Stuff You Should Know - Clue(do): Third Best Board Game Ever

Episode Date: February 6, 2024

Whether you know it as Clue or Cluedo, the whodunnit mystery board game is one of the best of all time. Learn all about the history behind the game’s development, and strategies on how to crush your fellow players as soundly as Chuck’s wife crushes him.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Jerry's here too. And I'll tell you what, Jerry will be the one who murdered us if we ever turned up dead in a lounge, ballroom, conservatory, and she'll probably have used a lead pipe because Jerry carries a lead pipe with her at all times. That her nickname is Miss Scarlett. Yeah, she makes us call her Miss Scarlett. I have to say this feels like a Chuck pick through and through but it was your pick. So I have to ask right away if you were a a a cluist.

I'm not a clueless historically. Oh, historically, yes. It's one of my favorite games of all time. Oh, great. Me too. I played a lot. All right, well, we're gonna have fun talking about this then.

Man, I love Clue. As a matter of fact, I went on eBay and made a low ball offer on the complete 1972 edition of Clue, which is the one I grew up with. Oh yeah. I was like, I guess I had the 86 and I looked, I was like, nope, that's not it. Went a little further back.

Yeah. 1972, I just started drooling from nostalgia. Yeah, it's the 72. If you're in our age bracket, the 72 version is a very, very nostalgic sort of, like it's just very evocative. It brings out smells in your brain and like Fights your parents are having in the other room and all like cartoons that are on it's like it's it hits hard

I was very disappointed because I went to find out I was like man who who were those models now who took that picture like I was really curious Yeah, and I found a thing on medium that I didn't, it's a spoof, right? It has to be, okay. I was like, oh my God, any leave of it? I took that picture. Yeah, once you start reading it though, I was like, wait a minute.

I was so disappointed, because I even went to Reddit and I don't know, I couldn't find out any information on who those people were or how that went down. I mean, it's just such an arcane thing to spoof. It was called an oral history of the photo shoot for the 1972 cover of Clue. How excited were you when you read that title? Yeah, I was like, this is some good, this is good treasure right here.

Yeah. And then I thought, wow, Annie Leibowitz like took that picture. No. So whoever wrote that, if you're out there, you got us both. Yeah, and shame on you. So we're talking about Clue the game, if you're in the UK and you're like, what is this Clue they're talking about?

Allow us to also call it Cludo. Clue is way better, a name for it, but Cludo is what it's called, basically outside of North America. And the reason that you would qualify outside of North America is because it's called basically outside of North America. Yeah. And the reason that you would qualify outside of North America is because it's a big hit all over the country. It's translated into Spanish, Swiss,

well, you know, those two among other languages. I think we should go back in time. It's one of the great games of all time and talk a little bit about the invention of Clue. Cause it's a pretty good story. There was a guy named Anthony Pratt, Anthony E. Pratt, not to be confused with the other Anthony Pratt. Why does that name sound familiar?

I don't know, you may be thinking Chris Pratt. I think Anthony Pratt's a politician of some kind. Okay, that might be it. No, I know who Chris Pratt is. Oh, I don't know. Anthony, I know who Chris Pratt is Anthony E Pratt was born in Birmingham near Birmingham in 1903 England that is And as a he was a high school dropout professional piano player. Yeah, and during World War one when he was but a young teen

The story goes that he and his friends would sit around and play what he called a stupid game called murder Where guests crept up on each other in corridors and the victim would shriek and fall on the floor and apparently Post high school years was a traveling piano player that would play at these sort of a ritzy country hotels Where guests in the hotel would put this on at like, you know, Murder Mystery Night. And it was a thing, it's still a thing, Murder Mystery Night. And it's, you know, it's sort of one of my favorite

kinds of books and movies, like the Knives Out kind of thing. And he and his friends were doing this as teenagers. Yeah. And apparently he didn't like that. Like you said, he didn't like the game Murder, but he did like the ones they put on at hotels He didn't like Agatha Christie, which is kind of surprising because if his game can be compared to anybody's books It's Agatha Christie's for sure

and so That was the interwar period during World War two 1943 found him working as a law clerk. He also worked in a munitions factory as well. And because there were blackouts at night because the UK was getting bombed on the regular, you couldn't go out, there's nothing to do with people. And come over, you didn't do anything,

you just hung out with your family. And luckily he and his wife had a gaming streak, I guess, with, in common, because if you think about it, it's very rare to sit down and come up with a board game, even in that situation. Like it just takes a certain person and you put Elva and Anthony Pratt together in blackout conditions in 1943

and they're gonna come up with clue. Yeah, originally they called it murder still, this time with an exclamation point, almost an apostrophe. It was called murder. And he thought, and they thought rather, I think she designed some of the artwork and stuff in the original rooms and things like that and worked on the gameplay together,

but he knew that like you can sell board games because he actually had a friend named Jeffrey Bull who sold the game to Waddington's Games of London. So he was like, you know, we can actually sell this thing. Like we're not just creating a fun game for our family. And that first initial game had 10 characters. Yeah. One was randomly chosen as the victim,

which is a little different than the clue that we know and love. Yeah. And there were nine weapons. The ones that were different that I think are still kind of fun are a bomb. That would just be a fun little game piece, I think. Like a classic cartoon, like round fused bomb. A hypodermic syringe, kind of dark.

