#man a lot of my childhood was on nickelodeon website

[dude-iloveu]

i just remembered the amount of online virtual world games i used to play. damn no wonder my social skills are the way they are now lmaoo

[mi4011malith]

My top 3 Animators

Here’s a detailed research of these animators:

1.

Pendleton Ward

Ward Taylor Pendleton Johnston, known professionally as Pendleton Ward, or simply Pen Ward, is the creator of Adventure Time and the original Animated short, as well as a production designer for Steven Universe. Pendleton Ward currently works for Cartoon Network Studios and Frederator Studios. He was born on September 23, 1982, and grew up in San Antonio, Texas.

In 2002/2003, Pendleton Ward published a webcomic titled Bueno the Bear. He later took down the comics because he thought they were "terrible."[3] However, he retains the name "buenothebear" for his website and his handle on sites like Twitter. Later, Pen created a short for Frederator Studios titled "Barrista" starring Bueno the Bear.

Pen continued to work on short animations for Frederator's Random! Cartoons which aired on Nicktoons. There, he worked with several people who later join him on the Adventure Time series, including composer Casey James Basichis, Adam Muto and Niki Yang. His two shorts were "The Bravest Warriors" and the "Adventure Time" animated short. The "Adventure Time" short was made in 2006 and went on to become an internet phenomenon in 2007, with over 1,000,000 views by November of that year.[4] (Internet searches seem to indicate it first went viral in mid-January 2007, although the original versions of the video on YouTube have since been removed.) Pen pitched Adventure Time as a full series in 2006 or 2007 to Nickelodeon, however, they passed it up for Fanboy & Chum Chum, a CGI animated Television series. It took some time until Cartoon Network decided to pick up the show, which, some fans believe, was better then the show being in the hands of Nickelodeon.

In 2008, Pendleton Ward worked on Cartoon Network's The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack (along with JG Quintel, creator of Regular Show) as a writer and storyboard artist. Flapjack was a storyboard-driven show, meaning that the storyboard artists also wrote the episodes, based on an outline. The experience inspired Pen to run Adventure Time the same way, once it was picked up as a series.

Pen became interested in animation at an early age, inspired by his mother, Bettie Ward, who was an artist and worked with animators. He started drawing flipbooks in first grade.

At the Adventure Time panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2011, Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons and Futurama, made a surprise appearance, telling a story about Pendleton's childhood. His mother brought him to visit his house to get advice on how to be an animator. However, he couldn't remember what advice he had given to him.

Pen attended CalArts, where he became friends with JG Quintel. (They later worked on Flapjack together, and in 2009, Quintel went on to create Regular Show). At a "Producers Show" at CalArts, Pen met Eric Homer from Frederator Studios, which was his first lead in working with Frederator.

2.

Jonathan Djob Nkondo

He was born in Paris in 1987 and grew up in the suburbs, drawing loads since he was a kid. He was really inspired by cartoons like Dragon Ball Z, Mighty Max, Patlabor, Inspector Gadget, Ulysses 31, the Warner Bros ones and video games like Zelda, TMNT and Mario Bros.

But at some point, his parents decided they wanted him and his siblings to watch less TV, so they got rid of it. There was not much to do and entertain himself with, which led him to start reading a lot of books and comics.

He used to go to the library a lot and copy/draw over those drawings, trying to understand the techniques behind them. He was more curious about characters in general, and one day he just decided to create his own, along with his own stories for them.

But yeah, he read a lot of comics — and very diverse ones. Loads of Belgian ones: the famous ones like TinTin, Spirou, Les 4 As (The 4 Aces), Bone… A lot of mangas as well and, later on, during college, he found out about the American comics like Spider Man, Xmen, Gen 13, Witchblade, Spawn, etc.

He is a big fan of Katsuhiro Otomo. Akira is the first manga heread when he was a kid. He was too young at the time to fully understand the story behind it, but his style blew his mind. He just recently bought the 6 volume set (like 2 years ago) and he’s still impressed by the drawings.

But the story and message have now became more important to him. He thinks the three most impactful mangas he read when he was kid were Akira, Gunnm from Yukito Kishiro and Gon from Masashi Tanaka.

On the “dreamy” comment: well, a lot of my ideas are actually coming from dreams I have.

It’s definitely happened that I dreamt about something and then illustrated it afterwards. I tend to be very conscious when I’m dreaming (sort of lucid dreaming), and I think it’s a good source of inspiration. Often times I feel stuck with an idea or get a hint of a path that could be interesting to develop, so I usually keep that in mind and I kind of unlock those during my sleep.

3.

Yoneyama Mai

Mai worked at TRIGGER, an anime production company that is highly regarded both in Japan and abroad. There, she was in charge of the animation director for “Kill la Kill” and the character design for “Kiznaiver” and other aspects of the works, and she emerged as a force to be reckoned with. In the 2019 Japanese massive hit animated film “PROMARE”, having played a central role in visual development and other aspects of the work, she has a definite presence in the animation and illustration industry.

Mai has also been remarkably active as an illustrator, such as working on the main visual for the EVANGELION fashion brand “RADIO EVA”. And she held a solo exhibition “SHE” in 2019 and a solo exhibition “EGO” in 2021, her activities as an artist gain momentum.

Her works are characterised by the depiction that you can feel the flow of emotions and movements, which is the result of the fusion of a broad and deep sensibility that includes not only Japanese but also Asian elements, and an expressive ability to convey situations backed by the outstanding skills of an outstanding animator.

“For me, drawing animation is an act that reminds me of the preciousness of the moment. I like the state that is created by extending the moment of a single frame, preparing many of them, and establishing a flow of movement by moving them back and forth, so that all the moments are interacting with each other, so I made it into my work.”

[nostalgia-of-music]

How can such a short theme be so memorable?

Multiple times throughout my blog, now, I have mentioned this video about the Disney Channel theme from the Youtube creator known as Defunctland.

This video goes into depth about the mystery of who wrote the Disney Channel theme. Again, I’ve posted this at least twice before, but just to refresh your memory: 

Now, although I did just refer to it as a video, not classifying this as a documentary is an insult to the work this creator puts in. It can be found on many film websites, including IMDB, Top Documentary Films, Letterbox, etc. So, I will be reviewing this video as a documentary.

Not only does this Documentary take a deep dive into the story of the man who wrote the Disney Channel theme but, over its 90 minutes runtime, talks a lot about how memorable this theme is, along with so many other themes for different networks. I think it’s very interesting to think about, not just jingles, but network themes specifically. Most of the time they tend to be extremely short, but extremely recognizable. 

The documentary opens up with its narrator, Kevin Purjerer, giving the viewer the history of network themes and how they came about. The “first iconic sound signature in the United States” was that of NBC. 

These iconic chimes were originally created to signify the end of the broadcast, back when it was only radio, so that affiliate stations would know to switch to the new broadcast. 

Purjerer goes on to list networks that followed in NBC’s footsteps and made sound signatures of their own. These include Nickelodeon, HBO, and later on… The Disney Channel. 

So, to go back to the title of this post, why are all of these themes so memorable? As Purjerer puts it, all of these themes are “Recognizable to generations of viewers.” If you really take a moment to listen to any iconic network theme, all of them seem to be no more than four or five notes long. So how do these themes last for decades and, as Purjerer puts it when talking about the Disney Channel theme, “Dominate through the network’s rise and peak in popularity”?

The documentary doesn’t answer this question directly unless we’re talking about things that are not music. 

Throughout the documentary, the narrator mainly focuses on the things that would play in between shows on Disney Channel, as this is when the Disney Channel theme would be played (rather than showing traditional commercials from 3rd party companies, Disney Channel shows promotional content for everything Disney).

There is a portion where the narrator is interviewing a previous producer at the Disney Channel. She mentions that for over two years leading up to the release of Finding Nemo, they would show short segments about fish in-between shows to almost trick kids into being interested in fish. 

He shows various clips from the early to mid-2000s, the same time I would have been watching Disney Channel. The majority of the clips that he shows throughout this video make me say “Ooh my gosh, I forgot about this!” followed by a flood of memories unleashed from seeing just one clip. 

This got me thinking, that repetition of showing the same thing over and over… Hearing this theme during every single commercial break of my childhood has made it so I can never hear it without seeing those colorful mickey ears in the bottom left corner of the screen. 

