different town

Strong Bad Email #99

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"WHOA! Can it be true?"

Strong Bad describes how he would make his town different, through song.

Cast (in order of appearance): Strong Bad, The Poopsmith, Marzipan, The Cheat, Strong Mad, The King of Town, Bubs, Strong Sad, Coach Z, Homestar Runner, Pom Pom, ABA Basketball Pom Pom, Homsar, Modestly Hot Homsar

Places: Computer Room, The Field, The Stick/Big Ol' Tree, Bubs' Concession Stand, The Athletic Field

Computer: Compy 386

Date: Monday, February 23, 2004

Running Time: 2:54

Page Title: Compy 386!!

DVD: strongbad_email.exe Disc Three, Sbemails' 50 Greatest Hits DVD

Transcript

STRONG BAD: {singing} Check your email and check your email. {His voice is looped with another rhythm} Check your email and check your e-email. {He stops singing and presses Enter.}

Dear Strong Bad,

I just wondering, if you had a chance
to make your town different, what
would you do?

Sincerley
Steven WV

{Strong Bad reads "WV" as "Wolksvagen", and deliberately mispronounces "sincerley" to reflect its misspelling.}

STRONG BAD: Pour hot soup in Homestar's eyes, eh, Steven? That sounds like a pretty good- {He stops typing.} wait... what'd your email say again?

{Strong Bad presses a key, and the email appears again}

STRONG BAD: {mumbling reading sounds} Oh. Oh-ho! Sorry.

{Strong Bad presses a key, and starts the reply again.}

STRONG BAD: Make the town different, eh, Steven? {He breaks into song.} Weeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhllllllll,—

STRONG BAD: {singing} —the Poopsmith, he could talk,

THE POOPSMITH: {in a surprisingly deep voice} Hello!

STRONG BAD: And Marzipan would rock, and The Stick would be this big ol' tree that'd try to eat everyone except The Cheat and me.

STRONG MAD: AND ME!

STRONG BAD: {speaking} We'll see.

{Strong Mad shows a confused expression}

STRONG BAD: {singing} And The King of Town would be underground in a box filled up with peas...

THE KING OF TOWN: I hate peas!

STRONG BAD: I know!

STRONG BAD: {singing} Bubs would give away flamethrowers that shoot chocolate hundred-dollar bills...

BUBS: Imitation chocolate!

STRONG BAD: And my stupid baby brother would have been born with horns and a tail...

STRONG SAD: {sadly} I'm evil.

STRONG BAD: And Coach Z would wear this cool jacket.

COACH Z: Check it out, yo!

STRONG BAD: And Homestar just couldn't hack it.

HOMESTAR RUNNER: I quit!

STRONG BAD: And Pom Pom wouldn't change at all, 'cept he'd look like an ABA basketball.

STRONG BAD: {softly} Two, three, four.

STRONG BAD: {singing} And this little weirdo... would be a modestly hot girl to help me through the hard times. You know, the kind that are only sorta hot so they don't mess around with other guys.

MODESTLY HOT HOMSAR: {in Homsar's voice} DaAaAa, I'm forever your girl!

{A crowd cheers for a moment. Cut to the Computer Room where Strong Bad is standing on his stool. The cheering continues for a few seconds.}

STRONG BAD: Thank you! Thank you! All right! This next one is the fourteenth song on my forty-second album. It's called—

{Cut to Strong Sad standing to the right of the computer desk. He is dressed in a light blue tunic and is wearing horns and a tail.}

STRONG SAD: Hey, Strong Bad—

STRONG BAD: {off screen} WHOA! Can it be true?

{Cut to a wide shot showing both Strong Bad and Strong Sad. Strong Bad is still standing on his stool.}

STRONG BAD: Homestar Runner called it quits? The King of Town, pea-buried alive?! The Poopsmith speaketh?!?

STRONG SAD: No... Calm down, spaz! I'm going to the Clash of the Titans con, dressed up as Calibos, remember? I was just gonna ask if you still wanted that bust of Bubo.

STRONG BAD: Oh, um. Right. Of course. {clears throat, then speaks quietly and quickly} Yeah, I still want the bust of Bubo.

STRONG SAD: Okay, bye, weirdo. What are you standing on that stool for anyway?

