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CLASSIC: How the Monopoly Board Game Became a World War II Escape Kit · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Fellow Ridiculous Historians. We are returning with this week's classic episode,
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Speaker 1: a board game that I think has fascinated all of
0:08
Speaker 1: us for quite some time, the Landlords Game. The Landlords
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Speaker 1: Game was the original, non broken version. You're right, we are.
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Speaker 2: Talking about Monopoly, but not the history of the game itself,
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Speaker 2: though we'll get into a bit of that, but how
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Speaker 2: the physical board itself actually helped Allied POWs captured during
0:26
Speaker 2: World War Two stage their great escape.
0:29
Speaker 1: Beautiful Let's roll it. Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
1:01
Speaker 1: If you were, like millions of other people throughout history
1:04
Speaker 1: and around the world, then you have probably at least
1:08
Speaker 1: once played some sort of game with your friends, whether
1:12
Speaker 1: it's a game of dice, a game of cards, or
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Speaker 1: important for our purposes today, a board game. And today's
1:19
Speaker 1: episode is about board games, but not in the way
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Speaker 1: you think. Welcome to Ridiculous History. My name is Ben,
1:25
Speaker 1: my name is Nolan.
1:27
Speaker 2: I'm a fan of the old five finger file a
1:30
Speaker 2: you know, where you take a blade and pop it
1:32
Speaker 2: real quick between the gaps between your fingers.
1:34
Speaker 1: Uh huh have you ever done that?
1:35
Speaker 2: Only in video game form? It's an available game, and
1:38
Speaker 2: I believe Red Dead Redemption.
1:40
Speaker 1: Oh that's cool.
1:41
Speaker 2: I haven't found it yet in the new one, but
1:43
Speaker 2: hopefully it exists. But yeah, that's a pretty scary game.
1:47
Speaker 1: I've played that game in real life before and I
1:52
Speaker 1: never went fast enough to actually cut myself.
1:57
Speaker 2: Seriously, was that back when you spent time in that
1:59
Speaker 2: prison camp in the pow camp?
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Speaker 1: Well, they called it church camp, but you know what,
2:06
Speaker 1: I think six on one hands, half a dozen in
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Speaker 1: the other.
2:08
Speaker 2: Not to derail the topic before we even get there,
2:11
Speaker 2: but I just watched both documentaries about the Ill Fated
2:14
Speaker 2: fire Festival. We talked about this, and that was sort
2:18
Speaker 2: of like being in a pow camp. F y r E.
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Speaker 1: The ill Fated, the ill fated festival that was most
2:26
Speaker 1: closely associated with jaw Rules when it broke in the news.
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Speaker 2: And the main guy who was the perpetrator of the
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Speaker 2: whole hoax is a guy named Billy McFarlane I believe
2:36
Speaker 2: is his last name. And yeah, he was a real
2:40
Speaker 2: piece of work. But here's one thing they didn't have
2:41
Speaker 2: at Firefest. They had these geodesic dome kind of FEMA
2:45
Speaker 2: tents that were left over. They used that they had
2:47
Speaker 2: advertised as luxury I believe villas, they had some really
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Speaker 2: sad looking cheese sandwiches, They had a lot of kind
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Speaker 2: of gross portapies. They didn't have was the game of Monopoly.
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Speaker 1: What they also didn't was our super producer, Casey Pegram.
3:04
Speaker 1: So there they were without Monopoly and without Casey Pegram,
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Speaker 1: which I think is a grave injustice.
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Speaker 2: Possibly he could have solved the whole debacle.
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Speaker 1: Quite possibly. We are, by way of fantastic segues, exploring
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Speaker 1: the world of Monopoly, but again perhaps not in the
3:23
Speaker 1: way that you have heard it explored before. For just
3:26
Speaker 1: a quick look at the strange history of Monopoly. It
3:30
Speaker 1: was originally invented as something called the Landlord's Game in
3:34
Speaker 1: nineteen oh four by Elizabeth Maggie, and it was a
3:39
Speaker 1: real estate and taxation game that was really meant to
3:42
Speaker 1: inform people about the dangers of unbridled capitalism. And when
3:48
Speaker 1: this game was more or less stolen from her, the
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Speaker 1: gameplay was modified so that it rewarded unbridled capitalism. And
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Speaker 1: nowadays Monopoly is a love it or hate it game
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Speaker 1: for a lot of people. I've never experienced a huge
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Speaker 1: falling out with friends, loved ones, relatives and so on
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Speaker 1: playing Monopoly, but that's because I don't play with cheaters,
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Speaker 1: and that seems to be one of the big accusations
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Speaker 1: against winners of Monopoly.
