Main Page 15

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Poorly Powered.

A page made using Powered by The Cheat technology.

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

Places: The Field, The Cheat's Computer Room

Date: Thursday, April 11, 2002 or earlier

Icon: The Cheat

Page Title: Powered by The Cheat

Button Effects

• Toons — A circle with a slash through it appears over Homestar Runner.
• Games — Homestar spits when he says games and a blinking games logo with lightning flashes behind him.
• Characters — A JPEG ship that says "wear a bikini" spins around then pans out, disappearing from view with flames shooting from the stern.
• Downloads — Strong Bad moves with a poorly done shape tween and says, "I am over here," then jumps back and says, "Now I am back over here." This motion repeats as long as the cursor is held over the button.
• Store — An oval sun lights up around the Store button and Strong Sad floats through the sky and says, "I'm sad that I'm flying..."
• E-mail — The scene pulls back to show The Cheat and Strong Bad watching the Main Page in action, to which Strong Bad comments on The Cheat's work. Three possible comments:
  • THE CHEAT: {Exclamatory The Cheat noises}
    STRONG BAD: Once again, your visual style just looks thrown together. It looks like you don't care.
    
  • STRONG BAD: And what is that terrible voice? Is that supposed to be Homestar?
    THE CHEAT: {Defensive The Cheat noises}
    
  • THE CHEAT: {Questioning The Cheat noises}
    STRONG BAD: The animation looks terrible. It's all jerky, ya know, like it was done by a two years old boy.
    

Fun Facts

One Messed Up Main Page to Go!

Explanations

• The Strong Bad that goes back and forth is a typical example of poorly executed shape tweening in Adobe Flash. This technique is commonly misused in amateur Flash animation.
• The ship that appears when characters is highlighted is an example of poor use of Flash's bitmap tracing function, which is another common mistake in amateur Flash animation. Instead of making the background transparent in an image editor, The Cheat had used the Flash bitmap tracer to convert it to a vector graphic, he then turned up the alpha for its white background instead of simply removing it.

Trivia

• This marks Mike Chapman's first time voicing the Powered by The Cheat versions of the characters.

Remarks

• After rolling on "E-mail":
  • By keeping your cursor on the "E-mail" space, you can click the space (on the lower-right side of The Cheat's back) to go to the Email Menu.
  • You can roll over the "E-mail" space while Strong Bad and The Cheat talks to trigger another Strong Bad/The Cheat coversation.
    • If you roll over this space at just the end of a Strong Bad/The Cheat conversation (and this is quite difficult to do), the Main Page frame (with the buttons around the edge) will appear, but the conversation will restart. An easier method is to right-click and click "Play".
  • You will see that the "Museum" button will shift up and down.
  • If you're fast enough, you can roll over the other buttons on The Cheat's computer just as Homestar says "Email".
    • It will not show button effects and only "Museum" follows a link.
    • Homestar will still announce any button except "Museum" you rolled over, but his lips don't move. This does overlap Homestar saying "Email".
  • If you have one of the weeklies boxes open when you roll on "E-mail", the box will stay at the center of the screen while Strong Bad and The Cheat talk.
• Some of Homestar's propeller is behind the First Time Here Button.

Glitches

• Because of the Ruffle build currently used on the site, when hovering over the "E-mail" button, Homestar's mouth moves, but he does not say anything. However, hovering over the button again while Strong Bad and The Cheat talk will make him say "E-mail".

Inside References

• "Wear a Bikini!" is a recurring inside joke.

Real-World References

• The ship shown when you hover over the "Characters" button is the SS United States, an ocean liner that operated from 1952 to 1969.

Fast Forward

• Strong Sad's "I'm sad that I'm flying" quote is later referenced numerous times.

External Links

• go to "Main Page 15"
• go to "Main Page 15" on the old Flash site
• view the Flash file for "Main Page 15"