Clue has proven to be a resilient and adaptable board game that's stood the test of time. Whether a fan of the original board game or the 1985 cult classic film starring Tim Curry, Clue occupies a unique space in pop culture. The game has been intriguing players for 75 years with its mix of mystery, strategy and deduction.
It all started as a way fo everyone to enjoy a diversion during wartime. “[ Clue ] was invented back in 1943 by this guy named Anthony Pratt,” said Brian Baker, SVP of Board Games at Hasbro . “He's a musician, a piano player, and he perform in these lavish mansions in the English countryside around Birmingham.
One of the things he noticed were some of the families hosting the parties doing these lavish murder mystery theme dinner parties. He always thought they were really fun. When World War Two started, the Germans started bombing England and the countryside.
Everybody was stuck inside seeking shelter. He came up with a game that simulated kind of what these families would do in their mansions.” While most Americans know the game as Clue, it was published under a different name in England.
It still uses that name there, born of one of the deadliest arts in the English language: a pun. “He called it Cluedo ,” said Baker. “which is kind of like a mash up of the word ‘clue’ obviously to a nod to the mystery part of it and then the the the word ludo, which is Latin for ‘I play’.
He eventually sold it into a company called Waddingtons. Th.
