History Trivia / HomestarRunner

* ThePeteBest: Site Co-Creator Craig Zobel (best known these days for directing the controversial thrillers ''Film/{{Compliance}}'' and ''Film/TheHunt2020'') left very early on in the franchise's history to pursue his own film career, although he'll occasionally help contribute something to the site from writing to voicing a one off character.

** From November 2009 to April 2010, then until December 2010, the Brothers Chaps went without producing any new cartoons, a combination of family matters (both brothers are parents now) and working on other projects. The site began updating again in December before resuming the hiatus so that Matt Chapman could work in California on animation freelance work and Mike would take care of the families during this time. They ''finally'' updated again on AprilFoolsDay 2014, [[LampshadeHanging hanging a lampshade]] on the fact that the Brothers Chaps hadn't updated in years.\\

* ImageSource:
** CardboardPal
** CoolShades
** InvisibleAnatomy
** OddballDoppelganger
** PartySchedulingGambit

* QuoteSource: See [[QuoteSource/HomestarRunner here]].

* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: Stinkoman from the "japanese cartoon" sbemail is the TropeNamer.

** NowBuyTheMerchandise

** DelegationRelay

** YouCantGetYeFlask

** NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast

* ThePeteBest: Site Co-Creator Craig Zobel (Best known these days for directing the controversial thrillers ''Film/{{Compliance}}'' and ''Film/TheHunt2020'') left very early on in the franchise's history to pursue his own film career, although he'll occasionally help contribute something to the site from writing to voicing a one off character.
* QuoteSource:
** ThrowItIn

* ExtyYearsFromNow: Partially in "Stinkoman".

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece:
** The site got a lot of mileage from parodying the various web design, flash animation, and online culture tropes of the time - as time passes, most if not all of these trends have fallen by the wayside or been completely forgotten. Most of the humor in AprilFoolsDay pranks like "[[http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/Under_Construction Under Construction]]" and "[[http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/HomestarRunner.com_PAY_PLUS! HomestarRunner.com PAY PLUS!]]", as well as episodes like [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az49aNuYeJs "Virus"]] will likely fly over the heads of many who watch it today.
** The website design itself is noticeably obsolete - it is in a tiny box on an otherwise completely black webpage.(The small size was a problem even during the site's heyday - and on a modern monitor, it looks [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/homestar_runner.PNG like this.]]) While using the zoom feature on a browser can alleviate this, the site also suffers from poor audio quality due to Flash's compression (the Podcast Runner and [=YouTube=] versions are noticeably better, however), there's no way to pause, rewind, or fast-forward (outside of unofficial add-ons, the most extensive being [[http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/User:Phlip/Greasemonkey this one]]), and even prior to Flash Player's December 2020 shutdown, had frequent compatibility problems on certain devices. The newer toons frequently invoke SelfDeprecation to lampshade the dated website.
--> '''Strong Bad:''' "[[SarcasmMode And I can't wait to be soooo fooled when]] {Cut to the website's welcome screen} my favorite website looks like it's from another time period!"
--> '''Homestar:''' Oh. Man. This looks just like one of them Flash-y cartoon websites ''{Flash Player Settings popup appears}'' from 2002!

* ActingForTwo: In Limozeen's original appearance in a still photo, the Brothers Chaps' brother Donnie plays all four band members, and an Easter egg has Matt play all of them.

* OldShame: The Brothers Chaps admit on the faux-FBI Warning splash of "Marshmallow's Last Stand" that the characters are "not very funny". Because of this, the toon cannot be found normally on the website, only through [=YouTube=] uploads and the Everything Else Vol 2 DVD.

As of July 2014, Matt Chapman confirmed on the Jeff Rubin Show that he is back in Georgia and seriously wanting to bring back the series. The Brothers Chaps said they planned to rev the series back up sometime in Summer-Fall 2014, following through on October 3 with "[[http://homestarrunner.com/fisheyelens.html Fish Eye Lens]]". Since then, however, toons hosted on homestarrunner.com have been scarce, with toons hosted on YouTube eventually becoming semi-regular; in 2019 and 2020, the only on-site toons were the annual Halloween toons and their respective teasers and Fan Costumes.

