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{{Multiplemergefrom|[[World of Homestar Runner]], [[Bubs]], [[Coach Z]], [[Homsar]], [[The King of Town]], [[Marzipan (Homestar Runner)]], [[Pom Pom (Homestar Runner)]], [[Homestar Runner (character)]], [[Strong Bad]], [[Strong Mad]], [[Strong Sad]], [[The Cheat (Homestar Runner)]], [[The Poopsmith]], and [[Trogdor]]|date=August 2007}}
:''This article is about the Internet cartoon series. For the character and series' namesake, see [[Homestar Runner (character)]]''.
{{Internet cartoon|
{{Internet cartoon|
image= [[Image:Homestar Runner logo.png|200px]] <br /> <small>The Homestar Runner logo|
image= [[Image:Homestar Runner logo.png|200px]] <br /> <small>The Homestar Runner logo|

Revision as of 03:56, 12 August 2007

Homestar Runner
File:Homestar Runner logo.png
The Homestar Runner logo
Written byThe Brothers Chaps
Production
AnimatorThe Brothers Chaps

Homestar Runner is a Flash animated Internet cartoon. It mixes surreal humor with references to 1980s and 1990s pop culture, notably video games, classic television and popular music. Although originally conceived as a book written for children, the site has gravitated towards young adults. Most of the site's traffic comes from the United States;[1] events in the cartoon itself usually takes place in Free Country, USA.

The cartoons are nominally centered on Homestar Runner. However, the series entitled Strong Bad Email, in which the antagonist (Strong Bad) answers email from viewers, is the most popular and prominent feature of the site. While Homestar and Strong Bad are certainly the main characters, the site has grown to encompass dozens of other characters over the years.

The site is one of the most popular Flash cartoons on the Internet and is notable for its refusal to sell advertising space (the creators pay for everything through merchandise sales, which includes a line of T-shirts).[2] It grew in popularity largely through word of mouth.

History

File:Earlyhomestarrunner.PNG
"Old-Timey" Homestar Runner in early sketch form.

Homestar Runner was brought to life in Atlanta in 1996 by two University of Georgia[3][4][5] students, Mike Chapman and Craig Zobel, who were working summer jobs surrounding the 1996 Summer Olympics.[6] On a day off, they visited a bookstore where they found that the state of children's books was dismal. Intending to parody this, they wrote the original story The Homestar Runner Enters the Strongest Man in the World Contest.[7] This story featured Homestar Runner, Pom Pom, Strong Bad, The Cheat, and a few characters that are rarely seen in recent cartoons: The Robot, Mr. Bland, Señor, and the Grape Fairie. This hand-drawn book was the only incarnation of the characters for several years.

They later used Mario Paint, a Super Nintendo video game, to create the first cartoon of the series.[8] By 1999, Mike and his younger brother Matt Chapman (who typically call themselves The Brothers Chaps) were learning Flash and looking for something to practice on.[9] Digging out the old children's book provided a solution. The site domain was registered on December 6, 1999, and around the start of the year 2000, homestarrunner.com was live. Matt provided the voices of the male characters, while Missy Palmer provided Marzipan's voice.[2][6]

Regarding the origin of the name "Homestar Runner", Matt had this to say, from an interview with Kevin Scott:[9]

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 site grew slowly at first, but by mid-2001 it began to take off with the first Strong Bad Email. The number of visitors to the site grew, and by March 2003 the site had outgrown its original web host, Yahoo!. Merchandise sales pay 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.[10] Today, the site uses the money obtained from sold merchandise to keep the site ad-free.

On January 30, 2006, Podstar Runner was launched, allowing people to download select Strong Bad Emails and other toon episodes to a video-enabled iPod. Once made available through iTunes' podcast directory, it very quickly took the #1 slot on Apple's "Most Popular" podcast list.

Collaborations with artists

File:Puppet Jam 6.JPG
Homestar Runner singing "Apple Juice Blues" with They Might Be Giants

The Brothers Chaps on occasion have partnered up with the rock band They Might Be Giants. The Brothers Chaps supplied animation for a music video of their song "Experimental Film."[11] The creators of Homestar Runner spent a day with the band, and those songs have found their way onto the website in the form of "Puppet Jam", a subset of "Puppet Stuff", where Puppet Homestar rocks out with TMBG.[12] TMBG also wrote the music for Strong Bad Email #99, "Different Town."[13] Another group, The Skate Party, helped The Brothers Chaps create "The Cheat Theme Song."[14] As well, a band named Y-O-U helped with the Strong Bad Sings and Other Type Hits CD, as well as on the strongbad_email.exe DVDs.

