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129-475: Strong Bad is a fictional character from Homestar Runner , a series of animated Flash videos, who is inspired by "The Strong Bads" from the video game Tag Team Wrestling . He is voiced by Matt Chapman , the principal voice actor and co-creator of the series. Strong Bad enjoys pranking the other characters of the series, along with his ever-diligent lackey pet The Cheat and his older brother Strong Mad. Strong Bad first became popular due to his own segment on

258-734: A Ctrl + Alt + Reset keypress sequence—a hard reset which discards any information currently in RAM . Several oscilloscopes contain Easter eggs. One example is the HP ;54600B , known to have a Tetris (1985) clone, and the HP 54622D contains an imitation of the Asteroids (1979) game named Rocks . Another is the Tektronix 1755A Vector and Waveform Monitor which displays swimming fish when Remote > Software version

387-400: A McDonald's restaurant, and if they land next to it, an astronaut will visit it instead of standing next to the ship. Other early known Easter eggs include one in the first text adventure game, Colossal Cave Adventure (1976), from which Adventure was fashioned, which includes several secret words. One of these is " xyzzy ", a command which enables the player to move between two points in

516-469: A pinball game in Microsoft Word . Since 2002, Microsoft does not allow any hidden or undocumented code as part of its trustworthy computing initiative. The Debian operating system's package tool apt-get has an Easter egg involving an ASCII cow when variants on apt-get moo are typed into the shell. An Easter egg is found on all Microsoft Windows operating systems before XP . In

645-490: A thrash metal / sludge metal style); rapper Peacey P, with a rapping style resembling that of Snoop Dogg ; and the self-absorbed R&B artist Tenerence Love, a parody of Barry White and such artists. Beyond cartoons, Homestar Runner offers a variety of online games. Early games such as the Homestar Soundboard , "Homestar Talker", and Lite-Brite emulator "Astro-Lite 2600" are basic web toys featuring

774-734: A " logic bomb " could also bypass testing. Kabay asserts that this undermined the Trusted Computing Base , a paradigm of trustworthy hardware and software in place since the 1980s, and is of concern wherever personal or confidential information is stored, as this may then be vulnerable to damage or manipulation. Microsoft created some of the largest and most elaborate Easter eggs, such as those in Microsoft Office . In 2005, Larry Osterman of Microsoft acknowledged Microsoft Easter eggs, and his involvement in development of one, but described them as "irresponsible", and wrote that

903-427: A "few dozen" T-shirts by 2001. Mike moved back to New York in mid-2001 and he and Matt started crafting the first Strong Bad Email some kinda robot , intending this to be a weekly feature. The Strong Bad Email series proved very popular, generating significant interest in the site; when the brothers were late in publishing a new Strong Bad Email, they received angry emails asking where the new short was, which Matt said

1032-458: A Homestar Runner Flash animation called "The System is Down" in a browser window. The Brothers Chaps have partnered up with rock band They Might Be Giants and supplied animation for a music video of their song " Experimental Film ". The creators of Homestar Runner spent time with the band and wrote songs that have been released on the website as "Puppet Jam", a spin-off of "Puppet Stuff", where Puppet Homestar sings with TMBG. TMBG also wrote

1161-553: A Strong Bad Email short and a life-sized replica of Tom Servo from Mystery Science Theater 3000 producer Jim Mallon on the same day. They also reflected on how Homestar Runner had been a common point of reference over which newly formed couples bonded and how Joss Whedon incorporated references to Homestar Runner into his television shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel as further signs of success. Through 2010, Homestar Runner remained financially viable for

1290-499: A barren field, a fence, a tire, and a stop sign reading "Pop: Tire" (Pop meaning population) leaning against a cinder block. Besides Strong Badia, he and The Cheat enjoy hanging out at a stick known as "The Stick". Strong Bad's main role in the cartoon is in the Strong Bad Email segment, in which he answers emails sent to him from viewers. The Strong Bad Emails began as a small segment in 2001, in which Strong Bad would mock

1419-400: A blend of surreal humor , self-parody, satire, and references to popular culture , in particular video games , classic television , and popular music . Homestar Runner originated in 1996 as a book written by Mike Chapman and Craig Zobel , intended as a parody of children's literature . While learning Macromedia Flash , Mike and his brother Matt expanded the concept into a website, which

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1548-554: A character in Poker Night at the Inventory . Released November 22, 2010, the game features Strong Bad alongside other video game characters (Tycho from Penny Arcade , Heavy from Team Fortress 2 , and Max from Sam & Max ) as computer-controlled opponents playing Texas hold 'em poker against the player. Telltale CEO Dan Connors described the game as "exploring the idea of what video characters do when they're not 'on

1677-543: A character named Loo-Kee who typically appeared once per episode, hidden in a single screenshot. At the end of the episode, the screenshot would be shown again and Loo-Kee would challenge viewers to locate him before revealing his hiding place. Adventure Time also had a character known as The Snail that was hidden in almost every episode of the show. More recent broadcast media, where viewers have access to high-resolution digital copies or streaming services, may include further Easter eggs that can only be found by freezing

1806-753: A couple of times over the years." Homestar Runner 's popularity, coupled with its positive critical response, has led to the website receiving widespread coverage. Homestar Runner has been featured in Wired , National Review , Entertainment Weekly , Total Gamer , G4 , and NPR 's All Things Considered . A review published in National Review characterized the site's humor as having "the innocence of slapstick with sharp satire of American popular culture" — humor that "tends to be cultural, not political." The site-generated music has enjoyed surprising popularity, such that two songs, "Trogdor" by

1935-503: A game for the Fairchild Channel F system. Since Adventure , there has been a long history of video game developers placing Easter eggs in their games. Most Easter eggs are intentional—an attempt to communicate with the player or a way of getting even with management for a perceived slight. Easter eggs in video games take a variety of forms, from purely ornamental screens to aesthetic enhancements that change some element of

2064-601: A hidden action game similar to Doom (1993) called The Hall of Tortured Souls . The Google search engine famously contains many Easter eggs , given to the user in response to certain search queries. Steve Jobs banned Easter eggs from Apple products upon his return to the company. The first Easter egg to appear after his death is in a 2012 update to the Mac App Store for OS X Mountain Lion , in which downloaded apps are temporarily timestamped as "24 January 1984",

