802 – Oh What a Mountain

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and friends beyond the binary, it's time for the podcaster, Patrons, that's here. I say, well, I'm here to pack the lulls in. I don't know, Patrons, I don't have anything witty to say other than thank you. I could sing, thank you Patrons, because I didn't have anything to say, so I just sang. And on with the show. Hey, are you up all night tossing, turning, mind racing, trouble getting to sleep, trouble staying asleep? Well, welcome.

This is Sleep With Me, the podcast that puts you to sleep. We do a bedtime story. All's you need to do is get in bed, turn out the lights, and press play. I'm going to do the rest. What I'm going to attempt to do is create a safe place where you could set aside whatever's keeping you awake, whether it's thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, stuff you're thinking about or stuff you're feeling. It could be travel. Whatever it is, whatever's keeping you awake, I'd like to take your mind off of that. Again, a nice, safe place set aside here. You know what the great thing is? I'm coming to your safe place, so you can go ahead and make it a little more cozy.

What am I going to say? I'm going to create a safe place where you could set aside whatever's keeping you… No, no. I said that. Thoughts, feelings. I'm going to send my voice across the deep, dark night. That's what I'm going to do next. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to use lulling, soothing, cricket dulcet tones, forgetfulness, pointless meanders, banter, oh so friendly banter. And many of you know … basically I'm just going to be here to keep you company as you fall asleep. I guess it's not basically, over complicatedly. Has there ever been a musical with the song It's Complicated, either as the title or the chorus sings that? It's Complicated? Because I'm hearing that right now.

It's not that complicated in some senses. I'm going to do all of those things. Really what I'm going to do is keep you company as you drift off. Now if you're new and you're here, I'm glad you're here. Thank you for checking the podcast out. What I do or the way the show works is a little bit different. If you're skeptical or you're not sure how to feel, that's perfectly normal because this is … of course, I say I'm going to put you to sleep, so you're going to want more details. I'm going to try to give them to you. Unfortunately, I have trouble delivering anything in a straightforward and clear way. But that's also how the podcast works.

What I'm going to do is … What am I going to do? I'm going to … Oh, structure. What I was going to try to do is really give you some details. If you're new, one thing that a reviewer just said is almost look at the show in a loose way, especially when you first listen. Like let it drift in one ear and out the other. I thought that was a good analogy for the podcast. What was I going to say? Structurally, what to expect, let me tell you what to expect. Show starts off with a few minutes of business. And that's how I keep the podcast free for everybody. Then there's an intro, which we're doing right now.

And the intros are 12 to 15 minutes or so of me describing the podcast, setting the mood in some sense, and just get you familiar. But also, it serves a dual purpose of being a long welcome. I guess I never … Have I ever described the podcast like this? It is a bit like somebody welcoming into your … welcome you into … Well, I was thinking of the analogy of someone welcoming you into their house. Usually they greet you at the door. I'm picturing a potluck situation, bringing a bedtime … Well, I guess I'm the greeter. Even though it's your house, which is different, but I guess that's why it would take so long. The intro, you'd say, “Okay, how's this work? Well, I brought a potluck, but this is my house? Well, yeah, I'll take that meat. Those are biscuits? Great. Well, so good to see you. Well, come on in. Well, before you come in, let me see you. Let me run down what we're doing tonight. We're having a potluck dinner.”

Okay, maybe I'll get back to that analogy, but I think you know where I'm going. The intro, it just takes a while because it serves a dual purpose of also a lot of people wind down during intro. They're getting ready for bed, or they're already in bed. And I'm helping ease you off into bedtime. That's really the goal. Because this podcast doesn't really work in an instantaneous way. And some people listen to it during the day to relax. And then some people skip the story. You say, “Well, where's the story?” It's about 15 … If you want to skip it, just go 18 to 20 minutes into the show and then you'll get it there. That's the intro. It's something to wind down to as you get ready for bed.

Then there's the bedtime story. You say, “Well, I need a little bit more. I'd like to get in bed. I like to brush my teeth during the intro, get ready, and then I'm in bed and doodling. And get the fan going, and then I'm listening to your story. And I'm drifting off.” This is an intro, then there's some business between the intro and the story. And then there's a story. It'll be a random story tonight. And then there's some thank yous as the end. That's the structure of the show. And what else do you need to know? You don't really need to listen to me.

