Let's talk board games that made us laugh and cry! Monopoly, Life, and Candyland you name it!
Let's talk board games that made us laugh and cry! Monopoly, Life, and Candyland you name it!
Guess who? It's me, ashley.
Aaron:Hello, nostalgic friends. My name's Erin and I've recently collected$10 for winning second place in a beauty contest.
Garret:And this is garrett. And you're listening to Nostalgic. By the way, I don't know anything about that library why the candlestick was in there or what Ms. Peacock was up to.
Aaron:Mm-hmm.
Garret:if our intro was a clue, then you should know that we're gonna be talking about board games today. Some of the classic games we grew up with, the ones that we played a lot or that we have fond memories with fought Over.
Aaron:Or
Ashley:the one that we got mad at and knocked the board upside down.
Garret:I thought we just gonna bring this to a
Ashley:positive area. thinking for a friend here.
Aaron:Yeah. Uhhuh.
Garret:we'll just dive right into this. I wanted to ask you guys a couple questions just so our listeners can get an idea of when you play games, like what kind of person you are. Ashley, what kind of games did you gravitate towards as a kid?
Ashley:We played all kinds of games. I think mostly what we played though is card games, so spoons, spades nickel dime poker.
Garret:Okay. That's the most memorable ones that stick out to you. Aaron, same question.
Aaron:we grew up together, so we played a lot of the same games. Definitely card games, almost always competitive games. Games that were supposed to be fun, but usually resulted in multiple people crying or uno, the family game.
so we would get mad and wanna quit
Ashley:And our parents would be like, no, you have to finish the game out. So We'd be crying and slamming our cards down and they always go, this doesn't look like the commercial And they were like, oh no, the family game oh my
Aaron:God.
Garret:I think the games that we played were just what we had. obviously had to be multiple people involved. I remember playing Tripoly, Michigan Rummy. That was fun cuz everyone got money, you got to put it in the banks you could win but you didn't keep it cuz we were a little poor. I remember playing candy Land Monopoly, Yasi. I just have very good memories growing up with them. And as an adult, those games bring people together and it's nice to have something to do that's carefree, So the games that you played growing up, has that changed now that you're an adult? Do you play things that are vastly different or do you play games that are similar to when you were younger?
Aaron:well, having a teenager, and all of their friends over, we've played a lot of the same games. Of course, these games, have evolved, a lot of the games have been updated like Uno now has a robot where, you can put the card in and the robot gives you directions and counts cards for you
Garret:really? Fancy. I ain't played that. Uno.
Aaron:come over to the house we'll have Game Night.
Ashley:Forget Thailand, go to Kentucky.
Garret:Woo.
Ashley:so I find that I Don't play a lot of competitive games anymore because I get an attitude. I recently had a game night with friends. I did really good with it. But I've noticed that people are buying me games where you don't compete against the other person, but you are a team that goes towards a common goal because I think they don't wanna compete against me it's like, Hey, let's play this Sherlock game where we compete against the imaginary Sherlock and we're all on the same team.
Aaron:Ashley's like, well. I wanna be the other team. All of you against me. Come on..
Ashley:I've calmed down a lot, everybody was like, how you doing? Cuz I told them how bad I was and I was like, I'm actually doing okay. I came in second place, I didn't slash anybody's tires it was great.
Garret:there's people with missing teeth, black eyes,
Aaron:Ashley used to, we played chess. And when she was losing, she would get mad and literally flip the board up and walk away oops. And of course I didn't have anybody else to play with, so eventually I'd ask her to play again. And same results,
Ashley:man. My mom would be like, why do you keep playing with her?
Garret:Oh man.
Aaron:I don't have anybody to play with
Garret:Okay. it brings me to my next question. Are you a sore loser?
Ashley:Not anymore. Depends on who I'm playing with. I guess I'm a sore loser.
Aaron:Are you
Garret:salty in what way?
Aaron:I like to win, I'm a competitive person
Ashley:if you're not first, you're last.
Aaron:mm-hmm. but I'm to the point now where I realize it's just a game. but a,
Ashley:I really do think it's the house we grew up in. I'm not throwing anybody under the bus. Julie, and I've told people this story a lot. When we would be bowling, my mom would say, you're only competing against yourself. Until you started beating her. And then she would get really serious about it and start taking you down. And we're like, but we're not even competing against you. And she said, Oh no. That was only when you were losing What lesson is this? But she did teach us that You didn't really teach us to brag. Like, let your game do the talking. Destroy them and then be humble about destroying them
Garret:I do remember us playing games, I wouldn't say you were a sore loser you and I are very similar, that we're passionate about the game. Do we like losing? No, it is part of it. But we've definitely been on teams where we've lost and I don't think I've ever seen you walk away and be like, I am gonna go kill that person. I need you to get a tarp and an ax and help me
Ashley:Well, I think the problem is, and I'm better now because I don't internalize it as much. when we used to play spades on my boat, we'd have little competitions when I was in the Coast Guard and, if we lost, I would literally sit up and go through that entire game and say, where did it start to turn? What could I have done differently? What could I have played? What was my partner playing I wouldn't sleep, I'd be obsessed with it.
