The Year Without Homestar Runner

I have been a long-time follower of the Flash Animations done by brothers Mike and Matt Chapman on their website, www.Homestarrunner.com.

For the uninitiated, this is Homestar Runner. Some say he is a terrific athlete. Homestar was the creation of the brothers Chaps for a kids’ book that they wrote in the mid-90s, just for fun. They later used the character in some flash animation experiments and began posting the cartoons online on January 1, 2000. They began to develop a following, and started selling T-Shirts through an online store, and eventually started selling enough merchandise that they quit their day jobs and made these cartoons full time. They do clothing with the characters on it, quotes from the site, even DVDs of the cartoons and figurines of the characters.

Their website really picked up steam when they gave the anti-hero character Strong Bad (left) his own section of the site, in which he answers email questions from fans. The majority of the content soon became “sbemails” and other cartoons became less of a focus for the site. In the site’s intro video, Strong Bad informs the viewer that he is the reason for their visit, rather than the site’s namesake, something that Homestar cheekily agrees with.

Matt and Mike had produced cartoons for the site regularly for nearly a decade. Their annual Halloween cartoons were full of their characters dressing up mostly as obscure 70s, 80s and 90s pop icons, everything from rappers and punk rockers to Andy Warhol.

The brothers have had a steady following of fans in recent years, and even produced a series of video games that were released on PC and Nintendo Wii through the Wiiware service.

Occasionally, the brothers started to take breaks from their project. They had been periodical but short. In December 2009, the brothers announced the birth of a very special Mini-Chap, and that they were going to be going on a short-term hiatus. In 2010, only about twenty updates were made to the main page, half of them notifications of sales or special promotions through their online store. For Christmas of that year, they posted their “Decemberween” costumes, with all of the characters dressed as characters from Rankin-Bass holiday specials or other Christmas themed getups, having missed out on Halloween entirely that year. Strong Bad even dressed as the Leg Lamp from A Christmas Story.

2011 has been even more sparse. With only 4 updates, three of them being for specials in the store, one being for an announcement of a concert the Brothers Chaps attended and performed a couple of special songs as Homestar Characters. Not a single new cartoon has been posted since December, 2010, which to some feels long enough to call it dead. Even updates about the store stopped completely in May.

For many fans, visits back to the site to check for updates becomes more disappointing the longer we go without, and people will check back less and less often as their RSS feed remains bare and they remove their H*R bookmark from the toolbar.

I am sure that the brothers continue to see dwindling store numbers as fewer and fewer people come back. I understand spending time with their new daughter/niece, but Hollywood actors return to work and people with real jobs only get 12 weeks (or less!) maternity leave.

I hope that they return soon. The absurdity of the website and the weekly dose of the World According to Strong Bad have been a highlight for many. But for me, when looking for a 3-minute break from whatever I am doing, the random cartoon button at Homestarrunner.com seems to produce cartoons I’ve already seen what feels like a dozen times each. I have found every easter egg and visited each secret page. I've even contributed to the Homestar Runner Wiki.

I only hope that when they return, there will be fans to come back to.

So in honor of Homestar Runner, I have made a list of my favorite ten Strong Bad emails from the site, in order of their appearance.

1.      Trevor the Vampire- The first sbemail I ever heard about, before I had ever visited the site. I remember Chris Walljasper telling us all about Strong Bad’s madcap reaction when an email send button was pushed way too soon.

2.      Dragon- This email asked Strong Bad to draw a dragon, and using words that he could only have learned from those commercials that ask you to apply for art school, teaches us his method.

3.      English Paper- A reader asks Strong Bad to write his “Englilish” essay for him. Strong Bad obliges with his own take on the 5 paragraph format.

4.      Kids’ Book- Strong Bad shows us a children’s book that he wrote. On. Wrote on.

5.      Local News- This email shows Strong Bad’s displeasure of poor punctuation and spelling. And he does a silly local news show.

6.      For Kids- We are shown why Strong Bad is not on regular television. (Don’t worry, it’s safe for work, he is just intolerant of the Dora the Explorer set)

7.      Bottom 10- Strong Bad’s countdown of the 10 things he likes least in the world. Some of the items on the list are on my Bottom 10.

8.      Strong BadAthlon- The Wrestleman tells us about his own, special, Olympics.

9.      Hygiene- A reader requests that S.B. make an educational film on personal hygiene. He makes a staggeringly spot-on 80s-esque public educational film.

10.   Videography- Actually, the most recent sbemail produced. Strong Bad offers his services as a Videographer for some moron’s wedding.

This is by no means a comprehensive list. With over 200 Strong Bad emails, those are just the ones that I really enjoy. There are tons of other cartoons and games to play on the site as well, for if/when you are tired of Strong Bad making fun of readers, which I never am.

Share your favourite cartoons and condolences for HomestarRunner.com in the comments below. Or start sending letters to the Brothers Chaps, asking if they plan to be on break until the kid is in college. If you are new to Homestar Runner and Strong Bad, you can go directly to www.homestarrunner.com or watch the orientation film to get started. Also available are character introductions for the confused.

All the pictures featured are from the Homestar Runner Wiki, www.hrwiki.org if you want more information than you ever wanted to know about the Stupid Animal Show.