What Am I?
- Bed Bugs was first released in 1985 by Milton Bradley.
- In the game, players try to remove little plastic bed bugs of their color from a vibrating bed with oversized tweezers. The first to get all their bed bugs out of the bed wins.
- The game still exists today and is produced by Hasbro.
- The original version of the game was meant for 2-4 players, but the new one only plays 2-3 players, removing the red-colored player.
- The game was featured in the episode “Game Night” of the ’80s-set television show The Goldbergs.
- Supposedly, designers saw a picture of Vanna White using a fishing tackle box to organize her makeup in 1986, and subsequently came out with the Caboodle in 1987, looking very similar to said tackle box, just with jazzier colors.
- The truth is, the actual designer was a New Zealand native named Leonie Mateer who moved to California in the ‘80s and saw a model using a tackle box as a makeup organizer during a photoshoot, and the idea was born.
- When they were introduced in 1987, the tagline was “The whole kit ‘n’ caboodle goes into the Caboodle!”
- In the first two years, they sold over 2 million units, and in 1993 Plano, the company who made the Caboodle, reported that they now sold more Caboodles than tackle boxes.
- In 1992, Mattel partnered with Caboodle to release a special tie-in Barbie called the Caboodles Barbie with Glitter Beach makeup for you. Totally stylin’.
