I Don't Know About That - Board Games

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

There was nothing boring about this episodes on board games all thanks to our expert Grant Lyon ( @GrantLyon  ). Go check out Grant's game "Curmudgeon."

Pooh. Shit. Wee. Why do they always rhyme with things when you want to tease someone? What? You know when you're like, I don't know about that with Jim Jefferies. You know when you're like, you know when you're like, when you're a kid and everything rhymed with poo and wee? No. You go, I got nothing to do, I might do a poo. You're looking at me, I'm doing a wee. You never do that? No.

I'm looking at you and you look like poo. Yeah, yeah, you do that, yeah. Poo seems to just fit into every sentence. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nothing to do but a big fat poo. As a songwriter, yeah. It's pretty easy to rhyme poo with a lot of people. Poo's a banger. What about shit, though?

I don't give a shit. You don't have no wit. That's my rap. Yeah, that's pretty good. You don't got it. That's really good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You should write that down.

Don't need to. It's up here. It's stuck up in there. In the vault. I was doing... I hadn't gigged for like a month and like amos was with me and he's like you you've forgotten half your show i'm like what he reminded me like oh yeah i'm like i should start writing things down i was like doing all this stuff on johnny cash to open up and i forgot all that and there was some other stuff about me dad that i've forgotten

and oh yeah yeah wow what you know you should do is well I got your dates coming up here you're going to be in Sacramento this weekend and Indio California and Fantasy Springs Casino

Fantasy Springs Casino come out and see me and Sacramento come and see me as well but Fantasy Springs come and see me because I want to do more shows out there

because it's close to my house I like being in Palm Springs, man. What I was going to say is March 8th and 9th, you're in Vegas. They can record your shows. You should record when you're in Vegas on 8th and 9th. Have them just do it. At least say you have it. The last run in Vegas were my favorites, but I'm, yeah.

So I took February off because I thought we were going to do work in Australia and then it never came through. And then I was like, maybe I should fill that calendar. And now I'm like, you know what? Me and the wife were going to do work in Australia and then it never came through. And then I was like, oh, maybe I should fill that calendar. And now I'm like, you know what? Me and the wife are going to – my mother-in-law is coming out. Me and the wife are going to go out to Vegas and, you know, have sex. Big plans. That's not what I thought you were going to say, but okay.

And probably gamble. So you're going to go to Vegas before Vegas then. Well, maybe you'll be doing some shows. And my mother-in-law is listening. That's why you've been invited out. Hello. Well, hold on though. Hold on.

On February 13th, we are doing a live podcast at Flappers. Oh, it's confirmed? Yeah. Okay. You heard it here, folks. But that's my birthday. No, the 14th is your birthday. No, but I was born in Australia.

That's a really good point for us. Yeah, but then it won't even be the 13th. It No, the 14th is your birthday. I know, but I was born in Australia. That's a really good point for us. Yeah, but then it won't even be the 13th. It'll be the 14th. Or the 15th. It's false. Anyways, come out 8 o'clock at Flappers. It's on the website. Buy tickets.

The last live one was really fun. And it was really fun. Everybody that came out was great and stuff. So that's on February 13th, a little less than a month from now, 8 o'clock at Flappers. Go to their website. It says, I don't know about that podcast. Check that out. It was great and stuff. So that's in February 13th, a little less than a month from now, 8 o'clock at Flappers. Go to their website. It says I Don't Know About That Podcast. Check that out.

And then there's other dates for you on your website too. March 22nd, you'll be in Des Moines, Iowa. March 23rd, Kansas City and so on. Check it out at jimjeffries.com. I'm all over the joint. I'm all over the joint. And I have a big announcement coming up for some Canadian people, but I can't say it yet.

But if you live in Canada, I have a big announcement. And then I have shows. They're all sitting there. What's up to you? Go to 4shaw.net. I have shows coming up in Australia. It'll be the end of April, beginning of May. The exact days I'll have next podcast.

And we have a big announcement for Australia as well that the Australian public doesn't know. Can you say that yet or not? No. Okay, so we'll maybe do that next episode. A lot of Australia stuff coming. A lot of teasing. There's something. There's another thing.

I do the 1% Club in Australia, and there's something else in the works. Yep. 2024 is the year of making moves. And not movies. Anything but movies and TV. But go to jimjeffries.com, go to foreshaw.net

and subscribe to us on IDCAT podcast on Instagram and follow us there. One of my favorite things is when someone goes, I've written this movie, can I attach you to it?

And I'm like, yeah, that'll sell it. I can't get into regular movies by myself. We've got a bloke that you've never cast. We know he's pitched you a lot of movies. He took all of February off for this movie. If you want to make a movie with me, February's your time, but not the 13th. Or when you're having sex in Vegas.

Me and the wife, we're going to get at it. We're going to go at it. See Kylie Minogue? She's not there when we want to go at it. The only person who's in town is Adele. There's other people in town, I'm sure. No, no, no. That's it.

No, no, no. The only big act that I haven't seen. Like, you know, you've got your Copperfields. Bruno Mars. Bruno Mars is not there. Ed Sheeran is playing the T-Mobile Arena that night that we want to go, that we're thinking of going. But, yeah, I've got a mixed relationship with Ed Sheeran.

Hey, Ed Sheeran, if you're listening, reach out, fella. Let me give you a hot tip. Don't go Super Bowl week. What week's that? That's the week of the 5th into the 11th. Oh, yeah, no, I'm not going there. Okay, there you go, hot tip. All Oh, yeah. Now I'm going to go there. Okay. There you go.

Hot tip. All right. Cool. Is the Super Bowl there? Yeah. It's in Vegas this year. What? Well, everything's in the way, isn't it?

I don't want the Super Bowl in the fucking way. Well, that's on the 11th. So after that, then go there. All right. Go after the 11th. Yeah. After your birthday. They'll be waiting for you to come for your birthday.

What day of the week is the 13th? Tuesday. Okay, so I'll go after my birthday. Yeah, yeah, there you go. I was going to go the days before, but I'll go after. It depends when my mother-in-law's here. I might have to go to Super Bowl weekend. I might just have to spend the money.

Better book now. The conversation we could have off air. This is how the sausage is made, people. All right. Now let's welcome our guest, lion good day grant uh now it's time to play yes no yes no yes no judging a book by its cover look i'm not a good enough actor i'm just gonna own up to this i I was about to lie, right? But if you've ever seen me act in anything, you know that I'm not good at this. I know what the subject is, but I've only just found out what the subject is.

I haven't done any research or anything like that. It was just that I heard you guys talking about it. So it's board games. Yeah, you did great. Thanks. Board games. Which I'm very excited. Very excited about board games.

I love board games. Let me introduce Grant then. Grant Lyon is a comedian that has appeared on Comedy Central, the Sci-Fi Network, Comics Unleashed, and Just for Laughs. During the pandemic, he started making videos about the board games he loves, and now he has over 200,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram. Grant also writes funny content for board games, and in 2023, he won a Taggy Award for his creative content for board games. He also has an hour stand-up comedy show all about board

games that he takes to conventions across the world. His debut game, Curmudgeon, was published by 25th Century Games. You can find him at Grant's Game Rex on TikTok and Instagram and at Grant Lyon on YouTube. That's L-Y-O-N, his last name, and also his album, Scheduled Fun Time, is out. Listen to that. What is a taggy? They literally call it the Oscars of board games. Yeah. And one of the funniest parts about it is because, you know, I come from the world of

comedy and I love board games, but I'm a newer expert at that. And so I didn't really know what a taggy was either. And all of these other people were like, Oh my God, you got nominated. And I was like, what is that? Like my response when they emailed me and said,

congratulations, you've been nominated. I, my actual email back was like, wow, that's so cool. I really appreciate it. Um,

I just want to double check that you have the right person. Cause I was like, I don't know know and then my accepted and i won and i was like there's no way but why taggy what's the like your tag name like computer tag no it's t-a-g-i-e and that's a an acronym it stands for the toy and game uh independent yes toy and game independent. Yes. Toy and game something. Did you win the taggy? I did. And where do you keep your taggy, man?

Yeah, I got it on my shelf. I got it on my board game shelf at home. What does a taggy look like? It's huge. It's like super heavy. I like that you still don't know what it stands for. I won two awards this year.

