The announcement of Monopoly's new cat token reminded me of a piece I wrote about Monopoly for an airline magazine in 1995. The occasion was the game's 60th anniversary. It goes a little something like this.
Memo to Ken Burns: The Civil War and baseball
documentaries you presented on PBS were swell ideas. But why nor explore a
truly classic icon of our civilization? I refer to Monopoly — a game for all
seasons and all families and all nations. (A little banjo music, please.)
Monopoly is played on rickety card tables and elaborately carved oaken
antiques. It is at once a city game and a country game and, yes, maybe even a
condo time-share game. It is played by the fireplace, on the picnic meadow and
on the beach, lit by a fiery setting sun. And now it is played in cyberspace,
thanks to the new CD-ROM edition.
Monopoly has enriched the language. We do not just reprove
malingerers. We tell them they cannot “pass go.” And doesn’t everyone yearn for
a “Get Out of Jail Free” card? Each game is a saga of laughter and tears (and
let’s not forget triumph and defeat). Youngsters get to play adults as peers in
a rite of passage.
Ever since unemployed engineer Charles Darrow created the
game in 1933 on his kitchen table, more than 160 million sets have been sold in
more than 103 countries. (It’s printed in
37 languages.) Darrow approached Parker Brothers (no doubt, top hat in
hand) with the hope of selling his idea to the game manufacturer. The company
found too many ‘design flaws” and turned him down.
Darrow was not afraid to roll the dice and do it on his own.
His success inspired a change of mind. In 1935, Monopoly became a Parker
Brothers game. (In this; the 60th anniversary year, there is a special
commemorative edition.)
In 1936, George Parker wanted to foreclose on Monopoly. It’s
not a good game, he argued. Too many things go wrong. But sales figures
inspired a change of heart. Parker was right. Monopoly is not an elegant game.
Its cumbersome rules and slow-motion play defy entertainment guidelines. And
therein lies its appeal. Monopoly is both total escape and absolute mirror of —
dare I say it — life. The rules are complex and sometimes you have to make up
your own. The real action does not take place on the board. It happens in the
feverish and fertile minds of the players.
Edward H Parker, former Parker Brothers president,
identified the game’s charm as “clobbering your best friend without doing any
damage.” We get to experience the taboo sensations of greed and reckless
abandon. We thrill to our own desperation. And there is hope. We know our first
property purchase will lead to a monopoly and then houses and then hotels and
then money, money, money.
Monopoly is a certainty. Unlike baseball, it has not
changed. Oh, the packaging gets a facelift every 10 years or so, but the
colors, the symbols, the artwork, the prices and the rules are the same as they
always were. There is no designated banker rule. There is no MTV version of Monopoly.
There are only the sounds that are part of our heritage — the clatter of dice,
the whisper of transferred deeds and money and the tap. tap. tap of tokens
marching across the board.
And, Ken, you’ll have fun with the visuals — from the deeds
to the chance cards to the animated graphics in the CD-ROM version. Nowhere in
this memo have I bothered to describe the game. That is the simplest proof of
its place in our society. Without ever having met you. I know that you can feel
all the delicious sensations evoked by the very word, Monopoly.
May all bank errors be ‘in your favor.
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