If there was one thing I looked forward to most at school, it was the Scholastic Book Order. Those thin, leaflet-like mini-catalogs filled with books and education-related toys for kids (read: parents) to shell out lots of money for. The only thing more exciting than getting and placing the order, was seeing those bright red and white boxes sitting on the teacher's desk some weeks later.

Back in 1992, mine became probably the last family on earth to buy a VCR. One of the first videos we ever rented was my mom's choice, the 1985 movie "Clue," based on the board game, and starring Tim Curry. I fell in love with it instantly, and watched it as often and obsessively as I could. So imagine my surprise when, in third grade, a Clue chapter book was on the front cover of my book order!

The first four books in the series were based on the character designs used in the board game from the mid-1970s. And, I was hooked from the moment I read page one. Before the start of every book, you were presented with the famous Clue game board. A copy of the 'detective's notepad' is also printed at the end of every chapter, supposedly to help you track characters. 

In Christmas 1993 I got my own copy of the board game, but was appalled to see the logo had changed as well as the looks of the characters. Geez. If I'd gotten upset over a bit of gold metallic overlay on the logo, how do you think I feel over "Clue: Reinvention?"

All the action takes place at Mr. Boddy's mansion. Boddy himself introduces each book. He is a kind and generous multi-billionaire who, in each book, invites five of his best friends to join he and his maid for a weekend. Each person in the group is competitive, sometimes snide, and bitter towards one another, and all have one goal: they want at Mr. Boddy's vast fortunes. And they're not above lying, cheating, stealing or even killing to get what they want. But therein lies the fun.

Mrs. White is Boddy's "faithful" maid, who gives you a smile and a warm gesture to your face, but will sneer and do rude things behind your back. She hates everyone in the group and is really very bitter. Miss Scarlet is a vivacious woman with a fascination for jewels and opulence. Mr. Green is a successful but very greedy businessman. Mrs. Peacock is the world's foremost authority on manners, who thinks "mud" is a dirty word. Colonel Mustard challenges people to duels at the drop of a hat--literally; drop your hat and you're as good as dead. Professor Plum rounds out the cast, a brilliant professor with a memory the length of a burnt-out fuse.

Each chapter presents some new hijinks for the group to get into, whether it be fighting over some new expensive relic that Boddy has purchased, battling one another for each other's own possessions, or simple things like playing tug-of-war or competing in a pie-eating contest. There is a mystery to solve at the end of each chapter, complete with a scanned picture of the classic Clue 'detective pad,' to help you deduce who did/stole/won what.

The final chapter of each book always ends with someone actually murdering Mr. Boddy. It's assumed he remained dead until each new book came out, in which case he would explain some miraculous occurrence that allowed him to cheat death.

The back cover of each book feature a teaser question related to some story in the book (not necessarily the title chapter). It always annoyed me how the first book boasted "Thirteen exciting mind-bending mini-mysteries to test your ability as a sleuth," then the successive books edited to just say "Exciting mind-bending..." That's a sentence fragment, peoples!
 

"Old" book with original character design	"New" book circa 1993 with revamped character design

 While we're looking at both versions of the book, let's compare the old characters with the "new."



Mr. Green went from a chubby businessman with an ever-present frown to a slick, wiseguy-style businessman. He smiles (kinda) in the back cover image, but his character in the book remained the same.


Colonel Mustard seems to have aged decently, monocle ever-present.


I think Miss Scarlet underwent the biggest change of all. Who besides Michael Jackson do you know that went from slightly tan and tall to an Asian woman overnight?


Plum looks less bored and more bemused with his new design.  The hair implants are working out nicely, too.


Bitter maid Mrs. White aged horribly. She actually reminds me of my old babysitter, Elizabeth. Sorry, Elizabeth.


More or less the same, Mrs. Peacock looks prim and proper, befitting her character in the book.

Aaaaand, scene.

To say that I was a fan of the series is an understatement. My grandmother would order me each book as it came out through the book order. But what would I do when the next book came out during the summer when school wasn't in session? Trapped in the country as I was, there wasn't much I could do, except! Whipping out an old Austin phone book I would look up the Waldenbooks at the mall and place a hold on the book. My grandmother would then write a check and mail it off. A week or two later, a puffy package would arrive in our mailbox, and I'd shred the thing to bits to get to the latest copy. In between new releases, I would read and re-read all the older editions. Some summers, I would do nothing but curl up on the couch with USA Network reruns playing softly in the background and the stack of my Clue books on the coffee table before me. I took them on trips, I took them to read in bed, I even took them to read in the bath!

The covers started to split and fall off, and my faithful ex-librarian grandmother would patch them up as best she could, only for me to wear them right out again months later. Once my family got our first word processor (it wasn't until '99 I successfully begged for a modern computer), I started to write my own Clue book. I followed the formula for the book very well. Ten chapters, nice Boddy, fighting guests, dead Boddy at the end. I mailed it off to Scholastic for a review, and hopefully a career as a quirky, pre-teen writer.

They kept the manuscript, but sent me a letter suggesting I submit writing to Highlights for Children. I was fervently insulted.

For my birthday in sixth grade, my grandmother bought me a Super Nintendo (mere months before the announcement of the N64, but that's how things go sometimes), and I had found a new way to spend my after-school time. But my love for "Clue" was such that I invested in a pack of blank audio tapes, took my mom's old Magnavox, and spent weekend recording -every- story from -every- book so that, during the summer, I could hear the stories read out to me as I used my hands to play the cheap, D-list games that were all we could afford at that point. Trust me, hearing yourself talk about Professor Plum and Colonel Mustard fighting a duel while you're bouncing on the head of an anthropomorphic Swiss cheese to stun and capture it is... a memory, to say the least.

As the series went past the 10th and 11th volumes, I noticed the quality start to unfortunately wear down. The books were getting thinner and thinner, and thusly the stories were getting shorter and shorter. But I kept buying them, as faithfully as any fan would. Then after the 18th one came out, about four years after the series started, I learned it would be the final one. I was heartbroken, but resolved.

All eighteen books, some missing covers, still reside on my bookshelf, and I still pick them up and regale myself with the tales of the "weird and wacky crew," as the back cover described them, and their numerous misadventures at Boddy Mansion.

Chase, 12/21/08

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