Podstar Runner 2008
From Homestar Runner Wiki
Podstar Runner is a collection of cartoons transferable to a fifth generation iPod, in .m4v format. It was released simultaneously with the email technology. It was originally a collection of Strong Bad Emails, but on March 6, 2006 they added Teen Girl Squad and called it Teen Girl Squadcast. As of May 22, 2006 all ten Teen Girl Squad episodes have been released. On April 12, 2006, they added Everybody to the Limit and are probably planning to add more toons in the future.
Page Title: Podstar Runner Come On And Come On, Ya'll
Release Date: January 30th, 2006
Contents |
Transcript for Emails
{The Homestar Runner head from the spoof on Apple's "Think different" campaign appears. After a few seconds, the iPod menu appears:}
| 8:04 PM | |
| Homestarrunner.com | > |
| Presents | > |
| A | > |
| Strong | > |
| Bad | > |
| > | |
{The menu scrolls down to the bottom.}
{The selected email plays.}
{After the email has played, the screen cuts back to the "iPod menu." After a second, Strong Bad's head pops into view}
STRONG BAD: Whoa, what am I doing in this tiny box? {starts banging his head and hands on the screen} Let me! Outta the! Tiny! Box!
{The screen appears to shatter, with a shattering sound effect.}
STRONG BAD: Whoops. Hope you got the extended warranty.
{The shattered screen crackles, and goes black. Two shards of the screen fall.}
Transcript for Teen Girl Squad
{The Homestar Runner head from the spoof on Apple's "Think different" campaign appears. After a few seconds, a piece of paper is placed over it, with the iPod menu drawn in Strong Bad's handwriting:}
| 8:04 PM | ||
| | > | |
| Presents | Strông Bad | > |
| Teen | > | |
| Girl | > | |
| Squad | > | |
{The menu scrolls down to the bottom.}
STRONG BAD: {TGS voice} Click click click click! {regular voice} Click.
{The selected episode plays.}
Fun Facts
Trivia
- The label on the floppy disk is unreadable, but there are several possibilities.
- The podcast "Strong Bad Email" became #1 on February 20, 2006.
- The podcast "Strong Bad Emails & More!" became #1 on April 6, 2006.
- The podcast was featured on the Podcasts main page on iTunes in the "New and Notable" section on February 19, 2006.
- Around March 5, 2006, the name of the podcast changed from "Strong Bad Email" to "Strong Bad Emails and More!" due to the addition of the Teen Girl Squadcast.
- The battery meter in the intro for the Strong Bad Emails is relatively full, while the hand-drawn intro for Teen Girl Squadcast's battery meter is almost empty.
- One of the keywords for the Teen Girl Squadcast episodes is "arrowed", an obvious reference to the Arrow'd Guy.
Remarks
- For some reason, the clock at the top of the iPod screen reads 8:04 before and after the toon, even though the toon may last more than 1 minute
- With the exception of Homsar's appearance in dragon, none of the Easter eggs from the original versions of the Emails are present.
- All the Easter eggs in the Teen Girl Squad issues are present, and play automatically.
- The notice on the main page originally said "sbemail podcast!" but it was later changed to "sbemails on ipod!." This was most likely changed after noting that Podstar Runner was not truly a podcast, due to the videos not being broadcast through a RSS feed syndication. As of February 6, 2006, however, an official RSS feed has been released making Podstar Runner an actual podcast. On March 5, 2006, it was changed to "teen girl squadcast!" in response to the new feature.
- The sound quality in the iPod version of bottom 10 seems to drop to the "Flash file" level after the appearance of Wet The Cheat. There also seems to be a minor sound bug while Strong Bad has the jibblies. Furthermore, on the dry T-shirt flyer, the font Snap ITC has been replaced with what appears to be Arial (same thing for the font for Chocolardiac Arrest).
- The podstar.homestarrunner.com server doesn't have the 404'd page set up; incorrect URLs will get the standard 404 error page instead.
- The filename for dragon is "trogdor," not "dragon."
- Due to the size and resolution of the iPod's screen, virus's Navbar is removed, and its "widescreen" effects removed by pan and scan.
