This Might Be A Wiki:When Did You Become A Fan?

Read this first.

Write your name under the year in which you became a fan of TMBG, by clicking the Edit link on top of that year. Please put your name in alphabetical order with other names under that year. If you like, feel free to include the month and the album, song, or whatever got you hooked to TMBG. Also, don't forget to add the When Did You Become A Fan? babel to your user page!

1985

• Lomeister - I grew up in Lincoln, MA, and went to school with the Johns. We lost touch during college and I just happened to stumble across the 1985 demo tape. I was doing college radio at the time.

1986

• Beanmom - I was 16 -- I saw "Don't Let's Start" on MTV, bought The Pink Album on cassette, and was totally hooked.
• bgfunk76 - I was 10 years old and the local newspaper here in the Pittsburgh area had an article about TMBG. My dad pointed it out to me but I just thought to myself, "So what? Who the hell are they?". Then he let me listen to the first album and I've been hooked since.
• FrankEinstein - I was a baby in 1986 and that's when my dad started me listening to Them. I called the Pink Album "Doggie Songs" when I was a wee one. The first time I saw Them was in 1988 when I was two.
• Marticlepan - I was 16 -- I also saw Don't_Let's_Start video on MTV. I was immediately hooked, ran out and bought the cassette. Struggled to find anyone else who dug em and wanted to talk about my new fav band. Been solid hooked ever since. Managed to catch a live a few years later (just the johns) and it was so excellent to be surrounded by a few hundred people who dug the band as much as me. Just saw my second live show last night in Seattle at the Moore, first live gig I've seen with the full band. Excellent good time!
• Megan - I first saw the video for "Don't Let's Start" on MTV while vacationing in snowy Delaware over x-mas. To spite my idiot older cousin, who hated the video, I ran out and bought the EP on tape, even though I didn't have a proper tape player to listen to it! I've been hooked ever since . . .
• Rhubarb_Runner - I first heard TMBG when Weird Al Yankovic hosted an hour of MTV and played "Don't Let's Start" (I seem to remember he favored TMBG because they feature an accordion). Found a used EP, and they stuck.

1987

• adada-had a college roommate who had the album, which i kind of liked. But i was hooked when the Johns came to Rutgers and played the multi-purpose room. Just the two of them the Fezes and the stick. there were about 20 people at the show and they absolutely kicked ASS.
• Rossum - Thanks to WHFS, and to my brother Dan who made me think about "Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful" in a positive way.

1988

• Alicelove - 4 years old. I've been a fan for as long as I can remember, but I'm pretty sure my first concrete memory of TMBG lands in this year. I remember telling my brother I knew all the words to Lie Still, Little Bottle and then him telling me that I was all wrong (which I likely was, being four years old and all). I was constantly surrounded with the sounds of Lincoln and to date it's still one of my favorite albums (though eventually it was toppled from the top of the list by Apollo 18).
• Cstillo - When I was in college, I played in a band that covered "Don't Let's Start." It just now occurred to me that coincidentally, our singer's name was John.
• Cubmaster938 -- WOXY in Oxford, Ohio was one of America's greatest alternative music radio stations. I was a sophomore at Miami University. "Cowtown" was the first TMBG song I ever heard, and I've been hooked ever since. First saw them live in Frankfurt, Germany in 1989; most recently saw them at the National Theater in Richmond VA and will see them again at the 930 Club in DC just after Thanksgiving. Best part is that my kids all love the band; my oldest son won the dance contest (and a great poster) at the Richmond show!
• Jlavezzo - 9th Grade. New friends with "NPR" parents set me up with a 90min tape with the Pink Album on one side and Lincoln on the other. We saw them at the Georgetown University show a few months later. There were two lines waiting at the door, one for tickets one for people with tickets. Most people with tickets thought the ticket line was the entrance line. We walked past everyone and got front row seats (General Admission.) The show featured the metronome and the marching bass drum. Amazing. Not having Misc. T, that was the first time I'd heard the Famous Polka. I still love that song.
• Mr Tuck became a fan when he heard Don't Lets Start.
• Nehushtan - I became a fan when a friend loaned me Lincoln and I heard the song Where Your Eyes Don't Go.

1989

• Adresa -A friend made me a mixed tape in eighth grade that had Ana Ng on it. Soon after, I bought Lincoln & was completely hooked!
• Broken Accordion- I had heard Don't Let's Start on the local radio station in Los Angeles, I cannot remember the year. I was 11 years old when I heard Purple Toupee on the radio that I became a fan. Shortly after, my older sister bought me Flood on cassette when it was released the following year. I must have played that tape non-stop, committing all of the lyrics to memory. Later that year, I bought their first two albums on cassette and was blown away. By 1992, I was a full fledged fan. Due to my age, I didn't get to see them live until 1998.
• Crazy Al - I'm pretty sure 1989 was the year (+/- 1) I first heard TMBG, & instantly became a fan. I was introduced to them by one of my Demonstrators/Tutors from the Earth Sciences Department at Monash University via MTV. I’ve purchased every album & EP I could get my hands on ever since, & have been to at least one of their shows every time they have made their way ‘down under’. My wife even ‘walked down the aisle’ to Ana Ng (which was about the only input I had into our wedding!).
• DKC - During a conversation about how MTV sucks because it never shows videos and all of them are the same anyway, the video to Ana Ng came on putting me on the fast track to fandom and giving MTV cred it probably didn't deserve.
• Greg Hingsbergen - In order to help fill out my free selections, I bought Lincoln from Columbia House or BMG record club.
• JackBanzai - In my eighth grade year, made friends with a girl whose dad worked for the local alternative rock station. She let me borrow a tape of a band she had just heard of and totally loved, and that band was TMBG. I don't know what happened to her, but many albums and EPs and more than a few shows later, I'm still a big fan. Also, this is a little weird, but like The Great Puma (below), she also introduced me to REM. TMBG, REM, and the Dead Milkmen form the cornerstone of my musical fandom.
• jlee - After seeing Ana Ng on MTV's 120 minutes. I listened to Lincoln for at least a year before finding the earlier album.
• Krueger - I went to see one of my friend's brother's band (Desert Fish) play at our school, I was nine years old. It was a laboratory school with NK-12th grade in it and only about 300 kids in all, so I knew them too. One tapes they played while setting up was a mix tape of various TMBG tunes. I was instantly hooked. I got a hold of a couple of their songs on tape from them, but it wasn;t until another friend several years later who brought over Flood to play durring Necromunda that I decided to get some of their stuff for myself.
• Ryukochan - I was 7 in July of 1989 - I had just found out we were going to be moving, and I was heartbroken. At a friend's house for the last time, she and I watched some Nickelodeon and some MTV. I didn't know who they were, but their rendition of "Maybe I Know" was so beautiful and plaintive that it stuck with me until 2002, when some of my college friends reintroduced me to them. They informed me that the Tiny Toons songs I loved were actually TMBG songs, so i was a 'fan' for 13-ish years without knowing it!
• TDK - After seeing Don't Let's Start on MTV's Dr. Demento's Top Twenty Demented Video Countdown
• The Great Puma - www.thegreatpuma.com I fell in love with TMBG during camp at Camp Kern (http://www.campkern.org/) the summer of 1989. A fellow camper had the Lincoln album on cassette. We about wore out the album playing it all week. When I got home I bought it immediately and followed shortly thereafter by buying their first album. Coincidentally this was the same time I started listening to REM as well, and both are two of my all-time favorite bands.

1990

• Addict - I was five when my uncle made me a cassette with some of their songs. John Linnell's Mother and my Grandmother are cousins so TMBG has always been on one stereo or another in my family.
• ceomoses - I was 9. I watched Tiny Toons, seen and loved the videos, but I didn't know who they were. Several months later, my friend opened his dad's "Flood" CD which he apparently got as a gag gift several months earlier. I recognized "Istanbul" and "Particle Man" and my friend and I have been hooked ever since.
• chemistmama - I was working/volunteering as a DJ at WLFM in Appleton when I was in college. I came across the promo album of Flood in a stack of miscellany albums. Yes, Vinyl! I put it on and was hooked instantly. Have seen them in concert three times and have almost every album. My three year old LOVES No!
• CJSF - My brother's friend, who was into the local music scene in and around Boston came across Flood and made a tape of the CD and thought my best friend and I would be interested because of Their "quirky" nature and that the Johns were originally from Lincoln, MA. We were instantly hooked.
• Clayton - I heard "Birdhouse" on Triple J. I bought Flood and listened to it over and over. They have been my favourite band ever since.
• Dr Raygun - I was a twenty year old music student at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama and getting up very early every morning so I could go into college and do an hour or so of double bass practice before lectures. I was woken up on more than one occasion by Birdhouse being played on my radio alarm and fascinated as I'd never heard any pop song that worked that way before, not lyrically, harmonically nor rhythmically. I made my way to the record shop on Cheapside and as Flood was only a quid or two more expensive than the cassette single I bought it and was hooked. I remember sitting on the 106 bus listening to Birdhouse over and over trying got work out the chords. A gorgeous Canadian boyfriend gave me Pink and Lincoln the next year along with the EP of Don't Let's Start (all as cassette bootlegs which I have since replaced!) and life has never been the same since.
• FolkPhipps - Two things happened my Junior year of High School: My history teacher played us "Constantinople", and a good friend told me about this cool band with songs about minimum wage and casket-dancing. I bought the cassette of Flood and was hooked. During an art camp that summer, another friend played me their previous albums and maxi-singles (I'm pretty sure they used to be called that!). I was further entranced. I saw them on the Apollo 18 tour. Still a big fan.
• Havisham - I wasn't into music as a kid at all, but thanks to MTV, the name "They Might Be Giants" wasn't totally foreign to me (though I couldn't have hummed you a single tune). My first year of high school, I caught those damn Tiny Toons videos after school one day and was instantly hooked - honestly the first time I ever wanted to seek out music. A nice confluence of one of my friends acquiring a) Flood, b) a car with a tape deck, & c) a driver's license managed to etch Flood permanently in my brain like the Mark of the Beast. I soon got my own copy, and descended into a kind of musical hysteria thereafter. To be honest, I'm still not much into music now; I've purchased maybe three non-TMBG albums in the last 10 years. I just really dig They Might Be Giants.
• John A - Saw video for Birdhouse on Alternative Nation, bought Flood, formed band exclusively to play TMBG covers
• Kyle_Omega - I was eight when the videos for Particle Man and Istanbul aired on Tiny Toons. I was hooked, but it wasn't until Sensurround on the Power Rangers Movie Soundtrack that I could remember the name of the band and buy an album.
• Leeloo - January; Flood
• Meg - Heard it at the age of 13, and in love ever since the first notes of birdhouse.
• Micah Mahjoubian - It was my junior year in high school and I was hanging out in my friend Alanna’s basement as usual. But on this day our friend Charlie brought over a new cassette tape he just got called Flood. We listened to it together and I’ve been hooked ever since.
• MincedOaths - In the early 80's my parents made competing mix tapes to play in the bar they ran... TMBG of course ended up on said tapes because They were new and odd and - why not - so the flavour of things was sewn when I was young. Sometime however, between '90 and '93 my Mom gave me Flood on tape and That was It.
• Pilgrim - Birdhouse video. As a young woman of 14, I flipped out. My best friend hated TMBG. I got new friends. Birdhouse is romantic & fun. Plus, you know, bonnets.
• Pittsburghmuggle - I was 15 and walking to church one sunday morning with my older sister and her boyfriend. They were singing some song about a "triangle man" and a "particle man" they had just picked up. I asked them what they were singing and they told me. They made me a mix tape with songs from They Might Be Giants, Lincoln, and Flood. (I was the one out of the group who went on to become the most rabid fan - though my sister would probably debate that.)
• Reynoldbot - I owned a VHS copy of the Tiny Toons videos of Istanbul and Particle Man. I was 4 years old, haven't stopped listening to them yet. Neither has my mother.
• seventyard - 6th grade; Flood, Tiny Toons
• Toupee - Heard Particle Man; been hooked ever since. I was four.
• zytka - I'm yet another person whose first TMBG experience was through Tiny Toons; I remember being captivated by both songs, Particle Man and Istanbul. Except instead of being 4 or even 9 years old, I was in high school. I loved those videos and it made me sad to find out Flans was offended that he was portrayed by Hamton in the Istanbul video.

