''The Game of Cootie'' is a children's dice rolling and set collection tabletop game for two to four players. The object is to be the first to build a three-dimensional bug-like object called a " cootie" from a variety of

plastic Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be moulded, extruded or pressed into solid objects of various shapes. This adaptab ...

body parts. Created by William Schaper in 1948 and based on the traditional dice game

Beetle Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...

, the game was launched in 1949 and was commercially successful, with copies totalling more than one million in the first few years. In 1973, ''Cootie'' was acquired by

Tyco Toys Tyco Toys was an American toy manufacturer. It was acquired by Mattel in 1997. History Founding Mantua Metal Products was a Woodbury Heights, New Jersey, metalworks business founded in 1926 by John Tyler and family. In the 1930s Mantua began ...

, and, in 1986, by

Hasbro Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational conglomerate holding company incorporated and headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Hasbro owns the trademarks and products of K ...

subsidiary

Milton Bradley Milton Bradley (November 8, 1836 – May 30, 1911) was an American business magnate, game pioneer and publisher, credited by many with launching the board game industry, with his eponymous enterprise, which was purchased by Hasbro in 1984, and ...

. The game was given a new look and continued to enjoy commercial success. Several companies published cootie games in the first half of the twentieth century, but only Schaper's featured a free-standing, three-dimensional cootie. In 2003, ''Cootie'' was named to the Toy Industry Association's "Century of Toys List".

Game play

The object of the original 1949 game is to be the first player to build a "cootie" piece by piece from various

body parts that include a beehive-like body, a head, antennae, eyes, a coiled proboscis, and six legs. Body parts are acquired following the player's roll of a die, with each number on the die corresponding to one of the body parts. The body corresponds to one, the head to two, three to the antennas (feelers), four to the eye, five to the proboscis (mouth), and six to the leg.''The Game of Cootie: Directions''. W.H. Schaper Mfg. Co., Inc., 1949. The first part to be acquired must be the body, and then the head. All other body parts may then be acquired in any order. When a player acquires a part, an additional throw of the die is allowed in an attempt to acquire another part. The winner is the first player to completely assemble a cootie.

Etymology

The earliest recorded use of the word " cootie" appears in Albert N. Depew's

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

memoir, ''Gunner Depew'' (1918): "Of course you know what the word 'cooties' means....When you get near the trenches you get a course in the natural history of bugs, lice, rats and every kind of pest that had ever been invented."Cassidy, Frederic Gomes, and Joan Houston Hall. ''A Dictionary of American Regional English''. Harvard University Press, 1985. The word may be derived from Malaysian ''kutu'', a head louse. In

North American English North American English (NAmE, NAE) is the most generalized variety of the English language as spoken in the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), v ...

, children use the word to refer to a fictitious disease or condition, often infecting members of the opposite sex. Among children, the word effectively serves as a device for enforcing separation of the sexes.

Design and product history

In 1948,

Robbinsdale, Minnesota Robbinsdale is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota,. The population was 13,953 at the time of the 2010 census. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water. Minnesot ...

, postman William H. Schaper whittled a bug-like

fishing lure A fishing lure is a broad type of artificial angling baits that are replicas designed to mimic real prey animals and attract the attention of predatory fish, using appearances, flashy colors, bright reflections, movements, vibrations and/or loud ...

he believed had toy potential, and sold it (and others like it) in his store as a sideline to his homebound business of manufacturing small commercial popcorn machines.Wright, Bruce N.. "Object Lesson: Game Plan in Plastic". Hennepin History, Vol. 56, No. 4. Fall 1997. Eventually, he created a game around his creation, and, in 1949, molded it in

and formed the W. H. Schaper Mfg. Co. Inc. Schaper offered

Dayton's Dayton's was an American department store chain founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1902 by George Draper Dayton. It operated several local high end department stores throughout Minnesota and the Upper Midwest for almost 100 years. Although it ...

