Homestar Runner Reviews Week 2 (11/23/13)
Nov 23, 2013 2:51:05 GMT -5
Douay-Rheims-Challoner, 🐍 huss 🐍, and 2 more like this
Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Nov 23, 2013 2:51:05 GMT -5
random dude: Hey everybody! This week we'll be introducing some pretty major staples of Homestar Runner cartoons, so let's get started on watching all those awesome cartoons I suggest watching (links are below).
Strong Bad Sings
random dude: And the first of these staples of Homestar Runner that we encounter this week is some songs sung by Strong Bad. Although many of his later songs are more clever and the singing less actively bad than the songs on "Strong Bad Sings" is the start of an element of the site (Strong Bad's music) that would provide The Brothers Chaps with some of their most successful material, especially outside their fan base (I think I was made aware of the existence of homestarrunner.com through "Trogdor", for example). But apart from being a notable first for the site, this toon (and all of this weeks "talkies") provides a closer look at the genesis of Strong Bad's character. In these early cartoons, Strong Bad might not be making outdated pop culture references, making clever insults, or acting as the narrator of wacky world-building exposition, but he's already an annoying jerk with a hyper-inflated sense of his own coolness, attractiveness, and intelligence. He'll become a more nuanced and (marginally) less immature character, but completely unironic phrases like "Every time that I look at myself, I can't believe how awesome I am," could describe Strong Bad's self-image ca. 2010 when the current hiatus started as it does way back in 2000 when this cartoon was released.
Cypher Raige: It's interesting/nostalgic to me that the format of "Strong Bad Sings" is basically a parody of those old album collection infomercials that some of our readers may be too young to remember. The one that specifically comes to mind is an old John Denver commercial advertising his big hits, which obviously had a big influence on this cartoon, but there were others as well. I remember hating these commercials as a kid because they seemed so long and so lame. Do these exist anymore? I don't recall having seen one in many years, but their target audience always seemed to be old people, and there are still plenty of those around (THANKS OBAMA!). Strong Bad's songs are pretty dumb here, but some of the titles are funny. I would really love to hear "This One Time I Saw Homestar Punching a Kitten in the Throat." I also enjoy the disinterested announcer reading the ordering instructions at the end of the commercial.
random dude: I'm pretty sure I've seen a late-night infomercial for decade-themed songs as recently as a couple of years ago, Cypher, so don't worry, there are still outlets through which one can purchase overpriced collections of widely available songs meant to evoke a feeling of generic nostalgia. I feel like decade-themed music collection infomercials are essentially the equivalent of those online "You Know You're a 90s Kid If..." lists for the 60-80 crowd.
Kick the Can
random dude: And we've encountered our first alternate Homestarniverse (you will live to rue the day that you coined that term, Cypher), the Old-Timey universe, and The Homestar Runner. Our introduction to the Old-Timey universe consists of 15 silent, black-and-white "cartoons" backed by Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer", each of which consist of The Homestar Runner kicking a can along the ground for several seconds until some sort of deliberately understated (on the part of The Brothers Chaps) hi-jinks ensue from an errant kick to said can. I like a lot of the Old-Timey cartoons and their 1930s animation homage, but these first ones are little more than mildly quaint (although i did enjoy the one where The Homestar Runner eats the can, and the star on his shirt disappears to be replaced with the words "herbert hoover?" in a parody of nonsensically-dry-yet-still-heavy-handed old political cartoons).
Cypher Raige: As the token old dude on these reviews, I feel like I'm probably going to be providing a lot of the history and backstory of some of these references. So gather around, you little whippersnappers, and listen to an old man say things. Old-Timey Homestar is a direct parody of the rudimentary animation of the early Disney era. While many of those old cartoons are jerky, repetitive, and silly to the modern eye, these Homestar cartoons are deliberately even more simplistic than what would have actually been available in 1933. The Old-Timey Homestar cartoons also owe a lot to The Simpsons episode "The Day the Violence Died" in which the audience learns that Itchy and Scratchy were stolen from Chester J. Lampwick by Roger Meyers, Sr. While that episode itself was a parody of Disney, the Old-Timey Homestar cartoons serve the same purpose of creating a 70 year old mythology for a cartoon that has actually only existed for a couple of years. It's a funny gag, and it shows how the Brothers Chaps can both revere and subvert the history of animation all at once. It's also a particularly sly gag that these "early" Homestar cartoons are so crappy. They never would have actually survived for 70 years with such scant content.