1991

• BigJohn - introduced to Particle Man by a friend after moving to Colorado.
• drworm818 - since the day I was born, Flood
• Fueco - It was on the annual River Trip with a club I was in during high school (the Montebello Ridge Club at Wilcox High School in Santa Clara, CA). Pretty much the only time we were allowed to have personal music was during the drive. Since we had a 5 hour drive, people would bring music. My friend Lara brought along a cassette copy of Flood. I've been hooked ever since... I've been letting my freak flag fly ever since, and saw TMBG live in Denver just last night (7/19/16). -Mike
• MrB - In 1991 I was doing a 24-hour radio show (a fundraising stunt) and played Istanbul (Not Constantinople) by a friend's request. I loved it and played it many more times in the wee hours of the morning to keep myself going (I was all alone in the studio). I was a fringe fan from then on. I rediscovered the band in earnest earlier this year (2006) when I bought A User's Guide to They Might Be Giants: Melody, Fidelity, Quantity. After listening to the CD, I was hooked. I've since bought just about every TMBG release I could get my hands on!
• Phi1ip - I got a lift with a friend who was driving from Hobart to Launceston; he had a cassette of Flood in the car, so we listened to it all the way with the volume at full bore. I was so impressed that as soon as we reached the end, I immediately asked him to play it through all over again.
• ScaryWhiteGirl - on my high school retreat, they woke us up with piped in music. For some reason, they played "They Might Be Giants" from Flood. I was hooked. One of my friends gave me Flood for my birthday the following March, and I'm surprised I didn't wear out the tape. I still have the original copy she bought me. :)
• Shane - my sister had Flood and we listened to it almost every day on the way to school for a year
• TV's Kyle - I'm one of the masses that was introduced to TMBG via Tiny Toons. I was a 10 year old cartoon fiend, and I loved Tiny Toons at the time. I got my copy of Flood on cassette for my 11th birthday in May of 1991.
• Vinylboy20 - At 9 years old I saw the videos for "Istanbul" and "Particle Man" on Tiny Toon Adventures and fell in love. So every time the show was on after that, I waited with a tape recorder at hand so that if that episode repeated, I could tape the songs and figure out who the band was!
• Xannie - I'm not sure of the exact year I became a fan, so 1991 is my best guess. My brother had Flood and he made me listen to it. I was pretty much instantly hooked and I remember buying Apollo 18 when it came out. By that time my brother had moved on to something "cooler". Now I'm atoning for his mistake by making his daughter (born in 2000) a huge TMBG fan.

1992

• Chris Radcliff - listened to Flood (esp. Minimum Wage) while working the night shift at a bookstore.
• Dave Lamm - During a graduation party, I am sitting, huddled, next to an enormous and ancient stereo speaker. I am listening to Dinner Bell for the very first time, and I can feel that amazing warm bass line through my chest. I had known about Them for a few years, but now, I must seek them out and learn more. I have been a devoted fan ever since.
• dr_worm_md - A friend brought cassettes of Flood and Apollo 18 over for a sleepover. I saw the Tiny Toons episode soon after and decided to buy their albums through one of those "12-albums-for-a-penny" scams. Two years later, I became officially hooked like Frank Black when the albums ended up being the only thing in my car when I was driving to work at my first job. It's been awesome listening ever since.
• Ed Staples - After seeing the notorious Tiny Toons videos, my older brother played me some tracks from Apollo 18, that a friend of his had introduced him to (Which Describes How You're Feeling and Fingertips). From then on, they have been my favorite band of all times. I was 9 or so at the time.
• hed - When I was 14, my Boy Scout troup went on a 20 mile hike and one of the guys kept singing "please pass the milk, please..." over and over. He later copied me a cassette of Apollo 18 which I listened to incessantly, and soon I bought a copy of Flood. The rest, as they say, is history.
• Rosefox - I was 14. My first boyfriend dropped the Pink Album into my lap (you know how couples have an "our song"? Ours was "She's an Angel") and I was enthralled. I got a tape of Lincoln for my brother, duped it for myself, and played it constantly. When CDs happened, Pink and Flood were two of my first CD purchases, but I didn't keep up with newer releases. Then somehow in 2001 I acquired a copy of Factory Showroom--maybe a used CD from a record shop?--and I've been a (re)devoted fan ever since. Still don't know the words to most of the songs from Apollo 18, John Henry, Long Tall Weekend, or Mink Car, though.
• Ryan - at age 5, Flood - Particularly loved Letterbox, Someone Keeps Moving My Chair and Dead.

1993

• DoctorWorm7 - during Tiny Toons, like many folks of this era. Wasn't till Severe Tire Damage that I actually got an album, though.
• Leo - at age 5 during Tiny Tunes, Flood
• LitMatch - Had heard of them and enjoyed them since I first saw them on MTV in 1990 (Birdhouse video), but I became a real fan my senior year of high school, when I bought Apollo 18.
• Semprini - I was at "Chemistry Camp" (sad, but true) before my senior year of high school and heard Istanbul on the TV. I asked what it was, listened to a copy of Flood, and had purchased every existing TMBG album within the week.

1994

• Mark M. - My older brothers had Flood and Apollo 18, and did like them, but I bought my first album, John Henry in 1994 and listened to it over and over. It's still my favorite. One of my friends also discovered them this year, and we ordered all the back items in the catalog including the EPs, from Media Play.
• User:PinkoPanther - Since the day I was born. Well, maybe not the exact day, ore even the year, but I've been listening to their music for as long as I can remember. My parents owned Flood (and possibly Lincoln, I'll have to ask), and it is entirely their fault that I have become obsessed.
• richegreen - I walked into my high school's computer lab and Dinner Bell was playing. I demanded to know who was making such awesome music.
• Salt-Man Z - Sometime in 1994, my sophomore year of high school. A friend of mine had Flood and Apollo 18, which were cool. They were playing Don't Let's Start on the alternative radio station, so I picked up Their new album (John Henry) thinking it was on there. It wasn't, but I was further hooked, and soon picked up all of their older albums for myself. I haven't looked back since.
• The Almighty Ramtha - I was just a wee child too (thank you Apollo 18)
• Tony Y. - My sister had asked for Flood on cassette tape for her birthday, since a friend of hers had it. Well, I got more into the music than she did. Upon middle school graduation, I got my first CD player, and used gift certificates to buy The Pink Album & Lincoln. I was hooked, and eventually bought just about every major album. Saw them in concert three times, the last being in my hometown. After that show, I got to meet The Johns, and they autographed their 20th Anniversary Snowman shirt for me.
• zaph - I remembered hearing Istanbul and Dead a few years earlier on the school bus, but it wasn't until a few years later that a friend actually dubbed Flood and Apollo 18 onto opposite sides of a tape for me. I missed their June 18, 1994 show just barely - I think I declared that I was a fan a few days after that. I bought John Henry the day it came out, and it's still my favourite album.

1995

• Drew - I had had several chance exposures to TMBG before this--such as friends at summer camp that were fans and a St. Louis kids radio station that played a lot Weird Al and a couple TMBG songs (The Guitar and Dinner Bell, so I guess they just had Apollo 18), but it wasn't until my freshman year in high school that I got one of those "Join BMG and get 12 cassettes for the price of 1" letters and found John Henry on the sheet of stamps of albums I could get. I joined BMG and got John Henry, and honestly, I wasn't super impressed. I liked it (I loved AKA Driver, Destination Moon, Stomp Box, and The End Of The Tour but hated Extra Savoir-Faire and Sleeping In The Flowers), but I liked most of the other non-TMBG albums I got from BMG more. But I WANTED to like TMBG, and when a girl I knew told me that her brother had enough TMBG CDs that he could put them on shuffle in his stereo and play TMBG just about all day long, I knew that this funny, smart, prolific band was the band for me. Over the next few years I got Flood and Apollo 18, then Factory Showroom, then Then: The Earlier Years, and then I tracked down all the EPs on eBay. And the rest is history! :)
• Jeff - I was about 7. and I found Flood and the The Guitar single among my dad's albums. I recognized the name from (surprise) Tiny Toons, and I saw that Istanbul (Not Constantinople) and Particle Man were on Flood, so I listened to the album and fell in love with Birdhouse In Your Soul, Twisting, We Want A Rock, and Women And Men. It was some of the coolest music I had ever heard up to that point. I then promptly forgot that bands tend to make more than one album, and didn't hear any new TMBG until sometime around Dr. Worm and Boss of Me...and that Courage the Cowardly Dog thing. I immediately went to see them at the local Science Center. (Shows/2004-05-29)
• Kim (Kaylum) - In late 1994, a fellow Kids in the Hall fan and I would frequently end our emails to each other with a KitH quote. One of the ones I ended mine with was, "Always remember: no one understands you." My friend responded, "That's a great quote when you're feeling sorry for yourself, like "No one knows my plan" by They Might Be Giants." I said I hadn't heard of them, and he responded, "Check them out!" I meant to, but kept putting it off until around April or May of 1995, when Bruce McCulloch mentioned TMBG in an online interview. I told my friend, who promptly replied, "Dammit, Kay, I told you they're good!" So I made my way to a used CD store that had a cassette copy of Flood and a John Henry CD. I chose John Henry and was charmed by "Sleeping in the Flowers." By the time "No One Knows My Plan" came on, I was hooked!
• Michael- I was 15 when I became a TMBG fan. I was playing drums in a band and one night after practice our guitar player put on the first TMBG album and I was very impressed. They have been my favorite band ever since. I have every album and DVD and other stuff of theirs. Now, my 3 sons love TMBG too. I even got my wife to like them now. We all enjoy listening to TMBG together.
• Slightly Above Average Man - 5; Flood
• Yappy's Dog Treats- A friend of mine played me Spider and The Guitar on his tape deck. "Who's this?" I asked, to which he replied "Uuuh, I think it's Talking Heads". Later I found out it was the same band that did those Tiny Toons songs (which i thought were totally lame, cuz, you know, Tiny Toons are for babies). A week later I permanently borrowed Misc. T from a friend and then I snapped and bought flood. the next week I bought Apollo 18, followed by Lincoln, John Henry and last but not least the Pink Album. I got so used to having a new TMBG album every week I freaked out when I got the last one. The seven month wait for Factory Showroom to come out was possibly the longest wait in my life...(well except the wait between Factory Showroom and Mink Car. Yowza that was a long one).

