Speaker 1: Hey there, everybody, it's me Josh, your old pal, and
Speaker 1: for this week's s Y s K Selects, I've chosen
Speaker 1: our classic two thousand and fourteen episode on the Game
Speaker 1: of Monopoly. It's a really thorough episode where we explained
Speaker 1: everything everything about the game of Monopoly, and I was
Speaker 1: apparently on coludes throughout the whole thing. Go figure. Anyway,
Speaker 1: enjoy this episode. I think you well. Welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know, a production of My Heart Radios How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Speaker 1: Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry Rowland, which
Speaker 1: makes the Stuff you Should Know. It's right. I got
Speaker 1: on the top hat and my cane, your monocle, my
Speaker 1: Monica to see a monocle. I thought it was not
Speaker 1: as Mr Peanut, Oh yeah, not Mr Monopoly. And I
Speaker 1: think Mr Pringle has a monocle too, Devan, No, he
Speaker 1: has a nastasy. Mr Monopoly doesn't have a monocle. Huh.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Huh. You'd think we'd know, we
Speaker 1: do not, But I do know this. Mr Monopoly is
Speaker 1: a nickname for that man. That's right. His born name
Speaker 1: is given name by his parents is rich Uncle penny
Speaker 1: Bags three names, so uncle would be his middle name. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well he even has a regular name too, not that
Speaker 1: I saw. Yeah, it is Um Millburn Pennybags. No. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a book UM published and this is one
Speaker 1: of those after the fact deals called the Monopoly Companion,
Speaker 1: and they named all the character characters on the board
Speaker 1: Milbourne Pennybags. And then the jail guy is Jake, the jailbird,
Speaker 1: and the police officer and go to jail is it's
Speaker 1: I'll bet it Tyrus, isn't it Officer Edgar Mallory. I knew,
Speaker 1: really he just gets that. Yeah, that's pretty funny. We're
Speaker 1: talking about Monopoly, by the way. Oh yeah, this is
Speaker 1: not about anything else but Monopoly. No. And I was
Speaker 1: just remarking to you, sir, how I've never seen one
Speaker 1: of our This had more supplemental information than most shows
Speaker 1: that we research. Yeah. I can explain why because this
Speaker 1: was written. There was a whole suite of UM game
Speaker 1: articles written like UM just how to play certain games.
Speaker 1: So it kind of came out in this mentality and
Speaker 1: of this is the game, and here's how we explain
Speaker 1: how to play it, and this article is done. Whereas Monopoly.
Speaker 1: It's like this is more like McDonald's or Twinkies or
Speaker 1: something like that. It's like a cultural cog. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean there's so much extra junk history. And I mean
Speaker 1: you talk about the different versions, it's ridiculous. Milburne Penny
Speaker 1: Penny Banks. Yeah, And like I said, that was a
Speaker 1: post that he wasn't originally called that. This is I
Speaker 1: think Monopoly probably wanted to sell a little a little
Speaker 1: book or two. I'm sure they did, because if one
Speaker 1: thing we've learned about Parker Brothers and now has Bro
Speaker 1: is they love selling different versions of this game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they do. They like licensing it all a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Do they like making some changes here they're releasing a
Speaker 1: brand new game, but it's all still the same game
Speaker 1: and all of it. Um came from a left wing
Speaker 1: Quaker intellectual at the turn of last century. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: I'm saying that right, Yeah, sure, Okay, I think it
Speaker 1: sounds right. Uh. And it's interesting to me that the
Speaker 1: game of Monopoly, which is all about capitalism bankrupting or
Speaker 1: neighbor Yeah, was stolen. The game was stolen from a
Speaker 1: leftist intellectual Quaker. In the original version of the game,
Speaker 1: it was to teach against monopolies and how they're bad. Right,
Speaker 1: so let's talk about this monopoly. Actually, if you trace
Speaker 1: it back to about the like the literal beginning of
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, Um, it's what's considered a folk game.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of people playing versions like this
Speaker 1: and cities all over the country. But again, they all
Speaker 1: shared some pretty common viewpoints. Uh. I guess you today
Speaker 1: you would kind of call them socialists, um, But for
Speaker 1: the most part they were um followers of a guy
Speaker 1: named Henry George Georgis M. Yeah. He came up with
Speaker 1: this thing called Georgism, which was based on some other philosophies.
Speaker 1: But the idea of it is is that if you
Speaker 1: produce something through the through your own labor, your own work,
Speaker 1: you own that that should not be taxed. What should
Speaker 1: be taxes things that everybody owns. If somebody's taking something
Speaker 1: that belongs to everybody, say a parcel of land, technically
Speaker 1: the land belongs everybody. Well, that was his no was
Speaker 1: that you shouldn't even be a landowner, Like, the whole
Speaker 1: concept of owning land to him was ridiculous. And that's
Speaker 1: based on this idea. The law of the commons which
Speaker 1: is around for centuries, if not millennia, and then um,
Speaker 1: once people started taking land, He's like, okay, well, if
Speaker 1: you're gonna own land, it belongs to everybody, so that
Speaker 1: should be taxed and then that tax will be given
Speaker 1: back to the community for the greater good. So that's
Speaker 1: georgeis um. And that was kind of the philosophy that
Speaker 1: formed the basis of monopoly what was originally called the
Speaker 1: Landlord's Game, which was created by a lady named Lizzie
Speaker 1: Maggie m A g Y m A I E m
Speaker 1: A G I E almost Magpie without the pa, right,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, And she basically that was on her card,
Speaker 1: and she, uh, she came up with this, like you
Speaker 1: said to kind of teach um, so you could go
Speaker 1: and be a rich landowner and bankrupt other people and
Speaker 1: exploit the poor who need your help, um, who need
Speaker 1: a decent place to stay, and you could see yourself
Speaker 1: like the evils of capitalism. But she actually came up
Speaker 1: with two sets of rules for the same game. One
Speaker 1: was where you got as rich as you could at
Speaker 1: the expense of everybody else. The other was a basically
Speaker 1: the community benefited. And you can kind of see that
Speaker 1: today in like these weird things like community chest, Like
Speaker 1: why would I want to, you know, pay into this pot.
Speaker 1: I don't care about the community like now it's a
Speaker 1: bad thing. In her original version, it was a good thing,
Speaker 1: like the community one. And that was the basis of
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Yeah, which is really ironic, it is.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, like you said, she created two versions and
Speaker 1: she said, Um, one of the quotes from her is
Speaker 1: it is a practical demonstration of the present system of
Speaker 1: land grabbing, with all its usual outcomes and consequences. So
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of the teach people lessons. Uh.
Speaker 1: And she had it stolen from her. She luckily, Lizzie
Speaker 1: Maggie was smart enough to patent this game. Uh. It
Speaker 1: became just kind of a trendy thing. Again, like if
Speaker 1: you were into socialism at the time and you were
Speaker 1: on the East Coast, you probably hung out at a
Speaker 1: friend's house and and um played this game at some
Speaker 1: point in some incarnation or another. It was really popular,
Speaker 1: like you said, like people made up some of their
Speaker 1: own rules, but it was I mean, if you look
Speaker 1: at the original Landlords game board, it looks a lot
Speaker 1: like the current Monopoly I mean similar at least yeah,
Speaker 1: And apparently a lot of the the rules that make
Speaker 1: the game a lot more enjoyable to day came from
Speaker 1: uh Lizzie's Quaker friends. Like, for example, um, the original
Speaker 1: plots of land, we're up for auction for forbid. Quakers
Speaker 1: prefer silence, so they just put a fixed price on
Speaker 1: a piece of land so there wouldn't be a loud,
Speaker 1: obnoxious bidding war. Um. They also um instituted tokens, fun
Speaker 1: tokens before they're just boring pawns. Yeah, like household objects,
Speaker 1: which you know, that's why the thimble is in there,
Speaker 1: and originally the iron Yea, we'll get to those in
Speaker 1: a minute, but um, I know it's pretty exciting. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then so this thing is being played and h
Speaker 1: Lizzie Maggie holds the patent, but she's not exactly like
Speaker 1: um cracking down on any kind of infringement. Really. No, Well,
Speaker 1: she pitched at the Parker Brothers and they said no, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so she just kind of went on doing her own thing.