2193-450: A link to Strong Bad's e-mail address. Often, hidden animations ( Easter eggs ) are displayed when the user clicks on a word or picture either during the email or after it has concluded. As of 2022, there are 209 Strong Bad emails. Although the animations were initially brief, they gradually grew to establish numerous catchphrases and running gags . His most used catchphrase was "Holy Crap!" and other variations on this theme (example: "What

2322-560: A reference to the Monty Python Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook skit; " exit %xb70 " returns the message "%SYSTEM-W-FISH, my hovercraft is full of eels" while " exit %x34b4 " returns a reference to an early Internet meme : "%SYSTEM-F-GAMEOVER, All your base are belong to us ". Easter eggs in the 1997 version of Microsoft Office include a hidden flight simulator in Microsoft Excel and

2451-550: A result of introducing programming tricks to get around some of the difficulty they had in getting Sega's strict certification for their games, catching any exceptions during execution to bring the game back to a usable state as to pass certification. For example, hitting the side of the Sonic 3D Blast (1996) cartridge while it is slotted in the console will bring the game back to the Level Select screen, which Burton explains

2580-447: A runaway success for the website: by early 2002 Strong Bad was already receiving hundreds of emails a day, peaking at eight thousand daily emails in the summer of 2003 before leveling off to two thousand a day. Strong Bad started off with a prominent Mexican accent and a deep voice, which gradually transitioned into a more gruff and less-accented voice with more vocal range. Strong Bad has been received well by both critics and viewers of

2709-420: A short song to himself while booting up his computer to check fan emails. Starting a reply, he typically mocks the sender's name, spelling, and grammar, and rarely answers questions directly. While early episodes focused mostly on Strong Bad sitting at the computer with occasional cutaways, the cutaways would become more elaborate over time, allowing for more complex story lines to develop, growing tangentially from

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2838-466: A slanted joke about such old-style cartoons. 20X6 (pronounced "twenty exty-six"), a parody of the Mega Man and EarthBound games' "year 200X", originated from Strong Bad Email #57, japanese cartoon , an email asking Strong Bad what he would look like if he were in a Japanese anime . The main character, Stinkoman, is an anime version of Strong Bad with blue hair , a shiny body and robot boots. He

2967-458: A special video featuring Homestar and Strong Bad for the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con to introduce a panel regarding the history of W00tstock . Matt, after completing work on Gravity Falls , moved back to Atlanta in 2014 where Mike was living, and the two agreed that they now had the opportunity to return to Homestar Runner on a semi-regular basis. Their first short in nearly four years, posted on April 1, 2014, poked fun at how they had not updated

3096-459: A total of $ 1,421,903 (nearly 20 times the goal) and 23,338 backers. In 2022, an expansion pack titled Majicks & 'Mergencies Expando Deck was released, adding new cards and gameplay elements. Extra copies are sold in the website's store. Trogdor!! is described as a cooperative puzzle area control game in which the players work together to burninate all of the game tiles, thatched-roof cottages, and peasants. Every player controls Trogdor, assuming

3225-494: A type of cheat code , became an intentional Easter egg in most games, but it originated from Konami's Gradius (1985) for the Nintendo Entertainment System . The programmer, Kazuhisa Hashimoto , created the code as a means to rapidly debug the game by giving the player's avatar additional health and powers to easily traverse the game. These types of codes are normally removed from the game before it

3354-449: A weekly cartoon, and believed that, creatively, they needed a break. The success of Homestar Runner led to Matt and Mike getting writing jobs for television animated series Yo Gabba Gabba! , Gravity Falls , The Aquabats! Super Show! , and Wander Over Yonder . During this hiatus, the brothers released a small number of Homestar Runner cartoons, including ones for 2010's April Fools' Day and Decemberween holidays. They also made

3483-459: A wrestling mask identical to Strong Bad's and speaks in Strong Bad's voice. Homestar Runner Homestar Runner is an American comedy animated web series and website created by Mike and Matt Chapman, known collectively as The Brothers Chaps . The series centers on the adventures of a large and diverse cast of characters , headed by the titular character, Homestar Runner . It uses

3612-510: Is "another signifier of artistry in the world of DVD supplements." According to American film critics James Berardinelli and Roger Ebert , most DVDs do not contain them and most examples are "inconsequential", but a few, such as the one found on the Memento DVD release, are "worth the effort to seek out". Unlike DVDs and computer games, broadcast radio and television programs contain no executable code. Easter eggs may still appear in

3741-463: Is Enough". In 2018, board game Trogdor!! The Board Game was funded via a Kickstarter campaign. References to Trogdor have appeared throughout pop culture, with the "Trogdor" theme featured as a bonus song in Guitar Hero II and the dragon being mentioned in the finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer . A recurring element of Homestar Runner is the re-imagining of the cast and world of

3870-432: Is a Mega Man -style platform game featuring the characters and world of anime parody 20X6 . Nine levels were added to the game over the course of 2005, while the tenth and final level was not released until December 2020, days before Flash would no longer be supported by browsers. The Thy Dungeonman series are parodies of text adventure games originating from Strong Bad Email #94, video games . In each game, your goal

3999-447: Is always looking for a fight, asking various characters he interacts with to engage him in a "challenge" ("Are you asking for a challenge?"). There is also a game, Stinkoman 20X6 , which is heavily based on the Mega Man series. Cheat Commandos is a parody of G.I. Joe that features a cast of characters that are the same species as The Cheat. Most are based on G.I. Joe characters, or characters from other 1980s cartoons. The cartoon

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4128-514: Is an adventure game featuring Rather Dashing, a young peasant in short pants. After he finds his cottage burned to the ground, he vows to kill the destroyer of his cottage, Trogdor. The game uses a system that is a near-replica of Sierra Entertainment 's Adventure Game Interpreter , used in King's Quest , Space Quest and several other early Sierra titles. This system is something like text adventure games yet it has simple visuals. Stinkoman 20X6

4257-449: Is constantly advertising its products in the cartoons by such methods as referring to the areas they are in as "playsets", a convoy truck as an "action figure storage vehicle", and by ending each cartoon with the phrase "Buy all our playsets and toys!", sung in a patriotic way. It also parodies the G.I. Joe cartoons' use of public service announcements , referring to nonsensical things like "peer-2-teen choice behaviors". Some cartoons feature

