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Memory Monday - Electronic Detective

Updated: Aug 1

I LOVED this game. I’ll probably say that a lot when I talk about my Monday Memories.


In second grade, my friend Roya and I were secret spies. I was Agent 86 and she was Agent 99….we loved the television show Get Smart! This was 1975 and Get Smart was in reruns…at 2:00 am…yes 7-year-olds stayed up LATE to watch Get Smart reruns! It was then that I must have developed my love of Don Adams. And now in 1979, he was on the cover of a detective game! (I would later learn from my toy and game collecting that Don Adam’s was the pitch man for some iconic games of the 70s and 80s! Maybe more about that in the future.)


Electronic Detective was the “ultimate ‘Who-Done-It’ game, where 1-4 players combine human deductive reasoning with advanced computer logic to solve over 130,000 totally different murder mysteries.” Remember this was the 70s and 80s when computer logic was amazing!


I got to be a detective! Look out Hercule Poirot or Jane Marple, Mark was on the case! I should also say that I have a thing for Agatha Christie, not that kind of thing, but, well I have A LOT of her books, a few first editions in the Museum collection, but that’s for another day!


“Bang! Bang! Shots ring out in the big city. A body lies alone at the docks. The funeral dirge sounds. 19 colorful characters at the scene of the crime flee to other parts of town. As one of the “private eyes” assigned to the case, you must interrogate these suspects. Players compete, using logic and deduction, to be first to identify the murderer.”


Uptown, downtown, midtown…where could the murder have escaped! I was bound to solve the case and put that culprit behind bars!

Sometimes the police siren rang out indicating I had successfully solved the crime. Other times, well, shots rang out…I had failed. The murder got away. I didn’t like to lose.


It’s funny how we connect to our fond memories of our past. For me, it was television show from the 60s, a goofy spy character, a memory of a 2nd-grade friend, a love of mystery books…the list could go on. My hope is that you’ll find a fond connection to your past, present or future from the depths of my museum collection!

 

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