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Flash series
The Homestar Runner logo
Homestar Runner
Devised by	Mike Chapman Craig Zobel
Written by	Mike Chapman Matt Chapman
Animated by	Mike Chapman Matt Chapman
Voiced by	Matt Chapman Missy Palmer
Launch date	New Year's Day 2000
Website	http://www.homestarrunner.com

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. Originally conceived as a parody of what the authors considered to be the surplus of low-quality picture books written for children, the site mostly caters towards young adults. Most of the site's traffic comes from the United States;^[1] events in the cartoon itself usually take place in Free Country, USA.

The cartoons are nominally centered on Homestar Runner. However, the series entitled Strong Bad Email, in which another main character, Strong Bad, answers emails from viewers, is the most popular and prominent feature of the site. While Homestar and Strong Bad are 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.^[3]

Contents 1 History 1.1 Collaborations with other artists 1.2 Reception 1.3 Music 2 Characters 3 Cartoons 3.1 Strong Bad Email 3.2 Teen Girl Squad 3.3 Holiday specials 3.4 Marzipan's Answering Machine 4 Online Video-Games 5 Homestar Runner RPG 6 Merchandise 7 References 8 External links

Homestar Runner was brought to life in Atlanta in 1996 by two University of Georgia^[4][5][6] students, Mike Chapman and Craig Zobel, who were working summer jobs surrounding the 1996 Summer Olympics.^[3] 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 call themselves The Brothers Chaps, were learning Flash and looking for something on which to practice.^[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][3]

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. Podstar Runner was taken down on September 21, 2007, for reasons unknown.

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]

The site receives several million hits a month, and almost a thousand emails a day.^[16] 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."^[3] 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, National Review, Entertainment Weekly, Total Gamer, G4, and NPR's All Things Considered.^[17]

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."^[18]

The Homestar Runner site frequently features songs and videos within their animated shorts or as stand-alone entities, which serve as parodies of hair metal, death metal, college rock, and hip hop. These are primarily sung and performed either by the characters or by fictitious rock bands with names such as “Limozeen,” “sloshy,” and “Taranchula.” Real-life musicians They Might be Giants have also appeared semi-regularly, performing with a Homestar puppet or allowing the characters to perform a video to their song Experimental Film. The site-generated music has enjoyed surprising popularity, such that commercial CDs are now sold and 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, respectively. Their inclusion in the game is reportedly because Harmonix founder Alex Rigopulos is a professed fan of Homestar Runner ^[19]). The first music included in the site’s content was humorously absurd hip hop created by the character Coach Z, who often makes references to hip-hop and rap music in conversation. Another character, Strong Bad, sings short intros in weekly cartoons in which he checks his email and provides humorous responses and commentary. In an email titled “Dragon,” he draws a bizarre one-armed dragon called “Trogdor, the Burninator,” and performs its theme song. By far, it became one of the site’s most popular jokes, yielding merchandise such as T-shirts, CDs, messenger bags, etc. all featuring the title character, and the song was included as a bonus track in Guitar Hero II. A faux hair metal band, Limozeen, was introduced as a parody in the style of '80s metal bands like Skid Row and White Lion, and Poison; their songs included "Because, It's Midnite," "Nite Mamas," and "Brain Sister." Next came a death metal parody band named Taranchula, which was billed as a Swedish band with disturbing videos and known for writing lyrics that contain words starting with the letters "DE." Most recently, college rock was introduced with a band called “sloshy” (always spelled in lower case), which featured songs such as "We Don't Really Even Care About You," "OK Fine," and "Unripe,” as well as a cover of Limozeen’s "Because, It's Midnite."

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The site's characters are quite exceptional, and can be read as offbeat, satirical versions of common character archetypes.

Homestar Runner is the website's namesake. He wears a red shirt with a white star on it, a propeller cap, and has invisible arms. He has a pronounced underbite and suffers from a speech impediment. Homestar was touted as a terrific athlete in early cartoons, but the character's more defining traits quickly became his dim-witted but affable nature. His naïveté and general cluelessness gets him into frequent trouble with his girlfriend Marzipan, the only female character seen in Free Country, USA. Marzipan is a fervent environmentalist who plays an acoustic guitar named Carol. Marzipan resembles a broomstick or a feather dister and has blonde hair.

Homestar Runner's main nemesis is Strong Bad, who wears a Mexican wrestling mask, black pants and red boxing gloves. Strong Bad quickly became a breakout character due to his sarcastic and mean-spirited nature, seen in the frequently updated Strong Bad Emails. Strong Bad has a very high opinion of himself, styling himself as the leader of "Strongbadia", a section of Free Country, USA. whose population is a rubber tire. He often enlists the help of his brother Strong Mad and The Cheat to carry out pranks and other deeds on Homestar and other characters.

