Speaker 1: Hey there, it's Jonathan Strickland, and I'm here to introduce
Speaker 1: a playlist of ten episodes of my podcast tech Stuff
Speaker 1: that are all about entertainment and entertainment related fields, from
Speaker 1: video games to television series, two films to internet videos
Speaker 1: from yesteryear. So I hope you guys enjoy these episodes.
Speaker 1: You can go to the tech Stuff podcast page and
Speaker 1: subscribe to listen to all sorts of episodes about tech
Speaker 1: from all realms, and hopefully this will provide a little
Speaker 1: bit of entertainment, a little bit of education, and probably
Speaker 1: more than a few puns, because that's kind of how
Speaker 1: I roll. Enjoy this playlist. Welcome to tech Stuff, a
Speaker 1: production from my Heart Radio eight there, and welcome to
Speaker 1: tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive
Speaker 1: producer with I Heart Radio and a love of all
Speaker 1: things tech, and we thought we would bring to you
Speaker 1: a playlist of some fun episodes for Stuff to listen
Speaker 1: to while we all try to get through these trying times.
Speaker 1: And the first one I think is a real doozy.
Speaker 1: We really knock it out with a funny pair of people,
Speaker 1: the Brothers Chaps, the creators of Homestar, Runner. My former
Speaker 1: super producer Ramsey ended up landing me an interview with
Speaker 1: these two gents. They came into the studio and we
Speaker 1: had a great conversation and stick around to the very
Speaker 1: end because a special guest gave me a very special
Speaker 1: sign off for that episode. Hope you enjoy. I am
Speaker 1: overjoyed to be joined in the studio by Matt and
Speaker 1: Mike Chapman, also known as the Brothers Chaps, the creators
Speaker 1: of Homestar Runner as well as many other projects. And uh,
Speaker 1: it's a bit of a fanning out, geek out moment
Speaker 1: for me. I've been a fan of Homestar Runner since
Speaker 1: before I was working at How Stuff Works. And really
Speaker 1: it's great to have two people here who they there
Speaker 1: were preceded the age of YouTube web series because YouTube
Speaker 1: didn't exist when you guys launched Homestar Runner. And anyone
Speaker 1: who has been on the Internet for any length of
Speaker 1: time has at least encountered Homestar Runner references if they're
Speaker 1: not deeply familiar with the incredible lore and mythology, the
Speaker 1: the the deep legends of Homestar Runner that have found
Speaker 1: their way into all sorts of other mythos. I mean
Speaker 1: you're part of the Buffy verse, guys. Ye know, somehow
Speaker 1: we're responsible for the Doje meme, even though we didn't
Speaker 1: really have anything to do with that. Yeah. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: and you have a You have an incredible couple of
Speaker 1: bonus tracks on Guitar Hero two which have confounded me
Speaker 1: on numerous occasions. So I mean you're the influence just
Speaker 1: keeps on going. But for people who have never seen
Speaker 1: a Homestar Runner cartoon, they're not familiar with it. I
Speaker 1: can't wait to bother at this point, you missed the boat. Sorry, guys.
Speaker 1: Just go go to know your Meme dot com and
Speaker 1: you'll 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 Matt
Speaker 1: s ferred brower right now. It struggles with this. There's
Speaker 1: a series of animated shorts following the exploits of non humanoid,
Speaker 1: ageless UH organisms that have UH that interact with one
Speaker 1: another in meaningful and humorous ways to the delight of
Speaker 1: several of literally dozens of people. That's the elevator pitch,
Speaker 1: and that's why we just did this ourselves, that's never
Speaker 1: had any I mean, I'm starting to get get a
Speaker 1: glean of the the marketing brilliant exactly that has been
Speaker 1: part of Home Start Runners since the very beginning. So
Speaker 1: I know you guys have talked about this in other interviews,
Speaker 1: but I would love it if you could kind of
Speaker 1: walk 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: nine or something. Jamie doesn't know a lot about sports,
Speaker 1: so instead of saying all Star second basement for the Braves,
Speaker 1: Mark Lmpie, he was trying to parody this commercial and said,
Speaker 1: and now homestar running for the Braves, Mark Lampie. And
Speaker 1: we're also just like Jamie, what is the homestar runner?
Speaker 1: And so then a couple of years later, um, we
Speaker 1: kept using that phrase and decided to use it as
Speaker 1: a you know, the name of a character when we
Speaker 1: were born one day and made a story involving the
Speaker 1: homestar Runner. This is great because you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: the sort of thing. I think it's an inspirational story, honestly,
Speaker 1: because I know I've got lots of friends. We goof
Speaker 1: off and we make you know, you make a joke,
Speaker 1: and 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 an offhand, absurd reference, and then
Speaker 1: it kind of snowballs from there and it can grow.
Speaker 1: And to me, that's sort of what hopes our runner
Speaker 1: sounds like it was something that begans just sort of
Speaker 1: this one off little goof but it ended up inspiring
Speaker 1: uh a huge number of shorts. So after the the
Speaker 1: little joking about a local ad spot. And by the way,
Speaker 1: if you ever really need to mind for comedy gold,
Speaker 1: you just have to find some some great Atlanta local
Speaker 1: Atlanta UH commercials. I've seen so many amazing ones, including
Speaker 1: people I know have showed up in them, like Chris
Speaker 1: Blair of Dad's Garage character. But if you guys, UH
Speaker 1: then went on and started looking at things like a
Speaker 1: children's books and seeing how terrible children's books can be,
Speaker 1: and thought we can do a terrible children's book. Uh,
Speaker 1: and Homestar Runner had a spot in that. But beyond that,
Speaker 1: we get into the you know, late nineties, early two thousand's,
Speaker 1: and the Worldwide Web was really just starting to get
Speaker 1: some really serious traction at that point. Right, we're sits
Speaker 1: seeing kind of the the in phase of what people
Speaker 1: later on would call the web one point oh era,
Speaker 1: where everything was very static, nothing was interactive. You would
Speaker 1: probably have a web page and it wouldn't change from
Speaker 1: one month to the next, so there's no reason to
Speaker 1: ever go back. You could go once and that's it.
