Teen Girl Squad Issue 9

"TEN O'CLOCK AND TWO O'CLOCK!"

When Cheerleader dies, the remaining girls, along with an old man named Mr. Pitters, attempt to re-make themselves as the "Best Friends Squad".

Cast (in order of appearance): Cheerleader, So and So, What's Her Face, The Ugly One, Mr. Pitters, Learner's Permit Girl, Sci-Fi Greg, The Vultures, Port-O-John, Arrow'd Guy, Strong Bad, Tompkins (Easter egg), Open Source Greg (Easter egg), Japanese Culture Greg (Easter egg), D n' D Greg (Easter egg)

Places: The Field, Vultures' Dining Room, What's Her Face's House, A Theatre, Babbage's, The Spirit World

Date: Monday, June 20, 2005

Running Time: 2:05

Page Title: Summatime Style!

DVD:Everything Else, Volume 1

Transcript

NARRATOR STRONG BAD: Teen Girl Squad! Cheerleader! {screen shows Cheerleader wearing a dress with "sell fish" on the front and "backyard pool!" next to her} So and So! {library!} What's Her Face! {24 hour diner!} The Ugly One! {parking deck?}

CHEERLEADER: Okay my spanish galleons, this summer's gonna be different! Say guh-bye to hanging out next to this old person!

{Mr. Pitters appears on the left hand side of the screen.}

THE UGLY ONE AND MR. PITTERS: Bye old person...

CHEERLEADER: Cuz now I'm best friends with an olda girl what has her LEARNER'S PERMIT!!! {jumps up and down}

SO AND SO & THE UGLY ONE: LEARNER'S PERMIT!!!
MR. PITTERS: {simultaneously} LEARNER'S OINTMENT!!!

WHAT'S HER FACE: I've had my license for a year—

CHEERLEADER: {interrupting} Stop saying words. Here she comes now!

{Learner's permit girl appears and is driving really fast.}

LEARNER'S PERMIT GIRL: 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock!

{The Learner's Permit girl runs over Cheerleader. She dies.}

NARRATOR STRONG BAD: DRIVER'S ED'ED...DEAD

CHEERLEADER: Owww, my entire life!

{music stops}

SO AND SO: Whoa, Cheerleader's gone.

ALL 3 GIRLS: {music starts} WE'RE FREE!

MR. PITTERS: We're ointment!

THE UGLY ONE: The tyranny is over!!

{So and So reappears in her opening frame...}

SO AND SO: I can overachieve like a bandit!

{...as does What's Her Face, who is thinking of Science-Fiction Greg, with floating hearts...}

WHAT'S HER FACE: I can date science-fiction Greg again!

{...as well as The Ugly One, who looks like a mess, with a pig.}

THE UGLY ONE: I CAN STOP SHOWERING!!!!

{...as well as Mr. Pitters, who looks like an old person teen girl, and wears a dress with "boy toy" on the front, and has two pigtails, like Cheerleader's.}

MR. PITTERS: I can be a teen girl!

{Two vultures appear over him.}

FIRST VULTURE: Ain't no teen girl.

{Cut to a dining room table where the vultures are seen eating Mr. Pitters.}

NARRATOR STRONG BAD: Chomp chomp chomp chomp...

SECOND VULTURE: Quite good, quite good.

NARRATOR STRONG BAD: ...chomp chomp...

{Cut back to the remaining girls}

SO AND SO: You guys, I think this might be the start of a kinder, gentler squad of teen girls.

{Cut to the intro to "Best Friends Squad", which features The Ugly One's, So and So's, and What's Her Face's head, as well as some flowers, a rainbow, and a unicorn. The normal music is switched for the Best Friends Squad theme, as sung by Strong Bad.}

NARRATOR STRONG BAD: A glue stick, some glitter paint, {a "GLOO STICK" is seen on the first part, some "GLITTA PAINT" on the second}
Words cut out from a magazine, {Cut-out words are placed to read "Scrap BOOKS R Scrap TASTIC"}
BFF carved in a tree, {A heart with "BFF" is seen on a tree}
That stands for BAOW! FOM! FROOSH! {We see that The Ugly One carved it with a Big Knife. As Strong Bad says each of the words, something happens to The Ugly One. On "BAOW!", the tree punches her in the face with its branch. On "FOM!", it falls on top of her. On "FROOSH!", it spontaneously combusts.}

