Newgrounds Bonus Video (and June Update!)
Added 2024-07-01 05:59:32 +0000 UTCHowdy Paizanos,
Please find enclosed the first of potentially infinite videos about the history and impact of Newgrounds. I accidentally made another main channel video just for patrons again! Making this required me to revisit decades of internet history, so just getting this one done generated pieces of script for about five other videos, some of which I'll put in the next patron poll...
and one of which I'll post in the next few days! I initially covered something so juvenile (and filled with cartoon blood) that Kat asked me to cut it because it was harshing the vibe of the rest of the piece, which was much more relaxing overall. I'll finish turning that part into its own video in a few days.
I'd also like to give an update on what has been going on here lately.
After the last video was finished, I spent some time in January recovering, then Kat and I set about trawling through the remaining James Somerton videos, trying to find everyone he had plagiarised, in order to reach out to them all and offer them their portion of the ad revenue from the video. We assumed, optimistically, we had found most of it in our initial research, and the total number of plagiarised authors would be around 40-50.
The final number was...over 130. This posed a much larger logistical issue than we had planned - finding up-to-date contact information for people who wrote something sometimes decades prior is quite difficult! We're about to hire a third person to help handle all the correspondence, to get the important part done as professionally as possible without slowing down video production any further.
As some of you might be aware, earlier this year a number of events happened related to the Plagiarism video, with one leading to a frantic call for a wellness check, a monthlong harassment campaign, and a lot of reworking how we protect our community spaces. Kat went on partial leave, in part due to burnout from managing the chaos and aftermath, but she’s returned to continue overseeing the ad revenue distribution project. On the upside, the video's success means we have more to pay out than we'd hoped!
At this point, business should be returning to normal, and we’re looking forward to making more calm, celebratory videos for the sake of everybody’s mental health this year. I promised myself I'd get to make a donut this year and by jolly I'm gonna do it.
Working on this video revisiting old stuff that inspired me in my youth has been extremely cathartic and rejuvenating, and I can't wait to get onto the next thing!
Happy Pride Month (YES! I'm just under the wire, it's still June in a few time zones, I win),
- Harry
Comments
Oh this is just a whole trip down memory lane, I missed so many of these animations.
Daine
2026-01-20 02:11:03 +0000 UTCas someone whose entire experience with flash games was whatever neopets had going on and 'no one has to die', this was great! thanks hbomb!
Soup
2026-01-10 16:30:20 +0000 UTCI lose watching this in 2025 and learning for the first time that there exists a character called "Professor $1.99". That's...that's where it's at, yeah
Laurel Nelson
2025-08-15 17:46:14 +0000 UTCWow, thank you, Mr. Hbomb, for specifically making this video for me and no one else. LegendaryFrog was my entire personality as a child and to see a whole section dedicated to him was just... wow.
Belinda Melendez
2025-07-28 16:52:28 +0000 UTCI reckon this is one of your best videos and I'd love to see more in the series! It's a really lovely, warm watch.
Harry Milas
2025-07-24 23:40:37 +0000 UTCNeil is one of those people where every few years I find something else that lives rent free in my head and realize "Holy crap, Neil did that too!?"
Bryce Davis
2025-02-13 03:57:27 +0000 UTCI'm a fully grown adult with a wife and two children and I still regularly quote "ohmygodimonfire!" Thanks to you all for giving me something for my wife and kids to give me a weird look in response to.
Bryce Davis
2025-02-13 03:55:10 +0000 UTCStrongbad
Bryce Davis
2025-02-13 03:50:05 +0000 UTCwhich character
betp
2025-01-23 04:04:34 +0000 UTCi know why you have that screenshot. in the roblox oof video you interrupted yourself to add an explanation of copyright infringement and the innocent infringer defense. that screenshot was what you stopped on to supply that context. also, "the pizza is here!" "IS IT EVIL?" made me laugh. it's so stupid, and i mean that as a compliment.
betp
2025-01-23 04:03:30 +0000 UTCReally wonderful to see something about Newgrounds. The only other place I’ve seen it mentioned is in a piece about its role in the history of Rule34, which is a fascinating video, but this one is for wholesome reasons. I feel like this kind of stuff would fold in well into a breakdown of Net Neutrality, the US banning TikTok for a few hours, and what it takes to communicate in the modern era and what the communication means to people.
TotallyARealName
2025-01-20 19:09:51 +0000 UTChaha this arc was fun to witness
Hbomb
2025-01-14 03:01:28 +0000 UTCWELL I got further in the video and it turns out you did exactly this 🤦 good job, me
Alex T.
2025-01-14 03:00:01 +0000 UTCOkay I know I'm late on this but I would LOVE to see a video on the "return of ganondorf" newgrounds video. Assuming it's the one I'm thinking of (I think the same people made a video about not eating a pie?) it was one of my favorites that me and my friends would quote at each other endlessly. I still say "Bring it on, GanonDORK!" to this day.
Alex T.
2025-01-14 00:51:08 +0000 UTCAs someone who was too young during the newgrounds era to engage with it, genuinely assumed that the foreshadowing was going to reveal that Cuphead was the game that was developed by these guys. Didn’t expect that one of my favorite games of the year was made by two brothers who also made one of my favorite co-op puzzle games from hs. I’d love to see more newgrounds archeology, this is fascinating
MC
2025-01-06 04:31:38 +0000 UTCI played the legend of Zelda lampshade game so many times as a kid and I never knew it was made for a series of animations
Jordon Jordan
2025-01-02 01:02:27 +0000 UTCthank you for not mentioning how big of a fan you were of my game Sonic XX harris, it would be a little off-tone here
Miss Phase
2024-12-13 12:23:28 +0000 UTCI named my kid after a character in a Home Star Runner cartoon. I never realized how much it owes to Newgrounds!
