ODD CREATURES
Tapioca's suppressed laughter was getting to the point where she sounded like a malfunctioning washing machine. Strong Mad put his massive hand over her mouth, even though he too was threatening to burst at the seams. Both were behind the couch, spying on Strong Bad as he was watching a tape of himself.
"You're watching Truly Wicked Awesome TV! All Strong Bad, all the time! Except for sometimes The Cheat. And some other people. But mostly me. And now, the greatest thing you ever seen, an unspeakable feat of bravado, courage, machismo and awesomeness, the likes of which you will never see again…"
A flicker of static, and the entire screen filled with the horrifying sight of Strong Mad dressed as Tapioca.
"HI! I'M TAPIOKRA!" he screeched in an obnoxious falsetto.
Behind the couch, Strong Mad and Tapioca erupted into the laughter they'd been holding back so long, nearly drowning out Strong Bad's cry of "WHAT?" (He was so shocked and outraged he forgot to append "the crap" at the end.) He leapt behind the couch and tried to tackle the two, but Strong Mad grabbed him by the head and effortlessly flung him across the room. He and Tapioca then left, leaving Strong Bad grumbling and cursing on the floor.
***********
Wait. Maybe instead of starting stories at the end, we should start them at the beginning. Now there's an idea.
"You know what, The Cheat?" Strong Bad asked The Cheat one lazy Saturday afternoon. "I think I'm gonna do something…humanitarian-like."
The Cheat nearly spat out his purple drink. "Wir RIR?" The furry yellow creature fought a snicker.
"No, no, let me finish. I'm thinking this is too much awesomeness to keep just to this one-horse flea dump. I'm going to create a TV show and spread it to all the world! No, wait! Why should I have just one puny TV show when I could have…an ENTIRE CABLE NETWORK?" Strong Bad seemed to salivate at the very thought of it. "I'll call it Strong Bad TV. No, that's dumb and unoriginal. I'll call it…Truly Wicked Awesome TV. Yes. Perfect. For short we can call it – well, 'TWA TV' has an unfortunate ring to it. But if you mash all five letters together, as in TWATV, you're going to get some idiot who says it, like, 'twat-vuh'. So for short we can call it Strong Bad TV."
"Wir wir rir rir wir."
"Shaddup. Why don't you go steal Strong Sad's digital video camera from his room."
So The Cheat entered Strong Sad's room and stole the camera easily, because Strong Sad was engrossed in a computer game and enduring a lecture from Marzipan about how he played too many computer games.
"Fantasy Fraulein again? It's not even that good a game," Marzipan argued.
"Sure it is. It's got good…graphics…" Strong Sad answered lamely, obviously referring to the game's well-proportioned heroine.
"Oh, come on, Strong Sad. Sara Kraut is just a bunch of pixels. You're real."
"Don't remind me." He sighed. "I wish I were a bunch of pixels."
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but you may have reached a new low."
"I'm sad that I'm sad."
"Never mind."
Strong Sad got up from his chair. "I'll go see if there's anything good on TV."
Meanwhile, The Cheat was filming Strong Bad about to get punched repeatedly by Strong Mad. "Cut!" yelled Strong Bad. "Stunt double!" The three went back inside to find Strong Sad, who was watching a special on the Discovery Channel.
"While it's obvious from the way she is clothed that the wild woman of Dortugal was once a part of civilization, it's equally obvious that she no longer is, and most likely never could be again," the narrator stated, as images of the wild woman depicted her battling wild beasts and, once victorious, eating their carcasses. "Instead of taking her back to civilization to be studied, as most researchers have made the mistake of doing with other feral humans, we have allowed her to remain in her natural habitat, undisturbed, in the life her mind and body have so painstakingly adapted to." The accompanying footage showed her running from a cheetah and the cheetah rapidly gaining on her, and when it looked like all was lost, she did sort of a flip in the air, stuffing her feet in her mouth and contorting her frame into a perfectly round circle, and rolling away to safety. "To think, we too may be capable of such things."
"I don't care what anyone says, no one was ever meant to do that," was Strong Bad's commentary. "Come on, Dumb Sad. We need a stunt double."
"Huzzah," groaned Strong Sad, shuffling to his feet.
"Okay, Strong Mad, we need to get filming. Strong Mad?"
But the big behemoth was completely fixated on the TV, which now depicted the jungle girl bashing an attacking tiger's head with a rock. As Strong Bad came closer to remind his brother again, he noticed something.
Strong Mad had an ear-to-ear grin on his face and a faraway look in his eyes.
"Aww, my brother's got a TV girlfriend."
With his eyes still locked to the TV and the ridiculous grin still plastered on his face, Strong Mad punched Strong Bad away and continued to stare. Just then Marzipan came back in with Homestar in tow.
"Aw, do I weally have to go? Ciwcus people are scawy!"
"Homestar, this carnival isn't like that…" Marzipan began, but stopped cold when she saw what was on TV.
"Tapioca! That's my cousin!"
"It can't be. She has legs," Homestar said.
Marzipan ignored him. "She went to the Dortuguese jungle to study something and that was the last anyone ever heard of her. She was supposed to be back a year ago. We have to find her and bring her home!"
"Uh, okay. Anything's bettow than that fweaky ciwcus."
Strong Bad thought to himself, "Now this would make some truly wicked awesome TV!" so he said, "Count me in!"
"Wir rir!" The Cheat added.
"Not like I have anything better going on," was Strong Sad's answer.
Strong Mad was now hugging the TV.
"Okay, big guy, here are your choices, you can stay home and watch Tapioca on TV or you can come with us and meet her in person," Strong Bad offered. As smart as he wasn't, Strong Mad still knew the real deal was better than the TV version and left the TV to the hands of gravity and the floor when he dropped it and raced to catch up with the others.