Trivia / Day of the Tentacle

• Acting for Two: Hoagie is voiced by Denny Delk, who also voices George Washington. Delk also voices Purple Tentacle (and Green Tentacle, Doctor Tentacle, etc.) and Hoagie speaks noticeably less than Bernard and Laverne during the climax.
• Creator Backlash: For a given definition of creator, as this was one of the first post-Gilbert SCUMM game , but he aided with some initial planning and writing and is a sequel to his Maniac Mansion:
  Ron Gilbert: I never liked the art in DotT. Technically and artistically it was fantastic, but I never liked the wacky Chuck Jones style. But that was Dave and Tim's game, not mine. They can do what they want and I completely supported that.
• Creator's Favorite: Bernard was one of the Maniac Mansion staff's favorite characters (the other being Razor), which played a role in him getting selected as a protagonist for this game.
• Dummied Out: Some dummied out content can be found on Lost Media Wiki and The Cutting Room Floor wiki. In particular, there are several voice lines that never play. About half of them are fairly generic "I can't do that" lines that either can't come up with a certain kid, or else every time they can come up there's a different line for that specific interaction.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: As popular as the game was and still is, for the longest time it was never re-released. LucasArts did still seem to care about it as they replaced the Sam & Max cameos in their Monkey Island remakes with Purple Tentacle cameos (due to copyright issues), but once the entire company was no more thanks to the Disney buyout, the chances of this game popping up again were even more in doubt. One could expect to spend a fortune on eBay or get ready to do some piracy of their own. It was eventually remastered by Tim Schafer and Double Fine in early 2016 and given a wide release on multiple contemporary platforms as well as once again making it available legally on digital PC storefronts.
• Multi-Disc Work: The floppy version comes on six or seven disks.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends: Back in the early 2000s, rumors were circulating on the Web about a sequel called Maniac Mansion 3: Rise of the Tentacle(s) (an obvious reference to Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) that is being developed by Pendulo Studios. In fact, such a project was never in the works, and the legend originated from an April Fools joke published at the end of March 2003 by the French gaming website Cafzone (and subsequently reiterated in the gaming magazine Joystiq).
• Referenced by...:
  • Homestar Runner: Bubs' costume for the 2021 Halloween game Halloween Hide & Seek is Hoagie. "I keep my hands in my pockets and you can see my buttcrack! It's funny!"
  • Nerf NOW!!: Tentajo apparently played the Purple Tentacle in the remaster. To be fair, there aren't many sentient tentacles working in the gaming industry, outside Japan.
• What Could Have Been:
  • In the original drafts, the three playing characters would be selected from six different ones, as in the original Maniac Mansion. Apart from Bernard, Hoagie and Laverne, Razor would have returned and there were two new original characters: Chester the poet and Moonglow the hippie. This idea was abandoned as it was judged too complicated, but elements of Chester's design were reused for Ned and Jed Edison.
  • It was planned for the player to be able to play as any of the three protagonists earlier than in the final game. This was changed since playtesters complained about having so many options without knowing what to do.
  • The opening cutscene was intended to be 7 minutes long with it including the three protagonists entering the Edison's mansion, exploring it, and both tentacles being freed from their efforts.
  • The sequence with Laverne trying to vacuum out a hamster was more complex on the drawing board, involving a "swordfighting" sequence, but cut down because animator Peter Chan was suffering from burnout.
  • The monitor in Edna's security room was going to have a "FONY" logo at the bottom as seen in concept art, but it had to be removed for legal reasons.
• Write Who You Know: According Edge magazine's Master of Unreality: The life and times of Tim Schafer, from metal to LucasArts and Double Fine-and back to metal..., Hoagie and Laverne were modeled after a Megadeth roadie named Tony that Schafer met and Dave Grossman's Mexican ex-girlfriend, respectively.

---