dragon

Strong Bad Email #58

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"Check out all his majesty."

This article is about the Strong Bad Email. For other uses, see Dragons.

Kaizer wants to know if Strong Bad can draw a dragon. Trogdor is born.

Cast (in order of appearance): Strong Bad, The S is for Sucks Dragon, Trogdor, Coach Z, Wormdingler, Strong Mad, Homsar (Easter egg), Strong Sad

Places: Computer Room

Computer: Compy 386

Date: Monday, January 13, 2003

Running Time: 3:20

Page Title: Compy 386!

DVD: strongbad_email.exe Disc Two, Sbemails' 50 Greatest Hits DVD, SBCG4AP Collector's DVD (select releases)

Transcript

STRONG BAD: {singing} Here I go once again with the email! Every week I hope that it's from a female! {opens email, stops singing} Oh man! It's not from a female.

{reading email}

Hey Strong Bad,
Can you draw a dragon? I want to see
your skills of an artist.

well, g2g,
kaizer
CA

{After "artist," Strong Bad mumbles, "um, okay," reads g2g as "g two g", and adds the word "from" between "kaizer" and "California."}

STRONG BAD: {typing} A dragon? That's easy! Feel free to follow along with my simple step-by-step instructions. I make drawing FUN!!

{Cut to a close-up of a piece of paper on a table. The only part of Strong Bad that's visible is his right boxing glove, and he is holding a pencil. Simple music starts playing.}

STRONG BAD: To begin, draw an S—

{Draws an S on the paper.}

STRONG BAD: —for snake. Or dragon. Er, whatever. Next, we'll draw a more different S.

{Draws another S connected to the other}

STRONG BAD: For the head, put a top mark on a long V.

{Draws a triangle on top of the S}

STRONG BAD: Then you add some legs...

{Draws two beefy legs}

STRONG BAD: ...draw on a couple of arms... and—

{Draws two beefy arms, eyes, spikes, teeth and angry eyebrows.}

STRONG BAD: Whoa. Wait a minute.

{Music stops with a record scratch}

STRONG BAD: I think I need to start over. This thing doesn't look natural.

{Draws a speech bubble coming from the dragon that says 'The S is for sucks,' and pulls up a clean sheet of paper.}

STRONG BAD: Okay, so starting again, the same way. S, more different S.

{Music starts again}

STRONG BAD: Close it up real good at the top for his head,—

{Makes an attached, open-mouth head}

STRONG BAD: —and then, using consummate V's, give him teeth, spinities,^[1] and angry eyebrows.

{Draws all of what he mentioned, plus stick legs.}

STRONG BAD: Then, you can add smoke or fire,—

{Draws both coming from the dragon's mouth}

STRONG BAD: —or maybe some wings, you know, if he's a...wing-a-ling dragon.

{Draws two wings on the dragon's back.}

STRONG BAD: Let's put one of those beefy arms back on him for good measure.

{Draws a single beefy arm on the back of the dragon}

STRONG BAD: That looks really good. Comin' out of the back of his neck, there.

{Taps the drawing with his pencil point}

STRONG BAD: Now he needs a name. How about TROGDOR the BURNiNATOR.

{Writes it below the dragon}

STRONG BAD: Oh yeah. Check out all his majesty.

{Draws rays of majesty coming from the dragon}

{Cut to Compy 386.}

STRONG BAD: {typing} There's my dragon, Kaizer. {music stops} Let's see how the other students are doing.

{Strong Bad gets up, making the geddup noise. Cut to scene in a big room with several tables. Strong Bad approaches Coach Z, who is drawing with chalk on a small slate.}

STRONG BAD: All right! What do you got for me, Coach Z?

COACH Z: Take a look there!

{Cut to a close up of a squiggly drawing that resembles a snake with a huge head}

COACH Z: I think she's lookin' pretty good!

{Cut back to Strong Bad and Coach Z}

STRONG BAD: I said consummate V's! CONSUMMATE!!! {shakes his head} Geez. {walks away muttering} Guy wouldn't know majesty if it came up and bit him in the face.

COACH Z: {offscreen} That happened once!

{Cut to Strong Mad. He is using an X-Acto Knife to carve the word 'DAGRON' into the table.}

STRONG BAD: Strong Mad. You just, keep doing your thing, man.

{Cut to Strong Sad, who has drawn a much more advanced, realistic, and shaded dragon.}

STRONG BAD: Oh, crap! I didn't know you were doing one.

