DVDs, Menus, and DVD Menus

Today, I shall be looking at the original Homestar DVDs. No, not the ones actually sold on the website’s store, but rather, the old toons that got remade with spiffy little DVD menus and extra features. The first one is simply called The King of Town, which was the second toon released on the website. We still haven’t looked at the first one, Marshmallow’s Last Stand, even though that one is probably more entertaining than this one could hope to be… but I digress. 

The DVD version of this cartoon includes the original version that was first put up on the website, a revamped and somewhat improved version of it, the original storyboards, and a commentary track featuring Strong Bad. My suggestion for you, my gentle viewers, is to watch the new version and then the commentary. You’re not really missing out on anything by skipping over the old version other than some painfully ancient-looking animation and an even less humorous story. So let’s get on with it already. 

http://www.homestarrunner.com/kingmenu.html

Hopefully everyone managed to stay awake through the original version. It’s pretty terrible, yes, but at least it’s self-aware. The commentary track really saves this cartoon from being utter crap, and without it, I’d have to say it’s the worst cartoon on the website. It’s really old, and the Brothers Chaps were still new at this, so I can forgive it, but … heeg. Probably the only other interesting thing I could say about this is the fact that Strong Bad’s commentary is horribly outdated and incorrect. The King of Town does in fact live in that castle, and the remark about Strong Bad not having his own cartoon yet is downright laughable. I believe the DVD version of this cartoon was released in 2001, so Strong Bad Email still wasn’t a thing yet, but hey, there was still Strong Bad Sings. I think that counts.

It would probably not be wise to linger on that particular cartoon for too long, so let’s just move right along to the other old toon that got the DVD treatment – the far superior In Search of the Yello Dello. As with the other one, I suggest watching the new version, followed by the commentary. But this one actually does have a couple other things worth looking at, so get ready to hear that menu music a lot. Since this isn’t a bad cartoon, I won’t put in any sort of “warning” on this one. Just go ahead and watch it, and then come back for useless feedback from me.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/yellodellomenu.html

Oh man. I’m not sure if it’s just because I’m watching this after The King of Town, but this cartoon is awesome. It’s kind of difficult to describe and praise comedy, especially in text format, but I have to at least point out some things that I enjoyed about it. List time!

•  The art style is so stupid that it’s actually amazing. Apparently it was drawn this way because they were having a bit of fun with the storyboards (which don’t work anymore from the link in the menu, it’s not just you. You can find them here) and they would draw the characters in exaggerated ways. Since it turned out really funny looking, they decided to animate the whole cartoon this way. And I love it.

•  I believe this is the first appearance of Coach Z outside of Where My Hat is At, and he has a fairly decent performance here, but it will improve over time.

•  This is the first time Marzipan shows up in a speaking role. In the old version of the cartoon, she has no lines at all, because Missy Palmer hadn’t been “discovered” yet. That and a huge added scene at the mountain are the main differences between the two versions.

•  I told you that Strong Sad would get better after his 10-second part in A Jumping Jack Contest, and hopefully this toon proves that. This was his first major role in a cartoon, and I think it works fairly well. As with all other characters, he will get a bit more characterization over time, but I have no complaints here.

•  The commentary on this cartoon is freaking amazing. I probably know the entire thing by heart, and there’s still parts of it that make me laugh. I think the highlights of it are the parts where they make fun of the animation. “Little known fact – Homestar gained a hundred pounds and shrank two feet for this role.” And let’s not forget that Homestar has no legs in the mountain scene because he’s a sophisticated puppet operated by Strong Sad. And the reason he was replaced was because he has no legs. Genius.

•  The deleted scenes are pretty great too. The first one is great if only for Homestar’s little outburst, the second one is just plain disturbing, and the third one is … meh. I believe this was the first time I ever saw Strong Mad, so I was quite confused.

