Ever abused a smiley face?

May 8, 2005 6:45 PM

My Google mojo isn't working. Does anyone remember a "game" (term used loosely here) from about 1994 for the Macintosh which involved a large smiley face and a list of painful/lethal things you could do to it? Said list included actions such as "poke in the eye", "painful acne", and "flesh-eating bacteria". Thanks!
posted by starvingartist to computers & internet (14 comments total)

I remember this! I think another option was to put the smiley face in a blender. Unfortunately, I don't know where to find this on-line...it's been so long.
posted by thewittyname at 6:56 PM on May 8, 2005

it wasn't a Mac game, it was a Flash or Director file called "smile"...
posted by mkelley at 6:57 PM on May 8, 2005

I vaguelly remember this too.

The Macintosh Garden at the Underdogs is usually great for this kind of thing. I've recovered all kinds of classic games/memories there. Sadly, a modern powerbook can almost never run this old stuff, but it's still all there.

The database seems to be angry right now, but if it's anywhere, it'll be there.
posted by heresiarch at 7:01 PM on May 8, 2005

I don't remember the smiley face, but I remember there being a very recent flash animation (~2000) that let you put a frog or a gerbil in a blender, in a microwave, all kinds of things.
posted by SpecialK at 7:05 PM on May 8, 2005

it wasn't a Mac game, it was a Flash or Director file called "smile"...

Well, my roommate in college had a Mac and I had a PC, and he was the only one who could run it, so I'm still thinking it was a Mac thing.

SpecialK - I think what you're thinking about is Joe Cartoon.
posted by starvingartist at 7:15 PM on May 8, 2005

No, the smiley face was definitely different from the "frog in a microwave" toon--I remember them both very distinctly. (Although I can't remember the names of either.)

Actually, what I remember about the smiley faces was a bunch of _drawings_ of different smileys, that had all been mutilated in various ways...a whole bunch of static drawings, but not interactive like the frog/gerbil site. (Didn't the gerbil like taunt you or something, till you pureed him?) Are you maybe conflating the two?

Or maybe I'm just thinking of something similar, but not quite what you're thinking of.
posted by LairBob at 7:59 PM on May 8, 2005

I remember it was a full-screen dealie, which makes me think it was an app. The smiley face was very large and took up most of the righthand part of the screen, and it was animated. It made kissy noises at you and giggled and all sorts of annoying stuff until you got pissed and started abusing it. If you poked it in the eye it would cry and whimper, but soon it would be all in love with you again, until you caused it more pain. It was actually quite... unsettling, I guess, but hilarious all the same.
posted by starvingartist at 8:04 PM on May 8, 2005

I remember this. I even have it on a floppy somewhere.
posted by Sallyfur at 8:06 PM on May 8, 2005

"Smile - The Splattering"
posted by sirion at 8:12 PM on May 8, 2005

That's it! Thanks, sirion!
posted by starvingartist at 8:19 PM on May 8, 2005

For those interested
posted by Mach5 at 8:47 PM on May 8, 2005

frog in the blender/hamster in the microwave

=

joe cartoon
posted by slapshot57 at 6:15 AM on May 9, 2005

Since the question's already been answered, in the same smiley-face mini-Mac-app arena there was also Jared: Butcher of Song (716KB). This was the app that first popped into my mind as I was reading the question.
posted by blueberry at 6:55 AM on May 9, 2005

And while we're on the subject, don't miss Poke Alex in the Eye, an early Flash implementation.
posted by werty at 8:02 AM on May 9, 2005