4386-413: Is one of the site's most popular characters, merchandise has also spun off of Strong Bad, which includes T-shirts and sweatshirts sold by the website. Strong Bad has been one of the most popular characters in the series and has been well-received. In 2021, Polygon declared Strong Bad an icon. In a tribute, they note that "Strong Bad Email was far and away the most popular segment on Homestar Runner" and

4515-558: Is probably not the guy you want to move in next door. The red and black Wrestlemania mask he wears all the time is a clue. As are the boxing gloves, which he keeps on even when he is typing sarcastic e-mails ... He is one of the coolest characters on the Internet and the real star of Homestarrunner.com, which may be the most popular homegrown animation in the world." He added "Strong Bad also dabbles in other media and, like Professor Cornel West, has even recorded his own rap, 'Everybody to

4644-407: Is referred to with the term "burnination". The Trogdor character became very popular, with merchandise featuring the dragon consistently being the best-selling in the store. Trogdor was featured on several games on the website, and accompanied by a memorable song in his first appearance. He featured as the main antagonist of the final episode of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People , "8-Bit

4773-605: Is selected on the CONFIG menu. In the second and third hardware revision of the Minolta Dynax/Maxxum/Alpha 9 (introduced in 1998) SLR camera, including all SSM/ADI upgraded bodies (since 2003), an undocumented button sequence can be utilized to reconfigure the camera to behave like the Dynax/Maxxum/Alpha 9Ti (1999) and subsequently invoke support for the limited model's extra functions also in

4902-437: Is shipped but, in the case of Gradius , Hashimoto forgot to remove it and the code was soon discovered by players. Its popularity inspired Konami to reuse the code and purposely retain it for many of its future games as an Easter egg. Technical issues may also create unintentional Easter eggs. Jon Burton , founder of Traveller's Tales , said that many seemingly apparent Easter eggs in their Sega Genesis games came about as

5031-467: Is still occasionally referred to as an antagonist, due to the pranks that he, Strong Mad, and The Cheat play on the other characters, and his insulting of his brother Strong Sad. He seems to be a character influenced by the American popular culture trends of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, such as heavy metal music and the second and third-generations of video games and video game consoles . Since he

5160-744: Is the pro controller for the Nintendo Switch , on the controller's motherboard , if a player holds down on the right stick and looks closely into the transparent plastic surrounding its socket while shining a light on it, there is a hidden message that reads "THX2ALLGAMEFANS!". The message was discovered by Japanese Twitter user Geo Stream on March 4, 2017, one day after the Switch's launch. American comic book artists are known to include hidden messages in their art: Easter eggs are found on films, DVDs , and Blu-ray Discs , often as deleted scenes or bonus features. Klinger states that their presence

5289-465: Is the default exception handling for any unidentified processor error, such as when connectivity between the cartridge and the console's microprocessor is temporarily lost. In computer software , Easter eggs are secret responses that occur as a result of an undocumented set of commands. The results can vary from a simple printed message or image to a page of programmer credits or a small video game hidden inside an otherwise serious piece of software. In

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5418-464: Is to "get ye flask". Though the game purports to be set in the medieval era, the text is actually rendered in mock Early Modern English , in the style of William Shakespeare . Thy Dungeonman has two sequels: Thy Dungeonman II , which expands on the features of the original game and can only be found on the Videlectrix site, and Thy Dungeonman III which adds basic graphics and can be found on

5547-629: Is usually just a picture of the answering machine, sometimes there are short animated segments featuring the characters. As of April 1, 2016, there are 17 Marzipan's Answering Machines. These are live action shorts in which the regular characters are depicted by puppets. These may be skits , or musical performances with They Might Be Giants . Many Puppet Stuff videos feature the characters interacting with children, often related to The Brothers Chaps . One spin-off series, "Biz Cas Fri", depicts Homestar and Strong Bad's interactions from his office cubicle at work. The first Biz Cas Fri video arguably first coined

5676-546: The Homestar Runner characters as an outlet to do so. The earliest Homestar Runner cartoons revolved around the titular Homestar Runner taking part in athletic competitions, opposed by the villainous Strong Bad. The Brothers Chaps soon decided to instead focus on humorous moments taking place between competitions, which allowed for Strong Bad to be developed further in cartoon series like "Marzipan's Answering Machine" and "Strong Bad Email". Strong Bad quickly became

5805-498: The NES video game Tag Team Wrestling . Strong Bad was therefore drawn as a stereotypical luchador, with a red-and-black mask, boxing gloves, tights, and going shirtless. A few photocopies of the small, handmade book were distributed among friends, there was no serious attempt to publish or otherwise capitalize on it. Strong Bad would not be revisited for several years; in 1999, the brothers wanted to learn to use Flash and returned to

5934-649: The TOPS-10 operating system (for the DEC PDP-10 mainframe computer ), the make command is used to invoke the TECO editor to create a file. If given the file name argument love , so that the command reads make love , it will pause and respond not war? before creating the file. The Easter egg was added sometime between October 1967 and October 1968 by William F. Weiher at the Stanford AI Lab to

6063-518: The United Kingdom , described the humor of Strong Bad. He wrote: "Like South Park and Modern Toss, Strong Bad isn't exactly beautiful to look at but he's relentlessly funny," and added, "Strong Bad is an animated Mexican wrestler ... and the undoubted star of surreal cartoon site Homestar Runner." Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People is a point-and-click adventure game based on Homestar Runner and starring Strong Bad. The game

6192-467: The motherboards . The 500 says " B52/Rock Lobster ", the 600 says " June Bug ", and the 1200 says " Channel Z ". The Amiga OS software contains hidden messages. Many integrated circuit (chip) designers have included hidden graphics elements termed chip art , including images, phrases, developer initials, logos, and more. This artwork, like the rest of the chip, is reproduced in each copy by lithography and etching . These are visible only when

6321-458: The 150th Strong Bad Email, alternate universe . Old-Timey cartoons take place in an old-time setting, with most of the characters being Old-Timey counterparts of the Homestar Runner characters. These cartoons are in black and white with a film grain effect and scratchy audio quality. They parody the distinctive style of animated cartoons during the 1920s and 1930s (à la Steamboat Willie ), and can be seen as perhaps deliberately unfunny, to make