Garret:Oh, wow.
Ashley:very unhealthy. Yeah. So that would be my sore loser. Taking it in and being like, you suck.
Aaron:Another example of our mom being very competitive. I was talking to her the day she just learned how to play a new card game. She was playing the card game against herself so she could be better when she played the people when she went back over to their house. Oh my goodness.
Garret:Julie I've only met your mom a handful of times and they've all been really good. But I do remember your mom being intense with the karaoke and some of the other, things it does surprise me and the stories that you've told about her in these situations just crack me up
Ashley:maybe it's because she had so many sisters. Cuz my mom. four sisters? And Yep. I don't know if they had a lot to do when they were younger, but they can find a game in everything. they used to spend hours on a pogo stick, just bouncing and seeing who could have the highest score. So that's her. She'll like bust out a beach ball and just be like, let's throw this ball back and forth.
Garret:good. Yeah, no a knife. She's like, I didn't say you
Aaron:had a choice.
Garret:now that people know what kind of board gamers we are I thought we would just kind of get into it
Ashley:all right. Before there was streaming, we used to sit around and play games, So Guess who was invented? By Milton Bradley in 1979, and then it made it to the US in 1982. It was in Europe for the first three years, and then it got brought over. it's still considered a new board game because it's 44 years old compared to chess, which is 1400 years old So Wow. Guess who was called the Original Guessing Game,. It has 24 people and they each pick their own mystery person, the other person is trying to guess this mystery person. by asking a series of yes or no questions. For example, does this person have a mustache? Is this person a male? Does this person have red hair? Et cetera, et cetera. as they ask, the pool of candidates narrows down and then they try to guess the person. If you guess wrong, you automatically lose. It's definitely about asking features. Does this person have bushy eyebrows? Not something subjective. Like, Does this person have funky eyebrows? I watched this really funny YouTube it was these two dudes playing and they were doing it by what they think the personality of the person was like,
Garret:Oh, that sound funny.
Ashley:The things they asked were really funny. It was. would this person consider Italian cuisine exotic? would this person go into a bar order a craft beer, but secretly not like the taste. I thought it was really fun. I highly recommend watching it in the very first versions there was 19 men, all Caucasian men, and five women with one non-white woman., the newer versions have a lot more gender equality, a lot more diversity They have anything pop culture, you can get Star Wars? Seinfeld? if you go on Etsy, you can customize your own where you can have pictures of all your friends on there,
Garret:Pretty cool.
Ashley:One of the fun facts about guess who is do you guys remember ever seeing a guess who commercial where they're talking. Mm-hmm. But one point they actually had to put a disclaimer in the end of the commercial saying pieces do not actually talk. it just made me laugh cause I was like, people got the game thinking that they were gonna be talking to them. I don't know. There's some kind of law that passed and they had to actually put in there. These do not actually speak to you.
Garret:That's crazy.
Ashley:So if talking about this makes you wanna play the newest version was released in May of 22 on Amazon for 1199. it's a lot fancier than ours where it used to just flip down the little pieces. It sits up straight, it can travel with you and you can change the cards out. It's either superheroes or people. No. So it's a double decker.
Garret:I would totally play that
Ashley:and lastly in April, 2021, they were in talks of having a TV show unscripted adaptation of Guess Who it's been in the works with the Lego Masters producer since 2019 and recently got on board at N b NBC says in each episode, contestants make snap judgments based on intuition and clues in an effort to win cash prizes. Considering we're in 2023 now. Yeah. I don't think it's gonna happen but game shows are like big right now. So it could still be in the works. I couldn't find much more on it,. but,
Aaron:I saw a YouTube video where a guy figured out that algorithm you were talking about he knew the questions to ask and it was a certain amount, like three things. And he could tell you every single time who your character They said in 2016, I was reading on Wikipedia that one guy figured out the algorithm and if you ask these certain three, it's a massacre, everybody falls. Especially if you're unlucky to, or not unlucky to get a female because you're picking, but if nobody's picking a female, if there's only five of'em, because alls they have to say, is it a woman? And it's like 19 go down, so nobody's picking the ladies. I did see a set that was all female and it was historical female characters and I thought that was cool too.
Garret:that'd be kind of educational and fun.
Aaron:So you were talking about making one with all your friends and stuff. What? You don't have any friends?
Ashley:What if it's just you and different disguises
Aaron:glasses? You and the me and the rest of'em are just like, stick people in blank,
Ashley:that's my neighbor fault. get off my lawn,
Aaron:get off my third earth.
Ashley:did you guys play? I know Aaron and I play goes to a lot. Oh yeah, for sure. At one I did. It was the most popular game in both Europe and the us. The most popular when it came out once some kind of a word, but I didn't memorize what?
