Covering the toy industry, you learn a lot of neat facts about toys and games. That especially rings true in a year like this one, in which some of the best-known brands are celebrating impressive milestone birthdays. Here are some games with names you’ll probably recognize, and some related trivia, which hopefully you won’t have known until now.
Scrabble, from Hasbro
- Alfred Mosher Butts invented Scrabble in 1933, using the front page of The New York Times to determine letter frequency, which in turn, informed the value of each letter and how many of each should be included in the game.
- The word “scrabble” is defined as “to grasp, collect, or hold on to something.”
- How popular was Scrabble during the 1950s? It became such as must-have product that it was rationed to stores throughout the U.S.
- The highest scoring legal play ever was the word, OXYPHENBUTAZONE, discovered by player Benjamin Woo. It completed seven crosswords downward while hitting three Triple Word Scores—for 1,782 total points.
- The first fan-voted, playable word was GEOCACHE, which was added to the Merriam-Webster’s Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, fifth edition, in 2014.
- Every year, National Scrabble Day is celebrated on April 13.
Bicycle Playing Cards, from The United States Playing Card Company
- While the brand, which turns 130 years old this year, has seen its share of special designs, one of the most innovative decks dates back to the days of World War II. Bicycle’s parent company, the United States Playing Card Company, teamed up with American and British intelligence agencies on a special deck for military personnel fighting abroad. When moistened, the individual cards in these decks would peel apart, revealing maps with escape routes out of German prisoner of war (POW) camps.
In 2013, Bicycle released the Escape Deck, inspired by the original map decks, though none of the cards peeled apart. Sections of map are visible on the front of the cards, which form a complete map when placed in the proper order.
Monopoly, from Hasbro
- Monopoly, which officially turns 80 this year, has been played by more than 1 billion people worldwide.
- The game was invented by Charles Darrow, who attempted to sell it to Parker Brothers–only to be rejected for perceived fundamental errors. After the game became a local success, however, Parker Brothers changed its mind and negotiated the rights to the game.
- Throughout Monopoly’s history, more than 20 different tokens have made their way through the game, including an elephant, a purse, and a bag of money.
- Tokens from the U.S. version of Monopoly: Here & Now, released in 2006, were flown into space aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis in 2007.
- If in the Monopoly board of your youth, Mediterranean and Baltic Avenues were both purple, as opposed to brown, your memory is most likely correct: the two properties were changed to brown in 2008.
For more commentary from Phil, check back often. Views expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Toy Book as a whole. We hope that you will share your comments and feedback below. Until next time!
