Van Halen

From Homestar Runner Wiki

The American hard rock band Van Halen has been referenced multiple times in the Homestar Runner body of work.

References

• Main Page 4 — When rolling over Toons, a bowling ball with Eddie Van Halen's Frankenstrat stripe scheme bowls a strike.
• Main Page 9 — When rolling over Characters, the band's logo appears.
• The Cheat Theme Song — When the lyric "Who's gonna start a rock and roll band?" is sung, it is accompanied by a "The Cheat" symbol that looks like the the band's logo.
• Email band names — Strong Bad uses Van Halen as an example of a band named after a "really cool last name," referring to brothers Alex and Eddie Van Halen.
• Email colonization — Parodying the sender's name "Shana Ma", Strong Bad sings "Shana-Ma! Shana-Ma ha-ho-ha-HA-ha!" to the tune of "Panama".

David Lee Roth

David Lee Roth was intermittently the lead vocalist for Van Halen — part of the initial 1974 lineup, he left the band in 1985 to embark on a solo career; after briefly rejoining in 1996, he formally returned to Van Halen in 2007 and remained through their disbanding in 2020. Though many of the above references are to points when he was in the band, some references are explicitly to Roth's solo career.

• The House That Gave Sucky Tricks — Strong Bad dresses up as David Lee Roth, in particular the cover of his first post-Van Halen solo album Eat 'Em and Smile.
• Zeenin' Into the Night —
  • Larry converses with Gary's guitar, as if the hot lixx are words. Roth's song "Yankee Rose" opens with a similar skit as the singer interacts with riffs played by Steve Vai.
  • Larry's high kicks and jumps while performing are references to Roth's stage antics.