Hot Potato (game)

Hot potato is a game that involves players quickly gathering in a circle and tossing a small object such as a beanbag or tennis ball to each other while music plays. The player who has the "hot potato" last when the music stops is out. Play continues until only one player is left. The game is designed to be fast-paced and high-pressure and is often played by children. The game can also be played without music where there is a designed leader who shouts out "hot!" and the player holding the object is eliminated.

The Hot Potato game was manufactured by Remco Games in the late 1950s. Their version used small plastic pans for each player, covered up so that the loser-to-be wouldn't be revealed until the proper time. In the 1960s, a similar version called "Spudsie" with a wind-up potato that emitted a loud "ding" when time was up was manufactured by Ohio Arts. Recent variations include a battery-powered talking potato, which shouts out “Yahoo!”, the Milton Bradley Mr. Potato Head Hot Potato Game, and the Hasbro Mr. Potato Head Hot Potato Game.

Hot potato remains popular at children's parties as a game and an activity for teaching teaching kids hand-eye coordination and catching skills.

History

The origins of the hot potato game are not clear. However, it may go back as far as 1629(puritan period) when Sidney Addy's Glossary of Sheffield Words describes a game in which a number of people sit in a row, or in chairs round a parlor. In this game, a lighted taper is handed to the first person, who says:

Jack's alive, and likely to live If he dies in your hand, you've a forfeit to give. The one in whose hand the light expires has to pay the forfeit."

An alternate potential origin has to do with changing an infant's diaper. When one is holding the baby, and it makes a 'hot potato', that person is responsible for changing his or her diaper. This eventually evolved into a game for children.

The phrase "hot potato" has become a familiar phrase in English language as a metaphor to describe a tense or urgent, often political, situation. It has been defined more formally as "an exchange of goods which may be traded a finite number of times, and which becomes a bad if and when it can no longer be exchanged".

Another commonly practiced form of playing Hot potato was to repeat the persons name holding the potato. Historically, they would do this to make an increasingly intense game, and for those of weak mind or spirit, it was found to be successful. For example, folklore states that the "founder," Ronaldo M. Uthill began by using his daughters name, and the game was discovered when neighbors heard him anxiously repeating her name, "Michelle, Michelle, Michelle, Michelle!"

Other Versions

A new variation on the original theme is the game baby chicken.

ee also

* Musical chairs
* Pass the parcel

References

* Addy, Sidney Oldall (1888). "The Geographical or Ethnological Position of Sheffield", A Glossary of Words Used in the Neighbourhood of Sheffield." London: Trubner & Co. for the English Dialect Society.
* Butts, Carter T. and Rode, David C. (2007). ``Rational and Empirical Play in the Simple Hot Potato Game." Social Forces, in press.
* " [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,842636,00.html Hot-Potato Game] ", TIME Magazine, Aug 12, 1966.
* Maguire, Jack. Hopscotch, Hangman, Hot Potato & Ha Ha Ha: A Rulebook of Children's Games. Simon and Schuster, 1990.