Follow TV Tropes

Following

Web Animation / Strong Bad Email

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sbemail_455.png
This episode, Strong Bad checks his email.

Keep sending me your questions, and I will keep making fun of your punctuation and spelling... I mean, answer them.
Strong Bad

Strong Bad Email — also known as sbemail — is a subseries of Homestar Runner. The series started in 2001, and has been known to suffer hiatuses, the longest being the one from October 2009 to April Fools' Day 2015, and even that wasn't a true sbmail video as much as a transition between computers and a regular April Fools Toon. The hiatus would finally be broken for real in August 2017, though the release schedule would still suffer from extreme Schedule Slip with only 3 cartoons being released between then and 2022 (albeit with other Homestar related projects being released infrequently in the meantime).

The series consists of Strong Bad responding to viewers' questions and suggestions, such as "Why don't you creat a montage?", "What would you do different, if you could do it all over again?", and the ever-popular "How do you type with boxing gloves on?" This usually involves mocking the sender's spelling and grammar mistakes (in fact, the character of Homsar was actually created this way), and quite often not actually answering the question.

The series is also responsible for the creation of yet more spin-offs/subseries on the website, including Teen Girl Squad, the Stinkoman franchise, Cheat Commandos, and anything involving the ever-popular beefy-armed dragon Trogdor the Burninator.


Dear Strong Bad, how do you trope with boxing gloves on?

