Wired News Radio Interview - 23 Jun 2003

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Revision as of 17:38, 25 September 2005

In June of 2003, Kari Lynn Dean of Wired News Radio interviewed Mike and Matt Chapman, and then Missy Palmer, in relation to their website, Homestarrunner.com.

Transcript

KARI DEAN: Hi, I'm Carrie Dean, and today on Wired News Radio we're talking to the lovably funny characters at HomestarRunner.com.

{Musical interlude, lowered during Homestar's monologue}

HOMESTAR RUNNER: They have the best snacks in the break room. Like, they have a- an entire assortment, I would- I would go so far as to say a smorgasbord of Little Debbie treats and confections.

{Music ends}

KARI DEAN: I'm joined on the phone today by brothers Mike and Matt Chapman, and Missy Palmer, the creative talent behind HomestarRunner.com. I started out by asking each of them how they became involved with the site.

MIKE CHAPMAN: Hi, I'm Mike Chapman, I'm 29 years old, I started Homestar Runner along with Craig Zobel in, uh, July of 1996, started doing the website in January of 2000. I do half of the graphics and animation and writing and, everything, {laughs} for the last three and a half years.

KARI DEAN: Okay, um, that's Mike, and Matt?

MATT CHAPMAN: Yes, I'm Matt Chapman, and I'm 26 years old, and uh, so I didn't- I was working at the theatre the summer that Mike and Craig were working at the Olympics that they came up with Homestar Runner so I didn't have a lot to do with the inception of it. Then, once uh, Mike dropped out of school and I graduated from college, and we uh, moved back in together, we started working on it together and so I've been involved since we put the website up. Uh, and I do the other half of all the writing and animating, whatnot and then except the- with the exception of Marzipan and uh, the occasional odd voice that Mike does, I do all of the voices.

KARI DEAN: And Missy?

MISSY PALMER: Um, well lets see. I was friends with Craig Zobel, and produced the movie that Matt and Mike worked on a long time ago, they were the only ones that listened to me. So, Mike and I started dating, and I uh, became the voice of Marzipan and did a little bit of writing at the beginning.

MATT CHAPMAN: So there's really, I guess there's me, Mike, Melissa, and then, three business-types.

KARI DEAN: How long ago did you have to start getting business people?

MATT CHAPMAN: Uh well, then I guess it was uh, July of 2001 Mike? Or no, 2000.

MIKE CHAPMAN: May, yeah May of 2001 we started selling shirts.

MATT CHAPMAN: Yea, May of 2001 we started selling shirts.

MIKE CHAPMAN: Then our dad was a- is a retired accountant um, and he offered to uh, you know, do that for us, send out the shirts. be the- our fulfillment. And uh, at the time it was, you know. Maybe a shirt a day. And so he was able to handle it, about six or, six months ago or so it became overwhelming, and now a fulfillment company does it.

MISSY PALMER: We- we ended up having to divide their ping-pong table into quadrants in the basement, {laughter} of their parents house. In like... 12.

MATT CHAPMAN: They were like, shipping stations.

MISSY PALMER: All the neighbors would have to come over, and fill orders.

MIKE CHAPMAN: Yeah, Christmas was a lot of fun this year... {laughter}

MATT CHAPMAN: Yeah it was great 'cause all our friends were home from, you know, school or- or wherever they lived New York or wherever and we put them all to work in our parents basement, shipping T-Shirts.

MISSY PALMER: And then the mini-van would have to run to the post office twice a day with boxes of packages. {laughter}

MATT CHAPMAN: Yea we ran a tight ship. {laughter} You know it was great, it was so-

MISSY PALMER: {unintelligible}

MATT CHAPMAN: -it was a lot of fun though, but then, since then, because of that actually, we had to- now we have um. So we have um, our dad still helps with the store, our mom still helps with like, on the side, like, I mean not even uh- she's not even officially involved, our dad is sort of officially involved, and then our sister is- is like our customer service rep. Sister Karen. And then, we have uh, like main business guy that does all the like, you know any time there's like a deal or whatever, um, he takes care of that stuff. So I guess there's really, I guess there's me, Mike, Melissa, and then three business types.

KARI DEAN: They're all relatives?

MATT CHAPMAN: And, uh well no. The, their, our guy, Mike Hascone who's kind of our main business-type is the guy that, is funny enough went to junior high with us but we were never like, really friends with. But we grew up, you know, in the same neighborhood, the same, sort of people, and he just kind of came back into our lives like, right around the time were, sort of starting to get overwhelmed, and uh, offered to help us. He had just sold like a technology company out in silicon valley and all that, and so he was like "well hey I- I" you know, a friend of his, introduced him to the site before he even realized that it was, you know, these two guys he we to high- or junior high with. And then uh, we started working with him. So he takes care of the, like the nitty-gritty. You know, the deals, and all that junk.

KARI DEAN: So um, how overwhelming is overwhelming? How many T-Shirts do you think you're shipping out in an average day?

MATT CHAPMAN: Well, in December that was like... I mean we were like, around Christmas which was ridiculous and this was running it out of our parents basement, we were doing, I mean there were days when we'd have like 400 orders a day, and um, and uh that was just, you know, picking stuff off the shelf at mom and dad's house. And now we've, we've since moved to like a fulfillment company, so it's all warehoused and they do all the shipping and stuff. And I think, you know, because you know, Christmas is obviously a- a peak point, but now I think our average- what is our average, like 300?

MIKE CHAPMAN: I guess Matt.

MATT CHAPMAN: Around 300 a day. Yea, we're pretty, we can't believe that that many people want to wear T-Shirts with our dumb animal characters on them. {laughter}

KARI DEAN: Was there, a certain point at which, um, you felt that like, you suddenly started, really taking off, or was- has it been like this from the very beginning...?

MIKE CHAPMAN: Well it's definitely not been like this. It's been pretty gradual, I think the biggest spike probably happened in about September of last year which is, uh, coincidentally and just randomly the time uh that, Matt quit his job, he had, a job at Earthlink for the previous three years, and uh, that it had just gotten to the time where.......