Category Archives: Toys

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Spin Again Sunday: Allan Sherman’s Camp Granada Game, 1965

I’d like to wish a happy Chanukah to everyone who is celebrating it. I’m part of an interfaith family; my husband gives me presents at Christmas, and I give him presents for Chanukah. Last night, he opened this vintage board game.

My husband’s a big fan of Allan Sherman’s song parodies, so as soon I learned that this game existed I knew I would get it for him someday. It’s based on Sherman’s biggest hit, “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh,” and, like the song, it explores the perils of summer camp.

This Week’s Game: Allan Sherman’s Camp Granada Game, 1965, Milton Bradley.

The Box: Large and lime green, the box features cute cartoon illustrations and crayon-style lettering.

The Board: The board introduces you to all of Camp Granada’s “attractions,” from Cruddy Creek to Quicksand Beach to the Bawl Park.

Each player sets up a bunk house near the board.

The Object: “To be the first player to collect 3 icky animals and go home by driving the bus out the exit gate.”

Game Play: For once, I have someone to help me explain:

Players set up the game by placing an icky animal on each red space. You start the game with 3 icky animal cards. Bus cards direct you where to go on the board, and you collect whatever icky animal is waiting for you. You can only drive the bus home after you’ve collected the specific animals on your cards. You hide your cards and your animals in your bunk house, so other players don’t know what you’re looking for. In certain situations, players can steal each other’s animals. If the bus’ radiator falls out during a player’s turn, that turn is over.

Fatal Flaw: My daughter loved the sticky rubber animals in this game, and she couldn’t wait play. We had fun, but the bus is a huge pain—it’s almost impossible to keep the radiator from popping out every two seconds. The manufacturers knew this was a problem: The rules include “Special Advice from Allan Sherman” about keeping the wheels straight. The rules also allow for beginning players to have 2 or 3 “free” breakdowns in each turn.

My Thoughts: This is a clever game with lots of cute details. It’s too bad the bus doesn’t work well, but we found ways to work around the problem.

Other Spin Again Sunday posts you might enjoy:

Barbie Miss Lively Livin’, 1970

Addams Family Card Game, 1965

Dr. Kildare Game, 1962

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Spin Again Sunday: TV Guide’s TV Game, 1984

Well, this be-sweatered family sure is having fun (except Grandpa, who may be having a stroke). What kind of game could cause this excitement? Read on.

Well, this be-sweatered family sure is having fun (except Grandpa, who may be having a stroke). What kind of game could cause this excitement? Read on.

This Week’s Game: TV Guide’s TV Game

Copyright Date: 1984

The week’s game offers an interesting picture of TV as it used to be.

Actually, it offers many interesting pictures. If you like TV Guide cover images, this is the game for you.

The Box: TV Guide’s logo and bold red and yellow letters leap off a black background. A cover image collage, featuring everyone from Jack Benny to John Wayne, tells you what this game is all about.

The Board: A test-pattern rainbow in the middle provides visual interest, while more TV Guide covers line the board’s perimeter. Notice the four networks at dead center on the board—ABC, NBC, PBS, and CBS. What a simple TV time—and by 1984, it was already coming to an end.

The Object: “To acquire 7 different program cards and as many points as possible by answering questions correctly.”

Recommended Ages: 10 and up.

Credits: “Created by Alan Charles for Trivia, Inc.”

Game Play: Players roll dice and move their colored pegs around the board. Based on the spot where they land, they answer trivia questions about a particular TV show category (Drama, Sports, Comedy, News, Kids, Movies, or Other TV). A player who answers correctly earns a program card representing the category. To win, you need a card from each category, plus the largest number of total points from answering questions and earning bonuses.

Program Cards: These feature cover images, too.

Question and Answer Books:  These four books are cool; they look like real issues of the magazine. I remember owning the Charles and Diana issue, which I kept with a whole stack of royal wedding clippings under my bed.

The back of each Q&A book features 9 more TV Guide cover images. (I’m thinking these might have crafting possibilities—maybe I’ll make myself a whole set of TV Guide refrigerator magnets.)

Sample Questions: Having misspent my youth in front of TV set, I can do much better at this game than I could at a TV trivia game focused on 21st century shows. I’ve picked a few tough questions—based upon my own inability to answer them—to share with you. Please chime in if you know any answers! I’ll post them all in next week’s Spin Again Sunday.

  1. Which 1955 sitcom was the story of two young women trying to make it in show business?
  2. Name Laurie’s soap opera on Love, Sidney.
  3. Name the other Pulitzer Prize winner who appeared with his friend Archibald MacLeish in a 1962 public-affairs special.
  4. When did ABC News Close-Up begin?
  5. The role of Jesus in “The Day Christ Died” (1980) was played by:
  6. A bumbling lion becomes the leader of the animals after leaving Noah’s Ark in this animated 1977 special.
  7. What newspaper did Danny Taylor work for on The Reporter?
  8. To what club did the cast of Kid Power (1972-74) belong?
  9. On The Edge of Night, what was the name of the character portrayed by Petrocelli’s Barry Newman?
  10. Name the Australian-born golfer who won the 1981 U.S. Open.