  • Abuse of Return Policy: In "what i want", Strong Bad encourages his audience to take advantage of local retailers where the seasonal workers will be too apathetic to enforce the return policy. He claims to have returned an unreturnable food item, to a store that couldn't possibly have sold it, for far more money than it was worth.
    Strong Bad: But if it doesn't work, don't forget to take advantage of all the temporary help that retailers hire this time of year. Those people will refund anything! Last year, I returned an omelette to a hardware store for nigh on fifty bucks.
  • Alliance of Alternates: In "alternate universe", the different versions of Strong Bad form a supergroup and record a number one jam.
  • April Fools' Day: As noted above, Strong Bad's longest hiatus ended on this day. The actual episode plays with the trope of websites doing wacky things as Strong Bad lambastes them. He vows to take April Fools Day back to its roots: mean-spirited and harmful pranking in the real world.
  • all lowercase letters: The titles of almost every email.
  • Animated Actors: In "original," not only are the characters implied to be actors but Strong Bad claims they are frequently replaced. He reminisces about the "original Bubs," a clearly-different animated character playing the "role" of Bubs. However by the end of the toon, Bubs arrives and claims Strong Bad is lying and that he is the original, one-and-only Bubs. Homerstar also misses Original Bubs, to which Marzipan states Strong Bad made him up.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In "morning routine," Strong Sad confronts Strong Bad about the absurd amount of eggs he keeps in the couch, which include ostrich eggs, dinosaur eggs, and - lastly - "one of those brown eggs."
    Strong Sad: There needs to be a better word for "weird".
  • Artifact Title: As of "too cool", questions are pulled from messages sent to Strong Bad's Twitter account instead of the email address. Trying to send an email to the address now results in a mailer daemon. In-Universe, Strong Bad apparently uses software called "Edgar Jr's Cool Babysitter's Twee-Mail Converter" that converts Tweets into e-mails.
  • Asinine Alternate Activity:
    • In "slumber party", while Strong Bad is sleeping over at Homestar Runner's house, he finds the parents' stash of Rated-M video games, but Homestar doesn't let him play them. He offers to play Clapping Party, though, which involves just making a set of pixelated hands clap.
    • In "theme park", The Cheat isn't tall enough to ride the park's coolest roller coaster, The Bowels of Trogdor. Strong Bad apologizes and tells him he'll have to go to Sweet Cuppin' Cakes Land instead.
  • Aspect Ratio Switch:
    • In email 100, "flashback", Strong Bad deliberately expands the screen because he thinks this episode is too important for a 4:3 aspect ratio. The wider screen reveals that Homestar Runner is standing right next to him, Behind the Black.
      Strong Bad: But this particular flashback has way too much historical significance to be shown in anything but WIDESCREEEEEEEEEEEEN!
    • In "virus", the video is wider than the displayed cartoon, to set up a gag where Strong Bad gets stranded outside the cartoon screen.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Apparently Strong Badia gets Kaiju attacks instead of natural disasters. Behold King Bubsgonzola Supreme!
  • Back from the Dead: The Tandy, the Compy, and the Paper. They all re-die shortly thereafter.
  • Bad "Bad Acting": Many examples, but a particular one from "videography"
    "Oh, little Jimmy... is playing lacrosse! Oh, he just scored the winning, ah, lacrosse...point! Oh, his dad was totally there and not at Applebee's. Good shot, Johnn- Jimmy!"
  • Bait-and-Switch: The questions that Strong Bad is asked in the emails have a tendency to be taken in a different direction than the question intended. It is so common, in fact, that on the Homestar Runner Wiki site, it has its own page. Strong Bad probably puts it best in "1 step ahead", in which he is asked by someone named Alex, of Medford, NJ, to glue Strong Sad's hands to his face...
    "I'm one step ahead of you, Alex. Though I decided to take it in a bit of a different direction."
    • ...after which Strong Bad glues Strong Sad's hands to his butt instead!
  • Banned in China: Parodied in-universe; Strong Bad's disparaging comments toward the British get "sb_email 22" banned in the UK and himself charged with "verbal crimes against the crown."
  • Bathroom Control: Strong Bad mentions in "Privileges" that the last time The Cheat's privileges were upgraded was when the latter's bathroom privileges were reinstated, which he had previously abused.
  • The Bore: "dullard" is about preventing the office dullard (a clever foe!) from destroying your mood and productivity.
  • Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs:
    • In "lackey", Bubs has a sign on his concession stand reading "We Gladly Accept: Cash, Money, or Cash Money."
