Redartz: What board game, released in 1981, became a national craze selling millions of game sets? Trivial Pursuit, of course! Looking back to my college days in the later Bronze age, I recall many fun parties. Parties oriented around trivia; specifically, Trivial Pursuit. There was a married couple among our little circle of friends, and one holiday season they sprung for this new game (initially, Trivial Pursuit was fairly pricey; what with that giant box of cards and all-out of the budget for an art student). The game was an instant hit with our group, and with the public at large.
Innumerable evening get-togethers were enlivened with a round of Trivial Pursuit. The pursuit of those little colored "wedgies", as we called them, was often accompanied by pizza, Coke and wildly variant music. Anything to sharpen the memory and enhance the wit; both needed to win at TP. The categories (in the original Genus edition) included Science, History, Geography, Entertainment, Literature and Sports (each category represented by a specific color). Sports was my big weakness, but I killed at Science and Geography...
The game basically involved maneuvering around a wheel-themed board, answering questions and filling your gamepiece with wedges. The questions varied widely, though, as Trivial Pursuit soon added many variations and expansions.Silver Screen Edition, Genus 2, Baby Boomer Edition, those were just the first of many. Some years later our family was playing a DVD version on the tv. My wife even found a set of Elvis question cards! A card box could be found for almost any area of interest.
In retrospect, my interest in pop culture surely aided my fortunes at Trivia. I wager many of you were pretty sharp players as well...
7 comments:
I only played Trivial Pursuit a few times and I once played it with a group of people who were utterly clueless about general knowledge - they even thought it was called the "Genius" edition rather than "Genus" until I pointed out their mistake!
For example, one question was "In which year did Great Britain's American colonies become independent?" (or similar wording). This question was directed at Paul, a male nurse. His answer was "I didn't know America ever belonged to us"...GOOD GRIEF!!!
Oh, well, Colin. I suppose it's better than if Paul had said, "Our American colonies became independent?!"
I played this a bit mainly in high school; my older sister, who was in college at the time, bought the Genus edition and left it at home, but I usually only played with her and my future brother-in-law when she came home for Christmas or spring break. A problem that came up, which was quite common, was that once you play it enough to become familiar with all of the questions - and we never bought any of the other editions or the later Genus sets. I also recall playing the RPM edition with some friends in college once - even though we all thought we were really knowledgeable about music, I recall that none of us did very well (although I kind of killed in the '60s category).
I still have the Genus edition somewhere. I enjoyed it, but after a while I memorized a lot of the answers, so it wasn't as much fun. I'd like to play the Baby Boomer edition (even though I'm a Gen Xer); it sounds cool and I've heard it's pretty difficult.
I played a lot when I was in college, only it would be when I was home from school with my friends who were also home. We had some great matches. I guess Sports was my best subject, but I did okay in the rest.....Geography was probably my worst.
We all had fun playing, but we actually had one guy who tried to memorize all the answers on the cards....a valiant but futile attempt.
I don't remember any of the "Specialty" editions, but we also played Pictionary a lot, too. Now that one induced a lot of laughter.
Okay, to lay out a few facts:
1) Empire Strikes Back opens in 1981. Huge Hype!!! Sold out showings!!! Long lines!!! People being duped into buying counterfeit tickets!!! Shortage of "!" points!!!
2) Legal Drinking age in Texas lowered to 18. More on this later!!!
3) Return Of The Jedi opens 1983.
Still reeling from a few bad experiences from Empire and now being Seniors in High School, we decide to take matters into our own hands. We can, since we can drive now. We pick a theatre, pick a showing and a small group of us decide to go early, buy tickets and hold spots in line for the rest of our group. How are we going to pass the time? Playing Trivial Pursuit!!! We had played a time or two before. The hope was to get in a game, maybe two before the rest of our group showed up. I seem to remember there being 5 of us but only 4 played, to start out with. Got to the theatre around 4:30, got our tickets, got a spot and started playing. Soon, more people arrived and a crowd started to form. Instead of the line going down the sidewalk, it began to curl around us. We even picked up two players!!! Oh, the fury that came down on those in the crown that whispered answers!!! I don't know if we played more than one game but I do remember that the ticket office held the game for us so we didn't have to go back to our car...
Why the change in drinking age? I'm not sure, but being a college Freshman and able to drink made my an impact on my college experience!!! Trivial Pursuit not only became our game but it became our DRINKING game. We would go early Saturday, buy two cases of beer and leave them out on the counter until game time. As we started play, each player got a beer and opened it. For each wrong answer, you took a drink. For each wrong wedge answer, you had to drink according to the category. If someone got a wedge question wrong, you could attempt to answer it; if you got the question right, you could make someone else drink.
Good times, good times, ain't we lucky we got 'em...
(Once carried through the current
And being swept away
The king is in the closet
He's hiding from today
And though he owns all fortunes
This room is where he'll stay
And his world is filled with darkness, turning grey
Gazing out the window
Of the 42nd second floor
He is separate from all others
No one knocks upon his door
And it might as well be raining 'cause the sunlight hurts his eyes
And his ears will never hear the children's cries
Once proud and full of passion
He fought the cause of man
Many people loved his courage
Many followed his command
He changed the old into the new
And the course of things to come
And then one day they noticed he was gone
At first it didn't matter
Nobody seemed to care
They all became too busy
To find him anywhere do no one knew hot even him
The problems he would find
On the day he journeyed deep into his mind
I close my eyes I go far away
Away from this battlefield
In my dreams well here I will enjoy it
Where innocence plays with all the laughing children
The kind who are crying right now
A taste of freedom from the pain
Of everything here I see
Life is sweet but I took it all for granted
And now I don't know if I could even tell you
Just what we permit, we allow
Allow me to forget the life I've made my own
I've held this nation in my hand
And yet it's not my home
Allow me just one answer just one reason why
Why this refugee of the family of man must die
Tell me why
Daydreams filled his nighttimes
And night dreams filled his days
Confusion and uncertainty
A puzzled mind of haze
You thought he was so powerful
And set upon his ways
Well he left us all to travel through this maze
I heard the king was dying
I heard the king was dead
And with him died the chronicles
That no one ever read
The closet's fully empty now
It's occupied by none
I'll draw the drapes now destiny is done).
Colin- the mistaken reference to the "Genius" edition was apparently not uncommon. I heard it so named as well...
Edo- you're right about the tendency to become familiar with the answers once you'd played the game enough times. Hence our group's acquisitions of several expansions, including the Genus 2. Oh, and it did make a perfect family game night activity; the questions seemed to balance out among generations.
Graham- "Pictionary" is a great game. Another perfect party game among friends and family.
Prowl- love your story about the game in the theatre line. No doubt you all served to entertain everyone whiling away the time before the show began!
Prowler, the story about playing Trivial Pursuit in the line to see Empire is epic! Seriously, I could see it being adapted into movie - one of those humorous indy productions. Write a script, man...
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