Random Toon

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"Random" redirects here. For a random Homestar Runner Wiki article, see Special:Random.
'Round and 'round it goes, where it stops nobody knows...

A Random Toon function has been used in various applications on homestarrunner.com to present a viewer with a randomly-selected toon for their viewing pleasure. This behavior is governed by an XML file containing a list of almost all toons. As of December 31, 2020, its presence on the site has been reduced.

Contents

[edit] Appearances

[edit] Navigation Bar

In August 2005, a "rando" menu option was added to the navigation bar visible at the bottom of each page. Selecting this text redirects immediately to a randomly-selected toon.

The email virus and the corresponding Main Page 22 do not include the regular navbar, instead including a recreation of it as part of their Flash files. As a result, "rando" was never added to the navbar on these two pages.

The navbar was redesigned for the December 31, 2020 update and no longer includes a "random toon" option.

[edit] Main Pages

See also Weeklies

A Random Toon button, labeled "r", was added to the Main Pages (alongside similar buttons for Quote of the Week, Weekly Fanstuff, and Sketchbook) on September 12, 2005. Pressing this button would summon a pop-up widget, resembling a small LCD-screened device, that would rapidly cycle through toon names before landing on one; after a moment, the page would redirect to the selected toon. Options labeled "again" or "close" would restart or abort the selection process, respectively.

As of the December 31, 2020 post-Flash site update, this button is not functional — that is, it is still present on all main pages and displays "random toon" when moused over, but has no function when clicked.

[edit] Strong Bad Email

"Scroll buttons and random, you can't handle 'em!"

A similar button was also added to the top right of the Strong Bad Email menu on September 12, 2005, along with a Scroll Button Song referencing it. The text "random.bat" appeared in the top-right corner of the computer screen. Pressing it causes the menu to cycle through several random Strong Bad Emails in sequence, while Strong Bad imitates the sound of a spinning prize wheel:

STRONG BAD: Brrrrrrakatakatakataka...ta..ka...tick...tick... Brring!
STRONG BAD: {higher pitched and louder} Lakalakalakalaka... tuck... tuck... tuck... tuck... {low pitched} Bong.
STRONG BAD: Broooodagadagadaga..da..ga..da...ga... Dooj.
STRONG BAD: How 'bout this one? Donk. {a random email is then picked without a roulette of emails}

The email that the roulette landed on would then load.

On June 30, 2009 (after the destruction of the Lappy 486 in hremail 3184), the sbemail menu switched to a Corpy NT6 menu which did not include "random.bat". On August 31, the Compé menu was introduced which included a "go rando!" button with the same functionality as the prior "random" option.

The post-Flash update reworked the Strong Bad Email menu, adding descriptions and YouTube links (where applicable) to all emails. With this update, "rando" now only selects an email without autoplaying it, allowing the user to read the description and choose whether to view on the site, on YouTube, or select a different email.