1996

• Antgeth - at the tender age of five, i would always sit and listen with rapt attention whenever my dad put on his sole TMBG album, Apollo 18. mammal and fingertips were my favorite.
• Ash - in 1996 Triple J (national Aussie youth station) started playing SEXXY on fairly heavy rotation and I didn't know what to make of it. They then featured Factory Showroom as album of the week where for a week I heard these songs like "How Can I Sing Like a Girl", "Metal Detector", and "New York City" that got stuck in my head. Of course I purchased the album out of curiosity and the rest as they say is history.
• Exquisite Dead Guy - when I was 5 years old I heard the song "Particle Man" on the radio and it was burned into my mind. I thought it was the best thing ever, but being so young, I didnt know how to figure out who made the song or if they made more. In about 2002, I heard the same song again, once more on some radio station, and I immediately googled the lyrics to find what band made it. I've been a diehard TMBG fan ever since.
• Hailah Saw them play "on the bricks" in Atlanta. They weren't the band I thought I was going to see. They played, among other things, "Hypnotist of Ladies" and "Violin". Linnell was wearing these goofy black glasses. Something stuck with me, and I got Flood. Then I was hooked. Later I flashed back to really digging them on WRAS at various times over the years, especially when John Henry was played in its entirety, but I could never remember the band name...
• Jordan - Big Kids in the Hall fan. Bought the soundtrack for Braincandy and "Spiraling Shape" was EASILY the best song on there. It blew my mind. Remembering the Tiny Toons stuff, I then dug up my sister's old tape of "Flood" , listened to it a million times, then bought the first album, Lincoln and Misc. T in one afternoon. Etc, Etc.
• Thehennnry: I was six years old when my stepbrother, Ian, tried to ween me off of Britney Spears by giving me his old Lincoln and Flood CDs. Needless to say that it worked - and thank heavens for that.
• The thing's brother
• Jess Piece Face: I was three years old when I found about TMBG. My dad is from Istanbul, so when he first heard Istanbul (Not Constantinople), he was like, "Woah, who are these dudes?" So he bought Flood and showed it to his three-year-old daughter, successfully corrupting her for all eternity. Hooray!

1997

• Chiasmus - I was in second yr university and had not long met my soon to be bestie. She was a DJ at a community radio station, and she was 9 years older than me. So we got to talking about music and she gave me a copy of Flood to listen to. And I worked my way through her entire collection a day at a time after that.
• Cubeclub - When I was younger my father, brother and I would go to the back room of the basement in my house. My dad had a whole bunch of different artists which included TMBG albums such as Lincoln and Apollo 18. I would always tell my dad to put on the songs about cows and dinner bells and spiders and guitars and fingertips and... I think you get the idea. I'm not quite sure but I believe my brother was a lot more into them and he is the one who bought Then: The Earlier Years and much later Mink Car. Mink Car is when I really started loving them.
• InterruptorJones - Danced to S-E-X-X-Y with drama geeks at a Bye Bye Birdie after-party, bought Factory Showroom the next week.
• JJRRutgers - Had a crush on a TMBG fan at my music store that I worked in one summer. She would get the store to play Then: The Earlier Years a lot, and I bought Apollo 18 to check them out. I listened to them non-stop that year, buying up all the albums eventually. Finally saw them at Rutgers in 1997, where the people on-line watiing to get in had a 2-hour long TMBG sing-along. The rest is history.
• K. T. Sullivan - Listened to his brothers Flood cd outside a gas station, and was changed forever by Birdhouse in Your Soul.
• Repugnant - A friend had a dubbed copy of Flood. We listened to it on the way a birthday party (7th grader, wooh!). I've been hooked ever since.
• Rheimbro - A friend gave me a mix tape that had TMBG, The Rutles and Mono Puff on it. Since my favorite song on that tape was I Palindrome I, my first album became Apollo 18 :)

1998

• 2sheds - TMBG was on Pen and Teller's Sin City Spectacular playing Doctor Worm and They Got Lost and I bought the Severe Tire Damage album immediately.
• Mark - Saw them in 1997 doing "Till My Head Falls Off" on Viva Variety... about a year later the song mysteriously popped into my head and I went out and bought the Severe Tire Damage.
• rabidchild1 - My mom saw a good review in the paper and bought Severe Tire Damage for my older brother (who's more of an electronica guy). It got into my hands shortly after and I was obsessed.

1999

• Andrewzors - I ran into my dad's collection of Flood and Apollo 18. I was so little, so I naturally got a kick out of Fingertips, and then I knew they were for me.
• Arachnid flame - During the nineties, I was a huge fan of Nickelodeon’s “Kablam!” and would tape the show religiously. I remember it was around Christmas or so when they played the episode with the animated Doctor Worm music video. It was so original and wonderful that I instantly fell in love! I played that portion of the tape over and over till it eventually wore out. I later purchased the album Factory Showroom and have been a huge fan ever since!
• bowser724 - My dad downloaded a whole bunch of TMBG songs from Audiogalaxy (now defunct) and burned them onto a CD, and we listened to them in the car. He had downloaded Particle Man (Live STD), Istanbul (Not Constantinople), Cowtown, Mr. Me, Cyclops Rock, I've Got A Fang, and a few others. I was hooked instantly.
• DrWorm - I also saw Doctor Worm and Why Does The Sun Shine on Kablam!, I was instantly a fan. But I wasn't too tech-savvy since I was only 8 to visit the electronics aisle in Wal-Mart. It wasn't till 5 years later, after it was just a distant memory, that I heard Doctor Worm and many other songs my friend ripped on his computer. Now I visit this site and listen to countless TMBG songs everyday and frequently use a screen name based on the first song I heard by the band, and my favorite song, Doctor Worm.
• Logan - I bought a new (Windows) computer and it had free songs. One of them was Older. Also, from Kablam! but I didn't notice that until after the windows thingy.
• magbatz - My camp counselor was pretty crazy about TMBG, and since he got to choose a lot of the music that we played in our cabin, I came to love the songs Why Does The Sun Shine? (which he performed at our talent night the next year), New York City, and what I think was Cowtown
• pat - I heard my uncle's copy of Flood, and I've been obsessed ever since. However, it wasn't until four years later that I discovered that there were only two people in the band.
• R3dk9 - I was about 9, I believe, and I saw the Doctor Worm music video on Kablam! on Nickelodeon. I had memorized the lyrics, and also for Why Does The Sun Shine?.

2000

• Anklepants - A distant friend left Then: The Earlier Years in the family stereo accidentally and since then I fell in love with TMBG
• User:Droffats - Malcom in the Middle recently started airing and I was really digging the theme song. Not really knowing where to buy theme music, I went to this old laptop in my parents' room and loaded up a P2P file sharing program called AIMster. Did a little search for You're not the boss of me and a bunch of songs with the strange name of They Might Be Giants were listed. Did a couple searches on Them and the rest was history.
• Stormer - I was a Tiny Toons kid, so obsessed with Particle Man that my mom threw my videotape away so she wouldn't have to hear it anymore. Boy was she ever steamed when I announced I'd discovered the band who recorded the song. At least she got about a four year break from when she first threw it away and when she had to HEAR IT AGAIN EVERY DAY UNTIL I GREW UP AND MOVED OUT.

2001

• HowardTCo - I was watching videos on launch.yahoo.com (Back in the old days), and after I played "Get In Line" by Barenaked Ladies (my old favorite band) I heard Istanbul (Not Constantinople) and I remembered it from Tiny Toons, I download that song, Birdhouse In Your Soul, and others, and soon became a big fan. Then I heard Someone Keeps Moving My Chair and then I was completely in love with them. I continued downloading Flood albums, and a random ones from a few other albums (Severe Tire Damage especially) After awhile I bought The Pink Album which endevored further into my love, and really made them my truly favorite band.
• KristenDee - 14 years old, sitting in a back seat of a car full of friends. Particle Man comes on the mixed tape the driver is blasting. "Is he singing about Barnacles?" I yell over the tape. "No, Particles." "Oh. Neat, I like it." I didn't realize it at the time, as we drove off into the moonlight, but my musical preferences were changed forever.
• Madmazurk - A pair of friends of mine are huge TMBG fans, and had recommended them for a while. Also, around that time, maybe a little earlier, a video was going around where someone had spliced together some Dragonball Z clips to Particle Man, and I got hooked on the song that way. While going to school at Rutgers, They played a show which I attended on a lark. It was a lot of fun. (For anyone that was there, I was the guy throwing my shoe into the balcony...) Shortly after, those friends of mine (who were dating and are now married) consolidated their CD collections and I wound up with a copy of Apollo 18. I was a fan forever after that.
• My Evil Twin's Twin - Heard of them before, when my brother was listening to Flood; became an actual fan early 2001 or so, when my friend had me listen to Why Does The Sun Shine? (The Sun Is A Mass of Incandescent Gas) and The Pink Album
• Ryan Jones - My dad is a minister and the youth minister at our church was a huge They Might Be Giants fan. One day he took me to McDonald's and he popped in his brand new copy of "No!", thinking I'd like it since it was a kids' album and I was 8 years old at the time. I found it hilarious and my dad let me import the songs onto our computer. A few years later a good friend of mine gave me a mix tape of TMBG songs, and since I liked No! so much, I figured it was worth a listen. The rest is history.
• Sqap - One of my friends lent me Apollo 18 on cassette and told me that it was some weird music. I was wary, but I popped it in. I was interested, but then confused by Spider. It was so short! I purchased Mink Car and was hooked! My friend was envious, since he only had Apollo 18.
• Sully - I listened to NO! The first song I heard was Violin. I thought there was a black man in the group, which I later found out was actually John Linnell using a deep voice. But I swore to GOD one of them was black. After that I realized I used to watch them on Tiny Toons (I liked those music videos) And everything came together. Blaeh.\

2002

• appleheart- December Dial-A-Song: 20 Years Of They Might Be Giants; my grandma bought it for me for christmas after it was recommended to her by a record store worker when she asked "what is a good gift for a 14 year old that likes weird things" upon receiving, i listened to, and fell in love. the rest... is history.
• ArAn - First time I heard of them was on Cartoon Network with their Courage The Cowardly Dog; then in December of 2004 with Experimental Film at H*R and then Dial-A-Song: 20 Years Of They Might Be Giants was my first album. Since then I've been downloading from iTunes and TMBG.com. I now own several songs from The Spine and Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns).
• benthorot - While working at a summer camp, No! was played incessantly. Nothing made those kids happier than doing Robot Parades or Clapping Their Hands. I went out and bought the album, got Flood for Christmas, and the rest was history.
• CapitalQ - I became a fan in July, when my friend Jeremy told me to listen to his No! CD on the bus ride home from some field trip our summer camp went on. A few days later, he played me Flood and I instantly recognized Istanbul (Not Constantinople) and Particle Man from the Tiny Toons episode I had viewed almost a decade earlier. In November, I picked up Dial-A-Song on the day it came out, and I became completely hooked.
• DominEl -"Flood"... Heard it. Loved it. The rest is history.
• Inunaota4a - January; Flood
• Joltman - I think it was 2002, may have been 2001. Anyway, I always remembered Particle Man and Istanbul from Tiny Toons and somewhere along the lines found out it was TMBG. I finally got Severe Tire Damage and liked it, then slowly collected every other album. They have since become one of my favorite bands, especially odd since mostly everything else I listen to is punk!
• Martorano - In December I found Best Of The Early Years at a used CD store for like four bucks. I was [am] a huge Frank Black fan and remembered he'd mentioned them a few times, so I picked it up. I was 17.
• Mister Bones - Saw the Ana Ang video on VH1 Classic.
• MRH0RRIBLE - No!, TSS
• Mr.Xcitement - So I was 5 or 6 and my brother was 3 and my parents were looking for good kids music and came accross No! We got the album and went to some concerts where we bought more CDs. For either father's Day or my dad's birthday (I can't remember) we got my dad Dial-A-Song. We listened to that one in the car all the time on vacation for years. My obsession really got big several years later in like 2008 or 2009. I started buying more of their CDs and I'm still buying and collecting. I think I've driven my parents carazy with how much I listen to TMBG.
• nosaj56 - Boss Of Me, TSS, Flood
• The thing - No! The first two songs I ever heard though were Particle Man and Fingertips.
• Thunderbird - I became a fan after seeing them perform on The Screen Savers.

