The Monkey Island SCUMM Bar: Latest News

Look, nobody in their right mind would claim the early aughts were particularly great in general, but for the Monkey Island fandom, those were the salad days. Young and innocent, the future looked bright, and… well, it came to a booming halt as we all know.

But enough doom and gloom! Let’s take a dive into nostalgia and see what the world looked like then.

First, “The Revelation.” Up until the end of Return to Monkey Island, many refused to believe the ending of Monkey Island 2 was exactly what it presented itself as. Which, hey, whatever, but as early as 2002, #monkey-island member, Ralgath, summed up what it all – ending and secret – “meant”:

It has aged remarkably well and has been restored with higher-quality images.

Let’s toss in another article for good measure. In 2005, Gabez attended a Ron Gilbert meetup, which resulted in a feature called “Gilbofest ’05.” An excerpt:

But before I could get my bearings Rusalka – known to many of you as Yufster – started shouting across the pub at me. “Do you know where I got THIS?”, she screamed, waving a small teddy bear around. I said I didn’t know. “Do you KNOW!?” she repeated. I said I didn’t know again. I was already getting a headache and was beginning to regret coming. “I didn’t get it in IRELAND” she says, nodding her head from side to side like a jack in the box. “I got it free with my SOCKS. Do you wear SOCKS?” I muttered something about having bad feet and sat down in the corner of the room with my back to the window. I figured that if there was a fire then I could just smash my way to safety leaving the others to enjoy Richard Neville’s fate. Maybe they’d return to haunt the toilets.

Moving right along…

We’ve resurrected the giant Mrs. Brinestoop link section for those who really want to party like it’s 2002. More than two hundred links – all going straight to archive.org, so who knows how many will work. Read all the appropriate disclaimers in the new link section for more on that. Worst comes to worst, we at least got an archive of a bunch of weird site names.

Finally, thescummbar.com lives again! Longtime visitors may remember that a 2002 snafu led to us losing our domain name to a squatter. That is why you’re reading this on scummbar.com. Twenty-four years later, and we finally got it back – turns out the squatter’s outrageous asking price didn’t get any takers. By my calculations, they would have had to pay around $360 through the years, so I hope it was worth it. What a butt.

Speaking of retro: Back in the day, we used to host a handful of Monkey Island sites, which, in retrospect, seems a bit redundant. We were hosted by Mojo, so why couldn’t they just have provided the service? Anyway! We did host sites, and one of them was The Brimstone Beach Club, which had a very short lifespan. During that time, though, they did produce one important feature that has since been lost to time. Until now…

That’s right, a well-attended Bill Tiller chat! A Bill Tiller who was not afraid to air his grievances spicy opinions. We’ve published it over on Mojo – we’re all about cross-brand synergy – so go take a look.

In other news, you can now post comments on our news items. I kid you not. Nobody posts comments in general anymore, but hey… if you want to air your grievances spicy opinions, go right ahead. (Make sure to check your Spam folder for the comment verification email.)

As we’re limping toward our thirtieth anniversary, we decided to resurrect an old classic: The Summer of Retro! A season of rediscovering old content hidden deep in our backups, as well as doling out new old stuff. You get the point. So, what better way to kick it off than a look back at the original Summer of Retro?

Things were a bit different in 2004, of course, when August would see thirty-four (34) news items, though, granted, the bar for what we posted was quite a bit lower. Still, thirty-four. Since then, we’ve reduced the staff from seven to one – the world of legacy media is a rough one – and now rely on freelancers. (I don’t know why I keep saying “we.” Old habits and all that.)

On to some real retro content – witness how we posted news twenty-plus years ago, and read some real old interviews.

The Summer of Retro™ 2004 News Posts

• The Summer of Retro™
• Retro Mania Pirates of the Caribbean, part II
• CMI, PC Zone, Retro
• They highly recommend it
• Quick & Easy Week starts, fans cheer (aka Summer of Utility)
• Summer of Concept Art
• Summer of Utility draws to a close

The Summer of Retro™ Interviews Jason Lazily Didn’t Migrate to Mojo

• The Secret of Creating Monkey Island (LucasFilm Adventurer Vol. 1, Number 1, Fall 1990.)
• Ron Gilbert Interview (Amiga Mania, 1992)
• Tim Schafer Interview (Ultimate PC, August 1998)
• From Monkey Island to Cavedog - An Interview With Ron Gilbert (Pelit-lehti, December 16th, 1998)
• An Interview With Ron Gilbert (PC Gamer UK, January 1999)

More content to come – though thirty-four updates would be a stretch.

He might have been best known for his numerous Star Wars roles – not to mention Powerpuff Girls and Kim Possible – but Tom Kane also made a memorable Monkey Island appearances as Pegnose Pete, Captain Rottingham, and the Flying Welshman.

Kane retired after a stroke in 2021; he was 64 at the time of his passing.

Give yourself a pat on the back if you get that reference – it means that you’re both old and alive. Ostensibly. Anyway, where was I… Oh, yeah, AIs!

We’ve been seeing a weird uptick in walkthrough visits lately, and, after glancing at the AIs’ feeble attempts to provide game hints, we think we’ve figured out why. Turns out stuff we wrote in 1996 is beyond the bots’ grasp, and… Well, I just wrote an article about the thing, because why the hell not?

AIs, man… weird little things. And, for those in search of walkthroughs:

• The Secret of Monkey Island
• Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge
• The Curse of Monkey Island
• Escape from Monkey Island
• Tales of Monkey Island
• Return to Monkey Island

I really put my heart into the last one.

We just added another The Secret of Monkey Island version to our database. The Mac port is the first time we use a video for that section because, well, look for yourself…

Mac

A bit of a bizarro version that features the CD-ROM interface and lacks “dynamic” lighting. The music is available in three (janky) qualities. Yet, the graphics are anti-aliased, which makes them somewhat distinct from the other versions.
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The CD-ROM interface mixed with weird music and anti-aliased graphics? I mean, why not?

Readers of the latest issue of our newsletter, The Adventurer, will already know we have a new nugget of SoMI trivia, too.

Tim’s Meathook Art

The “Visit Fabulous Hook Isle” was created by Tim Schafer himself, who expected it’d be replaced in the final game: I drew that sign as temp art, assuming a real artist would replace it. I think they left it in to punish me. Look, it’s not easy to draw a cursive F with a mouse in Enhanced Deluxe Paint II. I think Steve Purcell added the shading on “restrooms” and “souvenirs.” And then was like, “That’s it. I can’t look at this anymore. It’s done!”
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Thirty-five-plus years later, and you’d think we had reached the bottom of all this, but apparently not.

The Bluesky post from one “happy-ferret ” kind of says it all: “Early progress shots of my SCUMM engine port to PlayStation 1, graphical glitches and all.”

That’s definitely one way to stay busy!

I mean, there’s not much more to it than that – if you want to relive the Special Edition commentary tracks, here’s your chance, either on the ’tube…

… or through our commentary browser. Fun will be had!

Ah yes, we’ve published two new ICYMI articles over on Mojo. If you’re not familiar with these – what’s the matter with you?! – they run through trivia and oddities of various games. This time: The Curse of Monkey Island and Escape from Monkey Island:

Previously:

• The Secret of Monkey Island
• Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge
• Return to Monkey Island

You may or may not remember our LeChuck’s Revenge Line Art section, which is just what it sounds like: Line art from the game’s hint book. And why stop there? For those looking for The Secret of Monkey Island’s equivalents, here ya go:

Hell, I’ll even save you a click if you want to peruse the Monkey Island 2 content.