97 Fun Facts About Clue

Cluedo's inventor Anthony Pratt toured country hotels and cruise ships before the war, earning his living doing what?

Playing the piano took him to hotels where murder-mystery games were part of the evening's entertainment, and he devised a game of his own to fill the long wartime blackouts.

Which company first manufactured Cluedo in the United Kingdom in 1949?

Waddingtons agreed to take the game after a demonstration in Leeds in 1945, but a post-war shortage of materials kept it out of the shops until 1949.

Cluedo's name blends 'clue' with 'ludo', a Latin word meaning what?

I play is the meaning; Ludo was also a familiar British board game, but it was little played in America, so the game went on sale there simply as Clue.

Which American company licensed Cluedo for the US market in 1949 and renamed it Clue?

Parker Brothers dropped the pun because Ludo, the British board game hidden in the name, meant little to Americans, who knew the similar Parcheesi instead.

Colonel Mustard went by which name in Anthony Pratt's original design for Cluedo?

Colonel Yellow stood beside plain-coloured suspects such as Mr Brown and Miss Grey in Pratt's wartime design; he was renamed before the game went on sale, and they were dropped altogether.

Why did Cluedo's inventor sell its overseas rights for £5,000 in 1953?

Poor sales, or so his publisher told him. The game then became a hit abroad, selling in America as Clue, and his UK royalties ran out in 1967.

In Anthony Pratt's first Cluedo design, one of ten characters was picked each game as what?

The victim. Any of the ten characters could turn up dead, leaving nine suspects; the published game cut the cast to six and fixed the victim.

Anthony Pratt invented Cluedo during the war, but who drew its original board on the family's dining-room table?

His wife, Elva, drew the board at home in Birmingham. The couple called the game Murder! and tried it out on friends before showing it to a publisher.

Which suspect did Hasbro replace with the new character Dr. Orchid in 2016?

Mrs. White made way for Dr. Orchid, a scientist, but the housekeeper was not gone for good: she came back as Chef White in the 2023 edition.

Mr. Boddy, the dead man at the heart of North American Clue, goes by what name in UK Cluedo?

Dr. Black is the UK name, and Hasbro's 2023 relaunch merged the two, making the victim Boddy Black.

In classic Cluedo, where do the three solution cards sit during play?

In an envelope at the centre of the board, where one suspect, one weapon and one room card make 324 possible solutions. A wrong accusation puts a player out of the running.

Which of these rooms is on the classic Cluedo board?

Billiard room. It is one of nine rooms on the classic board; Anthony Pratt's first plan also had a gun room, which was dropped before release.

In Cluedo, the secret passage from the study leads to which room?

Kitchen. A player in a corner room can take its secret passage instead of rolling the die, crossing the board to the opposite corner in one move.

In Cluedo, the secret passage from the conservatory leads to which room?

Lounge. Only the four corner rooms have secret passages, each running to the corner diagonally opposite, so the middle rooms can only be reached on foot.

Clue's six classic weapons include a candlestick, a rope, a revolver and which of these?

Lead pipe. It was not among Anthony Pratt's nine patent weapons: it arrived with the candlestick and spanner, while ideas such as a bomb were dropped.

Which weapon was in Anthony Pratt's original Cluedo design but left out of the 1949 release?

Syringe. It was one of nine weapons in Anthony Pratt's design; two others cut at the same time, the axe and the poison, turned up in later editions.

Which suspect was added to the cast in 1988's expanded Clue Master Detective?

Miss Peach was one of four new suspects in Clue Master Detective, which let as many as ten people play at once.

Hasbro's 2008 Clue relaunch reinvented which suspect as a billionaire video game designer?

Professor Plum became Victor Plum, a billionaire game designer, in a makeover that also turned Colonel Mustard from a military man into a football star.

In Clue, what is the guess a player makes on entering a room called, as distinct from a final accusation?

A suggestion. It names a suspect, a weapon and the room the player is standing in, and the named suspect's token is moved into that room, wherever it was.

