slumber party

Strong Bad Email #180

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"Whoa! Jackpot!"

Strong Bad gives slumber party advice.

Cast (in order of appearance): Strong Bad, Homestar Runner, Bubs, Coach Z, The King of Town, Strong Sad

Places: Computer Room, Dining Room, Homestar Runner's House, Coach Z's Locker Room

Computer: Lappy 486

Date: Monday, October 1, 2007

Running Time: 4:11

Page Title: Lappy 486

DVD: strongbad_email.exe Disc Six, Sbemails' 50 Greatest Hits DVD

Transcript

STRONG BAD: {singing} Gary... I hope this email's from Gary... {The email comes up} Hah! Aw...

subject: slumber parties

Dear Strong Bad,
I attended a slumber party and there was nothing but a
lame game of Uno. I ask you, what types of slumber
parties should one attend or ignore?
Sincerely,
Thomas O. from NY

{Strong Bad reads NY as en-why}

STRONG BAD: {typing} So it was just you and Uno? Like, no other people or sleeping bags or R-rated movies? Uh, you probably shoulda skipped that one. Family card games are notorious for hosting the worst slumber parties.

{Cut to Strong Bad sitting at a table with his eyes half closed. There is a deck of cards sitting across from him on the table.}

STRONG BAD: {flatly} Thanks for inviting me, Skip-Bo.

{Cut back to the computer}

STRONG BAD: {clears screen} But let's say you get invited to a slumber party by a carbon based lifeform. The first thing you wanna look at is the popularity of the host.

{Cut to a blackboard on which is written "COOLGUY'S LAW:" alongside a drawing of Strong Bad's head wearing glasses and a mortar board}

STRONG BAD: {voiceover} According to Coolguy's law, the popularity of the host is inversely proportional to the amount of fun you can have at their house.

{As he speaks, the formula appears on the blackboard. Cut back to the computer.}

STRONG BAD: {typing} You got nothing to lose! You can tear that place apart and dislocate all the younger siblings' shoulders you want. It's not like you're ever going back there again.

{Cut to Homestar Runner's bedroom. Homestar and Strong Bad are there, and there are sledgehammers embedded in the walls. Strong Bad is holding a sledgehammer.}

HOMESTAR RUNNER: What did you say the name of this family card game was again, Strong Bad?

STRONG BAD: This is called Find The Load Bearer. You never played this before?

HOMESTAR RUNNER: No. Find The Load Bearer, Bed Axe, {Cut to Homestar's bed, which has two axes embedded in it} I never heard of any of these games we're playing.

{Strong Bad throws another axe into the bed. Cut back to the computer.}

STRONG BAD: {typing} Unpopular kids' dads definitely still play video games, so try and locate—

{Cut to Strong Bad reaching into Homestar's dresser and pulling out some games}

STRONG BAD: {voiceover} —his stash of Rated M for Mature titles.

STRONG BAD: Whoa! Jackpot! {Holds up a game with a skull in a bloodstain on the cover} Blood Bleeder, {Holds up a game with the disembodied heads of two men and a dog on the cover} Head Chopper 2, {Holds up a game with a laser shooting at some disembodied scabs on the cover} Scab Wars, {Holds up a game with a blistered hand and a ghost holding a chainsaw on the cover} Blistergeist? Most of these things have been taken off the market!

HOMESTAR RUNNER: Oh. Those are off-limits. We're only allowed to play Clapping Party.

{Homestar plays Clapping Party, which consists of two hands against a blue background. They clap three times, and the words "ROUND CLEAR" appear against a red background with confetti. Twelve left hands rapidly appear at the bottom of the screen, each one right in front of another. Cut back to the Lappy.}

STRONG BAD: The next thing to consider when going to a slumber party is the menu.

{Cut to a blue screen with the words "TYPICAL SLUMBER PARTY FARE" at the top and a boy's head at the bottom. As the things appear, the boy gets fatter}

STRONG BAD: {voiceover} Typical slumber party fare includes things like, six-foot party sub {a huge sub appears}, an exorbitant amount of pizza {Fourteen boxes of pizza appear in stacks of eight and six}, and at least enough Skittles {Skittles fall on the right of the screen} and red cream soda {Three mugs of bubbling cream soda appear} to make your spit hurt.

{The boy sticks out his tongue, which is bumpy and rainbow colored. A rainbow drool-drop forms. Cut to a table.}

STRONG BAD: {voiceover} But if you get over there, {Strong Bad falls from the sky} and they're, like, having a meal at a table, and they're serving, like...

