Airdate: Monday, September 11, 2006
Sender: Daniel, N.S. Canada
"Another freakin guy named Daniel" from "Not Safe in Canada" ("Thanks for the tip, Daniel. I'll lay low here in the States for a while until things cool off.") thinks that Strong Bad should have his own line of trading cards, complete with "a stick of gum in them". Strong Bad regards trading cards as "the biggest waste of not a video game on the planet", and suspects that the gum used in trading cards was long ago replaced with pink-colored balsa wood.
Coach Z has a line of "vaguely sports-ish managerial cards" ("What self-respecting twelve-year-old doesn't want to collect pictures of the smelly old men behind their favorite sports teams?"), featuring the Coach as a "Horrendous Spitter" and "Showering Expert", and complete with stats on the back ("Oh, a record high twenty-three butt pats in '84').
Strong Bad: Let me guess, it—
Homestar: No, it was me! It's like I was made to hustle that season.
Next up is The Cheat's Stinkoman trading card game ("which is really more like a trading card activity or trading card goings-on, because the word 'game' implies fun and enjoyment, and you won't find none of that here."), which Homestar seems to have confused for Strong Sad's dark fantasy card game The Beleagured: Alliance.
Homestar: Well, how are them kids gonna earn any butt pats if they don't hustle it out?
Strong Bad: I don't think butt pats are part of the approved curriculum in elementary schools these days.
Homestar: Well, that's just sad.
Finally Strong Bad comes to "the only trading cards I really gave a toot about", a line of "gross-out cards for kids" produced by the Poopsmith. Homestar shows up again to try and get Strong Bad to trade his "Petey Poopsmith" for a "Marzi-Pancake" and a "Sting of Town", and Strong Bad decides he's had enough.
Homestar: (now suddenly covered in post-its with pictures of Strong Bad wrestling dinosaurs on them) Hoo-ray! My collection is complete! And here, my good man, is your "get outta my face".
(Homestar leaves, The Paper comes down.)
Tropes:
- Calvin Ball: The Stinko Man trading card game is depicted as having random and incomprehensible rules. When Stinko Man plays "Cheatball Poison Rain Vornado", it generates a caption reading "PLAY GET!" and four rapidly changing number displays that leave Stinko Man thoroughly confused.Stinko Man: Uhm, so, did I win? Does anyone know how this game works?
- Collectible Card Game: Strong Bad makes fun of trading card games, dividing them into dramatic fantasy ones for "musky nerds" to play in dorm basements and comic shops, and cartoony Japanese ones for kids to play during recess.
- Comically Small Bribe: Strong Bad finally gets Homestar to go away by offering Homestar a post-it note with a picture of Strong Bad bench pressing a dinosaur in exchange for a "get-outta-my-face".
- Entendre Failure: Homestar doesn't seem to understand Strong Bad's remark that Coach Z is "known in seven states" for his "self butt-pats".
- Pokémon Speak: The Cheatball only says "Cheatball!"
- Rhetorical Question Blunder: After Strong Bad finally gets Homestar to leave, he wonders "How many times have we had that conversation?" Homestar pops back in to answer "Thirty-five."
- Running Gag: Homestar keeps butting in with his own thoughts on the various types of trading cards.
- Shout-Out:
- The Stinko Man card game seems to be a parody of the Pokémon TCG.
- The Beleagured: Alliance is a parody of Magic: The Gathering or possibly even Vampire: The Eternal Struggle.
- The flashing numbers during the "Stinko Man card game" sequence parody the life counters displayed in the anime adaptation of Yu-Gi-Oh!.
- The "Whatsit Pile Tykes" are a parody of the Garbage Pail Kids.
- Take That!: Strong Bad pokes fun at the various types of trading cards, from sports cards to collectible card games to gross-out gag cards.
Homestar: Thirty-five!