A poison bottle, which is pretty obvious for a murder mystery, and then an Irish shillelay, which would be really kind of cool to have today. If you don't know what that is, it sort of looks like a cane, and later you could function it as a cane, but what it really was was early Irish stick fighting. It's a cudgel, and it's like a cane

with a larger ball on the end where your hand would be. Yeah, the business end. Yeah, so just like if you look at the Ballston Celtics logo that cane that that little Celtic has is in fact a Shalala. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, nice description of that, Chuck, where'd it go? Yeah, I didn't know stick fighting was a thing.

I kind of went down a rabbit hole. And apparently it was a stick to fight with it first, but then later on it was just like, oh no, this is just my cane, whack, whack. Oh, gotcha. That kind of thing. So something I thought was pretty sweet was that the Prats managed to get a meeting

with the people at Waddingtons thanks to their friend, the Bulls, Jeffrey Bull and his wife. And the Bulls went with them to that meeting, and they all sat down and played this game murder together. And basically on the spot, Waddington's was like, we'll take it. In 1945, they came up with an agreement to produce the game.

Anthony Pratt got a patent for it in 1947, but again, because the UK was getting bombed on the regular during World War II, and there was a war going on, it was kind of difficult to come by some of the materials needed. So it kind of got its start and fits and starts really kind of beginning around 1949.

Yeah, they named it Cluto, like you said, spelled like Clu with D-O at the end. That is Latin for I play, and there's also a game called Ludo in Britain. It's like a Parcheasy game. So I guess they thought it had some just name appeal or whatever. I guess.

Would be my guess, because Cluto doesn't make any sense. Not in North America, no. Yeah, well, I mean, but was it even a word there? No, it was a made up word. Yeah, it didn't make sense then either. So that was Waddington's take on it. And Parker Brothers is like, that's lame Waddington's.

You're our partner in the UK, but we're gonna name it Clue. And they produce a slightly different version. Lame Waddingtons, you're our partner in the UK, but we're gonna name it Clue. And they produce a slightly different version. I think for example, in Cludo, in the original Cludo, Mr. Green here in the United States was called Reverend Green there. Just little differences like that

that you would pick up on depending on whether you lived in the United States or Great Britain. And then I think the actual house that it's modeled on also distinguished the two games. In the UK version, supposedly it was inspired by a mansion in Sussex called Tudor Close. And still around, you can see pictures of Tudor Close. But one of the things that supports that idea

is that in 1937, it was renovated to include a billiards room and a ballroom. And then for the American version, it was supposedly inspired by the house of George Parker, founder of Parker Brothers Games, who had an estate that he bought in New Hampshire in 1925, and it bore some resemblance to it as well. That house is still around too.

Yeah, but I think you and I agree that there is only one clue house, and that is the one on the cover of the 1972 American Board Game Edition. Absolutely true. That's the house. I'm not sure where it is, because medium tricked me. I know.

Still salty about that. So in 1953 Pratt sold his overseas sales rights for 5,000 pounds, which would be a little over 116,000 pounds today. Good chunk of change, although he would complain and I think has a very good point that like, hey, they didn't tell me they were already selling it over there. It's a great point. And that it was super popular. So it probably, and it seems like a sort of a lifelong thing with, with he and his wife, Elva, that they,

they never got the money they should have gotten. Um, but it was, it was enough money at the time in one chunk to be able to quit his job and play piano full time. And he was getting those mailbox checks from the domestic UK sales. Yeah, it was worth about 116,000 pounds in today's money, or 147,000 US dollars. Not enough to retire on, but he apparently retired on it. And like you said, he was getting those mailbox checks too,

but they were set to expire in 1961. And supposedly the independent termed up evidence that it might've been extended up to four years. So at the latest, he stopped getting checks in 1965 and he lived until 1994. So he had to make due all over again. It was a fortune, a mild fortune that he made and then just kind of lived on

and had to go back to work eventually. Yeah, like he should have been getting checked till the day he died. Absolutely. And I mean, like in Waddington's not informing him that Clue was gangbusters over there. It's like, yes, if you're a business mind, you could be like, yeah, that's business.

It's called doing your due diligence. If you're Anthony Pratt and it's 1953, how are you going to find out what the sales are from Parker Brothers of Clue in North America? If you don't even have a clue that your, the American version of Clue is selling like gangbusters over there. You probably, I don't know how you would even find that out.

No, he was taking advantage of I think. So. Yeah, I think that's my point. His daughter still lives today, Marcia Davies has been on record saying an interview like that, you know, it's not like we talked about Cluedo much in our house. My mom would grouse about it occasionally that they didn't get the money they should have gotten from it. That's a great word. What word?

