The proper words to describe what this era of the internet was like don't exist. Every day was a new adventure and I could not wait to jump online and see what I would discover. Now it's become like opening the fridge to find something to eat. Every now and then I find something great like this video. But most of the time it's the same old stuff.
My friends and I would literally run home from school so we could be the first to watch a new sbemail. It was like a contest to find all the easter eggs, and we'd offer tips to each other to catch the ones we missed. It was always amazing finding someone else who knew Homestar because even at peak popularity, it was still relatively niche, but every now and again you'd come across someone casually drop a word like "burninating" and you could spend the next three hours talking to them about Homestar lol. It was like by watching it, you couldn't help but be drawn into this larger community. No one was ambivalent about Homestar; if you knew about it, you were 100% in.
Back when you had an hour online before your parents kicked you off. I remember a friend got his email made into a video. That was something else for us. Not like today where everyone pander to the viewers and you know exactly what videos will entail.
And what's really amazing was that all this content the Brother's Chaps put up for our entertainment was entirely FREE. No ads, no popups, no subscriptions, no patreon, no shameless plugs or sponsors, they rolled up their sleeves and cranked out cartoons, games, music, videos, the whole shebang for anyone anywhere in the world to enjoy absolutely FREE. To this day their work was entirely funded by sales of merchandise on the HR store, which you can still visit and buy stuff from, they've even partnered with FanGamer to release vinyl records like "Strong Bad Sings!" and cool plushies and even made an entire Trogdor Board game for the family fun times.
I don't know how much paid work they did, but I discovered, completely by accident, that they built the Mellow Mushroom site. I went there to see the hours or menu for the one nearby, and something seemed familiar, so I looked around until I realized why it looked familiar. Not nearly as intricate as the Homestar Runner site, but their fingerprints were all over it.
They put in the effort to make something people would love. Buying H*R merch wasn't even a question. It was an "of course I'll buy that" situation. They didn't make content that's just good enough to have playing in the background.
I tried to explain to a post-millennial what HSR was, and I told her: It was like a menu page for a streaming video website, but fun! Imagine clicking on a show in Netflix, and the entire show itself was just one long dynamic menu screen with clickable menu buttons coming and going throughout the episode. She said: Whoa... It almost seems like we kinda took a step backwards as the Internet evolved. We're gonna be okay you guys. This next generation has some good heads on their shoulders. 🥲
Another way they rewarded repeated viewer engagement was with their borderline insane commitment to making the most obscure references to their previous content. Other shows and content were doing this but they really took it to an intensely microscopic level.
Yeah time and time again a character would be created for a single gag and then stick around. But big deal, The Simpsons did that. What Homestar did *beyond* that was maintain character relationships and lore for those characters, and have completely obscure one-liners and in-jokes show up over and over later on. At times it felt like watching a favorite show *and* reading its super obsessed fanpage at the same time.
@@AugustBurnsSam It's finally been made RE-available as "Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People: Season 1" after having been delisted a while back. Buy it while you can! (once it's in your steam library, you're good forever, there's several games in my library whose store pages outright 404 now due to being pulled by the devs - like System Protocol One - but can still be installed from steam just fine)
Fun fact- if you downloaded sbemails to an iPod (the original, bulky type that used the dial to navigate without a touchscreen) they had a unique little animation for the beginning and end of that as well! If I remember, it involved SB being "claustrophobic" and headbutting the screen to get out, making a "shattered screen" effect. It was amazing.
When certain friends and I are together, we basically slip into our Homestar-ian dialect of English. The cartoons age incredibly well and the humor is almost entirely impossible to replicate. Some days are just "watch Homestar for hours again" days, because I never ever get sick of them. Pure goddamn magic.
I appreciated how dial-up friendly the site was. For the big Halloween toons, they put simple games on the loading page so you could play a game while the video loaded. Also, the content itself was brilliant and hilarious.
1000%. I remember being forwarded a link to "Dragon" by my cousin and weighing whether it was worth it to dedicate (minutes? hours?) to load it. (Turns out it was, obviously.)
Good old homestar runner. Along with foamy the squirrel, Eskimo Bob, and Potter puppet pals t'was a big part of my youth. Thanks for the trip down memory lane 😁
omg Potter Puppet Pals!! I still watch those every once in a while. there's so much from that time period i want to revisit. and thank YOU for stopping by!!
@@LordRavenscraft it was a delight. The one Easter egg I remember finding was during one strongbad email there was a scene with a light switch which you could turn on and off which I did for like 5 minutes!
I'm 22, and my first exposure to Homestar Runner was my Latin teacher in high school using the Trogdor episode to teach us about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
@@triplebasic We translated a passage about Pliny the Elder going into Pompeii. We paused while he was on a boat over. She said something along the lines of "Now I want you to get a good idea of the things he's about to see in Pompeii." She then played the video. "Now, I want you to keep all of that burninating in mind as we keep translating"
@@triplebasic Because it burninated the countryside, and it burninated the peasants. Also, it burninated all the peoples in the thatched roof cottages.
@@onebchillin2366 Unfortunately it does not, but during the FBI WARNING at the beginning, Strong Bad pops up to make fun of people who complain about their favorites not being included!
@@Magknot707 The copyright says it's produced by "Useless Junk, Inc." but I'm assuming it was something the Brothers Chaps used to sell on their webstore. A friend of mine used to have a CD of Strong Bad Sings, so I know they produced at least some physical content.
This was very well done. Too many times when I see retrospectives on Homestar Runner, it's either by people who weren't fans who don't understand how to talk about it, or by people who were huge fans who don't know how to explain why we should care about it, but I think you nailed the spirit of being a fan of a weird talking animal cartoon and still being presentable to regular people. Thanks for explaining why we all loved the easter eggs so much because finding out about them was when I really went from liking H*R to REALLY loving it back in the day.
Whenever I make some Homestarrunner joke, my kids just look at me in bewilderment. Then I pull up the reference on UA-cam to show them - and they just look at me in bewilderment. “I’m sad that I’m flying.”
This took me back to a time when the internet was still a fun, magical place of discovery. It was something you purposely sat down to do, before wireless connection existed in our pockets. Man, those were good days.
Only a few years into Homestar runner I tried to find everything on the site. 7or 8 dedicated hours later, I didn't even get close. No reason to quit trying though. The amount of material is astoundingly large. Out of all the "flashes" in the pan from back then, this was engaging for many years. Seeing some of these easter eggs I didn't know about is very bittersweet since we can't interact quite the same anymore.
The whole reason why Flash can do so much more than typical video animation, is because Flash isn't really a video player. It's great for making animated videos, but at its heart, Flash is basically a video game engine lite. Hence why there were so many Flash games in the years following Homestar Runner, (a lot of them remarkably high quality, considering they were usually straight up freeware.)
Yeah, same. Strongbad emails. The rest of the website's content didn't click with me. I actually didn't know about a lot of it. I just knew about the Strongbad emails.
Seriously, having that guaranteed weekly piece of new content gave my friend group and I a huge boost of excitement the day before and the day of. Not to mention it was all so unique and felt so perfectly designed for us.
Well, they're still pretty active. Strong Bad has active Twitter and Instagram accounts, retweeting fan art, new videos, and even riffing his unofficial appearance on Robot Chicken (that outright uses assets from the cartoons, by the way, violating the site's legal fine-print page)! Meanwhile, Videlectrix, the Brothers Chaps' way of branding their games starting in 2003, re-released and expanded the Dangeresque Flash game, and released Halloween Hide and Seek to Steam, now with voices.
