Homestar Runner Shrine
Everybody, da dee da dee da...
One of my very first Internet experiences was stumbling upon a colorful cartoon in the YouTube suggestions, while I was watching some Donald Duck YouTube Poop or something, I don't remember exactly what I was watching as it was clearly not as important as what happened next. I clicked on it and I believe it was the "dragon" Sbemail, but I'm not completely certain. Whatever it was, it was a funny cartoon. I searched up Homestar Runner, clicked on the website, and the rest is history. I also introduced my brother to it, and he loved it as well. To this day, I still say "great jorb" often.
Homestar Runner (H*R), created by The Brothers Chaps, is one of my favorite web cartoons ever, above Amazing Digital Circus which is also kind of cool.
As a kid, I loved reading every single article on the HRWiki, which is still one of the best as it doesn't use Fandom ;) It's ridiculously comprehensive. There's even a page about the most minor of minor running gags. There's blue links everywhere on most pages, due to this. I used the main SWF file links on the wiki to watch many of the toons, including the Sbemails, but sometimes I'd navigate to a toon I wanted to watch using the main H*R site. I discovered various secret toons using the wiki, and some of those are actually my favorites on the entire site :P
My favorite characters are Strong Bad, Strong Sad, and Homestar Runner. I actually disliked Homestar (the character) when I was young LOL. Anyway, Strong Bad is naturally my favorite due to the Sbemails, as those ARE Homestar Runner (the site) to me. I even made an official unofficial SB toy by drawing over one of my bird squeaker toys. But I do have my favorite regular toons as well. Those are, Where's the Cheat?, Strong Bad is in Jail Cartoon, The Luau, Bug in Mouth Disease, Fluffy Puff Marshmallows, and many more.
My favorite Sbemails are dragon, virus, alternate universe, website, and kids' book. But of course, they're all great, including the Lappy era and newer Sbemails. Somehow, I feel they haven't dropped in quality at all, although it helps that I got into H*R around the end of the Compe era (aka The Big Hiatus)...
I liked Strong Sad when I was young because elephants are my favorite animals, and Strong Sad's feet (soolnds) are like elephants' feet LOL. Despite Strong Bad being my favorite, I really felt bad for Strong Sad whenever Strong Bad abused him (although the caffeine Sbemail is still gut-bustingly hilarious). I also remember The Secrets That I Keep making me shed tears, as it's the only part of the site that isn't just for laughs... Definitely made me love Strong Sad even more... I also loved to read through Strong Sad's diary ;) I like how Strong Sad became more of a nerd over the years LOL
The Hiatus was a rough time for every H*R fan. It only lasted from 2010-2014, but it felt a lot longer than 4 years, since even after 2014 new H*R toons would only release every few months or so, at their quickest. Nowadays they've sped up a lot though. I got into MLP:FiM around the Hiatus, but in the meantime I really wanted H*R to return...
I like Homestar more as an adult. I found him annoying, yet funny, as a kid, but even then I liked the Hremails, and in 2020 I found a fanfic on Fanfiction.net called The World According to Homestar, which is fun and it made me like him even more than before.
One thing I like about H*R is that it's sorta family-friendly, as the characters don't say any big swear words (the farthest characters go is Holy Crap!) but also kinda not at the same time, since it makes some references to stuff from the TBC's childhood and 80s and 90s media, which makes it a lot funnier for adults than for kids. As a kid, I was more so interested due to the character dynamics, technology references, and bright colors, but as an adult, I do get more of the references, although the Wiki is a great help in regards to the more obscure ones.
It also has a lot of recurring characters and gags, and references to previous toons, so I recommend for anyone just getting into H*R to use the wiki and watch random toons, like the ones that strike your fancy, or just any random toon.
It's also not just a cartoon site, as it relied heavily on Flash, since it had a lot of interactive and clickable stuff. Much of the fun was found in clicking around the site and seeing what happens, like the clickpoints in Humongous Entertainment games. You could find all sorts of crazy crap, like secret toons and fanwork, and even games!
My favorite games were the ones hidden in Sbemails, like the duck pond, and Hairstyle Runner, and the smaller games, like Strong Libs, Astro-Lite 2600, and Homestar Talker (which itself has Hidden Talkers you could get by inputting a particular phrase into it). Sometimes you had to click quickly as a word showed up in order to find certain easter eggs! Speaking of which, I also liked Where's an Egg, but didn't understand it until later on, so I just randomly clicked around until I inevitably lost. I played some 50K Racewalker, but I don't remember whether I ever made it to the end.
I also loved making my own Stinko-Comics, and playing Thy Dungeonman. There were fears around early 2021 that the site would shut down due to Flash's impending demise, but thanksfully, Ruffle and Flashpoint Archive happened and the site was saved! Ruffle emulates Flash, but only up to ActionScript V2 right now, so not everything works yet. Flashpoint Archive is a great program which allows you to download various Flash stuff (including the entire H*R site before the Flash End Times) from their archiving servers and run it like it's 2004! There's also a fan remake of the popular Stinkoman game, including Level 10, which was released just before Flash doom!
