Homestar Runner

Homestar Runner is a Flash-animated Internet cartoon series created by Mike and Matt Chapman, also known as The Brothers Chaps. Its comedy mixes surreal humor, self-parody, and references to 1970s, 1980s and 1990s pop culture, in particular video games, classic television, and popular music.

While the site originally centered on the title character, Homestar Runner, the cartoon series Strong Bad Email quickly became the site's most popular and prominent feature, with Strong Bad becoming a breakout character. Since 2000, the site has grown to encompass a variety of cartoons and web games featuring Homestar, Strong Bad, and dozens of other characters.

At the peak of its popularity, the site was one of the most-visited sites with collections of Flash cartoons on the Internet, spreading via word of mouth.^[2] The site sustains itself through merchandise sales and has never featured advertisements.^[3] The Brothers Chaps have turned down offers to make a television series.^[4]

After a four-year hiatus beginning in 2010, Homestar Runner returned with a new Holiday Toon on April 1, 2014, for April Fools' Day. Afterwards, co-creator Matt Chapman had announced plans to give the site semi-regular updates starting in the fall, due to the positive reception given to the April Fools' Day cartoon.^[5] Since then, more cartoons have been released, usually to celebrate holidays.

History

The cover of The Homestar Runner Enters the Strongest Man in the World Contest.

Development

Homestar Runner was created in Atlanta in 1996 by University of Georgia^[6][7][8] student Mike Chapman and friend Craig Zobel, who wrote the original picture book, The Homestar Runner Enters the Strongest Man in the World Contest while working summer jobs surrounding the 1996 Summer Olympics.^[2][9] The story introduced Homestar Runner, Pom Pom, Strong Bad, and The Cheat, who would eventually become main characters on the site.

Regarding the origin of the name "Homestar Runner", Matt had this to say, from an interview with Kevin Scott:^[10]

"It actually comes from a friend of ours. There was an old local grocery store commercial, and we live in Atlanta, and it advertised the Atlanta Braves. It was like, "the Atlanta Braves hit home runs, and you can hit a home run with savings here!" And so there was this player named Mark Lemke, and they said something like "All star second baseman for the Braves." And our friend knows nothing about sports, and so he would always do his old-timey radio impression of this guy, and not knowing any positions in baseball or whatever, he would just be like, "homestar runner for the Braves." And we were just like, "Homestar Runner? That’s the best thing we’ve ever heard!"

The friend mentioned is James Huggins, a childhood friend of the Chapman brothers while growing up in Dunwoody, Georgia.^[11]

They later used the Super NES video game Mario Paint to create the first cartoon featuring the characters.^[12] By 1999, Mike and his younger brother Matt Chapman, were learning how to use Flash and looking for something on which to practice, finding inspiration in the old children's book.^[10] The site domain was registered on December 6, 1999, and by the start of the year 2000, homestarrunner.com was live. With Mike animating the cartoons, Matt provided the voices of the male characters, while Mike's girlfriend (now wife) Missy Palmer provided the voice of Marzipan.^[2][3]

From May 2000 to February 2001,^[13] the website and cartoons started out with different art styles.^[14] In February 2001, it gained a new look, which has largely remained consistent to the present with minor changes.

The site grew slowly at first, but by mid-2001 it began to take off with the release of the first Strong Bad Email, some kinda robot. With the number of visitors to the site growing, by January 2003 the site had outgrown its original web host, Yahoo!. Merchandise sales paid for all of the costs of running the website as well as living costs of the creators, whose retired parents managed many of the business aspects.^[15]

2009−14 hiatus

Homestar Runner and Strong Bad at W00tstock 5.0. on July 18, 2013.

Since December 2009, updates to the Homestar Runner website have been sparse, initially due to family commitments with a new baby in the Chapman family. In 2010, new cartoons were released only for the April Fools' Day and Decemberween holidays (skipping, for the first time in the site's history, the annual Halloween cartoon). For the first time, no updates were released in 2011.

