History Characters / SamAndMax

''"[[PaperThinDisguise Hey guys, it's me, Bosco]]!"''

-->'''Maximus''': Why can't people just all get along, Sameth?\\
'''Sameth''': Because most people are [[CensoredForComedy *bleep*'d,]] Maximus.
** Also:

** States [[spoiler: while his "bliss is seperated" (i.e. his vices are wiped from his personality, leaving him peaceful and sincere)]] that he would like to have Hugh Bliss's love child.

* {{Catchphrase}}: When someone asks where Max keeps anything on his naked person, he usually responds with some variation of, "none of your damn business!"

* RiddleForTheAges: Just where ''does'' he keep that gun? See CatchPhrase above as to Max's usual response, although he did once suggest that he'd tell Sam privately, in a highly controlled situation.

* {{Catchphrase}}: Three of 'em:

* CoolGun: His Luger.

* CatchPhrase: "Beat it."

* CatchPhrase: "Yeeees?"

* {{Catchphrase}}: Did someone say…Birthday?

* {{Catch Phrase}}s:

* MaskOfSanity: While at first glance he seems to be the relatively-normal StraightMan, observing and listening to him long enough makes it clear that he's almost, if not ''just'' as violently insane as Max; he just needs a ''reason'' before he starts shooting. God help you if you give him one.

An organized crime family whose members all appear to be wearing giant toy bear heads. They run Ted E. Bear's [[LegitimateBusinessmensSocialClub Mafia-Free Playland and Casino]] and the accompanying toy factory. Collectively, their only appearance is in Episode 103: "The Mole, the Mob, and the Meatball", but two of its members - Chuckles and Don Ted E. Bear himself - make appearances in later episodes.

* AmbiguouslyBi: In "The Penal Zone," when you find a wedding ring, you can use it on Max and he'll imagine proposing to him. Sam decides not to do it, but you can also use it on an obviously male gorilla guard and he'll actually get through most of the proposal before being shot down.

** Overall, further muddying matters is the fact that Max will often have to be reminded (typically by Sam) about his aversion to girls.

* AllThereInTheManual: ''Sam & Max Secret Origins: Skun'kape'' details his childhood and career prior to the third Season, revealing his motivations and real name (Arthur J. Thompson).

* FreudianExcuse: His childhood, as shown in ''Sam & Max Secret Origins: Skun'kape'', really kind of sucked.
* FromNobodyToNightmare: He was originally just an oft-bullied child with an interest in comic books, but after getting fired from his job at a factory, [[BodyHorror got a wire from one of the machines stuck in his head]], which made him psychic and allowed him to take over his home planet with relative ease.

* AdamSmithHatesYourGuts: Every time Sam and Max try to buy a gadget from him, he comes up with some outrageous price, and his prices get higher each episode. By the end, he [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] how Sam and Max still come to him.

* AscendedExtra: Although his actual appearance was offscreen, Bosco's Inconvenience appears in ''Sam and Max Hit the Road'', 13 years before Telltale made him a major character. Sam & Max...aren't ''quite'' as friendly to him in that version.

** In the first season, he wants to build an anti-missile defense system because he believes the US government has a missile trained on him. When Sam & Max make it into the War Room, they learn that's actually the case.

* BunnyEarsLawyer: He may be a paranoid wacko who sells you "inventions" of dubious quality for exorbitant sums of money, but the gadgets he sells you ''always'' do exactly what you need them to.

* ConspiracyTheorist: Played for laughs in that even though most of his theories end up being right, he's still portrayed as a [[TooDumbToLive complete idiot]] who is terrible with money, hides behind [[ClarkKenting unconvincing]] disguises (while standing inside his own store named after himself), and doesn't seem to realize that all of his conspiracies could be solved in a day if he'd just [[AdamSmithHatesYourGuts give Sam and Max the items already.]] Though in the case of the last point he is GenreSavvy enough to quickly realize that he can literally make up any insane price for junk he has lying around behind his counter and Sam will still end up finding a way to pay the amount.

* DidntThinkThisThrough: After ''Culture Shock'', he decides to rework the shop's security system to stop people from being able to plant items in the store... removing the ability for it to stop actual shoplifters in the process.

* IAmWho: [[spoiler:Although he doesn't know it, Sam & Max find out in season 2 that he's actually President John F. Kennedy's bastard son, a result of his mother's brief fling with him and her desire to have a child without a boyfriend.]]

* SanitySlippage: His mental state is ''constantly'' degrading during Season 2, leading to his being abducted by T.H.E.M. [[spoiler: This slippage reaches its climax when he and Momma Bosco's ghost meet in the present and he realizes that every bit of his paranoia is because his mother was looking for his temporally displaced self for his whole life; every real and imagined threat was because of people she hired trying to track him down. After that moment of lucidity, he snaps again and develops a twitch in his eye.]]

