INDIANAPOLIS — Long before trivia infiltrated central Indiana pubs and bars, it could mostly be found in just one place — a blue box.
Trivial Pursuit was the must-have board game for trivia enthusiasts 40 years ago. Although it was originally released in 1981, the game was in short supply ahead of the 1983 Christmas season.
WRTV’s Clyde Lee visited The Board Room in Broad Ripple to find out what all the hype was about. Owner Gerald Hunter said the game’s popularity could be attributed to two things.
“Probably the two most important ingredients are simplicity of rules [and] a good balance between a dependency on luck, and a dependency on skill,” Hunter said. “People do not want to spend a half-an-hour reading rules when they only have 45-minutes to play a game.”
Hunter said he fielded phone calls about Trivial Pursuit approximately every 15 minutes. But he, like many retailers, struggled to keep the game in stock.
“Have you ever been to the main post office on April 15th at midnight, when everybody rushes to mail those tax returns?” Hunter asked. “That’s the kind of crowd I would expect here if I had all the Trivial Pursuits I wanted and nobody else had any.”
