Skunkape

@friendfrankenstein.bsky.social

Did someone say… birthday? The twentieth anniversary of Sam & Max Season One (aka Sam & Max Save the World) is upon us, and we’re celebrating with two weeks of Sam & Max development memories and giveaways! 🧵👇 #samandmax20th

Skunkape reposted

Frankie Frankenstein

13h

this is the funniest way to find out that the discounted hard copy of Sam and Max Season 1 for The Wii that kicked off a wierd teens love of Steve Purcell, Sam and Max, and Adventures Games existed because, basically, a bunch of fans went 'port this weirdo game please'.

Skunkape@skunkapegames.com

Finally — two years after our cheeky blog post went viral — Sam & Max Season One came to Wii as a retail product, courtesy of publisher The Adventure Company. (Disclaimer: We can’t remember if this ad actually ran or if it’s a concept that wasn’t approved.)

youtube.comWii Would Like to Play (2006) - Wii Commercial [4K + 60 FPS]YouTube video by ONTV

#samandmax20th In the fall of 2006, while the Sam & Max fandom was getting excited for Season One, the greater gaming community was focused on the upcoming launch of Nintendo’s new console, the Wii. (Share this thread for a chance to win a game key, and read on for a super easy contest!)

The Nintendo Switch contest runs until November 1 at 11:59pm PDT, and we’ll reach out to the winners by email the week of November 2. Good luck, everyone! 🤞

(Oops sorry it's 11:59pm PST, not PDT. The time changes that day!)

youtube.comWii Would Like to Play (2006) - Wii Commercial [4K + 60 FPS]YouTube video by ONTV

As part of our #samandmax20th celebration, we’re holding our easiest contest ever: forms.gle/ZfrfyoKdowpb... Submit your email for a chance to win one of 10 copies of Sam & Max Save the World for Nintendo Switch. (Sign up for our practically nonexistent newsletter too, if you’re so inclined!)

youtube.comWii Would Like to Play (2006) - Wii Commercial [4K + 60 FPS]YouTube video by ONTV

And they did! The blog post went viral and enough people bugged Nintendo about Sam & Max that the president of NOA, Reggie Fils-Aimé, found out about it. 😲 A day after the blog post went up, Dan got a call from someone at Nintendo (not Reggie) asking us to call off the community.

youtube.comSBCG4AP AdvertisementYouTube video by Old Telltale Games Stuff

It still took some time to get Telltale’s games on the Wii. We finally got a devkit in order to port CSI: Hard Evidence, which came out in March 2008. Then came Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People, one of the first games on WiiWare.

youtube.comWii Would Like to Play (2006) - Wii Commercial [4K + 60 FPS]YouTube video by ONTV

One day in September, a bunch of people randomly emailed Telltale's info@ address requesting that we bring Sam & Max to the Wii. A little googling led us to an interview CEO Dan Connors had given at PAX the week before, where he said Telltale was open to making Wii games.

The quote had been picked up by the fan site GoNintendo, in an article encouraging people to email us and request a Wii version of Sam & Max Season One. We posted a blog in response that essentially said, “We’d love to, now go ask Nintendo to send us a dev kit.”

youtube.comWii Would Like to Play (2006) - Wii Commercial [4K + 60 FPS]YouTube video by ONTV

youtube.comMiyamoto conducts Nintendo WiiYouTube video by Pavel Dobrovsky - nepoužívaný profil

Everyone was excited about the Wii remote and what sorts of gameplay this new control method would encourage. For adventure games in particular, it seemed like a good way to translate mouse-driven point & click onto a console. (This video is not of an adventure game, obviously, but it's fun!)

#samandmax20th In episode 3 of Sam & Max Season One, the Freelance Police encounter a poker player named Leonard Steakcharmer. Funny thing, though — he really looks like this other guy named Boris Krinkle. (Share this thread for a chance to win a game key!)

After being defeated by Sam & Max’s Yo Mama jokes, Leonard spend the rest of Season One in Sam & Max’s closet. As far as we know, he’s still there.

22h

Today's daily winner is @princessskyler.bsky.social! Congrats! Check your DMs.

Here are some of the ideas the team played with before settling on Leonard’s look.

Both Leonard and Boris were voiced by a LucasArts colleague’s father, Carter Coleman, who had a background in community musical theater. He did Boris in Telltale Texas Hold’em as a favor since there was no budget for actors, then returned to play Leonard in Sam & Max.

That’s because he *is* Boris Krinkle, one of the poker players in Telltale’s first game, Telltale Texas Hold’em.

Repurposing Boris’s model into a Sam & Max character was meant to save money, but it wasn’t that simple. That’s because the players in Telltale Texas Hold’em, who sit behind the table throughout the game, didn’t have any legs.

Reminder: Today is the last day to enter the War Song trivia contest!

Skunkape@skunkapegames.com

Want to win the Sam & Max Save the World soundtrack on vinyl? Shoot your shot in our War Song trivia contest: forms.gle/ZUC937yt7uL7... (Hint: You’ll find the answers in the aforementioned @designroom.site article!) Answers are due by 11:59pm PDT on Oct. 25. See you tomorrow!

youtube.comPixar bloopers compilationYouTube video by Epic Sound Bites and Jokes

#samandmax20th As Season One wound down, the animators and chore artists had some free time before they had to start on Season Two. We liked the outtakes that showed during the credits of Pixar movies and decided to try it. (Share this thread for a chance to win a game key!)

youtube.comSam & Max Season 3 Full BloopersYouTube video by Cheri

And Season Three!