Marzipan's Answering Machine Version 1.0
random dude: Next we have first appearance of Marzipan's Answering Machine, which would come to be it's own feature in the toons menu on the site. Marzipan's Answering Machine is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: a feature that consists of other characters leaving messages on Marzipan's answering machine. I never watched (or is listened the better word, since the only animation is a flashing arrow and spinning cassette wheels?) this feature much; it was far from being one of my favorite things about the site (it'll be interesting to see if my opinion of MAM is reinforced or improved by re-watching/listening-to them for these reviews). For one, I seem to remember Marzipan being kind of underwritten (or simply reduced to tropes) at times, which is frustrating as she's the only major female character in Homestar Runner, and it's kind of telling how she scarcely appears in the feature that's actually named after her. But enough of this for now, there'll be plenty of time to evaluate Marzipan's evolution (or lack there of) as a character in later reviews. Anyway, I didn't think that Version 1.0 was all that funny, myself. Strong Bad's hapless prank call, and botched attempts to make it clear that he has only called her once are easily the funniest bits, and they're more slightly bemusing rather than genuinely hilarious. Apart from Homestar's thinking that Pom Pom's "Don't be late," was some kind of joke, there wasn't a whole lot to either of his messages. And Coach Z at this point seems to be a character built more around an accent (and he doesn't even mangle that many word's with gratuitous "r"s, apart from "fierld"), but I think you can already detect some hints of Coach Z's creepy infatuation with Marzipan (and we'll have more on that in relevant later reviews)
Cypher Raige: Yeah, there's nothing too incredibly entertaining about this first round of voice messages, but I promise you, random dude, they do get funnier. Later episodes of Marzipan's answering machine would feature at least one of the best examples of my favorite thing ever on this site: Angry Homestar. But we'll get to that when we get to it. I get a slight chuckle out of Strong Bad's terrible prank call, but then his second call when he actually needs help with baking is kind of brilliant and subverts Strong Bad's macho man character pretty early in his evolution (because only women bake, amirite, fellas? *crickets*). Homestar just seems dumb, and Coach Z is kinda dirty and creepy. I get a strong sense that these first messages were just Matt Chapman riffing in character, because they seem very loose and possibly unscripted. But, as mentioned before, the format would yield better results in future versions.
random dude: Oh, well, that's good to know that my own low opinion of them is likely due to my relative unfamiliarity with them then. And yeah, a lot of these messages sounded like unscripted riffing to me as well.
Homestarloween Party
random dude: And here we have the first ever holiday toon! Apart from being, in my opinion, the best cartoon we'll review this week, it's interesting to see how this early holiday toon works as a general format for future Halloween cartoons. Dressing up your characters in pop culture-referencing costumes is pretty much a universal feature of all sorts of Halloween episodes, but I've always really enjoyed something about the way that Homestar Runner does it. Perhaps the fact that The Brothers Chaps so rarely referenced whatever was current in pop culture gives the dressing-of-characters-in-costumes more staying power, than say, The Office, where just about every Halloween episode I saw seemed to have several characters dressed up in costumes referencing contemporary pop culture as if to say "Hey look at how topical we are, making almost timely references to current pop culture!" Also in this episode we are introduced to the Goblin, one of my favorite tertiary characters; that little guy's adorable.