During the documentary, Perjerer interviews many primary sources directly from Disney Channel. Since he was trying to solve the mystery of who composed the theme, he started with a loose idea of who to talk to, so he interviewed some actors from the channel. 

Then he interviewed Eric Perlmutter, a composer that worked on different Disney Channel themes, such as the “Disney Channel Movie” theme. 

After that, David Norland, someone who composed extended versions of the Disney Channel theme. 

**spoilers ahead, I highly recommend watching this documentary before reading!**

Later, producers filmed and directed the segments where the theme is played, and finally tell us the composer of the theme was Alex Lasarenko, whom I made my entire last post on this blog about. He didn’t stop there, though. Since Alex sadly passed, he reached out to his living relatives to talk to them about him. 

The documentary tells an amazing story. Throughout its runtime, the narrator mentions how he wishes he wasn’t referred to as a Youtuber but rather as a Documentarian. He cleverly plants little seeds throughout the documentary that get this thought into our heads, before connecting his experience to that of Alex Laserenko. He doesn’t want Laserenko to only be known for these four notes. 

**major spoilers ahead… again!**

So, he reveals that all of the music that we had been hearing throughout the entire documentary was all original music by Alex Laserenko. 

Overall, I learned so much from this documentary. It made me realize how much of a lasting impact the small things we see during our childhood have on the rest of our lives, and how important just 4 notes can really be to millions of people around the world. 

[warehouse13pod]

Show Notes 104 "Claudia"

Knock, Knock, Agents.

At long last, Claudia has joined the Warehouse!

 To listen to this weeks episode, click here or click play on the embedded player below.

Let’s kick things off! We started out this week with shout outs to our Patreon supporters. You could get a shout out too, if you support us on Patreon. Check out our Patreon here. (How many times can I type out Patreon before you click on our Patreon link? …Patreon) 

P.S. We’re considering adding sending you actual fudge as a reward tier! Let us know in the comments if you’d be interested in that!

We also talk about seeing young Artie. Miranda questioned the darkness and bushiness of Saul’s eyebrows in the flashback scenes and thought they were, perhaps, a bit overdone. Turns out nothing could be further from the truth!

Check out those brows on young Saul Rubinek!!!!

I haven’t read any fanfic about the moment of glorious off-screen storytelling that was The Monkey Mission, so I can’t recommend any. But if anybody knows any good fanfic on the subject matter, I’m happy to update this post so I can link to it. Because, honestly, it’s one of the funniest moments of the show so far.

Anyway, on to the truly important stuff:

CLAUDIA IS HERE!

For those tracking our color theory of orange vs. purple, we did mention that there was a subversion in that, for the first time, something that seemed dangerous (Claudia’s handcuffs) glowed purple instead of orange, and it made us question whether or not Claudia was a “bad guy.” Spoiler: She’s not a bad guy.

Here’s a screengrab of that moment.

Miranda (and Eddie McClintock) gave us an amazing Actor’s Spotlight on Allison Scagliotti. She mentioned that she first saw Scagliotti as the character of Mindy Crenshaw on the Nickelodeon series, Drake & Josh. (For listeners and readers in countries outside of the United States, we discussed the enduring influence of Nickelodeon on mine and Miranda’s childhoods in the show notes for 103 “Magnetism”).

Here’s a younger Scagliotti as Mindy:

Miranda mentioned getting the proper pronunciation of Scagliotti’s name from Episode 21 of the podcast Let’s Talk About Me, Baby. That’s also where she learned that one of Scagliotti’s many artistic endeavors was time in the band Nice Enough People. She noted that Scagliotti had a starring role in the show, Stitchers and also that her work as guest starring roles in various TV shows goes under appreciated. We talked about the show Person of Interest in the show notes for our Surprise Interview with Eddie McClintock. Remember? That guy who is such a deep, intensely dark character that he even makes the lighting dark? You know, this guy:

 Scagliotti guest stars on the 20th Episode of Season 2 of the show, titled “In Extremis” and does a really remarkable job. Here’s a screengrab of her in that role.

In the episode, Miranda and I also talk about how we were the exact same age as Allison Scagliotti when the episode aired. Here’s a pick of Miranda and I at that age making goofy faces for reasons neither of us remembers.

Moving on a bit, we talked about how cool the durational spectrometer was!!!!! For more information on real life spectrometers and what they’re used for, click here.

In that same scene, we learn that Pete’s sister is deaf, and that’s why Pete knows how to read lips. If you’re looking to learn how to lip read, here’s a website devoted to it.

We also talked a lot about the discussion of mental health in this episode. Miranda mentioned that young women in the Victorian era were often institutionalized for things that were incredibly absurd. She shared this list of actual reasons that women were institutionalized in the 19th century on Twitter.

Miranda got this list from here.

We’ve also mentioned in these show notes, several times, the Audible original podcast Stephen Fry’s Victorian Secrets. The podcast continues to be relevant to our own, as Episode 9 of the podcast focuses on the history of Victorian asylums.

We also wanted to be sure to mention that while we don’t know the statistics of how many people are voluntarily vs. involuntarily committed to mental hospitals, we do know that voluntarily committing yourself is a massive sign of personal strength and nothing to be ashamed of. Content warning for suicidal ideation, but here is a powerful first person account of a person who chose to check themselves into a psychiatric hospital that is well worth the read. Around the same time, we also discussed the well-documented fact that people who live with mental illness are much more likely to be the victims of crime than they are to commit crimes.

Miranda also talked about how Claudia’s bloody nose is similar to the one Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer used to get from using too much magic.

She also theorized that this occurs in science fiction when a character becomes physically involved with a force beyond their control.

Our awesome guest, Dr. Kathleen Crowther—who is also a fan of Warehouse 13, gave us some amazing information on Rheticus. She mentioned that he wrote poetry and had read one of his about the Beer of Breslau. You can find that poem and its translation here. She also said that his poetry could get quite racy and was based on or inspired by Ovid’s Art of Love.  She also mentioned that Rheticus was a student of Nicolaus Copernicus and that they both believed in a heliocentric rather than geocentric model of the solar system. Revolutionary stuff! Get it? REVOLUTION-ary!?!?!?

Anyway, here’s some more information about Rheticus.

Miranda also gave a shout out to the person in charge of hair and makeup for this episode. That person is actually two people. Susan Exton-Stranks was in charge of hair and Marie Nardella was in charge of makeup. They both did an excellent job!

We also talked about how powerful it was that Drew Z. Greenberg—the focus of our Writer’s Appreciation Corner for the week—worked a beautiful story of same-sex love into the story which featured a real queer man from history (Rheticus) at a time when gay marriage wasn’t even legal in the United States yet! He talked a bit about his commitment to queer representation here.

Dr. Crowther also mentioned that the picture used to signify Rheticus in the episode was actually a picture of his contemporary Philip Melanchthon., who was one of Rheticus’ mentors and teachers at the University of Wittenberg. Also, related to his representation of a queer man of history, Crowther told us that one of his friends and, likely, lovers was Heinrich Zell, a German (Prussian?) painter and cartographer.

Then we talked about the heartbreaking scene where Claudia talks about her brother staying up to read her Maria Looney on the Red Planet. This is especially sweet, not just for the reasons we talked about in the podcast, but also because further research on the subject revealed that the Maria Looney book series was a spinoff of the Matthew Looney series which focused on Maria’s brother. So the strong brother-sister connection was present down to the subtext and research. It’s just so sweet.

We also talked about how we finally got to see Artie’s nice car, which friend of the show, @ElZilcho on Twitter pointed out was “Jaguar XK150” and adds that “The XK150 ran for four years, 1957-61” and was an interesting and offbeat choice. El Zilcho also was kind enough to include that they got this information (and the picture we shared below of Artie’s car) from the Internet Movie Cars Database, which is a wonderful database that I would never have even known exists otherwise! Thanks, El Zilcho!

We also mentioned that giving Artie a nice red car was an excellent nod to Giles doing the same thing for himself in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Artie’s Car:

Giles’ car was a similar red car. It is a Red 1987 BMW 325i Convertible that Buffy affectionately calls a “little two-door tramp.”

Picture of Giles’ car for comparison:

We talked about seeing Mrs. Frederic WALK THROUGH AN ACTUAL DOOR THIS EPISODE!

Alas, alack! I was unable to find a gif of this historic moment. She probably ordered Claudia to delete all evidence of this from the internet.

We talked a bit about the show framing Ben Franklin’s lightning rod as an artifact. Learn more about Franklin’s lighting rod here.

