Mr. Monopoly is the mascot of the board game of Monopoly . He is depicted as a portly old man with a moustache who wears a morning suit with a bowtie and top hat. In large parts of the world he is known, additionally or exclusively, as the Monopoly Man, "Rich Uncle" Pennybags, Milburn Pennybags, or the Monopoly Guy. [1] He also appears in the related games Rich Uncle, Advance to Boardwalk , Free Parking , Don't Go to Jail , Monopoly City , Monopoly Junior , and Monopoly Deal .
The character first appeared on Chance and Community Chest cards in U.S. editions of Monopoly in 1936. The identity of the character's designer, artist Daniel Fox, was unknown until 2013, when a former Parker Brothers executive, Philip Orbanes, was contacted by one of Fox's grandchildren. [2]
The unnamed character made his first appearance outside Monopoly in the Parker Brothers' game Dig, released in 1940. [3] He did not receive a name until 1946, when Parker Brothers produced the game Rich Uncle, where his likeness appeared on the box lid, instructions, and currency.[ citation needed ] According to Orbanes, Rich Uncle Pennybags of the American version of Monopoly is modeled after American Progressive Era businessman J. P. Morgan. [4]
Between 1985 and 2008, the character appeared in the second "O" in the word Monopoly as part of the game's logo. More recently, he is depicted over the word "Monopoly", drawn in a 3-D style, extending his right hand. However, he no longer appears uniformly on every Monopoly game box. [5] [6]
In 1988, Orbanes published the first edition of his book The Monopoly Companion. In the book, all of the characters that appear on the Monopoly board or within the decks of cards received a name. Uncle Pennybags' full name was given as Milburn Pennybags, the character "In Jail" is named "Jake, the Jailbird", and the police officer on Go to Jail is named "Officer Mallory". [7]
In 1999, Rich Uncle Pennybags was renamed Mr. Monopoly. That year, a Monopoly Jr. CD-ROM game was released in cereal boxes as part of a General Mills promotion. It introduced Mr. Monopoly's niece and nephew, Sandy and Andy.[ citation needed ]
According to the book, Monopoly: The World's Most Famous Game & How It Got That Way and The Monopoly Companion, Mr. Monopoly has a second nephew named Randy, although the Monopoly Companion mistakenly refers to Sandy as a boy. Monopoly: The World's Most Famous Game & How It Got That Way also states that Mr. Monopoly has a wife named Madge. [7] [8] He is named as the sixth richest fictional character in the 2006 Forbes Fictional 15 list on its website and the ninth richest in 2011. [9]
In 2017, a staff member [10] of the activist group Public Citizen who dressed as Mr. Monopoly with an added monocle gained Internet and media attention [11] by photobombing the CEO of Equifax during a US Senate hearing relating to that credit bureau's data security breach from earlier that same year. [12] It was an attempt to bring attention to the use of "forced arbitration" to circumvent consumers' rights to sue financial companies in court. [13]
While Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified before Congress on December 11, 2018, a person costumed in a white mustache and black bowler hat as the Monopoly Man was among those seated behind him. [1]
On September 12, 2023, Ian Madrigal again dressed as the Monopoly Man following Kent Walker, the President of Global Affairs at Alphabet Inc., to Google's antitrust trial United States v. Google LLC (2023) at federal court in Washington, D.C. [14]
Clue: Candlestick, a mystery comic book by Dash Shaw based on the board game Clue , features Rich Uncle Pennybags in a cameo. He is referred to as "Milburn." [15]
Vault Boy, the mascot of the Fallout video game series, is based partly on Rich Uncle Pennybags. [16]
A false memory of Mr. Monopoly as wearing a monocle, which he did not do until after this false memory gained traction, is a common instance of the Mandela effect. [17] [18] [19]
In licensed media, primarily including advertisements and video games, Mr. Monopoly has been voiced by several voice actors including Tony Waldman, [20] Tony Pope, [21] Wendell Johnson, Dean Hagopian, Mark Dodson, [22] Larry Moran, [23] [24] Michael Cornacchia, Harry Aspinwall, Paul J. Kinney, Rowell Gormon, and Will Ferrell. [25] [26]
Monopoly is a multiplayer economics-themed board game. In the game, players roll two dice to move around the game board, buying and trading properties and developing them with houses and hotels. Players collect rent from their opponents and aim to drive them into bankruptcy. Money can also be gained or lost through Chance and Community Chest cards and tax squares. Players receive a salary every time they pass "Go" and can end up in jail, from which they cannot move until they have met one of three conditions. House rules, hundreds of different editions, many spin-offs, and related media exist.
Benjamin Franklin "Ben" Parker, usually referred to as Uncle Ben, was a supporting character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, usually in association with the superhero Spider-Man. He was the husband of May Parker and the paternal uncle and father figure of Peter Parker. After appearing in Strange Tales #97, Uncle Ben made his first full appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15, and was created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko. He was modeled and named after American founding father Benjamin Franklin.
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Philip E. Orbanes is an American board game designer, author, founding partner and former president of Winning Moves Games in Danvers, Massachusetts. Orbanes is a graduate of the Case Institute of Technology. He was a Senior Vice President for Research and Development at Parker Brothers until the 1990s. Orbanes has also served as Chief Judge at U.S. National and World Monopoly tournaments.
The board game Monopoly has its origin in the early 20th century. The earliest known version, known as The Landlord's Game, was designed by Elizabeth Magie and first patented in 1904, but existed as early as 1902. Magie, a follower of Henry George, originally intended The Landlord's Game to illustrate the economic consequences of Ricardo's Law of economic rent and the Georgist concepts of economic privilege and land value taxation. A series of board games was developed from 1906 through the 1930s that involved the buying and selling of land and the development of that land. By 1933, a board game already existed much like the modern version of Monopoly that has been sold by Parker Brothers and related companies through the rest of the 20th century, and into the 21st. Several people, mostly in the midwestern United States and near the East Coast of the United States, contributed to its design and evolution.
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Milburn is a male given name which may refer to:
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Ian Madrigal, the person who identified themselves as the Monopoly Man, said the act is a protest of the internet company's alleged inability to self-regulate when it comes to protecting consumer data.