VideoGameCritic wrote:I was just talking to a friend about some of the fun old board games we used to play as kids, including:
Run Yourself Ragged - this was an ingenious little obstacle course game you controlled with knobs and levers. Apparently the game still exists under a new name.
Hungry Hungry Hippo - my sister had this one. Very loud but fun.
Mousetrap - Seems to me this was kind of complicated to set up.
Thank you for mentioning the name of Run Yourself Ragged! A house my grandparents rented for the summer when I was a kid used to have this in their game closet and I could never recall the name of it when trying to describe it to anyone. It really was a very addictive game. It was even cooler than the real wood nunchuks they had in the game closet. Although my memory of those might be tarnished by whacking myself in the funnybone while trying to do a Michelangelo impression.
Hungry Hungry Hippo is still around and still as loud. This was actually one of the first 2 board games I ever had as a kid (the other game involved stuffing sponge people into a "phone booth"-like structure until it popped. Apparently this was a popular concept in the early 80's). My only complaint about newer versions is you have to assemble the hippos and attach them to the board everytime you want to play. It's not overly time consuming, but it is a minor annoyance.
Crossfire - I would never have imagined this one came out in the 70's! A good friend of mine had it, but more than anything I remember it's uber late 80's commercial with the theme "Caught in the crossfiiiiire!!!"
Apparently games about "Don't wake ..." were popular at one time. We had a game similar to "Don't wake Daddy" called "Don't wake the dragon" which involved top-hat wearing penguins trying not to wake up a dragon (both are naturally indigenous to Antarctica, of course).