Cheers to Tabletop Games | Monopoly in World War II, History of the Ouija Board, Scrimish Giveaway (CLP-Ep. 37)

Classy Little Podcast

Game on! Blow on those dice, spend 30 minutes setting up that elaborate game board, and get ready to raise your glasses to Tabletop games -- either a great way to socialize, or the way to end friendships, as we discover in this episode. All in honor of International Tabletop Day, which is April 30th.

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This episode's wine: 2014 Jigsaw Pinot Noir, Oregon This episode's cheese: Aged Reserve White Cheddar

Find out a little bit of history behind International Tabletop Day, from GeekandSundry.com, which is also the home of Wil Wheaton's show "Tabletop."

Emily talks about the benefits of playing games for children and adults, and why she and her friends are no longer allowed to play Monopoly. Despite the popularity of video games, board games continue to rise in popularity.

One reason games continue to be popular is the rise in crowdfunding games, such as one of our favorites, Scrimish, which you can win a copy of by going to classylittlepodcast.com/giveaway.

Want to find out more about Scrimish? Check out inventor Danny Zondervan's video explaining game play over on the Kickstarter page. (Emily and her husband, Mark, are proud to say they helped Kickstart this campaign!)

James, despite hating the game, talks about some of the history of Monopoly, including the real story behind the invention of it. Fun Fact: You cannot use the game board as a map around Atlantic City. We also want to go to the landfill to find buried copies of Anti-Monopoly.

Also, what were some of your house rules you had while playing Monopoly? Let us know!

Although James says Monopoly takes too long to play, Emily tells him how it's possible to play the game in 21 seconds. We also talk about the updates made to game, including changing cash to credit cards.

Even though Monopoly may be responsible for the loss of friendship, the game was responsible for helping British prisoners of war escape during World War II.

Emily freaks herself out researching Ouija boards, and she finds out the history, some precursors, and why mediums were more upset about Ouija boards at first than the church. Find out the reason for the Ouija board's name, how it was awarded a patent, and some of the other talking boards in existence.

So, what makes the Ouija board work? It seems plausible that it could be spirits ... until you blindfold users. Watch on YouTube.

We find out James' poo story, and you can hear more about poop stories from Off in the Weeds.

James gives us a game, Board Game or Racehorse? This is a tough, tough game, by the way! Emily even calls on Kitty to help her out. She even just starts guessing categories other than game or racehorse for a few of them. Because of this game, we decide we want to play Hey, That's My Fish!

Find out what porn and polio has to do with Candyland. And we finally found a topic in which James really couldn't find any large corporations to judge this week!

By the way, the Drunk History episode James refers to can be watched on CC.com. But James does talk a bit about Milton Bradley and some of the innovations he brought to America.

And get the inside info on why we're an Explicit podcast. (It's James' fault. Clearly.) Apparently, we'll be planning a field trip to Springfield, Mass.

Emily gives a few fun facts about Scrabble, including a terrible French/Spanish/Gibberish pronunciation of the International Federation of Scrabble!

Thanks for your patience while Emily was feeling under the weather this week -- we tried to get this episode out as soon as possible. Actually, a HUGE thank you to her husband, Mark, who did a majority of editing for her while she had fever dreams that her cat was telepathically sending her a ideas for a book he wants to write. (Seriously. This happened.)

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Special thanks to our classy sponsors on Patreon: Debt Shepherd, PodUnderground & Jason Bryant from Mat Talk Online and the Short Time Wrestling podcast.

Special thanks to Adam Centamore for his book, "Tasting Wine & Cheese: An Insider's Guide to Mastering the Principles of Pairing," which inspires us to try new wine and cheese pairings in every episode!

Cheers!