2003

• JMCatron - My fandom of TMBG can, like most things in my life, be traced (pretty easily) back to Star Wars. In 2003, a mapper called ShroomDuck made a map for the game Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast Multiplayer called They Might Be Jedi, for a clan of the same name. The music for the level was a 10-minute medly of TMBG music, some of which I'm still trying to figure out where it came from.
• Augie - Gigantic!!!
• Christina - A funny friend of mine who had, in grad school, seen Them live, suggested that I might like They Might Be Giants because, "They're your type people, definitely - the fans are sucha buncha nerds you'll feel right at home." :D Not a totally flattering assessment, but he was correct. :)
• Cronny - After a gigantic and coincidental string of events, my cousin got me Apollo 18 for Xmas.
• Davew27 - I heard Flood years ago but only became a fan after hearing it again in December 2003
• Holdhurst - Rediscovery of Birdhouse In Your Soul and Doctor Worm on my computer
• hovieja- I had seen them on the screensavers and loved it. When I was young I ran around the house singing what i knew of istanbull from tiny toons, and loved boss of me, then it all clicked. TMBG will be my favorite band till I die.
• MrChicken - I was very depressed, almost to the point of suicide. I wasn't sure why, but I remember liking Particle Man so many years ago on Tiny Toons, and I remember the band named They Might Be Giants. So, I searched for them, and found Dr.Worm. I downloaded it, listened to it, and I started feeling better. Then, I downloaded Birdhouse In Your Soul, and I was no longer that depressed.
• Mr.Klaw Dan burned me a CD with songs from Apollo 18 and Mink Car. I listened to it for a while and I loved it! I didn't realize at the time that it was TMBG, but now I am a full-fledged fan.
• Nckinfn04 - No!
• Theycallmedrbeth In high school some guy that had a crush on me kept trying to get me to listen to them, but I wasn't into it because I wasn't into him. Then I saw the Dr. Worm video and was in definate, serious like with it. But it wasn't until the summer after my first year of college when a friend and I bought The Early Years on a whim (mostly due to the titles "Purple toupee" and "Youth culture killed my dog"). We listened to it while we made velco poetry for the ceiling of her car while sitting in a parking lot. After that I was addicted. Third times a charm?
• Squeak- I had heard TMBG songs on Tiny Toons and Cartoon Network earlier but never knew who sang them. My friend showed me "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" and I knew that this was the band. Since then I have collected 11 of the TMBG albums.
• Underman - Listened to Istanbul and LOVED it got Flood that March. Now have every album that i know of. Got 7 people addicted, 3 more interested now.
• Wezzo - Birdhouse In Your Soul, later purchased Dial-A-Song
• Weirdalover- My mom dad got me CD player with mp3 disk capabilities meaning it would only play on the cd player but could fit WAY more on it that a typical CDR and my mom added for some reason Why Does The Sun Shine? via kazaa/napster to the disk and my curiosity grew from there including downloading songs mis-attributed to TMBG namely "Sheep go to heaven Goats go to hell" by Cake. by 2004 The Spine came out on my birthday and I was hooked from there. and the rest is history as I got more and more into the music.

2004

• ACupOfCoffee - July - September — HRWiki:Experimental Film After about my 30th viewing and poor job of ripping the audio, it finally dawned on me to check out the album. The Spine
• Ashurbanipal - Heard them as the counselors on that episode of Home Movies. A few weeks later, heard Istanbul on Yahoo Music at my grandma's house, made the connection that it was done by the same guys, ran out to Best Buy immediately thereafter and bought Dial-A-Song.
• Ben - I had heard Flood on some mini-tape thing that my hipster friend Aaron had. I loved the music, but like a lot of people I was really confused and turned off by the odd lyrics. Especially Whistling in the Dark. I sort of forgot about the band for a few years until my ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend (yeah we all became friends, it's cool) gave me Mink Car to listen to. I absolutely loved this album and all it's amazing variety. So I went out and bought Flood, Apollo 18 and most importantly The Spine, which I became obsessed with since it was their "new" sound. After listening to all of those albums excessively, I went on the mad search to acquire everything else they had ever done.
• Blind Simeon - Heard them but didn't know who they were on Tiny Toons, Malcolm in the Middle, and Homestar Runner. Eventually heard about them and bought Apollo 18. Loved them and bought all the studio albums, but never truly understood them until I really listened to "Spiralling Shape." Best song ever.
• CheezNapkin - Wow, this is a tough one. The first time I heard the band was on (surprise) Tiny Toons, and later I heard "Dr Worm" and "Why Does The Sun Shine?" On KaBlam. "Boss of Me" was a big hit around this time, so I knew who they were. Sometime in 2003 I stumbled across "Birdhouse in Your Soul" after my dad downloaded it on Kazaa. The next year I heard "Ana Ng" and fell in love with the band instantly. Then came Experimental Film. I thought It was cool that these guys were Homestar Runner fans. I bought the Dial A Song album to get more into the band and now..I'm an official fan.
• ChieftanMews - July. I was completely addicted to the H*R video, so I just bought The Spine.
• Cody-schmidt - Homestar Runner, The Spine, User's Guide, ABCs, and a whole bunch of stuff off iTunes.
• cyber95 - I was introduced to them via my friend Mark (you may know him as Ecks), and I recognized a few of the songs. Particle man for one, (remember hearing the song on Tiny Toons, and after that I would just sing it all the time), and Boss of Me. Eventually I persuaded my mom to buy me a TMBG CD, and I had A Users Guide in my Discman all the time. But really, I thank Homestar Runner, for without it, I never would have found the homestar forum where I met him and without meeting him I never would have known about They Might Be Giants!
• Ecks - July... when else?
• El Zilcho - July; Saw the "Experimental Film" video on Homestar Runner, and immediately seeked out more information. By the end of the year, I had the first three TMBG albums and no intention of stopping there.
• Garnish I started watching Homestar Cartoons in seventh grade, and I loved "Experimental Film" when it came out the summer before eighth grade. I researched the band and listened to a bit of "The Spine" while surfing the web. Then, after school on the first day of eighth grade, I found myself at Borders with my dad, and wondered if I could find "The Spine". I found it and my dad bought it for me. TMBG has been my favorite band ever since.
• Finest1 - I heard about it through Malcom In the Middle... or was it before that? Also through Homestar Runner.
• Giant Vee - The whole process of becoming a fan last almost all of my current life. It started with being a child and hearing them on Tiny Toons. There was a gap and I found myself interested in Them when I watched reruns of Kablam! in late 2004, and then again on Homestar Runner. That was it. I had to check these guys out. Suddenly, I was hooked, and the rest is history.
• Half Empty - Experimental Film Then Dial-A-Song: 20 Years Of They Might Be Giants
• j2 - My parents had played Flood for me when I was really young, but this was the year I got fully into it. An internet friend I made in March or so showed me Istanbul (Not Constantinople) as part of some strange mix CD project, which encouraged me to make my own. Upon asking my parents for 'strange music', they produced a copy of Lincoln, which I grabbed Purple Toupee from and didn't think much of until August, when deviantART.com launched dAmn (their chat network). I met another of my friends on there, who fully drowned me in the river that is TMBG. I still find it strange how the first of Their recordings I purchased was Indestructable Object, though (in December).
• Jaybob1222 - July; The Pink Album
• Jsh357 - Friend sent me a CD with random songs and "Fingertips" snippets. I eventually got "Dial-a-Song" and "Apollo 18." Been a convert/converter ever since.
• Lars - April (or therebouts), I was looking for some new groups to get into and a friend mentioned TMBG. I started flipping through iTunes and landed on Istanbul (Not Constantinople). I've been hooked ever since.
• Pay - saw the Experimental Film video on Homestar Runner. it all kind of snowballed from there...
• Nick - The Spine
• Oreosarecrack - August; the Conan O'Brien performance of "Experimental Film", then borrowed a friend's copy of Factory Showroom
• richter50512 - I had heard Istanbul, Dr. Worm, and Particle Man a few years before, but in July, I saw "Experimental Film" on H*R. In October I got The Spine for my birthday. And, well, you know the rest...I guess?
• Overjoy - I had known about Them since I was a toddler, seen every appearance They made on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, and watched the Experimental Film video on HomestarRunner.com, which urged me to get Flood, and been a fan since. I got totally obsessed in 2006 when I heard Stormy Pinkness (Love Version).
• Sgtbrightside My first remembered TMBG experience was on a hot summer day with my brothers and my cousins. We were hanging out, listening to NO!. I have loved the band (and the song "Violin" in particular) ever since.
• STAREYe
• Swamp - I saw The Bros Chaps' video for Experimental Film and immediately became a fan.
• Tara - September
• Tedadore2 - My brother's geometry teacher told me to buy Flood and it went from there. Loved Death and Birdhouse In Your Soul. The rest is history.
• tomthefirst - July; My brother and I got hooked on the Experimental Film video on Homestarrunner.com, and my mom soon bought my brother The Spine. We both listened to it and enjoyed it a lot. After a while, I borrowed Factory Showroom from my local library and thoroughly enjoyed it. Around the same time, my mom would play the Dial-A-Song compilation, and I would slowly take all of the greatness in. Fast forward to Christmas 2005. I'm really into THey Might Be Giants now. My mom gets me John Henry and Gigantic. I watch Gigantic the next day, and the documentary film leaves me speechless; I am overl amazed with their awesomeness (the music videos were a big turn on). On that day, December 28th I believe, I fell in love with They Might Be Giants. I buy They Got Lost and Mink Car the next day. My friends just don't know how much I love these guys. I'm such a TMBG freak now.
• Tutticadenza - that's me. at least i think it was around 2004. my brother was playing Mink Car on the stereo, i got hooked and played it about 20 times through that day.
• VolatileChemical - July 13, 2004, Homestar Runner's Experimental Film video, bought The Spine a week or two later. I'm waiting for when I go to university and everyone I know or see is a huge fan of TMBG, and I tell them "I've been a fan even before I got to university!" and they'll all be like, "Dude, is that even possible?"
• The Walrus - Heard Boss of Me and Istanbul before, but didn't become a rabid fan until Expirimental Film on H*R.
• WhatIsThatThing - July; Experimental Film; I saw the Homestar video, asked my dad if he had heard of the band on a whim, and found out he had heard of Them and showed me an album he had.
• Xubius- At That point there was only a few things on Homestarrunner.com I hadn't seen. (One of which being the Experimental Film Video) So I went through that day watching everything else. The one thing I kept going back to though was the experimental film video. And that's Where it all started.
• Zombuk

