Trivia / King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder!

• Acting for Two: Considering the game's cast was made up of Sierra's staff, this is to be expected:
  • Josh Mandel as Graham, the Innkeeper's pal, and one of the harpies.
  • Leonard "Ray" Bergeron as Crispin, the Toymaker, and the Innkeeper.
  • Dianah Pressley as Beetrice and Cassima (the latter's voice work was replaced by Louise "Stevie" Vallance in the sequel).
  • Barry T. Smith as the Toymaker's Son, the man in Serenia, the eagle, Rocky the Rock Creature, Dink, and Alexander (Alex's voice work was also replaced by Robby Benson in the sequel).
  • Diana Wilson as Alicia, the Willow, and Rosella (the latter of whose voice work was replaced by Sheryl Bernstein and Maureen McVerry in both sequels).
  • Gregory James Thomas as Herbert and the Gnome.
  • Dan Long as King Antony and the Shoemaker.
  • Sarah Long as Madam Mushka the Fortune Teller, the Shoemaker's wife, and the witch.
  • Kevin Orcutt as pie shop customer Austin and a boy in Serenia.
  • Dick Roberts as the Baker and his brother.
  • Nancy Zdenek as the Elf and another one of the harpies.
  • Guruka Singh Khalsa as the Tailor Shop's irate customer and Manannan the Cat.
  • Mark Seibert as the Genie, the (pOIsonous) snake and the singing ants.
  • And Roberta Williams herself as pie shop customer Amanda, a woman in Serenia, one of the harpies, and a rat.
• Amateur Cast: The game may have had a million-dollar budget, but they didn't spend it on voice acting. The CD-ROM version was voiced by Sierra staffers.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Richard Aronson, voice of Cedric, did not like some of the lines, but working with Roberta Williams was too good to pass up.
• Contest Winner Cameo: Amanda, the lady in the pie shop voiced by Roberta Williams, and her son Austin (voiced by Kevin Orcutt), are named after two contestants chosen as the winners in the "Be a Character in King's Quest V" contest in Inter Action Magazine. Entrants had to submit photos of themselves in outfits that would fit into the King's Quest world — those costumes are exactly what the characters are wearing.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Josh Mandel has stated in interviews that he doesn't look fondly at his first time voicing Graham, stating his initial inexperience with voice acting. Despite this, he got better over time and became a staple voice actor in future Sierra games, including fan-made remakes.
  • Richard Aronson, Cedric's voice actor, never liked the infamous "poisonous snake" line, but Roberta Williams was so well-known that he didn't press the issue.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: In the CD-ROM release, Josh Mandel voices one of the harpies Graham encounters in the mountains.
• Dummied Out: The Game Over screen showing the EVIL innkeeper's EVIL mug is hidden in the game but changed to a tombstone, probably because it was too damn creepy.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Only the MPC version has been re-released digitally. The EGA and VGA floppy disk releases, plus the NES and other ports, have never been officially reissued.
• Killer App: As with a lot of other games in the series, King's Quest V sold new hardware. In this case, it was VGA cards, as it was one of the first games to support the 256-color mode. Sierra attempted to do the same thing with CD-ROM drives with the voiced version, but we know how that turned out.
• Multi-Disc Work: The floppy version is on ten 3½'' disks or six 5¼'' disks (even though 5¼'' store less space, for some reason there's less of them).
• Real-Life Relative: Composer Mark Seibert voiced minor roles in the game while his wife Debbie voiced the singing willow tree.
• Short Run in Peru: According to this site, the game had a limited release in Japan first for the FM Towns personal computer, before the full US release.
• What Could Have Been: Sierra announced an Atari ST version of the game but ultimately canceled it, to the irritation of Sierra's European division, as the machine was still popular overseas.

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