what i want

Strong Bad Email #163

watch ← the chair looking old →

"Listen to that moldy oldy in glorious drive-thru stereo."

Strong Bad tells us not only what he wants for Decemberween, but also what he doesn't.

Cast (in order of appearance): Strong Bad, Coach Z (Ornament), Marzipan, Eh! Steve! (Ornament), Strong Sad (Voice only)

Places: Computer Room, Shopping Network Studio

Computer: Lappy 486

Date: Monday, December 11, 2006

Running Time: 3:29

Page Title: Lappy 486

DVD: strongbad_email.exe Disc Six

Transcript

STRONG BAD: {singing} Ding-ding-dong, ding-ding-dong, ding-ding-

subject: decemberween

Dear Strongbad,
What do you want for Decemberween?
your holiday spirit
Talon Jendro
Des Moines, IA

{Strong Bad continues his song with "Dear Strongbad", pauses between "Jen" and "dro", and does not say "Des Moines, Iowa".}

STRONG BAD: {typing} Where'd you get that name? George Lucas? Ta'lon J'en-dr'o from the computery generated planet of Des' Moi-nes'ia. {clears screen} Anyways, everybody knows the kind of stuff I want, Ta'lon. A catapult that launches balls of cobras, chainsaw car, subscription to EGM2, hot step-sister. That email writes itself. It's more important that I establish what I don't want for Decemberween. {types "X-berween"}

{Cut to "Z' ShopChan" TV shopping channel, where Strong Bad and Marzipan are present.}

STRONG BAD: {voiceover} Our first item is a perennial all-star of bad awful Decemberween presents: the ornament.

MARZIPAN: There's no better way to say, "I have no idea what your interests are" than to give someone a present that ceases to be useful the moment it's opened.

STRONG BAD: Yes, there's nothing like opening a gift just in time to put it in a box in the attic for a year. And next Decemberween when you get it back out, guess what? It's still just a cool snowman surfing the internet!

MARZIPAN: Internet is so hot this year.

{A phone rings}

STRONG BAD: Oh, we got a caller. {puts an empty hand next to his head} Go ahead, caller. How many FR114P-dc8's should I put you down for?

STRONG SAD: {voiceover} Strong Bad, did you put wildebeest pheromones in my laundry again?

{wildebeest noises}

STRONG SAD: Auugh!

{dial tone}

STRONG BAD: Another satisfied customer. Next up, we have one of those mechanical dancing musical nobots. The kind that you accidentally activate by getting too close.

DANCIN' STRONG BAD MUSICAL NOBOT: {heavily distorted voice} I'm like come on Fhqwhgads, I said come on Fhqwhgads, Everybody to the limit, The Cheat is to the limit...

{The nobot's music fades out as we cut back to Strong Bad and Marzipan. Strong Bad is holding his hands over his "ears".}

DANCIN' STRONG BAD MUSICAL NOBOT: {continuing softly in background} ...Everybody come on Fhqwhgads...
MARZIPAN: {simultaneously} Listen to that moldy oldy in glorious drive-thru stereo. {A sign reading "Drive-Thru Stereo" appears over her head.}

STRONG BAD: Who can appreciate the song when all you're really hearing {cut back to the nobot} are the plastic gears and motors clanking together in an effort to barely bust some sort of move?

{Cut to a closeup of Marzipan. The nobot now appears in the left pane.}

MARZIPAN: These things just scream "I stopped at the drug store on my way over".

{Cut back to Strong Bad and Marzipan. Strong Bad is staring at the nobot with swirly eyes.}

MARZIPAN: Now, on to our next item. Uhh, Strong Bad?

STRONG BAD: Sorry, I'm completely entrangled by those {cut to extreme closeup of the Nobot} hypnotically swaying hips... {cut back. Strong Bad shakes his head violently} Our last gift items are all about the false notion that just because you made something yourself, it's not a worthless piece of crap.

MARZIPAN: These seashells have office supplies hot-glued to them for absolutely no reason.