2005

• Anna Ng - I became a fan sometime in 2005 (it might've been 2004, but I'm pretty sure it was 2005) when I saw the Experimental Film video on Homestar Runner. I thought it was an awesome song, and when I saw "A User's Guide..." at Borders for 12 bucks, I bought it. BAM! I was hooked, and now they're my favorite band!
• apfelbitsliam - When I was addicted to comedy music, I heard of a witty band through a link on Weird Al Yankovic's website. They didn't do parody covers, nor where they novelty. They were funny enough to be loved by Dr. Demento fans, though. They were known as They Might Be Giants. I went to amazon and typed in their name. I clicked on "A User's Guide..." and immediately recognized Boss of Me. I loved that song. Then, I forgot about them. But, I kept hearing their name poping up on the internet, and then remembered Particle Man from back when I was a tiny little toddler, and went to DialASong.com. The first song I heard was Ant, which I loved, and finally went and requested Apollo 18 and A User's guide for my birthday.
• AshRock - Three years old. My parents are They Might Be Giants fans, and they introduced me to Them with Here Come The ABCs. They also played me more of Their songs in the car, mostly from Their first five albums.
• Beau99 - I'd seen "Particle Man" and "Istanbul" on Tiny Toon Adventures all those years ago, but I never really got into them until 2005. I then proceeded to get A User's Guide to They Might Be Giants sometime in 2006.
• Blindfold - November; saw They were an influence of Lemon Demon, addicted immediately
• CBGBrocker22 December sometime. Was turned onto TMBG by my boyfriend. First songs I heard were She's An Angel and The Sun (Live). The first album I Bought was A User's Guide to They Might Be Giants and I've been a huge fan ever since.
• CuppaCoffee-I heard TMBG on the radio all the time in 2004. I didn't find out that it was them until 2005 when I heard Experimental Film on Homestar Runner.
• ehsteve14 - It was August when I finally bought Lincoln, but I had known about They Might Be Giants for a while. I had almost gotten Dial-A-Song a few months before, but for some reason I didn't. Saw the Experimental Film video back when it first came out, and almost bought The Spine, but didn't because of the songs with "bad" words in the title (how naive I was back then), but after hearing both Doctor Worm and The Statue Got Me High in the course of one week on a local college station, I could wait no longer, and with that, I bought Lincoln, and then everything else in the course of about half a year.
• Flyboy - Was watching "Experimental Film" on Homestar Runner and I loved it. So, with that, I just kept growing out. First CD was "Dial-A-Song: 20 Years of They Might Be Giants" and I got Lincoln and John Henry soon afterwards.
• TitanicFog - I heard 'The Statue Got Me High' and fell in love. My dad had Pink, Lincoln, Flood, Miscellanious T, Apollo 18, and the newest release at the time: A User's Guide To: They Might Be Giants.
• Iserguy - I had first heard of them in maybe '96 or so from my older brothers with some of the older songs like "Birdhouse In Your Soul" and loved them, but didn't know who it was, then I heard "Experimental Film" on Homestar Runner and found out it was the same band, so then I bought "Dial-A-Song: 20 Years of They Might Be Giants, and they have been my favorite band ever since
• Lemita - Saw the Homestar Runner/Experimental Film collab and fell in love. I remembered the name vaguely from Cartoon Network. Turns out, I used to watch the videos from Tiny Toons (I especially remember Particle Man, because I was little and could have sworn the Triangle Man cartoon was a girl. o_O). I found this wiki from the H*R wiki, read some lyrics on the top songs, downloaded a bunch. Loved them, bought A User's Guide in early '06 (I was avidly downloading to my mp3 player), then proceeded to buy a bunch of other albums. So now I'm a really big fan.
• Jnelson09 - Heard of them in mid-'90s, didn't become actual fan until '05
• Macaronnie0304 - I was 2 years old. TMBG Here Come the ABCS comes out and into my living room.
• MichelleMaBelle - While I'd probably seen the Tiny Toons videos, I don't actually recall them. But, in the spring of 2005 my boyfriend sent me Stalk Of Wheat after I admitted that I'd heard of TMBG but not heard any of their stuff. I liked it and downloaded a bunch of the more popular stuff. Then in 2007 I got to see them live and they became my favorite band.
• User:MidoFS - I've pretty much been exposed to TMBG my whole life. My Dad started to listen to them around 1997, and my Mom listened to a tape cassete of Flood while she was a teenager (it's what the cool kids did apparently). 2005 was around when I was old enough to enjoy music (yes, I'm young, but being a fan for twelve years makes up for it). My brother would occasionally play CDs that my Dad suggested to him. The albums my Dad had were Then: The Earlier Years, Apollo 18, Severe Tire Damage, Mink Car, and Flood. I listened to Flood once, and my love for music immediately began.
• Moofy - After seeing lyrics to "Birdhouse In Your Soul" in my friend's away message and thinking that they were clever and that my friend wasn't creative enough to write them, I looked up the song and then listened to it and then got into TMBG. :]
• mrmagoo - I watched Malcolm in The Middle alot and wondered who wrote the the theme song...found out it was TMBG. At the time i was a big Weird Al fan but then i got A User's Guide To TMBG, and that's when i started my collection on the greatest band of all time. And I now have 9 albums by TMBG and User's Guide. Thanks TMBG for making excellent music. I listen everyday...
• pnihill2000 - May 27; The Spine
• Spiraling Shape - July; concert my dad taped from DirecTV, followed by going to the 2005-07-08 show in my town
• Spruce - Like many, I had seen the Tiny Tunes videos, heard the Daily Show's theme, heard Malcom In the Middle's theme and seen the music video for Courage the Cowardly Dog, and I loved all of it(but I also wondered who was behind all of those different tunes, somehow not connecting the dots). Then I saw the Experimental Film Homestar Runner video. And then, my brother blew everything wide open when he brought home The Spine, and revealed that TMBG had been behind so many of the great tunes I liked before. It all went up from there.
• Teddyleevin - I became a fan in July of 2005 after witnessing the Fingertips Project animutation. I had seen the Experimental Film flash on H*R and I had seen them perform said song on Conan, but Fingertips was really what got me in. I bought Apollo 18 within the week of seeing it and played it for more than half a year. I eventually decided to get more and on March 10th, 2006, I got Flood. Soon came all the rest. Everyone had fun. Punch and pie were served.
• thatbluething - I had heard of TMBG since high school, but for some reason it was my junior year of college when I finally checked them out. I went to AllMusic.com and saw that Lincoln was among the highest rated albums, so I gave that a listen. I specifically remember hearing Ana Ng for the first time and being instantly hooked! For years, Lincoln was one of my favorite albums but I didn't check out their other stuff until mid-2018. The flood gates opened - now I'm a huge fan of it all!
• Trapped in Amber - Experimental Film, Istanbul (Not Constantinople), Particle Man, Birdhouse in Your Soul. I came across I Palindrome I again in 2008 and became totally hooked. Between then and now, I now own Flood, Apollo 18, They Might Be Giants and Lincoln.
• Valerie - Summer of 05. Saw the Experimental Film video on Homestar; got Apollo 18 from the library that week and listened to it nonstop.
• Zargon - I had seen the Tiny Toons videos and loved them, but it really started when the Homestar Experimental Film video peaked me and my friend's interest, and we started with "The Spine" and continued from there!

2006

• 210.213.130.170 - I heard Boss of Me back in 2001, but I didn't know it was them. I decided to look into TMBG cause my friend was also listening to them. I found out that they made Boss of Me, and I got hooked.
• 68.73.0.94 - My friends started playin' TMBG songs out of no where for a while and they stuck in my head. The first song I probaly heard from them was particle man for Tiny Toons but the one I first notice was Dr.Worm! Then they played a show and I heard BHIYS and currently I've listened to about 90% percent of there catologue.
• Akagi - I first heard of TMBG because of the Experimental Film video from The Brothers Chaps, because I'd been a fan of H*R since around late 2003 or so. Then I met a few friends from the Homestar Runner Wiki who really like TMBG. So then in late 2006 I decided to check them out, and I bought my first two albums (well, not really albums, but collections, I guess) and I enjoyed them, so I kept buying new albums every few weeks and here I am. Though I recognized Particle Man and Istanbul the first time I listened, so apparently I must've seen the Tiny Toons videos when I was little.
• curious and questioning- My parents were fans and got No! and it was kind of interesting, but I wasn't a fan yet, and over the next few years I would notice, hey, there's that band that did No! in credits and stuff like that. Then, my mom got my dad Dial A Song:20 Years of They Might Be Giants for Christmas. I had seemingly infinite space on my iPod and I was bored, so I put it in the computer. And I started to listen that day. The songs were amazing. The kind that get stuck in your head. All of them. I couldn't stop humming Birdhouse for over a month. My thoughts: Is every song like this? Must get more. So I did. I found with my next album, The Spine, that not every song was as great as that, and the best by far had been taken into the compilation, but by then I was too much a fan for it to shake my faith in TMBG, that They are near-perfect and can improve any day.
• DefMon - Heard Istanbul on a cartoon as a child and had the song stuck in my head until I manged to find out what it was 10 years later. After that I looked into TMBG further
• jdc - the first song i ever heard by TMBG ws "boss of me" on malcolm in the middle,In the year 2001. but i didn't realise that it was by them. I always liked the song. So technically this shouldn't be hear under the year 2006. But then in the year 2004, I saw the experimental film video on www.homestarruner.com, and got hooked on that. But i still wasn't clueing in. in this year, my friend told me about them and i jsut downloaded a bunch of songs and i loved them and always will.
• Findingnewo - Can't remember exactly when but it had to have been sometime in late 06, I was 4. Got Here Come The ABC's and loved it so much I got 123s on release day from my local Best Buy two years later. The band's kids music was the soundtrack to most of my childhood, and I really only started to get into their "real" music right around late middle school when I rediscovered my loves for Ben Folds and John Mayer. 16 years and counting and I still have not been to a show but will update once I do; ABCs and 123s are two highly influential albums to me as a musician myself.
• Herwwiyal - January. I was at my friends house when he started to play Particle Man, then went on to show me Istanbul (Not Constantinople) and Birdhouse In Your Soul. I loved it instantly, and so saved up money and bought Dial-A-Song, which I loved, and I have been listening to TMBG nonstop ever since.
• Ill Masta - Back when I was in about fourth grade (probably around 1999), I remember my dad had Severe Tire Damage laying around, so one day, I stuck it in the CD player, and I loved it. Even without understanding the lyrics or anything, the melodies of Birdhouse, Ana Ng, and Doctor Worm really caught me and drew me in. He also had John Henry which I liked too, but not as much. Some years later, I heard Boss Of Me on Malcom, and Experimental Film on H*R and really liked them, but I never pursued the band's other stuff. After that, I kind of forgot about TMBG until I heard the A Ton Of Stuff this year and I recognized Flansburgh's voice, and something clicked. I went back and found STD, and I instantly remembered all the things I loved about Them. I knew I had quite a ways to go in terms of completing or even starting my collection, but as I kept buying albums, I kept wanting more and more. And I still do.
• JadeYou know what? It's weird. I guess it was H*R that indroduced me to TMBG... i remember hearing "Experimental Film", and thinking "The end is what makes your head implode? What does that mean?". My brother a few months later was telling " Jade, i've been loking into this 'They Might Be Giants' band, and their pretty good". We downloaded about as many songs possible off limewire, most of them from Mink Car and The Spine and i loved them. I was addicted to Instanbul, and one day i just happen to look in local CD store and see A User's Guide to They Might Be Giants, bought it. I loved Ana Ng (never even saw the video) and They'll Need A Crane. I brought that to a big New York trip i went on in April '06. The werid thing is that i wasn't a huge fan untill a couple months ago when i think i had Man, It's So Loud In Here stuck in my head. I dug out my old burnt CD, then after a swift visit to EBay, i owned many of their CDs. If you were to ask my friends, they'd tell you that i don't stop talking about TMBG adn John Linnell expecially, but I never said anything about them before November. It's werid how something like a Band can change your life. I feel like i've change drastically since becoming a fan of TMBG, i wear a pair of non-perscription glasses all the time to honour Flans. What else is there to say? I wish i was a fan earlier in life, i have missed out on alot, i wasnt there for the music videos, I dont remember the Tiny Toon ones (when i first saw Particle Man on youtube, i thought it was just someone who had done some really good dubbing), Dial-A-Song is down now, i missed seeing Gigantic in theatres and worse of all The Johns are getting on in years and there's a good chance i'll never get to see them live. Wow, this was long, sorry.
• Malachi - I was born. My family loves TMBG and have played their songs for me since I was young.
• Shufro - I searched for the artist from the malcolm in the middle-theme and so I found them.
• The Joe - heard of them once or twice before, but then, through homestarrunner, I watched some of the music videos, got User's Guide, and I just ordered Apollo 18 and bought Flood.
• TJDFett - I always knew of songs like Boss of Me and Particle Man, I also got wind of Experimental Film from Homestar Runner. I Only really started listening to TMBG when I was suggested to play Experimental Film for a drum recital. So, I bought The Spine and my listening grew from there. I have attended two shows as of now. Both in my state of North Carolina. I am a huge fan and listen to TMBG every day as I'm sure all of us do :D
• Kassi - Shows/2006-04-28. My late husband had several TMBG albums, but I didn't quite 'get it' while listening to them. I liked them all right, I just wasn't hardcore. Yet. I had seen Them at the Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh once before, but a severe allergy to cigarette smoke diminished my enjoyment to the point of non-enjoyment and chased me out before I could even hear Doctor Worm. Since The Orange Peel was a non-smoking venue, I thought I'd give it another shot and went with a couple of friends who were huge fans. I was not expecting to be blown away, to have my mind altered, to feel so much love and awesomeness that even a month later I'm still on a high from seeing them. It makes my world better, the fact that They Might Be Giants.
• Mr. Anonymous: I first heard them when Istanbul Not Constantinople and I think Purple Toupee at a gift shop when I was about 4 or something. Years later, in fourth grade, a friend told me he was a big fan, and I found their iTunes Essentials set browsing iTunes. I bought Istanbul (Not Constantinople), and the rest is history.
• Lord Arzeron - My English teacher had a stereo system in his classroom. Every day, before class started, he would have some kind of music playing. One day, when we had some free time at the end of class, he began to lip sync Whistling In The Dark. On an other day, a test day to be specific, he put Please Pass The Milk on an endless loop WHILE WE WERE TESTING. I asked my uncle if he knew about They Might Be Giants, because he's into all sorts of music. He let me have his Flood album, and my affinity for all things TMBG snowballed from that point onward.
• Mr. Smalls - Like DefMon, saw the Experimental film video when it came out on H*R, but I really got into them this year by doing a random google search on them, finding this wiki, and finding out they wrote the theme song for Malcom in the Middle. I loved the theme song, so I started listening to them, buying songs on iTunes, and now I have my Venue Songs dvd!
• NTICompass - I have heard many of their songs before, but never actually knew who they were. One day, I heard the Verb Now commerical with Why Does The Sun Shine? I did some research and discovered that TMBG was behind that song. Then, after more research, I went out and got the Dial-A-Song CD. And now I love TMBG.
• User:RecordCollector06 - I may have been born at the tail end of 2006, but I still got lots of exposure to TMBG as an unborn baby (including an actual gig) and it clearly shaped me as a person.
• TheSarcasmFox:I knew who they were after watching the first airing of the Kablam episode with Doctor worm back when I was six. I tried to get the song out of my head but couldn't. In 2006, I was a fan of the Kids in the Hall show at the time and was trying to find fan made videos to cure boredom. I came across one with the song Birdhouse in your soul playing throughout the video and couldn't stop watching it. A week later I decided to become a They Might Be Giants fan.
• Sherlock runner (Now is: Goodtimes2: I had heard various songs of They Might Be Giants on The Disney Channel like Can You Find It? and Flying V but when I became a Homestar Runner fan, I listened to Experimental Film and then there was no point of return
• The thing's sister
• WhatTheHeckLinnell - Rundy Kinmartin was at school and he had a CD of Here Come The ABCs. We were makeing fun of him for it, and Kevin Church stoleit out of his backpack. Then Kevin Church hid it in my binder along with a realy thin book about metalwork. Then when class was over we went through the metal detector and it went off. The librarian took the book out of my binder and said "did you want this??" I said no but she made me check out the book anyway! And when she was doing that I shifted my bag and the CD fell out. Rudny left already so I couldn't give it to him until after class but i forgot about it until I got home. So I listened and Rudny was too old for that music but I really liked Letter Shapes so I listened non stop all night and copyed the CD. But then I bought it at Replay LTD. plus they had copyes of Flood, Apolo 18, Pink, Lincoln and Severe Tyre Damage. I gave Here Come The ABCS back to Rudney Kinmartin before the end of the year but he told me he moved on to better music. I think it was Lily Allen lol. Its his loss though as everyone here knows!
• Puppet Head - I started to like TMBG when I was in kindergarten when "Here Come The ABCs'" had released. Several years later when I was about 9 years old, I started watching the show "Malcom In The Middle". I loved the theme song "Boss Of Me" so much that I went on the computer and looked up the creator of the song. I was shocked to see it was They Might Be Giants(at the time, I thought TMBG only wrote kids music). So I watched the full boss of me music video and I loved it. I instantly checked out their older songs and now They Might Be Giants is my favorite band!

