Headscratchers / Homestar Runner

• In the Strong Bad Email unnatural, Strong Sad's use of a bowl of Kashi to shrink Bubs is based on the assumption that the chicken wings made Bubs grow, and Kashi is the culinary opposite of chicken wings. But Bubs grew by flushing himself down the toilet...so why the heck did the Kashi work?
  • Bubs is allergic to Kashi! Duh!
  • Because Kashi is the opposite of supermutating chicken wings, so it unsupermutatd him even if it wasn't using chicken wings to do so. Wrap your head around that one.
  • When Bubs admits he supermutated by flushing himself down the toilet, he leaves the big questions - why and how - really vague, we know only that he was shaving, and boom! He's down the can, and suddenly grows 100ft tall. I always assumed he accidentally knocked the chicken wings into the toilet and dove in after them.
    • That makes more sence when you consider Strong Bad didn't become massive when he tried to flush himself at the end of the episode. You might say he didn't fit, but then that brings up how Bubs fit in his toilet. Clearly SB needs to buy some chicken wings.
• I know that Matt Chapman does 90% of the voices. So what exactly does Mike do?
  • I think Mike does more of the animation and writing work. They both do some, I just think Mike does more since he rarely does voices
  • Mike does the Powered by the Cheat knock-off imitations of the actual voices.
  • As I understand it, Mike does most of the animation, and the two split the writing pretty much 50/50.
  • Mike does do other voices, but usually very rarely. For example, he's the King of Town's Knight.
  • Mike also, ya know, created the characters. In fact, Matt had nothing to do with the original book.
  • Don't forget, they have enough work to go around, what with the toons, the video games, merchandise, and all sorts of stuff like that.
  • Mike does most of the good graphics seen in the cartoons.
  • He also does the voices of Sharktooth Bubs (from DVD easter eggs) and Teeg Dougland. He also plays the Videlectrix guy who always gets yelled at by the other guy.
  • As it's been said, Mike does the animation, writing, and was one of the creators in its earliest incarnation before Matt started working on it. As far as he voice acting is concerned, the Homestar Runner Wiki says he does: all Powered by The Cheat characters, the announcer in Where's the Cheat?, announcer #2 in Strong Bad Sings, Pom Pom (a sound clip of him blowing bubbles in milk), Blue Laser Babies, The Knight, The Worm, Teeg Dougland, Strong Sad (in "cheat talk"), That Time of Year narrator, Shark-Tooth Bubs, Videlectrix Programmer Number Two, Craig in Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective, and The Exact Same. He also appears as a handful of the live action characters (ie: a member of Taranchula, a Videlectrix programmer, himself), though Matt does a large chunk of that as well.
• As far as I can tell, the episodes in SBCG4AP are relatively close. Between Episodes 2 and 3, when did Marzipan get the time to build a rock garden? Better yet, how does she get to her backyard now that the only route is sealed off?
  • Maybe there's another door on the side of the house opposite the screen.
  • It appears that there's a one month gap between episodes, except for episodes four and five.
• Strong Bad's time capsule in the sbemail time capsule is physically impossible. He packed the airtight capsule he used with dry ice so it would open with smoke like in the movies. I can handle that. The dry ice could turn to gas because of the earth's heat. It stayed together because it was buried and the earth was stronger than the pressure. But when it was dug up and opened, it should have pretty much exploded in Stinkoman's face. (Yes, I know it's being nitpicky compared to a few of the characters not having arms, but it just bothers me.)
  • Considering it was HYPOTHETICAL, I think it just shows that Strong Bad didn't know better.
    • Who said it was hypothetical?
    • I think it's an Imagine Spot, since it probably wouldn't exactly be easy to get ahold of a "big ol' headache medicine" to use for the time capsule (and I doubt Strong Bad's attention span would lend itself to him continuing to look for one after the email ended). Although the fact that it ends much more anticlimactically than Strong Bad wanted and he never notices this does put it in kind of a strange position.
• Are Strong Bad e-mails really over?
  • Sbemaliarized Entertainment: Yeah Yeah, No, Yeah!
  • Attention everybody! Sbemail 201 is out! It's named hremail3184, but it's really Sbemail 201. Spread the word!
• How does The Cheat make voices for his toons? Why are the voices in the beginning of "Rap Song" so bad when they have real voices later?
  • To answer the second question: He did them himself.
  • To answer both questions: he cheats.
  • It's entirely possible that Coach Z recorded the song and then approached The Cheat about making a music video for it without helping during the animation, meaning that if The Cheat wanted to add a non-rap introduction, he'd have to provide the voices himself.
