Airdate: Sunday, February 16, 2003
Sender(s): aaron pratt, marion in; Heather; FRANKDOG; Brandon Hicks, Enumclaw WA; Lee Conrad, Edmonton, Alberta
Strong Bad receives a long and irritating string of e-mails asking how he types with boxing gloves on, almost as if the question will never cease plaguing him. Thankfully, this newest email will offer him a solution to his problem.
Lee from Alberta gives Strong Bad the idea to whip up some fake fingers, so that people could stop asking him how he types with boxing gloves on. Strong Bad imagines all the things he could do with fingers; in addition to being able to count on them, he'd be able to wave to people and do the "evil fingers" while listening to his favorite heavy metal bands. He could even include useful tools such as a candle ("Keeps me warm at night!") Alas, Strong Bad discovers a downside to this idea: while he can (somehow) type with boxing gloves, trying to type with his fake fingers on just results in gibberish.
Typing on screen: qwelo jwee, ufs gopod isda treery vuit yuiyyj, un tweanouty U du'p yhij utz quijf reardy owd vera nis. bu6 rt woild b pletyt gool yo be swabl tp do teh ebil flindas.
Strong Bad: Anyways, I don't wanna be around when this shrimp goes bad. Whooh!
(The Paper comes down.)
Tropes:
- Continuity Nod: One of Strong Bad's fingers is a leg from a Strong Badman figure.
- Easter Egg: Strong Sad's apparently dead body can be spotted three times throughout Strong Bad's Imagine Spot - once behind the couch, once in the soapbox, and once stuffed inside a locker.
- Follow the Leader: In-universe, Strong Bad's fake fingers apparently inspire Homestar to make a pair of fake arms.
- Imagine Spot: Most of the e-mail is Strong Bad imagining all the things he could do with his new fingers.
- Literal Metaphor: Homestar gets on an actual soapbox (that reads "ELEVEN SOAPS") to deliver a speech (or at least a sentence).
- Never Heard That One Before: Strong Bad again addresses the fact that people keep asking him how he types with boxing gloves on.
- Orphaned Punchline: One scene shows the tail end of a soapbox speech from Homestar that ends with "...and frankly, I'm worried."
- Orwellian Retcon: The head-banging segment originally just included an instrumental heavy-metal riff; when this riff later inspired the Taranchula song "Moving Very Slowly", the music in this e-mail was eventually replaced by the version with lyrics.
- Shout-Out: The montage of emails asking "How do you type with boxing gloves on?" is done in the style of the cliffhanger recaps from Batman.