    • In "sbemail206", Strong Bad sequentially tricks Homestar into thinking his reflection is his long-lost twin brother, Marzipan into thinking The Cheat is edible and gluten-free, and the King of Town into thinking his reflection is his edible long-lost twin brother.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: Of the Beyond the Impossible type, since the series has No Fourth Wall anyway. In "virus". Strong Bad's attempt to run to the next room for help results in him running outside of the frame (into the surrounding black background) instead. Homestar then starts playing with the toolbar links that appear at the bottom of the page.
    Strong Bad: No! Wait! Stop! That's not supposed to be possible...!!"
  • Breakout Character:
    • In-universe, Eh! Steve! is the Breakout Character of "Sweet Cuppin' Cakes", the cartoon that Strong Bad made up in "crazy cartoon".
    • Played straight with Teen Girl Squad, Trogdor, and Stinkoman, who debuted in "comic", "dragon", and "japanese cartoon" respectively before being given their own series of toons in the case of the TGS and their own games in the latter two's case. Homsar first appeared in "homsar" and within two years became a main character on the main site.
  • By the Lights of Their Eyes: Happens to Strong Bad and The Cheat "your edge", when they saw a hole in the floor and fall in through it and into total darkness:
    Strong Bad: Whoa! Where are we? I suddenly feel so... easy to animate.
  • Censored for Comedy: In #124, "secret recipes", Strong Bad tells the email senders that if they want to be chefs when they grow up, as they say they do, he offers them a recipe "for cooking The C-H-E-_-T." When The Cheat retaliates against him, Strong Bad tries to cover it up by insisting that the blank letter is actually not an A, but a K: "The Chekt. My family has a great recipe for cooking The Chekt." As seen in an Easter egg, however, The Cheat isn't buying it, as seen in him looking at a cookbook for cooking "a wrestleman".
  • Chatty Hairdresser: Strong Sad acts like one in "pet show", when he's getting The Cheat ready for the pet competition.
  • Christmas Episode: In "what i want", Strong Bad talks about gifts he doesn't want for Decemberween, done via him and Marzipan hosting an infomercial program hocking cheap Decemberween ornaments and knick-knacks.
  • Computer Equals Monitor: The Tandy 400 and the Compy 386 are nothing but monitors connected to keyboards. To demonstrate this, the threats they pose in "Virus" and "Retirement" are nullified when their monitors are somehow damaged beyond (apparent) repair; no word or sight about the keyboards. Mildly justified in that they're modeled after the Tandy TRS-80 and the Compaq Deskpro 386 respectively, both of which had computer towers forcibly bolted to their CRTs.
  • Confusing Multiple Negatives: When Strong Bad is trying to prove to his fans that Marzipan is totally hot for Strong Bad. "Do you don't not dislike not Strong Bad?"
  • Consolation World Record: Strong Bad spends an email trying to get into a world record book, and his plan for doing this involves writing his own. This takes so long, however, that he gets sidetracked and forgets to set a record himself. At the last minute he achieves Longest Saying of "Bull Honkey". Strong Mad also achieves Most Macaronis Nailed to a Paper Towel Tube (just one).
  • Contested Sequel: In-universe, "tape-leg". Homestar doesn't like it because it's a short and rather dull episode, though Strong Bad is compelled to defend it.
  • Couch Gag: Strong Bad almost always starts out with a song or a phrase every e-mail. More often then not containing a pun on e-mail.
  • Curse Cut Short: In "trevor the vampire", Strong Bad types "what the f—" before interrupting himself with another train of thought.
  • Cyber Green: As befitting Strong Bad's love of outdated technology, his first e-mail checking computer, the Tandy 400, has a monochrome monitor, displaying almost exclusively shades of green. Even its ghost is made of large, green pixels.
  • Descending Ceiling: Mentioned by Strong Bad as a means of motivation in "the next april fools thing". The scene then shows Strong Sad trying to beat a game while a spiky ceiling closes in on him and Strong Bad.
  • Depth Deception: Marzipan teaches a lesson about this to Strong Sad in "unnatural". Bubs immediately shows up to prove that, sometimes, the giant object really is giant.
  • Disrupting the Theater: In "The Movies", Strong Bad gets an email from someone whose movie-going experience was ruined by a little girl who wouldn't shut up, and who asks Strong Bad if he's ever had a similar experience. Strong Bad gives examples: Coach Z can't resist answering the trivia questions out loud every time they show up (and getting the answer wrong, even though the same slide has shown up ten times since they arrived), Strong Sad keeps listing the whole filmography of every actor that appears in a trailer, the King of Town sneaks in several plates of fajitas (plus a mariachi band accompanying him), and finally, Homestar attempts making small talk with the movie characters. Strong Bad gets so frustrated that he ends up blowing up the whole movie theater with a bazooka.
