TV Time Toons Menu

From Homestar Runner Wiki

Current revision as of 10:14, 16 July 2025

This article is about the toons menu itself. For the list of all toons, see All Toons.

The new toons menu

The menu in which all the toons are listed on a TV Guide-like magazine entitled TV Time. The list features the toon's name, a 3-letter abbreviation relating to the toon (akin to the channel number on a TV guide), icons linking to the toon on the website or on YouTube (if available), and a brief animated preview that appears on the TeeBee when hovering over a title. The toon's description, length, and release year are hidden and appear upon clicking the toon's title or abbreviation.

Place: Homestar Runner's House

Date: Sunday, July 14, 2002

Page Title: Fun in the Living Room!

[edit] Menu

For the full listing of toons on this menu, see Toons.

A remote divides the Toons into nine categories. By default, "Latest Stuff" is selected.

"Strong Bad Email" links to its own discrete menu, while all other categories remain as submenus of this page. Notably, Teen Girl Squad and Marzipan's Answering Machine used to have their own separate menu pages as well.

In the cabinet under the TeeBee, four tapes can be seen, none of which link to full cartoons: "Graduation and Pr[...]", "Joy of Painting", "Moscow Peace F[estival]", and "1992 Triplecas[t]".

[edit] History

The TTTM in 2016. Note the differences in buttons on the remote, format of listings in the guide, and tapes in the cabinet.

• Originally, the toons menu only listed four categories: Toons, Features (a section containing Strong Bad Email, Marzipan's Answering Machine, and Teen Girl Squad), Shorts, and Holiday. (This version can be seen here.)
• The toons menu layout changed on June 22, 2004, dividing all the toons into eight categories. Powered by The Cheat and Puppet Stuff sections were added, and the Features were divided into their own sections at the bottom.
• On February 12, 2007, a "New Stuff" tape replaced one of the (non-interactive) "Joy of Painting" videos. When clicked, it listed the toons released from 2007 onward.
• The toons menu layout changed again for the post-Flash site update on December 31, 2020. The menu was recreated in HTML, with GIF previews instead of SWF files. New Stuff was changed to Latest Stuff, Powered by The Cheat was merged with Shorts, and Teen Girl Squad and Answering Machine were given their own sub-menus instead of linking to other pages. While prior versions of the menu had all information for each item in plain sight, the updated version's menu items show the Channel ID, title, and links, with the description, release year, and length revealed upon clicking the title or ID. Some previously YouTube-exclusive content was added, such as Skills of an Artist. The back button was also removed.
  • Two weeks later, on January 15, 2021, a "Video Stuff" category was created for content that is primarily live action but does not qualify as Puppet Stuff. This includes the Peasant's Quest Movie Trailer and Skills of an Artist, which were previously shorts.

[edit] Easter Eggs

• Placing the mouse over the tape "Joy of Painting" displays a small clip of Marzipan dressed as Bob Ross painting with a palette knife.

• Clicking on the top left corner of the TV Time booklet will close it and show one of four different covers:

Cover	Caption	Description
	Homestar Runner and Company: Eating Pie and Getting Doppy	The main characters of Homestar Runner (except Homsar)
	Homestar Runner: Ummm...Seriously	Homestar Runner
	Strong Bad: The Last Great Guy?	Strong Bad
	Strong Mad & the Cheat: The Next Bosom Buddies?	Strong Mad hugging The Cheat

• By placing the mouse over the Strong Bad Email button and holding it there for a short while, the TV will show Strong Bad sitting at the Tandy 400 soundlessly checking his email, receiving the following message:

Dear Strong Bad,
I drank too much salty plum soda.


-Stu

to which Strong Bad replies, "No such thing, Stu. No such thing."

• If the mouse is held over one of the first 11 Teen Girl Squad issues, it will show an intro:
  • Cheerleader's shirt says. "li'l brat". Her card says, "hair products!".
  • So and So's card says, "plaid skirt!".
  • What's Her Face's card says, "baggy clothes!".
  • The Ugly One's card says, "drill team!".

[edit] Fun Facts

[edit] Misleading Previews

Main Page 25's toons menu preview

Some toons have previews that do not occur in the actual toon:

