The game ROCKET TO THE MOON, sporting Walt Disney characters, was published by Bell Toys & Games of London, England under a 1959 copyright by Walt Disney Productions Ltd. The cover depicts Mickey Mouse (carrying Astral Maps) and Donald Duck along with Pluto the dog gazing at a space rocket with Goofy and another character working on the rocket, with the moon beckoning at top right.
This game combines two types of game play:
- using a spinner to identify the number of spaces to move along a race game board, and
- shooting winks with a squidger once a player reaches the launching pad position on the game board race course, where the player aims to shoot his wink to reach the moon.
Halsam Products Company of 3610 Touchy Avenue in Chicago, Illinois published tiddly winks MOON SHOT. The company was formed in 1917 by brothers-in-law Hal Elliott (1886–1973) and Sam Goss Jr. (1896–1976), who combined their first names to create Halsam in the name of the company.
This game was advertised for sale in a November 1964 newspaper advertisement.
While the rules of this game mostly provide for a basic type of tiddlywinks where players add their scores based on where their winks land, with a goal of achieving 150 points to win, Rule number 8 provides for a major shortcut to winning:
8. First shooter landing in the moon cup wins.
The game Moonshot Tiddlywinks was produced by Abbotsford Studio Products Ltd. of Bristol, England. The game target is set amidst four craters on the Moon, each of which is marked with a number of miles (from 20,000 to 50,000) as points to collect for shooting a wink into the craters. The objective of the game is to accumulate points adding up to at least 240,000 miles, which corresponds to the approximate distance from the Earth to the Moon. The rules indicate that the game is both copyrighted and patent pending.
The date of this game is unknown. However, a December 1971 newspaper notice refers to creditors meeting to liquidate the assets of Abbotsford Studio Products Ltd. Therefore, the date of this game is likely somewhere between the 1960s and 1971.
Guardian Games, a product line of the Harbutt Group in England, published MOONSHOT. The Harbutt Group was taken over by the Berwick Timpo toy company in November 1976.
This game has the same moon crater target and similar rules from the Moonshot Tiddlywinks game that sports Abbotsford Studio Products Ltd. as the publisher name.
It is estimated that this game came out between 1971 and 1976.
Warren Paper Products Co. of Lafayette, Indiana, issued the LAND ON THE MOON GAME under its Built-Rite brand. The cover depicts three kids in personal spacecraft akin to those used in the Jetsons television cartoon, plus another kid standing on the moon holding a stick with a “WINNER” banner. The game target consists of a cratered yellow plastic moon at center plus cardboard targets surrounding it with various planets and associated points when a player manages to land a wink on them. The winks are actual quoits (discs), and the squidger a solid round disc. A yellow triangular launchpad platform is used to hold the wink when a squidger is flicked across it toward the target by a player. The publisher catalog number on the game is 8600.
This game was advertised in a Woolworth’s department store advertisement in half a dozen U.S. city newspapers on 4 November 1964, selling for 88 cents.
The HEMA company in the Netherlands came out with RUIMTEVAART VLOOIENSPEL, which literally translates from the Dutch language as Space Flea Game, or Space Tiddlywinks. The cover of the game shows an astronaut on a space walk with an umbilical cord to a small spacecraft, with the Earth shown in the background.
The date of this game is estimated to be from the 1960s given its depiction of a small-sized spacecraft.
The name HEMA stands for Hollandsche Eenheidsprijzen Maatschappij Amsterdam, and is a Dutch department store still in operation in 2022.
Somerville Belkin Industries Limited of London, Ontario, Canada produced ASTRO WINKS, picturing two spacecraft and several planets on the cover. The text on the cover and the rules use both English and French. Since this game includes a six character postal code in Canada, the game’s date of issuance is not before 1972.