{A chicken leg in a pan moves towards Strong Bad}

STRONG BAD: {uncertain voice} Chicken... in a pan? {A plate moves towards Strong Bad and salad appears on it} With some... salad... {A glass of milk pours from the top of the screen} and a... glass {pronounces the "a" slowly} of milk? To drink?

STRONG BAD: {voiceover} You better start running! {Strong Bad runs} Because that family must have some serious health problems.

{Cut back to the computer}

STRONG BAD: {typing} But if you're looking for a guaranteed good time, you need to get invited to an OLDER KID'S slumber party. Anything goes at those things!

{Cut to Coach Z's locker room. Pan from Bubs to Coach Z to the King of Town}

BUBS: My cousin Louis, he's dead. My cousin Harold, he's dead.

COACH Z: {Overlapping} And my back still hurts. And my knees still hurt. And my head still hurts.

THE KING OF TOWN: {Overlapping} Government ain't right! Government ain't right!

{Cut back to Bubs}

BUBS: So my escrow carried over into my lumbago, but then my sciatica started acting up.

{Cut to a wider shot. Strong Bad, with his eyes half closed, is on the left with a sleeping bag on the ground}

STRONG BAD: Uh, can you guys start using some words that were invented after the year nineteen-oh-zero?

{Cut to the King of Town}

THE KING OF TOWN: Come now, young whipper-snapper. My fellows and I were just about to start playing at games of chance. {Holds up some dice and shakes them}

{Cut to Strong Bad, with his eyes completely open}

STRONG BAD: Lemme guess. That doesn't include Bed Axe. {Holds up an axe}

{Cut back to the computer}

STRONG BAD: {typing} Uh, you might wanna put a cap on what you define as "older kids." Other than that, you can always look forward to endlessly ridiculing the kid that got picked up early 'cause he misses his mom. Strong Sad used to do that when we'd have slumber parties in our own basement!

{Cut to a wide shot. Strong Sad is standing nearby with his arm in a sling}

STRONG SAD: That only happened once!

STRONG BAD: {nodding} Uh-huh...

STRONG SAD: {reluctantly} A week...

STRONG BAD: Keep going.

STRONG SAD: {very reluctantly} For ten years...

STRONG BAD: There you go!

{He turns back to the computer}

STRONG BAD: {typing} Oh, and one more thing: If your jim-jams happen to be a, oh, I dunno, long V-neck undershirt with a pair of questionable tighty-whities underneath, maybe don't wear those to the slumber party. Don't ask me how I know this. Please, PLEASE, {hangs head} DON'T ASK ME HOW I KNOW THIS.

STRONG SAD: {offscreen, mocking voice} How do you know that?

STRONG BAD: Oh, that's it! Allow me to relieve you of that located shoulder! Yah!

{Strong Bad jumps off his chair and offscreen. Strong Sad yells. New Paper comes down.}

Easter Eggs

• Click on "questionable" at the end to play Clapping Party. After two rounds, "Blistergeist mode" is unlocked, in which an unpixelated ghost in a hockey mask attacks the hands with a chainsaw, causing equally unpixelated blisters to appear on them. The game stops at this point.
• Click on "slumber party" at the end to watch Homestar's Slumber Party dance.

{Homestar is dressed in a t-shirt with a keyboard and notes on it, his bunny slippers, sleeping cap, and holding a rolled up sleeping bag, while dancing on a blue background}

HOMESTAR RUNNER: Party! Slumber party! Listen to some Sade! At my slumber party!

Fun Facts

Explanations

Coolguy's law

• According to Coolguy's Law, the more popular the host of the slumber party, the less fun you can have at their house.
  • Unless Coolguy's Law is restricted to carbon-based lifeforms, this would mean that family card games are very popular.
• "Rated M for Mature" refers to the ESRB rating system, which uses letters to indicate what age group a video game is best suited for. M is the second highest rating, and is recommended for players seventeen and older.
• Similarly, R-rated movies are those that are restricted from those younger than age seventeen, unless accompanied by a parent or guardian to the theater.
• "Escrow" refers to assets set aside with a third party until some conditions are met for their release; "lumbago" refers to various kinds of lower back pain; "sciatica" is an irritation of the sciatic nerve, or the main nerve running from the base of the spine down each leg.

Trivia

• This email was sent in by wiki user ThomasO.
• The Floppy Disk Container reads "heart of china".
• Homestar's clock reads 10:00.
• The Podstar Runner description for this email reads, "Strong Bad gives some advice for attending a slumber party."
  • This is also the YouTube description for this email, except with "for" replaced with "on".

