Recap / Homestar Runner Mr Poofers Must Die

Airdate: Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Costumes (in order of appearance): Marzipan as J. Mascis, Homestar as Dirk the Daring, Strong Bad as Viewtiful Joe, Bubs as Stan S. Stanman, Coach Z and Pom Pom as Missy Elliott, Strong Sad as Tummi Gummi, Strong Mad as Kano?, The Cheat as a Korok, the King of Town as Little Debbie, the Poopsmith as a Sea Monkey, Homsar as David St. Hubbins

Homestar and the gang try their hardest to kill an imaginary dog in the name of good book reviews.

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Tropes:

• Adorable Abomination: Mr. Poofers is an adorable fluffy dog...who supernaturally prevents anyone from telling stories that would end with his untimely demise, which convinces the main cast to start worshiping him as their "dark overlord". In an Easter Egg, he's also referred to as a "beast of the apocalypse".
• Art Shift: Scenes that take place in Mr. Poofers' story are drawn in a loose, scribbly style with thick outlines.
• Bait-and-Switch: Old Man Rootbeer hates Mr. Poofers for always eating his pine cones. Just before he goes to sleep, he shouts that nobody better touch his pine cones while he's napping. So Mr. Poofers waits until the opportune moment, sneaks up... and steals Old Man Rootbeer's beard, ignoring the pine cones.
• Black Comedy: "Ain't nobaddy can get fatally irresponsible with an animal like Coach Z!"
• Continuity Nod:
  • Homestar's bad luck with scary stories goes back all the way to his feeble attempt to start a round-robin scary story in "Homestarloween Party".
  • The name "Mr. Poofers" comes from a dog in a Homestar costume seen in the 2006 Fan Costume round-up.
  • Decorations based on the "ghost" from Haunted Photo Booth are hanging in Marzipan's house.
  • Homestar and several other characters repeatedly refers to pine cones as "pimecones" throughout the cartoon.
  • Homestar's ghost story gets a review page on Bookazon.com, which has been redesigned since its debut in "studying".
  • During the costume round-up, Bubs does his "Check it out, check it out!" chant from "Lookin' at a Thing in a Bag"
  • The Stinger features Character 1 from "Characters From Yonder Website" having an encounter with Mr. Poofers, along with the return of Strong Bad's "unbelievably soothing children's programming" voice.
• Death by Newbery Medal: Mr. Poofers seem to be a parody of the concept; try as they might, the characters can't come up with a story where he dies.
• Dissonant Serenity:
  • Marizpan takes Homestar breaking up with her with much stride, likely thanks to how many times they've broken up before. When he realizes he was supposed to instead announce that he was going to tell a scary story, she's actually more focused on the fact that he already planned their breakup one week in advance.
  • During the Characters From Yonder Website easter egg, Narrator Strong Bad never drops his calm, laid-back tone even while introducing Mr. Poofers as a "Beast of the Apocalypse" and telling Character 1 to make an offering of fruit to him to avert the apocalypse.
• Don't Explain the Joke:
  Strong Bad: All right, concentrate, Strong Bad. Keep your mind strong! ...Bad! See what I did—
  Everyone else: Yes!
• Failed Attempt at Scaring: Played for Horror. Homestar attempts to tell a "4 1/2 stars with over 600 reviews-quality" ghost story that involves Mr. Poofers, a fictional cloud-like dog, dying. However, whenever Homestar tries to harm Mr. Poofers, his narration turns into lighthearted nonsense. Other characters tried taking a whack at telling the story, all of them failing to harm Mr. Poofers in any way. They break out into a cold sweat upon finishing their narration, horrified about how the story seems to have a mind of it's own.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: The end of Homestar's second attempt at telling the story, as well as Coach Z, Marzipan and Strong Sad's attempts at the story, are accompanied by a thought bubble dissipating around their heads. However, for a split-second, before dissipating, these thought bubbles have Mr. Poofers' eyes and tongue.
