Sam and Max

Sam and Max is a comedy crime franchise created by Steve Purcell, following two anthropomorphic freelance detectives through cases that take them from their New York office to ancient Egypt, the Moon, and dimensions beyond. Sam is a six-foot Irish Wolfhound in a detective’s suit. Max is a hyperkinetic three-foot rabbity thing. Together they describe themselves as the Freelance Police and have appeared in comics since 1987, a LucasArts adventure game in 1993, a Fox Kids animated series in 1997, and three seasons of episodic games from Telltale Games between 2006 and 2010, all of which have since been remastered by Skunkape Games.

The Comics and the LucasArts Era

Steve Purcell created Sam and Max from childhood drawings originally made by his brother Dave, developing the characters into a comic book series published under Fishwrap Productions beginning in 1987. The comics established the franchise’s tone, dense with dark nihilistic humor, pop culture parody, and a specific absurdist logic where the most outlandish outcomes are treated as entirely routine. LucasArts licensed the characters for Sam and Max Hit the Road in 1993, a point-and-click graphic adventure that follows the duo investigating the disappearance of a Bigfoot from a carnival sideshow. The game, with Bill Farmer voicing Sam and Nick Jameson as Max, became a cult classic and is still cited alongside Day of the Tentacle and Monkey Island as one of the finest LucasArts adventure games. A sequel, Sam and Max: Freelance Police, entered development at LucasArts before being cancelled in 2004, prompting several developers to leave and form Telltale Games.

The Animated Series

The Adventures of Sam and Max: Freelance Police ran for twenty-four episodes on the Fox Kids programming block from October 1997 through April 1998, produced by Nelvana. The show adapted cases from the comics in a format suited to children’s Saturday morning television while retaining the franchise’s character dynamics and comedic register. It remains the only animated adaptation of the property and is relatively difficult to find legally as of writing.

The Telltale Games Era

Telltale Games, founded by former LucasArts developers including several who had worked on Freelance Police, obtained the Sam and Max license from Steve Purcell in 2005 and released three episodic seasons between 2006 and 2010. David Nowlin voiced Sam and William Kasten voiced Max across the trilogy. Sam and Max Save the World ran as six episodes from October 2006 through April 2007 across PC, with console ports following. Sam and Max Beyond Time and Space ran five episodes from November 2007 through April 2008. Sam and Max: The Devil’s Playhouse released in five episodes across 2010 as Telltale’s PlayStation 3 debut and the first Sam and Max season with a tightly serialized narrative structure, moving beyond self-contained episode stories into a season-length arc involving Max’s newly developed psychic powers. The Devil’s Playhouse is widely considered the trilogy’s peak.

Telltale Games announced its closure in September 2018 and fully shut down October 11, 2018. Skunkape Games, a studio formed by several former Telltale developers in early 2020, acquired the rights to the Telltale Sam and Max games and has remastered all three: Save the World Remastered on December 2, 2020, Beyond Time and Space Remastered on December 8, 2021, and The Devil’s Playhouse Remastered on August 14, 2024, completing the trilogy across modern platforms including Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

Sam and Max Beyond Games

HappyGiant developed Sam and Max: This Time It’s Virtual!, a virtual reality game for Meta Quest and PC VR headsets released in June 2021, with Steve Purcell serving as a design consultant and series composer Jared Emerson-Johnson returning. Purcell, who spent years as a writer and creative consultant at Pixar alongside his Sam and Max work, has continued to produce new Sam and Max material in various forms. Actor Elijah Wood has publicly expressed interest in pitching an animated television series revival of the property, citing the franchise’s visual style as particularly well-suited to animation, though no project has been officially announced as of writing.