February 6, 2024 • 48 mins
Whether you know it as Clue or Cluedo, the whodunnit mystery board game is one of the best of all time. Learn all about the history behind the game’s development, and strategies on how to crush your fellow players as soundly as Chuck’s wife crushes him.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck.
And guess what. Jerry's here too. And I'll tell you what.
Jerry will be the one who murdered us if we
ever turn up dead in a lounge, ballroom, conservatory. And
she'll probably have used a lead pipe, because Jerry carries
a lead pipe with her at all times.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
That her nickname is miss Scarlett.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, she makes us call her Miss Scarlett.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
I have to say, this feels like a chuck pick
through and through. But it was your pick, so I
have to ask right away if you are a cluist.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I'm not directly, Oh, historically, yes, it's one of my
favorite games of all time.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Oh great, me a lot. All right, Well, we're gonna
have fun talking about this then, man, I love Clue.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
As a matter of fact, I went on eBay and
made a low offer on a complete nineteen seventy two
edition of Clue, which is the one I grew up with.
Oh yeah, I was like, I guess I had the
eighty six and I looked. I was like, nope, that's
not It went a little further back eighteen seventy two.
I just sort of drooling from nostalgia.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yeah, it's the seventy two. If you're in our age bracket,
the seventy two version is a very very nostalgic sort
of like it's just very evocative. It brings out and
smells in your brain and like fights your parents are
having in the other room, and oh, like cartoons that
are on. It's like, it's it's it hits hard. I
(01:37):
was very disappointed because I went to find out. I
was like, man, who, who are those models?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Now?
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Who took that picture?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Like?
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I was really curious. Yeah, and I found a thing
on medium that I didn't It's a it's a spoof, right,
it has to be.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yeah. I was like, oh my god, any leave of it.
I took that picture.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yeah, once you start reading it, though, I was like,
wait a minute. I was so disappointed because I I
even went to read it, and I don't know, I
couldn't find out any information on who those people were
or how that went down.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
I mean, it's just such an arcane thing to spoof.
It was called an Oral History of the photo Shoot
for the nineteen seventy two cover of Clue.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
How excited were you when you read that title?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah, I was like, this is some good this is
good treasure right here. Yeah, and then I thought, wow,
Anti leboit's like, shook that picture now. So whoever wrote that,
if you're out there, you got us.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Both, yeah, and shame on you.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
So we're talking about Clue the game. If you're in
the UK and you're like, what is this clue they're
talking about, allow us to also call it cluteau. Clue
is way better a name for it, but Cluteo is
what it's called basically outside of North America.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
And the reason that you would qualify outside of North
America is because it's a big hit all over the country.
It's translated into Spanish, Swiss, well you know those two,
among other languages.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I think we should go back in time. It's one
of the great games of all time and talk a
little bit about the invention of Clue, because it's a
pretty good story. There was a guy named Anthony Pratt
Anthony E. Pratt, not to be confused with the other
Anthony Pratt.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Why is that name sound familiar?
Speaker 1 (03:19):
I don't know. You may be thinking Chris Pratt. Well,
I think Anthony Pratt's a politician of some kinds.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Okay, that might be it. No, I know who Chris
Pratt is, Well, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Anthony E. Pratt was born in Birmingham near Birmingham in
nineteen oh three, England that is, and as he was
a high school dropout professional piano player, and during World
War One when he was but a young teen, the
story goes that he and his friends would sit around
and play what he called a stupid game called murder,
(03:51):
where guests crept up on each other in corridors and
the victim would shriek and fall on the floor. And
apparently post high school years was a traveling piano player
that would play at these sort of ritzy country hotels
where guests in the hotel would put this on at like,
you know, murder Mystery Night, and it was a thing.
(04:12):
It's still a thing, Murder Mystery Night, and it's you know,
it's sort of one of my favorite kinds of books
in movies, like the Knives Out kind of thing. And
he and his friends were doing this as teenagers.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, and apparently he didn't like that, Like you said,
he didn't like the game murder, but he did like
the ones they put on at hotels. He didn't like
Agatha Christie, which is kind of surprising because if his
game can be compared to anybody's books, it's Agatha Christie's
for sure. And so that was the Inner War period.
During World War Two, nineteen forty three found him working
(04:46):
as a law clerk. He also worked in a munitions
factory as well. And because there are blackouts at night,
because the UK was getting bombed on the regular, you
didn't you couldn't go out. There's nothing to do. People
and come over. You didn't do anything. You just hung
out with your family. And luckily he and his wife
had a gaming streak I guess with in common because
(05:10):
if you think about it, it's very rare to sit
down and come up with a board game, even in
that situation, like it just takes a certain person. And
you put Elva and Anthony Pratt together in blackout conditions
in nineteen forty three and they're going to come up
with clue.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Yeah. Originally they called it murder. Still this time with
an exclamation point, almost an apostrophe. It was called murder,
and he thought, and they thought rather. I think she
designed some of the artwork and stuff in the original
rooms and things like that and worked on the gameplay together.
But he knew that like you can sell board games
(05:47):
because he actually had a friend named Jeffrey Bull who
sold the game to Waddington's Games of London, so he
was like, you know, we can actually sell this thing,
like we're not just creating a fun game for our family.
And that first initial game had ten characters. One was
randomly chosen as the victim, which is a little different
than the clue that we know and love, and there
(06:08):
were nine weapons. The ones that were different that I
think are still kind of fun are a bomb that
would just be a fun little game piece, I think
like a classic cartoon like round fused bomb, a hypodermic
syringe kind of dark, a poison bottle which is pretty
obvious for a murder mystery. And then an Irish shiale,
(06:31):
which is would be really kind of cool to have today.
If you don't know what that is, it was. It
sort of looks like a cane and later you could
function it as a cane, but what it really was
was early Irish stick fighting. It's a cudgel in you know,
it's like a cane with a larger ball on the
end where your hand would be the business end. Yeah.
(06:51):
So just like if you look at the Boston Celtic's logo,
that cane that little Celtic has is in fact a schileela.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah that's right. Yeah, nice description of that chuck. Where
do you go?
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah? I didn't know stick fighting was a thing. I
kind of went down a rabbit hole and apparently it
was a stick to fight with it first, but then
later on it was just like, oh no, this is
just my cane. Whack whack, No, gotcha, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
So something I thought was pretty sweet was that the
Pratts managed to get a meeting with the people at
Wattington's thanks to their friend the Bulls, Jeffrey Bull and
his wife and the Bulls went with them to that
meeting and they all sat down and played this game
murder together, and basically on the spot, Waddington's was like,
(07:39):
we'll take it. In nineteen forty five, they came up
with an agreement to produce the game. Anthony Pratt got
a patent for it in nineteen forty seven. But again,
because the UK was getting bombed on the regular during
World War Two and there was a War going on,
it was kind of difficult to come by some of
the material needed, so it kind of got its start
(08:02):
and fits and starts really kind of beginning around nineteen
forty nine.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah, they named it Cluto, like you said, spelled like
clue with do o at the end. That is Latin
for iplay. And there's also a game called Ludo in Britain.
It's like a par cheesy game. So I guess they
thought it had some just name appeal or whatever. I
guess would be my guest, because Cluto doesn't make any.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Sense, not in North America.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
No, right, well, I mean, but was it even a
word there?
Speaker 2 (08:34):
No, it was a made up word.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Yeah, it didn't make sense then either.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
So that was Waddington's take on it, and Parker Brothers
is like, that's lame, Wattington's you're our partner in the UK,
but we're gonna name it Clue. And they produced a
slightly different version I think, for example, in Cludo. In
the original Cludo, mister Green here in the United States
was called Reverend Green. There the little differences like that
(09:01):
that you would pick up on depending on whether you
lived in the United States or Great Britain and then
I think the actual house that it's modeled on also
distinguished the two games. In the UK version, supposedly it
was inspired by a mansion in Sussex called Tudor Close
(09:23):
and still around. You can see pictures of Tudor Close.
But one of the things that supports the idea is
that in nineteen thirty seven it was renovated to include
a billiard's room in a ballroom. And then for the
American version, it was supposedly inspired by the house of
George Parker, founder of Parker Brothers Games, who had an
(09:44):
estate that he bought in New Hampshire in nineteen twenty five,
and it bore some resemblance to it as well. That
house is still around too.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yeah, but I think you and I agree that there
is only one clue house, and that is the one
on the cover of the nineteen seventy two American Board
Game edition.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Absolutely true, that's the house.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
I'm not sure where it is because medium tricked me.
I know, still salty about that. So in nineteen fifty three,
Pratt sold his overseas sales rights for five thousand pounds,
which would be one hundred little over one hundred and
sixteen thousand pounds today, good chunk of change, although he
(10:23):
would complain and I think has a very good point
that like, hey, they didn't tell me they were already
selling it over there. That's a great point, and that
it was super popular, so it probably and it seems
like a sort of a lifelong thing with he and
his wife Elda, that they never got the money they
should have gotten. But it was it was enough money
at the time, in one chunk to be able to
quit his job and play piano full time. And he
(10:45):
was getting those mailbox checks from the domestic UK sales.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Yeah, it was worth about one hundred and sixteen thousand
pounds in today's money or one hundred and forty seven
thousand US dollars. Not enough to retire on, but he
apparently retired on it. And like you said, he was
getting those mailbox checks too, but they were set to
expire in nineteen sixty one, and supposedly the Independent termed
evidence that it might have been extended up to four years,
(11:11):
so at the latest he stopped getting checks in nineteen
sixty five, and he lived until nineteen ninety four, so
he had to make do all over again. It was
a fortune a mild fortune that he made and then
you know, just kind of lived on and had to
go back to work eventually.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Yeah, like he should have been getting checked till the
day he died.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Absolutely, And I mean like in Waddington's not informing him
that Clue was Gangbusters over there. It's like, yes, if
you're a business mind, you could be like, yeah, that's business.