@@curtbert2121 I'm sure some will, Homestar Runner was before my time too. I only just found out about it in May. If UA-cam's still around by then maybe they could watch UA-cam videos about Flash.
oh man, Homestar Runner was such a huge influence on me! Some of my silly animations I made years later were inspired by Homestar's universe. And I totally agree about how the easter eggs and bonus content made the show one-of-a-kind, you'd never see a TV show doing anything remotely as intricate. Also, come to think of it, I remember wasting countless hours playing Stinkoman 20X6 in middle school...
You know what, I DID find the 100'th email hidden video back in the day. I felt immensely satisfied at the time. Very cool. I had totally forgotten about it too until your video.
Truer words, my friend. Loved everything about the internet between 2003 to 2013, it was exciting, dangerous, and no holds barred, but had advanced enough that mere mortals could navigate it. Now, if you even want to make something worthwhile on the internet, it better be scrubbed clean of originality and make our corporate overlords and Jeff Bezos' worth of cash.
It really was a special time and place to be a part of the internet culture. Scuffed enough to still be fun in a crude way, yet navigable enough that anyone could find what they wanted.
I was at GenCon this week, randomly walked up to a guy holding a Dangeresque puppet, and in my best StrongBad voice said, “Dear Strongbad, how do you play card games with boxing gloves on your hands?” Imagine my shock when the guy who responded was StrongBad! I freaked out that I got to meet the brothers Chaps and they were incredibly cool that this random guy walked up and interrupted their card game. That’s 30 seconds I’ll be feeling out about for the rest of my life!
@@elijahbrown5818 one of them lived on the west coast for a bit(This was way after the golden era of homestar and was a bit of a content drought), but other than that they have been in Atlanta.
they had already sabotaged it, making it run worse and worse with each 'update' of the flash plugin and each new version of each browser.. but those of us who wisely stopped updating can still watch flash to our hearts' contents :D
The whole security thing is actually nonsense, it’s considered insecure just because it isn’t updated anymore, not because it had serious issues (it’s just the go to excuse) Apple killed flash, because they refused to support it on their platforms. When the web went mobile, Adobe couldn’t get Apple to agree to it on phones, and that was the future. Flash light was even being used to write phone user interfaces for other platforms but when Apple took over Apple killed flash.
@@Diamonddrake I want to believe you but I also remember it being really important back in the day to block ads because embedded flash files were infecting everyone with malware. like, on mainstream big-name websites. obviously watching homestar was, and continues to be, safe. and the period when flash applets were blocked by default and had to be clicked on in order to activate was acceptable and worked a treat.
@@Diamonddrake I've been following security news since Flash's heyday and yes, it was one of the biggest security holes for the average user. It was always Flash or Java enabling malware campaigns.
@@Diamonddrake the security issues aren't made up, but what actually killed it was Apple, and Apple killed it because it wanted people to get their games and apps through their APP STORE, where Apple can take their cut, not for free through the browser. Man, Flash was so ahead of its time and so useful and powerful. Which is also, sadly, why it was so easy to use it for evil.
I worked an overnight job at a bank's data processing center, all alone in a server room for 10 hours straight. Homestar Runner kept me sane in my downtime. I really suffered at that job with loneliness and depression, and the site helped me get through it. I was legitimately saddened when it dawned on me the impending death of Flash would mean HR would cease to work, but I'm glad to see it's accessible again (even if some of the deeper Easter eggs no longer function). Thanks for the retrospective! You've got a new subscriber, buddy! ;)
I had a huge website made of flash with all kinds of animations and interactivity but I was a struggling street artist and couldn't afford to renew my hosting so it's all been gone for many years
It's worth mentioning that Homestar Runner is not just a thing of the past, as one would assume from this video--it's still up and still putting up new content! Just... not nearly nearly as often as it used to, is alls.
I was born when Homestar Runner began to fall. I recently discovered it this year. I have been saved from the pit of not knowing Strong Bad, Homestar or Teen girl squad. I love homestar runner.
I consider myself a pretty hardcore fan and was certain I'd seen everything there was to see on the site, but I had NEVER seen the "stupid stuff" extra scene OR the hidden mustachio'd Homestar in Senorial Day until this video! Thank you for such an insightful deep-dive into one of my favorite things, and for masterfully tying it into the bigger picture of the cultural landscape and evolution of art and humor in the Internet age.
GenX rep here. I was working in a DSL sport call center from 2004 to 2008, and we had an open internet policy while working. We all discovered this stuff together and loved it so much. You just brought back the feels, watching this with my 15 y.o. artist of a son. You nearly made me cry nostalgia tears 3 times and inspired him as an artist. Two new subs and thanks for the beautiful, heartwarming video ❤️
"Highly specific microgeneration" and "it has seeped into the way you speak" are so alarmingly accurate. It's such a fond part of my adolescence, but I have no idea how to share it with anyone who didn't also grow up with it. It was a special pocket of the internet. And it's surprisingly been able to maintain its charm in recent videos, but that charm is only noticed by people who grew up with it. I have no clue what a first reaction from Gen Z to Homestar Runner would be like.
Gen Z/late millenial here. Found HR when I was just 9. Grew up with it since I was a little kid, at a time when nobody else my age even knew what it was. It was still worth it then and still amazing now
I totally agree. I got into it in my tweens or a little earlier maybe, a bit after it's peak, but when Flash was still alive. And it's seeped into the way I speak. Sometimes I'll jokingly refer to something "asploding" or slip in an "all the time" out of order in a sentence. None of my friends know about it though, and even though we have similar senses of humor, I don't know how enjoyable H*R would be to them if I just introduced them to it now. I didn't realize how much of an impact it was making while I was enjoying it.
i was told about it on a childrens game forum (rip roblox forums) and while it wasnt like a main obsession of mine at any point it still found a way to ruin my vocabulary
The "Oregon Trail Generation" consists of young members of Generation X and the oldest millennials who might have played the original Oregon Trail game on an Apple II computer. I think there also is a Homestar Runner Generation consisting of people who might have visited the Homestar Runner website. I think viewers ranged in age from 8 to 35, but perhaps the biggest chunk of viewers were people who were in middle school to college between 2002 and 2005. So, I would say the Homestar Runner Generation consists of internet users who were born between 1978 and 1993.
Back in the day, I remember in the first couple years of our marriage, my wife got me a Strong Bad t-shirt and sticker pack for Christmas one year. Still one of the best presents I ever got. She even transferred the windshield decal of strongbad to the new car when the old one kicked the bucket. So, I just wanted to say, I loved this video. Thanks.
Facebook's "homestar runner crapposting" has now been linked to this. Really hope this means a subscriber bump/takeoff for you, because your work merits a lot more exposure than it gets. I listen to a lot of youtube essay content and finding your stuff recently has been a breath of fresh air :)
Back then, part of the fun of Homestar was you felt very accomplished when you found some Easter egg because there wasn’t much info online unless you knew where to look for help. I spent hours on the site finding as many of them as I could. Long live Homestarrunner.
