Speaker 1: In text with Technology with tech Stuff from dot Com.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to Tech Stuff. I am your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, Executive producer. I love all things tech and
Speaker 1: today I've got a real special treat for you guys,
Speaker 1: or at least it was a special treat for me.
Speaker 1: I got to talk with the creators of Homestar Runner.
Speaker 1: It's a flash based web cartoon, uh network. Really, when
Speaker 1: you think about it's not just a series or lots
Speaker 1: of different little offshoots that came out of it that
Speaker 1: premiered in the late nineties early two thousand's, and anyone
Speaker 1: who was around on the Internet of those days probably
Speaker 1: as at least encountered some sort of reference to the
Speaker 1: Homestar Runner universe. And uh, Mike and Matt Chapman, the
Speaker 1: Brothers Chaps, came into the studio and we got to
Speaker 1: talk a lot about how they got into this and
Speaker 1: how it evolved over time and where it's going in
Speaker 1: the future. So sit back, relax, and enjoy this interview
Speaker 1: with the Brothers Chaps. I am overjoyed to be joined
Speaker 1: in the studio by Matt and Mike Chapman, also known
Speaker 1: as the Brothers Chaps. The creators of Homestar Runner as
Speaker 1: well as many other projects. And uh, it's a bit
Speaker 1: of a fanning out, geek out moment for me. I've
Speaker 1: been a fan of Homestar Runner since before I was
Speaker 1: working at How Stuff Works. And really it's great to
Speaker 1: have two people here who they there work preceded the
Speaker 1: age of YouTube web series because YouTube didn't exist when
Speaker 1: you guys launched Homestar Runner. And anyone who has been
Speaker 1: on the Internet for any length of time has at
Speaker 1: least encountered Homestar Runner references if they're not deeply familiar
Speaker 1: with the incredible lore and mythology, the the the deep
Speaker 1: legends of Homestar Runner that have found their way into
Speaker 1: all sorts of other mythos. I mean, you're part of
Speaker 1: the Buffy verse, guys, Yeah, that was somehow We're responsible
Speaker 1: for the Doge meme, even though we didn't really have
Speaker 1: anything to do with that. Yeah. Well, and you have
Speaker 1: a you have an incredible couple of bonus tracks on
Speaker 1: Guitar Hero two which have confounded me on numerous occasions. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're the influence just keeps on going. But
Speaker 1: for people who have never seen a Homestar Runner cartoon.
Speaker 1: They they're not familiar with it. I can't wait. Don't
Speaker 1: bother at this point, you missed the boat. Sorry, guys.
Speaker 1: Just go go to know your meme dot com and
Speaker 1: dope find stuff. No, I want to hear from you guys,
Speaker 1: because I'm really curious to hear your elevator pitch for
Speaker 1: what is Homestar Runner. Homestar Runner, I like the Mattsford
Speaker 1: brow right now. It struggles with This is a series
Speaker 1: of animated shorts following the exploits of non humanoid, ageless
Speaker 1: h organisms that have uh that interact with one another
Speaker 1: in meaningful and humorous ways to the delight of several
Speaker 1: of literally dozens of people. Uh. That's the elevator pitch.
Speaker 1: And that's why we just did this ourselves. That any
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm starting to get get a glean of
Speaker 1: the the marketing brilliance exactly that has been part of
Speaker 1: home Start Runners since the very beginning. So I know
Speaker 1: you guys have talked about this in other interviews, but
Speaker 1: I would love it if you could kind of walk
Speaker 1: people through the origin of where this all came from,
Speaker 1: because it's all I mean, I know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: a mishmash story because home Star Runner itself ends up
Speaker 1: being a reference to a weird joke that kind of
Speaker 1: came up of a local Atlanta ad spot. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So our friend Jamie Huggins was nicking a Kroger or
Speaker 1: Win Dixie ad that Mark Lemke was on and probably
Speaker 1: or something. Jamie doesn't know a lot about sports. So
Speaker 1: instead of saying all Star second Basement for the Braves,
Speaker 1: Mark Limpy, he was trying to parody this commercial and said,
Speaker 1: and now Homestar running for the Braves, Mark Lemki. And
Speaker 1: we're also like, Jamie, what is the Homestar Runner? And
Speaker 1: so then a couple of years later, um, we kept
Speaker 1: using that phrase and decided to use it as a
Speaker 1: you know, the name of a character when we were
Speaker 1: born one day and made a story involving the Homestar Runner.
Speaker 1: This is great because you know, it's it's the sort
Speaker 1: of thing. I think it's an inspirational story, honestly, because
Speaker 1: I know I've got lots of friends. We goof off
Speaker 1: and we make you know, you'll make a joke, and
Speaker 1: every now and then a joke is just it's sticky.
Speaker 1: It's something that that for some reason resonates beyond just
Speaker 1: the moment of making UH an offhand absurd reference, and
Speaker 1: then it kind of snowballs from there and it can grow.
Speaker 1: And to me, that's sort of what Homestar Runner sounds like.
Speaker 1: It was something that Begans just sort of this one off,
Speaker 1: little goof, but it ended up inspiring UH a huge
Speaker 1: number of shorts. So after the the little joking about
Speaker 1: a local ad spot and by the way, if you
Speaker 1: ever really need to mind for comedy gold, you just
Speaker 1: have to find some some great Atlanta local Atlanta UH commercials.
Speaker 1: I've seen so many amazing ones, including people I know
Speaker 1: have showed up in them, like Chris Blair of Dad's
Speaker 1: Garage character. But if you guys, UH then went on
Speaker 1: and started looking at things like a children's books and
Speaker 1: seeing how terrible children's books can be, and thought, we
Speaker 1: can do a terrible children's book. UH, and Homestar Runner
Speaker 1: had a spot in that. But beyond that, we get
Speaker 1: into the you know, late nineties, early two thousand's, and
Speaker 1: the Worldwide Web was really just starting to get some
Speaker 1: really serious traction at that point, right we're s's seeing
Speaker 1: kind of the the end phase of what people later
Speaker 1: on would call the web one point oh era where
Speaker 1: everything was very static, nothing was interactive. You would probably
Speaker 1: have a web page and it wouldn't change from one
Speaker 1: month to the next, so there's no reason to ever
Speaker 1: go back. You go once and that's it. You made
Speaker 1: a new web page. You didn't update your webpage. Right,
Speaker 1: here's my new webpage, and you would have to have
Speaker 1: the little under construction at the very top, right, because
Speaker 1: it's never finished, except for the fact that it's always
Speaker 1: kind of finished. So you got interested in in UH
Speaker 1: in flash animation and flash in general, and UH this
Speaker 1: is interesting to me because it gave an opportunity to
Speaker 1: have a more dynamic experience on the web, something that
Speaker 1: was totally new at that time. Today we take it
Speaker 1: for granted. You know, every website is dynamic in some
Speaker 1: way or another, or it has some sort of dynamic
Speaker 1: element worked into it. But at that time, it was
Speaker 1: pretty new. And the concept of creating UH episodic content
Speaker 1: that you could very easily see, you know, the next episode,
Speaker 1: that was new as well. There weren't a whole lot
Speaker 1: of examples of that before you get into say the
Speaker 1: mid two thousand's, when UH stuff like YouTube started to
Speaker 1: show up. So from what I understand is it true
Speaker 1: that essentially the reason why Homestar Runner exists as a
Speaker 1: cartoon is that it was kind of a way to uh,
Speaker 1: to practice with Flash. Like you were, you needed to
Speaker 1: animate something, so why not use this character. We're really
Speaker 1: learning web development stuff like that's why we were learning
Speaker 1: Flash and graphic design and stuff like that was like
Speaker 1: for job type stuff, and we just used the Homestar
Speaker 1: characters as like, how are we gonna learn this new
Speaker 1: software Flash? And well and more so than we need
Speaker 1: to animate something, it was like we need to make something.
Speaker 1: I mean, I graduated from film school and moved back
Speaker 1: to Atlanta from Tallahassee, Florida, and uh, you know, they
Speaker 1: weren't shooting Avengers movies and or whenever that would have been. Um,
Speaker 1: they weren't really shooting much of anything other than fantastic
Speaker 1: Local Dixie. Uh and so I you know, there wasn't
Speaker 1: a whole lot to do, and like there was you
Speaker 1: were not ever going to try and put video on
Speaker 1: the web at that point, Like there was just I mean,
Speaker 1: lots of people still had dial upe modems. It was
Speaker 1: just not um something that you could afford the bandwidth
Speaker 1: for either. So I mean we just wanted to make stuff.