* ThrowItIn: The small "i" in Trogdor the [=BURNiNATOR=]'s official all-caps name is there because that's what the capital "I" of the font the Brothers Chaps used looked like, making it funny enough to keep.

* TheWikiRule: The "[[http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page Homestar Runner Wiki]]" is ''incredibly'' thorough about any information concerning the site. Want to know what each character is dressed as in every Halloween toon? Go there. Want to know what computers Strong Bad used? They got it all sorted out. Want to know obscure stuff like Bubs' shady deals? They got it. The Brothers Chaps have admitted they sometimes use it for reference about their own work, have donated to it for years, adopted a character's fan nickname from the wiki (the Visor Robot) into canon, and even acknowledge its existence in several toons (such as "Fan Costumes 2016"). Taken Main/UpToEleven with the StrongBadActual Twitter account, which is probably the only one whose relevant Wiki documents all its posts in detail.

* ActingForTwo: In Limozeen's original appearance in a still photo, Matt Chapman plays all four band members.
* AscendedFanon: The Brothers Chaps themselves forgot that the Fhqwhgads Robot's FanNickname "Visor Robot" was {{Fanon}}, and upon realizing their mistake, gave the nickname a why not instead of debunking it.

** One of Homsar's more notorious quotes involves him claiming he was raised by a cup of coffee, but he initially wasn't the one to say it; Strong Bad made it up in "interview". It wasn't until the 2017 Halloween toon that Homsar actually said it. When the brothers uploaded the "interview" short to youtube, the description noted that they completely forgot that Strong Bad came up with the line until re-uploading it in 2017.

** "Holy crap!" is attributed as Strong Bad's catchphrase, despite the fact that outside of flashbacks and recordings, he has said it all of ''six times'', the last of which was in ''2004''. Also, in the flashback in "lady...ing", Strong Bad overuses the phrase, despite the fact that he didn't say it in Marshmallow's Last Stand, the toon that the flashback is based on.

*** Eventually real Cheat Commandos were up for sale.

** Since the store's switch from Yahoo to Shopify, the Strong Bad Email [=DVDs=] (with the exception of, for a time, the fifth one) and the third ''Everything Else'' DVD have been unavailable. As for buying them used, good luck, especially considering H*R's pride of not being mainstream. Right now, only ''Everything Else'' Vol 1 and 2 are available to purchase; thankfully the Strong Bad [=DVDs=] were reprinted in 2020 as one package, and later the Everything Else [=DVDs=] in 2021.

* ThePeteBest: Site Co-Creator Craig Zobel (Best known these days for directing the controversial thrillers ''Film/{{Compliance}}'' and ''Film/TheHunt2020'') left very early on in the franchise's history to pursue his own film career; although he'll occasionally help contribute something to the site from writing to voicing a one off character.

** From April to December 2010, the Brothers Chaps went over eight months without producing any new cartoons, a combination of family matters (both brothers are parents now) and working on other projects. The site began updating again in December before resuming the hiatus so that Matt Chapman could work in California on animation freelance work and Mike would take care of the families during this time. They ''finally'' updated again on AprilFoolsDay 2014, [[LampshadeHanging hanging a lampshade]] on the fact that the Brothers Chaps hadn't updated in years.\\

As of July 2014, Matt Chapman confirmed on the Jeff Rubin Show that he is back in Georgia and seriously wanting to bring back the series. The Brothers Chaps said they planned to rev the series back up sometime in Summer-Fall 2014, following through on October 3 with "[[http://homestarrunner.com/fisheyelens.html Fish Eye Lens]]".

** [[WordOfSaintPaul According to one the Brothers Chaps' sisters]], this is the reason why the "Spin-N-Say" game was changed to "Who Said What Now?". The legal implications are apparently so extreme that the original version has been {{UnPerson}}ed by the Homestar Runner Wiki. The "Spin-N-Say" version could be seen on the site as a secret page until Adobe ended support for Flash, though fans later uploaded it to [=YouTube=].
** When "Strong Bad Sings" was released to DVD, the song The Cheat played for Strong Mad had to be changed to "Hot Cross Buns". At the time of its release, the original song, "HappyBirthdayToYou", was not in the public domain.