Speaker 1: So there's another lady actually that figures into this UM
Speaker 1: lady named Ruth Hoskins, and she was one of the
Speaker 1: ones who caught on in the like Philadelphia Atlantic City
Speaker 1: area with her Quaker friends. Uh, two of them in particular,
Speaker 1: Jessie and Eugene Rayford. Uh. And they are the ones
Speaker 1: who changed some of the rules to make it look
Speaker 1: more like the monopoly we know. They taught it to
Speaker 1: a friend, uh named Todd, and Todd taught it to
Speaker 1: his friend named Charles dare Row. And that's where the
Speaker 1: story takes a kind of a CD turn. Well, actually
Speaker 1: that's where the Parker Brothers official version begins. Ironically things
Speaker 1: turned CD. Parker Brothers is like, hey, this is where
Speaker 1: our story begins. Yeah. The inventor of Monopoly, Charles Darrow, right,
Speaker 1: so he was like a radiator salesman during the depression.
Speaker 1: This is the thirties, right, Yeah, I mean it was
Speaker 1: ironically again during the Depression, this game really caught hold.
Speaker 1: Well I supposedly that's what caught the Parker Brothers attention
Speaker 1: was that this guy came to came to him, came
Speaker 1: to them to sell him this game which he had stolen. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Apparently he didn't innovate it at all. He kind of
Speaker 1: just copied it and packaged it right, and said, hey,
Speaker 1: what do you think of this? And the Parker Brothers said,
Speaker 1: we don't think too much of it, like, how does
Speaker 1: the game end? We don't know what's going on here,
Speaker 1: so let's just um, you just go your own way.
Speaker 1: So Charles Darrow went off and started selling it at
Speaker 1: this Wannamaker's apartment store in Philadelphia without pattenting it right,
Speaker 1: and um, the Parker brothers said, you know what, it's
Speaker 1: the depression. Can you believe it. We're not going to
Speaker 1: have any kind of economic woes like this for another
Speaker 1: seventy eighty years. And this guy is selling these things
Speaker 1: like hot cakes. You know what, sir, we will buy
Speaker 1: your idea from you. And Charles Darrow apparently said, well,
Speaker 1: that's great. Give me the money first and then I'll
Speaker 1: tell you the second part of the story. And they
Speaker 1: gave him a bag of money with a dollar sign
Speaker 1: on it, much like the ones that um rich uncle
Speaker 1: Penny bags likes. And he said, okay, um, we also
Speaker 1: need to buy the patent off from this lady named
Speaker 1: Lizzie Maggie. Yeah, which they did. Um, the game was
Speaker 1: still stolen. I say, even though that they eventually did
Speaker 1: pay her money, but part of the deal was, they said, um,
Speaker 1: they they agreed to buy her patent and said, you
Speaker 1: know what, we're gonna we'll sell a few of your
Speaker 1: other game ideas too. None of those ever went anywhere,
Speaker 1: and she was sort of lost to history except for
Speaker 1: people who do a little bit of digging. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we actually have a guy named Ralph to thank for
Speaker 1: doing that digging initially. We'll talk about him later. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah, because he's the one who came up
Speaker 1: with the unofficial history and like really tracked it down. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of teasers in this one so far.
Speaker 1: So Um, the Parker brothers now in the game, and uh,
Speaker 1: it becomes a huge hit virtually off the bat. In
Speaker 1: the thirties is when they bought it and started really
Speaker 1: printing it. Yeah, and the game is based on Atlantic City. Uh,
Speaker 1: those are the properties and that's because that was the
Speaker 1: area where it became popular. But um, this excellent New
Speaker 1: York Times article you sent, uh, what's the name of it,
Speaker 1: Monopoly Goes Corporate. Yeah, it was written by what's what's
Speaker 1: the lady's name? Mary Pillin. She is a monopoly expert.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of those out there, I've learned. She well,
Speaker 1: she wrote a lot of the articles you'll find. Oh really, yeah,
Speaker 1: she's well. She pointed out that it's interesting that it
Speaker 1: mirrored sort of the the cartography of the day in
Speaker 1: Atlantic City, like Boardwalk was clearly like a rich area
Speaker 1: the Baltic and Mediterranean. The cheapest properties were in African
Speaker 1: American neighborhoods. There was a reading railroad that transferred people
Speaker 1: between Philly and Atlantic City. And little known fact for
Speaker 1: our friends in the gay community, New York Avenue was
Speaker 1: one of the earliest gay scenes in the country. So
Speaker 1: buy that one up and support support the lb GT community.
Speaker 1: That's if you're playing monopoly. Yeah, that's what I would do.
Speaker 1: And maybe just you know, don't charge anybody when they land,
Speaker 1: just be like, this is the party place exactly. And
Speaker 1: Marvin Gardens apparently is misspelled yeah E instead of an
Speaker 1: eye or eye instead of an E. Yeah, on the
Speaker 1: board it's an eye, right, It's supposed to be an E. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of Monopoly facts dropping all around us
Speaker 1: right now. I know it's raining symbols. Well, now we're
Speaker 1: on the road, driving in your truck. Want to learn
Speaker 1: a thing or two from Josh PM Chuck. It's stuff
Speaker 1: you should know, all right, All right, So we were
Speaker 1: just talking about Atlantic City. Um, I guess it's we
Speaker 1: can go ahead and point out now that there are
Speaker 1: hundreds of versions of Monopoly out there now, one for
Speaker 1: your hometown, probably one for your favorite sports team. I
Speaker 1: have personally my version as a Star Wars Monopoly, which
Speaker 1: is pretty fun. Um yeah, I guess Hesbro's like, you've
Speaker 1: got some money, sure you can license this monopoly game.
Speaker 1: Go ahead. There's a Simpsons Monopoly. I haven't played it though,
Speaker 1: and not in addition to the um licensed versions that
Speaker 1: you can fine like everywhere, they also have like official
Speaker 1: versions to like there's a U S version, there's a
Speaker 1: UK version, there's um a there's a new version that's
Speaker 1: called Monopoly here And now what does that even mean?
Speaker 1: Super corporate? Is this the corporate one? Yeah? Okay, it's
Speaker 1: uh it's like everything is multiplied by I think a thousand,
Speaker 1: so the solar amounts are way higher. Is this one
Speaker 1: where they replaced the uh, the railroads are replaced by airports?
Speaker 1: Is this one where they replaced corporations for all the property?
Speaker 1: So like McDonald's and Sony and yeah, god, who would
Speaker 1: want to play that? Some people? Do? You know? Yeah? Yeah? Um,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm not a purist because I had the
Speaker 1: Star Wars version, but I just it's no fun to
Speaker 1: me to play as paramount pictures and right to buy
Speaker 1: the McDonald's property. Yeah, that's just me. Um. So there
Speaker 1: are a bunch of different versions, but the one we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about, what's just talking about, the the
Speaker 1: normal version with the two thousand eight rules. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: there's actually coming soon, um later this year. There you
Speaker 1: can go online at my Monopoly and you can design
Speaker 1: your own board, is that right, and do like your
Speaker 1: own neighborhood and then they will make it for you.
Speaker 1: And I think it's like fifty bucks or something. Wow,
Speaker 1: money bags, you can I'm not gonna do it. Got
Speaker 1: the East Lake, but I was. I was talking to
Speaker 1: whoever went and got it. Yeah, rich uncle, rich penny bags.
Speaker 1: That's what you should have said, rich uncle, penny bag, pennybags.
Speaker 1: This sounds not not that wealthy. Well, actually I have
Speaker 1: a bag of pennies on me right now. He Forbes
Speaker 1: has their silly fictional fifteen list of fictional characters wealth
Speaker 1: and he um in two thousand thirteen was number is
Speaker 1: uh stars declined to m huh, guess who the first
Speaker 1: the richest fictional character is the Incredible Hulk. No, he
Speaker 1: was not rich Scrooge McDuck. Oh yeah, well dude, he
Speaker 1: had that gold vault apparently sixty five billion. Uh. Number
Speaker 1: two was smiling, which I thought it was kind of
Speaker 1: silly smile from like the rings. It's a dragon. I
Speaker 1: think I had like a bunch of gold. Uh. Carlisle
Speaker 1: Cullen number three, Tony Stark four, Charles Foster Kane number five.
Speaker 1: Who's number three? Carlisle Cullen from Twilight? Who's that? He
Speaker 1: was the dad vampire dad of the vampire family. Um,
Speaker 1: and he's been alive forever, so I guess he just
Speaker 1: keeps accumulating. Well. Bruce Wayne Ritchie Rich, Christian Gray Ritchie Rich.
