Homestar Runner was invented in
1996 by two
Atlanta twentysomethings named Mike & Matt Chapman. After kicking around with some characters on and off, homestarrunner.com hit the
internet in January of
2000. Their
grassroots following grew throughout the first two years of the decade, and around late
2002-early
2003, the website blew up on the
pop culture radar. Mike and Matt were officially living off the 300 orders they got on average every day for t-shirts, they had 300,000
unique visitors every Monday and 200,000 on average daily, plus they had been honored with many awards in the media, including making
Entertainment Weekly's "50 Most Creative People In Entertainment Today" list.
The Brothers Chaps (as they are known to their fans) continue to work Homestar Runner independently. Working only with themselves and a few trusted friends, including the "third leg" in the H*R effort, Mike Chapman's girlfriend and the voice of Marzipan, Missy Palmer. The website has continued to churn out updates frequently and The Brothers Chaps still stick to their "no ads" policy and have turned down some offers with television networks due to enjoying the independent feel they have over Homestar Runner. They've evolved to quicktime movies featuring puppets, new side-characters, cut an album with Matt as the uber-popular (and my favorite) character Strong Bad backed up by Atlanta rock act Y-O-U, had a guitar they designed on display at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, did four songs with They Might Be Giants (three with puppet Homestar and one that was included in the Strong Bad email "Different Town") and directed the music video for the first track off the new TMBG album, Experimental Film. To this day still churn out great new games, downloads and cartoons with all the guys I've loved for quite some time now.
A list of the main characters is as follows:
The King of Town
Strong Sad
Strong Mad
Coach-Z
The Poopsmith
Bubs
Pom Pom
Marzipan
The Cheat
Homsar
Homestar Runner himself
and of course...Strong Bad.
Homestar Runner has been one of the greatest and most consistent sources of entertainment in an entertainment world that sometimes seems to be scarce of quality and consistency.
It's true, everyone really does love The Homestar Runner.