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Speaker 2: I just think that Monopoly is sort of the board
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Speaker 2: game equivalent of solitary confinement, and that it's really boring
4:30
Speaker 2: and find it boring and takes a long time to finish.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I could I could see that being
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Speaker 1: a criticism. It's not for everyone, but it's a tremendously
4:39
Speaker 1: popular game, you know what I mean, Like even even
4:42
Speaker 1: people who aren't big fans of it have played it before.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's very true. Do you think people still play
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Speaker 2: it now? Like?
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Speaker 1: Yeah? Fun really absolutely, And they've made a huge business
4:54
Speaker 1: similar to Trivial Pursuit, they have made a huge business
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Speaker 1: in selling themed Monopoly boards.
5:01
Speaker 2: That's true, but at least with the Trivial Pursuit branded versions,
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Speaker 2: they're like questions related to that topic. With Monopoly, it's
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Speaker 2: just like a different looking board and instead of a shoe,
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Speaker 2: you've got like a stranger of things, baseball bat or something, yeah.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, or a demo gorgan.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 1: The thing that I always found interesting about Monopoly is
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Speaker 1: that it is a pale shadow of the board game life,
5:23
Speaker 1: which is I think much more intriguing. But either way
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Speaker 1: you look at it, Monopoly is here to stay. It's
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Speaker 1: a very popular game and during World War Two it
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Speaker 1: was widely played. It was just as popular in the
5:40
Speaker 1: United Kingdom as it was in the US. In fact,
5:44
Speaker 1: there was a manufacturer of Monopoly in the United Kingdom
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Speaker 1: called Waddington John Wattington Limited, and they had purchased a
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Speaker 1: license to create this just across the pond, which will
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Speaker 1: be important later. But no, where are we going with this?
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Speaker 2: Oh man, We're going so many places. Yeah, it's true.
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Speaker 2: Wattington was the licensee of the Product's almost like a
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Speaker 2: franchise deal right where they were allowed to manufacture and
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Speaker 2: distribute this game in the UK after it had seen
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Speaker 2: a lot of success in the US. But Wattington, this
6:17
Speaker 2: company was also very well known for their ability to
6:22
Speaker 2: print things on silk. And that doesn't seem like a
6:25
Speaker 2: big deal for our story today, but it turns out
6:28
Speaker 2: it might be the biggest deal and the thing that
6:31
Speaker 2: gave Uncle Sam and his minions of espionage the idea
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Speaker 2: to pull off this amazing caper. I guess we can say.
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Speaker 1: I think caper is a great word or scheme caper
6:44
Speaker 1: is a little more fun. Yes, the story really kicks
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Speaker 1: into gear with a guy named Christopher William Clayton Hutton,
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Speaker 1: known as Kluddy to his friends, which I think is
6:55
Speaker 1: just a terrible nickname, not great, not superior. And you know,
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Speaker 1: Christopher Clayton Hutton or Kluddy is an intelligence officer at
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Speaker 1: m I nine, and he got this job through a
7:10
Speaker 1: very strange series of events or an offhands comment when
7:14
Speaker 1: he applied to work as an intelligence officer in nineteen
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Speaker 1: thirty nine for the UK War Office. He says in
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Speaker 1: a quote later, my passport to the whole curious business
7:27
Speaker 1: has been a casual reference to my thwarted efforts to
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Speaker 1: get the better of Harry Houdini, the world's greatest escapologist.
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Speaker 2: That's right, because he his whole deal and the reason
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Speaker 2: that he was attractive to I six was that he
7:41
Speaker 2: was kind of a clever guy who was very fascinated
7:44
Speaker 2: by things like up close magic and little tricks that
7:48
Speaker 2: might be involved in doing some illusions. And he was
7:52
Speaker 2: able to apply that to those kind of James Bondy
7:55
Speaker 2: type gadgets that you that we all know and love,
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Speaker 2: like you know, a pen that's also an explosive device
8:00
Speaker 2: or something like that, right.
