This Old-Timey Mad Libs Game Is All About Moving to the Big City

Plugging strange words and phrases into blank-filled narratives isn’t just the favorite Friday night occupation of your friends who are obsessed with “Cards Against Humanity.” In fact, the game concept dates back to before Mad Libs, and before even the dawn of the 20th century. Meet “Peter Coddle’s New York,” an 1880s board game that tackled the very modern predicament of the country bumpkin coming to the big city—an experience as ripe for parody then as it is today.

The game, manufactured by companies like McLoughlin Brothers and Parker Brothers (the creators of “Monopoly”), came with a few very important bits of paper. A slim pamphlet told the tale of Mr. Coddle’s trip to New York—minus a few vital phrases. Players used cards, printed with strange expressions (“a sloop load of clams,” “the president of the United States,” “a unicorn”) to fill in those blanks.