I was a massive HSR fan. This series is directly responsible putting the finishing touches on my sense of humor during my last days as an impressionable young person in the early aughts. From yelling "I'M A LONG PANTS MAN" as I dress myself, to liberal use of the word "Meh!" to delightfully exclaiming "CHOCOZUMA'S REVENGE!!" when I get frozen yogurt piled high with delicious, delicious chocolate everything. My avatar on my fitness app is a Trogdor, who burninates fat and calories. And I still learned a load of things I didn't know about the series. Great video. Also, Gregor is a weird name. Thanks for all the laughs, Brothers Chaps.
When I went back and rewatched all the sbemails in middle school (I think around 2010), I noticed the way the URLs were and being lazy I just kept typing in the next one. When I got to 100, I was ecstatic lmao, I love these guys
Also my favorite gag of all time has to be in SBemail a hundred (or was it 150?) Where they put the site in... WIDE SCREEN! Left side brooowww. Right side brooow- wait, what are you doing there? Oh I'm always here, just standing in the black. Oh... Guess I need to start turning my head to the right more. (All these years later, and I think I mostly remembered that bit correctly!)
That Flash allowed you to put buttons in the animations so you could have clickable Easter eggs within your animation. It was so cool and as far as I know you still can't replicate it with what people animate in now as an indie creator. I happen to be part of the Homestar Runner generation and the Cheat's techno rave music is a recurring feature in my husband and I's banter. Pretty sure our children think we're nuts. 😅
As someone who was a regular on the homstar runner wiki and its connected forum throughout the peak years of its popularity, I can also attest that a lot of the Easter eggs the Brothers Chaps left in their videos were literally for the wiki editors. They knew that these fans would delve into everything concerning these videos, and even admitted to sometimes using it themselves to look up one-off characters and running gags.
I got so much joy from this website over the years. The Halloween episodes were especially fun, and every ending screen was full of stuff to find. What a time.
The world record holder for Slay the Spire consecutive win streaks got his handle from Coach Z. It was a wonderful phenomena that will live as long as those of us who remember it. Always happy to see it getting the recognition it deserves!
For anyone interested in learning about Homestar Runner, they are still around. They have a UA-cam channel even and are still uploading new stuff. If you have any questions, just ask anyone at the UA-cam channel or the Reddit feed. Having been a devoted fan for fifteen years now, you can ask me as well.
I really love your editing in this video in particular. I just love a well-edited video essay and you have some of the best edited ones I’ve seen. Kudos to you and Niomi! Homestarrunner was my high school/college and I have bonded with many friends over our love of the site! My friend and I still say “Haldo” in greeting to each other. I have never stopped to think that, well, kids these days wouldn’t understand the site, how it worked, the interactivity of the Flash medium, etc. and I suddenly felt all of my almost 34 years watching this. It’s fun and strange to think about how our internet experience is so different now to how it was just 15 years ago. You really got that with the reference “what if they just stopped making movies in 1915” metaphor. Great way to explain it. I rec you to everyone as my new fave video essayist. And please don’t feel pressured to upload a specific video (regarding people asking for Animorphs 3). I know that getting more popular on UA-cam can make one feel more beholden to demanding fans. I support creating at your own pace about whatever subject you wish.
Man, you just reminded me of every afternoon I spent hanging out at the college computer lab with my friends, waiting to see if the newest "Homestar Runner" just dropped, and trying not to laugh so hard that the other lab users would get mad at us.
YESSSSS THANK U Albino Black Sheep was so good but no one I talk to these days even seemed to know about it!!! “The Llama Song” was peak humor for 11 year old me.
Brings me back to the days of the free Internet. There's something about the challenges and limitations of the early Internet that really brought out a greater sense of inspiration than having everything laid out and spelled out for you.
Gen Z/late millenial here. Found HR when I was just 9. Grew up with it since I was a little kid, at a time when nobody else my age even knew what it was. It was still worth it then and still amazing now
I was a few years late to homestar runner. I never really understood it but I did grasp through a single friend, that I don't know anymore, he had a passion for it that meant it must've been something special. This video helped put all the passion into perspective. Good video.
Pure Nostalgia right here. I remember watching these religiously with my girlfriend at the time and hunting for Easter eggs. The System is Down still pops into my head occasionally. Of course bobbing around rhythmically singing Doo do do do DOO, The System is Down, The System is Down causes everyone to stare at you as if you've finally snapped.
"If you were part of a highly-specific microgeneration of early millennials that were VERY online in the early 2000's..." Or part of a highly-specific group of Gen-Xers who had been online from the days when Usenet, BBSs, IRC, and MUDs ruled the roost, watched as the World Wide Web rose to prominence, and get nostalgic when people mention Netscape, GeoCities, ICQ, and Winamp, then you too almost certainly know what Homestar Runner is. Fantastic retrospective. Great Jeorb 'dere, Leard Ravenzcrorft!
Let us never forget the Easter Egg rabbit hole that led to Strong Sad's personal blog, which itself is a masterpiece of writing and humor. Homestar Runner is amazing because it is both very much a product of its time but also very timeless. Watching these cartoons now as an adult, I pick up on so many more subtle, nuanced references and jokes that I would never have as a kid. The Brothers Chaps tapped into a really special creative place when making Homestar Runner and I will all the time be happy I could experience it.
This is an amazing retrospective, and now I want to be 12 years old again 😭 And you're right, I quote Homestar Runner almost every day, even without realizing it. "Baleeted", "I can do it 9 times", and "great jorb" are some of the most comment utterances, but there are countess others (off the top of my head: "Pomp-REER!", "Oh man I HATE this guy", "stooooore", "IIIII CAAAAAAN'T SPEEEEEEELL YOOOOOOOU!", "Doo-hoo-doo-hoo-doo!", "I'ma go shower up", "I'm buying you a pizza", and simply the word "burninate")
I can only hope that someday soon, a proper replacement for Flash is developed. Something that allows for the seamless integration of animation, video games, web design, and video streaming. Things like Homestar Runner and Homestuck were the pioneers of a whole new art medium that got unfairly shafted because Adobe wanted to streamline their apps. But for the short time that the medium existed, it was glorious. Wish I’d been an active internet user before UA-cam blew up, I’d have loved to experience H*R in real time. As it stands now, there’s just so much content to catch up on that it feels a little overwhelming. But alas, I was 4 when Homestar Runner started.
I had to stay an extra semester in college as a part time student, so all my friends had graduated and I had to live in a rented attic room. I spent most of my free time clicking the "random" button on HSR and watching whatever came up. I still have most of the emails memorized.
Thank you for this video documenting one of the most important events in the history of the internet and humanity in general. You did a groot joob. I mean a great jeaorb.
That was seriously well done. As much as I loved Homestar, I never knew the full brilliance of it. My siblings and I who were avid watchers of the site at the time found a wonderful moment of notalgia and connection with one another over your video. Thank so so very much for posting. I'm not gonna get into details as to why that matters so deeply on a personal level for the 3 of us, but suffice it to say that it meant a lot. This is what the internet is all about. Again, thank you.
PREEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOW Man, I absolutely loved this back in the day and it still has a very fond place in my heart. Pretty sure I bought some absolutely random guy a beer in 2015 just because he was wearing a HSR shirt.
I saw this video in my sub box 2 days ago and never realized it was you. I love your videos. And would have clicked in an instant... Idk... For some reason this thumbnail/title didn't hit that identifiable spot. Amazing vid. I have to watch it again now that I know who you are!