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Speaker 1: A tiny telescope that looks like a cigarette holder, or
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Speaker 1: compasses on the backs of buttons, boots with hollow heels
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Speaker 1: that held knives, maps, compasses, and files. But the thing was,
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Speaker 1: you're right, only it was a brilliant, brilliant man. But
8:18
Speaker 1: as ingenious as his inventions were, it seemed that the
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Speaker 1: Germans as they called them, always eventually figured them out,
8:30
Speaker 1: all of them, that is, except for one. You see,
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Speaker 1: he came to Waddington Limited and said, hey, you all
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Speaker 1: manufacture a lot of things.
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Speaker 2: Check.
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Speaker 1: I understand that you print on silk, double check. And
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Speaker 1: I am of the understanding that you also print a
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Speaker 1: board game called Monopoly triple check. He probably pronounced it correct.
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Speaker 2: These are some important boxes. And add these three boxes
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Speaker 2: up together you get a way to x this plot
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Speaker 2: that was gestating in this guy's mind. Because here's the thing.
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Speaker 2: The reason that it was a big deal to print
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Speaker 2: on silk is because they could be used to have
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Speaker 2: maps printed on them, maps that wouldn't deteriorate in the
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Speaker 2: rain or get torn to shreds if you stepped on them,
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Speaker 2: or make a noise when you try to clandestinely unfold them.
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Speaker 2: Maybe in a pow camp or surrounded by enemy troops.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely, you see, this is something that fascinated me
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Speaker 1: when he's studying up for this episode. Silk maps were
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Speaker 1: already around because of those advantages that we just named,
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Speaker 1: silk maps had already been proven superior to the paper
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Speaker 1: stuff that could disintegrate, tear, make noise, give away your position.
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Speaker 1: And because Waddington's made silk maps and Monopoly, Kluddy knew
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Speaker 1: he was onto something. There was one other important ingredient
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Speaker 1: of wartime reality that that solidified his decision. He knew
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Speaker 1: that board games were allowed into pow camps, largely because
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Speaker 1: of the Geneva Conventions and the Red Cross.
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Speaker 2: And also because Germany at this point in the war
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Speaker 2: had such a bad rep for adhering to the Geneva
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Speaker 2: Conventions in the way they treated prisoner of war that
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Speaker 2: they were willing to allow these humanitarian air drops into
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Speaker 2: their camps, which included things like snacks and you know,
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Speaker 2: things to pass the time. I think books, but board
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Speaker 2: games were also okay, and they would also think of
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Speaker 2: it as a win for them because they figured if
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Speaker 2: their prisoners were busy occupying themselves playing an interminable board game,
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Speaker 2: that took ages and ages and ages to finish. Clearly,
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Speaker 2: I'm not a fan of the game, yeah, but I
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Speaker 2: mean it would do. It serve its purpose right and
10:48
Speaker 2: they would probably be thrilled to have the opportunity to
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Speaker 2: do something like that to pass the time. But there's
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Speaker 2: the thing. A board game is in a big box
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Speaker 2: with layers, with stacks of stuff in it. This is
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Speaker 2: a pretty amazing opportunity for our mister Cluddy. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely, so what they eventually decided to do, Waddington's, we
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Speaker 1: should note, was initially not one hundred percent on board
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Speaker 1: with this. So Klutty and the UK government pitched it
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Speaker 1: to them hard and they said, look, we are We're
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Speaker 1: going to have this covered stem to stern. We are
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Speaker 1: not just going to smuggle maps in these monopoly games.
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Speaker 1: We are also going to include real money hidden with
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Speaker 1: the monopoly money. We're going to include French, Italian and
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Speaker 1: German notes just under the actual monopoly cash. What else
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Speaker 1: did they include?
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Speaker 2: They included hidden in little indentations that were cut in
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Speaker 2: the board itself, because back in those days the boards
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Speaker 2: were a good bit thicker than they are now, so
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Speaker 2: they were able to pre label because you know, the
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Speaker 2: whole label with all the pieces park place and all that.
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Speaker 2: Just a big old sticker that goes on a piece
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Speaker 2: of foldable cardboard. They were able to cut these very
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Speaker 2: shallow indentations that could hold things like files or those
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Speaker 2: those little compasses you mentioned earlier, the very small ones.
