ToeJam & Earl

aka: TJ&E
Moby ID: 7247
Genesis Specs
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Description official descriptions

Toejam and Earl are two hip aliens from the planet Funkotron. One day, they are cruisin' their galaxy in the sweet spaceship ride. Unfortunately, Earl wasn't paying enough attention to where he was driving, and ran the ship into an asteroid. The ship crash landed onto the most bizarre planet in the galaxy: Earth.

Toejam and Earl must travel from level to level on Earth and collect the 10 scattered pieces of the ship. But the various Earthlings, such as Nerd Herds, Giant Hamsters, Phantom Ice Cream Trucks and the Bogeyman will make that difficult.

The power up items that TJ and E can pick up come in the form of wrapped presents. You never really know what a power up is until you open it. What's more, randomized levels and item locations make it a different game every time.

The game features a dynamic screen splitting - screen joining 2-player mode. Players start the game close to each other. If one gets away from the other, the screen vertically splits to allow each player to move freely. When players are close again, the screens join together to become one single screen.

Spellings

  • トージャム&アール - Japanese spelling
  • 홀이와 뚱이 - Korean spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (Genesis version)

11 People (9 developers, 2 thanks)

Game Design
Game Program
Additional Programming
Music Direction
Music Composition
Artwork
Sound FX
Invaluable Aid
Producer
Awesome Support
Character Design (uncredited)

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 80% (based on 21 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 66 ratings with 8 reviews)

Like, Totally Funky Man

The Good
ToeJam & Earl is one of many video game games that were released, often by Sega, for the Sega Genesis in the early - mid 1990s.

Yo! Yo, Yo! Check this out! Two totally hip and funky, in a early 1990s way, space aliens crash, and end up stranded on planet earth. Like, totally funky to the max, man!

The only way that ToeJam and Earl can hope of getting back to their funky home planet, is by collecting all the missing pieces of their hip-hoping space ship.

Thus your adventure begins (one or two players) through a series of randomly generated (or standard) levels looking for a particular piece of your space ship.

Each surreal level has the wackiest assortment of enemies that stand in your way of getting a ship piece and or finding the elevator door to the next level.

You got crazy dentists (with one of the scariest laughs you will ever hear on the Genesis), annoying mothers pushing that are their kids in shopping carts, boogie monsters and that is just for starters.

The surreal, almost abstract, look of planet earth, and its eccentric inhabitants, along with the ability to explore the levels and even go back to your earlier levels is a level of sheer genius, creativity, wit and video game interactivity that was revolutionary for its day.

ToeJam and Earl can locate food to restore their energy bars (but don't eat too much), money (to buy items or get a bit of advice) and, yes, mysterious presents. As you progress in the game, your ''coolness' rating becomes better, which gives your a bigger energy bar and extra lives.

Yes, you read it correctly. You can collect Christmas (or holiday) presents of various shapes, sizes and or colors. Opening a present may give you temporary weapon (i.e. tomatoes), it may give you a new means of transportation (i.e. wings or rocket skates) or it may summon an enemy or cause instant death.

Initially, you are not entirely sure what a particular present offers you (you can pay someone to tell you) and its entirely possible that a small green present might give you wings, only to give you instant death or some other calamity the next time that you play the game.

In the two-player mode a split screen is used, when ToeJam and Earl are not together. This gives each player an increased level of interactivity and gives each player the chance to decide how much competition or help they want to give the other player.

Most of time the level map is not terribly helpful, until you explored most of the level and these are oftentimes HUGE (for a cartridge game) levels.

Terrain can very from golf coarse-inspired green grass, to desert and the design may remind you of an old cartoon, say one that stared Marvin the Martian.

Other nice popular culture nods can be seen with the sharks (who hum the "Jaws" theme song whenever they get close to you) and the old St. Nick himself who will drop a few presents, if you can sneak up on him, before flying away using a jetpack-like device.

Needless to say this was one video game that was made even more fun to play if you had the Game Genie device for the Sega Genesis.

The Bad
ToeJam & Earl can actually be a pretty tough game, especially in the later levels. If you do not have enough presents, and know what each one does, then you will certain later levels to be painfully difficult to complete.

Yes, this encourage exploration and you are (thankfully) free to revisit an earlier level (by falling down), but I am not entirely sure that certain levels can be successfully completed without a steady supply of certain presents.

ToeJam and Earl does not have a password feature and while it possible to earn extra lives (especially by upgrading your coolness meter), this is a long game that you need to complete in one setting.

The Bottom Line
ToeJam & Earl is a revolutionary game for its funky humor, popular culture wit and the extent that the player or players is free to explore the surreal and eccentric third rock from the sun.

Genesis · by ETJB (428) · 2013

Can I Drive?

The Good
It all started with this... Earl, TOejam longtime pal, wants a shot in the driver's seat. Unfortunately, this leads to disaster, and FUN! Their mistake is our pleasure. I grew up with Genesis, so I played all these types like Sonic and Vectorman... (etc.) and probably the best game EVER to hit the system was the TJ & E series. One of my favorite things was the split screen. It made it possible for TJ and Earl to be in different places at once, not what you get in Sonic the Hedgehog! Tails was basically useless in the early Sonic games. It took me until just the other dat to finally beat it, I had re-discovered Genesis at a game store somewhere and bought it. Then, played the whole way through barely winning on Lvl. 25... It rocks! There is a sequel to this game, and I wish Sega would make a handheld, like Gameboy, and re-release all the old Genesis games with new twists and surprises. If Nintendo can do it with Gameboy (e.g. Mario Series [Super Mario Advance was Super Mario Bros. 2]) why can't Sega? People say Sega is dead, but it lives on in many people's dreams.

The Bad
When you would fall off a cliff, the game would freeze for a minute or two, but, not a problem really.. Game could have been a tad longer like TJ & E 2....

The Bottom Line
A must have for people who live in the past and LOVE games like that!

Genesis · by brandon kasper (2) · 2005

TJ&E? its for (expletive deleted) on, silly

The Good
it is very easy to get to grasps with. the story is easy to get to grips with. the landscapes are easy to know what they are, e.g grass.

The Bad
THE NAME. i don't know were they got it from but who would want to be known as "toe jam"??? It reminds me to much of a (expletive deleted), or a dirty (expletive deleted) session with a smelly, homeless (expletive deleted). And when your actually in the game, all you seemingly do is go wondering around doing exactly (expletive delted).

The Bottom Line
A BORING GAME. a waste of money. a waste of time. a waste of money. To sum up that last line, A WASTE!

Genesis · by paul cairey (319) · 2002

[ View all 8 player reviews ]

Trivia

Awards

  • EGM
    • 1992 Buyer's Guide - Best Sound Effects

Analytics

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Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 7247
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by quizzley7.

Wii added by Corn Popper. Nintendo Switch added by Rik Hideto. PlayStation 3, Windows added by Sciere. Macintosh, Linux added by Foxhack.

Additional contributors: paul cairey, Alaka, j.raido 【雷堂嬢太朗】, Rik Hideto.

Game added September 20, 2002. Last modified January 27, 2024.