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Strong Bad Email #4

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"How come you people never play my game, man?"

Instead of a regular message, Strong Bad receives a Hairstyle Runner design.

Cast (in order of appearance): Strong Bad

Places: Computer Room

Computer: Tandy 400

Date: Thursday, September 27, 2001

Running Time: 0:55

Page Title: Tandy 400!!!

DVD: strongbad_email.exe Disc One

SBEmail Menu Description: When he gets an email meant for Homestar, Strong Bad becomes "all cheesed off" as the kids say... in the 50's maybe.

Transcript

STRONG BAD: {singing, types "run Strongbad's__email"} I check the email once, I check the email twice, doo doo doo, doo doo doo... {stops singing} Okay, let's see what we got here...

Homestar Hair
downloading...

STRONG BAD: Home...star...Hair...? What the...

{A graphic from Hairstyle Runner appears, with oddly shaped hair, sideburns and an outline of a beard.}

STRONG BAD: Oh man! I swear if I get another one of these {types "delete that crap"} freakin' "Hairstyle Runners" from one of you guys,—

{The image shrinks until it disappears, and a message reading "crap deleted." appears onscreen.}

STRONG BAD: —I'm gonna have to start busting some heads, okay? I mean, how come you people never play my game, man? I never get any Strong Libs in my email. I mean, there's this whole game out there that's all for me that you guys can fill out, you know, and like, send me some hilarious crap or something. Now you got me all cheesed off! I'm gonna play some "Temple of Apshai". {types "run"temple__of__apshai""} Forget you guys. {brings up Temple of Apshai}

{Temple of Apshai features a little white warrior walking back and forth in a pink-walled 8-bit dungeon with a blue monster and a green box. To the right are a bunch of statistics. The Paper comes down.}

STRONG BAD: Oh, my hit points are, like, inexcusable in this dungeon, man. I need to find some elixir or something.

Fun Facts

Trivia

• The text on the Temple of Apshai game is as follows. Note that some characters are obscured by Strong Bad's head and others are uncertain, as the font contains many identical-looking characters.

ROOM NO=28
WOUNDS= 91%
FATIGUE=97%
WEIGHT= 87

ARROWS=    97
MAG ARROWS  9
SKELETON
APPEARS!
TOTAL SLAIN
9

• This is the only email that is not a letter of some kind, and the first one to feature an attachment.
• This is the first time Strong Bad deleted something in anger, although we don't see the now-standard "DELETED" screen.
• It is also the first Strong Bad Email to feature dialogue that takes place after The Paper comes down.
• This is also the first instance of Strong Bad's computer exceeding its technical boundaries — in this case, displaying Temple of Apshai and the Hairstyle Runner in full color and resolution on a supposedly monochrome monitor.
• This is the first email to use the word "crap".

Remarks

• When Strong Bad is playing Temple of Apshai, his figure keeps moving in the same pattern.

Inside References

• The game Strong Bad refers to as his game is Strong Libs.

Real-World References

• Temple of Apshai is a real role-playing computer game from Epyx.

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: Mike Chapman, Matt Chapman)

MATT: This has a big inconsistency in it with the abilities of his old computer—

MIKE: {laughs} Yeah, displaying the color picture.

MATT: Yeah. Not only can it display JPEGs, it can display a full-color one. Yeah. And there's also a reference to, uh, to Strong Bad Libs in it, huh?

MIKE: Yeah. We still occasionally get a Strong Bad Lib if someone's watched this email and then...

MATT: And then does one.

{long pause}

MATT: Say—

MIKE: Not a lot of animation going on in this one.

MATT: Yeah, this was, uh...

MIKE: This one would probably take us— we could probably do this in under 20 minutes nowadays.

MATT: {laughs a little} Probabl—

MIKE: It probably took us 6 hours at the time, but...

MATT: Yep. And then now here it's color, color for Temple of Apshai, too.

MIKE: Yeah.

MATT: Why? I mean, he could be playing, like, Final Fantasy on this according to—

MIKE: That's a skeleton. That's a skeleton. That blue, isn't that? Isn't that the skeletons from—

MATT: Yeah. I always thought it looked like that blue thing, you know, {quickly} The Close Encounters of the Third Ki—

Fun Facts

• Matt mentions the Final Fantasy series of role-playing games.
• Matt compares the skeletons to the aliens seen in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a sci-fi movie directed by Steven Spielberg.

YouTube Version

• At the start of the email, the Windows XP "Hardware Remove" sound can be heard briefly.

External Links

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