Recap / Homestar Runner Goes for the Gold

Airdate: Saturday, December 24, 2016

A month after writing the original book, Mike Chapman and Craig Zobel began working on a sequel. They abandoned this idea after finishing a rough script and some sketches. Mike chose instead to write a completely different book with his brother Matt and stick it on the internet, leading to the Homestar Runner we know and love today.

Twenty years later, the Brothers Chaps took their notes and sketches, and finally finished that abandoned sequel—publishing it as a Flash cartoon, titled Homestar Runner Goes for the Gold.

While digging through a box of "old H*R crap" in the garage, Homestar Runner and Strong Bad find a twenty-year-old copy of a children's book by Mike and Craig. Ignoring Homestar's advice, Strong Bad reads the book. Inside he finds the story of a triathlon competition between the All-Stars (Homestar Runner, Pom Pom, and Mr. Bland) and the Strong Stars (Strong Bad, Strong Mad, and... someone named Dijjery Doo)—it starts off charmingly quaint, but quickly turns stupid and slightly disturbing.

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Provides examples of:

• Artistic License – Sports: The "Triathlon" is more like the Olympic games, with different athletes divided into separate teams to compete in different events, rather than all three events being done by one person. Also Played for Laughs with the "Standard Collegiate Swimming Rules" giving Homestar Runner a Bathyscaphe and Strong Bad a fish crammed through his head.
• Backported Development: Rather than being a perfect one-to-one of the original script, there's several moments where characters act more in line with their modern counterparts. In particular, The Homestar Runner cuts off Strong Sad, and Tiny-Handed Strong Bad has a moment where he's "uncharacteristically candid".
• Bloodless Carnage: Strong Bad gets a chunk of his head blown off by a bomb, but it looks more like cracked eggshell than anything else.
• Call-Forward: Strong Sad's line "I'm glad that I'm flying!" is an inversion of his phrase from the Powered By The Cheat version of the main page, "I'm sad that I'm flying..."
• Closest Thing We Got: After Mr. Bland gets crippled, The Homestar Runner calls on Strong Sad to compete in his place, because there's no one else available.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: When Homestar starts reading the in-story book, he turns it into The Homestar Runner and the Bathyscaphe: A Lurid Tale of Underwater Intrigue and Underwater Pants.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: In the original book script, Strong Bad has Dijjery Doo for his new minion, with no explanation of what happened to The Cheat. For the cartoon version, The Cheat shows up anyway, and gets increasingly angry that he's been replaced.
• Crippling the Competition: Just before the start of the Flying race, The Sneak beats the crap out of Mr. Bland, leaving him unable to compete.
• Curbstomp Battle: The swimming competition has Strong Bad (with a fish in his head) against Homestar (who gets a submarine). You can guess who wins.
• Dance Party Ending: After the All-Stars win the gold, music starts playing, and Strong Glad starts dancing... and everyone else backs away from him in horror.
• Down to the Last Play: The Strong Stars win Running, and the All-Stars win Swimming, so everything hangs on the outcome of the Flying event.
• Drone of Dread: Plays during the opening, to foreshadow the horrors lurking inside this old book.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Instead of replacing Strong Sad with The Cheat, he replaces him with Dijjery Doo, a walrus-like creature who never appeared in the web series. Once it comes to the final round, Strong Bad has his other minion sabotage Mister Bland... The Sneak. When The Cheat calls out his discomfort with this, Strong Bad agrees with him on the matter.
  • Strong Sad is given the motivation of getting over his sadness and becoming glad, which he does in the flying round, while his self in the toons isn't really looking to get over his depression and, if anything, is implied to like being miserable.