Grouse. Yeah, that's a good word. What word? Grouse. Yeah, that's a good word. Double meaning too. What, that it's a bird and attitude? Yeah, absolutely. Here is what it says on, and there's a little story I'll let you tell afterward, but like you said, he died in 1994.

And on his grave, it says, a very dear father, Anthony E. Pratt, born 10 August, 1903, died 9 April, 1994, inventor of Cluedo, sadly missed. I really wish that she had put, you know, killed by Miss Scarlett in the conservatory with a lead pipe. That would have been awesome.

Just for fun. For sure. Apparently he died in such obscurity that Waddington's had no idea that he was dead for three years. And there's no telling if they ever really would have found out had they not been searching for him to celebrate Clutow's 150 millionth sale. And they put out a press release telling the public the public like hey, we're looking for this guy the title of the press release was wanted colon for murder most enjoyable and

Apparently the person who ran the cemetery that he's buried in Knew that he was buried there and got in touch with Waddington said don't waste your time man This that whole thing just really upsets me. It is kind of upsetting. There's nothing really good about the Anthony Pratt story. Yeah, because like, first of all, they, I think, misled him. And then, you know, hey, he's an old man. Let's rub in the fact that we've sold 150 million

of these games that he didn't have a piece of. So like, let's find him. And they're like, he's been dead for three years. Even worse than that, Chuck, I read that they petitioned to exhume him to bring him to the celebration anyway. No, I'm not following that. I read that on Medium.

I mean, he should be crowned and like they should have a statue of him at Waddington's. For sure. Because the reason why, not just because we're Clue fans, but because it's according to fun.com, among other sources, it's probably the fifth most popular board game of all time. And that includes not just like Monopoly and Scrabble.

We're talking about chess and checkers. It's in the top five with chess and checkers that have been around for thousands of years. So it was like a huge blockbuster game. Yeah, I'm going to call it the third. I don't even, that should just be for branded games. I agree with you. I totally agree. I think that's sucker stuff, calling chess and checker the board game. So I say it's the third most popular game of all time. We did a monopoly episode. Let's

see, other one Scrabble. Yeah. episode. Let's say the one Scrabble Yeah, yeah, we should probably do a Scrabble app at some point. Okay Maybe we can get to Hodgman to make a rare guest appearance. Yeah rare But everyone on Reddit gets mad every time I say the name Hodgman That was a very enlightening experience, huh? It's short lived my friend So Chuck I say that we take a little break and when we come back we talk about how to actually play clue as cobbled together from people

who know what they're talking about. Let's do it. And inside me Joshua, Chuck. Hi, I'm Suzy Esmond. And I am Jeff Garland. Yes you are. And we are the hosts of the history of Curb Your Enthusiasm podcast. We're going to watch every single episode. It's a hundred and twenty-two, including the pilot. And we're going to break them down. And by the way, most of these episodes I have not seen for 20 years. Yeah, me too. We're gonna have guest stars and people that are very important to the show,

like Larry David. I did once try and stop a woman who's about to get hit by a car, I screamed out, watch out! And she said, don't you tell me what to do! And Cheryl Hines. Mike, why can't you just lighten up and have a good time? And Richard Lewis.

How am I gonna tell him I'm gonna leave now? Can you do it on the phone? Do you have to do it in person? What's the deal? Not just on cable, you have to go in there. You see, human beings helped you. have a good time. the history of cover enthusiasm on I heart Joe. How can I help you? I said, Mr. Pro what we need is five million dollars to get back a moon rock another week We'll unravel a 90s Hollywood mystery It sounds like it should be the next season of true detective or something these Canadian cops trying to solve this 25 year old mystery of who spiked the Chowder on the Titanic set.

A very special episode is stranger than fiction. It's normal people plop down in extraordinary circumstances. It's a story where you say this should be a movie. Listen to very special episodes on the I heart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get seat. Ruthie's Table Four. Listen to Ruthie's Table Four on the iHeart radio app or wherever you get your podcast. So my one regret is that I didn't get it together enough because we were on tour to play Clue before this recording because I haven't played it in a long time. Emily and I used to play mono-y-mono-clue.

Oh, wow. And we quit. Yeah. Okay. It's not as fun. Okay. And it's certainly not fun to play with Emily because she feels like she has a sort of patented, foolproof victory route.

Oh, yeah. She has a methodology that she will not tell me what it is. And she beat me every time, so we just quit playing. That was like you, me, and me with Batgammon. Who won? You, me. And she has a thing, like she spit out. Yeah, she was like, it's the strategy of Batgammon.

And not like it's a secret or anything. She's like, I just figured it out. And I still have never figured it out. So we just stopped playing. Well, maybe we'll all get together. They can just play each other in games and we'll just sit around and have a cocktail. That sounds like a great idea, man.

Because I'm not competitive like that. I am not either. It's been so long since I played a board game. I don't remember fully. And it seems like I could be competitive, but okay, I think I was competitive at Trivial Pursuit. Yeah, I mean, I love board games. I just never play them much anymore

because we don't have a lot of friends who are like, hey, let's have board game night, but I'd totally be into it. Yeah, totally for sure. All right, so let's talk clue, eh? Oh yeah, so in the classic clue game, there's so many variations on it that are slightly different.

