Operation

Operation is a sick, sick game.

We gather our children around a man on a table and we tell them to pull things out of him with tweezers, things he likely still needs, things that aren't really the problem with his health. Think of like this, the healthcare system in the US is so poor, so looked down upon, so laughably bad, that we made surgery into a fucking board game. Operation was one of those games I never actually owned, but I did play it from time to time whether at after school functions or friends houses. The prototype was invented in 1964 by John Spinello, a University of Illinois Industrial Design student at the time of its creation. He later sold the rights to it to our good friend Marvin Glass for a measly (well by todays standards I suppose) 500 dollars and the promise of a job upon graduation, a promise which Glass did not uphold.

I think it's safe to say at this point, given his iron grip on the industry and his rather piss poor behavior - whether it's stealing Rube Goldbergs designs for Mouse Trap or taking this poor student for all he's worth and then not even giving him employment after the fact - that Marvin Glass is now this blogs sole villain. He's like Lex Luther, but for the board game industry.

What makes Glass's betrayal all that more evil is that Operation has since gone on to be a franchise owned by Hasbro worth an estimated 40 million dollars. I hope John Spinello is okay, wherever he may be. Everyone knows what Operation looks like, and how it plays. The board consists of an operating table, lithographed with a man on it who looks particularly horrified if we're being honest at what's being done to him. As far as designs go, it's actually pretty neat. It utilizes the same scale that PayDay did, in the sense that it made its board interesting and part of the game, instead of something where the game just happens to take place on.

General gameplay, for those who somehow don't know, requires players to remove the plastic ailments with a pair of tweezers without touching the edge of the cavity opening. If you do touch the edge, the game buzzes at you. In the US and Australian version, players take turns picking "Doctor" cards, which offer a cash payment for removing each particular ailment. But, if we're being frank here, between the poor guys look of sheer panic and the fact that there's money involved between two people working on him, kind of makes this feel less like a surgery and more like a back alley bet between organ thieves about who can get things out of a person the cleanest. That actually makes me like it a whole lot more, when viewed from that perspective. Thankfully, subsequent versions simply removed the money and cards, and the winner is now simply the player who removes the most ailments, making this a lot less creepy, and thus a lot less interesting.

In 2020, Hasbro introduced a new variation on the game called Operation Pet Scan, in which players are to remove foreign objects from a dog's digestive tract. Because nothing says fun wholesome family together time like plucking a battery out of Fluffy.

Operation has always been a really offputting game to me, primarily because, as someone who's undergone numerous medical treatments herself, it kind of unnerves me to see something that can often be so terrifying and sometimes fatal be played off for laughs and enjoyment. Believe me when I say there's nothing remotely enjoyable about having something removed from ones body. I know. I've been there. I've been in the hospital more times than I can count, and, sad to say, mostly as a little girl. Something not a lot of children - bar those who have terminal conditions perhaps - have to deal with, nor should they. So maybe my personal experience with such things taints what would be an otherwise good time just playing a board game, and sure, the things you're removing from the guy in the game are simply made up ailments or puns, but that doesn't change the fact that we're still using the concept of surgery for entertainment.

I know, I know, I must sound like one of those people who thinks everything in media these days should be squeaky clean or some ridiculous bullshit like that, but I'm not. I don't really care one way or the other about Operation, if people play it, and I'm certainly not going to create some ludicrous hashtag #cancelhasbro or some shit. It was just a thought I had, as someone who's undergone a number of medical procedures throughout her life, sadly, a lot of them as a child.

Operation is an alright game. It was never a favorite, I never really played it much, but design wise it's fantastic, and that can't be denied. From the use of the board as an operating table to the cute little names they gave the ailments, it's a fantastic idea all around visually and it's pulled off wonderfully. I only wish perhaps Glass had not been an evil maniacal bastard and had given John Spinello a job, because who knows what other treasures he could've given us.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and remove a an elephant from a mans esophagus.