Iron's exit a new wrinkle for Monopoly

So for the past month I have been getting the occasional item in my Facebook newsfeed concerning Hasbro’s plans to get rid of one of the iconic Monopoly pieces of my youth. I figured they would conduct this survey and then take a few days before announcing the piece that really was history and what would replace it.

Instead, the voting closed last night and this morning I awoke to find out that my beloved iron is getting the boot. It will be replaced by a cat in new versions of the game, however it should come to nobody’s surprise that Hasbro will be putting out a Golden Token Bonus set that will include all of the current tokens and the five suitors for the open spot in the lineup. So a lot of this was – shocker – a way for Hasbro to get some attention to what might be a flagging brand.

I know, I hate it too, the idea that Monopoly, the king of board games over the past seven decades, needs to pull a stunt to make people try to remember the last time they played. I am still trying to figure that out myself.

I remember spending many summer evenings playing Monopoly at my cousin Ricky’s house on Smith Street while visiting my grandmother in Pennsylvania. I got an anniversary set at some point that includes a spinner to hold the property deeds, although that one was (and still is) back in Virginia, so I would head over to Ricky’s after supper (as opposed to dinner, but that is another story for another day) and we’d play for a couple of hours. Our games usually ended amicably, which is saying something since there are a lot of stories out there about games that end in fights. Or frankly just end because they were taking too long.

My current Monopoly set was purchased when Jamesway was going out of business in Luray in the mid-1990s. It is a 60^th anniversary set in a box shaped like Trivial Pursuit, and the board even unfolds like the one used in that game. The tokens are apparently modeled on the ones from Monopoly’s early days, and are also golden colored, so I think I’ll need to hang on to the older game for what I see as an authentic iron.

The iron was among the less-flashy tokens, so it should not surprise me that it didn’t make the count. I saw elsewhere on the internet that the wheelbarrow was the second-least popular. I know that I only used it when the iron was already claimed. Most players seem to like the racecar and the Scottie the best, but a few of these pieces are more questionable than the iron.

For example, the shoe. It’s just one shoe, not a pair, so what is its true worth? I guess it makes sense from the perspective that an unpaired shoe makes a great doorstop, so it could also be a game token.

I always thought the hat was not a very balanced piece of metal, and the horse was the only token among those in my first Monopoly sets that needed to be on a pedestal. The rest stood on their own.

When the news broke this morning, I mentioned it to Christina, and she seemed to process it and move on. Then, half an hour later, I hear from the kitchen: “Wait a minute. They still have the f---ing thimble?”

The impending loss of the iron sent me to the closet where we keep our board games, and there are lots of great memories stored there. Christina and I have started playing Mille Bornes again, which has already been the source of great fun. My 30-year-old Risk game is up there, and that got a lot of use in summers back in Chesterfield County, but not much in recent years.

I still have Payday and Gambler, two great Parker Brothers games of the 1970s and 1980s, and Scattergories, plus all kinds of versions of Trivial Pursuit. I also have a terrific game called Out of Context, which is a quote-guessing game we used to play at John Waybright’s house when the Page News and Courier news staff got together for, ahem, strategy meetings.

Finding time (and people) to get together and play these great games is not that easy these days, but trips down memory lane like this make me wish it was. And maybe there will be an opportunity to do so again.

But right now, my main concern is this disrespect for the iron. And I’m steamed.

Nunzsense: Not just a trivial pursuit

Well, got just 29 on the "Jeopardy!" test so I'll be sitting on the couch for another year wondering why none of their esteemed contestants had heard of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. But it provided fodder for my tribute to game shows.

http://www.nvdaily.com/news/2012/01/charles-pannunzio-not-just-a-trivial-pursuit.php

Offbeat: It's how you play the game

I'm going to start posting some old columns from the Page News and Courier as time permits. These are a little tougher to do since I have to type them in. I will not make any changes so these are a bit unvarnished. I think I was better about getting in a few laugh lines since these were supposed to be funny. This one was published sometime in 1989.

The way someone plays a game can tell you just about everything you need to know about him or her.

As some of you may not be aware, I have a degree in game psychology from the H. Ed Shrinker Correspondence School and Deli. I think it’s a degree — it says 37 Celsius on it.

The way you behave during a game says a lot about you as a person. Or maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know. The only thing Mr. Shrinker taught me was how to make a good club sandwich.

Monopoly has probably started more fights than Philadelphia Flyers goalie Ron Hextall. Okay, maybe not.

You might note at this point that I am being quite ambivalent as of late. It’s a characteristic they say the post-Baby Boom generation (1965-1973) seems to be exhibiting. But I don’t think that’s true. Or maybe it is.

Back to Monopoly. The game can give you a good indication about which of your friends you can go to for a loan. The people who end up making you mortgage everything you own on the board to pay off a hotel bill on Boardwalk are louts. I always prefer to bleed my prey dry by forcing them to surrender choice properties to me one by one.

These days, Trivial Pursuit is in vogue. Whoops, I’m sorry, that was 1986. Gee, time flies.

But I recall an evening last fall when a number of us were playing Trivial Pursuit. Personally, I like one-on-one Trivial Pursuit because it is the ultimate test. At the very least, each person playing should have a piece. I don’t go for this team business.

Anyway, it was four-on-four and my team was facing a stern challenge from two former staff writers and the general manager of this esteemed publication. Every time my team finally got to roll, we kept hitting “Arts and Literature,” which should be subtitled, “We knew you didn’t study in 11^th grade English and now you will pay for it.”

We’d get about five seconds to answer and then certain impatient people would start moaning about what was taking so long. Meanwhile, I think I was able to read about half of “War and Peace” before the other team decided that there were three “commonwealths” in the United States. There are actually four.

During a later question, the same general manager and Robert Woodrum began doing impressions of the “Swedish Chef” while the other former staff writer was pondering a geography question about Sweden. He wasn’t too impressed.

It might be added that this general manager also likes to ring in early when he plays “Jeopardy!” on the Nintendo, but don’t quote me on this. He is a good “Password” player, by the way. We once had three correct answers in a row.

Most games only get irritating when someone is not playing fair. But there is a game out there which has irritation written all over it. That game is “Pit.”

Okay, I’ll admit it. I have been an aficionado of this game every since we played it on a field trip to Washington when I was a freshman in high school. We brought it along to irritate people, but by the time we got to Springfield, a bunch of us were hooked.

“Pit” is intended to resemble the Chicago Commodities Exchange. It is played by three to seven people, and the more players, the more obnoxious it can get. For each player, a set of nine cards such as “Wheat 100,” “Corn 75” and “Flax 40” are put into play. Two more cards, “Bull” and “Bear,” are also used.

And let’s not forget the most irritating thing about this game — the bell. It is the same type they have at many business establishments and usually no one comes to help until you’ve rung it eight or 10 times. The bell, by the way, is painted an ugly orange shade.

After the dealer hands out the cards, he rings the bell and says, “Trading is open,” or “Duck and cover.” Immediately, people begin shouting “three, three” or “two, two” as they trade cards until someone has all nine of one type. The he hits the bell about 20 times to tick the other players off. Not to mention parents who aren’t impressed at 2 a.m.

Fights can erupt over such things as knocking the bell out of someone else’s way while trying to get rid of the “bear” and two people going for it at the same time.

There are rules for “silent trading,” but they still require the bell. After all, it wouldn’t be fun otherwise.