By the way, if revisiting old TV Guides interests you, I recommend Mitchell Hadley’s wonderful blog It’s About TV.

Other Spin Again Sunday posts you might enjoy:

The Waltons Game

Happy Days Game

Charlie’s Angels Game

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Spin Again Sunday: The Bride Game, 1971

The Game: The Bride Game, “the exciting game of planning a wedding.”

Copyright Date: 1971.

Object: “To be the first girl to get her complete matching wedding party along with the necessary accessories for the wedding ceremony.”

Recommended For: “Girls 8 to 14.” I don’t think they really needed to specify girls.

The Box: What girl could resist that full-length portrait of wholesome bridehood? Well, lots of girls probably could and did, but it would have snared me.

The box photo immediately called Tricia Nixon to my mind.  That might have been what Selchow & Righter was going for—Tricia Nixon did marry in 1971. Tricia’s gown was downright sexy, however, compared to the prim one our box bride wears.

The Board: In the early 1970s, Selchow & Righter (best known for Parcheesi and Scrabble) tried to carve out a niche in girls’ games. In this series, we’ve seen another of their offerings—the Emily Post Popularity Game. Like that game’s board, this one features misty pastel graphics.

Game Pieces: Regular colored pegs, wooden rather than plastic. The die is unusual; it has a natural wooden finish and sports numerals instead of dots.

Game Play: Before she can march down the aisle, each player must collect cards representing a bride, a groom, and honor attendants ALL IN THE SAME STYLE. Yes, the instructions give that last part in all caps. You wouldn’t want to commit a disastrous faux pas by having a groom dressed in “Daytime Formal” style and a Maid of Honor dressed for a “Semi-Formal” wedding, would you?

The grooms

The attendants

The brides. So, readers, what apparel would you pick?

Some of the other game cards. I’m glad the snazzy lingerie is something new, rather than something old or, worse, borrowed.

Each player must also collect a wedding cake card, a bridal bouquet card, and a wedding ring card, as well as cards representing something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.

While collecting these cards, players circle the board and visit the pastry shop, flower shop, jewelry store, and bridal salon. When all the cards are in hand, players can start marching toward the altar.

Today’s Bonus Feature: When it comes to bride-related toys, this game doesn’t live up to the Bonnie Bride doll, who could actually toss her bouquet. You know it was a quality product, since it was “sold only at food markets.”

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Spin Again Sunday: The Waltons (1974)

This week, my series on vintage board games is taking us to Walton’s Mountain.

The Game: The Waltons Game

Copyright Date: 1974.

Recommended Ages: 8 to 14.

Game Box: The colors are drab, which perhaps befits the Depression setting. The actor caricatures are good, as such things go. John Boy’s head is the biggest–frequent Waltons viewers will appreciate how fitting that is.

Object: “Be the first player to get rid of all your cards.”

Game board

Game Play: Like the H.R. Pufnstuf Game, this is a card game masquerading as a board game. All the cards are dealt at the beginning of the game; playing one card each turn, players try to complete puzzles featuring Waltons characters.

Game Board: The board, which features pictures of common Waltons settings, serves as a place to complete the puzzles. (The top puzzle, strangely, includes a non-regular cast member.)

An example of a completed puzzle. Anachronism alert: It’s very unlikely that a conservative 1930s farm wife would have had pierced ears.

My Thoughts: I’m surprised I didn’t own this game as a child because my family loved The Waltons. Watching the show together was a big weekly event, and it spawned a running joke that persists to this day. During the early seasons, the show’s end signaled my bedtime. My parents always tried to hustle me off to bed as the final scene faded to black, but I wasn’t having it. Didn’t Earl Hamner’s voice always announce, “Stay tuned for scenes from our next episode?” I would argue that I needed to see “the scenes.” My parents still bring this up when my own daughter is stalling at bedtime.

A John Boy card can be used to compete any puzzle. Of course it can.

Bonus Feature: Although we loved the show, my family also loved laughing at its corniness. I remember how amused we were by this Waltons parody on The Carol Burnett Show.  I don’t think we ever referred to the series as anything other than The Walnuts from then on. (The sketch more than lives up to my memories. Vincent Price and Joan Rivers as Ma and Pa Walton? Awesome!)

Read my whole Spin Again Sunday series!

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Spin Again Sunday: Barbie Miss Lively Livin’ (1970)

In this week’s edition of Spin Again Sunday, we enter the mod world of Barbie, circa 1970, through the Miss Lively Livin’ Game. (This world was so exciting that Barbie lost the ability to enunciate her Gs.)

