Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle

1001 Video Games

Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

CD version

The CD version of the game features speech and no copy protection.

Development

At one point during DOTT's development, the artists consulted with legendary animator Chuck Jones.

Maniac Mansion

Contains the original Maniac Mansion as an actual computer game (on a computer) inside the game.

Music

The music playing during the intro is the ouverture to the opera Wilhelm Tell by the famous 19th century opera composer Gioachino Rossini.

References

• In the mansion 200 years in the past, a picture of Max from Sam & Max: Hit the Road can be seen.
• Check out the Darth Vader calendar in Dr. Fred's office! You can also spot the Stormtrooper helmet in Green Tentacle's room (above the stereo and a bit to the left).
• The title for Day of the Tentacle has obviously been influenced by the novel titled Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. In this sci-fi novel, carnivorous, walking plants called 'Triffids', after waiting for the perfect opportunity, decide to end the reign of Humanity and take on the world.
• Maniac Mansion is more than just a game within a game, it's also an integral part of the plot. Dr. Fred and his family (within Day of the Tentacle) licensed themselves into Maniac Mansion and should have become rich off the royalties. Well as luck would have it, the contract was never signed and so Dr. Fred lost out. During the course of the game's plot, you'll have to deal with this situation and get Dr. Fred reimbursed by the lawyers at Lucasarts.
• Dr. Fred mentions the royalties that he lost from the 1990 TV Show based on his life, the YTV/Family Channel sitcom, Maniac Mansion, which takes great liberties from the source material.
• The Couch Potato's Buying Network (shopping channel) within the game instructs viewers to call their operators at 1-800-STAR-WARS , otherwise known as the Lucasarts' hotline.
• In DOTT, there is a reference to the Commodore 64 computer. The original version of Maniac Mansion was released for the Commodore and is the same version that can be played in Weird Eds room. Get Bernard to "talk to" the computer and he'll say something like "Hello computer, I still love you even though you have 64k of memory", This refers to the fact that Commodore 64s had 64k of RAM, and yes, Weird Ed's computer is obviously a Commodore 64
• In the plot of the game, you are forced to use a microwave 200 years in the future to melt the frozen hamster left in the ice bin from 200 years ago. Laverne hopes that the microwaves aren't like the ones back in her time because they could really pop a hamster good. This is reference to the fact that you could microwave Ed's hamster in Maniac Mansion (causing the hamster to explode). Another reference to this is the fact that Ed's hamster used to be brown with white spots, now it is just brown.

References to the game

In The Secret Of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, Sam & Max can be seen outside of the Monkey Head Temple respectively in the Costume Store on Booty Island. In the Special Edition remakes of these games, the characters can still be seen in classic mode. However, when the games are hotswapped to the Special Edition modes they are replaced by Purple Tentacle!

Awards

• Computer Gaming World
  • June 1994 (Issue #119) – Adventure Game of the Year (together with Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers)
  • March 1996 (Issue #140) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame
  • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) - #34 in “150 Best Games of All Time" list
  • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) –#3 Funniest Computer Game
  • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – Most Memorable Game Villain (Purple Tentacle)
• GameStar (Germany)
  • Issue 12/1999 - #32 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking
• PC Powerplay (Germany)
  • Issue 06/2005 - #3 Likeable Secondary Character (for Bernhard, Hoagie and Laverne)
  • Issue 11/2005 - #7 Game Which Absolutely Needs A Sequel
• Power Play
  • Issue 02/1994 – Best Sequel in 1993

Information also contributed by Adam Baratz, Jason Harang, Paul Graves, PCGamer77, Rambutaan, Scott G, Tomar Gabel, Unicorn Lynx, WildKard and Ye Old Infocomme Shoppe.