Speaker 1: I forgot about him. He's number seven. He had a
Speaker 1: robot made and a crazy like a weird scientists friend.
Speaker 1: Didn't he sure like a Richie rich robot of himself.
Speaker 1: I think he had that too, But no, it was made.
Speaker 1: Was a robot, wasn't it? It was the Jetsons. No,
Speaker 1: he had to Uh. I thought Monty Burns at number
Speaker 1: ten was pretty good. Oh yeah, that's going. Although I
Speaker 1: would guess Mr Monopoly would be wealthier than Monty Burns.
Speaker 1: But and they put it out each year and it's dumb.
Speaker 1: Can we just admit that I was thrilled by it.
Speaker 1: We just spent three minutes on it. Yeah, well that's true. Okay,
Speaker 1: So Chuckers, you want to talk about the the rules
Speaker 1: of the game again, two eight rules if you are
Speaker 1: a Monopoly purist and like, I'm sorry, that's just what
Speaker 1: we're going with. Yeah, well, let's talk about the game
Speaker 1: board itself. Just so if you haven't played it, I'm
Speaker 1: surprised because I think like a billion people have played
Speaker 1: the game. Um, but if you haven't, when you get
Speaker 1: your Monopoly game, you're gonna open it up and you're
Speaker 1: gonna have a board with all these different properties in
Speaker 1: a square. Uh, you have two dice twelve they call
Speaker 1: them tokens. That's not the right amount either, is it. No,
Speaker 1: there's eight. Yeah. I don't understand where they got twelve
Speaker 1: from unless they're counting ones that maybe were retired or
Speaker 1: something like that. But when you open the box, there's
Speaker 1: only eight. There, there's a can we go over, there's
Speaker 1: a wheelbarrow, Scottie dog, top hat, a cat which replaced
Speaker 1: the iron in two thousand thirteen, there's a big, big
Speaker 1: two do because Parker Brothers has bro was like, we
Speaker 1: haven't made a lot of money off of this for
Speaker 1: a couple of months, so let's just do something. Well,
Speaker 1: they let people vote at least, which is kind of cool, right,
Speaker 1: but it was also did you see the other ones
Speaker 1: that they were voting for. It's like a robot, like
Speaker 1: Richie Richards a guitar. They didn't they didn't make the
Speaker 1: cut though. No, they got voted out and the cat
Speaker 1: got voted in. The iron got booted. Yeah, it only
Speaker 1: got eight percent of the vote. There's the classic shoe
Speaker 1: of course, or boot, which is modeled after a nineteen
Speaker 1: thirties working shoe, and I think they've kept it the same. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's one of the original ones. The Scottie Dog was
Speaker 1: not one of the originals that came in the fifties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think that was supposed to be the companion
Speaker 1: of uh millburn money. Denny is there right, Denny bags
Speaker 1: should be cash bags, fat stacks, stacks. There was a
Speaker 1: cannon which has since been retired. Yeah, and if they
Speaker 1: thought it was two militaries, well the cannon and the battleship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were from a failed game called Conflict, and they
Speaker 1: were like, well, we got all these pieces, so let's
Speaker 1: just throw them in Monopoly for now. Right. It's pretty smart.
Speaker 1: But they faced the cannon out because it's just too
Speaker 1: overtly violent. Um, it just says with any without any
Speaker 1: fanfare or vote or campaign. So probably, yeah, it would
Speaker 1: be my guess if it's hush hush, yeah, it's probably
Speaker 1: because of violence. There's a conspiracy of foot. There's the
Speaker 1: race car. Yeah, every little kid's favorite, which apparently had
Speaker 1: a number three on the side for a little while. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Yeah, they are in hart I
Speaker 1: guess so. Uh, or purse has been retired. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: rocking horse was retired. Yep, the lantern was retired. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm doing my best ben bowling pressing. Did you do
Speaker 1: did you get wheelbarrow in there yet? I think I know,
Speaker 1: yes I did. It was the first one I said,
Speaker 1: could you say top hat? Yeah? That was always my favorite. Actually,
Speaker 1: I I don't remember what my favorite was. It fit
Speaker 1: on my pinking and I used to draw faces. Uh
Speaker 1: the horse and rider which is retired, which I didn't know.
Speaker 1: That's one of the best pieces to me. What you
Speaker 1: didn't know is retired. Now yeah, I'm just kind of sad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and now there and the sack of money was retired
Speaker 1: as well, the sack of money in a purse. Those
Speaker 1: are a little similar. Yeah. The cat come on, yeah,
Speaker 1: cat people, that's exactly right. I guarantee that's why they
Speaker 1: got cat voted in. And I am a cat person,
Speaker 1: you know, and even you think it's stupid, exactly. So
Speaker 1: those are the tokens. Some of those tokens that we
Speaker 1: mentioned you're going to find in the two thousand and
Speaker 1: eight set. Yeah, and that is your piece. That is
Speaker 1: what represents you in the game. Again for the three
Speaker 1: people who have never played Monopoly, right, yeah, because supposedly, um,
Speaker 1: at least as far as Hasbro calculates, over one billion
Speaker 1: people have played Monopoly, and frankly, I'm surprised as that low.
Speaker 1: It sounds like an old number. Yeah. Um, okay, So
Speaker 1: you've got the box open, you get the board, you
Speaker 1: got two dice, you got the tokens, thirty two houses
Speaker 1: in twelve hotels, uh, sixteen chance cards, sixteen community Chess cards. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a title D card for each property. It's got the
Speaker 1: information on it, like how much it costs to purchase
Speaker 1: how much rent is depending on how many houses or
Speaker 1: hotels you have on it, Yeah, what the mortgage value
Speaker 1: is worth, that's right. Um, and then you've got your
Speaker 1: your play money, your monopoly money, which man, I think
Speaker 1: that's where it grabs kids because and they even pointed
Speaker 1: out in this article that's um, it's kind of the
Speaker 1: first time a lot of kids have money to play with. Yeah,
Speaker 1: especially the bill wants. Oh man, that gold bill I
Speaker 1: always thought was orange? Is it gold? Uh? Yeah, one's
Speaker 1: definitely golden rod like yellow. But I remember was, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess gold is a way to go. Uh see,
Speaker 1: I was a cash hoarder, which is no way to
Speaker 1: win a monopoly. No. I thought it was can't save. No.
Speaker 1: I just thought that just figures for me though, Like
Speaker 1: you gotta spend money to make money. Yeah, I was like,
Speaker 1: look at all this cash that I will soon be
Speaker 1: paying to everyone else. Just keep wandering off from the
Speaker 1: table and try to buy stuff with it. Did not work.
Speaker 1: So Chuck, you've got the board laid out, and if
Speaker 1: you count them, if you're that kind of person, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're going to find that there's forty squares. That's right.
Speaker 1: I believe twenty two of which are um no, twenty
Speaker 1: eight of which can be purchased. Yeah, twenty two our properties.
Speaker 1: You've got your your electric company and water works. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sucker's bet. And then you've got the four railroads. Four railroads,
Speaker 1: So that's that's right. There are others that you can't buy. So,
Speaker 1: for example, there's a luxury tax square. Yeah, you gotta
Speaker 1: pay what a hundred dollars when you land on that,
Speaker 1: I believe, so just right out of just right out
Speaker 1: of your pocket. There's an income tax square. Yeah, no good.
Speaker 1: There's the go square, which is where you start, and
Speaker 1: then when you come back around you collect two hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: which is in Monopoly called your salary. That's right. I
Speaker 1: never knew that. I didn't either. And there's a lot
Speaker 1: of rules in here. Uh. And then I guess it's
Speaker 1: a good time to point out Monopoly is one of
Speaker 1: those games where house rules are highly encouraged, uh, and
Speaker 1: a lot of the fun of the game, and in fact,
Speaker 1: to make more money Monopoly this year had are incorporating
Speaker 1: the top house rules as voted on by fans as
Speaker 1: official rules for this one verse in a seventy dollar
Speaker 1: hardback book. I don't see why a lot of people
Speaker 1: were in since they were like, we've no one plays
Speaker 1: by the real rules anyway, so why bother packaging it
Speaker 1: and selling it? And they went, I think you just
Speaker 1: said the word sell. Someone say sell. There in lies
Speaker 1: the answer. So you've got oh, there's and so there's
Speaker 1: forty squares, but there's actually forty one places you can
Speaker 1: go to on the board because jail is divided into
Speaker 1: two squares. That right, you got the jail with the jailbird.