The Brothers Chaps also employed the services of the erstwhile acapella band DaVinci's Notebook to create a theme song for the old-timey version of The Cheat, called "Ballad of The Sneak".[15]


Cartoons

File:Everybody-poster.PNG
The multiplicity of characters from the cartoon.
Further information: [[:World of Homestar Runner]]

Homestar Runner features several "sub-cartoons" and spin-offs. Some of these cartoons take place outside the normal Homestar Runner universe, and the main characters of the normal cartoons do not necessarily appear in them. When they do, it is often not in the same way they appear in the main Homestar Runner world — most of the main characters also have alter-egos that appear occasionally.

Some cartoons take place in an "old-timey" setting, most of the Homestar Runner characters having direct counterparts in the Old-Timey cartoons. These cartoons are in black and white with film grain and scratchy, noisy sound. They parody the distinctive style of animated cartoons during the 1920s and 1930s, and can at first be seen as perhaps purposely unfunny, to make a slanted joke about such old-style cartoons. Another series of cartoons, Stinkoman K 20X6 (abbreviated to 20X6; pronounced "Twenty Exty-Six"), is a response to an email, asking Strong Bad what he would look like if he were a Japanese cartoon character. The main character, Stinkoman, is an anime version of Strong Bad with blue hair, a shiny body, and "cool robot boots." He goes around looking for constant challenges and fights. His features are based on the popular conception of stereotypical characters of anime and Japanese video games, specifically the capcom character called Megaman (or Rockman, in the Japanese version).

Other side cartoons introduce completely new casts of characters. This includes the Teen Girl Squad, Limozeen, 80's glam metal band, Sweet Cuppin' Cakes, a random children's cartoon introduced in a Strong Bad Email, the Cheat Commandos, a parody of G.I. Joe, and others.

Strong Bad Email

Strong Bad Emails have traditionally been among the most popular features on "Homestar Runner." The format has remained essentially unchanged since its inception: Strong Bad receives an email from a fan or viewer, and starts typing his response. Strong Bad generally mocks the viewer, criticizing names, hometowns, spelling, and grammar. Most of the time a cut-away sequence is used that gets away from typing the e-mail. Once the events of the email finish unfolding, Strong Bad wraps up the email.[16]

Some features of the site, such as Teen Girl Squad and the popular Trogdor, originated in Strong Bad Emails.[17][18] Some concepts in the emails parody real-world problems, such as the Flagrant System Error[19][20] and the Teal Screen of Near Death,[21] which in Homestar Runner cartoons are equivalent to, or variations of, the Blue Screen of Death.

Teen Girl Squad

Teen Girl Squad is a crudely drawn comic strip narrated by Strong Bad, using a falsetto voice. It began after Strong Bad received an email asking him to make a comic strip of a girl and her friends.[17] The comic features four archetypal high-school girls, with heavy parody evident in the characters' nondescript names: "Cheerleader", "So-And-So", "What's-Her-Face", and "The Ugly One".

Holiday specials

Several episodes have been dedicated to special days of the year. For example, every Halloween, a cartoon is released that features all the characters in costumes celebrating some traditional aspect of Halloween (such as ghost stories, trick-or-treating, or pumpkin carving). The characters' costumes have become famously esoteric in recent years, full of obscure pop culture references. April Fool's Day features various gags, such as turning the site into a pay site or flipping it upside down. The characters also celebrate an annual holiday called "Decemberween", which features gift-giving, carol-singing, and decorated trees. The fact that it takes place on December 25 has been presented as just a coincidence, stating that Decemberween traditionally takes place "55 days after Halloween".

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 reference to Senor Cardgage and Memorial Day), Flag Day, Independence Day (which Homestar calls "Happy Fireworks"), Labor Day, and Thanksgiving. Most holiday cartoons are archived on the Toons page and can be accessed using the "Holiday" button on the top right of the remote.

Online video games

Homestar Runner offers a variety of online games that feature one or more of their characters. The first games were simple in nature and are now found under Super Old Games-n-Such. Among them are the "Homestar Talker",[22] a Soundboard starring Homestar, and "Who Said What?", a parody of the popular children's toy See 'n Say. More recent games have been released as products of "Videlectrix", a side project of the brothers. These games are far more complex, spoofing many popular 80's videogames.

Their greatest gaming endeavor, "Peasant's Quest", is an adventure game featuring a young peasant in short pants named Rather Dashing, who 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. Recently, the website has produced Wii versions of some of the games on the site, for the Wii browser. When played on the computer, these use the mouse only.

The December 2005 issue of Wired Magazine claimed that a new Homestar Runner video game would soon be coming to the Atari 2600, but this has yet to be seen. The interview with the Brothers Chaps by Bobby Blackwolf reported that the game was in limbo because the game's developer, Paul Slocum, was getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work and was pushing the limits of the Atari 2600. The price was set at $40.

