Homestar Runner
From Encyclopedia Dramatica
American Heritage Dictionary defines Homestar Runner (or Homestar) as: "toons and games featuring the wacky adventures of Homestar, Strong Bad, and the rest of the gang." Adventures? Checking our Email is an adventure? Whatever.
Homestar Runner is known for being a clean humor website. To honor that fact, this article will be completely clean.
Contents |
The Characters
- Homestar Runner -- Gay
- Strong Bad -- Juggalo
- Teh Cheat -- H4X0r
- Strong Mad -- Stupid
- Strong Sad -- Cutter
- Pom-Pom -- Fatty
- Bubs -- Nigga
- Coach Z -- Wigger, and also a Pedophile.
- Marzipan -- Hippy
- The K.O.T. -- Unfunny
- The Poopsmith -- 2 girls 1 cup fanaticizer
- Your mom -- Hott
- Homsar -- Retarded
Content
Homestar Runner is known for its unabashed racist content. Grammatical incorrectness is a point of comedy based on racial characteristics and speech impediment, to the point where those who sound different are meant to be funny, making fun of several black/hispanic stereotypes due to their perceived inferiority by the more "intellectual" white authors, who point out the comicality of differing speech patterns as both simple and childlike in comparison, as a sort of impediment befitting the handicapped, who are also made fun of. Black Vernacular English is shown as an ignorant, childlike, anti-intellectual style of speech for its comic simplicity compared to the more "normal" Caucasian speech, especially when white characters derisively use hip hop slang among regular speech, from the innocuous Teen Girl Squad using "Dag, Yo" to contrast with the all white cast, to the black narrator as comedic device in "Where U Goin'?"
Examples include:
- The character Bubs, with his raspy bassist voice, is a comical "George Jefferson" given to bouts of emotion and irrationality, while dispensing advice as a magical negro. The blue skin tone and widened teeth give an "alien minority" appearance with the storekeeper role giving the impression of the homely local whose education is derived only from the streets, and must continually serve the Caucasian protagonists who are not restricted to their social roles.
- Coach Z is the stereotypical "wigger" who listens to Wu-Tang, wears a backwards hat and "Flava flav" style bling, and uses butchered hip hop colloqialisms to demonstrates the perceived ignorance and childlike quality of black culture through botched imitation (These peoples try to fade me, Hip Hop Dance, Rap Song, The Z Is All Up Ins), showing that imitation of black culture leads to simple mindedness and deserves to be laughed at, compared to the assumed normality and superiority of white culture, in the same way "Malibu's Most Wanted" is an indirect criticism of black culture by "innocent" mockery.
- Strongbad and Senor Cardgage both use their "funny" accents as a point of comedic appeal, as minorities who sound different are naturally funnier in contrast to the "normal Caucasian" style of speech, just as the Mexican wrestling mask is meant to funny for being both odd and foreign.
- Mental disability and speech impediments are treated as a point of derision in The Interview and Donut Unto Others.
- Strong Bad has no compunction towards mocking black people in extra plug, garage sale and pizzaz, and considers Nordic and Germanic Metal more pure than the music of black people.
- In Baddest of the Bands, Strong Bad says the King of Town's Richard Pryor impression is too white, believing skin tone determines character more than individual action.
- In Strong Bad Email #69: Personal Favorites, in the knife fight with Pom Pom, Coach Z's line is "I'm a white guy with a knife!" This was changed within a week after the email came out to show the authors aren't racist.
- Homepage 25 has an Aunt Jemima character criticizing Homestar as "whitey," intended as comedic since the uneducated mammy stereotype has no power to cause real change in regards to her social situation.
- The rapper "3-D" has a song called Poot Slap to emphasize simple vulgarity in hip hop, while Peacey P suggests black people are unintelligible, egotistical drug pushers who are too dumb to spell properly.
Fans
Yeah, they have a few of those. Thank God the characters aren't really all that human or else I'd see more of them cosplayed and that would suck. They'd be like Star Wars fans, but trying to be funny all the time. The last thing I'd want when I'm at some convention listening to some better web animators talk is to have a Homestarmy of Strong Bads behind me MST3King the whole thing. They would pay. Thankfully, this scenario doesn't really exist, because there really are no good web animators. At all.
Every Homestar Runner fan in existence claims they were the one who sent the Strong Bad e-mail "virus" to try and prove they're cool as if it's something to be proud of. Most message boards will see at least three newbies who claim this throughout the forum's lifespan.
