Chariots of the Dogs
From Sam & Max Wiki
| “Chariots of the Dogs” | |||||||
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| Telltale episode | |||||||
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| Episode # | 204 | ||||||
| Villain | T.H.E.M. | ||||||
| Musical number | La Canción De Los Mariachis | ||||||
| Release date | March 13, 2008 (GameTap), March 14, 2008 (Telltale Shop) | ||||||
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Chariots of the Dogs is the fourth and penultimate episode of season two of the Sam & Max video game series by Telltale Games.
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
Bosco has been abducted by a time travelling spaceship, and Sam and Max must bring him home.
[edit] In-Depth Synopsis
After Flint Paper informs Sam & Max that Bosco has gone missing, the three of them bust into his store to look for clues. They soon discover that the top secret bunker Bosco mentioned in previous episodes is in his bathroom. Retracing his steps, they find themselves abducted by an alien spacecraft that they assume to be manned by T.H.E.M., the mysterious cabal Bosco is so frightened of. On board they quickly find Bosco, who has become part cow. As they soon find out, the UFO harbors a time traveling elevator which Bosco has stumbled into and altered his own past.
Sam and Max work the elevator by using a scanner on people, which prints out a time card. Using Bosco's time card, they go to Bosco's in 1963, where Bosco's mother, Ms Bosco, informs them that a man, clearly Bosco, just came in and trashed her store. She also tells them that she hates men, and has built a baby maker that can make a baby by analyzing spit samples. Sam and Max inspect the baby maker, and notice that the father sample is contaminated with milk from the shelf above, probably knocked over by Bosco when he arrived in the past. Once Sam and Max are finished talking to her, Max mentions that he doesn't like girls, causing Ms Bosco to fall in love with him and decide not to make a baby after all.
The ship's AI takes Sam and Max back to the present, where Bosco is not only still a cow, but is fading in and out of existence. They realize that this is because their meddling in time caused Bosco to never have been born, which would mean that never went onto the time traveling spaceship to cause Bosco to never have been born. Bosco tells them to stop explaining everything and help him.
Sam uses the scanner on himself and Max, allowing them to go to their office a hundred years in the future, and Stinky's Diner in the early 80s respectively. Using the scanner on Ms Bosco allows them to go to the Oval Office a few months prior to Bosco's birth, which happens to be the time and place that Ms Bosco got a spit sample for her baby maker. The only person there is, inexplicably Agent Superball, despite the fact that he should not have been born yet. Using the scanner on Superball allowed them to go to their office a few months in the future, where Superball is guarding their closet door, and erases their memories if they ask about time travel.
As Bosco's father had been described as a "polite man in a dark suit", Sam and Max assume that the Superball in 1963 is Bosco's father, and attempt to get him to spit. He refuses, saying that he only spits when startled. They manage to get him to spit by showing him a letter from the current president to a woman he was having an affair with. They swap the sample with contaminated one in Bosco's and return to the present to find that Bosco has changed into someone very much like Superball. Realizing that Superball was not Bosco's father, they get a sample of the president's spit from the envelope, which restores Bosco to his old self. He is still fading in and out of existence, however.
Sam and Max then talk to their preteen selves in Stinky's in 1980. It turns out that Sam "used to be a total nerd", and was the one who built Bluster Blaster. The younger Max is enjoying playing Bluster Blaster, because he always compliments him, in contrast to Bluster Blaster's abrasive personality in the present. Sam and Max set the ship's AI to abusive and gives it to the younger Sam, who installs it onto Bluster Blaster, causing him to start insulting Max. The younger Max gets sick of playing and goes to the prom and after prom kissing retreat that happens to be on the same night, and the adult Max suddenly wants to pick up girls. He and Sam return to Bosco's so that he can hit on Ms Bosco. She is insulted and announces that she's done with men.
Sam and Max return to the present again, where Bosco is back to normal. A door on the ship opens and the three go through it. There they discover T.H.E.M., a group of mariachis who explain their plan in a song. They are actually the same mariachi, Pedro, at different stages of his life. The oldest one was dissatisfied with the lack of attention given to birthdays in his time, so he obtained a time traveling spaceship and some of his younger selves so that they could play for every birthday ever. To offset the cost, they agreed to crush souls with the Moai Heads from Moai Better Blues and send them through a Bermuda Triangle to places unknown. During the song, Jurgen is sent through the triangle.
By the time the song ends the shock is too much to bear for Bosco and he dies of a heart attack. T.H.E.M decide to crush his soul to fill their quota, forcing Sam and Max to get them to leave the ship to get his soul back.
