The Sweet and Sticky History of Fun, Part I: The 1960s

Fog Horn Blast 🚨

The 1960s were a decade of civil rights marches, psychedelic rock, men in skinny ties debating nuclear war, and astronauts trying not to get incinerated on the launch pad. But for millions of kids sprawled out on shag carpet in wood-paneled basements, the real battle of the decade was between Chutes and Ladders and Candy Land. Forget the space race; this was the snack race, and it involved dice, spinners, and enough artificial sugar to power a Saturn V rocket.

Today, we begin our four-part series diving into the sticky, roll-the-dice nostalgia of vintage board games and candy. First up: the 1960s, where suburban America bonded over game night while chewing on chalky wafers and convincing themselves that Now & Laters wouldn’t pull out every filling in their mouths.

🎲 The Board Games of the 1960s

A. The Classics Get Codified

Board games weren’t born in the 60s, but this was the decade when the household classics solidified their throne. The Game of Life was reborn in its modern form in 1960, updated from Milton Bradley’s Victorian version. Its pastel cars stuffed with tiny plastic peg-people promised a full life cycle in under an hour: college, marriage, mortgage, possible bankruptcy, retirement. Fun for the whole family! It was basically Monopoly with less real estate and more mid-life crisis.

Risk, first released in the late 50s, went nuclear in the 60s. Nothing says “family bonding” like your older brother conquering Asia with twelve armies and promising to “show mercy,” only to annihilate you two turns later. Risk taught kids diplomacy, treachery, and that trust is for losers.

Meanwhile, Yahtzee turned probability into a gambling addiction that looked wholesome. The thrill of rolling five sixes was America’s answer to Monte Carlo. And if you’ve ever heard your aunt shout “YAHTZEE!” loud enough to rattle the chandelier, you know why this game endured.

B. Candy-Coated Chaos for Kids

The 60s weren’t just about grown-up life simulations, they were about pure, chaotic joy. Candy Land reigned supreme in preschool kingdoms, teaching kids both color matching and the cruelty of being sent back to the Molasses Swamp. Chutes and Ladders delivered life lessons in cardboard form: good deeds propel you skyward, bad deeds slide you back into despair. Basically karma, but with cartoons and no parole.

Then came Mouse Trap in 1963, a game that was less about strategy and more about building a Rube Goldberg machine while arguing with your cousin about whether the marble “counted.” The payoff was worth it, though: seeing that tiny boot kick the marble, the cage drop, and the mouse get caught. It was engineering, slapstick, and sibling rivalry rolled into one.

C. Weird & Wonderful Oddities

The 60s also birthed some truly bizarre gems. Green Ghost (1965) was the world’s first glow-in-the-dark board game. You played in the dark, digging for “ghost kids” in little plastic coffins. Family fun! It was marketed as “scary,” but really it was just a good way to stub your toe on the coffee table.

Then there was Operation (1965). The premise: you’re a surgeon extracting random objects from a patient’s body without touching the sides. Bread basket, butterflies in the stomach, writer’s cramp; it was less “medical realism” and more “Hasbro got drunk and made puns.” Still, the buzzing sound traumatized generations into never becoming doctors.

We also saw a wave of TV tie-ins. Kids could play The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Addams Family Game, or even Batman. Which mostly involved cardboard cutouts of Adam West’s chin. These were the early days of pop culture franchising, long before Funko Pops took over the world.

D. Culture Reflected on Cardboard

Game nights were becoming an American ritual. With TV dinners cooling on Formica tables and Lawrence Welk playing softly in the background, families gathered to spin wheels, roll dice, and pretend Monopoly didn’t cause blood feuds. Board games mirrored the optimism and anxiety of the era: prosperity, war, science, and luck, all condensed into boxes on department store shelves.

🍬 The Candy of the 1960s

A. The Age of Color and Chemists

If the board games of the 60s were playful simulations, the candy was unapologetic chemistry experiments. Food scientists unleashed a rainbow of artificial dyes and flavors that would later make dieticians weep. Kids didn’t care. If it was neon, fizzy, or likely to stain your tongue, it was instantly a hit.

This was the decade when candy stopped pretending to be “just for kids” and fully embraced being sugar-coated chaos.

B. Big Names That Stuck

Now & Laters debuted in 1962, promising flavor “now” and gum-like chew “later.” The later part usually involved dislodging dental work, but kids soldiered on. They were like Starbursts’ cranky grandfather: less juicy, more jawbreaker.

Pixy Stix became the most efficient delivery system for raw sugar ever devised. Why eat candy when you can snort it directly from a paper straw? Every parent’s nightmare, every dentist’s retirement plan.

Meanwhile, Necco Wafers soldiered on as the weird chalky candy that nobody actually liked but everyone’s grandma kept in a dish shaped like a swan.

C. Chew, Pop, Repeat

The 60s were also the gum boom. Razzles hit the scene in 1966 with their bizarre identity crisis: “First it’s candy… then it’s gum!” They were fun for the first thirty seconds until they transformed into rubber cement.

Bazooka Joe gum was still king, with its eye-patch-wearing mascot delivering comic strips so corny they made Dad jokes look sophisticated. Kids bought the gum for the comics and then chewed it until their jaws clicked like typewriters.

Hard candy innovations kept rolling too. Lollipops were no longer just Dum Dums, they were Super Pops, Astro Pops, and Space Age sweets that tapped into America’s obsession with rockets.

D. The Candy Store Experience

But more than the brands, it was the experience of candy in the 60s. A nickel pressed into a child’s sweaty palm could yield a small brown paper bag bursting with treasures: jawbreakers, wax lips, candy cigarettes (nothing says childhood innocence like fake nicotine), and licorice ropes that doubled as lassos.

Kids biked to the corner store, leaned their Schwinns against the soda machine, and debated whether to spend their allowance on gum, baseball cards, or a mysterious wax bottle filled with vaguely fruit-flavored syrup. Spoiler: the syrup tasted like cough medicine, but the ritual mattered more than the flavor.

Candy was currency, identity, and rebellion all at once. You weren’t just a kid, you were a sugar-fueled outlaw with grape-stained lips and pockets full of melting Smarties.

🗼 Beacon of Irony

The 1960s gave us games that turned living rooms into battlefields of dice and spinners, and candies that rewired our brains for maximum hyperactivity. They weren’t just pastimes and snacks, they were cultural anchors in a time of upheaval.

And while the world debated Vietnam and Woodstock, kids were quietly mastering the art of removing the “funny bone” from a plastic patient without making the buzzer go off. Or they were tearing open a Pixy Stix and daring their friends to dump three at once. Pure sugar in a tube by the way!

If you grew up in this decade, you remember the taste, the sound, the clatter of dice on the floor. If you didn’t, well... you’re still living in a world they helped build.

Next time, we’ll crank the volume to 11 and head into the 1970s, where board games got weirder, candies got sourer, and Saturday mornings belonged to kids in a way adults never quite understood.

Until then, keep your marbles in place, your cards hidden, and for heaven’s sake, don’t touch the sides!