- On February 27, 2006, Podstar Runner ceased downloads of all the previously available Strong Bad Emails and only allowed downloads of the most recent Podcast. A notice on the page read "due to bandwidth doodoo, we're doing one at a time for now." It was fixed on March 3, 2006, and all the emails could be downloaded again.
- Even though Everybody to the Limit is not a Strong Bad Email, it is played with the email intro and ending.
- In death metal, the email intro seems to be a little extended. Plus, the "shee-doot" sound is omitted when Strong Bad signs off of Video Thyme.
- Oddly, bottom 10, crying and [[caffeine] have gone missing from the website's episode list, as well as the podcast on iTunes itself.
Goofs
- While the iPod in the background is meant to be a fifth generation model, the headphone port is placed in the top center of the device like a fourth generation's, rather than at the top right.
- When the email ends and returns to the animated iPod menu, "Homestarrunner.com" is highlighted. However, the animated menu at the beginning of the email has "Email" selected. The iPod's memory should keep the selection where it was when you left it, not move back to the top.
- Many of the listed file sizes are inaccurate. The table below shows the correct file sizes.
- The preview picture for Teen Girl Squad 9 (in iTunes) has positioning problems; everything inside the panel seems to be shifted up and to the left, overlapping the panel border.
- In the page title, "Y'all" has a misplaced apostrophe.
- The sound in crazy cartoon is out of sync between the intro and the ending.
Glitches
- Due to the use of relative linking in the navbar (and depending on the browser), clicking on any of the links on the bottom of the page will sometimes work correctly but will sometimes take you to a nonexistent page beginning with http://podstar.homestarrunner.com/, with the Store being the only exception.
Fixed Glitches
- In the XML feed, the description of crying was the same as that of kids' book, namely "Strong Bad seriously defaces a children's book." This has since been fixed.
- There used to be two podcasts available through iTunes Music Store: one by "Strong bad" and one by "The Brothers Chaps." Noticeably different between the two was the logo of the two podcasts, as well as the absent "Clean" marker in the second podcast. The podcast by Strong Bad has since been removed.
- When Guitar was released, all the e-mail links became the same, all leading to the guitar e-mail file. Now they have reverted back to the separate names.
- When montage was released, the link to download montage was incorrect in the XML feed, which pointed to "sb_email_motage.m4v" instead of "sb_email_montage.m4v", leaving users temporarily unable to download montage through iTunes. This was fixed the day after.
- The date for theme park in the podcast feed was incorrectly listed as May 6, 2006 instead of June 6, 2006.
- There is no date listed for army. It should be listed as being released on June 29th.
Inside References
- The page title refers to the email intro of rampage.
- The description for personal favorites reflects how TBC often get questioned about the existence of the emails.
External Links
Downloadable Emails
| Title | Size | Release Date | Description | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| techno | 3.5 MB | January 30, 2006 | Some bozo asks about techno music. | download |
| dragon | 9.3 MB | January 30, 2006 | Strong Bad starts a bad drawing revolution. | download |
| japanese cartoon | 5.8 MB | January 30, 2006 | Strong Bad makes up his own japanese cartoon. | download |
| kids' book | 4.6 MB | January 30, 2006 | Strong Bad seriously defaces a children's book. | download |
| crying | 9.7 MB | January 30, 2006 | Strong Bad invents a 1-legged puppy and the tears flow. | download |
| bottom 10 | 11.2 MB | February 6, 2006 | From the home office in Scotsdale, {sic} AZ... | download |