I won a comedy award up in Montreal once, and I won a million mile plaque from Delta. I have them both sitting next to each other. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it was like, I didn't mean to be disrespectful of their award or anything. I just didn't, I wasn't familiar with it. And so when they like called,

like I was talking to people, you know, there's like a whole award show and people would be like, oh, what's your company? I'd be like, you'd think that I'd have one, right? You would think. I don't mean to be crass about this, but what's the pussy like at the tag? A lot of married folks. Also, your game Curmudgeon, when you were developing it, I sat in on the testing sessions. You did a few house yeah i

did i think two of them and it's based on you when at first probably it's really fun and i i actually um bought i think i told you i bought it for my i got an airbnb and i bought a bunch of board games oh awesome and i bought it i don't know if this is a ringing endorsement or not somebody stole it so i think that means it's good i think it's a solid game but it's a fun game I brought a few copies for you guys alright I play board games all the time I always buy a couple at Christmas

about three or four a year I've got two more signed too so there's a couple more coming out oh really two more games oh great nice are you allowed to say what they are or you don't want to yeah I can say what they are A couple more coming out here. All right. Oh, really? Two more games? Mm-hmm. Oh, great. Nice. Are you allowed to say what they are or you don't want to? Yeah, I can say what they are. If you don't, we'll toss them in a little later.

I just don't know. I don't have the production schedule. The publisher's handling that. So one's called Drawkward. It's like drawing an awkward. And it's like a comical line. You use your left hand. Yeah, yeah.

The way it works is you get an adjective and a noun. We all draw our own thing. Then we pass it. Then a question comes up. So you've drawn an embarrassed cheerleader. You've drawn a mean surfer or whatever. I don't. I'm not a very good drawer.

But that's the fun thing. Without a cheerleader, it might look like an incident. You don't have to be a good drawer because then a question comes up. Why is the cheerleader it might be you look like an incident you don't have to you don't have to be a good drawer because then a question why is the cheerleader crying yeah and so then it's not about the drawing well it's about uh the question comes up and it's like what was this person's new year's resolution and you're just making up not cheers oh that's cool yeah you're just making up funny answers type of thing yeah yeah cool yeah um all, so here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to ask Jim a series of questions about board games. He's going to answer them all.

On the end of him answering them, you're going to grade them on his accuracy. Zero through ten, ten's the best. Jack's going to grade them on confidence. I'm going to grade them on how hungry I am. You didn't laugh, Jack. I'm trying not to. He's laughing at that every time.

I'm trying not to laugh. Yeah, but it's funny when you're sitting next to him, not when you're facing it. When you face it, it's just upsetting. Kills right here. And then we'll add all the scores together. If you scored 21 through 30, room and board, 11 through 20, drawing board, back to the,

and zero through 10, water board. That's the worst one. You want that one. All right, when was the first board game invented, and if you know by whom and where? When was the first board game invented, and if you know by whom and where? Like, way before Jesus, right? Okay.

Right? Before Christ. Like, way before. Like, I saw a documentary years ago. I know that in ancient Egypt and stuff, they had games and stuff. Uh-huh. So... Ancient Egypt. I don't think we know who invented it to be honest

i think there's okay so let's say let's say like the really old games i don't know what comes first backgammon or chess right and i'm sure i assume there's games older than them and they're a couple of thousand years older yeah than christ okay so i'm gonna say 2,000 years before. Do you know what it was? Noah. Noah? Noah the game? Okay. Yeah, fucking Noah. Look, man, you're going to be on that fucking boat.

You've got nothing else to do. You don't think that cunt's inventing a couple of games? It's all about getting pairs of animals on. Pairs of animals. It's called the animal fucking game. First board game in Europe. Do you know what that one was? Europe. It wouldn't be Mahjong. First board game in Europe Do you know what that one is? Europe

It wouldn't be Marjon Yeah Marjon is Does that count Is that a board game right? So by definition Does it have to have a board? Or can it just be

We're going to talk about games That don't have boards Yeah because I think It's an indoor It's kind of like A tabletop Because then we've twister right and twister ain't a board game no no twister yeah twister no it wouldn't be invented today you can't bring in twister in today you can't go it's just for teenagers to cop a feel in it yeah there's never been a group of lads that are like we should all maybe some, but we should all play Twister.

The girls haven't even come here yet. We'll just play Twister, just the lot of us. Yeah, they're not coming. The other game I brought today is Twister, so we could play after. I don't think, look, I'm looking at the forest. We don't have the body shapes for Twister. We're not a good Twister team.

I'm going to pick up a pencil and drop it, and I'm going to play Twister. First board game in america america america first american made board game yes yeah sure in america sure i'm gonna say snakes and ladders all right what game is considered by many as the transition to the modern board game hobby so there's a game that brought it to the modern era. I would say Monopoly would be your board game, which was a transitional one because you started having cards with questions

and this and that, and then dealings and wheelings where everything else before was checkers. Checkers is going to be my American american one checkers checkers snakes and ladders not snakes and ladders in australia snakes and ladders in australia um but but i i um what you don't have snakes we have snakes but it was called shoots and yeah it was just slides we made it way more fun for the kids not a snake yeah yeah you have a snake yeah okay well here if you land on the snake's head then you got to go down the snake and the snake will go like this more fun for the kids. You're sliding out a snake? Yeah, yeah. You have a snake. Yeah, okay. Well, here it's... You don't have snakes.

We don't slide lines. If you land on the snake's head, then you've got to go down the snake and the snake will go like this. Yeah, yeah. Here it was slides. This was just slides. Shoots.

Yeah, shoots. Shoots, whatever the fuck a shoot is. It's like a trash shoot. You don't have snakes and ladders. Fuck me. Weird shoots. They're so different. So I'm going to say

Checkers is the first American thing. I'm going to say Monopoly was the pivotal game that changed over, which I've seen a whole documentary on Monopoly. I'm well versed iners is the first American thing. I'm going to say Monopoly was the pivotal game that changed over, which I've seen a whole documentary on Monopoly. I'm well versed in Monopoly. We'll see. The landlord's game as it was known from Atlanta.

What is a Euro game? Euro. Euro would be a game from Europe. It's a type of game. I guess a category of games called Euro games. Yeah, you can't use your hands. Okay. Is that your final answer? It's all teeth. game called i guess a category of games called euro yeah you can't use your hands okay okay what is that your final answer it's all teeth yeah it's all teeth what is an american it involves

smoking if it's an eastern euro or western euro what is an american style board game or an ameritrash game as they're known an american style boardstyle board game. Okay, I know I have young children, which what children are. Is it anything that involves like Kaplunk, right? So you put anything that we're pulling out. So Jenga's a pullout. Kaplunk's a pullout. And now there's the push-ins. There's always something like a pirate ship and you shove a knife into it

until eventually the pirate falls out or you put too many things on a fucking donkey until he falls over. Those games, fuck me, I've played a lot of those games. So we're saying Euros, no hands, American, all hands. American, all hands, yeah.

Forrest gave my son one which was just plunging shit out of a toilet. The poo, the poo. The poo shoots up. Why do European games focus on less conflict? They've had a lot of wars, man. They've had a lot of wars, and they don't want them in there. Because Americans have to win, and the rest of the world,

we play sports where we can draw. You know what I mean? So it's just like it's the fun is the whole thing the winning isn't the main aspect okay what's the difference between mass market and hobby games uh your sales sales yeah that's that's the only difference though all those hobby games want to be fucking mass market don't worry about it what is the largest board game convention in the world and then what's the largest one in America? I guess there's a name for it.

Is that? It would be the Taggy. The Taggy Convention. I was going to go with what you know. The Taggy Convention. All right. That's the largest one in the world? I can't believe you knew about that one.

There's a largest one in the world or a largest one in America? Yeah, it's the largest one in the world. What does Taggy stand for? That's not a question. Yeah, I don't know. Don't be so Taggy first. Who invented Candyland? And anything else you know about Candyland?

Oh, Candyland. Where was it invented? Who invented it? I've never played Candyland. Never? I know Candy Crush. I've heard of Candyland. Candyland. Land. I know Candy Crush. I've heard of Candy Lane and I... Candy Land. Land. Don't watch

the movie. You've seen Candy Cane Lane? Oh, yeah. It's not the best. It's a film, isn't it? They made it. It was recorded and edited. I'm surprised though that Australia has Snakes and Ladders but no Candy

Land. Because I feel like here those are very similar games. Yeah, they play at the same time. though that Australia has snakes and ladders but no Candyland we like a year that those are very similar yeah the same time yeah yeah I know I never had snakes and ladders oh it's Candyland one okay so okay so the guy who invented Candyland also invented the game of life hmm the game of life that's always that that that's a fun game I have a question that game is so random there's nothing you can do to help yourself

there's a few choices do I go to college do I go straight into an occupation and then it's like you have kids and that makes you money not in real life

not in my experience that slows the whole game down this is the game of dreams you have another child. You've come to an early grave. You're like, fuck. There's a scary board game called The Game of Real Life that someone made, and it's like, there's nuclear war, and you die.

