The Sweet and Sticky History of Fun, Part 2: The 1970s

Fog Horn Blast 🚨

Welcome to the 1970s... A decade of polyester leisure suits, lava lamps, and a suspicious number of products shaped like avocados. While adults were wrestling with the Vietnam War aftermath, an energy crisis, and Richard Nixon’s resignation, kids were too busy losing their minds over exploding candy and board games that either tested your brain or unleashed absolute plastic chaos on the dining room table.

If the 60s were about codifying the classics, the 70s were about pushing boundaries. This was the decade of gimmicks, neon packaging, and the invention of entire genres of fun. From dice-rolling in dark basements with Dungeons & Dragons to rumors that Pop Rocks might make your head explode, kids in the 70s weren’t just entertained, they were initiated into a strange, experimental wonderland.

🎲 The Board Games of the 1970s

A. The Rise of the Gimmick

The 70s gave us board games that weren’t really “board” games so much as plastic chaos machines.

Take Hungry Hungry Hippos (1978). A game with no strategy whatsoever. Four pastel hippos lunged at a pile of marbles while kids frantically slapped levers like caffeinated woodpeckers. Victory went not to the clever or the strategic, but to the one with the strongest forearms. It was less “game night” and more “arm wrestling disguised as entertainment.”

Then there was Don’t Break the Ice. A plastic grid of “ice blocks” balanced precariously while children gleefully took turns smashing them with tiny mallets. The goal? Keep the polar bear from falling. The reality? A living room covered in scattered cubes and a bear who fell on turn two anyway.

Simon (1978) blurred the line between board games and the emerging electronic toy craze. Its glowing colored buttons beeped out sequences that had to be repeated. A kind of psychedelic memory test that felt like both a disco floor and a brain exam. If you could master the patterns, you were crowned a genius; if not, Simon mocked you with a dissonant raspberry of electronic tones.

B. Strategy Gets Serious

While gimmicks dominated, another revolution was underway: the birth of serious gaming.

Dungeons & Dragons (1974) appeared like a mysterious spell-book from another realm. No board, no spinner, just dice, imagination, and a dungeon master making up rules that always seemed to benefit them. Parents were baffled. Churches panicked. Kids rolled d20s and discovered fantasy worlds where orcs, elves, and critical hits ruled supreme. D&D wasn’t just a game, it was the beginning of an entire subculture.

Mastermind (1970) presented itself as sleek intellectual combat. One player created a hidden code of colored pegs, the other had to deduce it through logic. It was marketed with a glamorous ad featuring a bald man in a white suit and a mysterious woman in a red dress, making it seem less like a children’s game and more like something you’d play in a Bond villain’s lair.

And let’s not forget Othello, with its hypnotic tagline: “A minute to learn, a lifetime to master.” Millions bought it, flipped some discs, got humiliated by their dad, and realized that “mastering” it would indeed take longer than their actual lifetimes.

C. Licensed & Cultural Tie-Ins

The 70s also saw the dawn of the tie-in game craze. Hollywood had discovered board games as a new marketing frontier.

In 1977, riding the wave of George Lucas’ juggernaut, we got the Star Wars: Escape from Death Star Game. Kids could relive Luke and Leia’s trash-compactor drama, but with cardboard tokens instead of Harrison Ford’s smirk.

There were also the Six Million Dollar Man Game, Charlie’s Angels Game, and a host of TV-inspired spinoffs. They were rarely good, but they didn’t need to be. Kids just wanted to buy into their favorite shows regardless.

D. Oddball Wonders

Then there were the truly strange. Kaboom! (1979) had players catching falling “bombs” (wooden sticks) with a seesaw. It was fun until someone lost an eye.

Stay Alive (1971) called itself “the ultimate survival game” but mostly involved dropping marbles through a shifting grid. It was ominous branding for what was essentially marbles in a maze, but hey—it looked cool on TV.

In all, the 70s board game landscape was a mix of sugar-fueled chaos, serious strategy, and cash-grab tie-ins. A mirror of a society balancing disco lights with paranoia.

🍬 The Candy of the 1970s

A. Candy Goes Wild

The 70s were the decade when candy stopped being polite and started being extreme.

First came Pop Rocks (1975). Tiny crystals that snapped, fizzed, and popped in your mouth like edible fireworks. Urban legend had it that if you ate Pop Rocks with soda, your stomach would explode. (It didn’t help that the rumor starred poor Mikey from the Life cereal commercials, who supposedly died from it.) Parents panicked, kids doubled down, and Pop Rocks became the most notorious candy of the decade.

Bottle Caps were another favorite; chalky tablets flavored like soda. (well mostly) Cola, root beer, orange, grape… it was like drinking a six-pack of fizz in tablet form. Kids loved them. Dentists readied their chairs.

And then there was Lik-M-Aid Fun Dip. What genius decided kids should use a sugar stick to scoop more sugar? The same genius who made a fortune, because Fun Dip turned every child into a candy archaeologist, licking and digging like manic hummingbirds.

B. The Chocolate Boom

Chocolate kept pace with the sugar rush. Reese’s Pieces entered the scene, still playing second fiddle to M&M’s, but destined for stardom in the 80s thanks to a certain alien.

The Whatchamacallit bar launched in 1978 with a name that sounded like a placeholder, but somehow stuck. Its caramel-peanut-crispy blend confused and delighted taste buds.

Meanwhile, York Peppermint Patties invaded TV screens with commercials showing people “getting the sensation” of arctic winds blasting through their hair. For kids, the sensation was mostly brain freeze, but it worked.

C. The Sour & Novelty Wave

The 70s loved candy that made kids squint and wince. Zotz appeared... hard candy with a fizzy sour core, that practically burned through enamel. Jawbreakers grew to comical sizes, with kids competing to see who could keep one in their cheek the longest without choking.

Wax bottles filled with syrupy “juice” lingered, baffling a new generation. Nobody liked them, but they were there, haunting candy aisles like edible ghosts. Who cares, it's in the candy isle so it must be good!

D. The Corner Store Ritual Evolves

Inflation meant candy wasn’t a nickel anymore, now it was a dime or more. But kids still biked to the 7-Eleven, slapped coins on the counter, and grabbed candy by the fistful.

This was also the era when Slurpees entered the sugar pantheon, making brain freeze an official childhood rite of passage. Baseball cards with stale gum became cultural currency... half for the players, half for the stick of cardboard masquerading as gum.

The ritual of candy shopping was still the same, though: wide-eyed kids pressing against glass cases, arguing over whether to go with Pop Rocks or Fun Dip, as if choosing candy were a decision of cosmic significance.

🗼 Beacon of Irony

The 70s were a decade of contradictions. Adults fretted about gas prices and political scandal. Kids? They were busy playing Hungry Hungry Hippos until the marbles disappeared under the couch and sucking on Fun Dip sticks until their tongues turned radioactive green.

It was a decade of firsts: the first role-playing games, the first truly “interactive” electronic toy, the first candy to inspire full-blown panic across PTA meetings. The board games were louder, the candies were stranger, and the kids were happier for it.

Next time in Part 3, we’ll crank the neon to maximum and leap into the 1980s... where board games went electronic, candies went radical, and Saturday morning cartoons became the ultimate sugar-fueled battlefield.

Until then, keep your dice rolling, your candy fizzing, and remember: if your stomach hasn’t exploded from Pop Rocks and soda by now, you’re probably safe.