I downloaded H*R goodies, including a Strong Bad clock, various funny sound clips, and Desktop Themes! Like with MLP, I had an SB theme on my old computer. I've created a new H*R theme for Windows 10 :D You can download it in the Desktop Themes shrine ;)
Some of the funniest stuff on the site is the DVD Commentaries. I'm not referring to the ones on the real DVDs (those are also funny), but I'm talking about the Yellow Dello "DVD" Commentary on the site. It's better than the original toon LOL Also the Experimental Film Commentary, which is a secret page only accessible through the wiki. But it's hilarious!
I found a cool fanfic called Pom Pom's Eleven in the early 2020s, and it's great because it's like if H*R was made into a movie. It was published in the early 2000s, and it's basically a play on Ocean's 11, and it's a bit more serious than the main H*R site, with the characters basically splitting apart as the site goes under, and them having to get back together to stop an evil villain, but it's largely as funny as the main stuff. There's a couple of sad parts, but it's obvious that everything turns out alright as it's H*R. It even has a long-forgotten H*R Character in it, so I highly recommend checking it out :D
I played the SBCG4AP game a while back, and I had lots of fun, but as it's an adventure game from Telltale I kind of used a walkthrough. But it was more fun seeing the characters' reactions to doing the wrong stuff anyway, so I didn't always use it. I actually 100% the first episode, but with a walkthrough. My favorite episode was the last one, as it was themed around Trogdor and classic video games. I also liked how Homsar actually made sense in the 2nd episode. My brother still hasn't gotten around to playing it yet, though.
I also loved visiting the H*R Fanstuff Wiki, but most of the stuff there was incomplete. It was still cool seeing fans' creations, like OCs based off of the main cast, fangames (like Strong Bad versus The Great Pumpkin Plague), and fanmade Sbemails. I sadly had to witness the first version of it getting linkrot'd... (Most of the links there are broken now.) I also read intriguing posts on the HRWiki Forums, H*R Subreddit, and similar forums. My favorite of those is this: What can lie behind the mask of SB? I also watched various H*R videos on YouTube, including the MLP and H*R crossover video, which was interesting... But I should possibly make one of my own...
I (and my brother) remember being hyped about that one teaser post for a new Sbemail that read Soon, when you least expect it... I think it became the parenting one that released last year...
While the Before Hiatus and After Hiatus (BH and AH) periods of H*R feel different somehow, I think they're both high quality and enjoyable. The AH era involves more social media usage, with SB having a Twitter account, so there's content more often, although usually it's just SB commenting on various fanworks. There's also a bit more timely jokes, but only a little bit. Most of the old toons still hold up today IMHO, and I think the newer ones will too.
My favorite character dynamics on the site are Strong Bad vs. Strong Sad, and Strong Bad vs. Homestar Runner. Originally, Strong Bad was just a bad guy, but the Sbemails fleshed him out a lot more, and during the AH era, I feel like he has become a little bit nicer, although of course he's not going to become a good guy, and he shouldn't. It's just cool to see him be even vaguely nice-ish every once in a while. The character expressions in the AH era are more varied due to Flash evolving into Adobe Animate, and Mike and Matt Chapman's skills have evolved over the years as well.
I also watched a couple episodes of Two More Eggs, the Brothers Chaps' show for YouTube and TV, (specifically Disney XD ;) ) and it was cute and fun.
Overall, H*R really made a Deep Impact on my life LOL and I'll be watching H*R stuff through the website and YouTube channel until the end of my or H*R's days, whichever comes first.
Happy 25 years (next year), H*R!
Links
Homestar Runner - It's dot com
HRWiki - Takes a bit longer to load these days...
Homestar Runner: How to Master a Dying Art Form - Cool video essay.
Homestar Runner : Bizarrely Beautiful - Another great video essay.
Homestar Runner: An appreciation and recommendation - Yep, another great deep dive into H*R.
Homestar Runner - The Birth of Internet Animation - Video Essay - The fourth one on this list!
Why Homestar Runner is my favorite cartoon of all time - Fifth and final video essay on the list. Phew! For now...
A Brief History of Homestar Runner Games - Peasant's Quest and MORE! - A video all about the games on the site.
A Brief Introduction to Homestar Runner - Brief but still a great intro to H*R.
Homestream Watcher - A lookback through all H*R stuff, with commentary and reviews.
Lacon Worm - Video about the best e-mail worm ever, by danooct1, one of my favorite YouTube channels.
Homestar Runner meets My Little Pony - Aforementioned MLP x H*R crossover.
The Interview - Classic I watched as a youngun'. It's a reanimation of The Interview short in Blender.
If Homestar Runner had a movie - Cool animation.
Which Homestar Runner character are you?
this quiz was made by jurjyfrort
Other quiz results: Bubs, The Cheat, Marzipan, Homestar Runner himself.
If you finish the quiz but get a broken page, try going to a different capture by clicking the blue arrows in the Wayback Machine timeline browser at the top of the page. Sadly though, Strong Mad's page got destroyed by Strong Mad ;)
Updates
Page first created on Sat, Sep 28, 2024.
Page first updated on Sun, Oct 6, 2024 (added a bit more info as well as links to a Personality Quiz and both Fanstuff Wikis).
Page secondly updated on Fri, Oct 25, 2024 (mentioned the Flashpoint Archive and my newly-released H*R Desktop Theme!).