Speaker 1: Mike moved back from he dropped out of grad school
Speaker 1: and moved back and anytime we've always we've been together,
Speaker 1: from when your kids, we've made stuff together. And so
Speaker 1: we were like, all right, well what are we making?
Speaker 1: And Flash was away that was like, oh wait, we
Speaker 1: don't need you know, a budget, we don't need a crew,
Speaker 1: we don't need you know, to go Rento camera, we
Speaker 1: don't need film sc or whatever. We can start making content. Um.
Speaker 1: And so it was like, all right, well, I guess
Speaker 1: we're gonna learn how to animate because and we had
Speaker 1: done stop motion stuff we were kids, and we're fans
Speaker 1: of animation. Obviously Maria Mario pained for the Supernintendo, but
Speaker 1: we never um, that wasn't what either of us were
Speaker 1: like schooled in UM. We were always artists and creators
Speaker 1: of something, but never specifically animation. So we didn't look
Speaker 1: at it. Initially I was like, oh, we are we
Speaker 1: can't wait to start animating. It was more like, this
Speaker 1: is a way to tell stories, So what is the
Speaker 1: best thing we have for that medium? And it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: what if we turned that homestyle run our character and
Speaker 1: his friends into a cartoon? UM? And so that was
Speaker 1: kind of what it was born out of. Um and
Speaker 1: the same reason that we would, you know, leave each
Speaker 1: other dumb answering machine messages, voicemail messages. It's like, oh, wait,
Speaker 1: here's some content. I have a medium to produce something on.
Speaker 1: It's the thirty seconds before the beat happens. Here, Mike,
Speaker 1: here's my little narrative I'm gonna give you when I'm
Speaker 1: asking you if you remember to get some high life
Speaker 1: at the publix or whatever. So anyways, so flash was
Speaker 1: kind of the next one of those, you know, was
Speaker 1: the next. And flash was also easy. I mean it
Speaker 1: was easy enough for people that weren't animators to you know,
Speaker 1: stumble their way through and produce something that was, you know,
Speaker 1: halfway decent. So two guys in their apartment with like
Speaker 1: a couple of keyboards could like make something that sounded
Speaker 1: you know, as good as the like. At that time,
Speaker 1: you know, there're were these studios making flash things that
Speaker 1: had like you'd watched the credits of a thirty second
Speaker 1: flash cartoon and it had like thirty people involved, um
Speaker 1: one for each second of the cartoon, right right. And
Speaker 1: this is so interesting to me because it parallels so
Speaker 1: nicely with the rise of computer games. I did a
Speaker 1: an episode recently about Sierra Games, which I know you
Speaker 1: guys love. Yeah, I got to talk to Ken Williams
Speaker 1: and he actually came on. He tried to get Roberta. Now,
Speaker 1: he tried to, but she she was busy trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to work their cable box. So uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: all of that is actually in the episode too, So
Speaker 1: it's great, but uh and I was very thankful for
Speaker 1: him to participate. But it was so interesting because the
Speaker 1: whole reason why Sierra Games got started was that he
Speaker 1: was programming. Roberta had started to encounter games, and a
Speaker 1: lot of those games were being written by people who
Speaker 1: were teaching themselves how to code. So games were great
Speaker 1: because it was something that had structure, right, you had
Speaker 1: an idea, you didn't have to learn how to bring
Speaker 1: that idea to fruition, and so the game was really
Speaker 1: the the tool they were using in order to educate
Speaker 1: themselves on how to code. And then eventually a whole
Speaker 1: industry kind of grew out of that. And it's very
Speaker 1: similar to what you guys are saying, like necessity is
Speaker 1: the mother of invention. You had this this tool there
Speaker 1: you need to learn how to use the tool. You
Speaker 1: had certain limitations placed on you, but those limitations ended
Speaker 1: up just shaping the direction, didn't hold you back neces
Speaker 1: sterile um, And in fact, I could argue that without
Speaker 1: those limitations, you could end up being paralyzed by choice. Right.
Speaker 1: You have so many options open to you don't even
Speaker 1: know what to tackle next. That's why Homestar cartoons are
Speaker 1: still five fifty four because that was the default and
Speaker 1: Flash and still animated at twelve frames a second. Limitations
Speaker 1: are still seventeen years later. Wow. Yeah, And it's it's
Speaker 1: interesting now because we're in an era that sort of
Speaker 1: the post Flash era as well, where we're starting to
Speaker 1: see Flash being you know, pushed further and further away,
Speaker 1: and there's not really any development development on that. And
Speaker 1: I know that has posed something of a challenge or
Speaker 1: Homestar Runner as well, because you know, that whole archive
Speaker 1: it's all in Flash, so I'm sure there's the the
Speaker 1: Some of it has been poured it over to YouTube, obviously,
Speaker 1: which is great because you know, that's a fantastic way
Speaker 1: for people to find it. Although I think you guys
Speaker 1: ended up following a strategy that I've heard several creators say,
Speaker 1: is uh incredibly important you it was necessary, which was
Speaker 1: that you create your own space where stuff would go
Speaker 1: and live in that homestar runners own domain. Uh. The
Speaker 1: Bernie Burns of Rooster Teeth has talked about the same thing,
Speaker 1: that you need to have a space that's your own,
Speaker 1: because if you start depending upon someone else's platform and
Speaker 1: that platform changes, you're at their mercy. So you were
Speaker 1: actually ahead of the game, but only because really because
Speaker 1: that was that was the only way forward pioneers, because
Speaker 1: what else was there to do? But ended up being
Speaker 1: again like that that inspired Bernie Burns over at Rooster
Speaker 1: Teeth to do the same sort of thing. He he
Speaker 1: knew he didn't want to put everything just on another
Speaker 1: platform like at that time it would have been like
Speaker 1: my Space or YouTube. Um, so it's it's something that
Speaker 1: has since gone on to inspire others. So uh, you
Speaker 1: go in, you start making this cartoon and uh, you're
Speaker 1: having a good time, and what at what point during
Speaker 1: the process did you start to feel like this was
Speaker 1: gonna be something bigger than just a fun project to
Speaker 1: do occasionally, uh, and become something a little more serious
Speaker 1: than that. So we're we're what early two thousands here,
Speaker 1: We've been doing it for a couple of years. Maybe
Speaker 1: two thousand, two thousand one was sort of when we
Speaker 1: were just uh, that was the sort of early years.
Speaker 1: And I think it was sometime in two thousand one
Speaker 1: when we started doing strong bad emails every yeah, every week. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that was a turning point. Um, And it
Speaker 1: certainly didn't feel like it at the time, but I
Speaker 1: think looking back, having giving the fans a week like
Speaker 1: something to look forward to every week, and knowing, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna check back on Monday morning, gonna check back
Speaker 1: on Monday morning, that sort of snowballed into sort of
Speaker 1: where we I don't know, yeah, and then we sort
Speaker 1: of think of the point where we realize, like, oh wait,
Speaker 1: I think lots of people are watching this, and more
Speaker 1: than maybe maybe we thought was when for the first
Speaker 1: couple of years we were just on like a Yahoo
Speaker 1: shared hosting account. It was supposed to be like the
Speaker 1: thirty bucks a month and you've got like five gigs
Speaker 1: of bandwidth or something, and I don't know how many
Speaker 1: cartoons would have been on the website at that point,
Speaker 1: but um, I remember printing out this thing and I
Speaker 1: think we got kind of a tip off, right from
Speaker 1: somebody at Yahoo that was just like, hey, I'm a
Speaker 1: fan of what you guys are doing. You're gonna have
Speaker 1: to find another solution. And he was like, I've been
Speaker 1: looking the other way for a while now. And so
Speaker 1: I get onto our accountant download the like you know whatever,
Speaker 1: just bandwidth chart thing, and we've done like thirteen terabytes
Speaker 1: of transfer or something on our thirty or five games whatever.
Speaker 1: So there's we always just pictured this UM server in
Speaker 1: the back of some Yahoo data centers, like smoking sparking
Speaker 1: in the back. Yeah, and that's when it, uh, we've
Speaker 1: got shut down at some point, right, that's when the
Speaker 1: system is down. So the site was actually down for
Speaker 1: a day or two. Yeah, um and uh, but that
Speaker 1: was kind of when we were like, oh, wow, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, we've gotten some emails and people. We knew
Speaker 1: that there were some, you know, but we just sort
Speaker 1: of assumed it was like, oh, these few people that
Speaker 1: know about flash animation on the web have found our stuff,
Speaker 1: and that's awesome, and we thought that was great. Um.
