''The Grape Escape'' is a

board game A board game is a type of tabletop game that involves small objects () that are placed and moved in particular ways on a specially designed patterned game board, potentially including other components, e.g. dice. The earliest known uses of the ...

released in 1992 by

Parker Brothers Parker Brothers (known as Parker outside of North America) was an American toy and game manufacturer which in 1991 became a brand of Hasbro. More than 1,800 games were published under the Parker Brothers name since 1883. It remained family owne ...

(now

Hasbro Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational corporation, multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment holding company founded on December 6, 1923 by Henry, Hillel and Herma ...

) and licensed by Rehtmeyer Inc. The game was intended to entertain younger audiences of 5+ years old. In 2010, Hasbro released a game called ''Smashed Potatoes'' with the same game play, but with potatoes instead of grapes (probably because of Parker Brothers being part of Hasbro, who owns the rights to

Mr. Potato Head Mr. Potato Head is an American toy produced by Hasbro since 1952. It consists of a plastic model of a potato "head" to which a variety of plastic parts can attach; typically ears, eyes, shoes, hat, nose, mustache, pipe (1952–1987), pants (19 ...

). However, ''Smashed Potatoes'' was eventually discontinued. The game consisted of playing pieces constructed of various colored ''Grape Goop'' (

Play-Doh Play-Doh, also known as Play-Dough, is a modeling compound for young children to make arts and crafts projects. The product was first manufactured in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, as a wallpaper cleaner in the 1930s. Play-Doh was then rewor ...

Grape Escape instructions
from

) that were fashioned after grape-like action figures. Game play consisted of maneuvering clay playing pieces through several plastic obstacles on a board that were aimed to physically disfigure or decapitate the playing piece; destroying the ''Grape Goop'' figure often resulted in losing the game, but sometimes resulted in the affected player re-mold their ''Grape Goop'' figure using one of the included grape mold templates and returning to the start space. The obstacles included: crank/rubber band operated scissors, a steam roller, a large saw blade, and a

grape stomping A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus ''Vitis''. Grapes are a non- climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of grapes began approximately 8,00 ...

boot activated by lever and rubber band. (In Smashed Potatoes, the grape stomping boot was replaced with a french fryer.)

Game play

Each player rolls the die in turn. (In Smashed Potatoes, the die was replaced with a spinner.) They then move their grape the number of spaces indicated on a factory conveyor belt style board. The hazard stations are counted as a place as well. The ''Grape Leap'' roll allows the player to jump ahead one space of the grape in the lead. If a player rolls ''Turn Crank'' they can operate the apparatus and take out any grape on one of the four stations (in which case, the affected player must re-mold his or her grape piece and start over). Should a player land on the same place as an opponent's grape, that grape is pushed to the next hazard station. The first grape to reach the finish wins.

Advertising

''The Grape Escape'' was advertised primarily through television commercials aired during children's television programs. The commercials consisted of animated

claymation Claymation, sometimes called clay animation or plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop-motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine cl ...

figures being crushed or sliced while children played the game. The theme song was set to the tune of the Neapolitan song " Funiculì, Funiculà".

Remake

A new version of Grape Escape was released on January 1, 2022.https://www.amazon.com/Grape-Escape-Family-Modeling-Compound/dp/B0B72RSV66 It is mechanically much simpler than the original, as the hazards are all operated individually rather than interlinked by gears and rubber bands. Three of the four hazards have also been replaced, with only the stomping boot returning.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grape Escape, The Board games introduced in 1992 Children's board games Parker Brothers games Roll-and-move board games