  • The Diss Track: Strong Bad accidentally creates one in "Sibbie". When a viewer asks Strong Bad to write a song about him, Strong Bad refuses and states he will "never, ever, ever write a song about The Sibbie"... The Cheat ends up turning it into a song that became a big hit. Strong Bad then screams, "I freaking hate Sibbie!" and that immediately ends up becoming a song as well.
  • Dumb and Drummer: In "best thing", Mary the drummer from Limozeen is turned into a dim-witted comic relief character obsessed with eating in Limozeen: But They're In Space!:
    Mary: How come they made me fat and have orange hair?
    Larry: Because you're the comic relief-uh!
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: In the first few episodes, Strong Bad still had traces of his old Mexican accent, his head didn't move and his mouth was visible, and rarely cut away from his computer room for cutaways or skits. They were also MUCH shorter. The first episode was only 45 seconds, compared to its normal runtime of 3-4 minutes. Also, The Paper didn't have Strong Bad's address on it for the first 20 emails.
  • Eldritch Location: The Sweet Puttin' Cakes miniature golf course. You get there by desiring to play miniature golf. It goes downhill from there.
  • Epic Fail: In "for kids", Strong Bad somehow manages to score -45 points in Peasant's Quest, despite it being impossible to achieve a negative score in the actual game.
  • Eskimos Aren't Real: Strong Bad has this to see in a Teen Super Sleuth parody, playing the group skeptic:
    "There is no such thing as 'mysterious'."
  • F--: The sbemail "for kids" contains the Trope Namer.
  • Fake Shemp: Parodied in the email "original"; after Original Bubs quit, they tried to hide his non-presence. Literally. Behind large objects.
    Homestar: Original Bubs, who is totally behind that dishwasher box (cut) behind that washer/dryer box (cut) that hot water heater box (cut) behind that... toothpick sculpture?
  • "Far Side" Island: In "island", Strong Bad is asked what he would do if stranded on a desert islan.
  • Fashion Magazine: Spoofed in the sbemail "Modeling". Of all the magazines Strong Bad sends a portfolio to, he only makes the cover of "Husky Headed Boys Back 2 School Catalog".
  • Female Rockers Play Bass: Lampshaded in "Best Thing" during "Limozeen: But They're in Space!" when Teeg Dougland tells the band that an alternative metal group is currently at the top of the charts.
    Perry: But their bassist is a girl!
    Mary: And the drummer's got short hair!
    Larry: And the lead singer wears glasses!
  • Flipping the Bird: In "the bird", Strong Bad, Pom Pom, and Homestar show off how to flip someone off, despite neither of them having any visible fingers.
  • Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: The entire premise of the series is that Strong Bad answers emails from Real Life fans.
  • Free Prize at the Bottom: Strong Bad discusses prizes that come in cereal boxes in the episode "specially marked". He goes over the types of cereal people should avoid if they want something cool, and mentions what types of prizes he would enjoy (namely, anything that can mangle Homestar).
  • Frustrated Overhead Scribble:
    • In "huttah!", The Cheat a frustrated scribble over his head when he gets fed up with Strong Bad lying about emails addressed to him.
    • In "coloring", The Cheat gets another one after Strong Bad informs him that Crayola beat them to the punch on making Laser Lemons.
  • Gas Siphoning: In "ISP", Strong Mad somehow manages to siphion internet bandwidth from Bubs's computer server. It gave him Helium Speech.
    Strong Mad: I'M A WEBSITE!
  • Grammar Correction Gag: Strong Bad usually pronounces the misspelled words the way they're spelled, though occasionally he will tab up into the message and edit the errors. Among other things, the character of Homsar was born via misspelling... his name was originally a misspelling of Homestar in an early sbemail.
  • Grossout Fakeout: "Secret Recipes", 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.
  • Grub Tub: "Winter Pool" features Strong Bad and Homestar filling up a pool with gelatin. They end up sinking to the bottom, forcing The King of Town to suck up the whole thing in order to rescue them.
  • Halloween Episode:
    • In "halloweener", Strong Bad shows the audience how to dress up as him for Halloween, using Homestar as a model. He gives up about halfway through and tells the viewers to just ask their mom to make a Strong Bad costume for them.
    • In "ghosts", Strong Bad and The Cheat explore Strong Badia after dark to search for ghosts. They end up finding the spirit of the Tandy 400, complete with a "bad graphics ghost" haunting its screen.
  • Heroic BSoD: In "virus", Strong Bad breaks down into unintelligible blubbering after Bubs is forced to shoot the Compy after it gets infected with reality-altering computer viruses.
  • Hypocritical Humor:
    • Strong Bad is a Grammar Nazi that makes fun of people for sending in poorly written emails, but frequently fails at grammar and spelling himself.
    • Homestar answers the e-mail in "anything", which leads to him getting irked when the e-mail calls him Strong Bad, though he says he'll let it slide. He proceeds to refer to Dan, the writer, as "Jerome" for the rest of the short.
