I’m interested with your first interaction with the two lovable freelance policemen! Was it the Games, the Cartoons, the Comics, or maybe even the Fandom? Mine was playing the first episode of the TTG on an Xbox 360 Demo, and then a year later, I bought the whole TTG Series bundle when it was for sale around the time the Steam Summer Sale happened!
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Was that when they first came out on Xbox @BeagleBagel, or did you discover them some time after?
Although I loved the LucasArts adventures growing up, for whatever reason I was never exposed to Hit the Road. My first proper experience came from Telltale when they released Culture Shock. I think I played the demo (if there even was a PC demo?!) and then paid for the whole season. The monthly episodic releases were exciting – something to look forward to each month and read theories online. From here I then played Hit the Road, watched the animated series, read the comics, and the rest is history.
It was definitely some time after, I know it was probably around 2017, waaay long after everything finished. I wish I could’ve been there for the monthly releases of the game but I was still far too young to barely even grasp the concept of what a “point and click” game was, all I had at that time was a hand-me down PS2 from my dad.
On the bright side, you had loads of Sam & Max games to enjoy all at once! That wait between season two (2007) and season three (2010) seemed like an eternity at the time. Little did we know what the wait would be for the fourth… 
Hmm… my first experience was probably with the first season on Gametap all the way back in it’s heyday. Ever since then I’ve been a gigantic fan, pretty much the only thing from my childhood that I feel a large attachment to unlike anything else.
I’ve consumed all Sam & Max content (including the comics and the animated series) except uh… and don’t kill me, Hit the Road. Weirdly enough I’ve tried to play it in the past but stopped either due to it not running on my old PC for some reason, or a vague hope that Double Fine would be announcing a remaster right around the corner (since that happened when I originally played Grim Fandango).
This video right here! Youtube was recommending this video for literal months and I blew it off because the rabbit looked weird, lol. little did I know I’d worship the ground him and his canine best friend walked on
@Coaster A Hit the Road remaster would be great and I almost thought it was coming from Double Fine, but nothing ever came from it. Seems like it’d perform well! Perhaps since Tim Schafer didn’t work on it he doesn’t feel the same attachment to it like Grim or DotT.
@Yuley4604 That’s pretty funny that you became a fan from a random YouTube video! I assume you got into the animated series first then?
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yep! I love it and have it downloaded
My first experience was pretty uneventful, was looking on Steam for games during one of the big sales they have running all the time, saw that Hit the Road was $2, and decided why not check it out? That led to me watching the animated series, reading the comics, and then getting the whole Telltale set during another sale and it became one of my favorite pieces of media ever. Honestly I’m not sure why I didn’t get into it before then because I was aware of it and had a passing interest, but I guess I just was too lazy or something.
I have known about Sam and Max for quite sometime…or at least their existance. I never got into the series until I believe it was after St. Patrick’s day this year. Being in quarentine, you get bored. And since I kinda grew out most of the stuff I liked already, I decided to give them a chance. I watched a playthrough of Sam and Max Save the world: Episode 1. Before I knew it, I was sucked into it and actually got excited to see who the culprit was or whatever Sam and/or Max have to say. After that, They grew on me fast and I absolutely regret for even thinking of turning away from this series. There’s just this air about em…as weird as it may seem. They also use a lot of words I have NEVER heard before but I learn something new everyday. 
I first saw Sam & Max Hit the Road while visiting my cousin (1994), I remember really liking the characters and wacky theme, so much that for my next birthday I went to the computer store and bought the game, still have the original CIB! 
My first S&M game was Abe Lincoln Must Die! It was so fun. I remember it was free for download for a limited time. I had little to no contact with point ‘n’ click games before that and it opened a door for many others I played after.
That’s so good to hear that it got you into point and click games. I wonder how many other people came via the free episode. What other point and clicks have you enjoyed since?
I first discovered them when I bought the Poker Night games. I liked their characters so much that I decided to play the Telltale series that I have come to love!
~1996 or so, I’m about 9 y.o… Don’t know a word in English (studied French at school). Father brings a personal computer from somewhere - an absolutely outstanding thing.
Pretty soon I have discovered, that this mysterious box with blue screen and flashing lights on the box is actually a cave of wonders.
Someone of our family friends brings an old-fashioned 3.5" disk with a whole collection of DOS-games. Being lead and fueled by curiosity and reluctance of doing my homework alone, I blindly poke the keys and try to make this devil thing work.
I’m eager to try them. I mean, just think of it - a game ON A SCREEN! First “victims” were platform arcades just because you don’t actually have to understand what’s happening in the story, just jump and kill, right? That guy has to save his princess!
