The internet has done weird things for comedy. Good things, but certainly weird things. Video-sharing websites like YouTube, Newgrounds and Vine have paved the way for all sorts of art: mediums like sketches, animations and music. The internet digitized the formerly newspaper-dominated comic strip with works like “Penny Arcade” and “xkcd.” And beyond this, the eldritch phenomenon that is memes has introduced audiences to meta-humor and explored the darker side of the human psyche. Memes are spooky stuff.
But perhaps the greatest work of art to bless the internet was/is the web cartoon “Homestar Runner,” which saw its prime from about 2003 to 2008. The series is a collection of more than 350 cartoons featuring a main cast of 12 characters in the fictional town of Free Country, USA. Every cartoon, to an extent, plays out in the same universe and canon, and this is how homestarrunner.com proves to be, perhaps, the funniest entity on the internet.
The website started gaining traction in 2000, but it didn’t explode in popularity until the introduction of “Strong Bad Email” in August 2001, in which the character Strong Bad answers real emails from real fans of the website. Not only were the cartoons themselves well-written and full of quips, but nearly every “Strong Bad Email” builds on the “Homestar Runner” universe by introducing a new character, location, entity or aspect of a pre-existing character. After 206 emails to “Strong Bad Email,” the universe is jam-packed with characters. If you were to watch a more recent cartoon from 2014, you’d certainly laugh at the main cast, but perhaps you wouldn’t catch the reference to the character Onion Bubs (introduced in 2007) or the in-universe TV cartoon “Sweet Cuppin’ Cakes” (introduced in 2003). The deeper you dive into the website’s content, the more you’re rewarded with inside jokes and callbacks. However, the website does not have the “it-takes-a-few-episodes-to-get-into” syndrome because of how well it juggles this world-building with engaging characters.
Let me get a bit deeper into how the world-building is so masterful.
It’s a three-step process through which the show delivers a joke. First, a character like Strong Bad introduces an entity into the universe, like the band Limozeen. The name Limozeen comes from a list of hypothetical band names Strong Bad proposes. However, in step two, the entity is implemented into the universe, usually without question. A few cartoons later, Strong Bad is excited for a Limozeen concert he’s going to see that evening. That moment is the audience’s first subversion of expectation: An entity that clearly did not exist now exists and lives alongside these characters. In step three, the entity itself either co-mingles with other entities in the universe or sprouts new entities. Another batch of cartoons later, the band Limozeen gets its own television cartoon “Limozeen: ‘But they’re in space!’” A few cartoons later, Strong Bad introduces Limozeen’s foil, Sloshy, an indie band. By cartoon No. 350, you have potentially hundreds of entities playing together in any given 5-minute cartoon, and it’s an absolute joy to be a part of.
If you look at the main cast of characters, they’re very abstract; they have human qualities, but you couldn’t call them human, per se. The titular character, Homestar Runner, lacks arms but has the capacity to lift objects. The Cheat is a small creature who acts as both Strong Bad’s close friend and pet. Strong Bad has elephant feet. The important thing, however, is that in the earlier cartoons, these odd characteristics are not meant to be inherently funny. They’re not meant to be laughed at. All of the comedy from the earlier cartoons come from their personalities because their appearances have to be nailed into the status quo. Despite its hundreds of alterations to the universe, the main cast represents a total control of and respect for the universe by its artists, brothers Matt and Mike Chapman.
“Homestar Runner” is a cool work of art. Give it a look.
Michael Smith is a UF mechanical engineering junior. His column appears on Tuesdays.
