In 2001, Midway was developing a mature platform game called 'Crank the Weasel'. The game was heavily inspired by cartoons of the 1940s while at the same time taking pointers from Conker's Bad Fur Day in terms of its mature content. The game's story focused on a weasel named Crank who wanted to live on the island of his dreams, Pleasure Island. The main mechanic of the game was to steal from the other characters in the game by resorting to violence in a cartoon-like manner, and then sell the items to the highest bidder in order to earn your way to the island.

In 2002, the game was announced with a trailer featuring footage from the game at E3. In 2003, Midway revealed the game was canceled. According to an anonymous Midway employee speaking to IGN:


The game would have been released on the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, and Xbox.