Garret:Wow. I remember having it as a kid, I wasn't. step siblings had it. My sister is eight years older than me. So a lot of times the more Cattier games she'd be like, I am not playing that stupid game Aw.
Ashley:All by
Garret:myself. sometimes she would, but most of the time no
Ashley:when nobody was looking.
Garret:She's like, don't tell my fans
Ashley:now would be on Insta and Snap. Right. can't hide anything anymore.
So yes. Guess who?
Aaron:Yeah. Cool. Guess who my first game is Monopoly.
Ashley:think of how Monopoly Never heard of it. What's that? Please, please, to explain
Aaron:We could seriously do a whole episode on Monopoly. I'll just start at the beginning. So Hasbro, bought Parker Brothers, which is who originally produced Monopoly. If you've never played Monopoly, monopoly is a game where your goal is to try to buy properties and bankrupt the other players. As you play the game, you acquire, you can trade you can borrow money from the bank anything to do with real estate and taxes. And the goal of the game is to be the last one with money.
Ashley:like the definition of, monopolies, isn't it when one entity governs mm-hmm. Everything. Mm-hmm. controls everything. Mm-hmm.
Aaron:And In the instructions it says that the game was invented in 1935 by a man named Charles Darrow. But in 1903, a woman named Elizabeth Margie actually filed the original patent for this game. She called it the Landlord's Game,
Ashley:Let's make sure Liz gets some credit, man
Aaron:no doubt. she was a very person I had never heard of her before this, she was a women's rights activist and an activist for slave rights she traveled around in 18 hundreds and fifties with Abraham Lincoln. And she was an inventor She invented parts for the best version of the typewriter that was out, they called it a roller. that helps the paper guide through as you type. And she invented this game. She hand drew the boards she pretty much did it for her friends. She invented the game to show the evil side of land ownership and monopolizing land. And she showed how effective taxes can remedy people trying to monopolize all the land. Some of the professors at Harvard Penn State, they were using this in their classrooms as an example of how economics works, taxes works. One of the professors was planted at their house and Mr. Charles Darrow happened to be there and saw the idea and took it to Parker Brothers. Oh yeah. Parker Brothers actually denied him the first time. They said the game was too long. It was too confusing for people to understand. So he revised it and cut a few things out and took the monopoly that we know today back to them. And they produced it in 19 it
Ashley:you mean stole it? Stole it.
Aaron:so she fought it and tried to, take Parker brothers to court they settled, they gave her 500 bucks, no royalties for the game, and they let her invent two other games, They didn't advertise and they never took off. So they pretty much disappeared they're like,
Ashley:but we gave you a chance,
Garret:That sucks. They basically bought her out and were like, We're gonna continue with this and we're just gonna let this fold and collapse all over you.
Ashley:You're not gonna get Monopoly, but you got credit for the other two
Aaron:Awful. Since 1935, they have made over$2 billion off Monopoly. There's been over 275 million copies sold in over 111 countries and 47 different languages including braille. there's been over 6 billion houses made and 225 billion hotels made. Over 1 billion people have played the game. And there's thousands of versions. There's no confirmed number on how many versions of Monopoly. But there is a family in North Carolina that has over 3,300. Versions of the game at their
Ashley:house. what the heck, man? One is enough. One is
Aaron:enough. Yeah. Yeah. we probably have six here at the house between Star Wars, Disney, cheater edition.
Ashley:I've seen make your own too. I remember buying one when I worked at GoDz Zoo cause it was a make your own monopoly and everything was blank and you could design your own.
Garret:You just write it down or through a computer or,
Ashley:I don't remember, I didn't actually do it. but
Aaron:Oh. The most expensive version is a 23 car gold version of Monopoly. It costs$2 million if you wanna buy it. Give
Garret:me a break.
Ashley:No. If for sale, who's selling
Aaron:it? I don't know. That's what is cost if you want it.
Ashley:That's the thing about artistic stuff is you can say it's worth this much, but until you get someone to pay 2 billion, is it worth 2 billion? Mm-hmm.
Garret:but would you wanna play that? If it was 2 million, I'd be like, this is gonna go in a million
Aaron:container. Yeah. If you had 2 million to spend on it, you probably, that's would, that's probably not. I would, yeah. I like, I would bust it out. Me too. Yeah. Monopoly You're
Ashley:right, you're right. Yeah.
Aaron:and then I thought it was cool in the late 1970s, there was a chocolate company and every year they would release a catalog around Christmas of their different chocolates. And they had a chocolate monopoly board version where everything was edible except for the cards it was like 700 bucks. Never
Ashley:finished the game. You're like, oh, where are all Sorry, didn't I have hotels? And you're like, got a ring, around your mouth.
Aaron:The quickest game ever, was 13 seconds. It was a two player game. They said it had to have been nine perfect roles. And by the second role, the second player was bankrupt. So the first player won. the longest recorded game 70 days. They played for 70 days before they finished the game. The longest recorded game underwater was 50 days
Garret:Wait, wait.
Ashley:That was a burning question that I had and I'm so glad you answered. Oh, I got more.
