Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you should Know from house Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry Rowland,
Speaker 1: which makes this stuff you should know. It's right. I
Speaker 1: got on my top hat and cane your monocle monic
Speaker 1: to see a monocle. I thought it was not this'
Speaker 1: Mr Peanut. Oh yeah, not Mr Monopoly. And I think
Speaker 1: Mr Pringle has a monocle too, don't you know, he
Speaker 1: says an anostatic. 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 Pennybags.
Speaker 1: Three names, so uncle would be his middle name. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well he even has a regular name too. Oh not
Speaker 1: that 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 Penny Bags. And then the jail guy is Jake.
Speaker 1: The jailbird and the police officer and go to jail
Speaker 1: is I'll bet a tyrus, isn't it? Well, Officer Edgar Mallory,
Speaker 1: I really do you just gets that? Yeah, that's pretty funny.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Monopoly, by the way. Oh yeah, this
Speaker 1: is not about anything else but Monopoly. No. And I
Speaker 1: was just remarking to you, sir, how I've never seen
Speaker 1: one of our This had more supplemental information than most
Speaker 1: shows that we research. Yeah. I can explain why because
Speaker 1: this was written. There was a whole suite of UM
Speaker 1: game 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 Milburn Penny pennybags. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And like I said, that was a post that he
Speaker 1: wasn't originally called that. This is I think Monopoly probably
Speaker 1: wanted to sell a little a Little Book or two.
Speaker 1: I'm sure they did. Because if one thing we've learned
Speaker 1: about Parker Brothers and now has Bro is they love
Speaker 1: selling different versions of this game. Yeah, they do. They
Speaker 1: like licensing it off a lot of money. They like
Speaker 1: making some changes. Here they're releasing a brand new game,
Speaker 1: but it's all still the same game and all of it,
Speaker 1: Um came from a left wing Quaker intellectual at the
Speaker 1: turn of the last century. Yeah it was. I'm saying that, right, Yeah, sure, okay,
Speaker 1: let it sounds right. Uh. And it's interesting to me
Speaker 1: that the game of Monopoly, which is all about capitalism,
Speaker 1: bankrupting or neighbor was stolen. The game was stolen from
Speaker 1: a leftist intellectual Quaker. In the original version of the game,
Speaker 1: it was to teach against the monopolies and how they
Speaker 1: were bad. Right, So let's talk about this monopoly. Actually,
Speaker 1: if you trace it back to about the like the
Speaker 1: literal beginning of the twentieth century, Um, it's what's considered
Speaker 1: a folk game. There were a lot of people playing
Speaker 1: versions like this and cities all over the country. But again,
Speaker 1: they all shared some pretty common viewpoints. Uh. I guess
Speaker 1: you today you would kind of call them socialists, um,
Speaker 1: but for the most part they were um followers of
Speaker 1: a guy named Henry George. 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 notion was
Speaker 1: that you shouldn't even be a landowner. Whole concept of
Speaker 1: owning land to him was ridiculous. And that's based on
Speaker 1: this idea the law of the Commons, which is around
Speaker 1: for centuries, if not millennia, and then um, once people
Speaker 1: started taking land, He's like, okay, well, if you're gonna
Speaker 1: own land, it belongs to everybody, so that should be
Speaker 1: taxed and then that tax will be given back to
Speaker 1: the community for the greater good. So that's Georgeism, and
Speaker 1: that was kind of the philosophy that formed the basis
Speaker 1: of monopoly what was originally called the Landlord's Game, which
Speaker 1: is created by a lady named Lizzie Maggie m A
Speaker 1: G y m A g I e almost Magpie without
Speaker 1: the pe right, uh. And she basically was on her
Speaker 1: card and she uh, she came up with this, like
Speaker 1: you said, to kind of teach um, so you could
Speaker 1: go and be a rich landowner and bankrupt other people
Speaker 1: and exploit the poor who need your help, um, who
Speaker 1: need a decent place to stay, and you could see
Speaker 1: yourself like the evils of capitalism. But she actually came
Speaker 1: up with two sets of rules for the same game.
Speaker 1: One was where you got as rich as you could
Speaker 1: at the expense of everybody else. The other was a
Speaker 1: basically the community benefited. And you can kind of see
Speaker 1: that today and like these weird things like community chest,
Speaker 1: like why would I want to you know, pay into
Speaker 1: this pot. I don't care about the commune in the
Speaker 1: like now it's a bad thing. In her original version,
Speaker 1: it was a good thing, like the community one, and
Speaker 1: that was the basis of the whole thing. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: is really ironic, it is uh. Yeah, like you said,
Speaker 1: she created two versions, and she said, Um. One of
Speaker 1: the quotes from her is it is a practical demonstration
Speaker 1: of the present system of land grabbing with all its
Speaker 1: usual outcomes and consequences. So you know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: to teach people lessons. H and she had it stolen
Speaker 1: from her. Luckily, Lizzie, Maggie was smart enough to patent
Speaker 1: this game. Uh. It became just kind of a trendy thing. Again,
Speaker 1: like if you were uh into socialism at the time
Speaker 1: and you were on the East Coast, you probably hung
Speaker 1: out at a friend's house and and um played this
Speaker 1: game at some point in some incarnation or another. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was really popular, like you said, like people made
Speaker 1: up some of their own rules, but it was if
Speaker 1: I mean, if you look at the original Landlords game board,
Speaker 1: it looks a lot like the or Monopoly, I mean
Speaker 1: similar at least. Yeah, and apparently a lot of the
Speaker 1: the rules that make the game a lot more enjoyable
Speaker 1: today came from uh Lizzie's quicker friends. Like, for example, um,
Speaker 1: the original plots of land we're up for auction for
Speaker 1: for bide. Quakers prefer silence, so they just put a
Speaker 1: fixed price on the piece of land so there wouldn't
Speaker 1: be a loud, obnoxious bidding war. Um. They also um
Speaker 1: instituted tokens fun tokens before they were just boring ponds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like household objects, which you know, that's why the fimble
Speaker 1: is in there, and originally the iron. We'll get to
Speaker 1: those in a minute, but um, it's pretty exciting. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then so this thing is being played and Lizzie
Speaker 1: Maggie holds the patent, but she's not exactly like um
Speaker 1: cracking down on any kind of infringement. Really. Well, she
Speaker 1: 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: The lady named Ruth Hoskins, and she was one of
Speaker 1: the ones who caught on in the like Philadelphia, Atlantic
Speaker 1: City area with her Quaker friends, uh, two of them
Speaker 1: in particular, Jessie and Eugene Rayford. Uh. And they are
Speaker 1: the ones who changed some of the rules to make
Speaker 1: it look more like the monopoly we know. They taught
Speaker 1: it to a friend, uh named Todd, and Todd taught
Speaker 1: it to his friend named Charles Darrow. And that's where
Speaker 1: the story takes a kind of a ceed turn. Well
Speaker 1: actually that's where the Parker Brothers official version begins. Ironically
Speaker 1: turned CD Brothers is like, hey, this is where our
Speaker 1: story begins. Yeah. The inventor of Monopoly, Charles Darrow A 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. Well,
Speaker 1: I supposedly that's what caught the Parker brothers attention was
Speaker 1: that this guy came to came to him, came to
Speaker 1: 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 department 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 hotcakes. You know what, sir, we will buy your
Speaker 1: idea from you. And Charles Darrow apparently said, well, that's great.