Cypher Raige: I love Homestarloween. I have watched these Halloween cartoons so many times that I know many of them by heart. Having been fortunate enough to be around for a large part of the series' run at the height of its popularity, I remember eagerly awaiting Halloween just for these cartoons. I loved how, for the most part, the characters' costumes are not really acknowledged, but instead allowed to be soaked in by the viewer. Some are easily recognizable, and others are not, depending on the level of your pop culture knowledge. I also enjoy the fact that many of the costumes do not fit the characters that are wearing them. Homestar does not seem like the type of dude who would wear an elaborate Kurt Cobain costume, and Strong Mad as Slim Goodbody just seems as random as it can be. There's a bit of "Hey, remember this thing?" nostalgia to it all, but it works because they are not specifically calling attention to it. This is also probably the origin of Coach Z's obsession with rap, which always seemed silly and forced to me. My favorite line comes courtesy of Homestar's adorably mangled speech impediment(s): "We're gonna pway fwashwight ghost stowy tewwing wif a fwashwiiiight!"
A Holiday Greeting
random dude: And finally, we have a Christmas-themed toon, although no mention yet of the best holiday in the month of December (viewers familiar with H*R will know what I mean, newbies, you'll see what I mean in a few weeks), in which Strong Bad sings his own version of "O Holy Night", except his version is apparently titled "O Holy Crap", includes such vague lyrics as "something, something something", and "some guy" who was "probably born". You know, your basic succinct summary of the Christmas story. As someone who despises the inane ubiquity of Christmas music in November and December, I enjoyed this mockery of a song I've heard several hundred times too many. I also thought that the Christmas-y rendition of the "Everybody Everybody" song at the end of the toon was pretty awesome.
Cypher Raige: Yeah, the hymnal version of the Homestar theme rules, and it sounds loosely based on Pachelbel's "Canon in D". I would like that played on a loop at my funeral, please. "Holy crap" is a turn of phrase from Strong Bad that has permanently wormed it's way into my daily lexicon, so hearing "O Holy Crap" again is a joy. I have to agree with you, random dude, on your hate of Christmas music, but I have to admit that "O Holy Night" is probably the only Christmas song I actually like. Even so, I still enjoy seeing it taken down a peg. More old guy nostalgia appears at the very beginning of the cartoon with the spinning "SPECIAL" logo accompanied by goofy jungle drums, which comes from old CBS Special Presentations. This logo would appear before many televised Charlie Brown specials, so it is a direct reference to A Charlie Brown Christmas, as is the "Copyright 1965" text at the end of this episode, since that is the year that A Charlie Brown Christmas first aired.
Next week we will be reviewing:
The Reddest Radish
Theme Song Video
Marzipan's Answering Machine Version 2.0
A Jorb Well Done
The Luau
Strong Bad Sings
random dude: And the first of these staples of Homestar Runner that we encounter this week is some songs sung by Strong Bad. Although many of his later songs are more clever and the singing less actively bad than the songs on "Strong Bad Sings" is the start of an element of the site (Strong Bad's music) that would provide The Brothers Chaps with some of their most successful material, especially outside their fan base (I think I was made aware of the existence of homestarrunner.com through "Trogdor", for example). But apart from being a notable first for the site, this toon (and all of this weeks "talkies") provides a closer look at the genesis of Strong Bad's character. In these early cartoons, Strong Bad might not be making outdated pop culture references, making clever insults, or acting as the narrator of wacky world-building exposition, but he's already an annoying jerk with a hyper-inflated sense of his own coolness, attractiveness, and intelligence. He'll become a more nuanced and (marginally) less immature character, but completely unironic phrases like "Every time that I look at myself, I can't believe how awesome I am," could describe Strong Bad's self-image ca. 2010 when the current hiatus started as it does way back in 2000 when this cartoon was released.
Cypher Raige: It's interesting/nostalgic to me that the format of "Strong Bad Sings" is basically a parody of those old album collection infomercials that some of our readers may be too young to remember. The one that specifically comes to mind is an old John Denver commercial advertising his big hits, which obviously had a big influence on this cartoon, but there were others as well. I remember hating these commercials as a kid because they seemed so long and so lame. Do these exist anymore? I don't recall having seen one in many years, but their target audience always seemed to be old people, and there are still plenty of those around (THANKS OBAMA!). Strong Bad's songs are pretty dumb here, but some of the titles are funny. I would really love to hear "This One Time I Saw Homestar Punching a Kitten in the Throat." I also enjoy the disinterested announcer reading the ordering instructions at the end of the commercial.
random dude: I'm pretty sure I've seen a late-night infomercial for decade-themed songs as recently as a couple of years ago, Cypher, so don't worry, there are still outlets through which one can purchase overpriced collections of widely available songs meant to evoke a feeling of generic nostalgia. I feel like decade-themed music collection infomercials are essentially the equivalent of those online "You Know You're a 90s Kid If..." lists for the 60-80 crowd.
