Arriving in the same year as the movie spinoff, Clue, The VCR Mystery Game tapped into a market the world knew little about in 1985. Using only the general theme of the board game edition, this version entrusted players with the mission to solve murder cases as they unfolded on an included sixty-minute videocassette. The 'new' technology made the game a curiosity hit for a short time, but it's terribly dated by today's standards. Actually, most would argue that it wasn't very good to begin with.
I was only six when this thing hit the shelves, but still found myself strangely drawn to the spooky house in the box cover. My family received the game on Christmas of that year, and as I sat in a far corner watching them play, dueling feelings of intrigue and dread swarmed around my candy-coated soul. The game piqued my interest by being so unique, but when you're that young, simply hearing the word 'murder' sends you into fits of pants-pissing and despair. The VCR Mystery Game sat untouched in one of my parents' closets for all these years, and it wasn't until last night that I learned the awful truth: the only thing scary on that video was the acting.
If you're in a rush and don't want to read the forthcoming redundant adjectives and commentary that attempts to dwell in the realm of intense witticism, I'll sum it up: Clue fans will be disappointed on a massive level, but it's definitely worth picking up if only to laugh at how incredibly stupid the 'movie' is. I mean, I knew it wasn't going to be Casablanca, being a video included with a vague board game and all - but this thing went well beyond the call of duty. There's really not one single word to describe it, unless you'll consider 'stupidstupidstupid' a word sheerly for the necessity of extra emphasis.
WUT U GIT: 60-minute video, 14-page 'Detective Casebook,' a big huge pile of player sheets, and various sets of cards indicating also-various aspects of the game. Some of the cards contain playable characters, while others include remarkably incomprehensible instructions that could only be figured out by those with a lot of patience and the aid of wacky Star Trek android, Commander Data. For your convenience, the card types are differentiated by an intricate method of color-coding. The green ones are home runs. The black ones are oppressed. There was also a few used tissues from the mid-80s resting in the box, but I didn't include them in the photo spread since they don't really tie into the game. The tissues might be of historic significance to me personally, quite possibly the remnants of my first masturbatory mission with climactic spillage. It's yet to be determined. Might just be old snot.
Today's article features a closer look at this Family Fun Night entree of the past, complete with a mini-review of the enclosed video. Interested parties, keep in mind - it's very dated. If you decide to go out and find the thing, don't even think about anticipating any joy in playing it. Still fun for fun's sake though, and dealers practically give 'em away. You can land The VCR Mystery Game for five bucks or less, easy. Course, that five bucks could equate to a lot of Cinn*A*Burst gum, so consider the options before moving your rook there, pardnah.
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The quality level of the video is negligible at best. Honestly, my sixth grade class's adaptation of Our Town had a higher budget, and the only guy in it was the surrogate Spanish teacher. The picture is grainy, the sound is sometimes muffled, and I promise, this isn't just because the tape is a few decades old. There's a number of laughable 'sound effects,' including some thunderclaps created with a strobe light and an edited recording of an electronic Hallmark Halloween greeting card.
Worst of all, you really can't play the game correctly by watching the tape straight through. You've gotta fast-forward, rewind, pause, rewind, fast-forward again, and sometimes, you'll even need to buy an entirely new game since the black recording tape is so brittle that most VCRs slice through it like buttaz yo. There's actually three separate games on the tape, each consisting of five different chapters, so sorting through it is probably a little more effort than most people wanted to spend. But hey, it's from Parker Brothers, so it's gotta be good!
There's 'Didit,' the house's butler and your living tutorial. Didit's job is to explain the rules of the game, what to do and what not to do, all with a lisp so pronounced that you'd swear the Energizer Bunny was about to waltz onscreen, proving the entire video to be one of those cleverly disguised mockumericals. He even manages to lisp through words that have no lispy connotations, ultimately bringing the lispcount up to such levels that I'd be surprised if Clue didn't get in the Guinness Book somewhere because of it.
Didit is quick to point out that everyone in the video is a potential murderer or victim...except him. My, someone's got a little accusatory paranoia complex there. C'mon Didit, I saw you looking at that lead pipe. I saw the hate in your eyes as you took Fat Colonel Mustard's oversized raincoat. I saw you rip the housecat's head off and drink the still-warm blood from its severed neck. The whole world saw it, Didit. We know the truth. You did it.
GET IT? DIDIT DID IT? DIDIT DID IT! DIDIT DID IT! DIDIT DIDIT DID IT DID IT! Bigboy didit. Big Boy did it. I always loved the water cooler/audio recording device shaped like a polar bear. Didit did it.
