Homestar runner (2000)

added Jun 26, 2009 at 12:06PM UTC

Everyone loves the Homestar runner, he is a terrific athlete!

Origins

Homestar Runner was originally a children’s book created in 1996 by Mike Chapman and Craig Zobel, The Homestar runner enters the strongest man in the world contest". It became a flash cartoon in 1999 when “The Brothers Chaps”, Mike and Matt Chapman, wanted something to practice using flash on. The website became live in January 2000.

Summary

Homestar runner is the main character of his self-titled cartoon, also staring Strong Bad, Strong Mad, Strong Sad, The cheat, Marzipan, Pom Pom, coach Z, Bubs, The King of Town, The Poopsmith and Homsar. They live in Free Country, USA, and often engage in surreal activities. The show contains many 70’s 80’s and 90’s pop culture references such as old video games. Other long running cartoons on the website include “teen girl squad”, “Powered By The Cheat”, “Cheat Commandos”, “Strong Bad Email”, “Marzipan’s Answering Machine” and “Puppet stuff”.

Strong Bad email

Homestarrunner.com only really became popular when the SBemails started, where fans could write an email to Strong Bad and he would make a responce with humourous consequences. It is for this reason that even though Homestar Runner is the main character, Strong Bad remains the most popular character of the series. These emails spawned new characters and spinoffs such as “Trogdor the burninator”, Homsar and “teen girl squad”. Trogdor has become one of Strongbad’s most popular creations with many fans making their own variations, Teen girl squad has also been parodied.

Origin of Trogdor:

Spread

Homestarrunner.com has never advertised and Mike and Matt Chapman claimed that their site spread by word of mouth.

Blue = homestar runner, Red = homestarrunner.com

The spike in 2004 may have been from it being talked about on NPR. Story here

Game

There was a video game based on the website entitled Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People (or abbreviated SBCG4AP). It was developped by Videlectrix (Mike and Matt Chapman) and Telltale games. It was released for the Nintendo Wii and the PC.

Media

A Homestar Runner Parody:

Kingdom of hearts teen girl squad parody

Trogdor tribute

1 Sub-memes

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20 Comments

Captain Blubber
Jun 26, 2009 at 12:50PM UTC , Captain Blubber wrote:

Dammit I Awesome, I was this close to doing an article about this. Oh well, it’s a good article.

Haz
Jun 26, 2009 at 02:02PM UTC , Haz wrote:

I like homestarrunner as much as the next guy..but is it really a mem?

Captain Blubber
Jun 26, 2009 at 02:38PM UTC , Captain Blubber wrote:

I think so, I search around and saw what they had for fanmade creations, people dressing up like characters, etc. The only thing I don’t know is if this is too “niche” to enter the DB.

Xippy Xippo
Jun 26, 2009 at 04:33PM UTC , Xippy Xippo wrote:

This isn’t really a meme. This is more like a ‘show’ with ‘merchandising’ that people buy to keep the animators in business.

“Milhouse is not a meme.” Just because people are into it doesn’t qualify it for meme-dom.

Chris Menning
Jun 26, 2009 at 04:36PM UTC , Chris Menning wrote:

The article was a bit misleading. It stated that the Chapman bros took the character from a storybook. They actually first created the storybook, then the web series.

I’m not a big fan of calling a popular series a meme. I mostly associate unintentional stardom with memedom. But most webseries are very intent on promoting themselves. If anything, I would say this entry should be revised to focus on solely the fan-art and other things that have been influenced by Homestar Runner, rather than the Homestar Runner commercial property.

I Awesome
Jun 26, 2009 at 05:58PM UTC , I Awesome wrote:

Actually, it was unintentional, they never advertised their site, they became popular through word of mouth.
Perhaps I should do an article on Trogdor, as he is very popular.

Chris Menning
Jun 26, 2009 at 06:19PM UTC , Chris Menning wrote:

Word of mouth is definitely impressive. I guess I’m still stuck on feeling the need to make a distinction between a series that is produced by a few people vs. memetic content that is created by masses of internet users.

DJ Intercept
Jun 26, 2009 at 09:50PM UTC , DJ Intercept wrote:

deffinate meme. every other time i go on a chan i see a few images of homestarrunner.
i remember when i first saw homestarrunner.com 5 and a half years ago.

Badgerfrank10
Jun 28, 2009 at 01:10AM UTC , Badgerfrank10 wrote:

HOMSAR FTW

Agent Spin Here
Jun 30, 2009 at 06:28PM UTC , Agent Spin Here wrote:

I don’t really think Homestar Runner is a meme, it’s just an awesome cartoon.

Blackhawk003
Jul 01, 2009 at 02:21AM UTC , Blackhawk003 wrote:

The search trend could be erroneous in terms of popularity, as people probably navigate to the site itself nowadays… if you know the site, you won’t search for it.

Noone Atall
Jul 03, 2009 at 08:10AM UTC , Noone Atall wrote:

I think Homestarrunner started out as a meme. However recently it has hit mainstream (such as being for the Wii) and is no longer a meme and now media.

I Awesome
Jul 03, 2009 at 08:20AM UTC , I Awesome wrote:

It’s not a TV show like Southpark though, so it is pretty much exclusive to the internet. Southpark, by the way, used to be a meme.

Doomwaffle
Jul 04, 2009 at 09:21PM UTC , Doomwaffle wrote:

Not a meme. But deserves more recognition and respect.

JJAAMMESS FFAAIILLAAPPAALLOOZZAA
Jul 14, 2009 at 03:20PM UTC , JJAAMMESS FFAAIILLAAPPAALLOOZZAA wrote:

I agree with everyone
who says this is not a Meme,
yet it is one AWSOME
website

BA_moooper_4000
Jul 22, 2009 at 09:10PM UTC , BA_moooper_4000 wrote:

Visiting homestarrunner is inversely proportional to your GPA.

pikachugirl2
Aug 23, 2009 at 08:45PM UTC , pikachugirl2 wrote:

There WAS a thing with the cheat that had a Pikachu flying across the screen in the background. I forgot where it was but it was weird….

I Awesome
Sep 15, 2009 at 11:55AM UTC , I Awesome wrote:

Yay! more pictures!

Dan Green
Dec 13, 2009 at 10:47AM UTC , Dan Green wrote:

So sad it’s starting to go down in popularity :[

pgj1997
Dec 19, 2009 at 01:59AM UTC , pgj1997 wrote:

I LOVE H*R!!
THIS IS AMAZING I’M BUYIN’ YOU A PIZZA!

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