known as The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police Format: Animated cartoon Production company: Nelvana Limited Producer: Jocelyn Hamilton Director: Steve Whitehouse Executive producers: Patrick Loubert, Michael Hirsh, Clive A. Smith, Robert Ross, Gwenn Saunders Eckel Voices: Harvey Atkin (Sam), Robert Tinkler (Max), Tracey Moore (The Geek) Running time: 10-12 minutes per episode Number of episodes: 24 Original channel: Fox Kids (USA), YTV (Canada) Original run: October 4, 1997 – April 25, 1998
Blurb
The adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police!!! is an edgy and often irreverent, impudent, insolent, impious and silly series about a pair of likeable law enforcement types who don’t take crap (oops! we mean guff) from anybody. It’s about the timeless struggle between good, evil and snacktime; the weekly mishaps of a six-foot dog – Sam – and a three-foot rabbity-thing (though he prefers the term lagomorph) – Max – who have a mirthful time trying to resolve only the weirdest cases of the day. Really.
Characters
Sam
A six-foot dog who wears a hat and gray baggy suit, Sam’s excitable, enthusiastic, and, like any dog, loves going for a ride in the car. Sam is the motivating force of the Freelance Police and is the one most charged up about being a cop. It’s his slightly foggy sense of justice that gets things going. The thing that keeps Sam from taking his job too seriously is having Max around.
Max
A hyperkinetic 3-foot rabbity thing, Max’s world exists only to provide him with input for his pinball-like stream of consciousness. He’s uninhibites and unhinged. Max’s unflappable spirit makes him game for just about anything.
The Geek
We find the teenage brainiac known as “The Geek” in Sam & Max’s Sub-Basement of Solitude. She is an accomplished engineer, computer dynamo, and Sam & Max’s main information source concerning scientific and technical issues. They will utilize her inventions as long as they’re convenient or entertaining, but they’ll be readily tossed out as soon as their novelty wears off. For Sam & Max, technology is a mild diversion. To keep them interested, it had better be fun!
The Commissioner
The Commissioner is Sam & Max’s only real contact with city government. Sam & Max have never laid eyes on this guy, but they kind of enjoy the mysterious quality of his phone calls, which are brief and cryptic.
Sam & Max show up at the school’s Career Day and take them to space, where they meet an alien who is plotting to destroy Earth. Can they stop him and look good for the kids?
Lorne, The Friend for Life, accidentally lets ‘The Mad Thespian’ get away. So, Lorne takes him hostage to try and force Sam & Max to hang out with him at his twisted fun house.
Max obtains a time traveling watch which he and Sam use to alter their own history (back when they were children), causing Sam to have never become a member of the Freelance Police.
Sam & Max spend Christmas with Sam’s grandma at her maximum prison on Blood Island. But the criminals attempt a jailbreak and the Freelance Police must round them up.
After their TV goes out, they try to watch a show on The Geek’s antique TV and bring a Howdy Doody-like character to life. But while they are gone, Dangly Deever’s evil twin attempts to take over the city.
After stopping a meteor from hitting Earth with the Mega Max 3000 robot; it sits and rusts away. So, they send it to Japan, where it battles a giant baby.
Sam & Max try to get Kent Standit, who has banned the Freelance Police’s favorite snack ‘Glazed McGuffins’, to change his mind, by forcing him to at least try it out.
Sam & Max help babysit the child who changes things with his mind, who helps the Freelance Police with stopping crime and learn how to have fun (Sam & Max style).
Sam & Max attempt to foil a blimp hijacking aimed to crash into The Statue of Liberty, only to find the demented terrorist is Lorne, The Friend for Life.
Aliens open a new restaurant, “The Frying Saucer”, that serves people (no really, it’s people!). Sam & Max must stop the aliens before the US government launch a nuclear holocaust to try and stop the aliens.
Mack Salmon and most of the villains from the season try to kill Sam & Max by strapping them to a bomb and dropping them into a volcano. Can they get free and subdue the bad guys, all while reliving flashbacks from their early life?
Short episode featuring Sam & Max showing how to make a Max paper bag puppet. The script and images are from the comics and have been reprinted several times since its original publication.
With credit to the Sam & Max Wiki and Wikipedia for the episode listings. Clicking an episode title from the table will take you to the respective page on the Sam & Max Wiki.
Screengrabs
DVD
Shout! Factory, a company specialising in producing DVDs, released the complete Freelance Police 3-disc region-free set on March 11, 2008.
The case features original art by Steve Purcell, and bonus content on the discs includes three ‘educational’ shorts, an interview with Purcell and the Telltale team, concept art, a PDF of the series bible, Our Bewildering Universe flash movie, a demo of Ice Station Santa and a sticker of the logo.
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I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph.