6450-549: The 1996 parody children's book The Homestar Runner Enters the Strongest Man in the World Contest . The storybook focuses on friends The Homestar Runner and Pom-Pom entering a strongman competition , opposed by the cheating Strong Bad. Seeking to design an obvious villain, inspiration came from " evil " masked wrestlers such as Mil Máscaras , Mr. Wrestling II , and most prominently the "Strong Bads" team from

6579-613: The 3D Text screen saver , entering the text "volcano" will display the names of all the volcanoes in the United States. Microsoft removed this Easter egg in XP but added others. In Windows Vista and later, by launching a screensaver executable (introduced with Windows Vista) on the command line with the /p65552 flag, for example launching the "bubbles" screen saver with bubbles.scr /p65552 command-line parameter, it runs as desktop wallpaper . Microsoft Excel 95 contains

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6708-653: The Atlanta indie band Y-O-U along with Matt Chapman on vocals) performed a live show in Atlanta, Georgia, and again on November 8, 2008, opening for indie pop band of Montreal . A college rock band called Sloshy (with the logo stylized in lower case and rotated 180 degrees, with the "o" being a different color, as " ʎɥs o ןs ") was introduced in 2007. Sloshy features songs in the musical vein of Pavement such as "We Don't Really Even Care About You" and "The B-est of B-Sides". Other fictitious artists include Scandinavian death metal parody Taranchula (although performing more in

6837-614: The Braves". And we were just like, "Homestar Runner? That's the best thing we've ever heard!" When Mike and Craig were in a bookstore and made a remark about how "awful" the children's books were, the idea to write their own children's book occurred to them. They spent around two hours designing the look of Homestar Runner, Pom Pom, Strong Bad, and The Cheat, and completed the book within a day. They only printed about five to ten copies to share with friends, and had no intention to publish it. However, they had no idea that their father had sent out

6966-704: The Burninator (stylized as TROGDOR, the BURNİNATOR ), and performing his heavy metal theme song. Trogdor's popularity saw the character appear on merchandise such as T-shirts, hoodies, and posters, with an extended version of the song appearing on the CD Strong Bad Sings . In 2002, a fictional hair metal band, Limozeen, was introduced as a parody of 1980s bands such as Skid Row , White Lion and Poison ; with songs including "Because, It's Midnite" and "Nite Mamas". On March 17, 2008, "Limozeen" (actually

7095-809: The COMPIL program for the PDP-6, which was then used in the TOPS-10 operating system, making it the first Easter egg in a software program. This same behavior occurs on the RSTS/E operating system, where TECO will provide this response. Other Unix operating systems respond to " why " with " why not " (a reference to The Prisoner in Berkeley Unix , 1977). Some versions of the DEC OpenVMS operating system have concealed exit status codes, including

7224-802: The Homestar Runner site. "Ye Flask" and "You can't get ye flask" have become catch-phrases in the Homestar Runner universe, eventually spawning a T-shirt in the Homestar Runner store. In 2007, the website produced Wii versions of some of the games on the site, for the Wii internet browser. When played on the computer, they use the mouse only. Two point-and-click adventure game titles by the Brothers Chaps made in Unity have been released to Steam and Itch.io , Halloween Hide & Seek and Dangeresque: The Roomisode Triungulate , an expanded remake of

7353-415: The Homestar Runner site. In 2004, the Homestar Runner characters were featured in the music video to their song Experimental Film . Additionally, they have performed multiple times with a puppet of Homestar Runner. They have also collaborated on several other shorts, including Strong Bad Email #200, email thunder . In Strong Bad Email #58, dragon , Strong Bad is asked to draw a dragon , creating Trogdor,

7482-428: The Homestar Runner website, called "Strong Bad Emails". The Strong Bad Email series grew to be so popular that six DVDs featuring the emails have been released, as well as a podcast where emails could be downloaded to digital media players, since its first episode in 2001. Strong Bad was created to be the main antagonist of the series but since then has become less of a villain and more of an antihero . However, he

7611-472: The Limit', which builds on the delightful typographic implosion, 'fhqwhgads ' ", and also said "The humor likewise combines the innocence of slapstick with sharp satire of American popular culture. ... At one point, tired of being asked how he types with boxing gloves on, Strong Bad attaches fake fingers: a shrimp, a lit birthday candle, and an action-figure toy." Johnny Dee, a reviewer from The Guardian of

7740-607: The Mac operating system after a vote on the Telltale Games website. Strong Bad appears as one of the computer-controlled opponents in Telltale's Poker Night at the Inventory , using the same model from SBCG4AP. Players can unlock in-game card sets and table designs based on Homestar Runner. Additionally, Strong Bad will occasionally bet Dangeresque Too's sunglasses in place of in-game cash; defeating him after doing so will unlock

7869-534: The PAL region on November 21. The fourth episode, Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective , was released on Telltale Games' website and WiiWare in North America on November 17, and in the PAL region on December 5. The fifth and final episode, 8-Bit is Enough , was released to North America on December 15 and in the PAL region on January 2, 2009. In 2010, it was decided that Telltale games would release SBCG4AP for

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7998-679: The World Contest book, as well as many of the early cartoons, Strong Bad mainly served as the antagonist to Homestar Runner. The two would frequently compete against each other in competitions, with Strong Bad often cheating. As the series drew away from competition-based stories and became more character-driven, Strong Bad became less of a villain; although he still dislikes Homestar and often tries to prank him, he mostly just views him as dim-witted and irritating. The two have been known to occasionally get along, however. Along with his physically intimidating but mentally limited big brother Strong Mad and his yellow lackey The Cheat , Strong Bad represents

8127-811: The a cappella band Da Vinci's Notebook to create a theme song for the Old-Timey version of The Cheat, called "Ballad of The Sneak"; the duo later wrote the theme tune for the Stinkoman 20X6 game. Matt Chapman provided guest vocals as Strong Bad on The Aquabats ' "Pink Pants!" from their 2011 album, Hi-Five Soup! . Strong Bad's voice also appears on Shellac 's "Genuine Lulabelle" off the album " Excellent Italian Greyhound " from 2007. Discussing how he and his sibling decide which projects to work on, Mike Chapman said, "We learned how to politely say no to things that were going to affect our lives negatively. If it's going to be fun, if we're going to enjoy doing it, and if

