Where’s the fun in that?
Besides, when you’re playing with the cute neighbor boys you kind of want to be tackled.
backs out of the thread slowly
It was Fumble Rumble on the NW side of Chicago in the 60s. Besides, we were far too sensitive to play a game that insulted any group.
Hey, anyone up for Nigger Pile?
We called it “Pick 'em up Mess em up” in my neighborhood and we always played it with a football. I’ve never heard of “smear the queer” before today. We did play also King of the Hill.
Well isn’t that nicely soul crushing. :eek:
We called that British Bulldog. We started with more than one guy in the field though, a small team instead. Basically the large group of runners lined up at one end of the soccer field, the small team of tacklers would line up along the center line of the soccer field. The tacklers would yell “British Bulldog!” and that was the cue for the runners to try to stampede to the opposite end of the soccer field. Anyone who got tackled and couldn’t manage to drag themselves to the other side, then became a member of the tackling team, until the numbers of runners was whittled down to the last man standing.
Never heard of “smear the queer” although we did play a version of it regularly. It started when someone in the first grade (yeah, okay it was me) brought a teddy bear to school, and everyone else tried to take it. Strangely, it was NOT a mean-spirited game of keep away, where they would try to keep the bear from me, it was totally a version of “smear the queer” as described in the OP. And the bear was great because you could haul on his arms and legs and it was easier to hang onto than a ball. We played it for a few weeks during which, at the end of recess, the bear was put on the shelf along with all the other recess sports equipment like soccer balls.
Simply “Smear” (1960’s Midwest). Only in adulthood did I hear “the Queer” attached.
“Dog Pile,” when one kid would yell “dog pile on (random victim’s name)” and all those present would do so. Feet first.
“Spanking Machine,” when one kid would have to crawl between the spread legs of a line of kids as they swatted his butt.
“Open Season;” more elaborate than “Dog Pile;” a kid would yell “Open Season on (random victim’s name),” and the entire neighborhood would give him a head start, then hunt him down, ending with hs pants hanging from the telephone line over the street.
(I’d acknowlege the prepubescent homosexual undertones of these games, if only I’d ever heard of them being played in some form during actual gay orgies. Since we didn’t do anyting remotely resembling “spit roasting,” I’ll plead “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”)
But for sheer terror, nothing could compare with the “boy meets physics” of Crack the Whip.
I remember playing Smear the Queer as a fourth grader in the early '90s. At the time I didn’t know what a queer was, so the name meant nothing to me. It was a fun game, though.
A year or two later, my friends and I amused ourselves with something called Pegging. This was where Kid 1 would run at full tilt toward Kid 2, who would kick a soccer ball at Kid 1 as hard as possible from about eight feet away. Kid 1 would try to leap into the air just before the impact so as to absorb it manfully on the thigh instead of somewhere more sensitive.
People say that boys tend to be competitive, but these games have an interestingly non-competitive aspect, since winning is impossible and the best you can do is avoid getting hurt.
Yeah, come to think of it, you’re right, even though I’m a Canadian. We didn’t play anything rough when I was young, unless you count dodgeball.
I was living in Canada both during the times we played the nameless version of smear the queer, British Bulldog, and a version of King of the Hill (brawling over who got to stay at the top of the mound of snow), in addition to dodgeball and tackle soccer.
The only activity that was expressly banned was snowball throwing.
That is a completely different game. When we had enough people we played that. If not, we played smear the queer, my dad always tried to get us to cal it “Kill The Pill” but wouldn’t explain why. Now I know. I have no illusions that “queer” is a reference to the “guy that is different because he has the ball”.
(played in the late seventies)
That was a common strategy. Get the ball, run like hell, get everyone chasing you, then just as they closed in, toss it to another guy and pound his butt into the ground.
Good times, good times.
Because if you could hold onto it for the whole recess, you’d be a hero! And every child on the playground, and every teacher, and every physician in the ER, would know that you’d won!
I remember playing this, except we called it “Target the Effeminate Cocksucker for Destruction.”
You are a chick aren’t you? Or you never played. Because I guarantee, no guy ever thought that.
Yes, I know. I was referring to Santo Rugger’s post about playing “Bulldog” (hence quoting his post). We called it “British Bulldog”.
Isn’t that called “rugby”?
Um, I was just kidding. I did play it as a kid, although it was never a big favorite at our school. And, I am a guy.
oh. My humor detector must be broken…
I played “smear the queer” in the 60s and never, ever, thought of the queer as anything else than “queer enough to take the ball”. It is a nice rhyming name that fits. Those that want to wink and nod and say “you KNEW what it meant” are mistaken. Honestly, if you think the is meant to be derogatory, who do you think would pick up the ball? Of, course, that said, the name got quite a few snikkers once we grow up a bit … and no longer played, perhaps due to the name?
My son has played it within the last decade, so the name endures.
Here is how you play: A bunch of guys have a football and don’t want, or don’t have enough people, to do anything organized. So the guy with the ball throws it up, or at somebody, and yells “smear the queer”. The guy that catches tha ball can either throw
it up again (then you’re playing "hot potato’) or try to run it for a touchdown. Everybody elses job is to stop him from scoring.