Aaron:The 70 day game was the same people playing for 70 days. the underwater one is different because it was multiple people playing and they would go above water and then come down. It was a charity thing the dice and the pieces were weighted. The cars were laminated.
Garret:Was this in a submarine or
Aaron:This was actually people scuba diving. the longest game in a bathtub was 99 hours. And the longest game upside down was 36 hours.
Garret:upside down
Aaron:how they did it, I dunno, got way too much time. Yeah. For real. A few more facts that were pretty interesting. In World War ii, the Geneva convention allowed prisoners of war to receive certain comfort items, They were able to smuggle escape tools, money and supplies to American soldiers in Germany in the games of Monopoly. So I thought that was pretty cool.
I mean,
Ashley:a lot rattles around in there, right?
Yeah.
Aaron:Each year there is more monopoly money printed than there is real money in America.
Garret:How on earth could that be, right?
Aaron:Well, maybe not this year because there's printing it out, we're not gonna get into that, the national play Monopoly Day is November 19th. So on November 19th, we had to play a game. And then finally the British Royal family is actually banned from playing Monopoly by the queen. because it caused so many arguments, and so much chaos within the house, now that she's passed away, they might be able to play. I don't know, but oh my God,
Garret:can you imagine? Be like, Charles, you cannot play this game anymore You
Ashley:I feel like it would be like real life politics would come out and they'd oh, you would buy hotels, wouldn't you? Like you spent Martha's money.
Garret:Why were you in jail?
Ashley:Can't pay to get out of this one. Can you, Charles
Aaron:Over the years,, the game has really stayed the same, they've changed the board to different properties and properties to match this local cities and themes on the original one, Mr. Monopoly, was based on JP Morgan, which was one of the wealthiest men in the country at the time. He kind of got mad that they were portraying him like that. So they ended up changing his name to Rich Uncle Penny Bags. And then now it's Mr. Monopoly. The last two I have is that the cop on there, his name is Officer Edgar Mallory,
Ashley:Oh, He's definitely Irish. oh, Mallory he's got a Billy stick,
Aaron:and the criminal in there. the guy behind bars. His name is Jake, the Jailbird. old Jake. Jake from State Farm, if that
Ashley:is your real name,
Aaron:I've quoted the board game versions of it, but they have many digital versions and you can download apps. So there's been over 10 million downloads of the apps and the e versions also. Hmm.
Ashley:Monopoly. I did not wanna play a monopoly bad enough to get an app,
Aaron:No. So as kids we had a lot of board games, and when we played Monopoly, we would have knocked down, drag out fights,, with my friends. We had probably six or seven Monopoly games in one. So we had a stack of hundreds and 500. that were all the money from the other games.
Ashley:We've talked about this,. You called it the Booty stash. The booty Stash,
Aaron:you would think that you were winning and all of a sudden somebody you're playing with would pull out a stack of five hundreds,, you know, an InStick. And I got my booty stash. so we had to band booty and we had all the hotels and the houses from the other games too. So you would have boardwalk with like 10 hotels on it, and when you landed on it.
Garret:Oh my God, We
Ashley:had gallon Ziploc bags, full of houses, hotels, So much money. Like you would never run out That's also why the games last so long cuz we had so much money, after a while you're like giving it away. I'll pay extra. What else do you want? Like I just want it to be over.
Aaron:We wouldn't even use ones, remember I don't even think we were using fives for a while, if it was two bucks, we were like, eh,
Ashley:and also free parking was one of those things where you can play with different people and some of'em do the free parking and some don't. it's not a given. So you have to discuss.
Aaron:with any of the games that we're gonna discuss everybody has their own rules when you play these games.
Garret:Side rules
Aaron:and I was gonna say Garrett, earlier when you were talking about monopoly taking forever, if you really play it by the rules, it can go by pretty quick. If you play by the actual rules in the rule book where you don't have to go around one time to buy property, if somebody lands on a property and they don't buy it, then it goes up for auction. So everybody can tie it right
Ashley:then. Oh, that's cool. I think we just learned automatically we got hand-me-down rules, Yes. How our family plays it
Aaron:We have a cheaters. Version of Monopoly We're like, anything goes. We only played it a couple times, cuz as soon as nobody was looking, I would just reach over to the bank and grab all the five hundreds out.
Ashley:Oh, that would not be okay. With some of the families play with people are sticklers. They're like, what are you doing? Figure, And that's what it becomes, No, I wouldn't trust anybody.
Garret:Yeah, man, your hand would get sliced off of a fork or something.
Ashley:cleaver ding,
Garret:Oh, how about some fingers with the 5G just took,
Aaron:huh? Yeah. They do have a set of handcuffs that are attached to the board and you can make people wear the handcuffs so you can wash their hands, and kinky. Wow. I have never, they're not pink fuzzy handcuffs or anything.
Ashley:I'm sure there's strip monopoly or something,
Garret:do remember having, arguments this is one of those games that like, okay, this is how the real world works and if you have a monopoly, everyone hates you. Yes. Good job.