STRONG BAD: Yes, and the more globs of hot glue I can see, the quicker I throw it in the trash.

MARZIPAN: This clothespin reindeer ornament is forgettably precious.

{record scratches}

STRONG BAD: Whoa, homemade and an ornament. That thing is an anti-gift. If someone gives you one of those, you actually have to pay them because it's so poor. Uh, probably because they're so poor.

{white noise, cut back to Strong Bad typing on his Lappy}

STRONG BAD: {typing} So Ta'lon, my young apprentice, there's my "Please Great Aunt Whoever, Don't Get Me This Stuff For Decemberween" list. I highly suggest you make your own. But if it doesn't work, don't forget to take advantage of all the temporary help that retailers hire this time of year. Those people will refund ANYTHING! Last year, I returned an omelette to a hardware store for nigh on fifty bucks. Well, Happy Decemberween everybloody!

{Strong Bad leaves and The Paper comes down.}

Easter Eggs

A Stupid Game For Dumb Kids

• Click on the words "balls of cobras" as Strong Bad types them to see a board game entitled "COBRA-PULT!!".
• Click on the words "chainsaw car" as Strong Bad types them to see the blueprints to a chainsaw car.
• At the end of the email, click on the words "Don't Get Me This" to see a Dancin' Homestar Runner Musical Nobot that plays the intro song.

DANCIN' HOMESTAR RUNNER MUSICAL NOBOT: {heavily distorted singing} Everybody! Everybody! Everybody! Everybody!

Fun Facts

Explanations

• Strong Bad types "Decemberween" as "X-berween". X-mas is a common abbreviation of the word Christmas.
  • Another possible reason for the substitution may be that X is the Roman numeral for ten, and the letters replaced by the X are "decem", which is the Latin word for ten.
• Hollandaise is a French lemon-butter sauce.
• A pheromone is a natural chemical produced by an animal that causes a specific response when detected by another animal, normally of the same species.

Trivia

• Prior to the post-Flash site update, this email was listed with the capitalization "what I want" on the Strong Bad Email Menu. It was one of only two titles to contain a word with a normal capital letter, the other formerly being 3 Wishes. (CGNU and butt IQ also contain capital letters, but in those cases they are part of an initialism.)
• The Floppy Disk Container reads "low blow".
• The following is a list of all items seen being sold by Z' ShopChan:

  ZXJ481-78b

  Commemorative Coach Z Ornament

  WRT54G-Sc

  Eh! Steve! Soiled Gold Ornament

  FR114P-dc8

  Cool Snowman Surfing the Internet Ornament

  3TD178-2t2

  Dancin' Strong Bad Musical Nobot

  N2cXL8-42

  Seashells b/w Office Supplies

  Kj78M-Xn45

  31 Kt Clothes Pin Reindeer – "Klibber"

• The Cool Snowman's monitor reads "internet dot com."
• This is the only email that counts as a Decemberween toon.
• The calculator glued to the shell reads "04 04 04", which upside down looks like "ho ho ho".
• This is a rare instance of Marzipan and Strong Bad coexisting peacefully, even doing something together without conflict.

Remarks

• The Dancin' Strong Bad Musical Nobot is said to have Drive-Thru Stereo even though only one speaker was visible.
• The reindeer clothespin is marked as "31 kt". "Kt" stands for Karat, and is used to indicate the purity of gold. Pure gold is 24kt.
• Apparently, Strong Bad got rid of Le Restige from the chair, as he is seemingly on Stooly in this email.
• When Strong Bad announces the numbers/letters for the snowman surfing the internet, he doesn't mention any capital letters, which is usually important for selling items over the phone.
• Strong Bad is holding his hands over his ears, even though he has no visible ears.
• The calculator reading "04 04 04" is actually impossible considering that most calculators do not have space functions. Also, most calculators would not display a leading 0 - so if "040404" was entered into the calculator without a decimal point, it would display "hohoh" when displayed upside down.

Goofs

Ooh, just barely.