Listhsp aside, Didit has the unenviable task of explaining the rules of the game to us. To accomplish this, he unleashes a mind-blowing rampage of Clue facts and quick cutaways so indecipherable and full of subliminal messages that my eyes and ears hopped off my head, grabbed paper and marker, scribbled feverishly, and held up their new sign reading 'Stop The Torment.' My body parts are pretty smart. And rashy. Seriously, the instructional assault is just unreal. It's completely impossible to comprehend what he's saying, but by the time you think you're on track, he's already onto something else entirely. Keep in mind, the producers afforded the freakin' scrolling end credits a runtime of about ten minutes. Didit's got to describe one of the most intricate and ridiculous games ever in a span of 42 seconds. I could barely let out a simple 'turn the Clue tape off, please' in that timeframe. The guy who played Didit must've demanded a really high hourly wage.
I won't bother reiterating the directions, and it'd be impossible for me to anyway since I have absolutely no idea how the game is supposed to be played. I think I have most of it down, but the feat is nowhere finessed enough to warrant placement on my resume. I'd wing it if my life depended on it, so it's fortunate that very few people in the world will seek to put a gun to my head for a tutorial on Clue, The VCR Mystery Game. Didit did it.
Onto the story. There's some noticeable changes from the board game/movie, notably a few added characters. More on them in a minute. All of the old weapons are present, ranging from a simple rope to an elegant revolver, and even a lead pipe because that's the first thing you go for in a room full of guns and knives. I can't provide our usual style of start-to-finish movie reviewing because there's actually three different stories, and besides, even I have my limits. Good for you, Clue. I was able to withstand giving a play-by-play of a film involving a possessed doll trying to perform voodoo rituals on eight-year-olds, but I can't do you. If any of the trophies I had were covered in animal shit or mysterious white powder, I'd give 'em to you.
Anyway, the fellow shown above is the alleged lawyer of the estate, Monsieur Brunette. He wears a jewel-encrusted eye patch! Using a French accent so terrible he might as well be wearing one of those Italian flag wifebeaters, Brunette has gathered all the friends of the late Mr. Body to provide the details of his will. Mr. Body's 'friends' are surprised at the gesture, all agreeing that they treated the guy like crap. When the will is read, everything becomes clear: all of Mr. Body's riches will go to the last-living person in the room. He even has a written suggestion that they try to kill each other off! Is that legal? Looking about as inconspicuous as a guy with a goose taped to his forehead, all of the characters sneakily grab different weapons and prepare for a night they'll never (moo hoo ha ha?) forget.
Clue, the movie version, was a box office success and remains a huge cult hit today. It's one of those flicks you can just watch over and over again, endlessly, and never once think about hitting the remote to see if that infomercial where the cheese and strawberries get shrink-wrapped is on a different channel. The movie was very true to its roots, even supplying multiple endings to illustrate one of the major plot points of the board game. That's not the reason people enjoyed it, though. It just had an amazing cast, filled with the few gems of Hollywood's B-side, crafting a film that maintained its humor and intrigue from start to finish. That's all bullshit - I like it because Tim Curry talks about monkey brain soup on multiple occasions.
Point is, fans of the movie are going to be even more disappointed with this video than normal people who don't dream of Lesley Ann Warren's 'Miss Scarlett' at night. These are bad, bad, BAD actors. 'Miss Peach,' one of the series newbies, was portrayed by some southern drawl-feigning schmuck who effectively redefines 'schmuck' as 'person you should kill.' It gets worse. The movie indulges in the strange notion that it's capable of pulling off comedy. At one point, Mr. Green, large Mr. Green, hands out business cards to the other partygoers. The punchline is that, in an effort to keep his true identity a secret, the listed his line of work on his card is simply 'Business.' HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA MIGHT BE A HUMOR. How anyone could've played this game more than once is beyond me, since that'd entail additional viewings of the Movie That Killed Hollywood. Here's some of the other characters and storyline points...
There's Mrs. White, the house's maid and proof that old lady genocide wasn't a completely flawed idea. After serving each of the characters color-coded white wine, White drifts off into a world of insanity for the remainder of the film. See, I think I've got it figured out. Nobody ever said that actors had to be particularly intelligent, and a quick look at the cast of The Pallbearer proves it. I don't know the name of the person who played Mrs. White, but the damn girl is a damn fool. The character's secret trait is that she's colorblind, but I think the actress took the meaning of the handicap a little too far by acting completely and utterly retarded. I don't mean 'retarded' as in 'stupid,' mind you, but rather the flat-out, all-out, mouth-droolin', tongue-swirlin', eyes-a-crossin' ass of the asylum.
Notice the 'kitchen' subtitle. For your convenience, every time someone enters a room, those kinds of titles will pop up to let you know the setting. And yes, I do mean every time. Even if you've already seen the kitchen 4,000 times, the makers of Clue had to be sure. They didn't want you to mistake all the salad tossing and beef slicing as a billiards room activity. They really cared. Didit did it. Wearing an outfit sexy enough to make a gorilla look attractive and still managing to appear haggard, Mrs. White's acting abilities have caused many a family to stop celebrating religious holidays.
