Trading Spaces with Maniac Mansion

If you were to ask most gamers what video game character they’d like to be for a day, you’d hear everything from Master Chief to Link. Being heroic and adventurous is fine for most people, but I’d much rather relax all day in a place with great ambiance, play an arcade game, and takes some pictures. Call me nuts, but part of me always envied Weird Ed from Maniac Mansion. Sure, he’s a macropalegic survivalist with a bad temper, but man, would it be cool to live with the Edisons…for a night, at least.

B-horror films are always a hoot, so how fun would it be to actually live one? I mean, c’mon, living with manic-depressive, wax fruit-obsessed tentacles has to be at least mildly entertaining (hentai fans, get your heads out of the gutter). Besides, having useless chainsaws strewn about the house is sure to put a smile on anyone’s face. Combine that with having a mad scientist dad, a kinky nurse mom who likes boys in her dungeon a tad too much for comfort, and a porn-obsessed mummy for an uncle, and you have the setting for a day filled with crazy, endlessly entertaining shenanigans.

I could also ogle the decor of the house for hours straight. Rarely does a landlord allow neon purple and green walls in a rental house, so being Ed for a day would give me the opportunity to bask in the glorious gaudiness of the house’s color scheme. Moreover, despite the machines’ technical problems, how great would it be to have a private arcade, or a workout room with your very own Hunk-O-Matic, which has the miraculous ability to pump you up in mere seconds? (I wonder if they sell those on QVC…)

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have blue skin? Well, I have on more occasions than I should probably admit, and being an Edison would allow me to get my wish. I already know what it’s like to have purple hair three times over, but I rather like the color blue and have aspired to have Weird Ed’s skin tone for a while now, thanks to my obsession with Jambi from Pee Wee’s Playhouse as a child. Also, being a fan of army surplus, his sharp, militant-minded fashion sense would be easily adaptable for me.

Sure, it might get a little pesky trying to stop hordes of teenagers from overthrowing your house and having a meteor crash in your backyard, but I’d get over it pretty fast. As long as everybody kept their grubby little hands off of my hamster, I’d have a completely pleasant day indulging in the bizarreness of Chateau d’Maniac.