It's called doing your due diligence. If you're Anthony Pratt
and it's nineteen fifty three, how are you going to
find out what the sales are from Parker Brothers of
Clue in North America? If you don't even have a
(11:53):
clue that you're the American version of Clue is selling
like Gangbusters over there, you probably I don't know how
you would even find that out.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
No, he was taking advantage of I think so. I
think that's might His daughter still lives today. Marcia Davies
has been on record saying and interviewed like that. You know,
it's not like we talked about Cludo much in our house.
My mom would grouse about it occasionally that they didn't
get the money they should have gotten from it.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
It's a what word grouse?
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, it's a good word, yeah, double meaning to what.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
That it's a birdend yeah, attitude.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Yeah absolutely. Here is what it says on and there's
a little story I'll let you tell afterward. But like
you said, he died ninety four and on his grave
it says a very dear father. Anthony E. Pratt born
ten August nineteen oh three died nine April nineteen ninety four,
inventor of Cludo, sadly missed. I really wish that she
(12:58):
had put, you know, killed by miss Scarlett in the
conservatory with a lead pipe.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
That would have been awesome, just for fine, for sure.
Apparently he died in such obscurity that Waddington's had no
idea that he was dead for three years. And there's
no telling if they ever really would have found out
had they not been searching for him to celebrate Cludo's
one hundred and fifty one hundred and fifty millionth sale. Yeah,
(13:26):
and they put out a press release telling the public like, hey,
we're looking for this guy. The title of the press
release was wanted Colon for murder most Enjoyable. And apparently
the person who ran the cemetery that he's buried in
knew that he was buried there and got in touch
with Waddington's and said, don't waste your time. Man.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
That whole thing just really upsets me.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
It is kind of upsetting. There's nothing really good about
the Anthony Pratt story.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yeah, because like, first of all, they I think misled him,
and then you know, hey, he's an old man. Let's
rub in the fact that we've sold one hundred and
fifty million of these games, right, sure that he didn't
have a piece of so like, let's find him. Yeah,
and they're like, he's been dead for three years.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Even worse than that, Chuck, I read that they petitioned
to exume him, to bring him to the celebration anyway.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Following I've read that medium, I mean, he should be
ground in, Like they should have a statue of him
at Waddington's.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
For sure, because the reason why not just because we're
Clue fans, but because it's According to fun dot Com,
among other sources, it's probably the fifth most popular board
game of all time, and that includes not just like
Monopoly and scrabble, We're talking about chess and checkers. It's
in the top five with chess and checkers that have
(14:47):
been around for thousands of years, so it was like
a huge blockbuster game.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah, I'm gonna call it the third I don't even
that should just be for branded games.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
I agree with you. I totally think that sucker stuff
calling chess and check her.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
So I say it's the third most popular game of
all time. We did a Monopoly episode. What's the other one? Scrabble? Yeah, yeah,
we should probably do a Scrabble app at some point. Okay,
maybe we can get Hodgman to make a rare guest appearance.
Yeah rare, but everyone on Reddit gets mad at every
time I say the name Hodgman.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
It's awesome. That must have been a very enlightening experience.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Huh, short lived, my friends.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
So, Chuck, I say that we take a little break
and when we come back, we talk about how to
actually play Clue as cobbled together from people who know
what they're talking about.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
So my one regret is that I didn't get it
(16:00):
together enough because we were on tour to play Clue
before this game, before this recording. Because I haven't played
it in a long time. Emily and I used to
play Monoy Mono Clue. Oh well, and can we quit? Yeah? Okay,
it's not as fun. Okay, and it's certainly not fun
(16:21):
to play with Emily because she feels like she has
a sort of patented foolproof victory route. Oh yeah, she
has a methodology that she will not tell me what
it is, and she's she beat me every time. So
we just quit playing.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
That was like you, me and me with backgammon?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Who won? You and me? And she has a thing like.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Yeah, she was like, it's the strategy of back strategy,
not like it's a secret or anything. She's like, I
just figured it out, and I still have never figured
it out. So we just stopped playing.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Well, maybe we'll all get together, they can just play
each other in games and we'll just sit around and
have a cocktail.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
That sounds like a great idea, man, because.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
I'm not competitive like that. I am not either.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
It's been so long since I played a board game
I don't remember fully, and it seems like I could
be competitive. But okay, I think I was competitive at
trivial pursuit.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Yeah. I mean I love board games. I just never
play the much anymore because we don't have a lot
of friends who are like, hey, let's have board game night.
But I'd totally be into it.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah, totally for sure.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
All right, So let's talk clue.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Eh oh yeah, So in the Classic Clue game, there's
so many variations on it that are slightly different. Some
have like extra like cards to them, or the names
of the characters are a little different. But if you
just look at the basic Classic Clue, which that's what
we're going to talk.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
About, nineteen seventy.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Two, seventy two, eighty six, twenty twenty three, even they
re updated the classic version. But you're supposed to play
with three to six players, and clearly you can play
with two. I've seen in places you can play with two.
But if you look at the instructions, it says three
to six players ages eight and up. And if you're
seven and a half im precocious, maybe you get a pass,
(18:09):
but really you don't want to play with anybody under eight. Typically.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah, I'm curious if Ruby would be into this. We'll
have to give it a shot.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Okay, fair enough.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, so eight and up, what you do is you
choose to be the identity of one of six people.
Colonel Mustard, yeah, the Colonel, the Good Colonel, Miss Peacock,
Professor Plum, missus White, mister Green, and of course miss
Scarlett who as a young Baptist boy that seventy two clue.
(18:40):
I looked at her picture quite a bit.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
She's very attractive, for sure. So who were you? Who
did you pick? Normally? Was there like one character for
you when you're you know.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
I don't remember having a favorite now that I think
about it, did you?
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Professor Plumb?
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Okay, that fits.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
I just like the name, and the color is pretty too,
But for some reason, it's it's like cellar door for
me kind of yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
You were you know, you're a literary sort of type,
were you back then?
Speaker 2 (19:09):
No? No, I like to read, but I would not
call myself the literary. I didn't become pretentious until much later.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
And like, yeah, like they didn't have Joe the Plumber.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
So right, So there's six murder weapons, right, six suspects,
six murder weapons in the classic game, the knife, the revolver,
the wrench, ouch, the rope, the candlestick, and the lead pipe.
A lot of head trauma among these, you.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Know, yeah, four of them are are are whackers.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Huh exactly? No shell Ailey, But still it gets the
point across.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
And I guess three of them are technically whackers.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
What the candlestick, the wrench in the lead.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Pipe, Yeah, because the rope is is a choker, revolver
is a shooter, and the knife is a stabber. Right,
so I overshot it by one. Although you could hit
somebody with a rope or the butt of a gun.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Right, Or if you have a candle in the candlestick,
you could light them on fire.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Ah, good point, or you could do some creative things
that lit bike.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, I'm saying you could use it as a blowgun.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Oh, yeah, absolutely, although it's.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Bent in the game, so it probably wouldn't work very well. Yeah,
although you could use it to shoot around a corner.
So there's also nine rooms on the board, right, and
there's the hall, the lounge, the dining room, the kitchen,
the ballroom, the conservatory, the library, and the study. And
(20:33):
this was where I learned about manor houses and general
estates architectural layouts, usually on the first floor.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Yeah, I didn't know what a conservatory was like. It
introduced me to some of these terms even.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah, and the other thing, everybody, if you didn't play
the seventy two edition, go look it up. There's there's
some for sale, but if you look at the board,
it's really beautiful. Like they used textures and colors to
signify what room was. What I think for the ballroom
it was like parquet flooring.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah, yeah, I think this like wallpaper in one I think.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yeah, I don't remember which one that was. The kitchen
had like doyley a doily pattern, yeah, and the I
think the study had like a red burgundy leather background.
It was just really neat looking.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, totally. And it was as a kid, your imagination
is just running wild with this stuff because it is
a game, and that's kind of one of the fun
things about it. Yeah, especially as a kid, is a
game that has backstory, and it a lot goes on
in your imagination. It's not Sorry or Shoots and Ladders, you.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Know, exactly well put And in addition to the fact
that it had that potential to create that it was
masterfully put together. Like the details of it were really
evocative of that kind of thing, So like it really
helped it along, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yeah, totally. All right. So the beginning of the game,
there are three cards that reveal the murder weapon, the
murderer and where it took place. You seal those in
an envelope, and the whole goal of the game is
to figure out who did the murder, with what weapon
and in what room.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Yes, and apparently there's about three hundred and twenty four
different solutions that it could be, which really doesn't matter
because as long as there's more than one or two
or three, you're gonna it's gonna be a different game
every time. Yeah, So you roll the dice to move
along the hallways in between rooms, and then your goal
(22:38):
initially is to get into a room, because only when
you're in a room can you say that you think
the murder happened in that room. You can't do it
from the hallway or whatever, right right, and when you're there,
when you can make a suggestion. It's kind of like
a soft accusation right right where you can say, I
think that it's Colonel Mustard in the ballroom, which I'm
(23:02):
currently in with the rope. And what happens next is
you go from player to player, beginning at the player
on your left, and if they have Colonel Mustard or
the ballroom or the rope card, because there's a card
for each character, each weapon in each room, and everybody's
(23:24):
distributed cards that they keep to themselves. If they have
one of those cards, they have to show you, and
if they have two of those cards, they still only
have to show you one. But then your turn is over.
You've just been your theory has just been disproven. Now
you didn't win, but at the same time, you just
gained a tremendous amount of information, and the other people playing,
(23:46):
if they're paying attention, gained a lesser amount, but still
some information the game like that you're paying attention like that,
it's deduction.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Yeah, it's using process of elimination and deduction and making notes.
And we'll get into that in a second. One key
thing here that I'm not I don't think you said,
was you bring all that stuff into the room, like
you bring that rope and that character into the room.
