Know It All

There are 100 tiles in a Scrabble game, and 225 squares on the board.

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The classic whodunnit game Clue is sold in more than 40 countries. In England it is called Cluedo, in Brazil the game is called Detective.

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Bingo was originally called Beano when the game was introduced in the United States in 1929. American toy salesman Edwin Lowe patented the name Bingo and hired a Columbia University math professor to increase the number of combinations on bingo cards. By 1930, Leffler had invented 6,000 different bingo cards.

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The Game of Life was introduced in 1960. In 1992, the game was updated to reward players for good behavior, such as recycling trash.

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The game tokens in The Game of Life are cars. Each car has six “seats,” enough room for spouse and children pegs that might be added throughout the game.

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Monopoly was first produced in 1935. Do you know what the game tokens were in the original game of Monopoly? See answer at end.

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Hasbro, an American toy company, purchased Milton Bradley in 1984. The purchase made Hasbro the second largest toy and game manufacturer in the world, after Mattel.

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The dots on dominoes are called pips. An end domino tile with one pip is called an ace. A deuce has two pips, a trey has three pips.

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In the game Operation, players try to cure Cavity Sam, the perpetual patient, of various ailments. Operations include removing the butterflies from his stomach, the Adam’s apple from his throat and the funnybone from his arm.

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The name backgammon is derived from Welsh, meaning “little battle.”

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Twister was introduced in 1966. Sales were slow, until later that year when Johnny Carson played Twister on the “Tonight Show” with his guest Eva Gabor (1919-1995). Sales skyrocketed.

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Twister was originally called Pretzel.

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The strategy game Risk was invented in the early 1950’s by Albert Lamorisse (1922-1970) of France. Lamorisse was a movie director. He died in a helicopter accident in 1970 while directing a movie in Iran.

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Players travel through Lollipop Woods, the Gumdrop Mountains and Molasses Swamp in the game of Candyland. The first player to reach Candy Castle wins the game.

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In 1982, the year Trivial Pursuit was introduced, Time magazine called it “the biggest phenomenon in game history.”

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Yahtzee was invented by a wealthy Canadian couple to play aboard their yacht.

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Parker Brothers introduced a board game called Happy Days: Fonzie’s Real Cool Game in 1976. The same year, Milton Bradley came out with a card game called The Fonz: Hanging Out at Arnold’s.

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Answer: In 1937 Monopoly started using game tokens cast from metal. The first set of tokens were an iron, purse, lantern, car, thimble, shoe, top hat, rocking horse, battleship and cannon. In 1942, the purse, lantern and rocking horse were replaced by the Scottie dog, wheelbarrow and a man riding a horse. The current tokens are Scottie dog, battleship, car, top hat, thimble, shoe, wheelbarrow and cat.

Know It All is by Kerry McArdle. It runs in the weekend edition of the Daily Journal. Questions? Comments? Email knowitall(at)smdailyjournal.com or call 344-5200 ext. 128.