Speaker 1: Give me the money first and then I'll tell you
Speaker 1: the second part of the story. And they gave him
Speaker 1: a bag of money with a dollar sign on it,
Speaker 1: much like the ones that um rich uncle Penny bags likes,
Speaker 1: and he said, okay, um, we also need to buy
Speaker 1: the patent off from this lady named Lizzie Maggie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which they did. Um, the game was still stolen, I say,
Speaker 1: even though that they eventually did pay her money. But
Speaker 1: part of the deal was they said, um, they they
Speaker 1: agreed to buy her pattent and said, you know what
Speaker 1: we're gonna we'll sell a few of your other game
Speaker 1: ideas too. None of those ever went anywhere, and she
Speaker 1: was sort of lost to history except for people who
Speaker 1: do a little bit of digging. Yeah, and we actually
Speaker 1: have a guy named Ralph to thank for doing that
Speaker 1: digging initially. We'll talk about him later. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because he's the one who came up with the unofficial
Speaker 1: history and like really tracked it down. Boy, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of teasers in this one so far so Um,
Speaker 1: the Parker brothers now in the game, and uh, it
Speaker 1: becomes a huge hit virtually off the bat. In the
Speaker 1: thirties is when they bought it and started really printing it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the game is based on Atlantic City. Uh, those
Speaker 1: are the properties, and that's because that was the area
Speaker 1: where it became popular. But um, this excellent New York
Speaker 1: Times article you sent, uh, what's the name of it?
Speaker 1: Monopoly Goes Corporate. Yeah, it was written by what's the
Speaker 1: what's 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. Yeah, oh,
Speaker 1: buy that one up and support support the lb GT
Speaker 1: community that 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. 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 thimbles. Before we go
Speaker 1: any further, though, you want to do a message break, Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: we'll be right packed what you want, all right, So
Speaker 1: we were just talking about Atlantic City. Um, I guess
Speaker 1: it's we can go ahead and point out now that
Speaker 1: there are hundreds of versions of Monopoly out there, now,
Speaker 1: one for your hometown, probably one for your favorite sports team.
Speaker 1: I have personally my version as a Star Wars Monopoly,
Speaker 1: which is pretty fun. Um. Yeah, I guess hes pro
Speaker 1: is like you've got some money, sure you can license this,
Speaker 1: make your Monopoly game. Go ahead. There's a Simpsons Monopoly.
Speaker 1: I haven't played it though, and not in addition to
Speaker 1: the um licensed versions that you can find like everywhere
Speaker 1: They also have like official versions to like there's a
Speaker 1: U S version, there's a UK version, there's um a,
Speaker 1: there's a new version that's called monopoly here and now
Speaker 1: what does that even mean? Super corporate? Is this the
Speaker 1: corporate one? Yeah? Okay, it's uh, it's like everything is
Speaker 1: multiplied by I think a thousand, so the dollar amounts
Speaker 1: are way higher. Is this one where they replaced the uh,
Speaker 1: the railroads are replaced by airports? Is this one where
Speaker 1: they replaced corporations for all the property? So? Yes, like McDonald's,
Speaker 1: sony and god, who would want to play that? Some people? Do?
Speaker 1: You know? Yeah? H um. I mean I'm not a
Speaker 1: purist because I had the Star Wars version, but just
Speaker 1: it's no fun to me to play as paramount pictures
Speaker 1: and to buy the McDonald's property. Yeah, it's just me. Um.
Speaker 1: So there are a bunch of different versions, but the
Speaker 1: one we're going to talk about, we'll just talk about
Speaker 1: the the normal version with the two thousand eight rules. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's actually coming soon um later this year. There
Speaker 1: you can go online at my Monopoly and you can
Speaker 1: design your own board, is that right? And do like
Speaker 1: your 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. You
Speaker 1: gonna do the East Lake. But I was. I was
Speaker 1: talking to whoever went and got Yeah, rich uncle, rich
Speaker 1: penny bags. That's what you should have said, rich uncle,
Speaker 1: penny bag, penny bags. This sounds not not that wealthy. Well,
Speaker 1: actually I have a bag of pennies on me right now.
Speaker 1: He Forbes has their silly fictional fifteen list of fictional
Speaker 1: characters wealth and he um in two thousand thirteen was
Speaker 1: number is Uh stars declined to m huh, guess who
Speaker 1: the first? The richest fictional character is the Incredible Hulk. No,
Speaker 1: he was not rich Scrooge McDuck. Oh yeah, well dude,
Speaker 1: he had that gold vault apparently sixty five billion. Uh.
Speaker 1: Number two was smiling, which I thought it was kind
Speaker 1: of silly smile from like the rings. It's the dragon.
Speaker 1: I think I had like a bunch of gold. Uh.
