Under Construction

"WHAAAAAAAT are you doing?"

H*R.com is down? Not registered? Coming Soon? What? Is today April Fools' Day? ... Then things get 20X6'd...

Cast (in order of appearance): Sticklyman, Stinkoman, 1-Up, Pan Pan

Date: Thursday, April 1, 2004

Running Time: 1:47

Page Title: Coming Soon! The biggest name is Web Advertising!!

DVD:Everything Else, Volume 2

Transcript

{The setting: "www.homestarrunner.com is coming soon! This domain is reserved through thoraxcorp.com". An animated stick figure in a yellow "Under Construction" diamond shovels diligently. After about ten seconds, a pair of shiny boxing gloves appear at the bottom of the screen...}

STINKOMAN: Habila-HUP!

{...and Stinkoman leaps into the air, executing a dramatic pose before landing.}

STINKOMAN: {to stick figure} Hey, Sticklyman, {waves his arms quickly} whaaaaat are you doing?

{"Sticklyman" stands up, tosses his shovel into the air, leaps out of his diamond, performs a mid-air flip, lands, deftly catches his shovel and assumes a fighting stance.}

STINKOMAN: Correct me if I'm wrong but are you asking for a challeeeeeeenge?! {assumes fighting stance}

{Camera zooms in on Sticklyman, who spins his shovel. The shot freezes in a sketchy style with a high-pitched chime sound. Pan quickly to a close-up of Stinkoman, who executes another fighting pose, then the shot sketch-freezes again. Cut back to Sticklyman's feet, showing him running toward Stinkoman. Cut to Stinkoman's feet, running toward Sticklyman. Cut to a close-up of Sticklyman, who now appears to be getting ready to strike. Cut to Stinkoman continuing to run, then jumping up. Cut to a wider shot showing both characters jumping into each other. They hover in mid-air for a moment, then strike each other. Sketch-freeze as they collide, then the shot unfreezes and the two characters fall back to the ground. Cut to another shot. Sticklyman lands in the background, followed quickly by Stinkoman landing in a kneeling position in the foreground. The camera rack-focuses to Sticklyman, who drops his shovel, wobbles for a moment and then falls over. Cut to a close-up of Stinkoman.}

STINKOMAN: {a subtitle reading ". . ." appears} Dot dot dot!

{Zoom out to whole page.}

STINKOMAN: Twenty exty-six! {poses with chime sound} I twenty-exty-six'd-ed you good.

{1-Up and Pan Pan enter from the left.}

1-UP: Diiid we miss a challenge?

STINKOMAN: Where ya been, ladies? I had to take care of Sticklyman myself!

1-UP: Well, so how was it?

STINKOMAN: Ahh, it was okay. The fighting was decent, but he wasn't much of a challenge. {lies down}

PAN PAN: {Badalang, badalang, badalang}

STINKOMAN: Who-hah? {jumps back up} Good question, Pan Pan. I don't know what he was digging for. Habila-HUP!

{Stinkoman leaps into the yellow diamond. Cut to a close-up of Stinkoman, who takes a bite from the mound that Sticklyman was shoveling.}

STINKOMAN: Hey, this isn't dirt, it's puddiiiing! {small clouds appear around Stinkoman's head as he says this}

{Cut to a close-up of 1-Up.}

1-UP: I want pudding! {A green glob descends from his nose}

{Camera zooms out to include Stinkoman in the foreground. 1-Up faces the opposite direction from the previous shot.}

STINKOMAN: We deserve a break. Eating pudding with a spoon! {produces a spoon from nowhere}

{Pan Pan falls onto 1-Up.}

{Sketch-freeze on a shot showing all three characters holding bowls and spoons. Credits roll quickly while a short tune plays:}

