Candy Land, Battleship,
Twister, the Game of Life.
These iconic games come from one of the biggest names
in the toy industry.
Milton Bradley!
Since Milton Bradley founded his company in 1860,
over 200 classic game titles
have sold billions around the world.
But the surprising story
of how they climbed the ladder of success
wouldn't be possible without a few twists-
- People were afraid of the game.
They didn't want young kids playing it.
Turns-
- That game would not have existed
if it had not been for the polio epidemic.
And Abe Lincoln's beard?
- Abe grew a beard, and suddenly they launch an industry.
- That's insane!
I'm growing a beard now.
You may think you know
all about the toys that built America,
but there's more to the story.
I'm Adam Richmond.
Choose your game piece and get ready
for the start-to-finish story of, guess who, Milton Bradley.
In 1966, the Milton Bradley Company is in trouble.
They haven't had a bonafide hit
since Candy Land over a decade ago,
and they're getting crushed
by their biggest competitor, Parker Brothers.
So, Milton Bradley bets its future
on a radically new kind of game.
But when it debuts at the 1966 Toy Fair in New York,
no one likes it.
Sears refuses to put it in their catalog,
calling it too risque, while others deem it to be
prompting Milton Bradley to announce
they will cancel production.
So, what was this controversial game
and how did it go from the brink of death
to becoming an icon in the National Toy Hall of Fame?
before the Milton Bradley Company even existed
and the United States itself
was in danger of no longer existing, way back in 1860.
A divided America is in the middle
of a heated presidential race.
Vying for the Republican nomination is Abraham Lincoln,
who is kind of a big deal.
And one person eager to cash in on Lincoln's popularity
is 24-year-old printmaker Milton Bradley.
The Springfield, Massachusetts man
churns out thousands of lithograph prints
of the presidential candidate,
which sell very well at first.
But when Honest Abe decides to grow a beard,
he inadvertently ruins Milton's new business in the process.
- And the moment he began to appear in newspapers
wearing his new beard, sales of the poster dried up
and Bradley had this big unsold inventory.
On the verge of bankruptcy,
Milton is at the end of his rope.
Luckily, his best friend has the cure for what ails him:
a new kind of game.
- George, I don't have the money to gamble on card games.
- Well, this isn't cards.
While chess, checkers, and backgammon
have been around for centuries,
a new board game is gaining popularity.
- His close childhood friend named George Tapley
has with him one of the very first American board games,
called the Mansion of Happiness.
The game is typical of the era,
as in it's kind of preachy and boring.
- Games in the mid- and late-1800s
were incredibly education focused and morally focused.
They weren't exactly fun the way we think of now.
Yet even this preachy game has its perks.
- Four, five, six.
The Mansion of Happiness. - Well done.
Because it gives Milton a brilliant idea.
- I think it's magnificent.
He'll use his idle lithograph machine
to make a new board game,
one that's more fun than the puritanical fare of the day.
Milton gets to work,
using the pattern of a standard checkerboard
to create the Checkered Game of Life.
The object is to move from infancy to happy old age,
avoiding ruined by earning points
for landing on positive spaces
like honesty, perseverance, or college,
while avoiding bad spaces like idleness, crime, and...
Suicide?
- While a game that involves suicide
doesn't really seem like a whole lot of fun,
Milton Bradley realized he couldn't reinvent the wheel,
and he was hoping that this would really create a success.
- The Checkered Game of Life is an instant hit,
selling 40,000 copies in less than a year.
Milton seems poised to take the world by storm, until...
Remember that divided nation?
It seems Milton's new business will have to wait
'til the war is over, but fate has other plans.
- A company of Massachusetts infantrymen are in Springfield.
And when Bradley walks past,
he noticed that they had nothing to do.
That's when he has another brilliant idea.
He'll help boost morale by giving the soldiers
copies of his new game.
The only problem: The Checkered Game of Life
is too big to fit in a soldier's backpack.
So, he cleverly decides to shrink the board
and everything that goes with it,
even including pieces to play chess and checkers,
creating the first ever mass-produced travel-sized game.
- It's reported that Bradley sold 270,000 of these
within the first year.
This, more so than the Game of Life,
established his business.
And with movies, radio, and television
still decades from taking off,
board games are one of the most popular forms
of home entertainment,
which is good news for Milton Bradley.
- Milton Bradley is doing great.
He's got games, he's getting into puzzles.
He is really cashing in on fads that are going on.
- One of those fads: traveling,
made glamorous by the popular Jules Verne novel
"Around the World in 80 Days."
And when famed journalist Nellie Bly
actually pulls off the epic journey in just 72 days,
Milton Bradley launches a new board game
to capitalize on the craze.