Like, third space is you die. You get aborted. There was the original. I'm trying to remember the original. Wait, here's a question about life. The original Game of Life featured spaces that were later removed. What were they for? I know.

I've seen this as well. Okay. Okay. I see the answers here. That is crazy. This is... The Game of Life used to just be like rows like that, almost like an advent calendar.

And one of the squares was a picture of someone hanging themselves from a tree. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I've seen... I've watched the toys that make America, I've seen, I've saw, I've watched the toys that make America, I've watched all this shit, right?

There was someone just like, you've had a bad day, you topped yourself. Game over. How did you find that version? There's probably other ones, but that's the only thing that's sticking to me. Okay, all right. What was significant about the game Cranium, at least like when it was first being sold and

when it was sold? There's some significance to it. Where it was sold. Put it that way. I'll give you a hint. Cranium? Where it was sold? You know Cranium, the game Cranium?

I've seen. I can picture the box. Is it like Pictionary or something? It's one of those ones you have to think of different words. I forget. I've played it. Cranium is like the idea of it when it first came out was ones you have to think different words. I forget, I've played it. Cranium is like, the idea of it when it first came out was it was like all the

different games. There's like a Pictionary component and there's like a trivia component. Oh, they had the clay that you would mold? There was like clay. It was sold in arts and crafts stores. What was unique about the original version of Monopoly? It was in Atlantic, the Atlantic City,

and they used to think that was an affluent place to live. That's what you need. They used to think that there was a guy with a monocle walking around in a top hat like, I live in Atlantic City. Okay. Is that your answer? Yeah, yeah.

That there was a multimillionaire living in Atlantic City. How much Monopoly money is printed each year? Or like in... Yeah, that's the question. Do you know? Or maybe you can compare it to something. In currency, I would say... $7 billion.

$7 billion. Worldwide, because they've got so many varieties of the games. I don't quite know we'll see we'll see when I get the answer what does the word Jenga mean made up shit

but I know how the Jenga game was built is that a real word chopped down a tree I don't believe it is okay but the

all the bricks were the same and they you know you couldn't find a loose one because they were all perfect shaped

and the woman who invented the game put them through a washing machine. So they got little deviations that are ever so slightly different. And that's what makes Jenga work. Okay. Why did the trivia encyclopedia sue the game Trivial Pursuit? They probably had questions. Maybe they had things that were incorrect.

Okay. What is the highest selling game of all time? Like I'm assuming like the most sold. Chess. Chess, okay. Why did Settlers of Catan change its name to Catan? Oh, did it? Yeah, cultural appropriation

because, you know, they settled there. They overtook some probably natives or whatever like that. And then they thought it was their land and we'll all just be as one and call it Catan because they didn't discover Catan.

They just settled it, man. Yeah. What is Board Game Geek? Board Game Geek, that would be a webpage about board games. How many games are listed there? 3,000. What is the board game industry valued at? $2 trillion.

$2 trillion. Okay. That's all of our questions. Grant. What's a trillion dollars? Zero through ten. Ten being the best. How did Jim do on his knowledge of board games?

I thought I was actually pretty impressed. I would say you got about half of them right. You know? That's pretty good. Does that mean it's like a five out of ten? It's up to you. Six out of ten. Thanks.

These don't mean anything. I take this very seriously. I'm a board gamer. Yes. Scores matter. True. They do. How do you do on confidence?

I think a six. He had times where he's going, I don't know what's going on. Yeah. I'm pretty hungry. They were very difficult questions. Yeah. I'm pretty hungry, so I'm going to give you a 10, room and board. Yeah.

We'll talk. If you have other questions about games, you can ask. So you nailed some of them. When was the first board game invented? By who and where? Jim said way before Jesus. We don't know who invented it. 2000 BC Noah. Noah invented it? Noah did it.

But he did say ancient Egypt. It is. It's ancient Egypt. So I thought his answer was pretty right on with this one because I don't think we know the, nobody knows the exact person or anything like that. I know that they had games in pyramids and stuff. That's how we discovered

a lot of them was like in pyramids and stuff. That's how we discovered a lot of them was like in pyramids and burial sites. Well, is the game that we still play today? Well, no. So the game is called Senate. Right. And we don't know the rules of it. People have ideas of what it might be and stuff, but the rules have never made it down through history.

Is it one with pegs? Yes. It's got pegs and you're moving around a board so like you can actually kind of play this game if you go to like a toot and common exhibit like i went to one they had one like an interactive exhibit uh traveling exhibit in downtown los angeles a couple of years ago and they had senate games there and it was like how do you want to play this you can make up your own rules to this because we don't know the mastermind board right yeah a little bit yeah cracker barrel they have yeah

yeah that triangle with the pegs you got to take them all off except one by jumping i can never yeah maybe it's like playing cards and there's just a bunch of different games you can play with it so but it's like kind of a track that goes on a board you know and you're moving you're trying to get to the end first maybe something like that like that. Interesting. But yeah, it's like we, the first inkling that we have of it is from like 3,500 BC. But that's like fragments of games that may have been that way. 1,500 of? Yeah. We sent Agent Egypt out.

But the first like actual board we have is from like 2600 BC. That's pretty good. Where we have like, oh, okay, we know that this is the game that we see along the years. And what's pretty crazy about it is that it was played for thousands of years in Egypt. It was like there was proof of it throughout the Egyptian empire, same game, even though we don't know the rules. And so what's the oldest game that we continue to play? That's probably something like chess or checkers or backgammon. I don't know which one's older of those, though.

You were saying you think that, what, board games are the oldest form of indoor entertainment? I think the oldest form of indoor entertainment? I think the oldest form of indoor entertainment. I think since we've... Okay, what happens when you're fucking... You're on Survivor or something like that. You're fucking... Or anywhere.

You build yourself a shelter. Once that shelter's good and you've fucking got a full stomach. Yeah. What do I do next? Would you play some type of game? We're throwing something in a fucking jar. Yeah, you're always inventing games. There's always, that's the next invention.

That's cavemen. That's the next fucking invention. You think that's earlier than like painting? Because we have cave paintings. Do you think a game in the cave came before painting on the walls? I think people would have painted and let's see who can do this the fastest. They would have made a game of it. That doesn't even look like a master.

Some are better than others. Woolly Mammoth? Krog won the painting competition. There's just a painting. I'm going to formally, so I don't back out of it. I'm going to do this live on a podcast. I've decided that I'm going to videotape myself. Videotape myself.

I need Jack for this. I will fill Jim. I'm going to record myself painting a Boboss painting at the same speed that he does with no previous experience i've bought all the equipment i've got easels i've got the right side canvas i've got bob ross paints i'm ready to go i'm gonna give i've got all the brushes i'm ready to go just like do that mountain and then put the snow on yeah i think it's funny that your son's gotten someone to bob ross my son got into bob ross and he's like dad can i watch bob ross do you know there's a bob ross board game there is a bob ross board game wait what yeah yeah i want that all day yeah it came out like not even

that long ago maybe seven eight years ago i don't think he gets any money for his name if you watch the documentary it gets quite dark yeah Yeah, that's pretty sad. Really? Yeah, he is. There's people who rip Bob Ross off. But I have an edible, and you know when you're like 11, and it comes up to you, and you're laying on the couch, and you're high, and they go, can we watch Bob Ross?

Yeah. I love that kid, man. It's called Happy Little Accidents is the name of the- The documentary's upsetting, though. I tried watching that with Hank as well. He's like, no, no, no. I was saying the board game. I think there's Happy Little Accidents is the name of the... The documentary is upsetting, though. I tried watching that with Hank as well. He's like, no, no, no. I'm saying the board game. I think there's Happy Little Accidents.

Is that it? No, that's the one I'm talking about. Oh, this? Oh, wow. It's a well-known one. Oh, the Art of Chill Board. Yeah. It's got a big old Bob Ross head on the cover.

Big afro. Awesome. Well, there you go, Jim. There's another one. He permed it. It wasn't real. If we ever do a Bob Ross episode... It wasn't real? Oh, wow you go, Jim. You permed it. It wasn't real. If we ever do a Bob Ross episode. It wasn't real?