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Speaker 2: The smaller the better because they wouldn't want it to
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Speaker 2: be a red flag to any officers, any German guards
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Speaker 2: handling it, who might think this is way too heavy
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Speaker 2: for a board game. Right.
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Speaker 1: You'll also read other accounts that say playing pieces were
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Speaker 1: actually the escape items like a compass and a file
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Speaker 1: were disguised as playing pieces.
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Speaker 2: That's interesting because when I picture the whole cutting out
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Speaker 2: of the indentations into the board thing, it kind of
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Speaker 2: reminds me of stuff like how you might hide something
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Speaker 2: in prison by cutting the pages out of the middle
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Speaker 2: of a book or a bible or something like that
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Speaker 2: and having like a file or a shift or something
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Speaker 2: hidden inside. And it's interesting too because this actually was
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Speaker 2: classified until I want to say, the nineteen eighties, and
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Speaker 2: the soldiers were structed to destroy these boards. And the
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Speaker 2: thing is too they had to use their own intuition
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Speaker 2: to figure out these things are even in there. Which
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Speaker 2: is the thing that blew me away, because apparently there
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Speaker 2: was a little red dot on the board that made
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Speaker 2: that was sort of a clue. I guess that this
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Speaker 2: is a special board, but it wouldn't have been seen
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Speaker 2: as anything out of the ordinary other than like a
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Speaker 2: printing error maybe for the folks that were distributing the boards, say, okay,
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Speaker 2: the German soldiers, But it takes a lot for you
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Speaker 2: to think, oh my gosh, this board game surely hides
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Speaker 2: these secret items.
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Speaker 1: I don't know, man, you spend a lot of time, yeah,
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Speaker 1: looking at the same board. So maybe the staff of
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Speaker 1: the pow Kip just checks it and they shake it
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Speaker 1: a little bit, but they don't really care because it's
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Speaker 1: a monopoly game. But then there are a couple points
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Speaker 1: that I want to hit before they get lost. So
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Speaker 1: this this board, if you're familiar with Monopoly, does look
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Speaker 1: very similar. Most importantly, though, the map. You may different
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Speaker 1: things about the pieces versus things being stuffed in the board,
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Speaker 1: but the map itself was always hidden within the board,
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Speaker 1: and I nine covered their tracks very well here. They
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Speaker 1: invented fake cover organizations to quote unquote donate these parcels
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Speaker 1: to the camps. So this removed culpability from the Red
14:23
Speaker 1: Cross because they can't knowingly distribute escape kits, right, So
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Speaker 1: instead they're not getting stuff from the UK Government. They're
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Speaker 1: getting stuff from organizations with names like the Licensed Victuallers
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Speaker 1: Sports Association, the Ladies Knitting Circle, the Jigsaw Puzzle Club
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Speaker 1: and the Prisoner's Leisure Hour Fund. So as far as
14:45
Speaker 1: the people actually supplying the kits know, these are legiti
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Speaker 1: monopoly boards. As far as the Germans know, these are
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Speaker 1: legitimate monopoly boards, and they just had to wait. It
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Speaker 1: was a leap of faith to wait for one of
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Speaker 1: those POW's to say, hey, this piece doesn't look quite normal.
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Speaker 1: Let me turn it over. Oh there's a compass, you
15:08
Speaker 1: know what I mean.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true, and not to mention like that. The
15:11
Speaker 2: stacks of money, I believe were fake money on top,
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Speaker 2: fake money on bottom, real money in between. So that
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Speaker 2: might have been the first thing they gave it away,
15:18
Speaker 2: right if they're like, think about it, if you're going
15:20
Speaker 2: to play a nice game of monopoly, you pull out
15:22
Speaker 2: the fake money and you say, what, what's this and
15:24
Speaker 2: then there's you know, real money, and that maybe would
15:27
Speaker 2: make them investigate further.
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Speaker 1: You think, yeah, yeah, I think that's I think that's
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Speaker 1: quite likely. And it's strange because at first, you know,
15:35
Speaker 1: your first question is why is this not a film?
15:37
Speaker 1: Right because it seems like one heck of a story.
