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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/02_front.JPG]]
2
3->''Now our hero, Freddy Pharkas, / With wounded pride and earless carcass,''\
4''Vowed to the heavens to give up gunnery.''\
5''He'd be better off, he reckoned, / With the lifelong dream that always beckoned:''\
6''Pestles, not pistols, and pharmacology.''\
7(...)\
8''Pharkas, Freddy Pharkas. / Frontier Pharmacist bourgeoisie,''\
9''Freddy Pharkas, Freddy Pharkas. / Peerless, earless, and free!''
10-->--''[[http://allowe.com/games/fpfp/the-ballad.html The Ballad of Freddy Pharkas]]'', by Creator/AlLowe.
11
12''Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist'' is a 90s [[PointAndClickGame Point-and-Click]] {{adventure game}}. Considered one of {{Creator/Sierra}}'s best, and possibly even one of the best adventure games of the 2D VGA era. Strangely, despite being very successful, it did not receive a sequel.
13
14Set in the WildWest, this game follows the exploits of a gunslinger named Frederick "Freddy" Pharkas (Hungarian roots unexplored). Freddy, having been proclaimed the best gunslinger in the mid-west, meets his match at the hands of the ominously-named outlaw Kenny the Kid. Kenny shoots Freddy's ear off in a duel, prompting Freddy to forsake gunslinging and vow never to pick up a pistol again. Instead, Freddy picks up his ''other'' hobby: pharmacology. He moves to the town of Coarsegold, CA (a few miles away from Sierra's headquarters in Oakhurst), and never reveals his past to any of the townsfolk.
15
16Years later, trouble comes to Coarsegold when the local Sheriff starts shutting down businesses left and right, declaring that their buildings are "fire-hazards" (which is kind of understandable, since the whole town is built out of wood). When Freddy tries to investigate a little into the matter, his pharmacy is nearly put to the torch one night. Realizing that something is afoot, Freddy eventually concedes to his fate, returning to his old gunslinging ways in order to save his beloved town.
17
18The game includes adult themes and plenty of sultry, witty humor by Creator/JoshMandel and Creator/AlLowe (of ''VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry'' fame). It also contains some notoriously difficult arcade sequences. The game comes with an extensive manual on common diseases and pharmacology, written in 19th century style (thus containing, obviously, many hilarious misconceptions about medical practice as a whole). There are several points in the game where Freddy must utilize a well-equipped pharmaceutical laboratory to concoct pills and potions from a large variety of chemicals.
19
20----
21!!This work features examples of the following tropes:
22
23* AchievementsInIgnorance: [[spoiler:The entire town of Coarsegold was built on oil fields. Not a single person in the entire town had a clue this was done except for the main villain Penelope Primm, which makes sense, considering she's a {{Schoolmarm}}. So she'd be educated enough to know about these things.]]
24* AdvertisedExtra: [[https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Файл:FPFP_box.jpg The box art]] says "Meet the great-great-grandpappy of Leisure Suit Larry". Nope, that's not Freddy, who couldn't differ from Larry more even if he tried. The advertised ancestor is plot-irrelevant Zircon Laffer, who appears in 1 scene with 1 line.
25* TheAlcoholic: The town doctor. You actually have to look through the bottom of a whiskey glass to decipher one prescription.
26* AlliterativeName: Frederick "Freddy" Pharkas, Penelope Primm, Whittlin' Willy.
27* AnachronismStew: The song mentions Freddy coming first in his class in the SAT, which was invented in 1926, 38 years after 1888, the year the story started.
28* AnimalStampede: A stampede of ''snails'', specifically.
29* AnimatedActors: The HilariousOuttakes reveal this. The end credits were broken up into chunks, alternating between real credits, and then scenes where the actors got out of character and complained to the game's director. Interestingly enough, the "actors" playing the characters had different names than those of the characters' own voice actors.
30* BalladOfX: ''The Ballad of Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist''.
31* BerserkButton: Whittlin' Willy is typically a cheerful guy, only two things will get him mad. One is when Freddy sells out. Willy says he sort of resents him for that and for all he cares he could've died in a pharmacy and good riddance to him. The thing that really gets to him (to the point of SuddenlyShouting) is taking advantage of the town's ignorance. [[spoiler:Apparently the entire city was built on oil fields and noone knew except the main villain. He adds that [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial they ain't stupid]] they just had no idea what oil EVEN WAS!]] He then after that says he's riled and not to talk to him.