Speaker 1: You made a new web page. You didn't update your webpage. Right,
Speaker 1: here's my new webpage. L You started something out and
Speaker 1: you would have to have the little under construction at
Speaker 1: the very top, right, because it's never finished, except for
Speaker 1: the fact that it's always kind of finished. So you
Speaker 1: got interested in in uh, in flash animation and flash
Speaker 1: in general. And UH this is interesting to me because
Speaker 1: it gave an opportunity to have a more dynamic experience
Speaker 1: on the web, something that was totally new at that time. Today,
Speaker 1: we take it. For granted, you know, every website is
Speaker 1: dynamic in some way or another, or it has some
Speaker 1: sort of dynamic element worked into it. But at that time,
Speaker 1: it was pretty new, and the concept of creating ing
Speaker 1: uh episodic content that you could very easily see, you know,
Speaker 1: the next episode, that was new as well. There weren't
Speaker 1: a whole lot of examples of that before you get
Speaker 1: into say the mid two thousand's, when uh stuff like
Speaker 1: YouTube started to show up. So from what I understand,
Speaker 1: is it true that essentially the reason why a Homestar
Speaker 1: Runner exists as a cartoon is that it was kind
Speaker 1: of a way to uh, to practice with Flash. Like
Speaker 1: you were, you needed to animate something, so why not
Speaker 1: use this character? We're really learning web development stuff like
Speaker 1: that's why we were learning Flash and graphic design and
Speaker 1: stuff like that was like for job type stuff, and
Speaker 1: we just used the Homestar characters as like, how are
Speaker 1: we going to learn this new software Flash? And well
Speaker 1: and more so than we need to animate something, it
Speaker 1: was like we need to make something. I mean, I
Speaker 1: graduated from film school and moved back to Atlanta from Tallahassee, Florida,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, they weren't shooting Avenger just movies
Speaker 1: and or whenever that would have been. Um, they weren't
Speaker 1: really shooting much of anything other than fantastic local uh,
Speaker 1: and so I you know, there wasn't a whole lot
Speaker 1: to do, and like there was you were not ever
Speaker 1: going to try and put video on the web at
Speaker 1: that point, Like there was just I mean, lots of
Speaker 1: people still had dial upe modems. It was just not
Speaker 1: um something that you could afford the bandwidth for either. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, we just wanted to make stuff. Mike moved
Speaker 1: back from he dropped out of grad school and moved
Speaker 1: back and anytime we've always we've been together from when
Speaker 1: we were kids, we've made stuff together. And so we're like,
Speaker 1: all right, well what are we making? And Flash was
Speaker 1: away that was like, oh wait, we don't need you know,
Speaker 1: a budget, we don't need a crew, we don't need
Speaker 1: you know, to go rent to camera, we don't need
Speaker 1: film stock 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. Yeah, Mario pained for the Supernintendo, but
Speaker 1: we never u 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 homestar Runner character and his
Speaker 1: friends into a cartoon? UM? And so that was kind
Speaker 1: of what it was born out of UM and the
Speaker 1: same reason that we would, you know, leave each other
Speaker 1: dumb answering machine messages, voicemail messages. It was like, oh, wait,
Speaker 1: here's some content. I have a medium to produce something
Speaker 1: on 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 you know, remember to get some
Speaker 1: high life at the publix or whatever. So anyways, so
Speaker 1: Flash was kind of the next one of those, you know,
Speaker 1: was the next. And Flash was also easy. I mean
Speaker 1: it was easy enough for people that weren't animators to
Speaker 1: you know, stumble their way through and produce something that
Speaker 1: was you know, halfway de sente. So two guys in
Speaker 1: their apartment with like a couple of keyboards could like
Speaker 1: make something that sounded you know, as good as the like.
Speaker 1: At that time, you know, they're were these studios making
Speaker 1: flash things that had like you'd watched the credits of
Speaker 1: a thirty second flash cartoon and it had like thirty
Speaker 1: people involved, um, one for each second of the cartoon, right,
Speaker 1: And this is so interesting to me because it parallels
Speaker 1: so nicely with the rise of computer games. I did
Speaker 1: a an episode recently about Sierra Games, which I know
Speaker 1: you guys love. Yeah, I got to talk to Ken
Speaker 1: Williams 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 yeah,
Speaker 1: all of that is actually in the episode two. 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 had 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 the 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 necessarily.
Speaker 1: Um And in fact, I could argue that without those
Speaker 1: 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 hundred because that was the default,
Speaker 1: and flash and still animated at twelve frames a second.
Speaker 1: Linotations are still seventeen years later. Wow. Yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: it's interesting now because we're in an era that sort
Speaker 1: of the post flash era as well, where we're starting
Speaker 1: to 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
Speaker 1: say is uh incredibly important for you, it was necessary,
Speaker 1: which was that you created your own space where stuff
Speaker 1: would go and live, and that Homestar runners own domain. Uh.
Speaker 1: The Bernie Burns of Rooster Teeth has talked about the
Speaker 1: same thing, that you need to have a space that's
Speaker 1: your own, because if you start depending upon some else's
Speaker 1: platform and that platform changes, you're at their mercy. So
Speaker 1: you are actually ahead of the game. But only because really,
Speaker 1: because that was that was the only way to go forward, pioneers,
Speaker 1: because what else was there to do. But it ended
Speaker 1: up being again like that that inspired Bernie Burns over
Speaker 1: at rooster Teeth to do the same sort of thing
Speaker 1: he he knew he didn't want to put everything just
Speaker 1: on another platform like at that time it would have
Speaker 1: been like my Space or YouTube. Um, so it's it's
Speaker 1: something that has since gone to inspire others. So you
Speaker 1: go in, you start making this cartoon and uh, you're
Speaker 1: having a good time. At 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 thousand's 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 that was the sort of early years. And
Speaker 1: I think it was sometime in two thousand and 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. I'm gonna check
Speaker 1: back on Monday morning, that sort of snowballed into sort
Speaker 1: of where we I don't know. Yeah, and then we
Speaker 1: sort of think of the point where we realize like,
Speaker 1: oh wait, I think lots of people are watching this,
Speaker 1: and more than maybe maybe we thought. Was when for
Speaker 1: the first couple of years we were just on like
Speaker 1: a Yahoo shared hosting account. It was supposed to be
Speaker 1: like thirty bucks a month, and you've got like five
Speaker 1: gigs of bandwidth or something. And I don't know how
Speaker 1: many 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 on our account and download the like, you
Speaker 1: know whatever, just bandwidth chart thing, and we've done like
Speaker 1: thirteen terabytes of transfer or something on our thirty or
Speaker 1: five games whatever. So there's we always just pictured this
Speaker 1: UM server in the back of some Yahoo data centers,
Speaker 1: like smoking sparking in the back. Yeah, and that's when it, uh,
Speaker 1: we got shut down at some point, right, that's when
Speaker 1: where the system is down. So the site was actually
Speaker 1: down for a day or two. Yeah, um and uh,
Speaker 1: but that 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
Speaker 1: stuff 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 we 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. Um.
