It struck suddenly, paralyzing its victims, most of whom were children.
Poliomyelitis-better known as polio-was once a feared disease. That aspect of the game still resonates with children today. Candy Land offered the kids in Abbott’s ward a welcome distraction-but it also gave immobilized patients a liberating fantasy of movement. Patients were confined by equipment, and parents kept healthy children inside for fear they might catch the disease. The outbreak had forced children into extremely restrictive environments. Read: How a bad night’s sleep birthed the sound conditioner What makes it so appealing? The answer may have something to do with the game’s history: It was invented by Eleanor Abbott, a schoolteacher, in a polio ward during the epidemic of the 1940s and ’50s. Yet for all its simplicity and limitations, children still love Candy Land, and adults still buy it. Consequently, many parents hate Candy Land as much as their young kids enjoy it. It is a game absent strategy, requiring little thought. Nothing the participants say or do influences the outcome the winner is decided the second the deck is shuffled, and all that remains is to see it revealed, one draw at a time. The first to reach the end of the track is the winner. They move their token to the next space that matches the drawn color or teleport to the space matching the symbol. They draw from a deck of cards corresponding to the board’s colors and symbols. You know how it goes: Players race down a sinuous but linear track, its spaces tinted one of six colors or marked by a special candy symbol. The game continues to sell about 1 million copies every year. According to the toy historian Tim Walsh, a staggering 94 percent of mothers are aware of Candy Land, and more than 60 percent of households with a 5-year-old child own a set.
If you were a child at some point in the past 70 years, odds are you played the board game Candy Land.
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