21 Board Games Based on TV Shows

October 22, 2014October 19, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 9 Comments

I knew about a few TV-based board games, but when I discovered that there was a Secret World of Alex Mack game, I wondered what else could be out there. As it turns out there are a ton of board games based on TV shows. I tried to be discerning but I could not pare the list down anymore than these 21 games.

The Secret World of Alex Mack
In this board game, you get to be Alex Mack and use her powers! The object of the game is to “morph” everything from Alex’s backpack to her house without the chemical plant who doused her with GC161 noticing. Because in this game, Alex can’t just morph the whole backpack to her house or morph herself and go get the backpack undetected. Come on, she needs your help!

ALF
Kind of like the Alex Mack game, the object of the ALF game is to sneak through the house undetected by Mrs. Ochmonek. I can’t remember who Mrs. Ochmonek was in the show because I rarely watched ALF due to the fact that he was crass and looked like an ROUS (rodent of unusual size).

The A-Team
OMG I am so confused by this game play description, that I’m just going to leave you with the premise and call it a day. So basically, B.A. Barakus is the focal point of this game, but you cannot play as B.A. (more commonly known as Mr. T.) Since this game is 80’s and corporate, it is about a stolen soda recipe. The recipe is being held for ransom on an island, since obviously there is only one physical copy of this recipe that must be locked away and surrounded by water on all sides. The soda thief is a crafty fellow and he makes a deadly game (the one you are about to play right now on this board!) to keep the A-Team at bay. B.A. has gone ahead of the rest of the team and is already with the recipe, so now you have to find B.A. No, B.A. cannot just leave the way he came in and bring the recipe with him. You have to save him! It’s called the A-Team not the B.A. Barakus show–except he was kind of the entire show, sorry George Peppard.

Cheers
This is one of those board games that is actually just a trivia game about the show, which I always find a little disappointing. But I love Cheers, so oh well. You move around the board and get tokens for answering trivia questions correctly. There’s also something called the “Normie Olympics” which makes the trivia game a little more interesting. If you land on the appropriate space for the “Normie Olympics,” then you can challenge someone to a “flip-off.” In order to win the “flip-off” you have to flip a plastic version of fan-favorite Norm without spilling his beer. If you win the flip-off, then you can take a token from whomever you challenged, which helps you get closer to the five tokens necessary to win the game.

Full House
Everyone moves around the board to different neighborhoods trying to collect character cards for all of the main characters. Once you have a complete set, then you have to race back to Alamo Square and be the first to arrive back at the Full House house.

Happy Days
What do you think of when you think of Happy Days? If you said the Fonz magically lighting up a jukebox, then you win! The object of this game is to impress Fonzie with how “cool” you are. To accomplish this, you must be the first person to obtain enough “cool points” to turn on the jukebox.

Kojak: The Stake Out Detective Game
Just like a real cop, this game puts pressure on you to meet quotas. The person who makes the most arrests wins! Everyone moves cars around the board, trying to solve crimes by collecting cards. A “contact card” gives you your case and then you must collect the other cards to book the criminal. Lollipop not included.

Laverne & Shirley
In order to win this game you must spend the most time on dates. The person who dates the most wins because that’s what making your dreams come true and doing things your way as an independent female means. Duh.

M*A*S*H
The point of this game is to try to get out of Korea and head home. You have to collect a jeep or helicopter and then be the first to reach the finish space in order to get a transfer home. Yeah, it’s a little depressing.

Murder, She Wrote: A Game of Strategy and Pursuit
Every player gets to be Jessica Fletcher, except one is secretly the murderer. This is all rather fitting since I often wondered if Jessica Fletcher was secretly the murderer…either that or the angel of death Anyway, to play this game you have to determine which Jessica Fletcher is actually the murderer. If you are chosen to be the murderer, then you can still win by murdering five witnesses and leaving the game board undetected. So it’s sort of like a bloodier version of Clue.

The Partridge Family
This is a track game like CandyLand but with David Cassidy instead of gum drops. The object of the game is to be the first person to reach the family bus.

Perry Mason: Case of the Missing Suspect
Here’s another television detective game! Everyone moves around the board collecting clues. Each clue card has a point value, and these points will add up to correspond to a suspect. You could have the same number of points as someone else, so you might be going after the same person. In order to win you have to be the first person to bring your suspect to the courthouse. This game, released in 1959, is actually The Game of Dragnet (released in 1955) but with Perry Mason instead of Sergeant Joe Friday.

Saved by the Bell
There are actually two different Saved by the Bell games. The first one is from the 90’s and requires you to be the first person to get thirty points. There a saved by the bell game re question cards with truth-or-dare questions and trivia. You move around Bayside High School and get points for dating Zack and Slater. The other game was released in 2010, and it’s a time travel game back to the Bayside of the 90’s. It’s sort of like a bizarro mystery date. Zack and Kelly tell you who you will date, where you are going, and what you will be doing. The player who goes on the date wins.

