I saw the chicken first. I was perusing the tables at an auction house when I came across a game board with a large brown hen. It looked like something out of a carnival or state fair – one of those games in which you tried to toss a ball into an opening hoping but knowing you’d never win.
Lying beside the game was a round tin containing a black plastic gun, darts and a plastic white egg. I realized that the key was not to toss something into the hole, but to shoot the red dot on an egg on the front of the board. It was obviously a child’s game because of its size, but the required skills mimicked carnival/state fair games of chance.
The game was called “Knickerbocker Mother Hen Target,” with painted images of a hen, barn and lush green yard on a tin surface. The paint was almost as fresh and clean as the day it was bought.
About a week later, I stumbled upon a ball-toss game among items on the back lot of another auction house. Made of stiff paper, it bore the face of a clown whose mouth was a large round hole – presumably making it a bit easier to score. There were two of them, and they seemed to have been out in the sun too long because the light colors on the clowns’ faces had faded.
Neither of these games were likely replicas of carnival/state fair games, but they were games of chance, which make up a large portion of the entertainment at those events. Games of chance have long had a bad reputation because many were rigged – and some still are – and no one playing them had a chance. Local and state governments, however, have enacted some rules in an attempt to make them a bit more honest.
These types of games date back to the 19th century with the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and traveling shows. Along with its cultural exhibitions, the fair offered burlesque, Wild West shows and others on an avenue to itself. Traveling shows helped spread the entertainment throughout the country. One former carnival worker noted that the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s were the heyday for carnivals, which served as a poor man’s source of fun.
The worst of the state fair/carnival games were in vogue during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. One was the “Hit Me Hard” game that featured the face of a broadly smiling black boy with a large hole as his mouth, and “Chuck,” with two players trying to throw watermelon-shaped discs into a wide mouth.
The most barbaric, called the “African Dodger” game, was around up until the 1940s. Players paid for a chance to throw three baseballs at the head of a black figure. It was similar to the other throwing games, except that the target was alive. For 69 cents, fair-goers could also purchase it as a table game, which bore the image of a caricature of a black man’s face. These games were among several with black people as targets.
The games at auction were more sane. The hen game required kids to load the plastic eggs into a metal container on the back of the board, and shoot a dart at the red dot on the hard plastic egg on the front. If they hit the dot, an egg would pop out of the opening located in the same spot as it would on a real chicken, and drop into a paper basket.
This game was missing its basket, which would hang from hooks at the bottom front. The game was also missing more of its eggs, along with a tiny white piece in the back that was activated when the dot was struck.
The hen game was made from the 1950s to mid-1970s, according to one site (an auction house was selling an unopened game that it said was from the 1940s). Over the years, several companies produced it, the eggs came in colors, and plastic replaced tin on the game board. It was around at least during the 1950s because I came across a newspaper ad with one for sale in November 1959.
The game seems a bit boring, but I assume it could be fun if kids moved farther and farther away from it before they shot the dot. I’m sure they also found other uses for the gun and darts, such as aiming and shooting each other.
The clown toss was pretty explanatory: Try to toss a ball or bean bag into the clown’s mouth. This game can be fun for not only kids but adults, and it seemed too large for a table but fine for propping outdoors. It came closest to resembling a carnival/state fair game because of its size.
Do you recall playing the Mother Hen Target game?