, a local department store, several ''Cootie'' setsWaggoner, Susan. ''Under the Tree: the Toys and Treats That Made Christmas Special, 1930-1970.'' Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2007. p. 52-3. on consignment and the game proved a hit, selling 5,592 by the end of 1950. By 1952, Schaper's company sold 1.2 million ''Cootie'' games, and thereafter, a million games a year. By the mid-1960s, Schaper's company was selling more than twenty-five different games from its

Golden Valley, Minnesota Golden Valley is a western and first-ring suburb of Minneapolis in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States. The city is mostly residential and is bordered by U.S. Highway 12 (Interstate 394). Over 15% of the city is parks or nature reserves. ...

, headquarters. In Australia, the game was distributed by Toltoys in the late 60s under the title ''Creepy Critters''. ''Cootie'' was one of many revamped traditional games cast in plastic by the Schaper company. Several games had bug titles such as ''Tickle Bee'', ''Inch Worm'', and ''Tumble Bug''. The company eventually produced ''Cootie'' spinoffs such as ''Giant Cootie'' and ''Deluxe 6 Cootie'', a game with six cooties instead of four. In the late 1960s,

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

offered an exclusive ''Cootie House'' with a vinyl mat and eight Cooties.

bought W.H. Schaper Mfg. Co. Inc. in 1973 and manufactured the game with a change in the bug design but little change to the original game rules. In 1986,

, through its subsidiary

Co., arranged with Tyco Toys Inc. to purchase ''Cootie'' and three other games from the Schaper Toy Division of Kusan Inc.

brought a new look to ''Cootie'' with legs that sported

in-line skate Inline skates are a type of roller skate used for inline skating. Unlike quad skates, which have two front and two rear wheels, inline skates typically have two to five wheels arranged in a single line. Some, especially those for recreation, ha ...

s, sneakers, and other accessories. Though the Schaper company published other games including '' Ants in the Pants'', ''

Don't Spill the Beans ''Don't Spill the Beans'' is a children's game for 2 or more players ages 3–6 published by Milton Bradley Company, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. The game was originally manufactured by Schaper Toys but acquired by Milton Bradley in 1986 through i ...

'', and ''

Don't Break the Ice ''Don't Break the Ice'' is a children's tabletop game for two to four players ages 3 and up. First marketed by Schaper Toys in 1968, the game was sold to Hasbro subsidiary Milton Bradley in 1986. It is still in production, and special editions wer ...

'',Hennepin History Museum: Objects: Dolls & Toys.
Retrieved 31 October 2008. ''Cootie'' remained the company's best seller with over 50 million games sold between 1949 and 2005.

Other cootie games

Schaper's game was not the first based upon the insect known as the "cootie". The creature was the subject of several tabletop games, mostly pencil and paper games, in the decades of the twentieth century following

. The ''Cootie Game'' fashioned by the Irvin-Smith Company about 1915 was a hand-held game that involved tilting capsules into a trap over a background illustration depicting a WWI battlefield. In 1927, the J. H. Warder Company of Chicago released ''Tu-Tee'', and the Charles Bowlby Company released ''Cootie''; though based on a "build a bug" concept similar to Schaper's, both were paper and pencil games. In 1937, Rork's released ''The Game of Cootie'', and it too was a paper and pencil game. A paper and pencil party game called ''

'' is popular in Britain, and dates from the mid 1940s or earlier. In 1939, Transogram published ''Cootie'', a game featuring a three-dimensional wooden bug assembled in a die-cut tray. Schaper's game was the first to employ a fully three-dimensional, free-standing plastic cootie.

Legacy

Schaper's plastic bug has become an icon, and, for some, a symbol for the

baby boomer Baby boomers, often shortened to boomers, are the Western demographic cohort following the Silent Generation and preceding Generation X. The generation is often defined as people born from 1946 to 1964, during the mid-20th century baby boom. ...

generation. In 2003, the Toy Industry Association included ''Cootie'' on its "Century of Toys List" of the 100 most memorable and most creative toys of the 20th century. Press release from the Toy Industry Association. A "Cootie" statue was exhibited in Robbinsdale in 2018. The sculptor was Noah Kolkman.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Game Of Cootie, The Board games introduced in 1949 Children's board games Milton Bradley Company games Roll-and-move board games Schaper Toys games Tabletop games