• Many toons show title cards where they are not seen in the toon.
• Cheat Commandos...O's — Gunhaver holds a simplified version of the box.
• Limozeen Live (practice) — An animated version of the background image is shown.
• The Reddest Radish — In the extended version of the preview, Strong Bad jumps and spins. This preview was shortened in 2020.
• Kick the Can — The Homestar Runner's body sinks onto his legs and his head sinks into his body. Then his head and legs sprout out of the can.
• The System is Down — Homestar runs past the 404 error.
• Fall Float Parade — The Pom Pom balloon comes in from the left of the screen. In the toon, only a close-up is visible, then the Pom Pom balloon leaving right.
• Fan Costumes '06, '07, '09, 2018, and 2021 display costumes that do not appear in the videos themselves. Fan Costumes '08 displays a costume that is shown in the toon, but not from the same angle.
• Quality Time with Cardboard Homestar — Cardboard Homestar's eyes have no glasses and are shaped like regular Homestar's eyes.
• Email web comics — The preview consists of a Gamerjox comic not seen in the email.
• Main Pages 25 and 26 have previews that do not resemble the respective Main Pages.
• Which Ween Costumes? — A close-up of The Cheat in his Max costume with a sad expression that does not appear in the toon.
• Record Store Day — A close-up of Strong Sad's sloshy shirt from the Strong Bad Email concert.
• Marzipan's Answering Machine Version 17.2 — Prior to the post-Flash site update, the preview had a non-dilapidated PhoneTime XL8 with a "0" on the display.
• Later That Night... — The moon rises over the Spooky Woods, without a tree in the background, with Homestar's mouth open.
• Characters from Yonder Website — The preview shows the Faceless Megacorp logo against a white background, whereas it is in front of a blurred title screen in the toon.
• Fan Costumes 2017 — A full-screen image of "Xeliogravius IV", the video game box that makes a brief appearance during the toon.
• Dangeresque Puppet Squad: The Hot Jones Hijack — The title card is not shown during the title sequence.
• Disk 4 of 12 - Vampire's Castle — Various screens from the toon are shown in rapid succession, with the prompt "You are in the Vampire's Castle. It doth rule hard. Ye see problems. > What do you do?"
• Decemberweenvent Calendar — The versions of Strong Bad and Homestar on the cover moving across the piano keyboard.

[edit] Trivia

• On smaller windows, the remote is positioned further to the left and obscures the Moscow and Triplecast tapes. On mobile devices, the layout changes to the TeeBee on the top half of the screen and the guide on the bottom half.
• The running time of each short is listed under each entry, but there are occasionally differences between the stated and actual time.
• Prior to its removal, the Back button would always lead to Main Page 4.
• The Strong Bad Email Easter egg comes from an abandoned project called Wireless Bizness.
• Prior to the December 31, 2020 update, the contrast buttons in the Tandy in the preview of the Strong Bad Email were clickable, but didn't do anything. Now that the preview is a GIF instead of a Flash file, they are no longer clickable at all.
  • In the preview's Flash file, however, the buttons are fully functional.
• A second "Joy of Painting" tape is obscured by the remote.

[edit] Remarks

• The YouTube versions of A Folky Tale, Bug In Mouth Disease, Cool Things, Commandos in the Classroom, Lookin at a Thing in a Bag, and The System is Down are not linked to.

[edit] Goofs

What's with all the noise?

• During the following toon previews, the preview overlaying the static doesn't completely cover it, and so some white noise can be seen on the TV screen:
  • mile
  • All the Puppet Jams
  • New Boots
  • Snowglobe
  • Cool Things
  • Trogdor Con '97
  • Happy Trogday
  • 500 The Cheats
  • Summer Short Shorts
  • The Li'l Brudder Show
  • Biz Cas Fri 1, 2 and 3
  • Homestar vs. Other Little Girl
  • Fan Costumes '06
  • unnatural
  • Teen Girl Squad 12
  • Teen Girl Squad 13
  • Quality Time with Cardboard Homestar
  • bike thief
  • Fan Costumes '08
  • Best Caper Ever
  • Cheat Commandos: Two Part Episode: Part 1
  • Cheat Commandos: Two Part Episode: Part 2
  • Teen Girl Squad 15
  • Homestar Runner Goes for the Gold
• Since the post-Flash site update, various toons have their run time listed in hours and minutes rather than minutes and seconds. Some, but not all, have since been fixed.
• Teen Girl Squad Issue 1 is listed twice on the book.

[edit] Fixed Goofs

• For a few days, the description for too cool mistakenly linked to sbemail 206 instead; likewise, the preview for sbemail 206 was shown on the TeeBee.

[edit] Fixed Glitches

Obvious categories are...

• Sometimes, on older computers, clicking Toons, Shorts, Puppet Stuff, or Holiday did not open the closed TV Time booklet, so the cover must be clicked on to open it. All it showed was a blank page with the title "Dennis" on it.
• By using the Tab key, it was possible to select the feature on the TV guide directly below the ones visible (unless it was the last one to select from) by highlighting the edges of the pages. This could not be done with the mouse.

[edit] Real-World References

• Several of the labeled videotapes refer to real television programs:
  • "1992 Triplecast" refers to the 1992 Olympics Triplecast, an experimental pay-per-view telecast of the Olympics, which was previously referenced in Marzipan's Answering Machine Version 9.2.
  • The Joy of Painting was an instructional oil painting series.
  • "Moscow Peace Festival" refers to the 1989 Moscow Music Peace Festival, a concert series of high-profile hard rock acts from abroad in Soviet Moscow.

[edit] External Links

• view the toons menu
• view the toons menu on the old Flash site
• view the Flash file for the toons menu

• view the old version of the toons menu (mirror) (mirror)
• view the Flash file for the old version of the toons menu (mirror)
• view an unused version of the TV Guide toons menu