An interview with Jason Rubin (Co-founder of Naughty Dog)

[Keiji Dragon]

Did you ever thought how cool the old PS1 Crash games were? Many fans consider the ND games to be some of the best PSX , so a few fans at Crash Mania managed to come in contact with Mr. Rubin and asked him a few things about how it was like working on the ND Crash series, their relationship with SCEA at the time, etc.
http://hpzr.proboards61.com/index.cgi?boar...amp;thread=4214

I found this to be one of the more interesting parts of the interview:

- Why exactly was Crash's girlfriend, Tawna (That female bandicoot that you had to save in Crash 1), removed from the games? There have been many rumours floating around for a long time, but most fans are still searching for a definite answer.

The truth is as follows: the marketing director of Universal Interactive Studios was a very small minded woman. She saw the designs of Tawna, hot of the press, and insisted that the character would never get into the game as drawn. The original designs, which I think can still be found on the Naughty Dog website were reminiscent of Jessica Rabbit from the Roger Rabbit movies. SEXY. The marketing director was not impressed. She called me into the office and yelled at me that women were not to be objectified in such manors, and that no real woman would EVER wear such clothing. We had drawn Tawna's clothing based on another employees outfit that day. When the woman wearing Tawna?s outfit in real life walked by the office door, the marketing director lost it. We were both forced to listen to half an hour?s ranting about women?s issues that culminated with a tirade about some women?s shoe commercial that featured women playing basketball in high heels. She also insisted that as of that date "no video game would ever be successful because of a sexy woman ever again." None of this was relevant, of course. What was relevant was that the marketing director got the president of Universal Interactive so nervous that he asked us to change Tawna to her specifications. Thus the final Tawna that made it in the game was heavily toned down and forced to wear the kind of clothing that a woman might on safari in the late 1800?s. We had a lot of arguments with the marketing director, including her insistence that Crash be named "Wez", "Wuzzles", or (my favorite) "Wizzy, the Wombat". We won 99% of them. Somehow she prevailed on Tawna. The end result was such a disaster that we yanked her from the sequels. BTW: Lara Croft (Tomb Raider) launched shortly thereafter and took the video game world by storm and the marketing director left games forever. Now you have the whole story.

Gold. Absolutely gold.


Enjoy!

[Beakston]

The Tawna thing is funny, but he's full of crap when he says there's no effort going into the new Crash games. I bet he's never even played Crash Twinsanity or Crash of the Titans, and Mind Over Mutant looks like it has more effort being put into it than any other Crash game.

[Chupperson Weird]

Except they're apparently awful.

[Glorb]

They are awful. Groin-grabbingly so.

[Mr. Wiggles]

Man this interview makes me wish Naughty Dog bought back the Crash license to return him to his former glory. Oh well, at least they still develop good games.

[The Chef]

Except they're apparently awful.

They are awful. Groin-grabbingly so.

They are NOT.

[ShadowBrain]

I'm not in the mood to read the whole thing. Besides, there's only one question I'd like answered, and that is why someone decided to give a videogame company a name that sounds like the title of a furry website.