A Dog and his Camel

 Sopwith Camel, that is. I am, of course, talking about America's dog, Snoopy! From 1950 to 2000, Charles "Sparky" Schultz brought a delightful world into our houses every day. Unlike a lot of comic strips, most of the characters were human, but the one animal never failed to steal the show! 

In 1970 Snoopy Mania was in full swing. He had been fighting the Red Baron in his imagination for a few years already when Milton Bradley decided to cash in on the craze. That was the year they released the simply named "Snoopy and the Red Baron Game." 

I happened to find a somewhat damaged copy at a thrift store. Here it is!

Here is the box. I think it might have been stored in a damp basement (even though there are very few basements in Texas)

The end panel has Snoopy uttering his signature phrase...

Upon opening the box, you see a lot of really fun looking plastic parts! Is that a Fokker D7 I see???

The instructions explain that this is really an extremely simple game. You try to catch white marbles that are "fired" at you and avoid blue ones. That's it. For real. 

Still, the game parts make up for some of the lack of game play. They really are pretty cool!

Looking down the business end of a marble chute...

The plane is cool, but unfortunately mine is missing the verticle stab. 

The Red Baron!!!

The "firing" chute. The big cardboard "sky" blocks the other player from seeing which marble is being played.

Ever wonder what the insides of Snoopy's doghouse looked like? Well, here you go!

Lucy doesn't seem to be too impressed...

...nor do Charlie Brown and Linus.

And here we have a sort of related shot of a recent Hot Wheels release... Just because.

So, this game looks great, but is it any fun? Well, sort of. It can be kind of exciting trying to catch the right marble because they come FAST and you have zero time to think about it! That being said, there really isn't too much to think about anyway, so it's kind of a wash. All in all, I'm glad I have it, but I don't like it enough to upgrade to a better example.

Still, it's a nice slice of a treasured part of childhood, and that's a big part of what this blog is about anyway!

Until next time, keep searching for treasure!