So you can also use a little bit of strategy
there to pull Colonel Mustard, you know, that player away
(24:19):
from where they were into that room.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah, that's a great point. For sure. Some of it's luck, right, sure,
I mean you roll the dice and you may or
may not get into the room. And if you're not
in the room, even if you know who it is.
You know, let's say you're you're over in the study
and you got to get all the way to the
kitchen because you know it's the kitchen. You can't make
that final accusation and win the game until you're in
(24:41):
the kitchen. So dice rolls have something to do with it,
but really more than anything, like we said, it's mostly
up to deduction and paying attention to the information you can.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Glean, right, And I think I may have missed it
if you said it. Did you also say that if
no one reveals any card at all, then you can
actually like lay it all on the line and make
an official accusation.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
No, I didn't say that.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Okay, well that's one of the keys, Like if no
one reveals a card, then you know, like, well wait
a minute, they don't have those cards, so it's possible
that those are the three cards in that envelope.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Right.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
If it's early in the game, it's obviously a huge risk.
You probably want to say that un till later once
you've narrowed it down more. But you can I was
about to say, throw your cards on the table, but
don't do that. But you can say, you know what,
I'm going I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna go for it.
And you look in that envelope and if that's it,
that's it. You're one. You've won it, and if not,
then you're out.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
That's the regress, Yeah, because now you know who did
it with what weapon and in what room. So you're
out of the game.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
You go pop the popcorn exactly Now.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
If you if you make that suggestion, that's your theory
of who did it with what and where, and nobody
shows you the card. If you don't have any of
those cards, then you pretty much know that's you're that
you're right because I think all the cards are distributed
equally among everybody, right, Yeah, but you would say, well,
(26:10):
why would you even say that? If you why would
you mention one of the ones that you have in
your hand? And this this is where we start to
get into like like real deal strategy that you're not
going to find in the rule books very much, but
work really well for Clue.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Yeah, and we're going to go over there is in
one sec. But I did want to add, like one
of the genius things of Clue to me is that
even even when you're eliminated, it's still fun to sit around.
It's not. It's not one of those games where you're like, well,
I'm out of here then, because you know, I'm out
of the game and watching it is no fun. It's
still fun to sit around and drink a cocktail and
(26:47):
heckle everyone.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Else, especially if you're eight.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Yeah, but yeah, I was.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
It's funny you say that because when we were researching this,
or when I was researching it today, I had that
same memory. I was like, I remember, I wouldn't get
up from the table, like after I was eliminated. I'd
just stay there and watch. It was really entertaining. It
was like the pre internet version of Steam.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
I don't know what that is.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
It's where you it's like an internet thing where you
watch people playing video games, like you're just watching them
play video games.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Oh really?
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yeah? Oh wow, yeah that's people people make a living
doing that.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Is that the thing where people play? Oh did you
say video games? Yeah? Oh oh yeah, I have heard
of that. Ill thought you were saying board games.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
No. No, I'll bet that's too for sure. I'll bet
that's out there too, and I'll bet they make a
living from it as well.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
All Right, So we promised some uh, some strategies, and
these were where did we call these from?
Speaker 2 (27:42):
They came from the Spruce Crafts stack exchange posts and
Reddit threads.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
That's a good place to go, probably.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
For sure, because I mean people share strategy for Clue
all over the internet, and if it works, it works.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Yeah. Now here's the deal. I haven't played it so long.
A lot of these just I didn't fully understand because
I'm just so out of practice. So I'm going to
buy that seventy two game and get back into it
and revisit these, but I can't tell you about them.
One of the strategies, and you know it's kind of
the most obvious one is you're using those suggestions to
(28:19):
but to get into that process of elimination and eliminate
you know, people, rooms and weapons. It's hardest for the
rooms because you have to be in that room to
get it, so you actually have to roll the dice
to get there. But you know, you're if you're trying
to eliminate a weapon, like you want that gun out
of the game, then suggest it and see if they
(28:40):
have it, and then you know you can keep sort
of harping on that, right, But that may mean that
you're also trying to throw people off the scent and
they might catch on you might actually have that card, right.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah, or yeah, if you're watching, if you're playing with
somebody and they keep mentioning the revolver whatever every time
they make a suggestion, that means either they have the
revolver and they're using a process of elimination, or they've
already figured out the revolver is the actual murder weapon.
So if you're being really strategic, you don't want to
(29:12):
use that same one. If you know that that something
is in that envelope, that sealed envelope is the weapon
or the murderer or the room, maybe mix it up
a little bit to pay to throw off the people
who are really paying attention to you.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah, for sure. So if you make or if anyone
makes a suggestion, and you know, like if you suggest
something to you me and Emily and I notice that
she doesn't, or that nobody shows a card, or if
you suggest something period and no one shows you a card,
then chances are that you've gotten one of the three
(29:49):
cards in that envelope in your suggestion.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Right, But that doesn't mean that you necessarily have the
answer if you don't have any of those three cards
in your hand, because if you have more than one card,
Let's say you say Professor Plum with the lead pipe
in the conservatory, and I have Professor Plumb and the
Conservatory in my hand, I only have to show you
(30:15):
Professor Plum or the Conservatory. I don't have to show
you both. And so a good strategy is, if I've
shown you Professor Plum, I can write down showed Professor
Plumb already, And so if somebody guesses Professor Plum and
the Conservatory again, I can just show you Professor Plum
and I will not be giving the information to anybody
(30:35):
that I have the Conservatory as well.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
You know what this episode is what Clue people are
going to love it and be angry at us, right,
non Clue people are just going to hate us.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Why because they're not they're having trouble following what we're saying.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Well, of course, if you've never played Clue, this is
getting in the weeds. You know, sure it is, for sure,
but we're getting in the weeds such that I'll don't
feel confident we're getting it all right, So Clue it's
will be like, oh, guys, how could you forget that feeling?
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Is like an old friend to us by now, Chuck.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
It really it's just the fourth leg of our podcast exactly.
One thing that they say you can do is, you know,
if you play against the same people, you know, it's
not unlike poker, and that people bluff and they have
their own little tricks and things and tells, so just
to sort of pay attention and try and read them.
If you play with your family all the time, let's say.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
For sure, so this is the this is what it
all boils down to right here, Chuck. It's it's deduction,
it's prospective elimination. I'll bet you can't. So let's say
you're holding Miss Scarlet and your friend you already know
has the candlestick because you guessed it before and they
showed it to you, so you know that they have
the candlestick. And then somebody else says that they think
(31:54):
it was Miss Scarlet in the dining room with the candlestick,
and another player is like, here's a card that disproves it.
You know that that player has the dining room, right,
you have Miss Scarlett. Your other friend has the candlestick.
That fourth player has the dining room because they showed
it to player three, and you mark that down, and
if you do that enough times, you can figure out
(32:15):
what cards are being held by people, and hence, through
process of elimination, what cards are likeliest hidden in the
envelope as the murderer and the murder weapon and the
room the murder took place in.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
I'm sure that's what Emily's doing, and like a variation
on that, because she's she's scribbling down stuff, right, I'm
not taking nearly enough notes clearly, because that's a big
part of the game. Yeah, And when I was reading
about all the different note taking and you're gonna need
an even bigger notebook than the notepad they give you,
I was like, oh, really, no.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
It's true. There's like the it's a logic problem basically,
so much so that they train artificial intelligence on it.
There's a Dutch computer scientist named Hans vun dip March
who did a like a Cluto formalization they took. He
(33:05):
took Cluto and translated it into AI instructions, and basically
what his premise is that it's all changes in information.
When you interact with other players, your information changes, and
so the AI tries to figure out what route it
has to take through player to player to player to
(33:26):
get to the information it needs to win the game
in the fewest moves, which essentially is probably what Emily's doing.
So you're married to an artificial intelligence.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
It turns out that, yeah, sure that makes sense, that
tracks me.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
But I mean that's how logical clue actually is. It's
this process of deduction where if you if you can
track the information that you're getting or that other people
are getting, you can win the game every time. Basically.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Yeah, And was that the thing that Duke University used.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Yeah, they came up with their own thing, an algorithm
to play clue, which anytime you have a logic problem,
you can develop an algorithm for it.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Right, Yeah, So they basically were turned it into an
algorithm for what you were kind of talking about, like
a treasure hunt problem. How to get there the quickest,
how to get to the answer the quickest. And they said, like,
you know, one day they can apply this kind of
thing to stuff like robotic mind sweeping even, yeah, which
is pretty cool. Go find the mind like quicker.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Yeah, if you're just playing casually with friends casually, or
if you're the only one who's not playing casually. Maybe
reconsider using some of these harder core in the weeds
strategies and just pay attention and use the notepad that
it comes with and have fun.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Yeah, and maybe don't announce before the game that I
have a full proof method that I win every time.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yeah, and at least don't take a lap around the
game table after you win. She's the worst winner, all right,
So let's take a break then and we'll come right
back everybody. So, like we said, there's a bunch of
(35:21):
variations that are just super darling if you played clue
and it has a place in your heart. Depending on
where you are in the world, there's just different names
for different characters. Right. We said that mister Green is
called Reverend Green. In the UK, there used to be
the victim, remember this, the owner of the house that
(35:42):
everybody's at. These are party guests ostensibly, and the murder
takes place, and it's the host who's murdered every time.
And the host in the US is known as mister
body with two d's kind of some gallows humor. In
the UK he's known as doctor Black, Right.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
I like that too.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
What about in Switzerland.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
It's funny because some of these I was like, no,
of course not. It's the classic, is what you want.
But some of these I liked Hercludo in Switzerland, signor
Lemon in Spain, like you said, he was Reverend Green,
but Doctor Olive in France was mister Green, which is okay.
Professor Plum is Professor Black. In Brazil, Missus Peacock is
(36:25):
Baroness von Blau, which I love. In Norway and in Switzerland,
I do not like this one. Colonel Mustard is Madame Curry,
not Currie. Is that what it's supposed to be? I
guess so I thought Currie was c Urie, right it is,
But Curry is a color? Is that a play on that?
