Today is the birthday of a web series that changed the web. Homestarrunner.com launched January 1st 2000, rising from the ashes of Y2K Paranoia to help set the standard for an internet that didn't have YouTube yet. While now considered by most to be little more than a vessel for memes such as "Trogdor the Burninator" and the origin of the word "Doge", this classic web series does have a very strong cast of “dumb animal characters” and over 30 hours of animation filled with the surreal antics of a town of lively flash assets.
The biggest feature on the website, taking up over half of the full series runtime, is Strong Bad Email.
Starring what was supposed to be the site's main antagonist, Strong Bad, the series features SB answering actual emails sent in by the website's viewers. The series ran for 200 episodes before the website lost momentum as the series creators got busy with industry work and took a 4 year hiatus. Today the website lives on a cycle of yearly Halloween cartoons and the occasional April Fools cartoon. I stayed up till three am writing an article about the Halloween toon last year because I was so excited. I could go on about this series but I won't, not today, but can't recommend the series enough.
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