A port-o-john came to life, {A port-o-john is shown, a second later a face with a mustache appears on his door.}
Put on a play with So and So. {The port-o-john and So and So are seen on stage. The port-o-john wears a crown and holds a scepter. So and So wears a princess hat.}
Unfortunately, they didn't {So and So pretends to faint, and the port-o-john catches her. They stand up, and Arrow'd Guy appears in the audience.}
Get very good reviews. {Arrow'd Guy throws a spear, which goes through So and So and hits the port-o-john in the face.}

What's Her Face ate Staple Sauce, {What's Her Face is seen next to a giant bottle of "STAPLE SAUCE"}
A heaping bowl of Staple Sauce. {She eats a spoonful of it, and keels over, dead.}
Then crazy Learner's-Permit-Girl {We see her in her car.}
Gave-me-a-ride to Babbage's. {Strong Bad appears on the hood of her car, and then they're seen at Babbage's.}

STRONG BAD: What?! They don't got no Turbografx games?!

{Cut to the ghosts of the girls.}

CHEERLEADER'S GHOST: {Wearing a shirt reading "deady's girl".} Okay, my art galleries, let's get ready to be...

ALL GHOST GIRLS: {Cheerleader says this with her usual enthusiasm; the rest look downhearted.} SO DEAD!!!!

MR. PITTERS' GHOST: {Still dressed as Cheerleader and wearing a dress with "worm food" on the front.} I look so good.

NARRATOR STRONG BAD: IT'S OVER!

Easter Eggs

• At the end, click the "o" to see Sci-Fi Greg brag to the other Gregs about how the ladies and Valkyries are all over his experience points.

SCI-FI GREG: I knew she'd come back to me. Ever since my experience points went into triple digits I've had to keep the ladies and valkyries off with a 2 handed plus 3 broad sword. D N' D GREG: {leaning in from the left} Hey! Quit bitin my style!

• Also at the end, click the "!" to see the "Over Achiever" strike Tompkins' homework.

TOMPKINS: {holding a piece of paper with mathematical symbols on it, graded "A+++++"} Who did the rest of my pre-algebra homework? SO AND SO: {leaning in from the right, wearing a Lone Ranger mask and a handkerchief over her mouth} The Over-Achiever Bandit strikes again!!!

Fun Facts

Explanations

• A galleon was a large, multi-decked sailing ship used primarily by the nations of Europe from the 16th to 18th centuries.
• In the United States, a learner's permit is granted by some states to drivers as young as fourteen. When drivers have a permit, they must be accompanied by a licensed driver.
• For many years, American teenagers were taught in Driver's Education class that the proper position for hands on the steering wheel was ten o'clock for the left hand and two o'clock for the right. Most teenagers are now taught to hold the wheel at nine and three o'clock due to the change in wheel size since then.
• Sci-Fi Greg's speech in the Easter egg uses terminology from Dungeons and Dragons, or "D&D", which is why D n' D Greg accuses him of "bitin' my style".
• According to Norse mythology, Valkyries were fierce warrior-women who would swoop down on a battlefield, carrying away fallen warriors to Valhalla.
• In Dungeons & Dragons, magical weapons are typically prefixed with the bonus they give to attacks (+1 or higher), so a +3 broadsword is a magic sword giving +3 to attacks.

Trivia

• The song Strong Bad sings in this episode has him singing the lowest note of all the musical interludes he performs on homestarrunner.com (low C, below the bass clef).
• The YouTube description for this toon is "With Cheerleader gone, the remaining TGSers form the Best Friends Squad. It lasts a few seconds."