Speaker 1: Carlisle Cullen number three, Tony Stark four, Charles Foster Kane
Speaker 1: number five? Who's number three? Carlisle Cullen from Twilight? Who's that?
Speaker 1: He 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 crazy like a weird scientists friend, didn't
Speaker 1: he Sure like a Richie Rich robot of himself. I
Speaker 1: think he had that too, But no, it's made. Was
Speaker 1: a robot, wasn't it? That was the Jetsons. No, he
Speaker 1: had a Uh. I thought Monty Burns at number ten
Speaker 1: was pretty good. Oh yeah, that's good, although I would
Speaker 1: guess Mr Monopoly would be wealthier than Monty Burns. But
Speaker 1: and they put it out each year and it's duma.
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 rules if you are a
Speaker 1: Monopoly purist and like, I'm sorry, this is what we're
Speaker 1: going with. Yeah, well, let's talk about the game board itself,
Speaker 1: just so if you haven't played it, I'm surprised because
Speaker 1: I think like a billion people to play the game. Um,
Speaker 1: but if you haven't, when you get your Monopoly game,
Speaker 1: you're gonna open it up and you're gonna have a
Speaker 1: board with all these different properties in a square. Uh,
Speaker 1: you you have two dice twelve they call them tokens.
Speaker 1: That's not the right amount either, is it. No, there's eight. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't understand where they got twelve from unless they're
Speaker 1: counting ones that maybe were retired or something like that.
Speaker 1: But when you open the box, there's only eight. There,
Speaker 1: there's a can we go over, there's a wheelbarrow, Scottie dog,
Speaker 1: top hat, a cat which replaced the iron in two
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen. There's a big, big to do because Parker
Speaker 1: Brothers has Bro was like, we haven't made a lot
Speaker 1: of money off of this for a couple of months,
Speaker 1: so let's just do something. Well, they let people vote
Speaker 1: at least, which is kind of cool, right, but it
Speaker 1: was also did you see the other ones that they
Speaker 1: were voting for. It's like a robot like Ritchie Rich's
Speaker 1: main a guitar. They didn't make the cut though, No,
Speaker 1: they got voted out and the cat got voted in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the iron got booted. Yeah, it only got eight percent
Speaker 1: of the vote. There's the classic shoe of course or boot,
Speaker 1: which is modeled after the nineteen thirties working shoe, and
Speaker 1: I think they've kept it the same. Yeah, that's one
Speaker 1: of the original ones. The Scottie Dog was not one
Speaker 1: of the origins that came in the fifties. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think that was supposed to be the companion of
Speaker 1: uh millburn money Denny bags should be cash bags, fat
Speaker 1: stacks stacks bag. There was a cannon which has since
Speaker 1: been retired. Yeah, and two militaries, well, the cannon and
Speaker 1: the battleship. Yeah. They were from a failed game called Conflict,
Speaker 1: and they were like, well, we got all these pieces,
Speaker 1: so let's just throw them in Monopoly for now. It's
Speaker 1: pretty smart. But they faced the cannon out because it's
Speaker 1: just too overtly violent. Um, it just says with any
Speaker 1: without any fanfare or vote or campaign. So probably, yeah,
Speaker 1: be my guess. If it's hush hush, yeah, it's probably
Speaker 1: kind 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 they were in hard I guess so,
Speaker 1: uh or purse has been retired. The rocking horse was retired,
Speaker 1: the lantern was retired. Yeah, I'm doing my best Ben
Speaker 1: Bowl impressing. Did you do did you get wheelbarrow in
Speaker 1: there yet? I think I know, yes I did. It
Speaker 1: was the first one I said, Did you say top hat? Yeah?
Speaker 1: That was always my favorite. Actually, I don't remember what
Speaker 1: my favorite was. It fit on my pinking and I
Speaker 1: used to draw faces. Uh the horse and rider, which
Speaker 1: is retired, which I didn't know. That's one of the
Speaker 1: best pieces to me. What you didn't know is retired.
Speaker 1: Now I'm just kind of sad. Yeah, and now there
Speaker 1: and that stack of money was retired as well, the
Speaker 1: sack of money and a purse. Those are a little similar. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The cat come on, yeah, cat people, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: I guarantee that's why they got cat voted in. And
Speaker 1: I am a cat person, you know, and even you
Speaker 1: think it's stupid. So those are the tokens. Some of
Speaker 1: those tokens that we mentioned you're going to find in
Speaker 1: the two thousand and eight set, and that is your piece.
Speaker 1: That is what represents you in the game. Again for
Speaker 1: the three people who have never played Monopoly, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: because supposedly, um, at least as far as Hasbro calculates,
Speaker 1: over one billion people have played Monopoly, and frankly, I'm
Speaker 1: surprised it's that low. It sounds like an old number. Yeah. Um, okay,
Speaker 1: So you've got the box open, you get the board,
Speaker 1: you got two dice, you got the tokens, thirty two
Speaker 1: houses in, twelve hotels, uh, sixteen chance cards, sixteen community
Speaker 1: chest cards. Yeah, a title D card for each property.
Speaker 1: It's got the information on it, like how much it
Speaker 1: cost to purchase, how much rent is depending on how
Speaker 1: many houses or hotels you have on it? Yeah, what
Speaker 1: the mortgage value is worth, that's right. Um. And then
Speaker 1: you've got your your play money, your monopoly money. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 1: I think that's where it grabs kids because and they
Speaker 1: even pointed out in this article that's. Um, it's kind
Speaker 1: of the first time a lot of kids have money
Speaker 1: to play with. Yeah, especially the Bill wants. Oh man,
Speaker 1: that gold Bill always thought was orange? Is it gold? Uh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: one's definitely golden rod like yellow. What I remember? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess gold is the way to go. Uh. See,
Speaker 1: I was a cash hoarder, which is no way to
Speaker 1: win a monopoly I thought it was can't save. No,
Speaker 1: I just just figures for me though, Like you gotta
Speaker 1: spend money to make money. Yeah, I was like, look
Speaker 1: at all this cash that I will soon be paying
Speaker 1: to everyone else. You just keep wandering off from the
Speaker 1: table and try to buy stuff with it did not work.
