Don't Wake Daddy facts for kids
| Players | 2–4 |
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Don't Wake Daddy (known as SSHH! Don't Wake Dad! outside of North America) is a children's board game originally released by Parker Brothers (later Milton Bradley, currently Hasbro) in North America, and Tomy in Europe (currently released by Drumond Park in the United Kingdom). It is intended for two to four players.
Players take the role of children sneaking to the refrigerator late at night, trying not to wake their sleeping father (who lies in the middle of the board on a large bed). Movement is determined by using a spinner and moving accordingly. If the color of a noise space does not match the color of an assigned card that a player holds, they make one of several "noises" (such as rollerblades, a baseball, a television, a barking dog, a tricycle, a broken vase, a cuckoo clock, a screaming parrot, a falling picture frame, a toy piano, a bowl of fruit being knocked over, a cat whose tail has been stepped on, a falling dish with a slice of cake on it, a radio, falling pots and pans, and a crying baby). They must then press the button on the alarm clock next to the father a certain number of times; after enough pushes, the clock will go off and the father will suddenly jerk upright from his bed (as if just having awakened from a nightmare), at which point the player claims the corresponding color card from a player that has it, then returns to the beginning of the board.
Parker Brothers introduced the game at the 1992 American International Toy Fair. It was picked as the sixth best toy of the year (third-best among girls) in the Duracell Kids' Choice National Toy Survey, and was one of the best-selling games of the 1992 Christmas season. Parker Brothers spokeswoman Ronni Heyman described the game as "a real sleeper". The game's success was cited as a contributing factor in Hasbro's 46% increase in net income after the fourth quarter of 1992. Parker Brothers later released a smaller travel version of the game.
The game served as the inspiration for a series of 1990s works by German artist Martin Kippenberger. Kippenberger used the symbols for the different "noises" in the game to plan a cycle of wood-carvings and oil paintings. A children's book based on the game, Don't Wake Daddy: Late-Night Snack, was published by Scholastic Corporation in 2001.