Speaker 2 (36:48):
I think?
Speaker 1 (36:48):
So that's how I hated even more.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
All right. There's also been some changes to the materials too.
If you bought the original version of Clue back in
nineteen forty nine, I guess the rope was actually a
little tiny piece of rope.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
I love that, And the lead pipe was made of lead. Amazing.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yeah, that's authentic stuff. Over the years, though they've they've
generally stuck to the same premise, the same characters, and
just kind of like it's been like jazz, like they've
been riffing on you know, the original form.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Yeah, like the backstories would change a little bit. And
this is the kind of thing where I'm really going
to try and resist the urge to poo poo more
modernized changes as like you know gen X guy who
says the seventy two version is the best. But Colonel
Mustard is a soccer star. As of two thousand and eight,
(37:44):
Jack Mustard Professor Plum was turned into Victor Plum, a
video game designer.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Brilliant video game designer.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah, that's fine, you know, if that helps, you know,
kids get into it a little more. What I am
going to take issue with is adding home is one
of the rooms.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
That's funny because that was the one that made the
most sense to me. Oh, I don't know, updating the room.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Yeah, I mean it makes sense. I just I don't know,
killed somebody with a candlestick in the home theater, I
don't know. Just it feels at odds with the sort
of because I still sort of associate it with this
sort of English estate kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
I see what you mean, for sure, I get that,
but I guess they probably have home theaters in the UK.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Right, No, of course they do, okay.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
So that was the Discover the Secrets two thousand and
eight edition. That was probably, from what I can tell,
the biggest makeover of any of the editions. They went
so far as to get rid of Missus White and
replaced her with her adopted daughter, Doctor Orchid. That didn't
(38:54):
last all that long. I guess it lasted a decade
or two. But in twenty twenty three they came up
with another update and they basically took it back to
the beginning. Missus White came back, but now she's Chef White.
They combined the UK and the American names for the
host and now it's mister Bodden body Black. Colonel Mustard
(39:15):
stopped playing soccer and went back to the military. Missus
Peacock is now a lawyer, a solicitor, Mister Green's a mayor.
Miss Scarlett's the same, and Professor Plumb is the same.
And the weapons of the rooms are back to what
they were back when we love the game, Chuck, so
you can settle down.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Yeah, And I looked up this new one because there
are people that have been saying, like, oh, they made
them all sexy looking. I don't know about that. I
guess they're a little they skew younger than the original
cast on that or not the original, but the seventy
two version.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Yea.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
I believe missus Scarlett and Plumb now are people of color,
so they've they've got a little more diverse, which is good.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
I think Mayor Green is as well.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
And they're also licensed versions. Whi you know. I had
that Star Wars monopoly, which is a lot of fun.
But apparently there's a Alfred Hitchcock.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Clue that sounds awesome.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
It sounds pretty good where the characters are characters from
the movies. Hitchcock movies is kind of fun.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
One of the rooms is the Bait Motel.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Baits Motel, of course it is. You know.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
I finally saw Psycho for the first time, just like
a month ago. Maybe I was reading about it and
I guess I'll watched that documentary about the shower scene,
which is pretty good documentary. Now it made me realize,
like the way that people were talking about the movie,
I'm like, that doesn't track with what I know about Psycho.
(40:37):
Turns out it's a far different movie than what I realized.
It's really good.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Yeah, I mean that whole first part of the movie, Like,
if you haven't seen it, you probably wouldn't even know
it existed because not many people talk about it.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Yeah, and I can imagine like watching that movie before,
you know, everyone knew that Norman Bates was the killer. Yeah,
and that you know, the protagonist who you think is
a protagon gets killed off the big star that it
was just totally shocking.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Yeah, must have been amazing. Have you seen a lot
of Hitchcock stuff.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Yeah, which is why it's really weird that I hadn't
seen Psycho.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Yeah, great movie, Scooby Doo version, the weapons or monsters.
And then this one's kind of cute, the Golden Girls
clue version and instead of murder, it's who ate the
last slice cheesecake?
Speaker 2 (41:27):
That's adorable.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
It's so what do they call it online? Wholesome?
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Wholesome? Right, So there's been a ton of spin offs
of the clue ip owned by Hasbro by the way,
which who also made our stuff you should know, version
of Trivial Pursuit.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Yeah, they bought out the other companies, right, Parker Brothers
and wat Waddington's.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yes, they dominate. But so there was like a game
show in the UK from nineteen ninety to ninety three,
which was pretty cute. I watching part of an episode.
There was a book, a series of young adult mystery books.
There was a nineteen eighties VCR game which is actually
really beloved and harder than the board game by far.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
I remember those. Yeah, me too, Not Clue, but just
VCR games.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Supposedly Dwayne Perkins from The Blackening is coming up with
an animated series based on Clue.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
And we just could not have this episode and not
discuss the classic nineteen eighty five movie Clue. It's so good,
not just as in its own right a good movie,
but as an adaptation of something that already existed, it
just did it perfectly.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Yeah, it's one of my favorite comedies of the eighties
for sure. It was, you know, now, making something like
a movie out of a video game as something that
wouldn't surprise you, but nineteen eighty five, it was very unusual.
It was written and directed, co written by Jonathan Lynn
and directed by Jonathan co written with John Landis.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Jonathan Lynn also directed My cousin Vinnie in the Whole
nine Yards.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Oh cute.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
So you know a few other pretty big movies, huh,
And it's just it's one of my favorites. The big mistake, then,
why it was considered a box office flop, was that
studio executives got greedy and they would send one three
different prints of Clue to movie theaters with a different
ending on each print, with the idea that, hey, people
(43:34):
will go and see this movie three times to go
and see the three possible endings. And it did not
work out that way.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
I know that's crazy because I saw in the theaters
and I was enthralled by the idea that there were
other endings. I thought that was the coolest thing I'd
ever seen in my short nine years on the planet.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
Did you go see other versions in the theater? Do
you remember? No?
Speaker 2 (43:55):
I was just content with knowing there were other versions
out there. But when the movie came out on VHS,
we rented it like too sweet to watch them all
because they very wisely included them all in the ending,
which is the same if you watch it on like
prim or Netflix or whatever.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Now, Yeah, and not only is it great to not
have to pay three times to go see it, but
it functions really well with the one, two, three endings
because you know, they do the ending and they'll say
or it could have happened like this, and then they
I mean that's when Tim Curry just, yeah, really shines.
I mean he's great through the whole thing as Wadsworth
(44:32):
the Butler, but he really really shines when he's It's
just a genius comedic performance.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Yeah, for sure. So did Madeline con as Missus White
when she talks about hating Yvette. Oh God, that was
apparently improvised.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Classic.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Yeah, if you haven't seen Clue, go see it like tonight.
It's just such a great movie. And our friends over
at Mental Floss, Matthew Jackson wrote something about like little
known facts about the movie Clue, and apparently there was
a fourth ending originally that they didn't bother shooting Carrie
Fisher was supposed to be Miss Scarlett God rather than
(45:10):
Lesliean Warren exactly. And get this the Telegram the Singing
Telegram Girl. That was Jane Weedland from The Go Gos.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
Yeah, I mean there's another one too, if you want
to hear it, let's hear it. You know who played
mister Body. No, it was Lee Ving, who was the
singer and guitarist of the hardcore punk band fear No Yes,
John Belushi's buddy Wow. So two music connections. I think
we should go through the rest of the cast too,
just because it's short and amazing.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
It is a great cast.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Christopher Lloyd played Professor Plum. You already mentioned the great
Madeline con flames on the side of my face. It's
just unbelievable. Also in that scene when he's running, he
grabs her. Tim Curry grabs her to run upstairs and
explain how she did it in one of the things,
and she, I don't think she probably made this up
to She just she trips and falls on her face
(46:04):
like a third of the way up the stairs, and
he keeps going.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Great physical comedy. The great Martin mall is Colonel Mustard.
Michael McKean is mister Green. I mean, I feel like
ruining his great last line, but maybe I shouldn't.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Yeah, don't, okay.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
Eileen Brennan who was wonderful Miss Peacock. We already mentioned
Jane Whenland and Ving. Colleen camp classic as Yvette, and
if you recognized the cook, it was she was a match.
Kelly Nakahara played the cook and she played Lieutenant Yamoto
and match.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
Remember, so the cast is.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Amazing, and if you're interested in a deeper dive, the
great and wonderful Casey Wilson was a movie Crush guest
and this was her movie.
Speaker 2 (46:53):
Nice, that's a great movie.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
If you want to know more about Clue the movie,
go watch it. Don't read anything else about it, don't
listen to anybody else jabron about it. Just go watch
it and thank us later. And if you've never played Clue,
you do a lot worse than starting with the nineteen
seventy two edition.
Speaker 3 (47:11):
Friends.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
Yeah, well, since Chuck agreed with my assessment, that means,
of course it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
I'm gonna watch it again soon. I'm now remembering how
great Eileen Brennan was.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Yeah, she's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Everyone is so good. All right, here we go. Hi,
Josh and Chuck had just finished this is a correction of.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Epic proportions.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
No, it's just something that we like to correct these,
especially just finished listening to the JD. Salinger episode. Fascinating listen,
So thanks for diving into this. I'm a big fan
of stuff. You should know. This my first time sitting
in a correction, But the end of the episode, Joshua
purs to an article by a guy named Michiko Kakuchani.
I thought it was important to note that Michiko Kakuchani
(47:56):
is a woman. She's a revered literary critic, writer, and
Alitzer Prize winner, and I wanted to make this trailblazing
woman make sure that she got her due on your show.
And that is from Julie Ann at Behar from White Salmon, Washington.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Thanks a lot, Julian, and I appreciate it. I feel
like all the corrections that we're reading lately are mine disproportionately.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
I'm not filing mine away and like burning them.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
Yeah, that was a pretty big flub. I'm sorry about that.
Thank you for that correction. That was a good one.
