Maniac Mansion (NES, USA)

This page details one or more prototype versions of Maniac Mansion (NES, USA).

The prototype of the American Maniac Mansion is nearly identical to the final, except for some elements that were subsequently removed or altered at Nintendo of America's request.

Douglas Crawford, who worked on the NES version, has a page on NoA's objections here.

To do: Investigate the line "Charles Tashiro was here!" It is found near the furnace text. Document the mummy.

Removed Objects#

"Disco Sucks" Poster#

If you read the poster, you get this message:

Disco Sucks!...
...Amen!

Statue#

The plaque reads:

Si trouve envoyez-le au Louvre, poste paye.

If found, send to the Louvre, postage paid.

Dead Cousin Ted's Bedroom#

In the PC versions of the game, Ted has several extra objects in his bedroom, including a "Playboy calendar" featuring a naked lady, a "poster" featuring a female mummy in a seductive pose, and multiples jars besides his sarcophagus referred to as "surplus body parts". All three of these were removed in the NES version, but it turns out the calendar and poster were intended to remain in the game originally, as they still exist in the prototype. The poster looks more or less how it does in the original versions, while the calendar was renamed "Playmummy calendar" and was changed so that the woman is now clothed. Reading objects gives the same descriptions as in the PC versions.

The "Playmummy calendar" reads

May 1972, and Ted's Deathday
is circled!

The "poster" reads

Miss Mummy of 982 BC.

Interestingly, despite being removed from the final game, a version of the poster of the mummy is shown in the "Howard and Nester" segment of Volume 18 of Nintendo Power, which came out two months after the game's release.

Title Screen#

Proto	Final

The final modified the blood a bit so the TM symbol could fit, along with changing the logo from brown to red. Notably, the logo on the character select screen retains the brown palette.

Text Differences#

Ed and Edna Cutscene#

Mostly the same as the final, though one line was altered:

He hasn't eaten in 5 years...

He hasn't slept in 5 years...

NoA cited the entire exchange as being objectionable. As Crockford explains:

What was Nintendo's problem with the dialogue? Was it the brutal exposition of parental neglect in the disintegration of an American family? More likely, we thought they had a problem with the dead bodies in the basement[...]

In fact, Nintendo's interpretation of the speech was that Dr. Fred was a cannibal, that he was eating the bodies. That was never our intention, so we changed Ed's speech to "He hasn't slept in 5 years," which helps to explain why Dr. Fred is never seen in his bedroom.

Dr. Fred and Sandy Cutscene#

Also mostly identical to the final, with one line altered:

Nintendo, according to Crockford, thought "brains sucked out" was too graphic for the younger audience and suggested changing it to "brains removed".

Oops#

Damn! I broke it!

Oops! I broke it!

Phone Conversations with Edna#

In the final, when you call Edna she assumes she's talking to her dead cousin Ted, when in reality she's having a conversation with herself. In the prototype, there is some humorous dialogue where she assumes it's a prank call:

While there's no inappropriate content to be censored here, it was removed from the final version by the porting team themselves, due to concerns that the younger, more impressionable player base would find this dialogue too amusing and start making prank calls of their own.

Edna's Lines#

The lines that Edna says when she puts you in the prison were changed. They were obviously cut due to depicting intentions of bondage (not to mention implied rape!). The lines depend on the gender of the character that was caught.

Girl:

Boy:

Interestingly, the final is the only version of the game to have two variants if a character is caught. These are shown at random.

Edna is still harsher on the boys in the final, but the implied tone is completely different.

Ending#

The prototype's credits include two mentions of SCUMM (an acronym for Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion). According to Crockford, Nintendo was worried what players might think when they see "NES" with a word that looks like "scum", so he took out the mentions of SCUMM.