• At the end, when Strong Bad gets off the computer, his reflection is outside of the screen for a single frame.

Inside References

• COBRA-PULT!! is made by Boardelectrix.
• The Strong Bad toy plays Everybody to the Limit, and the Homestar toy plays the intro song.
• Strong Bad was previously hypnotized in cartoon.
• The Dancin' Strong Bad Musical Nobot's part number ends in 2t2.
• The seashell and office supply gift has b/w in its title.
• There is a Cakkalate-brand calculator glued to the second seashell.
• The Clothes Pin Reindeer "Klibber" has googly eyes and a green tongue.
• "Entrangled" and "Everybloody" are examples of portmanteaus.
• Everybloody is another reference to blood.
• The "Ding Ding Dong" jingle at the beginning of the email is to the tune of the intro of the "Jingle Bells" song played by Casio Head Strong Bad in Decemberween Sweet Cuppin' Cakes, which is a demo on most Casio keyboards.
• A similar "Ding Dong, Dear Strong Bad" was used to start off the email in japanese cartoon.
• Coach Z was previously shown with an afro and mustache in the emails stand-up and record book.
• This email heavily features ornaments.
• The year 1974 is on the Coach Z ornament.

Real-World References

• This email makes several references to George Lucas and his Star Wars franchise, specifically Episodes 1 through 3 (released between 1999 and 2005):
  • Large portions of Episodes 1 through 3 were completely computer-generated. This is likely why Strong Bad mentions a computer-generated planet when addressing Talon.
  • When Strong Bad calls Talon "Ta'lon J'en-dr'o", he refers to the many aliens in the Star Wars universe whose names contain apostrophes and/or hyphens.
  • Strong Bad calls Talon "my young apprentice", another reference to Star Wars: Darth Sidious often addresses some characters in this way, such as Darth Vader and later Luke Skywalker.
• EGM² was a spin-off magazine of the video game magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly. It was published until 1998 when it became Expert Gamer.
• Two of the part numbers, WRT54G-Sc and FR114P-dc8, refer to popular networking hardware – the Linksys WRT54G and the Netgear FR114P.
• Strong Bad saying that he returned an omelette to a hardware store is likely a reference to an urban legend that a shopper once successfully returned a set of tires to Nordstrom, a department store that has never sold tires.
• This email parodies the general format of home-shopping television networks, such as QVC and the appropriately-named Home Shopping Network. These channels not only list the name of the item for sale, but also the index number of the item.

Fast Forward

• The Coach Z 1974 ornament is later seen in Decemberween Short Shorts.
• Less than a week after the release of what i want, a fan made version of the Eh! Steve! ornament was shown on the Weekly Fanstuff. To account for the speed at which it was created, it was coupled with the caption, "whoa! that was fast!"
• Strong Bad gets a "Chainsaw Car" toy in the email specially marked.

DVD Version

• 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)

MATT: {after Strong Bad's intro} That's what the demo on our little Playtime Keyboard plays. It sounds the beginning of "Jingle Bells".

MIKE: Mmm-hm.

MATT: It's what the... keyboard-head Strong Bad dances to in that one Sweet Cuppin' Cakes...

BOTH: Decemberween—

MIKE: ep—{cuts himself off}

MATT: ...special.

MIKE: {overlapping shortly after Matt begins the above line}... special... episode.

MATT: {trying to stay in sync} ...episode. {speaking normally} Um, George Lucas has a lot of apostrophes in the names {Mike chuckles} of his places and characters, Mike.

MIKE: Yep!

MATT: Yeah—

MIKE: So we wrote—did we write this {Matt begins to say "Yep" but stops}, or, write the bulk of this like the year before...?

MATT: Yeah.

MIKE: ...this one?

MATT: Almost the entire thing. {Mike says "Yeah" underneath; short pause} I think we added the... sh—home shopping aspect of it, I think was—

MIKE: {questioning/thinking hum}

MATT: {mumbling} —a bit or all... No? {mumbling} We don't agree.

