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Homestar Runner
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HSR (or H*R) is an abbreviation for Homestar Runner in the sense of the entire website, rather than just the character.
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The website is the product of Matt and Mike Chapman, who typically call themselves "The Brothers Chaps". Most of the voices are done by Matt Chapman and Missy Palmer.
Because "The Brothers Chaps" run their website, they have a creative freedom that they would not have doing a regular TV show. Although you can buy Homestar merchandise, their website has no commercials (other than the fake ones for products like "Fluffy Puff Marshmellows.") The Internet has allowed them to reach a large audience that they wouldn't have access to otherwise. Originally, they developed Homestar Runner as a labor of love, and for their own amusement. It has grown large enough that merchandise sales pay for all of the costs of running the website.
Warning: Wikipedia contains spoilers
There are about a dozen main characters in Homestar Runner's world. Here are the main ones.
Homestar Runner
Homestar Runner himself combines the intelligence and lovability of Ted Baxter with the good luck of James Bond and the physical beauty of Don Rickles. His lack of visible hands and arms in no way handicaps him. Although he is often the target of pranks by Strong Bad, Homestar believes that he is friends with Strong Bad, and tries to win his favor.
Strong Bad
Although the site's various cartoons are usually centered around Homestar Runner, Strong Bad is a very important character. Each week, Strong Bad uses his vintage computer to answer a viewer's question sent in by e-mail. New cartoons, however, are rare, occurring every 2-3 months. Nominally a Mexican wrestler, Strong Bad is consistently topless. He has boxing gloves for hands and a Mexican wrestling mask for a face. (A common misconception is that Strong Bad is wearing gloves and a mask; they are literally his hands and face, and he chastizes someone for suggesting otherwise in one of his E-Mails. In the Yellow Dellow cartoon, Strong Bad is seen wearing oven mitts; Strong Bad insists that scene was digitally edited.) He seems to be very loosely based off of the Strong Bads in the Nintendo Entertainment System game, Tag Team Wrestling[?]. Oddly enough, Strong Bad has wrestled in only one cartoon. Strong Bad tries hard to be evil, but he's not very good at it.
Pom-Pom
Homestar Runner's best pal is Pom-Pom, who looks much like a big yellow Mandelbrot set. Pom-Pom is probably the smartest character of the bunch, but only his friends can understand Pom-Pom's bubbly voice. He likes to hang out with Homestar Runner and Strong Bad, although not necessarily both at the same time. On more than one occasion, Pom-Pom foils Strong Bad's plan to cheat Homestar. Pom-Pom has a strange fascination with attractive women.
Marzipan
Marzipan is Homestar Runner's girlfriend. Although she's got the same lack of intelligence (and lack of arms) as Homestar, nobody seems to mind. She is a folk singer, pacifist, and vegetarian -- and resembles a mop wearing a skirt, or a bell.
Marzipan has an answering machine, where the other characters leave awkward or amusing messages.
Strong Sad
Not to be confused with his brothers, Strong Sad is the Eeyore of the group. A large white-and-grey lump with elephant feet, he listens to gothic music and speaks in a thoroughly gloomy tone. He has never really overcome his youth as the picked-on little brother. He's almost as smart as Pom-Pom, and emotionally quite deep, if crippled. Like his brother Strong Bad, he has his own e-mail address.
The Cheat
The Cheat (whose name is "The Cheat", with the grammatical article) is Strong Bad's partner in crime. He's a little furry yellow creature who, true to his name, is always looking for a way to cheat, or to help someone else to do so. His appearance has been described as a cross between a Pikachu and a wedge of cheese.
The Cheat makes music videos and sketches for various other characters. The Cheat's animation is drawn in its own distinctive style. Some sources say that is the animation style used by The Brothers Chaps before they settled on the current style.
Coach Z
Whatever athletic team Homestar plays on, Coach Z is the coach, with his green jersey and golfball head. Coach Z's only gag is his thick and incomprehensible accent.
