{"id":11645,"date":"2020-04-16T05:00:45","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T05:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=11645"},"modified":"2020-04-13T19:41:12","modified_gmt":"2020-04-13T19:41:12","slug":"pop-culture-schlock-at-rpm-exhibit-j-duran-duran-board-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=11645","title":{"rendered":"POP CULTURE SCHLOCK at RPM: Exhibit J – Duran Duran board game"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Good day to you, RPM-people – I hope this finds you well in somewhat troubled times. At time of writing I find myself at the start of some annual leave from my (key worker) day job, catching up on some isolation entertainment: the beauty of having a vast collection of physical media, I guess.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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My recent reading has been music-related: the fabulous new \u2018Broken Greek\u2019 autobiography from music journalist, Pete Paphides; Garth Cartwright\u2019s chronicle of the UK record shop, \u2018Going For A Song\u2019; and \u2018Talking To Girls About Duran Duran\u2019, the coming of age book from Rolling Stone\u2019s Rob Sheffield. It\u2019s the latter that inspired this month\u2019s column and had me digging into the Pop Culture Schlock archive for a particular item…<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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After the 1970s gifted the rock \u2018n\u2019 pop culture-savvy consumer with dolls\/action figures of\u00a0everyone from KISS to Cher to Andy Gibb, you\u2019d have thought that the 1980s, forever carrying a \u201cbigger, bolder, brasher\u201d tag, would have upped the ante considerably; the post-Star Wars\u00a0merchandisers giving Walrus Man\u2019s right arm for the rights to make small, plastic likenesses of some of the most iconic music stars ever. But, the Michael Jackson and Boy George dolls (no fear of an \u2018action figure vs doll\u2019 debate concerning the latter) from LJN Toys aside, toy\u00a0companies fumbled the ball when it came to immortalising music stars of the decade into toys for children to play with, and for grown men to hoard. Ahem.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Imagine a Barbie-style \u201980s Madonna doll with a bazillion Action Man\/GI Joe-esque costume\u00a0changes? It would take that dodgy Dick Tracy movie in 1990 to finally get a miniature Madonna Louise Ciccone into consumer\u2019s hands. Imagine Duran Duran dolls at the peak of their\u00a0mid-eighties stardom with a bazillion costume change options: from their pastel-coloured\u00a0designer suits to sub-Road Warrior post-apocalyptic garb. It would take, crazily when you really think about it, until the dawn of this decade for Funko to finally capture Duran Duran in their full \u201980s pomp as part of its Pop! Rocks vinyl figure line. These were released in the same wave as the retro Def Leppard Pop! Vinyls which featured one of the company\u2019s most quirky figures – the one-armed Rick Allen figure. I\u2019m sensing a theme here… But I digress.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"\"<\/a>I love Duran Duran. Can\u2019t help it. I\u2019m sure the band is a guilty pleasure for many a rock fan: John Taylor\u2019s bass playing, Andy Taylor\u2019s guitar, etc. – but guilty you should not feel when you feel the love for Duran Duran. Three things jump out of my memory banks when I think back to how DD infiltrated my rock leanings: the charity gig the band played at Villa Park, the home of football, in 1983 that even saw them feature prominently on the cover and centrespread of an Aston\u00a0Villa match programme; the music video for \u2018The Wild Boys\u2019 debuting on the BBC on Hallowe\u2019en night in 1984 as they tried to compete with MTV; the sounds of \u2018Arena\u2019, the album from which that classic single came, pumping out of my sister\u2019s bedroom… on cassette. This column, of course, is dedicated to pop culture collectables and, though a tsunami of wholly unofficial\u00a0merchandise swirled around the band\u2019s success – annuals, postermags, badges, photo patches, those particularly classy screen-printed silk scarves – actual official items were in shockingly short supply. Topps, famed trading card producers, released a 33-card Duran Duran card line in 1985 complete with stickers and stick of gum (I have a sealed pack in my collection, 35-year-old\u00a0bubblegum forever calling to me, siren-like, in a quest to snap my teeth at the friggin\u2019 roots), but it would take The Milton Bradley Company, the American board game manufacturer founded in 1860, to be brave\/cool enough to dip a tucker-booted toe into the depths of the band\u2019s chart success to produce the ultimate official piece of Duran Duran merchandise.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u2018Duran Duran: Into The Arena\u2019 was released by MB Games in 1985 and it remains one of the\u00a0ultimate pieces in any rock \u2019n\u2019 pop memorabilia collection. A true objet d\u2019pop. Right up there with 1978\u2019s KISS on Tour, this board game, if you are lucky enough to have one (guilty, sorry), will mean so much to you, like a birthday or a pretty view. Getting one of these games these days, though, is about as easy as a nuclear war. If you\u2019ve already Googled how much they go for you\u2019ll already understand what I\u2019m on about. This is not a pop pissing contest, however – this is a celebration!<\/div>\n