2007

• FlinnsyFan- I got an eMusic gift certificate for Christmas of 2006. My sister had looked around that site earlier that year and come up with nothing good, so I thought it was all lousy artists. I clicked on something on the site, and one of the fans of that album was also a fan of They Might Be Giants. I was astounded: they had a really awesome band on this lame website? So I took a look. They didn't have any of the songs I'd heard before (Istanbul, Boss of Me, Why Does The Sun Shine, etc.), but I thought I'd give what was there a try anyway. I was looking up lyrics for the albums offered when I found this wiki. I then found out about Long Tall Weekend, and I thought, How cool is that? So that was my first album, and I picked and chose songs from the remaining albums. And now I can't get enough!
• GPG I knew about TMBG previously from Malcolm in the Middle. This was because my cousin absolutely loved that show and I had asked about the theme before, but thought nothing of it otherwise. Until one day I happened to be sitting around my uncle's house watching his television when, indeed, Malcolm in the Middle came on. For some reason the theme song just stuck in my brain that time. I typed They Might Be Giants into last.fm to see if they did any other cool theme songs and, boy, was I surprised or what? These guys had like a million albums! I called up my cousin and the only thing he had to offer from his giant collection of music was Flood. I gladly accepted but then decided to buy The Else myself. Since then I've been adding more and more They Might Be Giants into my library. I don't think I could go very long without listening to them, actually.
• Invisiblehippo97 I first discovered TMBG in elementary school. The first song by them I ever heard was "Alphabet of Nations". Then I looked them up and discovered Ana Ng. I thought that Ana Ng was their most famous song instead of Birdhouse in Your Soul because I hadn't heard of Birdhouse yet. I discovered Birdhouse while watch a YouTube video of some guy's top 10 favorite TMBG songs. Then I sang Birdhouse in my elementary school talent show. When I turned 15 I think, I got Gigantic for my birthday. Some CDs I got for Christmas though. On my birthday in 2007, They Might Be Giants performed "The Mesopotamians" on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, promoting The Else. This I got from the This Day in TMBG History thing, but it gives me an idea for a userbox: On my birthday, blah blah blah happened.
• jane_strummer I had seen them on TechTV's 'The Screen Savers' once or twice, but never paid much attention; I'd heard 'Am I Awake' on Resident Life and really liked it, but didn't know who it was. Then I stumbled across John Linnell's iTunes playlist, loved the fact that we shared the same feelings about Phil Collins, so I looked up some of their music. Now, two years later, I'm still in the process of devouring all their albums, and still loving their awesome music.
• Jason DeLima: I'm a huge fan of Homestar Runner, and I ordered the "Everything Else Vol. 1" DVD (the whole Everything Else package) off the website in August. I remember seeing a video called "Experimental Film", but I never saw it before. So I watched it and found it very catchy, and I was eager to find out more. I did research on the video, and learned that TMBG did the song. I bought the whole "The Spine" album off iTunes, and I became completely hooked. Now I have almost all of their studio albums, and some downloadable live shows. They've become one of my favorite bands ever, and I'm looking forward to "Here Come The 123s"!
• Kelly - I first heard about TMBG through my Math Teacher a few months ago. I've only been a fan for a little while, but I'm trying to learn and listen to as much TMBG as I can, because I can't get enough!
• Newtown Back in mid-2007, I was a fan of the website Albino Black Sheep, and I always watched the "animutation" flashes there. One of the animations caught my eye, it was a collab called "Fingertips". The animation was nice and funny, and the music added to the effect. The end page said the artist was "They Might be Giants", and the band sounded interesting, so I just researched them, and now, I'm a fan.
• Sapphirebullets Was 3 years old and watched the Here Come The ABCs DVD a whole bunch. Took me 13 more years to get into their adult catalogue :p
• Shuda7 I first heard of TMBG through a series of Youtube videos called "How Not To Play Hitman". The songs the guy used were by TMBG. I didn't who they were so I started listening to their songs, to find out that this was the band I was looking for to listen to. So much variety that I never get tired listening to them! Best. Band. Ever.
• T-boi I was a little kid and I played the hell out of my Here Come The ABCs DVD.
• Tvfactoryguy To make a long story short, I found out about TMBG through Weird Al, looked the band up and watched some of their classic videos on YouTube. The first TMBG album I listened to was "No!" (It was the only TMBG CD my library had.) I eventually bought more albums and I've been hooked ever since.
• Yamfox Heard some of they're songs before I was a fan. One day I was board and I thought I should try them out. I bought The Else off iTunes. After that, I bought Mink Car, Self-titled, John Henry, Factory Showroom.... and I still can't get enough!!!

2008

• Apollo - So, it might have been 2007. I don't remember. I have the memory of a senior citizen. I was browsing the interwebs, looking for "Yakko's Nations of The World" from Animaniacs on YouTube when I came across Alphabet Of Nations. One Wikipedia search and two songs later, I was hooked.
• Blitzente - I was exposed to TMBG's music a while before I discovered the band properly, although I didn't know it at the time. When I was twelve and we were learning about the solar system in school, our science teacher (struggling to make education seem appealing to young teenagers) got us all to listen to a fast-paced song she'd found online about the Sun. Later in the year, once we'd moved onto biology, she played us another song, which didn't sound like it was by the same guys. After listening, the rest of my class were wondering what kind of sad people would write songs on those subjects; I thought they were catchy, but didn't think about them beyond that. I only realised that both songs had been TMBG considerably later, when I finally decided to check out the band that was all over KoL, TV Tropes and the Annotated Pratchett File. The first thing I owned that wasn't an iTunes download or bad-quality YouTube recording was Here Come The 123s, which I pretended was really for my kid brother. Everything else blossomed from there.
• Dagoth Ur, Mad God (talk) - I got introduced to the Giants thru Homestar Runner, specifically the Experimental Film video. One of my teachers at the time knew the band, and we sometimes spoke of them. The song that got me hooked was Ana Ng. I then forgot about TMBG until this year.
• User:Mkpiano I didn't know if I should put this under 86-87, or 2008. I'll explain. I was into music already. I was already well into my piano studies. When I was 12,13 I watched MTV a lot. Of course they were playing "Don't Let's Start" frequently. My older sisters and I immediately loved the song and video. (sorry guys, I might of voted against you in one of those "Friday Night Video Fights") I really didn't follow them much after that. I always knew who they were however, if a new song came out or a video that got a lot of airplay. I got into a few years later ( and still am today) a lot of Progressive Rock. Fast forward to 2008. My oldest son, then about 3, was watching Playhouse Disney one day. I was watching it with him and saw "Zeros". I liked it immediately. Perhaps due to the the chordal progressions/harmonies. I really didn't take notice of who composed the song at that time. Then not to much later, Higgleytown Heros was on. My now ex-husband said that you know who wrote that? He told me it was TMBG. I was like yeah I know of them. There is that guy with the glasses and the cute one :-) I immediately remembered and started singing "Don't Let's Start. I really can't remember the last time I heard that before then. However that is the test of a great song. Anyway we looked into getting the 1 2 3's for our son. The A B C's were soon to follow. We were enjoying it as much as our son. A little later I looked up online to find the DLS video. When I watched it everything about it came back to me. Kind of freaky! Anyway, then I started watching them online more...and more...LOL! Started as well buying their albums. My son (now 6) continues to love both their Kids and Adult music. My other son, 2, loves them as well. I went to see my first TMBG concert last summer (2011) and had a great time. It's nice that there is a band out there that can have all the emotion that a 20 minute Prog Rock song has that can be done in 3-4 minutes. Sometimes you need that for a change. Also sometimes you don't want to hear overblown instrumental solos. I also am impressed at that variety of styles and how they adapt to whatever they are involved with. It's Pop/Rock music, however it's interesting and intelligent.
• Super Martyo Brother — My story is kind of weird, since I'm mostly one of the many Homestar fans that first discovered the band back in 2005, but at that time, I was much younger and liked the distorted guitars more than the fact that the distorted guitars were playing notes. I never really did them justice until one day something sort of just clicked, I guess. Here's my attempt to explain it: Before I turned 13, I used to go though favorite bands at the rate of one per six months or so, and therefore my iTunes library was mostly comprised of bands I happened to like around the same time as Christmas, since that would be when I had iTunes gift cards. There was one point where I went back over old Homestar cartoons and came across Experimental Film again, and I don't know if it was that particular watching that really started the push or what, I don't really know how my fandom evolved, but pretty much after that I considered them my current favorite band, which at the time was like saying "Yeah, they're pretty awesome, but I'll be done with them in a month or two." And then a month went by, and I still liked them. And then three months went by, and I still liked them. And then it was July or something like that, and I really liked them, even after the six-month period where I usually recycle. So it was at that point I officially considered them my favorite band of all time. The cycle still continues for second-favorite, since TMBG sort of took over Guns N' Roses' seat as "favorite band" (see "I was much younger and liked the distorted guitars more than the fact that the distorted guitars were playing notes.") and then I was like "80's glam? No..." But anyway, that's my story.

