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

• 0:24
  Speaker 1: If you're like millions of other people throughout history and
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: around the world, then you have probably at least once
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: played some sort of game with your friends, whether it's
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: a game of dice, a game of cards, or important
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: for our purposes today, a board game. Uh. And today's
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: episode is about board games, but not in the way
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: you think. Welcome to ridiculous history. My name is Ben,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: my name is Noel, and I'm I'm a fan of
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: the old five finger fill at you know, where you
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: take a blade and pop it real quick between the
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: gaps between your fingers. Have you ever done that? Only
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: in video game form? So it's it's an available game,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and I believe Red Dead Redemption. I haven't found it
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: yet in the new one, but hopefully it exists. But yeah,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: that's that's a pretty scary game. I've I've played that
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: game in real life before, and I never went fast
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: enough to actually cut myself. Seriously, was that back when
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: you spent time in that prison camp in the pow camp,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Well they called it church camp. But you know what,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I think, six on one hand, half a dozen in
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: the other. Not to derail the topic before we even
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: get there, but I just watched both documentaries about the
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Ill Fated Fire Festival, and we talked about this and uh,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: that was sort of like being in a in a
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: pow camp f y r E. The ill fated, the
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: ill fated festival that was most closely associated with jaw
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Rules when it broke in the news. Well, and the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: main guy who was the perpetrator of the whole hoax
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: is a guy named Billy McFarland I believe is his
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: last name. And yeah, he he was a real piece
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: of work. But here's one thing they didn't have it Firefest.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: They had these gadesic dome kind of FEMA tents that
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: were left over they used that they had advertised as
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: luxury um I believe villas um. They had some really
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: sad looking cheese sandwiches. They had a lot of kind
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: of gross portapies. They didn't have was the game of Monopoly.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: What they also didn't have was our super producer, Casey Pegram.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: So there they were without Monopoly, and without Casey Pegram,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: which I think is a is a grave injustice, possibly
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: could have solved the whole debacle. Quite possibly. We are,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: by way of fantastic segues exploring the world of Monopoly
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: but again perhaps not in the way that you have
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: heard it explored before. For just a quick look at
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: the strange history of Monopoly. It was originally invented as
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: something called the Landlord's Game in nineteen o four by
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Maggie, and it was a real estate and taxation
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: game that was really meant to inform people about the
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: dangers of unbridled capitalism. And when this game was more
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: or less stolen from her, the gameplay was modified so
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: that it rewarded unbridled capitalism. And nowadays Monopoly is a
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: love it or hate it game for a lot of people.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: I've never experienced a huge falling out with friends, loved ones, relatives,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: and so on playing Monopoly, but that's because I don't
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: play with cheaters, and that seems to be one of
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: the big accusations against winners of Monopoly. I just think
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: that Monopoly is sort of the board game equivalent of
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: solitary confinement, and that it's really boring. You find it boring,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: It takes a long time to finish. Yeah, I mean,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: I could I could see that being a CRITICISI is
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: um It's not for everyone, but it's a tremendously popular game.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean, Like, even even people who
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: aren't big fans of it have played it before. Absolutely,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: It's very true. Do you think people still play it
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: now like fun? Absolutely? And they've made a huge business
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: similar to Trivial Pursuit, they have made a huge business
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: in selling themed Monopoly boards. That's true, but at least
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: with the Trivial Pursuit branded versions, they're like questions related
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: to that topic. With Monopoly, it's just like a different
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: looking board and instead of a shoe, you've got like
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: a Stranger Things baseball bat or something yeah, yeah, or
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: a demogorgan. Right. The thing that I always found, uh
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: interesting about Monopoly is that it is a pale shadow
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: of the board game life, which is I think much
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: more intriguing. But either way you look at it, Monopoly
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: is is here to stay. It's a very popular game
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: and during World War Two it was widely played. It
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: was just as popular in the United Kingdom as it
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: was in the US. In fact, uh, there was a
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: manufacturer of Monopoly in the United Kingdom called Waddington John
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Waddington Limited, and they had purchased a license to create
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: this just across the pond, which will be important later
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: but no, where are we going with this? Oh man,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: We're going so many places. Um, yeah, it's true. Waddington
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: was the license of the products, almost like a franchise
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: deal right where they were allowed to manufacture and distribute
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: this game in the UK after it had seen a