In September 2011, Matt Chapman stated on his Twitter account that he was now working as a writer and director for the Nickelodeon program Yo Gabba Gabba!. Chapman also announced that Homestar Runner would eventually be updated, but "sporadically and without warning". Since then, Matt has moved on to work as a writer/director on other programs, such as Gravity Falls and The Aquabats! Super Show!.

On February 27, 2012, Matt Chapman posted a screenshot of part of the script for sbemail206 on his Twitter, with the message "Someday, when you least expect it..."^[16] However, he did not give any further details of if or when the website would resume updates.

At the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con, Strong Bad and Homestar appeared (in voice) to introduce a panel regarding the history of W00tstock. The humorous skit began with, "Hello, my name is Strong Bad, and I'm from 2002. Ask your parents." referencing the characters' absence in recent years.^[17]

On April 1, 2014, the Homestarrunner.com homepage featured the first new cartoon since the 2010 hiatus. On July 7, 2014, Matt Chapman confirmed his plans to continue the series.^[18] Since then, the site has featured occasional updates, usually for holidays.^[19]

Characters

While Homestar Runner cartoons typically center on Homestar Runner, Strong Bad, and the other ten main characters, over time the site has grown to feature an expansive cast of supporting characters and alternate variations, such as "Old-Timey" and "20X6" versions of each character.

Cartoons

Current Homestar Runner homepage used as of 2003.

Homestar Runner features several spin-off series from the main "shorts" and "big toons", including the most well known, Strong Bad Email.

Strong Bad Email

Strong Bad Emails (also known as "sbemails") are arguably the most popular and prolific series, featuring Strong Bad answering emails from fans. Since starting in August 2001, the initially brief episodes have grown in length and scope, introducing numerous spin-offs, characters, and inside jokes, such as Homsar, Trogdor, Senor Cardgage, 20X6, the Teen Girl Squad shorts, and Homestar Runner Emails (also known as "hremails"). The format, however, has remained largely unchanged. Each episode typically begins with Strong Bad singing a short song to himself while booting up his computer to check fan emails. Starting a reply, he typically mocks the sender's name, spelling, and grammar, and rarely answers questions directly. While early episodes focused mostly on Strong Bad sitting at the computer with occasional cutaways, over time, the cutaways would become more elaborate, allowing for more complex story lines to develop, growing tangentially from the initial email. Each episode closes with Strong Bad finishing his reply, closing the episode with a link to email Strong Bad appearing via "The Paper", a printer at the top of the screen. In later episodes, it is replaced with the "New Paper". Episodes will often feature extra jokes and sequences as Easter eggs, accessible only by clicking certain objects on the screen during the cartoon.

As of April 1, 2015, 206 sbemails have been released on the website (with another 6 exclusive to DVD releases), separable into distinct eras by Strong Bad's different computers; the Tandy 400, the Compy 386, the Lappy 486, the Compé, and his current computer, the Lappier.

Holiday Specials

Prior to the 2010 hiatus, holiday specials were a regular feature of the site, released to coincide with popular holidays, specifically Halloween and Decemberween (a fictional holiday similar to Christmas also celebrated on December 25). Halloween shorts typically feature the main characters celebrating a traditional aspect of the holiday (such as ghost stories, trick-or-treating or pumpkin carving) in costume, often making obscure pop culture references. Similarly, Decemberween cartoons typically satirise Christmas traditions such as gift-giving and carol-singing. The fact that it takes place on the same day as Christmas has been presented as just a coincidence, having been stated that Decemberween takes place "55 days after Halloween". April Fools' Day features various gags, such as turning the site into a paid subscription service, or turning it upside down.

Other holidays celebrated include New Year's Day, "The Big Game" (around the time of the Super Bowl), St. Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, "Senorial Day" (a parody of Memorial Day featuring the character Senor Cardgage), Flag Day, Independence Day, Labor Day (occasionally referred to as "Labor Dabor"), Thanksgiving and occasionally Easter.

Teen Girl Squad

Teen Girl Squad is a crudely drawn comic strip narrated by Strong Bad, using a falsetto voice. The series was a spin off of Strong Bad Email #53, comic, in which Strong Bad is asked to make a comic strip of a girl and her friends.^[20] The comic features four archetypal teenage girls, "Cheerleader", "So and So", "What's Her Face" and "The Ugly One", and satirises high school life, teen movies, and television. Each episode follows the girls in typical high school situations, often leading to their gruesome deaths. A spinoff of this series is "4 Gregs", which follows four of the squad's nerdy classmates, all named Greg.

