Labor Dabor

This article is about the Puppet Stuff. For the Strong Bad Email, see labor day.

Toon Category: Puppet Stuff

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"What's the big idea workin' on Labor's Day?"

The Homestarmy makes sure that nobody (or their brother) works on Labor Day.

Cast (in order of appearance): Puppet The Cheat, Puppet Homestar, Puppet Frank Bennedetto

Places: The Cheat's Computer Room

Date: Monday, September 6, 2004

Running Time: 1:25

Page Title: Labor Dabor

DVD: Everything Else, Volume 1

Transcript

{The Flash interface is visible, showing an image of a farmer saying "Stee-rike" in a speech bubble. A loading box reading "Publishing The Cheat's Movie" appears and a blue bar makes its way left to right. Cut to ten bowling pin chickens assembled outside a barn, making clucking noises. A giant blue bowling ball rolls in from the right and knocks them all down with an explosion sound. As the bowling ball collides with the chickens, the words "Hit 'em!" appear on the screen. Cut to The Cheat watching his movie and mumbling to himself. The screen shows a farmer appears from the bottom of the screen. A chicken lands on his head, and he turns around, saying "Stee-rike" in a speech bubble.}

FARMER: "Stee-rike."

{Homestar Runner runs in with Frank Bennedetto}

HOMESTAR RUNNER: All right, yellow man! {hits The Cheat with orange spoon} What's the big idea workin' on Labor's Day?

THE CHEAT: {The Cheat noises}

{Homestar waves the spoon as he talks, hitting The Cheat again in the face}

HOMESTAR RUNNER: Third-style Private Bennedetto and I are out making sure nobody or their brother does any type of work at all today!

THE CHEAT: {The Cheat noises}

HOMESTAR RUNNER: Stand down, citizen. You wanna have to give me five bucks?

THE CHEAT: {inquisitive The Cheat noises}

HOMESTAR RUNNER: Todaybor Day is a Labor Day! Say it with me now, on three! Once {pronounced "ons"}, twice, three!

{A banner appears reading "Todaybor Day is Labor Day!"}

HOMESTAR RUNNER: {joined by The Cheat} Todaybor Day is a Labor—

{Bennedetto starts popping some popcorn, surprising Homestar and The Cheat, who makes alarmed noises.}

HOMESTAR RUNNER: Whoa! Wah! Bennedetto! Did you get a hold of some bad third-style rations? Keep that mess down, soldier! Keep it down! Ahh! Ahh! No! The Cheat, run for your life!

{"Happy Labor Day!!" appears on a blue screen with some popcorn. Cut back to Homestar, The Cheat, and Bennedetto}

HOMESTAR RUNNER: {Eating some popcorn} Hey, this stuff's pretty good! Nice upchuck, Bennedetto!

{"Ended." appears on red background with some popcorn}

HOMESTAR RUNNER: {singing, voiceover} Todaybor Day is Labor Daybor! Todaybor Day is Labor Daybor! Todaybor Day is Labor Daybor! Todaybor Day is a Labor Daybor! Todaybor Day! Labor Day! Daybor Day! Labor Day! Come on everybody it's Labor Day! Come on everybody it's a Daybor Day!

Easter Eggs

"Stee-rike."

• After Homestar is done with his little tune, you can click on various pieces of popcorn to see some bowling animations by The Cheat.
  • Click on the upper third left-most popcorn (it's completely unobstructed) to see the "STRIKE" animation featured during the short.

  {Ten bowling pin chickens are assembled outside a barn, making clucking noises. A giant blue bowling ball rolls in from the right and knocks them all down with an explosion sound. As the bowling ball collides with the chickens, the words "Hit 'em!" appear on the screen. A farmer appears from the bottom of the screen. A chicken lands on his head, and he turns around, saying "Stee-rike" in a speech bubble.}

  FARMER: Stee-rike. {word balloon appears}

  • Click on the mostly unobstructed popcorn directly beneath the "N" to see a "SPLIT" animation.

  {A single bowling pin stands on a white table. A guillotine blade comes down from the top and splits it in half. The halves fall onto the table, revealing disgusting-looking bowling pin innards, complete with human-like skeletons. The halves spurt blood into the center of the screen, forming the word "SPLiT".}

  • Click on the huge popcorn piece beneath "DE" to see a "SPARE" animation.

  {The bowling pins are set up in a prehistoric setting. A giant The Cheat-like monster appears on the left. The Cheat monster roars, then fires eye-lasers at the bowling pins, causing six of them to go away, leaving the right-most pin in the third row, and the three left-most pins in the back row (the 6-7-8-9). The Cheat monster fires its eye-lasers again, and the rest of the bowling pins disappear. The Cheat monster roars again, and the symbol for a spare in bowling comes out of his mouth and centers on the screen with the word "SPARE!" underneath.}

  • Click on the mostly unobstructed popcorn piece that is directly right of the large piece and underneath the "ED." to see a "DOUBLE GUTTER" animation.

