A long-awaited sequel to Sam & Max Hit the Road was announced by LucasArts in 2002, but in March of 2004 the project was unceremoniously canceled. Fans were incensed, as were several members of the LucasArts team, who left to found their own game company: Telltale Games. In 2005, Telltale announced they would be working with Steve Purcell to produce an episodic Sam & Max adventure game, and in late 2006, the first episode of Sam & Max: Season One was released. Over the course of six episodes (the final one released in May of 2007), our heroes matched wits with former child stars, a bossy talk show host, the Toy Mafia, the U.S. government, the Internet, and a cult leader in order to foil a series of mass-hypnosis plots.
It was initially released for Microsoft Windows before being ported to the Wii in 2008 then the Xbox 360 in 2009, where this season got retroactively referred to as Sam & Max Save the World for future digital releases. Following the closure of Telltale Games, the rights to the episodic series has been acquired by members of the development team, now Skunkape Games. A remastered release would be launched in 2020 for Windows and the Nintendo Switch, with Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions to follow.
Followed by Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space.
Contains examples of:
- Adventure Duo:
- In the episode "Abe Lincoln Must Die!", a relationship quiz the two take says the person they are most compatible with... are each other. (Of course, the quiz was given by Sybil, and Sam and Max seem to be the only people she knows... and she doesn't exactly try to hide the fact that she's neither using a computer nor making an effort.)
- And then there's Max's reaction in "Reality 2.0" when Sybil describes him and Sam as "Luddites"...Max: We're just very good friends!
- Affably Evil: Hugh Bliss, who has a soft, overly-friendly demeanor but also an urge to Take Over the World
- April Fools' Plot: Abe Lincoln Must Die has a calendar which may be used to change the official date. On April 1st, it's the day of Sam's indefinite lock-up in the dank dungeons beneath the white house. It's also a possible day to tell someone they can take a vacation, but with all due respect, he says it's kind of mean.
- Ambiguously Gay: Hugh Bliss turns into a rainbow and has a calendar with "Gaypril" as a month (although it might just be in the sense of the superlative like all of the calendar's other months). Then again, he's really a sentient colony of space bacteria and probably has no preference one way or the other.
- Anti-Frustration Features: In Sam & Max Save the World Remastered several instances of backtracking are shortened by removing in between areas like the outside of the White House.
- Arc Villain: Each episode deals with antagonists all having Mass Hypnosis as a part of their scheme.
- Culture Shock has Brady Culture, washed out celebrity who uses his rivals The Soda Poppers to spread his brainwashing messages to the city.
- Situation: Comedy has Myra Stump, a TV talk-show host, who has taken her audience captive.
- The Mole, the Mob, and the Meatball has the Toy Mafia, lead by Don Ted E. Bear aka Harry Moleman.
- Abe Lincoln Must Die! has Agent Chuckles and Abraham Lincoln, the former having been a part of the Toy Mafia to keep a tab on the brainwashing teddy bears, who then awakens Lincoln when Sam and Max destroy the brainwashing president puppet to ensure control of the U.S.
- Reality 2.0 has The Internet itself, taking beta testers hostage in an MMO called Reality 2.0.
- Bright Side of the Moon has Hugh Bliss, as well as being the mastermind of all of Season 1, being behind all the Mass Hypnosis schemes in order to hypnotize the world and feed on their bliss.
- Artificial Stupidity: Parodied with Tic Tac Doom in Bright Side of the Moon. It's a Tic-Tac-Toe game by the C.O.P.S, but the AI is so braindead that the challenge of the puzzle is trying to lose.
- Artistic License – Politics: The plot of "Abe Lincoln Must Die!" throws away almost everything about how the U.S. government works (as does Max's entire presidency) in service to the Rule of Funny. If the President of the United States dies or is otherwise incapacitated, the Vice President takes over, and there is an extended line of succession if the VP is not available (going through the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the president pro tempore of the Senate, and then various cabinet Secretaries); there is no special election.note
- As You Know: Occurs in "Reality 2.0":
- Max: It's a good thing your protective hat and my non-compatible brain render us both impervious to hypnotism!