Speaker 1: And I think that was probably about the same time
Speaker 1: we decided to sell some merch and and and a
Speaker 1: year or so into that was when our dad, who
Speaker 1: was was a c p a UM like basically told
Speaker 1: his too screw up artists sons to quit their jobs.
Speaker 1: He was like, this is dumb. You quit your jobs
Speaker 1: and make these cartoons for living, would you? Which is
Speaker 1: we've always feel like it's the probably the best moment
Speaker 1: you could you could ask for from a father's son.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, when you got a churm public accountant saying hey, guys, no,
Speaker 1: you know that that regular steady gig. You have quit it?
Speaker 1: What that's amazing? Make cartoons with your brother in the basement,
Speaker 1: good griefs. It's like, yeah, dream come true moment right there,
Speaker 1: Tons and tons of shorts that you guys have made,
Speaker 1: lots of wonderful characters, not to mention all the alternate
Speaker 1: versions of those characters. It was always the most fun
Speaker 1: was to sort of world build and do other Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was enjoyed. I love the old timey ones. Always
Speaker 1: like people that like, that's that's my favorite too. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a sort of polarizing it's no to me. It's
Speaker 1: just the level of absurdity coupled with the Transatlantic accent
Speaker 1: my favorite. There's a there's a video that that we
Speaker 1: did here and how stuff works about the Transatlantic accent.
Speaker 1: They got me to be the one to do it,
Speaker 1: and I have to say, like, there's certain certain influences
Speaker 1: that went into the absolute nonsense that I was spouting
Speaker 1: off randomly at the end of the video, just to
Speaker 1: kind of give examples of trans Atlantic accent and the
Speaker 1: old timey homestar runner ones were way up there. It's like,
Speaker 1: I know what I'm saying has no meaning, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. So and also it's just fun to do
Speaker 1: until somebody really tells you to knock it off, and
Speaker 1: then that it's actually fun to do for about another
Speaker 1: five minutes. Yeah, you gotta Yeah, you gotta get past
Speaker 1: that point. Right. It's the whole thing where you you
Speaker 1: tell a joke until it stops being funny, and you
Speaker 1: keep telling it gets funny again. Yeah, all human repetition
Speaker 1: got louder to remember the I always think of the
Speaker 1: sideshow Bob stepping on the Rakes and the Simpsons. It's
Speaker 1: like it's like, wait, he's gonna do it again. It's
Speaker 1: like happened so many times that it's like, whoa, we
Speaker 1: did it one more time. And 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 anythings that just stand out in particular in
Speaker 1: your in your minds as things like when you came
Speaker 1: 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 me?
Speaker 1: And it made me. 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 trog 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 one eighteen What's virus or 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 his computer. But I remember that was one
Speaker 1: where we stayed up all night we did. Uh. Is
Speaker 1: 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 had this black
Speaker 1: border around it. But then at some point in it
Speaker 1: that like border moves and so they're like kind of
Speaker 1: messes with your head in the cartoon. And then we
Speaker 1: there's a part where pop up ads started showing up
Speaker 1: in the cartoon and then we made a real pop
Speaker 1: up ad like we did some like I forget what
Speaker 1: it was action script like made one cap and in
Speaker 1: your browser too, So this broke broke the fourth wall,
Speaker 1: you know, outside of your normal computer realm. And um,
Speaker 1: I just remember finishing that one up, like I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure we stayed up all night for that one and uh.
Speaker 1: And then the next day, Um, we went to what
Speaker 1: Steak and Shake because I want we would always like
Speaker 1: we'd like finish it up and be like, yeah, that's good,
Speaker 1: it's kind of good feeling. And we didn't even like
Speaker 1: go look because 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 a live journal page or something like. There
Speaker 1: weren't just like message boards, uh or comments sections like
Speaker 1: there are now. But um, I don't even I think
Speaker 1: we didn't even look at like anything. We're just like
Speaker 1: we just they're all gonna love it this. Everybody's gonna
Speaker 1: love this one, and we love this one. We had
Speaker 1: a really good time with it. Let's go get say
Speaker 1: and shake. I don't know that sort of moment where
Speaker 1: you're like confident enough in yourself to be like I
Speaker 1: think I think we did a home run here, and
Speaker 1: then you know, and then you went back and it
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I think people did like it. Like
Speaker 1: I remember always thinking along those lines when you would
Speaker 1: make a good one, it was like, okay, we did
Speaker 1: a good when people liked it, and then that my
Speaker 1: thinking was that, okay, that just buys us three or
Speaker 1: four bad ones, and now the full gift three or
Speaker 1: four bad ones every game when you do it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: I've got a little more currency to mess up. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, that also brings me. There was a recent
Speaker 1: piece I read that was interesting. It was about um uh,
Speaker 1: people who are in the creative industry. They were specifically
Speaker 1: focusing on YouTubers, but to me, it really could be
Speaker 1: anyone from twitch streamers to podcasters to cartoonists, really any
Speaker 1: any creative endeavor, especially a creative endeavor where you're trying
Speaker 1: to deliver consistent um content on on like a schedule,
Speaker 1: that one of the dangers is always this this fear
Speaker 1: of burn. Now that's not just it's not just the
Speaker 1: idea of writer's block, which is something that we all
Speaker 1: deal with at one time or another where you're just
Speaker 1: you're staring at the empty page and there's just nothing
Speaker 1: coming to you. But just that that pressure of delivering,
Speaker 1: especially when you've built up a reputation of certain kind
Speaker 1: of material. Was that ever anything that was threatening you
Speaker 1: guys while you were working on it. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it definitely made things. You know, early on we made
Speaker 1: cartoons because they were fun, and then you know, there
Speaker 1: was definitely a period where Saturday Sunday came around and
Speaker 1: we're like, we don't have no ideas for the strong
Speaker 1: bad email we have to make one, and then you
Speaker 1: just kind of have to power through. Yeah, um, which
Speaker 1: is it wasn't really that big of a deal. But
Speaker 1: if it wasn't for the expectation that we're there, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't have done it, you know. Yeah. I mean it's
Speaker 1: tough when you're trying, when your goal is to entertain
Speaker 1: someone and it feels like you know you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to push through it. Then that adds that extra layer, right,
Speaker 1: like you're like, it's not just that I need to
Speaker 1: do it, I need to do it and make someone
Speaker 1: laugh and I'm not having I don't want to be
Speaker 1: doing yeah yeah, um. But I mean that's I think
Speaker 1: working in that the way we worked where most of
Speaker 1: the stuff we did we made in the forty eight
Speaker 1: hours or so before it was you know, thrown out
Speaker 1: into the world. You know, we made most everything from
Speaker 1: Friday to Sunday. Um, So it was a double edged short.
