Hiatuses

"What is it, like, mid-May or something?"

From 2002 through 2009, homestarrunner.com was typically updated every Monday morning with a new toon. Creative duo the Brothers Chaps took occasional, brief hiatuses from this self-imposed weekly pace between 2005 and 2009.

A major hiatus was undertaken from 2010 until early 2014, years passing without any Homestar Runner. As of 2014, site updates have resumed but are infrequent and largely irregular; there is no longer a set schedule to take a hiatus from.

Minor Hiatuses (2005–2009)

During the 2000s, most hiatuses lasted between one and two months. Hiatuses were defined by a lack of new toons or Strong Bad Emails, though minor updates — the weeklies, main pages, games, and store sales — usually would continue to be made.

Start	End	Length	Notes
December 5, 2005 portrait	January 8, 2006 high school	34 days
May 16, 2006 isp	July 3, 2006 Weclome Back	48 days	This was due to the birth of Mike Chapman and Missy Palmer's baby daughter. Weclome Back explains what the characters had been up to during that time.
December 18, 2006 Decemberween Short Shorts	January 22, 2007 looking old	35 days
June 26, 2007 Ever and More	August 7, 2007 Quality Time with Cardboard Homestar	45 days	This was announced in a main page pop-up as a "baby break" for the birth of Matt and Jackie Chapman's child.
December 23, 2008 A Death Defying Decemberween	January 26, 2009 Hremail 62	34 days	This was the first hiatus without any minor updates to the site.

The Big Hiatus (2009–2013)

History

2009

The baby lady had another baby

The toon Punkin Show was released on November 10, which would be the final site update for 2009. A few weeks later, the birth of Matt and Jackie Chapman's second child was announced in a December 1 entry to the site's RSS feed that requested readers "please be patient with updates as we head into the year's end."

2010

This hiatus stretched well into the new year (though minor updates to the store, RSS feed, Main Page messages, and YouTube channel continued to be made). After 142 days — nearly thrice as long as any prior hiatus — the first major update of 2010 was the April Fools' Day toon Xeriouxly Forxe, with a corresponding main page added 11 days later.

The site was then bereft of major updates for 246 days, until the release of two toons in December: A Decemberween Mackerel on the 14th, shortly followed on the 22nd by Which Ween Costumes? (a Decemberween-themed Halloween toon — 2010 had been the first year in the site's history without a major Halloween toon).

Outside of homestarrunner.com, Strong Bad was featured as one of the characters in the Telltale game Poker Night at the Inventory, released November 22.

2011–13

Portrait of Matt used on @ronginald

No new toons were produced for over three full years. The only updates to the site during this time were store offers.

Offline, a few character appearances were made during this time: Puppet Strong Bad appeared at an Aquabats concert in January 2011, while Strong Bad and Homestar Runner made a surprise appearance at W00tstock 5.0 in July 2013.

In September 2011, Matt created the Twitter account @ronginald which allowed for direct, public communication with fans. Although remarking that "lately, not a whole lot" had been done for Homestar Runner, he affirmed that the site would continue to be updated "forever! just sporadically and without warning", and hinted that a new Strong Bad Email would come when fans "least expect it." He deleted this Twitter account in January 2013.

Reasons for the hiatus

This extended hiatus was discussed in several mid-2010s interviews, with a confluence of factors driving the decision to step away as well as the hesitance to share specifics with fans. In multiple interviews, the Brothers Chaps acknowledge the uncertainty they were working under but reflect they could've communicated the break better.[#endnote_2 [2]][#endnote_3 [3]]

2010 marked the site's tenth anniversary, "a nice time to take a breather."[#endnote_1 [1]] The brothers occasionally felt creative burnout, developing from the pace of creating something new every week, often within a few days.[#endnote_2 [2]][#endnote_3 [3]] They also recognized that the site would not be sustainable forever, as it was only funded by the store rather than royalties or advertising.[#endnote_2 [2]] Though Homestar Runner was still profitable by the time of the hiatus, it had long since passed its peak of popularity (estimated to have been around 2005).[#endnote_4 [4]] By 2010, both brothers were married with children.[#endnote_2 [2]]

Additional opportunities were also becoming available, ones that would require more attention than they could give while still working on Homestar full-time.[#endnote_1 [1]] Matt Chapman and his family moved to Los Angeles from 2011 to 2014,[#endnote_1 [1]] and he and Mike (who remained in Georgia) worked on several TV shows such as Yo Gabba Gabba!, The Aquabats! Super Show!, and Gravity Falls. The brothers entered into development deals with Disney and Nickelodeon,[#endnote_3 [3]] the former of which eventually led to the creation of Two More Eggs.