As far as I'm aware, they're slowly trying to bring most of the features described in the video to formats like HTML, especially since now Adobe Animate exports to those formats
What's impressive is that the Brothers Chap are still cranking out content, even if it's not regular video uploads. Games, merch, memorabilia, they're keeping Homestar and co going in some capacity. Would love to see another Homestar renaissance one day!
This gave me the feels. I was one of those avid fans that wasted hours (at work usually) checking the site at least once a day, every day> I watched each episode multiple times, and clicked the screen all over the place looking for the latest easter eggs. I thought I had seen them all (including the sbemail 100 bit) but you still managed to surprise me with a few. I never knew about the Tab trick.. that would have been good to know. Loved this!
The HTML serving as a "Curtain" I actually was aware of that, one of the most memorable experiences around that involves Strong Bad showing off a new chair, which has a back that's so high you can't see Strong Bad. That's when The Brothers Chaps actually showed him taking his mask off and showing a photo of his parents. Well, how could I resist? I downloaded the SWF file, removed the chair (I forget how to do that), but on the photo it said, "Nice Try, Dodongos!" 😏
Its crazy how many points you made and there could still be more to say! I especially think about the telltale game, the hiatus, and the massive impact that was felt across the modern internet when the hiatus ended!
Even with all that isn't possible anymore, the cartoons themselves are still worth watching. Very few of them even feel dated at all; they typically stayed away from current events/trends, most of the technology shown was already several decades behind at the time of release, etc. It's virtually timeless.
You truly expressed why Homestar Runner was so amazing. Thank you for reminding me, it's been so long. I'm just glad I spent those countless hours on the website for all those years.
There was actually a secret homepage, too. One of the games was a soundboard with voice clips of Homestar, and if you made him say the right phrase, it unlocked a Strong Bad mode. Then, if you made Strong Bad say the right phrase, it sent you to the Strong Bad-themed homepage.
God I remember this being EVERYWHERE when I first got onto the internet around 2007. I spent most of my time in the Thomas the Tank Engine community, but even there this series was referenced constantly. People even crossed it over with their Thomas videos on several occasions. Even though I never saw the series itself, I'm deeply nostalgic for it because that era of the internet was so saturated with it. Glad you memorialized it here, and I finally have the full story. I gotta say, I think my version of this was Harry Potter Puppet Pals. I went crazy for the easter eggs in that as a kid, so I totally get it.
God, we were robbed when Flash died. I remember Flash's waning days, people trash-talking it for the (admittedly huge and dangerous) security holes it had; I don't think any of them realized just what they were losing until it was too late.
Flash was a corporate product that made the internet more dangerous to use. The main issue is the days of that genre of content are gone. Most people interact with the internet via apps so most novel creators turn towards app development or apps as content platforms. I would say that’s why html5s animation capabilities have been largely ignored outside of fancy website effects. If a suitable replacement were developed, I would imagine the community surrounding it to be fairly niche.
Omg...what a trip down memory lane. Thank you for this video! Not just for the nostalgia factor, but I also find everything related to flash and what the Brothers Chaps did with their website to be inspiring and fascinating. I was into it for a couple years, but then after graduation the real world and depression took over. But your video here is wonderful!
Wow thank you for making this video. I loved Homestar growing up but I sort of took the interactivity for granted. Really glad the innovations of the site are being documented and discussed today
The proper words to describe what this era of the internet was like don't exist. Every day was a new adventure and I could not wait to jump online and see what I would discover. Now it's become like opening the fridge to find something to eat. Every now and then I find something great like this video. But most of the time it's the same old stuff.
Modern life in general has become as malaise as pacing to and from the fridge.
My friends and I would literally run home from school so we could be the first to watch a new sbemail. It was like a contest to find all the easter eggs, and we'd offer tips to each other to catch the ones we missed. It was always amazing finding someone else who knew Homestar because even at peak popularity, it was still relatively niche, but every now and again you'd come across someone casually drop a word like "burninating" and you could spend the next three hours talking to them about Homestar lol. It was like by watching it, you couldn't help but be drawn into this larger community. No one was ambivalent about Homestar; if you knew about it, you were 100% in.
Back when you had an hour online before your parents kicked you off. I remember a friend got his email made into a video. That was something else for us. Not like today where everyone pander to the viewers and you know exactly what videos will entail.
You explained it perfectly.
Yup, everything nowadays is mass produced bullshit.
And what's really amazing was that all this content the Brother's Chaps put up for our entertainment was entirely FREE. No ads, no popups, no subscriptions, no patreon, no shameless plugs or sponsors, they rolled up their sleeves and cranked out cartoons, games, music, videos, the whole shebang for anyone anywhere in the world to enjoy absolutely FREE. To this day their work was entirely funded by sales of merchandise on the HR store, which you can still visit and buy stuff from, they've even partnered with FanGamer to release vinyl records like "Strong Bad Sings!" and cool plushies and even made an entire Trogdor Board game for the family fun times.
I don't know how much paid work they did, but I discovered, completely by accident, that they built the Mellow Mushroom site. I went there to see the hours or menu for the one nearby, and something seemed familiar, so I looked around until I realized why it looked familiar. Not nearly as intricate as the Homestar Runner site, but their fingerprints were all over it.
@@MarionStevensJr You weren't kidding about the mellow mushroom site
They put in the effort to make something people would love. Buying H*R merch wasn't even a question. It was an "of course I'll buy that" situation. They didn't make content that's just good enough to have playing in the background.
YESS 🥺
I still need to buy the last DVD.
I tried to explain to a post-millennial what HSR was, and I told her:
It was like a menu page for a streaming video website, but fun! Imagine clicking on a show in Netflix, and the entire show itself was just one long dynamic menu screen with clickable menu buttons coming and going throughout the episode.
She said:
Whoa... It almost seems like we kinda took a step backwards as the Internet evolved.
We're gonna be okay you guys. This next generation has some good heads on their shoulders. 🥲
Everyone loved the Homestar Runner. He was a great athlete.
Stiny! Get me a danish.
terrific, even
@@Spthomas47 Stiny! Who spilled coffee all over the plans to my death ray?
Terrific*
And so, The Cheat mashed play on an extremely expensive jambox with high-speed dubbing and everybody put their weight on it!
Another way they rewarded repeated viewer engagement was with their borderline insane commitment to making the most obscure references to their previous content. Other shows and content were doing this but they really took it to an intensely microscopic level.
*Sigh*… . DNA evidence.. ..
Gotta love the Fondue Pot
Yeah time and time again a character would be created for a single gag and then stick around. But big deal, The Simpsons did that. What Homestar did *beyond* that was maintain character relationships and lore for those characters, and have completely obscure one-liners and in-jokes show up over and over later on. At times it felt like watching a favorite show *and* reading its super obsessed fanpage at the same time.
great point
Scott the woz does that. Its very rewarding
Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People is still the pinnacle of Telltale Games and no one can or ever will convince me otherwise.
Im just waiting for it to go on sale on steam. I own a physical copy but don't have a CD drive on any of my computers haha.
@@AugustBurnsSam you can also get an external dvd/Blu-ray drive to hook up to a USB port on your computer
I wanted to play it the other day, but for some reason I wasn't able to download it.😥
@@AugustBurnsSam It's finally been made RE-available as "Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People: Season 1" after having been delisted a while back. Buy it while you can! (once it's in your steam library, you're good forever, there's several games in my library whose store pages outright 404 now due to being pulled by the devs - like System Protocol One - but can still be installed from steam just fine)
Fun fact- if you downloaded sbemails to an iPod (the original, bulky type that used the dial to navigate without a touchscreen) they had a unique little animation for the beginning and end of that as well! If I remember, it involved SB being "claustrophobic" and headbutting the screen to get out, making a "shattered screen" effect. It was amazing.
