Gfd's Random Stuff/A Homestary History

1928 - 1935
Some may think that Homestar Runner is just an internet cartoon based on a children's book from 1996. This is far from true. The Homestar Runner universe was first created in 1928, when author Lem Sporstinson wrote his first book, "The Home Star Runner Kicks The Can". Sporstinson's book was about a young boy who was simply referred to as the Home Star Runner. He was an athlete. After losing the big game, he kicks a can. It comes to life and goes on many adventures with the Home Star.

Eight years later, in 1933, an animator named Albert Jimendez offered to create an animated adaptation of Sporstinson's novel. This led to a series of short animations of an odd-looking man with a propeller cap and star shirt kicking a can repeatedly, with humorous results. The series was called "Kick the Can", and animations were generally a few seconds long. While the original animations just had The Homestar Runner and the can, eventually more characters were introduced, like the villain, the Strong Bad, and the Homestar Runner's friends, Marzipan, Dudley, and Sickly Sam.

1936 - 1946
In the year 1936, Jimendez created longer animations with voice acting. He hired many animators to help. The first "talkie" was called "Parsnips A-Plenty". This marked the first time that the Homestar Runner characters had spoken. The series aired on television in 1937. Many cartoons were created after that, such as "The Strong Bad's Vacation", "Rumble Red Comes To Town", and a music video, "Ballad of the Sneak". The Homestar Runner was also one of the first cartoons to have fake advertisements, such as "Mr. Shmallow" and "Polymascotfoamalate". There were also holiday specials, like "That A Ghost" and "A Christmas Tradition". (Many of these cartoons were later animated in Adobe Flash and parodied by two brothers, Mike and Matt Chapman, in the 2000s.) The first cartoon to use color was the 1938 Valentine's Day special, "Sickly Sam's Big Outing". This cartoon had certain objects highlighted in pink. Many new characters were introduced in these cartoons, such as the Strong Man, the Sneak, Parsnip Bob, Fort Wayne Locomotive, and Rumble Red.

During this time, Lem Sporstinson, the author of the original book, was collaborating with cartoonist Glenn Bertmore to make a newspaper comic strip titled "The Castlefunnies", starting in 1937. It was about the king of "Free Country, USA" and his servant Mushy Chamberpot, who spoke only in commas. When the comic started to become more unpopular in 1940, Lem suggested that there could be a crossover with Homestar Runner, and he introduced Homestar and Strong Bad into the strip. In 1940, the crossover was reversed, and the king and Mushy Chamberpot were introduced into the world of Homestar Runner. They would eventually become regular characters after the strip discontinued in 1944.

At the end of many later Homestar Runner cartoons, there would be a short called "Strong Bad and the Electronic Message". The Strong Bad would answer a telegram from a made-up character. These shorts eventually became very popular with fans.

In 1941, the series was discontinued, and instead they started making updated Kick the Can shorts, which were in full color for the first time. The characters now spoke, and the new shorts included all the new characters from the series. Mr. Shmallow and Rumble Red's appearances became fewer, but other characters became more major, such as Fort Wayne and Parsnip Bob (also known as Bubs). These new shorts aired on television from 1941 - 1946.

1955 - 1970
In 1955, A. Jimendez's son, Stan Jimendez, made a new animated Homestar Runner television series. He took the old characters and updated them for a more modern audience.

He took The Homestar Runner and made him taller with a baseball cap. He turned Strong Bad into a Mexican wrestler, and the Sneak became more cartoon-like, with smaller legs, less hair, and a bigger nose, making him look more like a mouse. He would occasionally talk in squeaking sounds. He gave Sickly Sam elephant feet and made him less skeleton-like. He gave Bubs a spiky, dark blue head with big black eyes and blue hands with fingers. He redesigned Fort Wayne into "Coach Wayne", a helpful coach who gave advice and wore a backwards cap, and eventually developed a slight accent. Mr. Shmallow was redesigned into a smiley marshmallow named Marshie. The King of Free Country, USA (also known as The King of Town) became more of a regular character, and so did Mushy Chamberpot.