The oldest mariachi won't leave until he finds out how he will die and whether the chicken or the egg came first. So Sam and Max travel to the future and discover that he died from inhaling ink ribbon fumes. They then use a blank time card to travel to the beginning of the universe, where they find Mr Featherly. They replace him with an egg and return him to the present, where the oldest mariachi is now willing to leave.
They trap the next oldest mariachi in 1963, by tricking him into playing for a birthday and returning to the present without him. The youngest mariachi wants a recording contract, so Sam and Max go back in time to Situation: Comedy and attempt to take Sam's recording contract from his past self. However, their past selves steal their time machine and strand them in the past, forcing them to live the last year and a hlaf all over again. But once they get back on the spaceship, Sam and Max steal the recording contract from their past selves and give it to the youngest mariachi, who leaves, giving them free reign of the ship.
But then an accidental push of a button activates the Soul Crushing device and sends Bosco's soul through the triangle, and their attempts to fix it cause the ship's imminent destruction. As their past selves make off with the elevator, they have no choice but to go through the portal Bosco's soul was sent through. In the final scene, the spaceship, which is revealed to have the shape of a sombrero, explodes just as it reaches the beginning of time, causing the creation of the universe.
[edit] Characters
[edit] Notes
[edit] Trivia
- The title is based on the book Chariots of the Gods?, which was also made into a movie in 1970. The font on the title card is loosely similar to the one on the book cover.
- In replacing the chicken at the beginning of the universe with an egg, Sam and Max temporarily changed time so that everyone refers to them as Max and Sam. This was confirmed in the commentary.
- "If you explode it, T.H.E.Y. will come" is a reference to the 1989 film "Field of Dreams" alluding to the line "If you build it they will come"
- In the beginning, when telling Flint Paper that they'll find Bosco, Max will assure him by saing "I am still president, after all." Flint will then retort "That may be. But are you a bad enough president to rescue the dude?" This is a reference to the intro of the Nintendo game Bad Dudes Vs DragonNinja, and the popular internet catchphrase based thereof.
- "Yo no soy mariachi. ¡Soy capitán!" is a reference to the traditional Mexican folk song "La Bamba." The original line is "Yo no soy marinero; soy capitán," which roughly translates to "I am not a [mere] sailor; I am the captain."
- Although it is never really explained when Bosco was abducted, The official commercial for the episode has Sam and Max making their message to Bosco from the episode Moai Better Blues. This is also backed up by not being able to find Bosco at all after contacting him and him not appearing at all in Night of the Raving Dead.
[edit] Translations
This is a partially complete translation of the Spanish that the mariachis and a few other characters use.
| Original line | Translation |
|---|---|
| Señor | Sir/Mister |
| Sí | Yes |
| Hola | Hello |
| ¿Qué? | What? |
| Oh, bienvenidos, amigos. | Oh, welcome, friends. |
| Yo soy el mariachi solitario | I am a solitary mariachi |
| Por favor don't freak out if you see mariachis extraños | Please don't freak out if you see strange mariachis |
| It's just me y mis vatos who wish you feliz cumpleaños | It's just me and my guys who wish you happy birthday |
| And singing for birthdays on spec makes us poco dinero | And singing for birthdays on spec makes us short on money. |
| And as long as we still get to sing, no importa nada | And as long as we still get to sing, it's not important |
| ¿Como estás, vaca hombre? | How are you, cow man? |
| ¡Muy bueno! | Very good! |
| You're a terrible liar, señor perro. | You're a terrible liar, Mister Dog. |
| ¿Qué anda con el pollo? | What's up with the chicken? |
| Please! ¡Señor perro! | Please! Mister Dog! |
| Gracias, señor. | Thank you, sir. |
| Jefe's log. | Chief's log. |
| Oh, yo no soy mariachi. ¡Soy capitán! | Oh, I am not mariachi. I'm captain! |
| ¡Amigos, we are on course hasta la madre de todo los cumpleaños! | Friends, we are on course for the mother of all birthdays! |
| Es muy importante that no one notice us | It is very important that no one notice us |
| ¿Qué? Uh, showtime, people! ¡Atención! | What? Uh, showtime, people! Attention! |
| Entrega entrante. | Incoming delivery. |
| Chapter ocho | Chapter eight |
| ¡Hola, Sam y Max! | Hello, Sam and Max! |
| ¡Madre de dios! Let's get out of here! | Mother of God! Let's get out of here! |
| Good luck, Max y Sam! | Good luck, Max and Sam! |