8256-551: The album Excellent Italian Greyhound . Strong Bad makes a guest appearance on The Aquabats ' 2011 album Hi-Five Soup! , providing vocals on the song "Pink Pants!". On July 14, 2012, Matt Chapman appeared onstage at an Aquabats concert in San Diego in character as Strong Bad, joining the band in a performance of "Trogdor". A three-volume Homestar Runner soundtrack was released to music streaming platforms on April 10, 2020. All songs are credited to "Strong Bad", despite

8385-578: The black model. One of HP's electronic pocket calculators , the HP-45 (introduced in 1973), has a built-in undocumented stopwatch . The firmware of HP's ScanJet 5p image scanner contains an easter egg wherein, on a cold power-on, holding down the scan button when the SCSI ID selector on the back is set to "0" will cause the ScanJet to play a rendition of Schiller 's " Ode to Joy ", by modulating

8514-514: The book as a manuscript for submission to about 80 different publishers, but they only got rejection letters back, if anything. The pair began to work on a sequel, Homestar Runner Goes for the Gold , which would have introduced Strong Bad's brothers, Strong Mad and Strong Sad, but was eventually abandoned. They later used the Super NES video game Mario Paint to create the first cartoon featuring

8643-652: The brothers also worked to transfer the older Flash content into video format for archival purposes. Prior to Flash's discontinuation, the Internet Archive included Homestar Runner content in its collection of Flash animations and games. The content is directly viewable in modern browsers through the Ruffle Flash emulator. The Homestar Runner website itself was also updated to use Ruffle, restoring much of its original functionality. Homestar Runner cartoons typically center on Homestar Runner, Strong Bad, and

8772-442: The brothers through sales of related merchandise. Both brothers were married by 2010 and had their children to care for, and they recognized that they would need to find other jobs to support their respective families. When Matt had a second daughter, the two agreed to put the series on hiatus, knowing they would want to come back to it but could not guarantee a time frame. Mike also noted that they had spent nearly ten years delivering

8901-484: The cartoon into a different genre. Variations of Strong Bad feature prominently in many of these series, such as the 1930s-themed "Old-Timey Strong Bad", the comic book superhero "Strong Badman", or the anime - styled "Stinkoman". Many elements of Homestar Runner spun off from Strong Bad Emails, such as cartoon series Teen Girl Squad or characters Trogdor the Burninator and Homsar. Along with several other Homestar Runner main characters, Strong Bad debuted in

9030-564: The cartoon, such as Secret Collect , StrongBadZone , and Strong Bad's RhinoFeeder , all parodies of early Atari and arcade games, originating in the Strong Bad Email video games . TROGDOR! which previously appeared in the Arcade Game short, features the titular dragon Trogdor the Burninator attempting to burn all the cottages on each stage without being slain by knights. A spin-off of TROGDOR! , called Peasant's Quest ,

9159-491: The character Strong Bad and "Because, It's Midnite" by Limozeen, have been included in the successful Guitar Hero II and Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s video games, respectively. Easter egg (virtual) The earliest known video game Easter egg is in the 1973 video game Moonlander , in which the player tries to land a Lunar module on the Moon; if the player opts to fly the module horizontally through several of

9288-495: The character Crack Stuntman, the fictional voice actor for the Cheat Commandos character Gunhaver. The Homestar Runner site frequently features songs and videos within their animated shorts or as stand-alone entities. These are primarily sung and performed either by the characters or by fictitious artists serving as parodies of various genres. Real-life musicians They Might Be Giants have collaborated multiple times with

9417-588: The character Senor Cardgage), Flag Day , Independence Day , Labor Day (occasionally referred to as "Labor Dabor"), Thanksgiving , and Easter . Teen Girl Squad is a crudely drawn comic strip narrated by Strong Bad, using a falsetto voice. The series was a spin off of Strong Bad Email #53, comic , in which Strong Bad is asked to make a comic strip of a girl and her friends. The comic features four archetypal teenage girls, "Cheerleader", "So and So", "What's Her Face" and "The Ugly One", and satirizes high school life, teen movies, and television. Each episode follows

9546-399: The characters, and can now be found on the "Old Games" section of the site. Over time, more recent games have diversified and become more complex, with many being released as products of "Videlectrix", a game company within the world of Homestar Runner and a side project of The Brothers Chaps, spoofing games of the 1980s. Often the games would originate as video games played by the characters in

9675-409: The characters. Around 1999, Mike recognized how popular Flash animation was taking off, and he and his younger brother Matt Chapman started to learn Flash on their own. Looking for something on which to practice, they found inspiration in the old "children's" book. Their initial cartoons were launched on their dedicated website, homestarrunner.com, by 2000. Mike animated the cartoons, Matt provided

9804-693: The chip package is opened and examined under magnification. The 1984 CVAX microchip implementation of the MicroVAX CPU contains in its etchings the Russian phrase in the Cyrillic alphabet "VAX: When you care enough to steal the very best", placed there because, "knowing that some CVAXs would end up in the USSR, the team wanted the Russians to know that we were thinking of them". Another notable example

9933-462: The circuit board to make the airplanes in the game appear as alien UFOs. Fries surmises that this feature may have been intended for a Kee Games release. For this reason, and because it requires a hardware modification, Fries questions whether it meets the definition of an Easter egg. In 2004, an Easter egg displaying programmer Bradley Reid-Selth's surname was found in Video Whizball (1978),

10062-494: The clock' in the games we play." Matt Chapman provided input on the writing for Strong Bad. Strong Bad Sings (And Other Type Hits) is a 2003 album featuring new or re-recorded songs from the Homestar Runner site. Although many songs are performed by Strong Bad, other bands and characters from Homestar Runner are featured as well. Spoken word lines from Strong Bad were featured on the Shellac song "Genuine Lulabelle", from

10191-557: The company of the acknowledgment that he included in the game. Shortly after his departure, the "Gray Dot" and his message were discovered by a player. Atari's management initially wanted to remove the message and release the game again, until this was deemed too costly. Instead, Steve Wright, the Director of Software Development in the Atari Consumer Division, suggested that they keep the message and, in fact, encourage

10320-641: The company's Operating System division "has a 'no Easter Eggs' policy" as part of its Trustworthy Computing initiative. In 2006, Douglas W. Jones said that while "some Easter eggs may be intentional tools used to detect illegal copying , others are clearly examples of unauthorized functionality that has slipped through the quality-control tests at the vendor". While hidden Easter eggs themselves are harmless, it may be possible for malware to be hidden in similar ways in voting machines or other computers. Netscape Navigator contributor Jamie Zawinski stated in an interview in 1998 that harmless Easter eggs impose