Speaker 1: So Chuck, you got the board laid out, and if
Speaker 1: you count them, if you're that kind of person, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're gonna find that there's forty squares, that's right. I believe,
Speaker 1: twenty two of which are um no, twenty eight of
Speaker 1: which can be purchased. Yeah, twenty two or properties. You've
Speaker 1: got your your electric company and water works. Yeah, sucker's bet.
Speaker 1: And then you've got the four railroads. Four railroads, So
Speaker 1: 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 right out of just right out of
Speaker 1: your pocket. If 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 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 version 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 no one placed by
Speaker 1: the real rules anyway, So why bother packaging it and
Speaker 1: selling it? And they went, I think you just said
Speaker 1: the words sell someone's they sell. There in lies the answer.
Speaker 1: So you've got, oh, there's and so there's forty squares,
Speaker 1: but there's actually forty one places you can go to
Speaker 1: on the board because jail is divided into two squares.
Speaker 1: You got the jail with the jailbird. What's his name, Uh,
Speaker 1: I can't remember, jailbird or something. Jake the jailbird, right, okay,
Speaker 1: which is where Jake the jailbird is. And then you've
Speaker 1: got the lower part of it. Um, it's just visiting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you want to visit Jake, give him a bunt
Speaker 1: cake with the nail filing would be very old school
Speaker 1: or monopoly set with um maybe a map with an
Speaker 1: escape route embedded in it. Hey, that sounds familiar. POWs
Speaker 1: and World War Two were given such monopoly sets. True,
Speaker 1: It's is strange to meybe, It's like where the Nazis
Speaker 1: allowing monopoly sets to be delivered to POWs. Is that
Speaker 1: what I'm seeing here? Maybe it's the Burmese. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've seen the like the Great Escape on those those
Speaker 1: the war prison camps in World War Two. It seemed
Speaker 1: like a lot of them they let him like garden
Speaker 1: and they were kind of chummy with him. He saw
Speaker 1: Hoggan's heroes, saw Hogans heroes and put a lot of
Speaker 1: stock into it. Yeah. But yeah, no, I just figured
Speaker 1: to soccer. Maybe the Japanese or the Burmese or the
Speaker 1: the Italians I could see like saying like, yeah, he
Speaker 1: brings the monopoly and who cares. But the Nazis, I
Speaker 1: would think, would I just don't see that. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying it was a walk in the park, but
Speaker 1: I think from the depiction and uh, like like I said,
Speaker 1: like the Great Escape. It's not like Vietnam Prison Camp.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you know, like they weren't playing soccer or Monopoly.
Speaker 1: They were playing Survive Another Day that game. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: not making lie 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 it doesn't age well though.
Speaker 1: Really remember that menu with the gun silhouettes on it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and when you're twelves, you're like, oh my god. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like I would buy that one in that one. Um.
Speaker 1: All right, so where were we we were talking about? Um,
Speaker 1: the board itself, yes, and the different squares. Yes, there
Speaker 1: are the cards that you can draw as well, Community
Speaker 1: chest and chance squares. You land on these you draw
Speaker 1: a card from one of those two piles, and there
Speaker 1: are various things in there, like you want to fashion
Speaker 1: modeling contest you get ten dollars, and their dog show
Speaker 1: one there too. I think there's probably a dog show
Speaker 1: and there's also you know, you have street repairs or
Speaker 1: um those are big time general repairs, and that's based
Speaker 1: on your properties that you own. That's right. They can
Speaker 1: they can can teach you pretty hard. Yeah, yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, and that's funny because the Monopoly what
Speaker 1: was her name, Lizzie Maggie in an interview um, she
Speaker 1: gave with some leftist magazine at the time. Um. She
Speaker 1: said she basically called the thing the Game of Life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was already taken out. I don't know, was it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was that's around since the Like midd, I thought
Speaker 1: she was being pressing it. Now she's being glib. She was.
Speaker 1: She was making a pop culture reference for the time exactly.
Speaker 1: But did you know apparently there used to be a
Speaker 1: square on the Game of Life board for suicide. Really
Speaker 1: it was the way that 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 Yatzi was a big
Speaker 1: one that I still enjoyed today. I love Yatsu. 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 Bowl 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 tell you
Speaker 1: how to be the door. Oh yeah, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: I got my m D. And then of course, uh,
Speaker 1: Battleship taught you how to be a warmonger, to risk,
Speaker 1: can take great pride. Risk taught you to be the Antichrist. Yeah, risk,
Speaker 1: we should do what. There is an article on risk
Speaker 1: I saw. I looked it over. It didn't seem as
Speaker 1: as interesting as this one. Yeah. I don't know if
Speaker 1: the history is as interesting. And I mean, isn't that
Speaker 1: what what's interesting about any game, the history of it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think so. So. Um, let's talk about the rules, dude. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's start at the beginning. We'll start it. Go go.
Speaker 1: It is where you start, and that's where you like
Speaker 1: you said, you collect the two hundred every time you
Speaker 1: land on it or pass it. Sometimes house rules, uh
Speaker 1: you get four hundred for actually landing on it and
Speaker 1: only two hundred for passing it. We never good. But
Speaker 1: free parking is where we had house rules. Um, that
Speaker 1: is a space on the corner of the board where
Speaker 1: you supposedly for the official rules, don't do anything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's nothing. It's just a space. But what we did
Speaker 1: was we donated all the collected taxes and fees and
Speaker 1: put it under free parking. And if you land on that,
Speaker 1: that was like a lottery win. Oh yeah, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people play that way. I think I've heard
Speaker 1: of that one before. I liked it because they allowed
Speaker 1: you more money, which is my favorite thing. Catch it's
Speaker 1: alto yeah exactly. Uh, we got ahead of ourselves. Let's
Speaker 1: just start at the real beginning. So everybody sits down
Speaker 1: at the table, maybe because somebody, yeah, somebody gets a drink.
