Braingames

Braingames is an educational program shown on HBO in the mid 1980s. It was a half-hour program consisting of brain-teasing animated skits (either stop-motion or cartoon) designed to make the viewers think.

Episodes

There was one episode made in 1983, then in 1984-85, 5 new episodes were made with new games, and a few brought back from the original episode. After that, an episode called "The Best of Braingames" was made which had five of the best Braingames games from the other 5 episodes, plus a special episode of "The Riddler" (see below) where Chuck Roast read off the winners of a contest for "The Absotively Posolutlely Worst Riddle in America".

Although full episodes have not been shown in years, HBO occasionally has shown games singly between programs.

Games

The following is a list of the different games played on the various shows:

*Earplay - From both the original episode and played on two of the later episodes, this consisted of 5 different sounds being made. First the viewer simply heard the sound for about 15 seconds, then the sound would be rewound and replayed, this time with the corresponding video footage. (NOTE: In all three showings, at least one of the sounds was an arcade game.)
*Digitville - Here, we visit a town where the entire population consists of people and pets whose heads are actually items that use numbers (clocks, etc.) (although a dog has a ruler for a body), and they come up with number games for us to play. This was played on two of the newer episodes.
*Faces/Whosamawatchamacallits - Faces was on the first episode, then Whosamawatchamacallits was the game on the next 4 episodes. The two games were similar, showing initially a distorted image, while the voice gives clues until the image is clear. Each one started with a superhero and ended with a monster, except the "Faces" prototype, which ended with a monster but did not begin with a superhero, and the last of the "Whosamawhatchamacallits", which was bookended by "two" superheroes; Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk. One distorted image has an illustrated cameo of two Fraggles (Red and Mokey).
*Tales of Wrongovia - Kind of an anachronism quiz. We go back into history, where a historical person is faced with a dilemma. Each dilemma involves showing four different items that would all be useful for the person in question, but in all but two, one of the items wasn't available to them at the time. (In the other two, only one of the four items was available.) It's the job of the viewer to guess which one couldn't (or could) be used.
*The Riddler - Chuck Roast hosts a game full of riddles. Need I say more?
*Memory Rock/Workout - Four people are shown either in a rock band or exercising, and questions are asked that involve how many of them are of a specific way (either what they are wearing or what they are doing). In "Rock", there was one more question that did not involve a number, and that was to ask what the name of the song being played.
*Odd Card Out/Safari Solitaire - The original episode had Odd Card Out, and the subsequent episodes had Safari Solitaire. The idea was that four cards were dealt with different pictures, but one was set apart from the rest based on the question asked. Odd Card Out was based on numerous things, but Safari Solitaire was specifically geared towards animals (and humans).
*Uninvited Guests - Groups of four people who look like they belong together come into a very upscale party, but one doesn't belong. We get to find out which one is uninvited.
*Eyewitness - A man goes in and quietly robs a bank. Then 6 hours later, four suspects are caught and we get to guess which one was the robber. We are reminded that only certain things can naturally be changed on a person in a 6 hour time span and that nothing on the suspects is fake (no putty, makeup, wigs, or fake facial hair).
*Museum Misstakes - We visit a museum and every picture we are shown includes something out of the ordinary. One picture with the Dutch family featured an animated cameo of Cookie Monster.
*Eyeball Twisters - Things are shown so close-up that you couldn't possibly tell what they are immediately while the voice-over gives clues.
*Read Between the Lines - A sort of rebus puzzle, in which the voice over tells a story, then pauses as a word puzzle is displayed, and the viewer has to guess what it means; i.e. I right I = right between the eyes.
*Lloofbat/Aceps Gevoya/Splatnarnt - Three different games, but with three things in common: One is that all three involved unscrambling words associated with the theme, which was also scrambled. Lloofbat (football) was all things regarding a typical football game as it is played. Aceps Gevoya (space voyage) involved things an alien named BLT runs into as he makes his way home after spending quite an amount of time exploring space, that are parts of outer space. Splatnarnt (transplant) involved a mad scientist and his female assistant creating a monster, and we unscramble inner parts of the body. The second is that at the end, the voice-over summed up the previous action with the key words back in their scrambled states. And the third? In the episodes in which they appeared (the original and the first two regular episodes, respectively) they were the final game.
*Unidentified Flying Pranksters - A group of wild aliens come to a typical town and changes one minor detail from what we originally saw. The viewer gets to guess what they did.
*Ze Inspector and Ze Lost Princess - Title written in the style of an Indiana Jones movie, this involved an inspector reading a map to find a princess, and literally the map was a rebus puzzle.
*Name That Sport (Mane Taht Sprot) - A game that appeared in game-show format, in which different contestants have a sport described to them as well as the viewer and they have to unscramble its name, similar to the Lloofbat/Aceps Gevoya/Splatnarnt games. Moreover, the title also appeared scrambled just like the Lloofbat/Aceps Gevoya/Splatnarnt games. And in the episode in which it was featured, it, too, was the final game, just like Lloofbat/Aceps Gevoya/Splatnarnt.
*Aliens - A viewer must find one of the four aliens that doesn't belong.
*Mysteriosos - A game involving droodles that the viewer must guess, similar in appearance to "The Riddler".

Home Release

The episodes were released on three different VHS videotapes in the 1980s and 1990s, but there has been no word on DVD release as of yet.