I guess that would be different. I'm trying to think of that analogy. I guess here's the thing. If this is … I know this is a little bit hard to hold in your mind, so you only have to … If I was welcoming you into your own home, and for example wasn't confusing or strange at all, then I'd say, okay, let me … You wouldn't need to listen to me, right? If the next thing I did was like, oh well, come on in. Let me show you around, you would immediately know well, this is my house. I don't really … I'm going to play along with Scooch, but I don't need to listen. Because you say, “Well, here's where … this is the room where you sit around. This is the room where I'm going to put all the potluck … This is where we're going to have the food. This is where I'm going to sit. This is what I'm regale you with my adventurous tales of shoelace collecting.”

And even then you'd have another level. You'd say, “Okay, well he's going to tell us about a shoelace collection later.” I don't … Even if you wanting to be interested in that, I'm sure unless you were a shoelace collector … and you'd say, “Oh, so Scooch is more of a … what is it if you're a shoelace collector that doesn't take it seriously?” You'd say, “Well, this shoelace was on my 1987 New Balance. And I have it here, just wanted to show it to you.” There's no way to know it's from a New Balance, because it's just a beige shoelace, but that's why it has three knots in it so I know that that's a corresponding knot code. It's three knots on the left side. It means that's from 1987. Well, how do I know the left side shoelace from the right side? What do you mean? These knots are on the left.

Well, if I flip it over, there goes my shoelace categorizing system. Glad we're having this potluck then, that you feel like … oh, I see you're nodding off there. I was going to tell you about this other shoelace that has two knots on the right and one on the left. Or, I don't know if this one's from 2014 or 1418. I did have one shoelace … Oh, no wait. That makes total sense. It must be from 2014 because I realized they never had shoelaces in 1418 anyway. This one I do know what year it's from. Oh no, maybe that's not … maybe … that knot looks fresh though, so maybe was that an accidental knot. I may have to come up with a better system for organizing my shoelace collection.

You don't need to listen to me. Also, there's no pressure to fall asleep. Which it would be the reverse in this example. In a social situation, even if you were the faux host, like you are in this example, you would probably feel like you need to pay attention and humor me, because I'm your guest. And you'd say, “Oh, could you tell me … You know what seems exciting? Is that zebra shoelace. Could you tell me about that one? Is that from an LA Gear or something? Or one of those pump it up … that looks like it really had an adventure. Tell me all about that zebra shoelace.”

You wouldn't have to humor me, but that would probably … if you're in this situation again, good catch. That probably is one that would most likely have a story. Except in this situation, I'd say, oh yeah, this shoelace I got in a 99 cent store last week. I said, do you have any shoelaces? And they said, “I don't know.” And I said, do you sell any shoelaces as a representative of this establishment? And they said, “Look in aisle 11A.” And then I headed there and that's where I found this shoelace. Believe it or not, it was a pair for 99 cents. And I asked … and then I went up and I said, could I buy one for 50? And then they looked at me blankly. And they said, “No, no. You cannot.”

But then someone behind me in line, they said, “I just happen to need a zebra shoelace for a craft that my child has due tomorrow at school. It's for binding a book about zebras, a report. What are the odds?” And I'd say, they're good right now that … I'll tell you what. How does it sound if you pay 50 and I pay 49? And they asy, “As long as you get the tax.” And I said, touché, because that meant that I had to pay more. But we all laughed. And that's my shoelace stories. A new podcast coming out this fall, Shoelace Stories. Sorry, I got lost there. That gives a little bit about … Maybe that'll be tonight's story. Who knows? But, what was I saying?

You don't need to listen to me. No pressure to fall asleep. No pressure to listen. Imagine that situation I said … well, I guess I just a scene … I'm going to talk about shoelaces, you don't need to listen to me. In that situation it'd be great because you'd probably fall asleep on your own couch. And then in this you'd say, “Okay, and Scooch won't be there when I wake up. I'll just be comfy and cozy in bed.” No pressure to fall asleep. No pressure to listen. The thing is I'm going to be here for about an hour, so if you can't fall asleep I'm here to keep you company, just as much as I am to put you to sleep, or to be here as you fall asleep.

And that's about it. I really appreciate you checking the show out. I really work hard. I yearn and I strive, because I want to help you fall asleep. Here's a couple of ways we keep the show going. All right everybody, this is interesting because I don't really … I don't know if we've done an episode exactly like this. We've done stuff along these lines I guess you'd say, but this is really when making the podcast gets to be really, really … might say, well, there's an intersection of my personal history, my interests, and sleepy stuff. And so this is a once upon a time, but a real Scooch story, probably will be like once upon a time I wasn't a sleep podcaster, I was just a kid, and some people say, “Well, not just a kid.” Especially people that knew me, they would say, in a much different tone and such things.