Strong Mad
The biggest and strongest of the Strong brothers, Strong Mad has the size, strength, and oratory skills of an ogre.
The King of Town
The overweight and mustachioed "K. of T." lives in a castle and eats just about everything he can get his hands on. He also employs the Poopsmith to shovel poop at the castle. The King of Town has his own website, which nobody visits, and his own answering machine, although nobody ever calls him.
Bubs
Bubs runs the consession stand on the side of the field. Bubs loves muscle cars and Spike Lee movies. Bubs also is a handyman. He makes a Strong Bad robot out of a Speak-and-Spell toy and a box of Grape Nuts[?] cereal. He helps Strong Bad solve a common problem with VCRs where the time flashes 12:00 to indicate it is not set. Bubs and Coach Z show up in sketches where a large number of characters are required, usually at a party. Bubs and Coach Z appear to hang out together when they aren't working, but this is implied rather than explicity shown.
Homsar
A doofy, verbally challenged fellow who resembles Homestar, Homsar was introduced in Strong Bad E-Mail #2 as a way to poke fun at a writer's misspelling of Homestar. He's well known for his nonsensical quotes. For example, "I was raised by a cup of coffee" and "I'm a song from the sixties." He may be Strong Sad's only friend. He is not an official character, as he is not listed in the Characters page on the actual site. Some cartoons have an encounter with Homsar as an easter egg, such as the Strong Bad E-Mail titled "Dragon" and the cartoon "A Pumpkin Carve-Nival."
Trogdor, the BURNiNATOR (sic)
Trogdor the Burninator is Strong Bad's creation: SB drew Trogdor when a fan email requested a display of his "skills of an artist." Trogdor does not interact with the rest of the gang, but is featured in an animated short at the end of the "Dragon (http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail58)" email, and he has his own arcade game (http://www.homestarrunner.com/trogdor).
The final episode of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer made a throwaway reference to Trogdor the Burninator as a monster in a Dungeons and Dragons game.
The Poopsmith
The Poopsmith is employed by the King of Town for unknown purposes. He shovels poop all day long. Strong Bad refuses to play any pranks on The Poopsmith, because his job renders The Poopsmith immune to any other discomfort. The Poopsmith never speaks, and has taken a vow of silence.
Marshie, The Marshmallow
Homestar had a job in a marshmallow commercial. As usual, Homestar could not remember his lines, and lost his job to Marshie, the corporate mascot for Homestar's favorite marshmallows.
Because the website heavily uses Macromedia Flash animation, the Brothers Chaps have been able to put a number of easter eggs into many of the activities. For example, in Strong Bad's e-mail "Studying (http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail17)", when Strong Bad mentions a book, the clever user can view a hidden web page about the book.
Catch Phrases and Other Frequent References
- "Somebody get this freaking duck away from me!" (A reference to the yellow dragon from the Atari 2600 game Adventure. The dragon makes several cameo appearances.)
- "Wear a bikini!"
- "How do you type with boxing gloves on?" (frequent E-Mail to Strong Bad)
- DELETED!! (when Strong Bad reads an E-Mail he doesn't like)
- "ARROWED!!", "SWORDED!!", "404'd!!"
- "fhqwhgads" (see below)
- "I was raised by a cup of coffee." (Homsar)
- "I'm a song from the sixties." (Homsar)
The made-up word fhqwhgads is a stock phrase stemming from from three short Homestar Runner cartoons.
The first involves the character Strong Bad receiving email from a person going by the name of "fhqwhgadshgnsdhjsdbkhsdabkfabkveybvf" which Strong Bad shortened to "fhqwhgads".
The second, ostensibly a music video produced by the character The Cheat for Strong Bad's song "Everybody to the Limit", also features this name for humorous effect. The song was recorded by a band called The Skate Party.
