Released in 1993 by Sierra On-Line, Screen Antics! Johnny Castaway is a screensaver quite unlike any other. It's a screensaver with action, humour, danger, romance, and even the semblance of a plot, all contained in a little 16-colour square.

Johnny's Origins

The program was created in 1992 by a small software group called Jeff Tunnell Productions. Much of the design work was done by lead designer Chris Cole and art director Brian Hahn, though the look of Johnny himself was designed by Shawn Bird. Most of the animations were created by Sherry Wheeler. The whole thing was licensed to Sierra, though they have since relinquished that licence.

The concept of the screensaver is a simple one. Johnny is cast away on a desert island. The island has just one palm tree in the middle, the makings of a tiny raft on the right hand side, and no other outstanding features¹. Johnny spends his time walking about, lying down, standing around, and occasionally doing other things that are slightly more interesting.

Johnny's Antics

Though he does spend a lot of time doing nothing much, every few minutes Johnny will perform a significant (though usually pointless), activity. He may pull out his fishing rod from behind the palm tree, dangle the line in the water, and catch a rubber ring with the words 'SS Titanic' emblazoned on it. Or he may pop behind the palm tree and change into his tracksuit so that he can do a few circuits of the island, before running out of breath, popping behind the tree again, and changing back into his shorts. But most often he tries to build a sandcastle, and then stamps on it disappointedly when it starts to crumble.

Johnny is not always alone, however. Sometimes he gets out his binoculars and scans the horizon from right to left, completely failing to see the speedboat travelling behind him from left to right. There's also a shark that swims along, jumps up and eats Johnny, though he soon spits him out again, finding him inedible. Most troubling of all is the enormous tanker that Johnny spots and starts waving at furiously - though he then has to jump into the sea when the tanker goes ploughing through the island.

There's a Screensaver With a Plot?

Allegedly so. Avid Johnny watchers claim that there are certain scenes that appear on particular days, with a developing storyline running through them. Rumour has it that these scenes cycle every ten days, with Johnny returning home on the tenth day, and being seen sitting at his desk in an office, dreaming of his desert island. Though it looks like he loses² his freedom on the eleventh day.

The plot seems to involve Johnny romancing Mary the Mermaid and Suzy the City Dweller alternately, one in person, and the other by sending messages in bottles. Though Mary is clearly the more beautiful of the two, Suzy does live in the city, so it is assumed that she wins him in the end.

Is it Any Good?

By today's standards the graphics are fairly poor, and though there are some sounds they are only a small step up from the good old PC bleep. The plot is very loose, and though many of the scenes are initially funny, they aren't quite so entertaining after you've seen them twenty times. And since it was made for a 640x480 size screen, on a higher resolution screen it's surrounded by a large black border.

But hey! It's only a screensaver! It's not like you were expecting that much to start out with. You might not want to pay good money to see it, but if you haven't got anything better to do with your time, it's an amusing way to waste a few minutes.

Further Viewing

The rights to Johnny Castaway have been transferred to morescreensavers.com, and Johnny can be downloaded free from that site.

Here's a great fansite that has a lot more information about Johnny, and descriptions of many of the scenes that appear.