Old-Timey
From Homestar Runner Wiki
The Old-Timey era (also referred to as the 1936 era and Old Time Jones) is the collective name for the Homestar Runner toons said to have been made in the 1930s; they are in essence a pastiche or tribute to the cartoons of the time. The toons are in black and white and have intentionally sloppy edits, a grainy and scratched appearance, and a soundtrack filled with static and pops. The characters look and sound different from their modern-day counterparts, and often have different personae, much in the way that the characters in the earliest Mickey Mouse and Looney Tunes cartoons are noticeably different from later incarnations.
Contents |
Appearances
Full Cartoons
- Kick the Can — a series of shorts featuring The Homestar Runner kicking his "can of water soup"
- Parsnips A-Plenty — old timey version of The Reddest Radish
- Ballad of The Sneak — old timey version of The Cheat Theme Song
- Mr. Shmallow — old timey version of Meet Marshie
- That A Ghost — old timey Halloween special
- Main Page 10 — old timey main page
- Sickly Sam's Big Outing — old timey Valentine's special
Segments
- Email little animal — In an Easter egg, Old-Timey Strong Bad gets in a never ending chase by Strong Man.
- Email 50 emails — In an Easter egg, there is segment where Old-Timey Strong Bad, along with The Sneak, answer "The Electronic Message."
- 20X6 vs. 1936 — The Homestar Runner is featured throughout the toon.
- Email 2 emails — In an Easter egg, Old-Timey Strong Bad has a segment about "Uncle Strong Bad's Flavor Taste Style Chewing Powders."
- Email flashback — In an Easter egg, there is a segment in which Old-Timey Strong Bad sends a message in his telegraph machine.
- Email radio — Old-Timey Strong Bad provides one of the examples of different types of radio broadcasts. There is also a follow-up to this in an Easter egg.
- Email highschool — In an Easter egg, The Homestar Runner, Old-Timey Strong Bad, Sickly Sam, and Don Knotts have a short segment in Ancient Rome.
- Marzipan's Answering Machine Version 13.2 — The Homestar Runner and Old-Timey Strong Bad leave messages on Marzipan's answering machine.
- Email alternate universe — Old-Timey Strong Bad is featured in many places throughout the email.
- Email 4 branches — The Homestar Runner, Old-Timey Strong Bad, and Rumble Red have a segment about Polymascotfoamalate.
- Decemberween Short Shorts — The Homestar Runner, Old-Timey Marzipan, and Rumble Red have a segment about Decemberween.
- Email pet show — In an Easter egg, The Sneak wins a "Plague Show" for "having more infectious diseases than any other vermin" there.
Characters
- Main article: Characters
The following lists every Old-Timey character with their modern counterpart in parentheses. Some characters do not have modern counterparts.
- The Homestar Runner (Homestar Runner)
- Old-Timey Marzipan (Marzipan)
- Fat Dudley (Pom Pom)
- Old-Timey Strong Bad (Strong Bad)
- Strong Man (Strong Mad)
- The Sneak (The Cheat)
- Old-Timey Bubs (Bubs)
- Sickly Sam (Strong Sad)
- The Kaiser (The King of Town)
- The Demon (The Poopsmith)
- Fort Wayne Locomotive (Coach Z)
- The Barbershop Trio (The Announcer)
- Mr. Shmallow (Marshie)
- Mr. Bossman
- Eustice Pietimer
- The Guys
- Old-Timey Ghost
- Don Knotts
- Rumble Red
- Dee
- "The Rest", a group of unnamed characters who only appear in the intro to Sickly Sam's Big Outing
Dates
As far as we know, all of the toons in this style take place in the 1930s, although only three of them are dated. Kick the Can, Parsnips A Plenty, and That A Ghost are labeled 1933, 1936, and 1937, respectively. The early "1933" toons did not have voices and were much more cartoony than the later Old-Timey cartoons, with heads coming off, body parts changing and characters flying away, among other things. (See the variants from Kick the Can.) Toons released in later years featured voices and were more realistic (if only slightly).
References To Other Periods
There are also some references to eras before and after the thirties. It could be that The Brothers Chaps did not intend to limit the Old-Timey universe to strictly the thirties.
Ancient Times
- Email highschool — the Old-Timey characters are seen as Romans.
19th Century
Aughts
- Kick the Can — The Entertainer plays in the background of each segment.
- Ballad of the Sneak — The Sneak flies the Wright Flyer.
Tens
- The Kaiser — His design is a reference to Kaiser Wilhelm II, ruler of Germany during World War I.
- Sickly Sam's Big Outing — The toon is animated as an experimental color film.
- Ballad of the Sneak — The Sneak allegedly dances on the Panama Canal, which opened in 1914.
Twenties
- Parsnips-A-Plenty — The toon is summarized as "the first Homestar Runner talkie".
- Ballad of the Sneak — The Sneak is described as having moxie and pizazz. It also says that he captures all the flapper girls' affections.
- The song is done in a dixieland style, which was primarily popular in the twenties.
- Various toons reference Prohibition.
Forties
- Parsnips-A-Plenty (Easter Egg) — The "Buy US Soup Bonds" ad is a reference to buying bonds for World War II.
Fifties
- Ballad of the Sneak — The Sneak dances the Hully Gully.
- Mr. Shmallow (toon) — The "look lively" scene features the period's fashion and science fiction.
- Email 4 branches — The Homestar Runner refers to Rumble Red as a "communist fool", a reference to the second Red Scare.
- Sickly Sam's Big Outing — The Fort Wayne Locomotive's voice sounds very much like Ed Norton, a character on the TV show The Honeymooners, which first aired in 1955 and which was spun off from a recurring sketch on The Jackie Gleason Show, which debuted three years earlier.
Sixties
- Mr. Shmallow (toon) — The "look lively" scene features period fashion and science fiction.
Color
It appears as if the Old-Timey world is actually entirely gray, rather than filmed with old timey camera equipment. Old-Timey characters are still gray, even when appearing in colorful time periods, as in 20X6 vs. 1936. When The Homestar Runner is seen on Planet K, he is still in black and white, with slight scratching appearing over him and crackling audio whenever he speaks (as in the full cartoons). Also, Strong Bad is still in full color when he appears in the black-and-white Old-Timey world in the email alternate universe. However, the Ballad of The Sneak establishes The Sneak as being "small and smart and yellow", and the toon Sickly Sam's Big Outing was presented in "A Color", adding a very light pink to certain items in the toon, so the idea of color in the Old-Timey world is still open to debate. April Fools' 2014 contains the first attempt at a full-color Old-Timey toon.