You're not as hip as you once were
My wife brought home a box game of Win, Lose or Draw she picked up at a thrift store for 25 cents.
Heck, at one point it was probably at least a $15 game, so a 99.98 percent markdown was like military budgeting in reverse.
The game pieces were still sealed in their original plastic, and about 10 pieces of paper were missing from the drawing pad. It was like new.
Or was it?
Win, Lose or Draw was a game show from the dark era of cheese-ball game shows when show creators would steal their best ideas from somewhere else, in this case Pictionary. One person would draw clues of a selected topic, and the other person would try to guess the topic from half-finished pictures that always looked like an Etch-A-Sketch threw up.
We pulled a few topic cards.
TV shows: "Captain Kangaroo."
Music stars: Tony Bennett.
Movies: "Halloween."
Geez, how old was this game?
I flipped the box over. The game was released in 1988.
Wow, the '80s were the only time in game show history when it was common knowledge that "Blondie" wasn't for the category of comic strip. What other gems awaited us?
We pulled more cards.
Music Stars: Huey Lewis and the News.
Books: "The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank."
Movies: "Beverly Hills Cop."
One, how does someone in 2005 draw Huey Lewis and the News? And, two, how does someone born in 1977 guess Huey Lewis and the News?
Oh, sure, anyone could still get the easy, timeless topics like club sandwich, french toast, turtle soup and The Three Stooges. But what about decades-ago based topics like "Kojak," "The Greatest American Hero," "The White Shadow" or chicken croquettes?
And then there are the ethical dilemmas.
"Star Trek" is in the TV shows category. But when this game was in stores, "Star Trek: The Next Generation" had just launched, and we had no "Star Trek: DS9," "Star Trek: Voyager," "Star Trek: Enterprise" or "Star Trek: We're Running Out of Ideas."
Would referencing these shows be cheating?
And how about musicians from the 1980s who are still around?
Whatever decade your age-addled mind best relates to has a direct impact on which Madonna you draw. The skanky, yet somehow virginal Madonna? The I'd be Marilyn Monroe if I were pretty and had an ounce of talent Madonna? The I'm talking with a bad British accent for no apparent reason Madonna? Or the where the hell did my career go "hey, I'm in a GAP commercial" Madonna?
And then there are topic cards that in the 1980s seemed OK, but now seem to be a cruel joke. Like having the words "Led Zeppelin" and "Bette Midler" on the same music stars card.
But the card that best relates our "what's good in life" perspective today with that of our parachute pants-wearing counterparts is having the Chipmunks and Yoko Ono on a music card.
When cartoon characters, and those without enough talent to be cartoon characters, are listed as music stars, that shows you just how screwed up the '80s were.
