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Saturday, July 16, 2011
Alfred Hitchcock's WHY Mystery Game ('58)
Terrific board, card, and box illustrations (by who??) highlight "WHY - A Mystery Game Presented by Alfred Hitchcock" a frighteningly fun game from Milton Bradley ('58) that actually one-ups most other spooky board games by including old Alfred himself into the action! I could go into great detail explaining the object of it all, but you can just as easily read what it says on the box below, (and to be honest, it's not really as fun as it looks) --but man, you gotta love the ghost imagery and those hilarious player piece detectives!
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PLUS! More MB Fun!
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PLUS! More MB Fun!
Those catalog pages are awesome. For a brand name company, I'm surprised how many brand x-looking knockoffs of competing (or international) board games they seem to have been marketing. Originally I was thinking, surely this isn't just some cheap knockoff of Clue (Cluedo), but after seeing Easy Money, Summit, and Broadside*, I'm tempted to believe that's exactly what it is. Man, the board game market must have been totally cutthroat from the mid forties through the seventies.
ReplyDeleteI love the art, too. Especially the box lid. Evokes both Psycho and Charles Addams.
*to be fair, the history of Battleship is pretty convoluted, and its board game popularity is mostly because of Milton Bradley's Broadside version.
I'm surprised...I was into board games in 1958, and thought I knew them all, but WHY is one I never saw. All I can ask is...WHY?
ReplyDeleteLove the graphics on this. Love Hitchcock stuff anyhow, but this game is something I'd love to find someday.
I need to find this too, really really love the art here. Nice post!
ReplyDelete~Lisa
I never made the CLUE connection until you just mentioned it Mr C, although I'm in league with Pappy in that I, in fact, never even heard of this game until I bought it at a horror con here in STL last month. I've got more cool old board game art to share (now that I've figured out how to photograph it for posting.) And as always, thanks for the comments!
ReplyDeleteAlso, to see a variation of the art on the box click here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gamepile.com/details.php?id=92
And fyi: there's actually a wikipedia entry about this game that I didn't even know about until after I uploaded this post (this sure would've been helpful while editing!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_(board_game)
Very, very cool. My mom has this game, and I played it growing up! I vividly recall the ghosts on the cards, but I'd somehow thought that there was an Anne Boleyn ghost too-and I don't remember the detective gamepieces. Perhaps my mom's edition is later? Either that, or my memory is faulty. Must go digging in the basement for this game next time I'm "home." Thanks for reminding me of this game!
ReplyDeleteHey Tara, let me know for sure what you find out, that would be interesting to know if they changed the card ghosts or player pieces. Thanks for stopping by!
ReplyDeleteThis game is seriously so cool - but I can't get that Park and Shop game out of my head now. ???
ReplyDeletePark your car and shop the fastest-- YOU? What if you're at the Japanese mall??!!
ReplyDeletei would lose. end of story.
ReplyDelete