Sam: And it's a good thing you've been taking those classes in subtle exposition.
- Awesome Moment of Crowning: Max is elected President of the United States, and maintains that office throughout the series. "Max Impeachment Weekly" is apparently a bestselling periodical, however.
- Bait-and-Switch: In "The Mole, The Mob and the Meatball", you're supposed to search for an informant with the code phrase "Does the carpet match the drapes?". You can ask this to practically everyone (even Sybil), but literally none of them react as if it means what it usually does.
- Bat Deduction: In the final episode, after discovering the alias of the Big Bad, Sam tries to figure out who it could be. Sam comes to the correct conclusion that it's Hugh Bliss, albeit going by an overly complicated deduction that has nothing to do with the alias.
- Becoming the Mask: Harry Moleman, the former Toy Mafia mole.
- Big "NO!":
- Sam in the Season 1 finale, after the Big Bad does something unspeakably appalling to Max.
- In the same episode, by Wrathful Max when his hand gets lopped off.
- Blackground: Upon inputting a virus that shuts down Reality 2.0, Sam & Max find themselves transported to a black void with nothing but text to interact with.
- Bookends: Ends with the whole world behaving like Max due to mass hypnosis. As the credits begin to roll, Sybil quotes Max's very first line from the first episode.
- Bowdlerise: The 2020 remaster of Save the World cut out a few jokes that the developers though were in particularly bad taste or otherwise hadn't aged well; jokes about college radicals, skinheads, catfishing, "special needs" children, and sex changes were either rewritten or cut completely. This upset some fans, because Skunkape Games had promised not to cut any dialogue.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: After playing the trial version of the XBLA release, Sam and Max go over all the features of the game, including the awards it got. If you let it sit there, they wait for you to unlock the full game.
- Sam: So, you think they're going for their wallet or did they just pass out from the excitement?
Max: Who says they have to be mutually exclusive?
Sam: They're still just sitting there, Max. Think they want to buy?
(Max stares right at the camera.)
Max: We're detectives, Sam, not mind-readers!
- Casino Episode: "The Mole, The Mob, and the Meatball" in Season 1, where Sam and Max go to Ted E. Bear's Mafia-Free Playland and Casino, a casino/Suck E. Cheese's designed as a rather half-assed front for The Mafia.
- Church of Happyology: The Church of Prismatology. Emetics parodies Dianetics, for instance. It gets most obvious in episode 106, where Prismatology is the focus of the episode. An exclusive club for the highest members of Prismatology, a parody of the E-meter, a connection to outer space... it's all there.
- Classically Trained Extra: Philo Pennyworth in "Situation: Comedy", a Shakespearean actor playing a sitcom landlord. Unlike most instances of this trope, he doesn't complain that the work is beneath him, having apparently decided that professionalism means doing one's best in the role whatever the role happens to be, but he does complain about the inferiority of his co-stars at the drop of a hat.
- Colon Cancer: Sam & Max: Season One: Save the World: Episode Two: Situation: Comedy. They were actually trying for this before the season got named Save the World.
- Colony Drop: Bosco's "Earthquake Generator" in "Bright Side of the Moon".
- Cranial Plate Ability: One possible explanation for Max's immunity to mind control is a metal plate that's stuck in his head.
- Cue Card: You need to do mudslinging in the election in "Abe Lincoln Must Die!", and the easiest way to do it is to switch which cue card Abe Lincoln reads from when you ask him questions.
- Duck Season, Rabbit Season: The very last puzzle in "Culture Shock" revolves around completing a gambit like this. "Worship me!" "No, me! ME! Worship me!" "Attack me!" "No, attack ME! Att— wait..."
- Emotion Eater: At the end of "Bright Side of the Moon", this turns out to be the dark secret behind the Church of Prismatology: Hugh Bliss wants everybody to be happy so that he can feed on their happiness.
- Epic Fail: In "Abe Lincoln Must Die!", Max will ask to blow up Planet Krypton due to its utopian Crystal Spires and Togas society. Actually do so, and the war systems will reveal that the time of impact for the missile they send to that planet is "26 million years", much to Max's chagrin.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Leonard Steakcharmer in "The Mole, the Mob, and the Meatball". So much so that telling Your Mom jokes to him would make him lose his nerve.
