Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Random Buys of a Random Guy: Murder, She Wrote the Game???

All right... the time has come. I am officially getting ready to delete the content from Really Rather Random Guy (dot blogspot dot com) and in preparing for that, I wanted to import a bunch of the content that I know will then be lost forever, by bringing the posts over here to Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks (dot blogspot dot com). So, with that in mind, I thought I would preface these entries with the fact that they are indeed OLD blog posts from an OLD, now DEFUNCT blog, and cross my fingers and hope that folks will still want to read them.


This post was originally published back on January 31st, 2014.


So even though the blog is no longer Goodwill-centric, (Ha ha ha! Goodwill Geek, you ignorant fool!) I definitely plan on continuing to showcase the many finds and buys I've made there. Today's post focuses mainly on this beauty:

I like how it's billed as a game of strategy and PURSUIT,
and then you see the murderer running in the back, gun in hand,
while Jessica just toddles towards us smiling vacantly in the foreground.

Murder She Wrote, the Board Game!!! This beautiful boardgame is circa 1985 and stars Jessica Fletcher out-wiling a murderer. I was going to make a joke about her catching a killer who's gone off the deep end while simultaneously trying not to leak through her Depends... but making fun of elderly incontinence is just low-hanging fruit, insensitive... and I will not stoop so low. I am however tucking a "Taking a bite out of crime" dentures/Poligrip joke in my back pocket for later, so keep our eyes peeled for that. 


As a kid I remember reading a spoof of Murder, She Wrote in MAD Magazine. At the end of the spoof they take Jessica into police custody because it's glaringly obvious that everywhere this woman goes, someone gets murdered and she's prime suspect number one. In retrospect I wonder why people didn't make this connection on the show more often. Even if the police didn't have the evidence to arrest her, I don't think anyone would be inviting Jessica Fletcher out to their island resort. Murder follows her around like old people smell. 



Here's a shot of the game board, which is nicely illustrated and colorful. They did a pretty good job with this one. M,SW was so ubiquitous when I was a kid it felt like it was on for a solid block of six straight hours during day-time TV. Or maybe that's just because it was in a block with Matlock and I get the two confused. 


I have no idea if this game is "complete" or not, but it looks to be pretty close. I see copies of this game up on eBay and Etsy for around 25-30 dollars. So I feel like the 1.99 I paid for it was a pretty good deal. This is just one of those finds that you can't turn your nose up at, whether you're a fan of Murder, She Wrote, or not. Just the sheer weird factor alone was enough to make me pick this up. Actually... now that I think about it... maybe I shouldn't have picked this up. Maybe even just having a game with Jessica Fletcher represented in it is enough to put me in danger...?

You're going to be quite dead, you know.

That's it for tonight folks! I'll be back soon with more random stuff, so keep your eyes peeled here!

10 comments:

  1. HA HA! Yes!!
    Oh my gosh, just seeing this show on a television set makes me feel a blanket of depression. It just immediately takes me back to the boringness of my granny's house way out in in the East Texas woods where there was only ONE channel. ONE channel....ALL summer long..... These are the shows that give me insta-sadness because of that ONE channel:
    1. Mash
    2. Star Trek (with Reading Rainbow guy)
    3. Murder She Wrote
    4. In the Heat of the Night (this one literally makes me feel claustrophobic and paranoid that I will find a tick on me somewhere)
    But I would have bought this, too and you know it! ;)
    I was laughin all the way through, excellent post. Hilarious! I appreciate that you did the right thing and didn't crack insensitive elderly jokes (more than 6 times).
    Oh we can't forget Cheers!
    5. Cheers

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    Replies
    1. Aw... that is quite a list of pretty beloved shows to give a person depression! I'm so heart-broken that they have that effect on you! I totally get that guilt-by-association feeling though. Whenever I hear certain 80's songs from when I was a kid I feel immediately crushed the same way. I couldn't even really tell you the titles, but boy, when they come on the radio I'm all: "Ugh... It's THAT song. Blerg." and I change the station or just get up and leave.

      And I tried. I honestly tried not to go after the elderly... but their just so slow moving... and I figure most of them won't be able to figure out how to read this anyway.

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  2. I wonder if the guys over at Board! Has this one?

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  3. How fantastic! I was a great lover of "Jessica Fletcher" as a kid- I was enthralled with the fact that not only was she a writer, but she solved murders in her spare time! (it wasn't until a few years later that I thought to question how she always ended up in the same place as a dead body:-) Great find!

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    Replies
    1. Death comes creeping on silent, spider-veined feet... and comfy slippers.

      I do like the angle of an author working to help solve murders. I wish there was a show like that on nowadays. If only it could be someone with the dashing good looks of Mal Reynolds though. A guy can dream I guess.

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    2. Wow... I just IMDB'd her and I was half suspecting to find out she'd died... but did you know she last did a Murder She wrote Special in 2003? That seems (even though it was 10 years ago) so recent!!! It seems like someone has seriously dropped the ball in not getting her to guest star (As Jessica Fletcher) on Castle. Doesn't that just seem like a missed opportunity?

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    3. lol- my husband LOVES Castle, but I haven't watched much of it. And I knew Angela Lansbury was still alive, only because I read some comments she made about them wanting to reboot "Murder, She Wrote" not too long ago (she thought it was a stupid idea, in case you didn't know:-) I would totally watch an episode of Castle with Jessica Fletcher in it, though!

      Delete
  4. Well... Googling after I read this led to severl images of people who use board games as wall art... so I'd say Not A Bad Idea! I don't see many of the boxes themselves being displayed... so I would need to find a creative way to do that... but once I do, my Murder, She Wrote, my Clarissa Explains it All, and my MAD magazine games are all getting the display treatment. The question is really just where to do it. The Cave is FULL.

    And I TRIED to get a local branch of the Jessica Fletcher Museum to open up around here... but it turns out that's not a thing and so that's why it didn't work out. But I'm trying to get creative!

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  5. Ah, it's all just about patience and persistence. The good stuff is probably just there on the days you aren't.

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  6. It's awesome that you found this somewhere. I was told the game is actually quite fun to play. A bit like Clue. PS - The new blog is looking great!

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