I still am the oldest of six kids. And we would, for I think it was for one week a year, we would … my parents would rent a cabin at a place on Oneida Lake called Sylvan Beach. And the family, they would rent from … they had a kid … there was a kid there my age. His nickname was Critter. And of course, you've probably heard of JJ, his older brother played the drums and was cool and older than us. Probably what I … I guess I never became like JJ, cool, long hair, played the drums, probably rode a motorbike. What was my point? One of the things that I remember about these childhood years is particularity this one board game. And it really has become a little bit of a white whale for me. I guess a white whale within budget, because they've probably buy the time you listen to this, I'll have made the move. But I haven't made the move yet to buy one off Ebay.

I have made Ebay-type moves, which I'll explain in a second. But we would go to … well, let's see. So oldest of six kids, you're not buying, even back then, board games and probably the prices have not increased as much with whatever they call that, inflation, as other things have. I would say that board games have probably always been between 10 and 30 dollars. Now they're probably on the higher end of that nub. And plus with six kids, you just never bought a new board game. We weren't a … And there's not a lot board games that six or even half of the six kids could play. And I don't have an exact memory of when this happened but one of the things we would do is probably go to garage sales and yard sales and flea markets.

And we would pick our board games up there, along with other stuff to play with. A really great place … pro tip, if you're looking to buy board games, garage sales. Ebay's probably going to be more challenging because so many people are buying stuff and reselling it. But other good places are goodwill stores and those kind of stores, secondhand stores. Sometimes again, the selection's been whittled down. But at some point along there, we went to one of those things, probably a garage sale. And we picked up a board game. And it became the board game of my youth. And we didn't have it for very long, maybe only this one summer, maybe for one or two weeks. Maybe it was even Critters or somebody that they had gotten it used, but I'm pretty sure we got it used.

Maybe we had it longer than that. And you can search everything on the interest, and I think … Okay, let's back up. Scooch, you're right. Before we get into any facts or research, I just remember playing this game this one or two summers. And it was a vertical board game, what we would call a 3D board game. It wasn't just flat. It had an upward board going up, because it was a mountain climbing game. And also as a kid I was watching a lot of, what's that show called? Not Wheel of Fortune. Price is Right. And Price is Right has that yodeling … I don't know if anybody watches, used to watch Price is Right or does, but at some points they have one game where there's a yodeling, a mountian climber. I don't know what the game is. The price was to stop it at the right prices or something like that. Or you're narrowing down prices and goes yodel, makes a yodeling-type sound.

And I think as a kid, that and Plinko were my big favorites on Wheel, whatever that show's called, The Price is Right. This board game, we found it. It was used. It didn't have all of the parts, but it had most of the parts. And it was at least accessible for my brother and my sister and I, which were within two years of age of one another. Because my brother and my sister are twins. And not only that, with six kids and you're renting a cabin or whatever, you want half of them outside at all times. Because I can remember sitting outside near the beach playing this game, and having a lot of fun.

If you're a regular listener, you know Scooch well enough, that it's no … not exactly … easygoing would not be a way that's ever described me, though it may have been. So wound like a spring. Playing this game's always been a treasured memory of mine. And I just really … that's the setup. And then whatever the game got lost in the shuffle of life. And again, I don't know if we left it at the cabin, it wasn't ours, like it was a neighbor's game, or just like kids you forget, just like the movie that came out this summer, the story of toys. Sometimes kids, our attention gets distracted somewhere else. But this game always had a special place in my heart.

And then it was actually somewhere in the podcast … it would pop up every once in a while, and on the podcast it would come up, this mountain board game I had. And then again I remember, and not exactly common on social situations either and I have a tendency to overcompensate. I remember a long time ago, this is like not that long after I started the podcast. I would go to these podcasting meetups in San Francisco and try to learn more about podcasting and other people that make podcasts and see what was possible. I can remember meeting someone who had different game related podcasts. And they were doing it for a gaming company. And I said, hey … I think we were talking about one thing and I went right off topic and I said I'm trying to figure out this one board game from my childhood.

