Yesterday while rummaging though my front closet...I was bored and when I’m bored I rummage, you got a problem with that? I didn’t think so...anyway...while rummaging through my closet I found an old board game from the ‘70’s and it’s not just any board game, but a local version of Monopoly, complete with various local businesses and logos. So I thought it might be fun to take a look at that today and so that’s just what we’re going to do. So hold on to your hats if you just happened to be wearing one, because here’s...Peoria: The Board Game!
The Box
Here’s the front of the box. I guess back when this was made they didn’t believe in much white space in the design which results in what I like to call a real throw-up looking kind of look. And exactly when was this made you may be wondering right now...
Upon further inspection of the box, it says that it was made and copywritten in 1977, that magical year that punk rock exploded.
The contents of the game are listed over here and so let’s just take a little look at the contents of the game, shall we?
Contents
All the contents come in this plastic bag, which was handy for the times. You could take everything out of the bag and then fill it up with an ounce of pot and you were good to go!
Here’s a sheet with the rules and a preview of the game. The last line of the preview section says that: “Your success will depend on your decisions, intuition and good fortune.” The unwritten law of success is not mentioned here which is: “It’s not who you know, it’s who you blow!”
These are detachable cards that are part of the game. Note the attorney and hospital fees, these days you could quintuple those amounts and multiply them by an infinite amount and you might be close to what it would cost now. And note the skimpy law suit winnings, oh, wait...that was before Twitter was invented, no wonder!
This is the money that you play the game with, let’s look a little closer and see who those faces are on the bills...
It’s the McCann Brothers. I have no idea who they are or why they’re on the money for this game. The top brother looks like he just did a bunch of mushrooms and is hallucinating that he’s a member of The Little River Band and the bottom brother looks kind of mean and sullen, he sort of looks like a bouncer that threw me out of The Poison Apple disco for taking a piss on the corner of the dance floor the same year that this game came out. Memories...
The Board
Here’s the four-color game board. It’s got logos for a lot of local businesses back in 1977, let’s take a look at some of them...
One thing I noticed is while the game is supposed to be Peoria related, there’s three logos for national soft drinks on it. A&W Root Beer is under the “Root Beer” category, RC is under the “Cola” category and Vernors falls under the generic, catch-all banner of “Soft Drink.” I guess that’s because no one ever really knew what kind of soft drink Vernors actually was. Also notice the Steak ‘N Bake logo, now that was a ‘70’s name for a restaurant if ever there was one!
The top logo is for the Peoria Hilton and I can’t remember where that place was, was that in the Pere Marquette location? I also don’t remember there being a downtown Bergner’s location in the ‘70’s. My memories of those years is so fuzzy! I never should’ve smoked all that pot in the ‘70’s...plus all that acid...and speed...and mushrooms...and...well, let’s just move along now!
I find the Sheridan Village Shopping Center tagline kind of frightening, it reads: “Never far from your car.” Sheesh, can you say stalker? It’s nice to see the Lums logo, I always liked that place and back in the day it was one of the few 24 hour restaurants in town back then and I’m proud to say it was one of the few places I was never thrown out of back then! I think the night shift that worked there were always as loaded as I was!
Check out the Holy Trinity of ‘70’s businesses: Video, Waterbeds and Disco! Oh my! Well, this was quite a board game that Peoria produced back in 1977 and hey look, it’s the end of this easy cheesy peesy Saturday post, so it looks like I win! We’ll see you all tomorrow!
Related Post: Easy Cheesy Peesy Blog: MBIP Collage Plus The Writings On The Wall.