- Evolving Title Screen: Not only does the color of the intro sequence change from episode-to-episode, so does the gestures Sam and Max do at the end of it.
- Flashback with the Other Darrin: All of the descriptions that didn't change between Episodes 101 and 102 had to be re-recorded with William Kasten as the voice of Max.
- Freeware Game: The episode "Abe Lincoln Must Die!", regarded by many as the best episode of Season 1.
- Frustrating Lie: In "The Mole, The Mob, and The Meatball", Sam and Max meet a lying cheat named Leonard Steakcharmer who challenges them to "Indian Poker" in which he cheats by looking at a mirror to see his card. After being beaten, Leonard steals the Toy Mafia's meatball sub which Sam and Max become tasked to find, running into Leonard who threatens to shoot the two of them if they move. Of course, they only show to be slightly annoyed with his bluff after Max points out that Leonard is threatening them with a cap gun before tying him up.Max: Excuse me. Are you chance holding us at gunpoint with a harmless cap gun?
Sam: Once a cheat, always a cheat. Eh, Leonard? - Fun with Acronyms:The Computer Obsolescence Prevention Society who are introduced in "Reality 2.0".
- Giggling Villain: The Big Bad Hugh Bliss. There's something both hilarious and disturbing about a person who giggles while saying "I'll just torture him mercilessly until he begs me to shoot him with his own gun!" According to Jared Emerson-Johnson and Julian Kwasneski, the recording sessions for this character were down right creepy: David Boyll is a very physical actor, and he acts everything at the same time they record his voice.
- Hypnotic Head: When Sam is hypnotized in "Culture Shock".
- Interface with a Familiar Face: In Reality 2.0, Sam and Max encounter computer programs with interfaces modeled on Myra and Hugh Bliss. The avatar used for the Internet itself resembles the unnamed Director from WARP.
- Irony: For some reason "Reality 2.0" doesn't work on certain computers note the starting issue within the episode is about computers not working right.
- Jenny's Number: In Episode 104, the amount of money that Bosco wants for his truth serum is 867.5309 rubles.
- Living Emotional Crutch: In a somewhat amusing case of Gameplay and Story Integration, Sam gets separated from Max towards the end of Episode 6 and becomes completely unable to interact with or examine objects properly any more. All he can do is panic over Max being in danger or lament the fact that Max would probably have something funny to say about what he's trying to examine.
- Mirror World: The cyber version of Straight and Narrow in "Reality 2.0".
- Mistaken for Santa: In "Situation: Comedy", Sam and Max perform in a sitcom called the Midtown Cowboys where they have to disguise a cow from their landlord Mr. Featherly. If the shaving cream is used, Sam can claim the cow to be Santa Claus. Max ends up being fooled, forcing Sam to remind him that it is just a disguise, ruining the scene.
- Mistaken for Toilet: Invoked in "Abe Lincoln Must Die!". Sam acts as an interpreter for Whizzer due to the President having a hard time understanding him. While Sam can accurately translate, to progress involve him getting the President to give Whizzer a soda, causing Whizzer to need a bathroom, asking where it is. After that, Sam can translate Whizzer as asking for the Bathroom, President Lincoln's room, or the War Room. Whizzer will go to wherever Sam asks the President without question.Max: Sam, did you just make an innocent person defile one of the most famous rooms in U.S. history?
(Whizzer returns, relieved)
Sam: Apparently, I did. - The Mole: Harry Moleman is a literal case, but he had become a Mole in Charge.
- Most Definitely Not a Villain: The staff at Ted E. Bear's Mafia-Free Playland And Casino would like to remind you that the establishment is not owned by the mafia, nor does the mafia occupy the area. They even wrote a song to remind you.
- Mundane Made Awesome: TIC TAC DOOM!!!!!! The joke is that the game is really easy to win, but the actual solution is to deliberately lose, which is no easy feat.