And I think I searched on mountain climbing board game, and I couldn't find anything. And they said, “Oh, search Board Game Geek,” I think was the site they told me to go to. And maybe I found it after that or maybe I didn't or maybe I was just searching the wrong way. And I said one day I want to play that game again, or one day I want to get back in touch with it. Then maybe a year and a half ago, or right after I started podcasting full-time, I started thinking about it, I think as it came up in the podcast. So I said, let me look on Ebay and see if I could get that game. Oh, I think that was the year I was buying gifts on Ebay, for the most part. Maybe, maybe not, but whatever.

I looked up the game. I found it. Or maybe I just searched it. And at the time, there wasn't … either it was price prohibited or there wasn't any actual games. But there were a few parts. So I ordered the parts because they weren't that expensive, like a couple bucks. A boulder, maybe there was even part of the game board. Now I hadn't, for some reason the last thing I bought on Ebay had shipped to my work address. And somewhere those parts got shipped to my old address, and I still … I had heard from my coworkers, a few different ones, like, “Hey, we got this stuff here from Ebay for you.” Very small stuff, “and we'll get it to you.” And then somehow in the trans … It never made it.

And I haven't followed up and been like, hey, you seen my boulder from my 1980's board game? Or my mountain climber piece, or whatever? But those are out there. And then, I don't know, I guess when I'm recording this, it's summertime, so I was thinking about the game again. And then I said why don't we do this as an episode? We'll get to travel down memory road. I haven't really research the game at all. And so as I talk about it, it'll be fresh for me. Why don't we see how that does, okay? The first thing I have here, that I found on an Ebay search was … Well, I found the name for the game. And then this is the assembly instructions for the game. Let's read through this first and we'll probably look at the box after this.

The name of the game is Oh What a Mountain! with a … what is that? What is that called when it's with an exclamation point? And it does have its own interesting font. It says Oh, What a Mountian! Game, and that's in a red, rounded square, or rectangle with black border. And this is assembly instructions. And it says, “See the box bottom for photograph of completing assembled game. Use that as a handy ‘put together' guide.” This is if you bought it new, which we did not do. But it's like, “Remove all plastic parts from the box. Break off the pieces that are on plastic runners. Refer to illustration one through seven. Group the following parts together. There's four pawns, four flag parts. The flag posts. Oh, there's four bonds. You figure four flag parts. The flag post, the connector, the flag peg, and the rubber band. Three out on a limb parts.”

The other thing about this game was that it's like one of those internal … like a machine where stuff happens. Because then I forgot to play that mountain, that other, whatever that … What are those games called? The incredible machines? I know it has a thing, but … We never got to play the thing that makes PeeWee's breakfast. That was another thing. You could do one thing on this game and it triggers something in a different part of the board. Which to me, it was just mind blowing. “Three out on a limb parts. A limb and two limb clips. Two big rock parts. A big rock and an arm. Two bigger rock parts. A bigger rock and an arm. Two battering ram parts. The ram and the connector. Two abominable snowball parts. The snowball and the connector. And now the pressure sensitive labels must be attached to the above parts.” Those are stickers, pressure sensitive labels.

“Figures one to seven to show the correct positioning of the labels on the plastic parts. Just peel the labels from the sheets and press them on the ribbed side of the parts. Make sure the label is in position. They fit exactly within the shape of the ribbing.” This only came with two, this Ebay listing only has two pages of the instructions. And the second page is no readable. I think it's figure 15. And it shows the back of the assembly, whether it's out on a limb assembly … I can't read anything else. A couple of those snows and something. So a little bit about the instructions. Let's check this other Ebay listing here.

And this Ebay listing has the overall, maybe even marketing picture. Because it has the game set up, the four game … there's four game pieces, and the cover of the back. I want to get a little bit deeper look before I get into it. See what kind of closeups we have. Looks like it has board cards, climbing cards. Oh yeah, this is going to show if you bought it, you'd get all the pieces. Let's see what stats. This is over at boardgamegeek.com. It was published by Milton Bradley. It has a 30 minute playing time. Two to four players. Its overall rank on Board Game Geek is 15,270, children's games, it's 525. Complexity rating is a 1.6 out of 5. Its overall … it's a 5.0. I don't know if it's out of 10.