Speaker 1: What's his name? Uh, I can't remember, Johnny Jailbird or something,
Speaker 1: Jake the jailbird, right, okay, which is where Jake the
Speaker 1: jailbird is. And then you've got the lower part of it. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just visiting. Yeah, if you want to visit Jake,
Speaker 1: give him a bunt cake with the nail filing at
Speaker 1: the very old school, or a monopoly set with um,
Speaker 1: maybe a map with an escape route embedded in it. Hey,
Speaker 1: that sounds familiar. Yeah, POWs and World War two were
Speaker 1: given such monopoly sets, true, which is strange to Maybe
Speaker 1: it's like where the nazis allowing monopoly sets to be
Speaker 1: delivered to POWs. Is that what I'm seeing here? Maybe
Speaker 1: it's the Burmese. I mean, you've seen the like The
Speaker 1: Great Escape, on those those the war prison camps in
Speaker 1: World War Two. It seemed like a lot of them.
Speaker 1: They let him like garden and they were kind of
Speaker 1: chummy with him. He saw Hoggan's heroes. I saw Hoggan's
Speaker 1: heroes and didn't put a lot of stock into it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, no, I just figured it played soccer. Maybe
Speaker 1: the Japanese or the Burmese or the the Italians. I
Speaker 1: could see like saying like, yeah, he bring the monopoly
Speaker 1: and who cares? But the Nazis, I would think, would
Speaker 1: I just don't see that. Yeah, I'm not saying it
Speaker 1: was a walk in the park, but I think from
Speaker 1: the depiction and uh like, like I said, like the
Speaker 1: Great Escape, it's not like Vietnam prison camp. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, like they weren't playing soccer or or Monopoly.
Speaker 1: They were playing Survive Another Day that game. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: not making line of that, by the way. Oh I
Speaker 1: didn't think you were. And I'm basing everything on more movies,
Speaker 1: so I'm probably wrong. And I've seen Uncommon Valor. That
Speaker 1: was a good movie. That was a great movie. It
Speaker 1: doesn't age well though, really remember that menu with the
Speaker 1: gun silhouettes on it. Oh yeah, and when you're twelves,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh my god. Yeah, it's like I would
Speaker 1: buy that one in that one. Um. All right, so
Speaker 1: where were we we were talking about? Um, the board itself. Yes,
Speaker 1: in the different squares, Yes, there are the cards that
Speaker 1: you can draw as well, Community chest and chance squares.
Speaker 1: When you land on these, you draw a card from
Speaker 1: one of those two piles, and there are various things
Speaker 1: in there, like you want to fashion modeling contest you
Speaker 1: get ten dollars, and their dog show one in there too.
Speaker 1: I think there's probably a dog show. And there's also
Speaker 1: you know, you have street repairs or um those are
Speaker 1: big time general repairs and that's based on your properties
Speaker 1: that you ownson. They can can getch you pretty hard. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like in real life. That's right, you know. Um, And
Speaker 1: that's funny because the monopoly what was her name, Lizzie
Speaker 1: Maggie In an interview, um, she gave with some leftist
Speaker 1: magazine at the time. Um, she said she basically called
Speaker 1: the thing the Game of Life. Yeah, that was already
Speaker 1: taken out. I don't know, was it. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: that's around since the like Midreds. I thought she was
Speaker 1: being pressing it. Now she was being a glib she
Speaker 1: was she was making a pop culture reference for the
Speaker 1: time exactly. But did you know apparently there used to
Speaker 1: be a square on the Game of Life board for suicide.
Speaker 1: Really it was the way you could go. I never
Speaker 1: really played that. I think I played it a couple
Speaker 1: of times. I never did either. I always thought it
Speaker 1: was kind of like you get the whole family in
Speaker 1: the car and it's like whatever. Yeah, we we did um.
Speaker 1: I mean we weren't the biggest game players as families,
Speaker 1: but we did Monopoly some in Yatsi was a big one,
Speaker 1: great that I still enjoyed today. How to Love Yatsie. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We also played this game called Bull, and it was
Speaker 1: like a stock trading game with cards. And it's just
Speaker 1: now occurring to me that all these games are just
Speaker 1: teaching you about life. Yeah, it's like real monopolies, nothing
Speaker 1: but real estate. Uh, the game of Life is everything.
Speaker 1: This game Bull was about the stock market. Sorry, it
Speaker 1: was about um sarcastic. Sorry because you had to say
Speaker 1: it like a jerk. Candy Land, we know what that's
Speaker 1: all about. Yeah, drugs, right, probably shoots and ladders tell
Speaker 1: you to stay away from snakes. Yeah. Operation taught you
Speaker 1: how to be a doctor. Oh yeah, that's right, that's
Speaker 1: where I got my m D. And then, of course, uh,
Speaker 1: battleship taught you how to be a warmonger. So to
Speaker 1: risk can take great pride. Risk taught you to be
Speaker 1: the Antichrist. Yeah, we should do what There is an
Speaker 1: article on risk I saw. I looked it over. It
Speaker 1: didn't seem as as interesting as this one. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: don't know if the history is as interesting. And I mean,
Speaker 1: isn't that what what's interesting about any game, the history
Speaker 1: of it? Yeah? I think so. So. Um, let's talk
Speaker 1: about the rules, dude. Okay, let's start at the beginning.
Speaker 1: We'll start it. Go go is where you start, and
Speaker 1: that's where you, like you said, you collect the two
Speaker 1: hundred every time you land on it or pass it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes house rules, Uh you get four hundred for actually
Speaker 1: landing on it and only two hundred for passing it.
Speaker 1: We never good. But free parking is where we had
Speaker 1: house rules. Um, that is a space on the corner
Speaker 1: of the board where you supposedly for the official rules,
Speaker 1: don't do anything. Yeah, there's nothing, it's just a space.
Speaker 1: But what we did was we donated all the collected
Speaker 1: taxes and fees and put it under free parking, and
Speaker 1: if you land on that, that was like a lottery win.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and a lot of people play that. Think
Speaker 1: I've heard of that one before. I liked it because
Speaker 1: it allows you more money, which is my favorite thing. Cash.
Speaker 1: It's a latto, yeah exactly. Uh, we got ahead of ourselves.
Speaker 1: Let's just start at the real beginning. So everybody sits
Speaker 1: down at the table. Yeah, maybecause somebody, yeah, somebody gets
Speaker 1: a drink. Maybe you have to wait because somebody has
Speaker 1: to go to the bathroom. So you're all sitting there quietly.
Speaker 1: And then when everybody's finally at the table, you guys
Speaker 1: select a banker, and the banker distributes the monopoly money
Speaker 1: to each player to five hundreds, to fifties, six twenties,
Speaker 1: and five tens, five fives and five ones, seen hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: And the goal of the game that we are getting
Speaker 1: to here at thirty minutes in is to bankrupt all
Speaker 1: of your family and friends. That's the whole point pretty much. Um.
Speaker 1: Some people put a time limit because this game can
Speaker 1: go on forever. Um and other people say no, it's
Speaker 1: got a you gotta finish it by bankrupting everyone or
Speaker 1: until the last person is like, I give ease, I've
Speaker 1: got eight dollars. I hate this game. Yeah, that's usually
Speaker 1: me and Emily's usually has her foot on my throat.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah. We played two person Monopoly, which is
Speaker 1: just not fun. Yeah, because you know one of you
Speaker 1: is gonna lose. No, that's not why. It's just it's
Speaker 1: a game that's more fun with more people. I think, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got it. Yeah, um so okay, so everybody's got
Speaker 1: fifteen bucks. You roll the dice to see who goes first.
Speaker 1: Whoever rolls the highest goes first. Classic. Then you roll
Speaker 1: both die and you start moving from the ghost square
Speaker 1: and you go clockwise around the board. And when you
Speaker 1: land on a property this I didn't know, which is
Speaker 1: a kind of a basic rule, I guess, but I
Speaker 1: never played it this way. When you land on a property,
Speaker 1: you have the option to buy it. I knew that part.
