When Play Saved the Day

The Story of Blurt!® Word GameBy Tim Walsh, Inventor

On a beautiful spring day in 1993, I found myself in a 3rd-grade classroom at Gocio Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, surrounded by a horde of 8-year olds who WOULD…NOT…LISTEN. You see, my girlfriend at the time was a teacher and she asked me to come in and read to some students, while she took some other kids out of the classroom for year-end testing. I was failing miserably at that prescribed task. Did I mention it was a beautiful day at the end of a long school year? These kids were done. No matter what book I pulled off the shelf, my attempts to read from it elicited groans of displeasure.Then something amazing happened. In desperation, I pulled a children's dictionary off the shelf. To this day, I don't know why. I turned to the first page and said, "Who can tell me what the word is for… The nut of an oak tree?" Without hesitation, one precocious kid yelled out, "Oaknut!" I said, "No, it's an acorn, but that's funny." I scanned the next few pages for another word and read its definition. "OK, what's the word for… a book of maps?" Another kid, who I didn't think was even paying attention, said, "Atlas!" before anyone else. The kid who had yelled out "Oaknut" a moment earlier, was miffed he'd been bested. And just like that, the power of play revealed itself to me. ALL the kids scooted closer and waited, quite literally, with bated breath. I had their rapt attention. What sorcery was this? Only seconds earlier, they wanted nothing to do with anything I was saying and now? Well now, the race was on.I turned a few more pages and found myself in the B section of the dictionary. I read, "The first meal of the day." That precocious kid blurted out, "WAFFLES!" I said, "No, the word I was looking for was – another kid blurted out, "Breakfast!" I smiled, partly because all the kids were smiling, and partly because the enthusiastic answer of "waffles!" was just hilarious.Right then and there, the seeds of a great game were sown – a game with definitions printed on cards, with a board as a score-keeping mechanism. All you had to do was listen carefully and be first to answer correctly to move ahead.I called it DeFUNitions and made a prototype for the game. Looking back at that hand-made box, I can honestly say, it looked pretty bad. "Pick a color, would ya?!" The cards were all hand typed and the board – glued together with colored paper. Yet, the game, as rough as it was, played well. All the friends I recruited with promises of free drinks and snacks, not only enjoyed it but asked to play a second and third time. All ages seemed to like it, not just the kids who inspired it. However, it wasn't all good news.I found that certain players who were more facile verbally could easily run away with the game. So I added a play mechanic called the One-on-One, where you can send a player back on the board if you're able to beat them toe-to-toe. Another suggestion made repeatedly by play-testers was a name-change. Indeed my teacher-girlfriend warned me, "I don't think you want to use a misspelled word as the name of a word game, do you?" It was made clear to me that DeFUNitions was out, but then what to call it? At the time, a game called Outburst was popular. That name always struck me as negative. Outbursts were not pleasant, but when someone "blurts" something out? That was often funny. But surely the name Blurt had to already be trademarked by some game company, right? It was so simple, punchy and fun. The name was so good, I was certain that the United States Patent & Trademark Office had erred when they granted me the trademark. Incredulously, Blurt! (with the exclamation mark to boot!) was mine.Not so fastI pitched the revised prototype to Hasbro, Mattel, Western Publishing and several other toy companies, and all of them passed on the game. Finally, in 1994, a company called Patch Products agreed to give the game a try and Blurt was published. It started slow, but soon word of mouth began to build the game's audience. It was no surprise that teachers loved the game for its ability to engage kids and improve vocabulary, but early in Blurt's trajectory, it was clear that adults were playing it too... as a party game. The things that people blurted out in an effort to be first were often quite funny. Eventually Toys ‘R Us, then Target, then Wal-Mart and K-Mart, all bought Blurt! National TV and radio shows played the game. We released a travel version, a Bible version, and a card game. Before we knew it, we had eclipsed 1,000,000 copies sold!The heart and soul of the game's success were teachers and in 1997 we were able to donate $50,000 to Literacy Volunteers of America to help in their effort to help people all over the U.S. learn to read.As the game's trajectory continued upward, it was only a matter of time before a larger game company came calling. In 1999, Mattel purchased the licensing rights to the game from Patch Products and I. It was a three-way negotiation that took some time to complete, but we got there. I was poised for a new era to begin – an era that saw the Blurt game sold alongside Barbie.It never happened. The Blurt/Mattel era is a toy tale for another time, but suffice it to say that when the rights reverted to me, the game had been completely off the market for nearly 4 years.Educational InsightsWith all momentum gone, there was a very short list of game companies I trusted to bring Blurt back. I had decided to take the game to its roots, and so I needed a company that spoke the language of parents and teachers. Enter Educational Insights. The General Manager of E.I., Lisa Guili, and her team "got" the game from the get-go. After months of reworking the game for a new audience, we relaunched Blurt at the International Toy Fair in New York.Toy Fair was only the start. Educational Insights continued the effort throughout the entire year, sending me on a Blurt tour along the west coast of the US. I met with enthusiastic toy and game store owners who had missed the game and were thrilled to have it back. It was one of the highlights of my career in the toy industry, getting to meet so many Blurt fans. One of my favorite events was a fair where we created a Blurt game show and pitted friends and family against one another for a chance to win a free game. It was so fun!As the game continued to sell, I was happy to get stores like Teacher Heaven in Texas to promote the fun. Over the years, many radio stations played Blurt with their listeners and gave games away. Here's a clip of a great day in Lubbock, Texas from 2010. It started at KLLL radio and ended up at the Grand Opening of Teacher Heaven where we played Blurt with everyone in the store.Last year I experienced a rare moment of reflection and gratitude at the fun that Blurt has brought to so many people over the years. Here in Sarasota Florida, where I live and where Blurt was born, I had the opportunity of a lifetime, thanks to the marketing team at Educational Insights. Earlier in the year, I received an excited call from E.I. General Manager, Lisa Guili, who informed me (after swearing me to secrecy) that Blurt was scheduled to become a kids' meal prize at Chick-fil-A stores nationally! What a gift to have something I designed promoted to families across the country! So in February of last year, exactly 11 miles from Gocio Elementary, where Blurt was conceived 24 years prior, I had the out-of-body experience of driving through our Sarasota Chick-fil-a and buying a kids' meal for myself. Of course, I recorded it!So it's 2019 and the humble little game that came out of a classroom celebrates 25 years of word racing and vocabulary building. What a privilege to still get contacted by fans of the game who thank me for creating something they love to play. I once got a letter from an architect who wanted to tell me that Blurt was his favorite game "growing up." That made me feel thankful… and old! When a game is on the market for a few decades, a second generation of fans can discover it. How cool is that? I am grateful to have discovered the power of play. Blurt!® has now sold over a million and a quarter copies, educating countless kids and entertaining countless big kids.And I owe it all to a group of boisterous third-graders, and that fateful moment when play saved the day.