Setting up iMessage on an iPad for kiddo to use has immediately turned into Homestar Runner references, and I’m okay with that.

I have vague recollections of watching The NeverEnding Story as a child, but they are vague. I was young (nine at the oldest, but probably younger), it was at someone else’s house, and it was only once, so it didn’t leave much of an impression on me. My next substantive encounter with that movie—or, more accurately, its theme song—was the ending gag in this Homestar Runner cartoon, where the title character sings “the never ending sooooodaaaaaa” to the tune of the movie’s theme song.

It’s obviously not the most worrying thing about it, but a very specific tragedy about Musk’s DOGE nonsense is that it may end up being the largest (indirect) influence Homestar Runner has had on the world.

My favorite detail from Homestar Runner production is how the off-brand voices in the low-quality animation segments are just the best efforts of the non-voice-actor guy to imitate the voices his brother does.

The Mastodon bot that posts random Homestar Runner screenshots is back, and I’m so happy. Refusing to unfollow it despite it not having posted since July was a wise choice.

Some time after I moved out of the house for college (etc.), my younger siblings pooled some money to buy a used PlayStation 2 and a few games, including Guitar Hero 2. When I was home for summers and breaks, I got some exposure to new-to-me music through playing that game with them. As a huge fan of Homestar Runner, I naturally appreciated the appreciation of Trogdor, but one of the songs that stuck out most to me was Freezepop’s less talk more rokk:

Kiddo gets scared by even the mildest of spooky things, but she also loves the “jibblies” monster from Homestar Runner and does imitations of it where she says legitimately creepy things, and I don’t know how to reconcile those.

Pete and Sarah were mainstays of my Mormon experience growing up. Their oldest—a famously rowdy boy with several rowdy younger brothers—was present on the Sunday when I was introduced in children’s classes as a newcomer to the congregation. When I outgrew children’s classes and made my way to youth Sunday School, Pete was our teacher for a while—the kind of teacher who tried to suppress a giggle (and usually unsuccessfully) whenever the word “ass” (especially “dumb ass”) appeared in the KJV. Somewhere in there, he served in congregational leadership; somewhere in there, they might have moved away before returning to Kentucky (my memories are fuzzy).

In the spirit of ultra obscure references, I really want to name something “Waughmp Rat,” combining a Homestar Runner onomatopoeia and an unseen Star Wars creature.

It just occurred to me that I know the fight song for CGNU (a fictional university from an early 2000s web cartoon) better than the fight song for the university that pays my salary.

I was a big fan of Homestar Runner in the early-to-mid 2000s, but I’m still baffled by how into it kiddo has gotten over the past few months.

One of our newest family traditions is kiddo watching a Homestar Runner video during her bedtime snack while I do some dishes and see how many of the lines I still remember verbatim.

It occurred to me this morning that one could build Tales from the Loop RPG characters based on Homestar Runner’s Teen Girl Squad, and now I really want to try it.