Speaker 1: But if you decline to buy it, then the then
Speaker 1: the property goes up for auction. I've never not only
Speaker 1: have I never played it the way, I've never heard
Speaker 1: of anyone playing it. Okay, so it's not just me,
Speaker 1: not just you, all right, So, uh, I guess the
Speaker 1: during an auction, not only the person, not only everybody else,
Speaker 1: but the banker and the person who declined to buy
Speaker 1: it can bid on it, which didn't make sense unless
Speaker 1: you're trying to get it for lower because can't you
Speaker 1: start the bidding at wherever? Yes, you can start the
Speaker 1: bidding anywhere you want, so you could consumably get it
Speaker 1: for lower. And if you're playing against somebody who declines
Speaker 1: to buy something and then starts bidding on a lower price,
Speaker 1: keep an eye on that person. That's a shark to win. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I hate that rule because to me, it's
Speaker 1: just like, what's the point and rolling and landing on something?
Speaker 1: I guess right, a first refusal But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't like it now. And plus the Quakers were like,
Speaker 1: we specifically put a price on these things so there
Speaker 1: wouldn't be a lot of yelling. Yeah, we don't like yelling. Uh.
Speaker 1: They had another game to follow called the quiet roof
Speaker 1: raising ceremony. Those are not Quakers, that was the Amish.
Speaker 1: They're different. Don't you think Quakers raise some roof? Yeah?
Speaker 1: They do. Ain't no party like a Quaker party. All right,
Speaker 1: So let's say you buy all of the properties that
Speaker 1: you know they're they're divided into different colors, like there's
Speaker 1: three green around you know, green ones, orange ones, blue ones,
Speaker 1: light blue. Um, if you buy all of the properties
Speaker 1: that are tied together by a single color, then you
Speaker 1: have what's called a monopoly. And that means you can
Speaker 1: then charge double rent, although we never do that. We
Speaker 1: just keep it single rent. And you now have the
Speaker 1: option to buy houses. And then once you have enough
Speaker 1: houses I think three, you can then buy a hotel. Right,
Speaker 1: and let's call improvements. You're improving your land. And once
Speaker 1: you start to do improvements, um, things change a little bit.
Speaker 1: Not only can you start making more money, but it's
Speaker 1: actually harder to mortgage your properties if you are if
Speaker 1: you find yourself in debt, right, because this is this
Speaker 1: is how crazy complicated it is. Like I don't think
Speaker 1: I was ever paying that much attention to monopoly that
Speaker 1: I ever mortgaged a piece of land. Really, I think
Speaker 1: it's like it sorry to get into debt or whatever.
Speaker 1: I was just like I'm done. Um, But apparently so
Speaker 1: if you find yourself indebted, and let's say you have
Speaker 1: a monopoly, and um, you want to mortgage, you can
Speaker 1: mortgage just one of the spots, right, But to do so,
Speaker 1: let's say you have a hotel, um on the that
Speaker 1: piece of land that you're mortgaging. You first have to
Speaker 1: sell the hotel back to the bank at half price,
Speaker 1: and then you can mortgage the land. You're still I think,
Speaker 1: are you collecting rent on that land or doesn't go
Speaker 1: right to the bank. Now that's where, um, you just
Speaker 1: turn the card over and it's just you still technically
Speaker 1: own it, but you can't collect any rents on it.
Speaker 1: But you can't collect rent and everything on the other
Speaker 1: two pieces of property or the other one, depending on
Speaker 1: which one you own. I don't know, really you can't.
Speaker 1: I looked it up. So that doesn't bust up the monopoly,
Speaker 1: No it doesn't, Okay, so you still own the monopoly.
Speaker 1: It's just that that one is mortgaged, and then to
Speaker 1: get it back you have to pay the bank the
Speaker 1: mortgage plus ten percent. Right. And this is where you
Speaker 1: can get silly with your house rules if you want. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, like as far as mortgaging and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: because supposedly it's a rule to where you can't Um.
Speaker 1: The only thing that is not allowed as a personal loan,
Speaker 1: and I did all kinds of personal loaning because I
Speaker 1: was a Mr. Catch. What were your your interest rates?
Speaker 1: I don't remember. Did you break any usury laws? No?
Speaker 1: That was a kid, so it was it was probably
Speaker 1: just like just pay me back whenever ten percent or something.
Speaker 1: I guess I'm not the right I'm not enough of
Speaker 1: a You're not the stark capitalin though. You're not the
Speaker 1: one who like declines to buy something so you can
Speaker 1: bid on at the lower price. I'm playing candy Land.
Speaker 1: I loved candy Land. Actually I never played that. It
Speaker 1: was a great game. Was it because of the art?
Speaker 1: It was just crazy. It was beautiful stuff. And then
Speaker 1: nowadays you look at the candy Land point and you're like,
Speaker 1: poor kids, Yeah, they don't know what they're missing. I
Speaker 1: just got a ticket to ride game that I haven't
Speaker 1: played yet. Have you heard of that one? It was
Speaker 1: a German game that's like one game of the year.
Speaker 1: It's a train train game, like you established train routes
Speaker 1: between cities. Um, but it's supposedly like it sounds like,
Speaker 1: really that's fun, but it's supposedly great. I just blooded tire.
Speaker 1: Did you at the thought of it. Yeah, it does
Speaker 1: sound pretty bad, but no, it's it's it's one game
Speaker 1: in the year. Why those Germans and watch people Ticket
Speaker 1: to Ride enthusiasts will be like, dude, it's the best
Speaker 1: ever I've heard. Like German game night is like a thing. Now, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think they're a little more heavy. Is that what
Speaker 1: it is? I think? So this seems like I read
Speaker 1: over the rules the other night just so I would
Speaker 1: know what to do. And because you've got to like
Speaker 1: the purchase over the game has to be the game
Speaker 1: explainer as well. Right, you have to listen to craftwork
Speaker 1: quality you play. Yeah, well you don't have to, but
Speaker 1: it helps house rules. Yeah, so, um, I guess we oh,
Speaker 1: and we said you you can do anything but give
Speaker 1: personal loans, right, that's what the official rules stays. So
Speaker 1: like you can I can buy from you on the
Speaker 1: side or something like that, or you and hold something
Speaker 1: up for auction, whatever anybody's doing. Yeah, and we always
Speaker 1: played where you had to do that when it was
Speaker 1: your turn, and that that would take your turn as well. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: but again, the whole point is is to be the
Speaker 1: person who owns the most stuff, So that you can
Speaker 1: bankrupt all of your family and friends. And I mean,
Speaker 1: those are the rules, but there's actually strategy to it,
Speaker 1: and people pay a lot of attention to this. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a Monopoly World Championship hopefully every four years, although
Speaker 1: it's been The last one was in two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: so we're due an American lawyer one right in two
Speaker 1: thousand nine. And no, I think it was a Swede
Speaker 1: or a man. Maybe he was the North American, that's
Speaker 1: what he was, the North American champelon. Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: represented the US and the World Championships. It sounds so silly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well he uh he used the iron but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the American used the thimble. Gotcha. He just laughed.
Speaker 1: She was like, really, that's a that's a fact that
Speaker 1: people need. Well, we're trying to really appeal to the
Speaker 1: purists here too. We trt everybody to be engaged. Well,
Speaker 1: now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want
Speaker 1: to learn a thing or two from Josh PM chuck
Speaker 1: it stuff you should know, all right, okay, Chucker. So again,
Speaker 1: the point bankrupt everybody, But there's like techniques that you
Speaker 1: can use to more efficiently bankrupt people like the the
Speaker 1: overall the best strategy. The basic strategy is to buy
Speaker 1: everything every chance you have. Yeah, I mean I looked up.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of different people's uh strategies and opinions online. Um,
Speaker 1: I did find this one from a guy, and that
Speaker 1: was his strategy is by everything, it doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: it is, even the suckers bet the electric company and
Speaker 1: the water works. Yeah, which I don't pay off, really,
Speaker 1: he said, by it all and uh, and never have
Speaker 1: more than a hundred dollars in cash is his rule.
Speaker 1: He says the number one people must mistake people make
Speaker 1: is hoarding cash like I did. Yeah, you're making the
Speaker 1: number one mistake, that's right. Uh. And he says that, Um,
Speaker 1: by everything, and do whatever it takes to get a monopoly,
Speaker 1: even a bad one, like he will trade to get
Speaker 1: a bad monopoly and give someone a good monopoly, even
Speaker 1: as long as he gets the monopoly. And he says
Speaker 1: it's fine because then you know, you two will probably
Speaker 1: take out everyone else. Uh. The point is just to
Speaker 1: get a monopoly and improve it as fast as you can.
