Each "Quest For Glory" game is supposed to have a cameo appearance from a real comedian or 2. The first game had the 3 stooges posing as brigands in the cafeteria. The 2nd game had the Marx brothers posing as Ali Chica (the guy who sells you the map and compass), the saurus seller, and one of the guys you can see randomly walking through the streets of Shapeir. The 3rd game and Sanford and Son and Laurel and Hardy.

I'm not sure, but I'm guessing the guest comedians in the 4th game are the farmers. 2 of them are Hans and Franz, a pair of Saturday Night Live comedians. I'm not sure who Ivan is supposed to be.

I don't know who the comedians in "Quest For Glory 5" are. My best guess is that it's Cerberus and his 3 voices, but I don't know what real-life comedians that would be.

One of the farmers in the fourth game was definitely imitating Rodney Dangerfield.

Unfortunately, Quest for Glory 5 was definitely knocked off the rails somewhat by executive meddling. Let's just say there's a reason why the name of the city that was taken over by evil in QFG2 was an anagram of Sierra, and that the reason become more true as time passed on.

I had to look up Rodney Dangerfield on youtube. I'd heard the name but wasn't really familiar with him. It seems you are correct. Franz is Rodney Dangerfield. That means Hans and Franz are NOT Hans and Franz from Saturday Night Live. To be fair, they don't sound anything like the Saturday Night Live comedians, but the names seemed like too much of a coincidence. Now I wonder who Hans is.

Hans, Franz, and Ivan were stand-ins for well-known comedians, though not a specific troupe like in the previous games. Unfortunately, I don't remember who anymore - it was talked about at the time and on the Sierra forums, though.

Yeah they don't really do anything like the Hans and Franz routine either. Just some common sounding names for some common farmers. I feel like the other two are imitating well-known actors if not comedians, but I just can't place the names.

There's also the thieves' guildmaster doing a Peter Lorre impersonation, btw.

Oh cool. That was another comedian I didn't really know about. I had read that the chief thief's name was some variation of Peter Lorre, but I didn't know there actually was such a person named Peter Lorre. I guess that's the chief thief's purpose in that game. I always thought he was a completely useless character. You help him and he does nothing for you except tell you information you can easily found out on your own or learn elsewhere. Now I get it. Like the farmers, the thief's whole point in this game is to be an imitator of a celebrity comedian.

And apparently Ugarte was also imitating Peter Lorre in "Quest For Glory 5." So QFG5 DOES have a guest comedian, it wasn't COMPLETELY ruined by Ken Williams and co. IIRC Ugarte says that his uncle is the chief thief in Mordavia, so if one of them is imitating Peter Lorre then I guess they both are.

Yeah, though he was an actor, not really a comedian. He was in films like the Maltese Falcon, which also inspired the whole blackbird running gag.

What's the blackbird running gag?

The Thief's recurring sidequest of trying to find the real Black Bird / Black Falcon.

Oh okay, thanks! I've never really played the Thief much, but I feel like I recall something about that in QFG III.

I think there's a blackbird in every QFG or QFG-related game, including "Heroine's Quest" and "Quest For Infamy." The hero sees the real blackbird in Elsa's treasure room in QFG1 regardless of his character class, but you can't take it in that game because the hero doesn't really know about it yet. The hero (if a thief) learns about it in QFG2. It's a shame for him. If you could steal the bird from Elsa's treasure room, you then could have given it to Ferrari in QFG2 and not had to risk your life over a fake one. Kind of funny if you think about it.

It seems the Blue Parrot Inn in QFG2 was a combination of "Casablanca" and "The Maltese Falcon."

I also know now that there is a Peter Lorre impersonator in the 2nd Laura Bow game. They don't call that character "Ugarte" in that game, but it's clear that he was based on Ugarte. The folks at Sierra were big Casablanca fans.