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: lot of success in the US. But Waddington, this company
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: um was also very well known for their ability to
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: print things on silk. And that doesn't seem like a
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: big deal for our story today, but it turns out
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: it might be the biggest deal and the thing that
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: gave Uncle Sam and his minions of espionage idea to
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: pull off this amazing uh caper, I guess we can say.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: I think caper is a great word, or scheme keeper
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: is a little more fun. Yes, the story really kicks
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: into gear with a guy named Christopher William Clayton Hutton
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: known as Clutty to his friends, which I think is
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: just a terrible nickname, not not superior. And so Christopher
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Clayton Hutton or Clutty is an intelligence officer at m
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: I nine and he got this job through a very
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: strange series of events or in off hands comment when
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: he applied to work as an intelligence officer in nine
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: for the UK War Office. He says in a quote later,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: my passport to the whole curious business has been a
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: casual reference to my thwarted efforts to get the better
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: of Harry Houdini, the world's greatest Escapologist's right, because he
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: his whole deal. And the reason that he was attractive
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: to m I six was that he was kind of
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: a clever guy who was very fascinated by things like
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: up close magic and and little tricks that might be
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: involved in doing some illusions. Uh. And he was able
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: to apply that to those kind of James Bondi type
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: gadgets that you that we all know and love. Like
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: you know, a pen, it's also an explosive device or
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: something like that, right, a tiny telescope that looks like
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: a cigarette holder, or compasses on the backs of buttons, uh,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: boots with hollow heels that held knives, maps, compasses and files.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: But the thing was, you're right, only it was a brilliant,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: brilliant man. But as ingenious as his inventions were, it
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: seemed that the Germans as they called them, always eventually
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: figured them out, all of them, that is, except for one.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: You see, he came to Waddington Limited and said, you
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: all manufacture a lot of things. Check. I understand that
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: you print on silk, double check. And I am of
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: the understanding that you also print a board game called Monopoly.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Triple check. He probably pronounced it correct. These are some
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: important boxes. And we add these three boxes up together,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: you get a way to execute this plot that was
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: gestating in this guy's mind. Because here's the thing. The
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: reason that it was a big deal to print on
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: silk is because they could be used to have maps
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: printed on them, maps that wouldn't deteriorate in the rain
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: or get torn to shreds if you stepped on them,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: or make a noise when you try to clandestinely unfold them,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: maybe in a pow camp or surrounded by enemy troops. Absolutely,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: absolutely see, this is something that fascinated me. We're studying
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: up for this episode. Silk maps were already around because
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: of those advantage is that we just named silk maps
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: had already been proven superior to the paper stuff that
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: could disintegrate, tear, make noise, giveaway your position. And because
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Waddington's made silk maps and Monopoly, Cluttie knew he was
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: onto something. There was one other important ingredient of wartime
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: reality that that solidified his decision. He knew that board
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: games were allowed into POW camps largely because of the
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Geneva Conventions and the Red Cross, and also because Germany
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: at this point in the war UM had such a
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: bad rep for adhering to the Geneva Conventions in the
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: way they treated prisoner of war that they were willing
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: to allow these humanitarian air drops UM into their camps,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: which included things like snacks and you know, things that
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: to pass the time. I think books, but board games
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: were also okay, and they would also think of it
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: as a win for them because they figured if they're
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: prisoners were busy occupying themselves playing an interminable board game
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: that took ages and ages and ages to finish. Clearly,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: I'm not a fan of the game, yeah, but I
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: mean it would it would serve its purpose, right, and
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: they would probably be thrilled to have the opportunity to
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: do something like that to pass the time. UM. But
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: there's the thing. A board game is in a big
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: box with layers with stacks of stuff in it. This
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: is a pretty amazing opportunity UM for our Mr Cluttie yeah, absolutely,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: So what they eventually decided to do Waddington's we should not.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: It was initially not on board with this, so Clutty
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: and the UK government pitched it to them hard and
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: they said, look, we are going to We're going to
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: have this covered stem to stern. We are not just
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: gonna smuggle maps in these monopoly games. We are also
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: going to flude real money hidden with the monopoly money.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: We're going to include French, Italian and German notes just
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: under the actual monopoly cash. What else did they include?