32* BlindIdiotTranslation: The game in German is a huge mess. One specific example, for example, is that "jockstrap" was translated as "Scotsman's suspender."
33* BlownAcrossTheRoom: If you die from getting shot, the game over screen will show Freddy standing, four bullet holes will appear behind him before the fifth hits him, launching him backwards and leaving an ImpactSilhouette on the wall (minus a hole where Freddy was hit.)
34* BrandX:
35** You can find a tube of "Preparation G" in Freddy's pharmacy. It's a quest item.
36** Freddy entices his "faithful Indian sidekick" to come work at the pharmacy by stating that one of the perks of the position was all the "Rustler's Stove" chocolates he could eat.
37* TheCameo: Kenny the Kid is an obvious stand in for Sierra co-founder Ken Williams. It wouldn't be an Al Lowe game without a cameo from his boss.
38* CardSharp: Wheaton "Aces" Hall, the first bad guy to show up in the last act.
39* ChekhovsGun: Freddy's false ear. It'll serve ''three'' purposes by the end of the game.
40* CaughtWithYourPantsDown: After Zircon shows up, it's possible to catch him in the outhouse with a dirty magazine.
41* ClarkKenting: To hide his true identity, Freddy [[spoiler:makes a false ear for himself (his real ear having been shot off in the prologue)]]. No one seems to recognize him until [[spoiler:Penelope removes his ear and is shocked to discover that it's Freddy]]!
42* CombatMedic: Freddy uses both his gunslinging skills and his medical knowledge to help save Coarsegold.
43* ComicallyMissingThePoint: After [[spoiler:Penelope]] tells Freddy "it's always the person you least expect," Freddy starts rattling off all the people he suspected even less than [[spoiler:Penelope herself]].
44* CompletionMeter: Parodied. Of the 1,000 points to be gathered throughout the game, the first 500 are for unlocking the pharmacy door at the beginning.
45* CopyProtection: The recipes for the medicines you have to distribute at the start of the game are AllThereInTheManual. Only problem is, when the game was re-released in the Sierra Originals version, only a truncated version of the manual was included in the CD booklet, and one of the required recipes was left out entirely. Due to this, Al Lowe has put the entire doc on his [[http://www.allowe.com/ website]].
46* CreditsGag: You can interact with the opening credits using the cursor. For example, using the hand on the job title gives, "You can't take the credit for something you haven't done!"
47* ElectiveBrokenLanguage: Hopalong Singh, the Chinese chef, can speak perfect English, but Mom pays him to [[AsianSpeekeeEngrish Speekee Engrish]] instead because he'll sound more "authentic" that way. One of the Native Americans says he only uses TontoTalk to make the tourists happy.
48* ExactlyWhatIAimedAt: Freddy confronts a poker cheat named Wheaton "Aces" Hall in a saloon. When Aces pulls out a gun, Freddy upturns a table and hides behind it. The player is then given a targeting cursor, and everything you can hit with it results in a trick shot. Only one specific object ends up bouncing the bullet into a chandelier that falls on Aces, though.
49* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: Srini is very literally an Indian.
50* FastestGunInTheWest: Freddy was trying for this title, until his defeat at the hands of Kenny the Kid (which cost him his ear) made him give up gunfighting in favor of pharmacology. [[spoiler:Come the end of the game, he at least manages to shoot Kenny's gun out of his hand.]]
51* FemmeFatale: [[spoiler:Penelope Primm.]]
52* FollowTheBouncingBall: Used in the game's prologue, the Ballad of Freddy Pharkas.
53* {{Foreshadowing}}: An event is foreshadowed and the narrator [[LampshadeHanging hangs a lampshade]] on it by saying "Foreshadowing alert! Foreshadowing alert!"
54* FoodAsBribe: How Freddy has to get bullets and a gun cleaning kit. [[spoiler:He has to give coffee and the apple pie from Mom's Cafe to the sheriff in exchange for these.]]
55* FrontierDoctor: Freddy Pharkas.
56* FunnyForeigner: Srini, the INDIAN.
57* FunWithAcronyms: Srini gets a medal from the '''A'''merican '''S'''ociety of '''S'''alves, '''H'''olistic '''O'''intments, '''L'''iniments, and '''E'''mollients '''S'''alesmen.
