In the ‘90s, board game makers really wanted to cash in on tween girls with a whole variety of party games aimed extremely obviously at females. We’ve already discussed one of those games, Ask Zandar (click to view that article), and today we’re going to delve into another: Girl Talk. Whereas Ask Zandar was essentially a fancy magic eight ball, Girl Talk was basically a fancy Truth or Dare. And honestly, looking back at the number of times Truth or Dare was played at slumber parties, it’s no wonder a board game was created to try to cash in.
To be fair, the word game here is used pretty loosely. It’s more of a slumber party activity, much like Truth or Dare itself, only slightly more structured. Here’s the basic gist of the game: you’d spin a big wheel, and it would land on either something you had to do, or a truth you had to reveal. If you did what it told you to do, you’d get a certain number of points, but if you didn’t, you had to take a zit sticker and put it on your face somewhere. I mean, zits were the worst to have in the tween years, so that’s a pretty on point punishment. Whoever got to a certain number of points first, wins the game.
What were some of the secrets you might have to reveal or actions you might have to perform with each spin? Check out some samples below:
- What is the most embarrassing thing to happen to you in front of a cute guy?
- What was the worst punishment your parents ever gave you? What did you do to deserve it?
- Call the cutest guy in your class and tell him jokes. He has to laugh before you hang up on him.
- Stand on all fours and bark like a dog for 15 seconds.
- Raid a clothes closet. Model the tackiest outfit you can put together.
- Turn on the radio and lip synch and dance to the first song you hear.
- Tell each player what she does that annoys you.
As you can see, some of these options were much easier or less embarrassing to do than others!
If you managed to do all of your tasks and emerged victorious, what was your prize? Well, some of the spins you took could also tell you to take a fortune card. There were four different categories of fortune cards to choose from (Career, Marriage, Children, and Special Moments), and you would probably get a few of these cards over the course of the game. Whoever was the “winner” would then get to read their fortune cards, while everyone else wouldn’t. Some of these fortunes could be, “The next commercial you see contains a hidden clue to a journey you will make in the near future.” Or maybe “The next compliment you receive will contain a clue to your future career choice.” Or this one that really dates the game, “Those hours practicing __________ will pay off when you win a Gold Medal in the 1996 Olympics.”
Seriously, though, I don’t think anyone abided by those rules – we definitely all read our fortune cards regardless if we were the winner. Clearly this game was meant to be fun but also had the chance to stir up drama too depending on what you might land on with your spins. And wasn’t that what slumber parties were all about? But what about you? Did you play Girl Talk? What are some of your favorite memories? Let us know in the comments!
But before you do that — if you want an extra dose of nostalgia, check out the below commercial. While the original 1989 commercial for this game is goofy and all, we’ve featured the 1995 one below instead as it stars Jewel Staite of ‘90s television classics Flash Forward, Space Cases, and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show, and, of course, Firefly.
- Girl Talk was first released in 1988, but has been updated periodically over the years, and even has had some spin offs including Hannah Montana and One Direction versions.
- A book series by L.E. Blair (a pseudonym for Katherine Applegate) called Girl Talk was also published in the ‘90s, with 45 books released. It’s unclear whether the idea for the books or the game came first, but based on the dates, the game definitely at least released to the public first.
- Other spin-offs of the game included a travel version, Girl Talk: Date Line, Girl Talk: Secret Diary, and a CD-rom version.
- The company Golden was the original maker of the game (and also the publisher of the books), but Milton Bradley, a division of Hasbro, eventually bought the game from them and created the 1995 redesign.
- The game came with a plastic game tray, two spinner discs with 100 stunts and special questions, 96 fortune cards, a zit sticker sheet, and the instructions. The instructions have a lot of humor in them, including this bit about the end fortunes not really being real: “We can’t predict your future, if we could, we wouldn’t be writing rules for a living, would we?”
- Girl Talk was first released in 1988, but has been updated periodically over the years, and even has had some spin offs including Hannah Montana and One Direction versions.
- A book series by L.E. Blair (a pseudonym for Katherine Applegate) called Girl Talk was also published in the ‘90s, with 45 books released. It’s unclear whether the idea for the books or the game came first, but based on the dates, the game definitely at least released to the public first.
- Other spin-offs of the game included a travel version, Girl Talk: Date Line, Girl Talk: Secret Diary, and a CD-rom version.
- The company Golden was the original maker of the game (and also the publisher of the books), but Milton Bradley, a division of Hasbro, eventually bought the game from them and created the 1995 redesign.
- The game came with a plastic game tray, two spinner discs with 100 stunts and special questions, 96 fortune cards, a zit sticker sheet, and the instructions. The instructions have a lot of humor in them, including this bit about the end fortunes not really being real: “We can’t predict your future, if we could, we wouldn’t be writing rules for a living, would we?”