STRONG BAD: For your information, I was {short pause} checking on the lights, Strong Sad. We got that recessed lighting, y'know. Yup, everything looks great.

{Cut back to the Compy.}

STRONG BAD: {typing} Yeah, things would be different alright. Though I'm a little disappointed in what I came up with for Homsar. Modestly hot my eye! I think my imagination's broke. {stops typing} Lemme try and think up the {starts typing again} Best Thing Ever. Umm... Beef... stew... {types this as just "Best thing ever: Beef stew."} Yup it's busted alright. I'm gonna go... place. {gets up and walks away}

{The Paper comes down.}

Easter Eggs

Marzipan's new 'do.

• The words "eh, Steven?" can be clicked (only the first time Strong Bad types them) to show a LEM drawing of "Eh. Steven." (Eh! Steve! in formal wear).
• Clicking on "place" at the end brings up a Place postcard featuring Monkey D and the skyline of Seattle, Washington. It reads: "Greetings from PLACE."
• Click to the right of "back" at the end to download the song. A credit below the download links reads "lyrics by TBC music by TMBG".
• Hidden behind Marzipan's yellow hair, if viewed in a decompiler, there is another hairstyle — a bright pink spiked mohawk.

Fun Facts

Trivia

• The music for "Different Town" was performed by They Might Be Giants especially for homestarrunner.com. However, the lyrics were written by The Brothers Chaps.
• Although Strong Bad's imagination is by no means part of continuity, this is the first time that the Poopsmith is seen speaking (ignoring The King of Town DVD Storyboards and the hiss in Pumpkin Carve-nival).
• The label on the disk in the floppy disk container reads BAAL.
  • The label was changed to Manhunter: New York on the DVD and YouTube versions.
• This toon has a nondescript noun ("Place").
• This is the first time since Marshmallow's Last Stand that Homestar is seen in his normal attire but without his star.
• All of the main characters appear in this email.
• The YouTube description for this email is "Strong Bad sings about how he would make his town different."

Remarks

• Though the Big Ol' Tree moves, its shadow does not.
• When Strong Bad is "checking the lights", he should be looking to his right because according to the shadows the light comes from his right.
• During the Homsar segment, Strong Bad pantomimes finger-snapping, which is something he should not be able to do while wearing boxing gloves.
• Strong Bad's count-off tempo for the section about Homsar does not match the tempo of the following music.
• Strong Bad's voice overlaps during the second line of his email song.

Goofs

• The outlet disappears when Strong Sad appears.
• The link to the download comes up over top the Place postcard.

Inside References

• The postcard from PLACE in the Easter egg is a reference to Strong Bad's postcards from destinations such as Historic Over There in the email vacation.
• Strong Bad wishes for the King of Town to be buried alive in a box filled up with peas.
• One of the Poms in Pom Pom, Too looks like an ABA Basketball.
• The trading card Pom Pom was pictured on has the same design as the one featuring The Deke in autobiography.
• Wolksvagen is a spoonerism.
• When describing Modestly Hot Homsar, Strong Bad says, "You know, the kind..."

Real-World References

• The rhythm of Strong Bad's email song is taken from the They Might Be Giants song "Ana Ng" – the first time is the same as the rhythm part under the verse, and the second time is this and the vocal rhythm mixed together.
• The "ABA Basketball" is indeed red, white, and blue instead of the NBA orange.
• "Bubo" was the name of the clockwork owl in the film Clash of the Titans, later featured as an avatar on Strong Sad's Lament. Strong Sad was dressed as Calibos, the villain of that movie. Both Bubo and Calibos were animated by Ray Harryhausen, whose work was also referenced in redesign.
• "Wolksvagen" is a play on words of the German automobile manufacturer: Volkswagen. The funny pronunciation comes from the fact that the two letters are reversed from the normal abbreviation, VW. In German, the name is pronounced "Folksvagen".
• The board behind Homestar says "CGNU" and "DeBry", which is a parody of DeVry University and the word "debris".
• The guitar Marzipan is playing is George Lynch's "Mom" guitar, the one he used during his years with the '80s metal band Dokken.
• The "Marzipan" amps are a play on the ubiquitous Marshall Amps, which feature similar styling and font.
• Strong Bad's outfit during the "And this little weirdo" sequence is similar to outfits worn by many glam-rock musicians, such as Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant and Queen's Freddie Mercury.
• Homsar says, "I'm forever your girl," a quote from the 1989 song and album entitled "Forever Your Girl" by Paula Abdul.