MIKE: I had made—I had definitely made those graphics a long time— "Z' ShopChan"?

MATT: {chuckles} Yeah.

MIKE: That was pre-made.

MATT: Oh, well... I think that present there is actually the—{chuckles} is from that old... Sweet Cuppin' Cakes thing we just talked about.

MIKE: Oh yeah. {chuckles}

MATT: It definitely looked... old and kind of crappy.

{Short pause}

MATT: {in reference to the "Eh! Steve! Soiled Gold Ornament"} Oooh! Look at that! Remember someone made one of those like the next week?

MIKE: That's right.

MATT: {overlapping} Got a email from someone that made a... it was a brass Eh! Steve! {brief pause} Internet dot com!

MIKE: My sister-in-law Catherine got me a wooden, uh—uh, carved grizzly bear at a computer when she went to Russia.

MATT: I remember that! And you'd—you'd... shimmy the ball around and made him type?

MIKE: Yeeeah. Something like that. It wasn't an ornament, but it was...

MATT: I think I brought, maybe not you, but I brought somebody that one of those when I went to Russia {Mike begins to laugh hysterically} in high school.

MIKE: Sell 'em at the airport?

MATT: Yeah. {short pause} This is a good outtake from that, remember, where he says, Strong Sad says something about "Montalbán pheromones"?

{Mike chuckles}

MIKE: So, uhhh... Esterby's got a little gorilla that sings the Animal House... theme song?

MATT: Uh-huh.

MIKE: Ummm, and it's just—it's—it really is that bad... as far as...—

MATT: {interrupting} 'Cause you, could like—

MIKE: —sound quality and just hearing these...

MATT: {chuckling} Gears.

MIKE: {chuckling} ...like, the gears that require it to move this... very {chuckling} small stuffed animal around are very loud.

{Matt chuckles and sighs.}

MATT: Well, he's hypnotized by those...

MIKE: You think those, uhhh, eyes, his spiral-y eyes are the same ones when he gets hypnotized at the... eh—

MATT: "Cartoon"?

MIKE: Yeah. It's like one of the first... ten or fifteen emails?

MATT: I bet they are, Mike.

MIKE: It might be...! It didn't look that good...!

MATT: {laughing, reading the first "Seashell b/w Office Supplies"} "To my wife" {Mike chuckles} Can we both— can we both give those to our wives?

MIKE: And they would have no idea what it was a reference to! (laughs}

MATT: {overlapping} Yeah, yeah, of course not! They wouldn't think it was funny and they would have no idea... {Mike chuckles} that it was from one of our cartoons. {when "Clothes Pin Reindeer" appears} Klibber!

MIKE: Our friend David Shackleford claimed that in, uh, when he lived in Florida, growing up, he had neighbors named Klibber and Magroobaloob. {Matt laughs} I saw him a few years ago and I brought that up and he flat-out—he s—he—A, he didn't remember it, and B, he was like "Oh yeah, I was definitely lying." {Matt chuckles} But, like, at the time, he swore on his grave that it, you know, Klibber and Magroobaloob.

MATT: Well?

MIKE: And... Oranjello.

MATT: Yeah. Lemonjello and Oranjello. Grape-flavored jello with fruit floatin' it?

{Mike laughs and sighs; short pause}

MATT: Ummm... {Another short pause} {disappointingly} I don't know.

{Mike chuckles.}

Fun Facts

• Playtime Keyboards were a series of children's musical toys. The "Jingle Bells" demo was common on many toy keyboards in the late 90s and early 00s.
• Animal House is a 1978 comedy film directed by John Landis; its falsetto theme song was performed by Stephen Bishop.
• Strong Bad was hypnotized in cartoon. Despite what Mike says, it was actually the 21st email.
• The Oranjello and Lemonjello story is referenced in winter pool, as is the name "Grape-flavored jello with fruit floating in it".

External Links

• watch "what i want"
• watch "what i want" on the old Flash site
• view the Flash file for "what i want"
• forum thread re: "what i want"