Let's see, Milton Bradley, 1980 was published. I was probably playing this in 1983, 4, 5, 6? Somewhere in there. And yeah, let's see what else we can find here. At least going to find some good pictures. You'd probably have to hit up Google for that. Okay, so here's the inside … like if you open the box … I don't know if this is the back of the box or what, but it says, “Oh What a Mountain! Game. A real cliffhanger. Who will reach the peak of the three dimensional mountain first? Oh What a Mountain! is oh, what fun. An exciting, a path that challenges you to find the quickest route up a very, merry three dimensional mountain.” This is like the Right to Sleep Podcast. “On the climb, you might go ram watching, meet the abominable snowball, or fall over the falling rocks. There are H-A-Z-A-R-D-S that actually move. A hazard, pushing, sweeping you and your fellow climbers from the path and back to the buddy, the aiding climber station at base camp number one.”

“Don't forget the deep, dark cave either.” Wow. This is like Deep, Dark Night. They have a deep, dark cave. “You could easily get lost in it. But don't give up, even though every mountain has its ups and downs. The first climber to reach the peak of the mountain is rewarded with the winner's flag that actually pops right up to announce the victory. Happy hiking.” Let's see, “contains three dimensional game board, a vertical mountain base board, 24 climb cards, a game board, a cardboard spinner, plastic spinner arrow, plastic game parts, pressure sensitive labels, four plastic pawns, and a rubber band. There's a sneak peek of the peak, as shown completed assembled here. For more details, see assembly instructions inside the game.”

This must be the back of the game. Let's see, what else do we have here? And I'm looking through here. Here's a couple of the climb cards flipped over. “You may send any other player to base camp 2.” “It's a beautiful day for climbing. Go ahead two spaces.” “You get a long distance phone call from your mom. Go to base camp 2.” I guess because this game was made on the cusp of the 70s and 80s, it is very 70s, the art, in a very cool way. Looking at the spinner, it only has four stops on the the spinner. It goes 1, 4, 2, 3. Very 70s font for the letters. One is kind of a brown background. Two has a yellow background. Three has an orangeish-red. And four has purple. It's a circle with a rope-style border. And then some very 70s psychedelic rams, psychedelic in a fun way, rams on it.

And hopefully I can get a better look at the climbing pieces, but there's four game pawns. They have a little hook, like you're climbing. And then there's a cartoon character in lederhosen. Very stereotypical mountian climbing, if you watch a lot of, whatever that game show was I said, Funning of Life. What was it called? Not Wheel of Fortune. Showcase showdown, no. Wheel of Fortune? How can I not remember? The Price is Right. It looks like that climber, even has a hat or something out or the Alps, Alpine climber. The cartoon's the same on each one, but there's red, green, yellow, and blue climber. Let's see, there's one thing that say on the board, one of the pieces that comes out. I don't know if it does anything. It must. And this is just cool. It says, “Out on a limb”. It's a plastic piece protruding, it's a protuberance I guess from the mountain. It's orange plastic a with pressure sensitive label or sticker.

It shows a giant bird and a climber on a branch that says, “Out on a limb.” And the bird is looking at the climber, and the climber's looking at the bird saying, “Oh dear, I'm out on a limb with a bird.” And it's very fun looking. Here's the … Okay, maybe this is what I ordered on the internet, the abominable snowball. That's at elevation 1,800. There's a snow person with a … what is that thing called? An umbrella in a … snow's snowing on an umbrella. It's just a background decoration. Lots of details. I wonder if the … then the bigger rock is actually a rock you hook into … instead of … when you go vertical on the board, there's holes and you push your hook in the hole.

I wanted my daughter to experience this, since she's a big Scooby Doo fan. And so when she was a little bit younger I bought two different Scooby Doo games that were three dimensional. One was like … and I don't think they were based on the Scooby Doo movie, but one was where you're climbing, I guess climbing a mountain. And you can get … there's different things that can happen that dislodge you. The rules were not great, as far as the rolling and stuff. I can't remember how you determine how many spaces you went, but it was a little bit of a not as fun, maybe … Okay, I'm looking at the big board here. Then the lower board. Okay, let's look at this. Let's see if we can zoom in here.

Okay, so this is a base board. It must not be the first thing though. Oh yeah, there's start. So where the start is a lederhosen wearing mountain climber … or shorts. He doesn't have … I don't know, or lederhosen shorts. He has long, green socks pulled up to his knees. He has a pick ax and a backpack and a rope. He's wearing a dress. What is that thing called? A sport coat, a pink sport coat or magenta, I guess a magenta sport coat with a dress shirt underneath it. He's smoking a pipe, which is not surprising. You'd think he'd be smoking a different pipe though. And he has a feather and one of those mountain climber hats. He's actually on all fours. And the letters start are running up his back leg. And then I guess you got a one, the first thing you're going to do, to land on is “Your new hiking shoes are great. Go again.” If you got a two, you'd just be on a space with a pine tree.