We also talked about how Mrs. Frederic uses the word “glean,” which Pete finds weird. I, personally, didn’t find the word that strange. But what do you think? Try incorporating it into your vocabulary. Here’s the definition of “glean” from Merriam-Webster.

We also talked a little bit about how sweet and vulnerable Artie was with Claudia. He immediately goes into Dad-mode and lets his guard down with her. It’s the first time we truly see Artie showing how much he cares about other people.

Later in the episode, Miranda changed my life by helping me realize that Rheticus’ compass is A PORTKEY!

That’s all I have for this week.

Hope you gleaned what needed to be gleaned from these show notes, Agents!

[asctx]

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hollywoods-evil-secret-mxsb5f3zl Sunday Times (London, England). (May 22, 2016) ================== Oliver Thring met Elijah Wood to talk about his latest film, but the Lord of the Rings star and former child actor had other ideas. Out poured revelations about convicted paedophiles working openly in Hollywood — and deep relief that he had escaped unscathed ================== Elijah Wood was just eight when he arrived in Hollywood, the blue­-eyed son of Iowa delicatessen owners. He had been modelling in Midwestern shopping centres for four years when his mother brought him to California to launch his career in show business. Long before Peter Jackson cast him as Frodo Baggins, the hobbit protagonist of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Wood was a child star. He took the lead in a remake of the dolphin film Flipper and before that shared top billing with Macaulay Culkin in The Good Son. Now he knows he was lucky to escape childhood unharmed. Allegations that powerful figures in Hollywood have been sheltering child abusers have become impossible to ignore in recent years. During the past decade several convictions have been secured —­­ and far more accusations levelled ­­— against wealthy and important people in the industry. Some of these criminals have left prison, returned to Hollywood and begun working again with children. Sitting in a Los Angeles restaurant to promote his latest film, The Trust, Wood compares revelations of child abuse in Hollywood to those that surfaced in Britain after the death of Jimmy Savile. "You all grew up with Savile —­­ Jesus, it must have been devastating. Clearly something major was going on in Hollywood. It was all organised. There are a lot of vipers in this industry, people who only have their own interests in mind. There is darkness in the underbelly —­­ if you can imagine it, it's probably happened. "What upsets me about these situations is that the victims can't speak as loudly as the people in power," he adds. "That's the tragedy of attempting to reveal what is happening to innocent people: they can be squashed, but their lives have been irreparably damaged." Wood says his mother, Debra, protected him: "She was far more concerned with raising me to be a good human than facilitating my career. I never went to parties where that kind of thing was going on. This bizarre industry presents so many paths to temptation. If you don't have some kind of foundation, typically from family, then it will be difficult to deal with." Other child actors did not have his luck. Corey Feldman was perhaps the biggest child star of the 1980s, a hero in such hits as Gremlins, The Goonies, Stand by Me and The Lost Boys. In 2011 Feldman decided to speak out about the abuse he had suffered as a young actor. "The No 1 problem in Hollywood was and is —­­ and always will be —­­ paedophilia," he said, adding that by the time he was 14 he was "surrounded" by molesters. Feldman met another child actor, Corey Haim, on a film set in the mid-­1980s. They became best friends, starring in numerous movies together and sharing their own television show. Describing their first meeting in his memoir, Feldman wrote: "An adult male had convinced Corey that it was perfectly normal for older men and younger boys in the business to have sexual relations ... So they walked off to a secluded area between two trailers ... and Haim allowed himself to be sodomised." Haim asked Feldman: "So I guess we should play around like that too?" He replied: "No, that's not what kids do, man." In 2012 Feldman told a British tabloid: "When I was 14 and 15, things were happening to me. These older men were leching around like vultures. It was basically me lying there pretending I was asleep and them going about their business." Both actors went on to suffer mental health problems, alcoholism and addiction to drugs including crack and heroin. In 2010, aged 38, Haim died of pneumonia, having reportedly entered rehab 15 times. Feldman said a "Hollywood mogul" was to blame for his friend's death, adding: "The people who did this to me are still out there and still working ­­— some of the richest, most powerful people in this business." "PEOPLE look at Corey Feldman and think he's a drug addict, so why should they listen to him?" says Anne Henry, co­founder of the BizParentz Foundation, an organisation established to protect child actors. "But that plays into the predators' hands. They don't want victims to be believed. We estimate that about 75% of the child actors who 'went off the rails' suffered earlier abuse. Drug addiction, alcoholism, suicide attempts, wandering through life without a purpose —­­ they can all be symptoms." In the mid-­2000s Henry was the proud mother of an 11-­year-­old child actor when she spotted shirtless photographs of him trading on eBay for up to $400 each. "My kid wasn't famous," she says. "But pictures of Leonardo DiCaprio when he was 11 were only selling for 10 bucks so I was worried." She realised that a number of eBay users were trading photographs of young boys, who were often semi­-naked and staring up into the camera in positions that mimicked child abuse. Henry says her research led her "to websites where men boasted about following these kids, where they 'screencapped' little boys on the TV every night. We found fetish sites: one still exists that is focused on little boys working in the entertainment industry, full of pictures of them in wet swimsuits. We eventually learnt that our kids' photographs were being used as gateways to child pornography sites." Bob Villard, an agent who managed the young DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire, was convicted of selling images of children on eBay. As far back as 1987 Villard had been found in possession of child pornography and in 2005 he was sentenced to eight years in prison for committing a "lewd act" on a 13­-year-­old boy who had asked him for acting lessons. There is no suggestion that DiCaprio or Maguire was ever a victim of abuse. Henry felt ill at what she had discovered. She began educating other parents of child actors —­­ including several famous ones ­­— about what was taking place. And then, she says, the stories of sexual assault began to pour in. In the past 10 years Henry claims she has heard hundreds of episodes of alleged abuse of child actors in Hollywood, ranging from inappropriate comments to sexual violence and rape. "We believe Hollywood is currently sheltering about 100 active abusers," she says at home in Los Angeles. "The tsunami of claims has begun. This problem has been endemic in Hollywood for a long time and it's finally coming to light." WHAT should have brought the issue even greater attention is a documentary called An Open Secret by the Oscar-nominated director Amy Berg. The film, which is not easy to watch, either in practical terms or because of its content, tells the stories of five former child actors who claim to be victims of serious abuse. Some of their attackers have gone to jail. Evan Henzi, 22, tells me by email that "sexual abuse is a huge problem in Hollywood and there is absolutely no support system". He was molested dozens of times over several years from the age of 11 by his agent, a paedophile named Martin Weiss. In home­-movie footage recorded at a birthday party in the Henzi family home, one young boy turns to the camera and says: "I'm getting a massage and it feels great, and I don't care whether or not it looks bad." "It's above the waist," says Weiss, who is touching the boy. "It's not bad." Henzi eventually helped to secure Weiss's conviction after, he writes, "a moment of truth for myself. I secretly recorded an hour-­long conversation in which my abuser admitted he sexually abused me. I decided to beat fear with truth." But Weiss spent just six months in prison. "I was worried that he could try to harm me because he threatened me when I was younger," Henzi once said. Weiss is now rumoured to be working again in the entertainment industry. The most explosive allegations of Hollywood paedophilia surround "pool parties" at a Los Angeles mansion in the late 1990s. These were hosted primarily by one man, Marc Collins-­Rector. He had co­founded Digital Entertainment Network (DEN), a precursor to YouTube and Netflix, which generated its own content —­­ some of it with overtly pederastic tones —­­ for online release. DEN attracted almost $100m of investment from Hollywood giants, including David Geffen and Michael Huffington, as well as Bryan Singer, now one of the most feted directors in Hollywood, and the film maker behind The Usual Suspects and the billion dollar­-grossing X-­Men franchise. Geffen, Huffington and Singer are all alleged to have been at the parties but none is accused of any wrongdoing. At these parties, Collins­-Rector and other men are said to have sexually assaulted at least six teenage boys, according to lawsuits filed in 2000 and 2014. Michael Egan, who was a teenager at the time of the alleged abuse in 1999, sued Singer and two other men, alleging serious sexual abuse. He had to drop this suit after he was found to have been contradicting himself. A federal judge also accused him of lying in court. Singer has denied all claims of child abuse and said the accusations against him were a "sick, twisted shakedown". Another convicted paedophile, Brian Peck, was also a guest at the parties. Singer had given him cameo roles in two of the X­-Men films and asked him to join him for the director's commentary on one of the movies' DVDs. In 2004 Peck was found guilty of abusing a famous young actor on the Nickelodeon network. After prison Peck returned to Hollywood, where he accepted a role as a dialogue coach on the sitcom Anger Management, starring Charlie Sheen. Peck later went on to play, of all things, a sex education teacher in a film. Henry is outraged that Peck still works in Hollywood: "I'm disgusted with the people who continue to hire him. I hope audiences will vote with their wallets. Don't watch these films: make it clear to the studios that you won't have anything to do with organisations that re­-employ convicted predators." And if you were considering seeing An Open Secret, that may not be easy. Matthew Valentinas, its executive producer, has said: "There was major interest at Cannes [in 2014]. They'd say, 'We love it, don't show it to anyone else.' But then someone on the business side would step in and all of a sudden there was no longer interest." The film failed to find a distributor and apparently never will, though online message boards suggest viewers are keen to see it and it can be found on YouTube. To make matters worse, its other executive producer, Gabe Hoffman, apparently fell out with its director and was last year reported to be taking her to court for not "co­operating" in the film's promotion. Valentinas referred me to Hoffman when I asked to speak to him about child abuse in Hollywood; neither Hoffman nor Berg returned my emails. HOLLYWOOD'S reluctance to promote An Open Secret can be contrasted with its enthusiasm for films dealing with child abuse that took place elsewhere. As Henzi says: "In recent years, the movie industry has done a great job bringing these issues to the fore, but when it comes to sex crimes committed by its own, everyone is more hush-­hush." Spotlight, the account of an American newspaper's dogged investigation into child rapists in the Catholic church, won the best picture at the Oscars in March. Berg herself was previously nominated for an Academy Award for her 2006 documentary into a similar scandal, Deliver Us From Evil. Consequently, questions of a cover-­up have surfaced. "I don't believe that the most powerful people in Hollywood are sitting in a darkened room plotting to spread paedophilia," says Henry. "But very bad people are still working here, protected by their friends. Worse, the media and entertainment industries have a cosy relationship in this country —­­ and we've already had one Hollywood actor become president. This is why we've been relying on British media to report this story much more than American media." Hoffman has said An Open Secret "makes it clear that Hollywood is not adequately policing itself". And Wood told me that having seen An Open Secret, he believes the film "only scratches the surface. I feel there was much more to this story than it articulates." Roman Polanski was charged in 1977 with five offences, including rape, drugging and sodomising, against a 13­-year­-old girl. He did a plea bargain and was convicted of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. Fearing a jail sentence, Polanski fled the US and has never returned. He continues to make films in Europe and has received an Oscar while being the subject of an Interpol "red notice" for absconding. "Everyone wants to f*** young girls," he once opined in an interview. The tragedy of that gruesome Hollywood trope, the "casting couch", is its victims: young actors of both sexes forced to grant sexual favours to directors and producers, and damaged as a result. Henry says she and her family have received numerous death threats from "emissaries of people accused of abuse ... We've had to move home twice, increase our security. People have parked outside our house and watched us. We're tired and weary —­­ but with the evidence we have, we could have made 10 films like An Open Secret." Henzi writes in an email: "The thing about Hollywood is that there is not some secret 'illuminati' or top agenda. Just because someone is a famous director or actor does not give them immunity from the law. My dream is to see an established presence in Hollywood advocating against child sexual abuse, rape, sexual harassment and all sex crimes." He may have some time to wait. I ask Wood whether he believes this is still a problem for Hollywood. "From my reading and research," he says, "I've been led down dark paths to realise that these things probably still are happening. If you're innocent, you have very little knowledge of the world and you want to succeed, people with parasitic interests will see you as their prey."