Marzipan's Answering Machine

Marzipan's Answering Machine is a series of cartoons with almost no animation. It features messages from the other characters, being played on the answering machine belonging to the character Marzipan. In early episodes, the episode number ended in .0 (for example, Marzipan's Answering Machine Version 5.0), but since Marzipan changed to a new answering machine, the number ends in .2 (for example, Marzipan's Answering Machine Version 15.2). In every episode, Strong Bad prank calls Marzipan, badly pretending to be someone else, such as "Detective Everybody", "Safety Dan", and sometimes other characters. Although the animation is usually just a picture of the answering machine, sometimes there are short animated segments featuring the characters. As of April 1, 2016, there are 17 Marzipan's Answering Machines.

Puppet Stuff

These are live action shorts in which the regular characters are depicted by puppets. These may be skits, or musical performances with They Might Be Giants. Many Puppet Stuff videos feature the characters interacting with children, often related to The Brothers Chaps. One spin-off series, "Biz Cas Fri", depicts Homestar and Strong Bad's interactions from his office cubicle at work. The first Biz Cas Fri video arguably first coined the term Doge.

Alternate Universes

Over time, many alternate versions of the Homestar Runner world and characters would appear, parodying other cartoons and animation styles. Many of these feature in their own cartoons. The many alternate universes would later cross over in some cartoons, such as the 150th Strong Bad Email, alternate universe.

Old-Timey

Old Timey cartoons take place in an old-time setting, with most of the characters being Old-Timey counterparts of the Homestar Runner characters. These cartoons are in black and white with a film grain effect and scratchy audio quality. They parody the distinctive style of animated cartoons during the 1920s and 1930s (à la Steamboat Willie), and can be seen as perhaps deliberately unfunny, to make a slanted joke about such old-style cartoons. The versions of the characters are, for the most part, similar to their standard counterparts. The names are mostly slightly changed (for instance, Homestar Runner becomes The Homestar Runner) but some are completely different; for example, Pom Pom's equivalent is called Fat Dudley and Strong Sad's equivalent is called Sickly Sam.

20X6

Stinkoman 20X6 (abbreviated to 20X6; pronounced "twenty exty-six"), a parody of the Mega Man and EarthBound games' "year 200X", originated from Strong Bad Email #57, japanese cartoon, an email asking Strong Bad what he would look like if he were in a Japanese anime. The main character, Stinkoman, is an anime version of Strong Bad with blue hair, a shiny body and robot boots. He is always looking for a fight, asking various characters he interacts with to engage him in a "challenge" ("Are you asking for a challenge?"). The characters in 20X6 cartoons each have a counterpart in the Homestar Runner universe, and their features are a parody of anime and Japanese video game stereotypes. The game of the same name was heavily based on the Mega Man series, particularly the first 6 levels. Stinkoman's name comes from a conversation Homestar Runner and Strong Bad had while marooned on a desert island. Strong Bad created Stinkoman by applying several anime stereotypes (head shaped like a little bean, big shiny eyes, shiny body, mouth that is tiny when closed and huge when opened, blue hair, and robot boots) to his own appearance.

Cheat Commandos

Cheat Commandos is a parody of G.I. Joe that created a cast of characters that are the same species as The Cheat. Most characters are based on G.I. Joe characters. For example, the character Crackotage is based on Roadblock, but with a voice more like Scatman Crothers, while Reinforcements' generic name and appearance is reminiscent of common grunt soldiers. The enemy of the Commandos is Blue Laser, a direct parody of Cobra, who have their equivalent of Cobra Commander, known as Blue Laser Commander. The cartoon is constantly advertising its products in the cartoons by such methods as referring to the areas they are in as "playsets", a convoy truck as an "action figure storage vehicle", and by ending each cartoon with the phrase "Buy all our playsets and toys!", sung in a patriotic way. It also parodies the G.I. Joe cartoons' use of public service announcements, referring to nonsensical things like "peer-2-teen choice behaviors." Other cartoons feature the character Crack Stuntman, the fictional voice actor for the Cheat Commandos character Gunhaver.

