Top 10 Nuttiest Board Games Based on TV Shows

Back in the old days of cave drawings when I was young, we didn’t just play video games but board games. You know, with a game board?  Ok Ok I am being very snarky. Everyone has played a board game in their life, whether it be Monopoly or Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit (my families game of choice).



But remember a few weeks ago I talked about cereals which were so bizarre that they didn’t even make sense? Usually these were based on something popular at the time. Well board games can be like that too. The list of movies and TV show based board games is staggering, and some make no sense at all! The Addams Family? Archie Bunker?? Saved By The Bell???? Beverly Hills, 90210 had a Twister knockoff which was lame. The worst may be the Murder, She Wrote game which is as blatant a Clue rip off as you’ll ever see! But while a board game based on a movie at least has a plot to base the game around, TV shows take a little more imagination. As a result most of these kinds of games are…..lame.

Here are ten board games that really existed…even though they make no sense whatsoever. I don’t mean the rules don’t make sense, I mean the fact that the game exists at all makes no sense! One rule, I am not counting when a popular show or movie is forced onto an already existing game like all the novelty Monopoly’s out there.




#10.Knight Rider

Not the worst idea, I guess. I’m very sure I had this as a kid. My question is about the box, what was up with the picture of David Hasselhoff? Could they not quite the rights to his image? Anyway the rules involve driving KITT around and avoiding trouble. Yeah, think I see why I don’t remember this one.







#9.Star Trek

Last year when I did my series of Star Trek articles I mentioned how every series has been a board game, more than once in some cases And these games are all awful! There are to many to list but they have one for every franchise, even the animated series, except for Enterprise. The one pictured I owned, and hated for it was a pain in the a**!!






#8.Mr.T/A-Team

I gave Mr.T a break in my cereal article, here I am going to just say it. Why did this exist? It was based on the cartoon which was pretty cool but man did this game suck. It was simplistic and boring. There was also an A-Team a game but where the Mr.T game was simplistic, the A-Team was needlessly complicated! Imagine a rip off of Risk just scaled way down.








#7.Happy Days/Laverne & Shirley
 
They were both corny as hell cartoons so why not? If you are a fan of Friends you know about the Happy Days one. The Happy Days Game is actually kind of clever, weaving references from the show. The goal? To collect the most cool points. Of course! The Laverne and Shirley game sounds a lame girly game, all you do is go on dates and “try to make your dreams come true”. Clever. Boring.





#6.ALF

Another one that isn’t even trying. The goal? You have to go around the board chasing the cat. Wow, how riveting! This so lame and rushed they couldn’t even get the images of the actors for the damn box!







#5.Welcome Back, Kotter

Hey kids, want to play a game which is a total rip off of Head of the Class (er, the game not the sitcom). This makes no sense either, but Welcome Back Kotter was even a comic book in the day, so a game isn’t that much of a stretch. The goal is to be the first player to complete the expression “up your nose with a rubber hose”. Stupid, but at least you get to play a character from the show.








#4.Full House

Oh for goodness sake! This is one of the weakest things ever! All you do is move around the board collecting pictures of the cast. When you have them all, you win! Lame! Obviously no effort was put into this, just look at the box.







#3.Friends

 Hey remember that episode of Friends where Ross created a game when his friends were competing over who knew whom better? Yep. I don’t believe it either. I mean good lord, all of these games require you to know something about the show it’s based on! Character names, something! I guess maybe this could be a good party game, but no. It’s a stupid idea and a forgotten game best left that way. There are other games which gave Friends on them but they are mostly trivia games.






#2.Family Ties

This existed, and I had it. I know because I’ve seen the picture of me with the box. Did I ever play it? Probably, once. Who in the world would take a bland family sitcom and decide to make a game out of it? Oh and I meant no insult with the word bland, it’s just I don’t see how do you make a game out of a simple show like this! The goal involves getting money for a family portrait which sounds more The Brady Bunch then Family Ties. Kind of a “Life” knock off and it sucked. At least the Friends game had the episode to  fall back on.



Hey remember how my breakfast cereal article ended? Yep…..


And it’s worst than you think my friends




#1.Do The Urkel

Really? Oh its even worst than you think. They title is meant liteally, you have to do imitations of Steve Urkel from his voice to the way he dressed. WHAT??? I can’t….. I just can’t….



Big Bang Theory and Seinfeld have lots of games with their names on them but most are harmless usually only peripherally having anything to do with those shows. And I had to mention two more. Ok these two are not TV based but I had to mention them :



E.T.

Yeah this makes about as much sense as any of these. Though to be fair at the least there is a connection  with the movie, trying to get E.T. home.




Pac-Man

Oh please! So you may wonder, did they do something unique to the format to make it different from the video game? Nope. You collect marbles and avoid the ghosts, sort of a rip off of Hungry Hungry Hippes. Better off just putting the video game on.






Board games can be a lot of fun, when the game is made well anyway.