World of Homestar Runner
Homestar Runner characters include numerous recurring people, places, phrases, ideas, and even times.
People
Principal Characters
- Homestar Runner - an unintelligent but usually good-natured athlete, and the nominal star of the series.
- Strong Bad - Homestar Runner's nemesis, although Homestar doesn't realize it. Answers viewer email on a near-weekly basis.
- Strong Mad - The biggest, strongest, and loudest character.
- Strong Sad - Strong Bad's whiny and depressive little brother.
- The Cheat - Strong Bad's fuzzy yellow lackey.
- Pom Pom - Homestar's round and orange best friend.
- Marzipan - Homestar's girlfriend, and the only female on the cast.
- Bubs - Local businessman and concession stand operator.
- Coach Z - Sports coach and amateur hip-hop artist.
- King of Town - Ruler of Free Country USA, or so he says. His most notable feature is his gluttony.
- The Poopsmith - Silent excrement-shoveler for the King of Town. "The Poopsmith's job is obvious." —"A Jorb Well Done"
- Homsar - A walking enigma. Created from a misspelling in an email to Strong Bad.
Trogdor the Burninator
Trogdor the Burninator is a dragon created by Strong Bad while answering an email. Trogdor exists primarily as a video game character within the Homestar Runner world. Distinguishing characteristics include his one beefy arm, consummate Vs for scales and teeth, and a penchant for incinerating ("burninating") the countryside, peasants, and thatched-roof cottages.
Senor Cardgage
Senor Cardgage (pronounced See-nore Card-gauge) first appeared in Strong Bad Email #92, "Kind of Cool". Strong Bad was trying to represent what he would be if he were an ugly, dumpy guy with a bad combover. It turns out Strong Bad's fictional character is actually a guy who lived down the street from the Brothers Strong when they were little; he gave Strong Sad nightmares and Strong Bad a hero to worship. He's a little taller, fatter, and with more facial hair than Strong Bad. He's the "kinda cool where he walks around with a shopping bag filled with an unknown substance, stands too close behind you in line, and smells like pea soup." He constantly mumbles and combines words into new ones like 'excardon me'. He also owns his own mortgage company - Senor Cardgage Mortgage. He also appears in the "Senorial Day" cartoon playing a car salesman.
Marshie the Marshmallow
Homestar Runner had a job in a marshmallow commercial for Fluffy Puff Marshmallows. He could not remember his lines, and lost his job to a talking marshmallow named Marshie. This has resulted in some resentment from Homestar, although he seems to dislike the character on its own merits as well. Marshie is a relatively odd character; his advertisements are forceful, abrupt, surprising, and sometimes disturbing.
Limozeen
Limozeen is a parody of 1980s hair metal bands. It is also one of Free Country USA's hottest musical acts. Strong Bad is a huge fan of Limozeen and may have come up with their name while answering an e-mail asking for good band names (other suggestions were "Bigg Nife", "Lazor", and "Taranchula", as well as Van Halen, Dokken, and Z'Nuff). Limozeen reportedly plays live shows at events in Strong Badia, and the band contributed two tracks to the recent CD Strong Bad Sings (and other type hits): "NITE MAMAS" and their megahit "Because, It's Midnight", and also produced the lyric-absent "Feed the Childrens" and "Living It Up (Being a Box)". Limozeen also had a short-lived Saturday morning cartoon show that was cancelled during its pilot episode.
Taranchula
Taranchula is a band similar to Metallica, introduced in the Strong Bad email "band names". Their song called "Moving Very Slowly" is in Strong Bad Sings (and other type hits), and their music video is in the Strong Bad email DVD, strongbad_email.exe.
Leomard "Lem" Sportsinterviews
A fictional author and director who writes various books and magazines. He wrote "This Book is Better Than First, Second, and Quite Possibly Even Third Base" and "Why People in Hollywood Ought to Give Me $5,760." He also owns the credit card that appears on the ATM card in the "Downloads" section. He is also probably the author of the children's books "Everyone is Different" and "That Time of Year" (both of which have been parodied by Strong Bad), credited as Leomard (not "Leonard") Sportsinterviews. In addition to all that he co-authored "The Castlefunnies", a syndicated comic strip purported to have featured The King of Town and The Poopsmith (renamed "Mushy Chamberpot" to appease censors), as well as cameo appearances from Strong Bad and Homestar.