* TemporalParadox: [[spoiler:In episode 204, when he ends up aboard the time-traveling spaceship of T.H.E.M, he inadvertently travels back to his shop when his mother owned it in 1962, where his panic at seeing her causes him to damage some things. She declared a vendetta against this "mysterious vandal" that resulted in her inadvertently harassing him throughout his life. Also overlaps with GrandfatherParadox, as he inadvertently contaminated his mother's UterineReplicator with cow's milk and caused himself to be turned into a half-human, half-cow. A condition that Sam & Max temporarily exaggerate.]]

* BalloonBelly: [[spoiler: After spending most of Season 3 out of action due to being still on her honeymoon, Sybil makes her triumphant return in the final episode to help Sam... Thing is she is also HEAVILY pregnant. She is decidedly insecure about her protruding gut, which becomes a problem when Sam offends her by accident.]]

* BunnyEarsLawyer: Subverted. She's eccentric and goes into whatever random job that catches her interest, but she's not guaranteed to be competent at the job she gets. Her first appearance has her be tricked into misdiagnosing Sam with Artificial Personality Disorder, and later she ends up buying the United States of America as Queen of Canada, which apparently doesn't go over well with the residents.

* [[NiceGuy Nice Girl]]: If only by comparison. She's one of the few characters that shows Sam and Max even common courtesy instead of brushing them off; for example, she greets them by name instead of "Oh, it's ''you'' two".

* PrimaDonnaDirector: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]], surprisingly. The Director is cranky and short-tempered, but mostly because of the extreme stress of running an entire TV studio with only a skeleton crew, and her actors getting sucked into Myra's talkshow and not returning in days. She's actually pretty patient with Sam and Max, even when they're actively trying to annoy her, and will do as many takes as are needed without blowing her top.

* BarefootCartoonAnimal: He [[DoesNotLikeShoes wears no shoes at all]]. This gets used for a couple of jokes in "They Stole Max's Brain!", when Sammun-mak [[MoodSwinger bans, then admires aglets, the little plastic things at the end of shoelaces]].

* DoesNotLikeShoes: He's barefooted.

* AcquiredPoisonImmunity: In "The City That Dares Not Sleep", he mentions that he's developed an immunity to chocolate (one of the substances that is ''poisonous'' to dogs) due to consuming so many fudege ice cream bars.

* TheNicknamer: Lou the Bowling Ball, Steamy the Boiler, [[Franchise/DonkeyKong Donkey Wrong]] for Skun-ka'pe, and so forth.
* TheStraightMan: This becomes a plot point in one episode where a villain [[spoiler:Charlie Ho-tep]] specifically wants a straight man to help out with his plan, and Sam is the perfect kind of [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall easy-to-manipulate character who just does what he's told]].
* SweetTooth: He's constantly shown with popsicles or ice cream, and is literally unable to resist Fudgie Freeze ice cream bars. This becomes a puzzle in "Beyond the Alley of the Dolls" where you have to make Sam ''not'' eat a Fudgie Freeze and instead give it to one of the Samulacra.

* HundredPercentAdorationRating: Due to [[spoiler:brainwashing]], although [[spoiler: the mole people and Max were immune.]]

** "It'll work, trust me!" regarding his crummy invention of the week.

* AffablyEvil: He's geniunely friendly and cheerful, even when Sam's being rude to him. He keeps it up even when he's about to conquer the world.

* CampGay: Well, gay as in ''happy'', at the very least. But between the high-pitched voice, the enthusiasm for unicorns (he's the only one who seems willing to rub Sam's unicorn), and rainbows, the only thing close to ambiguous about this is that [[spoiler:he isn't human]].

The founder of Prismatology, a self-help guide/cult, Hugh Bliss is a friendly but very creepy albino guru. Max likes him, Sam doesn't. Eventually revealed to be a sentient collection of bacteria that live off of happy thoughts that want to make the entire Earth happy whether they want to or not. Later shows up in season 2.

* LargeHam: Especially Bluster Blaster.

* OffscreenTeleportation: They hop locations from time to time, but we are never shown how, as they are otherwise incapable of moving on their own.

* IncrediblyLameFun: [[spoiler: Demon Peepers would rather count change and do research than engage in anything Max would do when he replaces him as Sam's partner. Sam considers it [[FauxHorrific unimaginable torture.]]

* TheComicallySerious: He almost never drops his deadpan attitude, even in the face of Sam and Max's regular shenanigans.