Got Game?

It's hard to catch lightning in a bottle. It's really hard to do it twice. Witness these sophomore efforts that failed.

Alfred Butts was the genius behind Scrabble when it hit big in 1948. In 1985, the people at Selchow & Righter thought it was time for him to create another game, and so they released Alfreds Other Game.

No game sold faster than Trivial Pursuit did in 1984, with a reported 20 million pumped out the doors of Selchow & Righter. Once again, the legendary game company thought it prudent to take the three inventors, John Haney, Chris Haney and Scott Abbott, and put them to work on another game. The result was the gorgeous (but ghastly), The World According to UBI.

Even though he didn't "invent" Monopoly, Charles Darrow certainly developed it, and in so doing, became one of the first millionaire board game inventors. Parker Brothers broke the bank with Monopoly in 1935, so in 1936 they tried to make a killing in stocks with Darrow's Bull and Bears. They didn't.

The lesson learned? This biz is hard, even for hugely successful inventors. Which makes the following creative geniuses even more amazing.

In 1959 Harold Von Braunhut conceived of an idea he called Instant Life. By 1962 it was released under a new name, Sea-Monkeys. Two years later, he put another toy novelty in the back of a gazillion comic books. Perhaps you'll remember X-Ray Spex.

In 1949 Eddy Goldfarb gave the world Yakity-Yak Talking Teeth. 18 years later he and Rene Soriano invented Battling Tops and the classic Kerplunk.

In 1966 Ralph Baer conceived of playing games on a standard TV set. Over the next six years, he worked towards producing the first video game system, succeeding with the release of Magnavox's Odyssey, the predecessor to Pong. Then in 1978, Baer and Howard Morrison of Marvin Glass & Associates invented Simon. Two all-time electronic classics!

Marvin Glass & Associates was responsible for many hits, and Burt Meyer was one of the most prolific of MGA's designers. He invented or co-invented Mouse Trap, Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, Lite Brite and Toss Across.

Check out the above games and novelties, originally used for the production of The Playmakers, now up for auction in my Ebay store.