The Brothers Chaps also have a strong desire to keep their personal lives separate, keeping the site's focus on the characters and fictional world.[#endnote_3 [3]] Real-world updates such as main page pop-ups or the FeedBurner posts were often written in a tongue-in-cheek tone, and rare appearances by the brothers on DVDs or the site (such as in Sample of Style or Sbemailiarized!) were typically presented in a self-parodic manner. The Brothers Chaps were loath to break this tone with a more serious, dramatic, or direct announcement about the status of the website.[#endnote_3 [3]] The uncertainty of what projects would move forward or how long they would take meant that there was little concrete information that could be shared;[#endnote_2 [2]] They were also unsure if fans would have any interest in their non-Homestar work, or if they would become upset at the brothers if an announced project later fell through.[#endnote_3 [3]] A short toon featuring Strong Bad addressing fans the dearth of updates was made less than a year into the hiatus, though the Chaps felt it was not the right choice to release it.[#endnote_3 [3]]

Transition to the New Status Quo (2014–Present)

See also Homestar Runner (body of work)#Comeback (2014)

"You got this, Homestar. This is nothin'."

On April 1, 2014, the site was updated with the first new toon in 1196 days. April Fool 2014, in the manner of April Fools of the past, replaced the index page: the page looked dilapidated, in an acknowledgement of the length between updates. The toon ended with Strong Bad and Homestar Runner suggesting fans might have to wait several more years before another toon.

Though the toon was intended as a minor "tiptoeing back into things", with its release not publicized by the Brothers Chaps, it attracted strong positive fan reactions and media attention. In subsequent interviews, the brothers recall the attention as encouraging them to return to Homestar Runner.[#endnote_1 [1]][#endnote_5 [5]][#endnote_6 [6]] Despite their enthusiasm, the brothers were quick to specify that there were no plans to return to the previous weekly schedule: "We're not expecting [the site] to be our full-time gig, we just want this to be fun."[#endnote_5 [5]] Through 2017, Two More Eggs took priority over Homestar Runner.[#endnote_6 [6]]

The @StrongBadActual Twitter account began posting regularly on September 26, 2014; over the following decade, it became the most active facet of the Homestar Runner body of work.

2015 was the start of the modern era of updates: there was new content every second month. In the years since, it is typical for several months to pass between site updates; the main pages describe the lack of schedule as "updated every someday". The closest to a regularly-scheduled update has been Halloween — from 2014 through 2024, at least one toon, short, or game was released in October to celebrate the holiday.

References

1. [#ref_1 ^] Rubin, Jeff. "Homestar Runner's Matt Chapman". The Jeff Rubin Jeff Rubin Show, episode 123. 7 July 2014.
2. [#ref_2 ^] Winkie, Luke. "An Oral History of Homestar Runner, the Internet’s Favorite Cartoon", Gizmodo. 24 January 2017.
3. [#ref_3 ^] Strickland, Jonathan. "An Interview with the Creators of Homestar Runner". TechStuff. 16 Feb 2018.
4. [#ref_4 ^] Brown, Scott. "Why Some Memes Never Die". Wired. 21 Dec 2009.
5. [#ref_5 ^] Montgomery, James. "Homestar Runner Returns! Inside a Cult Classic’s Comeback". Rolling Stone. 3 Oct 2014.
6. [#ref_6 ^] St. James, Emily. "The Homestar Runner guys have a new show. So we talked to them about it.". Vox. 6 Oct 2015.

See Also

• Homestar Runner (body of work)#History
• Timeline of Homestar Runner
• Acknowledged Update Delays
• The Brothers Chaps' Other Projects
• Post-Flash Site Update