The Brothers Chaps
Contents
Background[edit]
The Brothers Chaps (abbreviated TBC) are Matt and Mike Chapman, the people behind Homestar Runner, a popular web cartoon. Matt provides most of the voices for the site including Homestar Runner and Strong Bad, along with Melissa "Missy" Palmer, Mike's wife, who provides the voice of Marzipan. Matt and Mike both do the animation for the site.
John Flansburgh in a 2004 interview with the Tucson Weekly:
It was very circuitous. ... A photograph was taken of me wearing a Homsar shirt, which is one of the more obscure characters in Homestar. I was at an in-store thing wearing this shirt and a fan had taken a photograph of me signing their book or whatever, and the photograph of me showed up in some blog, and somebody made them aware of it. They were like, "Hey look, they're wearing your shirt, you guys," and so [the Brothers Chaps] knew that we were fans. And I guess Linnell kind of reached out to them and said, "You know, if there's anything you want us to do, if you have any musical needs for your site or whatever, we'd be certainly happy to help you guys out," and they took us up on that offer. We did a bunch of things with them— we did a jam session with the Homestar puppet, and they did this video for "Experimental Film"— and it's kind of a mutual admiration society. We really enjoy what they do.
TMBG song collaborations[edit]
TMBG composed the music for Different Town for their site and the Brothers wrote the words. The original version, sung by John Linnell, can be found as a commentary audio track on the Strong Bad Emails DVD. TMBG and TBC have also produced a series of "Puppet Jams," short videos featuring jams between TMBG and Puppet Homestar Runner himself, performed by Matt Chapman.
In 2008, TMBG wrote and sang the intro song to Strong Bad Email 200, email thunder, where John Linnell voiced The Poopsmith. Because the Poopsmith has taken a vow of silence and never spoken before e-mail 200, John Linnell is the only, and therefore official, voice of the Poopsmith, making the Poopsmith one of very few characters on Homestarrunner.com that isn't voiced by Matt Chapman, Mike Chapman, or Missy Palmer. In a coincidence, one of the other times that The Poopsmith's voice has been heard was in an imaginary sequence in Different Town.
Podcast 37A also features a work-in-progress song called Crystal Fortress. The song was performed by TMBG, and contains voice-overs by Strong Bad and Limozeen. During the podcast, Flansburgh mentioned that they are hoping to use it in a future collaboration with The Brothers. About a year later, the accompanying video was released.
For a Marzipan's Answering Machine cartoon in 2016, John Linnell reprised his role as the voice for the Poopsmith where he referenced the fact that he sang in sbemail 200 and wanted to become a "songsmith" instead of a Poopsmith.
Video work[edit]
The Brothers Chaps produced a video for They Might Be Giants' Experimental Film featuring the Homestar Runner gang. They also created a video for the song Figure Eight, which was released on Here Come The 123s.
Onstage appearances[edit]
The Brothers Chaps have appeared onstage with TMBG at shows in the former's native Atlanta, Georgia:
- On 9/25/2004, TMBG performed two songs, Marshie and Get By With A Little Help, with puppet Homestar Runner and puppet Marshie.
- On 5/3/2006, Puppet Strong Bad joined them for Everybody To The Limit.
- On 3/15/2008, puppet Homestar Runner joined the band for I Am Not Your Broom.
- On 3/5/2010, puppet Homestar Runner also joined the band for Tropical Lazor Beams and Get By With A Little Help.
External links[edit]
- homestarrunner.com - Official Homestar Runner site
- hrwiki.org - Homestar Runner Wiki
- Homestar Runner Wiki: The Brothers Chaps
- Homestar Runner Wiki: They Might Be Giants
- Homestar Runner Wiki: TMBG in concert with Homestar Runner and Marshie on 09-25-2004.
- Homestar Runner Wiki: TMBG in concert with Strong Bad on 05-03-2006.
