Until Jonas Salk developed a polio vaccine in 1955, polio ravaged communities. Hospitals set aside entire wings to quarantine and treat polio victims, many of whom were children.
In 1948, school teacher Eleanor Abbott came down with polio and was treated at a San Diego hospital. Her heart went out to the polio-stricken children sharing the wing. To pass the time, she invented a board game that even the youngest children could play. It required no skills: no reading, no counting, and no strategizing. Players followed a colorful path as directed by cards drawn from a deck. She crafted a game board from butcher paper, designed a deck of cards from scraps, and called it Candy Land. •The game’s rainbow-colored pathway looped through locations such as Molasses Swamp, Gumdrop Mountain, Peppermint Stick Forest, and the Ice Cream Sea, with the ultimate goal being to reach the Candy Castle. • The game was so popular that her friends encouraged her to take the idea to Milton Bradley. At the time, Milton Bradley was primarily focused on distributing school supplies. However, the company had recently branched out into games. Eleanor showed them her butcher paper design, and they decided to produce it on a temporary trial basis. It hit the market in 1949. They sold it for $1, using the slogan, ‘A sweet little game, for sweet little folks’ and advertised it as a child’s very first board game. • It quickly became Milton Bradley’s best-selling game, surpassing the company’s previous top seller, Uncle Wiggily. •The game board depicted two blond children holding hands and preparing to skip down the rainbow-colored path. The little boy was shown wearing a leg brace, a common device for polio victims.
In 1984, Milton Bradley sold the rights to the game to Hasbro. One of the first upgrades Hasbro made was to introduce new characters to the game: King Kandy, Queen Frostine, Lord Licorice, Princess Lolly, Mr. Mint, and Gramma Nutt. Plastic gingerbread men replaced the wooden game pieces. • In 1996, Hasbro sued an adult website for registering the domain “candyland.com,” arguing it affected the brand’s reputation. It was one of the first-ever court cases over trademarks and domain names. Hasbro was successful, and the domain now leads directly to Hasbro’s board games for kids.
In 2013, a new version removed the deck of cards and replaced it with a candy-shaped spinner. It flopped.
Today, special editions can be purchased that feature licensed characters such as Dora the Explorer, Winnie the Pooh, SpongeBob, and Disney Princesses. Online versions can be played on computers and phones. •A giant life-sized Candy Land game was set up in San Francisco in 2012 to celebrate the game’s 65th anniversary. •In 2014, a company issued an edible version, with the game cards made of chocolate and wrapped in paper. • As the 1950s came to a close, the polio vaccine ended the epidemic, but Candy Land maintained its popularity. Today, 94% of mothers are aware of Candy Land, and more than 60% of households with a 5-year-old child own a set. In 2005, it was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame. Over 50 million copies of the game have been sold since this ‘temporary’ game was released. It continues to sell over a million copies a year. •Eleanor Abbott resided with her sister in San Diego until her death at the age of 78 in 1988. She reportedly donated royalties she received to local schools and children’s charities.