By 1900, Milton Bradley
is the most prolific gaming company in America.
But in 1911, at the happy old age of 74,
Milton Bradley dies.
And without their founder,
the company struggles to find another breakout hit
like they had with the Checkered Game of Life.
Throughout the 1910s and '20s,
they released titles like Uncle Wiggily,
Pirate and Traveler, and something called...
Cootie?
But as you can probably guess, none stand the test of time,
until finally, in 1934, a man submits a game to them
that will go on to become
the country's best-selling board game.
Only, it won't be for Milton Bradley.
- Milton Bradley gets back to him
and they just give a terse, "No thank you."
When Parker brothers swoops it up,
they overtake Milton Bradley
as America's biggest game maker
with the number one game...
Monopoly.
- It was the perfect game at the perfect time.
By the end of the 1930s,
with no big hits like Monopoly
to help them weather the Great Depression,
the Milton Bradley Company is on its deathbed.
Ironically, they're about to be nursed back to life
in a hospital.
It's 1940, and Milton Bradley is close to going belly up.
After a string of lackluster games
and a crippling depression,
they've lost money 11 years in a row.
To save the company, they cut their board game line
from 410 titles to 150 and focus on building parts
for World War II fighter jets instead.
The government contracts keep them going.
But after the war, they need to find
a way to become profitable, fast.
Then, in 1949, retired school teacher Eleanor Abbott
solves their problem.
- She was recovering from polio in a San Diego hospital,
and she took pity on all the poor children
and decided she would cheer them up
by inventing a simple children's game.
- A game that didn't require any reading skills.
You didn't have to know your numbers.
All you had to know were colors to have a success.
That game, of course, is Candy Land,
designed with even the youngest child in mind.
When she sees how much joy it brings
to her fellow polio patients,
she's encouraged to bring the game to Milton Bradley,
who buy it on the spot.
Why were they so eager?
- Milton Bradley snapped up Candy Land because they knew
young children could play the game by themselves
or with another kid.
They didn't really need adult supervision.
- Parents were keeping their children inside,
but needed something inexpensive to keep them occupied.
Candy Land actually kept these kids safe
during the polio epidemic.
Candy Land quickly becomes
Milton Bradley's best-selling board game,
and it will go on to be one of the top 10
best-selling board games of all time,
with over 40 million copies sold.
By the end of the decade, with sales of $4.5 million,
Milton Bradley is no longer in the red,
and they keep the good times rolling
throughout the '50s and '60s.
Highlights include an updated version
of the game that started it all, the Game of Life,
complete with a clever new ad campaign.
- I made $50,000 in the stock market today.
That's life!
While lowlights include Mystery Date,
a game for young girls
with a commercial that has not aged well.
When you open the door,
will your mystery date be a dream
Or a dud?
Milton Bradley makes the best games in the world.
Except not in this case.
The game is a dud
with consumers, since it debuts just in time
with their next game that embraces the changing time.
So, what's in the box?
- In 1965, a designer named Reynolds Guyer
was creating a promo for a shoe campaign
and he kinda had this eureka moment.
He thought, "How about if we put a mat on the floor
"and create a game for people to play with your feet?"
And that's how Twister was born.
When he pitches it to Milton Bradley,
they love the idea and rush it into production.
There's just one problem:
Their factories make board games, not large vinyl mats.
That's when they have a eureka moment of their own.
They'll source out Twister's vinyl mats
to a company that already manufacturers...
Shower curtains. - Well done.
Twister debuts a few weeks later
at the 1966 Toy Fair in New York City,
where it falls flat on its face.
- Twister got off to a terrible start.
It was considered too risque
and major department stores wouldn't carry it.
- People were actually scared of this game when it came out.
"Don't let the kids play with Twister.
Dismissing the lukewarm response,
Milton Bradley releases the game anyway.
But sales are dismal
and the difficult decision is made to cancel production.
It's about to be curtains for this colorful curtain,
until this curtain opens up-
- Here's Johnny!
And saves the day.
It's May 3rd, 1966, But first, Milton Bradley's Chutes & Ladders
and Milton Bradley is about to close the lid
on their dead-on-arrival game, Twister,
but their PR team has a final Hail Mary.
In an attempt to save the day, they miraculously get NBC
to feature the game on "The Tonight Show."
Here's Johnny!
- Now, picture this.
Ed McMahon is on the couch, doing the spinner,
laughing as only Ed McMahon does.
Johnny Carson is down on the floor on the Twister mat,
twisting and turning and contorting with Eva Gabor
in a low-cut dress, and the audience eats it up.
I mean, everyone loves it.
And so do the roughly 12 million viewers
watching at home, because the next day
there are lines around the block
at toy stores across the country.