- Mythology Gag:
- In the blooper reel, Max/William Kasten accidentally says "subsumed" instead of "consumed." When he catches his mistake, he adds "sub...subsumed, that's a nice word!" Then, in "Beyond the Alley of the Dolls," Charlie Ho-Tep gleefully declares that our pathetic reality is on the verge of being subsumed by the glories of the Dark Dimension.
- Some of the items Sam can ask Bosco for include "vegetables shaped like famous naturalists,", and "souvenir snowglobes from the Mystery Vortex," which are two of the four items needed to solve Hit the Road's final puzzle. Another item that can be asked is "tufts of sasquatch hair" which was needed for another puzzle. And one other item Sam mentions is “chimpanzee-sized diapers” referencing Sgt. Blip from the comics.
- Partway through, Sam has to win a "Whack A Rat" arcade machine to progress (which the duo later takes as a souvenir), just like in Sam & Max Hit the Road. Once again, it takes twenty hits to win.
- In "Abe Lincoln Must Die!", Sam describes the fake President of the United States as "a damned ugly puppet", much like how the Mad Scientist from the intro to Sam and Max Hit the Road turned out to be a robot whose head was "a damned ugly time bomb".
- Save the World Remastered's new opening ends with the duo plunging through a green vortex in their Desoto as copies of Max float by, recreating the E3 2006 trailer for Season 1's original release.
- NO INDOOR VOICE: Bluster Blaster speaks in digitized shouts.
- Not Himself: In Reality 2.0, the C.O.P.S. control the titular reality, each of them in charge of a certain setting. To progress through the game, all these settings must be disabled at some point or another. This is done by placing a computer bug on them, which also reverses their personality or most notable trait. Chippy, who speaks only in individual bleeps and bloops, begins playing a catchy little melody — Bluster Blaster, the aggressive arcade machine, gets in touch with his inner showgirl — Curt, outdated and monotone, gets casual and relaxed — and Bob Bell, the phone with the silver tongue, sounds like he's swallowed a harmonica.Curt: HOLY CRAP. THAT'S HILARIOUS. BRO. I'M TRIPPING, DAWG. WHAT'S UP WITH THAT.
Bluster Blaster: I...I FEEL...I FEEL PRETTY! AND WITTY! AND GAY!
Bob: Ev-v-v'ryone LOVES my vo-o-oice! It-is SOOTHING and—CALM, and OH! So verrry PLEAZ-ANT! - Ominous Pipe Organ: In Culture Shock, Sam and Max track down the Big Bad Brady Culture and discover his hideout in an abandoned theater. Culture makes his entrance playing scary music on a pipe organ as he explains his backstory through monologue. He later kidnaps Max and keeps him in his lair, leading to this line when Sam rescues Max:Max: Sam! Boy, am I glad to see you! Johann Sebastian here only knows how to play one song.
- The Password Is Always "Swordfish":
- In "The Mole, the Mob, and the Meatball", "swordfish" is Sam's first guess at the Toy Mafia's password (for once, though, it isn't).
- Later played straight with passwords that are just as bad in later episodes. In "Reality 2.0", Sam & Max have to find the password to Bosco's. They soon find out the password is "Bosco", which itself is a reference.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Max, explicitly called the most violent force in the universe by Season 1's Big Bad.
- Product Placement: Also a part of a puzzle in Situation Comedy; Sam and Max have to improvise an episode for Midtown Cowboys that has to include Max saying the tagline for the network's sponsor.
- Production Throwback:
- Leonard Steakcharmer previously appeared, sans moustache, in Telltale Texas Hold'Em under the name "Boris Krinkle", in which one possible line of dialogue has the character of Grandma telling him that he looks more like a 'Leonard Steakcharmer'."
- Naturally, when you first meet Leonard in The Mole, the Mob, and the Meatball, you get the option to say he looks more like a Boris Krinkle. The poor guy can't win.
- Psycho Supporter: Max is one for Hugh Bliss in Season 1.
- Pull a Rabbit out of My Hat: In The Bright Side of the Moon, only it's not a rabbit. (It's not Max, either.)
- Rainbow Motif: Prismatology in general, but Hugh Bliss especially.
