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Strong Bad Email history and production insight
Prehistory
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
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. In order to get 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 was answered August 22, 2001 in the first Strong Bad Email: some kinda robot.
The Brothers Chaps, quoted in a 2008 interview with Adventure Gamers:[5]
"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."
The original concept of the toons was for them to be like an advice column.Inkhole Interview "Strong Bad emails were meant to be a really short thing to occupy the space between our longer cartoons." Adventure Gamers Interview - 12 Dec 2008
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 made into an actual toon. Flashforward 2006 Seattle - 28 Feb 2006 Matt remarked that he only did this for a day or two, with the early volume of 15 emails a day already becoming too much to handle. Run Devil Run Interview
2001-2002 - Matt lives in NYC,[3] production was split between brothers. UMFM Interview - 20 May 2003 (homsar) halloweener (DVD commentary) Some early entries even had no script, with Matt simply reading through then riffing on an email. Inkhole Interview
When they first started creating weekly cartoons they both still had full time jobs Flashforward 2006 Seattle - 28 Feb 2006
Strong Bad Email Menu. Also Third Games Menu, Features section of the TV Time Toons Menu.
Emails become weekly with brianrietta (source halloweener (DVD commentary)) January 10, 2002
JEFF RUBIN: Was there an episode that like, was the tipping point? Was there one that got spread around the most, that you know, made the show in your mind, or was it a gradual thing?
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].
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.
Early 2003:
- sb getting 500 daily emails Run Devil Run Interview
- 8 hrs to make a sbemail https://web.archive.org/web/20030201082658/http://www.resexcellence.com/hack_html_03/01-30-03.shtml
- Mike pointed out that the average Strongbad e-mail comes together in less than 20 hours. The Brunswickan Interview - 4 Apr 2003
Mid 2003:
- Sundays set aside for sbemails Penguin Brothers Interview - 26 May 2003
- Mike: "The Strong Bad emails are written and made on Sunday nights, starting at about 6PM. And then we have a marathon, 16 hour, no sleeping, drinking five Red Bulls, type of thing." Matt estimates 12-15hrs Tastes Like Chicken Interview
mid/late 2003:
- sb getting 7,000 emails a day Atlanta Journal-Constitution Interview - 21 Jul 2003
- 15 Atlanta Journal-Constitution Interview - 21 Jul 2003 hours to make a sbemail toon.
- Mondays that year would see nearly 300,000 visits for the new sbemail The Boston Globe Interview - 9 Aug 2003
- "they [...] spend a couple of hours every day sorting through questions for Strong Bad. The brothers say they haven’t done as many new cartoons as they’d like because Strong Bad’s e-mail responses have become longer and more time-consuming." https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2003/07/22/tooned-in-2/
- "We're actually working on it all week. We'll check out, like, one or two hundred emails in a sitting, and if one catches our eye, we'll plot it out kinda, but we really work best with the Strong Bad emails to do it all in one big shot over the weekend." Club Aquatica Interview - 29 Oct 2003
100 flashback March 16, 2004
"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
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
2015 – present: Modern era
sbemail 206 April 1, 2015
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
- ^ Coyle, Michael. "The Creators of Homestar Runner, The Brothers Chapman". ResExcellence. January 2003.
- ^ Carriveau, Derrek. "Legion Interviews Mike Chapman of Homestarrunner.com". Legion Studios. 2002.
- ^ Stephan. "Interview: Mike Chapman from homestar runner". wtf i'm l33t. Summer 2001.
- ^ some kinda robot (DVD commentary); @StrongBadActual tweet (16 Apr 2020)
- ^ Allin, Jack. "Strong Bad’s the Brothers Chaps". Adventure Gamers. 12 Dec 2008.
