flag day

Strong Bad Email #32

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Strong Badia: The place where the tropical breezes blow!

Pablo wishes Strong Bad a happy Flag Day.

Cast (in order of appearance): Strong Bad, The Cheat, Strong Mad

Places: Computer Room, Strong Badia

Computer: Tandy 400

Date: Monday, June 17, 2002

Running Time: 2:03

Page Title: TANDY 400!!

DVD: strongbad_email.exe Disc One

SBEmail Menu Description: Strong Bad reveals the flag and national anthem of Strong Badia. There isn't, as it turns out, lots of chocolate.

Transcript

STRONG BAD: {singing} Riballa diballa check email. {stops singing}

Hey Strong Bad,

Happy Flag Day! I bet you have a totally awesome
flag for Strong Badia. You should share it with us.

Your pal,
Pablo
Phoenix

{Strong Bad reads the last two lines as "Pablo Phoenix".}

STRONG BAD: Oh, you sound like some kind of popstar, man. Look Out Ladies Production presents: Pablo Phoenix, this Friday at the civic center. {typing} Anyways, Pablo. Happy Flag Day to you too, man. It just so happens Strong Badia has about the coolest flag you ever saw. {His voice starts echoing a lot, like he's speaking in front of a really large crowd} Would everyone please rise for the presentation of our national colors.

{The Cheat is standing beside the flag pole and pulls up the flag of Strong Badia. The flag has three horizontal stripes, one red, one white, and one brown. In the middle, there's a picture of a green snake with the word "Snake" handwritten over its body, holding a knife in its tail and crawling through a tire. The Cheat starts playing on his keyboard.}

Strong Badian National Anthem

{spoken} (Oh... Oh, I like that! Oh yeah!)

{singing} Come to the place where tropical breezes blow.

Come to the coolest place I know.

The people are so great,

But really there's only me,

And that means I'm so great,

And also there's The Cheat.

Oh there's The Cheat...

in the place where the tropical breezes blow.

The Cheat in the coolest place I know.

The ones are always cold,

And the parties last all night,

And there's probably lots of chocolate,

And population tire.

{falsetto} Population...

Ti-i-i-ire...

{The Paper comes down.}

Easter Eggs

Look out, ladies!

• When Strong Bad starts talking about Pablo's name, click on it to see a mock-ticket for an event with Limozeen. It reads:

$ 94.00		227	18	43	$ 94.00	Pablo PHX	178394749406 {barcode}
Money		Section	Row	Seat	Money
		Look Out Ladies Productions Presents An Evening With Pablo Phoenix w/ Special Guest Limozeen Civic Center
227 Sec						Sec 227	No Refund No DeLabor
18 Row	43 Seat					Row 18	I Got A Ticket!
	FRI JUN 21 2002 7:35 PM					Seat 43

• After Strong Bad's coin, quickly click on The Cheat to see his coin, which reads "Don't Mess With THE CHEAT", "2 Bits", and "A Bad Penny."

Fun Facts

Trivia

• The YouTube description for this email is "Strong Bad reveals the flag and national anthem of Strong Badia. There isn't, as it turns out, lots of chocolate."

Remarks

• Flag Day is actually celebrated on June 14th, three days before this email was released.
• The flag is made up of parts of Strong Badia. The brown part represents the dirt, the white part represents the fence with the jagged top, and the red part possibly represents Strong Bad himself or the Stop Sign. The Tire is next to the fence and the Big Knife has been referred to/used by Strong Bad numerous times. The snake doesn't seem to represent anything of Strong Badia in particular, although 18th century American revolutionary flags such as the first US Navy Jack and the Gadsden flag (both with a prominent snake on them along with the slogan, "Don't Tread on Me") could be the inspiration behind it.
• When The Cheat is playing the tune while Strong Bad sings, he only presses one key. Old Casio keyboards would often allow you to play a preset background tune with harmonics by pressing one button.
• The song uses polymeter. During the main part of the anthem, the high-pitched melodic instrument in the accompaniment is in 4/4. However, the other parts of the accompaniment and Strong Bad's part are in a 3/4 time signature.
• The chord progression at the end of the anthem, as Strong Bad sings "Population Ti-i-i-ire," is a plagal cadence, often referred to as the "amen" cadence for its use at the conclusion of sacred music.
• If The Cheat's penny is worth two bits, it has the same value as a quarter.
• The Cheat's hand movements are a constant repeating animation (such as Homestar's eyes blinking), so not only does it not sync up with the song, it will still be playing if you go into the Flash file and deselect "Play".
• The anthem music is already starting while The Cheat is preoccupied with hoisting the flag, even though The Cheat is afterwards shown to be the one playing the song.

