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It’s compelling food for thought. I (very hurriedly) added a bit of colour to further the effect.

Look, I'm not gonna say I've found the answer to what the secret of Monkey Island is in the ReMI screenshots... But I'm pretty sure I have.

Both DOTT and Return seem to be drawing from mid-century animation, which definitely includes Chuck Jones cartoons (or more specifically Maurice Noble’s style including background designs), but also UPA cartoons like Mr Magoo on the way more stylized end and Disney cartoons like Sleeping Beauty which is also stylized but more ornate, and 101 Dalmatians on the more naturalistic end. Here’s a mess of stuff from that era of animation:

I wouldn't be surprised if we got someone wearing an "ask me about Thimbleweed Park" button

Noah Falstein talked about The Secret in a Retro Hour interview

Just a tiny note that isn't really relevant to any of the discussion here: by and large, these 50s animated shorts (such as What's Opera, Doc?) were made for theatrical release, as household television sets were not yet the norm. This continued into the mid-60s, although by 1960 most American households had televisions so cartoons like Mr Magoo's Christmas Special started to be created for that medium instead.

Wow looks great. Thank you for doing that 😃

I was looking through Peter Chan's concept art on MI2 and thought it be fun to combine Chan's character art and background art. Imagine if Double Fine got to do the remakes. They were always very visually faithful with the remakes with the DOTT they used Chan's original concept art as a basis. so maybe they would have used Chan's concept art as influence on a mi2 remake. Although i guess they may have got Ron involved and maybe the remakes would look more like Return. Who knows?

I have two guesses: - Considering that Monkey Island 2 was made right after the first one without anyone looking at or even waiting for SoMI's sales figures it's very possible that Ron had a vague idea of where to take this whole thing. - It was the early 90s when the idea of "something dark is lurking beneath the pleasant surface" was a very popular concept. It's the Blue Velvet opening scene: And really Twin Peaks was the biggest thing ever in television when MI2 was made, for example it's kind of hard not to notice at least signs of inspiration when comparing Cooper's dreams with MI2's bone dance scene. It was a thing people did back then so why not have it an adventure game?

I agree. Those Voodoo Lady’s sentences are all quite specific: for example, “You will learn things better left unlearned” refers to Guybrush discovering the catacombs under Monkey Island, that might be the very secret of Monkey Island. Almost the same phrase pronounced by Voodoo Lady can be read in the Mutiny on Monkey Island document written by Ron Gilbert: I believe that both the secret of Monkey Island and Big Whoop could revolve around these two Ron Gilbert’s ideas: 1) Monkey Island is the place where the enter of Hell is hidden; 2) all the world in which Monkey Island is set could be a child’s fantasy. In CMI Ackley and Ahern tried to link heavily Big Whoop to the first point, because in MI2 there are clues which let you think that Big Whoop “is not a thing. It is a place”. Do you remember what LeChuck tells to Largo in the cutscene that was cut from the final game but stil exists in the source code? Talking about Guybrush’s quest for Big Whoop, Largo says: “What good can a chest full of money do him?” and LeChuck’s answer is: “It is not the treasure that is important. It is what is buried beneath the treasure that concerns me. He must not find the treasure of Big Whoop”. However, in MI2 there are of course other clues that bring you straight to the second point. All this is to say that, even without precise planning, the seeds of MI1 growing into MI2 and the strong connections between the first two games can be due mostly to the persistence of those two ideas (and others like those) in Ron Gilbert’s head.

Yes, well put! I often jump between looking at the mystery of Monkey Island through the narrative and the developer POV. The latter is where my head got stuck the most, where I try to rationalize my MI world view with the writer’s intention. Worst result is feeling dumb for believing a scene points at something bigger, when there are many parts of the first two games that were “”just”” stream of conscious goofy-ness.* The more I do that the more fun it sucks out of speculation, as if I’m looking for confirmation to see Monkey Island in a certain way. But that sucks, doesn’t it? What a killjoy voice in my head. But don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to dismiss the developers angle at all. I love analyzing the most minor things in writers interviews to discover more about their intentions! A healthy balance of the 2 views is probably the best, I think. And is, to me, the main reason we talk about these games still today. I love it! *Look, I know, painting LeChucks coat blue in the nightmare scene of Monkey 2 is a way to make him stand out from the super red background. But what if, what if, it was a choice to paint him as a mirror to Guybrush, who also wears a blue coat. He also turns into Guybrush seconds later! What does that mean? A hint of “We are bound to one another”? Them being brothers?? Could be! Or not! Whatever, I LOVE these speculations.

Unfortunately you can't really make it into a 2D game and keep the same mechanics. They've really tried to focus hard on things that work in the 3D space, so I can't see how it could work in 2D. Sorry! (All this is revealed in the seriously late Mojo review.)