Speaker 1: Maybe you have to wait because somebody has to go
Speaker 1: to the bathroom, So you're all sitting there quietly. And
Speaker 1: then when everybody's finally at the table, you guys select
Speaker 1: a banker, and the banker distributes the Monopoly money to
Speaker 1: each player to five hundreds, to fifties, six twenties, and
Speaker 1: five tens, five fives and five ones. That's hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: And the goal of the game that we're getting to
Speaker 1: here at thirty minutes in is to bankrupt all of
Speaker 1: 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. That's like, I give jeez, I've
Speaker 1: got eight dollars. I hate this game. Yeah. That's usually
Speaker 1: me and Emily is 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 yeah. Um, so okay, so everybody's got fifteen bucks.
Speaker 1: You roll the dice to see who goes first. Whoever
Speaker 1: rules the highest goes first. Classic. Then you roll both
Speaker 1: die and you start moving from the ghost square and
Speaker 1: you go clockwise around the board. And when you land
Speaker 1: on a property. This I didn't know, which is kind
Speaker 1: of a basic rule, I guess, but I never played
Speaker 1: it this way. When you land on a property, you
Speaker 1: 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 ACKs. 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. Uh,
Speaker 1: the during an auction, not only the person, not only
Speaker 1: everybody else, but the banker and the person who declined
Speaker 1: to buy it can bid on it, which didn't make
Speaker 1: sense unless you're trying to get for lower because can't
Speaker 1: you start the bidding it wherever. Yes, you can start
Speaker 1: the bidding anywhere you want, so you could consumably get
Speaker 1: it for lower. And if you're playing against somebody who
Speaker 1: declines to buy something and then starts bidding on a
Speaker 1: lower price, keep an eye on that person that sharp
Speaker 1: to win. Yeah. Uh yeah, I hate that rule because
Speaker 1: to me, it's just like, what's the point and rolling
Speaker 1: and landing on something? I guess right at first refusal,
Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't know, I don't like it now.
Speaker 1: And plus the Quakers were like, we specifically put a
Speaker 1: price on these things so there wouldn't be a lot
Speaker 1: of yelling. Yeah, we don't like yelling. Uh. They had
Speaker 1: another game to follow called the quiet roof raising ceremony.
Speaker 1: Those are not Quakers, that was the Amist. They're different.
Speaker 1: Oh don't you think Quakers raise some roofs? Yeah, they ain't.
Speaker 1: No party like a Quaker party. All right. So let's
Speaker 1: say you buy all of the properties that you know
Speaker 1: they're they're divided into different colors, Like there's three green
Speaker 1: around you know, green ones, orange ones, blue ones, light blue. Um.
Speaker 1: If you buy all of the properties that are tied
Speaker 1: together by a single color, then you have what's called
Speaker 1: a monopoly, and that means you can then charge double rent,
Speaker 1: although we never do that. We just keep it single rent.
Speaker 1: And you now have the option to buy houses. And
Speaker 1: then once you have enough houses I think three, you
Speaker 1: can then buy a hotel and let's call improvements. You're
Speaker 1: improving your land. And once you start to do improvements, um,
Speaker 1: things change a little bit. Not only can you start
Speaker 1: making more money, but it's actually harder to mortgage your
Speaker 1: properties if you are if you find yourself in debt, right,
Speaker 1: because this is this is how crazy complicated it is.
Speaker 1: Like I don't think I was ever paying that much
Speaker 1: attention to monopoly that I ever mortgaged a piece of land.
Speaker 1: I think it's like started 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, No,
Speaker 1: it doesn't Okay, so you still own the monopoly. It's
Speaker 1: just that that one is mortgaged, and then to get
Speaker 1: it back you have to pay the bank the mortgage
Speaker 1: plus ten percent. Right. And this is where you can
Speaker 1: 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 Mr Cash. What were your your interest rates? I
Speaker 1: don't remember. Did you break any usury laws? No? That
Speaker 1: was a kid, so it was it was probably just
Speaker 1: like just pay me back whenever or something. I'm not
Speaker 1: the right I'm not enough of a you're not the
Speaker 1: start capitale. Now you're not the one who like declines
Speaker 1: to buy something so you can bid on at a
Speaker 1: lower price. I'm playing candy Land. I loved candy Land.
Speaker 1: Actually I never played that. It was a great game,
Speaker 1: was it because of the art? Crazy? It was beautiful
Speaker 1: off and then nowa daisy look at the candy landpoint
Speaker 1: and you're like, poor kids, Yeah, they don't know what
Speaker 1: they're missing. I just got a Ticket to Ride game
Speaker 1: that I haven't played yet. Have you heard of that one?
Speaker 1: It was a German game that's like one game of
Speaker 1: the year. It's a train train game, like you established
Speaker 1: train routes between cities. Um, but it's supposedly like it
Speaker 1: sounds like really that's fun, but it's supposedly great. I
Speaker 1: just bled it t here. Did you at the thought
Speaker 1: of it? Yeah, it does sound pretty bad, but no,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's one game in the year. Why those
Speaker 1: Germans and watch people Ticket to Ride enthusiasts will be like, dude,
Speaker 1: it's the best ever I've heard. Like, German game night
Speaker 1: is like a thing. Now, Yeah, I think they're a
Speaker 1: little more heavy. Is that what it is? I think?
Speaker 1: So this seems like I've read over the rules the
Speaker 1: other night just so I would know what to do.
Speaker 1: And because you've got to like the purchase over the
Speaker 1: game has to be the game explainer as well. You
Speaker 1: have to listen to craftword while you play. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: you don't have to, but it helps house rules. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so oh um, I guess we oh and we said
Speaker 1: you you can do anything but give personal loans, right,
Speaker 1: that's what the official rules state. So, like you can
Speaker 1: I can buy from you on the side or something
Speaker 1: like that, or you can hold something up for auction,
Speaker 1: whatever anybody's doing. Yeah, and we always played where you
Speaker 1: had to do that when it was your turn, and
Speaker 1: 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 ropeally every four years, although
Speaker 1: it's been the last one in two thousand nine, so
Speaker 1: we're due an American lawyer one, right, and no, I
Speaker 1: think it was a Swede or maybe he was the
Speaker 1: North American. That's what he was, the North American champion
Speaker 1: and he represented the US and the world. Chan it shifts.