Some have like extra like cards to them or the names of the characters are a little different. But if you just look at the basic classic clue, which that's what we're going to talk about. 1972. 72 86 2023 even they re updated the classic version. But you're supposed to play with three to six players and clearly you can play with two I've seen in places you can play with two But if you look at the instructions it says three to six players ages eight and up and if you're seven and a half and precocious Maybe you get a pass But really you don't want to play with anybody under eight typically. Yeah, I'm curious if Ruby would be into this

We'll have to give it a shot. Okay, fair enough. Yeah, so eight and up, what you do is you choose to be the identity of one of six people. Who? Colonel Mustard, the Colonel, the good Colonel. Sure. Miss Peacock, Professor Plum, Mrs. White, Mr. Green,

and of course, Miss Scarlett, who as a young Baptist boy, that 72 clue, I looked at her picture quite a bit. She was very attractive for sure. So who were you? Who did you pick normally? Was there like one character for you in your case? You know, I don't remember having a favorite now that I think about it, did you?

Professor Plum. Oh, okay, that fits. I just like the name and the color is pretty too, but for some reason it's just, it's like cellar door for me kinda. Yeah, and you were, you know, you're a literary sort of type, were you back then? No, no, I like to read,

but I would not call myself literary. I didn't become pretentious until much later. You're like, they didn't have Joe the flummer. So right. So there's six murder weapons, right? Six suspects, six, six murder weapons. In the classic game, the knife, the revolver, the wrench, ouch, the rope, the candlestick and the lead pipe, a lot of head trauma among these, you know, yeah, four of them are, are, are Whackers, huh?

Exactly. No Shalely, but still, it gets the point across. Well, I guess three of them are technically Whackers. What, the candlestick, the wrench, and the lead pipe? Yeah, because the rope is a choker, revolver is a shooter, and the knife is a stabber. Right. So I overshot it by one.

Although you could hit somebody with a rope or the butt of a gun. Right, or if you have a candle in the candlestick, you could light them on fire. Ah, good point. Or you could do some creative things with that lead pipe too, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, you could use it as a blow gun.

Yeah, absolutely. Although it's bent in the game, so it probably wouldn't work very well. Although you could use it to shoot around a corner. So there's also nine rooms on the board, right? And there's the hall, the lounge, the dining room, the kitchen, the ballroom, the conservatory, the library and the study.

And this was where I learned about manor houses in general estates, architectural layouts, usually on the first floor. Yeah, I didn't know what a conservatory was. Like, they introduced me to some of these terms even. Yeah, and the other thing, everybody, if you didn't play the 72 edition, go look it up. There's some for sale, but if you look at the board, it's really beautiful. Like they used textures and colors to signify what room was what. I think for the ballroom, it was like parquet flooring. Yeah, yeah. I think this- Like wallpaper and one, I think? Yeah, I don't remember which one that was. The kitchen had like doily, a doily pattern.

Yeah. And I think the study had like a red burgundy leather background. It was just really neat looking. Yeah, totally. And it was, as a kid, your imagination is just running wild with this stuff because it is a game and that's kind of one of the fun things about it. Yeah. Especially as a kid is a game that has back story and it a lot goes on in your imagination. It's not sorry or shoots and ladders, you know? Exactly. Well put, and in addition to the fact

that it had that potential to create that, it was masterfully put together. Like the details of it were really evocative of that kind of thing. So like it really helped it along, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, totally. All right, so the beginning of the game, there are three cards that reveal the murder weapon, the murderer, and where it took place. You seal those in an envelope, and the whole goal of the game is to figure out who did the murder with what weapon and in what room. Yes. I am apparently there's about 324 different solutions that it could be,

which really doesn't matter because as long as there's more than one or two or three, you're gonna, it's gonna be a different game every time. Yeah. So you roll the dice to move along the hallways in between rooms. Yeah. So you roll the dice to move along the hallways in between rooms. And then your goal initially is to get into a room because only when you're in a room can you say

that you think the murder happened in that room. You can't do it from the hallway or whatever, right? Right. And when you're there, when you can make a suggestion, it's kind of like a soft accusation, right? Right. Where you can say, I think that it's Colonel Mustard in the ballroom, which I'm currently in, with the rope.

And what happens next is you go from player to player, beginning at the player on your left. And if they have Colonel Mustard or the ballroom or the rope card, because there's a card for each character, each weapon in each room, and everybody's distributed cards that they keep to themselves, if they have one of those cards, they have to show you.

And if they have two of those cards, they still only have to show you one, but then your turn is over. You've just been, your theory has just been disproven. Now, you didn't win, but at the same time, you just gained a tremendous amount of information, and the other people playing, if they're paying attention, gained a lesser amount, but still some information. That's the game, like that you're paying attention like that, It's deduction. Yeah, it's using process of elimination and deduction and taking notes and we'll get into that in a second.