| caffeine | 7.3 MB | February 13, 2006 | Strong Sad gets caffeinated. | download |
| virus | 10.7 MB | February 20, 2006 | A virus wreaks havoc on the Compy. | download |
| guitar | 7.0 MB | February 27, 2006 | Ol' SB teaches you everything you need to know about shredding hot lixx. | download |
| video games | 8.4 MB | March 6, 2006 | Strong Bad goes cross-platform with bad video game ideas. | download |
| different town | 7.2 MB | March 13, 2006 | How would Strong Bad make the town different? | download |
| montage | 7.2 MB | March 21, 2006 | A montage of montages. | download |
| personal favorites | 6.0 MB | March 27, 2006 | Strong Bad makes little kids and morons think there's emails they haven't seen. | download |
| sisters | 6.9 MB | April 4, 2006 | Two hot sisters email Strong Bad and he messes it up royally. | download |
| death metal | 9.7 MB | May 15, 2006 | Strong Bad lays down the basics of death metal and then runs them over. | download |
| theme park | 11 MB | June 6, 2006 | Strong Bad builds a theme park and Strong Sad gets decked. | download |
| crazy cartoon | 6.7 MB | June 13, 2006 | Monkey dude asks Strong Bad to make a crazy cartoon and Sweet Cuppin' Cakes is born. | download |
| army | 8.8 MB | June 29, 2006 | Hank Toler asks about Strong Badia's army. The Homestarmy attempts to invade the kingdom. | download |
| flag day | 7.4 MB | July 6, 2006 | Strong Bad unveils the Strong Badian flag and national anthem. Please rise. | download |
| trevor the vampire | 4.6 MB | July 13, 2006 | Description goes here | download |
Downloadable Teen Girl Squad (Teen Girl Squadcast)
| Title | Size | Release Date | Description | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TGS Issue 1 | 1.8 MB | March 6, 2006 | Four teenage girls shop, socialize, and get offed in amusing ways. | download |
| TGS Issue 2 | 1.8 MB | March 6, 2006 | Four teenage girls try their best to look so good. | download |
| TGS Issue 3 | 2.5 MB | March 6, 2006 | Four teenage girls shop for summer fashions and pan-asian cuisine. | download |
| TGS Issue 4 | 3.2 MB | March 6, 2006 | Four teenage girls go back to school and get offed in amusing ways. | download |
| TGS Issue 5 | 3.2 MB | March 6, 2006 | Four teenage girls on Spring Type Break dream of reaching foist base. | download |
| TGS Issue 6 | 2.2 MB | April 24, 2006 | Secret Decemberween Gift Exchange!! | download |
| TGS Issue 7 | 3.1 MB | April 24, 2006 | Teeny Tiny Girl Squad!! | download |
| TGS Issue 8 | 4.3 MB | May 3, 2006 | Battle of the Bands! | download |
| TGS Issue 9 | 3.3 MB | May 3, 2006 | The Tyranny Is Over! | download |
| TGS Issue 10 | 7.5MB | May 22, 2006 | a B'GRL PRTY??!? | download |
Downloadable Toons
| Title | Size | Release Date | Description | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Everybody to the Limit | 7.2 MB | April 12, 2006 | The Cheat directs a video for Strong Bad's Number One Summer Jam. | download |
Other
- Podstar Runner
- Podstar Runner on iTunes
- Podstar Runner RSS feed
- View the page background
- forum thread re: Podstar Runner
iTunes 4.9 or later; Quicktime 6.0 or later; or VLC media player can be used to view M4V video files.
| Teen Girl Squad | |
|---|---|
| Characters | Main: Cheerleader, So and So, What's Her Face, The Ugly One Gregs: Sci-Fi Greg, D n' D Greg, Open Source Greg, Japanese Culture Greg Minor: Arrow'd Guy, The Birds, Brainkrieg, Fighting Growlbacks, Manolios, Mr. Pitters, Mrs. Commanderson, Olympic Man and Coach, Peacey P, Quarterman, she likes cloth, Thomas, Tompkins |
| Issues | Main: Issue 1, Issue 2, Issue 3, Issue 4, Issue 5, Issue 6, Issue 7, Issue 8, Issue 8½, Issue 9, Issue 10, Issue 11, Issue 12, Issue 13, Issue 14, Issue 15 SBCG4AP: Homestar Ruiner, Cave Girl Squad, Teen Girl Squad Meets Limozeen Toons: 4 Gregs, Decomposing Pumpkins |
| Miscellaneous | Locations, Costumes, Theme Song, Fangs, -'d, Ow! My X!, Captioned Transitions |
| Other | 404'd, Neon 404'd, Teen Girl Squadcast, Teen Girl Squad Deaths |