2009

• Nerdy4ever95 - K, I may be a fan the shortest amount of time, but I am a HUUUUUUUGGGGGEEEE fan... I first heard them when I was at school. I got wiff of existance of internet radio. It was Pandora radio to be exact. I was listening to the weird al channel. and on the playlist, there they were! The song was Istanbul Not constantinople. I believe the album was Severe Tire damage. (even though I recall when I was 8 watching Why does the sun shine? on Kablam.) So Then two days later, I was home alone, I decided to browse TMBG on iTunes (this was before they had most of their albums) and so I sampled all of their music and since then my obsession exploded out of me and the flame is huge and the candle isn't melting! :] LET IT FLOW!!!
• Robot Parade - My father bought me the Here Comes Science CD+DVD whenever he saw me listening to The Ballad Of Davy Crocket (In Outer Space). I listened to those songs on repeat and spent so many hours watching those videos. Many road trips were had of just the TMBG kids albums repeating in the car. TMBG was an integral part of my childhood and reason I'm a musician today.

2010

• Charlie "Charlinnel" Holmlund - I was 0/1 at the time and obviously, discovered their kid's stuff! But with their "adult's" stuff too. A little bit of old stuff and they became a part if my everyday life! I kinda lost interest when I was about five, But got interested again because of the ticket incident. (see bio) And I visit tmbw almost every day.
• Ferret I'd heard Birdhouse in your Soul....about a thousand times, and had no idea who TMBG were. Then sometime in april I stumbled on them on spotify, and I've never looked back.
• LVIImusic I can't exactly remember when I first heard TMBG, but I'll guess 2010 (give or take a few years). I had heard their songs on a radio station for kids music, but then heard Older (Mink Car Version) on a YouTube video and became obsessed with it. Flash forward 10 years and I bought my first TMBG record, Lincoln.
• KevArlo I've been surrounded by TMBG for literally as long as I can remember. My parents bought all three here comes albums for me and my siblings after we had been taking them out from the library and they got sick of renewing the CDs literally tens of times in a row. We had the ABCs and 123s earlier but this was my first specific memory of TMBG as we got Here Comes Science as a Christmas present that year. For years, my siblings and parents have constantly referenced those albums even as we've outgrown them. It was only last year that I started listening to their adult material since I found one of the old DVD/CD sets and remembered just how great it was. I figured it must be even better than the kids stuff and holy shit was I right.
• MartyBellerMask Around the year 2009, I had rediscovered a childhood favorite cartoon titled Tiny Toon Adventures which featured two complete TMBG songs (Istanbul (Not Constantinople) and Particle Man) in an episode and loved them. It wasn't until 2010 that I further investigated the origins of the songs and purchased Flood so I could own them physically. Upon hearing the rest of the album, I immediately got hooked and the rest was history. It has now been 5 years (as of the time this was written) and I am now a die-hard fan who has claimed the band as my #1 all-time favorite.

2011

• Andy Bayer. I first heard Birdhouse on an episode of Bored to Death. I got hooked. As of now I own the Pink Album, Lincoln, Flood and the Dial A Song CD. -Andy!
• Next in Line - I was introduced to TMBG several times, but this is when I actually started listening to them.
• Ofpurelove I was technically introduced to They Might Be Giants in 2007, when my dad put Birdhouse In My Soul on my iPod, and when I saw some of the children's music on Playhouse Disney. And I was also technically introduced to them in 2009, when my science teacher played the Here Comes Science DVD over and over again in class. But I didn't really become a fan until September of 2011, when I found my dad's copy of Flood and downloaded it. After a few listens, I was hooked. I soon sought out the rest of their discography, found out as much as I could about the band, and attended my first live show on March 9, 2012. That's a summarized version; for a more detailed account, see my user page!

2012

• AirCon. I found out about them through Jonathan Coulton. Then, later, I found an album that said, "Join Us." So I did.
• FallenOutWithMyHead. In sum: prior to my kiddos receiving Here Comes Science as a gift in 2009, my only knowledge of TMBG was of Particle Man and Birdhouse being played ad nauseum on KROQ (L.A./O.C. alternative rock station). Last fall I became (re?)acquainted with TMBG through Facebook, and quickly became so enamored that in the six months since, I've bought 14 more of their albums.
• Findo. My iPod broke so I took my dad's MP4 player for walking to school. He had some of Flood on it and the weirdness stuck with me. I listened to some other songs on YouTube and loved all of it.
• SweetWilly. I've known about them since I first heard "Particle Man" as a 10-year-old kid in '96 on a Dr. Demento CD. And throughout the years I'd heard of them them in connection to other media (i.e. Malcolm, The Daily Show, etc), but never investigated further. Wasn't until I saw their performances of "When Will You Die?" and "Ana Ng" on Conan (and then re-watched those performances some months later, multiple times), that I decided to give them a shot.
• Tanline666. I discovered them in the summer of 2012 by searching up random things on iTunes while I was bored. One of those things was "roy g biv"; I found the song "Roy G. Biv", and since then, I have been a fan.
• Waymu. Though I had known a lot about the band long before 2012, what with Doctor Worm introducing me to the band when it aired on Kablam, it wasn't until a random Thursday in February of 2012 that I heard 'Don't Let's Start' on XM radio on the way to school. For some reason, it really stuck with me. Soon after, I became an avid fan!

2014

• Dr-worm My parents used to play Istanbul (Not Constantinople) all the time for me when I was little, but I never really listened to them until I was 13. My friend was over at my house and she showed me Birdhouse in Your Soul and I've been hooked ever since. I just saw them for the first time at the TLA on 4/10/16.
• GimmieYC 9. I have heard some of their songs before I became a fan. My mom showed me a video of Someone Keeps Moving My Chair when I was young and I've heard Istanbul (Not Constantinople) on Just Dance. Sometime in 2013, I heard Flood with my mom (a fan) for the first time, and didn't really pay attention. It wasn't until the beginning of 2014 that I've heard Flood again and added "Particle Man" to my phone. I slowly added other songs by them from Flood, then later added even more songs from other albums and becoming a big fan.

2015

• DoLetsStop I was 8 years old (15 at time of writing this) and my dad played Birdhouse one time in the car, I loved it. Both him and his brother, my uncle, are fans (since the 90s ish) and we talk about them a lot. Also, me and my dad would do this dance thing when I was about 4 where i'd jump and he'd catch me to the song Tubthumping, which 4 year old me loved, so when we saw TMBG had done a cover of it that was cool. Basically, I know them from when I was younger, but not their actual kids stuff. (and no, we don't still do that dance. I'm far too big now, but we talk about it from time to time)
• flicky - I was aware of TMBG through Homestar Runner, but had hardly listened to anything else they'd done. Then I saw Dial-A-Song (the current one at the time was ECNALUBMA), and that made me want to see more. By the end of the year I was firmly a fan.
• Pinatatime (talk) 15:39, 28 November 2016 (EST) Like the guy above, i love homestar and Liked experimental film and the two from tiny toons, but i was looking up some of there best songs and one list video let to Birdhouse in your soul and it just kept going to older to don't lets start to can't keep Johnny down and then I started flood. My first reaction was wow, this isn't vary good, but i then I got a cassette copy (For fun and birdhouse was on it) and i liked it.
• UhaugMan Technically, I have been listening to TMBG since I was a very wee lad, but I'm putting this down as my fan year because it was my first exposure to their non-Flood "adult" music in the form of Glean. Soon after that, I listened to They Might Be Giants, and the weirdness of that album has stuck with me ever since.

2016

• Schnecke64 - I've been listening to Flood for longer than I can remember, but I didn't become a fan until 2016. After getting a Freegal account, and discovering their substantial TMBG collection, I finally decided to check some of TMBG's other music, starting with the album Nanobots, simply because I liked the cover art. Stone Cold Coup d'Etat and You're on Fire hooked me, and led me to search out all their other great songs.

Withfreinds - I watched all the “here comes” series at the age of 5, & I remember that my dad watched Birdhouse In Your Soul with the “slowed down square dance” and at the age of 7 or 6, I listened to Istanbul (Not Constantinople) in a show called “The Umbrella Academy”, when I was 8, I ate pez and listened to Birdhouse In Your Soul, again for a 4 year break, and I never listened to them in 4 years , UNTILLL I was 11 in 2024 I saw my twin brother listened to A song that goes bup bup Buddha bup and I am HOOKED now

2017

• Bluef00t- After being into Lemon Demon for most of 2017, I joined a discord server for fans of Lemon Demon, TMBG, and Tally Hall. I knew a couple of songs (notably Older and Absolutely Bill's Mood) and figured that with the new album being announced, it was the perfect time to dive in. I listened to the 2015 DAS rotation on Youtube, bought Glean and Nanobots CDs, and by the time I Like Fun arrived on my doorstep I was well and truly hooked.
• Nanobot18- I became a fan of Homestar Runner in November of 2016. Randomly one day (September 18th, 2017), when I was recommended to another band. I remembered that TMBG existed and got into that band as well. Soon I grew a strong bond with TMBG. I listened to Flood a lot during September-November. I also listened Lincoln sometimes during that time. I also began to love The Spine in November. Then in 2018 I listened to other songs and albums.
• theFierceKid- Rewatching Tiny Toons got me into the band. I entered college at the same time that I started listening to their discography, so I associate the two very well together. Good times, good times. Singing along with their songs is a blast.

2018

• tyrelpetersmask - As a kid, I was keeping up with Homestar Runner when the video for Experimental Film was released in 2004. I wasn’t into bands yet but I was obsessed with the song. A few years later, I remember exploring their No!-themed website and hearing Here Come The ABCs on the Family Channel (always on due to younger siblings). A friend in high school may have shown me Particle Man, and I performed Experimental Film with a different h*r-obsessed friend. I always liked them but never delved. In 2018, I thought to look them up again and fell in love with I Left My Body and then the rest of I Like Fun —- however, it wasn’t until BOOK that I realised they scratched a very unique itch and started to listen to everything else they released!

2019

• AngleBlueprint - They Might Be Giants was in the back of my brain as 'one of those bands I'd probably like', but I didn't know where to start with their library. YouTube's arcane algorithm led me to songs like Stuff Is Way and She Was A Hotel Detective, and I was quickly hooked!
• HotelDetectiveInTheFuture - I was on a big Homestar Runner phase. I had heard TMBG's kids albums, and Istanbul (Not Constantinople) before, but, watching Crystal Fortress really made me fall in love with TMBG. I checked out a Top 20 TMBG Songs list (I can't find it anywhere now), and I liked what I heard. The list had your standards; Don't Let's Start, Ana Ng, Birdhouse In Your Soul, but ALSO, some deep cuts; Mr. Klaw, I'm All You Can Think About, Cowtown. I've been a TMBG fan ever since!