*UH-OH, FACE PRINT!*
LET! *bang* ME! *bang* OUT! *bang tinkle tinkle*
Oops, I hope you bought the extended warranty
*zap*
My old 5th gen ipod still has every single one of the original Homestar Runner videos that they offered to download.
Let me out of tiny box... oh hope you got the extended warranty
OMG I had all of those episodes downloaded onto my iPod video!
"A free piece of white-collar malware that moonlighted as an animation tool" summarizes the entirety of late-90s Internet everything.
Homestar Runner was ahead of its time, and dare I say, peak internet content.
Are you Mario
It was a peak, alright. That kind of peak that never comes again.
When certain friends and I are together, we basically slip into our Homestar-ian dialect of English. The cartoons age incredibly well and the humor is almost entirely impossible to replicate. Some days are just "watch Homestar for hours again" days, because I never ever get sick of them. Pure goddamn magic.
Agreed. The humor is timeless.
Something about the words "longest pants", "million donuts", and " 'd " is timeless.
I'm gonna eat a million pounds of candy this year. A million pounds!
I appreciated how dial-up friendly the site was. For the big Halloween toons, they put simple games on the loading page so you could play a game while the video loaded. Also, the content itself was brilliant and hilarious.
Absolutely this. Newgrounds and HSR were a blessing to the people who lived in places where DSL was still unavailable.
1000%. I remember being forwarded a link to "Dragon" by my cousin and weighing whether it was worth it to dedicate (minutes? hours?) to load it. (Turns out it was, obviously.)
Good old homestar runner. Along with foamy the squirrel, Eskimo Bob, and Potter puppet pals t'was a big part of my youth. Thanks for the trip down memory lane 😁
omg Potter Puppet Pals!! I still watch those every once in a while. there's so much from that time period i want to revisit.
and thank YOU for stopping by!!
@@LordRavenscraft it was a delight. The one Easter egg I remember finding was during one strongbad email there was a scene with a light switch which you could turn on and off which I did for like 5 minutes!
@@Ladyknightthebrave only now did I realize who it was, oh my gosh two of my favorite content creators!!!! y'all both do great work
Homestar Runner is a vital part of my now-th. And foreseeable future-th.
I remember those, but sadly can't claim they were part of my youth because I'm an old fart. I did enjoy them though, along with Weebl and Bob.
I'm 22, and my first exposure to Homestar Runner was my Latin teacher in high school using the Trogdor episode to teach us about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
My wife is a Latin teacher. Do you happen to remember how Trogdor was integrated? She covers Vesuvius extensively.
@@triplebasic We translated a passage about Pliny the Elder going into Pompeii. We paused while he was on a boat over. She said something along the lines of "Now I want you to get a good idea of the things he's about to see in Pompeii." She then played the video. "Now, I want you to keep all of that burninating in mind as we keep translating"
Your teacher is incredible
@@triplebasic Pliny the Burninator?
@@triplebasic Because it burninated the countryside, and it burninated the peasants. Also, it burninated all the peoples in the thatched roof cottages.
I found an old DVD of Strong Bad’s 50 Best Sbmails in the dollar bin the other day, and buddy, I picked it up SO FAST
Does it have the long pants man episode?
What info does the case have on it? Who made it & distributed it? Please
@@onebchillin2366 Unfortunately it does not, but during the FBI WARNING at the beginning, Strong Bad pops up to make fun of people who complain about their favorites not being included!
@@Magknot707 The copyright says it's produced by "Useless Junk, Inc." but I'm assuming it was something the Brothers Chaps used to sell on their webstore. A friend of mine used to have a CD of Strong Bad Sings, so I know they produced at least some physical content.
@@RealLukeWilson thats great! I ask because my wife is "Clanky" and i happen to come across a video about strong bad recently!
This was very well done. Too many times when I see retrospectives on Homestar Runner, it's either by people who weren't fans who don't understand how to talk about it, or by people who were huge fans who don't know how to explain why we should care about it, but I think you nailed the spirit of being a fan of a weird talking animal cartoon and still being presentable to regular people. Thanks for explaining why we all loved the easter eggs so much because finding out about them was when I really went from liking H*R to REALLY loving it back in the day.
Yes this is exactly how I felt. When trying to talk about this to my friends I was never able to articulate what exactly kept me so engaged
Whenever I make some Homestarrunner joke, my kids just look at me in bewilderment. Then I pull up the reference on UA-cam to show them - and they just look at me in bewilderment.
“I’m sad that I’m flying.”
Carrageenan, monteljohn. Can you detect me to the nearest bus stamp?
I’m MAD that I’m flying…
This took me back to a time when the internet was still a fun, magical place of discovery. It was something you purposely sat down to do, before wireless connection existed in our pockets.
Man, those were good days.
Only a few years into Homestar runner I tried to find everything on the site. 7or 8 dedicated hours later, I didn't even get close. No reason to quit trying though. The amount of material is astoundingly large. Out of all the "flashes" in the pan from back then, this was engaging for many years.
Seeing some of these easter eggs I didn't know about is very bittersweet since we can't interact quite the same anymore.
The whole reason why Flash can do so much more than typical video animation, is because Flash isn't really a video player. It's great for making animated videos, but at its heart, Flash is basically a video game engine lite. Hence why there were so many Flash games in the years following Homestar Runner, (a lot of them remarkably high quality, considering they were usually straight up freeware.)
Strongbad emails were what got me through middle/high school.
it got me through college :3
They got me through elementary school.
Yeah, same. Strongbad emails. The rest of the website's content didn't click with me. I actually didn't know about a lot of it. I just knew about the Strongbad emails.
I feel you there
Seriously, having that guaranteed weekly piece of new content gave my friend group and I a huge boost of excitement the day before and the day of. Not to mention it was all so unique and felt so perfectly designed for us.
You perfectly captured the style and tone of sbemails in your intro skit. Man, I miss homestarrunner.
Miss it? he's on youtube. Uploaded just a couple days ago.
@@Goon-124 You missed most of the point, chief. It was interactive.
@@Magknot707 Everything is fine. Nothing is ruined. (Sorry, I couldn't resist)
Well, they're still pretty active. Strong Bad has active Twitter and Instagram accounts, retweeting fan art, new videos, and even riffing his unofficial appearance on Robot Chicken (that outright uses assets from the cartoons, by the way, violating the site's legal fine-print page)!
Meanwhile, Videlectrix, the Brothers Chaps' way of branding their games starting in 2003, re-released and expanded the Dangeresque Flash game, and released Halloween Hide and Seek to Steam, now with voices.
It makes me sad that a generation is growing up without knowing what we gave up in interactive art when Flash died :/
agreed, they dont get to know the joy of creating stuff like this just because you wanted to and could.
Which generation are you talking about?
@@AwesomeYena gen alpha coming after Gen z.
@@curtbert2121 I'm sure some will, Homestar Runner was before my time too. I only just found out about it in May. If UA-cam's still around by then maybe they could watch UA-cam videos about Flash.