Speaker 1: It sounds so silly. Yeah, well he uh he used
Speaker 1: the iron. Yeah, I think the American used the thimble.
Speaker 1: That's a that's the fact that people need. Well, we're
Speaker 1: trying to really appeal to the purists here too, which
Speaker 1: at everybody to be engaged. Okay, chucker, So again, the
Speaker 1: point bankrupt. Everybody bankrupt. 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've 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, buy it all and and never have more
Speaker 1: than a hundred dollars in cash is his rule. He
Speaker 1: says the number one people must mistake people make is
Speaker 1: hoarding cash like I did. Yeah, you're making the number
Speaker 1: one mistake, that's right. Uh. And he says that, um,
Speaker 1: buy 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
Speaker 1: can so supposedly though, Um, a general rule of film
Speaker 1: among like hardcore monopoly players is that while you're improving
Speaker 1: your monopoly your properties by adding houses or whatever, you
Speaker 1: want to stop at three houses because the jump from
Speaker 1: the third house to the hotel 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, right,
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 bet 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. He
Speaker 1: claims to have won a game in twelve minutes one time,
Speaker 1: which I thought was shooting his own horn a bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah sure, Um, but real regular strategy. You're right, they
Speaker 1: say three houses is the max you should go. Um,
Speaker 1: and then there's also some that you should avoid. Even
Speaker 1: though this seemed like very tempting, we already said the
Speaker 1: electric company and the water company, the utilities. The the
Speaker 1: most you can get for rent from landing on it
Speaker 1: was ten times a roll of the dice, which is
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty bucks. It could be as low
Speaker 1: as 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 pierists 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.
Speaker 1: Yeah they're they're only two of them, and um, they
Speaker 1: just don't get landed on very much. Yeah, so think
Speaker 1: about it right out of the gate when you're thinking
Speaker 1: of probabilities. Um, the fact that there's two of these
Speaker 1: properties rather than three means that you are that another
Speaker 1: player is less likely to land on your monopoly because
Speaker 1: there's three or two instead of three. So that's one problem.
Speaker 1: The other problem is placement where they are. They're right
Speaker 1: after um go right for right before. Yeah, so it's
Speaker 1: at the end of the board essentially. No, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: they're right before jail. No, they're right before, they're right
Speaker 1: before go. Okay. So that means that most most players
Speaker 1: are going to well, they're going to pass them for
Speaker 1: sure whenever they hit that um go directly to go
Speaker 1: exactly yeah. Um. So that means that your your monopoly
Speaker 1: is going to be passed over. The likelihood of making
Speaker 1: your money back recouping it, especially if they're improved to
Speaker 1: the hilt, like a really fancy hotel, means that a
Speaker 1: lot of money. Yeah, you you've probably sunk a lot
Speaker 1: of money unwisely into those You want to go for
Speaker 1: some other ones, Yeah, supposedly, and there are people that
Speaker 1: have done Uh. There was this one guy. If you
Speaker 1: really want to get into monopoly, this dude, I don't
Speaker 1: even know his name, but just look up probabilities in
Speaker 1: the game of Monopoly and Scientific American in the mid
Speaker 1: nineties at the article that talked about probabilities of landing
Speaker 1: on different spaces, but they excluded um community chest and
Speaker 1: 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, expected number of opponent role, to recoup incremental
Speaker 1: costs UH, to recoup mortgages. So it's the name of
Speaker 1: his website. By the way, his monopoly was fun dot com.
Speaker 1: It totally should be um, but um. If you just
Speaker 1: want to do some basic probabilities, the orange properties are
Speaker 1: landed on more than anyone else. Yes, and why chuck
Speaker 1: because they are after jail. Yeah, six eight and nine
Speaker 1: spaces after jail. Yeah. So if you get sent to jail,
Speaker 1: which is going to happen at some point and we
Speaker 1: actually we didn't talk about jail, we'll talk about that,
Speaker 1: then you, uh, yeah, chances are you're gonna hit one
Speaker 1: 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, s eight or a
Speaker 1: nine then you are like a two or three or
Speaker 1: a one. Yeah. It's not even possible to roll at one.
Speaker 1: Try it. You can't. You can't unless you eat one
Speaker 1: of the dice, and in which case, unless it's a
Speaker 1: house rule, everybody's gonna yell at you and have to
Speaker 1: wait around until you poop it out to keep playing. Actually,
Speaker 1: our rule was you had to roll the child in
Speaker 1: what the child you ate the dice? Oh yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: So jail um is in the corner of the board,
Speaker 1: and you can there are a few different ways you
Speaker 1: can 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 cleansed. Or there
Speaker 1: is a square 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 can sell it
Speaker 1: to a friend or enemy, uh, whoever, whoever had the
Speaker 1: most cast 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: The way we played it was each turn you had
Speaker 1: one chance to roll your way out of jail. So
Speaker 1: you rolling doubles right, um, and then if you under
Speaker 1: official rules, if you don't roll doubles for three consecutive turns,
Speaker 1: like you get three consecutive chances to roll doubles, and
Speaker 1: if you don't on any of those turns, then you
Speaker 1: have to pay fifty bucks to get out of jail.
Speaker 1: We just played where you just got out and you
Speaker 1: didn't have to pay. Well, then you guys weren't following
Speaker 1: the rules. I told you the house rules us. So
Speaker 1: there's actually a strategy to jail. Um, if you go
Speaker 1: to jail early on in the game, you want to
Speaker 1: pay your fifty bucks to get out immediately, just pay
Speaker 1: the fifty bucks because then you can keep going around
Speaker 1: the board and there's more stuff lable to buy. But
Speaker 1: later in the game you want to just kind of
Speaker 1: hang out in jail. Yeah, Like Josh has bought all
Speaker 1: the orange spaces and you've got hotels on each one,
Speaker 1: so I'm thinking that 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. You can own a house and be in jail.