The film Clue sets its murder mansion in which American region?

New England. The mansion never stood there, though: it was almost all a set, built on Paramount sound stages in Hollywood.

British intelligence asked Cluedo's first publisher to hide wartime escape maps for prisoners inside which game?

Monopoly. The firm already printed silk maps for airmen, and fake charities were set up to post games to prisoners of war.

Which of these mysteries has Clue Junior asked children to solve?

Who ate the cake. Players work out which character ate the last piece, at what time, and what they had to drink with it.

Anthony Pratt dreamed up Cluedo during the Second World War while working where?

In a tank-parts factory in Birmingham. He found the work tedious, and it left him time to think up the game.

Cluedo's publisher launched a hunt for its inventor in the 1990s and discovered what?

He had already died, in 1994, aged 90. The publisher had appealed for news of Anthony Pratt as the game's 150 millionth sale neared.

The director of the film Clue went on to make which 1992 courtroom comedy?

My Cousin Vinny. Clue flopped and its director waited years for another Hollywood job; the hit that followed won Marisa Tomei an Oscar.

Who directed the film Clue after being hired to finish its screenplay?

Jonathan Lynn, a British television writer, was brought in to finish a script that had defeated several writers, then was invited to direct it as his first film.

Which actor plays the butler who greets the guests in the film Clue?

Tim Curry got the butler's part only after the director's first choice died and the studio turned down his second as too little known in America.

Which British comedian was second choice to play the butler in Clue but was judged too little known?

Rowan Atkinson had just broken through in Blackadder but was unknown in America; the first choice, Leonard Rossiter, had died during a West End run.

Which Clue role was Carrie Fisher due to play before she withdrew to enter treatment?

Miss Scarlet. Fisher hoped to film while in treatment, but the insurers refused, and the part went to Lesley Ann Warren.

Which Clue cast member improvised the celebrated 'flames' monologue?

Madeline Kahn. The director was no fan of improvisation, but her riff about flames on the side of her face was too good to cut.

Which actor plays Professor Plum, a disgraced former psychiatrist, in the film Clue?

Christopher Lloyd's Plum lost his licence over an affair with a patient; when he says he now works for the United Nations, the butler replies that his work has not changed.

Which actor plays Mr. Green, the closeted State Department employee, in the film Clue?

Michael McKean's Mr. Green fears exposure will cost him his State Department job, which is how his blackmailer keeps him paying.

The film Clue sets its blackmail plot against which American backdrop?

McCarthyism. The story unfolds in 1954, and the blackmailer threatens to expose the guests' un-American activities.

In the scrapped fourth ending written for the film Clue, who committed all the murders?

Wadsworth. In a twist on 'the butler did it', he has poisoned the guests so that no witnesses will survive; the director dropped it as not good enough.

In Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, the heroes beat which opponent at a game of Clue?

Death. In a parody of The Seventh Seal's chess match, the Grim Reaper also loses at Battleship and Twister before conceding.

Clue flopped in cinemas, so what made it a cult favourite?

Home video and cable repeats, where all three endings play back to back. In cinemas it took $14.6 million against a $15 million budget.

After Clue finished filming, its mansion set was bought by the producers of which TV series?

Dynasty. The soap reused the interiors as its Carlton Hotel; the film had dressed them with rented antiques, including a desk from Theodore Roosevelt's estate.

Which musician plays the Singing Telegram Girl in the film Clue?

Jane Wiedlin, the Go-Go's guitarist, made her film debut in the part and is shot dead on the doorstep seconds into her song.

In the film Clue, which guest is working on a top-secret fusion bomb project?

Colonel Mustard. He is being blackmailed as a wartime profiteer, though, and the butler dismisses the evening's Cold War intrigue as a red herring.

In the third, 'true' ending of the film Clue, which guest turns out to be an undercover FBI agent?

Mr. Green. After shooting the host he tells the police chief he is going home to sleep with his wife, upending the secret he seemed to be hiding.