Goofs

• When The Cheat is raising the flag and it is hanging down, the line between the red and white stripes is straight. When it is fluttering in the breeze, it is jagged.
• When The Paper comes down in front of the Strong Badian flag, the left side of its shadow can be seen right behind it, as if the sky in the background were an actual surface like the flag.
• The snake isn't seen on the flag until it is fully unfurled, but when the wind begins to pick up the flag, enough of its surface can be seen to display the snake.
• When the flag is hoisted, the snake doesn't appear until a split second after the flag starts blowing in the wind.

Inside References

• On the ticket to Pablo Phoenix's event, all the way on the right, vertically, it says "no refund no delabor," which is a reference to the numerous members of the Delabor family that work at Thorax Corporation.
• This is an instance of bleeding.

Fast Forward

• The Strong Badia National Anthem later makes brief appearances in fan club, Date Nite, and Strong Badia the Free, though it has yet to be sung in its entirety outside of the CD since this email.

DVD Version

• All of this email's eggs can still be viewed using the angle button.
• The DVD version features hidden creators' commentary. To access it, switch your DVD player's audio language selection while watching.

Commentary Transcript

(Commentary by: Matt Chapman, Mike Chapman)

MATT: Hello, this is more commentary.

MIKE: This is more commentary, too. Thank you for joining us.

MATT: Uh... I think Pablo Phoenix was, well, back when we had a message board on the website—

MIKE: {simultaneously} Yeah, he was one of the regulars...

MATT: —was uh... regulars, yeah, which was kind of cool. We didn't know that a— w—, at the time, but later on he showed up and... tr—

MIKE: Something that uh, we often talk about is the original lyrics to the Strong Badia National Anthem.

MATT: Oh yeah, tell 'em— they're written down somewhere.

MIKE: Yeah, I think I sang those this morning. Um, which were: "This one is great, truly truly great"

MATT: "The land of all people, the land of different stuff."

MIKE: {laughs} Yeah.

MATT: Or something like that. It was not good at all.

MIKE: It had to be changed.

MATT: Yeah. And, uh...

MIKE: {singing along with opening chords} This one is great, truly truly great.

MATT: {joins in} Truly truly great... {sung very quickly} "the-land-of-all-people-the-land-of-all-the-different-stuff". Um, so the scale here, that's a tiny Strong Badia flag there, Mike. The Cheat should've been much smaller.

MIKE: Heh, that's true. The scale... We're not very consistent with our scale.

MATT: Yeah... We should make a style guide.

MIKE: You can make a style guide.

MATT: Yeah, you make one, more like.

{Mike laughs}

MATT: Um... So this is the first appearance of Strong Bad.

{Mike and Matt laugh}

MATT: Look, that's the year I was born! 1976! Thanks, Mike. Did you do that on purpose?

MIKE: I think I did do that on purpose.

MATT: Awww, you guys!

MIKE: And all the action figures always cost 11 dollars and one cent, which is your birthday.

MATT: Eleven oh-one!

MIKE: November 1st. Now everyone knows your birthday so maybe they'll get you presents!

MATT: Don't get me any presents, guys! Uh, I always wanted you to— you didn't do a clink there. I think I even made a clinking sound effect for those two bottles, and you didn't put it in.

MIKE: There's lots of—

MATT: {interrupting} 'Cause Mike finished this up, I remember I had to go out of town.

MIKE: There's no—

MATT: And Mike finished it up. Yeah, but its clearly deserves a sound effect.

MIKE: Well there's lots of things that... You don't hear the X-Acto knife carving into Strong Mad's flesh sound that we always use.

MATT: That, that's true. It goes like this: {Matt makes a gross-sounding carving sound effect with his mouth}

YouTube Version

• The "Pablo Phoenix" Easter egg is shown automatically.

See also

• The visuals that occur during the national anthem.

External Links

• watch "flag day"
• watch "flag day" on YouTube
• watch "flag day" on the old Flash site
• view the Flash file for "flag day"