Speaker 1: I mean sometimes it was terrible, you know, probably the
Speaker 1: results were terrible, But other times you use that same
Speaker 1: energy and it's like if you sit there for two
Speaker 1: weeks and overthink things, you're you're going to talk yourself
Speaker 1: out of something that's some dumb idea that you know
Speaker 1: could have you know, droped door for instance, is probably
Speaker 1: something that you think about it long. And I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe we can just maybe he shouldn't
Speaker 1: have this beefy arm sticking out his BacT that when
Speaker 1: you cut, you know, fifteen minutes before you're gonna put
Speaker 1: it live. Just just leave it in. Let's do it.
Speaker 1: It's a design choice at this point. Uh. We also
Speaker 1: had the I feel like we had the luxury of
Speaker 1: being able to do kind of whatever we wanted. And
Speaker 1: so even if there were those times where we were
Speaker 1: like out of ideas for a strong at email or something,
Speaker 1: that's when we'd be like, well, let's do an old
Speaker 1: time what do we want to do. Let's do an
Speaker 1: old timy cartoon this week. Let's do uh. You know,
Speaker 1: we invented like eighties hair metal band for the Homestar Universe.
Speaker 1: We invented a like indie rock band because that's kind
Speaker 1: of where we were in high school and college, and
Speaker 1: so it's just sort of like, I just want to
Speaker 1: make it like indie rock song this week. And I
Speaker 1: was like, all right, let's invent a band and put
Speaker 1: it in a cartoon. And then 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: to anybody and a lot of thing, you know, especially
Speaker 1: if it wasn't in the form of a strong, bad email.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there were fans that were disappointed, but it
Speaker 1: was like, all right, well, that's what you gotta put
Speaker 1: up with. For like I I didn't get burned out
Speaker 1: and hated the thing that you like that I do
Speaker 1: because I got like re energized by taking a little
Speaker 1: flight of fancy or whatever and doing something kind of
Speaker 1: um out of our normal wheelhouse or whatever. Um, And
Speaker 1: so I think that we would um employ that I
Speaker 1: think a good bit too kind of helped stave off
Speaker 1: any sort of burnout where it was just like, all right,
Speaker 1: I should shut up because like, not only do I
Speaker 1: get to make cartoons for a living, but I got
Speaker 1: to like blow off making cartoons and go, do you know,
Speaker 1: makeup mapa like eighties hair metal song this week? So
Speaker 1: well yeah, and you guys also had stuff on the
Speaker 1: site that went beyond like you like. The games are
Speaker 1: a good example. There were various interactive elements on the
Speaker 1: website besides games and little sound boards and things like that.
Speaker 1: You had the live action Troug Door uh trailer, which
Speaker 1: is one of my favorites, and partly because I know
Speaker 1: some of the people were what I was watching and
Speaker 1: I was like, see so fun and Uh, that's the
Speaker 1: beauty of living in Atlanta. And you guys got to
Speaker 1: work with some great Atlanta talent, which I imagine is
Speaker 1: is just exploding at this point because we've got so
Speaker 1: many things happening in Atlanta. I'm sure that opens up
Speaker 1: a lot of different opportunities as well, um, which is fantastic.
Speaker 1: But I also want to thank you guys for this
Speaker 1: idea of being able to branch out and try different
Speaker 1: things and and open up different universes, because I like
Speaker 1: to imagine that there was one of those weeks where
Speaker 1: we got blessed with Teen Girl Squad, which is probably
Speaker 1: my favorite of all of the variations that have come out.
Speaker 1: It's one my wife and I still quote consistently, so
Speaker 1: we're 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 the group 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, and we didn't want we sort of actively
Speaker 1: 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 and showing
Speaker 1: you it's just like any other you know, Google analytics
Speaker 1: thing where you can see who is watching it right
Speaker 1: now and if they and you know, if they commented.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know exactly who did what comment.
Speaker 1: You know, they're interacting with the comments or they liked
Speaker 1: or they did the thumbs down or whatever, or the
Speaker 1: moment they stopped watching the yeah yeah, yeah. And so
Speaker 1: he said, it was like, it's like he's immediately watching
Speaker 1: this like focus group, but this is not He didn't
Speaker 1: he's not testing this. This is this guy just made
Speaker 1: this thing and uploaded into the world and he's having
Speaker 1: to like watch this judgment happen like user and time.
Speaker 1: And I was just like, how can you do that?
Speaker 1: He's like, I know it's terrifying, but I can't, like
Speaker 1: I can't look away. Like I was like embraved as
Speaker 1: part of the process, and I'm happy that we didn't
Speaker 1: even we were just for a long time. It was um,
Speaker 1: I mean it was this will sound like a humble
Speaker 1: brag or whatever, but it was like we actually were
Speaker 1: doing crazy enough amounts of traffic that are I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was just that our web hosting guy
Speaker 1: was like lazy and didn't want to like compile these logs.
