I have to share a proud dad moment.
We’re playing Monkey Island 2 now, and… well, you know the “if this is 5, what is this” puzzle on Phatt Island?
My daughter, 6, got it on the first try. I remember spending an awful lot of time and I’m not even sure if I ever actually understood. She instead breezed through it as if she read a walkthrough - and I guarantee that she hasn’t. I’m still mindblown 
It’s amazing what some people see. Bravo to your girl!
Thanks for all these insights!
All these details are extremely interesting to me. Analyzing the code and the assets or even modifying them would have been probably an activity that I would have enjoyed a lot!
How blaspheme would it feel to you taking that breathtaking sunset image from the EGA version of MI1, making a VGA version of it (like this person did) and adding it to the Ultimate Talkie version as well? 
I mean, would the modification be considered a fix or would it lean towards “arbitrarily improving the game with things that were not meant to exist”?
Congratulations! I really got stuck at that puzzle and I don’t even remember if I solved it by myself or if I asked help to a cousin who already solved it.
It’s a puzzle that requires observational skills and intuition, kudos to her!
So you got hold of the source code?
Or did you use a tool like scummbler and find those comments in the scripts?
I am really interested in this kind of stuff, but probably this the wrong thread.
No, I don’t.
We only know of commented out dialog due to reports like this:
and this:
Those I found are the few occasions where they didn’t comment them out. Those are likely unused due to bugs or oversights.
I knew about the video game history article, but not the first one. Awesome (cut) dialog there!
When Guybrush gets out of the water after being thrown in by Shinetop, he runs into Governor Marley, and then this alternate exchange starts.
Guybrush
“You came down here to rescue me?”
Elaine
“Well…”
Guybrush
“You were going to dive into that icy water and drag me out?”
Elaine
“…Something like that.”
Guybrush
“You were going to brave the sharks and the eels to save my life?”
Elaine
“Sharks? What sharks?”
Guybrush
“And then you were going to give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?”
Elaine
“Don’t push it.”
Is “I’ve got a long, sharp lesson for you you to learn today” bugged out of the Special Editions?
I fought Carla for a long time trying to get her to use it. Then I went on Youtube and looked at eighteen different Let’s Plays of Special Edition. Altogether she gave about 270 insults, but never gave “long, sharp lesson”.
When I switched to older non-Special Edition playthroughs, I found an example of her using it within the third video I clicked on, after only 20 insults.
Is this a known bug? Or am I just witnessing extremely bizarre luck, and she actually IS capable of giving the line?
That line is indeed missing in the SE. It has no voice file either. I guess, they forgot to record it and noticed it too late and just patched it out. The Ultimate Talkie only uses this line when in “keep original text” mode.
Amazing; thank you. Is there a file or post where you made notes of all your discoveries like this, so I can read that and stop bothering you with questions? 
There are readme files in the ultimate talkie packs. It’s fairly staggering how much he did, at least in my opinion.
That’s amazing, actually. I don’t quite know how many vanilla insults there are, but it must be a reasonably low number. I always thought Carla had exactly one alternative for each of those. Sounds as if she has about ten, though. Amazing!
Well, for me this started when I thought I didn’t have the right comeback for something, so I clicked a random answer, but it turned out to be right. I bet a lot of us found alternative answers years ago but just forgot on future playthroughs. I still need to test “long sharp lesson” for alternatives, but what I found so far:
“My name is feared in every dirty corner of this island!”
is answered by
“So you got that job as janitor, after all.”
and also
“Too bad no one’s ever heard of YOU at all.”
“Only once have I met such a coward!”
is answered by
“He must have taught you everything you know.”
and also
“I’m glad to hear you attended your family reunion.”
“My last fight ended with my hands covered with blood.”
is answered by
“I hope now you’ve learned to stop picking your nose.”
and also
“Your hemorrhoids are flaring up again, eh?”
“I usually see people like you passed-out on tavern floors.”
is answered by
“Even BEFORE they smell your breath?”
and also
“I’m glad to hear you attended your family reunion.”
So as you can see: Family reunion is the top tier comeback!
Which version are you playing? Only one comeback is supposed to be right for every insult. The swordmaster has a complete different set of insults. One for each comeback, with one single exception, where two insults of her share a common comeback.
They can be found here:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/562681-the-secret-of-monkey-island/faqs/7619
I remember that some swordmaster insults can accept more than one answer.
The alternatives I listed seem to work on the Special Editions and the CD version I had in the mid-90s. I haven’t tested on older versions.
If we can verify that, maybe relevant wikis can be updated.
Me too, though I could be misremembering.
Indeed. I just tried with “I usually see people like you passed-out on tavern floors.”. You’re right. It does work.
I never knew, and I certainly did some random comebacks in the past when I didn’t have the correct one.
Here is a video of those two rooms in MI2 that I always missed:
Actually, now that I’ve watched the dialogue between Wally and Guybrush, it sounds a bit familiar to me, so I can’t exclude that I did play this optional part of the game ages ago but completely forgot it.
There are 16 random pirate insults and 17 swordmaster insults.