** The website design itself is noticeably obsolete - not only is it in a tiny box on an otherwise completely black webpage.(The small size was a problem even during the site's heyday - and on a modern monitor, it looks [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/homestar_runner.PNG like this.]]) While using the zoom feature on a browser can alleviate this, the site also suffers from poor audio quality due to Flash's compression, (the Podcast Runner and [=YouTube=] versions are noticeably better, however) there's no way to pause, rewind, or fast-forward (outside of unofficial add-ons, the most extensive being [[http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/User:Phlip/Greasemonkey this one]]), and even prior to Flash Player's December 2020 shutdown, had frequent compatibility problems on certain devices. The newer toons frequently invoke SelfDeprecation to lampshade the dated website.

*** This is lampshaded in the April Fools ''Marzipan's Answering Machine'' when a perturbed King of Town leaves a message asking her to verify this
** Pretty much the DVD-exclusive cartoon "Why Come Only One Girl?", which shows ideas for other female ''Homestar Runner'' characters, such as Champeen and The Hurricane. [[note]] The former only showed up in the Dancing Bubs game in one of the backgrounds, and the latter actually made it into flash and was ready to be animated, but The Brothers Chap forgot about her since they were distracted with VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker [[/note]]
*** In the same cartoon, there was going to be a cartoon "Those Darn Cousins", featuring Homestar's two cousins, Rafferty and Preshy. The two cousins [[EnfantTerrible would torture their]] "[[TermsOfEndangerment Uncle Homestar]]" [[note]] Rafferty and Preshy are voiced by the Chaps' nephew and niece respectively. [[/note]] and Homestar would try to convince his friends that his cousins were trying to kill him.

* TheWikiRule: The "[[http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page Homestar Runner Wiki]]" is ''incredibly'' thorough about any information concerning the site. Want to know what each character is dressed as in every Halloween toon? Go there. Want to know what computers Strong Bad used? They got it all sorted out. Want to know obscure stuff like Bubs' shady deals? They got it. The Brothers Chaps have admitted they sometimes use it for reference about their own work, have donated to it for years, adopted a character's fan nickname from the wiki (the Visor Robot) into canon, and even acknowledge its existence in several toons (such as "Fan Costumes 2016").

** [[WordOfSaintPaul According to one the Brothers Chaps' sisters]], this is the reason why the "Spin-N-Say" game was changed to "Who Said What Now?". The legal implications are apparently so extreme that the original version has been {{UnPerson}}ed by the wiki. The "Spin-N-Say" version could be seen on the site as a secret page until Adobe ended support for Flash, though fans later uploaded it to [=YouTube=].

* CharacterSpecificPages:
** [[Characters/HomestarRunnerHomestar Homestar]]
** [[Characters/HomestarRunnerStrongBad Strong Bad]]

* CashCowFranchise: Downplayed a bit, but when co-creator Matt Chapman looked at all the T-shirt orders he received, he wondered "Are there even this many people in '''''the world!?'''''" The creators used to live entirely off of the sales of their merchandise.

* AscendedFanon: The Brothers Chaps themselves forgot that the Fhqwhgads Robot's FanNickname "Visor Robot" was {{Fanon}}, and upon realizing their mistake, gave the nickname a why not instead of [[{{Jossed}} Jossing]] it.

%%* DummiedOut: Several [[http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/Secret_Pages secret pages]], along with a few of the [[http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/Site_Components site components]].
%% Was moved from the main page, but needs context.

** "Marshmallow's Last Stand" and "A Jumping Jack Contest", two early toons, were removed from the site by the Brothers Chaps in 2003 for "personal reasons" but have since been mirrored on other sites by fans.

* OldShame: The Brothers Chaps admit on the faux-FBI Warning splash of "Marshmallow's Last Stand" that the characters are "not very funny". Because of this, the toon cannot be found normally on the website, only through mirrors or the Everything Else Vol 2 DVD.
** "A Jumping Jack Contest" was also taken off the site in 2003 for similar reasons, and the only way to view it is to view a mirror of it on the wiki or by buying the Everything Else Vol 2 DVD.

** [[WordOfSaintPaul According to one the Brothers Chaps' sisters]], this is the reason why the "Spin-N-Say" game was changed to "Who Said What Now?". The legal implications are apparently so extreme that the original version has been {{UnPerson}}ed by the wiki. Despite this, the "Spin-N-Say" version is still on the site as a secret page.

