techno

Strong Bad Email #45

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Lightswitch raves!

Strong Bad composes his own techno music.

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

Places: Computer Room

Computer: Compy 386

Date: Monday, October 7, 2002

Running Time: 1:13

Page Title: COMPY 386

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

Transcript

STRONG BAD: It's the email, the email, what what, the email.

{reading}

Hey Strong Bad, do you like techno at
all? If you do, what kind.

Silent J

STRONG BAD: Huh, that... Very clever. {typing} Well, it's {types "its"} not really my style, but I heard a techno song one time that went like...

{Strong Bad stops typing and mimics a techno beat.}

STRONG BAD: Doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom {resumes typing} And then this other part came in, and it was like...

(Strong Bad stops typing again, the original beat is heard along with this new part.}

STRONG BAD: Doodle-um-doom doodle-um-doom doodle-um-doom doodle-um-doom {resumes typing} And then there's always some kinda high pitched noise, y'know? Or like a siren that's like...

{Strong Bad stops typing again and another part is added to the song.}

STRONG BAD: DOO-DA-DOO-DA-DIDDLE DOO-DA-DOO-DA-DIDDLE DOO-DA-DOO-DA-DIDDLE DOO-DA-DOO-DA-DIDDLE {resumes typing} And of course they have to put in the obligatory old movie quote from some sci-fi movie. It's like...

{Strong Bad stops typing again, all the parts are there.}

STRONG BAD: The system is down! The system is down! The system is down! The system is down!

{The screen starts going dark and light again. Cut to The Cheat standing beside a lightswitch, turning it on and off with twirling light circles on the wall while twirling a glowstick, raving to the techno piece. Strong Bad walks up to him.}

STRONG BAD: The Cheat is grounded!

{Cut to the lightswitch. There is a label above it reading "The Cheat's Lightswitch". The back of The Cheat's head is visible at the right of the screen.}

STRONG BAD: We had that lightswitch installed for you so you could turn the lights on and off; {cut back to Strong Bad and The Cheat} not so you could throw lightswitch raves! Now let's go break open that glowstick and pour it into Homestar Runner's Mountain Dew. {They both start walking off.} I heard they have to pump your stomach when you drink that stuff.

{The Paper comes down.}

Easter Eggs

• Click on The Cheat's lightswitch at the end to listen to the music some more and see a flyer for a special event featuring that music. It features a rainbow-colored fractal and reads:

The Cheat's
Lightswitch Rave

featuring:
DJ The Stick
and DJ from Full House

Doors Open at 3 am

• At the end, the song can be downloaded for either Windows or Mac OS.

Fun Facts

Trivia

• The summary on the Podstar Runner RSS feed for this video says "Some bozo asks about techno music."
• The YouTube description for this email is "Strong Bad makes a techno song."

Remarks

• When The Cheat is throwing his light switch rave, the spinning of the glow stick, and lights, keep moving, even when paused; this is somewhat like Homestar's blinking eyes, and when The Cheat plays the keyboard in the email flag day.

Goofs

• Strong Bad makes a mistake while typing here. He types 'its', which is possessive. He should have typed 'it's', for 'it is' (an error he points out when Dan D. misuses it in local news).
• When The Cheat is throwing his lightswitch rave, his lightswitch says just "The Cheat" (best viewed in Flash after zooming in). When the camera zooms in on his switch, it says "The Cheat's Lightswitch".

Inside References

• Strong Bad's voice overlaps when he creates his techno song.
• This email is centered around a musical moment.

Real-World References

• "DJ from Full House" refers to the character D.J. Tanner from Full House.
• The techno song contains several elements typical of house music, including four-on-the-floor bass beats, repetitive looping rhythms, and spoken or sampled vocals.
  • The song has several similar elements to 1999 song Break the System (D.A.V.E The Drummer Remix) by Sentience. In addition to the tempo and several somewhat similar synthesizer loops, the vocal sample "break the system down" repeats throughout the song.

Fast Forward

• The song appears on the Strong Bad Sings and Other Type Hits CD under the name The System is Down.
  • This version of the song was used to replace "Renegade Master" on Main Page 4 and one of the themes in Dancin' Bubs.
• Strong Bad says "The system is down" in the toon of the same name.
• Mountain Dew would go on to become a running gag in relation to Homestar.
• The Cheat would later throw a lightswitch rave in monument.
• Another rave poster featuring a sitcom character named DJ would appear in crying.
• The same rave lights can be turned on in interview and Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People.

DVD Version

• 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: I always think, in my brain, that Techno's on the old computer.

MIKE: No, I know, it's much later. I thought, uh—I think I always get Guitar and Techno mixed up.

MATT: I think they're like—

MIKE: {simultaneously} They seem to be similar.

MATT: Yeah. Quite similar. "Its"... that's a error there, Strong Bad. Punctuation error, should be an apostrophe in that "its".

MIKE: I probably did that. I have a hard time with that. Until you made up that song in that later email.

MATT: Uh, so this was the way... lightswitch rave came from—I had this, um... my apartment, uh first year I lived alone in college, uh, my kitchen, the overhead light in the kitchen was always flickering. And so any time we'd turn that light on, uh, we would make that—do that song. That {singing} DOO-DA-DOO-DA-DIDDLE DOO-DA-DOO-DA-DIDDLE. {stops} "The System Is Down" Mike made up, uh, but, uh, basically the background of music for this was just some dumb joke we did in college. Mike, what room is that supposed to be in?

MIKE: I—I always thought that was the other side of his desk, even though there's not the carpet there.

MATT: The carpet just ends.

MIKE: {simultaneously} The carpet ends right there halfway—

MATT: {simultaneously} At half of his desk.

MIKE: Yeah, uh, the...

MATT: It's like the Simpsons' house.

MIKE: The Strong house has problems.

Fun Facts

• The song Mike mentions in passing is the "Its/It's" Grammar Song from local news.
• Matt compares the house of the Brothers Strong to the family home in The Simpsons, which due to its animated nature is portrayed inconsistently across episodes and differs architecturally from how an actual house would appear.

External Links

• watch "techno"
• watch "techno" on YouTube
• watch "techno" on the old Flash site
• view the Flash file for "techno"
• Download the song: Win Mac