June 23, 2022 – Jenga

Happy Throwback Thursday! Today we’re spotlighting the year 1983 – that’s the year Jenga was introduced! The game was created by Leslie Scott, and was based on game she used to play with her family in the 1970s. She was born in Tanzania, but her family moved to cities across Africa for much of her childhood. The family would often play with her brother’s building blocks, stacking them to make a swaying tower that would topple if they weren’t careful. They eventually ordered custom bricks for the game from a carpenter.
When Scott moved to the UK, she introduced her friends to her family game, and it was a always a huge hit. So she decided to bring it to market. It was introduced at the London Toy Fair in January 1983 with the name Jenga, from the Swahili for “to build”.
Scott sold the game through her own company. The game was slow to take off, but in 1986, it appeared at the Toronto Toy Fair, and she received orders for 400,000 games. Hasbro picked up the distribution rights, and it was introduced in America in 1986. It was an instant success. Scott attributes much of that success to the popularity of Trivial Pursuit. At the time, the toy business was focused on electronics and video games. But Trivial Pursuit, which was launched in 1983, proved that the American public was still interested in board games. So the toy trade was actively looking for the next big game, and Jenga fit the bill.
While each of the 54 Jenga blocks might look the same, there are tiny differences and random variations on each one. This is to make the game a bit more difficult and so no 2 games are alike. The Jenga website says that the record for the highest Jenga tower is 40 stories, with 2 blocks on the 41st. As of 2021. more than 90 million Jenga games have been sold worldwide. The game was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2020. Learn more here.