‘Anniversary’ gets triple-word score
The classic board game Scrabble celebrates its 60-year anniversary today, and to date, more than 100 million sets have been sold in 29 languages. Jennifer Collins shares some other fun facts about the game.
TEXT OF STORY
Steve Chiotakis: In these days of iPods and condensed books, an ever-expanding vocabulary is about as hard to find as a triple-word score under the letter Q. How about this one: longevity. The popular word game Scrabble turns 60 today. As Marketplace’s Jennifer Collins reports, its not showing its age.
Jennifer Collins: It seems so simple. Just a bag of letters and a board. But more than a hundred million Scrabble sets have been sold in 29 languages. Scrabble has fans from Queen Elizabeth to Shaquile O’Neal.
Shaquile O’Neal: “Shaqutastic” — 29 points.
It even spawned a TV spinoff back in the 80’s and 90’s.
TV Spinoff: It’s the crossword game you’ve played all your life, but never quite like this: Scrabble!
Scrabble was a product of the Great Depression and invented by an architect named Alfred Butts, who had a lot of time on his hands. After a decade in development, the game got its copyright on this day in 1948.
Today, the game’s gone online with social networking sites. Hasbro just dropped a copyright suit against an online spin-off known as Scrabulous.
Hard copies of the game are also seeing a resurgence. Scrabble is now the best selling game in the U.K.
I’m Jennifer Collins for Marketplace.