Interesting Tidbit About Monopoly

I just wanted to drop another quick line with this really interesting bit of information I have gathered over the last 24-Hours. The letter I sent yesterday about our trip to the Gallery turned out to be a bit more controversial than I thought. At the end of the entry I talk about how Monopoly boards are different here in the UK and how I was surprised that the board tiles were not the same, especially on the McDonald's Monopoly board.

Well, I posted my little entry on my other blogs, some of which are public, some of which are not. On many of the public ones, I had several UK (or ex-UK empires like Australia) tell me that I was stupid to think the boards would have anything BUT British tile names and that the American game was not the original. I had to instruct them and refer them to resources that show that Monopoly was originally created by the US (in Atlantic City) and was sent over to a game maker in London, who changed the game and also distributed it with his own local places listed.

So I was very interested to find out so many Britishy people claim Monopoly as their own, naively thinking such a money-hungry game would have been made by anyone but an American. I mean, goodness, it has Depression Era America written all over it!!! I couldn't believe the debates that sprung up on my blogs over this. They even claimed that Rich Uncle Pennybaggs is so obviously British, but if you know anything about history, if someone threw out the name J.P. Morgan and you saw his picture, it is so obviously him (as Hasbro/Parker Bros. explains). I actually always saw him as a hairier Daddy Warbucks from Annie. Just the most interesting thing almost ever to pop out at me here in regards to clashing cultures.

And there it is... you interesting cross-cultural fact of the day. haha!!

Hope you all enjoy the entry. Someday I'll spruce them all up so they don't sound so much like letters home, but more of an experience understandable by almost anyone!