For such an early cartoon, I have to give this one some credit. The original version isn’t exactly amazing, but it was still funnier than any of their previous work by a fair margin. And the enhanced version with the scenes on the mountain is quite good even by current standards. Then of course there’s the commentary, which I’ve already praised, but seriously, more people need to be aware of that. I think it’s so easily overlooked because the older cartoons have a bad reputation. And yes, I’m going to ignore the theatrical trailer, because this sentence right here acknowledging its existence is pretty much all it deserves. For what it is, it’s fine, but nothing to write home about.

And now, for no particular reason, I shall talk about the original set of Main Page menus. “Original” being defined as the ones that existed when I first discovered the site. Technically, nothing past the 6th one was on the site when it first started, but too bad. Since I doubt I’ll have more than a few sentences to say about most of these, I think going to list format is a reasonable idea. But first, some statements that apply to most or all of these.

Ok, so you know how different things happen when you mouse over the various buttons? Sometimes the effect will stay for as long as you keep the mouse there. And if you click the button and drag away from it, then let go, the effect will remain even when you mess with the other buttons. On some pages, this can create some interesting effects.

Also, just because I guess I should mention it now and I’m not sure when else I’d bring this up, yes, we’ll be looking at the various other pages at some point, including the Museum and older versions of these pages. Some, like Downloads and Email, are going to be incredibly boring, so you have those to look forward to, but alas, I have things to say about them, so you’ll have to bear with me. I don’t have any particular time planned out for doing these, but probably not for a while. Anyway, on with the main page reviews.

Behold the first appearance of Nebulon. This and some of the other early pages did very little to reassure me that this wasn’t a crappy kids’ website when I first discovered it. It’s like, “oh hey, the main character’s in space, because kids like outer space stuff”. Oh well, it’s not bad. 

What is it with the Swiss / lederhosen / those big horn things that always gets people to make “Ricola” jokes? I dunno, but this is one of the more irrelevant main pages.

I believe this was the first one I ever saw, and much like the space one, it’s the typical “main character in a funky environment” sort of thing. Except it features a skewered whale and a plane that says “Wear a Bikini!” for some unexplainable reason. I think that alone convinced me that this wasn’t entirely a kids’ website, but still, what the crap?

The only thing I can really say about this one is that the music for “Characters” used to be different, because the current song was taken from a SBEmail released years later. According to the wiki, it was “Renegade Master” by Fatboy Slim, and the original sound file used still exists on the website. 

Neverending So~oda! Also, I refuse to believe that the voice in the “Email” effect is saying “Quarter-cheese-plate-scattered-smothered-covered”. It sounds like complete gibberish to me. But then again, I don’t think Waffle House exists in Illinois. 

The “Downloads” noise is the same exact one used in the Gex games, I think. Strong Bad’s little bit is the highlight of this one, obviously, and that’s saying something.

This one was first created alongside the original Halloween toon (we’ll get to that one soon enough), and is the one that you are always directed towards after viewing certain things, including the old Halloween intro that I doubt I’d ever mention otherwise. Not too much else to say here, other than Strong Bad yelling “holy crap!” on two menus in a row.

Aw, Strong Bad didn’t use his catch phrase this time. Oh well, his appearance was once again the only thing really worth noting. Quite similar to the Heaven page, I must say.
 

This one’s noteworthy if only because it still uses the old Homestar model, as opposed to the newer one with the stiffer and more prominent underbite. He also has no propeller for some reason.

Oh right, I haven’t made you watch Kick the Can yet. Let this be a taste of things to come, then. Personally, I think the 1930s set of Homestar cartoons are pretty funny. I think there’s a large number of people who disagree with me. But yeah, this isn’t just a one-time menu gimmick.

Strong Bad, I can tell you’re trying here, and you managed to get your favorite word in again, but Coach Z having more than 2 problems overshadows that. As you’ll come to learn, he does indeed have a few problems.

Yawn. I guess this one wasn’t meant to be particularly funny, but most of the others have something to at least smile at. It's pretty, I guess. And the Strong Bad shape is kinda cool, but only because there's nothing else to compare to.

Ok, this one makes up for the fireworks. Surprisingly, Yello Dello is the only cartoon I can think of off the top of my head that features several characters in the Atari style. It’ll show up again from time to time, but not for anything too major. The “Email” mouseover is an awesome callback. Remember how I said that this series is going to have a LOT of self-referential jokes? Consider this to be proof.

