FAR from being a native American name, Great Bear is a software company that was among many of the smaller multimedia software producers demonstrating at Comdex this year.
While it was hard to find gems among the wealth of typical multimedia software at the show, some of the new products that Great Bear was demonstrating stood out from the crowd.
Specifically, there is Great Bear's Interactive Insanity line of comedy titles. Introduced last month, it includes Carolines Presents . . . Johnny Cocktails, which promises to fulfil people's aspiration to be stand-up comedians, and How To Be Perfect, which takes an off-beat look at the social etiquette that was promoted in North America in the 1950s.
Johnny Cocktails is an interactive game set in a comedy club in Manhattan where Johnny is the main attraction.
Users get to play the role of Johnny Cocktails and develop a comedy routine built out of hundreds of one-liners, classic openings and transitions. Johnny then acts out the routine using the voice of comedian Bobby Slayton.
It is during the routine that users can interact with a club audience which can boo, cheer or heckle and might include a lonely loser, a young couple, a downtrodden waitress or drunk who may strike back at an insult.