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MEMORIES:
malkat remembers...We still have our game. I used to play Miss Scarlett (because she always goes first) but now I play ... More »
Posted on 02/08/08
PHOTOS:
Manufacturer:
At first glance, one couldn’t be blamed for thinking that Clue is the farthest thing from a family friendly game on the market. Everyone gathers around the living room and watches Mom accuse Junior of cold-blooded, motivationless murder with a blunt instrument. Junior points the finger at Pops and decries him for sullying the dignity of the conservatory. Pops accuses himself of everything in the book and glows with satisfaction when someone (anyone?) proves him wrong. Yet family friendly it is and has been for almost sixty years.
In the years following World War II, socialites throughout England would often gather for dinner in one another’s expansive homes and play various parlor games. One of the more popular games was called “Murder,” a situational game in which guests would sneak around the house and pretend to commit a murder. This was the case in 1947 when law clerk and erstwhile wartime fire warden Anthony Pratt found himself walking his normal beat in Leeds. Struck by the game’s peculiarity, Pratt came up with the idea for Clue on the spot.
About a decade later, Pratt sold the rights to Cluedo – Clue’s U.K. moniker – to Waddington Games (Parker Brothers markets the U.S. version). The success of the game was astronomical. Over a hundred and fifty million sales later, Clue still ranks in top ten echelon of board games sales. Eileen Brennan, Madeleine Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean, Martin Mull, and Leslie Ann Warren (with Tim Curry as Wadsworth the butler) gathered for a film version in 1985, complete with multiple murders and alternate endings.
The game’s concept revolves five guests (and one maid) at a Victorian mansion on the night when their host, Mr. Boddy, is murdered. Each color-code-named suspect – the smooth Mr. Green, starched Colonel Mustard, pompous Mrs. Peacock, bookish Professor Plum, seductive Miss Scarlet, and the bug-eyed maid, Mrs. White – must travel around the house using the process of elimination to pinpoint three crucial clues necessary in order to solve a murder: The place where the killing took place (one would think that where the body was found would make this a simple deduction), the murder weapon (again, a simple examination of the corpse would go a long way), and the murderer. Six murder weapons (candlestick, knife, lead pipe, revolver, rope, and wrench) and nine rooms make for three hundred twenty-four possibilities.
Each clue has a designated card. At the beginning of play, three cards are secretly and randomly selected and put into the “Murder Envelope.” The remaining cards are divvied up amongst the rest of the players and die rolls begin movement throughout the mansion. Every time a player entered a room, they could make an accusation, comprising of the place, perp, and weapon. At this point, other players could reveal a clue card to the accuser in order to stymie the interrogation. Players would make notes in their handy notepads that came with the game. Although pluck and luck was needed to move quickly from room to room, fate could be frustrated by way of “false accusation strategy,” a crafty tactic players could use to throw others off the scent by making accusations they knew to be false. Clever players also watch each exchange, often able to deduce the information exchanged by virtue of their own clues.
When no one could trump the accuser, the player took a win or go home chance by noting his claim and taking a secret peek at the murder cards. If wrong, game over. If correct, then victory – and ultimate detective prowess – were declared.
Although based on a life-ending premise, Clue turned out to be a life-changing game as its success allowed Pratt to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a pianist. The eerie epilogue continues as later in the twentieth century, Pratt disappeared from public view entirely. When British and original game manufacturer Waddington Games wanted to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Pratt’s game, they found him… missing. A cemetery official in central England tracked down a tombstoneProfits from the popular game allowed Pratt to become a pianist in fulfillment of his lifetime dream. But just like the mysteries that his game hinges on, Pratt fell out of sight late in the twentieth century. In celebration of the game’s fiftieth anniversary in 1994, Waddington's Games, the present day makers of Cluedo tried to find Pratt. The search proved fruitless until a cemetery official contacted the Waddington Games and informed them that an Anthony Pratt had been buried there some years earlier. The final touch came from the tombstone itself: “Inventor of Clue.”