>executive producer
>h. yamauchi
>
>producer
>s. miyahon
>
>director
>s. miyahon
>ten ten
>
>designer
>ten ten
>
>programmer
>t. nakazoo
>maru maru
>
>sound composer
>konchan
>paul pan
>storm storm
>
>quality
>wibe snodgrass
>
>actual items
>foss tony
>
>scare tactics
>poncho
>
>elevator action
>tesoro dub
>
>crotchety gnomes
>perl bess
>
>cover ups
>kevin

{"back" and "again" buttons appear at the bottom of the screen.}

Fun Facts

Explanations

• This toon was put up instead of the regular index page and intro on April 1st, 2004.
• thoraxcorp.com is the web site of Thorax Corporation, a fake company created by The Brothers Chaps.
• "..." is a common tool used in Japanese anime and manga. It literally means the character is "saying" nothing at all. For example, it would be used for dramatic effect in serious scenes where the character is in deep contemplation about something, or for comedic effect in slapstick anime when the character is stunned and at a loss for words. However, Stinkoman instead pronounces the ellipsis as if it were a witty one-liner.

Trivia

• The toon originally took up the entire page while lacking the navbar and having a white background.
• "paul pan" and "storm storm" refer to Paul Sabourin and Storm DiCostanzo, the singers who performed Ballad of The Sneak. They are erstwhile members of the a cappella singing group DaVinci's Notebook, who have since struck out on their own as a performing duo.
• At the end, clicking the back button will always lead back to the 20X6 Main Page.
• The three boxes at the bottom of the site read:

>Spam Free Living!!
>Tired of spam-
>getting ventures gone
>horpfully wrong!!
>Get with the program for as low
>as $9.95 a month. $4.95 each
>additional minute. No delabors.

>Affordable Hostings!
>New house? New
>domain? WHO HAS
>TIME??!? With all new
>Greg Hosting you can get the
>website you need at the lowest
>interest rate in 40 years! 6.2% APR

>Guaranteed Results!
>Use twice daily with exorbitant
>food intake. After dinner mints
>highly recommended. Will you
>please quit making that
>horribly annoying noise!?
>No Prescriptions! No
>Credit Check! $12,000

Remarks

• Stinkoman pulls the spoon out of Hammerspace.
• When the green glob descends from 1-Up's nose, it appears to emerge closer to one side of his face, suggesting that it's coming from his right nostril. When the camera zooms out, 1-Up is now facing the opposite direction, and the green glob transfers to the other side of his face.

Goofs

• When the camera is shifting from 1-Up to Stinkoman after the glob scene, the glob is on 1-Up's shirt for a single frame.

Fixed Goofs

• When first released, viewers couldn't see Sticklyman during parts of the fight scene as well as after it, due to layer order. This was fixed the same day.

Inside References

• The "Spam Free Living!!" ad contains the word "horpfully," a reference to Coach Z's thick accent.
  • The same ad also mentions "No delabors," which is a reference to Thorax Corporation, and a line which is also used in the Strong Bad Email flag day.
• Kevin is mentioned in the last line of the credits, as being responsible for "cover ups".

Real-World References

• Stinkoman saying "WHAAAAAAAT are you doing?" references the Pioneer dub of Akira, where the character Yamagata asks Tetsuo in a similar manner: "WHAAAAAAAT the hell are you talking about?"
• Sticklyman is likely a reference to the popular Flash cartoon series Xiao Xiao, where stick figures battle in elaborately-choreographed fight scenes.
• The entire fight scene is taken from the NES game Ninja Gaiden, whose introduction sequence shows two ninjas having a duel. The freeze-frame during the jump and the "..." at the end are included in the sequence.
• The first listing in the credits reads "Executive Producer H. Yamauchi." Hiroshi Yamauchi was the former president of Nintendo and appeared in the credits as executive producer in many of Nintendo's older games.
  • Also included in the credits are the names of two other famous Nintendo employees: S. Miyahon (a pseudonym of Shigeru Miyamoto) and Ten Ten (Takashi Tezuka), both of whom worked on the original Legend of Zelda game.
  • These credits also appeared at the end of japanese cartoon.
• The credit "Elevator Action" is a reference to a Taito game of the same name.
• Also in the credits is "actual items", a possible reference to a sketch in the late night talk show Late Night With Conan O'Brien
• Maru Maru is a misspelling of Maru Mari, the Japanese name for the Morph Ball powerup in the game Metroid.
• The name Sticklyman may be a reference to Hangly-Man, a Japanese Pac-Man clone, due to similarities in spelling and pronunciation, and the fact that both of them are examples of poor translation (i.e. Hangly-Man is supposed to be Hungry-Man, Sticklyman—Stick Man).

