Nintendo board games - part 4 - 101 Dalmatians Game

After some delay, we pick up the series on Nintendo's board games where we left it a few months ago, with a tour around the Disney themed games.

Today's post features two games from the early 1960s, that are both based on the Disney animated film 101 Dalmatians.

101 Dalmatians Game

The first of these games is simply called 101 Dalmatians Game, as is written in English on the side of the box.

Nintendo 101 Dalmatians Game

The Japanese name of this game is '101-biki wan-chan dai kōshin gēmu' (101匹わんちゃん大行進ゲーム), which translates to 'March of the 101 Dalmatians Game'.

'March of the 101 Dalmatians' was the name under which the movie was originally released in Japan, in 1962, one year after its premiere in the US.

Nintendo board games - part 3 - More Disney

Part 2 of the series about Nintendo's board games featured four Disney themed games from the mid 1960s. Today we will continue the Nintendo board game retrospective with five more Disney board games from that same period (ca 1964-1966).

We will take a look at:

• Disneyland Adventureland Game
• Bambi Game
• Peter Pan Game
• Lady and the Tramp Game
• Sword in the Stone Game

Disneyland Adventureland Game

We already saw some Duck based games before, and here is another one. Well, at least Donald Duck is presented on the box front; his popularity used to attract interest.

Nintendo Disneyland Adventureland Game

The front shows Donald and one of his nephews in dire straits; their canoe has capsized and a hippo, alligator and a handful of spear-toting natives move in, competing for the fowl feast. [Forgetting for a moment that hippos are herbivores. And come to think of it, the natives may actually only be interested in getting Donald's autograph.]

The game is called Disneyland Adventureland Game (ディズニーランド冒険の国ゲーム).

Nintendo board games - part 2 - Disney (early 1960s)

When Nintendo started expanding their product line from playing cards to other toys and games, the first format they went after were board games.

In the first part of the board game story, posted here almost two years ago, we already showed some Nintendo board games from the second half of the 1960s, based on popular Japanese manga and anime characters like UltraQ and Obake no Q-tarō.

Nintendo board games based on manga and anime series

Over the coming weeks months, I plan to run a series of posts focussing on Nintendo's board games, as there is a lot still to show and tell.

The first board games that Nintendo released were all licensed games based on figures from the Walt Disney studios. These were very popular at the time, and after securing a deal to feature Disney characters on Nintendo's playing cards, it was a natural extension to use these also for other games.

Nintendo board games that are all Disney themed

Some of the Nintendo games that we will show are simple localisations of licensed games, meaning the original version is translated but otherwise left unchanged (like the 101 Dalmatians Game shown below), while others are original creations by the Nintendo team, using Disney figures.

There were a couple of American game manufacturers producing Disney themed board games at the time, most notably Whitman and Parker Brothers. Nintendo acquired licenses to localize their Disney games for the Japanese market from both companies, in particular from Whitman. [Another toy series that Nintendo licensed from Whitman, a few years later, were the People House doll sets.]

Original game by Whitman (bottom) and Nintendo version (top)

All of the Nintendo board games from this period do not included any year of release on them, so it is quite difficult to date them. Based on the characters featured, the style of packaging and the logos used, I would say the games are all released by Nintendo roughly between 1963 and 1965.

In this post we will take a look at four of Nintendo's Disney board games:

• Donald Duck Universal Travel Game
• Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color Game
• Toyland Game
• Mickey Mouse Adventure Game

Although they all feature licensed figures, most of these are original game designs, as far as I can tell (except for Wonderful World of Color Game).

Nintendo board game Happy Prince (ディズニーのハッピープリンス, early 1960s)

The Nintendo board game Happy Prince (ディズニーのハッピープリンス) is a game based on the Disney movie Sleeping Beauty.

Nintendo Happy Prince board game (early 1960s)

Like many of the early Nintendo board games, it is a localized Japanese version of a game created by American company Whitman. The original Whitman game is called Disney's Sleeping Beauty Game.

Happy Prince is a pretty standard affair, with a spin of the dice largely determining the outcome of the game.

When we take a better look at the back of the play field, we see something interesting.

Ever heard of the Nippon Game company?

Some time ago, I posted a story about the various logos used by Nintendo over its long history.

I forgot to mentioned one interesting piece of information, though. When Nintendo branched out from playing cards to board games, they decided to do this under the name Nippon Game. This name was only used for a brief time, but if it had stuck we would be waiting for the Nippon Game Wii U right now!

In the early 1960s, Nintendo released games under the name Nippon Game

Nintendo Osomatsu-kun Game (おそ松くんゲーム, 1966)

I recently found the fifth of the Nintendo board games from 1966, based on popular television shows. It is called Osomatsu-kun Game (おそ松くんゲーム).

Osomatsu-kun is a famous manga series created in 1962 by Fujio Akatsuka (赤塚 不二夫). It is drawn in a very comical cartoon style.

In 1966, this manga was turned into an anime for television.

Nintendo Ultraman Game #1 (ウルトラマン ゲーム, 1966)

One of the commercially important licenses in Japan is the very popular Ultraman.

In 1966, Nintendo released a board game based on the original Ultraman TV series, which had started that same year.

Nintendo Ultraman Game (1966)

The game is called simply Ultraman Game.

Nintendo board games - part 1 (任天堂のボードゲーム, 1966)

When Nintendo started expanding their product catalogue from cards to other games in the first half of the 1960s, they initially focussed primarily on traditional parlor games (like go, shogi, chess and checkers) and other board games.

Although Nintendo soon also started releasing all sorts of toys (including the Coaster Games, the Ultra Hand and the Ultra Machine), board games remained an important part of Nintendo's product offering until around the mid 1970s.

Nintendo UltraQ game (ca 1966)

In this period of about ten years, spanning from 1965 to 1975, Nintendo produced at least fifty different board games. Many of these featured licensed characters, in particular from the Disney Studios and the Japanese figures popular at the time.

Today we will start an exploration of all Nintendo's board games with five games based on Japanese manga/anime/tv series that were popular around 1966.