February 26, 2025

Many moons ago, the Homestar Runner merch team released a talking, basically life-sized version of the famous Cheat. This plush would talk when squeezed or shaken harshly. In the comedic style of Homestar Runner, this plushie was named ‘Kick the Cheat.’

Homestar Runner as a whole is a topic I’d love to dive super deep into another day, but for now, here’s a video that will perfectly introduce both the Cheat and the world of Homestar Runner. To make a deep dive shallower, though, Homestar Runner is a classic web series of (mainly) flash animations that feature a wide variety of bizarre characters. The Cheat is some kind of pet/person/block of cheese creature that is very cute and makes random appearances.

For a while, the Homestar Runner merch team ran a side site called Homestore Runner, and at one point they featured this plush. There was even a video released relatively not long ago that showed how to properly change out the batteries in the Kick the Cheat’s voice box.

Because of the niche nature of the product and the limited quantities, original Kick the Cheat plushies ended up reaching upwards of hundreds of dollars on second hand markets after it sold out. This made many people, including a younger me, very disappointed that we could never own our own Cheat.

Fast forward to yesterday, where Fangamer, the current franchisees behind Homestar Runner merch, released an updated version of Kick the Cheat. This blew my mind, as it’s so niche but so iconic to a select group of people. Stuff like this doesn’t really get rereleased, but seeing it return with a brand new advertisement mocking the resellers brought a huge smile to my face.

Kick the Cheat is now out of stock, but Fangamer states that there is a restock planned! I did not purchase this immediately (which I know regret), but luckily the restock will give me and others one more shot to get our hands on this obscure, funny piece of internet merch history!