Remarks

• Coolguy's Law is seen in action in the bet, where Strong Bad stays the night with the King of Town.
• In Homestar Runner's house, the bed is next to the loungeroom, even though Homestar claimed to have stairs in Homestar Presents: Presents.
• When Strong Bad says, "find the load bearer," he is referring to a stud, although in a typical wood-framed house, most vertical studs bear an equal load.
• As Strong Bad raids the "M for Matures" cabinet, the Sega tapes Throat Rip and Saliva Quest are sitting atop it.
• Although Blistergeist is "off-limits" at Homestar's house, Clapping Party apparently has a "Blistergeist" mode.
• The pixels in the hands during Clapping Party are tilted.
• In Clapping Party, the hands can only clap once every few seconds.
• The salad, the milk and its glass all appear from hammerspace.
• The King of Town mentions "government ain't right"; notably, he is the government.
• Not counting neologisms (such as "Coolguy" and "Blistergeist"), Strong Bad himself only uses a handful of words invented after "the year nineteen-oh-zero", several of those being brand names: "email" (1979), "UNO" (1971), "Skip-Bo" (1967), R-rated (1968), "Skittles" (1974), tighty-whities (1985), and v-neck (1900 exactly). "Slumber party" (1940s) and "video games" (1973), though compound terms, may also count. However, none of these words were used around Bubs, Coach Z, and the King of Town.

Goofs

Disconnected II: This Time, It's Homestar's Legs.

• When Strong Bad says "Gary" a second time, his reflection moves more than his head when he says the "G" in Gary.
• When Homestar is dancing in the Easter egg, his legs are occasionally disconnected.

Inside References

• Strong Bad is referred to as Prof. Tor Coolguy in Strong Bad is in Jail Cartoon, hence the name of "Coolguy's Law".
• Strong Bad supposedly attends battle axe lessons every Saturday, as mentioned in the email other days, though "Bed Axe" marks the first time he has actually been seen using one.
• Video games and R-rated movies were previously mentioned in conjunction with a sleepover in the bet.
• Some of the games have blood.
• Blistergeist is a portmanteau of "blister" and "poltergeist".
• The Blistergeist's chainsaw is identical to Strong Mad's chainsaw from bedtime story.
• This is the third email in a row to mention pizza.
• The pizza boxes are from The Pizz, introduced in the previous email, pizza joint, only now labeled "Slumber Party Style" instead of "Neighborhood Style".
  • Homestar's dance and song from his Easter egg is also based on an Easter egg seen in pizza joint, itself based on a TV advertisement for the 1987 Parker Brothers' board game "Pizza Party". The song Homestar sings in the Easter egg is also based on the intro email song from strong badathlon.
• Strong Bad is served chicken in a pan with some salad.
• Strong Bad mentions "questionable tighty-whities".

Real-World References

Blood Bleeder

• Uno and Skip-Bo are card games produced by Mattel.
• "Coolguy's Law" is a parody of Coulomb's law.
• Skittles are a small fruit-flavored candy produced by Mars, Incorporated.
• Blood Bleeder is a parody of Blood. The game boxes also look similar.
• Blistergeist is a parody of Splatterhouse, with the figure on the cover wearing a mask similar to Splatterhouse's protagonist. This in turn was referencing the hockey mask-wearing Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th horror movie series.
• The T-shirt Homestar is wearing during the Easter egg is identical to the one Michael Jackson wears in his music video for "Beat It". This shirt was also seen in Homestar Presents: Presents.
• Sade is a British R&B/soul band. The name is also used by their lead singer independently.

Fast Forward

• "Find the Load Bearer" is mentioned again in the loading screen of Make-o Your Own Stinko.
• The music heard during the explanation of Coolguy's law is used as a recurring theme in Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People. It is also the basis for the instrumental version of the games' main theme, Handle My Style.
• Strong Bad's distaste of serving chicken in a pan is revisited in Fan 'Stumes 2021.

DVD Version

• The Clapping Party Easter egg now plays automatically.
• The DVD version features hidden creators' commentary. To access it, switch the DVD player's audio language selection while watching.

Commentary Transcript

(Commentary by: Matt Chapman, Mike Chapman)

MATT: It's just me this time.

MIKE: That's fine. I, I, I would rather talk to you because I do have something I wanna talk about.

MATT: Yeah? The double deal?

MIKE: No, the term "slumber party", let's talk about.

MATT: Okay.

MIKE: It's a pretty funny term.

MATT: Yeah.

MIKE: Slumber, I mean...

MATT: It sounds about as square as you can get.

MIKE: {laughs} Yeah, exactly.

MATT: {in an affected accent} "Would you like... My— my fellows, would you like to come to my house for slumber?" {Mike laughs} "For to take slumber? To partake of slumber?"

