Monster of the Day #3153

Updated on December 22, 2020 By Ken Begg 21 Comments

Still doing your last minute Christmas (sorry Doctor Who, Festive) shopping? Why, nothing says kiddie fun like a game based on a national trauma-inducing horror film, complete with human skull. I mean, the culture is far more saturated with dark humor these days–hence the Jaws video game where you actually play the shark and horrible eat people–but back in the day this seemed really quite weird. There’s also a more recent licensed, more traditional board game that included Brody, Hooper and Quint as characters.

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  • Beckoning Chasm

    A board game? Wow, I knew Jaws was a phenomenon, but I had no idea it had gotten into board games. I don’t even think Star Wars had a board game (though I’m probably wrong).

  • kgb_san_diego

    Wrong you are indeed. You would not BELIEVE what has been made into games! :-)

    As to the Jaws game, I was dead smack in the middle of the intended audience. I was 8 when it was released. I got one as a present and played it for years, and actually kinda loved it.

  • I dimly remember this toy, though I know we didn’t have it as kids. Instead, we had Alligator, which may or may not have been based on the movie. Basically the same thing, but with a bigger mouth.

    Speaking of board games, there are several new ones out on shelves this year based on movies. There’s a Top Gun one, a Back to the Future, and even one based on The Shining, of all things.

    On all of this, we also have out there a game called Horrified where players face off against Universal Monsters. This one tempts me quite a bit, as it can be played solo.

    I assume all of these can be ordered off Amazon or found in your local game store. I know for a fact Walmart carries them, as I saw all of this at mine.

    Gads, I’m such a shill. Why aren’t I getting paid for this I don’t know.

  • Wade Harrell

    I had this game and I LOVED it as a kid! I wasn’t allowed to see the actual movie (I was like 8) but I wanted any bit of Jaws merch I could get my hands on.

  • Eric Hinkle

    I had this as a Jaws game as a kid and I loved it.

    I even seem to recall a very early video game at the arcades that had you as a shark eating people. Or was it hunting sharks?

  • Gamera977

    Well, there were at least two arcade games where you played a shark and ate people. 1980’s ‘Shark Attack’ by Pacific Novelty Manufacturing was the better known. You played a shark complete with ‘CHOMP’ button and had to eat a series of divers before they shot you with spear guns. There’s a few videos of game play on YouTube.

    ‘Shark’ by U.S. Billiards in 1975 I wasn’t able to find as much information about. Seemed you played a shark and had to navigate a maze to eat a swimmer.

    There was a shark game in ‘Jaws’, not sure what game, I need to rewatch the movie to check. I’d assume it’s the latter game as the former wouldn’t have fit the time frame.

  • Gamera977

    I have to laugh that someone, I think it was Kenner licensed the alien xenomorph from the movie ‘Alien’ and brought it out in toy form. You didn’t see a lot of adult collectors back in the late ’70s so yeah it was a kiddie toy based on a ‘R’ rated movie.

  • Ken_Begg

    It was this huge figure that cost like $100 back in the ’80s. And yes, it was still basically aimed at kids because it was selling in Toy ‘R Us and whatnot. I remember Siskel and Ebert castigating the toy on At the Movies back in their moral scold period.

  • Ken_Begg

    There’s a Godzilla set for (of course) Monopoly, but at $50 it’s a bit rich for my blood. I think because of Kickstarter etc. a lot of independent companies are making licensed games. Funco’s game division has a chintzy looking Godzilla game called Toyko Bash. It makes me cry because, man, what Sandy Petersen could have made had he the rights.

  • Ken_Begg

    I’m pretty sure it the one where you shot sharks with a spear gun. I used to play that at the arcade because it was one of the only games slow enough that I wasn’t knocked out in five seconds.

  • Gamera977

    Wow, I didn’t know it sold for a hundred bucks! Looking at an inflation calculator that’s $429.42 by modern standards- I know my parents would have told me to keep on looking- no way I’d be getting that for Christmas.

  • Someone probably ought to tell Hasbro that not everything needs to have their own Monopoly game.

    Speaking of Godzilla, Toho has given rights to some new merchandise for the big guy which includes games. Hopefully reasonably price, reasonably made things.

  • Maybe not the same one, but my brother had an Alien figure when we were kids. He used it to chase one of our cousins around the place with.

  • Ken_Begg

    Gamera977: Maybe I am misrembering that. Maybe I’m thinking of the price after the toy failed and you could only get one on the secondary market. It was a large figure, 12 or 14 inches, though, with a projecting inner mouth. Siskel and Ebert really vented their spleen on it. (To be fair to them, toys were made for kids back then, although man they were pretty censor happy with slasher films and whatnot.)

  • Ken_Begg

    I assume Hasbro makes money off of all those, so apparently everything DOES need to have their own Monopoly game.

  • Eric Hinkle

    It has to have cost less than $100 when originally sold, because I remember having one of them and no way would my parents have spent that much money on a toy. We were not rich.

  • Eric Hinkle

    I’ve seen bits and piece of a home computer Jaws game which seems truly bizarre. You play the shark, for one thing, and you get stronger by eating people in graphic style. It ends with the shark fighting it out with a Coast Guard cutter after practically depopulating Amity island. And the shark sinks the ship by spitting torpedoes at it!

  • Sadly a very valid point

  • The Rev.

    Oddly enough, we just watched this last night. That game is “Killer Shark.”

  • The_Shadow_Knows

    I remember that Alien toy, although I never had one. I believe it originally cost something in the neighborhood of what the large Kenner Star Wars dolls (some of which I did have) cost – 15 or 20 bucks. God knows what collectors were willing to pay once it went off the market.

  • Eric Hinkle

    That price sounds about right from what I remember.