Speaker 1: So supposedly, though, UM, a general rule of thumb among
Speaker 1: like hardcore monopoly players is that while you're improving your
Speaker 1: monopoly your properties by adding houses or whatever, you want
Speaker 1: to stop at three houses because the jump from the
Speaker 1: third house to the hotel. Yeah, is financially it doesn't
Speaker 1: pay off. Usually it's over improvement. Yeah, just like in
Speaker 1: your home, Like, don't build that eighty thousand dollar kitchen
Speaker 1: because you're not gonna get your money back on that.
Speaker 1: So three three houses, this guy doesn't subscribe to that.
Speaker 1: He buys everything and puts hotels on it. Yeah, he says,
Speaker 1: as first as he get as soon as he gets
Speaker 1: his first monopoly, he mortgages everything else to get cash
Speaker 1: back and then uses that cash to improve, which I
Speaker 1: thought was a little risky. Yeah, a couple of bad roles.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a game of strategy, but the end
Speaker 1: of the day, you're rolling dice, and so it is
Speaker 1: very much a game of chance. I'll be that guy
Speaker 1: feels like he's on the back of a pegasus though
Speaker 1: the whole game, like he's just thrilled. He claims to
Speaker 1: have won a game in twelve minutes one time, which
Speaker 1: I thought was shooting his own horn a bit. Yeah, sure, um,
Speaker 1: but real regular strategy. You're right, they say three houses
Speaker 1: is the max you should go. Um, and then there's
Speaker 1: also some that you should avoid. Even though it seemed
Speaker 1: like very tempting. We already said the electric company and
Speaker 1: the water company, the utilities. They Um, the most you
Speaker 1: can get for rent from landing on it was ten
Speaker 1: times a roll of the dice, which is a hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty bucks. But it could be as low as
Speaker 1: twenty dollars. So I mean, this guy would probably say, well, hey,
Speaker 1: it was worth it, Like I still own them and
Speaker 1: I'm still making money if somebody lands on them. But
Speaker 1: a lot of Again, the monopoly purists say just stay
Speaker 1: away from him, And you also may want to stay
Speaker 1: away from the most expensive ones boardwalk in park Place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're only two of them, and um, they just
Speaker 1: don't get landed on very much. Yeah, so think about
Speaker 1: it right out of the gate when you're thinking of probabilities. Um,
Speaker 1: the fact that there's two of these properties rather than
Speaker 1: three means that you are another player is less likely
Speaker 1: to land on your popoly because there's three or two
Speaker 1: instead of three. So that's one problem. The other problem
Speaker 1: is placement. Where they are. They're right after, um, go
Speaker 1: right before, right before. Yeah, So it's at the end
Speaker 1: of the board essentially. No, I'm sorry, they're right before jail. No,
Speaker 1: they're right before go, They're right before Okay. So that
Speaker 1: means that most most players are going to well, they're
Speaker 1: going to pass them for sure whenever they hit that
Speaker 1: um go directly to go exactly. Yeah. Um, So that
Speaker 1: means that your your monopoly is going to be passed over.
Speaker 1: The likelihood of making your money back recouping it, especially
Speaker 1: if they're improved to the hilt like a really fancy hotel,
Speaker 1: means that a lot of money. Yeah. You you've probably
Speaker 1: sunk a lot of money unwisely into those You want
Speaker 1: to go for some other ones, Yeah, supposedly, and there
Speaker 1: are people that have done Uh. There was this one guy.
Speaker 1: If you really want to get into monopoly, this dude,
Speaker 1: I don't even know his name, but just look up
Speaker 1: probabilities in the game of Monopoly and Scientific America in
Speaker 1: the mid nineties at article that talked about probabilities of
Speaker 1: landing on different spaces, but they excluded um, community chest
Speaker 1: and chance and being sent to jail. So this guy said,
Speaker 1: I took all of that and included everything, and he
Speaker 1: has a statistical charts long term probabilities for ending up
Speaker 1: on each square, expected income per opponent role, average income
Speaker 1: per role, expect a number of opponent role to recoup
Speaker 1: incremental costs, UH to recoup mortgages. So it's the name
Speaker 1: of his website. By the way, his monopoly was fun
Speaker 1: dot com. It totally should be um, but um. If
Speaker 1: you just want to do some basic probabilities, the orange
Speaker 1: properties are landed on more than anyone else. Yes, and
Speaker 1: why chuck because they are after jail. Yeah, six eight
Speaker 1: and nine spaces after jail. Yeah. So if you get
Speaker 1: sent to jail, which is going to happen at some point.
Speaker 1: We actually we didn't talk about jail. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: that then you uh yeah, chances are you're gonna hit
Speaker 1: one of those orange squares on your way out of jail. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you're rolling with two dice, so you're much more
Speaker 1: likely to roll like a six eight or a nine
Speaker 1: than you are like a two or three or a one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not even possible to roll at one. Try it.
Speaker 1: You can't. You can't unless you eat one of the dice,
Speaker 1: and in which case, unless it's a house rule, everybody's
Speaker 1: gonna yell at you and have to wait around until
Speaker 1: you poop it out to keep playing. Actually, our rule
Speaker 1: was you had to roll the child in what the child?
Speaker 1: Who ate the dice? Oh yeah, up, all right, So
Speaker 1: jail um is in the corner of the board and
Speaker 1: you can there are a few different ways you can
Speaker 1: go there. You can draw a go to jail card.
Speaker 1: You can throw three doubles in a row and go
Speaker 1: to jail. Yeah, which I never understood because that's a
Speaker 1: good thing, I guess, but it's also the sign of
Speaker 1: the devil. So that's why you have to go to
Speaker 1: jail for a little while to be clients. Or there's
Speaker 1: a square or march to go to jail, and you
Speaker 1: can land on that and go to jail. You can
Speaker 1: also get out in three ways. You can have that
Speaker 1: get out of Jail free card. If you draw that,
Speaker 1: you can hold onto it. We could sell it, although
Speaker 1: I think that's a house rule. You could sell it
Speaker 1: to a friend or enemy, uh, whoever, whoever had the
Speaker 1: most cash, right exactly. Uh. And then you basically the
Speaker 1: other ways to roll to either pay your way out
Speaker 1: for with fifty bucks or to roll your way out.
Speaker 1: And the way we played it was each turn you
Speaker 1: had one chance to roll your way out of jail
Speaker 1: rolling doubles. Rolling doubles, right, yeah, um, and then if
Speaker 1: you under official rules, if you don't roll doubles for
Speaker 1: three consecutive turns, like you get three consecutive chances to
Speaker 1: roll doubles, and if you don't on any of those turns,
Speaker 1: then you have to pay fifty bucks to get out
Speaker 1: of jail. We just played where you just got out
Speaker 1: and you didn't have to pay. Well, then you guys
Speaker 1: weren't following the rules. I told you the house rules.
Speaker 1: House rules. So there's actually a strategy to jail. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: if you go to jail early on in the game,
Speaker 1: do you want to pay your fifty bucks to get out? Immediately?
Speaker 1: Just pay the fifty bucks because then you can keep
Speaker 1: going around the board and there's more stuff available to buy.
Speaker 1: But later in the game you want to just kind
Speaker 1: of hang out in jail. Yeah, Like Josh has bought
Speaker 1: all the Orange spaces and you've got hotels on each one,
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking I might be good to sit in
Speaker 1: jail for a few rounds. Yeah, because you can still
Speaker 1: collect rent on your properties, but the fact that you're
Speaker 1: in jail keeps you off of my properties. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: all another Bryant rule we played where when you were
Speaker 1: in jail you could not collect any rents. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that makes sense, but according to official rules, you
Speaker 1: just make as much money as you want there, and
Speaker 1: apparently in jail you can officially you can also buy
Speaker 1: and sell properties and improve your in collect rent and
Speaker 1: build hotels and houses, which I thought, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you're in jail, kind of lose that, right. It
Speaker 1: seems like in real jail that's the way it is. No,
Speaker 1: it's not in the house and being jail. I guess
Speaker 1: that's true. And technically you could probably charge rent to someone.
Speaker 1: You could sub let it, like I'm gonna be gone
Speaker 1: for three to six. No, it's true. But what happens
Speaker 1: when this roster breaks trying to get let out of
Speaker 1: jail to go fix it? They're not gonna let you
Speaker 1: do that. It's very funny, but it's true too. Uh.