Lem also wrote the rules for the card game "Three-to-one marny".
He also directed the movie "Peasant's Quest".
He also did a caricature of Strong Bad on the "Vacation" email. It is located in the fifth postcard.
The Goblin
A small, green creature that was originally created in a Halloween cartoon as part of a ghost story. Interestingly, it later appeared and interacted in the same world as the main characters. It appears mostly in Halloween cartoons and communicates by dancing and making an organ-like sound. It has only worn a costume twice, the first one being an exact replica of Strong Bad (as "the bee"), and the second time as, as Homestar calls it, "A Santaman".
The Visor Robot
The Visor Robot was introduced alongside the Goblin in the Homestarloween Party cartoon. The Visor Robot then appeared in Teen Girl Squad #1 and then was featured in the music video for Everybody to The Limit. He is also a "satisfied customer" of Senor Cardgage Mortgage.
Places
Free Country USA
The Homestar Runner cartoons are set in a fictitious land called Free Country USA. The King of Town supposedly rules all or part of this region, although rumors have spread that the king of town may simply have bought his crown at a costume shop. Tourist attractions in Free Country USA (as seen in the Strong Bad Email "Vacation") include the Great Mound, Pantsburg, The Clock, and Over There. Places called Ohio and Tennessee also appear to exist.
Neighboring countries include Dortugal, Prance, Potamia, and the Dortugal Congo.
Strong Badia exists as a field behind a dumpster, with a permanent population of a single tire. Outstanding features of the field include a white fence, a stop sign, and a cinder block. It also includes a spring loaded paper cutout of a bear holding a shark to scare The Cheat away. Strong Badia's flag consists of a red, white, and green background featuring a tire with a snake going through it in the foreground. The snake's tail is coiled around a big knife. Strong Badia is alternately described as a country and a kingdom; in either case, Strong Bad is the unquestioned ruler.
In an early Strong Bad email, Strong Bad claimed he has ruled the field since "diaper school". A later cartoon contradicts this by claiming the land was purchased from Bubs a few years earlier so Strong Bad could put ketchup on eggs without being persecuted.
One Strong Bad email depicts the ghost of Strong Bad's obsolete and broken Tandy-like computer haunting the "kingdom".
In another e-mail entitled 'Army', Homestar offers Strong Bad the chance to join the "Homestarmy", which will shortly be invading Strong Badia. Unsurprisingly, Strong Bad rejects the chance to invade his own "country". The "Homestarmy" (consisting of Homestar, Strong Sad, Homsar, the painting of a guy with a big knife (from the e-mail I Love You), and a popcorn popper named "Frank Benedetto") attempts to carry out the invasion nonetheless. When Strong Bad refuses to allow the invasion (he and Strong Mad were thinking about playing badminton), "Col-o-nel" Homestar and his three-man army are forced into full retreat (with Strong Bad kicking "Benedetto" off the battlefield). This is the only recorded attempt at invading Strong Badia.
The Stick
A few sketches, most notably the cartoon Where's the Cheat?, feature characters meeting at a mundane-looking stick in the ground. Strong Bad has revealed that he would like The Stick to be a large man-eating tree. The stick is also a DJ as revealed in the secret invitation hidden at the end of SB email #45, "Techno." The 123rd SB e-mail, origins, discussed how the stick became a place for "hangingoutitude," starting with Homestar's weekly bread singalongs.
Crazy Go Nuts University (CGNU)
A fictional correspondence school run by Strong Bad. It has a mascot called "The Dumple" (initially Strong Bad's misspelling of "dumpling"), and a "Golf Club Team", which participates in a strange sport that consists of The Cheat whacking things with a golf club. The motto for the University is "The future is you....probably."
Their fight song:
Fighting, and sometimes striving
Wondering what the Dumple is
Excellence, and what is valor?
And The Cheat will hit stuff with a golf club!
C! G! N! ... U!