If you'd gotten a three, you would get, “Hollywood buys the movie rights. Go to lower meadow.” And its Hollywood is written on a fake dollar bill with money and movie cameras. And it's being held up by a French film director, I would assume because they have a beret and the same pipe-smoking, lederhosen climber. Then the next thing is a last chance camera store. But it doesn't have any action. Then the next stage is a TV interview. You get to go again if land there. And it shows the lederhosen, pipe-smoking dude being interviewed by someone in a suit and a tie. And there's a TV camera. Then there's an apple tree dropping apples. It's just like nothing. Then there's a lower meadow, which is really a lot art is cool. It has a cow. It has a stream. It has a fish. It has another apple tree. It has another desiduous-looking tree. You can see the mountain in the background.

Oh, here we go. The next one is, it shows the mountain climber taking a picture of a bird, I think. This is where it gets comedic. And the pick ax is resting on the ground, and there's a fuzzy friend, a teddy pooh going through the mountain climber's backpack as they take a picture of the bird. And then the next thing, it looks like a picture was taken. It says, “Teddy Pooh eats your camera. Go back to camera store.” If you land on this next thing, you have to go back to the camera store. Then the next one is a bird who is just in the sky by itself. Then the next place on the board is a, it's a sun smiling and looking up, and it says, “Good weather. Go again.” And then there's a rainbow on the other side. And then there's another space that says, “Another forest friend G-R-O-W-L-S at you. Move back two spaces fast.”

And then there's an arrow to start the game. Also, there's other art on the bottom board. There's one that's just a little pass. There's an owl. There's flowers. There's rocks. There hedge buddies. A lot of cool stuff. Let's see what we can see next here in these pictures. Oh, here's a picture of the summit where the flag is popped up, and it says, “Winner.” Okay, here's a picture of the cover that's pretty good. At the top … Actually, it must be from a commercial, because there's, behind the board game is someone way cool, obviously holding it like a magician. And it says, “Oh What a Mountain! Game. Sky high fun with hazards that push stuff, sweep you from the mountain path. Watch out for”, let me see if I can zoom in here, “battering ram. It will get your goat.” And it shows the cartoon ram.

“The abominable snow buddy. It's rolling your way. The falling rocks. Look out below. And the deep, dark cave. Easy to get lost in.” It says, “Ages six to adult. Two to four players. Be the first one up the mountain. Milton Bradley.” And it has two kids, very well dressed, very 70s, 80s. A young boy and girl. The boy has a blue sweater and a dress shirt on. And his hair is very well combed. And he seems to be manipulating the out on a limb thing. But I don't see any game pieces … oh no, I do see one. Maybe he's messing with his sister or his companion, who's in a green sweater and a dress shirt or part of another thing. She's a barrette in her hair that's pink or red. And she's giving her a brother like, oh boy, did you just out on a limb me? And the brother has a more, a little bit devious look, of yes, I did.

They're also playing in front of a fireplace with a plant. Probably a set. Okay, let's see. There's a couple of other pictures here of it before it's put together. But of course what I'm looking for is climbing cards or really good pictures of the game here. Oh, is this a commercial? Yeah, here's one. Uh-oh. Oh, no, that's a different game. Up a Mountain. “Yeah, there's other mountain themed board games, Scooch. Not just yours.” Here's one from another place. It shows all the pieces in a nice bag. Don't worry, I'll find a really good picture of the game board. Believe me. Okay, I might have to go back and forth. I have a couple of different pictures I'm going to switch back and forth between, because I have one really good picture of the game board, but it doesn't have the pieces on it.

When we go past the forest friend on the floor board, then you go up this orange path and then you're on the three dimensional, vertical. And again, a lot of these games are based on the game of Life, I think, which was very popular. I don't know, I guess I don't know if these games have any strategy or if it's pure luck. I think they're just pure luck but it'd be fun for the little kids. It gets to a certain age, but on this one I guess the first thing you do have is a choice of left or right. Oh, and I guess if you go right it's a different thing. If you go left, you can go out on a limb, which I don't know what that means. I guess we'll have to take a look at that. The next one is climb up a robe.