  • I Ate WHAT?!: In "secret recipes", Strong Bad feeds Coach Z some of "Great Uncle Pawdabber's Pre-tend Ice Cream Showdown", which amounts to a bowl of sour cream mixed with The Cheat fur. When Coach Z learns what he ate, he spits it out and mentions that he's going to "puke his pants". Later on, Homestar also tries some and spits it out when Marzipan tells him that it's made out of cottage cheese and The Cheat fur... because Strong Bad told him it was made out of sour cream and The Cheat fur.
  • I Will Show You X!: In the dragon Strong Bad email:
    Strong Sad: I think I've improved on your methods a bit, too. I employed some chiaroscuro shading, and-
    Strong Bad: I'll improve on your methods!
    [Strong Bad sets Strong Sad's drawing on fire and reduces it to nothing]
    Strong Sad: What?! That's not an improvement!
  • If I Had a Nickel...: In the opening to "haircut", Strong Bad says that if he had a nickel for every email that was sent to him, "I would throw them at people in the food court. From that railing, like up above".
  • Imaginary Friend: The episode "imaginary" is dedicated to Strong Sad's childhood imaginary friend, Scotty Titi, and how much he annoyed Strong Bad.
  • Inanimate Competitor:
    • "montage': In the Training Montage segment, the Wagon Full of Pancakes is entered in the "Championship". And it wins by hitting Homestar in the knee with its handle.
    • "pet show": Two examples, only one of whom actually counts. Pom Pom enters his dog Trivia Time, who in this toon is actually a cookie jar. Trivia Time's final score, however, is a measly 3.5, presumably out of ten. The King of Town tries to enter a low-fat grill in the competition, but during the results is told that he's "not supposed to be here", indicating that the grill was not considered eligible to compete.
  • Interface Screw: Strong Bad's computer gets a virus that quickly spreads to the site itself.
  • In Memoriam: invokedSpoofed with Trevor the vampire, who was apparently killed before he could even finish writing his e-mail. Strong Bad then replays everyone's favorite Trevor moments as a tribute... which just results in two flashbacks to him reading Trevor's e-mail again.
  • Is This Thing On?: The email "candy product" opens with Strong Bad doing a mic check instead of his usual random ditty.
  • Jar of the Bizarre: In "your funeral", Strong Bad suggests that, after he dies, he might want to have his body preserved in brine inside a giant mason jar.
    Well, maybe I'll just preserve myself fetal pig-style in a mason jar filled with the salty tears of all the heartbroken private school girls that will pine-uh for me-uh. That way, there'll be something left to re-animate once the zombie uprising cometh.
  • Killed Mid-Sentence: Trevor the vampire. Maybe. That's what Strong Bad concluded happened, anyway.
  • Lack of Imagination: In the episode "different town", Strong Bad sings a song about the various ways he'd improve the town if it were up to him. Shortly afterwards, he's disappointed with some of his changes (namely turning the Cloudcuckoo Lander Homsar into a "modestly hot girl") and suspects his imagination is broken somehow.
    Strong Bad: Though I'm a little disappointed in what I came up with for Homsar. "Modestly hot", my eye! I think my imagination's broke. Lemme try and think up the Best Thing Ever. Umm... Beef... stew... Yup it's busted alright. I'm gonna go... place. [gets up and walks away]
  • Later-Installment Weirdness: For those who are used to seeing The Paper end each email, New Paper's sound and appearance can be this since it's only been around since sbemail 173.
  • Low Count Gag: The last strip of The Castlefunnies gives thanks to "all our reader": specifically, "Chester", a civil war veteran and creamed corn enthusiast.
  • Laughing Mad: Strong Bad's reaction to discovering Strong Mad sucking up the bandwidth at the end of the Sbemail "isp".
  • Meat-O-Vision: In "Island", Strong Bad suspects him and Homestar being stranded on an island would result in this, with Strong Bad seeing Homestar as a steak, and Homestar seeing Strong Bad as a brownie sundae.
  • Medium Blending: Strong Bad, a 2D cartoon character, briefly meets Puppet Strong Bad, a live-action puppet, in "alternate universe".
  • Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher: In "coloring", Marzipan is shown to act as a kindergarten teacher to a class of full-grown adults. Though considering her students are Strong Mad, Homestar, and Homsar...
  • Movie Superheroes Wear Black: Invoked in Bonus Sbemail "Comic Book Movie."
    People may buy that our character has radioactive powers or is from another planet, but a colorful spandex costume?! Are you crazy?! No audience will accept that! Nope, it's one color, head-to-toe leather for our hero!
  • Mundane Made Awesome: E-MAIL. CHECKING.
  • Multiple-Choice Past: There are two separate backstories for why Strong Bad started checking emails.
    • "lady...ing" indicates that he's been checking them since the late-90s "Marshmallow's Last Stand" era, checking them on the Tandy in a boxing ring akin to that toon.
