ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron

About ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron

ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron (1993) is the funky aliens' platforming sequel, in which they jar up the Earthlings who stowed away to their home planet, a sharp break from the original's roguelike style.

ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron in Depth

Having escaped Earth in the first game, ToeJam and Earl return to their home planet of Funkotron only to discover that a bunch of Earthlings stowed away on their spaceship. The humans are spreading panic across the planet, even scaring Lamont the Funkapotomus, the source of all funk, away into another dimension, so the duo must clean up the mess they made and send every Earthling back home. Unlike its predecessor, a treasure hunt with randomly generated levels inspired by Rogue, it is a side-scrolling platformer for one or two players.

Players use a radar to locate nearby Earthlings, some hidden in the scenery, and throw jars at them to trap and collect them before sending them back to Earth. Contemporary critics praised its graphics, its Herbie Hancock-inspired soundtrack, fluid, non-violent action and two-player mode: the Chicago Tribune called it a "beautifully designed game", and The Washington Times "one of the funniest games we've ever seen", with superb graphics and "flawless" action and control. Fans of the original, however, were disappointed and confused by the move to a more generic format, and later reviewers felt the developers had followed the publisher's wishes rather than the fans'.

Making ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron

After the original's success, Johnson Voorsanger Productions began a sequel in 1992, spending three to four months building on the first game's mechanics, with indoor areas, new terrain and fixed levels, before switching to a more generic platformer for lack of support from Sega. Sega published it for the Genesis in 1993, and it was well reviewed and commercially successful. Together with its predecessor it formed one of the Mega Drive's key exclusive franchises, but after Johnson and Voorsanger split with Sega the series went quiet until a commercially unsuccessful third game in 2002. It was re-released on the Wii Virtual Console in 2007, PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade in 2012, and Nintendo Classics in 2024.