Speaker 1: I think that was when that was kind of the
Speaker 1: moment where were like, oh, wait, maybe this is something
Speaker 1: we could do we could continue to do and because
Speaker 1: at the time we still had regular day jobs and
Speaker 1: I think that was probably about the same time we
Speaker 1: decided to sell some merch and and then a year
Speaker 1: or so into that was when our dad, who was
Speaker 1: was a c p a um like basically told his
Speaker 1: two screw up artists sons to quit their jobs. He
Speaker 1: was like, this is dumb. You quit your jobs and
Speaker 1: make these cartoons for living, would you? Which is We've
Speaker 1: always feel like it's the probably the best moment you
Speaker 1: could you could ask for from a father's son. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: when you got a churn public account and saying, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: no you know that that regular steady gig you have
Speaker 1: quit it? What that's amazing? Make cartoons with your brother
Speaker 1: in the basement? Good grief. That's like, yeah, dream come
Speaker 1: true moment, right there? Tons and tons of short that
Speaker 1: you guys have made, lots of wonderful characters, not to
Speaker 1: mention all the alternate versions of those characters. Was always
Speaker 1: the most fun was to sort of world build and
Speaker 1: do other Yeah, yeah, I was enjoying. I love the
Speaker 1: old timey ones. Always like people that like that. That's
Speaker 1: my favorite too. So well, there's a sort of polarizing.
Speaker 1: It's no I to me, it's just the level of
Speaker 1: absurdity coupled with the Transatlantic accent. My favorite. There's a
Speaker 1: there's a video that that we did here at How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works about the Transatlantic accent. They got me to
Speaker 1: be the one to do it, and I have to say, like,
Speaker 1: there's certain certain influences that went into the absolute nonsense
Speaker 1: that I was spouting off randomly at the end of
Speaker 1: the video, just to kind of give examples of Transatlantic
Speaker 1: accent and the old timey homestar runner ones were way
Speaker 1: up there, and it's like, I know what I'm saying
Speaker 1: has no meaning, but it doesn't matter. So and also,
Speaker 1: it's just fun to do until somebody really tells you
Speaker 1: to knock it off, and then it's actually fun to
Speaker 1: do for about another five minutes. Yeah, you gotta, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta get past that point, right. It's the whole
Speaker 1: thing where you you tell a joke until it's being funny,
Speaker 1: and you keep telling it gets funny again. Yeah, repetition
Speaker 1: get louder to remember the I always think of the
Speaker 1: side show Bob Stepping on the Rakes and the Simpsons.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like quak, he's gonna do it again.
Speaker 1: It's like happened so many times and it's like, whoa,
Speaker 1: we did it one more time. So it was wow.
Speaker 1: I didn't you know, I thought they were going to
Speaker 1: draw the line of nineteen. Uh. Well, out of all
Speaker 1: that massive amount of stuff that you guys have done,
Speaker 1: are there any things that just stand out in particular
Speaker 1: in your in your minds as things like when you
Speaker 1: came up with it or when you first animated it. Uh,
Speaker 1: it brought you, guys just just genuine joy and whether
Speaker 1: whether or not it went on to have a life
Speaker 1: of its own afterward. I'm always interested to hear the
Speaker 1: kind of stuff that when someone writes it and I
Speaker 1: know this gets self indulgent, but when you write it
Speaker 1: and you just think that's great, that's just a great
Speaker 1: little moment there, you know, even if even if you
Speaker 1: have to associate yourself with it a little bit, Is
Speaker 1: there anything like that stands out in your mind for
Speaker 1: me and it Maybe I don't know if it's the
Speaker 1: same for Matt. You mentioned Sierra Games. We did a
Speaker 1: Peasant's Quest, which was a riff on King's Quest sort
Speaker 1: of in the Drug Door universe, and to me, making
Speaker 1: that whole game was probably the most fun thing we
Speaker 1: ever did. And Homestar related, um, just making the graphics
Speaker 1: for it, making the puzzles, do I mean just an
Speaker 1: implement it may being able to make a game that
Speaker 1: was not only it wasn't a parody of those games.
Speaker 1: It was an homage to those games, and it was
Speaker 1: those games, you know, like it was functional, it wasn't
Speaker 1: just a joke. Yeah. I feel like when we made
Speaker 1: there's a emails at one eighteen What's virus one nineteen
Speaker 1: where he gets a computer virus and all this kind
Speaker 1: of crazy stuff happens and it gets a little like
Speaker 1: meta and uh, and it ends up with him getting
Speaker 1: a new computer in the next one because he asked
Speaker 1: to sacrifice this computer. But I remember that was one
Speaker 1: where we we stayed up all night we did. Uh.
Speaker 1: Is that another one where we messed with the frame? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we re sized the size of the movie, but the
Speaker 1: viewer wouldn't know because we still always have this black
Speaker 1: border around it. But then at some point in it,
Speaker 1: that like border moves until like kind of messes with
Speaker 1: your head in the cartoon. And then we there's a
Speaker 1: part where pop up ads start showing up in the
Speaker 1: cartoon and then we made a real pop up ad
Speaker 1: like we did some like I forget what it was
Speaker 1: action script like made one cap and in your browser too,
Speaker 1: so it was this broke broke the fourth wall, you know,
Speaker 1: outside of your normal computer realm. And um, I just
Speaker 1: remember finishing that one up, like I'm pretty sure we
Speaker 1: stayed up all night for that one. And uh. And
Speaker 1: then the next day, um, we went to what Steak
Speaker 1: and Shake because I want would always like we'd like
Speaker 1: finish it up and be like, yeah, that's good and
Speaker 1: kind of good feeling. And we didn't even like go
Speaker 1: look because we we tried not to be we always
Speaker 1: want to know, stay in touch with the fans, but
Speaker 1: never like tried to you know, we didn't like dissect
Speaker 1: every comment or every at the time it would have
Speaker 1: been like live journal page or something like there weren't
Speaker 1: just like message boards, uh or comments sections like there
Speaker 1: are now. But um, I don't even I think we
Speaker 1: didn't even look at like anything. We're just like we
Speaker 1: just they're all gonna love it because everybody's gonna love
Speaker 1: this one, and we love this one. We had a
Speaker 1: really good time when then let's go get take and
Speaker 1: shake that. I don't know, that sort of moment where
Speaker 1: you're like confident enough in yourself to be like I think,
Speaker 1: I think we did a home run here, and then
Speaker 1: you know, and then you went back and it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I think people did like it. Like I remember always
Speaker 1: thinking along those lines when you would make a good one,
Speaker 1: it was like, okay, we did a good one. People
Speaker 1: liked it. And then that my thinking was that, okay,
Speaker 1: that just buys us three or four bad ones now
Speaker 1: the five for bad ones every game. When you do
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, I've got a little more currency to
Speaker 1: mess up. Well, you know. That also brings me There
Speaker 1: was a recent piece I read that was interesting. It
Speaker 1: was about um uh people who are in the creative industry.
Speaker 1: They were specifically focusing on YouTubers, but to me, it
Speaker 1: really would be anyone from twitch streamers to podcasters to cartoonists, really,
Speaker 1: any any creative endeavor, especially a creative endeavor where you're
Speaker 1: trying to deliver consistent um content on on like a schedule.
Speaker 1: That one of the dangers is always this fear of burnout.
Speaker 1: That's not just it's not just the idea of writer's block,
Speaker 1: which is something that we all deal with at one
Speaker 1: time or another where you're just you're staring at the
Speaker 1: empty page and there's just nothing coming to you. But
Speaker 1: just that that pressure of delivering, especially when you've built
Speaker 1: up a reputation of certain kind of material. Was that
Speaker 1: ever anything that was threatening you guys while you were
Speaker 1: working on it? Yeah, I mean it definitely made things.