One key thing here that I don't think you said was you bring all that stuff into the room. Like you bring that rope and that character into the room. So you can also use a little bit of strategy there to pull Colonel Mustard, you know, that player away from where they were into that room. Yeah, that's a great point for sure. Some of it's luck, right?

Sure. I mean, you roll the dice and you may or may not get into the room and if you're not in the room, even if you know who it is, you know, let's say you're over in the study and you gotta get all the way to the kitchen because you know it's the kitchen, but you can't make that final accusation and win the game until you're in the kitchen.

So dice rolls have something to do with it. But really more than anything, like we said, it's mostly up to deduction and paying attention to the information you can glean. Right, and I think I may have missed it if you said it. Did you also say that if no one reveals any card at all, then you can actually like lay it all on the line and make an official accusation? No, I didn't say that. Okay, well, that's one of the keys.

Like if no one reveals a card, then you know, like, well, wait a minute, they don't have those cards. So it's possible that those are the three cards in that envelope. Right. If it's early in the game, it's obviously a huge risk. You probably want to save that till later, once you've narrowed it down more, but you can, I was about to say throw your cards

on the table, but don't do that. But you can say, you know what, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna go for it, and you look in that envelope, and if that's it, that's it. You've won it, and if not, then you're out. That's the big risk. Yeah, because now you know who did it with what weapon and in what room,

so you're out of the game. You go pop the popcorn. Exactly. Now, if you make that suggestion, that's your theory of who did it with what and where, and nobody shows you the card If you don't have any of those cards, then you pretty much know That's you're that you're right because I think all the cards are distributed equally among everybody, right?

Yeah But you would say well, why would you even say that if you why would you mention one of the ones that you have in your hand and This this is where we start to get into like real deal strategy that you're not gonna find in the rule books very much, but work really well for Clue. Yeah, and we're gonna go with theirs in one sec, but I did wanna add like one of the genius things of Clue to me is that even when you're eliminated,

it's still fun to sit around. It's not one of those games where you're like, well, I'm out of here then, because I'm out of the game and watching it is no fun. It's still fun to sit around and drink a cocktail and heckle everyone else. Especially if you're eight. Yeah.

But yeah, it's funny you say that because when we were researching this or when I was researching it today, I had that same memory. I was like, I remember I wouldn't get up from the table like after I was eliminated. I'd just stay there and watch. It was really entertaining. It was like the pre-internet version of Steam. I don't know what that is. It's like an internet thing where you watch people playing video games. Like you're just watching them play video games.

Oh, really? Yeah. Oh wow. Yeah. That's people, people make a living doing that. Is that the thing where people play, oh did you say video games? Yeah. Oh yeah, I have heard of that. I'll tell you you're saying board games.

No, no, I'll bet that's out there. I'm sure that's a thing too. For sure, I'll bet that's out there too. And I'll bet they make a living from it as well. All right, so we promised some strategies. And these were, where did we call these from? They came from the Spruce Crafts, Stack Exchange posts, and Reddit threads.

That's a good place to go probably. For sure, because I mean, people share strategy for Clue all over the internet. And if it works's it works it works Yeah, now here's the deal. I haven't played it so long a lot of these just I didn't fully understand because I'm just so out of practice So I'm gonna buy that 72 game and get back into it and revisit these but I can't tell you about them one of the strategies and you know, it's kind of the most obvious one, is you're using those suggestions to get

into that process of elimination and eliminate people, rooms, and weapons. It's hardest for the rooms because you have to be in that room to guess it. So you actually have to roll the dice to get there. But if you're trying to eliminate a weapon, like you want that gun out of the game, then suggest it and see if they have it. And then, you know, you can keep sort of harping on that. But that may mean that you're also trying to throw people off the

scent and they might catch on, you might actually have that card, right? Yeah. Or yeah, if you're watching, if you're playing with somebody and they keep mentioning the revolver or whatever, every time they make a suggestion, that means either they have the revolver and they're using a process of elimination or they've already figured out the revolver is the actual murder weapon. So if you're being really strategic,

you don't wanna use that same one. If you know that something is in that envelope, that sealed envelope is the weapon or the murderer or the room, maybe mix it up a little bit to throw off the people who are really paying attention to you. Yeah, for sure. So if you make, or if anyone makes a suggestion,

and if you suggest something to Yumi, and Emily and I notice that she doesn't or that nobody shows a card Yeah Or if you suggest something period and no one shows you a card Then chances are that you've gotten one of the three cards in that envelope in your suggestion Right, but that doesn't mean that you necessarily have the answer if you don't have any of those three cards in your hand Because if you have more than one card, let's say you say professor plum with the lead pipe in the conservatory and I have professor plum and the conservatory in my hand. I only have to show you

Professor plum or the conservatory. I don only have to show you Professor Plum or the conservatory. I don't have to show you both. And so a good strategy is if I've shown you Professor Plum, I can write down, showed Professor Plum already. And so if somebody guesses Professor Plum and the conservatory again, I can just show you Professor Plum and I will not be giving the information to anybody

that I have the conservatory as well. You know what this episode is? What? Clue people are going to love it and be angry at us. Right. Non-clued people are just going to hate us. Why? Because they're having trouble following what we're saying.

