With the beginning of Season 5 underway, I thought it was time we took a look back at The Bionicles Try To Run A House from seasons past.

Season 1 saw TBTTRAH beginning as an unknown comedy looking for some respect in a website that had lost interest in comedies altogether due to most of them being plain unfunny. It wasn't all that easy, and it took about 40 or so chapters before some started to take notice of it.

BZP's longest comedy kicked off it's mainly successful two year lifetime with the classic bank robbery that seemed to follow TBTTRAH for the rest of the first season and beyond. After robbing a bank in order to come up with the cash to pay for an electrical bill, TBTTRAH began to get a little violent. It kinda surprises me looking back at this that I actually wrote this. It reminds me of those commercials of the video game where the Miis killing each other with swords.

Another thing that became common in the series was taking over hotels. This trend was started in Chapter 9: The Hotel. This kicked off a 3 part series that would become the inspiration for countless other occurrences of the same thing in comedies based on TBTTRAH.

Towards the end of season 1, I began writing the first of several comedies continuing the TBTTRAH series, The Bionicles Try To Run A Nation. This series never really fit in with the TBTTRAH series itself, and was eventually qualified as non-canon material, even though it was insanely popular for the short time it was around.

Back in TBTTRAH, coffee first came into play with MT, my self MoC, entering the craziness, along with Mr. Matoro, the first guest star in TBTTRAH. Another central character that would be around for years to come was Omega Turtle, who was introduced when a giant coffee spill leaked into the ground and the Barraki decided to "mine" the coffee in Chapter 26: The Coffee Mines. That's where one of the first battle of two rivals exclusive to the series began: Omega Turtle vs. Meta Sboog, who was a MoC made by Avak and Nuparu gone wrong. Takadox, Tahu and Tahu Nuva barely escape the ensuing battle and leave the Coffee Mines in ruins. Omega eventually won the battle, and ended up winning every battle between the two since then.

Many GSs such as Inikalord and Iranu showed up. Perhaps the most important of them, Poptart, Toa of Pie entered the comedy, and then proceeded to use his ability to create things to bring the cast of a certain TV show to life. That didn't go well and a lot of them died, along with Kazi, who proceeded to kill himself yet again and somehow come back to life(again). Kazi was probably one of my favorite characters, just because of his tendency to keep coming back to life after dying in the weirdest ways possible.

After that, the action in the series seemed to die down for a while. Nocturn and Gadunka were the stars of this "dark age," with their fridge raiding. However, any story written by me isn't going to be left without action for long. Sonu(pictured above), found his way to the house and became one of the one of the most important characters in the series. Another odd vacation, this one to Spain(Chapter 66: El Bionicles en Espana) gave way to two of the most well known villains in the series: Syrux and 4 Mask. 4 Mask started off as a good guy, but ended up turning evil due to his obsession for coffee and his goal of "household domination."

The two new villains destructive properties were shown off in Chapter 75: The Mega Pie War. This started to set the stage of what would turn 4 Mask to one of the best known villains. But villains weren't the only ones around. Brenmac, another well known hero and the one who would eventually be the inspiration for the Zehvor's creation joined the party as a Toa of Everything, and God knows how many times he and Sonu would join forces to fight off whatever "evil" there might be in the house.

One of my best memories of the time was "TBTTRAH GS Waiting Room." The other GSs would write stories about the "waiting room", as I became notorious for forgetting GSs in chapters. I loved it, but sadly it was qualified as spam in the comedy and I had to shut it down. Still, one of the high points of writing a comedy for me. Plans were started to make a waiting room comedy, but it was never created, except by Inikalord, and it didn't last long.

Sonu's favorite "fad" of TBTTRAH was born around here, Tahu Nuva's beautiful glass window, was started in Chapter 84: The Mahri Carolers. I can't remember how many times I had this window smashed, but I can still remember Sonu laughing. Or, at least, posting that he was laughing.

This is when 4 Mask began to start doing what he was best known for. Attempting to take over the house. In Chapter 89: Attack of the Very Hyper Star Wars Minifigures, 4 Mask began to infuse others with coffee and make them his slaves. Another fad started in this time period, which was Tahu always getting the best of Brenmac, usually with a tazer. Probably the only person Brenmac couldn't beat, and the ways Tahu came out on top were always crazier than before.

Brenmac and Inikalord eventually cornered 4 Mask, but they teleported him away instead of killing him, and with the help of a Samus action figure, he managed to escape. Things started to get a little weird from there, mostly due to Poptart, as he would recreate famous people and send them to the house to annoy Tahu or to smash the TV. Meanwhile, 4 Mask began to plan to take over the house again. The worst incident of this was when Poptart animated the members of Rage Against the Machine, who were promptly eaten by Omega Turtle.

Season 1 ended with a bang when MT decided to hold a giant contest, having been elected "Santa" for that year, to see who would win a free Nintendo Wii. A whole lot of hype was built up until MT announced that the whole contest was a joke and that no one was getting a Nintendo Wii. (Chapter 100: The 100th Chapter). This started a huge "war" of sorts, which died down after a while, and ended season 1 on a note of peace and love with the Bionicles wishing for a happy Christmas. Which, of course, was not going to happen.

Up next: The Recap of Season 2, including the first Christmas at the house, with the appearance of the Rurics and the first fighting contest held by the Bionicles.

-MT