Other media

Music

The Homestar Runner site frequently features songs and videos within their animated shorts or as stand-alone entities. These are primarily sung and performed either by the characters or by fictitious artists serving as parodies of various genres. Real-life musicians They Might Be Giants have also appeared occasionally, performing with a Homestar puppet, or with the characters in the video to their song Experimental Film.

In Strong Bad Email #58, dragon, Strong Bad is asked to draw a dragon, creating “TROGDOR, THE BURNiNATOR,” and performing his heavy metal theme song. Trogdor's popularity saw the character appear on merchandise such as T-shirts, hoodies, and posters, with an extended version of the song appearing on the CD Strong Bad Sings.

In 2002, a faux hair metal band, Limozeen, was introduced as a parody of 1980s hair metal bands like Skid Row, White Lion and Poison; with songs including "Because, It's Midnite" and "Nite Mamas". On March 17, 2008, "Limozeen" (actually the Atlanta indie band Y-O-U along with Matt Chapman on vocals) performed a live show in Atlanta, Georgia,^[21] and again on November 8, 2008, opening for indie pop band Of Montreal.^[22] A college rock band called Sloshy(with the logo stylized in lower case and rotated 180 degrees, with the "o" being a different color, as "ʎɥsoןs") was introduced in 2007. Sloshy features songs in the musical vein of Pavement such as "We Don't Really Even Care About You" and "The B-est of B-Sides". Other fictitious artists include Scandinavian death metal parody Taranchula, rapper Peacey P, with a singing style resembling that of Snoop Dogg, and the self-absorbed R&B artist Tenerence Love.

Web games

Beyond cartoons, Homestar Runner offers a variety of online games. Early games such as the Homestar Soundboard, "Homestar Talker",^[23] and Lite-Brite emulator "Astro-Lite 2600"^[24] are basic web toys featuring the characters, and can now be found on the "Old Games" section of the site. Over time, more recent games have diversified and become more complex, with many being released as products of "Videlectrix", a game company within the world of Homestar Runner and a side project of The Brothers Chaps, spoofing games of the 1980s. Often the games would originate as video games played by the characters in the cartoon, such as Secret Collect, StrongBadZone, and Strong Bad's RhinoFeeder, all parodies of early Atari and arcade games, originating in the Strong Bad Email video games.

Popular games on the site include Stinkoman 20X6, a Mega Man style platform game featuring the characters and world of anime parody 20X6, and TROGDOR! which previously appeared in the Arcade Game short and features the titular dragon, Trogdor the Burninator. A spin-off of TROGDOR!, called Peasant's Quest, is an adventure game featuring Rather Dashing, a young peasant in short pants. After he finds his cottage burned to the ground, he vows to kill the destroyer of his cottage, Trogdor. The game uses a system that is a near-replica of Sierra Entertainment's Adventure Game Interpreter, used in King's Quest, Space Quest and several other early Sierra titles.

The Thy Dungeonman series are parodies of text adventure games originating from Strong Bad Email #94, video games. In each game, your goal is to "get ye flask". Though the game purports to be set in the medieval era, the text is actually rendered in mock Early Modern English, in the style of William Shakespeare. Thy Dungeonman has two sequels: Thy Dungeonman II, which expands on the features of the original game and can only be found on the Videlectrix site, and Thy Dungeonman III which adds basic graphics and can be found on the Homestar Runner site. "Ye Flask" and "Ye can't get ye flask" have become catch-phrases in the Homestar Runner universe, eventually spawning a T-shirt in the Homestar Runner store.