If I misspoke in this episode or any other episode
that you noticed, let us know about it. Chuckle. Read
it for sure on the air. You can send it
off via email to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
(48:43):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck.
And guess what. Jerry's here too. And I'll tell you what.
Jerry will be the one who murdered us if we
ever turn up dead in a lounge, ballroom, conservatory. And
she'll probably have used a lead pipe, because Jerry carries
a lead pipe with her at all times.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
That her nickname is miss Scarlett.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, she makes us call her Miss Scarlett.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
I have to say, this feels like a chuck pick
through and through. But it was your pick, so I
have to ask right away if you are a cluist.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I'm not directly, Oh, historically, yes, it's one of my
favorite games of all time.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Oh great, me a lot. All right, Well, we're gonna
have fun talking about this then, man, I love Clue.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
As a matter of fact, I went on eBay and
made a low offer on a complete nineteen seventy two
edition of Clue, which is the one I grew up with.
Oh yeah, I was like, I guess I had the
eighty six and I looked. I was like, nope, that's
not It went a little further back eighteen seventy two.
I just sort of drooling from nostalgia.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yeah, it's the seventy two. If you're in our age bracket,
the seventy two version is a very very nostalgic sort
of like it's just very evocative. It brings out and
smells in your brain and like fights your parents are
having in the other room, and oh, like cartoons that
are on. It's like, it's it's it hits hard. I
(01:37):
was very disappointed because I went to find out. I
was like, man, who, who are those models?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Now?
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Who took that picture?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Like?
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I was really curious. Yeah, and I found a thing
on medium that I didn't It's a it's a spoof, right,
it has to be.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yeah. I was like, oh my god, any leave of it.
I took that picture.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yeah, once you start reading it, though, I was like,
wait a minute. I was so disappointed because I I
even went to read it, and I don't know, I
couldn't find out any information on who those people were
or how that went down.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
I mean, it's just such an arcane thing to spoof.
It was called an Oral History of the photo Shoot
for the nineteen seventy two cover of Clue.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
How excited were you when you read that title?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah, I was like, this is some good this is
good treasure right here. Yeah, and then I thought, wow,
Anti leboit's like, shook that picture now. So whoever wrote that,
if you're out there, you got us.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Both, yeah, and shame on you.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
So we're talking about Clue the game. If you're in
the UK and you're like, what is this clue they're
talking about, allow us to also call it cluteau. Clue
is way better a name for it, but Cluteo is
what it's called basically outside of North America.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
And the reason that you would qualify outside of North
America is because it's a big hit all over the country.
It's translated into Spanish, Swiss, well you know those two,
among other languages.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I think we should go back in time. It's one
of the great games of all time and talk a
little bit about the invention of Clue, because it's a
pretty good story. There was a guy named Anthony Pratt
Anthony E. Pratt, not to be confused with the other
Anthony Pratt.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Why is that name sound familiar?
Speaker 1 (03:19):
I don't know. You may be thinking Chris Pratt. Well,
I think Anthony Pratt's a politician of some kinds.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Okay, that might be it. No, I know who Chris
Pratt is, Well, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Anthony E. Pratt was born in Birmingham near Birmingham in
nineteen oh three, England that is, and as he was
a high school dropout professional piano player, and during World
War One when he was but a young teen, the
story goes that he and his friends would sit around
and play what he called a stupid game called murder,
(03:51):
where guests crept up on each other in corridors and
the victim would shriek and fall on the floor. And
apparently post high school years was a traveling piano player
that would play at these sort of ritzy country hotels
where guests in the hotel would put this on at like,
you know, murder Mystery Night, and it was a thing.
(04:12):
It's still a thing, Murder Mystery Night, and it's you know,
it's sort of one of my favorite kinds of books
in movies, like the Knives Out kind of thing. And
he and his friends were doing this as teenagers.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, and apparently he didn't like that, Like you said,
he didn't like the game murder, but he did like
the ones they put on at hotels. He didn't like
Agatha Christie, which is kind of surprising because if his
game can be compared to anybody's books, it's Agatha Christie's
for sure. And so that was the Inner War period.
During World War Two, nineteen forty three found him working
(04:46):
as a law clerk. He also worked in a munitions
factory as well. And because there are blackouts at night,
because the UK was getting bombed on the regular, you
didn't you couldn't go out. There's nothing to do. People
and come over. You didn't do anything. You just hung
out with your family. And luckily he and his wife
had a gaming streak I guess with in common because
(05:10):
if you think about it, it's very rare to sit
down and come up with a board game, even in
that situation, like it just takes a certain person. And
you put Elva and Anthony Pratt together in blackout conditions
in nineteen forty three and they're going to come up
with clue.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Yeah. Originally they called it murder. Still this time with
an exclamation point, almost an apostrophe. It was called murder,
and he thought, and they thought rather. I think she
designed some of the artwork and stuff in the original
rooms and things like that and worked on the gameplay together.
But he knew that like you can sell board games
(05:47):
because he actually had a friend named Jeffrey Bull who
sold the game to Waddington's Games of London, so he
was like, you know, we can actually sell this thing,
like we're not just creating a fun game for our family.
And that first initial game had ten characters. One was
randomly chosen as the victim, which is a little different
than the clue that we know and love, and there
(06:08):
were nine weapons. The ones that were different that I
think are still kind of fun are a bomb that
would just be a fun little game piece, I think
like a classic cartoon like round fused bomb, a hypodermic
syringe kind of dark, a poison bottle which is pretty
obvious for a murder mystery. And then an Irish shiale,
(06:31):
which is would be really kind of cool to have today.
If you don't know what that is, it was. It
sort of looks like a cane and later you could
function it as a cane, but what it really was
was early Irish stick fighting. It's a cudgel in you know,
it's like a cane with a larger ball on the
end where your hand would be the business end. Yeah.
(06:51):
So just like if you look at the Boston Celtic's logo,
that cane that little Celtic has is in fact a schileela.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah that's right. Yeah, nice description of that chuck. Where
do you go?
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah? I didn't know stick fighting was a thing. I
kind of went down a rabbit hole and apparently it
was a stick to fight with it first, but then
later on it was just like, oh no, this is
just my cane. Whack whack, No, gotcha, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
So something I thought was pretty sweet was that the
Pratts managed to get a meeting with the people at
Wattington's thanks to their friend the Bulls, Jeffrey Bull and
his wife and the Bulls went with them to that
meeting and they all sat down and played this game
murder together, and basically on the spot, Waddington's was like,
(07:39):
we'll take it. In nineteen forty five, they came up
with an agreement to produce the game. Anthony Pratt got
a patent for it in nineteen forty seven. But again,
because the UK was getting bombed on the regular during
World War Two and there was a War going on,
it was kind of difficult to come by some of
the material needed, so it kind of got its start
(08:02):
and fits and starts really kind of beginning around nineteen
forty nine.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah, they named it Cluto, like you said, spelled like
clue with do o at the end. That is Latin
for iplay. And there's also a game called Ludo in Britain.
It's like a par cheesy game. So I guess they
thought it had some just name appeal or whatever. I
guess would be my guest, because Cluto doesn't make any.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Sense, not in North America.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
No, right, well, I mean, but was it even a
word there?
Speaker 2 (08:34):
No, it was a made up word.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Yeah, it didn't make sense then either.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
So that was Waddington's take on it, and Parker Brothers
is like, that's lame, Wattington's you're our partner in the UK,
but we're gonna name it Clue. And they produced a
slightly different version I think, for example, in Cludo. In
the original Cludo, mister Green here in the United States
was called Reverend Green. There the little differences like that
(09:01):
that you would pick up on depending on whether you
lived in the United States or Great Britain and then
I think the actual house that it's modeled on also
distinguished the two games. In the UK version, supposedly it
was inspired by a mansion in Sussex called Tudor Close
(09:23):
and still around. You can see pictures of Tudor Close.
But one of the things that supports the idea is
that in nineteen thirty seven it was renovated to include
a billiard's room in a ballroom. And then for the
American version, it was supposedly inspired by the house of
George Parker, founder of Parker Brothers Games, who had an
(09:44):
estate that he bought in New Hampshire in nineteen twenty five,
and it bore some resemblance to it as well. That
house is still around too.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yeah, but I think you and I agree that there
is only one clue house, and that is the one
on the cover of the nineteen seventy two American Board
Game edition.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Absolutely true, that's the house.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
I'm not sure where it is because medium tricked me.
I know, still salty about that. So in nineteen fifty three,
Pratt sold his overseas sales rights for five thousand pounds,
which would be one hundred little over one hundred and
sixteen thousand pounds today, good chunk of change, although he
(10:23):
would complain and I think has a very good point
that like, hey, they didn't tell me they were already
selling it over there. That's a great point, and that
it was super popular, so it probably and it seems
like a sort of a lifelong thing with he and
his wife Elda, that they never got the money they
should have gotten. But it was it was enough money
at the time, in one chunk to be able to
quit his job and play piano full time. And he
(10:45):
was getting those mailbox checks from the domestic UK sales.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Yeah, it was worth about one hundred and sixteen thousand
pounds in today's money or one hundred and forty seven
thousand US dollars. Not enough to retire on, but he
apparently retired on it. And like you said, he was
getting those mailbox checks too, but they were set to
expire in nineteen sixty one, and supposedly the Independent termed
evidence that it might have been extended up to four years,
(11:11):
so at the latest he stopped getting checks in nineteen
sixty five, and he lived until nineteen ninety four, so
he had to make do all over again. It was
a fortune a mild fortune that he made and then
you know, just kind of lived on and had to
go back to work eventually.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Yeah, like he should have been getting checked till the
day he died.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Absolutely, And I mean like in Waddington's not informing him
that Clue was Gangbusters over there. It's like, yes, if
you're a business mind, you could be like, yeah, that's business.