Speaker 1: So we can 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 have 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 if
Speaker 1: like it kind of helps inform, uh, those decisions now
Speaker 1: where I don't think we'll be a good bye, 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
Speaker 1: like I'm glad that I'm not sweating that even if
Speaker 1: it's not sure, it's not like crushing if we put
Speaker 1: up a new cartoon and it doesn't hit well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like again, going back to the example of
Speaker 1: not not putting all your eggs in one basket. With
Speaker 1: the YouTube example, we've just seen YouTube change their policies
Speaker 1: that in my mind, really hurt people who who specialize
Speaker 1: in short form content because a lot of the metrics
Speaker 1: that they're using is the number of collective hours watched
Speaker 1: per given amount of time, like per month or whatever.
Speaker 1: And obviously, if you're producing short form content, you need
Speaker 1: to have way more people watching your stuff to get
Speaker 1: that collective number of hours up. And it's not it's
Speaker 1: not a comment on the quality of the content so
Speaker 1: much is just the quantity of it, which seems kind
Speaker 1: of backwards to me, and it's an if you just
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that that's I knew there was a
Speaker 1: change recently. Yeah, it was something along the lines of life.
Speaker 1: I think. It's like, in order to even be considered
Speaker 1: for monetization at this point, your videos need to have
Speaker 1: achieved something like four thousand hours worth of viewing time,
Speaker 1: which obviously, if you're doing short form and even if
Speaker 1: you have an engaged, dedicated audience, you've got to write
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of different episodes or or instances in
Speaker 1: or to achieve that. Whereas if you are someone who
Speaker 1: maybe you you record a two hour or three hour
Speaker 1: gaming session and you upload it and there's you know,
Speaker 1: there's a proven audience for that content because it's three hours,
Speaker 1: and because a lot of those people will watch the
Speaker 1: entire three hours of material. You rack those hours video
Speaker 1: when you're set, no right, just watch it yourself. It's
Speaker 1: just wow. Like I remember when the Little black Spot
Speaker 1: was an orange and uh you now here we are
Speaker 1: and then is just desiccated into nothing. Um, this isn't good,
Speaker 1: but it's consistent. Uh yeah, it's it's it's well again.
Speaker 1: A great reason why why going into any one platform
Speaker 1: is a bit of a you know, a danger, because
Speaker 1: you might you might end up having a policy change
Speaker 1: that you have no control over. And it's not that
Speaker 1: your stuff isn't great or that it doesn't have an audience.
Speaker 1: It's just that because the rules changed above you, you
Speaker 1: suddenly have a door closed in your face, which seems
Speaker 1: kind of unfair for anyone who's not like a big
Speaker 1: time content creator like one of the one of the
Speaker 1: superstars um and obviously YouTube has gone through numerous changes
Speaker 1: over it's it's history. I did a three part series
Speaker 1: about YouTube recently and really talked about how it's changed dramatically.
Speaker 1: So there's no guarantee that's going to keep that policy.
Speaker 1: Maybe if there's enough resistance, will change it again, but
Speaker 1: it's one that draws concerned from people who maybe they
Speaker 1: want to get a start, They have an idea and
Speaker 1: they want to indulge in that idea and they hope
Speaker 1: that it brings delight to others and maybe one day
Speaker 1: they can make a living out of it. But it's it.
Speaker 1: Not only is discovery difficult now, but when the rules
Speaker 1: change like that, it's difficult to even get to the
Speaker 1: point where you can start monetizing it. You guys, however,
Speaker 1: had this monetized your your stuff through mostly through merchandise
Speaker 1: and without advertising. Uh. That was also interesting to me
Speaker 1: because like I own some Homestar Runner stuff, but it
Speaker 1: was the sort of thing that I went and searched
Speaker 1: for as opposed to you know, watching a cartoon where
Speaker 1: halfway through it tells me, hey, by the way, if
Speaker 1: you want a shirt that has that funny thing that's
Speaker 1: strong bad just said on it you need to click
Speaker 1: this leek here or even at the end where it
Speaker 1: wouldn't have really been obtrusive in anyway. Our dad always
Speaker 1: wanted us to do that, and we were always to
Speaker 1: our street cred was valuable. Yes, uh, kind of shot
Speaker 1: ourselves in the pot. We're that now amazed that people
Speaker 1: found because it's almost like the store was this easter
Speaker 1: egg that you had if you really searched for home
Speaker 1: Star shirt, you could you could find a bit like
Speaker 1: we were very reluctant to well, it's funny. In like
Speaker 1: two thousand one or two, Uh, we were approached by
Speaker 1: someone from Hot Topic and this wasn't like they walked
Speaker 1: up to us was like a contract for like, hey,
Speaker 1: you want to join you know, your your characters into
Speaker 1: T shirts and make millions of dollars. But they weren't
Speaker 1: starting a conversation that could have led to any you know,
Speaker 1: any different variation of that scenario, and we just wanted nothing,
Speaker 1: you know, we didn't want to do it, and we
Speaker 1: we kind of pitched him like, oh what if we
Speaker 1: did these other kind of weirder like jokes from our
Speaker 1: website that weren't like the characters like they want to
Speaker 1: do Team Girl squad shirts and this other stuff, and
Speaker 1: and we ultimately said no. And I forget who I
Speaker 1: was talking to, but it was like a small not
Speaker 1: like an audience I was talking to, but there's a
Speaker 1: lot younger kids, and I like I said it thinking that. Uh.
Speaker 1: I was like yeah, then we got approached by hot
Speaker 1: topic and like, you know, so of course we said
Speaker 1: no to that. And then they were all just like
Speaker 1: stared at me, and it's like, why did you say
Speaker 1: no to that? And I was like it was hot
Speaker 1: hopping topic came to us. I was like you, like
Speaker 1: that would have just killed us instantly, Like it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe a bunch of kids would have bought stuff and whatever,
Speaker 1: and they're like yeah, and you would have like made
Speaker 1: a million dollars. Well I don't know that, and uh
Speaker 1: and then I probably would have hated what I did
Speaker 1: after that. And they're just like that was a bad decision,
Speaker 1: made a bad decision, and you should have put your
Speaker 1: stuff in hot topics. Good to have life life lessons.