Copyright Date: 1970.

Recommended Ages: 8-12.

Game Box: Graphics in groovy shades of hot pink, orange, and purple add pizzazz to the box. The main photos shows tween girls with unfortunate bangs playing the game while stretched out on a shag-carpeted floor.

Game Board: This rainbow-rific board doubles as an advertising vehicle for Mattel; it shows many dolls and fashions available at the time.

Game Pieces: Photographs of Barbie, her friends Christie and P.J., and her cousin Francie.

Object: To succeed in having five different kinds of fun.

That first one gave me such trouble in high school.

Game Play: Traveling through Barbie’s world, girls attend school, shop at the Unique Boutique, go on dates, and spend time “doin’ things.” They wear metal bracelets and try to earn charms representing each kind of fun.

The charms

The first person to collect two of each charm proceeds to the pageant area. Fix your hair, grab your boyfriend, and receive your crown, Miss Lively Livin’! (The game includes a paper crown, which the winner has the prerogative of wearing throughout the subsequent game.)

My Thoughts: I like this game now because it includes photos of great mod Barbie fashions.

I’m sure I would’ve loved it as a child, too–the bracelets and crown are such a nice girly touch.

Bonus Feature: Here’s a 1970 commercial for the ultra-flexible Living Barbie. The Brady Bunch‘s Maureen McCormick was also flexible, it appears.

Though the doll was called Living Barbie, she had a Lively Livin’ House, which the Miss Lively Livin’ game board mentions.

A Living Barbie from my collection. She’s wearing Super Scarf, one of the outfits shown on the game board. I love the wool miniskirt, chain belt, and boots–it reminds me of the fashions Mary Tyler Moore wore in her show’s first season.

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Spin Again Sunday: Addams Family Card Game

For this pre-Halloween edition of my series on vintage games, I bring you an altogether ooky diversion.

This Week’s Game: Addams Family Card Game, 1965

Recommended Ages: 7 to 15.

Game Play: While I usually focus on board games, this is a simple card game. Cards show pictures of Addams Family characters. Gomez, Morticia, and the children each appear on 11 cards. Six wild cards show Lurch and Uncle Fester. The game proceeds like the game War. The player who amasses all the cards wins.

As the instruction card puts it, “Each character has the power to TAKE another. Gomez TAKES Morticia…Morticia TAKES the Children…the Children TAKE Gomez. The Lurch and Uncle Fester (Wild) cards are most powerful; they TAKE any of the other cards.”

It’s certainly fitting that Gomez TAKES Morticia. Was there ever a more passionate married couple in the world of classic TV?

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Spin Again Sunday: Planet of the Apes Game + Old-Time Radio Bonus

Because my husband’s birthday is approaching, I’ve chosen The Planet of the Apes Game for this week’s installment of my vintage board game series.

My husband loves The Planet of the Apes and all its sequels. I, on the other hand, have always had an aversion to monkey-and-ape-based entertainment. I may have inherited this from my grandmother, who cringed whenever a chimp appeared on a TV sitcom (an all-too-common occurrence in the ’70s), or I may have developed it after a series of gorilla-related nightmares at age 3 (a Playskool Zoo started it all, but that’s a blog entry for another day).

Through marriage to an ape fan, I’ve managed to overcome my prejudices–at least to the extent of buying him ape memorabilia like this.

Today’s Game: Planet of the Apes

Copyright Date: 1974

Game Box: Pretty appealing to a Planet of the Apes fan, I suppose. All the major apes are represented. I’m not sure why Dr. Zaius is in black and white when everyone else is in color.

Recommend Ages: 8 to 14.

Game Board: Simple, with lots of photos from the movie. The unique part is the cage that stands in the center.

Game Pieces: Generic-looking male and female humans. At least we get front and back views.

Game Play: Each player gets four humans. You move them along the path until they land on a “Captured” space. Then you have to place your human atop the cage and let your opponent turn the cage’s knob. If the human falls in, he or she is captured. If not, they’re safe—for the moment.

Cage Fail: My cage is missing some key parts, so it doesn’t function. You can see how should work from this box closeup.

Object: “Become the last survivor.” Very cool object, my opinion. My husband kind of over-identifies with the movie’s apes, though. I think he’d rather see all his humans caged.

Today’s Bonus Feature: With my own stance on apes softening, I’ve developed an affinity for ape-themed old-time radio episodes. At least in those, you don’t have to see the apes. Sometime in November, I plan to post a whole playlist of ape episodes, but for now please enjoy this delightful example.

“Ape Song,” Murder at Midnight, March 31, 1947

“You treated me like an animal, Cecily–now an animal will treat you the way you deserve!”

Murder at Midnight has become a guilty pleasure of mine. It’s cheesy, but in a very entertaining way. This episode had me smiling all the way through.

Read more Spin Again Sunday
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