It's called doing your due diligence. If you're Anthony Pratt
and it's nineteen fifty three, how are you going to
find out what the sales are from Parker Brothers of
Clue in North America? If you don't even have a
(11:53):
clue that you're the American version of Clue is selling
like Gangbusters over there, you probably I don't know how
you would even find that out.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
No, he was taking advantage of I think so. I
think that's might His daughter still lives today. Marcia Davies
has been on record saying and interviewed like that. You know,
it's not like we talked about Cludo much in our house.
My mom would grouse about it occasionally that they didn't
get the money they should have gotten from it.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
It's a what word grouse?
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, it's a good word, yeah, double meaning to what.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
That it's a birdend yeah, attitude.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Yeah absolutely. Here is what it says on and there's
a little story I'll let you tell afterward. But like
you said, he died ninety four and on his grave
it says a very dear father. Anthony E. Pratt born
ten August nineteen oh three died nine April nineteen ninety four,
inventor of Cludo, sadly missed. I really wish that she
(12:58):
had put, you know, killed by miss Scarlett in the
conservatory with a lead pipe.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
That would have been awesome, just for fine, for sure.
Apparently he died in such obscurity that Waddington's had no
idea that he was dead for three years. And there's
no telling if they ever really would have found out
had they not been searching for him to celebrate Cludo's
one hundred and fifty one hundred and fifty millionth sale. Yeah,
(13:26):
and they put out a press release telling the public like, hey,
we're looking for this guy. The title of the press
release was wanted Colon for murder most Enjoyable. And apparently
the person who ran the cemetery that he's buried in
knew that he was buried there and got in touch
with Waddington's and said, don't waste your time. Man.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
That whole thing just really upsets me.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
It is kind of upsetting. There's nothing really good about
the Anthony Pratt story.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yeah, because like, first of all, they I think misled him,
and then you know, hey, he's an old man. Let's
rub in the fact that we've sold one hundred and
fifty million of these games, right, sure that he didn't
have a piece of so like, let's find him. Yeah,
and they're like, he's been dead for three years.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Even worse than that, Chuck, I read that they petitioned
to exume him, to bring him to the celebration anyway.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Following I've read that medium, I mean, he should be
ground in, Like they should have a statue of him
at Waddington's.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
For sure, because the reason why not just because we're
Clue fans, but because it's According to fun dot Com,
among other sources, it's probably the fifth most popular board
game of all time, and that includes not just like
Monopoly and scrabble, We're talking about chess and checkers. It's
in the top five with chess and checkers that have
(14:47):
been around for thousands of years, so it was like
a huge blockbuster game.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah, I'm gonna call it the third I don't even
that should just be for branded games.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
I agree with you. I totally think that sucker stuff
calling chess and check her.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
So I say it's the third most popular game of
all time. We did a Monopoly episode. What's the other one? Scrabble? Yeah, yeah,
we should probably do a Scrabble app at some point. Okay,
maybe we can get Hodgman to make a rare guest appearance.
Yeah rare, but everyone on Reddit gets mad at every
time I say the name Hodgman.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
It's awesome. That must have been a very enlightening experience.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Huh, short lived, my friends.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
So, Chuck, I say that we take a little break
and when we come back, we talk about how to
actually play Clue as cobbled together from people who know
what they're talking about.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
So my one regret is that I didn't get it
(16:00):
together enough because we were on tour to play Clue
before this game, before this recording. Because I haven't played
it in a long time. Emily and I used to
play Monoy Mono Clue. Oh well, and can we quit? Yeah? Okay,
it's not as fun. Okay, and it's certainly not fun
(16:21):
to play with Emily because she feels like she has
a sort of patented foolproof victory route. Oh yeah, she
has a methodology that she will not tell me what
it is, and she's she beat me every time. So
we just quit playing.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
That was like you, me and me with backgammon?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Who won? You and me? And she has a thing like.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Yeah, she was like, it's the strategy of back strategy,
not like it's a secret or anything. She's like, I
just figured it out, and I still have never figured
it out. So we just stopped playing.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Well, maybe we'll all get together, they can just play
each other in games and we'll just sit around and
have a cocktail.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
That sounds like a great idea, man, because.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
I'm not competitive like that. I am not either.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
It's been so long since I played a board game
I don't remember fully, and it seems like I could
be competitive. But okay, I think I was competitive at
trivial pursuit.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Yeah. I mean I love board games. I just never
play the much anymore because we don't have a lot
of friends who are like, hey, let's have board game night.
But I'd totally be into it.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah, totally for sure.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
All right, So let's talk clue.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Eh oh yeah, So in the Classic Clue game, there's
so many variations on it that are slightly different. Some
have like extra like cards to them, or the names
of the characters are a little different. But if you
just look at the basic Classic Clue, which that's what
we're going to talk.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
About, nineteen seventy.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Two, seventy two, eighty six, twenty twenty three, even they
re updated the classic version. But you're supposed to play
with three to six players, and clearly you can play
with two. I've seen in places you can play with two.
But if you look at the instructions, it says three
to six players ages eight and up. And if you're
seven and a half im precocious, maybe you get a pass,
(18:09):
but really you don't want to play with anybody under eight. Typically.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah, I'm curious if Ruby would be into this. We'll
have to give it a shot.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Okay, fair enough.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, so eight and up, what you do is you
choose to be the identity of one of six people.
Colonel Mustard, yeah, the Colonel, the Good Colonel, Miss Peacock,
Professor Plum, missus White, mister Green, and of course miss
Scarlett who as a young Baptist boy that seventy two clue.
(18:40):
I looked at her picture quite a bit.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
She's very attractive, for sure. So who were you? Who
did you pick? Normally? Was there like one character for
you when you're you know.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
I don't remember having a favorite now that I think
about it, did you?
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Professor Plumb?
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Okay, that fits.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
I just like the name, and the color is pretty too,
But for some reason, it's it's like cellar door for
me kind of yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
You were you know, you're a literary sort of type,
were you back then?
Speaker 2 (19:09):
No? No, I like to read, but I would not
call myself the literary. I didn't become pretentious until much later.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
And like, yeah, like they didn't have Joe the Plumber.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
So right, So there's six murder weapons, right, six suspects,
six murder weapons in the classic game, the knife, the revolver,
the wrench, ouch, the rope, the candlestick, and the lead pipe.
A lot of head trauma among these, you.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Know, yeah, four of them are are are whackers.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Huh exactly? No shell Ailey, But still it gets the
point across.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
And I guess three of them are technically whackers.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
What the candlestick, the wrench in the lead.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Pipe, Yeah, because the rope is is a choker, revolver
is a shooter, and the knife is a stabber. Right,
so I overshot it by one. Although you could hit
somebody with a rope or the butt of a gun.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Right, Or if you have a candle in the candlestick,
you could light them on fire.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Ah, good point, or you could do some creative things
that lit bike.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, I'm saying you could use it as a blowgun.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Oh, yeah, absolutely, although it's.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Bent in the game, so it probably wouldn't work very well. Yeah,
although you could use it to shoot around a corner.
So there's also nine rooms on the board, right, and
there's the hall, the lounge, the dining room, the kitchen,
the ballroom, the conservatory, the library, and the study. And
(20:33):
this was where I learned about manor houses and general
estates architectural layouts, usually on the first floor.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Yeah, I didn't know what a conservatory was like. It
introduced me to some of these terms even.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah, and the other thing, everybody, if you didn't play
the seventy two edition, go look it up. There's there's
some for sale, but if you look at the board,
it's really beautiful. Like they used textures and colors to
signify what room was. What I think for the ballroom
it was like parquet flooring.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah, yeah, I think this like wallpaper in one I think.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yeah, I don't remember which one that was. The kitchen
had like doyley a doily pattern, yeah, and the I
think the study had like a red burgundy leather background.
It was just really neat looking.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, totally. And it was as a kid, your imagination
is just running wild with this stuff because it is
a game, and that's kind of one of the fun
things about it. Yeah, especially as a kid, is a
game that has backstory, and it a lot goes on
in your imagination. It's not Sorry or Shoots and Ladders, you.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Know, exactly well put And in addition to the fact
that it had that potential to create that it was
masterfully put together. Like the details of it were really
evocative of that kind of thing, So like it really
helped it along, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yeah, totally. All right. So the beginning of the game,
there are three cards that reveal the murder weapon, the
murderer and where it took place. You seal those in
an envelope, and the whole goal of the game is
to figure out who did the murder, with what weapon
and in what room.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Yes, and apparently there's about three hundred and twenty four
different solutions that it could be, which really doesn't matter
because as long as there's more than one or two
or three, you're gonna it's gonna be a different game
every time. Yeah, So you roll the dice to move
along the hallways in between rooms, and then your goal
(22:38):
initially is to get into a room, because only when
you're in a room can you say that you think
the murder happened in that room. You can't do it
from the hallway or whatever, right right, and when you're there,
when you can make a suggestion. It's kind of like
a soft accusation right right where you can say, I
think that it's Colonel Mustard in the ballroom, which I'm
(23:02):
currently in with the rope. And what happens next is
you go from player to player, beginning at the player
on your left, and if they have Colonel Mustard or
the ballroom or the rope card, because there's a card
for each character, each weapon in each room, and everybody's
(23:24):
distributed cards that they keep to themselves. If they have
one of those cards, they have to show you, and
if they have two of those cards, they still only
have to show you one. But then your turn is over.
You've just been your theory has just been disproven. Now
you didn't win, but at the same time, you just
gained a tremendous amount of information, and the other people playing,
(23:46):
if they're paying attention, gained a lesser amount, but still
some information the game like that you're paying attention like that,
it's deduction.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Yeah, it's using process of elimination and deduction and making notes.
And we'll get into that in a second. One key
thing here that I'm not I don't think you said,
was you bring all that stuff into the room, like
you bring that rope and that character into the room.
So you can also use a little bit of strategy
there to pull Colonel Mustard, you know, that player away
(24:19):
from where they were into that room.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah, that's a great point. For sure. Some of it's luck, right, sure,
I mean you roll the dice and you may or
may not get into the room. And if you're not
in the room, even if you know who it is.
