Chuck the Plant

Chuck the Plant is a mascot of sorts in several of LucasArts' adventure games.

Chuck the Plant is first found in the library of Maniac Mansion. It appears to be an ordinary plant, but using the cursor to examine it (or otherwise attempt to manipulate it) reveals that this is, in fact, Chuck. Apart from the unusual property of having a human name, the plant is otherwise unremarkable and useless (a red herring of sorts). Some gamers confuse Chuck with a mutated (seemingly intelligent) carnivore plant found upstairs, next to a typewriter. That plant is not Chuck, since Chuck is found in the library and is significantly smaller.

Another plant with the label Chuck appears in the game Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure in Henry Jones' house. In the demo version of the game, it is called LeChuck the Plant.

In Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, there is an object labeled "the Plant", but it is found on a screen that was cut from the final game. It is visible only with SCUMM reverse-engineering programs such as SCUMM Revisited.

Chuck reappears in the Maniac Mansion sequel Day of the Tentacle as a large, and presumably mutated, cactus.

Chuck also appears in Chapter I of Tales of Monkey Island, "Launch of the Screaming Narwhal". It is on the back of Elaine Marley's ship in the beginning of the game.

Appearance in non-Lucas games

• In homage to LucasArts, the adventure game Enclosure also contains a plant named Chuck.
• In The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Charles the Plant can be found in 'Jobasha's Rare Books'. Like many plants in Morrowind, it can provide alchemy ingredients; in this case, a unique ingredient "Meteor Slime", another homage to Maniac Mansion.
• The Chuck Plant also appears in the Housemarque point-and-click adventure Alien Incident.
• Chuck the Plant appears in a LucasFan Games production "The new Adventures of Zak Mc Kracken"
• In the Nintendo DS game Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Mia Fey keeps a plant named Charley in her office. The plant has since appeared in all four Ace Attorney games, having been taken care of during the series' course by Phoenix Wright and his assistant Maya Fey.
• Chuck can be found in the game Shadowgrounds: Survivor in a secret area.
• A plant called Chuck also appears in the Rabbit Tell point-and-click adventure Trapped Part Three: The Labyrinth. The Rabbit Tell games contain many references to LucasArts.
• The Telltale Games adventure series Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People features a plant named Charlemagne as an homage to Lucasarts' Chuck. Telltale was formed by former Lucasarts employees.
• Chuck can also be found in the Telltale Games episodic game series, Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures. In episode one, there is a plant in the corner of the living room. If the player attempts to use an inventory item on the plant, it says "Chuck the Plant" in the upper right hand corner of the screen.
• Chuck also appears in realmforge studios game Ceville, in the dwarven mine's office.
• Potted plants named Chuck can also be found in Psychonauts. Psychonauts and the sequel to Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle were both designed by Tim Schafer.

Meaning

Steve Arnold, the LucasFilm general manager at the time, had a long running joke where he continually requested game designers to add a character named Chuck to their game. Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick were the first to humor Steve's request. Because there was no room for an additional character name in Maniac Mansion, the name was given to the plant.

There were also rumors that a cast crew member, called Chuck, wanted to have his name in one of LucasArts' games. This was used as trivia for LeChuck from the Monkey Island series but not officially applied to Chuck the plant.

References

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