[edit] Fun Facts

[edit] Trivia

  • Some of the names of toons were too long for the Main Page random box, leaving the last few letters cut off. They were soon renamed to fit. Others would still fit, but are named differently regardless.
Old Title (Letters Left Out) Solution
Homestar Presents: Present(s) H*R Presents: Presents
HomestarRunner.com: PAY PL(US!) HomestarRunner.com: PAY+
In Search of the Yello Dell(o) Unfixed
Peasant's Quest Movie Trail(er) Peasant's Quest Trailer
Puppet Jam: Bad Jokes (none) Bad Jokes (renamed for consistency)
Puppet Jam: Mission Control (none) Mission Control (renamed for consistency)
Puppet Jam: Tropical Lazor (Beams) Tropical Lazor Beams
Puppet Jam: Vitamins/Celebr(ities) Vitamins/Celebrities
Strong Bad is in Jail Cartoo(n) Strong Bad is in Jail
Sweet Cuppin Cakes December(ween) Sweet Cuppin Cakes Dween
Teen Girl Squad Decemberwe(en) Teen Girl Squad Dween
The House That Gave Sucky T(reats) House ... Sucky Treats
Decemberween Short Shorts (none) D'ween Short Shorts
KOT's VOQPCS! (none) KOTVOQPCS
Sbemail 169 Deleted Scene (none) Sbemail 169 Lost Scene
Trogday 08 (none) Trogday 2008
Sickly Sam's Big Outing (none) Big Outing
Twenty THANXty Six (none) 20 THANXty 6
Hooked on Decemberween (none) Hooken on D'ween
A Death-Defying Decemberwe(en) Death Defying D'ween
The Homestar Runner Gets S(omething Stuck in His Craw) Stuck in His Craw
The Animated Adventures of P(uppet Homestar) Puppet Homestar Toon
Doomy Tales of the Macabre (none) Tales of the Macabre
2 Part Episode: Part 1 (none) 2 Pt Episode Pt 1
2 Part Episode: Part 2 (none) 2 Pt Episode Pt 2
A Decemberween Mackerel (none) Decemberween Mackerel
Which Ween Costumes? (none) Decemberween Costumes
The House That Gave Sucky T(ricks) Unfixed
Later That Night... (none) Halloween 2016 Cartoon
Homestar Runner Goes for the Gold (none) HR Goes4Gold
Squintmojis (none) Homestar Squintmojis
Characters from Yonder Web(site) Unfixed
Decemberween Dangeresque (none) D'ween D'esque (Holiday)
Decemberween Puppet Squad (Puppet Stuff)

[edit] Remarks

  • When the rando link in the navigation bar loads a Puppet Stuff, it is placed on a light blue background. This is because a Puppet Stuff is layered over another page, but the rando link doesn't work with this. The Random Toon button on the Main Pages does allow an external Flash link to be layered over them, so a Puppet Stuff is layered over them.
  • ".bat" is the filename extension for batch files, which are text files with a series of commands intended to be executed by the MS-DOS or Windows command interpreters.
  • While "random.bat" is running, the names of the various Strong Bad Emails can still be clicked as they flash on the screen.
  • Shortly after being released, a number of minor changes were made to the randomizer. The following issues were resolved:
    • Homestar and the Nice Present and Homestar vs. Little Girl (the two Decemberween in July puppet toons) were not originally included in the random list. A comment in the XML file read "<!--note to add puppet dween!-->", indicating that they had not been forgotten.
    • Labor Dabor didn't originally work, as the URLs for the HTML and SWF files were reversed in the XML.
    • If the R button on the Main Page was clicked more than once (either after closing the randomizer box or while it was up), and it picked a Strong Bad Email, the email number in the URL would be larger than the correct number by the number of Strong Bad Emails (it would redirect to something like sbemail405.html). This was because it kept a counter of the emails as it read the email names from the XML file, and clicking the R again caused it to re-read the list without resetting the counter.
      • flashback was immune to this problem, as it has a different URL from the others (to distinguish it from Sbemail 100 Fakeout, which itself is not in the XML list).
    • The Random Toon machine didn't have the "&" or "_" symbols embedded, so lures & jigs was shown as "SBEMAIL: LURES  JIGS" and sb_email 22 was displayed as "SBEMAIL: SBEMAIL 22".
  • Limozeen Live! links to the notice for the first concert instead of the toon.
  • In the XML code, the newest email has the code: new="yup" after it.
  • The XML document is not valid as there is no root element in the document.

[edit] Goofs

[edit] Fixed Goofs

[edit] Inside References

  • One of the 'random.bat' raps ends with "Dooj".

[edit] Real-World References

[edit] External Links

Homestar Runner Navigation
Navigation Bar Index Page | Main Pages | Toons Menu | Strong Bad Email Menu | Games Menu | Store | Contact
Popups Quote of the Week | Weekly Fanstuff | Sketchbook | Random Toon
Other Character Videos | Downloads | Museum | Legal | YouTube
Retrieved from "http://hrwiki.org/wiki/Random_Toon"
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