Board game:Green Ghost Game

During the 1960s the toy industry saw a rise in the use of plastics in toy and game manufacturing. The material was molded or cast into a myriad of new shapes and colors--ideal for toy design. Post-war affluence, together with television advertising increasingly aimed at children themselves, helped boost toy sales beyond previous records. In 1965 Transogram of New York produced the Green Ghost board game, marketed as the first glow-in-the-dark game. Certain of the game's components, especially the clever spinner, exhibited phosphorescence because of the addition of strontium aluminate to the plastic before molding. This material was most often used to produce glowing toys and novelties of the era. Though Green Ghost was basically a standard spin-and-move game with several clever twists, it sold well for many years. The game's humor was drawn from the 1960s-era comedy/horror genre typified by Charles Addams' comic The Addams Family, and the media spin-offs it inspired. Marx Toys assumed production of Green Ghost after 1970, and produced a revival of the original game in 1997. Original vintage versions of Green Ghost are highly prized by collectors.