Speaker 1: I guess that's true, and technically you could probably charge
Speaker 1: rent to someone. You could sub let it, like I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be gone for three to six. No, it's true.
Speaker 1: But what happens when dis roster breaks trying to get
Speaker 1: let out of jail to go fix it. They're not
Speaker 1: gonna let you do that. It's very funny, but it's
Speaker 1: true too. Uh. Probability experts also say you get a
Speaker 1: good return on buying all the railroads because they're pretty cheap.
Speaker 1: There's one on each side, and once you have each
Speaker 1: once you own all of them. Um, they're two hundred
Speaker 1: dollars 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 it is because they're in a row, whereas the
Speaker 1: railroads are spaced out. And our friend, the strategist who
Speaker 1: thinks he uh invented the game says, but what you
Speaker 1: have to remember is none of these strategies matter because
Speaker 1: you're playing. It's a game of people and personalities. So
Speaker 1: he said, you gotta sit back and watch the different
Speaker 1: personalities emerge and then you manipulate that like the cash
Speaker 1: hoarder versus the shark. And uh, he's like, you really
Speaker 1: playing against people. Man, that's interesting, I thought. So okay,
Speaker 1: so let's talk about another friend, an economist friend. His
Speaker 1: name is Ralph Ant Spock. Yes, and he back in
Speaker 1: the seventies had a game called anti Monopoly. Yeah. He
Speaker 1: was an econ professor at San Francisco States and um,
Speaker 1: like made his own real game. Like he didn't just
Speaker 1: like draw it up on paper, like, he started a
Speaker 1: little small business and manufactured it. Apparently sold about two
Speaker 1: thousand copies of it, like, right, out of the gate,
Speaker 1: like it just hit a nerve. Again. It's called anti monopoly,
Speaker 1: and the whole point of it was to break up
Speaker 1: monopolies rather than build monopolies. Yeah. At the beginning of
Speaker 1: the game is essentially the end of a regular game,
Speaker 1: like everyone starts off with monopolies. Uh. And instead of
Speaker 1: real estate and utilities, um and anti monopoly, they had
Speaker 1: their individual busins. This is that had been brought under
Speaker 1: a single ownership, and you take the role of federal
Speaker 1: caseworker and bring indictments against monopolized businesses. In order to
Speaker 1: turn return the board to a free market system. You
Speaker 1: have to wear sensible shoes. It sounds awesome. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and he came up with this because he was trying
Speaker 1: to apparently explain to his son what was wrong and
Speaker 1: bad about monopolies and I suspect capitalism to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: and he came up with this game instead, Like I said,
Speaker 1: sold a substantial amount two copies of the game, especially
Speaker 1: back in the seventies, that was pretty good as a startup. 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 him,
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. One. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he won at the Supreme Court, this acount 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 said,
Speaker 1: um couldn't 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, uh awkwardly titled the Billion Dollar Monopoly in
Speaker 1: swindle Colin during David and Goliath battle. Anti Monopoly uncovers
Speaker 1: the secret history of Monopoly. That's a little clunky, little clunky,
Speaker 1: but it's still around. Um In. There was a new
Speaker 1: version called Anti Monopoly too, where you could actually be
Speaker 1: a monopolist or a competitor. So you got to choose,
Speaker 1: which I thought was interesting. And Uh, if you chose
Speaker 1: the competitor, you charge lower rents and you can improve
Speaker 1: property at anytime. But if you're a monopolist, you have
Speaker 1: to own at least two properties before in a group,
Speaker 1: before building houses, in charge a lot higher rents. So
Speaker 1: I think you're like playing against the two systems within
Speaker 1: the same game. That's really interesting. Yeah, I'm gonna I
Speaker 1: might grab one of these and see what it's like.
Speaker 1: Maybe tell everybody's German. Uh, you got anything else? I
Speaker 1: got nothing else. I do the longest Monopoly game of
Speaker 1: all time seventy days. I played a game of risk
Speaker 1: that seemed like it lasted that long once. It may have.
Speaker 1: It didn't last 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 cafit cash and go
Speaker 1: home your horde of it. Yeah, you're like, oh, that's
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 how Stuff works and
Speaker 1: check out the rules that is in this article to
Speaker 1: site monopoly in the search bar at house to 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 do 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 like fashion. We don't
Speaker 1: do anything in rapid fire fast. I couldn't even explain
Speaker 1: rapid fire fashion and 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 to
Speaker 1: I'll be like it was way better than I thought.
Speaker 1: That's 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 was in she was not allowed. Alright,
Speaker 1: you got one, I do. Um. Let's see, do either
Speaker 1: of us have a preference as to what type of
Speaker 1: vacuum cleaner you use? That's from Taylor Jean Warner with
Speaker 1: the most pedestrian question anyone's ever asked. Uh not if
Speaker 1: you were into vacuuming, My friend, very important. I love vacuuming.
Speaker 1: I have an electro luck canister vacuum. Oh really, I
Speaker 1: call it LuxI and Emily is not allowed to operate it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh you mean. And I have a Dyson one of
Speaker 1: the little, not the big one. Yeah, one of the
Speaker 1: smaller ones. Yeah, with the yellow ball. Uh just a
Speaker 1: regular upright back. Yeah yeah. I got on the canister
Speaker 1: thing years ago. I love him. I don't know why
Speaker 1: this thing took Like you know, they they're like, you
Speaker 1: never loses suction, it's very powerful or whatever. I accidentally
Speaker 1: rolled over the cord to charge my phone. It sucked
Speaker 1: the rubber off of the cord. Yeah, I had to
Speaker 1: put electrical TakeBack on. It does suck. All right, that's
Speaker 1: some buzz marketing. Joseph Campbell, what is your advice on
Speaker 1: how to have a successful marriage? Joseph Campbell asked us
Speaker 1: a question. Yeah, wow, you should know this question. Her answer, Uh, Mary, Mary,
Speaker 1: your friend. It's my biggest piece of advice. That's a
Speaker 1: good one because if you don't like your spouse, then
Speaker 1: you can't love your spouse. Yeah. Mary, the person you
Speaker 1: want hang out with the most, you should write a
Speaker 1: self help book. The end, I have another one for you,
Speaker 1: Chuck read. Yes. Bethany Jackson asks are you ever going
Speaker 1: to get another pet Goat? No out, Well, never say never. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one day I will when I retire, Like to the country,
Speaker 1: I would love another goat? Is they're the best? That
Speaker 1: answers that. Josh kry Obermac says, what is your favorite
Speaker 1: Simpsons episode? Oh, that's a tough one, but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to go with the old standby of Mr Sparkle.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with Montaeel's or any of the Halloween
Speaker 1: like one through ten or so those are just great.