** Since the store's switch from Yahoo to Shopify, the Strong Bad Email [=DVDs=] (with the exception of, for a time, the fifth one) and the third ''Everything Else'' DVD have been unavailable. As for buying them used, good luck, especially considering H*R's pride of not being mainstream. Right now, only ''Everything Else'' Vol 1 and 2 are available to purchase; thankfully the Strong Bad [=DVDs=] were reprinted in 2020 as one package, and later the Everything Else DVDs in 2021.

* FranchiseKiller[=/=]TechnologyMarchesOn: What killed the Homestar Runner website was not the usual super-crappy cartoon, but quite simply the end of Adobe Flash itself. That being said, there are third-party flash players in the works.

** Since the store's switch from Yahoo to Shopify, the Strong Bad Email [=DVDs=] (with the exception of, for a time, the fifth one) and the third ''Everything Else'' DVD have been unavailable. As for buying them used, good luck, especially considering H*R's pride of not being mainstream. Right now, only ''Everything Else'' Vol 1 and 2 are available to purchase; thankfully the Strong Bad [=DVDs=] were reprinted in 2020 as one package.

** The Wii release of ''VideoGame/StrongBadsCoolGameForAttractivePeople'' is unavailable for purchase now that the Wii Shop Channel is down, although you can still pick it up on PC and [=PS3=], even after Telltale's temporary closure.

* MexicansLoveSpeedyGonzales: 20X6 is pretty well-liked by older 1990s era born anime fans, being an AffectionateParody of both then-big classics and Japanese games (as the latter was often a gateway to the former in the US) rather than a flat ShallowParody of either. It also helps that for the hit or miss nature of {{Animesque}} works, 20X6 isn't trying to be [[WereStillRelevantDammit hip and relevant]] (or that the one universe that actively tried to be, ''Xeriouxly Forxe'', was ''also'' a parody), and lacked the nasty foot-shooting and awkward self-insulting disrespectful jests at anime common to parodies of the day. The fact that it was built around being a ShallowParody in-universe (as Strong Bad had only seen one anime) and most of the jokes centered around the video game side also softened the blow.

As of July 2014, Matt Chapman confirmed on the Jeff Rubin Show that he is back in Georgia and seriously wanting to bring back the series. The Brothers Chaps said they planned to rev the series back up sometime in Summer-Fall 2014, following through on October 3 with [[http://homestarrunner.com/fisheyelens.html Fish Eye Lens]].

* BigNameFan: Due to the site's popularity, there are several. In fact, there are so many that the fan wiki has to use [[http://hrwiki.org/wiki/Sightings multiple pages]] to list all the references to the site in pop culture. But just ''some'' of the fans of the show are: [[Music/MyChemicalRomance Gerard Way]], Music/TheyMightBeGiants, Creator/RobertKirkman [[note]]Part of the reason [[VideoGame/TheWalkingDead game with Telltale]] was made was because Robert Kirkman liked [[VideoGame/StrongBadsCoolGameForAttractivePeople SBCG4AP]][[/note]], Creator/JossWhedon, Creator/DamonLindelof, LetsPlay/{{Videogamedunkey}}, Creator/AlexHirsch, and even [[Music/{{Rush}} Geddy Lee]].

* ThePeteBest: Site Co-Creator Craig Zobel (Best known these days for directing the controversial thrillers Film/{{Compliance}} and Film/TheHunt2020) left very early on in the franchises history to pursue his own film career; although he'll occasionally help contribute something to the site from writing to voicing a one off character.

* MexicansLoveSpeedyGonzales: 20X6 is pretty well-liked by older 1990s era born anime fans, being an AffectionateParody of both then-big classics and Japanese games (as the latter was often a gateway to the former in the US) rather than a flat ShallowParody of either. It also helps that for the hit or miss nature of {{Animesque}} works, 20X6 isn't trying to be [[WereStillRelevantDammit hip and relevant]] (or that the one universe that actively tried to be, ''Xeriously Forxe'', was ''also'' a parody), and lacked the nasty foot-shooting and awkward self-insulting disrespectful jests at anime common to parodies of the day. The fact that it was built around being a ShallowParody in-universe (as Strong Bad had only seen one anime) and most of the jokes centered around the video game side also softened the blow.