Adrian Coburn
2024-11-30 20:20:47 +0000 UTCBandai Namco used to own the patent for loading screen games, which is why you never saw them, it expired in 2015.
jearle
2024-11-25 15:38:23 +0000 UTCI was not a Newgrounds kid, but rather a Scratch kid. Still though, this video filled me with nostalgia, I really miss that sense of tight-knit community the old user-generated content internet used to provide, what a great video
GDNacho
2024-11-07 17:03:15 +0000 UTCNew grounds was a defining part of my childhood, for better and for worse. Undoubtedly saw some NSFW content too soon for my developing brain. I spent a lot of time with a friend making stupid flash videos that we never uploaded anywhere. That resulted in me teaching flash to my grade 8 class, as we were all supposed to make our own graduation intro videos, but the computer teacher didn't really know how. I won the computer award, and that's probably a key stepping stone to me being a Software QA as my career
Daniel Gilbert
2024-11-05 17:40:43 +0000 UTCthis was great, i remember being in like, middle school when i got into newgrounds. i didn't get much into it because, well, english is not my first language, so i didn't understand a lot of the jokes. this was a great throwback, thank you hbomb the reptile ferret man.
Rodrigo the transgender evil hamster
2024-11-02 14:06:39 +0000 UTCThings are rough sometimes, but there's a new(er) Hbomb and Co. Production out. That's a real treat to a weary mind. Thanks.
Draexian
2024-09-27 13:18:48 +0000 UTCHello, Mr. Hbomb! Short-time subscriber first-time commenter, I am an American that says "bonkers", didn't know it was British until I was way older, and I am from New Jersey. It sounds....exactly as you imagine it. i am humbled. I will now diminish, and go into the west, and remain Catherine.
Catherine E Kovach
2024-09-16 15:49:06 +0000 UTCThat's nice of you!
Hbomb
2024-08-31 02:47:49 +0000 UTCHi Mr. HBomb, I’m at PAX West and Alien Hominid has their own booth here! I told the devs that they were mentioned in your video and they seemed really happy and grateful that someone appreciates them so much :]
Sabi Sgambi
2024-08-31 02:46:54 +0000 UTCI remember that Fullmetal Alchemist joke! There's so many little jokes and lines in that magazine that I never forgot. At one point their review of some animal game (not nintendogs, i think) degenerates into just the words "woof. woof. woof woof woof. woof." over and over for a bit. I cried laughing
Hbomb
2024-08-29 08:30:41 +0000 UTC"there's an infectious positivity to hearing someone share something they genuinely enjoy" is the first thing that came to mind when watching this video I like your recent videos but this one hit differently because it's about something that you actually love good stuff
ariaNe
2024-08-26 00:21:24 +0000 UTCI was never on Newgrounds, but I did see some of these cartoons and games re-uploaded to other sites (particularly Onemorelevel) which typically still had the Newgrounds preloader, and grew up with Homestar Runner. Part of me wishes I'd seen more of it but I was also a big wimp and even cartoon blood scared me shitless so it's probably for the best. Thanks again for doing what you do. <3
Rinley Coyote
2024-08-17 22:50:28 +0000 UTCPS3 games didn't let you play games during long loads because infamously there was a patent on doing so owned by Namco, which didn't expire until 2015. https://patents.google.com/patent/US5718632A/en https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loading_screen#Minigames
nothings
2024-08-15 18:29:29 +0000 UTCMy older brother and I loved Legendary Frog to the point I made a birthday cake for him the next year with that depiction of Dark Lord Sauron (my brother has always been big fan of LotR while I really only liked the movies but the jokes about director's cuts were big after we were burn by star wars movies with updated graphics).
Dagger
2024-08-14 17:50:39 +0000 UTCHoly shit - I've just now realised I've been mis-reading the site as "Newsgrounds" for the last 30 years. I think because of the CBBC show "Newsround"? Well, that's one thing I learned today...
Andrew Keen
2024-08-14 16:51:00 +0000 UTCNow I’m curious to know if it’s a ringed doughnut or a jam/custard one with sugar all over it🤔 How deep does this go?!?😱
Chris Nicholas
2024-08-14 13:07:28 +0000 UTCIt's funny, I have a few videos I'm really enjoying working on right now so the main reason I chose the one I'm finishing first is so that joke makes sense
Hbomb
2024-08-14 12:04:25 +0000 UTCWas the doughnut made though? That’s what I want to know.
Chris Nicholas
2024-08-03 08:18:33 +0000 UTCLast night I dreamt I saved HBomb from an attempted assassination at one of his book signings. Later we made out in an empty theatre to the atmospheric ambiance of his "Bloodborne is Genius" video
Colin Tougas
2024-07-28 17:13:26 +0000 UTCi work in the animation industry in australia and at an event recently had a long discussion with several people (who are all super talented, and moderately big deals in the business) about how influential newgrounds was for all of us, i'd completely forgotten how much of this stuff i watched as a kid!
Sas
2024-07-28 06:46:46 +0000 UTCtbh, I'm just glad to hear y'all are doing well! I'll certainly be glad to hear some more positivity, I love hearing people gush about stuff they love, the enthusiasm is infectious!
Phelanii
2024-07-26 20:24:46 +0000 UTCI didn't realise you were a fan of Venture Bros., it's one of my all-time favourites!! Please do a video about that at some point
Fionn Moore
2024-07-24 08:11:03 +0000 UTCLET’S GOOOOOOOOOOO (also thank you so much for all you guys’ hard work)
MippyMoo
2024-07-18 15:49:38 +0000 UTCI was such a huge fan of the Decline of Video Gaming series. You guys were better than anything on TV. You made my adolescence tolerable, and for that I thank you.
Brian
2024-07-15 21:15:39 +0000 UTCThank you so much for this journey through a part of my life that was hugely important to me. And reminding me of my own awful AWFUL animations and wanna-be games on there
kibble
2024-07-15 12:45:25 +0000 UTCI had all but forgotten those old Legendary Frog videos... Thank you for unlocking the attic of my memory!! Newgrounds was such a formative part of my internet life, and its a shame that we dont have anything like it anymore. Speaking of the Flash era, you should do a deep dive into homestarrunner.com
ChibiLlama
2024-07-13 21:30:44 +0000 UTCThanks Harry, for the extraordinarily kind words on our older work, and our newer! (Signed up the the patreon just to watch it, guess you got me) Newgrounds was the most vital place on the whole internet for so long, I'll never forgive Apple for signing Flash's death warrant and ending such an incredible outlet for so many. I know NG is still going, but the Flash era was truly something special.Oh, and I'll tell you all about the lost PK game over a pint sometime.