10449-435: The content itself, such as a hidden Mickey in a Disney film or a real telephone number instead of a 555 fictitious telephone number . A 2014 Super Bowl advertisement was leaked online in which a lady gives a man a real telephone number, which the advertiser had hidden as a marketing ploy; the first caller to the number received a pair of tickets to the game. The 1980s animated series She-Ra: Princess of Power featured

10578-446: The crap?"), though he now parodies even this in his responses to emails. Trogdor the Burninator is an original character created by Strong Bad in the 58th Strong Bad Email, titled "dragon". The cartoon features Strong Bad giving an Ed Emberley -inspired drawing tutorial to the viewer, illustrating a fire-breathing serpent with incongruous details including stick-figure feet and a single, large muscular arm. His fire-breathing destruction

10707-471: The creators, whose retired parents managed many of the business aspects. The brothers considered the period between 2002–2005 to be their most creative and successful, exploring various different media for the shorts and having a large quantity of merchandise. Matt considered a day in February 2004 to be the highlight of the series, having received a demo tape from They Might Be Giants for a song to use in

10836-519: The date of the sales launch of the original Macintosh . The Python programming language and its ecosystem of libraries include various Easter eggs. While computer-related Easter eggs are often found in installed software , occasionally they exist in the firmware of certain devices. On some home and early personal computers the ROM contains Easter eggs, including lists of the developers' names, political exhortations, snatches of music, or images of

10965-592: The development team in the ROM. These Mac Easter eggs were well-publicized in the Macintosh press at the time along with the means to access them, and were later recovered by an NYC Resistor team, a hacker collective , through elaborate reverse engineering . Similarly, the Radio Shack Color Computer ;3 's ROM contains code which displays what looks like three Microware developers on

11094-403: The end project is going to be something we want to have happen, we say yes." In 2003, the site received several million hits a month and almost a thousand emails a day. According to Matt Chapman, the site did no advertising, but grew on word of mouth and endorsements. "Certain bands, like fairly popular bands and stuff would link us on their site and, you know we were Shockwave site of the day

11223-611: The entire development team. The palmtop PC HP 200LX (1994) includes an undocumented hex calculator HEXCALC.EXM . The built-in maze game "Lair of Squid" incorporates a hidden gallery of the software developers. In test mode it displays several poems. Other notable examples include some versions of the AMI BIOS that on 13 November 1993, proceeded to play "Happy Birthday" via the PC speaker repeatedly instead of booting , as well as several early Apple Macintosh models that have photos of

11352-412: The episode number ended in .0 (for example, Marzipan's Answering Machine Version 5.0), but since Marzipan changed to a new answering machine, the number ends in .2 (for example, Marzipan's Answering Machine Version 15.2). In every episode, Strong Bad prank calls Marzipan, badly pretending to be someone else, such as "Detective Everybody", "Safety Dan", and sometimes other characters. Although the animation

11481-427: The fact that many are purportedly performed by other fictional characters or are simple instrumental pieces, as a result of limits on formatting compilation albums. In 2011, Matt Chapman joined the production team of The Hub series The Aquabats! Super Show! as a writer and director. In the 2012 episode "CobraMan!" , co-directed by Chapman, he appears onscreen as a villainous carnival worker named "Carl", who wears

11610-450: The game during play. The Easter egg included in the original Age of Empires (1997) is an example of the latter; catapult projectiles are changed from stones to cows. More elaborate Easter eggs include secret levels and developers' rooms—fully functional, hidden areas of the game. Developers' rooms often include inside jokes from the fandom or development team and differ from a debug room in that they are specifically intended for

11739-498: The game world. According to research by Ed Fries , one of the earliest Easter eggs in a graphical video games could be found in Starship 1 (1977), programmed by Ron Milner. By triggering the cabinet's controls in the right order, the player can have the message "Hi Ron!" appear on the screen. Fries describes it as "the earliest arcade game yet known that clearly meets the definition of an Easter egg". The existence of this Easter egg

11868-520: The game's screens, they encounter a McDonald's restaurant, and if they land next to it, the astronaut will visit it instead of standing next to the ship. The earliest known Easter egg in software in general is one placed in the "make" command for PDP-6 / PDP-10 computers sometime in October 1967–October 1968, wherein if the user attempts to create a file named "love" by typing "make love", the program responds " not war? " before proceeding. The use of

11997-414: The girls in typical high school situations, often leading to their gruesome deaths. A spinoff of this series is "4 Gregs", which follows four of the squad's nerdy classmates, all named Greg. Marzipan's Answering Machine is a series of cartoons with almost no animation. It features messages from the other characters, being played on the answering machine belonging to the character Marzipan. In early episodes,

12126-555: The glasses as an equippable cosmetic item for the Demoman in Team Fortress 2 . The game was released for PC and Mac on November 22, 2010. Trogdor!! The Board Game is a board game made by The Brothers Chaps in collaboration with James Ernest . The campaign was put on Kickstarter on Tuesday, July 17, 2018, with a goal of $ 75,000, which was surpassed in the first few hours. The campaign ended on Wednesday, August 15, 2018, with

12255-553: The inclusion of such messages in future games, describing them as Easter eggs for consumers to find. While Robinett's message in Adventure led to the first use of the phrase "Easter egg", Easter eggs were included in previous video games. The earliest known video game Easter egg is in Moonlander (1973), in which the player tries to land a spaceship on the Moon. If the player flies far enough horizontally, they encounter

12384-503: The initial email. Each episode closes with Strong Bad finishing his reply, closing the episode with a link to email Strong Bad appearing via "The Paper", a dot matrix printer at the top of the screen. In later episodes, it is replaced with the "New Paper", an inkjet printer ; then with the "Compé-per", a pop-up balloon ; and finally with a CGI version of the original Paper, which instead promotes Strong Bad's Twitter account. As of April 1, 2022, 209 Strong Bad Emails have been released on

12513-703: The main "shorts" and "big toons", including the most well-known, Strong Bad Email. Strong Bad Emails (also known as "sbemails") is a series featuring Strong Bad answering emails from fans. Since starting in August 2001, the initially brief episodes have grown in length and scope, introducing numerous spin-offs, characters, and inside jokes, such as Homsar, Trogdor, Senor Cardgage, 20X6 , the Teen Girl Squad shorts, and Homestar Runner Emails (also known as "hremails"). The format, however, has remained largely unchanged. Each episode typically begins with Strong Bad singing

