MONOTONY
I can't believe I forgot to bring these infamous relics into the restaurant on Friday night! I got them out and planned for months to bring them along and then I left them out in the car.
When I was a student at the Harvard of Christendom some very creative guys cleverly created a rip off of Parker Brothers' Monopoly game. It was called Monotony. All the properties where other Christian colleges. Jail was Hell. Just Visiting was Purgatory.
These orange cards were the Predestination cards. They, of course, took the place of Chance cards in the original game.
Go was the Jordan River. So of course there was a card that said "Go to Hell. Go directly to Hell. Do not cross the Jordan River. Do not collect 200 shekels."
The blue cards replaced Community Chest and were appropriately called "Abraham's Bosom."
This was before the day when Parker Bros. lost their lawsuit for copyright infringement and every college, town and resort in the world produced their own form of monopoly.
I really don't know how in the world a big company like Parker Bros. found out about our little project. It still makes no sense to me.
The long and the short of it is that one day we received a letter from the giant game company notifying us that if we persisted in the publication of our little game that we would be faced with a copyright infringement lawsuit which they promised us we would never be able to win. There was some discussion about going to court and defending ourselves but, at the end of the day, we figured it would be a colossal waste of time.
Also, Moody and Bob Jones might not have been too happy about being assigned to Baltic and Mediterranean. Wheaton was Boardwalk and Westmont was Park Place. Ultimately, the games were consigned to the court-ordered flames. Heroically (and somewhat illegally) I rescued as much as I could before the destruction. I have always regretted that I did not get an entire game. I still think there could be some money made on this!
6 Comments:
Fantastic! Thank you for this post. I had always heard stories about this from my older brother but had never seen any of the pieces. This is just too great! When Peter becomes rich and famous again I'm sure he will bankroll another Monotony Game complete with first rate graphics.
I like that. My favorite are the "Predestination Cards." I would like them even more if I could read them.
(A little blurry and NO I have not been drinking! It's only 8:15 AM for crying out loud!) Predestination is one of the most mind wrenching concepts I never even heard of until I was forced to attend the MADRAS OF THE WEST.
Now, here's a legal question for you. Let's say Parker Brothers sued some penniless college students for damages. What could they have hoped to squeeze out of you? In my advertising days, I got a couple court injunctions to cease and desist. No problem. Why didn't you guys just wait to see if they actually got one against you?
Of course, this advice comes from me, a guy who pleaded guilty to drunk driving in college because I didn't have one dollar to hire a lawyer. Only later, did a friend of my older brother, who was a state prosecutor at the time, now he's a longtime judge here in the OC, well, he kindly informed me that no person in the history of the state of California had NEVER been found guilty of DUI with a BAC as low as the one I had! OH! was I an idiot.
I lost my car insurance, was forced to attend ten weeks of AA meetings and had this on my record for five years. You haven't lived until you've attended AA. It had the reverse effect on me. Their stories/testimonials made me think I didn't even drink compared to them!
All stories begin with the fifth they drank before they got out of bed in the morning. Then things get worse.
SC,
As I recall, we had the same thought, "What can they possibly get out of us?" Then, as I remember, they said something about our parents being held liable and some of those parents had estates worth tapping into.
We sure missed you last weekend!
Yes, all of us missed the SC at our little blogger's convention. The tobacco use was non-existent and both the alcohol consumption and the poetry were second rate!
I still have my deck of WC playing cards, but would have loved a full Monotony game set. With so many wealthy alums, think of what price it would command on eBay!
Dear Quadbloggers,
I'm sorry my busy schedule of prevented me from attending the convention. I hope my videotaped message arrived in time to be played to the full convention hall there in the Chicago area.
The only reason I'm glad I wasn't there is that yb told me there was no shortage of guilt over the fact that you were all there to visit your children and you guys spent so much time visiting eachother, you never actually SAW YOUR KIDS! I can do that here at home with my own children. Still, it would have been nice to see you all.
Post a Comment
<< Home