Tom Vian
2024-07-13 19:04:27 +0000 UTCOh my god, this reminded me that I sent in fanart to the legendary frog website as a kid, and it was up in the fanart gallery for a while. I didn't use newgrounds until a few years later but one of my cousins showed me the Legendary Lilypad and I was a fan for a few years. Thanks for the video.
Gabi Mismash
2024-07-13 06:30:07 +0000 UTCHbomb I don’t know if you’re aware of this or if you’d care but Egoraptor, Arin Hanson, these days has a tendency to occasionally make references to you and your videos on episodes of Game Grumps. It’s very heartwarming for me to see when two creators I love reference each other, and thought that might warm your heart a bit too.
Brett Medley
2024-07-12 21:39:59 +0000 UTCThis video prompted me to look up Tangle Tower and then spend all afternoon playing it. Thank you! Such a cool game, and such a nice retrospective on the creativity of this era.
Piphopopotamus
2024-07-12 21:17:51 +0000 UTCyou should make an interactive flash edition of this video :3 lol
blank
2024-07-12 17:46:17 +0000 UTCI'm 1 minute 50 seconds into this video and it's extremely weird hearing hbomberguy extremely precisely narrate my life as though it was his. Loved NOM (that Pokemon FRLG issue cover you use @ 1:40 I think was the exact first or second issue I ever bought of it), got into anime because of NOM (they had a section for a while called Big In Japan iirc, and they made a joke about a cool looking suit of armour / "robot" which they pulled back to reveal it wearing a pink apron and joked "uh Japan can keep this one", I was curious and looked it up and discovered Fullmetal Alchemist), very distinctly remember that alien hominid coverage. I wish I still had my stack of mags, lol. Best thing about the new publisher mag being called "Nintendo The Official Magazine" was it got abbreviated to ONM, which wasn't as catchy as NOM and also makes absolutely no sense. No worse than GCN being the abbreviation for Gamecube somehow though I guess. I spent so much time on their forum's Pokemon board back then lol. Good times.
Kai
2024-07-12 12:39:18 +0000 UTCI love hearing you talk about stuff like this because this was not a part of my childhood but the vibrancy and excitement that emanates from you in videos like this makes me feel like I can live vicariously through you. Especially meaningful as a genderfluid/nonbinary person who didn’t have a boyhood, idk it makes me happy. Hope you’re well Harry x
Emily McNally
2024-07-12 02:43:18 +0000 UTCI’ve never known anyone who also watched Rise of the Mushroom Kingdom. That was such a THING for me for a minute. Please do more of these. I NEED someone else to unpack the impact of Phoenix Wrong and what it meant in a wider context for media franchises in the new century.
Max Marriner
2024-07-11 02:58:51 +0000 UTCBandai Namco held a patent for putting minigames in loading screens, which expired in 2015 but I guess developers still avoid it out of habit maybe? In any case this video is great, I wasn't really expecting to shed a little tear about my time watching and playing stuff on Newgrounds.
Willow Stone
2024-07-08 11:32:03 +0000 UTCFormer Newgrounds animator (nothing of mine survived, thank god) I've taken a lot of the skills I learned noodling around on flash into work as a game dev so I can vouch for this!
Christopher Patten
2024-07-08 06:37:06 +0000 UTCNice to hear about something fun I missed cause I was a toddler.
Asha
2024-07-07 09:30:44 +0000 UTCYour voice just hits me in the warm place. Whatever the topic. Keep talking, my lord. Im listening.
Gabriel Lacaille
2024-07-07 09:02:39 +0000 UTCThere are countless flash games that inspired me and amazed me over the years, games I'll never forget that no one else seems to remember. Hours and hours of my life grinding away at small achievements. Beautiful love stories played out through stick figure animations, puzzles that used better use of the medium than most games I've played since, abstract explorations of grief, simple characters made endearing by their unadulterated earnestness. Delightfully hyperbolic bullet hell games that froze my browser at the final boss level, spooky point and click games that kept me up at night, loading screen songs that were better than they had any business being. I could go on forever. It's hard to explain how much this meant. You let yourself find wonder in things others have written off, or forgotten, and it's incredibly meaningful and affirming to me. I am grateful beyond words that you took the time to make this, and, like you talked about in the Roblox video, to remember the creators who truly played integral roles in the history of these newer digital art forms. Thank you.
Bang Away Lulu!
2024-07-07 04:50:44 +0000 UTCI still revisit old homestar runner content that's been catalogued on YouTube from time to time, it's a happy place
GARBAGE DAY!!!
2024-07-06 05:48:42 +0000 UTCThank you so much for sharing your thoughts with this video. I can't wait to see what else you've got to say about Newgrounds. I don't think I can quite articulate how important this one felt to me while watching it. I thought about the things you featured that I had also watched, the ones I recognized but either hadn't watched or only have, at best, hazy memories of maybe having seen thumbnailed, but that I never clicked on to watch, and, genuinely the friends I made along the way at the time this stuff was coming out. Thank you so much!
Princess Wuffles
2024-07-06 03:15:31 +0000 UTCI never really experienced newgrounds even though most of my friends my age did because we didn't really have usable internet when I was little but I've like seen some of how that whole community influenced media i was around for from like a distance... I'm glad you were able put this whole story together and share it.
antlers
2024-07-06 03:04:19 +0000 UTCLoved Tangle Tower, I had no idea the creators came from this Newgrounds era ! Great video ❤
Delilah
2024-07-05 12:29:05 +0000 UTCwell the good news is that all of those sites still exist, and with active communities - its not too late to start discovering!
Lily Jacks
2024-07-05 03:00:05 +0000 UTCShout out to Ultimate Showdown still being in the top 5 of all time. When's the episode dedicated solely to Neil Cicierga come out?