    • "hremail 7" suggests that he unknowingly stole the idea from Homestar, who's been running his own heretofore-unseen email checking show since the "A Jumping Jack Contest" era. It also indicates Strong Bad had no prior familiarity with computers or the Internet, took Homestar's old Tandy 400, and phoned in a favor to Abdi LaRue to send in the first email. This contradicts the various times Strong Bad's been seen with the Tandy in flashbacks set prior to the start of the series (i.e. in the '80s).note 
  • Neologism: From sbemail160 we have "pressed bunson" crayons, apparently a crunchy, edible substance that's sufficiently wax-like to fool even the great Strong Bad. What "bunson" is and how one presses it is anyone's guess.
  • No Fourth Wall: Strong Bad frequently interacts with the perspective-bending Paper that tells the viewers to email Strong Bad, there are requent asides to the camera, and of course, there's the format-defying magic of Strong Bad moving the edges of the screen in at least two episodes.
  • Noodle Incident: The entire joke of "personal favorites" is Strong Bad talking about emails that never existed.
  • No Origin Stories Allowed: In-Universe for sbemail 123. A person emails Strong Bad asking him about The Stick's origins, which Strong Bad says he has no intention of sharing and would only share what makes it a spot worth hanging out at.
  • Obvious Stunt Double: Parodied in a email where a reader asks if Strong Bad has ever used a stunt double. "I've always done my own stunt work!"
  • Ode to Food: In "origins" Homestar briefly hosts "bread sing-a-longs" where he sings the praises of bread while surrounded by a pile of it.
  • Old Shame: Impied in-universe. Strong Bad doesn't seem to like the Tandy, as evidenced by the only two real emails covered in "personal favorites". One was "invisibilty" which was the first Compy email and the other was "gimmicks" where the Tandy explodes. In "do-over", both emails he wanted to correct were from the Tandy era.
  • The Other Darrin: The sbemail "original" is a parody of this phenomenon. invoked
  • One Last Job: The Tandy and the Compy both want to check one last email in "retirement" and kidnap the Lappy in order to force Strong Bad to grant this request.
  • Overflow Error: Referenced in "4 branches" when Strong Bad talks about Homestar's occasional Genius Ditz moments:
    Strong Bad: You know how in video games, if you get the super-duper high score, it eventually flips back to zero? Well, sometimes Homestar does something so stupid, he flips back to smart.
  • Overly Long Gag:
    • DNA Evidence. It actually becomes a Running Gag throughout the entire website, not just this subseries, leading up to a 6-minute toon explaining the significance of these Arc Words. It did start here.
    • "Crapfully Yours" is from the early years. It soon became an Overused Running Gag in the vein of "How do you type with boxing gloves on?"
    • After answering his 100th email, Strong Bad says "email" 100 times in a row, with increasingly silly pronunciations.
  • Padding the Paper: In "english paper", Kyle from Kansas asks for some help writing a school paper. Strong Bad obliges by writing some rambling paragraphs about "hustle and bustle", then applying "a little triple-space action" to make them take up the whole page. He also gets another page by adding random pictures of a guy eating batteries.
  • Prom Wrecker: Strong Bad attempts to humiliate everyone at the local prom with a device that will make everyone's pants disappear. However, it turns out that he's the only one who actually wears pants, so he's the only one humiliated.
  • "Rashomon"-Style: In "couch patch", we get three different stories of why there's a patch on Strong Bad's couch and one random anecdote from Homestar. Notably, it's possible that all of the stories are completely factual.
  • Replacement Scrappy: The current Bubs is one in-universe to Original Bubs as well as his successors, according to "original", though said Bubs denies Strong Bad's claims that he ever replaced any other Bubs, and is backed up by Marzipan. Homestar disagrees, claiming to remember Original Bubs, but... Well, Homestar.
  • Ride the Rainbow: Strong Bad's (probably) made-up tale of how he met Homestar involves him and Coach Z riding down to Earth from the moon on a rainbow bridge.
  • Rousing Lullaby: After The Cheat gets recurring nightmares from a "shock-u-mentary" about gingivitis, Strong Bad and Strong Mad have to think of oddly specific ways to comfort him to sleep. One of these is a "lullaby" where Strong Mad revs up a chainsaw and Strong Bad yells the lyrics to a non-sequitur rhyme over it. Surprisingly enough, it works.
    Strong Bad: BRAN MUFFIN!! COME ON YOU STUPID BRAN MUFFIN!! TRY HARDER TO BE A BRAN MUFFIN!!!
  • Rubber-Forehead Aliens: Referenced in sbemail 191, "buried", when Strong Bad thinks he's descended from aliens:
    Strong Bad: Oh. My. Geez. I knew it! Strong Badia was originally colonized by extra-terrestrials! That explains why I'm so brilliant! And why all beings look the same except for slight differences of our foreheads!
  • Sarcasm Failure: In sbemail 160 Strong Bad shows off his Limozeen coloring book where he's modified the images to look ridiculous with characters on fire or with their faces melting. There's one image where the band members are arguing over a bear mask and apparently Strong Bad couldn't make it any funnier because it's colored in perfectly.
