Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Game Time: Family Game Night (2010)

The folks at Hasbro have been making games and toys for years. In the last 30 years, they've also absorbed some of their former competitors, such as Milton Bradley, Parker Brothers, Kenner, and Tonka. While today's generation of youngsters are, by & large, more interested in video and computer games (and Hasbro does those, too), the company hasn't forgotten that there was a time when families actually played games together.

To that point, Hasbro, after launching The Hub in October 2010, decided to take viewers back to those halcyon days with Family Game Night, a 1 hour series airing on weekends (including Saturday afternoons, hence its inclusion here), in which families compete against each other, playing some of the games they grew up with, such as Sorry, Connect Four, and Yahtzee (which Milton Bradley had acquired from another company before being bought out by Hasbro), plus newer games getting exposure and publicity from being used on the show. The series, hosted by cable game vet Todd Newton, is in its 3rd season, but isn't getting the attention it so richly deserves.

Following is a sample compilation clip, from Season 1:



The giant board games on the stage will recall shows from the past like Shenanigans, which we've previously reviewed here, and, of course, it's more fun and safer than the current incarnation of Family Feud, which is getting more risque with the questions under 3rd year host Steve Harvey. Nickelodeon fans will recall Double Dare, when it went to a Family format, but without the mess.

Rating: A.

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