 | Released in 1981, Bombshell was a WWII themed bomb-disposal board game for all the family, by Waddingtons. We had one in our house, I loved playing it. I believe my brother still has it sat packed away in his attic somewhere. The game and its design was played for comic effect, with the "accident prone" characters attempting to defuse a classic comic style bomb, have submerged in the ground. Each player would take a turn, in twisting the fins of the bomb, until ultimately it went off!!! The losing player adding a bandage to his cardboard character. The characters had very Carry On... or Dad's Army type names, Major Disaster, Sergeant Jimmy Jitters, Private Tommy Twitters and Piper Willy Fumble. |
By 1981, when the game came out, enough time had passed since WWII for the game to have humourous comic value, and in no way offend anyone. Especially with the traditional British stiff-upper-lip sense of self-deprecating humour that saw us through the war years. Dad's Army, a TV situation comedy about a bumbling troop of Home Guards, was one of the most popular TV shows of the period. So the release of this game should have gone without causing any stirs of unease among the great British public. On its release in June 1981, some corners of the media tried to stir-up trouble and controversy over the game, but to little or no avail. Most people at the time saw it for what it was, a silly family board game.
| That was until only months after its release, in October 1981, the British bomb disposal expert Ken Howorth, was killed while trying to defuse an IRA bomb in London. Immediately the game courted controversy, and was splashed across the pages of newspapers and TV media. There was a press campaign to boycott the game, and many retailers refused to stock it. It was never actually "banned" as the urban myth around the game often states. But Waddingtons did pull it in the end. |  |