In the third ending of the film Clue, the butler reveals himself to be whom?

The real Mr. Boddy. The man the guests believed was their blackmailer, killed earlier in the evening, turns out to have been his butler.

Which series reunited three stars of the film Clue in its 2013 episode '100 Clues'?

Psych marked its 100th episode with a Clue tribute whose ending viewers voted on, and dedicated it to a late member of the film's cast.

Who picks the killer at each performance of Clue The Musical?

The audience. Its members draw cards for the suspect, weapon and room, and the cast plays out whichever of 216 possible endings they select.

In the film Clue, the six blackmailed guests all turn out to have ties to which city?

Washington. Each guest works in or around the US government, from a senator's wife to a State Department man, which is what makes them worth blackmailing.

Which presenter hosted the 1991 series of ITV's Cluedo game show?

Chris Tarrant took over from James Bellini after one series and lasted only one himself before Richard Madeley replaced him.

Which former Doctor Who actor played the Professor in series 3 of the ITV Cluedo game show?

Tom Baker played Professor Plum in 1992, a year after David McCallum; whichever suspect confessed each week was back the next as if nothing had happened.

Which Absolutely Fabulous star played Mrs. Peacock in the final series of ITV's Cluedo game show?

Joanna Lumley followed Stephanie Beacham, Kate O'Mara, Rula Lenska and Susan George in the part, because the show recast all six suspects every series.

Which US kids' channel, part-owned by toymaker Hasbro, aired a five-part Clue miniseries in 2011?

The Hub, a channel Hasbro had launched with Discovery a year earlier, turned the suspects into six teenage sleuths on the trail of a secret society.

Which Clue suspect was expelled from a Swiss boarding school after a near-fatal poisoning?

Dr. Orchid. As the adopted daughter of the mansion's owner she has ties to his fortune, which gives the scientist a motive as well as a method.

Which Clue suspect, long a society widow, became a lawyer in Hasbro's 2023 edition?

Mrs. Peacock became Solicitor Peacock, a tenacious lawyer, in a refresh that also turned the housekeeper into a chef and the clergyman into a mayor.

Clue's producer, Debra Hill, had earlier co-written and produced which horror classic?

Halloween, which she wrote with John Carpenter. On Clue she swapped slashers for farce, though the bodies still pile up.

Under what name was Cluedo long sold in Brazil?

Detetive, Portuguese for detective. Even Portugal uses a different title, Cluedo.

Which of these weapons joined Clue in Hasbro's 2008 relaunch?

Dumbbell. Hasbro said it wanted the game more in tune with modern society, so the mansion gained a spa and a home theatre as well.

Which classic screwball comedy did Clue's director screen for the cast as a model for their delivery?

His Girl Friday. He wanted the 1940 film's clipped, rapid-fire delivery, with the script spoken at speed and almost no improvising.

Which Broadway composer was asked to write the Clue screenplay with actor Anthony Perkins?

Stephen Sondheim. He and Perkins had written the 1973 whodunit The Last of Sheila together and were keen on Clue, but no deal was struck.

Which actor signed a 2018 deal to star in a Clue remake that then stalled in development?

Ryan Reynolds was to star in a script by his Deadpool writers, but the project stalled and the screen rights moved to Sony in 2024.

Which director, first set to make Clue, came up with the idea of giving it multiple endings?

John Landis. He would not be free for more than a year, so he suggested the screenwriter direct instead, and kept a story credit.

Before a publisher renamed it Cluedo, Anthony Pratt gave his Clue prototype which blunt one-word title?

Murder was Pratt's own name for the game, borrowed from a parlour game he played at weekend parties in which guests crept up on each other in corridors.

A special Clue edition marked which film director's 100th birthday by making his characters the suspects?

Alfred Hitchcock's centenary edition appeared on Friday, August 13, 1999, with weapons that included a necktie, an oven and a seagull.

In Clue, what immediately happens to a suspect's token when a rival names it in a suggestion?