Kick the Can
random dude: And we've encountered our first alternate Homestarniverse (you will live to rue the day that you coined that term, Cypher), the Old-Timey universe, and The Homestar Runner. Our introduction to the Old-Timey universe consists of 15 silent, black-and-white "cartoons" backed by Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer", each of which consist of The Homestar Runner kicking a can along the ground for several seconds until some sort of deliberately understated (on the part of The Brothers Chaps) hi-jinks ensue from an errant kick to said can. I like a lot of the Old-Timey cartoons and their 1930s animation homage, but these first ones are little more than mildly quaint (although i did enjoy the one where The Homestar Runner eats the can, and the star on his shirt disappears to be replaced with the words "herbert hoover?" in a parody of nonsensically-dry-yet-still-heavy-handed old political cartoons).
Cypher Raige: As the token old dude on these reviews, I feel like I'm probably going to be providing a lot of the history and backstory of some of these references. So gather around, you little whippersnappers, and listen to an old man say things. Old-Timey Homestar is a direct parody of the rudimentary animation of the early Disney era. While many of those old cartoons are jerky, repetitive, and silly to the modern eye, these Homestar cartoons are deliberately even more simplistic than what would have actually been available in 1933. The Old-Timey Homestar cartoons also owe a lot to The Simpsons episode "The Day the Violence Died" in which the audience learns that Itchy and Scratchy were stolen from Chester J. Lampwick by Roger Meyers, Sr. While that episode itself was a parody of Disney, the Old-Timey Homestar cartoons serve the same purpose of creating a 70 year old mythology for a cartoon that has actually only existed for a couple of years. It's a funny gag, and it shows how the Brothers Chaps can both revere and subvert the history of animation all at once. It's also a particularly sly gag that these "early" Homestar cartoons are so crappy. They never would have actually survived for 70 years with such scant content.
Marzipan's Answering Machine Version 1.0
random dude: Next we have first appearance of Marzipan's Answering Machine, which would come to be it's own feature in the toons menu on the site. Marzipan's Answering Machine is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: a feature that consists of other characters leaving messages on Marzipan's answering machine. I never watched (or is listened the better word, since the only animation is a flashing arrow and spinning cassette wheels?) this feature much; it was far from being one of my favorite things about the site (it'll be interesting to see if my opinion of MAM is reinforced or improved by re-watching/listening-to them for these reviews). For one, I seem to remember Marzipan being kind of underwritten (or simply reduced to tropes) at times, which is frustrating as she's the only major female character in Homestar Runner, and it's kind of telling how she scarcely appears in the feature that's actually named after her. But enough of this for now, there'll be plenty of time to evaluate Marzipan's evolution (or lack there of) as a character in later reviews. Anyway, I didn't think that Version 1.0 was all that funny, myself. Strong Bad's hapless prank call, and botched attempts to make it clear that he has only called her once are easily the funniest bits, and they're more slightly bemusing rather than genuinely hilarious. Apart from Homestar's thinking that Pom Pom's "Don't be late," was some kind of joke, there wasn't a whole lot to either of his messages. And Coach Z at this point seems to be a character built more around an accent (and he doesn't even mangle that many word's with gratuitous "r"s, apart from "fierld"), but I think you can already detect some hints of Coach Z's creepy infatuation with Marzipan (and we'll have more on that in relevant later reviews)
Cypher Raige: Yeah, there's nothing too incredibly entertaining about this first round of voice messages, but I promise you, random dude, they do get funnier. Later episodes of Marzipan's answering machine would feature at least one of the best examples of my favorite thing ever on this site: Angry Homestar. But we'll get to that when we get to it. I get a slight chuckle out of Strong Bad's terrible prank call, but then his second call when he actually needs help with baking is kind of brilliant and subverts Strong Bad's macho man character pretty early in his evolution (because only women bake, amirite, fellas? *crickets*). Homestar just seems dumb, and Coach Z is kinda dirty and creepy. I get a strong sense that these first messages were just Matt Chapman riffing in character, because they seem very loose and possibly unscripted. But, as mentioned before, the format would yield better results in future versions.
random dude: Oh, well, that's good to know that my own low opinion of them is likely due to my relative unfamiliarity with them then. And yeah, a lot of these messages sounded like unscripted riffing to me as well.