Strong Mad is the largest character, a brute dressed in a wrestling singlet whose method of speech involves loudly growling out very short sentences. Strong Mad is not very smart, which means that The Cheat is usually a more useful accomplice for Strong Bad. The Cheat is a furry yellow creature of small stature with a gold tooth. The Cheat speaks only in squeaky noises which the characters can interpret in English. He is a semi-professional computer animator, making short cartoons and music videos starring various Homestar Runner characters. The voices in cartoons made by the Cheat are deliberately poor impressions of the characters, voiced by Mike Chapman.

Another frequent target of Strong Bad's ire is his younger brother Strong Sad, a large gray creature with elephant-like feet and a round white head. Strong Sad is a depressed individual who has no true friends, with the possible exception of the eccentric Homsar, who appears very infrequently, and utters inane but grammatically correct phrases. Strong Sad has been known to dedicate himself to a number of detail-oriented yet apparently meaningless tasks such as "practicing the dictionary" or transcribing John Milton's "Paradise Lost" onto a grain of rice.

Pom Pom is referred to as Homestar's best friend, though he has grown to be a fairly minor character. He is a large and round-shaped creature who appears to be inflated or made of a gelatinous substance. He slowly and lightly bounces around when walking, and like The Cheat, does not speak English. Pom Pom's speech is a distinct bubbling sound which can be understood be the other characters, as well as the unseen girls he is often seen conversing with on his cell phone.

Bubs is the gregarious owner of the local concession stand. He speaks with a vaguely African American accent and the items he has been seen selling at his stand are myriad. He enjoys dancing and often gets involved in various pranks attempted by other characters.

Coach Z wears a backwards baseball cap and a distinctive "Z" emblem near his midsection. Starting as the coach of many of the characters in their athletic endeavors, Coach Z has since evolved into a somewhat pathetic character with an affinity for old school rap and hip-hop. His exaggerated Upper Midwest accent has grown over time to the point where he mispronounces many words completely.

The oldest character is the King of Town, the self-proclaimed ruler of Free Country, USA. He is a glutton who is nearly constantly thinking or talking about food. A running gag regarding the King of Town is that he is the least favorite character, and he himself has acknowledged that "nobody likes me." The King employs The Poopsmith, a creature whose job is to shovel fecal matter (referred to as "whatsit") from one pile into another. The Poopsmith does not talk and rarely communicates at all.

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-time setting, with most of the Homestar Runner characters having direct counterparts in the Old-Timey cartoons. These cartoons are in black and white with a film grain effect added and scratchy audio quality. They parody the distinctive style of animated cartoons during the 1920s and 1930s, and can 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"), originated from 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 robot boots. He is always looking for a fight, asking various characters he interacts with to engage him in a "challenge". The characters in 20X6 cartoons each have a counterpart in the Homestar Runner universem and their features are based on the popular conception of stereotypical characters of anime and Japanese video games.

Other cartoons introduce completely new casts of characters. Limozeen, an 80's glam metal band was depicted in a cartoon that described a short-lived Saturday morning cartoon entitled 'Limozeen: "but they're in space!"'. Sweet Cuppin' Cakes, is a surreal children's cartoon also introduced in a Strong Bad Email, featuring characters like "Eh, Steve!", and The Worm. The Cheat Commandos is a parody of G.I. Joe that created a cast of characters that are the same species as The Cheat.

Strong Bad Emails (also known as "sbemails") 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 sender, 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, and then "the paper" comes down with a link to email Strong Bad. Often, hidden animations (Easter Eggs) are displayed when the user clicks on a word or picture after the e-mail has ended and sometimes during it.^[20] As of December 2007, there are 185 Sbemails.

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.^[21] 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". The comic strip revolves around their lives (and frequent violent, but comical, deaths devised by Strong Bad).

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 PLUS!" offer site or flipping it upside down. The characters also celebrate an annual holiday called "Decemberween", a parody of Christmas that features gift-giving, carol-singing, and decorated trees. The fact that it takes place on December 25, the same day as Christmas, 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, Memorial Day), Flag Day, Independence Day (which Homestar calls "Happy Fireworks"), Labor Day (occasionally referred to as "Labor Daybor"), and Thanksgiving.

Marzipan's Answering Machine has little or no animation and consists of a series of phone messages left on Marzipan's answering machine. These cartoons often includes attempts by Strong Bad to prank call Marzipan or run some sort of scam. Homestar Runner leaves frequent messages, as does Coach Z, who was revealed to have a crush on Marzipan in one episode of this feature.

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 (e.g., Where's an Egg?) 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. It was claimed to be a Role Playing Game , but The Brothers Chaps said that "It may never materialize". The ROM is available here.

The Chapman brothers have created a very large collection of collectible 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.

• Official website
• Videlectrix Webpage
• strongbad_email.exe at the Internet Movie Database
• Homestar Runner Wiki
• Emulator required to play the aforementioned ROM file for Windows Computers and Macintosh Computers