''Thin Ice'' is a

board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a comp ...

that was produced in

1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress Street Viaduct, Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxo ...

by the

Pressman Toy Corporation Pressman Toy Corporation is a toy manufacturer based in Richardson, Texas. Founded in 1922 by Jack Pressman, it currently focuses on family games and licensed products. History The company was founded in 1922 by Jack Pressman, who brought in ...

. It was invented by Denise Heimrich and licensed by Robert Fuhrer and Nextoy, LLC. The game features a lower ring with

marbles A marble is a small spherical object often made from glass, clay, steel, plastic, or agate. They vary in size, and most commonly are about in diameter. These toys can be used for a variety of games called ''marbles'', as well being placed in mar ...

and an upper ring, where a tissue is placed to emulate thin ice. Marbles sit below in a pool of water. The object of the game is to place as many wet marbles as possible on the tissue with a pair of big plastic

tweezers Tweezers are small hand tools used for grasping objects too small to be easily handled with the human fingers. Tweezers are thumb-driven forceps most likely derived from tongs used to grab or hold hot objects since the dawn of recorded history. ...

included with the game, in which the tweezers were covered by a sticker showing a happy

Eskimo Eskimo () is an exonym used to refer to two closely related Indigenous peoples: the Inuit (including the Alaska Native Iñupiat, the Greenlandic Inuit, and the Canadian Inuit) and the Yupik peoples, Yupik (or Siberian Yupik, Yuit) of eastern Si ...

reaching out to "grab" one of the marbles. Eventually, the weight of the marbles will cause the tissue to break and dump the marbles into the lower ring. The player who placed the marble on the ring causing it to break would then have a "strike", and the upper ring would be reset with new tissue and the players would once again place marbles atop it. The first person to break through the "ice" 3 times is the loser. A 1990 TV commercial for the game used the song '' Wipe Out'' adding lyrics such as "Place a marble on the ice, but watch out! You are on thin ice, you are on thin ice!"

External links

* Board games introduced in 1989 Children's board games Larry Harris (game designer) games Pressman Toy Corporation games {{board-game-stub