58* GameOverMan: Whittlin' Willy, the game's narrator, will show up to relate the circumstances of Freddy's untimely death.
59* GoofyPrintUnderwear: When Freddy drops his holsters at gunpoint, he accidentally drops his pants as well, exposing polka-dot boxers.
60* HaveANiceDeath: Take any medications meant for someone else, open the bag of horse farts, let the town be overrun by snails, get shot by an outlaw, take too long during certain events (such as when Coarsegold's water supply is poisoned), walk onto a swamp then sink...
61* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: Madame Ovaree, to some extent. Possibly the rest of the ladies at the... errr... ladies' house.
62* IdenticalGrandson: Leisure Suit Larry's great-great-granduncle shows up; Zircon Laffer. His voice actor, Jan Rabson, would eventually voice Larry himself from ''Larry 6'' onward.
63* TheIllegible: A prescription written by the habitually-drunk town doctor is completely illegible until an empty whiskey glass is used on it, prompting Freddy to remark that it must've been ''written'' while looking through the bottom of a whiskey glass as well.
64* ImprobableAimingSkills: The way Freddy takes out the CardSharp.
65* MorallyBankruptBanker: P.H. Balance, the local banker.
66* NeverFoundTheBody: [[spoiler:Penelope Primm]], the BigBad, setting up a SequelHook for a second game that never came.
67* NiceJobFixingItVillain: [[spoiler:After managing to shoot Freddy, Kenny the Kid, assuming Freddy will die, reveals he's working for Penelope. This leads to the downfall of both him and Penelope, as Freddy survives, stops Penelope's plan, and then kills Kenny once he shows up.]]
68* NoAnimalsWereHarmed: The game ends with "A total of 34 animals were injured or maimed in the making of this game. After all, we could accept nothing less than total and complete realism."
69* NonStandardGameOver: The game quits to DOS if you [[spoiler:shoot yourself]].
70* PaperThinDisguise: The disguise used by Freddy in the last act consists of a change of clothes, a neckerchief (which is actually worn around the neck), and a silver ear. Nobody realizes that the man with the silver ear is actually the one-eared pharmacist, up until the BigBad captures him and removes the fake ear.
71* ThePianoPlayer: There's a piano player called Neville Shute.
72--> "You know, Neville Shute, the piano player... he's only doing his job."
73* PinballProjectile: During the final chapter, when Freddy accuses a villainous poker player of cheating locals out of their homes and businesses in card games, the guy pulls a gun on him, leading to a standoff in the saloon where the player must find ''something'' to ricochet their gun off of while taking cover behind a table. Aim wrong, and the bullet bounces all over the place and eventually kill an innocent bystander - but instead of issuing a GameOver for this (as one would normally expect from a Sierra adventure game), it rewinds the scene (ricochets and all) so the player can try again.
74* PottyDance: When [[spoiler:the water supply is poisoned]], Freddy arrives at the outhouse to see a long line of people, all of them dancing.
75* PottyEmergency: Freddy has one of these after [[spoiler:the town's water supply is poisoned with a nasty substance]]. It's so bad he actually shares an outhouse with someone else. TruthInTelevision, some outhouses were ''three-holers''… Except this one's barely large enough to fit one guy. And Freddy has to tell that guy to "''scooch over a bit''". Yuck.
76* PopGoesTheHuman: How Freddy "dies laughing" according to the [[HaveANiceDeath death screen]] if you use the tank of Nitros Oxide (AKA Laughing Gas) on him.
77%%* {{Pun}}: The reason Srini is from ''India''.
78%%* PunnyName: Almost every character in the game has one.
79* RapePillageAndBurn: An army of mooks get this [[ComicallyMissingThePoint slightly wrong]]. No doubt a reference to ''Film/BlazingSaddles'', in which an army of mooks also stampedes women and rapes cattle.
80-->"Let's stampede the women and rape the cattle!"
81* {{Retcon}}: Zircon Jim Laffer is advertised as being VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry's great-great-grandfather on the box art, but in-game is referred to as his great-great-granduncle.
82* RoadApples: A cow patty is an inventory item. Also, horse farts. It's a Creator/{{Sierra}} game by Creator/AlLowe, what did you expect?
83* RuleOfFunny: Do NOT attempt to follow any of the medical advice listed in the pharmacist's guide/manual. It is a parody of the more primitive state of medicine in the 19th Century and is only meant to be used as a source of humor and copy protection information.
84* ScenicTourLevel: The prologue of the game has Freddy walking through Coarsegold to open his pharmacy for the day -- and it's completely interactive. The game makes fun of itself by awarding half of the [[LastLousyPoint available 1000 points in the game]] to the player for (finally) opening the pharmacy door.
85--> "You're halfway through the game!"
86* {{Schoolmarm}}: The game had one of those whose last name even was Primm. However, [[spoiler:she turns out to be the villain in the end]].
87* ShoutOut:
88** One of the medications in the pharmacy is a hemorrhoid cream called "Preparation G", presumably a forerunner to modern hemorrhoid cream Preparation H.
89** The game makes a few shout-outs to other Sierra games.
90*** One of the people in the bar is Zircon Jim Laffer, ancestor to VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry ([[IdenticalGrandson whom he resembles closely]]).
91*** There's a bridge that informs you every time you cross it that you have only three crossings left (the number never goes down), referencing a bridge that actually ''does'' have limited crossings in ''VideoGame/KingsQuestIIRomancingTheThrone''.
92*** [[VideoGame/KingsQuestVAbsenceMakesTheHeartGoYonder Cedric the Owl]] has a cameo. [[DeathByCameo A very short cameo.]]
93*** Dying in certain circumstances causes the narrator to wrap up Freddy's story, then launch into new ones, containing references to another ''VideoGame/KingsQuest'' game, ''VideoGame/TheAdventuresOfWillyBeamish'', and (in a non-Sierra reference) ''Theatre/TheMusicMan''.
94*** A few pieces of paper in the general store are full of these, including [[VideoGame/KingsQuest a letter from King Graham]], [[VideoGame/LauraBow a message from Dr. Miklos, who lost her pet ferret Daisy]], and a wanted poster for Al Lowe himself, complete with a reference to one his first games, ''Bop-A-Bet''.
95** Using the shovel on the loose floorboards in Freddy's pharmacy will cause [[Franchise/EvilDead a monster to crawl from underneath the boards, saying "I'll swallow your soul!", to which Freddy replies "Come get some."]]
96** The cutscene of the snail stampede falling off the cliff looks like a stage from ''VideoGame/{{Lemmings}}''.
97* ShowdownAtHighNoon: [[spoiler:Close to the end of the game. There are two arcade sequences following each other very closely.]]
98* SubvertedRhymeEveryOccasion: Two lines from "The Ballad of Freddy Pharkas":
99-->She had captured Fred's affection,
100-->But he's scared he'll get a huge... rejection
101* SuicidalLemmings: Freddy saves the town from a horde of stampeding snails by diverting them into a chasm. The narration notes that they "look just like little lemmings, marching over that cliff" and the cutscene of snails falling to their doom is a pretty obvious ShoutOut to ''VideoGame/{{Lemmings}}''.
102* TechnologyMarchesOn: Deliberately [[InvokedTrope invoked]] by the manual, which takes the form of a 19th-century medical handbook. Nearly every single entry in the book contains some old-timey misconception about medicine — and it is all TruthInTelevision.
103* ToiletHumor:
104** One puzzle involves collecting horse farts.
105** Another puzzle involves the whole town being afflicted with [[PottyEmergency Potty Emergencies]] after the town's water is contaminated. Drinking the water yourself will end with you having to [[{{Squick}} share an outhouse with someone else.]]
106** At any time, you may go into the outhouse, potentially catching someone using it.
107* UnreliableNarrator: The old guy who starts narrating the game does this even in death scenarios. "You're talking to a ghost, wooooooooooooo!"
108* TheWildWest
109* YouNoTakeCandle: Played with; see ElectiveBrokenLanguage.
110* ZorroMark: In the climax, Freddy carves a ℞ into the clothing of the BigBad, [[spoiler:Penelope Primm]].
111----
112->''Now the game of Freddy Pharkas / Is from old Al Lowe who made his mark as''\
113''Dad and designer, of Larrys one through five.''\
114''But while Larry's slightly dirty, / Freddy isn't anywhere as nerdy,''\
115''Short, lewd, or balding, nor pushing forty-five.''\
116''Pharkas, Freddy Pharkas. / Digitized and in VGA.''\
117''Freddy Pharkas, Freddy Pharkas. / Saddle up and let's play.''
118-->''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn6leKTncPo The Ballad of the Demo of Freddy Pharkas]]''

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