Speaker 1: Probability experts also say you get a good return on
Speaker 1: buying all of the railroads because they're pretty cheap. There's
Speaker 1: one on each side, and once you have each, once
Speaker 1: you own all of them. Um, they're two hundred dollars
Speaker 1: in rent, So that's not too bad, not too shabby,
Speaker 1: but to me, and monopoly is the reason monopolies are valuable,
Speaker 1: but is because they're in a row, whereas the railroads
Speaker 1: are spaced out. And our friend, the strategist who thinks
Speaker 1: he uh invented the game says, but what you have
Speaker 1: to remember is none of these strategies matter because you're playing.
Speaker 1: It's a game of people in personalities. So he's that
Speaker 1: you gotta sit back and watch the different personalities emerge
Speaker 1: and then you manipulate that like the cash hoarder versus
Speaker 1: the shark. And uh, he's like, you're really playing against people. Man,
Speaker 1: that's interesting, I thought. So okay, So let's talk about
Speaker 1: another friend, an economist friend. His name is Ralph Ant
Speaker 1: spok Yes, and he back in the seventies had a
Speaker 1: game called anti Monopoly. Yeah, he was an econ professor
Speaker 1: at San Francisco State and um, like made his own
Speaker 1: real game. Like he didn't just like draw it up
Speaker 1: on paper, Like, he started a little small business and
Speaker 1: manufactured it. Apparently sold about two thousand copies of it,
Speaker 1: like right out of the gate, like it just hit
Speaker 1: a nerve. Again. It was called anti Monopoly. And the
Speaker 1: whole point of it was to break up monopolies rather
Speaker 1: than build monopolies. Yeah, at the beginning of the game
Speaker 1: is essentially the end of a regular game, Like everyone
Speaker 1: starts off with monopolies. Uh. And instead of real estate
Speaker 1: and utilities um and anti monopoly, they had their individual
Speaker 1: businesses that have been brought under a single ownership. And
Speaker 1: you take the role of federal caseworker and bring indictments
Speaker 1: against monopolized businesses. In order to turn return the board
Speaker 1: to a free market system. You have to wear sensible shoes.
Speaker 1: It sounds awesome. Yeah. Well, and he came up with
Speaker 1: this because he was trying to apparently explain to his
Speaker 1: son what was wrong and bad about monopolies and I
Speaker 1: suspect capitalism to a certain extent, and he came up
Speaker 1: with this game instead, like I said, sold a substantial
Speaker 1: amount two d copies of a game, especially back in
Speaker 1: the seventies that was pretty good as a start up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, And it caught Parker Brothers attention enough that
Speaker 1: they sent him a cease and desist letter, took him
Speaker 1: to court, got a court order for him to hand
Speaker 1: over his like thirty seven thousand copies that he had
Speaker 1: in his warehouse, and um they Parker Brothers went and
Speaker 1: unceremoniously buried him in a landfill in Minnesota. So UM,
Speaker 1: Ralph didn't cott into this very much. He didn't like that.
Speaker 1: He doesn't like to be pushed around. I get the impression. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, a guy who makes anti Monopoly is not
Speaker 1: gonna cave in the courts initially, and he did so,
Speaker 1: like very much, at his own financial detriment. He had
Speaker 1: a very expensive team of lawyers at first UM and
Speaker 1: spent quite a bit of money fighting Parker Brothers for
Speaker 1: the right to use anti Monopoly, and UM what it
Speaker 1: wasn't really going anywhere, and he was losing a lot
Speaker 1: of money, so he started to do legwork himself, found
Speaker 1: a lawyer friend UM who worked on the cheap for UM,
Speaker 1: and that's when things started taking off. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: he basically uncovered the lie that it was invented by
Speaker 1: Charles Darrow. He found out that the game was essentially
Speaker 1: in the public domain, or should have been, and UM
Speaker 1: went all the way to the Supreme Court and one yeah,
Speaker 1: he won at the Supreme Court. This ecoun professor came
Speaker 1: up with a game called anti Monopoly one in the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court won the right to name his game anti Monopoly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he he deposed the the two Quakers that
Speaker 1: were friends of Hoskins. They were old at that point.
Speaker 1: They took the stand. Um. He deposed the CEO of
Speaker 1: Parker Brothers, and he took the stand and it had
Speaker 1: to admit under oath like, yeah, we did kind of
Speaker 1: steal it. Nice the idea from that lady Um after all.
Speaker 1: And so, as Ralph says, the the whole point to
Speaker 1: him was for this true story, the true origins of
Speaker 1: monopoly and how it came about, the whole point of
Speaker 1: it originally could still be told openly that what he
Speaker 1: said um could be bought at any price. In his opinion,
Speaker 1: that's right, So way to go, Ralph. Yeah, he wrote
Speaker 1: a book awkwardly titled The Billion Dollar Monopoly in swindle
Speaker 1: Colin during a David and Goliath battle, Anti Monopoly uncovers
Speaker 1: the secret history of Monopoly. That's a little clunky, a
Speaker 1: little clunky, but it's still around. Um. In there was
Speaker 1: a new version called anti Monopoly too, where you could
Speaker 1: actually be a monopolist or a competitor. So you got
Speaker 1: to choose which I thought was interesting. And Uh, if
Speaker 1: you chose the competitor, you charge lower rents and you
Speaker 1: can improve property at any time. But if you're a monopolist,
Speaker 1: you have to own at least two properties before in
Speaker 1: a group before building houses in charge a lot higher rents.
Speaker 1: So I think you're like playing against the two systems
Speaker 1: within the same game. That's really interesting. Yeah, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I might grab one of these and see what it's like.
Speaker 1: Maybe tell everybody's German, you got anything else? I got
Speaker 1: nothing else. I do the longest Monopoly game of all
Speaker 1: time seventy days. I played a game of risk that
Speaker 1: seemed like it lasted that long once. It may have
Speaker 1: it didn't last so long, but lasted a weekend. Okay, um,
Speaker 1: and Monopoly. I don't have the patience for that. I'll
Speaker 1: just give up. I'll take my cafe cash and go
Speaker 1: home your horde of it. Yeah, you're like, oh, just
Speaker 1: saved all this money, that's right, and I own the utilities. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about Monopoly, including how
Speaker 1: to play, if you don't like house rules but you
Speaker 1: also don't feel like looking at the official rule book,
Speaker 1: you can just go on the house stuff works and
Speaker 1: check out the rules that is in this article to
Speaker 1: type monopoly in the search bar at house touff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. And since as I searched bar, it's time
Speaker 1: for chuck Facebook questions. Uh so, people, this is what
Speaker 1: we you. Sometimes when we don't have a listener mail prepared,
Speaker 1: we will go on Facebook asked for questions, and then
Speaker 1: over the course of a couple of episodes, we will
Speaker 1: read those out in rapid fire h like fashion. We
Speaker 1: don't do anything in rapid fire. I couldn't even explain
Speaker 1: rapid fire fashion in rapid fire. All right, So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna start this off with Louise. Benjamin says, with as
Speaker 1: many shows as he recorded, how many would you like
Speaker 1: to go back and redo? Um, just a small handful.
Speaker 1: I would say that. I was literally kind of like,
Speaker 1: I'm really disappointed with that. Yeah, you're a little harder
Speaker 1: honest than I am. Though. What's weird is like any
Speaker 1: time I do say like that was terrible, You're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't bad, and I'll go back and listen. I'll
Speaker 1: be like, it was way better than I thought. That's
Speaker 1: what Jerry says when you leave the room. She says,
Speaker 1: they're always better than anything's Oh really, I didn't realize
Speaker 1: Jerry talked about me when I wasn't here or spoke
Speaker 1: at all when I wasn't around. She was not allowed.
Speaker 1: All right, you got one. I do. Um. Let's see,
Speaker 1: do either of us have a preference as to what
Speaker 1: type of vacuum clean or you use? That's from Taylor
Speaker 1: Gene Warner, with the most pedestrian question anyone's ever asked.
Speaker 1: Uh not if you were into vacuuming, my friend, very important.
Speaker 1: I love vacuuming. I have an electro Luxe canister vacuum.
Speaker 1: Oh really, I call it LuxI and Emily is not
Speaker 1: allowed to operate it. Wow. Yeah? Uh you mean? And
Speaker 1: I have a Dyson when the little not the big one, Yeah,
Speaker 1: one of the smaller ones. Yeah, the yellow ball. Uh
Speaker 1: just a regular upright back? Yeah yeah. I got on
Speaker 1: the canister thing years ago. I love him. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: don't know why this thing took Like, you know, they
Speaker 1: they're like it never loses suction, it's very powerful or whatever.
