Evwyybody, listen up: Homestar Runner was updated with a brand new April Fool’s Day “Marzipan’s Answering Machine” cartoon, the first time she checked her messages in over seven years.
The video starts with Strong Bad, Strong Mad, and the Cheat preparing “the best April Fool’s Day prank call ever,” one that may have been a little light on the science, since it called for a battleaxe and cans of Cheez-Wiz to physically go through the phone lines. (“Oooh, fiber optics! Makes sense, makes sense.”)
Unfortunately for them, that was the least of their problems, as Marzipan’s mailbox was full. How does that happen? (And what kind of 21st century monsters even leave voicemails anymore?) Well, when Marzipan hasn’t checked her messages since before the real-life Captain Phillips was taken by pirates, there tends to be a backlog. That’s right, while Homestar Runner has had sporadic updates over the last few years, the last “Marzipan’s Answering Machine” cartoon went up on March 2nd, 2009.
So with so many years worth of material, what was waiting on that machine? A lot. Almost thirty minutes of messages of all kinds. Now because I’ve been known to be just a wee bit of a fan of the Brothers Chaps website, I just documented every single message, all forty of them. Now this might be a little long, but I think you’ll find it’s totally worth it.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: No. No it wasn’t. We encourage you to actually listen to the entire thing yourself. It’s great, but Mikey’s recap was 6,000 words and took three hours to read.]
Well then.
Fine. Can I at least do my top 5 favorite bits from it?
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Yes, but keep it short.]
Holy crap. Okay. Here we go.
5: The running joke about Coach Z being in prison, which found him in the “hoosegow” for unexplained reasons, being defended by an uneasy Bubs, who was having pangs of “this is a really terrible idea” and pangs of “he’s totally guilty” and pangs of he “shouldn’t be a lawyer.” Sadly, because Marzipan didn’t check her machine, she never knew to go find the folder of “Exonerating Evidence” that would have saved Coach Z.
4: Strong Bad’s prank calls, the voicemail staple. Special nod to the one that fell apart because he and Strong Sad started arguing over it whether it sounded stupid for the good news of a test result to be “negative” instead of “positive,” and also the message where he said he was “the new girl character in town,” Sharkdee.
3. Strong Bad’s awful, awful follow-up song celebrating the 10th anniversary of the release of “Everybody to the Limit,” plus the robot’s follow-up call begging her not to endorse it. (Honorable mention: Sloshy’s “Phoning This One In” song.)
2. The Poopsmith calling, with the most normal of voices, sad over his choice to dedicate his life to poop and a vow of silence. If you didn’t think a character, who is known for silently being covered in poop all the time, could make you super bummed out, well know how wrong you were, because when he told Marzipan to call him back or he’d just go back to not talking you were devastated. Damn Poopsmith.
1. Homestar f****** Runner. Still, always, forever, the GOAT. His calls about fads that definitely did not end up being etched in history were the funniest. He’s the funniest and I need him back in my life on a much more consistent basis. (Oh, and I legitimately had no idea what the OUYA was, but I too thought Linsanity would have more of a shelf life.)
Some folks think that this is a goodbye, maybe because of the ending montage of every single character calling Marzipan, but I don’t think so. I just think it was long overdue, hence the epic nature of the longest “Answering Machine” cartoon ever. Besides, they wouldn’t go out on Marzipan pranking Strong Bad.
What was your favorite bit from it? Tell us in the comments below you guys, sewiously.
Sewiously.
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HT: slate.com
Image: Homestar