Speaker 1: You know, early on we made cartoons because they were fun,
Speaker 1: and then you know, there was definitely a period where
Speaker 1: Saturday Sunday came around and we're like, we don't have
Speaker 1: no ideas for this strong bade email, we have to
Speaker 1: make one, and then you just kind of have to
Speaker 1: power through. Yeah, um, which is it wasn't really that
Speaker 1: big of a deal. But like, if it wasn't for
Speaker 1: the expectation that was there, you wouldn't have on it,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, I mean it's tough when you're trying,
Speaker 1: when your goal is to entertain someone and it feels
Speaker 1: like you know you're gonna have to push through it.
Speaker 1: Then that adds that extra layer, right, like you're like,
Speaker 1: it's not just that I need to do it, I
Speaker 1: need to do it and make someone laugh and I'm
Speaker 1: not having I don't want to be doing Yeah, yeah, um,
Speaker 1: but I mean that's I think working in that the
Speaker 1: way we worked where most of the stuff we did
Speaker 1: we made in the forty eight hours or so before
Speaker 1: it was you know, thrown out into the world. You know,
Speaker 1: we made most everything from Friday to Sunday. Um, So
Speaker 1: it was a double edged short. I mean sometimes it
Speaker 1: was terrible. You know, probably the results were terrible. But
Speaker 1: other times you use that same energy and it's like
Speaker 1: if you sit there for two weeks and overthink things,
Speaker 1: you're you're gonna talk yourself out of something that's some
Speaker 1: dumb idea that you know could have. You know, drog
Speaker 1: door for instance, is probably something that you think about
Speaker 1: it long, and I was like, I don't know, maybe
Speaker 1: we can just maybe he shouldn't have this beefy arm
Speaker 1: sticking out his back that when you gout, you know,
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes before you're gonna put it, let's leave it in,
Speaker 1: let's do it. It's a design choice. At this point. Uh,
Speaker 1: we also had the I feel like we had the
Speaker 1: luxury of being able to do kind of whatever we wanted.
Speaker 1: And so even if there are those times where we
Speaker 1: were like out of ideas, for a strong bad email
Speaker 1: or something. That's when we'd be like, well, let's do
Speaker 1: an old time what do we want to do. Let's
Speaker 1: do an old timing cartoon this week, Let's do uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we invented like eighties hair metal band for
Speaker 1: the Homestar Universe. We invented a like indie rock band
Speaker 1: because that's kind of where we were in high school
Speaker 1: and college, and so it's just sort of like, I
Speaker 1: just want to make it like indie rock song. This week.
Speaker 1: It's was like, all right, let's invent a band and
Speaker 1: put it in a cartoon and then that's you know,
Speaker 1: so we it was kind of nice where we just
Speaker 1: have to stop thinking of like we're delivering this formula
Speaker 1: everybody and a lot of you know, especially if it
Speaker 1: wasn't in the form of a strong bad email. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there were fans that were disappointed, but it was like,
Speaker 1: all right, well that's what you gotta put up with.
Speaker 1: For like I, I didn't get burned out and hated
Speaker 1: the thing that you like that I do because I
Speaker 1: got like re energized by taking a little flight of
Speaker 1: and see or whatever and doing something kind of um
Speaker 1: out of our normal wheelhouse or whatever, um, and so
Speaker 1: I think that we would um employ that I think
Speaker 1: a good bit too, kind of helped stave off any
Speaker 1: sort of burnout where it was just like, all right,
Speaker 1: I should have shut up, because like, not only do
Speaker 1: I get to make cartoons for a living, but I
Speaker 1: got to like blow off making cartoons and go do
Speaker 1: you know, makeup game like eighties hair metal song this week?
Speaker 1: So but yeah, and you guys also had stuff on
Speaker 1: the site that went beyond like you like the games
Speaker 1: are a good example. There were various interactive elements on
Speaker 1: the website. Besides games and little sound boards and things
Speaker 1: like that. You had the live action Troug Door uh trailer,
Speaker 1: which is one of my favorites. And partly because I
Speaker 1: know some of the people were, I was like, se
Speaker 1: so fun and uh, that's the beauty of living in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: And you guys got to to work with some great
Speaker 1: Atlanta talent, which I I imagine is is just exploding
Speaker 1: at this point because we've got so many things happening
Speaker 1: in Atlanta. I'm sure that opens up a lot of
Speaker 1: different opportunities as well, um, which is fantastic. But I
Speaker 1: also want to thank you guys for this idea of
Speaker 1: being able to branch out and try different things and
Speaker 1: and open up different universes, because I like to imagine
Speaker 1: that it was one of those weeks where we got
Speaker 1: blessed with Teen Girl Squad, which is probably my favorite
Speaker 1: of all of the variations that have come out. It's
Speaker 1: one my wife and I still quote consistently, so we're
Speaker 1: always happy whenever we get a teen Girl Squad. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: you know, the popularity of Homestar grew and grew and
Speaker 1: and it's really interesting that you guys were you know,
Speaker 1: you weren't really focused on the analytics. It's not like
Speaker 1: you were, you know, watching those counts, like you know,
Speaker 1: there are people who are are obsessed over that, whether
Speaker 1: it was back in the old web days where you
Speaker 1: had the little visitor counter that would go up by
Speaker 1: one little digit counter to go up every time, or
Speaker 1: now it's obviously like YouTube views and subscriptions, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. It seems like that was never really, uh,
Speaker 1: something that you guys were terribly focused on or concerned with.
Speaker 1: You were just you know, looking at the content and
Speaker 1: creating that. Yeah, and we didn't want we sort of
Speaker 1: actively didn't look at that because we didn't want you know,
Speaker 1: if we did something that we liked that it maybe
Speaker 1: didn't get the views. That's something else, like we didn't
Speaker 1: want that to affect like Okay, let's just make another
Speaker 1: trout door or make another stinco man or something. So
Speaker 1: we would actively sort of try to distance ourselves from
Speaker 1: knowing what was hitting and what wasn't, just so that
Speaker 1: we could so it wouldn't mess with the creative process. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We talked to uh YouTube a couple of younger YouTube
Speaker 1: guys a few years ago, and uh they were talking
Speaker 1: about how like, you know, they used the live thing.
Speaker 1: There's like a live analytics thing on YouTube, like you
Speaker 1: can upload your video and then right then it's showing you.
Speaker 1: It's just like any other you know, Google analytics thing
Speaker 1: where you can see who is watching it right now
Speaker 1: and if they and you know, if they commented. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you know exactly who did what comment.
Speaker 1: You know, they're interacting with the comments or liked or
Speaker 1: they did the thumbs down or whatever, or the moment
Speaker 1: they stopped watching. Yeah. Yeah, and so he said it
Speaker 1: was like it's like he's immediately watching this like focus group,
Speaker 1: but this is not. He didn't he's not testing this.
Speaker 1: This is he this guy just made this thing and
Speaker 1: uploaded into the world, and now he's having to like
Speaker 1: watch this judgment happen like user and time. And I
Speaker 1: was just like, how can you do that? He's like,
Speaker 1: I know it's terrifying, but I can't, like I can't
Speaker 1: look away, Like I just like embraved as part of
Speaker 1: the process. And I'm happy that we didn't even we
Speaker 1: were just for a long time. It was um, I
Speaker 1: mean it was this will sound like a humble brag
Speaker 1: or whatever, but it was like we actually were doing
Speaker 1: crazy enough amounts of traffic that are I don't know
Speaker 1: if it was just that our web hosting guy was
Speaker 1: like lazy and didn't want to like compile these logs.
Speaker 1: So we could see that, like because we occasionally we
Speaker 1: would ask were like, so what can we give us
Speaker 1: our actual numbers and stuff like what are we doing?
Speaker 1: Um and uh, and he'd always be like, it's gonna
Speaker 1: take like a couple of days because it's all these
Speaker 1: like log files and it kind of like chokes on them.
Speaker 1: And so we just never had those numbers. So I
Speaker 1: kind of feel fortunate that we didn't, because I think
Speaker 1: we could have obsessed over that stuff, and now it's
Speaker 1: carried into even though we are you know, we're putting
Speaker 1: stuff on YouTube now and have a Twitter account and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, but like we just don't care. I
Speaker 1: like it kind of helps inform, uh, those decisions now
Speaker 1: where I don't think we'll be affected by it, even
Speaker 1: though it seems like that is the way that if
Speaker 1: you're gonna make money on this stuff, you need to
Speaker 1: like get a million viewers, and you need to have
Speaker 1: ad revenue and all that stuff. But it's kind of like,
Speaker 1: I'm glad that I'm not sweating that even if it's
Speaker 1: not sure, it's not like crushing if we put up
Speaker 1: a new cartoon and it doesn't hit well. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: like again going back to the example of not not
Speaker 1: putting all your eggs in one basket. With the YouTube example,
Speaker 1: we've just seen YouTube change their policies that in my mind,
Speaker 1: really hurt people who who specialize in short form content
Speaker 1: because a lot of the metrics that they're using is
Speaker 1: the number of collective hours watched per given amount of time,
Speaker 1: like per month or whatever. And obviously, if you're producing
Speaker 1: short form content, you need to have way more people
Speaker 1: watching your stuff. To get that collective number of hours up.