STRONG SAD: Oh, sure. {cut to close up of his picture} I think I've improved on your methods a bit, too. I employed some chiaroscuro shading, and—

{Cut back to Strong Sad and Strong Bad}

STRONG BAD: I'll improve on your methods!!

{Strong Bad takes out his BMW lighter and sets Strong Sad's picture aflame. It quickly disintegrates with hardly a trace left.}

STRONG SAD: What?! {pauses} That's not an improvement!

STRONG BAD: BWA HA HA HA!! Trogdor strikes again!

{The following heavy metal song is accompanied with black and white, heavily shaded pencil drawings.}

{A close-up of a fire-breathing Trogdor pans from the right side of the screen to the left.}

STRONG BAD: {singing} TROGDOR!!

{A flame appears on the bottom of the screen on the left side and disappears. The same thing happens on the right, then the left again.}

{A fire-breathing Trogdor pans from the bottom of the screen to the center}

STRONG BAD: {singing} TROGDOR!!

{Pan left-to-right across a countryside with rolling hills, a well, a fence, a tree, and some buildings.}

STRONG BAD: {singing} Trogdor was a man!

{On the word "man", cut to a knight with long hair and an axe. The flames appear again, in the same order as before.}

STRONG BAD: {singing} I mean, he was a dragon-man!

{The top half of the man turns into Trogdor's top half}

STRONG BAD: {singing} Er, maybe he was just a dragon.

{Cut to Trogdor}

STRONG BAD: {singing} Um... But he was still TROGDOR!!

{The camera repeatedly zooms in and out of Trogdor's head. Then the camera pans up until Trogdor is no longer visible.}

STRONG BAD: {singing} TROGDOR!!

{Cut back to the "dragon man", with both flames visible at the same time. After a second, the dragon man repeatedly switches to the man and back.}

{Cut back to the countryside. The two flames rise up.}

STRONG BAD: {singing} Burninating the countryside!

{A peasant with a burning hood slides from the top-right corner to the bottom-left.}

STRONG BAD: {singing} Burninating the peasants!

{Cut back to Trogdor, alternating between two diagonal shots of his face.}

STRONG BAD: {singing} Burninating all the people!

{Cut to a blank page. Five peasants appear one-by-one in random places.}

{Cut. Pan down to a thatched-roof cottage on fire.}

STRONG BAD: {singing} In their thatched-roof COTTAGES!!

{Cut between alternating shots of the cottage and Trogdor's face, tilted diagonally.}

{The two flames appear again, as the camera pans up to the cottage, which is now upside down.}

STRONG BAD: {singing} THATCHED-ROOF COTTAGES!!

{As the song ends, the scene repeatedly cuts to each drawing: Trogdor's face, the man, a peasant, the countryside, and the cottage, all tilted diagonally. Zoom out of Trogdor's face, as the two flames rise again.}

{Cut to Compy 386.}

STRONG BAD: {singing; not typing} And the Trogdor comes in the NIIIIGHT!!

{The Paper comes down.}

Note

1. ^  Variously spelled as "spinedies" (posted to Twitter on December 28, 2016 and December 6, 2019, Trogdor Zip Hoodie description), "spinities" (posted to Twitter on January 10, 2018, July 13, 2018, and January 25, 2019), or "spineties" (Fangamer Trogdor Plush description).

Easter Eggs

• Click the "R" in the "DAGRON" Strong Mad is carving in the table to see Homsar's attempt at drawing a dragon just before Strong Sad's scene.

{Strong Bad walks up to Homsar, who has written "TASTER'S CHOICE" on a piece of lined paper and taped it to the table. A roll of masking tape sits nearby.}

STRONG BAD: Get outta my house! {walks away}

HOMSAR: {sadly} I do what I'm told...

Fun Facts

Explanations

Although he did employ shading, it is debatable if Strong Sad's dragon drawing is actually demonstrating high-contrast chiaroscuro.

• Chiaroscuro is an artistic method that uses strong, bold contrasts between light and dark tones to create a dramatic three-dimensional feeling in a drawing. The world literally means "light-dark" in Italian.