Reception

The site receives several million hits a month, and almost a thousand emails a day.[23] According to Matt Chapman, the site did no real 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."[6] Homestar Runner's popularity, coupled with its positive critical response, has led to the website receiving national coverage. Homestar Runner has been featured in Wired Magazine, the National Review, Entertainment Weekly, G4 television, and NPR's "All Things Considered".

A review published in the 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."[24] Free Country is "definitely a guys' place, where video games, monster trucks, and smashing things take priority over sensitive male themes."[24] Homestarrunner.com is the "Internet equivalent to The Yellow Kid, the comic introduced by Richard Outcault in the New York World in 1896.[24]

Merchandise

The Chapman brothers have created a very large collection of collectable merchandise, ranging from t-shirts to DVDs. The most popular item in their store is the Strong Bad Sings CD, which mostly includes songs sung by Strong Bad (but also includes songs by other characters). Also available in the store are the collectible figurines of the website's characters. There are two different sets of figurines available that feature the main Homestar Runner characters, and another set for the Cheat Commandos.

In the video game Guitar Hero II for the Playstation 2 and XBOX 360, you can purchase and play the song Trogdor. Also in its spin-off Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, the song "Because, It's Midnite" by in-show glam metal band Limozeen is featured.

References

  1. ^ "Alexa traffic information" (HTML). 2007. Retrieved 2007-4-3. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); Text "coauthors" ignored (help)
  2. ^ a b Chapman, Matt (2005). "FAQ" (SWF). homestarrunner.com. Retrieved 2006-12-18. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) Cite error: The named reference "FAQ" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  3. ^ Aucoin, Dan (09 August 2003). "Lookin' At A Thing In A Bag". The Boston Globe. The Boston Globe. pp. C1. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  4. ^ Strick, Jacob (26 May 2003). "Homestar Runner Interview". Penguin Brothers. Retrieved 2006-12-25. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  5. ^ Chinsang, Wayne (June 2003). "Homestar Runner's The Brothers Chaps". Tastes Like Chicken. Tastes Like Chicken. Retrieved 2006-12-25. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  6. ^ a b c Dean, Kari Lynn (June, 2003). "HomestarRunner Hits a Homer". Wired News. Retrieved 2006-06-12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)
  7. ^ Chapman, Mike (1996). "The Homestar Runner Enters the Strongest Man in the World Contest". homestarrunner.com. Retrieved 2006-12-19. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  8. ^ "Super NES" (SWF). homestarrunner.com. 1996. Retrieved 2007-01-03.
  9. ^ a b Scott, Kevin (May 20, 2003). "The Homestar Runner Interview". Kevin's Spot. Retrieved 2006-05-28.
  10. ^ Meinheit, Matt (April 23, 2004). "Holy crap". The Daily Eastern News. Retrieved 2006-08-18.
  11. ^ Chapman, Matt; Chapman, Mike. "Experimental Film". homestarrunner.com. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help); Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  12. ^ Chapman, Matt; Chapman, Mike. "Puppet Jam: Bad Jokes". homestarrunner.com. Retrieved January 3. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  13. ^ "TMBG-News". TMBG. Retrieved January 3. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  14. ^ The Skate Party; Chapman, Matt; Chapman, Mike. "The Cheat Theme Song". homestarrunner.com. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help); Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  15. ^ "Ballad of the Sneak". homestarrunner.com. Retrieved March 20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  16. ^ Chapman, Matt (2003). "Strong Bad Email 79 "the process"" (SWF). homestarrunner.com. Retrieved 2006-12-19. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  17. ^ a b Chapman, Matt (2002). "Strong Bad Email 53 "comic"" (SWF). homestarrunner.com. Retrieved 2006-12-19. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) Cite error: The named reference "comic" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  18. ^ Chapman, Matt (2003). "Strong Bad Email 58 "dragon"" (SWF). homestarrunner.com. Retrieved 2006-12-19. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  19. ^ Chapman, Matt. "Strong Bad Email 50 "50 emails"" (SWF). Retrieved 2006-10-03. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  20. ^ Chapman, Matt. "Strong Bad Email 118 "virus"" (SWF). Retrieved 2006-12-14. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  21. ^ Chapman, Matt (2006). "Strong Bad Email 159 "retirement"" (SWF). homestarrunner.com. Retrieved 2006-12-19. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  22. ^ "Homestar Talker". homestarrunner.com. Retrieved 2006-05-28.
  23. ^ Jenkins, Mandy (August 1, 2003). "Cult is chasing wacky Web toon". Cincinnati Enquirer.
  24. ^ a b c Wood, Peter (August 27, 2003). "Everybody to the Limit". National Review.
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