All in the Game: The Milton Bradley Company!

Martinex1: Milton Bradley, the man, was born in 1836 and died in 1911.   He was an entrepreneur and very inventive game designer.  His claim to fame during his life was the creation of the Checkered Game of Life in 1860.  It was precursor to the Game of Life which came 100 years later in 1960 and featured some of the quirky things that many of us remember from our childhood: a clicking spinner, little plastic cars, pink and blue pegs representing people and a winding path through life's big events.   In between, the Milton Bradley Company was formed and was led by a myriad of presidents over the decades.   It had its ups and downs, nearly going bankrupt during the lean depression era and rebounding significantly in the late 1950s and 1960s with the advent of television and the licensing of such characters.   For me, the below symbol was almost as significant as the Marvel and DC logos.

So many childhood hours were spent playing the games from a battered stack of boxes hidden in a basement closet.   Every rainy day, every cold winter night, inside with the siblings, outside on the porch - we played board games with an enthusiasm that I can barely understand today.   From the early kindergarten days of  Chutes and Ladders or Candy Land, to much more strategic play, Milton Bradley seemed to be omnipresent.

Stratego was a grade school favorite with the Spy and Bombs always carefully planted.   Do you remember these boxes?  I sure do.   I still play this with my boys; the game now has better graphics on the pieces but it is exactly the same - simple and fun.

Easy Money was a Monopoly (Parker Brothers) knockoff, but I enjoyed the variation.  And around the 7th Grade this became a frequently played game.

How about these games that had aspects of board games, but took it to another level of skill, steadiness and cunning?

Twister of course had to be very profitable, didn't it?  It was just a sheet of plastic!  I had the children's animal version as well.

Ice Cube?  This was a close friend's favorite but I remember very little.

Battleship got a lot of use at my house.   Pulling all of those pegs out after a game, however, is no fun.  Even to this day,  I dislike resetting after a game of Battleship.

Hangman seems to have similar stylings, but I've honestly never played this version. 

How about these?   Even the classics made a comeback in the Bronze Age with Checkers and Parcheesi.

I wish I had Supercar, but alas it was not to be.

For all of us that are nostalgic for the Bronze Age (all of us... right?), there were these fantastic games.

And for the comic book lovers and super-hero fans, Milton Bradley had quite a share of licensed characters starring in games of all sorts. From card games with some cool art to board games with super stars, Milton Bradley had it all.  And they seemed to roll out new games constantly!

Spider-Man had a board game that I always wanted.   I loved the cover with Thor, Subby, the Hulk, and Iron Man lining up to have a shot.

Captain America had two games over the years.  On the first and original, the good Captain featured the Mandarin and the Destoyer on the game board; that seemed pretty odd.  In the second, the Falcon and the Avengers made appearances.

And there were many more featuring Marvel and DC characters.

Milton Bradley had many games that I did not know even existed.  There are dozens of them that I never came across, but through the wonder of the world wide web I can explore like a ten year old drooling over the department store catalog toy section.

So which games did you enjoy from the Milton Bradley family?  Did these photos bring back memories from neighborhood tournaments?  Or were you game averse and had other interests?  Pull up a chair and share your thoughts.  At the very least, please pipe in if you ever played Starsky and Hutch!  Cheers!