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[[Sbemailiarized!]] "What separates the sbemails from the other cartoons? Not all that much!"
2009 remarks on the sbemail pause... Matt: "200 was just a nice round number to take a break from it and do other stuff on the website. Not that it starts to get old, but if we never did another one I'd be okay with it." [[OMG Nintendo Interview - 12 May 2009]] Mike: "The content is more varied now. Before, at least 60% to 70% of the updates were Strong Bad Emails, but now it's sort of a mixed bag. It's a little more fun for us." [https://www.awn.com/animationworld/catching-homestar-runner]
2009 remarks on the sbemail pause... Matt: "200 was just a nice round number to take a break from it and do other stuff on the website. Not that it starts to get old, but if we never did another one I'd be okay with it." [[OMG Nintendo Interview - 12 May 2009]] Mike: "The content is more varied now. Before, at least 60% to 70% of the updates were Strong Bad Emails, but now it's sort of a mixed bag. It's a little more fun for us." [https://www.awn.com/animationworld/catching-homestar-runner]

Revision as of 00:48, 14 January 2025

Contents

Strong Bad Email history and production insight

Prehistory

See also Strong Bad#Character Design and Conception

Strong Bad is one of the oldest Homestar Runner characters, created alongside the title character for The Homestar Runner Enters the Strongest Man in the World Contest in 1996. Despite — or perhaps because of — his role as an antagonist in early works, he swiftly became a fan favorite and breakout character. The Brothers Chaps were realizing that Strong Bad had become "the most interesting" character as early as the release of A Jumping Jack Contest in 2000;[1] also around this time, toons like A Jorb Well Done and Marzipan's Answering Machine began to focus less on Homestar entering competitions which allowed for the cast to be explored in new directions.[2]

2001: The first sbemails

The first Strong Bad Email toon was some kinda robot, released August 22, 2001.

An email address to contact the Chaps was listed on the site from its earliest days (it would be removed in late 2015). As of a few months before the launch of Strong Bad's email account, the brothers were typically receiving "five or ten mails a day" from fans;[3] one such fan had been Abdi LaRue. Requiring an email for Strong Bad to reply to, The Brothers Chaps reached out to LaRue: informing them of Strong Bad's then-new email address and suggesting they send him an email.[4] Abdi's email (inquiring if Strong Bad takes off his mask and boxing gloves when sleeping) was answered August 22, 2001 in the first Strong Bad Email: some kinda robot.

"Strong Bad emails were meant to be a really short thing to occupy the space between our longer cartoons. But they ended up turning Strong Bad into one of the most interesting characters."[5]

Sbemails were originally planned to be simple and short,[5] in the manner of a pseudo-advice column.[6] Early sbemails typically ran for a minute or less, and frequently would only feature Strong Bad typing at his computer. The original plan had been to write a reply from Strong Bad to every email he received, with one selected each week that would be voiced, animated, and posted on the website; this plan was almost immediately abandoned,[7][8] with the volume of responses (fifteen emails a day) immediately recognized as too much to deal with.[7] At this point, both brothers still had full-time jobs[2][8] and lived in different states (Mike in Georgia, Matt in New York),[2][3] necessitating a split production. Mike, who worked freelance and had more free time,[2][3] would animate while Matt provided voices; writing duties were shared between the two.[3] Some early entries had no script, with Matt simply reading through then riffing on a fan's email and sending the resultant audio file to Mike for animation.[6][9][10] Sbemails, much like the rest of homestarrunner.com, were not being updated on a set schedule at this point: they were released on varying days of the week, usually with over a week elapsing between them. A total of seven email toons were released in 2001.

2002: Weekly schedule

"Once we started doing Strong Bad Emails every week... I'd been living in New York, and then I moved back [to Georgia] and we decided "Hey, let's start doing something every week." We'd done a few Strong Bad Emails at that point, but we decided "that's the easiest thing we could do, we could do one of those a week." So that was 2002 — once we started making it every week, I feel like just the weekly updating of Strong Bad Emails was really when [the site's popularity] started to go crazy."[11]

Emails become weekly with brianrietta,[10] which was released on January 10, 2002. The subsequent email, i love you, established the practice of releasing new sbemails on Mondays.

matt moves back

compare to weeklies

MATT CHAPMAN: Once we started making [Strong Bad Emails] every week [...] was really when it started to go crazy. "I remember like, it was either the techno one where he does like, makes fun of techno music, or the one where he makes fun of like squealy guitar players, it was like of those that was sort of lampooning of some very specific niche. Those were when where it really started to [catch on]."[11]

talk a bit about internet access in 2002 (workplaces, schools)

Sbemails released in late 2002, such as techno, gained significant traction and led to the increasing fanbase of Homestar Runner.