H*r is still alive and well
oh man, Homestar Runner was such a huge influence on me! Some of my silly animations I made years later were inspired by Homestar's universe. And I totally agree about how the easter eggs and bonus content made the show one-of-a-kind, you'd never see a TV show doing anything remotely as intricate.
Also, come to think of it, I remember wasting countless hours playing Stinkoman 20X6 in middle school...
CARYKH!!
Wasn't yellow face based off of the children book style of homestar runner?
You know what, I DID find the 100'th email hidden video back in the day. I felt immensely satisfied at the time. Very cool. I had totally forgotten about it too until your video.
Yep. They were begging us to do it with the anticipation, and then weeks of not uploading anything after 99.
It was so fun
Same
I remember the wait as a ten year old was excruciating.
I miss that era, things were so much more fun in the wild west before the corporate take over of the internet.
Truer words, my friend. Loved everything about the internet between 2003 to 2013, it was exciting, dangerous, and no holds barred, but had advanced enough that mere mortals could navigate it.
Now, if you even want to make something worthwhile on the internet, it better be scrubbed clean of originality and make our corporate overlords and Jeff Bezos' worth of cash.
It really was a special time and place to be a part of the internet culture. Scuffed enough to still be fun in a crude way, yet navigable enough that anyone could find what they wanted.
Ah, man... you pissed off Super Fly!
I was at GenCon this week, randomly walked up to a guy holding a Dangeresque puppet, and in my best StrongBad voice said, “Dear Strongbad, how do you play card games with boxing gloves on your hands?”
Imagine my shock when the guy who responded was StrongBad! I freaked out that I got to meet the brothers Chaps and they were incredibly cool that this random guy walked up and interrupted their card game.
That’s 30 seconds I’ll be feeling out about for the rest of my life!
That Beast Wars joke was a deep and personal attack on me specifically and I appreciated it
@Wirewolf616 Same. I even printed custom disc covers for them to pretend they were genuine
Same bro. I remember being a kid and the wait between Season 1 and Season 2 was absolute torture.
For me, it was Samurai Pizza Cats but yeah
truly stunned to realize PQ was done on Stone Mountain. a 2004 me living 15 minutes from there would have melted with the knowledge.
SAME! I've been to stone mountain so many times, and I knew the brothers chaps were based around Atlanta, but I didn't know they'd filmed that there!
They’re from Atlanta?? I thought there were like, New York, or somewhere in the NE.. . .
@@elijahbrown5818 one of them lived on the west coast for a bit(This was way after the golden era of homestar and was a bit of a content drought), but other than that they have been in Atlanta.
yooo homestar runnerrr. my college-age babysitter showed this to me when i was super little and i was OBSESSED with it
So what you're saying is, browsers cutting flash support was a massive mistake that we might never rectify. Or something like that.
they had already sabotaged it, making it run worse and worse with each 'update' of the flash plugin and each new version of each browser..
but those of us who wisely stopped updating can still watch flash to our hearts' contents :D
The whole security thing is actually nonsense, it’s considered insecure just because it isn’t updated anymore, not because it had serious issues (it’s just the go to excuse) Apple killed flash, because they refused to support it on their platforms. When the web went mobile, Adobe couldn’t get Apple to agree to it on phones, and that was the future. Flash light was even being used to write phone user interfaces for other platforms but when Apple took over Apple killed flash.
@@Diamonddrake I want to believe you but I also remember it being really important back in the day to block ads because embedded flash files were infecting everyone with malware. like, on mainstream big-name websites.
obviously watching homestar was, and continues to be, safe. and the period when flash applets were blocked by default and had to be clicked on in order to activate was acceptable and worked a treat.
@@Diamonddrake I've been following security news since Flash's heyday and yes, it was one of the biggest security holes for the average user. It was always Flash or Java enabling malware campaigns.
@@Diamonddrake the security issues aren't made up, but what actually killed it was Apple, and Apple killed it because it wanted people to get their games and apps through their APP STORE, where Apple can take their cut, not for free through the browser.
Man, Flash was so ahead of its time and so useful and powerful. Which is also, sadly, why it was so easy to use it for evil.
I worked an overnight job at a bank's data processing center, all alone in a server room for 10 hours straight. Homestar Runner kept me sane in my downtime. I really suffered at that job with loneliness and depression, and the site helped me get through it. I was legitimately saddened when it dawned on me the impending death of Flash would mean HR would cease to work, but I'm glad to see it's accessible again (even if some of the deeper Easter eggs no longer function).
Thanks for the retrospective! You've got a new subscriber, buddy! ;)
I had a huge website made of flash with all kinds of animations and interactivity but I was a struggling street artist and couldn't afford to renew my hosting so it's all been gone for many years
Ever made a torrent of it?
@@Gooberpatrol66 The Wayback Machine might have it archived
It's worth mentioning that Homestar Runner is not just a thing of the past, as one would assume from this video--it's still up and still putting up new content! Just... not nearly nearly as often as it used to, is alls.
I was born when Homestar Runner began to fall. I recently discovered it this year. I have been saved from the pit of not knowing Strong Bad, Homestar or Teen girl squad. I love homestar runner.
What a gorgeous love letter to not only homestar, but to flash itself.
100% sharing
Lucky Yates has the most interesting career. At the same time he shot Peasants Quest he was also a regular on Good Eats.
You knocked this out of the park, and I'll definitely be checking out those Animorphs vids as well. Fantastic work!
Thank you!!
Yes this was fantastic
knocked out of the park? i would say he really hit a homestar run with this one
Hey TGC, cool to see you here! I love your work, your Metroid and DKC videos especially are always in heavy rotation for me
The internet is a small place. Creators I follow watching the same videos I do.
I consider myself a pretty hardcore fan and was certain I'd seen everything there was to see on the site, but I had NEVER seen the "stupid stuff" extra scene OR the hidden mustachio'd Homestar in Senorial Day until this video! Thank you for such an insightful deep-dive into one of my favorite things, and for masterfully tying it into the bigger picture of the cultural landscape and evolution of art and humor in the Internet age.
GenX rep here. I was working in a DSL sport call center from 2004 to 2008, and we had an open internet policy while working. We all discovered this stuff together and loved it so much. You just brought back the feels, watching this with my 15 y.o. artist of a son. You nearly made me cry nostalgia tears 3 times and inspired him as an artist. Two new subs and thanks for the beautiful, heartwarming video ❤️
"Highly specific microgeneration" and "it has seeped into the way you speak" are so alarmingly accurate. It's such a fond part of my adolescence, but I have no idea how to share it with anyone who didn't also grow up with it. It was a special pocket of the internet. And it's surprisingly been able to maintain its charm in recent videos, but that charm is only noticed by people who grew up with it. I have no clue what a first reaction from Gen Z to Homestar Runner would be like.
I'm right on the Gen Z and Millenial border and I remember crying tears of joy when they announced SBCG4AP. So now you know.
Gen Z/late millenial here. Found HR when I was just 9. Grew up with it since I was a little kid, at a time when nobody else my age even knew what it was. It was still worth it then and still amazing now
I totally agree. I got into it in my tweens or a little earlier maybe, a bit after it's peak, but when Flash was still alive. And it's seeped into the way I speak. Sometimes I'll jokingly refer to something "asploding" or slip in an "all the time" out of order in a sentence. None of my friends know about it though, and even though we have similar senses of humor, I don't know how enjoyable H*R would be to them if I just introduced them to it now.
