Apparently, I don't pay attention to events in the board game world... even when they touch the paleontology world. A co-worker recently made me aware that there is now a T-rex piece in every Monopoly game, which is very cool! This change happened about 3 years ago in 2017. The NY Times even did a story. Basically, people voted and the boot, the thimble, and the wheelbarrow were replaced with a T-rex, a penguin, and a rubber ducky. Did anyone else notice that all the new pieces are technically based on dinosaurs?!! I remember playing Monopoly as a kid and I always wanted to be the car. Most of the remaining original pieces are good (did you know the iron was replaced with a cat in 2013?), but... How about we keep this going and replace the battleship with a Triceratops to battle with the T-rex?
The most popular token in the voting was the Scottie dog, the stout little pup that has clattered its way past Go countless times on Monopoly boards worldwide since it was introduced in the 1950s. The T-rex was the second most popular option among the voters, followed by the top hat and the racing car, which have both been in circulation since the 1930s, when the game first made its appearance on American living room tables.
The rubber ducky and penguin were the final inductees, joining the cat and the battleship.
Some fans of the game seemed to feel strongly about which of the tokens should stay and which should go.
The competition was fueled by online campaigning from outside forces, Hasbro said. Zipcar, the car-sharing company, advocated for the survival of the car token by asking fans to #SaveTheCar. The New England Aquarium got in the spirit by tweeting photographs of their penguins to #VotePenguin, and hosting a Facebook live event to Monopoly’s nearly 11 million Facebook fans.
The company has opened up its revamping of the token lineup in previous polls. In 2013, fans voted to drop the iron.
