The Board Games Expertease

Podcast listeners from around the world. Our topic tonight is board games. And so Clare Sera, I thought we could probe your area. What? Of expertise. Spell draw? Naturally. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, worldwide podcast listeners. I'm Danno Sullivan, your host of the Knowledge Podcast Expertise. Wow. It sounds like I've practiced that over a hundred times. My very special guest today comes from the Parker family of board game creators. Clare Sera, welcome to the podcast. Clare Sera Parker, if you don't mind. Oh, is that your married name or just your board game name?

Yes. I see. So Clare, why don't you roll the dice and that will determine our first question. Well, I have a nine-sided die here from a little known board game called Cat O' Nine Tails. And our first question is about the board game Cat O' Nine Tails. Clare, who at Parker Brothers thought that a game of medieval torture techniques would be fun for children and families? Well, you know what a lot of people don't know about my family's history is that Parker Brothers were, they were, it was actually a friar community. They were actual brothers. Brothers in Christ.

Yes. Yes. And they were not very good at it. Oh, at which part? At monkeying. Oh, at monkeying. And so as failed monks, they moved into a family routine? They were often sent to the brig, as they called it. Oh, the Flagitorium? Yes. They were brothers in Christ. Right, right. Who were often parked at the Flagitorium with hours, hours to do. Yeah. Just nothing to do and needed to come up with something creative, I'm guessing. Yeah. They were certainly not going to read their scriptures. Not those two. Not those brothers. Imps. Now, how far back in history are we talking?

Is this? The 1940s. Oh, that recently. I see. Yeah. To me, the idea of monks in a monastery conjures up medieval times, but not the case. Yeah, it was a strangely backwards community of friars. Where they would lock two brothers away in a Flagitorium with nothing but dice and cardboard. Right. And you know what came out of it? The godly world of board games for family fun. Yeah. Now I know a lot of these board games are. I know God has a plan, always. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. To take what the devil meant for bad and turn it into something called a board game.

Yes. Right. Now, Claire, I do need to just interject and say this is a strictly non-denominational podcast. So no, absolutely. I mean, our family is not religious. Just let me be clear about that. Just the two brothers in Christ? Here. And the board games of the devil? Okay. Right. So what was the question? I think we were just talking to my expert, Claire Sarah. Yes. Who is an expert. Claire Sarah Parker. Claire Sarah Parker, who's an expert in board games. You're listening to Expertise, spelled wrong. The podcast where the world's most expert experts discuss their areas of expertise expertly.

Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Worldwide podcast listeners. I'm Dan O'Sullivan, your host of the Knowledge Podcast Expertise. My very special guest today comes from the Parker family of board game creators. Claire Sarah, welcome to the podcast. Claire Sarah Parker, if you don't mind. Oh, is that your married name or just your board game name? Yes. I see. So the early start of board games came from my uncle, John Parker. He and his brother, Bob Parker. John and Bob, the Parker brothers. The Parker brothers, they would get into a lot of trouble and be put in the closet by their parents.

Oh, just as boys. As boys. Boys are always getting into trouble, aren't they? This is back in the 1920s when boys were often closeted for bad behavior. Yeah. You might've heard the term come out of the closet. Well, back then it had a different meaning, right? It meant like come out and actually breathe or eat. Right. Yes. And closets were hermetically sealed back then. Right. Yeah. With that, that tinge of mothball in the air. So I'm just picturing these two scampish youths stirring up trouble and getting relegated to the family closet. Relegated is a great word that they would have used in their game Scrabble.

Oh, yes. Now Scrabble did not invent, it did not invent yet. Scrabble didn't exist except perhaps in the brains of these two young lads. Yeah. It was a twinkle in their eye in the closet that they couldn't see. They couldn't see each other's eyes because it was so dark in there. But if they could have seen, one of them would have had a twinkle that was going to become Scrabble. So that was the origin of one of the Parker Brothers games. They must have spent a lot of time, those two kids, in trouble, in the closet, scheming up. Saying sorry to their mom and dad.

Were they Canadian? Well, they lived up in the north. They lived right at the border between Canada and what is that other country? Mexico? Yes. Which culturally really gave them a leg up. Now, you're making me think of the wonderful Parker Brothers game Risk, the game of international warfare. And I'm seeing how growing up on the Mexi-Canadian border that way. Can-a-Mexi-Can-a-Mexico. Can-a-Mexi-Can-a-Mexi-Can-a-Mexicano. And I just won Scrabble. I'm sorry. I am playing with my uncles, the Parker Brothers. So you've got some real, real inbred techniques there.

Well, my uncle John Parker, he had a stutter. And because of that, he was allowed to use extra letters in his Scrabble. I always wondered about that, Claire, because when we had the Scrabble game, we had the official Scrabble dictionary. That makes me think each person, for example, I should be allowed to use the word Persian. Yeah. P-E-R-S-H-O-N. Yeah. Think of the extra letter scores if you mispronounce a word. Now, it brings up the question, though. It begs the question, must it be a word that you accidentally mispronounce? Or can you mispronounce a word intentionally to get the extra points?

