After 20 years, popular game proves it's not a trivial pursuit

In the annals of social interaction, Trivial Pursuit is a very big deal. Word and board games had existed before 1982, when the brain tickler in a box became widely available, and of course people had gathered together for an evening of conversation before then. But no board game created for adults had ever become such a phenomenal success.

Although its impact on social life at the end of the 20th century was not as profound as that of the AIDS virus or the invention of e-mail, Trivial Pursuit did start its own little revolution, fought by a gregarious army of competitors willing to take off their Walkman earphones, turn off their computers and leave the cathode ray glow of their TV sets to play games designed for groups of grown-ups.

Now there's a 20th anniversary edition of the game that could lure a new generation away from their Palm Pilots, iPods and personal DVD players with questions about Nikes, deposed communist leaders and Max Headroom.

Trivial Pursuit is fast, irreverent, simultaneously smart and silly. Two to six players move around a wheel by answering questions in six categories. Whoever's seemingly normal mind is actually crammed with minutiae about sports, history, geography, science, literature, and arts and entertainment wins. Each version of the game contains about 4,000 questions on cards that are rotated in play, so enthusiasts can spend a lot of time huddling around a Trivial Pursuit board before hearing a question twice.

The mechanics of the game don't begin to convey its charm. Who cares whether you know what bodily function can reach the breakneck speed of 100 miles an hour? Considering the possibilities is hilarious. And if you guess that a sneeze has extraordinary velocity and therefore move on to the next category, so much the better.

Sports and 'Star Wars'

Trivial Pursuit mania peaked in 1984, when more than 20 million games were purchased in North America. It had an unprecedented sales record, selling 40 million units and grossing $1.4 million in 36 months. Until then, any game that sold 1 million a year was considered a hit. Today, Trivial Pursuit is played in 26 countries and 17 languages, and nearly 80 million games have been sold throughout the world. More than a dozen editions have been issued, including special ones with questions devoted to movies, sports or topics dear to the hearts of a particular constituency, such as "Star Wars" fanatics or baby boomers.

The 20th anniversary edition features questions that will remind those old enough to remember the '80s and '90s what a long, strange trip it's been. Remember Joey Buttafuoco? "Fantasy Island"? Smurfs and PacMan? You had to be there, and if you were, you just might know "What 'Party of Five' star prompted a Mademoiselle reporter to gush: 'She let me feel them, they're real, end of discussion'?" "Party of Five" is dead, as is Mademoiselle magazine. But they linger at the trivia party, where the ghosts of history and pop culture enjoy one last dance under the disco ball.

Scott Abbott, sports editor of the Canadian Press in Montreal, and Chris Haney, photo editor of the Montreal Gazette, were housemates in 1979, when they decided to invent a game. "The fact that we were journalists was key," Abbott says. "We were used to facts and information. We had spent a lot of time sitting in taverns or newsrooms ruminating about weird facts or asking each other questions. A command of trivia is a way for true sports fans to prove they have a depth of knowledge about sports."

Curiously addictive

Once they'd created a prototype, they recruited two friends to help them raise capital and market their invention. In three years they went through $100,000, self-publishing and selling games in Canada before finding a big American company that believed in Trivial Pursuit. "The name was really important to the game's success," Abbott says. "If it had been called Quiz 4000, it wouldn't have been as good."

Pursuit of victory may be trivial, but it's also curiously addictive. The very nature of trivia is that it usually isn't studied, rather absorbed by a kind of osmosis. The person who knows the answer to "How many plays did Shakespeare write?" is probably as surprised as anyone that 37 popped into mind. As obscure as many of the questions appear to be, their scope is so broad that everyone knows or can guess some answers.

"People often have different strengths as players," says John Chandler, senior vice president of marketing for Hasbro Games. "You could find yourself playing with people who are very worldly and learned, but they don't know the first thing about 'Seinfeld.' And a person could not know much about science or literature, but if they come up with the necessary sports fact to answer the final question, they're the hero of their team."

Sore losers and bullies

Many games expose sore losers and bullies, and Trivial Pursuit has been known to reveal its share of character traits. While shopping for a distributor for their brainchild, Abbott and Haney were rejected by a number of companies that said the game would make people feel stupid. Turning down Trivial Pursuit is an executive decision on a par with not backing eBay, but such reasoning wasn't entirely off the mark. The game didn't sell well in Japan, some think, because the Japanese consider it bad manners to go to someone's house and beat them at something.

Friendships have been forged and lost over Trivial Pursuit. Easygoing folks just play for fun. The intellectually vain refuse to participate, not wanting gaps in their knowledge made public. Know-it-alls who really do can find their popularity suffers.

Gary Johnson, now senior producer and head writer of "Jeopardy!" enjoyed playing at family gatherings when he was a writer for the original "Hollywood Squares." "I'm pretty hard to beat, and a lot of times people didn't want to play with me," he says. "There would be teams of two or three set up, and they'd make me play alone."

Trivial Pursuit rode into the Information Age on a gust of galloping media penetration and celebrity journalism. "The fact that we live in a time when celebrities are exposed, dissected, celebrated and castigated on a daily basis is helpful to this kind of game," Abbott says. "It wouldn't have worked in the Middle Ages, when the locals never got more than a few miles from home and didn't have TV."