Strength? High. Badness? Very high!

July 5, 2024 9:03 PM

Back in 2012 there existed, on the dooméd Hub network, a kids show too awesome for this world: The Aquabats Super Show (Season 1 and Season 2, both on Youtube), starring the superhero-themed ska band fighting a variety of weird creatures, ranging from ManAnt to the Krampus. One sign of its unappreciated greatness was the fact that some episodes were written and/or directed by Matt Chapman, half of The Brothers Chaps who created and still sometimes make more of Homestar Runner. One episode of the show was CobraMan (22 minutes), where they fought a 🐍snake person with a 🐍snake's head and 🐍snakes for arms that shot 🐍snakes from them. However, CobraMan had a manager, that helped him along in his nefarious career, called "Carl." Thing about Carl... he wore a familiar wresting mask, and spoke in a veeeeeery familiar voice. He doesn't wear boxing gloves though....
posted by JHarris (14 comments total)

OMG so realistic!
posted by aubilenon at 9:31 PM on July 5

Here is the episode cued up to where "Carl" first appears.
posted by JHarris at 10:22 PM on July 5

Just opens to the beginning of the video
posted by stevil at 10:40 PM on July 5

Argh, it's been "that" kind of night.... here it is.
posted by JHarris at 11:10 PM on July 5

Ok who plays Carl? I didn't recognise his voice at all?
posted by razorian at 11:51 PM on July 5

It’s Matt Chapman who voices Strong Bad from a very old but still kinda going web toon site Homestarrunner.net.com. Carl also wears a luchador mask similar to Strong Bad’s. This is not a coincidence.
posted by aubilenon at 12:10 AM on July 6 [4 favorites]

Ahh that makes sense. Never heard of him or the site before. :)
posted by razorian at 12:41 AM on July 6

Hopefully when Carl comes back, we get to meet his brothers: Strong Carl and Strong Carl.
posted by dannyboybell at 4:41 AM on July 6 [2 favorites]

Ahh that makes sense. Never heard of him or the site before. :)

Homestar Runner is a jewel of the early web. There was a whole lot of edgy humor in the early 2000s that hasn't aged well, but HR has always been wholesome yet still really funny. The site can't be viewed exactly as it was originally because of Adobe's allowing of Flash to decay as a tool for producing wen content, but the browser extension Ruffle restores most of its functionality (and is actually integrated with the site now), and most of the cartoons are now on Youtube anyway.

How crazy is it, by the way, that we were all worried that Flash would consume the whole web? So many websites turned their HTML pages into shells for Flash applets, and a whole lot of web designers switched out their HTML skillset for Flash. And then Adobe destroyed it! And now Flash is GONE as a web development system. It truly is a parable for the internet: don't rely on proprietary technology! When the company gets bored with it or doesn't want to fix its security holes or doesn't think it's growing fast enough, they'll just toss it into the garbage, and anyone who relies on it be damned. It's one of the reasons MeFi is contemplating a site rewrite now!
posted by JHarris at 8:24 AM on July 6 [3 favorites]

I said consummate Vs!
posted by Gorgik at 1:25 PM on July 6 [1 favorite]

I have to be a pedant about the post; "dooméd" should be "doomèd".
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:33 PM on July 7 [3 favorites]

It's well in the spirit of a post that purposely put an unnecessary accent mark on the e in "doomed" to note that it's going the wrong direction.
posted by JHarris at 4:18 PM on July 7

A grave mistake!
posted by aubilenon at 10:54 PM on July 7 [5 favorites]

i see what you did there, aubilenon!
posted by adrienneleigh at 11:24 PM on July 7 [1 favorite]