An article about the makers of Bananagrams

The Boston Globe has published a nice article about the invention of Bananagrams, giving more details than I have ever previous encountered, a photograph of the Nathansons (the family that invented the game four years ago), and quotes from Abe Nathanson himself.

The article describes how different family members contributed to different aspects of Bananagrams and how many of the details of gameplay were developed by Abe while working on his own over the course of almost a year.

Abe's aversion to the big retailers and the way they do business is the reason that Bananagrams is not sold at stores such as Toys R Us or Wal-Mart. Similarly, the Nathansons have no interest in selling the rights to Bananagrams to any of the big toy companies. Their success in independently developing a game from concept to best-selling juggernaut makes for an interesting story.

The last paragraph of the article is a hint about future directions of the company:

"We're almost at the point where we have more money than we need," says Nathanson, adding that he's drawing the line at creating any more fruit games. Bananagrams will always be the gold standard, he says, "and we don't want to kill a good idea."

So, no more new fruit-based games. Next up: Cabbagegrams! Lettuce Play! Beet, Don't Fail Me Now!