You know, let's say you're you're over in the study
and you got to get all the way to the
kitchen because you know it's the kitchen. You can't make
that final accusation and win the game until you're in
(24:41):
the kitchen. So dice rolls have something to do with it,
but really more than anything, like we said, it's mostly
up to deduction and paying attention to the information you can.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Glean, right, And I think I may have missed it
if you said it. Did you also say that if
no one reveals any card at all, then you can
actually like lay it all on the line and make
an official accusation.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
No, I didn't say that.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Okay, well that's one of the keys, Like if no
one reveals a card, then you know, like, well wait
a minute, they don't have those cards, so it's possible
that those are the three cards in that envelope.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Right.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
If it's early in the game, it's obviously a huge risk.
You probably want to say that un till later once
you've narrowed it down more. But you can I was
about to say, throw your cards on the table, but
don't do that. But you can say, you know what,
I'm going I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna go for it.
And you look in that envelope and if that's it,
that's it. You're one. You've won it, and if not,
then you're out.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
That's the regress, Yeah, because now you know who did
it with what weapon and in what room. So you're
out of the game.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
You go pop the popcorn exactly Now.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
If you if you make that suggestion, that's your theory
of who did it with what and where, and nobody
shows you the card. If you don't have any of
those cards, then you pretty much know that's you're that
you're right because I think all the cards are distributed
equally among everybody, right, Yeah, but you would say, well,
(26:10):
why would you even say that? If you why would
you mention one of the ones that you have in
your hand? And this this is where we start to
get into like like real deal strategy that you're not
going to find in the rule books very much, but
work really well for Clue.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Yeah, and we're going to go over there is in
one sec. But I did want to add, like one
of the genius things of Clue to me is that
even even when you're eliminated, it's still fun to sit around.
It's not. It's not one of those games where you're like, well,
I'm out of here then, because you know, I'm out
of the game and watching it is no fun. It's
still fun to sit around and drink a cocktail and
(26:47):
heckle everyone.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Else, especially if you're eight.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Yeah, but yeah, I was.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
It's funny you say that because when we were researching this,
or when I was researching it today, I had that
same memory. I was like, I remember, I wouldn't get
up from the table, like after I was eliminated. I'd
just stay there and watch. It was really entertaining. It
was like the pre internet version of Steam.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
I don't know what that is.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
It's where you it's like an internet thing where you
watch people playing video games, like you're just watching them
play video games.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Oh really?
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yeah? Oh wow, yeah that's people people make a living
doing that.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Is that the thing where people play? Oh did you
say video games? Yeah? Oh oh yeah, I have heard
of that. Ill thought you were saying board games.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
No. No, I'll bet that's too for sure. I'll bet
that's out there too, and I'll bet they make a
living from it as well.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
All Right, So we promised some uh, some strategies, and
these were where did we call these from?
Speaker 2 (27:42):
They came from the Spruce Crafts stack exchange posts and
Reddit threads.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
That's a good place to go, probably.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
For sure, because I mean people share strategy for Clue
all over the internet, and if it works, it works.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Yeah. Now here's the deal. I haven't played it so long.
A lot of these just I didn't fully understand because
I'm just so out of practice. So I'm going to
buy that seventy two game and get back into it
and revisit these, but I can't tell you about them.
One of the strategies, and you know it's kind of
the most obvious one is you're using those suggestions to
(28:19):
but to get into that process of elimination and eliminate
you know, people, rooms and weapons. It's hardest for the
rooms because you have to be in that room to
get it, so you actually have to roll the dice
to get there. But you know, you're if you're trying
to eliminate a weapon, like you want that gun out
of the game, then suggest it and see if they
(28:40):
have it, and then you know you can keep sort
of harping on that, right, But that may mean that
you're also trying to throw people off the scent and
they might catch on you might actually have that card, right.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah, or yeah, if you're watching, if you're playing with
somebody and they keep mentioning the revolver whatever every time
they make a suggestion, that means either they have the
revolver and they're using a process of elimination, or they've
already figured out the revolver is the actual murder weapon.
So if you're being really strategic, you don't want to
(29:12):
use that same one. If you know that that something
is in that envelope, that sealed envelope is the weapon
or the murderer or the room, maybe mix it up
a little bit to pay to throw off the people
who are really paying attention to you.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah, for sure. So if you make or if anyone
makes a suggestion, and you know, like if you suggest
something to you me and Emily and I notice that
she doesn't, or that nobody shows a card, or if
you suggest something period and no one shows you a card,
then chances are that you've gotten one of the three
(29:49):
cards in that envelope in your suggestion.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Right, But that doesn't mean that you necessarily have the
answer if you don't have any of those three cards
in your hand, because if you have more than one card,
Let's say you say Professor Plum with the lead pipe
in the conservatory, and I have Professor Plumb and the
Conservatory in my hand, I only have to show you
(30:15):
Professor Plum or the Conservatory. I don't have to show
you both. And so a good strategy is, if I've
shown you Professor Plum, I can write down showed Professor
Plumb already, And so if somebody guesses Professor Plum and
the Conservatory again, I can just show you Professor Plum
and I will not be giving the information to anybody
(30:35):
that I have the Conservatory as well.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
You know what this episode is what Clue people are
going to love it and be angry at us, right,
non Clue people are just going to hate us.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Why because they're not they're having trouble following what we're saying.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Well, of course, if you've never played Clue, this is
getting in the weeds. You know, sure it is, for sure,
but we're getting in the weeds such that I'll don't
feel confident we're getting it all right, So Clue it's
will be like, oh, guys, how could you forget that feeling?
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Is like an old friend to us by now, Chuck.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
It really it's just the fourth leg of our podcast exactly.
One thing that they say you can do is, you know,
if you play against the same people, you know, it's
not unlike poker, and that people bluff and they have
their own little tricks and things and tells, so just
to sort of pay attention and try and read them.
If you play with your family all the time, let's say.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
For sure, so this is the this is what it
all boils down to right here, Chuck. It's it's deduction,
it's prospective elimination. I'll bet you can't. So let's say
you're holding Miss Scarlet and your friend you already know
has the candlestick because you guessed it before and they
showed it to you, so you know that they have
the candlestick. And then somebody else says that they think
(31:54):
it was Miss Scarlet in the dining room with the candlestick,
and another player is like, here's a card that disproves it.
You know that that player has the dining room, right,
you have Miss Scarlett. Your other friend has the candlestick.
That fourth player has the dining room because they showed
it to player three, and you mark that down, and
if you do that enough times, you can figure out
(32:15):
what cards are being held by people, and hence, through
process of elimination, what cards are likeliest hidden in the
envelope as the murderer and the murder weapon and the
room the murder took place in.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
I'm sure that's what Emily's doing, and like a variation
on that, because she's she's scribbling down stuff, right, I'm
not taking nearly enough notes clearly, because that's a big
part of the game. Yeah, And when I was reading
about all the different note taking and you're gonna need
an even bigger notebook than the notepad they give you,
I was like, oh, really, no.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
It's true. There's like the it's a logic problem basically,
so much so that they train artificial intelligence on it.
There's a Dutch computer scientist named Hans vun dip March
who did a like a Cluto formalization they took. He
(33:05):
took Cluto and translated it into AI instructions, and basically
what his premise is that it's all changes in information.
When you interact with other players, your information changes, and
so the AI tries to figure out what route it
has to take through player to player to player to
(33:26):
get to the information it needs to win the game
in the fewest moves, which essentially is probably what Emily's doing.
So you're married to an artificial intelligence.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
It turns out that, yeah, sure that makes sense, that
tracks me.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
But I mean that's how logical clue actually is. It's
this process of deduction where if you if you can
track the information that you're getting or that other people
are getting, you can win the game every time. Basically.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Yeah, And was that the thing that Duke University used.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Yeah, they came up with their own thing, an algorithm
to play clue, which anytime you have a logic problem,
you can develop an algorithm for it.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Right, Yeah, So they basically were turned it into an
algorithm for what you were kind of talking about, like
a treasure hunt problem. How to get there the quickest,
how to get to the answer the quickest. And they said, like,
you know, one day they can apply this kind of
thing to stuff like robotic mind sweeping even, yeah, which
is pretty cool. Go find the mind like quicker.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Yeah, if you're just playing casually with friends casually, or
if you're the only one who's not playing casually. Maybe
reconsider using some of these harder core in the weeds
strategies and just pay attention and use the notepad that
it comes with and have fun.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Yeah, and maybe don't announce before the game that I
have a full proof method that I win every time.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yeah, and at least don't take a lap around the
game table after you win. She's the worst winner, all right,
So let's take a break then and we'll come right
back everybody. So, like we said, there's a bunch of
(35:21):
variations that are just super darling if you played clue
and it has a place in your heart. Depending on
where you are in the world, there's just different names
for different characters. Right. We said that mister Green is
called Reverend Green. In the UK, there used to be
the victim, remember this, the owner of the house that
(35:42):
everybody's at. These are party guests ostensibly, and the murder
takes place, and it's the host who's murdered every time.
And the host in the US is known as mister
body with two d's kind of some gallows humor. In
the UK he's known as doctor Black, Right.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
I like that too.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
What about in Switzerland.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
It's funny because some of these I was like, no,
of course not. It's the classic, is what you want.
But some of these I liked Hercludo in Switzerland, signor
Lemon in Spain, like you said, he was Reverend Green,
but Doctor Olive in France was mister Green, which is okay.
Professor Plum is Professor Black. In Brazil, Missus Peacock is
(36:25):
Baroness von Blau, which I love. In Norway and in Switzerland,
I do not like this one. Colonel Mustard is Madame Curry,
not Currie. Is that what it's supposed to be? I
guess so I thought Currie was c Urie, right it is,
But Curry is a color? Is that a play on that?
Speaker 2 (36:48):
I think?
Speaker 1 (36:48):
So that's how I hated even more.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
All right. There's also been some changes to the materials too.
