Flashback Friday: Childhood board games

No childhood in the 90’s would have been complete without even a minor appearance of board games. Games like Candy Land, Operation and Monopoly provided family fun and laid the foundations for the current generation of cheaters.

Candy Land

Contrary to popular belief, Candy Land originated way back in 1945 and not from Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” music video. Its wide variety of characters and race-to-the-finish plot make it a childhood favorite.

Aria Rattan, a 22-year-old senior anthropology major, said she and her sister played the game frequently.

“I totally, totally loved Queen Frostine,” Rattan said.

Throughout the course of the game, players encounter various characters that help or harm their journeys. While some used to favor characters like Queen Frostine, others found some characters rather terrifying.

Jeff Taylor, a 20-year-old senior finance major, said although details are vague, he still remembers a certain character.

“I definitely played Candy Land a lot,” Taylor said. “I don’t remember all of the characters, but I definitely remember the Fudge Monster was really scary.”

Operation

Another board game that may inspire fear in children across the nation, Operation tests players’ hand-eye coordination and detailed motor skills.

Lauren Hoffman, a 20-year-old sophomore environmental studies major, said she was terrified of the game as a child.

“Operation definitely scared me as a child,” Hoffman said. “I’m already jumpy as it is so it was really scary.”

As an idea, the game sounds relatively harmless. The player attempts to pull an “ailment” out of a plump man’s body with tweezers. The scary part comes when the player touches the opening of the ailment with the tweezers and the buzzer sounds off.

Rattan said the game left her in fear until early adolescence.

“I loved Operation, but it probably took me until I was 10 to get over the fear of the buzzer going off,” she said. “I literally would get physically frightened when it would go off.”

Monopoly

While Operation might scare some children to death, Monopoly’s cause of death would be boredom.

Kelly Tong, a 22-year-old senior ecology and evolutionary biology and Chinese double-major, said she encountered this boredom while playing.

“I hated Monopoly because it would never end,” Tong said. “After a while I’d just get sick of it and do something else.”

The goal of Monopoly is to be the owner of the most properties and hold the most money at the “end” of the game, but that “end” can come anywhere from 45 minutes to hours after beginning.

Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Caitlin McCluskey at [email protected]

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