The Domino Effect – Christmas Must-Have
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Thanks to Hollywood and the recent Guinness ad, the domino effect has hit pubs, clubs and homes to become the latest rage for games and becoming this year’s Christmas must-have — flying off shelves in stores and in the grip of a national domino shortage in Britain.
Sales more than doubled this year as Dominoes experienced a resurgence due in part to its use in the latest Guinness commercial and popularity amongst Hollywood stars including Tom Cruise, Demi Moore and the Beckhams.
Shot in an Argentinean mountainside village, The Guinness ad features a game of dominoes which escalates to toppling items including suitcases, tires, oil drums, fridges, sofas, grandfather clocks, wardrobes and cars, leading to the formation of a giant model of a pint.
The ad was part of a $20 million US campaign directed by Nicolai Fuglsig, who described the project as “the biggest challenge of my career to date.”
“It was a really tough job. From the remote high altitude location to having to frequently reset thousands of props as well as working with hundreds of villagers who had absolutely no understanding of acting or film making.” he said.
The ad took a week to film, with some sequences having to be reshot up to 15 times. Setting the dominoes on the table at the start of the ad took a team of 3 experts 2 days, but took merely 14 seconds to topple.
Some chic London clubs have introduced domino nights — once the simple pastime of country pubs, played by chaps in cloth caps sipping pints of ale — now played in plush surroundings in hand with cocktails and designer drinks.
Near Montego Bay, the recent Jamaica World Championship of Dominoes offered a booty of about $153,000 US. Founded in 1999, the sponsored event attracted over 500 players and 400 supporters from all over the world. It’s an Open Pairs competition in which teams of 2 pit their wits against each other in the beautiful settings of Jamaica. Dominoes is deemed to be the most popular game in the Caribbean and every move is keenly contested.
According to games supplier Club King, this year has seen a 117% increase in demand for dominoes.
Analysts state the game is taking off among hip teenagers.
The Netherlands has hosted an annual domino toppling exhibition called Domino Day since 1986. On November 18, 2005 the event knocked over 4 million dominoes. Another new record was set at 4,079,381 stones on November 17, 2006.
Pressman Toys once manufactured a product called Domino Rally that contained tiles and mechanical devices for setting up toppling exhibits.
Dominoes are not just for games these days — Domino Art is the art of decorating domino tiles. First the domino is sprayed with an acrylic paint, stamped with a rubber stamp and then various colors of ink are applied. Some artists drill holes in them before spraying and wire wrap the finished piece.
Neil Bennett of research group The Future Laboratory said, “Playing dominoes is becoming a huge trend. More people are choosing to play games where they can interact with others. It’s fun and easy to play.”
A spokesman for Club King said, “I’ve never seen demand like it. The Guinness ad on TV could be an explanation for the rush in sales. We’ve had to order more stock from our manufacturer. If orders stay at this level, I doubt there’ll be any more left in the UK by Christmas.”
History
Most modern domino pieces are rectangular and made of ceramic or heavy plastic, but they were historically carved from ivory or animal bone with small round pips of inset ebony. The game’s name comes from the pieces’ resemblance to Venetian Carnival masks known as domini — because they resembled French priests’ winter hoods which were black on the outside and white on the inside — which were white with black spots. The name ultimately comes from the Latin word dominus, meaning ‘lord’ or ‘master.’
The oldest domino sets have been dated from around 1120, appearing to be a Chinese invention. They were derived from cubic dice, which had been introduced into China from India. Each domino originally represented 1 of the 21 results of throwing 2 dice. One half of each domino is set with the pips from one die and the other half contains the pips from the second die. Chinese sets also introduce duplicates of some throws and divide the dominoes into 2 classes — military and civil. Chinese dominoes are also longer than typical European dominoes. Over time Chinese dominoes evolved into the tile set used to play Mah Jong, a game which swept across the US in the early 1920′s.
Dominoes made their way to Europe in the early 18th century, making their first appearance in Italy. The game changed somewhat in the translation from Chinese to the European culture. European domino sets contain neither class distinctions nor the duplicates that went with them. Instead, European sets contain 7 additional dominoes with 6 of these representing the values that result from throwing a single die with the other half of the tile left blank. There is also a 7th tile with both halves set as blank, possibly done for symmetry so that each of the resulting suits would contain 7 dominoes each.
Guinness Tipping Point Domino Ad
Sources: Daily Mail, iExplore and Wikipedia
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Despite the fact that it’s just another example of celebrity/media worship, it’s pretty cool to see that there is a sought-after holiday item that doesn’t require batteries, USB ports, or an internet connection.
Amen to that Ginger! Some of the most simple things can be some of the best. Mah Jong is also a great tiles game, but not so easy to find unless you have a ‘China town’ in your city.
The ending to the Guinness ad was pretty AWESOME!! I can’t image how many takes and re-takes they must have done to make this ad a success.
It was simply phenomenal.
[...] over at my good friend, Deborah’s blog – Life In The Fast Lane. Check out in-depth details of The Domino Effect and many other interesting topics, all painstakingly researched and thought-provokingly written. I [...]
I really enjoyed the video myself Betshopboy. In fact, I’ve watched it several times
Dominos are a lot of fun – I remember them from when I was a kid and I am glad that they are making a comeback!
My father likes domino. I don’t know why… He said “domino is always the same”… lol that’s funny for me.
I’ve never played the game myself, Mario. Perhaps you should show your father the Guinness video … he’ll never look at dominoes the same way