Spencer St. James
2024-07-04 22:32:13 +0000 UTCFor the entire video, I had /Get on my Horse/ looping in my head. And you didn't even mention it! What kind of witchcraft is that ?!
Manon P.
2024-07-04 12:19:41 +0000 UTCI'm just a little bit too young to have grown up on Newgrounds. I was very much deep in youtube and ao3(and still am) when I was growing up. It's fascinating watching this as someone a little over a decade behind you, because I can now trace the roots of a lot of my favorite creative works!
WeirdFishes05
2024-07-04 10:54:51 +0000 UTCI'm going to be completely honest—the only time I'd ever heard of newgrounds before this was in your dxhr video when you were dunking on hacking minigames. So I hope that gives you context for when I say that this video was super engaging despite me knowing almost literally nothing about the site!
Ariella
2024-07-04 02:20:31 +0000 UTCDamn not only was this another awesome video but unlocked some core childhood memories of watching anime flash animations way too late on school nights 🥹 a precious snippet of history!
Em Frads
2024-07-03 22:21:08 +0000 UTCHarrison Bombford! Thank you so much, your videos are really helping me lock in when I'm doing the dishes.
Jarvis Cocker's Inappropriately Sexualised Hand Moves
2024-07-03 19:54:28 +0000 UTCI've been inordinately proud of how you and Kat have handled the plagiarism wake. It has clearly been difficult and you've both done so, so well. Feels weird to say that to people I don't know and who don't know me lol
Lucian Summerisle
2024-07-03 07:48:57 +0000 UTCI had so many flashbacks during this video, of watching these, of stumbling into the adult section on accident (legit I saw a recommended game and went to it and played it and it was a boning sim and I just remember panicking and turning off our sound system, God, what a miserable memory to replay). I'd love more on newgrounds!!!!
Maq
2024-07-03 07:46:05 +0000 UTCGod, I'm so hyped to see this. More Newgrounds content, please, it was my childhood too!!!
Cuck Philosophy
2024-07-03 06:47:37 +0000 UTCGod, LegendaryFrog was such an integral part of my development. It became a language my friends and I share with each other (for instance, we’d always say we needed to get wherever we were going “before gangrene sets in!” in the chipper Frodo voice). I miss that era of the internet. It was more innocent. Well, not INNOCENT innocent, but the “sketchy” parts of the internet were pixelated pictures of naked people and not social media sites doing a whoopsie and overthrowing democracy.
TheScoundrelM
2024-07-03 04:05:50 +0000 UTCI find this so fascinating to learn about as someone who went on Newgrounds all the time to play the flash games and never touched any of the flash animations! It really did have good games, I still remember Nitrome very fondly. The only other thing I know about Newgrounds was when Homestuck crashed it :/
Claire B
2024-07-03 02:24:07 +0000 UTCJust the fact that you briefly mentioned "There She Is!!!" was enough to make me smile. Still one of my favourite things to have come out of Newgrounds, and reminds me I need to see "Another Step" since it released earlier this year. I really hope that later down the line you take some time to bring that up along with any other O.G animation projects that deserve their flowers.
AViking
2024-07-03 02:02:40 +0000 UTCThe fact that i'm pretty sure I know exactly what the second video you had to cut from this one is about entirely off of that description probably doesn't speak particularly well of what i was doing with my time at 12 years old
ThunderBrand
2024-07-03 01:14:55 +0000 UTCThank you so much for making this, I spent so much time watching the One Ring videos and all that jazz, trip down memory lane! :D
Jérémie Tessier
2024-07-03 00:14:09 +0000 UTCWow this took me back to the better parts of my teen years. Thank you!
Slade Dillard
2024-07-02 22:27:01 +0000 UTCTotally understandable! I know there were a lot of authors mentioned in the video, but since the list was more extensive that anticipated I wasn't sure if there was more information. Thank you for responding!!
Abby Wedlick
2024-07-02 21:12:44 +0000 UTCWe would like to get consent of authors who are not public figures before releasing a list with all names, but I’m aware that there is a github project that is doing their own documentation (although it seemed to be mostly focused on the misinformation component last I checked). We could put a list up for patrons, but re:public distribution I worry a little bit about bad actors using it as a “what queer person/journalists to target” list since we have a lot of attention from them. (Good and important question though!!)
Kat Lo
2024-07-02 21:10:07 +0000 UTCI’m sad that I loved the Decline series and somehow missed this incredible preloader game
Brian
2024-07-02 18:26:33 +0000 UTCWould you feel comfortable sharing the list of authors/pieces that James plagiarized for people who would like to read/view the original works?
Abby Wedlick
2024-07-02 17:02:15 +0000 UTCWhat a lucky break this happened to be the rare day I checked my Patreon in hopes of an update As I’m watching this, I can’t believe I’m watching a video about Legendary Frog and Perfect Kirby. I was literally just thinking about PK and the brothers and what they’re up to. I love Hbomberguy for this.
Brian
2024-07-02 16:45:56 +0000 UTCI somehow managed to avoid getting into Newgrounds despite my friends being into it. This has filled a hole in my pop culture knowledge!
M R. X. Dentith and Josh Addison
2024-07-02 16:20:39 +0000 UTCGreat video! This made me super nostalgic for surfing newgrounds with my friends as 9 / 10 year olds. Makes me sad that we missed some of the stuff you showcased here but glad that we got to experience the site in its heyday anyways.
Daniel K Esperson
2024-07-02 15:46:37 +0000 UTCI managed to play Lampshade as a kid without any knowledge of Decline. waow
Evelyn
2024-07-02 15:25:05 +0000 UTCI subbed to your Patreon just to watch the video. I'm not even an oldschool Newgrounds user, I joined the site a few years ago, but I fell in love with the site and the unique culture there, warts and all. Tom's incredibly approachable, if you ever want to reach out to him about basically anything. But I also want to pre-emptively plug 2 Left Thumbs, an indie publisher active on Newgrounds who also does mini-documentaries/video essays on Youtube who's also very knowledgeable on this stuff. I hope you'll do a main channel video on this and I hope enough other people feel the same when the next poll goes up.