Well, this comes down to the beauty of the Parker Brothers Bible. Oh, I can't say Bible. No, no, please. If you wouldn't mind just leaving that. The Parker Brothers Encyclopedia. Of board game knowledge where, you know, there are some things that are just they just come from integrity, which is a great word to use on the board. Yeah, you got the N-T-G. Yeah. No, I don't mean the spelling. I mean, girl, you got the N-T-G. Thank you. It's, you know, oh, that's pretty good. See what kind of points you get. You know, where each man, they're left to themselves to mine the depths of their integrity.

I really like that because that sort of implies that despite the fact that you're calling it a game, really, each person is free to create their own rules as they play. And to me, that that makes for a fairer, more interesting game scape. Every family has its own rules. That's your house rules, family rules, family rules. Well, Claire, as a member of the Parker Brothers family, I'm guessing you don't call yourself a Parker brother. What is your official title? Bro. Oh, just you're a Parker bro. Yeah, I see. I thought there might be a special title for someone two generations away and female.

Oh, yeah. Well, it's one of the rules in our house is in the Parker Brothers, you know, house family rules. No women. No women. Oh, I see. Yeah. That's like our rules here on the podcast. No religion. You have to have rules. Right. That's sort of what spread out to the world at large as they began distributing their games with their rules in printed form. You know, do not pass go. Do not collect $200. And I'm like, back off, Parker brother. Come on, dude. An iron fist and a velvet glove is what we would call the Parker family. So, you know, I mean, would I say I'm scarred?

Well, you know, not physically. Well, Claire, let's look at this unusual game from Parker Brothers. I have a copy of it here. It's called Scar the Great Niece. And, uh, you know what? Let's just take a look at it together, shall we? Yeah, I'll open it up here. I'll show the pieces to our listeners at home. And if you wouldn't mind just kind of going through the instruction booklet here. Right. So folks, we are looking at a rare Parker Brothers game that I got off eBay called Scar the Great Niece. Scar is a verb in the sentence. Yeah, it is. And you'll see that each person is given a different sort of plastic weapon.

Okay. Right. So, uh, rule number one, select one player to be great niece. Right. Okay. So shall we make that you? Okay. So that's me. I'll hold the noose. Okay. Yeah. So we handed out all the, uh, the little plastic weapons. Yeah. I have to ask her. I'm a little confused. Cause it does seem like there are a lot of pieces that are just kind of thrown in a box that maybe are from other games. You know, Dano, you might be missing part of the point, which is these, these are all things to scar the great beasts. Oh, leftover games. Yes. Games unplayed. Yes. Okay. So it's rejected by the public.

Yeah. So it also includes a pop-o-matic. So you pop the plastic bubble, it rolls the dice automatically. And I guess that's the o-matic and pop-o-matic. Sure. And again, you know, that's very hygienic. That's a very hygienic way to keep the dice from being in grubby little kid's hands. You know, like, like the niece, like the infected, diseased niece. Claire, I'm starting to feel actually a little uncomfortable going through this with you. It feels like it's bringing up some, some dark memories for you. I don't know why you would say that. I'm perfectly fine.

It's fun. It's fun. Let's keep going. So your uncles had taken over the board game world. And it sounds to me like they were so caught up with their own financial success, their creative success. Maybe there wasn't time for a family back home. Damn you, Dano. What is this, a podcast or a therapist? Claire, if we're not going to dig down deep, then why talk about the superficialities, am I right? Dano, the whole point of a board game. Yes. And my, my great-uncles are behind this is to distract the family from what's really going on. I mean, my uncles were so self-indulgent and so self-focused.

They didn't even have time to have children. Only nieces and nephews. Yeah. I was born a niece. We had a guest on recently who was born a stepdaughter. Oh gosh. Let me, let me see if I can refocus you on this because on the bright side, you know, that previous guest didn't have board games. She had a family she couldn't stand, but you have at least the respite of going in to a fantasy land, a candy land where family members are miniaturized, where troubles are tiny and plastic, where sunshine is painted onto the corner of a board. Now your uncles did do some very creative cross promotions.

They were always cross, Dano. That was part of my problem with them. And when they would do these angry promotions, nobody would buy the products. What do you remember as one of the angriest promotions, Claire? Oh, it was, well, it was what Sorry came out of. Oh, the game Sorry. They had to do an apology tour after losing their temper so many times on a junket. Well, Claire, you say that your uncles had no familial feelings and yet they did right into the rules of the game Sorry. At the end of the game, say Sorry. How many families across the world were brought together through that act of reconciliation?

Dano, I can't argue with that. And as much as I am scarred from my own personal childhood and the hours of papering checkerboard tops onto cardboard. Like a young Charles Dickens of board games. Indeed. My uncles both were buried with the game Sorry on their chests. Symbolically? No, literally. Oh, I mean, they were literally buried. And unfortunately, the plastics that those are made for, they're not going to disintegrate. So those uncles will be long gone and their board games will live as a testament to the board game world they created. That's right. Claire, our listeners at home may not realize at this point that you and I have actually been playing a version of Scar the Great Niece this whole time.

The foresight they had, rule four on the list here is go on a podcast and get asked about family games. Yeah. You know, I'd say based on that alone, you've won. Oh, wow. Well, gosh, thank you, Dano. That really puts a different spin. Claire, don't thank me. Okay. Thank those great uncles. Thank you, Parker Brothers. The Expertise, spelled wrong, podcast is free and like the Amish, all are welcome. Be sure to sign up for our email announcements at funnypodcast.co and follow us in your favorite podcast app, like the expert podcast listener we know you are.