Sept. 15: The left-handed coffee mug

In 1979, the publisher of Mad Magazine, the late William M. Gaines, authorized a board game that would be inspired by his famous magazine. Game play was loosely inspired by Monopoly, only the goal was to lose all your money. The Mad game didn't have Chance of Community Chest cards, but it did have cards that you had to take if you landed on a certain square. One of the cards said this: THIS CARD CAN ONLY BE PLAYED ON FRIDAYS.

No other instructions were given. It was a useless card. What would you do if it was Friday? The same thing you'd do if it was any other day.

Here is a commercial for the Mad Magazine game:



That is one goofy looking dad. I wonder if the director told the actor to grow that silly mustache. Seriously, he looks like a prototype for Ned Flanders.

Then again, this is pretty common for commercials, where actors are told to behave like the world is a magical place simply because of the existence of the product they are shilling:

I mean, does anyone really have this much fun playing Yahtzee?


I wish I worked in a toy store. If someone came in and asked for a game of Yahtzee, I'd ask if they wanted the right handed or left handed version. I wonder if I could keep a straight face.

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Why would anyone buy a game of Yahtzee when they can go to the Dollar Store and buy five dice for a toonie? Make you own scorecards at home.

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When I first started writing this note, I was going to tie things into a left-handed coffee mug. I was going to compare it to the THIS CARD CAN ONLY BE PLAYED ON FRIDAYS card, in that they are both redundant inventions that are both ironically funny. They are both funny because you realize that someone thought of the gag and went to some trouble to market it.

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Yes, there are left-handed coffee mugs. You can get them on Amazon. I'm not sure if they are joke items or if they are serious items for people who are proud of their sinistry. They might actually be designed for lefties seeing as how the writing would be on the side that a lefty could see while drinking, but that seems like way too much analysis for this evening.











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