I remember that when I first showed this site to my friend’s sister, this was the page she got, and freaked out over it, thinking I was linking her to some sort of a dirty website. So other than “LEMKE” showing up and the pixelized graphics being directly ripped from the First Time Here? toon, I guess the recurring theme of “ bad first impression” is the thing worth mentioning.

Yep. Bad first impression. Like with #10, this is a glimpse of things to come, so there’s a reason for the terrible animation, but I can see why a newcomer would be turned off by this. That aside, I think this is one of the funnier homepages, it just requires you to understand what it’s parodying. The horrible shape-tweening Strong Bad is probably the highlight here, but the “Store” and three different “Email” mouseovers are pretty great too.


All the other Main Pages were added at some point after I had discovered the website, which I realize is an arbitrary and self-centered way to organize these, but nonetheless, I’m going to stick to it. The majority of them are references to other parts of the website that haven’t been seen yet, so they will be mentioned when relevant. Now, there’s one last thing I want to cover before ending this entry. Go back to the King of Town DVD, and play around with the menu there a little bit. Don’t worry, I’ll wait for you.
 
…
 
Did you find it yet? Whether you did or not, welcome to the concept of Easter Eggs. I’m sure that most people are aware of this term, since it’s used in many forms of media, but basically, an Easter Egg is anything hidden, whether it be in a game, movie, menu, or whatever. In the case of Flash cartoons, it usually means it’s something you wouldn’t think you could click, but you can. And in the King of Town DVD, you can click the moustache on the shield, then the brick behind it, and you will access something funky.
 
Trivia time: this was originally posted on the website on April Fools 2003, and after that, was snuck into the hidden spot in the DVD. I’m not going to cover each aspect of this, because there’s no point really, but it’s an interesting little Easter Egg and worth taking a look at. The Revenge of the King game is accessible from nowhere else on the site, and it makes for a nice distraction for a few minutes. And the Email thing is kinda funny, though I must admit that new viewers who aren’t too familiar with Strong Bad Email won’t get the joke. And yes, much like the Yello Dello storyboards, the “Download” won’t work here. You’re not missing out, don’t worry.
 
Well, I believe that’s enough for today. Next time, we could look at some of the other old toons from 2000, but instead, I think it’s due time to get better-acquainted with the main cast. We’ve seen all of the original main characters in action, some more than others, so I think that it’s a good idea to check out the Character videos. I’ve got plenty to say about everybody, so it’ll be a nice long one.

Original books and some early toons

Last time on Homestar Rerunner, I took some time to introduce the website’s general concept, how I personally came to learn about it, and then went over the first parts of the website that a typical viewer would come across. If you’ve survived through the weirdness that is the intro animation, then you’re off to a good start.

I’ve said a few times now that we’re going to be jumping around a bit at the beginning, not necessarily viewing everything in the order that it was created. If I wanted to be really strict about that, then I’d be subjecting new viewers to a bunch of weird practice animations and old menus. Not really the most thrilling thing to start out with. But I feel that it does make sense to see where exactly Homestar Runner began – a children’s book. Not one that was ever published, mind you, but still, this is where the concept originated. It’s kinda like how my Bikdip’s Adventure games sort of evolved out of the Bargo the Bikdip stories I helped write, but the difference here is that the original Homestar book isn’t completely terrible. Since this was the origin of the series, and there will be several references to it in later material, it’s definitely worth a look. So without further ado, The Homestar Runner Enters the Strongest Man in the World Contest.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/firstbook.swf

It’s a cute little story, with a “cheaters never prosper” sort of moral to it. None of the characters really have any personality yet, but I don’t fault it for that. At this point, it’s pretty much just “the main character”, “the best friend”, “the villain”, and “the villain’s lackey”, and I wouldn’t expect anything else from it. Plus some supporting cast that may or may not ever be seen again. (Spoilers – they will, but not very often). According to interviews with the Chapman brothers, this story was written in the summer of 1996, photocopied a few times, and handed out to friends. It was a result of boredom and a desire to poke fun at kids’ books, and at the time, there were no plans to go anywhere else with the idea.