[michellerlgr]

Why I Don’t Care If There Are Same Sex Couples In My Kids Cartoons

http://xonecole.com/dont-care-theres-gay-couple-kids-cartoon/

It’s been a year since Nickelodeon debuted an interracial, gay couple on their cartoon, “The Loud House” and now parents everywhere are once again pissed, but this time it’s with the Disney Channel.

In an episode of “Star vs. The Forces of Evil” the main characters attended a concert where the song “Just Friends” caused a ripple effect of kisses from concert attendees ― a few of them were same-sex couples, making it the network’s first same-sex kiss in an animated cartoon.

The Internet had a lot to say about it:

While some people didn’t see a problem with it, not everyone is happy. Activist group One Million Moms released this statement on their website.

This is the last place parents would expect their children to be confronted with content regarding sexual orientation. Issues of this nature are being introduced too early and too soon, and it is becoming extremely common and unnecessary. Disney has decided to be politically correct versus providing family-friendly entertainment. Disney should stick to entertaining instead of pushing an agenda. Conservative families need to urge Disney to avoid mature and controversial topics.

What’s funny about all of this is that the clip from the show isn’t detailed, in fact it’s a few seconds long; much like the Nickelodeon “Loud House” episode. In their July 20th episode “Overnight Success”, the show’s main character, Lincoln Loud, invites his friend Clyde McBride over for a sleepover. When Clyde arrives, he is escorted by his two dads, Harold (voiced by Wayne Brady) and Howard McBride (voiced by Michael McDonald). In the clip (which you can watch below), Harold and Howard are dropping Clyde off at Lincoln’s house for the evening and in true overprotective parent fashion, bring along everything their son might need from his inhaler to a picture of their progressive family. The clip in fact doesn’t even focus on anyone’s sexuality, it focuses on a family that just happens to include two caring and considerate fathers who are in a relationship.

Unfortunately, a few parents on my Facebook page didn’t see that. What they felt they witnessed was LGBT lifestyles being forced into their households and Nickelodeon robbing them of the opportunity to initiate the “sex talk” with their pre-schoolers and basically stripping them of their fragile childhoods.

A few highlights from the conversation include:

“Its simple i wanna see a regular cartoon that just shows a strong black family thats funny, it aint to many but im curious to kno why my son is suppose to be watchin a show that show two uncles together.”

“Absolutely forcing a vision that’s not ideal.”

“A gay kids show?? wtf and why? What show is this?”

“Yeah I admit it. I don’t have a problem with LGBT but I personally feel they pushing that shit too hard on kids. That’s why kids is like 5 and don’t know what they supposed to be.”

Like I’ve said many times before, I don’t expect everybody to stand on their porch and raise a rainbow flag. But when it comes to raising our children to understand exactly why representation matters and to be tolerant of others’ lifestyles, I just can’t see how we can preach, “#BlackLivesMatter (but please keep the gay couples off the cartoons)”. I’ve written before how representation has come a long way since I was a young girl and how happy I am to see my daughter growing up in a world of #BlackGirlMagic. But I can’t fight for there to be Michelle Obamas, Zendayas, and Taraji P. Hensons while secretly believing diversity only applies when it comes to the black race being represented and respected.

I can’t say I agree with every lifestyle, and I don’t pretend to understand all of them, but I think it’s still important to teach children to be tolerant. Just like some people can’t understand the struggle of the black man, others don’t know what it’s like to be gay, queer, transgender or otherwise. I think that’s what tolerance is all about: Recognizing that just because you don’t understand a struggle, that doesn’t mean it’s not real.

Just because you don’t understand a struggle, doesn’t mean it’s not real.

TWEET THIS QUOTE

In addition, a cycle that I would like to break with my own daughter is the hypersexualization of our society. In a 50 second clip (that many of the parents that were commenting didn’t even watch) no one could seem to get past the sexuality of the two dads to recognize the cartoon wasn’t even about their relationship. It was about a boy getting dropped off by his overbearing parents to a sleepover. I’ve seen parents holding the hands of children that can recite the whole second verse of Drake’s “Controlla” or could draw a Venn diagram of all of the Kardashian sisters’ sex partners, but suddenly gay couples start to make an appearance on cartoons and everyone’s on a tangent about TV robbing children of their innocence?

As uncomfortable as these conversations may make us adults because of our own transgressions, sexuality is something that is a part of all our identities from birth. Instead of shaming sexuality completely, I believe in taking cartoons like these, or other shows that hint at sexuality, and starting much needed, healthy, age-appropriate conversations about what sexuality means to them and the part it plays in their life. As a sex educator, I always say “the sex talk” is about more than “Wear a condom and don’t get pregnant.” It’s about providing our children with healthy examples of romantic relationships.

