When I was in grad school, we used to regularly play a game called “Celebrity” at parties. It’s a fairly standard name-guessing game with three rounds in which the clue-giver is allowed fewer and fewer words to decsribe the “celebrity” whose name his/her teammates must guess. There aren’t many rules to “Celebrity.” However, the game somehow managed (without fail, I kid you not) to break into World War III everytime we played it at Villanova. People would argue over the finer nuances of the game as if we were reading the Torah. It was hilarious fun.
Today, in preparation for an upcoming exam in my class, I let my students play a modified game of “Celebrity” with all of the Trojans’, Greeks’, gods’ and godesses’ names of the Iliad. Now, in the first round, players are allowed to use as many words as necessary to clue their teammates in. As the rounds progress, and fewer words are allowed, smart players will often reference the key terms in earlier descriptions in order to make it easier for their teammates to guess. And here is where the hilarity ensues…
One of the names in the hat was “Glaucus” (one of the leaders of the Lycian forces allied to the Trojan cause). The first student to draw Glaucus out of the hat clearly couldn’t remember who the character was, and so began trying to help his teammates by breaking down and trying to describe the name (instead of the character). This was his clue:
“The first syllable of this person’s name sounds like the eye disease that people get where the doctor lets you smoke marijuana.”
Needless to say, in subsequent rounds, anytime “Glaucus” was pulled, the clue-giver only needed one word: marijuana.
i frankly never really understood the fights. but i think that katie was probably responsible for them. and eric. and maybe bird-woman.