I didn't realize how much of an impact it was making while I was enjoying it.
i was told about it on a childrens game forum (rip roblox forums) and while it wasnt like a main obsession of mine at any point it still found a way to ruin my vocabulary
The "Oregon Trail Generation" consists of young members of Generation X and the oldest millennials who might have played the original Oregon Trail game on an Apple II computer. I think there also is a Homestar Runner Generation consisting of people who might have visited the Homestar Runner website. I think viewers ranged in age from 8 to 35, but perhaps the biggest chunk of viewers were people who were in middle school to college between 2002 and 2005. So, I would say the Homestar Runner Generation consists of internet users who were born between 1978 and 1993.
Back in the day, I remember in the first couple years of our marriage, my wife got me a Strong Bad t-shirt and sticker pack for Christmas one year. Still one of the best presents I ever got. She even transferred the windshield decal of strongbad to the new car when the old one kicked the bucket. So, I just wanted to say, I loved this video. Thanks.
Facebook's "homestar runner crapposting" has now been linked to this. Really hope this means a subscriber bump/takeoff for you, because your work merits a lot more exposure than it gets. I listen to a lot of youtube essay content and finding your stuff recently has been a breath of fresh air :)
Thank you so much! I'm glad to know HSR fans have been enjoying it.
I was late to the party with hsr, but thankfully my wife was not and she indoctrinated me. We quote the show all the time.
Absolutely nailed the pacing of the first 40 seconds.
Back then, part of the fun of Homestar was you felt very accomplished when you found some Easter egg because there wasn’t much info online unless you knew where to look for help. I spent hours on the site finding as many of them as I could. Long live Homestarrunner.
I was a massive HSR fan. This series is directly responsible putting the finishing touches on my sense of humor during my last days as an impressionable young person in the early aughts. From yelling "I'M A LONG PANTS MAN" as I dress myself, to liberal use of the word "Meh!" to delightfully exclaiming "CHOCOZUMA'S REVENGE!!" when I get frozen yogurt piled high with delicious, delicious chocolate everything. My avatar on my fitness app is a Trogdor, who burninates fat and calories. And I still learned a load of things I didn't know about the series. Great video.
Also, Gregor is a weird name.
Thanks for all the laughs, Brothers Chaps.
Not gonna lie. I was tearing up by the end of this. This was my childhood.
When I went back and rewatched all the sbemails in middle school (I think around 2010), I noticed the way the URLs were and being lazy I just kept typing in the next one. When I got to 100, I was ecstatic lmao, I love these guys
Also my favorite gag of all time has to be in SBemail a hundred (or was it 150?) Where they put the site in... WIDE SCREEN! Left side brooowww. Right side brooow- wait, what are you doing there? Oh I'm always here, just standing in the black. Oh... Guess I need to start turning my head to the right more.
(All these years later, and I think I mostly remembered that bit correctly!)
Hahaha. I've been saying "guess I need to start turning to the right more often" for so long that I forgot where it came from!
That Flash allowed you to put buttons in the animations so you could have clickable Easter eggs within your animation. It was so cool and as far as I know you still can't replicate it with what people animate in now as an indie creator.
I happen to be part of the Homestar Runner generation and the Cheat's techno rave music is a recurring feature in my husband and I's banter. Pretty sure our children think we're nuts. 😅
As someone who was a regular on the homstar runner wiki and its connected forum throughout the peak years of its popularity, I can also attest that a lot of the Easter eggs the Brothers Chaps left in their videos were literally for the wiki editors. They knew that these fans would delve into everything concerning these videos, and even admitted to sometimes using it themselves to look up one-off characters and running gags.
I got so much joy from this website over the years. The Halloween episodes were especially fun, and every ending screen was full of stuff to find. What a time.
The world record holder for Slay the Spire consecutive win streaks got his handle from Coach Z. It was a wonderful phenomena that will live as long as those of us who remember it. Always happy to see it getting the recognition it deserves!
JoINrbs literally "In between Jorbs"
For anyone interested in learning about Homestar Runner, they are still around. They have a UA-cam channel even and are still uploading new stuff. If you have any questions, just ask anyone at the UA-cam channel or the Reddit feed.
Having been a devoted fan for fifteen years now, you can ask me as well.
I remember noticing the “sbemailahundred” in the url (well after the release) and changed it to 100 on a whim.
Glad you made this video. Homestar Runner was a favorite of mine circa 2005-6. I had no idea how deep this website was, I wish I had known in the day.
absolutely how dare you remind me of "the end of the world" and send me into a spiral of saying "BUT I'M LE TIRED..." for another decade of my life
well take a nap :D
"We got the -cigarettes- missiles are comin'!"
I really love your editing in this video in particular. I just love a well-edited video essay and you have some of the best edited ones I’ve seen. Kudos to you and Niomi!
Homestarrunner was my high school/college and I have bonded with many friends over our love of the site! My friend and I still say “Haldo” in greeting to each other. I have never stopped to think that, well, kids these days wouldn’t understand the site, how it worked, the interactivity of the Flash medium, etc. and I suddenly felt all of my almost 34 years watching this. It’s fun and strange to think about how our internet experience is so different now to how it was just 15 years ago. You really got that with the reference “what if they just stopped making movies in 1915” metaphor. Great way to explain it.
I rec you to everyone as my new fave video essayist. And please don’t feel pressured to upload a specific video (regarding people asking for Animorphs 3). I know that getting more popular on UA-cam can make one feel more beholden to demanding fans. I support creating at your own pace about whatever subject you wish.
Man, you just reminded me of every afternoon I spent hanging out at the college computer lab with my friends, waiting to see if the newest "Homestar Runner" just dropped, and trying not to laugh so hard that the other lab users would get mad at us.
YESSSSS THANK U Albino Black Sheep was so good but no one I talk to these days even seemed to know about it!!! “The Llama Song” was peak humor for 11 year old me.
Ronald Reagan! You're not a licenced fugu chef!
lo bob! you have pie?
I remember watching that video when I was 12!
Brings me back to the days of the free Internet. There's something about the challenges and limitations of the early Internet that really brought out a greater sense of inspiration than having everything laid out and spelled out for you.
Gen Z/late millenial here. Found HR when I was just 9. Grew up with it since I was a little kid, at a time when nobody else my age even knew what it was. It was still worth it then and still amazing now
I was a few years late to homestar runner. I never really understood it but I did grasp through a single friend, that I don't know anymore, he had a passion for it that meant it must've been something special. This video helped put all the passion into perspective. Good video.
Pure Nostalgia right here.
I remember watching these religiously with my girlfriend at the time and hunting for Easter eggs.
The System is Down still pops into my head occasionally.
Of course bobbing around rhythmically singing Doo do do do DOO, The System is Down, The System is Down causes everyone to stare at you as if you've finally snapped.
A Homestar Runner video? I see you're a man of culture as well
"If you were part of a highly-specific microgeneration of early millennials that were VERY online in the early 2000's..."
Or part of a highly-specific group of Gen-Xers who had been online from the days when Usenet, BBSs, IRC, and MUDs ruled the roost, watched as the World Wide Web rose to prominence, and get nostalgic when people mention Netscape, GeoCities, ICQ, and Winamp, then you too almost certainly know what Homestar Runner is.
Fantastic retrospective. Great Jeorb 'dere, Leard Ravenzcrorft!