Strategies were second - boooooring. Especially if you play, like, in Klingonian or so. By that time I, thanks to the pop-culture, knew some English words, but apparently not enough to be as successful with my nation/country as, say, Stalin was.
Quests were pretty much a loot chest to me, or, more specifically, a sweet carrot before my nose - desired and unreachable. On the magic disk there were such titans as The Loom, The Secret of Monkey Island, The Legend of Kyrandia and so on. I could percept them as just simply GREAT (and I’m still pretty sure about that), but how on Earth are you supposed to play if you don’t even know, what “petals”, that you have just put in your pocket, are and if they are a thing at all!
Not expecting anything different I tried Sam and Max. Aaaaaaaaaaand… English or no English I laughed so hard on the video. I was enchanted by music, graphics, humour (which of course was still Klingonian for me, but even the 4.63% that I could understand made me laugh), gameplay. I even managed to progress in the game! I regretted only one thing - that I cannot get the rest 95.37% of it.
Now, I’m getting older and forgetting about my secret cave of wonders. It’s ~2008, and the game remained in the memories as just a feeling. My friend at a time comes to my place and tells me a long boring story about her finding a new boyfriend or so and complaining about him. And then she says: “Btw, he gave me a stupid CD with some kind of a quest, I don’t like quests, you know. I’m not a gaming person at all, you know. But of I remember it right you once liked these guys” - and gives me a TTG edition, a complete Season 1.
I think, I screamed. It was Russian, so I could FINALLY ACTUALLY FREAKING UNDERSTAND WHAT’S GOING ON!
Have you ever got the feeling when you finished reading/watching/playing something amazing and you kinda want amnesia so you can read/watch/play again? Well, that was the feeling for me when I finished Season 1.
I got back to Sam and Max Hit The Road several years later - when I had enough of waiting for a Russian edition for Season 2 (which, btw, never happened anyway) and just went ahead and improved my English. It turned out to be even better than I expected.
Still my favorite game. All of the editions, parts, seasons. I don’t divide them, I just love them.
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Around 2008, I was waiting for Strong Bad’s Cool Game For Attractive People to come out on Telltale Games (I’m also a huge Homestar Runner fan), so I decided to play some demos of their other titles. I started playing the Sam & Max demos and episode 4 and I got HOOKED! Then I bought all the games, did some research and got hooked on the comics, Hit the Road and the Animated series and, well, here we are today
sam & max: hit the road was my introduction back in the 90s. i played it roughly a million times as a kid because they cracked me up (and still do). i was so excited when the cartoon came out, had to sit and watch every episode when they aired, and eventually buy the DVDs when they came out.
eventually i bought the comics, and have bought all the telltale games. i haven’t played/beaten all of them, but i plan on rectifying that on stream soon!
basically, ive been a fan since the 90’s, and don’t see that ending.
I first discovered them when I watched my partner playing Poker nights. He got inspired to go back and play the games since he loved them as a kid, and thankfully, I stuck around and joined him playing the games. Thank goodness I did, because now I’m a huge fan! I’m sad I didn’t get to experience the series when I was younger since I know I would’ve LOVED it so much but better late than never!
i saw a clip of the cartoon on twitter and looked it up on youtube and was instantly hooked LOL after that i bought the hit the road game and then the ttg!
heh. cracks knuckles so when I was a kid I decided that I really really liked cartoons and wanted to expand my knowledge on them! what I ended up doing was looking up different cartoon scenes that weren’t on my tv cause of how old they were or cause how it was in a different country. (some examples including kids next door, invader zim, and the original ppg) which all really helped out in my artistic upbringing! so then one day I heard of this fairly underrated cartoon, namely Sam & Max, and the art direction really struck a chord with me so I gave it a watch. I was a huge fan of it’s satirical, witty, and fast paced humor and the comics didn’t disappoint either (though at first I wasn’t actually anticipating how mature it’d be, seeing I had no idea it was intended to be something for adults. I didn’t really mind though, I was just glad to see that it’s nature was still there!) Sam and max was a huge inspiration to me and helped me with how I write and draw. The comics are still my favorite media- perfectly balancing its dark elements along with its more cartoonish weird nature. (oh and fun fact: the first comic I read actually took place in the Philippines, my home country! Up til then I had barely seen any mentions of my Home country in any Mainstream American media, so you can imagine the fucking whiplash I from seeing it there in action)
But anyways Yeah! Sorry for the Rant btw, Sam & Max is just a Very special piece of media to me and im glad to get any opportunity I can to Ramble about it