Well, of course, if you've never played Clue, this is getting in the weeds, you know? Sure, it is for sure. But we're getting in the weeds such that I also don't feel confident we're getting it all right. Clue, it's will be like, oh guys, how could you forget? That feeling is like an old friend of us by now, Chuck. It really is. It's the fourth leg of our podcast. Exactly.

One thing that they say you can do is, if you play against the same people, it's not unlike poker in that people bluff and they have their own little tricks and things and tells. So just to sort of pay attention and try and read them if you play with your family all the time, let's say. For sure. So this is what it all boils down to right here, Chuck.

It's deduction, it's process of elimination. I'll bet you can't. So let's say you're holding Miss Scarlet and your friend you already know has the candlestick because you guessed it before and they showed it to you. So you know that they have the candlestick. And then somebody else says that they think it was Miss Scarlet in the dining room with the candlestick.

And another player is like, here's a card that just proves it. You know that that player has the dining room, right? You have Miss Scarlett, your other friend has the candlestick. That fourth player has the dining room because they showed it to player three and you mark that down. And if you do that enough times, you can figure out what cards are being held by people. And hence, through

process of elimination, what cards are likely as hidden in the envelope as the murderer and the murder weapon and the room the murder took place in. I'm sure that's what Emily's doing, like a variation on that because she's she's scribbling down stuff. Right. I'm not taking nearly enough notes clearly, because that's a big part of the game. Yeah. And when I was reading about all the different note taking and you're gonna need an even bigger notebook than the Notepad they give you I was I was like, oh really?

No, it's true. There's like the it's it's a logic problem basically so much so that they they train artificial intelligence on it. There's this Dutch computer scientist named Hans van Dittmarch, who did a like a Cluto formalization. He took the Cluto and translated it into AI instructions. And basically, what his premise is, is that it's all changes in information. When you interact with other players, your information changes. And so the AI tries to figure out what route it has to take through player to player to player to get to the information it needs to win the game in the fewest moves, which essentially is probably what Emily's doing. So you're married to an

artificial intelligence, it turns out. Yeah, sure. That makes sense. That tracks. But I mean, that's how logical Clue actually is. It's this process of deduction where if you can track the information that you're getting or that other people are getting, you can win the game every time, basically. Yeah. And was that the thing that Duke University used? Yeah, they came up with their own thing, an algorithm to play Clue,

which anytime you have a logic problem, you can develop an algorithm for it, right? Yeah, so they basically turned it into an algorithm for what you were kind of talking about, like a treasure hunt problem, how to get there the quickest, how to get to the answer the quickest. And they said, like, one day they can apply this kind of talking about like a treasure hunt problem, how to get there the quickest, how to get to the answer the quickest. And they said, like, you know, one day they can apply

this kind of thing to stuff like robotic mind sweeping even. Yeah. Which is pretty cool. Go find the mind like quicker. Yeah. If you're just playing casually with friends casually, or if you're the only one who's not playing casually, maybe reconsider using some of these harder core

in the weed strategies and just pay attention and use the notepad that it comes with and have fun. Yeah, and maybe don't announce before the game that I have a full proof method that I win every time. Yeah, and at least don't take a lap around the game table after you win. She's the worst winner. All right, so let't take a lap around the game table after you win. She's the worst winner. All right, so let's take a break then and we'll come right back, everybody.

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So like we said, there's a bunch of variations that are just super darling. If you played Clue and it has a place in your heart. Depending on where you are in the world, there's just different names for different characters, right? We said that Mr. Green is called Reverend Green in the UK or used to be. But the victim, remember this,

the owner of the house that everybody's at, these are party guests ostensibly, and the murder takes place. And it's the host who's murdered every time. And the host in the US is known as Mr. Body with two Ds. It's kind of some gallows humor. In the UK, he's known as Dr. Black, right? I like that too.

What about in Switzerland? It's funny, cause some of these I was like, no, of course not, it's the classic, is what you want funny because some of these I was like no, of course not. It's the classic is what you want, but some of these I liked Her cludo in Switzerland Signor Le Mans in Spain Like you said, he was Reverend Green, but Dr. Olive in France was Mr. Green, which is okay Professor Plumb is professor black in Brazil. Okay, Mrs. Peacock is Bernice von Blau, which I love in Norway.

And in Switzerland, I do not like this one. Colonel Mustard is Madame Currie. Not Currie. Is that what it's supposed to be? I guess so. I thought Currie was C-U-R-I-E. Right, it is, but Curie is a color. Oh, is that a play on that?

I think so. That's how I'm taking it. I hate it even more. All right. There's also been some changes to the materials, too. If you bought the original version of Clue back in 1949, I guess, the rope was actually a little tiny piece of rope. I love that. And the lead pipe was made of lead. Amazing.