Speaker 1: I accidentally rolled over the cord to charge my phone.
Speaker 1: It sucked the rubber off of the cord. Wo Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had to put electrical tape back on. It does suck.
Speaker 1: All right, that's some buzz marketing. Joseph Campbell, what is
Speaker 1: your advice on how to have a successful marriage? Joseph
Speaker 1: Campbell asked us the question. Yeah, wow, you should know
Speaker 1: this question or answer. Uh, Mary, Mary, your friend's my
Speaker 1: biggest piece of advice. That's a good one because if
Speaker 1: you don't like your spouse, then you can't love your spouse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: marry the person you want to hang out with the most.
Speaker 1: You should write a self help book. The end, I
Speaker 1: have another one for you, Chuck. Yes. Bethany Jackson asks,
Speaker 1: are you ever going to get another pet goat? No? Out? Well,
Speaker 1: never say never. Yeah, one day I will when I retire,
Speaker 1: like to the country, I would love another goat because
Speaker 1: the best that answers that. Josh kry Obermac says, what
Speaker 1: is your favorite Simpsons episode? Oh, that's a tough one,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna have to go with the old standby
Speaker 1: of Mr Sparkle. I'm gonna go with Montaeel. That's a
Speaker 1: good one too, or any of the Halloween like one
Speaker 1: through ten or so, those are just great. Um Robert
Speaker 1: Browning Justice League or Avengers. I don't know what that means. Really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you do. As a kid, I was Justice League that
Speaker 1: was way more into that. But here's an adult like
Speaker 1: that Avengers movie is great. I'm into that. Justice League
Speaker 1: is d C. Yeah, Superman definitely Batman. Yeah, although I
Speaker 1: like them the super Friends. That was all Justice League,
Speaker 1: wasn't it. Uh Yeah, okay, Well I have a coherent answer.
Speaker 1: Then for live action animation, not live action, but for animation,
Speaker 1: I prefer Justice League. For comic books, I preferred um
Speaker 1: Avengers Marvel Well in the new movie. Uh, they're doing
Speaker 1: the Superman Batman movie and then a full on Justice
Speaker 1: League movie is just leading up to that. So we'll
Speaker 1: see jury's out yea on motion pictures. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be hard to talk the Avengers movie that was
Speaker 1: pretty not motion pictures cartoon only. No, no, no, I'm
Speaker 1: talking about the new movies that are coming out soon.
Speaker 1: I got you. Yeah. Uh. Billy Schultz says, were they're
Speaker 1: rejected titles for the podcast before you landed on stuff
Speaker 1: you should know? Since you named it, I think you
Speaker 1: should answer. Uh. I came up with a bunch of ideas.
Speaker 1: One of them was McNeil Lair News Hour if that
Speaker 1: was already taken. But stuff you should know is in
Speaker 1: the original list of ideas what Terminator two? Judgment Day
Speaker 1: that was one. All right, get your next you want
Speaker 1: me go next? Yeah? Um, let's see. Oh this is
Speaker 1: a good one. Christopher mark Ree says, which of the
Speaker 1: two are your favorite person for promoting science? Bill Nye
Speaker 1: or Neil deGrasse Tyson A good one, man. They're both
Speaker 1: so great, I say, and d T Yeah yeah, Cosmos
Speaker 1: is awesome. It is awesome. He also, um, is totally
Speaker 1: comfortable like rocking a shirt. I'm buttoned at the top
Speaker 1: two Like, he's like the Billy d Williams Lando Tyson Yeah,
Speaker 1: uh yeah. And he was on our TV shows, which
Speaker 1: is really nice. You kind of have to go with him,
Speaker 1: all right. Naomi Hartman Garham. Oh, this is from her
Speaker 1: son Jackson, age nine. What was your favorite book when
Speaker 1: you were kids? My favorite book when I was a
Speaker 1: kid was like around your age or younger, was The
Speaker 1: Great Christmas Kidnapping Caper. It's about a bunch of mice
Speaker 1: in New York that moved into Macy's during Christmas time
Speaker 1: and uh, Santa is kidnapped and they sold the case. Wow,
Speaker 1: it was a great, great book. What was they called
Speaker 1: the Great Christmas Kidnapping Caper. And it wasn't like a
Speaker 1: little kid's book. I mean it was my first novel.
Speaker 1: It was long, long form. That was your favorite book
Speaker 1: when you're a kid? Yep. My favorite book when I
Speaker 1: was a little kid was a Christmas book. I think
Speaker 1: it was a Golden book called something like a Visit
Speaker 1: to Santa's Workshop or something. Yeah, oh my gosh, it
Speaker 1: was so cute. And then, uh, strangely, the first series
Speaker 1: of novels that I ever loved were Ramona Quimby books.
Speaker 1: Oh really, man, I used to eat those up and
Speaker 1: I would take flak too at school. I didn't care.
Speaker 1: I love those books. Yeah. I loved Encyclopedia Brown. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: he was good. And then you know, when I was younger, younger,
Speaker 1: you can't do better than Dr Susan chelf Silverstein, stuff
Speaker 1: like that, the classics. Um, I've got one, all right,
Speaker 1: go ahead. Uh if this is from Alejandro Sandy, So
Speaker 1: you could live in any era of history, which time
Speaker 1: would you live in? Why? That's always so hard. I'm
Speaker 1: going back to what I said before me you me cubawies. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna say New York and like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe the nineteen thirties that'd be pretty fun cool.
Speaker 1: That's a drinking and dancing Yeah, well that's Cuba in
Speaker 1: the twenties too. Yeah, exactly, you just had the Latin flavor.
Speaker 1: Uh Kevin Kinzie? Which pickled thing? Do you prefer most eggs, cucumbers, peppers,
Speaker 1: or cauliflower or anything else? I don't eat pickled things,
Speaker 1: So that's you. I I love pickled everything. It's so
Speaker 1: good for you too. Oh really? Oh yeah, it helps
Speaker 1: you digest bats a lot more easily. Um, it's just
Speaker 1: really healthy, like eating pickled stuff. You don't like pickles, don't? Um?
Speaker 1: I have one more ala Aslin Bridel boy. There's some
Speaker 1: weird names on Facebook. How do I make a ten
Speaker 1: year old more responsible? Did you're getting all the heavy
Speaker 1: questions like secret to successful marriage? How do you make
Speaker 1: your kid good? I think you know you gotta get
Speaker 1: put them to work, make them make or get them
Speaker 1: a pet. You make them responsible for something and that
Speaker 1: they're interested in. It would be my advice. I agree
Speaker 1: with both of your pieces of advice. Marry the person
Speaker 1: that you want to spend time with you and get
Speaker 1: your kid at Hamster yes, put him to work. Charge money.
Speaker 1: You got any more? Yeah? I got too many more?
Speaker 1: Pick one? Okay are you ready? Yes? The one that
Speaker 1: I pick is as follows uh from Mike Reels, Arnie
Speaker 1: or Stallone. It depends on the year. I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to say I would go Schwarzenegger. Yeah, eighties Schwartzenegger nowadays
Speaker 1: who cares no. But if we're like taking the time
Speaker 1: work back to the eighties, I was Conan the Barbarian,
Speaker 1: the original terminator to all deal total recall. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: all pretty great. Yeah. Um, I'm a huge first Blood
Speaker 1: fan and Rocky fan. Yeah, this was tough not to
Speaker 1: go with Stallone, although he made some really bad movies,
Speaker 1: um like Tango Assassin, Tighten Tango in Cash and uh
Speaker 1: the Dolly parton one about when he's a country singer. Oh,
Speaker 1: Ryan Stone, Ryan Stone, Um Obra Like wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: those are awful movies. What what you didn't like Cobra?
Speaker 1: How did you? Yes? Huh not for me? Must have
Speaker 1: been the age difference. Yeah, so I'm gonna go Arnie too. Okay,
Speaker 1: how about that? There you go. Uh. If you want
Speaker 1: to ask Chuck or me questions, you can go onto Facebook.
Speaker 1: Anytime at Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 1: You can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
Speaker 1: That's our Twitter handle. You can send us an email
Speaker 1: to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com uh and,
Speaker 1: as always, join us at home on the web. Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know dot com. Stuff you Should Know is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeart Radios. How Stuff Works for more
Speaker 1: podcasts for My Heart RADIOCA is at the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows