YMMV / Maniac Mansion

• Awesome Music: While the original version had very sparse audio, the NES port had a whole new soundtrack by George Sanger and David Hayes - and it rocks out loud. There are different cool themes for each character, each a joy to listen to. If you picked Razor or Syd, the tune they play on the piano could land them a music contract. Good examples are Dave's Theme (The Boys Are Still Back) and Razor's Theme.
• Character Tiers: Yes, some characters really are easier to solve puzzles with than others. Bernard is top-tier because he has multiple skills and very few Unwinnable by Design situations. Jeff and Dave are lowest-tier because they are the only ones that cannot bypass Purple Tentacle by themselves.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Microwaving the Hamster is completely optional... this hasn't stopped people from doing it anyway. You can also give it to Weird Ed, of course you receive some Video Game Cruelty Punishment for it.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Bernard, the nerd. He's one in an ensemble of seven selectable characters, and since you can only pick two (Dave is locked in) it's not even guaranteed he will show up at all in your game. In practice, however, the vast majority of people take him along, since he has easily the largest number of useful skills in the cast. In addition, his characterization as a geeky Lovable Coward is also considered to be quite memorable. Perhaps because of this, Bernard would go on to be the main character in the sequel, Day of the Tentacle.
• Genre Turning Point: As mentioned under Trope Codifier, it wasn't the first point-and-click adventure, but it was arguably the first one to do it right. The game's success would prove how much more viable and more intuitive it was to point at things on the screen rather than telling the game what you wanted to do, and the text adventure died almost overnight due to it.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • In the NES version, dead characters can be brought back into the game somewhat by furiously clicking in the peripheral areas of the front yard. The catch: you're invisible, not that anyone in the game seems to notice.
  • Normally, you need to do a lengthy puzzle to get the combination of the second door to the secret lab in the dungeon. However, if you just guess the simple 0000 it opens, as long as you do it before the cutscene of Dr. Fred in the arcade (that sets the combination). Fan Remake Deluxe fixes this bug.
  • The prison in the basement can be opened by someone pushing a brick inside the cell, allowing a second to walk free. In some versions, it only takes one person—this is not intentional.
  • In the C64 version and the initial DOS port, it's possible to get Nurse Edna to start coming after you no matter where you're stood in the kitchen by ringing the doorbell before you enter the house. Normally Edna doesn't start chasing you until you walk right up to her, which makes it very easy for her to catch you. However, as soon as Weird Ed shuts the front door, Edna will come after you, making it possible to run out of the kitchen and then the house, which sends her back upstairs. Just don't leave the kitchen too quickly, otherwise you'll run straight into Ed and just get thrown in the dungeon by him instead.
  • In the NES version, you can have a kid walk into Nurse Edna's room, and then quickly switch to a second kid while she's in the process of capturing them. Switch back to the first kid, and Edna will be frozen in place, letting you safely get up into her attic room without needing to fix the phone and call her.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The game is very much a period piece of The '80s and the early nineties. But one thing that oddly enough fits well as recently as The New '20s is being able to call Edna from the house phone. While in The '80s, this would imply that she has her own phone line. But these days, she might have a cell phone while the library phone is a landline.
• Nausea Fuel: One of the ways you die is to play the tentacle mating call tape with Green Tentacle in the room. Just think about it.
• Polished Port: A completely different version was developed by LucasArts and Realtime Associates for the American Nintendo Entertainment System release, and aside from Nintendo's extensive censorship policies, the result was the opposite trope compared to the Famicom version. With a few tweaks, it is even playable via SCUMMVM, with mouse support to boot.
• Porting Disaster: The Famicom version by Jaleco had greatly simplified graphics, and saving your progress required writing down passwords over a hundred characters long.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: The fan remake "Meteor Mess" makes Jeff able to bypass Purple Tentacle by making him able to fix the staircase in the library and handing him proof he did so (by giving Purple a dirty magazine). Similarly, Wendy is made to also be afraid of Green tentacle at first, giving Dave some more use (Especially if the player chose Wendy and Bernard)
• Self-Imposed Challenge: Different character combinations yield harder challenges than others. The hardest combination is Syd/Razor and Jeff, as one tiny mistake can easily result in the game becoming Unwinnable by Design. The easiest combination is Bernard and Michael—the two of them have few ways to get into these situations.
• Signature Scene:
  • Non-fans usually know this game only for the scene where you can put a hamster in a microwave.
  • Players usually choose the assembling moment outside the mansion after the intro cutscene, in which Bernard is in the party and is told 'Don't be a tuna head!' when attempting to flee the scene.
• Spiritual Sequel: Thimbleweed Park exists in the same universe and even has several of the characters within the game.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders is the second game created by LucasArts, following this release. It reuses both concepts and the scripting engine, SCUMM.
  • After 17 years, Ron Gilbert revisits and upgrades many concepts in The Cave, developed at Double Fine and released in 2013.
• Spoiled by the Format: Ron has stated in interviews that people who played the game in its original format (straight off a floppy disk) always knew when a cutscene was about to happen because the disk drive would spin up when it otherwise wasn't expected to. Floppy drives were quite noisy so it wasn't exactly an avoidable scenario.
• That One Level: At some point, Dr. Fred will turn the power off in the mansion for several minutes. While this gives you ample time to do things such as fix the wires in the attic without risking the character being sent to the dungeon (or causing a Game over), the player might have done so already. As a result, not much can be accomplished during this time period.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • The presence of a red room for developing photographs, as well as the film that comes into play if Michael is chosen. While one could imagine Michael's knowledge of film photography as him being into a retro art form, Weird Ed would have practical reasons to prefer the speed of digital photography.
  • Edna mentions prank phone calls. Prank Phone calls became a Discredited Trope during The '90s when Caller ID became a thing.
  • One puzzle that would make many players born at the Turn of the Millennium or The New '10s ponder how they are supposed to do it is steaming an envelope to open it. In an age of digital communication, this might elude a lot of people.
• Wangst: Green Tentacle repeatedly says he's oh so depressed and mopes in the corner. The reason? He'll never have a super famous band.

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