Fast Forward

• Homestar's eyes will again be threatened with hot soup in New Boots, this time by The Cheat.
• Strong Bad's statement that the computer room has recessed lighting is confirmed in pop-up when Strong Bad jumps to the ceiling.
• Marzipan actually does end up playing rock music when she starts the band Cool Tapes and in the musical short One Two, One Two. The same background is even used in Cool Things.
• A screenshot of Modestly Hot Homsar is shown again in the "Discount Flashback Warehouse" Easter egg in flashback.
• Strong Bad would once again don the miner's helmet in Ever and More.
• Nearly 30 emails later, Strong Bad would have no trouble thinking of the best thing ever: the Limozeen cartoon show.
• The box of peas the King of Town was buried in is found underneath Strong Badia in buried.
• The Poopsmith breaks his vow of silence in email thunder and Marzipan's Answering Machine Version 17.2.
• Bubs's flamethrowers would later be used as a machine gun in Which Ween Costumes?.

DVD Version

• The Eh! Steven Easter egg is viewable using the angle button on the DVD remote.
• The download link for Different Town has been disabled for obvious reasons.
• The label was changed to Manhunter: New York.
• The DVD version features hidden creators' commentary, as well as the original version of the Different Town song, as sung by John Linnell. To access it, switch the DVD player's audio language selection while watching.

Commentary Transcript

(Commentary by: Matt Chapman, Mike Chapman)

MATT: Another commentary.

MIKE: This is a commentary... My name is Mike Chapman. This is my younger brother Matt, he's three years younger than me.

MATT: That's all true.

MIKE: Um, so, this commentary track— uh, we're going to allow John Linnell of They Might Be Giants— we're gonna put on his original track, they co-wrote the song for this email, umm...

MATT: Did all the music, I just sent an email with some— the words...

MIKE: {simultaneously} You gave them the lyrics...

MATT: ...and a couple of notes and— and that's it.

MIKE: {as Matt finishes talking} ...they... whipped this up. So yeah, this is what we're going to play the audio for is the, uh—

MATT: {interrupting, speaking quickly} Here it comes!

{The "Different Town" music track is played, with John Linnell singing Strong Bad's lines (no other character's lines are said). As Homsar says "girl", the original audio track fades back in.}

MATT: I think I used a Miss Georgia, or Miss California, or... something picture, for reference for the hot Homsar.

MIKE: Probably Miss Georgia.

MATT: Yeah, you think so?

MIKE: Yeah. She's pretty hot.

MATT: So, we like that movie Clash of the Titans a lot.

MIKE: It's true. It, uh, scared me when I was little...

MATT: And...

MIKE: And I like the special effects.

MATT: And it delights you in your old age.

MIKE: {laughing} It does.

MATT: Bubo, of—of course, was the R2-D2 of Clash of the Titans.

MIKE: {simultaneously} Yeah, the robotic owl.

MATT: Yeah. It was made— it was clockwork, Mike, it was mech— there was no robotics back then. The gods had a mastery of clockworks, though.

MIKE: Gears.

MATT: Gears and...shimmies. Uh, Manhunter of New York, I believe, is in the box— the disk box there.

MIKE: Good game.

MATT: It's a great game. Speaking of terribly awkward graphics. {Mike laughs} That's something else that scared me when I was younger and delights me in my old age, is Manhunter: New York.

MIKE: Those eyeballs, flying eyeballs.

MATT: Yeah. Orbs.

MIKE: Orbs. Yeah.

{both pause until Strong Bad declares his imagination "busted"}

MATT: Poor guy.

See Also

• The visuals that occur during the song.
• The chord progression for the song.
• Different Town on This Might Be A Wiki.
• Different Town Character Variations

External Links

• watch "different town"
• watch "different town" on YouTube
• watch "different town" on the old Flash site
• view the Flash file for "different town"
• download the song: Win Mac