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Speaker 1: But the second question is how much of this is
15:45
Speaker 1: exaggerated because Monopoly is a cultural icon. The answer is
15:52
Speaker 1: really not much.
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Speaker 2: No, not much. And just to throw in one last point,
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Speaker 2: Parker Brothers themselves, the creators of the game didn't know
16:00
Speaker 2: this was going on. This all had to be done
16:03
Speaker 2: very secretly, and it's not like they would like let
16:05
Speaker 2: them know. Hey, by the way, is it okay if
16:06
Speaker 2: we use your beloved board game to rescue some of
16:09
Speaker 2: our troops? But you know, and again it was not
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Speaker 2: known for decades because it was classified, and we don't
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Speaker 2: have any examples of what these might have looked like
16:18
Speaker 2: because they were all destroyed. Because what if a German
16:21
Speaker 2: guard had discovered one, the whole jig would be up
16:23
Speaker 2: for all of the camps. Here's the thing, too, Ben,
16:26
Speaker 2: they knew which camps they were air dropping these on,
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Speaker 2: and they had customized packages for each particular spot right right.
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Speaker 1: This may have been declassified relatively recently, but it was
16:38
Speaker 1: kind of an open secret. Way before two thousand and seven.
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Speaker 1: You could find a nineteen eighty five ap Press article
16:46
Speaker 1: about this. But again, we don't know what the kits
16:52
Speaker 1: look like. Because people could describe them, right POW's who
16:57
Speaker 1: used these to escape, People can recount their appearance, but
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Speaker 1: as you said, they had to be destroyed. There's a
17:03
Speaker 1: fantastic article on this in The Atlantic, How Monopoly games
17:08
Speaker 1: helped ally POW's escape during World War Two by Megan Garber.
17:13
Speaker 1: And you know, for someone who is severely anti monopoly like,
17:18
Speaker 1: it seems no offense, you might be noal. This maybe
17:22
Speaker 1: is redemptive. Does this make you feel a little bit
17:24
Speaker 1: better about the game?
17:26
Speaker 2: Well? Sure, I think the game has its its positive qualities,
17:29
Speaker 2: and this certainly is one of them. I just personally
17:32
Speaker 2: don't enjoy playing it. It's one of those games where
17:34
Speaker 2: I like the idea of it more than the actual
17:36
Speaker 2: practice of playing the game. I'm really into a game
17:39
Speaker 2: called Pandemic, which is a game that you play cooperatively
17:42
Speaker 2: with people, and I think that's a lot of fun.
17:44
Speaker 2: Sometimes the adversarial nature of a game isn't isn't for me?
17:48
Speaker 1: You know, there are also games such as there's a
17:51
Speaker 1: great HP Lovecraft game called something like Call of Cthulhu
17:55
Speaker 1: I can remember. Yeah, and you cooperate with other players
17:58
Speaker 1: to prevent the coming of the eldritch gods.
18:01
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and Pandemic is very similar that you're preventing
18:04
Speaker 2: some sort of global outbreak that could annihilate civilization. So
18:08
Speaker 2: it's all you know, it's all for a good cause. Also,
18:10
Speaker 2: there's something about monopoly that kind of rubs me the
18:12
Speaker 2: wrong way, because, like you said at the top of
18:14
Speaker 2: the show, it used to be much more about, you know,
18:16
Speaker 2: highlighting the evils and potential negative things that can result
18:21
Speaker 2: from capitalism run amuck, and now it's just much more about, like, hey,
18:24
Speaker 2: let's run am uck with some capitalism.
18:26
Speaker 1: Now that we live in a world of late stage capitalism. Yep, oh,
18:29
Speaker 1: excuse me, gig economy. Sheesh. Well, we would be remiss
18:33
Speaker 1: if we did not ask super producer Casey Pegram are
18:36
Speaker 1: you a monopolist? Casey?
18:39
Speaker 3: I like it because the experience of playing it is terrible.
18:42
Speaker 3: I just kind of feel like it's good propaganda for,
18:45
Speaker 3: you know, a different way of life.
18:47
Speaker 2: So sort of like in the way you might watch
18:48
Speaker 2: a Mystery Science Theater three thousand movie you enjoy the
18:51
Speaker 2: awfulness of it just for its own sake.
18:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I mean it's true to life. True to
18:56
Speaker 1: life's too, it's too terribly true to life. Casey on
19:01
Speaker 1: the case, folks. Yeah, I think that's such a great point.
19:06
Speaker 1: One thing that I was thinking about during the course
19:08
Speaker 1: of research into today's episode was the fact that going
19:13
Speaker 1: to jail in monopoly is just part of business and
19:18
Speaker 1: does not impede your financial or social success in any shape,
19:23
Speaker 1: fashion or form, sort of like how paying multimillion dollar
19:28
Speaker 1: fines is just the cost of business for a lot
19:31
Speaker 1: of banks. I don't want to get too oriented towards
19:33
Speaker 1: the corporatocracy or politics, but that's just the case. Monopoly
19:38
Speaker 1: predicted it, but they predicted it in a terribly misleading way.
19:43
Speaker 1: So I'm glad it did something good and helped some
19:47
Speaker 1: portion of over thirty five thousand Allied POWs escape from
19:53
Speaker 1: German prison gamps.
19:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they don't have exact numbers of how many
19:56
Speaker 2: people many POWs escape using these monopoly kits, but everyone
20:01
Speaker 2: involved is pretty confident that they were effective on some level.
20:04
Speaker 2: And here's the thing I just found been to in
20:06
Speaker 2: this great article from ABC News where they say that
20:11
Speaker 2: airmen before being deployed on missions that might have been
20:15
Speaker 2: going out on maneuvers at this stage in the war,
20:18
Speaker 2: were told if they were captured to look for escape
20:22
Speaker 2: kits in Monopoly games. Oh cool, So I was thinking
20:25
Speaker 2: more of the folks that have been there, maybe a
20:26
Speaker 2: little longer term, right.
20:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which lets us know that this
20:30
Speaker 1: had been in a production for some time, you know
20:34
Speaker 1: what I mean, and it worked. Also quoted that ABC
20:38
Speaker 1: article is Victor Watson, who was a former chairman of
20:42
Speaker 1: Waddington's until nineteen ninety three, and in his estimation, again
20:48
Speaker 1: this might be a bit biased because he did work
20:50
Speaker 1: for the company, he says that Waddington's reckoned around ten
20:55
Speaker 1: thousand POWs successfully used the Monopoly map, which is inspiring,
21:02
Speaker 1: you know, and I love that you raised the point
21:05
Speaker 1: that we're never going to know the actual number of
21:09
Speaker 1: people who were who were for sure saved or able
21:13
Speaker 1: to escape with this. We should also mention that this
21:22
Speaker 1: was not the first involvement. Uncle Pennybags that's the name
21:26
Speaker 1: of that cartoon character, the capitalist.
21:29
Speaker 2: They yeah, we'll just call them Monopoly gay.
21:32
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, his real name is rich Uncle Penny Bags.
21:34
Speaker 2: Rich Uncle Penny Bags.
21:35
Speaker 1: It's back when a penny before inflation.
21:37
Speaker 2: Carried a lot more away and meant something.
21:40
Speaker 1: Back when a penny meant something. After World War Two,
21:43
Speaker 1: Monopoly found itself in the middle of another international conflict,
21:48
Speaker 1: this one more ideology related, because you see Cuba, the
21:52
Speaker 1: USSR and other communist countries outlawed the game because it
21:57
Speaker 1: advocated capitalism. You know what I mean. There's not a
22:00
Speaker 1: communist version of Monopoly yet. I'd someone check on that.
22:04
Speaker 1: If there is, please let me know whether there's some
22:07
Speaker 1: sort of anti monopoly or communist monopoly. And Casey, by
22:13
Speaker 1: the way, I see that you just sent us something
22:16
Speaker 1: called Monopoly for Millennials. Yes, this is a true thing.
22:20
Speaker 1: I remember hearing about this a while back when it
22:24
Speaker 1: broke fairly recently. It was Monopoly's crass attempt to advertise
22:29
Speaker 1: the millennial generation.
22:31
Speaker 2: Right, They might have air dropped some of these on Firefest.
22:35
Speaker 3: There we go, a nice way to call back. So
22:36
Speaker 3: what is this, Casey, It is a updated version of
22:40
Speaker 3: Monopoly for millennials. And just looking at the box cover art,
22:43
Speaker 3: I love the slogan forget real estate. You can't afford
22:45
Speaker 3: it anyway. So that's just that lovely, lovely late capitalist Dustopia.