  {A bowling line outside a city is seen with two sweaty heads on the left and right sides of the screen. The two heads spit out bowling balls into and down their respective gutter. The end of the bowling lane turns into a mouth and chomps up the bowling balls, then emits a flashing "DOUBLe gUTTeR" sign.}

  • Click on the lower second right-most popcorn (it's mostly unobstructed) to see an "IT'S STILL YOUR TURN!!!" animation and a "TURN OFF THE CELL PHONE & BOWL" animation.

  {A bowling pin with shoes, glasses and a mustache stands impatiently at the end of the lane. It checks its watch, then frowns at the camera and starts talking in subtitled gibberish.}

  BOWLING PIN: {words appear on screen} IT'S STILL YOUR TURN!!!

  {The screen changes to a ringing cell phone with the words "YOR ANNOY ING FREND" on its display, and flashing red words say "turn off the cell phone & bowl". A bunch of bowling balls make up the background.}

Fun Facts

Explanations

• It appears that The Cheat is making toons for use on automatic scoring computers at bowling alleys. Some scorers play such animations when someone gets a strike, spare, split, etc.
• A "double gutter" is when both balls bowled in a frame of bowling are gutter balls.

Trivia

• This toon was called Labor Day when it originally premiered.
• Homestar's wooden spoon is drawn in vectors and superimposed; it would be hard to make it float in midair in front of Homestar for real.
• The sign that says "Todaybor day is labor day" is also drawn in. It's easy to see this if by switching the quality between high and low, because the rest of the movie doesn't change (Recorded movies, such as AVI, MOV, and MPEG files, are not anti-aliased when imported into Flash).
• Homestar has a bit of a red glow on him from the iMac, making it seem like it was actually on, but drawn over in Flash.

Remarks

• Frank Bennedetto, presumed dead (Strong Bad kicked him out of Strong Badia in army), is now revealed to be alive.

Glitches

• During the "SPARE!" Easter egg, two small thin lines appear at the bottom of the spare symbol.

Inside References

• This toon references puking and blood.
• Both Bennedetto's rank and the rations are uses of style.
• The Cheat's Powered By The Cheat bowling game involves bowling-pin shaped chickens.

Real-World References

• The Flash interface is shown here when The Cheat is working on his animation.

Fast Forward

• A memorial displayed in the email more armies suggests that Bennedetto may actually be dead.

DVD Version

• The Easter egg involving The Cheat's bowling animations have all been put on one egg, and are now on the H*R logo that appears at the end.
• Homestar's spoon has been redrawn, appearing in a more tan color and more cartoony style than the one on the website.
• The DVD version features hidden creators' commentary. To access it, switch the DVD player's audio language selection while watching.

Commentary Transcript

(Commentary by: Mike Chapman, Matt Chapman)

MIKE: Ah, look at The Cheat's bowling uh, strike animations.

MATT: It would be a dream come true if we could get these in a bowling alley somewhere.

MIKE: That was an idea we had uh, for awhile.

MATT: Yeah.

MIKE: The Cheat bowling animations.

MATT: Yeah, we were gonna make that just be its own cartoon at some point, I think. So there's that, uh— There's some magic going on here Mike with that— that spoon.

MIKE: That spoon is animated in Flash—

MATT: Yeah.

MIKE: —and put over top. You couldn't maybe tell quite as much when it was on the web and very tiny as you can—

MATT: Yeah.

MIKE: —watching it large screen.

MATT: It looks all right. Look! Emotion Eric was in town and he controlled Bennedetto.

MIKE: He's a master puppeteer.

MATT: Yeah, he did a great job. There's a lot of timing involved in that part, I remember, getting him to be puking up all that popcorn at the right time.

MIKE: We had popcorn around in that room for awhile too.

MATT: Yeah, there might still be a few pieces.

MIKE: Is that it?

MATT: No, he's gotta sing the song and—

MIKE: Oh, yeah.

MATT: —"Nice upchuck, Bennedetto." So it's fun to try and take things from cartoons and adapt them into puppet style like the Homestarmy.

MIKE: Yeah, the Homestarmy. Yeah, I mean, we got the bowls.

MATT: We got the tangerine iMac. We got the bowls, the orange. We actually got orange spoons until we realized quickly we wouldn't be able to use them.

MIKE: Yeah. No, those were wood spoons and we spray painted it like the bowls.

MATT: Right.

MIKE: Yeah, spray paint.

Real-World References

• "Emotion Eric" is Eric Wu, of Eric Conveys an Emotion. The website primarily features photos of Wu acting out an emotion suggested by a fan, often humorously complex or specific. The Brothers Chaps were featured in two of his "Adventure Edition" photo galleries, "The Football Game" and "The Interview"; Labor Dabor was filmed during "The Interview", when Wu visited the office of The Brothers Chaps.

YouTube Version

• Like in the DVD version, a yellowish, re-drawn spoon replaces Homestar's reddish, photographed spoon.
• The YouTube description for this video is "Todaybor Day is Labor Day! Steer clear of third-style rations!"

External Links

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