• Easter Egg: At the end of the Flash version of the cartoon, clicking on "End" shows a brief scene of Strong Bad trying to animate this cartoon in Mario Paint.
• Either/Or Title: The in-story book. Strong Bad reads the title as The Homestar Runner and the Brothers Strong, AKA Homestar Runner Goes for the Gold, AKA Old Glue Turns Gross and Brown If You Let It Sit for 20 Years.
• False Teeth Tomfoolery: Dijjery Do's giant tusks keep falling out, and in the end, one of them impales THSB through the head. They also severely hamper his ability to speak, muffling his voice and creating a constant clicking sound like he's chewing on straws whenever he talks.
• Fan Disservice: Strong Sad's transformation into Strong Glad has his "soolnds" replaced by a woman's legs in tights and high heels. It's so ridiculous looking that everyone is disgusted when they see it, save for Coach Z who delightfully proclaims that he's "into this."
• Forgetful Jones: Homestar leads Strong Bad out to the garage to show him something cool, then spends so long rambling about how cool it is that he forgets what he was looking for in the first place.
• Framing Device: Modern-day Strong Bad and Homestar, reading this ancient children's book about themselves, occasionally interrupting to provide commentary.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Strong Bad kicks Strong Sad off his team for not being strong enough. The Strong Stars then get trounced in the Flying race... by Strong Sad, who was recruited by the All-Stars at the last minute.
  • As Dijjery Do falls behind in the Flying race, Strong Bad orders him to cheat somehow. Dijjery Do pulls out a bomb, intending to blast away the competition—but the distraction makes him fall from the sky, directly onto Strong Bad. Then the bomb blows them both up.
• Inconsistent Spelling: "Dijjery Doo" or "Dijjery Do"? The original script wasn't consistent on the spelling, so this cartoon isn't either.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: Strong Bad asserts that The Sneak isn't going to cripple anybody. The Sneak immediately takes a baseball bat to Mr. Bland, leaving him a crumpled and battered mess unable to compete.
  Strong Bad: Whoa-ho-ho! Touché!
• Metamorphosis: Strong Sad's happiness at flying transforms him into Strong Glad, and his stumpy elephant feet suddenly morph into a shapely woman's legs.
  Strong Bad: So they were just gonna leave him like that? As Strong Glad?
• New Rules as the Plot Demands: Strong Bad complains of the unfairness of the Swimming race—that Homestar gets to compete in a bathyscaphe, while he just gets a fish shoved through his head. But Homestar insists that these are "Standard collegiate swimming rules. Very standard." And the Grape Fairy backs it up.
• "No. Just… No" Reaction: The reaction to Strong Sad becoming Strong Glad and getting a pair of long women's legs in the process.
  Tiny Handed Strong Bad: Ewwww!
  The Homestar Runner: Um...no. Just no.
• Non-Indicative Name: The "Running" event is really just a roller skate race.
  Strong Bad: I'm more worried about how this is clearly roller skating. Is that what they called running in the mid-'90s?
  • The Triathlon is more like Pseudolympics, given different people compete in each event, rather than the same person doing three different events one after another.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: The original draft has an odd grammatical error, which gets into Strong Bad's narration. SB shows the draft to the camera to prove it was actually there.
  Strong Bad: [reading from the book] "After the first event, the Strong Stars have lead." [beat] That's actually what it says. No, take a look. Ooh! Or maybe it was supposed to be "Have lead!"
  [THSB suddenly has a gun, Dijjery Do gets a giant pencil, and Strong Mad is carrying a huge Russian satellite]
• Odd Reaction Out: This ends with Strong Sad suddenly overcoming his crippling depression and transforming into Strong Glad, and his elephant-like legs transform into the legs of a sexy woman in tights and heels. Everyone else finds this weird and disturbing... except for Coach Z, who declares "I'm into this!"
• Parenthetical Swearing: When Strong Bad calls for help from The Sneak, The Cheat's reaction sounds exactly like a muffled "What the crap?"