Time periods
The present
The present is where most of the action takes place. Homestar Runner is unintelligent, Pom Pom is a large orange bubble, and Strong Bad checks his email on obsolete computers.
Stinkoman K 20X6
The Stinkoman series began when Strong Bad was asked in an email what he would be like as a "Japanese cartoon". Stinkoman is Strong Bad drawn as a stereotypical anime character. The spinoff is set in the future year 20X6 (A parody of "20X5" in Metroid)), and the other characters also have 20X6 counterparts, including Homestar Runner (a kid named 1-Up with a completely different voice), Pom Pom (a panda, called "PanPan"), Coach Z (very similar to the normal version) and The Cheat (with big blue eyes and a tiny mouth). 20X6 is pronounced as Twenty-Exty-Six.
Old Timey Homestar, 1936
The Homestar Runner, drawn in the style of a 1936 "car-toon". The other characters appear in 1936 as well. Marzipan is still Homestar's girlfriend, Fat Dudley (Pom Pom) is his best friend, and Sir Strong Bad is exasperated at people who send him telegrams to ask how he operates the "telegramophone whilst wearing gentleman's sport gloves".
Even minor character Marshie has appeared "in the past", as Mr. Shmallow, a more reserved advertising mascot.
The music for the 1936 cartoon "Ballad of the Sneak" -- Who's the jaunty jackanapes with moxie and pizazz? -- was provided by Virginia-based a cappella group Da Vinci's Notebook.
Comparison chart
| Character | 1936 Counterpart | 20X6 Counterpart |
|---|---|---|
| Strong Bad | Sir Strong Bad | Stinkoman |
| The Cheat | The Sneak | [The Cheat on new Games Page] |
| Homestar Runner | The Homestar Runner | 1-Up |
| Marzipan | Marzipan | [Anime girl on 20X6 main page] |
| Strong Mad | The Strong Man | [no appearance] |
| Strong Sad | Sickly Sam | [no appearance] |
| Pom Pom | Fat Dudley | Pan Pan |
| The King of Town | The Kaiser | [no appearance] |
| The Poopsmith | "The Devil" | [no appearance] |
| Coach Z | "Football Player" | [Coach Z on new Games Page] |
| Bubs | "Parsnip Salesman" | [no appearance] |
| Marshie | Mr. Shmallow | [no appearance] |
| "The Announcer" | "The Barbershop Trio" | [no appearance] |
| Trogdor | [no appearance] | Trogador (unused) |
| Visor Robot | [no appearance] | Stlunko |
Companies
Fluffy Puff Marshmallows
A brand of marshmallows in the Homestar Runner universe. The mascot is a talking marshmallow named Marshie, who replaced Homestar Runner. Among the products are Fluffy Puff Marshmallows, Fluffy Puff Marshmallow Mayonnaise, Fluffy Puff Malloweens, and Fluffy Puff Bite-Sized Nibblin's.
The motto for the marshmallows and mayonnaise is "Made from the best stuff", and the motto for the Malloweens is "They Taste the Same, But Look Different!"
Cheap as Free
Cheap as Free is a fictional Homestar Runner brand name. It is found on such "products" as: Strong Bad Sings, Everyone is Different (see Lem Sportsinterviews), the Christmas tree found in "The Best Decemberween Ever", the Cheat "Firebert" action figure found in email #93, Action Figures found in the store, and the grapple hook in the cartoon "Shopping for Danger".
Videlectrix
Videlectrix is a fictional company that apparently makes all of the old-style video games featured on the site. Videlectrix apparently makes programs on a number of platforms, including the "Funmachine" (ex. Secret Collect), the "Super Funmachine" (Rhinofeeder), the "Compydore 64" (Population Tire), arcade boxes (Trogdor), LCD handhelds (Pigs on Head), and personal computers (Thy Dungeonman).
Recently a Videlectrix website was set up at videlectrix.com. Their games are scattered throughout the Homestar Runner site, particularly on the games page and at the end of E-mail #94.