Speaker 1: It comes. I don't know, I get. I like to
Speaker 1: think that the Homestar Runner is therefore responsible for they
Speaker 1: shut up and take my money. Mean, but but I
Speaker 1: mean that I appreciate that too, because again, it was
Speaker 1: that sort of uh philosophy, that sort of while it
Speaker 1: wasn't something that was being overtly stated, it was something
Speaker 1: that a lot of fans appreciated, 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's no advertising, you know, there
Speaker 1: was there was 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. We've had people tell us like, yeah,
Speaker 1: about ten homestar ounerships. I never were the second one.
Speaker 1: I didn't need anymore and 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. 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: What I want to I just don't need another homest 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: of mine Stock. 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, and we so
Speaker 1: well so quickly focus on that negative side. And it's
Speaker 1: good 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 flock to it and people
Speaker 1: want to supp ard it. And you guys have also
Speaker 1: you know, I mentioned you know, you were incorporated into
Speaker 1: the Buffy verse in an episode. Um, you've got You've
Speaker 1: had lots of references in various types of pop culture.
Speaker 1: What was that like seeing the thing that you had
Speaker 1: created start to get referenced by by other like like
Speaker 1: pop culture icons, everything from and they might be giants,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, making music for you And that
Speaker 1: one was pretty amazing because I was we're huge. They
Speaker 1: might be giant fans, giants fans growing up. So when
Speaker 1: they emailed us, that was pretty mind blowing. Yeah, um
Speaker 1: yeah we heard from the Buffy thing I think was
Speaker 1: like somebody at Fox was like, hey don't see us.
Speaker 1: We they don't like, nobody here knows what you guys are,
Speaker 1: but don't we We put a Drogda reference in this
Speaker 1: upcoming episode. Josh is a big fan and they sent
Speaker 1: us through it was it was it an entertainment weekly.
Speaker 1: There was some picture that they referenced. It was you
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: It 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, Um, at that time
Speaker 1: when it was a friend of ours worked with Damon
Speaker 1: lindall Off and said that he it was like me
Speaker 1: and Josh Sweden would get in trouble. I was supposed
Speaker 1: to be writing Lost episodes and we'd be closing strong
Speaker 1: band to each other something. I was like, holy crap,
Speaker 1: I was watching when you were wasting time watching what
Speaker 1: I was making. That's amazing. Um. So that kind of
Speaker 1: stuff has been super cool. What was the show those
Speaker 1: that show The Magicians that's on now? This was It
Speaker 1: was nice because it felt like a little a nice
Speaker 1: little like a book end to the like Buffy thing
Speaker 1: where I guess they referenced Trong Door and uh, I
Speaker 1: think it's the season two finale or something, and I
Speaker 1: asked to haven't even seen it. I just people everybody
Speaker 1: told me what the similartle clips of it or whatever,
Speaker 1: which that's always so it's it's always cool to see
Speaker 1: that stuff. Yeah, And then I actually led to other
Speaker 1: things like collaborations where you guys did uh the animations
Speaker 1: for um uh for They Might Be Giants video, which
Speaker 1: is fantastic, and and you've appeared on well, yeah, we've
Speaker 1: done several collaborations with them, the characters have appeared on
Speaker 1: stage where they might be chiants because I've been to
Speaker 1: some of those shows and the variety of playoffs, and
Speaker 1: that was always a joy, uh to the point where
Speaker 1: you I would imagine that was part of the inspiration
Speaker 1: for them to come up out with their band, the
Speaker 1: Them band, the Sock Puppets they where they would wow
Speaker 1: 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 go through, you're you're doing
Speaker 1: the the series. It's got you know, it's got some
Speaker 1: some not just US fan support, but it's also blossoming
Speaker 1: in various areas of pop culture. We see trog Door
Speaker 1: get into Guitar Hero two, which is still another amazing
Speaker 1: thing when that when I found out that that was
Speaker 1: a bonus track, I was so thrilled immediately. I was like,
Speaker 1: this is my quest to master Door. That's solo, by
Speaker 1: the way, impossible, and you want to know something, this
Speaker 1: is what We didn't find this out until later, or
Speaker 1: 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 on live and so the we play with these
Speaker 1: guys that are in the spand yacht rock in another
Speaker 1: band called Saved by the band Um and are uh
Speaker 1: they learned the song and um And so our friend
Speaker 1: that does that plays guitar for us, Chris Harris, and
Speaker 1: he learned the song. He's like, those really knows this stuff.
