Strong Sad sits on the couch in the basement, moleskin journal in one hand, ballpoint pen in the other, brow furrowed in concentration. The journal is opened to a page that says "Greatest Fan?" at the top. Beneath that, on the left-hand side, is a "1)," followed by a blank. Indeed, the entire rest of the page is blank.
Strong Sad taps the end of the pen against the surface of the page, then absently holds it about an inch from his face like a microphone. It is about this time that Strong Bad enters the room, with Strong Mad and the Cheat in tow.
"Well, if it isn't the Bard of Lard," says Strong Bad, "working on another poem about how everything sucks. What is it this time, o Bard of Lard? 'Reflections on My Profound Fatness?'"
"Um, nooo," says Strong Sad. "I'll have you know" –and he points the pen at his be-wrestlemasked brother– "that I am about to go searching for my greatest fan."
"Fan? A fan?" asks Strong Bad, stifling a laugh. "You'd better get a head start, then. 'Cause it's gonna take you, like, years to find your greatest fan. Maybe even a fortyear."
"You know, that's not even an insult," Strong Sad explains. "Given that everyone in the world only has one greatest fan among all the people of the world, it's going to take anyone a long time to find his or her greatest fan. In fact, if I took a longer time to find my greatest fan, it would probably be because I had a lot of fans to sort through in order to find the greatest one!"
The Cheat says something in the Cheat.
"Hey, whose side are you on, anyway?" asks Strong Bad.
The Cheat says something similar to his first remark, and a little more emphatic.
"I don't care if he's got a good point!" Strong Bad exclaims. He turns his attention to the round grey mound of brother on the sofa. "Listen, as much as I'd love to stand here and make fun of you, we need the couch. So we need you to get up off the couch, so we can move the couch to where we need it."
"Nooo," replies Strong Sad. "I was here first. What do you need the couch for, anyway?"
"We were gonna," says Strong Bad casually, putting his chin (such as it is) in his hands (such as they are). "Um. Play couchball."
"Oh? And just how do you play couchball?"
"Well, first you need a couch," Strong Bad says. "Strong Mad?"
"BWAH," says Strong Mad, sounding like he has a mouthful of laundry. He lifts the sofa up by one end, dumping Strong Sad off onto the floor. Strong Sad's body bounces onto the carpet, making a noise like a dodgeball. Strong Mad hoists the couch over his head.
"Then," says Strong Bad, "you take it out to the athletic field. So long, loser."
As the trio of troublemakers ascends the stairs with the couch, Strong Sad rolls over and brings himself up onto all fours. "That is so a sport you just made up!" he calls after them, rubbing his head.
"Man," he says, his voice full of sorrow and frustration, "now I don't even have a couch to think on." He sits down on the floor, facing the TV, and tries to think of who could possibly be his greatest fan.
He has already considered the usual suspects of Free Country USA, and out of all of them, the only remotely possible fan that occurred to him was Homsar. His pen hovered uncertainly over the page as he considered whether or not to commit the idea to ink, whether Homsar's name was even worth writing down as a potentially greatest fan. He imagined searching for Homsar and asking him exactly how much of a fan he was of Strong Sad. He imagined Homsar's reply: "AaaaAAaa, a bushel and a peck."
As you already know, the list is still blank. You can do the math.
Strong Sad sighs. "Who could be my greatest fan? This is really frustrating!" He thinks and thinks, sitting on the basement floor. And then it comes to him:
Jen C., from Millbrae, CA.
Jen C., the emailer who once asked why Strong Bad is so mean to the white-faced gray-bodied guy all the time. Jen C., possibly Strong Sad's greatest fan; possibly Strong Sad's only fan.
It's a long way out from Free Country to Millbrae. It's certainly a long way by car, and it's an even longer way by rollerblade. It's a longer way still by llama-pulled cart.
But by airplane, it's really not such a long way out at all.
Strong Sad leans back in his seat. He looks off to the side and watches the clouds pass by.
He gives the reins a tug, coming to a fork in the dusty dirt road, and the llama stops in its tracks.
Strong Sad takes this time to pull out his travel atlas. "Let's see," he says. "Hmm…" His eyes trace paths across maps, and he flips through pages to find the route to his destination. "Okay, left track." He gives another tug on the reins, and the llama turns down the left path.
Finally, after much effort and many many weeks of travel, Strong Sad arrives at his destination. He pulls the llama cart up to a house, where a girl is watering flowers along the front walk. She looks up and sees the llama cart.
"It's the guy with the big white face and the gray body!" she exclaims, putting down her watering can and running to meet him, as Strong Sad hangs his legs over the edge of the cart and puts his soolnds on the ground.
"Wow," she says, "it's really you!"
Strong Sad scratches his head. "Yeah, I guess so."
"I'm your greatest fan!" she says.
"You really are? You really are?" Strong Sad's eyes are as wide as they get. Well, as wide as they get without the aid of several heaping spoonfuls of Sanka. "I came all this way in search of my greatest fan, and I was hoping it was you!" He explains. "You see, I've been following this three-step program to be more liked, and the third step was to find my greatest fan. And I remembered that email you sent about how Strong Bad is always mean to me, and he should do something nice to me for a change…and I knew that if I had any fans at all, you must be it!"
"Wow," says Jen C. "That's really amazing. All the way out from Free Country!" And there is a long pause, and Strong Sad looks down at his soolnds.
"So, uh," he says, "what do we do now?"
Step 3: Search for your Greatest Fan