MIKE: It was more of a gradual rise. I think the biggest spike came in September 2002. MATT: Yeah. That was right when I quit my job, and it was just in time. Kids had just gotten back in school, like college and stuff, and I don't know if it had been brewing over the summer or what, but we definitely saw a huge spike in terms of traffic to the site and selling shirts. We started getting more emails, and Strong Bad started getting more emails. So that was the biggest in terms of there being a jump. But everything else has been gradual.

When they first started creating weekly cartoons they both still had full time jobs Flashforward 2006 Seattle - 28 Feb 2006

Legion Mike

Early 2003:

Mid 2003:

The runtime of sbemails slowly increased over time, with a runtime of 3–5 minutes becoming the standard by the late Compy era.

mid/late 2003:

100 flashback March 16, 2004

Server deletes everything every couple days. A lot is just spam.[6]

"He still gets 2,000, 3,000 a day, something like that. Our mail server deletes everything every three days." Giant Magazine Interview April/May 2005

MATT: "when we feel Strong Bad Emails are getting old, we can quickly jump into something else." Cold Hard Flash Interview - 1 Dec 2005

2006

  • it took up "most of the brothers’ time" to make sbemails: “They take between an 18- to 24-hour range of straight animation and recording of the voices and music,” Matt said. “It usually takes a couple of days to write it, while throwing ideas around and fine tuning it. A four minute cartoon is usually 20-something hours of work.” https://web.archive.org/web/20221216192224/https://dailyemerald.com/archives/ask-strong-bad/article_3b9a3ac1-0888-5a6b-a3fc-b57f1ef5b407.html
  • Process
    • Mondays or Tuesdays they begin looking, can take 4-5 hours
    • Brainstorm
    • Write separately, compare and merge
    • animation taking place during the last three or four days of the week
  • "Emails and short toons are in the 18-35 hour category for animation and recording. Then there's a few days of writing on top of that. I'm not sure what the breakdown is on writing vs. animating since we tend to do the animation in one long marathon session. The writing we try to let happen more naturally." Zoinks! Magazine Interview Oct 2006

2008: Bicentennial and Break

email thunder September 23, 2008

hremails

Sbemailiarized! "What separates the sbemails from the other cartoons? Not all that much!"

2009 remarks on the sbemail pause... Matt: "200 was just a nice round number to take a break from it and do other stuff on the website. Not that it starts to get old, but if we never did another one I'd be okay with it." OMG Nintendo Interview - 12 May 2009 Mike: "The content is more varied now. Before, at least 60% to 70% of the updates were Strong Bad Emails, but now it's sort of a mixed bag. It's a little more fun for us." [1]

hremail 3184–videography October 5, 2009

2010–2013: The Big Hiatus

See main article: Hiatuses

@ronginald

2015 – present: Modern era

sbemail 206 April 1, 2015

@StrongBadActual

post-hiatus emails have almost always been motivated by an external factor and/or have additional context beyond "let's check the email" (sentence could be reworded)

reflist

  1. ^  Coyle, Michael. "The Creators of Homestar Runner, The Brothers Chapman". ResExcellence. January 2003.
  2. ^  Carriveau, Derrek. "Legion Interviews Mike Chapman of Homestarrunner.com". Legion Studios. 2002.
  3. ^  Stephan. "Interview: Mike Chapman from homestar runner". wtf i'm l33t. Summer 2001.
  4. ^  some kinda robot (DVD commentary); @StrongBadActual tweet (16 Apr 2020)
  5. ^  Allin, Jack. "Strong Bad’s the Brothers Chaps". Adventure Gamers. 12 Dec 2008.
  6. ^  Carlson, Jay. "The Inkhole Exclusive Interview with Homestar Runner Co-Creator Matt Chapman". The Inkhole. July 2004.
  7. ^  Neutron, C. "Interview with Mike and Matt Chapman, creators of Homestarrunner.com". Run Devil Run, 2003.
  8. ^  Chapman, Mike and Matt Chapman. "How and Why Homestar Runner Cartoons Get Made". Flashforward 2006 Seattle conference, 28 Feb 2006, Seattle. Lecture.
  9. ^  Scott, Kevin. "The Homestar Runner Interview". UMFM, 20 May 2003.
  10. ^  halloweener (DVD commentary)
  11. ^  Rubin, Jeff. "Homestar Runner's Matt Chapman". The Jeff Rubin Jeff Rubin Show', episode 123. 7 July 2014.
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