22:51
Speaker 1: We've all enjoyed Casey on a tragic case there, But.
22:57
Speaker 3: I love it because it's got pictures of like bike
22:59
Speaker 3: lanes and it's like a vegan only restaurant, green kind
23:03
Speaker 3: of ecological messages. And mister Pennybags has kind of like
23:08
Speaker 3: some reflective sunglasses on, looks like he has an iPod
23:11
Speaker 3: earbud in his ear. So they're really hitting the millennial
23:16
Speaker 3: cliches pretty heavily.
23:17
Speaker 2: There more of a douchebag than a penny bag.
23:19
Speaker 1: Yeah. Community chess cards say things like your free web
23:23
Speaker 1: streaming trial expires, pay the bank forty dollars. Tokens include
23:28
Speaker 1: an emoji.
23:28
Speaker 2: And a hashtag. Oh this is great, this is terrible.
23:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny because it seems like they're trolling, but
23:35
Speaker 3: I mean it is a real thing you can buy
23:37
Speaker 3: in stores.
23:37
Speaker 1: Apparently what rough board games slouches toward beth Lehem to
23:42
Speaker 1: be bored.
23:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, and especially again, I'm fresh off watching both of
23:46
Speaker 2: these Firefest documentaries, so I have a pretty bad taste
23:49
Speaker 2: in my mouth and a bit of a self loathing
23:51
Speaker 2: for millennial. I'm technically a zennial. I think I'm on
23:54
Speaker 2: the cusp. I think both you and I Casey, here
23:56
Speaker 2: a little bit on the cusp.
23:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're cuspers.
23:58
Speaker 2: We're cuspers.
23:59
Speaker 1: It's rated in two different ways. The one way would
24:05
Speaker 1: be to rate it on a generational chronological divide. But
24:11
Speaker 1: another way, some sociologists for you this would be to
24:15
Speaker 1: rate it on a digital divide or access to information.
24:19
Speaker 1: You know, so people who were born before the days
24:22
Speaker 1: of dial up modem, right, are clearly not millennial. I
24:25
Speaker 1: don't know. I think we're I think we're all actually cuspers.
24:29
Speaker 1: What we what we should be wondering about if we
24:32
Speaker 1: were Hasbro, is what sort of board game the generation
24:36
Speaker 1: after millennials would like to play? Hint, it's not on
24:40
Speaker 1: a board.
24:40
Speaker 2: That's true. He also knows. It's funny how there's like
24:43
Speaker 2: app versions of most old board games. Yeah, and they're
24:46
Speaker 2: very similar or just a little quicker to play. Like
24:48
Speaker 2: you mentioned the Game of Life at the top of
24:50
Speaker 2: the show, and I used to have an app version
24:52
Speaker 2: of that because the mechanics of the Game of Life
24:54
Speaker 2: are a little cumbersome, and with the app it kind
24:56
Speaker 2: of does all that for you. So it's a the
24:58
Speaker 2: lazy game of Life.
25:00
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's weird. I've tried doing you know
25:02
Speaker 1: you guys know me a huge fan of crosswords, and
25:04
Speaker 1: I've tried doing them online, but there's something about the
25:07
Speaker 1: physical pen and paper. Also, yeah, I do them in pen.
25:11
Speaker 1: But whatever I chose my battle. Oh, we should mention
25:15
Speaker 1: as we're wrapping up here that Uncle Sam and the Yanks,
25:20
Speaker 1: that's us, so we can say Yankees and not be pejorative.