Ashley:You have done well. Mine was when you'd have that person who did not wanna admit defeat and wouldn't sell. And you're just sell the
Garret:I do remember those games lasting forever. But like you said, you get to a point and you're just like, what do you want? You want park place here? Gimme a dollar. Right. Just go yours.
Ashley:The other thing is, I may be okay with losing. I just don't want you to win. So I'm gonna strategically work with this person, I remember people getting pretty mad over that. You'll make a deal with the other person, but not them cuz they have them Monopoly or whatever. Oh, that did not go well.
Garret:Yeah.
Ashley:I feel like it would come out in your real life. Like, oh, okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you're gonna do that here. I'm like uh, I dunno if I'm gonna be able to sleep tonight. Right. I'm gonna get murdered.
Garret:I'm telling you need a kidney and I'm a match. remember that time you wouldn't sell me Boardwalk
Ashley:I feel like there is a forensic file that's like the Monopoly murders or something, it's there. Oh man. No, intense. Like Aaron said, we could probably do a whole episode on Monopoly. but we've gotta move on.
Garret:My first game, this is a game that I played quite a bit It was a very simplistic and rudimentary, which is probably why I liked it. The game is called Trouble If you haven't played trouble, there's a little pop Matic with a Dyson. It's it's a little plastic circle, on the board and you press it down and the dice that's in there pops up, four people can play and there's red, blue, green, yellow, and you have to get a six in order to get one of your pieces out. The goal of the game is to go around the entire board and then make it to the finish line with all four pieces. Now, if you get stepped on as you're playing, you get sent right back to where you start and you have to start all over. So the person who gets all four pieces to the finish line wins. this is one of the games I did play with my sister a lot. And it just was a very memorable game. trying to find facts for this, Proved to be pretty darn hard. I couldn't find very much. apparently This is based on a 20th century game from Germany, and I am gonna
Ashley:butcher this. Oh, please say that one.
Garret:I think it's Men Ditch Knight I'm sorry. it's loosely translated to, don't argue. And it's a game that's very much like ancient Parsi, I guess. When they were working on developing the game, the word that they used first was frustration, but it was changed the trouble for launch. In some international markets it's been frustration, So if you're listening to us from a different country and you know this as frustration, then this is for you.
Ashley:Is a Gemini accent coming up? Yes. Except for when he tried to say the German word.
Garret:Please don't come after me for that butchery.
Ashley:I have a question. What about the game is frustrating and troubling?
Garret:The whole reason is you have to go the amount of spaces that the dice tells you to. if there is a. in that area that you land on, that piece goes back. So Ashley, if you're blue and I'm green and I land on you, your piece goes back to the very start, which means you have to get a six and get it out again and try to get around the entire board. So it gets really frustrating because if you get almost all the way around and somebody lands on you and you have to start all over, you're like, oh man, you're gonna be in trouble when I see you next. I'm gonna Right.
Ashley:I'm not gonna, it's like you're gonna chase people down. Right?
Aaron:Sometimes that person has a choice to go one direction and not bump you, or they can go the number
Ashley:on the, of course they're gonna bump you. I mean, come on the game.
Aaron:Before you get into your home, you have to roll the exact amount to get in Uhhuh. So you could be stuck there forever and then somebody can bump you before
Ashley:you get in. Ah, all right. Ok. Yeah, I see the, a lot of frustration.
Garret:Mm-hmm.
Aaron:I did like the fact that the dice was there because have you ever played a game with somebody that rolls the dice and they fall off the table and they want to count it sometimes and they don't. Or
Ashley:the Oh, right. Count
Interference It hit your hands.
Garret:Well, it was a promotional feature for the game because it said no lose parts cuz of the Pop Matic. Mm-hmm. And that was a huge feature on the game it was so successful that they incorporated it into other games that they made. There was games called Headache sidetrack Bingo with Pop Matic. crossover, the bridge and pop checks. None of these games I've ever played, but apparently they used this feature wow. Interesting. So Paul and Frank formed the Conner Brothers, and they moved to New York City during World War
Ashley:did Hasbro buy them out? Because I feel like Hasbro just bought everyone else.
Aaron:Mm-hmm. They bought my next one out too.
Ashley:mine too.
Garret:I think they worked with Parker Brothers and Hasbro and like a few other things. But the company created a bunch of different style of games and they would invite inventors to come and say, okay, pitch me your idea. Whatever it is, we're gonna pay you fair royalties and we'll take it on. And they were really successful because of this but they did pass up the hula hoop. The guy who invented the hula hoop came in and he was like, no, get the hell outta here. became
Ashley:like Californians. I know. I actually have a reference to hula hoops in mine too, and Oh, do, yeah. it came full circle.. All right. I quit. it's the best I'm gonna do.
Garret:but I loved that game. I liked it cuz it was quick but If you had four people playing that game though, that game could last a while. Especially when you were close to winning, like Aaron was saying. Mm-hmm. you have three in there and you're waiting on one and then one person knocks you all the way back. You wanna knock their teeth out.
