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209 Seconds (Rough Estimate)

(The entirety of 160 Seconds, but with "160" in the intro replaced with "209")

4 branches: HOMESTAR: Chinese b-

the chair: STRONG BAD: Class!

what i want: MARZIPAN: Forgettably precious.

looking old: MARZIPAN: Up to your chin right

strong badathlon: STRONG BAD: To the wrong athletes

unnatural: STRONG BAD: Kill him? STRONG SAD: We do-

the movies: HOMESTAR: -tuce. Throw

your funeral: HOMESTAR: Abraham Lincoln

from work: HOMESTAR: -veges. It helps

rough copy: STRONG SAD: -tellectual property.

underlings: STRONG BAD: Get Mrs. Hard-

more armies: HOMESTAR: Saaay

the paper: STRONG BAD: Doesn't quite

mini-golf: STRONG BAD: In this infernal pl-

concert: STRONG BAD: Nope. They're a

hygiene: STRONG BAD: No matter what he does.

original: BUBS: B'zuh!

bike thief: STRONG BAD: Side of this couch

pizza joint: MAN IN PIZZA COSTUME: It burns!

slumber party: STRONG BAD: Can you guys start

web comics: TAKE DAGGER: Hiya

business trip: THE KING OF TOWN: Units? STRONG BAD: What

yes wrestling: HOMESTAR: The power... of

diorama: STRONG BAD: -lupe Hidalgo

nightlife: HOMESTAR RUNNER: More...more

environment: STRONG BAD: -pliant sticker!

winter pool: HOMESTAR: You're such a good

fan club: STRONG BAD: (screams)

pet show: HOMESTAR: Potion. A taste

licensed: (Strong Bad slides) STRONG BAD: What's

buried: BUBS: Is! STRONG SAD: Uh

shapeshifter: COACH Z: Coming to your concession

rated: BUBS: Bake sale!

specially marked: (The Deleted buzzer, and a message reading "SBEMAIL 194 IS NOT INCLUDED BECAUSE IT DOES NOT HAVE A 194th SECOND")

love poems: HOMESTAR: Apples!

hiding: STRONG BAD: Coma!

your edge: STRONG BAD: Where'd you check?

magic trick: STRONG BAD: But now, not only does

being mean: HUNGRY SHARK: Makes me wanna

email thunder: (Strong Bad runs out of Homestar's computer room)

hremail3184: COACH Z: Bad! I was gonna

imaginary: LIL' STRONG BAD: -ti! I'd like you to meet

independent: STRONG BAD: Solid gold sc-

dictionary: STRONG BAD: To Z

videography: STRONG BAD: (chuckles)

sbemail206: ANNOUNCER: For all your consummate

too cool: STRONG BAD: Mysteriously with no return

The Next April Fools Thing: STRONG BAD: -low lives, and this

parenting: THE KING OF TOWN: I've got this seven-

Alternate HRWiki

Cheattoons

Cartoons within cartoons. Whenever some sort of entertainment media references its own medium, it is usually for purposes of parody. While the parody is usually directed at the creators' peers in the medium, the parody can just as effectively be directed at itself. In the case of Homestar Runner, the low-grade Flash animations bearing the title "Powered By The Cheat" are definitely in the latter category.

The premise of Cheattoons (as they have come to be called by the fans) is simple. From time to time, The Cheat uses his computer to create Flash animations for his friends to view and, presumably, for his own aesthetic satisfaction. The humour lies in the fact that The Cheat's skills as an artist, animator and writer leave much to be desired. Like the 1936 cartoons, these works are funny because they fail to be what they were intended to be. Strong Bad is brutally honest about The Cheat's competence, but it never seems to discourage The Cheat from creating more works periodically. Artistically, Cheattoons have three benefits. First, they are often employed as a way to poke fun at the poor animation and lackluster scripting of the earliest Homestar Runner cartoons (the self-parody angle). Second, the cartoons could serve as a response to overzealous fans who attempt to create their own Homestar Runner cartoons. Third, and perhaps most attractive to the creators, they allow for easy laughs without the necessity of being "good".

