Several Versions of a ToeJam & Earl Sequel Were Pitched Unsuccessfully

ToeJam and Earl's Funky Ship

ToeJam & Earl was a beloved masterpiece of a game when it launched back in March of 1991. So when Greg Johnson, one of the creators of the game, wanted to make a modern-day follow-up to his bizarre little roguelike, the industry should have thrown a party in celebration of this epic return of the alien duo, right?

Apparently, there are a lot of publishers who don’t think so.

ToeJam and Earl Loot

Back in 2013, Johnson made an appearance on the Sega Nerds podcast, and he talked about his efforts to get a new ToeJam & Earl game greenlit:

There was a point at which I was pretty actively pitching, going around to a lot of publishers and trying to get a new TJ&E game off the ground. A DS game was one of the ones I was pitching for a while, but it wasn’t the only one.

I was also pitching like a, just a sort of a social, more like Facebooky-type version of the game, and also just a multiplayer, sort of a virtual world version of the game at one point, and an iPad version of the game. I didn’t manage to get traction on any of that stuff and moved on to other things.

It’s baffling to me that such a beloved franchise would keep getting turned down. Fans are hungry for a new game in the funkiest of game series, suggesting this has some serious potential. (Of course, the TJ&E series might be a bit too strange for big-name publishers to feel confident throwing money at it.)

Big Rappin Earl

Thankfully, Johnson founded HumaNature Studios and released the fantastic Doki-Doki Universe. With his own studio, he’s now able to do what he wants to, whether major publishers agree with him or not. And this means a new ToeJam & Earl game is on the horizon.

Thank the Funkapotamus for the flourishing indie scene, right?

You can listen to the whole podcast episode at the Sega Nerds website.

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