Speaker 1: And it's not it's not a comment on the quality
Speaker 1: of the content so much is just the quantity of it,
Speaker 1: which seems kind of backwards to me. Yes, and now
Speaker 1: if you just I didn't realize that that's I knew
Speaker 1: there was a change recently. Yeah, it was something along
Speaker 1: the lines of life. I think. It's like, in order
Speaker 1: to even be considered for monetization at this point, your
Speaker 1: videos need to have achieved something like four thousand hours
Speaker 1: worth of viewing time, which obviously, if you're doing short
Speaker 1: form and even if you have an engaged, dedicated audience,
Speaker 1: you've got to write a whole bunch of different episodes
Speaker 1: or or instances in order to achieve that. Whereas if
Speaker 1: you are someone who maybe you you record a two
Speaker 1: hour or three hour gaming session and you upload it
Speaker 1: and there's you know, there's a proven audience for that
Speaker 1: content because it's three hours, and because a lot of
Speaker 1: those people will watch the entire three hours and material
Speaker 1: you rack those alums video and you're set, you right,
Speaker 1: just watch it yourself. It's just wow, Like I remember
Speaker 1: when that little black spot was an orange and uh,
Speaker 1: now here we are and then it's just desiccated into nothing. Um,
Speaker 1: this isn't good, but it's consistent. Uh yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's well again. A great reason why why going into
Speaker 1: any one platform is a bit of a you know,
Speaker 1: a danger, because you might you might end up having
Speaker 1: a policy change that you have no control over. And
Speaker 1: it's not that your stuff isn't great or that it
Speaker 1: doesn't have an audience. It's just that because the rules
Speaker 1: changed above you, you suddenly have a door closed in
Speaker 1: your face, which seems kind of unfair for anyone who's
Speaker 1: not like a big time content creator, like one of
Speaker 1: the one of the superstars. Um. And obviously YouTube has
Speaker 1: gone through numerous changes over it's it's history. I did
Speaker 1: a three part series about YouTube recently and really talked
Speaker 1: about how it's changed dramatically. So there's no guarantee that's
Speaker 1: going to keep that policy. Maybe if there's enough resistance,
Speaker 1: they'll change it again, but it's one that draws concern
Speaker 1: from people who maybe they want to get a start.
Speaker 1: They have an idea and they want to indulge in
Speaker 1: that idea and they hope that it brings delight to
Speaker 1: others and maybe one day they can make a living
Speaker 1: out of it. But it's it. Not only is discovery
Speaker 1: difficult now, but when the rules change like that, it's
Speaker 1: difficult to even get to the point where you can
Speaker 1: start monetizing it. You guys, however, had this monetized your
Speaker 1: your stuff through mostly through merchandise and without advertising. Uh.
Speaker 1: That was also interesting to me because like I own
Speaker 1: some homestar runner stuff, but it was the sort of
Speaker 1: thing that I went and searched for, as opposed to
Speaker 1: you know, watching a cartoon where halfway through it tells me, hey,
Speaker 1: by the way, if you want a shirt that has
Speaker 1: that funny thing that's strong bad just said you need
Speaker 1: to click the sleeks here or even at the end
Speaker 1: where they wouldn't have really been obtrusive in anyway. Our
Speaker 1: dad always wanted us to do that, and we were
Speaker 1: always to our street cred was too valuable. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: we kind of shot ourselves in the foot. We admit
Speaker 1: that now. Amazed that people found because it's almost like
Speaker 1: the store was this easter egg that you had. If
Speaker 1: you really searched for a hung Star shirt, you could
Speaker 1: you could find it. It. Like we were very reluctant
Speaker 1: to well it's funny in like two thousand one or two. Uh,
Speaker 1: we were approached by someone from Hot Topic. And this
Speaker 1: wasn't like they walked up to us, was like a
Speaker 1: contract for like, hey, we want to join you know,
Speaker 1: your your characters into T shirts and make millions of dollars.
Speaker 1: But they weren't starting a conversation that could have led
Speaker 1: to any you know, any different variation of that scenario.
Speaker 1: And we just wanted nothing, you know, we didn't want
Speaker 1: to do it, and we we kind of pitched him like,
Speaker 1: oh what if we did these other kind of weirder
Speaker 1: like jokes from our website that weren't like the characters,
Speaker 1: like they want to do Team Girl squad shirts and
Speaker 1: this other stuff, and and we ultimately said no. And
Speaker 1: I forget who I was talking to, but it was
Speaker 1: got small, not like an audience I was talking to,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot younger kids, and I like I
Speaker 1: said it thinking that. Uh. I was like yeah, Then
Speaker 1: we got approached by hot Topic and like, you know,
Speaker 1: so of course we said no to that. And then
Speaker 1: they were all just like stared at me, just like
Speaker 1: why did you say no to that? And I was
Speaker 1: like it was hot hoppic. Hot Topic came to us.
Speaker 1: I was like you like that would have just killed
Speaker 1: us instantly, Like it's like, yeah, maybe a bunch of
Speaker 1: kids would have bought stuff and whatever, and they're like yeah,
Speaker 1: and you would have like made a million dollars. Well
Speaker 1: I don't know that, and uh and then I probably
Speaker 1: would have hated what I did after that, And they're
Speaker 1: just like, that was a bad decision. You made a
Speaker 1: bad decision, and you should have put your stuff in
Speaker 1: hot topics good to have life life lessons. It comes.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I get I like to think that
Speaker 1: the homestar runner is therefore responsible for they shut up
Speaker 1: and take my money. Mean, but but I mean that
Speaker 1: I appreciate that too, because again, it was that sort
Speaker 1: of uh philosophy, that sort of it. While it wasn't
Speaker 1: something that was being overtly stated, it was something that
Speaker 1: a lot of fans appreciate it, and you know, taking
Speaker 1: the effort to try and find a way of supporting
Speaker 1: was great because it was it was a show early
Speaker 1: on that you know, I think a lot of stories
Speaker 1: about internet content focus on the negatives, like the idea
Speaker 1: of people who don't want to pay for content, so
Speaker 1: they find work around so that they can get it
Speaker 1: for free. But the opposite is also true, where you'll
Speaker 1: find people who are encountering content that is seemingly being presented.
Speaker 1: I mean there's no there there's no advertising, you know,
Speaker 1: there was there's nothing where there was like a donate
Speaker 1: button or anything. It was like there's a store and
Speaker 1: you could go there and you could purchase things. And
Speaker 1: they said, you know, I want to support the content
Speaker 1: creators that I love and the stuff I love. I
Speaker 1: want them to keep making the stuff because I'm enjoying it.
Speaker 1: And it tells you that there's there's really a place
Speaker 1: for that too. And of course now we see platforms
Speaker 1: like Patreon that have come out to do more direct
Speaker 1: supportive artists that have proven that point that there are
Speaker 1: people who are willing to do that if you give
Speaker 1: them the opportunity. Right. We've had people tell us like, yeah,
Speaker 1: about ten Homestar Runner shirts I never wear, didn't after
Speaker 1: the second one. I didn't need anymore to support you. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: and people will say like, you know, I have I've
Speaker 1: purchased enough merch Like I'm not. It's not that I
Speaker 1: don't love you, but I don't need any more T shirts. Uh,
Speaker 1: can you please start a Patreon or something, so I
Speaker 1: can give you some money every once in a while
Speaker 1: when I want to. I just don't need another homes uh.
Speaker 1: And so that's that's good to hear that people are
Speaker 1: willing to do that. Every kid at my local elementary
Speaker 1: school now has a homestore Runner exactly the thrift store
Speaker 1: my stuck. But that's a that's a great I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a great story because it tells you that what
Speaker 1: you have created has actually had a meaningful impact on people.