Speaker 1: As far as like squeally wanky guitar. It's all like,
Speaker 1: he's that's amazing. You can do the tapping, he can
Speaker 1: do all this stuff and it's incredible. And so he
Speaker 1: learned trog door and then we came in a practice
Speaker 1: and he played it and he 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. It
Speaker 1: was just like playing four notes. Yeah, and he was like,
Speaker 1: wait what and he was like, yeah, no one can
Speaker 1: play that fast. I was like, oh, I learned it,
Speaker 1: so yeah. But so it didn't surprise me when I
Speaker 1: learned that. I think we kind of told the harmonics
Speaker 1: people that at the time and they're like, that's fine,
Speaker 1: we'll just we're making the guitar so that finastic and
Speaker 1: if they're and I've watched YouTube videos of people who
Speaker 1: have done the perfect run on that on the hardest setting,
Speaker 1: and it's just mind blowing. I can't I can't even
Speaker 1: I can't see as fast as they're playing, which is
Speaker 1: the craziest thing. But then we get up to about
Speaker 1: and it was then when you guys were starting to
Speaker 1: get other opportunities that that also, we're pulling you away
Speaker 1: from Home Star. And as I understand it, it it was
Speaker 1: getting to a situation where it wasn't that you wanted
Speaker 1: to 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 other things come up, and and
Speaker 1: 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. But I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, they're like, oh yeah, so they're Disney
Speaker 1: thing didn't work out and Tickelodean didn't work out, and
Speaker 1: that like Neo 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
Speaker 1: that like we'd had babies and so we're gonna take
Speaker 1: some time off. That's kind of the only time Mike
Speaker 1: and I ever sort of inserted our like Creator lives
Speaker 1: and show the fans heads. I mean, we always intentionally
Speaker 1: aside from some like fake things on a DVD where
Speaker 1: we're like spoofing how we make things, Um, we wanted
Speaker 1: us to be separate from it. We never wanted to
Speaker 1: have the like Creator blog side of it, and definitely
Speaker 1: not the like the way that most of the like
Speaker 1: YouTube personalities are like, even if their content is not that,
Speaker 1: they're like always after the facts like Hey, I'm the
Speaker 1: star of the YouTube thing you just watched. Remember to
Speaker 1: go to the store and buy the new merch and
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. It's always just like we didn't want
Speaker 1: to be the face of any of it, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: So it felt weird to then have that conversation and
Speaker 1: after like never really talking to the fans as Mike
Speaker 1: and Matt m at least through the website, to like
Speaker 1: give a weird half as explanation of like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: we don't know. That was that, you know, And then
Speaker 1: that just felt like I would be super unsatisfied if
Speaker 1: I just gotta we don't know what's going on from
Speaker 1: the creator of my thing that I liked, so I
Speaker 1: don't know. We always apologize I we didn't handle it right,
Speaker 1: we didn't know how to handle it right, and we
Speaker 1: are like, there was so funny. The day before we
Speaker 1: put up the first cartoon we made in Forever, which
Speaker 1: was this April Fool's cartoon in UM, I got a
Speaker 1: somebody found my like personal email address a fan. It
Speaker 1: sent this like pages long thing like tearing us apart
Speaker 1: and saying that it's like radio silent, yeah, and for
Speaker 1: and just being like, here's this what this meant to me?
Speaker 1: Here like every week like it was. It was like
Speaker 1: the first half was like super awesome fan, in the
Speaker 1: second half was like and here's why I hate you.
Speaker 1: Will never support anything you've ever done ever again. And
Speaker 1: like literally we're finishing up this cartoon to sell, like
Speaker 1: to upload it like midnight. I get this at like
Speaker 1: I don't know, seven pm the day before, and I
Speaker 1: think I just I forget. I think I wrote back
Speaker 1: and I just said like, hey, I'm so sorry, thanks
Speaker 1: for being a fan, and just kept it vague and
Speaker 1: sort of hoping that then now maybe that cartoon would happen,
Speaker 1: that they would be like, wait, they listen to a
Speaker 1: lot of amazing turn haf an hour, they made this cartoon.
Speaker 1: Um so yeah, so that was the main reason we
Speaker 1: never we just the explanation was never like exciting enough
Speaker 1: to like to like feel like to like peel behind
Speaker 1: the curtain and be like, hey, look behind here, we're
Speaker 1: making a new project, because none of those projects ever
Speaker 1: really happened. Um so yeah, Well, oh sorry, I was
Speaker 1: gonna say we actually made a strong bad sort of
Speaker 1: addressing talking to the fans about it. I forget when
Speaker 1: that was. That was maybe six months or so after
Speaker 1: we had stopped doing stuff and we made this thing
Speaker 1: and then never ended up putting it up because we're
Speaker 1: just like, this is weird. We showed it one time
Speaker 1: at a conference we were at last year. I went
Speaker 1: over kind of weird. Yeah, I think we made the
Speaker 1: rand call. I think I think my favorite. I'm also
Speaker 1: fortunate in that because Lincoln live in Atlanta. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm a frequent patron of Dad's Garage Theater, so I
Speaker 1: actually got to see the special Strong Bad Email Garage
Speaker 1: Theater because I've I've been supporting them since two thousands,
Speaker 1: so I was there at their old theater and when
Speaker 1: they 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 phenomenally.
Speaker 1: Showed that the Fox Theater that a special They had
Speaker 1: a special event, a special fundraiser at the Fox Theater
Speaker 1: and it was kind of a variety show of giving
Speaker 1: an example of the sort of material that they would do.
Speaker 1: And they showed the Strong Bad Special Email to Dad's
Speaker 1: garage and hearing the Fox Theater erupt an applause at
Speaker 1: a strong Bad Email was something really special. I think
Speaker 1: that was the second cartoon. I think that was the
Speaker 1: next thing we made after that April Fools in two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen was that, yeah, strong Bad Email. So it
Speaker 1: had been four or five years since we had made
Speaker 1: a strong Bad Email. Was the reaction to that that
Speaker 1: April first, two thousand and fourteen video. Was that something
Speaker 1: that UH was really gratifying for you guys, because I know,
Speaker 1: at least in my own personal circle of friends, when
Speaker 1: people found out that there was a new homestar 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 imagine 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? Yeah, it has gotten
Speaker 1: I think Gizmoto and some of the blogs and you
Speaker 1: know linked 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 out Homestar runnerst com
Speaker 1: entered this u r L into their um, their 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, you know,
Speaker 1: if anyone would really see it, and then if if
Speaker 1: then 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 h
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
Speaker 1: again and that like it was like, oh, it seems
Speaker 1: like people don't hate us, 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 should a least
Speaker 1: start doing stuff as you know often as we can, um,
Speaker 1: between whatever other gig we were doing. Yeah, so since then,
Speaker 1: we've been doing Home Star stuff, you know, every few
Speaker 1: months or depending on what the other stuff we're working
Speaker 1: on is. So sure, So what other stuff are you
Speaker 1: working on? Since? Uh, you know, we know that Homestar
Speaker 1: Runner is in good hands. It's going to continue coming
Speaker 1: out and and keeping Hope alive so that when we
Speaker 1: do that that jumped Home Star Runner, there's a there's
Speaker 1: a good chance there's gonna be something new there. But
Speaker 1: what else are you guys working on? Um, we're just
Speaker 1: talking to For the first time ever, we've been talking
Speaker 1: with adults whom locally here, which is and so we'll see.