I can respect that every household has the right to shape the world for their children as they see fit and raise them with the values that are important to them. But sexuality and alternative lifestyles are here to stay. You can only shield your children from them for so long before they have to learn how to treat others with respect and not discredit everything they don’t understand or that doesn’t apply to them.

If you don’t start these conversations it will only be a matter of time before the world does it for you.

But even if you choose to save the “sex talk” until they’re 25, the “tolerance” talk needs to start now, about ALL of the issues in the world, not only the ones that affect us.

What do you think about same-sex couples being added to cartoons?

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If you grew up on the internet, Homestar Runner represents a time when the world wide web felt a little bit smaller. It was hilariously sarcastic, but unlike the rest of the Flash landscape in the early 2000s, Homestar was never hateful or cheap.

Matt and Mike Chapman spent a childhood cutting up Super 8 tape, writing amateur comic books, and absorbing every nugget of disposable pop culture they could get their hands on. Years later, they would distil their fascination with the fringe edges of Americana into their very own online cartoon show. Homestar Runner is a place of screwball public access television, byzantine parallel universes, and miles-deep references to sports, music, video games, and everything else they loved. The Chapmans may have chided the stupidity of cultural debris, but they still loved it.

Today, we carry infinity in our pockets and bounce selfies off of satellites. But, in the early 2000s, there was something kind of remote about a homemade Flash animation site. The internet still felt like a secret, and in a moment where it’s hard to feel hopeful about the cyberspace coursing through humanity’s veins, returning to Homestar Runner offers a shred of optimism.

In recent years, Matt and Mike Chapman parlayed the legacy of Homestar Runner into a number of rewarding (and lucrative) jobs at Nickelodeon and Disney Channel, making television shows like Yo Gabba Gabba!, Gravity Falls, and most recently, Two More Eggs. The era of the weekly Strong Bad email is in the past, but the brothers still make time to update the site when their busy lives afford them the time. We called up the Chapmans, and asked them to tell us the story of Homestar Runner from start to finish.

A Foundation of Snark

The Chapmans’ spend their early years learning how to make fun of things and amassing decades of pop culture references in a very short time.

Mike Chapman: We were the youngest of five kids. We grew up in the ‘80s and I think a lot of our humor sort of developed from taking some terrible Atlanta commercial and exaggerating part of it, and repeating it 5,000 times to make a joke. It wasn’t something funny, but the five of us made it funny.

Matt Chapman: We had the collective knowledge of four other siblings, like pop culture knowledge including the ‘60s and ‘70s. So from early on we had stuff. I started watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 from a young age, and I would get jokes because I’d be like, “Oh my brother has been saying that since I was a little kid! I know it’s from some old bubble gum commercial that isn’t around anymore!”

Mike: Our older brother Donny taught us how to be snarky, before we even knew what it meant or how to use that type of humor. I remember him watching The Love Boat just to make fun of it. He did not like The Love Boat at all. He would just sit there and rag on everybody the whole time. He thought it was hilarious. He had this kid’s book called The Daddy Book, a very ‘70s kid’s picture book, and it was just a nice book about different dads. “Dads, they’re all different! They do different things! They look different!” And he would go through it and add his own commentary, where the dads would do horrible things to the kids, and it was really awful. I mean, that’s like straight-up a Strong Bad move.

Mike: When the five of us get together we’re gonna reference some dumb commercial from 30 or 40 years ago. I feel like as a big family, it’s almost like a defense mechanism. It makes you stick together and bond more. “Look at that sad guy selling used cars! We’re all better off than that guy!” Or there’s some kid who said something in 1983 that we continue to repeat to this day that would mean nothing to anyone else. I don’t know why we felt so threatened at the time. Apparently, we had to put on this weird rough exterior.

Matt: We’ve tempered it as we’ve gotten older, but it’s probably always been in us to sorta assume everything is gonna suck.

From Kid’s Book to Cartoon

The Chapmans decide to author a tongue-in-cheek homemade children’s book called Homestar Runner as a goof between friends.

Mike: The whole thing came from our friend Jamie who, again, was mimicking a local terrible Atlanta grocery store commercial with one of the Braves in it. He said, like “Homestar runner for the Braves Mike Lemke!” And Matt and I laughed like, “what the hell is a homestar runner?” That was probably in 1995 or something, the phrase was just bouncing around in our head because we thought it was hilarious. One day Craig [Craig Zobel, filmmaker and friend of The Brothers Chaps] and I went to the bookstore because we were bored and we were just looking at kid’s books and were like, “Let’s make a kid’s book.”

Matt: It was like “hey, let’s make one of these! Look at these weird kid’s books! Kid’s books are terrible! Let’s make our own terrible kid’s books!”

Mike: We decided to just use Homestar Runner. We made that his name, and then we drew all the characters that day. In that one day, we came up with Homestar, and Pom Pom, and Strong Bad, and The Cheat, and Strong Mad. They were all created in a roughly two-hour period. The characters hadn’t existed in our head for a long time, and while they’ve changed a bit since then, they were all born at once.

Mike: We didn’t want to publish it. We just made it for ourselves. We probably printed five or 10 copies and gave it to our friends. It wasn’t like “our hopes and dreams depend on Homestar Runner!” But our dad actually sent it out to like 80 publishers without us knowing, and I remember being pissed at him when I found out. I think he got a couple rejection letters. A couple years passed without us doing anything with Homestar when we were in college, so it wasn’t until we started making web cartoons and learned Flash that things took off.

Matt: We were just trying to learn Flash using those characters. Once we had enough stuff we were like “we should put this on a website or whatever.”

Mike: We had Flash tutorial books and I dropped out of grad school for photography and was like, “I gotta learn this web design stuff man! I mean, it’s on the web!”

Matt: I think we intended the cartoons to be similar to early Cartoon Network, like Dexter’s Laboratory or Power Puff Girls. Like, those were kid’s cartoons but anyone could enjoy them. Very early on, in like 2000 or something, we pitched that version of Homestar Runner where it’s like, “every episode there’s a new competition! And Strong Bad’s the bad guy and Homestar’s the good guy!” They passed on that, and we were like “well, let’s keep doing this!” The next cartoons were like, “wouldn’t it be funny if we made this be about the moments in between the competitions?” And so that was the stuff that was funnier, the stuff happening between the plot points, which is hilarious because we hadn’t even established a routine of making cartoons about competitions, we’d made like one.

Mike: A lot of the world-building stuff happened quickly, like the old-timey 1936 version of the characters happened within the first three or four months. We had made like one or two cartoons and were like “we should do old-timey versions!” and soon after that, we were like “we should make anime versions!” The world started building from the get-go.

A Home Run

Without any advertising or publicity, Homestar Runner started to catch on through pure word of mouth, and Matt and Mike Chapman found themselves with truly unique full-time jobs. 

Mike: We started selling our first shirt in 2001. There wasn’t huge demand or anything. I wouldn’t say it had caught on yet.

Matt: I was living in New York at the time and I remember Mike sending me a picture of himself in our shirt, I was very jealous.

Mike: For the first shirt we had, you needed to send a check to our parent’s house. So we sold a few dozen shirts by check only. Our dad was our accountant, so he started reviewing all that stuff. It wasn’t anything we intended to do full time.

Mike: I had a Cartoon Network calendar, and I kept our traffic stats in it. This was early on because shortly after we stopped looking at our stats entirely because we didn’t want that to affect how we made stuff or what we did. But I wrote down how many new visitors we got each day, and I remember hitting 1,000 visitors in a day sometime in 2001 or 2002.

Matt: We started doing a weekly cartoon when I moved back from New York. That’s when we first made Strong Bad Emails. I have to thank Earthlink Corporation for funding a year of Strong Bad Emails. I wouldn’t actually work on them at work, but I’d come into work after having stayed up all night making Strong Bad Emails on a Sunday night. The fact that I was allowed to go into work at 11am instead of 9am definitely contributed to the rise of Homestar.

Matt: Once we started getting angry emails when we were late getting a new cartoon up, I think it hit us that folks were counting on new stuff from us. That’s a cool feeling to know you’re as important as a cup of coffee or morning crossword to some folks. And then definitely when we received our first wedding/dating stories from people that bonded over our cartoons or met because of them and put a Homestar and Marzipan on their wedding cake. That’s nuts! Makes me feel like I should email the ghost of Paul Newman and tell him that my wife and I bonded over Cool Hand Luke!