Speaker 1: And I know it sounds weird to call it a
Speaker 1: meaningful impact when you're talking about a world that has
Speaker 1: a character called the poop Smith, But it's true and
Speaker 1: and it's it's great because it's again, I think it
Speaker 1: illustrates that positive side of the internet. We so well
Speaker 1: so quickly focus on that negative side, and it's good
Speaker 1: to have something you can point out and say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, look at this. It shows that if you
Speaker 1: have the structure in place, and if you have the
Speaker 1: right content in place, people flocked to it and people
Speaker 1: want to support it. And you guys have also you know,
Speaker 1: I mentioned you know, you were incorporated into the Buffy
Speaker 1: verse in an episode um You've got you had lots
Speaker 1: of references in various types of pop culture. What was
Speaker 1: that like seeing the thing that you had created start
Speaker 1: to get referenced by by other like like pop culture icons,
Speaker 1: everything from and they might be giants, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: making music for you. That one was pretty amazing because
Speaker 1: I was we were huge. They might be giant fans
Speaker 1: giants fans growing up. So when they emailed us, that
Speaker 1: was pretty mind blowing. Yeah. Um, yeah, we heard from
Speaker 1: the Buffy thing I think was like somebody in Fox
Speaker 1: was like, hey, don't see us. We they don't like,
Speaker 1: nobody here knows what you guys are, but don't we
Speaker 1: We put a drop door reference in this upcoming episode.
Speaker 1: Josh is a big fan and they sent us there
Speaker 1: or no, it was it was it an entertainment weekly.
Speaker 1: There was some picture that they referenced there was he
Speaker 1: had a strong bad shirt on and like on set
Speaker 1: of something he was shooting. Um, and so that was
Speaker 1: really cool. Uh but yeah, that was at the time.
Speaker 1: That was that was pretty mind blowing, just to know
Speaker 1: that it's like, Okay, so people outside of you know,
Speaker 1: whatever weird world we thought we existed in as far
Speaker 1: as fan bases go, people were finding that stuff, and
Speaker 1: we've since found out things like UMU. At that time
Speaker 1: when it was a friend of ours worked with Damon
Speaker 1: Lindelof and said that he it was like me and
Speaker 1: jose Weeden would get in trouble. I was supposed to
Speaker 1: be writing Lost episodes and we'd been quoting strong backing
Speaker 1: each other something. I was like, holy crap, watching when
Speaker 1: you were wasting time watching when I was making that's amazing.
Speaker 1: Um So that kind of stuff has been super cool.
Speaker 1: What was the show those that show the Magicians that's
Speaker 1: on now? This was It was nice because it felt
Speaker 1: like a little a nice little like a bookend to
Speaker 1: the like Buffy thing where I guess they referenced Trong
Speaker 1: Door and I think it's the season to finale or something,
Speaker 1: and I actually haven't even seen it. I just people
Speaker 1: everybody told me what the SENDI little clips of it
Speaker 1: or whatever, which that's always so it's it's always cool
Speaker 1: to see that stuff. Yeah, and then that actually led
Speaker 1: to other things like collaborations where you guys did uh
Speaker 1: the animations for um uh for They Might Be Giants video,
Speaker 1: which is fantastic, And and you've appeared on well, yeah,
Speaker 1: we've done several collaborations with them, the characters have appeared
Speaker 1: on stage where they might be giants, because I've been
Speaker 1: to some of those shows and the variety of playoffs,
Speaker 1: and that was always a joy, uh to the point
Speaker 1: where you I would imagine that was part of the
Speaker 1: inspiration for them to come up out with their band,
Speaker 1: the Them band, the sock Puppets. They where they would
Speaker 1: wow when I would see that come out, and it's like,
Speaker 1: this is this is mind boy, this is happening right now.
Speaker 1: Um and uh and seeing seeing Home Star and Strong
Speaker 1: Bad in Uh in person is always a big thrill
Speaker 1: for for me. Despite it's so weird to say that
Speaker 1: out loud to the people who actually made that, but
Speaker 1: it's absolutely true. So you you go through, You're you're
Speaker 1: doing the the series it's got you know, it's got
Speaker 1: some some not just just fan support, but it's also
Speaker 1: blossoming in various areas of pop culture. We see trock
Speaker 1: Door get into Guitar Hero two, which is still another
Speaker 1: amazing thing when that when I found out that that
Speaker 1: was a bonus track, I was so thrilled Immediately, I
Speaker 1: was like, this is my quest to master Door. That's
Speaker 1: solo by the way impossible, and you want to know something,
Speaker 1: this is what. We didn't find this out until later,
Speaker 1: or I think we knew it, but we didn't realize it.
Speaker 1: So we played as Limousine, the band that plays other
Speaker 1: ones live, and so the we play with these guys
Speaker 1: that are in this band yacht Rock in another band
Speaker 1: called Saved by the band um and are uh. They
Speaker 1: learned the song and um And so our friend that
Speaker 1: does that plays the guitar for us, Chris Harris, and
Speaker 1: he learned the song. He's like, those really knows this
Speaker 1: stuff as far as like squeally wanky guitar. It's all
Speaker 1: like he's that's amazing. You can do the tapping. He
Speaker 1: can do all this stuff and it's incredible. And so
Speaker 1: he learned tron door and then we came into practice
Speaker 1: and he played it and he's like, nails that solo.
Speaker 1: And then one of the other guys was like, you
Speaker 1: know when we originally recorded that, because he wasn't on
Speaker 1: that song, he was like, that's like that's keyboard was
Speaker 1: just like played four notes yeah, and he was like
Speaker 1: wait what and he was like yeah, no one can
Speaker 1: play that fast. And he's like, oh, I learned it
Speaker 1: so yeah, but so it doesn't. It didn't surprise me
Speaker 1: when I learned that. I think we kind of told
Speaker 1: the Harmonics people that at the time and they're like,
Speaker 1: that's fine, we'll just make it the guitar solo and there.
Speaker 1: And I've watched YouTube videos of people who have done
Speaker 1: the perfect run on that on the hardest setting, and
Speaker 1: it's just mind blowing. I can't I can't even I
Speaker 1: can't see as fast as they're playing, which is the
Speaker 1: craziest thing. But then we get up to about and
Speaker 1: it was then when you guys were starting to get
Speaker 1: other opportunities that that also we're pulling you away from
Speaker 1: Home Star. And as I understand it, it it was getting
Speaker 1: to a situation where it wasn't that you wanted to
Speaker 1: to leave the series. It was that you were having,
Speaker 1: you know, other demands on your time, whether it was
Speaker 1: family or it was other other gigs that were coming up,
Speaker 1: and it just became one of those things where, uh,
Speaker 1: week after week it just wasn't you just didn't have
Speaker 1: the time to dedicate to making more content for Homestar Runner. Uh.
Speaker 1: Is that is that more or less accurate for how
Speaker 1: things turned out? Yeah, I mean, we had no idea
Speaker 1: how long it was going to be either when we
Speaker 1: matt second daughter was born. I think that was basically
Speaker 1: when we when we stopped doing stuff and we didn't
Speaker 1: know if it was going to be out. Let's take
Speaker 1: a break for two months, yeah, four years. Well, and
Speaker 1: that's the thing is that, you know, you you take
Speaker 1: those breaks, and then there are things come up and
Speaker 1: and obviously you've got all these commitments on your time. Uh,
Speaker 1: and and then you're you're thinking, well, how how do
Speaker 1: I how do I communicate this to a fan base? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then at some point it was like, wait, we've
Speaker 1: waited too long, or like is it weird to try
Speaker 1: to say something when we don't know what we're saying?