It moves to that room at once, along with the named weapon, so a sly suggestion can drag a rival away from wherever they were heading.

Clue was a losing finalist in 2003, 2008 and 2016 before which institution inducted it?

The National Toy Hall of Fame finally let Clue in with its class of 2017, alongside the Wiffle Ball and the paper airplane.

Which novelist, a favourite of Clue's inventor alongside Raymond Chandler, most inspired the game?

Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None and The Body in the Library were bestsellers while Pratt was designing his own country-house whodunit.

A 2018 Clue spin-off has players retrace a missing friend's night out in which city?

Las Vegas is where a friend called Buddy has gone missing in the Lost in Vegas edition, and players must work out where he is and who he was with before the flight home.

How is the guilty suspect chosen afresh at each performance of the Off-Broadway show Clue The Musical?

Spectators pick cards for the suspect, weapon and room, unseen, and the three sit in an envelope on stage until the script's matching finale.

Anthony Pratt dreamed up Clue while holed up at home during wartime air raids on which English city?

Birmingham was home: Pratt spent his wartime days in a local engineering factory and his evenings refining the game at his house in the suburb of Kings Heath.

Which children's publisher released eighteen Clue mini-mystery paperbacks in America between 1992 and 1997?

Scholastic's series let readers play detective: each short case ends with a question, and the host who seems to die in every finale is back to explain his escape in the next book.

Cluedo's dagger was sold under which name in North American Clue sets until a 2016 change?

Knife was the American name for decades, until the 2016 edition switched to dagger and brought the two sides of the Atlantic into line.

When someone makes a suggestion in Clue, which opponent gets the first chance to prove it false?

The player to the left tries first and, if holding one of the three things named, must reveal it privately; otherwise the chance passes on around the table.

Clue's solution sits in the board's off-limits centre, a space often labelled as the stairs or as what?

The cellar is the usual name for the middle of the board, which holds the answer to the mystery yet stays closed to every token in the classic game.

After a wrong final accusation in Clue, what is the only part a player may still play?

Showing cards to others is all that remains: a wrong accuser makes no further moves and cannot win, but must keep disproving what rivals suggest.

Which kind of move along the corridors do the official Clue rules forbid a token to make?

A diagonal step is out: tokens go horizontally or vertically and may change direction mid-move, but cannot enter the same square twice in one turn.

At the start of every game of Clue, where do the three randomly drawn solution cards go?

Into an envelope they go, one suspect, one weapon and one room, unseen by anyone, and some editions swap it for a mirror that hides the trio.

Clue Junior: The Case of the Missing Cake asks children who ate the slice, at what time, and with what?

A drink completes the solution, a gentle stand-in for the weapon in a junior edition pitched at ages five and up.

Clue's patent was granted in 1947, so what held back the board game's British launch until 1949?

Post-war shortages of materials kept the game off British shelves for two years after the patent came through, and its American edition launched the same year.

The 1990s Clue paperbacks, sets of short solve-it-yourself cases, resemble which children's mystery series?

Encyclopedia Brown is the model: each mini-mystery stops on a question, with a copy of the game's checklist printed alongside to help the reader crack it.

Dr. Orchid, the plant scientist who joined Clue in 2016, is written as which relation of the mansion's owner?

His adopted daughter arrived with a backstory to match: a plant toxicologist expelled from a Swiss boarding school after a near-fatal poisoning incident.

Which unlikely weapon joined poison when the expanded 1988 edition Clue Master Detective enlarged the arsenal?

Horseshoe and poison took the arsenal to eight, and the bigger board gave them new places to be used, including a gazebo, a fountain and a carriage house.

In the 2008 reboot Clue: Discover the Secrets, drawing the eighth of which Intrigue card knocks a player out?

Clock cards do nothing the first seven times one is drawn, but whoever turns over the eighth is caught by the killer and is out of the game.

Which 1996 Cheapass Games title inverts Clue by ending, not beginning, with the death of the mansion's owner?

