You don’t need violence or profanity to beentertaining.

If you could ask Homestarrunner, he’d tell you.Unfortunately, he’s a cartoon and thus unable to interactwithout being drawn and dubbed with a voice. Allow me toexplain.

Sitting alone, bored in my dorm room one late night last year Ibegan to hear hysterical laughing from down the hall. Anxious to doanything but twiddle my thumbs, I walked out into the hallway toinvestigate.

The laughs were coming from my Resident Adviser’s doorwhere the RA and a fellow resident were hunched over his desklooking at cartoons on the computer; the characters were doing andsaying hilarious things.

This is where I was introduced to Homestarrunner.com

In the following months I checked the site daily to watch thecartoons and features.

The humor lies in the simplicity of the jokes and topics.It’s not toilet humor like South Park or violence like HappyTree Friends. Homestar and the gang are a much simpler bunch. Theinteractions between arguably the site’s most popularcharacter, Strong Bad and his younger brother, Strong Sad areclassic and something that anyone who has had a sibling can relateto.

This is the kind of cartoon that I not only don’t mind my12-year-old sister watching, but I encourage it. Not to make the”TV is leading our youth down a moral sewer” argument,but there are some raunchy cartoons on the TV and Internet that Iwouldn’t want any younger sibling to watch, South Park andHappy Tree Friends being in that category.

Homestarrunner, if nothing else teaches us that you don’tneed to be disgusting, vulgar or violent to be funny. Quite theopposite really. Strong Bad and the bunch are over the top, sillyand the comedic timing would make Matt Groening and James L. Brooksjealous.

No wonder it’s a favorite of many students here on theSacramento State campus; those who are enlightened get the message.Right after I started following the website, I began to noticepeople wearing Homestar and Strong Bad paraphernalia all over theplace. I even got on the website and ordered my very own Strong Badhoodie.

Another great thing about the site is that the cartoons are nomore than about five minutes long, and when Strong Bad answers hisfan mail (which is easily the funniest and most popular part of thesite) it’s even less. I found myself taking many a,”study break” last year to blow off some stress andyes, laugh my ass off.

So if you haven’t had the opportunity to visit the siteand want to really laugh hard for seemingly no reason at all, Isuggest surfing on over to Homestarrunner.com. It takes a few timesto really appreciate what’s going on, but it will grow onyou.