Speaker 1: We don't know, you know, like if we're gonna say, hey,
Speaker 1: we'll do some Homestar stuff in a year, we you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was no definitive answer. And then at that time
Speaker 1: we didn't know we had like a development deal at
Speaker 1: Disney and a development deal at Nickelodeon, and we were
Speaker 1: gonna make some Yo Gabba Gabba episodes and these things
Speaker 1: that were just like that doesn't mean anything to a
Speaker 1: Homestar fan, and maybe we undervalue that maybe they would
Speaker 1: have been excited to hear that stuff, but then it
Speaker 1: was like that Nickelodeon thing went nowhere and that Disney
Speaker 1: thing went nowhere, and so that would have been like
Speaker 1: after the fact would have been like depressing, and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, they were like, oh yeah, so they're
Speaker 1: Disney thing didn't work Outdan thing didn't work out, and
Speaker 1: that like Nyo Gabba Christmas episode they directed it was
Speaker 1: horrible and like, I don't know, so it just felt weird,
Speaker 1: especially because we never aside from being like we intimated that,
Speaker 1: like we'd had babies and so we're gonna take some
Speaker 1: time off. That's kind of the only time Mike and
Speaker 1: I ever sort of inserted are like creator lives ensure
Speaker 1: the fans heads. I mean, we always intentionally aside from
Speaker 1: some like fake things on a DVD where we're like
Speaker 1: spoofing how we make things, Um, we wanted us to
Speaker 1: be separate from it. We never wanted to have the
Speaker 1: like creator blog side of it, and definitely not the
Speaker 1: like the way that most of the like YouTube personalities
Speaker 1: are like even if their content is not that they're
Speaker 1: like always after the facts, like hey, I'm the star
Speaker 1: of the YouTube thing you just watched Remember to go
Speaker 1: to the store and buy the new merch and blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. It's always just like we didn't want to
Speaker 1: be the face of any of it, you know. UM.
Speaker 1: So it felt weird to then have that conversation, after
Speaker 1: like never really talking to the fans as Mike and
Speaker 1: Matt Um at least through the website, to like give
Speaker 1: a weird half ass explanation of like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: we don't know that was, you know, And then that
Speaker 1: just felt like I would be super unsatisfied if I
Speaker 1: just gotta we don't know what's going on from the
Speaker 1: creator of my thing that I liked, So I don't know.
Speaker 1: We always apologize I we didn't to handle it right.
Speaker 1: We didn't know how to handle it right, and we
Speaker 1: like there was it was so funny. The day before
Speaker 1: we put up UM the first cartoon we made in Forever,
Speaker 1: which was this April Fool's cartoon in UM, I got
Speaker 1: a somebody found my like personal email address a fan.
Speaker 1: It sent this like pages long thing like tearing us
Speaker 1: apart and saying that it's like radio silent yeah and
Speaker 1: four and just being like, here's this what this meant
Speaker 1: to me here like every week like it was. It
Speaker 1: was like the first half was like super awesome fans,
Speaker 1: in the second half was like and here's why I
Speaker 1: hate you. Will never support anything you've ever done ever again.
Speaker 1: And uh and like literally we're finishing up this cartoon
Speaker 1: to send like to upload it like midnight. I get
Speaker 1: this at like I don't know, seven pm the day before,
Speaker 1: and I think I just I forget. I think I
Speaker 1: wrote back and I just said like, hey, I'm so sorry,
Speaker 1: thanks for being a fan, and just kept it vague
Speaker 1: and sort of hoping that then that maybe that cartoon
Speaker 1: would happen and that they would be like, wait they
Speaker 1: listen to me an amazing turn the last half an
Speaker 1: hour they made this cartoon. Um so yeah, So that
Speaker 1: was the main reason we never we just the explanation
Speaker 1: was never like exciting enough to like to like feel
Speaker 1: like to like peel behind the curtain and be like, hey,
Speaker 1: look behind here, we're making a new project, because none
Speaker 1: of those projects ever really happened. Um so yeah. Oh sorry,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say we actually made a strong, bad
Speaker 1: sort of addressing talking to the fans about it. I
Speaker 1: forget when that was. That was maybe six months or
Speaker 1: so after we had stopped doing stuff and we made
Speaker 1: this thing and then never ended up putting it up
Speaker 1: because we were just like, this is weird. We showed
Speaker 1: it one time at a conference we were at last year.
Speaker 1: I went over kind of weird. Yeah, I think we
Speaker 1: made the right call. I think I think my favorite.
Speaker 1: I'm also fortunate in that because Lincoln live in Atlanta. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a frequent patron of Dad's Garage Theater, so
Speaker 1: I actually got to see the Special Strong Bad Email
Speaker 1: theater because I've I've been supporting them since two thousand's
Speaker 1: so I was there their old theater and when they
Speaker 1: went to uh move into seven Stages for a while,
Speaker 1: and now they have their new theater, and they that
Speaker 1: was one of the things they showed one night, and
Speaker 1: the crowd reaction when that came on was pretty phenomenal.
Speaker 1: They showed that the Fox Theater. They had a special event,
Speaker 1: a special fundraiser at the Fox Theater, and it was
Speaker 1: kind of a variety show of giving an example of
Speaker 1: the sort of material that they would do, and they
Speaker 1: showed the Strong Bad Special Email to Dad's Garage and
Speaker 1: hearing the Fox Theater erupt an applause at a Strong
Speaker 1: Bad Email was something really special. I think that was
Speaker 1: the second cartoon. I think that was the next thing
Speaker 1: we made after that April Fools in two thousand fourteen.
Speaker 1: Was that, Yeah, strong Bad Email. So it had been
Speaker 1: four or five years since we had made a strong
Speaker 1: Bad Email. Was the reaction to that that April first,
Speaker 1: two thousand and fourteen video? Was that something that uh
Speaker 1: was really gratifying for you guys because I know, at
Speaker 1: least in my own personal circle of friends, when people
Speaker 1: found out that there was a new home Star Runner
Speaker 1: cartoon up, Uh, it went nuts on my Facebook page
Speaker 1: and like it was like it was like what half
Speaker 1: of my friends were sharing. UM, so I imagined like
Speaker 1: when you you know, you've been you've been kind of
Speaker 1: away from it for four years. Uh. Was it surprising
Speaker 1: to you to see a reaction has gotten I think
Speaker 1: Gizmoto and some of the blogs and you know linked
Speaker 1: to it. So that was surprising, and you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: we didn't know. We just sort of assumed that the
Speaker 1: few people that sadly still check Homestar runner dot com
Speaker 1: entered this u r L into their um the yellow
Speaker 1: keys of their mechanical because it was strong. But I
Speaker 1: didn't have a Twitter yet or anything, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's really no I guess we had a YouTube page,
Speaker 1: but we didn't, so there was really no way to
Speaker 1: communicate to the fans that hey, we've got this new
Speaker 1: cartoon up and you went to the site, know if
Speaker 1: anyone would really see it, and then if if then
Speaker 1: people did stumble across it, if they would you know,
Speaker 1: be excited about it or pass it on or whatever.
Speaker 1: So that was that was cool, and that definitely led
Speaker 1: to it just sort of coincided with the fact that
Speaker 1: I was I was living in l A at the
Speaker 1: time when we made that actually and then we u
Speaker 1: I but I knew my family was moving back to
Speaker 1: the Atlanta area, and so the fact that Mike and
Speaker 1: now we're going to be back in the same town again,
Speaker 1: and that like it was like, oh, it seems like
Speaker 1: people don't hate us and maybe want to see more things.
Speaker 1: That just kind of was like, all, right, well, we're
Speaker 1: back in the same town again, we shouldt least start
Speaker 1: doing stuff as you know often as we can, um
Speaker 1: between whatever other gig we were doing. Yeah, so since
Speaker 1: then we've been doing home Star stuff, you know, every
Speaker 1: few months, or you know, depending on what the other
Speaker 1: stuff we're working on is. So sure, So what other
Speaker 1: stuff are you working on? Since uh, you know, we
Speaker 1: know that Homestar Runner is in good hands. It's going
Speaker 1: to continue coming out and and and keeping opal ives
Speaker 1: so that when we do that that jumped Home Star Runner,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a good chance there's gonna be something
Speaker 1: new there. But what else are you guys working on? Um,
Speaker 1: we're just talking to for the first time ever, we've
Speaker 1: been talking with adults whom locally here, which is and
Speaker 1: so we'll see. We have no idea if that will
Speaker 1: go anywhere not, but we uh, we've known people that
Speaker 1: have worked on shows there, have known you know, creators
Speaker 1: of shows there and stuff before, but it never actually
Speaker 1: spoken with them. And it's actually it's it's great because
Speaker 1: there's a hilarious I think it's been debunked enough now.
Speaker 1: But for a very long time, if we would ever
Speaker 1: talk to people were not that we do so many interviews,
Speaker 1: but it would come up to be like and I
Speaker 1: heard that you guys stormed out of an adult swim
Speaker 1: meeting to them, and we're like, no, I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know there was ever an overture either way, and
Speaker 1: we love that. We love that channel and you probably
Speaker 1: heard the hot topic story exactly. Um. But so so
Speaker 1: that's exciting. So for the first we were just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're down the street. It kind of makes sense, like
Speaker 1: I moved to l A even though there was like
Speaker 1: an entire cartoon network you know here as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everyone assume when they find out we're from Atlanta, like,
Speaker 1: oh you guys, must you know, work with cartoon networking
Speaker 1: Adult swim And it's like, now we do stuff with this. Um.