25:24
Speaker 1: We totally copied this idea a little later. After the
25:28
Speaker 1: Japanese attack Pro Harbor on December seventh, nineteen forty one,
25:32
Speaker 1: Hutton was tasked with training his American like the American
25:38
Speaker 1: version of him, a guy named Captain rob Lee Winfrey,
25:42
Speaker 1: in the art of concealing escape tools in this innocuous
25:45
Speaker 1: looking stuff, and he came up with ideas that took
25:50
Speaker 1: off kind of dovetailed on Hutton's and eventually his part
25:56
Speaker 1: of the Intelligence Services Military Intelligence Services Escape in Evasion Setiction,
26:00
Speaker 1: or miss X, started sending out Monopoly boards that were
26:04
Speaker 1: also loaded with escape tools. The one thing different they
26:08
Speaker 1: did is that Winfrey would send his employees into toy
26:14
Speaker 1: stores and department stores to buy civilian monopoly games, and
26:19
Speaker 1: then they would take the games back to their secret layer,
26:23
Speaker 1: and that's when they would kick them up, so they
26:25
Speaker 1: didn't have I guess nobody trusted Parker Brothers at that time,
26:29
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, because they ever asked Parker
26:31
Speaker 1: Brothers to manufacture bespokeer custom ones. They just reverse engineered them.
26:37
Speaker 2: That's nuts that there would be that much logistical planning
26:40
Speaker 2: that would go in some of that. Did you talk
26:42
Speaker 2: about the glue for example?
26:44
Speaker 1: Oh, lay it honest.
26:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, they had to reverse engineer the exact glue that
26:48
Speaker 2: Parker Brothers used in order to make the you know,
26:51
Speaker 2: the decal lay correctly. So there was a whole lot
26:54
Speaker 2: of little things they had to kind of like troubleshoot
26:57
Speaker 2: and figure out how to make so that it wouldn't
26:59
Speaker 2: throw up any red flags.
27:01
Speaker 1: Okay, I've got to catch up because just for a second,
27:04
Speaker 1: when you said the decal lay correctly, I for some
27:08
Speaker 1: reason I had a brain fart and I thought you
27:10
Speaker 1: said decla like it was some sort of very specific
27:15
Speaker 1: Parker Brothers correctly ladies. Yeah, you're you're right though, and
27:21
Speaker 1: by golly by gosh, by gum, it worked because when
27:24
Speaker 1: the war ended in September nineteen forty five, there was
27:27
Speaker 1: only one escape kit that the German forces had not
27:31
Speaker 1: discovered and it was Monopoly. As you said, Noel, everything
27:36
Speaker 1: was destroyed. We know this really happened. It was officially
27:41
Speaker 1: revealed in nineteen eighty five, right, but the American news
27:46
Speaker 1: of the game wasn't revealed until nineteen ninety and according
27:51
Speaker 1: to various sources, at least at least seven hundred and
27:56
Speaker 1: forty something airmen escaped with aids created by Kluddy and
28:02
Speaker 1: Robie Winfrey. Which you know, it sounds like a great,
28:06
Speaker 1: a great gig if you can get it. If there's
28:08
Speaker 1: a wartime thing, then you get drafted. Can you imagine,
28:11
Speaker 1: fellas if someone said, Okay, your job is to make
28:14
Speaker 1: top secret board game Escape Kits, I would be in.
28:19
Speaker 1: I would be one million percent in.
28:21
Speaker 2: I would do and I think it's a real testament
28:23
Speaker 2: to British engineering and ingenuity.
28:26
Speaker 1: Agreed, And with that ends our tail, but not our show.
28:32
Speaker 1: Tune in for our next episode, which will be a
28:36
Speaker 1: surprising romp through the origin story of one of the
28:40
Speaker 1: world's most famous rhinos.
28:42
Speaker 2: I'm very much looking forward to that. In the meantime,
28:44
Speaker 2: we'd love to thank our super producer, Casey Pegram Alex Williams,
28:47
Speaker 2: who composed our theme.
28:48
Speaker 1: Our research associate Gabe of course you fellow Ridiculous Historians,
28:53
Speaker 1: for listening. And Noel, thank you for thank you for
28:57
Speaker 1: exploring this story with me.
28:58
Speaker 2: Ben, thank you for being a friend.
29:01
Speaker 1: I wish we could. We don't have the rights to
29:03
Speaker 1: play the Golden Girls.
29:04
Speaker 2: You just have to use your imagination or go watch
29:06
Speaker 2: it on Hulu's got right now, I can play.
29:08
Speaker 1: It on, can you really?
29:10
Speaker 2: Yes, that's very cool.
29:11
Speaker 1: Well I was ely on my priorities order, right man.
29:14
Speaker 2: Well you got to and you guys should have your
29:16
Speaker 2: priorities in order to listen to the next episode Ridiculous History.
29:19
Speaker 2: We'll see then,