During the Sixties, there was a glut of supernatural toys and games on the market; the advertisers must have sensed we Baby Boomers were a ghoulish bunch!
I certainly was! Because I had so many of these types of games.
Unlike the "Pressman Witch Doctor Head Shrinking Kit," where you made your own homemade Shrunken Heads--if they didn't fall apart--"Mystic Skull" was a game that explored the symbols and rituals of Voodoo. There was a board, a center piece, featuring a mock boiling pot, and a skull, and the object was, as I recall, to move about the board, getting points, and acquiring pins to stick into your plastic Voodoo doll, which each one was given. Unfortunately, this was about a decade before Karen Black and "Prey," so the dolls did not look like that one! Too bad! Wouldn't it have been to have a toy version of that? And menace the adults with it?
Anyway, the way one won the game, I think, was to be the first to stick all their pins into the doll.
But it was the visuals--plastic Voodoo dolls, pins, supernatural cards that foreshadowed the Tarot, the plastic pot and skull and a very visual, stylized game board--that made "Mystic Skull" so popular, for a time.
Ideal was a pretty commercial toy company. I doubt they exist, anymore. But they did put out some terrific games.
With which other competitors would shortly follow suit, and each game would be forgotten by relentless pursuit for the next! And so on!
The most elaborate "supernatural" game I ever saw had little ghosts, skeletons, bats, and goblins that would pop up and float out of holes in the board (which was more of a thick base). I was fascinated by (and a little scared of) this as a kid. For the life of me, I can't remember the name of it, but it had an eerie TV commercial and one of my neighbors owned it. The style was very similar to the game you featured here, which prompted my memory of it: very likely the same mfr was involved.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteI think what you are talking about is
the Haunted House by Ideal. It was a base
board that stood up, and you had holes,
which you inserted these plastic pieces
in, to get to the attic, where the
treasured ruby awaited the winner.
It also featured ghosts and other
things. I may be wrong, but if I am
right, let me know, because I had planned
to feature it.