12642-590: The main characters celebrating a traditional aspect of the holiday (such as ghost stories , trick-or-treating or pumpkin carving ) in costume, often making obscure pop culture references. The site also usually releases a separate Halloween video where Strong Bad views a slideshow and mocks and/or appraises photos sent in by real life fans of their Halloween costumes and props modeled after Homestar Runner characters and other elements. Similarly, Decemberween cartoons typically satirize Christmas traditions such as gift-giving and carol-singing. The fact that it takes place on

12771-486: The music for Strong Bad Email #99, different town , and the band wrote and vocalized the intro song of the 200th Strong Bad Email. Another group, The Skate Party, helped The Brothers Chaps create "The Cheat Theme Song". The band Y-O-U helped with the Strong Bad Sings and Other Type Hits CD, as well as songs on the strongbad_email.exe DVDs. The Brothers Chaps also employed the services of Paul and Storm of

12900-437: The new owners, Warner Communications . Robinett, who disagreed with his supervisor over this lack of acknowledgment, secretly programmed the message "Created by Warren Robinett" to appear only if a player moves their avatar over a specific pixel (dubbed the "Gray Dot") during a certain part of the game and enters a previously "forbidden" part of the map where the message can be found. When Robinett left Atari, he did not inform

13029-607: The original Dangeresque: Roomisode 1 web game that adds two new episodes. On April 10, 2008, an episodic licensed game based on the series centering around Strong Bad titled Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People (abbreviated as SBCG4AP ) was announced for the Wii 's WiiWare service and Microsoft Windows, developed by Telltale Games in partnership with Videlectrix. The first episode, Homestar Ruiner , premiered on August 11, 2008 on Telltale Games' website and in North America on Nintendo's WiiWare service on August 11, 2008. It

13158-528: The original picture book, The Homestar Runner Enters the Strongest Man in the World Contest , while working summer jobs surrounding the 1996 Summer Olympics . Matt described the origin of the name "Homestar Runner" as an in-joke between themselves and James Huggins , a childhood friend of the Chapman brothers while growing up in Dunwoody, Georgia . It actually comes from a friend of ours [James]. There

13287-552: The other ten main characters: The Cheat, Marzipan, Coach Z, Bubs, Strong Sad, Strong Mad, Pom Pom, the King of Town, the Poopsmith, and Homsar. The Brothers Chaps have described them as “dumb animal characters”. These characters all live in the fictional town of Free Country, USA. Each character has multiple alternate versions of themselves, such as "Old-Timey" and "20X6" versions. Homestar Runner features several spin-off series from

13416-518: The peak of its popularity, the site was one of the most-visited sites with collections of Flash cartoons on the web , spreading via word of mouth . The site sustains itself through merchandise sales and has never featured advertisements . The Brothers Chaps have turned down offers to make a television series. After a four-year hiatus beginning in 2010, Homestar Runner returned with a new Holiday Toon on April 1, 2014, for April Fools' Day . Afterwards, co-creator Matt Chapman announced plans to give

13545-700: The player to find. Some games even include hidden minigames as Easter eggs. In the LucasArts game Day of the Tentacle (1993), the original Maniac Mansion (1987) game can be played in its full version by using a home computer in a character's room. Similarly, a programmer included the whole of TimeSplitters 2 (2002) within Homefront: The Revolution (2016), accessed by using a special code at an in-game arcade cabinet. Other Easter eggs originated unintentionally. The Konami Code ,

13674-429: The role of one of the twelve "Keepers of Trogdor". Each Keeper has unique powers and items, both decided by cards. The game is for one to six players, and play time is 30 minutes with variable levels of difficulty the players can set. The recommended age is 14+. It comes with a mini-game titled "Stack 'Em To The Heavens" in which you stack the meeples in different ways. An album titled Trogdor!! The Board Game Rulebook EP ,

13803-529: The same day as Christmas has been presented as just a coincidence, having been stated that Decemberween takes place "55 days after Halloween". April Fools' Day features various gags, such as turning the site into a paid subscription service, or turning it upside down. Other holidays celebrated include New Year's Day , "The Big Game" (around the time of the Super Bowl ), St. Valentine's Day , Mother's Day , "Senorial Day" (a parody of Memorial Day featuring

13932-437: The self-proclaimed criminal element in the series. Many shorts concern the various practical jokes and scams that they perpetrate. Although these are usually only slightly malevolent, Strong Bad still acts as if he is a villainous mastermind, and he is highly prone to exaggerating his alluring qualities—especially with regards to women. Strong Bad also "rules" an area of the fictional universe called Strong Badia. It consists of

14061-406: The series and character have "remained a "massive comedic influence" on others. Segments have been spun off of his emails, including "Teen Girl Squad", a comic drawn by Strong Bad about four teenage friends, and "20X6", an anime -style cartoon featuring Japanese versions of the characters, such as Strong Bad's counterpart, "Stinkoman". In the original The Homestar Runner Enters the Strongest Man in

14190-495: The show at certain points. In the anthology series Black Mirror , the producers have included Easter eggs that reference past episodes, or tie into future episodes, as a means of loosely tying together all episodes into a single Black Mirror universe. The Netflix series Stranger Things had a real-world Easter Egg where a pizza delivery van featured in the show's fourth season had the phone number (805) 45-PIZZA shown on its side. If that number, which translated to 805-457-4992

14319-610: The site in years. Matt confirmed their commitment to continue the series in July 2014. Since then, the site has featured occasional updates, usually for holidays. Until 2017, this was mostly due to the brothers' involvement in developing the Disney XD animated show Two More Eggs . With the impending discontinuation of Adobe Flash in December 2020, most new Homestar Runner animations were released directly as videos to YouTube ;

14448-571: The site semi-regular updates. Since global support for Flash ended on December 31, 2020, homestarrunner.com has maintained a fully functional website through the Flash emulator Ruffle . More cartoons have since been released on the website and its YouTube channel on an occasional basis, usually to celebrate holidays. Homestar Runner was created in Atlanta in 1996 by University of Georgia students Mike Chapman and friend Craig Zobel , who wrote