Speaker 1: Um Robert Browning Justice League or Avengers. I don't know
Speaker 1: what that means. Really, Yeah, you do. As a kid,
Speaker 1: I was Justice League. I was way more into that.
Speaker 1: But here's an adult like that Avengers movie is great.
Speaker 1: I'm into that. Justice League is DC. Yeah, Superman definitely, Batman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: although I like the the super Friends. That was all
Speaker 1: Justice League, wasn't it. Uh? Yeah, okay, well I have
Speaker 1: a coherent answer, then okay for live action animation, not
Speaker 1: live action, but for animation, I prefer Justice League. For
Speaker 1: comic books, I preferred um Avengers Marvel. Well in the
Speaker 1: new movie. Uh, they're doing the Superman Batman movie and
Speaker 1: then a full on Justice League movie is just leading
Speaker 1: up to that. So we'll see jury's out. Yeah on
Speaker 1: motion pictures, but yeah, it's gonna be hard. Took the
Speaker 1: Avengers maybe not was not motion pictures cartoon only, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the new movies that are coming out soon.
Speaker 1: Billy Schultz says, were they're rejected titles for the podcast?
Speaker 1: Before you landed on stuff you should know? Since you
Speaker 1: named it, I think you should answer. I came up
Speaker 1: with a bunch of um ideas. One of them was
Speaker 1: McNeil Lair News Hour, but that was already taken, but
Speaker 1: Stephie shows in the original list of ideas, what Terminator two?
Speaker 1: Judgment day? All right, get your next? Do 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 Degrath Tyson? Good one, man, They're both so great,
Speaker 1: I say, and d T Yeah yeah, Cosmos is awesome.
Speaker 1: It is awesome. He also, um is totally comfortable like
Speaker 1: rocking a shirt un buttoned at the top. Two Like
Speaker 1: he's he's like the Billy d Williamson. Yeah, uh yeah.
Speaker 1: And he was on her TV shows, which is really nice.
Speaker 1: You kind of have to go with him, all right. Um,
Speaker 1: he's a good guy. Naomi Hartman garum. Oh. This is
Speaker 1: fromer Son Jackson age nine. What was your favorite book
Speaker 1: when you were kids? My favorite book when I was
Speaker 1: a kid was like around your age or younger, was
Speaker 1: The Great Christmas Kidnapping Caper. It's about a bunch of
Speaker 1: mice in New York that moved into Macy's during Christmas
Speaker 1: time and uh, Santa is kidnapped and they sold the cakes. 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, that 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, it was so cute.
Speaker 1: And then, uh, strangely, the first series of novels that
Speaker 1: I ever loved were Ramona Quimby books. Oh really, man,
Speaker 1: I used to eat those up and I would take
Speaker 1: flak too at school. I didn't I love those books? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I loved Encyclopedia Brown. Oh yeah, he was good. And
Speaker 1: then you know, when I was younger, younger, you can't
Speaker 1: do better than Dr Susan Chel Silverstein, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: The classes. Um, I've got one, all right, go ahead,
Speaker 1: h if this is from Alejandro Sandy. So you could
Speaker 1: live in any era of history, which time would you
Speaker 1: live in? Why? That's always so hard. I'm going back
Speaker 1: to what I said before me you me Cuba nineteen twenties. 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.
Speaker 1: That's a drinking and dancing. Yeah, well that's the Cuba
Speaker 1: in the twenties. Yeah, exactly, you just had the Latin flavor. Uh,
Speaker 1: Kevin Kinzie, which pickled thing? Do you prefer most eggs, cucumbers, peppers,
Speaker 1: or cauliflower or anything else? I don't need pickled things,
Speaker 1: So that's you. I love pickled everything. It's so good
Speaker 1: for you too. Oh really? Oh yeah, it helps you
Speaker 1: digest bats a lot are easily. Um. It's just really healthy,
Speaker 1: 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? You're getting all the heavy questions
Speaker 1: like secret to successful Marrits, How do you make your
Speaker 1: kid good? I think you know you gotta get put
Speaker 1: them to work, make them make or get them a pet.
Speaker 1: You make them responsible for something and that they're interested in.
Speaker 1: It would be my advice. I agree with both of
Speaker 1: your pieces of advice. Marry the person that you want
Speaker 1: to spend time with you and did your kid at Hamster. Yes,
Speaker 1: put them to work. Charge money. You got any more? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I got too many more? Pick one? Okay are you ready? Yes?
Speaker 1: The one that I pick is as follows uh from
Speaker 1: Mike Reels, Arnie or Stallone. It depends on the year.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to say I would go Schwarzenegger. Yeah,
Speaker 1: eighties Schwarzenegger nowadays who cares no. But if we're like
Speaker 1: taking the time work back to the eighties, I was
Speaker 1: Conan the Barbarian, the original Terminator, all deal, total recall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's all pretty great. 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, Tango in Cash and uh the
Speaker 1: Dolly Parton one about when he's a country singer. Oh,
Speaker 1: Ryan Stone, Ryan Stone, Um, Cobra 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? It must
Speaker 1: have been the age difference. Yeah, so I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: Arnie too. Okay, how about that? There you go. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you want to ask Chuck or me questions, you
Speaker 1: can go onto Facebook. Anytime at Facebook dot com slash
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know. You can tweet to us at
Speaker 1: s y s K podcast. That's our Twitter handle. You
Speaker 1: can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com uh and, as always, join us
Speaker 1: at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
Speaker 1: is it how stuff Works dot com