Editing Homestar Runner (section)

==Cartoons==
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''Homestar Runner'' features several spin-off series from the main "shorts" and "big toons", including the most well-known, Strong Bad Email.

=== 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, [[#Alternate Universes|20X6]], the [[#Teen Girl Squad|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 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 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 printing|dot matrix printer]] at the top of the screen. In later episodes, it is replaced with the "New Paper", an [[inkjet printing|inkjet printer]]; then with the "Compé-per", a [[Balloon help|pop-up balloon]]; and finally with a [[Computer-generated imagery|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 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.

=== Holiday Specials ===
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 the main characters celebrating a traditional aspect of the holiday (such as [[Ghost story|ghost stories]], [[trick-or-treat]]ing or [[jack-o'-lantern|pumpkin carving]]) in costume, often making pop culture references relating to their costumes. 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 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 (United States)|Mother's Day]], "Senorial Day" (a parody of [[Memorial Day]] featuring the character Senor Cardgage), [[Flag Day (United States)|Flag Day]], [[Independence Day (United States)|Independence Day]], [[Labor Day (United States)|Labor Day]] (occasionally referred to as "Labor Dabor"), [[Thanksgiving (United States)|Thanksgiving]], and [[Easter]].

===Teen Girl Squad===
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.<ref name="comic">{{Cite web |title=Strong Bad Email 53 |url=http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail53.html |year=2002 |website=homestarrunner.com |access-date=December 19, 2006 |archive-date=January 14, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070114181018/http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail53.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url = https://www.polygon.com/animation-cartoons/22371710/strong-bad-email-homestar-runner | title = Strong Bad ... thank you | first = Dan | last = Sheehan | date = April 13, 2021 | access-date = April 15, 2021 | work = [[Polygon (website)|Polygon]] | archive-date = April 14, 2021 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210414234407/https://www.polygon.com/animation-cartoons/22371710/strong-bad-email-homestar-runner | url-status = live }}</ref> 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 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===
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, 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 call]]s Marzipan, badly pretending to be someone else, such as "Detective Everybody", "Safety Dan", and sometimes other characters. Although the animation 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.

===Puppet Stuff===
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 the term ''[[Doge (meme)|Doge]]''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=About Doge |url=https://very.auction/doge-history |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250204040945/https://very.auction/doge-history |archive-date=2025-02-04 |access-date=2024-12-15 |website=very.auction |language=en}}</ref>

===Powered By The Cheat===
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.

=== Alternate Universes ===
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 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 cartoon]]s during the 1920s and 1930s (à la [[Steamboat Willie]]), and can be seen as perhaps deliberately unfunny, to make 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 [[Japan]]ese [[anime]]. The main character, Stinkoman, is an anime version of Strong Bad with [[blue hair]], a shiny body and robot boots. He 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 (video game)|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.<ref name="io9 oral" /> Most are based on G.I. Joe characters, or characters from other 1980s cartoons. The cartoon 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 the character Crack Stuntman, the fictional voice actor for the Cheat Commandos character Gunhaver.<ref name="io9 oral" />