POINTLESS SIDE STORY TIME. When I was in elementary school, we had a thing called the Young Authors program, where every student was expected to write a short story and illustrate it. I think we had about a month to work on these. The story I came up with was called “The Penguin Who Couldn’t Swim”, starring Frankor the penguin. I’m not exactly sure what I was ripping off, but the plot was basically that Frankor was the only penguin who didn’t know how to swim, because he was afraid of the water. One day, a baby penguin fell into the ocean, and Frankor dove in to save the baby without hesitation, learning that the water wasn’t that scary after all. The end. Of course, it was a little more padded out than that, but you get the idea. My story was actually voted the best in the class, and I spawned several ill-inspired sequels to it for the following years.

Like I said, this was a pointless little thing I wanted to bring up that doesn’t really have anything to do with the subject, but the two stories share a couple similarities – the weirdest one being that both Frankor and Homestar were given their names due to mishearing something. Frankor was a name I had come up with a while back, due to this picture we had hanging in our bathroom. There were a bunch of penguins waving at one that was drifting away on an ice floe, and one was holding a sign that was blank for some reason. I asked my mom why it was blank, and she said that maybe you were supposed to write what you want on it, like “Goodbye, Frank”, or whatever you wanted to name it. I managed to mishear this as “Goodbye, Frankor”, and the name stuck. As for Homestar Runner, that name apparently came from… well, I’ll just put the quote here. Perhaps it will explain why the name “Lemke” shows up now and then on the website. 

...there was an old local grocery store commercial, and we live in Atlanta, and it advertised the Atlanta Braves. It was like, "the Atlanta Braves hit home runs, and you can hit a home run with savings here!" And so there was this player named Mark Lemke, and they said something like "All star second baseman for the Braves." And our friend knows nothing about sports, and so he would always do his old timey radio impression of this guy, and not knowing any positions in baseball or whatever, he'd just be like, "Homestar Runner for the Braves." And we were just like, "Homestar Runner? That's the best thing we've ever heard!"

UMFM Interview - 20 May 2003

 

There was eventually a second book written, called Where My Hat Is At?, and … well, it’s short, so why not give it a quick look. It’s not as good as the first, mainly because it doesn’t really have much of a purpose, but it’s weird and almost kind of funny in a stupid way. And that pretty much describes a lot of the early Homestar material, so just shut up and read the dang book already.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/wheremyhatisat.swf

Wasn’t that thrilling? I guess it’s worth mentioning that this was the first appearance of Coach Z and Bubs, and since I forgot to mention them earlier, the first book established Pom Pom and The Cheat. We’ll get to see them in non-useless roles soon enough (well, except for maybe Pom Pom, but I digress), so get used to those characters. And the fact that the other characters (Mr. Bland, the Umpire, etc) basically never reappear after this is somewhat of an inside joke, so they’ve got that going for them, I guess. Other than that, the only thing I can really mention about this thing is that it reminds me of a bit from an old U.S. Acres cartoon. The bunny rabbits is coming! … Don’t you mean the bunny rabbits are coming? 

Yeah, I dunno. I think it’s about time to view something more substantial than a kids’ book, though, so let’s take a look at an old toon. Let’s wait a while before we go back to the very first couple things released, since I already subjected you all to Where My Hat Is At?, and the newbies are probably waiting for things to get funny, so instead, I present A Jumping Jack Contest. There’s a reason I chose this one in particular, and it will probably become apparent a couple minutes into the cartoon.

http://www.hrwiki.org/mirror/jumpinjacks2.html

I can’t say this is among the Chapman brothers’ finest work, but it did get a few laughs out of me if only for the sheer stupidity of what was going on. Now, as you probably guessed, I decided to show this one as my example for the old-style cartoons because of its huge similarities to the original book. If you switch Homestar and Pom Pom’s roles, you’ve basically got the exact same story here, but fleshed out a bit more, and with some actual humor and personality thrown in. I guess I should probably address the fact that the animation style is pretty different from the First Time Here? cartoon, and the voices are still sort of being worked on (Strong Bad in particular sounds a lot more Hispanic in the older toons, and Homestar has sort of a Southern drawl that eventually disappears), but it’s just a case of early installment weirdness, which is present in most animated shows. 