Renée Kools
2024-07-02 15:02:14 +0000 UTCSay what you will about Flash, I genuinly think the flash games era was the golden age of gaming. Endless creativity and (almost) all of it available online for free
Joakim
2024-07-02 14:54:19 +0000 UTCThanks for the short video! Love your work.
Andrew Nicholls
2024-07-02 10:55:42 +0000 UTCNewgrounds was my introduction to nsfw content. The number of dodgy dating sims I played on there...
Lucy Corrigan
2024-07-02 10:35:08 +0000 UTCThe older I get, the more bitter and jaded I become when I realise I could have discovered cool 2000s internet things like Tumblr and Newgrounds and Livejournal. Instead I found Quizilla. Fucking QUIZILLA.
Queen of Narnia
2024-07-02 10:32:05 +0000 UTCThis better have homestuck in it, or I will send all my trollsonas after you 😤
Kit Walsh
2024-07-02 06:28:32 +0000 UTCSo much of this video is just my late middle school / early high school internet experience. Incredible. Haven't thought about many of these things in years, but Legendary Frog and Super Flash Bros. videos were so important to me at the time. Had no idea that SFB went on to do what they are doing now. I unknowingly had kept their creative output in my life without even realizing it. The past few years has allowed me to reconnect with or find many of the creatives that were part of my early internet days having been able to work on dream jobs and projects. It makes me so happy for them and it's just cool knowing where they "started" and that they're doing even bigger, exciting versions of it now. Hope you are able to continue building upon the foundation you made here with more in the future. Great work
Dustin Reno
2024-07-02 06:18:13 +0000 UTCi'm surprised you didn't talk about the behemoth!
Violet McKinney
2024-07-02 04:15:57 +0000 UTCJust when life starts to get me down, Harris to the rescue. Thank you for this look at something I've never forgotten but so rarely think about anymore.
Wesley Jones
2024-07-02 01:29:11 +0000 UTCdude, im not sure if we as a society are, or even should be ready for the implications of sonic pissing mario being "just nature". some cans are better left being unopened, my friend. (no kinkshame tho)
huru uruh
2024-07-02 01:23:03 +0000 UTCI love the fact that you talk about SFB, they really where newgrounds for me~
Ifrit9
2024-07-02 00:38:06 +0000 UTC“One of which I’ll post in the next few days” heard that one before…
SuchaCaz
2024-07-01 23:37:43 +0000 UTCLove you hbomb, because you are the kind of person who would hunt down everyone who deserves credit and make sure they get it - in other words, you are the opposite of James Somerton.
Antipaganda
2024-07-01 23:30:53 +0000 UTCLiving in a country with rampant piracy meant that I was always experiencing any of newest games I wanted and missed out on so much great free stuff
He_ftbl
2024-07-01 23:14:38 +0000 UTCReally enjoyed this video despite my low-key anxiety that half-way through the monologue would begin to get more serious, leading up to a sudden, dramatic "This video is about StrawberryClock".
DM
2024-07-01 23:10:07 +0000 UTCLove a memory lane video! Wonder what HBomb’s YTMND experience was like (if any), that would make an interesting video…for better and for worse. I need more people to understand the link between Lando Calrissian and ESPN National Hockey Night, there’s less of us every day!
Jason Fanelli
2024-07-01 22:34:05 +0000 UTCSo all this time the funny zelda lamp game was a preload for a flash animation I didn't know about. I always wondered why kirby was shooting a gun in it, now I know.
AimLikeFish
2024-07-01 22:16:31 +0000 UTCI'm so glad someone else fondly remembers "Come on, paint, dry! Dry! DRY LIKE YOU MEAN IT" because that joke still gets me every time. I'm so happy for SFB Games's continued success. Can't wait to see what other Newgrounds retrospectives you make!
daeranilen
2024-07-01 22:04:15 +0000 UTCI can watch memory lane all day ❤️
Jacob Freedman
2024-07-01 21:12:46 +0000 UTCI can’t wait to watch this with my sister. Early internet flash cartoon quotes are permanently part of my daily vernacular.
Taitaiheart
2024-07-01 20:55:33 +0000 UTCI'm immediately blasted by nostalgia, I also was a rabid fan of the official nintendo mag, only the Spain version of it, and how charismatic the guy pretending to be Professor Oak on the included Pokemon magazine "letters to Oak" section. He was hellbent on recommending everyone to try and find an interesting set of mons to use in combat instead of choosing the legendaries and strong attacks and calling it a day. I blame that frustrated nerd for my current sensibilities.
David Rodríguez Madriñán
2024-07-01 20:52:45 +0000 UTCGreat video! Always a happy day when you upload. On a barely related note, have you ever read Homestuck? (the flash animations, animated sprites, old-ish internet history and community-guided nature you mentioned made me think you'd enjoy it)
Arborial Astronaut
2024-07-01 20:52:29 +0000 UTCLove me a Harry Bomber Dude weird infodump about something I know nothing about
Bryan Balment
2024-07-01 19:10:57 +0000 UTCI really miss the old flash cartoon easter egg hunts. I know it wasn't on newgrounds, but the highlight of my week was the new Strong Bad email or other carton on Homestrrunner.com. I remember joining my first web forum which was itself just an offshoot of a website which existed solely for cataloging the easter eggs in their cartoons. With the death of flash they have been uploaded to Youtube videos, usually with the easter eggs appearing automatically. It's just not the same. We really lost something magical along the way.
ib_
2024-07-01 18:47:43 +0000 UTCThis was a very interesting video. I missed out on the entire Newgrounds phenomena. I was in my late 20s/early 30s in the period you described, a big gamer, yet somehow I never even heard of Newgrounds. The equivalent Flash mecca in my experience was homestarrunner.com. Every Monday morning, my geeky coworkers and I would look forward to the new Strong Bad email video. The creativity and easter eggs you mentioned were all there, even a creative team of two brothers. The similarities and differences between Strong Bad and Newgrounds is pretty striking. Thank you for making a fascinating video about a corner of early 2000s geek culture that I somehow managed to miss completely.