Oh, wow. That iconic look. We can't do it because you know too much about him. I might be the expert. Yeah, Jim's the expert. We should do an all-you-can-quiz us. First board game in Europe, you said not Mahjong? Yeah, Mahjong.

Mahjong's from China? Yeah, I know. He didn't give an answer, so I just put... Okay, so dominoes, right? Yeah. Dominoes would be... Pretty old. Is that from...

I think. I think that's American. Is that American dominoes? I have no clue. I used to play dominoes all the time as a kid. I can't remember if I can play it anymore. I don't think it is American. But do we know what the year was?

It would be like, after the king died, we used his bones. Yeah, yeah. The European one, I couldn't even answer. Oh, okay. Like, in the sense

that, that's so hard because, like, the Vikings, the Norse people, had their own games. They had dice and Ripe and Pillage. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was a big one for the Vikings. They run this village. Romans had games. Yeah, I remember when we were going over this, you said you didn't know. I said, that's a big one for the podcast we run this village Romans had games yeah I remember when we were going over they said you didn't I said that's perfectly fine

not to know but the earliest mention of Domino's is from the Song Dynasty China found in the text of this thing 1232 to 1298

so it's pretty old but alright so what about America then what was the first board game in America was it Checkers or Snakes and Ladders no it's a game

and so we're talking about a game that was published in America that wasn't ever published anywhere outside of America. And I love the story of this game. It's called Traveler's Tour Through the United States. And one of the big things about it is during the 1800s, no games had dice because dice were a sign of gambling. They were sinful. And so nobody would put dice in games

so that's where we came up with like spinners so the rule was flip your dick out and push your piece yeah and uh and so you would spin this thing and that would tell you where to go rather than rolling a dice to tell you where the game alive spinner yeah exactly like this was the first game that had something like that slightly weighted though always slightly weighted though, aren't they? They never spin quite right. And then the object of the game was just how many you got on this. You would move that far on a map and then they were just cities on the map and you had to guess which city you were in. This was so long ago that people were like, I have no idea.

I've been 10 miles from my house. And I have to guess. I'll tell you what, that game overseas would do very well. Yeah, yeah. Like, you saw that game in Australia, they'd be like, I don't know, Cincinnati. Yeah. And they're like, wrong, Denver. Yeah.

Moving on. How'd you win? You just got the most points. If you got the most cities, if you went along the path and guessed the most cities correctly, you would win. And also, this was at a time where the United States ended at like, you know, Missouri and Louisiana and stuff like that. St. Louis, yeah.

That was the Mississippi River. The archway to the west. Yeah, yeah. The gateway to the west. What was the game called again? Travelers Tour Through the United States. Catchy. But it came out in 1822.

It was the first game published by an American company in America. What game is considered by many as the transition to the modern board game hobby? Jim said Monopoly. So I would give you like a half point for this because this is somewhat subjective. So I would give you like a half point for this because this is somewhat subjective. But like there was a long time in America's history where there are only a few games published, right? Monopoly and the Game of Life and things like that. Plantation owner. Yeah.

But the game, the hobby has really exploded in the last 30 years. And the game that has sort of started this modern explosion was Catan. That was the game that sort of popularized modern board games because it was the game also that like there was less luck and more strategy in it. A lot of the classic games that you know from your childhood, it's a lot of luck in there. It's just, well, see what spot you land on and hope it works out for you. Whereas Catan was like the first game that you were like making a bunch of decisions and then it got popular like there were games that were from

the 70s and 80s that had a little bit more strategy but maybe they didn't get as popular as katan did i play the rocket ship katan oh yeah yeah there's a bunch of different versions yeah i've never played it yeah oh it's a fun game yeah great um we could have a katan night you know what i want you know what I want to do for my birthday this year? Murder mystery dinner night. Oh, that'd be really fun. Oh, yeah. That's what I want to do.

Do you want to hire people or just get one of those murder mysteries in a box? Yeah, yeah. Just get one of those in a box. There's a lot of good ones. Are you doing that? Coming up. I just pushed the first domino right there. Okay, all right.

You said it publicly. That and Bob Ross. These have to happen. I'm doing Bob Ross things. I'm having murder mystery nights. Catan, yeah. How many people do you need to play that? I mean, you can play it with only two.

I would say it's better with more than that. Ideally, you'd have four people or something like that. But it came out in 1995,, it's a while ago now. I started playing it with a couple of people who were actors, right? And when they got the cards, they were like, you've just been boarded by another thing. And they'd do all the pirate voices and all that. I'm not good at that.

Oh, they act that out. Yeah, I wasn't good at it. I was just like, you're going to win. You're going to take a card? Yeah, yeah. Why don't you do it? I don't like, are you going to win? Are you going to take a card? Yeah, yeah. Why don't you do it? I don't like doing the voice. You do act outs in comedy.

I know, I know. You're so good at voices. I think I'd be good at this, but I bottled it a bit. You're like, no, this is our time to be serious. We're playing this game. I'm trying to win. Every time I did a character, it just turned into Rhys Darby. Because he's a character, man.

Yeah, that's true. What is a Euro game? You said a game from Europe and you can't use your hands and it involves smoking. I mean, it is a game from Europe. That is true. God, he's good. But when you talk about like in sort of the modern hobby, board game hobby world, the two main sort of categories are Euro game or American game. world the two main sort of categories are euro game or american game and european games are games that really have almost no luck involved in all it's all strategy all ways to sort of game out

the system and think about what you're doing and very little conflict i'm never really attacking you or doing anything like that there might be indirect conflict like oh you went to a space i was planning to go to but you didn't know that you know you're just you just happen to go to that space so it's a game with out direct conflict with a lot of pre-planning strategy i i like game shows right i'll watch it i've just been binge watchingwatching Survivor seasons, like watching like one season a day because of all the old ones. When does something cross over from being – so I said a murder mystery dinner or something like that. When does something cross over from being not a board game to something else?

Well, so that's why, too, you know, I use the word sort of board games synonymously, but some people that take it more seriously than I do might say tabletop games, right? Because that includes card games and dice games and all that sort of stuff. To me, I'm like, yeah, I mean all of that when I'm saying board games. But then when you're getting beyond like anything at a table, there's specific terms for that sort of stuff too. Like a game where people would be up playing roles that would be a role-playing game or it could be a social deduction game where you are having to deduct what roles people are playing so all of that sort of fits under the tabletop game

sort of theme even though maybe they're not all actually specifically played at a tabletop, you know? Yeah, yeah. That's what I think of it, too. I think it's just indoor games, isn't it? Yeah. Because then you could start going, I play a board game. What's your best board game? Cricket.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm just really good at cricket. Yeah, I mean, that's fair, an indoor game. Yeah. Did you have mousetrap in Australia? Yes, we have mousetrap. Did you call it something else, though?

No, you put a bit of cheese in there, you catch a mouse, you put him under your doors and stuff. That's not what I was talking about. No, the mousetrap always looked like it was going to be fun, but you set it up for fucking hours. It never works. It never works. There we go.

This is the most infuriating thing ever. There you go, that guy jumps into the bathtub, and you're like, what the fuck? I've never actually played the game. I've just built the contraption. That was something like a parent gave to a kid to give them hours of building that they didn't have to pay attention to their kids. I have

shaky hands. I've always had shaky hands. I think it was all the riddling as a child. My son's got operation. I don't want to play operation with you, man. It's not a good game for me it's too nerve-wracking you're telling your kids like look if you need an operation in a remote area you're out of luck man that's like an old game operation it is yeah it was probably invented way back but

i don't know i guess yeah but it's one of their first electric ones with a battery that made it and the nose lit up and i believe it was uh i don't know what they... I'm going to say Parker Brothers. Was that one? Yeah. Milton Bradley? I think it's Milton Bradley. That's another one where I don't know what the game is. I would just open it and be like,

turn it on and try and get him out. And then like, all right, we're dead. I mean, that is pretty much the game. That is whoever got the most shit out wins. You're just like, it takes a pretty steady hand. And then American style board games are ameritrash games uh jim said anything you have to pull things out like jenga or kerplunk all hands yeah well so if

european games are games that don't have a lot of conflict american games are games that are all about conflict far as to me i'm gonna do a fight overopoly once Yep I believe it I think that's led to A lot of table flipping I've seen my brother Fucking flip a table Yep Fucking Fuck you all I believe it

I've seen that Yeah yeah yeah Yeah I've seen that Rage quitting Forrest got angry at me Because I got knocked out And he was about to win And then I just wandered off

And I was tired I was looking in the fridge And all I hear is like this Jim's fucking quit When it doesn't involve him He's not fucking interested I was looking in the fridge and all I hear is like this, Jim's fucking quit. When it doesn't involve him, he's not fucking interested. I haven't won in a while. He was right.