Remarks

• The font used for Strong Bad's handwriting contains European Qs and 7s, which have small lines running through them. Normally, The Brothers Chaps edit them, removing the lines, but they didn't here.
• When Cheerleader leaps in happiness over her friendship with Crazy Learner's Permit Girl, the horizon line cuts off where she stood.
• Generally speaking, American teenagers get a driver's license at about sixteen years of age. Given the fact that she's had a driver's license for a year, it appears that What's Her Face is at least seventeen years old, a hint to her relative age.
• Many Public Service Announcements involving safe driving emphasize the youth of the accident victims showcased, commenting on how "they had their whole lives ahead of them", giving a possible explanation to Cheerleader's cry of "Ow, my entire life!"
• Strong Bad usually does the voices for Teen Girl Squad toons, but the vultures and Mr. Pitters sound nothing like Strong Bad or Strong Bad imitating the voices.
• Vultures usually do not actively kill animals to feed, as implied with Mr. Pitters, but wait for the animal in question to die of other causes before feeding.
• Mr. Pitters's rib cage opens out of his back on his dead body, even though that's where the spine should be.
• In this issue, Strong Bad secretly inserted a "crap". The word "scraptastic" is pasted together with an S, the word "crap", and the suffix "-tastic".
• This is the first Teen Girl Squad comic in which Strong Bad appears outside of an Easter egg.
• Assuming Sci-Fi Greg was indeed referring to Dungeons and Dragons, he would still be a level one character if his experience points were still only in triple digits; a character becomes level two at 1,000 experience points in most versions of the game.
• This cartoon has neither an "again" nor a "back" link at the end.

Inside References

• The phrases Cheerleader uses to address the Squad, "my Spanish galleons" and "my art galleries", are an extension of the phrase used in Decemberween Teen Girl Squad, "my gallies."
• Mr. Pitters has an obsession with ointment.
• Cheerleader gets run over by the Learner's Permit Girl.
• This is another mention of showering.
• Part of Strong Bad's reinterpretation of "BFF" is the onomatopoeia "FROOSH!"
• Inside Babbage's is a sign that appears to offer Cheap as Free software, although it is partially obscured.
• Mr. Pitters's last line, "I look so good," is Cheerleader's last line in Teen Girl Squad Issue 1.

Real-World References

• The "Johnny Rite There" label on the Port-O-John is a reference to Johnny On The Spot, Inc., a major US manufacturer and distributor of portable toilet stalls.
• Now known as GameStop, Babbage's, along with Software, Etc., Electronics Boutique/EB Games and FuncoLand, were popular chains of software stores. There are some Babbage's stores still in business today, while some of the stores merely changed names. Franchises in Canada are still generally operated under the name EB Games.
• The TurboGrafx-16 was a fourth-generation video game console released by NEC in 1989, for the North American market. It did not sell well, in large part because of the stranglehold Nintendo and Sega had on the home video game market at the time.

Fast Forward

• The two characters to whom Sci-Fi Greg brags in the Easter egg are later given the names Open Source Greg and Japanese Culture Greg in 4 Gregs.

YouTube Version

• The intro has different subtitles for the girls:

Cheerleader: pool lifeguard! So and So: math tutor! What's Her Face: sandwich artist! The Ugly One: still goes to camp!

• The Sci-Fi Greg and Overachiever Bandit Easter eggs play automatically, in that order, after the end card.

External Links

• watch "Teen Girl Squad Issue 9"
• watch "Teen Girl Squad Issue 9" on YouTube
• watch "Teen Girl Squad Issue 9" on the old Flash site
• view the Flash file for "Teen Girl Squad Issue 9"
• forum thread re: "Teen Girl Squad Issue 9"

Teen Girl Squad
Characters	Main: Cheerleader, So and So, What's Her Face, The Ugly One Minor: Arrow'd Guy, The Birds, Brainkrieg, Fighting Growlbacks, The Gregs, Manolios, Mr. Pitters, Mrs. Commanderson, Olympic Man and Coach, Peacey P, Quarterman, she likes cloth, Thomas, Tompkins
Issues	Main: Issue 1, Issue 2, Issue 3, Issue 4, Issue 5, Issue 6, Issue 7, Issue 8, Issue 8½, Issue 9, Issue 10, Issue 11, Issue 12, Issue 13, Issue 14, Issue 15 SBCG4AP: Homestar Ruiner, Cave Girl Squad, Teen Girl Squad Meets Limozeen Toons: 4 Gregs, Decomposing Pumpkins
Miscellaneous	Locations, Costumes, Fangs, -'d, Ow! My X!, Captioned Transitions
Other	404'd, Neon 404'd, Teen Girl Squadcast, Teen Girl Squad Deaths