  • Second Place Is for Winners: The footrace to determine who keeps the egg in email #100, "flashback". Homestar wins but Strong Bad keeps the egg because he finished second.
  • Self-Deprecation: Later toons often mock "tape-leg," a very short, one-note, and decidedly bland email where Strong Bad talks about a piece of tape that got stuck on his leg. In "personal favorites," one of Strong Bad's nonexistent favorite emails is "tape-leg 2," and the creator commentary for "do over" suggests that they wanted to do over "tape-leg" before deciding against it. A "Greatest Hits" DVD advertises that "tape-leg" is not included. In-universe, however, Strong Bad is very defensive of the email and considers it one of his favorites.
    Homestar: What, you think everybody's logging on to watch "tape-leg"? Yeah, that's a good one.
    Strong Bad: Hey, shut up! The tape-leg is cool.
  • Serial Escalation: While many of the first animations were just Strong Bad at his computer, that soon became a mere framing device for some montage or tangent.
    • This was lampshaded in the email Gimmick, where the email's writer says that they liked it better when he just answered the email. Strong Bad (possibly sarcastically) agrees... only for the computer to literally explode in his face. This was essentially The Brothers Chaps saying "this is the direction we're going with the emails".
    • Further parodied in the (non-sbemail) toon "Sbemailiarized", in which Strong Bad admits that the sbemails have gotten elaborate enough, there's not much difference between them and regular cartoons anymore. And that to capitalize on it, the website's going to slap Strong-Bad-checking-his-email Book Ends on all the old cartoons and rerelease them as sbemails.
  • Shapeshifting Sound: In the email "shapeshifter", Strong Bad says that all shapeshifters need to have a cool trademarked sound effect that plays whenever they change form. His sound effect is the name "Dwayne", said in an echoey voice.
  • Shape Shifter Struggles: Discussed and parodied in the Strong Bad Email "shapeshifter", where Strong Bad goes into depth on how shape-shifting wouldn't be a good idea as it always needs some kind of drawback and shows some comical examples. Highlights include the ability to change into any balloon animal or the ability to turn into "almost anyone" meaning that he shapeshifts into part of a person.
  • Show Within a Show: Strong Bad's Email show is an actual show within the Homestar Runner universe. This becomes more complicated when many of Strong Bad's imaginted characters and places themselves become their own shows and others become real people that the characters interact with.
  • Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon: Strong Sad briefly brings up an actor's "Bacon number" in the "the movies":
    Strong Sad: Ooh, and he had a cameo as Stevedore #2 in the prequel, and he was in that car commercial with the wisecracking transmission, and he has a Bacon number of 4!
  • Snarky Inanimate Object: Every computer Strong Bad used has been snarky to him at some point, whether it's a result of bad-mouthing or just flat out revenge against him.
  • Spill Stain Sabotage:
    • In "record book", Strong Bad is leafing through a book of world records and finds one of his younger self having the "Most Dirtiest Diapey". He instantly makes breakfast on it to save face.
    • Homestar once poured Mountain Dew on Strong Bad's computer to make a wet computer out of it. In "email thunder", Strong Bad gets his revenge by pouring an enormous bottle of Mountain Dew on Homestar's computer, causing it to short out.
  • Spinoff Babies: Parodied in "highschool" when Strong Bad recalls how the main cast were "melon-headed babies with gigantic eyes and enormous imaginations" in middle school (except for Homestar, who is still an adult, for some reason).
  • Take That!: A DVD-exclusive email known as Comic Book Movie provided a good handful of jabs to film adaptations of superhero comic book franchises, including having the main character being played by someone totally inappropriate for the job, the constant use of expensive CG animation, paper-thin plots made from miscellaneous parts of the comic, and of course, the horrible video game adaptation that tries to undo the damage that has been done to the franchise.
    Strong Bad: I've seen what they do to comic books in these movies and it is not pretty. What you should be asking is, "In what one or two small ways will it be the same as the comic?" They shouldn't even call them "comic book movies." They should call them "the name of a comic book movies," 'cuz that's usually the only thing they get right.
  • Tear Jerker: invoked Strong Bad has this drawing of a one-legged puppy nicknamed "Li'l Brudder", whose Woobie-ness is sufficient to drive Homestar into an existential crisis whenever Strong Bad shows it to him. He manages to do the same to Strong Sad with a picture of a two-legged elephant named "Tendafoot". At the end, even Strong Bad himself starts choking up from it.