I'm pretty sure it was Thanksgiving too. It was Thanksgiving. It's like a holiday. But like, so European games also, there's never any player elimination. So everybody is in the game until the end of the game. But like so European games also there's never any player elimination. So everybody is in the game until the end of the game. So it's a lot about scoring at the end of the game. So we don't know who's won until the end of the game and we tabulate the scores. Whereas American games get out of here.

You're eliminated. You're done. Player elimination has always been like a big, big thing. I got approached in Australia by a game company to have a board game about me. And they were just like, we just make them, and you get a portion of them, and they just make them as they're sold. They just put them together.

So there's no cost for me. And I thought about it, and I was just like, I don't know. It was literally like... Or the rules. There'll be an Up up gunter up square get yourself a cunt card you know what I mean like all these

cliche things about me right Danish yeah you've got sunburned go move to England yeah

that actually sounds pretty good why oh this is so why do Europeans focus less on conflict you answered that already pretty much yeah i mean you nailed it it was actually it was straight it was after like world war ii oh which was it was like the euro games come out of germany that was like the now a lot of people make monopoly was made in the 30s i can't tell you which bit of the 30s but i know it was made in the 30s and so we were

already at war that was just after the great depression yeah but when we're talking about european games though a lot of them were developed sort of in germany so so what good nazi games were they no but i mean like that i know i know but we look look dude i don't want to get into it but they're experiments on twins. We figured out some shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Please, I'm joking. But do they have any games? Well, I don't know if they have any games from pre-World War II that are still popular, but the post-World War II ones.

Like one where you hid things behind a barrier called What Sticker? I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. God. You don't like What sticker? I don't even know

What that means He doesn't even know What it means I gotta Now I hear it Now I hear it Battleship would've been one Yeah

But that was an American game Not a European game You think that would've been The Japanese Who made Battleship? Battleship Yeah That was

They played that In that Squid Game Played it in Squid Games It playing squid games it's a good it's a good one battleship it's a good game i don't mind i always do it around the borders i never got in the middle i don't know how some of you guys with kids they'll play games with your kids i was at like a uh a cafe recently where somebody was playing battleship with their seven year old kid and i was sitting next to him and just getting so angry the whole time just the kids just cheating over and over and the dad was so patient yeah he was and he was looking over and

seeing what his dad had and then guessing that and i was just like bro like you gotta let him do that i couldn't handle it my son's just gotten better at video games than him and it was like any game i was wiping the floor with him like come on we'll play like this and then i'd let him win and now i'm like i'm like practicing i'm practicing why he's at school and he comes in like hey come on we're gonna play a video game i've got homework come on i'm gonna beat you today i've been practicing we used to play battleship with walkie-talkies we'd be in different rooms so it felt like we were like calling it that's that was really fun that's a good way to do it. Yeah, that's really good. That is fun.

The Hackett house. I grew up in such a small house, Jack, that you could hear each other through the walls. Must have been nice to be a rich kid. We'd go to different wings for a laugh.

We'd go to different wings for a laugh. What's the difference between mass market and hobby games, Jim said sales. I mean, that is definitely one of the things. I would say the other thing is like mass market games focus on really easy to learn rule sets, really sort of available for any ages to play, whereas the hobby market is a lot more strategic, a lot more sort of niche themes and things like that. I like how there was a bit in the 80s

where they would just bring up board games. I don't know what it was, but like on Friends, they played the Happy Days game. I have a vivid memory of a family tires box. Family tires? Yeah. Yeah, like check if that's a thing. I believe it.

I can't remember the game I have a memory. And it would have been those playing pieces that are a cardboard cutout and a little bit of plastic. Yeah, yeah. You know those ones? But I think the mass market focuses a lot more on known IPs. If anything's popular, there's probably a game version of it. Yeah, I have Seinfeld Clue. That's what I mean.

Like there's going to be that sort of stuff. All right. There's a Family Ties one. We call it Cluedo. Yeah, I have Seinfeld Clue. That's what I mean. There's gonna be that sort of stuff. There's a family ties one. We call it Cluedo. Yeah, that's right. Why Doe? Why the Doe on it? I think we're the original Cluedo. I think you're the second one. I think it's from Europe. I'm not sure. You mean the game Clue? We call it Cluedo. What the hell does Cluedo

mean? It's Clue. But why Doe? But Clue's a word. What's Cluedo? Make it sound like a game Cluedo there's still like professional pump what did the what did the family ties game give me a look at that um you are one of the Keaton's trying to surprise the rest of family by having a family portrait taken to do it you have to get all the family members together and have a hundred dollars in savings to pay the photographer yeah getting everyone together isn't as easy as you think Alex is taking too much cocaine so he can

film Back to the Future at night. Go back three spaces. This is, by the way, jumping ahead. This was on a website called Board Game Geek, which was a question we can jump ahead to. Right, so it's that opening sequence where they're all getting their portrait painted, and they're painting, so you've got

to get them all together. And it's like, oh, Mallory's off at the shops. Can't get up. I'm saying it's on here what so board what's that oh there you go hey there we go skippy now let's like okay he's a stand-up comic did you ever play this did you actually play i remember having this in the house so what happened i said they're plastic pieces and they just put the things in yep uh what happened to skippy anyone he's a stand-up comic is he still doing like coconuts or something like tell me skippy still gets work um i think he does okay but i don't know i don't know i know i know of i had a friend and you met we met her on top of the we were at a party that your friends with and she was with tia carrera do you remember years ago she gave up her name and her name is julia mccalla and she does she

was uh there's a guy that dated kurt cameron on on growing pains yeah and then she's in playboy and then she's in playboy and they wrote her off the show yeah but really she does stand-up now and there's a guy that represents stand-up i know she was touring with i don't remember skippy's real name uh Mark Price. Mark Price. Mark Price. But I think he's still doing stand-up. I'm looking up his tour.

I think he's still... He's still got a great head of hair on him. He's going to be in Boca Raton at the end of January. Oh, he does some cruise ships and stuff like that. Yeah, good on him, man. Skippy's doing it.

And he fucking looks great for his age. Wow. If the photos are accurate. I look great in my photos, too. He's going to be in Burbank in March. Go see Skippy. Is it Flappers? Probably. I'll watch Skippy all day.

So I'm just jumping ahead real quick. Board Game Geek is where I saw that. Jim said it's a webpage about board games. That is true. How many games are listed there? He said 3,000. It is about 150,000. Holy shit. I thought I was going high yeah 150 000. and i bet you about 50 000 of them are close to each other yeah well and so i should say though i should preface it by saying there's like 150 000

entries on there so if somebody made like a promo pack for a game that's already out, that's probably its own separate entry So all of that sort of stuff related so Individual board games. It's still gotta be You know 25,000 at least I like a game that's gonna be to skullduggery. Yeah, a bit of bullshitting Yeah, like like the game bluffing. Yeah, yeah bluffing and stuff Yeah, what's that game? Cause I used to play it when I... Bang the Dice Game. Is that the one you're talking about?

With the guns? Yeah. Oh, no, that one's Cash and Guns. Cash and Guns. Yeah, yeah. That was fun. Cash and Guns, you get actual foam guns, and basically you count to three,

and you're all pointing them at somebody else. And you're bluffing about who you are. Yeah, you don't know if they have a bullet in their gun or they have a blank in their gun. Oh, that sounds good. It's their gun. Sounds like a fun game. That sounds good. It's really fun. It's really fun.

I used to go over to... Can you still get... Show Cash and Guns up on the screen. I want to get a look at Cash and Guns. Because you also played Bang the Dice Game at our house, too. Yeah, Bang the Dice. And Bang the Dice Game is everybody has hidden roles. You roll dice and then just shoot people and hopefully...

Oh, yeah, yeah. And you're trying to figure out who's on your team and who's not. Yeah, that one was fun, too. Yeah, there was... Forrest and I really love shooting each other. Oh, yeah. dice and then just shoot people and hopefully and you're trying to figure out who's on your team and who's not. Forrest and I really love shooting each other. Oh yeah. There was one time I was there, I was playing board games and then someone had that balloon bong or the balloon

I think it was. This looks like a fun game. Oh, it wasn't a game. I was trying to think of a balloon bong game. And then I did one of those and I couldn't even remember. I think I threw up on Gwen Stefani's lawn. Gwen Stefani's lawn? Orlando was driving me home. I said, pull over and then I threw up

and I was like, and I just knew that it was her house because I lived there. Gwen Stefani. Anyways, she moved. There's Cash. After you fucking stalked her, of course. Yeah. Okay, so it's foam guns, and then one of them has a bullet.