I guess the brown thing is … oh no, base camp one is coming up. Okay, so you can climb up a rope if you land on that thing. And then you climb up a rope into base camp one, which is cool. And you also get a climb card. On the next thing is climb card. Then the next one is snowball, which I think means you get to trigger the snowball way up top. And if anyone was in the path of the snowball, then they have to go back down. Let me check this other picture I have. Oh yeah, oh on, that's a ram. Where's the snowball? Snowball's up at the top. Yeah, you would trigger the snowball and if anybody's in the snowball's path they get … they'll be out of luck, which would be fun for you not the other person.

Then you could go direct to base camp one. There's also a hole where if you go into the cave, you come back out. And if you come out of the cave with a one, you land on, “Go ahead three spaces,” which would be 1, 2, 3, so then the next one is, “Go to base camp one.” The next is just a blue, empty space. The next one is out on a limb. Then snowball, so one opportunity to trigger the snowball. Then go again. Then if you land on the next one you get to go to bigger rock. Then again, if you land on the next one, you go to out on a limb. And then you can go straight or left. That would be people coming out of the cave or didn't get to advance to base camp one, that went left on the original path.

Now if you went right on the original path, at the first thing … Also, there's tons of again, background decorations. There's, at the cave exit, there's a … what is that called? Teddy Pooh. There's a turtle. There's trees. The turtle's very psychedelically 70s. There's a rabbit, a couple birds, a squirrel, a couple goats eating vegetation, definitely different vegetation, like straight out of even the 60s maybe, the way the trees and the plants look, like Beatles Yellow Submarine-esque. Okay, if you went right, you would end up … what is that? The first rock that you get to go on, which I guess wobbles. You'd go climb card, blue thing, and then … No, let me see if I can find one more image.

Okay, so you have … what do you call it? Oh, maybe out on a limb shakes the whole board? I'll have to read more about the game. If you go right, you go onto big rock, where there's … it looks like there's one space where you can get a climb card. Yeah, but other than that, it's 1, 2, 3, 4 hooks that you have to get through. And maybe when I examine the back of the board I'll be able to figure that out. But then you come out of the big rock. You have to go right. Let me switch … I have to switch them again and look at … There's even a phone booth. That's where you would call your mom, I guess, at base camp one. I just noticed that. Yeah, let's see what else. There's a lot going on on these boards.

Okay, if you went right, you could go again. Then you could … You would still go right to the climb card. A couple other blank space, and then I think you'd go to bigger rock. Let me see how the … the resolution on these games on the internet, of games nobody plays anymore isn't great. On this one I'm looking at, it looks like either bigger rock could totally tumble, or maybe, no, they just, whoever had that picture didn't put the game together right. Yeah, let's see what else we have here. But yeah, it looks like you would on that bigger rock. Which again, the same thing, if a board gets shaken, your rock could tumble. Then you get a chance to trigger another snowball.

If you took the two rocks, it is a faster way, I guess it's just riskier. Then you could send any member to the cave, which sends them from pretty far up out back to nearly the beginning. It gives you a last chance thing. Then here's another one, “Go ram watching”, which is a big beast on the other side of the board. A climber card. Then a blank space. “Go to base camp one.” And then you can go left or right if you don't land there. There's a blank space, then a climb card. Then “thin air”, where you lose your next turn. There's even one of those hounds that brings you hot cocoa up there. An eagle. Other birds. Other horned animals. Elevation is 81,000 feet, I think.

Yeah, then I think then you summit from that. If you went right, you could get a “Go down three spaces,” and then work your way to the summit. Yeah, let's work our way back to base camp one. Yeah, I think that's where we were before. Yeah. At base camp one, you could take a walkway up a narrow ledge. That goes to base camp two, which again, goes up to the climbing up onto bigger rocks. And there's even someone sleeping in base camp two, which is funny. If you go left, you could, like you're coming from the cave, you could go left or right. If you go left, you can do ram watching, which I think watches a ram knock other people off. Yeah, we'll go through that later. And then a climb card. A couple things. Out on a limb.

I think a couple places where you're in the path of the snowball. Then there's one that says, “Go into the cave.” The deep, dark cave, like the Deep, Dark Night on the podcast. And then you're back towards, getting closer to the summit. Now if you went the other way … I like how there's so many different possibilities. Well, I don't see any strategy. I could see why we replayed it so much now. The other way you get a climb card. “Go sunbathing on bigger rock.” Another one where you have to go on the cave. Another one where you could go left or right, and then you trigger the out on a limb.

