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Recap / Strong Bad Email E 124 Secret Recipes

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Airdate: Monday, February 14, 2005

Sender: Melissa and Hillary (from NJ)

Strong Bad: (singing) Email, na na, na na, na na, nanaNA...

Melissa and Hillary "from Nigeria" are aspiring chefs who want to know if Strong Bad is willing to share some family recipes with them so they can make them themselves.

Strong Bad: Well Mellie, Hillarious, being from Africa I'm sure you guys are used to eating, like, exotic fruits and nectars and, um, lions... so our recipes may seem a bit uncouth. Uncouth... Can something be just plain couth? I bet freakin' Strong Sad is plain couth.

Strong Bad also clarifies that the Strong family recipe book is mostly composed of prank foods that "tend to center around the grossing out of or the making puke of friends and well-wishers", as he demonstrates by teaming up with The Cheat to whip up a bowl of "Great Uncle Pawdabber's Pre-tend Ice Cream Showdown" ("Strong Bad may or may not have an actual Great Uncle Pawdabber").

Out in the Field, Strong Bad and The Cheat offer Coach Z (who's trying to work out how a basketball works) some of their "icèd-cream" with toasted coconut... or rather, sour cream and The Cheat hair.

Coach Z: Hoo! I think I'm going to puke my pants!
Strong Bad: Ugh, please don't elaborate on that.
Coach Z: Naw, it's easy. I do it all the time! Here, let me show ya's! (Strong Bad and The Cheat freak out and run away) You take your pants...
(A recipe card for "Great Uncle Pawdabber's Pre-tend Ice Cream Showdown" appears on screen)
Strong Bad: (voiceover) For best results, dip The Cheat in egg wash before shaving or else he'll get those red shaving bumpies all over him... Ugh.

Strong Bad's next target is the King of Town, whom he plans to prank with an emptied-out stick of deodorant filled with white chocolate. Unfortunately, he underestimated the King of Town's own gross appetite when he finds the King eating actual sticks of deodorant (and washing it down with the spray stuff).

Strong Bad: Hey, Ol' King Droll! Checka me out! I'm eatin'- oh. Never mind. Ugh, shoulda known. (he and The Cheat walk off)
King of Town: No, wait, you guys! Come back! This stuff is strong enough for a man but tasty enough for a king! Don't you want to try any Forest Rush? Or Tundra Mist?
(A recipe card for "Crazy Aunt Eulatherm's Deodorant Doppelganger" appears on screen)
Strong Bad: (voiceover) Yeah, how come deodorants and stuff are always named after biomes anyways?

Meanwhile, Homestar falls victim to Great Uncle Pawdabber's Pre-tend Ice Cream Showdown as well, and plots revenge with "Stupid Uncle Egg's Goodtime Diaper Pie" ("Homestar definitely does not have a Stupid Uncle Egg")... which turns out to be a pine cone and a bendy straw sitting in a bowl. It doesn't take much effort for Strong Bad to trick Homestar into eating the pine cone himself... though much to Strong Bad's bafflement this leads to Homestar walking away chuckling "So long, suckers!"

Strong Bad wraps up the e-mail with a confidential offer to share his "super-secret family recipe for cooking the C-H-E-blank-T"... which does not amuse The Cheat in the slightest.

The Cheat: (extremely angry The Cheat noise, chucks a floppy disk reading "YOU JERK!" at Strong Bad's head)
Strong Bad: Ow! And of course that blank is for the letter K. The Chekt. My family's got a great recipe for cooking the Chekt. Yeah, yeah. We're mostly from Bumdumbourge. It's near, uh, Totalslava. "Come down off that smokestack and eat your the Chekt!" my poopaw used to say. Ah, my dear poopaw, I miss you so...
(The Paper comes down, beat)
Strong Bad: (stage whispering) I think The Cheat bought it. Let me know if you want that recipe.

Tropes:

  • Accidental Misnaming: After getting distracted by his tangent on whether or not something can be "just plain couth", Strong Bad continues with "Anyways, Couthy..."
  • Ambiguous Situation: "Strong Bad may or may not have an actual Great Uncle Pawdabber."
  • Attack Backfire: Strong Bad's attempts to gross the others out are rendered ineffective by them being even grosser than him. Coach Z keeps eating the "ice cream" and then casually offers to "puke my pants", the King of Town enjoys eating deodorant, and Homestar is more annoyed at the lie than at eating The Cheat fur and eventually willingly eats a pinecone.
  • Blatant Lies: The note attached to "Stupid Uncle Egg's Goodtime Diaper Pie" reads "Not a pimecone, [sic] diaper pie! I mean reg-ular pie". Also, Strong Bad's claim about having a recipe for cooking "the Chekt".
  • Buffy Speak: Coach Z calls a basketball a "bounce thing" and accepts Strong Bad's offer of free ice cream because he "can't afford the money-cost variety."
  • Calling Your Nausea: Coach Z thinks he may "puke [his] pants" after finding out what's in the "ice cream." He was even ready and willing to demonstrate how to do that before Strong Bad and The Cheat run away.
  • Censored for Comedy: Strong Bad spells out that he's got a recipe for cooking "The C-H-E-_-T". When The Cheat angrily retaliates, Strong Bad insists that the blank is for the letter K.
  • Comically Missing the Point: Homestar objects to being told he was eating cottage cheese and The Cheat hair, when he was told it was sour cream and The Cheat hair. He's also tricked into eating his own "diaper pie" (actually a pine cone), but seems to count it as a victory. Given how Homestar's mind works, it may have been his plan all along.
    Strong Bad: It's like, even when we win, he wins.
  • The Dog Bites Back: Not only does The Cheat not buy Strong Bad's claim that the recipe is not about The Cheat, but in an Easter egg, he is looking through another cook book about how to cook "a wrestleman".
  • Extreme Omnivore: Strong Bad tries to gross-out and/or make-puke the King of Town by eating white chocolate out of an old deodorant stick, only to find the King eating actual deodorant.
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: It's only on-screen for a moment, but the floppy disk The Cheat throws at Strong Bad is labeled "You JERK!"
  • Gross Out Fake Out: Strong Bad tries to invoke this trope on the King of Town by eating white chocolate out of a deodorant stick.... Only for this to backfire when he walks in on The King of Town actually eating deodorant.
  • I Ate WHAT?!: Strong Bad's recipe book is apparently full of recipes designed to trick people into eating gross things. Also inverted with "Crazy Aunt Eulatherm's Deodorant Doppelganger", made by filling an empty deodorant stick with white chocolate.
  • Noodle Incident: We (thankfully) don't find out what "puking your pants" entails, as the scene ends before Coach Z can elaborate beyond "You take your pants..."
  • The Old Country: Strong Bad claims his family is from "Bumdumbourge", up near "Totalslava".
  • Pyrrhic Victory: Strong Bad manages to turn Homestar's "Goodtime Diaper Pie" prank back around on him... only to be deflated upon seeing how confident he was in eating the pinecone.
    Homestar Runner: (with his mouth full) Well, so long, suckers! (leaves)
    Strong Bad: (offscreen) It's like, even when we win, he wins.
  • Soap Within a Show: "Caleb Rentpayer", first introduced in this e-mail.
    Tucksworth: You can't marry your guitar, Caleb!
    Caleb: I can try!
  • Spit Take: Coach Z and Homestar's reaction to Great Uncle Pawdabber's Pretend Ice Cream Showdown.

Narrator: I, uh, I don't even know what a poopaw is.

Tucksworth: Caleb, that hamburger was mine!
Caleb: It's mine now.

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