Today's game key winner is @evil-inc.bsky.social! Congratulations! Check your DMs.

youtube.comPixar bloopers compilationYouTube video by Epic Sound Bites and Jokes

Here’s an almost-never-before-seen-video from around the same time. One of the animators made this to go on a sizzle reel Telltale was using to drum up interest from potential investors and license-holders, undoubtedly influenced by Pixar’s “jumping lamp” animation.

youtube.comSam & Max Season Two Blooper Reel (2008)YouTube video by Skunkape

The bloopers were fun so we continued the tradition for Season Two.

youtube.comPixar bloopers compilationYouTube video by Epic Sound Bites and Jokes

youtube.comSam & Max Season One Blooper Reel (2007)YouTube video by Skunkape

Partway through the season, the voice directors had started flagging bloopers during recording sessions so we could easily find them later. We then set the animators and chore artists loose to come up with funny scenarios around the flubbed lines.

#samandmax20th “A Sam & Max Artsy-Craftsy Bit of Time-Wasting Nonsense” is a page from Steve Purcell’s “On the Road” comic that shows how to make a Max puppet out of a paper lunch bag. (Share this thread for a chance to win a game key, and read on for a new contest!)

We’ll announce the winners later that week. One or more winners (depending on how hard it is for the judges to agree) will get a Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse print featuring artwork by Steve Purcell!

Today's game key winner is @itstatzelwurms.bsky.social! Congratulations! Check your DMs.

Follow the instructions in the Artsy-Craftsy Bit of Time-Wasting Nonsense comic to make your very own Max puppet. Or maybe not Max? Be creative, think outside the box! But you do have to use a paper bag, and your entry has to be at least vaguely puppet-like.

youtube.comSam & Max Season One Interim Theater: Puppet Theater (2007)YouTube video by Skunkape

Send your entry to contest@skunkapegames.com by 11:59pm PDT on November 1. Please also include your name (however you want us to credit you if you win) and Bluesky handle.

The puppets we’d made were still sitting on the windowsill when the web team started brainstorming ideas for Interim Theater — silly content we wanted to put out to entertain our non-GameTap customers until the worldwide release on November 1. And we came up with… this. 😬

It’s contest time, kids! We’re skipping our usual Halloween arts & crafts contest this year in favor of #samandmax20th, but we still want to give you a chance to flex those creative muscles. So, welcome to our First (and Probably Last) Sam & Max Paper Bag Puppet Contest!

Back in October 2006, a week or two before Sam & Max Season One’s debut on GameTap, some of us gathered in the conference room for a lunchtime activity of making paper bag puppets, just for fun.

youtube.comSam & Max E3 2006 Announcement Trailer (2006)YouTube video by Skunkape

#samandmax20th An early but critical part of Sam & Max Season One’s early development was voice casting. With E3 swiftly approaching, we did a casting call for the trailer and decided to use David Nowlin for both Sam and Max. (Share this thread for a chance to win a game key!)

youtube.comBrave (2012) – Post-Credits: The Witch’s Crow Delivers the CarvingsYouTube video by Ximboz

One audition that’s lost to time is Steve Purcell’s — he read for both Sam & Max. Unfortunately he didn’t make the cut (and he likely would have been too busy with his day job at Pixar, anyway) but he has voiced several incidental characters in Pixar films, including the Crow in Brave.

Today's winner is @impactzack.bsky.social! Check your DMs.

Hootin’ & hollerin’ ‘til death takes us.

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youtube.comSam & Max E3 2006 Announcement Trailer (2006)YouTube video by Skunkape

During the original casting process, Dave Grossman had said of William Kasten’s audition: “I kind of like his caffeinated approach, and he can act. There may be too much Roger Rabbit in there, but at least it's a PSYCHO Roger.” Turns out he was psycho in all the right ways.

youtube.comSam & Max Episode 301 - The Penal Zone - Original Archival TrailerYouTube video by Skunkape

Kid Beyond — who is also a beatboxer, singer, and Jeopardy champion! — did return to do many voices in Telltale games, including Biff in BTTF, Darryl in Puzzle Agent, and Grendel in TWAU. He also returned to Sam & Max in The Devil’s Playhouse, as the Narrator, the Alien Brain, and Papierwaite.

youtube.comSam & Max E3 2006 Announcement Trailer (2006)YouTube video by Skunkape

The team liked Nowlin’s take on Sam but weren’t as enamored with his Max. Before recording voice for the first episode, we expanded the search and landed on Kid Beyond to provide Max’s new voice.

Not long into the season, though, our best-laid plans hit a snag: Kid Beyond was experiencing vocal issues that would eventually require in a tonsillectomy, and had to bow out of recording episodes 2 and 3. The show must go on, so we went back to the auditions.

youtube.comSam & Max E3 2006 Announcement Trailer (2006)YouTube video by Skunkape

youtube.comSam & Max: Hit the Road - IntroYouTube video by C.A.V.E.

We’d decided to recast rather than using the voices from the previous game (Bill Farmer & Nick Jameson) or the cartoon (Harvey Atkin & Rob Tinkler), for a few reasons. One reason was money — we didn’t have a lot of it, and those were union actors we couldn’t comfortably afford.

youtube.comSam & Max 1x04 Bad Day On The MoonYouTube video by torturetoi

The other reason was scheduling — we needed actors who were local and had the flexibility to come in to record every month.