The third involves Strong Bad receiving a request by "Sibbie" to write a song about her, as he did about fhqwhgads. Strong Bad remarks about how fhqwhgads is properly spelled and mocks frequent misspellings of the word. A secret segment at the end of the short features Homestar Runner, Coach Z[?], and Strong Mad[?] similarly butchering the pronounciation of fhqwhgads (which is fuh-HUUG-wuh-gahdz). In the sketch, Strong Mad successfully pronounces "Douglas", which he was unable to do in an earlier E-Mail.
Much like "all your base are belong to us", this random word has become more than a little bit of an in-joke in fan circles.
The body of the original email is "I love you", and some fans suggest the message was a copy of the VBS.LoveLetter worm, also known as the "ILOVEYOU" virus. Because Strong Bad uses an archaic computer to read his email, his computer was not affected; the executable part of the worm was displayed as characters forming the "long freakin' name" of fhqwhgads.
However, the LoveLetter worm does not fit this pattern; its body reads "kindly check the attached LOVELETTER coming from me." [2] (http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/vbs.loveletter.a)
Strong Badia
Strong Badia exists as a field behind a dumpster, with a permanent population of a single tire. In an early Strong Bad email, Strong Bad claimed he has ruled the field since diaper school. In one of the Strong Bad emails, the ghost of Strong Bad's obsolete and broken Tandy computer haunted the kingdom.
Crazy Go Nuts University (CGNU)
A fictional university run by Strong Bad. It has mascot callad "The Dumple", and a "Golf Club Team".
Decemberween
A fictional holiday that occurs in December, fifty-five days after Halloween. It's sort of like Christmas, but nondenominational. The site does not explicitly mention that Decemberween coincides with Christmas. Marzipan disapproves of Decemberween, on the grounds that it somehow kills bunnies, and that the holiday is too commercialized.
The Yello Dello
A yellow bird with the legs of a woman. It's the most rare and exotic bird in the entire website.
The Stick
A few sketches, most notably the cartoon Where's the Cheat? (http://www.homestarrunner.com/whereis), feature characters meeting at a mundane-looking stick in the ground.
Teen Girl Squad
A comic strip drawn and narrated by Strong Bad. The first issue of Teen Girl Squad originated from a Strong Bad email. The comic strip features four teenage girls, who tend to suffer gruesome deaths. The comic strip's main characters are Cheerleader, So-and-so, What's-her-face, and "The Ugly One." At the time of this writing, there are three issues of Teen Girl Squad.
Stinko Man and 20x6
Stinko Man is Strong Bad drawn as Japanese Animation (anime). It is set in the future year of 20x6, and some of the other characters also have 20x6 counterparts.
Old Tyme Homestar, 1936
Homestar, drawn in the style of a 1936 cartoon. In these cartoons, he is referred to as "The Homestar Runner", as was his name in the original childrens' books. Many other characters appear in 1936 style, although some names are altered. The other characters include Strong Bad, Strong Man (Strong Mad), Sickly Sam (Strong Sad), Fat Dudley (Pom-Pom), and The Sneak (The Cheat).
The Cheat's Animation
Some sketches are drawn by The Cheat, who has his own distinctive animation style.
External links
- Homestar Runner Official Website (http://www.homestarrunner.com/)
- Interview with the creators of HSR (http://www.retrocrush.com/homestar/default.htm)
- Another interview (http://www.resexcellence.com/hack_html_03/01-30-03.shtml)
- Introduction for first-time visitors (http://www.homestarrunner.com/firsttime)
- A site taking advantage of Homestar Runner's "goof-up" (http://www.homestarrunner.net/) in the intro (http://www.homestarrunner.com/firsttime); this site features a forum on H*R related topics
- Complete guide to Strong Bad's emails (http://www.the-coolest-stuff-ever.com/tcse/sbe/) (This site is currently unavailable due to bandwidth problems)
- Great resource to find all of the H*R easter eggs. (http://www.themefund.org/homestar/)
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
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