Kill Doctor Lucky turns the classic inside out: players compete to do the deed rather than solve it, and the joke won the game an Origins Award.

The miniature weapons in a classic Clue set are typically cast in which unfinished metal?

Pewter is standard for every weapon bar the rope, though special editions have gone upmarket with brass finishes and even sterling silver.

While inventing Clue during World War II, Anthony Pratt ran a drilling machine in a factory making parts for what?

Tanks: Pratt found the drilling work tedious, but the monotony gave him time to think through the design of his game.

Clue's inventor Anthony Pratt was honoured in 2013 with which marker on his former home in Kings Heath?

A blue plaque now marks the house where the game was designed; Pratt himself had died in 1994, two years before the publisher went looking for him.

ITV's 1990s game show Cluedo, based on Clue, filmed its stately-home scenes at Arley Hall in which English county?

Cheshire's Arley Hall won the job for its near perfect layout of downstairs rooms, and it sat only 18 miles from the Manchester studios where the live segments were taped.

Which Texan supermodel played the red-clad femme fatale in the final series of ITV's Clue-based game show Cluedo?

Jerry Hall took the part in 1993, and in 2000 she replaced Kathleen Turner as Mrs. Robinson in the West End production of The Graduate.

In the licensed Scooby-Doo edition of Clue, what takes the place of the usual six weapons?

Monsters stand in for the weapons in the Scooby-Doo edition, and Velma takes over the token of the board's usual socialite.

Which antique firearm joined an axe and poison as new weapons in the 1986 British spin-off Super Cluedo Challenge?

Blunderbuss, axe and poison arrived alongside three new suspects in a version whose cards had to be discovered on the board instead of being dealt out.

Which comics publisher set its 2017 Clue miniseries, written by Paul Allor, in a shared universe of Hasbro properties?

IDW Publishing followed it in 2019 with a second, unrelated series, written and drawn by Dash Shaw and named after one of the game's weapons.

Which author's Clue trilogy for teenagers, set at a boarding school, ends with In the Ballroom with the Candlestick?

Diana Peterfreund moved the story to a school for three novels published between 2019 and 2021, each titled like an accusation spoken across the board.

What kind of business did Clue's inventor buy in Warwickshire after selling the overseas rights to his game?

A sweet and tobacco shop was where the windfall went, but the move was not a happy one, and the family left for Bournemouth, where they let holiday flats.

In the 1990s Clue mystery paperbacks, how is each case's solution printed on the page that follows it?

Upside down, with an explanation of how the culprit was foiled, so a reader has to turn the book around before checking the answer.

In the first Simpsons edition of Clue, released in 2000, which Springfield figure took the army officer's yellow token?

Krusty the Clown had the yellow piece in 2000, with Smithers as the housekeeper; by the third Simpsons edition, in 2003, Bart had taken over the officer's role.

The film Clue opened with three different finales; how were they shared out among movie theaters?

Each print carried just one, so what an audience saw depended on the theater it chose; home video later strung all three together, with the last presented as what really happened.

In the film Clue, why does each dinner guest answer to a colourful name such as Professor Plum?

An assigned alias hides every guest's real identity, since all six strangers at the table are being blackmailed and all have ties to the government.

Which Private Benjamin star plays a senator's spouse accused of taking bribes in the film Clue?

Eileen Brennan's character has a second secret in the house: the cook who prepares that night's dinner used to work for her.

Which British playwright spent a year on a script for the film Clue, then gave up and returned his fee?

Tom Stoppard handed back all the money he had been paid; Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins were then asked, and both wanted too much.

What unusual arrangement covered every member of the film Clue's ensemble cast, however famous each was?

Equal pay and billing went to the entire cast, even though some of its stars were far better known than others when filming began.

Which frontman of the punk band Fear plays the blackmailer whose death sets the film Clue's mystery in motion?

Lee Ving had already played a club owner in Flashdance and a biker gang leader in Streets of Fire before taking the role of the film's first victim.