Random Toon

From Homestar Runner Wiki

Current revision as of 23:53, 5 May 2025

"Random" redirects here. For a random Homestar Runner Wiki article, see Special:Random.

'Round and 'round it goes, where it stops nobody knows...

A Random Toon function has been used in various applications on homestarrunner.com to present a viewer with a randomly selected toon for their viewing pleasure. This behavior is governed by an XML file containing a list of almost all toons. As of December 31, 2020, its presence on the site has been reduced.

[edit] Appearances

[edit] Navigation Bar

In August 2005, a "rando" menu option was added to the navigation bar visible at the bottom of each page. Selecting this text redirects immediately to a randomly selected toon.

The email virus and the corresponding Main Page 22 do not include the regular navbar, instead including a re-creation of it as part of their Flash files. As a result, "rando" was never added to the navbar on these two pages.

The navbar was redesigned for the December 31, 2020 update and no longer includes a "random toon" option.

[edit] Main Pages

See also Weeklies

A Random Toon button, labeled "r", was added to the Main Pages (alongside similar buttons for Quote of the Week, Weekly Fanstuff, and Sketchbook) on September 12, 2005. Pressing this button would summon a pop-up widget, resembling a small LCD-screened device, that would rapidly cycle through toon names before landing on one; after a moment, the page would redirect to the selected toon. Options labeled "again" or "close" would restart or abort the selection process, respectively.

After the December 31, 2020 post-Flash site update, this button was not functional — that is, it was still present on all main pages and displayed "random toon" when moused over, but had no function when clicked. Limited functionality was restored on April 16, 2025: the random function works properly on Main Pages 24, 25, 27, and 28; on all other main pages, when the button is clicked the widget stalls on the first frame of its entrance animation (at the bottom of the page) and the page reloads.

[edit] Strong Bad Email

"Scroll buttons and random, you can't handle 'em!"

A similar button was also added to the top right of the Strong Bad Email menu on September 12, 2005, along with a Scroll Button Song referencing it. The text "random.bat" appeared in the top-right corner of the computer screen. Pressing it causes the menu to cycle through several random Strong Bad Emails in sequence, while Strong Bad imitates the sound of a spinning prize wheel:

STRONG BAD: Brrrrrrakatakatakataka...ta..ka...tick...tick... Brring!

---

STRONG BAD: {higher pitched and louder} Lakalakalakalaka... tuck... tuck... tuck... tuck... {low pitched} Bong.

---

STRONG BAD: Broooodagadagadaga..da..ga..da...ga... Dooj.

---

STRONG BAD: How 'bout this one? Donk. {a random email is then picked without a roulette of emails}

The email that the roulette landed on would then load.

On June 30, 2009 (after the destruction of the Lappy 486 in hremail 3184), the sbemail menu switched to a Corpy NT6 menu which did not include "random.bat". On August 31, the Compé menu was introduced, which included a "go rando!" button with the same functionality as the prior "random" option.

The post-Flash update reworked the Strong Bad Email menu, adding descriptions and YouTube links (where applicable) to all emails. With this update, "rando" now only selects an email without autoplaying it, allowing the user to read the description and choose whether to view on the site, view on YouTube, or select a different email.

[edit] Fun Facts

[edit] Trivia

• Some of the names of toons were too long for the Main Page random box, leaving the last few letters cut off. They were soon renamed to fit. Others would still fit, but are named differently regardless.

• The Random Toon button also resulted in the Brothers Chaps formatting most of the Puppet Stuff to HTML format.

[edit] Remarks

• When the "rando" link in the navigation bar loads a Puppet Stuff, it is placed on a light blue background. This is because a Puppet Stuff is layered over another page, but the "rando" link doesn't work with this. The Random Toon button on the Main Pages does allow an external Flash link to be layered over them, so a Puppet Stuff is layered over them.
• ".bat" is the filename extension for batch files, which are text files with a series of commands intended to be executed by the MS-DOS or Windows command interpreters.
• While "random.bat" is running, the names of the various Strong Bad Emails can still be clicked as they flash on the screen.
• Shortly after being released, a number of minor changes were made to the randomizer. The following issues were resolved:
  • Homestar and the Nice Present and Homestar vs. Little Girl (the two Decemberween in July puppet toons) were not originally included in the random list. A comment in the XML file read "<!--note to add puppet dween!-->", indicating that they had not been forgotten.
  • Labor Dabor didn't originally work, as the URLs for the HTML and SWF files were reversed in the XML.
  • If the R button on the Main Page was clicked more than once (either after closing the randomizer box or while it was up), and it picked a Strong Bad Email, the email number in the URL would be larger than the correct number by the number of Strong Bad Emails (it would redirect to something like sbemail405.html). This was because it kept a counter of the emails as it read the email names from the XML file, and clicking the R again caused it to re-read the list without resetting the counter.
    • flashback was immune to this problem, as it has a different URL from the others (to distinguish it from Sbemail 100 Fakeout, which itself is not in the XML list).
  • The Random Toon machine didn't have the "&" or "_" symbols embedded, so lures & jigs was shown as "SBEMAIL: LURES  JIGS" and sb_email 22 was displayed as "SBEMAIL: SBEMAIL 22".
• Limozeen Live! links to the notice for the first concert instead of the toon.
• In the XML code, the newest email has the code: new="yup" after it.
• The XML document is not valid, as there is no root element in the document.

[edit] Goofs

• Sbemail 169 Deleted Scene links to An Important Rap Song.
• Date Nite links to Strongest Man in the World.
• Many cartoons are omitted from the XML list, and therefore will not be selected randomly. Currently, these are:
  • Commandos in the Classroom
  • Homestar vs. Other Little Girl
  • Strong Bad is a Bad Guy
  • Marshie vs. Little Girl
  • Dangeresque: Puppet Squad
  • All Hremails, with the exception of Hremail 3184
  • Kick-A-Ball
  • April Fool 09
  • Marzipan's Answering Machine Version 17.2
  • The Homestar Runner Enters The Spooky Woods
  • Halloween Hijinks
  • Any of the previously New Stuff-exclusive toons
• Dangeresque Puppet Squad: The Hot Jones Hijack is listed twice on the XML list under both Holiday and Puppet Stuff, with two different names.

[edit] Fixed Goofs

• On Monday, January 9, 2006, when the Scroll Button Song was first updated, the screen did not automatically scroll to the emails as they were selected by the roulette.
• Strongest Man in the World used to appear as "Strongest Man in the Worldk" in the randomizer.
• The Next Epi-Snowed was originally listed in the XML file as ccd06.html instead of ccdo6.html.

[edit] Inside References

• One of the 'random.bat' raps ends with "Dooj".

[edit] Real-World References

• "Rando" is a possible reference to Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, in which "The Amazing Rando" is a recurring joke throughout the end credits sequence.

[edit] External Links

• Click on the R on the Flash version of any Main Page to see the Random Toon button in action.
  • On the current site, the Random Toon button only works on Main Pages 24, 25, 27, and 28.
• view Flash file for "random toon"
• view XML file for "random toon"
• view the Strong Bad Email menu with "go rando!"
• view the navbar with the "rando" link
• forum thread re: Random Toon
• forum thread re: random.bat