Thanks to the Depression...
"If there hadn't been any Depression in the Thirties there wouldn't be any
SCRABBLE®." So said Alfred Butts, the inventor of SCRABBLE® who,
incidentally, never made any money from what became one of the most
successful board games of the twentieth century. Butts was an unemployed
architect living in New York in the 30's when he began devising a word
game using letters printed on small
cardboard squares.
Originally called Lexiko...
Butts called his game 'Lexiko' and there was no board. That came later as
the game changed its name to 'It' and then to 'Criss-Cross'. Butts made a
few sets to sell to friends but it went unnoticed until 1948 when James
Brunot thought it might have commercial possibilities. He and his wife
began making the game in their home in Newtown, Connecticut. They
settled on the name SCRABBLE®.
Sold only 2,000 sets in the first year...
The Brunots only sold 2,000 sets in their first year and sales remained
sluggish until 1952 when the owner of Macy's store, who had played the
game while on vacation, told the toy department to stock it. Other toy shops
followed suit and the rest, as they say, is history.
The New York firm of Selchow & Righter, who were making the boards for
the Brunots, bought the rights to the whole game in 1953. In Britain, the
rights are owned by J. W. Spear and Sons.
The standard set cost $3...
The standard set in the fifties cost $3 but Brunot devised a de luxe version
with white plastic tiles which cost $10. These plastic tiles eventually became
the norm. The wooden tiles, which were manufactured of maple in Bavaria,
had a grain in the wood that players could memorize to help them pick the
letters they needed.
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SCRABBLE Gains Popularity
Move over Monopoly...
In 1953, Life magazine reported:
SCRABBLE® has in the past few months become as Mah Jong, miniature golf
or Monopoly were in their respective primes (1923, 1930, 1937), and seems
likely to surpass them all. At a modest estimate there are about 1.1 million
SCRABBLE® sets in the U.S. today and there are perhaps 10 million players.
When the Queen Mother visited New York in 1954 she said she was fond
of SCRABBLE® and former president, Richard Nixon, claimed it was his
favorite form of relaxation. In 1975 it was voted 'Game of the Year' by
readers of Games and Puzzles magazine. Even mountaineer, Chris Bonnington
and his colleagues, spent their evenings playing SCRABBLE® while ascending
the south face of Annapurna.
Anticipated in the 19th century...
Though SCRABBLE® seems comparatively new, it was anticipated as early
as 1880 by Lewis Carroll.
An entry in his diary notes that, 'A game might be made of letters, to be
moved about on a chess-board till they form words.' And, on New Year's
Day in 1895 he wrote to Winnifred Hawke and told her of a game of his
own invention which is very similar to SCRABBLE®, right down to the drawing
of letters from a bag.
Expert players score more than 400 points...
An expert SCRABBLE® player can regularly score more than 400 points
while it has been calculated that it's theoretically possible to score as many
as 4,153 points in a single game. This requires the use of words such as,
benzoxycamphors, diazohydroxides, and oxyphenbutazone.
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SCRABBLE® Around The World
Different strokes for different folks...
Today there are versions of the game in French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish,
Russian and Arabic, each with its particular set of letters. In French there
are fifteen E's and the Q is not worth much due to its frequency in that
language. (W is the most valuable letter.) The Dutch game has eighteen E's,
two J's and ten N's. The Spanish set includes tiles for CH, LL, and RR. The
German game has 119 tiles including A, O, and U with umlauts (Ä, Ö, Ü)
and German players use eight letters on their racks instead of seven.
SCRABBLE® in Hollywood...
No longer limited to the parlors of the world, competive SCRABBLE® has
now become a theme worthy of the silver screen! So far, four movies have
been made featuring players vying for the top spot in the World SCRABBLE®
tournament.
Word Wars, a documentary film about competitive SCRABBLE®, is based
on four of the top players featured in the book Word Freak.
Scrabylon, a 50-minute documentary film examining the cutthroat world of
competive Scrabble, takes a look at why some people get totally obsessed
with the game. Shot mostly during the World SCRABBLE® Championship in
Las Vegas, the movie features players from around the world and their quest
to come away with the distinction of being the best SCRABBLE® player around.
In Word Freak, based on the book of the same name, author Stephen Fatsis
delves into the world of competive SCRABBLE®. It's a first-hand look at his
quest to become one of the top-ranked, competive, SCRABBLE® player.
Finally, there's Your Word Against Mine, a romantic comedy about a young
man who's given up everything in the hopes of becoming the national Scrabble
champion and an equally competitive young woman who throws off his game.
From Dave Fisher,
Your Guide to Puzzles.
.."