Going purely by the material that I’m covering here, and not actual release dates, this is also the first appearance of Strong Bad’s brothers, Strong Sad and Strong Mad. Before anyone asks, no, I have no idea why their “family name” is Strong, or why the family name comes first (rather than Bad Strong, etc), other than the fact that Strong Bad’s name came from Pro Wrestling for the NES, and the other two are just simple variations on it. Strong Mad gave a fairly decent performance in this cartoon. He does gain a bit more personality later on, but you can pretty much expect more of the same for the future. Strong Sad, on the other hand, didn’t make particularly great use of his 10 seconds of screen time. Trust me, this character will improve over time, as will Bubs, who also didn’t do very much here. I’ll get a bit more in-depth a little later on when we go through the character videos. 

Now, this cartoon has a bit of weird history behind it. It was uploaded sometime in 2000, but there’s no record of what month it was made. The intro credits call it a “new” toon, and based on a couple other bits of evidence, I imagine it was released at least halfway through the year, with about three or four toons preceding it. The very first full-length toon, Marshmallow’s Last Stand, was at one point taken out of the Toons menu and relocated to the Museum section of the website after some early site rehauls, mainly because the Brothers Chaps considered it to be lacking in quality and humor. I think it’s interesting in a historical sort of way, but otherwise I agree with them – it’s not something a casual viewer would want to watch. 

At some point in 2002 (I think – it may have been later than this),  Marshmallow’s Last Stand was completely removed from the website, and so was A Jumping Jack Contest. That’s why the link I provided to it is actually hosted on the Homestar Wiki and not the main site. The true reason for these being removed has never been disclosed. I can understand why MLS was taken off, even though it makes certain later toons (I’m looking at you, lady…ing) completely nonsensical because the material those toons are referring to don’t even exist on the website anymore. But A Jumping Jack Contest isn’t all that bad. It’s been suggested that maybe it was taken off because of the peeing scene, but again, the actual reason has never been disclosed. 

I think this is a pretty good place to stop for this entry, but only one cartoon was actually covered today, and another short one couldn’t hurt. Let’s go for the ever-irrelevant Strong Bad Sings. It’s from 2000, but it’s actually really funny, so if you still have a bad taste in your mouth from “A-gooood, now go, and win us thees COMP-OH-TIH-SHUN”, this should be able to repair some of the damage. 

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbsings.html

Does anything even need to be said about this? Everyone’s seen commercials like this, and I think this parody captures their essence spot-on, while making it infinitely funnier with Strong Bad’s terrible singing and deliberately insulting lyrics. How can anyone not love “You’ve Got an Ugly and Stupid Butt”? But it’s not just the songs that I find funny here. There’s a lot of fake commercials in the Homestar body of work, and I think they’re among the funniest material on the website. As far as I’m concerned, the bit about it being available on thirty 8-track tapes and the ludicrous bait-and-switch with the pricing is pure genius. I’ve been saying that the older cartoons aren’t as funny as the newer ones, and this is the exception that proves the rule. 



Trivia Time: originally, the phone number at the end of the toon was 1800-BAD-SONG, which was apparently a real number that would call a limousine service in New York, and it was changed because they kept getting calls from Homestar fans. I’m not going to bother listing any of the other trivia for this one, even though there are a few other things that could be said about it, so if you want to see more, check out its page on the Wiki. The reason I’m mentioning the BAD SONG thing and nothing else is because I actually knew that happened without having to read the wiki entry. That’s probably how I’ll judge if something is worth mentioning or not. 

Next time, I think we’ll be checking out the toons that got the “DVD” treatment. Not sure what I mean by that? Then stick around and you’ll find out. I think it’s also as good a time as any to make some brief comments on the original set of main pages. It shouldn’t take very long, because there’s not much to say about them, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something.