Earlier this month, Macaulay Culkin and Devon Sawa collided in a starry burst of nostalgia that, for a brief second, turned a nation’s rapt eyes into a pair of glittering Invincibility Stars. Now, Culkin is back with another bygone relic by his side: Toejam & Earl. On Friday, the 1991 Sega Genesis game, which spawned sequels in 1993 and 2002, will release its latest effort, ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove, and Culkin is partly to thank.
Culkin, who served as an executive producer on the Kickstarted game, details his fandom and how he got involved in a new interview with Engadget. Apparently, Culkin’s myriad name-drops of the original Toejam & Earl both on his podcast and on Twitter led to “private messaging” between Culkin and the creators of the new game. “I visited the developers up in San Francisco, and got to hang out with everyone working on the new game, got to play the beta for two days,” he says. “We totally beat it, which like, yeah, he was very impressed.” More impressed, however, was Culkin, who here enthuses about getting his original cartridge signed by series creator Greg Johnson.
“It was almost like a meeting an oracle,” Culkin says. “It kind of really was. It was just fascinating to get inside of his head…It’s such a wacky game.”
Back in the Groove is available today for PC, Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, which, hilariously, means Culkin can’t play it on a home console, as the newest system he owns is an Xbox 360. (He’s currently playing through 2014's South Park: The Stick of Truth.)
Culkin also hosted Johnson on his podcast, Bunny Ears. Hear the episode below.