Board Games Retro: How Good Are You At Trivial Pursuit Through The Years?
Trivial Pursuit is almost 40 years old! Let’s play a game with cards through the decades! I got a laughable 7 out of 24. Can you beat my score??
Trivial Pursuit has been a mainstay of your great aunts’ bookshelves for decades now. Did you know there are over 240 versions of Trivial Pursuit listed on Board Game Geek? That’s a lot of trivia. Granted, some are specific to certain languages or entertainment series. But still for having started in 1981, it’s been going strong for almost 40 years.
Also, read the subtitle again. It’s not Genius Edition.
Little Bit Of History
Before we get into flexing your knowledge, lets gain some by learning from whence Trivial Pursuit has come. Trivial Pursuit was originally created in 1979 in Montreal, Canada by Chris Haney, a photo editor, and Scott Abbott, and sports editor. As the story goes, one night they were attempting to play Scrabble, only to find some pieces missing. So, instead they decided to make their own game.
Chris Haney on the left and Scott Abbott on the right
With some additional help, they released their game for the public in 1981. Only a year later, they licensed the game to Selchow and Righter. A few years later, they approached Virgin Group to sell the rights to them, but were turned down. So they instead with to Parker Brothers in 1988.
As of 2014, over 100 million copies have been sold in over 26 countries in over 17 languages.
So I grabbed a few sample cards from editions throughout the years. I avoided ones that were specific to an entertainment series like Lord of the Rings or country and tried to get the ones that were more general.
I’m so curious…
So let’s begin with the beginning. Write down your answers and I’ll post the answer cards at the end. Let’s see just how smart the BoLS audience really is!
The Trivia
This card is from 1981’s Genus Edition, the first edition released.
Next we have a card from 1984, from the adequately named Genus II edition.
I think they realized Yes/No questions are bad because I don’t remember ever seeing any before.
This following card is from 1992 and from the 10th Anniversary edition.
And finally, we jump ahead to 2007 with the Greatest Hits edition. Somewhere along the way they lost their classic categories but at least kept the colors.
The Pursuit
Alright! How do you think you did? I thought I did very badly and did even worse.
Hopefully you’re smarter than I am.
I call BS on ‘Saliva’. That’s an awful question. I got 2001: Space Odyssey correct. 1 point.
This was my best card. I got Q, Laverne (on a guess), doff (thanks to Dungeons & Dragons) and guessed on the last two, but true to probability, only got 1 right. 4 more points, up to 5.
Screw this card. I got zero.
Finally, pop culture did me well. I got 3rd Rock and Fish Called Wanda questions correct. 2 more points gets me up to 7.
So how did you do?! Post your score in the comments below and we can all question the validity of your score together!
Thanks for reading!