Miami Vice
This game is pretty cool in that you get to play as either the Vice Team or the Criminals. If you are a cop then you want to arrest the criminals. If you are the criminals, then you want to get to the drop point before the vice cops show up. Typical, Miami whack-a-mole stuff. miami vice game

Double Dare
This game lets you recreate a little of the Double Dare magic in your own home by doing your own physical challenges with these pretty lame game pieces. There are also trivia cards, of course, and the first team to reach the $250 space wins.

Family Matters
The point of this game seems to be primarily to embarrass your friends. You need to collect the most bow tie cards to win the game and collecting them is as easy as rolling a die. But you can lose bow tie cards if you do not do the Urkel on command. Any player can make any other player do the Urkel at any time.

The Love Boat: World Cruise Game
Every player has a Love Boat pawn. Each person draws a “star” from the pack of cards at the beginning of the game. Then you try to collect the appropriate cards for your star on the cruise and at the ports of call. For example, the star athlete would want sporting cards whereas the movie star would not. The game ends when the first player gets his or her Love Boat to San Francisco (which also gives said player a 500 point bonus). The person with the most points total wins.

Family Ties
Like the iconic opening credits, the point of this game is to pay for all of the family members to have a portrait painted together. Players take on the roles of Keaton family members and each try to collect $100 dollars to pay for the portrait. This requires having the necessary cash and getting everyone in the same spot.

Baywatch
Players get to play as the Baywatch lifeguards. You move around the game board (“the beach”) and collect discs by answering questions, doing physical challenges, and “gambling” (not really sure of the context of this one.)

Charlie’s Angels
Every player has his/her own team of Angels…so basically it’s like every player is Charlie but you are all operating in alternate universes simultaneously. If the Angels in your universe trap the bad guy first, then you win and emerge as the ultimate Charlie. To trap the bad guy you physically surround him with your team’s game pieces.

Clarissa Explains It All
In order to win this game, you need to be the first player to have at least one key and a driver’s license. In order to obtain these things, you move around the game board and answer a series of questions family-fued style (“in a survey of Clarissa’s friends). You also collect rescue cards to be used in the unfortunate event that you land on a crisis space, but don’t worry because there are also spaces that require you to get a snack or just hang out.

I am sure there must be a million more of these games. Let me know in the comments if you noticed any that I missed! Did anyone have any of these games? Were they any good?

Saved by the Bell: Drinking and Driving

June 25, 2014July 1, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 3 Comments

Saved-Bell — Just give these guys the keys to the mystery machine already!

When I was in elementary school, Saved by the Bell lied to me about high school. It was so G-rated that my mom was cool with letting me watch it. And miraculously (or by design?) I never saw the episodes with drinking, marijuana, or the infamous caffeine pill addiction until I was much older. By that point, it was clear to me that the idyllic high school picture Saved By the Bell promised for my future was an utter lie. But did I scorn the show and bitterly deride it? No, of course not. I love Bayside! Instead, I began to think of Saved by the Bell as a live action cartoon. These kids always felt more like the Scooby-Doo gang than actual teenagers, and that’s pretty much why I loved this show and continue to love it as an adult.

However, being a light-hearted live action cartoon show did not keep this show from throwing in a few very special episodes, including an important message about drunk driving. This is one of the weird Tori episodes, but it’s a very special episode so we can overlook the glaring absence of Jessie and Kelly, who apparently only hung out with their friends for half of senior year and only when Tori wasn’t around. Personally, I found Tori pretty abrasive, so I like to imagine that Jessie and Kelly were eating at a separate lunch table and wondering why their friends had temporarily lost their minds.

Meanwhile, in Tori-land, Lisa has been soliciting votes for homecoming queen while Zack and Slater work on planning the after party. It’s a toga party, of course, and Tori wears her leather jacket over her toga because she wants us all to know she’s too cool for this shit. Slater’s been calling the football players idiots all night, and not in the “I’m harassing you because we’re teammates kind of way” but rather in the “I think you’re actually really stupid, so I’m going to talk about you behind your back to my real friends” kind of way. Slater clearly thinks all of these guys are lame, so it’s surprising when they easily peer pressure him into drinking beer. Slater then peer pressures Zack while Lisa looks on. Since the rest of the Scooby-Doo gang is doing it, Lisa accepts a glass of beer which one of her “loyal subjects” serves on a silver tray.

Tori may be the resident rebel but she does not under any circumstances drink, so she goes home. Screech, who also has not been drinking, offers to drive everyone home but they all decide it’s a better idea to drive drunk than let Screech drive the car. Screech is a major creep, so I can understand their reluctance to put him in charge but this is a stupid decision nonetheless.

