Philosophy
Abraham Nathanson
November 26th, 1929 to June 6th, 2010
Abraham Nathanson, who at the age of 76 invented Bananagrams, a fast-moving letters-and-words game that became a runaway hit, died on Sunday at his summer house in Narragansett, R.I. He was 80 and lived in Cranston.
The cause was cancer, his daughter Rena said.
Mr. Nathanson hit on the idea for Bananagrams while playing Scrabble with his grandson and chafing at the slow pace of the game. “We need an anagrams game so fast, it’ll drive you bananas,” he recalled saying in an interview with The Boston Globe last year.
He came up with a game that combined the word-building aspect of Scrabble (but without the scoring or the board) and a beat-the-clock urgency.
In Bananagrams, players draw letters from 144 plastic tiles in a banana pouch and form words, crossword puzzle style, in a race to exhaust their tiles before their competitors can. The first player to use up his or her tiles and shout “Bananas!” wins. The average game lasts 10 to 15 minutes.
The game was a hit from the moment it made its debut at the London Toy Fair in 2006. It was named game of the year by the Toy Industry Association in 2009. More than three million Bananagrams games were sold last year.
Abraham Nathanson was born on Nov. 26, 1929, in Pawtucket, R.I., where his father sold fruit. After serving in the Army, he studied graphic and industrial design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn for about a year before returning to Pawtucket, where he and his brother Morris founded a commercial design studio.
Mr. Nathanson left the company to become a jewelry designer and bought a historic mill in Centerdale, where he established George Nathan Design. The company made graphics for bars, gift items and Executoys, a line of wooden gewgaws for the office desk.
Mr. Nathanson was divorced from his wife, Sandra, the designer of the Bananagrams banana pouch. In addition to his daughter Rena Nathanson of London, he is survived by two other daughters, Brenda Moore of Devon, Pa., and Dana Nathanson of East Providence, R.I.; two brothers, Morris, of Providence, and Nathan, of Pawtucket; a sister, Rachel Shuchman of Warwick, R.I.; and four grandchildren.
Bananagrams has spawned applications for iPhone and Facebook, a series of books published by Workman and two spinoff games: Appletters, a cross between dominoes and Bananagrams, and Pairs in Pears, a spelling game for children.
Bananagrams [Wikipedia]
- Spelling Bee And Scrabble Champions
Today is the climax of the national spelling bee. The field has been cut to fifty and the competition is heating up. But what should we think of the winner? If you win the Boston marathon or the Olympic 100 meter dash, you could rightly...
- Universality Of Games
Had a student in my logic class mude with some friends about the universality of games. It turns out that kids in the US, Burma, and Nepal all play both hide and seek and freeze tag. Their question was whether that was an indication that these games were...
- Deceased--chuck Foley
Chuck Foley September 6th, 1930 to July 1st, 2013 "Chuck Foley, Co-Creator of the Game Twister, Dies at 82" by Margalit Fox July 11th, 2013 The New York Times Chuck Foley, a game designer who helped inaugurate a craze that rivaled the hula hoop, scandalized...
- Scrabble Scandal
"The Case of the Stolen Blanks" The real story behind the cheating scandal at the National Scrabble Championship. by Stefan Fatsis August 17th, 2012 Slate I had just hung on for a 395-352 victory in Round 24 of the 2012 National Scrabble Championship...
- Charles Brace Darrow And A Most Popular Board Game
Charles Brace Darrow August 10th, 1889 to August 29th, 1967 Probably, the most popular board game. Charles Brace Darrow was an American inventor who designed the board game Monopoly. He had invented the game on 7 Mar 1933, though it was preceded by...
Philosophy
Deceased--Abraham Nathanson
Abraham NathansonNovember 26th, 1929 to June 6th, 2010
"Abraham Nathanson, Bananagrams Inventor, Dies at 80"
by
William Grimes
June 9th, 2010
The New York Times
by
William Grimes
June 9th, 2010
The New York Times
Abraham Nathanson, who at the age of 76 invented Bananagrams, a fast-moving letters-and-words game that became a runaway hit, died on Sunday at his summer house in Narragansett, R.I. He was 80 and lived in Cranston.
The cause was cancer, his daughter Rena said.
Mr. Nathanson hit on the idea for Bananagrams while playing Scrabble with his grandson and chafing at the slow pace of the game. “We need an anagrams game so fast, it’ll drive you bananas,” he recalled saying in an interview with The Boston Globe last year.
He came up with a game that combined the word-building aspect of Scrabble (but without the scoring or the board) and a beat-the-clock urgency.
In Bananagrams, players draw letters from 144 plastic tiles in a banana pouch and form words, crossword puzzle style, in a race to exhaust their tiles before their competitors can. The first player to use up his or her tiles and shout “Bananas!” wins. The average game lasts 10 to 15 minutes.
The game was a hit from the moment it made its debut at the London Toy Fair in 2006. It was named game of the year by the Toy Industry Association in 2009. More than three million Bananagrams games were sold last year.
Abraham Nathanson was born on Nov. 26, 1929, in Pawtucket, R.I., where his father sold fruit. After serving in the Army, he studied graphic and industrial design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn for about a year before returning to Pawtucket, where he and his brother Morris founded a commercial design studio.
Mr. Nathanson left the company to become a jewelry designer and bought a historic mill in Centerdale, where he established George Nathan Design. The company made graphics for bars, gift items and Executoys, a line of wooden gewgaws for the office desk.
Mr. Nathanson was divorced from his wife, Sandra, the designer of the Bananagrams banana pouch. In addition to his daughter Rena Nathanson of London, he is survived by two other daughters, Brenda Moore of Devon, Pa., and Dana Nathanson of East Providence, R.I.; two brothers, Morris, of Providence, and Nathan, of Pawtucket; a sister, Rachel Shuchman of Warwick, R.I.; and four grandchildren.
Bananagrams has spawned applications for iPhone and Facebook, a series of books published by Workman and two spinoff games: Appletters, a cross between dominoes and Bananagrams, and Pairs in Pears, a spelling game for children.
Bananagrams [Wikipedia]
- Spelling Bee And Scrabble Champions
Today is the climax of the national spelling bee. The field has been cut to fifty and the competition is heating up. But what should we think of the winner? If you win the Boston marathon or the Olympic 100 meter dash, you could rightly...
- Universality Of Games
Had a student in my logic class mude with some friends about the universality of games. It turns out that kids in the US, Burma, and Nepal all play both hide and seek and freeze tag. Their question was whether that was an indication that these games were...
- Deceased--chuck Foley
Chuck Foley September 6th, 1930 to July 1st, 2013 "Chuck Foley, Co-Creator of the Game Twister, Dies at 82" by Margalit Fox July 11th, 2013 The New York Times Chuck Foley, a game designer who helped inaugurate a craze that rivaled the hula hoop, scandalized...
- Scrabble Scandal
"The Case of the Stolen Blanks" The real story behind the cheating scandal at the National Scrabble Championship. by Stefan Fatsis August 17th, 2012 Slate I had just hung on for a 395-352 victory in Round 24 of the 2012 National Scrabble Championship...
- Charles Brace Darrow And A Most Popular Board Game
Charles Brace Darrow August 10th, 1889 to August 29th, 1967 Probably, the most popular board game. Charles Brace Darrow was an American inventor who designed the board game Monopoly. He had invented the game on 7 Mar 1933, though it was preceded by...