April 20, 2001
3:08 PM   Subscribe

Do you have stairs in your house? We are here to protect you from The Terrible Secret of Space. Hilarious! And here's the ICQ prank on which it's based...
posted by cfj (21 comments total)
 
He pushed the bread into my mouth.
posted by Pokeyman at 3:33 PM on April 20, 2001


Eh. I didn't laugh. I also grew a fresh beard waiting for it to load.
posted by Skot at 3:36 PM on April 20, 2001


That wasn't as wackily funny as "All Your Base" but I did enjoy it. It almost made sense.
posted by kindall at 3:59 PM on April 20, 2001


Watching it again, I was more impressed with the character design of the robots than anything else. They sure are pretty expressive considering their heads are just blocks with no faces.
posted by kindall at 4:38 PM on April 20, 2001


two stars.
posted by ParisParamus at 5:04 PM on April 20, 2001


crashed my browser. (IE5/PC)
posted by acridrabbit at 6:09 PM on April 20, 2001


brilliant! If you can't view it, get a different computer or a higher bandwidth connection...that's not asking too much is it?
posted by milnak at 6:40 PM on April 20, 2001


two and a half stars

It's neither as catchy or as zany as AYBABTU, but still interesting.
posted by briank at 6:49 PM on April 20, 2001


It was interesting at first, but kinda reminded me of a Saturday Night Live skit that didn't know when to stop the joke and leave on a high note - it just seemed to keep going and going. The subtle drawings and graphics of the robots WERE well done, however.
posted by thunder at 7:00 PM on April 20, 2001


Dammit, people. Not everything is directly comparable to AYB. Whereas AYB had relatively little point as a whole, there is actually some plot (albeit minimal) to The Terrible Secret of Space, and the animation is fantastic.

I suppose, next, you'll be telling me that something conclave obscurum is “kinda neat, but it needs more doctored photos that read ‘ALL YOUR BASE’.”

Now, please go stand by the stairs…
posted by Danelope at 9:20 PM on April 20, 2001


...OK, that last remark was pretty funny.
posted by aramaic at 9:45 PM on April 20, 2001


The problem is timing. The song was mildly amusing but there's no sense of comic timing. I mean dammit if you're gonna try to be funny, at least be aware of The Rule of The Three: The Setup, The Repeater, and The Punch. The humor in this song has no form or substance. The rhythm's completely off. One should at least know how to write a joke. Or rather, how to be funny on cue. Otherwise they're just being funny by accident and no one wants that. This disturbing "all your base" trend is frustrating. Lenny Bruce never needed a silly catch-phrase like "all your base belong to us" or "we are here to protect you from the terrible secret of space" or "everyone here tonight will receive a delicious canned smoked ham!" or "cowabunga dude."

...okay. "Thank you masked man" was technically a catch-phrase but it was a catch-phrase making fun of catch-phrases. So there.
posted by ZachsMind at 11:21 PM on April 20, 2001


Using images of dead people for entertainment is for some reason always a turn-off for me...
posted by kerplunk at 7:03 AM on April 21, 2001


I hope those who didnt think it was funny read the icq prank it was based off of first =)
posted by Satapher at 8:49 AM on April 21, 2001


whew. tough room.

satapher: i doubt it.
posted by cfj at 10:23 AM on April 21, 2001


I dunno. The computerized voice, the repetitive phrasing, the quickly spliced images, the obnoxious techno beat... If there wasn't AYB, I doubt this would exist (at least in the same fashion).
posted by waxpancake at 11:46 AM on April 21, 2001


Well, the music is by the same guys who did the "All Your Base" music, and it shows. However, the animation part was done by another guy and it's a cut above the music. The music would be quickly forgotten without the animation.
posted by kindall at 12:12 PM on April 21, 2001


bah

its not a competition with AYB...

its a funny addition to a rather old icq prank

lets just pretend AYB never happened (one could only wish)

read the prank... it wasnt as funny the second time, but when i first read it - i was -

incapacitated

but it was one of *those* days
posted by Satapher at 1:57 PM on April 21, 2001


I don't understand why the ICQ session this is based on was called a "prank." Who exactly was it a prank on? Are we supposed to believe that the second guy actually believed Lowtax had been pushed down the stairs by a robot he had made? Um, sure... I buy that for all of about a millisecond.

Still, PAK CHOOIE UNF is a lovely tagline.
posted by kindall at 10:59 PM on April 22, 2001


maybe this is funny to people of another culture.
posted by ParisParamus at 5:19 AM on April 23, 2001


kindall, there's some degree of an in-joke to Lowtax's ICQ pranks.

Some of them are really quite good, he occasionally manages to completely pull the wool over someone's eyes, but usually not by talking about robots and stair-pushing. I think this particular prank is more left field humour (Laugh at the bizarre things Lowtax says!) than an actual prank. Done specifically for his audience, I believe.
posted by cCranium at 6:07 AM on April 23, 2001


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