• Strong Bad blew up the Lappy. Now I understand that blowing up Strong Bad's computer is standard for the cartoon, but this is the Lappy. It had a personality. It talked. What Measure Is a Non-Human??!
  • Not really. He did mourn over the compy's death in the final Compy episode, and was worried over the lappy's safety in Cliffhangers. But than again, it's not really continuity based show. Besides, the creators probably felt that it was time for a new computer.
• Is it just me, or does Strong Bad call Strong Sad a douche in "big white face"?
  • No. He says "Dooj?"
  • No. He says, "Deuce", as in, "Double deuce"
    • Again, no, he says "dooj."
• Anyone else feel like they ended Hremails way too soon?
  • Definitely. The fanbase would have cooled off eventually, and I liked seeing someone other than Strong Bad in the title role for a change of pace. But Sbemails are still fun, so I'm not gonna complain too much.
  • 100% agreed. Strong Bad's schtick was exhausted YEARS ago: there's a line where cynical, narcissistic ignorance stops being funny and just gets repetitive, and Strong Bad crossed it somewhere in 2008. Hremails were fun because Homestar isn't so much intentionally malicious, he's just a well-meaning dope. It's a minor change, maybe, but it really helped the new series seem fresh.
  • Maybe some email shows from the rest of the cast sounds quite nice as well. I would see someone like Marzipan and/or the other Strong brother answering emails, with varying degrees of sucess. But then again, characters can be very hard to animate.
• The new intro page. The "watch intro" button is where the "come on in" button used to be. Most the time I click the old spot by habit and am greeted with "EVERYBODY! EVERYBODY!" without wanting it. Urgh.
  • Maybe it was a way of tricking people into seeing the intro, because it annoys anyone who hasn't seen it the first time.
  • This troper was even more disturbed with where the Come On In button went...◊ Thank God they changed back to the old Index in April 2010.
• The only way I would've found out the main reason for why there hasn't been any real material in months (both creators had kids!) was because I have been following this page! They are very busy, but seriously, they could've TOLD us why they weren't adding anything!
  • The official Homestar Runner Feedburner page seen here listed it.
  • But that excuse doesn't seem like enough because they both already had kids in the past few years and they still updated the site.
  • It turns out that as children grow older, it takes more time out of your social and personal life. Ask your parents.
  • Apparently they're working on some kind of movie. (Not a Homestar-related one unfortunately.)
    • It's a claymation movie, and when you realize that the 23-minute "A Grand Day Out" took six years to make, that kinda gives some reason as to why TBC are doing almost nothing with H*R. There's a difference between waggling Strong Bad's head to an audio track and having to remember what actions were going in what direction for all the on screen activity. Imagine working 12 hours on just a few minutes of run time only to realize you accidently shortened dialogue motion which would make lip sync impossible or did some movement backward or in the wrong direction for a couple days.
• Is there any way possible to watch this in an order so that I at least get the in-jokes that I might've gotten if I wasn't a new viewer?
  • Yep.
• I know I'm going to sound like a prick for saying this, but how does Strong Bad type with boxing gloves on?
  • I've typed with my elbows before. I'm sure he found a way.
  • I personally hold the belief that his boxing gloves have invisible telekinetic fingers in much the same way that Homestar has invisible telekinetic arms. (There was one episode where he put on a trenchcoat, and the sleeves moved normally.) The telekinetic fingers theory is supported by how hard it became to type with those fingers he applied to his gloves in that one e-mail; they interfered with the ability. (No, I don't think the Brothers Chaps had this in mind, I just think it explains it.)
  • Or maybe he's technopathic and he just mashes the keys and tells his computer what to say. (See WMG for details on this.)
  • Or maybe the keyboards he has have boxing glove sized keys. (Laptop keyboards are interchangable you know).
• The episode "4 branches", and possibly several others, show Strong Bad as having some kind of job, but in a different one where he's asked if he does anything but checking emails, he claims to have a part-time job working for Bubs. What's going on?
  • Negative Continuity aside, perhaps he just got fired from his old one, or quit.
  • Strong Bad has been seen in his Tragic Clown Dog costume in more recent episodes (On Break), and he also stole a computer from his office job recently (sbemail Imaginary), implying he holds both jobs. Sbemails seem to be a hobby for him.
• If the Strong Badia stop sign and cinder block are intelligent enough that they can break up, why aren't they part of the population?
  • Because they are part of what was going to be the monument.
  • They're illegal immigrants.
• Hom...sar...DYING?!