Ah, it's Miss Scarlett! I forgot to mention it earlier, but anyone with any kind of nationality traits was forced to overplay the usual stereotypes to the degree where poor Scarlett actually says 'HI-YA! doing?' while greeting the other characters. When I was six, I thought she was pretty hot. Keep in mind, I also swore that red construction paper had a distinct cherry taste when I was six. Nah, she's actually one of the only likable characters. Wait, no - the only likable character. Didit almost started to grow on me until he figured out a way to lisp through the word 'clue,' an unfortunate occurrence only amplified by the fact that he said it 55,000 times.
Miss Scarlett didn't have any real angle in the mystery, aside from a small connection to Colonel Mustard. But then again, who isn't connected to Colonel Mustard? Her landmark scene? As the cast waits out the perils of an outside storm by watching television, Scarlett shoots the screen with that big glorious gun. Completing the stereotypes, she then pries a rusty nickel out from under the couch with chopsticks before proclaiming that it's 'good fortune.' I hate Clue.
There's Madame Rose, who wants to hold a seance with all of the other characters in an effort to summon the spirit of somebody or another. I think she might own the house now too, but admittedly, I was more interested in the crack in my ceiling that looked exactly like the San Andreas Fault than what was on the television by this point. Madame Rose, and I'm not kidding when I say this, carries around and talks to a giant stuffed teddy bear who telepathically suggests that she kills the others. God, and I thought watching my grandfather die a slow and painful death was tough. This is just absolutely unbelievable. It's like the Parker Brothers' evil rogue mystery brother suddenly reappeared after a twenty-year absence to stake a claim in the empire and put out really shitty games.
As mentioned, all of the classic weapons are here, plus a few others. Professor Plum's jar of poison was a favorite amongst the guests, being passed around like a ship-in-a-bottle and sprinkled onto every piece of food in the house, plus some of the furniture. Professor Plum goes wild after finding out what everyone's trying to use his clearly labeled bottle of poison for, which begs the question of why he'd tote a jar of lethal poison to an estate hearing to begin with. For those curious, the guy playing Plum couldn't hold a candle to Christopher Lloyd, mainly because the candle's candlestick was currently being fondled and pet in an oh-so-secretive display by Mrs. Peacock on the sofa.
In another key moment, Monsieur Brunette fills his sleeves with the poison before making a messy attempt to evenly distribute it into bowls of clam chowder right in front of his would-be victims. 'Monsieur' is such a deceptive salutation, you'd think it was only reserved for well traveled supergeniuses. At best, Brunette only deserved a 'Mister.'
There's Sergeant Gray's birthmark, shaped like a candlestick. According to a footnote in the will, that means that he's the actual heir to the Body throne, and the true owner of the family riches. Still, for some reason, Gray says nothing as one of the other characters presents a crudely drawn-on candlestick birthmark before seizing the treasures. Cops shouldn't be afraid to speak up. I haven't worn socks like that since I was too ugly to care what I looked like.
Finally, there's Mrs. Peacock and Colonel Mustard. I don't have much to add to that, but if Bea Arthur was ever cast in a movie that called for her to get piefaced by a brick covered in whipped cream, I think she's found her stunt double.
As you watch the film, you're supposed to stop the tape at the end of each chapter to deal a round a cards. You've also gotta fill out your investigation sheet as you go along, figuring out the potential murderer by process of elimination. Sadly, since Didit rushed through the tutorial with the fervor of someone who really had to take a piss, I was left uneducated to the wild and woolly ways of the dreaded investigation sheet. Here's how mine turned out...
The game ends when someone makes a correct accusation. If you're wrong, you're forced to sit out the rest of the game with nothing to do but make fun of Mrs. Peacock's broach. There's a lot of rules to the game, and you'll have to endure a lot of shit to play it. Kinda pointless since it's no fun to go through again once you've seen the tape already. They gave it an honest shot by including three totally different mysteries, but Clue's VCR game could in no way be construed a critical success.
By the way, the Detective Casebook also contains an index of all the case solutions, in a light blue font blocked out by an overlapping deep red 'Clue,' written over and over again. You can only unmask the answers by using the included decoder, which wasn't unlike the red strip of translucent paper that gave away the secrets of an Autobot's tech specs...
My family lost the encoder somewhere along the way, so it's a good thing I kept those 3-D glasses from Captain EO. You know, seeing Captain EO was a lot more fun than playing Clue, The VCR Mystery Game. Then again, so is standing between two mirrors and ripping off the skin on my back to see if it's possible to view my spinal cord. Final Grade: D-minus. I'm reserving the unforgiving 'F' in the event that I ever review Electronic Candy Land.
