Zackarotto wrote:
I've sent in 2 emails. Looking back at them, I think they were pretty stupid. I now have a better idea of what they look for. Reading interviews with the Chaps helped a lot.
Some of my possible mistakes: I once asked, what became of that dinosaur egg that Strong Sad found under the couch in email #54? Does he now have a pet dinosaur? Does it look like him? Blah blah blah. It got too long. A simple question would have been best. But in the case of an obscure reference to an older email like that, just asking "What happened to the dinosaur egg?" would confuse many viewers and possibly the Chaps themselves. Can't work.
Potential is a good thing to have. You can only get so far on a dinosaur anyway. He designs an appearance, has it do something, and maybe it'll show up again as a cameo later. They already have Trogdor to use for that. Or Sterrance.
A good example is "extra plug". The question is unique, and leaves a lot of potential. The email is just well-written overall. It had me thinking, "I never thought about his outlet before... why didn't I think of that?" Well, that's mostly because it was the next email made after my question... but it's still a good one.
I'll bet that 99% of the emails that Strong Bad receives can be thrown out on these grounds alone. Keep it short, concise, and make sure that they can do something funny with your email (But of course, the humor comes from them, your idea just gets them started). Make life easier for the Chaps by keeping garbage emails to yourself.
Of course, my emails weren't answered. I can't expect you to take my words like the bible if they haven't given me any results. Just make sure to think about it.
Definitely consider what they said in an interview. Sometimes they just get an idea on their own, do a search through the billion emails in their inbox, and pick the one that matches their idea. Then there are some emails that they keep for a year because they know they can do something with it eventually. You never know what will happen.
On a boring side note, I did email the Chaps themselves once, asking about Thy Dungeonman. I got a reply pretty shortly... a short explanation and a link to the Videlectrix site. I had no idea that there was a Videlectix site before then. The fun thing about this is that Gmail has the Chaps on my contact list now, with a link to the list of our conversations. For a minute, my brother thought I had some real contact with them... haha.
too long clanky too long!! lol just kidding..i just wanted to say that.. man, you should be a journalist or something.