Avatar Vincent “Hangman” Price

On a recent sojourn in Carlisle, I was browsing the shops like the pavement-walking, job-dodging, gum-chewing cad that I am. In one particularly well-known charity shop I came across this little curio:

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I did an actual double take. I looked then had to look again. Is that… was that… THE Vincent Price on the front of a board game?

As it happens it is and I wasn’t just having a fever dream, although the fever dreams I have had never involved old horror movie stars.

This was the 1970’s and it seems as though someone thought it a good idea of turning a game you can play with a piece of paper and a pen for free into a game involving an elaborate piece of plastic and trying to charge punters for the benefit.

I couldn’t bring myself to part with the money just to own this tiny piece of history. Did Vincent Price love Hangman that much or was it all for the big, big, shiny cheque handed to him by MB Games? Who knows. The next time you’re trying to guess what the nine letter word is that has four s’s in, think about Vincent and his “classic American game for two”.

6 comments on “Vincent “Hangman” Price

  • I opened the picture full size so I could read the box. This game was evidently meant for people of such dim intellect that they couldn’t guess the word “hotel” with three letters already filled in. Vincent Price may be that thick but I’m certainly not. No sale.

  • Come come, dear boy, that could have been so many words. It could have been erm… Well not “erm” as that doesn’t have enough letters, but it could have been erm…

  • No, you just said it couldn’t have been erm. We established that. So what else could it have been? _OT_L could, I suppose, have also been “motel” or “total” or something like that. “Erm” doesn’t have enough letters.

  • I think based on my guess I should not be allowed to play Hangman for fear of revealing how shit I am with letters.

    So it’s definitely not ‘erm’?

  • What’s a bear doing with you? I know you threw all the elephants away yet I would have thought you’d have leaned your lesson ny now. Domestic pets only.

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