The Cheat's animation style, as can be inferred, leaves much to be desired. The outlines are thick and uneven, the colours are flat and static, and the characters are animated in a jerky, off-model fashion. Errors in animation, continuity, and audio are simply ignored rather than fixed, as though the entire cartoon was edited in one take. There is seldom any music to speak of, and all sound effects are provided by vocalization. The character voices are hilariously stilted, with no effort towards proper inflection and intonation. To facilitate the poor vocal quality further, all voice work (aside from The Cheat) is provided by Mike Chapman, rather than Matt.

All of these flaws, however, would be excused if the plots were well written and the characters true to themselves. Needless to say, they are not. The Cheat's storylines are half-formed, lose their focus by the end, and are riddled with dialogue that contains mechanical wit but lacks the proficiency to be effective. The curious issue is that The Cheat seems genuinely trying to emulate the natural flow of language and humour, but does not understand the mental and emotional processes behind them. Therefore, the characters slog their way through situations without any real motivation, and random humour designed to be curious instead comes across as surreal and bizarre. The cartoon truly looks like the product of a mind not only less than developed, but also less than human; that the animator is the childlike, animalistic The Cheat was a wise decision indeed.

The Cheat is not nearly as creative as Strong Bad; all of his cartoons take place in Free Country and deal with the same characters. While The Cheat is never the main character of his animations, very few of his cartoons end without his appearance. Tellingly, as soon as The Cheat shows up, all of the other characters stop whatever they are doing to praise The Cheat on general principle, and the rest of the plot (such as it is) is entirely forgotten. The Cheat is also drawn and animated in the best style and provides his own voice work. This treatment is not afforded to the rest of his friends. Homestar Runner is drawn in a lopsided fashion with very little room for smooth movement; it is notable that we never see him walking. Homestar's voice is interpreted as nasal, whiny and sickeningly weak. Homestar's role in the cartoon is generally to be pummeled by Strong Bad, although whether this reflects The Cheat's personal feelings or if it is an attempt to appeal to Strong Bad is unknown. Strong Bad himself suffers from an oversized cranium and a disjointed, guttural voice. Strong Bad generally takes the lead in most of the cartoons, and generally does anything without bothering to explain why. In the cartoons, Strong Bad is always the first to recognize the greatness of The Cheat. Coach Z is an oddity in the sense that he is coloured an eye-stinging shade of magenta rather than his traditional green. Presumably this is to keep him from blending in with the monochrome backgrounds. Since Coach Z has a very simplistic design, The Cheat does not make any major mistakes animating him, although his head is known to accidentally separate from his shoulders from time to time. Still, Coach Z's voice sounds even more bizarre than usual matched with the chaotic speech patterns.

The other characters have only appeared in minor roles. Marzipan looks more or less like she usually does, but suffers from a pronounced overbite and a shrill voice. Her guitar is erroneously named "Carl". Bubs has only been seen (and animated) from the waist up, and makes no motion other than rocking from side to side. His voice, needless to say, has little of its usual strength. Strong Sad has been briefly seen, curiously gifted with the ability of flight. The Poopsmith has popped up briefly, sweeping up after a parade (in The Cheat's honour, of course) in a witty reference to Jay Ward's Rocky and Bullwinkle. The only real flaw in his design is the fact that his upper lip is as large and pronounced as his lower lip. Strong Mad has also briefly appeared, if only as a punching arm, the rest of his body hidden offscreen. It is unknown, although very likely, whether or not the rest of the gang will be seen in The Cheat's unique animation style. Outside of the original characters, Eh! Steve has also made a cameo in a Cheattoon.

The first Cheattoons were music videos which, while far from phenomenal, at least benefited from prerecorded music and characters providing their own voice work. However, once The Cheat more or less abandoned music videos in favour of cartoon shorts, the quality went downhill quickly. The character designs became cruder, the visual effects became less ambitious, and the work degraded to being a self-addressed valentine to The Cheat. However, these works were designed to be comedic rather than impressive, a respect in which they succeed brilliantly. Although most of the comedy is the hit-or-miss variety, it is very likely that The Cheat will continue his works whenever the animators feel the need to stretch.