MIKE: Yeah. Ssssleepovers... cause there, when it was just one person, it's— it's just a sleepover.

MATT: Right.

MIKE: And then at some point...

MATT: Man, look at that. Skip-Bo throws some terrible slumber parties. {Mike laughs} {pause} Um...

MIKE: How many people do you think constitute a slumber party? Maybe five?

MATT: Whoa. How many friends you have?

MIKE: What?

MATT: Man, I... It was a slumber party if I could get a kid to come over to the house.

MIKE: But I'm saying that was a sleepover.

MATT: Yeah...

MIKE: When does a sleepover turn into a slumber party?

MATT: Back in those days it was, like, usually for a kid's birthday.

MIKE: Yeah.

MATT: Like it was the one time a mom would tolerate having however many other stupid little kids sleeping in their house.

MIKE: I remember Mrs. Edwards gave me a quarter 'cause I was the first one to fall asleep {Matt laughs} at Scott's birthday party—

MATT: Good job!

MIKE: —and I was totally faking it. Yeah.

MATT: Nice job!

MIKE: Yeah.

MATT: So Homestar does not have any kind of, {Mike laughs} uh... fitted sheet over his mattress. That was based on a mattress that, uh, that we had as kids, right?

MIKE: Yeah. ...Oh, let's talk about these games.

MATT: Yeah, these are some good games. I want to look at Head Chopper 2 again, there's some good severed pixel heads on that one. Oh, Clapping Party.

MIKE: Did we make a playable version of Clapping Party, again?

MATT: Yeah, I think you just click, click through it to clap. It's pretty good, it's pretty good. Watch that kid, Mike, in the lower-left corner.

MIKE: He's gonna have some disgusting rainbow saliva tongue in a minute.

MATT: Yeah he is. I can remember one time at this party, uh, there was a big, giant bowl of Skittles, like at least maybe two of those, of those like, one pound bag of Skittles, or, in it if not more. And me and this kid were over there just eating them by the handful and listening, and like, we had put on ...And Justice for All and there was a strobe light so we were like, uh, like headbanging to some Metallica. {Mike laughs} And I remember...

MIKE: Were you slam dancing, maybe?

MATT: No, we were just headbanging.

MIKE: Just headbanging, okay.

MATT: Standing in place and headbanging and eating Skittles, and I remember Skittle spit coming out of my nose {Mike laughs} because I was, like, headbanging so intensely.

MIKE: Ha! That's pretty disgusting.

MATT: Yeah.

MIKE: I'm sure...

MATT: I bet other kids were probably making out with girls at that party. I was standing by the Skittles table {Mike laughs} headbanging to some Metallica.

MIKE: I'm sure Lars would probably prefer, you know, people be...s— having Skittles saliva coming out of their nose than making out to "...And Justice for All".

MATT: Yeah, maybe.

MIKE: You know, maybe "One". You might make out to "One". {laughs}

MATT: It's a really good song to make out to, I'm sure. "The Unforgiven"?

MIKE: Yeah.

MATT: Or "Unforgiven", whatever that song's called. Uh... "Government ain't right, government ain't right!" {pause} We, uh, we work near, near a barber shop where we hear similar conversations to that one I think, where there's several, some old guys in the barber shop and they're arguing about some, some great subjects. {Mike chuckles} Hey, we, that's that sling that's under the, under the counter in Mom's bathroom!

MIKE: {laughs} Was that, when was that for? When was it for?

MATT: {simultaneously} I think it was Karen broke her elbow.

MIKE: Wow, that was a while ago.

MATT: Was it her elbow or arm? Out playing soccer? How'd she break hers?

MIKE: Did she break hers? She broke her back.

MATT: No, but I'm talking, somebody, maybe...

MIKE: Maybe Julie?

MATT: Julie's no—, it's for Julie's nose? A sling... {quietly} for Julie's nose. {regular volume} Uhh, so we've got some nice pictures of you, Mike, in the ol' V-neck, uh, sleeper shirt.

MIKE: Ah, yeah.

MATT: Giving the double thumbs up on the back porch, back patio in Indiana.

MIKE: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

MATT: That was... bye.

MIKE: Bye.

Fun Facts

• ...And Justice for All is a 1988 Metallica album that includes the song "One". Lars Ulrich is the founding member and drummer of the band. "The Unforgiven" was released on their next album, The Black Album.

External Links

• watch "slumber party"
• watch "slumber party" on YouTube
• watch "slumber party" on the old Flash site
• view the Flash file for "slumber party"
• forum thread re: "slumber party"