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An absolutely insane and funny kids cartoon that deserves to be rediscovered.

When I was running a comic book store in the 1990s, I was only marginally aware of a small independent title called “Sam & Max” (a small detail which could probably explain why I wasn’t running a comic book store after the 1990s). Being fairly completely uninterested in video games, I was also unaware that the comic had been adapted to a cult favorite game; and having stopped watching Saturday morning cartoons in the earlier part of the decade, it is also fair to say that I was also not aware of the short-lived cartoon series that aired on FoxKids based on the comic and game. Thanks to Shout Factory, though, that series – all 24 episodes of it – are now on DVD in a 3-disc set entitled Sam & Max: Freelance Police.

Now while this is not as dark as the original book is reputed to be (remember, I never read it), the show is, in and of itself, pretty damned funny. Sam is an anthropomorphic dog wearing a 1940s noir-style Bogart detective outfit. Max is…well, Max is some sort of razor-toothed “hyperkinetic rabbitty thing” (or as he prefers, “lagomorph”). And while Max is completely insane, offering non sequiturs at a mile a minute, Sam isn’t as up there as he lets on either. The duo are private investigators (or freelance police as they like to call themselves), ready, willing and sometimes able to delve into any case, no matter if it takes place on the moon or in the past. Throughout the episodes, they tackle an assorted range of oddball menaces during their cases. In the first, they are hired by their friend the Geek (a little girl who is a computer whiz) to investigate her refrigerator, which has apparently become a portal to another dimension, from which a monstrous thing keeps kidnapping refrigerator repair men.

The humor is not what you would expect from a 1990s morning television show, which by that point had become quite generic in most regards with only a few exceptions. The violence in the show is unlike anything I remember from that time period. There’s literally a gag every second the screen is lit, and the only other show from that period that carried the same sort of anything-goes humor was The Tick. Take for instance, when the pair, armed with flame-throwers, confront the shapechanging monstrosity from the first episode. Using its abilities, it morphs into a basket full of wide-eyed cute widdle kitty-cats. Sam and Max are taken aback at first. “Gee,” says Sam “I don’t know anyone who could firebomb kittens.” Max, being the sociopath he (it?) is, replies “Here, let me!”

The third disc in the set is devoted to a bunch of fairly neat special features. These include three shorts that originally aired on Fox starring the pair, a short conversation with their creator Steve Purcell, a series bible (written by Purcell) and a look at Telltale Games, the current video game home of the franchise. There’s even a new short directed by Purcell, and as an added bonus, a sticker badge.

Sam & Max: Freelance Police is exactly the type of show that DVD was made for; those of us who missed it the first time around get to rediscover it and find out that it was sheer genius in its insanity. It really is a great show, with so many sight and dialogue gags, and pretty decent animation for the time period as well, it really does deserve a whole new audience.

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