Tyrannosaurs Make Funky Dancers: cheap games alert for UK readers – Woolworth’s is selling off Chad Valley toys on a Buy One Get One Half Price offer. Since Chad Valley are already the Kwik-Save of the kids’ games world this represents excellent value, particularly as CV games seem to have a crude but robust imaginativeness that Tomy and MB lack (though I’ll admit to being tempted by Screwball Scramble).
For my friend’s birthday I bought a couple of likely-looking games. All CV toys seem to be based on really sticking puns – first up was Wok’N’Roll which I admit was bought on title alone. It consists of a grinning plastic wok which moves around the table at alarming speed when batteries are added – this wok is filled with bits of ‘food’ which then have to be snatched by players armed with plastic tongs. This game is terrific fun though if played by real children would result in tears and fisticuffs – there is much opportunity for barging and at least one player (a grown married man I may say) threw a tantrum and knocked the food out of the wok rather than submit his pathetic scores to scrutiny.
Marvellous though this game is it is eclipsed by the grandeur of T Rocks. Much as Wok’N’Roll involved a rolling wok, so T-Rocks is based around a rocking T-Rex. The game is a Don’t Tip The Waiter variant with elements of Operation! – you place tyrannosaur bones on the spine of a T-Rex skeleton which goes ‘BEZERK!’ when the weight becomes too much. Bezerkness involves him waggling from side to side, swinging his arms and making an Eee-eee-eee! noise. This is a source of stupendous entertainment and as Alan pointed out conforms to actual science too – the real T Rex did keep its body near to the ground, rather than rearing up as Jurassic Park and Dinosaur Top Trumps would have it. I am not so sure it made that particular noise however.