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Oh, by the way, a neat little thing we found while we worked on the Video Game History Foundation Event where we dug through source files of Monkey 1 and 2. This tidbit wasn't revealed in the event or the blog post, because it's not really that exciting. But I think it's a great detail for y'all. There is one script in Monkey Island 2 where a comment refers to the game's title as The Secret of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. I think that's exciting, and changes the view on the first two games a small bit: At one point the series was not just called Monkey Island, but The Secret of Monkey Island. Now, that full title did pop up before, in old issues of The Adventurer for example. But I always thought it could've been a Marketing thing written by a PR person. But seeing this title in a script in the source files gives it more weight, since it has been written by the developers themselves. We don't know if they eventually dropped it because the game evolved into a different story, or because that title of the sequel is stupidly long. Whatever it is, I love this little detail!

Tweet: "@grumpygamer True or false: MI2's ending was originally planned for MI1, but Tim and Dave talked Ron out of it" Reply: @grumpygamer: "False." This is what Bill Tiller originally said: As reported here: https://mixnmojo.com/news/On-this-day-16-years-ago-Bill-Tiller-revealed-the-secret-of-Monkey-Island

Thank you very much, @Marius Your profile pic is very nice too! I also like the idea of Big Whoop as something independent, that goes beyond the relationship between LeChuck and Guybrush. About the relevance of the anachronisms in the first two games – another “secret”! –, I think that what Ron says in an interview published in «The Adventurer» first issue (fall 1990) is very eloquent: Bearing this in mind, the fact that in MI2 the broken grog machine from MI1 is in the Disneyland-like tunnels, where LeChuck seems to wear a theme-park-character costume, is another point in favor of the Monkey Island world interpreted as an amusement park, together with the many other elements that bring to this interpretation (the elevator that leads Guybrush from the tunnels under Dinky Island to the alley of Mêlée Island, the “Employees only” door, the “under construction” section of Mêlée Island, etc.).

The Style: A whole lot of stuff that Jake posted up there looks like it could easily be from Curse of Monkey Island (the first!), from Day of the Tentacle, or – and that makes things interesting – from Return to Monkey Island. That one with the cobwebs from Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, a little color and texture adjustment and it could be a background down there in LeChuck's ship. Rex Crowle has stated that he's going for backgrounds that you'd finish in your mind, leave things open to interpretation. I guess 50's animators thought of it the same way, especially since 50's televisions were pretty skimpy on the detail. But Rex also said that he'd love to see fan art that fills out all the blanks that he's intentionally left in there. Now that's something 50's animators could never hope for. In any case, I'm intrigued how this plays out (artistically, socially, culturally). My pencils and brushes are ready and version 1.0 of the locksmith is well messed up already. The Secret: I never thought of "The Secret of Monkey Island" as an untold twist in the lore that could be revealed and have the players gasp at how they could have overlooked that for more than 30 years. Guybrush found and experienced Monkey Island, above and below, so he's found its secret. The Jokes: I was a big fan of the anachronisms back then, because they were comparatively seldom. Fast forward four parts, and I got pretty annoyed at the prevalence of photographs and cameras in Tales of Monkey Island. 😘 The Meaning: The first two Monkey Island parts were magical in that they actively encouraged interpretation. The sudden throwback to Melee Island in LeChuck's Revenge was a great example. This was a screen that in TSoMI had no other purpose than to get caught by Fester Shinetop in, basically a meaningless dark alley. It also had the circus poster – rather a poster of the prototypical circus that Guybrush still loved like a child, not the actual circus in which Italian madmen named after noodles fire him out of a cannon. But like in literature, the author's art is not to bluntly hide "a secret" or "an interpretation" in a scene, but rather to combine core thematic elements until flashing associations give a spark to the imagination of the recipient. The first two MI games did that exceptionally well (there was a Melee Island throwback scene in CMI as well – an "easter egg" that didn't have an ounce of the same interpretative impact). I'd love to see similar things in ReMI again.

The Disney bots don't want us to see it.

It did survive into at lease one release by accident, The MAC CD Game Pack 2 called It The Secret of Monkey Island 2 as well 😀 I tried to attach an image with it but have had some issues and it won't show

It can be mentioned twice as more-or-less throw-away lines. You can ask LeChuck about it in his torture chamber: And you can ask about it on the phone on Dinky Island:

I'm very very excited to get this!! I had to restrain myself from buying the game digitally when it came out specifically because I knew I'd want to get my greasy little cheeto dust covered hands on this collectors edition and it did not disapoint!! LOVE the box, LOVE the banang sticker and I especially love that the card that you would originally recieve randomly out of 6 possible ones has been replaced with the whole set of 6 time cards! I'm constantly amazed with how Skunkape Games knows how to spoil the fans and how to make the new ones included. 💛 It truly feels like a chance for those who were not here for the original case files releases to catch up with the older fans who were there during the early telltale days. I cannot wait to receive it (hopefully) around christmas and experience this remaster with all of these goodies with me! Now to wait for the third one hehehe 😈

I think that further illustrates the problem with making any definitive claims about the creators' intentions, the meaning of a lot of stuff in the games, etc. Ron has just recently said that the only thing he had planned for MI3 was 'Guybrush goes to hell and Stan is there', which would seem to contradict that statement by Noah. If we assume both to be true, then we need to reinterpret Ron's statement as meaning that the hell thing was the only idea he had for a story beat, but he did also have ideas of what revelations would be made along the way. It seems that sometimes we may not even realise that there's ambiguity in their statements to be interpreted. I think that until the day comes (if ever) that Ron announces 'this was the final Monkey Island game I'm ever going to make, and here is exactly what everything meant in all my MI games', they are going to maintain that Lynchian ambiguity.

