This summer, I went to Orlando with a group of my mother's high school students who made it to national competition for Future Business Leaders of America. I was filling in the chaperoning role while my mom was working on a grant, but really? I just wanted an opportunity to go to WDW and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I really expected the kids to go off and for me to wander the parks by myself (no problem on my end with that), but the kids actually stuck with me the entire trip and we had a blast. On a particularly busy morning in Animal Kingdom, the line for Kilimanjaro Safari was almost 1 hour, and we had already experience a nearly 3 hour line at Soarin' (don't ask: it was raining, we were wet, the line was inside). I had a notepad in my purse, so I took it out, passed out pencils, and we played telephone pictionary. It's a ton of fun, fairly simple to play in line, and great for any age group.
The game goes a little something like this: Imagine putting together the confusion of the old game Telephone that you used to play when you were kids (you know, where you whisper something in someone's ear, and they pass it on down the line, and you get to see how convoluted your original message became). Now add the awesomeness that is Pictionary to the equation and this game is born. Believe it or not, the game works best if you have an odd number of people, and I would recommend no less than 5 people in a group. You can do it with an even amount of people, but you will have to do something special to make it work. I'll fill you in on that in a bit.
To start the game, you need paper and some sort of writing utensil. If you don't like to carry a lot of things with you while walking around Disneyland, I recommend buying a pack of post-it notes, enough for everyone in your party. They can easily fit into your back pocket and be brought out if you just happen to end up at Star Tours and no more fast passes are available. As for writing instruments, these are great and can easily fit into a small purse, or, if you're adventurous, in your pocket.
Now, on to the game. Have everyone in your group take out a small piece of paper, enough papers for every member of your group. So, if you were using post-its, and there were 7 people in your party, you will need 7 post-its. Now, have everyone label the post-its in the corner with numbers, in numerical order (For instance, 1-7 for your 7 post-its). When this is finished, you are ready to begin.
On the first paper (#1), everyone needs to write a simple sentence. This could be a song lyric, something about Disneyland, anything you want. It's also fun to make the sentence about something that happened that day or a family inside joke. So, for example, on my sheet of paper, I might write, "When you wish upon a star..."
When everyone has finished their sentence, it's time to pass the entire stack of papers to the next person. If you are standing in line, it might be easiest to establish ahead of time who you will be passing to (Robin will pass to Bob, Bob will pass to Susan, etc). If you decide to play this game sitting down at a table, I like to pass to the person sitting on your right. So, pass the entire stack of papers to the next person. That person will see the sentence that you have written, and will draw a picture based on that sentence on paper #2. For my sentence of "When you wish upon a star," the next person in line may draw the following:
When they finish with the picture, the person puts your original sentence in the back of the pile, and puts the picture they draw on top. They then pass your entire stack to the next person. That person looks at the picture and must write a sentence based on that picture on paper #3. So, on paper #3, a person may write this sentence:
When they pass it on this time, they put the picture on paper #2 on the bottom of the stack, so the sentence on paper #3 is the only thing showing. This process continues, alternating sentences and pictures until you reach the end and the stack goes back to its owner. So, in my example, if I got my stack back, my original sentence may look like this now:
Or, you know, the child-friendly equivalent. Once you get your stack back, go through all of them and let the hilarity ensue. I love when everyone shares how their sentence went so wrong and we love to vote for the funniest variation. Here's an example of a telephone pictonary stack in it's entirety from a game I played recently:
Just to reiterate, this what your stack should look like if you had 7 people:
1. sentence
2. picture, put #1 in back of stack
3. sentence, put #2 in back of stack
4. picture, put #3 in back of stack
5. sentence, put #4 in back of stack
6. picture, put #5 in back of stack
7. sentence, put #6 in back of stack
If you had an even amount of people, like 6, you would have one less amount of papers than there are people (5 instead of 6 papers). That way, the stack will end in a sentence instead of a picture, as it should.
If you wanted to do a variation, you could write a list of Disneyland-related topics and have people draw them out of a hat and write a sentence based on that topic. This variation is also loads of fun and good for people with writer's block.
This post is becoming very long-winded, so I'll end it here. I hope you try this game out in the parks. If you do, send me a picture of your most hilarious collection. Post it here in the comments, or email it to me at robin.disneylandgames@gmail.com. You can also send me a picture on twitter @disneylandgames. I'd love to see them!
Until Monday, my friends!
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