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- Sam – “I’d hoped that after getting a punching bag for the office, Max would stop hitting me all the time.”
- Max – “But that’s how I show affection!!”
- Sam – “Well could you stop loving me so much before 6 am?”
- Max – “No way Sam! I could never stop loving you!”
Freelance Husbands are the slash ship between the Sam and Max from the Sam & Max fandom.
Canon[]
Sam and Max are a bromance of insane proportions... insane that you have no idea what they are going to do next.
Across all forms of Sam & Max, they themselves have consistently had the same relationship. Identifying themselves as the Freelance Police, Sam and Max have been partners for life, working together to solve some of the most bizarre and often nonsense crimes. Throughout their time, both characters have stayed very much the same towards each other in regards to their relationship. They often to end to bounce off of each other, even when certain personality traits of theirs clash.
Most of the time, Sam is level-headed and facing facts while Max is over-the-top and violent. However, there are instances where these traits are broken, and they are often influenced by the other character. For instance, Sam has a tendency to become aggressive when people attempt to harm his friend and it is usually up to Max to calm him down. Because the characters get along so well, Max is usually willing to go along with any hair-brained idea that Sam has, while the opposite cannot be said. Even when one character gets on the others nerves, there is no bad blood between them - just annoyance that they can brush aside with a swift remark or action.
While it has never been explicitly said that Sam & Max are a gay couple, it has been heavily insinuated across the series, and even subtly hinted at by their creator Steve Purcell.[citation needed] To that end, numerous remarks and have been made either by Sam & Max themselves or other characters that play off of this, usually for comedy effect. This is usually followed either by direct denial by one of the characters or Max acting stupid at Sam’s expense, so as to keep the gag going. Adding to this is another running joke in the series where Sam keeps tell Max that he does not “even like girls”.
Moments[]
Sam and Max have multiple moments from across the series where they get along and generally have fun just goofing about. There have also been a few moments that hint at them potentially being a gay couple. Below are a few examples; note that these have never been followed up on and were most likely done for comedy effect:
- In the second part of the eighth Freelance Police episode, “The Glazed McGuffin Affair”, when Sam slaps Max to calm him down, Max replies with “Hit me again! I like it!”
- In Hit The Road, repeatedly attempting to pick up a background object will eventually cause Sam to become upset. In response to this, Max will come to Sam's defense and threatens the player for their repeated attempt to pick up "that crummy object."
- In the fourth episode of Save the World, “Abe Lincoln Must Die!”, filling out a dating application will result in Sybil declaring that Sam and Max’s perfect match is each other. They both agree to never speak of it again afterwards.
- “Chariots of the Dogs”, the fourth episode in Beyond Time and Space, ends with insinuation that Sam wants Max all to himself, resulting in the time-stream monitoring computer to start announcing that the time stream is being altered, before Sam jumps in and says “Shut up! It’s not like that!”
- If the player uses the ring from Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse - Episode 1: The Penal Zone on Max, Sam will imagine how proposing and then marrying Max might go... and then say “Nah.”
Poker Night 2[]
- Max sits behinds Sam the whole time during the game.
- Anytime Sam wins the pot, Max jumps onto the table and grabs all the chips.
Quotes[]
- Main article: Freelance Husbands/Quotes
Fanon[]
Despite having never been directly confirmed, a large majority of the Sam & Max community has generally accepted the possibility of Sam and Max as a gay couple and ran with it. As a result, there is just as much fan-content that focuses on the pair as a slash ship as there is depicting the pair as they always have been: as a pair of crazy and over-the-top cartoon characters that do pretty much anything. However, while the pairing is accepted within the community, the popularity of the ship on a larger scale against other fandoms is a grey area. This is largely down to how niche the popularity of Sam and Max is, often being forgotten about alongside more popular franchises and active fandoms.
Fortunately, as the ship is eponymous and between the titular characters, finding fan-content is incredibly easy.
On AO3, Freelance Husbands is the most written ship for both Sam and Max. It is also the most written ship in the Sam & Max (Comics), The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police (Cartoon), Sam & Max (Video Games), Poker Night at the Inventory (Video Game) and Poker Night 2 tags. There are currently 810 written works.
Fandom[]
- FAN FICTION
- Max/Sam tag on AO3
- Sam & Max tag on FanFiction.net
- Sam and Max stories on Wattpad
- FAN ART
- freelancehusbands tag on DeviantArt
- sfreelancepolice tag on DeviantArt
- samandmax tag on DeviantArt
- TUMBLR
- Freelance Husbands posts on Tumblr
- WIKIS
- Sam & Max’s relationship in Sam & Max Wiki
- Sam/Max on Fanlore
Gallery[]
.png "16 Freelance Husbands (1).png (601 KB)")
.png "16 Freelance Husbands (2).png (745 KB)")
Trivia[]
- Sam and Max were the cake toppers for creator, Steve Purcell's, wedding cake. Sam in a suit and Max in a dress.