HRWiki:Featured article for 2006, week 19
From Homestar Runner Wiki
Marzipan is the only female character among the primary characters of the Homestar Runner universe. She is a tall and thin character, she wears her hair in a bright yellow ponytail, and she is almost always seen wearing a purple dress with white trim and gold buttons at the bottom. (In Marzipan's Answering Machine Version 12.2, she reveals that yellow is not her true hair color, suggesting that she dyes it.) Like Homestar Runner, she does not appear to have visible arms, but nevertheless she is able to pick up and handle objects and play the guitar. Marzipan is the only character voiced by Missy Palmer.
Marzipan is Homestar's girlfriend, and early on in the site's history, this seemed to be the primary reason for her existence. Her character has developed greatly over time, however, and their relationship no longer appears to be their main focus. Marzipan has actually broken up with Homestar several times, some of which were due to his unintentional mean streak, others so that she could demonstrate her independence. At times, Homestar even shows feelings of contempt and resentment toward his girlfriend, as seen in the email narrator (when he calls her "some type of enormous alien cow"), and in Happy Fireworks (when he uses a cardboard cutout to imitate her and then tells her to shut up). Luckily for Homestar, she continues to love him dearly, and the two always seem to end up together again.
Marzipan's status as the only girl in Free Country, USA has made her the target of quite a few prank messages on her answering machine (most of them left by Strong Bad), as well as the unsolicited romantic attentions of several other characters (most notably Coach Z and Bubs). Despite all of this, she is very kind, and she is friends with almost everyone (though she is not fond of The King of Town, and she really doesn't like Strong Bad at all.)
Strong Bad once described Marzipan as a "dirty hippie without the dirt." She is a strict vegetarian — she especially enjoys tofu and soy products — and she spends much of her time singing and playing her guitar. Most of her songs are about happiness and nature. She often makes protest signs to express her views — among these are "Chinchillas OUT!! (of my basement)", "December Ween Kills Bunnies", and "Down with D'Ween".
Marzipan has often been mistaken for a broom. Her "Joey Ramone" costume in The House That Gave Sucky Treats seems to suggest that she may actually be shaped like a broom. By contrast, the emails secret recipes, date and secret identity all show her sitting in a manner that seems to contradict that possibility. In the email long pants, she claims that she is not a broom, much to Homestar's surprise.
Marzipan tends to anthropomorphize inanimate objects — for example, her guitar's name is Carol, and she once asked Strong Sad to resurrect her ficus plant, Credenza, from the dead. In addition, she has occasionally been fooled by poor imitations of Homestar, such as Tofu Homestar (in The Luau) and The Cheat's costume in the email do over. She once named an ordinary sandwich "Homestar Jr." and started treating it as though it were a small child, and in Halloween Potion-ma-jig, she created a potion that could transform Homestar into several different forms, including a strange clone of herself. It is unclear if any of these behaviors reflect a desire to change, replace, or accept alternate versions of her boyfriend.
Marzipan sometimes works with other characters on various projects. For example, The Cheat made a Flash video for her song "Oh yeah yeah", and she recently teamed up with The Cheat and Strong Mad to form a band called Cool Tapes, in which she sings lead and plays Carol. She has appeared in the Dangeresque series of short films, and she once attempted to teach Strong Bad how to make an attractive centerpiece out of junk mail and kitty litter. She also has hosted a Fall Float Parade with Coach Z.