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: They included um hidden in little indentations that were cut
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: in the board itself because back in those days the
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: boards were a good bit thicker than they are now.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: So they were able to um pre label because you know,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: the whole label with all the pieces park place and
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: all that, just a big old sticker that goes on
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: a piece of foldable cardboard. Um, they were able to
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: cut these very shallow indentations that could hold things like
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: files or those uh, those little compasses you mentioned earlier,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: the very small ones. The smaller the better, because they
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: wouldn't want it to be a red flag to any officers,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: any German guards handling it who might think this is
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: way too heavy for a board game, right. You also
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: read other accounts that say, uh, playing pieces were actually
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: the escape items like a compass and a file were
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: disguised as playing pieces. That's interesting case. When I I
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: pictured the whole cutting out of the indentations into the
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: board thing, it kind of reminds me of stuff like
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: how you might hide something in prison by cutting the
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: pages out of the middle of a book or a
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: bible or something with that and having like a file
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: or a shive or something hidden inside. Um. And it's
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: interesting too because this actually was classified until I want
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: to say, the nineteen eighties, uh, and the soldiers were
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: instructed to destroy these boards. Um. And the thing is
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: too they had to use their own intuition to figure
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: out these things are even in there, which is the
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: thing that blew me away, because apparently there was a
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: little red dot on the board that made that was
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: sort of a clue. I guess that this is a
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: special board, but it wouldn't have been seen as anything
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: out of the ordinary other than like a printing error
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: maybe for the folks that were distributing the boards. Sak
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: that the German soldiers, but it takes a lot for
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: you to think, oh my gosh, this board game surely
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: hides these secret items. I don't know, man, you spend
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: a lot of time looking at the same board. So
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: maybe the staff of the pow camp just checks it
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: and they shake it a little bit, but they don't
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: really care because it's a Monopoly game. But then there
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: are a couple of points that I want to hit
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: before they get lost. So this, uh, this board, if
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: you're familiar with Monopoly, does look very similar. Most importantly, though,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: the map. You may hear different things about the pieces
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: versus things being stuffed in the board, but the map
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: itself was always hidden within the board, and m I
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: nine covered their tracks very well here. They invented fake
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: cover organizations to quote unquote donate these parcels to the camps.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: So this removed culpability from the Red Cross because they
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: can't knowingly distribute escape kits right, So instead they're not
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: getting stuff from the UK Government. They're getting stuff from
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: organizations with names like the Licensed Victuallers Sports Association, the
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Ladies Knitting Circle, the Jigsaw Puzzle Club and the Prisoners
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Leisure Hour Fund. So as far as the people actually
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: supplying the kids know these are legit monopoly boards. As
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: far as the Germans know, these are legitimate monopoly boards,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: and it they just had to wait. It was a
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: leap of faith to wait for one of those POWs
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: to say, hey, this peace doesn't look quite normal. Let
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: me turn it over. Oh there's a compass, you know
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: what I mean? Yeah, that's true, and not to mention
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: like that. The stacks of money, I believe were fake
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: money on top, fake money on bottom, real money in between.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: So that might have been the first thing that gave
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: it away, right if they're like, think about it, if
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: we're going to play a nice game of monopoly, you
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: pull out the fake money and you say, what, what's this?
