Celebrity jokes
I know it may be a bit late in the season for this, but I'd like to fully express my extreme discontent at the celebutard jokes that have been running rampant in the second series of Sam & Max.
I mean, the target customer of these games is the geek that will keep playing the thing for years and years and years. Decades, even. I'm willing to bet everyone here has played and WILL play Hit the Road again.
Not to mention Monkey Island.
Just think: How funny will Paris Hilton jokes be in ten years? Not too funny, I can guarantee that. Plus, she probably won't be alive in ten years, which makes it even more gruesome. Paris who?
Cheers!
I mean, the target customer of these games is the geek that will keep playing the thing for years and years and years. Decades, even. I'm willing to bet everyone here has played and WILL play Hit the Road again.
Not to mention Monkey Island.
Just think: How funny will Paris Hilton jokes be in ten years? Not too funny, I can guarantee that. Plus, she probably won't be alive in ten years, which makes it even more gruesome. Paris who?
Cheers!
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*Ahem* It would take a lot for Sam & Max to get dated. Still, though, Sam & Max is written in a way that cultural jokes, if missed, are just accepted as normal remarks. The remaining jokes compensate without problem.
The thing about Sam & Max humor that i like is that it is accessible, but only accessible if you choose to think about it for long enough to WANT to understand it. A humor you have to work for, so to speak.
And of course that it's delivered deadpan.
I've never played Hit the Road, I would play it but I don't know if I'll like it or not.
About the celebrity jokes, I tend to agree with the idea that less is more, but I was more bummed about the reference to MySpace and YouTube in one of the previous episodes. With the speed that the global economy (and technology!) moves at, those companies might not even exist anymore in, say, 5 or 10 years. I think you need to be careful that you don't make too many references that nobody gets, but I don't think Telltale have overstepped that line. As has been said, if you don't get a reference, you can just regard it as a general, still funny, remark - and with the availability of the Internet, you can always look it up and learn something new in the process.
Different people in the company are going to have different opinions about this (not to mention the fans), but my opinion is that I want to make sure these are still funny if you play them 5 or 10 years later, but still take advantage of the fact that they're episodic games. We don't have to wait a year and a half for the game to get released, so we have some room to be a little more topical, and don't feel like you're playing some game that's stuck in 1993.
The problem is figuring what's so ephemeral that it's already going to be dated between the time it's written and it actually gets released. So no "Chocolate Rain" references, or Lolcats, or mentions of that ass Jack Thompson, sorry. And it looks like myspace is already on the way out (good riddance!) but I'd be very, very surprised if there's not the equivalent of YouTube 5 or 10 years from now.
I think if somebody's playing Season Two ten years from now, and wonders who Paris Hilton is, that'll be a good problem to have. It'll mean the games did have staying power, and that one line out of around 10,000 feels a little dated.
One of the pros is that, unlike the rest of Europe, it's possible for us to play content released in America without having to wait for a translation or learn another language.
Unfortunately one of the cons is that sometimes publishers don't bothersmaking a proper translation for the UK. Hence we have to put up with American spellings, and even worse, jokes about domestic American celebrities that we've never heard of.
However I think TellTale have done a fine job so far.
...what, thought this was going to be a rant post? Why do I think TellTale are doing a good job?
Well, they're multi talented. They don't rely on the celeb jokes. I see them as there as a nice bonus for if you get them, if not, then never mind.
A good example was the Nancy Pelosi joke last episode.
I hear the joke, and having no idea what it meant, I just ignored it. No harm done. If I had really wanted an explanation, I could have wiki'ed it.
By the way I do know who Nancy Pelosi is now though; my brother got it, walked up behind me, said "OMG, I can't beleive they actually put a joke like that in!", then explained it to me.
So extra kudos for getting us talking about it!
Cool, I'm genuinely glad to hear that! That's exactly how it's supposed to work, IMO.
* Disclaimer because people on the internet sometimes like to take quotes out of context and form snap judgments: I'm not saying these games are as funny/timeless/whatever as Monty Python, only that "non-localized" comedy goes both ways.
Case and point: any anime.
I found a joke in an anime version of Powerpuff Girls where the baker was singing a pun about bread and panties because the two are phonetically the same in the Japanese language.
I didn't get it. I don't even remember it. Then again, I don't like Star Wars.
If you like adventure games and Sam & Max, well...
You're obviously a highly intelligent, extremely good-looking and very talented person.
Cheers!
That being said, I did get the Nancy Pelosi joke, because The Daily Show is one of my regular sources of news about the USA (yeah, I know, probably not the *best* source, but certainly the funniest).
Then again, there was a great play-on-meanings in the Office in 203 - check out that giant piece of footwear on the dartboard?
Sam: That they wear giant thongs?
LOL for Aussies, who do know what
I don't remember Monty Python using any celebrity names...