Yeah, that's authentic stuff. Over the years though, they've generally stuck to the same premise, the same characters and just kind of like, it's been like jazz. Like they've been riffing on, you know, the original form. Yeah, like the backstories would change a little bit. And this is the kind of thing where I'm really gonna try

and resist the urge to poo poo more modernized changes. I know it to me. As like, you know, Gen X guy who says the 72 version is the best, but Colonel Mustard is a soccer star. As of 2008, Jack Mustard, Professor Plum was turned into Victor Plum, a video game designer. Brilliant video game designer. Yeah, that's fine.

If that helps kids get into it a little more, what I am gonna take issue with is adding home theater as one of the rooms. That's funny because that was the one that made the most sense to me. Oh, I don't know. Updating the room? Yeah, I mean, it makes sense.

I just, I don't know, killed somebody with a candlestick in the home theater. No, no, no. Just, it feels at odds with the sort of, because I still sort of associate it with this sort of English estate kind of thing. I see what you mean, for sure. I get that.

But I guess they probably have home theaters in the UK, right? No, of course they do. Okay. So that was the Discover the Secrets 2008 edition. And that was probably from what I can tell the biggest makeover of any of the editions. They went so far as to get rid of Mrs. White and replaced her with her adopted daughter, Dr. Orchid.

That didn't last all that long. I guess it lasted a decade or two, but in 2023, they came up with another update and they basically took it back to the beginning. Mrs. White came back, but now she's Chef White. They combined the UK and the American names for the host. And now it's Mr. Bodden Body Black. Right.

Colonel Mustard stopped playing soccer and went back to the military. Mrs. Peacock is now a lawyer, a solicitor. Mr. Greens a mayor, Ms. Scarlett's the same. And Professor Plum is the same. And the weapons of the rooms are back to what they were back when we loved the game, Chuck. So you can settle down.

Yeah, and I looked up this new one because there are people that have been saying like, oh, they made them all sexy looking. I don't know about that. I guess they're a little, they skew younger than the original cast on that, or not the original, but the 72 version. I believe Ms. Scarlett and Plumnow are people of color.

So they've, you know, gotten a little more diverse, which is good. I think Mayor Green is as well. And there are also licensed versions, which I've never seen. You know, I have that Star Wars Monopoly, which is a lot of fun, but apparently there's a Alfred Hitchcock clue.

That sounds awesome. It sounds pretty good, where the characters are characters from the movies, Hitchcock movies, kind of fun. One of the rooms is the Bates Motel. Bates Motel. Of course it is. You know, I finally saw Psycho for the first time.

What? Just like a month ago, maybe. I was reading about it it and I guess I watched that documentary about the shower scene, which is pretty good documentary. And it made me realize the way that people were talking about the movie, I'm like, that doesn't track with what I know about Psycho.

It turns out it's a far different movie than what I realized. It's really good. Yeah, I mean that whole first part of the movie, if you haven't seen it, you probably wouldn't even know it existed cuz not many people talk about it Yeah, and I can imagine like watching that movie before you know everyone knew that Norman Bates was the killer Yeah, and that you know the the protagonist who you think is the protagonist gets killed off the big star That it was just totally shocking.

Yeah. Must have been amazing. Have you seen a lot of Hitchcock stuff? Yeah, which is why it's really weird that I hadn't seen Psycho. Yeah, great movie. Scooby-Doo version, the weapons are monsters, and then this one's kind of cute. The Golden Girls, a clue version, instead of murder,

it's who ate the last slice of cheesecake? That's adorable. It's so, uh, what do they call it online, uh, wholesome. Wholesome, right. So there's been a ton of spin-offs of the clue, um, IP owned by Hasbro, by the way, which who also made the, our, um, know, version of Trivial Pursuit. Yeah, they bought out the other companies, right? Parker Brothers and Waddington's.

Yes, they dominate. But so there was like a game show in the UK from 1990 to 93, which was pretty cute. I was watching part of an episode. There was a book, a series of young adult mystery books. There was a 1980s VCR game, which is actually really beloved and harder than the board game by far. I remember those. Yeah, me too. Not Clue, but just VCR games. Supposedly DeWayne Perkins from The Blackening is coming up with an animated series based on Clue. Cool. And we just could not have this episode

and not discuss the classic 1985 movie Clue. It's so good, not just in its own right, a good movie, but as an adaptation of something that already existed, it just did it perfectly. Yeah, it's one of my favorite comedies of the 80s for sure. It was, you know, now making something like a movie out of a video game is something that wouldn't surprise you, but 1985, it was very unusual.

It was written and directed, co-written by Jonathan Land and directed by Jonathan Land, co-written with John Landis. Yeah. Jonathan Land also directed by Cousin Vinnie and The Whole Nine Yards. Oh, cute. So, you know, a few other pretty big movies. And it's just, it's one of my favorites. The big mistake then why it was considered a box office flop was that studio executives

got greedy and they would send one, three different prints of Clue to movie theaters with a different ending on each print with the idea that, hey, people will go and see this movie three times to go and see the three possible endings. And it did not work out that way. I know that's crazy because I saw it in the theaters and I was enthralled by the idea that there were other endings, I thought that was the coolest thing I'd ever seen in my short nine years on the planet. Did you go see other versions in the theater?