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: And then there's you know, real money, and that maybe
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: would make them investigate further. You think, yeah, yeah, I
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: think that's I think that's quite likely. And it's strange
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: because at first, you know, the first question is why
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: is this not a film? Right, because it seems like
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: one heck of a story. But the second question is
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: how much of this is exaggerated? Because Monopoly is a
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: cultural icon. The answer is really not much, not much.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: And just to throw in one last point, Parker brothers
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: themselves the creators of the game didn't know this was
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: going on. This all had to be done very secretly,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: and it's not like they would like let them know. Hey,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: by the way, is it okay if we use your
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: beloved board can to rescue some of our troops? But
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: it you know, And again it was not known for
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: decades because it was classified, and we don't have any
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: examples of what these might have looked like because they
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: were all destroyed, because what if a German guard had
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: discovered one, the whole jig would be up for all
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: of the camps. Here's the thing to ben. They knew
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: which camps they were bear dropping these on, and they
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: had customized packages for each particular spot right right. This
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: may have been declassified relative recently, but it was kind
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: of an open secret way before two thousand and seven.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: You can find a AP Press article about this. But again,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: we don't know what the kids look like because people
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: could describe them, right. POWs who used these to escape
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: people can recount their appearance, but as you said, they
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: had to be destroyed. There's a fantastic article on this
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: in the Atlantic, How Monopoly games helped ally POWs escape
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: during World War Two by Megan Garber. And you know,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: for someone who is severely anti monopoly, like it seems
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: no offense, you might benal this maybe is redemptive. Does
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: this make you feel a little bit better about the game? Well? Sure,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I think the game has it's it's it's positive qualities,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: and it certainly is one of them. Um, I just
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: personally don't enjoy playing it. It's one of those games
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: where I like the idea of it more than the
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: actual practice of playing a game. Um. I'm really into
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: a game called Pandemic, which is a game that you
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: play cooperatively with people, and I think that's a lot
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: of fun. Sometimes the adversarial nature of a game isn't
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: is it for me? You know? There are also games
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: such as uh, there's a great HP Lovecraft game called
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: something like Call of and you cooperate with other players
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: to prevent the coming of the the Eldridge Gods. Yeah. Yeah,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: and the Pandemic is very similar that you're preventing some
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: sort of global outbreak that could annihilate civilization. So it's
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: all you know, it's all for a good cause. Also,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: there's something about Monopoly that kind of rubs me the
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: wrong way, because, like you said at the top of
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: the show. It used to be much more about, you know,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: highlighting the evils and potential, uh negative things that can
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: result from capitalism run amuck, and now it's just much
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: more about, like, hey, let's run them up with some capitalism,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: now that we live in a world of late stage capitalism.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Oh excuse me, gig economy. She well, well, we would
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: be remiss if we did not ask super producer Casey Pegroom,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: are you monopolist? Casey? I like it because the experience
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: of playing it is terrible. I just kind of feel
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: like it's good propaganda for um, you know, a different
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: way of life. So sort of like in the way
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: you might watch a Mystery Science Theater three thousand movie,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: you enjoy the awfulness of it just for its own sake. Yeah,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: because I mean, it's it's true life, true life. It's
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: too it's too terribly true to life. Casey on the case, folks, Yeah,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: I think that's such a great point. One thing that
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: I was thinking about during the course of research into
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: today's episode was the fact that going to jail in
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: monopoly is just part of business and does not impede
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: your financial or social success in any shape, fashion or form,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: sort of like how paying multimillion dollar finds. It's just
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: the cost of business for a lot of banks. I
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: don't want to get too oriented towards the corporatocracy or politics,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: but that's just the case. Monopoly predicted it, but they
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: predicted it in a in a terribly misleading way. So
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: I'm glad it did something good and helped some portion
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: of over thirty five thousand Allied POW's escaped from German