Matthew McCoy
2024-07-01 18:01:52 +0000 UTCmuch love to kat for how much she's gone through. happy you guys are onboarding additional support and so excited to watch this new video after work!!!
Violet McKinney
2024-07-01 17:50:57 +0000 UTCI was *not* aware of any of the drama following the Plagiarism video, though I guess it's something I should have anticipated; human tribalism is so predictably infuriating. I'm so sorry y'all had to go through that, and I hope for healing as swift as can be.
Sean Mattox
2024-07-01 17:08:20 +0000 UTCAs a fellow secret third thing that's worse and has no skills, I grew up on internet gaming forums. It's inspiring to see you develop your talents as a video editor and dk64 speed runner. I aspire to cultivate my own talents, but sadly I perused newgrounds adult too much.
Fender joshmaster
2024-07-01 17:04:47 +0000 UTCAw man, Newgrounds. Can't believe how many artists, game designers, animators and internet personalities started their careers making the worst shit imaginable in the crucible of the front page. And I was there for every second of it! This is the site I think about the most when someone brings up the Old Internet, one of the first gathering places that was worth visiting every single day.
Alastair Keith-Lucas
2024-07-01 16:55:13 +0000 UTCHope you are enjoying Riven!
Fred Eaton
2024-07-01 16:52:56 +0000 UTCAny month can be Pride month so long as you make it queer AF.
Ross Vincent
2024-07-01 16:36:35 +0000 UTCGlad to hear you both are well. I hope you took all that seriously. By this I mean that you are free to share the ad revenue, but first you need budget for: _ counselling for Kat _ sick leave for Kat _ at leas a portion of the cost associated with privacy-protection measure Mental healthcare is important, and I know you believe in that yourself, so your "company" has to pay for that first, before any sharing of revenue. That is just the right and fair thing to do. You have to put your money where you mouth is. (on Kat in this case) (her mental health) (or whatever you both consent to but that is way beside the point)
Laurent LYeN
2024-07-01 16:21:51 +0000 UTCWow, I can't thank you enough for this, I eould watch a thousand more new grounds specific videos 🥲
Corrine Schaible
2024-07-01 16:06:18 +0000 UTCThis is the one HBomb video... to rule them all!
Daniel Gordon
2024-07-01 15:49:38 +0000 UTCNew HBomb and Noah Caldwell-Gervais video drop within a day of eachother? But I have stuff I need to do today! (Thank you)
Mike Amarilio
2024-07-01 15:15:38 +0000 UTCAll this Joseph Blanchette content... I want to watch all his stuff again now.
Paige Harp
2024-07-01 14:39:11 +0000 UTCGod, I watched the One Ring series on Newgrounds on repeat as a tween.
Paige Harp
2024-07-01 14:32:30 +0000 UTCI just realised, hearing it said out loud for apparently the first time, that it's Newgrounds not Newsgrounds... I blame John Craven.
Nicola Quantock
2024-07-01 14:28:02 +0000 UTCI'm so sorry that I'm happened but I am happy that this community isn't toxic like that!
Amanda McGuirt
2024-07-01 14:25:57 +0000 UTCInteresting interpretation! No, the harassment referred to was directed at us.
Kat Lo
2024-07-01 14:23:40 +0000 UTCThis video was so interesting to me as someone born in 2001, who never experienced this earlier era of flash but still grew up with newgrounds and all those free flash game websites in the late 2000’s early 2010’s! It made me think back to all those stickman games I used to play constantly and how much effort and writing clearly went into some of those. It’s strange to reflect on a time when games were not inherently products you paid for but weird little things you went out and found on the internet and revisited over and over…
Em
2024-07-01 14:20:37 +0000 UTCMe only vaguely even knowing Roblox exists 😆
Amanda McGuirt
2024-07-01 14:08:01 +0000 UTCPersevere my friend! Persevere.
Amanda McGuirt
2024-07-01 14:05:55 +0000 UTCI'm always out of the loop about Internet drama. I hope that the month long harassment campaign wasn't your viewers harassing Somerton. I mean I guess the reverse isn't great but I really hope your viewers are better than that.
Amanda McGuirt
2024-07-01 14:03:57 +0000 UTCHope it's not to parasocial, but I really appreciate the update on you and Kat. I was super worried when the wellness check stuff went down that this was going to do serious damage to you. Very glad to hear. Anyways, I am so excited to learn about the history of a website I never visited!
Kryshen
2024-07-01 13:21:23 +0000 UTCSending well wishes for the crew!
The Hungriest of All Hippos
2024-07-01 13:10:41 +0000 UTCTY for the vid, gonna Blam me back into the early 00s with this one
Drhertz
2024-07-01 13:07:01 +0000 UTCWe're so back baby
John Schilder
2024-07-01 13:05:07 +0000 UTCLiterally been waiting my whole life for this video
Corrine Schaible
2024-07-01 12:24:32 +0000 UTCoh my god zelda lampshade was a preloader game this whole time and i never even saw the animation it was made for. glad to hear things are well and i really appreciate the thought you put into maintaining the community in that time. the whole situation seemed a little unprecedented and there’s no shortage of youtubers who would have flown off the handle under the pressure. looking forward to your donut harry
Chrust
2024-07-01 12:15:42 +0000 UTCLooking forward to this vid! My friends and I often talk about how the internet felt much more "wild West" in the 90's and 00's, and Newgrounds definitely had a big part in that version of it. Thanks for what you do! Been watching your vids for ~7 years now 🙂
David Rhoads
2024-07-01 12:06:19 +0000 UTCSonic would objectively kick Mario's ass at anything outside of plumbing. There isn't even a contest there. It's a ridiculous argument. can you tell i'm old and still having the same argument from my childhood?
Adam Greene
2024-07-01 12:04:13 +0000 UTCI was a huge LF fan back in high school. A buddy and I would shout lines from “Random Battles” at each other every time we met up. It was probably insufferable.