"Strong Bad and the Electronic Message" was updated into "Strong Bad's Mailbox", in which Strong Bad would recieve mail from real fans and write a letter back to them. Many characters were created during this time, such as Mr. Cardgage, Mr. Bland, the Robot, the Grape Fairy, the Umpire, and the Announcer.

A spin-off show, The Strong Bad, was created in 1958. It was a Western-type show with Strong Bad as a cowboy. The show didn't do very well, and was canceled after half a year.

In 1960, the show was decided into different sections. One of them was Sneak Soldiers, which was an army of Sneaks fighting the evil forces of Red Army. Some more cartoons were Comic Squad, a comic drawn by Strong Bad; The Sneak Films, a series of movies directed and filmed by The Sneak; and Strong Bad Man, a superhero show parody.

After the series ended in 1970, Homestar Runner and the gang were forgotten for several years.

1971 - 1995
When the series ended, the creators made lots of Homestar Runner merchandise, but they didn't make a lot of money for it. Homestar Runner became even more unpopular and forgotten.

The creators started publishing children's books in 1990, in the hopes that people would once again buy the merchandise based on the show. They published books such as Homestar Runner Runs the Race and Homestar Runner Goes To Space. Unfortunately, they hardly sold anything, and Homestar Runner was still unpopular as ever.

1996 - 2001
In 1996, Mike and Matt Chapman, two brothers from Atlanta, and their friend Craig Zobel, walked into a bookstore and found some old copies of the Homestar Runner children's books. Mike Chapman and Craig Zobel created a parody of these stories using the same characters.

Later that year, the three of them animated the characters in Mario Paint, a video game for the Super NES, as a Christmas present for the Chapmans' brother Donnie. When Mike and Matt, or "The Brothers Chaps", were learning how to animate using the program Adobe Flash, they used the characters in their book to practice and experiment with the program. They animated their first cartoon, "Pom Pom Too", in 1999. But a later cartoon, "Marshmallow's Last Stand", is considered to be the first, due to it being the first cartoon with dialogue. This cartoon was co-written by Chad Eikhoff, and was based on a 1966 Homestar Runner episode of the same name. In 2000, they started a website, homestarrunner.com, to post their cartoons. The characters on the website were changed, and no longer matched those from the 1960s cartoon series. The voices were provided by Matt Chapman, and Mike's girlfriend (now wife) doing the voice of the only female character Marzipan.

Most cartoons were based on episodes of the original series. They created some games, and a series called "Marzipan's Answering Machine", a nearly animationless series of shorts that is entirely audio-based, and about certain characters calling Marzipan on her Answering Machine. They then started Strong Bad Email, an updated version of "Strong Bad Mail" from the 1960s. The first Strong Bad Email was called "some kinda robot", and was sent in by Abdi LaRue. All Strong Bad Emails (or "SBEmails") were completely original, and not based on the original series. They were also all sent in by real viewers by email.

2002 - 2009
The website quickly increased in popularity around the time of the creation of Strong Bad Email. The website's popularity burst again in 2003 with the release of SBEmail #58, "dragon". Around this time, more shorts were being created, such as "Sweet Cuppin' Cakes", a "crazy cartoon" about a cow helicopter named Sherlock, a striped worm, a crudely-drawn wheelchair, and a strange creature named Eh! Steve!, who pops up once an episode to deliver his catch phrase, "Eh! Steve!", which is apparently the only thing he can say. Another reoccurring short was "Teen Girl Squad", a parody of the 1960s Homestar Runner episodes "Comic Squad", featuring Cheerleader, So and So, What's Her Face, and The Ugly One. Some more reoccurring episodes were "Stinko Man K 20X6" (often shortened to "20X6"), a parody of Japanese anime cartoons, "Puppet Stuff", which used puppets in lieu of animation, and "Dangeresque", a series of films directed by Strong Bad, who plays the role of a crooked cop named Dangeresque. The Cheat also creates animations, called "Powered by The Cheat", which use poor animation and bad voice acting by Mike Chapman.

At the peak of its history, Homestar Runner was one of the most visited Flash cartoons on the Internet, simply spreading via word of mouth. The Brothers Chaps have even turned down offers to create a new television series, and the creators make their money through merchandise sales on the website's store to make sure the site stays ad-free.

To be continued...