When people talk about “that E.T. game from 1982,” they’re typically referring to the videogame released for the Atari 2600. But did you know there was another E.T. game released in 1982? That same year, Parker Brothers released E.T. The Extra Terrestrial Board Game.
Like the movie, the goal of E.T. the board game is to help E.T. return to his home planet. To accomplish that, players must navigate their way through a spiraling playfield. Each spot on the board either awards chips (small cardboard discs) to players or takes them away. The player who possesses the most discs by the time E.T. reaches his spaceship is the winner. Along the way, players must assemble the transmitter E.T. must use to call his ship back to Earth.
I just remembered, I saw E.T.’s transmitter in person one time.
In 1993, my (then girlfriend/now wife) took a road trip to Chicago. While there we went to the Museum of Science and Industry where they happened to have a traveling display of movie props and special effects. Along with Jabba the Hutt’s eyes and the prosthetics used in Mrs. Doubtfire, they had on display E.T.’s transmitter which… I mean when you see it in person, looks pretty stupid. As someone who has tried to build both his own lightsaber hilt and Back to the Future hoverboard I can tell you, remaking replicas of movie props is pretty hard, but I’m pretty sure I could built a replica of that transmitter with one or trips to the local Goodwill. Look at it! All you need is an umbrella, an old record player, and a Speak and Spell. It’s literally like a Halloween costume you would make in a rush if you were out of ideas. “Look, I’m a space transmitter!”
I digress.
Before I talk more about E.T., I have to tell you about this trunk full of Harfields.
My 20YO daughter has started collecting Garfield dolls. When they were little I showed my kids a few animated Garfield specials, but I showed them a lot of cartoons from the 80s. I’m not sure where her current obsession came from but here we are, and the best part of it is that it gives my wife and I one more thing to look for when we’re out thrifting or visiting garage sales.
A couple of months ago on Facebook Marketplace we found someone selling 30 Garfield dolls for $100. The best part of the deal was that there were a few duplicates in the lot which allowed us to give most of them to our daughter and sell the dupes to cover the cost of the entire lot. A win for everybody!
While picking up the dolls the seller said she had a few other vintage items she was going to toss out, one of which was a ruined copy of the E.T. board game. I said I’d take it… and when I got it home, I discovered why she was going to throw it away. Saying the thing had suffered water damage is an understatement. It kind of looked like it was rescured from the bottom of the ocean. The box was almost completely ruined. The playfield itself, which is stored folded in half, was stuck together. The playing cards needed to play the game has signs of mold. There was nothing inside the box worth saving.
Well, almost nothing.
This is the E.T. figure that moves around the playfield. There’s a feature that allows you to “hide from federal agents” and put E.T.’s ghost Halloween costume on, which slides over the top of E.T. With a quick rinse under the sink faucet, the two pieces look like new.
Board games are constantly evolving. I’ve played E.T. the board game before and while not completely dreadful, it’s relatively slow moving and like a lot of games that capitalized on licensed properties, you could change the graphics on the board and swap out the play pieces and turn it into a game for just about anything. I’d say it’s more fun than the Atari 2600 games, but we can all agree that’s a pretty low bar.