Mike: In 2003, our dad told Matt to quit his job and do Homestar full-time. This is our financially conservative dad, telling us to quit our jobs to make Flash cartoons.

Matt: Mike and I would collaborate together all the time when we were kids, and when were home for Christmas break we’d always end up making something together, so doing Homestar full-time was really fun - but I remember friends saying “can we come over when you make a cartoon?” And we would be like “okay,” and we’d have a couple beers while we brainstormed an idea, and then it’s like “okay, Mike and I are going to put on headphones for 18 hours now and you’re not going to talk to us anymore until we’re done.” It was super fun, but it could also be hard work, which is also why once we had children and wives it made it a little harder to pull all-nighters and not sleep for three days to make a cartoon.

Matt: The Homestar references in the Buffy and Angel finales forever ago were huge. And there was this picture of Joss Whedon in a Strong Bad shirt from around that time that someone sent us that we couldn’t believe. Years later, a photo of Geddy Lee from Rush wearing a Strong Bad hat on stage circulated which similarly freaked us out. We have no idea if he knew what Strong Bad was, but our dumb animal character was on his head while he probably shredded ‘Working Man’ so I’ll take it!

Matt: I have no idea when our peak was viewership-wise, but 2002-2005 was definitely when we got to go the most nuts creatively. We expanded into weird live action and puppet stuff, CD’s, DVD’s, video games, toys, all kindsa crazy dream-come-true stuff we never thought we’d get to do. But, for me, if you want a more precise moment, I would say February of 2004, when on the same day we received a demo of a song that John Linnell from They Might Be Giants recorded for a Strong Bad Email and a full-size working Tom Servo puppet from Jim Mallon from Mystery Science Theater 3000. I remember specifically thinking, “It’s okay if no one watches another Homestar Runner cartoon or buys another t-shirt now, because today happened.”

“...Never a Real Business Plan.”

By 2010, Matt and Mike were both married with kids and were looking for other jobs in the television industry. They’ve had a hand in a number of acclaimed kid’s shows like Yo Gabba Gabba! Gravity Falls, The Aquabats Super Show, and Wander Over Yonder. Unfortunately, this didn’t leave a lot of time for Homestar Runner.

Mike: We always knew our business model was temporary. Everyday it was like, “We’re on borrowed time here, there’s just no way to make a living off of this, because it’s unsustainable.” We didn’t want to start selling ads, and this was before the era of Kickstarter or Patreon and other ways of artists monetizing directly from their audience. We were just like, “Let’s just do it this way, rather than try to change our business plan,” which was never a real business plan. Our mindset was, “We’re lucky to make money off this in the first place, and if it’s no longer making enough money to not have other jobs, we’ll not worry about it and get another job.” We didn’t to be one of those things that started selling e-cards or whatever.

We are constantly amazed that we were able to wriggle our way into a tiny, poorly animated corner of popular culture.

Mike: There [were] definitely people who bought way more shirts than they had any business buying, and it’s great that people felt that way without us having to be like,“Hey guys, we’re having a pledge drive.” It’s just a double-edged sword. Homestar needed to be supported somehow, but you never wanted to come out and say,“Hey, remember the only way we’re able to do this is if you buy a shirt, so buy a shirt!” We’ve always been uncomfortable with that. Our dad suggested adding a button to the end of the cartoons that said “Buy a shirt with Strong Bad on it!” And we were like “No, dad! That’s so lame!”

Matt: We have a property in Homestar called Cheat Commandos, which is basically making fun of old G.I. Joe cartoons. We eventually made Cheat Commandos toys and we wouldn’t even put an ad for the toys in the cartoon. That’s like, part of the joke, why didn’t we just do that and make some money? Like there was someone who told me recently that their favorite thing we ever did was Cheat Commandos, and they had no idea we’d even made toys! Probably a missed opportunity there! If anything we might’ve taken our punk rock status too far.

Mike: We went on hiatus after Matt had his second daughter. Around that time we knew we were going to have to start looking for other jobs, and we really just didn’t know how long it’d be before we could get back to Homestar. Maybe one month, two months, six months. After a certain point it almost became weird to say something about the break. In retrospect, we probably could’ve handled it a little better, but we just didn’t know.

Matt: We didn’t want to believe it either. I didn’t want to come out and say “hey we’re not doing this anymore for a while,” because that sucks! I wanted to be like “yeah we’re gonna make one this week! I swear! We’ll have time this week to make a new Strong Bad Email!” I know we probably bummed people out or lost some people’s respect for not saying anything, but we also wanted the site to be focused on the characters, so it would’ve felt like pulling back the curtain too far to suddenly be like “Hey! We’ve got kids! And it’s hard!” It didn’t seem worth it to be like, “We wrote the Yo Gabba Gabba! Christmas special! That’s why we’re taking a hiatus!”

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Mike: There was also some creative burnout too. We had been doing it for 10 years and we probably stuck to that weekly schedule a little more strictly than we needed to, so we needed a break. It was definitely a slog sometimes. Like Saturday you’re at a friend’s house and it slowly dawns on you that “ah shit, we don’t have an idea for a cartoon.” Even during the hiatus I’d feel weird on the weekends because for 10 years there was this cloud looming over me that I had 20 hours straight of sitting in front of a computer bleary-eyed on Sunday night.

Done Running

On April 1, 2014, a new Homestar Runner cartoon was posted to the site. A few months later, Matt Chapman announced plans to continue the series, and since then they’ve done new Homestar content every couple of months. Right now the brothers are living it Atlanta again, working side by side on the Disney XD show Two More Eggs.

Mike: When we made the April Fool’s cartoon it had been about four years since we put anything on the site. Matt had moved to Los Angeles three years before to work on Gravity Falls and some other Disney stuff. I think he’d just decided that he was moving back to Atlanta, and we knew Homestar was going to make sense for us. The joke of that cartoon was Homestar finally updating his website, which is all dusty and unattended. The process wasn’t quite the same because we weren’t living together, but we pulled an all-nighter for the next one we did. Well, an all-nighter for us now means like staying up til 1am.

Last October, the Homestar Runner gang emerged from obscurity, and now it's the moment we have … Read more Read more

Matt: We really had no idea how many people would care or check back in if we made something new. It was a little scary tiptoeing back into things which is why we made it an April Fool’s cartoon. If nobody cared or everybody hated it, we could just say, “that was part of the joke! See ya in another 10 years!” and disappear. Fortunately, we didn’t have to do that. And even though we’ve only been able to make a few cartoons every year since, people still seem genuinely psyched when we are able to update. Coolest fans ever, man.

Mike: It’s kind of funny how much it feels the same when we make Homestar cartoons today. for I’m still sitting across my brother with my headphones on, working for 12 hours, putting it up in the early morning, and maybe stopping at Waffle House on the way home.

Matt: We are constantly amazed that we were able to wriggle our way into a tiny, poorly animated corner of popular culture. We recently did a couple Homestar 20th anniversary live shows here in Atlanta and the response was bigger and farther reaching than we could’ve imagined. A father and son came all the way from Anchorage just to see the show. That blew our minds and made us want to pay for their airfare.

Mike: It was always a very singular creative vision. It’s pretty much just the two of us, and there’s never a moment where one of us writes something and the other one doesn’t agree. Any joke is something either one of us could’ve written. It’s pretty crazy that we have four or five hundred cartoons that are all largely tied together, and it’s nuts that 20 years since making that initial book I’m still talking about it.

Matt: We’ve felt so many times over the years that we are super fortunate, that it can’t get any better, that no matter what else we do, we did this one little thing that mattered to some people for a while. Is that a good epitaph, “He did this one little thing that mattered to some people for a while?” We always say that we could get jobs making donuts at a grocery store bakery and be totally happy for the rest of our lives since we got to do Homestar. And now we’ve been saying that for over a decade.

Mike: We do Two More Eggs with the exact same process. We do one cartoon a week. We think of it, write it, animate it, and it’s done pretty quickly. I get the same weekly feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment. Some of the other projects we’ve done force you to think about the same thing for a month, and my brain just doesn’t work that way.

Matt: It’s great to be back working in the same room with my brother, surrounded by the weird junk we hang on our walls, flanked by the wood-paneled television from the basement of our childhood home and a wall of outdated video games and electronics. A few weeks ago we got to spend all day 3D printing a fake action figure and filling it with beef stroganoff for the Walt Disney company. Once you hit that point, I don’t think you’re allowed to complain ever again.

