If there’s two things I love, and there may only be two things, it’s video games and really, really terrible movies. (Think Tommy Wiseau’s The Room, and Troll 2.) Thanks to an article over at PCGamer I get to combine these two passions by talking about a little “game” called Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties.
Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties was an interactive movie released for the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer back in 1994, and on a console capable of full motion video…. it was basically a Power Point slideshow. It told the story of a buff, motorcycle riding, plumber (As opposed to a chubby dinosaur riding one.) attempting to win the heart of a busty rich girl he happened to run into one fine day. It was at least fairly note worthy at the time for it’s adult humor, as silly as it may be. None of the cast really did much before or after the games release, although Jeanne Basone, who played the female lead, has played a small role in a number of well known movies such as Basic Instinct, Sister Act, and Me, Myself & Irene.
The game managed to garner some very negative reviews, PCGamer citing their own 3 out of 100 review score, before simply falling into obscurity. It did however gain back a little notoriety when it was featured in the Angry Video Game Nerd’s 75th episode on YouTube. That is indeed where I first discovered it’s existence.
Now what I was totally unaware of, as I assume many others were as well, there was actually an earlier PC version of the game released in 1993. Well we have another YouTube user to thank for that. Psychoticgiraffe stumbled upon it while looking for games to play on an old Compaq Armada laptop he picked up. And wouldn’t you know it, he’s such a great guy that he ripped the files and set up a little DOSBox configuration you can find here.
Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties is really a classic in my opinion. It’s terrible, sure. No gameplay to speak of, a slideshow quality presentation, bad acting, cheesy as all hell, but I love it for these very reasons. It’s an experience like none other, and I really think you should give it a spin sometime.
