Sam & Max Episode 103: The Mole, the Mob, and the Meatball

In Sam & Max Episode 103: The Mole, the Mob, and the Meatball, the plot hinted at at the end of Situation: Comedy is continued with a case involving The Toy Mafia. The Commissioner has infiltrated the mob syndicate with a mole, but he has reason to believe the mole may be in trouble and he needs Sam and Max go in and help. Ironically, it is believed that the mafia gang is headquartered at Ted E. Bear's Mafia-Free Playland and Casino. It's your job to gather the clues and solve the crime.

The office
Your game of toss-the-playing-cards-in-the-trash is interrupted by a phone call from the Commissioner, who gives you the information about the current case. The mole is expecting a code phrase from you, so you'll find the mole by finding the person who gives you the correct response. You need to thwart The Toy Mafia's nefarious plans, and their hideout at Ted E. Bear's Mafia-Free Playland and Casino is a good place to start. Nothing much has changed in the office, except you'll find that Jimmy Two-Teeth is now advertising his fencing services outside the rat hole. Don't bother trying to buy and sell from him, as he wants nothing to do with Sam or Max. You'll need the one inventory item in the office before you head to the casino.

The casino
After optionally checking in with your friends on either end of your street to see what's new, hop in your DeSoto and go to the casino. When you get inside you'll be rewarded with a few tokens as a new customer, which you can use on the Whack-Da-Ratz game, the One-Armed Bandit slot machine or in an Indian Poker match at the table in the center of the room. You need to get a score of 20 or more points in Whack-Da-Ratz to win a prize, and you do so by shooting the orange rats that pop up and avoiding the yellow ones. When you successfully accomplish this task, you're rewarded with a Ted E. Bear magnet. The slot machine doesn't ever pay out, so the last thing you'll want to do is beat Leonard Steakcharmer at Indian Poker. You'll find that he's curiously adept at the game.



Now that you're 10,000,000 tokens richer, it might be a good idea to see if you can get something good for all that dough.

Meet the mob
In order to get into the back room where The Toy Mafia is, you'll need to get past the guard, who expects an unguessable password from you.



When you make it into the back, you'll be recruited into the mafia. Unfortunately you have three unsavory tasks to complete to prove yourselves worthy:


 * 1) Kill Sybil Pandemic.
 * 2) Put a Hypno Bear on Bosco's display table.
 * 3) Recover the missing meatball sandwich.

Luckily, nearly everything you need to do can be accomplished back on your home street.

Kill Sybil
Sybil is now a witness-for-hire, and The Toy Mafia wants her rubbed out so she can't testify against them in the D.A.'s new case. Her shop is under surveillance by an inconspicuous web cam atop the cactus by the door, so the hit will have to look authentic. Unfortunately, Sybil has too much integrity to help in faking her own death, so it's up to you.



With Sybil fake-dead and the web cam conveniently eaten, you've managed to pass the test without harming your friend.

Deliver to Bosco's
Making a delivery at Bosco's may be harder than it sounds, as he is always on the lookout, and his new version of B-TADS is designed specifically to keep anything new from being stocked in his store. Even if you could distract Bosco, his anti-delivery camera would spot you.



Luckily Bosco blames The Toy Mafia for the unwanted delivery instead of Sam and Max, so you're all still friends.

Find the meatball sandwich
Your last stop on this street is at your office. Since the sandwich is stolen goods, it makes sense that someone might be taking it to the local fence, Jimmy Two-Teeth. When you enter the office, you'll find that it's Leonard Steakcharmer who's trying to move the meaty morsel. He won't go down without a fight, and he pulls a gun on you. Noting the red-tipped barrel of his handgun, Max astutely deduces that it's nothing more than a cap gun. After Max disarms Leonard and ties him up, it's time for an interrogation.

Leonard's sore spot is his precious mother, so it will take all the "Yo' mama" jokes you can muster to break him. Unfortunately, while Sam knows the beginning to a lot of jokes, only Max remembers the punchlines. You'll need to pick a setup from Sam's arsenal, and finish it off with one of Max's closers. You'll need to successfully string together five jokes.



You find out that Leonard hid the sandwich in the One-Armed Bandit's payout slot and stole the arm so no one could win it. He had the arm on him, so with that in your possession, you just need to re-equip the slot machine with it, then pay a token to retrieve the sandwich.

Finish off Ted E. Bear
Now that you've completed all three tasks, you're welcomed into The Toy Mafia's ranks. However, when the don removes his mask to reveal he's the mole, Harry Moleman, you find that he's double-crossed the Commissioner when you try to deliver the code phrase. He sicks his Mafiosi on you, and you'll end up in a high speed car chase. You can move from side to side and use the few inventory items available (gun, megaphone and horn), but the goons' tires are bulletproof and there's no way to run them off the road.



Once you've successfully evaded the gangsters, you'll go back to the casino where you can finally see what's behind the door they don't want you to go through. On the other side you'll see the real operation: mass-producing Hyno Bears in a huge assembly line. Harry doesn't know that you've had the anti-hypnosis helmet built into your hat and that Max is immune to any form of hypnosis, so you'll pretend to be under his thrall when he uses one of the Hypno Bears on you. He wants you to kill Max to prove you're really hypnotized, then he'll have you run his factory for him. Luckily you took Leonard's cap gun with you when you left your office, so use that on Max to fake another death. Pay special attention to Max's Oscar-worthy death antics to note some useful functions around the factory.



Once the smoke clears, you've completed another case and can go home successful. After Sam and Max depart, you see that Chuckles was really a secret agent, and he radios back to an unknown party, telling them to proceed with Plan B. Tune in to Episode 104 for the continuation of the story.