Trivia

• In a 2003 interview, Mike Chapman said that this email took longer to finish than any prior email — mostly due to recording the song and making its accompanying video.
• Strong Bad writes "TROGDOR the BURNiNATOR" using a lowercase "i" because the font that The Brothers Chaps use for Strong Bad's handwriting, AhnbergHand, has a capital I that looks like a lowercase one.
• The summary on the Podstar Runner RSS feed for this video says "Strong Bad starts a bad drawing revolution."
• Strong Bad's method for drawing Trogdor is reminiscent of the drawing methods developed by Ed Emberley, as discussed in this email's DVD commentary.
• Not counting vacation, which was released in multiple parts, this is the first email with a length of over 3 minutes.
• This is the most-viewed video on the homestarrunnerdotcom YouTube channel, having over five million views.
• The YouTube description for this email is "Strong Bad teaches the world how to draw a dragon."
• Peasants in the thatched roof cottages were previously mentioned on Gent Delabor's page on Thorax Corporation.

Remarks

• Although the BMW lighter's flame is close to the table, the table is unaffected.
• "Kaiser" is the ultimate dragon form of the hero in the Breath of Fire series of video games. The email sender's name may have been a coincidence, or the email writer was a fan of this series and wrote that name instead of his own, albeit misspelled. If the sender was a fan, this may be why he asked Strong Bad to draw a dragon.
• In the DVD, Podstar Runner, YouTube, and Nintendo Channel versions, the Homsar Easter egg scene plays automatically.

Goofs

I'm the floating arm of dooooom!

• As noted in the DVD commentary, Coach Z's drawing faces a different direction in the close-up from the previous scene.
  • This same situation also applies to Strong Sad's drawing.
• When Strong Bad is drawing Trogdor's majesty, for a moment Strong Bad's arm is floating, unattached to anything.
• When Strong Bad types "Let's see how the other students are doing", he leaves out the word "see."

Glitches

• There is a small area above Coach Z's medallion that is see-through.

Inside References

• "And the Trogdor comes in the NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHHHHHHHHT!!!!!!!" is a reference to the email guitar, where Strong Bad says "dragon" instead of "Trogdor".
• The X-Acto Knife that Strong Mad uses is the same one that Strong Bad uses in the email flag day.
• The first few chords of the Trogdor song are quite similar to the melody of Strong Bad's email song in property of ones.

Real-World References

• Homsar's "drawing" says "Taster's Choice", a popular coffee from Nescafé.
• The email intro is a direct reference to Phife Dawg's line "Now here I go, once again, with the ill flow" from the song "La Schmoove" by Fu-Schnickens.
  • This reference was revealed via @StrongBadActual on January 26, 2019.

Fast Forward

I make sheet music FUN!!

• January 13 would come to be recognized as Trogday, celebrating Trogdor's birthday.
  • Happy Trogday celebrated Trogdor's third birthday, partially using a clip from this email.
  • In 2008, the regular index page was replaced with a picture of Trogdor in the shape of a 5 to celebrate his fifth birthday.
  • In Trogday 08, Strong Bad and Coach Z celebrate the fifth birthdays of The S is For Sucks Dragon and Wormdingler (Coach Z's dragon), respectively.
• A similar peasant drawing would later be used in Peasant's Quest as the graphic in the title screen.
• To promote 8-Bit is Enough, this email was added to the Nintendo Channel in December 2008 under the title, "Trogdor!"
• In imaginary, the Dragon-man drawing appears as Frishy Freshy Dragonman, Li'l Strong Bad's imaginary friend.
• Strong Bad's "simple step-by-step instructions" and "I make drawing fun!" were revisited in Fan Costumes 2016.
• Strong Bad would eventually begin to show off his Skills of an Artist as a regular feature.
  • The Skills of an Artist song introduced in this toon would make future appearances.
• All "dragons" drawn by Strong Bad's students feature as alternate meeples for Trogdor in the Kickstarter edition of Trogdor!! The Board Game.
• In 2016, Strong Bad recited the entire email with audience participation at the Homestar Runner 20th Anniversary Show in Atlanta.
• A clip from this email is revisited in an Easter egg in The Homestar Runner Enters The Spooky Woods.
• Sheet music for the Skills of an Artist intro was featured on Day 3 of the Decemberweenvent Calendar.

DVD Version

• The Homsar Easter egg plays automatically.
• The DVD version features hidden creators' commentary. To access it, switch the DVD player's audio language selection while watching. This commentary is only available on the strongbad_email.exe Disc Two and Sbemails' 50 Greatest Hits DVDs.

Commentary Transcript

(Commentary by: Mike Chapman, Matt Chapman)

MIKE: This is, uh, one of the least popular emails we've ever done.

MATT: Yeah. Everybody hates it.

