't read this TVDW article yet, you really should, it's fantastic and it played a huge role in convincing me that there might be enough depth in Homestar Runner to warrant reviewing the site toon-by-toon the way Raige and I have been doing these past few months). Here's a link to TVDW's article, for anyone who's interested: www.avclub.com/article/how-ihomestar-runneri-changed-web-series-for-the-b-104146. And of course, at the end of the sbemail, you can play "Duck Pond" yourself. And when you finish the game you can unlock the "Atari 2600 version", which is in color. Pretty impressive stuff! As Strong Bad would say: "Whoa, man, these graphics are state of the art...graphics!"
Strong Bad Email #15: the basics
Cypher Raige: I so wish this was a longer email, because Strong Bad tries to mentor poor young hapless TJ in the ways of being awesome (which mainly involves a bunch of dumb tricks). I would've liked to have seen Strong Bad bust out in a full-on motivational training montage where he demonstrates his trickiness. Later in the series' run, that's almost certainly something we could expect, but for now, it leaves these early jobbies feeling a little slight and incomplete. Also missing are the Easter eggs, which will begin showing up sometime soon, I believe.
random dude: Yeah, once again, this one feels a little slight, and it certainly could have benefited from the lengthier treatment the Brothers Chaps would give later sbemails. But I enjoyed Strong Bad's lame ramblings here. Especially his suggestion for TJ to "reach down inside [himself] and pull out something...not like...organs. You know what I mean."
OK, well that's all for this week. Next week we'll be reviewing:
Strong Bad Email #16: band names
Strong Bad Email #17: studying
Strong Bad Email #18: stand-up
Strong Bad Email #19: tape leg
Strong Bad Email #20: spring cleaning
random dude: I agree about the sbemails still being in their infancy, and I think it's partly due to how brief most of these 'toons we're reviewing this week are. There's some decent ideas for jokes in these sbemails, but as you said, Raige, they don't feel as fully fleshed out as they would in later installments of the feature.
Strong Bad Email #11: i rule
Cypher Raige: This first email is pretty short, but it touches on Strong Bad's illusions of grandeur as the main bad dude/strongest bad. His dominion of Strong Badia is not much more than an old fence, a tire, and a stop sign on it, and his only subject is the Cheat, who doesn't seem too busy carrying out Strong Bad's evil will. But hey, I have laughed at the homemade sign that says "STRONG BADIA POP: TIRE" since I was in diaper school, so it was all worth it!
random dude: Yeah, this isn't a great cartoon, but it's noteworthy in that it introduces us to Strong Badia, which would become one of the most commonly used settings for scenes in later 'toons. And I also love that crappy sign.
Strong Bad Email #12: credit card
Cypher Raige: Man, it must be super easy to be the nemesis of Homestar Runner. So stupid! Here we see Strong Bad receiving a phishing email (was it even called "phishing" yet back then?), which he then immediately repurposes and forwards to Homestar. Of course, Homestar cheerily replies with his info, because Homestar is your dumb grandmother. This joke was probably much funnier to internet geeks when it came out, as opposed to now when phishing is a common occurrence. But I love the list of items that Strong Bad charges to Homestar's credit card, especially the robotic dog/shark. Definitely need one of those!
random dude: Homestar's cheerful stupidity is the best part about this email ("You've got the same email address as my friend Strong Bad!"). That, and I liked the way that the email was from "John, and some other people who aren't scam artists." I thought this one was kind of slight, but it was probably the funniest one that we review this week.
Strong Bad Email #13: i she be
Cypher Raige: Just like in the previous email, we see the Brothers Chaps playing to their internet geek audience with this toon. Strong Bad receives a love letter from a girl with poor grammar, whom he immediately rejects due to his high standards. However, he forwards the message to the Cheat, who happily accepts his leftovers. But here the Borthers Chaps expose another old internet scam: catfishing. The Cheat chats up Strong Bad's castoff lady and tries to arrange an IRL meetup. However, the Cheat says he looks like Strong Mad. Is Strong Mad in on the joke? Does the Cheat have other nefarious plans for this poor girl? We will never know, but we do know this: Homestar Runner tackled the issue of catfishing a full decade before MTV did, proving that MTV sucks and should die right now.
random dude: I thought this one was just OK, apart from Strong Bad mocking the sender's grammar, which I always find hilarious.
Strong Bad Email #14: duck pond
Cypher Raige: This sbemail gives me the warm fuzzies. At first it seems like a simple silly dig at early PC games, but what we really get is a commentary on modern tehcnology and how it robs our kids of real experiences. Remember, kids, no matter how awesome those little green rectangular ducks look on your screen, they are no substitute for the real feeling of getting outside, smelling the fresh air, and flinging baked goods at aquatic waterfowl. Get off your butts and get outside, kids! It may be your last chance due to global climate change/Fukushima/Obama something something. Or maybe I am just reading too much into this one.
random dude: You might be reading a little too much into this one Raige. Just a little. But I too, enjoy what the Brothers Chaps are doing here with their old video game references. In fact, I love the way that Homestar Runner references pop culture in general capturing the spirit of the subject for parody, and playfully poking fun at some of the more ridiculous aspects of it, rather than engage in relentlessly bashing the pop culture and hoping viewers found it funny. I realized that this was what made the Brothers Chaps myriad pop culture references so awesome when I read Todd VanDerWerff's excellent piece on Homestar Runner on the AV Club a few months ago, and he said basically the same thing I said, only much more eloquently, and several months earlier (if you've been reading these reviews and haven't read this TVDW article yet, you really should, it's fantastic and it played a huge role in convincing me that there might be enough depth in Homestar Runner to warrant reviewing the site toon-by-toon the way Raige and I have been doing these past few months). Here's a link to TVDW's article, for anyone who's interested: www.avclub.com/article/how-ihomestar-runneri-changed-web-series-for-the-b-104146. And of course, at the end of the sbemail, you can play "Duck Pond" yourself. And when you finish the game you can unlock the "Atari 2600 version", which is in color. Pretty impressive stuff! As Strong Bad would say: "Whoa, man, these graphics are state of the art...graphics!"
Strong Bad Email #15: the basics
Cypher Raige: I so wish this was a longer email, because Strong Bad tries to mentor poor young hapless TJ in the ways of being awesome (which mainly involves a bunch of dumb tricks). I would've liked to have seen Strong Bad bust out in a full-on motivational training montage where he demonstrates his trickiness. Later in the series' run, that's almost certainly something we could expect, but for now, it leaves these early jobbies feeling a little slight and incomplete. Also missing are the Easter eggs, which will begin showing up sometime soon, I believe.
random dude: Yeah, once again, this one feels a little slight, and it certainly could have benefited from the lengthier treatment the Brothers Chaps would give later sbemails. But I enjoyed Strong Bad's lame ramblings here. Especially his suggestion for TJ to "reach down inside [himself] and pull out something...not like...organs. You know what I mean."
OK, well that's all for this week. Next week we'll be reviewing:
Strong Bad Email #16: band names
Strong Bad Email #17: studying
Strong Bad Email #18: stand-up
Strong Bad Email #19: tape leg
Strong Bad Email #20: spring cleaning