To celebrate the release of Sam & Max: Culture Shock, we talked not only to Steve Purcell, creator of Sam (the dog) and Max (the rabbity thing), but also to Dave Grossman, one of the main-designers of Culture Shock.

Part 1: Steve Purcell

Peter Clausen: How do you start structuring a Sam & Max story? Do you begin with a character, a gag, a plot-idea or something completely different?

Steve Purcell: If it's a comic I'll just pick some subject that is interesting to me at the time. I'll start doodling visual ideas and snippets of dialog and see where it takes me. I'm not very concerned with an airtight plot but will look for some thread that will connect the ideas and give Sam & Max plenty of opportunities to riff off of each other. A game is totally different because you're working in a team. You all bring ideas to the table and the ideas have to facilitate gameplay as well. In that kind of setting I try to nudge the discussion toward the more outlandish.

Peter Clausen: How does your creative freedom on this game compare to the LucasArts game and the TV show?

Steve Purcell: Similar to the last game. Radically different from TV. Working on Hit the Road we had little input from higher-ups, which was great. With the Telltale game, the guys running the company are creative contributors and they are on board with the most off-the-wall ideas. They want the game to be a true adaptation of the comics. On network TV there are more executive layers and those folks don't earn their paychecks for keeping quiet.

Peter Clausen: Speaking of the TV-show: While the show was actually quite funny, and caught the general tone of Sam & Max very well, it still felt a bit neutered. What’s your retrospective opinion of the show? Which aspects lived up to your expectations, which didn’t?

Steve Purcell: I was harder on the show when it was fresh in my mind. There are certain things you just can't do on a show aimed at a young audience and doing a prime time show was not an option. We did the best we could capturing the flavor of the characters on a kid's show. We were asked to include a girl character and our solution of the brainiac "Geek" was not a fan favorite. On the other hand, looking back at those episodes I can't think of another show from that time period where the stars were such morally ambiguous characters. We had a lot of good writers and some of the lines still crack me up. One of my favorites, from an episode where someone has removed the top of Max's skull exposing his brain, Sam says; "Quick! Press down on the medula oblongata! Five bucks says he smells burnt toast!

Peter Clausen: Can you cite any specific influences (cartoons, comics, or  whatever) for Sam & Max?

Steve Purcell: As a kid I was a fan of Mad Magazine and the comics pages in National Lampoon. There were a lot of great alternative cartoonists working in their prime there. I loved Monty Python and the Marx Brothers. There's probably some Penn and Teller and the Blues Brothers in Sam & Max's DNA as well.

Peter Clausen: What’s your opinion on the current state of the animation industry? Do you think originality and creativity are still in demand?

Steve Purcell: I don't know that originality is in "demand". I think the overall production quality of everything is far superior to ten years ago but it seems a lot of the comedy series are pretty similar in tone. There's this kind of "addled for its own sake" delivery that a lot of the comedy characters have, that seems like they're trying to ape the more successful SpongeBob. I don't follow a lot of TV animation but sort of check in with it to see what's going on. My kids like Legion of Super Heroes and The Batman and I've had fun watching those with them. I'm less enamored with the current comedies than they are. As far as the features, it's a mixed bag. There are a lot of animal stories this year and for my kids they start blending together. Hopefully, moving forward, the studios will be pulling their ideas from a wider pool.

Peter Clausen: Sam & Max have already appeared in many media. Where do you still want them to leave their mark?

Steve Purcell: Every year I talk about trying to do a toy. I love vinyl figures especially ones that are from some existing work. When I was a kid I loved the vinyl figures of Walt Kelly's Pogo characters. They were a premium given away with detergent or something but they are very similar to vinyl toys being done right now. They had a nice sculptural quality, very raw even. I once heard that they were actually sculpted by Kelly himself. I love ventriloquist dummies. My dream toy would be a 1:18 scale Desoto with Sam & Max figures driving it.

Peter Clausen: If you just look at the behaviour of Sam & Max they should be anything but sympathetic. However, one just can’t help but love the anthropomorphic duo. What do you think is the reason for Sam & Max’s immense likeability?

Steve Purcell: I think they feel strangely familiar. I think we like pairs in our entertainment, especially when we feel we're in on their inside jokes or their shorthand way of communicating. We like characters that say the thing we wish we would think to say in the moment.

Peter Clausen: Was it possible to apply the experience from your work at Pixar in any way in this new game?

Steve Purcell: Any time you spend working on stories will improve the way you look at narrative material. It's always questions of, what am I communicating? How little can I say and still get this idea across? With Sam & Max their dialog carries a lot of weight which is a blessing in some ways. If you have smart writers like Dave Grossman and Brendan Ferguson working on the dialog you're in good shape. When I write my own of stuff sometimes I challenge myself to see how far off the rails I can get. I try to crack myself up (which isn't easy) or write the most obscure gag. Amazingly there's always somebody that will get the most unlikely joke.

Peter Clausen: Could you describe your input in the game?

Steve Purcell: I tried to be involved early on in the story process. I would go out to dinner with the Daves (Grossman and Bogan), Brendan Fergusan, and sometimes Dan Connors would join us to block out the stories in bold strokes. We bang around ideas of what the broad beats are. I give some input on the artwork and when I have time I try to contribute some character designs or review Dave Bogan's concepts. I had a few thoughts about the music references and have been really happy to hear how Jared Emerson-Johnson is developing the score. Dave Grossman has sent over script pages which are a dream to review and actually not very easy to find places that need tweaking.

Peter Clausen: After having 2 previous Sam & Max games cancelled, does the imminent release of Culture Shock feel in some way like vindication?

Steve Purcell: I haven't thought of it that way. I'm just pleased to find that all of Telltale's hard work is being received well. The anticipation for this material has at various times reached a fever pitch. It's daunting to know how many eyes are watching to make sure that it's "done right". This Telltale crew is very seasoned and all their decision-making is carefully considered. Working in different parts of the entertainment industry, I've seen that there are so many ways for a project of this scale to go awry, so to find myself so pleased with how Sam & Max is turning out is truly amazing.

Peter Clausen: The first Sam & Max made fun of tourist traps and modern culture in general. The subtitle of the current game, Culture Shock alludes to a similar subject matter. What is it that fascinates (or possibly annoys) you so much about the ongoing theme of modern consumer culture? Is it just an easy target for mockery, or is there an actual message, or strong opinion, behind the humor?

Steve Purcell: The roadside attractions were just something that interested me from my childhood traveling across the U.S. I loved that exaggerated idea of how to get someone to stop at your business out in the sticks. The cultural references are just meant to be fun, somewhat recognizable snippets of what we live with every day. That stuff inhabits us. More people could probably sing you the Flintstones theme than the National Anthem. It's just the colorful oddness that our enormous simian brains have decided we should spend our spare time creating. We crawled out of the mud to invent the internet so we can watch nonstop blurry monkey videos. Life is hilarious.

Turn the page for part 2.