Candy Land

Candy Land is an internationally popular multi-media franchise founded by Hasbro. It began as a board game but the premise has been expanded into books, cartoons, merchandise, a reality cooking competition, and video games.

Origins and history[]

The original version of the game was designed in 1948 by Eleanor Abbott, a school teacher seeking to amuse children in her polio ward. Milton Bradley produced a commercial version in 1949 which became a huge surprise hit. Hasbro would later buy Milton Bradley in 1984 and revamp the game to include a storyline and characters, titled The Legend of the Lost Candy Castle. In the decades since Abbott created her original version the game has been rereleased and updated many times, including spin-offs and promotional tie-ins with other works. The evolution of Candy Land can be seen as a fascinating cross-section of American artistic sensibilities.

The concept itself belongs to an interesting artistic tradition of food-based paradise imagery and related cautionary tales. It is unclear how many of these works were sources of inspiration, and very possibly none of them were, but they are worth mentioning as predecessors. The Old Testament describes paradise as a "land of milk and honey." In medieval folklore the land of “Cockaigne” was a popular peasant fantasy about a realm of delicious food and no labor. The candy-based houses also call to mind the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel as recorded by the Brothers Grimm in 1812, albeit without the sinister undertones. More recently in American history the 1928 folk song "Big Rock Candy Mountain" by Harry McClintock depicts a hobo’s angelic food place. However, the song wouldn’t become really popular as children’s entertainment until Burl Ives recorded a cover in 1949 changing elements like alcohol and cigarettes (no-good) into soda and candy. The most obvious direct predecessor is a 1935 animated short actually titled “Candyland” produced by Walter Lantz for Universal Studios. This version involves a child falling asleep and fantasizing about a land populated entirely by fat chefs.