The story of Cluedo & Clue A “Contemporary” Game for over 60 Years

by Bruce Whitehill The Metro, a free London newspaper, regularly carried a puzzle column called “Enigma.” In 2005, they ran this “What-game-am-I?” riddle:

Here’s a game that’s lots of fun, Involving rope, a pipe, a gun, A spanner, knife and candlestick. Accuse a friend and make it stick. The answer was the name of a game that, considering the puzzle’s inclusion in a well- known newspaper, was still very much a part of British popular culture after more than 50 years:

“Cluedo,” first published in 1949 in the UK. The game was also published under license to Parker Brothers in the United States the same year, 1949. There it is was known as:

Clue What’s in a name?

• Cluedo = Clue + Ludo Ludo is a classic British game -- a simplified Game of India

• Ludo is not played in the U.S. Instead, Americans play Parcheesi. But “Cluecheesi” doesn’t quite work. So we just stuck with “Clue” I grew up (in New York) playing Clue, and like most other Americans, considered it to be one of America’s classic games. Only decades later did I learn its origin was across the ocean, in Great Britain.

Let me take you back to England, 1944. With the Blitz -- the bombing -- and the country emersed in a world war, the people were subject to many hardships, including blackouts and rationing. A forty-one-year-old factory worker in Birmingham was disheartened because the blackouts and the crimp on social activities in England meant he was unable to play his favorite parlor game, called “Murder.” “Murder” was a live-action party game where guests tried to uncover the person in the room who had been secretly assigned the role of murderer. He decided he would try to invent a board game that could be played comfortably at home, around a table.

Eventually, with some advice and graphic assistance from his wife Elva, who drew the first gameboard, he came up with a game.

The name of the game was “Murder.”

His name was Anthony Pratt. Anthony Pratt and wife Elva in the 1940s Anthony Pratt filed for a British patent in 1944. A year later, he showed the game to Waddingtons, one of England’s best known game companies. Waddingtons bought the rights, but, because of wartime shortages, was not able to publish the game until 1949 (though completed in late 1948, Cluedo didn’t hit store shelves until the beginning of the next year). The company immediately gave the rights to Parker Brothers to publish the game in the U.S., which Parker sold under the name “Clue.”

(Waddingtons and Parker Bros. had exchange agreements ever since Parker gave the British company the rights to publish Monopoly in the U.K. in the mid-1930s. In his book The Waddingtons Story, former CEO Victor Watson said that the sale of Clue “in the USA far outshone the UK sales of Monopoly.”) In a November 1998 article published in the UK the day before Cluedo’s 50th anniversary, author Ann Treneman recounted revealing tidbits from the interview she had with Marcia Davies, the only child of Anthony and Elva Pratt. Ms. Davies said that her father liked reading the detective stories of such writers as Sherlock Holmes, Edgar Wallace and Raymond Chandler, along with non-mystery authors such as Bertrand Russell.

According to Treneman, Pratt was inspired by King’s Heath neighbor Geoffrey Bull, the inventor of the game of Buccaneer, which he sold to Waddington's. She reported, also, that Pratt, surprisingly, “found the (Waddingtons Cluedo) game itself quite dull.” Waddingtons takes on “Murder”

• They changed the • Pratt’s name -- in keeping name to “Cluedo.” with the generally accepted policy of the times -- was • They reduced the not shown on the game box number of rooms. or in the instructions. • They reduced the • The game came with pawns number of suspects. and metal weapons, except for the rope, which was an • They reduced the actual piece of rope. number of weapons. Waddingtons

• The company known as • Waddingtons began as a John Waddington Ltd. and printing company (like many then Waddington’s House early game publishers) in of Games eventually kept 1896 and produced its first “ ” playing cards and card the s and dropped the games in 1921 or ‘22. apostrophe and is now • Greater success and more known simply as games were a result of Waddingtons. licensing Monopoly from • Founder John Waddington Parker Bros. in 1935. resigned in 1913. • Waddingtons was taken over by Hasbro in 1994 for £50,000,000 (about $78,000,000 at 2012 rates). • In the first British edition of Cluedo, there was a not-so-subtle tribute to Sherlock Holmes, as shown on the box cover by the hat, pipe and magnifying glass. Added to that image was the iconic bloodhound. The first Cluedo, 1949, Waddingtons

Notice the Question Mark after the title • In the German edition, which had its own name, “Wer is Meisterdetektive?” the Sherlock Holmes features are gone, the magnifying glass has been replaced by a gun, and the dog is a German Shepherd. German edition, with different title, is similar to the English cover • The first American cover, before Parker added its name, had only Waddington’s name; Leeds, England; and “Made in USA.” The cover showed a series of illustrated characters searching through the mansion. Parker Bros. name does not yet appear on the box The “Clue” name was used only in the USA and Canada

Note the “John Waddington Ltd., Leeds England / Made in U.S.A.” Early Parker Bros. Clue with separate board and parts box • An early Parker Brothers’ version – possibly the first one – used the Sherlock Holmes name. This version must have been on the market only a very short time, since it is pretty rare.