Ah, the dramatic irony that is the very special episode. Zack drives everyone home to the tune of Wild Thing because that’s what cartoon character high schoolers listen to when they’re breaking the rules. Zack crashes the car, duh. And Tori comes to the rescue with by paying for a tow truck because she feels guilty about leaving them alone at the party. Ugh seriously, Tori you couldn’t even offer them a ride home? This is what I’m talking about. This shit is exactly why Jessie and Kelly can’t stand you.

Come on, Preppy, all of the 25 year-old actors playing our classmates are doing it.

By the way, did I mention that the car is Lisa’s parents’ Mercedes? Lisa’s parents are out-of-town, so they have the car towed to Zack’s house. I do not understand this part of the plan. Wouldn’t you want to take the car to a place with no parental supervision? This feels like a rookie mistake. I truly expect better form Zack Morris, but they say alcohol makes you dumb and this is some pretty dumb stuff indeed. Luckily for the gang, Zack’s dad doesn’t question anything even though everyone is wearing a toga and it’s the middle of the night. The next day everyone is hung over. They’re also at school, so this was apparently a weeknight party? But the worst part for everyone seems not to be oh—that they could have easily died while driving buzzed down the road—but that they feel sooooo guilty for lying about it. And also A.C. Slater can’t play in the homecoming game because he broke his arm in the accident. He’s managed to completely repair, buff, and wax the car, but throwing a football would be too much for his injury. But the car won’t start and Zack’s dad comes out as they’re trying to explain and all of the lies pile up until they have to come clean! The guilt is too much!

Very Special Lesson: The lies you tell to cover up drunk driving are more painful than the actual drunk driving—wait…that can’t be right.

Okay, I think I have it this time:

Very Special Lesson: Tori sucks. I think it is safe to say that this never would have happened without Tori. I know, I know, you’re like “But aren’t you being a little unfair to Tori? She didn’t even drink!” Listen, if it weren’t for Tori being a totally insufferable addition to the friend group, Kelly and Jesse would have been at that party and Jesse Spano would NEVER let her friends experiment with alcohol and other drugs after what she learned from her own addiction.

Sabrina The Teenage Witch: Pancake Madness

June 24, 2014June 24, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 5 Comments

If you were a kid in the ’80’s or ’90’s chances are you saw a lot of very special episodes. You know, that 30 minute comedic romp through things that will totally ruin your life forever but it’s okay because we’ve all learned a valuable lesson and will never again drink/do drugs/go on a crash diet/hide our dyslexia? That emotionally driven, powerfully profound vicarious lesson that made you think, “As God as my witness, I shall NEVER give in to that seductive temptress known as peer pressure! I will overcome my insecurities with the support of my family members, quirky next door neighbor, and this laugh track!” Oh you didn’t think that? That was just me? Well, maybe that’s why I love Very Special Episodes from a very special place of my heart.

But enough about me, remember Melissa Joan Hart? Although her classic ’90’s sitcom (no, not Clarissa, the other one) about Sabrina Spellman’s adolescent transition from average girl to amazing witch was typically light hearted in nature, the show opted to deal with a heavier subject matter in this very special episode.

The day starts off calmly with Sabrina attempting to enjoy a hearty pancake breakfast before school. But before she can take a bite, her aunts whisk the fluffy pancakes away and warn her of their highly addictive nature. Pancakes are in fact so addictive to the Spellman family that they cannot even have a single bite without going on a bender. Sabrina, however, cannot resist the temptation of that syrupy deliciousness.

True to her aunts’ word, the addiction overtakes her quickly. In the very next scene, she goes through the trash at school looking for pancake remnants. The resident mean girl, Libby (did anyone else think she looked vaguely like Monica Lewinsky?) comes by and makes a joke about homeless people (comparing Sabrina to a “bag lady”). But this is a very special episode about addiction not about socioeconomic class relations, so let’s move along here people.

“I’m in the mood for pancakes are you holding?”–Actual Quote

At the end of the school day, Sabrina has the shakes. Witches really can’t handle their pancakes. In the middle of the night, she tries to make them from scratch without magic. She needs a fix fat sabrina ! At school the next day, Sabrina is totally out of control. She finally loses the remaining shreds of her self-control and binges on stacks of buttery carbohydrates at the pancake breakfast prom fundraiser. Then she ends up looking like Violet from Willie Wonka. Now, that is one scary overdose.

But what really sets this episode apart from most sitcoms that deal with addiction is how it deals with detox and withdrawal symptoms, including a super weird dream about attending a pancake themed high school and hallucinating this terrifying syrup-person.

Sabrina's scary friend — Now, that’s enough to scare anyone straight.

At the end of the episode, Sabrina still craves pancakes but she knows that her friends and family are more important than throwing her life away for some silly old pancakes. She knows that hers will be a lifelong struggle but she’s committed to staying away from the pancake crowd. She even stages a catnip intervention with Salem during the closing credits—wait how did this become the most realistic very special episode of them all?

Very Special Lesson: Just say no (to pancakes)