Rugrats, Catdog, Doug, Beavis and Butt-head, Hey Arnold!, Rocket Power, Pinky and the Brain, Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Ren and Stimpy, Recess, and Spongebob Squarepants are iconic car­toons of the ‘90s that the major­ity of Ferris stu­dents grew up watching.

This year’s theme cho­sen by the 2011 Homecoming com­mit­tee is cartoons.

“I know that the entire Homecoming Events Chairs and their com­mit­tees have put in a lot of hard work to make this an incred­i­ble Homecoming week for every­one,” said Eli Sager, the dance/reception chair and senior in pre-medicine. “I am extremely excited to see the time and ded­i­ca­tion come to fruition and attempt to relive a lit­tle bit of my childhood.”

Steve Balkema, this year’s bon­fire chair and junior in the his­tory major, said the theme of car­toons was against tough com­pe­ti­tion. “We had a vote and car­toons won out over oth­ers such as space theme and sur­vivor theme.”

“When we were debat­ing on themes we were try­ing to find one that every­one could relate to and would be fun to do,” said Joseph Letavis, bed sheet ban­ner chair and junior in bio­chem­istry. “When some­one men­tioned toons, it just sort of clicked.”

New this year is Spirit Week. Each day of the week has a dif­fer­ent theme.

“Dress-Up Days run along­side Homecoming events and encour­age dress­ing as car­toon char­ac­ters and dress­ing like the ‘’90s babies’ a lot of us are,” said Sager.

Monday was beach day, Tuesday was ‘90s day, Wednesday is twin day, Thursday is pajama day, Friday is favorite car­toon char­ac­ter day, and Saturday is pride day.

The 2011 Homecoming kicked off on Monday with a lip synch con­test in Williams Auditorium. Each act had a max­i­mum of five min­utes to per­form its desired song. Acts were judged based upon cre­ativ­ity, orig­i­nal­ity, lip synch­ing abil­ity, appear­ance (includ­ing props, cos­tumes, and stage pres­ence), and sports­man­ship. Results were not avail­able in time for publishing.

The fol­low­ing day, a kick­ball tour­na­ment took place at Top Taggart Field. Teams con­sisted of 10 to 14 play­ers, all of whom were Ferris stu­dents or cam­pus advi­sors to a reg­is­tered stu­dent orga­ni­za­tion or res­i­dence hall.

Voting for the 2011 Ferris Homecoming King and Queen opened Wednesday morn­ing at 8 a.m. in the Election Portal in Org Sync and will come to a close Oct. 13 at 11 p.m.

On Wednesday there will be a bon­fire built by the broth­ers of the Sigma Pi Fraternity at 8 p.m. in Lot 61, located by Brophy and McNerney Residence Halls.

Thursday at 7 p.m., come­di­ans Sheng Wang and Streeter Seidell will per­form at Williams Auditorium.

“The two head­lin­ers [Wang and Seidell] are hilar­i­ous,” said Chris Howell, this year’s come­dian chair and senior in com­mu­ni­ca­tion. “Streeter is on the MTV show Pranked and Sheng has been all over Comedy Central. My com­mit­tee met and viewed YouTube videos of all the come­di­ans and voted on the ones they thought would be the best fit for Homecoming.”

On Friday, there will be a photo scav­enger hunt from 3 to 5 p.m. begin­ning in the quad. Teams will con­sist of four to five par­tic­i­pants who will be given a scav­enger hunt clue list to com­plete. The first team to return to the quad with the com­pleted list will be the winner.

The Homecoming parade will begin at noon on Saturday and will run through down­town Big Rapids.

“We can all take a sigh of relief now that the events have started,” said Brennon Warren, parade chair. “Our foot­ball team has been strong this year and we’re for­tu­nate to have that. Alumni return and still have Ferris pride, so why shouldn’t we?”

The Homecoming foot­ball game ver­sus Northern Michigan will kick off at 2 p.m. at Top Taggart Field. Later that evening from 7 to 11 p.m. there will be a Homecoming social at The Gate located on Perry Street. Admission and refresh­ments are free for all.

After hun­dreds of hours of hard work to make Homecoming this year as fun as pos­si­ble, com­mit­tee mem­bers strongly encour­age all stu­dents to par­tic­i­pate in the var­i­ous events.

“I encour­age every­body to at least attend and check out the events so that peo­ple can get an idea for what they would want to par­tic­i­pate in for next year,” said Melissa Hanson, lip sync chair and junior in accounting/finance. “The activ­i­ties really are a lot of fun and the Homecoming com­mit­tee puts a lot of hard work into plan­ning the week for stu­dents, fac­ulty, staff, com­mu­nity, and alumni.”

Attending events shows school spirit and can be a great change of pace from stu­dents’ busy lifestyles, said Howell.

“Homecoming events offer a nice break from school work that tends to get pretty tire­some at this point in the semes­ter,” said Sager. “They give stu­dents a chance to inter­act with stu­dents from dif­fer­ent RSOs and majors. It is a very excit­ing atmos­phere to be in.”

Balkema believes Homecoming is a time for bond­ing on cam­pus. He said the events aim to gather a wide vari­ety of stu­dents in dif­fer­ent majors and with dif­fer­ent lev­els of cam­pus par­tic­i­pa­tion to meet one another and to have fun.

“FSU Homecoming 2011 is going to be ‘toons’ of fun! So cheesy…but seri­ously, every­one should come out and spread the school spirit!” said Keith Barber, kick­ball chair and
junior in sec­ondary education.