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Almost every Internet search for \u2018Into The Arena\u2019 for research purposes furnished me with beige articles about the actual gameplay of this vintage toy par excellence. That, my friends, is even too nerdy for someone like me! To me, this board game is one of the ultimate shelf pieces – meant to be looked at, to be adored, marvelled over. Okay, I\u2019ll admit that a games night where chauffeur-driven chums laden with cans of Tizer and Top Deck limeade and lager arrived for an evening of Eighties pop-related faux combat sounds appealing, but until then I\u2019ll just look at this game and love the fact that I have it.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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That aforementioned gameplay? Go on, then. Two to four players start off in the outer circle of the game board. The aim is to collect five matching pairs of disc cards – the cards featuring the group\u2019s most popular singles! Each matching pair provides the player with a matching video card for the respective song. Once the player has made their five matches, they are bumped-up, good-looking girl at a concert-style, to the inner circle. There, they must collect and play band member cards (Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes, Taylors Andy, John, and Roger for those\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
readers new to Planet Earth), each with a different scoring value. There\u2019s a Duran Duran Wild Card in there too, and a points subtraction thing, with the winner being the lucky mofo whose added video- and band member-card totals are the highest.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Actually playing a vintage board game aside, the thing looks fabulous: Arena-like graphics\u00a0everywhere; classic singles artwork reproduced on their respective cards; stills from epic music videos captured on theirs; the band members in all their teen idol glory on crescent-shaped cards that just feel more decadent than the usual oblong cards in your common or garden board game, somehow. There\u2019s even a cardboard insert featuring a great band shot from \u2018The Wild Boys\u2019 photo shoot which doubles as a place to pile the game cards, but also carries a great\u00a0little history of the band from 1980 to the end of 1984.<\/div>\n
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Rule #32: Enjoy the little things. You don\u2019t need me to tell you that we are currently living in\u00a0unprecedented times. People that have been a part of my story are no longer with us and, no matter how or why, we find ourselves in an uncertain place where every day feels like a fucking test. If you surround yourselves with the things you love then life, in any circumstances, always seems that little bit more manageable. And it\u2019s never too late to start accumulating stuff – any stuff, just stuff that makes you feel better in whatever way. Trust me, I\u2019m a master of stuff.<\/div>\n
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When this shit is all over we\u2019ll have ourselves a Duran Duran board game night – you bring the Tizer…<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Stay safe, stay sensible, stay beautiful.<\/div>\n
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Follow Pop Culture Schlock on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a><\/div>\n
Author: Gaz Tidey<\/div>\n
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Good day to you, RPM-people – I hope this finds you well in somewhat troubled times. At time of writing I find myself at the start of some annual leave from my (key worker) day job, catching up on some isolation entertainment: the beauty of having a vast collection of physical media, I guess. My […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11659,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[492,2113,4803,2281,2266],"class_list":["post-11645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature","tag-duran-duran","tag-gaz-tidey","tag-pop-culture","tag-pop-culture-schlock","tag-pop-culture-schlock-365","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11645"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11663,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11645\/revisions\/11663"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}