  • Terrible Interviewees Montage: In "replacement", Strong Bad is asked who will take over when he retires, and he decides to put his costars through the wringer to figure out who would be the best suited for the job. Some candidates seem promising — Homestar gets a perfect score on the insulting nicknames quiz by just calling everyone "Crapface", for example — but they all end up being underqualified. "Guess I'll be checkin' emails and kickin' Cheats 'til the day I die."
  • Themed Party: In "senior prom", the prom is called "Entrapment All Up On the Moon", a parody of the Back to the Future dance name, and it's space-themed in its decor, featuring alien and moon cutouts.
  • Throwing The Match: Exploited in email #100, "flashback" where Homestar and Strong Bad have a footrace to determine who keeps a gigantic egg. Homestar dashes ahead while Strong Bad shuffles slowly with his feet. It turns out the loser keeps the egg.
  • Trapped in TV Land: In email #150, "alternate universe", Strong Bad celebrates his big "sesquicentenn-email" by constructing an alternate universe portal and visiting the various alternate realities of the website's body of work, where he meets all of the various duplicates of himself. They decide to form a supergroup and record a number one hit.
  • Two Decades Behind: Strong Bad got his first non-command-prompt computer in 2009.
  • Un-Installment:
    • When the emails were first being posted, the numbering skipped from 21 to 23, leaving 22 blank. They later went back to fill 22's spot, with the fictional explanation that the email had been banned in the UK. invoked
    • In "personal favorites," Strong Bad reminisces on his favorite emails. He starts out describing real emails ("invisibility" and "gimmicks"), but they soon devolve into ones that never existed, like Bubs making a Strong Bad robot out of a Grape Nuts cereal box and a Speak & Spell, and Coach Z and Pom Pom having a Knife Fight.
  • Uninvited to the Party: In "labor day", Strong Bad spends the day bored and insulting everyone who passes by. Turns out everyone is passing by because they're going to a cookout that he's doesn't know about.
  • Unknowingly Possessing Stolen Goods: In the email "Garage Sale", Strong Bad goes into detail about how he runs a garage sale, ending with the reveal that he has The Cheat ransack the houses of the people who come so that he can sell them back their stuff at an inflated price. Cut to a scene of Marzipan preparing to buy an answering machine from Strong Bad, unaware that it's hers until it plays her recording.
  • Villains Out Shopping: When he isn't antagonizing Homestar, Strong Bad answers emails from his fans.
  • Vomit Discretion Shot: In "bottom 10", Strong Bad vomits over his keyboard when Homestar starts to perform a butt dance for him. Since the scene cuts back to the typical shot of Strong Bad's head turned towards the Lappy as he pukes, we don't get to see any graphic details.
  • Wackyland: Sweet Cuppin Cakes, a hypothetical dadaist TV show that Strong bad makes up that somehow seeps into reality and becomes not only an in-universe actual cartoon, but also a real place in the universe, complete with its own dadaist golf course.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: The Compé was only used for three emails. Dust accumulating during the Strong Bad Email hiatus somehow transformed it into the Lappier, a new computer which is hardly different from the Lappy. Of course the short-lived run of the Compé is lampshaded, as Strong Bad says, "Ah, Compé, we hardly knew yé."
  • Wham Episode: Whenever Strong Bad's computers get destroyed, they tend to be these. The most memorable is "virus".
  • White Void Room: Certain Imagine Spots take place in an empty white void, such as Homsar's children's show, Whaddaya Know, Haddi-man?, or Strong Sad's sbemail fanfiction, "A Grade A Gray Day."
  • You Can't Get Ye Flask: Trope Namer. In "video games", Strong Bad imagines himself as a character in a text-based adventure game and envisions this problem occurring:
    Strong Bad: And you'd be all like, "get ye flask", and it'd say "You can't get ye flask", and you'd just have to sit there and imagine why on Earth you can't get ye flask! Because the game's certainly not going to tell you.
  • You Must Be This Tall to Ride: In "theme park", The Cheat tried to be tall enough to ride the Bowels of Trogdor roller coaster, but was unable to do so even when standing on tiptoes and wearing a top hat, so Strong Bad recommended he goes to Sweet Cuppin Cakes Land instead, much to his disappointment.

*PREE-OWWW!*

 
Feedback

Video Example(s):

Top

Strong Bad Email #152 - ISP

Hiring Homestar Runner to provide tech support for his internet service is one of the 99 ways Bubs rips his customers off. Homestar sticks to his script—by which we mean, he reads randomly off various pages of his script rather than even trying to find something relevant to the situation—and even sings the hold music himself as he searches the clearly-empty office for someone to transfer the call to.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (11 votes)

Example of:

Main / TheOperatorsMustBeCrazy

Media sources:

Report