Luke Winkie is a writer and former pizza maker from San Diego and living in Austin, Texas. He writes about music, video games, professional wrestling, and whatever else interests him. You can find him on Twitter @luke_winkie.

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An Oral History of Homestar Runner, the Internet's Favorite Cartoon

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If you grew up on the internet, Homestar Runner represents a time when the world wide web felt a little bit smaller. It was hilariously sarcastic, but unlike the rest of the Flash landscape in the early 2000s, Homestar was never hateful or cheap.

Matt and Mike Chapman spent a childhood cutting up Super 8 tape, writing amateur comic books, and absorbing every nugget of disposable pop culture they could get their hands on. Years later, they would distil their fascination with the fringe edges of Americana into their very own online cartoon show. Homestar Runner is a place of screwball public access television, byzantine parallel universes, and miles-deep references to sports, music, video games, and everything else they loved. The Chapmans may have chided the stupidity of cultural debris, but they still loved it.

Today, we carry infinity in our pockets and bounce selfies off of satellites. But, in the early 2000s, there was something kind of remote about a homemade Flash animation site. The internet still felt like a secret, and in a moment where it’s hard to feel hopeful about the cyberspace coursing through humanity’s veins, returning to Homestar Runner offers a shred of optimism.

In recent years, Matt and Mike Chapman parlayed the legacy of Homestar Runner into a number of rewarding (and lucrative) jobs at Nickelodeon and Disney Channel, making television shows like Yo Gabba Gabba!, Gravity Falls, and most recently, Two More Eggs. The era of the weekly Strong Bad email is in the past, but the brothers still make time to update the site when their busy lives afford them the time. We called up the Chapmans, and asked them to tell us the story of Homestar Runner from start to finish.

A Foundation of Snark

The Chapmans’ spend their early years learning how to make fun of things and amassing decades of pop culture references in a very short time.

Mike Chapman: We were the youngest of five kids. We grew up in the ‘80s and I think a lot of our humor sort of developed from taking some terrible Atlanta commercial and exaggerating part of it, and repeating it 5,000 times to make a joke. It wasn’t something funny, but the five of us made it funny.

Matt Chapman: We had the collective knowledge of four other siblings, like pop culture knowledge including the ‘60s and ‘70s. So from early on we had stuff. I started watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 from a young age, and I would get jokes because I’d be like, “Oh my brother has been saying that since I was a little kid! I know it’s from some old bubble gum commercial that isn’t around anymore!”

Mike: Our older brother Donny taught us how to be snarky, before we even knew what it meant or how to use that type of humor. I remember him watching The Love Boat just to make fun of it. He did not like The Love Boat at all. He would just sit there and rag on everybody the whole time. He thought it was hilarious. He had this kid’s book called The Daddy Book, a very ‘70s kid’s picture book, and it was just a nice book about different dads. “Dads, they’re all different! They do different things! They look different!” And he would go through it and add his own commentary, where the dads would do horrible things to the kids, and it was really awful. I mean, that’s like straight-up a Strong Bad move.

Mike: When the five of us get together we’re gonna reference some dumb commercial from 30 or 40 years ago. I feel like as a big family, it’s almost like a defense mechanism. It makes you stick together and bond more. “Look at that sad guy selling used cars! We’re all better off than that guy!” Or there’s some kid who said something in 1983 that we continue to repeat to this day that would mean nothing to anyone else. I don’t know why we felt so threatened at the time. Apparently, we had to put on this weird rough exterior.

Matt: We’ve tempered it as we’ve gotten older, but it’s probably always been in us to sorta assume everything is gonna suck.

From Kid’s Book to Cartoon

The Chapmans decide to author a tongue-in-cheek homemade children’s book called Homestar Runner as a goof between friends.

Mike: The whole thing came from our friend Jamie who, again, was mimicking a local terrible Atlanta grocery store commercial with one of the Braves in it. He said, like “Homestar runner for the Braves Mike Lemke!” And Matt and I laughed like, “what the hell is a homestar runner?” That was probably in 1995 or something, the phrase was just bouncing around in our head because we thought it was hilarious. One day Craig [Craig Zobel, filmmaker and friend of The Brothers Chaps] and I went to the bookstore because we were bored and we were just looking at kid’s books and were like, “Let’s make a kid’s book.”

Matt: It was like “hey, let’s make one of these! Look at these weird kid’s books! Kid’s books are terrible! Let’s make our own terrible kid’s books!”

Mike: We decided to just use Homestar Runner. We made that his name, and then we drew all the characters that day. In that one day, we came up with Homestar, and Pom Pom, and Strong Bad, and The Cheat, and Strong Mad. They were all created in a roughly two-hour period. The characters hadn’t existed in our head for a long time, and while they’ve changed a bit since then, they were all born at once.

Mike: We didn’t want to publish it. We just made it for ourselves. We probably printed five or 10 copies and gave it to our friends. It wasn’t like “our hopes and dreams depend on Homestar Runner!” But our dad actually sent it out to like 80 publishers without us knowing, and I remember being pissed at him when I found out. I think he got a couple rejection letters. A couple years passed without us doing anything with Homestar when we were in college, so it wasn’t until we started making web cartoons and learned Flash that things took off.

Matt: We were just trying to learn Flash using those characters. Once we had enough stuff we were like “we should put this on a website or whatever.”

Mike: We had Flash tutorial books and I dropped out of grad school for photography and was like, “I gotta learn this web design stuff man! I mean, it’s on the web!”

Matt: I think we intended the cartoons to be similar to early Cartoon Network, like Dexter’s Laboratory or Power Puff Girls. Like, those were kid’s cartoons but anyone could enjoy them. Very early on, in like 2000 or something, we pitched that version of Homestar Runner where it’s like, “every episode there’s a new competition! And Strong Bad’s the bad guy and Homestar’s the good guy!” They passed on that, and we were like “well, let’s keep doing this!” The next cartoons were like, “wouldn’t it be funny if we made this be about the moments in between the competitions?” And so that was the stuff that was funnier, the stuff happening between the plot points, which is hilarious because we hadn’t even established a routine of making cartoons about competitions, we’d made like one.

Mike: A lot of the world-building stuff happened quickly, like the old-timey 1936 version of the characters happened within the first three or four months. We had made like one or two cartoons and were like “we should do old-timey versions!” and soon after that, we were like “we should make anime versions!” The world started building from the get-go.

A Home Run

Without any advertising or publicity, Homestar Runner started to catch on through pure word of mouth, and Matt and Mike Chapman found themselves with truly unique full-time jobs. 

Mike: We started selling our first shirt in 2001. There wasn’t huge demand or anything. I wouldn’t say it had caught on yet.

Matt: I was living in New York at the time and I remember Mike sending me a picture of himself in our shirt, I was very jealous.

Mike: For the first shirt we had, you needed to send a check to our parent’s house. So we sold a few dozen shirts by check only. Our dad was our accountant, so he started reviewing all that stuff. It wasn’t anything we intended to do full time.

Mike: I had a Cartoon Network calendar, and I kept our traffic stats in it. This was early on because shortly after we stopped looking at our stats entirely because we didn’t want that to affect how we made stuff or what we did. But I wrote down how many new visitors we got each day, and I remember hitting 1,000 visitors in a day sometime in 2001 or 2002.

Matt: We started doing a weekly cartoon when I moved back from New York. That’s when we first made Strong Bad Emails. I have to thank Earthlink Corporation for funding a year of Strong Bad Emails. I wouldn’t actually work on them at work, but I’d come into work after having stayed up all night making Strong Bad Emails on a Sunday night. The fact that I was allowed to go into work at 11am instead of 9am definitely contributed to the rise of Homestar.

Matt: Once we started getting angry emails when we were late getting a new cartoon up, I think it hit us that folks were counting on new stuff from us. That’s a cool feeling to know you’re as important as a cup of coffee or morning crossword to some folks. And then definitely when we received our first wedding/dating stories from people that bonded over our cartoons or met because of them and put a Homestar and Marzipan on their wedding cake. That’s nuts! Makes me feel like I should email the ghost of Paul Newman and tell him that my wife and I bonded over Cool Hand Luke!

Mike: In 2003, our dad told Matt to quit his job and do Homestar full-time. This is our financially conservative dad, telling us to quit our jobs to make Flash cartoons.

