| Space
Quest 3 Spoofs and References
 The
name of Space Quest 3: “The Pirates of Pestulon” has
a remarkable similarity to the name of a famous Gilbert and Sulivan
comical musical entitled “The Pirates of Penzance.”
Arnoid the Annihilator droid is, of course, a reference to the Terminator
as seen in the Terminator movies.
Roger Wilco's case number with the Gippazoid Novelty Company is:
"OU812" (as reflected in Arnoid's glasses). This is the
name of a Van Halen Album that was released in 1988.
The
ships in the junk freighter are spoofs on some well recognized ships
from tv shows and Sci-fi movies.
- TIE-fighter from Star Wars, being described as a bow-tie fighter
from the "cologne-wars" (the original movies mentions
the "clone wars").
- The ship Jupiter 2 is the spaceship from the old "Lost in
Space" series.
 -
The crumpled classic style rocket, built by the ACME company is
a reference to Warner Bros' classic Road Runner cartoons.
- In the same chamber as the Aluminum Mallard is a small round spacecraft.
When you look at it, the reply reads “Some writing on its
exterior reads “For a good time, don’t call HAL.”
The small ship is the EVA pod featured in Stanley Kubrick’s
classic “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Hal is the mad computer
that kills the crew in the same movie.
- In the same chamber as the Aluminum Mallard, prominently displayed
are Tinkertoys and Legos, both classic children’s toys. If
you look at them, you get the following reply, “They look
like remnants of an orbital space station or perhaps some type of
toys for an over-sized child."
Enter
the room with the Aluminum Mallard. You'll notice a round white
pod in the left part of the screen. This is clearly the EVA pod
from Stanley Kubrick's 2001. if you type "look shuttle"
the game will output: "For a good time don´t call HAL."
HAL is of course the name of the computer in Kubrick's 2001. Or,
the game will output "Bowman was here". Mr. Bowman was
part of the production team of Star Trek: TNG.
Most
of the planets (with the exception of Earth) in SQ3 are spoofs of
one sort or another.
- Phleebhut: if said right, it sounds like “Flea butt”
- Ortega is a popular American brand of Mexican
style food products, usually featuring hot peppers. Ortega has
been around a long time (100 years), and since it's a company based
in the American West, specifically in California (where Sierra was
based), the Two Guys would have been familiar with them, and likely
even eaten their products.
- Pestulon may or may not be a play on the word "pestilence,"
meaning "A pernicious, evil influence or agent.”
The postcards in Fester Blatz’ World O’ Wonders have
several spoofs.
- The Arrakis postcard: Arrakis is the planet from the movie "Dune"
with all the valuable spice and annoying sandworms.
- The Achoron postcard: Acheron is the planet where most of the
action takes place in Ridley Scott’s classic Sci-fi thrillers
“Alien” and “Aliens.” In SQ3, the Two guys
misspelled the name of “Acheron” as “Achoron.”
The creature around the neck of the guy in the image is the infamous
facehugger creature from those movies.
- The Beta Alpha Starless Region: This may or may not be an obscure
astronomy joke. Under astronomy star naming rules, the brightest
stars in a constellation are given Greek letter names in order of
brightness. Alpha and beta stars would be the brightest. So, a starless
region named Beta Alpha would be a contradiction in terms.
Monolith Burger, with it’s giant yellow "M" on a
red background, and it’s “fun meals” is a spoof
on the giant fast food chain McDonalds.
When you first fly in to visit Monolith Burger, a white ship streaks
away from the station. It is the Starship USS Enterprise from the
Sci-fi Television series “Star Trek.”
The
Astro Chicken song wasn't written by anyone at Sierra. It's from
a Disney cartoon from the 30's called "Birds of a feather".
The cartoon features a chicken, so the song probably has some connection.
Astro
Chicken might be spoofing the classic cartoon series of the 50’s
and 60’s entitled “Astroboy.” Astroboy was a Japanese
cartoon imported to the States in the 60's. It was wildly popular,
and certainly would have been familiar to the Two Guys who would
have been kids back in the 60's when it was on the air. Astro Chicken
seems to be a likely goofy spoof.
When Roger goes up the shield generator to blow it up and drops
the detonator, the entire scene plays similar to a scene on a volcano
in Leisure Suit Larry 2. Both games had a similar sequence. In LSL2,
you climb a volcano and drop a bomb made of hairspray down the crater
to stop a mad scientist. In SQ3, you drop a thermal detonator down
the crater of a shield generator to stop a mad software CEO. These
two games were made at the exact same time and released the same
year.
The
Thermal Detonator that Roger uses to blow up the shield generator
is a direct reference to the device a disguised Princess Leia used
to threaten Jabba the Hutt in the very beginning of “Star
Wars: Return of the Jedi”.
The software company Scumsoft is a parody on Microsoft and on the
game engine Lucasarts used, called SCUMM. Further more, Elmo Pug
seems to bear a striking resemblance to Microsoft CEO Bill Gates.
 The
Nukem Dukem fighting robots is a play on the old children’s
toy from Mattel, “Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots.”
The toy, which debuted in 1966, consists of two robots of differing
colors that stand in a boxing ring. Two people can play against
each other in attempt to knock each other’s robot heads off.
The robots are NOT a play on the Duke Nukem game series, as the
first game in that series debuted in 1991.
The
Aluminum Mallard is a spoof on the Millenium Falcon from Star Wars.
When in battle, and when seen taking off from Ortega, the Skull
Fighter looks remarkably like an X-wing from Star Wars. Both ships
have 4 wings that spread in an X shape.
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