Fast Forward

• The short tune at the end of this toon would later be reused at the end of Happy Trogday, while Trogador is chasing Stinkoman.
  • It also ends a scene in trading cards featuring Stinkoman and Cheatball.
• Sticklyman later appears in Fan Costumes '09 as a costume and again in Halloween Safety, and also in the credits of Stinkoman 20X6.
• A similar graphic was used when homestarrunner.com went under construction for real when Flash support was dropped at midnight on New Year 2021.

DVD Version

• The DVD version features creators' commentary. To access it, switch your DVD player's audio language selection while watching.

Commentary Transcript

(Commentary by: Matt Chapman, Mike Chapman)

MATT: Oh, this was a real gag, Mike.

MIKE: Well, a lot of people didn't wait the—whatever this is—eight seconds to find out that this is, uh... you know, it wasn't really... that we didn't really lose the domain. This is of course an April Fool's cartoon.

MATT: We got a lot of concerned emails...

MIKE: Uh-huh.

MATT: ...that the site had been shut down. The Thorax Corp. got a lot of traffic that day, I remember.

MIKE: Ha!

MATT: I'm surprised Thorax Corp. didn't get shut down.

MIKE: {laughs}

MATT: So, we didn't really even think of it like this, but uh, this is a double thing being Stinkoman fighting the "under construction" guy, that was a very popular "under construction" animated GIF that is used. And also kind of a parody on the stick figure fighting thing—

MIKE: Yeah.

MATT: —so I really didn't think about that until after the fact.

MIKE: Did we do any bullet time in this?

MATT: {laughs}

MIKE: The bullet times are always the favorites in the stick figure animations.

MATT: Kung Fu Stick Figure Theaters.

MIKE: Look at that.

MATT: Yeah.

MIKE: {Stinkoman and Sticklyman land on the ground and the lens focuses on Sticklyman.} Focus.

MATT: That's some nice rack focusing. {Stinkoman says, "..."} That's a Ninja Gaiden reference there, the Ninja Gaiden, for regular Nintendo, there were cut scenes with a lot of dot dot dots in the dialogue. ...Affordable hostings, Mike! New house? New domain? Who has time?!

MIKE: Those little logos you drew, the pill bottle, the house, and the letter are very similar to the ones you used to have to really do for your job at EarthLink.

MATT: Yeah, I call them my old skills! {laughs} ...Brought 'em out of retirement. {Stinkoman exclaims, "It's pudding!"} The mushroom styles...

{The snot bubble oozes from 1-Up's nose.}

MATT AND MIKE: {laugh}

MATT: This introduced the, uh, new T mouth... Stinkoman, the mouth where like it's gritted teeth and so there's a bunch of T's. {whispers} The T mouth, I call it the T mouth.

MIKE: {quickly} T mouth!

External Links

• watch "Under Construction"
• watch "Under Construction" on the old Flash site
• view the Flash file for "Under Construction"

April Fools' Day
2003: kingoftown.com (King of Town Main Page, Revenge of the King, King of Town Email) 2004: Under Construction 2005: HomestarRunner.com PAY PLUS! 2006: April Fools' 2006 2009: April Fool 09 2010: Xeriouxly Forxe 2014: April Fool 2014 2015: sbemail 206 2016: Marzipan's Answering Machine Version 17.2 2018: The Next April Fools Thing 2019: Discount Strong Bad emails