Matt: Mike and I would collaborate together all the time when we were kids, and when were home for Christmas break we’d always end up making something together, so doing Homestar full-time was really fun - but I remember friends saying “can we come over when you make a cartoon?” And we would be like “okay,” and we’d have a couple beers while we brainstormed an idea, and then it’s like “okay, Mike and I are going to put on headphones for 18 hours now and you’re not going to talk to us anymore until we’re done.” It was super fun, but it could also be hard work, which is also why once we had children and wives it made it a little harder to pull all-nighters and not sleep for three days to make a cartoon.

Matt: The Homestar references in the Buffy and Angel finales forever ago were huge. And there was this picture of Joss Whedon in a Strong Bad shirt from around that time that someone sent us that we couldn’t believe. Years later, a photo of Geddy Lee from Rush wearing a Strong Bad hat on stage circulated which similarly freaked us out. We have no idea if he knew what Strong Bad was, but our dumb animal character was on his head while he probably shredded ‘Working Man’ so I’ll take it!

Matt: I have no idea when our peak was viewership-wise, but 2002-2005 was definitely when we got to go the most nuts creatively. We expanded into weird live action and puppet stuff, CD’s, DVD’s, video games, toys, all kindsa crazy dream-come-true stuff we never thought we’d get to do. But, for me, if you want a more precise moment, I would say February of 2004, when on the same day we received a demo of a song that John Linnell from They Might Be Giants recorded for a Strong Bad Email and a full-size working Tom Servo puppet from Jim Mallon from Mystery Science Theater 3000. I remember specifically thinking, “It’s okay if no one watches another Homestar Runner cartoon or buys another t-shirt now, because today happened.”

“...Never a Real Business Plan.”

By 2010, Matt and Mike were both married with kids and were looking for other jobs in the television industry. They’ve had a hand in a number of acclaimed kid’s shows like Yo Gabba Gabba! Gravity Falls, The Aquabats Super Show, and Wander Over Yonder. Unfortunately, this didn’t leave a lot of time for Homestar Runner.

Mike: We always knew our business model was temporary. Everyday it was like, “We’re on borrowed time here, there’s just no way to make a living off of this, because it’s unsustainable.” We didn’t want to start selling ads, and this was before the era of Kickstarter or Patreon and other ways of artists monetizing directly from their audience. We were just like, “Let’s just do it this way, rather than try to change our business plan,” which was never a real business plan. Our mindset was, “We’re lucky to make money off this in the first place, and if it’s no longer making enough money to not have other jobs, we’ll not worry about it and get another job.” We didn’t to be one of those things that started selling e-cards or whatever.

We are constantly amazed that we were able to wriggle our way into a tiny, poorly animated corner of popular culture.

Mike: There [were] definitely people who bought way more shirts than they had any business buying, and it’s great that people felt that way without us having to be like,“Hey guys, we’re having a pledge drive.” It’s just a double-edged sword. Homestar needed to be supported somehow, but you never wanted to come out and say,“Hey, remember the only way we’re able to do this is if you buy a shirt, so buy a shirt!” We’ve always been uncomfortable with that. Our dad suggested adding a button to the end of the cartoons that said “Buy a shirt with Strong Bad on it!” And we were like “No, dad! That’s so lame!”

Matt: We have a property in Homestar called Cheat Commandos, which is basically making fun of old G.I. Joe cartoons. We eventually made Cheat Commandos toys and we wouldn’t even put an ad for the toys in the cartoon. That’s like, part of the joke, why didn’t we just do that and make some money? Like there was someone who told me recently that their favorite thing we ever did was Cheat Commandos, and they had no idea we’d even made toys! Probably a missed opportunity there! If anything we might’ve taken our punk rock status too far.

Mike: We went on hiatus after Matt had his second daughter. Around that time we knew we were going to have to start looking for other jobs, and we really just didn’t know how long it’d be before we could get back to Homestar. Maybe one month, two months, six months. After a certain point it almost became weird to say something about the break. In retrospect, we probably could’ve handled it a little better, but we just didn’t know.

Matt: We didn’t want to believe it either. I didn’t want to come out and say “hey we’re not doing this anymore for a while,” because that sucks! I wanted to be like “yeah we’re gonna make one this week! I swear! We’ll have time this week to make a new Strong Bad Email!” I know we probably bummed people out or lost some people’s respect for not saying anything, but we also wanted the site to be focused on the characters, so it would’ve felt like pulling back the curtain too far to suddenly be like “Hey! We’ve got kids! And it’s hard!” It didn’t seem worth it to be like, “We wrote the Yo Gabba Gabba! Christmas special! That’s why we’re taking a hiatus!”

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Mike: There was also some creative burnout too. We had been doing it for 10 years and we probably stuck to that weekly schedule a little more strictly than we needed to, so we needed a break. It was definitely a slog sometimes. Like Saturday you’re at a friend’s house and it slowly dawns on you that “ah shit, we don’t have an idea for a cartoon.” Even during the hiatus I’d feel weird on the weekends because for 10 years there was this cloud looming over me that I had 20 hours straight of sitting in front of a computer bleary-eyed on Sunday night.

Done Running

On April 1, 2014, a new Homestar Runner cartoon was posted to the site. A few months later, Matt Chapman announced plans to continue the series, and since then they’ve done new Homestar content every couple of months. Right now the brothers are living it Atlanta again, working side by side on the Disney XD show Two More Eggs.

Mike: When we made the April Fool’s cartoon it had been about four years since we put anything on the site. Matt had moved to Los Angeles three years before to work on Gravity Falls and some other Disney stuff. I think he’d just decided that he was moving back to Atlanta, and we knew Homestar was going to make sense for us. The joke of that cartoon was Homestar finally updating his website, which is all dusty and unattended. The process wasn’t quite the same because we weren’t living together, but we pulled an all-nighter for the next one we did. Well, an all-nighter for us now means like staying up til 1am.

Last October, the Homestar Runner gang emerged from obscurity, and now it's the moment we have … Read more Read more

Matt: We really had no idea how many people would care or check back in if we made something new. It was a little scary tiptoeing back into things which is why we made it an April Fool’s cartoon. If nobody cared or everybody hated it, we could just say, “that was part of the joke! See ya in another 10 years!” and disappear. Fortunately, we didn’t have to do that. And even though we’ve only been able to make a few cartoons every year since, people still seem genuinely psyched when we are able to update. Coolest fans ever, man.

Mike: It’s kind of funny how much it feels the same when we make Homestar cartoons today. for I’m still sitting across my brother with my headphones on, working for 12 hours, putting it up in the early morning, and maybe stopping at Waffle House on the way home.

Matt: We are constantly amazed that we were able to wriggle our way into a tiny, poorly animated corner of popular culture. We recently did a couple Homestar 20th anniversary live shows here in Atlanta and the response was bigger and farther reaching than we could’ve imagined. A father and son came all the way from Anchorage just to see the show. That blew our minds and made us want to pay for their airfare.

Mike: It was always a very singular creative vision. It’s pretty much just the two of us, and there’s never a moment where one of us writes something and the other one doesn’t agree. Any joke is something either one of us could’ve written. It’s pretty crazy that we have four or five hundred cartoons that are all largely tied together, and it’s nuts that 20 years since making that initial book I’m still talking about it.

Matt: We’ve felt so many times over the years that we are super fortunate, that it can’t get any better, that no matter what else we do, we did this one little thing that mattered to some people for a while. Is that a good epitaph, “He did this one little thing that mattered to some people for a while?” We always say that we could get jobs making donuts at a grocery store bakery and be totally happy for the rest of our lives since we got to do Homestar. And now we’ve been saying that for over a decade.

Mike: We do Two More Eggs with the exact same process. We do one cartoon a week. We think of it, write it, animate it, and it’s done pretty quickly. I get the same weekly feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment. Some of the other projects we’ve done force you to think about the same thing for a month, and my brain just doesn’t work that way.

Matt: It’s great to be back working in the same room with my brother, surrounded by the weird junk we hang on our walls, flanked by the wood-paneled television from the basement of our childhood home and a wall of outdated video games and electronics. A few weeks ago we got to spend all day 3D printing a fake action figure and filling it with beef stroganoff for the Walt Disney company. Once you hit that point, I don’t think you’re allowed to complain ever again.

Luke Winkie is a writer and former pizza maker from San Diego and living in Austin, Texas. He writes about music, video games, professional wrestling, and whatever else interests him. You can find him on Twitter @luke_winkie.