Skittle Bowl!

With apologies and sympathy to Michele for her tale of 1971 Christmas woe, the story inspired me to remember my “Santa gift” from that year, which happened to be one of my all-time favorites.

Skittle Bowl was all the rage those days, with an aggressive marketing campaign (featuring Don Adams of Get Smart fame) aimed squarely at boys who were still buying comic books (yep, that was me). It was (and is) a lot of fun, without there being a great amount of skill involved (well, some). Aim and swing the ball, let it do all the work, and as Billy Welu used to say during telecasts of the PBA tour, "hit 'em thin and watch 'em spin."

The following year, Skittle Pool was under the tree, and it was almost as fun. In fact, I remember my cousin and I playing 42 games on Christmas Day (ending in a 21-21 tie), while watching the famous Miami-Kansas City double-overtime NFL Playoff Game (the one featuring the infamous shank by Jan Stenerud, who probably never missed another 31-yarder in his life). After than came an increasingly unlikely set of games based on the “skittle” theme, including Skittle Horseshoes, Skittle Poker, and Skittle Tic-Tac-Toe. By the mid-seventies the flame had burned out, and the games pretty much disappeared from view.

I still have both games, and they’re in close to mint condition. Next week, I’ll be bringing Skittle Bowl to the office, where we’ll have ourselves a little tournament at lunchtime. Lucky for me, with all the electronic scoring in modern bowling alleys, I may be the only one who actually knows how to keep score.