An Internet hit since the launch of the site in 2000, Homestar Runner is the armless, beanie-wearing protagonist of an online cartoon show. With the help of his scene-stealing sidekick?a foul-tempered, Mexican-wrestling-masked pal named Strong Bad?and dozens of equally random (and cute) supporting players, the animated shorts have become required viewing for as many as 200,000 users a day.
Producing the site is now a full-time occupation for its cocreators, brothers Matt and Mike Chapman of Atlanta. "It's always Mike and I drinking Miller High Life and Red Bull and staying up till seven in the morning, " says Matt, 27. Their low-budget collaborations most often depict Homestar consuming his beloved marshmallows or Strong Bad responding snidely to viewer questions ("Pretty much everybody wants to know how he can type with boxing gloves on," says Mike, 30), but they're always informed by a positive attitude toward geek culture: There are countless nods to vintage videogames (almost the entire Colecovision catalog has been spoofed by now), and the cartoons often turn into spot-on parodies of Japanese anime, Charlie Brown holiday specials, and cheesy heavy-metal videos.
"Our older brother Don was on the cutting edge of metal back in the '80s," says Mike, "so we were really into bands like Jetboy, Dangerous Toys, and Disneyland After Dark." The cartoon's rock'n'roll sensibility has attracted the attention of more contemporary bands, too: AFI, Beck, and Lou Barlow are among the musicians who have professed their affection for Homestar Runner.
Though Homestar Runner has since spawned its own greatest-hits CD (with a DVD available in December), the Chapmans take their Internet semi-celebrity in stride. They still create their animation on the same "crappy old Dell computer," their dad still runs the merchandise store, and they're still too busy hunting for new material to get out of the house. "We've got a TiVo now," says Matt, "and it's programmed to record Saved by the Bell whenever it's on. And it's on, like, four times a day."