Ashley:it's one of those where everybody is on a level playing field. Of course you can make a decision to take someone out. But really you were at the mercy of the dice.
Garret:which is good. Cause if you're a kid, it makes winning all that nicer, especially to beat your parents. I see that all the time. Dustin's family, like,
Ashley:they'll teach the kids the games, but kids are way sharper than the adults so it feels like once the kids learn it, they surpass.
Aaron:Back. Your nursing home. Boomer, you know, right?
Ashley:Aaron, do you remember playing travel?
Aaron:I played it not too long ago. There is actually a little more strategy to it now that I'm older on picking the pieces to move, I think you can get six players around there.
Ashley:Dang. That's a lot of competition
Garret:I remember four but if they've added more colors or more sides to it, then that's new to me.
Ashley:Right. Maybe it's like extreme trouble.
Aaron:Double trouble.
Ashley:Yes. We're, we're on it. this as good as it's gonna get guys. Okay, we're gonna get series here and talk about life. Mm-hmm. we're gonna talk about
Aaron:do we have to
Ashley:We're talking about games so we can escape life. Yeah.
Aaron:Exactly.
Ashley:I'm talking about the magical game of life. This is one of those games we had, and I'm pretty sure, I played with the board more than I played the game. It had the cool board where it had hills and a city and then you would have a little car that you tried to fill with people.
Aaron:You're family.
Ashley:And later pets. Yay.
Aaron:Oh.
Garret:Didn't it have the wheel that was like Wheel of Fortune that it made that kind
Ashley:of like Yes. It's like It wing a little ticket. Yeah. A little bit about the game of life this was Milton Bradley's first game that put him on the map in 18, 60,
Garret:Really.
Ashley:which is the same year that Lincoln was elected. And he sold 40,000 coming out of the gate and it made him a household name. Now it's not the same as the game of life that we know now. It was called the Checker Game of Life. And It was actually on a checkered board. One of the ways they sold 40,000 is they sold it in a set that was the checker board, so you could play chess Checkers, backgammon and this was sold to Union soldiers when they were traveling around in the ward, they would have them with them.
Garret:That's cool.
Ashley:but A weird fact about it is in the beginning they had one of the squares you automatically lost. It was you committed suicide. Oh man, that got taken out in the new version. Geez, And then another one was a square four in temperance. Have you ever heard of that before?
Garret:No. What is in temperance?
Ashley:It is defined as a lack of restraint, especially toward drinking of intoxicants So pretty much just poisoning yourself with alcohol or you're trying to make it through life. like that was his whole, gym. Now. They did a more modern version a hundred years later, 1960. And it was the same group from California that created the hula hoop. And it doesn't resemble the original one, So the newer version has little station wagons, and you are trying to go through different phases of life when you go around the board. You go to school, you get a job, there's taxes. It's life. And, I wish I would've played this a little more so I could learn about life, but I pretty much just played with the board, lay mask, adulthood, you know, like I didn't learn anything. So then in 1992 the station wagons became minivans and one of the parts you could have a midlife crisis. And like most of what we've talked about you can get Indiana Jones, I don't know if y'all watch it, but So Amazon put out an original, Marvelous Mrs. Maisel one. The thing I did notice about the new ones is they don't have the 3D city, which I really, I don't know why I like that as a kid.
Garret:Um, I loved it. It was textured.
Ashley:It reminds me when I'm on a plane, especially here in Houston, it'll be so flat and then you see Houston popping up. I'm like, oh my God, it's like the game. Over the years they've tried to change it from being so, money is success, one of the designers said that every time that they've tried to do that, nobody could really figure it out. They had one point where they had life tiles in it, which means that you could do good deeds. The problem was how do you reward someone for their good deeds? You give them money. That's the only way to add value. they had, save an endangered species, solution to pollution, open a health food chain. people tried to tweak it through the years they could never get away from money being successful. and Then it was saying an earlier versions, you would get a hundred thousand dollars for a Nobel Prize, now you get hundred thousand dollars for going on a reality show. Oh So just start updating. with this product there's so much nostalgia there's only so much you can change They did come out in 2007 with a version called Twists and turns and twists and turns is what I am calling the, everybody gets a trophy game, because this was that era of everyone wins. They tried to divide it into learn it, live it, love it, and earn it. Players got to decide how they spent their time. And it could be going to school or having kids hanging out, traveling, whatever. You begin with a tiny plastic skateboard. And if you like, you can upgrade to a sports car, but you don't have to. And it says you can play in five minutes or five hours because there's no winning or losing. Life is aimless. You're literally just playing the game of life and there's no Oh,
Aaron:sounds weird. Like it's an A, you know, it's,
Ashley:yeah. Whenever you decide to stop, whoever ends up with the most life points gets to win. Right. one of the things that I thought was a fun or just A weird fact is, in the newer versions, they got away from cash and started using Visa cards. And they were trying to say oh, we're teaching kids to be responsible. We're not teaching them to be in debt. In Monopoly, if you're bankrupt, you're, watching the game cuz you're done. But in this game it doesn't matter how much debt you still get to play. And I'm like, it's just teaching people to be in debt.
