Homestar Runner co-creator Matt Chapman made a bunch of 20- and 30-somethings happy when he said earlier this week that the cartoon could be making a comeback later this year following a successful experiment on April Fools' Day. If you watched the cartoons during their heyday, the news probably sent you down a nostalgic rabbit hole where you spent two hours re-watching all of your favorite episodes.

If you happened to miss out on Homestar during its peak, here's what you need to know: creators Matt and Mike Chapman made a lot of different Flash cartoons for the site, but the most popular were Strong Bad E-mails, also called "sbemails." Every week, Strong Bad (the luchador-looking guy in the picture above) picked a different fan-submitted e-mail to answer, and hilarity ensued. The site was updated regularly throughout the early 2000s before becoming more irregular later in the decade, and updates mostly ceased in 2009 as the Chapman brothers moved on to other projects.

We've combed through the archive and assembled 10 Strong Bad e-mails that do a pretty good job of showing what this odd Internet cartoon could be at its best. It's impossible to call out all of the good ones, but if these hook you the complete collection is still available here.

E-mail #53, "Comic"

December 2, 2002



"I have a crush on every boy!"

This e-mail contains the first appearance of Teen Girl Squad, an in-universe comic ostensibly drawn by Strong Bad in response to an e-mail request by a fan whose friends are "totally obsessed" with Strong Bad. The resulting strip is the first of several starring the eponymous squad of teen girls ("Cheerleader," "So-And-So," "Whatsherface," and "The Ugly One"), whose adventures range from light absurdism all the way to full-on Dadaism. Teen Girl Squad also winds up being relentlessly quotable: my wife and I have been saying "ARROWED!" to each other for almost 14 years now.

E-mail #57, "Japanese Cartoon"

January 6, 2003



"Everybody says you’re the guy, but—I want to be the guy, too!

2003 was a banner year for Strong Bad and friends, producing gems like this one. The day’s e-mail asks what Strong Bad would look like if he were in a "Japanese Cartoon," and Strong Bad quickly describes a version of himself that appears to be made out of cheap stock overseas animation components—big eyes, robot boots, blue hair, and a mouth that goes from being small when closed to "ridiculously huge" when open. The hilarity isn’t so much in the animation style as it is in the utterly nonsensical dialog that occurs when anime-style Homestar Runner shows up and asks about being "the guy."

(In spite of the similarities, e-mail #57 doesn’t appear to be responsible for inspiring the name of the insanely difficult underground-indie platformer I Wanna Be the Guy—at least, so says the game’s creator. It did, however, spawn its own Mega Man clone.)

E-mail #58, "Dragon"

January 13, 2003



"To begin, draw an ’s,’ for snake. Er, dragon. Whatever."

There are famous sbemails, and then there’s "Dragon." This sbemail has it all: a snappy premise, Strong Sad being tormented, an awesome song, and Trogdor, the Burninator. An informal survey of friends and Internet acquaintances reveals that this sbemail was many folks’ introduction to the Strong Bad universe; it’s certainly the first one I would show everyone when trying to get them hooked on Strong Bad.

The sbemail functions so well because it’s perfectly self-contained: it doesn’t require much of a grounding to understand. Plus, it caps off with a bitching song, featuring the half man/half dragon/half dragon-man Trogdor the Burninator, burninating the countryside. It’s perfect.

E-mail #68, "Caper"

March 31, 2003

"Thanks for stopping by you guys. Thanks for breaking my cow lamp."

This one's pretty straightforward at first—Strong Bad and The Cheat break into Homestar's house to steal his word jumbles, mayhem ensues. I like this one for two reasons: first, there's Homestar's late-night stubble and jammies combo. Second, the episode ends with Strong Bad bursting into a song about how glad he is that The Cheat isn't dead. The cartoon created so many weird little songs that they released a professionally recorded CD full of them in 2003.

E-mail #78, "Anything"

June 30, 2003

"One time I made a whole set of coasters out of some old Sega tapes."

Strong Bad was the site's breakout star, but I always had a special place in my heart for homestarrunner.com's dimwitted, speech-impaired namesake. Homestar takes over for Strong Bad in this episode for no particular reason, and everything about his time behind the keyboard is a welcome change of pace. Even though he writes on the Compy 386 with chalk and then pours Mountain Dew all over it, it manages to keep kicking for another 40 e-mails.