When the Creator of a Beloved Game Sees Your Fan Art

Life is funny. If you had told 8 year old me that someday she would get to have a personal email exchange with one of the co-creators of Toejam & Earl and ask him questions about the game, she would have been excited at the idea, and hopeful probably, but wouldn’t have thought it was possible.

Well 8 year old me, it happened, it was awesome, he’s super nice, he likes your art, AND you got one of your burning life-long questions answered: Are they saying, “Whoa, shit!” when they’re about to fall off the cliff?!

Sadly, no.

But onward to the story!

 

Some photos from a recent play through of Toejam & Earl for the Sega.

In January of this year (fabulous 2014) I completed a Toejam & Earl paper art piece. I was proud of it and thrilled to have made it. Toejam & Earl is a childhood and life-long favorite game of mine and my sister’s. If two video games defined my early years, they would be Mario 3 and Toejam & Earl. There were other games of course but those two were played the most, and they continue to be played by my sister and me even to this day. The first time we beat Toejam & Earl I was about 18 years old; we had been whole hog dedicated to that title for a solid 10 years!

The week before Thanksgiving I had a day like any other day. That is until I received an email alerting me to the presence of a new comment on my Toejam & Earl paper art photos. I checked it out and discovered that someone claiming to be one of the co-creators of Toejam & Earl had found my art and really liked it, and posted it on their official Facebook page. He invited me to check out the page and to e-mail him if I liked.

Now, I like to think I’m optimistic but I also don’t like to be fooled, and the internet is chock full of liars. So, I proceeded with caution. First I looked for the Facebook page, which I found, and sure enough there was my art! I scrolled for a bit and discovered that it was totally legit, and then I may have cried a little? But then I got it together and sent him (Greg Johnson) an email expressing my thanks for the comment and his compliment, as well as my unending love of the game series.

What followed was a very pleasant e-mail exchange where I was able to tell him everything I loved about Toejam & Earl and I got to ask any questions that had been on my mind for the last 20 years. He told me about the most recent game he’s made, Doki Doki Universe, and even gave me a download code so I could play it on my PS3. On top of that he offered to send me some signed Toejam & Earl art as a token of appreciation. Talk about a crazy nice guy!

(Note: I plan on writing a little about my experience with Doki Doki Universe once I've had a chance to dive into it!)

He had such wonderful and encouraging things to say about my paper art, and it was a wacky ass dream come true to get to talk to one of the people responsible for SO much happiness and gaming in my life.

A nice shout out to my sister from an email exchange from Greg.

Greg is currently working toward a new Toejam & Earl title and personally I could not be more excited. His Facebook page is promoting interest in the quirky series and he’s also hosting a lot of game-based quizzes with signed art up for prizes! He wants to hear from people on what they love and hate (who could hate any of it?) about the games, and what they hope to see in a new release. Any Toejam & Earl fans owe it to themselves to get in on the fun and have their voices heard!

So that’s my story. It was an honor to hear from him and a total thrill to have my art seen by one of THE creators of the game. He was also so kind and genuine, which is a rarity in my experience. I’m thankful that the internet exists and allowed this crazy thing to happen!

-MJ

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Sculpt Video - Toejam & Earl!

Time to get down and funky with the hipest aliens in the solar system!







-MJ

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Toejam & Earl Paper Sculpt

A paper tribute to one of my favorite childhood games! Watch the making of video here!

-MJ

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Hop in that elevator and be sure to put on a belt!

If the title of this blog makes any sense to you, then that would be incredibly awesome! It is in reference to one of my (and my sister's!) favorite games: Toejam & Earl! It was released in 1991 for the Sega, and I'm pretty sure the only reason our mom picked it up was because it was in the sale bin. Luckily for us, it ended up being an amazingly fun game which we still enjoy to this day.

Growing up, we really only had two or three games for each system that we owned. Video game prices were so high that after the initial expense of the system we were simply tapped out. Of course, back then, the systems came with two controllers, a game and a handful of demos, so we really had everything that we needed.

A delightful image made by Andrew! Click to enlarge and feel free to download

as a background :] Toejam is my preferred character, I love him! I used to always

draw little three-legged aliens and I could never play as Earl, that was my

sister's job :)

For our Sega we had a handful of Sonic the Hedgehog titles, Mickey's World of Illusion, Mickey's Castle of Illusion and Toejam & Earl. I'm pretty sure the Sega was our most prolific system until I started buying my own games in my mid-teens. A long-lasting advantage of this is that I am able to play one game over and over again, and I am also capable of making a game last a very long time. Did your first systems have a lot of games? What was your favorite?

My sister and I spent many, many happy hours playing Toejam & Earl. The items used in the game were hidden inside a variety of different looking presents; the player didn't know what was inside until the item was opened, and there were multiples of each gift type spread around the game. Some things were good, like Super High Tops or Icarus Wings; some things were bad, like Total Bummers and Earthlings (the enemies of the game). It was fun and also unnerving to open an unknown gift. Possibly the worst thing to get was a Randomizer; this horrible item would change all of your previously discovered gifts into new items, so you had to learn what they were all over again.

Not all Earthlings were bad: some would identify presents, some would

sing and get rid of the bad Earthlings, and some left presents! [Source]

The premise for Toejam & Earl is that they're marauding aliens out taking a joyride in their spaceship. Toejam, the level-headed one, has the controls hijacked from him by Earl, the scatter-brained one, and the ship promptly crash lands onto Earth. The duo's singular goal becomes locating all the missing pieces of their spaceship so that they can return home to Funkotron, a positively delightful planet that can be visited in the sequel, Toejam & Earl in: Panic on Funkotron!

It took us well over ten years of playing this game, we were fortunate enough to continue to have access to functioning Sega systems, but at long last we finished it. It was an exhilarating experience, one that I know neither of us will ever forget!

The gameplay is unique in that you travel to different "levels" of Earth via an elevator. Random levels have ship pieces on them, so in theory the game has an incredibly wide variety of completion time.

It was never fun to have a ship piece be on a level full of sand. That stuff

is hard to slough through, plus the hula girls won't stop distracting them!

[Source]

Naturally, as you progress to higher and higher levels, the game becomes more difficult. The Earthling enemies change from fairly innocuous Devils and Hamsters to the much more belligerent Doctors and Mailboxes, to the completely impossible Ice Cream Truck and the Stampede of Nerds.

It's at this point that my sister and I would yield to the fact that today wouldn't be the day, and instead we'd locate a pair of Rocket Skates. Once this happened, we'd take the time to fall off the edge of the levels aaaall the way to back to the starting point at level one. From here, we would equip the Rocket Skates and fly to the lower left hand part of the map, skimming over the water. This venture would be rewarded by a small patch of land with a hole in it, and jumping down revealed the glory of level zero; commence free presents, hot tubs full of hula babes, and a lemonade stand that gives the player an extra life.

Hubba hubba. [Source]

Much to my delight, Nintendo put Toejam & Earl on the Wii's Virtual Console a while back! Yay! I believe it's between five and ten dollars. Now you too can experience the joy and terror of an Earth full of edges you can drop off, crazy old men smoking cigars while mowing their lawns, and gaggles of chickens hellbent on killing you with a rocket tomato launcher. If you visit be sure to bring a floatation device, the water is full of sharks!

Oh, and if you've played/you're going to play, be sure to let me know what you think!

-MJ

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