• Parker probably either used the Holmes license in error, or thought they had the rights to it because of an early Sherlock Holmes card game they published in 1904.

• The later, 1956 version merely showed a Holmes-like silhouette in the upper-right corner.

The early German and Italian editions, among others, used different titles: Wer ist Meisterdetektiv? (Who is the Master Detective?); Inchiesta Aperta (Open Inquiry). The British title had a question mark after the name: “Cluedo?” A few other countries used the question mark for a while, but eventually it was dropped on most editions (but not on all British editions until the 1990s).

A few early European Cluedo covers… French Cluedo, 1960s? Dutch Cluedo, 1960s? Italian Inchiesta Aperta, 1969

And another Waddingtons edition:

Waddington’s “International Edition” - 1970 Anthony Pratt’s patent description “586,817. Board games. Pratt, A.E. Dec. 1, 1944, No. 24000. [Class 132 (ii)] A board game comprises a board 1 divided into areas representing rooms of a house connected by small squares, each room having at least one doorway 14 arranged so that no two doorways directly face each other along any single column or row of squares, ten differently coloured movable pieces representing persons, nine tokens each representing a weapon, and a pack of cards having three suits, one suit containing nine cards which correspond with nine of the rooms, another containing ten cards corresponding with the ten persons and the third suit having nine cards corresponding with the nine weapons. Counters may also be provided….” (The red highlighting is this editor’s.) …The object of the game is do identify a hidden combination of three cards, one from each suit, as a result of information accumulated during play.”

Object of the Game

• Whodunit? • In what room was the murder committed? • What was the weapon? Cluedo/Clue suspect cards, 1949 Cluedo/Clue weapons, 1949

(Note that in the original version the rope was made of real rope; most editions had a plastic molded rope; a deluxe version had one of metal and a later retro version and deluxe edition also had rope.) Cluedo/Clue rooms, 1949 An Earlier Mystery Game of Note Cluedo wasn’t the first game to use suspects, miniature weapons, and a crime scene gameboard showing rooms of a house. • Twelve years earlier, in • The game had 1937, Selchow & Righter 7 suspects (reduced in (original makers of later editions to 6), Parcheesi & Scrabble) 4 weapons and published MR. REE! The 6 rooms and a hall in a game was invented by house surrounded by 8 Edward H. Freedman, other possible locations of who applied for a patent in the crime. 1936; the patent was issued in 1939. Mr. Ree Gameboard Patent Mr. Ree Components Patent Mr. Ree, 1937, Selchow & Righter

Separate gameboard and parts box edition Mr. Ree (rectangular box version)

Mr. Ree, 1950s version Mr. Ree suspect cards Mr. Ree + 7 suspect containers, 1937

4 weapons - revolver, knife, hatchet & poison - were concealed. Later edition pieces and weapon holders Deluxe edition with plaster heads Mr. Ree over time Later edition, maybe 1956-7 Mr. Ree gameboard, 1946 or ‘50s version However, The game play in Mr. Ree is completely different from Cluedo.

• In Mr. Ree, movement is • The victim, who cries out governed by chance cards, (there is some delay and the object is for a between the crime and the player who gets the realization of it), is now murder card (there is one out of the game, and the for each weapon) to detective, Mr. Ree, has ten retrieve the correct minutes of asking weapon and pass the card questions of the remaining to another character and characters to determine thus kill him. who committed the crime. • Compare Mr. Ree’s 6 rooms (plus a hall, a closet and 8 marked locations outside), 7 suspects and 4 weapons with those found in Clue and Cluedo…. Cluedo: Patent drawing showing the rooms The Rooms

• The original patent • The Cellar became a drawing indicates a Gun stairway to which there is Room and a Cellar, both no access; instead, the of which were not shown envelope with the secret solution cards is kept on the cards or on the there. gameboard produced by • There is no living room, Waddingtons. bedroom or bathroom on • When the Gun Room was the gameboard, which eliminated, the Dining represents the ground floor Room was expanded. of the mansion. Patent drawing of room cards Detail of early Mr. Ree gameboard showing rooms of the house The original Waddingtons 1949 Cluedo Waddingtons USA version The American Clue