14577-454: The site's breakout character , with Mike Chapman noting that fans seemed to enjoy "how he rags on everyone, but isn't very threatening." The Brothers Chaps decided to give him his own segment, Strong Bad Email (abbreviated as "sbemail") beginning in 2001; originally established as a brief, advice column -like format merely featuring Strong Bad typing at a computer, the format quickly evolved to more complex mini-cartoons. "Strong Bad Email" became

14706-457: The speed of the audible stepper motor drive to produce specific pitches. The Commodore Amiga 1000 computer includes the signatures of the design and development team embossed on the inside of the case, including Jay Miner and the paw print of his dog, Mitchy. The Commodore Amiga models 500, 600, and 1200 each feature Easter eggs in the form of song titles by the B-52's as white printing on

14835-479: The spelling and grammar of those who wrote to him, usually while typing with boxing gloves on an outdated computer. The question of how he types with boxing gloves on has become a running gag due to the frequency of emails concerning it, and seems to annoy Strong Bad. Most of the time a cut-away sequence is used to move the narrative beyond mere typing. Once the events of the email finish unfolding, Strong Bad wraps it up, and then "The Paper" or "New Paper" comes down with

14964-622: The term Doge . In-universe, “Powered By The Cheat” videos are short cartoons made by the character of The Cheat, and are often music videos done for other characters. During these segments, Matt Chapman does the animation and Mike Chapman provides the voices, a switching of their usual roles. As a result, the cartoons are deliberately poorly animated. Over time, many alternate versions of the Homestar Runner world and characters would appear, parodying other cartoons and animation styles. Many of these feature in their own cartoons. The many alternate universes would later cross over in some cartoons, such as

15093-454: The term " Easter egg " to describe secret features in video games originates from the 1980 video game Adventure for the Atari 2600 game console, programmed by the employee Warren Robinett . At the time, Atari did not include programmers' names in the game credits, both to prevent competitors from poaching its developers as well as to deny developers a means to bargain with the management of

15222-401: The voices of the male characters, and Mike's girlfriend (now wife) Missy Palmer provided the voice of Marzipan. They initially started off with shorts that featured competitions between Homestar Runner as a heroic character and Strong Bad as the villain, but these did not really capture viewers. Mike and Matt came up with the idea of animating the scenes between competitions; Matt stated "that

15351-759: The website (with another six exclusive to DVD releases), separable into distinct eras by Strong Bad's different computers; the Tandy 400, the Compy 386, the Lappy 486, the Compé, and his current computer, the Lappier. Prior to the 2010 hiatus, holiday specials were a regular feature of the site, released to coincide with popular holidays, specifically Halloween and Decemberween (a fictional holiday similar to Christmas also celebrated on December 25). Halloween shorts typically feature

15480-629: The website. He is considered one of the most popular characters of the website, and his Strong Bad Email segment is one of the most viewed segments of Homestar Runner . In an audio review of Strong Bad and the rest of the Homestar Runner characters, National Public Radio said "There are lots of nasty characters lurking in the shadowy corners of the World Wide Web. But Strong Bad is just awful. And he's awfully funny, too". Peter Wood of National Review Online commented on Strong Bad's personality and his evil-looking appearance. He stated: "Strong Bad

15609-425: Was "a cool feeling to know you're as important as a cup of coffee or morning crossword to some folks". Their father suggested Matt quit his full-time job to devote time to creating more Homestar Runner shorts. With the number of visitors to the site growing, by January 2003 the site had outgrown its original web host, Yahoo . Merchandise sales paid for all of the costs of running the website as well as living costs of

15738-624: Was also released in Europe and Australia the following Friday (August 15, 2008). The second episode, Strong Badia the Free , was released on September 15 on the WiiWare service in North America and on the Telltale Games' website, and in the PAL region on October 3. The third episode, Baddest of the Bands , was released on Telltale Games' website and the WiiWare service in North America on October 27, and to

15867-668: Was an old local grocery store commercial, and we live in Atlanta, and it advertised the Atlanta Braves . It was like, "the Atlanta Braves hit home runs, and you can hit a home run with savings here!" And so there was this player named Mark Lemke , and they said something like "All star second baseman for the Braves". And our friend [James] knows nothing about sports, and so he would always do his old-timey radio impression of this guy, and not knowing any positions in baseball or whatever, he would just be like, "homestar runner for

15996-527: Was created by Telltale Games in partnership with The Brothers Chaps, and released for both the Nintendo Wii 's WiiWare service and Microsoft Windows , later ported to PlayStation 3 as a PSN download and to OSX. It was released in an episodic format, with five episodes comprising the first season. No serious discussions or pre-production on a second season had taken place prior to Telltale's closure in 2018. Telltale Games also featured Strong Bad as

16125-412: Was dialed, it led to a special message from Argyle, the fictional restaurant's delivery driver. Security author Michel E. Kabay discussed security concerns of Easter eggs in 2000, saying that, while software quality assurance requires that all code be tested, it is not known whether Easter eggs are. He said that, as they tend to be held as programming secrets from the rest of the product testing process,

16254-435: Was launched on New Year's Day 2000 . While the site originally centered on the title character, the Strong Bad Email cartoon skits quickly became the site's most popular and prominent feature, with Strong Bad , initially the series' main antagonist, becoming a breakout character. Since 2000, the site has grown to encompass a variety of cartoons and web games featuring Homestar, Strong Bad, and numerous other characters. At

16383-410: Was made to explain the rules of the game. An email worm named Lacon, which featured Homestar Runner characters, was created and distributed by someone going by the name of DimenZion in 2003. It affected 32-bit Windows computers on the 10th of each month, emailing copies of itself to contacts in the computer's address book, and also adding various .exe files to the hard drive. Its final payload showed

16512-511: Was not published until 2017, leading Fries to suggest that, as more than one hundred arcade games predate Starship 1 , earlier Easter eggs may still be undiscovered. Fries says that some Atari arcade cabinets were resold under the Kee Games label and include changes to the hardware that make the game appear different from the Atari version. Anti-Aircraft II (1975) includes a means to modify

16641-504: Was the stuff that was funnier, the stuff happening between the plot points, which is hilarious because we hadn't even established a routine of making cartoons about competitions, we'd made like one". From May 2000 to February 2001, the website and cartoons started out with different art styles. In February 2001, it gained a new look, which has largely remained consistent to the present with minor changes. The site grew slowly at first and primarily through word-of-mouth. They were able to sell

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