  • Homsar has "died" before. Besides, there are at least two of him.
  • "Homsar is dying."
  • There's a difference between a cartoony death (which he survived, according to one of Marzipan's answering machine messages) and being alone and starving to death in the snow.
  • Luckily, he's still alive as of October/ 30, 2014.
  • But what about that one time with the guillot- oh wait, that's probably a cartoony death. ...Or is it?
• However does that rapscallion Strong Bad manage the telegramophone whilst wearing gentleman's sport gloves? I suspect some sort of trickery is afoot!
  • Perhaps the electrode wire transmitting the signal to the receiver is perhaps operated by clever manipulation of those sport gloves, so maybe there isn't as much trickery afoot as you'd think!
  • Thank you for brightening my dismal day.
    • No prob, bob.
• If Strong Bad is annoyed by people asking him how he types with boxing gloves on, why doesn't he just ANSWER THEM?
  • What, like TBC actually KNOW?
• Why does Strong Bad have a subscription to Husky Headed Boys Back to School Catalog if he denies having a husky head?
  • Just because he denies he does doesn't mean he actually doesn't.
• There's actually something I don't get in hremail3184 (sbemail 201). In the very beginning, Homestar looked and sounded either completely exhausted or completely bored. Why was he sounding so exhausted (or bored)?
  • The most logical explanation would be that he got tired of answering e-mails, particularly since if the numbers are to be believed he answered thousands of them in only a little bit longer than the time it took for Strong Bad to answer 200.
• Considering there's been no new content for (as of this posting) five years, I wonder why there isn't a "Everything Else, Vol. 4" released for stuff like The S is For Sucks song and the Xeriouxly Forxe intro?
  • My sentiments exactly. However, I think that the latter would be more appropriate for Volume 5.
• You know, given how much Strong Bad hates Homestar... how is it Dangeresque Too keeps getting all the good parts?
  • Considering episodes like "love poem" and "April Fools 2014", Strong Bad probably hates Homestar a lot less than he's willing to admit. As for the Dangeresque part, the whole series is Strong Bad's wish fulfillment; he's too focused on making himself look awesome, so he's probably not paying attention to whether Homestar's scenes are accidentally awesome.
• In DNA Evidence, why is Strong Sad the one doing the investigation and the report when it's HIS DNA evidence that is in question? And he obviously knew that it was his DNA Evidence, because he somehow kidnapped the dirty towel, got all the DNA Evidence off of it, and put it back in a tube which he then hid. So why did he even bother? And why is he telling Homsar anything about it?
  • The lecture is a front, to make the public think the DNA evidence was lost forever, as well as to hide his ulterior motive ("Why was Strong Sad doing all these interviews about DNA evidence?" "Oh, he's just cosplaying as a detective").
  • Though that does leave the accounts of Homsar being able to speak normally on the phone, and in SBCG4AP, That mysterious pylon Homsar uses to translate his words to everyone else. I don't think Strong Sad's promise to Homsar will last very long, but maybe Homsar's smarter than we think...
• In Fan Club, Strong Sad mentions Bubs' first wife, but doesn't describe her beyond saying "She was a real firebrand, that one." I can't be the only person wondering what she was like, right?
• In Marzipan's Answering Machine 17, why does the Visor Robot speak with its Powered by The Cheat voice (from Everybody to the Limit) as opposed to its "canon" voice (from Senor Mortgage)?
• Also in Marzipan's Answering Machine 17, Homsar expresses over the phone how sick he is of speaking in non-sequiturs and can only be understood over the phone, calling what he says "Garbage", However in SBCG4AP it's shown that Homsar is actually speaking in another language that Strongbad only understood and spoke via the Mysterious Pylon. Homsar even has a different voice with it!. Could it be a retcon or...?
  • Maybe the phone taps into the power of the pylon, without changing his voice.
• In "A Folksy Tale," Strong Sad refers to Saddy Dumpington as a "folk hero," which implies that the latter performed some sort of great heroic deed. However, at the end of Strong Sad's story, he only makes things worse by making everyone laugh themselves into unconcsiousness. So why come he called him a folk hero?
• Why did the "Palichonis" decide to name a "son" Mary. Did they run out of masculine names that rhyme in "Arry/Erry"?
• How did Strong Bad have a Mexican accent in the past but not his brothers? They grew up in the same household.
  • He is suppose to reference a luchadora which is Mexican. He probably learned it from his father.
• How does the light turning off in senior prom relate to David Copperfield? All Copperfield has done is make the Statue Of Liberty disappear.

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