Dorri Partain
Northeast News

You can bet your sweet bippy that Laugh-In fans wanted Santa to leave this game under their Christmas tree.
Inspired by the popular NBC television program, Hasbro produced this new game in time for Christmas in 1968.

The comedy program had debuted earlier that year on January 22 and ran for six seasons.

The final 140th episode aired March 12, 1973.

While the show was titled Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, the show was created by George Schlatter.

Hosts Dan Rowan and Dick Martin began performing together in 1952 and were selected by Schlatter after he saw them perform their act in Las Vegas.

The rest of the cast were up-and-coming performers making their television debut, and included Goldie Hawn, Ruth Buzzi, Lily Tomlin, Artie Johnson, JoAnn Worley, and Henry Gibson providing a fresh look at providing laughs.

Special guests made cameo appearances; one such notable guest was presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon.

The show coined its own Laugh-In lingo with the phrases “sock it to me,” “you bet your sweet bippy,” “here comes de judge,” and “very interesting…but stupid.”

The object of the game is to collect the most Bippy chips (white discs) during play; players are awarded one chip if the stunt outlined on the selected Laugh-In card is completed successfully.

The card may ask the player to crab-walk around the room with their Bippy game piece on their lap, imitate a girl seeing a mouse, or say “mixed biscuits” ten times repeatedly.

If any player rolled a six on the dice, all players immediately participated in a “sock it to me” match using their ketchup-bottle shaped Bippy.

The loser of the match received a sock block (black disc).

Players were not allowed to touch their Bippy unless challenged to a match or they would automatically receive a sock block.

In addition to the game, other Laugh-In licensed products included bubble gum trading cards, a magazine, and a newspaper comic strip.