Hats Off

Hats Off

Synopsis of Toy

“The exciting skill game for the whole family.”

There have been plenty of game boxes over the years that made declarations akin to the one above, but never has cardboard boasted such a good-looking, wholesome family of four as it did on the front of the Hats Off game box. Oh, don’t pretend you didn’t occasionally conjure whole lives and backgrounds and social dynamics for the grinning prototype people in your toys’ packaging artwork.

But let’s leave the box artwork alone and talk about the game. When two, three or four players sat down to Hats Off, each was assigned his or her own plastic launcher. A player’s objective was to spring the little plastic cone-shaped hats into the bingo-type of container, which was located at the center of all the launchers. Of course, just hitting the container was no good…a player actually had to aim for the colored slots that matched the color of his plastic hat game pieces. Players raced against each other to catapult as carefully as they could, and the first player to get all of his hats into the slots won.

Of course, when mom and dad left the table to watch the evening news together, the hat-flippers changed their game tactics a bit. Forget about aiming for the center cartridge like they were supposed to—now kids began to shoot those hat-like objects at each other. But don’t worry, because upon impact, the rocketing pieces didn’t hurt—that launcher was built for nice light tosses, not for hurl warfare. Intra-catapulting was more about practicing our aim anyway and seeing just how far you could get those things to fly. Besides, to get a piece to connect with your sibling’s forehead was a heck of a lot easier than getting it to fall perfectly into its appropriate slots in that darn cartridge.

Whether played properly or naughtily, Hats Off was a family favorite, and thought Kohner stopped making the game eventually, the warm memories of projectile hat-flicking remained bright for years to come.

Release History of Toy

1967 - Hats Off

Sub Categories of Toys

games

Toy and Game Manufacturer

Kohner

Other Toy Links