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News
MATTEL / VICTORIA LICENSING & MARKETING
The number one card game UNO® celebrates 50 years! To celebrate its 50th anniversary, UNO® will engage kids, parents and fans of the brand with a year full of exciting live experiences, compelling digital content, relevant partnerships, and commemorative products.
UNO® and had become a real fan. How much did he sell the rights for? Fifty thousand dollars, plus royalties of 10 cents per deck sold. So Tezak decided to found International Games Inc to market the UNO® card game and the offices were right in the backroom of his funeral home.
A BIT OF HISTORY
Many people think that the UNO® card game is Italian because of the name. In fact, the game was invented fifty years ago in the United States with the name UNO® (yes, just as they say in Italy and Spain). Let’s find out why! In 1971 the game was called UNO® simply because its inventors (Merle Robbins and his son Ray Robbins) thought this Spanish word sounded nice. That’s it! Merle Robbins was a barber from Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1971, at the age of 59, he invented the UNO® card game to settle an argument with his son about the rules of another card game called Crazy Eights. The first original decks of cards were designed and made right on the Robbins family dining room table with the help of Merle’s wife and daughter-in-law. Later, with their savings of about $ 8,000, they made the first 5,000 UNO® decks
to sell. But how did they go from the first 5,000 decks to over 150 million sold worldwide? At first, Merle sold his UNO® decks in his barbershop but eventually sold the UNO® rights to Robert Tezak, a funeral home owner who was passionate about
In 1992, International Games was acquired by Mattel and from that moment on, the game became popular the world over. Mattel has produced several variations of the game which are sold in 80 countries. With 150 million copies sold, UNO® is the # 1 card game in the world (according to NPD *) with 99% brand awareness. A number of themed editions have been marketed, such as Barbie UNO, Harry Potter UNO, The Simpsons UNO,
