Antique Show Find: Mentor Game

Found this far out game at a summer antique show: Mentor, the Electronic Wizard, made by Hasbro in 1960. The giant bronze plastic head is Mentor. He looks like something out of Metropolis, an Art Deco robot with a mind of his own. To play, you select one of the cardboard game tracks, and insert it into the board. You and Mentor then take turns moving the pawn (a giant finger) along the track. Mentor tells you how many spaces he wants to move by flashing the lightbulbs on the base. First one to the finish wins, and it's usually Mentor.

Mentor, in a characteristically thoughtful mood.

Mentor game boards.

 The moving finger, wired up to Mentor.

1950s Funny Faces Puzzle

This Funny Faces puzzle from the 1950s features great characters, and is actually a lot of fun to play around with. Each character is die cut into sections that can be switched and rearranged to make "more than 1000 different faces!" I haven't actually tested that claim, as I imagine it would require more time than I can realistically spend playing with my toys.

The original four characters:

The illustrations remind me of those on Changeable Charlie, another vintage make-a-face toy.

Bandersnatch Game

 

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

 The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"

                                          - Lewis Carroll 

No one but Lewis Carroll himself really knows what a Bandersnatch looks like, but Mattel's toy designers gave it a go in 1969 with their game of the same name. Players chose cards and spun trying to get all the parts needed to build a 4 1/2 inch tall Bandersnatch figure. This odd game is rarely found today, rather like the Bandersnatch himself.

The game box and components are all in bright, psychedelic '60s colors, and the spinner is a tiny little Bandersnatch. 

The giggling Bandersnatch spinner.

The completed figure is like a bizarre, nightmare version of Mr. Potato Head. Beware the Bandersnatch, indeed.

1968 Pie Face Game

Presenting one of the rarest vintage games of all time: Pie Face, made by Hassenfeld Bros (Hasbro) in 1968. Pie Face came with a spinner, score sheet, cardboard target with cut-out window, and a pie launcher. Basically, you placed a whipped cream "pie" on the launcher, then took turns spinning to find out how many times to crank the launcher's handles. It was randomly set to let the pie fly into the player's face, positioned within the target. Sort of a cream pie version of Russian Roulette.

It was billed as "the most fun-filled action game you've ever played!" If, of course, your idea of fun was getting a pie slammed into your face.

The 15 1/2" tall target was made of cardboard...which helps explain why this game is so rare. I can't imagine they survived many whipped cream pie hits. The target is designed to make the player look like a clown, further adding to the humiliation.

Here's the pie launcher in readiness:

 And post-slam: 


















I wonder how many players really bothered to keep score...if I'd had one as a child, I expect my friends and I would have simply used it to torture my little sister.

Click here to see the original Pie Face television commercial in all its awesomeness. The lyrics are quite catchy:

"Turn the handles, 

hear them click, 

you'll never know 

when you'll be hit!

It's Pie Face!

Ask your mom 

for some cream,

Pile it high,

It's a scream!

Now we spin, what's the score?

Never had such fun before!

It's Pie Face!"

Latest Find!

>happy dance, happy dance<  

I just found the rarest vintage game on my wish list, something I actually thought I would never, ever own. It hasn't arrived yet, but I'm so excited, I couldn't wait to brag tell everyone about it. What is it? Only one of the strangest, most possibly dangerous, family board games ever created. Watch the original television commercial here to get a glimpse of it in action!

Spy's-A-Poppin

The spy craze of the 1960s turned out tons of related toys, and one of the best was Transogram's 1966 Spy's-a-Poppin, a target game/playset with fantastic design and tons of action features. The huge, 27 inch tall set enabled the player to enter the world of spy films, complete with exploding bombs, damsels in distress, sinister cloaked spy masters, secret hideouts, and, of course, a really cool (dart) gun. Sadly, the gun is almost always missing from this rare set when found (although mine does still have the "Magi-scope"): kids would, naturally, have used the gun in all sorts of other play. Even without a gun, though, the set is a precious find. Its fragility and size led to most being thrown away by spring-cleaning parents.

Box detail, with directions for play.

Here's how it worked: you, the good spy, are in pursuit of a bad spy. You've tracked him to his secret lair, tucked into a dilapidated brownstone next to a pawnbroker's. See your shadow on the steps? You're even wearing a trenchcoat and fedora!

Now, you have to get into the hideout. You decide to blast your way in. Subtle, you are not. The instructions tell you: "First you must get into the house. How can you do this? Well, the only way is to 'blow up' the front...and that's just what you'll do." On the top right of the building is a giant red plastic bomb. The instructions say: "Take careful aim at the bomb with your gun and shoot! Hit the bomb on top of the chimney and the front of the house falls down!" And it does!

The whole front panel of the building falls forward, revealing a tense situation: a beautiful blonde girl tied to a box of TNT. The instructions make sure you realize the gravity of the situation: "Holy Fallen Arches! You must watch your step because there is evil afoot inside!"

Next, you are told to "slowly study the situation. Look through the infra-red scope on your gun to see what danger lurks behind those innocent looking pictures on the wall." And danger does indeed lurk: the red filter on the gun's "scope" reveals a spy hiding behind the picture. If you look very closely, you may be just able to see his outline here: 


"Behold! There are two sinister looking characters watching your every move!" continue the directions. "You must erase them from the scene."

Shooting the pictures with the dart gun knocks them clean out of their frames, along with their hidden spies, presumably. But what's this? Apparently one of the spies was "only wounded," and has given "a signal to the Master Spy hidden at the top of the stairs! THE JIG IS UP! OH, WOE, WHAT CAN YOU DO NOW?"  The instructions are just as fabulous as the game itself, really. I'm guessing an unemployed screenwriter or English Lit. grad wrote them. But incidentally, wouldn't the "jig is up" moment have been when you blew the front of the hideout off? A logical misstep, there.