• Formally-Named Pet: The dog in Homestar's stories is known as Mr. Poofers.
• I Just Write the Thing: An exaggerated version, where the fictional Mr. Poofers supernaturally prevents anyone from telling stories about him that end with his death. The characters can talk about hypothetically killing him, but any attempt to kill him within the story will end with them saying a bizarre non-sequitur instead.
• Insult Backfire: Strong Bad calls Homestar's costume "Dork the Daring", but Homestar doesn't even realize it's an insult—due to his speech impediment, Homestar pronounces "Dirk" and "dork" exactly the same.
• Kill It with Fire: In Strong Bad's story, Old Man Rootbeer tries to off Mr. Poofers with a flamethrower.
• Lampshaded the Obscure Reference:
  • During the ending group shot, Strong Bad has to scold Strong Mad over his obscure costume choice.
    Strong Bad: [accusingly] Strong Mad?
    Strong Mad: FUNNY JOKE?
    Strong Bad: Buddy?
    Strong Mad: FUNNY JOKE ABOUT MY COSTUME?
    Strong Bad: No, big fella. There are no jokes about your costume. Because no one knows who it is.
  • Similarly, Strong Sad tries to make a joke about Marzipan's costume by rattling off the names of Dinosaur Jr. albums, but Strong Bad protests that no one will get it. Marzipan chimes in to say that she gets the joke... but "it's still pretty lame".
• Last-Second Word Swap: The effect when Strong Bad tries to tell the story.
  Strong Bad: Old Man Rootbeer stood at the end of the ave, flamethrower slung 'cross his back. "You ate one pimecone too many, Mr. Poofers!" harkened Old M. R... Beer. He took dead aim on Mr. ... [begins struggling to speak] Poofers... Dead aim, you see! And then... he... pulled... the tr— trrrr— trrrrrr— [singing] Trolley 'round the block and then he gave it a ding! Mr. Poofers hopped aboard and they began to sing!
• Mister Muffykins: Mr. Poofers is a friendly (if mischievous) dog, but he has a ridiculous-sounding high-pitched bark (which Homestar describes as "MIFFA MIFFA MEEKA MOO!") and a pelt so thick and fluffy Homestar calls Mr. Poofers a "cloud with legs" at one point.
• Noodle Incident: How Pom Pom and Coach Z managed to make their costume.
  Strong Bad: Uh, Coach Z? Do I even wanna know how you and Pom Pom are pulling this costume off?
  Coach Z: I can assure you, you do not!
• No Saving Throw: Strong Sad recites a protection spell of sorts before telling his story so that he can kill the dog off. He doesn't get any further than saying "pimecone" and imagining Mr. Poofers in a White Void Room before he quits in a state of panic.
• Recognition Failure: Continuing the running gag from previous Halloween cartoons, Homestar thinks Marzipan is dressed as "thrift store Gandalf", Strong Sad is "Bill Murray from cartoon Ghostbusters from the voice of Garfield: The Movie dot com"^explanation A particularly convoluted joke in that Lorenzo Music, the voice of Tummi Gummi, also voiced the cartoon versions of Garfield from Garfield and Friends and Peter Venkman from The Real Ghostbusters, while Bill Murray played Venkman in the original Ghostbusters and voiced Garfield in the 2004 live-action adaptaion., and Homsar is "Doug Henning [after he] made his own mustache disappear". Then he has no problem recognizing the K.O.T.'s Little Debbie costume, which sets up the Double Subversion when he misidentifies Bubs' costume as "Little Debbie's dad".
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: The Mr. Poofers stories feature Old Man Rootbeer, a Grumpy Old Man who's mad that Mr. Poofers keeps eating his pine cones.
• Surreal Horror: The idea of an imaginary dog who can't be killed off is both unnerving and ridiculous at the same time.
• That Reminds Me of a Song: Strong Bad's attempt at telling a Mr. Poofers story turns into an impromptu musical number.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Mr. Poofers eats pine cones for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
• Unmoving Plaid: The plaid pattern on Stan's jacket never moved in the original Monkey Island games, so the pattern on Bubs' costume doesn't move either.