| Larry Laffer | |
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Larry on the cover for Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail! |
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| Series | Leisure Suit Larry |
| First game | In the Land of the Lounge Lizards |
| Created by | Al Lowe |
| Voiced by | Jan Rabson, Jeffrey Tambor |
Larry Laffer is a fictional character and the main character of the Leisure Suit Larry series of games. He was created by game programmer Al Lowe.
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According to his creator, Larry was a nerdy geek all his life and eventually became a computer programmer. He never had close relations with friends, women, or his colleagues, and every day of his life was identical. He lived with his mother and brother.
Around his 38th birthday, his brain hit a sexual alarm and started having his first kinky thoughts. He started reading adult magazines and could not concentrate on his work. Because of this his life was destroyed; he was fired from his job, and upon returning home he found his house had been sold and his mother had left for vacation.
He then decided to turn a page forward in his life; he left everything and decided to live the wild life. He moved to the city of Lost Wages, where, being a fan of the '70s, and assuming that '70s styles were still trendy, he bought a polyester leisure suit and gold chains. He sold his Volkswagen 'bug' to a junkyard for $94 and ended up in front of Lefty's Bar, where the first game, Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, begins.
During the course of the series of games, Larry loses his virginity, is married twice (and dumped twice), becomes a hero of the tropical Nontoonyt island, and eventually meets his semi-other half, Passionate Patti (who, for some parts of the games, is controlled by the player). In his most recent games, Patti is absent and Larry roams alone again.
Many fans wondered what happened to Patti in Larry 6, if they separated, and why. The Official Book Of Leisure Suit Larry, which was written between Larry 6 and Larry 7, hints that Larry was still engaged with Patti during that period, but her fate is unknown.
While making In the Land of the Lounge Lizards, Sierra On-line staff had to decide the character's name. They agreed that he should be named after a friend of Al Lowe's named Jerry (Lowe never made his last name known to the public), who had visited him at work and became well known in the Sierra studios. Jerry thought of himself as a great lover. He became an infamous point of comical reference among the staff, so the game creators agreed that since Jerry's character suited the game's 'hero', they should jokingly tribute him.
However, since they thought it would be immoral to use a real person's full name as a comical reference, "Jerry" was then altered to "Larry", a similar name, in honor of famed injury attorney Larry H. Parker, a childhood friend of Al Lowe. Al Lowe had to find a new surname, and having in mind the many L-words of the title, skimmed through the 'L' volume of an encyclopedia in order to find a suitable word or name. He fell on the entry of Arthur Laffer, and the name caught his attention due to its phonetic resemblance to 'laugher'.
Arthur Laffer for years had no idea about the existence of the games until much later when Al Lowe sent a letter asking his permission for the publication of a program under the title Laffer Utilities, a Larry spin-off which could potentially confuse the public due to the ambiguous title. Laffer asked his secretary if she knew about the games and she told him that she had played them for years, but never made a connection. Laffer gave the permission and also paid a visit to the Sierra studios.
Although Larry Laffer is accused by many as a symbol of male chauvinism, Lowe explains that Larry is intended as a satire of that type of man, rather than an endorsement of it.
Originally Larry was a typical 16-coloured sprite, although on box covers he was seen as a cartoon with huge triangular head and nose. As technology advanced to allow more cartoon-like graphics, the VGA games updated the sprite to resemble the depiction of Larry on the covers.
In the latter games with full voiceover soundtrack, Larry is voiced by actor Jan Rabson in all games except Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust, where he is voiced by Jeffrey Tambor.
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