The Homestar Runner Wiki
Now, you would think that a site with "toons", "games" and "wacky adventures" wouldn't have assholes as fans. And they didn't. Until the wiki.
The Homestar Runner Wiki makes Wikipedia look like Newgrounds in its fascinating tenasity to destroy any and all lulz. IT'S A CARTOON, YOU FUCKS! GET OVER YOURSELVES.
- In one scene of a recent Homestar Runner short, two Homestar Runners appear in one frame. This being an oddity until you take a look at the raw Flash File and see the one further out of frame has a mustache on. A page marked "Mustachio'd Homestar Runner" was created and was then merged into the article for the toon. This might not be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that this page is the perfect example of people who fail at lulz.
- The Wiki has a policy page known as S.T.U.F.F. (meaning "Stick Things Up yer Fuzzy Fundament"). The fun facts are the trivia, real world references and goofs in each cartoon. Instead of allowing seperate pages for each cartoon for people to freely discuss their own insights (Ok, some of them are definitely NOT insightful), the members of this Wiki vote on whether or not certain facts belong on the page. Most of what becomes the "Fun Facts" are plain as the nose on your face and even they are argued over. Such as
- The argument over whether or not the name "Silent J" was a not so clever reference to "Jay and Silent Bob". Stupidity Here.
- In the email "Do Over" Homestar eats coins and a jiggly sound is made in his stomach. The night before on Family Guy, Peter Griffin ate coins and a jiggly sound is made in his stomach. This reference passes, which I could care less about and Jay decided to some how challenge the entire STUFF process over this fact. Ultra Stupidity here.
- ParkingStones isn't so much trolling as pointing out the truth. Super Mega Ultra Stupidity here
- There are also tons of articles about how many times pizza or ice cream has appeared in the Homestar Runner universe. Seriously, what the fuck?
- Information about these topics are usually followed by; "This is another case of ice cream appearing in homestarrunner." (Next stop: leaves in "Charlie Brown" and forks in "The Muppets".)
Shark jump
Like the inevitable business cycle, every popular series must have a certain point where it is well past its prime, and from there, it has nowhere to go but down. The recent offerings of homestarunner.com show the typical signs of decay. Newer videos consist of tongue in cheek references to the authors' creative bankruptcy, as they ask why people won't watch the other videos on their site since they're technically the same as the Strong Bad e-mails. When you have to ask that question, and stop producing the only thing that was popular about the site just to prove the point, then the creative ego has overstepped its bounds by advising the audience instead of listening to it. Nothing on the site is worth watching when the actual content explains how nothing on the site is worth watching.
Trogdor
After hearing their fans say such things as "I'm fucking a dragon" to "Fuck you, I'm a dragon!" the Brothers Chaps felt it would be necessary to create a cartoon with either dragons or fucking. Clearly, they made the wrong choice, as Trogdor appeared as a result of Strong Bad's shitty art. That may have been the end of it, had the cartoon not ended with a gay song. The Brothers Chaps added it at the last minute when Matt started mumbling the chorus while taking it in the ass. HR fans everywhere collectively orgasmed at the song and engraved Trogdor as their own meme. The song itself is unfunny and shit.
Trogdor's status quickly fell to old meme when the next cartoon about bum-fucking was uploaded. Regardless, HR oldfags continue to worship the dragon as their king, ensuring absolutely no sex.
Trogdor was revived with the release of Guitar Hero II, where the theme song appeared as a bonus track. The fact that the song was included induced some lulz, but an equal amount of anti-lulz was released when people actually thought they could play it on their guitar.
On Trogdor's 5th birthday, The Brothers Chaps told their entire audience to fuck off by completely ignoring Trogdor and dedicating a cartoon to the dragon drawn before him. Lulz and drama ensued, since every HR fan knows that Trogdor is SERIOUS FUCKING BUSINESS.
Seriously, though. Trogdor is made of awesomeness and win.
IMPORTANT NOTICE
Should anyone, anywhere sing the "Techno" or reference the "lightswitch rave" joke gay boy will be cracking skulls. Thank you. That is all.
External Links
- A typical Homestar Runner cartoon
- "Experimental Film" -- These guys did a video for They Might be Giants.
- "Matthew Elliot" -- A Fans Flash animation.
- "Fanstuff Wiki" -- The Homestar Runner's Wiki's Place to throw the Fan Stuff. Mostly inhabited by 10-12 year olds who downloaded the free 30 day Flash trial and think they could make decent animations.