Noah Falstein talked about The Secret in a Retro Hour interview

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:

Thinking about it, while it could be that the Secret of Monkey Island is barely mentioned in MI2 because it's trivial and unimportant, it could also be that either: The revelations of MI2 so thoroughly trump it that it kinda seems pointless to address it at that stage The Secret of Monkey Island over the course of development morphed into something much bigger than just Monkey Island, and is related to the whole layers of reality stuff in a way that means it just doesn't quite make sense to refer to it as 'the secret of monkey island' so they stopped using those words for it. Essentially, Big Whoop is an expanded version of the secret, perhaps. Since Monkey Island ostensibly isn't featured in MI2, it just didn't make any sense to talk about its secret much in that game.

Yes it's fantastic! 😀 Thanks for sharing!

Good call, I hadn't thought about that and you are probably right 😀 That ad is excellent 😀 I like the "Illiteracy-driven icon system" caption 😀

I can’t agree more! @Marius, thank you very much for sharing this detail with us! I didn’t know you worked on that VGHF event. Wow, well done! I think that is the best thing happened to Monkey Island fans since July 2010 until March 31st, 2022!

That’s what I said a few pages back, however there’s been enough quotes from legitimate sources to make me accept that it can’t be true. However it’s interesting to me that I don’t think “the secret” was mentioned in MI2? (Please correct me if I’m wrong.) If there really was this ongoing mystery, then why not mention it in MI2? As for the anachronisms, I agree that they got too much for me, but in Escape before Tales. The first three MIs felt like a real pirate world first, and a jokey anachronism second. Which is how I like it. Blazing Saddles still feels like a western despite it ending with the characters going to modern cinema to watch how the film ends. It’s great when you can have your cake and eat it.

To make things even more compliated: Big Whoop isn't something that only concerns LeChuck and Guybrush. Others found the treasure before, and as Wally says, "Whatever it was, it was so wonderful - or so horrible - that they never wanted anyone else to find it." I like the idea that Big Whoop is something powerful and independent, and LeChuck is just using/abusing it's power to mess with Guybrush. Also, good profile pic @Giorgio

Yes, it seems that way to me. I also agree with what Vainamoinen smartly wrote about the secret and the meaning. It is a very good question, since we can speculate, make assumptions and still not have the answer. This is one of the nicest things in MI2: it creates a world that can be interpreted by the player in a number of ways and on a variety of levels, without one way or level contradicting necessarily the others. So, if it is all a fantasy, we could also think this: Guybrush imagines that LeChuck doesn’t want him to find Big Whoop, so that the game doesn’t end, while Chuckie on the contrary has to find Guybrush, put an end to the game and take his brother back to their parents. But this is just one of a thousand hypothesis. We could also assume that nothing that happens after the rope breaks and Guybrush falls down into the dark is strictly real (maybe Guybrush dies after his fall and that’s why the original idea for MI3 was ‘Guybrush chases the demon pirate LeChuck to hell and Stan is there’? Who knows). I’d like to point out that if we take the Star-Wars-parodying ending for real, then we must suppose not only that Guybrush and LeChuck/Chuckie are brothers, but also that the entire world of Monkey Island is a masquerade, a play in which the actor who was given the role of LeChuck wears a costume not very different from the Mardi Gras costume worn by the woman that guards Elaine’s mansion on Booty Island.

There's a part of me that would have loved to seen this. I think a more intimate smaller team with a less ambitious scope might have led to have a better game. I think this was one of the reasons i felt Thimbleweed park worked better. But then if Double Fine Adventure wasn't a huge success we might not have got Thimbleweed park and other games.

Bill also says he's working on a demo for a Vampyre Story 2 😍

He did say its tagline was going to be: The secret revealed or your money/monkey back!

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.

Personally, I’d confess to anything if someone tore my leg off. Anyway, it’s an interesting little enigma. If LeChuck didn’t want him there, why confess? Then again, maybe it’s an act of despair, since Guybrush is so close to Big Whoop. The thing that jumps out to me is the room with the dead parents and specifically the sign that literally says “Dead Parents”. Why is it so obvious? Was the whole dream staged? And if they’re already under the Theme Park, why are his parents very much alive moments later? And if this is LeChucks work, was he leading Guybrush to Big Whoop the whole time? And if it’s not LeChuck’s work, who’s is it? It’s such an odd detail.

The original Secret does seem to be the entrance to Hell, which for the purposes of MI1 is simply a spooky magma marina where ghost pirates dock and not much else. MI2 takes the same hidden-entrance idea and introduces some actual torment. I forgot LeChuck actually doesn't want Guybrush to find it, which doesn't make sense if it's a deliberate trap. If it's all a fantasy and Chuckie just doesn't want the game to end, why confess to being his brother, etc?

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