Who remembers a board game called Monopoly?

One of my all time favourite pastimes as I was growing up was a board game called Monopoly. A single game could easily keep us busy for hours and hours and truthfully, I don’t have any recollection whatsoever of ever seeing end game. As bankruptcy was approaching I would normally find an excuse why I had to move on to another activity.

Well guess what? The old board game has gone techo and is lever-aging the big WWW. Certainly come along way since it was 1st released back in the 1930′s to the public by Parker Brothers the renown American board game manufacturer. Google has teamed up with the Hasbro (parent company of Parker Brothers), the makers of board game sensation Monopoly to launch an online, multi-player version of the game called Monopoly City Streets. The game, which launched earlier this month, uses Google Maps as the game board and allows players to compete in a real time, worldwide version of the game, effectively creating the largest Monopoly tournament ever held.

“The goal is simple. Play to beat your friends and the world to become the richest property magnate in existence. Own any street in the world. Build humble houses, crazy castles and stupendous skyscrapers to collect rent. Use MONOPOLY Chance Cards to sabotage your mates by building Hazards on their streets.”

The Board Game

(courtesy Wikipedia)

Monopoly is a board game published by Parker Brothers, a subsidiary of Hasbro. The game is named after the economic concept of monopoly, the domination of a market by a single entity.

Monopoly is the most commercially-successful board game in United States history, with 485 million players worldwide.

According to Hasbro, since Charles Darrow patented the game in 1935, approximately 750 million people have played the game, making it “the most played (commercial) board game in the world.” The 1999 Guinness Book of Records cited Hasbro’s previous statistic of 500 million people having played Monopoly. Games Magazine has inducted Monopoly into its Hall of Fame. The mascot for the game is a mustachioed man wearing a monocle and morning dress named Rich Uncle Pennybags (often referred to as Mr. Monopoly).

Fun Facts

(Courtesy Hasbro)

• Mr. Monopoly is the name of the MONOPOLY® man.
• George Parker issued a memo in 1936 that was to halt the productions of the MONOPOLY® game. He later withdrew the instruction and the rest is history!
• Parker Brothers rejected the MONOPOLY® game when it was first presented to them in 1933, citing 52 fundamental playing flaws.
• Over 5,120,000,000 little green houses have been “constructed” since the MONOPOLY® game was introduced in 1935.
• World records are maintained for the longest game in a treehouse (286) hours, underground (100 hours), in a bathtub (99 hours) and upside-down (36 hours).
• The longest MONOPOLY® game ever played was 1,680 hours long. That is 70 straight days!
• Escape maps, compasses and files were inserted into MONOPOLY® game boards smuggled into POW camps inside Germany during World War II. Real money for escapees was slipped into the packs of MONOPOLY® money.
• In Cuba, the game had a strong following until Fidel Castro took power and ordered all known sets destroyed
• Over 250 million sets of the MONOPOLY® game have been sold worldwide.
• Parker Brothers once sent an armored car with one million dollars of the MONOPOLY® game money to a marathon game in Pittsburgh that had run out of funds.
• The MONOPOLY® game is published in 27 languages, including Croatian and licensed in more than 81 countries. Thai edition of Monopoly is the newest edition, introduced at the Toys R Us store in Bangkok, in December 2005.
• In the 1970′s, a Braille edition of the MONOPOLY® game was created for the visually impaired.
• The total amount of money in a standard MONOPOLY® game is $15,140.
• In 1972, the Atlantic City Commissioner of Public Works threatened to change the names of the real Baltic and Mediterranean Avenues, but public outcry vetoed the bill.
• At the 1959 American National Exhibition in Moscow, all six sets of the MONOPOLY® game that were on display mysteriously disappeared.
• Over 20 tokens have been cast since the MONOPOLY® game was introduced in 1935 such as the horse, dog, car, elephant, purse and lantern.
• A set made by Alfred Dunhill, that included gold and silver houses and hotels, sold for $25,000.
• In 1978, the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog offered a chocolate version of the game priced at $600.
• The three most-landed-on properties are Illinois Avenue. “GO” and the B&O Railroad.
• The 1983 Italian National Champion, Emilio Maltoni, learned to play the MONOPOLY® game alone by taking on the role of five players.
• The character locked behind the bars is called Jake the Jailbird. Officer Edgar Mallory sent him to jail.
• When a player lands on an unowned property and decides not to buy it, the property goes to auction.
• There are 22 properties that can be built upon.

Leave you with an excerpt of  the lyrics from…

“I want a new drug” by Huey Lewis and the News:

I want a new drug
One that wont make me sick
One that wont make me crash my car
Or make me feel three feet thick

I want a new drug
One that wont hurt my head
One that wont make my mouth too dry
Or make my eyes too red
………………………………