And by December of that year,
Milton Bradley's factories
are churning out 40,000 boxes of Twister a day,
yet it still isn't enough to keep up with demand.
- Twister became such a huge success
that by the end of 1967,
they had sold over three million copies,
Teenagers, kids in college loved the game.
By 1968, advertising their wide range
of hit games for all ages,
annual earnings for Milton Bradley
reach $4 million on sales of $69 million,
thanks in large part to their * new hit.
But Twister isn't their only star of the era.
In 1964, Milton Bradley airs this classic commercial
showing kids how much fun it can be to-
- Operate?
- Butterfingers!
While the game would go on to sell
over 45 million copies,
it was invented by a University of Illinois student
as part of a school project, which he got an A for.
He then sold the Operation idea to Milton Bradley
for just 500 bucks.
Guess he wasn't a finance major.
In 1967, during the height of the Vietnam War,
Milton Bradley adapts a pencil-and-paper game
from the turn of the 20th century and releases-
- Battleship!
Complete with this fun ad
to show you could play it anywhere.
You sunk my battleship!
Even next to the water.
In 1973, Milton Bradley acquires the rights
to the surprise hit game-
- Yahtzee!
Which, thanks to ads like this-
- It's a rainy day.
- That's a good time to play Yahtzee.
Will go on to sell more than 50 million copies.
Reportedly invented by a wealthy Canadian couple
to play with friends aboard their, what else, yacht,
the game actually traces its roots
to several traditional dice games,
including poker dice, and Cheerio from cherry old England.
The following year, Connect Four hits stores
marketed as vertical checkers.
And it quickly becomes a sensation
once this classic commercial airs in 1977.
- I won. - Where, I can't-
- Here, diagonally.
Pretty sneaky, sis.
By the end of the 1970s,
Milton Bradley is at the top of their game,
especially after acquiring the second-largest manufacturer
of preschool toys in the country, Playskool.
But as the '80s approach
and kids' toys rocket into the future,
Milton Bradley is about to get
some out-of-this-world competition
and find themselves in danger
of being blasted out of the gaming industry forever.
It's the late-1970s, and Milton Bradley is riding high
on a string of top-selling games
like Twister, Operation, and Battleship.
But they're about to get shot down
by a radical new kind of game.
- So, by the 1970s,
board games were already over 100 years old.
They were tired, and Milton Bradley noticed
that arcade games and video games were on the rise
and the American public just flocked to them.
Milton Bradley saw the writing on the wall
and they had to pivot.
That's when Milton Bradley executives
turn to inventor Ralph Baer,
who has just returned from a trade show
where he saw a new pattern recognition game
called Touch Me.
Ralph thinks he can improve on the crude name.
When he pitches it to Milton Bradley, they agree.
Love the concept, hate the name,
One executive suggests it reminds them
of the old children's game Simon Says.
And just like that, Simon is born,
complete with a slick commercial
and a great price, Vincent Price.
You either do what Simon Says
or else go down the drain.
The musical game even gets
a special midnight release party at Studio 54.
- I don't know how many games have a release party,
especially at a disco.
- They wanted to create it as a big trendy thing,
so where else would you go at that time?
Studio 54.
So, they had David Bowie and Diana Ross.
- Just so wild.
Simon Says snort a line of off Cher's
An instant success,
Simon soon becomes Milton Bradley's top-selling item,
leading them to release this commercial
announcing the company's bold new direction.
- Milton Bradley creates an entire division
specifically geared towards electronics.
Think about this: Milton Bradley does board games.
What do they know about video games?
Apparently not much,
because just two years after Microvision's release,
Milton Bradley's earnings fall 37%,
forcing them to write off their entire video game enterprise
as a $30-million loss,
the company's first net loss since the 1940s.
Having staved off bankruptcy twice before,
it looks like the end of the road for Milton Bradley,
until 1984, when they get bought out for $350 million
and become part of the biggest
toy company in America, Hasbro.
In an ironic twist, a few years later
Hasbro also acquires Parker Brothers,
who eventually merge with their old nemesis, Milton Bradley,
to form Hasbro Gaming.
The two former rivals
with over two centuries of experience between them
are a big reason why Hasbro is now
the number-one toy company in the world,
especially after 2020 sees a huge boost in board game sales
with everyone stuck at home during the pandemic.
- It's amazing to me that people predict
old-fashioned board games will go away.
But I think board games are important
because it's not so much the game itself
but the conversations that happen around the game
that make games so wonderful.
Today, if you buy a copy of the Game of Life,
Battleship, or Twister,
you'll see the Hasbro logo on the box.
But of course, those games wouldn't be possible
without the man who started it all, Milton Bradley,
and, of course, Abe Lincoln's beard.