PLAY VROOM

Its always fun to see a game you had as a kid having been enjoyed by kids in other lands.

Here's Waddington's Formula 1 as issued in Germany by Brohm, Nurburgring Formel 1 [apologies, can't find the umlaut on my keyboard!]

Formula 1 was actually my older Brother's game, along with others like the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Blast Off and Twister, but I saw them so often I associate them completely with my childhood.

I will have been busy dropping the ball down the chimney in my beloved Haunted House game!

Did you have Formula 1 in your neck of the woods?

WADDINGTONS PURPLE PEOPLE EATER

Here is another weird one. Is this something you came across in your days as a toy trader ? Did you ever play it ?

The Flying Purple People Eater was originally a 1958 novelty song by Sheb Wooley. There was also a 1988 children's movie (in which Sheb Wooley appeared), a game by Waddingtons, and several toy versions.

The Waddingtons Purple People Eater is described as being something like the game Operation. The object was to remove tiny plastic people (who were not purple) from the mouth of a sleeping Monster, without waking him up.

The monster was a large, hideous, slimly, octopus-like creature, with two eyes, one of which glows red, and a menacing growl (batteries not included). The colour scheme is purple/red/green/yellow.

The box provides a fair amount of information:

The Electrically frightening 'feely' monster game of skill.

The Purple People Eater is asleep. Can you save the people from his horrible clutches ?

If you wake him up you will hear him growl as his eye lights up in anger. Caught in his clutches you will feel his tentacles quiver on your hand.

Will you be able to rescue the people through his gapping jaw ? Take care, because if you wake him he will get very angry !

The creature does not match the description in the song (a one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple alien). The Waddingtons monster does not appear able to fly, he has two eyes, and no horn.

From 6 Years, 2 - 4 players. It dates from the early 1980s sometime, with different sources saying 1979, 1980, 1981, or 1982. I could not find any photographs showing a copyright date, to pin this down.

A bag of 16 small red plastic people was included, for the Monster to chomp on. But in reality, the Flying Purple People Eater only ate purple people, so the little red people should be perfectly safe.

The retail price was £7.99 according to this old TV ad.

https://www.google.com/search?q=waddington+purple+people+eater&oq=waddington+purple+people+eater&aqs=chrome..69i57.11611j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:10762b90,vid:YwHC4v9AkKM

This is another one of those toys or games where you can only wonder what was going through the minds of the creators. It does not look to have been a big hit, and there are very few sales listings for it today.

Two photographs from Worthpoint.

What do you think?

Paul Adams from New Zealand

PROPHETS AND LOSS: THE WADDINGTONS OUIJA BOARD

Car booting on Sunday I was amazed to see a Waddington's Ouija, a very obscure board game from the Sixties occult craze.

I haven't seen this board game for years.

Showing some interest in the thing propped up against a stall leg I began to wander over but Missus Moonbase said forget it. She wouldn't have it in the house.

I wuz amazed at such a strong reaction to what was simply marketed as a toy.

No wonder Waddingtons ran into trouble from concerned parents back in the day. I understand that the company had to pull their Ouija after just one year of production. It reminds me of the travails of Mars Attacks cards or Aurora's Victim.

I've always liked monster board games and collected them avidly back in the Nineties and Noughties. I had loads and after an evening trip to someone's house who'd advertised in the newspaper small ads - yes before the tinternet - I drove there and bought a Waddingtons Ouija on the doorstep. The Missus may not have been with but we did often take trips to buy classifieds stuff at night, taking our young daughter with us for the drive.

I remember feeling slightly queasy at the time about Ouija in the home. It wasn't like having an innocent game like Haunted House or Creature Castle in the pile. Ouija was something different, something more dangerous perhaps.

I must have sold Ouija at some point. I sold everything.

Looking at it again I recall loving the simple box art. The black background and the grainy blue hooded figure emerging from it like a stone golem or something.

The word OUIJA - a blend of yes in French and German - appears to be conjured by the hand of the blue figure and the only real clues to what the game may be are the words Talking Board Set and The Mystifying Oracle, a registered trade mark no less.

This trademark was the property of William Fuld, who's name also appears on the cover. Waddingtons licenced the game from Fuld, an American who claimed to have invented it and had much success marketing it in the States as well through Parker Brothers. You might say he he profited from the prophets!

Waddingtons closed it doors in the 1990's and its entire archive went to the Museums Service of Leeds, not too far from Moonbase.

I imagine that at least of a couple of Ouija's went there way, nestling together now on some dusty shelf, talking to each other about life in the phantom zone and the pitfalls of selling occult toys to kids.

They didn't see that coming did they!

Did you have a Ouija?