One where you would move as your next turn. Another one where you could send any climber to the cave. The other way you would go towards bigger rock. And yeah, let me see. When you're in the lower part of the board, the ram is the one that could slide from left to right on a vertical slant and knock you off a bunch of spots on the board. And then on the upper left side of the board is where the snowball is. It starts near the snow person and could bump you. It goes in a little bit of a back and forth motion, which must have been fun to watch either one of those happen, if someone was in its path.

And then yeah, the rest is getting towards the summit. Then on the other side are the two rocks. I want to see if I can find anything with the back of the game though. Maybe that was over on Board Game Geek. Yeah, Board Game Geek does have a pretty cool four panel picture of the ram going … like an action shot of someone playing. There's even someone … There's a duck pond that I didn't see anywhere before. And another climber watching the ram with the binoculars. And yeah, the ram's making a move on another climber. Let's see what else we got here. That's the game. I know there's more of the back of the game somewhere. Maybe I can find it. It's teasing me here.

Out on limb. I still want to see how this out on a limb works. The cave is pretty straightforward. It's a chute that drops you to the bottom of the cave. And the out on a limb, I guess … I don't know if you flick it and it shakes both of those other rocks, clearly. If you do the out on a limb, you're shaking anyone near the other two rocks. It looks like they could go from vertical to horizontal. And the rocks … There are parts of the game board that are actually motion sensitive, I guess. And it looks like the out on a limb, maybe that's where the rubber band is. Let me see. No, but it's a slider I guess. It would slide those two things. Let's see. The rubber band's to make the flag go up.

And let's see what other pictures we got. Climb card. Abominable snow person. Yeah, I'm just trying to see if any other cool … There's a lot of cool art here I'll link to my research. But it's just funny, because it's stuff you forget about, and then you're like, man … but I guess now I'd wonder if the game had enough … it says it doesn't have strategy. I guess I would wonder if I would enjoy it. But I can see why I enjoyed it as a kid. I'm looking through here to see what else. There's some Ebay pictures. These are nice and detailed. It was just a nice, fun game. So I'm sure that it's probably a game, maybe that you had that maybe you played. Oh, here's an inside shot of the box. It's only of a corner of it, but it talks about the game board, how it actually moves. Again, some of the stuff we already talked about.

The object is to be the first player up the mountain. It talks about setting up the game, but then it's cut off. “Shuffle the 24 climbing cards.” It looked a little bit … looked in Ebay for more. But yeah, there's not really any more details. This is a fun thing. And I think when you think about how would I tell my own bedtime story, there might be another good place for you to start. It's tales of the tape, or board games you remember, or board games you do remember. If you really are in a situation, maybe where you're trying to get to sleep, or you're trying to help someone else get to sleep, just take a game, like S-O-R-R-Y. Why are the games all named like that? Think about T-R-O-U-B-L-E. Maybe change it up.

Okay, I'm going to tell you tonight about the game Good Livin'. It's the game of Good Livin'. No, well, maybe let me tell you about this game called Operator. Well, maybe not about that game. Let me tell you about the game Chutes and Ladders. No, then that's … Candy Land. Oh, I don't think … I think I looked at that, but I don't remember it. Let me tell you about the game Boggle. Okay, let's about one of those S-O-R-R-Y ones. You've got a slide. There's pieces, right? You set up your pieces at a start place or something. Everybody starts at a different corner. Then you just walk people through it, bit by bit, step by step, one step at a time.

Okay, and then you do this. What do you say? I think you roll dice in this one. And I don't think there's any cards. I think you're just rolling two die, or a pair of dice. And two people can't share a thing, so if you get a … or if you're on a slider, you have to go back to start. And then you're trying to get all of your pieces into the safety zone. And then to the ending place. And yeah, it can be F-R-U-S … but it's a fun game where you say, “Sorry, go back to start, buddy.” Maybe not board games, maybe we should … Maybe think about Scooch's board games, climbing the mountain where there was no strategy. So you just say, “Sorry, I landed on the snowball space. The snowball's got to go down. Hopefully it doesn't knock your piece off.”

For me, it was the idea of oh, if you do something up here, it'll impact something down there. It was just so … it brought me joy. It made me feel like I was already a part of technology. That's it. A little game from my youth. Oh What a Mountain! Oh, what a joy it is to put you to sleep. Thanks for listening.