Funny Games

If there’s one thing guaranteed to enliven a dull sitcom (or even a great one), it’s a scene that locks two or more characters in combat across a table, playing a board or card game. Whether it’s ludo or Cluedo, poker or pontoon, the games people play in sitcoms allow writers to explore the competitiveness and pettiness of their characters in often hilarious detail.

“Should there not be some cards in here?”

One sitcom holds the record for the time its characters spend playing board games – Father Ted. With fathers Ted and Dougal having so much free time as priests, they spend much of it playing the likes of ludo, Cluedo, and snakes and ladders. (In the original Father Ted DVD commentary, writer Graham Linehan explained that he and co-writer Arthur Matthews ensured that Ted and Dougal played the most unskilled games.) When Ted thinks he’s finally about to play a game that challenges the old grey matter, chess, he has to concede to Dougal’s choice, Buckaroo.

“I think a turning point was when I got that tower-thingy”

Chess, the game of kings, allows sitcoms to explore that perennial sitcom theme – status. In the Frasier episode Chess Pains, Dr. Frasier Crane becomes fixated on the fact that his father, Martin, who he considers his intellectual inferior, beat him at chess. Frasier spends the rest of the episode trying to get a rematch with his father, even going to the length of setting off the smoke alarm to wake Martin up. Of course, not every household is as adept at chess as the Cranes. In the Bottom episode Culture, a TV-deprived Richie and Eddie fend off boredom across the chessboard. Unfortunately, Richie doesn’t know how to play and also has to use replacement pieces, which include frozen prawns, a ketchup bottle, and a Spider-Man figurine.

“It’s a word they made up to make shampoo sound important!”

Scrabble is another sitcom favourite, allowing characters to argue over the validity of words, whether it’s “Kwyjibo” in The Simpsons, “Jozxyqk” in Red Dwarf, or “Pro-V” in Spaced. In the Steptoe & Son episode Men of Letters (and in a similar vein to the aforementioned Frasier episode), Harold Steptoe gets frustrated at losing at Scrabble to his father, Albert, who chalks up triple-word scores with dirty words and profanities. This all comes to a head when Albert uses his colourful vocabulary to compile a crossword in the parish newsletter, which is impounded by the police for obscenity.

“I thought Del Boy might have something up his sleeve”

Steptoe also had one of the earliest poker storylines in a British sitcom, Full House, where Albert helps Harold win back his losses at the hands of a fixed game. The stakes are often high with poker games, sometimes putting the livelihood of the characters at risk. In the Only Fools and Horses episode A Losing Streak, Del Boy looks to have gambled away all his family’s belongings in a poker game against the cheating Boycie, only to ultimately reveal his winning hand with two pairs of aces. The machismo associated with poker also lets sitcoms explore the battle of the sexes, such as the Friends episode The One with All the Poker.

“Wouldn’t it be amazing if all this money was real?”

Monopoly has provided many a memorable sitcom scene, allowing Del Boy to take his mind off an escaped axe murderer and make a killing on the board, Fletcher and Blanco to cheat each other into a stalemate in Porridge, and Rik from The Young Ones to readily abandon his lefty principles to quickly demand payment as the owner of Old Kent Road. There’s also fun to be had with the doctoring of the Chance and Community Chest cards, from “Smash Rik over the head with the bank” to “Bart will defend you when other kids call you a nerd” in The Simpsons, as well as arguments over who gets to be the top hat.

“The card says, ‘Moops’”

Finally, there’s the general knowledge game that’s not so easy as pie or a piece of cake – Trivial Pursuit. A dinner party favourite, it tested the brainpower of yuppie-era Del Boy (who thought a female swan was called a BIC), and it even caused the hospitalisation of the obnoxious “bubble boy” in the titular Seinfeld episode, after an altercation with George Constanza over a misprinted answer in the History category.