New interview with Mike and Matt - mentions the future of SBEmails

Emily

In honor of WiiWare's first anniversary, the OMG Nintendo blog did an interview with The Brothers Chaps yesterday.

Lots of cool tidbids about the game in there, plus this comment that may answer the question that a lot of you have been asking lately...

OMGN: So I noticed it was during the production of the game that the "last" Strong Bad email hit. Did the game have anything to do with that?

Matt: Nah, 200 was just a nice round number to take a break from it and do other stuff on the website. Not that it starts to get old, but if we never did another one I'd be okay with it. I mean, we did 200. It's like push-ups. If I do that at once, I'm cool if I never do another one.

Weeblerjake

Great interview, bad news. :P

Guy in a Box

Eh, I never really cared for sbemails. Since they've stopped, they can get back to other new stuff on the site.

DarkStar Runner

Matt: I think it would be cool to do a Homestar and Strong Bad game where you switch back-and-forth between the two of them to use different abilities. Sort of a hybrid of the point n' click style. Like, I liked how they got the mini-games in but have that be part of the game instead of just a console you go play. I really like how we did the game so we could get all of our ideas out with just a minor throughline. But if we were going to do another episodic thing, it would maybe be with a bigger story.

Hmmm...interesting...

Snicklin

Guy in a Box wrote: »

Eh, I never really cared for sbemails. Since they've stopped, they can get back to other new stuff on the site.

Are you kidding? SBemails were my favorite!

Holyxion

I'd have to agree with Matt on this one. They totally did great on all those 200 sbemails and that's a good achievement, but now they can branch out to other things(for example those hremails are pretty cool). Though that said, it is good to have a regularly updated feature instead of just the miscellaneous stuff, they just shoudn't focus on it too much.

Guy in a Box

Yeah, maybe at least just have them spaced out and have other cartoons inbetween.

Rather Dashing

This is great news. By the 200th Strong Bad E-mail, the humor was really starting to get formulaic and rely far too much on the in-jokes of the format. The stuff they made immediately after the 200th Sbemail was far more inspired and original.

Their last two toons may not have been "major hits" for me, but thinking back, sbemails were becoming far less "funny" and more "oh, he did that again". If Mike and Matt never did another sbemail again, and they continued to do more original stuff that doesn't rely on the crutch of a set formula for a series, then I'd be happy.

Weeblerjake

Well, I don't need it daily, but a sbemail as a toon every once and a while would be nice.

Strog Bad zawesomeness

I am with DarkStar Runner. Most interesting I would Love to have SB and HR in a team. Like Wallace and Gromit we could play as 2 characters but unlike Wallace and Gromit each character has their wn abilities. Plus think of SB and HR in a team. Twice the comedy and twice the clash of awesome and stupid. That would make the game 4x more fun right there. And think of the competition.

Silent

This is great news. By the 200th Strong Bad E-mail, the humor was really starting to get formulaic and rely far too much on the in-jokes of the format.

Some of us like that. It's average, meaning you get a standard level of awesomeness. Like a sitcom.

This new stuff is hit or miss. Sometimes, it's really grand, othertimes, it's not. I think I want Strong Bad Emails to return, if only because I rather have some sort of consistency rather than all this "change" junk. Remember, too much of a good thing...is a awesome thing. And too much of an awesome thing is...not very good.

Holyxion

I agree with both Silent and Rather Dashing. Like I said, it's good to have balance, by which I mean that it is good to have some reliable awesomeness at an average level, but it's also good for them as artists to have varied work.

Rather Dashing

The Sbemails are fine if you LIKE humor based on a formula and in-jokes rather than characters or situations, but I simply don't see how the format can contribute positively to the humor at this point. How many times can making fun of grammatical errors and changing the meaning of state abbreviations before getting to the actual content stay humorous? Why do we need the same animation of Strong Bad's head bobbing in front of a computer screen every week before we get to new animations?

What does the format GIVE us, more than a regular toon does, outside of a lot of "more of the same"?

Silent

Well, the letter that Strong Bad choose can lead to the establishment of inside jokes.
---Kerrek, sender of the email in "interview", monoster that guest-starred in Peasent's Quest
---Stiny, sender of the email in "superhero name", the side-kick of Strong Badman in The Total Adventures of Strong Badman
---Deutschman (corruption of the sender's name, Harry Earlenmacherg from the German city of Düsseldorf) in "haircut", Side Character in Total Adventures of Strong Badman
---Various Other Minor Strong Badman Comics Making Fun of The Emails
---Gunk Iller, sender of the email in "webcomic", new Cheat Commandos figure
---Fhqwhgads, sender of the email in "i love you", mysterious in-joke of doom
---Wilbur, sender of the email in "Videro Games", video game programmer
---West Islip, city of the sender of the email of "old comic", British New Wave Band
---Homsar, typo of of Homestar in the email of "homsar", main character

They also provide new ideas for cartoons that the Brother Chaps can use, possibly. For example, the email "geddup noise" inspired, well, the creation of Chairscoot.

I say the Sbemails gain some popularity due to the illusion that the viewer can be able to interact with Strong Bad, and thus affect the course of the sbemail. It is an illusion, of course, since the Brother Chaps get to choose what sbemails to show and make fun of.