How do you know which one has a bullet? Because you put them in the little chambers? You start with eight cards, and the game goes eight rounds, and you have three bullets and five clicks, essentially blanks. And so at the start of the round, everybody chooses one of their cards to play, and then you count to three and then whoever you know you can look at whose guns pointing at you and you can choose to duck or you can choose to like stay in and roll the dice and then yeah if you stay in and you're not shot

you get to like divvy up the loot and whoever has the most money by the end of the game wins yeah yeah it's super fun how many board games do you own? Probably about 750 right now. 750. Where do you keep them all? I have a studio. That helps. It got to the point where I had shelves in the dining room and the living room and my bedroom.

I thought it was really sad. I thought you were like, I got a studio apartment. He's got his 750 board games. I sleep on a bed of board games. I got a studio, so I'm doing pretty good. Between my board games and my Taggy Award, there's not a lot of room in there. Yeah. No, I mean, dude, getting an actual studio to store stuff and film stuff made my life

so much better. Because for a long time, I was just filming in my bedroom yeah and i was like i don't know where to sleep i remember that because on tiktok or instagram and then all of a sudden it changed like it was like yeah and you were like oh this looks nicer now yeah that's great uh what is the largest board game convention in the world was the largest in america jim said the taggy is the largest in the world. Sadly not. Essen Spiel in Germany happens every October, and it gets about 200,000 people there for a board game convention. And then the largest one in America is called Gen Con. It happens in Indianapolis every August, and that's about 80,000 people.

And you said you perform at the – Yeah, I do. I do my board game stand-up hour at some of these different conventions and stuff. Yeah. What's your top five board games? Of all time? Yeah, just your picks.

Not like the world's picks. Boy, it's so hard. Codenames is a game I love. Codenames rocks. What's Codenames? You love it. Yeah, Codenames is like there's words out and your teammate has to give you clues associating words together.

I have like a grid that's telling me which ones are our words, but they're not inherently connected. I have to think of a clever clue to connect these words that aren't necessarily connected and you have to figure out my logic and what I'm doing. So it's great. And it's the game that sort of got me back into modern board games. You know, I was into like games when I was growing up, but then I got into other stuff, and I didn't sort of come back in until it was actually Shane Moss.

Yeah, Shane Moss. Started hosting game nights for comics in L.A. I've never been invited. Yeah. I have game nights at my house. I got a studio. Do I know Shane Moss? I don't know if you know Shane Moss.

That's probably why I haven't been invited. Pretty good reason. But that's Culver City, right? Yeah, well, now we're in West Adams now, but we haven't met our house yet. You ever want to invite me, man? I'm down. I would love to.

We do them all the time. We'll do it, yeah. So the top five. So Codenames right there. I'll tell you, one of the funnest games just in terms of, because I'm terrible at drawing, Telestrations. I've had some of the biggest inside jokes from playing Telestrations. It's like the old kid game Telephone where you whisper something in the ear

and it goes around. In Australia we call that Chinese whispers. Really? Yeah. The rest of the world calls it Chinese whispers. Yeah. We call it telephone. You only call it telephone.

We PC'd it up. This is one of the few times we're not the racist ones. Finally. Is it racist though? I don't know. It feels like it's not good. It feels definitely wrong. Yeah.

I don't know if it's wrong or not, but it just feels funny. Because it's more Japanese, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. For sure. And the hole's being dug for it. I play Telestrations with a bunch of my animation friends. It's super fun.

And they're so good at drawing. So any stupid phrase you give them, they draw perfectly. It's like telephone, but with drawings. Yeah, but so like I have a word. I draw it. I pass it to you. You have to guess what I drew. You pass it.

You have to draw what you guessed. You pass it. He has to guess what he drew. And we just go around the table and see. Because draw right, draw right, draw right. Yeah, draw right

every other person. That's super fun. It's really fun. And it's just like, you know, it's almost like not about the scoring. It's about flipping them up

and being like, bro. And then reading the progress later. I'll tell you, the most memorable one, I remember it was Superman and by the time it got back around,

it was concentration camp. Yeah. That was the real thing because the S on the chest and someone thought it was like an SS officer because somebody was bad at drawing and then as it went around the table, somehow it became an SS officer

in a concentration camp. Now I'm thinking of Schindler's List with the Superman theme song and it's a completely different movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Way different. It adds a different vibe. Do, yeah, yeah. Way different. It adds a different vibe.

Yeah, yeah. Do you want to do the other three? You said two. Oh. Top five? Do you want those? Boy, it's so hard. I want top five. It's so hard to pick.

I mean, I've got so many hundreds of games. I'll buy these games. If I want something in the more strategic world, I love Champions of Midgard. It's one of my all-time favorite strategy games. You are going out onto places, building up your Viking army and clan, and then fighting monsters. And one of the fun things is you're building up your dice pool. And you can go fight one with all your dice and be like, I'm definitely going to win that one.

Or you can be like, yo, I'm going to try to fight all three of these and I'm going to split my dice into different ways and hope that the roll goes well. And so I love that you're really building up your resources and your strategy, but then there's just this exciting like, haha, let's see if I can hit these dudes. A little bit like Risk, is it?

A little bit, but we're not fighting each other. We're fighting the monsters that are on the board and trying to do it the best and get the most points. Risk is a game that I play on my phone, but I'm not a big fan of playing it in real life because in real life, fuck, it's a big setup. Yeah, and then the phone is so quick.

Everything takes care of moving all the armies. I'll tell you, my favorite game to play with comics these days is a game called Green Team Wins. And Green Team Wins, you have to answer something and you only get points if you're in the majority. And so there is so much shit talking and stuff afterwards. Because it'll be like Jennifer blank. Are you going to write Jennifer Aniston? You're going to write Jennifer Lopez? You're going to write Jennifer Garner?

You're going to write Jennifer Lawrence? No, it write Jennifer Lopez? You're gonna write Jennifer Garner? You're gonna write Jennifer Lawrence? Nice lady. You know? Oh, Jennifer Lawrence. Like there's a bunch of things you can do. No, I mean that's a fancy. It's just the one that you might have a chat with. Yeah, yeah. I like J-Law.

But like, okay, what about this one? Like what's the, if this is a multiple choice one, what's the fruit with the most annoying seeds? Is it lemon, watermelon, or grapes? Oh. I'd say strawberries. I was going to say raspberries. The card gives you those three options. Okay, grapes. That's why we got rid of them.

Yeah, grapes. Grapes are the worst. I agree. And I will die on this hill all the time because every time I've played this game, watermelon wins it. And I'm like, you expect there to be seeds in watermelon.

And they're bigger. Nobody expects there to be seeds in grapes. They're bigger than the grape. Nobody expects there to be seeds in grapes. It's so annoying. Yeah. I was happy when they got rid of watermelon seeds. That was... Sure. Yeah.

Do you remember your first seedless watermelon? Do you remember that? Yeah. It was in the 90s. And Dad brought one back, and we were like, it can't be any good. Yeah, yeah. It's genetic engineering. Fuck, it was good, man.

So Green Team W wins is just about like doing the you know doing the getting the majority but then track talking trash about your dumb answer and stuff like that so it's great with comments one more uh and one more i gotta go back to the strategy world um man no you know what i'm gonna do if i'm if i want to like introduce somebody to board games, I think my favorite game to get somebody into a light strategy game is a game called Super Mega Lucky Box. It is essentially bingo on steroids.

You have cards, and you can cross off things. A number will come up, and you cross off stuff, but it's all about getting combos and bonuses and stuff like that. You're like, ooh, I finished this column, which got me this bonus number which i cross off over here and then that finished this thing which got me there and so you just feel like uh you feel epic you know has there been a somewhat of a renaissance period of of games like it feels like people are playing a lot more games now than ever yeah and and we have so much stuff on the internet to do and so many games on our phone. What do you attribute the surge?