Speaker 1: We have no idea if that will go anywhere or not,
Speaker 1: but we uh, we've known people that have worked on
Speaker 1: shows there. We've known you know, creators or shows there
Speaker 1: and stuff before, but it never actually spoken with them.
Speaker 1: And it's actually it's it's great because there's a hilarious
Speaker 1: I think it's been debunked enough now but for a
Speaker 1: very long time, if we would ever talk to people,
Speaker 1: and not that we do so many interviews, but it
Speaker 1: would come up to be like I heard that you
Speaker 1: guys stormed out of an Adult Swim meeting and said
Speaker 1: to them and you're like, no, I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know there was ever an overture either way. And we
Speaker 1: love that. We love that channel and you probably heard
Speaker 1: the hot topic story. Yeah 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 and like, oh,
Speaker 1: you guys must you know, work with cartoon networking Adult
Speaker 1: Swim And it's like, now we do stuff with this
Speaker 1: needy um. But so that's exciting. So we'll see where
Speaker 1: that goes, um and uh and what else. And let's
Speaker 1: just we haven't been doing other homestar stuff. You have
Speaker 1: a couple of homestar like sort of top secret e
Speaker 1: things that will be revealing soon that will be exciting
Speaker 1: that we've been spending a lot of that take a
Speaker 1: lot of sort of build up time, secret time, secret time.
Speaker 1: Fantastic um And I've been um speaking of Sierra Games.
Speaker 1: There's a park down at the end of my street,
Speaker 1: and so I've been making King's Quest style graphics of
Speaker 1: a couple of little parts of the park a waterfall,
Speaker 1: and so I made this little King's Quest looking waterfall.
Speaker 1: Oh Man, Roy Roy Roy Moss Senior Memorial Garden. It's
Speaker 1: called the garden, and it is not a garden. Yeah,
Speaker 1: runoff retention. I guess that doesn't have quite the same
Speaker 1: ring to it. But it's actually it's featured. It's heavily
Speaker 1: featured in The Peasants Quest Live actually Janka Cave. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh man and uh. I also have to give you
Speaker 1: guys props for two more eggs because I've been Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that was we did that with Disney for two years.
Speaker 1: We ended last you know summers or so. Um, but
Speaker 1: so that was really good. That was great. We made
Speaker 1: ninety shorts little shorts for Disney. Nice. That was our
Speaker 1: That was the last five we did. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: our most fun. We did that with our daughters. Um
Speaker 1: so our three daughters, so good voices and so that
Speaker 1: was yeah, glad you liked that. That was yeah, that
Speaker 1: one was certainly fun to make. That was good to
Speaker 1: know too. We we actually get we get that back
Speaker 1: so we can actually try and take give Panda practice
Speaker 1: some more life. A bunch of the stuff we made
Speaker 1: for Disney, like this day owned. Sure we can show
Speaker 1: anything else with but Panda Bractice is one of those
Speaker 1: few that's like, especially like Megan cartoons with your kids,
Speaker 1: there's nothing better than that. So maybe maybe that'll find life.
Speaker 1: My daughter's yeah, she's not gonna want to do that
Speaker 1: with you anymore. Now. It's just I am were 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 a local Atlanta too, did you
Speaker 1: did you get our lowest Yes? Yes. As I always
Speaker 1: watching it, I was like, this is so clearly a
Speaker 1: beautiful homage to the Atlanta try is your lowest rights is?
Speaker 1: Of course I've been hearing that voice forever and uh
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's not meant in any sort of insulting. Well,
Speaker 1: I hope I do it. I hope 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: that uh, the Internet was really created for. Ultimately, that's
Speaker 1: what the Internet is, right, It's just just one giant
Speaker 1: black hole of information. Um. One of the series we
Speaker 1: did for two more ex is called Truncles. It's it's
Speaker 1: fake British show, and so there's a part with some
Speaker 1: of the background drawings of buildings and structures in this
Speaker 1: town of Trunkles are local buildings like around Decators wonderful.
Speaker 1: Keep your eyes open for the library at Decatur High School,
Speaker 1: which is this weird sort of that's face. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: I know it. Well. Oh man, Well, thank you guys
Speaker 1: so much for coming on tech stuff and spending this time.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate. It's been a thrill for me and
Speaker 1: anyone out there who's not familiar with with your work,
Speaker 1: they need to go out and seek it out, because
Speaker 1: it's that level of of surreal absurdity that just the
Speaker 1: first time I think anyone watches anything, they might just
Speaker 1: be confused. And then and then after they watched the
Speaker 1: same thing a second time, they're like, Okay, I'm starting
Speaker 1: to get it. And then next thing you know, they've
Speaker 1: watched the same thing fifteen times, and you say, you realize,
Speaker 1: there's nine of the 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 think I'll talk
Speaker 1: to the entertainment director. I know him, so we'll see
Speaker 1: if we can get hitting somewhere like off like in
Speaker 1: some forest somewhere. We have to like I know exactly
Speaker 1: 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,
Speaker 1: right like, trust me. Thank you so much for joining
Speaker 1: the show. I really appreciate. Thank you. Yeah, so that's
Speaker 1: it for this episode of text stuff. Thank you for
Speaker 1: tuning in where my guests were a small piece of
Speaker 1: potato that has been sitting inside transistor radio since the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies. Thank you for being on potato. Yes, that's
Speaker 1: that's that's nice potato, all right, and so join me
Speaker 1: next week when my guests or me say, apparently it
Speaker 1: will be that same piece of potato next week. Thank
Speaker 1: you very much. Don't forget to support this podcast if
Speaker 1: you're like what you're listening to next week, I hope
Speaker 1: and maybe the sixteen that was an interview with the
Speaker 1: creators of Homestar Runner. And we're gonna move right on along.
Speaker 1: So if you want to keep listening to the playlist,
Speaker 1: We've got a lot more coming and let me know
Speaker 1: what you guys think if there are things you would
Speaker 1: like me to cover as we go through all this.
Speaker 1: I've got a big series about the PlayStation coming up soon.
Speaker 1: But if there are any other topics you would like
Speaker 1: me to cover, reach out on Facebook or Twitter, the
Speaker 1: handle for both his Tech Stuff HSW and I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.