Speaker 1: But so that's exciting. So we'll see where that goes,
Speaker 1: um and uh and what else And let's just we
Speaker 1: haven't been doing other homestar stuff. You have a couple
Speaker 1: of homestar like sort of top secrety things that will
Speaker 1: be revealing soon that will be exciting that we've been
Speaker 1: spending a lot of that take a lot of sort
Speaker 1: of build up time, secret time, secret time. Fantastic And
Speaker 1: I've been, um, speaking of Sierra Games. There's a park
Speaker 1: down at the end of my street, and so I've
Speaker 1: been making King's Quest style graphics of a couple of
Speaker 1: little parts of the park waterfall, and so I made
Speaker 1: this little King's Quest looking waterfall. Oh Man, does Roy
Speaker 1: Roy Roy Moss Senior Memorial Garden. It's called the garden
Speaker 1: and it is not a garden. Yeah, runoff retention. I
Speaker 1: guess that doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
Speaker 1: But it's actually it's featured. It's heavily featured in The
Speaker 1: Peasants Quest Live. Actually Janka Cave, Yeah, oh man and uh.
Speaker 1: I also have to give you guys props for two
Speaker 1: more X because I've been Yeah, so that was we
Speaker 1: did that with Disney for two years. We ended last
Speaker 1: you know, summers or so. Um, but so that was
Speaker 1: really good. That was great. We made ninety shorts little
Speaker 1: shorts for Disney. Nice. That was our that was the
Speaker 1: last five we did. Yeah, that was our most fun.
Speaker 1: We did that with our daughters. Um so, our three
Speaker 1: daughters voices and so that was Yeah, glad you liked that.
Speaker 1: That was that was certainly fun to make. That was
Speaker 1: good to know too. We we actually get we get
Speaker 1: that back so we can actually try and take give
Speaker 1: Panda practice some more life. A bunch of the stuff
Speaker 1: we made for Disney like this they owned. Sure, we
Speaker 1: can sure anything else with but Panda Bractice is one
Speaker 1: of those few that's like, especially like meging cartoons with
Speaker 1: your kids, there's nothing better than that. So maybe maybe
Speaker 1: that'll find my daughters. Yeah, she's not gonna want to
Speaker 1: do that with you anymore. Now, it's just are going
Speaker 1: to be changing it. We're not gonna be able to
Speaker 1: I recommend to my listeners if you have not seen
Speaker 1: the series two More Eggs, go to YouTube, and especially
Speaker 1: the Panda Bractice episodes. They are they are amazing. Uh
Speaker 1: and and they will make you want to play drums
Speaker 1: on people's faces. As as a local Atlanta too, did
Speaker 1: you did you get our lowest? Yes? As I was
Speaker 1: watching it, I was like, this is so clearly a
Speaker 1: beautiful homage to the Atlanta treasure of Lois rights us.
Speaker 1: I've been hearing that voice forever and uh and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not meant in any sort of insulting. Well, I
Speaker 1: hope I do it. I hope I it's respectful. I
Speaker 1: I could tell as I was listening, like this is
Speaker 1: this is someone who has genuine affection for that voice.
Speaker 1: It's not making fun of that voice. And she's also
Speaker 1: a friend of dad's garage theater. So sometimes you hear
Speaker 1: that voice if you go to see a show there,
Speaker 1: which is amazing. So again, that's the other thing I
Speaker 1: love about about watching your content is that it gives
Speaker 1: me another connection to my home, so it's always fun.
Speaker 1: And to occasionally explain to people where certain little things
Speaker 1: come from is always kind of fun too, because it
Speaker 1: gives them a chance to go down that rabbit hole.
Speaker 1: Uh the Internet was really created for. Ultimately, that's what
Speaker 1: the Internet is, right, It's just just one giant black
Speaker 1: hole of information. Um. One of the series we did
Speaker 1: for two more exits called Truncoles. It's this fake British
Speaker 1: show and so there's a part with some of the
Speaker 1: background drawings of buildings and structures in this town of
Speaker 1: Truncoles are local buildings like around Decators wonderful. Keep your
Speaker 1: eyes open for the library at Decatur High School, which
Speaker 1: is this weird sort of that's face that appears. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, I know it. Well oh man, Well, thank
Speaker 1: you guys so much for coming on tech stuff and
Speaker 1: spending this time. I really appreciate. It's been a thrill
Speaker 1: for me and anyone out there who's not familiar with
Speaker 1: with your work, they need to go out and seek
Speaker 1: it out because it's that level of of surreal absurdity
Speaker 1: that just the first time I think anyone watches anything,
Speaker 1: they might just be confused. And then and then after
Speaker 1: they watched the same thing a second time, they're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm starting to get it. And then next thing you know,
Speaker 1: they've watched the same thing fifteen times. When you say,
Speaker 1: you realize, there's nine right that you that you can
Speaker 1: watch and and in sequence or out of sequence if
Speaker 1: you prefer. You can really just jump around if you like.
Speaker 1: But it's great. I can't wait to make um more
Speaker 1: references with my friends. I really hope that we can
Speaker 1: get that giant trog door uh portrait with the cutouts
Speaker 1: over to the Georgia Renaissance Festival. I really think I'll
Speaker 1: talk to the entertainment director. I know him, so we'll
Speaker 1: see if we can go hitting somewhere like off like
Speaker 1: in some forests somewhere we have to like I know
Speaker 1: exactly where it should go. It's like it's like like listen,
Speaker 1: I know it's a big hill, and I know it
Speaker 1: looks like there's not much up there. You will find treasure, right, like,
Speaker 1: trust me. Thank you so much for joining the show.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate. Thank you. Yeah, so that's it Tex Stuff,
Speaker 1: Thank you tuning in. Well, my guests were a small
Speaker 1: piece of potato that has been sitting in Saturday Transistor
Speaker 1: radio since the nineteen seventies. Thank you for being on potato. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's that's that's nice potato, all right, and so join
Speaker 1: me next week when my guests will be apparent. It
Speaker 1: will be the same piece of potato next week. Thank
Speaker 1: you very much. Don't forget to support this podcast if
Speaker 1: you like what you're listening to next week. I hope
Speaker 1: they and maybe the sixteen dollars. I'd like to thank
Speaker 1: Mike and Matt and Strong Bad for coming on the
Speaker 1: show and telling me all about the stuff that I
Speaker 1: was enjoying years and years ago before I ever became
Speaker 1: part of the house Stuff Works family. It was a
Speaker 1: real special moment for me. And if you are not
Speaker 1: familiar with their work, I highly recommend you seek it
Speaker 1: out and find out if that brand of silliness is
Speaker 1: up your wacky avenue, because I find endless hours of
Speaker 1: enjoyment from that work. It's I can watch an old
Speaker 1: cartoon again and find new things to laugh at, and
Speaker 1: I think laughter is something that should never be in
Speaker 1: short supply, so go check that out. If you guys
Speaker 1: have suggestions for things I should cover in future episodes
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff, whether it's a topic or a guest
Speaker 1: I should have on the show, maybe a special co
Speaker 1: host for a specific topic, let me know what you think.
Speaker 1: Send me a message. The email for the show is
Speaker 1: tech Stuff at how stuff Works dot com, or you
Speaker 1: can drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter to
Speaker 1: handle of both of those is tech Stuff HSW. Remember
Speaker 1: we have an Instagram account now, so go check that out.
Speaker 1: Crystal does great work uploading tons of great photos, including
Speaker 1: pictures of stuff like interviews with famous internet comedy creators,
Speaker 1: so you should make sure you go and add that
Speaker 1: account to your Instagram account. And of course I stream
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Speaker 1: tv slash tech Stuff. Just visit that you r l.
Speaker 1: You'll see the schedule there and you can actually watch
Speaker 1: me make magic live and in person, including the parts
Speaker 1: where I mess up. So I hope to see you
Speaker 1: at that channel. You can chat with me and and
Speaker 1: I might even acknowledge your existence. I know it's on
Speaker 1: the bucket list, so go ahead and do it and
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you guys again really soon for more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics because it has
Speaker 1: to works. Dot com