Trivial Pursuit

One of the most popular board games of the late 20th century, Trivial Pursuit requires players to correctly answer trivia questions in order to collect coveted color-coded plastic wedges. Created in 1979 by Canadians Chris Haney and Scott Abbott, the game became a 1980s social phenomenon: Trivial Pursuit cocktail parties were so common that the instructions noted the plastic strips to which game pieces were attached should not be discarded because “they make excellent swizzle sticks.”

The origin of a phenomenon

Trivial Pursuit was born in December 1979 as Haney and Abbott played Scrabble. Haney questioned over beers whether the two friends could invent a game as good. They quickly sketched out a concept that involved trivia questions from six categories:

• * Geography
• * Entertainment
• * Sports and Leisure
• * Science and Nature
• *Arts and Literature
• * History

Game manufacturers were initially skeptical of the idea, but by 1981 Abbott, Haney, and a group of investors were producing the game in Canada. Haney wrote many of the 6,000 questions for the original game (dubbed Genus Edition), which included:

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• 1. What’s the largest diamond in the world?
• 2. Who was Howdy Doody’s twin brother?
• 3. What’s the pen name of Theodor Geisel?

(The answers appear at the end of the article; don’t cheat, just keep on reading.)

Trivial Pursuit grew in popularity by word of mouth, and by late 1982 the rights to the game had been sold to Selchow & Righter, a major U.S. game maker, and the phenomenon took hold. The New York Times Style section reported in 1984 that Trivial Pursuit parties eclipsed dinner parties in New York City, and Time magazine noted that the cast of the 1983 movie The Big Chill played the game compulsively on set. Selchow & Righter reported sales of 1.3 million board games in 1983. Hasbro bought full rights to the game and its iterations for $80 million in 2008. Fun.com reported in 2023 that Trivial Pursuit was the seventh most popular board game of all time with more than 100 million games sold.

How to play

Trivial Pursuit involves two to six players (or teams of players). The goal of the game is to be the first player to collect a wedge from each of the six categories and reach the cener of the game board. (The wedges fit into the circular playing piece that players move around the board.) Players roll a die to move around the board, which has colored spaces that align with the categories. A correctly answered question earns the right to roll again. Landing on a space marked with a color wedge means that the player who correctly answers that question earns that colored wedge. In order to win, players must crisscross the board in pursuit of all the needed wedges.

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Typical game time is listed at about 80–90 minutes, but experienced players know that games can far exceed that. “Just prepare yourself to stay up all night if you play it weeknights,” one player told The New York Times in 1984.

Versions of Trivial Pursuit

The game’s enormous success led to spinoffs, including games themed around Star Wars, Harry Potter, Baby Boomers, and literally dozens more. While originally created as a traditional board game, versions of Trivial Pursuit have evolved to suit the new technological formats of the times, including CD-ROM and video gaming platforms, such as Xbox , PlayStation, and Nintendo.

The game also made it to television as a game show in several incarnations in the United States and Great Britain but did not have the success of other trivia game shows, such as Jeopardy! and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Legal challenges

Over the years Abbott and Haney faced multiple lawsuits claiming that they had stolen the idea for Trivial Pursuit. In one, a hitchhiker Haney had picked up claimed that he had outlined his game idea to Haney. In another, trivia writer Fred L. Worth claimed that some questions that Worth created—including ones with intentionally false answers—had been plagiarized. Haney and Abbott prevailed in both cases.

Where are they now?

Trivial Pursuit made Haney and Abbott millionaires. Haney died in 2010 at age 59. Abbott went on to own racehorses and hockey teams in his native Canada.

And the answers are...

Here’s the payoff for getting to the end of the article.

• 1. A baseball diamond. This question was apparently one of Haney’s favorites.
• 2. Double Doody.
• 3. Dr. Seuss.

  If you had been lucky enough to be answering those questions for wedges, correct answers would have earned Orange (Sports & Leisure), Pink (Entertainment), and Brown (Arts & Literature). Well done and roll again.