• Plot Hole: Dijjery Doo gets replaced by The Sneak for a single page, with no explanation. Strong Bad isn't amused by this.
  Strong Bad: How come [bleep] and [bleep] can't seem to keep my sidekicks straight for more than like two pages?
• Put on a Bus: Dijjery Do disappeared after the events of this book... because The Cheat locked him in a crate in the garage.
• Remember the New Guy?: Within the book, Dijjery Do is treated as if he's always been Strong Bad's sidekick, causing the real Strong Bad to question who the crap he is.
• Replacement Scrappy: In-Universe, no one likes Dijjery Do, who replaces The Cheat as Tiny Handed Strong Bad's minion. Even THSB, who hired Dijjery Do in the first place, "immediately regrets" that decision.
• Rousing Speech: The Homestar Runner gets to give three of them to Strong Sad, all of which happen to be song lyrics.
  The Homestar Runner: Strong Sad, come take these broken wings and learn to fly.
  [jump cut to a few seconds prior]
  The Homestar Runner: Strong Sad, you've got to fly, fly to the angels.
  [jump cut to a few seconds prior]
  The Homestar Runner: Strong Sad, you're motoring. What's your price for flight?
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud:
  • The "squeakburger" doesn't actually squeak, so Homestar has to make its noise himself. "Bohgah bohgah!"
  • At the end, Homestar finds his old whistle. Instead of blowing into it, he just holds it in front of his face and makes "bweep boop" sounds with his mouth.
• Self-Deprecation:
  • The whole cartoon is over six minutes of Mike Chapman making fun of his old writing.
  • And the Easter Egg is the Brothers Chaps making fun of themselves for still using Flash to animate.
  Homestar: Good idea. 'Cause that's way less obsolete.
• Sound-Effect Bleep: Strong Bad's voice is bleeped out whenever he says Mike's and Craig's names.
• Squick: invoked Everyone's reaction to Strong Glad. (Except for Coach Z, who announces "I'm into this!")
• The Stinger: After the Homestar Runner logo, there's a brief scene of Dijjery Do locked in a crate in the garage. (And in the Youtube version, the above Easter Egg plays after this, as a second stinger.)
• Tempting Fate:
  • Modern Strong Bad tries to keep an open mind and says Dijjery Do looks "kinda cool" and might turn out to be alright. Then Dijjery Do tries to speak, and one of his tusks falls out.
  Tiny Handed Strong Bad: I am immediately regretting this decision.
  Strong Bad: ...said uncharacteristically candid Strong Bad.
  • Modern Homestar gets pumped about competing in the Running event, then sees that Pom Pom is doing it instead.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Strong Sad, the eternal punching bag, gets to win a competition, deny victory to his brothers, and find true happiness along the way.
• Transplant: When the script calls for "The Sneak" instead of the The Cheat, the old-timey counterpart shows up, complete with his signature monotone color scheme.
• Understatement: Dijjery Do's attempt to cheat ends with him crashing into the ground, spearing Strong Bad's head with his own tusk, and blowing both of them up with a bomb. How does the book describe this? "Dijjery Do's plan backfired."
  Strong Bad: Uh, yeah, you think? You sure you didn't want to use any more adjectives there, like "catastrophically, head chunkularly" backfired?
• Unexpected Character: invoked Bubs' appearance is treated as a shocking twist, mostly by himself. He didn't exist yet when the book was first written, so his appearance here is a bit anachronistic.
  Bubs: I don't like it! And I... am now in this... book.
  [A blue sticker reading "Now with 100% more Bubs!" appears on the front cover of the book.]
• Yank the Dog's Chain: In The Stinger, Dijjery Do escapes after somehow surviving in that crate for twenty years. The Cheat immediately catches him and locks him up again.
• Waxing Lyrical: All three of The Homestar Runner's motivational speeches are song quotes. "Take these broken wings and learn to fly," is from The Beatles' "Blackbird" (or if you prefer, Mr. Mister's "Broken Wings"). "You've got to fly, fly to the angels," is from Slaughter's "Fly to the Angels". And "You're motoring. What's your price for flight?" is from Night Ranger's "Sister Christian".