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A crack of thunder. The rattling of chains. Roars of monsters in the depths. A song to guide your way. These words stoke our imaginations and illustrate how stories are told via the evocation of sound. When people imagine playing a tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) such as Dungeons & Dragons, they envision people in costume rolling dice, moving small, hand-painted figurines, and navigating sprawling maps of the dungeons that are being delved.
In addition to these material components, however, at the […]

Continue Reading about Role-Playing with Sound: A Sonic History of Tabletop Role-Playing Games Published on:
September 23, 2024

Why pinball? This is the question that people repeatedly ask me when I state that my dissertation investigates pinball’s history. When I explain that I am a PhD candidate in NYU’s Martin Scorsese Department of Cinema Studies, people become even more confused. What does pinball have to do with cinema? And is it worthy of a book length treatment? I answer those questions by replying that pinball is one of the most controversial American games, hence my title for my […]

Continue Reading about Pinball at The Strong Museum Published on:
September 11, 2024

Among the treasures in The Strong Museum’s National Archives of Game Show History is the original flip-dot display used on Family Feud when it made its debut in 1976. So what’s the story behind the sign?

It all starts with Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, the undisputed kings of TV game shows. Their success started in 1946 with programs including What’s My Line?  and their influence continues on television today. One of their shows, Match Game, enjoyed a successful run from […]

Continue Reading about Reviving the Family Feud Sign Published on:
September 6, 2024

By Adam Nedeff, researcher for the National Archives of Game Show History
“What’s in it for THEM?”
Have you ever watched Password, The $100,000 Pyramid, Match Game, or any other celebrity game shows and wondered why the celebrities are there? They can’t win the car, the cash, nor the washer/dryer combo, and with the workload involved for the TV shows on which they’re already appearing regularly as cast members, being on a game show is costing them a precious day off. A […]

Continue Reading about Why Celebrities Like Game Shows Published on:
September 4, 2024

Collections care terms can be utterly confusing, even among trained museum professionals. A term a registrar may use could be completely different from a director or an art preparator, and may not ultimately have detrimental outcomes for the misused term. But misusing the terms conservation, preservation, or restoration could leave your collections items or personal artifacts in the wrong hands for care.
What is Conservation?
Conservation encompasses all the actions taken toward the long-term care of cultural heritage. Activities include examination, […]

Continue Reading about What’s In A Name….Well, A Lot Actually, Especially When It Comes to Conservation, Preservation, and Restoration Published on:
August 28, 2024

Let’s talk about cryptids. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a cryptid is “a creature that is found in stories and that some people believe exists or say they have seen, but that has never been proven to exist.” What are you thinking of? Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, the Jersey Devil? These big names are the celebrities of cryptids, but I think there is a subset of cryptids lurking right within our own homes. Though we’d probably never define them […]

Continue Reading about Household Cryptids: Infiltrators or Celebrated Guests? Published on:
August 22, 2024

Those of us with large data storage needs today are spoiled, with hard drives totaling over 20 terabytes, and options like remote cloud storage offer virtually unlimited storage, if you are willing to pay. Step back to 1998, and things were quite different. According to one source, a 12-gigabyte hard drive cost $349 (the equivalent of more than $650 in 2024).
While 12 gigabytes of storage was large for the time, hard drives were not the only solution for data storage. […]

Continue Reading about What’s in a (Data) Tape? Published on:
August 15, 2024

On a snowy winter day in January 2024 at The Strong National Museum of Play, I read about the far-off land of Hyrule, inhabited by fiery dragons, rock-monster-people, and evil twin-sister witches. I pored over issues of Weekly Famitsu, the most popular Japanese gaming magazine, looking at their coverage of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. On page 89 of issue no. 507, I see the heading 謎の少年の正体が明らかにされる? (roughly: “Will the identity of the mysterious boy be revealed?”), with […]

Continue Reading about Contact Moments with Japanese Game Magazines at The Strong Museum Published on:
August 1, 2024

By Bob Boden, co-founder of the National Archives of Game Show History
On September 4, 1998, ITV network in the United Kingdom premiered a one-hour primetime game show called Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. It featured one contestant, sitting across from host Chris Tarrant, answering up to 15 multiple choice general knowledge questions of increasing values, from £100 to a top prize of £1 million. As long as the player answered questions correctly, they could remain in the “hot […]

Continue Reading about Birth of the Modern Game Show Published on:
July 30, 2024