“I was a writer for the first YOU DON’T KNOW JACK in 1995. On our way (as Smushes) to a You Don’t Know Jack release party thrown by Berkeley Systems. I’m super excited to see the game back on its feet with a fresh new look and the same bad-ass attitude.” – Allard Laban, Chief Creative Officer L to R: Greg Bolsinga, Brian Chard, Andy Poland, Lisa Helfer, Marta Segal. I guess that answer helped to get me assigned to art direct the sucker. A better font, some TV-style motion graphics, those would be the icing on an already awesome trivia-show cake.
Should we do video? With a video host? Whether it was insight, laziness or my disdain for those cheesy multimedia CD-ROMs with tiny little video windows at that time, I said no to a video host, absolutely not. After the demo, my boss back then at BSI, Igor Gasowski asked me what a good treatment might be to translate this into a game, design-wise. Back then he looked a lot like Serpico pretty scruffy and kind of intense (but in a friendly way). The guy demoing it for us at Berkeley Systems was Harry Gottlieb, founder of (then) Learn Television (later Jellyvision, then Jackbox Games). The voice, the timing, the sfx and music were all there. It might have been in black and white and running on something called HyperCard, but it was unmistakably JACK. “My first experience with YOU DON’T KNOW JACK was in March of 1995. It’s almost 20 years later and I’m so proud to be Art Directing the latest incarnation of this game for The Jackbox Party Pack 5.” – Dave Innis, Art Director I took photos all day, and this one was from lunch that day with the art team. Everyone was super friendly and welcoming and I just knew I had found my new home. They flew me in for an interview and it was sincerely the most thrilling time in my life.
Timing is everything, and I soon discovered that they were hiring artists in Chicago! The requirements for the position was exactly my skillset in animation, 3D graphics, and software (at the time, Macromedia Director, if you can believe it). I knew it was something I wanted to be a part of and quickly researched the company that made it. I instantly fell in love and played it every chance I could. “My first YOU DON’T KNOW JACK experience was buying the Movies, TV, and Sports triple pack around 1999.
Good times.” – Andy Poland, VP of Audio and Editorial Tom Gottlieb playing the spoons. I don’t remember why he had the spoons with him but I think he ended up making a few bucks in change.
I think the highlight of the trip was when Tom Gottlieb played the spoons while we were waiting in line for a boat ride at Fisherman’s Wharf (see photo). We were quite the rag-tag team and felt a little “Beverly Hillbillies” when Berkeley Systems put us up at the Ritz. “I was a part of the original YOU DON’T KNOW JACK design team and after finishing the game, we all flew to San Francisco for the release party. The YOU DON’T KNOW JACK team in San Francisco for a release party.