Don’t Wake Daddy: ‘90s Artistic Muse or Obesity Simulator?

For those wondering when obesity trends in the United States received a good spike, you can for sure point to the ‘90s as a place to start. The year was 1992, and apparently sneaking into your parents’ fridge at night and raiding the hell out of it was such a rage, the pastime was awarded with its own board game! Parker Brothers’ Don’t Wake Daddy was indeed the game to play if you wanted to get better at sneaking some turkey legs from your parents’ fridge in the dead of night. In fact, ‘90s kids were so keen to practice the art of gaining late night pounds, the demand for the game in Christmas of 1992 led to a near 50% increase in income for the company producing this weight gain simulator.

Don’t Wake Daddy carried the typical ‘90s random game mechanics of spinning a dial and moving to some random spot on a game board for some random… fun? To play the game, you move around arbitrary spots filled with crap you decided to leave all over your house and might cause noise when you land on said spot. And what happens if you cause noise? That’s right, noise causes you to fall asleep… oh wait, no, that’s not right! Noise causes SOUNDS and sounds can cause a person to wake UP and, specifically — your daddy to wake up! It should be noted no one knows what happened to mommy in this scenario, but she has most likely left your father because he was cool leaving the home a mess and was not chill with him selling off their queen/full size for a twin bed and a boombox he left on space yellow.

As you move around Don’t Wake Daddy’s board towards a fridge snack and land on spots with items such as a dog, tv, pot and pans and make “noise,” your cards in hand must match the spaces landed on. If the space doesn’t match your card in hand, you have to hit a clock next to daddy as many times as the value of the number on the space you… blah blah, you hit the clock, it might cause daddy to pop up, and that’s BAD!

So how do you win? Does it really matter? Spoiler alert: nope! Yes, I get that this game is for toddlers, but the only “fun” part of the game is waiting to laugh at your friend’s misfortune if/when they cause the dad to pop up. Should we really be teaching impressionable minds to take pleasure in others’ misfortune as a pastime? Judging Don’t Wake Daddy on its educational color matching/button push counting merits, doesn’t change the fact that the winner is determined by the gods. Don’t Wake Daddy is an activity and not a “game.” If you want a better ‘90s “game,” try throwing your friend’s boogers against a dot on the wall, at least this would require some strategy and dexterity.

So what is cool about Don’t Wake Daddy besides learning the art of late night fridge runs to sculpt your body into a trans fat-tastic blob? I have no idea, but German artist Martin Kippenberg (1953 – 1997 RIP) has a whole series of paintings sold at auction for hundreds of thousands of dollars using art from the game as inspiration. So this just shows you, even if a “game” such as Don’t Wake Daddy is only fun because “hey, it’s mechanical and you press a button that causes something to pop up unexpectedly that gives you an excuse to laugh at others’ misfortune” — you might still find redeeming qualities in something if you cut it up, hang it on the wall, and call it art. If you want to become the next Kippenberg, you are in luck! Pick up the game now on Amazon.

Don’t Wake Daddy requires no batteries.
It’s called “SSHH! Don’t Wake Dad!“ outside of North America.
The game was so popular, a travel size version was made in the ’90s.
The Barney Doll was the more popular toy of 1992.
After backlash that the game taught kids to overeat, a time traveling baby was added to one of the board spaces and is supposed to be a player from the past — the idea was to make a spinoff game that teaches kids to exercise through time travel…. OK, maybe this last one’s not a “real” fact, but it for sure would have spiced things up!

Don’t Wake Daddy requires no batteries.
It’s called “SSHH! Don’t Wake Dad!“ outside of North America.
The game was so popular, a travel size version was made in the ’90s.
The Barney Doll was the more popular toy of 1992.
After backlash that the game taught kids to overeat, a time traveling baby was added to one of the board spaces and is supposed to be a player from the past — the idea was to make a spinoff game that teaches kids to exercise through time travel…. OK, maybe this last one’s not a “real” fact, but it for sure would have spiced things up!