Nate Card
2024-07-01 11:46:43 +0000 UTCRelieved to see y‘all got out the other end of this shitshow alive, functioning and still wanting to do your jobs. Can‘t wait to watch the result!
Nikki
2024-07-01 11:45:29 +0000 UTCOomph, this was a nice potter down the lane. Real comfy vid. 💛 And of course, thank you for all Kat and yourself do!!
HiroRwar
2024-07-01 11:35:20 +0000 UTC130???!!!! Jfc. Good luck you guys. Love your work and am happy to support it where I can.
Aurora H.
2024-07-01 11:21:03 +0000 UTCFlash was janky, and hard to use, and ended up with some real issues which meant it's absolutely understandable why they killed it off. But something about the way Flash combined interactivity and animation was stellar. Literally all games combine interactivity and animation, however in most main games there's the "interactive" bit and the "cutscene" bit. Even if there's no actual cutscenes, things like QTE's in games just have a different feel to Flash animation QTE's and I don't think I'm capable of actually distilling why. A game feels like you are playing a game, but a flash game feels like you're watching a movie you can change as you go, and something about that is beautiful to me.
Adam Gaffney
2024-07-01 11:02:39 +0000 UTCThanks Kat for all the incredibly hard work you put in!
Kyle
2024-07-01 10:44:18 +0000 UTCThank you for everything you guys have been doing for the last few years!
Sparrow
2024-07-01 10:31:56 +0000 UTCHooray
Sam
2024-07-01 10:22:43 +0000 UTCReally nice to see you do lighthearted videos after the main channel doozies you did recently :) i think i spent more time on ebaumsworld than newgrounds in those days but they were very similar in vibes and some of it was probably cross-posted. I haven't rewatched any of it in 20 years i want to believe it's as good as i remember it
Chazie
2024-07-01 10:17:56 +0000 UTCNeat!
Nicholas Fennell
2024-07-01 09:54:40 +0000 UTCMy hometown Pride isn't until halfway through July, so you're practically early! <3
Julia Krystosek
2024-07-01 09:43:18 +0000 UTC+1
C2
2024-07-01 09:42:26 +0000 UTCOh god this has unlocked a core memory for me. I was about 6 and my older cousins came to visit. One of them booted up New Grounds and started playing all these really gory games. He showed me how to use it, and explained that there were games that weren’t gory that I could play. So cut to me, a couple of days later after my cousins had left. I open up New Grounds on the family computer in the living room, while my dad is watching TV. I look at all the games and see one called “torture chamber” or something like that. Now I did not know what that word meant, but the little man on the picture looked like Morph so I was like… Perf. I open up the game and there are all these sliders, and I do not know what any of them do. So I drag one listed temperature all the way to the right. At this point I should mention I had the sound on and no headphones. Not-Morph shrieked in agony, I panicked, minimised the screen and burst into tears. My dad was like child what the fuck was that. So I showed him the game in floods of tears, and he had to explain to me what torture was. Apparently the phone call he had to make to my aunt was quite long and blistering and my cousin got in quite a lot of trouble, and I was banned from going on New Grounds ever again.
Hannah Lyons
2024-07-01 09:40:53 +0000 UTCJoyful, uplifting. Thank you.
EricB
2024-07-01 09:27:45 +0000 UTCTHANK CHRIST this is the last month I can afford your patreon.
Bambi Goodman
2024-07-01 09:02:00 +0000 UTCLove you Hbomb, your videos brighten up my day
Djinigami
2024-07-01 08:34:03 +0000 UTCYes....yes.....yyyeeeeezssssss
Conformist
2024-07-01 08:33:03 +0000 UTCSaw the video and was suddenly overcome with lines that were regularly repeated in my childhood! Ah newgrounds, a simpler time..
Nathan Fisher
2024-07-01 08:27:06 +0000 UTCalso glad y'all are taking care of yourselves <3
Michael Sanders
2024-07-01 08:00:14 +0000 UTCBY JOLLY
Michael Sanders
2024-07-01 07:59:35 +0000 UTCI am so extremely enamoured by the idea of a stock image of random binary code in green italic arial on a plain black background and I am so glad that you used the watermarked version of it. quality subtle bit 👏👏👏
Mort
2024-07-01 07:58:50 +0000 UTC"Oh goody, it's just a quick video... Oh, it's an hour long. Okay, it's a relatively quick Hbomberguy video."
Naomi Hatchman
2024-07-01 07:56:40 +0000 UTCit's july 1st, 2:41 am here. i'm on my second energy drink, i have two painting assignments due tomorrow and i have yet to start on the second one but i'm so happy this has come out because i was just looking for something to listen to and my eyes are getting heavy and i am afraid. HURRAY
brooke siyajuck
2024-07-01 07:49:21 +0000 UTCThanks! Looking forward to watching this!!
Emma De'Montford
2024-07-01 07:39:34 +0000 UTCThis was a lot of nostalgia for a Monday morning. There is something kind of incredible about watching this and having so many things I thought had been memory-holed come back. Me and my friends used to watch Decline or LegendaryFrog all the time. I still have friends I only know because of Perfect Kirby. I remember exactly how I felt when I found out Snipperclips was going to be a Switch launch title and the creators were the people I spent so much time watching. I’m pretty sure I’d never have been writing anything or wouldn’t be working in games at all if it wasn’t for the Super Flash Bros or Perfect Kirby or Egoraptor. My life would probably be completely different and my sense of humour and joy would be, too. What a great video. Thank you.
Edward Price
2024-07-01 07:34:52 +0000 UTCHappy Pride!! I hope you are both taking all the time to recover that you need. Lots of love to you both.
Cai Fawkes
2024-07-01 07:17:57 +0000 UTCcmon harry you're spoiling us
Mannekwin
2024-07-01 07:07:14 +0000 UTCSchwiggity schwiggity schwa (I'm actually v interested in this video you see)
bassguitarbill
2024-07-01 07:03:29 +0000 UTCGood luck to you Harry. I thought the video you made was incredible sensitive and thoughtful and it was frustrating to see its main subject react so disgustingly and to witness so many people cynically using that to get a petty win. I am happy to hear that is over now. Hope you and your Kat have a solid rest of the year.