Videlectrix was recently showcased as a real video gaming company on G4techTV (now known as G4) which featured the host of the show going to Videlectrix's headquarters, a dubious front office with freshly painted tacky blue walls and the not-so-professional owner of Videlectrix, to speak about their games. After speaking with the owner of Videlectrix, it became apparent that it was not, in fact, a professional organization, as the owner looked very uneasy about the cameras invading the organization unannounced. The owner thanked the host for interviewing him, and disappeared into the back. When the host returned the next day to follow up, the office had vanished, as if the building had never been there.
The company's slogan is "We use computers...to make video games!"
Thorax Corporation
Thorax Corporation, LLC. is a fictional company created by The Brothers Chaps. Many of the Easter eggs and inside jokes on the Homestar Runner site refer to the company, even though it seems to exist in a separate universe.
From the Thorax Corporation website, it is hard to tell exactly what the company does. The site is intentionally filled with blurry and pixelated images, misspellings, ambiguous information, and HTML errors. The company seems to be ran by the Delabor family, including Gent, Rode, Leg, Sted, and El Delabor.
"Labor Dabor", a fictional Homestar Runner holiday coinciding with Labor Day, is a reference to the Delabor family.
Holidays
Many standard US holidays exist in the Homestar Runner world. Special cartoons have been made for April Fool's Day, Mother's Day, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving. One year the Super Bowl managed to qualify as a holiday.
By far the most frequently celebrated holidays on the site are Halloween and Decemberween.
Halloween
An annual tradition on the Homestar Runner site is the production of a special Halloween cartoon. In these cartoons, all of the main characters appear in costume. Typical costumes include musicians, television characters, cartoon characters, and advertising mascots, usually popular characters from the 1980's and 90's.
Decemberween
A fictional holiday that occurs in December, fifty-five days after Halloween. It's sort of like Christmas, but nondenominational. The site does not explicitly mention that Decemberween coincides with Christmas. Marzipan disapproves of Decemberween, on the grounds that it kills bunnies (bunnies, not turkeys are eaten), and that the holiday is too commercialized.
In one cartoon, the gang put on A Decemberween Pageant, which told the story of the first Decemberween. We only see a few scenes from the play, which tells the story of the King of Town, Doctor Christmas, a sailor named Archibald, an Angel, and "The Popular Vote" trying to find the first Decemberween. From the cartoon, we learn that the first Decemberween involves an attempt by Doctor Christmas to raise funds from the King of Town, Archibald fighting a giant squid, a trip by the Angel and The Popular Vote to Paris, and Archibald and Doctor Christmas fighting to the death on Mount Rushmore.
Games
Numerous games have appeared on the Homestar Runner website during its existence. The earliest games had only simple point and click gameplay, but more recent games have taken on the style of 1980s Atari, NES, and computer releases.
Complete descriptions of all Homestar Runner games can be found at the Homestar Runner Wiki's Games page.
Pigs on Head
Pigs on Head is a video game which involves stacking pigs up on your head. The game was originally played by Strong Bad in email #71, as he was waiting for his party, but has since been made into a "handheld LCD" version available on the Web.
Thy Dungeonman
In email #94, Strong Bad was asked to come up with how he would be represented in a video game. Of the four video games dreamed up, "Thy Dungeonman" was the penultimately primitive: a text-based adventure game. "Thy Dungeonman" has little to do with Strong Bad; rather, it chooses to make fun of text adventure games, most notably with a phrase that has become household among H*R fans: "Get ye flask." (When attempting to 'get ye flask,' players are told that task is impossible, but are given no explanation why -- and, as Strong Bad quips, "there certainly aren't any precious 'graphics' to help you out!") In the subsequent weeks, the Brothers Chaps released "Thy Dungeonman 2", which is much more in-depth than (though just as humorous and impossibly confusing as) the original "Thy Dungeonman."
Peasant's Quest
Released August 2004, the title was created in the style of the adventure games of the 1980s and early 1990s such as Sierra On-Line's King's Quest. The game follows the adventures of Rather Dashing, a peasant whose thatched-roof cottage was burninated by the dragon Trogdor.
A live-action movie trailer detailing many events of the game was released during Super Bowl XXXIX's halftime on February 6, 2005.
Released on March 21, 2005 with only the first three levels playable. Levels four through seven were released individually over a period of several months.