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: prison gamps. Yeah, and they don't have exact numbers of
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: how many people many many POWs escape using these monopoly kits,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: but um, everyone involved is pretty confident that they were
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: effective on some level. Uh. And here's the thing I
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: just found been too in this great article from ABC
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: news UM where they say that airmen, before being deployed
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: on missions that might have been um going out on
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: maneuvers at this stage in the war, were told if
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: they were captured to look for escape kits in monopoly games.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: So I was thinking more of the folks that have
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: been there maybe a little longer term, right yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: which lets us know that this had been in production
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: for some time, you know what I mean? And it worked.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Also in that ABC article is Victor Watson, who was
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: a former chairman of Waddington's until nineteen ninety three, and
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: in his estimation, again this might be a bit bias
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: because he did work for the company. Uh, he says
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: that Waddington's reckoned around ten thousand POWs successfully used the
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: monopoly map, which is inspiring, you know, and I love
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: that you raised the point that we're never going to
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: know the actual number of people who were who were
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: for sure saved, are able to escape with this. We
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: should also mention that this was not the first involvement.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Uncle Penny Bags, that's the name of that cartoon character,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: the capitalist. Yeah, people just call the monopoly guy. Yeah,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: well his real name is rich Uncle Penny. Back, Uncle Penny.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: It's back when a penny before inflation carried a lot
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: more away, back when a penny meant something. Um. After
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: World War Two, Monopoly found itself in the middle of
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: another international conflict, this one more ideology related, because you
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: see Cuba, the USSR and other communist countries outlawed the
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: game because it advocated capitalism, you know what I mean.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: There's not a communist version of monopoly yet. Someone check
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: on that if there, if there is, please let me
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: know whether there's some sort of anti monopoly or communist monopoly.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: And and Casey, by the way, I see that you
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: just sent us something called Monopoly for millennials. This this
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: is a true thing. I remember hearing about this a
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: while back when when it broke fairly recently. It was
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Monopoli's crass attempt to advertise to the millennial generation. Right,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: they might have air dropped some of these on Firefest.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: There we go, a nice way to call it back.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: So what is this, Casey? It is a updated version
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: of Monopoly for millennials. And just looking at the box
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: cover art, I love the slogan forget real estate, you
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: can't afford it anyway. So that's just that lovely, lovely
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: late capitalist dystopia. We've all enjoyed Casey on a tragic
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: case there. But I love it because it's got pictures
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: of like bike lanes, and it's like a vegan only restaurant,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: green kind of ecological messages. And um, Mr Pennybags has
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: kind of like some reflective sunglasses on. Looks like he
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: has an iPod earbud in his ear, so they're they're
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: really hitting the millennial cliche is pretty heavily. They're more
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: of a douche bag than a pennybag. Community chess cards
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: say things like your free web streaming trial expires, pay
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: the bank forty dollars, tokens including an emoji and a hashtag.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: Oh this is great, this is terrible. It's funny because
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: it seems like they're trolling, but I mean it is
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: a real thing. You can by iron stores apparently, what
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: rough board games slouches towards beth Lehem to be born. Yeah,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: and especially again, I'm fresh off watching both of these
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Firefest documentaries, so I have a pretty bad taste in
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: my mouth and a bit of a self loathing for millennial.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: I'm technically a zennial. I think I'm on the cusp.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: I think both you and I casy here a little
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: bit on the cusp. Yeah, we're customers. It's rated in
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: two different ways. Uh. The one way would be to
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: rate it on a generational chronological divide. But another way,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: in some sociologists for you, this would be to rated
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: on a digital divide or access to information. You know,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: so people who were born before the days of dial
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: up modem right are clearly not millennial. I don't know.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: I think we're I think we're all actually cuspers. What
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: we what we should be wondering about if we were Hasbro,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: is what sort of board game the generation after Aennials
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: would like to play? Hint, it's not on a board,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: that's true. He also knows. It's funny how there's like