Anyway: as the top picture is knocked from its frame by your dart, it releases a catch holding the Master Spy in place behind the curtains. He begins clacking his way down the staircase, "hurrying to the bottom to 'do in' that poor, innocent girl tied to the TNT box..."

This is when the tension really ratchets up: the Master Spy descends alarmingly quickly on his way to the detonator, and as usual, the instructions convey the seriousness of the situation: "Take aim...steady now...mustn't bungle it! You must hit him before he reaches bottom. If you don't, he'll push the lever and...ZOWIE! But...if you're quick and have a sharp eye, you can save the girl...you're a HERO!"

The Master Spy and the girl who needs saving. 

Looks she's done for this time...

You can see more pictures of this set, and read the complete, fabulous original instructions, at Sam's Toy Box.

Vintage Batman Board Game, Puzzle, and Colorforms

I was besotted with Batman as a child in the 1970s, and really, I guess, it hasn't abated much. Some recent Batman finds:

Batman puzzle, made by Watkins Strathmore and printed by Western Printing and Lithography Company, USA, 1966. Features the Batmobile, Batplane, and an unusual view of the Batcave:

Batman Colorforms, 1966, complete with original booklet. Although the box is pretty tatty, the contents were minty:

Batman board game, 1966:

Comes with itty bitty Batmobiles and villians: 
















The cover art is fantastic on the Batman game:

Antique Carnival Items: Signs, Games, Punks, & More

Hurry, hurry, step right up and see my latest find: a huge lot of antique carnival items!  Most of the pieces are from the 1930s, and have seen heavy use in traveling carnivals. With their handmade nature and patina of age, they have a folk art quality that is very appealing.

First up: this hand lettered wooden sign for a coin toss game,
5 feet long:

Here's a closeup of the hand lettering, 

a fascinating art form:  

 

And, if you look closely at the "5", you can see where the old price of "10" cents was painted over, I'm guessing during the Depression years.

One of the most unusual pieces in the lot was this gigantic wooden sledgehammer, almost 3 feet tall, with a head a foot wide. The bands around the head are thick steel. It was used in the classic carnival High Striker, or bell ringing game, in which a fair goer would attempt to ring a bell at the top of a tall platform by hitting the base. This hammer is so heavy, I have no idea how anyone would have managed to swing it. I had to drag it up my stairs, stopping for a rest along the way...

One of the most interesting finds was another classic game, the milk bottle knock-down. The 7 inch wooden milk bottles were heavily dinged and scraped from decades of use. The game came with a basket full of its original, accompanying baseballs.

The goal was to knock the 3 bottles over with a tossed ball. It sounds simple, but in actuality, it hardly ever happened. Turning over the bottles reveals why: one has been hollowed out, and a lead weight inserted. The hole was then plugged, and the weight made it very difficult to knock over. In the photo below, the gaffed bottle is on the top of the pile.

Some of my favorite items in the find were an assortment of 3 carnival punks, or knock down dolls. In a game similar to the milk bottles, customers tried to knock the punks over to win a prize. The most common form of punk was a clown with a crazy halo of hair, which was made of wool in the earliest examples, like these 11 inch varieties:

The other punk was very unusual; I've never seen one quite like it. Measuring a very large 21 inches tall, it features a hand painted cat on green canvas, with the word "Lux" prominently spelled out, and yellow tassled fringe adorning the sides. It's a little spooky...

Another big sign, a bit more recent than the first and not as skillfully painted, was this 10 cent candy advertisement:

From a selection of shooting gallery targets, I chose this cast iron duck, 5 1/2 inches wide. Like the hammer shown previously, this target is so heavy, I don't see how it could ever have been successfully struck. Its age, wear, and weathering have given it a wonderful primitive charm.

Also from a shooting gallery came this double squirrel target, made of wood, cast iron, and steel, measuring 7 inches tall by 10 inches wide. It would originally have been one small segment in a wide shooting range composed of many similar pieces. After knocking the squirrels over, a hit on the center white circle target makes them pop back up again.

Here's a closeup of the squirrels, 2 inches tall: 

This last item is a bit more recent than the others, probably from the 1950s. It's another great hand lettered sign, 16 inches wide, most likely from a ticket booth.

It's an incredible feeling to hold these items and imagine the places they've been and the people they've seen...I can almost smell the cotton candy and hear the screams of riders on the roller coaster.

The Weirdest Board Game Ever Made: Remco's Pinhead

One of the oddest board games ever made must be Pinhead, released by Remco in 1959.

The first inkling of strangeness comes right away, as you peruse the cover. Why is a "game of hide and seek" called "Pinhead"? What does a deforming neurodevelopmental disorder have to do with a classic children's playtime activity? Why is the one boy so much bigger than the other children? Is it also about dwarfism and/or gigantism?

You might expect some answers to these baffling questions once you open the box, but no: the oddness just intensifies. There is, in fact, a pinhead on the house shaped game board, and he is "hiding" out in the open, in the middle of what appears to be a hallway. So...not hiding, then. I mean, wouldn't it have been more like hiding if he was tucked away in the attic clutter, or stuck behind one of the basement appliances??

The pinhead in question: 











Remco games were notable for: 1. being strange, and 2. having unusual methods of rolling the dice. Remco's "Tumblebum Dice Games" included an hourglass shaped device with dice inside. Tipping the device over essentially rolled the dice. Pinhead features a different mechanism: a dice box, in which the dice are shaken while the lid is closed. These elaborate dice rolling devices seem to have been Remco's attempt to enliven games that were otherwise rather simple, straightforward "tracks", wherein players simply moved their markers along a course. Remco games are relatively scarce, and strange though they may be, are worth snapping up when found.