In 2007, the website produced Wii versions of some of the games on the site, for the Wii internet browser. When played on the computer, they use the mouse only.^[25]

Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People

On April 10, 2008, a new episodic game called Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People (abbreviated as SBCG4AP) was announced for the Wii's WiiWare service and Microsoft Windows, developed by Telltale Games in partnership with Videlectrix.^[26] The first episode, Homestar Ruiner, premiered on August 11, 2008 worldwide for Windows on Telltale Game's website and in North America on Nintendo's WiiWare service on August 11, 2008. It was also released in Europe and Australia the following Friday (August 15, 2008). The second episode, Strong Badia the Free, was released on September 15 on the WiiWare service in North America and on the Telltale Games' website, and in the PAL region on October 3. The third episode, Baddest of the Bands, was released on Telltale Games' website and the WiiWare service in North America on October 27, and to the PAL region on November 21. The fourth episode, Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective, was released on Telltale Games' website and WiiWare in North America on November 17, and in the PAL region on December 5. The fifth and final episode, 8-Bit is Enough, was released to North America on December 15 and in the PAL region on January 2, 2009. In 2010, it was decided that Telltale games would release SBCG4AP for the Mac operating system due to a vote on the Telltale Games website.

Poker Night at the Inventory

Strong Bad appears as one of the computer-controlled opponents in Telltale's Poker Night at the Inventory, using the same model from SBCG4AP. Players can unlock in-game card sets and table designs based on Homestar Runner. Additionally, Strong Bad will occasionally bet Dangeresque Too's sunglasses in place of in-game cash; defeating him after doing so will unlock the glasses as an equippable cosmetic item for the Demoman in Team Fortress 2. The game was released for PC and Mac on November 22, 2010.

Impact

Collaborations with other artists

Puppet Homestar singing Apple Juice Blues with They Might Be Giants

The Brothers Chaps have partnered up with rock band They Might Be Giants and supplied animation for a music video of their song "Experimental Film".^[27] The creators of Homestar Runner spent time with the band and wrote songs that have been released on the website as "Puppet Jam", a spin-off of "Puppet Stuff", where Puppet Homestar sings with TMBG.^[28] TMBG also wrote the music for Strong Bad Email #99, different town, and the band wrote and vocalized the intro song of the 200th Strong Bad Email.^[29] Another group, The Skate Party, helped The Brothers Chaps create "The Cheat Theme Song".^[30] The band Y-O-U helped with the Strong Bad Sings and Other Type Hits CD, as well as songs on the strongbad_email.exe DVDs. The Brothers Chaps also employed the services of the a cappella band DaVinci's Notebook to create a theme song for the Old-Timey version of The Cheat, called "Ballad of The Sneak".^[31] Matt Chapman provided guest vocals as Strong Bad on The Aquabats' "Pink Pants!" from their 2011 album, Hi-Five Soup!. Strong Bad's voice also appears on Shellac's "Genuine Lulabelle" off the album "Excellent Italian Greyhound" from 2007.

Discussing how he and his sibling decide which projects to work on, Mike Chapman said, "We learned how to politely say no to things that were going to affect our lives negatively. If it’s going to be fun, if we’re going to enjoy doing it, and if the end project is going to be something we want to have happen, we say yes."^[32]

Reception

In 2003, the site received several million hits a month, and almost a thousand emails a day.^[33] According to Matt Chapman, the site did no advertising, but grew on word of mouth and endorsements. "Certain bands, like fairly popular bands and stuff would link us on their site and, you know we were Shockwave site of the day a couple of times over the years."^[2] Homestar Runner's popularity, coupled with its positive critical response, has led to the website receiving widespread coverage. Homestar Runner has been featured in Wired, National Review, Entertainment Weekly, Total Gamer, G4, and NPR's All Things Considered.^[34]

A review published in National Review characterized the site's humor as having "the innocence of slapstick with sharp satire of American popular culture" — humor that "tends to be cultural, not political."^[35]

The site-generated music has enjoyed surprising popularity, such that two songs, "Trogdor" by the character Strong Bad and "Because, It's Midnite" by Limozeen, have been included in the successful Guitar Hero II and Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s video games, respectively. Their inclusion in the games is reportedly because Harmonix founder Alex Rigopulos is a professed fan of Homestar Runner.^[36]

References

External links

• Official website (Requires Adobe Flash Player)
• Homestar Runner Wiki
• Homestar Runner at the Internet Movie Database