If you bought the original version of Clue back in
nineteen forty nine, I guess the rope was actually a
little tiny piece of rope.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
I love that, And the lead pipe was made of lead. Amazing.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yeah, that's authentic stuff. Over the years, though they've they've
generally stuck to the same premise, the same characters, and
just kind of like it's been like jazz, like they've
been riffing on you know, the original form.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Yeah, like the backstories would change a little bit. And
this is the kind of thing where I'm really going
to try and resist the urge to poo poo more
modernized changes as like you know gen X guy who
says the seventy two version is the best. But Colonel
Mustard is a soccer star. As of two thousand and eight,
(37:44):
Jack Mustard Professor Plum was turned into Victor Plum, a
video game designer.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Brilliant video game designer.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah, that's fine, you know, if that helps, you know,
kids get into it a little more. What I am
going to take issue with is adding home is one
of the rooms.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
That's funny because that was the one that made the
most sense to me. Oh, I don't know, updating the room.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Yeah, I mean it makes sense. I just I don't know,
killed somebody with a candlestick in the home theater, I
don't know. Just it feels at odds with the sort
of because I still sort of associate it with this
sort of English estate kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
I see what you mean, for sure, I get that,
but I guess they probably have home theaters in the UK.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Right, No, of course they do, okay.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
So that was the Discover the Secrets two thousand and
eight edition. That was probably, from what I can tell,
the biggest makeover of any of the editions. They went
so far as to get rid of Missus White and
replaced her with her adopted daughter, Doctor Orchid. That didn't
(38:54):
last all that long. I guess it lasted a decade
or two. But in twenty twenty three they came up
with another update and they basically took it back to
the beginning. Missus White came back, but now she's Chef White.
They combined the UK and the American names for the
host and now it's mister Bodden body Black. Colonel Mustard
(39:15):
stopped playing soccer and went back to the military. Missus
Peacock is now a lawyer, a solicitor, Mister Green's a mayor.
Miss Scarlett's the same, and Professor Plumb is the same.
And the weapons of the rooms are back to what
they were back when we love the game, Chuck, so
you can settle down.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Yeah, And I looked up this new one because there
are people that have been saying, like, oh, they made
them all sexy looking. I don't know about that. I
guess they're a little they skew younger than the original
cast on that or not the original, but the seventy
two version.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Yea.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
I believe missus Scarlett and Plumb now are people of color,
so they've they've got a little more diverse, which is good.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
I think Mayor Green is as well.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
And they're also licensed versions. Whi you know. I had
that Star Wars monopoly, which is a lot of fun.
But apparently there's a Alfred Hitchcock.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Clue that sounds awesome.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
It sounds pretty good where the characters are characters from
the movies. Hitchcock movies is kind of fun.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
One of the rooms is the Bait Motel.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Baits Motel, of course it is. You know.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
I finally saw Psycho for the first time, just like
a month ago. Maybe I was reading about it and
I guess I'll watched that documentary about the shower scene,
which is pretty good documentary. Now it made me realize,
like the way that people were talking about the movie,
I'm like, that doesn't track with what I know about Psycho.
(40:37):
Turns out it's a far different movie than what I realized.
It's really good.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Yeah, I mean that whole first part of the movie, Like,
if you haven't seen it, you probably wouldn't even know
it existed because not many people talk about it.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Yeah, and I can imagine like watching that movie before,
you know, everyone knew that Norman Bates was the killer. Yeah,
and that you know, the protagonist who you think is
a protagon gets killed off the big star that it
was just totally shocking.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Yeah, must have been amazing. Have you seen a lot
of Hitchcock stuff.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Yeah, which is why it's really weird that I hadn't
seen Psycho.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Yeah, great movie, Scooby Doo version, the weapons or monsters.
And then this one's kind of cute, the Golden Girls
clue version and instead of murder, it's who ate the
last slice cheesecake?
Speaker 2 (41:27):
That's adorable.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
It's so what do they call it online? Wholesome?
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Wholesome? Right, So there's been a ton of spin offs
of the clue ip owned by Hasbro by the way,
which who also made our stuff you should know, version
of Trivial Pursuit.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Yeah, they bought out the other companies, right, Parker Brothers
and wat Waddington's.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yes, they dominate. But so there was like a game
show in the UK from nineteen ninety to ninety three,
which was pretty cute. I watching part of an episode.
There was a book, a series of young adult mystery books.
There was a nineteen eighties VCR game which is actually
really beloved and harder than the board game by far.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
I remember those. Yeah, me too, Not Clue, but just
VCR games.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Supposedly Dwayne Perkins from The Blackening is coming up with
an animated series based on Clue.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
And we just could not have this episode and not
discuss the classic nineteen eighty five movie Clue. It's so good,
not just as in its own right a good movie,
but as an adaptation of something that already existed, it
just did it perfectly.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Yeah, it's one of my favorite comedies of the eighties
for sure. It was, you know, now, making something like
a movie out of a video game as something that
wouldn't surprise you, but nineteen eighty five, it was very unusual.
It was written and directed, co written by Jonathan Lynn
and directed by Jonathan co written with John Landis.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Jonathan Lynn also directed My cousin Vinnie in the Whole
nine Yards.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Oh cute.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
So you know a few other pretty big movies, huh,
And it's just it's one of my favorites. The big mistake, then,
why it was considered a box office flop, was that
studio executives got greedy and they would send one three
different prints of Clue to movie theaters with a different
ending on each print, with the idea that, hey, people
(43:34):
will go and see this movie three times to go
and see the three possible endings. And it did not
work out that way.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
I know that's crazy because I saw in the theaters
and I was enthralled by the idea that there were
other endings. I thought that was the coolest thing I'd
ever seen in my short nine years on the planet.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
Did you go see other versions in the theater? Do
you remember? No?
Speaker 2 (43:55):
I was just content with knowing there were other versions
out there. But when the movie came out on VHS,
we rented it like too sweet to watch them all
because they very wisely included them all in the ending,
which is the same if you watch it on like
prim or Netflix or whatever.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Now, Yeah, and not only is it great to not
have to pay three times to go see it, but
it functions really well with the one, two, three endings
because you know, they do the ending and they'll say
or it could have happened like this, and then they
I mean that's when Tim Curry just, yeah, really shines.
I mean he's great through the whole thing as Wadsworth
(44:32):
the Butler, but he really really shines when he's It's
just a genius comedic performance.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Yeah, for sure. So did Madeline con as Missus White
when she talks about hating Yvette. Oh God, that was
apparently improvised.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Classic.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Yeah, if you haven't seen Clue, go see it like tonight.
It's just such a great movie. And our friends over
at Mental Floss, Matthew Jackson wrote something about like little
known facts about the movie Clue, and apparently there was
a fourth ending originally that they didn't bother shooting Carrie
Fisher was supposed to be Miss Scarlett God rather than
(45:10):
Lesliean Warren exactly. And get this the Telegram the Singing
Telegram Girl. That was Jane Weedland from The Go Gos.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
Yeah, I mean there's another one too, if you want
to hear it, let's hear it. You know who played
mister Body. No, it was Lee Ving, who was the
singer and guitarist of the hardcore punk band fear No Yes,
John Belushi's buddy Wow. So two music connections. I think
we should go through the rest of the cast too,
just because it's short and amazing.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
It is a great cast.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Christopher Lloyd played Professor Plum. You already mentioned the great
Madeline con flames on the side of my face. It's
just unbelievable. Also in that scene when he's running, he
grabs her. Tim Curry grabs her to run upstairs and
explain how she did it in one of the things,
and she, I don't think she probably made this up
to She just she trips and falls on her face
(46:04):
like a third of the way up the stairs, and
he keeps going.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Great physical comedy. The great Martin mall is Colonel Mustard.
Michael McKean is mister Green. I mean, I feel like
ruining his great last line, but maybe I shouldn't.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Yeah, don't, okay.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
Eileen Brennan who was wonderful Miss Peacock. We already mentioned
Jane Whenland and Ving. Colleen camp classic as Yvette, and
if you recognized the cook, it was she was a match.
Kelly Nakahara played the cook and she played Lieutenant Yamoto
and match.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
Remember, so the cast is.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Amazing, and if you're interested in a deeper dive, the
great and wonderful Casey Wilson was a movie Crush guest
and this was her movie.
Speaker 2 (46:53):
Nice, that's a great movie.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
If you want to know more about Clue the movie,
go watch it. Don't read anything else about it, don't
listen to anybody else jabron about it. Just go watch
it and thank us later. And if you've never played Clue,
you do a lot worse than starting with the nineteen
seventy two edition.
Speaker 3 (47:11):
Friends.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
Yeah, well, since Chuck agreed with my assessment, that means,
of course it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
I'm gonna watch it again soon. I'm now remembering how
great Eileen Brennan was.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Yeah, she's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Everyone is so good. All right, here we go. Hi,
Josh and Chuck had just finished this is a correction of.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Epic proportions.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
No, it's just something that we like to correct these,
especially just finished listening to the JD. Salinger episode. Fascinating listen,
So thanks for diving into this. I'm a big fan
of stuff. You should know. This my first time sitting
in a correction, But the end of the episode, Joshua
purs to an article by a guy named Michiko Kakuchani.
I thought it was important to note that Michiko Kakuchani
(47:56):
is a woman. She's a revered literary critic, writer, and
Alitzer Prize winner, and I wanted to make this trailblazing
woman make sure that she got her due on your show.
And that is from Julie Ann at Behar from White Salmon, Washington.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Thanks a lot, Julian, and I appreciate it. I feel
like all the corrections that we're reading lately are mine disproportionately.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
I'm not filing mine away and like burning them.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
Yeah, that was a pretty big flub. I'm sorry about that.
Thank you for that correction. That was a good one.
If I misspoke in this episode or any other episode
that you noticed, let us know about it. Chuckle. Read
it for sure on the air. You can send it
off via email to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
(48:43):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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