Trivial Pursuit debuted in 1982 and became an instant hit. Suddenly people all over America who had paid too much attention in school or whose brains were otherwise stuffed with arcane pop-culture related bits of information had a purpose: to demonstrate by dint of a board game their intellectual superiority to any and all doubters. The problem with Trivial Pursuit was that, unlike say Monopoly, a wanna be winner could spend hours going through the answer cards memorizing them when no one was around, which hardly made for a fair game. There were other problems with the game as well, most notably incorrect answers on the cards that really made for some heated arguments, and in recent years there have been complaints from many circles that the makers of Trivial Pursuit seem to have run out of worthwhile trivia. Instead of asking knowledge-based questions like "what constitutes hypersonic flight" (5 times the speed of sound or greater, in case you were wondering), newer versions of the game have gone in a slightly different direction. For instance: “Which Christina Aguilera fragrance was created to be ‘a special treat, fit for a queen?’” I kid you not, that is an actual question introduced this year. (If you know the answer to that question I fear for your soul, but that's just me.)

Heated arguments and charges of dumbing down aside though, Trivial Pursuit established itself pretty quickly as a decent night's diversion for most folks, as long as you didn't take things too seriously. The original Genus edition of the game has given way to dozens of specialized editions, everything from the Country Music edition to the Lord of the Rings DVD edition and the World Cup edition. All told over 88,000,000 copies of the game have been sold worldwide making it one of the best selling board games of all time.

Go ahead. You know you want to.