Seeing this modern TV-related Moon and Me toy, which my Granddaughter watches, took me right back when I saw it.
Its that staircase!
Bam! It's so similar to the fabulous stairs in my beloved Haunted House board game from the 1960's.
You remember! a marble hurtles down the stairs and knocked over your plastic playing person, with a large framed portrait of a smiling witch watching!
Denys Fisher's Haunted House was a key ingredient of my spooky childhood. I adored playing the game with friends and family or just on my own! One of my mates called it 'Drop it down The Chimney' on account of a marble being ... well, dropped down the chimney to get the ball rolling!
Everything about the game feels iconic to me; the box art, the art style, the actual cardboard house and board, the plastic accessories, the wonderful mid-walk plastic playing pieces and maybe top of the cauldron, the playing cards with the names of witches on like Glenda the Good!
When I started a vintage toy business back in the day I played with designs for business cards using the Haunted House cards as the basis. In the end I opted for something whiter so it could be read easily, but the veneration was there!
Haunted House is a game that went around the world. Cooked up first by Milton Bradley in the States, it became Haunted House in the UK with Denys Fisher and the same with Toltoys in New Zealand. In Germany it was Spukschloss and in Italy, Castello Incanto.
Milton Bradley really did start something when he dropped that first marble down the chimney!
I've written about Haunted House and other creepy board games - like Ghost Castle, Scream Inn, Creature Castle - before, because I used to collect them.
Out of interest I checked Amazon to see if any have survived the ravages of time and lo and behold, the IDEAL clone, Ghost Castle has made it. Brand new and for a fresh generation of spooksters, here's the modern haunted staircase.
As good as it is, alas, it just don't cut the nostalgic mustard for me, so I'll stick to dropping Denys Fisher's vintage marbles down my mental chimney and leave it at that.
Did you play Haunted House?
Yes, it was my favourite board game for ages.
ReplyDeleteAs I recal, it had a set of 'chance' type cards that you got when you landed on certain 'squares', and one of them actually said "Ghoulish Gerty 'drops it down the chimney' ". Hence your mate calling it that, maybe.
Oh fab Mish! You know what I'm on about! Yes! Ghoulish Gerty! I remember that card! It was such a brilliant game and bang on for the monster craze at the time. Happy haunted days!
DeleteI've just read that Haunted House was designed for Milton Bradley Games by the famous Marvin Glass and Geoffrey Hayes. It went around the world and lots of names appear here on Board Game Geek https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1613/ghost-castle/credits#alternatename
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