Garret:Yeah.
Ashley:it's like, this isn't real money. And that is like real life I have to stay away from credit cards cuz I'm just like, hey, So that's pretty much the versions of life.. Adulting Sucks is what it should be called. don't play this now because you'll be playing it forever.
Aaron:right.
Ashley:so if me talking about life and you living it daily, you got a hanker into play more. there. is the Game of Life app. There is online versions, I do not know if any of those cost money. So it's not a plug or anything. There's Game of Life, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation four and five, Xbox. All of the, what do you call it? Gaming systems. I'm sure those means something to you guys. And then the newest versions that you can get on Amazon there's a Mario themed one for 20 bucks and Jurassic Park for 25. So, It's still out there.
Aaron:Moving on from the real game of life, we're gonna go into the imaginary world of Candy Land. We, yep.
Garret:I love candy
Aaron:Candy Land Is a game where players move through imaginary lands like peanut butter, brittle house, peppermint stick forest, the molasses swamp, and Gumdrop mountain to reach King Candy's castle.
Sign me up
Aaron:so, unlike my Monopoly game that was created out of patents theft and controversy. candy Land was created outta love. In the early 1940s, a retired school teacher named Eleanor Abbott was in a hospital in San Diego, California. She was getting treated for polio and she went through the children's ward one day and saw the children that were stuck there. So she decided to create some kind of distraction and let them have some fun. And she designed Candy Land to do that. She invented Candy Land as a game where anybody could play. you didn't have to know how to read, you didn't have to know mathematics. Her motto for a game was A sweet little game for Sweet little folks aw, yeah. She designed this game and took it to Milton Bradley, they published the first one in 1949. They really liked it because it was a game that was not designed towards competition, but more fostering the imagination and, getting away from the real world for a while.
Garret:I see that.
Aaron:One of the reasons that it was an instant success was it was a game where children could play without adults help. she actually did get the royalties from this. and she donated many of her royalties back to the polio hospitals and to schools for supplies and education tools that's amazing., since, since first print in 1949, it has sold 50 million copies and it still to this day sells 1 million copies every year. Wow. And just like every other game There's different pop culture, versions know, star Wars, game of Thrones, the usuals. In 1986, they came out with a VCR R version in 2005, they had a D V D interactive version, and in 2005 it was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame. Nice. I said there was no controversy, but in 1996 when the internet started blowing up a company in the adult video industry bought ww dot candy land.com. Ooh. They own the rights to it. So when people were looking for Candy Land and took them to, an explicit site,
Garret:a different kind of candy
Aaron:milton Bradley sued them and they won the rights to get Candy Land taken down and they got the names of the domain, so they took him to court. Oh wow. They probably did have more money. maybe. they tried to update the board every year, but it still has many of the same characters, the same imaginary lands to get to the castle. they started out with wooden tokens that were little gingerbread men. and they went to children and now I think they're like a marshmallow and a piece of chocolate. So you're pieces of candy that move through the land,
Ashley:I remember the gingerbread men. I'm trying to look at the version I played, I remembered having creepy things. One of'em was a chocolate monster looking guy. Yeah. Grumpy.
Aaron:He has been taken out.
Ashley:The other one was Lord Licorice. I don't know, he just looks a little sketchy.
Garret:Oh Lord, licorice. why would you put that in Candy Land? Scaring kids with licorice. That's gross. Right? I know it's nasty,
Aaron:well that's Candy Land.
Ashley:I don't remember how to play, you just had to get around the board.
Garret:Right? you would pull a card out and then you would go to the
Aaron:color. Yeah. when you flip the card, you would move to that color
Ashley:And if you were ahead of it, you'd have to go back. Or if you were behind, you'd go forward. It'd be like, go to Mr. Licorices house and get abducted. Yeah and disappear for two weeks.
Garret:oh my god. Gee, where were you, Kelly? I was with Mr. Licorice.
Ashley:Yeah, you're out for three turns because you've been abducted
Garret:I Sure. Why do you smell like licorice?
Ashley:for life. like the bog of eternal stench.
maybe it's like the Chocolate River and Willy Wonka.