Do you remember? No, I was just content with knowing there were other versions out there. But when the movie came out on VHS, we rented it like too sweet to watch them all because they very wisely included them all in the ending, which is the same if you watch it on like Prime or Netflix or whatever now.

Yeah, and not only is it great to not have to pay three times to go see it, but it functions really well with the one, two, three endings. Cause you know, they do the ending and they'll say, or it could have happened like this. And then they, I mean, that's when Tim Curry just really shines. I mean, he's great through the whole thing

as Wadsworth, the butler, but he really, really shines when he's, it's just a genius comedic performance. Yeah, for sure. So did Madeline Khan as Mrs. White when she talks about hating Yvette. Oh, God. That was apparently improvised.

Classic. Yeah, if you haven't seen Clue, go see it like tonight. It's just such a great movie. And our friends over at Mental Floss, Matthew Jackson wrote something about like little known facts about the movie Clue. And apparently there was a fourth ending originally that they didn't bother shooting.

Carrie Fisher was supposed to be Miss Scarlett. Oh gosh. Rather than. Leslie Ann Warren. Exactly. Ann, get this, the singing telegram girl? That was Jane Weedland from the Go-Gos. Yeah, I mean there's another one too

if you wanna hear it. Let's hear it. You know who played Mr. Body? No. It was Lee Vang who was the singer and guitarist of the hardcore punk band Fear. No. Yes, John Belushi's buddy.

Wow. So two music connections. I think we should go through the rest of the cast too just because it's short and amazing. It is a great cast. Christopher Lloyd played Professor Plum. You already mentioned the great Madeline Kahn. Flames on the side of my face. It's just unbelievable.

Also in that scene when he's running, he grabs her. Tim Curry grabs her to run upstairs and explain how she did it in one of the endings. And I think she probably made this up too. She just, she trips and falls on her face like a third of the way up the stairs and he keeps going. Great physical comedy. The great Martin Moll is Colonel Mustard. Michael McKean is Mr. Green. I mean, I feel like ruining his great last line,

but maybe I shouldn't. Yeah, don't. Okay. Eileen Brennan who is wonderful wonderful, Miss Peacock. We already mentioned Jane Wienland and Ving, Colleen Camp, classic as Yvette. And if you recognized the cook, it was, she was a mash. Kelly Nakahara played the cook and she played Lieutenant Yamoto in mash. Oh yeah, remember her.

So the cast is amazing and if you're interested in a deeper dive, the great and wonderful Casey Wilson was a movie crush guest and this was her movie. Nice. That's a great movie. Yeah. If you want to know more about Clue the movie, go watch it. Don't read anything else about it. Don't listen to anybody else jabber on about it. Just go watch it and thank us later. And if you've never played Clue, you'd do a lot worse than starting with the 1972 edition, friends. Well, since Chuck agreed with my assessment, that means of course it's time for Listener Mail.

I'm going to watch it again soon. I'm now remembering how great Eileen Brennan was. Yeah. She's wonderful. Everyone is so good. All right, here we go. Hinan was. Yeah. She's wonderful. Yeah. Everyone is so good. All right, here we go. Hi, Josh and Chuck, I just finished. This is a correction of... Epic proportions?

No, it's just something that we like to correct these especially. Just finished listening to the JD Salinger episode. Fascinating listening, so thanks for diving into this. I'm a big fan of stuff you should know. This is my first time sitting in a correction, but at the end of the episode, Josh refers to an article by a guy named Michiko Kakutani. I thought it was important to note that Michiko Kakutani is a woman. She's a revered literary critic, writer, and Pulitzer Prize winner, and I wanted to make

this trailblazing woman make sure that she got her due on your show. And that is from Julie Ann Bayhar from White Salmon, Washington. Thanks a lot, Julie Ann. I appreciate it. I feel like all the corrections that we're reading lately are mine. Disproportionately. I'm not filing mine away and like burning them. Yeah, that was a pretty big flub. I'm sorry about that. Thank you for that correction.

That was a good one. If I misspoke in this episode or any other episode that you noticed, let us know about it. Chuck will read it for sure on the air. You can send it off via email to stuffpodcast at iHeartRadio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, myHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app.

Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey, this is Dana Schwartz. You may know my voice from Noble Blood, Haley Wood or stealing Superman. I'm hosting a new podcast and we're calling it very special episodes. A very special episode is stranger than fiction. I sound like it should be the next season of True Detective. These Canadian cops trying to solve this mystery of who spiked the Chowder on the Titanic set.

Listen to very special episodes on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, this is Susie Esmond and Jeff Garland. I'm here. And we are the hosts of the history of Curb Your Enthusiasm podcast. Now we're gonna be rewatching and talking about every single episode,

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