Ker Plunk was one of my personal favourites. As the box said – “It’s the game where you take your pick and pull a stick. If all the marbles fall, you lose it all! You’re only sunk if they go…Ker Plunk!”
1970’s version of Kerplunk
This classic game of skill could be learned in seconds, but it offered a fun test of hand-eye co-ordination that was challenging to people of all ages and skill levels. As a result, Ker Plunk was a popular favorite among skill-game enthusiasts throughout the 1960s and ’70s.
The game consists of a clear plastic tube, 30 thin sticks, and 32 marbles. Play begins with the players inserting the sticks through the tube and then pouring the marbles into the top of the tube. The sticks act as a web that block the marbles at the top of the tube. At this point, the players begin to carefully remove the sticks one by one. The goal is to get the stick out without making any of the marbles sitting on top fall through. If any marbles fall through, the person who made them fall collects them. Once the last marble has fallen, players count their collected marbles, and the player with the fewest marbles wins the game.
Ker Plunk was first published by the Ideal Toy Company in 1967.
The following is a 1993 commercial for Kerplunk.
The game hasn’t changed one bit!