Garret:Oh man. Alrighty. my next game that I still love to this day is Clue, or if you're in Europe, Pluto,
Aaron:Pluto man,
Garret:if you've never played Clue, clue is a who done it mystery game. And the object of the game is to determine who killed the game's victim. Dr. Black was in the Pluto version in Europe. It was Mr. Body, b o d d y here in the states. And the player would choose one of six suspects. And you ask questions, you take notes, and then towards the end you say who you think murdered And try to reveal who it was by saying it was Colonel Mustard in the kitchen with the wrench or something So you would go into different rooms trying to find secret passageways or clues that would help you figure out who was the murderer. A few interesting facts clue was invented during the UK air raid of World War II in the early 1940s. It was a British musician. and his name was Anthony Pratt. He was also a fire warden munitions factory worker, and so when he was hole up in his Birmingham home during the air raids, during the nights that he recalled some murder mystery game that his clients would play at private music gigs him and his wife would have discussions about it. So they decided to make a game of their own his wife was actually integral, she created some of the characters, some of the rules Name came. Because it was a blend of Clue and Ludo the name of a 19th century board game, that's Latin four I play. But when it came over to the States, they changed it to just clue because we didn't have any idea what this Ludo game is. Early versions of Clue had different weapons. The weapons, now are the rope, the wrench, candlestick the lead pipe. I think, was there a gun?
Aaron:I think I remembered a gun. If not, there should be.
Garret:For Pratt's early ideas they were a bit more gruesome. So there was listed in ax a Cual a small bomb, a rope, a dagger, A revolver, A hypodermic needle. Oh, poison and a fireplace. Poker.
Ashley:I like the bomb. you'd walk in and be like I definitely think it was the bomb,
Garret:Seriously, man, can you imagine? Like, the butler is like uh, so we are still scraping Miss Peacock from the rafters. she's a little bit on the in the garden as well, since half of the wall was blowing out,
Aaron:right?
Garret:But I can understand why some of these were taken out in the other version. so clues, Colonel Mustard, was originally called Colonel Yellow there was 10 characters. In his patent application. There was Dr. Black, Mr. Brown, Mr. Gold, the Reverend Mr. Green, Ms. Gray, professor Plum, Ms. Scarlet, nurse White, Ms. Silver, and Colonel Yellow. Obviously not all characters survived and they whit it down to just the six characters. One of the craziest things that I didn't know until doing research for this, they actually killed off one of the characters permanently. It was Ms. White was that the main. I believe so. Yeah. Yes. In 2016, Hasbro decided to off the murderous housekeeper in favor of a new character, Dr. Orchid, a scientist who isn't above bludgeoning, someone with a candlestick. It was the first time a character in the game had ever been permanently retired. I wonder why they chose to get rid of a girl and bringing him a stupid
Ashley:scientist. Right? If anything, the maid, probably knows the house the best. knows
Garret:for them. Secrets are all team.
Ashley:Mm-hmm.
Garret:Like some of the games we were talking about before they've made different versions They have different versions of them. They have a Labyrinth Clue board game, which I was like, Asher would love that. They have a Star Wars, the office. Game of Thrones, Rick and Morty, I mean, the list just goes on and on and on. Ashley, do you remember buying me the Golden Girls one? Yes. You know what's funny is I've never gotten to play that. Cuz every time I mention it to somebody I'm like, Hey, do you guys wanna play Clue? this Golden Girl? And they're like, no. really?
Really?
Garret:nobody Wants to play it with me and I can't play it by
Aaron:myself. Lance
Ashley:killed. That's what I'm wondering too. No,
Garret:it's who stole the last piece of cheesecake or something
Aaron:or
Ashley:something. Oh,. right. It's a whodunit, but not a murder. Okay. Correct. Okay. What do you think the office would be? Simple funding? Aaron? who jammed up the paper machine? Or who
Aaron:pranked Dwight or something.
Ashley:Know
Garret:But I love this game. I think one of the reasons this game stands out is because I played it=with every member of my family, And you couldn't just guess it right away. Although there was one time I guessed it right off the bat and won.
Ashley:What happens if you guess it wrong?
Garret:You lose you can guess certain pieces, but if you open up everything and you're able to view everything and you've guessed it wrong, yes, you definitely lose. But yeah, this game Rocks. I would play it now if y'all wanted to play it and you weren't so far away, I
Ashley:think it think it's worth mentioning that there was a movie,
Garret:I was gonna bring that up. But you beat me to the punch. Jump the Jump the Gun. Yes, there was a movie that is absolutely incredible. It was made in the eighties. It starts as Tim Curry and a bunch of other actors that you know if, you're an eighties kid, seventies kid, whatever.
Ashley:I'm sure eventually it'll get its own episode. Oh,
Garret:yeah, yeah, yeah., it has to. For a movie about a board game, you don't think it would be good, but this thing was funny, witty, and just great. It's definitely one, of my favorites and the lines are so quotable in there too. but yeah, that's it. that's our board games. Anything else you guys wanna add? No not with that face, Ashley
Aaron:thinking That's my thinking face. My thinking
Ashley:way looks,
Aaron:if you have any facts on any of these games, any inputs, any memories you'd like to share with us, as always, you can reach us@ournostalgicpodcast.com.
Ashley:Tell us if you were a board flipper.
Aaron:Yeah.
Garret:how do you feel about Monopoly?
Ashley:What's your longest game of Monopoly? I And have you played it upside down or underwater? I'm gonna go back to playing the Game of Life.
Garret:No.
Aaron:back to Reality. Thanks for listening. See y'all next time.
Ashley:Do well.