MIKE: Uh, this one took a really long time. And I... remember, not, like—

MATT: Yeah, you wanted to abandon it. {Mike laughs} Like, we were three-quarters of the way done—

MIKE: {overlapping} This is one of those—

MATT: —and you wanted to start over.

MIKE: It was... we just—it's very long, and I felt—I dunno. When you're in the middle of it, sometimes it's hard to tell.

MATT: I wonder, though, if we had just— let's say we cut out the whole Trogdor metal thing at the end. If people would, like, if it's Trogdor, just this dr—bad drawing of a dragon, or if it's the metal and the, like, drawings.

MIKE: I think it's th—mostly the metal.

MATT: That's what I'm sayin'.

MIKE: Yeah.

MATT: So it'd be funny, uh, if we hadn't done that at the end. Or if we'd made it an Easter egg, even, so less people saw it.

MIKE: So this is, uh, you know, we learned to draw the Ed Emberley way.

MATT: And later the Marvel Comics way.

MIKE: {laughs} That's true. Um...

{pause until Strong Bad finished the S is for Sucks Dragon}

MATT: That thing is unholy. {Mike starts laughing again} True. It's horrible. {brief pause} We always find ourselves humming this song that's in the background.

MIKE: Doo doo doot doot doo-doo, see there I'm doing it again.

MATT: {in humorous voice} Uh, what is a tune...cidence!

MIKE: {laughs}

MATT: {speaking normally} What is a tincidence, Mike?

MIKE: Um... uh so yeah, the— uh, this email, we're, it just went up late Monday at probably, I dunno, 4 or 5 o'clock on Monday we were pretty much done with the whole email and Matt started singing the Trogdor song in this squealy—

MATT: {in squealy voice} Trogdor!

MIKE: —in the squealy voice and so then we sort of knew we had to make the Trogdor metal song and then when we made the Trogdor metal song we had to make all the...fancy-shaded Tro—uh, Trogdor drawings for the video.

MATT: And then didn't Trogdor, the name Trogdor the Burn—I think it was just, like, we decided he had to name him and just, like, it just came out, like, there was no deciding.

MIKE: {simultaneously, overlapping} Yeah, you just came up with it. There was no, like thought—yeah, right.

MATT: The drawing of Trogdor took a while. Took some...

MIKE: Yeah. And if you watch there, his thing flips.

MATT: What happened?

MIKE: Coach Z's drawing—well there, his head's on the left, but in the closeup, the head's on the right.

MATT: Ohhhh.

MIKE: I mean, Coach Z's left, and Coach Z's right.

MATT: Right. Dagron.

MIKE: Dagron. {overly-explanatory tone} He's misspelled the word "dragon". {when Homsar appears} There's everybody's favorite. He's correctly spelled the words "Taster's Choice."

MATT: {laughs a little, then a pause} That's a good drawing, Mike. We still have those.

MIKE: Yep.

MATT: There's the BMW—the, the ever-present BMW lighter. Didn't we say we had some, some people we met that said they tried really hard to find one.

MIKE: Oh yeah.

MATT: And they don't exist in real life, so we apologize.

MIKE: So... I don't know how these drawings are going to look on your TV screen.

MATT: Yeah.

MIKE: All made big like this. They might look kind of pixelly and gross, but...

{pause}

MATT: I'm, uh, I don't regret it, though, if they look pixelly and gross.

MIKE: {defiantly} No, we did that on purpose!

MATT: {laughs a little} Yes.

MIKE: You can see in the smoke of the flaming peasant's head, it just kind of—there's a straight line at the top of the smoke. It just kind of stops and that's from the edge of the page. It was just—

MATT: Oh really?

MIKE: Yeah. You can't see it—yeah, you can see just how it stops?

MATT: {simultaneously} Oh there we go, I see.

MIKE: Yeah.

MATT: And so, of course, later this... all became "Peasant's Quest" fodder.

Fun Facts

• Ed Emberley is an illustrator behind several "how to draw" books first published in the 1970s. Aimed at young children, Emberley's methods used simple step-by-step instructions using basic shapes and letters. Dragons feature prominently on the covers of Ed Emberley's Big Green Drawing Book and Ed Emberley's Drawing Book of Animals.
• How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way is an instructional book by Stan Lee and John Buscema of Marvel Comics. First published in 1978, it is aimed at an older audience than Emberley's oeuvre.

See Also

• Trogdor (song)

External Links

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