- A Rare Sentence: From the last act of "Bright Side of the Moon":Hugh Bliss: Hi! We're Hugh Bliss. We're a sentient colony of spacefaring bacteria!
Sam: A sentence I was not expecting to hear today. - Retirony: Parodied during Max's "death scene" in "The Mole, the Mob and the Meatball".
- Saw a Woman in Half: In The Bright Side of the Moon; it's the "this is no trick" version.
- Shout-Out:
- The torn up drywall in their office, between the boarded up windows looks suspiciously like the Lucasarts logo.
- In "Culture Shock", when Sam examines the coffee machine in Bosco's Inconvenience:
Sam: I think it's the tinge of green that makes this coffee especially appealing.
Max: I take my coffee green. Like my men!- "Abe Lincoln Must Die!":
- The episode begins with Sam and Max standing in an open field west of the White House. And if you examine the nearest object, Sam remarks "There is a small mailbox here.")
- The amount of money that Bosco wants for his truth serum is 867.5309 rubles.
- "Reality 2.0":
- The AI representing the internet is a clear homage to SHODAN.
- The Save Point outside of Bosco's E Convenience.
- Sam saying "It'sa me Sam!" and grabbing the floating gold high above while doing the iconic jump pose.Max: Sellout.
- Bosco's bank password turns out to be Bosco. This is not the only time Bosco was a bank password.
- Near the end, the game becomes Reality 1.5, parodying interactive, text-based adventure games such as Zork.
- In "Bright Side of the Moon", when Sybil announces that she is now the queen of Canada:
- Spy Speak:
- Parodied in "The Mole, the Mob, and the Meatball", where Sam is given a sign and countersign by which to recognise the mole, and the countersign is such an obvious response to the sign that one might expect him to get that response whether he's talking to the mole or not.
- "Does the carpet match the drapes?" Interestingly, everyone takes it literally except the actual mole and Chuckles, who seems to interpret it as some sort of euphemism for carrying out a hit.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Ted E. Bear's Mafia-Free Playland and Casino. A sample verse from their theme song:Ted E. Bear's is oodles of fun
Slots and sandwiches and tokens and guns
And look, no mobsters, nary a one
Just you and me and Ted E. Bear!
No mafia, no (No mafia mugs!)
We're mafia free (No mafia here!)
What mafia? Please!
No shady leaves upon the family tree! - Take That!: In 'Reality 2.0', while examining a ballet poster:Sam: Ferret Lake.
Max: Ooh, sequels are always more beloved than the originals!
Sam: *with emphasis* Yes. Yes they are. - Un-Cancelled: Season 1 is effectively this to the cancelled LucasArts sequel, which also would have been the series' jump to 3D.
- Unhand Them, Villain!: Sam and Max do this to Jimmy Two Teeth in Culture Shock.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Done a lot, not just with the main characters, but nobody questions how Hugh Bliss can change color? Even magic can't excuse that!
- The War Room: In "Abe Lincoln Must Die!", the White House has a War Room which Agent Superball keeps watch over and refuses to let Max in unless in the event of war, which is an issue given that Abe Lincoln is rampaging.
- We Sell Everything: Bosco's store is pitched as this, though there is a running gag where Sam would ask Bosco if he has something relatively obtuse only to be shot down.
- Weaponized Landmark: The Lincoln Memorial — and the Intercontinental Ballistic Washington Monument — from "Abe Lincoln Must Die!"
- The Worm That Walks: Big Bad Hugh Bliss, a colony of space-faring sentient... Bacteriaaaaaa!
- Worst. Whatever. Ever!: In "Reality 2.0" dirty rat Jimmy Two-Teeth has set himself up in Bosco's Inconvenience Store as an Arms Merchant, but refuses to sell his only product (a miniature cannon) to the Freelance Police:Sam: Worst. Arms dealer. Ever.
- You Can't Get Ye Flask: Lampshaded at the end of the Reality 2.0 episode with the golden idol.
- Your Mom: You break Leonard's will in "The Mole, the Mob, and the Meatball" with a barrage of "yo mama" jokes.