Let us never forget the Easter Egg rabbit hole that led to Strong Sad's personal blog, which itself is a masterpiece of writing and humor.
Homestar Runner is amazing because it is both very much a product of its time but also very timeless. Watching these cartoons now as an adult, I pick up on so many more subtle, nuanced references and jokes that I would never have as a kid. The Brothers Chaps tapped into a really special creative place when making Homestar Runner and I will all the time be happy I could experience it.
Ha, I remember the Lukewarm Water recipe.
This is an amazing retrospective, and now I want to be 12 years old again 😭
And you're right, I quote Homestar Runner almost every day, even without realizing it. "Baleeted", "I can do it 9 times", and "great jorb" are some of the most comment utterances, but there are countess others (off the top of my head: "Pomp-REER!", "Oh man I HATE this guy", "stooooore", "IIIII CAAAAAAN'T SPEEEEEEELL YOOOOOOOU!", "Doo-hoo-doo-hoo-doo!", "I'ma go shower up", "I'm buying you a pizza", and simply the word "burninate")
My top quote was actually in this.
"I'm gonna go...Place."
@@BonaparteBardithion omg, you're right, I say that one all the time too!
I can only hope that someday soon, a proper replacement for Flash is developed. Something that allows for the seamless integration of animation, video games, web design, and video streaming. Things like Homestar Runner and Homestuck were the pioneers of a whole new art medium that got unfairly shafted because Adobe wanted to streamline their apps. But for the short time that the medium existed, it was glorious. Wish I’d been an active internet user before UA-cam blew up, I’d have loved to experience H*R in real time. As it stands now, there’s just so much content to catch up on that it feels a little overwhelming. But alas, I was 4 when Homestar Runner started.
I had to stay an extra semester in college as a part time student, so all my friends had graduated and I had to live in a rented attic room. I spent most of my free time clicking the "random" button on HSR and watching whatever came up. I still have most of the emails memorized.
This is such a good video. I miss Homestar. It was so good. The death of flash really signalled the end of the Wild West of the internet.
Thank you for this video documenting one of the most important events in the history of the internet and humanity in general. You did a groot joob. I mean a great jeaorb.
"flagrant system error" still kills me to this day.
Computer over!
That was seriously well done. As much as I loved Homestar, I never knew the full brilliance of it. My siblings and I who were avid watchers of the site at the time found a wonderful moment of notalgia and connection with one another over your video. Thank so so very much for posting. I'm not gonna get into details as to why that matters so deeply on a personal level for the 3 of us, but suffice it to say that it meant a lot. This is what the internet is all about. Again, thank you.
PREEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOW
Man, I absolutely loved this back in the day and it still has a very fond place in my heart. Pretty sure I bought some absolutely random guy a beer in 2015 just because he was wearing a HSR shirt.
I cannot express the mix of nostalgia and sadness that I'm feeling watching this, but it's powerful.
This has been the hardest video to ever watch. Because I have to constantly go rewatch all the cool videos he keeps referencing.
I saw this video in my sub box 2 days ago and never realized it was you. I love your videos. And would have clicked in an instant... Idk... For some reason this thumbnail/title didn't hit that identifiable spot.
Amazing vid. I have to watch it again now that I know who you are!
As far as I'm aware, they're slowly trying to bring most of the features described in the video to formats like HTML, especially since now Adobe Animate exports to those formats
What's impressive is that the Brothers Chap are still cranking out content, even if it's not regular video uploads. Games, merch, memorabilia, they're keeping Homestar and co going in some capacity. Would love to see another Homestar renaissance one day!
Great jorb!
It's very heartwarming that people care about this cartoon as much as I did, do, and will continue to.
And now I will spend the rest of my evening overwhelmed with nostalgia
This gave me the feels. I was one of those avid fans that wasted hours (at work usually) checking the site at least once a day, every day> I watched each episode multiple times, and clicked the screen all over the place looking for the latest easter eggs. I thought I had seen them all (including the sbemail 100 bit) but you still managed to surprise me with a few. I never knew about the Tab trick.. that would have been good to know. Loved this!
The tab trick was great, I never missed an Easter egg that way.
The HTML serving as a "Curtain"
I actually was aware of that, one of the most memorable experiences around that involves Strong Bad showing off a new chair, which has a back that's so high you can't see Strong Bad. That's when The Brothers Chaps actually showed him taking his mask off and showing a photo of his parents. Well, how could I resist? I downloaded the SWF file, removed the chair (I forget how to do that), but on the photo it said, "Nice Try, Dodongos!" 😏
This is a great deep dive into something that my friends and I used to love. Thanks for taking the time to make this.
20:01 Remember Neopets? Their games were all Flash. Damn, good times.
Its crazy how many points you made and there could still be more to say! I especially think about the telltale game, the hiatus, and the massive impact that was felt across the modern internet when the hiatus ended!
My brothers and I quote Homestar, Strongbad and co. nearly daily, even now. Three cheers for the Chort!
Even with all that isn't possible anymore, the cartoons themselves are still worth watching. Very few of them even feel dated at all; they typically stayed away from current events/trends, most of the technology shown was already several decades behind at the time of release, etc. It's virtually timeless.
Fun fact: if you install the latest version of the Ruffle extension, the .swf tricks you mentioned work again.
You truly expressed why Homestar Runner was so amazing. Thank you for reminding me, it's been so long. I'm just glad I spent those countless hours on the website for all those years.
A genuinely great piece of work. So happy I found you channel.
There was actually a secret homepage, too. One of the games was a soundboard with voice clips of Homestar, and if you made him say the right phrase, it unlocked a Strong Bad mode. Then, if you made Strong Bad say the right phrase, it sent you to the Strong Bad-themed homepage.
God I remember this being EVERYWHERE when I first got onto the internet around 2007. I spent most of my time in the Thomas the Tank Engine community, but even there this series was referenced constantly. People even crossed it over with their Thomas videos on several occasions. Even though I never saw the series itself, I'm deeply nostalgic for it because that era of the internet was so saturated with it. Glad you memorialized it here, and I finally have the full story.
I gotta say, I think my version of this was Harry Potter Puppet Pals. I went crazy for the easter eggs in that as a kid, so I totally get it.
God, we were robbed when Flash died.
I remember Flash's waning days, people trash-talking it for the (admittedly huge and dangerous) security holes it had; I don't think any of them realized just what they were losing until it was too late.
Flash was a corporate product that made the internet more dangerous to use. The main issue is the days of that genre of content are gone. Most people interact with the internet via apps so most novel creators turn towards app development or apps as content platforms. I would say that’s why html5s animation capabilities have been largely ignored outside of fancy website effects. If a suitable replacement were developed, I would imagine the community surrounding it to be fairly niche.
💜💜💜 I never knew anyone else who knew Home star Runner but I had a really bad lisp and LOVED him so much
Omg...what a trip down memory lane. Thank you for this video! Not just for the nostalgia factor, but I also find everything related to flash and what the Brothers Chaps did with their website to be inspiring and fascinating. I was into it for a couple years, but then after graduation the real world and depression took over. But your video here is wonderful!
This form of entertainment needs to be revived in a new way somehow.
I don't know if Ruffle can do it justice.
Wow thank you for making this video. I loved Homestar growing up but I sort of took the interactivity for granted. Really glad the innovations of the site are being documented and discussed today