The Newly-Dead Game at Frozen Dead Guy Days is in the news! Here’s part of the story by Breanna Draxler in the Boulder Daily Camera/Longmont Times-Call.
Instead of “making whoopee,” participants in one of the newest Frozen Dead Guy Days event will be making funeral plans. The Newly-Dead Game is a comically morbid riff on the long-running TV favorite, “The Newlywed Game.”
Participating couples will be quizzed on all things funerary to find out how well they know each other’s final wishes. The game is one of many death-related activities on the lineup for Nederland’s annual Frozen Dead Guy Days, which runs this year from March 2 through 4.
“My brother knighted me the Doyenne of Death,” said Gail Rubin, the game’s creator and author of “A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die.” “I thought it had a nice ring to it, so I’ve actually trademarked it and added it as my moniker.”
Rubin’s game debuted at last year’s festivities in Nederland and drew a crowd of about 300, she said. This year she will again be traveling up from Albuquerque, N.M., to host The Newly-Dead Game, which is scheduled to take place twice on Saturday and once on Sunday.
“I’d found out about (Frozen Dead Guy Days) from one of the national TV news shows,” Rubin said. “I said to myself, ‘I am going to be there next year. I don’t know how, but I want to be a part of this.'”
The Newly-Dead Game was Rubin’s solution.
“It’s definitely a unique topic,” said Amanda MacDonald, the event director of Frozen Dead Guy Days. The rules of The Newly-Dead Game resemble those of the original game show. Couples compete to answer questions about the end of one’s life. The game’s easier five-point questions pertain to information required for a death certificate, such as a person’s birthplace and mother’s maiden name. Ten points are given for correct answers to questions about epitaph preferences, funeral menus and burial attire. The most random and revealing questions can earn a couple 15 points: “If you were to set up a household shrine in your partner’s memory, what one item would he or she say should be included?”
The game, like most of the weekend’s events, is intended to entertain. But The Newly-Dead Game serves a practical function as well.
“It was good. It was definitely humorous. I think couples actually really learned a lot about each other,” said MacDonald, who recently purchased the rights to the festival from the Nederland Chamber of Commerce, of last year’s game.
Rubin said the game brings light to a dark subject. She said she hopes the game will encourage participants and spectators to start planning their funerals, since choosing coffins and funeral homes can be stressful and costly at the last minute.
“It’s a very fascinating shopping trip and best conducted before you’ve got a dead body on your hands,” Rubin said.
Or in the shed in your backyard.
What: Frozen Dead Guy Days
When: March 2-4, 2012
Where: Various locations in Nederland, including Chipeta Park, First Street and Black Forest Restaurant, 24 Big Springs Drive, where Grandpa’s Blue Ball takes place Friday evening
Info: frozendeadguydays.org