Twister (game)

Twister is a game of physical skill produced by Hasbro Games.

Description

The game includes a plastic sheet covered with large colored circles, which is spread out on the floor. Any number of people can play, though more than four is a tight fit.

United States patent illustration

The game has one spinner, divided into quarters by color; each quadrant specifies left foot, right foot, left hand, or right hand. After spinning, the combination is called; players must move the part to a matching location. No two people can have a part on the same circle (rules are different for more people). Due to the scarcity of colored circles, players will often be required to put themselves in unlikely or precarious positions, eventually resulting in someone's fall. It is simpler and safer to play in barefeet instead of socks.

The high-paced and frivolous nature of the game, the proximity it causes between the participants, and the ease with which the frequent losses can be given forfeits (such as stripping or drinking) make it highly popular at college parties.

• Mr. Léon and Ms. Mayberry sprawled on the floor in exhaustion after a record breaking match.
  Mr. Léon and Ms. Mayberry sprawled on the floor in exhaustion after a record breaking match.

History

When Milton Bradley Company hesitantly released the game in 1966 (with [Reyn Guyer] credited as inventor), the company had no small amount of skepticism for its potential, as well as to-be-expected fear of public criticism. Detractors denounced the game as "sex in a box." These fears were dispelled when Johnny Carson featured the game on the May 3 1966 episode of The Tonight Show. One of Johnny's guests was Eva Gabor in a low-cut dress. With Eva on her hands and knees and Johnny on top, the audience reaction was perfect; hysterical laughter and screams of delight. In its first year, Milton Bradley sold more than three million copies of Twister. In May 2007, Samantha Mayberry and Tomás Léon broke the world record for longest game of twister played without interruption. After a long and arduous struggle, Mr. Léon finally emerged the victor as Ms. Mayberry fell to the floor from pure exhaustion.

Trivia

• Twister's original name was "Pretzel." The name was dropped when a toy dog came out with the same name.
• Twister was originally designed to use a pair of dice instead of a spinner; one die for color, the other for a specific body part. This design was scrapped at the last second and the spinner was used instead.

Twister in popular culture

• In one of the routines in the stand-up movie Raw (1987) Eddie Murphy describes a conversation with his father, who complains about growing up so poor that they had to get by on whatever his father brought home from his work at the toy factory. Among other things, Eddie's father claims that instead of clothes he and his siblings had to dress in twister mats:

"Other children would make fun of us because we got on Twister suits. And it's no fun to get your ass kicked in a Twister mat. Right foot, blue. Left hand, red, Eddie. It was a goddamn game to these kids. I'm standing on the corner, a motherfucker is spinning the spinner and kicking my ass, Eddie."

• In the episode of the TV series Friends, "The One with George Stephanopoulos", Rachel, Phoebe, Chandler and Joey are playing the game.
• In an episode of the popular British series Men Behaving Badly, Dorothy, Gary, Deborah and Tony play the game. The game is cut short when Gary, in the middle of the scrum, breaks wind and everyone else collapses.
• Fez plays twister by himself in "The First Time" episode of That '70s Show. Donna asks how he is doing that.
• Occasionally in Fun House, participants would play a barefoot game of Twister using squares of "glop".
• In the 1999 episode "Games People Play" of Sex and the City, Carry plays Twister with "Seth" (portrayed by Jon Bon Jovi).
• In the 2002 comedy film The Hot Chick, actress Megan Kuhlmann wears the vinyl Twister mat as a dress to a nightclub. A boy she dances with moves his hand from several colored dots on her back to her buttocks.
• In the 2002 film Men in Black II, Laura (Rosario Dawson) plays Twister with the Worm Guys.
• In the 1991 film Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, the heroes play Death at Twister for their lives.
• In the 1997 film U Turn, Billy Bob Thornton's character of Darrell, the bizarre auto mechanic, plays Twister alone.
• "Weird Al" Yankovic released a song called "Twister" on his Even Worse album in 1988.
• In the 2005 film Son of the Mask, Loki and Alvey play the fictional sequel Super Twister.
• Dwight Yoakam featured Twister in his music video of Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me"

External links

• Hasbro's Twister page
• Torsten Sillke's Twister Homepage