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: app versions of most old board games and they're very
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: similar theor just a little quicker to play. Like you
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: mentioned the Game of Life at the top of the show,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: and I used to have an app version of that
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: because the mechanics of the Game of Life are a
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: little cumbersome and with the av it kind of does
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: all that for you. So it's it's a the lazy
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Game of Life. I don't know, it's weird. I've tried
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: doing you know, you guys know me a huge fan
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: across words, and I've tried doing them online, but there's
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: something about the physical pen and paper. Also, yeah, I
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: do them in pen. But whatever I chose by battle.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Uh oh, we should mention as we're wrapping up here
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: that Uncle Sam and the Yanks that's us, so we
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: can say Yankees and not be pejorative. We totally copied
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: this idea a little later, after the Japanese attack Pearl
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Harbor in December seven nine one, Hutton was tasks with
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: training his American like his the American version of him,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: a guy named Captain Robbley Winfrey, and the art of
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: concealing escaped tools in this inocuous looking stuff. And he
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: came up with ideas that took off kind of dovetailed
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: on Hutton's and eventually his part of the Intelligence Services
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Military Intelligence Services Escape in Evasion Section or miss x UH,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: started sending out monopoly boards that were also loaded with
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: escaped tools. The one thing different they did is that
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Winfrey would send his employees into toy stores and department
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: stores to buy civilian monopoly games and then they would
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: take the games back to their secret layer and that's
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: when they would kick them up. So they didn't have
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: I guess nobody trusted Parker Brothers at that time, you
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: know what I mean, because they ever asked Parker Brothers
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: to manufacture bespokeer custom ones. They just reverse engineered. That's
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: nuts that they would. There would be that much logistical
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: planning that would go into that. You talk about the
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: glue for example, oh lay it on us. Yeah, they
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: had to reverse engineer the exact glue that Parker Brothers
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: used in order to make the you know, the decal
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: lay correctly, So there was a whole lot of little
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: things they had to kind of like troubleshoot and figure
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: out how to make so that wouldn't throw up any
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: red flags. Okay, I've got to catch up, because just
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: for a second, when you said the decal lay correctly,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: I for some reason I had a brain fart and
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: I thought you said de cal a like it was
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: some sort of very specific Parker Brothers correctly. Yeah, you're
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: You're right though, and by golly by gosh, by gum,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: it worked because when the war ended in September, there
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: was only one escape kit that the German forces had
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: not discovered, and it was Monopoly. As you said, Noel,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: everything was destroyed. Uh, we know this really happened. It
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: was officially revealed in nineteen eighty five, right, but the
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: American use of the game wasn't revealed until nineteen ninety
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: and according to various sources, at least at least seven
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: hundred and forty something airmen escaped with aids created by
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Clutty and Robley Winfrey, which you know it sounds like
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: a great, a great gig if you can get it.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: If there's a wartime thing and you get drafted. Can
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: you imagine, Fellows, if someone said, Okay, your job is
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: to make top secret board game Escape Kits, I would
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: be in. I would be one million percent. I would
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: do And I think it's a real testament to British
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: engineering and ingenuity. Agreed And with that ends our tail,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: but not our show. Uh, tune in for our next episode,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: which will be a surprising raw through the origin story
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: of one of the world's most famous rhinos. Very much
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: looking forard to that. In the meantime, we'd love to
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: thank our super producer Casey Pegram, Alex Williams who composed
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: our theme, our research associate Gabe of course, you fellow
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: ridiculous historians for listening, and Noel, thank you for thank
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: you for exploring this story with me. Ben, thank you
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: for being a friend. I wish we could. We don't
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: have the rights to play the Golden Girls. You just
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: have to use your imagination or go watch it on Hulu.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: It's go right now. I could play it on ukulele. Yes,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: that's very cool. Well, I certainly have by priorities order, right, man,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Well you got to and you guys should have your
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: priorities in order to listen to the next episode, Ridiculous History.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: We'll see then