Well, I think a few things. One, you know, if we're taking it back like 25 years, games are better now than they were. You know, there is more strategy. There's more choice. There's more interesting stuff. I do feel like they've improved. Because you need to get a game. Let's say there would have been a game for the a team yeah yeah and it would

have just been you'd be be everac as hannibal or whatever and then you go forward go back a few steps yeah which is like now i'm like this it's it's so frustrating when you're like yo i didn't do anything and all of a sudden i got to go back to the beginning yeah just because i rolled a dice wrong like uh i think that's one of the ones i think um board games have diversified a lot so i truly believe now it's like yo if there's any weird thing you're into there's a board game about that right like there's every theme you know we got board games about knitting we've got board games i think also they started like okay so i remember i said in the 80s on the 90s or something when Pictionary and it was like adults were playing board games. All of a sudden adults were playing board games. For sure.

And then now in the 2000s, Cards Against Humanity, right? And now it's like not only adults doing it, but it's dirty jokes. It's for adults. Yeah. I think there's a few I think the more and more we get dependent on our phones and technology the more people are looking for a reason

to set it aside I want one night where I can set that stuff aside and just have an in person fun without the technology do you find like I do that women lose interest in the games very quickly. I might get in trouble for saying that.

But every time I set up game night at my house, if there's lots of girls, they always stop playing halfway through. That's funny. They never finish till the end. I mean, I think that's more about people than it is about gender. I think this is just the people I hang out with. My wife's always, like, well up for it. Like, oh, yeah, game night, game night. And she never lasts more than 15 minutes. Really? I hang out with yeah but I my wife's always like well up for it like oh yeah

game night game night and she never lasts more than 15 minutes really what games are you picking are you picking like hard complicated games

okay so so I live with my wife and we also have a friend we also have a friend of hers that lives with us

a lot of the time and she so there's a lot of a lot of 30 year old actress so there's a lot of um a lot of 30 year old actresses in my house which is nice yeah but but uh so so when they play the board games they lose interest very quick but charades they'll play for hours yeah charades is the girls game i do think that a lot of people in general that haven't played a lot of games have very little capacity for learning new rules.

That's one of the things. Charades, they know what charades is. They don't have to. I have to have a very simple rule base that we can all get on board with very quickly. So that's like a big thing for me in terms of I have so many different types of games because I want games for people that love games. I want games for people who've never played a game. I try to pick the right stuff for the right group of people.

Because I honestly don't, like nobody, whenever I hear somebody go like, oh, I don't like games, I'm like, no, no, no, what happened to you? You know, like what went wrong? Nobody doesn't like games. Who doesn't like games? You just had a bad experience and you think that's all games. Oh, that's my favorite night. Have an edible think that's all games. That's my favorite night.

Have an edible and play a board game. That's my favorite night. It's good, clean fun. For sure. Doesn't bloody hurt anyone. Who invented Candyland? What is Candyland? I need to see it. I don't know.

I feel like we've played it and then you said this game is shit right when we finished. I mean, it's meant for kids. This is one that doesn't have a lot of strategy. I don't remember ever playing a game with you, Jack. I've played Monopoly at your house. Besides Monopoly. I think we got Candyland because I just got to see what this fucking thing is.

And then we got it. Someone show me a picture of Candyland so we can see. And then also I'd like to see a picture of the A-Team board game. Oh, good, good. of the 18 board game from the people who bought your family tires everything's back forward three forward you have explosions mr. T's Alex super basic mr. T's no but they're they're in the LA underground right to be fair that was a lot of board games in like the 80s

yeah you know it was just the in the board game industry also this is the German version yeah in the board game industry

these are called roll and move games roll and move you just roll and move your thing there's not much more to it than that. That's Candyland. Yep.

So who invented Candyland? What's Candyland? Right here. Oh, there. Okay, Candyland's just moving around, right? Yeah. And you just lift up a card and it says red, so you go to the red square next. And then you take a different card.

Right, okay. And you're just trying to get to the top first. Yep. That's where they go it's meant for kids candy crushes derivative of this yeah looks like it anyway i mean it's bright like that do you know this one because it's also got a little it's also it's also got a little king and all that type of stuff it's got me anyway so who invented it uh i think her name was eleanor abbott yeah right yeah so why the fuck would I know that I thought you were

gonna go I thought you were gonna go the interesting thing the interesting thing about that you don't need to remember somebody's name

Alex Trebek or something the interesting thing she was in the hospital and she came up with this idea and play tested it with the kids that were at the hospital

while she was she was in for polio yeah she was in the same ward with the kids that were in there with the same ward yeah

my mother had polio I've always said yeah. She was in the same ward with the kids that were in there with the same ward. Yeah. My mother had polio. Yeah, yeah. I've always said that makes me sound really old. Your mother loves candy. I can't. When I meet young people and I tell them that, I go, my mother had polio. It makes me sound 100. You do sound old.

Yeah, that does sound very old. We cured that a while ago, didn't we? Yeah, no, my mother had polio. My mother, right to the bitter end, would talk about her polio on the constant. Didn't walk for a year and a half. But she recovered pretty well? Not mentally. She was always a bit, you know, no.

She had post-polio syndrome her whole life where she still had sort of sore bones and stuff like that. But she blamed that on her fatness. We blamed the polio. But her sister was also the same size, and she never had polio. Wow. One other thing about Candyland, it was the domain. Did you know this thing? It says one of the first domain disputes on the internet,

Candyland.com was a porn site. Years later, though. Originally, yeah, originally. Because Candyland came out in 1948. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. And then so Hasbro ended up winning that and they got Candyland. So it was a lady with polio. Yeah.

Yeah, you're into that. Did it in the hospital. That's her kind of kink. Feels like it should have been a woman with diabetes invented it. What was significant about the game Cranium as far as where it was sold? You said arts and crafts stores. Yeah. I mean, that's not that far off.

It was sold in Starbucks. It was like Starbucks. I mean, that's not that far off. It was sold in Starbucks. It was like Starbucks. I think Cranium's, oh, they just celebrated their 25th anniversary. So it was 98, Cranium came out. So it was like when Starbucks was decently new and Starbucks was like, hey, let's try something that's not a coffee book. Yeah, it was our first non-coffee. Sometimes I used to sell like a CD.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It says it was the first non-coffee product to be sold on Starbucks. Yeah. The original game of life featured... What, before cake? Well, I mean non-food. Before those cake pops. It's still a board game before they cut the food.

The original game of life featured spaces that were later removed. What were they for? You said there was a guy hanging from a tree. Yeah, get this picture up. It's fucking's fucking dark well and i was also impressed you knew that like the original board was more like a checkers board and stuff than it was yeah yeah like a track yep yeah so they definitely had a thank you they definitely had that and get the picture the game of game of life guy suicide picture yeah and do you know partly why that was I thought this is interesting about sort of why it was because the original goal of the game of

life is not what we think of right now so the game came out originally in 1860 and then it was sort of out of print for a long time and then they brought it back in 1960 as the games we sort of know now. I've never understood why they were so into having mountains on it. Yeah, yeah. I don't know either. What did it add to it? You're just moving.

I liked it. I liked it. Yeah, it gave it a bit of a 3D thing. There was a mountain and the spinner and the thing and you have the kids. Or suicide. But so did the kids. Yeah, it's crazy.

You have the little pink kids and the little blue kids. I assume now you could change them halfway through the game. Ah, political. There it is. Look at suicide. Yeah. Look how fucking dark it was. Yeah.

I like just the hands pointing. Yeah, but also, okay. Temperance. Okay, look at the picture of suicide. Look at him hanging from the tree, right? Yeah, terrible. Okay. As a detective, he didn't do that yeah where's

his chair where's his ladder well some other cunt did that to him he's been framed prison there's two prisons the ruin i like just ruin yeah there's a lot exactly so i i'm a monopoly purist yeah and i play it as it is played online or whatever. I play the rules. If you land on a property and you don't want to buy it, it goes up for fucking auction. You can get rent while you're in prison and people will fight you to the fucking death on this. If you play the actual rules, it makes it a much faster game. If you play the real rules, you get it done in an hour and a half.

Yeah. Right? Don't bail anybody out when they're in jail. Get rid of free parking. People can sit in prison and fucking get their rent because you can do that in real life. Yeah. Yeah.

What was unique about the original version of Monopoly? And you said it was in Atlantic City. They thought it was an affluent place to live. So you were talking about- The landlord's game. Yeah. The original Monopoly was ripped off. There was someone who had a game

and then someone sued. It was called the Landlord's Game. And it was invented by, I believe, her name was Lizzie Maggie. A woman invented it. And then Parker Brothers, that was their big game that they went and took around. Yeah, they did rip it off. But she wanted it to be like a lesson. And so the original version of Monopoly had two rule books.

