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 Today, it's the best-selling board game in the world, sold in 80 countries and produced in 26 languages including Croatian. But where did the MONOPOLY game come from? How did this phenomenal pastime get its start? MR. MONOPOLY tells the legend best...
It was a dream and a piece of oil cloth. In 1933 at the height of the depression, Charles B. Darrow played a game on oil cloth on his kitchen table, fell in love with the game's exciting promise of fame and fortune, produced his own version and sold them one by one to friends and family. When demand for the game grew beyond his ability to fill orders, he showed what he called the MONOPOLY game to the executives at Parker Brothers.
Can you believe it, they rejected the game due to "52 design errors"!
But Mr. Darrow wasn't daunted. Like many other Americans, he was unemployed at the time, and the game's exciting promise of fame and fortune inspired him to produce it on his own With help from a friend who was a printer, Mr. Darrow sold 5,000 handmade sets of the game to a Philadelphia department store. People loved it! But as demand grew, he couldn't keep up with all the orders and came back to talk to Parker Brothers again. The rest, as they say, is history! In its first year, 1935, the MONOPOLY game was the best-selling game in America. And over its 70-year history, an estimated 500 million people have played!
AN INEXPLICABLE APPEAL
There is no accounting for the unrivalled devotion that the MONOPOLY game has garnered over the past seventy years. Some say it is the chance to build a fortune, take a risk, make an acquisition. Others insist it is the drama of competition. Edward P. Parker, former president of Parker Brothers suggested that the magic of the game MONOPOLY is "clobbering your best friend without doing any damage." With America struggling through the Great Depression of the 1930's, the MONOPOLY game offered the vicarious thrill of getting rich quick. In every era, the game provides players with the chance to fantasize. A 10 year old controls the railways. A neighbour goes to prison. A wife seizes all of her husband's assets. A brother drives his sibling into bankruptcy. A child owns property.
Whatever the reason, the game MONOPOLY has inspired not only world-wide popularity, but also a long list of sensational stories and remarkable records.
THE CRAZIEST PLACES
While most players are content playing the MONOPOLY game on a card table or their living room floor, others choose more exotic locales for their games. The MONOPOLY game has gone to sea countless times. In 1983, the Buffalo Dive Club played for 1,080 hours -- underwater. Some 350 divers took turns to keep play going for 45 consecutive days. The game was even the favourite pastime on board the U.S. submarine, Seawolf, during a 60-day submersion.
The MONOPOLY game has also reached toward the skies -- a record has been established for the longest game in a tree house (240 hours). On a somewhat higher level, the West German MONOPOLY championship was once held on Zugspitze, the highest peak in the German Alps.
The game has had its ups and downs -- a 10-day game was once played in a moving elevator and a group of the MONOPOLY game fanatics battled the forces of gravity for 36 hours, setting a record for the longest inverted game.
PECULIAR SIZES
Sometimes, circumstances call for a special MONOPOLY set to be used. The students of Juniata College in Huntington, PA had a "big idea" in the spring of 1987 and turned part of their campus into a MONOPOLY® board larger than a city block. Giant foam rubber cubes were used for dice, and bicycle messengers with walkie-talkies kept players informed of their moves.
In 1964, Parker Brothers built a special set for New England Divers, Inc. to use underwater. The special steel-backed board was laminated with cellophane and weighed 95 pounds. Conversely, the lightest recorded MONOPOLY game measured up at a mere one square inch.
In 1978, Neiman Marcus demonstrated its good taste by offering a $600 full-size chocolate MONOPOLY game in its Christmas catalog. Requests came pouring in from chocolate and game lovers alike. And in 1991, the Franklin Mint issued a collectible MONOPOLY game selling for $550 that included gold and silver pieces.
THE MONOPOLY GAME MAGIC AROUND THE WORLD
Although The original game is based in Atlantic city Monopoly enthusiasts around the world are convinced that their version is the original. The MONOPOLY game is licensed in more than 45 countries and the list continues to grow.
The 32 languages in which the game is printed include Italian, Indian, Arabic, Portuguese, Croatian, Czech, Icelandic and Russian.
THE WIDE WORLD OF THE MONOPOLY GAME
While some MONOPOLY® game players are content with trouncing their sibling or best friend at the game, others crave more widespread competition. To accommodate the most die-hard of competitors, the MONOPOLY tournaments have been created on local, national and international levels. The World Championship, which first began in 1973, has been held in many prestigious locations and most recently, in 2004, in Tokyo Japan. The current World Champion is Antonio Zafra Fernandez a 36 year old lab technician from Madrid Spain.
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