• The very first U.S. version • What followed of the game in 1949 had immediately was the only the date and identical gameboard with Waddingtons name on the “The Great Detective gameboard, but indicated Game” under the title and the game was made in the Parker Brothers’ name in USA under license. the lower right hand • The rooms were furnished corner. and decorated, unlike the Waddingtons version with plain empty rooms. Waddingtons USA vs. Parker Bros. version The basic Cluedo gameboard remained virtually the same throughout the world for over half a century

• The number and location • Initially, editions in of spaces were the same. various countries followed the British lead of not

• Each suspect had his/her furnishing any of the own starting space. rooms. • The “X” in the center • Over the decades, the stairway (the Dutch used a rooms became much more “?”) marked the spot elaborate. where the solution cards • Language and cultural were kept. differences meant room changes -- for example, replacing the Lounge with the Veranda. Germany, 1950s - Different Title France, 1960s The Netherlands, 1950s / ’60s USA, 1956 & 1963 Italy, 1969 - Different Title France, 1974 Italy - Travel Edition, 1981 Turkey, 1997 USA, 1998 Russia, 2003 Murder at Tudor Hall

England, 2003 England 2003 Dunhill Edition Not all Cluedo-style games were authorized: Arabic King Tut, ca. 1972 Check out the spelling in the title! 2000 Korean knockoff 2000 Mystery Museum knockoff, USA The Suspects

• The patent for Cluedo • Some international called for 10 suspects. editions used • When Waddingtons completely different produced the game, names for the there were only 6. suspects; only Mrs. • The suspects’ names White remained were associated with consistent, although colors. translated, across most editions. 1944 patent showing 10 suspect cards Waddingtons 6 suspects American Sensibilities

• One of the original • Parker Bros. felt the suspects was the Reverend American public would Green, who remained not want a reverend to be through most European a suspect, no less a editions. murderer. They changed the character to Mr. Green. American suspects with defrocked Reverend Green The Usual Suspects: American suspects, 1956 American suspects, 1970s German suspects A S r u a s b p i e c c t s S S w u i s s p s e c t s

± ‘72

I S t u a s l p i e a c n t s

British suspects - 9 figures - from 1986 Cluedo Super Challenge British suspects from the 2003 edition, Murder at Tudor Hall British suspects with pewter heads, Dunhill edition, 2003 DVD version with extra suspects, 2006 The Weapons

• The original Cluedo patent • The Waddingtons game called for 9 weapons, had just 6 weapons: the including an axe, a bomb, revolver, dagger (knife in a revolver, a dagger, a the U.S.), rope, lead rope, a syringe, a poker, a piping (lead pipe in the cudgel and a bottle of U.S.), candlestick, and poison. Poison was also spanner (wrench in the later added to certain U.S.) special and expanded editions. 1944 patent showing 9 weapons Note the style of the wrench. (Dagger is missing its tip.) The spanner (wrench) changed from a crescent wrench to a monkey wrench Weapons, 1949 - 1985 Later Cluedo (UK) game with descriptive cards Summary of Differences between the original patent and the initial Waddingtons game

1944 Patent 1949 Game

• 11 Rooms • 9 Rooms • 10 Suspects • 6 Suspects • 9 Weapons • 6 Weapons

Here’s how the game is played… Object of the game: Discover, by deductive reasoning, the murderer, the room in which the murder was committed and the weapon used.

• 1 card from each set • Roll dice and move your (suspects, rooms, weapons) character. is placed in the secret • Question any suspect and name envelope. any weapon in any room you • Remaining cards are shuffled visit. together and dealt out. • The first player with any card • Players choose a suspect or asked for shows it to you. take one whose space is • You may accuse any suspect, closest on the board. any time; if incorrect, you’re out of the game; if correct, the game is over. Detective Notes and Secret Envelope

The Card Game Board Game • The rooms of the mansion as shown on the board, the 6 miniature weapons, and the pawns (and figural pieces) that corresponded to the suspects were all represented on cards. • The 21 cards made up the entire game of deduction! • The board was used only for the suspects to enter a room when they wanted to make an inquiry or accusation concerning that room. • The physical weapons were merely for show. Clue & Cluedo – The Full Story

Continued in Part 2