There were two versions of the game, of the landlord's game, of not Monopoly but the landlord's game. She came up with the idea in 1903, and she was like a progressive person, and so she wanted this to be a lesson on capitalism. So there were two versions of the landlord's game. There was the version we know now where you were trying to get money and crush people, but the version she wanted to be popular was the version where everybody gains wealth together and it's a lesson on if we work together, we can all succeed.

She wanted to play the communist guy. Nobody wanted that in America. Do you know there's a stand-up comedy board game? No. The Comedy Store in London has this in the dressing room and occasionally when you're sitting to wait, you pull it, open the box. It's got Lenny Henry on the cover.

Lenny Henry is a British comic who was popular in the early 90s, late 80s. And it literally is, you just did well, you get to do five minutes at the comedy store. You just did well, you get to... Lenny Henry the comedy store. You just did well, you get to... Lenny Henry's stand-up comic game. That's the one.

Did he create it or did they just brand it with him? I think he got the deal. I don't know. Is this different from the Yuck Yucks comedy board game? Yuck Yucks comedy board game would be a Canadian board game from the Yuck Yucks comedy club chain. 3.0 rating on board games. Yeah.

It's not great. The Lenny Henry one, man, it has lots of cards, and there's bits where you have to tell a joke. Really? You came up. I looked up stand-up comedy board games. Oh, there we go. That's cool.

Yeah, but what's the Yuck Yucks game? I've never heard anything good about Yuck Yucks. Yeah, yeah. You know, Yuck Yucks has always been the- It's on eBay for $62 Canadian dollars. Oh, I don't know about that. It's from 1990 and says rare. Oh, that's really rare.

That was... Pick up a Mike Myers card. Monopoly money. I asked how much was printed each year. He said $7 billion. It was kind of like a question. I should have worded it differently. I don't know the answer to that one.

They said that Parker Brothers prints more Monopoly money each year than the U.S. government prints money. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that seems... Because it's not that much money per game, but I guess... Have you ever played the one... I've had the credit card one where you just have the cards and then the machine debits your card and credits your card.

And the game goes a lot faster, but it's just not as fun. There's something missing about it. Yeah, because you're like, give me the money. It's fun to handle the money. What does the word Jenga mean? Made up shit, not a real word? Is that true? No, that's a Swahili word for it means to build.

What does Swahili mean? Swahili is an African language. Oh. To build. Yeah. Yeah. What have they built in Swahili? I've never been out in Swahili and gone,

what a fucking high rise is here, man. Well, it started off lower. Very, very unsteady. And then they got higher over time. Very unsteady high rise. You don't want to be there. Yeah. Why did the trivia encyclopedia sue the game Trivial Pursuit?

Jim said they had a lot of things that were incorrect. So this is a story I love. That's partly why. So this guy wrote a trivia encyclopedia. He wrote a book. And he thought other people were maybe stealing the stuff from his book. He was like, I think Trivial Pursuit is taking some of my questions and some of the knowledge that was in here and so the old tv show colombo they never ever mentioned colombo's first

name it's never ever said if they if someone in the show asked him his first name he would say lieutenant no and so as it was winky yeah as like an uh thing he planted in his book what Columbo's first name was so that then he could track anybody that was doing copyright infringement. Oh my God. It didn't appear anywhere except for his book. And so it was Philip Columbo. And so then Trivial Pursuit did a question about Columbo's first name and he sued him for infringing on his

intellectual property. And the best part is he lost to all of that work. But that's still a trivia question that people still think Columbo's first name is Phillip just because this dude planted it in his

book. How'd he lose? Well, because basically the Trivial Pursuit, the company basically Just because this dude planted it in his book. How'd he lose? Yeah. Well, because they basically, the Trivial Pursuit, the company basically said, you can't copyright facts. And also, we use a lot of source material. And that was just one of the things we used. And so it can't be.

And so they lost. Oh, my God. It says the moops. That's right. I just think it's so funny that he planted this this and was like, now let's wait and see. Trivial pursuit. There is a game that takes forever to fucking finish. Yeah.

Although I just looked up Columbo's first name. It says. Frank. It's Frank. Yeah. Well, it was never uttered on the show. You can zoom in on like his ID that he flashed. It says Frank.

Yeah. But yeah, that's hilarious. For a long time, it was like an urban myth. That's really funny. Yeah. Highest selling game of all time. Yeah, that's hilarious. For a long time, it was like an urban myth. That's really funny. Highest selling game of all time, is it chess? No, this one's not a board game. It's now Uno. Uno.

Uno is the highest selling game both in units sold and in money. They just passed Monopoly for money, too. Or they're working on an Uno movie right now. We played a good new one. It was kind of like Uno, but it was different. It was with your family. Skip or something was different. It was with your family. Skip or something. Skip.

It was like numbers that were colored. Skip-o. Skip-o. Skip-o is all right. Skip-o is all right. Skip-o is fun. Skip-o is okay. Skip-o is good.

Skip-o is all right. Why did Settlers of Catan change its name to Catan? Yeah, you got this one perfect. It was because of colonialism. They wanted to take out any of that. When did they change it? When? They changed it like 10 years ago okay

because everyone still calls it settlers like a tan yeah because that's just yeah yeah the 10 year old yeah uh board game geek we talked about oh what is the board game industry valued at two trillion dollars it's a lot no i wish uh but it's still more than a lot of people think that it is it's not like video games or anything but in 2021 they were estim But it's still more than a lot of people think that it is. It's not like video games or anything. But in 2021, they were estimating it's about $15 billion. Yeah, that's a lot. That's a lot. How much is a trillion?

Yeah. It's $1 billion. Is it like $10 billion, $100 billion, $1,000 billion? $1,000 billion? It's $1,000 billion. Yeah. Okay, well, that's way off. Yeah.

This is part of our show called Dinner Party Facts. We ask our expert to give us some fact, obscure, interesting, that the audience can use to impress people about this subject. What do you got for us, Grant? So I think one of the things that shocks people just about the world of board games is how big it is. So how many games, new games, would you say come out every year? Well, it depends on how much success,

because anyone could make a game. Because you're asking it in this version of the Dement Party Package. I'm going to say 200 a year. So it's about 3,000 to 5,000 come out per year. New games come out per year. It's really hard to make one that sticks. Yes, it is very hard to make one.

What's the last one in the last 10 years that's been a real so i mean code names which i mentioned earlier has like broken out beyond the world of games you know it's uh like my mom knows what code name you know what like that's something that you'll hear people talk about i didn't know um i'm less wingspan wingspan has gotten to that point recently so wingspan came out right before the pandemic. And it's just a game about birds. And I'll be at a party and someone will be like, oh, you like board games?

Have you played Wingspan? I'm like, how do you know Wingspan? And they have now sold over 2 million copies of Wingspan. It's like, what bird is it? Blah, blah, blah. It's basically like an engine building game. You're getting birds, adding them to your area and those birds are gonna lay eggs and get you resources and things like that and you're just having a

tableau of birds and trying to like build up an engine to get you more and more stuff to get you more and more points all right i'll tell you a board game i like and also i'd like to make a plug because i've just purchased and it's on the way to my house the new jaws pinball machine ladies from the good people at stern they gave me a good deal. I'd like to shout out to the people at Stern. But the Jaws board game. It's fun. It's a fun game.

I like that one, too. It's a good game. The Jaws board game is what we call a one versus many game. So one player is playing as one role, and everybody else is playing against that player. I like those kind of games. I like those kind of games. So one player plays as the shark, and everybody else is trying against that oh yeah i like those kind of games yeah i like those kind of games so one player plays as the shark and everybody else is trying to defeat the shark that's cool yeah uh well grant thanks for being here uh check out grant uh on tick tock

and instagram at grant's game rex and then on youtube at grant lion l-y-o-n uh his album scheduled fun time is out check that out and also get his game curmudgeon it's really fun and you can explain if you want to explain curmudgeon too it's just a

it's a game of silly insults dummy it's like it's like mad libs for making up insult jokes

oh that's great it's really fun and your different characters you pick cards and your characters I want to play curmudgeon

I brought a couple for you guys let's get him on the screen like i said somebody stole my mine at the airbnb so apparently they liked it and it was like and it was like i think it's like it's small enough to like stealable yeah yeah yeah there you go hold it up curmudgeon there you go so check that game out published by 25th century games and yeah thanks for being here yeah dude this was fun yeah

I always like talking about board games yeah Jim oh I love this I'm reading about curmudgeon thanks for being on the show mate yeah if you're ever at a party and someone goes wingspan is not a board game go I don't know about that walk away goodnight Australia