Tuur Verheyde
2024-07-01 07:03:05 +0000 UTCI hope homestarruner is on the poll list, that could be it’s own amazing video.
Razgriz
2024-07-01 06:54:35 +0000 UTCHappy pride from California. You made it in time!
The Monster Mensch
2024-07-01 06:50:24 +0000 UTCONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY, jfc
Elisa groli
2024-07-01 06:49:41 +0000 UTCHappy pride month harry glad all the summerton stuff is under control now It is also funny continuously watching your lovecraftian writing style Where everytime your like "oh next video is a short little one about how newgrounds is cool ✌️" then you arrive 6 months later like "new grounds video is done its very long even after being cut down and also spawned 5 other video ideas off from it "
That One Irish Furry
2024-07-01 06:39:17 +0000 UTCThat 130 plagiarized individuals got a “Hooooo…” from me. Glad to hear you guys are taking time to recover and getting things figured out. (30 min til the end of arbitrary pride month, my time) ❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜
JC Proefrock
2024-07-01 06:34:50 +0000 UTCOh baby let's go
Joey Hickmann
2024-07-01 06:32:38 +0000 UTCTake care of yourselves Kat and Harry!
Lizzie
2024-07-01 06:32:37 +0000 UTCGot it on muh Bday. Nice. Ty for the lil gift my very close personal tots not parasocial amigos. Tots. X) anywho hope all you lot are doing alright
TechPriest
2024-07-01 06:29:19 +0000 UTCThank you so much! 💜
The New Poet Lawyerette
2024-07-01 06:27:56 +0000 UTCI just want to say I LOVE your name. Super clever! Happy Pride month! Or Wrath Month, as it is here now :D
Luna
2024-07-01 06:26:57 +0000 UTCpride month only ends because we BELIEVE in the fabricated myth of TIME. don't worry harris, just like horses, time isn't real, pride month lasts forever!
jed
2024-07-01 06:26:01 +0000 UTCHappy Pride! I look forward to seein' your doughnut!
レイ
2024-07-01 06:21:59 +0000 UTCi just started rewatching hbomb vids yesterday after taking a break for awhile. well timed post
my dogs gay
2024-07-01 06:20:39 +0000 UTCHappy pride!! Hope you guys are taking care of yourselves!
Kieran
2024-07-01 06:20:14 +0000 UTCYus
The Butterfly Composer
2024-07-01 06:18:49 +0000 UTCYAYYYY
Drew Kolenik
2024-07-01 06:18:39 +0000 UTChell yeah
Kevin Fowler
2024-07-01 06:15:51 +0000 UTCLETS GO. I’ll accept this as a pride in July post but happy for those who are still in June.
Freddy
2024-07-01 06:15:16 +0000 UTCThis is the best pride gift I, a gay, could ask for
Nicholas Rota
2024-07-01 06:12:13 +0000 UTCChristmas came early, and so did I when I saw this post, lets gooooo
Kaladin17
2024-07-01 06:11:40 +0000 UTCIt's still June here too! Happy Pride! Great to have you back :)) can't wait for that 72 hour video on some obscure piece of info that I would have been completely ok not knowing but will be absolutely ecstatic finding out about and bringing it up in random conversations so that all my friends hate me :)))
Jay Gardos
2024-07-01 06:11:23 +0000 UTCHappy Pride month!
The New Poet Lawyerette
2024-07-01 06:11:07 +0000 UTCYay! I’ve very rarely met a doughnut that wasn’t worth the wait, especially figurative ones.
Heidi Metcalf-Shelton
2024-07-01 06:10:29 +0000 UTChbomb i can’t find the link to the patron discord how do i join
Katovitsa
2024-07-01 06:10:27 +0000 UTCur my goat
Fran
2024-07-01 06:10:09 +0000 UTCYou rock !
Elderoy
2024-07-01 06:10:01 +0000 UTCHappy to hear everyone is taking so much needed time off, no one could’ve predicted the impact that video would have
Schizmo
2024-07-01 06:09:50 +0000 UTCI was worried about you and kat honestly you were put under a tremendous amount of pressure for uncovering the lies and manipulation of someone and it was unfair to make you responsible for his actions. I hope you are finding the time to take care of yourselves.
E. Filleul
2024-07-01 06:09:45 +0000 UTCIt’s still June here in America, I call that an unmitigated success
J Pickering
2024-07-01 06:09:28 +0000 UTCwe are eating good tonight
Troy Takac
2024-07-01 06:09:10 +0000 UTCNew content? It is indeed a happy pride month
Commie Red Eyes
2024-07-01 06:09:10 +0000 UTCJesus I didn’t know all that happened after the plagiarism video. I’m glad you guys are okay though
Local Degenerate
2024-07-01 06:08:58 +0000 UTCI hope you guys are getting the rest you deserve! Excited for the new patreon video 🫶
Jazz
2024-07-01 06:08:37 +0000 UTCit's still June here, I'll take it!
Comrade Olive
2024-07-01 06:08:26 +0000 UTClet's gooo
Roland Shabanaj
2024-07-01 06:08:14 +0000 UTCSTILL JUNE IN MY TIMEZONE BABY HAPPY PRIDE MONTH
Scarlett
2024-07-01 06:08:12 +0000 UTCLet's goooo
Laur
2024-07-01 06:08:06 +0000 UTChell yeah brother
EmmTheDestroyer
2024-07-01 06:07:54 +0000 UTCYes I have been fiending for the bomber slop for months thank you harry bomberguy
Urhooked
2024-07-01 06:07:46 +0000 UTC!!! Thanks for all of yours' hard work with the fallout of things and for making what's sure to be another great video!
Stephen Clark
2024-07-01 06:07:19 +0000 UTCWOOOOOOOO
Kat Lo
2024-07-01 06:06:37 +0000 UTC