Homestarloween Party
random dude: And here we have the first ever holiday toon! Apart from being, in my opinion, the best cartoon we'll review this week, it's interesting to see how this early holiday toon works as a general format for future Halloween cartoons. Dressing up your characters in pop culture-referencing costumes is pretty much a universal feature of all sorts of Halloween episodes, but I've always really enjoyed something about the way that Homestar Runner does it. Perhaps the fact that The Brothers Chaps so rarely referenced whatever was current in pop culture gives the dressing-of-characters-in-costumes more staying power, than say, The Office, where just about every Halloween episode I saw seemed to have several characters dressed up in costumes referencing contemporary pop culture as if to say "Hey look at how topical we are, making almost timely references to current pop culture!" Also in this episode we are introduced to the Goblin, one of my favorite tertiary characters; that little guy's adorable.
Cypher Raige: I love Homestarloween. I have watched these Halloween cartoons so many times that I know many of them by heart. Having been fortunate enough to be around for a large part of the series' run at the height of its popularity, I remember eagerly awaiting Halloween just for these cartoons. I loved how, for the most part, the characters' costumes are not really acknowledged, but instead allowed to be soaked in by the viewer. Some are easily recognizable, and others are not, depending on the level of your pop culture knowledge. I also enjoy the fact that many of the costumes do not fit the characters that are wearing them. Homestar does not seem like the type of dude who would wear an elaborate Kurt Cobain costume, and Strong Mad as Slim Goodbody just seems as random as it can be. There's a bit of "Hey, remember this thing?" nostalgia to it all, but it works because they are not specifically calling attention to it. This is also probably the origin of Coach Z's obsession with rap, which always seemed silly and forced to me. My favorite line comes courtesy of Homestar's adorably mangled speech impediment(s): "We're gonna pway fwashwight ghost stowy tewwing wif a fwashwiiiight!"
A Holiday Greeting
random dude: And finally, we have a Christmas-themed toon, although no mention yet of the best holiday in the month of December (viewers familiar with H*R will know what I mean, newbies, you'll see what I mean in a few weeks), in which Strong Bad sings his own version of "O Holy Night", except his version is apparently titled "O Holy Crap", includes such vague lyrics as "something, something something", and "some guy" who was "probably born". You know, your basic succinct summary of the Christmas story. As someone who despises the inane ubiquity of Christmas music in November and December, I enjoyed this mockery of a song I've heard several hundred times too many. I also thought that the Christmas-y rendition of the "Everybody Everybody" song at the end of the toon was pretty awesome.
Cypher Raige: Yeah, the hymnal version of the Homestar theme rules, and it sounds loosely based on Pachelbel's "Canon in D". I would like that played on a loop at my funeral, please. "Holy crap" is a turn of phrase from Strong Bad that has permanently wormed it's way into my daily lexicon, so hearing "O Holy Crap" again is a joy. I have to agree with you, random dude, on your hate of Christmas music, but I have to admit that "O Holy Night" is probably the only Christmas song I actually like. Even so, I still enjoy seeing it taken down a peg. More old guy nostalgia appears at the very beginning of the cartoon with the spinning "SPECIAL" logo accompanied by goofy jungle drums, which comes from old CBS Special Presentations. This logo would appear before many televised Charlie Brown specials, so it is a direct reference to A Charlie Brown Christmas, as is the "Copyright 1965" text at the end of this episode, since that is the year that A Charlie Brown Christmas first aired.
Next week we will be reviewing:
The Reddest Radish
Theme Song Video
Marzipan's Answering Machine Version 2.0
A Jorb Well Done
The Luau