2020

• Ampersand - I had known the band since childhood, but I didn't know any of their adult albums other than Flood and Join Us, but during the Covid pandemic, I was lying in bed scrolling through YouTube when I found the Birdhouse video again, which led me to find the video for All The Lazy Boyfriends, which is the song that got me back into the band and slowly turned my mild interest into a hyperfixation for over 3 years. (The video had a Mario reference in it. I only got into TMBG because of Mario. That's fucking hilarious.)
• jimmyZenShinsThreeHundred11 (talk): I heard them as young as this when I was 2, I listened to the kid albums until I started listening to the "adult" albums, and I had a vague appreciation for them until about 9th grade-- like last year, when I started to seriously get into their music, I'm looking forward to BOOK!
• theforklord - The year was Summer in mid 2020. I am probably listening to Lemon Demon or something when I take note of the hundreds of comments comparing him to TMBG. I decided to check out on of their newer/popular songs (The Communists Have The Music). I like the sounds and decide to join whatever you call the fanbase. I'm not trying to brag but I have all 22 albums somewhat memorized.
• Tofu ~ I first found out about the band in late 2019 to early 2020 from two school friends who were also TMBG fans. (Actually, it was mostly through a lyric prank from one using the first lyrics of Birdhouse In Your Soul!) Birdhouse and just before that 2082 I listened through (and enjoyed both), so I went off to try out their other songs and albums (and learn the bassline of my current favourite, I Love You For Psychological Reasons!) It’s gonna take me a long time until I’ve heard them all - I’ve found myself listening to ones from Phone Power a lot recently, and also a handful of recommendations from a friend of mine - but I’m liking what I’ve discovered so far!
• Amberee ~ I'm somewhat ashamed to say I came from the one and only Stuff Is Way Animation Memes. It sat in my playlist for a while and around late 2020 I chose to listen to Join Us out of curiosity and absolutely loved it. Then in 2021 I slowly shifted to I Like Fun as my all time favorite. I didn't hear Flood until summer of 2022 and oh my god have I missed out. I now own a Flood CD from a local CD thrift I visit often. I hope I (a canadian) can go see them someday!

2021

• Chuck - I had been meaning to look into They Might Be Giants for a while before finally diving in last year. So glad I did, they immediately shot to the top of my list of favourite musical acts. The fans are also a big reason why I kept listening - this wiki is awesome! Fingers crossed that the gang will come visit us in Ireland some time... (Edit: THEY CAME! AND I GOT MARTY'S DRUMSTICK! DREAMS COME TRUE, PEOPLE.)
• Johnny - My 8th grade science teacher showed us (the class) Why Does The Sun Really Shine? and I loved it, but I never looked too hard into it. My closest group of friends has always been into TMBG, and I had been meaning to get into them for a couple years now. Finally, the end of August this year, I asked them all where I should start, and they said Flood (makes sense). I loved it right away and I've been steadily chipping away at their discography since. You can see what I've listened to and in what order on my userpage. For Christmas, I got the BOOK/CD set and two tickets to their 2022 show in Ithaca. So excited to see them!
• Nine - Hey, I'm the first from this year! Anyways, how I got into them is a bit complicated (really not at all), I had Here Comes Science CD + DVD when I was a kid. I don't remember much of it and have yet to relisten. My seventh and eighth grade scienece teacher asked me for my copy as he just had a kid and wanted the album to show his child, as he was a big fan of the band. (Shout out to you, Mr. Pett!) I gave him the copy and when I did, he recommended me their whole discography. This was back in 2017-2018, and during this year during the pandemic summer, I got bored and remembered his recommendation. So, I opened up Spotify and gave their first album a listen. It didn't blow me away right away, I liked it but nothing life changing. But when I listened to Lincoln and Flood later, those albums really blew me away! Especially Flood (although now I prefer Lincoln). It changed my music taste completely and I cannot thank the band more for getting me into more and different types of music. Now, I'm an avid fan and just got the BOOK Book + CD for Christmas and am loving the band so much!!
• TMBGLOVER - I found It's Not My Birthday reliving the nostalgia i have for the Here Comes albums. IT BLEW MY FRIGGIN' MIND. then I listened to Lincoln, Flood, and John Henry and they were immediately my favorite band.
• Anne - It was December 2021 at the moment and I was a big fan of Blur specially Graham Coxon (Blur's guitarist) and I found a picture of Graham Coxon holding the Miscellaneous T. I was so obsessed with him that I looked up the name on the cover so I could listen to a band he liked. When I discovered the album (Misc. T) I loved Hey Mr. DJ so much that I listened to Flood and that album changed my life.(in fact, that album came out on the same day as my birthday years later)Now, I'm always listening to them and I love Linnell with my heart and soul.
• Vinny I had heard of TMBG YEARS prior, Stuff Is Way being one I heard about the most and I had loved the way it sounded but I never truly got into the guys until about 3 years later when I heard Birdhouse In Your Soul for the first time. Since then I've been such a huge fan of them!
• Beck - I had heard of TMBG years before I started listening to them for real, but I really got into them through Sparks (crazy to me how much the fan bases overlap lol). I listened to Birdhouse In Your Soul first (still one of my favourite TMBG songs!) and basically kept Flood on repeat for the next week after that! The rest is history I suppose

2022

• Blaire - I listened to Apollo 18 and Miscellaneous T earlier this year, and I was absolutely amazed. I decided to check out the TMBG subreddit to see what albums I should listen to next, and I asked a couple people for recommendations. I listened to The Else and Join Us, and the rest is history.
• theyonderbluecanary - Created 2022 page if you guys need it. Anyway, I loved Istanbul (Not Constantinople) without knowing much about the Johns, my friend convinced me to listen to Flood, and by Hearing Aid I was hooked.
• Bluecanaryalex I think I started listening to them in November of 2022 The first album I listened to was Flood. Some of my friends helped me discover new albums and I learned more about them.
• Mr_Xcitement - Got into the band sometime in late October, I had known a few songs here and there and knew about the band for as long as I can remember, but wasnt really a fan in any stretch of the word. It was a mix of two things that caused me to actually check them out, I had seen this video for a series I liked that used the song Doctor Worm in it, and at the same time this artist I followed on twitter started posting a lot of TMBG fanart. Those two events, combined with my small amount of previous knowledge, sparked an interest in the band, I asked the aforementioned artist what album I should start on and one of his suggestions was Apollo 18, it wasnt too long after listening to the album that TMBG became my favorite band.
• Orangesodadragon2-Discovered TMBG because my dad played Flood one day, and by Particle Man I started to really enjoy the band. I also was able to connect with a friend about our love of Flood and now it has become something that we can talk about together. Around a month later, I found my dad’s old Factory Showroom CD and got really hooked. A few months later and my life has been not affected in the slightest.
• Fluffy Sponge - In March I was getting interested in ancient history and looking for related songs, books, articles etc on our school careers website. One suggestion it had was the song The Mesopotamians, and once I listened to it a few times, I started to listen to more of their songs. Their music was like nothing I had ever heard before. So varied, intriguing, exciting. It didn’t take long for TMBG to become my favourite band.
• SamSammySamuel - On July 31st, 2022, I decided that after years of hearing about TMBG, but only listening to Istanbul (Not Constantinople) once or twice, I'd actually listen to an album of theirs, They Might Be Giants (Album). It didn't click with me at first, and it took me a few more months to really get back into them. October was when I really became a fan and listened to them regularly, but December was where the REAL enjoyment of TMBG kicked off. Now they're my favorite band, and the first band I've been to a concert for! My favorite album of theirs is John Henry, and my favorite song of theirs is A Self Called Nowhere.
• TobyFuby - Back in august, I was scrolling through a mutual's videos on TikTok; And I came across one of their videos using 2082. I really liked how it sounded, and so I gave it a shot on Spotify and I ended up listening to all of Join Us and I really liked it. which resulted in me listening to other albums like; John Henry, Factory Showroom, and I Like Fun.
• TheyTermiteBeGiants - I'd heard some of their kids' music when I was about four (I didn't have any of the DVDs, I found them through YouTube) - the first one I heard was probably E Eats Everything. The first 'adult' song of theirs I heard was probably Istanbul (Not Constantinople), and upon hearing it, I thought "Hey, this is pretty good... so they don't just make kids' music after all..." I checked out some more of their songs through YouTube and was hooked instantly.
• Celeryinnit13 - I apparently grew up listening to them in Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Malcolm in the Middle. I heard Istanbul (Not Constantinople) and Particle Man on Tiny Toons when I was little and then again on The Umbrella Academy. Once realizing this in college, they quickly became my favourite band and now I own their first seven albums and I Like Fun and am hoping to get more. I love Factory Showroom and They Might Be Giants (album)!

2023

• DamageDone - in May 2023 I was looking for the lyrics of the song "A birdhouse in your soul" by the Lemon Demon group and saw on the Genius website that there is a version from They Might Be Giants, turned on the listen and immediately fell in love with them, then I started watching the clip constantly. That's how I found out about "They Might Be Giants". Now I admit that this is a very interesting band that I want to listen to and continue to discover interesting songs from them. Although I've only been listening to them for a month.
• Frozen Human Rug - Doesn't know how to edit a wiki properly and became a fan after some friends and my husband went to the Philly show in January. While they were out, I got curious about the music, and why multiple people I know and love would go see the guys who did the Tiny Toons cartoons or whatever. And baby, I saw that Birdhouse and Don't Let's Start videos, and the rest is herstory
• jaydarb10 - Bored one day, looked at Jonathan Coulton's Spotify bio. I read a lot about these guys by the name of They Might Be Giants. Decided to check out these so-called "giants", and I have not been disappointed.
• Zoomer4548 - i discovered particle man thru an mlp fan animation in 2018 or so, and i heard experimental film because of homestar runner in 2020. i randomly remembered both of these in 2023, and i knew that the tmbg fandom has a bit of shared ground with some other bands i like (lemon demon, tally hall, etc.) so i thought i'd listen to flood. i did in april or may and i listened to it like every day in art class, so i decided to listen to their other albums, and, well, here we are.
• 44Nifty - I don't actually know when I first heard TMBG. My mom heard Flood back in 1990, and I had heard many pickings off of Flood growing up. I also watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse when I was WAY little, and I always enjoyed the theme song and Hot Dog!, so I could interpret that creatively as me being a TMBG fan since the age of 3, but I think that'd be a stretch. I'd say 2023 was around when I first became a fan, and 2024 was when I found my first TMBG CD, a second-hand copy of Factory Showroom. Yknow, for a Floodie, you'd think I'd've picked up Flood first. Recently I listened to more TMBG, and have now listened to their first 6 albums, as well as The Spine. However, Flood & FSR are the only ones I've listened to more than once. Hey, I'm working on it!

Oh, I always forget to mention, I also have heard a cover of Weep Day and Everything You Know Is Wrong, which is a tribute to TMBG's style.

2024

• left hand derivative- i'd heard Istanbul (Not Constantinople) in umbrella academy's soundtrack a couple years ago and i really liked it but i was a fresh little stupid teen so i didn't try to listen to tmbg further, but i got really into tmbg after a listened to the entirety of flood this year and i'm so glad i did!! the Johns make me feel validated about my nerdiness
• Marblesphere- One time in a Discord with a couple of friends, someone queued Istanbul (Not Constantinople) and i happened to like it! Listened to more songs of them and i then got into TMBG.
• J2010- I listened to Lincoln after seeing that Anthony Fantano reviewed it. I'd had listened to some songs before, but after I listened to this album, I really liked it. then I started listening to more and I've been a fan since.
• IAlsoLikeFun- I remember my Kindergarten art teacher played Roy G Biv, and I also remember watching the aimkid animatic for Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes, but I never got into them until August of this year. Honestly, it was just a noticeable, just BARELY noticeable increase of my fannening.